Emma’s School Project

Emma brought home a school project namely – Daddy’s Apple Salad. In this project, she is to make the apple salad with her dad by following the ingredients given on the paper.

As her dad usually gets home late evening, she was really excited about her project and wanted me to get started instead of waiting for her dad. Seeing how impatient she was, I started to prepare the ingredients for her so that she can hands on with her dad when he returns.

Almost instantly when her dad stepped foot into the house, she took the project instructions paper to her dad and told him that he has to do the project with her immediately but was obviously rejected. She sat with us at the dinning table and she hurried daddy to finish up his meal and start the project and we understand her excitement as this was their first assignment from teacher.

Daddy finally was able to attend to her and she was like a busy little bee, taking all the ingredients with her and seated happily at the living room and started her little project. All they needed to do was to mix all the ingredients together and have pictures taken. 

Though the project takes only 5 minutes to complete but come to think about it, it actually took her more than hours as she had to wait for her daddy to return home, settling down and finished his dinner before attending to her.

Through this, I see those precious time in bonding with our children before the clock ticks their youth away. By this experience, I am very glad that I made the right decision to be a stay home mum for I have already missed out those younger days of Lady Faith and I dun want to miss out the fun time with Emma.

My 1st Day As A Housewife

I could smell freedom when I woke up this morning and not having to rush to work but kept my pace slow. After sending off Lady Faith at the gate, I told her that I will be waiting for her to return home this afternoon and she gave a big bright smile and shouted ‘Yeah!’

I brought mum to our nearest shopping mall for breakfast after sending little Emma to school. She was happy that I was able to walk her to school rather than her grandma. We requested that I fetch her from school and her face lightened up when I answered ‘Yes’ to her. Honestly, I felt really great.

Mum & I spent a little time at Ya Kun and for the first time, I felt really relaxed and so good not having to think about what the unfinished works are, the politics, the KPI and to face some irritating people in the office.  

It was such a breeze to do marketing in a less crowded supermarket and there were no queues at the 4D counters. We took our time to do our marketing and when we got home, it was not even 10am. I wondered to myself what I should do the rest of the day besides the household chores, fetching the kids.

Being a housewife for a day is amazingly enjoyable as I was given the time to rest, play and even to spend more time with the kids when they get home. I guess I should start planning my days ahead and I trust that I will make full use of this fantastic Job as a housewife. I am loving it!

Birthday Celebration For GuJiong

It’s another opportunity for family gathering and this time, we organized a birthday party for our dear Gujiong at his place on a Sunday evening. 

My elder cousin BG and Rosana their helper put quite a good spread for dinner while hubby chipped in with the baked salt chicken and I prepared desserts. That was quite a spread actually and everyone enjoyed the food that we prepared. 

The kids were the happiest in the house as it was one of those times they were able to play together. Though they dun meet often but the bond between them were amazing! Yea… cousins are blood siblings.  

After dinner, we prepared the cake and gathered everyone while the kids led us to sing the birthday song. After the cake cutting ceremony, we sat around and enjoyed both cakes that were bought by Yeng (Gujiong’s 2^nd son) and me. Thank goodness they were different in taste and everyone was happy to enjoy both flavours. 

Happy Blessed Birthday Gujiong! May the good Lord continue to bless you with good health and watch over you always.

Goodbye MC

This is IT! The day that I have been waiting for is finally here! I went to work this morning with some super mixed feelings and quite a heavy heart I would say. This would be the last time I will be squeezing the train and queuing up at Starbucks during the morning rush hours.

Entering the office trying to put on that smile when I greet my friends was very hard today and thinking that I will be doing my office work at my desk for the last time is equally unbearable. I told myself that I will try to keep my emotions to myself and I guess I did well for the morning. I took the last pictures with my EARLY BIRDS pals and deep down I know I am going to miss all this morning fun in the office with the bunch. I decided to take a picture with my boss before my mascara go wild later in the day and I bet he took the pix with me with a heavy heart too. 

The morning went by smoothly and I was doing my routine work as usual but getting some colleagues from other department coming to greet me once in a while. At one point, my tears were welling up but I tried my best to control it when I had a conversation with one of the colleague from overseas.

Headed down to Marina Square Wee Nam Kee for our lunch and I thought it will be good to give my best buds a treat since this is my last day as their colleague. I do believe that I will be in contact with them and guess I will visit them during luncheons after I leave. The lunch was great and it just didn’t feel the same. Sighz… 

The time in the afternoon would be the hardest last few hours for me in the office. My emotions overcame me as the clock ticked its seconds and I tried so hard to contain it so, I put full concentration to my work and cracking jokes with colleagues to calm myself down.

At about 5pm, I was asked by Agnes to the meeting room for the remaining documentations and that was when I signed my last signature on the MC letterhead stating that I have completed my returns of staff cards etc to the company and receiving my last paycheck. The emotions came so hard on me that I was actually fighting my tears and I guess I did well.

It was the time when I started packing my stuff and one colleague came over and shook hands with me… this time… I could not contain my emotions anymore and the tears were down pouring! Hugs from colleagues did not ease the pain in my heart and the sense of departing was hitting me hard like a stab in my heart.

My direct boss and Yoyo made it worse by presenting me a gift and man….the tears were just free-flowing like a waterfall. He even helped me with my personal stuff to the meeting room while I could calm myself down while waiting for the rest. This is considered the HARDEST moment in my life I guess besides accepting the truth of the death of my dad.

At dinner, I felt more relaxed as everything is over now. I am officially not a MC staff anymore and it’s time to celebrate. I am really thankful to Leng, Jessica, Yoyo, Jessie, Sam Sam, Daphne, Kat, Agnes, BB, Koko & ‘neighbour’ for all your love throughout my years in MC.

Thank you for the dinner too though it’s simple but it was you guys who made it unforgettable. I am going to miss you guys dearly, please take good care and love you peeps!

Farewell Luncheon With The Other Crazy Bunch

Honestly, I am really grateful that I am loved by people around me. Today, I am happy to lunch with this crazy 3 pals of mine whom I shared so many laughter, fun and boozes with.

They may look harmless and demure but they are one crazy bunch of girls who are crazy enough to have fun at no limits, laugh their hearts out with you and drinks till you stop them. Though we do not hang out often but those small talks around the desk are unforgettable.

I will never forget during the last World Cup, we were all super hardworking reading up about the news for the teams and gathered bets. It was so fun and hilarious when we lost the bet and at times, we will congratulate each other when the we bet on won the game. 

Luncheon at the new Sheng Ji Chicken Rice was great! We ordered dishes to share and to no surprise, we couldn’t clear the dishes. They were surprised that I would preferred to go for the chicken rice then the Korean food as I truly believed in good companionship than the food. Of course, the food places an important part, but if the food is so good and you are with people that suck big time, you will only remember the bad side of that occasion.

I got to say that I had a great time with the ladies and I am truly blessed with have such great colleagues whom I now called friends in MC. It was my honor to have friends like you guys who stood by me all these years and I will never forget those times that we spent at our company events.

Take good care pals and keep connected.

My Farewell Dinner With ENE

Pietrasanta Ristorante has been a great restaurant for welcome, birthdays or even farewell dinner. I remembered we had many occasions to dine here… let’s see…

I brought my boss Yatomi-san here for a dinner and he totally fell in love with it and started to introduce his customers or colleagues to dine there. He too had a dinner celebration for me before I started my maternity leave. That was fantastic dinner with Leng, Shar Shar, Yoyo & bossy. I totally recalled that I gave birth to little Emma that very Sunday after this celebration.

We also had a private farewell party for our beloved Yasuno-GM whom everyone regarded him as the BEST GM ever posted to SIN Branch! He was one super cool GM who has no airs, so humble and warmth. He was the most approachable GM in the history and someone who loves to have fun with the locals and not afraid of being embarrassed. SO COOL!

We invited him for a farewell dinner for him and he gladly accepted the invitation and man… we had a truly unforgettable evening indeed. There were so many happy occasions spent in this restaurant.

This evening, I brought Saito-san, a nice boss whom I had to privilege to work with for the past 5 months. He is new to SIN and this is one restaurant I would like to introduce to him before I leave and I certainly would like to have my farewell dinner here. I was glad to hear from him that he likes this place and finds it really quiet and he would like to bring his family there when they visit him.

He gave me the green light to order and he wanted to try whatever we recommend. We did our best and we were happy that he is so happy with the dishes that we ordered. As for me, I enjoyed every dish that we ordered too and before desserts, I spoke to Loris (the main chef & owner) to arrange a cake for my bossy as we would like to celebrate his birthday which will be tomorrow. 

Yes, they were so cooperation and brought over the cake with a simple birthday song sang to him which lights up his night even more. He was really grateful for the gesture we showed to him and he told us that he was so touched. Hahahahaha… 

It really doesn’t matter what occasion we celebrate but it’s the companionship and fellowship that we shared during meals. I will miss yoyo & bossy for they have been really nice to me but I hope that we will stay connected and not this friendship slips away. 

Thank you, Saito-san & Yoyo for the wonderful dinner and it’s really hard to say goodbye to you guys. Please keep in touch and do invite me for any gatherings in the future yea..

Cheers!

My Farewell Lunch With ADM

My emotion is almost taking over me when my remaining days in MC is drawing near. I dun deny that I am having this mixed feeling of ‘’leave and stay’’. I am very much looking forward to the next chapter of my life after I leaves but the thought of leaving my colleagues behind is quite painful.

When I was asked to choose a date for the farewell lunch during my trip to Japan, I was kind of caught in the fix. At that moment, there was some kind of shock wave came over me and at that time, I wanted to call my boss to ignore the resignation… hahahahahaha…

Today, I am lunching with this bunch of good people at Oscars and you know that I did not make that call. This people who I dined with are very close to me and they are the ones who stood by me during my darkness days in the office and cheering/celebrating with me in my happiest moments. I love them very much and they would be the ones I can’t bear to leave.

Friendships are built through years of trust and respect. When I leave this company, I will be missing all these beautiful people whom I worked with, had luncheons with, celebrations or even going through hard times with.  

Thank you for the wonderful lunch and our friendship will not end here just yet. I am sure we will continue to grow even though we are not seeing each other everyday but it’s always the trust and respect that will remains in our hearts forever.

I love you guys! Take good care and stay connected.

Thank You My Friends

My days in MC are countable and in a few days’ time, I will be bidding goodbyes to the people here whom I regards as friends or family for some. (you know who you are).

I started baking these muffins and cupcakes since Saturday afternoon and I am proud to bring them to the office to share with all my wonderful people here. I can’t really express how much I appreciate each and everyone of you who crossed path with me during my years in this company.

We have been through so many changes, some good and mmm… many bad… hahahahaah… I got to say that all of you are the main reason I stayed in this company for so many years. I wouldn’t have survived with your wonderful and kind support to me all these years.

So, in my humble way of saying THANK YOU, please enjoy these muffins and cupcakes that I have specially baked for all of you. Hope that you will like them and may you grant me a slot in your memory.  

Thank you pals and I will miss you guys very much!!

Birthday Celebrations For Vian & Ron

Who doesn’t love birthdays parties right… at least I do! In the month of January, we have 2 besties celebrating their birthdays and we decided to have the celebration done in the middle. 😊

Back in our school days, we love to celebrate birthdays at HRC and yes, we are finally back again after so many years thanks to our 2 ROCKING birthday girls. Those were the days when we had to start queuing up at the entrance as early as 6pm just to get in for dinner and stayed for the disco which will began at around 11pm.

Today, we walked in to HRC without any hassle and queues. We were quickly seated as reservations was allowed. See the changes?? We were given the seat at the corner of the stage though our favourite seats were in front of the stage. Browsing through the menu and indeed, there were some minor changes to the menu and we ordered our all-timed favourites like the ribs, jumbo combo, salad, fujitas and of course our CANNOT MISSED MILKSHAKES! I am soooooooooooo loving my vanilla milkshake I tell you guys… it still tasted as heavenly as those good old days! Thumps up! 

When the live band Jive Talking came up to stage, they somehow found us familiar coz we were there every Friday or Saturday night back in my school days. We were happy to have them performing and as usual, their songs selections were fantastic! Simply brought us back to those rocking good days.

We informed the staff that our two dear friends here tonight were celebrating their birthdays and they came with sundaes and made them stood on the chair whilst everyone in the house sang them the birthday song! It was quite a pretty sight! Hahahahahahahah… well, not long after, the band invited all those who were celebrating their birthdays tonight to be on stage and our 2 friends were famous once again! 

It was indeed a great time spending the evening with besties and wishing both birthday girls a wonderful Birthday and may God continue to watch over you always!

Thank You Tetsu

I was really touched by the kind gesture of Tetsu, who is our account manager at the Shangri-La Hotel. When he heard the news that I will be leaving MC, he invited me and Jessica to his hotel for a farewell dinner.

He kindly arranged to dine at the Shang Palace though the standard has dropped during our last visit, he promised that this time it will not disappoint as they were recently awarded the Michelin star. Upon hearing that, I am eager to try out some of their signature or perhaps the award-winning dishes and hope that they are really up to that standard.

We left it to the restaurant manager to decide the dishes for us since we were not the perfect people to order and I told the manager that we wanted something simple. I would say that they did not disappoint at all, all the dishes that the manager ordered for us were fantastic. I simply enjoyed the cod fish… it was sooooooooooooooooooo Tasty! I would give them a 10/10. Next was the egg with lettuces, simple but yet yummy. The eggs with bean sprouts were equally mixed and you were able to taste the freshness of the egg even with lettuces. Thumps up!  

The rest of the dishes were black pepper beef cubes with spring onions, vegetables and the stirred fried bee hoon…. OMG… the black pepper beef is soooo heavenly and honestly, I couldn’t stop eating the addictive bee hoon though I was so full.

After such a sumptuous dinner, he brought us to the new bar for coffee. It was a drinking place in the night but we ordered coffee and desserts to share. The cakes we ordered were delicious too and I guess Shang has made a come back for their food.  

Thank you Tetsu for the wonderful evening and it’s not a farewell I hope. Lets keep in touch and will let you know when I visit Shang. 😊

Its Good To Be Back

I have stopped wall rope yoga for more than a month now due to holidays to Japan and Christmas seasons. 

I am finally back to the workout with my buddy Leng who was the one who introduced me to this cool workout after all the feasting. I have been wanting to workout but just couldn’t find the time but today, I am BACK! As usual, it already got me tired just by warming up for the first 10 minutes and I was hoping that I could get through the next 50 minutes.

During the workout, I was happy that I could feel the stretch from my back, arms and legs. It was really a great feeling though the process was quite tough. I was happy that I was able to get through it after missing out for more than a month.

Thumps up for the good workout!

When Faith Meets Justine

Lady Faith has been talking pretty much about her buddy who hung out with her during her first few days in Primary 1 last year and after that, they became friends.

Till date, she has been talking to me about Justine and how much she missed her companionship at recess though she has her own group of friends to go recess with.

Today during mass, I spotted Justine seated not too far away from where we were and Lady Faith was on her toes when I showed her where her friend was seated. She told me that she was really happy to see her in church as it has been a while since they last met at church.

After mass, the two girls said their hellos and it was really spontaneous when I requested for a photo taken on the spot. Justine was really sweet and they bid their goodbyes after a short chat. 

We were happy to see Lady Faith taking her friends to heart. Good on you girl!

Thank You Guys For The Dinner

Since my resignation was announced, I was really lucky and blessed to have been invited to many luncheons and dinners with people whom I worked with, crossed path with or even suppliers or customers.

Tonight, I am having dinner with this bunch of wonderful and humble people in the office whom I respect a lot. Though we are not working in the same department but we had worked there for many years and what built friendship are times we been through together.

Steven, whom I addressed as my Kaiye kindly invited me for dinner at Pasta Brava and it was such a nice place to dine in after their renovation. The place was cozy and quiet. I am very happy that Alice, Linda and my best buddy Jessie also joined the dinner. What else can I asked for when you have the best people to dine with on a cool Friday evening. 

Kaiye asked me to pick the dishes but I always preferred to have everyone’s opinion in ordering dishes as we will be sharing them. It is always good to order food that suits people sitting around the table. We went ahead to order the normal simple dishes like pasta, risotto, parma ham with rock melon, baked egg plants, calamari and salmon.  

I would say that the food has improved from my last visit many years ago. I remembered my last experience wasn’t a pleasant one as the pasta tasted quite salty. This time, my visit was a wonderful experience though a different occasion. 

I want to thank you Kaiye for your kind gesture of inviting me to this wonderful restaurant for my farewell. I too want to thank Aunty Alice, Officer (Linda) and Neh (Jessie) for joining the dinner as it was lovely to have you guys on the same table. 😊 I will definitely miss you guys so much and thanks for the beautiful tea set too. 😊

A Wonderful Dinner Date With The Ngs

A month has passed and our dearest pals will be returning to their home this coming weekend. We were happy that we were able to dine with this lovely family before they packed up.

We picked them up after our work and proceeded to have dinner at one of our favourite restaurant Pieto which is located near our place. We were warmly welcomed by the staff as usual upon arrival and we were led to our favourite seat near the pizza area.

We ordered mostly the signature dishes and the kiddos enjoyed both the company and the food of course. We took the opportunity to catch up more before we meet again (not sure when). Though it was a short evening with the Ngs, we certainly had a great time.

I do hope that we are able to visit them again in Perth perhaps mid of this year otherwise, we hope to see them in Singapore soon.

Take good care my friends and hope to see you guys real soon. Cheers!

Last Minute Drink Invite

I received a message from Leng yesterday afternoon that James would like to invite me to a casual drink and I gladly accepted as how could I refused a nice gesture from him.

James, one of the best guys in the office whom I dun work closely with but knows that he is a great manager to work with. He has been in the company long enough to know me quite a bit though not as very well but I was filled with surprised when the invitation came from him.

It was a farewell drinks session with him and co-organized by Leng. We headed down to Bistro 1855 located at Suntec City after work and while waiting for the rest to arrive, I was given the time to browse and bought 2 bottles of good wines at a unbelievable price. Thumps up!

During the drinking session, we ordered many foods as usual and shared among us. At one point, I was worried that I might be drunk but it was Leng who was drunk… she met us after her usual workout and started drinking fiercely when she arrived. It didn’t take her too long to finish up the whole bottle of white wine which was placed near her.

It was a great drinking session with James and it was quite an opportunity for me to know him a little better before I leave the company. I was really surprised that we shared the same views and it was like a far end relative that came to visit. I really treasure friends like this and I am going to miss them very much. 

Thank you James for the wonderful session and I will keep myself available should you arrange another drinking session in future. 😊

Back At Chikuyotei

I clearly remembered my first visit to Chikuyotei was with my first boss Natori-san. He brought to lunch at Chikuyotei which was previously located at Mandarin Orchard and that was when I first fell in love with Ohyaku Don.

You must be wondering why in the world would I ordered such cheap staff or ordinary stuff at such a high end Japanese restaurant right! Well, I was so young then and this would be my first visit to such a classy Japanese restaurant and I wasn’t into raw fish then so, the only cooked stuff that I saw on the menu was Ohyaku-don.

Today, I am back to Chikuyotei but on a different venue. They have shifted to Hotel InterContinental and it was like dining in a private restaurant when we arrived. It was so quiet that we were the only ones there and it felt like the chefs and servers were listening to our conversation throughout our luncheon there.

This restaurant is well-known for their eel and well, I am not a EEL type of person but I am happy to visit this place again hoping to find that first love feeling. Mmmmh… I was wrong… now they only served eel, pork or beef… there is no connection to both and ma… the meu is really costly!

After browsing the menu, I decided to choose the pork cutlet which is not my type of food since it came closest to my once loved Ohyaku-don… it tasted not too bad but I think it’s quite oily and honestly, I was trying to DOWN it to my stomach and sipping tea after each mouthful.

I trust that the eel rice will be better and I guess I will return to try it when I am ready to accept EEL…

An Outing To The Night Safari

We have always wanted to bring our kids to the Night Safari but just didn’t manage to till today. We are joined by Mike & family which will make this trip a better one.

We met at the entrance before the sky turned dark and managed to take some pictures with natural day light. We were happy to meet up with this fun family and can’t wait to explore the night safari with them. We queued for the tram right after entering and we were given seats on the first 2 rows on the last cart which was great.   

The tram toured us round the night safari and we managed to catch a glimpse of the animals which comes out in the night. They were really close to our tram and that got us pretty excited but the kids were slight afraid. As we moved on, they also introduced the animals we were about to see and their habitats. Very interesting ride indeed.

After the 45 minutes ride ended, we were in luck, we queued up for the animal show which was about to begin. Though our seats were not fantastic but our view was not blocked. It was pretty cool to see the night animals performing and they were really intelligent. 

After the show, we headed for our dinner and we continued to explore some other places on foot this time. We walked through some trails and found the habitats of the Lions but they were not too active in the night... strangely… they might be so used to the night safari that they are already well fed and perhaps it was time for bed after supper.

As it was getting late, we decided to call it a night and ended our fun night outing at the Night Safari. It was really interesting and I might bring the kids back here again in the near future. 

MC Welcome Back Get-Together 2018

This is a yearly affair organized by our company and we invited all the staff from our subsidiaries to join us for this event.

I have given up joining this event many years ago as it’s always the same old thing, listening to speeches which are pointless as they are usually regarded as ‘’lip service’’ to many of us and sometimes, they will show some boring clips in regards to the forecast of the year ahead…. C’mon, if they can forecast the profit… then why can’t they pay us more! Hahahaahahah

This year, I was at work as my working days in the office is limited and I was glad to help Leng to organize the party as I trusted that she needed help. After everything was set, I stayed around for a little while to meet up with some of my friends from other subsidiaries so that I can take this opportunity to inform them personally that I will be leaving at the end of this month.  

Everyone at the event was happily drinking up the beers while some were busy chatting the evening away. As for me, I took my leave quickly after some catching up and left for home as I am excited to go to Night Safari! Woohoo!

First Day Of School

Happy New Year peeps!

It’s ALREADY 2018!!! OMG! The clock is ticking too fast… WAY TOO FAST! Okay, 1^st of all, I am still in denial that our Lady is in Primary School and today, it’s her first day of school to Primary 2… YES… TWO!

I can’t believe that my once baby girl is promoted to Primary 2 and in no time, she will be taking her PSLE!!! I dun want to think about it… arrrggghhhh….

Well, since we moved, we are surprised that her pick up time for school bus has changed to a better timing compared to last year’s and I am happy that she is able to sleep another 20 minutes longer than the last time. When her bus arrived at our gate, I was shocked to see the bus filled with students and it was actually full house! On the brighter side, she will be able to make more friends. 😊

Our little cheeky Emma is promoted to Nursery 2 this year and though she had just celebrated her birthday couple of weeks back, she is going to Nursery 2 this year. I am a little worried as she is still a baby to us and we believed that in N2, things are gonna be different.  

There will be more learning and hands on in N2 compared to N1. We do hope that she will be able to cope with the challenge ahead of her.

Girls, we wish you all the best in our promotion to P2 and N2. We trust in the Lord that HE will be watching over both of you and bless you with wisdom.

Happy Schooling!