Sunday, November 29, 2009

back to work

17 days of holiday; back to work on Monday.

That's the reality of life :)


Saturday, November 21, 2009

Massive Damage P1

Arrived @ Ginza bright & early on a Saturday morning :) Massive damage on the wallet(s) and will continue tml, wa ha ha!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Osaka-Tokyo

We took the Nozomi train (fastest train service) from Shin-Osaka to Tokyo, reaching in just 2.5 hours. However, our excitement was dampened by the rain :( will be in Tokyo for the rest of the journey; can't wait to go shopping!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Universal Studio

We were in Universal Studio for a day filled with fun & rides! We conquered their No 1 ride, "Hollywood Dream", which is actually the biggest outdoor roller-coaster ride they have on the premises. Other themed areas includes Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Terminator and many more! We give a more detailed update when we are back!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Nihon e Yokoso

To the land of the rising sun! It has been 3 days since we landed, endless fun & walking :) Headed down to Osaka the moment we landed; met 2 Singaporeans who took the same Shinkansen (however, try to get the non-smoking cabin no matter what, nearly suffocated). It's nearly 12am now & if time permits, we might do some quick updates as and when. Stay tuned!

Monday, November 9, 2009

Brothers & Sisters

A rare gathering which brought the 8 of us together for a session of drinks, food and laughter. We even "ditched" our partners to grace this event! Joseph 难得 managed to sneak out from his boring town and we all gathered @ Clarke Quay to wait for his grand arrival :)

Ordered this balloon to share ... Fling was surprisingly super enthusiastic about drinking beer :P

Dearie Joseph became the "Hunk King" when the girls "fought" to take picture with him. He looks so school boy-ish with his Polo Shirt and backpack.

Ron looks like a bouncer in a bar, heehee. We can't help but notice his bulging muscles in the tight-fitting top.

My lovely sisters! Pity that Fling & Miao had to go off early :( They sure missed a hell lot of "fun"

Can't believe that we ended up @ Ryan's place talking through the night; was so dead tired when I reached home @ 8am in the morning. However, we sure had FUN!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Hari Raya 2009

4th auntie invited us to her place for Hari Raya where she will whip up lots of malay dishes for us to enjoy!

A tremendous effort to gather everyone & squeeze them into this picture. This is not even full attendance! We're going to have a hard time taking pictures next time :P

My cousin who will take pictures with me after much cajoling from me, LOL.

How can I forget Leecher, right? Hmm, I do wanna Ed**** as well, wa ha ha.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Bali Day 8

The end of our Bali journey drawing near :( The sense of back-to-reality will probably engulf us when we land in SG a few hours later. Before that, breakfast time ~

Fruit platter to start the day. Staying in this villa has spoilt us tremendously with their amicable reception & food spread. We wake up every morning to 3-course breakfast meal with fruit juices and coffee/tea & fruits, not forgetting our daily afternoon tea and snacks from the mini bar.

Leecher's sunny-side up while I went local and ordered the Nasi Goreng. Leecher almost died of egg overdose when I gave him my sunny-side up as well.

Time to pack our bags & leave for the airport.

We stayed @ Melati Villa, which means Jasmine. The villas are named after flowers.

It was always a mad rush to the airport whenever we were holidaying; the traffic jam in Kuta made the situation worse. My heartbeat only returned to normal when we were queuing up at the check-in counter.

We have reached the end of our Bali trip. Time to face reality (aka work) in Singapore :(

Beef with mash is awesome! I keep stealing the beef (no mash, please) from Leecher that he got stuck with lots of mash and no beef. I offered my chicken as compensation, heehee.

Arrival @ T2 slightly after 3pm. Leecher decided to exercise his arty-farty talents, wa ha ha. This marked the end of our memorable Bali trip. Surprisingly, it took us over 2 months to write 8 posts on Bali *sheepish grin*. I wonder how long it will take for our next trip....hmm :P

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Bali Day 7

Can't believe we are still blogging about Bali trip, haha. Hopefully we have time to finish our Bali trip before we jet off to another destination in 2 weeks. We started Day 7 of our trip with a hearty breakfast, me with a morning swim first, while Lazy Blamer, only know how to wake up, eat, sleep. Wake up, disturb me, eat, sleep. Ha ha ha ha. Glad that we saved the best of our accommodations to the last.

A very cute way to present the banana pancake, but I don't really like the brown sugar syrup that was supposed to go with the pancake.

Same old Blamer ordered the same of Mee goreng... .... But I'm fine with it, hope the carbo will make Blamer fat fat wa ha ha ha.

First destination, Monkey Forest! As mentioned before, Bali is predominantly Hindu, hence monkeys are treated as sacred animals here. This is because one of the hindu gods, Hanuman, is a monkey. Hanuman is believed to be an avatar of Lord Shiva, and worshiped as a symbol of physical strength, perseverance and devotion. Hanuman's tale in the epic Ramayana which Blamer and I will be watching the play at Uluwatu later.

Here's one of them. They were not exactly shy when it comes to human interaction. All they ever cared about was the food in your hand.



Since we came all the way here, I could never go back without taking a pic with the monkeys on me.

Too bad Blamer didn't capture the whole episode on video, she switched to photo-taking halfway through. I'm surprised by how light the monkey felt on my arm despite its size, a dog of the same size must weighed at least 5 times more. No wonder they can swing around in the trees so effortlessly.

See, this guy's attention was not on me at all. He was looking at the last banana that I dropped on the floor.



Blamer had her share of the fun too. Wa ha ha, although she was quite scared of them.

Despite their cute appearance, the guide told to never engage in a struggle with them if they ever grabbed onto our possession. This will anger them and they will turn violent. They actually have pretty sharp teeth which can rip apart coconut husk as though they were made of paper ... tissue paper (you know wat I'm trying say... ha ha)

Next we decided to do some more flea market shopping at Ubud market. Blamer was trying to buy another of those weaved bags she got her hands on earlier at Sugawati.

Being the bargain hunter that she is, we actually circled the whole market thrice or don't know how many times till she found the store which sold her the biggest size bag, at the cheapest price possible! Gasp! Never underestimate the resolve of a bargain hunting woman.

We grabbed lunch at another highly recommended joint on tripadvisor. Cafe Lotus.

Other than the ones on the menu, this was the only lotus I saw in the whole lotus pond. Hmm...

But at least the ducks were entertaining, "Blamer, do you know it is rude to show your butt to our readers??"

They had a temple at the back of the restaurant, we didn't really have time to explore it, but met a fellow Singaporean couple who gladly helped us with this shot.

A big mug of Bintang to quench our thirst before we dig into the main course.

I forgot what this dish is called but it is a combination platter for two. The quickest way to have a taste of everything in smaller portions. I like the duck the most, which was very tender, the meat just disintegrates in your mouth with the flick of your tongue.

Next is to Uluwatu temple for the fire dance performance. We had to wear the sarong to cover our knees for the Hindus believed that the body is divided into two parts. The part above the waist is considered pure, thus it can be presented in front of god. On the other hand, the part below the waist is considered impure, hence must be covered up. I was hoping for a purple sarong though, would have appear better in the photos.

Some more monkeys here, however, our guide told us that these were much more aggressive than the ones at the monkey forest. They like to snatch your belongings and dangle them dangerously over the cliff. If you weren't fast enough to exchange for them with a bag of peanuts or banana, they will just drop it. I wonder whether these monkeys were trained for this purpose, such that the villagers can sell us the peanuts and bananas.

Dun be mistaken, the object of interest for this photo is not the sea, but the monkey on my left. Which was the same monkey in the earlier pic.

See the little structure jutting out of the cliff? This is the much hailed Uluwatu temple. Much better to see it in real life though.

With the sun setting, it's time for the fire dance performance.

Look at the turnout.

The main characters of the dance. I think among the performers, the guys that were seated had the toughest job. The whole dance had no musical instruments, the characters were dancing to the rhythm of the chants these guys were churning out.



Now for the most exciting part of the dance, or in my opinion, why it is called the fire dance.


Blamer managed to take a pic with the performers after the show. But we really wanted to take a pic with the one playing the monkey god Hanuman, guess he was just way too popular.

Last stop, a romantic candlelight dinner at Jimbaran beach.

Wasn't much, we took a package tour and the food was sort of pre-ordered. Bbq fish and prawns with a bit of clams. We were also running low on funds by the way, couldn't get Blamer's approval to order anything else... .. : (

In the end, we spend our very last rupiah on bbq corn by the beach!

Comes in two flavours, sweet or spicy. I recommend the spicy one, really tasty especially eating it with the cool sea breeze blowing at you. It is also recommended that you order only one to share, so that it will be more romantic walking along the beach this way.... (sniggers)
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