Tag Archives: travel

Struggling.

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I’ve hit an all time low again. My weight loss progress isn’t working out all too well, I’m now 84kgs, and I guess I’m not okay.

Problem: Every time I think about my weight, I grab the nearest snack and eat it all. Worse still, it’s usually a bag of crisps or biscuits.
Solution: Don’t buy them. Don’t eat them.

It sounds so easy, but it is not for me. I keep giving myself excuses, like “Oh, but it’s exam time and so you need more food to concentrate”. And then I buy all that bad stuff and the cycle goes on and on again.

Problem: I drink too much Coca-Cola
Solution: Home blended fruit juice
Problem with solution: Massive sugar intake ( ~500g in less than a month )

No idea what to do with that.

I had a dilemma a few weeks ago of whether to go back or not during summer because going back would be pointless since I’d just lie down in bed for more than 16 hours a day… which is completely opposite of what I should do! I’ve discussed it with my sister and I’ve decided to go back and:

  • Get a work internship for at least 2 weeks
  • Get a teaching internship for another 2.
  • Get a part time job at a tuition school (if my parents allow me)
  • Sign up for the gym, get a personal trainer and work out at least 3 times a week or join those fitness classes
  • Go for a jog at least once a week at Tasek
  • Keep to this plan

I’m feeling so uncertain at the moment, it’s crazy. Well, on the bright side, my visa is ready and I can’t wait to go to Morocco next week!

Singapore Trip Part 3

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Day 4: August 29th 2011

Took the bus to Orchard Road and got off at a wrong stop so we had to walk to Ion. I had my eyebrows threaded at Browhaus for the first time in my life. I had always wanted to do it, but people tell me that they are alright even though they look alright. Not to me. My eyebrows, like my eye lids, are uneven and it’s difficult for me to apply makeup. I’m very pleased with the outcome :D

We managed to buy jeans at Denizen. They were so snug and I managed to get a pair while my sister got 3. There was a 2 for $99 offer so we took the chance and tried them on. The staff were friendly and helped us to get the perfect jeans for us :) Alterations were $4 per pair, so our jeans ended up costing us around $48.50 per pair.

Later on, we headed off to IKEA in Tampines (pronounced Tam-pee-nees, not Tam-pines as I initially thought and Wikipedia provides a Singaporean pronunciation of that) where my sister’s friend had kindly offered to drive us there.

Ikea was, without a doubt, huge. I’ve never been in an Ikea store before but for a small country like Singapore with so many tall buildings, this was a completely different thing We browsed so many household goodies and ended up buying a shelf, stands, food seals and more. A scary thing did happen and that was when our credit card refused to work. Machines listed it as “expired”, though the date of expiry was in November. We were lucky enough to have cash on hand, so we paid with that.

We headed off to eat Chilli Crab at Roland’s restaurant and boy do they serve amazing chilli crab! Their Drunken Prawns disappointed me though – it was bland and didn’t have much to offer. I must admit that I dislike getting my hands dirty whenever eating, so what I did, when trying to retrieve crab meat, was to use my porcelain spoon to repeatedly hit the crab shell, but eventually the crab shell flew onto my shirt and I had to use my hands to put it back on the plate. Sigh, I lost the $50 offer that I could remove the shell with a spoon, but I came close to winning it :)

We got back and I began trying to find out what was wrong with the credit card. I logged on to e-banking and checked the statements. We had only used around half of our credit limit so it was impossible. I had to notify my mother who then began to worry since we didn’t have much cash with us, whatnot after purchasing my laptop. She told me she’d do a bank inquiry the next day and hopefully, get to the root of the problem.

Day 5: August 30th 2011

We went around Bugis to shop for more bits and bobs. Mom had finally done a bank inquiry and apparently everything was OK so we tried it at a store and it worked :D You have no idea how grateful we were, considering the fact that I had already shamelessly asked my younger brother to provide us with more money since we were afraid that we’d run out.

At some point my feet hurt so badly that I resorted to buying a pair of wedges in BHG. Thank goodness for that since my flats had already worn out and was hurting my feet so. Had dinner and my siblings went off to play at some gaming center (or LANing as they called it, don’t ask me, I’m not a gamer). I was so tempted to buy a GUESS bag at $95 (around £45) but decided against it :( But I did find another bag at $36 and it’s gorgeous so that’s quite a steal.

We continued shopping and got back to the hotel around 8ish. The taxi driver asked us for an additional dollar because it was Hari Raya Aidilfitri, but I pretended not to notice because a) I’m on a budget holiday, b) I can better spend that $1 elsewhere and c) it’s their job.

My sister got back later after LANing and bought two containers of tofu-fah for me. It was so-so since I prefer those with sweetened pandan water like what they sell in Brunei. I was still hungry so I ended up placing an online delivery at Mc Donald’s. This was the first ever time I did something like this, and to be fair it was all fine and dandy!

Day 6: August 31th 2011

Managed to buy some facial products for my mom and also collected our new jeans :D We went over to VivoCity soonafter to continue shopping. I bought two bras at Aimer and they were very costly, but was also the only place that offered my size (though the stock levels were low). There I finally learned of the difference of a good bra. All my cheap Debenhams bras could not compare to the ones that I bought.

The bra designs were that of those I swore I would never buy (red  lacy and the black and pink lacy). Surprisingly the shape was not see through even with a white shirt. I must emphasize that good bras change how a person looks completely. I had a better posture = looks more confident. So I guess my mom was right, 一分錢一分貨.

We met up with my nephew for dinner at Carl’s Jr. The burgers were huge, and definitely better than that of Burger King and Kraze Burger. I did forget to ask for no tomatoes and mayo, so I was served it, but after removing it all I found that it was the best burgers ever. We tried to hail a cab, but the queue was so long and so we decided to take the MRT back. When we got to Little India’s MRT station, we tried to hail a cab (lazy people) and then the stupid taxi driver spoiled my mood.

Day 7: 1st Sept 2011

We got up early in the morning to do some last minute packing. We checked out of the hotel and immediately booked a cab. We went back Somerset 313 and had breakfast at the food court downstairs. We shopped for my sister’s handbag, and finally found one at Charles & Keith. I would buy one since they’re way cheaper in Singapore than in Brunei, but then again I just bought a handbag a few days ago. We rushed back to Little India because it was nearly time for the cab to bring us to Changi Int’l Airport.

I had to contact my brother so that we could check in together just in case we ladies had excess baggage. Thankfully we didn’t or else it would be a hassle. We soon met up with my sister’s friends for dinner at Burger King, where I showed the discount coupon and got free ice-cream, YAY! Did some duty free shopping before reaching home :)

That concludes my Singapore trip! I can’t wait to get back there in December :D

Day 3: Singaporean Hospitality

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Or that’s what Cherlynn said. Oh, and I finally know how to pronounce her name accurately!

In the morning we got up early for our complimentary breakfast at Achi before heading off to Chinatown for some shopping. We had already scheduled to meet my nephew who was going to cook some western food for the three of us. We got lost along the way, but when we finally reached Duxton, the food and the view was amazing.

I’ve been blogging since around 2003 and to be fair, that’s a pretty long time. I’ve gone on and off the blogging scene so frequently as well, changing domains along the way. At the same time, I met so many people online but never in my mind would I ever imagine that I could meet anyone offline (aside from a particular friend, who I met offline briefly before meeting online.) Here I am, a nearly 20 year old with a mind of her own, a bit of wanderlust, and meeting up with people I’ve contacted online since way back then.

Before my trip to Singapore, I had contacted Brenda, Cherlynn, Dayna and Terry and informed them that I was going to Singapore. We agreed on Sunday at Chinatown’s MRT Station. On my part, me getting to Chinatown’s MRT was an epic fail. I walked to Outram park station from Duxton, got to the right MRT line area and thought I was already at Chinatown even without going on the tube. Ah well, I thought that the 200m distance on the signboard meant that. When I finally realized it, I had already contacted Brenda to ask which exit they were at since Chinatown was huge, but yeah. Whoops.

At Chinatown’s MRT station, I looked around for the trio. While they were busy discussing on how to recognise me, I just happened to appear and casually said “Hi!” or at least tried to, since I was slightly trembling because this was my very first time meeting people I’ve known for so long and yet never met face-to-face. We headed off to YumCha in Chinatown and tasted the most delicious egg tarts ever!

After a very filling meal we then moved on to the Singapore Flyer hoping to do some shopping on the flea market but the place was just… sad. There was a few cute things, but they were not worth buying despite offering the cutest bandage post-it’s and Angry Birds sticky notes but sadly I don’t even use them. The last few things that I bought an told myself to use has, to this date, still remain untouched. Disappointed, we went down to get drinks at Each-a-cup, which coincidentally has a branch in Brunei and sells the best Premium Ice-Blended Red Bean I’ve tasted. Pity they didn’t have big pearls though!

Walking along the Kallang River was lovely.  The weather was just nice and so we were leisurely walking and taking a lot of photos at the same time. Terry had to leave early so while we waited for Cherlynn‘s arrival, we had some ridiculously random poses. And when she did arrive, we took more pictures again. (What to do, we’re all photogenic and we have an amazing photographer, Brenda!)

We walked across the Helix Bridge to get to Marina Bay Sands (where I watched Lion King on Saturday, which is amazing since it was filled with local puns and whatnot). We had our dinner at Kraze Burgers. The meal was not bad, but it tasted slightly bland. To be fair, I wouldn’t go there again because I felt that the meal was not worth paying such a high price for, unless you’re counting it in pounds.

We did ourselves a flavour and bought some ice-cream at Cold Rock. I’m a huge fan of cookie dough and the one we had with the waffle was so delicious! The strawberry was great too, despite my keen dislike for berries, this one actually passed the test! Definitely going to go there again with my family. It’s still cheaper than Haagen Dazs (which, charged me 10% for service charge, and then another 6% for GST.)

All in all I had such a wonderful day and haven’t laughed this hard in ages. We must never stop believing that we will always get the chance to meet each other to say, “Halo!” because the walls we built are tumbling down! I can’t wait for another SG bloggers meetup in December! Oh and all the lovely photographs displayed in this post is by Brenda, who, if you’re friends with on Facebook, will be able to see a lot more crazier things going on :)

On a slightly unhappy note, I was very very angry at the horrid taxi drivers one one night. They refused to pick up passengers who were not going to the direction of their homes. Like, come on, there are families with kids and the elderly and what you expect them to do, walk this late at night for such a far distance? If t was one or two drivers I’d be fine with it, but 4 that passed along and refused to carry passengers? Wtf. Singapore has an amazing transport system, but these hired services really disappointed me. It’s your job anyways. You totally ruined my image of Singaporean Hospitality, even though Brenda, Cherlynn, Dayna and Terry gave me the best Singapore experience and hospitality I’ve ever had!

I’ll post more about my Singapore trip and my hauls at a later date! Stay tuned :)