Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head

GONG XI FA CAI! HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

And what would Chinese New Year be without a spot of gambling?


Playing Texas Hold'em poker:


My Uncle Dennis wins the round:

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Contrary to popular opinion, it's fun playing with fake money!

At the River

Yesterday, my two dear friends from Curtin, Alissa and Lidia, were in Singapore on a one-day stopover to Beijing. These two scholarship winners are on their way to learn Mandarin from the experts over in China in 5-degree weather. They must want it really bad!

As their guide for the day, I first brought them to eat some Indian food in Little India:

After lunch and a bit of walking through Little India, we took a cab to the Esplanade and walked by the Singapore River and along Boat Quay and Clarke Quay. After that, we headed back to their hotel for a swim and cocktails.

The Furama City Centre hotel. Unique architecture, huh?


The bathing beauties:


Enjoying their Singapore Slings:

As it got dark, we went out again, this time walking from the hotel to Clarke Quay in search of a place to have dinner.

The fiery sunset from the hotel room:


The new installations in Clarke Quay:


Boat Quay, where we had dinner:


The view from the restaurant:


Alissa with her big, wide grin at the seafood restaurant we chose:

After our great dinner, we walked to the Esplanade Park to check out the festivities at the River Hong Bao.

The gate at the River Hong Bao:


A float in the river:


The decorated pathway along the park:


The Prosperity God:


My forecast for the year ahead:


Some peach lanterns in the trees:


A lion dance troupe, sponsored by IndoChine, packing their equipment away:

We heard that there were going to be fireworks later in the night so we went back to the hotel to get a better view of Chinatown.

Lidia getting ready with her paparazzi cam:


The fireworks in Chinatown, totally skewed by the apartment blocks in front of us:


Some sparklers they set off after:

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I hope they're doing great in China!

Pleasure Little Treasure

Yes, ladies and gentleman, your geek friend is the proud owner of the new Motorola RAZR V3i:



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And I even managed to trade-in my old Nokia 6260 even after I dunked it in the ocean.
Sneaky!

I Thank You

HAPPY 54TH BIRTHDAY, MUM!

It's my Mum's birthday today and also the night we had our reunion dinner. A big affair this time, it included all of my Mum's (surviving) siblings and their almost-complete families. Absent were my grandfather (who is sadly still in hospital), my Aunt Mary, my cousins Cassandra and Javier, and my cousin's husband Kien Hwee:


Table 1, from left to right; Mum, Alex (replaced by a frowning Marcel), Jeanette, Aunt Jeannie, Aunt Ah Hwa, Joanne, Uncle Raymond, Criszean:


Table 2, from left to right; Cheyenne (in pink), Ana, Aunt Hwee Li, Uncle Dennis, Ian, Dad, Marcel, Mikael, Denise:


Some of the food; prawn and cashews in a yam ring:


Sheng Mian:


Sambal Kangkung:


My Canadian nephew Mikael and his monkey faces:


Mikael with his uncle, my cousin Alex:

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It's always nice to have the family around for dinner, even if the whole reunion thing isn't really a big deal for all of us because we see one another so often!

Keep On Truckin’

Tim left this morning after an 8-hour delay on his flight. Instead of a 7.50pm departure, his flight finally took off at 4.30am.

The departures board in Changi Airport:


His flight delay:


Tim with Mum & Ana:


Armed airport security put in place after Singapore received terrorist threats:


Tim enjoying a vanilla cappucino with his nose while we pass the time in the airport:

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It doesn't feel good not knowing when I'll see him again. During my time in Perth, I felt like I had lost a best friend under some undesirable circumstances. And then I met Tim and we hit it off, becoming fast friends. He was there for me when I needed a friend to talk to and I cannot ask for more from a pal.
Right now, I have plans to visit the States but who knows when. At least I'll get to pop over to Canada and see my cousin Joanne and her family as well when I do. I hope it will be within a year.

I'M GONNA MISS YOU LIKE CRAZY!

We're Coming Home Again

Yesterday, as mentioned, we went to Phi Phi Islands, or Koh Phi Phi as the locals know it. You take a 1½-hour cruiser ride to the island for 250baht or S$10 return.

Aboard the Phi Phi Cruiser:


Tim sleeping (as usual) while we travel towards Phi Phi Don, the main island in the group:


Some island we pass along the way:


We make a stop just before we reach Phi Phi Don to let off passengers who signed up for the boat tour onto a smaller boat:


The two of us looking shit while grabbing a photo op:


As we approach Phi Phi Don, we spot this deserted stretch of beach with a lot of snorkellers and dive boats around the area. We decide that that’s where we wanna be:


Phi Phi Don:


Parasailing on the side of Phi Phi Don where they filmed that silly Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Beach:


As soon as we looked around and discovered that the beach on Phi Phi Don was covered with more White tourists baking in the sun, we hired a motor-driven sampan to take us to the small stretch of beach we spotted earlier:


The beautifully secluded portion of beach we landed on:

Funnily, when we told the boatman to take us to the beach, he said to us “Go see monkey!” and we declined, thinking that he was offering to take us somewhere else. In fact, he was informing us that this was the part of the island that tourists came to watch and feed wild monkeys! One pawed at my bag when we just entered the waters to go snorkelling, probably hoping to find something yummy. Thank god they didn’t run away with any of our stuff!

I told Tim not to feed the monkeys but did he listen? Of course not!


I found a swing and tested it out… Not very glamourous is it?


The beautiful waters:

After two hours of snorkelling and basking in the sun, the boatman came back and took us back to Phi Phi Don where we had lunch at a tiny eatery.

Looks like they had a memorial service for the lives lost in the Tsunami on 26th December 2004:


A plea to the Prime Minister from the residents of Koh Phi Phi, demanding to know why their islands have not been restored as promised after the Tsunami:


The new Tsunami Evacuation Route signs you can now find all over Phuket and the other affected islands:

We stepped back onto Phuket at around 4pm and decided to spend our last night in Patpong. We headed out there by tuk tuk as we had already returned the bike and went for oil massages at a decent massage parlour with friendly masseuses. They massage you naked with scented oil in these dimly lit rooms with soft music playing so much so that it was almost a turn on! I almost dreamt of that sexy guy we met at the YHA Hostel! After that, I wanted to have a nice dinner of Thai food at a proper restaurant and had to plead with Tim to go with it. He finally agreed but I wished he had enjoyed the food as much as I did. Hope the ice-cream sort of made up for it!

Tim with his Corona, and my Pina Colada:

We went back after one last look at all the shops and packed. We settled in pretty early that night for our early flight this morning.


This time, we flew with JetStarAsia and it was just like Valuair (well obviously since they’re now owned by the same people). And like my Valuair flight to Perth, the plane was half empty:


Singapore!

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My return home is bitter-sweet because while I’m happy to be back, I still wish that I were swimming in the waters of the Andaman Sea and watching the beautiful sunsets.