Last day...

Was my last day at work today... and I'm starting my new job tomorrow!!! (ok... I wrote this on 30 April, but it took me like a long time to post up pictures...)

Mixed feelings... Happy to leave, yet it's been a long few years with so many close friends around! Now I know why some people say you shouldn't get too close to people at work! - it makes the leaving difficult!

Well, we all caught up for drinks at the Irish Village after... was a good day!

Fujairah

It's summer again! Today, the thermometer shot past 40 degrees. Still, we took a drive out to Fujairah. This place is about 2 hours off from Dubai... right at the Gulf of Oman.


Stopped by the Friday Market. It's Saturday today by the way. Friday market opens 7 days a week. Haha. It was just fruit stalls, little souvenirs and carpet shops all around. The fruits are really good. Especially the bananas - the same ones used for goreng pisang!

Part of the Gulf of Oman

Fujairah Rotana Beach Resort

In UAE, there are round abouts with really strange things used for "decorating"...

the Pot round about

the Dolphin round about

the Oil Lamp round about

Another weekend has passed....

Peru... 09

I just had this urge to go to Peru/Equador end of next year... Anyone???
Did a bit of research... and realise long planning is needed. So well...

Filling in....

I know I haven't been blogging in the last few months. 6 of you have said to me "oey, can you please update your blog?" So well, here I am updating some of it.... It's quite hard updating things that have passed for so long. For now.... here it is... I will upload more in the coming days!

Will definitely do a special one for Yujun and Joon Jae's wedding!

Birthday 2008

This year's birthday celebration was one of the best and longest (ie. multiple groups) in quite a while... My one week break back to Singapore was just birthday celebrations from Monday to Friday. Wheee!! It was cake after cake... from family, cousins, to friends... Missing Singapore already!!

Brownie cake with my name.. how cute! Oo... it was a mean brownie. Finger lickin good.

Joanna, & Rachel. Henry was missing. Thanks for the cake!

Went to Doc Chengs @ the Raffles Hotel for dinner with the family. Jeremy, Sue and Joy are all stuck in Melbourne at the moment. So it did seem a little quiet and strange having dinner with dad, mum, aunty, uncle and grandma. Food was good anyway... Haven't been to this restaurant in ages. At least 15 years i would imagine?

Doc Chengs @ Raffles

After years and years of being overseas... the three of us finally got together again. Well, my birthday was not the only reason. It was Yujun's Hens Day.... since she didn't have a hens night! Aye... let's just call it a girls day out. All we did was eat though....

After not being able to make up our minds where we could go for lunch, we ended up at Bobby's @ CHIJMES. OO.... love the pasta there. So yum.

As usual, we did take a lot of photos.... some really stupid ones in fact. (Ummm, not quite my idea?) Haha.

Ahh.. that was round 2 birthday cake @ Raffles City Basement... some random cafe we popped by. Latte was good. Just like in Melbourne.

And of course.... Present time. Cheryl made me this card... (just like in Primary school days). With little pretty stickers all over. It was a good reminder of those swimming days!

Round 3 of Birthday Celebrations... Melbourne Uni OCF bunch @ Hanabi, Odeon Towers. Japanese Buffet. My favourite. Food was really good. (no my life does not revolve around food - it just happened that way). As usual, Mavis - the walking food directory, organised it... (thanks mave!). Oh... it did happen to be Kaye's bday a few days before mine too.

Ummm.. this time, there was no birthday cake... but we did have a birthday fish each thanks to gideon. (Wel, it was a Japanese buffet after all and the fish was part of the deal). It's funny though. Really funny... and strangely interesting. But well, I have good and strange friends (who are probably reading this anyway!)

And... to finish it off.... Durian cake! all the way from Emi cakes from mum. Oooo... D24 durians are the best!

Why do I miss Singapore again...?? mmmm... I wonder.

Birthday Celebrations - @ Safa Park

It was a cool breezy saturday afternoon. Temperatures were about... mmm... 25 degrees. Not too hot. Perfect weather for a day at Safa Park.

Shan't blabber too much. The pictures speak for themselves.



As much as the tiny Lees had their fun playing catching, football, uno... I think the rest of us had even more fun playing Taboo - the Singapore version!

Jason wanted to kidnap these 2 kids back to Singapore...

And the Birthday Celebrations.... Jordan and Jedi
It was a lazy saturday afternoon. Chilled and Relax! That's the way weekends should be!

the stop over : London - Brussels

Ah... it took me a while to sort out all my pictures. (Well, for once, I didn't really go that crazy with the camera).

I was back in New York in January again for the ASHRAE conference. There was this one particular booth that caught my eyes. Never really heard of it until Edwin mentioned it to me. (and oh, if you are reading this, thanks for putting me up in your little NY apartment!)
It's the Big Ass Fans. The fans they have operate just like our normal ceiling fans, but they're like 10 times the size. Literally Big Ass! Thought that was quite a cool product - especially for ventilation of industrial spaces!


As usual, on the way back to Dubai from New York, I stopped over in London again. This time, Brussels was on the itenary. I had to make use of the under 26 deal to take the Eurostar to somewhere at least once in my life before I had to pay full adult fare! Well, hence Brussels it was.
It was quite a last minute ok-let's-go-trip. No planning. We just took off and went. Lawrence was my travel buddy. I think I can't remember half the places I went... so if I do label something (pictures) wrongly, pleas correct me!


Haha, I had to take this picture at Platform 9 3/4 - the Harry Potter platform. Doesn't look as real as in the movies. Oh well...

@ St. Pancras International Train Station

The streets of Brussels! - all cobbled stones - i like!

The famous Grand Place. It is supposed to be one of the largest and grandest (duh) squares in the world... and was supposedly a market place in the early days like 10/11th century.

More of the Grand Place


Streets of Brussels
Of course... Belgium and its Mussels... and Beer... and Waffles

and definitely not forgetting the CHOCOLATES!
They have got funny paintings on the walls of some buildings... Oh... and we went to see the Manneken Pis. It's just some little statue that pisses. Why famous? I have no idea!
The Cartoon Museum! Met a few of my friends - smurf. It turned 50 this year!

I reckon one of the highlights of all my sight seeing.... is the Atomium. Standing tall at 102m, it is the exact form of a metal crystal enlarged 165 billion times. The Atomium was constructed in 1958 (which makes it exactly 50 years old this year). Fantastic engineering work - structurally... and even the services design (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) were so well hidden and neat! Sweet.

Inside the Atomium - some exhibition, restaurants, viewing gallery. It houses one of the fastest elevators during the 1950s - still running today!
View from the Atomium

Tea time - more beer, waffles and frites (it's just french fries - not french-french)