I have to admit that I was never a fan of xmas, actually it's my saddest day after Valentines' Day. It's always such days which make one think more about loneliness and stuff like that. The days before christmas are quite enjoyable with gatherings and outings but every year on xmas eve, I'm more or less 'alone'.
This year there's a gathering at my place for my relatives to celebrate xmas. Nice food with turkey, cake, hams and knuckles but I was rather anti-social last night. Lingered in the living room to watch TV and eat for a while and then retreated back to my room. Later in the night played dota with my fellow no-life loser friends together with other losers out there and was still in a game when the clock strike 12. Xmas, so what...
As much as I dun like Xmas, Santa doesn't seem to like me either. This year, there's one more reason for me to hate xmas. My portable harddisk broke down. Songs and movies lost can be downloaded again but what I really felt sad about was the photos. At least 4 years worth of photos are gone. All the good and bad memories, there's no way money can buy it. Tried all the methods I can think of: changing com, changing cable and even freezing the harddisk. All failed to work. Now looking for professional data recovery which is going to cost at least $100+ but if all the photos can be restored, I'm more than willing to pay that price.
All I want for xmas is my photos back
Sad as it may be, life still have to go on while waiting for quotes. Had good food with ZX and Wilson in an attempt to raise my spirit a bit, this time at Waruku. First time eating there and my experience is more or less similar to the reviews I read about the restaurant. The food was tasty and the portion was huge but the service is slightly lacking.
Huat 'slave' and 'peasant'
Lastly, this is the song I listen to again and again every christmas, since it's quite a good description of my feelings. Hope I need not listen to it again next year.
Had a Greenies Xmas party at Caelan's house last night consisting of movie marathon, games and of course not forgetting alcohol (lot's of it actually). So we started off with a rather harmless red wine.
大哥是对的
So some of us started watching movie while the rest started playing a game called "Bang!" By then all of us had a plan in mind, which is to down Lewis.
First up, Team 100 consisting of Weiling, Deming and me started to play Daidee with Lewis to make him drink. Sadly none of us manage to make him drink.
Demong and his Johnny Walker
Next up played intra-SMU, again, Lewis survived.
Finally, everyone joined force.
However, I did not know what happened after that because I was a bit down by the alcohol and took a rest.
But when I regained my soberness after an hour or so, this is what I saw. Apparently they succeeded =)
Continued the movie marathon, watching The Fast and The Furious, Internal Affairs and My Sassy girl through the night.
Merry Christmas to all. Greenies, I have uploaded the rest of the photos on facebook. Click here to view or you can request the photos from me when you see me online, but it's around 100mb.
Sort of an annual event for everyone in the NP squad and for this year had it at Timbre.
Did not really drink that much that night, with everyone drinking only one bottle of Heineken each. With beer we started playing the "I had never..." game to expose everyone's darkest secret that we do not know despite having known each other for 7years.
Even Wenwei has some stunning secrets. But what is said at Timbre stays at Timbre.
And of course we have veterans who have lot's of reasons to drink with their experiences. But generally our squad is still very lacking in experience in terms of relationship. May next year be a better year for all and more can break the NP curse.
After some overseas cycling in Desaru earlier this month, it's time for some local cycling at ECP. Since now is the monsoon season, it's not surprisingly that it rained on that day again. Waited till the rain stop before we set off.
Rain start pouring soon after we set off though. So it's always useful to learn one-hand riding so that you can take an umbrella while cycling.
The wet weather program: refer to dry weather program. So we continued cycling towards the kallang area.
We were quite garang (girls and demong not included) that day and hence decided to play soccer in the rain. You can see how wet the pitch is from the photos, but who cares, as long as everyone has fun.
After the short game, continued to cycle down the new connector all the way to Changi Beach. It really make cycling much safer and easier. Used to cycle on the road side by side with the speeding heavy vehicles and going upslopes and downslopes.
Cycled till dark and had our standard seafood dinner to replenish the fats loss for the day.
After much preparation finally we are all ready to go caving and climb up Stong and Ayam.
Had a good meal at Secret Recipe before setting off to the train station
Where true colours start to show at the train station
And it was a happy and smooth ride with card games, chit chat, sleep and confessions of pain
Until the train stopped at a place called Gemas, which was only around 40% of our journey. There we were told that there was flood in the area in front and the train was unable to pass through. We have 3 alternatives: To travel to transit to bus and back to train to continue the trek, go for R&R or return to Singapore straight. So after some discussion,
KL here we come! And it just happened to be my first time visiting KL.
There we spent our 2-day R&R with FOOD!
and more food! (tim sum)
And still more food! (deserts)
And since nothing much to do, caught 2 movies in 2 days as well. Both were nice movies and worth watching especially in KL movies only cost ard S$5. "I am Legend" was not even launched in Singapore yet so we managed to get the first hand view of the show!
Had some retail therapy and photographing while some went sight-seeing. Not a nice place to shop as things weren't particularly cheap so it's more of window shopping.
And finally, it's home sweet home via coach.
Sold off my PSP today, not because I'm bored of it, but because I want to upgrade to a PSP slim. I'm eying the purple colour PSP by the way and gotta get it before school starts so that it can keep me company during the break between lessons.
Sold: My old fat black PSP
My new target: Purple PSP Slim
A day of good food and movie today. Had dinner at Shimbashi Soba. My second time there and the soba still tasted just as good, so is the desert. After which went on to Bakerzin for cakes. Saw several reviews on how good the cakes are and finally have the chance to taste it for myself. The cakes really taste as good as the reviews stated. I had a strawberry shortcake while Bin had the Fraisier. Both tasted great with giant strawberries though I would prefer the Fraisier because of the strawberry liquor in it. It's something like rum in chocolate I suppose, and the cakes are not too sweet and I'm never too full eating them. There are many other cakes available there which look very attractive and I'm sure I will be back there to try out the other flavours.
Watched Alvin and the Chipmunks as well. The Chipmunks are so cute and the songs in the movies sang by the chipmunks rocks as well. In short, watch the movie and get the soundtrack.
By the way, going for a five day trek in Kelantan tomorrow. The conditions there remain bad with continued flooding and people are dropping out of the trek. I've done my prayers at the temple today and hope everything will be fine. And people, dun miss me too much, even though i know it's hard. But it's just 5days, I'll be back soon. =)
More than a week has passed since the holidays started and sad to say this isn't exactly the type of holiday I expected. Initially I planned to have a holidays filled with activities but now I realised that it is too packed for my own good. Since the start of the holidays I have yet to have a single day to slack at home, and this day will not come soon since as of now, my schedule is packed till 18th at least.
Till now, a few days have been spent out with friends (that's good), the Desaru trip and the rest of the time have been spent training in floorball and archery. Ironically I'm beginning to feel the pressure of two CCAs only during the holidays and not during term time. Floorball trainings are taking a bulk of my holidays. For this week alone there's 3 trainings and 2 of them are at RP, which is so freaking far. The traveling time, the training time and the makan time after training will mean that my entire day will be gone whenever there's training. It's especially taxing on me physically too with my dog-like stamina. I got to lower my level of commitment soon before I die of fatigue and think that will be after the selection. By then probably the frequency of the training will be lower and there's more incentives to skip training too.
Archery trainings are getting more frequent too and currently twice a week. Fortunately it is less physically taxing and training is at Potong Pasir which is much nearer compared to RP. However, having gotten into the EXCO as logistics manager, this mean that my level of commitment will have to increase as well. That will sort of disrupt my current balancing of my 2 CCAs as well.
Not too sure it's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm going for a 5-day trek in Kelantan for 5days starting this Friday. I see it as a chance for me to escape from all the trainings to try something new. But this trip is not going to be easy. Got a call from my GL today telling me that the weather condition in Kelantan now is actually quite bad with heavy downpour and flood. Being a white horse in army this might well me my most challenging outfield experience.
I still long to have a day for me to slack at home just reading comics, watching serials and sleeping. When will that day come???
Cycled a total of 105km from Pengerang to Rengit to Desaru for this 2D1N trip. Definitely more challenging than the previous Rengit trip in terms of the distance, the terrain and definitely the headwind on day 1.
Welcome to Pengerang
Away from the bustling city life
The ride from Rengit to Desaru was full slopes like this
GL's inspirational stories
Desaru Golden Beach Hotel
Hao Chi De Dong Xi @ Rengit
This should be the longest cycling trip I have ever attended but I am still craving for more longer, tougher rides. A combination of speed and endurance make cycling one of the sports which I enjoyed most. Surprising, during the return trip the GL allow me to cycle on my own, so I abandoned the group to chiong a few km on my own (though GL has to catch up with me later when the trip IC told the him that it was a safety breach), and during that time I really enjoyed myself, riding at full speed up and down the slopes.
