The Mobile Phone Saga

It first started 3 Sundays ago. I'd been wanting to switch to corporate plan but gotta wait till it's up for recontracting and also required to purchase a new phone.

So finally we're eligible to recontract - I converted to corporate plan and hubby, to bundle plan which enables him to enjoy a 30% discount on his current plan. As for the new phones, hubby had been eyeing on Samsung Galaxy S2 and since we still wanted to own the same phone, I decided to get S2 as well though I'd not forgotten how badly the first generation of Galaxy S performed.

As we sold our Incredible S at a very good price and hubby's $300 top-up was waived, we got to keep a couple of hundreds even after getting our new phones.

That night, I was so frustrated just trying to configure the phone to my preference. And I got paranoid over every lil hiccup/slowness I experienced with the phone (I was still not over with the bad experiences with Galaxy S). My mood was so affected that hubby made the decision of getting me another phone. The next day, we got rid of an S2 and, & without any idea of what phone to get, I chose a HTC Evo 3D. It's real bulky but I thought it should be good.

Besides very unique 3D effect on the pictures (the objects taken looked soooo real!), there's seriously nothing else to shout about. What's worse, I couldn't receive emails & even Whatsapp wasn't working! Tried living with it for a week & I gave up! Last Tue, hubby & I went back to the vendor & sold him the phone... it's so nice of him to take it back at a very high price (as high as a new set buy-back). After a day's consideration, I decided to get a relatively older phone - Sony Ericsson Xperia arc. But finally, I'm a happy girl. It's so slim & light & the camera is good! ;)

I'm fussy about phone - good camera, sound messaging/emails response & prompt internet connection. Whereas hubby's is simple - messaging apps & emails must work well. We liked Incredible S but it lost out on the camera & dropped calls pretty frequently.

Few days ago, we sold & bought again. This time round was hubby's who also gave up on his S2 as he, too, was unable to receive emails. Everyone's been raving about S2... so think we're the only 2 who think otherwise. So hubby joined me to be an arc user and got another round of "profit" as the selling price of S2 was higher than the buying of arc:)

A Cuppa

It feels nostalgic at the first sip of Dome's Iced Mocha with Gelato. It's my first coffee drink many many years ago (I don't drink pure coffee) & still liking it, though I don't take often now.

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It's A Long Week ...

... after yet another 4-day long weekend last week. To be exact, we'd 2 x 4-day long weekends in Aug.. so nice... Looking ahead, no PH for the next 2 months... Yawn~

The last long weekend started with a sumptuous dinner at a Thai restaurant at Robertson Walk, just next to our ex The Bar (& where Newsroom was previously) :)

Ordered too much... also had 6 pieces of Super-sized deep fried spring rolls that're not in the picture. But their Phad Thai and Tom Kha Gai were good & we'll definitely go back again for these 2.

A month ago, we found this nice Thai restaurant, SomThai. The modern yet cosy setup was appealing. The few segments of live piano music was also excellent for chilling. But we already had dinner then, somewhere we haven't been to for a long long time - the once very famous ba kut teh at Mohammad Sultan... where I used to frequent during The Bar days including a few times with my then-suitor now-hubby haha. Anyway, we decided to have a drink at SomThai instead. Hubby had his usual Hoegaarden while I had their SomThai drink with coconut liquor & we ordered some bites too..... My drink wasn't a nice one but that didn't deter us from going back. Visiting Mohammad Sultan has always been a good one, with so much to reminisce...

Celebrated mum's birthday on Sat.. we'd hi-tea @ MBS' Rise. Not too bad but the spread at lunch (& dinner) is more eloborated.

Pots of TWG tea (we all had Chamomile except hubby had Earl Grey) that came with the hi tea. We like.

We'd a long day out on Sun - after church, we went Millenia Walk.. wanted to get something from Parco but the brand was no longer there. But I got to indulge in my currently fav choco marquise (i ate 1 there & bought 2 home!). Then had dim sum lunch @ SAFRA Mount Faber. 3rd stop - Victoria Secret @ RWS. The last stop was ION where I bought some skincare products from Sloane. Usually on Sundays we'd try to be home very early to (mentally) prepare ourselves for another week's work. But we're not working the following day, so we could stay out late.

We didn't do much for the next 2 days... just stayed around the neighbourhood and went slow with activities... It's just great ...

Wedding Dinner @ Mandarin

At hubby's cousin's wedding dinner @ Mandarin Hotel on the last Fri of July

We all were pretty impressed with the special layout of this ballroom on the 35th floor...

We're sitting in the heart of the ballroom.. surrounded by 2 tiers of tables

A clearer look at the ballroom (pic from Mandarin's website)

Fullerton Heritage

Beautiful Saturday it was.

A quick pasta lunch before I'd my facial at Sloane's latest branch @ MBS. A relaxing 2 hours :) But still prefer theirs at Ion.

A full range of cosmetics & applicators... & this powder room is bigger than Ion's.. & I'd the privilege of using most of their cosmetics for the 1st time;)

Decorated uniquely with lots of bulbs... So is the entrance.

It's already late afternoon when I was done (& beloved hubby had waited patiently for 2 hours). Our next stop was Raffles Place.

Level 33 @ Marina Bay Financial Centre. Enjoying craft beers..

.. & the captivating view. Love the ambience & the excellent service. We'll definitely be back for more.

After MBFC, we'd an exposure to the Fullerton Heritage. Strolled from MBFC to Custom House, then Fullerton Bay Hotel, One Fullerton... & to Waterboat House (& read some history about Captain William Lawrence Flint, brother-in-law of Sir Stamford Raffles). Had been to Boathouse's Prelude with bosses & colleagues for drinks... very beautiful view at this open air rooftop bar. I so wanna go back with hubby. One day soon k honey? Hee.

Our long walk ended just right as we parked our car at UOB Plaza. A wonderful night... as if we're back to the courtship days... & I want more;)

Long Weekend Again!!

A cuppa super huge Green Tea Latte for my honey, Earl Grey n choco marquise + carrot cake pour moi, @ Ion, kickstart our long weekend! :D

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New Toy

Called vPost on Wed to enquire more about the delivery timing.... just so I could try to make sure that mum was around to receive it. If I missed this delivery, I would have to wait till Sat to get it from the post office but I was too excited to wait till weekend to try my loots! But their response was exactly like what hubby told me earlier on. If only hubby still working there, he'd have performed the same stunt he did 3 years ago - I bought a set of clip-on hair extension from UK & wanted it urgently. So hubby monitored my shipment & once it reached the processing centre (not sure what exactly it's called), he intercepted & got it just before COB! :P

Anyway, I still got my new toys that evening! :D

My Friday look. Colleagues thought I permed my hair!
It's supposed to be curlier but I 'un-curled' a lil as preferred it that way for a start.
The colleagues said it looked nice! Hee.

Jose Eber Pro Series Clipless Curling Iron

So these are the 2 hair sprays that caused delay in having my parcel...

Sedu Moisturizing Heat Protecting Boost

Sedu Beach Beauty Sea Salt Spray
The coconut scent is soo nice to smell! And it's effective in keeping my curls.

After more than 12 hours, the curls still looked ok;).

Love how easy the curls can be achieved. Just couldn't do it right in the past when I used curlers with lots of curling lotion.

Can't Wait !

Made 2 online purchases from different sites end of last month. Both with free shipping within US... so great, thought I'd use vPost again. The last time (but it's like 4 years ago?) was quite a pleasant experience & saved about half of the shipping costs if sent direct.

Told them to ship the 2 purchases together. Both were delivered to vPost USA without any hassle. But for 1 of the purchases, vPost asked for the Material Safety Data Sheet for the 2 haircare sprays I bought. Asked from the merchant, F, & we're told to contact their manufacturer. Called the manufacturer & after passing us around & putting on hold for more than 20 minutes, they said they couldn't provide as it's supposed to be F who'd provide. So we're extremely stuck... having my purchases stranded at vPost USA with F & his supplier refused to provide what was required. So grumpily we made a call to F & after another long round of on-hold music & then with us trying to explain our situation to them, they said would look into it & revert. When I previously bought one of such sprays from F & got it shipped direct to me, I didn't have any problem. Guess that's the advantage of paying more to the merchant for direct shipping.

We're contemplating to have the parcel returned to F & then shipped directly to us. That'd be another long process with additional costs. So thank God that after a few days, F came back with 1 MSDS... only for 1 of the 2 products. But we thought that's good enough.

And while we're corresponding with vPost on this matter for almost a week (with the different timezones, their responses were R-E-A-L-L-Y slow), without asking or notifying me, they 'silently' went ahead to send the other parcel of falsies to Singapore prior to receiving the MSDS of the other parcel. Hallo~? They don't listen to instructions!? So! Double shipping costs!!

SoOo upset. Thought would save us quite a fair bit by consolidating my purchases.. who knows! Ended up having to co-ordinate between various parties & take weeks to get my purchases. But have checked... we still save about S$40 on shipping. And I know, next time will only use vPost for dry items.

Got my box of falsies last Thurs... Happy:) And been tracking my F products & it's just reached Spore last night! :D Can't wait......

The French Label

Last year, before I returned to where I'm working now, Ben called from KL & said he planned to bring in a mid-market French label, Axxxx, as their KL/Spore franchisee. So he's looking for someone reliable to run the show for Spore's. Axxxx ever made its presence here years ago, in a boutique in Scotts Shopping Centre & I used to like this brand after buying a nice pair of pants. I also bought some pieces when I was in Paris. Their collection now is so different &I must say it's undoubtedly a good change! After a week's exchange of emails & smses, Ben came to Spore together with A's Managing Consultant, Ziad, from Paris.

It's an interesting afternoon. Ben, Ben's nephew (grandson of Sxxxxx Group who'd just graduated.. a humble & friendly young chap), Ziad & I had lunch in Paragon. After lunch, all we did was walking in the malls... Ziad was formally from Mango in Spain & being an expert in setting up new boutiques all over the world, he's here to observe the fashion trend & identify places with good human traffic flow that's suitable for A. It's fun talking with him... he seemed to have endless stories & jokes. He even said if I joined A, I'd be invited to the Paris fashion week or even some fashion shows in Milan;) Ziad was really bent on bringing A into Spore soon.
So we 'walked' Paragon, Ion, Ngee Ann City, 313, Mandarin Gallery & the last stop was Vivo. Moving around wasn't a problem as Ben had his Estima from KL & I just needed to give some road directions to the chauffeur. In the evening, hubby joined us for dinner at Vivo.

Hubby felt excited for me too. The half yearly buying trips to Paris seemed really attractive plus I've all along been interested in this line. But couple of days later, after all the WOWs & ecstasies of the possiblity of working in the fashion business, I thought about the number of hours I'd have to put in every day... including Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. It's not gonna be easy as manpower wouldn't be sufficient at the startup stage... it'd be like working office hours + retail hours (though could be flexible in the working hours). So I was like 50-50. I couldn't let go of the stable working hours yet I was greedy, couldn't resist the opportunity to do something I liked when it came my way.

We prayed about it & asked God to take control. Few weeks later, Ben called & said it's a no-go for the moment as he hoped he could focus on KL market first. Disappointed... yet I was very relieved that I didn't need to clock irregular/prolonged hours. God closed the door for me :) Then, since end last year I'm back to where I started 3 years ago.... after switching a few jobs, trying to find myself. So a 9-5 job is what I really cherish now and thank God, my health is getting better ;)

Recently I saw Axxxx in the fashion magazine. Ziad must have had brought in the brand (now selling @Robinson's) through someone else.

WWF

All thanks to Con... Hubby n I are now addicted to Words With Friends (mobile scrabble). Over the weekend we actually played 2 games (with each other) concurrently! Hee...

What's good about the game is we can play anytime anywhere n at the pace we want :)

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Mani Interest

The last 2 weekends I sorta experienced the life of a manicurist, hehe.

I DIYed gel nails!
A trip to MagicBoo, a beauty products wholesaler/retailer (great recommendation from hubby dearest!), led to a damage of about $100 & an interest in DIYing my nails.
Gathered a few other lacking items from Far East Plaza & voilà, this is my very own Gel Nails Kit! ;)

This my 2nd attempt. The 1st was quite a mess.. so I redid it 2 days later on Mon when we're both on leave.

This was done last Sat. Much better but still got lotsa room for improvement. The nail on my ring finger is actually an extension that I did. Not bad at all right? :)

Total bill for this kit - $240 (including the UV lamp that's @ a cheap price of $42). I just need to do 2 nice sets to break even... & I'm already 1 down, haa (hopefully it lasts at least for 3 weeks though)...

You see, once you start to do gel nails there's a high tendency you get hooked. Or is it a self-justification?:P For CNY & some other special occasion I think I'll still go to my manicurist as she does a really great job (but very ex.. + extension + french + Christmas/CNY surcharge = $140!). So on normal days when I just want my nails to look polished & maintenance free, this a good way ;)

But it's definitely no ez job. Thousands of kisses to my honey who's, as usual, so ever supportive of what I want to do... ran around with me in search of the missing products, not only once or twice... even in the late evening all the way from home to AMK! And staying awake into such 'early' hours just because his wifey has taken up a new interest & at exploration stage..

I'm very sure now hubby knows about gel nails even more than many ladies out there, hee!

Routines

Nowadays I'm so short of time. To consider that for the last couple of months we knock off on the dot & head home straight. The road condition is normally good before 6. After settling dinner, it's usually 7ish that's including getting our next day's breakfast which is taking more & more time to settle as we're out of ideas (of what to eat in the morning) since we're quite overdosed of the usual ham+cheese bun & such...

There seriously isn't much time left after we reach home. We'd only manage to catch 1 or at most 2 episodes of TVB drama while hubby gives me an hour of foot massage before we Zzzzz. Most of the weeknights, we sleep before 11pm because I try to wake up before 6 & hit CTE before 8 to save ERP charges. We've been paying $6.50 on a normal day (on some days when there's massive jam on CTE or we left home late we even paid $9.50!!!!!) till more than a month ago I needed to get to office early for a meeting. Have we realised the amount we could save from ERP! From $6.50 to S2.50... & a much smoother traffic.

Every day passes so quickly... before we know it, weekend is here. We spend every weekend together & it's always short & never enough.

Time passes so fast... week after week... & half of 2011 is gone now.

MBS weekend

A walk on a Fri evening :)

We'd a Korean dinner earlier just opposite my office but I was greedy. So we'd tea, cake & some snacks @ Beanstro

Birthday celebration on the following Sunday. Round 1 @ Bazin.

Presents for the June babes & dude.. Hee..

Round 2 @ High Society. Intriguing interior ;)

Spectacular

Today we're invited by Marina Bay Sands for a site visit followed by lunch. Impressed by their service... they actually provided transport to & from the hotel as well. Enjoyed the tour & the food.... the view was impressive ;) A lil embarrassing to say..... it's actually my 1st visit there! Hee...





Coincidentally, we're going there tomorrow & on Sun!

Great Ones

Weekends have always been great... especially if it's an extended one...

14-17 May

Started our long weekend with a bottle of ice wine ;)

K session + lunch @ K Suite on Sat

Spent the whole Sunday afternoon @ Tampines 1. Taking a pit stop & indulged in some NYDC ice cream :)

JB, here we come! After so many years, it's the first time we drove there. Decided to do so as we expected to get some bulky items (mainly mine). And traffic was considerably good since it's Mon. But the roads have changed so much... to think that we're once quite a connaisseur on JB roads.. haha. With the convenience of getting in with our own transport, we bought a lot.. including a box of Beard Papa (so much cheaper there) & some Coffee Bean cakes for our supper :P

Couldn't do without our usual Kim Gary lunch & Baskin Robins treat.

Early dinner @ Sushi King was so so only... but we like their Ginger Soda. It's surprisingly refreshing... nice!


We stayed home almost the whole of Tue. Beloved hubby did my long overdue lanyard. I'm the Design Director, he's the Operations Director, haha.

This one of the 2 done by hubby. It's so pretty... love it!! ;)

21-22 May

After 3 years, we're back to Flamingg Mangos for a great dinner on Fri night. The food was good & it's so near our home! And we'd 2 pint of Hoegaarden ;)

Our Sat totally filled with various errands & in the midst..........

We found a very tasty Tom Gha Gai (Thai coconut chicken soup) at Bishan's Mata Thai. Yummzz... It's just so hard to find a good one! But the pork knuckles was such a disappointment.