Hakuna Matata

dropping a few pictures to date the day cixian and i walked the helix bridge to marina bay sands for the lion king musical. :) this was almost a month ago! i enjoyed the musical - props were fantastic, but i felt that the singing ain't that great. another musical crossed off my list!

i have been having so much fun in melbourne so far. :D i'm only left with 4 more months till graduation, that is too quick!! imagine working 10 hours a day, with only weekends off and no holidays given! my god. i think this is my first time saying - i don't wanna graduate so soon! i'll miss this lifestyle and melbourne so much.

Smiles on a Sunday

went out with sister, yenlin, for lunch at strictly pancakes on sunday. i'm not really a fan of pancakes as i find them dry, and i usually just eat one. i prefer waffles anytime, because at least they have some crunch! but to my surprise, the 'lemon curd for the nerds' pancakes i had were awesome. chocolates pancakes were moist and they were topped with lemon zest, custard and cream to balance the sweetness. sister's 'strawberries & co.' pancakes were great as well. however, having a medium stack is just way too much. we couldn't finish them, jelat.

guess where was i? yes, the railway tracks near railway mall! whenever i drive past railway mall, the amount of people standing on the bridge just amazes me. i keep thinking to myself, what's the big deal about it? little did i know, that i would be actually walking on the tracks on the last day that it was opened to public.

to some, it might be the significance of the place. it could be meeting their best friend there (a reason yongbin gave?), taking their wedding photos there, or prolly for the elderly, a route that they have always travelled on since young when entering the neighbouring country. but for cixian, yongbin and i, we simply wanted to hang out before i fly back to melbourne tomorrow. so... yongbin suggested taking a walk there.

among all the trips that i've been back since trinity. this is the most amount of times i met up with this girl. random jogs around our estate, bali planning, bali trip, bali 'de-briefing', group gatherings, shopping, eating, and sleepovers. couldn't have been better!

same applies to yongbin. not forgetting the numerous long phone calls i have with him whenever i'm at home and he's in camp!! the funny thing is, i realised that i've only started to become real close with him after studying abroad. i guess the distance doesn't matter when someone means so much. it just depends on whether you wanna keep the friendship going. right?

some 'artistic' shots that yongbin randomly took with my camera.

to the fellow kumaleh members, don't get jealous huh! you guys mean equally as much to me though you're not specially mentioned in this post. my holiday back here would have been so dull and boring without meeting up with you guys, i had so much fun!! :)

Back From Bali

Day 1 - at Kuta Beach, right outside Discovery Shopping Mall. we visited so many beaches, and always made it in time for sunset everyday. we went clubbing almost every night, but not late/early enough to witness the sunrise by the beach.
Day 2 - a morning picture outside our pretty villa before we head to Nusa Dua Beach for water sports! we did parasailing, flying fish, jet ski, scuba diving, and banana boat! thank god i didn't get major sunburns. check out our i love bali bags that we bought at a not so cheap price since it was our first bargaining experience there. i like how cixian and i wore similar tanks with no planning at all.
Day 3 - at Dirty Duck Diner for lunch in Ubud, feasting like Kings and Queens. seafood dinner on Jimbaran Beach while watching sunset was awesome as well. we had the best meals that day. food in Bali is not that great and not that cheap, that's a downside i guess.
Day 4 - this jump shot was taken at Canggu Beach, a 5-10 minutes relaxing stroll through the quaint countryside from our villa. we failed to visit Tanah Lot Temple as we, or rather yongbin and i, woke up only at noon and had to leave for the airport at 3pm.

i cannot guarantee if i will blog more about Bali, so here's a really short summary which doesn't do justice to the amount of fun and laughter we had in the short 4 days. i will however do a video and post it up here. photos are all on facebook, restricted to friends of course. alternative way to know more about the trip, view cixian's blog.

i'm already missing the life in Bali. the purely relaxing lifestyle - no stress, no pressure, just nature. not forgetting the fact that i went there with 3 of my closest friends where secrets don't exist, and the boys who constantly kept cixian and i laughing throughout the trip. the funny slangs, the random singing, and inside jokes. ahhh, the life!

Friends Like These

i had such an awesome night out. then again, when are times spent with them "un-fun"? it was crazy and hilarious, a state i'll try my best not to be in again. my life long friends, a title that they are most worthy of. to our dear queen cheryl, happy birthday. <3

i'll be flying off to KL in approximately 9 hours time. till then y'all! :)

Best Buddies' Birthday

feels like it has been quite some time since i last blogged. life in melbourne is just so busy, studying every single weekday and having fun on the weekends. sadly, this can't last any longer. the content of final year subjects are not simple, and the mid semester tests are just 2-3 weeks away!

so one month ago, we celebrated yongbin's and cixian's birthday together at bram's uncle's bar - handlebar. i suggested the place since bram would be present, and the steak there is awesome! oh my god, i feel like having some NOW.

love how handlebar is decorated. biker cool dude theme. coincidentally, it was handlebar's last night at alexandra road as they have moved to a new location. it was so crowded and we waited for 1-2 hours for food!

bram, our waiter for the night!

so we basically spent the wait time taking pictures, playing pool, and talking. love my camera's effects, pictures are uneditied, awesome!

the wait was worthwhile. that steak is really some good shit. love it!!!

ended the dinner with a birthday cake from awfully chocolate! i love this picture, look at their eyes, they can't take them off each other. :)

an addition to our pathetic collection of full strength kumaleh shots.

ended the birthday celebration with clubbing at rebel. the ratio of girls to guys was 1:3! thank god for warren and yongbin who stuck to us the entire night. another final year's break has gone, and i still have not visit the club on jiak kim street. ZOUK! need to go before i turn 21.

Miss These Girls

on a saturday afternoon (2 months back) where 5 ladies were having dim sum at raffles hotel's royal china. how outdated.

i just woke up from a dream. it was weird, they all (these girls) changed their hairstyles. very funny ones.

Twentieth

here are some of the many photos we took at my birthday brunch at HOUSE, barracks cafe on the 30th of January 2011. glad that my two groups of girlfriends could get along, and was happy that they were there to celebrate my birthday with me. of course, not forgetting rachel who was in aussie land.

i know i'm so late in posting up pictures of recent (?) events on my blog. that's just because i'm so busy. will try my best to update as frequently as possible, a few snapshots will do the trick i guess. to my friends who want to steal photos, get them from facebook!

well, i'm back in melbourne and have been going out every single day since. easily getting used to the life here after being away for 3 months - city shopping, movies, tram rides, clubbing, and eating. i've been having so much fun since last december, which makes studying so difficult for me. lectures, tutorials, and libraries, here we go again. i can tell that year 3 is no easy piece of shit.

It's Supper Time!

have been having late night suppers for the past 2 fridays. on both nights, we had G7 frog lee congee. the first was at bukit timah, and the second was at geylang. it is really so delicious and SPICY. i couldn't stop myself from eating that tender meat and drinking the black sauce despite getting my lips burned from the chillies. two thumbs up. :)

so anyways, headed down to orchard last friday to meet up with yongbin after work. we did some last minute chinese new year shopping till late while waiting for the others to come. finally, we all took a bus and went to geylang. either my first or second time there.

we ordered 4 big pots of frogs and 2 big pots of congee, shared among us 9. the food was really tasty, i feel like having some right now!! definitely need to bring my family to G7, they will love it.

ordered marmite fried chicken, tou fu and osyter omelette as well. thank god me and yongbin skipped our dinner, if not we wouldn't be able to enjoy our supper to the fullest! everything was so good.

we finally have a complete kumaleh group picture, and that's after years. we ate from 11.30pm to 2.30am in the morning. i was so tired by the time we finished eating. struggled my way through all those "after supper talks", before cabbing back with emma. the rest then went to neverland. i admire their energy.

maybe that's because i'm working, hence more rest required. speaking of citi, i'm loving every single day at work. the journey back and fourth is unpleasant, but i do enjoy the rest of my day. everyone in office is so nice, helping me out with work, buying me lunches and treating me to drinks. my colleagues are more like friends to me, i better treasure the remaining 3 weeks. next internship, a different department of citi? :)

Officer Zhou

my blog posts are really not in any chronological order, since i haven't had the chance to compile all the photos from the past events in the last 2 weeks. just an hour ago, i realised that i left the whole of gold coast trip out from my blog. how could i? it is such a good memory that i must have at least a picture or two on this webpage. shall find some time!

so last saturday was spent with cixian and yongbin. the main reason for the meet-up was to attend junyang's commissioning parade. but we decided to go for lunch in town and to get our chinese new year shopping done. so glad i've settled my clothings from day 1 - 3.

please try the fishball noodles (dry) in ion food court. it's so freaking good. i'm forcing my colleagues to go there for lunch this friday. :)

in ben sherman where we waited for our dearest yongbin to try out shirts. guys take as long as us girls when it comes to buying clothes. trust me on that. oh well, one polo costs 170 bucks. i guess that comes with 30 minutes of contemplation. or more than that.

my favourite spike d. introduced it to cixian and yongbin, and they love it. i wouldn't mind having a big one as my 20th birthday cake. sounds like a great idea since my family are all durian lovers.

after a 45 minutes jam in the cab on the highway which costs us 40 bucks, the 10 minutes wait at the safti guardhouse due to the heavy rain, the 5 minutes stinky army car ride to the parade square, the long long walks in the huge safti camp (which looks really amazing!), the stupid drizzle that we had to walk under, and poor yongbin getting his shoes soaked through, we finally met our officer zhou jun yang for a short 10 minutes. only to take a photo and to collect an ang pao since yongbin saluted him. from there we hopped onto the shuttle bus that took us to jurong point. that wasn't all, junyang had to do extra army time just to see us. what a precious photo, right?

Legal Freedom

my dear xiaohan turned 21 on christmas eve, but she had her birthday celebration at copthorne king hotel on the 18th instead. i had lots of fun at her party, nice meeting up with the whole big swiss gang after not seeing them for almost a year. in less than 2 years, there will be more 21st birthday parties coming up. :)

xiaohan had a christmas party theme, hence all the different head gears. thank god for daiso, nice and cheap. we had normal party food and drinks, and were all so full in an hour.

photos and more photos! basically snapped through the night with so many cameras being around us. that alone, occupied so much of our time in the room. the group picture of us on the bed gives me a very gossip girl feel, i like that. haha!

we never fail to gamble during big gatherings. this time we also played drinking games like 007 and 7-up. thank god i'm not too bad at them, i really dislike drinking. haha! finished one bottle of martel real quick. junyang was totally gone before we left to club. love the above picture of us, we all look so happy!

we had a great view from the balcony plus sinting's camera takes so pretty pictures, hence the numerous shots.

everyone left the hotel at different timings to different places, while warren, junyang, cixian, jieying, evonne, and i were the last to leave and we went to zouk. sadly, it was way too packed that we had to head over to rebel to club, leaving junyang there with his friends.

first time at rebel and i really enjoyed myself that night. it would have been better if i was in flats instead of heels, and would have probably stayed longer at the club. music was really good especially towards the end of the night. :) warren had a really busy night since he had to look out for us 4 girls. however, the shepherd got bored in the last hour and went to hunt for preys. leaving his sheep to fend for themselves against those hungry wolves out there.