My first Christmas order. Recipient was really pleased Woohoo..

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and here’s wishing you a great year ahead. Enjoy the rest of 2007 because I know I will.

Loy Krathong is a festival celebrated annually throughout Thailand. It is held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai Lunar calendar, in the western calendar this usually falls into November

“Loi” means “to float”. “Krathong” is a raft about a handspan in diameter traditionally made from a section of banana tree trunk, decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, incense sticks etc. During the night of the full moon, many people will release a small raft like this on a river.

Since most of us weren’t staying in Bangkok till Saturday - the day the festival falls on, our Thai colleagues invited us for a pre-loi krathong session at the hotel. Before we released the mini ‘raft’ into the hotel’s man-made water feature pond (no choice, there wasn’t a river in the city), all of us made a wish.

Bad photos taken with my phone. That’s my little floating raft. Hopefully it was cruising to the right channel to get my wish across.

Love without intervention. Why has it become so hard? :\

to be continued…

But then again, isn’t normalcy for the ordinary?

Have a good weekend everyone and Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

In celebration, mommie whipped up a feast for 10. She must have forgotten that there’ll only be 5 of us dining! Haha. Any festival, be it for the Chinese, Malays or Indians, she finds a reason to celebrate through meals. Don’t get me wrong, the family ain’t complaining.

We had all our favourite dishes: Steamed chicken, honey chicken, roasted duck, char siew and spare ribs, stir fry roasted pork and leek and mushrooms with brocolli. Mmm mmm.. and steamed yams too! Drool drool!

The li’l boy pokes mei-mei’s nose just before I accompany him to ‘play lantern’

He asked me a really smart question:

• Boy: Yiyi, how do you play lantern?
• Dreymer: You just carry it with a stick. And you walk around in the dark.
• Boy: But Yiyi, why must we have a candle in there?
• Dreymer: So we can light up the candle to illuminate the lantern (poor boy, I used a four syllabi word on him, like I have not confused him enough)
• Boy: But why?
• Dreymer: Umm.. use the lantern and point it to the floor. We have to look for ants!
• Boy: But I don’t see any ants! Where are the ants? (Looking at the ground)
• Dreymer: …… hey, look at the moon! So big and round!
• Boy: (Distracted) yeah, it’s so big!

See, I wasn’t lying. It was full and round And I think the ants were asleep.

Pretty illuminated lanterns… And how did you spend your Tuesday night?

She has finally arrived! The stock brought her to our world a little early but she’s a healthy bouncy baby. She looks exactly the same as her brother at birth. A replica of a tiny eskimo baby.

Yippee! I am an aunt again!

Happy Chinese New Year to all of you! May the year of the pig bring you good health, wealth and…. basically anything you want!!!

As usual, will balik kampung. See ya after the break.

Also known as.. Valentine’s Day.

Mom: Are you coming back for dinner tonight?

Dreymer: Yessss.. why? Are you cooking?

Mom: Umm.. eh, you do know that it’s Valentine’s Day tonight or not?

Dreymer: Oh yah horrr….. umm… so what’s for dinner?

I didn’t quite forget that it’s the dreaded V-day today. I was woken up by SMS-es at ungodly hours wishing me happy Val’s. Not an invitation to go out but just to wish. How very, very nice and thoughtful. SMS very cheap now is it?! Basket.

This is my first year not celebrating V-day. After a couple of years of being attached and always having a plan for the 14th, so this is how it feels like to be single! Ahh.. so desu ne! Don’t worry, I am not going to lash out any anger or jealousy or burn down any building ala Stephen King’s Carrie. I’ve always liked V-day no matter how many times I’ve heard others comment that it’s ‘overrated’, ‘commercialized’, ‘V-day should be everyday’ blah blah blah. You can say all you want but if your gf or bf did something special for you today, you’ll love it, wouldn’t you? V-day is so cheesy! NICE!

Don’t get me wrong, media planners! I am probably the worst person to target for such ‘gimmick’ because I believe that V-day is supposed to be SIMPLE. I think that to achieve simplicity, it takes more thought and effort. It shouldn’t be a day planned by chefs or a chocolate marketing team.

Simple can be easy if you remember why you are with her in the first place. Once you’ve established the reason, whatever you say… whatever you do… how you look at her in the eyes would all come out naturally. If she’s particularly meticulous and has that attention to details, the emotional connection is more than money can buy. Even a Titanium card has its limits.

Some people would like to get a Prada. Some people wouldn’t mind appearing front page with 999 roses. Some silly girls like me just like to be reminded why we love and why we are loved. This sentimental trait in me will kill me one day but hey, I love the giddiness of being in love.

Oh gosh. I think I’ve just said out loud that I’ll make an el-cheapo date. *gulp*

Happy V!

*Squeal!* In the spirit of the year of the pig and that the Chinese New Year is about 17 days away, here’s something to get you in the mood. This little pig is too cute to resist and my friend knew that I would want to own one! The cholesterol-free and semi-guilt free piggy is filled with lin yung (lotus paste) and your guess is as good as mine; I’ll never eat it!

I got an empty email from her with the picture attachment.

Immediately I replied with a “what does that mean?!”. She must think that I’m sucha dud to not understand the legend on the left of the indicator. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to interpret this!

Me: What does that mean?

She: +ve means pregnant, -ve means not pregnant (I bet she was rolling her eyes typing her reply to me)

Me: It looks -ve but then why would you bother taking a pic and showing it to me if it’s a -ve!

As you can see, I have totally no experience reading/using this. Oh yes, thank goodness for that as I am in no rush to want to use this! Apparently, the horizontal line is usually not so prominent, so you can’t really blame me for wanting to be REALLY sure about reading this right. Anyways, I’m so happy! Happy for her. Happy for them. Happy for everyone

YaY!

I know! Shh.. don’t say it! This is a summary of NYE 2006.

Dinner at Dragon-i, Centerpoint for Shanghainese food.

L-R Clockwise: Mushroom dumpling, custard bun (I love!), siew loong pao and Scallion pancake.

I-Zen at Mont Kiara

And it started here.. while waiting for the lift, Gerry whips up the camera…

I counter-attacked and this is what I got: a sexy Martha Stewart bbq-ing dogs. Nah, did not attempt to test the food. Hygiene was questionable. Hee hee

I missed the countdown because I was in the midst of peeing in the restroom. Ah, I guess I pretty much missed the whole point of celebrating NYE. But I got out in time to watch the fireworks which was blasting right in front of us. Beautiful.

Jil and Gerry mersmerized

Fireworks

And more pics over at my multiply album for friends only.