moving along

i believe each of us needs some inspiration once in a while... to move along..

Marina Barrage

finally made our way to the latest icon of Singapore.. the Marina Barrage.. the last time i only ran passed it during the AHM last yr... quite nice to spend the evening there, but getting there was quite jialat.. dun like the waiting for the shuttle bus though.. VERY unsheltered, very hot in the late afternoon.. getting there is quite trouble some at the moment, even if u're driving there.. road is very narrow.. yb says she misses the old marina, whr there's nth but a big field to hang out, picnic or fly kites...

the best part abt it was probably the elevated grass landing which overlooks the city skyline, capturing a nice sunset.. oh and a nicely laid grass patches for Janielle to run ard quire safely!

for more photos go to my multiply account!

bedridden

almost... feel like juz sitting/lying at home all day... very unlike of me, but been having this very disturbing backache that's been bothering me since last weekend.. i was still ok at 1st, felt like a strain in the back after a couple of runs in the evenings... sth which is quite common for me.. but it became quite unbearable these 2 days that now i squirm with every little movement...(like moving my hands across the keyboard..) Janielle's wrestling out of my arms in the public is also not helping at all...

seems like a muscle strain, according to the doc.. no pain in the spine when she pressed along my spine.. gave me some muscle relaxant and pills for inflammation and pain relief.. hopefully it goes away soon.. so much things i've been looking fwd to do ever since we're starting to settle down at our new place...

photo snooping

been looking at nice photos posted by ppl all over for some time...
so awed by the colours in the pictures, the things ppl see, the moments that were being captured right there and then...

urgh... cant wait to get my 1st dSLR..!!

right now i'll juz play with my P&S and see wad it can do 1st bah...

(taken from http://www.arjunpurkayastha.com gotta give credit to this guy)

girls' nite out

for yb that is... one of her ex-classmates juz came back from the states (i think) and the group of the girls went out for a dinner... so my duty? i gotta pick Janielle up from my in-laws after work, and see throu her dinner, playtime, bedtime shower, and bedtime feed.. and finally put her in bed to slp... all by myself!

i thought it was quite a handful at 1st.. it didn't make it any better that it started to rain the moment i got out from the MRT at Hougang station.. hey.. but it went well.. Jan was quite cooperative.. on the bus journey home other than wanting to press the bell (the one beside us was the only one in the whole bus that lit up and it caught her attention), she didn't cause too much trouble.. and so we got home safely (the rain stopped!)..

i managed to take my dinner (yb cooked for me!) while Jan was playing ard in the house and coming over occasionally for an extra serving of MY dinner.. i gave her some of her leftover porridge from Hg too.. i also took a quick shower while Jan was roaming ard in the living room.. had fun playing with her too! she turning very interactive... it's like she'll pick up sth from the floor, say sth to me, then crawl over and give it to me.. =) by far most of the time she was juz "da-daa-da"-ing away... sometimes we'll hear her going "da-da-da-ah"? as if she's asking a question... haha.. quite funny... she likes peekaboo too...

expected her to be slping late actually.. coz my MIL told me she slp quite a lot in the late afternoon... waking up only at 6pm.. but surprisingly by abt 930pm, i noted that she's was already sucking on her thumb and playing with her hair (i bathed her early because she poo-ed).. i tried to cuddled her to slp on the sofa and she was just lying there comfortably, eyes closed once in a while but nv fall aslp.. then suddenly she got awake again! wriggling out of me and out of sofa.. urgh! last straw... i made milk for her, prepared her bed and put her in it.. passed her milk bottle to her, off the lights and i closed the bedroom door leaving juz her inside.. when i came back for her bottle, she was fast aslp.. yay!!

so i had the rest of the night to myself... watching tv.. surfing the net... munching on CNY goodies... wahahaha.... ShuAng....

CNY post

though we've been married for quite some time (ROM and our customary in 2007, our dinner in 2008), this is actually the 1st Lunar New Year tat yb and myself are spending as a married couple in Singapore, i.e. we do visiting as "adults"... i.e. we give ang paos.. sth else new is that we've got a place of our own so we're also doing some small scale decorations and buying new year goodies for our potential visitors.. didn't take any photos of our decorated place though... mayb i shld do so later tonight... if it's still neat and tidy... ok i'll update this post if i got new photos later on...

most of our goodies we got from our parents, the rest... we got then on new yr day... we went to chinatown after midnight with janielle... it's kinda crazy i know, with the baby in the crowd and all.. but jan was actually fast asleep while her daddy is so ever busy protecting her from the pushing crowd.. so it din bother her at all.. only occasional stirring but she falls back to slp without a problem... we also got ourselves some deco at low low prices! but by the time we're home, we're so beat that we can only put up the deco in the morning...

reunion dinner with my parents

janielle in her chongsam at yb's granny's (jan's greatgrandma)

she got some love-letters in her mouth

visiting my granduncle and grandauntie

last stop! our place...

house is (near) completed!

why i say "near" is because there's still some issues to be settled after the CNY, when their workers come back from their CNY break... like wrong windows installed, half-choked drainage, some minor concrete works and polishing...

anyway here's the "completed" house!

actually the place looks more messy than this, these were taken like day one of our shifting in.. it's been almost a week and clutters are forming everywhere!! Plus to deco and goodies for the CNY....

randomicity

renovation updates 14Jan09

went down this morning to deliver some stuffs which i bought from ikea ytd evening for the contractors to install for us.. and i took some pic! it actually doesn't look like a lot of things has been done, but well... here they are!

the console is still not covered up yet, supposed to haf glass panels.. and tinted mirror near the window.. the hole is still there for the aircon...

the wardrobe in our bedroom.. janielle has a similar one in her room, but with juz 4 panels.. the 5th is actually a small make-up dresser built into the else wasted space for the lady of the house..

the table top and hob is done!

and i also realised that the lightings in the house is done too! expected, but still surprised and nice to see them for myself!

the bedroom

the mbr toilet (shower glass panel not yet installed)

passageway to the bedrooms

the kitchen again

the dining space (supposed to haf a hanging dining light which we haf not yet bought...)

i was trying various combination of the lightings in the living area

all lights up!

renovation progesses

Yep our renovation started in early dec last yr... rushing to move in in time for the CNY... the false ceiling was done up in the 1st week and carpentry fabrication also very fast! till now there's some minor screw ups though (wrong window desighn installed!), dunno if it can be handed over on schedule (this weekend) anot...

these pic were taken last week... not the very updated ones thou.. the very last time we were there i forgot to take wide angle shots (to show the whole thing)!! instead i only took photos of the defects and mistakes the contractors made...

the guys on our TV wall/console (the boss is supervising)

mbr build-in wardrobe

kitchen-left

kitchen-right

half-way done tv wall/console

pray hard for me that everything will be ok and on schedule!!

She turns 1

Random Picture postings...

somebody's sneaking some food...

baby courier

my mini printer repairlady

little vain pot

hoop-catcher

curious fella'

post-trip entry

yes we've been to africa and back... the experience has been good... in 16D14N, we traverse across 2 cities, 3 game reserves, 3 UNESCO World Heritage locations, 2 hikes, 12 camping nites, 5 BBQ dinner and 1 nite at backpacker's hotel..



there's no regret in going there, seeing animals at their wildest, most natural behaviors and interactions.. the giraffes are strong and healthy, the warthogs are nice and dirty, the buffaloes are fierce and mighty!! it's great to know that we're in a reserve where all animals inside (with us as the exception) are free to roam abt and do wadever they wan! the dynamics, and movements and interaction are all self-driven, not some shows... and i think it's also impt at some point on the trip that i find that the whole nature experience is "real"... we were told that we cant go to one of the reserves that was in our itinerary because the drought is causing the watering hole to run dry and the dying stench is in the air... witnessed a fight between 2 buffaloes (over food i think), an injured zebra apparently attacked by a predator earlier (we saw the bleeding wound on its rear and some bite/scratch mark on its neck), a young injured warthog struggling to keep up with its siblings/cousins behind it's mum/aunt... we were almost lunch to a bird of prey! a Yellow-Billed Kite came swooping for our head and yb felt its wing tip on her arm! close one there... the guide suggested that perhaps it's nest is near so we better move on quickly...



the animal safari was the highlight of the trip, in my opinion, even before we were there.. im not too interested in the marine part, and we can get mountain "safaris" elsewhere too... and whr best to see animals other than Africa?? though however there were some points which i think can make it a even better experience.. we were in the safaris in a van, not the open-deck truck u normally see in the shows.. this makes it very limiting for us... our mobility in the vehicle and our chance of getting photos.. and we lost the whole experience of being in a safari.... it felt quite like a zoo, with the same barrier between us and the animals, but this time we're on the inside =(.. and i feel that we could've done more things there.. like night drives and stuffs... on this, perhaps the guides could've recommended or suggested to us... it's a pity... really...

marine and mountain safaris were somewhat quite disappointing though..

we'll talk abt marine 1st.. wad we're "expecting" to see in the marine part of the trip includes whales (we know already not in season), dolphins, hippos, crocs etc... wad was included in our itinerary was juz a walk along the mouth of a river...quite a nice view i muz agree... very extensive sand deposits... nice scenery... we had quite a close encounter with hippos and crocs... but that's abt it... no dolphins nth... we took the optional "whale-watching" water tour.. embarked onto a water vehicle in search for marine games... but nth spotted... not even dolphins... St.Lucia is supposed to be well-known for the UNESCO site there, some wetland reserve, but we didn't go there... god knows why... we only went to the beach... where it's free i supposed.... there's another reserve where we were originally supposed to go too, but it was brought out of the itinerary because of bad road.. we were brought instead to Durban where we stayed a night in a lodge (on beds!! yay!) and went to uShaka Marineworld... the marineworld is somewhat like our Underwater World, but so much bigger, and cheaper and more worth going.. very nice, big, unusual, pretty fishes and marine creatures.. there's even dolphins and seals shows, and water theme park entry included... so that sums up our marine safari...

we visited the Drakensberg (dragon mountain) as part of our mountain safari... yes the mountain ranges were beautiful... but the experience wasn't there... perhaps the guides were unlucky to have clients like us who've been to places... been travelling and trekking/hiking... juz the view from afar wasn't at all satisfying... not at all... i was expecting us to be up the mountains and hiking or camping in the mountains... so was rather disappointing for me... even for the other older couple that was there, they weren't very experience hikers but they've been to places like Nepal, India, Yunan, Turkey... they say the view is so-so... pretty, but so-so... i wasn't too please with the 2 hikes we went either... we din see anything... the 1st one, we din complete and turn back 3/4 way thru... reason given by the guides was the older couple might not want to get dirty... but i think more like the guides themselves wasn't interested to get dirty... the 2nd hike, we insisted that we complete it.. it was a hike at the Tugela falls...2nd highest fall in the world... we saw photos of ppl being on top where before the water falls and imagine us to be there too... when we were hiking and got to somewhere where we can see the bank close, the guide told us, "ok this is the end"... I was like... "what???" i wasn't convinced... i din wanna stop to rest a bit.. i juz rested by bag down and carry on "exploring the area"... saw some hikers further up and asked for directions, apparently we're near the end already... but i thought to myself we hadly gained any altitude, how can we be near? apparently wad happened was that... firstly, this is wad we speculated, the lady guide wasn't comfortable with crossing rocks and streams... so she rather not... that's why we were told "that's the end".. and why we know this was because after we insisted in going further, the 2 guides went ahead 1st... they were supposed to flank us back and front (that's wad they told us in earlier short hikes)... not 2 go together in front...and with the guy guide helping the lady out in front, we were left to cross the stream by ourselves... so end up i had to step in to help... i din mind helping out, haf always been doing that whenever i hike.. but wad irks us was the responsibility of the guides.. and how they told us "this is the end"... 2ndly, we've got the false impression that we'll be at the top of the Falls... if we're to get to the top, we need to take a different route, from a different campsite, a totally different start point...



there' more things, but all in all, im not very please with the trip organised by this company, so im not going to mention any names there.. im juz not going to recommend it to anyone... but taking this trip to africa as a holiday, it was good!! no regrets, gd experience, new lessons learnT.... i'll be back....!

Do visit www.juzride.multiply.com for the selected pix taken in the 2 weeks!

happy new yr!

at this same time last yr, i din know how it feel like to be a dad, and she was having her 5 min interval contractions....

happy new yr ppl!!

the sty

did i mention in any of the entries years ago that we're applying for a HDB apartment? we did! in yr 2005, 3 years ago... so fortunately we got it too... and guess wad... we finally collected our keys early this month (last mth le, since i kept delaying the post..)! woohoo!

anyway until now, we've gotten our renovator/interior designer(ID)/contractor, wadever u wanna call it.. applied and got approval for loan for renovation.. bought the lightings.. bought kitchen and toilet fittings... bought the essential electrical appliances.. bought the essential furnitures.. gotten contacts for window grilles and doors.. now we're just waiting for HDB to rectify the defects we spotted when we took over the unit.. once everything is cleared, we're gd to go!

it's been quite busy this couple of months anticipating the collection of the keys.. meeting up and discussing with the ID was actually very tiring, u know how it is.. price negotiation.. super difficult! ya sure u say it's the customer's rights to negotiate price/designs, they're under our payroll, we haf the final say in everything.. but u know wad they say abt nv offend the waiters/cooks of the restaurants who're going to bring u ur meals later on? i wont wan my renovation to screw up and results in delays, or they giving me substandard jobs or craftmanships.. on one hand if we be less "gey-gow" with them, later on when u need more things to be done in the process of the reno, they'll be less "gey-gow" with you... u scratch my back i scratch urs la...

anyway, here's the list poisons which we spent on.. sigh... and the list is not exhausive...