Mille Crepe

It is so lucky for me that within 1.5 months of joining the new company, I had two times of outing. One was company's team-building at Sentosa and another one is department team-building at Malacca. I get to blend with my colleagues better within such a short time frame. 

Most importantly, during the Malacca trip, I got to try something very special and I wouldn't forget for the rest of my life. It is Mille Crepe aka thousand layer cake at Pahlawan Square. You may laugh at me that it is so common yet I never try. Yes, I never ate this before! I couldn't forget layer by layer of the cake melting literally in my mouth and seeping into my taste-bud. 

Original flavour

Chronology

I afraid my postings might confuse you all.

It is my bad. And it is time for me to make a chronology.

All the farewell posts before Singapore are referring to events happened from July  16 to August 6. 

I reached Singapore on Aug 13 and started working on Aug 15. It is around one month after I worked, I joined my colleagues to donate blood and I fainted (it was on September 9).

Hope this paint a better timeline of the happenings around and on me.

First Weekend before Working

And yeah, finally after weeks of relaxing and enjoying, I got to come Singapore to start working! But I was blessed enough to have two gentlemen tag along with me. Thanks Alvin and Shane. Well, they were actually here for the career fair held on Sunday, but too bad, we were actually conned. Even the advertisement said Sunday was open for non-PR, but when we approached those booths, all asked if we are PR, and said sorry after knowing we are not. *sad* 

Shane and Alvin boarded Tiger Airways,  while I was waiting for my flight.

Entering Singapore. Greener pastures?

After I reached Changi Airport, we then took a cab to my new house! Excited and worried to wonder how would my room be. I saw some pictures from the finding room website, and just asked a friend of mine to help me pay deposit.  We were all very satisfied with the house and room condition. It is really a nice room, and until now I still like it very much.

Toa Payoh HDB. Photo courtesy to Shane

After settling down, three of us went downstairs to see what to eat. And again, I was very blessed as Alvin and Shane helped me to try out a few food and let me know which is nice, and can try in the future. The food in Singapore is dirt cheap! I mean if compared dollar-to-dollar with food in Malaysia, especially KL. We then took MRT (which is less then 3-minute-walk from my house) to Marina Bay.  

Scenic Bay

Concrete jungle!

What are we pointing at? Casino!

After getting our stomach filled at the food court, we enjoyed ourselves with Wonder Full held every Saturday night at Marina Bay Sands.

Vista of Marina Bay

Awesome water-scenes

Dynamic

She was singing "A wonderful world",
indeed she really gave us a strong sense of
feeling ourselves in a wonderful world.

We then sat down on the deck to enjoy the view, chit-chat, and watch people walk-by and take pictures.

This building has no function yet,
but to let tourists take pictures
It is an art-science museum

After that, we dragged our sweaty body all the way to Malayan Tower there to grab the view of the Merlion. We were totally-worn out by the time. 

Merlion, the landmark of Singapore

 But to our surprise and delight, we had another chance of watching the symphony of light!

Actually the water-scene plays and symphony of light are performed together. If you're at Marina Bay Sands, then you can only watch the water-scene plays. If you're at Merlion there, then you can only watch the symphony of light.

Great show!

We were really satisfied with the loads of nice pictures taken on that day (all the pictures were taken without the assistance of  tripod!). But what is more precious, we could again gather, talk about our dream and have some sharing on the random topics!

Black-Out

I think dying is like blacking out. And today I experienced it! 

Well, as you all know, I am a keen blood donator. Whenever there is a blood donation drive, I will surely contribute if I do not encounter menstrual or fall sick. Yesterday my colleague asked me to donate blood together, without any hesitation, I agreed. 

But then I stayed back working until 10pm, by the time, I reached home and bathed, it was already 10:30pm. I surfed net for a while, then went to sleep. But surprisingly, I woke up at 3am, fell asleep again, woke up again at 5am. I guessed I was stressful. After being worn-out at work, I was still worried about my studies progress, which caused me a bad sleep.

When the clock struck 12, we all happily made our way to Fitness First at Raffles Quay to donate blood. To my horror, when I almost finished donating, I felt my hand a bit numb. But I thought it was okay as my colleagues complained that too. Then gradually, I felt I was very giddy and tired, and I told myself to close my eyelids for a rest. And the next moment, I lost my consciousness. I was flabbergasted and scared when I slowly regained my consciousness and sight.  As the people around me were strangers! After a while, when I really "woke up", I only recalled I was at the donation drive. They were the staff there. All I would say was when I blacked out, I was in another world having some tiring dreams. The feeling when I woke up seemed like I was having a long sleep. 

After that, only I knew that I lost grip of the stress ball in my hand, then the staff all rushed to me to stop the blood, and adjust the chair. So it added the feeling more of I was sleeping, as I was lying flat. Then the doctor approached me to examine me, and said some comforting words like it happens sometimes, take some good rest, drink more water and fruit juice, etc. When I asked him if I blacked out, he tried to avoid my question, and kept saying things are okay. 

Our elbow will be wrapped like this in Singapore
after donating blood :)

Soon after, everyone was done with donating blood. And it was my hard time! As I gotta walk under the hot sun back to the office and have lunch! But I survived it and was getting well after I settled down in the office.

The lesson I learn hard today, and I warn everybody, if you have insufficient sleep, please don't donate blood. You're risking your live! 

But if you're fit and healthy, please donate blood!

Power of Editting

Original version

First Edition with dark background

Second Edition with lighter background

Third Edition
(Courtesy from Love to be Loved by You, Marc Terenzi)

Amazed by the power of Lightroom and Photoshop?

Which one you like?

Final One Week Before Singapore

My colleagues had a so-called farewell trip with me one weekend before my move to Singapore.. 

We kicked off our journey early in the wee hours. Practically trip nowadays is nothing more than food sampling trip! 

We filled up our stomach in the morning in dim sum in Ipoh.

Yoke Fock Moon beside the famous Foo San.
Heard that this is better than Foo San

The never-missed order!

I feel that the Lau Sa Pao in Jin Xuan (in Uptown) is nicer

And to my surprise, our food sampling didn't end here. We continued enjoying Ipoh White Coffee,

It serves very aromatic coffee.
But the shop right in front of it serves even nicer and thicker coffee.

The must-try in Ipoh!

and famous Tao Foo Fa at Funny Mountain, 

 

Soft and smooth

 until Rachel complained if our trip is to Cameron Highlands or Ipoh! 

We then only made our way to the top. Along the way, of course, it was not without laughter. And everyone of us reached the tip top in one piece, nobody puked or fainted with pale face.

After we checked in our apartment to settle ourselves and the food we brought from KL for steamboat, we headed to Boh Tea Farm. I never know the way to the farm is so narrow and winding. It is practically just sufficient for one car on the single-path. And we have to be extraordinarily cautious to avoid and give way to the car against our direction. We took a lot of pictures there,

The BOH Tea sign always marks one's foot on Cameron Highlands

and enjoyed our hi-tea with breathtaking tea bushes surrounding us. 

Each of us yearned for that moment to last as it was really relaxing.

We really need to slow down at times in life
to wind ourselves down. It is so rejuvenating!

We then visited a cactus farm to buy some cactus back to office, mainly for two reasons. One is to live up our monotonous office. And another is to let the cactus suck up a bit of the radiation from the computers around! 

Soon it was dusk. We went back to the apartment to rest, to shower, to watch TV, to play cards and to prepare for dinner! Never know that guys nowadays are good in cooking as well! They can wash vege, cut vege, boil soup, wash dishes properly and well! 

At night, guys were having drink while we gals were having our pillow-talk until the guys invaded our territory to invite us for drink.

The seemingly a must thing for chatting for adults in this age.

After that, we pranked on one of the colleague to make him dance and we laughed out loud! Soon it was midnight, some went to sleep, some continued to play cards. The next day, we had Alicia to cook us breakfast! Everyone was so lazy to give her a hand. *felt bad* 

We then drove down the mountain to try food at the famous hawker stalls in Ipoh. 

Red bean

But the food for me is not very impressive. Yet, always the memory outweighs everything. We had some good laughter there.

When we thought that we were so full and all we wanted is to drive all the way back KL, Beng Hui gave us a call asking us to exit at Sungkai to eat pork leg! At that time, everyone was so reluctant to take up the spoon and fork, until he cut the meat to each of us!

 Famous pork leg at Sungkai

We then reached KL at around nine, and after some Facebook browsing, everyone went to bed early to get ready for work the next day. 

Few days after, we had our one last dinner before I really focused tidying up and throwing away my things. It was really a precious meal we ever had.

It is really a fond memory that etches on my heart. This bunch of whacky friends are my one-year-old-met colleagues. But we are blended as one! If I were to say the thing I miss the most in KL, I would say it is this priceless friendship we build.