Life through my eyes...

Friday, January 30, 2009

End of 2008...

Following on from my previous post, i'll provide an update about events that happened outside of work! Yes, I still had a life outside of work... although it was rather minimal! :P

The end of 2008 was an extremely busy couple of months. Jin was working through his final project and then had his final exams so we kept pretty low key.

As usual, my blogging frequently revolves around my photo collection and on this occasion, i've decided to stick with tradition. Hah! Also, my memory seems to have gotten worse and I can't really remember so far back. :P

18th November:

We attended Kim Loong's birthday dinner at Asha. It was a fantastic dinner. Best thing about it is that it was a good break from having to cook every night! Hehe... There are only a couple of photos because the birthday boy has yet to send the rest to me. But yeah, it was delicious! The best dish was definitely the crayfish. *YuM-MeEeeeEee*!


7th December:

It had been years since the last time I attended a "Santa Parade", Jin too. So last year, we headed on down to Colombo Street to have a look. It's definitely an event for kids with floats featuring superheroes and cartoon characters. But what surprised me was how cultural floats were included, along with non-Christian religious floats. Surely there should be some sort of selection made as to what floats are included in a Santa Parade, no?

Anyway, my personal favourite was the McDonald's float. I swear, I wanted to eat McDs after that! Wahahaha! :)








18th December:

It was a Thursday night when Seng asked us to karaoke at Boys & Girls as he was flying to Malaysia the following day for the summer. Being a week day, we didn't really stay too long. But in such a short span of time, we had drunk quite a bit. As they say, a little too much, too fast.

Drinking Time! *GuLp* *GuLp* *GuLp*!

Tzin Wei concentrating really hard not too vomit...


Augustine... One after another...


Sing... "With feeling ah..."




- Close-ups -




Couple photos!


...With Seng...


20th December, 2008:

Celebrated Ching Yang's 29th birthday with dinner at his house, followed karaoke and then the bombing session! Crazy stuff~

Yam flavoured birthday cake



The birthday boy/man(?)



Guests...




~ Love birds ~



My dear & my very first flower (cleverly made from tissue!)



Jia Ming & his entourage on a mission




Target acquired:



Mission in motion:



Mission successful!





Those contemplating to further the mission:


25th December, 2008:

We had a small christmas celebration at Ching Yang's house with steamboat and BBQ. No pictures of the food though. Oops~ Just a few photos of the 2 crazy guys who karaoke-ed into the wee hours of the morning~


26th December, 2008:

I remember this day well. Went boxing day sale hunting from 10:00am! A tradition of mine although there wasn't too much to buy. Haha... Then, Jin and I attended a BBQ at Geoff & Selina's house. I didn't take any photos. Everyone pretty much lazed around, sitting under the sun and then of course, they started up a team poker tournament. I decided to keep out of it though. Figured that they were all far too experienced for me to play against.

27th December, 2008:

The next day, we all managed to crawl out of bed (some earlier than others) to meet at McDonald's for breakfast, before heading for either Hanmer Springs or Maruia Springs. The girls managed to sway the guys into driving to Maruia Springs seeing as all of us had never been there. I think we all now regret that decision. Haha!

What expected to be an extra hour, took us an extra 2 hours when the driver of the leading car (*CouGh* Tuan *CouGh*) missed the turning to enter the highway via Lewis Pass. By the time we agreed to turn back, we were way off course!




Needless to say, when we saw that Maruia Springs was located just by the highway, we were not impressed.


I had to take a photo of this sign. I seem to have accidentally deleted the photo of the close-up but if you were not a patron of the cafe/restaurant or pools, you were required to pay 20c to use the toilet. Hah! First time i've ever seen such a thing in NZ. Reminds you a bit of Malaysia huh? Only possibly cleaner... Although the toilets seemed to take forever to fill up before you could flush again. DoH~!


So we paid the $15.00 for the general admission into the pools - Rock Pools, Japanese Pools & Foot Spas.


We first headed down to the rock pools which are situated in open air where we were greeted with a lot of sandflies! (No photo available, sorry) It came as a shock to us that the pools had algae in it which we later found out was extremely good for the skin and that they were proud of it. Bleh! But the sandflies were extremely annoying, so we all scurried to the Japanese Pools only to find out that it was split into genders.



So the girls had a perfect plan to book a private pool (which usually only holds 2 people, or a maximum of 3) for an extra $10.00 per person and call the guys over. Only by the time we had arranged all that, the guys had showered and were ready to head home. So, we spent the 45 minutes in there, while the guys were up in the cafe waiting for us. *fAiNt*!




Upon rejoining the guys, we took a few group photos, before getting back in the car to head for home. Such a disappointment.




We liked the formation of the rocks. Hence the photos! Haha...


Jin and I decided to stop at the Mud House to check if the restaurant was open to dine for dinner and also, for Tuan to catch up with us. Unfortunately, it was closed. :( And, although we took a break to stretch our legs, and take a few photos, Tuan was still far behind! But look at my poser of a boyfriend! Haha...



We were all exhausted but extremely hungry as none of us had eaten lunch. So, we all headed over to Ching Yang's house for a korean BBQ dinner. Needless to say, we called it an early night.

30th December, 2008:

So I received a text, early in the morning by none other than, Mr Lewis Lam telling me that he would be arriving in Christchurch later that day. As I had missed him the last time he was up in Christchurch, I made a special effort to spend an evening with him.

We had a lovely dinner at Ichiban, which is apparently a new Japanese restaurant located on the corner of Lichfield St & Colombo St.


The sushi there is amazing - delicious and well presented but possibly a bit pricier than other Japanese restaurants. Well worth it though.




Then we decided to walk from the restaurant into the Cathedral Square where they were just setting up the stage and lighting for the New Year's Countdown for the following evening. Note: If we look retarded in the photos, it's because we're trying to pose like Santa up there.




Lewis requested for bubble tea so I decided to take him to Dream Garden. Unfortunately, they had just run out of pearls. DoH~! We still bought bubble tea, with jelly instead and then went to Avonhead Park to watch the beautiful setting sun.




Once the sun had gone down, we took a drive to Sumner.


There wasn't much to see there so we decided to head over to the Casino to meet up with Jin. Along the way, Lewis noticed that there was a house up on the hill with beautiful Christmas lighting. With our curiousity burning within, we had to find the house. And this is what we found:







Don't the first few photos remind you of Genting Highlands back in Malaysia? You just feel like you're in a dream land... Absolutely amazing. What's even more amazing is that it's free to view! Such generousity is hard to come by these days~

Unfortunately, because i've posted the photos up this late, i'm sure the decorations would have been taken down by now. But be sure to take a drive out there next year though. If I remember correctly, lights usually come on just after 9:00pm, and tuthisrn off at around 11:00pm. So look out for it! And, the decorations apparently differ every year so even if you've seen them, go again!

So on our way to the Casino, we saw this sculpture which I had heard was wreckage from 9/11. Lewis being typical Lewis, wanted to stop and take a look. He was fascinated by it. If I remember correctly, the plaque explained that the 3 columns had fallen off the 102nd floor of one of the twin towers and had been donated to the Christchurch City Council to acknowledge the hardwork and effort of firefighters.




We finally arrived at the Casino where Lewis and Jin had a quick chat. It was the first time Lewis had ever been in the Christchurch Casino. I couldn't believe it! He then decided to call it a night. It was so lovely catching up with him again. Some things never change. And I suppose, he's probably learned a lesson... There's a lot behind a smile~