On a side note, I actually drew the above illustration for my own Christmas cards but couldn’t find a inexpensive place to print it. There’s usually a minimum quantity of 100 to 200 and I don’t need that much. I only got to know of a shop at Bras Plaza that does printing for $1 per card with minimum spending of $30 from Ivy when we meet up for lunch last week. Hence, I will just leave the handmade cards for this year since it’s a bit too late to do that now.

I spent Christmas eve at home with my friends and family. We didn’t want to hang out at the parties due to the crowd. So Dad cooked steak and we had Christmas dinner at home. Michelle joined us for dinner and mahjong session as well. No turkeys on the table though.

We had a small gift exchange session and here’s Francis, Michelle and my sister with their presents. The panda Michelle’s hugging is from Chewy. He bought it in Hong Kong and she’s utterly soft and adorable. Definitely the cutest panda on earth.

My sister showing off her new iphone. She’s been waving it in front of me these past few days! I’m super envy because I’m dying to get my hands on an iphone. I’ll wait and get it next year.

It’s our custom to get a Christmas cake every year. Ta-da! This is our log mango mousse cake from The Icing Room. We couldn’t find a small log cake for 6 so we decided to get this instead. I was surprised when the cashier asked me if I want any candles. Does anyone put candles on Christmas cakes?

Joke of the day:
Mum: Is there cheese in the cake?
Dad: Yes, there is cheese in basement 1 of the cake.
Me: LOL! Our cake has basement 1, 3, 5 – mango mousse and basement 2, 4, 6 – chocolate sponge.

The cake is delicious though. Everyone gave the thumbs up for it.

I received this card from Huaian today. I was really touched. It has a photo of us taken 6 years back and he still has it sent all way from Australia. I love it Huaian! Thanks so much for the awesome card. I hope to see you back in Singapore in Feburary.

This is from my sister and her boyfriend, Francis. My sister gave me a beautiful necklace from Gold Heart which matches all the tank tops in my wardrobe.

That’s it for today. Hope you have fun on Christmas eve as well and have a great Christmas!

• Happy Merry Christmas
• Christmas Gathering 2008
• Our DIY cake

Haw Par Villa

Haw Par Villa¹ is a place in Singapore which was filled with tourists and visitors a decade ago. But now, it’s just a deserted place; lifeless and forgotten. My parents brought me there when I was 5. My memories of the place was fuzzy and I couldn’t recall much but we did took some photographs there. The place was huge and there was lots of activities going on. Everyone was walking around taking photographs and the kids were given balloons. That was how the place was like 16 years ago. I brought mum there yesterday as it has been a really long time since she last went there. The entire place was empty and we were the only ones there. This was not how I remembered it to be.

Empty and forgotten

The paint on the statue is peeling off

Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist religion

This park contains lots of statues of Chinese folklore and legends. It’s actually a very interesting place to visit. It used to have more in the past but the park has reduced dramatically in size over the past few years. Most of the paint on the statues are peeling off and the lamps are broken as well. I feel that some serious maintenance for the park is required. This park is suppose to be a tourist destination but what was happened? There was no advertisements or marketing done to promote the park has a tourism destination. I seriously hope something will be done about it. This place contains some valuable Chinese teachings and it would be a pity if the park was left to “die off”.

A peaceful and quiet place

The Chinese Legend of White Snake

I'm glad to say that there are still some form of life left

Beautiful and colourful statue

Lots of algae in the pond, I wonder if it's meant to be like this

A Chinese quote

Wishing well

Ten Courts of Hell

MV Doulos at Vivo City

We left after an hour or so. The weather was so terribly hot. We hopped on to a bus and alighted at Vivo City. I spotted the “GBA” logo on a ship near the harbour. My first thought was “The book fair has arrived in Singapore?”. I was so excited that I dragged mum onto the MV Doulos² right after we had tea at the White Dog Cafe. Security was extremely tight and the ladder leading to the ship was so steep, I almost fell off.

There are tours available for the public at SGD 5 per adult to tour around the ship. There are many varieties of books such as children, cooking, baking, educational and bible for sale. The books are extremely affordable and I saw many mummies buying lots of story books for their kids. We walked around and I took some photographs of the ship. There was even a clown around entertaining and having fun with the children on board the MV Doulos. I regretted not taking a photograph with her. She was so cute and funny!

MV Doulos

Safety boats of MV Doulos

MV Doulos

I snapped this photo of Star Cruise on board the MV Doulos

Vivo City

The clown

How could I resist not going to shop when I’m at a mall? =D Shopping is my way of relaxing since school is literally killing me now. I guess most should have know that by now. Believe me, if I went home empty handed on a shopping trip, I am out of my mind. I bought 3 items, not 13!

Bod Organics White Tea Cleansing Gel

Chomel Crystal earrings in yellow and black

We were about to left when I decided to bring mum to the National Geographic Store³ since the National Geographic channel was one of mum’s favourite. I spotted this pair of not-so-stylish-but-extremely-comfortable pair of shoes on one of the shelves. It was love at first sight! I don’t usually wear such sandals/shoes because it’s not really my style. However, this pair was so comfortable that I couldn’t resist. It was made from leather, recycled ones if I’m not wrong. The brand name “National Geographic” is imprinted on the strap of the shoe which this one of the reason why I love it. It isn’t my best looking shoes but definitely one of the most comfortable. Their clothings and accessories are really nice even though the price tags aren’t. I was SGD 99 poorer when I stepped out of the store.

Shoes from National Geographic

National Geographic official product tag

For more photos of the entire trip, please drop by my flickr.

1. Haw Par Villa is a Chinese mythological theme park in Singapore which contains over 1,000 statues and 150 giant dioramas depicting scenes from Chinese folklore, legends, history and illustrating various aspects of Confucianism.
2. The MV Doulos is the world’s oldest active ocean-faring passenger ship. She is now owned by the German charity: Good Books for All, and is used as a floating bookshop.
3. I wasn’t aware that National Geographic sells clothings and footwear etc aside from magazines.

• Shopping loots from Hong Kong & Macau
• Adding another slack day to my schedule
• Sing towards your 21st

Skincare and Haircare products

Facial Masks

Gifts for Chewy

Body soap, lip balm and massage bar from Lush

Do-It-Yourself Kits and toy figurines

Cosmetics products

Blushers from H&M, Lavshuca and The BodyShop

I'm a collector of lip glosses/sticks

Makeup brushes from Sasa and Missha and eye shadow from Lavshuca

Adorable pouches at HKD 10 each

Bracelets, earrings and key rings from Temple Street

Bracelets at HKD 15 each

Owl earrings at HKD 20

Mickey and Minnie Key rings

• Hong Kong & Macau Trip – Part II
• Hong Kong & Macau Trip – Part I
• Kuala Lumpur’s shopping haul

We love taking photos!

My love enjoying his icy cold lemon tea

We ate at this cafe which I can’t recall the name. The food there wasn’t great seriously; the baked rice taste horrible. It tasted more like coconut rice and I couldn’t even smell the cheese. This is bad, really bad. And I feel that we got cheated into eating there because it’s suppose to be a main course + soup + dessert. There was no selection of desserts at all, just plain ice cream with 4 flavours worth a dollar. How did we know it’s worth a dollar? Chewy wanted to change it to ice lemon tea which cost $3.90 and we were told to top up another $2.90. Plus the single scope was pathetic.

The un-tasty baked rice

We went to the Sky Park for a stroll and this is the “beautiful” view. I kept thinking about the movie Transformers while looking at this photo.

Beautiful view (Insert sarcastism here)

Loots of the day: Chomel's crystal hairpin and vintage butterfly earrings

This is kind of random but I took this photo of the rainbow at my Grandma’s place last week after the thunderstorm.

Rainbow after the rain

• Teddy bear christmas tree and lots of food
• Happy Merry Christmas
• Ikea madness

Panda-O-Box - My Sketch Book

I got myself a sketch book to house all my little doodles and drawings. I named it the “Panda-O-Box”. Technically speaking, it’s not exactly a box but a book. However, that’s the first thing that came to my mind and I like it. Maybe it’s because I love drawing myself. I’m a panda! anda: I think most of the pages will contain panda cartoons and maybe some other characters. I’m going to draw my house on Happy Panda Island. If you are unsure of what I’m talking about, check out Mr Chewy’s page. I think the coloured version on the right looks nicer but anyway, I can’t really colour. But I swear I am going to learn to colour properly after my final exams. For now, I shall do the shortcut method and colour it with my trusty Photoshop. I got new supply of stationery as well… some new pencils for drawing. It’s damn hard trying to draw with a mechanical pencil.

Bracelet from De Silver

Mum got me a new bracelet from De Silver today. I worn the previous one (also from mum) for around 4 to 5 years already. This new one has little fake bells on it. I love it! It looks really special and I love everything with bells on it. They make the “ting ting” sound I love so much. Oh and please ignore all the ugly freckles on my hand. I use to swim a lot so my sister always say my hand look like my grandma. :cry: No amount of hand cream could salvage my wrinkled skin. :cry: My sister’s hand is wrinkle-free, supple and looks like a baby’s hand. The fact that she’s also 3 years older than me make me so envious. On a side note, does anyone know how much it is to send an SMS to a UK phone number? Specifically talking about the Twitter international number.

• An extremely rough sketch of panda land
• Tweet tweet tweet!
• Little things like these make me smile