Dayna.me » Gatherings

Stepping closer to the 23rd mark

Dayna — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 12:28:16 +0000

Another week before I turned 23. Not much thoughts except I’m really starting to feel old. Although I got to admit there isn’t anyone who thinks I am older than my actual age yet. Thankfully. I spend my Sunday hanging out with the girls before we met Mr Pink¹ for dinner.

Nice scenery, quiet place, good music, juicy steaks, cakes, pasta, you name it, we have it!

We took lots and lots of pictures. Just because, I’ll never want to forget beautiful memories like this.

Not to forget, they got me something on my wish list!

I can’t help laughing at the “Terms & Conditions” written on the back of my DIY Happy Lemon Vouchers. They are creative, I don’t deny. In fact, I am starting to believe James has some hidden designing talents while looking at those vouchers. It’s still a mystery how they managed to get hold of my National identification number. I’ve no clue!

On a last note, I am super in love with the lace skirt from Lacepipe. I’m not usually a lace person but their stuff are really awesome!

I hope he does not read this. I might get assassinated tonight if he does.Then again, he rarely ever wear any other colours except black, white, brown and grey.

Happy Dad’s Day

Dayna — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 06:33:17 +0000

Our whole family mistakenly thought Father’s Day was this week instead of the next and so we had an early celebration. It’s been some time since the last major family gathering¹.

I rushed home from work to be greeted by these wondering darlings and not to mention the food, food, foood. Dinner was good, supper was good. Is there anything that aren’t? Although I got to admit the day didn’t start off too well with me spilling tea all over my office desk. I hope ants wouldn’t be the first thing I see when I enter the office on Monday.

Look at these rainbow-coloured macaroons, who wouldn’t love them?

Have a wonderful day, dad! It’s my pleasure and honour to be your daughter.

I could not even remember when was the last. Chinese New Year perhaps?

Yours truly is not a beachy person

Dayna — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 12:08:23 +0000

You get the point. Except for swimming, I’m not a very outdoor person and being dubbed the “vampire” by some of my friends is no joke. I don’t hate the sun and it doesn’t kills me either but definitely not a fan. Rain 1 Sun 0.

But still, we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun. It’s been ages since I last saw some of those lovelies¹. It seems like jump shots are the highlights of the day with us competing who is the better photographer. I am not going to comment because I wouldn’t want Sharon’s fist to collide with my face. =p

Yee Loong, also known as “The Statue” was dragged into a random shot with us. He’s the one and only who brought a book to be beach². And if you are wondering why most of us are carrying fans, they are gifts from Yee Loong from Philippines! He always gives the most practical gifts at the right time. We needed wind desperately. I think because we were constantly fanning ourselves, the guys called us “The Tourists”. Please welcome us to Singapore!

The day ended with us having dinner at Vivo City. How about a short getaway trip the next time?

I reckon Huaian may send an assassin after me for calling him a lovely.
I think he brings a book everywhere he goes to.

My first food hunt!

Dayna — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:50:17 +0000

I feel guilty for not blogging in a month and so here I am blogging about something that happened last weekend. Rather than making excuses like I don’t have the time to write a full post, I reckon I will just make do with small photos posts every week. Sounds good?

This will be a rather wordless post so enjoy the (poor quality) photos.

I went food hunting with the gang and seriously, it’s the best day ever!

Bumbu Restaurant

A Thai-Indonesian Restaurant at Kandahar Street. Food was pretty good, fresh fish as well! Though I’m still wondering why the interior deco of the place has some Chinese “flavours” in them. It was about SGD70+ for 6 dishes. Definitely a must try!

Bumbu Restaurant

Interior decorations in the restaurant

Old paintings on display

Group photo of the day

Check out their website at bumbu.com.sg for more details if you are interested!

Ah Chew Desserts

A very popular dessert shop at Liang Seah Street. It was very packed when we arrive and waited for seats for a while. Not bad but I still prefer the ones from Hong Kong and Macau (definitely right?).

Ah Chew Desserts

Sneak peek at the menu

Our desserts!

Tom’s Palette Homemade Ice Cream

We visited the branch at Shaw Tower and they have lots of unconventional flavours for their ice creams. Tried the Lavender, Oreo Cheesecakes, Lychee with rose etc. Good except that James nearly dropped my iPhone after taking the following shot.

Tons of ice cream sticks after trying the different flavours

Visit their website at tomspalette.com.sg for more information.

Rive Gauche

Take-away cakes at Suntec. Shared the Strawberry Shortcake with Jess. My only comment: The strawberries were really sour!

Delicious French Cakes

Say hi to the snowman

Nantsuttei

Discovered this when Chewy wanted to try it desperately since he’s a noodle lover. I have only tried the normal ramen and “Happy Couple” Gyoza. Funny name for dumplings! Not to mention the adorable pig at the bottom of the bowl. Some of the staff are Japanese and they are really friendly.

My favourite ramen

I promise I will take more photos during the next food hunt!

Blogger’s Camera. Action. Cut! Episode 1

Dayna — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 04:25:24 +0000

I have finally decided on the blog title for all future blogger’s meet up with the girls – Blogger’s Camera. Action. Cut! Our meet up is more like an unconventional photography session. Impromptu meet up with Brenda and Cherlynn yesterday at Bugis for dinner. Ivy is down with a flu and Terry is still in Malaysia so they couldn’t make it. Somehow, I manage to drag myself from Bukit Batok to town after a long day at work to meet up with the girls. I swear my legs and eyes were deactivating and running low on battery already. We were supposed to meet monthly but due to everyone’s hectic schedule, we haven’t met up since April? Anyway, here are some of the crazy shots we have taken. All photos credit to Brenda!

Left to Right: Cherlynn, Brenda, Me

We look like flies squashed on the walls

The love of bloggers, not each other!

Brenda absolutely (loves) it when we do the peace sign

Honey, we got squashed up again!

Konichiwa

Charlie Angels!

I feel like my life is revolving around sleep, food and work. I need to get out, blog, socialise (not like I’m not socialising before) more and GET A LIFE! Girls, we are going to stick to the plan and meet up every month. This also reminds me, I should really start blogging more. 20 years down the road while looking back at these photographs, I will laugh at myself thinking “Gosh, I can’t believe I did that!”. I won’t be going to Illuma in the next 3 to 6 months in case someone goes “Oh look, that’s one of the crazy girls from the other day”.

K-box session up next! Stay tune for the next episode of “Blogger’s Camera. Action. Cut!”.

Birthday surprise!

Dayna — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 05:45:40 +0000

We had a gathering co-organised by James and I to meet up with Huaian who came back to Singapore during his school vacation yesterday. I was extremely surprised when these adorable fruit tarts with smiley faces popped out in front of me as an early birthday celebration. Who doesn’t love these freshly home-baked low sugar fruit tarts with love from Jess? Honestly, I’m so touched they took the effort to “secretly” planned everything and Jess’s effort for waking up at 9 in the morning to bake the tarts. I feel loved! I didn’t suspect anything even when Jess kept walking around and sneaking behind James. I thought she was asking him to show her where’s the washroom. I thought that was odd though.

They taste as good as they looked which reminds me I should get the recipe from Jess and try this at home sometime. The custard tastes heavenly!

We dropped by Mind’s Cafe and found a new game which was really fun! True colours is a game where players attempt to best anticipate how others perceive them. Each round consists of several private ballot votes on who best fits a particular question. Once votes are entered players guess at the number of votes they received for that particular question. The better your estimate the more points you make and the winner being the player who best understands how others see the player. I ended up as the one with the lowest point. Hopefully James will get this for his board games rental site! It’s really fun and entertaining playing with people whom you know.

We went to Bottle Tree Village for dinner and got lost on our way there because the taxi drivers didn’t know how to go there. We chalked up to about SGD 30 of fares. That wasn’t the worst part because the walk back to the bus stop was so creepy. There wasn’t much street lights and no one was walking along the road. It was like a mini night adventure similar to the night walk during our secondary 4 adventure camp but I swear I’m not going there again without a car. It was horribly inconvenient!

On a last note, thanks guys for the gift, tarts and wishes! I really appreciated your thoughtfulness and everything.

What happens when 4 girls are put together?

Dayna — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 03:38:02 +0000

Fun, laughter, jokes and embarrassment are what you get if you put 4 girls (who are all bloggers) together. I meet up with some fellow Singapore bloggers, Ivy, Brenda and Cherlynn last Saturday during our monthly meetup session. Terry, our wonderful organiser couldn’t make it because he was sick. With one more guy, it would be a blast! We miss you Terry, hope you get well soon. We meet up at Relax Bistro at Somerset 313 for lunch and here’s a peek of what we had.

Delicious looking soup

Grilled Chicken

Cherlynn is totally (not) camera-shy!

After a hearty lunch, Brenda suggested going to the flea market near by. As I’ve never been to a flea market, I gladly agreed, so did the rest of the girls. The last time I tried to go to a flea market, I spend 2 hours trying to find my way, got lost and never made it there in the end.

Come to think of it, I’ve done a couple of things I’ve never done before that day. I have never withdraw cash from an ATM machine nor have I ever been to a flea market before Saturday. I can explain myself. Let me see, the probability of Dayna losing her wallet is 10% and the probability that she will drop some cash when she opens her wallet is 30% which is about 40% in total and this is considered high risk. To mitigate the financial risk, it’s safer for her to bring lesser cash when she leaves the house. Sounds cool? Since it was my first time, I thought it was normal that I inserted the card in the wrong direction! Ivy helped me on that and Brenda even conducted an interview with me. I feel grown up to have finally used the ATM machine (lol).

We conquered the flea market! - Photo by Brenda & edited by me

Flowery vintage top

The flea market was packed and we had a hard time trying to escape. We went across the road to the other flea market (I’m not sure if it’s suppose to be the same one) beside Cineleisure. It’s quieter and we had a better time shopping if you ignored the hot weather. Everyone bought something and I’m no exception being a hardcore shopaholic myself.

I got myself a brand new vintage flowery top for SGD 18. It was priced at SGD 20 and Brenda manage to bargain to 18 for me. Lesson learn: always try to bargain if the tops are above SGD 15. According to the girls, the top is so me! They practically know my style 101% in an hour. I thought the photo of us above is so “blogger-style”.

We were melting by the time we “conquered” the flea market. Some air-con shopping and Sakura flowers sounds like a good plan? We headed to Takashimaya excitingly to view the exhibition of live Sakura flowers and here’s what we saw…

Click here to view the embedded video.

This fantastic video is taken and edited by Brenda. You should definitely check out her post and Cherlynn’s about our outing. It has an extremely unflattering but cute (according to her) photo of me and I’m definitely not going to post that photo of myself here. :P

Sakura flowers & a really cool pose - Photo by Brenda

Cherlynn and I look kind of dumb beside Brenda’s awesome pose. It’s kind of funny how all of us did the peace sign in a lot of photographs to piss Brenda off. =D The awesome pose ended with a bang as well as Brenda fell after a few seconds. I think a few others saw it but we were too busy wondering if Brenda’s okay to bother about the attention. At least her effort was not in vain as Ivy managed to capture this great shot of us. We should all do the star jump pose the next time we meet!

The day ended with more shopping and jokes, of course. I will proudly present the joke of the day award to Cherlynn (I’ve got a feeling she’s going to kill me for this). So what happen exactly? We were trying out some clothes at Fox. Cherlynn tried out this grey superman tank and denim shorts. We thought she look great in it and urge her to grab the top. She thought the denim shorts was a bit too short. It all happened within a few seconds when she asked the big question: Do I look like a hooker in it? And the next moment, this was what we heard over the speaker: And you ain’t nothin’ but a hooker. According to Brenda, this song is titled ‘Hooker’ by Pink. It was so much of a coincident that all of us burst out laughing uncontrollably. I feel bad for exposing her in this entry, how about a little cartoon as compensation?

Cartoon illustration of the awesome photo above

A brand new year with lots of new memories

Dayna — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 04:28:49 +0000

It’s the start of the new year right after Christmas. A very happy new year to you and I wish this year will be filled with lots of new and happy memories for you no matter which part of the world you are in! I had a blast during the small Christmas gathering at home and the countdown towards the new year is not an exception either. We held a not-so-small family and friends gathering at home. I love holding such parties in the comfort of my own house. It’s much more comfortable and I like how the entire house is filled with noise and laughter.

On a side note, I realised I fulfilled a few of my new year resolutions for 2009. Reading back the post I wrote at the end of 2008, I managed to get at least 50 marks for each of my UOL papers in the 2009 examinations and I got myself a new wallet as well. 2 out of 4 accomplished in the last year! I hope I managed to get those for 2010 done as well.

Presents for myself - Slingbag and wallet

Here’s the delicious looking dinner we had:

Sausages and bacon

A sumptuous dinner

Instant pizza!

Black forest cake

Benjamin is definitely enjoying the food

Sharon and her signature scarf

Sing towards your 21st

Dayna — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:34:28 +0000

The gang went out to celebrate Sharon’s belated 21st birthday yesterday. We went to sing at K-Box, followed by dinner at Waraku. The lamest joke of the day was when Sin Yin asked James if he could rap and Yee Loong replied “I can crap”. That was so hilarious!

Happy Birthday, Sharon

My favourite macro shot of the day

I really like this photo showing everyone's presence

Somehow they always laugh when I'm taking photographs of them

Getting really engrossed into the song

Peach Sundae - This ice cream is love!

Scallops and chicken baked rice

Delicious pasta

Group photo

We took a short walk from Orchard all the way to City Hall and I noticed they are putting up the Christmas decorations already. I have to say that the Santa isn’t adorable at all. A bigger head and a smaller body would definitely looks cuter than a smaller head and fatter body. On a random note, I couldn’t wait for Christmas to come. It’s the gift exchange season again and it’s time to love and share! Is there anyone in Singapore who would like to do a gift/card exchange?

Christmas decorations at Orchard Road

Yee Loong also gave me some tips on taking night shots and gave me a short lesson about shutter speed and aperture. I think Orchard is a good place to take night shots in Singapore. All the newly renovated buildings have fantastic lightings.

Orchard Central at night

Make a wish

Dayna — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:56:04 +0000

Yesterday was our scholar’s¹ 21st birthday! Happy birthday my friend. As your official photographer of the day, here’s a photo collage for you. =p I would have given you a tiara as a special gift to wear on your birthday had I found one. I should have borrowed Terry’s². That would be so exciting.

Happy Birthday, my friend

Jen Yi’s our top student so I named him “the scholar”.
Terry had a tiara on his 21st birthday as well.