the otters we spotted!

PROOF!

I think I should be keeping the handle closer to my body. :P

Davina looking good! :)

My melb housemate Elaine and a piece of my back and Uncle Robert's arms. 

Hahaha.

The only guy in the group, Louis catching air.

Elaine's colleague, Liling, who turns out to be Louis' secondary school mate...or was it primary school? :P

thinner!

Don't mean to be smug, but I really have lost some weight!

*Clap clap clap*

So happy that I can fit into some of my pants again ... hee hee.

Will post pics of the wakeboarding trip later as PROOF.

Hahaha.

p.s. Congrats to Gary and Huiming on the birth of lil Sophie!

warbleoarding

Am happy we got to go wakeboarding today. :) 

I was amazed, I did pretty well after one whole year of wakeboarding sabbath!

And Uncle Robert agrees. 

It rained towards the end, but the tide was going out anyway, so we were heading back by then.

Will upload some pics tomorrow if I can.

Can't wait to go again, but I think might have to wait till after my Taiwan trip end of this month.

Just finished mahjong with my family.

Now I'm soooooo wiped out I donno if I can fall asleep. 

Beyond the point of tiredness. :P

Ah Ee and family popped by again today and started the mahjong rounds.

Hahaha.

I got us all comfort food from East Coast Lagoon Food Centre for dinner...

Wanton mee with 40 FRIED wantons.

Fishball noodles with extra vinegar (for me).

Pork and chicken satay.

Was gonna get more, but they said Ah Ee already bought like a bucket of Popeye's Fried Chicken in the afternoon.

Anyway, why am I rambling abt food when my limbs are crying out for bed?!

I hope I don't go 'warbling' down stairs tomorrow.

Am off to bed now. 

Good nite!

mahjong revelations

Actually, I needed to come home after service to sleep a little earlier, cos it's been a crazy week, I have work to finish, and tomorrow is another long day.

But my CG was going to Aston's for my sake!!

So how to not go?! 

Had a yummy dinner and happy fellowship with them.

My CG is always, always happy around food. Haha.

Then when I got home, my parents were playing mahjong with my auntie and all-grown-up cousins Rachel and Rebekah! 

I also want!! 

Uncle was coming to pick Ah Ee and the gals up, so I took over and continued with Dad and Mum. 

Then I called Jon and he was just one bus stop away from coming home, so he joined in the next round. Hee hee. 

He's the fastest in the family and he knows all the combinations and what-nots. 

As Jon said, it's kind of a nice feeling to be playing with family, just the 4 of us. 

We usually play with the coins from our flea market float, then we pour it all back at the end of the game.

Anyway, I won a few times. 

And then I realised that Dad hadn't won a single game since I sat down to play.

Well, I kinda started playing to let him win. 

Yeh, I know I'm the most unprofessional mahjong player ever.

But I got that from Dad. Hee hee. 

He'd excuse us from our Monopoly debts all the time, cos he couldn't bear to see us go bankrupt. Hahaha.

Anyway, we were only playing one more round, and I tot it'd be nice for him to end off with at least one win. 

Plus, Mum kept winning when she was dealer so there were like increased chances...haha.

Then, in the midst of all the cards I was giving up, I realised that the more I didn't want to win, the more my key cards would turn up!! Haha.

At one point, I ended up with all those big cards, and I had drawn them myself...eg. fa cai, bai ban etc.

I voiced this out loud, and Mum and Jon agreed.

(Dad can't really follow the conversation unless we speak slower and specifically to him. Plus, he was concentrating so hard on his cards. So he didn't know I was plotting to let him win. :P)

Jon added, "That is the essence of mahjong it seems. The more you don't wanna win, the more you tend to win."

And I thought aloud, "That's like life, isn't it?"

It seems the more you wanna do something for someone else, the more it's likely to happen for you instead.

I just didn't expect the principle of sowing and reaping to be so obvious in one game of mahjong.

Anyway, Dad finally won the last game, with 3 sets.

Yay. :)

I'm finally off to bed.

Tuition tomorrow morning.

And praying it doesn't rain, cos wakeboarding is on after that! :)

Then coming home for another mahjong date with Dad, Mum and Jon.

Think Dad had the same feeling about playing with family too. :)

3 men and a google-lady

I watched 10,000 BC tonite and found Tic' Tic to be sooooooo familiar!

With Google, answers are never far away...

CLIFF CURTIS (Tic’ Tic), one of New Zealand’s most successful acting talents, is perhaps still best known for his role in the family drama “Whale Rider,” for which he won his third New Zealand Film Award, for Best Supporting Actor.

  

See, I knew I watched him somewhere!

I liked Whale Rider so much, and Cliff Curtis played such an emotionally stirring role in it that I donno how i forgot it was him. :P

I think I have this thing for Maori-looking actors.

Just look at how long I was stuck on Jason Scott Lee! Hahaha..

He's still tops though - he can put on the almost perfect mix of arrogance and cheekiness.

And eyes that speak.

Catch him in The Jungle Book and you'll see what I mean.

That was when he was younger though .... He's mellowed a little since, I reckon.

Then again, he's still individualistic enough to do his own thang and take off to become a farmer in Hawaii!

Speaking of which, I'm waiting for The Dance Of The Dragon (starring JSL with Fann Wong and Jang Hyuk).

I imagine it's so named because JSL's most famous role was as Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

I wish I could have watched him in London's West End Stage production of "The King and I"!

He'd definitely be able to carry King Mongkut off.

.

Okei, a decade down the road, I'm gushing again ... but he really does have screen presence.  

Am also waiting for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!

Think I'll take my parents to catch that ... Dad'll enjoy it. :)

Okei, I have other thoughts about 10,000 BC, but I think I'll save them for my HT article. 

Heh heh. 

taking off in my imagination

I asked my CG yesterday, what are some things you can lust after?

We came up with money, flesh, status, people, material stuff ... the usual lah.

But no one thought to come up with WANDERING!! 

Hahaha. 

Okei, corny is the word.

Yes, I'm stricken by wanderlust again!

So want to travel and explore and see more of the world.

Won't get to go anywhere for a while, but if you have breathtaking pics of farflung places, just send them my way! 

I saw a few pics of Iceland recently ... woo hoo, it looks so travel-able ...

Then again, the photographer is REALLY exceptional lah.

Oh, somewhere over the rainbow ... 

cab tales

We've been looking for a missing box from Taiwan since last year. 

Packed in it was Dr. Ulf Ekman's Chinese books and some other books we bought for reference.

After a whole year of searching and pestering the ushers, turns out it got misdirected!

Anyway, it was found recently and sent back to my office.

Imagine my joy to open up and find 2 of my books inside that I bought from Eslight!

One is a Chinese book that I tot was rather inspirational ... and looked easy to read. Hee hee.

The other is called "Tales Before Tolkien"--A collection of classic stories that inspired J.R. Tolkien! 

Woo hoo .... felt like such a great find all over again! :)

And guess what, I called for a cab to take me from work to cell group meeting today.

The extra charges alone were $7 and by the time we reached Cassia Crescent, the meter read $17+! 

But this cab driver was really .... donno how to describe ... interesting?!

We were chatting throughout the journey, but he was interesting cos of something else.

When we passed by the ERP gantry, he told me not to worry, he'll absorb the cost.

Then he stopped the meter a few cents before we reached the block, saying, "I'll give you a discount."

When we finally arrived, he said, "I'll knock off $3 for you."

I took it with a pinch of salt, cos I was paying by NETs and I didn't see how he was going to do that.

As I expected, the metered amount came up on my NETS transaction, with no discount whatsoever.

THEN! Mr. Cab Driver took out his wallet and plucked out $3 to return me!

My eyebrows went as high up as they could, and of course I said, "It's okei!"

He was providing a service after all, and the cab fare hike is hardly his fault.

But he insisted, even going, "Take, just take! It's a good thing I got to send you here, cos I get to stop for dinner. I'm hungry now, passing by the food at the hawker centre."

 

I gawked all the way up.

I've never met a cab driver so thankful to take me, he even reimbursed me. 

Gosh. 

parkRoyal fun

I attended one of the most enjoyable wedding dinners tonight.

As Qinwei aptly puts it, "It's been sooooo long since I've been at a wedding dinner I really enjoyed."

Very spontaneous and warm and generally an awesome feel-good vibe all throughout.

When the couple is well-loved, everything is taken in stride, and even unavoidable technical and performing glitches turn into occasions for laughter. 

And I lurf their well-written wedding vows, esp. Will's!! 

Oohh ... Maybe I can get hold of the words ... heh heh.

Anyway, am glad I was invited.

Here's a big congratulations to William and Ally! :)

Shopaholic goes to town

1pm: Uncle Robert: Sharon, the weather doesn't look good.....I'll monitor and call you again an hour later okei.

2pm: Uncle Robert calls. "Sharon, no point lah. The water is choppy and it's still raining ... Will be a big waste of money and time for you guys to go out in the boat today."

I trust his judgement, so we called it off. 

And he was right. 

It was still raining 3 hrs later.

Anyway, since I had freed up my tuition time slots for the wakeboarding, it means I now had a Sunday afternoon free! 

And so ...... Elaine and Yinqing and I lugged our barang barang on a detour to Orchard!

I wanted to go to Hello! at Ngee Ann City to check out new mobile phones, and YQ wanted to get a bag ... so we thought, why not we hit Tangs first, then just cross over to Taka?

Man, it took us FOREVER to get to Taka! Hahaha.

Cos we are true blue gals of the shopaholics genre you see. :P

Far East Plaza and Wisma will somehow squeeze their way in.

Sigh. I thought, okei we get to save money by not going wakeboarding.

But I ended up spending 3x as much as I would have if I had gone wakeboarding! 

Contemplated taking a pic of my buys to post here, but that would be incriminating evidence. :P

Pay Day has come.

So has Pay-bill Day.