HP coming to an end!

i've re-read HP 7 : Deathly hallows over the weekend to prepare for the movie part 1.
again, i cried over the same parts when doby, lupin etc died.
i mean, i cried when i went through snape's memory with harry.
and i teared again when i read what harry told albus about snape 19 years later.
sigh. im snape's biggest fan lor.

caught the show with hubbi & yz. it seemed to be a lil' violent for yz?
i guess he will be a better age to appreciate part 2 next year?
to him, voldemort is just a botak notti uncle with super flat nose lor. LOL.

of cos, the show doesnt live up to the book.
to those who didnt read the book like hubbi, the show was confusing and not that engaging at all.
i;ve to admit its kinda true but to many like me who've read the book, watching the show is just a closure to the series.
watching all the scenes jumping out from the pages to the big screen puts a smile to my face. :)

being part 1, this movie does not have the requisite climax and hence tends to plod along for some parts.
well, it stays pretty true to the book so im not complaining much.
cant wait for part 2 next july.
i'll leave the mourning part of the true end of the series to that time then.

Teambuilding @ Hanoi

I was at Hanoi for 4D3N from last thursday for team-building activities with my colleagues!

initially, i must said i was not at all glad with the prospect of flying all the way to hanoi just for teambuilding activities. @_@

i really really dislike flying for work.

and hanoi, or any part of vietnam, is really not on my travel map for the next.... 10 years perhaps. :P

and and.. to leave my boys for such a long time really gets me worried.

my faith/trust in the husband to take care of just yz alone is simply not enough.

well, things played out well by themselves.

and im glad to say that i did kinda enjoy the trip.

and the boys were fine under hubbi and my mum's care without me. :)

day 1:

reached budget terminal at the unearthly hour of 645am. @_@

first time there and its really pathetic.

the good thing was check-in and the flight over there was very smooth.

im impressed with tiger pilots. :)

arrival @ hanoi around 10+am

shuttle bus catered for us to our hotel - Sheraton! :)

after checking into the hotel and some freshening up, we were good to go for a city tour around hanoi!

our group of 14 pax booked a van & a local tour guide to bring us around.

1st stop: lunch! we were famished!

lunch was at this food court place

pricing is around S$2 for a bowl of noodles? 15,000 dong is approx. = S$1

this is my main dish - BBQ pork pho!! its really good! the pork tasted just like bah kwa! *slurp*

we ordered alot of other misc side dishes and desserts and ate ourselves damn full!

in the end, it costed us ard S$6-7 per pax! cheap n good!

anyway, hanoi is really quite boring to me.

most of the shops there are abit pasar malam pattern and the things being sold are mainly sourvenirs type.

im not v impressed but apparantly the aunties in my group managed to buy tons of things. LOL.

hanoi has LOOK & M

hanoi has N& M

but........ no H&M lor.

and the traffic is kinda bad like some countries.

motorbikes all over the place, coming in all directions.

yet its all managed so well that accidents are quite impossible. its amazing.

the bikes look like they gonna crash into one another, right.

but that never happened! im surprised!

we escaped back to the comforts of our hotel rooms at 7+pm.

hanoi city is really not for me, after all. but i kinda like the food.

so all is not too bad.

Day 2: Team-building activities @ an orphange

we didnt know what we were doing until we reached hanoi.

i was very glad that we will be helping needy children with our activites, no matter how small the gestures may seem.

i was dreading ala-amazing race kinda activities for the longest time...

about 90 of us reached the orphanage early at 730am!

some of the kids looked pretty excited to see us, while some were reserved & shy.

we were split up into teams and each team is supposed to assemble a kid & an adult bikes!

we were given the parts and a tool box and asked to get to work!



tada! our finished products!

im very impressed with ourselves for doing so. the guys were really good at working on the brakes!

we need to decorate our bikes and came up with a 3min "advert" to present to the kids. :)

after that, its lunch for us!

lunch was cooked by the caretakers at the orphanage. though limited in variety, i can taste the home-cook flavor and the food was really yummy!

the spring roll tasted like the 五香 back in sg. yummy!

the clear soup tasted abit sweet and sour and its meant to be eaten with the rice noodles.

gathering @ the open space before the presentation.

we were encouraged to mingle with the kids.

it was almost 3pm by the time we reached hotel.

most of us went to grab a power nap.

then its time for our gala dinner @ 7pm!

food was good though portion seemed abit little. :P

again, there are some games to be played and each team to put up a 3m performance.

it was all fun seeing all the different teams vying to answer questions and earning points. ha.

my team really enjoyed ourselves as we agreed at the start to not be too bothered by the competition but most importantly to have joy in what we were doing.

wise words from our korean team leader. hahaha.

apparantly, it pays to like what you do for we went on to get the 1st place. haha.

each of us got a prize for that - an oil painting.

a good sourvenir to remind me of hanoi, definitely. :)

day 3: we were supposed to fly back to sg today but there were no available flights back on saturdays.

so we have 1day F&E!

i was abit cringed with having too much time in hanoi but my "on" coll actually went to source for a day tour to halong bay!

of cos i signed up! @ US$25 per pax, it was really quite reasonable.

but but but, halong bay tour has 1 major drawback..... it is a good FOUR hours ride from hanoi city!!! *scream*

imagine, we spent almost 8 hours travelling to and fro halong bay. @_@ *sigh*

we set off at 8+am but only finally settling in our own boat at 12+pm.....

our lunch was being prepared on board.

with cutting and washing on the floor. @_@

ignorance is bliss at times..

the ride to halong bay was a good scenic one!

most of us were pretty delighted by the views we saw along the way!

leaving the harbour behind us...

nice huh?

its very common for such small boats to come to bigger boats like us for them to try selling fruits to us.

i was horrified with the woman carrying a boy about yr's age stepping on/off the roof of her small boat onto ours!!
and look at her toddler boy sitting on the rails!! *gulp*

i kept telling her to be careful but i doubt she knows what im trying to say. @_@

i bought mangoes from her in the end and brought it all the way back to sg for hubbi & my parents to try. haha.

they were actually sweet!

and her boy is really really cute. very smiley and sticking his tongue out at me the whole time.

lunch time! not fantastic but will do...

finally, we reached halong bay. the main attraction is to climb up to a cave where you can see limestones in it.

i've seen a few such caves in other countries but halong bay's one is the one with the highest ceiling to me... pretty impressive!

reaching..

starting to ascend...

more steps..

tada! quite 壮观.

some mandatory bad engrish

see! its ceiling is pretty high huh! look how small the people are below!

climbing up again to get out and down. you'll see what i mean soon.

out of the cave! photo time with some nice backdrop.

going down to our boat

back to our boat

after that, its the start of another torturous 4hrs drive back to our hotel!! :(

it was almost 9pm when we reached!!

and we came back to sg the next day late noon.

in all, it was a short but meaningful and eventful trip for moi. :)

i miss my boys!

back from my hanoi trip on sunday and cant wait to spend quality time with my boys!
i got my wish today since im on leave and yz didnt go to school as he was not feeling too well.
wah!! really a handful handling the 2 boys on my own!
i cannot imagine how some SAHMs can do it with their kids!? madness.

despite being unwell, cheeky yz was still getting on my nerves ALOT.
and they love fighting over the same toys! argh!
and yr was in a crawl to all forbidden places and destroying all things mode. *faintz*
i cant even have my lunch in peace!

still, there were some good moments lah. :)
especially when they were actually contentedly playing with the toys on their own, leaving me to read my "HP7: Deathly hallows" in peace. heheh.



brothers.
yr noticed the "dudu" is in the wrong direction in the 1st pic and promptly rotated it like a pro. LOL.

Pre-big-three-O-party @ MBS

for the longest time, my chummies and i have been talking about a year-end celebration just before we enter 2011.
the year when all of us will turn thirty one by one. *gulp*
the first thing we did was to finalise a date where all of us can make it.
the date was to be nov 13th in order to accomodate ms ngau who will be away from mid-nov alll the way till after x'mas as she's going to look for her husband in netherlands!
after date was finalised, we realised we've slightly less than 3 weeks to the big day! *gasp*
which hotel? what activities? where to get our cake? so many unknowns.
but us being us, we managed to get most of the things settled in a week or so!

thanks to gb who was able to get 2 rooms at MBS at good rates!
thanks to candice/gb/dan who brought liquor that night.
thanks to grace/ser/candice/gb who cab to & fro to get us delicious dinner (there's really nothing much to eat @ MBS).
thanks to dan who brought huge-ass cards which made the games hilarious.
thanks to jx who brought the chips which soak up the excess alcohol in my tummy the next day!
thanks to gb who download songs for the night!
thanks to gb & grace who got the fantastic cake!
thanks to me who make the reservations at butter. :P
thanks to everyone who makes this night so damn fun.
we should do this every year.

most of us reached rather on the dot ard 3+pm to check in.
MBS being MBS must have 1 screw up minimum.
so we got to check-into only 1 room 1st. the other room was still not ready. PUI.


mister gb setting up his speakers and i-pod playlist

me & ser!

since the other room was not ready, we cant all go up to the skypark together as we did not have enough room cards.
bleh!
but on hindsight, its ok since the skypark was crowded to the max!
the plan of chilling out and cutting the cake there will be mission impossible!

in the infinity pool.
soo many people! the public was not allowed into the pool and they were walking around frantically snapping the view!
i think i'll appeared in alot of random photos as part of the backdrop. @_@

this is taken after dinner liao.
food were cleared away efficiently to make place for singapore sling/pineapple juice! *yum*

then its time to play games so more liquor can be drank! tsk tsk.

we played the boring indian poker but its still so rubbishy fun after all this time!

i think the company really make a difference.

and most of them (including myself) are siao one, they just want to choose vodka over orange juice!!

in the end we decided to cap at 4 caps of volka for each round.

we cant risk getting thrashed before butter!

and in the end, the game proceeded damn fast.
with us just picking card and showing immediately to see who lost.
the loser just mix the drink him/herself (4 caps volka + orange juice = blech).
@_@

i got king which is not good as the one with the "biggest" card needs to drink!
but for this round, i dont have to cos................

unsuspecting grace got an ace! wahahhaa.

the cards are so big its funny but all of us having trouble to stick it to our foreheads. haha.

see, most of us have to hold it by hand from time to time.

after this, we continued to play 终极密码.

yah, we are this bo liao. LOL.

in the end, most of us drank around 4 shots of volka each from the games?

it was nearly 10pm by then, so we decided to cut the cake!

prince & princess of youth!
why only 1 prince & 1 princess huh? the rest leh!

and us being disgusting us, ate the cake ........ BY HAND........ cos no cutleries.

or just simply bo chup...

time to dress up for butter!

we decided initially to dress up loud and young, to fit the theme of we are SO YOUNG!

but easier said than done.

i dont think any of us really did a good job of dressing to the theme, maybe except for tanny who dressed up in pinafore!

done dressing up!

some crazy photos before hitting the club.
most of the props were from mad DD! LOL.

we wanted to act young so decided on butter where all the youngsters go.

and the crowd is really young.... @_@

to make things worse, our table reservation is in the hip-hop room....

when we reached, there was a free-style dancing PK going on! GOSH!

very very salah place for us! LOL.

but again, the company makes the night damn fun lah.

we actually finished 1 volka & 1 macallan between us. its a miracle no one puke that night. haha.

by the time we reached hotel and finally zzzz, its almost 4+am. @_@

alcohol + old age suck.

the only good thing was i didnt have a hangover the next day..

though i was pretty much in a daze the next day since i woke up at 9am for good to meet my boys....

still, the party was great!

we should do another one soon!