My new watermark/logo/whatever:

Nice nice NICE??

I spent eight hours working on it so you’d better say it’s nice!!!

Just kidding. You can be honest, as you all always are whether I like it or not. =P

It’s nice and sparkly up close but doesn’t show as well when shrunk. =(

Shrinking it to watermark size totally kills the effect but I can’t do anything about it so I shan’t brood. Maybe I’ll get tired of it after a week. I do get tired of my designs very quickly.

In any case, I’ve decided to make my “official” colours black and pink, which will make life easier for me because so many gadgets are boring black and I can’t buy them!

Now that I have blinging partners in crime, I can decorate all my black stuff with pink sparklies. But I’m not sure how fast we’ll tire of our new hobby. It’s so damn tedious.

I bought a Guess luggage recently. It was on 40% sale at Tangs and only cost $180!

It’s made of very lightweight material. You can actually press it in but it’s supposedly very sturdy and won’t break. What’s most important is that it’s very light! And blingable!

Wen suggested that I bling the logo, so we went down to Arab Street to grab some crystals at the shop made popular by Xiaxue.

But the shop owner is, like, damn slack lah. Only open his shop for four hours!! We know because we were there before he opened and then we were there again when he closed. Will talk about it in a while.

Our bling party:

There’s Wen picking up crystals from her legs and the floor. She managed to spill my crystals on the floor twice even before we started.

Crystals are damn expensive okay!! Cos they’re Swarovski!

A little pot like this costs $45, and that’s with a $10 bulk discount.

Anyway, we drove back to Arab Street again a few hours later because I realised that I needed more crystals in different sizes. When we got there, we saw that the shop was closed and the shop owner was getting into his car!!!

Wen said, “STOP HIM STOP HIM!”

But nobody dared. We just watched him drive away in dismay.

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because we went on to see if we could find sparklies in Chinatown and WE FOUND THEM.

AND THEY ARE SIGNIFICANTY CHEAPER TOO. And they have very beautiful black crystals which the Arab Street shop doesn’t have.

The crystals are sold in little packs of 144 crystals. In Chinatown, they cost $3-$6 per pack depending on size. In Arab Street, they cost $5-$7 per pack. (But I think we got some discounts at Arab Street.)

If you buy in bulk of 1440 pieces (at Chinatown shop), you get a discount and it will come in a packet like this:

(I bought a half pack and a full pack. Half pack no discount.)

I spent about $200 on crystals, tools and containers that day.

But what’s most painful is not the cost… but the tedium of blinging.

Especially when some goofball goes and mixes up your size 9 and 10 crystals so that you have to spend half an hour separating them cos they’re almost similar in size and it’s hard to tell them apart unless you scrutinise very carefully.

While Minou worked on her iPhone case, Wen and I worked on my luggage. After an hour or two, we only managed to do this:

Yeah, the luggage gets fingerprinty. =(

SO MUCH MORE TO GO. We need to bling all the letters, the question mark and the triangle frame.

As you can see, there are many holes around the edges. That’s why I had to go out to get more crystals, cos I didn’t buy enough small ones the first time.

I don’t know how long I will have to take to finish this~! It’s very worrisome because I need to use the luggage next month!

Anyway, if you’re looking to buy crystals, the Chinatown shop I was talking about is this:

E Crystal
People’s Park Centre #01-38
101 Upper Cross Street
Tel: 6533 6684

You might also need to buy crystals from the Arab Street shop even though it’s more expensive there, because both shops actually sell slightly different sizes.

Digvijay
89 Arab Street

Next projects: My Blackberry and my upcoming new camera (will buy next month). And then my iPhone.

Where to find so much time. And money! T_T

We didn’t have any concrete plans to celebrate the new year until a few days before the new year.

We knew we wanted to hang out together and play board games but no one was urgently taking up the discussion of the where and the how.

So, finally, with just a couple of days to spare, Elyxia took matters into her own hands and booked us a room at Naumi Hotel, a luxury boutique hotel at Seah Street.

Only 10 storeys high with 40 rooms, it’s small but it’s beautiful.

The only problem was that they’ve got some disgusting scent in the lobby which gave me a headache and made my throat beg for air.

Actually, that wasn’t the only problem.

Elyxia had made an online booking but when she tried to check in, the staff realised that the hotel was overbooked and they couldn’t give us the corporate suite that we’d booked.

After waiting in the lobby for yonks, we were told we had to be downgraded to a Deluxe, instead.

Well, they did buy us a round of drinks to compensate for that, so I guess we weren’t too miffed.

The room is so cool!

It has a little kitchenette stocked with a bigass fridge, microwave oven, hot plate cooker, cutlery and plates of all sizes, crystal wine and liquor glasses of all types, and different size coffee cups!

It’s like a serviced apartment!

Sorry, I know my photo sucks especially with all the bags in there. I’m a lazy photographer. But I’ll try to do better next time!

Anyway it’s kinda hard to take photos of scenery when five other people are walking in and out of the scenery every other second, gawking at stuff!! You have no time to angle and dress up your shots!

See, first you get people walking all over your shot:

Then, even after the errant yokels clear out, you’ve got lazy bums still sitting there spoiling your scenery with their feet:

It’s a tough life, I tell you.

Then, I was going to move on to photograph the bed and what should happen but Wang Wang decides to choose the exact moment to pounce on the bed and squeal at its luxurious comfort.

I yelled at her to get off the bed but then it’s now rumpled.

That’s why many of my photos are anyhowly taken. I’d die of frustration if I cared too much.

I decided that, since the girls like to rumple the bed so much, we should do it officially:

It’s a really, really comfortable bed!

Probably the best part of the hotel is the rooftop bar with a swimming pool perched at the edge of the building.

It is too awesomely beautiful!

More people arrived in the evening and they started to watch TV.

I don’t know what it is with people. Why must people watch TV just because there is a TV?

It makes me frustrated!

But worst of all are people who like to leave the TV on the whole day and don’t even bother to watch. What is wrong with you people?!

Anyway, I interrupted everyone’s TV watching by asking them to move in for a timered group shot.

First shot fail, lol.

I was too late trying to get into the shot.

Second shot okay. One pair of eyes still staring at the TV.

After I okayed everyone and allowed them to go back to watching TV. No one moved an inch. They continued sitting where they were, squeezed in that group shot formation.

Hahahahahaha.

But they moved eventually because the room got really cold and the girls had to pull out the blankets.

We had to take another group shot later in the night when Morte arrived. The Goonfather wasn’t with us cos he had to work that night, poor thing!

With flash:

Final perfect one!

Self-timered group shots are really hard to take. Someone is always blocking someone or doing something illegal unbeknownst to everyone until you check the preview!

Like so:

Anyway, gawking at the hotel and taking group shots were probably the most exciting part of our new year celebration.

Cos we did nothing else the whole night but play Agricola and Runebound.

Agricola took us about three hours.

Runebound took us five hours and we weren’t even halfway complete but it was already 6 am and we were all dropping dead like lemmings.

So we abandoned our game and went to sleep, three girls sharing the oh-so-comfy bed while the poor guys took the couch and the floor.

Most of the time, I love being a girl!

Oh, we didn’t even do any countdown or anything, so engrossed were we in our board games. Haha.

We slept a few hours in the morning, then went out to eat and shop.

The hotel allowed us to checkout at 5 pm (woohoo) because of the inconvenience they caused us with the mix-up.

After dinner, we went to Kerr’s and Minou’s place to play more Agricola till the wee hours of the morning before we finally called our “celebration” quits.

(Everyone’s scared of Runebound now.)

Such is the life of gamers!

We were at Tanglin Mall. The boys had had a bit too much to drink at Chili’s. They came upon a BMW.

“Awwright, man, bro!” said the Goonfather to Unker Kell, “When did you collect your new BMW Z3?”

“BWAHAHAHAHA,” said Unker Kell, “Come, let me take you out for a spin!”

The two tottered drunkenly over to the BMW and attempted to get in together, all the while laughing and insulting each other, as men are wont to do.

They discovered that they couldn’t both fit in the car at the same time.

“Okay, okay,” said the Goonfather, “You sit tight. I’ll drive!”

After a bit, they both gave up and collapsed into a heap of useless guffawing Y chromosomes.

Epic fail.

I was a little iffy about visiting Kitty Lab because of the $38 price tag and the lack of information on what we’re actually paying for.

Photos and videos are not allowed inside so it’s kind of hard to find information online.

But it’s like a rare thing (in celebration of Hello Kitty’s 35th Anniversary) plus I was quite curious, plus Minou wanted to go. So we went!

Because it’s Sitex weekend, and there were cars queueing up to go into the Singapore Expo, Kerrendor (our assigned chauffeur for the day) dropped us off at a nearby roadside. We kind of ended up at the back of all the halls and had to pass through a long stretch of loading bays and rusty containers to get to the front.

But I’m sure you don’t want to see photos of rusty containers.

We found Kitty Lab eventually!

It wasn’t very crowded. Today is the second last day of the show.

Well, it’s not exactly a show. It’s more like an experience.

I’m so sad that they don’t allow us to take photos inside because everything is SO SO SO SO CUTE! I would take a zillion photos!!!!

I guess that’s why they don’t allow photo-taking. Nobody would ever want to leave!

But we saw a few people wilfully neglecting the “NO PHOTO / VIDEO” signs liberally pasted all over the lab and nobody stopped them.

Unfortunately, I’m not one to blatantly flout rules, so I didn’t take out my camera.

Here’s the entrance to the lab:

We were each given a map and a Hello Kitty lanyard.

========================
[SPOILER AHEAD]
========================

Once we entered, we were reminded that photography and videos weren’t allowed, and then we were ushered into a lab-like area. It looked kind of kiddy futuristic. Like metallic plate walls with bolts and strange looking equipment but all made of plastic or something.

It was very nice, though. We felt instantly transported into a magical place! (It was quite cold, too, but luckily I went prepared with my thick coat.)

The ushers all wore white Hello Kitty lab coats and guided us every step of the way.

There was a short presentation on our purpose for being there, which didn’t make a lot of sense. Something about Dr Kitty inventing something called KTA (Hello Kitty DNA), which allows researchers (us) to customise our own Hello Kitty.

Inside, we were given one KTA each. It’s a plastic blobby Hello Kitty with a strap so we could carry it easier. This was to be our tool for collecting Hello Kitty DNA or something like that.

Inside the lab were 11 stations we had to progress through to complete our quest, which was to create a Hello Kitty.

At each station, we placed our KTA on a scanner and played a mini game. If we won, we could pick one item, such as an accessory, clothing or shoe and the scanner would transmit our choice into our KTA. (If we lost, the computer would pick for us.)

Some of the mini games involved motion and voice sensors. One of them made us hold a KTA and shake it up and down vigorously for like 10 seconds.

In another game, we had to dodge oncoming cars on the screen by moving our bodies.

The entire area was quite small. One building to the next was only like three steps away.

After each mini game, the computer would tell us which station to go to next. It’s different for every guest but if you’re with friends, the “lab technicians” will make it so that you share the same sequence.

The games were pretty easy, suitable even for kids. But it was still fun for us because of the novelty factor.

Oh, and there’s, like, a Kitty Police Station for people to go to if they get lost. That’s so cute! It’s hard to get lost in there, though.

Everything was so cute inside! I mean REALLY CUTE. Cute and wonderful in unexpected ways. The statues, the props and the buildings were all so pretty and creative. Each station was an actual building! It’s sort of like stepping into a movie set, I guess.

Minou’s and my favourite were Kitty Cafe. Inside was a big display shelf full of fake Hello Kitty pastries, bigger than normal size, which made them even cuter. You know how cute fake Japanese food can get!

At the start, we were told our quest would take 45 minutes. But if we completed it within 35 minutes, we would receive a Good Citizen Badge.

We completed it in 23 minutes.

And then we were out the last station.

Even the exit was cute! We walked out of Nekosen Station, which was made to look like a subway tunnel. From there, we emerged into a customs area. There were a few counters with the word CUSTOMS on them, each manned by a HK lab-wearing person.

There, we turned in our KTA and received our Good Citizen Badge.

The last stop was the souvenir shop but there was nothing there we felt was worth buying.

Including the briefing and presentation, the entire process took us only about half an hour.

Our customised Hello Kitty were presented to us in the form of cards.

And here’s our Good Citizen Badge!

I think $38 is really pricey for half an hour of entertainment, but I felt it was worth every cent because it was so magical and beautiful inside. Totally nothing like what I had tried to anticipate. Trust the Japanese to come up with such delightful creations. I totally do not regret going!

But I felt they could have given us more souvenirs. Or had more worthy souvenirs for us to buy.

I don’t know if there will ever be more Kitty Labs in the future but I hope so because I want to go again!

Okay, now I have time to work on my Desaru post! I’m in a bimbotic chirpy mood today cos I’m happy for no reason! I can feel my heart smiling. For no reason!!! So I’m going to make lots of exclamation marks today like this!!!!

I’m kidding. Too many exclamation marks are irritating!!!!!!

Plus it’ll be a bit ironic cos the post I’m setting out to write is full of rants. HAHAHA!

Okay nevermind we’ll see how it goes.

We did an impromptu trip to Desaru last weekend. Me and Nanny Wen, the Goonfather and Unker Kell. Well, okay it wasn’t that impromptu. We planned it like two days before.

The road trip was as fun as all our past road trips have been. We had cushions and stuffies this time!

In the car, Nanny Wen was busy BB-ing away, so I decided to camwhore myself.

But she, being a consummate camwhore and multi-tasker, will abruptly abandon her Blackberry and stick her face into frame, every time her peripheral vision catches sight of a camera about to take a shot, never mind the camera wasn’t planning on capturing her.

That’s why you can only see half her face, cos I was aiming at myself when she stuck her head in! LOL!

We booked rooms at The Pulai Desaru Beach Resort because the Goonfather said it’s the best and biggest in Desaru, being the first resort to be listed in Google.

DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOOGLE RANKINGS.

Well, okay, maybe it IS the best. I wouldn’t know because I’ve never visited the others. I might never find out.

The first thing that greeted us after we parked at the open-air carpark was Thomas the Train!

Damn cute lah! But we didn’t get to sit in him cos we didn’t sign up for any resort activities.

My first impression of the resort was okay. It was spacious and the decor was decent and everything was neat and tidy. But I had a feeling it was, like, old and dusty, as if nobody had stepped in the place for a long time.

When we first checked in, we didn’t see anyone else (except the staff lah).

Our room, although large and seemingly clean, smelled old and musty.

But we had a great view!!

Beyond the swimming pool is the beach.

I took an obligatory camwhore shot on the balcony while Nanny Wen took a moment in the bathroom.

It was around noon. We were waiting for the boys to settle into their room and then tell us what they wanted to do next. So we went to bed while waiting.

Then we received a call. The Goonfather said he wanted to go to the beach, so we changed into our beach wear!

HAH. No bikini pics for you!

The pool:

We each get a towel card to exchange for towels. If we lose a towel, we have to pay RM50!! Crazy lah daylight robbery. Who wanna steal your lousy towels anyway!

The beach:

The water was a bit murky cos of the rainy season. But the waves were nice! NO ONE ELSE AT THE BEACH.

We’d only been there for two minutes when it started to drizzle. Hahahaha so loserish.

Nanny Wen and I hid under a shelter while the Goonfather and Unker Kell went to sit at the shore to let the waves hit them. They ended up with pants full of sand.

They finally gave up the beach for some reason and went back to the pool, where the two of them spent 20 minutes showering at the public shower, trying to get rid of all the sand without stripping.

Nanny Wen tried to get a tan but the sun kept alternating with the drizzle.

You can see the rain clouds gathering!

Another 10 minutes or so and we totally gave up and went back indoors.

It was an epic phail.

Before heading back, though, we made a small detour to the resort’s mini farm, which turned out to be a small chicken coop plus a cage with, like, three bunnies. Hahaha.

With nothing else to do, we went to the resort spa and booked a two-hour package each, consisting of 1 hour massage and 1 hour scrub.

It was a total rip-off! It was RM180 each but it was so bad I expect them to pay me money to compensate!

Firstly, the massage wasn’t very enjoyable. My masseuse didn’t hit any right spots and she kind of glossed over everywhere quickly. Not only that, because we were in a couple room, the two masseuse kept chatting.

I didn’t mind the chatting because they were speaking in low voices. But at times, she would suddenly concentrate on chatting and STOP MASSAGING for like half a minute! Very unprofessional.

And there was one time she stopped in the middle of massaging my shoulder and disappeared for five minutes.

I don’t think they did a full hour because, very quickly, the massage was over and they started on the scrub.

She said, “I leave the scrub on you for seven minutes to dry, then I’ll come back later to scrub it off.”

The scrub beads were cold and I was shivering the whole time I was waiting, even though covered in blankets.

I estimate that we waited at least 30 minutes before the two of them came back, giggling, to massage the scrub away.

That was done quickly AND THEN WE HAD TO TURN OVER TO DO THE OTHER SIDE.

Once again, they left us shivering with cold for 30 minutes before coming back again, giggling.

It was the most horrible scrub experience in my entire life!! Okay, not that I go to scrubs a lot. I’ve only done it twice in Batam and I think once in Singapore. The Batam one was so awesome I fell asleep.

After the scrub was done, as we were freezing, they slathered ice cold yoghurt all over us (to soothe and moisturise the skin). Nanny Wen and I shrieked in tandem each time the yoghurt splashed onto a sensitive area.

Once our whole body received the yoghurt treatment, we were able to rush to the bathroom to wash off and hopefully get some warmth back into our shivering bones.

THE BATHROOM HAD A DEAD COCKROACH WITH ANTS SURROUNDING IT.

And the shower was a small drizzle when turned to hot. And hot wasn’t even hot. It was warm. The shower was horrible and there was only one bathroom for us to share.

At the end of the ordeal, I didn’t feel relaxed at all. Bah.

We visited a nearby fruit farm after the massage! It somewhat saved the day.

Giant jackfruit!!

But we didn’t get to see the actual farm. I think you have to book a tour for that. We only had access to the store, which sold fruits, tidbits and souvenirs.

After the visit, I was forced to play Monopoly with the guys at the resort lobby. WHYYYYYYYY?!

The Monopoly set provided by the resort looked pirated!!

By the time we finished our game, it was, like, 8 pm and time for dinner. We were starving so decided not to drive out to search for food. We went for the BBQ Buffet at the resort’s restaurant.

It cost RM65 per person and the food was bad.

It looks decent but when you start biting into things, everything is bland. Even the sauces provided are weird.

Only the satay was good. And the satay sauce.

Unker Kell asked, “Can I eat RM65 worth of satay?”

The answer was no, because the satay (only chicken and beef) kept getting snapped up really fast.

And the bread and butter pudding looks like this:

Small piece of it:

You probably think it’s nice because it looks edible in the photo, thanks to my kind photography and the cute dollop of custard on it.

But bread and butter pudding is not supposed to be like that!! You can actually taste the bread, which tastes just like bread straight off the loaf!

Anyway, we tried to fill ourselves with the satay, and then Nanny Wen and I retired to our rooms early while the boys stayed in the lobby to enjoy the complimentary movie at the lounge, played on a dodgy projector screen.

And that was when the real trouble started.

After staying in the room for an hour, I realised that the tip of my throat was feeling very itchy and irritated, and my eyes were almost watering and feeling strained (like it feels when you have fever fatigue). I thought I was coming down with something because I had only slept two hours the night before, and very little the nights before that.

Two hours later, when it became really uncomfortable and I started sneezing, I realised that I was getting an allergic reaction to the oldness of the room. You can’t see or feel the dust, but my body was reacting to something.

I didn’t think of it earlier because I seldom go to dusty places where the allergy will act up.

But I finally remembered the time when I was filming at this rented HDB flat. Nobdy had stayed in there for ages, so it was musty and dusty. For weeks, I suffered exactly the same thing I felt that night in Desaru.

I also get it sometimes when spring cleaning for Chinese New Year.

That horrible itch and irritation, fitful sneezing and watery, tired eyes. My lungs also felt irritated from the stale air I was breathing in.

I was planning to blog that night since there was so much time, but feeling the way I felt, I just wanted to curl up and pass out.

Anyway, the night passed. I read myself to sleep.

The three of them went to the the beach the next morning while I slept in, because I don’t like getting a tan. After that, I joined them for breakfast at the same place we had the horrible dinner.

Breakfast was complimentary.

And it was actually edible!

Well, I suppose you can’t go very wrong with toast and eggs!

The soft-boiled egg was a bit of a failure but maybe this is how Malaysians eat soft-boiled eggs. I don’t know.

BUT I LOVE IT. I love too-cooked soft-boiled eggs!

There was also nasi lemak and it was good.

This was Unker Kell’s original selection:

Nasi lemak with potato wedges and fried egg. No sambal!

When we pointed out the lack of sambal, he was, like, “YAH HOR, HOW COME I DIDN’T TAKE SAMBAL.”

CRAZY GUY.

And that ended our very quick vacation because Unker Kell had to be back in Singapore by noon to attend his grandmother’s birthday party.

We ended up reaching Singapore around 3 pm or 4 pm, delayed because we made a stop at the fruit farm for more fruits and tidbits to bring home, and then at JB for lunch. Haha.

Anyway, despite the dodginess of the resort, I enjoyed myself because, as always, it’s the company that counts!