BlackBox Lesson #2

Had been looking forward for these lessons weeks after weeks. Its my #2 lesson now and I am learning so much new stuff about photography. This evening, we taugh about using different shutter speed to capture various moving objects. Its one of the most interesting part of the course coz I now know how to shoot a moving car with blur background but clear object. Cool stuff. The most amazing thing I learnt today was also how to change my lens fast and accurate. My trainner can change his lens in just 2 secs or less. I was shocked by the move. Yes, practise make prefect. One day.. just one fine day...

Oh boy, my dry box had arrived this afternoon. Looking good. The unit has been placed nicely in the guest room and the humantity has also been set at ~50%. All the equipments have been placed and so far so good for a cool dry place for my babby.

The first 2 RS4 in Singapore

Welson and KimLeng, both 2 proud owners of the new RS4 in Spore. Each of these babies easily cost you more than S$325,000 to drive it on the road. I was invited to attend their collection of the RS4 at Premium Auto this Sunday morning. They are going to make lots of people drool on the road. And watch out for this beast cause they sprint 0-100km/h in less than 5sec flat! :)

Next, me and aiai went to Orchard to do more shoppings. I got myself a Crumbler bag which I longed wanted one. Gotta use it for my camera bag.
Then we went down to IMM. Aiai managed to buy her toilet bowl "ass" sprinkler for just $160 with installation. Some shopping was also done in IMM. Oh boy, what a weekend!

We got hit by the GSS virus!

Mo' money, Mo' money! Yes, its the first weekend of our Great Singapore Sales. Its hitting us like a storm! We woke up as early as 8am to be the very few ones to reach Philips showroom at Toa Payoh! Thanks to James for the lobang! Everything 40% for their domestic appliances. We couldnt help ourselves and we got our ice blender, mini rice cooker and a fry pot. We even got their top of the range Juicer for our dear Kim Thye as a present for his house warming.

Next, we rushed down to Silra home for our Dumpling Festival. Aiai had done so much planning for the event and everything was so well operated. Lots of volunteers came down to help. Some of them event brought along their parents to teach us to make those delicious dumplings.

more at http://public.fotki.com/karsoon/dumpling_festival__silra/

After all the cooking and steaming of the dumplings for the old folks, following program - Dice the Dumplings Game. A group of volunteers dressed themselves up for the ingredients for the dumplings. You cant find this anywhere else except Silra. Aiai took all her effort in dolling up all these cuties for the game.

So much fun for the game and we had to say good bye to everyone at the home as we had a 4pm movie to catch with Leona and Raymond at Lido. Mission Impossible 3 was a movie that had been out like 3 weeks already and we were just about to watch that blockblaster movie by Tom.

We reached Lido at 3.45 but none of them were there yet. Ben had a hard time catching his train but he did make it finally. Running like a mad man and then realised that the movie actually started at 4.30pm. Oh dear.. anyhow, after meeting Leona & Raymond at the cinema, we proceed to the movie. I must say it is one of the best Tom's movie. Well action packed film with all those special stunts. *Thumbs Up*

After the movie, we proceed to KimThye's place for his mavelous home cook meal. For the very first time, he inivted all of us to his humble house for some nice dishs. Alison was there early to help out. Thanks to O-Bee and we also managed to bring along the good o'le curry beef as one of the yummy dish on the dinning table. Hmm.. we should come to KimThye's place more often then! Ha!

We visited MOS once again.

Took a nice cold shower after work and then went to fetch Alison at her office as it was rainning like cats&dogs that evening. We reached Suntec around 7.30pm as aiai, Eug and Jas were shopping at Suntec and they all got themselves some cool Fila shirts and lauagges. Yes, the Great Singapore Sales is back!!!!!

We had our dinner at the Suntec Food court followed by more shopping. Money not enuff and we got to withdraw lots of cash for it.

I got myself a new DryBox at Carrefour. Discounted price was $165 (UP: $195) plus additional of another 5% discount coz aiai used her POS bank mastercard. Alright! Save save save! Best of all, they even deliver it right to our doorstep this coming Tues. Man, this is great!

After all these shopping, Me, aiai and Alison decided to pop over to MOS as we all have the free sms entry tickets. Yeah, of coz, we are all VIP! We even had the free e33 wine for each.

We met new friends and they were Alison's colleagues. These babes were HOT! Too bad, none of the birdies guys did join us that night. Ha!

We partied till almost 2 and had some coffee at The coffee connection outside MOS before we drove Alison home. Hooch! What a night!

A step forward to a professional photographer?

For $180/-, I signed up for the basic photography course by Black Box and today is my lesson 1. I was there kinda early after I went to pick up my kab from PA. Thanks to ow mei for recommending me this course as she also signed up and went through this course before.

There were 11 students and there was a good mix of sexes too. Out of 11 students, only 2 of us are using DSLR, the rest are all using PnS cameras. Ken, the trainner was kinda cheerful and humourous too. He did crank some jokes along the way and really make the whole course very interesting.

defnetely looking forward for the next lesson...

One more lonely night and aiai will be home tomorrow. Yipeee !!!!! Time to do some ironing liao..

My parttime job after work

Popped over to Jackson's shop (Lena's hubby) to help out with his computer problem. His PC was badly infected by spywares and he wanted me to do a full restore of his operation systems. Had been there doing the installation since 7.30pm till 10pm. Some of the drivers were found missing, such as the modem, vga and sound. But Jackson said his other colleague will be able to fix that. They got me MOS burger for my dinner and also gave me 2 sample bath tiles which I can show them to aiai when she is back.

Another bite the dust

Patricia, a CR executive, who will be leaving us this coming Thurs, is throwing a farewell lunch at our convention hall. More than 30 pax attended her lunch. She marked our 20th employee who has resigned from Sumitomo this year 2006.

Who's next?

A Day out with William the dude

It has been a while since I last met brother William. He called me a couple of days ago to meet up and it was a perfect timing as I was free on Sunday. As early as 9am, he came and fetch me to Upper Thomas for prata breakfast.

Next, I was very honour to have a personal tour guide from William to 光明山. He showed me around in the temple just coz it was my first time being there. Amused by all the grand halls, the buildings and the Asia large indoor Buddha statue. We even went into the chanting hall to medidate. So unlikely of me.

Afternoon, Alison drove by as it was also her first appointment with Karsoon Grooming. After seeing how good I maintain my Kab, she wanna give it a try. So I gave her 'Soon-Soon-Kee' a good zaino wax session and she was very pleased and impressed with the result. Smooth like silk, she said.

Evening, met up with William again and 3 of us had our favourite nasi brayni at North Point foodcourt and followed by DaVinci Code. Thumbs up for the movie. Really worth to watch it for another time.

Lynn & Marcus Wedding Day

Hardly had any sleep, woke up at 8am and reached Lynn's
parents' house at 9am. Breaking the traditional rule that
Lynn actually had me as one of her jie-mei for her wedding.
Gezz.. I cant believe myself either. How on earth I ended up
to be one of her jie-mei. And Lynn had only 2 female (one
indian and one chinese) being her helpers and Marcus had 9
brothers at his side. So out-numbered from the sister gang.
Anyway, the guys also had quite a tough time passing the
gate of 'ang bao'. At the end, the jie-mei collected
something like 199$ from Marcus.
After both parents' tea ceremony, I drove back home to get
my blading gears and went straight to east coast park to do
my 'Extreme Blading' session. 4 laps from Fort Road to Bedok
Jetty. Non-stop for 1.5hrs. And then waited for Alison, Viv,
Ben and KimThye to come much later in the afternoon to join
me for the 2nd round. We continued to blade for 2 more laps
and rested for awhile at the Lagoon food centre for some
sugarcane juice.
We stopped around 6plus as I went to take a shower at the
public toilet near the car park. It was so hot and so nice
to let the cold shower water pour right from the head. What
a feeling. Just went I was about to get changed, Alison,
KimThye and Ben went ahead for their dinner at Defu10 and
Viv went to join her frens for her BBQ Dinner.
When I reached Shang hotel, it was like 8plus knowing that I
should be still early. Noway, chinese wedding dinner has
ever start on time. Not surprisely that there were still
alot not arrived yet. I went around to meet some old
ex-colleagues and even met Nelson the beng. What a small
world.
The theme was kinda unique - Retro of the West. Lots of
uncles and aunties thumbs-up for that as they used very
special movie effect from the past and integrated with their
wedding movie clips which they made during their pre wedding
holiday in thailand. The food was good and really enjoyed
meeting up all the samling gang, except for Royce, Jodie,
Marilynn and quite a few who couldnt make it for the wedding
dinner.
After the dinner, I took PakHing and wife back home and had
a good night talk with wifie, I went straight to bed liao.

Another Farewell ?

Seems like everyone love to give farewell nowadays. They all love to leave. Its the trend now, I guess. You just cant stay in a place for too long. This Friday evening, the regular vagsg guys gave our good old brother Eric (Icer) a farewell dinner. He is leaving Singapore for good. Back to HongKong where his hometown is. He sold his beautiful Avant to Ju-Ming (DeckSurgeon) before his desparture.

One of our usual hangout dinner place - Timbre Bistro. About 15 of us attended the dinner and we all gonna miss him. But I will specially miss his Canon zoom lens. :)

After the dinner, got jio by Alison and Vivian to Liquid Room $ Gallery Hotel. First time there and tho the entry fee was $20 (for 2 drinks), but I dont really like the place. DJ sucks big time. One song can play until like 10plus min until everyone was so sianz of the beat, worst still, so much 'yoga' and 'taichi' tones in between the trance really spoilt the dancing mood. The ceiling was low and the ventilation was bad. The "smoke really gets into your eyes". How can? It you wanna compare Liquid Room to MOS, I can kindly suggest you save the money of going to LR and go shake your body at MOS rather. Anyway, 3 of us, plus another of their colleague - Chee Wei disco dancing till 1plus and we couldnt stand anymore and we went to the coffee outlet to chill out. Only got home at 4am.

8am still got to go for Lynn's wedding jiemei thingie. Oh boy... this gonna be tough. Let me go dig out some dress from my aiai's woredore first. hee..

Farewell, my Sista Clara

Clara, who has been with Sumitomo Bakelite for more than 7yrs and have been with my colleague for more than 6yrs. Today, mark her last day in SBS. It has been hard for myself, Boon Swee as well as Ohta san to say good bye to her. Nevertheless, we are all happy for her as she got a much better job offer and its time for her to move on. She will get a better exposure out there being the regional executive there. I wish Clara all the very best in her new job. Gonna miss those laughters from her!

I am lonesome tonight

Aiai is away and I am alone. *sob sob* She will be away for a week and her station for the week will be Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. Havent been back in JB for a long time and took this opportunity to rush home right after work.

Kinda celebrate belated Mother's day as me and mum sat down together and have my favourite home cook meal by mum. Have a good long chat over dinner and went up to my room and watch ch8 - Women On Times for the very first time. Kinda like the show. Really reflecting the couples nowadays and all the relationships between spouses.

After the usual good night call from Aiai, I went back to bed and ready to wake up extremely early so that I willnt be late for work tomorrow. ;-(

Fun under the sun

It was a good cooling sunday afternoon while Aiai went to inter contiential for her secondary school mate's wedding, me and Rodney went to take some cityshots of his bugzilla (TT).
Check it out

http://public.fotki.com/karsoon/bugzilla/

Good Bye Nissan

It has been a tough day for my daddy-in-law yesterday. He had a bad car accident last evening at Hougang. Due to sudden braking at the traffic lights, he bang into someone's back infront at the junction. In the end, he got to foot the repair bills for both the car infront and his poor Pressio.
Accompany dad today together with aiai to Idac to do the accident report and then went over to the workshop where his pressio was towed to last night to remove some of his stuff from the car. When we had the first look at car, we know its beyond repair and even if it can be repaired, its gonna be expensive and safety will be very much be doubt after the fix. Because of this, me and aiai decided to buy a brand new car for daddy instead.
We went to Suzuki showroom take a look at Liana as Alison is driving one and it was highly recommended by her. Dad likes it but the downside was the engine raving noise.
Next, we hopped over to C&C to check out the new Lancer (sports edition). Dad was like fallen in love in first sight when he got into the new Lancer. We took it for a test drive and really can tell how dad enjoyed his test ride. We had a good bargain from the deal. We got $2000 cash rebate from the finance loan, $1000 discount from the sale man, $500 for the loyalty programme, free solar film tinting and wavel for the administration fee for the pressio. Overall, its a great deal! Will be getting the car in Jun/Jul and Grey is the color we selected.

Dinner with the in-laws

We went roller-blading with Alison that beautiful Sunday afternoon. Up the Fort road and to Bedok jetty and then back to our carpark D5. James and Kim Thye came and joinned us later in the afternoon. Too bad, we cant stay too long to blade with them as we got to go for our famly dinenr. Daddy won lottory and he is buying us a dinner treat.

This dinner was special as Eric brought along his new gf, Sharon, and its her first time meeting daddy & mummy as well. Everyone was happy for Eric. As usual, the star is always Baby Isis.

More photo can be found here

Sexy Me

I dress for success!

Aaron Birthday

Went to Hyatt Hotel to attend the B&O and Audi joint product event and met quite a few VagSG members there. The cheese and wine session was good tho I did not try any but had alot of the delicious finger food. No luck for the lukcy draw but it was nice to see one of our forumers got away with the 1st prize B&O phone (worth $600)



After the event, I went to grap a couple of icecream tubs and pop over to James' place. We celebrated Aaron's birthday with his favourite vanilla icecream and followed by a couple of DVD movies.

My DeathMatch

Today onwards, hell is work and work is hell.
My partner, Lai Fun, for ERP support has just suddenly gone to the hospital this afternoon after some serious pain in her womb. Its about time for her delivery.
First, Gee Loon, was gone and now, Lai Fun.
Hell has become my play ground in Sumitomo Bakelite.

Lai Fun, take care and enjoy your long 3 month leave and hope to see your new baby gal soon.

Dinner @ Cordouroy & Finch

Had a dinner session with the Phuket kakis at C&F last night. First time being there but not too difficult to locate it. Thanks to Ray's precised road directions in the email. Purpose of the dinner was just to chill out, catch up with one another after our phuket trip and also to exchange photo cds.

The restuarant's setting was pretty cozy and kinda unique. We had our table at the 2nd floor and thus we had a good view from the top. Bar in the centre 1st flood which make the whole restaurant very classy. Only downside is their waitness and waiter were kinda ku-ku. Cant even know their own menu and serving our drinks can also made so many mistakes. *Thumbs Up*

And guess who we met at the restuarant? PuiSan the babe. Oh yes.. she was there having her dinner when we spotted her (cant miss that tall gal from the crowd anyway).

The overall food was ok. But I love my cheeseburger. Aiai din really enjoy her braised beef with mash-potatoes. For the kinda money that we paid, we believe Bark will be a better alternative.

General Election Rally - SDP

We had this craze to watch the opposition rally at Sembawang tonight since the election heat is so on. We went to Sembawang block 337 to have our dinner and followed that, we walked across the street to join the rally by the opposition party - SDP.

Uncle Yap, one of the speakers, really gave a very powerful speech that moved alot of supports there. Really eye opening for me since its my first time watching such neighbour rally. 6th May, we gonna vote for opposition for sure.

I am sure I will be keep thinking about this question all the time now - "Where is my money"

May Day - At the NTUC Rally

Its labour day and it also mark my 6yr anniversary in Sumitomo Bakelite. What a day to celebrate my service period in the company!
Anyway, we got special invitation to the NTUC Rally at Suntec City to watch James and Aaron's cheer leading performance. Me, Aiai, Alison and KimThye went to the show to give our good buddies support.

The seats where we were sitting were really too far away the stage. Cant really take any good pictures from the distance and therefore when James and Aaron were out to the stage to perform, 4 of us, ran like crazy and dashed to the front of the stage to cheer for them. Months of their hardwork had not wasted at all. They did well and the performance was awesome. I even took a good video clip for them.

After their performance, we went to grap a bite and did some shopping while waiting for them to get out. Ben joinned us in the later evening. We had good dinner & chatting session at Marina Food Loft.

Phuket Trip during May Day Holiday

Me and aiai spent our 3day/2night holiday in Phuket, the island lies off the West coast of Southern Thailand in the Andaman Sea, approximately 890km from Bangkok. It is Thailand’s largest island at 550sq km, roughly the same size as Singapore.

We went together with Leona & Ray, Adrian & Lilian, Sam & Lois. 4 couples all stayed in the same resport - Phulin Resort which is a walking distance of 10min to the Karon Beach.

Day 1 - we just shopped around in the Phuket town, Central Mall, which is one of the biggest shopping center over there. The heat in Phuket made us wanna hide ourselves in the aircon mall.

Day 2 - Beach, beach and more beach. Oh yes, Karon beach is so beautiful. Me and adrian loved playing with the waves. The sun was so hot that I eventually got a very bad sunburn.

Day 3 - we rented a scooter and roamed around the island. It was also my first time riding a bike and ferry aiai at the back. It was so romantic actually. But riding up the steep hill was not a joke at all.

Over all, the trip was fun. Minus the heat from the sun. Else, everything will be perfect! Not to mention, we had so much to eat. Thai food is the best! Oh boy, I already missing my tom yum soup already!