Decembers have always been my favourite month of the year. Christmas gatherings, New Year Eve’s countdown and all the get together makes me a happy girl.
The idea of this entry stems from Fiona, our dear busy friend. As we know, old news is not news. Until she has time for this… I present, on her behalf, our fashionable friends who enjoyed the night at Stereolounge (sans the free entry, martinis, miniburgers and the afterwork crowd).
My love affair with China began many years ago when I was but only 14 years of age. Being once athletic, I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to Beijing for a training trip. As it was a training trip, all the major attractions that you’ve seen us traversed in the previous posts such as the Great Wall, Summer Palace and the Forbidden City was squeezed into a tight two day schedule. I remember making a silent vow atop the Great Wall to one day come back and do this great city a thorough visit.
Me, at 14. This was taken during training and marks the beginning of my love affair with China.
Well, it took me nine years to fulfill this. In between, my love affair with China had spilled over into other areas of my life from influencing me to take many Chinese history modules in the university to picking up basic conversational Mandarin. Looking at Beijing a second time round and this time through the eyes of a 23 year old, the city came alive to me in a way it never did when I was there for the first time.
It was after my very disappointing date with a certain vampire and hunky werewolf that i got the invitation to check out the new IT place WAVEHOUSE at Sentosa. So glad i bailed on monopoly night with the family and went, because boy did it cheer me up. Turns out it was the launch of their Miami springbreak inspired FRESH Saturday night.
Baby Wave
As promised, these are the pictures of our trip to Beijing.
The quaint restaurant outside our hotel where we had our first meal in Beijing.
Time flies indeed. About this time a year ago, I was on my way back from London after my six months stint. This time, I am on my way back from a holiday in Beijing. Weeks seem to go by quickly when one indulges in work.
After eleven months of work and countless hours of frustrations, I still crave for novelty and excitement. Only for the past eleven months, I was hugely deprived of such. The first quarter of the year was just passing time to look for something I really wanted to do. Total waste of time. Just when I thought I found myself a proper path to take, I realised how wrong I was. Big deal about working for a MNC. Work, it is just a disappointment. Never in my wildest dream have I imagine that white collar workers can be so ignorant, absolutely stupid and ridiculously incompetent. I took about four months to get a clear picture of my job scope, including the time it took me to grasp the gist of this industry as a whole. Two intense months of rage at the workplace. Thereafter, work has been pure boredom. All three lousy qualities plus the lack of motivation I see around me makes me wonder if I will be jaded like them in years to come. Because honestly, tapping my staff pass and swinging that door open every morning makes me more sick of the workplace than I felt the day before. Perhaps, I can blame it on the nature of the industry. Downright and clearly, not me. I like doing sales, I definitely do. But all the work and effort I put in, this job just doesn’t seem worth it. The good news? I need my working experience to get a better job. No pulling of strings and no begging. Counting on myself. Bloody rut I am in. Jesus.
Lately, I have been feeling so restless, it has been difficult to even remotely thrill me.
Then, I came to Beijing and life seems quite on track again. I guess I have been too absorbed in trying to get out of the mundanity of it all.
So, I am glad I made this trip to Beijing. I remember that life is not all about work. It is about living, about finding pleasures in life.
I hereby present you with the eight treasures of Beijing, known affectionately as Jing to the locals.
Beijing has always held a certain sense of allure to me.
Forbidden City
Henceforth, I will conquer her.
As a Gemini I’m a natural skeptic so I have to say I don’t believe in horoscopes.
Like Doranne, I find it hard to believe I can share the traits of a gazillion other people around the world! Hello, I’m an individual?
Plus there was that survey where they had group of randomers given a slip of paper with a description of their personality based on their star sign and they were all like OMGSOTRUE and each one of them had the exact description? So it is probably a case of selectivity and confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias).
But, having said that, there is no such thing as true individuality, is there? I also can’t deny they’re fun to read and tend to the narcissist in me. Personally speaking however, though I’m inclined to say the Gemini is the best sign of the lot, I don’t really like how we’re portrayed. We seem to have more bad traits than other signs! Not cool. Maybe that’s why I don’t like to believe in horoscopes 
So I went to http://www.findyourfate.com/astrology/Gemini.htm and decided to find out more…
For 20 years of my existence, those columns of horoscopes on teen magazines and newspapers were dutifully ignored by yours truly. I just never believe that people should be characterized by when they were given birth. The logical part of me refuse to take it in. I think what made me really skeptical about such things in the media is how one of my friend’s sister who used to be a writer in Teens came up with her own ‘Aunt Agony’ dilemma instead of readers sending them in. Imagine me, all but 14 years old, with my hopes dashed that these were real issues faced by teens.
Back to horoscopes – by birth, I am a pisces. However, I am nothing like a pisces. One day, someone told me that since I am only three days into pisces, then I could also have aquarius traits. Then I realised, I am an aquarius. At 20, I changed by mind about horoscopes.
This was the place i first got drunk.
I think we are 16, Claudia and i decided we were too cool to be associated with the other desperate underage drinkers who congregated at seedy Boat Quay joints Cheeky Monkeys and Hendrix. Walking in the opposite direction, we found ourselves at BarCelona in Robertson Quay. As the waiter walks over, i hope and pray he does not hone in on my shifty eyed nervousness. I get it together enough to order myself a strawberry Margarita. He did not ask for ID, mission accomplished! Well as most “firsttimeievergotdrunk” stories go, the scene of the crime has since closed down, and i was neither cool nor classy as intended. Even before i could take a sip of my sweet success, i somehow managed to knock the glass over, spilling pink slush all down my jeans, i order another $12 cocktail i blatantly could not afford, finish that drink all in one go, end up with my head in the toilet 10 minutes later.
On Saturday, I revisited The Courtyard, this time i was determined to leave with my dignity intact. We were there for my lovely friend Ness’s birthday.
The Birthday Girl
doranne
liana
Claudia
yun
pat86
fiong