Omy, Review

BreadTalkโ€™s 10th Anniversary [Omy BreadTalk Blog Contest]โ€

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This year is BreadTalk’s 10th anniversary! I remember back when they started, it was quite a hype and now 10 years later, they’re still pretty popular eh?

For their 10th anniversary, BreadTalk is actually selling 10 of their most popular bread again at the stores. These 10 years, various events happened that made it very Let me share with you which 10 they are selling.
Since it’s 10 years, I’ll be sharing with you the personal things that happened these 10 years as well. (note they are not in order).

I bet you have seen this bread before at many places:

Did you know? BreadTalk was the original creator of this? And I’ve actually tried a few different types of this bread but nothing beats the original. BreadTalk’s version is sweet and the flosss doesn’t drop off that badly. Other normal bakeries’ floss or “bah hu” drops off quite easily. Copycats can only copy the bread to a certain extend.

This was way back in 2000 when they first started. Where were you?
10 years ago I was in primary school (!!!) taking my PSLE. Wow.

The 2nd interesting bread (that I got to try thanks to Omy.sg and BreadTalk) was the O’Sambal (2001):

I had never tried this before, but do you know why this bread was created? Hint: Sambal reminds you of?

Yes??

The answer is that it was created to commemorate the opening of a BreadTalk store at The Peranakan Place. Haha. Peranakan food uses sambal quite a lot I think =x I thought it was an interesting idea. Whoever thought of that! ๐Ÿ™‚

I had just started secondary school back then. 58 Lowland Road. I will never forget the quaint and quiet environment of the old campus.

Have you seen a heart shaped bread? No?


A bit squashed

I got to try this as well. In 2004, BreadTalk partnered with SingTel and came up with this bread to help underprivileged children.

2004 was my O Level year. Quite a difficult year to get through, but at least I understood what being myself was, and strove to ignore people’s point of view and perspective that much.

In 2005, the Indian Ocean Tsunami happened. It was a 9.0 Magnitude earthquake that shocked many, including me.

Close to S$90,000 was raised to the victims of this quake through the sales of this bread:

I got to try this as well. It had something like what you will find in curry puffs in it which was a surprise to me (coz I didn’t know what to expect). Pretty good!
2005 was the year I started poly doing a diploma in business informatics. Finally something that I enjoyed and was good at. Something that I never felt lousy at. The start of 3 great years at NYP!

Those four breads were what I got thanks to Omy and BreadTalk (I didn’t have time to collect all 10 heh heh).

Here’s a poster with all the breads, so that you will be able to look at the picture of the breads that I will be talking about.


*click to enlarge

When you think of dinosaurs, what do you think?

For me it would definitely be Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park 3 came out, and BreadTalk came up with a dinosaur shaped bun!

Streaming year in 2002. And the year when I decided to leave my old cca and join a new one. One of the best decisions I ever made as a teen =x

2006 we saw the start of Korea wave and the KimCheese appeared! A play on the word “kimchi” haha. Cute.
Nothing much in 2006. Perhaps maybe that I broke down in school? Something sad but at least I learnt how to let go of the fact that grades are not that important.

2007 was the Hairy Crab which was a new version of the Flosss actually. I didn’t know about this bread to be honest.
2007 was the year when I went to Chengdu for 4 months.

Oh yes, what a surprise I got when my friends and I found BreadTalk at Chengdu!! In fact, Twin Dragon and my birthday cake was a BreadTalk one which we bought in Chengdu!

A year later, Sichuan encountered a really bad earthquake that affected many places, including where I had worked and stayed during attachment. I was emotionally affected. Many places were destroyed I heard.

To encourage donations, BreadTalk came up with the Peace Panda bread. I remember that they had different expressions on their faces. Pretty cute. $100,000 was raised through it. Another charity work *thumbs up*
I graduated from NYP. I worked. I went to NUS.

F1 Night Race came to Singapore in 2009. The first ever night race in the world! And we saw the introduction of the Ferraberri. Another cute play with the words and design of bread (have you ever seen bread that looked like a car??)
Year 2 at NUS…

Finally it’s 2010 now… And the latest 2 new breads that BreadTalk came out with is Merrily and Leonardo. Anyone realised what they’re trying to commemorate with these 2 bread? ๐Ÿ™‚

I didn’t realise it at first.

Look at them:

And them:

Youth Olympics!!

A decade has passed since we stepped into the new millennium. So many uncertain steps along the way. BreadTalk has certainly made their mark as a local brand and made Singapore proud. With so many types of bread and innovative ideas and names for their bread, I would say BreadTalk’s strategy is one where we should learn from. The names are easy to remember, and the bread looks different from usual. Keep it short and simple!

Sales of the 10 bread are as follows:
Sale period: 17 Jun to 23 Jun
Oโ€™Sambal (2001), Dinosaur (2002), Bull Run (2003)

Sale period: 24 Jun to 30 Jun
LuvBite (2004), 9.0 Tsunami (2005), ๅคง้•ฟ้‡‘ (2006)

Sale period: 1 Jul to 8 Jul
Hairy Crab (2007), Peace Panda (2008), Ferraberri (2009), Leonardo+Merrily (2010)

Credits: BreadTalk poster is copyright to BreadTalk

Thank you Omy.sg and BreadTalk for the free bread!! ๐Ÿ˜€

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Soka

June 2010 Projects: SD Peace Carnival (20 June)

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About 2 months ago, I was asked if I would like to help out at the SD Peace Carnival. To be honest, when I first agreed, I thought it was like a “whole of NUSSD will participate” event. Yes, they did participate in various ways, but I didn’t know I would be placed in the planning team.

Anyway, Doris and I were selected as NUSSD’s YWD (young women division) representatives for this peace carnival. I missed my first meeting and attended the 2nd one, where we further discussed on what the carnival would be like for the “Economics” section where NUSSD was part of.

It was a really tough few meetings as such ideas were difficult.

Anyway, for those who aren’t sure what the peace carnival was about, ever year, the student division (SD) of Singapore Soka Association will come up with a “June Project”. Last year was the Rufu-Run (which I couldn’t attend due to SNCO) and this year, they decided (they meaning the excos) to do something based on Ikeda Sensei’s Peace Proposal (2009, which can be found here: ). The three topics are “Nuclear Weapons”, “Environment” and “Economics”. The goal was to let more people especially teenagers be more aware about the 3 topics.

I fell sick the week before the carnival and missed like 2 meetings that week. Not to mention, on the day of the carnival, SNCO had a rehearsal with the brass band for the upcoming performance. The day before, i was just so stressed I had no idea what to do but chant. Luckily, I smsed Melissa and Meow Ling who encouraged me and assured that such problems are common and that I should do my best in whichever meeting/event I choose to go.

So, in the morning, I went to SNCO to help them with their instruments and then went to HQ for the peace carnival after that.

Upon reaching there, I was tasked to help out with the “Retrench or Retain” booth. Basically, the whole section was a combined effort from NP, ITAC and NUS Student divisions. Our booths are all combined efforts (heard that the other levels were individual institution booths. Everyone did a great job though). There were 2 parts to the booths, a scenario and a game section. The scenarios are economics based (for our section) with no right answer for any choice you make at the scenario.

As I had just recovered, I was still quite weak that day. Kept coughing after trying to speak louder while explaining the scenario to the visitors. Luckily Melissa helped me take over the booth for a while and Ann Nee gave me a packet of Hacks sweets to make my throat feel a bit better (Thanks!) The trick I found was that I should speak at a comfortable volume and they will lean forwards to listen to you.

Oh yes. I was told off indirectly by the SD YMD chief (=x) coz I didn’t greet the visitors (which were the chiefs basically). So paiseh. ๐Ÿ™ But yea, I was still not in the right state of mind. Need to train properly too.

I had fun on that day though. Thanks to Huzaen who came down. He’s like the only person whom I invited who went down. Haha. He said he enjoyed the panel sharing (me too, as it was super informative).

I didn’t take much pictures as I was busy the whole day. However, my sis tagged me in one of the photos taken by a fellow Gakkai member. Haha. Quite nice.

Alright. This was my first “June Project”. Learnt a lot, gained a lot of knowledge and whole new friends as well. I thought this was a really good idea and maybe every year we should do something related to Sensei’s peace proposal. ๐Ÿ™‚

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Friends, Work

Jmin’s Birthday Party 2010.

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This is wayyy overdue. In fact, I haven’t blogged for ages due to school (and now work) but well, here goes.

Jmin celebrated her birthday on 28 March as the actual day of her birthday falls on 1 April (which was a weekday). Here are the shots that I’d taken on that day itself.

It was pretty fun. In fact, I took lots of pictures that many people didn’t take due to the fact that I was there early (with Huzaen to help set up food, decorations, etc.)

Taken using D90. ๐Ÿ˜€


My favourite image of the lot.


This kitty (who was blind at its right eye) kept attempting to “meow” us into feeding it. Haha. But it’s just so cute hence I took about 100 pictures of it. =x Didn’t upload all yet though.


Jmin and I.

The following pictures were taken at night after the other Elves people had arrived.
Faizal left early to go out on a date. Lol. So only Jmin and Sherry saw them (Huzz and I had went for a walk).


Ryan mixing the vodka with juice for Jmin.


Jmin before she drank it.


Playing cards.


Elves people haha.


The pretty cake and candles! (I love this shot too btw)


Jmin and her Mum (and uncle)


Everyone of us! (Elves)

Had a great time! But well, as usual, I turned red from the alcohol and everyone wondered if I’m okay (of course I am!)

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Rants

5 ways of thinking that I don’t like.

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For some reason, I just thought of 2 points for this entry and decided to write this.

1. “Percussion is easy!”
I’ve heard this Sooooo many times and corrected people soooo many times that I just want to whack the face of anyone who says this.

If you are a percussionist and you say this, it’s okay.

It’s those who say “Oh I play the (insert name of instrument here) and I want to learn the percussion because it’s EASY!” people that I get annoyed with.

To consider yourself as a percussionist (not a timpanist, not a drummer, not a mallet player), you don’t only learn ONE instrument.

I know I’m anal like this and I think many people who knows me will always try not to say stuff like that as I can be touchy. But I just don’t like it when people think all we do is relax at the back of the band/orchestra and just act cool.

We play solos all the time and when we make a mistake, everyone knows.

I admit I’m not a master of all the instruments but yea.

It’s a percussionist pride I guess.

2. “You have a runny nose = You have flu”
Have you heard of the word “sinus”?

Enough said.

3. “Wow you seem to be so free eh? Doing so many activities during the weekends.”
I don’t understand how people can actually go by their weekends not doing something that isn’t school related. I know, I’m guilty of this back in secondary school when it was either school, or home. But now for me there’s band, orchestra, friends and Gakkai (sometimes). But well, orchestra and Gakkai are considered voluntary activities. I’m not paid for it. I want to do it. If I don’t want to do it, or am really not free to go for any of these, I’ll just not go. School is still placed first, but I have other aspects of my life as well.

I dislike it when some people actually think that I’m very free and comment or make passing remarks like that. I know that I’m not free and I know their logic, but look, I don’t comment about your life and what you do about it right? So don’t comment about mine.

4. Drink -> Red = DRUNK – NOT!
This is the reason why I don’t drink outside. Even though I am wayyy sober than others who look perfectly fine (other than the fact that they’re doing funny or weird stuff), people would ask me if I’m ok because I’m red after a few drinks. Gahh.

Anyway, I don’t believe that we shouldn’t drink outside, but we should know our limits and not drink until we are drunk.

5. “I don’t want to do this (insert name of activity/module/test) because it is difficult!”
This is a kind of thinking that I don’t really like. It’s kind of annoying sometimes, taking the easy way out. If you decide not to do it, then don’t do it, but don’t give a reason like “oh it is difficult!” or “Cannot lah too difficult!” I rather you don’t like it. It’s a weird way of mentality to me. There are always better reasons than the one reason that it is too difficult. =/

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Shows, Soka, SWE

SSA Youth Musical 2010 (SYM 2010)

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29 March 2010 – I watched the above musical over the last 2 weekends – first one with Huzz 2 Sundays ago at 10am, with Yi Long at 1pm yesterday and with Eve 4pm yesterday.

I took my 2 twins along (separately) because Jia Hao who plays the Chinese cast’s Toda Sensei reminded me strongly of Yi Long ever since I knew him through NUSSD. As for Eve, it was a kind of meetup after a really long time and my sis is an English cast.

Anyway, a short background about why there’s the SYM this year. Ok not really a background but some history. Every 5 years, SSA will organize a Youth Cultural Festival (YCF) which is actually a performance by youths in SSA. This year, as the year coincides with SGI’s 80th anniversary and _______ hence they put up a musical instead.

I participated in pasts YCF before. First one was with SD back in 2001.


Source: SYM 2010’s Picasa

And the next one was 2005’s:

I admit that I’m a bit disappointed that SNCO wasn’t involved in this year’s. The next one’s like 5 years later! But anyway, I’m pretty proud of my sis as she’s a cast in it! So I wasn’t that sad anymore. Haha.

I’d originally bought a pair of ticket for English cast (for Huzz and I) to watch my sis, but in the end wanted to watch the Chinese show after knowing that I know quite a few friends from NUSSD who are part of the Chinese cast. So I went around searching for tickets to the Chinese show. THEN, Eve contacted me and I decided to ask her along for another English show.

All 3 shows were awesome. I cried the most for the first show, mainly because it was near perfect and the story touched me. Almost cried for the Chinese one, because it was just as touching. But there was a sound glitch I believe that scared me into NOT tearing. The last show was almost teary as well. I think Lionel (I don’t know him but my sis told me his name), is a really consistent actor as young Shin’ichi. The actor as Toda (English cast) was excellent as well. It’s as though he channelled Toda Sensei’s spirit.

For the Chinese cast, Jiahao was OMG! How did he make that hoarse voice? Yi Long commented that his acting was good. ๐Ÿ™‚ Oh ya Yi Long likes the voice of the young Mineko (not sure of the actress’ name).

Eve almost teared if not for the fast change of scenes. My twin shared my same sentiments and felt that Lionel’s an excellent actor.

I still cannot believe that none of them are professional actors, dancers, etc if not for the fact that I know some of them personally (and know that they have skills in other areas as well). They should all go into PT acting!!!! ๐Ÿ˜€ Damn good!

But well, I think we should just get the DVD when it comes out (heard from my sis that they have to go through the censorship review board and everything before it can be distributed).

I bought the soundtrack btw and my sis was just singing along with it this morning. Haha ๐Ÿ™‚
Money well spent. ๐Ÿ™‚

————————————-
It’s been a few weeks since SYM. Last week my sis and the rest of the cast received the SSA Culture Award! It’s one of the highest award that SSA gives. So proud of her! ๐Ÿ™‚

At times as such, I cannot be weak.

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Friends, Interesting, Soka

SD Kenshu 2010 (30-31 Jan).

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NUSSD on the 2nd day of kenshu

Meant to blog this last week but I was just too busy! Life has been interesting lately.

Kenshu, or ็ ”ไฟฎ basically means training in Bahasa Japanese (hahaha). Every year I believe SD has a kenshu for all members and friends to participate and learn.

So this year, I agreed to go for kenshu but didn’t take the exam. Basically, throughout the lessons, I was OT-ing. I went for the first lesson (learnt about SSA’s SD history for that one) and the subsequent ones I couldn’t make it.

So on the morning of the first day, I was feeling a little freaked out as I didn’t really know what to bring and pack. After packing, I realised that I had to bring a lot of stuff and was wondering why (it was a 2D 1N thing). Haha.

Then, on my way there, my shirt had this string that decided to unroll from nowhere. I had to break the string using my hands on the train and it looked pretty awful. All these bad demons attacking me huh?

By the time I reached CCK LRT (the kenshu was at Senja Soka Centre) I was freaking out, wondering if my outfit was ok as they said we have to wear at least 3/4 pants. I was wearing a pants that reached my knees.

Regress a bit, I know I’m a bit paranoid but I’m scared not knowing what the 2 days was going to be like. I think I’m kinda weird in some way. Wonder if there’s a syndrome for it. If I don’t know the schedule for a meeting or stuff, I’ll just freak out. My day has to be planned out if I’m out with others. Only with family and myself then I won’t be scared.

So I reached there and was greeted by Evelyn who handed me my SD T-shirt (after I paid) and the booklet for Kenshu. Saw Wang Lee as well. Evelyn then brought me upstairs and looked for Jingsi who I knew from NYPSD. She couldn’t recognize me at first until she stared at me for 1 second. haha. She was like “I recognise you from your eyes!” ๐Ÿ˜€ I have big eyes. Lol.

We started updating on what we were doing and all, and Evelyn brought a girl, Jia Neng and joined us. Jia Neng’s major is Medicine. When she told us, we were like “Whoa!!” and she looked a bit paiseh. haha. She’s nice and end for the next 2 days I hung out with her.

I realised that there were some people whom I’d never seen in any of the NUSSD meetings (Jia Neng included) and they told me that they seldom attended. But I’m quite glad that they came for kenshu!

For the 2 days, we had sharings, study, testimonials, games and an 80 sec to fame thing.

Which reminds me. I saw Boon Han and he didn’t recognise me at all. He even asked if I’m “Candy or Jasmine”. Was totally annoyed then but not now. My sis told me, “Well done, your friend of so many years don’t recognise you.” Haha

Didn’t really sleep well at night coz it was pretty noisy and people kept walking in and out of the room. Plus, the door hinge was super squeeky and it just wake me up everytime. NUSSD was placed near the door btw. Shirley (Lam) was pretty funny. She lay down on the floor and was like “Huh!! The floor is so hard!!” then she covered her head using her sleeping bag and said “Wah my sleeping bag is smelly!!” Lol.

Had loads of fun at the morning exercise thingy at the 2nd day. There was this lady who taught us some aerobics exercise and the SD guys made lots of sound effects for it. It made the mood more fun and reminded me a lot about YCF 2001! A table where the trainers will stand on top to teach us moves, exercises, and also the mass exercises and loads of people doing the same moves, etc.

The picture above was taken after the exercise and games on the 2nd day.

Oh ya, we had Lee Wee Bros beehoon breakfast on the 2nd day!! I was super excited when I saw the van driving into Senja Soka Centre. HAHA. Love their Otah! And the chilli that came with the beehoon and otah was excellent! It wasn’t too spicy (or maybe it’s me) but it was pretty sweet and complemented the beehoon nicely! ๐Ÿ˜€

Didn’t think of taking pictures throughout the 2 days. ๐Ÿ™ So the above was taken from Qiuyi‘s facebook.

Learnt a lot throughout the camp and I just wondered why I didn’t strive as hard for SSA/SGI/Sensei before. ๐Ÿ™ Must jia you!

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Food, Friends, Work

X’Mas 2009 at Elves Lab

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It started with boss giving us a choice on where to eat for our X’Mas lunch. We wanted to eat at some Japanese buffet place, but it turns out to be not a halal place, so ended up choosing other places but it turns out that Elves Lab had been there before (although 90% of us weren’t here at that time ๐Ÿ˜› ), so in the end I just randomly picked Fish & Co. and everyone was ok with it. haha.

Then, Faizal was sick on X’Mas eve. It seems to be a bad “tradition” (last year was Ai Nee).

We all squeezed in boss’ Integra. Poor Melvin was squashed by 3 of us and he was so tired he fell asleep in the car.

I’d thought that The Glasshouse will be jam packed since it was X’Mas Eve, but it was only about 80% filled! We manage to get seats and here’s what we did with 2 DSLRs (Jmin’s Nikon D40 and boss’s Canon 500D): *pics below are from Canon 500D mostly taken by me but some from Boss and his gf


Sherry, Melvin and Kenneth (intern, who doesn’t smile often)


Best salmon I ever had in a while. the sauce makes me drool.


I’d almost touched the food with the lens to achieve the pic. Haha. need more practice though.


Sherry’s Fish and Chips.


One of my favourite pic because I got to take a rare image. Haha. It’s rare to see/hear Kenneth talk or even smile. Both are captured in here.


LOVE THIS!


After.


Everyone with the gift that we’d exchanged.


My posture is bad!

Went off after that to West Coast park with Huzz and there were loads of families picnicking and playing with sparklers that it got blurry and smoky watching them. Haha.

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Songs, Thoughts

Songs of the decade.

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Was listening to Shan and Rozz today on radio and they were doing some “songs of the decade” special today. For some reason, almost all of the songs brought me back to those days when the songs were always aired on the radio.

I can’t really remember all of the songs, but here are those that I remembered:

Drops of Jupiter by Train
I remember listening to this song every Friday night at 987’s Top 20 Countdown and it was number 1 for quite a few weeks. For some reason, back then, the title of this song made me feel as though I have a blanket covering me on cold nights, and it was my lullaby for quite sometime. ๐Ÿ™‚

Train came out with a new single recently, “Hey Soul Sister”. I thought it’s quite catchy but somehow still I like Drops of Jupiter better.

Complicated by Avril Lavigne
This was Avril Lavigne’s first single (it’s been so long). I liked her songs quite a lot and even bought her album after Sk8er Boi came out. I love the artwork of that album.

2002 was a year when I was still confused about school and everything. Confused about many things and got quite “emo” (that’s the only word that I can use to describe). Everyday after school would be to stay at home, do work and listen to my CDs.

The Reason by Hoobastank
I learnt the drums for this myself within a day. haha. Simple, yet just catches everyone’s attention. ๐Ÿ™‚

You’re Beautiful by James Blunt
I have to admit, there was a point in time when I got very irritated at listening to this song. It was only until about 2 years of not listening to this song that I was okay to listening to it.

Oh ya, once, in China, I was with Huzz and I think Liying in a taxi when the radio played this song and they didn’t censor the word “F888888 high”. Interesting but no one really noticed it anyway.

Sexy Back by Justin Timberlake
Honestly, I don’t really have much recognition about this song until the beginning of this year. I guess it was because I went to Chengdu for 4 months, and lost touch with all the songs that were “in” during that period (I lived on Tank’s songs and a lot of oldies that the driver listened to every morning on our way to work. Imagine that!). The term “sexyback” was used very frequently and it was after a while before I learnt about this song. Lol

Alright, the end. ๐Ÿ™‚

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Friends

Yan Qin’s 21st.

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Long overdue entry!

14 November 2009
Was invited to Yan Qin’s (aka Panda) 21st party.
As Huzz was going overseas, he didn’t attend.

One day before the party, I decided on the gift for Panda and asked if anyone would like to share. We bought him $100 worth of vouchers to dine at Ichiban Sushi (and its parent company’s subsidiaries).

Met up with Twin Dragon, Jia Hui and Henry before heading to Pasir Ris Park for the BBQ party. The sky got dark while waiting for the bus and we didn’t think much about it. On the bus, Henry met his OCS (I think) friends and it turns out that they were going to Panda’s party as well.

We alighted at the wrong stop. Hahahaha. Took a 15 mins walk and it started to rain. Roomie and I shared an umbrella.

By the time we reached the BBQ Pit, it was raining like nobody’s business and the BBQ couldn’t take place at all. Panda’s family members were there packing up the food and everything. Panda’s Mum decided that we all go to their place for the food (she cooked a whole load of stuff).

We didn’t really want to wait in the rain (we meaning Dragon, Henry, Jia Hui and I) and we didn’t want to trouble them so we took a bus back to Pasir Ris Interchange and then took a cab to Panda’s place from there.


Failed attempt at indoor shots again. Plus they didn’t turn. I was sitting next to Jia Hui.

By the time we reached there, the party was in a full mode! Lots of yummy food (cooked by Panda’s Mum and one of her friend I think), drinks and noise! ๐Ÿ˜€ Well, if a party is quiet it doesn’t make sense right? The tv was turned on to the Singapore vs Thailand soccer match and half the party was watching it (the army people). We ended up talking to each other (plus Vernon and Teck Hwee who arrived shortly after).

It was seriously great to catch up with everyone! Almost like an OPP gathering (with the exception of a few who weren’t there. ๐Ÿ™ ). Panda’s mum talked to everyone of us and asked about those who weren’t present. She’s so nice! ๐Ÿ™‚

Oh ya! The following pics were taken by Panda’s friend who was using a Nikon D90. Another hint for me to get it eh?

*Photoshopped btw


Group pic – NYP peeps


Group pic – OPP Chengdu peeps


Birthday cake! Chocolate was super rich!

The remaining time was spent mostly watching the match (3-1 to Thai), talking, eating and catching up with friends. After the match, we watched Momo Love and left around 11pm.

Took the LRT and (last) MRT home.

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