Happy Birthday Hyena No. 1

I knew it was your birthday but somehow I got carried away and forgot to send you an SMS greeting. I'm so sorry my dear! I read your blog and I'm glad that you have the Seows' to celebrate this year with you. Hopefully we will be able to spend next year's birthday with you instead. I know that it can be depressing spending a birthday all by yourself and I think back to the first year I met you when you told Steph that you had baked yourself a birthday cake and wanted to give her some. I understand how it is to feel alone, forgotten and maybe unwanted. But I assure you that you are not alone. I really, really, really, really miss you and Steph so much. I wish we could relive the Sandford days...

P.S. I'm glad your birthday present is working well and that you are making full use of it.

Love you lots.....

Chinese New Year is very different this year

I'm back in my hometown, Melaka, right now. We come back every year to spend the Chinese New Year with the rest of the family. This time round, there aren't any celebrations for us. No decorations are put up, no firecrackers to be lighted up, no well-wishes and no ang baos to be given or received. Yes, it's a quiet time for the family. Some things are still the same though. We go down to our grandmother's place for the annual reunion dinner. We eat oranges and receive visitors at home. Lots of goodies and drinks go round the table for guests to munch on while they chat away. There are also the usual questions and exclamations from the uncles and aunties. Standard stuff really; sometimes I wonder if they go through a script with all their predictable questions and answers. Oh well, that's what relatives are for and that's what they'll always be like. I might end up the same when I get much older. I do enjoy showing off my lovely Australian Open tan, although not many people appreciate it. Quite a few of the older generation have already commented about my colour with dismay. I wonder what my other grandmother will say about it. Even though this is not the first time coming back to Melaka so dark, I always managed to surprise her with it. Heh heh heh, I can't wait till she sees it. She's quite likely to shake her head and ask, "Why so dark? What have you been doing?" in Teochew.

The Melaka house has come a long way since I last saw it almost 2 years ago. The garden is much more extensive thanks to my mum. It has a whole variety of plants, lovingly taken care of by her. There is a new fish tank connected to the side of the house with a glass wall so you can view the fishes swimming while in the living room. There are two freshwater lobsters in that tank and I like watching them prowling around the bottom, unaware that I am staring at them. Mosquitoes are here to stay though and I hate getting bites which itch for days. This place feels more like a holiday getaway and feels like I'm staying out on the countryside. Of course there are endless chores to carry out because this house requires more maintenance than the one in Singapore. The floor gets dusty faster, there are plenty of lizard dropping and dead insects every morning and the garden needs weeding, pruning and watering all the time.

I'm getting lots of practice with driving. I get to drive the automatic Kancil without power steering but at least I'm working my muscles. Driving can really make you a slob. You get lazy and sit in an aircon environment so all the food you eat turns into fat instead of being burned by walking and taking the bus. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

Although most shops and stalls aren't open during the first two days of Chinese New Year, I've still been doing a lot of eating. We go to our grandmother's place for dinner almost every night and she always cooks too much. My dad organized a small buffet party at our place for some relatives. An aunt held another buffet lunch at her place and I totally loved the rendang beef she served....yummy!!!

I've been doing too much eating and slacking. My hands are itching for tennis and I want to swim....

Australian Open 2007

Two red, sunburnt girls with one extremely brown girl at dinner.

The daily schedule board, it's our favourite because we can't be bothered to take down the schedules for each day and we won't spend money to buy the programs either.

Queuing up to enter the Australian Open grounds, I look really lost but I'm just bored of waiting for the gates to open.

Standing beside a signboard, waiting for a match to start.

Mag's not so favourite player.

The update centre where we go all the time to check for matches and plan our next move.

This is the Garnier World where you get to go in for free facials, massages or hairstyling and get a free goodie bag at the end. The bag was really good; it had items that were quite expensive but as you can see, even the Aussies know how to be kiasu. The queues everyday were so long that you had to wait for 2 hours before your turn came.

I'm sunburnt, sweaty and sticky from the sunscreen but dinner is more important.

I know you can't really see much but this is the match between some guy and another guy....hahahha....actually it was James Blake and Fernando Gonzalez.

Fabrice Santoro is an amazing doubles player...too bad all his partners played badly and brought him down with them...ugh...still he is so cute...

The beautiful blue sky of Melbourne, after the rain and early in the morning. The clouds tend to disappear towards the afternoon and the sun is relentless.

The Bryan brothers, after winning their match. These two are super cute as well.

Maggie Bum Bum with the same signboard.

Australian Open 2007

Look at the crowd in the Rod Laver Arena.

Rod Laver Arena right behind me.

Beside one of the outdoor courts. No one was playing because it was raining.

After a match, the crowd clears quite quickly. We managed to get this shot before the ushers chased us out.

Dinner was super spicy, super oily, super yummy Shanghainese fish.

This is how much oil was in that pot!

The dish looks much better once all the oil was removed.

A huge result board outside Rod Laver with the winner and runner-up from 2006.

Maggie Bum Bum's turn with the board.

Mag's all time favourite player!!

I've been in Singapore for about a week and a half now and it's been going good so far. I've settled into my room and put up lots of photos on the cupboards. I have met up with a few friends although I'm taking my time to meet up with everyone. I played tennis 5 times last week and went swimming once. It was so good to finally get to go down to school and play with all my friends. I don't look forward to meeting people on the street, especially the ones whom I was not so close to. I'm just tired of answering all the same questions over and over again. People always ask the same stuff like "Oh are you back for good?" or "So have you found a job yet?" and "What are your plans for the future?"...blah blah blah... I need a tape recorder so I can just record my model answers and play them to whoever wants to know. Ugh!!

Chris organized a dinner for Friday night and the guys (nan ren) were all supposed to come to see ME! In the end, only 2 of them turned up but still this was good because we had a nice number for mahjong where I won the most. Whoopee!!! Did I mention that I now have a mahjong table and mahjong set in my house????

Saturday was tennis with the TP team and we played for almost 3 hours before going for lunch. I love spending time with the gang. Everything is so relaxed and natural. Everyone has the same passion about tennis. Although the gang has become a lot smaller than the past, we have remained close and it's wonderful to know that these are people you can meet up even when you've been out-of-touch for a while and still feel close to them. There's been talk about setting up a TP Alumni tennis team and if all goes it, this will be starting soon. That's something to look forward to. After tennis, I went for dinner with my oldest friend (no, he's the same age as I am but I've known him for so long) and we played a little mahjong with my sister. A total disaster occured after that when I was trying to close up the table with my right leg but it was too heavy. Instead, it fell flat on the floor, with my foot stuck between the metal rods. Damn that hurt like hell and I had a huge bruise popping right out! Luckily Wen got some ice and that brought the swelling down. I am still limping right now and I can't play tennis...darn it...

On the bright side, I managed to go for a late supper with my lecturer, Ju and Chris. It was so last minute because Ju and Chris couldn't or didn't want to go at first but around 10 pm, they all called and said that they wanted to meet after all. So we went down to Geylang because it was one of the places where people normally go for supper but then, we switched to East Coast since everyone was too full to eat anyway. Hence, we headed to the Mac's at East Coast and bought some drinks, walked along the beach and found a bench to sit on. Boy, it was so crowded that night, probably because it was a Saturday. We had a great and meaningful talk for a couple of hours when we decided to go down to my lecturer's place. Chris had not seen his place and I had only seen it before he moved it. We got there around 2 plus in the morning and continued the talk till almost 5 am. It's a good thing my mum and dad aren't so uptight about my going out since I went to Brisbane.

I got home and slept for 4 hours before waking up. There was going to be a meet up between us Maplers that day. First there was a mahjong session and then we went down to City Link Mall for dinner. I had tons of fun and laughed a lot. It was good considering I had not met some of these people face-to-face before. Everything went smoothly although the topics tended to veer towards the game. Still, it was a good night to remember.

Dinner at New York New York with Kit, me, Da, Cloudy and Ken Ken.

Dessert afterwards with my sister in the photo as well.

For now, I'm taking things easy and slow. I want to go out to meet friends but at the same time, I just feel like resting at home. I feel like I need some time for myself, especially after starting work immediately after finishing up my honours. Even though I love my job, even though I took 2 weeks off from work when my family came over, even though I had 1 week off for Christmas and New Year, and even though I got to go to Melbourne for 1 week to watch the Australian Open 2007, I feel like I haven't had enough time to breathe and have a proper holiday.

Let's just wait and see...