Happy New Year!

My year of 2010 started in the crowded streets of Taiwan. Surrounded by crazy clamshell girls and boys jam-packed into the centre of GaoXiong city. First time I see a crowd that humongous.


2010 was a pretty eventful year. I had a 4 month break before I started my clinical years, volunteered to paint houses in a small ulu-ated town of KKB, became a proud owner of my current S90, had the worst waiting moments in my life, and then had the happiest moment in my life (offer letter to Jefferson), picked up baking, made the chio-est cupcakes my hands could ever make, danced for the last time in IMU, first and last time with my sister as well, met an orientated the best juniors in MEDTCH110, and waved a sad goodbye to my family.


I has a lot of first time visits to places too. 
1) Los Angeles 
2) Philadelphia 
3) Atlantic City 
4) New York City 
5) Niagara Falls 
6) Washington DC


(easier to sum it all up hehe). 

I was also made a proud mommy of four little furry beings, in which one was given away because of naughty behaviour. Now they are so fat. 

     
Celebrated my very first Thanksgiving, Labour Day (that doesn't fall on May 1st), Black Friday. Seen my first naked bike ride. 


I also learned a little bit more about myself than I ever did in my 23 years of life. I realise I can actually make a meal, plan trips, survive alone. And I also realise that I like having chatty noisy dinners together, baking, having time off from work, and being in the OR (an oxymoron). I realise that I treasure family time more than interest in working, I like taking care of people, and I like receiving random emails from people. 


Best part of 2010, it ends with me being around people I love, in Malaysia. 


Happy 2011 everyone. 

Melting ice.

Last friday I hopped onto the plane and sat a long long long long long long long long long long journey back home. I think it was almost 33 hours of travelling from Philadelphia so tiring indeed. But going home is always something to look forward to. 

Christmas this year was just the same as any other year. Warm, and cosy. Haha. In fact I almost never have white christmas, and gladly missed this year's which would otherwise be my first to be with family. Totally worth the sacrifice. 

1 Utama New Wing

Christmas decorations in shopping malls this year have definitely been a lot better than last year's, in fact they get better and better every year. And its crazy the kind of ideas they have, one mall competing with another to be the better looking mall. 

One of my very few cravings back home was the little xiao long pao. Somehow those in Philly weren't nice and soft enough. Hence headed to Dragon I with my mom and my sister to have a xiao long bao lunch. Ordered 3 trays of xiao long bao and just munch on that for lunch. Had so much I felt sick of xiao long bao's afterwards. I guess that settles the craving for another year. Haha. 

And on another day we headed down to KL, to chom chom on KL goodies. And meet up with my daddy-kins for lunch as well. 

Chilly fish balls and mango sago. Yummilicious. My body was not well adjusted yet on that day hence the tired looking face. I forgot how it felt to be in such a hot humid place. Travelling down to KL itself I was sweating like a pig there. Super ew. But I am not complaining. I take the warm sun any day than to face the snow blizzard happening in Philadelphia now. 

Pavillion outdone themselves this year. Two years ago they had a blue and white huge christmas tree that could hold an entire choir around on the tree. This year, they felt that a tree alone was too much of a bore, and went with a whole garden full of decorations with giant ornaments and fountains. 

And the inside looked like a magical castle.

And a whole swarm of people as well. 

I didn't intend to enter Pavillion. But we needed to wait for my dad for lunch, and it was hot outside, so I stepped in to enjoy the air-conditioning, and had a jaw dropping moment when it was all gold inside. Not bad not bad. 

Pepper lunch for lunch. Yummm.

Snow Flake for dessert!

I unexpectedly met a friend who is not really supposed to be a friend to meet in KL. That's cos he was a friend from Singapore. Haha. He was on a vacation with his family to KL. 

He was happy to be dining in pepper lunch cos "Pepper lunch in singapore is non-halal"

I was also dying to check out Uniqlo. I heard a lot of disappointing stories from friends which say that all they sell was winter clothings. Which was actually good news for me. But still, it's kinda silly to have a winter clothing store in a hot country like Msia. But, I went crazy in there, and came out with 3 bags full, and a wallet that was 400 bucks lighter. 

And even ask baby to go back and get another jacket I regretted not buying. That's how crazy I am.

Finally. Crab another day for dinner.

Ahhhh. the usual silly pictures me and my sister take.

<3

Merry Christmas and Happy 2011 to all!!

YummYummie

First meal in Malaysia. Yumm!!

Delicious Prawn Mee. This little bowl satisfied my cravings for the past 8 months. Hehe

Yummy food apart. I was so excited with the whole gesture of going home I forgot about the white white moment at Philly until I saw my camera pictures. 

It snowed in Philly the day before I left. I was so excited I abandoned studying and waste the whole time taking pictures.

Surprisingly it wasn't all that cold outside. But it was certainly nice to see the little white coat over every object outside. 

Apart from that, about a week before I left, Aaron and Tenni had us over for a lovely double date dinner. Well actually it was more of a Malaysian dinner but everyone else but the four of us were not free so it became a double date unintentionally. 

They made a delicious spread of food. Thank you!

And we were introduced to a lovely yogurt ice-cream place. Well more like I was brought to the shop for the first time. The first time I had the yogurt ice-cream, I was sitting in my comfy robe watching Gossip Girl, the very episode before it went for a 2 month holiday break. 

It was a lovely short night out. We wanted to snap a picture of nighttime philly at a bridge, but it was an epic fail. haha. So no pictures of it.

I had another round of good food, and good ambiance 2 nights before my exams. Ven was becoming overly stressed with juggling rotations, studying, and research. Hence he needed some good beef to ease his soul. So we went back to Del Fresco for a treat. 

Okay our outfit was super kua-zhang lor. But anyways, this picture was taken in my room. And because my room was so SUPER DUPER MESSY from packing to go home I decided to crop out our figures and impose it on a purple background. I know the picture looks super fake. Ahya watever la.


Missing my ham hams now.

This picture was taken when I was changing my hammies' bedding, I placed them in a pail and they were busy trying to climb out. It was such a funny sight. And very cute one too.

With one of the hammy.

With the same hammy still. 

Enough of hammies, snow and dinner. Time for bed. And will post more Malaysia sunny weather pictures soon!

This song is about love.

But it is love for my family and friends. 


Love for home. 


Can't wait. In approximately 33 hours I will be reunited with my <3 family. 




so I'm going home, back to the place where I belong. . . . 

Weekend 2 hour break

Life have been giving us so many lemons. Lemons after lemons. All the sour sour lemons. But we rather be drinking lemonade all day, than to get sucked into the reality of lemons. Sugar always makes life better (Unless you are diabetic, but that's another story.)


Well I guess that sentence above came out retarded. Haha. But I wanted to say that life here has not been so smooth sailing, but with sugar coatings on it, everything becomes a lot bearable.


So with Christmas round the corner, everything becomes, sugary. Candy canes, vanilla icing, snowcakes. One cold winter night, we braved ourselves against the cold winter weather, to get our dose of sugar. (remember the lemon theory). We visited the Christmas village.


This place resembles a pasar malam, selling high class expensive christmas items. So naturally, we didn't buy anything cos we are not going to be around during christmas anyways.

There was a big boo-haa-haa over the news about a big Christmas tree at city hall. And that everyone queue for an hour to see it finally get lighted up on Thanksgiving. So we went Christmas tree hunting. Only to find . . . . .

This pathetic tree sitting in the middle of city hall.


I tell you we were so disappointed because I think the trees in MidValley and Pavillion back home look even better than this small tin pathetic tree. So so so so so disappointed. But just like the lemon theory, we decided to sugar-fy it, and took a lovely friendship picture with the tree.

Kaching!

So we kept walking around the little pseudo-village to see what else is on sale. And we came across an ornament shop selling the prettiest Christmas ornaments ever!!! Cute!

Outside the shop there wer 2 nutcrackers guarding the entrance. 

 Mr Nut-cracker. 

Not too far away, was an hourly lightshow at the Comcast building. As we were walking pass Lovepark, we saw. . . . 

A super huge Christmas tree. Okay . . . Hehehe. Apparently we mistook the tiny tree for the big city hall tree they were talking about. This is the actual tree. The other tree was a pirated version. Haha. We laughed to ourselves about how silly we were. Gosh!! Although, this tree wasn't at all as bi and nice as those in Orchad Road, Sg or Pavillion as well. But we were so disappointed by the fake tree before this, we actually thought this was a pretty good tree. 

High 5 to Queen!!

The comcast centre is a crazy building. It is easily the tallest in Philadelphia. The decorations outside were ten times better than in Christmas village. And the inside has a whacko design. 

I guess when business people sets the pace for Christmas, they bring it to a whole new level. Eg. Orchad Road.

This is their ceiling design. People from all walks of life crossing a bridge. Comcast is the bridge konon. 

They have a huge ass screen at the front display. Supposed to be a gazillion LCD's in it for it to display whatever scenary they want to.

And it is not just picture, they move around wan!!

So that is how their light show proceeds!

Us in the Christmas ornament!!! Weeeeee

On the way back we had a hot bowl of soup. Yum. Tom Yum!!!!! 

City Hall for you!! 

Of Yinns.

Let me tell you something funny. Americans don't understand our names. They go by first name and last name. And middle names. And they presume the rest of the world to be the same as them. Haha. Example : Fong Zhi Ven. First name : Fong, Last Name : Ven. Middle name : Zhi.


Therefore, all of us need to switch our names around here. Example : Zhi Ven Fong. 


Now everyone calls Zhi Ven "Zhi" now. Because they just don't get it. They kept thinking Zhi is the first name, and Ven is the middle name. And it gets a bit tiring to keep explaining your name so much so that when people call you Zhi you just go "yes my name is Zhi because I lazy to explain a big round only to find you still not getting it".


Thankfully, my awesome parents, were even more awesome in giving names when I was born, and gave me an awesome name. Pei-Wen Lim. First name : Pei-Wen, Last name : Lim. See I never get that problem because my Pei and Wen is joined together by a "-" which makes it ONE WORD, and makes things so much easier. So I am the one and only one here going by my full name still. Instead of just "Pei", people are calling me Pei-Wen because they get it. Hahahahaha. 


Now, let me tell you the story of the Yinn's. Yinn Khurn was here one year before Yinn Cher. And when the 2 brothers were here in Philly, people get really confused. They were wondering why their parents named them with the same first name??? (see smack head betul smack head, they don't get it that Khurn and Cher ARE NOT MIDDLE NAMES). So they get this habit of calling them : Big yinn, and little yinn. Haha. 


Those are not only the only name issues that make me laugh. Yinn Khurn/Cher's surname is Ooi. And Lay Queen's surname is Ng. And then, the funniest statement comes out. They pointed out that their last name is super weird. Why so????


Because Ooi has no consonant in it, and Ng has no vowels. 


Don't even get started on english names. People asked Joshua why he was a Joshua. He is Asian and hence Asian need Asian names. Not Joshua. Haha. That is Josh's problem.


Alright. Enough of names. 


Big yinn was in town from Washington DC during thanksgiving. And he wanted to spend quality time together. 


Well I should have known better, cos the form of activity they chose to spent quality time together is . . . . . .

Whole place like gaming den. And Big Yinn is using my Pink Preciux. Look kinda funny hahahaha. 


Well we did have good dim sum the next day. Although the guys had a little problem waking up.

Day after thanksgiving, black friday, was a fruitful shopping day for both me and Queen. For once I bought less stuff than her. Haha. We were at the premium outlet mall (where I swept 5 Coach wristlets, a bag and a scarf) the morning from 7am till 1pm noon. Vi-Zanne and Eddie were kind enough to offer us a ride there and back and we were delighted MAX MAX MAX. 


No picture of the outlet malls cos we were too busy being Tai Tai and sweeping items of the rack. Even Ven bought a whole lot more than me and is now a proud owner of a new coat (FINALLY - who survives the winter with only one coat in the wardrobe) and a bag. And a belt/hat/shirts blablala. I only got myself some nice plushies (previous post) and sweater leggings (cos they are so awesome at keeping your legs warm yet slim). And then we continued our day going to Target to get out $3 bucks toaster (in which we didn't manage to in the end cos it was sold out, *sob*)

Spotted berry trees on the way there. I am pretty sure the berries are not edible.

Whilst at target, we walked around looking for *erhem* lingerie and hats. 

I almost bought the pink furry hat, but Queen said I look like I have a huge fruit on my head. (glares at her).

We had fun that day. Haha. Looking forward to next year's thanksgiving!