So I'm BAAACK!!!

Grrrowl!!!

Festive period is OVER for me! And so Cubbies is back on the writing spree :) Soon, it will be the BACK TO SCHOOL season for us both.

Do not intend to be talking much right now (besides, I'm secretly writing my next Melbourne post at work) but i thought this will be a nice post, POST-F1 fever.

I know that the publicity for the F1 Race in SG was huge and I've had many business friends congratulating me (and my country) for the success of the second season of Formula-One Race. All is good and I'm glad everything went well - the concerts were great, the publicity was sensational (quoted: "Fabulous"), big names like Beyonce, No Doubt, will.i.am, Backstreet Boys (shivers shivers) puts SG on the world map, even though its just a small little red dot :)

Just days prior to the race however, things were not so wonderful in the city, especially traffic. Chock-full of people everywhere (this is on a daily basis in SG of course but worse prior to the race)... Not so wonderful for me as I was late to work every day (3 days before the race and 2 days after the race). Yes yes, i may appear whiny and complaining about something so temporary ... in any case, here are the photos to what I'm rambling about (quality not too great cos i snapped it from my mobile):

We're talking REALLY CONGESTED roads. We were on the highway for at least an hour before we can get to the exit leading to the city.

Ahh yes... even in such congested roads, you need to pay the ERP - Electronic Road Pricing - Singapore's tactic to "punish", "spank" and "fine" you for owning a car and refusing to join the public transport committee :) Yup. Oh by the way, its supposed to "curb" congestion. Ok? Get that right...

So thats $2.50 per entry. Into the city is another $3.00 or so.

Some pictures of the track in preparation - 1 day before Trial Friday.

See those green barricades covering "hot-spots" on the expressway? Its basically to deter errant cars / drivers from slowing down or stopping to watch the race (let me add, "for free" - which is what Singaporeans enjoy doing doing!). On race days, the traffic police are stationed along the highways.

I just thought that its a selfish way to deter others from catching a glimpse of it "live" and without paying. The F1 Village, they call it, is totally inaccessible to non-paying public. The entire Marina area was cordoned off. Good in a way...

So that's the day before the race. I only got to the office close to 40 minutes after my official report time, thanks to the traffic :)

Now, here are the human traffic too at the Raffles Place MRT Station, on the actual Trial Friday. This is not even IN the station yet - its at the underground area leading to the station.

I know that the Formula 1 brought a lot of publicity and tourists moolas into the country but really.. its getting way too crowded for me. Too crowded, even for a poor little cubby bear :(

PsssT! Be back with more posts! I will have a full weekend at home this week, so I'm going to spend my time "fixing" this messy blog. Bleargh!

Taking A Break...

Cos its RAMADAN and soon it will be, SYAWAL and Eid is looming closer and closer!!!

Be back in a week or so...!!! Woohoo!!! :)

Picture taken from here...

New Year, New Resolutions... Or Old Habits Die Hard?

Grrrowl!!!

Just fresh from a 5 hour long bus ride from Kuala Lumpur back into little old boring SG!

We bade Bye-Bye to 2008 and Hey Hey 2009 from the grounds of KLCC Park, with a spectacular display of fireworks! The spirit was high and full of optimism, despite the uncertainties we are made to face in the near future. But like i told all my associates, friends and colleagues - May the coming year be better than we anticipated! You never know... :) Life is a mysterious thing.

Anyway, we took a late-night bus from SG to KL and snoozed all the way there in 5 hours, checked in at the Impiana KLCC and slept all the way till noon! Boy, was i tired! I couldn't sleep my little bear self on the bus so i took it all out at the hotel! :) We skipped the showering part and slept in our jeans and t-shirt!

We then went out to lunch at our favourite Tarbush Restaurant along Bukit Bintang and did a little shopping at Pavillion, Lot 10 and BB Plaza. Much well behaved this time, even Meebops didn't shop as much as i would expected her to. He! He!

After a full day of walking around town, we decided to overcome our tired little paws through swimming, back at the hotel. We were glad we decided to swim, because the pool was awesome! We are talking Infinity Edge Pool, like those you see in Bali (except this one overlooks Petronas Towers!) - I truly enjoyed myself swimming and doing a little exercising to get my energy levels up for the night!

We had a little hiccup along the way though...

Little Miss Clever Meebops left her camera on her desk at home and so, for the first time ever, we were camera-less on such an eventful day! I must say that i don't particularly enjoy fireworks (Meebops goes ga-ga over fireworks though!) - won't kill me if i don't watch it, but for someone who enjoys it, the audacity of leaving a precious tool to capture the mood is bewildering! (Yes, i'm talking about you...) Needless to say, the celebrations in KL were the best ever with the spectacular fireworks display and gate-crashing into a semi-private New Year's party at the hotel cafe.

Cubbies is not much of a dancer... but We Sang, We Danced, We Laughed and Be Merry. It was magical :) We even sang the birthday girl (whoever she was...) a birthday song and cheered for her!

And just before we called it a night, Meebops and i were chatting over our hopes and dreams for 2009. And among my new year's resolution is to get fitter through exercising. And since we both liked swimming - why not join a class in Aquarobics? We get to swim, and we get to exercise!

That's one of our long list of resolutions for 2009 - which we came up with every single year; and vowed to keep to for the next 365 Days. Or... will old habits die harder?

Chips, candies, chocolates, ice-creams, savouries, snacks, buffets and late night supper.................. Yumm.