Gift Exchange Christmas Dinner 2013

Weeeeeeee, first post of 2014!!! Times flies, it sure does. Glad that I had been enjoying my freedom to the fullest since the very day I touched down in Malaysia. No regrets. Life's too short to live with any regrets.

I spent my emotional past few days reviewing my old blog entries, only 72 in total for year 2013. Yeah, a lot less productive compared to the year before. So much ups and downs to endure in the journey of finding myself and what I wanna do with my life. Forgive me, for not being able to share every single detail with you.

 2013 was a nightmare yet full of excitements and wonders.

• February: Dyed my hair brown for the first time.
• April: First golf experience.
• May: A luxurious birthday celebration in Brisbane.
• May: Had Dequervains Tenosynovitis aka repetitive injury on my left thumb.
• June: First whale watching experience on the Gold Coast.
• July: Farewell-ed friends in Queensland, moved down to Sydney.
• August: Family road trip to Tioman Island.
• September: Started using WeChat and got hooked up ever since. 
• October: Diagnosed with dengue and admitted days in the hospital.
• October: Met up with an old "new friend" and attended friend's wedding in KL.
• October: 23 hours train voyage to Bangkok.
• November: Experienced the worst food poisoning that lasted days with abdominal cramps.
• Months of never-ending exploring the Pearl of Orient.

I had three gift-exchange Christmas dinner last year. LOL, "last year" sounds far, far way but it was merely less than two weeks ago. One with newly met friends, one with family, one with badminton buddies. Gift exchange with family was indeed the most unforgettable as it was never our tradition to celebrate Christmas.

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VIA.PRE Italian Restaurant: Christmas Eve Dinner

First of all, Happy New Year's Eve and Happy 2014 in advance to my dearest family, friends and everyone who reads my blog out there!!! 2013 has been a tough year for me, tougher than I could ever imagined but I made it through alive and kicking. It's all good, Christina. It's all good.

I was not in mood that night on the Christmas Eve. Damn emo as Mr. Choo wasn't here with me to celebrate. Just like today, counting down on the loneliest and most hollow New Year's Eve. #ForeverAlone Been using this hashtag way too frequent lately =(

Due to time and work issues, we changed plan to dine out at VIA.PRE in Weld Quay instead of busying ourselves preparing Christmas Eve dinner at home. Pretty good feedback I've heard about the Italian restaurant and hence the visit. Reservation was made earlier before we left the house. It's disappointing how reluctant they were to set up our table until we got there.

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Pesta Chingay, Lion & Dragon Dance Parade 2013 at Esplanade Penang

It was a happening night last night along Jalan Padang Kota Lama and in front of Penang City Hall. There was this annual Pesta Chingay, Lion and Dragon Dance Parade going on between supposingly 7.30pm to 11pm, but it got delayed somehow.

The carnival hasn't even started by the time we arrived -________________-

We arrived late and the time was almost 9. So we decided to walk around a bit, picked up some fruits from the nearby hawkers where my random, silly act sparked everyone into laughter *burst out laughing*, luckily there were only three of us. Then tardily, we strolled back to witness the opening of the carnival.

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Paniyiri Greek Festival at Musgrave Park Brisbane

We made appearances at the Paniyiri Greek Festival held at Musgrave Park, South Brisbane two weeks ago. It was a two-day celebration and the weather was perfectly sunny and warm that afternoon. $10 entrance fee for adults, free for children.

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Fitzy's On Church: Easter Saturday

It's the Easter Saturday today, which is also the second last day of March 2013. I went out with Mr. Choo wearing this zip through panelled scuba dress I got from Forever New. Our plan was to have a dinner date somewhere in town, but the problem is, which restaurant do we go to? Irish Club Hotel, the one I thought of trying out has been fully booked out. Thus, we settled for some fine dining at Fitzy's instead.

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Valentine's Surprise For The Two of Us

Blue~ reminds me of Monday, which is just tomorrow if I must remind you =.=" Mondays may not be my most favorite days of the week, but the color blue doubtlessly is my obsession this summer, from pastel to navy blue.

I'm surprised how much my wardrobe has grown and changed throughout the past few years. There are some clothes I used to like (I had really bad taste in clothes back then) left sitting in my wardrobe, basically just collecting dust *guilty* I rarely or don't wear them anymore, but then I feel bad to just give them away.

I even talked myself into believing that I would still wear them sometimes when I'm home, turns out, that's not exactly the case. So I spring-cleaned my wardrobe a couple of days ago, packed away those unwanted ones and bid goodbyes.

Now, our Valentine's Day surprise... Don't you wanna see what have we got for each other? Hehe

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Red and Fat "Snake" Year

年初一, first day of Chinese New Year. Huat ah!!! Haha, I wore the reddest piece in my wardrobe, a slim-fit flare dress I picked up during last-minute shopping. Red is good, consider it a bright, happy color that brings the wearer a sunny and bright future *fingers crossed* There are few other superstitions (good-luck traditions) my family practice on the first day of CNY, apart from wearing red, such as no washing hair and no sweeping or dusting in the house.

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Prosperity Toss and Hot Pot Reunion Dinner

Chinese aka Lunar New Year's Eve fell on the Saturday this year. I went to work in the morning, finished, came home and did the routine things I'd usually do before heading out again. My face was naked (no make-up), messy hair (partially tied up after blow-dry), and I couldn't bother to put on contact lens as my eyes were pretty sore yesterday.

Mr. Choo and I showed up in black, while the loving family of three (oops, should be four now =p) wore the reddest possible outfits to welcome the Water Snake in 2013.
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New Year's Eve Countdown Fireworks

How did everyone spend your New Year's Eve? I spent mine with a bunch of close friends down in Brisbane. We were there for the countdown fireworks. Oh well, not exactly a New Year's Eve countdown since it started around 8.30pm. People mountain people sea (idiomatically means huge crowds of people) and the streets were flooded with cars.

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Christmas Eve's BBQ Lunch

The past two weeks have been restless and sleepless for me, even Holidays. I had to get out of bed early on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to attend gathering lunches, catching up with friends. Well, this was the outdoor barbecue I went to with the family, warm and breezy under the sun.

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Christmas Day Celebration: Turkey Lunch

It's the Christmas Day today!!! How excited! I woke up early to do what I was meant to do. Make-up, dress-up, then headed straight to Kevin and Veny's house. They were kind enough to host a Christmas potluck lunch this year (instead of dinner) and invited us and few of their friends over.

We've prepared tiger prawns, tartare sauce and a little Christmas pressie for baby Preston which we got about a month ago, when doing routine grocery shopping in Grand Central. The Super Mario plush bag is simply too cute that I wanted our chubby little buddy to have it!

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Toowoomba's Christmas Wonderland 2012

We had a special guest visiting and staying with us over the weekend. On Saturday, after 6 hours of work in the afternoon, we went downtown to grab some Asian groceries and the fresh ingredients needed to prepare dinner that night.

I made them glorious home-cooked food! *victory pose*

Thinking back, it has been a long while since I last cooked so many dishes for my favorite meal of the day. We later drove William to the upper part of Queens Park (where Toowoomba's Christmas Wonderland is) for an eye-opening sight-seeing and photo-shooting experience.

Ho~Ho~Ho~ Merry Christmas in advance to my dearest family, friends and readers out there!!!

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First Australian Christmas Potluck Party

My first Australian Christmas party. It was held at one of my supervisor's place out in Highfields last Saturday. I spent almost two hours to dress up, put on make-up, slightly curled my plain and boring black hair a little bit (which turned out looking so flat here *facepalm*) before hitting the road with Maps on on my iPhone. The Apple app works fine as long as there is 3G coverage, provided if you're subscribed to a reliable local telco provider.

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Carnival of Flowers: Sideshow Alley in Queens Park

Instead of going for the "routine" Floral Parade of the Carnival of Flowers like the past few years, we skipped it and brought ourselves to the Sideshow Alley at the lower Queens Park yesterday. I supposed it would be nice strolling and shooting under the bright sunny weather and it indeed was! Despite a little bit of spring heat which made us sweat like summer, I was not hating it at all.

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Friends' Graduation Ceremony at the Empire Theatre

Woke up on the right side of the bed. What's up with this Prince song inside my head? Hands up if you're down to get down tonight, 'cuz it's always a good time... I've been waking up with this Owl City's song playing in my head over and over again since the arrival of first day of spring.

Sleeveless skater dress in turquoise, half-sleeve short coat and open-toe pumps in black, embellished by a gold with pastel colors necklace. Pastel and fluorine seem to be the new color trends of spring and summer 2012, I did not fall behind on adding a small dose of them in my outfit today.

So what's the special occasion? Friends' graduation ceremony at the Empire Theatre! You don't get to see me with make-up everyday, it's rare, like once in a blue moon, and I actually forgot to put mascara on *facepalm*

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Toowoomba Languages and Cultures (TLC) Festival 2012

I was such a sleepyhead this morning, woke up at 10 something realizing I needed to wash and blow-dry my hair today. There goes my precious two hours to dress up, breakfast and all. We drove to the city facing massive traffic on the roads, car parks were full everywhere as everyone was making their ways to the Toowoomba Languages and Cultures (TLC) Festival held at Queens Park.

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Graduation Celebration Lunch at the Angel Cafe

After spending almost an hour taking photos at the Japanese Garden, we were still kind of in a dilemma of choosing between Chinese or Western cuisine for lunch. Shaine intended to try out the new Chinese restaurant in town, but her longing for Angel Cafe's nachos was far more zealous. And therefore, we decided to go there in the end. Thanks aunty for treating us such wonderful meals!

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Bestie's Graduation Ceremony and Photoshoot at the Japanese Garden

I had a very significant mission to accomplish today, which was to attend my bestie's graduation held in the K.J. Stapleton Stadium, Clive Berghofer Recreation Centre of the University of Southern Queensland (USQ). The ceremony started at 10 a.m. and thus, I woke up few hours earlier just to wash and blow-dry my hair, and to get myself dressed up with some light make-up on.

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Our Simple Little [V] Day

My BB and I are celebrating our 6th Valentine's Day this year, and still counting. Tonight, no sweet chocolate, no flower bouquet, but just a simple little home-cooked dinner at home which delivers love, heart, and passion. Not to mentioned it was healthy, delicious and also cost-effective at the same time. I mean, who would have guessed that one could afford such wonderful meals for less than $30 only?!

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"Chap Goh Meh" Dinner Gathering at Ocean Breeze Chinese Restaurant

First of all, I would like to wish everyone, "Happy Chap Goh Meh" and "元宵节快乐"!!! Time goes by and we have already came to the last day of Chinese New Year *heavy-hearted* Oh, did you (the single ladies out there) throw mandarin oranges into the sea today? As the Hokkien saying goes, “Dim kam, keh ho ang.” which literally means, “Throw a mandarin orange, marry a good husband." That is just a saying of course! No one has to believe or actually put it into practice. In my case, I did not throw any, yet still believing that I would marry a good husband someday *dreamy eyes* Anyways, my BB and I attended a dinner gathering with friends tonight and ordered 8 delicious dishes for a table of 12,  plus 1 chubby little baby boy.

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