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was late for work but still managed to get in without any suspicions, spent 1/2 the day getting ready for the presentation tomorrow for smrt, hopefully we’ll be able to work something out with them.

my mom invited charlie together with his uncle and kid for dinner. they were in singapore just for a few days as the kid needed to get treatment for one of his eyes that was injured during an accident a couple of years ago.

it was also to return a favour since i had dinner at this particular uncle’s place when i was in vietnam. this is the husband of the aunty who cooked 3 different kinds of shell creatures for dinner last saturday in vietnam.

since my mom has nothing to do anyway, she fetched us back to charlie’s place before trond came to pick me up. we needed to go down to neesoon camp to pick up some screws from teck kin’s van. he forgot to return them to us after the nokia event at singfest.

it was kinda weird driving up to an army camp and telling them i need to get something from a vehicle that’s parked inside and it was even weirder that we were allowed to pass without them asking us any questions.

however the weirdest thing that happened when we were in the camp got the 2 of us driving out of the camp like mad.

after getting the screw from teck kin’s van, i decided to smoke before going off and after smoking, i just did what i normally do and fling the cigarette far away. a couple of minutes later when we got into the car, we could smell a strong cigarette smell in the car. knowing very well that i fling the cigarette far away, i told trond to just drive off with the windows open and hope the smell goes away…and sure enough, once we got to the guardhouse, there wasn’t any smell left.

seeing how it was 7th month, we decided to just leave it alone and not be bothered about it.

it was the 1st morning after 4 days that charlie could sleep in so didn’t wake him up till around 12noon, from the way he slept on the bed, he was probably disturbed by my snoring but i did pre-warm him when i was offering to share my bed with him.

his sister has already gone out with his cousin so the 2 of us decided to have a simple lunch at the nearby market but we ran into them at the lift and we all decided to go eat together.

in singapore chinese restaurants, they have peanuts or pickles as an appetiser but in vietnam, they have these…

i didn’t try the chilli but the leafy vegetable tasted really bad!

also took this random picture…

gosh, look how dirty those chopsticks are…

had the usual rice noodle with beef and 2 stuffed squids with a can of orange crush.

took a trip down to the equivalent of singapore’s sim lim towers where they had all the different electrical appliances from computers to mobilephones to vacuum cleaners to plasma and lcd televisions.

every electrical appliance in vietnam is expensive, didn’t believe charlie’s cousin at first but i understood what he meant after visiting the store. the nokia n95 black that charlie bought in singapore cost him around s$700 but they are selling it in vietnam for like s$1200. the cost of the lcd televisions are about s$300-s$500 higher than what we can buy in singapore.

i later found out that the government actually taxes 300% on all electrical appliances. 300% is a lot but after thinking back about how the singapore government taxes for ciggettes and liquer, i guess 300% is not a lot afterall.

charlie and i went back to the hotel for a rest while his sister and cousin went out to somewhere else. was slacking around my room and got some random pictures of charlie.

both of us had different plans for dinner, he was meeting some friends while i had a dinner appointment with my brother. my brother came to pick me up from the hotel in his chauffeured car and went down to some fancy restaurant for dinner. i actually wanted nice vietnamese food since the only stuffs i’ve been eating for the past few days were beef rice noodles and the bread with meat inside.

as for the super posh and fancy restaurant, they only serve chinese food and it was way expensive! paid over 500,000 vietnam dong for the meal which left me still hungry. well, at least it’s my treat this time.

we then paid a visit to his office in the heart of the central business district. his office building is actually near my hotel but the area was a world of difference compared to the area my hotel is located. it’s like new york vs some kampong in johor.

again no pictures of my brother, i just keep forgetting to snap pictures when i’m around him.

went over to sheriton hotel for some drinks and was approached by 2 girls on a scooter for special services. one of the girls was damn beautiful, a real head turner but i had to act like an angel in front of my brother…but then again, i have this feeling my brother was acting like an angel in front of me too.

took a lift up to the highest level, 23rd story, and got a clear night view of vietnam. took some pictures but they didn’t turn out well so i deleted them, probably need a dslr to capture the images.

got a lift back to the hotel but charlie was nowhere to be found, took a bathe and watched animes till 2am before charlie called saying he won’t be coming back for the night.

was smoking with my usual smoking kakis, both single and availble aunties, susan and shirley when shenton joined us at the smoking corner with his new jumper suit.

omfg! desperate housewives aunties!

he seems to be enjoying it thought…

aunty susan drove shenton and i down to clementi for a haircut after work, it was supposedly a very good hairdresser that susan was been visiting since years back.

took them 2 hours just to get my hair cut and dyed. susan needed to do housework so she left early and poor shenton had to wait for me to be ready.

photo whored with shenton after the hair cut

it was still early so decided to go for durian supper again, shenton thought of the evil idea of getting a free trip home by calling susan along for supper.

she was still doing housework so we went up to her flat first.

first ever, pictures of aunty susan without her makeup on

pictures of her dog

susan wanted to buy some durians for her daughter as well so we ended up with 6 durians for $40.

tasted all 6 of them and they were really good. the seller gave us 1 more for free, a huge one but it tasted really horrible.

went back after that smelling of durians…even my pee and fart smells of durian.

everyone has been looking forward for this branch lunch since last week, buffet at kushin bo, jurong point.

seats have been booked a week ahead, for all 11 of us.

11 of us???

from what i heard, this lunch was supposed to be for departments under sofie, which means only neublick and enwa…that adds up to kevin bong (enwa), kelvin peh (enwa), chan leek (enwa), trond (neublick), charlie (neublick), myself (neublick) and of course sofie, a total of 7 of us.

mr liang (engtek) and ben (c520) used to be from neublick so i guess it’s right to invite them along but why susan (emm) and shirley(c520)?

don’t get me wrong, i’ve nothing against them. in fact, i’m rather close with them as they are my smoking kakis but isn’t this suppose to be a branch event?

sat together with chan leek, kelvin peh and charlie and our table was by far, the table most filled with food.

5 minutes into the 1 hour buffet

a mere 10 minutes later…

was too engrossed in the food that i forgot to take anymore pictures but we were all bloated within 50 minutes.

pictures after the buffet…

kevin bong, chan leek, kelvin peh, charlie and myself

bloated charlie

some random pictures

keypo queen!

tango in jurong point? the result of too much sakae

charlie pretending to be shy

the happy family…

boring day at work…can’t even remember what i did in office.

went back on the dot since aunty susan was sending me a lift back.

was pondering to have dinner or not when shawn called me for dinner so accompanied him to the kfc around my place for dinner.

tried the new value meal and it wasn’t anything fantastic although i must say the scrooms burger is better than what it used to be. it tasted like puke the last time i tried it when i was part timing for singnet.

went back after dinner and met up with shenton at around 11.30pm for a durian supper. bought 3 for $20 and it was really good. much better than the $45 for 3 at damsey that i had with charlie and trond which was supposedly famous.

there were so much flesh that we couldn’t finish them, had to waste at least 8 seeds since we did not bring any containers to put them in.

had a long and chat till around 1.30am before going back.

i think i’m turning into a durian-colic.

had almost nothing to do the whole morning so decided to take 1/2 a day leave to accompany charlie to immigrations to apply for his permanent residence.

took a cab down to ica in lavender and almost died when i saw the reception queue.

now i understand why 1.6 million out of the 4 million people in singapore are foreigners.

after about 45 minutes of waiting in the queue, we finally spoke to an indian receptionist who couldn’t seem to understand charlie very well so i intervened and tried to explain the whole situation.

after explaining everything, he merely threw me a piece of paper for online registration and told me to register online and come back another day.

not wanting to make another trip down, i tried telling him that our company’s human resource manager has called earlier and she was told it was okay to just walk in to register.

i’m not sure if it’s my english or something but i bet he assumed that both charlie and i were from vietnam and what he said next made my blood boil.

” you want to apply pr, you don’t make things so troublesome”.

wtf!!!

i got so pissed i took out my ic (pink in colour) and threw it on the table in front of him and demanded to speak to his superior and instead of apologising or getting his superior out, he merely pushed a few buttons and handed me a queue ticket.

i was so damn pissed i bet my face was blood red, i shouted at him the 2nd time so loudly that the queue behind me went dead quiet.

to make a long story short, i created major havoc in ica and i bet that guy’s in super deep shit…he better is or else i’ll give them hell again.

it was still early (2.30pm) and there were like 400 in front of us so decided to go for a walk and come back around 5pm.

went back at 5.15pm and still again waited for another 30 minutes before it was our turn.

managed to clear everything at around 6 and took a mrt down to orchard to meet rusli. charlie bought a brand new 8gb nokia n95 from rusli just a few days ago but charlie was complaining of a loose casing so he’ll bring the phone back to nokia and get it fixed for us.

passed the phone to the nokia care people and went off for a quick and light dinner at sakae with rusli as charlie had to meet his aunty and uncle whose in town.

spent the whole afternoon lazing around home before finally getting off my butt for joyce’s and julius’ house warming in baungkok.

i think it’s spelled as baungkok.

was really too laze to take a mrt down so i took a cab down instead, $25 on nets.

most of the teletech guys were there less the usual drinking kakis which was rather unusual. i’ve heard some rumours here and there but they are afterall, just rumours…and since i’ve left the place even before they eventually closed down, i think it’s not my place to say anything.

the only person i was rather surprised to see there was barbara, really never expect her to turn up, all glamorous and mysterious with her original lv bag.

3 out of 5 of the original microsoft sa team

the bestest combination, joyce and me

the newbie sa re

is that a satellite dish?

anyway, the area’s quite nice but lack the people and convenience of being in jurong.

someone told me about the place being (in chinese) “bird also don’t lay eggs” which i think is rather true. the birds won’t even be able to lay their eggs judging from the size of the trees there.

was supposed to go for a movie in town with ken but he backed out last minute so i ended up taking a cab back to jurong with zhilong and his girlfriend.

decided not to have any dinner and sleep early for the night but aaron just had to call me for a late dinner (early supper).

aaron was having this crave for pizza and since it has been a long time since i had pizza, i gave in.

it has nothing to do with the fact that aaron’s treating…

also got weixiang to come down to share the 3 medium size pizzas from pizza defrance but he was late so we finished almost 1/2 of the pizzas when he finally came.

3 boxes of medium size pizzas…delicious!

sunshine fantasy, our all time favourite

super cheesy, 4 kinds of cheese in 1 pizza

super meaty, for people like me who loves meat

shah drove all the way to my place to meet me after the pizza session for a talk, it has been a long time since we had a nice long chat.

went to the coffeeshop near cityharvest and chatted till 3am before finally deciding to return home.