More pictures of Bali

I am using my Dad's computer to do all the downloading as I still cannot seem to get back the format that I want on my laptop

The ceiling above the bar at Hard Rock Cafe, Bali.


The memorial for the bomb blast victims in 2002. This was taken from across the road.


Dog-gone tired on a hot afternoon :P


A zen-like library of sorts in the midst of some of a cluster of cottages in the resort.


The environs of the resort.

My new home

I love my new place. I have a slightly bigger room, a bigger bathroom and I am very near to everything. I am not only living near the town centre (centre ville en Francaise) but I am also at the centre of Singapore (I think).

I have also attempted to decorate my room to look Shabby Chic and it has kinda worked, with the help of IKEA stuff. White country style wooden chair and a very nice and simple lamp. I know, I know, shabby chic is supposed to be old furniture given new lease of life but nobody said that I could not use new stuff. There is no hard and fast rule.

I have also found a shop (or two) at Thomson Plaza that sells country style furniture and nick-nacks. I was very tempted to buy the whole shop worth of things but stopped myself just in time.

My bed, which was especially made ten years ago and has followed me from the old to new place. I used to hate it probably due to its bulkiness in my old room but I am glad that I kept it as it totally suits my decor theme!

That's the chair and lamp from IKEA. That old-looking fan is indeed old! I first used it when I was given my own room, at about 2 or 3 years old!

The water jug and the tissue box cover were bought at two seperate shops but all located at Thomson Plaza. Thomson Plaza also brings back loads of memories as I spent one third of my childhood there. One of my pre-university school days hangout, Burger King, is longer there. Thank goodness, KFC still is.

The painting and the instruments were all bought from Bali. Love them to death!

Anyway, I fell ill a couple of days back and had to find a doctor pronto! I was really lost as this town is really quite new to me. I just based it on my previous observations and went to what I thought was a better reputed clinic chain (starting with P and it is not Parkway). It was stated that it will re-open at 6.30pm and it was only 6.10pm. I decided to wait.

By 6.40pm, there was still no sign of life from inside the clinic and there was a whole group of people waiting to see the doctor. My stomach was not sparing me much and so, depending on my memory again, I decided to cross the road to another clinic that I remembered passing by on my way back from church.

This was a much smaller clinic but I liked it already once I stepped in and I felt that this would be the clinic that I would come to if I had anything wrong (touch wood). The doctor also proofed to be very professional and he listened very carefully to what I had to say.

I am on my road to recovery and it is funny coz he seems to have prescribed similar cough mixture like my previous second choice doctor behind my house (my first is always my GP at Hougang). While previously, I never seem to get well, this time around, it seems to work. Is it the good vibes or is it really the medicine? I really cannot tell.

Whatever it is, I must say that I love this town!

Problem!!!

OK! I have a problem here. I am very used to the layout of my blogposts before they are published. Now though, everything has gone somewhat plain text mode and I cannot find the icons to post my beautiful pics with. Help!!!! I am such an idiot when it comes to these types of things!

Bali!

What a romantic place, even though I was not with a guy. The place and its people, will make you fall in love with the place incessantly and make you wish that you were back there again right away.

Self 'portrait'.

Mexican shrimp wrap @ Kaz Cafe.


Sunset at Kuta Beach.


More self 'portrait'.

Sukiyaki @ Fukutaro. Yum-yum!

Tiring

Woah!! Didn't know that shifting house is such a mental stress as well. One would have thought that you just need to move from one house to another, right? Wrong!

There are other things you need to look out for, like how your cable doesn't seem to connect, the cable network outlet is not at the position that you would like it to be, etc, etc.

I also got to see the stressful side of my parents and how not ready they were to cope with it. They were literally shouting their heads off each other and what was worse was that when I tried to ask them to calm down, they turned to me to vent their 'anger' on me. I got double dosage.

If I DID tell them that I am being shouted at and am getting double dosage, I would have the bear all the accusations about me not being able to stay calm etc, etc. In the end, I chose to be quiet. I chose to go out of the house. I hate conflicts and I hate being 'maligned' like that.

In the end, I went out to get more scrapbooking stuff! Oh yes, Wildswans taught me some stuff that I found really exciting to try and useful too!

The time is NOW!

Woah! In a few hours' time, I would no longer be staying in a condominium, but I am very excited. As I will be having a bigger space to myself and closer to my friends. Not only that, I think I will be able to get home faster and save on transport.

I feel excited but at the same time sad, but most of all anticipative of my new life and yet another new chapter. I think it is going to be OK. Being 'alone' would be OK. Glad that I am not exactly alone still as there are my Dad and Mum.

Mum has been the most hardworking throughout this whole shift. She started planning from the word go and without her, we would not have been able to pack everything on time.

Till then, I hope I get the computer up and running so that I will be able to update some more. Ta Ta!

p/s: I am rearing to get back to my scrapbooking routine. Guess it would be a little interrupted till Wednesday, when I meet Wildswans.

Night safari, here we come!

After the much unhappy incidents,we boarded the bus number 138 and headed for the Night Safari.

I guess after two parks (the zoo and the Jurong Bird Park), we were a little tired of walking. We decided to take the tram ride instead. Woah! The tram ride was $10 instead of $5 (Zoo). Before the ride started, pictures were also taken and each 'framed' photo is twenty freaking dollars!!! It was a little like daylight robbery...at night!

Can you imagine? If all three of us bought photos, it would be $60! I could not stomach that and had to swallow my pride and walk away.

The food was expensive too. Half a dozen satays cost $11 and in the end, I settled for a kids pasta for $6.90. The portion looks like it should be charged at $5 max.

While eating, we overhead this photographer asking if anyone wanted to take pictures with the snake for $10. I jumped at the opportunity. The deal was that we could take 2 official ones for the souvenir postcard and then take as many as we want with our own camera.

Bad customer service

Yesterday, before we went to the Night Safari, we did some shopping at the AMK Hub. I was so cheesed off by the general customer service that I did not buy as many things as I wanted to. The only top I bought was from this shop called "The Box".

After that, we were walking along and saw Pepper Plus (my current favourite shop) and walked in there to see. I had seen and tried some clothes at Wisma that I was contemplating buying but could not make up my mind and wanted to ask my friend. I was at one end of the shop while my friend was at another. I was holding on to the dress and the salesgirl was in between us. Obviously I had to make sure the salesgirl was out of the way before I 'shouted' to my friend.

The salesgirl sussed me up and down before asking me, "Want to try?" and then looking at another rack of clothes, she asked me, "s, m or l?"

How RUDE!! First of all, she sussed me out from head to toe as if I was a secondary school child who did not have the ability to buy any thing. Next, I just felt that she was so rude in not making any eye contact when asking a question. I think a robot would have done a better job. Even if a robot DID NOT look at me, I would have felt better.

I was polite enough to reply that I was just looking and proceeded to tell my friend not too softly that the dress I was holding was the one I tried at Wisma's outlet the day before.

What followed after that was also plain rude as the salesgirl (probably in her 40's) proceeded to look from one of my friend to another (two friends were with me at that time). We left the shop shortly and my friend asked me, "Does that person has a problem somewhere?" Obviously, I wasn't the only one cheesed off.

The next shop that we stopped to ask questions was a mobile phone shop. The lady gave straightforward answers but did not seem warm or friendly.

The 'finale' came when we walked into the Little Match Girl boutique. I saw some pants that I liked and had wanted to try some. I took my size and was standing behind this lady who was standing right in front of the fitting rooms. I was not sure whether she was customer or part of the sales team.

Whatever it is, the two obvious sales persons were busy chit-chatting away and did not even bother asking what I wanted even though I was standing there for a good 3 minutes at least. The lady in front of me had left her position right in front of the queue.

It was only after I complained rather loudly to my friend about why it was taking whoever was inside so long to try clothes that the salesgirl casually pointed to a very black and inconspicuous signage that said that something like everything is on sale and there was no trying.

No trying????!!!! How ridiculous! If it was no trying of tops I would have been a little more confident but these were pants I'm talking about. There are different cuts and this being an local brand, the cutting is bound to be smaller than what I am used to (European cut). What would be worse if they put the clause that there would be no exchange for sale items. That would be a real disaster for me! It would be money wasted.

Oh yes, since I could not try, I hung one of the two pants on the rack to try to wrap the other around my neck to try for size. Almost before I can finish saying "Hey presto!", another salesgirl was going to remove the pants that I had hung from the rack.

I do not know why, but I glared at her and said, "I still want this". I would not have done so before as I would have been too polite. I even replaced all the apparel that I did not want and then whispered into my friend's ear," let's go. The service here is very lousy."

When I turned around to look at the salesperson, she was giving me her world's biggest smile but it was too late.

Part of me could not help but wonder whether it is because of the way we spoke that made them think that we were from that certain huge country (with the world's largest population) that they were treating us this way (especially the last shop). After all, I do speak with THAT type of accent when I speak with my friends from there. It just comes naturally.

Then again, if the sales persons think that the money of the people from this big country is not worth earning, then they are plain dumb and stupid. Four to five years ago, when I went to Hong Kong, the sales persons there have already recognised that their neighbouring fellow citizens DO have the spending power and went to all means to meet their every needs.

Well, I would rather think that it is not racism (for the lack of a better word at the moment) that is causing this type of attitude. I would rather think that it is the people who are in Ang Mo Kio that are generally like that: not so refined :P

Hmm...I think I would still stick to shopping at Toa Payoh in the near future. The sales persons there are generally nicer.