Can’t believe I am halfway through my vacation already! These two weeks just flew by like that…Poof!
Really had fun these two weeks.
Met my childhood friends and relatives.
Most of them still looks the same to me. That is good news IMO.
Going for a family trip to Bangkok next week! Can’t wait! Hopefully the weather is cooperative. Will be busy packing tmr!

I just curled my hair. Really love it! So now I can go to LV shop as I have pong pong hair now.

Went to KL for about total of 6 days. Met with bffs, went for visa interview, collected visa, metg with CMU alumni (Had a great time and experience. Happy to meet up with Wendy ) and also 2 days with my family for shopping and jalan-jalan.

Other times, I visited relatives and also tried as much local food as possible Yummy! Just went for karaoke with my dad and bro at Shell club today. The conclusion: The Tan family can’t sing.

Please time, do not pass so fast!

Home Sweet Home <3

Sooooo happy! =) The last time I was back was 2.5 years ago! I am home for more than 5 days already! Oh, boy, time surely flies. Had loads of delicious food and met up with some close friends already. Will talk about them in later blog posts. Trying   h a r d   not to be a glutton. I believe I am successful, for now.

This was what I saw from my seat on my flight from SFO to Taipei. More leg space than business class. . That was my first time being seated near the emergency exit and the trick was reserve your seat at the counter and not before hand. Really satisfied with this arrangement I must say.

Facial mist was provided in the airplane’s restroom. Nice! Thinking of getting one and placing it in my office too.

I transited  at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and had about 3 hours to spare. So walked around and find interesting things to see/do……And saw this! 

So cute rite?! Couldn’t resist poking around the nursery room. It is all about Hello Kitty! This nursery room would be more appealing to baby girls I think.

 There were some grammatical mistakes in the instructions below. If Asvin saw this, I bet he will have lots of comments. He is very nitpicky about grammar.

The samples in one of the the shop is really generous. Look how big these sample bites are! Pineapple tarts! Yummy!!! Jol’s pineapple tarts are still the best though.

A lot of shops selling this delicacy in the airport. 

 Making a mental note to visit Taipei in the future.

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Still trying to convine my family to play Taboo. I brought home and wanted to play with my family because I think I am really good the game is really fun! Still yet to happen as there are always more interesting/important things to do.

Planning to get my hair curled tmr! Yay!

It is very interesting that although you have stayed with someone for a long time, you actually still do not know a lot about that person. I certainly did not know much about her life when she was younger. My dad just told me some of grandma’s stories that I have never known. He consolidated the dates/facts into a doc and printed them out.

Grandma was surely a very strong willed person. I wouldn’t not say she had a easy life when she was young, and I think that her experience made her as strong as she was. She was certainly a person who was not to be bullied.

Grandma was born in 1927 in Singapore. She was adopted. At that time, there was not much (any?) law regarding adoption, and it is very interesting how babies can be adopted so easily. She came to Malacca with her aunt in 1949 at the age of 22 and got married two months after that. Her husband passed away when she was 30 (my dad was 2) without leaving any money for my grandma. She has to rely on herself to survive and to support her 3 children as all her relatives were in Singapore. I asked my dad why didn’t she go back to Singapore as she has no one here and my dad said that it was because her children were all born here.

Life was harsh. There was once she wanted to ask her children to beg for money near a temple (or was it church?), but did not do it at the end as a lot of the people there were her customers (paisae-ma. she had a food stall at that time). Someone actually offered to adopt my dad, but she refused. My grandma was certainly a lady with attitude. She told the person that even if the money offered was as high as my son, I would not sell him. There was an incident where she argued with someone, who was a samseng and spitted at him. (Dun play play, so daring. Really respect her. ). A few days after that, the samseng and his clique came and beat my grandma up. My dad was with her, but was a small boy at that time. He remembered that incident and remembered crying at that time. I asked him what happened next and he said he just remember the crying part and nothing further. There was also some marriage proposals, but she turned all of them down. The reason was because, she spoke to her husband spirit (through a medium), and her husband advised her not to remarry as if she did, her two sons would not be successful.

She had a first job as a maid and that was the time she met a samaritan (let’s call the samaritan S). S got to know about my grandma’s predicament and provide my grandma with financial assistance every month. That was certainly much needed money as she does not receive any financial assistance from her relatives. S also gave my grandma a sum of money and told her that the money is a safety net for her old age, just in case her children are not filial, and must keep the money for herself. Such a nice person. S stopped helping when my dad started working.

Grandma came to PD in 1979, following my dad who got his first job here. She has been living here ever since. I think that she had a better life in PD. Her children took care of her and she can rest. Of course, she still have to work, e.g. take care of me and my bro when my parents are not at home . Over the years, she started to tell stories (although she has the propensity to repeat the same stories again and again. ) about her life, and that was when I get to know a little bit about her. She was always quite strict with me and she loves to watch Hong Kong, China and Taiwan series. I used to watch with her when I was younger. Sometimes we watched so long that I feel a bit giddy after that. We watched VCDs.

She passed away peacefully on 13 Oct 2009, at the age of 82. On my dad’s doc, the total days were 30136.5 days.

Time to reveal our bling-bling costume! Ta-dah! Bling-bling right?

Our finale. Colorful.

I really <3 this pic! Candid!

Last year’s group. We are in different dances this year.

I think I look good in this pic.
My supporter. Thanks for coming

Thanks for coming and the pics WJ!

Make up. Doing smoky eyes, thanks to YL.

In the beginning, I really wasn’t comfortable wearing this bling-blong costume in front of my colleagues. I was hoping I can wear nice traditional costumes like sarees or lenghas, but, oh well.  This may not be my idea of nice, but at least it is traditional.

The organizers and participants collectively made this a success. This is becoming a yearly event.

Reminds me of MFF in CMU. Nostalgic…

Found this blog while randomly browsing. It is really cute! Do check it out.

Now I am busy preparing documents and also going to start packing for my trip back to Malaysia! Excited!!! It has been 2.5 years since the last time I went back. Not too excited about the preparing documents and packing part though. Just now, as soon as I stared at the list of documents to prepare, I instantaneously had headache. Had to eat a slice of cake before continuing the chore. Packing is a momentous task! Should I bring back 1 or 2 bags? *thinking*

Just now, we had BBQ to celebrate Kevin and tcng’s birthdays. This is the first BBQ among the CMU-ians. Yeah, we are very lazy ppl.

And at last, I get to drink my favorite Caffe D’Vita coffee drink! I have been begging asking my friends to get the coffee from Costco for me. I misplaced my Costco card. Being really gredy, I asked tcng to get 2 tins for me.   I have been trying various instant coffee when I am out of  ‘the coffee’, e.g Ipoh White Coffee from Msia and some Vietnamese brand coffee. No fight, ‘the coffee’ wins, hands down.

Slurp slurp! Makes me happy!

After I upgraded to Firefox 3.5.5, my bookmarks are gone!
Great, now I have to find all those links again, which is certainly a pain!
Oh, that rhymes!

Yah, he is always my baby bro. He is the best baby bro any sister can wish for. (This is an over-generalisation )

But, really he is such a lovable guy!

There was once I went back for my summer holiday and I wanted to show off my culinary skill by preparing pasta for my family, from scratch. How hard can it be, right? It was a disaster! Even my dad refused to eat it! (My dad is famed for his ability to eat anything and everything).  But my bro swallowed it down. When I asked him if it was really THAT bad, his answer was no. (I tasted it myself, and I have to admit that is was really THAT bad). I was really touched by his effort to make me feel better.

Now, when I mention that I will prepare a meal for them on this trip, my dad will go like, “Oh, like the pasta last time? Better not waste money”. Oh, well!

I missed that I missed his teenage years! I didn’t see him grow up. My baby bro is a big boy now. He is way more happening and cooler than me!  (not that I am cool to begin with!) Can’t wait to see you at the end of this year!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope you have a great one and happy always! Miss you and love you loads! Muaks

AIS left us and US for good for UK last Friday. The sole main reason he went there was because of his gf of course. So nice of him, right? Yah, he is always nice to tease. He will surely be be missed! Best of luck AIS whenever and wherever!

So, when is our next dinner together?

I just got my Diwali dance costume! I believe it is an Indian traditional costume, but with some enhancements so that it is suitable for shows. It is definately a bright costume. Hmm, that is an understatement. bling bling is more like it.

It is really  P R E T T Y and S E X Y

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NOT!

Do I look nice and slim?

Hmm, maybe adding a bling bling jacket will be nice.

Er, maybe not.

There are more bling blings to this costume! I know rite, hard to imagine. I will post up more pics after the event. Talking about the dance, I am not sure if I feel 100% comfortable wearing this in front of my colleagues. *gulp*

Don’t get me wrong. I think this costume look nice if all four of the girls wear like that. Look nice as a group since it is colorful and vibrant. But, if  the focus is on one person, it is not very flattering, is it? Vain, I know.

Oh ya,  last year’s dance.

Update: Oct 27  12.13 am

– someone mentioned that this costume is silly

– someone agreed that this costume is clown-ish

– I thought of an adjective for this costume: DRAMATIC

When I was younger (less that eight years old), I always  wondered about life and after-life in general. After that, I didn’t give much thought about after-life anymore as I did not get answers to my questions. At times, I will think about it when people I care about continue their journey elsewhere, and that’s it. I do not consider myself a very spiritual person, but I do believe in “what goes around comes around”  and also the existence of the Maker. I am talking about this topic because, yesterday, my parents told me an incident which proved that my grandma came to visit the family. How I wish I experienced that too. Our believe is that s/he will come back on the seventh day to visit his/her family. Some people will do things like pouring flour on the floor so that they can check if there are footsteps there. My parents didn’t do anything like that of course, but regardless, we knew she came back for a visit. I love you.