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  • Posted On: December 13th 2023 at 11:55 pm | Add a Comment?
    Categories: Birthdays, New stuff, Personal life

    Whee! It’s my birthday again. I know I should be a bit sad that I am older by a year now but nevertheless I am still quite excited. I finally can unbox my birthday gift that I got for myself in January this year.

    I got myself a Van Cleef and Arpels 5 motif bracelet in hammered yellow gold this year. Yes, it is quite a splurge and I paid full deposit in January thinking that I will have to wait for a year to receive it. It ended up coming in a week. The power of paying full deposit instead of just waitlisting it. Also helps to have a helpful SA who is willing to take in full deposit when the time window opens. Well, I must thank my SA for letting me know that the window has opened so I can pay full deposit for it. Otherwise, I highly doubt I can get the bracelet till now. Hammered gold pieces are not made in huge quantities as compared to the crystal/gemstones versions…

    I managed to fly back to Singapore a few days earlier before my birthday. Unfortunately I ended up falling very sick. That’s after my bloody accident in US. I managed to avoid wound infection while in US but didn’t manage to escape flu bug when I am in Singapore. Gahhh. Luckily I managed to get better by my birthday and was able to drag myself out of the house to buy my own birthday cake – an important tradition for myself haha. I treated myself a cup of Koi black tea latte too. After 2.5 weeks of having horrible and super expensive bubble tea in US, I certainly welcome having one of my favourite bubble tea in Singapore.

    This year has been transformative for me as I hit several major milestones in life. I will leave the details in another blog post in future as I reflect in 2023.


    Posted On: December 24th 2022 at 12:40 pm | 1 Comment
    Categories: Birthdays, Food, Overseas, Personal life, Pictures, With my NEX

    Hi everyone, I realised I haven’t blog about my birthday for this year so I’m back to blog about what I did on my birthday.

    Some of you might know that I came back to Singapore after 2.5 weeks (actually 20 days, including travelling) in US. I went there for a business trip then I extended 7 days more for leisure trip. I feel incredibly fortunate that my first trip post-COVID is partially sponsored by my company. That means even the travel insurance is also paid by the company since it is a work trip. I always thought I will go South Korea once travelling resumed but it ended up to be US. Well, company is paying partially for it so why not? Haha.

    I went to Scottsdale, Arizona for my work and went on to explore Gilbert (only 1 night), Chandler (thanks to my colleague and his wife for bringing me around after work), Tempe (day trip but it was raining) in Arizona. No, I didn’t go to the Grand Canyon or Sedona. Yeah, I am lowkey regretting my decision now.

    Most people do not wear masks in the places I went to in Arizona and they also cough and sneeze out loud. Kind of scary given COVID is not completely gone.

    I extended my trip to go to Los Angeles, California and also went to Santa Monica Pier for admiring the sunset. Took many great photos which I have yet to admire after I come back from US. Expensive hotels but at least it is cheaper than New York, which was my original plan. Public transport is really cheap with $3.50 metro day pass though haha. I feel that the public transportation in LA is quite safe but of course not as safe as Singapore. Tired office workers do sleep on the bus when taking the bus home. There are 2 CCTVs for the bus as well. Masks are also provided on bus and commuters do take it and wear it. People also double mask in LA.

    I also went to San Francisco, California for shopping. Many thanks to Gulabi for the accommodation. I saved on the expensive hotel cost in San Francisco. 😀 People do wear masks and is cautious about coughing and sneezing in public. The city has gotten much cleaner as well. Public buses are cleaner than the ones in Singapore too. Their bus terminal looks extremely clean. I wish Singapore will follow what San Francisco is doing and their cleanliness standards. It’s a vast difference from my last trip in 2018.

    Anyway, back to what I did on my birthday. I did lots of unpacking of the shopping loots that I bought in US. This time, I made a conscious effort not to overbuy stuff and only buy something I truly like. It helped that USD currency is quite strong when I was there. Unfortunately, this also means I bought some items from Hermes and Cartier which burst my spending quite a bit. However, even if I exclude the money I spent at Hermes and Cartier, I still spent quite a bit. My accommodation in LA was quite expensive. Food were quite expensive in LA and SF too.

    I also had dinner with Chin Hau at Beauty in the Pot. Have to go back there since we couldn’t get Bread Street Kitchen booking. We went to Bread Street Kitchen on another day for early Christmas dinner and oh gosh, their food standards have dropped. I’m glad I didn’t go there on my birthday or I will be very disappointed.

    I lost track of time and didn’t manage to get a birthday cake on my birthday but I managed to get it on another day. I will post the photo of it once I sort out my photos. Haha.

    My birthday cake in 2022 🙂

    Posted On: December 16th 2021 at 12:13 am | 1 Comment
    Categories: Birthdays, Food, Personal life, Pictures, With my LX10, Work

    I forgot to post on my birthday again but I will post what I did on that day.

    I’m clearing my annual leave this week (since it’s my birthday week). It was good since I get to rest for a week instead of the usual 1 annual leave day which I take usually. Unfortunately, that means I missed the action of log4j vulnerability at my workplace. Not sure if that’s a good thing but I think it is going to be a long cleanup since there are so many applications that are using Java and there are so many exploits/ransomware/state attacks using this vulnerability. It’s likely to last for some time.

    I guess I’m quite a workaholic to be still thinking about work on my birthday. :shocked: I try to make sure I don’t work or don’t think about work on my birthday because it is like an off day for me for the entire year. 😀

    For my off week, I planned to study for my Google Cloud Platform Cloud Security certification and also catch up on some personal errands. Not to forget to have my favourite cup of tea latte to chill. 🙂

    On my birthday, I had dinner with my boyfriend at Beauty in the Pot because we couldn’t get a booking at KOMA restaurant. It’s not too bad since I love Beauty in the Pot. It’s basically what I had for last year as well.

    He surprised me with a gigantic floating/helium balloon on the day itself too. No birthday cake but I got a helium balloon. :happy: He got me a pair of gold earrings and a windmill pendant from Chow Tai Fook a few days before. I realised as I get older, my skin is having issues when I wear costume jewellery or mixed metals. I can still wear them but if I wear them for too long, it will get a bit red/swollen. 🙁 Oh well. I love my costume jewellery for earrings. Now I have to wear at least 18K gold earrings otherwise my ear holes might sealed. Oh well. Age related issues, I guess.

    Before the dinner, I had a free facial (TIMETREASURE INVIGORATING TREATMENT) after I redeemed my free facial voucher after spending over S$500 on my first purchase on my birthday month at one of the Sulwhasoo boutique. Well, I tend to buy 6-month supply of skincare products at a go so hitting S$500 is not too difficult, especially when Sulwhasoo products aren’t that cheap either. I opt to top up the eye care facial on top of my package for S$50 because it’s worth it. I can see my face more lifted after the entire session, including my eye area. If I have a choice, I will want to go the facial sessions once a month. Sadly, it’s quite expensive (worth S$360) and I’m not going to spend so much on it.

    Pre-covid, it is very difficult to book a slot for the facials but I think the pandemic has made people try to avoid facials given the close proximity while mask-less. So I got the voucher and is able to secure a slot 2 days later. Quite surprising but I think I want to use the voucher ASAP given how dynamic the situation and the ever-changing restrictions brought by the pandemic.

    Can you believe that we are still in the middle of the pandemic after close to 2 years? Gosh, I am certainly sick of it but I guess I rather stay in Singapore than to deal with the additional stress of travelling with so many different restrictions. I shall enjoy other people travel stories from Instagram stories.

    As usual, I got myself a birthday cake. This year, I got a black forest cake. :happy:

    My black forest birthday cake for this year.
    My black forest birthday cake for this year.

    I’m loving my off week so far although I do feel FOMO about missing out on the log4j vulnerability related work. It’s like one of the key vulnerability of the year and I miss out the initial action on it.

    I think I will make this a new tradition – to clear my annual leave for a week on my birthday week. 🙂