1. I bought a new blanket, but it was way too big and puffy to bring with me by bike, so I called hubby to take it with him in the car. Tried calling his mobile, but didn't pick up, so I ended up having to call his work phone. When he picked up, I immediately asked in English, "Hey, are you at the office?"
A second of hesitation later, he replied in English, "No."
Then I started explaining what I had done and I knew that he was at the office because I could see his car outside (the shop was near his office) and then he finally realized it was me.
Then I asked, "Why on earth did you say no at first?"
He replied, "I didn't recognize your voice at first, so I was confused." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...obviously he didn't have my number on his work phone, so he didn't know who it was and then I started babbling in English ha ha ha ha ha...funny!
2. When he got out of the office, my first thought was, "Damn, he's HOT!!!!"
It feels nice to feel this way still about him he he he...He's always SO patient with me, so I'm thankful for that.
3. Seeing two squirrels at the yard, right under the bird feeder. So cute!
4. Tomorrow is a holiday, so the store is closed and tonight I'll have a pre-Christmas party with my coworkers. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSS!!!
5. Finding cheap offers on meat and fish. They're now safely in the freezer for future use.
6. Frost. Beautiful glittery thin layer of frost everywhere. They're sparkly in the sun and under the street light.
7. Finally getting the hang of a new type of friendship that has evolved from an old type of friendship. It feels nice to be able to let go and finally adjust my expectations.
8. Ordering an early birthday present for myself (1 of the books in my wishlist) because Bookdepository gave me a 5% discount that would expire this weekend. Can't waiiiiiittttt!!!!! WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
9. Almost forgot that Monday is our 8th wedding anniversary (FB reminded me of that LOL!!!). I just want to say I'm thankful that we've been given these years to spend together and I hope we will have many more to come. I still believe he's the one for me and he's becoming even more dear to me as time goes by.
10. Been trying to lose some weight by eating a plateful of salad at least 5 times a week. It's amazing how light my body feels after trying out this practice (haven't really weighed myself yet because I've just started sometime last week, but my body feels different than eating meat all the time).
glitter-graphics.com
It was snowing crazily yesterday morning and I had an early shift. I had already anticipated it, because Friday was also another snowy and windy day. It was fascinating to see the wind blowing up the snowy particles in the air like dust circling up to the sky. Yesterday I couldn't ride my bike to work, because it was way too early and the snow was coming down hard and the pavement hadn't been cleared from snow yet.
It was pretty rough to walk on the sidewalk and then I noticed someone riding a bike along the side of the main road, so I decided to walk there, too. Mind you, they had cleared up most of the snow from the main road, so it was easier to walk there ha ha...And because it was so early, there was hardly any traffic (well, not that it's ever been that busy over here anyways). About 200 metres away from my workplace, a car slowly stopped next to me. Turned out it was my boss' car, so I could get a lift to work the rest of the way ha ha ha...My eyebrows were wet by the time I arrived at work as it was snowing right to my face the whole time I was walking to work.
After work we went to my MIL's and I started making a snowman right away. It was really perfect weather as it was wet enough at 0'C, so the snow was pliable and easy to mold. Here are two photos of my upside-down, big-headed snowman he he he he...
My highlight of that day was that when I was making the body, a squirrel came by and watched me curiously from about a metre away. If I made a sudden movement, it'd jolt and scurry behind the tree trunk, but then it kept on watching me for about a few minutes before it finally went over to the bird feeder to eat. Very cute!!! Here are some pics of the peeping squirrel he he he...
Last night all the snow turned to slush because the temperature rose to 1'C. I just checked the temperature outside and it's as warm as 4'C now and it's very very wet. I'd rather have all the snow melted away and then new snow can come in its place without melting away again, because it's really dangerous to have some parts of the snow melt away and then refreeze during the night. Oh well...we shall see what kind of winter we're going to have now. One thing is for sure, though: I can't survive without my light box. The other week I decided to skip using it for a day, but I felt SO SO SO tired that day, so I will never skip using my light box until it gets bright enough outside again.
1. An opportunity to give back and share what I know.
2. Looking at childhood photos and reminiscing past events, evoking different feelings.
3. The new fluffy and very warm blanket, making me reluctant to get up from bed LOL!
4. Taking these photos:
5. We have so many DVDs to watch. So exciting and difficult to pick which one to watch first ha ha ha...
6. Finally having a lighter week to rest and recharge after a crazy long week at work that I'll never want to do again.
Compared to the last time we went to visit Bandung, there are now SO many new spa/massage places there. My brother took us to a new spa place once that his friends had recommended and hubby and I had a 1,5 hour massage. The place was clean, but nothing fancy. The massage was good, though we didn't know what my brother had booked, so turned out in the beginning the masseuse stood up and hold onto the railing and used her feet to massage us. That was quite surprising because I hadn't expected that. It cost about 160,000 IDR for 1,5 hour.
The only bad thing was that the one who took care of hubby didn't speak much English, so sometimes when she had to leave the booth to wash her hands, she didn't tell hubby anything, so hubby was a bit confused at times. So she didn't ask hubby if he wanted to shower or not, whereas I just went and have a shower.
The next time around I went back to Everyday Spa, the spa where my mom and I went to years back. This time I went to the main branch in Jalan Aceh and because we went there on a workday, I hadn't booked beforehand as I was sure they would have some spots for us. They did have some spots for us right away, but the couple room was unfortunately occupied. The cost was 190,000 IDR for 1,5 hour.
They had separate sections for men and female and they also asked if hubby wanted a masseur or a masseuse. We only had to wait about 15 minutes for them to prepare everything. They washed our feet first, then gave us slippers and guided us to our own booth. The place was better than the other spa and this time hubby's masseuse spoke English very well, so he felt that it was more satisfactory to have the massage there.
So after two satisfactory experiences, I'd highly recommend Everyday Spa for people who want to enjoy a nice massage in Bandung. And I think the price isn't that bad, either. So next time we're in Bandung again, I'll definitely go back there.
Here's the spa site: Everyday Spa
Here's a photo of the view from our room in Hotel California from the sixth floor:
I also had a massage at the hotel we stayed in at that time, Hotel California. Actually the original plan was to go back to Everyday Spa, but hubby wasn't feeling well, so I booked an hour massage there and the masseuse came to our room. The massage was good, but I felt that it's still better to go to a spa place to have a massage rather than your own hotel room because the ambience is just totally different.
Speaking of hotels, we stayed in two different hotels in Bandung. The first one was D'Best Hotel and the second one was Hotel California. In the beginning we weren't actually planning to stay at D'Best Hotel, but hubby and I had trouble sleeping in my parents' place because of the heat.
We had good experiences with both hotels, though for D'Best Hotel I forgot to ask for a non-smoking room, so the room we had kinda smelled like cigarette smoke. In Hotel California, all the rooms are thankfully non-smoking ones, so no more smell.
Both hotels provide breakfast, though Hotel California provides many more breakfast choices (well, of course, the hotel room is more expensive than D'Best Hotel). They even have waffles and bubur ketan hitam/bubur sumsum (different for different days) and one day I could even eat Kupat Tahu there, so I was really happy eating there ha ha ha ha...At D'Best Hotel, what I like is the fact that they have gorengan at breakfast he he he he he...
The last night in Bandung, we didn't feel like going out anymore, so we had dinner at Hotel California's restaurant and the food was brilliant. Even hubby complimented his chicken steak (and the sauce). The price was a bit more expensive than in normal restaurants, but it was worth it because the taste was great and it was convenient.
Here are two photos of our last dinner in Bandung:
I'm really swamped with work at the moment, so I'll just share some end of autumn photo that I took when I went for a walk along the riverbank last week. Now winter seems to have come, especially because the temperature has been below 0'C during the past couple of days. It was even -8'C when I woke up this morning. There's a light dusting of snow and frost on the ground now, but here are some photos before the temperature got below 0'C. I was lucky enough to see these mirror effects on the river. Very peaceful! As usual, click to see bigger views (as you can see, it was quite cloudy). Enjoy!
Before going to Singapore, I also booked Singapore Flyer tickets online through the website. Because there was F1 race that weekend, apparently only those who had a pass to watch the F1 race could go up on the Singapore Flyer on Friday, Sat, and Sunday. That was why I decided to book the tickets for Thursday. I figured that hubby would be able to see some parts of the F1 race track from the Singapore Flyer cabin.
I got 10% discount by buying the tickets online (only had to print out the tickets and bring them with us and exchange them with the real tickets at the entrance). The price after discount was 29,70 SGD/person. There was also an option to dine out inside one of the cabins, but I didn't want to spend too much time there because we still had places to see/visit.
Anyway, here's the Singapore Flyer link.
It was a bit tricky to find the place because that day they had started blocking the roads in preparation for Friday's F1 race. However, that was also interesting because we could still walk across parts of the track and see what they were doing he he he he...What I loved about the Singapore Flyer experience was that the cabin was big and it has air conditioner and they didn't make us wait for many people to jam into the cabin, so we only shared the cabin with two other people. It was nice being able to walk around the cabin to see different views and take photos from different angles.
Here are some photos taken from inside the Singapore Flyer. You can see part of the race track as well as the F1 stand. Notice some chairs and table in the cabin below us? That's the dining cabin.
Notice the two domes at the far back? The taller one is the Cloud Forest Dome, whereas the shorter one is the Flower Dome. We were planning to visit that place next.
We walked across the Helix Bridge towards Marina Bay Sands. Here's a photo of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel (the one with the boat-like shape on top) and on the left you can see the Helix Bridge.
We found a lift towards Gardens by the Bay, which actually overlooked the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Here is one photo taken from that bridge (when we were still inside the building).
Now here are some outside views from the bridge towards Gardens by the Bay. Before finding the ticket booth, we had to walk past lots and lots of different themed gardens, like the Chinese garden, the Malay garden, etc. However, we didn't really stop to take a look at them because I knew it would too much time.
In the pic below, you can see that we were walking along the outer bridge from Marina Bay Sands Hotel (the building on the left) and there's the Singapore Flyer on the far right.
We hadn't bought any tickets yet because we weren't sure how many places we wanted to visit (at first I was thinking of only visiting one of the two domes), but when we got to the ticket booth, we found out that we could buy tickets to two conservatories for 28 SGD/adult, so we chose to buy them (there wasn't a long queue at the ticket booth). First we visited the Flower Dome and then the Cloud Forest Dome. It was worth the money! I'm really impressed at how well they designed both places. But best of all, inside both of the domes was cool! After walking around in the heat, it was lovely to be able to enjoy the beauty of the plants/flowers without having to sweat ha ha ha...
Click here to find out more info on Gardens by the Bay.
Here are some photos from the Flower Dome.
Here are some photos from the Cloud Forest Dome.
We went up to the fifth floor and walk along the walkway. I felt kinda woozy when walking along on the side of the walkway because you could see what was below and it kinda wobbled if many people walked on it at the same time, so I tried sticking to the middle part because it felt more steady walking there ha ha ha...
Here's a view from the fifth floor walkway...and notice that in this photo it looks like hubby was photobombing the almost-kissing couple HA HA HA HA HA HA...
Then we went down to the third floor and went back down to go out. The photo below shows the walkway on the fifth floor above hubby.
Funny thing was that when we had finished the tour in the Flower Dome, we entered the souvenir shop (the souvenir shop is in the middle of the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest Dome exits), a girl chased me because she wanted us to buy the photo(s) that they had taken of us. When we first entered the Flower Dome, a photographer took a photo of us (just like what happened before we entered the Singapore Flyer cabin), but I managed to say to her, "Ah, we're going to visit the Cloud Forest Dome first."
The truth is, I didn't want to shell out more money to buy photos like that because I had bought some photos of us from the Singapore Flyer souvenir shop already. I chose 4 wallet photos of us (we could choose 2 different backgrounds) and it cost 30 SGD. Good thing she didn't chase us again after we got out of the Cloud Forest Dome HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...
