I admit I'm obsessed. But it feels so super good when the crystals you buy are getting cheaper, and you're able to haggle more because the people there actually start to remember you.
Without disappointing any of you, here's my second latest turtle:
I THINK it's called Black Sand stone. The real English name I'm not sure but that's the direct translation from Mandarin's Hei Sha Shi. A very nice piece. As you turn it under the light, or any where that is lit, the glitter is not stationary because the angle you turn would mean different parts of it with glitter lightign up.
You can look at the thing for hours. Not really hours. Maybe at least 10 seconds for someone who has absolutely no interest in such things.
I also got another turtle yesterday. I also don't know if its name is a direct translation from Mandarin or English.. but the crystal is called Tiger's Eye (ROARRRRR!!).. Not like someone.. AHEM.. SOMEONE.. also bought that crystal, but then he forgot its name and called it Tiger's TOOTH.
And I was stunned when he said it and I searched the plastic bags that we were holding on to and exclaimed "YOU BOUGHT WHAT TIGER TOOTH?"
Hey, I do know some people actually buy real tiger tooth or shark teeth or something like that and wear it as a pendant. In fact, such practice (I think) originated since like prehistoric times or something, because they believe that wearing it gives them courage. Why not wear Hippotamus teeth man. I bet that'd give them courage that they can't run in times of war or whatever because it's huge. No no! Elephant teeth better!! Ok, move on before I start talking rubbish again.
Behold, to date, the most expensive crystal I've bought so far. I dare not name the price because my mum reads my blog.
It was love at first sight. And the thing was, I'd been looking for a Fa Jing (hair crystal, direct translation. How disturbing.) for a while. Actually, just casually looking at it for the first 2 weeks, and then seriously considering getting one by the 2nd half of the month.
The prices were like a roller coaster. From $50 for one as small as a 1 cent coin, to $5000 for a big crystal ball.
But this one, I bought at a steal. Personal opinion. Because what I did was I went there and stayed at the shop for 40 minutes. I stepped into the shop at 9pm. I think they close at 9pm too, so they reduced the price so much in order to kick me out.
I've been told by many shops too, that it will grow and change according to the owner's.. the owner's luck? Body heat? Aiya, something like that lah. I wouldn't mind even if it doesn't grow an inch, because it looks PERFECT as it is. You may not be able to tell but the hairs inside are silver. There is gold, silver and, get this, GREEN hair too in Fa Jing.
And remember those char siew bao earrings? I really want to promote for them liao. The things they sell are real cute. I bought this from them the other day too. It's expensive though, at $12.50, but then I guess it's cos they are all handmade, and the auntie there said she sometimes spends up to one full day making just one:
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 11:19 am
Let's go SHOPPING!!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Yes. I bought another crystal turtle again today!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
But it's really cute. And it's very hard to find small little baby tortoises that does not have a crude hole drilled through its neck (so that people can make pendants or the equivilant out of it).
So this was one of the rare baby tortoises. Sometimes those bigger than that still have the yucky hole drilled through.
Next was this earring I bought today....
Can you believe it....
CHAR SIEW BAO EARRINGS!!!!!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA.....
Okay, I admit I think I'm abit crazy today. I also could not resist buying this Ang Ku Kuey fridge magnet too...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 5:57 pm
What Happened to East 17?
I just suddenly found this song one day. It's not a video. Just the song itself. It's damn difficult to find their songs already and this is one of their only songs that I personally like... so yea..
I'm quite lazy to talk about Genting KL trip already. The trip was TOO SHORT. I'm abit sad about it all. And when I came home, whoa, the workload I tell you. The next time I'm leaving the country like that would be when I have resigned... It's weird that some things can't get done without you around because everyone's waiting for you to come back and do. Pisses me off sometimes, but hey, I guess it happens.
As such, I have done up a user manual for the secret nooks and crannys of my computer which I will email whenever I am going to take leave, for ANY reason... exams or future (even shorter) holidays.
Anyway, if there were any good advice I could give to any of you 'stuck' at Genting, in the words of a classmate who went there (of all days) during New Year Eve where he every night had to stay different hotels... Then be sure to go to Ripley' Belief It Or Not.
I wished Singapore had one.
Ridley... always full of weird stuff...
Anyway, I also noticed that somehow the Energizer commercials at Genting were pretty rampant. In fact, that Energizer dude was EVERYWHERE. On the walls, climbing on lamp posts, etc.
I guess it's a good place to advertise because at cold temperatures such as these, digicam batteries tend to die out real fast.
This was a pic I took when we were going on the SLOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW Dinosaur boat ride.. so slow I told you I could walk faster on foot. . .
Interestingly enough, as you can tell from part of it, that place is weirdly situated on a hill and overlooking most of the themepark...
Oh, I must mention one of the companions on the trip. Desmond. WHO THE HELL WILL ONLY WEAR ONE LAYER OF LONG-SLEEVE AND THEN GO OUTDOOR THEME PARK TO PLAY... What an idiot.
In fact, I secretly wrote "idiot" on every single stick of his cigarette and put it back into the box before he finds out. I tell you, it's not easy to use a ballpoint pen to write on cigarettes. You are at risk of writing too hard and poking through the thing.
Now, in the evening as we were all running back to the building to shelter ourselves from the cold... Then remember the Energizer we saw from the Dinosaur Ride?
We saw it again as we were running. I just had to stop in the misty cold to take a good photo..... He was HUGE...
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:58 am
Back From Genting / KL !!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
There are a few quick updates.
A friend of mine got into SIA!! YAY!!! I have ONE AIR HOSTESS FRIEND!! I don't know if she wants people to know yet, so I won't reveal her identity.
Another friend of mine got into a bike accident. Now I'm sure he don't want people to know, so I won't mention his identity, but I have to admit that unlike my girl friend who got through all the SIA interviews as I expected she would, I really did not expect this bike accident friend of mine to be able to SMS me so fast. I mean, he kept saying how 'jia lat' his bike's condition is in when usually the first thing people would like to know is whether YOU are injured or not... But I guess he should not be injured too badly if he could SMS alot... Haha!!
I don't know somehow it slipped my mind that I forgot to tell everyone I would be going to Genting. I went last Sunday and came home on Wednesday night. It was fun. We all should go Genting during offpeak hours. I guess this is the advantage of being a working swinging single WITH NO SCHOOLING KIDS :) We all should take advantage of this while it lasts.
When we exhale, it's so cold that there's smoke!! I can't remember that happening the last time I went to Genting
It was only upon reaching, getting off the bus, and dragging all our belongings up and down countless escalators that I realised... Hey, we're not gonna stay at Genting First World!!
The queues for the theme park rides are short beyond belief. Basically, you can say that you just run up and you'd get a ride almost immediately because it seems like the rides are WAITING for you to get up and start it.
Jack and I used to have to queue a whooping close to 30 minutes just for this Gold Mine train ride that would last 1 minute only (we only found out eventually).
When we went, the queue was non-existent, we just ran past all the queueing area, got into the ride and hopped into the awaiting carriage and off the ride went!!
But as the song Ms. Jackson, by Outkast: You can plan a picnic but you can't predict the weather....
We happily bought our tickets for the outdoor theme park. You know how their tickets are bracelets right? Worn around the wrist... We crossed the barrier and a staff put the tickets on our wrist. As the last of us got through... It rained.
It rained the usual Genting kind of rain. A downpour kind of rain. For safety reasons (I guess), all the rides were closed.
There was only one ride open though. It was a ride for kids. A boat ride that was so slow, we could walk faster then it. But the boat was supposed to take you to a prehistoric 'world' where dinosaurs still existed.
Just as it came to our turn, the person driving the boat had to go to the toilet.
We finally sat in the boat and instantly regretted. From a distance the other rides started moving. This Jurassic Park boat ride was situated on top of a hill you see, and we had to climb countless steps so it's like overlooking a part of the outdoor theme park.
The ferris wheel had started to move already, and the screams of the more thrilling rides had started to sound again.
And there we were. . . stuck in a boat. Jack asked Alvie, Des and I to scream (the way those people on the roller coasters were screaming). And if anyone asked us what we were screaming about, we will tell them cos the ride is TOO SLOW!
Here's one of the more thrilling rides at the theme park. Needless to say, I choose not to take part in it because I'm pretty sure my entire digestive system would come out through my mouth.
But Jack and Alvie did take the ride. Just by looking at them take the ride I broke out in cold sweat already. This, despite the freezing temperature at Genting (you can hear my nervous laughter in the video).
If you listened really carefully, you can hear, towards the ending, someone shouting KNNB... a particular Hokkien vulgarity... You can hear me muttering a 'wa lau' after that in response...
And I would also like to add that AN IDIOT only wore a single layer, a pathetic long sleeve shirt and think he can fool the weather. For goodness sake! I was wearing my winter jacket!!!!
I shall blog more later because I just realised alot of photos are with Mum.
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 10:01 am
Mika!
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Mika has the uncanny ability of writing very very happy-sounding songs. I remember most of the songs I hear on radio for the first time would be when I'm on my way to work.
So the first time I heard Mika's Love Today, it was so jumpy I was shaking my leg to the happy tune in the car and my mum had to ask me to stop. Thought I'd put the song in here so some of you can hear the starting and go: ORHHHHH IT'S THIS SONG!!!
But there's this other song that was not what I knew of him (from what little I knew of him from the radio). I thought his songs were all very happy. This one sounds happy too, but the lyrics are kinda sad:
"This is the way you left me, I'm not pretending. No hope no love no glory, no happy ending. This is the way that we love, like it's forever. And spend the rest of our lives, but not together."
CiiN Sniffed Her Pillow At 3:57 pm
New Obsession
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Before I start talking about my obsessions, I wanted to talk about the presents I bought for my colleagues. After my previous blog post, I went to wrap the presents and....
Realise with increasing embarrassment that they looked like packaged condoms. That aside, I hope they liked the presents. It was actually a bunch of keychains. Some of which wrote 'Princess'... some of which wrote 'My Job Sucks'.. which got some of the ladies laughing hysterically.
Now I must also add. To date, on my christmas tree, there had been a little plant growing. Last Friday, it was just a little leave that was only as big as one quarter of a 1 cent coin. Yes. It was so small I thought it was a dirt. You could scroll down to my previous blog post and take a look at it. It was so tiny you wouldn't have noticed.
But when I went back to the office for a beautiful half-day's worth of work, that plant had became huge, compared to what it was. It was a cool 2cm taller than it was last Friday!!
On to the real topic.
I have been through countless obsessionis in my life.
I think one of the very first one was Spice Girls... HAHAHAA.. They were the hottest thing alright? In fact, some of them still are. I heard they got back together, and that their All Hits CD is only available in Victoria Secret stores which Singapore absolutely don't have.
What a pity. I am still able to almost sing out the once-humungously-popular hits of theirs, word for word, and would very much like to do so.
I used to torture my little cousin Joshua, although he is not that little anymore. He's 15 this year. Weishan and I were crazy over Spice Girls, we thought it absolutely necessary to at least 'educate' him on which Spice Girls is which. E.g. their real name, and then their 'nickname' like Sporty Spice.. Baby Spice.. you get the drift.
Sigh.. those were the days. Then came one of my LONGEST obsession. Manchester United.
All thanks to a certain little cutie called Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Do you know how it's like? When the whole world knows how much you like him, and then how proud of him you were, in fact, to the point of crying, when he scored that goal against Bayern Munich. It's something I'm going to tell my kids the next time... Provided I want to have kids.. those irritating noisy little shits you see crying at MacDonald's, at shopping centres, and basically everywhere (though some kids are tolerable, I must add, with credits to parents who enforce good discipline).
Then came Miffy obsession. This one was difficult. It was difficult because it was close to impossible to buy Miffy products in Singapore. although you can find them being sold in neighbouring countries by the billions in Hong Kong and Japan. I couldn't find any Miffy in Taiwan when I was there. Then again, maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.
Now I'm looking at a new obsession... Crystals.
Crystals had been something I liked alot since I was young.
I don't know how or what started it. I just liked them, and bought that crystal bracelet soon as I could afford one when I was 14. ALL HAIL CHINESE NEW YEAR ANG BAO MONEY!! Come to think back, that was an amazing 7 years ago.
I still keep one or two beads. That bracelet had snapped. A total of 3 times. I remember getting angry with a good friend because she snapped it. She kept playing with the elastic of the bracelet. Pulling it, letting it snap back to my hand and doing it repeatedly until it snapped, of all places, at our school canteen.
I was quite pissed with her. And honestly I was seldomly openly pissed at people. I usually go home and stab a voodoo doll instead, but that day it was different. Thankfully I didn't say or do anything hateful that I will look back and regret. I just pulled a super duper long face during that entire recess break which was only a mere... 25 minutes or so?
I gave a lecture to Des on Pi Xiu. Told him it'd be great for his 4D habits and his Sales. I mean, some people will find it stupid but hey, if buying a few dollar something has the very slightest potential to give you good luck, why not? You don't have to kill or rob, nor does it require you to do anything stupid like jumping off a building (if that doesn't kill you).
Thus, I was cajoled into going to Fortune Centre to help him look for a good one. Now he's a perfectionist and wants a jade one. Jade is a very weird thing you know, some of you just find it plain auntie, but that's because aunties probably have the most time. Buying a jade is a blardy big pool of knowledge.
I don't quite like GREEN GREEN GREEN Jade. I prefer to go for the lighter colours, so to me, a GREEN GREEN GREEN jade that cost $200, I would scoff and walk off. Even if it costed $2, I would STILL scoff and walk off. See, that's the weird thing about Jade.
Sometimes, huge pieces can only cost $5. And then there are also small pieces that can cost $5,000, yet some people would rather pay the $5,000 than for the $5 one.
It's a matter of how much you like it, and how much you're willing to pay. So basically guys, the next time you all go buy jade, don't so obviously wear your feelings on your sleeves even if you like the jade alot. At those places, you can haggle. Say a $200 jade, you can try to bring it down to $150. And you thought you can only do such things in Thailand.
The best is to don't look like you like it alot. Act like you're asking for fun and yet you really seem keen to buy it. I think that's how you get the best price? Not sure either. I'm not that good at this sorta thing. Wait till you see my 1st and 2nd Aunt when they haggle.
I'm better off buying cheaper crystals than Jade. So while he was looking at the pi xius, I started off by buying this:
My, my. It was love at first sight. It was placed on this table, on those white furry table cloth that people like to put on their dashboard in the cars these days, though I find it an absolute dust-harbourage.
The green was an amazing contrast to the white furry cloth. I just HAD to get it.
Then Des didn't find the pi xiu in that shop appealing, so we moved on to another shop.
I don't know how he found the pi xius there. I was minding my own business and just like a baseball bat that hit my head, I suddenly bought this:
A pretty little fella that has huge rounded eyes I cannot resist.
At this point, Des finally settled for a very nice carved Pi Xiu, although eventually my Dad saw it and said it looked like it was moulded from Jade powder.
Upset, Des went back the next day and tried to give it to another shop that he was going to buy another Pi Xiu from, and the auntie stabbed him in the gut, metaphorically speaking, by saying that the jade was of such poor quality, she wouldn't want it even if he gave her for free.
I shall try to take a photo of the second one he eventually bought from that auntie murderer. But because for the whole day I had seen nothing but turtles and pi xiu, I eventually bought one myself.
A pi xiu, nope, not jade, I give up on it because there were none that caught my eye.. but I bought one made from Opal. It costed me a mere $13, haggled it down from $18. Took ALOT of patience though, but of course, at this price, you don't expect it to be any fancy kind of opal.
Apparently, opal in Mandarin is called 'dan bai shi'... egg-white stone. Very funny. When the lady in that shop told "it's called Opal in English".. I 'OOOOOOOOOOOOorrrhhhhh' so loudly it shocked her.
Here's how it looks like:
It's hard to show you how beautiful it is unless you see the actual thing. When you hold it under light, you can see the rainbow colours more clearly, though it's missing the glittery specks that expensive opal has. It's more of a tranluscent rainbow...
The following day.. guess what I bought again?
Yes.
ANOTHER turtle. This one's jade, though of an 'uglier' jade.. judging by the fact that I got it at a mere $6 (after a whooping 25% discount!!).
But I also bought a rock that caught my eye, for the weirdest reason: it is shaped like an M&M chocolate:
For the record, it IS a very nice piece of rock that has rainbow colours.
I think I'm having abit of problem, the way Cecilia Cheung has in that shoppaholic show.
