2013, transitions and my big baby.

We're 15% into the new year and things are definitely changing. The past year was such an amazing one that I've lost count of how much I have to be thankful for. It was a year of abrupt transitions and I'm glad that I am almost done with it.

Sweden to Singapore
Lund to SMU
Student to Graduate
Schooling to Working

Basically, from 'don't need to care' to 'don't want to care also must care'.

That's too much activity in one year but it was unforgettable.

2013 has been a busy one for me. I have been kept occupied for many weeks in 2013 so far (and I'm really not complaining). In fact, I'm wishing just the opposite.. that things would just keep picking up, put me on a roll and maybe allow me to settle in some sort of momentum, momentarily.

What topped the list in this first two months of the year are celebrations aplenty (festivals, birthdays and etc), spending time with people that matters and spending time on things that I've put my heart into - Sensibar. Can't believe how things are taking off with the support of my family, friends and returning customers who just come back time after time.. with purchases greater than the previous and with a ton of e-mails generously sprinkled with encouragements to keep me going. I'm trying to keep track with these e-mails that my customers took time to write, to drop me notes to 'rest your hands well', and to assure me time after time that these pieces of handmade jewelry are appreciated and worthy of my sleepless nights.

There's so much to do behind all of these things for Sensibar and it never ever came across to me as 'easy to own an online shop'. I am my own photographer, my own packer, my own jewelry designer, my own manufacturer, my own procurement team, my own graphic designer, my own branding manager and my own CEO (allow me to be bhb this once, hehe). I am the management and I am the factory.

Yes I am tired but I am extremely happy being tired.
Does this even make sense?

I don't know how I am always so privileged to meet the right people in my life but God always gives me the best, at the right time. Thank you Joyce of TheTinselRack. Thank you Yina of TheVelvetDolls. Thank you for being customers of Sensibar a few years ago.. watched me leave this 'online arena'.. watched me and my life fall out a little.. then returning back up on my feet again once more. Even after all these years, you girls always give me the best form of support. The type of support that changes from time to time.. But always the most apt and always the best for me. <3

Also not forgetting the help that I am most blessed with. The greatest are always from my sisters :) They need no special mention here because in every day of my life, I give thanks for them and my family.

What goes behind Sensibar is a lot of fun and I truly enjoy what I do for and at Sensibar. I've said it once that "Sensibar is my baby". It really is my baby and never was I defeated to stop moving all because of a passion that is burning so furiously inside of me.

If there's one thing I really learnt from the Seminar with CEOs module in university, it has to be this "Passion is the driving force to greater things. It keeps you moving. Your passion. It keeps you alive."

I have never felt more alive than today.


Finally, I'm trying to archive some of my works for Sensibar on this blog for times' sake..

It might be a good thing that I am kept too busy with other things, leaving me with no time to blog. I'll find time to update this blog with pictures, pictures and more pictures. So many behind-the-scenes of life and of Sensibar. ;) I'm not so much of a camwhore but I sure am a photowhore :) Official photographer for anything and everything.

Till then!
Live a life worth living.. write a story worth retelling.

Birthday Day 2012!

It's the first day of the recess week and I'm happy as can be. There's a huge pile of work waiting to be done and more mid-terms to mug for, but that can wait till... 10pm tonight :/

Spent 4 hours playing with Lightroom yesterday and ended up editing most of my birthday photos to this cross-processed look. They looked so good for the first two hours before I started feeling annoyed by all the processed photos. Guess I still prefer vivid colours to muted ones.. they're so much more vibrant and happy! So sad but I chose to stick with the edited pictures since I spent all morning playing with it till 630am today -.- need to give my time some credit lol so please bear with the slight overdose of processed photos.. what a conflict of interest. i like (some) them processed but i like them better when vivid. sigh! only food pics were left untouched so i love those a lot! hahaha i'm really a ball of contradiction!

i also spent one hour playing scrabble on the iphone with Hazel till 7ish and got owned left right center. I might just delete the app soon. hahahahah so sad to see all my losing scores!!

anyhow, this picture's the main reason why I started to fiddle with Lightroom. I love the people and the smiles and many things here! except for the darkness, shadows and even more darkness.. so silly of us to take a picture against the sunlight!




  so after some experimentation.. i was pretty pleased with the results though not perfect with the grains etc.. but pretty enough, right right!? :)  
therefore, i started to experiment with more photos! it was so much fun looking at the transformed photos. Lightroom is all the wonder for photo enhancing zomg! anw before i realised, almost the entire set has some form of edit on it -.- alright, enough of the Lightroom tale.. just warning on how it could actually turn out to be very overwhelming :O (at least for me!)   . . .   The Bday - 17th Feb 2012
Moving on from the surprise from my sisters at off-midnight, I ended up sleeping at 5am from doing an important thing.. something along the lines of a job application. Crazy timing to be doing it but the deadline was nearing!!! Woke up at 6.30am as usual for the 8.30am class. I always have this burst of enthusiasm at sometime of the day before hitting ground zero when my eyes can't keep open anymore.... and my birthday was one of those battlefield days -.-    . . .   8.30 - 11.55 am I think I went to class looking like a flower at 8.30.. then started withering at 10am LOL cannot make ittttt.    Anyway!! First lovely girl of the day - Shuangwei!      i first met Shuang in this most-dreaded-to-wake-up-at-630-on-friday-but-very-interesting-advertising-class.. some 5 weeks ago! such a small world but shuang's a good friend to two of my close buddyboys ryan & keith at NUS! She's here at SMU for a local exchange while the two boys are away at Netherlands and Virginia respectively. tsk tsk, my turn to 'take care' of their girl friend :p   no thanks to the lousy school schedule, we hardly had time to hangout but we managed to squeeze in one just 1-2 weeks ago. crazy amazing! shared so so so many stories it's so fun! we sat there with at raffles city over lunch from 3ish - 8. NON STOP HITS. really hope to hangout with her again! :) 
anw! she surprised me in the morning with a box of macarons and a card!!! gosh I LOVE CARDS. especially handmade handwritten ones. anything from the hand will win my heart. hands down forever. some pictures later! tsk tsk     here's lovely shuang and i after class at 1145, before her next class at 12! i was really feeling half dead from all that continuity of 1-2hours sleeping for days. just see how my already small eyes are  getting smaller than small >:( lol i also had to paste on a grin because i can't seem to smile properly.... hahaha the negative effects of sleep deficiency.
    she had to keep taking another photo with me because 'omg cannotttt i look too tired!!! one more!!' x 10 lol  we both agreed that the picture above is the best! looking energetic (for two seconds)!    gave shuang a redvelvet cupcake to share the sister joy hehehe :)   me so super happy with card and macarons in my hand, wind in my hair and (fake) big-ness in my eyes!    . . .    12 noon met jillian jillywilly for a while for a hug and a present :) forgot to take pictures :(    . . .    12.15 - 3.45 pm i then made many babysteps to smu's admin building to meet sue! i think my level of tiredness was at its peak in the afternoon. eyes were -----.-----  totally fighting my eyelids. i'll make it a point to sleep earlier, i'll try!!! i also really need to start taking pictures of people and with people else my albums are going to be people-less!!! 
anw tsktsktsk so so happy to see my Lundagirls!!! Tracy and Shannon, sans Ee Lin who had class :( these two girls were seated so comfortably at Carlton's lobby! and off we went to lunch at Wah Lok for dimsum!! the excitement!! i haven't had dim sum since the day I returned from Sweden/USA! so super happy :) 
The captain made us some recommendations after seeing that we couldn't decide on what to order. The dim sum menu's not that extensive but had some pretty good food to boot!     美人腰  (mei ren yao = beautiful person's waist hahaha)  A sweet custard dessert pastry which was very well prepared. It didn't look too promising upon first look but never judge your food by its looks. Probably one of my favourites already!  Baked BBQ pork buns  Something like a bo luo bao. Sweet and juicy char siew within the pastry. we really liked this one!     Plate of meat. Chiken, Duck, Char Siew (and a complementing side of jellyfish) Something that we'll always order whenever we end up in a Chinese restaurant, be it Amsterdam or London! Good and i-dont-mind-the-price Chinese food were too difficult to find in Sweden.   Oh memories! We ordered a couple lot more dim sum dishes, including cheong fun, har gao, siew mai, carrot cake, phoenix claw and some other more.. but everyone's too hungry + me still sleepy and tired and eyes still CMI -.- so no more pictures :(       they also bought me a cake from awfullychocolate! bananachocolate cake! :) thank you thank you Tracy Sue Shannon!!!! <3 i loveeeeee bananas! so much so that even some of my friends call me 'eh banana!'     so extremely happy inside despite being so tired and blah blah :)   Wak Lok Cantonese Restaurant 76 Bras Basah Road 2F Carlton Hotel Singapore   . . .    4 - 7 pm headed to Orchard to meet my little sisters! supposed to have lunch but howtoeat.... we also did an exchange for the classic Chanel necklace wheee! :)     trying to do a wiwt shot lol. also went to put on eyeliner so that my eyes would look brighter hahahah desperate after seeing that i looked like crap on my birthday!!   nevertheless, we still went for food at Thai Thai which serves... Thai food.  At almost 5pm when it's all peaceful and quiet.. love it!      the place wasn't particularly big so it was actually pretty cosy, especially with the comfortable cushion seats. I could just be a jelly there all day!   Appetizer which was the 'money bag thing'  delicious and super crispy even after leaving it aside for awhile (funny to be eating the appetizer at the middle of a meal.. but everything just came rushing in. hahaha overwhelming!) i sort of 'don't want to eat fried food' now but this was really yummy!   Thai mango with sticky rice /  stick rice with mango / mango on stick rice / thai dessert that i like we didn't ask for dessert to be served last so it came early anyway. Presentation was really.... blah. But like I've said earlier not to judge food by it's presentation..... so this was another pleasant surprise! Presentation could really be better though lol 
mango was sweet, rice was moist and sticky yet doesn't stick to teeth kind of sticky.. good control over the level of sweetness I'll say! really hate anything that is way too sweet. scares me.     Tom yum soup which really packed a punch!  as much as tom yum soup's concerned, both the clear and red ones have their distinct (but good) differences. used to be a fan of the clear soup bases but after tasting more yummy red tom yum soup in the past years, im starting to like them a lot better than before!   fresh seafood ingredients but i especially enjoyed the mushrooms which were not tiny, so fresh and the tomyum flavour simply seeps right through. A taste of thai heaven! A huge bowl to share among us 3, but we finished it without a problem. OF COURSE RIGHT!        Phad Thai A one dish meal that we'll always order wherever we go! No raves for this but least it was fine! :)    Food was reasonably good. Menu was normal with nothing out of the ordinary. Service was definitely nothing short of excellent. But the price... not too kind on the pocket.. probably has to do with the location and ambience (looking more like an English high tea place than a place for Thai dining), so i'm guessing this was pretty much the 'fine dining' for Thai cuisine.. I love Thai food and know of so many other places that serve super good food at super good prices so Thai Thai's a once-in-a-long-time kind of visit :)    thank you little sisters for the treat though <3   Thai Thai 333A Orchard Road Mandarin Gallery, #04-08/09/10 Singapore   . . .     7.15 - 8.45 pm right after our thai 'lunch', three of us walked over to Centrepoint to meet our sister and bro-in-law (BIL)! wanted to go for Korean BBQ at this Crystal Jade place in Centrepoint (didn't get to eat Korean bbq in the longest time and i REALLY MISS IT. though 8 weeks into Singapore and I've yet to eat anything Korean. another ball of contradiction. I NEED KOREAN BBQ IN MY LIFE!! )     After all that shock and sadness on my sisters and BIL's faces (hahaha), we started combing Cuppage.. couldn't decide amongst all that nice looking food. Cuppage changed a lot btw! I can't remember the last time I went there... but it was clearly still a piece of wasted blank. should dig into one of those places in future! 
dinner (the horror, after all that food from 12pm and 5pm) was at this Japanese restaurant which had no fancy outlook or storefront or signboard. that's why i love the unassuming. simply a charm of it's own.
my first time here but i think they're always fully booked. Kind people at the restaurant slipped us in while there was no dinner crowd yet! super lucky us!!!   

 

everything in Japanese. hahahaha love it that it's in Kranji with no detailed explanation of what's in what dish.    

Nijumaru Bento  

DAMN GOOD.  

Shogayaki Set  

One word for this meal: AWESOME 

walked around for awhile before my sisters decided to go collect their SUJU concert tickets from an ELF (everlasting fan??). i can't remember what was going on while we were in the car because i was completely knocked out. i only remember swinging with the car and dealing with the weight of my heavy head on my little neck hahahah.

after all that SUJU ticket and ELF saga (i still find this slightly amusing, albeit interesting), june-san drove us to Katong @112 / 112 Katong / 112@Katong for desserts!

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 9.45 - 11 pm

i'm a huge fan of froyo or even any kind of yogurt actually. my little sisters saw this new (i think) froyo shop at 112 basement.. had an interesting concept with toppings stored in individual tiny containers.. rather cute floor layout.. but many things were a no-go for me. made me an angry customer on my own birthday. how bad was that.. boycotting for sure. talk about this horrible place another time!

we went to Seventh Heaven Cafe situated just outside UOB. The place is rather small and squeezy. Extremely packed with customers and we saw all the cute looking desserts on the other tables so we hung on and waited so that we could try them too! not forgetting to mention, there's a wide variety of ice creams including some alcoholic ones like Dark Cherries & Merlot, Chocolate & Whiskey, Lychee Martini.

     

  

item names on the menu were interesting and the description made them sound irresistible!

Like....... 

The Big Show - One pancake, topped with one waffle, topped with one Milo mud pie, topped with hot fudge, topped with cream, topped with Milo powder 

sounds like MADNESS ON A PLATE!?

(and i just realized that there were too many 'topped with' -.-)

   

My cup of Sweet Dreams which was really only #oklikeapackoftea...    

Something-Yuzu sorbet which was alright.. the one to scream louder for was the complimentary passion fruit sorbet offered to us at the side though!    

So, here's The Big Show - One pancake, topped with one waffle, topped with one Milo mud pie, topped with hot fudge, topped with cream, topped with Milo powder as mentioned earlier. Sounds better than it looks, looks better than it tastes, i'll say. 

This one's a big plate of too-much-sweetness packed into one. The mud pie's extremely tall (almost the height of the fork, so cool! lol) Almost impossible to be finished by one person unless you loveeee sweet/sugar. in fact we left almost half the mud pie untouched.. too gelat.. finished the pancake and waffle though!

This plate received more love from us! 

Simplicity - Pick your choice of ice cream. Served with butter, maple syrup and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

The waffles came out as a surprise! They were really good!! (I wasn't expecting anything much after the Big Show...) 

Crisp and moist at the same time. Didn't taste as sweet as it seems despite looking like it's swimming in syrup. Had the "wild strawberry" ice cream which was disappointing. In the words of Hazel, "like strawberry milk". We were expecting it to be comparable to Gelare's Wild Strawberry which is sufficiently out of this world yet gentle on our pockets. *sigh

     

Warm & Soft Chocolate Cake - A decadently rich and moist 'cake' that is worth waiting for. Comes with French Vanilla ice cream. (Minimum baking time is 15 minutes.)

Arrived nice and warm, rich but could be richer! Moist? Checkkkkk. 

I can't remember much about this so it's........ worth a try?

Seventh Heaven Cafe

112 East Coast Road, 

112 Katong, #02-27

Singapore

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11.45 pm - 12 mn

went home thereafter and i still had to eat!?!? T.T

Thanks to my mum and her chinese traditions hahahah but that's one yummy bowl of meesua, longan and eggs. 

    

Lucky is me for being able to have so much good food though :) NOT COMPLAINING!

Ok! I've got to split this birthday post into another part because of the weekend meetup with some friends :) 

my birthday's clearly a gastronomical affair. 

not from the best chefs but with the best people :)

Look at me, mum & dad! i never stopped eating from 12noon-12midnight!!!! zomg *burp