Bangkok.. again

Went to Bangkok from 14-17 Dec, yes I know its more than a week and I only have time to write about it.

This time I went with my secondary schoolmates and since its a bunch of girls, its shopping, shopping and more shopping! Enjoy ourselves to the fullest and it is a very leisurely trip - no super early wake-up calls and rushing from A to B.

We stayed at Centre Point Silom which is next to the Saphan Taksin BTS station and also the Chao Phraya river boat terminal. This is a very convenient locationfor sight-seeing and also shopping. If you take BTS, its only THB30 to Siam Square/Siam Paragon/MBK and THB40 to Chatuchak Park/JJ Weekend Market. This is by far the most convenient hotel I have stayed in BKK.

The hotel is also connected to Robinson. Robinson's maindoor is facing the mainroad while the hotel is actually behind Robinson but in the same building (hope you understand what I'm trying to say). Next to Robinson is KFC and a 24-hours McDonalds.

This is our room which is spacious, clean and comfortable.

... our toilet

 

I like the room and the type of facility provided. We have a washing machine in the room!  WiFi is also free! We were told buy our friend's colleague that this is a hotel tailored for long-stay tourist, hence it is fully equip with cooking utensils.

My roommate during the trip.

 

All of us

 

Me at the poolside

 

This is us after 2 hours of shopping in the Naraya outlet at Central World.

 

Look at our luggage! Its going to burst!

 

My harvest from BKK!

 

It was so much fun travelling with this bunch of friends. We are looking forward to our trip in year 2010 which starts tomorrow! ;)

Happy New Year.

Angel and her dolls

I have been exposing Angel to various type of soft-toys - teddy bears, little dolls etc. These two are my favorite. They are Angel's favorite too.

I'm not a fan of Doraemon but when I saw these dolls (which i bought on 2 separate occasions from Bangkok) I just love it. I bought Sizuka first as I wanna introduce girl to Angel. Then I introduce Nobita as a friend to Sizuka.

Angel sleep with both the dolls. She will not sleep if she do not see them both! In the morning she will ask me to carry one of the doll to downstairs, saying she can't carry both but look she got no problem carrying both here.

Now it sort of worries me cause she talk to the dolls when we are not watching. Perhaps, she is too lonely.

Renovation: Week 5 & 6

I am being lazy again by combining this 'progress report' into one entry. Actually I have been busy the past two weeks - holiday in Bangkok with friends and help my MIL to move to her house.

But the truth is in this past two weeks the only work done is the tiling work, so not much that I can write about and pictures are really good to tell the story. Tiling is such a tedious work and it took 3 strong man and almost 2 weeks to complete the kitchen, dining, backyard, 4 bathrooms and other minor area.

I'm trying to load some pictures but can't seems to do it. So, photos will be up later.

Faces of Angel

This is Angel in her crying mode!

We went to inspect the house on Saturday and the workers are working and it was dusty and noisy, so we were talking to the contractor outside the house. Angel was happily walking up and down the corridor. 

I, as usual, will be shouting, like a mad women, at her for running while she just ignore me. And, when I stopped shouting, she start crying! She fell down on the cement pavement while running. Come to think of it, Angel never really fell down with such injury on her knees.

I also have not took any picture of her crying. She is so angry that I take a picture of her crying, she cry even louder!

Renovation: Week 4

So, its alsmost a month now since we started our renovation. Glad that no more suprises and hope we can complete the whole renovation by month end (keeping my fingers cross).

Here are some of the progress in week 4...

Below the kitchen top where the hob is going to sit on.

Here is a full view of the hob counter which is beside my 'dry' kitchen.

The empty window panel will be replace with a beautiful glass carving!

 

All the toilets are now equipped with a vanity top.

I like this idea so that we don't need to install any rack for our toiletries. 

 

The major work completed is the installation of the plaster ceiling for the whole house.

Below is the result of the living room.

 

Come this week we expect the tiling work of the 4 toilets and kitchen to be completed. After which most of the mainwork is completed. We will start the paint work and call our carpentry work contractor. The grille will need to be installed before the lighting, fans and aircond. Not forgetting to reinforce the roof.

If everything is as per schedule then we will be moving in by January 2010. New year, new house!

Concert: Jor Lun Yau Lei aka Alan Tam and Hacken Lee

Yes, I was at the concert on Saturday! With Hubby, K and W. So looking forward to this cause have not manage to catch any concert for some time. The last that I went, with hubby, was the Jacky Cheung concert about 2 years ago (?) We saw a long jam along the road towards TPM and decided to leave our car at the Tmn Sg Besi LRT station. Happily we bought our tickets and the train if packed with all concert goers!

The concert is suppose to start at 8:30pm but only started at 9pm - Malaysian time :(

Here are some of the photos taken, with my K800 hence quality is so so. I wish I have a DSLR as the stage is just incredible (or maybe I have not been to concert for long). The colour combination and the graphic display is fabulous.

We enjoy ourselves very much and sang our lungs out!!! I love their pick-your-song session, each of them will suggest 2 songs and will sing the song with the most clap/cheers. At certain combination, the crowds are equally divided and both singers generously sang both songs! The crowds sang with the stars until 12 midnight!

I enjoy the songs so much that at some point I really feel like stand-up and dance. But the crowd nearby are such an obedient lot. Most of them just sit there quietly watching the concert while the 4 of us and 3 other ladies on my right are singing/shouting loudly, waving our hands and participated in the show! You know what I mean?

Anyhow we left with a happy memories of the concert until we reach the LRT station. Why? Because the station is closed and we can get back to our car!!!!!!!! So much for supporting the public transport. Those who used the public transport that day were so disappointed that the LRT is close at 11:30pm. Mostly thought that the LRT will operate till later cause there are not 1 but 2 concerts on the same night. But how wrong all of us are!

Renovation: Week 3

Progress in week 3 is SLOWwwwwwww and the reason being the developer is taking his own sweet time to rectify the defects. After 2 weeks of waiting they fixed one of the major plumbing defects. We would not wait for the developer for the other defect, decided to asked the contractor to repair it.

Can you see the buble? 

The piping is stuck and the water from toilet sink overflow to this manhole!

The stairs used by the worker - we used it to reach the attic... hehehehe

 I was a bit scared when Hubby asked me to climb up even Angel is much more brave then I am.

 

Hubby can't stand straight on the attic while my head will touches the ceiling if I stand straight.

For Angel, no problem! She is enjoying herself cause she got to climb up the stairs.

 

See the re-position window? 

We got an extra 1.5 feet. We asked for a cement slab to be built and to be turn into a window-seat cum cabinet.

All 3 rooms will have it.

 

Ohh, and when we were at the attic, we found another problem.....

Picture below is just outside the attic window and its where the water tank sits. Can you see the reflection? There is water on the pavement! I was telling Hubby that if this water can't disperse fast enough and with the current raining season, we will have a very big aquarium on our roof!!!

Does any of you have such problem with your house? I wonder what was the engineer and architect thinking. This people just don't care about other thing else but their profit margin. Hubby have posted his comment on our neighbourhood forum. Hopefully we can figure something to solve the problem.

PARTY, PARTY!!!

On my way to the concert, yeah!

Another wedding

I have lost count of how many wedding I have attended this year, will be attending another this Thursday. Last Saturday was my cousin sister's wedding held at Parkroyal Kuala Lumpur. My second time at Parkroyal Ballroom for wedding.

It was raining cats and dog on our way to the hotel but luckily the traffic is smooth or because we are early. Cocktail is served from 6:30pm, we reach the hotel slightly after 6pm and we are not the earliest. Aunt 6 and family were there way before us. Ohh.. in case you want to know my mom have got 10 siblings and 8 (including mom) are girls. So, I have 7 aunts from my mom side. This is wedding of eldest daughter of my 5th aunt. Will have many more weddings to attend as the youngest cousin is only 7 years old!

I don't have a camera with me and was using my phone so the quality of the pictures were blurrish.

Rose bouquet as centre piece on the cocktail table.

Tid bits served during the cocktails - pistachio, walnut and those fried-noodles-alike (sorry don't know call what)

 

Hubby and Angel

Angel was grumpy cause we woke her up from her hap on our way to the hotel

 

A more awake Angel running around

She is still not familiar with all my aunts and cousins, whenever they call out for her she will run towards me or hubby.

if she can't find us, she will start crying.

 

The slide on the stage - My cousin sister, Janelle and her husband, Steven

A more jovial Angel.

 

And, the three of us.

Angel with her peace sign.... my baby

Angel was very jovial to the end and taken some pictures with my cousins ie Angel's auntie and uncle. Will get those and update it here later.

Renovation: Week 2

Another 7 days gone and this is how my house look like.

Lots of hacking on the wall for installation of additional plug and switches

It look like rain of wires in my living room

 

Once I reach the first floor - instead of sunshine, I'm greeted by this....the ATTIC!

This is the base of the attic floor, when the plaster ceiling its done, it will look much nicer.

 

This is the opening to the attic - no staircase so I can take a picture of the attic.

Remember the windows being removed last week? 

Now the frame is being re-attached.

 

Hacking of walls for wiring and air-cond piping - look so ugly and dangerous.

As the renovation work progress, the contractor discover a few more defect in the building. Some of which may be due to poor workmanship and even poor design on the architect. Its so sad that we paid so much for the house and this is the kind of quality that we are getting. These defects are causing the renovation to be delayed.

And of course the weather doesn't help much. Hopefully the rain will stop soon and the sun will be out more.

Estimated completion date: end December 2009. cross my fingers 8.

Thank you

 

Hubby observing the contractor supervising his worker.

Hubby have been very busy checking on the progress of the renovation. He will be at the house after work - everyday without fail. He will 'report' to me on the progress and discuss any last minute changes like the beam near the toilet that we can't demolished, whether to replace or re-used some existing fittings etc.

Sometimes he will come back with a very serious looking expression and it make me worried. When I ask he will say he is thinking of how to solve problem encounter during the renovation. He refuse to tell me saying he don't want to make me worry or that I won't be able to solve the problem.....  hhmmm

Nevertheless, I am really grateful to hubby for all that he have done for me and Angel.

Thanks dear, muacks.

Bowling again..

It has been almost a year and our Sport Club organised another bowling tournament as part of team building. This time it is held on a weekday, yesterday after our office hour. Almost half of the company went including our CEO and his family.

Me and another colleague in my department joined 2 others to form our team - Funky Bowlers! The Funky Bowlers did not win but we have a great time and were the most colourful lot!

My Teammates

My Teammates and other colleagues

Will try again next year but before that I think we need to practice!

Renovation: Week 1

Last week have been a very busy week, especially Hubby. Started the renovation work on our house this week and attended 2 functions on Sunday itself.

Following some photos on the progress of our house renovation.

Wall between kitchen - bathroom - bedroom : Demolished

See the floor without tiles, that's the original bath area of the washroom. While the other row of dis-tile floor is the original wall dividing the kitchen - bath area and room. We will have our dining table and  an island here.

All 3 bathrooms at 1st floor - tiles were removed so that better water proofing can be done to avoid leaking in the future.

 

Above: all the toilet bowls and wash basin from the toilets seating in my living room.

 

 We relocate the window at Room 2 and 3. So we will have another feet in the room.

 

 All this ugly piping will be conceal within plaster ceiling.

We are expecting some electrical work to be done this week.. If, we are lucky the piping from the toilet will be replace by the developer so that we can continue with our renovation without much delay.

Although we have decided to accept whatever defect by fixing it ourself, this piping thing is too much a work and will have costs us a bomb to fix it. Hence, we are asking the developer to fix it. But they are taking their own sweet time to come :(

HP Mini

I promise you that I'm going to show you the HP mini I won and I am so sorry to keep you waiting. Here are some pictures of the Mini, comparing it with the size of The STAR newspaper and our Astro remote controller. The screen is only 10 inch and hence it is kind of small. Have to really get use to it. Other than that the performance is acceptable and just like any other laptop/desktop.

 

I was telling hubby that now I need a camera to complete my blogging necessity!