Merry Christmas

As a tradition (in my own world), I listen to Celtic Woman's songs on Christmas Eves and share them either on Facebook or my blog. Actually I listen to their Christmas songs whole year round and every time, I never fail to be amazed at how awesome they sounded.

Made me miss caroling over and over again. Sigh ...

Haven't been touching my blog for more than 1 year and I realized a lot of my posts are half done like my Pcos post, Taiwan trip postS, black patch in brain post and house moving post. Let's see if I can do them next week. Oh, I'm having another Taiwan trip in Jan 2014~! Excited because I've never been to Taiwan when it's 15 degrees Celsius. Hope it doesn't rain too much.

Anyway, my dear audience if I have one, have a Merry Christmas!

Hacking done, Plastering done

Renovation officially started about 2 weeks ago, it doesn't feel good to know our renovation will take 2 months to complete although we actually kind of knew that. Didn't want to push them to be faster though in case they compromise quality.

Hacking of tiles and walls checked, erection of wall at the dining area checked, flooring and wall tiling checked, plastering of walls and ceilings checked. Going on to piping, then false ceiling, cabinets etc.

We used 1 day of weekend and managed to source for most of our furniture and electrical appliances. Bought the most expensive item which was our mattress from Red Apple (King Koil at $2,099). Beanbag, "ok" chair, TV console, dining table all from Red Apple. We actually went to Trade Hub 21 and scour every shop there to find what we wanted. Most of the items were bought from Red Apple at Trade Hub and IMM. Yet to deliver so we are not very sure of the quality, at least we were able to find the designs that we wanted. Spend a total of $6K+ on furnishing alone and another $2.6K on electrical appliances excluding Aircon. In total, Furnishing, lights, wiring, electrical appliances, kitchen and toilet accessories cost us $25K+. Pocket burnt ;(

Everything's going ok, no big hiccups till now. Except that we are both very dui2 cause we chose the wrong colour for floor tiles. Or rather, we didn't expect the colour to look like that on installation. ;(  Even the old HDB wall paint looks whiter. However, they don't carry big sized tiles in white so we can only get off white even though on our floor, it looks like beige. Hopefully this is the one and only error, nothing more pls~~

Renovation~ Interior Design firm

After meeting 5 ID firms and getting numerous quotations, we finally decided on this guy Jimmy from Add Space Design. He kind of can clique with us very well, is creative in space usage and practical in design and fixtures. One of our plans was to hack off the store room so that we'll have space for dining table and to make the place look bigger. None of us can think of rebuilding a store room some where else, he impressed us by proposing it before we told him our concerns. He also proposed some ideas like plastering up our kitchen wall tiles instead of hacking in order to save cost. Or even placements in our master bedroom which solved the problem of strange orientation.

We've met him up today to see the 3D for the new flat, not bad, about 80% are according to what we wanted, we just changed the orientation of the shoe cabinet / settee at the doorway and colour scheme. The major changes will be Dar's full height built in bookshelves. He even managed to Bingo the theme of the cozy corner that I had wanted. ;)) Designs for toilets are not ready though, this we understand as rendering will take quite a long time for each piece of 3D.

The only problem will be, I'm not sure what's the colour I want for kitchen cabinet, the proposed colour now is baby blue bottom cabinet and white top cabinet with dark back splash in between. Asked for darker floor tiles which will then make the kitchen look sharper. I thought baby blue was a strange colour for kitchen cabinets but did not want to settle for the conventional black and white or white and red that almost everyone is using. Neither can I think of a better colour combi that is pleasing to the eye. The pic on the left, looks nice, but white flooring in the kitchen may be a disaster for all you know. Probably I should think it through before he makes further changes and waste the time rendering the pic.

Meeting Interior Designers

It's really important to meet at least a few IDs before you sign up for any interior renovation contracts. There are all sorts of IDs around, over just one week, we met people who are over confident, not so confident, friendly and frivolous. We met up with 5 firms, only comfortable with 2. The quotation from these 2 will be higher, although to us, as long as quality of work is acceptable it's great. No point getting a low cost quote but is unhappy during the whole renovation process.

One of the IDs proposed getting them to do design consultation first then get a quotation based on that, it's a non-conventional way of working. This is a good and possibly faster way to get things done and confirm that the final result is what we wanted. However, there is a risk that we may not be able to get what we wanted within our budget (This, we will only know when the design is done). Further, if we change our mind and decided not to use this ID, there's a design cost of SGD2k. Not a lot but also not little for us non-million earner. However, this ID is creative and practical plus most importantly, we can clique.

yay~ We are finally done with our move to the temporary housing which is my mother's house. Currently looking for trustworthy interior designers for our new house. ;)

Going to meet up with 2 of them the coming week. Hope the discussions go fine. Frankly, quality of work is the most important for us as well as whether the coordinator is responsible. The design for our house will most likely be simple and minimal. As long as tiling and carpentry work is good, we are happy ;P

Temporary Home

We are almost done packing, sold off some furniture, preparing for our move to our temporary home in a week's time. We won't be getting the keys to our new flat until end of September. It's going to be a long wait no doubt, but it will be a good deed done to the best that we can. ;)

First Appointment done~~!

Just went through first appointment the purchase of our new flat~ yoo hoo~! Finally I can get away from the irritating family upstairs yay~!~!~!

Now we are pending for the completion date of the sale of our flat and completion date for the purchase. In mean time, we'll discuss about the renovation, get design and quotes. *beaming* Phil said he'll help us with the design. I believe there won't be any problem there. The real problem lies with getting a responsible renovation contractor that gives quality workmanship that doesn't burn our pockets too much. ;P

Disappointed

I'm disappointed. Yet, I'm also surprised. That this me will be so disappointed with this kind of thing.

Phuket, Patong 16 to 18 June 12

On the way to Changi Airport

Waiting for Claire and Phil who were late!

Our resort Deepava Patong Resort and Spa

Rooms were surprisingly big and super clean ;) What's most important when going overseas for leisure will be clean and comfortable accommodation ~ especially the toilet!

Went for an hour massage (Aromatherapy) with Claire. Was quite ex at THB1,200 and the skill was not that good. However, it's expected that hotel service everywhere round the globe will be more expensive. There's a massage place just outside our resort (Oriental) that provides similar massage for like half that price. Didn't try it though, we didn't have enough time.

After massage and a short swim in the (warm) pool, we went out of the resort for our dinner. There's a whole row of seafood dinner places just across the street from our resort. Had originally planned to see whether we can have our dinner at Linda's Seafood however, we were pissed off and turned off by how aggressive the mongers were at getting business. They not only stop you in your tracks, block your way and shout in your ear but they also try to stop you from walking away by touching you! Understand they were trying to make a living. However, it's precisely because they did that, we don't want to eat at their shops.

In the end we walked down Rat-U Thid Road about less than 10 minutes away, near The Royal Paradise. There's a street of mini stalls there much like a night market, selling clothes and souvenirs. Opposite the night market-like street was this: 99 restaurant. Still aggressive but a whole lot less irritating than those we encountered before. This place was like full.... 爆满 and what we noticed was that a lot of the customers were Chinese.

This dish was nice, Chicken with cashew nuts. Love the texture of the chicken meat yumz~ ;) It's harder, less tender than the chicken we often eat with Chicken Rice but it's more chewy and sweet.

Tom Yam Goong, I only drank a little since I can't really take spicy food. Not as sour as the ones found in Singapore, not as spicy too. But they were not stingy with the ingredients as we found lots and lots of prawns and mushrooms in there~  

Stingray X 2

In total we ordered, 4 fried rice (quite big a portion, please share!),1 chicken with cashew, 1 vegetables, 1 tom yam goong, 6 drinks, 2 stingrays totaling up to about THB1800+ converted to SGD will be SGD18.50 per person. To me it's considered as expensive though compared to Singapore's price for the same spread, this will be cheap.

Look! We found treasures at the 7-eleven~ One Piece green tea~ There's Genmai, Goji and some other flavors I've forgotten but Genmai's my favourite~! Cornetto Ice Cream's selling at less than SGD1 per piece! We had a great time pigging ourselves with the Ice Cream after dinner. ;P

Next morning at 7am (8am Singapore Time) we got on to the mini van to take us to the ferry for island hopping.

The cruise ride to Phi Phi Islands will be about 2 hours.The cruise will take you to various parts of Phi Phi Islands to let you view the scenery, take some photos then for an hour snorkeling, then to a buffet lunch at Phi Phi Don/Lay (whatever).

Great scenery, though the corals and fish were not the best I've seen, they were great enough. Probably the tide's too high for a great view. (sorry, no underwater pics)

Really, you really don't have to go Island hopping on the big cruise ships. Instead, spend a bit more and get those speed boats to take you and your friends to go island hopping or snorkeling. 

Going on the big cruise ship was a torture. Yes, torture. You'll face loads of people who have no idea what is courtesy. You'll face vomits from children (and adults) which no one bothered to clean up. You'll face people smoking and blowing the smoke in your face. Time's wasted on the cruise as 2 hours to Phi Phi will mean 2 hours back + an hour snorkeling + 2 hours lunch and shopping, you'll reach your resort at about 7 pm and not much time left to do anything cept for a short swim, dinner and sleep.

We really regretted getting the deal from Deal.com.sg. Spent $58 per pax on a deal that says "speed boat" but did not get what we paid for.

This is what I meant by loads of people: 

Going to Taiwan again~ yes again~

Going to Taiwan, it's my forth trip. This time, we'll be going to 日月潭，清境，合欢山，南方澳，新竹, 薰衣草森林 - places that I've not been before. Of course since we'll be going with my sister in law and cousin in law who have not been to Taiwan before, there will also be several places I've went to, the typical tourists spots like 渔人码头. Contrary to the previous few times, most of this trip we'll be travelling with a private tour guide. Not ex, about NT1000 per day per pax which is only like SGD45 for a whole day or at least 8 hours of play. Hopefully it will be fun this time round~ If everything goes on smoothly, we'll plan another one in February since we've not been there during the winter season and Feb is a good season for Sakura and Strawberries~