Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Laggard ChengDu trip entry

This is a terrible laggard entry that was stuck around in the phone, saved as a draft for a long while. 
Close to packing for 2013's buying trip, that I realized how far I was in storing away my trip memories..
I opened up the luggage (that was never quite unpacked or stored away) and realized that I've got countless articles still sitting in the luggage unpacked. 
Busy months are good execuses for a very messy room! 

In chronicle order,  my customary bade the social world farewell picture. 
I lied, it was a monkey face that I posted up when I flew off. 
Not a nice smiley one like this.
Hehehehe...


In my previous entry here : I posted my supper and the odds about getting the same room as the other time. 
It felt like home already. :D
I settled quickly and barely unpack, as I was only sleeping for the night.
(My schedule this trip is like some insane journeying and hotel sampling.. i'll prattle on further in a while)

Clearing up all my work in Singapore before I flew off, I decided to pack along a mask, because I just bought it at Watson's sale and decided that sometime during the trip, i'll take them out for entertainment!

Seriously, I always thought that facial Masks are nothing but a consumer hoax, but yet i'm a sucker who still cannot resist buying.
Tsk!

But staring up at my skin 1cm away from the mirror after my shower, I swear that I could see the dry texture of my skin emerging like beef jerky. 
ZOMG.
I yank out my emergency pack of Lovemore Electric Ore Mask and plop it on my face.
#sucks! 
Just 1 hour in china, and i'm already using my emergency pack. 
How about the 6 other nights to go?!


You have no idea how much difference just a pack of mask made to my skin! 
The difference is just pure amazing.
Slapping on the same thing on my face, now that i'm back in Singapore - I seriously can't see much difference. It's back to being a hoax?

I'm one of those miracle believers type of consumers. Need to see something drastic, otherwise, remain skeptical. 
Hahaha. 

That's yet another shot of myself in my legendary room's mirror with my outfitoftheday.
These trips to China are getting interesting.
I've been yanking out long forgotten clothes to wear it there, just because I always try to exercise dressing restraint whenever i'm in foreign countries, it's not so safe to be wearing skanky shorts around, no?
LOL.
Super wrapped up.
that's my 4 year old white "dress/tunic" that rarely sees the sun in Singapore.


My mission this time, would be to oversee the opening of the store located in ChengDu along with a small team, then fly over to Wuhan after the opening, to check on the stores there.

The dad has decided not to head the team, and left me to my own device the entire trip.

I'm not sure if I mentioned in my previous trip post that I got lost, while making my way to the office. 
Some communication breakdown, and the Cab driver brought me for a joy ride around town, and back.
Grr Seriously!

Making my way to the office this time,, I was so confident about finding my way over (Since i'm so done being lost and tourist to the area) 
Alas! I stupidly forgot the unit number! :S

Dad didnt leave any excess card with me either. 
Weh
D:

I stood around the entrance looking like a duck, and waited around for someone to open up the door.
After gaining entrance to the lift lobby, I'm back to being a clever GPS!
I knew which level I had to go...and could walk myself to the right unit.
But the unit number eludes me.
#selfmock+Selfpraise = no praise.
Hahaha


I was bored in the office. Everyone was rushing about to get things done in time for the flight at night, and no one was up to entertaining me, and I felt like I was in the way of everyone.
Chucking me at the showroom was like a meh solution.
Lots of space for me to do some cartwheels.

This would be me, rotting in the showroom.
I have no absolute idea, just how many units the father has rented in the same building.
1 for office.
a few for the staff to live in.
1 for himself
1 as showroom.
Maybe 1 for the cats soon?






Racks and racks of clothes.

1x monkey face, waiting for the driver to pick the team and myself up to the airport after dinner.
Seriously, no one cared if I walked around looking like this either.
Because everyone vacated the office to pack/grab dinner/do their own stuff.
It's just me and the dandy lions glass decals, and the father, smoking away like a chimney in the other room. :(
#SadUnlovedKid

Landed at Cheng Du airport, and made a beeline to the store - because we were carrying LOADS of stuff meant for the store.
Made absolute sense to drop it off , before heading to the hotel.
It looked like this when I reached the store.
Wahhh so dark!


Lights turned on, and this is the crazy mess I saw.
We have Cat in checked shirt, Mr manager overseeing the reno, dude in black tee is the chief architect for our little project. Random lady who I always am forever catching sight of her clearing up wood scraps, sweeping floor etc walking about in heels!
Wow!

I'm not sure how they will magically get the store ready in just 3 days, but my mission there is to just watch, observe and learn something right?
I'm like the set up team, not the reno team.
Hmmmpf.


After bading the mess goodbye, our distributor brought us out for supper.
The spicy mala couldn't wait, I had it in less than 3 hours of reaching Cheng Du!
She ordered an entire pile of food on skewers.
Everything is chinese, and seemed fine to me.
sliced Cow tripe, braised mala chicken foot, black fungus, lotus root, chicken gibblets, rabbit's kidney (! I know! It's my first time eating it) , nano shrimp (they are seriously too small to be identified as shrimps), some stirred fried vegetables, and I drew the line when she attempted to order the head of a bunny.

I swear I nearly died. Contemplating the thoughts of having to eat the head of a rabbit, with its eyeballs and teeth in tact.

Ugh..
Sorry. Rabbit's kidneys are about as chinese as I can be. I'm also not a fan of chicken innards but I eat them anyway.
And all the time, I thought about bunny at home with his large round marble like eyes. :(

In the words of my distributor, my appetite for Sichuan food is comparable to the locals.
(I think so as well... you have no idea how much spicy mala food I eat back in Singapore)


Enough rattling.
This is my very very nice hotel room for the next few days!
For a hotel room it's rather huge! I could hold a party for 8 comfortably!



Ahhh! I can see my bed when I'm showering, and when i'm lying on my bed, I can see my shower/toilet!
Sexy time much?
Hahahha
Oh and the toilet door is made of glass as well.
Sexy shitting time as well?
hahahah!




Woke up, and decided that the room's lighting is extremely favourable for pictures!
without any filter, this is the original ambience lighting in my room!

This would be le daphne, after a filter.
Eh heheh I like how I get baby smooth skin whenever I make use of this filter.
Hurhurhur.
#filterillusions


The cute cups in my room.
I drank with the doggie one.
Not a fan of robots, at least not this one!


Kitchen Pantry area. Next to it, is a washing machine and drying area.
Seriously. It's a mother huge room I have to myself.
I always found out later that this is probably a service apartment, more than a hotel. 
Coz I checked in at 4am in the morning, I have no clue.
Hahahha!


Slightly neater shop.
But still nowhere near completion leh..


Ok fast forward a little.
This are random shots of the shop on our opening day!


Girls are fickleminded!
We/I kept changing my mind on the display pieces chosen for the mannequins.
I finally settled for the orange and almondish scheme instead of the blacks.
Stripping the mannequins is not my favourite task in the Visual set up part.
It's too troublesome!
The orange set looks more exciting no?

The otherside of the store...
That crazy white screen is a jumbled mash of iisa.
Not my brain child, not my favorite piece of fixture in the store layout, but i'll live with it.

The lazy corner.
With the huge sofa (I later spent more of my time camping on the sofa, \ looking like I meant to sit there,coz I was terribly unwell with food poisoning)

I also took time to camp in the fitting room.

Poor sad Daphne back in the hotel room.
I skipped dinner, while the rest of the team stayed behind to sort out the stock takings and system set up of the POS. 
Rwar! They had Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner.
I drank Pepsi, hoping that all the germs in my tummy would die!
Die germs die!
If coke and pepsi is good enough to kill off the toilet bowl stains, it's gonna work for the food poisoning!

I spent at least 4 times in the toilet while I was at the store.
once in the hotel, and I slept like a frigging sad baby thereafter.


I woke up feeling damn refreshed at 6am.
The pepsi worked!
Felt good enough to give myself a fancy do, after I cleared up the room and packed up my luggage.
With an 8.30am flight to catch, I couldnt be bothered to dress up, but I definitely look happier, considering that i'm not much of a morning person.

Random chair in the office of our distributor.
It's the groping chair.
Hahhaa
#lame!

One of those bored days, I went out for a walk in the heart of Cheng Du. It's their shopping district. I stopped by the Watson's to grab a pack of mask, coz I had terrible skin the entire trip.
A pimple grew on the bridge of my nose.
It wasn't looking ugly, but it definitely hurts whenever I touch it.
This is yet another wonder product.
I think its called my beauty diary or something like that.
I woke up the next morning, and the painful bump was deflated!
OMG PAPAYA!
This black rose clarifying pack is making itself useful! 
Miracle product only works when i'm in China?


Greeted by the third hotel of the trip. I like this room the least.
It's dark, old, dampy and very contrasting to the glitzy one I stayed in Cheng Du.
#spoiltbrat.
Size wise, this is pretty decent, just not as new.
I found it extremely amusing to find a stack of cards slotted through my door, with busty ladies, in le sexy pose, offering their massage and other services ranging from students, to old mature ladies in the different "composite cards".
Lol! How enterprising!




I'm left with a series of random pictures snapped for fun!
The uber yummy spring onion pancakes of Wuhan!
It tasted like lots of yummy garlic spread/oil was laced all over the pancake, with a dash of sesame seed and a sprinkle of spring onion.
Awesome! 
Super good change, after 4 days of non stop spicy mala sichuan food.
And after my bout of diarrhea, I welcome mild flavoured food, because my system felt rather weak comparatively. 

We ordered all 3 items shown in the picture, but the favourite would still be the spring onion one in the center! Rwar!!!


Mini lobster about the size of my index fingers.
Nothing to eat, but shell.
That was fried in spicy mala style as well. 
Oh well, I managed. 
Hahaha, just amused at the size of the lobster. 


Diced bread with pork floss filling.
It tasted meh. Very dry. Nothing like the yummy floss buns from our local Breadtalk.

Some dolls wearing the mini design of the offerings in the store!
I want! But to bring a doll home, I had to purchase x amount from the label.
Look at the amount of fabric that each doll has on her, it's definitely not my style. 
Too covered up.
No doll for Daphne :(

Oh, and the meanie of a salesgirl also forbade me to snap pictures of the dolls.
This was taken secretly!



Last hour in Wuhan, I met a samoyed.
Fella is totally not camera cooperative.
The minute I got closed to him, he decided that I give good belly rubs, and demanded for some.

How the heck is lying on uneven pavement even comfortable?
I have no idea!


Lastly, the legendary flight delays at the Wuhan airport.
what was supposed to be a 4ish pm flight got delayed into an 8.45pm flight.
It was so bad. SO BAD!
I almost couldnt make it back to Singapore in time!




We were due to reach Shen Zhen at 6.30pm, and the dad even gave the team instructions to make sure "they have dinner with me" before they chuck me in the right terminal for my plane back to Singapore.


That dinner totally didn't happen!
The delays caused so much drama, it was as if, I was in a movie!

What seemed like too much airport camping time to spare, became super tensed!
When the Wuhan flight landed, the air stewardess actually helped clear me over to the business seats, just to ensure that I'll be the first to depart the plane.
Cat came along with me, since i'm the blur cock tourist here.
We sat on a shuttle bus for VIPs to leave the tarmac area (Thank god, some VIP lady ordered for the service, and we merely hitch hiked)

We dashed (in heels!) from the domestic terminal to the international terminal and managed to check in with merely 10 minutes before the counter closed.

At this point, Cat's assistant was waiting for our luggages trapped in the Wuhan plane terminal.
Awesome right?
With only 10 minutes, we weren't sure if I was to fly home alone luggage-less or what.

Cat said to me "if i'm not back by 11.05pm. please board the plane, and we'll Courier your luggage over T.T
I was so sure that i'll get mushrooms from my dirty laundry by the time it comes back to me.


I am grateful that I've always been well taken care of, no matter how weird the situations may become, and so... my luggage appeared.
It was like a relay dash. assistant to Cat, Cat to me, me to plane.
Rwar!

When I finally settled at the boarding area, I broke down into tears. 
I had over an hour to emo, as there was yet another infamous flight delay on departure back to Singapore! 
*Experienced an insane amount of turbulence this trip. 
Delays were caused by the unstable "weather", so the air crews tell us.

I was upset that I didn't get to say a proper farewell to my teammates.
That I couldnt thank them enough for the 200% effort that they've placed into making this work trip happen and the dedication in taking care of me.
and the crazy part into making my trip home happen too.

IT was just too much.
Reno delays
Exhaustion,
Diarrhea,
Airport dramas
It all came crashing with the tears with relieve that my crazy trip was over.

It felt as if I've grown up alot in the span of 7 days.
I reached home to a war zoned room after I touched down.
Mother left my room door opened, and the dog had a party in my room unsupervised.

Best trip ever with a thumbs up!
Hahahah. 

I was too tired, I slept and only cleared the mess the next night.
Trixie also took the opportunity to shred the sister's letter into confetti!

I found it super amusing and cracked up when the sister told me she later tried to piece her letter together and it read "Dear D, I hope your knees are holding up fine.
Please continue to work on the knee exercises diligently"

Signed off
your physio

This marks the end of my adventures in Cheng Du, China.


Saturday, September 29, 2012

Vain pot shots

Headed over to the Singapore Expo for the Guinness Arthur's day concert earlier.
It's one of the rare days where I am all decked out in black (Head to toe literally!)
Black headband, black shoulder side slit sleeved toga dress, black trusty bow heels.
I feel like a gangster, walking about in the east!

It was rather fun day, except for the cock ups that happened.
I am uber thankful that the problems were rectified.
How in the world did I miss out such important information, was truly beyond me.
Stupid blunders. 
*stabs self*

Here I am, vainpot shots in the cab, before I discovered my grave error for the day... 
Still can smile until so happy somemore. 
Tsk!


Claud and I when the madness is over... 
Like!
Della / Ding dang (the female celebrity featured in the picture frame) is super pretty.
Not fair!




This would be me, in yet another rare occurrence!
I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but aside from my earring studs, I rarely deck on those long dangly earrings.
Coz my ears would rot from wearing cheap metal. 
That particular day was rare! Because I so wanted a pair of Tassels earrings badly, and to date, in my best effort (unable to lay my hands on a proper pair), I made myself a pair of tassels for the occasion.
Made from the threads we use for the cross stitch/ embroidery hobby... I present to you... 
My peach colored tassels!




Here's a close up my new toy.


I seem to have a million vainpot shots of myself in the cab.
I assure you that vainpot time is highly valuable lately, and I've been rushing about quite abit. The only time I sat still, would always be when I'm travelling. Aside from that, I've been forgetting to take pictures much.



Save for the few ... like when I twist my hair randomly, and thought it looked pretty..

Rushing out for work on the last night for the F1 street race in a pretty lift!
I know I said that I wouldn't be watching the F1 street race in Singapore in my previous post right? 
Well I couldn't turn down a friend in need of some help, especially when I have the capacity to help, so there you go...
Daphne at your service, with 2 hours of notice!


The race view for the night!



Been eating really healthy food lately, except for my sugary intake.
Alot of Sushi, porridge, soup, moon cakes and liquids like bubble tea.
Mainly from being sick and suddenly finding out that I could no longer fit into my tightest/smallest pants in the house, that I suddenly remembered about, and wanted to wear them, triggered some vanity alarm.
10% fats increase is probably nothing to panic, coz I still fit into 99% of my clothes save for that 1 pants that was too tight for me all these while. 
But its the lack of discipline that upsets me. Looking flabby and all.

I've only swam (exercised) once since the start of 2012. Dafaq much?
Rwar!! 
This cannot continue!

Pilates! I choose you again!
Ok, and if the weather holds up, swim too!
Need to check if my purple exercise mat is still holding up fine from the under usage.
God, let me be toned again.


Stuffed animal recovery center

I came back home to a terrible sight!
Trixie the destructive, had a mishap play time with her dear hamster, while I was out in the day.

Hamster's stuffing was splayed all over the floor. His rattly parts was found in another corner of the room and his "skin/hide/fur" laid nearby.

Le sigh...
---

Doctor Daphne Lee
Head of Stuffed Animal Recovery unit of the Lee residence has kindly reconstructed Mr hamster back to 90% of his original format.

Hamster is currently out of the ICU ward and is coping fine with his new ugly stitches.
He's currently out playing with Trixie.


I hope he holds up fine, and that trixie will be gentler with him during future play time.
That was the best I could do for hamster. He was so badly injured that aesthetics was out of the consideration.
Tsk!

I showed Claud the picture of mr hamster, and she returned me a picture of mr OS Bear in a worst off state.
Puppy triumphs the violence best.




Perhaps I should have a Say NO to stuffed animal violence Day soon?

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Trixie and her Hamster

Hello there, from Trixieland!
Dressed in silver hairband looking grumpy.
Silver is totally not a complimenting color for Trixie!
I already told human about my distaste for the silver color when she bugged me for peektures.


That'll be me and my favourite toy for the moment.
Have you met hamster? He's my 2 day old friend.
He amuses me for hours, and reminds me of my old friend, Spotty the puppy!



Loading up a video of Trixie playing with her beloved new toy hamster.

Word has it that
the human gave Trixie an old doggie toy ( Been around for at least 10 years) that rattles/vibrate whenever one pulls a string trigger.

Loving the toy is one thing, and well the toy was destroyed after some crazy wear and tear from me daily.

Ima sad doggles one day.
No matter how much I flipped Spotty around, I could not  locate its string.
Next thing I knew, human took Spotty away from me forever!
:/

Human told her mommy that she hunted for a similar toy for months, and finally found it at....

wait for it...


Daiso!
Hoarder instinct sets in. Human bought 2 toys at a go!
1 hamster (as shown in the video) and a porcupine (unreleased to the kraken(me) yet)

Human is assuming that every dog knows how to play with this toy like the way Trixie does,
But according to Ricky the trainer when I met him in March - he was very impressed that I could manage the pulling and coordinate of spotty the dog all by myself, with no help from human at all!

I figured that some doggles are more talented at puzzles, and others perhaps more interested in sports and painting etc, and i'm talented at pulling the string from hamster!

Ignore my human's yabbling in the video.
Focus on me please!

I also like to sign off the video by tilting my head whenever my human says bye!
Hahaha
I'm cool like that!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Weekend hello

Had some time to spare before meeting the girls for work.
Here we go..
My latest craze in 4x face shot layout.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Waves!

I fell asleep after a very huge dinner that the mother bought for me.
And now I'm like wide awake, using the phone to blog/trying to fall back asleep again after eating up some moon cakes.

Unfortunately my super sleepy powers deactivates whenever I'm ill, so I shall spam pictures of Trix and I, taken yesterday night.
Hoping that I'll somewhat fall asleep Really soon!

We were doing our best crazy face off competition.
It's human vs Trixie!

Proper faces.
I think the both of us looked more natural in the ugly face off.

In no particular reason, i've decided not to attend F1 race this year.
Perhaps I've grown tired of the event already...and no longer feel the hype

But earlier in the evening- Standing in the outskirts of the tracks at Cityhall, and listening to the sounds of the engines...
I feel the adrenaline rush.
Ahaahahah.
Yeah no regrets.
I'm bloody sick, I really need the camp at home time, more than the adrenaline rush time.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Arghh




1x morning grump coming up.
Spent the night awake being sick.
It's annoying how difficult it is for me to fall asleep whenever I fall sick.

To be jolted awake by a Filipino telemarketer who talks down to me really slowly, as if I'm retarded is just pure annoyance.

After telling her very nicely that I'm not interested...and she calls back thrice...
Nasty Daphne comes out to play.

Rwarrrr!
Good fucking morning Daphne!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Binge shopping


Deprived from shopping for a week while in China, I went alittle nuts while I was at Bugis.
Bought Mooncakes, clothes, and accessories.
As most can probably tell, shopping deprivation as some very bad after effects on me.

Everything looks very mished up and crappy here in the picture.
But seriously, my talent lies in wearing them out, not product photography, so hold your tongues and keep your comments until you've seen them worn on me.
Hahahah!

*thick skinned*

Liking a busy September




That's me stuck at the Wuhan, China airport - during a 4 hours flight delay.
Some shit about weather and turbulence they say.

I nearly couldnt make it back to catch my scheduled flight back to Singapore.
The airport drama alone is exhausting to tell, I'll leave it as a story of its own to tell another time.

Back, it's just Busy busy busy.
Catching up with work, post China trip is no joke!


However, it's the mother's birthday, and so we bought mommy dinner and we got her a mini cake to boot!

Mom's not a fan of cakes in general, but this one's a durian one!
Super yums!
As you can tell, my mommy's 5 year old only! :D
I decorated one mini cake for pictorial purposes and here we go, working on my idea of having a fire cake!

I seriously thought it'll be funnier to have the entire cake filled with candles, but I couldnt work out enough guts to ask for 10 candles instead.
Hahahha
Would look like a fire porcupine, if I actually did!





As a result from all the travelling, lack of sleep and durian cake, my system is down at the moment.
Fever, flu and sore throat.
Rwar!

I'm a sneezing monster as we speak, and bingeing on the snow skinned moon cakes from bakerzin.
The cold moon cakes sort of make my throat feels better.
I'll try to capture pictures of my moon cakes before they make their way into my tummy.

*snorts*
For now, we'll just have to make do with this random picture of my mooncake bag with Trixie seated next to the bag as decoration. 
Ahahahha.

I fought long and hard with myself, and finally decided on the Beige gold bag with gold rabbit print!
Mom adopted the pink version for her personal use.

For as long as I'm sick, I guess i'll be a mooncake monster, until my tastebuds are activated again.



Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Firsts..

I'm back from motherland.
The entire week has been filled with many firsts in my lifetime.
I'll probably rattle about it when i'm better rested.

However, I shall celebrate this post for a special friend who's traipse past many of her own first with me.

For starters..there's photoshop.
Super proud of her for new found talent that she never knew about.

For mains: Happy 1! I'm 12 days late in announcing our little celebration, but it's a big milestone for the both of us.

For desserts: site is ready!

Rwar!

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Greetings from motherland

Testing the blogger app in my king size bed in the hotel. What are the odds of getting the same room? Hee!


I tried the skewered stuff and my highly salivated rmb5 fried rice noodles.
I'm happy, but food is extremely greasy though.. So I'm not feeling too well at the moment.
Queasy....

I had skewered golden mushroomsx2
Skewered Chinese cabbagex1
Skewered chicken wingx1
Skewered sausagex1
Cost me rmb14
The sausage is a scam. It taste completely mashy and cheap.
Ok, Bed time!


Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Crimson lips




I finally caved in to my list of "wants" and got myself some red RED lips!
I've been thinking and procrastinating about the vivid red lipstick for the longest time, and for as long as I've existed - I've never been much of a lipstick girl (because it makes me talk funny, and it stains my teeth if I smile too much).
At best, I'll fiddle with lip tint. Hahaha.

Well, today's one of those "I'm getting it, even if I'm gonna use it once!" kind of day.
Whipped out my new toy and tried on the red lippy the minute I got home, and I'm happy with the shade of red that I chose! 
It pops!
:D

Seriously, choosing the right shade of red is a rather painful process.
The right shade can either make or break the entire make up routine. 
It either achieves the glowing fair complexion, or makes your face looks sallow and dumpy - which is probably NOT what we want here.

the idea is to look sexy, not scary zombie right?

Anyway, it's probably common sense (to me), but the process of color selection is long and tedious, because I spend much time strolling round the mall twice or thrice.
In case you think i'm nuts...

I'm strolling because colors (anything! fabric, hair, cosmetic) react and is viewed differently under various lights circumstances.
(daylights, sunlight, soft white, orange lights, tungsten etc). I'm just doing so, to cover my base.

Just think of color as an optical illusion of sorts. 
I will be sooooo annoyed if I look fucking good in orange light, and end up resembling trash or tranny in daylights or whatever light.
In the perfect scenario, I would aim to look gorgeous in all types of lighting.
Lol.

Here we go, 1xvivid red lippy added into the make up collection!