Guo Dong !?!?

Yep, today shall be a special and meaningful day for Chinese. This is the biggest festival for Chinese community, yes, it's more important than Chinese New Year. This is the day all family members gather and have a round table dinner, bid the winter and welcome the spring. Apart of normal dishes, they will also prepare "tong yuen" as dessert but I'm not a big fan for it ;)

Luckily I've early celebrated with my in law last Saturday so I don't feel that bad. Lately, more Chinese people rather to buy those ready made rather than make it from scratch. Maybe they were too busy and need more time to spend with family. Kinda lost the culture but at least they still try to maintain it.

Today office is very quiet ... indeed. Those training rooms normally filled with people and now, all of them were empty. Most cubicle were empty and everyone seems in holiday mood. Today will have team lunch at Ellenborough Market Cafe in Swissotel Merchant Court Hotel. Sounds cool and hope it will be a good food place. This is in conjunction of Christmas cum Year End lunch. Later tonight, I will meet up my ex-colleague from KL. They are here to visit SG as vacation and they will be staying at Marina Bay Sands Hotel. I've been long to visit this place and this time I have a reason to go there ;) I've prepared my camera and hopefully I can grab some nice pix and post it in FB. I heard it's not cheap and cost almost S$300 per night. If they don't bring GF, I will visit their room :P

Not long after, the head of GIS actually made a cake for our team and plan to share today but most of us suggested tomorrow because we will have a heavy lunch later. It's a fruit cake, look simple but I can feel the white Christmas mood.

Those beads are edible but not the flower ;)

The owner of the cake

About 12:30pm, all our team depart to the hotel for lunch buffet. We had 2 tables and as usual, I picked the table without bosses ;) Food there is ok and varieties also quite a lot. I took some pictures and can't upload here otherwise it will filled with pictures. So what I did was uploaded to FB and share with friends.

Today work seems ok, not too much so I manage to leave office around 6:15pm. As my appointment with them was 6:45pm, so I really need to rush as this is my first trip there and I need to take MRT and walk there too. I took the MRT from Clarke Quay then transit at Dhoby Ghaut then proceed to Circular Line for Promenade (dunno why the MRT operator pronounce this as Pro-men-nard).

After alight at Prome'nard', checked the map and I need to walk there and it should take about 15 mins. OMG, so far but it's ok because the view along the journey was good. I pass thru a mall (Marina Walk I guess) and saw they have a tower of instant noodles, cool.

I wonder how many cups in there

Some people said the top is like a boat but it look like a banana to me :p

And when I'm near Marina Bay Sands, I can't help myself and took a picture of it. I know it's not good with my phone camera but it was too troublesome to take out my dSLR. Because most of us were hungry so we went to opposite mall (with Casino in there) for dinner. As they don't have much choice, so we chosen Mozza - Italian pizza restaurant.

It look so expensive and front desk with 2 foreign ladies and computer as well. OMG, so high tech? It seems they have 2 section, one for fine dining and another for casual meal. Of course we pick the casual with a whole bunch of guys. We ordered few dishes and share and of course the pizza is a must. One feel bad about this restaurant was they expect everyone to read Italian because I can't understand anything from their menu! The only help we have was the waiter cum translator.

This is the casual area

Even table cover also with their message

What's in the envelope? It's the cutlery ;)

I can't recall the Italian name but it's good, with sliced cheese in there

The 20" meat ball pizza, look hideous but taste real good, not cheap too :p

After the dinner, we went straight to the roof top for some quick view and of course I took some pictures. Luckily I've hotel guess with me otherwise I would need to pay S$25 to get in there. At that time, I was thinking to myself, if I were to bring my family there then it will cost me S$25 x 4 = S$100. If I pay additional S$200, then I can enjoy a full day there with all facilities cum breakfast. So this will be more worth it right? Anyhow for some new and romantic couple who wish to see the view and windy environment, it's ok to pay S$50 too :P

After chatting with them for quite some time, I have to went into their room for my 8:30pm TC ... again! Also it took longer than usual so I only finished around 9:15pm. As soon as it ended, I went up to join them back and this time they started to order alcohol and first thing strike my mind is "Sh*t". They are a bunch a kaki botol and back to those days, we even go to nearby kopitiam for dozen of beers as 'refreshment'.

About 11+pm, I told them that I need to make a move otherwise I would miss the last train but they insist to grab some juices at their room and rest a bit before leave. Once we got in the room, they bring out whisky!!! OMG, I kena con already and they continue to drink and offer me a sofa if I were to stay back. Initially I thought just layan them then cabut but they purposely have few rounds of bottoms up.

Maybe I didn't drink for long so I was a bit drunk so no choice but to stay there overnight but before I can get some sleep, they have to finish the bottle first! I think after an hour, I can't take it and went to doze ...

Room key

It's only used one and not recyclable