cheesecake.. shopping.. cooking.. steamboat.. and food poisoning =(

Ok, has been a week since i last updated. =p the whole week has been summarized in the title itself. well.. as usual, work has been not that exciting, and weekends have been lots of fun but they go by too quickly =(. i'm going to play whirlyball later (during office hours hahahahah) so i'll just go through the photos as usual..

Thursday's dinner with porridge.. looks gross but its pretty good. it's steamed egg with sausages..

some swiss miss hot choc with famous amos cookies for the room mate for being so sweet

friday's lunch dapaoed from the office cafeteria.. meatball spaghetti and chocolate milk.. not that I had any work to do, but just felt like being antisocial and spending some time w the internet..

on the way to the Cheesecake factory (codenamed cheapskate factory hohoho) w koksong in the background

da driver

pedestrian unfriendly roads!! had to walk around the whole restaurant to reach the main gate

4 of us (jy, cy, wj and paw) shared 3 dishes.. Grilled Pork Chops

pecan crusted catfish

supposedly VERY spicy shrimp and rice

THE godiva chocolate cheesecake.. happiness!

a slice of cheesecake for each of us! tiramisu, fresh banana, godiva chocolate, kahlua cocoa chocolate, strawberry, and some chocolatey thing.. good stuff!

strawberry w choc fondue sample from the melting pot.. while we were walking around legacy village haha

legacy village.. with some band playing.. super nice place where little kids run about and old pple sit around and chat and young pple shop! =)

jy wj paw and ameek

Saturday was planned for.. SHOPPING! more factory outlets!! whee.. this time was a 2 hours drive to Grove City, Pennsylvania.. haha just for shopping.. my favourite sport!

puji, raju n paw on the way to grove city

pretending to enjoy the scenery

wj and me.. on the way back all tired

chocs!

this is just some of what i bought hehe

After fun fun shoppping on saturday.. sunday was spent preparing for the steamboat party at night for the managers at kevin's apartment.

presenting... fried noodles for lunch! with cabbage, carrot, tomato, egg and sausage! by yours truly.. haha. it was tasteless though, thus the sambal blachan at the side hahaha my poor flatmate not only has to cook for me, teach me how to cook, she still has to endure my crappy cooking.. hehehe

see? she's still happy after eating the gross noodles. haha. that's green bean soup.

the guys carrying chairs and making themselves useful

our chef from chong qing!! that's peanut milk she's making. GROUND from real peanuts.

cool stuff.

the people left after the party to cleanup.. a toast to the successful party! (jy still in the room on the phone.. tsk.. always always on the phone)

Well. that's the end of the steamboat party. what happened after that was that I fell really really sick. At first i thought it was just cos i ate too much and cos of the beer. but after i was woken up many times at night to puke my guts out.. i realised something was wrong.. must be food poisoning. =( Had some diarrhoea too. luckily from pawsieboy's experience.. i knew that i really had to hydrate myself so i drank water like crazy.

on Monday morning i was still puking so i decided not to go to work. At about eleven, i set off to look for a GP. there's this cleveland clinic (its actually a whole building of clinics) just near my apartment so i walked there.. all alone and sick sob.. when i reached, there was no reception, and from the directory, I couldn't make out which doctors were GPs and the rest were all specialists. Kinda like gleneagles hospital where there are many clinics. crap. so i asked around and they pointed me to the hillcrest hospital opposite the road.

So i crossed the road. there were 2 entrances to Hillcrest Hospital and the nearer one said 'Hospital Entrance' so i went there of course. There was a reception with two old ladies there and well, they referred me to the next entrance. Boo.

So i went to the next entrance. Ok, looks proper, and I thought this was finally the place.. it kinda looked like raffles hospital lobby so i was quite happy. The directory wasn't too helpful as usual. So again there was at least a reception with old ladies there. When i asked for a GP from the old lady, i was told they couldn't refer me to any, and they gave me a number (Medline) to call so that the operator could refer me to a GP. ok that kinda makes sense cos they shouldn't really be recommending me to a doctor cos that wldn't be fair right.

So i went to the public phone and tried the Medline.. and the operators were engaged, leaving me with the voicemail to leave my name and number. Oh, btw, each phonecall is 50c. So that's 50c gone. next i called my manager(s) to ask if i needed an MC.. voicemail again. so that was another 4x50c and nothing accomplished.

At this point in time i was already so tired i wanted to breakdown. hey, not easy being sick in a foreign land and having to walk to your own doctor AND not find one! especially when the buildings are so far apart here and everyone drives instead.

what happened in the end was i just gave up and walked back where i could have free phone access and a huge comfy bed.. luckily i wasn't in that dire need of a doctor/medication and i just slept it off..

haha if you actually read all of that boring detail.. wow.. that's patient of you. i just wrote it down in case i forgot and wanted to refer to it later on in life.. hahahaaa.

Anyway, after i woke up, i found a note by my dearest flatmate telling me she cooked porridge for me.. so sweet right!!!! and whee.. porridge with red dates in the rice cooker.. haha.. she's like my mum or something. so here's my dinner.. porridge with pickles and pork floss. perfect for sicklies like me!!!

Lastly, here's a picture of my manager George, and my mentor Linda on the very first day of work in mayfield heights. whew.

settling in

The past few days were pretty hectic, the drivers got their cars on Monday.. and we all shifted into the apartments too!!!!! and the apartments are super cool, fully equipped for cooking.. loads of channels on tv.. huge rooms.. great view. =)

Finally set up our wireless connection, so now in the comforts of my bed. Monday night was spent checking out eastgate plaza which houses Circuit City and Marcs.. Marcs is about my favourite place cos it sells the cheapest stuff! it also has groceries.. and cheap cosmetics.. hoho.. OPI at 5.99. limited colours tho.. Shared a subway sandwich with my flatmate for dinner.

Kevin's camry.. super shiok. the rest of the cars include 2 Mazda 6s, a Hyundai Sonata and a Corolla..

hoho! i get chauffeured around!

yinglun and our kitchen..

forest view from our balcony. kinda freaky at night.

our living room

on our way to work on Tuesday in ameek's sonata

we finally cooked!!!! very hard cabbage (cannot bite) and pork with maggi seasoning. we couldn't find soya sauce in the supermarket =(

egg and tomato.. yummy. finally eat home cooked food.. and white rice. you'd never imagine craving for white rice in singapore.. haha. thanks to our chef yinglun!! kevin and paw are taking her cooking lessons very seriously so that we can cook as well.. hoho

Wednesday morning breakfast.. fried egg, cheese sausage, toast with cream cheese, strawberries and milk. perfect.

me at my workstation! luv my pink adidas jacket. work for the past few days have been not that exciting. i can't help falling aslseep in training!! help!!! no matter how hard i try i feel sleepy once i sit down. i am so dead.

that's ME COOKING!! over salty fried egg and cucumber. =x

kev and yl with our cucumber+egg, friedrice+corn+pork+carrot, carrot+potato+pork. notice we dont have very creative permutations cos there isnt' much of a choice in the markets.. but we'll source for more food!!! the fried potatos were the best. =)

close up of the yummy food

now for some shots of MY ROOM! my walk in wardrobe... the huge place makes it tempting to buy more clothes.. heehee.

my bathroom

more views

ok! end of my break. missing everyone lots. =( yday i left my msn on for the whole nite and pple finally msged me.. but i was sound asleep. the time difference sucks! ok. back to sleepy trainings.. zzz

niagara falls!

just spent half an hour uploading and organizing photos on flickr to find out that.. the free membership only gives you 3 sets. BOO. anyway. this posting is supposed to be on Niagara falls! i'll post some mundane crap first before going to that. heehee.

Friday evening: i was feeling antisocial, so i didn't join the rest at bahama breeze.. instead i stayed in and ate.. my corky and lenny's half eaten burger..

Saturday (17th June 2006) was spent on Gus the Bus.. It brings you around Cleveland. It wasn't particularly exciting cos we just rode around and didn't get off much.. but the tour guides did explain lots about the city's history altho no one really listened.. But it was a good tour cos now we know where we should visit when we can drive around later!

jy and kev before the journey

chingyuh and me!

fantastic dimsum and hongkong style dishes at lee wah restaurant, asia plaza (payne ave). will definitely go back!!

took pix of the surroundings during the tour but well, how exciting can pix get when i'm not in them? so i shall only put the nicer ones..

There was a gay pride parade going on at rock and roll boulevard.. cool stuff.. i love the flag its so pretty.. and check out this following flag. it has a paw on it! =) dunno what it stands for tho.

cool gay pride banner

after gus the bus, we reached the inn at about 3pm. After which chinyong, chingyuh, sathya and me went to the Aurora Farm premium outlets! hohoho.. shopping like no one's business! here're the purchases for myself: heehee.. adidas, aeropostale and fossil.. happiness can actually be attained with money!

buy nonsense!

toys and cute tops for dearest joy

and.. my lovely tomyam noodle for dinner. looks crappy but tastes heavenly =)

OK! finally done w random stuff. now for niagara falls!!!!! Sunday, 18 june 2006. George led the way for the managers and er, me and kevin.. we had such great fun. it was tremendously beautiful. Just being there makes you feel in awe of the natural surroundings.. It's labelled by some as a natural wonder of the world, but it's not even like, part of the top wonders. After seeing it, i've decided i gotta go visit each of the 7 wonders of the world.. erm, the modern world of course. tho i dont exactly know which ones they are cos there are so many versions. haha..

anyway, i think the americans are really lucky to have such awesome sights near their home. at the state park, people were just sitting around and having picnics.. it reminded me of how we go to east coast park in spore, just that they can casually go to FREAKING NIAGARA FALLS on sundays.. or Fathers' day. sob.

me, kev and sebastian also passed george a fathers' day card to show our appreciation.. with a curious george theme. hee. hope he liked it.

the route there took 3+ hours.. going past pennsylvania and then reaching buffalo city in NY..

kev, rico and paw

on the way there!

kev george paw and the pretty pretty falls

looking like an idiot with loads of others

this was taken on maid of the mist, a ferry which brought us very near to the falls!

my lunch at hard rock cafe. freaking difficult to cut. dun rike.

i saw for my first time.. sea gulls!! and also a ladybird! couldn't take the ladybird in time tho. Don't laugh at me, but they don't have ladybirds in spore, only ugly olive green beetles that irritate the hell out of u at night. I was starting to wonder if they (ladybirds) are fact or fiction.. hoho but they are real and as cute as can be =)

my SMALL icecream cone consisted of 3 freaking scoops. look at the state of mine after a few minutes.. tsk.. horrible mess.

hoho.. one top from HRC and some niagara falls touristy nonsense

and finally.. more instant mee for dinner again. haa. ok. I'm finally done with this.. really gotta catch some sleep after the long day today! tmr evening i'll be shifting into my apartment after work.. more photos then! (if i can get the internet running.. hmm)

ttfn!!!