She is why I am a cat person

It's so hard to take a picture of her. Over the years, I've taken countless pictures with my mobile phones and Lumix cameras. Almost every photograph shows her with her head turned away.

Today, she saunters up to me and decides to show off a little. Standing on 3 feet, she cleans her paw. Right in front of my camera!

Finally, she looks straight into the camera! I think she doesn't mind Lily so much. Although yes, she gives me a blase look. :)

She is actually quite old. In human years, she is in her 60s. Recently I find her looking skinnier and less interested in the food we feed her. I do hope she lives to a ripe old age.

I can give you 50 reasons why I am the one you chose

So I asked for my anniversary 'present' in advance. We celebrate 7 good years together come September. Yay! :)

Is it any surprise I asked for a ring? I love rings! This Swatch ring is called 'Spring Pastel'.

I love how fun and pretty it looks!

Sedentary lifestyle

Once in a while, we morph into couch potatoes and do a DVD marathon together. This one which we watched recently is a Korean drama called 'Pasta'. 30 episodes of food, love and laughter. What's not to like? :)

Sauternes

We got this bottle of French dessert wine from the airport a few weeks ago and opened it for dinner tonight. While J loves red wine, I prefer mine sweet and chilled. Wolf Blass Yellow Label Moscato is one of my favourites and I have to say this bottle of Barton & Guestier is pretty good too!

Speechless

We were shopping the other day. This was all we wanted.

Issey Miyake L'Eau D'Issey for Men (S$133)
Issey Miyake L'Eau D'Issey Summer fragrance for Women (S$110)

This was what we took home for S$210!

The saleslady at Robinsons gave us a discount by using her staff voucher and merrily threw in bottles and vials of perfume, and tubes of shower gel, body lotion, and facial scrub while we watched in amazement.

So yes it looks like we were given a lot of freebies but I'm pretty sure all that have been factored into my $210. Of course I do realise how overpriced perfume is but gosh I feel so naked when I don't wear any!

Unidentified object

For the life of me, I could not figure out what that was on my toilet floor. I'm used to seeing newspapers, books and even journal articles lying on the floor but that looked totally unfamiliar.

Strange. What is J reading?

Turns out it's a Far East Flora catalogue.

With flowers looking like that, who is not tempted to buy some?!

313 Somerset

Don't you just love our white shoes? :)

On a separate note, we ate at Oriole Cafe & Bar (Pan Pacific Serviced Suites) which is next to 313 Somerset. Their fish and chips is highly recommended in food reviews but we didn't think much of it. The fish is quite fresh but dry. The 'chips' came in the form of wedges and were tasteless. We also had mushroom soup and spicy calamari. Again, nothing to rave about. J had a cup of flat white and told me Hot Shot Cafe at our university serves it better. About the only good thing we experienced is the service. Unfortunately that's not enough to make us eat there again.

小巫见大巫

We had dinner with B and L (J's colleagues) at Pearl River Restaurant last night. It's a place to go to if you like good Chinese food.

L is super pro when it comes to photography. He knows all about cameras and his latest toy is the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Just look at Lily! I've never seen her look so good in a photograph!

In turn, this is my Lily's feeble (actually my pathetic) attempt at taking a shot of L's Canon. Of course the Canon wins hands down!

Acknowledgements: The first picture was taken by L.

The weather's gone crazy!

Yikes! Pictures in this post are not fantastic!

This afternoon, at close to 5p.m., we experienced a squall!

Some time last year, we had experienced a similar one. That was late at night and too dark for us to see the effects of the strong winds. Today we saw how dramatic it gets.

The rain beat mercilessly on our window panes. Inside our apartment, we could hear the winds howling and rattling our windows!

The field in front of our condo was no longer visible. Clearly, you can't see the roads beyond the field either.

The wind knocked over a young tree. My heart bleeds for its premature death. :( I wonder if the occupants of that ground floor unit are pleased the tree no longer blocks their view or worried their home is now completely exposed.

As usual, the deck chairs fell into the pool for a swim! I say 'as usual' because that's exactly what happened to 2 other deck chairs last year.

The squall lasted for a good 10 - 15 minutes before the winds died down a little.

Reflection

Buskers

In a London tube station

Along the streets of Cambridge

In front of King's College Chapel

They ALL sing and play better than any Singapore Idol we know.

Seriously.

Bubble gum pink!

I did my nails a shade of pink to match my new watch. :)

J says they make me look like a British schoolgirl, the type who's constantly chewing gum, has bubble gum coloured nails, 7 ear rings on 1 ear, a nose ring and smokey eye make-up. Hahaha!

Loot!

This one is J's.
It's impossible to find a beard trimmer in Singapore, much less a good one. We were delighted to find this in Selfridges and gladly paid 30 pounds for it.

Ecco shoes from Cambridge
Very comfy and the price was slashed from 75 to 37.50 pounds. Yeah!

Guide books!

For someone with poor memory, these are a necessity. :)

I've been eyeing this for some time. I love its big pink face! Got it in Switzerland for about $20 less. Pleased as a peach! :)

Working from home

has certain perks.

For instance, a nice cold beer in hand on a very hot day. :)

Basel

is a relatively small and quiet town in Switzerland. We came here to visit a friend of J's. People here speak German and I learnt to say 'Danke'. :)

The cost of living in Switzerland is so high that it has the most expensive McDonald's in the world.

This cost us SGD26!

All we bought was a burger, fries, 6 pieces of nuggets and a drink.

And it wasn't even upsized ok!

In Paris

We stayed in a budget hotel recommended by the French husband of a friend of mine. It was small but clean and very quaint. :)

The Louvre was all I wanted to see so we spent a whole day there!

Mona Lisa!
This was how far we had to stand away from it.

The painting is behind 2 glass casings and there were tons of security guards standing around.

I like this!
It made a young teenage boy giggle and his mom was so tickled, she told him to take a picture of it like I did.

This is my favourite sculpture.
She has a look of agony because she's been bitten by a scorpion. Tucked in a corner in front of a window and her back facing the visitors, she looks forgotten.

Viagra has competition

We saw this lorry in Cambridge and had a good laugh!

Punting

is very popular in Cambridge.

Basically it's rowing a boat down the river Cam.

You can hire someone (many of them are Cambridge undergrads) to punt or you can do it yourself.

Some punting boys are really cute!

The picture says it all

We shall miss this place when we leave tomorrow.

Walking around the university town

Emmanuel College

As we walked around in Cambridge, I looked at people trying to figure out if they were tourists or students and wondering if I could be walking alongside the next Stephen Hawking.

Incidentally, Stephen Hawking does live in the city of Cambridge, Wordsworth Grove to be exact.