Most brilliant career move of the year

Somewhere deep in the man made forests of the Singapore Night Safari ....

A "United Nations" delegation of business unit heads were engaged in aggressive wining, dining speed networking and major bonding amid the sights and smells of our nocturnally active friends of the animal kingdom.

Amid this flurry of activity, one Distinguished looking white guy with white hair (DLWGWWH) spots one happie little guppy (guppy) ... happily guzzling her share of yummy wine , while balancing half a dozen satay sticks , a wine glass and the dozens of business cards she has accumulated just 5 minutes into this food fest.

DLWGWWH moves in, corners the guppy and her unsuspecting fellow newbie colleague and sticks out his hand at the guppy with a friendly smile.

DLWGWWH (with french accent)
: "Hello, how's the food? I'm xxxxxxx. "

(Guppy Shakes hands with DLWGWWH, satay sticks still in her mouth )

Guppy : "Yep its delicious! I'm guppy! great to meet you"

DLWGWWH : " Great! So what do you do at X-Corp Guppy?"

Guppy : "Oh i run our blah blah blah programs in APAC . "

DLWGWWH : " Ah so you're the one!"

Guppy : " So what do YOU do at X-Corp?"

DLWGWWH : " Erm..ahem..I'm the BOSS"

Guppy : "...."

And this concludes my most brilliant career move for the year. I have just met our big boss from the USA the master of the universe...sigh. what a way to make an impression :P

c'est la vie

Delightful Day of Decadent Dining

Ladies who Lunch :D

It felt like i was working in the United Nations today and the entire office was a flurry of activity with our APAC business unit heads all gathering in the Singapore office for their meetings.

Needless to say, everybody wanted a piece of the guppy too. By late noon I could not take it any longer , I had to get out of the office for some serious "time out". I messaged Fluffy Pearl as she was working nearby and before you know it we were hiding out at the Aroma Cafe at the ICON for some serious relaxing (extended) lunch session :D

It's always nice to catch up with friends to see how they are doing hee catch up on some gossip, Its even better if your friends are working near you, Lunch then becomes something you can seriously look forward to - beats a work/sales/networking related power lunch anytime!

Heee ofcourse Fluffy and I had to camwhore! Hey if you are cute, flaunt it!

Aroma had excellent chicken and mushroom melts! definitely a must try!

Fluffy strikes a pose - there is no justice she eats ALOT but never gets fat! Where the hell does all that food go? her ears? *jealous*

Camwhoring is fun when done in pairs! ha ha ha ha!

After our cheesy main course, Ofcourse we had to have dessert! Chocolate Praline cake for Fluffy

Oreo Cheesecake for happie little guppies!

Sigh, I am sad though , once Fluffy moves on to her spanking new job next month, sobss...there will be no more fancy tai tai lunch kaki for this guppy no more.

Seriously think i am one blessed little guppy, I think i get too many opportunities to eat so well! How the hell am I supposed to lose weight? when there are so many gastronomical delights to savour?

Chiili Crab Cravin...with the SES Alumni

See what i mean? after such a delightful lunch, dinner was another decadent affair :P

Caught up with EM, Cap, Yummy over a decadent seafood dinner at Jumbo Seafood restaurant in the evening. Our united goal - Chilli crabs! Its amazing how once you have made a connection whether at work or in your social life, you can always re-connect again even if you had not made contact over a period of time.

I had a great time, catching up on Yummy, Em and Cap's lives, it feels great to see that everyone has moved on to better things. In between licking the chilli crab sauce off our fingers we managed to update each other about the men in our lives, our work, our joys, hahahaa bitch about the women we know who have truly made it to "TAI TAI" status with their rich husbands , nannys, chefs, maids in tow..while we still slug it out in the corporate world trying to earn our keep :P ha ha ha too bad 2 couldnt make it though but it was an awesome foursome dining experience!

The Awesome Foursome striking a pose!

Presenting our sumptuous feast! - Oatmeal prawns!

Seaweed tofu with mushrooms...

Roast chicken mashed with squid -yes its a wierd dish the chicken flesh has been mashed with squid and then reassembled under chicken skin again..erm..tasted like squid balls not that great

The Piece De Resistance - and the real reason /excuse for our girly gathering...Chilli crabs! and our delish - greedy order of 20 pieces of fried mantou yum yum!

Guppies only know how to eat the "Gong" ( claw) Im hopeless I dont know how to eat the other parts of the crab no clue where to begin :P

Sweets for the sweet!

Naturally, after such a sumptuous feast of savory seafood, we need to round off our evening with some top notch sweets to complete our evening. After polishing of our last chilli crab piece we headed down to Ricciotti - Italian Deli and Pastry to sample their delightful desserts! - and ofcourse carry on with more glorious gossip and girl talk!

Nope no wine for us tonight, we just want to get high on sugar!

Theres always room for dessert!

All in all i had a most delightful day of indulent overeating and great company..cant wait to do it again soon ...

So how was your day happie gupsters? Did you spend it with glorious food and great company too?

Expedition with the Hantu Bloggers

I am exhausted.

as i type this blog, my suitcase from taiwan remains unpacked, my scuba gear remains wet and unwashed in the bathroom..i just wanna plonk and go to bed.. think I'll clean everything tomorrow

How did things get so messy? I blame it on the last minute mad dash to Taipei.
weeks before that i signed myself up to join Debby Ng and the Hantu Bloggers ( http://www.pulauhantu.org/) a bunch of enthusiastic marine conservationists and students to attempt my 2nd dive at Pulau Hantu.

I also signed up a part time cleaner/maid to come over to spring clean my flat ..also on the same date. sigh

at the end of the day every activity seems to converge on the same weekend culminating to a mad mad multitasking stunt. Thank goodness mom came over to supervise the cleaning so i could make it to the scuba trip :P thank u mommy!

and thank goodness I could get on a flight back on saturday night! ....neeways, I flew in to Singapore from Taipei and only made it home at 1130pm last night. I had to pack my gear, my camera etc. It was pure madness.

I forgot to clean out my camera housing, the result - blurry pics!

On a happie note : I got to meet a bunch of enthusiastic happy divers
On a not so happie note : I didnt manage to conquer my fear of murky waters. Pulau Hantu waters are still as murky as i remembered it to be. You can still dive, but i just couldnt conquer my fear and surfaced soon as i lose visibility ...

damn. will i ever conquer Pulau Hantu? stay tuned true believers!



Rendezvous was at bird no lay egg - Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal

Debby Ng and the other hantu Blogger volunteers

Spotted a familiar face in the crowd! Met WaiMeng first on the left on one of my scuba trips to Tioman early last year! wa world damn small man...

Stanley , WaiMeng and I were supposed to be in a group I was able to take this pic coz i jumped in first :DYee har!

Alas, the currents were too strong, visibility was so bad ( cant get my bearings right, cant see beyond arms length in the murky waters) I gave up after 10 mins and surfaced

The guys continued on...only to return to the boat...from the jetty?????

Apparently in the dive , the currents brought them to the lagoon on the other side of the island and they crawled ashore to return to the boat on foot! see! current was that bad! Hilarious though! never saw this in all my years of diving! hahahaha

somewhere along the end of the trip we picked up a passenger from one of the little landfill islands. he had home grown mangoes which were o so sweet and delish!

Then the trip turned into a mango buffet on sea!



Ofcourse like all my other Pulau Hantu expeditions - IT HAD TO POUR!!! like really really cats and dogs POUR!! really its getting annoying why is it everytime i go to Pulau hantu it pours?

You can view more pics on my online dive log- www.mywebshots.com/user/happieguppy

Im just so inspired by this group of people, Debby and the other hantu blogger volunteers they are so young, they know their stuff, they are working towards upholding what they believe in , engaging in activities that are productive and meaningful.

doing something they are passionate about and doing it so well..keep it up guys!

hah! tomorrow is the start of another work week...damn i wish i could take a sickie but its going to be a hectic week.. all the heads from our Asia Pacific Business Units will be descending into Singapore this week.

*takes a deep breath* NO MORE TRAVELLING AND ADVENTURES for this month...please please please...

I had fun today even though i didnt conquer Pualu Hantu ..what did u do this lovely sunday happie gupsters?

Adventures in Taipei (Day 3) - Smelly Tofu

I just got back from gallivanting out in the streets of Taipei. sleepy. so I will keep this a short one ( yes I hear your unified cheers of joy! :P)

It was a bumpy ride at work today. With the usual human potHOLEs, roadHOGs, and dangerous Hazards. The cold and dreary weather also wore down my level of patience as I laboured to manouvre myself to keep to the road and make my way towards my desired destination.

Heh deep huh?

Work was trying lah. duh. neeways by the time we reached any concensus/ conclusion it was already 7-ish and pitch black outside.

After bitching to my boss in HongKong via sms about my "ExcitingDay" I decided to sieze the night and make my way to the famed "Shih Lin" Night markets.

I boarded a cab ( coz i had no energy to attempt another MRT excursion ...) but ended up having to make a detour half way through the journey as we hit a really bad traffic jam, I gave up on "Shih Lin" and found myself at another night market called "Raohe Street Night Market" instead.

By the time i got out of the cab, I was already starving! which is great coz this market was so colourful, noisy , full of life, and most importantly full of yummy delicious FOOD!

Happie part of this adventure : Lots of interesting new foods Ive never tasted before
not so Happie part of this adventure : Smelly Tofu...the smell! its HORRIBLE! can you imagine whatever u buy from this market , clothes bags shoes will reek of smelly TOFU? eeewww..I now smell like smelly tofu as I type away here on my lappy Im still debating whether I want to take a shower before i sleep but its oh too cold..sigh sigh

Ok, I'll let the pictures do the talking :D

shopping was cool too but as usual I didnt buy anything - NOT ONE THING

Got shops that sell little fishies you can catch and bring home!

This dessert is called "Bao Xin" the little Gem balls are warm, glutenous gel like dough encasing sweet mashed bean. the Big bowl is some white fungus cold dessert..one warm ball, one mouth full of sweet fungus soup
Grilled Taiwanese sausage ! - I ordered the one with honey . which literally meant they sliced open my sausage and drizzled honey into it! Yum!
Raohe Street is just one long street of food and shops selling clothes and accessories. when i came out the other end , I was surprised to find a huge grand temple! Ofcouse guppy went into the temple for a look see and a quick prayer.

Hanging off the beams of the inner rooms of the temple were these handmade paper lanterns!

Guppy Lantern! Pikachu!

The shopping Continues...Hello Kitty motorcycle helmets? hahahahahah You want one?

Chocolate fondue! mmmm they were selling sticks of fruit like strawberries and banana to dip into it..I love chocolate and fruits..mmmm

Fried Fish Sticks....

More Shopping again..

OK the sweet charcoal grilled potatoes were super yum!

These are onion pancakes - which look and taste suspiciously like PRATA!

I was just walking around, in the slight drizzle, eating, sampling differnet foods and drinks, watching people buy clothes and stuff. Hung around this street until around 11pm before I hopped into a cab back to my hotel.

Honestly, if it aint for work , I probably would not come to Taipei again. maybe Im just not a street market shopping guppy. Im shy to try on clothes and Im too lazy to bargain. I know Bijoux enjoyed herself in taipei, Taiwan as a city is just too much like Singapore. Im not too sure If I'd spend my own money to come back again just for a leisure holiday.

What do you think Happie Gupsters?