Pine Garden Cake
I'm seriously considering the Lychee Martini wedding cake from Pine Garden @ AMK, all because of Naomi's recomendation on Pine Garden and the good review on internet/ forums. For example, the Lychee Martini cake was featured in Sunday Times as one of the 50 yummiest cakes.

Anyone of you out there in sunny island Singapore had tasted this cake from Pine Garden, please leave a message here or drop me an email (see link at the side) and let me know how was it.

How I wish I can be in SG to taste the cake and make the decision faster.

Air ticket
Was trying to hold off buying our air-ticket back to Singapore as we were trying to wait for some sort of promotion/ discount. However there was NONE and the prices seems to be increasing as days goes by, so we finally decided to buy the ticket yesterday.

Flight details :-
Arriving in Singapore on Christmas Day in the evening
Departing Singapore on 30 January 2009 (Friday) in the evening

Had booked both flights on SQ A380!! Hopefully it wouldn't be a full flight on the trip to Singapore as I can't expect much people would want to travel on Christmas eve/ day. As we are flying on Christmas eve/ day, the air-ticket price was the cheapest compare to other dates which we consider. Saying that, it's still not cheap as it cost us £870 return each!! Ouch!!!

Friday night

Organised a curry dinner at Gandhi in Cambridge as a get together with my colleagues (due to the nature of our work, we don't see each other often) and in celebration of my success in getting the perm job.

Was introduced to Peshwari Nan (seems to contain almonds), love it!!

My colleagues were very kind and bought me a few things to congratulate me on getting the perm job. Presents include :-
- A box of chocolate from Hotel Chocolat (as in the picture above)
- A bottle of champagne
- 1000 point of airmiles

PS : Sam & I had ate half the box of chocolate last weekend. Oh God, I will try to remind myself that I'm on a diet.... Self control.... cannot resist the chocolate....

Car tyre
Since my last post on Agyo, our current car is jealous and decided to go on a strike by giving me a flat tyre this morning!

This morning, as usual, I walk to my car , didn't ever notice the flat tyre on the front driver's side (I know that's obvious and you should check all your tyres before your car journey but who doesn't that, plus I just assume all is well and good). Started the car and drove out of the parking lot, the car felt weird, strange rumbling noise.... Stop and thought I must be mistaken and drove abit further.... Stop just outside the building carpark and this time, I definitely think something isn't right. Step out of the car and staring in front of me is the flat tyre!!

Luckily Sam was still in and he came down to reverse the car back into the parking lot. So how now, we got a few options :-
- to replace the tyre which will cost about £100 to £150 (tend to replace 2 tyres)
- to rely on spare tyre for the time being and not go so fast on motorway
- to buy another car and not fix this car. We were thinking of buying another car to replace this car for quite sometime now, but we can't seems to make up our mind about which car we want (Actually, it's more on difference of opinions!)

Anyway, I didn't miss a day at work today cos I took the train in the rain....

Nevertheless, Sam will be going on & on & on about the countless items I broke (e.g. this incident, the last car breakdown, the more than 1 lightbulb)

Sam, FYI, you were driving the car when it got hit by a bus (I know you are going to say that you were picking me up on that journey) and when it broke down because the car battery was flat (I know you are going to say that we knew about the problem, but just had not fix it yet).

Update : Sam & Jaster drove the car (after fixing it with the spare tyre) to Kwik Fit to repair the puncture on tyre, costing 15 pounds in total. So the car is mended.

Toyota Aygo
I want a Toyota Aygo!!!

Specifications
- Length = 3.4m
- Width = 1.6m
- Height = 1.47m
- Weight = 1,180 to 1,245 kg
- Fuel consumption = 61.4mpg (combined)
- CO2 = 108
- Engine = 1.0 Litre VVT-i
- Maxi speed = 98mph
- Acceleration 0-62mph = 14.2sec

The running costs are low with road tax (Band B) of only £35, insurance class of 1 and high mpg.

The cost of the new car (Aygo Blue, 5 door, manual) = £8,395 (includes aircon, bluetooth)
AYGO XtraProtected Blue = £365 which includes :-
- Rear parking sensors
- mud flaps
- unpainted rear & side protection mouldings

We test drive it at Cambridge Toyota last Sunday and the salesman was brilliant and very patient with us. We love it (guess I love it more, Sam still love his big, luxury cars, like Ford Mondeo...) but it's too noisy in the interior.... I can live with it, but don't think Sam can....

....
....
There goes my Aygo...... guess I better go frame the Aygo catalog as that's all I'm going to have....

Tesco Cath Kidston Bag update
I checked on ebay every now and then to see if the new design is out. Whenever the new design is out in Tesco (sometimes not even in the store near you), someone is already selling them on ebay.

Found a new design (Mint Green Floral) on ebay today and I rushed to check out in Ely Tesco (found none) and the Tesco near us (bought it!!). Thanks ebay.

My collection so far :-
Vibrant Flowered
Blue Polka Dot
Pink and Blue Striped
Mint Green Floral

Eureka
It's a great drama series, about a town which is very high tech but there's always some accidents/ problems. I think it's abit of x-file + sci-fi + comedy. Definitely recommended.

Tesco Cath Kidston Bag
There's a total of 6 designs and are priced £3.50 each with 50p going to Marie Curie Cancer Care. There are many other wonderful features about this bag including the fact that it is made out of nine recycled 500ml bottle, see Tesco website for more details.

The first 2 design (as above) were launched in Jul 08 (I got them both!) and I just got my hands on the 3rd one (the stripe one), there's horizontal and vertical stripes one and I got them both too!)


Not sure why I need soooooo many bags.... Sam had not said anything so far, perhaps I hide them well...... or did he just 'gave up' on me and my bags....:p

Will make sure I get the reminding 3 designs and I bet there's a design for Christmas.

Perm Job
Finally I have a perm job, will start wef 11/8/08!!

I had been temping with the Company ever since we arrive in Cambridge, over 5 years now. Due to various reason (e.g visa issue, no vacancy), I was not make a perm staff. Ever since the visa issue was sorted out last year and vacancy for the position came up, I had been trying for the Company's assessment centre. However, it turns out that I'm rubbish at interviews and assessment centres, thus didn't manage to get through. Disheartening, I decided to look elsewhere....

Had been to a few interviews elsewhere and sometime in Jul 08, I was persuaded to try for the Company's assessment centre again. Thought I give it a go again.

This time I got through the assessment centre and was offered the position!! At the same time I was also offered a position somewhere. What a dilemma... which one should I go for...

Eventually, I went for the Company's position as the pay and benefits was much better and I love the work I'm already working on.

Finally, it felt like all my efforts paid off.

Seventh month
Ok, it's the seventh month, so wedding preparation will be suspended for the month, will resume after that. Will not blog about wedding stuff too.