I dedicate the year 2007 to all my friends, the main reason for such a fruitful year in my life. A re-run of the entire year once more.

Jan - Alcohol, Army and Alchemist became an integral part in my philosphy of life.

Feb - Nothing beats better than being ORDinary again.

Mar - Slogging my life in LISEN out with lots and lots of OT.

Apr - Bugis Junction becomes the most visited shopping centre in 2007. My first angel in disguise for returning my IC.

May - Adrenaline packed month with the European Funfair and lots of unexpected screw-ups at work.

Jun - GSS came and my hard earned money left.

Jul - The month of celebrations of 21st, reflections and enjoyment.

Aug - Adapting to a totally new environment in NUS.

Sep - Fluctuating month of investment stocks and earthquakes. My first love at first sight with Lu Xiao Yu.

Oct - Watery sessions of windsurfing in East Coast.

Nov - Intellectual pursuits and reflections of nostalgia accompanied the most turbulent time of the year.

Dec - Mixedrice became the core of my life. One cannot do without friends, especially great ones.

A fantastic year for personal growth and maturity. That's 2007. It's time to face up the challenge to a totally new 2008.

Happy New Year!

I screwed up my first sem.

The results were disappointing, at least for me. 2 Cs, 2B-s, 1 A- is not really a good result to show to my potential employers. English was a total flop. I need to work even harder next semester.

On the other side, I'm extremely fortunate to pass my Genes & Society. I almost gave up on this module. Now I have something to less worry about. I can S/U in peace.

But I'm still very depressed.

Christmas should be a season of joy and fun, so I'll keep my deep-hearted thoughts to another day (i always had this strong sense of emptiness during this period).

mr Bean really brightened up my day when I was the most depressed

It has been a fun-filled day for Xmas, since we (me, penghui and ws) did lots of stuff in orchard. The place was still as packed as before, but there wasn't that much crowd than christmas eve countdown. We went down to see the decorations and "flower cars" (I need a proper name for hua che, anyone knows). No wonder so many people still go to town even though they know the dangers of being in a too overly-crowded place. The atmosphere is indeed one of festive joy.

friends for life

with ws

The night was spent at jessie's house, a tradition that we have kept in the haven study group. This is a chance to meet up with jc pals (vinc, weijie, thuva, murali, jessie, gab) who fought the 'A' level battles with me together. Everyone has been busy with their respective lives, and this is one of the rare occassion when everyone made the effort to be present.

No pictures for it, because I was almost knocked out by the alcohol. It is just too unglam to post for all to see.lol.

Today is another happy day, because I'm meeting mixed rice again.

The mixed rice is meeting up so frequently these days, but somehow I just can't seem to get sick of seeing everyone. Yesterday was another xmas celebration at yaolong's house, and the most different thing about it compared to all the other activities we had is the reading out of our phuket trip reflections.

It is heart-warming so see everyone share their thoughts about everything, how they feel about the trip, what they learnt from it, how to improve themselves better. This is the first time I could really see what the others felt about each other. I can say that I understand more about the rest after today, and a closer step to understanding myself better too.

It is sometimes just extraordinary that we all had the chance to come together from complete strangers to such heart-to-heart close friends. I thank everyone in the crew for all the enjoyable time we had before. It has been a tremendous pleasure knowing you all, xia, mil, yilin, zq, yaolong, delon.

I've kept my reflections in a bottle. This will be another treasured item in my life, because at that moment when I was reading it, I felt a change in everything. I shall open it again when yaolong, mildred comes back from their overseas studies 3 years down and relive this exact moment once more.

Merry xmas in advance to all.

(i'm just too happy that i'm almost in tears)

I decided to do a photoblog this time round, so that the 750+ photos from each of the 5 cameras will not go to waste. This is my first trip to Phuket and it is indeed a eye opener. I shall let the photos do the talking for me now. Anyway, pardon me for all the mis-alignments, I just can't seem to get them right.

Left S'pore 1305, reach Phuket 1345 Thai time

hello to Seeka (quality for reasonable price)

our room 303

wow, what big sausages they have here!

their quality of artworks never fail to impress me

our first dinner in Phuket

what a big... (bread, pizza, pie??)

Cam on Cam

There was a huge queue waiting to take a photo with Mr Thai MacDonald

one of the most important road signs in Phuket

me & ZQ were totally obsessed with their boxing gloves

this Hello Kitty store is striking in contrast with the rest of the street

our first tuk-tuk experience

played card games and YL's 30s of "forfeit"

Our second day in Phuket is spent in Karon Beach, just located beside Patong. Karon beach is less crowded than Patong, the water is cleaner and supposedly more tranquil (which is still not what I expected) because there is this huge number of angmohs sunbathing. Anyway, the jet skiing was a good experience to remember (but expensive too).

3 kinds of eggy breakfast to choose from : scrambled, fried, omelette

this Buddha was watching us having our breakfast all the time

some exercise after breakfast to loosen up our muscles (of course we suffered from indigestion after that. lol)

all stunts are performed by professionals, pls do not try this at home

the first of our Mr Mocca series

mixed rice @ Karon Beach

foreign lands, common friends

do check out our post on rice of all kinds

a election poster in the middle of nowhere

dinner @ Patong Seafood

like I said, everything is so big in Phuket

the BIG shopping centre, Jungceylon

the leaning Xmas tree of Phuket

the mesmerizing lady-boys of Bangla Road

This is probably the highlight of the entire trip. We visited 4 islands around Phuket during this island hopping event (Monkey beach, Maya bay, Phi Phi island and Khai island), which lasted for the entire day. This is also the first snorkling experience we had, and the sea is gorgeous. Bobby the guide is totally entertaining with his authentic "British accent" (he has never been overseas but he still managed to learnt it.)

It's time to enjoy the bright sun, the bedazzling beach and the beauty of the sea.

onboard the speedboat

the place to be at during the rainy season of Singapore

i'm still wondering which leg is mine

we left our mark on Maya Bay

these fishes must have been super hungry, they were fighting over every piece of bread in the water

we all love Mr Mocca

see how happy I am in the company of babes. lol

these waves remind me of jet-ski

snorkling in Khai island aka Ji Dan Dao

so freaking unglam but hilarious

with the entertaining Bobby (the one in orange shorts)

no island hopping trip is ever complete without these personalised souvenirs ( I didn't get one, so my trip isn't over. hehe)

seafood dinner @ Maeubol market (3 times cheaper than Patong Seafood)

"Our favourite word of the trip - SPAM! lol, spam money at Maeubol, ordered prawns ah, crabs ah, fish ah super lots of dishes, somemore can order seafood but cooked in different styles one. Got the whole long table flooded with seafood, damn shiok. Returned back to the lobby for chit chats. ZQ started sitting at the computer at the lobby, played with the mouse and the recep asked for 20baht 'cause she thought he accessed the internet. Poor him had to pay money for nothing, lol. If I'm not wrong, we played the number game at the girl's room today, where losers had to do a 30 sec of fame video. Damn hilarious, I think I laughed till I got fits. Thank god I didn't lose the game, if not I might have to do a dance on a chair top and be recorded in the video which prob will last for 70 yrs until we die." -xia

Basically says it all after our island hopping trip. For more underwater photos do check out our mixed rice blog here.

Today is supposedly OTOT day cum shopping trip (since OTOT means shopping in this case). Today is also the day we ought to SPAM all our money so that we wouldn't leave any regrets when we are back in Singapore. But we did really regret it when we are stuck in Phuket for another day. Lol.

There isn't any photos for today, since I don't own any digicams (still waiting for someone to buy me one for my birthday, hopefully next year?) Anyway, we spilt into groups to explore Patong once again. You can see what the others did here.

ZQ and I went exploring to the less known parts of Patong, where we visited a school (Ban Sai Namyen School), we didn't managed to get in because there was this fierce looking security guard at the gates.

Went down to this empty stadium at Hat Patong Road and ate from the roadside store there. Basically walked all the routes in the upper part of Patong for the whole morning before meeting up with YL, mil and mel for lunch at BK. Before that we had already tried the BK Pork Burger (S$7 plus). Fast food in Phuket are way too expensive.

SPAM our money on souvenirs and such. I was trying to re-design my home, so I bought some decorative items back to present a different feel. Next time if I were to go Thailand again, I'll definitely get one of those oil paintings back.

Met up with everyone in the evening for a thai massage at Let's Relax. The ambience was fantastic and we really enjoyed our time there. Fell asleep during their smoothing foot massage though. Our remaining cash is spent in Family Mart (their localised version of 7-11).

Our last day in Phuket. This is where we experienced the real Amazing Race challenge. And that is so because we MISSED our flight back. Goodness us. We were stuck in the airport for almost 2 hours, totally lost before our more worldly-wise mildred and YL managed to book us tickets back the next day. You guys are our saviours.

the longest 2 hrs of the trip

like xia said, the Super Super budget Naiyang Garden Bungalows

Same flight, Same time, but different date back

this is all the money we had for the entire day. we are sorry, we shouldn't have spam too much the day before.

the best fried rice we had in Phuket (when we are most hungry)

Dear sir, have some pity on us and give us some money, please?

no one could understand a single phrase i said, so sad

I need a translation. Does it says "Koreans only"?

the kitchen's over there!

the thousand hands mixed rice

the game of our lives: Asshole Daidee

I decided to do the last day (Day 6) together since there is not much happening. We managed to get back to Singapore safely .

once bitten, twice shy. we checked in super early this time round

Victory sign for successfully boarding the plane

Lord of the Thais ?

Exhausted but happy faces

And that's all folks. See ya again soon.