I'm invited to the Opening Ceremony of the NORWEGIAN FILM FESTIVAL!

I am invited to the Opening Ceremony & Reception of the Norwegian Film Festival tonight! Woohoo..... Will also be catching the preview of "REPRISE", a debut film by director Joachim Trier.

Joachim Trier was trained at the National Film and Television School in England, and has previously attracted national and international acclaim with a number of prize-winning short films and commercials, including the short-film Procter, which was nominated for the European Film Award in 2002, and which won Best British and Best European short film prizes at the Edinburgh International Film Festival the same year.

REPRISE is a playful film about friendship, madness and creativity, about love and sorrow, great ambitions and the often unpleasant clash between youthful presumptions and reality. With its somewhat un-Norwegian structure, REPRISE has a distinct style and narrative technique which moves the story forward in a rich and enthusiastic manner.

Just a random Wednesday post

Had been pretty uptight at work lately as we start preparing for the Christmas rush. Every year, around this time, I'll be worrying abt product availability, prices, cargo air-space etc etc etc. I'll also be quite worried abt whether everyone in the team will die working their butt off as I go into super stress mode and start chasing everyone around like a mother hen.

There was some trouble at work yesterday and today. Although I managed to clear the obstacles, I still felt quite disturbed. I'm also worried that these "minor" issues would be contagious (if it spreads thru Christmas, I'll be dead!)

A stressed-looking me

I've fallen in love with this HK cafe. I walked in for lunch and they were playing BEYOND's album from the 90s. Very nice music. Also, the food never failed me so far, and I also found something new that I liked. Lychee Tea, with REALLY HUGE LYCHEE!!!

So colourful!

Lychee Tea... YUMMY!

Super sinful Cheese Baked Rice

Why do kids love the rooftop waddling pool at Vivo City?

Brought Princess Z & Prince A on a shopping spree to Vivo City last Sunday. But even we all started any decent shopping, both were pestering to go soak in the rooftop pool. After lots of persuasion by hubby & myself, we managed to get them to agree to go shopping with us first before they got themselves all wet.

After a good 2 hour walk around and some good shopping, hubby and me brought them up to rooftop waddling pool. The sun was shinning so brightly, it literally scorched. But there were so many people out there roasting in the sun! I was already abt to melt, but the kids were having a whale of a time running and splashing. Needless to say, my 2 royalties were raving to splash in themselves.

The waddling pool on the rooftop of Vivo City

Me, abt to melt in the hot sun (-_-)

I also caught this very nice Chinese Junk with my mobile phone camera. It's actually a charter vessel. I've been on one of these before when I was still a student. If I didn't remember wrongly, it was call Cheng Ho (郑和)!

Anyway, Christmas is just round the corner, and look at this pretty Christmas tree! It's also on the roof of Vivo City... Very nice, isn't it? I love the reindeer in the middle of the tree. Also, it's just simply made out of so many light bulbs. Hmm... I wonder how many...

Eric's farewell party

Early last month, we had a small gathering to bid farewell to Eric. He had been with us for slightly over 6 years. So it was indeed quite sad to let him go. The night started with Singapore Slings at Raffles Hotel. Everyone was present, even the super rare and almost never turn up colleagues were there. The atmosphere was very relaxed and quite fun. We were throwing peanuts at each other, aiming for the cleavages!!!

My Singapore Sling

Tweetie & Eric

Pooh Bear, Me, Charlie & Michelle

After drinks, we took a short walk across the road to Lei Garden @ Chjimes for dinner. We had lobster sashimi (my all time favourite!!!), braised abalone (one each!!!), peking duck, and a lot more yummylicious food (which I can't even remember). We also had quite a lot of good wine...

After dinner, we made our way over to New Asia Bar for more drinks. By then, most of us were already starting to wlak sideways... Hahahaha... Initially, NAB didn't allow Eric to enter cos he was in bermundas. So Tweetie came up with a brilliant idea. She swapped her jeans with Eric! Wahahaha... We all laughed ourselves to bits when they went to change and appeared together in each others' pants.

Michelle, Eric (in Tweetie's jeans) & Tweetie (in Eric's bermudas)

Check out the red belt!

Erm... No comments!!! Hehehe...

Eric & Tweetie (obviously very high-looking)

Pooh Bear, Charlie & Michelle

Eric, Tweetie & Me

5 days in Dalian

Barely 1 week after I got back from Norway, I found myself in China! This time, to attend a seafood exhibition in Dalian. It wasn't my first time to China (been to Shenzhen before). But I was still quite shocked when I was there. The air was very badly polluted. The haze was just so bad, probably had a PSI indication of 250 or more! It didn't help that people were allowed to smoke indoors! I was really coughing badly and in the mornings I woke up with very dry throat.

But as we were all very important seafood people, we were treated with a lot of respect and feed the best seafood there could ever be. Almost 5 solid days of seafood!!! I even had a minor outbreak of rashes due to the amount of prawns and crabs and shell-fish we ate. Geez...

Anyway, pictures, pictures....

Opening ceremony of the China Fisheries exhibition

Our 2 "show-girls"... Erm... No comments!

Outside the exhibition hall

A very hazy view of Dalian's commercial district

And now, to make all of you out there drool... We had seafood for all our dinners. Every single evening, we were served no less than crabs, prawns, abalone, clams, fish etc etc etc... Fest on the following photos, MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

We had to go to the "fish market" in the restaurant to pick what we wanted to eat

I have absolutely no idea what that is, and it looks gross!

Abalone!!!

Check out the scallops!

And the live tanks where we pick our fish too

Giant Cockles!!!

Gross looking Geoduck

This display shows a sample of how those seafood can be prepared

Me & Mitch cam-whoring in the "market" with all the Sea Urchin and crabs around us!

Dinner that night was very interesting. Pooh bear ordered "Wheat Wine" 高粱酒。52% alcohol. And each of us had 6 shots of it, plus some beer on the side as well. Geez... After 2 shots, everyone was talking very very loudly. Hahahaha... After dinner, we went for more drinks. Pics pics...

Duke O and me

Mitch (drunk) & Duke O

Went for a walk with Mitch after breakfast the next morning. He was badly hungover, so I bought him a coffee from Starbucks to wake him up.

Mitch with a major hangover... Hehehe

Me, still looking bright and fresh!

Was quite busy on the exhibition floor with some customers coming from Singapore and Malaysia, all meeting me in China! Hahaha... So funny. We also had quite a few interesting potential customers. So it was busy busy, but, we still managed to take some candid shots.

Me & Francis (with Mitch trying to look busy in the background)

MRA & Yoko

We also saw Japanese chefs cutting up a Yellow-fin Tuna at the show

Me & Duke O preparing to go for dinner

So, are you guys prepared to see more of what I ate... ...? Brace yourselves for the following pictures will make all of you so hungry!

Sea Urchins, 海胆，うに

Lobsters!!!

Shanghai crabs, 大闸蟹

More Abalone!

Hot Pot

Ingredients for the hot pot

Ray wings

Live prawns (so cruel to dip them into boiling soup!)

Well, some of you must be thinking why only pics of the seafood still swimming. That's because we were all too busy and engrossed in eating and drinking. So forgot to take pics! Hehehe...

The last 2 pics above were taken from my hotel room. The glass windows were clear, but it was the pollution outside that made the pic look so hazy!