CNY pictures~~

as promised, without any further ado...................



this is me in the car, en route to lohei dinner on CNY II haha! i'm wearing a purple empire cut dress (yes, again) with a generous bodice cut. it comes with a black and white striped belt at the empire-dress-line (what do you call it, LEH-nana???) yes. it's not a good idea to wear tight dresses with belts cinched so high up to a buffet ala carte dinner, but then again it helped me eat less than half of what i normally would. so basically it was money spent on ambience, not food consumption. haha~




these 2 very pretty ladies are the queen and princess of the tan household. so everyone bow down and pay obeisance to them! haha~~ my mum was decked out really hip-ly in this off shoulder top with silver accessories (the necklace comes with the top) plus a pair of lacey black mid-calf tights. i lent her my funky silvery chinky belt and everyone said she looks really good (haha thankews, thankews) so now i'm her officially appointed Maid of the Royal Bedchamber cum Fashion Consultant. Little princess jerlyn has got teeny rosettes in her hair, which was done up in a pair of intertwined french braids. too bad i didn't take a picture of that - it's really sweet.


these 2 shuai ges are my dad and bro! now hear this... everyone said my bro is a DA SHUAI GE!!!!! (and yar, i'm a mei nu now but that's a blatant lie) too bad miss shereen l*** has got first dibs on this hunkilicious babe magnet, so back off, girls :D if only he's take off those darned glasses to zap more females in the vicinity. hello he's got thicker eyelashes than me!!!! (not fair) i've got another shot of my dad leaning towards my bro's face (ahem) but that's gonna be a private collection for my kakis :D viewing upon request! i'd say i can see a little of what made my mum fall in love with my dad from this pic... according to the old pics, he's quite the don juan...




princess NANA and princess jerlyn! i love this pic~~~~~~~~













and the dinner wouldn't be complete without a quan jia fu (ahem the phtotgrapher is yours truly so obviously i'm not in) but even without me i must say i really, really love this photo. except the funny mouth expression on my dad's lips that makes him resemble a sucker fish.








And now the nian chu yi (CNY I) pics!!!!!



3 piglets in the back of the car. da shuai ge is having another recurrent episode of frozen zygomaticus major and levatore labii superioris again, as we all can tell :D his depressor angularis seems to be working fine though. partial section of the facial nerve perhaps??? :) little miss piggy stuck in the middle... sigh another one growing to look like me and IOH will be kept in business infinitely by my family. my mum is forever hip! haha. she's wearing a semi-lucent purple top with a tube inside, with jeans and a low-waisted belt, in accordance with what fashionistas all over the island are sporting.










SHHHHHHHH don't disturb the driver or else he'll veer off the road and we'll kenna horn again. haha ^_^








































my mum says i look a little like belinda lee in this pic. could have something to do with the way i drew up my eyes... honestly i look better in pictures.

























mr cool is smsing you-know-who.... just look at the way he's concentrating so hard on his phone i think the screen might spointaneously evaporate ^_^





























one final pic~ haha do we look ai mei???

CNY post~~!

a very very happy lunar new year to one and all~~~~

*cue the very sickening "xin nian lai lo~(dongdongdongCHIANG) xin nian lai looo~~~ song*

in case any of you darlings have been ensconced on the internet for so long that you've lost any semblence of contact with good old planet earth and mediacorp's immensely nerve-twitching series of CNY MVs, here's my 2 cents' worth on some of the more memorably irritating clippets that were produced with the good intention of bringing good cheer. first up to bat is "ah jie"'s rendition of some nauseatingly jarring song filmed in (i think) the orchid gardens. the song was already very very awful cos of the discordant repetitions of the same 4 words (my bro pointed that out), which, incidentally, can be a trigger for people with grand mal seizures. haha i can just imagine some poor sod twitching on the ground doing tonic/clonic hiphop moves to the migraine-inducing beat of the song. what made it worse was that she was decked in a really awful ancient-dynasty-red-lantern-like swath of red cloth that showed off a sadly barely-existent chest. furthermore she wasn't doing anything in the entire 5mins but bending down to, i gather, show off what is apparently hallucinatory material, and grinning idiotically at the camera, thus showing off very clearly what she probably didn't want to show off - her paired medley of fishlines. my dad was GROANING all through the song... haha :D second place is tied by quite a few songs. actually according to NANA there's just one very very very bad one, and the rest aren't too far off. haha. there's the song by all the female hosts of reality shows (with quan yi**** decked in a completely, shockingly, breathtakingly yellow jacket that screams DISCORDANT against the outfits of all the rest), there's this "good attempt" one by the newbies where 4 young people who look very photogenic push their faces up against the camera and make distorted, almost pained faces at the audience in an attempt to come up with creative poses all through the 5min long MV where there's nothing to do, no plot no script no nothing, save for 4 large circles drawn on the ground to mark where they have to permanently plant themselves before contorting their beautifully made up faces at the people of Singapore. and for miss fann ****'s MV, it was indubitably a nice and calm and relatively well done one save for the very blatant fact that it serves as her personal xie3 zhuan1 ji2... the point here being that she's the real caldecott queen now and everyone else, you guys can just stand to one side and stop whining about the hot sun at your photoshoot areas even as we all witness how the beloved queen capers merrily around a well shaded glade somewhere in ulu-ulu reservoir. smothered in spf 550 sunscreen, no doubt.

oh LEH was saying that we're all resigned to the very sad fate of being slaves to fashion unless we "live in a nudist colony"... i found that statement vaguely disturbing cos i tend to conjure mental images to fit what i encounter in words, and somehow the concept of me cavorting around nude in the midst of others doing the same is simply... very disturbing. yes. especially when my brain gives me the mental image in slow-mo. heh >_<"' anyway. so being the purported fashion slave i have to be (given that i choose to be anything besides a nudist), i glued my eyes to the TV last night over CNY eve reunion dinner to see what the artistes were wearing. if you guys were as sober and astute as me (heh - own up... how many hungover today???) you'd realise that 1) they put christopher lee and zoe tay together, then let fann drag christopher lee's little finger all the way down the stairs... TSKTSKTSK, 2) most of the female artistes wore empire cut dresses YESYESYES!!!!! (NANA bought into the empire cut bandwagon too! haha see i HAVE taste ok.) and 3) WTH were those 4 electronic pigs doing demolishing the cones on stage and wasting like, 5mins of airtime??? the point of the game was entirely lost to me, especially when i realised i was laughing not because the game was even remotely entertaining, but rather my sadist streak was showing up after i witnessed the immense difficulty 8 people have in controlling 4 metallic pigs (they were actually breaking out into sweat, God help them). my relatives were pretty clueless as to why i was laughing so much, so they looked collectively at the screen and suddenly i've reduced the entire tan household to TV gogglers for 2mins until they realised that it was really not funny at all and that i was either mad or severely inebriated (the former was right).

haha. oh well. oh my friends are all suddenly popping up on msn! :D if i have time i'll post some pics of me and my very photogenic family up here, right now my phone's dead and charging (CLEAR~~ 360 volts!!!!) haha :D

cheers all ya dudes and dudettes~ and go easy on the beer/bubbly haha!

it's been a whirlwind of activity these past few days - i'd be mad to try to describe them by words, knowing full well the sad limit of my linguistic capacity. here's some memorable pics which require no addition of clumsy accolades from me... they speak VOLUMES ^_^

a little hiccup

hi all.

a short reprieve from the usual contemporary, pseudo-chi-chi, retrospective posts. let's talk about something else than the usual moan and groan about schoolwork (though i'm itching to do so). can't think of anything offhand besides the upcoming valentine's day (kornehwoman..... look at the look on your face....) and my sojourn in hospital for the past week, and how i survivied day one back in school today.
let's not talk about hospitals... i've had enough of them to last me for a while without breaking out into massive urticaria-ish little red histamine-mediated bumps. (say that in five seconds and i'll give you a prize)
valentine's day it is then. sitting here instead of sleeping (as I should, i know, and fool is the one who bemoans the lack of time to sleep in one's usual life but slovenly mistakes blessedly given sleeping time as blogging time) and pecking away at my keyboard with 2 stubby fingers... remarkedly unromantic.
am dreaming of dinner in a very very exclusively 2-people kind of space, with clean, white tablecloth, fresh, succulent red petals from a freshly plucked rose scattered over the fine linen, and 2 tall wineglasses of sauvignon blanc with the glass stems beaded with dew from the cold chilled wine. me in a nice, semi-casual little black dress and managing to look half-civilised. and my partner opposite me in a nice, no-tie full-sleeved shirt and pants, and smiling. we're bathed in nice, ambient warm lighting and soothed by nice classical music. (not stupid, jerky, repetitive plays of weird, cheesy drama theme songs)
the appetizer arrives. it's a salad of nettled greens and purples, bursting bittersweet juicy goodness within every leaf. a generous vinaigrette of apple cidar and basil-tarragon with the merest hint of pepprcorns adorns the salad greens bashfully. there's no thousand island sauce to be seen. a delicate silver skewer pierces a full broiled prawn (NOT half a miserable prawn) and an understated, thick curl of smoked norwegian salmon, the entire thing balanced precariously on the salad. we plunge our salad forks into the quivering tower and tuck in.
next is the hot soup. it's a puree of carrot, tomatoes and peas in double chicken stock, accompanied by hearty chunks of chicken breast and miniature cubes of carrots. Fluffy, hot mildgrain bread comes together with the soup, and lots of creamy butter to go along with it.
the waiter approaches the table and asks him for permission to serve the merlot. he tastes the full-bodied wine, lets it linger in his mouth for a while, nods his head slightly, and allows the waiter to pour for both of us. we sip the wine and smile across the table wordlessly.
the service is seamless and impeccable. the entree arrives almost immediately after the soup disappears. we're sharing a single main course, and it's a full rack of lamb in herb-mint sauce. the cut of lamb is almost incredibly generous, as thick and large as a pair of clasped hands. the centre is barely touched by the grill, retaining a tiny ooze of red goodness. the outside is perfectly seared and glazed with plenty of herbs, and the entire dish comes served in a miniature pool of consomme sauce that has been broiled for 10 hours. the aroma is indescribable. he cuts effortlessly into the lamb and the meat falls apart with the slightest teasing, releasing a puff of steam and the earthy, garden-filled, beautiful smell of hours of tireless marination. he places a mouth-sized morsel onto his fork, puts sauce on it, and feeds me gently. i skewer a baby carrot from the side, pat pure sour cream onto it, and feeds him that. we're both taken by each other and thoroughly engrossed in the amazing textures and flavors in our mouths.
we leave the merlot and go on to the rose wine. it's a beautiful vintage and extremely flavorsome in its fruity bouquet. we each take a sip, glance at each other, and kiss each other on the lips as the passion of the moment demands. i can taste not just the wine, but also his cologne and the minty aftertaste of the lamb. it's a very complicated and attractive flavor, and i can't ever forget it. he puts his head at my neck and breaths in the hint of perfume i'm wearing. we both can't wait for dessert.
it arrives. it's a hot chocolate cake, hollowed out in the centre and filled to the brim with melted chocolate of the best quality. i do the honours of cutting the cake open, allowing the bosom full of dark sin to flow out unadulterated onto the pristine white dish adorned with a single sprig of mint. the soft cake yields without much resistance to the sea of chocolate, and i hurriedly scoop a huge mouthful and offer it to him. he reaches out a hand and holds mine, and chocolate drips from the cake onto the white tablecloth like ebony blood. he lowers his head and bites off half the piece of cake on the fork, and when he looks up his lips are dark with sweet, sweet temptation. i cannot resist and lean over to lick it all off, slowly. we ignore the cake, still dripping, on the fork, which slowly falls to the table.

ok i'd better not write the last part of this story... it might get a little too steamy for the little girls reading this haha :D ahem. but i hope it helps to conjure the image of a romantic valentine's for you, and it IS a good suggestion as to what you can do with your gf/bf this coming v-day! :D the story just gets you started... and the point here being, a good dinner is a very sensual experience indeed! try it if you don't believe me :)