If I worked at a leave-your-imagination-at-the-door corporation and excitedly told colleagues that I had just seen a dinosaur-shaped puddle on the way to the loo, the normal reaction would have been to say, “What the hell are you smoking? Go back to your cubicle and finish writing that 37-page report that no one will bother to read.”
Luckily I work at a quirky company with people who can appreciate a little silliness here and there. Case in point: when I dragged my coworker, Gabe, to see the said puddle, he snapped a photo, edited it to create the diagram below, then sent an email announcing the momentous dinosaur sighting to the rest of the office.
Nikki and Gabe, brand consultants by day, wicked awesome archeologists by night.
Entrance to Singapore’s Red Dot Design Museum is free on the first weekend of each month, so my coworkers and I decided to pop in one Saturday. (Wondering about the name? Locals fondly refer to Singapore as the “little red dot”, because that’s how the tiny city-state appears on most world maps.)
My hyper-abbreviated review: There were some interesting displays but nothing worth the $8 entrance fee, if one were to drop by on a regular day. We did manage to snap a few cool photos, though
Obligatory tourist shot. It’s impossible to miss the colonial building that houses the museum. It’s painted fire-engine red and takes up an entire block.
My F1-crazy friend, Chrissa, came to Singapore to watch the night race last September. While she was here, we jumped at the chance to get flung into the air on the G-max Reverse Bungy ride at Clarke Quay. We loved it! A couple of lessons learned:
Go at night to avoid being roasted in the sun.
Wear pants instead of a miniskirt.
Below is a video of our ride. The scream you’ll hear during the release came from the guy holding the camera.
We also went on the tamer GX-5 Xtreme Swing, but we unfortunately didn’t manage to get a video of that.
Do you know what else we didn’t manage to get? Pictures of the two of us that showed more than our faces. That’s what happens when you don’t bug other tourists to take your photo and just rely on the “hold the camera at arm’s length and click” method.
In other news, I will be jetting off to Manila this Saturday to take a break from work and to spend an entire week with my lovably eccentric family, my fabulously fun friends and my huggably neurotic pets. I’m practically vibrating with excitement.
I’ve had bad luck with summer outings before. For the longest time it seemed like I was doomed to never set foot on a sunny beach again, but last weekend the weather gods finally decided to cut me some slack and gave me two full days of fun in the sun.
I traveled to Puerto Galera, a popular beach destination in the Philippines, with seven of my college friends. It was easily the best vacation I’ve been on in quite a while. The synopsis: We lounged on the beach, swam in the clear sea, got drunk on bonded over a pitcher of Mindoro Sling, hiked through a mountain, took a dip in a waterfall, and went parasailing! If you want the whole tale and the boat load of pictures that come with it, keep reading
My college friends and I hung out this weekend. It had been months since I last saw some of them, so I was really excited. We went swimming, had pancakes for dinner, played PS2 (they played; I just randomly pressed buttons), (re)watched Golden Boy, drank, slept a little, then woke up and had leftover alcohol with our breakfast. Good times.
Of course there was gift giving, too. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I didn’t have much money to spend on gifts this year, so I did a lot of DIYing. This time I drew cartoon alter egos of the girls, had them printed, and found matching desktop frames for each drawing:
They loved it! Seeing their reactions to the cartoons got me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. The guys pretend-pouted and asked why I didn’t do the same for them, so I mock-complained about how hard they were to draw because they all looked alike, hehe. I did try, but unfortunately I can’t draw boys as well as I can girls. I got them uber-geeky squeeze flashlights instead. Maybe next year.
Happy holidays, everyone! And thanks to Rose for being extra cool.
