Celebrating Tong's Birthday

Yes yes, it's more than a month since it happened and I had only write this up this time due to clearing up some stuffs...nevertheless, better late than never.

Tong Tong, my beloved God-daughter, is going to be 3 years old this year and her parents, my buddy Weiming and his wife Scully, will be holding her first birthday party in HK. Of course, being in Singapore, I had to fly there to celebrate with them and their in-laws.

As with the previous posts, I will let the picture do most of the narrating :)


Taking a shot with the Woon family while waiting for Janice to get off work.


Coaxing her to sleep, telling that I will bring her to Disneyland if she do so LOL


Having Brunch at 澳洲牛奶公司 (in HK of course). It's a very popular restaurant and always have long queues. However, from the time we started queuing to we left the place: 15 minutes. Faster than eating at McDonald's



Scully & Janice buying some clothes from the Disney store while I got Tong a Winnie the Pooh Bear chocolate toy. She loved it.......for a while :/



Dressing Tong up at The Princess Room (can't remember the exact name :/) with Weiming happily snapping away with my D90.....



Dolling Tong up. Don't understand why the make-up artist looked so gloomy, must have missed a number in lottery the previous day... oh well.


Even Scully also felt tempted to try out LOL. Too bad, for kids only :p


Finally done... ah~ she looks just like a cute little princess keke

She didn't have enough sleep and felling grumpy so we took quite an effort to get her to smile in front of the camera. Here's some good ones:






We managed to get Tong to take a shot with Janice but I have to hold her still in order to do that, with me ending up in the picture as well -___-"


Out of Disney hotel after the photoshoot. Tong can ask me about the shuttle coach which she seen it last time. Clever girl she is.




Everyone present in the house (Weiming's In-laws' home) helped to decorate the place for the birthday party


The 2 bo liao dudes.....LOL


Family shot with Tong's favorite custom-made Hi-5 cake


Gadget display LOL


Singing the Birthday song to Tong...


Cutting the cake for everyone (not really, she just drop the first stroke :p)


One complete group photo to end the party :)

So I spent the rest of the weekend with the family for a game of Monopoly
Deal and roam around a shopping mall, chilling out and caught a movie there. I will say for this trip to celebrate Tong's birthday.....


IT ROCKS! LOL

New Zealand Trip 2009/2010 Part 5

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Salmon sashimi lunch bought from Salmon shop in Mackenzie district. Like I said earlier, awesome beyond words


Finally saw my fav muscle car in the flesh @ town of Twizel: the Ford Mustang. Simply classic.


YHA at Mount Cook



Hooker's Valley @ Mount Cook. It's a pretty long walk with strong wind blowing at ~100km/h. We turned back halfway due to uneven path and worry about parents' safety. (Well, got my trail walk kick at Kea Point later on :p)


What does this rock look like? (No prize for guessing right :p)



Alpine Monument, where some tablet bearing the names of climbers who had attempted to scale Mount Cook and perished. They have my respect. Trying to take steady shots of this site while 100km/h-wind trying to blow me off my balance is nothing compared to the feats these climbers had performed.


Closest view of Mount Cook a tourist can get. You have to take a 1-hour walk from YHA hostel to Kea Point and another hour back to hostel. Suffered a sore knee for a week when returned to Singapore.


Just love the traveler quotes in YHA


The locals who camps out uses this as toilet paper. Only available in higher grounds of NZ and trust me, it's soft like a tissue paper.


My sis just revealed how chilly Mount Cook area is (and it's Summer). The area is known for its unpredictable weather (can be sunny in one moment and rainy the next)


A Kea residing at the visitor centre. It's not shy at people at all.


Church of the Good Shepherd at Lake Tekapo (One beautiful lake with greenish blue water)


Lake Tekapo view from inside the church


On our way back to Christchurch. Rumba likes to stick his head out of the car to enjoy the breeze.



Back to Kaikoara again, this time to try fantastic seafood feast from this stall. No, tourists don't come this far here, so we feel privileged to taste real authentic NZ seafood feast, thanks to Liam & Bee :D

So that's all folk, 2 weeks plus of awesome drive round the South Island, seeing much more than I ever did 6 years back. For more photos, you can always view them at my Flickr site by clicking this link:
NZ Trip 2010

New Zealand Trip 2009/2010 Part 4

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Scenery along the road....


Rented a tourist flat for parent at Kurow while Liam and sibling goes to Lake Aviemore to spend the night, camp-in-nature style.



Stopping by Waitaki Dam to take some nice shots. Nice.


Need to look out for this as we walk around. It will cause some serious damage to your skin if comes in contact with it.


On the way to Lake Aviemore



Benson Dam Power Station



Sunset at Lake Aviemore..... with Liam & siblings' favorite beer



How I loved lying on the grass and watching the most beautiful nightsky I've seen so far.


Liam woke me up early (I only slept 4 hours due to very cold night) to a chilling morning just to kayak in Lake Aviemore. I'm glad he did that. Just beautiful.



Rumba was given a good "push" (I'm certain it's a kick Liam haha)into the water. I miss the dog.



Liam preparing breakfast with Phoebe using a unique "toaster" to toast the bread



Takiroa Rock Art site. Where we admire the drawings left behind by the Maori natives.



The town of Duntroon, where the old jailhouse and blacksmith store are being preserved as NZ's heritage.



Inside the blacksmith shop (we were not supposed to go in there due to instability of the shop structure, but we did) and the self-made pistol.


Passing by a Salmon farm where we bought a feast of fresh salmon sashimi for lunch. Best salmon I've eaten. Awesome beyond words.



On the way to Mount Cook, one of my favorite destinations.

More to continue in next part......