i think there's some connection between my family and this whole Elias thing.......even our new house has something to do with it. anyway wow...now i know that my new house has a heritage architecture in it! how cool.........

Sea View condo comes with a piece of local history

By VINCENT WEE

RESIDENTS of Wheelock Properties' new The Sea View condominium will be able to take pride in the fact that they have a classic piece of Singapore's history in their estate.

Conservation work on the stately Neo-classical style bungalow off Amber Road formerly known as Pavilion has been completed, Wheelock said in a press release yesterday. Pavilion was built in the early 1900s and was owned by the Elias family, an established Jewish family at the time. The bungalow was gazetted for conservation in 2004.

The developer spent $1.3 million on conservation, retrofitting and furnishing the 5,000 sq ft double-storey clubhouse which will house two games rooms, a multi-purpose room with a pantry and a function room.

The extensive work done includes both the external and internal structure. Some key features include a panoramic 12-panel stained glass above the grand entrance and cast iron railing on the verandahs of both floors.

'We volunteered to conserve the house as we felt that it was worth preserving a piece of history. The architecture of the house is seen as key to the charming character of the Amber Road/Katong area,' explained Wheelock Properties (Singapore) director Tan Bee Khim.

Wheelock has also invested almost $500,000 on two art installations at the clubhouse. Both works by renowned local artist Kumari Nahappan spell life and energy for the space and provide visual focal points and vibrant colour contrast to the seamless landscape of water and greenery.

Tragic holiday planning tale

i can't help it, i just have to share my very tragic holiday planning tale with everyone...

about a month back, a few of us decided to go to port dickson for this dj tiesto gig and some beach party thing. but then along the way, everybody had something on and so it got cancelled.

then i remembered that i was still on probation and so it's not right to take leave during this period, hence i gave up the idea of going on a holiday.

but then the days passed, and i took on this really shitty project that drove me insane, and i decided to screw the world, and just apply for leave, regardless of whether my appraisal in 2 mths time will be like shit..and guess what? my leave got approved! woohoo!

so then i started thinking of places to go to..and the first place i thought of was...bali.
after much consideration, i've decided that i should spend that amount of money, going to a destination that i've never been to. hence i settled on chiang mai or koh samui.

so a VERY excited me...went to check out the airfares, hotel, weather etc. only to find out that the fligths to chiang mai were fully booked, and the only one available was by thai airways , which costs $600+++ well...no way am i going to pay tt much money to go to thailand! so then i checked out koh samui. the tix were equally expensive, but to add on to that, the weather forecast showed that there's gonna be thunderstorm everyday.

damn. then charles suggested hong kong, which took me by surprise. because i never imagined that he would ever suggest going to my fav country in the world. hence i went to check out all the hotel prices and air tix and all were available! couldn't believe my luck at tt pt in time. but...there's always a but isn't it?! hobz told me that peach told her...that she just experienced a typhoon on saturday while she was there. so this morning i smsed peach (who is still in HK by the way) , and she said yea there was a typhoon level 3, and the local news just reported that it's gonna get worse over the next few days. oh yay yay yipee yay!

knnbccb more like it. i had to think like mad of another destination and finally settled on TOKYO! sounds damn fun ya?! so ok was all excited abt it, but cldn't get a confirmation on the flights that were available, and some certain organisation has some stupid rigid leave application system that requires very fixed dates for going overseas. you know how sometimes the rest of us can just pretend tt we are on MC or like say we miss the plane or something and take an extra day of leave at the last min? well this particular organisation doesn't allow it, so tokyo was out of the qn, and we finally decided on bangkok :( the place i dislike the most after our friendly neighbours.

so 5D4N in bangkok it was until.........my colleague told me that her mom just returned from bangkok and the weather right now is 40degrees, and when it's not like a desert, there's thunderstorm.

eh WTF...enough already or not?! if it's not the flight, it's the hotel, if it's not the hotel it's the weather. wth.......and i thought going on a holiday was supposed to be relaxing!

Phone Scam

just got a recorded msg in mandarin on my office phone. supposedly it's a recorded msg from the high court that i have been charged for some offence, and the msg asked me to press 1 to listen to charges, or 9 to speak to an operator.

as i hate speaking to operators...i pressed 1 but the phone went silent, and then the msg repeated itself again, and so i hung up.

then i mass emailed my flens, and peach replied with "Eh don't press. Bluff ppl one..."

apparently this is some phone scam. it tells the person that he/she has been charged by the high court,and then informs the person of the amt that he/she needs to pay. and then after that the person needs to key in their acct number -_-" and it's circulating around my office, because van got it too.

anw, i must say this scam sucks because....
1) i had to listen to the msg 3 times before i understood what the person was saying
2) what if the person who picks up the phone doesn't understand mandarin?
3) the "press 1 to listen to the msg, or 9 to speak to an operator" function does not even work
4) the con-men sure aren't getting any money out of this office, because everyone here eats potatoe (jia kantang) so no one will get what the hell the msg is abt
5) who the hell knows what gao ji fa ting is?!

losers..........

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY!

oh boy! oh boy! it's that time of the year again...and i spent one whole day in the office not playing a single prank. i think i started to suffer from pranks-withdrawal symptoms..so i went around scouting for a victim.

guess who was the lucky one this year?? my business director...HAHA!
but it was a lousy prank...and i gave one part of it away..sheesh...

i locked his bag in his drawer and hid the keys, and his keyboard in the cabinet and hid the keys too.
unfortunately he came back and headed straight to the drawers (which he usually doesn't use) coz he was looking for this namecard that was in the drawers. so e senior account manager had to tell him where the keys were...and where his keyboard was.
then she laughed so hard he had to calm her down, but he didn't realise that his bag was missing.
and i had to walk into the office with a big grin on my face and ask if he found his bag...bah!

fortunately he was quite amused...i always knew ang mohs could take jokes better than us asians..haha! and also wished him happy april fools day with loads of love from the acct director, senior acct manager and myself! *snort*