I was looking through my "yet to edit" photos folder on my desktop and realized i still have quite a few 2014 events that i have yet to blog about (especially the 4D3N Phuket travelogue that i have yet to start!) Not that i purposely want to bring it over to 2015, but it's also because these events/ meetups are during the X' mas period which leaves me with only a few days before 2015. Obviously i would partying outside instead of staying at home and edit my photos right, LOLOL But at least i still managed to find time to do up a 2014 consolidation blog post *givc myself a pat on the back* hehe :D
If you have been following my blog/ social media for the past few years, you would have know that every year my bunch of close friends (affectionately known as the Cousins* - i still have people asking me if they are my real cousins, LOL) Anyway, every year we celebrate Christmas by booking a staycation and spend the night together having gift exchanges and such. 2014 was the 5th year consecutive that we have this staycation and we decided to combine both the X'mas celebration and countdown together, thus having it on 31st December! It's like killing 2 birds with one stone. Every year we would end up thinking where to go or what to do for countdown, this time we don't have to join the crazy crowd and then think of means of transport home but instead, we get to countdown at the comfort of our hotel room :)
After last year's staycation at Capri, i guess our expectation for hotel got higher and we decided to book a room at Park Avenue Rochester! The concept of the room is around the same with the standard living room, 1 bedroom, 1 toilet and a mini kitchenette! Our room was significantly smaller compared to Capri though and Park Avenue is located in the west - at Buona Vista. So those that stayed in west checked into the hotel first and proceeded to the nearby mall to get food to prepare our "home cooked" Christmas dinner! Must fully utilize the kitchen. There's even a washing machine in the room!
Our Christmas "menu" spread like not bad hor! Even got ham to add on to the Christmas atmosphere, LOLOLOL They are mainly microwavable food items so we don't have to spend so much time and effort trying to come up with our masterchef creation, HAHAHHA We had spaghetti with choice of 2 sauces, cocktail sausages, spicy drumlets 2 ways - fried or barbecued, seaweed chicken, fried chicken chunks and lastly the ham and bacon! Set the food in the middle of the living room and sat around for our dinner, it might not be the most sumptuous dinner but it was heart warming to have all of us come together to celebrate this festive season and countdown to the new year. Happy to see everyone! ♥
Initially when we checked in, we were assigned to the 10th floor which had totally no view because of the building blocking but apparently the fridge wasn't working very well so we shifted to another room on the 19th floor and suddenly everything was clear! During the day we were still wondering if we could spot any fireworks from our room. At midnight when we counted down, we spotted 2 fireworks from 2 different locations! We derive from Channel 5 on TV that one is from Marina Bay and the other from Sentosa! So lucky to be able to see both even though it's quite far! YAY
Thank god everyone arrived before midnight and we did the countdown together and we can finally do our x'mas gift exchange - in year 2015! We did the same secret santa concept so that we can get what each other want instead of getting some random stuff which we might not need. We also standardized the wrapping to be using magazine so we won't know who our secret santa is. Not only that, we also hid our presents all over the room so we have to comb the whole place to look for our presents! As you can see in the photo above, the photo was taken in the toilet where we gathered so one by one of us can go out and hide our presents, HAHAHA Literally flipped the whole room upside down!!!
Happy us with our presents! With this secret santa, everyone got what they wanted from their wishlist! ♥
One of my wishlist items is a remote control helicopter and my secret santa really got it for me! So happy!!! Spent the rest of the night chatting and playing this "truth or truth" game (because there is nothing much we can do for dares, lol) until about 3 or 4 am before we started washing up and find somewhere to sleep for the night. Obviously there isn't even beds since we have more than 10 people. Every year it's like privilege to be able to sleep on the bed, HAHAHA Last last year i heng heng managed to sleep on the bed because i got drunk and dozed off, This year ah... on the floor again lor.
Everyone slept for a few hours and those early birds woke up to prepare breakfast with the stuff they got from the supermarket the previous day. The typical american with the hash brown, baked beans, waffles (so AYG, lol), scrambled eggs and bacon. This Joyce was supposed to wake up and do the scrambled eggs one lor but she sleeping like a log, in the end i confidently say i will do the scrambled egg. Then i secretly went to google "how to make scrambled eggs" and went ahead to make it. Heng it came out well and some of them say taste like mcdonalds one leh, MUAHAHA
This is how i spent my last day of 2014, and it was a good end to the year and definitely a good start to 2015. Not intending to make any resolutions this year but i do have a couple of goals for myself. That's it for this post! :)
Happy New Year,
