Christmas eve meals and purchases

Met Beebee after her half-day of work (or rather, pre-Christmas fun in the office -- cos she didn't really do any work at all! :p) on Christmas eve last Thursday, but started my own fun shopping before I met her for lunch cos there were quite a few things I had to get! :)

Dropped by Kinokuniya first cos the watch book that Hubby had enquired about some time ago finally made it to the bookstores. Man! This book by the Singapore Clock & Watch Trade Association sure took a long time to reach the shelves, but I was so happy when I finally laid my hands on it, cos I'd made a few calls in hope of getting Hubby that for Christmas, but was disappointed by the lack of news about it. Though it didn't end up as a Christmas gift after all, I was just delighted to finally claim that hard-to-locate book. :p

Also bought a pair of Star Wars chopsticks (yes, can you believe it?!) for Hubby. He'd bought himself a pair that's blue recently (supposed to be associated with Luke Skywalker), but didn't feel shiok using it as he kept thinking of the red one (this one's linked to Darth Vader). To keep him from 'grumbling' further, I decided to just get him the red pair. Now he seems a lot happier using the Darth Vader chopsticks to pick up his food. Haha... :p

My next stop was the Christmas bazaar at Takashimaya -- so many cheap but lovely gifts to buy as simple tokens for friends! Since I was going to have the secondary school gang over for a potluck party on Boxing Day, I decided, upon Hubby's suggestion, to surprise them with little gifts that I would number and then get them to draw for the gift. :) I loved shopping around at the bazaar! Within a simple half an hour, I'd managed to pick up what I thought were cute yet practical buys at low sale prices. Also threw in a few extra buys for some colleagues as well... :)

Then Beebee came and we lunched at this Asian eatery named Central, I think. It's right opposite Ajisen Ramen. She had the trishaw noodles while I ordered the prawns fried rice. Then we shared the cold tofu layered with floss and some garlic cheese sticks. The noodles were normal, kinda like instant mee pok; the rice was okay, with quite a number of prawns, which was good; the tofu was nice; the garlic cheese sticks were -- hmm, quite bland and tasted like thin crisp dough, with hardly any filling. Overall, the food was ok -- nothing to rave about though -- but the service displeased us. So...uh-uh, that'll be the last time we step in there to eat.

We moved about to browse at more stuff -- Beebee also bought her Christmas gift for Benne and some other items. Then it was off to get her log cake and my dinner back from Ion. By then, the malls were utterly crowded and we were both starting to feel irritable cos we honestly hated such massive crowds! Anyway, I got dinner from this Korean chicken place -- they were handing out free chicken wings for passers-by to try and Beebee tasted one, saying it's good, so I thought to just give it a try. Ordered the tofu rice box and soy garlic chicken rice box with an additional caesar salad for some fibre. I was handed a device and told to return to the pick up spot to claim my food when the device lit up, but for it to work, I had to stay within 500m of the eatery. Well, that device never did light up, and I was running out of patience cos we wanted to check out other places for Beebee's log cake, so we just went and waited next to the pick up counter. Service could have been a little faster, but thank goodness the food was good. I enjoyed the kimchi coleslaw that came with the rice. Refreshing. :) But the electronic device idea? Innovative but not very efficient.

Spent the rest of the evening wrapping the purchases I'd made... think my gift-wrapping skills are still horrible but maybe it improved just a tad with all the practice I had that evening? After all, I'd never wrapped that many gifts at one go on my own! :p