My new iPhone case..

Happy~


Living in Harmony
Design by Josh Perkins

Afternote: Raye told me that he saw it in Singapore for half the price I paid!!!!!!
@!#$!$^%$&%&#%#!#!@#W$@#%@$!@# Sigh, but it's still nice nonetheless.. grrrr...

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Puppy bowl...

Our first item for our future puppy! Zim and I are planning to adopt a puppy from a shelter so wish us luck that we may find THE puppy.

First home cooked dinner~ Oven Baked Chicken!

Introducing KeY's favourite place in the new sty - my very own island! (awwwwww~)


So, tempted by the wonderful kitchen, I decided to finally cook our very first dinner in NYC! What other than the easy and quick Oven baked chicken. Well, I customized the recipe a bit by removing the potatoes and replacing the herbs used.


(1) Chicken Thighs (x2 serving) seasoned with herbs and pepper!
(2) Carrots (Seasoned with Herbs and Olive oil!)
(3) Hash browns (This is from a ready made frozen packet and just required some quick stir-frying.)

After approximately 45 mins of baking, wah-La~, the chicken is done! (It's amazing how crispy the chicken skin will be simply by baking! It's even better than deep-frying!)


Finally, dinner is served! Hee, we cheated abit and bought yummy cheesecake from a cafe @ Times Square! And of course, the little pigs wanted a part of 'no pork, no lard' dinner. LOL. But altogether, it was a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD dinner.


So KeY isn't such a bad cook after all! =D

Hells Kitchen NYC

One of the good thing about our apartment's location is that we are staying relatively near Hell's Kitchen, It's a happening area with great restaurants! So Zim and I decided to explore the area and find a good place for brunch.

Quite quickly, we chose to settle for the restaurant - Hells Kitchen! (Well, the vibes were good and there was a loong queue and appeared pretty popular.) So in we went. The queue was really long and we waited for approximately 30 minutes before we were offered a seat.


The menu is pretty extensive on the website. As it was a Sunday brunch, we were given the specific brunch menu...


I settled for the "H.K Eggs Benedict with spinach, grilled Portobello, roasted peppers and blue cheese hollandaise sauce". (Hee, honestly, I'm hooked onto Eggs Benedict since Qian introduced us to Chuopinette!) This is goooood stuff. The mushrooms were really sweet and the spinach was delicious!


Zim order "Grilled Marinated Skirt Steak and Eggs two eggs any style, home fries and toast" but was instead served "Grilled Marinated Skirt Steak on foccacia bread with sauteed onions, peppers and fontina cheese, served with fries". (I asked him to take a picture and he just had to include his Blackberry. -_-") Anyway, we didn't realise the mistake until this blog! Lol. Well, the sandwich wasn't as impressive but the fries was pretty decent.


And to pamper ourselves, we chose to indulge in the unlimited Bellinis!



All in all, the meal was good though it was a tad bit costly. (It was about USD70 all in all thanks to our indulgence. =P) But we are definitely coming back again! And we have listed this as one of the 'shall-bring-our-friends-here' place!

And of course, two happy people... =D

Carpenter KeY

Taitai KeY wears a hell lot of hats. One of it is the hat of a carpenter. T_T

The assembly of the ikea furniture by a professional is insanely expensive. Thus, to cut cost, I decided to go hands-on on several items. And seriously, it's no fun at all. =(

Mission accomplished:


All in all, I assembled:
- 2 shoe racks
- 2 Lack Tables
- 2 Drawers (Pictures above!)
Going hands on for these items myself, I actually saved about USD150 in assembly fees! Crazy isn't it?!

Sigh, Ikea should seriously consider hiring me. I can carry crazy stuff, assemble furniture and possibly provide decent Customer Service. good deal huh.

PS: So Ikea Customer Service did email me back after my complaint and asked for more details. As I was looking through my receipt while replying, I suddenly realised that the lady at the checkout counter forgot to scan the lamp item in! WTH.. LOL, so apparently, I did not pay for the item (I swear I didn't do it on purpose!) and it's delivered broken. So what now....

Nice huh...

My Kindle..

IS ON ITS WAY!!!!!

Our new Apartment, NYC

We finally moved in to our new apartment in NYC on 16th February! It took us about 2 days of house viewing and after viewing almost 10 apartments! Needless to say, this was a love-on-first sight affair for the two of us. We just fell madly in love with the apartment at Silver Towers the moment we set foot in.

The view is just breathtaking (we are facing both the Hudson River & New Jersey and a little bit of Skyline of NYC) and it really makes my day each and every day. (This is soooo much better than our Senja house.) We compromised on the space but got exactly what I wanted in return - a pet-friendly environment, a great concierge service, a kitchen Island and a magnificent view. Love it love it love it.

So we got our keys (once again)! The keys are really cute. At all times, it will contain a neutral expression. Once you insert the key to the right door, it will give you a smiley face and you can open your door! (Such a cute way to welcome you home!)


More photos to come soooon! (Hee, we are still waiting for some furniture to come!!)

Snow Storm

The weather in NYC is kinda crazy. Just last week, we experienced our very first snow storm! Honestly, it was a GREAT experience. While I had seen snow before, I haven't exactly have the opportunity to witness snow fall. (Ooops, sounds a little suaku huh.) So when I learnt about the snow storm, I just had to get out there and 'experience' it firsthand! When I told Zim this, he gave me the 'Are you serious?' look. LOL. But, yes, I AM SERIOUS!

So out I went the very next day and where else but Central Park! The thing about Manhattan is, due to the underground piping and subway, the temperature in the streets are generally higher, thus snow tend to melt faster (Not to mention that there are tons of people shoveling snow overnight to clear the walkways for the busy New Yorkers the next morning). Hence, one of the few places to witness snow accumulation in Manhattan is of course, Central Park.

The walk there was painful. The walkways were slippery and the snow was hitting hard on our faces (Thanks to the insanely strong winds!). But nonetheless, it was totally worth it. The view was breath-taking. =D



Love it!

Vaccky!

Well, to pamper ourselves (and under recommendation from our friends), we bought us a irobot vacuum cleaner and named it Vaccky!

It's really cool. I would just sweep up the mess, put Vaccky on top of it and it would get to work while i get busy with other stuff. By the time I return, 'ta-dang', everything is vacuumed and clean! I'll then press 'dock' and the little thing will scrample back home itself! Amazing huh. Alternatively, we could leave it in a room and it will spent approximately 30mins vacuuming on it's own! We loooove it!

Oh, and also an obvious sign that you married a tech geek is when you catch him peeping through the door (and remaining there for about 5mins), observing the irobot (which is vacuuming the room), with a proud grin on his face.

What a silly boy...

Say hi! to Vaccky!


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Oh, as expected..

I still do not have my Internet.

My so-called 'biggest' saviour managed to screw up as well. ( I am still appreciative of him staying back and helping me, but this? Come on..) He freaking booked the installation date to be 18th February 2011! By the time I called to find out (after waiting from 8am to 4pm), the next earliest available date is the coming morning. Brilliant huh. So now, I've f**king no Internet, no TV and Zim is away till Sunday.

Seems like it's karma payback time. I am so down on my luck that I've had about enough.

What else can go wrong now? I really don't know...but again, I won't be too surprised anyway...


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F**ked up piece of shit!

I don't want to explain. Just read my complaint letter to Ikea Brooklyn and you will understand.

--------------
This is a complaint and I am expecting a reply.

I made a purchase of $918.53 under the order number 1783847. As I am staying in manhattan, I requested for delivery of the items. The delivery time was stated to be 10am to 2pm on 02/18/10.

At 2pm on 02/18/10, I failed to receive my delivery nor any updates explaining the delay. I called the delivery office and was told that they were held up and would arrive in 45mins. After 1 hour, there were still no sight nor news from them. I called the delivery office a couple of times again but no one answered. I left an urgent message expecting a return call. Still, there were no news nor pickup. The delivery service finally arrived at 5pm! This is 3 full hours later than the delivery time! What rubbish.

The delivery personnels were able to assemble everything I requested efficiently. However, when I was checking my items, I discovered that my table lamp has broken despite being wrapped up by me personally before packing in. I immediately asked the personnels what I should do and he simply informed that it was not his responsibility and that I was to call the ikea office. The personnels left while I was in the midst of my call to the office (I signed all the documents he handed to me.)

Your manager informed that I had to personally bring the item down to ikea to have it replaced as I had failed to state in the forms that the item was broken. Considering that the item is heavy and the cost of commuting to ikea is relatively high (the lamp is about $15! Commuting will cost me $10!), I am very unhappy with the situation.

I admit that I should had included the broken item in the form before I signed. However, I am appalled that your staff failed to inform me at the moment I highlighted the issue to them. They simply told me to sign the form and call the office.

First, I ended up waiting for SEVEN hours to get my delivery without any updates or return calls and now, I can't even get a refund or replacement delivered to my house because I overlooked AND your staff failed to inform me! I am totally disgusted by the service provided to me and am expecting a good explanation asap.

Thank you.

-----

Why am I so fucking suay.


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Coolie KeY

When Ikea said self-service, they really meant SELF SERVICE.

I went to Ikea Brooklyn with a mission and a really long shopping list. (Had to go alone since Mr Lim was stuck at work.) Getting there was a pain, but I made it after 2 subways, 1 bus and probably an hour's time.

When I got there, (and of course after treating myself to yummy meatballs) I approached a staff and asked if she could assist me since I already listed down the article numbers of the heavy duty items on my shopping list. Well, I guess not. Turned out that I had to personally collect ALL the items from the self-service alses, push the items to checkout then proceed to the delivery counter to arrange for delivery. =O O.M.F.G

So my coolie-ing began. I singlehandedly filled 3 carts and some of the items were insanely heavy! All in all, it took me about 3 hours! (well I also fitted in some window-shopping, okay, Zim calls it my impulse/crazy shopping) Though I must say that I'm impressed my back didn't break.


My achievemnt!!! I looked like an idiot pushing 3 carts man...

Sigh, I miss Ikea Singapore. =/

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Pain in the arse...

The red tapes in USA for an alien are amazing. (And this is NOT a compliment.) Yap, and the complaining begins...and it's a REALLY looong one.

It first began with our apartment search. We fell in love with a particular apartment with fantastic views and decent location (and really good rent!). It turned out that we were unable to rent the apartment as Zim isn't paying US taxes and that is one of the requirements for verification under a rent stablized building. (WTF) The option given was to purchase insurance from an external party (I ain't too sure of the rationale behind it.) and the insurance would cost approximately USD8k. At the point of time, we weren't sure that the amount would be reimbursed by the company, thus we gave up the apartment. (Honestly, I kinda felt that the management was just making things difficult for us so that we won't be able to rent it. Oh well, too bad la.) But on a good note, we managed to find an even better apartment (At least this current one has an island and even better view, though we compromised abit on the space available) eventually. Nonetheless, the process for the current application was equally painful for Zim as he had to get several documents done for verification. I'm glad it's finally over! (And yes, we officially moved in on 16th February! Photos will be up shortly~)

The next pain came from the internet application. (This totally killed me and yes, it explains my tweet.) We chose to get Verizon Fios as the plan is cheaper (about USD30 per/mth) than it's competitors, so we went online to register. Well, rather, Zim went first. At the end of the registration and a call to the credential office to verify his credentials (Probably to prevent identity theft.), the application was rejected. Apparently, Zim failed the verification. (It was really dumb! They asked questions that were ridiculous, like they asked if you had stayed in any of the states mentioned and gave you three options that you probably never even heard before, thus you just answered negative. At the end of it, apparently we failed. Duh~ how do they expect us to pass the verification?!) He was told to have a copy of his documents verified by an attorney and then faxed over to the credential office. (Honestly, W T F?!) Annoyed, Zim cancelled the whole application and asked me to give it a try.

So, now my turn. Expectedly, I failed the verification as well. The operator gave me two options: the one that Zim got OR I could bring my documents down to the shop (which is about 1 hour away!) for immediate verification. Since I was super eng, I chose the latter. I travelled across to the other side of the world and searched for the shop. (Just a quick note: Apparently, there is a Verizon and a Verizon Wireless, and they are separate entities. How the fuck would I know....) I happily walked into Verizon wireless thinking it was the correct place. The lady was really kind and went through the entire process (photocopied my documents, faxed it to the credential office, followed up with a call to check that it's all cleared) to help me get my verification (took about half hour). It was only when she asked me which mobile line I was applying for that we realized that I was in the wrong place. So she directed me over and added that since I got my approval for this, there shouldn't be an issue for Verizon itself. (This further contributed to my impression that Verizon and Verizon wireless are ONE entity!)

I walked into the store that was about 4 stores down and was stopped by a security guard mending the queue. I explained my purpose and he directed me to a row of phones. (The store has a row of 5 phones cubicles on the left and some counters with staff in front.) I tried to tell him that I wanted to speak to someone about my internet application and he simply insisted that I was to use the phone to speak to the operator. WTF. So I got to the phone and explained my situation to the operator (with the impression that my documents had already been faxed to the correct credential office.). She didn't seemed to quite understand what I was saying and kept mentioning that they did not receive my fax. (I was trying to explain that it was faxed over earlier already and the verification was done thus the fax wouldn't be at the fax machine anymore.) Sigh, I was obviously speaking english, thus I didn't understand why the hell she couldn't understand me. After about 10 minutes of non-conclusive conversation and her insisting that I provide her with the fax number I faxed from which I did not have, I simply hung up. I was super frustrated at the situation and approached another security guard asking him if there were anyone I could speak to face to face. He insisted that there weren't and that Verizon had ended the face-to-face customer service about 5 weeks ago and all I could do was either to call them or to email them. (This is CRAP~)

I went back to Verizon Wireless to get their fax number and went back to the stupid line of phones and dialed for the operator again. Of course I was directed to a different operator and I had to repeat my super long story again. So the operator transferred my phone to the credential office and in the midst of doing so, they fucking disconnected me. (I was really really fuming by then.) So I redialed and was freaking put on hold for 30 MINUTES!!!! By the time I got connected, the store was already about to close. I explained my situation AGAIN while holding back my tears of pure anger AND was once again transferred to the credential office. The lady (My saviour for the day and probably the only one who could understand english) quickly clarified that the two companies are separate and that all I had to do was to bring my documents to the counter and the lady there would verify everything!!!! O.M.F.G.....................after one fucking hour of doing crap and arguing/speaking with idiots, all I was supposed to do was just to go the counter! WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK~

I sweared I looked like a bitch when I approached the counter. I slammed my documents and my bag on the table and trembled when I explained my situation for the FOURTH time to the lady. (She machiam looked like she saw a ghost and was obviously freaked out by me.) She calmly explained that they were closed for the day. Then my small eyes widen and I was about to swear vulgarities when she added that she would speak to her manager. I don't what she said to her manager (probably something along the line that a crazy lady was at the counter), but it worked. The manager (my second and BIGGEST saviour of the day) came out and agreed to help me with my application. He made a couple of calls and even stayed back half hour for me. I was so thankful. I guessed he saved everything. Had he not done that, I will be sending in an ultra LONG complaint letter and switching to a competitor provider. But thanks to him, I am going to send in a compliment instead, well, provided the installation is complete (It's supposed to be done tmr, so I'll keep my fingers crossed for now.)

When I finally met Zim about an hour later, I just started crying as I felt sooooo 委屈 (This is the first time I cried since I left Singapore lor and it's over such a ridiculous issue). It's like I was being put through all these crap just because (1) I am not a US citizen (2) I met some FREAKING stupid people (3) Verizon and Verizon Wireless are two separate entities (TMD, why can't they just have unrelated names!) (4) I had to repeat my ultra long story 4 times before someone finally understood and could point out what went wrong (5) was just super duper uber unlucky. And the best part is, I HAVE A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER AND AN OFFICIAL PASSPORT WITH A VALID VISA!!! Doesn't that at least help?!

Okay, this post is just so long that I don't even want to bother complaining about the red tape in applying for a Citibank account. And I really hope that this is gonna be the end of the crap red tapes, else I am sooo gonna blow...

Lunch @ David Burke at Bloomingdale's

We decided to indulge in a good lunch after surviving on Fast food and pizzas for the past two days. After a stroll down a few blocks, we settled on David Burke at Bloomingdale's. Zim previously had a good experience here and thus we decided to give it a try again.
We chose the window seat to fit in some people watching while waiting for our food.
The wait for the food was a little longer than expected (well, as you can see, we got bored of course), but the truth is, it's all worth it.
The bread took a while and they gave us 1 instead of 2. But Zim didn't quite like it, so I happily finished it myself. So it worked out afterall.
I ordered ROASTED COD & SHRIMP SCAMPI whipped potatoes and vegetables. It was GOOOOOOOOOOD~ Love it! The whipped potato was fantastic and the cod fish simply metled in my mouth (and I'm not kidding!). The prawns were really fresh as well.
Zim chose GRILLED FILET MIGNON seasonal vegetables & crispy onions. Hm, interestingly, while the external tasted kinda burnt, the inside was still medium rare and juicy. I personally liked the fries as they were baked and had a garlic-ish taste. (of course, Zim didn't like it as much.)

The meal came up to about USD45. (Ouch huh~) But all in all, it was a goood meal and I'm pretty keen to try out more items in the menu in future.

New York We love you...

It snowed last night (Think GOD heard my prayers..) and the city looks sooo good after the snow.

Think the little pigs got excited and ran into the streets and created a small little snowman..
Cute ain't it?

Wendy's!

Our first official lunch in NYC!

Zim's burger was huuuuuge and my sweet & spicy chicken was pretty decent! The meal was kinda expensive though. (Came up to about USD15 for the two of us!) Guess we better start doing home cooked meals soon!


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