Today is the last day of 2009! Gosh, can't believe its already end of the year. Looking back, theres been a few highs and lows. I think I achieved quite a lot this year, but on the other hand, theres so much stuff that I still havent got around to. Some of the 2009 highlights are travelling to Fiji, going back home again after 2 years and a new job thats gonna start next year. I think 2009 is quite a good year for me but lets hoping for a better 2010:)

I caught up with Wadam this arvo at Taman Anggrek Mall again to see Sherlock Holmes. Elice was supposed to join us but we couldn't get tickets for the early screening and she can't make it for the later one, so its just gonna be me and Wadam. The movie itself was quite alrite, Me and Wadam found the first part a bit boring and we kept on nodding off. The freezing aircon right on top of us didn't help either. In short, its basically CSI: 18th century London. I'm not feeling Robert Downey and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson at all but at least the movie pick up the pace in the latter half. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars.

This is the picture of the ice skating rink thats located on the second top floor of the mall. I used to came here a lot when I was in high school. It used to be the coolest thing to do after school and me and my friends would just come to this mall, hang out, window shopping and skate. I'm an alright skater, but I wish i could do all those tricks and jumps.

After the movie, Wadam took me home so I can have dinner with my family. Its so nice to have dinner with just the 4 of us on the last day of the year because we don't do it often anymore. People around the neighborhood already started to put on some fireworks. There's no law about fireworks in Indonesia, so everyone can buy it and just play it on their backyard. We then just drove around the complex where I live and watch the fireworks.

Happy new year everyone! I wish you all the best in 2010. Keep on chasing your dreams!:)
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So today I caught up with my friend Hani at Emporium Mall in Pluit. Hani is one of my best friends from year 7. We always keep in touch and I always catch up with her everytime I go back home. She's married with 2 kids now. She's the one in blue, the other one is her neighbour, dessy.

After that, I hopped in a cab and move to the next mall. Taman Anggrek Mall. This one is sort of my local mall since it's not that far from my house. They have these Christmas attractions in the middle of the mall. It's a huge mall btw. I came here to catch up with Elice and Wadam for dinner. We took a few pics and then we went to the pancakes restaurant. That's wadam on the picture as Mrs. Bear with me:)
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It's Vina B'day dinner celebration today. So we all gathered at this private restaurant in Kemang area to celebrate it. It was fun since the whole place was reserved just for us. The food was alright albeit in tiny portions hahaha. Happy B'day Vin! wish you all the best in everything. Love you girl:)
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Well look what I found here, Indonesian Cosmopolitan Bride. It's very hard to tell that this is actually a bride magazine judging from the cover picture alone. Hmmm, maybe I should work here instead? hahaha.
It's good to see different versions of the magazine and see how the designers interpret the brief to adapt with the culture in different countries. Seeing that I'm gonna start working with the magazine next year, I have to start reading these kinds of magazines and paying attention to their style and layouts. So much stuff to learn and it's a big difference to the kids magazine. I'm starting to get nervous and excited! Hopefully I can do it well.
I still haven't found Indonesian Cosmo pregnancy though.
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Went back to Plaza Indonesia again today for lunch with my friends. Yeah, I live and breathe malls here. It was actually nice to catch up with them since I havent seen them in 2 yrs. We had this yummy sticky date pudding at this restaurant. So many restaurants that I visited in the last cpl of days, their names became a blur to me:P

After that, my friend dropped me at Senayan City mall to catch up with other friends for dinner. Duck fried rice for me. It was fine but I was so tired by then so I didnt stay long. I still managed to buy Westlife and Adam lambert's new Cd thou :)
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Another day, another mall hahahaha, well actually it's still Grand Indonesia again. This mall is actually not even close to my house. It's like 30-40 mins drive to get there. Anyway, caught up with everyone again for dinner and then after, we moved to the mall beside it, Plaza Indonesia for a bit of a drink. You would think it would be easy to move because its just across the street. Wrong! you have to go back to the car again and move the car to the next mall. It's because both malls are so big, its takes us forever to go back and forth.

We had drinks at Cork n' Screw. I don't know what wine my friends ordered but it was so nice and sweet. In jakarta, theres no rule about alcohol limits and stuff, so everyone can drink freely and drive after that. I remembered when I went back last time and me and my friend were so drunk we took 2 lanes and stopped every 10 minutes to puke on the side of the road. since he got some police/military symbol on his car, no one dare to stop us. Man, that was some crazy times:)

After that, we all went out to Dragonfly. It's one of the hippest, coolest club in Jkt right now. You have to be on the list to get in apparently, and lots of Indonesian celebrities and socialites go there. I wouldn't know if I bumped into any of them since I don't really watch Indonesian Tv much. The club itself isn't too big. It's alright I guess. Lots of foreigners too. I'm not feeling the music much and we only stayed there for like an hour or so.
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It's Christmas today, so Merry x'mas to everyone who celebrates it!:)
As for me, since my families are so original, we decided to go to temple today. It's located around 2 hours drive outside Jakarta, so its quite a long way. I always go to this temple everytime I go back, to pray. It's under renovation now because of the fire that happened earlier this year.
And Yes, I'm still wearing the same shirt as yesterday. I didn't bring back much clothes and this one is still clean, so zip it ppl :P

Once we get back to Jakarta, I'm getting ready again to go to my friend's friend's X'mas dinner at his house. I only know a cpl of people there, but Its not like I got better things to do anyway.
We are doing kris kringle and since I don't know anyone, I ask Vina to get me a present. Its supposed to be a unisex one, but I got a woman's purse, socks and bandanna, grrr!
The house was amazing Btw, very comfy and theres tons of foods leftover there. As Martine would say, it's such an asian thing to bring way too much foods.
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I flew back to Jakarta this morning with Iwan. We didn't realise we are gonna be on the same flight up until last weekend when we asked each other plans. We can't get a seat beside each other thou, so he ended up sitting behind me. That's us waiting on the airport lounge. The plane was delayed for an hour. Typical Garuda. Other than that, it was smooth sailing.
Arrived safe and sound in Jkt. Got picked up by my parents and bro. Man, its frickin' hot here. You'll just stand /sit there doing nothing and you start to sweat. Thank gawd for aircon.

After I unpacked and had dinner, I went to Grand Indonesia Mall with my brother to catch up with Vina. Gawd, I've known her for more than a decade. We used to live together back in our uni days at St Leonards, that was a great time. She's working now as a buyer for Burberry. My how times have changed, we used to work together too as a casual waiter at Star City. Coffee, tea or soft drinks people? hahahaha
Apparently she's now a big fag hag. She introduced me to all her friends and we went to SoHo bar for drinks. It was a nice place albeit really hot since we sat beside the open balcony. This is the view of the city from the balcony. I'm home now:)
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It's a half day work today because The kids and Parenting team are having a picnic lunch today at Centennial Park. Everyone who has kids can bring their kids along to the picnic so it's more like a family picnic environment. Surprisingly they all brought their daughters. I don't think any of them have boys at all. It's gonna be a man-drought in 15 years I think.
Karen brought Phoebs along which drove Tash crazy in a good way. She kept on taking pics and making baby noises. Lucky Phoebe is a really patient and quiet baby. By quiet I mean she doesn't cry at all and just frowning all day hahaha... she prob thought we were all a weird bunch of people:P

The food was suprisingly really good. I said suprisingly because I've been complaining to Martine non-stop about how she's been ordering this healthy salad and sandwich and no KFC bucket in sight. but in the end I actually really enjoyed them. The tuna salad and pumpkin was amazing and the prawn sandwich was nice too. I kept on coming back for more. Also, thanks Martine for the brownies. They were really yumm:)
Packing and ironing for me tonite, since I'm flying tomorow morning. Holiday mode starts NOW!!
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Today was the kids and parenting sale day. We put stuff that we collected in storage such as unsent DVDs, books, CDs, and toys at the meeting room and email everyone in the building to come and have a look at it. Theres lots and lots of stuff for sale. Can't believe we collected so much stuff in just one year. If you got kids and want to get them cheap x'mas presents, our sale is like heaven for you. People go nuts for a sale like this. They queue almost an hour beforehand sometimes. We don't really have it often at ACP Goulburn st, but back when I used to work at Pac Pub, there's a sale like this every 4 months or so. I think our sale was a success, I don't know how much we made but it's more than enough to pay for the food catering tomorow hahaha.

After work, me, Tash, Fi and Yaz went to The Lovely Bones screening. It's a Peter Jackson movie starring Mark Walhberg and Rachel Weisz. It's about this girl who is killed by child molester and trapped in purgatory. It was an Ok movie, very heavy and sad obviously but there's something that just didn't sit quite well in the movie. I don't know whether its the way they describe the after life or just the way the story flows. It just missing something. I give it 3 out of 5.
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I caught up with Gavin today to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in 3D at George St cinemas. It was a really fun kids movie. Very colorful and the whole animation is done really well. I never read the book before but I think I should check it out when I go to a bookstore next time. I gave it 4 out of 5.
Watching a movie about raining foods make us really hungry after, so we went to this dumpling place in Sussex st. The food was quite good and cheap actually and I was really full by the end of it. Gav is not feeling camera-ready tonight, so I just took the pic of the dumplings. You can see his hand making a cameo in it though:P
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This is Darren's cat, Hannah. I Caught up with Darren for dinner tonight and we went to the vietnamese restaurant next door to his place because he's too lazy to cook. After that, we watched a DVD that he rented. The movie is called Surveillance and it starred Bill Pullman. It's an alright movie. Nothing special about it but time hasn't been kind to Mr Pullman, He looked a bit bloated there and just not as good looking as he was in While You Were Sleeping. Now that is a great movie!
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It's our office Xmas party today, and we are all going for drinks at the Civic Hotel. It's a mix between the Kids, parenting and Men's title (diff magazines). So theres gonna be a lot of people at the party.
Before that, Me, Klai, Tash, Yaz and Fi went for yum cha at Silver. Luv luv that place. the food is always good:)

Back to the party, it kinda sucked to be honest. We don't have to pay for the drinks since its on tap, but we can't order spirits either. Its either Beer or wine and champagne, so I'm stuck with champagne and OJ all nite. They also didn't provide much food at all. A plate of falafel and some chips and thats about it. No wonder ppl get really drunk in just a cpl of hours. Very irresponsible of them I must say. We still made the most of it and had a good time though. After Tash took me home, I went out again with Iwan and Dean for a bit. It was great except for the part that I had to wait for almost 45 mins to get a cab back home. Not happy Jan!!
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I got invited for lunch with the Cosmopolitan brand extentions team today. Since I'm gonna move to their magazine next year (Yayyy!!!), they thought it would be nice for me to get to know the team in a casual enviroment. We went to this winery restaurant in Crown st, Surry hills. It's a really nice place and I got to meet everyone. There's like 13 girls there and I still don't remember all their names hahahaha, but everyone is nice and friendly and the food was good albeit took them ages to cook. We were starving by the time the mains came.

After lunch, Adam picked me up so we can have dinner with his friends in Parra. I couldn't remember the name of the place but I think it was an italian pizzaria in Church st. I've never hung out around this area before and it was an eye-opener. So many ppl and restaurants and it was a really really hot and sticky day too. The food was good and his friends were all nice to me. I think I've spent all day today just eat and eat. My hips are crying for help!
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Me and Phil are seeing Avatar tonight at Bondi after work. We chose the 3D Vmax cinema because the gold class one was showing at a really late time and I have to get up early tmrw. I was looking forward to seeing this movie because James Cameron's Titanic is my fav movie of all time. I've seen that movie like 1 billion times now and still not sick of it:)

This movie does not disappoint me at all. It was a breathtaking visual feast. I was just mesmerised from start to finish. He's taking the whole CGI effect to the next limit. The easiest way to describe this movie is Pocahontas in space. It's clocking for almost 3 hours though, so make sure u go to toilet beforehand. I def will see this movie again. I gave it 5 out of 5:)
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We went to Mr.B in the corner again for Karen's B'day lunch and for the B'day cake, Martine baked us sponge cake. Happy B'day Klai!! Hope you get spoilt rotten by Edo and Phoebs!
Fun day all around:)
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Well it's been around 2 months since I got my hair cut last and it's an annoying in-between length. I'm getting it cut today because I'm gonna go home next week and it's gonna be sweaty hot there. Also I'm sure my parents will nag me nonstop if I grow it long again. I went to the usual korean place at George st chinatown after work.

The pic there is just a random hairdresser place that I took while walking home, since I'm too embarrased to take pic of me while getting my hair cut.
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Went to work for a bit today to fix some files and finally bought the shoes that I wanted from Hype, World Square. It's a xmas present from me to me because I've been good this year:P

After that, Adam picked me up for dinner at Una's Kings x. We always go to the one in Broadway, so its a fresh change from it. I can't tell the diff between the food, so it's a good sign except that the one in Kings x doesn't take credit card, so be prepared to bring cash.
Then we strolled around cross for a bit, to let the food settle. It was nice weather too, and we got some ice cream near the fountain. Back to work again tomorrow. Grrr!!!
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I caught up with Joel tonite for a movie and dinner. Haven't seen him for a while, not since we went to the beach and I got sunburnt. I managed to persuade him to see this chinese movie that is playing in George St cinema. The reason I wanna see it is because Aaron Kwok is in it. He's a really famous HK movie star since I was a kid and I dunno why, but a couple of days ago I was thinking about him and wondering what he's up to/look like now and what do ya know, they're screening his movie. Fate? coincidence? me thinks so.

The movie's called Storm Warriors, and apparently it's a sequel. After watching it for a few minutes, I realised i've seen the first one but it was like 10 years ago!! I can't believe it took them that long to make a sequel. I actually don't even remember anything from the first movie. Nothing much going on in the movie anyway to begin with. It's one of those movies that you have to see it in the cinema because the special effects are really amazing. The story itself is really simple. Good guys trying to fight bad guy and one of the good guy's becoming evil himself and now they're fighting each other. That's about it really, Poor Joel was a bit bored. Sorry Joel, you can choose the movie next time:P I gave the movie 3 and a half out of 5 based on the special effects alone.
Oh, there was this annoying couple who sat right behind me and kept on talking nonstop during the whole movie, How frickin' annoying!! I think he actually read along the subtitles loudly. He just wouldn't stop yapping and sometimes he added a special effect sounds himself.

Back to Aaron Kwok, OMG!!! he looked exactly the same like when I first saw him in the movie 20 years ago!! I can't see any wrinkles watsoever on his face. He's 44 yrs old according to wikipedia and he looked late 20's early 30's. It's insane! Same with his co-star Ekin chen. I remembered when I was in year 6 and he's already playing a school teacher, but now he still looked exactly the same from many many yrs ago. I dunno what those two have done but its def done really good, and I def want their plastic surgeons number!

We had dinner at Delima after. I promised to take him there ages ago and he said he enjoyed the food. I've been there so many times the waitress has started to recognise me hahaha. Good food makes a repeat customer I say:P
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This is the normal hair product that I use to spike it up my hair. And what do you know? Garnier decided to discontinue it... HOW ANNOYING!!!
Of all their hair products, they decided to discontinue the one that I use. I went to every shop to check out that maybe they still got some left over on the shelf, but I got nothing. I might have to search on EBay soon.
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Me and the old TG's team caught up today for dinner and kris kringle. we(me, Trish, Scott, Nika, Tans, Dem, Olena and David) went to Nada's lebanese restaurant in Surry Hills. It's trish's choice; btw, me and Tans have to walk all the way there from World Square, and it took us almost half an hour to get there. If it's up to me, we would have gone to Delima in Chinatown.
I've actually never been to a lebanese restaurant before and the food was quite nice. We chose the $25/person banquet. It was nice to catch up with everyone before x'mas coz I don't think I will see them again until next year, except for Olena since she's working with me .

For the kringle, I got a watch from Scott. We were basically just swapping presents since the book that I bought yesterday was for him hahaha. It's a nice digital watch and now I just need someone to set it for me. I'm too lazy to read the instructions:P

Trish and Scott aren't in this pic because I forgot to take it. Oh well, we had gazillions of group pictures already anyway and there's always next time:)
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I went to Broadway with Luke to get Dan Brown's Lost Symbol book. I could have bought it from Dymocks at World Square but it cost like $33 there! Rip off. However, it only cost me $20 at Kmart. I don't understand how they think they can get away with that much price difference. Customers aren't stupid.
Btw, the book isn't for me - it’s for my Kris Kringle with the Old Total Girl Team tomorrow. Yeah, as if I'm going to read a book that thick! I'll just wait until the movie out so I can make fun of Tom Hanks' wig again:P

Meanwhile, I saw few of Disney's Fairies mag at Kmart with bagging that has been ripped open and the tip-on are missing. GRRR!! Buy the magazine ppl! - don't just steal the freebies!
Anyway, after that we had drinks and cake at Gloria Jean's before we walk back to Redfern. Luke and Hai are apparently moving to the same Building as Darren. I can visit both next time in one go then :)
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Ann and I spent half an hour looking for back issue disc that went missing again. It is so annoying when some people can't just put the CD back to where it belongs. I've never been this angry before, but I think after 2 years and many, many times this has been happening, I just snapped. Like how hard is it to just put a CD back to the right case? I can use the time to PDFing and designing pages instead of looking for CD that's supposed to be there in the first place. ARGHH!!!

I went to see Zombieland after work. It's a movie about the last few survivors of the world that has been populated by zombies. It starred Woody Harrelson and Abigail Breslin. I really enjoyed this movie. It’s a fun no-brow popcorn movie and all the actors seems genuinely having a ball making it. I think it was one of the funniest movies I've seen this year. I gave it 4 and a half out of 5 stars :)
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P.S. This post may or may not be about Jenks *give her a side-eyed*

Stayed back late again at work, so you guys are only going to get this street pic of Redfern. They have already put the up the X'mas light decorations. Same ones every year, but I still think it looks nice :)
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Got a couple of CDs from work, so today I'm uploading them to my iTunes. – Glee 2 soundtrack, which is good as usual, but not enough Kurt, too much Rachel. Chris Brown's "Grafitti", even though I think he's a douche bag now, he is still making good music. My fave is "Crawl" and "So cold".
I also got Now summer 2010 and Susan Boyle's "I dream a dream "hahaha. Make fun of her all you want but girlfriend got amazing voice. Team Boyle!!
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I had dinner at Sushi train tonight, then went to see Paranormal Activity at George St cinema with Gavin and Jafar. The movie is about this couple trying to videotape the weird things that have been happening at their house. The filmakers are trying to make this movie look like it's just a homemade, low budget movie ala Blair Witch Project. It works in some parts but, if you've already seen Blair Witch, then you would kind of guess what's gonna happen next.
The jerky handheld camera angle gave me a massive headache. I had to keep closing my eyes every couple of minutes and after so much built up, the ending is a bit of a let down. It's still different from other gory horror movies that been out recently nevertherless. I gave it 2 and a half out of 5.
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I caught a train to Bondi Junction after work for dinner at Phil and Hudson's place. It's been years since I took a train to Bondi. It brought back a lot of memories. I used to work just 5 mins walk from the station at Snap Printing way before they opened the Westfield mall there. Oh the good old days...

Phil cooked us a yummy pasta with homemade sauce. It took him ages Btw, hahaha, so I watched a couple episodes of Ellen and Spring Breakdown on DVD starring Parker Posey and Amy Poehler amongst others. It was quite a funny movie, nothing new about the storyline though. Sophie Monks' acting and accent is super cringeworthy in this movie. Anyway, the food was nice and their place was lovely too. I especially love the rooftop. If they clean it up, add more chairs, tables and lights, it can make a great place to throw a summer night party.
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I went to see Mamma Mia! the musical tonight at Lyric theatre at Star city with Adam. It was a great show. We were seated second row from the front, so it was good, even though it's a bit akward at times since it's THAT close to the actors. Just try not to make eye contact with them hahaha.

I've seen the movie many times before and I wish I'd seen the musical first before the movie, because when I watched this, I can't help but comparing it to what's in the movie and Meryl Streep is hard to beat. Still, it was a solid performance from the cast and there are a few songs and scenes that they didn't put in the movie. You can't help to singalong to some/most of the songs and all the audience seemed to have great fun. Thumbs up from me:)
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Dem's friend Vicky introduced me to Lucas' papaw ointment and I so knew I had to get some hahaha. It basically works just like Vaseline - for burns, cuts, chafing, and all sort of stuff. And It's cheap too:P

In other breaking news, January DA is out now. It's a Hannah Montana quiz and Puzzle special with an awesome fashion spread styled by Kat and photograph by Will. I blogged about the behind-the-scenes shoot ages ago, and now you can all see the amazing end result. So go to your nearest newsagents and grab a copy or two. It comes with Hannah Montana stationery sets too. Great for writing your xmas shopping list.
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Adam and I went to BBQ King for dinner. It's one of my favourite restaurants in Sydney. I just love, love, love their Peking duck. I tried Peking duck at other places, but it's never as good as this place. But tonight we didn't order the famous Peking duck since Adam isn't a big fan of duck, we just had the normal BBQ pork for him and roasted duck for me:)
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I went to the Where the Wild Things are screening after work with Adam. It's a movie based on a children's book. I've never read the book before so I didn't know what the movie was about. It's actually not a bad movie. You can feel the anger from the kid which I think is borderline ADD and also the sadness of the creatures when he's leaving them to go back to his own world.
The larger than life wild things creatures looks really good and the boy's acting is very natural and believeable. As a movie for kids, I would recommend this one over Disney's Christmas Carol. I gave it 3 and a half out of 5 stars.

That's me with the movie poster in the cinema, and also me with Haddady at the office goofing around. She went to the screening too with her friends.
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Went for dinner at Delima tonight with Will. Delima is an Indonesian Restaurant located in chinatown. I forgot the name of the street. Its quite a nice indo restaurant. Deff classier than Joy cafe hahaha. I've been here a few times before. The food and the service are always good. So if you guys wanna try Indonesian food, I recommended this restaurant.

That picture there is Will's drink. He's obsessed with aloe vera drink now and that one is with mango flavour. I tried it and it wasn't that bad at all. You can feel the jellyish aloe vera but it doesn't smell, and it tastes just like mango drink.
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From one crappy movie to another, I went to see New Moon today with Adam at Hoyts Broadway. To be fair, it is actually a bit better than the first one, but seriously, this movie is just full of cheesy one-liners. So much angst in it make me wanna bitch-slap someone after (come here Bella). Kristen Stewart's acting is just meh, she always talks in this monotonic voice and Robert Pattinson... gosh I don't even know if you count frowning and sulking as acting! His make-up is really really bad. They really need to tone down the lipstick. It's really distracting.
The only good thing about this movie is Taylor Lautner shirtless. This is deff his movie and he carried it off well. Not that I pay too much attention to his acting ability anyway. Also the much hyped Dakota Fanning is only there for like less than 5 minutes with only 2 lines, the most memorable one being "pain!". I gave it 3 out of 5.

Before the movie, we went to Glebe temple. It was a bit busy today. And after the movie, we went to Essen for dinner, Shnitzel as usual for me:)
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