Staycay 2018 - Hotel Clover 33

Shophouse life

Check out my blue-eye girl 

Anddddd that’s all folks! 

Rare to have two weekends together and even rarer to get a chance to visit ulu places so I’m just gonna park these photos with our staycay haha 

And yet another ulu corner of Singapore at Wheeler’s Estate! 

Rest of 2018

2nd half of 2018 started off with a bang - bang for buck - cos we kidnapped the most important person in the Group! Though we didn’t manage to collect any ransom in the end 

And then Ju’s birthday with this gang and Friday drunk Ju returned...

Smashed the night before, smashed the records the next morning

Getting bronze to break the medal drought for the guys team was great but beating Mindef in the heats was even more shiok (though we lost by some milliseconds eventually in the finals ...) 

And July means SAF Day, and SAF Day means a meet up with the SAF gang! We should really find an alternative standing arrangement besides this NDP-style descending height order 

And we have Chef GG in the house! 

I dunno who’s the Chef for this one though but no matter, hard-to-come-by weekday dinners are always welcomed 

And this hot day at GBTB with her fam

And we’re meeting more frequently now somehow. Will never forget how I broke the news that I’m heading to EBC with Zongrui, and Le Zongrui appears in front of us at the exact moment 

Look Ma, I’m on the magazine (again)! 

Happy birthday, Uncle! 

And happy birthday, Ah Ma! 

And Happy National Day to us~ 

Collecting my annual dues - no count machine was too punishing though 

A disappointing showing for the guys but we swept everything else - as anticipated. We’ll come back stronger next year!!! 

Ardent supporter who’s always too busy for each other haha 

I and these are the haul from the past two months of swim, row, hoop! To quote myself: some Bronze are better than Gold, some Silver are lessons to never let go! 

This random soju night 

And this random whisky night trying to finish our unfinished task turned into a gin night with a whole new bottle. We survived unscathed hahaha 

Anddddd spot the difference 

Almost full attendance for this one! Was full attendance again on Sham’s wedding but we didn’t manage to take a photo (waiting for the official photos to come out!)

You will be pretty confused by the pineapple if you didn’t catch this play. And I have no idea why would Bird pick such a random prop before she saw the play hmmm 

Classy af 

10 years of these peeps

Happy birthday, mama! 

And made it to meet this gang (full attendance how is that possible?!) on a busy weeknight - Guess it’s true they say people will make time if you mean something to them 

And a random Deepavali steamboat night plus Hing’s birthday celebration at birdy’s new place~ 

Training stopped but the team doesn’t. Here’s to a greater year ahead! 

And a first family wedding event in quite a few years! 

One helluva night with these mofos 

Looking forward to drinking whisky out of the decanter and fruit juice out of the blender, hot sauce on our food; playing Jenga and whatever the new game is called; all while having some facial cream on our face and listening to music out of the ahbeng speaker 

And adding on after the new year:

Final goodbye for the year! 

And one last meet up with this gang - from Comm hall to departure hall, we somehow always manage to find a small window of opportunity for everyone to be present to meet 

And we’re off! 

Malapascua 22/8/18 - 26/8/18

Day 1 

And off we go! 

Really shouldn’t have gotten so smashed the night before but still made it for flight! 

Landed early but super inefficient custom took almost 2 hours. Finally met our driver and the first thing we did was to eat Jollibee! 

And Malapascua here we come! Air-land-sea transfer all in one day 

Managed to squeeze in a night dive before dinner where we tried walking through the dark village alleys but failed to find the local market. Still got our tummies filled before we turn in after a long day. 

Day 2

Monad shoal early in the morning (5am) was a disappointment cos the thresher didn’t appear but I really enjoyed the early morning sunrise journey out into the sea

Came back to chill between our dives~ island life best life 

Second dive of the day after lazing at the bar was to Giliano. Mostly macro and nothing too exciting.

Attempted to walk through the villages again, this time under the daylight

Oh and these are the kinds of boats we use for diving! 

And we made it to Angelina! Legendary handmade wood fired pizza

Third dive at Deep Slope was much more eventful though the landscape was nothing spectacular. But I also cut my hands on the coral. Worth it for the frog fish, zebra crab, sea moth, eel, moray eel, mantis shrimp, school of cat fish, pipefish, transparent small tiny shrimps, bat fish, pufferfish, cuttlefish, and octopus. 

Lazed around yet again before heading for a shiok massage session. Dinner after at the local market was a mixed of shiok BBQ and undercooked pork and fish with fishy taste. 

Day 3 

Thresher at last! Not 1, not 2... but 4 thresher shark in the morning! And even as we hit no deco of 1min and had to use up higher to 18m, we still manage to catch the last thresher coming up right next to us! Amazeballs. 

And that’s our guide - Jo! 

Day trip out to Gato Island for the next two dive and they were both exciting! Second dive saw 3 whitetip reef sharks napping / strolling around in the hidden cravens of the reef. 

Last day dive was to dive through the tunnel that cuts across the island and boy is this one of the best dive on my life. First cave dive, and the whitetip swam so close up to us! Though these reef sharks are much smaller at an average mass of 10kg, it’s still quite a surreal experience swimming alongside these creatures (no doubt this is already the fifth time I’ve swam with sharks). Top this up with the  massive plot of mesmerising corals opening and closing up - enchanting to say the least, but really beyond words. 

Dust dive ended with a tinge of disappointment because we didn’t see the mating of the mandarin fishes but that was salvaged by the awesome micro aquatic life we saw hovering/pivoting by the corals and staring up close with the marine animals - hermit crabs, corals feeding with their scary looking “roots”, crab that just changed its shell, sea worm squirming around - perfecto. 

Angelina was too tempting so we got lured back to them once again - this time with an upgraded pizza! 

Day 4

Finally not having to wake up in the middle of the night though we were told we missed the sighting of dolphins but the sleep was much needed.

The swing just beside the little bar at our accomm. I fell off the swing -.- 

Final dive at Devil Ray Corner, no rays but one last thresher came by to say bye (along with one last Bat Fish as well - that’s all we asked for anyway, one Bat Fish - trying to keep our expectations low lol). 

Realised we overspent (too excited and just kept diving) but underconsumed (breakfast was complimentary?!) when we check out but all is well! 

Wouldn’t mind staying here a little longer...

Sea and land transfer took up the whole afternoon yet again and after some confusion over where our accom on Cebu main island is, we found it! 

Nice cozy little loft which is near major shopping mall and even had a massage place (where they tried to solicit extra service! Lol). The only place it is far away from...

Is some legit Lechon! 

But in any case, not much of a drama and we left Cebu rather uneventfully on the last day (thankfully). 

But here’s some cookies and dreams to end of a dreamy vacation ~ 


And of course, bonus pic: look how far we’ve come! Hahaha