I’ve to admit that I’ve been pretty slack in the past month, and this blog post is actually meant to be up two weeks ago.. But since it’s the festive period, I have an excuse I guess?

This December has been a pretty busy one for me, and I’ve been working almost every day: teaching for the first three weeks and working in a desk-bound position at IDA for the following three. (Ps: It actually started during the last week of November 2011 and ended at the first week of Jan 2012.)

Lucky me, when I went back to IDA, it’s the time of Christmas and New Year, and it shamelessly gave me the opportunity to join in at the Christmas cum New Year feast!

This is Raymond, the head of games team… He is a lot friendlier than he looks and he sure is a damn brilliant guy. Before entering IDA, I used to think that government only hire scholars who can think, but only in a bubble, but my stint at IDA proved to me that the government sector actually attracts smarter folks than I’ve seen in the private sector; or maybe it’s just IDA’s industry development group.

This is our awesome view of the ocean from our office…

This is the place where we will be having our end of the year departmental dinner. L,

Laisha – our new colleague who’s taking care of the digital advertising sector – with Raymond.

Raymond vs. Chef… *fight fight fight*

they were just discussing the menu. Blah!

As we reached a little earlier than the rest, we decided to sit at the “square” at China Square to blow wind. We not so relax all the time, just this occasional event.

Look how many presents Laikuen has? All that present is hers alone from colleagues!!!

Spotted this pretty nice bar opposite Hinoki, which I thought is a very nice place to chill…

Ain’t it weird to see people walking their dog in the middle of town? yes, this cute and friendly girl was walking her dog. She was a little shy to pose for a photo, but she allowed me to snap anyways.

The luscious spot that we sat to relax while waiting for boss to come…

While waiting, Laisha brought me to this place whose bread had won high accolades from her

I prefer the fruits actually. Hahaha…

Doesn’t this look very “good old days”? Actually I prefer this to the new and complex architecture we see today.

Decided to buy some bak-kwa to munch while waiting for the rest… yes, I know cny is around the corner!

Our ultra long table… That’s Raymond, Laikuen and Joyce.

I thought I was the only camera crazy dude, only to learn that actually almost everyone brought their camera.

Our cute little bottles of flavored Sake

Robert (the boss) and victor examining their cameras

Joyce and Laikuen…

Everyone’s here, yay! We can start eating. Woops… Oh yeah, I forgot to say which department I’m from. We’re actually from the consumer Infocomm department where we have three separate teams, one focusing on games, media ICT (that’s my team) and startups.

Eww. Doesn’t it look like…. You dirty minded folks know what I am talking about. But this is actually the peach Sake.

And lime sake…

Dried scallops as starters

Some flat fish, and the dark brown one is actually puffer fish. The puffer fish is really nice…

Look at this Sashimi.. *drools*

The scallops is really nice…

This is the homemade wasabi. It really tastes different from the ones I am used to eating at other joints, it just melts with the soy sauce…

See…. even the fish glows.. You can tell how fresh fit is!

Grilled with head with truffles sauce.

Omg…. Look at this Chawamushi…. So rich, but yummy!

This is the thing to die for…. Heard that many Japanese come here just to eat this!

Prawn head soup, Japanese style. Omg! It’s just so yummy!! Got refill? NO!

By this dish, everyone was already very stuffed. But the sushi is just too good to resist. The only sushi that I didn’t like was the salmon-egg one. Just too salty for my liking.

Cinamon deserts after main dishes to clean our taste buds ahead of the deserts…

The earlier sake is just a starter, this is the real thing… See so big!!!

Hinoki has this really pretty Sake flask to serve the Sake bit-by-bit to keep it cool..

Our Sake actually has gold-flakes in it… OMG!!!

My cup had only one small flake… =(

Look at how many gold flakes Laisha’s cup has???

We had this secret Santa gift exchange and big-man Victor is explaining the rules of the game.

Pick a number dude!

See, all the presents? The most beautifully wrapped is mine! Guess which one.. Hahaha…

Chef Gary dropping by to say Hi to us after he is done with his other commitments

Just in case you want to contact him. I’m sure he will not blame me for posting his namecard here.

The first serving of Sorbet.

Chef Gary is very nice to offer us more… On the house. This is the mocha with Red-beans. It is damn nice…

Joyce’s grape ice-cream. The damage for the night for each of us is SGD 100+. But I’ve to say it’s worth every bit of it!