Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards 2009

Now that I have some time to breathe…here’s the Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards 2009 post before I blog about my million and one other stuffs.

I’ve been on the plane on my own a lot this year. My virgin solo flight was in Feburary 2009 to surprise Chee Kiang for Valentine’s day and I even flew to Thailand on my own last weekend. My first time in Bangkok! SHOPPING MADNESS. Promise you, it’ll be the blog post after this. 😛 Not a big deal to you jetsetters but I’ve always regarded airports and flights as a family thing, a big hoo hah when a bunch of friends plan a holiday months in advance. 

Coming out from my car at the Penang International Airport’s carpark. I’ve been googling for years regarding buses or simpler modes of transportation from Sg. Petani to Penang airport but to no avail. A freaking cab costs RM90 from Sungai Petani to the airport and that’s only one way! If you drive, the toll only costs about RM12 or so. I can’t really remember. But get this – if you leave your car at the carpark for 24 hours, it’s RM20! So if I leave my car at the airport over the weekend, say Friday night, Saturday night and I return on Sunday, my total will be about less than RM70? Which is tons cheaper than RM180 for your cab ride to and fro Sg. Petani. Still pricey. :X 

Hate doing aeroplane maths. 🙁 Return flights + parking cheaper than driving home (RM50 petrol, RM50+ toll one way) or what? Sigh. Anyway, moving on. This is not a post about my travel expenses.
 

Felt quite proud of myself as I managed to hop on to the MRT from Changi Airport and actually walked from the Outram MRT Station to Link Hotel. I is not a pampered girl! Yayz! (Actually because no money to flag down a cab). Link Hotel was previously a row of HDB apartments which have since been converted into a boutique hotel. The rooms there come in four themes – chinese, malay, indian and modern. I think mine was chinese.

For the Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards, all foreign bloggers (Malaysia, Phillipines and Australia) were put up at Link Hotel. It was packed with bloggers… over 90 rooms apparently. Like a whole conference going on! I was feeling a tad bit antisocial, don’t know what’s wrong with me, so I didn’t make many new friends. 🙁

Foreign bloggers were also provided with free transportation and given a three day tour of Singapore which I had to miss out on due to uni commitments. (Read: Visiting a kindergarten on Sunday morning to read to them a story about The Teeth Siblings (Adik-Beradik Gigi) It was part of my assessment okay -_-)

The link bridge between the.. uh, Link Hotel. (now I know where the name came from)

The bathroom wasn’t too shabby too! Nice and bright for my much anticipated make-up session. Since I arrived earlier than most of the other bloggers who were on the bus from KL, I had time to kick back and make full use of the complimentary broadband internet. That’s like a total of 4 hours of me-time. Very enjoyable.

The lights in the room were a bit dim though. 

NYahahhahahahaha. My cosmetic collection which hardly sees the light of day. 

Gotta love the mantlepiece in the bathroom. So very convenient!

When the invitation deems it a black tie event, you know you can go all out. Bring on the extravagant lashes! <3

Fascinators are great alternatives when one is low on cash to splurge on professionally styled hair. I got mine from BabyBeDazzled which is pretty much THE place to get headbands and hairbands from for those on a budget. I’m low on funds after the boomz (souvenir from Singapore) Bangkok trip so need to save up whatever I have left. Dental dinner is in two months and I need cash for dress, hair, clutch, shoes, blings, mani and pedi…and what else ah….oh yah dental dinner ticket. ahahaha.

Falsies, lock and loaded!

I only used some brown and turquoise eyeshadow from the 88 colour palette which I bought from Blushberry almost a year ago and my usual Blitz ‘n’ Glitz MAC Fluidline with the Kohl eyeliner. Kohl eyeliner kind of smudges, much to my disappointment. :\ 

Okay, just one more picture of my fascinator before I put up pics of my dress (which is recycled from a previous dental dinner. MONEY DON’T FALL FROM THE SKY OKAY. Actually someone should tell me that. I have seriously been overspending. T_T)

To those who were curious, freebra is always my answer. Always. :ppPPpppPP

I buy a new pair every three months or so as the adhesive do wear out. The idea is to slap it on as far left and for the other side; as far right as possible..and clasp it together. You’ll see the difference too! 

After getting ready, I went over to Soon Seng and Yen Li’s room to kacau a bit as it was still early. That’s Soon Seng doing up his hair.

Yen Li and I wore the exact same shade!!! 😀 Great girls look alike.

The sea of bloggers gathered at the reception area was a little daunting but slowly, familiar faces started to become apparent. Here’s Ginny and Vvens!

That’s Natalie whom I was very friendly to during the entire time – all the time thinking she was this other girl, Carmen. -____- Some more can hug and say bye bye see you again keep in touch! Only found out my boo boo when I came home to tag photos on FB. :\

Yatz so handsome with his now short hair!

Met Wei Zhi of KampungBoyCityGal fame and Christine, who happens to be Chee Kiang’s classmate from his short lived IMU days.

On the way to Pan Pacific Hotel for the inaugural Nuffnang Asia Pacific Blog Awards 2009!!

The first of many photos. L-r: Julian, Grace ?? (Sorry, please correct me if I am wrong. 🙁 ), Swee San, Soon Seng, Yenli and myself.

Ming, who was earlier tweeting about how it all seemed like preparing for a big wedding reception.

That’s Simon, another familiar face. 

Met Swee San for the first time in person too!

Michael, who was there to cover the event for The Star! Gone were the days when he made me pixelate his face. THANK YOU MICHAEL! But just to be safe, won’t be linking him…. unless he says it’s okay!

Tried to get a shot of the crowd before we entered the hall.

A bit like Leo/IU event now. One rep from each Subang school. Got Subang Utama (Chee Kiang), Seafield (Yenli) and SJ (Soon Seng). Chee Kiang said I’m always very excited when there are Subang people around and that I like to group them together to have a photo taking session. LOL. Well if we wanted it to REALLY be a Subang people thing, there were two others (Audrey and Wai Ping(Pinky)) who were running around.

As with any Nuffnang event, there’s the huge backdrop that people would go and have a photo with. Very much like actual gala awards. 

With Chee Kiang who came after his class ended at 6pm! Hugs and kisses to him for sitting through the entire thing while I went about making small talk with new friends, gossiping with old friends and camwhoring with the luminaries. Also for being my camera man. Thanks dear..:) That’s why I love you so much!

Gourmet Pringles!

Okaylah sorry one more of the two of us. Shit, the silly feather from my fascinator is hanging over my forehead like a dancer’s headgear. Anyway, the last time we got dressed up for something so glamorous was when we were both only 16 and 17 years old. 

Taken back in 2004. On the eve of my birthday, so technically I was 16! 

Nuffnang Bloggers from Australia! I’m not too familiar with their blogs but Mel got all excited that I could have said hello to Super Kawaii Mama and Lady Melbourne! =\ Now I regret.

Yenli and I with our smart colour choices, heh. 🙂 Actually there were plenty of blues that night. Perhaps the next most common colour after black (which is the Nuffies’ colour code). But it was nice, we stood in shades of blue and took pics!

This is Jayden who is one of Singapore’s top bloggers! This guy is mad…check out the video he made for the Pringle’s Krrrunch video which won him SGD5000.00! He’s also doing his national service at the moment. He got his inspiration for his suit from Willy Wonka, damn creative right?

Here’s his video and here’s the Behind The Scenes entry.

I think I wanted a picture with Jolyn and the line just grew.
L-r: Sorry I didn’t get your name? Kenny, Jess, Tzia, Jolyn, myself and Chee Kiang (it’s written on his face that he got pulled into this picture forcefully..lol)

Kenny got his suit barely 2 hours before the event! And most amazingly, it looks really good too!

Inside the ballroom while waiting for the event to start.

We had little bottles of rock candies as door gifts. It had ‘NN Blog Awards’ and ‘I Love Blogging’ in the middle of the sweets. But because of all the holes made by the alphabets, I cut my tongue a few times while sucking on some. Got ulcer now. 🙁 Still tastes nice though. *continue to torture myself with more sweets* I seriously don’t know when I will I start having the mentality of a dentist and shun sugary stuff. ;\

With KY, Haze (of Blushberry fame) and myself.

OOOh!! Look look! I’m in the programme book! This was some section depicting their journey from their early days. And there I am, their second ever featured blogger for the month of April in 2007. Wheee. For plenty of times, this screen shot has been used over and over. Quite syok sendiri right.

Aforementioned rock candies. Bad for your teeth. Bad. So..very..bad. *dying of guilt from having eaten three today*

But it’s so cute!! The tiny candies come in bright quirky colours. Sigh. Why are bad things so cute.

I think the candies were a great touch. Very personalized. 

This is the only photo of the stage that you’re gonna get. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t even see the stage. But we had a big screen right in front of us and as a result both Chee Kiang and I had to give neck massages to each other late at night.

Ming and Tim’s heartwarming speech about Nuffnang’s journey thus far. Tim was quite nervous though when he delivered his part of the speech! He must have been way too excited. 🙂 Well, they have all come a long way. So proud of them!

And there’s a video too.

I thought it was pretty good, where Tim and Ming will complete each other’s sentences.

The nuffies get introduced. Hi Yee Hou.

Yee Hou’s pelvis thrust dance when he seals a deal.

Then it was time for the moment that everyone was waiting for. THE AWARDS!!

I’m honestly very grateful that Nuffnang came up with this ingenious idea of picking and awarding the best blogs in the region. I now have gems to trawl as I am losing my touch when it comes to finding good blogs to read. The nominees and winners are of seriously good quality. Not your average trashy eat shit sleep kind of blogs or copy and paste assholes or even head tilting bimbos with emoticons in place of vocabulary.

And here we are! First up, Winners of The Best Blog Shop: Bonito Chico. 
It’s not often that I acknowledge that girls are pretty. But this is one of the very few times where I will chase after them just to have pictures with them. They are so hot!!! 

The other nominees were:
Tracyeinny.com.sg
Ohmymuffins.blogspot.com
Hervelvetvase.com
Ohsofickle.com.sg
 

Winner for Best Food Blog: IeatIshootIpost’s Dr. Leslie Tey. He’s a medical doctor by day, food blogger by night! 

According to Chee Kiang, Jon always quotes from Dr. Leslie Tey’s IeatIshootIpost.sg about nice places to eat around Singapore. He must be really good at juggling his time with his medical career and his food blogging! I’m not sure to what extent his popularity goes out to, but he seems to have appeared on a tv programme before and his camera equipments are sponsored by Canon too.

Quite proud of my boyfriend also. Seems to be quite savvy about a few Singapore blogs. He even reads Taxi Diary!

Other nominees were:
Eatshowandtell.com
Awhiffoflemongrass.com
Ladyironchef.com
Kitchencow.com

Winner of Best Fashion Blog went to Lady Melbourne! I love her hair bun!! So elegant. Apparently I’m a total dinosaur here. So ancient in terms of blogging trends that I should just hang up my blogging hat and call it a day. I never knew fashion blogs were a whole category on their own. Given, I know Tongue In Chic is a good example and have become a staple to almost all Malaysian girls… but yeah, didn’t know it has spread like wild fire! 

Other nominees:

Fashionation.wordpress.com
Bryanboy.com (strange that he didn’t win..given the amount of supporters he has. He even has a Marc Jacob bag named after him, okay?)
Monoxious.com
Superkawaiimama.com

Winner of Best Parenting Blog: Childhood101!

My favourite parenting blog will always be Loopymeals (been reading since 2004 and now the kid that they were pregnant with is attending kindergarten) and Karen Cheng (speaking of which, why is she not nominated?)

Other nominees:

Oureverydaythings.com
Wifelysteps.com
Redmummy.com
Planningwithkids.com

Winner of Best Travel Blog: Ironwulf.net! All the way from the Phillipines!! 

Other nominees:

Travelerfolio.com
Passportchop.com
Akademifantasia.org
Nicolekiss.blogspot.com

Winner of Best Celebrity Blog: Joanne Peh!!!111111111111. I didn’t get a picture with her. 🙁 I loved her so much in Little Nyonya. She’s really tall in real life and in the show, she’s quite tiny. So I suppose everybody who acted in Little Nyonya must be really tall. 🙂 If I go on the set, I’ll probably be the littlest one there. That would be nice for a change.

Also, I wanted to tell her that the guy who raped her in Little Nyonya is quite cute, so must’ve been quite nice! I also read that during the rape scene, he was so afraid to put his body weight on her because he was such a gentleman and had to place his entire weight on his knees. 🙂

Other nominees:

Cruzteng.com
Fallagain.pitas.com
Inibelogsaya.blogspot.com
Haringliwanag.pansitan.net

Winner for Best Entertainment Blog: Kenny Sia! MALAYSIA BOLEH!! (finally lo)

I knew Kenny would have won hands down. 

Other nominees:

Girlwithasatchel.blogspot.com
Cowboycaleb.liquidblade.com
Budiey.com
Beautifulnara.com

Toilet break! Met up with Yenli and camwhored. We were placed so far apart. Table 8 and Table 34. ;\

I finally got to meet Nicole Kiss after spending nights chatting together on Gtalk about her Thailand adventures, my sticker business, her jewelry business. She even sent me a whole pack of stickers from Thailand once. 🙂 Thanks babes. She’s really tall in person too and just as pretty as in her pictures. :) 

Jojo Struys, our local Malaysian celebrity. I first met her in 2003 on the set of Kopitiam when I went to the Vision New Media studios in Section 14 to interview Douglas Lim for my school magazine.

Wai Ping or as most of you know her, Pinky! She’s now studying in Melbourne and also working part time for Nuffnang Australia! 

Audrey! Tiny hat for a tiny girl, awww! Love your dress, Aud!

Cheryl, whom I met at the Vpost Christmas Party last year, happened to sit next to me at my table. YAY! 

Trying to get more couply shots. I was complaining why didn’t he put his head nearer to mine and he’s like, “Your hat thing keep poking me!”

Realized I didn’t have one with Soon Seng!

Doesn’t Diese look resplendent in that shade of blue? I love how it stands out. Maybe my dental dinner dress should be this shade of blue.

Winner of Most Influential Blog, Winner of Best Blog Design, Winner of Region’s Best Blog: All Xiaxue. 🙂 She won so many times that she could have a few laughs with a variety of acceptance speech. Kenny even came up to do the whole Kanye West thing: “Xiaxue, imma let you finish but I just wanna say that Steven Lim has the best blog OF ALL TIME!” If you don’t know who Steven Lim, go google him. Maybe google “Steven Lim Singapore” to get more specific results. 

Other nominees of Most Influential Blog:

Kennysia.com
Beautifulnara.com
Down–to–earth.blogspot.com
Jehzlau-concepts.com

 

As for Best Blog Design’s nominees:

Phunkiefresh.net
Akiraceo.com
Octwelve.com
Jayleif.blogspot.com

See how happy she was!

Winner of Best Hidden Gem: Dedoodleblog.blogspot.com

This category consist of blogs that are instant hits among the masses though they are new.

Nominees:

Teddy-o-ted.com
Lollili.blogspot.com
Taxidiary.blogspot.com
Lobbylu.com

Jayden, accepting his SGD5000 prize money for his Pringles video. It was so good that some commercials on tv can’t even fight it.

A group shot of the finalists at the end of the event.

With Kimcun and Shaolintiger. Kim, I love your dress! Futuristic lapels (?), them.

With Ringo! 

Yenli, Soon Seng and orang gila.

Yee Hou so big boy now. *wipes tears from eyes*

Huai Bin is awake this time around! The last event (Vpost Christmas Party) he konked out before we were even half way through, hehe.

I’m actually enjoying the variety of bloggers I saw there that night. Here we have Leeza Foo, owner of Tasty Cherry Chapstick and Yien Yee, the brains and beauty behind A Shopaholics Den. A Shopaholics Den is one of the must-go-to blogshop review site for all online shopaholics in Malaysia.

And David Wong! Always nice to have friends who come into the Nuffnang family (which pretty much means the blogosphere) from my circle of friends outside the blogging world. This includes people like Wai Ping, Soon Seng and Audrey. I met David Wong during a lunch session at Sakae Sushi and he couldn’t stop talking. So we set him up with one of our friends. Shhh. Secret. 😛 Then one day I got some advertorial email from Yee Hou, Cc-ed to David Wong. It included an introduction to their new staff “David”. I took quite a while to put one and one together before sending an ALL CAPS email back to him asking him what in the world was he doing in Nuffnang. He said, “Working.”

And of course, how could I leave the awards without a photo with Xiaxue? 

She was very friendly (she sometimes helps me to clean my Farmville and eats from my Cafe in Cafeworld. She’s a nice person like that) and she said, “Wah your boobs like popping out like that,” and I said, “Thank you!! Wait, is that a compliment?” and she said, “Yaa it’s a compliment.” Awwww..so sweet. Thanks Xiaxue. 🙂

Made Chee Kiang take one with Xiaxue just so he could brag to his friends at uni. 😛

Tim still looks every bit the proud father. It was his baby’s big day!

With the beautiful ladies from Bonito Chico! I just can’t get over how hot they are. 

With Hui Wen who is always so layan (Hui Wen, it means very… how do you say.. along the lines of entertaining another person) on twitter. She is, as I have learned, Nuffnang’s Country Manager.

With Christine, Chee Kiang’s ex-uni mate.

Oooh couply shot again. 

With Red Mummy! Her lashes wins mine lah.

Grabbed a few of the girls who were in shades of blue for a photo.
L-r: Yenli, Jolyn, Haze and myself. Love love love the colours!

Ooops forgot to include Diese who was in the nicest shade of blue. But you get to see her shoes anyways.

Long story short, the event wrapped up at 11 plus but due to some logistics issue (poor Yee Hou) we only managed to get back to the hotel at almost 1am. Went out for some bites with Chee Kiang and Soon Seng, both who coincidentally do not have any Cheah or Lam female cousins or siblings. Thus they were talking about how nice it would be to have a younger sister so that they can see if female Cheahs/Lams will be attractive to men. LOL. What kind of thoughts are those.

Chee Kiang left the hotel at 5.30am for his Nike Human Race. Crazy one. Sleep at almost 3.30am some more. At least I had longer hours in bed and went down to meet the other bloggers at 8.30am. Some couldn’t wake up and missed the bus ride to the city.

L-r: One of two Cheah boys, Yenli and myself.

Raine and myself. She’s so cute!! *pinch*

That’s Mike Yip!

With Ginny, Natalie and Vvens.

HAIYOH, this Natalie is so cute with her goldfish impression. If only I had a video. She could do the whole ‘bloop bloop bloop’ thing.

Didn’t want to burden whoever who was helping us take this group photo thus I just snapped one from where I was. Can see Chee Kiang walking towards us after his race. Hahaha. He was so drenched!

Group photo without me, coz I was the one taking the photo. 🙁

One with the soggy boy.

Woot. Always wanted to go up but too kiamsiap to. AND NOW WE HAVE IT FOR FREE. Ah, blogging rocks kan.

To show you the satisfied look on my face.

I presume it’s for some upcoming Halloween thingie.

With the flyer. We were talking about wedding proposals in the flyer. So now he cannot use that idea anymore because I’ve already heard of such wedding proposals. Poor Chee Kiang. hohoho. I’ve already heard of Fireworks over the Grand Canyon, From The London Eye, At Tasik Kenyir, At Mount Kinabalu, At One of Their Parents’ Backyard, Over the Internet (WTF? Got read or not, that #AlvinandRachel thingie.)…. so yeah. 😀

You can have dinner inside the capsule for SGD200 per person. We were like, “wah not bad..” when we first heard it. Come to think of it, I think we forgot to convert back to ringgit. :\

Woo~ Big.

You can hardly feel the capsule moving.

So much space to walk around. We had our own tour guide too, just because we are so called categorized as media people. I thought it was pretty cool that the marketing person they sent to accompany us is named Joleen Lau. 😀 So similar to my name! 

That’s part of the F1 tracks.

With the view of the water catchment area.

With Raine and Wai Ping. I’d include Ringo too but she wasn’t looking.

Okay, here are some snapshots of the view from the flyer.

Participants from the Nike Human Race.

How quintessential Singapore.

Someone’s Blackberry Storm! *slurp*

Another couply shot, sorry ah. We don’t have many this year.

I think the flyer maintenance team are doing a good job. I can take such clear photos through their windows!

Almost as if there’s no barrier between me and the ground below.

Can you see the number 31?

More of the centre of Singapore.

Twas a lovely sunny day.

Like playing battleship like that!

That’s where my grandma and I will be hanging out when it’s ready!

Sorry ah one more.

Group shot!

 
Managed to grab a pic with Cynthia before I left.

Obligatory side shot of the flyer.

One last picture with Ginny, Vvens and Natalie before I ran off with Chee Kiang for lunch at City Hall, a 2 hour snooze fest back at the hotel before my flight back to Penang. 

Thank you Nuffnang for the invitation and free lodging! 😀