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Sunday Dimsum

I'm a sucker for nice dim sum, so when Fred suggested to go to a dim sum restaurant, I immediately said yes. We went to this restaurant once, when we were still dating. The place was old with a dirty red carpet on the stairs but the dim sums were super nice. So we went to Shaw building and the restaurant was no longer there. We thought they closed business or something when we noticed one small announcement pasted in the window. They are moving to Takashimaya!!

A new place is spacious, more grandeur and service is superb. We walked out as two happy customers.

 

 

Color Splash

Was browsing through old files and voila, found a forgotten watercolor sketch. I still remember, after I finished this one, Ellen asked me if I wanted to go groceries shopping at nearby shopping center. Cold day, but we had a bright, clear sky.

 

This one below is what happen when I don't have a clear idea what to draw. But it's fun, just a few drops of watercolor on white paper, blow in every directions… and there you have it.

My New Sketch Blog

エヴァのスケッチブログ

At long last, I have new blog and it will be all about my drawing and nothing else; in pencil, ink, watercolor and oil painting. 

A drawing a day and it will keep you from stress v(^o^)v

Wicked is Wickedly Wicked

Last Saturday we went to see this critically acclaimed Broadway musical, Wicked. I love its theme song, Defying Gravity, since the first time I heard it, made me want to watch the play. Ever since, I was secretly hoping that it would open here in Singapore, and it is! Started from December 2011, the show will open until April 2012 at Grand Theater Marina Bay Sands.

The story tells us about Elphaba and Glinda, how they became known as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good in the Wizard of Oz story. I'm rooting for the misunderstood Elphaba and as for Glinda, hmm that's a tough one. I found myself hating Glinda at first, she's definetely those popular, shallow, mean girls we all met (or became one? lol) at high school. Halfway through the story though, Glinda and Elphaba became really good friends and it was funny seeing Glinda's effort to make Elphaba popular.

Oooh I loved all the actresses, they are good! I don't even mind watching the play again for the second time or the third time, or the fourth time... you got the idea. Not bored at all!! I can clearly see why the Wicked got all the major awards. Five out of five witch hats. 

Quick Sketches

I will be joining a 10-week watercolor workshop started next week *ahh so excited, can't wait*, so I'd better start sketching again. 

Wheeew... been a long time. Feels great to be immersed in a world of lines and shapes.

~ Sipping a cup of coffee in an afternoon while sketching ~

Valentine's Day

Yay… my hubby agreed to become my co-blogger wakkaka. So, it is only appropriate to let him begin his debut to a blogging world by writing about our Valentine's Day 2012 experience.
v(=^o^=)v

.: February 14, 2012. Tuesday :.
Written by: FM
About a week before the D-day, I went to several flower shops to look for special bouquet to give to my wife on Valentine's day. I already had an idea of the bouquet and what I actually wanted was to have the florist to deliver the bouquet to our home, exactly on 12am, but they could not do it, saying that the service is not available for Valentine's day. I was disappointed but I figured that I would just bring it home myself after work.
Secondly, I thought of having a good dinner for our Valentine's day.  So, I was out searching for a nice restaurant for the special dinner.  With a help (or no help) from my colleague, we created a list of restaurants. However, after making some calls, I immediately realized that it was tough to find a good restaurant when I tried to book just a day before the D-day. In the end, I was relieved that I could find one :)
After bouquet and dinner reservation, I still need to prepare for gift. Again, a day before the D-day, I went down to Tiffany & Co in Takashimaya to look for the gift and I got a pendant that I hoped she would like.
This is the first year we celebrate Valentine's Day as wedded couples. It started at 12am at home when I presented the gift to her. I was really glad that she loved it.

The next day, I was able to sign off early from work. I went to pick up the bouquet and actually wanted to take a cab home after that. The queue was long (guess a lot of people went home early from work that day) so I decided to take the bus home. I was the only one bringing bouquet of flower on my hand, but I could not care less. When I finally arrived home and presented the bouquet, it was well received (hurray) :D
We could not spend more time at home as we need to send our parents and brother to the airport. When we reached the airport and finished checking in, it was still early. To spend more time together while waiting for boarding, we went to "Paradise Inn" restaurant (just upstairs) to relax and have some food. However, after flipping the menu for about 10 minutes, we could not decide on what to order. We ended up ordering set menu. It came with a veggie dish cooked with salted egg, fried rice, wasabi shrimp, chicken soup, desserts and cold drinks. It was good. I ended up eating a lot and was wondering whether I could eat my Valentine's dinner later :P
After waving goodbye to our parents and brother, we realized that it was still 7.30pm when our dinner would be at 9pm. We, then decided to go to Changi City Point to just walk around until about 8.15pm before going for the dinner. The dinner was at "Forlino" restaurant, located at One Fullerton. I'd never been to that place so we just followed the sign and after going through alleys and steps, we're finally in the dining hall. The place was exquisite and the view was great. We spent our 7-course Valentine's dinner accompanied by great music from the violinists. The dinner was a special way to close our Valentine's Day. Most importantly, though, I got to spend the special day with my special one ;)

~ Our Sumptuous 7-Course Dinner ~

Another Yazawa Dinner

.: February 13, 2012. Monday :.

My mum and dad and my bro came to Singapore before traveling to Australia on the 14th. And today, we brought them to Yazawa for dinner. Yeah, it is the same Yazawa that my ex-colleague introduced to us and the beef was really on-par with those I had in Kobe that I wanted my family to try it as well.

And... they liked it, as I knew they would. Whenever I'm craving for a good (best?) bbq, i would go to Yazawa. Hmmm beefff… gimme more beef...

Busy Saturday

.: February 11, 2012. Saturday :.

What a busy Saturday we had.

This morning we went to a wedding. The bride and groom are our friends at church. Luckily their wedding reception ended at 2 PM so we rushed to the other end of Singapore to attend my colleague's daughter birthday bash. After that, accompanied Fred to hospital. It was a long day and it made me down to think that I had to work again at midnight today. At my state, I could drift off anytime soon let alone survived till morning. Thank God we reached home at around 7 PM, so I had 4 hours to steal some sleep.

What's for Dinner?

.: February 7 - 8, 2012 :.

I'm glad we have a Japanese supermarket, all the major Japanese food brands can be found here. So me and hubby went there for our weekly groceries shopping and I decided to try kare udon and katsu don recipes.

Oh well, kare udon is a no brainer really, you just melt down some kare blocks, add beef, put it on rice or udon. But I was a bit nervous about katsu don tho. As always, I hate it when it comes to deep frying. I can't tell if the dish is cooked or not. My idea of making sure it is cooked through, is to keep frying until it's blackened. If it's not dark golden brown yet, it's not cooked haha. And it didn't stop there, there is another stage of cooking involved in making katsu don.

So when I tasted the final dish, I was quite surprised that it tasted good (not to boast or anything, but it did taste good :p). Now, katsu don is our favorite meal (I leave the frying part to my hubby).

Cell Group Dinner

.: February 3, 2012. Friday :.

This week's Friday we had a cell group + dinner in our place. I prepared a very simple dishes, mpek-mpek, otak-otak, sushi roll, inari zushi and chicken wings. On top of that, our friends brought some side dishes and a huge blackforest cake. What a feast it was when I thought we only had a simple dinner :) We were celebrating our two cell group friends' birthday as well. Lovely night.

A Wedding and Reunion

.: January 28 - 30, 2012 :.

I was so excited to be back in Jakarta again. This time it was for a friend's wedding. We arrived on saturday, my mum and bro picked us up at the airport and we went to Bekasi straight away to inspect our new house. From there, we drove to Plaza Indonesia, since it is the closest mall to our hotel, to meet my friends Tika and Rosa. I discovered huge news, soo happy for my girl, way to go Tik, hihi.

Sadly, time didn't allow us to share many more gossips, my mum's close friend already booked us to have dinner together. Aahh the same restaurant we always went to whenever my mum visited me during my college years. After dinner, we even went to Binus, my bro wanted to sleep over at his friend's place near there. Seeing again the building where I stayed for over 3 years brought back old memories. I remember me and my "Golden Bowl" friends went out at midnight in search of a bowl of noodle and we had to literally make our way back through thunders and rain. In the middle of the night! I didn't know why I said yes to such an idea back then lol.

 

~ Our sinful yet super delicious dinner! ~

The drink is from a fruit called "Holland eggplant". I thought I heard my mum wrongly but yes, she said "terong belanda" with a face that said it wasn't a big deal at all haha. I asked her why would I want to drink an eggplant juice and my mum gave me her word that it was good, and It was indeed.

 

~ JW Marriott, the hotel we stayed at ~

 

~ The wedding ~

Hihi it felt weird seeing my friend's getting married, particularly this friend of mine. He is a friend that has seen the lowest of my lowest states, seen my teary face and listened patiently to my incoherent blubbering. He did all those with his signature goofiness wakkkaka. So, I am super duper happy for him.

Maldives: Sea, Sun, and More Sun

Deciding where we would go for our honeymoon was no easy task, albeit fun and exciting. So many places to go, many choices and I just couldn't make up my mind. Since winter always be my favorite season and I would love to feel snow falling on my face again, I wanted to go to Europe. But then, swimming at the beach is also feels like heaven. Remembering Lombok *gee, we used to go to the beach there, swimming every weekend* and Phuket, made me yearn for a little bit of sunshine and sea. So Maldives it was for us.

We took a late evening flight to Male from Singapore, a four hours flight. Male International Airport is the main airport in Maldives. From there, a team from Club Med escorted us to a speed boat for a 30 minutes ride to Kani island. What a bumpy ride it was, like, at times we were literally being tossed off our seat.

At Kani, we were given a light green ribbon to be worn as a bracelet. So, apparently, they use this ribbon to distinguish people who stay in lagoon suite from other guests who stay in other types of suites (beach, land, etc.). They have a special lounge area, called Manta Lounge, where everyone is denied access except for guests staying in lagoon suites, so it's for this purpose.

 

~ Manta Lounge, a place where you can have a free flow of champagne while basking in the sun ~

 

~ A bottle of champagne *on the house, of course* awaited us in our room. We didn't it drink it tho, we brought back home haha ~

Things that I like about staying in a lagoon suite; whenever I felt like swimming, I went to the room terrace, and the sea was right down there. How cool is that. Also, a bath tub facing the ocean and we had our mini bar refilled everyday!

Being in Maldives, I remember I only took a shower once a day haha *oops*. Well, why bother? Where you can throw yourself in water at anytime? And an abundance of food! We had breakfast, walked along the beach, collecting shells, dropped by at beach bar, grabbed a bite, went snorkeling, had lunch, swam at the pool, dropped by at beach bar again, and hang out there until it came time for dinner. And amazingly, I only gained 1 kg! Maybe walking under the sun equals to sauna :p

I guess we were lucky. As it happened, on our last day there, they arranged a special dinner event. Dining Under the Stars. True enough, that night stars indeed shone brightly and in just a couple of hours later, we were rushing to a jetty deck ready to endure 30 minutes speed-boat ride back to Male airport. Hope there will be honeymoon part 2 hoho.

Chinese New Year Lunches

.: Monday, January 23, 2012 :.

Happy chinese new year! Now… I know people got excited over this year's being a dragon year. I say, every second, every hour, every day, every month, and every year is good since it is created by Him for us. So… be it dragon year, rat, bla bla bla, continue on living and giving our best <3

What I like about CNY here is we have 2 days off, how cool is that. And initially I wanted to go back Bali, playing with my "barongsai" puppies, but as it happened, we have family coming over instead. We spent Sunday afternoon having dinner together at fred's brother's place. Then, we had the rest of the days off for ourselves. Off to Vivo city we went, to take a look at Sentosa Flower Festival. But oh my, when we reached vivo, it looked like the mall was being invaded by those Chinese and Indians wanting to go to Sentosa as well. Bye bye flower festival.

Aahh… it was Padang dishes for our lunch. I wanted to have dim sum but all chinese restaurants were closed on first day of CNY.

 

.: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 :.

Okay so Padang was not that bad, but I was dying for dim sum. Thank God the 2nd day of CNY, one decent chinese restaurant was open.

Dinner Marathon with Colleagues

.: Thursday, January 19, 2012 :.

One of our ex-colleagues will be leaving for Taiwan, so we arranged a little farewell dinner cum pre chinese new year dinner. After office, five of us heading to Hillman Restaurant at Ferrer Park. There, we met two ex-colleagues. Meeting ex-colleagues together over meal will certainly bring a lot of interesting gossips haha. Overall, having dinner together with colleagues is what makes me remember we are all "human being", and we tend to forget that when we get so stressed out. So it was nice, to recall again why I like working together with them, and on top of that, to bitch together about our sworn enemy at office lol. 😏

 

.: Friday, January 20, 2012 :.

Yazawa is a traditional Japanese yakiniku style restaurant. I like the ambiance, like a real izakaya place. Well, my ex-colleague Kenjin has been persuading me to try this restaurant for literally since the first month of us working together until now, that is almost 1.5 year. And wanna know why it took me 1.5 year? It's because Yazawa only serves a top quality beef which only means one plate of certain part of cow can cost $120 - $150, only for 5-6 slices 😱  But those meat… they're so ridiculously good.

So, five of us *two of them are ex-colleagues* braced ourselves to enter this place. We trusted Kenjin, who clearly is a Yazawa regular, to pick a menu for us. For an appetizer, we had a tomato flown over from Japan which costed $12, for one bloody tomato! But the grown-in-Japan tomato proved itself worth the price. Really, I never tasted tomato that good before nor have I ever eaten one when I still stayed in Japan. If I knew Japan's tomatoes cost so high here, I would have eaten myself sick of tomatoes in Japan. 😪

For the drink, what else could best accompany beef other than sake? Besides, our friend Kenjin is notoriously fond of wine and sake. I had a Calpis, aaah hishashiburi ni~

Oh the meat, made me recall my wagyu kobe beef experience with my family. It melted in your mouth, that's how good it is. And see that marble like pattern?… kampeki. They said that all the beef is flown from Japan everyday without refrozen twice so it's all fresh… and tastes so lip-smackingly good 😘

The Forgotten Blog

Well well well, if this blog was a book, it would be collecting dust by now haha. Just finished setting up new blog editor in iMac and guess what, I forgot my blog URL @.@ and I had to open up my iPad whose browser cache, luckily hasn't been cleared for decade, to look up my blog URL!

So it is some sort of wake up call I guess, for me to start blogging again.

To start off with a topic, I switched to Mac. Noo, not completely, I mean I still own my dear old pink vaio but it is getting less and less used now. And this iMac is not mine but Fred's. He has it since.. i dunno, more than three years ago maybe, a gift from his boss, but is never used. I know, riiigghht?? When I figured out this iMac whereabout almost two years ago, I literally rolled my eyes, took a deep sigh and began throwing him a series of why's. Why he is not using it is incomprehensible to me. I mean, who doesn't want to use Mac especially when he has one?  Such a beauty and he has it covered up in a box *sob, sob* So, it is up to me now to unleash this pretty iMac.

Littered with Books

  I still remember how excited I was the first time I set foot in this little, gorgeous bookstore. Littered with Books embodies what a cozy bookstore should look like.

Well, I guess I should thank a local TV programme that covers small yet beautiful stores in Singapore. When they aired one episode about a small cake shop owned by a Japanese chef, I made note to visit the shop. And God be good. Just there across the street from the pastry shop, among the quiet neighborhood, stood the cutest bookstore I’ve ever laid my eyes on, in real life.

It is charming and inviting with an ever-so-lovely white colonial windows lined the wall of its two-storey house. The owner must be a real book lover and they paid so much attention in the store decoration as well. Every little detail seemed to add a nice touch to the overall vibe. The placement of sofa, table, books on display… ohhh bottom line is, I adore this little bookstore. Small haven for you who get sick of shopping malls!!!

Note: All photos courtesy of “GreatNewPlaces”

Company Trip: Bangkok Day 1

.: September 09, 2011, Friday :.

Gyaa… I missed the flight! O.M.G! I was supposed to meet my other two colleagues at Changi airport at 6 AM and guess what, I woke up at 7 AM. The flight to Bangkok was scheduled to take off at 7:40.

Okay, so here’s a bit of story behind. Our boss, being so kind and generous, arranged a company trip to Bangkok for 3D2N, return air tickets and hotel rooms paid by company. Supposed to leave Singapore on Friday morning, the majority of my colleagues decided to go there on Thursday night after work, leaving me and the other two stayed on schedule. So only three of us on a Friday morning flight, which in the end, only two really got on the plane.

You really got no idea how horrified I was. I woke up and looked at the clock and was stunned. I couldn’t believe I woke up at 7 and even if I was to grab my luggage and head to airport in my pajamas, I could never make it, geez, the damn flight was at 7:40 AM!! And on top of that, I felt really sorry for bf, he was waiting outside since 5 o’clock, trying to call me with no result *my phone was switched off automatically every night*. By the time I panicky called him from my room, he was still standing outside *sobs*. Man, if I was him, I already left and tried calling from my home.

I almost decided not to leave but I thought about all expenses paid by my boss were about to waste, I felt bad and finally waiting at the airport for the Thai airways counter to open at 9:30 AM, trying to get myself on the next flight to Bangkok even if I had to pay for the ticket myself. Well, they did put me on standby and I was told to wait until 12 PM to see if I got the seat or not. It was excruciating to wait for 2 hours and not knowing. Every time I asked the staff, they brushed me off.

Finally, the moment of truth. They called my name and gave me a boarding pass without me paying a single cent. Lucky my company bought a commercial air ticket.

In Bangkok, after checked in to Baiyoke Sky Hotel, I had the time for myself until dinner time, so I got my nails done in gel overlay, they say it can last for two months. Let’s see…

Star Virgo: Redang Island Day 2

.: September 01, 2011, Thursday :.

We arrived at Pulau Redang and decided not to take any excursion and boy… I was glad we didn’t. The weather was just killer, hot, hot, hot. We stepped out of the ship anyway and hit the beach, sat in front of the pub overlooking the beach. We waited and waited for the sun to be a little bit tolerated, but it didn’t happen so in the end we just decided to go back to ship. It was an okay day overall, enjoying banana fritters while watching a local band performing “Waka Waka” dance with tourists.

Star Virgo: Redang Island Day 1

.: August 31, 2011, Wednesday :.

Phew. I never thought I could make it on time. I was prepared to burn the travel voucher just like last time. Everything began few months ago when we got this awesome good deal on Star Virgo Cruise. Well, just like anything else without proper planning especially on a company leave wise, it was destined to be doomed. I had one good example before, I bought a trip to Batam, since I never been there before, and on the day itself, I couldn’t get a work leave, hence the first doom. Had to close one eye and tried not to think the money left wasted *sob*. 

Almost like the first one, I knew days before that I had a small chance of going. Geez, so damn busy at office for that whole week. You never know how I mentally schemed the situation to figure out a loop hole and came up with explanation so I could go, but no matter what it was like there wasn’t any hole for me to escape. Many meetings I couldn’t ditch out coz they’ll affect my future haha. Luckily, all meetings finished on-time which was a miracle, coz like, never before in our company a meeting finished on a scheduled time! So I quickly hopped on a cab at 6 PM and rushed to Harbourfront Centre. The check in counter would be closed at 6:30 and the gate will be closed at 7 PM. By the time I reached there, bf already waiting at the counter and no one else was queuing. I made it.

After checked in, we found ourselves in a very long queue with lots of Indians and  mainland Chinese pressed against us. Gosh, I don’t know why they like to stand very close to each other and basically people queuing in front of them! It’s not like the queue will move by them doing so!! Anyway, after a grueling 45 minutes or so, we stepped on the cruise. After taking photos, the first thing we did: EAT. We had an international buffet at Mediterranean Restaurant. After that, we roamed about the huge ship; library *ooh the room was so pretty*, slot machines room, and my fave of all was Observatory area. It was a sitting place next to a floor-to-ceiling window. You can just sit there and look out to the sea, sipping a hot chocolate milk, reading book. My definition of relax, indeed.