Sunday, March 2, 2008
Le Bistrot @ Stadium WalkHad our belated Vday dinner at Le Bistrot at Stadium Walk. Had always been wanting to try it, especially it is so close to home. Nice, quaint little place with great food to match, but a little on the pricey side. We had a crab and yoghurt starter, pink pork and duck confit as mains, and assorted flavoured creme brulee as dessert. Regretted not taking a few more pics of the interior though.
After dinner, popped over to Kallang Leisure Park and deliberated for a long time before we decided to part with $78 to get this baby. Nice eh? Consolation - I saw the same thing in Marina Square a week later and it was selling for $128! So, ours is a good buy! Ok cheap thrill but bottomline, I think it's really nice. I can even see the time now without my specs hahahaha.
it got me home
4:24 PM
Shokudo Japanese Food Bazaar @ Raffles City
Met Shannen for lunch on the first Friday at my new job. Really miss having lunches with her and the girls. Now my team is small and I'm the only girl and the guys don't usually lunch together, so I have to find my own lunch kakis all the time. And I have no one to gossip with at work....ultimate bore....but well, I guess the money and being able to scoot home early makes up for it. I can always keep in touch with the girls outside of work ya? As long as they don't forget about me....sobsob.....
Anyway, tried out this new place at Raffles City called Shokudo. Read about it from the papers and some food blogs. Seems interesting as it is a Jap restaurant with Marche-concept. You reserve your table with a huge chess lookalike thingy, and you order your food by charging to a card they hand to you at the door, and you settle the bill at the end of the day at the cashier. There was a huge variety of Jap food ranging from sashimi, sushi, ramen, jap pastas and pizzas, Jap curries, yakitori, burgers, omelettes, jap desserts etc etc...Amazing! I was excited as a little girl in Disneyland haha.
Food was good and prices were quite reasonable. And Shannen and I pigged out on the following. I think the teriyaki chicken burger was yummy and looks damn good also. It has a sunny side up inside and the bread was thick and chewy. Yum! Highly recommended! And it's only $6.80!
it got me home
4:00 PM
Valentine's DayWhat I received for V-day......My receptionist and secretary thought the bling thingy may be something costly so they guarded it with their lives, dropping me emails and voice messages to ask me to collect my gift from their seats. Haha! As if blings will be sent via delivery...=p
it got me home
3:53 PM
Saturday, March 1, 2008
康 之《上海之夜》
The much awaited musical Shanghai Nights commenced its 2-night run on 8th Feb. Being part of the Huayi Festival, they coincided it with CNY and thus I wasn't able to watch all 3 performances. Only decided to watch the last show on 9th Feb night. Candy and Ada came all the way from HK to watch all 3 performances! Kudos to them for being such ardent supporters! Ruiwen also came from Taiwan but she also only watched the last night's show.
Met up with Candy, Ada, Ruiwen, Xiuwen, Yammie and Celestine at Gallery Hotel where Candy was staying before adjourning for dinner at MOF at Marina Square. The hotel room was quite a let down cos I was expecting the nice themed-type rooms I've always read about Gallery Hotel. Unfortunately I think those are only for the suites and Candy's room was just a standard room. Felt quite heartache for them cos it's not cheap to stay there and it wasn't exactly a very convenient location. They chose to stay there cos we thought Hong was going to be there too! Sigh.
After a dinner with slow and bad service, we rushed to Esplanade hurriedly lest the doors closed on us, as apparently they start at 8pm on the dot. Grabbed a few program booklets on the way. Then we felt like some cheapos cos we each grabbed like more than 5. Wahahaha.
The musical was entertaining on the whole but Mindee Ong's singing left more to be desired. Her stage acting was commendable, after all she is quite a good actress but her role required some good singing to deliver and completely bring out the character and it's angst. Somehow, I felt that because of this, Hong also fell short in his portrayal of his character. It felt as if he was holding back something, afraid to unleash his full potential in case he overshadows her with his singing prowess. Nonetheless, that aside, his first foray into musicals is very commendable. Considering that he is not mandarin speaking, he was able to deliver his lines with conviction and clarity. One DJ on his blog commented that william so aside, he was taken aback by the other casts' pronunciation of words. But hello, I think Hong did the best job in terms of pronunciation, especially given the fact that he is cantonese speaking. So give him credit where it's due ok? I'm so proud of Hong in his success of his first ever musical. =)
After the musical, Candy told us that she had arranged with Hong's assistant to meet with Hong before he goes for his post-musical celebration. While waiting, Candy and I saw some people coming out from another exit at the carpark, so we went there to have a look first in case we missed him. Hung around there for awhile and when we almost walked off, Hong appeared from the door. We quickly motioned for Xiuwen to call the rest over while Hong entertained an autograph request from some guy.
When Hong came to us, he immediately asked us, is there aircon inside? ( cos we were at the carpark where it's quite warm). We replied got ah, and he quickly chased us in, saying then still don't go in??? So hot here! Faint.....Anyway once inside, Candy and I gave him a hug to congratulate him and we all started chatting. Hong as usual was super patient, even though the car was waiting to bring him to the celebration. He started the ball rolling with the autographs and photo taking. And we continued to chat along the way.
Once I asked his SG assistant if Hong bullied him. And Hong quickly jumped in and said hey, you should ask if HE bullied ME! Then he playfully "scolded" me "你这个臭婆娘!" . I was like what????????!!!!!!!! Then Candy chided him back with a "臭男人!" and I added on "你才是 猪八戒呢!" haha! I think if people didn't know him, they would think how come he is so rude! But if you understand Hong well, you would notice that he will only say such things to his friends or people he knew well. If it's fans that he respected he wouldn't be so unpolite. Haha. So, do I count myself lucky or what ah? Haha. Cos Xiuwen and Celestine heard him and told me softly "You happy liao la?" Hahaha scolded also happy meh? I felt like beating him lor.....=p
Anyway before that his assistant actually mentioned to Candy that Hong didn't want to let us know where his post-musical celebration was going to be as he was afraid that wherever they go will be dangerous. We were like huh????? Dangerous?? In Singapore??? Faint. So while chatting with Hong, I asked him, so where in SG is dangerous ah? Then he errrr......and replied iya i know it's at clarke quay la but where exactly I'm also not sure lor.....was that a hint?? But I didn't want to press him la, cos we weren't exactly interested to know since we weren't intending to follow him anyway. We had already planned to go to Clarke Quay to meet Alvin from Lunar, cos Candy wanted to pass him some stuff. So when I heard Hong mention Clarke Quay, I told Candy maybe he's going to Lunar too? Hmmm....
After quite some time spent with us, Hong finally left after giving each and every one of us a big hug. Hehe. That is Hong for you, always so obliging and without airs. Not like some other celebrities who probably run away the moment they see fans approaching hahaha.
Our next stop was Clarke Quay but as Alvin was only coming to work at 1230am, we went to Coffee Club to have a drink first. When we met Alvin outside Lunar, he insisted we got a chop to go in so that Candy can have a look inside. But as Ada and Ruiwen were still sitting at Coffee Club, we went back to them first and waited for Alvin to finish his first set. When he came to look for us at 130am, he again asked us to go in and have a look la. I was wondering why he was so persistent but I didn't think much of it la. He probably just wanted them to have a look a how a SG pub looked like. Anyways, after some chatting , we decided to move our butts and go to Lunar. Alvin even reminded us to take the lift up to the 2nd floor to have a look.
When we arrived at the second floor, my eyes scanned around in the dark and before I could even focus on anyone, Candy suddenly went "Ah Hong!". And sure enough, Hong was distinctly in sight at the far end of the 2nd floor. We strolled towards him, wondering whether to catch his attention, cos we didn't want him to think we were stalking him. Then he looked up and saw us and surprisingly, he actually smiled and waved at us! I think he was also surprised that we actually found him. Hahahaha. And and, he actually walked over to us from his crowd and stood there to chat with us for quite awhile leh! He smelt of peanuts although he said he drank alot hahaha. Anyway it was so noisy it made it so hard to chit chat with him. And he was standing next to me so I had to make small talk. Faint. Then there was a little dead air for awhile before he excused himself to rejoin his group. Whew! Luckily we didn't go in and bump into him earlier, if not I really dunno how to deal with the dead air in the noisy surroundings! Shortly after, he left with some guys and we actually sent him off to the lift haha. Then we made our way back to the hotel by foot, strolling along Clarke Quay etc in the wee hours of the morning. After sending them back, I took a cab home myself and only slept like hours later cos I was still enthralled with the whole exciting and eventful night.
Now for the pics.....
Something small I made from scratch for Hong
using the many brochures and booklets I koped from Sistic. I thought this would make a memory gift for him. I reminded him not to throw it away when I gave it to him. He said no la! Wahaha.
Group photo with HK, TW and SG fans!
The happy crowd :)
Me and Hong
Lastly, don't ask me why we both stand until like that...hahaha
Me and Candy at Lunar
it got me home
5:01 PM
How I spent my precious few days of tai-tai-domAs you all may already know, I've moved on from StarHub and embarked on a new career. No it's not tai-tai-dom. You wish. And I lagi wish. Money doesn't grow on trees so unfortunately I still gotta slog my life away.
Nonetheless, I managed to get about a week's break in between jobs to try and relax and do some tai-tai activities. But there wasn't really enough time as CNY was just round the corner and I spent most of my time trying to do last minute shopping and spring cleaning. So I ended up even more tired than usual! Argh!
My first day off was spent going for my long-overdue medical checkup for my new job. Thereafter went to meet Queenie to go to Waterloo Street temple and some shopping. Then was bored so I spent the rest of my evening at Pearl's Centre queueing for Jin Pin Xiang bah kwa. I never knew I had so much patience but I queued for a good 2 hours. Luckily I had my iphone as my companion and I was actually MSN-ing until my batt died. Luckily it was my turn when it died on me haha. Anyway, the ba kwa is delicious, it has this layer of glistening syrupy gravy thingy that makes it extra yummy.
One of the days was spent shopping for clothes and miscellaneous stuff. Oh and I did my mani and pedi too. And on the day nearer to CNY eve, I actually went to the wet market to buy food for our CNY reunion steamboat at home! Omg, it's my first time alone at the market and I was super lost. I didn't know how to choose the pork, the squid, the prawns...I just asked the sellers to help so I don't know if they cheated me or not. But whatever la...it was an eye-opening experience and I survived...that's the most important! =p
The rest of the free days was spent stoning at home although I would love to do more of what is reflected below....having a cuppa with my iphone and watching the world go by...alas, I didn't have the luxury of time...sigh.....
it got me home
4:24 PM
Total Recap!Hmph! Laugh some more la! You girls very bad, I very slack I admit la, but I'm trying ma. Laugh some more right? I give you all the recap, once and for all! Wahahaha!
Pasta de Waraku @ The Central
- with Fang, Wendy, Pat and Jimmy
Love the pastas, pizzas and desserts there. Pasta de Waraku became a frequent hangout when we meet for dinner. But so sinful --- carbs!!!!!!!!!
MOF is my all time favourite. The food is not bad and reasonably priced. Shannen intro to me this salad with wasabi mayo - got me hooked! And the bestest thing there is their desserts! Never leave without trying that warm sweet potato and green tea ice cream combo! =)
Ice Monster @ Plaza Singapura
- with Vic and Lipeng
The overworked girls decided to leave the office early that day and we went PS for some food therapy. Shared Carl's Junior (we asked them to cut the big burger into 3! HAHAHA) then went to Ice Monster to have some Taiwanese ice desserts. Not bad, but of cos can't beat the authentic ones in Taiwan. Nonetheless, a quick fix of momentary happiness haha.
Muffins Galore @ Home
MOF @ Bugis Junction
- with family and Auntie Angie's family
Mark's culinary delicacies @ Home
- Once in awhile, I get treated to home cooked food....hehe....looks yummy rite?
One night, we were bored and we went to get ourselves a deep fryer and some ingredients and prepared a feast of calamari, sotong balls and quail eggs wrapped in sausage meat. Looks cool right? Delicious too!
BBQ @ Fang's house
Popiah Lunch @ Queenie's
Went to help Queenie finish up her popiah from her party the day before. Hahaha....I love popiah! There was so much I even wrapped some and passed to Sis after that! Muahaha.
Christie's Baby Cavin!
Went to visit Christie and baby one weekend after Cavin was born. Cavin is sooooooo cute! He has poses in many varieties, and I snapped some from his Ultraman series. Hehe.
Waraku @ East Coast Park
- with family and parents-in-law
Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie @ Paragon
- with Shannen
One lunch time, after a healthy meal of salad prepared by Shannen's mum, we wasted her efforts by sinning at Canele Patisserie. Shared some delicious but damn rich cakes and some damn pricey teas. But it was a nice catchup session amidst the nice ambience. They had nice displays and lightings too. =)
Jay Chou Live @ Indoor Stadium
- with Queenie
Managed to secure tickets at the last minute and asked Queenie along with me as Mark had to travel overseas. I've always been indifferent to Jay. I mean, I do listen to his songs but I don't go all fanatical over him. But his concert opened my eyes to his showmanship, his musical talents (he plays so many instruments!!!) and his rare sense of humour. I think this is the first time I've heard him talk so much and I could actually understand him! Hahaha! Overall, it was an entertaining concert and strangely I knew almost all of his songs even though I don't own a single album of his. Queenie and I had to fit into the surroundings of teeny boppers, thankfully we had the hands provided by sponsor StarHub as our props. Hehe..
it got me home
1:59 PM
