My Cam Whoring Car Buddy

AIN'T HE PHOTOGENIC???

(The above was taken while I was waiting at traffic junction waiting for light to turn green..and of course playing with my new digi cam :p)

(Boliao...I know..)

My cheesecake baking session

Woke up especially early given how late I slept last night after LOTR on TV.

Everybody was out by the time I woke up. Was rummaging through the fridge when I saw the block of Philly cheese which I bought a while back..and remembered that I wanted to try the Jap Cheese cake recipe. And that was about at least 1 month back..or more than that?!


So since there weren't anything today..I decided to stay home, be a good girl, and bake meself a cheese cake :))


But I was out of milk and caster sugar, so it was to the nearby central to grab them. So full of the sunday family crowd. When suddenly at a turn I saw that someone was clearly enjoying a little snoozie in the midst of the hussle and bustle..




A picture of calm : the neko who is oblivious to the throngs of people walking around him No..he's not playing dead..which was what I thought initially..










Anyway it was grab-and-run. It's so hot and humid out there today!



Getting all set up

When baking alone, I hate to measure as I go..so I usually measure everything first and then just throw everything into the mixing bowl.

The weather was so darn hot..and I found this chilled. Went down very well as I was mixing :))

The recipe called for lemon juice..but I decided to use Active8 Lime which worked just as good in the last cheese cake I baked.












Beating the egg white... The last cheese cake, which is the traditional cheese cake, didn't require me to separate the egg yolks from the whites.











And finally, ready to bake!

TADA!! The final product!

(minus 3 slices eaten by me and my sister..heh~)

Though the cake didn't rise as much as I wanted it to, cos Japanese cheese cake supposed to be light and fluffy. But think I didn't do the egg white part properly, so the cake sank a bit after I turned off the fire. However,review has been 100% good! (out of 3 reviewers..including myself of course)

成功！:D

Estelle American Boy

Take me on a trip I'll like to go someday
Take me to New York I'll like to see LA



I can't get this song out of my mind since yesterday when the intern asked for the title of the song playing on radio. And the two -liner has been playing over and over again in my brain.

I lurve the black/white MV and her slightly raspy voice.

My colleague's take on me and my female colleagues frequent forage at Square 2

Anyway, my back and right knee are acting in concerto..did I say I was banning heels this week?! But for the lack of flats..(I have to wear something to wear dont't I).

So I need to buy more flats = shoe shopping!

Fishy Therapy

It's the season...of the peeling feet and hands.



It seems that there would a time of the year when the hands and soles start to shed skin (pls dont tell me that I am the only skin-shedding human around..?!). Anyway, it is getting a bit disgusting that I was contemplating to go for a pedi and trim away all the dead skin..when I remembered reading about some fishes that eat dead skins. Did a bit of googling and surfing, and thinking that it should be a fun experience, jio-ed another adventurous soul to try out the fishes at Kenko.









To Kenko To Kenko,

To Feed the Fishes





Nice setup! Was starting to relax..










Until I see the fishes. They swarm towards us the moment we lean over the pool to have a look. I think they know their dinner has arrived :s







We cleaned our feet and legs (up to the knees) with some 果酸wash..and popped our legs into the pool!


At first, we chose a pool with slightly bigger fishes



Then I couldn't take the ngiao-ness when all the fishes started nibbling!
(wow..I can still see my shin guard tan lines..)


Btw, the fishes were congregating below my feet waiting for them to be lowered into the water again...

The fishes really SWARMED your legs and you can feel the millions of nibble nibble. They have no teeth, but still was damn ticklish!!! And it's quite scary the way they hover and wait..

These were how big the fishes were.







So I decided to pop over to the other pool where the fishes are smaller...and hence..less ngiao, whereas my friend was quite satisfied with the bigger fishes.



Feeding time!



































It was quite comfortable after a while..once you get over the ant-sy feeling. And I started to relax..and watch the fishes going about their business :)) Now I know why people like to look at fishes..really quite hypnotising and relaxing.



















Close up. The fishes even got in between the toes for you.

"nibblenibblenibblenibble..yumyumyumyum..lots of dead skins! This person hasn't scrub her legs for damn long!"

"yeah lor. but good for us! hehe..."

"yayyayyayyay..tonight no need supper liao!"




That above leg does't belong to me..muahahah! My friend decided to join me at the smaller-fishes pool and then all the fishes decided that her legs were tastier! :p

Leaving me with these few cronies. hahahaha~

When I reach home, I realised that I can really feel my feetpads again! Feet really feel quite soft, without that layer of dead skin.

Maybe if I ever do keep a tankful of fishes at home..heh~

The night owl at work again..

Ok..by right I should be sleeping by now. Having only 6 hours of sleep that started at 6am practically is not counted as having slept at all.

But then again, the night owl instinct in me kicked in again..and it's tempting to do so many things at night when I am the most mentally active (or at least wanting to do so many things that I can't do during work time, ie day time)

One, I wanted to download the photos taken yesterday. I was pretty trigger happy yesterday, testing out the new camera. Pictures coming up for the new Southern Ridges taken during department's outing on Friday, which is taking ages to download onto flickr.com for only one half of the 100 photographs (I said I was trigger happy..)

Two, I was talking online to dear Fenny...who is on the other side of the universe. Havent seen/talked to the dear girl for so long since..er...donno when. So caught up with her on her latest happenings (ie got new guy in her life?/gone on dates?/when she coming back to SG??!)

Three, I did two masks :D Initially was thinking of only slapping on one (the quickie moisture one), but then decided to treat myself to both pore cleansing and moisture. I had forgetting how relaxing it is to smell the honeydew blossom..hmmm :))

Four, my right knee is hurting again..was hurting while I crashed through sleep this morning, was hurting when I drive, was hurting when I was sitting down at dinner. Which was quite weird as season is already over. Then I remembered..and poked my right ACL, comparing with my left. And true enough, the right side was taut like hell. HEELS!!!! So was stretching through the night..and probably banning heels for the coming week.

Five, was flipping through Book 4 of the Chronicles of Narnia in between chat windows- The magician's newphew. Picked up Prince Caspian again before going to watch the movie, and might as well, started through the series again.

And all the above concurrently :p

I am a multi-tasking night owl..

Plights of the Motorcyclist.

Recently while driving, I saw a courier sitting on the road kerb beside his fallen motorcycle, looking a bit dazed, with scraped knees and elbows. I think of the injuries he had to carry home, and probably to work the next day.

Again even more recent, it was traffic crawling, during peak hour on the way home, wondering which poor chap's car has broken down again; and when drawing near to the blinking police lights on the opposide side of the road, saw the blue tent on the tarmac; not far away another fallen motorcycle near to the wheel of a passenger bus. I think of the family at home, waiting for him to return home as usual for dinner.

This morning I saw a car which purposely swung left near to the line just so that the motorcyclist could't cut pass him. Which nearly cause the motorcyclist to crash or be sandwiched by another car on his left. I think of the sudden flashes of life which the motorcyclist see flashing before him.

Which brought me to this time at least 5 years ago. I was returning to office with another colleauge along the expressway, when we came across a bus with and a fallen bike behind it, and a man lying face down. The bus had stalled suddenly, the and poor guy who was behind the bus of course couldn't break in time and smashed totally into the back of the bus. Needless to say...I'll never forgot the face which totally lost its contour on impact. I think of his family,with kids probably, not knowing what their futures holds for them without the main breadwinner.

Yes, sometimes it can be irritating when riders come up from your blind spots, or just assume that the line is their rightful claim to a motorcycle lane. But I am sure that if they can, they wouldn't have chosen that cheaper mode of transport. Especially the malaysian bikers, who I admit are super irritating with the haphazrd way they ride, zipping and out of lanes and you cant really see them coming from behind. They have to endure the long ride and causeway jams daily to get that little bit of extra.

Maybe it comes from having been a rider, who had a near death experience, should the lorry driver behind me not slow down after he spotted the stupid MPV on my right switching lane without checking blind spot nor signalling. He could had crashed into me when I skidded, fell off the bike, slidded along the tarmac looking at my bike flying away amidst sparks. I escaped with major bruises, shell-shocked but still living.

Live and let live.

Where do Young Men Go?

Was going through excel spreadsheets in office today, and suddenly I realised that I was bobbing my head to this from the radio and mouthing the lyrics, almost doing the hand thingey (darn...reflex action?!), until I caught myself in time. From the corner of my eye I think my colleague was eyeing me suspiciously @_@


Anyway...ENJOY! Blast it loud and do the "hand thingey"!

Hockey Stuff

Grays' anatomic gloves finally come in more psychedelic colours other than black. Just in time since I may need to get a new one :p

Pink fingers anyone??

Men's World Hockey Champions' Trophy going to be played from 21-29 June, and FIH is going to re-launch their free online streaming on http://www.worldhockey.tv/ (WOOOHOOO~!!!)

Now just have to figure out Rotterdam timings in local terms.

Lumix- my new digi cam

Meet my new cammie :))

Asked my bro to check out the digi cams at the PC show while I was underwater in Tioman. I think this was a task that he would prob gladly do since he get to search for great bargain with all the techie specs and stuff, and yet he wasn't blowing his own money. I think he was more excited than me when he bought it that he sms-ed me past 12 midnight just to tell me that he got the cam (I just got to sleep not more than hour after a full day of diving when the sms came =.=")

Anyway was looking forward to getting my hands on the cammie after reaching home last night - and was overwhelmed when my brother brought a big paper bag of camera/cable/SD cards/cam cleaning kit/spare batt/CD ROMs....

I was only expecting the cam. Guess that's is why techies love the PC show (a colleague was just sharing her experience at the PC show - she was pulled along by the husband while she was more concerned not to be squashed by the throngs of people, and all the posters, with the different specs and promotions appeared like Greek to her. I totally can imagine how she must have felt.)

Since I was drop dead tired, I decided to leave the exploring to sometime later. Which happened to be today since I had to try the cam within this week before the offer to exchange faulty products one-for-one expires by this week.

Again, I was only expecting a digi cam - not a cam which is smarter than me?! I was totally lost reading the operating instructions, like there are 10 over scene modes and more than 50 ways of configuring the cam!!!

Great.so much for the advertised point and shoot. But before I sound like some dumb bimbo who cant read the manual, I'm just fuss-free, not brain less not to be able to understand the manual. But since there are so much functions, I might as well know what the cam can do. Neh mind.. the cam is still chio, it's now a matter of the owner maximising its potential :p

And so, it's bye bye my trusted sony-ericsson phone cam. Kinda sad though, as most of the photos from almost all my earlier blogs were from the phone cam. Nothing beats its mobility and the ability to shoot whenever called for.

Back from Tioman!

I'm back! With a bit of sunburnt, tired arms and legs, and a Advanced Diving certification! :))

I guess I should have taken photos from my trusted sony ericsson..since I brought it instead of my HTC phone. But anyway not much time since it was a rushed affair from meeting at the dive shop to heading for the checkpoint to driving up to mersing to catch the boat before finally hitting Tioman at 3am plus in the morning. Not much time except for snatches of sleep on the boat. It was almost possible when we reach Sun Beach Resort Tioman to catch another 3-4 hours of good sleep if not for someone, belonging to a group conference particpants who were also staying at the resort, using a loudhailer siren with announcements to wake their participants at 5.30am for prayer..The announcement was not done only once..but done 5 times and at various locations around our accomodations.WAH LAU EH.....

So although we only started our day at 9am the next day, can imagine how grounchy I am already. Plus the fact that this was my first dive for more than 1 year, totally no mood to take out phone cam to take photo.

And now I am regretting..damn..but there is hope yet. tongpang-ed other ple's cameras :p but must wait out for them to send over.

Anyway the highlight of the trip had to be the two turtles we saw during the last dive today, at the marine park. The first one was swimming away, but the second one was happily munching at the corals.

We were actually a distance away, and that was after I deployed the surface marking buoy (this floating thingey to send to the surface to alert the boatman that we are waiting underwater for him to come near and pick us up) ( finning on the surface to boats are more tiring than underwater) But since I only tried it once, this time the SMB almost pulled me to the surface cos my octopus was caught in the opening, which thankfully I manage to disloged before I hit the surface. So I was still recovering from the episode, when one of us saw the turtle having its snack. I was still a bit lost when my dive instructor pointed at the turtle and the rest started finning towards the turtle. But when I finally made out what it was ..it was like wahh...!!

It saw/felt us coming and hovering above it, and it lifted its head to look at us..then went back munching nonchanlantly. It looked at us a couple of times between intervals of its munches, until we swam away..I guess it must have been quite used to weird-webbed beings hanging around :p

Overall, I would say I'm quite glad that I have gotten the advance certification over and done with. Doing skills can be quite stressful leh..I can only imagine how much air I wasted during the night dive cos viz was so bad that I practically was panicking like from the time I went into water to surfacing. =.="

Will just do more leisure dives next time..take own sweet time and watch more fishes! :))

I'm going diving! :))

No wifi..not like BKK.
(hmm..this blogskin is making my old blogs' alignements out..)

Anyway have utterly failed in my quest to lose the extra flabs before Fri..oh well..I'll just stay in my wet suit throughout on the boat I guess.

Brown Sugar Food Review

I forgot that I cant link CY's blog. So I am reproducing here his actual piece. (pardon the alignment of the photographs..btw I realised how posting large photograph of food makes so much of a difference on the visual impact). I just hope my alignment will turn out right after publishing.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Brown Sugar Cafe Bistro Nestled in a nook off River Valley Road, this limited capacity venue has a simple, cosy yet warm decor, through the clever use of ambient lighting. Complimentary wholemeal bread was served warm and lightly toasted. It tasted different, with a light tinge of spice which lingers in your tastebuds even after sips of the chilled water. Grab your napkins before you start drooling over the delicacies.

Handchopped Wagyu Beef Burger, truffled mushroom sauce, arugula salad and fries. To spice my wagyu beef a little, I requested for foie grass to top my wagyu beef. As expected, the flavour of wagyu was delicate, unlike the usual robust steaks. The succulent medium rare cooked wagyu beef, perfectly complemented by the balsamic vinegar dressing in the arugula salad, the crispy crunch from the toasted ciabatta and the additional foie grass made the entire dish all so venerable.

Linguine of organic mushrooms in cream sauce with sliced parma ham. The shaved parma ham tantalized me greatly as I was reminded of my favourite entree of shaved parma ham on rock melon.

We decided to give appetizers a miss, because the names of the respective desserts served their purpose dutifully to entice us. We were advised that all desserts were baked to order and has a waiting time of at least fifteen minutes. I had the signature Tarte Tatin of Pears with Honey and Fig ice cream. A very interesting and fresh dessert, and recently pear desserts seem to draw their appeal. The pastry was well toasted and I particularly fancied the hardened caramalized glaze. The luscious slices of pear were ripe-sweet, providing a good crunch to the accompanied pastry. Dabbed with a generous slush of the well-textured ice cream simply sent me on an insulin high.

Pardon this inferior quality photograph, which does zero justice to the rich flavour of the Molten 100% Valrhona Chocolate Cake, Raspberry Coulis and Vanilla ice cream. A soft crust hides within the decadent molten chocolate, which was served warm. Paired with vanilla ice cream made from vanilla beans, it tenders an opulent flavour, leaving you crave for more. Indulgence in the piquant entremets was a fulfilling experience and as Pauline put it, I don't seem to 'waste my calories on bad food'.

Brown Sugar - Sweet!

Today was a dreary day - I was reconciling two lists. It was ok until towards the end of the afternoon when I couldnt match the numbers..which is a hair tearing experience when the difference was only by one ;(

But it ended on a high note by dinner :))

Supposed to meet er..ex-collegue(?!)CY for dinner but both of us couldn't think of where to eat, so we agreed to see where our craving takes us.

But since my head was swirling with numbers, by afternoon, I could only offer a lame choice of NYDC (which I wasn't particularly keen on either but it was in town anyway).

But being the foodie that he is (I told him over dinner that I realised his living priciple may just be "never waste calories on bad food), CY suggested this new place that he has heard of - Brown Sugar at Stardus.

The name appealed to me immediately - imagine cameralised brown sugar, warm and comforting. MMmm...

When the website stated reservations recommended, I was a bit sceptical. Stardus was quite obscure in F&B terms, and I had not read about this eatery. I even missed the door to the restaurant thinking it was the glass door to some management office or something. But when we walked into the joint, I found out that it was indeed wise to call in advance. Cos the place had only about 18 2-seating tables and the place was fully occupied just now with about 7 groups of people (including us).

Anyway though there was no cameralised brown sugar, dinner was good! I'll wait for the foodie to describe the food. But I can only say it's worth the calories - desserts are a must try!! My molton chocolate was really good..(drooling thinking about it now...heh~)

Along one side of the restaurant walls was a blackboard, with the lunch sets and daily main course specials written. The lunch set sounds like a deal, with about 5 choices for starter/main/dessert at $27+++ for the 3 course lunch. And then there was the sunday brunch from 10am to 4pm (yummy..but the waitress forgot to show me the brunch menu and I totally forgot to ask her again when I was so caught up talking about CY's brush with gayness at cali fitness..muahahah~)

And yes, I ran this morning.Only 3km so that's prob negated by the dinner. But totally not wasted :p (both the run and dinner)

Another free lunch tmr..mad jack

Hmmm...aussie fare - read fried, fatty, meaty (rings a bell)..not sure whether if the calories are worthed it though..and I was still thinking about losing weight for the diving trip this weekend. I think I can forget about it. =.="

My New Mid-year Resolution

With last weekend's game, it signifies the end of hockey playing season until the next year, which is a good 9 months away..

no games = no trainings = pure commuting from home to office to home = no burning of calories + continuous promo treats = gluttonous eating = PUTTING ON WEIGHT!!

AHHHHH!! I better start on a regular exercising regime!!

And of course the first activity that came to mind was clocking the distance along that long kang near behind my house (darn..my sis told me today that she covered 3 laps which is almost close to 9km if not 8km. And I was struggling to even do 2 and half at my best try 2 years back)

Running was so functional last time, i.ee done only when necessary cos that is what is needed to last through the games (and more so cos the coach was screaming at you to pick up speed/close the gaps with the bloody fit&fast runner in front/finish that fart legs within 1 min..). I used to hate running so much. Even now, when I smell the rubbery smell from any stadium tracks I would be immediately be brought back to the time in JC when shin splints and water-logged knees were common and often had their effects felt full force during trainings then.

But now when life becomes more sendentary, I miss the days when I am more often in my sports gears than in my office ones, and I am sweating it out playing some sports than banging on keyboards. There was one day when I was driving...tired after work and all, when I suddenly had the notion that my worse days then when I am fit are much better than my good days now when I am not.

I miss being active. Which is why on a whim I packed my swim gears last thurs, only to have the rain fall continously throughout lunch time and happily stopped by 2.30pm promptly

=.="

I had an offer to be paced during the army half marathon. Wondering if I should take it up..

Anyway I am so going to run tomorrow morning..for vanity sake. Heh~

But that is if my bed does agree to let me go after the morning alarm goes off:p

Big Buck Bunny

Came across this in Youtube. Love the rendering!

I would love to fly an evil rodent like that too!!



What I wasn't expecting was that the official website was setup like a blog..not the usual kind whereby production updates were appended as sub-tabs or so...

The way info is brought to masses is definitely changing.

Detour to Work

" Send me to work tomorrow, can?" My brother asked during a dinner to celebrate his birthday.

I think I must be mad to agree. His workplace is in CBD, which was totally not along the way from home to my workplace at Novena.

Maybe the sisterly feeling was surging during the little (not!) brother's birthday, but I agreed to skip breakfast, leave home half and hour earlier and brave ERP and likely morning traffic jam to send him to work.

But in the end the traffic was good. And since I was already in CBD (and already paid ERP) I decided to take a more scenic route to work since there was still time. So I decided to cut through Robinson Road instead of boring CTE..and found myself stuck with all the drivers heading to work

-.-"

So to make my time worthwhile (on top of daydreaming), I took photos from the driver's seat (of course when the car wasn't moving!!)



I look like I'm in Gotham City if you just look on the right side of the photograph
(See the cars?!)








It looks like a wet and gloomy day ahead









I wonder what this building was used for in colonial times. Would the people occupying the building that time imagine that it would ever be surrounded by such tall buildings and hustle and bustle?







I remember walking rounds and rounds on the exterior of this building during one of the security events.







Half of the durian. It looks like a bug with its head perching on the railing, waiting to pounce on a delicious looking car + driver...........








My first office for my first job - level 10 in "the thumb" of the "5 fingers"

one of the more interesting architecture and iconic builidng around








I always like the sculpture outside this shop

Ah pek on bicycle is faster....

And viola..I reach office already!

Wakefulness

The cursed lipton-greenteainfusedwithjasmine-tea.

I had been tossing for the last one and a half hour for that insignificant amount of caffein which I suspected came from the jasmine tea ( I supposed there wasn't supposed to have caffein in green tea?!)

Tried hypnotising myself : "I am not a caffein sensitive individual" ..but that didn't work. So in the end I gave up and went online again and ogle at some pretty stuff :p

And that's how I came across http://www.shinzikatoh.com/ from an online spree forum.

I am drooling over all the cute stuff!! Esp tthe tote bags! The whimsical prints and details are amazing. The bummer is that all the designs which I like are out of stock.

Anyway if anybody is interested to get anything from the website let me know. I am joining the spree, think purchase more got discount..heh~


Right..shall try again to go sleep..I only have 5 hours and counting down.

What a weekend..

Went to watch Made Of Honour today.















I used to hate rom-com like this cos the outcome is so predictable. Going by the sypnosis, the guy will definitely get the girl in the end.

So was this movie. But what I like about the show is how Tom and Hannah share this easy chemistry, someone you can talk about anything and everything. Enviable.

Looking around, it seems like there are only rare ones who are in relationships in which they are happy. A few are stuck in the rut, unhappy, but not wanting to hurt one another by initiating the break for one reason or another - family, kids, dont want to be the bad guy....a few are still single, coming out fresh from recent scaths, or simply can't cross path with anybody interesting, wondering or lost hope if there will ever be one for them eventually.

It seems like more people are single nowadays. They dont do relationships and marraige like how they used to during our parents' time. Maybe divorce and breakup seem to be the easy way out now - I guess as people start to have more self awareness and will not compromise on their happiness, its easier to go your own way rather than be stuck unhappy. But then for some, I quote Will Smith on his marriage to Jada Pickett Smith, "The marriage worked because all other options are removed"

Well, 感情世界，扑朔迷离。

But I guess, firstly, it all starts with finding that someone who you can have that chemistry with. But then again, wondering if I should go watch Sex and the City for a reality call (not on the high life or fashion, about the fact that that kind of relationship love may only be a fairy tale after all)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Today was a frustrating game.

It's frustrating to lose to a lesser team. It's frustrating to have to say sorry to the umpire for his bad call. It's frustrating to be called to the umpire for the opponent's rudeness after getting a hit from the same girl's stick. It's frustrating when couldn't swing left fast enough. It's frustrating that passes are not going through the opponents' wall. It's frustrating that we missed that open goal. It's frustrating that I couldn't block that deflected ball.

Got to make the next weekend game more meaningful than this.

I am still angry that I was warned for stupid reasons (esp the second one - hey Mr Umpire it's not my fault that she clipped my stick three times after I got the ball and shouted at me after that).

That is for playing left back..always closer to the umpires and grouses are always heard.

I want to play right back next season.