Vote for Her!

Got a sms from my aunt. Her daughter's on TV! We have a reality TV star in the family now.
Vote for Regine! Visit http://www.clearlyformen.com.sg/site/
second girl from the right:
She was estatic when I told her that I'll ask my sister, who's staying in the States, to vote for her. She exclaimed she's going international.
Good Luck girl!

Wine & Cheese & Friends

I spoke to surfer girl, who wanted to go wine tasting in town. Let’s go to drama’s back lawn instead - She provides the gazebo, and we bring the wine. Drama gave the go-ahead!
Chardonnay & sauvignon blanc, Carlsberg. Kilkenny on standby, all in chilly weather, and in the almost dark.
Now we can guffaw, burp, talk outrageously without the next three tables listening in.

Drama also sponsored four kinds of cheese, dried cranberries, crackers, and baguette bits. I finished almost all the baguette bits myself, so yummy with the herb cheese.
Well, you know what they say about the earlier bird, too bad for the latecomers. heehhhh.
Drama's dad made a timely special appearance just as food was running out past midnight… and delivered keropok and two roast pig heads. Went great with the wine and grapes brought by surfer girl.
Before-pix. Animal farm moment here.


the after picture Mr. Oink Heads all chopped up.



dupree consulting surfer girl the doc on her feet. Notice how I've managed to preserve the anonymity of my friends in this well-taken photo.

And how all that is destroyed in the photo that follows.

All the girly and funny topics came up... how to reject the guys tactfully with excuses they can't respond to... fetishes great and small... things we did when we were young and we forgot until drama came up with photo proof...when doctors cut you open, does stuff gush out, and is blood stinky. Knowledge and substenance combined.

The evil Ooh Lah Lahs

French secret weapon to ensure they look better in their tans than the English: Impart vague instructions.

Found on Clarins’ Self Tanning Milk With Sun Protection

Directions in English:
Apply liberally before sun exposure and reapply after swimming or excessive perspiration. Wash hands thoroughly after use. Wait a few minutes before dressing.

This can be interpreted as “apply liberally” so you will buy more from Clarins to replenish. Or the English, Americans, and other anglophiles really only use the product for sun protection purposes, which at SPF 6 is not sufficient anyway no matter how much you apply, so a sunburn will develop, and the end result will be sunburn+ uneven brown patches from the self tanning effect.

Now, directions in French:
For the first two days, apply uniformly, in the morning and at night. Moderate usage after, depending on tan intensity desired. Wash your hands after application and wait before dressing.

Of course I followed the directions for the French. The fake tan turned out quite nice.
The parents will be pleased to know that my expensive uni minor in French is finally paying off. I outsmarted the ooh lah lahs!

African Sea coconut medication

I had a bad cough yesterday, and the kind parents bought cough syrup from the pharmacy. They swore by this brand, said they had taken it when they were young and it cured their coughs and other ailments.

What has African sea coconuts got to do with coughs? What a mystery.
The syrup has a Chinese herbal taste, not too bad. It worked. I stopped coughing today. And it’s sold over Amazon.com

What else is amazing, the parents bought dapao-ed dinner for me as well, and their idea of sick people food was Crab BeeHoon. That's my chicken soup.

My first Indian dinner at Siglap

This week, I tried out a restaurant and a spa at Siglap. These are not newly set up establishments, but little miss laggard took forever to check them out.

A bunch of my friends made plans to meet on Tuesday night downtown for dinner, unfortunately it was a no-go by early evening. Well, Dilly & I still need sustenance anyway, so we decided to go Indian at Siglap.

I specifically would like to try out Chutney Mary at East Coast road. I had heard pretty good reviews of the restaurant from my Irish ex-colleague who married a local Indian lady and stays in the east. I’m 70% sure it’s north Indian cuisine.

Our favorite dish of the night was a “Papri Chaat”- a traditional appetizer of crisp flour cakes drowned in yoghurt, tamarind chutney, mint sauce, spices, sprinkled with cheese wriggles and tomato dices. Dilly described it as something that burst with a mixture of rich flavors in the mouth, and it’s the truth! I read up on the Internet that it’s a dish sold at roadside stalls in India. Roadside food’s the best!

We also ordered a mild curry of mushrooms and peas to share. For our mains, Dilly had fish and I had Nasi Briyani. The rice was expertly prepared - light and fluffy, it came in a pot and there was enough for two.

Urm, sorry, forgot to take pictures of food.

After Indian Food...

We finished dinner around 10. It was getting quiet around the nighbourhood as it was a weekday.

Dilly wanted to wait for Karen, who stays nearby, to return from work so she could collect her heart pace rate monitor watch from her. She will definitely be needing it to train as she signed up for a 40 kilometer run, which is taking place end of the year. Shudder!

So here we were, loitering around Siglap nearing 11pm, waiting, peering into shops that were still open, and saw an advertisement banner on improving enzymes in the blood in one of the shop windows. So strange, so we walked into WONNG’s (say “Won-Nig”) LIFESTYLE to find out more.

It’s a “one-stop sanctuary for foot reflexology, body massage, facials, and opens daily till 2 a.m”. Perfect for insomniacs – and it’s not a sleazy joint. It was a peaceful and quiet until we arrived.

A mini aquarium dominated the reception area, and it’s filled with gorgeous corals and exotic fish, all illuminated by unnatural neon blue light. Dilly spotted a mandarin fish and got pretty excited. Apparently, it hides all the time, except for when it’s dusk when it puts in special appearances. Living in a tank must have really screwed up its timing because we saw it in the open at 11pm.

Back to the enzymes in the blood stream. According to the spa receptionist, a sweet Sumatra girl, the condition of your blood equals the condition of your health. Wonng's enzyme therapist would, for 20 dollars, on the spot view a droplet of your blood under a bright field microscope.

After visually analysing the quality of enzymes in your blood, the therapist will tell you how to improve your immune system to fight viruses, bacteria and diseases, and most importantly…why you find it so tough to lose weight. It seems to be alot of information for 20 dollars.

We think our blood will have a lot of little wiggly worms from raw fish binges. Maybe the therapist would look at our blood, and go… I see you're breeding monsters in your blood, lots of alien larvae crowding out the enzymes... almost none left. You have low-quality blood, too bad. Lousy genes. Can’t be helped... meant to be fat and ridden with diseases…

I asked repeatedly if the enzyme therapist is a proper trained doctor, but the receptionist kept saying the therapist is “trained”, ok I guess not then. But I will still go the sucker route and pay 20 dollars because I’m so curious. Unfortunately the therapist was not in, so we had to return another day for the blood review. We made appointments to return the next afternoon for foot reflexology and head/shoulder massages. Off peak hours to enjoy off peak rates.

Karen got home. We drove off to her place to collect the monitor. She crept out of her house to say Hi as the baby was asleep.
He was sleeping very soundly on an extended baby soft floor mat that extended over the entire living room. He’s the boss of the family. The boss woke up. Maybe despite our efforts, we were still too noisy, or he sensed his mother’s presence. He smiled sweetly at us, near midnight, so surreal, what a Zen boy he is. We smiled, he smiled, we coo-ed, he smiled, he yawned. Then Dilly tickled him, and, according to Dilly, he sneered at her. We decided it was getting really late, so we left.

O So Pretty

Imagine it in white, to go against my black shift dress.
Walked past Baylene boutique and saw it and fell in luv. Thought I’ll support a budding local artist and grab it. The salesgirl coolly informed me it’s freaking SGD 250!!! Argh!! Why can't it be SGD 80?!!
I googled and realized it’s not by Baylene but by Tatty Devine, some UK designer instead.
T-Rex comes in black, white or gold (huh?), and it’s made of acrylic (which means plastic, really), and metal alloy (probably stainless steel). There are over 50 “bones” to make up the dinosaur’s body. Nothing too feminine.

Update 22 July: I decided not to buy the necklace. Too steep for a non-classic piece. I bought a metal chain necklace instead for an eighth of its price.

Another Hokkien faux pas!

Me and Dupree went to Parkway Parade’s Ya Kun, after a sashimi binge.

So, I assertively told Dupree who kindly volunteered to buy, that I would like “teh-o-si”. She looked a bit uncertain of the order, probably because she knew there was something wrong with the phrase. However, she nevertheless gamely gave it a go, after I spoke loudly (being ladies, we never shout in public) from our table, twice, "Yes, that’s what I want, ask for it anyway. Try the phrase and see what happens".

So all the Ya Kun aunties, from the cashier to the tea-preparer, were confounded because, apparantly, "teh-o-si" means tea without milk, and less milk please. They explained to Dupree, the right phrase should be “teh-o-kosong”.
Must rememorise all the kopi and teh terms. Sometimes life is so hard in a multi-language space.

Update 16 July: The "si" above should be "C" as in C for Carnation Milk.

The Siglap Farmer

The Father's harvest of the week. One cucumber and papaya. The Mother was put off by the freckles on the papaya and didn't want to eat an ugly fruit. There are another 30-odd baby fruits getting ripe on the papaya tree, hopefully they include some aesthetically pleasing ones. Maybe switch fertilizers?


UPDATE: 11 July
We did have the ugly papaya in the end and it tasted good!

Some more pix from Japan trip

The photographs are taken by Dilly & Dally, March 2007. I just did the cut & paste & color saturation. This will be last blog on the Japan trip.

Hokkaido and Tokyo are very very different places. Hokkaido is quaint, friendly, just like visiting your hometown, with good wholesome food. But I love Tokyo more, am deeply attracted to bright city lights like a bug. And the vibrant energy of a city.

MY TOKIE
Omotosando street is a Zelkova tree-lined avenue, major brands all have a presence here, each competing with outlandishly stylish building exteriors. Walking down the street is visually stimulating, especially at night when they turn on the lights. Gorgeous architecture. We were all freezing that particular night, but Dally preservered and took some nice pix.







The zig zag paper's called gohei, to mark something as sacred. Hung from a torii gate. The gate marks Shinto Shrine entrance.


Rodin at Ueno. The Japanese adore everything French.



HAKIDOKI
Billboard outside our wonderful, clean, affordable, cute budget hotel. Notice alot of the Japanese characters spell Hokkaido. There were also hidden loudspeakers there, with a male bellowing a patriotic song about Hokkaido, put on repeat mode.


Niseko didn't feel like Japan, as it was overrun by Australians. We were waiting for the staff to ready our snowboard class stuff. Lodges and ski schools ran by Australians, though our instructor was from Canada.


Noboribetsu has a tourist attraction called Hell Valley, which emitted sulphur smoke, and really look like an entrance to Satan's lair. Check out one of anime-looking resident demons.


This pair of demons looked like they belong to the movie Spirited Away.
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Ancient Sapporo beer ads. Compare them to Singapore's 80s beer ads with skimpy clothed girls.


Pedestrian road sign for wavy people. Everytime I came across one of the signs in the city, I will smile.


Niseko, where we attempted to snowboard on powdery white pure snow.


When we were at Otaru, it was snowing so heavily that snowflakes were whacking out faces. We made quick escapes into shops every 15 minutes. This was one of the better escapes. Hmmm, Beer.


Otaru hotel lift lobby. Feels abit In the Mood for Love, but a more run-down version.

Exercise

Broke long Dry spell - I exercised yesterday!

I went for a 40 min walk at the East Coast Beach. After a while I got bored. I began reading signs posted around the beach, checking out albino-looking trees missing their bark, analysing the general conditions of the pavement, and spotted a minor local celebrity taking her baby out for stroll, all this while maintaining my pace of course.

The walk was slow going. Maybe I’m not pushing myself hard enough… I decided to walk faster, then, maybe I’ll perspire… nope… not by a lot. I overtook the grannies and ah Sohs, and a friend told me I should aim higher.

Today, which is 7-7-7 is a popular wedding day all over the world. According to Yahoo news, this number is significant as it represents a covenant with God. Yes, it is a popular wedding date in Singapore as well, the Parents attended a wedding dinner tonight, and a friend's niece is getting married on this lucky day too.

6-6-6, of course must be taboo for christians, but in Hokkien it sounds like luck-luck-luck. Can't recall if any Hokkien non-christian friends got married last year.

We figured next year's 8-8-8 might have been considered really auspicious. But, unfortunately it falls within the hungry ghost lunar seventh month. So the Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia might be wary about holding weddings on this date, but maybe not the Chinese in Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong and rest of world because they may not be care as much about the ghost festivities.

The Really Hot Date will be 9-9-9. Because 9 signifies (marriage) longevity in Cantonese, and it falls within the 8th lunar month. So double whammy lucky. I foresee we might need to do wedding dinner hopping that night two years from now.
People who missed out on the above three dates will have to settle for 10-10-10, or 11-11-11, or 12-12-12.

Car Park Technology

I strongly dislike Tampines Mall. It’s very crowded, and the mall car park has minuscule lots arranged in strange geometric patterns. The last time I was there, I scratched the left rear end of the black monster car while trying to exit the mall car park via an ascending narrow curve of a road. So I even have a souvenir of the horrid trip.

However, my impression of the car park has improved slightly. This is because the entire building, including the car park, is managed by Capitaland, and now, Capitaland car parks have a very useful feature: Each parking lot has a heaven light above it. Red light means “occupied” and green means “available”.



So it’s very cool, you can look down the row of never ending red lights and race towards the lone green one. Sometimes, I love technology.

The car park is actually brightly lit but I saturated the colours so the red and green lights are more obvious, but now it's too saturated and you can't see anything but the lights. The dark shiny blocks would be cars.



So why did the Mother and I ended up at Tampines Mall today. Earlier this year, I think it’s either over Chinese New Year or during the sis’ wedding, my cousin Joseph (whom my sister’s in-laws said reminded them of Tony Leung!) was over at our home.

Joseph works for Starhub, which provides cable TV services. He observed that my household was using first generation cable TV setup boxes, and expressed controlled dismay, and gently urged us to upgrade. Most Singapore households have the more advanced DIGITAL setup boxes and the techkie ones have the most advanced HD setup boxes.

So today we decided to quit being laggards and blend in with the average Singapore household, and install the DIGITAL ones. For that to happen, we have to make a trip to Tampines Mall to visit Starhub.