Not So Epic Singapore Trip December 23, 2011

Just said it was epic so Streamyx would feel bad that I couldn’t blog about it earlier. Lol. As if! Though I said I have nothing to write about Singapore, I actually managed to whittle down the few photos I have down to a few-er 30 pictures…

On the 8th of December, Tron and I drove down to Singapore… it’s a long story as to why we went early November and then going down again in December. To cut a long story short, let’s just say that Tron and I love Singapore (partially true anyway)! As always, we stayed at our favorite place – Carlton Hotel. Well, it’s actually Tron’s favorite place. He says the location is super good, but I think I can find equally good deals through Agoda for more high-brow places. *confident* Later, I found out the TRUTH, which is “good location” means “near to guitar stores”. FFFFUUUU.

On our first day there, we mainly walked around the area (which meant guitar shops), Raffles Shopping Center, etc. I went crazy in all the drugstores there… but to see what I bought, you gotta check out Drugstore Love instead. Yes, I update that way more frequently than I do here. Why? Well, because my ads there are almost nearing cash-out time! Muwahahahhaa. When I do actually cash out, I’ll blog about my $$ making experience there. [Talking as if it can make me enough bread to quit my day job... far from it!]

We stumbled across this place.. not sure the shopping mall that we were in as they all kinda look the same to me. It’s called Tomatoes and the attracting factor is that they serve larger-than-usual pizzas at pretty affordable prices. The place smells a bit smokey (like they burnt something – maybe they did), but the pizza is awesome. Very fresh and delicious, and even the dough is soft and super yummy! Tron and I really liked the place, and the funny & upbeat staff working there too… thumbs up, thumbs up!!

Also very happy because on the first day, we managed to eat at Sho Teppan, the really nice cook-it-yourself Japanese place in Raffles Shopping Place. =) No pictures, because its same as before. The Xmas decorations are up though, here are some from the first day :

Went to Vivocity the next day. It’s really my fave shopping mall in Sg, and since I didn’t get to go in November, I was so happy to be back. =) It’s very hard to get Tron to go to places that I want to go too, but this time he had his own agenda in Vivocity, so he was very accomodating. You want to know what it is? He wanted to find a very specific pendant for his mom which she last saw in Vivocity in one of those small vendor stalls. Trust me when I say it’s specific… this holiday can be also dubbed as “The Search for Tron’s Mom’s Pendant”. We search all small vendor stalls possible in Vivocity, and even the higher end stores that sell pendants on white gold necklaces… it was only on our last day in Singapore that we decided it really cannot be found and got the next best thing.

In Vivocity, I was happy to try Serenity (Spanish “fine dining” – I put the quotes there because to me it’s fine dining, but to really rich people, this could just be their everyday snacks), and introduce Spanish food to Tron. Tron said he never had Spanish food before! We had :

So hard to get this boy to behave himself, seriously. People want to treat him to good food and the restaurant opens at 11am… what does he do? At 10:45am he says he wants to eat something else. Like some random bun from Carrefour to spoil his appetite! Made me so angry wei!!

The super good, fresh, hot-out-of-the-oven bread and aioli… this is like a must-have starter at Serenity!

Beef tapas that Tron suggested… not sure of the exact name, just sure that it’s quite yummy!

Catalonian pork soup. A bit on the salty side, but a very home-y, comforting kind of soup. Once again, the two of us ordered too much! At this point, about 75% full already…

We split a paella valenciana between the two of us. To me, the dish seems a bit off. Not as nice as I remember it to be. Maybe the paella arroz negro would be a better choice… anyway, I was happy cos Tron said it’s really good and wolfed it down. The generous portion makes this my staple choice whenever I visit this restaurant. =)

This boy is happy eating burgers everyday, so I’m also happy that he agreed to accompany me for something different. Glad that he likes it too!!

After walking around Vivocity, we wanted to have a drink. We had seen a Gong Cha there earlier in the day, and since never tried it in Malaysia, thought of trying it there. But seems like Singaporeans are freaks for Gong Cha! The line was insane! I managed to try Gong Cha in Malaysia last week, and it is ok only la… I prefer Chatime. What I tried was the taro milk tea, and I prefer Chatime’s taro milk tea because it is more fibrous, and it makes you feel like it’s really freshly made. The Gong Cha one tastes more powdery.

Anyway, since we didn’t get Gong Cha, we went to Honeymoon Dessert.. yes, they have it in Malaysia too… ~_~”

Walked ` walked ` walked around a whole lot… wound up in Plaza Singapura. Another one of my fave shopping malls in Singapore because it really has all the shops that I like under one roof. =D The Christmas decor nothing to shout about. In fact, it’s the same as when I went in December 2010. Lol! We went back to Cafe Cartel, the place that Tron likes that serves the best “anything pork”. I was actually still super full from the Spanish food, so I really just picked at my pasta (though it’s quite good). Tron managed to finish all his ribs and my pasta as well! Insanity. I was mostly focused on reading The New Paper. I have to get this newspaper whenever I’m in Singapore. Just check out the article I’m reading — it’s about a father who catches his 12 year old sending topless photos to a 19 year old… who has had sex with her. OMG. So crazy right… why so many paedophilic people in the world…

At night, we just walked around the shopping malls near our area, which is the City Link (not sure of the name) and almost walked to Suntec already. Nothing special, except that I tried the Garretts Popcorn. I didn’t even have the interest to try it, but Tron insisted because he says his sis is mad about the stuff. He bought a packet of CHEESE flavored popcorn, and it wasn’t melted cheese like what I imagined it to be, but the powdery cheese stuff. I think Cheezels or even Super Ring is better la! The color consistency is about the same anyway. Except that Garretts is SO MUCH OILIER. In the end, we didn’t even finish it because it was staining tissues and paper bags with that bright orange oil that is damn scary. If you wanna try Garretts, pls don’t try the cheese flavor, ok?

I met up with Ben and his friend WR the next day… Ben is so kind, he agreed to meet me at Raffles Shopping Place so that I don’t have to travel so far (and get lost) to find him. We ate at Hand Burger, which really has MASSIVE burgers that are very delicious… it was fun catching up! Too bad it was just for a little over an hour. Thanks for the meal, Bennnnnnn.. Nice meeting you toooo WR….

Look at all the cute-ly presented, MASSIVE burgers that we had! Ben says you can’t go wrong introducing this restaurant to others. So next time you’re at Raffles Place, you know what to eat ya… That or Sho Teppan! Haha!

Met up with Tron to go to Orchard, cos there was a specific store that we wanted to go to… but it sadly disappointed us. Amused myself briefly, searching for elephants to camwhore with from the Elephant Parade. However, Tron’s photography skills still need improvement… hence, I gave up after seeing how he made me look like the Michelin Man in every single photo (I might have gained weight, but not that much ok!!). On a happy note, managed to introduce Tron to Mr Bean, which he quite likes too!

Random Xmas trees.. honestly I think Malaysia is putting more effort in Xmas decorations, so I don’t see what’s so creative about Sg’reans decorations any more.

It is I – the Asian, female, Michelin Man.

Give the greatest gift this Christmas – the gift of life!

Mr Bean!!!

Rolling good times~

Seal of approval…

After Tron gallantly allowed me to go to H&M, he dragged me dunno how many kilometers to find his guitar stuff.. zomg. I think I really walked til my shoes wanted to fall apart that day.

Dragged me thru Istana to find yet another guitar shop

Awww.. such a pretty elephant.

That night, he took me to Bugis Junction, which I think is my 2nd favorite place in Singapore.. It’s suitable for cheapskates like me. =) Tron visited yet another guitar shop after that, but this one I didn’t mind, cos while he was in the guitar shop, I went to a nearby bookstore and I found a book by a Singaporean author that I had been looking out for. However, I’m so pissed at the piece of trash novel I had bought (wasted nearly RM50 on) that I’m going to write a darn bitchy review about it later…. *rubs hands with glee*

You wanna know how bad the book is? The girl names some of her chapters after Avril Lavigne songs and actually includes some of her lyrics in the middle of a paragraph. Like, “He left hanging so high on such a breakable thread.” When I told Ben, he said, “WTF does that even mean!” Ya, my sentiments exactly!!

And finally — on my last day in Singapore, I went to New Creation Church! It is actually one of the “must do” things that Tron and I BOTH had on our lists (one of the things we agreed on, hheehhee). Thanks to his friend, we got very good seats and enjoyed the service. It’s a different experience, and I’m so amazed at Pastor Joseph Prince… he can really transform you with just one sermon. Even though Tron is such a “long believer”, he also can get revelationary truths from the visit to NCC… the musicians are also fantastic… I felt like I was in a rock concert!!

Never been so early to church, haha!

I also really admire Singaporeans cos they are so faithful.. they come so early to line up to go to church. My pastor always says that we are too pampered, because people always come in late and they still have places to sit… sometimes right in front! In NCC, for sure you cannot get place to sit near the front if you are late. You won’t even be able to get into the main hall!

Molesting Elephants… Tsk! December 14, 2011

I know I haven’t been blogging in ages. Been madddddd busy. Seriously busy. Cos wanted to clear up stuff before I went on holiday. Was in Singapore for 4 days 3 nights, not looking forward to my credit card bill. On the upside, I’m probably a shoo-in to win the car after spending so much. ~*do not want to disclose more about secret credit card contest that I’m entering*~

Anyway, I don’t really have a lot of pictures because of the following reasons :

a. whenever I go to Singapore, I tend to go back to the same places. I shop at the same places, I eat at the same places… so there’s really not much variety. Even I can’t inspire myself to blog with pictures like that.

b. my boyfriend takes me to places like Mos Burger… not that I’m complaining about that, but he seriously is the type of person who can eat Mos Burger / McDonalds for every meal and feel satisfied. Are women and men created with even different tongues, different tastebuds? I think I would be jelak eating the same thing EVERYTIME. Especially since I always choose the Yakiniku burger at Mos Burger without fail… Anyway, Tron says that I cannot blame him for developing such traits because he is a “bachelor boy”. -__-”

c. even when I met Ben, we were busy talking like at 100kph because we wanted to fill in on as much details as possible in as little time as possible. Where got even time to camwhore together!

d. how to possibly take a lot of sweeet sweeeeeet photos together when your boyfriend takes photos like these :

I was seriously dumbfounded when I saw this picture… I was like… WHAT did you think you were supposed to capture?!!? It could be ANYTHING’S BACKSIDE that I have my hands on! It is soooo weird. This is the laziest photographer on earth (his excuse was that he wanted to quickly get it over with as it was VERY HOT).. didn’t bother on framing and thinking about what the subject matter at hand is! Granted, it’s a cheese-tastic pose, but did I really deserve such a fate? To be immortalised in such a manner?

It was only when Tron saw the beginnings of a bitchfit on Orchard Road that he quickly helped me snap the following photo. But the moment was gone. My expression is no longer of someone attempting to push an elephant, but of someone who is laughing (because if she doesn’t laugh, she will cry with frustration) while randomly feeling up an elephant.

Whirlwind Trip Down South October 30, 2011

So, I went to Singapore on Saturday, and I was back by 2pm this afternoon. It was quite a spontaneous decision to go down for a 1 nighter as Tron and I already had plans to go to Singapore in December. The reason? Well, the main reason why we were even going down in December, and why we would be DRIVING DOWN is because he bought a guitar from a friend there. And transporting a guitar by car seems much more convenient than by plane / bus. However, even after we had booked everything for December, he suddenly got an itchy butt and decided that he wanted the guitar right away. Can’t wait to hold it in his hands. Can’t wait to caress its body every night. -___- So we just went for a random trip this weekend!

Apologies to my friends in Sg for not meeting up (actually, only one friend lololol), but we shall catch up in December, k? I really don’t remember what we did in Singapore. Seemed like quite a long trip, and yet, also a really short one!

We left Subang at 5:10am in the morning in order to reach Singapore by 9:30am! It was crazy! I also stayed up late the night before to create a compilation of songs to play on the way there. One folder was the latest hits (stuff I like), and the other folder was this 500 oldies songs that Tron had passed to me. When we were listening to the latest hits, he kept switching off / turning down the volume of the songs, saying it’s too noisy. -__-” And then asked me why I like songs like that. T___T By “like that”, he meant stuff like : Turbulence (Lil Jon, Steve Aoki, Laidback Luke), Freak (Klaas ft Bodybangers), everything by LMFAO, Carte Blanche, Kaskade, David Guetta err…. basically a lot of dance music lah. The only stuff that he didn’t turn down was Selena Gomez (lololol) and Demi Lovato (incidentally, it was a song he told me to download). -___-

On the second link to Singapore.

When I was playing the dance music and dancing in the car, he would comment :
a. “Eh please lah! After the police will stop me cos they think I fed you ecstasy pill.”
b. “Why are you dancing like a bengali?”
Me : “What you mean? I am not doing the ‘screwing a lightbulb while patting a dog dance’.
Him : “WTF, where you learn such things wan.”
c. “Were you born a guy or a girl?” (most wtf statement)

Totally useless as a navigator (I just brought along the GPS), totally crap at song selection (apparently) and totally crap at staying awake to talk to the driver.

Anyway, on the way home I was fed up with getting my taste in music shat upon, so I said, “fine!! we will listen to the 500 oldies songs you passed to me.” FYI, he totally forgot he even gave me those tracks, and at first was asking me what songs were being played. Then, I fell asleep so I didn’t need to hear more of his complaints. When I woke up, he switched over to some Hillsongs or something, so I guess we had Sunday worship after all. Lolol.

K, enough about the road trip part, which was actually filled with tears, pain, sweat, grime, etc. When we arrived at Sg, it was obviously too early to check-in, so we went to Raffles Shopping Center to have breakfast. Guess where?

It’s like wherever we go, we have to eat MOS burger… -__-”

This is where we stayed.

We waited at the hotel lobby for Jen (Tron’s friend who he bought the guitar from) to pick us up. We were trading stories about how we first met and how far we’ve come from the “courting” days. I still keep the “courting” SMS-es, messages, etc that he sent me from way back when. When I showed it back to Tron, he said that he cannot believe that he used to write such cheesy things. Aww.. but I thought he was really sweet. (Of course lah, otherwise won’t end up dating him.)

Jen is one cool guy, but dunno whether Tron will allow me to blog more about the next 1.5 hours of when we picked up the guitar. Just that we wound up ….

Safely with the guitar in hotel room!

I was really tired after all the travelling, and I honestly do not know how Tron had the energy to still spring around everywhere. After a shower, I took a nap, while he went out to pick out more guitar related stuff and computer stuff. When he came back, he woke me up and said we couldn’t waste our time in Sg sleeping. *yawn* When I checked the time, it’s like he just gave me 1 hour to nap! Anyway, I agreed with him, so we went to have lunch first… and he took me to this awesome place in Raffles Shopping Center called Sho Teppan.

For SGD11.90, we got the teppanyaki marbled pork set, which looks like this :

Rice + salad + miso soup

The pork + mushrooms + veggies in a pan, to be cooked.

How it looks like after cooking.

Usually I’m not a fan of places that require you to cook your own food, especially when you’re already hungry and you just want the food to be in your belly already! However, this place is reallllllly good. The fried pork tastes great with the teppanyaki dip that they provide. It’s so flavorful! Words just fail to describe it. I whacked down everything, down to the last slice of mushroom, the last bit of fried onion. *burp* So, so good. And the service is great as well. =)

((On the way back from Sg, I told Tron that we *have* to go back to Sho Teppan in December… which shouldn’t be a problem if we stay at Carlton again!))

Went to Orchard Road, checked out H&M… if you wanna see my hauls just head over to my my beauty blog. Had no time for dinner, so we just grabbed a bunch of buns from Bread Talk and drinks from 7-11.

Lastly, what animal do you think it is? Couldn’t see the head, but I think it’s a buffalo. From the back, Tron said it is an elephant!

Hong Kong 2011 *LOVE* Day 4 October 21, 2011

Ok, rapidly approaching the end of my trip, and there’s not much pictures to show for it, really. When on holiday in Tron, he loves shopping malls and shopping. He doesn’t like anything to do with touristy stuff. It’s ok with me as I already went, but I really wonder what is the attraction with seeing another country’s shopping mall? For me, if I were to do HK again, it would be – more food (esp around Central! So much food stuff there!), getting a chance to ride on the tram, LAN KWAI FONG, more Hui Lao Shan and definitely more shopping, but only around Mongkok area. I won’t bother with those places like Harbour City anymore.

Anyway, on the 4th day in HK, I decided to take Tron to the extremely well-known Fu Sing Sharksfin Seafood restaurant.. or whatever you call it. I just refer to it as “Fu Sing”. I forgot if it’s a Michelin star restaurant or whatever awarded restaurant, but basically it’s expensive but a lot of people say it’s worth it. Lazy to find another hole-in-the-wall dim sum place, so this would do. Lol! Later when we came back to Malaysia, Tron’s mom asked him if people in HK were rude to us, yadda yadda, Tron said we got such great service everywhere. Tron’s mom said that his sister who went to HK said that the waiter scolded them because they couldn’t order the dim sum properly (cannot read chinese), and Tron said that that’s lies. People in HK help you read the menu. Wtf! Cos I took him to expensive restaurant la, of course service different from a coffeeshop dim sum restaurant. -___-”

By the way, not boasting about $$ ok, just that if you happen to know Tron, you should really get the “whole story” from him sometimes. ;p

I believe the 2nd floor and 1st floor is decorated in the same way.

Hello!

This is our appetizer… some really funny looking fried anchovies. The anchovies so curly wan?

The lamp… hahaha.

Starting to get hungry + antsy.

Arrived at Fu Sing at 11am, and once again I was scolding Tron all the way there because he didn’t want to wake up early. But turns out ALL FOR THE BETTER because Fu Sing only opens around that time. Lol! Now I remember, when I went to HK with my colleagues last time, they were TOO early for Fu Sing and we wound up walking aimlessly around the area. Which btw, doesn’t have much stuff to see. The 1st floor are for tables with reservations, and at first Tron started to nag already, “Nah nah, you see… never make reservations..” but never fear — cos there is a 2nd floor and it’s pretty empty. -___-” So we got a really nice table and nice waiters & waitresses to help us. Yup, we can’t read chinese either, so we just called the manager over and asked them what is the recommended and “chut meng” (star dishes)  stuff in Fu Sing. I had read some online reviews before, so generally just said yes to what sounded familiar. This is what we ate:

Fried prawn fritter wrapped in chee cheong fun. A twist on the usual yau char kwai wrapped with chee cheong fun.

Fried radish cake. You know it’s delicious when people from other tables ask the waiter what YOU are having.

Har gow, but excellently done by Fu Sing. Though a bit on the puny side.

Buttery, warm, egg tarts! So hard to resist that Tron was stealing away a tart when I tried to take a photo.

Siew mai – awesome.

This one is an RM10 per piece siu loong pau which contained crab roe and dunno what other goodies inside. Indeed the soup inside the siu loong pau tasted better than usual, and you can really see and taste the crab roe. But it is so small! Two bites and it’s gone. *sob* When I complained about the size to Tron, he said that kou kup people only need to taste things once. Lol!

Some lo mai fun which was quite forgettable. Regret ordering this as it’s also super filling.

The most awesome bbq buns you will ever taste! I’m not even a fan of bbq buns, but this is really something else. If you come to Fu Sing, this is a MUST ORDER and a bestseller at this place. Hahahha.

We saw another couple eating this, so we also ordered our own siu yuk & char siu. Personally think the char siu not bad, but don’t order the siu yuk as it’s too fatty.

If I go to HK with my parents, I would definitely bring them here, regardless of the price. Eating is a moment to be enjoyed, at a slow pace. Especially when it’s early morning dim sum. No point to rush down the food, you can’t even take your time to savor it. What’s the point? Though the restaurant got more crowded as time went by, the waiters never made us feel as if we should run along now. They were still as attentive. Lovely place to eat at. Cost? Expect to pay about RM100 per person. But keep in mind that we did go a little bit overboard… you’d probably not be eating as much as us… ;p

After lunch, we spent our time at Times Square (yes, another shopping mall) because it was the nearest “fun thing” to do. Again, nothing much in Times Square, we ended up going back to our favorite Langham Plaza and Lui Yan Kai. Hahaha! Oh, and I helped Tron like mad find out where the Mongkok Computer Center is, but he wound up buying nothing. He kept saying that the Mongkok Computer Center can’t hold a candle to Lowyat, though we were intrigued by this thing they were selling called the “Ipad Killer”. Hahahha!

At Lui Yan Kai, we mainly bought souvenirs. What we loved buying were :
+ T-shirts (About RM10 per shirt, good for souvenirs and also for self)
+ fake LeSportsac bag called “ProSports”. It’s really big and roomy and the aunty will give you free pouches as well. ^_^
+ bag organisers (those things used to store your stuff properly if you’re carrying a big bag… so that you can keep things organised?)
The rest I forgot already… =p

By the time it was night, I was feeling like… quite a pity that we didn’t eat much “authentic HK food”, so I forced Tron to go out to Jordan with me to try the Australia Dairy Co. I remembered it being awesome, so excitedly went to take the MTR…

However, the food this time round …. really is not as what I remembered it to be. We were actually still super full from Fu Sing (yes, until dinner time!!), and yet we over-ordered. Each of us had a coffee-tea mix, steamed milk and food.

So nice, they gave us english menus to peruse. Hahaha.

Steamed milk and tea…

Tron’s food…

My macaroni and ham. It tasted much better after I put in, like, 1 tablespoon of pepper! Otherwise it’s tasteless!

Byeeeee Jordan. Don’t feel like visiting you again, but maybe Yee Shun is better?

Really regret that I chose to come here. Food ain’t cheap either… like RM60!!! Zomg! Should have gone to Yee Shun, I heard they have more variety of steamed milk there. Or just gone to Tsui Wah, which is just opposite our building. Sigh…

Spent the night packing our luggage, and I was so worried that I would be over the limit as I had so many SHOWER GELS and stuff. HAHAHA. Terrible. That, and I bought this one huge box of pineapple cakes for my parents, and it comes in a bright yellow box. The box itself also costs $$, so I didn’t want to leave the box behind. Lol! Ended up, my luggage was only 15.5kg… I so regret buying up to 20kg worth of luggage space. ZZZ. At least Tron utilised his luggage weight properly. I think his was 19kg…

Before we bade farewell to Mongkok, we walked around a bit in the morning, sampled some last-minute street food, even some last minute H&M shopping!! before going to the airport. We arrived earlier at the airport because thought the shopping there would be better, but again, nothing caught our eye. Oh well… byeeeee HK!! I wanna visit you again next year!

Bye Langham!

The zomg-delicious! Random pork bun (filled with dunno what, actually) that Tron bought. It’s about RM3-RM4.