Yoshitomo Nara@SAM

Just a bite-size post today about a talented Japanese artist who draws cute little girls with evil streaks... Though they all display some kinda rebellious behavior/evil gleam in the eye, they still somehow manage to look so cute. How come he so genius...

Year of the Rabbit

I received a bad piece of news on the last day of the Tiger year... my favourite colleague has decided to call it quits and she broke the news to me minutes before we knocked off on Wed afternoon. Her announcement came as a shock to me as I wasn't quite expecting it. Not that the thought of her quitting never crossed my mind (and in fact I've ever planted such an idea in her head...) but I suppose these events took place a couple of months ago so when 'disaster' finally struck, I found myself feeling rather upset. Hai... but hopefully, my fav colleague will move on to a more fulfilling job that makes her happier :)

That aside, the long CNY break was pretty good. Had a one-day staycation at HFC, during which I had a mini museum-cum-photo outing... Also exercised on Sat morning, followed by a nice (though brief) meetup with C & J, Jap classes and other self-enrichment activities. The thing that spoiled my weekend though was an urgent request for talking pts that came in yesterday night, which I had to get out by tonight... Boo!

Here's a pic I took secretly in the Singapore Art Musuem (SAM) shop... Of a rabbit coaster. More pics to come later - hopefully later this week...

Naruto!

I was digging up the songs I used to have on my school laptop.... and discovered several gems... including drama serial/ Anime theme songs... This is the anime show that got me really hooked for a while... the only anime I watched close to 100 episodes... the anime that got me sobbing for no reason in the middle of the night once/ twice(?) in Washington DC... (which got C pretty concerned) For the uninitiated, Naruto is this anime series about ninjas (quite popular I think abt half a decade ago? there are Naruto movies too, i think) - it looks a bit violent, but it's really not that bad. Aside from the cool ninja moves, the show was also about friendship, determination, perseverance and such...

This version I found seems to have the clearest graphics... But I think whoever made this prob liked Lee a lot (the green guy with the bowl-shaped hair and 'bandaged' limbs) though he wasn't the main character in the show. If I didn't remb wrongly, I my favourite character could have been Hinata... this soft-spoken timid girl with short hair... (some semblance to my own character could have been part of the reason why I liked her. I must have liked her for other reasons too, but my memory fails me now) Nonetheless... listening to the opening song again gives me a warm fuzzy feeling...

Beautiful Life

My sensei coincidentally posted the theme song of one of my fav Jap dramas... brings back fond memories... I think I went and bought the DVDs in Sg; then finished most of the drama while snuggled in bed at night while I was in Berkeley... I shall rewatch it some time soon heh.

"Disfigured" for now... :(

I just met with a tiny mishap at Netball class just now... the first 'sports accident' in 3 classes... and I am now disfigured by two reddish scratch marks on the right side of my face (the area in btwn the nose & upper lip)! Someone wanted to intercept a ball thrown to me and accidentally swiped her fingers/fingernails across my face! The pink scars look roughly like ">"(just that the two lines dun meet)... I look a bit like I got into a cat-fight with someone bleah :( I hope they heal soon and leave no trace.

I baked a little cheesecake yesterday... using a Muji instant cheesecake mix :P It tasted pretty alright, but the surface turned out a little pockmarked and speckly. I was also expecting a fluffy moist Japanese cheesecake - but mine turned out pretty solid bleah. Aiyah, I think I prob did something wrong somewhere... shall try again next time!

And yeah, my cake had a snaking fault line that cut right thru the middle...

Time-out Tanjong Pagar

Over lunch today, I decided to give myself a lil break from work and from my colleagues. I had my little me-outing to the Duxton hill area for lunch and some book-shopping - while everyone else headed to PS Cafe@Ann Siang Hill for expensive overpriced lunch. The plan was to go to this new bookstore Littered with Books at Duxton Rd after checking out a new crepe place in the same area... and maybe pop by Flor bakery and treat myself to a cake or some freshly baked cookies. However, I also stumbled upon a newly opened photography school two doors down from the crepe place, and climbed up some creaky steps to walk into a shophouse full of nice photos... What a nice little adventure!

However my lunchtime outing plan was a tad too ambitious. Turned out that I was stuck in Littered with books for a good half hour or so and ended up having no time for cake. The books at Littered with Books all look so pretty it I felt like buying every single title! There only seemed to be a couple of copies of each book so each book felt particularly unique and it made me feel like I was picking them off someone's home bookshelf, not a bookstore. I ended up buying a C. S. Lewis book and a cheem book by A.C. Grayling that is supposedly a good read and will hopefully inspire me to reflect about the meaning of life... ;) I am building up a stash of unread books in my already cluttered room bleah.

My Monday Horoscope said...

You are focused on creativity and should find that ability to dream up new ideas and plans is equalled only by your ability to bring them to life. Show the world what you can do.

Not that I am a fan of horoscopes... but mum is..! (more for fun lah) So she showed this to me this morning when I was gulping down my milo... The english a bit convoluted, but uncannily today's msg actually spoke to me somewhat. Show the world what I can do eh...

Today was a depressing day... so had to have music therapy at night.

10,000 hours to become an expert at anything...

I just had to log in a short post about this 10,000 hr-rule cos for some uncanny reason I was told this twice today by 2 persons under pretty diff circumstances... Yesterday I was just reflecting on how I have not become really good at anything so far - be it tennis, photography, Japanese, baking etc although I like and enjoy doing all these things. I tried to figure out what the reason might be... and concluded that I am just not a very determined person and get easily distracted by new things :(

So this morning, it was somewhat consoling when a guest pastor, as part of his msg about it being human to err, shared this interesting piece of trivia. Then when chatting with Y just now, she highlighted this to me too! So Y pointed out that this implied that someone who practices XX for 8 hrs everyday...wld take abt 4 years to be an expert. If you're more normal (and devote say 8 hrs a week to this activity) - you will become an expert in... 28 years! When things are put in that perspective, it really feels not that bad that I am not an expert at anything... heh.

p/s: did a google of the 10,000 hr thing and it's apparently a common theme in Malcolm Gladwell's book - Outliers. Maybe I shld go read that some day :)

It's cool how some things turn out well though you totally didn't plan for them...

So I ended up taking Japanese lessons again - this time focusing on Japanese conversation. Was just catching up a little with an ex-colleague via sms this Monday - when she shared that she was currently taking Jap conversation lessons... and after a few emails with the one-man show sensei, I signed up and went for my 1st lesson yesterday!

I was slightly apprehensive initially 'cos my Jap has been deproving ever since I stopped classes 2 years ago... Thankfully class was small and setting not that intimidating; our friendly sensei also prompted everyone to speak up by asking leading questions etc... Though I was terribly unfluent, I cld still largely understand what went on and it turned out pretty alright in the end. Yesterday's lesson was about how to describe lost objects... and I learnt what polka dots are called in Japanese - mizutama (水玉 - literally "water balls")! I thought that was really cute cos it's so literal and visual...

And so I discovered that Japanese is one of those things I have some unexplainable affinity for - even after having abandoned it for a while, my interest in learning it hasn't really waned and it remains as enjoyable as before. Though I was never good enough, learning it is just a very happy-fying thing to do :) Hopefully, one day, I will be good at it..

The other KK

There really isn't very much to do at Kota Kinabalu if you aren't climbing the mountain, we realised... during the trip. So it was a tiny relief that our 2nd night was spent in the city area, at a hotel right next to supposedly Borneo's largest lifestyle hypermall - 1Borneo. And that's why I could stroll to Starbucks on a Monday morning to enjoy green tea latte and banana choc muffin and have the whole 2nd floor of seats to MYSELF. Heh. This was an urbanite's failed attempt to connect with Mother Nature...

Though there wasn't a whole lot of stuff to do, I totally didn't mind it. We were still sufficiently entertained throughout the trip... I watched a Twilight movie (the first one) for the first time - on cable TV from a not-so-cosy-but-passable chalet room in the middle of the Borneo rainforest... and found myself empathising with Twilight fans... I think I was quite taken by the interesting idea of dating a vampire and the neat stuff they cld do tog in the forest, like flying around etc haha. D cldn't quite get what was so cool with that pale vampire named E but got quite enchanted by the vampire family's house. We later discovered (after cheapo-ly flipping thru some Twilight movie book at a Harris bookstore) that the whole house was just a specially constructed movie set... a really nice one though.

The uneventful holiday ended with a mini drama when we were stuck in the rain and jam on the way to the KK airport. And just when we thought all traffic had cleared, we found ourselves getting stuck in a most nasty jam leading all the way up to the departure terminal... Thankfully, the rain caused havoc not just outside but also within... so flights were delayed and we found ourselves quite early for the flight despite arriving only half an hour before...

Here are some pictures (pretty irrelevant to my lil trip summary above) from the trip to show! :P

Pretty nice dining area at our Mt Kinabalu hotel

Lovely flowers at the hotel "garden" - the chalet was somewhat dismal (mainly cos it was cold and damp), but the landscaping at the hotel was done up quite nicely

We managed to get a good view from our hotel as it was perched all the way up on a little hill too :)

The peak of the mountain seemed to be permanently obscured by huge clouds

Seafood dinner the 2nd evening - Grilled tilapia with belachan sauce. Fresh and delicious!

Happy 2011!

It's the last day of 2010.... and I am sniffing... :( It's been a great week of meeting up with friends etc but I ended up sleeping really late for most of the week and now the sleep deficit is wreaking mini havoc on my well-being. Am flying off to Kota Kinabalu to spend New Year's day - not climbing the mountain but chilling near the mountain... hopefully running nose etc wld go away and I'd get a nice lil break before everything starts getting crazy again next week..

Here's wishing all of you a great 2011 ahead! The new year starts off with a really cool date - 1/1/11... :)

After a one night Christmas getaway in Bintan and a self-extended long weekend today, I feel so reluctant to get back to work. Luckily this week would be a short one too, with a key highlight being J's wedding reception mid-week, followed by half day on Fri and then another short weekend getaway to Kota Kinabalu! December is a lovely month...

Here's wishing everyone a belated Christmas and a great 2011 ahead!

Christmas cookies.... that I didn't bake :P

This being Christmas season, I have, in the past week or so, rubbed shoulders with the 10,000 other shoppers in crowded malls to do last min shopping and to buy gifts for nice ppl. Bagging good deals/ bargains has an effect similar to a sugar rush, but at the end of the day, shopping tires me out and the feel-good feeling wears off relatively quickly.

On the other hand, I find snuggling under my comforter to read my mags/ books at night while listening to music very therapeutic and soothing. I guess I'm a loner at heart and such low-energy, peaceful me-time recharges me... Having to interact with too many ppl can tire me out and some part of me just wants to hide in my lil cosy corner to chill and do nothing of much consequence :P Looking back at the year past, feel like I hardly had such luxury of time to do nothing at all by myself... Maybe I need to stay someplace with a slower pace of life, where folks around me aren't always striving to achieve this/that and working so hard all the time...

KL weekend getaway!

My weekend trip started on a Sat morning with a bad 1.5 hr jam at the Malaysian checkpoint... but thankfully the rest of it was good. Most of it was spent hanging out with D's frens at various eating places/ living rooms and dining areas, who spent 75% of the time reminiscing about their good old sch days in London :P Thought I could squeeze in some shopping; but ended up taking random pics and walking around hotel area in the short one hour I had to myself this morning.

"Alfresco" dining area outside the hotel... the mall area connected to the hotel had wide pedestrian walkways flanked by restaurants and cafes... which reminded me of the States actually, e.g. LA! :P

Sneaked some quick pics in a cute home decor store.

Above: Snowman candle! Below: Wouldn't it be nice to have some "fresh" flowers on your dining table everyday :)

Also met the friendliest and loveliest little girls on this trip - D's friend's kids. They were very intrigued with my DSLR and wanted to play with it... So I let them fiddle around with it...
This, is what appeals to a 6-yr old in a magazine store...

The bunch of adults were so all happy to be able to have A&W for lunch, now that A&W can no longer be found in S'pore. This is the power of fond childhood memories later in life...

A&W curly fries! I loved these as a kid... But the older ppl I went with claim that curly fries was a later addition to the A&W menu and the classic A&W offerings were the coney dog and rootbeer float. The coney dog I had was slightly disappointing 'cos the hotdog was pretty hard and un-saucy enough :P

Charming neighbourhoods & cool buys!

If you're suaku like me, you prob haven't been to the part of Tiong Bahru with the retro pre/post-war flats. I havent... till this morning! (On a lighter note - whenever I meet J's mum over Christmas, she never fails to ask me when this place would get SERSed or upgraded... and every year I never fail to disappoint her by my sheepiness in giving her an answer) Deep down, I hope this place never gets redeveloped, else Singapore would lose another of its little rustic corners to high-rise skyscrapers or yet another shopping mall...

I went by Tiong Bahru actually because I wanted to check out Forty Hands - a new coffee joint that also serves brunch/sandwiches, cakes and stuff. We managed to get a table inside despite it being overcrowded with yuppy-looking folks and youngsters. Seriously - where do they come from!!! A spectre is haunting Singapore - the spectre of yuppies colonising all the cool cafes around. Anyways. I treated myself to a flat white and a truffle mushroom sandwich... I don't actually think the food was great, but coupled with the hippie/cool ambience, I think I'd prob go back again :)

I also took some random pics using my E72 just before I left - but it led me to discover a cool function on my phone... and I ended up with pretty interesting shots speckled raindrops heh...

After lunch, also decided to check out the "affordable photo fair" at Objectifs at Arab Street - for photographers to exhibit cum sell their works... I didn't end up with any photos, but found a pair of nice berms and a cute pink-rimmed belt at one of the Haji lane shops instead. A couple of yellow spots on the belt suggested that it's pre-loved, though salesgirl claimed it wasn't.. Anyways, since the spots weren't too visible and it being the only piece left, I still got it cos it was relatively affordable and vintage-looking.

Shophouse facade at Kampong Glam

Nosherie refers to a restaurant or other place where food is served.

Was wondering what this word meant when I walked past MUNCH Saladsmith and Nosherie at Marina Bay Link Mall just now.. MUNCH has a shop at Robinson Rd and they serve pretty decent sandwiches. Seems like their business is doing pretty well and there's now a branch at the new mall... But "Nosherie" is a slightly pretentious word leh. Where did it come from... somehow cannot associate something as weird-sounding as 'nosh' with food.

I have two Le Sportsac pouches... a green imitation one with cute lil birds & fruit trees I got in Taipei some years back and an authentic one with blue & brown prints I bought from a dept store in Hong Kong... and they are both missing :( They have always been staples in my bag so I really dunno why they are missing... and the only (though not very plausible reason either) I can think of is that someone pilfered them when I was on course at CSC... cos otherwise I wouldn't have left my bag unattended... Have searched high and low for them but they just cannot be found :(

My nice mum, upon hearing the plight of the lost pouches, decided to search my wardrobe for them (without telling me lah). Was a lil mad when she messed up the cosy hiding places for my various lil pouches by tidying everything up and putting everything tog in one of my bigger pouches.. but ok lah, my chaotic order was restored when I pulled out everything and placed everything back into their less orderly but nice, un-cramped positions. But in the course of the search, my mum discovered this other nice organza/batik bag I own... I think someone nice gave it to me but I cannot remb who gave it to me anymore... :( It's a nice consolation, but I still miss my lost pouches...

Earl Grey "Creme Brulee"

Last night after the purchase of 6 pretty little ramekins, I came home excitedly to try out a baked custard recipe... lifted from an Appetite mag I flipped through while waiting for my food in a cafe :P This was supposed to be a chamomile-infused baked custard.. but I substituted the chamomile with my fav earl grey tea. I was also too cheapo to spend like $40 to buy a blow torch, so tried disguising the un-caramelised surface with fresh fruit instead!

The recipe was a failure though... and looks can be deceiving. Beneath the calm surface lay a cold gooey mixture that failed to solidify... oh well, I will try again next time :) And prob with a proper deep baking pan for the water bath too.

Amateurish food-styling with my mum's dish cloth haha.

Fresh out of the oven! Cos I didn't have enough ramekins, resorted to using my silicon cupcake cups for the rest... But there's just something about these pretty ramekins that tug at your heart, which romanticises the experience of savouring these lil treats.

The Letter T Song

I discovered a really cute cover of Plain White T's "Hey There Delilah" - A Sesame Street song that literally has a plain white "T"... aww, so cute! I was a bit dense and only realised that the T was going 'te-te-te' towards the end...