Sept 12th 2010 marks the inauguration of my oven... and the first thing I baked with this oven was... pumpkin cake from Trader Joe's (the bread/ muffin mix was a gift from someone, but has been tucked away in my cupboard, neglected)! Haha it's a little cheaty, but u know, it's good to start small and get to know one's oven better before embarking on more ambitious projects. The more serious type of baking aside, I've also always appreciated the convenience of instant cake mixes; and I remb they cost as little as US$1 when on offer. Just pop the cake mix in the oven and you get some decent warm cake for breakfast/ a snack in about half an hour.

My chio oven :P I need to get some polarising filter to get rid of all these reflections...

Pumpkin cake in the making...

Not too bad for a "first-time" baker lah hor :P Thanks to the good recipe and oven, both loaves turned out nicely cooked/ crusty and tasted sufficiently yummy... I think I really like the thrill of watching something wonderful/delicious appear out of a gooey mess :P

This post is dedicated to food.

We spent quite a bit of money on food this time round. And the stingy me with less deep pockets felt a slight pinch. But aiyah, in the end I kinda relented - I wld at most just eat at Amoy everyday after I'm back in Sg and balance it off lor. After all, it's not everyday you get the luxury of time to enjoy all the yummy food waiting to be bought/ eaten.. :)

Meals were a combination of take-outs/ semi-picnics; home-cooked dinner/self-prepared brekkies and semi-bank-breaking nice sit-down meals. Food was generally good, except for a one-off misfortune of having some gross tasting roast chicken at a highway cafe for lunch, on our way to the Blue Mountains. We also made a few supermarket trips during the lil road trip, and my best find was this ultra-fresh tasting banana chips that cost a mere A$2.30 per pkt! (it was on sale, and reminded me of my mostly-look-out-for-offer-grocery-items college days).

Most of my food pics are of breakfast - the most ex meals were photo-less cos I guess it's kinda paiseh to go nice restaurant and keep snapping away at the entrees/mains like we're very suaku like that haha.

Eggs Florentine with smoked salmon

Cereal with milk and... banana chips! Simple but good.

Prying open a fresh fig after breakfast.

Passionfruit still-life?

Our cosy-looking breakfast area at Potts Point hotel in Sydney. Loved the cushion prints and tasteful deco. The TV screen reads "Hottest Underwear Trends" (some local morning show) :P
Inviting fruit platter@fruit and juice stall

Warm chai latte for a rainy sat morning...

A meat pie called "Tiger", topped with generous portions of mashed peas and brown gravy. It's a 'delicacy' from an established kiosk named "Harry's" - selling meat pies, hot dogs etc from a little cart on wheels (but now a permanent kiosk). Heh its looks were more "stunning" than its taste - the hot dog version tasted way better :)

Polenta with blue cheese sauce and oyster mushrooms. Polenta is apparently some cornmeal product originating from Italy - it looked and tasted a bit like tofu.

Nice counter at this restaurant called "The Book Kitchen" at Surry Hills, Sydney. They sell cookbooks and regularly whip up different dishes using recipes from their cookbooks. Concept reminds me a bit of 25 degrees in Sg.

I.... finally bought an oven yesterday! A 26-l, DeLonghi electric stainless steel oven to be exact. Haha ok, why wld anyone be interested in my oven model hor.

It was an unplanned purchase and quite a bit cheaper than expected. Not sure why I keep thinking that electric ovens wld cost somewhere in the range of $1000; perhaps it's cos my auntie has a $1000 one. After scrutinising the many models on sale at Courts, realised that one can easily get a medium sized one for $200 - $300 in Sg. Maybe Courts sells the lower-end, consumer sorta ovens. But I think a $300 oven is good enough for me, as long as it bakes well... :) Yay, I can start baking again so am feeling kinda excited. Hopefully I really get down to doing it.

I bought my oven on gut feel... The sales-auntie kept promoting the adjacent Kenwood oven but somehow it just didn't quite click with me. I think cos the Kenwood one looked and felt more like a toy oven (white in color; plasticky-looking knobs etc) whereas the Delonghi one felt more heavy-duty with its full steel exterior and reliable-looking black knobs heh. It was scary 'cos when I finally decided on the Delonghi one, she told my mum - I know she likes the other one, I can tell one... So scary, I was already trying to be diplomatic/ make the sales-auntie feel better by casting a few more looks at the Kenwood one... but all my extra effort obviously didn't work cos she cld immediately tell. Dunno if she's so worldly she can tell or what... In any case it made me feel very vulnerable... :(

Hai - weekday afternoon shopping for household appliances with parents was so rare but nice.

Before this trip, I never thought very highly of Australia as a holiday destination... Sure, trips to Perth/ Melbourne as a teenager/ young adult were enjoyable, but somehow its appeal has waned over the years, when European/ American or even just Asian holidays seemed more exciting/ happening :P But now I think I was a little narrow-minded... cos Sydney was really a great place to visit and possibly live in - it's blessed with lovely beaches, beautiful mountains, great weather... Outdoor/nature stuff aside, there's also a tonne of things to do in the city - good shopping, yummy food... Only grouse though is that things are not cheap :P

Sydney Opera House from the Harbour Bridge. Embarked on the climb after a long day of walking, but it was worth it. Great views of the opera house... It was certainly not worth it to pay over A$200 to climb the Harbour Bridge though...

The SOH actually looked pretty old/ slightly run down - so it might not actually seem that impressive from close-up. But we went on an excellent tour of the SOH, which gave us a much better understanding and appreciation of the toil/ politics that went behind the scenes. It took some 16 years to complete at a cost of $102 mil, with diff architects responsible for the outer sail/ shells and design of concert halls..

View from Bronte beach - after a 2 hr coastal walk in the afternoon. The blue ocean/ ocean waves were gorgeous.

Dramatic skies at Blue Mountains... abt a mere 1.5 - 2 hrs drive West of Sydney

One of my fav paintings by an Australian painter at the Art Gallery of New South Wales - a suburban home in pop-artish colors

AVOCA - Avocado smoothie with ice cream, fresh cream, honey and pistachios... heavenly.
Home-made veal fettucine with sun-dried tomatoes. The outstanding creation of two holidaying chefs. Looks pretty yummy hor :P

Stylish lobby at BLUE Sydney - a splurge for the last night, but totally worth it

Just a very short post before bedtime.

I received two consecutive surprises late this week... On Thurs, someone nice got me my No.1 desired cam and I'm really excited abt trying it out next week. Then on Fri, I received a package from my most conscientious fren! Am showcasing part of the Fri gift below -- aren't these paper clips cute? I can't bear to use them on work documents though.

This morning, mum packed me a lunchbox of honeydew to bring along for the day... so sweet. I'm a blessed girl! :)

The Fri present taken with the Thurs present... :)

Sometimes we get so carried away by work or get so affected by work stress that we forget about what really matters. On hindsight, it was great that I had to go for a compulsory retreat on Sun/Mon and just had some time off to myself, with friends... to enjoy nature and simple pleasures around us.

Today a young colleague (yeah i v old already) who just quit Hsg Div (after 6 months) shared that he was gg to take a 2 to 3-mth backpacking trip in South-east Asia... To some extent I admired his courage to just heck-care & explore the world b4 it's too late :P Maybe I should also do that some day. Prob not a 2-3 mth trip though, I suppose it wld be too tiring for my old soul.. heh.

It's now a one-week countdown to my 10-day break in Sydney! Really look forward to doing one of those coastal walks... hopefully I'd also use the break to do some reflection...

Happy National Day!

The original plan was to secure a place at the boardwalk area near MBS, but plan A was abandoned after news of early crowds... so instead we cheapo-ly staked out at a newly completed HDB block... our KW RC 31, in hopes of glimpsing the fireworks from afar. After intially futile efforts to find a spot where fireworks wld be visible, we finally found a common corridor space to stake out at! Though most of the fireworks were too low to be visible, but we still manage to capture the 'crowns' of some... not too bad lah, we had constant breeze and peace & quiet to ourselves...

Prelude to the fireworks: MBS decided to emit some really powerful rays into the night sky...

Splendid fireworks from afar (accompanied by an UFO on the left)

Managed to catch a spectacular purple one!

Zee Avi!

Today I supported another 'local' singer. Ok lah not so local 'cos she's a Malaysian who got talent-spotted by a US record label, but she's really cool! I really like her voice. Am currently addicted to Bitterheart, though it's like a 'wife feeling bitter how come hubby never come home' kinda song heh. The tune is just very addictive.

Singapore has been colonised by iPhones... and so many new phone models out there are starting to look like the iPhone or its clone... Help. Is there no good & simple alternative? I suppose the iPhone is cool, but I shall continue to resist. Feel like if i buy it I will unknowingly and inevitably lose some part of my unique self to the "be cool and hip monster" out there. All I really need is a chio-looking yet functional phone for sms/ calls. Would really appreciate having those pretty Japanese clam phones to choose from. Or should I get the Nokia E72...

I finally visited MBS (Marina Bay Sands) this afternoon, but the experience was sadly quite unpleasant and disappointing. For a five-star hotel, the whole feel of the hotel lobby etc unfortunately felt very marketplace-like to me. Perhaps the crowd cum check-in chaos was due to MBS' national day package - reception counters were overwhelmed, the whole place was really crowded, with snaking lines of unhappy customers and even crosser customers at the counters. What a nightmare it must have been for the poor service staff. The long lines also revealed the ugly side of some S'poreans - apparently one lady blatantly jumped queue to get to the front. And while Lady No.1 was being served by MBS staff, Lady No. 2 behind her (when it became her turn to be served at the adjacent counter) couldn't restrain herself from giving the queue-jumper a piece of her mind. Drama... As many of the hotel guests looked/ sounded like locals, was also wondering to myself why so many S'poreans so rich...

Premises-wise, I have to concede though it is pretty nicely designed etc. I esp liked the trees in huge pots lining the main walkway connecting the 3 towers. The glass panels high up also let in abundant natural light. Also free-rode on someone's guest pass to go up to the 57th sty Skypark - have to admit the view was pretty spectacular and pool quite out of this world... but given the high density of people up there, it was just too off lah.

I also managed to chance upon a pretty decent bakery/dessert place Sweetspot and bought a really yummy big crunchy cookie for only $2.50. Many shops remained unopen though - while those open for business had to deal with construction dust (quite visible at some shopfronts). Eeks, I wouldn't really want to go back there till at least half a year later. Perhaps then it will then live up to all the hype.

Was prompted by v good reviews of Inception to catch it. But err... I think it was a bit too cheem for me. While I got the general drift and how they went into different levels of subconsciousness, I wasn't able to appreciate/ decipher how the finer details interlock with one another... and so I went away feeling a little cheated haha. I dun like movies that make me confused... maybe i'm just not smart enough :( Also felt a bit shi1 bai4 that at least 3 actors/actresses in the movie appeared in movies I caught previously but I just wasn't able to match the faces to their previous roles - except for Ellen Page who appeared in Juno. Marion Cortillard's transformation from Edith Pilaf in La vie en rose to Mal in Inception was quite dumbfounding... she looked SO different I didn't realise it was her till the closing credits. I suppose makeup can do wonders...

Arthur was the guy in 500 days of Summer..!

*Holiday in sight in 1 mth's time!* :)

Yesterday someone nice brought me to a new cafe tucked away in an old sch compound at the Mountbatten area. It was a great find - prices were reasonable, food was delicious and the place was pretty uncrowded/laid back... And I took more food shots! The only thing though was that you end up smelling like food at the end of the meal, cos there's no separate kitchen :P

Little details matter

Cafe counter- these days, the white bathroom tile finish seems very popular. I've seen it in several new F&B joints.. I wonder why. Perhaps to give a very clean sort of feeling.

Starter platter, with fish cake, 5-spice roll & calamari. Teeny bit sinful but satisfying.

I'm actually not a fan of squid ink pasta, but they did up this dish really nicely here. Very tasty with spicy undertones... yummier than ones I've had at some Italian restaurants.

Guess what this is for? The flower motif is so cute.

It's a cutlery/napkins holder!

Home/lifestyle items on sale at the cafe.

Yesterday evening I also heard (for the first time in my life) a cat caterwaul. I didn't know it was a cat noise till someone pointed it out to me... It was quite scary actually and sounded like a baby/woman howling miserably... Now I can understand why cats can wake ppl up in the middle of the night (no offence, courtney :P) When I wikied cat caterwauls online, also came across a para that said cat usually dun typically meow to each other but express variations of this tone to humans "to demand food or attention, register complaints and convey bewilderment" The last bit cracked me up... Cats must think we are a weird lot...? Maybe they meow back in bewilderment when ignorant adults like myself attempt to "meow" to them (occasionally only lah when I spot stray cats on the streets), thinking that's how we can communicate with them.

This morning I took MRT to work, after a whole week of comfy car rides from nice dad. Lately (maybe a few mths already lah), I cannot resist the temptation of being ferried to work in the morning. Sigh, Dad pays exorbitant ERP rates to ferry me to work, but he doesn't even complain... I should really get up early and do my part for the earth to squeeze with the office crowd - but laziness easily overpowers greenness.

Unfortunately, the only MRT ride of the work week was not pleasant. These days, seats are extremely hard to come by, though I get to board at the terminal station. Worse still, someone decided to treat the whole carriage to dizzying India/Arabic-sounding music for a good 15 min or so this morning. Was quite irritated with whoever was so inconsiderate.

It was a blah work day. Got pissed with colleague for tai-chi-ing a piece of work to me, but failed to fend it off despite dropping several hints that i had nothing to do with it. Sometimes cannot help wonder how much time is spent on work that doesn't really matter much to anyone. Dunno why I am getting so cynical.

I'm such a cross person today!

At the end of a long discussion today boss asked me and AQ why we looked so depressed. Part of the reason was prob cos it was like 645pm and I wanted to go for dinner but of course cannot say. Though prob at hand was indeed a bit tricky, that made it all the more challenging! Boss continued - we needed a fighting spirit! To which I blurted out something to effect like sure, we need fighting spirit to deal with challenges, but the thing must also be worth fighting for right. If not worthwhile fight for what... I think I succeeded in making boss think I a bit gone case... Sigh, I suppose I was overly frank, but sometimes need to voice out true feelings mah. Else everyone say niceties life would be so fake.

Am wondering if it's time to get a new camera... For some reason, my photos just aren't as sharp as I would like them to be. It might not all be the camera's fault though - I think I for one have shaky hands and need to learn how to hold my camera more steadily too... Maybe it's all a matter of practising more regularly and remembering to do all the right things. Nonetheless, still feel tempted to upgrade to a Canon 7D... :P

I think I'm really more of a still-life/ food photographer than say, an action photographer. I'm just not that great at capturing moments... plus camera is not power enough for fast action shots leh... Since it's rare for lazy ppl to become proficient at anything, I thus decided to practise taking food shots this weekend...

Lychee rose jelly cake + pistachio macaron from 1-caramel...

Flying fish fried from head-to-tail

Asparagus with mushrooms

Egg fried rice with prawns

My shallow side

Last night, I went to watch the Argentina vs Germany match at 1-Altitude at OUB centre with a bunch of church ppl... i'm certainly not a soccer fan, know nuts abt soccer and have thus far only watched a boring Japan - Netherlands match throughout the whole World Cup season. But since the A vs G match was supposed to be pretty exciting, thought it might be some good fun. On hindsight, also realised watching soccer with a whole group of ardent soccer fans rubs off on you pretty quickly.

Before the match started, ppl came along to ask about my affiliation. I not so surprisingly sat on the fence, being not really in-the-know abt both teams. But as the match progressed, I found myself rooting for Argentina... partly because they had a cute soccer player - Gonzalo Higuain (No. 9) heh. However, hope eventually turned to hopelessness and the defence-poor Argentina team suffered terrible 0-4 defeat. Hai, no more Higuain to watch and so maybe I will not watch another World Cup match again. So boring, now it's gonna be a Europeanish final showdown...

p/s: after the match I did some snooping on the cute player... and concluded that he looks way better with short hair. Was also consoled that he's not just cute and no substance ha! But his choice of girlfriend is dubious. Actually, he reminds me of a Berkeley GSI who taught us for Econs 171 or something...but my GSI's name eludes me now :(

When I came home just now, mum was sitting at dinner table drawing monkey faces on sheets of yellow paper. She's doing PA duties for my sis again, I thought. Sure enough, she was sketching some monkey faces for a skit sis was putting up with her p-sch kids. I skimmed through her 'works' and among the monkey faces was an old-lady face, which wasn't drawn very well. I made an insensitive comment, which led mum to ask me to draw one for her instead :P In the end I also didn't manage to draw any decent old-lady face, but instead got distracted and started sketching/copying monkey faces from the cartoon book she was drawing inspiration from.

And all of a sudden, I realised I hadn't been drawing anything for the longest time. Luckily I'm still quite a decent copier... and I miss drawing random things. Maybe I should have gone ahead to do something arty for a career. When I left office around 740pm just now, I really couldn't get why some colleagues were still energetically discussing work at that hour. I suppose some ppl really get excited over work...

We caught La Vie En Rose at the Alliance Franciase on Tuesday - it's a biographical film about French street-singer turned singing sensation Edith Piaf. Though she wasn't a very happy person, her life was certainly very drama with so many twists and turns... in comparison my life feels so dull & unhappening. But perhaps I shld just treasure my blessings, that my life is dull but relatively good so far lah, though I've been moaning regularly about work :P

This weekend I went to church without the other half and tried mingling with the folks a little more. I think frequently ppl just treated me as D's gf and I also didn't really bother trying to make new friends etc. Then it becomes vicious cycle whereby the fewer ppl you really know, the less you feel inspired/ motivated to go for service on your own. With the new 345 session hopefully I really get to know a few ppl better. An unplanned mini outing after service also gave me the opportunity to interact more with a couple of ppl... which was actually nice - cos I felt like I was actually 'exposed' to ppl with many diff backgrounds & interests... unlike at work. When every other person is an over-achieving seconded scholar/ MA or equivalent.

I finally tried Ippudo at Mandarin Gallery just now - the hype has died down considerably, and we were able to get seats fairly quickly (after a 10 min wait or so) though it was dinner time... Tried the Shiromaru and Akamaru ramens again - I thought the Akamaru one was quite nice, but somehow the Kobe versions still tasted better. I suppose both the cold weather and company back then made the ramen yummier :) Heh, but in any case, Ippudo sure beats Santouka - despite colleagues' rave about Santouka's broth, found it so-so only...

I'm so tired and demoralised :( Fell asleep halfway yest b4 I tucked myself into bed. Everyday have to pull myself out of bed and drag feet to prepare for work. Am expected to be efficient and productive everyday without fail. But when you fail/ are overworked nobody really sympathises with you. For the long term good of my nice new colleague, I hope she wun want to stay here for too long.

On flash floods, work and eating rubbish

Flash floods at Orchard made headlines this week. I was wondering how it was immediately reported that losses chalked up were in the millions, only to realise that luxury goods/HERMES bags made up a disproportionate proportion of the initial count. I also came across a piece of extremely smart advertising in Wednesday or Thursday's papers - NTUC Income somehow managed to get hold of the flood pics and rolled out a full page insurance advert on the same day the floods were first reported in the Straits Times. Full page advert right beside the full page reporting on a flooded Orchard Road... So clever!

This is week 1 with SOE. Table is now more cluttered with eye-sorish thicket of unglam cables plus new laptop cum monitor screen. Hai, need to get down to clearing my table clutter some time soon. Archiving with Outlook is a hassle so it helps that Outlook has a more advanced search function. And I kinda like the split screen option - the ability to drag open windows btwn the two computer screens gives me a bigger desktop space. My only attempt to personalise my comp was to replace the ugly SOE wallpaper with a close-up shot of sakura in full bloom. Hopefully the eternal spring on my desktop will remind me that there is always light at the end of the tunnel...

Just yesterday I also realised that I am queen of eating rubbish. My innocuous-looking mouth just draws snacks to it like a vaccuum cleaner. Tried to do a dessert/ snack count just now and despite my resolutions, I've eaten ice-cream/ cakes more than 4 times in the past 4 days! On Wednesday, I resorted to buying a Magnolia ice-cream cone from Cheers after futile efforts to find decent dessert at Lau Pa Sat. On Thurs, I brought someone to eat LRRH (choc mousse cake) at K-Ki during lunch, and had 杨枝甘露 (Mango sago with pomelo) after dinner. Yesterday, I had matcha ice-cream AND a huge portion of peach mango yogurt after dinner! Bleah, everyday is a dessert day for me, no wonder I'm getting flabby... Btw, Coffee Bean at 313 sells yogurt for some strange reason... but their yogurt was pretty sour even for a sour-philic like me. I still like yogurt from Frolick and Seoul Yummy the best :P

This weekend, I... supported a local artiste by buying her CD/ visited a 3-day old newborn baby at Thomson Medical Centre and shared the joy of a very proud grandpa.. Also tried several new yummy items at my fav Jap restaurant at Cuppage Plaza ;) But didn't exercise :(

Today I also unsuccessfully tried to do some last min housekeeping of my emails... Somehow am just hopeless with the strange archiving ways of MND LN and that got me really frustrated. Sigh, shall ask my IT dept for some last min help tmr, and thereafter pray very hard that my disorganised archives get successfully migrated over to my new SOE machine. SOE (stands for SoEasy...) is such an oxymoron. While Mon night will be a work-less night for me, the nightmare shall begin on Tues.... all my undone submissions will now face the fate of disorder with the absence of the 'Sections' function in Outlook... And the very procrastinaty me has also yet to figure out how Outlook works... bleah... :( At work, it really pays/ works to be organised... but sigh, why can't I just bask in my disorder...

Am so not looking forward to work man... but yay, come 21 Jun, new colleague handling TCs portfolio will finally join Hsg Div!

This week, one of my dear pumpkin plants suddenly and silently left me :( On the other hand, not only did the irksome pimple on my cheek not disappear for good, it decided to wreak further havoc by self-inflaming. So irritating! Perhaps the little red dot on my face is reflection of inner temperament/ feelings abt the state of affairs in my work life...

Was in state of denial today. Woke up planning to get a lot of work done, but ended up nuah-ing and not doing any work in the end. Ok, not that it was very surprising I let that happen :P In abt an hr's time I will finally get down to doing it lah. Today I checked out a lil cafe in a quiet part of Sg... and then dropped by the recently-quite-talked-abt Tanjong Pagar Railway station... to get some shots before it leaves us for good... ok lah, its future is undecided for now.

It's so rare to find a cosy little place (with wifi) these days! But this place not v accessible lah (guess that's why it can retain its peacefulness)

Cafe customers chilling outdoors (by the river) with a cuppa coffee...

Was a little disappointed as the railway station was not as photogenic as I thought it would be :P

I had a cookout at home today! Made 3 out of 4 dishes served at dinner, with the winning dish being my creamy carrot soup. Discovered a great recipe on good old Allrecipes.com -- the very reliable site for all my baking recipes some 4 years ago. Yes -- I haven't been cooking for that long, hard to believe eh? And so my cutting/slicing skills were criticised by the more seasoned cooks in the same kitchen bleah. As for my last baking stint (if anyone remembers) -- it was slightly more than a year ago when I made some chimney-like looking banana muffins :P

I tried an improvised nicoise salad, but it turned out pretty mediocre cos I used mayonnaise instead of say, balsamic vinaigrette. Dessert was also not ideal -- I tried making the black sesame cream jelly from my Jap bakebook, but added way too little gelatine... so it turned out to be a sesame puree of sorts. Though the texture was a bit off, it was still pretty yummy; if not mum wouldn't be stealing my recipes after dinner.

Yay -- feel inspired to cook more in the days to come! Lots of room for improvement heh. Maybe I shld finally go get an oven and start baking all over again :) Boo, it's work day tmr....

Two happening weekends in a row...

Two happening weekends in a row is pretty rare for me, and so it certainly deserves recording. Where shld I begin... Maybe starting with the tiny pleasures in life..

My baby pumpkin plants have germinated -- and are looking pretty healthy! Have been staring at the 3rd pumpkin seed but it simply refuses to budge. Guess I'd try again with my next batch of seeds...

Dun they look like green birds perched on yellow poles? ;)

On Friday I also finally went on my family outing to the flyer... With construction of Marina Bay Sands + Gardens By the Bay etc still ongoing, view was still not ideal, but decent enough lah ;)

Lil' piece of Vegas in Singapore

I think we actually have a pretty decent skyline...

Today was also J's wedding, where S gave a very sweet speech about our lovely friend. These days I feel so distant from used-to-be-close friends that I wonder if anyone wld really bother/ care if I get married one day.. Was assigned role of programme IC, but prob succeeded only in irritating seasoned banquet manager, who was prob thinking at the back of his mind why there's this troublesome woman bothering him from time to time.

It's Monday again tmr, but *evil laugh* it's a self-declared holiday for me! And I've been escapist all weekend (since Thurs as this is Vesak Day long weekend) and have not touched laptop for 3 days... Not having to work feels brilliant.