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.

Lousy dinner in a cool area

Decided to check out Food For Thought @ Queen St just now for nice dinner after long draining day at work - unfortunately went so late that the kitchen was no longer open to take orders. Ended up walking opposite the road to Olio Dome (yeah, so nostalgic and secondary-sch-ish), where we ordered some mediocre pasta and a barley chicken gourmet pie with pastry-top. The gourmet pie turned out to be just pastry with chicken soup and smelled and tasted really chickeny... Though I know nuts about cooking, I suppose it must be because the chicken was not fresh. I've never had anything so chickeny for a long long time 'cos chicken is generally odourless, no matter how it's cooked.

Anyways... after a unsatisfying dinner, decided to try my luck at Food For Thought again. I've had really yummy red velvet cake at their Bugis branch, and it made me want to relive that again after disappointing dinner. Alas, they ran out of red velvet cake and only had black velvet cake... Sadly it was really not as nice as the red one + cake portion was quite dry and hard (though that didn't quite stop a greedy me from finishing the whole cake lah). I'm sure i can make better cake if i put my heart to it! According to google sources, black velvet cake is supposed to be really chocolatey but the one I just had was not at all chocolatey... So sad I was cheated of my money throughout the night. Hmph.

4 more days of clear-work-all-day workdays. Sob.

A rare, happening Saturday...

Yesterday was J's bachelorette party-- meticulously planned and executed by C. "Wild" day out was divided into 4 segments - Julie & Julia cooking class at Coriander Leaf in the morning, spa/pedi/mani pampering session at Aramsa, interesting dancing class in late afternoon, followed by chill-out DVD session at Jing's new place at night. Was extremely exhausted by the end of the day, but it was good fun :) Ok lah, this morning I still woke up feeling alright and planted the baby pumpkin plant I bought abt a month ago heh. I never knew those compacted squarish-looking dirt expanded to a potful of soil upon contact with water! It's like those vacuum-packed pillows that swell to 3, 4 times their size when opened...

Here's some pics from the French-cooking class. To be more accurate, it was a sit-and-watch-then-eat class. The food was delicious on the whole, but some dishes were overly salty. Though I'm now equipped with a set of really fancy recipes, not sure when I'd ever get down to making such dishes... Nonetheless, I picked up a few tips -- like I can totally make lobster bisque with prawns and nobody can tell the difference; and that the key ingredients in French cooking are wine, a lot of butter; and salt!

Really yummy & fresh nicoise salad

Was listening to Class 95 and Yaz invited 3rd S'pore Idol Sezairi Serzali on air... to be frank, I'm so suaku I don't even know who the latest S'pore idol is (ok, not like it really matters anyways lah). But 'cos this 23-yr old guy had very decent diction and sounded pretty mature for his age, the interview kinda caught my ear and I decided to check him out online.. and hey, he has a pretty decent new single Broken. The song's really catchy and he sounds so... unSingaporean. Though at some point I wonder if he was trying a little too hard to sound angmoh-ish in general. Actually... if i see him on the streets I totally wouldn't be starstruck; but he does sound pretty confident and has a nice voice :)

Had a nice leisurely afternoon lazing indoors after brunch/lunch at Cluny Court... Decided to check out two relatively new dessert joints there -- Taste Matters and 3 Inch Sin. The former's star pdts include creme brulee and lavender/ vannila ice cream whereas the latter is molten choc cake haven. Wasn't in a very chocolatey mood today so we decided to try out the ice cream place. Taste Matters only does takeaways... The creme brulee was nice, but not quite worth $6.50 for the small portion. But their lavender ice-cream was a great find! It's fragrant, not too sweet and un-purple 'cos owner says he refuses to add colouring heh. Some ppl might find lavender ice cream weird, but i found it pretty refreshing and addictive :P You also wun feel guilty finishing the whole tub at one sitting -- the ice cream doesn't contain preservatives so it wun last that long anyways (4 days or so) :P

Such small-scale local F&B/ dessert places have been springing up quite quickly all over Singapore -- 3 cheers for all these brave souls daring enough to live out their dreams.

It's Monday again tomorrow :(

It's been a while since I had a proper outing with my family.. so I made it an effort to somewhat celebrate Mother's Day this afternoon. Though the intended flyer outing failed due to bad weather, think everyone enjoyed the lunch outing to Si Chuan Dou Hua. The family lunch also seemed especially nice for Dad, who commented I'm always MIA these days :( It felt somewhat terrible and sometimes I hate myself for spending so much time at work on weekdays/going out too much on weekends. Hope that will slowly change in the coming months...

I've been feeling somewhat depressed and sian over the endless stream of work, but at the same time am trying hard it doesn't get to me too much. Thankfully I'm not alone in thinking that workload isn't very sustainable. And luckily (or unluckily?) I have a lazy streak and somehow end up slacking over weekend despite having grand plans on Fri evenings to do a whole lot of work/ catch up over the weekend. And the lazy streak lulls me to bed by ard 1230 am every night. I seriously cannot imagine nor think it worthwhile pulling all nighters just to clear work. So I guess I've still managed to remain quite sane despite it all... just feel so tired and drained on weekday nights :( And the tiring day just repeats itself the next day. And the next day... and the next day... Until the weekend finally arrives.

Flowerfest!

Thankfully I recovered from my sudden sickness early this week and finally got round to exercising a bit just now (night cycling at ECP!)... Just thought I'd do a lazy post of lovely flowers before I head to bed... ;)

I woke up with a high fever on Sat morning out of the blue... and fever has come and gone the past two days without really gg away for good. And suffered from series of stomach upsets this morning... I must have gotten some sorta stomach virus :( Bleah, it shall be MC day tmr and hopefully there's nothing seriously wrong with me. I hate taking medicine...

J and D have got some really nice pics... esp the person with the $3k cam. Hmph.... but ok lah, I free-ride and get some nice pics of myself too heh. This is a picture of my favorite fish at the Osaka aquarium... Mr Porcupine Fish. Too bad my cam not so power, so Mr Porcupine Fish is a bit blurry.... ;)

Says MPF -- "I'm very pricky but I'm cute!"

I'm back from my lovely trip to Japan... with several bags richer but thousands of yen poorer too heh. We experienced the passing of spring and overnight winter within a week! Work is however not treating me well and I will attempt to blog less skimpily over the weekend...

A sea of pink near Osaka Castle

Rays that peeked out from the rain clouds lit up the trees beautifully at Nara Park

Waking up to snow-covered trees in Hakone (freak weather, but beautiful)

It's a 2-day countdown to the Land of the Rising Sun and the mad scramble to clear work has left me with little time to prepare for the holiday to one of my favorite countries... bleah. But with holiday in sight, there's plenty of motivation to continue working hard! J in Japan, see u this weekend :)

I checked out two cafes in my "neck of woods" this afternoon -- Vanilla Bar & Cafe at Boon Tat St and K-Ki at Ann Siang Hill. I noticed Vanilla some time back -- but lunchtime's mostly a rush so I've never managed to check it out. As for K-ki... recently came across it in Simply Her and decided to hunt it down too. They didn't disappoint and I'm quite excited to have two new cafes near my workplace I can go for lunch/desserts when nice ppl visit heh.

Mont Blanc Chestnut CakeLRRH - the exterior is so glossily perfect...

Because I have a soft spot for pretty pastries, my heart fluttered more when indulging in desserts at K-ki (pronounced kay-kee, like the katakana pronunciation for cake). The cakes were not cheap, but looked and tasted really good. It really made me feel like opening a similar bakery! But my baking skills are so rusty I'd prob need to 闭关修炼 for some years before I can come close to their standards ;( We tried two cakes -- the Mont Blanc and LRRH (Little Red Riding Hood -- choc mouse cake with raspberry filling). Both were yummy but I preferred the Mont Blanc; somehow the cream, the chestnut swirls, the cake and tart base went really well together.

The salmon cum egg mayo sandwich I had at Vannila ;)

I have been suffering from tired eye syndrome the past few days ;( Capable colleague managing the Town Councils portfolio has returned to HDB upon the end of her secondment... And new person who was supposed to relieve my workload has been snapped up by MOF... help for me is nowhere in sight :( The only consolation is that the HDB folks I work with are really nice and relatively easy to get along with. Heart melted a little when one of them told me over the phone (acknowledging my plight) = nmind, we are here to support you...

I shld just go be a florist or something lah hor. At least my eyes shall be saved...

There are so many things I want to do more of, e.g.

Read more.
Play more tennis to get rid of my floppy wrist.
Exercise more to retain my youth.
Spend more time with mum or sis.
Travel more.
SLEEP more.

Last Sat I also bought Okashi, a Japanese baking recipe book with many yummy looking recipes... If only I could set aside more time for such domestic activities... Heh.

And to do all the above, quite obvious there's something I need to do less of:

WORK!! :(

The other night when waiting for cabs at Clarke Quay, tph commented that I was getting "spoilt" 'cos I've gotten used to being chauffeured ard most of the time. Unfortunately, I have to admit that there's some truth to her observation. These days even when I go home on my own I find myself opting for the taxi more often than the good old bus/mrt bleah. But it really does get annoyingly crowded on the trains these days!