Moved - no more an Orchard road resident :(

We finally moved out of our home of 4 years last month. Our lease ran out and with the landlord asking for more than double the rent we were paying - it was a no brainer, but that's not to say i was still very sad. Here's a final look at our home of 4 years and Jin sitting in an emptied out apt still in denial that we had to move. But..there's always room for hope..Jin says : We will be back :)

Jin's dad's 67th bday...

Last weekend, we headed back to KL for a quick trip to surprise Jin's dad as it was his birthday..made mom my partner in crime..she splendidly pulled off the whole plan without arousing suspicion of any kind :). We arranged to meet at Boathouse restaurant and surprised dad after he sat down..heehee.

The food at Boathouse was wayyy below expectations and rather expensive. Thankfully the service was at the very least - good.

Met up with the usual KL gang for dinner at Mrs Reed's Delicious cafe - see how big Nicky and Ethan have grown!

Next morning, to satisfy Jin's bak kut teh (BKT) craving, the group gamely accommodated and Keat introduced us to a shop in the outbacks of Sungei Way. Here's the big bowl of BKT we all shared. Yum!

It's May? US trip - vegas, san diego, LA

How time flies...i just realised that I hv not updated my blog since March!..gulp..my new role is really eating up into all my spare time for blogging :(. anyway, it's time for a quick update..to start things of, this is a quick recap of my recent US trip - got to go 'cos of the award nomination for one of the campaigns wee hoon and I worked on last year! Spent 4 lovely days in San Diego - perfect weather, food and fun. Above pix shows the glorious sunset that greeted me on Day 1.

Prior to the event at San Diego, I also spent the weekend in Vegas. Pic above shows the wonderful display of flowers at the Bellagio hotel. Did not gamble much so fortunately, only lost $10 :P..but it was fun to watch others gamble and win some :)

The HP Circle Awards - was a bit sad not to have won it but then again, was up against the HP board scandal nominee :p..Here I am at the awards night with the HP China team.

La Jolla resort and spa - the luxurious venue where the Circle awards event was held and where I stayed for 3 nights. There were some cute bunnies running wild in the premise and tons of roses blooming..very pretty!

Managed to find time for a quick run the on the day of the awards..it was much needed work out after all the rich cheesy food! The hotel's quite near the beach and following the running map provided by the hotel, I found myself seeing amazing views..Jin and my retirement plan should definitely include getting a home here! :)

And of course, no visit to San Diego is complete without a visit to La Jolla town area. This is my 3rd visit here and I am still captivated by the scenery and great weather. I got to feed the seagulls, see the seals and eat my lunch while people and sea watching.

Before heading home, managed to spend a day in LA to catch the musical "Wicked"..amazing stage props, OK singing. Also, redid the usual tourist stuff..walk of fame and rubbing tails with tigger :)

Finally, no post is complete without at least showing some pictures of the rich, gargantuan american food we overindulged in..urgh! easily put on 5% fat percentage..gonna definitely have to stay off burgers and cheese for the next few weeks!!

Entertained at dinner - Crystal Mirror

Jin gave me a treat on Sunday night by buying us tickets to the Crystal Mirror - a dinner cum show event. Although we got the cheapest (S$160 per pax) tickets, our booth seats were perfect! Bcos there were only the 2 of us, we got the whole private booth to ourselves vs people who bought more expensive tickets but had to sit at shared tables with strangers. The booth seats were also elevated so we managed to get a good view of all the performances.

The 4 course dinner specially designed by World class Michelin Star chefs met our expectations..we had 3 versions of scallops, lobster bisque and risotto, foie gras quail and 4 kinds of Viennese desserts. Can't go wrong having scallops on the menu :).

The show itself was entertaining although admitedly a bit kitsch at times - we saw acrobats, singers, comedians and some amazing skating , hula hooping and the bubble blowing man (this guy was really good)! My only gripe was that the show was really long (4 hours!!) but I guess that's how people used to be entertained in the roaring 20's (before they had TV, internet, PS2 and mobile phones :) Here's a pix I took of Jin while waiting to enter the tent - I love this shot :)


It was a good end to the weekend - having worn myself silly by attending my 1st dragon boat attempt. Met up with some colleagues at 10am on a Sunday at the Kallang Sports Centre and spent the next 3 hours trying to play our part in moving the long boat (don't know who we were trying to kid..I was more concerned about how good I would look after the time under the hot Spore sun!)


However, despite the heat, lots of sweat and hard work, an aching back and butt - I had fun and it was a nice way to spend Sunday morning looking at the Spore skyline from a different view on the (dirty) Kallang river. of course there was a lot of eye-candy for me - Jin even commented that Sporean men in general have nice bods (editor's note: comments like these should not be widely disseminated) ;)..would I do it again? ask me after my butt and back stops aching :P

Desmond & Jeraldine tie the knot :)

Our couple friend who we met during the Egypt trip 2 years ago got married on Sat at Marina Mandarin. Jeraldine such a radiant bride - she mentioned that her wish was to look like a princess and that she did..i loved her blue dress! It was also good to see part of the group again and the first thing most of us said was that it felt like we were back on the Egypt tour as we sat on a round table overindulging just like on many of the tour meals :)

The one addition to the group is of course, baby Francine...who has grown so much since we last saw her before Christmas and super well behaved

Finally, a trip to the spore zoo with Chloe Luthi

When we found out that we have to move out of our Cuscaden home by end March 07, I informed all our close friends that "Hotel Cuscaden" was closing down so that they could take the final opportunity to stay :). Olivia and family finally made it down this weekend and they have the honor of being the last guests before the end of the Cuscaden era..(sob sob!).

Anyway, it was fantastic to see everyone again and Chloe, being 3.5 years old is at the perfect fun age..Friday night saw us introducing them to Spore's pepperish version of 'bak kut teh' which Olivia really liked. Steph and I drank too much of the pepperish soup and paid for it when our stomachs started protesting big time not long after after :p (editor's note: let's skip the gory details here)

I had promised Chloe in August last year to bring her to the Spore zoo should she visit her Ah Yee Cindy..The spore zoo is small but really a world-class attraction with some of the best exhibits like the polar bear and orang utan open home. Was quite dissapointed that the penguin exhibit was closed and had to tell Chloe that when the penquins get back from vacation, she will have to come visit again :). Here are some great shots taken with Steph's super high-tech Nikon SLR.

And here's a shot of Steph taken with my baby camera ..heehee

Last night, we satisfied Liv's cray fish craving with dinner at the newly renovated Newton Circus hawker centre. I have not been here for ages and was pleasantly surprised with the nice change after the reno works. We ordered a variety of typical Newton fare : 2 kinds of cray fish (black pepper and garlic), 1 chilli lala, fishball noodles, popiah, maggie mee goreng and fried oyster. The maggie mee goreng was close to KL standards..yay, found a place to come to to satisfy maggie goreng craving! Finished off the meal with a durian ice kacang - introduced durian to Chloe and she clearly liked it :). ..Liv was not all too happy about this as she hates durian. haha!

This morning, we managed to convince Steph to play a game of tennis with us..he claims that he has not played for like 8 years but I guess Steph's one of those guys who is good at every sport cos he managed some really good shots and that left both Lin and me impressed :). Lunch was at YhingThai at Purvis..food's always good but a tad pricey (avg $40 per pax).

Our last Cuscaden visitors just left..and I am already missing our guests and feeling a twinge of sadness that we will soon have to move out of our wonderful city home of 4 years. Must remember to take some final pix of our 1st home in Spore before we move. Here's a pix of Chloe taken on the way to the zoo yesterday..,say Cheese :)

Weekend with Shih Tzu puppy - Muji

Invited Anne and VB, Ed and Liliane for a simple dinner on Friday night and got to meet Muji, a 5 month old shih tzu puppy that Anne's doggy-sitting for the week. Muji's a real sweetheart - very loving and hardly barks and best thing is, does not shed much hair :). Baby Lucas was not too happy with Muji's social skills and made a fuss each time Muji tried licking him..hahaha :)

Also had a weekend visitor - Keat dropped over for 2 short days to attend a concert at Esplanade with his cousins. We took him for dinner on Sat nite to Uncle Leong's crab stall at Ang Mo Kio. Mellban (the more famous one next door) was as usual super packed with a long wait queue outside even though it was only 630pm..thankfully Uncle Leong had ample seats and honestly, having tried both places before, I personally find Uncle's preparation at least on par, if not better than Mellban.


We ordered the black pepper crab bee hoon and curry paste crabs. The waiter must have taken a liking to us cos he gave us the crabs with the most amount of eggs I have ever seen (editor's note: the curry paste version is to die for..simply superb)..it was soooo plentiful that even the greedy guys could not finish it (sigh..wasted!)..we hid the remaining eggs under the crab shell so that the cute waiter boy wouldn't feel offended..heehee.

Sunday morning was spent running off the crab calories with 2 hours of tennis. But all the calories were replaced with a fabulous lunch at Royal China. The char siew soh was just as good as we remembered it to be..flaky pastry that just melts in your mouth wrapped delicately around succulent honey char siew...yumyum such blissful happiness!! everything else was also really good...We managed to leave space for dessert and discovered that the glutinous black rice with coconut ice cream in pumpkn puree was excellent. I also tried the orh nee and it's not bad..not too sweet, just wished they did not add the almond paste as well :p