Brunch at Dempsey Hill

This weekend was a particularly good one..managed to meet up with Ed and Lilaine along with baby Lukas who we have not seen for 4 months..how time flies..decided to have brunch at one of the new places at Dempsey. Unfortunately Ben and Jerry's was not opened so we decided on Jones the Grocer. It was packed but we got a communcal table with another family of 4. the menu listed the usual eggs and pancakes which was what we got along with sides of mushrooms. Not a bad place for brunch as the ambience and atmosphere gave an easy-going vibe. After brunch, we walked around the area and hopped into B&J..wow, the smell of waffles was amazing..I can't wait to come back here to check it out.

Spent the afternoon doing something out of the ordinary..I actually took a afternoon nap :p..felt really good after the nap - we then headed for our 6 hole golf game..it was really fun and Jin hit a PAR at hole 6 - 2 very estactic people were doing high 5's at that green :)

Then it was a quick rush to meet the gang at Whampoa fish steamboat where I had my filled of the delicious soup. After din, RY wanted to check out Timbre in town - we circled around for a good 30 minutes to find parking :p. that night we played MJ till 2 in the morning and I won $4.50 from Karen :)

Quick weekend getaway - Macau and Hong Kong

Jin was invited to attend ex colleague - Rita's wedding in HK so with our cheap JetStar tix bought months ago, we took off last weekend. Flight was ridiculously early at 7am but that also meant we got into HK really early. Decided that instead of staying 2 nites in HK, we wanted to check out the newly opened Venetian casino in Macau so we quickly wove our way to the seaport where the hovercrafts leave for Macau from HK.

Checked into 3 star Hotel Sintra. Although they were having major renovations and therefore lots of noise, since we were out most of the day, it did not really bother us. What was more impt - clean sheets and bathroom..thankfully, they past the test :). I did my usual homework about places to eat and that took us to Lisboa Restaurant where we ordered a meal enough for 4 people..hehe, how greedy. We had the shrimp soup which came in a lovely loaf bread so you could scope the pieces of bread from the side when you dig the spoon in for the soup. Jin wanted the stewed herbal duck and that was a big dish for two...too herby for my liking but Jin enjoyed it. I could not resist but to order the baked crab which was listed in too many reviews..it was yummy..very oily but yummy ;))

Macau (and HK) was very very extremely polluted..the haze hung like a dark cloud over the city and visibility was miserably poor. We managed to catch a fireworks competition..very spectacular and would have been even more so if there was no haze. I like macau..it's so quaint and i love the local biscuit shops where you get to sample everything..I have to say, these shops were quite generous in they amount they let you sample which makes you wonder about the profit margins. :p

We left Macau early as i could not wait to check into the very nice Conrad HK hotel..Jin managed to exchange his points and they gave us a room on the executive floor which meant we got to use the lounge on the 59th floor for free...the lounge faces the beautiful HK harbour but sadly, the view was hampered by the haze. :(

First food stop in HK has to be wanton mee at our favourite shop at wellington road. Got to meet little Ryan finally and he is such a handsome boy.

Spent the rest of the night amusing myself by walking from lan kwai fong (women's street) all the way down to temple street..it was a loong walk and I did not buy anything..finally found myself at the esprit outlet where I managed to get some winter clothes at 50% discount. As jin still wasnt done with the wedding, I found myself craving a foot massage. There was this lady on the street waving pamphelts on cheap foot massages and convinced by her, we walked to a nearby deserted looking building, took the lift to the 13th floor and got into a dingy looking flat. At this point, all my warning signals were peaked...I sat down and quickly smsed Jin all the details and told him to come look for me if he does not hear from me after an hour. Thankfully my fears were unnecessary and it was a proper all business foot massage which I got :)

Our third day was spent rather reluctantly at the hotel lounge - working :p...both of us had to clear important emails..anyway, figured we probably stay healthier staying in the hotel vs walking outside with the pollution. Managed to get out for 2 hours to Causeway Bay where I got 2 boxes of lo poh pang from the famous Hung Heung biscuit shop at Sogo's basement. We headed to the airport pretty early, giving Jin enough time to pack a yummy char siew and duck rice from Cafe Cartel at terminal 1 before our flight home to Spore. Was tempted to pack 2 boxes of Krispy Kremes for the office but decided that it was too much work to hand carry doughnuts onto the flight :D

Weekend with Liza in Spore

Liling finally decided to visit - she came on friday to attend the Tempus -watch and time convention. saturday, we brought her to try out brunch at Din Tai Fung, then left her to attend her seminar. Jin and i got busy - first stop was to shop for a new pair of glasses for me. My eyes are still inflamed so decided to stay of contacts till they stop protesting, Bought a versus branded for $200 frame only. took us less than 10 minutes to decide on the design as we were rushing for our massage session. see the new look me :)

Sat evening, we brought liza to try out Coriander Leaf at Clark Quay. Hv always wanted to check out this restaurant but there are always soo many new restaurants to try in spore...anyway, happy to note that the food was good, although a tad on the pricier side. we saved our stomachs for dessert at Highlander cafe..the scene at Clark Quay was noisy with the rugby season in full swing..here's Jin playing around with one of the chairs from Clinic Bar.

Sunday was a packed packed day..got woken up by Jin wayy too early so that got me on a pretty stoned mood the rest of the day. We took Liza for katong laksa and then after dropping her off, made our way to the driving range. Then it was a quick rush to Clark Quay to watch the Spore Duck Race on the Spore river..the start off time was delayed 1 hour so I had plenty of time to watch the 2 boys next to me hunt for spiders..good grief,...why can't boys be clean like girls? :p

The ducks were off loaded from 2 big trucks..we did not manage to take a close up of the ducks but jin said they were really cute with sunnies on them :)..here's a pix i "stole" from the official website. Anyway, I thought it was Ok to wait an hour to see the water filled with yellow duckies.

And then as we were walking off, we bumped into William and Jenny and of course Bailey the doggy..he's so big now! Very beautiful dog but forgot to take pix of him..all's not lost as William has invited us for dinner so will get my chance to take Bailey's pix soon :)

Sunday evening, I joined Liza at St James powerhouse for the Horumundi Pajama Party. My first PJ party and it was quite odd to be walking around in the open in my PJs :)..however, i survived and also was glad to attend as I managed to pose with 2 slippery cold "friends" :D.

Merdeka Day Party!!

Decided to plan a gathering with the Msian folks in Spore..calling it the Merdeka Party, we decided to go "truly asia" with adam road's nasi lemak, City Satay satays, Crytal Jade's char siew soh, chips and salad. the nasi lemak came with the full suite of compliments - otah, chicky wings, bergedil and fish cake. Had the party at the pool but no one came in their swimming gear so no swimming was done :p. Ordered Lana's famous choc cake for dessert..Gail and YL loved the cake :).

It's been 7 years!! Sept 3rd, 2007

Last Saturday Jin arranged for our 7th anniversary getaway. he wanted the day to be a surprise so everytime I asked him about it, he had a one word answer for me : Secret

To throw me off track, he kept saying we were going to batam..which of course I knew was not where we were going..anyway, after buying me a nice Taylor Made putter from the golf sale at Harbourfront, he handed me a blindfold in the car. kinda corny but hey, who am i to complain ..lol

He started driving around and I of course kept asking where we were going and he just said "secret" :p. then the car stopped and he had to roll down the window on my side of the car and this lady went "welcome to sentosa"..duh! the secret was out, not batam but sentosa. Jin booked us a night at the lovely Beaufort Hotel - complete with a spa package and breakfast for two.

Rooms and breakfast were ok..resort was nice as we got the refurbished garden deluxe room. the spa experience at Spa Botanica was something out of this world..voted best spa in asia, i could totally see why..we had a wonderful scrub followed by a vichy shower/aqua therapy where waterjets sprayed on us as we relaxed on our tummies after the scrub. Half an hour later, we were further pampered with a relaxing swedish massage. worth every penny!! before our spa session, we got to try out the mud spa pool - here's jin covered with mud :).

Dinner was a simple one at food republic vivo and then it was a quick hop to the cinema to catch Ratatouile..however, my dear hubby thought he clicked the submit button when he was buying the tix...so ended up, he did not and there were no more seats left to catch the show..seeing how sad he looked, I decided that dessert would cheer him up so we headed to bakerzin for their trio of tapas dessert :)

Next morning, we got up bright and early and got 2 mountain bikes from the hotel to cycle round the island..it was very calming and peaceful and so fun to see the doggies happily running around the water edge. After an hour of being outdoors, we headed back to fill our tummies with breakfast. Too bad we had to check out a little early as we had the merdeka party to plan ...all in all, it was a wonderful weekend..thanks jin :))

Trekked out by Mulu...

National Day public holiday saw us trekking 8km with heavy backpacks across the rainforest in East Msia - mom's great idea that she wanted to see the famous Pinnacles and Mulu caves. Getting to Mulu itself was a mini adventure - we had to fly spore to KL, KL to Miri and then hop onto small propeller plane to Mulu. We checked into the rustic Royal Mulu Resort and lunch was at the Royal Mulu National Park (the resort charges RM35 for a bowl of curry noodles..good grief..talk about price exhortion!!) - where we had the Mulu laksa (yummy!) for RM10 a bowl.

Then we joined a group of 20 over tourist and walked to see the world's largest caves. Although I do not particularly like caves cos they are usually wet, smelly and dark - the beautiful formations created by nature makes it worthwhile to endure the cave other not so nice elements :P After 2 hours of cave exploring, we settled at the nearby viewpoint area to view 5 million bats coming out of the caves for their nightly rendevous and makan time. These amazing creatures fly over 100km each night..how exhausting it must be to be a bat..but then again, I hv no idea why they need to fly so far to get insects..there were tons of insects just outside their cave :p..how batty ..lol.

Next day, 6am saw us up and out on a longboat ride to see more caves (and beautiful Raja Brooke butterfly) and the boat will stop at the start of the 8km trek into Camp 5 (our home for 2 days). Unfortunately, what I thought would be a nice boat ride turned up to be extremely strenous as the water levels were low and that required major boat pushing. puff puff puff

The 8km trek in was quite relaxing and slow as we did not want to tire ourselves too much..that is, until it started pouring about 5km into the trek..then we scrambled..and walked really really fast..and reached camp 5 pretty soaked. We were introduced into our "rooms" - house on stilts, raised floors with thin mattress and no windows..so you literally get the wind going through the room along with insects, bats and fireflies..talk about going back to nature...i missed my hot water shower and bed immensely :D

The Pinnacles is NOT, I repeat NOT for beginners..only 2.4km uphill and after 1 km, mom had enuff and I was quite happy to follow her down (though quite bummed out not to see the Pinnacles. Jin was sent as our defacto eyes;). Mom and I took ages to climb the 1km downhill and on top of that, we made a wrong turn from Camp 5 and ended up back to Camp really really late, tired and hungry. Was really happy to see that Jin made it safely up and back - within good record time too!

Next day, with sore muscles and legs, we started the 8km trek back at 630am. Thankfully I had my iPod to help make the journey seem shorter...would hv been an uneventful trek back if not for poor mom falling off while crossing the log..thankfully the ground below her was soft and only about 4 feet high..ouch ouch! The long boat ride back was much more relaxing that the trip up as the water level rose thanks to the rain and we were also following the flow of the river.

Was very very happy to check into the Marriot at Miri..back to civilisation..Jin and I cant imagine being as brave and gung ho as mom is at her age..really salute her! For us, next holiday better be at the beach and spa..no more jungles :D

Gwen Stefani and fireworks

Last week went by in a blur...was stuck at a mktg summit for 3 days at Hilton and coupled with late nights working with the agency to launch two big mktg campaigns, the week seemed like a month long and i guess it shows..my idiot friend told me yesterday I look so haggard..I think he needs a good kick :D



Anyway, in the midst of madness, there must always be fun so tuesday night - we attended the Gwen Stefani concert..that woman is really something..37 yrs old and has a body of a 16 year old and energy of 20 horses..she put on a good show..much better than that boring Westlife concert we attended previously :p

Celebrated the weekend with Jason Bourne..it was a action packed Bourne Ultimatium which Jin and I enjoyed. Saturday was a super packed day with yoga and golf..I am learning that the only way to finish the course is to hit with my fairway wood aka 4th driver :p. Although pretty exhausted, Jin insisted we go see the last round of fireworks - part of National Day celebrations. It was a packed crowd from our viewpoint at the newly constructed One Raffles Quay..have not seen fireworks since New Year's eve in San Francisco 5 years ago and this brought back good memories :)



Also managed to catch the musical - King and I..great stage set but mediocare singing :P..Sunday was a fun relaxing day hanging out with Lin and RY..we played tennis in the hot hot sun and waved the white flag after an hour of being baked. Brunch was at nearby Choupinette (french bakery)..no camera but the burger and cakes were good.