first up is the TS lunch at Hyatt, Straits Kitchen
as the name suggest, it serves food from the region such as chinese food like laksa, chicken rice, stir-fried vegetables
Indian food like curries, briyani etc
local delights like popiah, rojak, gado-gado
nonya food like otah, rendang
drinks are also quite varied from orange juice, guava, sour plum, bandung etc better than most buffet already which usually only give water or worse, did not serve any drinks like Casa do Churrassco at East Coast (never going back there!! even if they have 1-for-1 promotion)
desserts are heavenly especially their ice cream, although there are only 5 flavours, all of them are worth trying especially mango, soursop and durian. other desserts such as ice kachang, goreng pisang and others are also very good
but i only go there because its free and i get to get off work earlier
for fun, i prefer my own team high-tea buffet at Royal plaza on Scotts, we are given private dining area, variety wise, it was quite comparable with some japanese and middle eastern selection.
there is chocolate fondue and fruits given are quite high class such as guava and grapes.
anyway more so because the “old” IA students are back and we played games together, even though it was just simple games, everyone enjoyed themselves very much and this morning, everyone like thanked me for organising it? when i did not do much except to explain some of the games and hold the DARE bucket.
anyway no pictures cos its work related
so bottomline: both buffet places are quite good and worth the money (cos i get it for free??)
Hyatt Straits Kitchen Lunch : $42++
Carousel, Royal Plaza on Scotts: $28 ++ (warning, no parking coupons given and parking can cost more than 8 bucks ($4 for first hour)
My first Craft project
herbal Pack,
Recipe
Rice/buckwheat/corn mix in a bowl with essential oils of ur choice
fill up into a cotton “bag” sew them up
I also made an outer covering so that its easy to wash it next time
made 2, one for me another one for MrK colleague
till now, smell still quite strong, but need to sewsome rubber so that it will stay on during sleep.
Board games cafe mania
till now only tried 2 cafes
pitstop cafe, not bad their location and easy to find parking and all around there is good food!
decoder’s cafe, being in clementi, it is more convenient!
Thats me at Pitstop Cafe, playing Ticket to Ride
some of my colleagues who went to decoders also love the idea of a board games cafe!
really although a little expensive it can be quite fun!
now my new hobby is to be an interior designer
downloaded the free software sweet home 3D
to play around with my future DREAM house!!
as some of you might notice, fig and olive also has a branch in vivocity, everyone (ok maybe NUS peeps only) favourite mall. but I have never eaten there cos the prices are not too friendly
but this time it was a farewell lunch for one of my colleague so we didnt really have a say plus being in a team, full of international people from all over the world we need to get some vegetarian, kosher, halal and so on…
anyway i ordered their speciality, maghribi chicken with olive rice
but to me they just taste so so, service was also lacking, like top up for drinks was lacking, no one bothers to explain the menu and so on, maybe because we are a big group, but definitely not going back there, cos the food do not taste special at all
All things raffles is usually associated with quality in Singapore, after all Raffles was hailed as the founding father of Singapore and praised for making this small city or rather at that time kampong (village) as the hub for British trade.
well of course there is another raffles building that many people do not know of because of its obscure location just next to the second link, its called the raffles marina. As the name suggests, it is a marina for yachts to dock and comes with club facilities just a stone throw away at the raffles country club.
Some of you might know that I am on industrial attachment right now and therefore posts have become more and more irregular.But i think only a few knew that i worked in a company that is situated next to Raffles Marina.
well of course my company holds function here often, especially the managers forum called CONNECT. but i am just an intern, so my first chance of going there to taste free food is just a week ago when it was the first day of the newly formed company
I shall just let pictures do the talking
the food was not bad, but it was just the usual finger food served for conferences so no real link with their restaurants quality. but the view is definitely very beautiful. All the rich and famous’ yachts and the sea and the grand entrance
Well this taiwan trip was made nearly a year ago…probably the info is just nice for ppl leaving for taiwan in december.
therefore I am just gonna do a quick summary of all of it cos I am really busy these days handling too many projects and too many school stuff n work stuff. its fun, i love being busy…though once in a while i would like to spend my time just doing nothing– reading novels and playing games are top of that list.
But i am slowly trying to change.. instead of novels i tried to read self-help light hearted books
and instead of games i try blogging instead.. and reading blogs online or on the iphone…
well to summarise..
after kaohsiung, on the fourth day we travelled up again we visited many many temples (in taichung area) including the famous Fu Kuan Shan (the origins of Buddhism in taiwan), the climb was quite strenous
and the famous Sun Moon Lake, the scenery changes with each season, I was in winter season and I have newspaper clippings (yeah i cut up clippings of nice pictures of places i wanna travel to) of the other seasons…maybe someday I AM going to visit all these places
I really like sun moon lake, very serene and beautiful, I think it was the highlight of the trip though mom was not feeling well due to the cold weather thus only we kids go to the temple nearby the lake. we managed to convince her to take the cruise though and she was in high spirits after that cos the scenery was really wonderful
they are planning to build resorts and cable car from alishan down to sun moon lake… gonna be so cool
btw along the way to sun moon lake, there is the very controversial betel nut sellers. Why controversial? well they wear very skimpy clothes sitting inside a glass box. and btw Taiwanese are very crazy about betel nut chewing (yeah i think Indons are familiar with nenek-nenek yang suka makan pinang and have colourful teeth …) and in winter… wow really very cold but i guess making money is really important. Quite a tourist attraction too. The tour guide said nowadays is very toned down already.. in the past they were more daring.
anyway after the beautiful sun moon lake and the cruise around it, we start visiting some other important temples and some hero mansion. Sorry I could not remember all of them because I wasn’t interested in it. I mean I really didn’t know that the tours organised by Indons could be so sophisticated, although the name Taiwan Heritage Tour should give me some idea.
well
soon after we are back in taipei.. on the agenda was visiting taipei 101 but was stuck in traffic so we ended up going in and having haagen dasz.
the next day was yeh liu marine park, very beautiful place that should not be missed, the rocks formation are really mind-boggling
and then to some theme-park, quite fun cos it was quite empty and didnt have to wait long to go on the rides. My sis and I quite enjoyed ourselves
anyway to the pictures
sorry it could not be more informative but its so long ago.. i need to quickly get all of it out …i hope my next trips wont end up in the back end of my brain and forgotten so easily
Family picture
Daddy
Sis at the temple near Sun moon Lake, it was raining that day
the vast sun moon lake behind me…
the temple is pretty big and full of nice depictions and graphics
this is not at the sun moon lake, another place, sorry cannot remember the name now, but its a big place and it runs schools and stuff, philanthropy works, and the temple fully funded by the philanthropists
mom and dad at the same temple as the above pic
Sun moon Lake
daddy at the amusement park
mommy…halloween was just over i know
Yeh liu pictures
the sea breeze really makes it even colder
well let me know if u have qns
Actually these may not be my favourite but the ones i am using constantly using maybe almost everyday.
1> BillMinder
Ever since, mrK applied for so many credit cards to take advantage of the different discounts and to keep track of all of them I use this app.
This one is quite good because for each creditor, there are a few fields u can type in, so u can type in the account number and such so that when it comes to payment u can do it easily
the creditors are also saved so u can be reminded of what u need to pay but have not entered in.
they also have recurring feature so those recurring ones do not need to be typed in.
its quite fast, the form only need date due and amount so really efficient and to me its really good and functional.
2. NewsStand.
The graphics shown in the screenshot might look better than other RSS reader as it seems like u r reading from the real newsstand. but I dont view my feed in that way anyway (I view it normally n simply like the second pic) so this one is just a normal RSS reader but ever since recommended to it by pat, I been using it and did not look to other and maybe better RSS reader. Serve its purpose and enough said
3. Birdfeed
My twitter app, i used to use tweetie. but birdfeed is not bad too.. maybe graphics wise birdfeed is nicer. I am quite a loyal person and one twitter app is enough for me. I cannot tell u the advantages of having birdfeed instead of tweetie cos I just download whatever I feel like and did not do much research.
btw my twitter username is ferrerotwit
4. IXpenseIt
to keep track of what i spend easily.. just a few taps and there is a feature to keep track of the receipts too
simple and good
5. Night Camera
this app helps you take picture only after you have steadied your hands so it took the most steady shot, quite handy for night shots but it doesnt do any adjustment to the image whatsoever so given the limited capability of the camera in iphone.. its still best that u take a camera that is capable to take a better night shot
6. Quadcamera
Quad camera is really my fav iphone camera app. but recently it has been screwed up on my phone. perhaps the 3.0 update not suitable cos I have not updated the app
but really, it has taken very good pictures, my penang trip pictures is full of examples of the capability of capturing pictures and turn it into very lomo-ish pictures
7. Awesome Notes
Frankly I have not used this app much, but it organises notes better than the other (default) notes app.
and the colourful bookmark is really nice to have
8. SG wireless
Just another wireless log in management system, one that actually works best in campus so i stick with it
9. NotifyMe/ToDo
notify me has been in toplist, since it was using apple push service, so it sends out reminder to prod the procastinator in me. therefore i like it, but recently i received some email that my version is no longer supported so i am switching back to the old to do
10. IM plus
since beejive IM dont work well in my phone, this one is another multi messenger service that is supporting push as well.. so yeah love it
thats all for now.. all these apps are in the first 2 pages in my iphone and ones i used the most
so yeah let me know if u have any comments or would like more info before deciding the right apps for ur iphone
1> ParkingLot
This game’s objective is to move the yellow car towards the yellow line for exit (wow so many yellow reminds me of pat)
it is really mind-stimulating, fun and most importantly its fast, you can load the game fast cos its not much animation or graphics, and finish one puzzle quite fast. so its really suitable for the casual gamer like me whos looking to fill just a short 2-5 mins of waiting for the train or bus etc.
2. Bejeweled 2 for Iphone
another game that is nice and colourful, it is very bright so can play during bright times such as midday without problems.
This is quite important to me because my iphone mirror screen protector sometimes reflects too much light and sometimes it is hard to see some stuff in very bright places.
well the game is very popular and needs no introduction about whats the objective.
3. Flight Control
This game objective is to land the plane safely without them crashing into each other.
my record so far on this runway is 153 planes. there are other runways too, some smaller some bigger. so the trick is to make use of the space and know how much exactly the distance that the plane needs and speed of the plane
oh well, another fun game with nice and simple graphics.
4. Sally’s spa
Those kind of time management games just like diner dash.
but this one has nice music and quite good graphics, so sometimes it could make the phone freeze.
quite relaxing and makes u feel like going to spa
5. Mindtwister
This game is really difficult cos there is a time limit to them and really test ur spatial ability.
I hate losing so I actually seldom play this game. and yeah i am quite bad at spatial/geometry stuff
6. Tap Tap Revenge (Lady Gaga)
well its quite a fun finger exercise and I like lady gaga so yeah among all the other tap tap stuff..this one is my fave
7. Mahjong Fairyland
a mahjong game where the opponents are people from fairyland. Quite like the cute voice and helped me improve my game.
difficulty: quite difficult actually… I seldom win 
8. Zynga Poker Live
REAL life poker with fake money. connected to other social media such as facebook.
so its not bad.. now I am a millionare there. and becoming more cautious about my wealth.
bad thing, not many options cant choose which table u wanna join and u need internet connection.
9. UNO
well, its 1 player game and u cannot throw 2 cards or more at a go just like how we played normally. But still i like to play uno
10 Sims 3
always hang on the iphone, have not retried since but it did get me hooked on sims for about 2 weeks. Have not played sims ever since it keep on hanging though i did restart n off everything including winterboard before i play.
well I am sure there are tonnes of better games out there but these are my fave…and the ones i still constantly play
maybe next on this list is Fish Tycoon, Defender Chronicles and Golden Miner…
next I will introduce to you my favourite apps
well, as some of you might know, this semester i am doing my internship, it is at Schering Plough Singapore.. which will soon be no more as we are merging with Merck.
I joined a project team doing Cleaning improvement in the API plant. Probably I would not bother explaining some of the terms.
and I am quite glad cos I received lots of training, I am almost qualified to be a laboratory analyst already with all the trainings I get. Plus the most memorable of all is the Project Management Bootcamp.
to learn more visit www.pmi.org
and you will know more about what I am talking about.
Plus I just went back home to give my lil sis my Wii, she quite enjoyed it and we had several games of tennis.
and My family is adopting a new dog. will post pictures of him soon
Currently we have 4 dogs and they are getting very old, my oldest, is already 8 years old and because daddy believes in getting his dogs fat just like how I was (maybe still is) his favourite cos I ate the most and never fall sick, I believe Clinton (the dog’s name) is suffering from diabetes, he is not as energetic and his skin is easily scarred.
anyway, I am sure he still have a long way to go but since the new dog is unwanted by the owner due to space restriction, he decided to help and adopt it
and other things, I have joined Facebook, but not really using it except to talk to my family.. yeah I am quite weird in that sense because my sis n mom has the blackberry… oh I will talk about blackberry craze soon.
and its almost like the book the tipping point.
anyway, sorry about lack of pictures, but i am quite lazy to take much pictures nowadays though i still have a tonnes from the iphone from all the food we ate.
look out for them
This year’s night festival is really at night, really cool and really happening.
Imagine the whole road is closed, with live music and DJs and beautiful people!! its a huge party with no booze but still fun nevertheless. I was not really dressed for the occasion with my normal topshop t shirt and ebase cropped pants and my favourite flat sandals. very sad, and was already very tired so didnt walk all the 3 museums that are open to public for the night (over 2 days).
Was very tired because that day I had to travel from home, to school and then to tampines one for dinner and sightseeing of the new mall and what is uniqlo in singapore all about.
Then I had a wake to attend before forcing mRK to accompany me to the night festival.
I am no museum buff, but I would like to get myself educated on the intricates of art so that I can be more sophisticated and knowledgeable and able to carry any kind of conversations
anyway since the millions-bucks renovations of the national museum, I have not been there.
so is the SAM, ever since its mini-reno earlier this year, I have not been there. I think last I have been there was when rusell wong gave a talk there and there is Botero exhibition.
I quite understand Botero and why people like his painting. But other artists, really quite difficult to understand, and this is why I need to educate myself more. I mean why are so many people fascinated with mona lisa? After attending the DaVinci exhibition then I understand more. (the paint, the woman, and the surroundings is special: read more on my blog post regarding the exhibition)
anyway few other museums were also free, such as the peranakan museum.
we first of course attend the National museum. I saw the laser projections that totally changed the facade of the museum in last year’s night fest so this year I wanna experience for myself.
a few snaps of the beautiful facade
I arrived at one plus, but the museum is still filled with people and queues formed everywhere.
the very unique love tank, created by an Indonesian!
other fun museum interactions specially for the night!!
and the fixed stuff (history of singapore relic)
outdoor exhibitions involving bazaar (at the SMU building) and other arts stuff
this one is just spiral blue light
and this one blink and blink as if its electrocuted? or following music? not sure
more stuff on SAM but I am tired already so perhaps next year I will plan better.
i arrive only at 1 plus and the streets are already quite deserted but the beautiful ppl are still enjoying the museums.
There is also movie screening and stuff.
Really fun and recommended. Actually I hate to advertise such enjoyable events cos the queue will be longer next year but it will spur the organisers to even extend it further and to those fashion police that say singaporeans/ppl in singapore do not dress well should come and see these kinds of events.
while ppl (like me) still dress way too casually, others brought out their heels and beautiful dresses. Pardon me, i still cant walk in heels so flats have to do
till next year guys, free entry to museums(to those ‘aunties’) really good deal!
ok Pictures time
the cool outlook of the museum
The love tank, the artist is an Indonesian, imagine, a centrepiece in the National Museum in Singapore…
Architecture inside the National Museum… quite huge, cavernous and amazing.
Yours Truly, playing with the interactive exhibits
more of me…
Some other exhibits, inside their many many exhibits room
LOVE TANK from the second floor
Interior designer, I forgot his name, but very famous….
Outdoor exhibits.. quite fun
this exhibit can blink according to music beat… really interesting…
