(Northern) Ireland

i've been there for a while now, and managed to catch it in the middle of pretty snow.



post-christmas the snow had come and gone, however, and the thaw had left millions of people across the whole of ireland without water.

needless to say, i was one of those in belfast who had no water - the outage lasted for 4 days, and the heat also went out on the third day. i think it's partly cos we're in an older estate; the boy had a few friends who were in a newer part of the city and they had water - thank goodness for their shower!

good thing the water is back now - not sure how long it'll last though - and well.. i'd rather have no heat than no water! anti-bacterial wipes and hand sanitisers can only do so much - there's nothing to be done about dirty hair; i couldnt find dry shampoo here though i know some places that sell it back home.

off to dublin tomorrow!

Europe

Looking at the many Europeans on my flight, it strikes me that this is the first time I'm going back to Europe in 3 years.

Previously my thoughts were all centred on seeing the boy again, but the thought now of being in Europe is getting me more excited!

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20-something year old infants

Infantile behaviour was exhibited at the office today.

How do some pple at this age still do those stupid things like ask personal questions like 'how many boyfriends have you had' and then go one round the group? And not just that, but also give crappy comments like 'this is bonding' and think its really funny and fun.

Wth. The main insinuator in question is 27 years old. One would have thought a person would have grown out if such secondary school behaviour by that age. I really don't see how its any of other pple's business, especially if they're my work colleagues. In fact, they don't even need to know if I'm dating at the moment! It's really none of their business and I RESENT being peer pressured into bullshit like this.

I wish I were still at the age when I would have expressed my disdain and walked away from such a situation.

A person can do all the community service and good deeds in the world, but all that won't detract from the misgivings I might have about that person's character.

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happy birthday

it’s gonna be my birthday soon, so here’s some birthday trivia:

me, my colleague and our small boss all celebrate our birthdays on the same day. not only is that so, but i’m 7 years younger than my colleague, who in turn is 7 years younger than our boss too.

what a strange coincidence!

when that revelation was made, small boss spent some time over lunch musing that when i was born, he was already in secondary school; when he was in army i wasn’t even in kindergarten yet; when he was out in the working world i hadn’t even sat for PSLE yet.

something similar happened another day when we were discussing Prince William’s upcoming nuptials. i was raving about how he was so cute back then and all the girls in my primary school were gushing over him; we were in primary 6 and more interested in Prince William than Princess Diana’s death.

to which my colleagues replied: “What?? You were only in Primary 6??!! I was already in… (university, army, working, etc)”.

damn, i felt bad then :P

two thumbs down – cedele, ngee ann city

dinner at the ngee ann city branch of cedele today was such a disappointing experience for the following reasons:

1. no more soups: we were told when trying to place our orders that all 4 of their soup options were sold out except for the beef stew. this news, at the oh-so-late hour of 7.30pm, was so ridiculous that i couldn’t believe my ears. how can any restaurant run out of their main items – since cedele is known for their soups, among others – when it’s smack at dinner time?

2. substandard service: one thing more annoying that service staff who speak only mandarin are service staff who speak little English AND don’t speak mandarin. i don’t think the staff really understood me, and they were quite poorly trained. one of them noticed me wanting to order, noted my request, then promptly ignored me even while she walked up and down serving other people. another one kept trying to push the bill in my friend’s face, even though i had already stuck out one hand to take the bill. and the store manager - 上梁不正，下梁歪 – in response to my statement “oh, it’s only 7.30pm and you have no more soups?” could only offer “Yes, it’s a very saleable item.”

come on, if it’s saleable, then you should just make more of it! Also, the first word service staff should learn is “sorry”, followed by “thank you”. an apology doesn’t achieve much, but it always helps to not make things worse.  And yes, the sarcasm was lost on her as well. sigh.

3. so-so food: i ordered a pesto fish spaghetti, but my dish had no pesto. what’s with singapore restaurants and pesto? they seriously don’t get the idea of what pesto ought to be (see my previous post) – just go to the supermarket and buy a bottle of the sauce, for goodness sakes. the pasta was dripping with oil and rather salty too, which means two more minus points.

 

so much for the good opinion i had of cedele. i should just heed my friend’s advice and head to the hawker centres whenever i eat out instead – at least even if the food is so-so and the service bad, it’s only costing me $5 or so.

i was never a cedele regular, but they’ve just lost one customer for good.

recent going-ons

the bus i was on today smelled of perspiration and french fries, which made for a horrible mix of odours. next to me on the seat was also this guy who somehow managed to take up more space than he ought to – men should learn how to sit with their legs closed – which was annoying. 

i also realised today that my ‘leisurely’ walking speed is still a fair bit faster than that of other ladies on the streets; even in heels and strolling there were still too many other people in my way.

*　*   *   *   *

i met up with some JC friends the other day; most whom i had not seen for more than two years. they haven’t changed much at all, though i wish some of them have.

that day, i also heard for the second time in a week someone saying that they wouldn’t mind working in Asia, perhaps Hong Kong or China – one friend had been in the US for several years now, another had been in the UK for around 6 months.

the interesting thing is that neither of them have been to China (nor Hong Kong i think). Despite my current vocation, i’m not interested at all in working in China for several reasons, and much of my current opinion stems from having visited the country myself – i think if i’d never stepped foot there on a personal holiday last summer i might feel differently.

*　*   *   *   *

lunch today was at a cafe near The Office – coffee and pasta set for $8.90 only. naturally the price was too good to be true, as the pasta was overcooked and the ‘pesto cream’ sauce had no pesto and was too thin and watery.

the sign at the front of the cafe also wrote “tomato cream” under the list of pastas available. when i asked what was in the tomato cream pasta i got a strange look from the cashier and the ‘chef’ (i’m pretty sure i can cook better than her), and was informed bemusedly that the pastas came with either tomato sauce or cream sauce.

now, this isn’t the first time i’ve been misled by the words “tomato cream” in singapore. previously i was at Modestos, and a tomato cream lasagne we ordered turned out to be lasagne cooked in cream cheese with a dollop of tomato sauce on top.

and that’s what tomato cream pasta looks like (picture from here)

it’s depressing that tomato cream is unheard of here as it undoubtedly is my favourite pasta sauce – yes, even more so than cream sauce. it’s a fabulous sauce as the tang of the tomato combines with the oomph of cream to produce an absolutely delicious flavour. also, it’s extremely simple to make and has has the yummy taste of cream with little of the fat – i’ve made tomato cream pasta and one serving requires about 200g canned tomatoes with only 2.5 tablespoons of cream. it remains a mystery why restaurants don’t serve it here.

*　*   *   *   *

the past two weeks have been spent playing computer games – mainly the childish ones, like Plants vs Zombies which i enjoyed tremendously.

for Black Friday, Steam held a huge sale and most games are still at sale prices – starting from USD2.99. as Plants vs Zombies was too short a game i bought Puzzle Bots at 4.99USD, which is really fun too.

 

there are 5 robots in all, each with different abilities, which one must use to complete tasks. the game has an interesting storyline and i like the robot voices!

just the other day, The Boy bought me Toki Tori as well, which features a ridiculously cute tori as the main character. it’s also a puzzle game, but when one takes too long to think through the puzzle, the tori gets bored and does things to entertain itself, like hop from one foot to another, wave at the player and juggle eggs.

  

この鳥、めっちゃかわいい！！～～

i’m not very good at puzzle games though, and am only on the first stage, so we’ll see how long it takes before i start pulling my hair out in annoyance. :P

Erm...

Dude, you don't 'play bowling', you just 'bowl'.

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Raffles Hotel

I attended a work-related dinner event at Raffles Hotel, and unfortunately the quality of the Chinese food there was disappointing.

In general, the food was too salty. Their sharks-fin soup (the broth, not the fin) was flavourful but the saltiness was somewhat overpowering, while their broccoli with egg and crabmeat, though delicious, required several drinks of water afterwards.

The starter dish was okay – there was nothing spectacular or particularly appetising about the roast duck, pickles, jellyfish, mayo prawn and rock melon, fried wonton and scrambled egg with crab meat combination. Same goes for the fried rice wrapped in lotus leaves that came near the end of the dinner.

The fish wasn’t good – the meat was tough and slightly chewy, which was a pity as there were two sizable slices of fish that simply weren’t worth eating.

I liked the prawns though. Steamed with wolfberries and herbs (danggui and another one i only know the Hakka name of), they were fresh and succulent, while the taste of herbs was just right.

The dessert – beancurd with sesame sauce – was my favourite dish of all. The ‘beancurd’ had a texture reminiscent of Sun with Moon’s tofu cheesecake, with a slightly firm, mousse-like texture. It went perfectly well with the robust sesame sauce, and both were sweet but not cloying. Come to think of it, i would have gladly had a second serving of dessert!

PS: Separately, the toilets in Raffles Hotel are REALLY difficult to find!

Nivea Angel Star Soft Souffle – avoid!

When will i learn not to trust products that are attractively packaged? Especially when some internet work post-purchase reveals that the product is marketed at teens – and i’m well past that stage.

I was at Watsons hoping to buy some body cream as I’d decided that the aircon in The Office is doing too much damage to my skin. Nivea hasn’t let me down before, and when i saw this really pretty Angel Star Soft Souffle with raspberry scent that claimed to moisturise for 24 hours, I thought I had to give it a go.

I should have bought one of the really small samples available on hindsight, but there and then I thought, ‘How bad can Nivea’s products be?’. Well, there’s a first for everything, as this Angel Star Soft Souffle is quite a let down.

The scent is alright enough, though I think some might find it just a tad overwhelming. Its ‘youghurt-like consistency’ really means that to scoop it up you have to poke your finger into the cream, and that it’s thin, watery and glides over your skin.

I suppose this sort of cream works alright to retain moisture in one’s skin, but it does very little to actually moisturise parched, dry skin. The cream doesn’t seep in but instead sits as a layer – a greasy one – atop the skin, a quality which was my beef with the Vaseline Intensive Moisture Locking Lotion too. The cream also warmed my skin for about 10 minutes after application, which would be useful in colder climates but less so in Singapore.

My favourite Nivea product for dry skin is still the Nivea Soft Intensive Moisturising Cream below. It’s thick, rich consistency moisturises really well; too bad I didn’t notice it in the store today.

Oh well. At least the soft souffle smells nice?

NB: It’s been nearly 2 months since I made this review. The smell is milder now and after the first few applications, the cream no longer had that warming effect. My skin still isn’t as moisturised as I’d like it to be, but i suppose Nivea Angel Soft is a so-so product. I’d not condemn it, but wouldn’t recommend anyone buy it – would suggest they purchase the Nivea Soft Intensive Moisturising Cream instead.

pandas

are such useless creatures.

an article on the BBC website reported on a panda breeding breakthrough in China, and i found the following particularly quote-worthy:

“Female pandas are only on heat for 72 hours a year, and can only actually become pregnant during a 12 to 24 hour window during this time.”

“Male pandas have proportionately short penises meaning pairs must adopt a very exact position in order to mate. During their observations, researchers found that pandas demonstrated poor knowledge of this position.”

“It is assumed that as pandas cannot store fat, they lack the milk or energy to care for more than one cub at a time.”

it baffles me how pandas as a species could possibly come into existence! surely natural selection should have finished them off by now?

round 2

takeaways from the past few days:

• Wuhan has really bad air quality. Don’t plan on visiting till after the next 3 years, as all the construction and road works will continue till then.
• Try not to take China Southern flights from Wuhan to Haikou, Hainan. The plane we took was horribly old and cramped; the toilet door required some tugging before it would close; the main plane door took the cabin attendant at least 5 tries slamming it shut before she succeeded. It was a rather scary sight.
• the Intercontinental Hotel in Sanya, Hainan, has beautiful rooms and seems a good place for a romantic getaway (unfortunately i was alone). Here’re some pictures of the standard (cheapest) room there:

it even had a balcony you could rest and admire the view from – too bad it was really late by the time we got there, and we had to get up by 5am to catch our flight the next day:

until next week..

i’m off for another bout of ‘cultural immersion’ next week, and hope it will be uneventful and less dramatic than the previous round.

a colleague asked me the other day if i were an only child – apparently i give off ‘only child’ vibes, whatever that might be. i’m not sure how to take that comment either; is it a good thing or a bad one, and what might have triggered that question?

and really, i hope to get no more last minute stuff, and wish for a greater respect for deadlines. something that’s due on a friday can only, at the very latest, be given on the following monday. not after working hours the following thursday!

i’m not good with last minute stuff and when i rush things at the eleventh hour, i tend to make lots of mistakes – lo and behold, i spotted several; nothing too major but things that could have been avoided had there not been a bottle neck further up the production line.

i’ve also realised that i’m not cut out to be a PA. that job requires a meticulousness which i do not possess.

chinatown escapades

i was missing playing with my instax camera and decided to bring it out with me when i went to chinatown.

chinatown’s a good place to go with an instax as there’re so many bright, bold colours there – provided you remember to press the “dark” setting, which i forgot to do for most. all my photos came our overexposed, but fortunately still more or less okay.

this one probably didnt need the “dark” setting – and was the only one i remembered to turn it on for :P interestingly i’ve never noticed the half-mask on the side of that building, despite having gone up this street many times:

i was attracted by the variety of colours at the Sri Mariamman Temple, but unfortunately the colours didnt turn out so well here. i wish the sky came out as well though..

I was also surprised by the sheer number of white people at chinatown today. i’ve never seen so many caucasians in chinatown, and they were all gathered at this one particular place – the corner kopitiam. except they were, of course, drinking beer and not kopi:

and here’s my favourite picture of the day. i was surprised – so many surprises today – to see the rainbow flag hanging off a building in chinatown (of all places?), which i noticed while admiring the picture of an emperor on the wall next to the upper storey balcony.

i was trying to snap a shot of it when these two blokes walked into the frame and just stood there while they looked down the street trying to get their bearings. it was such an awesome coincidence and they seem like poster boys for the rainbow:

100 books

So there’s this 100 books meme was going around on facebook, referring to the BBC having said that most people would have only read about 6 of the books on that list.

i found that an interesting statement, because why would the BBC make such a statement, and how were the books in that list chosen? In the first place, many people i know don’t read; that they’ve even read 6 would be a surprise in itself.

So i went snooping around on the internet. Though i never managed to find out how the number 6 came about (isn’t the answer meant to be 42? – and i don’t think i even finished that book!), it turns out that the list on facebook is actually an edited list of the BBC’s 2003 poll where people nominated their favourite books (i don’t know how the edited list came about either).

In the spirit of things – and as one who currently doesn’t have nothing much better to do – I decided to join in. I’ve bolded the books i’ve read, and underlined the ones that I’ve started but never finished – or can’t remember if i’ve finished them, cos i wasn’t very impressed by the book. The Facebook list comes first, then the original BBC one.

Facebook list

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (and Through the Looking Glass, if I might add)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy.
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt.
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I’m actually reading Anne of Green Gables as an ebook on my phone, and I have to say that I dont understand the appeal of this book. Perhaps i’m a little too old for it, but my is Anne a tedious little child.

BBC Original List

Note: Notice that there are actually FOUR terry pratchett books on this list? :) Terry Pratchett is awesome; unfortunately the facebook has none of his books up there. Instead, there was David Mitchell, who is a less logical choice.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Free International shipping on ASOS

As part of the christmas celebrations, ASOS is offering free international shipping!

it’s such awesome news that i went and browsed the website and decided to get a necklace.

i also spotted this top here, which i think is really pretty.

it’s a little expensive to spend on something i can’t try on though – not many things i’ve bought without trying have ended up well..

christmas present, anyone?

recruitment

it has been revealed that many employers (not sure about mine, but probably mine too) google candidates when their resumes are received or before shortlisting them for interviews.

searches are done for their blogs, on facebook and so on to gain more information about the person. one of my colleagues who used to be involved in recruiting wondered why people would put their personal information (like their full name) on public sites on the internet – probably because they didn’t know that information would go towards this purpose..

so i googled my name out of curiosity, and thankfully what came out was….?

my placement on the Dean’s List! woohoo! :)

orchard road

i think these are meant to resemble waves, and for the moment i like them :)

Domani, Ngee Ann City

Domani describes itself as a “Spanish Italian Cafe”, although it’s more of a restaurant than a cafe. It’s located at Basement 2 of Ngee Ann City, and is part of the Pokka Group which also owns Tonkichi and Rive Gauche Patisserie.

Domani, in a nutshell, is good-tasting, really good value for money. On the menu are the usual suspects: tapas ($3.90 - $5.90; $9.90 for grilled lobster), salad, soup; pastas, pizzas, mains; drinks and dessert.

They offer an extremely wide range of pastas at really low prices: $17.90 - $18.90 for most seafood pastas and only $8.90 for Aglio Olio. They also have grilled lamb at $24.90 – nowhere have I seen lamb this cheap. (View full menu online here)

All of us in our party of 7 ordered the set menu for weekends: $24.90 for starters (soup/salad) + pasta + mains. The menu can be seen here, and unlike many restaurants, the actual food matched up to – or even exceeded - the pictorial representations. I was also rather doubtful of the quality and portion size when browsing through the menu, given the exorbitant restaurant prices and substandard quality of food in Singapore* these days, but thankfully my doubts were put to rest when the food arrived.

The mushroom soup was thick and flavourful, complete with mushroom chunks which i consider necessary for any mushroom soup to be considered ‘good’. The calamari salad was dressed with a light, sweet and spicy sauce. The calamari, fried in a coating of tasty batter, was springy and easy to chew. Two thumbs up for these starters – i knew then that things were gonna be good.

Next were the chicken wings. They really did look like these in the picture from their website below:

While the wings had only a very mild garlic flavour, they were juicy and meaty. The accompanying sweet Thai-style chilli sauce went well with them too.

Then arrived the mains + pastas on a large, rectangular plate. The portion was bigger than we expected: here’s Boscaiola - spaghetti with mushrooms and chicken sausage, dressed in olive oil - and Chicken M&M – chicken, mushrooms and cheese covered in a tomato cream sauce:

 

The pasta was a bit skimpy on ingredients, but done just the way i like it – neither too al dente nor overcooked. The olive oil would go well with those who prefer a lighter tasting pasta. The mushrooms accompanying the chicken were very juicy, and beneath the chicken was a portion of baked, sliced potatoes which went really well with the yummy sauce.

My grandma had pork ribs with her pasta. There were actually three long, thick ribs in the serving – more than the 2 in the menu’s picture – and the delicious meat melted in the mouth. My mum’s hamburg had a meatier flavour than most of those done Japanese-style but retained the mildly burnt bottom you get in japanese hamburgs.

I ordered Carbonara and sea bass (originally 2 slices of fish):

Believe me, that was indeed a mound of carbonara – the portions are generous – complete with delicious bacon strips, ham slices, juicy mushrooms and lip-smacking cream sauce. i like heavier pastas and the carbonara was a pretty good. The sea bass came with chopped spinach and the pan-frying gave the skin (my favourite part of a fish) a slightly crisp, burnt aroma.

I was so full that i couldn’t finish all my carbonara – and i’m a pretty big eater. Bearing in mind that the entire set was only $24.90, Domani is a restaurant where one’s dollar goes very far. While the food doesn’t taste that refined, it was good, hearty stuff – refined food, after all, comes at a far steeper cost.

 

NB: In the interest of full disclosure, do not, under any circumstance, order their cafe latte (drinks come at an additional $3 to the set). I think it was made with skim milk – which i feel isn’t worth drinking at all – as it tasted really thin and weak; horrible horrible. The hazelnut latte was okay though. Also, my order was actually forgotten/missed and only arrived when some in my party were nearly done. However, this oversight was noticed by the staff without me having to ask, which makes it less bad. We originally ordered cafe mocha but got the bad latte instead – should have changed the order upon hindsight – but the staff are otherwise polite and professional.

 

*: I honestly feel that Singapore definitely can no longer be considered a food paradise – not when it comes to restaurants at least. It’s so expensive to eat out these days; restaurant dining in Japan is cheaper than it is in Singapore relative to wages earned and most importantly the food is amazing. Most places I’ve been to so far are either so-so, overly expensive (hence i haven’t actually tried them cos i’m deterred by the prices i cant afford) or a combination of both. Modestos, which i went to recently, came up to $27 per person and we only ordered pizza/pasta that merely tasted not bad. In fact, $27 = 1700yen, which is MORE than what I used to pay at my absolute favourite, amazingly awesome, heavenly delicious Italian restaurant Pomodoro Fresca in Japan. Who says food in Japan is more expensive than in Singapore?

architecture

I love the look of this building in Nanning, Guangxi, taken during the 7th China-ASEAN Expo held in October this year:

This convention hall is situated such right next to the expressways, such that cars will go one semicircle around this building, taking in its full magnificence, when they mount the expressway.

While Nanning a third-tier city, it possesses some buildings with fairly stunning architecture. I also passed by this public square cum park that was surrounded by tall buildings and was fairly impressed.

deviant..

spam senders should differentiate between their male and female recipients. why bother sending me emails on penis enlargement? i have no need for that whatsoever. boob enhancement would more successfully catch my attention and interest, rather than a mere roll of the eye.

*  *  *  *  *

The Office and its Partners have a certain way of doing things. Those who deviate from the norm are not appreciated. Yet, different people have different ways of doing things; if you deviate from their norm then you might perhaps be the subject of disapproval.

It’s sometimes confusing, and getting to be a little annoying.

It doesn’t help that mistakes aren’t always overlooked or tolerated; the other week it felt like there’re some who expect newcomers to enter knowing exactly what they should do and how things should be done. Don’t they remember how it was when they first joined?

Anyway, like one of my bosses said, it doesn’t matter how perfect your track record might be – all it takes is that one mistake at the wrong time in front of the wrong people to derail your career. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if your record might be a little spotty if the right thing happened at an opportune time.

While i’m not facing either predicament, i totally agree with his opinion. However, The Office appears to provide ample opportunities for the former situation to occur, which is not good – remember also that the prevailing sentiment seems to be that unless there’s a natural disaster (or similar sort of totally uncontrollable event) resulting in something going wrong, there’s never really any excuse for shifting the blame beyond yourself.

Meh.

Mescluns

i was brought to Mescluns - this salad bar in Citylink Mall next to TCC - today and I really like it!

I’m not one to rave about salads, but those on offer at Mescluns are good stuff. You get to choose what goes into your salad from more than 35 different items, adding $3.50 for a soup and fresh juice if desired. It comes up to a fairly substantial meal – even I who usually demands rice for lunch was full from lunch and remained so till dinner.

What I liked were not only the sizable portions but the variety of ingredients on offer. I ordered Essentials, the cheapest salad on offer at $6.50. This entitled me to:

• 1 choice of greens – baby spinach, romaine, iceberg, mesclun, etc
• 4 basic ingredients – boiled egg, tomato, cucumber, carrot, cherry tomato, mushroom, sweet corn, beetroot, couscous, olive, pasta, tofu, parmesan and many others
• a choice of complementary items – fried onion, spring onion, crouton, seaweed, etc
• salad dressing – i was amazed by the variety as there were at least 9 different ones, including caesar, pesto mayonaise, french djion mayonaise, blue cheese and something, sundried tomato vinaigrette, raspberry vinigrette.

there were also other ingredients such as turkey bacon, roast chicken, etc, which are available if you order the more expensive salads. The salad is also well tossed and comes in a sizable bowl, something which made me quite happy.

Those who don’t want to mix their own salad can also order from one of Mescluns’ salad creations (like the good old Caesar, Feta and Olive, etc) or go for their sandwiches and wraps.

Really worth checking out; I fancy heading there again sometime soon!

For pictures from their Circular Road outlet (the original), see here, here and here.

the forlorn

my phone camera is meant to be 5 megapixels, but somehow the photo quality is quite bad! why liddat? 

Ethnic minorities costumes

There’s a museum in Guangxi that features the costumes of various ethnic minority groups in the region. Guangxi itself has 1/3 of its population being from the Zhuang minority group, and it seems to do a fair bit in trying to showcase this group’s culture.

a display at the museum featuring an elaborate headdress:

the patterns on the material of their costumes are really intricate:

you hear so much about 绣球 from chinese shows, but it’s taken me nearly 25 years before i’ve actually seen a real example:

the museum also featured some really impressive traditional crafts.

lions and a dragon made out of reeds i think:

    

this is a type of bridge (built across rivers) that’s unique to this part of china. i’m not sure, but it might be a form of construction unique to the Zhuang group of pple:

and finally, some ladies decked out in ethnic costumes at the event i was at – the costumes are so pretty!

super cute capybara

i fell in love with capybaras while in japan and happen to own a stuffed toy version of a baby capybara.

this video features a really cute baby and its mama, and the little child actress in the feature is rather adorable too.

good stuff :)

awesome animal
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the weekend is here

hallelujah.

this week has been slightly tough mainly cos i’ve been battling tiredness at work, but thankfully things eased up yesterday and today.

i’ve realised that work comes in peaks and troughs; we might suddenly get requests pouring in or an amalgamation of deadlines, whereas at other periods there might be nothing much going on. i think the difficulty with regard to deadlines is that while they are fixed, my work depends on the inputs from others, so there’s often a crunch nearing the deadline when i’m rushing work because the people in the upstream process were tardy, affecting i who am downstream.

*  *  *  *  *

a discussion today also revealed that the idea of “work-life balance” is a Gen-Y phenomenon; a friend recounted how an older colleague in her thirties felt really grateful to land her first job more than a decade ago. Gen-Ys are supposed to be more demanding, seeking meaning and balance in their jobs.

i think though, that employers are getting more demanding too. these days you need a degree AND good results, good cca record, internship preferred, community service scores brownie points, overseas experience often helps, many jobs require a certain degree of bilingual skills (take mine for example!), one needs to be well groomed, people-skills are valued, one has to write and speak well, there’s little room for newcomers to learn and make mistakes, etc….

i don’t think our supposed ‘increased demands’ are entirely unwarranted. for the record (and as i’ve mentioned before), Singaporeans already work longer hours than their ‘western’ counterparts, and i think i have the right to a LIFE beyond the office. as it is i don’t have enough time between reaching home from work and heading to work the next day to sleep (i need at least 6hrs, ideally 7 – 8hrs) AND do basic things i want to do (watch an hour-long show, read the papers, chat a bit with friends online) – and i’m really not all that busy yet.

*  *  *  *  *

i should find nicer/happier things to blog about. hard to do so when it’s nearly all work that i’m doing though! should put up some pretty pictures of Guilin tomorrow, perhaps.

印象・刘三姐

Zhang Yimou has directed several outdoor folk musical/theatrical performances in China, and 印象・刘三姐 (“Impressions Liu Sanjie”) is one of them*.

I had the opportunity to watch 印象・刘三姐, set against the backdrop of Yangshuo’s impressive karst formations in Guilin. Most stunning was the opening scene, where karst outcrops were suddenly lit up.

The stage is a floating platform on the Li River (漓江) – in the darkness below lies the stage which extends out onto the river beyond:

for a sense of the scale of the performance’s backdrop – the bright spots of light in the foreground are actually flashes from cameras, while the lit structure is a pavillion used in one of the scenes. the setting was absolutely gorgeous:

Here’s what the performance area looks like in the day- the green things are the audience’s seats, while the stage is everything in front of it:

There are apparently about 600 cast members, all of whom are local fishermen. The opportunity to utilise such large amounts of manpower for a performance leads to stunning results – such a feat is only possible in China. This was just the first of several occasions where the sheer magnitude of China’s ‘people power’ was displayed.

A scene which featured the cast members carrying torches and running across the large stage. Beyond the left and right of this picture are also performance areas. I was quite impressed by how they were able to turn the flame on and off – i still haven’t figured out the trick behind the smoke-producing, switch-controlled torch.

This production is particularly known for its use of light i think, and it didn’t disappoint. The two streaks at the bottom-left are actually lengths of cloth:

Another example of the usage of cloth – all these people below were actually on a floating device that allowed them to glide over the water and the floating platform (that could be raised and lowered). Overheard in a conversation was that Singapore’s YOG opening ceremony might have borrowed some ideas from this performance, due to its usage of water – something which i quite liked actually!:

And here’s my favourite shot of that performance:

isnt it just spectacular?  All those tiny people – the white dots – are on their floating contraptions, getting ready to roll out the bolts of cloth.

Later in the performance, when the stage was completely dark, the performers walked out one by one in lit-up minority costumes and it just went on and on and on – i was totally stunned while trying to count exactly how many of them were involved in this section!

And then they did a whole series of things like this:

I really want to know how they did it! There was this particular segment where it was totally dark, then the costumes were lit up then turned off, one by one, at random areas on the stage. it was crazy, seeing this spot here illuminate then go off, then the next spot elsewhere on the stage, then over there, and over here, and so on.

I wonder if Singapore could pull off such a thing!

 

*: the others i know of are 印象・西湖 and  印象・丽江

little thoughts and recollections

I'm on the way to work and actually have seats on the train! This is nothing short of a miracle, perhaps I should head to work at this time instead.

On the bus yesterday morning, this old lady was blasting old hokkien songs from her music device. Someone must have helped her set it up, cos after a while she started flipping through the tracks, rejecting a few beside settling on a noisy one with Chinese trumpets - and I'd thought it was just some tape recorder with speakers.

I was transiting in Hong Kong's airport the other day, and was rather impessed by the sheer number of luxury brand shops there were. I know Singapore boasts that we offer a great shopping experience in changi airport, but I'm not sure we can beat having at least 25 brand name shops. While I'm not in the least interested in those shops, many other people are, and that's what determines the quality of shopping in an airport rite? HK airport had a good sized Zara too, and their bookstore was very well stocked and a few times bigger than anything I've ever seen in Changi.

I have some pretty pictures of Guilin and hope to be able to put them up soon. Think the weekend will be spent doing that, catching up on my 3 week backlog of shows and sleeping loads. Perhaps also clearing all those unread emails containing news updates too - the nature of my work means I have to keep in touch with the going-ons, but the problem with that is news is being generated nonstop by so many parties. At least authors take time to write a book, so their fans can rest in between.

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severely sleep deprived

am back from my trip; haven’t slept more than 6 hours in the past 10 days , and have no idea how some people can do with only 4 hours. that’s really really insane but true!

the chinese aspect of my ‘immersion’ went better than expected; turned out that it was other issues that posed challenges!

sunset in Tangshan, Hebei

back to to work tomorrow; all i want to do is sleep, sleep sleep.

sink or swim

despite having travelled a lot in the past 2 years, i still haven’t gotten the hang of packing for trips quickly. i take forever, i plan what clothes to bring, i scramble around the house gathering all the stuff i need to take along with me. that i will be heading to places with different weather in the upcoming days means that i need to pack differently for the colder areas than the less cold ones; packing for cold weather is so much more of a pain.

so as usual, on the eve before my “Chinese immersion”, i’m slightly stressed from the packing and from the knowledge that there’re so many things i need to read for the trip – but havent done so yet. my brain hurts too and my eyes can’t stay open any longer; stayed longer than usual hours at the office today too.

i tell myself that things will get better once i’ve gained a little more experience, and i hope that will indeed be the case. i’m taking way too long to do simple things – the speed at which my colleague scrolled through the folders on our shared drive left me utterly impressed today!

there’re too many things i still don’t know, and i’m still a fair distance off before i get my writing style correct for those little “reports and suggestions”. so much for having taken pride in my writing skills! haha.

oh well. as one of my colleagues said, 船到桥头自然直。

頑張ります。

dictionary fail

So someone high up suggested we read this particular news article that's in Chinese.

I decided that enough was enough, and that I should get myself an electronic English-Chinese dictionary that allows for handwritten input - counting the strokes to find out the reading or meaning of a word is horribly tedious.

So off I went. Best denki used to sell them, or so I and my colleagues mistakenly thought.

Best denki at taka suggested I try inside taka itself at the Seiko counter, so down i went. Unfortunately the only one with written input was expensive and not very good.

Off to the last stop - Popular (thats after trying some suggestions at funan). And oh my. Price-wise it was about the same as the Seiko - $398! Even my nintendo DS that I can play games on didn't even cost anything near that much.

And these dictionaries pitch themselves as edu-tools; what parent has the money to buy stuff like these? It was surprising too that these dictionaries are so elusive - there're tonnes of these stuff for Japanese.

But well. Looks like it back to counting strokes and flopping through the dictionary for me :(

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litany of complaints

as if i havent already been moaning enough, here’s more.

citibank misled me when i signed up for my credit cards, promising me that i will be able to increase my credit limit with just a phonecall. turns out that you have to be with them for at least 6 months before that can be done, and there’s no way whatsoever to overcome the system. so much for signing up for a credit card to get extra credit. fat lot of use they are.

Oh – citibank also issued me 4 cards in total, but failed to distinguish which PIN they sent in the mail is for which card. so now i have to call them up again to check on this issue. lovely.

when i got my new phone, the staff at the singtel authorised dealer told me that they will help change my phoneline from my dad’s name to my name, that i will get free autoroam and a whole host of other benefits. turns out that they didn’t even do any of that for me, and that they’re not able to do so – transferring of accounts is only possible at Hello shops. So now there’s the added hassle of having to turn up at a Hello shop with my dad just so that we can do that transfer. And they didnt even have it on the system that my dad gets staff rate for mobile plans. Useless, useless people. i also got put on hold for more than 10min today while calling the charged Singtel hotline – the only way you can ask them queries. Unscrupulous bastards!

2.5 weeks into my job, and i’m still experiencing IT problems. the latest in a long list of issues is that i cant access the internet from my office laptop outside of work – which will be so utterly useful when i’m working overseas. there’re several IT helplines for various systems and i’ve only just figured out which to call for what issue; no such luck yet with the passwords and various log-in names i have. system overload! and all the time i’ve spent calling up for help on all these stupid IT problems – which really should be unnecessary – has to have added up to one full day of work LOST.

and it just occurred to me – less than 3 weeks in and already i think i have no life. MEH!

odours

My nasal cavities have suffered too many assaults today from BO.

Seriously, some pple in the office, on the streets and in shopping centres need to invest in deodourant. someone actually stank up the area around my cubicle today, but I couldn't identify the culprit.

Help.

BO is way worse than those annoying men who still manage to block my way even though they're taller and in their flat shoes have advantage over my high-heel clad feet. Meh.

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a fortnight

so i’ve passed the two week mark with The Office.

things have picked up a little; we’re given a modest outfit allowance for travelling to countries in the colder seasons and my upcoming trip falls under this category. so a portion of wednesday and thursday was spent shopping for autumny things (i only have winter stuff), comfy shoes and an extra suit.

the best thing was, for the first time i had a taste of how it feels to be a tai-tai: to shop without (much) regard for cost, to just swipe a card knowing that at the end of the day, you’re not actually paying for these items yet get to use them. it was simply awesome.

on an unrelated note, a chat with a colleague about something today revealed that he can’t remember the last time he was home for dinner. to be honest, i found it rather disturbing that staying late enough in the office to warrant eating dinner out seems to be the norm for some of the younger workers here – i certainly consider that a (gross) aberration and would hugely dislike having to work late in the office. i think even if i were very busy i’d just suck it up and bring work home? it’s not even like we get paid enough to afford to eat lunch AND dinner out. already lunch with colleagues can sometimes to up to a fair bit!

Tuesday’s discovery

turns out that all the talk about credit card companies requiring you to show 2 month’s payslip before issuing you a card is bullcrap.

i went to citibank today as i needed to apply for a credit card and realised that there’re lots of alternative measures in place to allow a customer to obtain a credit card in only 2 working days.

that’s crazy. i can even ask for an extension of credit limit to up to $20,000 for a particular month if necessary, compared to the usual limit of 2 month’s my monthly salary.

in my colleague’s words, credit card companies are indeed desperate for business.

monday’s revelations

i discovered today that one must allow oneself more time to get to work on mondays, as many other people are running late.

the train was extra crowded today – the train itself was late too, and took longer than usual to make the same journey.

i also realised that trains are more crowded at 6.30pm than at 6.50pm.

yuck.

*    *    *    *

picking up from a previous train of thought that i work 1.5 more hours a day than the average European (or specifically the average Briton), that means that I work about 1 extra day per week than they do.

this adds up to 52 extra days per year, and if you consider that their amount of paid leave is more than what we get in Singapore, is roughly 2 extra months a year.

oh man. where are our trade unions?????

keppel island

i’d heard so much about this island, as some friends have been there several times and really like the place.

somehow they also had many photos to take of the area too – i don’t remember what were the photos they took, but going there yesterday, i have no idea what there is to take pictures of, beyond the condos under construction and the pier:

keppel island is tiny, and the only draw i can think of keppel island as having is its relative lack of people. we had a pavilion all to ourselves (two other were occupied though), which was nice. the eateries on the island seemed to rather well patronised with only several empty tables, although it must be quite nice to chill outdoors near the water.

of course it would be even nicer to chill on the water, but alas, that day might never come and make do we must.

today’s trivia

Red fabric dye in the United States In the 19th century was derived from whale excrement.

how lovely.

threes

残念ながら、日本語、だんだん忘れてしまう。

「すごくかわいい」と言いたかった時、どうしてか「超かわいい」と思い付いた。

何それ・・・　大阪に住んでいたのに。

「めっちゃ」だよ、めっちゃ。

*    *    *    *

i like that there are many cats in my neighbourhood.

while walking to the station today, i saw 2 house cats sunning themselves on the ledge outside a second-storey flat, with another cat – with a similar collar – on the ground floor.

i saw them again on the way home in the evening, but these 3 kitties are really arrogant and just ignored my advances. hmph.

nearer my house i spotted this:

3 cats and a bonsai! the grey one strutting towards me was really pretty and nice to scratch:

she was later joined by a fourth, but it was time to head home:

 

*    *    *    *

Glee is back for Season 2 and I’m happy to announce that it has gotten a bit better compared to the latter half (or perhaps the last third) of Season 1, which was absolutely crap. So crap, in fact, that I stopped watching the series two episodes before the season ended.

I like that Brittany (kinda) got an episode; Rachel looks nice with her new bangs, although i don’t know how she managed to do an awful rendition of “Hit Me Baby (One More Time)” – but she sure did.

It’s a pity that the new cast members – Sunshine and that dude – didn’t appear in the second episode. I was also really surprised to discover that the actor playing Michael Chang is actually 28 years old – he has to be the ultimate poster boy for the “Asians don’t age” stereotype.

let’s just hope season 2 doesn’t go down the same road as Season 1 – one of my favourite episodes of Glee actually has to be the pilot!