Click-4-Klick Prelude

lAnother day to go before the end of the year. Gonna spent the start of the year at 2 reservoirs. At around 2 am in Bedok Reservoir and thereafter sometime in the morning at MacRitchie supporting Wonder Woman in her quest to raise funds for the needy.

A rather meaningful way to start the year I suppose. So far, according to the latest update from the blog, nearly $20,000.00 has been raised. Not bad considering that the publicity was limited and started very late. However, this is still far off the target of $50,000.00.

So friends, why not start 2010 on a feel good mood and pledge your support for this worthy event. And if you and your family are free, come down to MacRitchie on Friday to witness this extraordinary lady doing her wee little bit.

Weekend blues

What a horrible long week end it turned out to be. Instead of enjoying the super long weekend and the holidays, ended up cooped at home the weekend down with a bout of food poisoning. Even had to forgo the show Avatar which I wanted to see and managed to persuade the Princess and wifey to go along. In the end, they went and all I got was lousy reruns of X-men, Batman, Superman on cable.

Across Taiwan in 7 days

It's the holidays season and what is a holiday without a holiday? (Did I just said that?

Anyway, did one of those stupid crazy idiotic tourisy thing i.e. signed up for a package tour of Taiwan. And so we went on a whirlwind tour of Taiwan in 7 days. 7 different hotels, 7 days of butt freezing bus ride and exorbitant tourist cheating sights and buys and I enjoyed it! Actually didn't really enjoyed it but after paying so much for it, got to pretend to enjoy otherwise very 心痛.

Here are the highlights and lowlights(sic)

Day 1. Stayed in Taoyuan but went to the night market at Shihlin. The bladdy guide only gave us 2 hours for dinner + shopping there. Where got enough?

Day 2. Woke up at an ugodly hour to take the bullet train to Taipei. What so special about the bullet train? I really don't know. From there went to this place Hualien to look at some rocks and then went all the way to the top of a mountain in freezing weather and pouring rain to eat and shop at a row of restored houses selling tourisy stuff. What a rip off! But this was forgiven when we saw what our hotel toilet came with; a Hansgrohe lookalike vertical shower!

Day 3. Still raining as we continued to moved in a clockwise direction to Chihpen. Was impressed with the gorges of Taroko. Very nice place if not for the cold.

Some friends did a marathon there recently. How did they run up the mountain? Along the way, witnessed the devastation caused by typhoon Morokot on 8 August this year. All of us on the bus were stunned by the extent of the damages, something which we have only previously seen in movies.

Got conned into buying Linzhi. Hopefully it is the real thing. Ended the day at a hotel which comes with a free hot spring session. But after watching the hordes of mainland Chinese descending on it, decided to pay and use the spa's hot spring instead.

Day 4. Another early morning and we are off to Kaoshiong where it was temple, temple, temple and more temple. Highlight of the day?

At around 9pm, while in the hotel, experienced first hand an earthquake! In Singapore, the most tremors I had felt in the office were from the Indonesian quakes and it was just some slight vibration but this was different. There we were watching TV when suddenly the door started to rattle. I thought somebody was knocking and then the TV started to jump and all hell broke out. Earthquake! We grabbed our passports and rushed down only to see the bellhop calmly holding the lifts for yet another batch of mainland Chinese. Er what earthquake? To my question whether it was safe, he smiled and said this thing happens, maybe 4 - 5 times a year so no problem! It was only later that we found out that an earthquake measuring 6.8 had occured in Hualien which we were there only 2 nights ago. And by the time the earthquake tremor reached Kaoshiong, it was only about 4. Okay cheap trill but we were safe and what a priceless experience.

Day 5: Enroute to Taichung got another stop for us to be fleeced (this time royal jelly) before going on to the famous Sun Moon lake. Unfortunately, although the rain had sopped after 4 days of continuous rainfall, it was still foggy (misty?) and we really couldn't see much of the so called 9 Mountains surrounding it.

Highlight for the day. Passed by this group of protesters from the Democratic Progressive Party protesting against some free trade agreement with China.

Day 6. Back to Taipei. Another rip off - some feng shui mumbo jumbo. And a lousy hotel room with no English cable channels and a fake window! All the other hotels had up to 100 channels and this one had only 40+ almost all of which local channel. Highlight: Not Ximendin night market which we went but the underground mall where there was one whole lot of shops selling collectibles. Too bad we ran out of time!

Day 7. Enough already. Back to good old Singapore!

View from Orchard Central

Went all the way up to the top of Orchard Central and got these very different view of the Orchard area.

Cairnhill

Wild Horses White Horse

Wild horse vs White Horse. Old vs Young.

Got fight or not?

Click-4-Klick

Everybody loves a challenge. I guess in my list of acquaintances and friends, none more so than this lady, Kelly. She among all that I know has ran the most marathon and ultra marathons. 38 in all in the past 8 years!

To kick off 2010, she has decided to take on not 1 but 2 challenges.

1) Challenge no 1 - to run non-stop for 30 hours and to cover 160km in the process

2) Challenge no 2 - to raise $50,000.00 for the President's Challenge.

I really have to salute her (actually if I am in camo, I have no choice ~ she is a Major in the SAF) but it is her mental strength that amazes me. Read more about her races adventure here.

Back to the 2 challenges, on 1 January 2010 at 3am she will start running circles at Bedok Reservoir before running from there to MacRitchie Reservoir where she will continue running the 10.5km trail until she hit 30 hours. She hopes supporters and friends will help her to complete the challenge by donating generously to the President's Challenge either with an outright donation or a pledge of an amount ($1 or more) for every kilometre ran.

Unlike most fund raising projects, all donations received for Click-4-Klick will go directly to the President's Challenge. There will be no deductions of fund raising expenses, admin charges etc. So please donate generously.

For more information on the challenge and how you can make a donation or pledge, click here. For more information on the President's Challenge, click here.

Diet Plans

There are all sort of diet plans. In fact, the list is mind boggling. Expensive even weird but most of them not workable. May be it is determination or the lack of it but most time it is because the plans are so troublesome and difficult to adhere to that most weight watchers simply give up halfway.

Like the Cambridge Diet which was personally endorsed by the then CEO of Income, Tan Kin Lian and sold at the Fairprice supermarket. Who in the world can endure such low calorie intake?

Then there are the more famous diet like the Atkins diet which is a low carb high fat diet plan; the Zone diet and the South Beach Diet. While all these seem effective enough with its make sense plan, it is complicated like hell to follow.

Of course, there are easier options like popping pills or taking those appetite suppressing supplements or meal replacement thingy but these come with risk, like the Andrea De Cruz's case.

So why am I rambling away about diet? Do I need one? Possibly if I continue with my current low rate of exercise and high intake of food. Or is it because I looked like a 'bak chiang' when I tried on a tri-top recently?

Nah.. although my weight has indeed been creeping up slowly (from 74 at the beginning of the year to 79 now), it is still no cause for alarm, yet.

But was reading this article in the Reader Digest and there was a feature about Mark Bittman and his Simple till Six plan. Note that I don't use the word diet because there is no diet. It is to put simply a rather sensible eating plan where nothing is forbidden. Now this is what can be a healthy and successful way to loose weight. Try it out if you are planning to lose weight!

NB: I am not paid or have been asked to endorse the Simple till Six plan or any other plan. I am just a kaypoh who busy body who likes to look out for things to share. Also because run out of things to post this week:)

Fire Safety

I am getting paranoid. Been so since last week when I attended a talk on fire safety.

I never given this subject much thought until this talk. Firstly, look at the statistics. There were 2799 fire in Singapore between January to June this year. Of these, 401 were household fire which made it an average of 2 household fire per day. I am totally surprised. And I thought that staying in apartments is safer but this is apparently not so.

Also, I thought like many others that in the event of a electrical overload, the safety circuit breaker will trip and cut off power supply thus preventing a fire. Boy am I wrong! Just look at this video of the burning Christmas tree. Apart from the speed in which the fire spread, look at the light on the right. It continued to light up until the fire reached it!

So I did an audit of the various hazardous areas around the house.

First, the TV wall. There is only 1 wall socket. From there, I have one extension wire which have another extension wire. Altogether, from 1 wall socket, it branched out to 6 outlets powering 7 devices; the tv, an amplifier (yeah I am that old school), a DVD, a cable set-top, a Xbox, a fan and 1 spare for charging batteries. Okay at least nowadays the Xbox is gathering dust and not plug in.

Another area is the opposite wall where 1 wall socket leads to an extension wire with 5 outlets juicing up the Princess's computer, monitor and printer and the wireless telephone with 1 spare outlet. But here most of the power points are switched off at night.

More terrible is the other wall where I have 2 fish tanks. There 1 wall socket branched out to a 3 ways which branched out to 2 separate wires making a total of 9. These power 2 lights for the fish tanks and 3 filters and 2 air pumps. Except for the lights, the rest runs continuously and is never switched off.

But even more scary than all these is the fact that in the past months, there have been 3 instances when somebody in the house forgot to turn off the gas stove. Once it got so bad that it caught the attention of an opposite neighbour who had to rush over.

I have fire insurance for the house but what is the point of insurance if there are casualties? Money can never replace life. Okay did the minimum that can be done for the time being. Went out and bought 3 fire extinguishers and a smoke detector. And a note to everybody to check and make sure all unused appliances are switched off at the mains rather than just leave on standby mode. Hopefully that will be enough.

32 Degrees Fahrenheit

Suaku Uncle finally knows what is shaved ice or at the shop they call it Snow flakes ice.

Basically it is ice that is not crushed but 'shaven' so that the texture is very fine. The ice are flavoured and is topped with topping of choices.

Verdict - damn shiok especially in our hot weather.

Milk with strawberries and mangoes

Milk with Cococrunch

Chocolate with orea and nuts

Learning Chinese

It takes a great man to admit his mistakes and it takes an even greater man to admit his mistakes to the whole world but unfortunately for, I dare say a fair bit of us at the tail end of the baby boomer generation, it is a bit too little too late.

I am referring of course to our elder statesman admission of his mistakes in pushing through the method of teaching Chinese in the seventies to the nineties. Especially galling is the insistence on a pass in Chinese before the student can move on to the next higher level of education. I know of many people and heard of even more bright students who did well in every subject except Chinese and had to go overseas to further their studies. But these are the lucky one whose parents can afford to send them overseas. What about the countless other not so well off students who had to cease their studies because of some silly policy?

My personal experience with Chinese had been so bad that to this day I cannot for the life of me remember the name of a single Chinese teacher who had taught me from my primary school days till JC. The only name I can remember? Miss 懂 不懂 caused that was how this particular teacher ended every other sentence. One other thing I remember was how this particular teacher will make the student stand up in class and read out loud from the text book and whenever the student stumbled or mispronounced a word, she will sarcastically correct it while the rest of the class snickered at the poor reader standing there in humiliation. And more often than not, she loves to pick only a selected few - me being one of the unlucky one. Maybe she enjoyed the laughter I gave to the class or maybe she was genuinely trying to help the weaker students, I will never know.

I managed by the grace of God to scrap through my O level and went on to JC but faltered at that level thus ending my studies for good. To this day, I get by with I hope passable conversational Chinese but I can't read and I can't write (at least not the cheem words) Chinese and have to rely on colleagues for translation whenever I need to read or translate some Chinese stuff.

So let's know the educators out there can now do something so that the current and future students will indeed enjoy learning Chinese.

Those Pesky Fund Raiser

Don't you hate it when you get those annoying cold calls from credit cards, banks and insurance. What can be worse than that? Bladdy irritating people stopping you on the street to cold sell!

Those who works around Tanjong Pagar MRT area would have spotted these people hanging around the passage way stopping the people walking by. Just the other day while on the way home, I was stopped by 3 of them - one after another!

They are not selling credit cards or insurance but raising funds for some charity! The first time I encountered them was I think 2 years ago when they were raising funds for Club Rainbow. Nowadays they appear to be raising funds for the Heart or Cancer Foundation. So what so bad about that? They will follow you as you walk - doing their sales pitch. They will start off by saying they are not selling anything but then they will launch into their pitch and ask you to donate to the cause they are raising fund for. They don't take no for an answer and they not after your cash donation. What they want is your credit card! These people want the donor to sign instalment donation plan and boy are they pushy. They will talked and talked and harassed you following you all the way to the escalator.

I know they are just doing their job but it is so irritating! With cold calls, you can just put down the phone on them, be rude to them, scold them but how to be rude to a real person?

Don't be Rich

"Those people are too lazy to walk on the road"

"I don't understand why this kind of flooding can take place in this prime residential area"

2 very different comments but 2 which caught my attention in the papers.

The former was a remark by a resident of Upp Thomson Road in response to an accident along the stretch of road where he stayed and the latter was a comment by a motorist who was caught in the flood along Bukit Timah Road.

First, the remarks by the resident. Some background. On 8 November 2009, a couple on their way to church was knocked down by a drunk driver. The lady died and the old man was seriously injured. Read the full story here. In follow up story in the other papers, what transpired was that the old couple was forced to walk on the road as the pavement was blocked by cars belonging to the residents living along the landed properties there. The guy who made the quote above was asked for his view on his car blocking the pavement and whether pedestrian should be allowed to walk unhindered on the pavement and that quote was his reply.

What &**^$ callousness. What arrogrance! Instead of being guilty that he could have inadvertedly caused the death of a person, his attitude just show how little disregard he has for other people's safety.

Now for the 2nd guy, I don't know what was he expecting. Flooding don't occur in prime residentail area? Why? The government has to take special care of people in prime residentail area and don't allow flooding to occur there? Is he implying that it is not okay to have flood in say Bedok or Toa Payoh but not in Bukit Timah or Orchard Rd.

So what's the connection between these 2?

Maybe I am reading too much into 2 seemingly innocuous remarks but it gall me whenever people who have a little bit of wealth flaunt it and think that the whole world should kow tow to them and everybody else beneath their status are 'nobody'. And the problem is, this snobbery and 'richer and higher than thou' attitude seems to be spreading. Just witness the number of cars that parked indiscriminately and illegally. Some how it is almost always one of those luxury cars not the ordinary saloon. And their attitude when told off? Just go to Stomp and see a sampling.

Or how about the Serangoon Garden's protest when it was announced that foreign workers will be housed in the neighbourhood. Do we hear the resident in Jurong complaining? No, of course not who are they to complain. They only stay in HDB flat what!

Ok I gotta a little bit lost here. So what's my point? Don't be rich. Ha ha ha

M&M

Was walking around one of the supermart one day and came across this:

Can you believe it? A whole packet of orange M&M! Yummy!

World Kindness Day

Today is World Kindness Day. So:-

Be kind to your loved ones, families, friends, colleagues and enemy
Be kind to me. Give me your money
Be kind to all animals, big and small
Be kind to me. Give me your money
Give up your seat on the train, bus to somebody who need it more than you
Be kind to me. Give me your money
Hold the door/lift for whoever comes after you
Be kind to me. Give me your money
Return the tray and dishes after your meal at the food centre
Be kind to me. Give me your money
Smile and greet everybody you meet
Be kind to me. Give me your money

That is all.

PS: if my subliminal messages work, be kind to me and give me your money. Thank you very much.

Tofu Chiffon Cake

This has got to be the most expensive chiffon cake I will ever eat. Read in last week's Urban about this place, Glace at Icon, a patisserie (noticed they don't call atas cakeshop a confectionery or bakery?).

Anyway, since the wifey works nearby, got her to get one to try out. She came back with this small beautiful white little box containing eight small slices of the mango chiffon cake. The price? $10.80 which makes it $1.35 a mouthful. Was it worth the money? Well, with tofu as its main ingredients, I supposed it was something different and justified the high price. The bad new is, you can't taste the tofu. The good new is, you can't taste the tofu. Ha ha I can't imagine eating a true tofu cake - it will probably be very bland and I loves my dessert sweet. But if you can't taste the tofu, then what's the difference between this and the other chiffon cake in the market? Okay, it is rather soft, not too sweet and very light and smooth as tofu(pun intended) so one can eat a lot (in fact I think I can finish the whole thing) without feeling guilty.

Final opinion, I think I stick to Yummy Chiffon or Bengawan Solo's Pandan cake.

I Spy on the Train

Was on the train. This young couple was openly cuddling and kissing. Nowadays it so common to witness scene like this.

Only problem with this one was - both were girls! One was the typical sweet young thing and the other what we termed a "butch". But anyway the show they put up was pretty off-putting.

Now I just hope I won't and never get to witness 2 guys making out on the train. The thought of it ..... yucks!

Soya Made Moobs

Jeremy Pivers has been reported in the press that he is swearing off soya milk because it gives him man boobs or moobs for short! Apparently he has discovered that estrogen in the soya milk will cause him to grow breast!

So all the ladies out there who have been spending thousand of $ on bust enhancement programs or surgery, save your money - the soya drink guy is waiting!

And for the guys out there who drinks soya milk every day - you may want to try this out soon!

But on a serious note, there has been a lot of discussions and debates about this subject on the web so I will not go into it but to conclude - if you are crazy enough to drink 12 cups of soya milk a day, you probably deserve the moobs!

Cull Culture

Cats get on car's roof - cull the cats.
Chicken got bird flu - cull the chicken
Pigs got swine flu - cull the pigs
Birds disrupt air flights - cull the birds

What's next?

Children made too much noise in library - cull the children?
Old people cost too much to maintain - cull the old folks?

One shithead of a Guy

Was at the Thasevi roti prata on Sunday morning when I witnessed something incredible.

This guy was with his family including old lady, children and maid. After emptying 2 bottles of soft drinks, he turned round and put the 2 empty bottles on the next table. The only problem - the next table wasn't an empty table. There was a lady occupying it. Can see her face changed. In shock but she didn't do anything.

After some time, the inconsiderate shithead of a guy did the same thing again - this time he placed some soiled utensils on her table! Now we can see the lady boiled. She took her water bottle and slammed it on her table making the shithead guy and his wife jumped But unfortunately that was as far as all she did.

Now if I were her, I couldn't have tolerate the 1st time. I would have politely returned the 2 bottles to him and if he had protested or attempted another stunt like that on me, I would have empty my cup of tea all over his table!

I wondered what type of kids will be bring up with his type of behavior!

Hungry Ghosts

Every year I attend the AGM and every year I am shocked and awed at the behaviour of the shareholders and this year was no different. In fact, I think the shareholders have now reached a higher level of kaisuism.

Right at the very beginning of the AGM at just the 1st resolution, when a shareholder was asking some questions, another shareholder stood up and very rudely interrupted the proceedings to proclaim that he was hungry and to speed things up! What did the rest of the floor do? They clapped!

And from the word go when the AGM finally ended, the shareholders charged to the buffet table. These are what I saw:

1) 1 person piled her plate so high that when she finally put down the plate on her chair, half the items dropped off.

2) Another lady with another fully stacked up plate went back to her seat and took out plastic bags and poured the food in before going for another round.

3) Another lady went one better. She took 3 plates at one go and put them all into her carrier bag before going back for another round. A colleague commented that she went 4 times. And towards the end, she also took the bottle of chilli sauce and the hot coffee! Yes coffee! Each time she will take 2 cups filled it up and go back to her seat and took out a bottle and poured the coffee inside before going for more!

I know shareholders have nothing much to look forward to at AGM other than the food but such kiasu behaviour. The least they could do is to let other people take the food first before taopaoing! And of course ask for permission from the host but fat chance. I think the ghosts during the 7th month are better behaved!

No wonder hotels all over the world have heard about the Singaporean travellers!

Aroma River Spa

This was supposed to be the sole purpose of our visit to Bintan Island - a spa cum massage session at the Aroma River Spa. What we didn't bargain for was the almost 1 hour trip from our hotel to the spa located in another corner of Bintan Island at Trikora Beach. The road there was long and winding and left M with a giddy spell. Fortunately we did not had lunch yet otherwise she probably would have thrown up part of it.

Our first impression when our driver announced that we had arrived was shock and disbelief. OMG, the place looks like a run down kampung. Lots of coconut tree and a small outhouse. From the web, we had vision of a beautiful Balinese cottage but this was like.But all doubts was dispelled when we stepped behind the hedges and saw this small cluster of attap houses It looks so quaint - a sort of mini kelong and kampung huts on stilts sitting on a mangrove river. There was a small broadwalk and our treatment room although basic looks clean and neat.
The changing room was a small curtain off area much like the curtain changing rooms in some of our department stores.
Likewise, the 'bathroom' was also inside the treatment room with just a curtain and a jug of water to bath. There are no electricity and running water there and best of all, no irritating elevator music that keeps repeating. All we had was the light sea breeze and as we laid there being kneaded and rubbed upon by the young therapists, all the stress and tension in our body seemingly just seeped away into the water below. It was so soothing, calm and peaceful.

Included in the package was lunch which was a stone away away at the Mutiara Beach Resort
where we were served with a huge coconut and a plate of delicious nasi lemak. Incidentally, the spa receptionist and our driver were also the waiter and I think maybe cook?

Unfortunately, after our meal, the sky opened up and we had to forgo our mangrove tour on the sampan.However, a Ma-Chik there taught us how to make a ketupat casing while we waited for the rain to stop.

This has gonna be one of the best most relaxing spa/massage treatment that I received. Despite the lack of amenities and facilities, it was really like what the ad promised - traditional Javanese massage. Although not cheap by their standard $88.00 per pax for the Aroma Half Day package, I think it was definitely worth the money and I would highly recommend this to those who want to relax.

PS: This is not a sponsored post although I wish it was:)

Rest and Relax at Nirwana Resort

We had wanted a quiet weekend escape just to rest and relax and do absolutely nothing except nuay around so we headed for Bintan Resorts - a consortium of resorts located in the north of Bintan Island. What we didn't bargain for was that things at Bintan Resort wasn't exactly cheap. The 2 days 1 night trip seemed cheap enough. S$150 for room, return ferry trip and breakfast. But when we arrived there, we found out that it was like we had never left Singapore. Every darned thing was in SGD and expensive like hell. Anyway, we were there already and had to make the best of it.

We had randomly picked the Nirwana Resort hotel to stayed in. It looks nice from the pics on the web and cheaper than Banyan Tree or Club Med and better than Bintan Lagoon. We were not disappointed in this aspect. The resort itself is actually part of Nirwana Garden which was situated on a huge sprawling piece of land and actually comprises several resorts - Nirwana Resort; Mayang Sari, Beach Club, Banyu Baru and the Indra Maya.

After checked in, we escaped from the resort and took an hour car ride to the other side of Bintan to a quaint and unique spa - the Aroma River Spa. More of that here.

Back at the Nirwana Resort, we went for dinner at the Kelong Restaurant, suppose to be one of the best on the Island. The set dinner at S$44 per person again wasn't cheap but it was a full 8 course dinner and did came with a bowl of shark fin soup, crab and prawns. There wasn't much to do for nightlife so we walked around and sat on the deck chair where I promptly fell asleep much to the annoyance of M who wanted to just sit there and do small talks and admire the stars.

The next morning after a forgetable buffet breakfast (ain't all hotel buffet breakfast), we went for a walk around the resort. There was a mini zoo with crocodiles, a soft shelled turtle, a snapping turtle, what looks like piranha, Arapiama, Alligator Gar, Giant catfish, a vulture which spread its majestic wings for us to look, a Brahminy Kite, a lot of White Cockatoo, and some Amazon macaws. That show how mini the zoo is since I can remember all the animals.

The chalets at the Beach Club looks lovely, so rustic but a bit ulu and away from the main building.

The highlight of the resort was of course the beach with its movie like scenery; coconut trees swaying gently in the wind, stretch and stretch of long white sand and beautiful clear blue water.

After checkout, we went over to the pathetic looking Resort centre but found a hidden gem when we discovered a food court selling food at very reasonable S$ as in $6 for a bowl of noodle. There was also a sports wellness centre offering a whopping 50% discount off all treatment. How to pass up such a offer? We gleefully went for another round of massage, this time a 'sport' massage at $35 for an hour before heading back to Sg.

Compared to Batam 2 weeks ago, this was heaven. Although not exactly cheap, we did achieve our objectives of resting and relaxin and to me that is money well spent.

More pictures here

Sponsorship Disclosure Law

The gahmen or more precisely, the Media Devt Authority is looking at 'sponsorship disclosure' law. What it means simply is if a blogger is paid or sponsored to write a blog post, the blogger will have to disclose this on pain of a fine. Wah I damn scared so let me state right now that I have not been sponsored by any of the food joints that I have wrote about so far.

However, that does not mean that I am against sponsorship. In fact, I promise to write nice glowing report about the food even if it taste like swine to whoever is willing to sponsor me and my partners to a meal. Or maybe 1 for 1 also can. Or just a nice desert also can. Anything as long as it is free.

Any offers?

Oiishi Durian Bread

Was coming back from Jurong when suddenly remembered somebody mentioned the durian bread at a bakery in West Coast Plaza. So promptly swung over there and cleared out the last tray - I think there were 12 or more but who's counting.

Shared it with colleagues in the office. The verdict? 10 thumbs up! The outside looks like any ordinary bun but inside it was filled with pure durian puree. And at $1.80 each for a full size bun, it is definitely more value for money than the puny little one from Puteri Mas or the expensive puff from 717 or Emicakes.

Er before any one ask why no picture - nobody could resist the heavenly smell and whacked it down in supersonic speed. And also before the bossess start going around hunting where the smell came from!

According to the lady, they are usually sold out by mid afternoon so anybody thinking of getting it - go early. But they do have another outlet at Beauty World Centre. Here's a write up and a picture.

Seafood and Durian

This evening a group of us went to ulu Yio Chu Kang to a small little eatery known as Crab Party. There was no crab partying there. In fact if I am a crab, I wouldn't be partying there cos crabs get eaten there big time.

After reading about how this place was supposed to be a spin off from the Still Road crab place, had decided for quite some time to try it out but never actually got round to it until today.

What did we had? Naturally, crabs - 1 black and 1 red plus some other stuff.

The black pepper crab was much better than the chili crab which was a tad to sourish for most of us. The crab was of medium size and cost around $45 each which was a pleasant surprise as I had expected the prices to be on the high side.

The other items we had was the garlic prawn, coffee pork rib, cuttlefish kangkong and the sinfully fried pork knuckle.

It was a mistake to order this as it left most of us pretty full with not much space for the highlight of the evening.

Durian. Cos 717 durian was just a stone throw away and we couldn't pass it up so we trooped there after the rather heavy meal and forced ourselves to gorge down $10 worth of mangosteen and 3 D24 durian.

How was the food? Let's just say the price is reasonable but I really don't think there is any compelling reasons to go back there again. Don't get me wrong. The food isn't half bad but I can think of many many places with much better seafood and crab. In fact we were already discussing over dinner to go to a certain place in AMK or go for lunch on a little island even more ulu than YCK.

As for the durians, we didn't get to try any of the more exotic brand and since we were already pretty stuff, I think most of us was thankful we only ordered 3. Still the standard of durian at 717 is always pretty consistent and certainly we have no complains.

Excuse me while I go to burb.

Toby is 1

Times really flies. Toby turns 1 yesterday.

Within that short time that he has been with us, he has melted everybody's heart with the way he looks at us; the way he runs up whenever he sees us going out; and his antics especially his humping. Ha ha ha.

New Dog

Nice Dog

Thirsty Dog

Dirty Dog

Dancing Dog

Botak Dog

Happy birthday little boy boy.

Mooncake Index

Okay the moon cake eating spree is over and this year definitely the economy is doing very very well never mind what the gahmen is trying to tell us. No need to look at the ridiculous prices of properties or the rise of the stock market. The best indicator is the my moon cake index. Last year was not that bad but this year the number of moon cakes I got is mind boggling. Either I have been giving them a lot of business which I swear I did not since budget has been cut or these people are so desperate for business they give hoping for something in return?

This one from Shangri-La and everybody in the office agreed it was the worst of the whole lot

From the worst to the best - the famous Raffles Hotel Champange Truffles Mooncake

This wasn't too bad either - from Li Bai Restaurant at Sheraton

This one from Bread Talk - not too bad despite its more humble roots

Then there is this colorful one from Sze Chuan Court at Fairmont Hotel. Very nice with truffles, champange, rum and hazelnut
Last one in the office is the one with the most grand box from Royal China, Raffles Hotel. By now everybody wants the box and not the mooncake!
Back home this is from Peony Jade supposedly made by the former Chef from Crown Prince, courtesy of Sis,

Then this one from Tung Lok (haven't try yet)

What is mooncake without the traditional Teochew mooncake? From Thye Moh

And last but not least, this cute little one given by a classmate of the Princess

More Morons

Was at a traffic light at a x-junction and saw this old guy cycling across the road. He stopped 3/4 away from the pavement and waited in the middle of the road presumably for the light to change so that he can cycle across to the other road (to save cycling time?)

Back home was reversing and this idiotic guy was running up and down across 3 car lots. Doing what?

Again turning back into the carpark later, 3 jokers were chatting in the middle of the drive way.

And there was this other lady waiting for a car /cab? and she was also standing in the middle of the road!

Do these people think they are made of some sort of super material and impervious to cars?

Morons

You are sitting at your desk at 6pm rushing to wrap up work for the day. Suddenly, you feel a movement, the water in your cup is sloshing, a book dropped down and your head start to spin. What is going on? Earthquake! You grab your phone, purse maybe laptop and rush down and out of the building.

Safe at last. You stand with hundred of other like minded people in front of the building and looked up mouth wide open gaping at the building and waiting for it to collapse.

Hello friends.....this is not a cartoon. When a building collapse, it doesn't collapse inward. Debris will be flying down and it is not going to come straight down but will be flung left right centre and you lot standing 2 metres in front of the building is going to be the first to get this 'shower of blessing'.

Don't be a moron. Either you stay put in the office and go down with the building if it really collapse but if you choose to run out, stay a safe distant from any buildings that might come down on you. Otherwise what is the point?

Flash

Got something to complement my toy. Been meaning to get one for the longest time but some how heart pain to part with close to $400 for a Nikon SB600.

Finally after scouting around for so long, settled on this Tumax DBT386. This is a Hongkong made flash. Not that many review on the web site since it is fairly new. What was available was a mixed bag of praise and brickbats.

Anyway stingy me decided to take the plunge anyway.The more impressive specs* of the flash was what sold me in the end. In fact, the sales guy said it is more close to the SB800 than SB600 which was my original choice. My more camera savy colleague who accompanied me to the shop thought I was a bit crazy to just buy like that without finding out more. He wasn't too impressed with its weight and felt that it was not powerful enough. But for slightly under $200, I deemed it worth taking the risk. For good measure, I also took a CPL and a remote shutter release. Now all I need to do is to find time to play with it.

*1) Guide number: 45

2) Zoom range is 24 to 85

3) TTL with full manual control(iso,zoom,fstop,power ratio),

4) Built in wide panel and reflector

5) Built in optical sensor

6) With LCD

Anyway, this shop, artworkfoto, got some amazing stuff for a small little shop in the middle of nowhere. Check it out. They now have some promo going on.