Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Just Ximply Food

I realised that i have lots of food postings in this blog... so i decided to seperate food postings from the rest, so i have officially started a food blog!! ... Just Ximply Food. So if you guys have got anything to talk about regarding food places that you've been to be it good or bad cheap or expensive... do post it on your blog and let me know .. I'll link it over .. or if it's good then we can go try out the food and i can create my own posting on it!! .. If you have tried any of the food that i posted, do give your opinion on the food, cos these stuffs can be quite subjective, i might not like it but other might..

Oh i'll be slowly repeating the past posting and photos of food and eating places onto this new blog ..

Visit from Indonesian Friend

Leonarta had a short stay in singapore last thursday, haven't met him for some time, so we decided to go for a meal with kaiming. leo suggested this chinese restaurant (more like a small shop) in geylang called sik wai sin. we only had a short time together cos leo had to rush home before going for his next appointment, so i guess we gotta wait for the next time he stopover at singapore to chatch up further.

So me and kaiming proceeded a few roads down for some dessert at the famous yong he eating house that serves tau huay and you tiao. since he had never appeared on my blog, i gotta somehow post a good shot of him here.. he says that he's a natural poser, what do you think? haha

Friday, November 24, 2006

Dinner at Equinox

Js is finally back from his ICT and we found him darker and skinnier and he's calling himself mohammad... the last time j4 met up was before he left for australia, so to celebrate this wonderful gathering, we went for dinner at equinox, right at the top of swissotel. didn't get a window seat so didn't get any good view, ambience was good there, so good that they all look at me when i spoke a little loudly on the phone
The black menu looks cool so you see it appearing quite a few times in these photos.. haha, not an easy task to choose the mains cos they are all very expensive.... i dun think i have ever had food that costly!!
Here's our gift from australia, handmade chocolates!! ....oouuuu
Waiting time for our food is approximately 30 mins, they serve us an assortment of breads in a nice looking basket. the breads were very good... especially when you eat them with the chilled butter provided, so good .. or was it because we were so hungry that we got another basket. should have ask for more, it's free, such delicious bread for free but a bottle of plain tasteless mineral water cost $12+++.

Here's our dinner, the food was quite good, we tried to eat it very slowly so as to make it worth it, but the serving was quite small to last too long.
Bill came out to be more than $200... lucky we have 50% off, it's quite an experience for fine dining, i believe this is twice "finer" than pregos some time ago. I dun think i will go back there again, even if i strike lottery, i think spending at jumbo seafood will be more satisfying than spending it here. but i cannot deny that this is an experience of a lifetime, to see how the rich and famous people dine. It was actually quite packed on a wed night.

Tennis on a Wet Night

Booked the tennis court from 8pm to 10pm on wed .... it have been some time since the last tennis game.. in the evening, it was raining quite heavily... does that mean tennis had to be cancelled?? ... nonetheless, we still met up at maple woods at 8pm..

The rain had stopped!! .. hurray!! but the court was really wet, gotta clear up the water before we could start playing. This was when i realised what the apparatus that has always been at the side of the courts was for... Noticed the difference? bingwei (right side) dun seem to be helping much right? .. haha .. but to see him doing something like that is quite rare already!! ... still gotta thank them both for clearing the water, i'm the laziest, do nothing to help, just kept shooting away with my camera. :p

Something out of this posting's context.. meili had her corporate items out.. t shirt bag and umbrella, here's how they looked like... thank you for giving me the umbrella!! it's very nice .. and very light too!! Once the floor was done, we got the racquets and balls out and got started... 10 mins later... rain came back... sianz... got heavier and heavier.. couldn't stand it, we decided to postpone the session and adjourned for dinner instead. dinner was at ivins @ binjai park. followed by a short tea session at a nearby concept cafe called milk & honey, the sign looked very modern but the interior looks kinda retro .. i quite like the contrast.Ambience was quite good there, weather was good, so we sat outside, i had green apple lemonade, and we also ordered a chocolate fudge cake (not bad.. you can order this if you do go there) and a peach cheese cake (never ever order this, big mistake .... ) chat a while and thought that it was kind of early to go home... hai.. what can 4 person do at 930pm? anyone wanna make a guess?? ... mahjong of course!! .. haha from a supposedly healthy night to a very unhealthy one

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Yinmei's Birthday

Yes!! .. it;s another birthday celebration... I know too many people who are 21 this year... but thinking back, there's celebration even for those those who are not 21... so what difference does it make??

Anyway, yinmei's celebration was held at yishun, started of with basketball!! haha, there was a basketball court there and they all decided to have a game, even in slippers. i think the following photo is quite nice, can really get the old hdb estate feeling where you have courts in between blocks of flats..nostalgic right?
Here's the birthday girl and her cake, all covered in fruits!! didn't take much photos this time cos i felt quite paisei to go around taking photos as i dunno most of the people there..

And that day i realised that sumitra's eyes respond very fast to light (flash from the camera) he closes his eyes almost immediately on the flash, his eyes are half open in most of the photos with him. so i guess the only way is to force his eyelids open manually... like this!! .. i think we can call him catman!!
How many more birthdays coming up? .. i guess the next should be goldie.. then sumitra!!

The Best Ipoh Hor Fun

I loved the ipoh hor fun at river valley and i have never tried any other ipoh hor fun that's nicer than this one. It'a situated in a old coffee shop at the junction of river valley road and kellock road. a few parallel parking lots along kellock road, or you can just park illegally in front of the coffee shop where you can see you car at all times
Usually the hor fun is cooked by a small sized old uncle that still looks quite healthy, but this time it was a lady, probably his daughter, cooking it. it still taste as nice though. serving is quite small, for those who have a large appetite, you might wanna order more food from other stalls.

Another must try is the kaya and butter toast, i dunno how they can actually slice the bread so thinly to make the toast really crispy(what other word can i use for this case?). and it must be taken immediately after it's served, when the butter melts, it's not as nice anymore. i was also told that the roast duck and char siew rice is very good, but when we ordered it last week, it's was only so so... maybe individual's preference really differ..

Go try it and let me know if you think the hor fun is nice!! .. i was told the hor fun stall was there for very long, a friend's parents actually went there to eat when they were partor-ing!! and it was the same uncle preparing the hor fun then too!

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Terry is 21 Years Old

Another quite backdated post. terry celebrated his 21st birthday 2 fridays ago. got all his friends gathered at his place for dinner. his house not bad man, can actually house all the people who turned up (it was actually quite a lot of people), ok maybe not all, his parents friends were all sitting and drinking at the gate, hhmmm when we get old, will we be doing that? yihan qorrine kelly and me were there earlier for the preparation, i didn't help much in the preparation cos i was busy making the sabo drink for him and wraping the present and the fake presents!!terry catered buffet and got his maid to do some bbq of satays and otahs, i thinkthe food was quite good, at least better than the one at occ. Other than food, auntie (terry's mum) also prepared a viriety of liquor to add on to the mood of the event, there was even cordon bleu. she even told me, in mandarin "go get some liquor to drink, dun worry that it's not enuff, auntie still have more, auntie is afraid of having no money but auntie is not afriad of having no liquor", because she has a lot stocked up in the store room!! i laughed immediately after she said that... but she'll protect her son from getting drunk, even downed a full cup of cordon bleu neat for terry when we forced him to drink... Other than the hard liquor, there was lots of wine too!! yihan's party had a lack of liquor, and terry's party had a surplus of alcohol!! Have you all seen my camera? here's jonathan taking him self in the mirror with my cam!! wah, his pose not bad right?
As a soccer fan, or rather soccer betting fan, the cake was made in the shape of a soccer ball, cos now that he's 21, he can be an officially gambler, he evened planed a genting trip for january so that he can proudly walk into the casino legally Btw, it;s also kelly's birthday, in fact it's also kelly's birthday, the couple have their birthday only 3 days apart!! so it was actually a celebrate together thing, but it seems that terry invited so many more people than kelly did. probably kelly's wish was that as long as terry is around for her birthday, she's happy liao (... aaawwww so sweet). so how can we miss out on a kiss!!Jonathan buay tahan when he sees that and he didn't want to lose out, so he too went to give his beloved terry a kiss too!! but it looks like terry prefered the one with kelly
This has to be the most interesting fake present, terry wanted a big pony polo tshirt by ralph lauren, but it was out of stock islandwide, so we decided to make one for him, look!! qorrine can really draw very well right? looks almost like the real one, i wonder if terry will wear this out
It was a wonderful evening, which ended with a few of us playing drinking games to finish up the bottle of cordon bleu... Hope you had a wonderful birthday, terry & kelly!

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Yihan's Actual Birthday

Ok .. life has to go back to normal now, a little stuffs to catch up at work.. of course blogging gotta be back as usual.. a few stuffs from last week..

It was yihan's actual birthday and we decided to go holland village for dinner, after walking around for some time, we chose this restaurant called cha cha cha, they serve mexican food. there's 2 mexican restaurant there and theye are right beside each other, we chose cha cha cha because there was more people in it.
We couldn't really decipher the menu, it was full of tortillas, burittos, guacamole, nachos ... dunno what they were, so we just got the waiter to recommend some appetizers and some mains for us. here's what we had, dun ask me which items in the menu these were because we all dun know, they were all reccommended, and we just said "yes, we'll take that"The food was really good, you guys can go try it out, it's beside nydc at holland village. thank you yihan for this meal!! .. it was really worth it .. haha... after dinner we proceeded to my place for a game of dice, if you watch taiwanese variety channel, this dice game which is similar to bluff will not be new to you..Had a surprise birthday cake for the birthday boy, maybe he already had expectations for it. gotta ask him.. to include a little sabo, we got him relighting candles.. and it took him a long while to blow them out, and the room was totally filled with smoke after the feat.
Something else interesting, we played the dice game with a forfeit of drinking soft drinks, until we ran out of that, so we replaced it with plain tap water ... terry lost so much and drank so much that he vomitted!! .. yes he vomitted on plain water!!! .... haha ..

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Last Day

Too busy today for any photos, today is the burial ceremony, ah gong is now resting peacefully at choa chu kang chinese cemetery blk 19 no. 595. a very tiring day.... what i hope for now is a good sleep....

Third Night at the Wake

Finally, it's the last night. everyone was busy folding paper because they have to be used for the rutial at night. all sorts of incense paper, all the different ways of folding.
The ritual started as early as 7pm and this time round its the long one ... we had a few breaks in between and it ended at about 11pm when we had to burn up the paper house, cars, incense paper etc etc...
Not forgetting about friends who came, henry, chiver, yutong, ripple, xintian, bangjie, bangzhi's parents, lawrence, regina, lengleng, joey.thank you so much... esp ripple and xintian, for coming down again and helped me with the folding of incense paper.

Going to bathe and take a short nap before going back to prepare for the actual procession and ceremony for the burial.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Second Night at the Wake

Second night's turnout was more than expected, luckily the area we have was quite big, and we gotta increase the amount for food to prepare. a group of buddist devotees were invited to provide a prayer session for ah gong for this night.

Many friends turned up today, really appreciate it, nancy, james, xiequn, bangjun, xintian, alfred, merwin, leon, yvonne, eddie, yanping, bingwei, meili, jiehong, tingting, mingbao, jingpei, hansen, kaisi, terry, kelly, sumitra, kianhong, yihan, marianne, caiyun, jensen, weiyang, roger. without you people, i think the time i spend at the funeral will seem so much longer... have also received lots of condolences messages from all of you, dun worry, i'm alright, thank you for the concern.

One last night to go, and i guess this will be a long night, there should be a taoist ritual going on and it will end with the burning of the paper house, car, and the incense papers that we have been folding for the past few days.

Monday, November 13, 2006

First Night at the Wake

The venue for the wake was set to be at block 3 queen's road (farrer road) at the end of the sheltered car park. we will be there till wed noon where the burial ceremony will be carried out at choa chu kang cemetry.

Quite a number of people turned up on the first night. saw many familiar faces among the relatives that came. the weather was good, everyone was chatting at their tables, the mood was good,

Deepest (is this the reght word to use?) appreciation to my friends who came down to visit my ah gong last night. hansen kaisi ripple cruz xuliang kerwin lawrence lengleng regina joey kaiming goldie kelvyn and and also qianhao frederick jason borong who were unable to make it due to different reasons. i hope the mahjong and texas poker session was good, sorry that i'm unable to attend to all of you all the time during the night.

2 more nights to go, gotta go back to office to settle some stuffs this morning, i wish everyone a happy and enjoyable week, and i wish ah gong is leaving us with no regrets and all the best to him in the life he will lead after death...

it's time for some sleep........

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Rest in Peace... Ah Gong

I was at home at 10 plus at night waiting for a phone call for terry, because we intended to go clubbing. before i received this call, my auntie called up and told my dad that ah gong is not in good condition. rushed down to his place and before we could reach there, he has already passed away.......

11.11.2006 11pm .... It was more or less an expected thing, but we were caught by a bit of shock, becuase these few days he could still walk around. I think he had gone through a wonderful life journey many dun have the chance to, cos he walked this road for 92 years...

Everyone was sad at ah gong's place when i reached there, but after a while, we got settled down and started to plan for the upcoming few days... i think it's going to be a busy week for all of us.
This photo was taken about 5 years ago, ah gong just went to the studio and got his own photo taken and he told us that it's to be kept for ..... today. you can see the time on the clock too, my aunt stopped the clock when ah gong's pulse stopped..

i really thing the date and time was really very zhun... 11/11 11pm ... and when we were thinking back, we realised that my ah ma passed away on 1.1.1985 1am... hhmmm.. 1/1 1am ..... is that coincidental? ..

I'm back home to take a rest before going down again while ah gong is still lying on his bed peacefully, undertaker will only come down in the morning, details of the wake is not available yet, cos we dunno which block is available, but it'll definitely be at farrer road... till wed..

I still have some unposted items... will put them on hold till the funeral is over

Friday, November 10, 2006

Visit Stats

I went to check out the visit stats at sitemeter to see how's the hit rate on my blog and i was quite shocked to see this graph!! So i was thinking what happened on 25th of oct .. why was there such a peak? then i realise that 25th oct is when i posted on borong's birthday. then i know what happened... cos cruz actually put a link to this posting from his blog and these must be referal visits from his blog!! .. referals alone take up like 300% of my normal hits ... his blog must be visited by thousands or ten of thousands a day man!!! ..

Oh and i realised that cruz has added my blog as a link from his. thanx man, i'm sure your popularity will help boost visits to my blog .. but recently like no comments ... quite sad hor? cos it's these comments that gives me to motivation to continue to post..

Ok... will have more photos to post after this weekend... there's terry's birthday coming up!!

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Libing's Room Transformed

Finally decided to post some photos of libing's room, past and present. It has been completed a few weeks ago, but the process was long, because he was always not in singapore.

This was how his room looked like for the past 10 years, and we can see that many things have pilled up in these 10 years, the need to clear things out of the room has helped him with the disposal of old and useless items that had been lying somewhere in the cupboards.

Spent a whole weekend to clear everything out of the cupboards and we disposed off all the old cupboards and bed.
Work started at the factory, the one on the left is his new wardrobe, a super big wardrobe that actually houses the TV as well. The one on the right is the incompleted bed frame.
Installation at the room, see the entertainment section for the TV and his PS? Green curtain just doesn't match right?
Finally, the room is done up and libing's mum gotta switch curtains with him so that his curtain will match the colour scheme of his room..

Got himself a new mattress for the bed too... the next thing to change has gotta be the bedsheet, this one looks like it's from the 90s.

Anyone out there interested to renovate your place? feel free to look for me ok? help me introduce you friends too, if not i no business....haha...