Spontaneous Breakfast

Following the spontaneous dinner i had last week, i suddenly have time for breakfast after meeting a customer early in the morning. so i made some phone calls.

First to Terry.
jx: are you in school?
terry: no, i'm sleeping.
jx: breakfast?
terry: i have no car leh...

ok .. then cannot liao since i dun have time to go fetch him

Next yihan.
jx: are you in school?
yh: no, i'm at home
jx: i;m 5 mins from your place, let's go for breakfast
yh: oh ok, let me go brush my teeth first.

Then we proceeded to casuarina curry for breakfast. i have not had prata for breakfast for a long time, i almost forgotten that prata can be taken for breakfast, too used to it being a supper item.
I didn't even give him enough time to tidy up his hair before digging him out of bed for breakfast.. so this is how he look 10 mins after waking upp..not bad hor? wu xim level 9 out of 10..

Breakfast was good, we had thosai, prata and puthu mayam (is it spelt this way) and the milo peng was just fantastic.. had so much that i had to skip lunch for the day..yihan was like complaining to me that there's no photos of him on my blog recently .. so to satisfy him, i've posted 2 today.. haha...

more spontaneous meetup to come.. who's next in the list?

Quick Visit to the Zoo

The last time i've been to the singapore zoo was when i was still in primary school.. wow.. but i've heard that singapore has got a really wonderful zoo. so decided to go take a look and find some new models for my camera. thanks to js who has a lobang for free visit to the zoo!! this trip was totally worth it.. $3.80 for parking.. that's it.Going to the zoo means that i need to have a zoom lens to get close up photos.. so borrowed this from leon.
A 70-200mm zoom lens! very huge and heavy, it's about a foot in length, you can compare it with my phone from the photo. carrying it around the zoo was quite embarassing, everyone looked at you with the "wow, a professional photographer" look, when i'm not. i felt weird when i walked past a group of pros carrying all sorts of equipment and were discussing about shooting techniques in hokkien. ok anyway, the photos came out quite good, my standard not that high ..haha. i guess most of the credit should go to this wonderful lens.
Here are some of the photos i took, and as you can see, i separated them into 2 groups.. the main ones below are the monkeys and their relatives.. are they called primates? cos most of them are found in this section called the primate kingdom. anyway, i think they are wonderful animals to take. their eyes, postures, expressions etc, so similar to human beings, it's as if they are trying to tell you something. you gotta click on the photos to see a larger version.Didn't have enough time to finish up the whole zoo, so i'll be going again, and hopefully i'll have better photos from the next trip.

Impromptu Saturday

Lazy sat afternoon again... after i bought the new lens. so gotta find some people to try out my lens. called bingwei.
jx: wanna go for tea?
bw: i'm meeting libing to settle some stuffs, maybe we can meet together for tea
jx: ok set..
.... in the end waited so long that tea became dinner.. but we still met up, bw suggested dinner at this supposedly famous zi char place at keong saik road.The place looks quite run down, with this small whiteboard writing what they have on it. i think the words have been there like for the longest time. if i was just walking past, i will never stop to try the food.
While waiting for the food, i gotta play with my camera and the new lens, and why miss the chance when i have such good models around. i really love the photos taken with the 50mm lens. it's sharp, nicely exposed and make me feel that my camera is different from the point and shoot ones.. oh if you are waiting to see the photos of the food, click on the link somewhere above, i wrote about the food on my food blog. Initially, my plan was to meet terry and gang at night, but it was scheduled to be at 11pm. it's going to be a long wait so i decided to get bw lb and mb for mahjong instead... and of course it's at mingbao's place
But before getting to mingbao's place, me and bw decided to check out the club 21 sale since we had to wait for lb to finish his dance class. from past experiences, club 21 has got really good bargains at their warehouse(sort of) sale. you can get armanis, cks, dknys are low low prices.
After walking a few rounds, there was really nothing that was worth getting.. maybe the good stuffs have all been snatched away. i really wonder why some people can actually buy so many things? look at how much this lady bought!!?? unbelievable... let's go mahjong..
Jiehong's in her 3rd month of pregnancy... but dun really see her putting on weight.. will try to take her photo often so that we can see the difference as time passes.
Here's a scan of the little baby.. cannot really make anything out of it.. and if you have noticed, i added the label newborn on this post, which might seem inappropriate, but i think they can be categogised together... one more label very laychey..
The 3 players wearing t shirts that blends in well with the 3 big cards... must take a photo.. what a coincidence! there's my saturday!!

New Lens for the Camera

Went to sim lim on sat to get a new lens for my camera, a lens that i have always wanted to get, the ef 50mm f/1.8.It's not an expensive lens but i love the potriat photos that's taken with this lens. some time last year, i borrowed this lens from starsapphire and took lots of wonderful photos in bintan. oh i was so excited that i have not taken a photo of the lens itself, will do that soon and post it here... here's one photo that i took with the lens right after i bought it, while we were going for dinner at keong siak road.As we can see, bingwei and libing are both natural posers! more photos to come!!

Farewell Dinner for Dawei

Went for a nice family dinner with dawei, my parents and a few closer relatives at jumbo seafood for a farewell dinner. dawei will be embarking into his next phase of his pilot training at australia for the next 8 months.For those who have yet to meet up with him, i dun think you have much chance cos he's flying off on monday, early morning flight. All the best for his traning! .. very soon i'll have pilot brother!

Spontaneous Dinner

I called frederick up for dinner.

jx: hey, where you now?
fred: at home lor?
jx: i'm near your place, shall we go for dinner?
fred: huh... aiya need to do work leh...got email to send..
jx: no need to eat?
fred: need... ok ok.. give me 15 mins i quickly send out the email then we go eat
jx: ok.. see you at the car park in 15 mins

wah! as you know, being a contractor, i have not control of my free time, sometimes customers seems a little more lor sor, sometimes my whole weekend is burnt because of work and sometimes my weekdays are very free, so it's difficult to really meet people according to schedule. so whenever i get friends for such spontaneous meet up, it will brighten up my day!
Ok.. anyway, we decided to go to bedok corner food centre .. haha yes again.. cos fred has never been there.
We had hokkien mee, bbq sting ray, carrot cake and cheng tng. noticed that carrot cake has no link, cos it sucks.. i dun think i will write a posting about it. haha

Although is wasn't a long dinner, but i had quite a good time, dinner like that is definitely better than maggi mee at home.. thanks fred...

It's Wednesday Again

The week has passed so quickly, it's wednesday again, and i'm off to yveon's loft for project again. dinner was packed from the bedok corner food centre, if you have realised we are eating the same thing as last week except that this time the food is better. the hokkien mee is famous, the mee goreng is only slightly better and the orlua without or(oyster) is quite ok to me although not fantastic.
yvon made dessert, very refreshing mixture of chin chow, fresh mango and aloe vera. wonderfull desert to mark the end of dinner and the start of tedious work in fromof the computer.
Poor kaizer had none of the above, he was so happy when we were setting the table, probably he thought some of the food will go into his stomach..

ok.. work work work ..i wonder when we will finish this project.. will i ever take up a project like that again?

Happy Birthday Risa

Risa invited a few of us to her place for dinner on sunday for her belated birthday celebration. and usually what do you expect for dinner when it's at home? some home made chicken wings, few dishes that consist of vege, or some meat.. or most of the time it's steamboat. we were shocked when we reached her place and saw the spread on the dining table.
We had this thing that i dunno for appetizer, i think it's somethink like hummers, spread on a cracker and topped with prawn roe. super huge prawns and mussels, and pork knuckle... first time i have a meal like that at a friend's place. the food was prepared by her dad.. very high class hor? everything was swept empty except for the 2 big bowls of fresh vegetable, yihan finished half a bowl himself though!!! he eats it like eatting grass, a lot of grass. Had a wonderful dinner while watching the ren ci charity show on tv. thank you risa... and happy belated birthday!

First Time at Yanping's Place

Mahjong at yanping and hanyang's place.. first time there and the place is very nicely renovated.. very cosy .. eddie went whampoa market to tabao some food, and according to them, these are famous stalls...
Was thinking of posting this on justximplyfood but i didn't know the stall name, or the location etc.. so i'll just post it here..hokkien mee was wet and nice, i never liked hokkien mee which is too dry, it has to be slurpy..haha..
Or lua... supposedly famous, but doesn't taste very good leh .. according to eddie, it's because he was served the last batch from the pan, so this batch was left on the hot pan for the longest period of time, making it a little overcooked, chao da, and quite hard... so i'll still gotta try it again one more time to really know it's really good

Here are 2 freshly shaven shih tzu that stays with yanping and hanyang, 2 cute little dogs that can actually bark quite loudly! Yanping refuses to pose for a photo.. so too bad .. no photos of people ... lost in mahjong... hai .. hopefully will have better luck next time...

Lazy Sat Afternoon at Vivo

It was a sat where i dun have to work and generally have nothing on for the whole day, really feel different, usually my weekends will be supered packed with activities. Met up with zhentao for lunch at vivo city, walked around the place for quite a while before dieiding where to eat, cos most places has got long queues and we didn't wanna wait that long for food.
As we were walking at the basement, we came across superdog, hhmmm new fast food chain, let try it! no long queues ... just nice.. so we walked in and looked at the menu to choose what we wanted to eatThe food is actually quite good, just a little expensive for fast food.. wonderful fries!! .. juicy sausages.. yum yum... didn't regret the decision of having lunch there.

Since we are at vivo, i gotta try the chocolate ice blended cos cruz and ripple was telling me that after they tried it, they never wanted to drink any other chocolate drinks anymore ...
But probably that powerful statement had got our expectation of the drink a little too high.. yes the drink was good.. but i will stil drink other chocolate drinks because they dun cost $8 a cup!! But at least i won't mind paying for this drink again, unlike their chocolates which i think is really overpriced.. won't buy it unless it's a gift for someone else.. had a good chat at the ggodiva cafe itself.. a nice peaceful place to talk..

Weekend has Started

It's friday, the weekend is here and i'm starting it off with a movie. went to watch music and lyrics with terry at vivo city.. for those who dunno, you can watch weekend movie at $8 at golden village cinemas if you have a safra card, no limits to the number of ticket you can buy with 1 card. online booking can be done via www.safra.org.sg, gotta log in to safra online. you can ask me personally if you wanna book but dun have a safra card. i felt that the movie was good. especially like the part that says that for a song, the melody is like the first time you meet a person, the first impression and the lyric is like when you start to get to know the person more.. cool.

We had dinner at 9 plus... most of the food outlets were closed, so we had no choice but to eat at marche, terry treated me cos he felt very happy.. he thinks that he'll be a totally different person the next day!! ..anyone out there whose feeling like that and looking for someone to share it with you and you are willing to treat dinner for that .. call me too!!We ordered quite a bit of food.. cos everything seems quite nice. at marche there are a few must haves, like the root beer, mushroom soup and the rosti.. this new branch had seafood paella too..wrote more about the food on justximplyfoodAll the best to terry for his pursuit for his happyness!! ... and thank you for the wonderful dinner!!

Long Time No See

Thurday was wonderful, met up with the everbusy jl for lunch finally, catched up a bit but forgotten to take photo.. was busy listening to how busy he was at school!! .. after hearing from him, i dun think i will ever consider being a teacher, i dun think i can take the lifeless training ...

Met frederick and bangzhi for dinner, it was also a long time since i met up with fred. had a good dinner, and a good time catch up with fred too!! ... no nice photos, so this time no photos again!!

Busy Project

Went over to yveon's on wed again.. for project again .. and we tabao food from ang mo kio's s11..didn't know if i should post this here or on my food blog.. so decided to post it on both.. here's what we hadFood isn't good.. not too sure if it's because the food is packed or it's because the standard of the stalls aren't good in the first place.
juice provided by yvonne...after dinner... it was back to the computers ... work work work...

Free Chalet Stay at Pulau Tekong

Borong will be enlisting this thursday, and after seeing the bmt camp at tekong, i felt that bmt and evolved so much since i was at bmt(hmmm that was really a long time ago). one look at the camp, you will think it's a very big holiday resort with lots of rooms..

So before he start his long long holiday camp, we decided to meet up for a meal... a free meal.. (gotta thank cruz for the meal and also js for sharing it). we had quite a good time preparing him for his new life over dinner at ps... i think after the session, he'll will be losing some sleep.. haha .. am i right?

(thank you js for the photo, my cam is still in china)

All the best br, enjoy your 2 years of ns life!! remember to miss us ok? mahjong again after your confinement... anticipating to see a slimmer and fitter br...

More Shotglasses

Received new hard rock shotglasses, cool... more to add into the collectionThese 3 will be the 40th, 41st and 42nd hard rock shot glasses in my collection. thanks to meili who's studying in australia, and yveon who just came back from a wonderful holiday in spain... oh and there's more here. looking at the photos make me feel like going for a holiday too. nice looking photos can really freeze the time and bring you back in your memories of the trips.. if only travelling can be free... hai.. anyway, here's letting those who doesn't know, i collect shotglasses, mostly hardrock, followed by planet hollywood, i have a few other ja pa lang ones too..

Home Cooked Food

Went over to yveon's place on wed to rush a project... an i.t. project .. i think the last time i rushed a project like this was in 2002, for the sake of my degree from nus.. oh yar there were still times after that where i have such experience when i was working as a software engineer.. before sinking ourselves into heaps of programming codes, we had dinner ... and it was myojo goreng, chinese style, by lil ms snooze. did not have my camera with me as it's now in china, so no photos .. but you can see it here!! ... ok .. not much time to write too much ... hope i will have more free time next week!!

Last Day of New Year

It's the last day of cny... that was really fast. Went to terry's place for mahjong in the afternoon and shun bian bai nian, 1 last ang bao to collect. and it's the last day we can gamble (yeah right, haha). after the first game, our 4th ka gotta rush off to work, so we were left with 3 person. What to do? .. daidi it shall be.

Very difficult to play with chips or cash for daidi because for every game there are uaually quite some transaction among all players, so usually we will record it down with pen and paper and calculate it at the end. But since everyone is improving, we cannot fall back too, so we upgraded to using a laptop for scoring.With a wonderful excel spreadsheet created with the right formulas, we are able to see our gains and losses real time!! cool right? maybe one day there will be auto recorder for mahjong chips transactions too. maybe everyone have their own keypad and screen on their side of the table and you can press how many tais you have won, and it will update every one's current wealth level automatically...

More Curry Chicken

Add (7 March 2007 1am): created quite a few posts in the weeekends, cos this is going to be a busy week and dad has brought the camera overseas, so can expect no photos and no time (super busy at work) this week. will be releasing the posts slowly .. cos i realise that by posting a lot at the same time, there's a tendency of having less comments ... but from the past few days .. i realise that comments are really gettng rare nowdays.. ok back to the actual posting

Joey's grandma passed away on friday and me lawrence and lengleng went to the wake on sat night. wow! it's a big place, didn't really count the number of tables but it's somewhere between 20 to 30, and from one glance, there were around 40 family members around. after asking, we realised that her grandma has got 12 children!!! This is like the nth time i'm attending a wake since my ah gong passed away. what's wrong with this period of time huh?

Anyway, we all had dinner just before going there and when we reached there, joey and family were eating and they offered for us to join them for the food.

Joey: want to eat together?
Us: no lah, we are very full, just had dinner..
(they started eating the beehoon, and the po piah, and they finished it, and it wasn't enough, they brought out more)
Joey: really don't want ar? very nice leh?
Us: No need, we are really very full
(they continue to eat, and finished everything up again)
Leng: Eh, the beehoon looks good hor? wanna try a bit?
Lawrence: yar lor, they eat until like that, i also want to try.
Us: joey, can we have some bee hoon?
Joey: haha.. ok i go get for you
Us: a little bit can liao, just want to try.

We ended up finishing a whole big plate of bee hoon and almost all the popiah!! .. so much for "we are quite full". this time also no curry chicken but the beehoon is really good.

Newly Pierced Ear

Haven't met bangzhi for a super long time! and we finally found a time where we both are free. realised that he had a new hairstyle, the gong tao look!! with purple streaks all over his head and he got his ear pierced, so after you pirece you ear? what is the most eagar thing to do... buy earrings or ear studs right?

He visited his grandma and went to look through her collection of jewellery and found some interesting ear studs that she had from decades ago... and she actually gave a couple to him and his brother!! cannot believe it man..

One of them was a very old fashioned jade stud. wah... really obiang, but he wanted the obiang look, so here's how he looked like with the stud. anyone has a more obiang earring?

Note: the photo was mosiaced upon his request because i was unable to touch up his face (my skill not good enough for that yet)..

Lawrence's Birthday

It's lawrence's belated birthday meal. decided to have dim sum at this place called victor's kitchen, i knew about it from a food blog that i stumbled upon. we made reservation, but when we got there, and saw the place, we started to wonder how come we made a reservation. customers were sitting along the corridor of the shopping centre, it's a small shop and the only space they have in the shop if for the kitchen. menu selection was limited but there were lots of customers.. so i guessed it had to be good right?
Ordered quite a few stuffs and the bill came out to be $27.. for 3 person, isn't that cheap?Oh, and the food was really good, must go again. too bad joey and regina cannot join us, but i think this shop will still be around for some time, probably going to change to a larger shop soon...anyone interested to go for a meal of dim sum soon?

MacDonald's Breakfast

Do you know that macdonalds have added a new item to their breakfast menu? i think it's one of the sesonal addition... the bagel with omelette. i saw it for quite sometime but there wasn't any urge to try it until i see it here.
So on friday morning i decided to drive over to a nearby mac on my way to work and tabao a bagel meal just to try it out... i was a good decision...The bagel was quite chewy, slightly different from the usual muffins we have from mac. oh and i found a booklet of mac coupons on the table where i was ordering my food. and only after i paid for it that i realise that there's a coupon that will give me a free sausage mcmuffin for a bagel evm (extra value meal) ordered!!! argghh .. i could have one more muffin for breakfast... hai .. it's ok .. i'm going to get it again tomorrow morning, hiak hiak