To celebrate Hubba's 32nd birthday, I decided to have a little gathering at our place with a bunch of close friends to eat, drink, chat and be merry. Especially drinks, coz we bought our own booze (vodka, schnapps and beer) this time to prepare our own mixes and make full use of our bar top counter for serving drinks. Pity I didn't remember to take photos of the birthday boy enthusiastically mixing drinks, was a little too busy entertaining.

Of course, a must-have for every birthday celebration: A birthday cake for the birthday boy.



More photos here.

With our original lunch plans to meet up with some friends postponed last minute as someone was unwell, we decided to try out this new ramen store, Yoshimaru Ramen Bar, at Big Splash instead.

Hubba had gone to the main branch at Holland Village with his colleagues and was won over by the way they did their boiled eggs (the egg is done such that the yolk has just nicely congealed into gel whilst retaining a nice orangy colour, the way I love my eggs done) that he knew I would love it too.


The interior of the ramen bar


Hubba's choice: DIY Hakata Ramen with soft boiled egg and Takana (Japanese version of giam cai)


My choice: Moridakusan Ramen (All-in): comes with soft boiled egg, Takana, seaweed, cloud ear mushroom, Meitaiko, on top of the basic char siew


Chicken Gyoza (they also have prawn gyoza)

On a whole, we were super happy with the ramen. Was the closest to the ramen we had in Sapporo Ramen Alley, in my opinion, and miles better than Ajisen's ramen. I think coz they use less MSG and less oil, so on a whole, the ramen isn't so jerlak. Highly recommended to try, if you near either of the branches.

Place: Yoshimaru Ramen Bar
Branch we visited: 902 East Coast Parkway Blk B #01-12, Playground @ Big Splash, S(449874)
Tel: 63463132
Main branch: 31 Lorong Liput, Holland Village S(277742)
Tel: 64633132

Finally some time to start on the second part of the holiday, after a hectic week at work.

Part 2: Barcelona (Days 6 - 11)

( Barcelona recap here - picture heavy )

As promised, all the photos have been transferred over to Multiply from FB. Will try my best to summarise what we did.

First recap - Madrid (Days 1 - 5).

( Madrid recap here - picture heavy )

We ventured towards Barcelona on day 6, and coz that's another long recap, I'll leave that for another post.

... was celebrated in style at Min Jiang @ Goodwood Park Hotel, with loads of yummy food and terrific company!


More photos here...

After a long thunderous afternoon yesterday, the evening sun brought about this beautiful rainbow:

Took a maiden trip to Pulau Ubin with the hubs and his colleagues yesterday for an entire day of cycling madness.



Must admit I really feel that I've aged. What would formerly just cause minor aches and pains with such activities has intensified into major aches and pains and lethargy. Not only that, the joints feel like they need a fair bit of "oiling", especially the arms (shoulders, elbows and wrists) which acted as shock absorbers when going downhill on the bumpy dirt terrains. And oh my... the butt!!! It's such a chore to sit down too coz it's totally bruised by all the bumping.

But I think, I'm quite gian about the dirt track thingees and the hubs and I have decided that we might try out the mountain bike track in Tampines sometime soon. However I think it would be best if we start getting some gear to protect ourselves before we go on to do this.


More pics here

Yay... Debs finally loaded the pics on Facebook and so I have them! Yes, the pics of us at our long awaited dinner last Friday at Brotzeit, Raffles City.


Mel & Yvonne



Debs, Val & me



The bunch of us together with out food. :)

Really missed hanging out with these gals. Such fun were the days of long ago. Can't wait to meet up with them again soon!!!

Another something heartwarming from the inbox that I felt would be good to share.

Determination and perseverance is really something we should learn from this wonderful and unique two-legged pal:


Click on the pic to see the actual size

( More pics under the cut )

Finally got the photos of last Saturday's BBQ, courtesy of KI. Pity I didn't bring my camera, coz I had too many things (booze) to bring down for the BBQ. If not, more pics would definitely have been captured. :P



View individual photos here.

Hubs got his craving to try out one of the restaurants listed in the Lifestyle's 100 Best Dishes, and so we headed off to Rochester Park to dine in high-class restaurants situated in colonial bungalows. The restaurant of choice: Min Jiang.

It was lucky we were there early for we had not made any reservations and according to the reservations list, the place was fully booked for the night! At that moment, we were possibly one of two or three customers, for it was just past 6:30pm, but the waitress was still kind enough to show us a table and even bring special little stools for our bags. Pretty neat.

( The rest of the long post here... )

All in all, this place is a must-try for foodies like us. You'll never be happy with the normal Chinese cuisine after a maiden trip here.

Got this pic through Gizmodo and thought it was too good not to be shared:


Click on the pic to see th full size

Check out more cool pictures at Pixdaus.com.

Also, found Gizmodo posted a cool all-in-one toilet taken from The Design Blog. Take a look at this space-saving toilet:


Click on the pic to see the full size.

Read more about it here.

Caught this photo of the sunset on the way home:



Really gives the impression that a higher being is present behind the clouds, with the rays of light seemingly emerging from behind the clouds. Very inspirational. (Sorry if the quality ain't that good. Captured it with my phone camera.)

Pops picked me up from work today, and together with the hubs, we went to Blk 18 Bedok South Ave 2 to eat at Hong Kong Street Bedok Restaurant. This is what we had:









Food was pretty good and the two men gobbled the food up like there was no tomorrow. Especially the you tiao. But the bill was pretty hefty; a whooping $88.20 for all that we had. However I suspect it was expensive due to the crab with fried bee hoon, coz I ordered a medium sized dish with 2 crabs for the two men to enjoy. And the crabs were pretty huge.

Am wondering whether to start stocking up the fridge now that my mum and aunt have gone to HK/China for holidays. We can't possibly be eating out for the next 2 weeks. Perhaps I should drop by the supermarket soon...

( Just for an update, I went to get a new hair-do. )

Now it's down to some serious mugging...

Just found the unofficial blog of Sony Ericsson and here are the latest stuff:

1. A video on SE C905 Demo Tour:



Or view it here.

2. Leaked photo display of SE C905:



Or view it here.

3. Some photos taken with the phone, which is still in the prototype stage. View the post here and click on the photos to see the original shots.

Wah... if this phone really is real and shipping in early Q4, I might just wait out till then. Have really gotta consider all my options now.

Whilst hobbling slowly back home from the MRT station, I saw my favourite cat lying lazily on someone's car, totally comfy and laid-back. His position was so laid-back that I whipped out my phone to capture a shot of him. Unfortunately, my phone camera was a tad too slow for him for my approaching him had startled him into getting down from the car.



Instead of running away from me, he walked towards me, and started rubbing himself against my pants and feet, as though he was greeting me. Not only that, he decided to escort me part of the way as I slowly limped home. What a friendly cat!

Somehow or other, he knew that I was going to cross beyond his home territory. Once I reached the border, he plonked his butt firmly on the ground and watched me for quite a while, as I made my way away from him. It was as though he was keeping a look-out for me, to make sure I limped safely back home.



If only he didn't belong to someone else...

Spent these few days whilst on MC doing up our Hokkaido photos to be printed as a photobook, using Templatexpert Photobook services.


What I've done

( View some pages here... )

Used their services once before to do up our honeymoon pictures in France, and I must say that they have really improved the software. Now you can customise the kind of background image you want on the book (so no more dull white backgrounds), and you can even choose the kind of frames you want to frame the pictures to make them standout. What's more cool, is that they now offer more page layouts for you to choose from, which you can also improvise on if you want to add in additional pictures or text. Not bad!

Only bad is they have raised the prices, even though delivery to Singapore and Malaysia is free (possibly included in the raised pricing). But I guess for the flexibility of use, it's something that I have to swallow.

Now I just need to proof-read before I e-send for printing!

Was kind of reluctant to come home, coz of the sights and the weather, and also coz we are/were on holiday!!! The hubs and I are pretty gian to go back to Japan again, so we might plan to visit Tokyo and Kyoto sometime soon!

Anyway, visited a lot of sights... and I think pictures would be worth much more than wordy descriptions. So here are the sights and wonders I experienced on my one week trip to Hokkaido.

( Photos under the cut )

Celebrated Papa's 66th today trying out one of the places listed in Lifestyle's 100 Best Dishes, Mustard, a simple but delightful Indian restaurant that served North Indian cuisine that was a fusion of Punjabi and Bengali styles of cooking, something very unique, that left a lingering aftertaste that made you beg for more. My parents' cravings for Indian food was certainly satisfied after this visit, since we had not had Indian cuisine for a very long time. We left with very heavily filled stomachs, and gave the place an almost unanimous rating of 8 out of 10 (Pops was a little more difficult to please and only gave a 7).


Click here for peek-tures.

Place: Mustard (Read the food review here)
Address: 32 Race Course Road S(218552)
Opening hours: Tuesdays to Sundays
Lunch: 11.30am - 3pm
Dinner: 6.30pm - 10.30pm
Closed on Monday
For reservations, call: 62978422

P.S.: Hey owner of Mustard, do I get a free meal for this advertisement? :P