F1 Champion!

Introducing Fernando Alonso of the Renault F1 Team, champion of the Singapore Grand Prix 2008!!! (Er.. a.k.a. Hubby's idol)

Hehe, though I don't call myself a fan, I knew Hubby was rooting for him from beginning to end. Alonso was fastest in the practice session, but came in 15th in yesterday's qualifying race cos there was something wrong with his vehicle, but managed to put his fantastic skills to use and secure a first position in the end. Was watching tonight's race with Hubby in between marking and blogging, and the scenes I caught really showed some exciting action.

Hate to admit it to a proud Hubby now, but he really seems to have good foresight. Never gave up on Alonso even when he came in such a low position yesterday. Not bad lah. I also ended up rooting for him (probably cos he's one of the very few racers I know about :p and whose spirit I admire).

CONGRATULATIONS, ALONSO!!!

Packed Saturday!

Yesterday was packed with activities, with Hubby and I constantly on the move.

We were supposed to meet up with the rest of my family at Harbourfront Bus Interchange for a walk to Mt Faber Park and the other surrounding parks, an idea suggested by Papa a couple of weeks ago. But that was to take place only at about 4pm, so Hubby and I left home before noon to town, cos Hubby wanted to check out more race car merchandise.

We had a good lunch at Sakae Sushi @ Wheelock Place-- discovered that the restaurant has moved to another location on the same level and we liked the change in layout cos instead of many people seated in a row facing the conveyor belts, they now have cosy tables with people sitting beside the belts instead, so we don't have to sit with strangers and can face each other now as we pick food off the conveyor belt. Good move. :)

Anyway, later on, despite not being able to locate any race cars he wanted to display at home, Hubby managed to get himself a Renault no. 5 Alonso-related cap at one of the outdoor stalls stationed along Orchard Road near Ngee Ann City. It cost him $70, but it made him a very pleased Alonso fan indeed. :p

Oh and then we whizzed off to Paragon and caught the Tag Heuer exhibition there. Cool! I liked the display a lot:

Here's the impressive pillar announcing the name of the exhibition -- it cleverly ties in with the F1 race as its theme. That's why the setting's kinda cool. And there are round glass table displays of their various range of watches.



I'm no racing fan, unlike Hubby, but I did appreciate the display of watches next to charming racing accessories. And the giant poster boards of racers are great to admire too. Heh. ;)

And check this out -- Tag Heuer mobile phones! Didn't know they had phones... look quite solid and remind me of Vertu phones. Think they're very expensive though.

Ok, after that it was off to Harbourfront to meet my family. Was happy to see my aunt, my dad's 3rd elder sister, who helped my parents to look after me when I was a small kid. It's been more than a year since I last visited her, and am glad she can spend some time out enjoying some new experiences with us.

It was really hot at that time when we embarked on our 'climb' up to Mt. Faber Park. Despite equipping myself with a cap and a handheld fan, I was still sweating profusely as I walked to the top. Hubby even opened his brolly... haha. But luckily it felt much better when we got to the park...and it did feel nice to be in touch with a bit more nature than usual. :)

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Exam Survival Kit

Last week at work was rather eventful, especially towards the end, and I don't mean 'eventful' in a positive way.

Don't wanna keep harping on it, but my mind just tends to wander off and think about it from time to time, because of this somebody at work who totally pissed me off by the way he treats the kids in my form class. All I can say is that he's an absolutely selfish and petty creep with zero EQ.

Every time I see him, I see RED.

Anyway, I decided to do something ultra nice for my class kids to show them extra support and encouragement for their exams that start tomorrow. Usually, on special occasions, I'd buy lots of titbits and sweets etc. for the kids to enjoy. Went to the supermarket and did the same last Friday, dividing the snacks and sweets in individual packets for each student. I also made sure I got them 'healthier' snacks amidst the more popular ones, such as calcium-rich crackers and Vitamic C candies, so they don't fall sick so easily during this stressful period, especially with some mean guy stressing them out so much. Oh and this time, I decided to put in little cards of inspirational messages that I prepared myself for them. :) Enjoyed doing this and am looking forward to surprising them with the bags of goodies tomorrow.

The many types of goodies I got the kids, and the 37 bags I'm gonna lug to work tomorrow! :P

Doing this has certainly made me feel better, but I just hope the meanie gets his just desserts one day. (Yeah, I'm as nice a person as you can get, but make me angry -- and I don't get angry easily one ok, so you'd have to be a real baddie to be the person to piss me off-- and I'll turn mean as long as I'm angry with you. *growl*)

PS. Stay strong and strive on, kids!

Start of horror

It has finally begun.

Quite some time ago, it was announced in the newspapers that our neighbourhood would go through a major revamp, with new blocks of apartments and more amenities to be built in the estate. It is supposed to be a good thing, except that the beautiful green open field that constitutes our view from the TV lounge windows is ruined. Yeah, THAT space would be used to add all the blocks etc.

This week, machines, containers and some building materials were brought in. Then the whole area's now cordoned off. No more nice view. See... :(

Am dreading the actual start of the construction, when the noise would definitely be unbearable for me -- I get headaches when I hear loads of 'BANG BANG BANG!' or machines drilling etc -- literally. And the noise isn't gonna go away after a short period of time. Could take a couple of years to get this done. Farewell, big field. (Now recalling the times when Hubby and I kicked a soccer ball between us right on that ground during weekend evenings before. It's been a long time since we last did that, but am wishing we could do that again.)

Haiz.

Freaky Pigeons

Recently, it just felt as if I was stalked by pigeons in the estate. =.=

Yeah... look at what I saw when I was having a very late lunch after I came home from work a few days ago -- two pigeons suddenly appearing on the ledge of our TV lounge area:

They stood there for a while, and cos I like looking at animals and birds up close, I just sneaked over to my bag to whip out my camera. Thought they'd have flown off once I returned but, surprisingly, they were still there. Then one of them started walking cautiously along the ledge to its left, and the other slowly followed, till they both reached the extreme end of the ledge. Then they stopped and just remained still, only occasionally cocking their heads a bit:

By then, I had stopped thinking about feeding myself, and simply crept nearer towards them. I plonked myself on the sofa near the window, and leaned closer towards them. Think my face was only a few inches away from them, where I was. Then I continued to focus my camera on them. Still, they stayed:

I kinda thought that those had to be two brave pigeons in love, as they just continued to gaze at each other, totally oblivious to the human presence looming nearby. Only a couple of times, they sort of looked up and eyed the single open window (gee, what'd happen if they decided to fly in to play??!) Even wondered if they'd start mating right there and then and I'd have a free documentary show to watch.. :p But it didn't happen. They only just kept standing there, only this time, they stopped moving their heads and didn't even twitch a bit.

Anyway, was quite gleeful that I managed to catch the two of them in that state and watch them for so long, even after I stopped taking pics of them. Well, eventually one of them just went off and the other one followed again, so I thought my story'd just end there. Later, I showed Hubby the pics and commented on how nice it was that the pigeons were just standing there looking into each other's eyes. What I didn't notice about the pigeons was what Hubby declared, "I think they're looking at YOU, you know?"

That got me. I took a long look at the pics, and was a little spooked when I saw that their blood red eyes really did seem to be focused on me instead of on each other. See again, closer (especially the eyes, the eyes!!!):

Well, that did it. The more I stared at the eyes, the more freaked out I got. And yeah, birds with eyes at the side of their heads do have the ability to have kinda a 360 degrees view of things, so they must have been looking at me too. Now the pigeons just looked like evil twin birds to me... *gulp*

Then earlier on today, while I was fervently marking away in the study room, I heard noise and fluttering outside, saw lots of winged shadows, and then seconds later, this happened:

Now, you tell me whether this was a coincidence or not. All these two years plus living here, I've never had an incidence with pigeons and then now, twice in the same week, I have pigeons appearing so close to me, not even flying off when I moved about within their sight to grab my camera? And how come it's always TWO pigeons?! Are these the same two who appeared a few days ago? And Hubby says he's never seen this happen before.

See why I say pigeons are stalking me??!!

Famous kueh -- one and only!

See... didn't I say before I love to look at pictures of food? Sigh... it's like compensating for all the food I can't eat (cos I put on weight so easily once I eat more!!! Arrrrgh!!! *Think of Hubby... wanna box him*). Anyway, here're a few more pics of the special food that I ordered last week from a colleague at work who always has such food lobangs.

There's this place called Lao Ah Ma or something at Bukit Merah that sells authentic Teochew kueh, such as soon kueh and stuff. But what's special is that this is the ONLY place in Singapore that offers the REAL 'soon kueh', with generous fillings of bamboo shoots instead of the turnip filling that we come across so often. That's why even though a box of 5 of these kuehs cost $6.50, I thought I'd just give it a try first and see nice or not. Where else would I be able to taste such kueh? Anyway, so the kueh kueh were delivered to the staff room today, and I had one as a snack and one for dinner cos couldn't eat much after the snack. I saved 2 pieces for Hubby to try when he gets home later and will eat the last one for breakfast tomorrow. Pretty soon, I'll start looking like one of these, I guess. Haha...

Ministry of Food - thumbs up!!!

Last Saturday, after Hubby managed to hunt down the racing car he so coveted, we all made our way to Marina Square so that Beebee and I could grab some good deals at the closing down sale of The Face Shop outlet there (yeah, that outlet's gonna be no more). Anyway, following that, we headed over to Ministry of Food at #02-138E Centre Stage for a late dinner.

That's the first time Hubby and I tried the food at MOF, but we both agree that it's a place that offers delicious fare, considering that we ended up quite pleased with our dinner. And cos Beebee's a member there, we get 10% off items that are subject to discount (most are actually) and cos we paid using DBS/POSB card, we got an additional 5% off, so that's pretty cool.

The tonkotsu ramen that Hubby ordered for himself. The stock tastes so great that we slurped it all up among the three of us. :p Comes with a generous portion of Japanese chilli spice to, well, spice things up a bit (see the small mini pot in the pic? That's full of the spice! But of cos, the spice all went to my food instead of the ramen. :p

Beebee ordered this mixed mince rice. It's Japanese pearl rice with minced meat and some red ginger. Tastes pretty flavourful. Both of us decided to order special rice like this each and then some ala carte dishes to go with the rice, but I think this one's good enough to even be consumed on its own. :)

This one's mine -- plum rice! Was pretty excited when I saw this on the menu, cos it's really the first time I even heard of this. Check out the colour of the rice -- so 'plummy'. Comes with shredded seaweed and tastes just like its name suggests -- plum. Really, it's as if the rice was boiled in rich plum juice. Interesting.

The unagi salad. Being a fan of Japanese unagi, I almost never fail to order something that's unagi-related whenever I visit a Japanese restaurant. This one's got pieces of unagi mixed with tofu and cabbage, and comes with a separate bowl of sauce that you can add as you wish and then toss. We ordered the one meant for 1 person. It's got a bigger option meant for 3 people to share, I think.

The chicken katsu toji-- breaded chicken stewed with egg, onions and mushrooms. It's the type that comes on top of a burner.

These chicken wings are lovely -- one of the best I've had so far. :) Gotta devour them while they're warm though, so they still have that crisp when you bite into them. :) Love the sesame seeds sprinkled on them. Hubby thinks these are useless, but I just like having sesame seeds in food-- gives it that extra oomph. :p

Finally, the last dish we ordered is the salmon cutlets, which are great too. We ate them piping hot. Crisp exterior yet soft, rich salmon filling. Goes really well with the mayonnaise.

Oh ya! How could I have forgotten this? Usually when Hubby and I dine at restaurants, we don't specially order dessert after our meal, but the dessert menu looked so good to us, plus I think we were just pleased with the meal. Here's what we three shared -- the chef-recommended strawberry gelato. Every other dessert that's chef-recommended has to do with green tea, but we weren't that keen on green tea, so I chose this. Even Hubby who's not normally a fan of strawberry ice cream found it yummy. :)

Well, we certainly ate a lot, didn't we? I'm sure this won't be the last time I dine at MOF. Food's great, service is fast too -- the dishes we ordered came one by one quite quickly; didn't even have to wait much. Total bill came up to about $58 after discount, quite reasonable for filling three empty stomachs and making three people so satisfied after that. Haha. MOF must be one of my favourite Japanese restaurants now! ;D

Cool prop for a watch! ;)

Two days ago, Hubby the self-proclaimed Renault fan became Hubby the GLEEFUL self-proclaimed Renault fan who owns an F1 Renault racing car. Well, not the real one obviously, but a tiny replica of the real thing which was meant to complement his Chronotech watch. He'd been searching lots of toy departments and stores for such a toy vehicle, and finally found it at Millenia Walk's Nikko Toy Pte Ltd, thanks to Beebee's suggestion to look there when the three of us hung out in town that day. ;)

It's not cheap -- $75 for a small toy car in a display case -- but I gotta admit that it looks kinda cool, especially when placed with the watch. See...

It's really amazing how a watch can even end up with its own prop. :p Oh well, as long as it works...

Rare lunch-cum-jalan!

Today was an ultra-good end to the crazy work week! Friday's always my lightest day -- only first 3 periods of lessons to conduct, with the rest of the day free for me to catch up with other work that I need to do, plus it's Friday, so school officially ends earlier. Usually we'd have to stay back for department 'reflections', which essentially means 'meetings', but today no need cos prelim invigilation going on after school, and thankfully I'm not involved this afternoon! So.... hee hee, Sophia and I decided to zoom off to Vivocity right after the last bell rang so we can escape from the heat of things and go out for a relaxing lunch and walk about a bit, something we rarely have the chance to do on a weekday!

We had lunch at this nice Chinese place called Pu Tien Restaurant, located at a corner of Food Republic. It offers humble dishes cooked in a variety of ways, some pretty interesting, like stir-fried yam and steamed prawn in bamboo, which are supposed to their specialty dishes. But we wanted to settle for someting nice and simpler, so we each chose a main course and then ordered something else to share -- it's great that we both have about the same taste in food, so it always makes sharing food so much easier... haha. ;)

The first dish is the restaurant's version of 'lor mee' that Sophia had. Mine's the fried "Hing Wa" bee hoon, which is really tasty. The bee hoon's thinner than the usual kind and comes in short, curly strips. Even found cockles in it, but of course, I left them alone. :p The last one's the dish we shared -- spinach with salted egg and century egg in supreme stock. Both of us love this one -- only disappointment is that we kept searching for the yolk in the century egg but found mainly the white, but the great-tasting spinach makes up for it. :)

Just found the website for this restaurant. Apparently it's got other outlets like at Marina Square etc. Hee, their website has an online menu that shows colourful pics of their dishes, which appeals to people who love looking at food pics, like ME! Haha... it's at http://www.putien.com.sg/.

Anyway, after that we just went walking about at some of the stores before we went off earlier than I wanted to... haiz...cos I had to get to HDB Branch Office to settle some stuff. But think we must make it a point to reward ourselves for working so hard once in a while like this cos it does allow us to feel better after work. Now I understand why so many Japanese office workers have the habit of hanging out after work every day to unwind over dinner and drinks before going home like Hubby and I saw in Japan last year. :)

Belated surprise for Beebee

Lucky girl, my sis, cos she has a bag-crazy sis who'd think of bags, bags, bags as gifts for her. :p She received yet another surprise last Sunday when we went back to Bukit Timah. Actually it's a belated gift. Supposed to be her birthday gift in August but cos she liked Kate Spade bag so much and we later got her the brown document K.S. one (which was actually meant as a graduation gift for her), we just didn't want her to end up disappointed on her birthday, so last min changed plans and gave her the K.S. one on her birthday instead, so this Braun Buffel dainty carrier was given to her only later on (Hubby and I were so worried that with it being kept in the gift box for so long, it could've turned mouldy by the time Beebee opened the box, cos it's full leather bag. We even brought along an anti-mould cleaner just in case we had to do some cleaning on the spot! Haha... luckily it was still all in good condition-- no mould! :p

The Braun Buffel leather hand carrier... just enough to hold only necessary small items when going out. :)

PS. Tomorrow Hubby and I meeting Beebee in the evening... wanna interrogate her about her first week at her first permanent job after graduation! Haha...

End of September break

Haiz. The long-awaited September one-week break has come and gone. Tomorrow officially gotta go back to work and face all the stress once again.

*Take deep breath* Never mind, never mind... must remind myself not to react too quickly or easily to sudden changes or anything that might lead to stress. Just gotta concentrate on doing my best for the students -- everything else at work can take second place. Hmm... looking back, this break has been rather fulfilling, even though *ahem* I didn't get to complete all the work tasks that I listed down at the start of the break...sigh, mostly to do with marking assignments...(Ooops, "what are you doing blogging here if you haven't completed your work???!!!", one might ask. Errr...*sheepish look*, I still need some off-time on my own right? :p)

Nevertheless, must look on the bright side and reward myself for what I did manage to do during the break:

1. clear some stacks of assignments (yeah! At least I completed part of my marking load!)
2. discuss and co-set Sec4E/5N EL preliminary examination paper 2 with a colleague

3. meet up with some students for consultation

4. plan my lessons for the whole of next week

5. prepare my lesson materials for most of next week

6. watch a movie at home with Hubby (something we hadn't done in ages!)

7. enjoy time outside with Hubby

8. relax by playing a few games online and on my DS

9. read more of the book I'm currently still reading

10. get my bushy eyebrows trimmed again (been putting that off due to work)

11. do my burger meal! Haha

12. Settle shopping for mooncakes for parents

13. visit in-laws (also guilty of not having done that in a while) and parents, Beebee

14. do 'spring cleaning' in three parts of the home!!!

Ahaha...must specially mention the last item to make myself feel good and especially productive... haha! At the start of the break, I cleaned out parts of the fridge and re-categorised the items we have into the compartments. Then today, I spent the morning cleaning out the drawers and cabinet of our bathroom in the master bedroom. Threw out quite a lot of stuff and also re-grouped the items into the different drawers. Then finally, this afternoon, I did the same to my study area at home... now it looks so much neater than before, when I had neverending stacks of paper and books all piled up wherever I could find space to balance them. Hee, now that I can see more of the table top, I feel more inclined to work, as always! So see, I can often be a mess, but I do know when it's time to stop and re-organise myself. Speaking of re-organise, think the next area to target would be my overflowing wardrobe. Oh sheesh.

Well, never mind. At least I'm feeling better with the list of things I managed to complete. Gonna go back to Bukit Timah for dinner soon. Looking forward to enjoying mooncakes and games this evening! Hee.

*Take another deep breath* Hello, Term 4!

Fun with eggs! @_@

Yesterday, I had fun experimenting with an egg ring that Hubby bought for me recently. You know the perfectly-shaped round fried eggs that come in burgers? Well, I sort of mentioned my little fascination with such eggs so Hubby got me one egg ring to play with and see if I could create the same kind of eggs. Hehe.

So I did! Was so eager to try out the egg ring that I went grocery shopping on Friday, bought some burger-related ingredients, and went about preparing a burger meal for lunch yesterday. Woohoo! So fun! I've made tons of sandwiches etc. for Hubby, but never a proper burger for him before. Haha. So this was really refreshing for both of us, I think. Hee. TADA! See what I managed to come up with...

On the left is an egg I cracked into the egg ring on the frying pan that I heated with some healthy olive oil margarine in it. Some of the egg white seeped out from beneath the metal egg ring, but I just had to trim that off and the egg'll still come out looking decent (Not as thick and solid as those in real burgers eg. MacDonald's sausage Mcmuffin with egg etc., but can do lah-- I'm easily contented. Haha) And on the right is the round egg sitting in the Gardenia burger bun with the side veggies that I whipped up to add to the meal (no fries, but veggies're great substitutes!) and a bowl of Campbell corn soup.

Hee... This is a close up shot of my burger meal. I'm pretty proud of it! I guess to anyone who cooks, coming up with such a meal is chickenfeed lah...but poor me usually not much confidence when it comes to cooking, cos I don't cook well enough by Hubby's standards (edible and decent lah, but he just gives me an 'ok lor' most of the time :p), but this time, he actually said "You did GOOD"! Haha. And he liked the veggies too. It's a lightly-salted mixture of red capsicum, french beans and baby corn stir fried and tossed in olive oil, then sprinked with some Japanese seaweed mixture (love that mixture -- can add a dash of it to just about anything to give it some extra taste).

And that's pretty much my adventure with eggs for the day! ;D You bet that this sure won't be the last time I do burger meals. Haha.