Monthly Archives: September 2007

Aqua-Gym in the Rain

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Well I think I may have caught some sort of cold and so has Ron. We both have itchy throats and been coughing a little bit. No fever or malaise or anything, just itchy throats. Hmm… hopefully it’ll pass. It just started this morning.

This morning it was raining pretty hard, Ron walked to school in the rain and got pretty soaked without an umbrella. At 9:30, I debated to check out if there was still Aqua-Gym so went downstairs around 9:25 but didn’t see anyone. I SMS’d a couple of the other partners to see if they knew if there was class but I decided to go back upstairs to wait. I got an SMS back saying there was class so rushed back down.

Working out in the rain is the best! Ha ha just kidding, not the best but the water was pretty warm so it was nice to be in the pool rather than the rain. At least when it rains here, it’s not cold at the same time.

And no, I don’t think I got sick from doing aerobics in the pool, my throat was already starting to itch before that.

Later that afternoon I headed to Orchard Rd with Gladys (one of the partners) to do some shopping and I went to pick up Ron’s watch. He had broken the crystal face sometime back and there was a Seiko service center near Orchard, I dropped it off last week so it was ready to pick up today.

Afterwards we did a little shopping, I was in search of some black closed toe work shoes and Gladys was in search of some hair care products… and shoes 🙂 Apparently I’m always a bad influence and convince people to buy things… I bought 2 pairs of shoes and 1 top, Gladys bought 2 tops and 1 pair of shoes 🙂

The shoes were on sale and such a good deal! Regular price of each pair was S$39.90 but on sale for S$27.90, which is about USD$18. Both are for work and closed toed but I was so tempted to buy sandals as they were so cute and much cheaper ranging from S$16-21 a pair. Oh well, I have to limit myself a little bit, can’t go crazy buying all these shoes but these are the two I bought:


I like the buckle because it’s not really a buckle but a clip and also the pattern around the shoe.


What do you think of the interesting heel?

So now I have more appropriate work shoes although I did bring a few pairs of flats, I needed (and missed) my heels! The store is called Charles and Keith, which I keep mixing up with CharlesDavid. The store in the WismaAtria shopping center is always packed and it’s a bit overwhelming with so many pairs of shoes. The staff there is pretty helpful there and it’s funny, the don’t call out your name when they bring out a pair of shoes, rather they call out your shoe size 😛

Oh, I forgot to mention this cool store called MUJI! It’s a Japan based store where they sell things like furniture, clothing, stationary, cooking supplies, and foods. They have yummy looking snacks and I restricted myself to one for now: chardonnay marshmallows! Very yummy I must say 🙂 I can’t wait to go back and explore more, it’s a small store but there seems to be so much to look at.

So many things seem so inexpensive here in Singapore but it’s easy to get carried away. I can’t wait to start work so that I won’t feel so guilty buying all these things!

Carrefour and Sushi

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Today was a lazy Sunday. We had a home cooked breakfast and then decided to go grocery shopping during the afternoon and Carrefour at the Suntec City location. I heard it was closer and bigger. I needed to buy some weights too for Aqua-Gym.

We’d been going to Cold Storage and Giant Hypermarket since they were closer. After going to Carrefour, I don’t know if I can go back to those other too. The produce just looked so much fresher and for a better price. Ron, Justine, and I spent an hour or so wandering around the product and deli sections of the store and almost filled the shopping cart… but we knew our fridge at home was pretty full so we had to restrain ourselves.

Justine and I shared some salmon sashimi, unagi nigiri, and salmon and hamachi nigiri for dinner. Mmm, it was yummy!

Ron went out for another birthday party at a Brazilian Churrascaria by Mamma Lucia which was an all you can eat Brazilian BBQ restaurant. I decided not to go because it was S$38 per person and I didn’t think I could eat that much meat.

Golf and Mexican Food

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We went to the driving range this afternoon to relax after a busy Friday. Ron’s classmate arranged the trip so we met up with him at the Jurong East MRT station. We went first to a store called “Cash Converters” which is sort of like a pawn shop except I don’t know if you can buy back your stuff after you pawn it. They had used golf clubs for S$3-5 each or a set for S$30. What a great idea for beginners and so cheap!

We walked over toward the Jurong Country Club to the driving range. It was a 2-tier driving range and we decided to stay at the bottom.

Here’s the view from my seat:

Ron peeling off the label of our newly purchased golf club:

Oh, they had these guys manually collecting balls with only an umbrella as their protection, kind of dangerous if you ask me…

Our flatmate Justine gave me some good tips on how to hit the ball, although I still didn’t hit so far. She was at the end where the mirrors surround you so you can watch yourself hit to check out your form:

I haven’t made up my mind yet if I like golf or not. I think maybe I’ll need a few lessons first. We realize if we do continue, we need to buy golf gloves as our hands hurt afterwards.

We had dinner plans at a restaurant called Margaritas which ends up being located in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Ron’s classmate Nitin and his wife Nimisha are Singapore natives so this is probably the only way anyone would find this restaurant. Timo and Elina also joined for dinner.

It smelled wonderful when we walked it. I didn’t realize that I missed Mexican food until we smelled the grilled fajitas and tried their salsa. Elina chose a jug of the mango margaritas to share:

Timo and I ordered the kitchen sink burrito, although not hand held but required a knife and fork to eat, it was delicious!

Ron, Nitin, and Elina had a chimichangas (they have beef, chicken, and veggie):

Nimisha ordered the fish burrito:

We were plenty stuffed after the meal and are looking forward to going back when we have a craving for Mexican food.


Pictured:
In front – Ron and Timo
Sides – Jen and Nitin
In back – Nimisha and Elina

Thank Goodness It’s Friday

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So I’ve started to attend a morning exercise class at our apartment complex called “aqua-gym”. Basically it’s aerobics and light weight training in the water. I went for the first time on Wednesday and my arms were sore from the weight training outside of the water. You don’t realize how out of shape you are until you try working out those muscles. The class is 9:30am on Mon, Wed, and Fri so I’m going to try to go as much as possible until I start work. It’s been fun because a few of the other INSEAD partners also come and the instructor is hilarious, she’s very energetic and keeps us all moving.

Ron only had class until noon today then a short meeting so we thought we’d check out a movie. We hadn’t seen “Bourne Ultimatum” while in the US and it was still playing here. The movie releases have a delay here, like Rattatouile just came out last week and we’d already seen it before we left. I had a heck of a time trying to buy tickets online because their system kept on crashing on me! But I knew I had to keep trying or else we’d get front row seats if we just showed up. It’s very different here (I think I’ve mentioned before) that you should always buy your tickets in advance and you actually reserve a seat. I was finally able to get through after having to tinker with my online payment, they use something here called NETS which is similar to Debit but not quite. We went to the GV Grand Cinema. The theaters are smaller than we’re used to, only about 8 rows, 15-20 seats each row. The entire theater is carpeted too, so no sticky floors! I enjoyed the movie and next I want to see “No Reservations.”

Afterwards, we ended up heading over to Orchard Rd to check out Kinokuniya since Ron needed to buy some Japanese workbooks for his language exam. Then we went to INSEAD since Ron had a meeting so I just stuck around in the library to wait. We had dinner plans at Long Beach IMM Seafood Restaurant which we were invited to by the Taiwanese student group.

We had chili crab:

and black pepper crab:

It was a very messy dinner but pretty good. The chili crab was tastier than the black pepper crab. The chili crab had a good sauce for dipping the meat and bread. We also had our first experience of something called Shandy beer. We ordered it because it was cheaper than a jug of Tiger Beer. It was rather strange when we first tasted it because it was sweet! We asked the waitresses later and they said it’s beer mixed with Sprite. Apparently according to Wikipedia, it is a common drink in Europe. Click here to read more about Shandy on Wikipedia. It was kind of gross after the first glass 😛

After dinner we had birthday party to attend at the Ministry of Sound in Clarke Quay. It’s a club that has 4 or 5 different rooms of music. Ron’s classmate reserved a few tables and some alcohol. We had a good time chatting, dancing, and having a few drinks. It’s been a busy Friday!