Monthly Archives: March 2008

Busy-Busy Work Day

In Singapore, I notice that a lot of people repeat words… for example, “one one”, “same same”, “can can”… I think it probably comes from Mandarin where they say things like “ganggang” to mean “just recently” (at least that’s what I think it means). Well, not really sure, but you’ll hear my friend Joyce say things like, “that’s a cute one-one” or if a patient asks if the generic of a drug is the same as the brand then I’ll say it’s “same-same”.

Also, another funny thing I’ve noticed, if I haven’t mentioned it already, is that to spell out words, they use countries as examples. Instead of “A” for “Apple” or “B” as in “Boy”, they’ll say “A” as in “America” or “B” as in “Brazil”. I haven’t quite picked this up yet because it’s hard to think of so many countries off the top of your head. “Z” though doesn’t have a country, most people say “Zack”.

But it was a busy busy day at work today and I’m so exhausted. Considering I had my Mandarin class from 7 to 9:30pm today and had to walk home from the MRT, I’m not sure why I’m still up at this hour. I will be heading to bed soon since I’ve got an early day tomorrow. It’s days like this I really miss the convenience of having a car to get from place to place. It’s not fun standing up on the bus and MRT when your legs are already so tired from standing all day long.

Also, I wanted to thank from friends VJ and JL for their wonderful care package that they sent from the US.

As you can see it includes all type of goodies from home… chocolates, Bath & Body Works lotion, bodywash, rubber stamps, Sanrio items (Hello Kitty!)… I was so happy to receive something to remind me of home. They sent it a few weeks back so I’ve been enjoying the bounty 🙂

I think Ron is still jetlagged, he’s already asleep! and snoring, hehehe…

IT Show and Bobby’s Taproom at CHIJMES

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This afternoon we went to the IT Show Singapore 2008 at Suntec Convention Center. It’s a huge show with lots of consumer electronic companies show casing their goods and also selling them. It was the last day today so we thought we might find some good deals…

Unfortunately it was just a crowded mess with everyone pushing and shoving each other around. The deals weren’t that spectacular and the service in general was poor. Admission was free but I don’t understand why people bring their young children and babies, especially those who brought their strollers. It’s so crowded that you feel like a sardine and people are pushing and shoving to get from place to place. It’s especially hazardous trying to board the escalator.

We saw a few cool things like the new Mac Air notebook, the digital SLRs, and these cool mini tablet PCs maybe by Kohjinsha. But the only thing we bought was a optical mouse with retractable cord for Ron.

After making our way through the craziness, we headed to have dinner at CHIJMES, at the restaurant Bobby’s Taproom. It was a restaurant listed in The Popular Food Guide @ Singapore that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. It’s close by City Hall so we walked over there.

It was pretty empty all over CHIJMES so we didn’t have a hard time finding a table. We ordered a round of beers in a jug, unfortunately, the jugs had at least 2 inches of foam on top. I didn’t take a picture to show you but it was quite disappointing, we thought they were trying to cheat us. The first jug we ordered they didn’t top up but the 2nd one, after the foam settled at the top, they removed it and topped it up with more beer. So at least they did that for us.

We shared an appetizer of a pyramid of onion rings served with horseradish sauce.

For the entree, I ordered the rib eye medium rare with green salad and french fries. The rib eye wasn’t as marbled as I’m used to but was alright with the mushroom sauce. I always expect rib eye to much more fatty.

Ron had the pork back ribs with cole slaw and garlic mashed potatoes. This place is supposed to be famous for the meat coming off the bones. From what I tasted, it was like that. The sauce is a bit sweet for my taste, this is when I miss Tony Roma’s with their 4 types of sauce.

But boy am I stuffed now. I’m feeling a bit of food coma right now as I write this but I’m going to be better about updating on time because it’s just too hard to catch up when I’m behind. Ron is already napping but then he also has jet lag still.

Until my next post, I leave you with a photo of my babies when they were babies…

Tiramisu (aka Misu) is in the back, Mochi is in the front. One night last week, I was watching the TV show “Dirt” and one of the characters was giving away kittens, it made me cry… I really miss my kitties some days. I hope to see them again soon and that they’ll remember me.

51 Old Airport Rd Food Centre

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Today I finally got some must needed rest and slept in until noon. In the afternoon we went to Vivocity to do some shopping and I got some more clothes from Nichii Fashion City while Ron got some khaki pants from Bossini.

Afterwards we met up some people to have dinner at a food centre on 51 Old Airport Rd. I bought this book called “The Popular Food Guide @ Singapore II” which has listings of some of the hawker centers and restaurants in Singapore, listed by different regions. So Ron thought we’d try out the one of 51 Old Airport Rd. It’s a bit out of the way but can be accessed by bus (or taxi).

I highly recommend sugarcane juice with lemon. The lemon makes the juice more refreshing and less sweet. Sometimes I can get really sick of drinking sugarcane juice because it is too sweet.

The food center has other things like carrot cake, wan tons, omlette, curry noodles, fish noodles, satay, tofu dessert, and the list goes on and on. As most people do, look for the longest queue and you’re likely to find the best food in the food center… but you have to be patient.

Take a look at what we had to eat:

Ah Meng Cafe an Orchard Rd

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http://www.ahmengcafe.com/

Friday Foodie has started up again so tonight was at Ah Meng Cafe on Orchard Rd. I looked briefly on their website before we headed out and they seemed like they had a large selection of food. When we got there we were a bit overwhelmed by their many menus. The service was a bit scattered though because there were four tables of us and they couldn’t keep straight which order was for which table… but it eventually sorted itself out. The food itself wasn’t spectacular with to have all that variety in one place and in an air conditioned space makes it a convenient place to eat. It’s also open until 3am so if you have the midnight munchies, I’m sure it’s a hot destination.

Check out food pictures here:

Bugis Steamboat and Dessert

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After work and another talk tonight, Alex, Joyce, and I headed to Bugis to have dinner. We headed to a steamboat place which I don’t know the name to 😛 but before that we were walking through Bugis Village and there was a mass of girls waiting in line. According to Joyce, they were waiting in line to see this group called MayDay.

The lined snaked around and around all the way down the block. After letting Joyce check them out for a few minutes, we headed to eat steamboat 🙂

It was all you can eat and we stayed until after 11pm. We ate our fill… but still had dessert at this place down the street.

They ran out of ginger steamed milk so I had the mango instead. It was kind of cool as you started eating into the steamed milk, the mango puree made it look like a parboiled egg.