Cat Cafe

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I was watching the news the other night and they featured these “cat cafes” in Japan. Apparently most apartments in Japan don’t allow renters to have cats, they’ve been opening up these cafes where you can pay to pet and play with cats. They looked so cute on TV! It sounds expensive though, 500 Yen for 30 minutes at one place or 800 Yen for 1 hour at another place.

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I was just thinking they need these in Singapore…

Hello Kitty Build-a-Bear and Ice Monster

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Our pharmacy has decided to extend their inpatient hours so that it is consistent throughout the week. It used to only be open Mon thru Fri 8am-5pm, Sat and Sun 8am-2pm. Then they slowly extended hours the last few months so it’ll be open 7 days a week, 7am-5pm. I happened to be scheduled to work today the mid-shift 9:30am-3pm. The workload today was okay but we didn’t really get time for lunch, only a 15 minute break so I came home really hungry. I ate quickly then went to take a nap.

I didn’t wake up until 7pm. We went out to Plaza Singapura because I wanted to go to Made With Love to buy some crafting supplies. At Plaza Singapura, we passed by the Build-a-Bear and saw that they have two Hello Kitty Build-a-Bears!! I’m going to have to build them both before I leave Singapore… they don’t have them in US anymore because when I went back, I checked and they didn’t have them anymore. The newest one is the Tropical Kitty where she has a tan 🙂

We had dinner in Basement Level 2. We ate at Ice Monster which is famous for their shaved ice desserts, especially the Durian and Mango one. We didn’t have one though since I wasn’t in the mood for shaved ice. Instead we had their hot food.

We had the ja jyang mian which was only okay. The sauce was a bit runny so it didn’t stick to the noodles so it wasn’t very flavorful.

We also had the spicy beef noodles which weren’t spicy at all. The meat also had a bit too much tendon for Ron’s taste. The soup was not bad but could have done with a bit more spice.

We shared the mango popiah which is stuffed with mango and pork floss. Ron thought there wasn’t enough pork floss and the mango was a bit too sweet. It’s the same fruit they use on the shaved ice so I agreed it was a bit too sweet. But it’s a lighter option compared to the other dishes.

We had a hard time catching a taxi home so now I’m exhausted and ready for bed. Back to work again tomorrow… it’s Monday.. ack!

Arab Street, Ministry of Food, Shopping, Made of Honor, Han’s Cafe

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Today I spent a lovely day out with one little hiccup.

I work tomorrow so wanted to enjoy a day relaxing. Joyce also wanted to do some shopping we we headed out together. We met up at Bugis MRT station so I could show her Arab Street and see some local, although touristy, stores. I discovered this store called Utopia a few months ago and although some of their clothes are a bit “loud”, the are unique, comfortable, and pretty.

After Arab Street we headed 2 streets over to Haji Lane see if the boutiques were open. They weren’t and this is where we had a little hiccup today. As we were walking down the street, we were trying to avoid a parked van, I walked right and I felt something hit my left foot but I then walked left to follow Joyce around the other way. I just thought it was a rock until we started walking further down and my left foot felt wet. I looked down to see the sole of my sandal covered with blood. These nice shop owners saw my predicament and offered me a chair and to use their bathroom to wash my foot. I dried off as much blood with tissues first then ran my foot under water for 5 minutes. It stopped bleeding quickly and I pulled out my alcohol swabs and bandaids from my handy bag. She likened to me to Doraemon who has a “magical” bag with lots of stuff. So I patched myself up and we went in search of the nail… I found it with a bit of blood on it. I got a bit scared when I first saw it but I had my tetanus booster only a few years back so I’m fine but will watch myself for the next few days just to be sure. It doesn’t hurt or anything when walking since it’s in the arch of my foot. Joyce captured the moment for me.

We headed over to Bugis Junction to take a little rest and have some lunch. We went to Ministry of Food so we could enjoy their yummy desserts. Their food is pretty good too. Joyce and I ordered the set meals which includes rice, soup, a side dish, coffee or tea, and you can top up an additional $3 for a dessert that costs less than or equal to $6.50.

I ordered the seafood toji (a sort of egg dish) with fried chicken on the side.

Joyce ordered the unagi with vegetables. It included fried chicken but since she doesn’t eat chicken, after some convincing, the chef agreed to give her more mushrooms and carrots instead.

I ordered the green tea imo (one sweet yam, one taro) served with soft serve and green matcha sauce. I love those fried potatoes…

Joyce ordered the mango mini gelato. The ice cream had a really nice flavor.

The wait staff today was a bit new so the service was a bit slow but we had an enjoyable lunch anyways and had enough fuel to last for the rest of the day.

We went over to Bugis Village which is like a covered outdoor market for clothing, accessories, collectibles, and beauty treatments. We walked around a bit inside since it was raining pretty hard and went to check out the prices of the eyelash extensions 😀 There is one shop where it costs about $45 for the glue-on type (which I did) and $48 for some Korean eyelash weave (which I don’t know much about but is supposed to last longer, the ad says 100 days).

We stayed there until about 5pm before heading over to Marina Square to catch our planned movie. We took the MRT over there and did a bit of shopping and rested a bit. Siew Woon met up with us at the theater and we watched “Made of Honor”. It was a cute movie, reminiscent of “My Best Friend’s Wedding”.

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After the movie, we looked around for a place for dinner. We ended up at Han’s Cafe which is sort of a self-serve/full-serve restaurant. You order and pay at the counter then sit down and they serve you. A bit weird. I ordered the set meal fish & chips which included a drink (coffee/tea/water), soup of the day, and dessert. The soup of the day was some sort of creamed carrot. The dessert ended up being once slice of watermelon! That can be a dessert but when you look at their delicious dessert case, you expect a piece of pie or cake, not fruit. The menu should’ve just said fruit 😛

The fish was very greasy but the price for the meal wasn’t bad, I think it was less than $10. By 10pm, the place was closing so they were subtly trying to kick us out by mopping the floor around us and closing the gates.. they eventually did come over and ask us if we were done so we decided to leave.

Gotta work tomorrow… sigh…

In today’s paper and dinner at Pho House Suntec City

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I found out that the Pharmacist’s Pledge Affirmation Ceremony was in the paper today. My boss was quoted and I’m actually in the picture they used (although I’m very hard to see).

If you can’t see above, you can check out the whole story on TODAYonline. The Ministry of Health is investing a large sum of money to further the profession of pharmacy in Singapore. It’s a very promising first step to have pharmacists play a bigger role than they are currently allowed to do.

This evening was a colleagues wedding dinner so many of the ladies were dressed up already for the evening. I just happened to be wearing a dress although not attending the dinner.

Today was the quietest day at work. Although we didn’t leave early, at least we weren’t working up until the last minute.

Ron headed to Friday Foody at Pho House at Suntec City. It’s in Tower One on the 3rd level, next to Swiss Culture.

They offer a set meal for $13 that includes an appetizer, a main, and a beverage. They call it a 3-course meal but I don’t think a beverage really counts… but it was still a good deal considering each main dish is already at least $9. Ron and I felt kind of bad because we kind of crashed the dinner since we didn’t RSVP but to note, the restaurant is quite small so couldn’t have easily accommodated the original reservation for 20 pax. They tried the best they could but the service did suffer a little bit.

For appetizer, I ordered the shrimp salad roll that was served with peanut satay-like sauce and sweet and spicy fish sauce. This is hard to go wrong.

Ron ordered the lemongrass chicken wings (add an extra $2 to the set meal price) which didn’t have much lemongrass flavor and the chili they provided didn’t really go well with the chicken.

For the main course I ordered the vermicelli with grilled pork and egg rolls, known to me as “bun thit nuong”. It’s a bit different than I’m used to but then I don’t know which is authentic. In the US, the vegetables are more shredded, the carrots are usually pickled a bit, and the grilled pork is a flattened pork chop that is grilled then sliced. For this dish, the lettuce was very roughly sliced only so a bit hard to eat. The carrots were okay as they were thinly sliced and sweet. The pork was a bit strange as they were more like oval shaped thinly sliced pork pieces so a bit harder to eat, also a bit tough. But was still pretty nice as there were lots of bean sprouts and the noodles were nicely separated and not sticking together.

Ron ordered some pork spareribs with rice dish but they didn’t look like spareribs when it came out, more than shredded pork. It sort of tasted like Korean bulgogi except it was pork instead of beef. It was also served with some sort of shredded chicken salad.

It was a rather light dinner but I guess that’s good after all the steamboat I ate last night. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep and sleeping in tomorrow. I’m working my first Sunday this weekend but I’m going to try to enjoy my Saturday.

Pharmacist’s Pledge Affirmation Ceremony

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This evening the Singapore Pharmacy Board held their inaugural Pharmacist’s Pledge Affirmation Ceremony. They invited all the 2008 newly registered pharmacists to take the pledge and sign the official register. Plus they invited many of Singapore’s influential pharmacists to also take the pledge.

It was a bit like a graduation ceremony since we walked across the stage and collected a scroll. The Minister For Health was the guest of honor who presented each of us with our scrolls (actually empty containers, the real scrolls we collected later). It was also very similar to the Oath of a Pharmacist that we take during our first year of pharmacy school in the US and we also repeat it at graduation.

Here is Joyce and I with our red scrolls. Matches my blouse and shoes, eh? 🙂

Here we are taking a photo opportunity with the Chief Pharmacist.

Afterwards we had a dinner reception and snacked a bit before going to have an actual dinner. On the recommendation of one of the other pharmacists, we headed to a restaurant near Outram Rd and Tiong Bahru, it was called Ting Heng Seafood Restaurant (Blk 82, Tiong Poh Rd, #01-03, opening hours are 5PM to 4AM). They have a small indoor air conditioned area and many tables outdoors. We had Alex’s favorite type of food… steamboat.

Alex worked his mastery of steamboat for us, taking charge and cooking and serving for us, also showing us the correct way to cool down a freshly boiled shrimp (hold it by the tentacles! haha…).

I found this interesting, it’s a fresh fish nicely sliced…

It’s been a long day, it’s good to be home with a full stomach.