Chibog in the Philippines (Makan in the Philippines)

Craving for Pasta

I've been craving for pasta for a couple of days now. So today, I decided that I will satisfy that craving.

Originally, I wanted to eat at Organic Cafe in Velocity at Novena, but then, it's a bit pricey- maybe SGD16, just for a plate of pasta. So I decided to try the Tom Yum Pasta at the Urban Pantry.

As always, I was 'sales-talked' into getting the combo meal. From SGD4.50, the total bill became SGD8.50.

I got a siding of baby potato salad and a yummy iced lemon tea.

The salad was okay, too garlicky for me though because after my lunch, I still had that garlic aftertaste.

The pasta was good, because it was spicy enough to make me go 'sniff sniff'.

And as mentioned earlier, the iced lemon tea was yummy. I can't actually pinpoint why it was yummy, or how different it tasted from the other iced lemon teas, but well, I just liked it.

PS. The shadowy thing on the right side of the picture is not a cow's udder, it's some dude's fingers.

Ah!

I was eating my lunch earlier today at the Urban Pantry in Novena when I saw this baby.

His father was playing with her and occasionally, she would stand up and look around.. A few minutes passed and she uttered "Ah!".

How nice it would be, if we could look around us again with innocence-to see things as they are without being judgmental, if we could overcome being cynics, if we could simply just say 'Ah' whenever we want and not be afraid of what other people would think.

Ah!

Warning: Story is about sliced meat and blood

My sliced meat and blood, darn it.

It was around 130AM of March 23...

After being airborne for 3 hours, after waiting an hour to pass the imigration and after waiting for a cab for 20 minutes to take me home, I was finally in front of the door to our flat.

I tried to be as fast and as quiet as possible (I'm a considerate person) when I turned the key to unlock the steel 'gate' door.

When I pulled the door, I forgot to also 'pull' my leg and move it away from harms way. So, the edge of the steel door met my bare toe!

It was super ouchy, but I ignored it and let myself in. When I was about to close the second door, now a wooden one, I noticed there was blood, and I was surprised. Oh man, I injured myself.

So I went to my bedroom and looked at it closely, my goodness, it turned out to be half an inch long and bloody (but not the dripping kind). Eeeew.. no choice, I don't even know if the door is already rusty, so I put some alcohol on it to somehow disinfect the cut, ahhhh, you can just imagine how it stung me.

Well, that was my welcome-home gift from the door.

Crispy-licious

I had chicken joy today! Well, if I close my eyes and use my imagination, that is.

I ate at Jolly-V, Lucky Plaza today. It's a recently opened second outlet. The first one being in Lau Pa Sat. (Free advertisement)

As you would probably guess, based from its name, it's a *Jollibee imitation. They sell crispilicious chicken, sweet spaghetti, burger steak, hotdog and pizza. (Pizza!? Well, yes, and I don't know why. The pizza is ala Lotsa Pizza)

Before, whenever I had training in Raffles Place, I would take that opportunity to visit Lau Pa Sat where there's a also couple of other Pinoy food stalls. There's even a Mak's, although they sell chicken inasal.

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A few weeks ago, on top of the 1st floor escalator, there was this chubby kid giving out flyers. He looked super familiar, but I couldn't place where I've seen him. After buying some top-up cards (Prepaid load) from the 5th floor, I stopped on my way to the escalator down, and told the kid "pwedeng pahingi (ng flyer)?" (Can I have that flyer?). He gave me one and when I read 'Jolly-V', I was so delighted! And I suddenly remembered why he was familiar, he was the kid who was doing the cashier work the last time I visited their stall!

Yahoo! Now I don't have to go all the way to Lau Pa Sat to enjoy the chicken when I'm in one of those sentimental-I-miss-Philippines mood.

So anyway, today, I excitedly went with my friend to look for Jolly-V.

I ordered the 2 pcs chicken rice (leg and thigh part, my favorite). Somehow, when you bite into it, you can imagine the original chicken from Jollibee, although it doesn't really taste the same. But then again, it's still good! With just a little imagination, I can feel myself being transported back to Manila. But since I was hungry, I had no time to imagine, I just pulled the meat from the bone with my hand and ate and ate!

Their menu:
2 pc chicken with rice
1 pc chicken with spaghetti
2 pc burger steak
1 pc chicken with palabok
1 pc chicken with burger steak and rice
hotdog
pizza

price range is SGD6 - SGD7




*Jollibee is the biggest fastfood chain in the Philippines. Their famous chicken meal is called 'Chickenjoy' and it's known to be crispy-licious, juicy-licious and whatever -licious.

*Jollibee mascot is shown above.

I'm Back

After 9 days away from Singapore, I am back again.

Where did I go? Well, I went home! (Er, home is Manila, Philippines)

I flew out last 14March09, via Cebu Pacific flight 5J802 10AM Departure. I went there to surprise my mom on her birthday. So, I planned it with my brother and even kept it a secret from my friends.

Actually, even when I was back in Manila, I still failed to contact most of my friends, because 9 days is truly not enough time to spend with the family.

To be honest, I spent my mornings sleeping the hours away. Seems like a waste of time, but for me, it was something my body really needed- to be able to let my guard down and sleep in peace.

It's not as if I don't sleep much here in Singapore, in fact, on weekends, I stay in bed till noon. But then, it's different because my mind is always active. I may not be consciously thinking of something, but the gears keep on turning. In the end, my body is well rested, but my brain is not.

On and on I keep blabbering. Simply put, my point is this: Because I sleep till late, I chose to spend the remaining hours with my family because I really really missed them.

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My days in Manila were spent like this:

- I wake up late
- I eat my lunch
- I watch tv
- I stick around with my brother while he does his computer thingies
- I take a bath and prepare to go out ( to the malls)
- I eat whatever I see
- I go out with my family
- I eat whatever I see
- We eat dinner
- We go home and watch this series called 'The Little Nyonya' (I bought this tape from Singapore as a birthday gift for my mom. She likes it, we all like it as well). We watch this till 3AM daily
- I eat junk food
- I go to sleep

A Tiny Step for Shopaholics, A Giant Leap for Me.

There it is, the carrier that protects my precious bag.

Freshly pulled out from the stockroom of Coach in Raffles City tonight, at about 830PM.

You Have Succeeded, My Friend

Tonight, I failed myself.

I am disappointed.

I ate chicharon (pork rind)!!! About 10 pieces!

This is what happened...

Before I started my 50 day diet, I told my friend about it. So, she said she will be the one to tempt me. Which was okay, because I was up for the challenge plus knew I wouldn't allow myself to be swayed.

A few weeks after, she gave me a small container with the chicharon.

I took it and ate a couple of pieces. It was just there, and I usually just pass by it. I mean, I would never throw it away, but I was very very hesitant to even take a piece.

But tonight, I was so hungry (while chatting with my brother), and the tub was just on my bed.

I took one piece, and told myself I'd stop at three. Then at five, then what the heck, I ate it all! I'm a monster!!

Sniff.

All I ate today were junk:
- 2 packs of corn snack
- 1 mushroom and cheese crepe
- 2 pcs of wheat bread
- and a tub of chicharon!

Sniff sniff.

15in50.blogspot.com

I also have a diet blog. (blog name written above)

Why am I doing this? Well, I guess to prove that I am disciplined enough to achieve my diet goals.

I know I am disciplined enough, but I honestly don't know if I can achieve my goal! Darn it.

Full Moon

It's full moon again.

Here in Singapore, when you look up the sky, you see clear skies, twinkling stars (as in really) and the moon shining.

Particularly tonight. The moon was bright and it was surrounded by a bright orange, er, smoke? I don't know.. it just looked like the sun, except it's the moon.

Anyway, it was an extraordinary sight for me, so I decided to take a picture with my camera phone. Imagine, it was so bright that even my low-pixeled camera phone was able to capture it.

It was a bit spooky though, especially when I was walking past the landed white houses with the 'For rent' sign hanging from it's attic window. With the full moon there, and trees everywhere, and nobody else walking down the streets...mmm.. I better stop this and just think happy thoughts, think cute thoughts. La-dee-lah..

Help from a Capsule

I need help from these tiny capsules to:

-Clear my skin, protect my hair and strengthen my nails.

-Maintain my 20/15 Lasik enhanced eyesight.

Yeah, I agree, the blue drawing below the Brite Eyes bottle is pretty cute. It's my favorite blanket from Watson's great sale at The Expo last year. His name is Tiny, from 'Little Robots' (not sure if it's a movie or just a Toy collection)

My Favorite Chocolate

I love love love this chocolate!

It's so milky, with hazelnut bits. One of the best comforting chocolates I've ever eaten.

My Nails

Those are my nails for a day (1 full day Saturday).

For a day, I was ultra feminine with those nails. Moving about and touching things as delicately as possible (to protect the nails from springing off my real nails).

It was soooo difficult because I realised that with long nails, there's a lot of things I couldn't do, like:

-Open and close my zipper (I actually had to bring tweezers so that I can zip and unzip my pants).

- Scratch myself especially my legs since it was covered with my denim shorts

- Wash my underwear

- Open the metal latch of my wallet

- Remove a piece of tape

- Text (because the keypad is small)

- Pick my nose (oh come on, don't be grossed out, we all do it).

- Unbotton a shirt, where the hole is small and the button is big

And this is just all in a day. So this morning, since 3 of the nails already fell off, I decided to just remove all the nails and resume my normal life.

If I want long nails, I'll just make it grow. Becuase it sure feels different when you're wearing acrylic nails.

Saybons - A French Stall in Plaza Sing

I went to Plaza Singapura last Thursday because I wanted to check out Daiso for something (although I couldn't remember what now).

After shopping a bit, it was finally time to have dinner. I was really hungry, but somehow the food stalls didn't appeal to me.

The I remember seing this food stall at the basement selling crepes, and incidentally, I also saw someone eating it, so I decided to try it out. The stall name is Saybons.

I wanted the roast chicken savoury crepe, but they ran out of the chicken, so I settled with Ham, cheese and egg. ( Which sounded better because I love eggs and I love love cheese).

The assistant placed the ham, cheese and egg, then the owner (shown above preparing my crepe, and also on the newspaper clipping), sort of like assembled it.

I finally got my crepe and I took a bite. Woooow, the first bite was so good! and it was so flavorful. A bit oily, but never mind that, it was worth it. However, I bit into a teeny-tiny eggshell, which sort of irritated me, but I'm willing to overlook it and pretend it was nothing.

I proceeded to chew on the crepe, until I reached the yolk, which was still in its liquid form. When I bit into it, the yolk oozed out onto the other ingredients, and wow, it was good. I like it! If I weren't on a diet, I'd be eating it frequently.. but I am, so I have to control myself.

I recommend this place, I'm not sure if it's just a novelty, but then again, it's worth a try.