Washing Machine Disaster

Gosh darn gee. There seems to be something about me that attracts domestic water problems.

Gosh. Last year, when I was living in Chiltern Park Condo, the floor drain in my CR got clogged, and I went home one day to see my toilet flooding with ankle high dirty water (with hair and soil and yucky things). I had to pump it down, use those liquid pipe cleaners, then finally had to resort to the expensive plumber. Can't remember if it was about sgd150.

Darn. About 2 months ago, my aircon just wouldn't start. Turns out there was a faulty pipe thermistor or what. Which I guess had to do with water also.

Gee. Last Friday night, I did my laundry. Close to 12 midnight, I pulled myself from the computer and went to the kitchen. I opened the washing machine door and whoooooosh! Water came pouring out loudly. I panicked and closed the door.

Panicked some more when I saw that the water was continuously getting pumped into the washing machine. I turned off all the switch, but the water was still dripping. The water level inside the machine was getting high again.

I went to the toilet to wash my hands, and when I went out, the dripping has stopped.

No choice, I opened the door again, and all the water came out.

I used my strong forearms to twist (my manual version of 'tumble dry') my super drenched clothes and hung them on the rack. Then, I swept the water into the drain, hung the floor mats, threw out the accumulated dirt on the drain, and wiped the wooden floors.

I told my flatmate about it. She used the washing machine, and it worked perfectly. Dang. The washing machine doesn't like me.

Shopping for Kickboxing Clothes

Brownish top and black shorts

I love reebok! It's comfortable, it's nice, it's cheap, and I'm only a size small!

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Finally, I'd get to own clothes that has 'dri-something' attached to the label.

I decided to buy Reebok (because it was on 30% discount!). Since I was already there, I bought a top and a cool pair of shorts (which I absolutely love).

The shirt is nice, although it's a bit too scoop necked that during workout, I had to keep adjusting it. But the shorts, I love it! I even wore it to go shopping afterwards.

Total cost: SGD43

Out With The Old, In With The New

I bought a new pair of Charles & Keith silver flip flops last Friday.

Had too, because my old one has already turned white and the soles are just about used up.

It's not as if it's super comfy, in fact, the strap pinches my feet. It's just that the design is so easy to pair with any attire. With shorts, with skirt, with dress. Plus, it's cheap. It's only sgd21 something.

Pasta Cafe

Minestrone Soup. Modesty aside, mine is better because theirs was too sweet.

One of the best teas I've ever drank. It's very fragrant, very tasty ( tasted a bit like milk tea without the milk). I just hope I can fall asleep later.

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My friend and I decided on pasta for our Sunday night dinner.

Orchard area has uber little food choices, but good thing there's Pasta Cafe at Takashimaya.

We tried it there for the first time, and it's quite okay. A place we will probably go back to.

I had the set meal which came with the soup of the day (minestrone), baked fish with garden vegetable pasta and salad, pearl of the orient tea (jasmine and rose).

Meal was about sgd37 for two people.

Nanbantei Japanese Resto

My friend and I went to Nanbantei at Far East Plaza last Friday night.

Everything they serve is grilled, and cooked right in front of the customers.

Mmmm the grilled skewers were all so tasty. We ordered from the set menu, and got to taste a lot of different grilled goodness: Chicken, asparagus wrapped in meat, quail egg, prawns, mushroom, tomato wrapped in meat and topped with cheese.

Mee Pok Kan

This is hawker food. Yong Tau Fu - pick the ingredients you want(there's an array of fish cake, tau fu, cuttlefish, mushrooms, etc to choose from). Then you can either have them soup it up, or they can toss in some gravy into the noodles along with your chosen ingredients and serve the soup on the side.

It looks messy, but it's good.

Yey! I learned a new dish name last week!

I can now order this in Mandarin.

Mee-pok kan. This means dry flat noodles (dry as in the way the dish is served, with the soup served just on the side).

We ate at the level 6 Yong Tau Fu at Lucky Plaza. Usually, I just order the soup (because I only know how to say 'tang'[soup]). Now that I have a new word in my vocabulary, I can order this! Yey!

Yogurt Ranking

Melted banana boat from Yami Yogurt (I got 2 comments from my colleagues). SGD4 and you get 3 smalls yogurt mounds (choose your flavor), watermelon and papaya bits plus fruity pebbles (because I don't like nuts)

This must be the flavored one.. I like the natural better though

Generous portion

Strawberry, grape and choc chip topping. More of a hindrance than a delight.

It's actually in a clear squarish plastic cup, and it's put inside the J.Cool box for presentation

Looks big, but it's quite hollow inside

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I love yogurt, and I've eaten from quite a few stores. Quite a lot, actually. I've tried almost all the yogurt that's out in the market (both the mushy one [I won't mention the stores, because I prefer soft serve] and the soft serve type) . If I see it, I will try it.

Here are my rankings then (For soft-serve frozen yogurt):

1. Yoguru (Raffles City Basement)

2. Red Mango (Suntec)

3. Yami Yogurt (Everywhere)

Here are my rankings now:

1. Yami Yogurt - the taste is balanced, tangy and sweet.

2. Red Mango - it's a bit sweet with not much of that tangy kick. but the texture is nice.

3. Yoguru - I found it too sweet, and too creamy that it's almost like eating ice cream/whipped cream

4. J.CO Yogurt - too sour (like some kind of cheese), the texture is similar to a sherbet, put it in your mouth and it crumbles instead of melt.

If I Won The Lottery...

System 7 (The numbers are computer generated)

1. I would resign

2. Travel some

3. Buy properties both in Singapore and Philippines

4. Buy LV and Chanel and Dior for myself

5. Buy my mom LV

6. Buy whatever Tiffany

7. Help the poor

7. Buy stuff for loved ones

8. Start a business

9. Place a portion in TMD or whatever capital protected fund with dividends. The dividends I will donate

10. Enjoy life

Of course this is just daydreaming...

Reality is, I have to sleep soon because tomorrow I'm the lone service officer for 8 Relationship Managers and a Team Head! (Because of a test they're doing in the Bank) Gak! I can't even begin to explain how stressful this is going to be.

How to Know If Your Egg is Fresh

Drop it into a bowl of water. If it sinks, it's fresh.

If it floats, the egg has already expired.

I just heard that on tv. Just thought of blogging it down so I won't forget.

Lanzones from Malaysia

These ultra big (almost as big as a small santol) Lansones are from Malaysia. Oh, but since they're from Malaysia, they're called something else (which I've forgotten what).

They're big and thick skinned and sweet.

I like the sweet part, although I also miss the tangy kick of Lansones from the Philippines.

A Boo-hoo Story

Just some useless receipts

Now that the no-money-and-alone-in-Singapore episode of my life is over, I can look back at it and laugh. Well, not laugh actually. There's nothing funny about being left with SGD3.05 on my wallet, all of them in coins.

Actually, it was left with SGD1.05 after I top-up SGD2 for my Venti rapberry ice blended drink.

On Saturday afternoon, I went to the branch to draw out some cash. How good it felt to have my hard earned money on my hand. A months worth of my 'dugo't pawis' (blood and sweat).

After getting the cash, I was back to being stingy again, and saw everything as being 'too expensive' or 'not worth it'. I wish it could have lasted longer though, because now I'm back to spending on things again (In fairness to me, I spent for my mumsy and for aunties).

Pot of Minestrone (Part2)

Boiling the veggies and waiting for them to become tender

Tomato paste added, for flavor and a boost of lycopene

Healthy goodness

The shell pasta is all fat now..

I nearly puked from consuming a whole pot of minestrone for a week (this was about 2 months ago) for diet purposes.

Today, I cooked another pot. And I didn't quite learn my lesson.

The soup itself was good, but since I cooked so much, I had to eat so much too and we all know that if you keep eating the same thing, no matter how good, you're bound to get sick of it.

I planned to cook only a small portion this time, about 3 days worth of soup. What do you know, there seems to be more soup now than before.

Oh my goodness. This means I have to eat about 2 bowls every lunch and dinner in order to finish it off within 3-4 days. What I do for the sake of dieting...

This time around, my minestrone has a new and improved recipe. I added in minced chicken meat and shell pasta and a bit more salt and pepper. It's better than the first pot.

(Added after a few minutes: I prepared my lunch pack for tomorrow, seems like the soup is not too much after all. Probably good until Thursday lunch only.)

The Cornery

Finally finally finally... there's a stall selling flavoured popcorns!

I remember last year, during the first few times when I watched a movie, I wanted to order popcorn and the guy asked me 'sweet or salty?'

In my mind I was thinking 'what? just two choices?', because in Manila, I'm used to seeing popcorns in various flavours. The cheesy ones are my favorite.

Anyway, there's a shop called the Cornery which opened recently at basement 4 of ION.

It's amazing! They have about 20+ flavours! Sweet and savoury ones. I don't care much about the sweet ones (except for the caramel), but for the savoury ones... woohoo! they have a lot!

Cheese, white cheese, wasabi, honey mustard, cajun, tom yum, tandoori chicken, bbq nacho and some others that I couldn't quite remember.

I like the cajun, it's spicy and interesting!

When I go back, maybe I'll order the big one and ask them to mix 3 flavours. Mmmm... something to look forward to.

One thing that I would like to commend is that they have great quality control. They have taken all those unpopped kernels out of your mouths way. No more worrying of biting into something really really hard and harming your teeth.

Mooncake Festival 2009

The champagne truffle and ganache is the round thing in the centre. This is good, but tastes quite sinful.

I forgot about the mid-autumn story, about how this festival came about.

Anyway, the important thing about this years mid-autumn festival is that my friend and I have ordered for a box of Raffles Hotel's famous snowkin mooncake for us to share.

We ordered their bestseller, the snowkin mooncake with champagne truffle & ganache.

Mooncake is common, even in the Philippines, what makes the mooncakes here in Singapore a bit more special is that they offer the traditional baked one, and also mooncakes made with snowskin. Basically, the latter is not baked at all. And it is kept in the freezer.

You eat it cold and straight from the freezer (and it won't come out frozen).

A box comes with 8 small pieces of mooncake, and is priced at SGD52. (It's more expensive than other flavours). There's 25% off for early corporate orders (as in orders in big big bulks), and 5% when you use Citibank credit card.

Price list:

Snowskin mooncake with:

Champagne truffle & ganache 52

Raffles cognac truffle 50

Mocha truffle 50

Dark Chocolate crunchy pearl 50

Apricot mooncake with poppin candy 50

How different is it from the baked ones?

- It's super soft and the texture is deifinitely much finer than the baked ones

- The flavours/variation is totally different from the bakes ones

- The snowskin makes a big difference. Snowkin is very tender and soft (it looks like mochi skin, but it's not sticky or stretchy at all)

It's an okay treat, definitely worth a try. But it's also good that this is a once-a-year thing. It's too rich to be eaten often.