…is coming to an end and I am really glad it is. I am really, really tired. Often, I encourage friends not to give up on what they want, to work hard for it and to change for the better when necessary. Today, I realized things can still go stay wrong even after you have chosen not to give up, have worked hard and have changed for the better.

Today, I found out that I have failed again.

Yes, it is! This is gona be a very special post and I am gona blog about something that I have not blogged about in a long, long time! Yes! I have not blogged about food in the last six days!!!

Dinner was at Botak Jones last Friday. Look at the yummy pictures! We had stuffed Jalapenos with chillis in the first picture! Freaking HOT!!! We also had a giant sausage set, a fish and chips set, and a caesar salad.

I think we only finished 70% of the food. We were so filled to the brim. We could barely swallow another Jalapeno. Someone even packed the two leftover Jalapenos for takeaway. This is something new to me because this is the first time I saw him doing that. He must really like Jalapenos BUT I still want to bet that the two Jalapenos are down the chute now. HeHe!

In the morning of the same day, I found out that the person whose words are often punctuated with sarcasm, is not able to take his own kind of crap. This is really, really something new to me. I hate inconsistencies! C’mon!

Has anybody watched I Survived A Japanese Game Show? The participants are Americans, and everything else, Japanese! They are so hilarious! You can find all the episodes on youtube, starting from here, all nicely named and uploaded. It is a pretty addictive game show and the host of the game show is sooooooooo cute!

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon, I made pasta! Check it out!

Thanks for the gift! I love it, and thanks for the note you left for me in my mailbox, that you hope I would like the gift. Yes, I do! Thanks for always being there for me. You never say a single word, well, you never could, and you always allow me to say all that I want to say, as long as it does not contain bad words. You listen to me when I feel like telling, and you do not push me for more when I do not feel like elaborating. You hear my misery, you hear my joy, you hear my nothing! You understand me most by giving me a chance to express myself, and you remember all of what I say.

I love you, Sanriotown! Thanks.

(I still find it very cool of you to plant the particpant icon image for the Travel the World event in my Upload folder and attach that image to my earlier blog post. I know you have access to my post and my Upload folder but I did not expect you to actually do it! HAHA! You have got to be my Number 1 coolest!)

Last weekend, it was at Saint Pierre, the French restaurant we had our dinner. It was French food for high dining. We ordered the Degustation Menu:

- AMUSE BOUCHE: assorted nibble platter

[slap myself, ok? I forgot to take a picture of this!!!] Next,

- TARTARE DE TRUITE OCEANE: organic herb scented ocean trout tartare with mirin marinated ikura, consommé of momotaro tomato and japanese cucumber foam

- ROUGETS EN TEMPURA: tempura of red mullet fillet with nori crusted tiger prawns, brunoise of basil scented matsutake and sesame-tomato dressing with charred late season edamame

- TERRINE DE FOIE GRAS: pressed foie gras terrine with confit of bresse chicken, salad of artichokes, grilled corn and roasted hazelnuts

- SORBET

- CABILLAUD LARDE ET GRILLE: home smoked salmon larded black cod with barigoule of tsukiji market vegetables, asparagus tempura and miso-champagne reduction

- ROTI DE BŒUF A BASSE TEMPERATURE: low temperature roasted wagyu beef rump with braised tender leaf of cabbage, black truffle essence, oxtail scented root vegetables and morel infusion

- CHEESE SUPPLEMENT

- TARTE FRAMBOISE-YUZU: sand crusted tartlet of yuzu lemon cream, fresh raspberry with wild berries espuma and sorbet of lychee, raspberry and rose

- PISTACHE, POMME ET CANELLE: green apple marshmallow with cinnamon scented green apple sorbet, pistachio cake and confit of fuji apple

Nice food and oh, we met the Chef, Emmanuel Stroobant. No, I did not go to the kitchen. There was this monument-look-alike piece of animal leg cuffed and placed on top of a table in the dining area beside our table! I thought it was a fake animal leg until the Chef came out from the kitchen to slice some meat off it for the kitchen. He did that a few times. It was a pretty amusing sight and I still do not know why that is necessary.

Saint Pierre is located at 3 Magazine Road, #01-01 Central Mall

Such cute digi-cams! Hiaks, I am so glad that I do not have to make a choice among these three because it is so hard to decide on which one to take! I love them all! HAHA! Pink is my favourite, Blue is so unique and White is so Apple’ish. Oh, talking about Apple’ish, I watched Wall-E last weekend and was really surprised to know that Wall-E is the name of that run-down robot and not that White Apple’ish Oval, whose name is actually…EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-vaaaaa!!

Three days after I watched it, the name still echos in my brain, just like how Wall-E echos it when he is looking for her.

SanrioTown Travel the World event -
http://blog.hellokitty.com/traveltheworld

Tuban is a town in Bali. We stayed in Hotel Santika when we were in Tuban. Hotel Santika is within walking distance to another town, Kuta, which is the site of the 12 Oct 2002 and the 1 Oct 2005 Bali bombings. On the first day, we went for a walk along the Tuban/Kuta Beach and then to Kuta town. It was so freaking hot that I nearly melted into a pile of SG fats. Anyway, my pictures of Kuta:

The people in Kuta were really pushy. They wanted to sell us this and that. One guy stopped us and asked us where we are from. He then told us that he would like to give us a FREE T-Shirt and asked us if we could help him to promote his hotel by wearing their T-Shirt when we are back in SG. C’mon, do I look that kind to you?

The town seemed pretty busy with a life of its own. We felt exhausted and terribly sweaty after running away from those aggressive attackers of tourists in the hottest weather, so we decided to return to our hotel for a good shower and then a good lunch in the hotel restaurant:

Before sunset, we went out to the beach again to take more photos and then to have dinner. My pictures of Tuban Beach and dinner by the beach:

Coconut drink, in its original form, seems to be quite common there. I like scrapping the coconut’s inside:

Ubud is a town in Bali. After we left the town of Turban, we went to Ubud and stayed in Kajane for four days. We had our own villa and a swimming pool. Breakfasts were served to our villa every morning. I love that!

More pictures of our villa:

I found a new friend there. My very own floatie~ The pool is 1.5 metres deep and I am 1.63 metres tall/short so thanks to floatie~ I had a very entertained time in the pool just floating around. Floatie~ belongs to Kajane and was mine for those four days.

Awww. Arent we a loving pair? I miss you, floatie~. I wish I could take you back to SG with me. And the swimming pool too. I like it that they use more salt and less chlorine in their pool. My skin and hair were really good after the swims. I mean, the floats.

JUST a few thousand steps away from our villa, is the Kajane cafe:

My favourite orange lassie, and the lunch and dinner we had at Kajane cafe:

When the sun is gone, see Kajane from the outside:

There is a restaurant opposite Kajane which serves nice food. We went there a few times during our stay in Kajane.

These pictures were taken in Kajane. The first one is my favourite outdoor picture. Such nice greens!

This house is part of Kajane. It is different from the rest of the villas and we were wondering if it is the residential house of the owner of Kajane.

This is the lobby house. It is quite some distance from the entrance of Kajane, and the Kajane cafe is situated between the entrance of Kajane and the lobby house.

This is the pathway we used to get to our villa. They were doing something to part of the pathway. It was kind of scary for me because the pathway seemed to be on some kind of a cliff and we had to walk on the edge.

These pictures were taken along the streets outside Kajane. The streets were nice and quiet, but the weather was very hot. We had lunch at this old little cafe along one of the streets:

This is a temple and there is a posh restaurant beside the temple. We had dinner there:

Nice hot trip!

(Re-compilated from March 2008 posts)

Is she real? By the way, I like the dress, be it pink or blue, it will surely look very diffferent on me. I come to realize that dresses that look nice on display do not look nice on me anymore. Sad.

Guess what I did last Saturday other than playing with my facebook pet, . By the way, her name is purplies, and I chose her current pair of ears and eyes to make her look cat’ish. I placed a ribbon on her head to make her look myMelody’ish/helloKitty’ish. I chose purple as her skin colour because I like purple. Isnt she perfectly cute!? HaHa!

Other than playing with purplies, I watched the Chinese movie, Hero (2002 film), on youtube. Click on the link to watch it. There are ten parts altogether, and they come with English subtitles! I worship English subtitles!

I love that movie. I watched it in 2002 when it was screened in the cinemas here, and I was quite impressed by the twists in the movie. Well, it is not just about the twists. Most of the movie is illustrated by cinematography, and every twist comes with a change in theme colour, and a retold of the story based on the changes from the twist. After the second twist and a second change in theme colour, nobody knows what is real anymore! I find that so coolx.

Set in ancient China, there were three assassins of the King of Qin. They went by the names Long Sky, Broken Sword, and Flying Snow (ayee, I suppose they could not think of better names…). Three years before the start of the movie, the three assassins attacked the palace of King of Qin, wounded a lot of people, and came close to killing the King. Since then, the King forbidded anyone from going within 100 paces of his throne. Anyone who could kill his most feared enemies, the three assassins, would get to sit within 10 paces of his throne and have tea with him. HaHa! Are you excited already?

The story goes like this: One day, a man by the name of Nameless (duh…) brought to the King, the three swords belonging to the three assassins. Apparently in ancient China, each swordman had a personal sword, and if an identical sword ended up with another swordman, say Jumping Spider, that means Jumping Spider has killed the owner of the sword. There was no such thing as a pirated sword, ok? Maybe there was, but piracy was not accepted in China then.

The King was very impressed. He invited Nameless to sit within 20 paces of his throne, to have tea with him and to narrate to him, how he had killed the first assassin, Long Sky. Nameless did and told that he met Long Sky at a parlour, and challenged him to a duel of the mind. After hours of physically not moving but continuously fighting in their minds (you should really watch this, it is ridiculously funny…), Long Sky lost the battle, and Nameless stabbed him in real with seven men of the King as witnesses.

The King liked what he hear, and invited him to sit within 10 paces of his throne, and to narrate to him, how he had killed the other two assassins, who were a couple.

Nameless did and told that from his resources, he found that the two had not been talking to each other ever since Broken Sword caught Flying Snow in an affair with Long Sky years ago. (colour: orange) So Nameless had gone to them with Long Sky’s sword after killing him, and told them that before Long Sky died, he had ordered him to pass his sword to Flying Snow so that she can avenge him. Nameless also told them that he would be waiting for her tomorrow for a final duel between him and her. Flying Snow was determined to avenge Long Sky and Broken Sword was very angry so he xxx with his female servant when he knew Flying Snow was looking and in the midst of all the anger and fight, Flying Snow stabbed Broken Sword. The following day, she met Nameless for the final duel and lost because she felt sad for killing Broken Sword. Nameless stabbed her with hundreds men of the King as witnesses.

The King laughed after Nameless had told the story, and told Nameless that he did not believe him. (colour: blue) He knew the couple were not like what Nameless had said of them, and he suspected that Long Sky had voluntarily died in his hands to allow him to be invited to the palace, but because 20 paces to the throne was not enough for Nameless, so he had approached the couple to have one of them sacrificed in the final duel. Flying Snow beared a bigger hatred for the King so she wounded Broken Sword in order for him not to be there, and for her to take on the final duel. Nameless stabbed her with hundreds men of the King as witnesses.

Nameless was impressed by what the King had said. The King, knowing that he was right, asked of what he had told the couple in order for them to believe in him. He told the King that he had demonstrated to them, his “Death within 10 Paces”, and they had believed him. At that point, I nearly ran off for the King, but duh, the King was so coolx. He didnt run away, ok? He stayed for the ‘chit-chat’ and to finish his tea!

Anyway, Nameless did not kill the King just yet. He told the King that he (the King) was smart to have guessed that he was lying but he (the King) was not completely right either because he (the King) had underestimated Broken Sword who had not only chosen not to help him, but had told him to abandon the assassination plan. (colour: white) Flying Snow was very angry with Broken Sword because she wanted to kill the King. In the midst of their fight, she wounded Broken Sword. She went for the final duel with Nameless and staged her own death.

Oh man, I am very tired. Anyway, the King went sentimental a bit upon finding out that his biggest enemy was actually the one who understood him most. Nameless then attacked the King within ten paces, but did not hurt him at all. The King was so shocked that Nameless did not kill him. Before Nameless left the palace, he told the King that he was affected by what Broken Sword had told him, and that he believed in the King.

Nameless did not manage to get out of the palace alive, because he was killed by all the guards who had been waiting for him outside the palace. Meanwhile, Flying Snow was very angry that Nameless did not kill the King and accused Broken Sword of discouraging Nameless. She tried to attack Broken Sword with her sword and when Broken Sword decided to give up on the fight, she accidentally stabbed him. She regretted it immediately and killed herself.

Actually, the last part was very romantic. When she asked him why he did not defend himself from her attack, he told her, in his last words, that he had only wanted to be with her and not be involved with the killing of the King. Cry, can?

Where on earth is Desaru, you may ask?

“Desaru is a beach and resort area in Johor, Malaysia. It is located approximately 88 kilometers east of Johor Bahru, on the South China Sea. It is a very popular weekend escape for residents of Singapore who come to enjoy the attractive 25 km stretch of beaches and splendid golf courses. The Desaru Golf & Country Resort is a popular establishment here.” - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, HAHAHA.

So being a resident of Singapore, I dutifully visited Desaru last weekend before my last day on earth. It was quite a relaxing trip, and it was also the first time I travelled with my two friends; one, a colleague and the other one, an ex-student. It was quite an experience to travel with females, to have people in my room showering longer than I do, to see so much girlie stuff in the washroom, and to have to find space for my girlie stuff (not that I have a lot). My colleague brought a lot of facial and skin stuff, and I was so amused because we were only staying for one night and she brought so much stuff with her. For a moment then, I wondered if I was neglecting mine because I have never used so much girlie stuff, neither does my mom, and I do not have a vain sister. Okay, I do not have a sister or a close girlfriend. BOO, but that is for another day. Anyway, I am glad I brought a nice proper pouch for my bathroom stuff and not a cheapo plastic bag. HAHA! There were so many nice pouches of all shapes and sizes in the washroom and a cheapo plastic bag lying around could have been fatal.

I suppose the Desaru Golf Country Resort is a better resort. We stayed in the Pulai Desaru Beach Resort, which is really below my expectation. For the kind of price we paid, they could have done better than that. For one, the resort is very old and is in need of renovation. For two, they could have been more hygienic. The toiletbowl in our washroom had this yucksies stain which cannot be flushed off no matter how hard we tried, and that really turned me off. The bedsheet had brown stains too, and I woke up the next morning to realize that the sides of my pillowcase had brown stains too. C’mon. I did not pay peanuts for this.

We arrived in Desaru on Saturday. The ferryride from SG ferry terminal to Desaru ferry terminal is about 30 minutes, and the roadtrip from Desaru ferry terminal to our resort is also about 30 minutes. In an hour’s time, we were in our resort room! After some form of unpacking, we went for our lunch. After lunch, we went for a walk along the beach and soon made up our mind to go for a swim in the resort’s swimming pool before our therapeutic back massage in the late afternoon. The massage was such a pain and my back cracked three times. It was almost paraplegic. We all had bruises in our backs after that and mine still hurts now when I press my back bone. Can you imagine that?!

After the massage, we went back to our room and rested for a while before dinner. Dinner was at the hotel’s only restaurant, and it was seafood BBQ buffet! Yummy to me but my friends did not like the food. After dinner, we went back to our room and showered ourselves before leaving the room again for our fireflies expedition. We were taken to a jetty by a van, and put on a boat that took us out to some dark river. There were not a lot of fireflies, and I find the ride to the jetty via unlighted roads more exciting than anything else. In about two hours’ time, we were back in our room. We watched the F1 qualifying round on SG channel. HAHA! We felt so at home. My friends were not sure what a qualifying round was, so I explained to them, and they got all interested to watch the race, and that’s when I fell asleep! HAHA! Yes, I fell asleep and woke up in the morning feeling like a happy pig. Both of them claimed that they could not sleep the night before and they woke up every now and then. Man, they missed SG or what?

We washed up and went for our breakfast buffet, which came with the overnight stay in the resort. Guess what?! They let us into the outdoor buffet area but there was not a single table available!! So we had to go back to the counter to tell them that, and they told us that we could either wait (WAIT?! This is not a f. foodcourt!) or have our breakfast in the indoor area but they warned us that the air-conditioner for the indoor area was not switched on (Okay, this is worse than a foodcourt!). Whatever, we just sat indoor. My friends did not like the food again.

After breakfast, we went to the resort’s swimming pool. I went for a swim, while my two friends chatted and suntanned. I guess they did not want me in their chat because when I went to join them, they went kind of quiet. I think my ex-student was telling my colleague her personal problems. I got bored after swimming and being alone, so I told them I would go back to the room first. They chatted for hours without me. We didnt have lunch because our checkout time was 1PM, and our ferry, at 3PM.

Nice pictures:

Like my sunglasses ma?

Can you believe it? It has been more than a week since I last wrote a post. I deserve to be caned by the sexiest man alive scolded! I am not exceptionally busy, really! I am just too involved with something else, not the sexiest man of course! I have been spending too much time with my Facebook pet. Have you heard of the application Pet Society in Facebook? With this application, you get to create your own pet and design the interior of your pet’s house. After doing so, you get to take care of your pet by feeding it, dressing it up, playing with it and many more! You can get food from the food shop, accessories from the clothes shop, etc. It is so, so fun! Try it some day, my dear sanriotown friends.

I was at the Chinese Garden last Sunday evening and it was so, so sweet. The theme for this year’s lantern festival celebration at the Chinese Garden is Hello Kitty Go Races. There are just so many Hello Kitty and friends everywhere at the Chinese Garden. Now now, let’s see the pictures!

Badtzies alert!!!