The Day I Had Lunch With Emm

It was a pretty boring day today. But I'm glad that I was able to spend time with Emmanuel during lunchtime because very soon, he's going to be enlisting and time with him will be scarce. Oh those were the days, the days of pre-enlistment freedom. Time seems to glide right past you when you don't notice it. Anyways, the theme of our lunch today was "We Love Hong Kong".


Chicken Noodles and dumpling Dumpling soup


The wait for lunch was surprisingly non-existent because the food came immediately after we ordered. Usually when I go there for lunch with my parents on Sunday, we have to wait up to half-an-hour before our food is served. I guess it pays to eat there on weekdays instead. The Cantonese-style chicken noodles were yummy as usual, but the dumpling soup was a tad too salty. Ah well. With great company, everything else doesn't really matter.


Black Sesame paste and Almond paste with Glutinous Rice Balls




After lunch, we headed down a couple of shophouses for dessert. He had black sesame paste with glutinous rice balls while I had the almond paste one. It's been so long since I last had such dessert and it somehow reminded me of the authentic Hong Kong dessert stalls that I haven't patronized in a really long time. It's about time I went there again to visit. Heh.

After lunch, we walked around a bit and ended up at Clark Quay. Aimless, we just sauntered through The Cannery area and moved onto Central. Sadly, we weren't really in our photogenic state today and all our camwhoring pics turned out pretty bad. But I did manage to salvage one relatively decent looking one:



Here's to our friendship and to the bright future ahead! :)

The Day I Went To T3

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The new SONY T20 has smile detection features! It has never been a better time to catch smiling idiots and wannabe-clowns! Just point your lenses at a wide, toothy grin and it will automatically take snapshots again and again! Case in point: Daddy (see picture above).

Ok, moving on...

I had to go down to the Immigrations building to collect my new passport this afternoon. But the good thing is that I've got no more fear of frequent passport expiry renewals! YAY! Really loving the feel of the new biometric passport. Mmmm mmm.

In the evening, I headed down to the Changi Airport T3 for the very first time to pick mum up and had dinner there. The foodcourt was huge! Then again, everything there was so spacious! Even the walkways were long and (almost) empty.



My dinner. Grilled chicken, Indonesian style (yes underneath all that black gravy mess is actually a pretty succulent piece of chicken).




Mum and Dad shared noodles. So romantic right?

And onto the tour of the gargantuan T3:



The amount of ceiling space and walking space is immense. It makes T1 and T2 look like the ugly and claustrophobic stepsisters. Speaking of ceilings...



The ceiling's made up of many strategically scattered and angled metal plates. From what I heard, the ceiling has openings that act as a skylight during the day to conserve electricity by reducing the usage of electrical lighting. Very artistic and very ingenious as well.




The departure hall looked like a futuristic setting from some Hollywood movie. Elaborate lighting aside, the architectural design is really classy. It gives an illusion of grandeur and space (and that place is damn big already, so this makes it look even bigger). Size does matter indeed. It's a truly magnificent piece of man-made eye candy.



And the underneath the "halo" is actually a Crystal Jade restaurant! I checked out the prices just now and boy was I surprised. Prices are definitely steeper there compared to it's other outlets, but it's surely worth the moolah for the dining experience.



The arrival hall baggage belts. Palm trees and suspended vegetation. So niiiiice! I know I'm gushing, but I really can't help it!



This was the only thing that I didn't understand. I know that Singapore has been touted as "The Garden City" for god-knows-how-long, but a mechanical flower? What, is that supposed to be alluding to the fusion of natural beauty with technological advancement? It just looks so wrong amidst all the natural flora and fauna.



Besides the surroundings, I found that the toilet was pretty intriguing too. Do you see anything different about that urinal compared to the normal ones we use at the shopping malls? Look closely. If you're observant enough, you'd see that little speck smacked on the southern region of the pee pot.


It's actually this:


A fly. No, not a real fly, but a printed fly. My guess is that it's for aiming purposes since we (men) can be pretty careless when it comes to peeing. And you know what happens when we go off aim. Yup. Gross. But it's pretty interesting to see that on a urinal though. Maybe the other public toilets around the island should start adopting this idea.

That's all for today. Hopefully more interesting stuff happens tomorrow so I'll have something to share.

The Day I Went to Marché

I went back to camp on Monday and was pleasantly surprised that I would be on off today till Friday. Left camp this morning and sent mum off to the airport. After that, I met up with my Dragonboat buddy Kok Wei for lunch.

We walked around Vivo for a long while before settling for Marché, which I've never been to. Ok, I wasn't exactly new to the whole "Swiss marketplace dining" experience becasue I've been to V'llagé, but I must admit that Marché serves a better selection of cuisine, albeit being uncannily similar to the Heeren clone.



The two partners in crime. He's a bottomless pit. I'm pretty sure he can eat more than a cow (no offense haha).



Our very delectable lunch. I had Rösti with garlic pork sausages, which was really tasty because cheesy potatoes (Rösti) + sour cream + salty, peppery sausages = burst of exciting flavours. Mmmm mm. Kok Wei had grilled stuffed pork with a side of mash and gravy and we shared some seafood Spanish rice (forgot what it's called) and stir-fried vegetables.




We decided to milk the trademark Marché cows after lunch as a form of exercise.

It was pretty fun hanging out with Kok Wei outside of training. It's hard enough to find a friend you can connect with, much less one who also has a listening ear. Anyways, we've got a physical test coming up this Sunday before training. Whoooo~~~ Should be fun.

Will try to update again tomorrow. Ciao!

The Day I Took Leave - Day 1

Today was a wonderful day!

After the past couple of weeks of craziness at work, I've finally managed to take leave and have some time for myself to do the things I want to do. Had a great time hanging out with Ker Min and Tammi at Sentosa this morning. And tonight, I had my first drink with Daddy (I usually only drink with friends). Lotsa photos today cos I got my NEW BABY, the Sony T70!!! Now I can go all trigger-happy with everything! =)


Morning @ Vivo/Sentosa with The Girls


My Angels (short of one heh heh)



Our pseudo-wedding photoshoot pose



Squashing my head between two ginormous monstrosities (I'm kidding...)



My first time at VivoCity's Superdog during lunch



The 8th Deadly Sin: Chilli Cheese Fries



Ker Min doesn't like to smile next to me :(



BIMBOTICA! Notice the bright light above Tammi's head in this shot? Yup. Ironic.



Tams and Ker Min: The Imitation of Britney's C*nt (Part 1)



Yours truly and Tams: The Imitation of Britney's C*nt (Part 2)



I'm trying to act anorexic while Tammi's acting bullimic. She obviously beats me hands down at improv, as you can see. Hrmmm.


Supper @ Holland V with Dad


Dad said he hasn't really tried Mexican food before, and neither have I (well, at least not in Singapore), so we went ahead for Cha Cha Cha. It's so catchy, I feel like saying the name over and over again! "Cha cha cha... Cha cha cha... Cha cha..."




Complimentary Nachos on the house. Love love LOVED the salsa! Yummm...




Dad and I toasting with our Lime Margaritas. It was really really strong. I think the bartender was out to kill us with the generous amount of tequila. And don't ask me why Dad looks like he's scowling in this particular photograph. I don't know why either.



Our first dish: Spring Rolls with Chicken and Beef filling
It was interesting to have meat-filled spring rolls. Never tried it before. The avocado and sour cream dips went surprisingly well with the rolls.



Our second dish: Shrimp Salad
After tossing everything together, I took my first bite and was greeted by a sudden feel of dining next to the ocean. The shrimp reminded me vividly of seaside seafood dining. Very sedap.




The final dish: Apple Empanadas with Vanilla Ice Cream
Basically empanadas are mini apple pies. Nothing very special about it, just the exotic name. What I did was scoop a little bit of ice-cream onto the piping hot empanada before devouring it in a mouthful. You can try doing that with the McDonald's apple pies and probably get the same feel.


It was really special to have the father-son bonding time tonight. Haven't had the chance to do that for quite some time. All in all, it was a long but fulfilling day. Shall go to bed now. More updates tomorrow! =)

The Day I Talk About !@#$%^&*

Disclaimer:
The below post will be expletive-ridden and explicit.
Reader discretion is strongly advised.



Something hit home while I was on my way out from camp this morning: I have almost if not completely lost any ounce of self-censorship that I used to possess when it comes to anger management. By anger management of course I mean the process of translating internal rage into spoken words aka swear-words.

What made me notice this was this scenario:

My little cousin Xavier was sitting on my lap while Dad drove us out for breakfast. Then out of nowhere a silver Honda CRV cut into our lane without giving any signals. My very first instinct was to scream "CHAOCHEEBYEEE ANY-O-HOW CUT LANE YOUR FATHER'S ROAD IS IT?!?!?!" But of course I didn't do that. I couldn't, not in the presence of my parents, and certainly not in the presence of my 8-year-old cousin. But the very fact that my first thought was to shoot vulgarities at a guy who will not be able to hear any of it scared me.

It's a very serious problem. After enlisting, I have unknowingly and unwittingly transformed into an uncontrollable expletive-spewing punk.

Gone were the days of the Justin that had the manners to "translate" his swear words into PG-13 vocabulary.

Fuck = Fish
What the fuck? = What the toot?
Wah lau (Hokkien for "My Father") = Wah lieu
Cheebye (Hokkien for "Cunt") = wait, I didn't even use to say that.

You get the severity of the situation now?

Nowadays it's full on wa lau's, fuck you's, cheebye's, nah beh's and whatnot peppering my sentences. I'm subconsciously making swear words part of my vocabulary. The expletive usage in my day to day conversations in the Army has conditioned me to become less aware of the need to self-censor. It's a very dangerous thing, this whole swearing-in-your-face business that the Army runs on. And the after effects are very real.

I don't want to end up being a cuss-bucket ultimately. That's one thing that I don't need to bring out of my Army experience.

Ah fuck...