Gentle reminder to self:

Keep blogging and keeping track of events before *poof!* before you know it...I'll be OLD!!!
:|

Just a random thought haha. Will find something to update soon! :)

Mooncakes!!!

TW came up with the brilliant idea of organizing another laolang/juniors gathering today at Audrey's house...to make MOONCAKES!!!

Best idea ever. I remember the last time i made mooncakes with my ahma was like..14? Or maybe earlier, can't recall. I brought the same traditional moulds for us to use this time.

See utensils:

One interesting thing we all learnt today: Salted Eggs come with semi-solid Egg Yolks!!! Damn cute! So all we had to do was drain the whites and all that's left is the bright shiny red centre!

So cute right!!!

Okay actually we cheated coz we bought instant mix for the flour skins and ready-made lotus/green tea paste for the fillings. So it was basically just playing with dough the whole time. hahaha! Check out the guys fooling around with the dough. ALL the bing-pi had Ian's 'essence' in it coz he was the one kneading everything.

Step 1: Grab the bing-pi and flatten it.

Step 2: Grab a ball of lotus paste or green tea paste.

Step 3: Wrap the ball of filling (optional to wrap around egg yolk) with the bing-pi.

Step 4: Press the whole dough into the mould.

Step 5: Pop it out, put it in the fridge and its ready to eat!

The fruits of our labour:

My ahma's traditional moulds are super pretty!! It says 中秋月饼 in different shapes.

In total we made like more than 40 pieces. haha super high.

Stephen even made a damn weird 2 flavoured combi which was half green and half white outside, with half green tea and half lotus paste on the inside. lol. but the picture not v clear la.

Yup, another successful outing down! :) Thank god for A Block, seriously!

NUTS

Nowadays, my favourite word is the word "NUTS".

Seriously.

• My dad went nuts over the weekend - same issue, same insistence.
• Work - gone nuts. 'nuff said.
• Flight at 5am tomorrow and I have damn siao-on project-mates whom i just emailed to say i'm zaoing after not really contributing...(walao it's a freakin' training course la take the assignment so seriously for freak?!) okok that's not really my work attitude but i kinda have to prioritise stuff. :X
• i'm turning 24 in 3 days and i'm spending it with some tmd colleagues whom i booked tickets to Bangkok with on a force-myself-to-socialize whim. Gotta feeling this won't be my most favourite holiday...

Hmm. Sometimes i feel like taking the advice pasted beside one colleague's desk:

Maybe it might just work huh?

Oh well, hello bangkok again (in 5 hours)! Please be kind to me if i'm forced to drink (copious amounts of) Chang beer!!

NDP 2011 - Heartbeat

Managed to get tix to watch NDP live this year coz we sponsored stuff for the participants' goody bags..Been a super long while since i've been to NDP live - omg 13 years since?!

Well, i remember being much more excited then, and wanting to catch it again the year after. But that was when it was still held at the National Stadium.

So this is the first time watching the parade live at Marina Bay floating platform, and a very first live NDP experience for WL! (He was performing during pri 5 i think) 

Undoubtly, this venue is much more scenic than the one i went 13 years ago...although i seem to recall the atmosphere and length of performance to be more rowdy and longer last time. This year, the performance was based on a musical act, with 5 different scenes and a super catchy theme song.

But the coolest part was that with the available air and water space surrounding the stage, this year's NDP team took the opp to showcase all Navy and Airforce WOMD. haha super cool how they managed to weave those into the story - where the jet fighters and submarines/naval police speedboats arrived on cue during the show. Padang/National Stadium definitely had their limitations!

Ok time for pics..not many coz we focused on watching and waving the flag haha..

Downloaded the photosynth app and got a panoramic shot of the view!! but not v well taken la haha..

Showing off his patriotism 

Red Lions landing perfectly on the tiny little road on the platform. Last time Padang alot of space..now only got one lane to land..still so zai!!

  

During the National Anthem..flag flew by right on cue! 

 Gorgeous evening scenery

Stage view at night

Pledge Moment with all participants

Somehow my iPhone managed to capture a subtle glow from behind the CBD area..the phrase 'qian tu guang ming' comes to mind!!

Okay, end off with cute polaroid the NDP volunteers were giving out to members of the public. (Super off-centre but still nice! :) ) 

C'mon Singapore..gimme a good bto!!!

Un-Wind

Found these bookmarks/notes coincidentally immediately after the previous gloomy post (removed btw).


I'm sure I kept these on my messy desk for a reason haha..

The brown bookmark reads "God hath not promised skies always blue, but strength for the journey all the day through".

Garfield bookmark says "i live for weekends"

On other news..i forgot the password on my old trusty Uni-days Fujitsu laptop!! (Haven't had the motivation to turn it on since it was loading too slowly..been using my small netbook since graduation!) Apparently there is really no other option for people to access their laptop except to get somebody else to hack into it... :S

What can i do?? :(

Random Blog Post :)

Ahhh these days are simply NUTS!! Couldn't get down to writing the rest of the Seoul Experience coz the week after (last week) I got last-minutely whisked off to KL for a 4 day training course cum meet our M'sian counterparts session with the colleagues.


And finally now when I finally came home in decent time (before 11pm) after chionging to gym for an hr and skipping dinner for the 2nd time in a row, I HAVE NO LAPTOP TO BLOG.

Haha such a mouthful.


Left the lappie at the bf's place last wk coz was too lazy to bring it back. So now having one of those random and rare entries on the iPhone. Hmm. Not v blog-friendly actually. Or maybe it's Blogspot.


Ok la just posting for fun actually. To dust a bit of cobwebs off this little forgotten space. Shall end off with a picture or two of my latest campaign.


Anyone seen this around? I decorated 2 major Mrt station doors - Jurong East and Outram (NEL). Keep your eyes peeled when you do spot them! Got effort one lor!! :)

 Omg cannot post pics frm phone to blog?! What kind of sucky phone is this??? Or maybe is I noob nv upgrade my OS. :S oh well, will upload as soon as I get to work laptop tmr then! Time to koon now!!

Seoul Crazehhhh!!! :D

If we were waiting for the ultimate shop-eat-shop-EAT experience, this was definitely it!! I'm probably going to just focus this Korean Experience blogpost on purely food alone - since it's already 11pm and i'm having post-holiday depression. And its only Tuesday tomorrow. :'(

But then again, our most interesting video(s) was taken during one of these gastronomical adventures. *winks*

Day 0:

Reaching Seoul at midnight after a 7 hour budget flight made us ravenous. But in preparation for a whole week of awesome food, plus considering the late hour and night drizzle, we decided to opt for the infamous Korean instant noodles which i heard supposedly taste better as the real thang.

Verdict: Nope, not any better than the ones we have in SG!

Day 1:

Brunch at Doota! food court. One of the 300 shopping complexes in DongDaeMun, where we were staying! :D This was one of the BEST meals ever - no more FoodCourt BBQ beef/pork for me! This was real Bulgogi with Kimchi soup and some kind of very delicious purplish fat rice! The barbequed pork was mixed with super shiok Korean sauce and every mouthful was a burst of flavour.

Best start for the first proper meal in Seoul!



Street Snacks in Myeong Dong:

Calorifically Delicious Grilled Sausages!!

Variety of Street snacks to clog your arteries and tempt your tastebuds to no end!!

Tornado Potato which is 0.5m long and really thick and MSG-fied!! I think that was like half a potato.

Day 1 - Dinner:

GoGung Restaurant in Myeongdong - reknowned for its Traditional Bibimbap!

Before

After

We were so full after a day of snacking we had to share this one big bowl of Bibimbap. The Koreans are really big eaters!!

Day 2:

Brunch at NamDaeMun. The brainy researcher had found on the net about some famous Belt Fish dish that was only sold in this area, so we went to try it.

Belt Fish in spicy broth

Turns out, the fish was really yummy. The flesh was super tasty and soft despite the fierce-looking broth - which was actually made up of white carrot and korean spices. But the prize didn't come without hard work at picking out the soft flesh from the exceptionally bony fish! And the bones were very sharp!

This was just the spine. Both sides of the fish had similar spikes as well!

Taking a pic with the friendly young Ahjumma. haha.

Ok skip to Day 4 coz the rest of Day 2 was taking Kimchi-making lessons and Day 3 was spent fully at Lotte World Theme Park - more later!!

Day 4 - Nami Island:

Authentic Korean Ginseng Chicken - Samgyetang on a rainy day in Nami!

WL's version with abalone - erm..looks almost alive.

Open the chicken up and there's sticky purplish rice in it..super filling but healthy!

We totally felt like chicken-killers after that..one whole chicken each for every customer! Those restaurants must be killing hundreds of chickens everyday. :S

Day 2 - Dinner: 

THE ULTIMATE KOREAN DISH ON EARTH. Even better than the first meal of our trip - Sindangdong Tteokbokki.

Even the restaurant name is called "I LOVE SINDANGDONG". I fully agree!! And we have to wear aprons coz the pot was really huge and boiling.

Before

After!!!

You know how Korean instant noodles taste like?? This is 100,000,000 times better. With beef, eggs, cabbage, rice cakes, fish cakes, etc etc thrown in a steaming hot wok. It was so good we went back for dinner on our last day just before our 7 hr Airasia flight back home.

I say, we should do this every CNY instead of boring steamboat eh!!  :P

Hokay...time for the most interesting part of the yummy tour...

Day 5 - Noryangjin Fish Market

We bought our own live seafood in the crazy fish market where we nearly kena 'raped'. Both sides of fishmongers kept dragging us to buy seafood from their stalls. Super stressful!!

We opted to buy different types of seafood from different vendors in the end. Probably not a good choice as we could have maybe gotten better price if we bought in bulk. But we just didn't trust any of them.

I was actually quite excited to try this!! Octopus Sashimi! heh heh..

Check out our spread...

Salmon/Octopus sashimi, 12 BBQ prawns and one steamed Alaskan King Crab!

But the funnest part of the meal was of course the squirming Live Octopus.

Will upload the video of WL chewing the suckerful legs on Facebook since this blog post is going to burst!

Alrighty! Final pics of food..

Day 7:

Quite a few Jap-inspired food can be found in Seoul, including Bento sets. But this one we just had to try because it looked (and really tasted) too damn good. Speaks for itself below.

My Katsu-don.

WL's Unagi-don.

Okay end off this crazy long post with my favourite snack of all - Deli Manjoo! Which can be found at selected train stations, including MyeongDong. It's like our Jap Fish-shaped sponge cakes with fillings but OH-SO-MUCH-BETTER!

Haha fat pic coz end of trip already. :'(

Filled with burst-in-your-mouth-sweet-custardy goodness!

Alright time for much-needed rest! I'll post the activities we did later - too much to show and tell! For now, i think i've captured the main part of our awesome Seoul food adventure. Left out King Crab Porridge and Korean BBQ among others, think not that important haha.

Ok goodnight world!