Full Of Fun

Ahh yes blogging streak is definitely still on! 

Time for another recap of this past weekend!

Ok this wasn't exactly the weekend, but I met up with Talia last Thursday. I think she looks like a doctor or a medical student in this photo! I'm sure it's the white blazer...

It was raining really hard that night so we just walked around inside ION before heading to Coffee Club at Wheelock for dinner. 

I ordered wasabi shrimp salad. First and last time man! You can even see from this photo how unappetising it looked. 

Coffee Club just updated their menu so some food items aren't served anymore, like the smoked salmon and beef ciabatta bites. Other favourites like the chicken baked rice remain.

We shared a basket of potato wedges. Mmm!

On Friday night, a small group of us met at our regular spot.

We knew it was going to be a fast skate that night since there were only four of us.

In about 40 minutes, we made it to Marina Barrage. There were actually quite a number of people there with lanterns and even candles. Not sure if the latter is actually allowed...

Paused for a short break.

Got a beautiful view of the Marina Bay area from crossing the bridge to the east.

We ended our skate at Rochor Beancurd which was pretty crowded for a Friday night!

I packed a few home for the fam and realised halfway.... that I was sending tofu at 12am!

HAHAHA!

See video below (just till 1:27)  if you've never watched Initial D and don't know what that means:

Takumi Fujiwara is the son of a legendary mountain drift racer, and the reason why he's so good is because he's been delivering tofu for his father every single morning. Rain or shine, through all four seasons, Takumi has to deliver tofu down the same mountain pass without damaging the tofu in the back of his AE86. To help him keep the car stable, Takumi's father puts an uncovered cup of water in the cup holder. Essentially, Takumi has to drive in such a way that water doesn't ever spill out. This ensures that the easily-bruised tofu in the back stays intact.

Since Takumi drives on the same route every single morning, he unconsciously started to drive faster and faster just to get the delivery done quicker. Needless to say, his skills on the mountain pass were developed far beyond any ordinary racer of his day.

The reason why I'm spelling out this entire story is just to illustrate one point: to be an expert in something, you just have to practice daily. Talent may bring you further, but it is the boring, routine, mundane practice that helps you beat all opponents in your skill.

I know that, because I've been skating almost daily, and as a result I've improved very quickly. Last October, I wasn't able to tackle urban terrain (stairs, curbs, rough roads) on my own. Fast forward to now, I have no fear skating anywhere in Singapore, nor do I have any fear skating in the rain.

This same principle is inherent in the docu-biography Jiro Dreams Of Sushi.

Jiro is an expert in sushi, quite simply because he makes sushi everyday. Everything he does is for and about sushi, to the point where he even dreams about sushi when he sleeps at night. From dawn till dusk, Jiro and sushi are one. 

And that's why the man is so good now! After years and years of daily improving, failing, experimentation, dreaming, doing, practicing, Jiro has left all his competitors in the dust.

Alright, sorry for the diversion... It's not like I'm really intending to become a pro skater or anything, but this is just something that I'm always thinking about. 

ANYWAY.

On Saturday night, the moon rose round and bright.

A group of 50+ skaters met at Bishan Park for Skateline's Mooncake festival skate to Woodlands Waterfront.

Though the skate started out kinda slow, it ended on a rather intense note. But all in all, I had a lot of fun!

Sunday morning, I went to the 07:30 service in church and then dropped in the Chinese youth service at 10:00. Man, it's been a loooongggg time since I was last part of this service. Such a strange feeling of nostalgia swept over me as I sat there surrounded by the same group of people (now all youth leaders), singing the same songs we once sang as secondary school students. 

After youth service was over, we went to Saizeriya in Bukit Timah Plaza to meet with Ida, our ex-youth group teacher who was in Singapore for a short visit.

Found some dry humour in the menu.

It's okay if I'm the only one who's laughing.

Food was alright. The smoked salmon salad was definitely better than the wasabi shrimp salad from Coffee Club! And at almost half the price, it's a win win winner.

After church and House of Bread, Papa picked me up to go for dinner with the fam in Geylang. 

Won't be revealing the location of this restaurant because it's crowded enough lol!

Had bean paste fish head.

Veggie soup. Very very very good veggie soup! 

Minced pork and salted fish.

Stir-fried beef and veggies.

Stir-fried tofu.

After dinner we drove through Chinatown.

Then went to Gardens By The Bay to join the rest of the Mooncake Festival crowd!

It's nice to actually be here without skates for once.

The moon didn't disappoint!

After Gardens By The Bay, we went to ECP for our usual candle burning nonsense.

My dad's right. It's like we never grew up. I probably will never outgrow this.

We lit and hung up lanterns at the pavilion we were in.

Joel got creative and decided to set a palm branch on fire.

Like a 野人 (wild man) LOL!

I love that we are still playing like this as "grown" children. 

May we never grow too old to enjoy ourselves!

Gardens & Food

This past Saturday I finally met up with Huey. We'd actually planned to go camping but ended up eating dinner at Thaipan in Mandarin Garden instead. 

Huey's favourite butter prawns. 

Unfortunately, I was starting to get really sick on Saturday and didn't get to fully enjoy what I was eating. By the time I'd gotten home, my throat was completely swollen and I started to get a terrible headache too. And as midnight swung around, I was lying in bed with a fever. Thankfully, my mom had some fever pills in the cabinet. 

To be honest, prayer had a lot to do with me getting well. I really didn't think I'd be able to get up in the morning and go to church, but I prayed that I would be able to.  

Sunday morning, I woke up feeling kinda woozy, but at least the fever was gone. 

I made it to church kinda early, so I went to the garden in the back to rest for a bit. 

This place holds so many memories for me... 

It was actually really nice to just sit there and be quiet for a while. I haven't been able to sit still like that for so long. Probably almost a year now; and the only reason I was able to sit still that morning without moving around, making noise or playing with my phone was because I was feeling sick. 

I sat so still that the garden's resident chameleon decided it was safe to come out and play.

I couldn't help but think that this was probably the descendant of the same chameleon I had picked up in this very same garden 12 years ago. 

By Monday, my fever was completely gone but the sore throat remained. 

I'd actually planned a fun dinner meetup at Morton's, but we switched the venue to House of Rice Rolls & Porridge instead since I was sick (awww!!!) 

My abalone and chicken porridge was pretty good! Though I really prefer my abalone cold and undisturbed by other foods. 

Tuesday evening Shirley and I went to Green View in Far East Plaza for dinner. 

I had Indonesian prawn noodles, which really tastes a lot like Singaporean prawn noodles. The difference I guess lies in the amount of vegetables, as well as the addition of lime juice. 

Shirley had stir fried cut noodles. 

Hiding from the camera as usual!!

We went on a two hour hunt for shoes I could wear to a few weddings coming up. Thanks Shirley for being so patient! I always feel bad when someone else has to shop with me for my stuff... But I seriously needed help in deciding what was nice! It's been SO LONG since I've gone shopping for this kind of stuff that I completely completely forgot and lost touch with what's "fashionable" and what's not. 

Everything I seem to pick out now is just old-looking, but very comfortable. 

You know the kind, like stuff your mom would wear basically. 

How ever did I become like that? 

LOL!

Christmas Season Stuff

I guess sometimes I sound like all I do is work, but that's not entirely true.

Sometimes, work involves meeting people outside of the office. I love those days! 

Last week I got to catch up with some secondary school friends.

It's kinda weird to see us all grown up a bit. Last time we met, we were all still in our school uniforms, hanging out in the shopping malls or fast food restaurants. Now, Rache wears heels and Violet is working. Time sure flies...

On the Friday before Christmas Eve, I headed to nanny's for a family dinner. Check out the beautiful tree! And Dolly who is the best model-dog ever! 

I love family dinners. They are so chummy, noisy and delicious! 

The kids were pretty thrilled with their presents.

Sucks to be an adult. You don't get much.

On Christmas Eve, Orchard Road was as crowded as ever. 

Audrey and I decided to go walk around. 

Saw some pretty ugly, service-personnel looking clothes in (of all places...) Celine. 

Audrey pushing along a little cart. How cute!

The ice cream I'm holding is actually a pen. 

In the evening, I attended a Christmas service at church. As with Christmas services every year, church was pretty packed.

Cool blue lights outside. 

Had a super duper Christmas Eve dinner with family. Salmon sashimi!

Carving up the turkey.

This has got to be one of the strangest yet good salads I've ever had. It has more meat than vegetables in it. Not only that, but it's got this strange combination of smoked ham, smoked salmon, boiled eggs and dried cranberries. 

Tasty indeed, but strange...

Sunday was Christmas. After church, I headed to Lakeside for a nice little Christmas gathering.

The ladies whipping up a meal in the kitchen.

It feels so good to spend time in a house filled with God's love.

After singing Christmas carols, we started playing this gift exchange/stealing game. I forgot what it's called. It seems to have a whole bunch of different names, but the idea is generally the same. When it's your turn, you can either pick a gift from the table, or you can steal someone else's gift. 

Needless to say, there was a lot of stealing going on. It was pretty hilarious though. We had over forty people playing so the game lasted pretty long.

Had a mini snow-pocalypse at the end. 

I was dead tired by the time I got home around 22:00, but for some reason I didn't feel like going to bed. So I ended up meeting Audrey for supper. We tried finding a geocache before she went home. Afterwards, I cabbed to ECP to meet Talia for some yummy food. 

ECP was really calm and cool that night. There were a surprising number of bikers out. 

We ordered the usual satay and sambal stingray. Only one phrase can describe it.... SIBEH SHIOK ARH! 

Yumz. I had fun!

The following Monday was a public holiday so I went down to Vivocity to see the one and only Christian missionary ship- Logos Hope. 

Free entry!

To be honest, I didn't really know what to expect. All I knew was that it was a Christian missionary ship. 

Apparently, the main attraction was this awesome book fair with lots of cheap buys to be found. 

It was kinda cool to know that this ship has been all over the world and different people with different ethnicities have walked past through the very same hallways. 

We were fortunate to know Joey who is a volunteer on Logos Hope. She gave us a tour for $10 each. I highly recommend the tour if you ever get a chance to visit! Most people who just get on the ship and go to the book fair without doing the tour, feel like they are just going to another book store. It's actually pretty cool to visit the different parts of the ship and to listen to Joey's stories about how the ship protects itself from Somalian pirates without weapons.

Very cool.

In the afternoon, I met Talia, again!

We were going to go ice-skating at Kallang Leisure Center. 

But the ice-skating rink was closed for ice-surfacing when we got there, so we went to the arcade instead.

Talia's last game was this Bishibashi machine. I saw many people playing it before and it looked fun when they were doing it. However it turned out to be really stupid. There's this toilet option where you have to press the right buttons to help the person on the screen sit on the toilet. Super lame! I still prefer racing games or the basketball shooting one.

Tuesday was our monthly company day. All of us went to Duxton Hill for lunch. 

I'd never eaten in Cumi Bali before, but I have a general distrust of Indonesian restaurants in Singapore. Reason being: I've only really had good Indonesian food in one or two restaurants in the whole of Singapore.

But when I saw the food, i felt slightly better. It looked pretty authentic.

After eating the food, I can honestly say Cumi Bali is not bad at all! I guess I would give it 4 out of 5 stars. The belachan wasn't the best I've had, but at least it wasn't faked. Also, the chicken kebab was so nice and tender. Ten points for the sauce!

With our tummies full and satisfied, we headed to this archery place at the Orchid Country Club.

I've never shot an arrow in my life so I was pretty excited to try it out.

Surprisingly, the targets weren't far away or anything. They were only about 15 meters away.

We had the whole place to ourselves.

I think archery is pretty fun. More fun than being at a driving range at least, especially if you've been having a bad day. It helps you to focus and release any pent up unhappiness. Helps to improve your posture too I think. 

We had so much fun! But days like this make me miss all the other fun days I've ever had in the past. I thank God for new friends and new experiences, but even more so for the memories we gain and leave behind along the way... 

We ended our day at Quaich Bar with a bit of whisky and beer. 

So far, Singapore has been a real blast. 

I love it! I can't thank God enough for landing me in such an awesome company, even if it's for a while. 

More next time......