Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Dinner at Ootoya

I first passed by this restaurant when Orchard Central was still 3/4 opened. That time this restaurant was still new and not many people were patronizing it. Today, to eat at Ootoya, you'll have to get a queue number to get a sit in there. Just look at the number of people waiting outside! Heard many food bloggers were raving about this restaurant of its delicious food, so I decided to bring a friend to try out this Japanese restaurant. I reached the place about 7.30 pm, took a number - 11. Not so bad as the crowd was still reasonable. My friend came and we waited for about 1 hr before getting a seat.

I'm a fish lover, so I went straight for a meal that has something to do with fish. I chose the "Charbroiled sea bream with grated radish and plum sauce set". Looks good on photo. And interestingly, they had a tag which tells you how many calories you are consuming for each dish. Interesting feature for the diet conscious who always counted their calories.

Can choose either hot or cold green tea. The cold green tea was really good! And wasn't charged for it.

My meal came and frankly at first I was taken aback by the small slice of the sea bream.

Quality made up for the quantity. The sea bream had a sweet taste to its meat. The skin was crispy that gives you the kick of a slightly burnt to perfection taste. The grated radish had a little tinge of wasabi and it can be eaten alone or with the sea bream. Either way, it tasted really good. The accompanying vegetable dishes didn't disappoint as well as they taste really good as side dishes. For the guys, if you are not full from the meal, you can order extra bowls of white rice FOC. I ate two bowls of rice, the fish was just too good to eat with one bowl of rice.

After dinner, we visited the sky garden to have a look. The place was filled with restaurants but there is a small narrow walkway around the small building for you to take a small stroll. Quite romantic. The environment reminded me of the "Peak" in Hongkong.


The restaurants at the higher levels seem to be devoid of people, even the newly opened Kuriya, it's totally empty. Nice ambience but will these restaurants survive? Will need another wave of food blogger reviews to push it up.

Hanoi Part 4

Next stop was Bat Trang, the ceramic village. I'll never forget the road to Bat Trang. The road was dusty and sandy, and we were riding behind a huge truck which was kicking up huge amount of sand in the air. At the end of the journey, our faces had a layer of sand and dust!
In Bat Trang, you could see ceramics selling everywhere. There were many ceramic products such as vases, paintings, pen holders, decorations etc. Really lots of them. Kinda nice. We walked around and then sat down for some painting fun where we painted some plast.
I chose this. It's been a long time I painted since secondary school.

Hieu painted black circles around his lion's eye. So funny!

These were our finished products! Nice!

After we finished our paintings, the sky was darkening and night had come. We rode back to Hanoi for dinner.
Vietnamese love vegetables alot. They always had this 5 types of vegetables which had distinct taste to them. They had this rice paper which you can use it to wrap the vegetables and ingredients like a popiah and then dip it in the sweet sauce. Taste sooo good! There was this fried pancake which they put either prawns or beef in it and you were supposed to put it with the vegetables and wrapped it with the rice paper. Extremely delicious as the fried pancake adds a crunchy bite to the roll. Yummy!

Saturday, December 26, 2009

The League's pre-christmas dinner

It was near the end of the year soon and so we had our League's pre-christmas dinner at Leroy's (The hungry cow) home with him as the Chef. Arrived there early with Ewan to see if any help was needed for the preparation. Ryan and his girlfriend arrived later and we started our preparation for a 3-course dinner. With the chief cook giving out orders, we cut, sliced and diced any ingredient which was on the cooking table.

Here's Ryan cutting up the cabbage.

The Chef:"Why so many vegetables?"
Peishan:"Cause we are having Zeh, Zeh, Zeh!" (Sung to Blackeyepeas's Boom boom boom)

Dinner was ready and we were served with our first soup of the day: Onion soup
Rich tasting with the cheese bread in it to prevent the soup from being too over flavoured.

Next was Bagedel(potato cutlet) and salad. This was our vegetarian dish. It's a yummy carbo food!

Finally, we have the roast chicken pasta, topped with sausage, assorted beans and sweet potato. It's really filling as the chicken leg was quite huge.

As we chat along the night, some of us were busy in the kitchen cutting up fruits to prepare for our dessert.........
And a birthday surprise for Jenny! We had our floor manager to send the birthday cake(dessert).

Happy Birthday Jenny!


We had much fun and laughter that night. Merry Christmas!

People who were also present for that night:
Cherie and Ben
Ivy
Ewan's Sis

Special thanks to Ewan and Ryan for their photos!

Friday, December 25, 2009

Xmas Eve


Yesterday was Christmas eve. Went out with a friend of mine for a dinner and chillout. Had a Kurobuta (black pig) Xmas meal set at Tonkichi. I think Tonkichi has it's reputation of serving good pork cutlets dishes. The pork cutlet was crispy on the outside yet it doesn't have the hard texture of the normal pork meat on the inside. Served with a huge serving of salad to cool down your mouth after biting the hot pork cutlet, it is well complimented. There were additional dishes of miso soup, chawanmushi and a small bowl of soba. It's a really filling dinner.

Time for some chilling out. I wanted to try out this bar/restaurant called KPO which was the old post office at killiney that was converted to a bar. It's two stories high so you can choose to sit on the first or second floor.

The place has a nice ambience especially if you sit in the outside. Inside of the bar was nice as well with comfortable big single sofa sits.



The table top

The happy hours end at 8pm while they currently have tiger beers promotion at $7 per bottle and a bucket of 6 for $40. Happy hours price of other beers are about $7, after that it's double price. The main grouses was the music selections were boring and abit too loud for a chat in the inside. Also there was a lack of a live music band which I think will bring in a better atmosphere. Probably it's concept was more of a chill-and-chat through the night bar.

Added note, it does serve food as well and it has a all-day breakfast meal.

KPO Cafe Bar
1 Killiney Road
Killiney Post Office

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Christmas

Few more days to Christmas. Just a few thoughts, do you have someone to miss? Will it be a lonely Christmas?

A verse from a song by Mariah Carey:

Miss you most (At Christmas time)

Because I miss you
Most at Christmas time
And I can't get you
Get you off my mind
Every other season comes along
And I'm all right
But then I miss you, most at Christmas time.....

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Hanoi Part 3

After meeting up with another friend Hanh, we all went for lunch. This girl knows all the good and cheapest food in Hanoi! Had some dry vermicelli topped with toufu, peanuts and pork ear sausages! OH SO YUMMY! I'm starting to salivate when I think of the good food again. The pork ear sausage was very crunchy with bits of cartilage in it and the peanuts added a nutty flavor to the vermicelli.

In Vietnam, almost every food stall have very small and short tables and chairs as if they are for kindergarten kids. I felt like a kid whenever I sat on those chairs, so cute~

After a full meal, we travelled to the countryside of Hanoi in bikes. It was quite a long ride. Hanoi is really huge, bigger than Singapore and it has just extended it's region to become new Hanoi.

Kinda risky taking photos while riding a bike.

The air in Hanoi is extremely polluted. Wearing a mask is recommended when on the the road or near the main road cause you can really smell the bad exhaust from the overcrowding vehicles.

We reached part of the countryside where the air is so much fresher. You can really smell the difference and the area is beautiful and quiet. The serene place makes you feel happy. I got to see ducks, cows and horses! Many crops were grown in the countryside. Pity it's in the winter cause most crops were already harvested so we didn't get to see much flowers. We played around till some villagers started to chase us with pitchforks... (Just kidding!) We did have to run cause some villagers spotted us and thought we were destroying their crops. Lol.

Wild ducks!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Hanoi Part 2


Woke up in the early morning at about 6.30 am. You do not need an alarm clock to wake you up cause the streets will be honking away in the busy morning. Hanoi's time is 1 hr earlier than Singapore's for your information. My friend, Thuy and I had breakfast in the morning at some street stall nearby her mom's shophouse. In Hanoi, there are many street food scattered around. They are cheap and good. Although to some it might not be hygienic, I had no problems with the food as I did not get any diarrhoea(Thank god!).

I noticed many street stalls in Hanoi do not sell rice related dishes. Most, in fact, all of I have seen were those rice noodles. But they come in many different forms like Pho which is our normal "chu mi fen"; kway teow; bee hoon; instant noodles and others which I can't remember. Anyway they are all yummy!

Met up with another of her friend, Hieu who brought us around Hanoi for sightseeing. We went to the first university of Hanoi which was over 900 years old. It's the school where officials were chosen based on imperial exams. Actually it's like a Chinese school. Basically, most of the ancient stuffs are all Chinese origin. Vietnam probably was under China at some point of time or they were very influenced by Chinese teachings in the olden days.

Inside of the university you can see traditional Chinese courtyard and rooms where the students will stay and study. In fact the students there were taught teachings of Confucius, Mencius etc. Chinese right? Haha.

This was the uniforms of the officials serving the King.

After the visit, we wanted to go to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum but it was closed. We managed to visit it at a later date. We then ride back to my Hieu's medical university to get another friend for some more fun! Will continue in Part 3~

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Hanoi

Been back to Singapore, had a good rest after a tiring trip to Hanoi. Hence decided to blog about it for those who are wondering about Vietnam.

My trip to vietnam was a short one as I planned the duration which is enough for my budget which is about $500(An extremely low one!). As it was my first time on a trip alone, so this was just a tryout as I wanted to visit Vietnam for a very long time. I bought the tickets during the busiest school schedule so I did not have enough time to research what are the places to go in Vietnam, just whacked about 5 days of trip from 13 to 17 December. Before that, I consulted my "Tong Shu planner" to check which dates were suitable or you could say "lucky" for flying and I chose 13 and 17 for flying as both were good days for fruitful trip. Indeed, I had a wonderful trip there. So therefore I guess choosing a good date to fly is quite important!


Reached the airport in the night, there is a money changer there so you can change your money into Vietnam Dong. I followed a friend home and did a homestay in Hanoi. She was picked up by her dad and we took a taxi home. Heard about cheating stories about taxis in Vietnam and my friend told me this is quite true. So therefore be careful when taking a taxi, make sure that there is a meter running. One of the people I met told me there are some taxis in Hanoi which are more reliable but I forgot which ones were they.


Had a welcome dinner by their family in the shophouse. Hanoi's streets are small and narrow and the traffic was just a killer. Many have motorbikes cause of the narrow streets and they can weave through the traffic during jams.


The weather there was still quite cool and normal during that time. Stayed at my friend's home for the night. More to come!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Hanoi

Just back from a trip to Hanoi. Really tired, but fun!

Friday, December 11, 2009

New Blog!

I have created a new blog called "Investing the wave". It will be a blog about investing and trading featuring news, insights and maybe tips. Enjoy!

http://investingthewave.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Exams are finally over!


Finally finished my exams today!

Goodbye to my Ah Ma too.............

Somehow this semester has taken a great toll me. Exams are just tiring. I'm tired. Really. I need a good break.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Something to ponder upon...


From a certain forum:

What woman want is actually the opposite

"Those are all "nice guy" traits and although they're important, they aren't going to flick those attraction switches and that part isn't up to me, attraction isn't a choice and if the rule was that nice guys attracted the hottest women then nice guys would be the prize. Women are attracted to the "bad guys", the ones that aren't tamed, that chart their own course, that are confident, don't care about other people's opinions, it's extremely masculine and that's what women want, masculinity. Alot of guys start off that way, very masculine, family life and stable r/s changes them, they become these responsible, mature, parent, spouse provider types and all these women they're with start having MLC's and start pursuing affairs with other men. They miss the masculinity and the excitement and feel they're being killed slowly by the boredom."

Quoted from another site where people deal with the simple facts that in developed societies, women account for 50% of extramarital affairs and 70% of divorce filings. Women are going into MLCs (mid life crises) by the droves and younger than ever before. "I need to find my identity", "I lost myself in the Marriage or r/s", "I just don't feel the connection anymore". Bullsh*t. They won't be having time for these if they were dealing with a husband / bf they respected and wanted to keep. But the husbands / bfs are too busy being Nice Guys and women start taking things for granted.

Guys - there is a difference between being a nice guy and a Nice Guy. Go google and read "No More Mr. Nice Guy". It'll tell you why it kills your r/s with women if you try to be the nice, considerate stereotype women SAY they want. Guys SHOULD respect women, but in our changed society, never emasculate yourself and commit r/s suicide by not commanding respect from women. Women tie feelings of love and respect very closely - they cannot love someone they don't respect. Unfortunately, boredom and stability erodes that respect in long term r/s. And there is a huge difference in providing security and commitment and being a doormat.

Gals, the remainder of this post and the next ones (if any) will make heavy reference to "Women's Infidelity - Living in Limbo", yes written by a woman, Michelle Langley. Although her study centers much in the USA, it does indicate trends that apply universally, and anyone who thinks Asian society is not converging into Western modes of behaviour is living in lala land.

Here's the first FACT. Women are no more "naturally" monogamous than men. Biochemical research indicates a 4 year sexual cycle for women. Without a marital structure in other words, women women tend to "liberate" themselves from their partner. Langley cites Helen Fisher's "Anatomy of love" and Burnham and Phelan's "Mean genes" to explain why separation / divorce / break up are most likely to occur around the 4th year of a r/s. This applies across 60 different cultures statistically.

Female sexual behaviour is governed by a few chemicals. One - Pheylethylamine, produces the feeling of infatuation, or in FP-speak, "connection", "the one", "butterflies in the tummy" and other forms of crap. As with other drugs, it is addictive and requires higher and higher doses to create the same effect. Over time, it loses its power and infatuation is replaced by a calm and stable attachment ( IMHO - true love). But this calm feeling is more like a narcotic / sedative and cannot match the rush given by the PEAs or "love" hormones. That's why so many women feel the "love" has gone, although they "care" for their SOs.

Langley herself felt bored and unhappy in her r/s for no apparent reason at one point. Her subsequent research came up with some interesting findings:

- Women are MORE likely than men to confuse sexual attraction with love. They believe that if they find the "right person, intense feelings can last. They are taught since young that they should only want sex with someone they "love". So when she desires a man, she thinks she's in love, and when the feeling fades, she thinks she's out of love or something is wrong.

- Women often speak of wanting commitment from men, but the opposite is often true. "women often form r/s with men who are emotionally inaccessible". Instead of choosing men who are interested in forming a r/s, they choose men who make them feel insecure. Insecurity creates the motivation, excitement, the thrill of the chase. Women who seek excitement within their own r/s or marriage (and many do) will often forego the possibility of real r/s for a fantasy one.

- Men want sex while women want marriage. Nope. Women often find they want to GET married, not BE married. They often love not so much their husband, but the fantasy ingrained in them since young, where the SO is no more than a necessary prop. Women look forward to the day their whole lives, and this sets them up for the big crash. They are content, even in not-so-fulfilling r/s, as long as some part of the fantasy is left to play out. When a woman wants to get married, she is prepared to overlook a lot, even be badly treated. after that, the pursuit is over, and with time the buzz drastically reduces. some then feel so stupid for even wanting it so badly in the first place. One thing that DOES change after marriage / stable r/s is the willingness of women to overlook the SO's faults. Toleration of these in the pursuit of fantasy creates repressed anger that comes out when boredom sets in.

Exams in Progress....


Will be back after the exams! Stay tuned!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Flirtatious life?

Back from another clubbing night at Zirca. Thank god that I have a clubbing partner that is always ready to club and enjoy the night. I enjoy the music, dance and some alcohol that makes me high. I repeat, HIGH not DRUNK. I do not like being drunk where you just topple down on the floor. It's an ugly sight. Why bother to get so drunk till you can't even enjoy the night? Met a friend of a friend. Found that he stayed just 2 floors below me, and he told me he has noticed me since the poly school days! OMG how come I have never even seen him before? Kind of creepy.......

One thing. Hey I may look like the kind of guy who has many woman by my side but in actual fact I'm just a very shy guy. I'm not really the kind who go by and approach girls. It's kind of bad being shy, so I should change myself to be more outgoing. Well, I was once abit more outgoing till maybe my confidence broke long time ago. Nothing hurts more than breaking my big ego. So I should start again, rebuilding a bruised ego.

Friday, October 09, 2009

500 Days of Winter

I get many questions asking me why am I still single despite being in University where there are so many choices of potential mates. No, I'm not gay. It's just that maybe it isn't the ripe time yet to commit to a relationship. Being in a relationship before, what's more a long distance relationship, I endured one of the toughest level of love. In that relationship, I learnt that love needs lots of commitment and money. Love can be sweet. During that time, I really enjoyed being in such wonderful relationship of love, care and kisses. I gave all my into that relationship and she too gave her all. It was afterall our first love. Life was tough, especially we only get to date once every 4 months or more. But every trip flown was an exciting one having to see each other again finally after waiting. It's like the tale of the cowherd boy and weaving girl. However, every tale has an ending. Her, now being a working adult have less time to commit to such relationship as workload increases. Soon the feeling fades and we parted. Girls being girls, no matter how hard they can look, they will show some weakness and insecurity. She wanted back her singlehood. I was devastated for quite sometime as the loneliness just creeps back. Couldn't blame her much, we are afterall, being in the toughest relationship ever. Being a student, I also have to finish my studies first. A poor student to be exact. So there were just too many barriers in this relationship. But this relationship has really changed me. It helps me to be a better man.
Right now I just want to concentrate on generating wealth. Maybe the breakup has caused me to have this warped thinking. But having spent time in Hong Kong where the people are more pragmatic and independent led me to take things into my own hands instead of being controlled by "you know what". At least you will have more freedom. It will take time, and I hope, I'll attain that freedom.
As for girls, well I do still have crushes and always on the lookout for the right one, cause you might never know when will "The One" pops up.

Stay tuned next week.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

IPT

Finished my IPT session today. The last day is always IPPT. Somehow I don't think I can run anymore. I did fine for situps and pullups but always for lower limbs tests I could never pass or have problems passing if I'm slack. Never had strong legs since young. But anyway don't have to be bothered by army again until next birthday.

Tomorrow will be attending one of my army friend's ROM. Finally he is getting married to his beau. Congrats!

Trio win Nobel for Chemistry

Not that I care who won, but this year for Chemistry is due do mapping of ribosomes.

STOCKHOLM (AP) - AMERICANS Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Israeli Ada Yonath won the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for mapping ribosomes, the protein-producing factories within cells, at the atomic level.

Ms Yonath is the fourth woman to win the Nobel chemistry prize and the first since 1964, when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin of Britain received the prize. This year's three laureates all generated three-dimensional models that show how different antibiotics bind to ribosomes.

'These models are now used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering,' the academy said in its announcement.

'All three have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome,' the academy said.

Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, established the Nobel Prizes in his will in 1895. The first awards were handed out six years later. Each prize comes with a 10 million kronor (S$2 million) purse, a diploma, a gold medal and an invitation to the prize ceremony in Stockholm on Dec 10. The Peace Prize is handed out in Oslo. -- AP

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Term break ending

Term break is ending soon. I didn't spend much time studying. Seems there were so many things to do! Worked for 3 days in GovWare 09. It's a security conference where it holds many talks and exhibitions about internet security. It is a time where IT people come together to learn from each other how to protect their company data and prevent hacking. Gotta work to get some money for my daily expenses since school is just sucking money and energy out of me. Though the benefit of school is that you get to have holidays! I guess schooling where you can have the most time to do many of your own stuffs like holidays etc. Once you start working, you won't have time to enjoy such life.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Term Break


Term break is finally here. First half of the semester passes really quickly while many of us are still worried on how to study for Neurobiology. Term break is a love and hate kind of affair. Though we love the break from school, it also means that exams are coming......... and there is much to study and catch up with submission of lab reports and tests after the term break. Therefore term break was never really a break for us but.....we are all prone to slacking anyway. September is quite a busy month for me to catch up with friends. I like to hang out and spend time chatting with my friends. It is a kind of escapism from the daily busy life and boredom of school and home. Being holed up alone is just so sad. Spending in September is higher also due to buying of plane ticket to fly to Vietnam after the exams, so gotta work to make up for the spending.

One of the night went to a birthday party of my University friend at Conrad hotel and saw the lobby has a lounge for english tea. Seems like they have good tea, might try that out for relaxation after the exams. But I prefer something with food.

September is a time for me to be more conservative on my portfolio as a correction seem to be coming soon. Though the market went higher in September, it started a downwards slide for the past 3 days. Lost money on OSIM as it did not move as much as I expected hence decided to sell it and liquidify my cash for better stocks.

Soon we will cross to October, which is going to be another sian month as exams are even closer.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Marrying a Rich Guy

Nice article on tips on snagging that rich guy.

Here

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Bearish for now

Did I mentioned US market MACD is showing a bearish signal? STI failed to clear 2700 these few days so expect some down market. However market may ding dong up and down for a consolidation.

*Disclaimer: Not an advice to trade. I'm not responsible for what actions taken.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

STI Might Test 2700

Looking at the MACD and current US market. Seems like Singapore index might test the 2700 pts resistance. If it breaks it has to maintain it for STI to go further up.
On the other hand, US market MACD indicators seem to be starting to trend bearish......

*Disclaimer: The above is not an advice to trade. I will not be held responsible for any actions the reader takes.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

STI kelong

Now last night Dow pushes up to over 9700 pts breaking resistance. Today all markets surged except for Singapore market which dropped. This means Singapore index has not been able to break through the 2700 pts mark yet. If it does not manage to break the resistance for in the next few days then it will continue with it's correction.

*Disclaimer: This is not an advice to trade. I will not be responsible for what actions you take.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Relaxing Tuesday

Woke up on a Tuesday morning, washed up and sat down in front of the computer with a cup of milk on the table. It feels so relaxing today able to wake up at a later timing...............ok I skipped class but nothing beats a good night rest and doing your favorite thing in the morning, reading the news, sipping on a cup of your morning beverage and looking how the market is reacting. I was wondering will I get to do this once I start working? Is this the life that I'll get once I have reached financial freedom?
To achieve this I'll need to be more consistent in building up my profits. Hmmm I wonder what will I be like when I'm older? Will it be wearing suits and hugging ladies?

China Daily ran this photograph with the caption: "Warren Buffett, widely acknowledged as the 'Oracle of Omaha' embraces Li Guilian, chairwoman of Dayan Trands, a sign of the friendship and respect he developed for one of China's leading businesswomen."

Saturday, September 12, 2009

I like the new firefox



The new firefox now got designer background! Isn't it pretty? You can choose the different backgrounds once you updated to the newest firefox.

Headache

Having a big headache today. I think it started yesterday night when I felt chilly and cold through the night with headache. I think school has taken it's toll on my health as the super early wakeups and late night sleeping is causing lots of stress buildup. I'm not sure there's more suffering to come. ARGH.

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Hiking

Went for a trip on Thursday to Bukit Timah Hill organized by one of my module: BS305 Plant Biology. It's actually a field trip to there as a lab session to show us the different types of plant in Bukit Timah Hill. Had to do a lab report after this. *Grumbles*
But it was quite a fun trip as it was a guided tour learning about the types of plant and trees and why do they have certain features that helped them to survive and spread their seeds.
It's been quite a while since I first hiked up to Bukit Timah Hill, probably been years! There's more to be discovered uphill. Heard there's a dairy farm up there so I'll be hiking up there again sometime later.


Thereafter went to watch "Moon" on Friday after lecture at the Picture House. It's a pretty good sci fi film. The first thing that came to my mind when I came across the trailer is that it reminded me of 2001: Space Odyssey. Though the story is pretty basic but it kept me glued to my seat due to the great acting. If you like sci fi shows, then do catch it.