26

26. Past a quarter of a century. Kinda fast when you have grown up. When I was 16, 26 seemed so far away. Now I'm 26. Wow time flies.

Thanks to my dear friends who wished me happy birthday.

I'm happy, yet I feel empty. Being sentimental has its weakness. I remembered my birthday wish last year. It never came true.

How to move on?

I thought I've moved on, but all that memories came back to hunt me again............
Why happy memories can be so regretful?

Happy Tiger Year

Happy Chinese New Year! Wish all a happy and prosperous new year!

Charlie's Corner

Had dinner at Charlie's Corner yesterday night. It is located at Changi Village hawker center. Basically it serves western food and beers. The food was ok but what interest me was the wide variety of foreign beers and alcohols they hold. They had beers from many parts of the world!
This is page 1

Two pages of beers! And that's not all, some beers are not even on the menu. Just talk with the bartender, there are more surprises.

My friend ordered a Japanese liquor that kinda interest me. It's very light and sweet tasting. Very suitable for ladies. It can be served in many different ways: shot, on the rocks, with many ice or warm. Nice, though it's expensive at $29 per bottle.

A Tiger Year

4th of February is the start of the Tiger year. According to the Chinese calender, the new year doesn't start on Chinese New Year. In fact it's always earlier. Now in the tiger year, what is to be expected of the rest of the horoscope. Well, since many of my readers are born in the year of the rat, I'll talk about what's the luck of the rat in 2010.

Rat
This year is going to be a tough year for the rat cause there is no positive stars for us. Hence there will be no helpful people to help us in times of need this year. We are on our own. Rats this year will spend a lot too on either needs or wants, so have to control spending excessively. So this year is going to be tough, as we need to work extra hard just to achieve the same results compared to others.

Sapporo Snow Festival

Sapporo Snow Festival 2010 is going to start soon from 5 Feb to 11 Feb. I have never been to Japan yet but this Sapporo snow festival sure caught my eye. Some tourists went for the 2009 festival and they posted really really nice and pictures. Oh it looks so romantic at night!

The website can be found here.

Hmm Happy juice

Had a tze char dinner with some friends at the HK cafe in Balestier. Liked the pork liver sausage. Very different from the lup cheung. And also satisfying my craving for some happy juice.

Got to taste the chocolate wine. This one is flavoured with orange so it got a "gum" kind of taste. When you sip it, it has a smooth separation of 3 different taste, first the alcohol, then the chocolate and finally a smooth orangy taste. Careful though, it has 25% alcohol content!

The New iPad

Apple just announced their newest product in the line - the iPad. Last night, everyone was anticipating what new product Apple is going to produce. At 2 am (Singapore time), the iPad was announced by Steve Jobs. It's a tablet book, designed for surfing and reading ebooks. Basically it looks like a enlarged version of iPhone. Somehow, it was a disappointment for many as the iPad had less features than the iPhone. Apple is gonna sell it cheap for US$499, which I think is to penetrate the market and get users to buy. I wonder will it sell like hotcakes?

The first thing that comes to my mind - the iPad. Sounds like a new sanitary pad product from Apple.

Woman looking for nonexistent love (Part II)

What do women want?
According to a survey by the Singapore Development Unit (SDU) of 200 single women, over 80% of the women expected the following of men:

- Pay for dates
- Escort them home
- Take initiative in celebrating special occasions like birthdays
- Dress up for special occasions

Nearly a quarter expected men to carry their bags for them, and half consider gentlemanly gestures like opening doors necessary.

What do men want?
A poll of what 85 men expected of their ladies was carried out by Straits Times Urban news supplement revealed the following:

- 78% ranked looks as an important feature they look out for in their date
- A girlfriend must not stop the man from socialising with his girl friends
- A girlfriend must also enjoy going out with his male friends

Stupid Singaporean girls looking for nonexistence love

I got this quote from Erika's blog. I just got me thinking, what is in the minds of Singaporean women? I'm sure every girl wants a good man. It is a simple request right? But when asked to elaborate the kind of guy they want to have, there's more than meets the eye. Commonly desired traits of their guy are (not in particular order):

1. Must be handsome like Wang Lee Hom, Lee Min Ho, Jerry Yan etc.

2. Able to cook like Jamie Oliver

3. Tall

4. Older than them

5. Stable financial income (Stable as in earnings at least more than 3K per month)

6. Drives a car

7. Great personality (Makes them laugh, sensitive yet manly)

I guess there are more, but these are some of the more commonly traits that most Singaporean girls want. Such men do exist but they are rare. That's why as they always lament: "Good men are hard to find, either they are married, dead or turned gay."

You can't totally blame them for having such impossible dreams. Blame it on romance novels written by feminist writers who refuse to accept the true reality. Blame it on the improving lifestyle and society we have now. In today's world, lifestyle is improving as more people get educated. More women today are well educated holding degrees and higher. Expectations will rise with higher education. There is no denying it. People will expect to marry another person with equal or higher qualifications, never lower. Cause we will never lower our standards.

In Singapore, we are taught to be pragmatic. Living in a capitalist country, the only thing that talks is money. Truthfully, without enough money, you cannot survive in Singapore. You have to pay for housing, expenses, etc. It is not cheap staying in Singapore, though it is still cheaper than Tokyo.....

I find that Singaporean men are at the short end of the stick. We serve the nation, we get into university, we graduate, by that time we will be about 25-26 years old. Being a degree holder doesn't guarantee a good job. I've seen some of my friends who have been working a few years but it's not enough to afford a house yet. So we go on to Masters - 2 more years, Phd - fastest 3 years. So if we manage to zip through to a Phd, we will be 30 years old. Congrats, you won't get enough time to earn enough for your retirement. That's why Singaporeans work till they die. Amazingly, our GDP is one of the highest in the world. Cause we have also the super rich living here (Girls take note). Hence the average Singaporean men are undesirable to woman here. I think woman have qualms about Singaporean men here. Some of them are:

1. MCP

2. Bad dress sense (Actually most Singaporeans have bad dress sense cause of the weather)

3. Not gentlemen enough (Cause you don't give us the chance?)

4. They always talk about army

5. BORING (This is the No.1 complain)

So we come to this question, how fantastic Singaporean women are? A quick search on the internet gave some results:

1. Singaporean girls have fantastic fashion sense

2. Singaporean girls have a good sense of humour

3. Singaporean girls are more open about their sexuality

4. Singaporean girls are capable of forming their own opinion

5. Singaporean girls know how to party

6. Singaporean girls are health conscious

7. Singaporean girls are more financially independent

And a quick check on the statistics:

extracted from July 2009 issue of Her World Magazine

Are Singaporean women sexy?

Local men - 86% say yes

Expats - 73% say yes

Local men ranked the way girls dress and confidence as the two most appreciative attributes while expats rank based on body.

Top turn offs of Singaporean woman?

69% of locals say they hate the fake accents which some girls use

67% of expats say Singaporean woman do not speak good english

Are Singaporean woman good at flirting?

79% of locals say NO, finding women too shy, standoffs and not eloquent enough

73% of expats say YES! Saying they love how local woman touch and tease with them

From what it seems, Singapore women are great girls who are very desirable. But they play double standards, shunning local guys and going for expats. (That's where the term "Sarong Party Girls" came about)

Poor Singaporean guys. Are there any hope for them?

So I did a google search on "Singapore men" and all I got were Singapore gay massage and SPA.

Singapore men are either gay or stupid.

OK, that's really demoralizing.

Personality Test

Try this personality test to see what type of person you are and what career is suited for you! Quite accurate!

Personality test based on Jung-Myers-Briggs typology

2010

It's 2010 now! 2009 is over and I would say 2009 was a time of change for me. Learning through the many things to improve myself. Well I did achieve some of my 2009 resolutions which was getting richer through stocks. The year 2010 won't have much of a change from 2009.

My resolutions for 2010 are:

Continue to get richer through stocks and passive income
Continue the discipline of becoming a better investor and speculator
Become a more stylish person
Get better results for exams

James Cameron's Avatar

Watched Avatar in 3D. Absolutely amazing and beautiful. James Cameron revolutionized the usage of 3D in movies! Previously, for many years, 3D movies are just gimmicks which failed to take off because of high cost in converting the cinema for 3D screening and the huge inconvenience using big bulky 3D cameras. But James finally did it with more compact 3D cameras and smart usage of CGI effects and he pulled it off very nicely for this film. Story wise, I can see the signature of Cameron integrating science fiction and aliens. It's a good story. At first watching in 3D was not very comfortable, and dizzying, but after a while you get used to the slower refresh rates and thereafter it just feels natural. I have to recommend to watch it in 3D as this movie was made specially for 3D after so many years in the making. Thumbs up!

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!

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!

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

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.....

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!

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~