Happy birthday to the 26th year old me and bright sunny morning, my mom declared that she wants to do a cafe hunt today and asks me to pick a place. So since we had the car, I had better off pick somewhere so far off the public transport grid.

Despite looking through all the menus for brunch and lunch and whatever, I decided to skip the more expensive places coz my mom has already gave me a big juicy angpao for my bike. Love her to bits for that.

So I decided to pick The Garden Slug. Location? Somewhere pretty far into the private estates at Still road. Don't ever think I'll ever make it there without a car.


My mom was totally surprised that the place was full inside out at 1pm. Cafe culture is filled with youngsters and angmoh families. My dad complained that the printing on the menu is too small for old people to read. I told him old people probably won't even make it here. They will rather have Kopi O at toast box.

We had buttons stuffed with corn and tomatoes which was a nice starter, pumpkin and shrimp pasta, hickory babyback ribs with delicious hickory sauce soaked mash and a wagyu beef burger which was way too over cooked and dry for medium.

Probably will never come back here again to eat. Food was so-so and the place wasn't that nice or fine. All I could see was kitchen smoke floating around the dinning area. Should have done PS cafe at Dempsey.


Funny how my mom was saying that she has never gone to Dempsey before. So we took a drive all the way down for a short walk/recce trip at 3pm in the afternoon. It is one totally confusing place. Many interesting places to have a meal if you have a fat wallet.

Ended up at Ben and Jerry's for ice-cream. Love their very heavy interior, very dense and cozy. My bro's girlfriend sings here Fri and Sat nights. And my mom says that she can totally remember Dempsey from the expensive $32 ice-creams we had - lovely chewy brownie with double scoop and one totally yummy banana crepe.



That was 4pm when we left and we were so full I'm probably not having dinner today. Home for my birthday cake. No song, no candles, just cut and furnish the stomach. I can't believe that my mom bought a 2kg white chocolate walnut cake. 2kg!!!! its huge.

... and brings the office to live at 9am in the morning.

I walked into the office this morning and saw a box of toy accordion on the pedestal between me and Mard's table. Then at 9am in the morning, I picked up the toy and tried rambling some noise on it. No head no tail of music. All it had were buttons on both left and right. But somehow no matter how you mess up all the buttons it sounds so damn good.

Then i figured out the do re mis. And started tempting to play a half fucked doe a deer.  Damn hard to play man, really will need tonnes of practice to get something decent out of it.

Yeah. Greenery on the outside and a whole pile of mess on the inside. how neat can your table be when its soooo tiny? And yes... I'm mostly shoeless in the office

Mard says that she will start bringing in all her little toys. Then G mentioned she has an untouched violin at home and I remembered D has a erhu. We can start a band. We have so many rubbish in the office already. And there really isnt even enough space for it all.



G attempted a damn good first try of the happy birthday song.

In summery -  minimal visiting and a self fulfilling day of fun and adventure. What else can be so good? Esp when it ends with free tickets to Voyage de la vie at RWS. Something I will not really pay to go to myself but would gladly welcome free ones.

First time at Resort World Sentosa, and the place is an utter mood spoiler especially with the tonnes loads of tourist and Chinese New Year escapees. The place was so stuffy and the amount of people here was chocking and nauseating. The show started at 8pm but since it was the first time going to RWS, me and mom decided to get into Sentosa early to check out the place.

I'll probably go straight to Tanjong beach the next time and totally skip the main RWS. Maybe unless someone gets me free tickets to Universal studios.


Free tickets from my aunt coz she cant make it, so it was me, my mom and my cousins. Walked into a very nice and cozy half filled theatre.

And the show really wasnt that nice and fancy. Lacked a little of the pure fantasy theme from the last one I watched in UK. Was very disappointed in it all, total lacked luster. The only part I liked was the fluttering of hands of the juggler guy. And then the show ended abruptly within less than one and half hours.


Next time I might attempt trying to go into Sentosa by bike.

I banged on my gut feel that there will be almost no cars on the roads. I have every faith that Singapore is still at home on second CNY morning and in their beds and will not come out from under their blankets till just before lunch time.

So its a 7.30am drag-myself-out-of-the-house, hope on my bike and ride. Went sightseeing down beach road, bugis,  city hall, stopped at the esplanade, down to Fullerton, down Singapore river in search of a water point.

CNY day 2 really got no where open for a drink. Manage to find a little coffeeshop and ordered myself a teh si in a bag dangling from my right handlebar before cycling down to Marina Bay to finish it up by the Bay and then met B to recce down Marina South area.


Then, it was down to the Marina Barrage, over the dam, through Bay east stretch, then Tanjong Rhu to Stadium Road and the up Mountbatten to old airport for half boiled eggs and a big cup of Teh Peng. Then down Lavander to Novena and back home.

All in 3.5 hours.

I love it, weather is sooooo good. Not a speck of sun and it was so windy.

So proud of myself. I think if i still have my bike next new year I'll probably do the same thing. Really damn shiok to go on the road with nothing much but taxis running around.

Saturday morning woke up with an impromptu agenda at 7am. It was a nice cloudy and cool morning and I had every idea to take my new bike to east coast park, via the old Kallang park connector, since I really have never done that before.

A full 8km of park connectors beside the Kallang River all the way to Kallang Riverside Park. Passed a couple of traffic lights and had to carry my bike up and down 3 overhead bridges and dismount and push over 2 bridges. By the time I hit Kallang Mrt, i decided to try making way to Tanjong Rhu for a ride through bayshore and down to East Coast Park.

Yes. that is my new bike at Kallang Mrt. And then me making a map stop just behind Suntec.

Then I got utterly lost riding on the road along Nicole Highway. Rode all the way to the back of Suntec in total attempt to try to make it over and then decided to head back and take Sims road all the way straight to Marine Parade.

Can't believe that I got lost in CBD Singapore.

Anyway, was heading home and I decided to stop by Old Airport Road for breakfast. It has been years since I was at Old Airport and just yesterday W. was talking about some nice tauhuay there so gave me the idea to make a short turn in for breakfast. Kway Chup not open! Needed a refuel of tehpeng.

In my riding gear, need to get some cycling shirt to put waterbottle and phone. Birthday coming, you can get me a new cycling shirt.

But anyway, the story is that I dint bring my bike lock coz I havent bought one. So I was trying to spot some corner where I could leave my bike while I run to the tau huay store for a bowl. Then from 10m away I spotted a whole group of foldable bikes sitting at the bottom of the steps. Decided to try parking my lockless bike beside them so maybe the owners can help me look out for my bike.

Then I was looking out for the cycling group to see if they were leaving soon. Then there I was, spotted B (one of the bosses) right there in the middle of Old Airport Road Hawker Center. Small world, especially when I happen to be cycling alone with my bike at somewhere far away from home.

Followed B's group back to Kallang coz they said I had to go to this quint little cafe beside the park. Tucked away at the first floor of some old white building was Loysel's Toy Cafe. Everyone came in cars, and there we were in a hoard of bikes parked like gangsters at the side.

Very nice little cafe, but really too bad that I am sweated into my nike tee and too sticky to bother sitting and reading like I really would have. Next time.


 Have no idea what my milege was. Suddenly I'm so tempted to do a morning ride on CNY second day morning right into CBD. Since there really will be no cars around, I guess it would be a damn good ride. Anyone interested?

Keeping track of my little tadpoles - day by day. Can you see those straight ones by the side? That batch has hatched and those curled up ones at the center have not hatched from their jelly sac. Some of them have died but Ill wait for them to rot before changing them out.

Totally forgot to post this up. This is like a whole 3 weeks due. 

We had a little break in the office after lunch looking at E's recent wedding day photos running on slideshow on my computer. Then suddenly, something hit the window, HARD. Me and GX thought that someone threw a shoe or something at the window.

We looked out of the window and saw this lying head on the floor and tongue sticking out. The poor bird flew head first damn hard into the window. Must have seen the reflection of foliage on the window.

Damn cute little wading bird. I took out my guide book in super attempt to try to identify it with my very limited bird knowledge. And in the end we still could not figure out what species of bird it was. R actually picked it up from the floor and tried to make it sit up to recover from concussion.

Poor bird looked damn seh. Like it had drunk a whole bottle of vodka.

Isnt it nice when you work outdoors? Even when you have to admit that the weather the last week was on the ridiculous side of things, you still enjoy the job of hitting it out in the sickeningly hot sun and getting your hands dirty and soaking them in life.

That is why on most days, I really really do love my job.

Pooled out some frog eggs from a planter ditch yesterday and placed them in the office overnight. This morning, those little black dots in lumps of jelly, grew slightly bigger and you could see those tiny little unhatched tadpoles swimming around in their jelly sacs.

Honestly, I have never raised frogs from eggs before (bless my childhood), so this time around it was fun just standing over the side cupboards at the office and staring 2 mins at a time at 5 to 10 times throughout the day staring at these little dots. And i could have sworn that just withing the 8 hours at the office, they have grown at least 1mm in length. Tomorrow when i get back it might be way bigger, maybe even hatched.

We are even betting what species of frog its gonna grow up to be.


Did a little gardening for specimens today. Had to save some samples of rarely seen wildflowers on the field and pot them back at the office. Love it when there really are so many to see and then swatting there in the 2pm hot sun with a metal shovel trying to dig them out from the ground. And then going back to the office in attempt to do cuttings and re-pot them onto the window still.

Just another day at the office. And the best thing is that my boss does it with me. Other than the fact that the super hot weather made it unbearably hot in the aircon-ed office. The afternoon in the office was still so hot it was crazy.

I've always thought that this song was really nice. Christina Perri is one of my latest iPhone repeat mode singers, well.. mostly to listen to 'Jars of Hearts'. Recently this song has been playing on radio and it took me awhile to figure out it was her. Initially I did thought it was one of those slow Miley Cyrus songs. Its really beautiful song (yes, it did cross my mind that Miley can do such nice songs). She does kinda sound Miley-ish with that low tone.



Was listening to this on repeat the whole day. Then i saw the twilight banner on the youtube and decided to go download the latest Twilight, especially since Tuesday when the handball girls were talking about Kristen stewards wedding expression.

Twilight breaking dawn really wasnt THAT bad. I actually did enjoy it although it wasnt that exciting. Already grew out of my vampire phase in secondary school, but the whole love thing in the show really was very nice. Make me think my life sucks. And that really was one amazing wedding. That is what i call a forest wedding.

Janelle -  i cancel the idea for a garden wedding. Now i vote for a forest wedding. haha. Time to go scout for a forest wedding dress.

The lyrics of the song is really nice for a vampire wedding thingy. especially when you just know that Bella is gonna vamp it up at the end.

I have died everyday
waiting for you
Darlin' don't be afraid
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more

 Christina Perri also kinda reminds me of my old hall days with my golden streak. Plus i love her dress

Time off today started with a session at the gym at Paragon, then down to ippudo for a single bowl of pork fat filled ramen with extra garlic for tastes, pickled ginger and then a whole half pint of Saporo draft. So coming back to do that again.

Conclusion is that draft Saporo taste amazing with pickled ginger and ramen. Tastes so much better than the can or bottle types. It was so utterly amazing to have a mid week lunch time beer and have bragging rights over office group chat to share.

Isn't it nice to take two days off in the middle of the first week of 2012 and go run your little errands? 2012 means company benefits are renewed to the new year and it's time for me to go down to JW's clinic to get my teeth patched up.

It has been slightly more than a month since 1/3 of one of my molars chipped off and meal after meal have been getting trapped in between that little 3mm gap at the back of my mouth. Its now patched anewed and I'm ready for my first meal of not getting anything stuck.

So... spent last night goggling some cafes around the dental clinic, apparently that little patch of ulu-ness in Tiong Bahru has about 4 cafes sitting there along the estate waiting for me to enjoy. So I picked the nearest one to the clinic that is reachable by foot - Forty Hands.


The interior was small, and the menu was only limited to toasted sandwiches. Very ang mo kind. And the first counter staff I saw really was an ang mo lady, so I just ordered what she recommended - a Tomato and Cheese toasted sandwich.

I love the menu handing off some recycled wrapping paper on the wall. Stamped on using those DIY alphabet stamps you find at scrapbooking shops and annotated with black markers. If the menu changes, then you tear it off, pull more paper down from the roll hanging on the wall and redo the DIY menu.


I didn't really focus on the book. Spent the entire time looking at people walking in and out of the place. The number of people who walked through those doors, for seat in or takeaways are alot. And a good 50% of them are ang mos.

The toasted sandwich were good, totally tasted like the ones back in Loughborough. I paid $15.50 for a huge toasted sandwich and a tiny cup of cafe latte.


Next time when I have more time and money, I'll try orange thimble just down the road, or Drips Bakery Cafe around the corner. Now I know why Jinx like cafe hopping.

I'm fast and efficient when it comes to blogging photos, especially when I bring my own camera down to take photos. Realize after last week when Jillian came over to my place and we were looking through all our old 2006-2008 photos in my old photo album that we do not take enough photos nowadays. Time to spruce up my blog and photo albums with more recent photos.

We had a lack of photo pot luck dinner on New Years night all the way till 1.00am at Janelle's swimming pool side. Was suppose to try for a BBQ pit but it was all overbooked, so settled for simple pot luck of Janelle's mom's vongole, my bacon and mushroom, jillian's bf's Salad and dapaoed wings and ribs. Plus 3 whole bottles of wine.

I was the only person who prepared their own food, the others cheated, they all other someone else to do the food. But it really was a nice night. They are my only few bunch of friends left in the world and conversation rocks. Should do this more often.

Slept at 2am and by 9am, group chat on whatsapp for plans for the day started. Ended up at Tanglin at cafe at ulu place - Spruce. Nice cozy restaurant/cafe place with simple decor. Got a nice window seat where me, Jill and Kelvin sat for a while while waiting for Nelle, Canice and Shai to turn up.


Dint take too many portrait photos using my camera coz Kelvin's Olympius is way cooler. Makes me wanna buy one mirrorless camera just to supplement my phototaking and blogging. So tempted. But sorry, 2012 is going to be a year of spending of money. Doubt I'll have savings for the year, seeing all the plans that we have been discussing in the afternoon.

We will just have to see how efficient Kelvin takes to upload photos, seeing that the last time he did it, it was only 3 years late. Lets see how fast does he do it this time. If he is not efficient enough then seriously his nice camera is just for storage, not sharing (Jillian please take note).


Food was pricey. On the $20s per plate menu and I had gone for their spruce burger which had sauce and pickles which tasted just like MacDonald's double cheese burger. But their hand cut fries were great with ketchup. Plus a serving of cake and some Lime Key something thingy which tasted like heaven half frozen and so sourly refreshing that I ended up ordering one whole for myself.


We had some discussion of little holiday plans before Nelle, Canice and Shai turned up. Funny how after yesterdays heated conversation about a going-to-be-pre-informed trip to Melbourne hopefully this year, Kelvin and Jillian happened to borrow some travel books from the library on Melbourne, and I was happily scouting for garden dresses at Zara sale 2 hours before.

We were happily making make-believe travel plans and wedding preparations for a wedding we were not even was sure was going to happen. Came up with this beautiful list of things to get. Its amazing how exciting on how we were about it. Seriously hoping it will materialize at the end of 2012.

Was telling Janelle that if she intends to have us over, she must give a 6 months notice, so that we can start scouting for nice clothes at last seasons sale. So that in 6 months, weather at the southern hemisphere will prove climate worthy for 6 months ago northern hemisphere sale items.


Our conversation ended up with Canice and Janelle watching some Bollywood dance sequence at some point of it. And them trying to learn how to do it Bangla way.


I love my little pathetic social circle of friends. Too bad lynette isnt here. All our photos taken are up on Facebook, promptly posted by Kelvin (well done man)

uploaded promptly by Kelvin. lol.