Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Great English Countryside Wedding Experience.

London, Brentwood, UK

Pisa, Florence, Italy

14-24 June 2012


I'd never attended an English country wedding before, so this was one experience I was looking forward to, especially with all my girls!

And it was everything I fantasized it to be- church bells chiming, beautiful ceremony, Sammy looking gorgeous, amazing blue sky even though it was really freezing (that I didn't fantasize, I just expected nothing more of British summer)



The groom's senile grand-dad commented that we were like the United Nations or Spice Girls or something (except he said it in a mildly-racist/sexist way but you kinda let it go cos he is so old), because of all our different ethnic backgrounds and nationalities. We had English Rose, British-Indian, Japanese, French-Muslim, Scottish- Nigerian and of course, Singaporean Chinese. We were truly the centre of attention!


The wedding dinner was held at Rose House-- the Groom's family home in the country, named because red roses are planted in the garden and creeping up the walls (just like Enid Blyton books!). The bouquet was made out of 12 (?) almost-identical red roses lovingly selected by the groom. *Melt*

A heated Marquee (who knew such a thing existed?) was set up in the garden, where we found all sorts of traditional English games, ice-cream and cake selection, copious amounts of alcohol and wonderful food. The wedding lasted well into the wee hours, ended with roast pork baps and a disco. We danced to Alicia Key's New York as well as all the hits from the summer of 99 (Summer girls was our anthem during our West Coast road trip)! So.much.fun. So many memories....

Cake cake cake I love the cake!

Hahaha posh!

I really enjoyed the Great English Wedding Experience. So there are many differences in wedding traditions compared to the more Asian style that I am familiar with. 

But what struck me more than anything was the love that the couple had for each other that was just so luminous

Sometimes when you have been friends for a long time, what sticks in your head tends to be the image of your friend as the person they were when you just met. Sam would always be to me that flirty, friendly 19 year old with the long red hair and great sense of fun. 

That day, I saw Sam through fresh eyes-- the loving, gorgeous, grown-up that Ted was so proud to love and cherish.

L-O-V-E <3



Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The ties that bind

London, Brentwood, UK

Pisa, Florence, Italy

14-24 June 2012

This evening, I bumped into a primary school classmate at a hawker centre next to our old school. We were queuing for Hokkien noodles from one stall. Whilst waiting for our meal to be cooked, we agreed that this had to be our all-time favorite Hokkien mee stall in Singapore, and that we could never ever find another plate quite as delicious.

However, I recounted that other friends (who had not grown up with this stall) whom I had brought to try my beloved mee had invariably found it average. In fact, some found it downright mediocre (I always dismissed their opinions as bad taste).  We were forced to admit that if we were honest with ourselves, the noodles were only so-so. In fact, a little on the "wet" side, not enough ingredients etc etc.

In the end, we had to conclude that it was nostalgia and the associations with our youth which made the dish taste so special. But isn't this always the case? One always looks back at simpler and more romantic times with great fondness.

And so it was this hankering after days gone past and with rose-tinted glasses firmly on my nose, that I accepted an invitation to attend Sam's wedding in the UK. In fact, it was the first time in a long that I had booked an air-ticket more than 3 months in advance. Proud of myself for the advanced planning!

Big Sam and I met 10 years ago on a work exchange in America, where we had summer jobs at the Statue of Liberty in New York. It was only one short summer, but friendships were forged and lives changed forever over the toil of minimum wage, shared student apartments in big bad Brooklyn, road trips on the West Coast, and summer romances.

After summer dreams were ripped at the seams (those summer nights!) we continued to meet up occasionally back in UK, although  we were all at different unis. Contact was by no means anything more than sporadic, but somehow the ties stayed strong over years, continents and life stages. I'm forever amazed at this rare and precious gift, especially when I consider that relationships that lasted longer, or with less distance in between, had crumbled so easily.

I guess if birds of a feather flock together, then we girls must be kindred spirits then as we excitedly prepared for a 10 year reunion to celebrate our wildest girl's transition to matrimony!

Group picture outside the church in Brentwood, which is where Ted's family is from. Such a picturesque town! 







Monday, November 26, 2012

Around Asia in 80 minutes

Legoland (Fine...Johor Bahru, Malaysia) 10 November 2012

Day Trip to the newly open Legoland just across the border!

There weren't that many favorable reviews about Legoland-- usually about how small Legoland is, and that the rides were too kiddy etc, but I found it really fun! Even though it was tropical thunderstorm day alternating between heavy showers and high humidity, we still managed to go on most of the more exciting rides and also visit the key sights of Asia painstakingly put together with what else but Lego? It took some 50 million bricks and I imagine lots of sweat and tears to build Miniland. Respect (and a lot of camwhoring).

Landed in the Legoland airport. 

Karaweik Hall, Myanmar

Thai temple- forgot the name. There were little revolving thai dancers made of Lego as well.


Overheard mother to kid:  " Don't climb over! It's forbidden!" Hahahaha.


 If you don't know where this is, shoot yourself now


Boat Quay! View from my former office! When I sent this photo via Whatsapp to friends, they couldn't even tell it was not the real thing.


Then we headed to KL Sentral for makan


Petronas and KLCC! The twin towers look like they are conducting the dark skies. Very Gotham


Bandar Seri Begawan


Tanah Lot in Bali.


The real thing from my trip in 2008!


Hoi An-- Unesco World Heritage site which I have always wanted to go to!



Adventure Land. Don't you just love water rides? This one was pretty good although we were already wet because of the rain.There are even ringgit-operated dryers which work like huge hair-dryers for you to dry off after the ride. Would be nice if they were working though.

I pity these 2 teachers who had to accompany their primary school charges on the ride. The two machiks (malay for auntie) did not look at the excitement seeking sorts. 


Dragon school to entertain you whilst queuing for the roller coaster. Too bad the voice recording was a bit koyak.



After tutorial on how to breathe fire or cough smoke, we headed back to medieval Lego Kingdom for another Dragon ride. 



After a day of play.....we were like that.... (tired I mean, not drunk!)


But still took time to photobomb this lonely old man sleeping by the lake waiting for his kids....


Play happy families with the machik-machik....


And end the day with yummy Chilli Crab in CCK of all places!

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Yeah! Shanghai

Shanghai, China  11-17 November 2012

One of my most fun work trips EVER!

Since the bulk of my work trips have been in-and-out between airport, hotel and client, I never really enjoyed travelling for business much.

So this business trip I really enjoyed as it was spent hanging out with my regional colleagues at a conference, and that included a few nights of (too much) rich Chinese food and (too much) drinks. It was alot of hard work and planning no doubt, but I found the work sessions very informative and came away with lots of knowledge and more importantly, understanding and respect for the work done in different countries. I have so much to learn!

Proof that there was work involved. Then again..maybe not!
I had a couple of days extension with the sole mission to visit pandas, although along the way, I managed to squeeze in Hangzhou, catch ups with old friends and meet new ones.

Big part of any trip for me is always FOOD.

And top of my agenda was of course to try the Shanghai Hairy Crab, this being in season. I must say I cannot really appreciate this delicacy. It seems a little too much like hard work to work through this dainty crustacean to get at the tiny silvers of meat. I definitely prefer the juicy Sri Lankan crabs. Plus I'm not really a big fan of roe-- and my lack of preference appears justified based on what I found about on the internet about the crab roe. According to the online authority that is Wiki-Ask,  male roe could either be coagulated sperm or fats gained from a summer of the crab gorging itself on whatever crabs eat. Yummy!


 
As for the rest of Shanghainese food, I can summarise it as dried chillis/ oil with XXX-- choose from fish, chicken, pork, potatoes or veggies.
Varying amounts of chillis and spices!

But we did have a couple of extremely generous spreads at the event-- in fact I found the Chinese extremely generous with the treats-- be it friends or work, and often we would have way, way too much food (and painful hours in the gym to follow). Some of the delicacies we sampled:


Favorite is the sweet pumpkin and corn cold dish. Sweet sweet!
 
One other reason why I enjoyed myself so much this trip was the company.


Ex-colleague brought me to this cute cafe in Little Korea. The teddiess are installed with some
chip recording your order so that the waiters can find and serve you. Sho cute!
 This was the first time I met many of my regional colleagues but we had a whale of a time over dinner, bar and club hopping-- ver-eating, Gangnam style, stage performances and heartfelt confessions about plastic surgery-- it was no-holds-bar all the way!  Even the big boss was a good sport who stayed out till 2am-- and there were many throbbing heads and red eyes the next day with slides to be finalised and presentations to be made.

Finally I had the chance to catch up with a university mate whom I have not seen since 2003!!! Too crazy-- but we both looked exactly the same and it seemed like no time had passed at all. (although I'm proud to say my Mandarin has improved since then hahha. Thanks CC for buying that gorgeous dinner and hope to entice you to visit Singapore one day!

Squeezing in some sight-seeing:

Yu Yuan-- Shanghai Old City. Unfortunately, we were only at the Tourist Market but didn't get to
see the gardens or the temple.

View of the Bund from the restaurant 3 on the Bund.
This was the last day and by that time, I simply couldn't face another Shanghainese meal, delicious as the dim sum looked!


Too crowded to really enjoy the lake, but the lovely gardens and tea plantation were just too beautiful. Lucky residents of Hangzhou!
And what of my current obsession?

Oblivious to ardent admirers


Fun facts about pandas! I weigh the same as a wild panda!
 The trip to the Shanghai zoo was not a total loss though. I had a good laugh at the gay/myopic/very confused deer which kept trying to mount the alpha deer, much to the puzzlement of the other female deer in the vicinity. The object of affection though, appeared only mildly annoyed at the disruption to his meal time.

All in all, great trip. I wish all work trips can be this fun!

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Face

Greater Manila, 27-30 August 2012

This was my second time to Manila for business trip, but this time I was not staying in the city itself, Instead, we were put up at a tiny hotel in an industrial estate were the client was based.

The hotel was quite literally in the middle of nowhere, and was nothing remarkable apart from its unusual choice of purple satin pillow cases. Oddly enough, the only restaurant in the hotel had a Japanese name. It didn't exactly serve Japanese food though, so I couldn't figure that one out (although could be because of the Asahi plant nearby and therefore hotel trying to cater to the Japanese businessmen who stayed there).

I guess one interesting thing that happened on the trip was getting to taste a local Filipino delicacy sie-sie.


It's probably not something that I would have picked out of the menu myself, and I only tried it as I had a Filipino colleague who was doing the honours.

In a impromptu trip to the Philippines with Potato and Ms Lim years ago, we once bumped into a Caucasian guy on a long-distance bus, and he uttered the prophetic words "The Philippines has the baddest (sic) food in Asia". True enough, we ended up with fast-food most of that trip as we couldn't quite appreciate the local delights then. My opinion remains unchanged three trips in.

When the sizzling plate of sie-sie arrived, it smelled pretty good (how wrong can grilled meat go?) and was pleasantly unidentifiable. All of us gamely took a bite of the salty, oddly chewy meat which was neither good nor bad and tried to figure out what we were swallowing.

Turns out sie-sie is pig face, so all the chewy meat was the cartilage and bones. I suppose, being Chinese, this isn't too disgusting as food in the whole scheme of things. Have definitely eaten more gross stuff than pig's face  (fish eyeballs, innards come to mind).

I guess people who have pig's heads hung at their door by money-lenders can try to turn it into a meal to save money so they can pay off their debts faster?


Sunday, November 4, 2012

An Ode to Orange Food

Seoul, 6-12 Oct 2012

Since coming back from Korea, I've been missing the orange-coloured food there (and indeed, most of the traditional dishes were!).

Chatting with my oldest friend, we came up with the idea of organising a travel-culinary themed gathering-- everyone to cook one dish related/memorable to their time abroad.

We were so pleased with this interesting idea! And what good food there was as well! There was a  yummy cabbage rice (nicked named "giam cai png") from time and money starved student days in Oz, mussels-from-brussels, egg parmagiana from Bella Italia, and very good Asia Lor Bak and  Balinese satay!

I was two hours late, so i didn't get a chance to cook my Korean inspired orange food, instead sponging off the fantastic cooking prepared for others!

But since I had all the ingredients for Budae Jjigae (or Korean army stew), that became my lunch for today. While I didn't exactly have this particular dish when I was in Seoul, I figured the taste is more or less the same as the other orange coloured food that the Koreans are so fond of.

Legend has it that the origins of this dish was in post-American war Uijoengbu, when there was food scarcity. So the locals living near the army bases invented this dish by throwing together whatever they could find into a stew-- and it so happened that these foods were US army surpluses--- sausages, spam, cheese, BAKED BEANS-- and all that good stuff. The ubiquitous kimchi and red chilli paste were added in for that familiar flavour, and just to make sure your cholesterol and sodium intake hits the roof, instant ramen added the finishing touch to this very fusion mix.

I didn't quite have the guts to add in baked beans-- that definitely sounds tummyache inducing, so I had mushrooms, sausages, egg and some frozen dumplings. Tasted exactly like Korean ramen with a lot of ingredients rather than anything too special. But the added dollop of chilli paste did give it a kick and had me wiping away streams of sweat  despite it being such a cold rainy day.

So a recap of memorable meals in Korea (not that many food pictures despite being Asian, most of the time I were just too hungry! LST did create a tradition of camwhoring with food on the trip though, but the focus was on her face! )


At Hello Kitty Cafe in Samcheongdong. Was dragged in against my will. 
Birthday treat! Korean Fried Chicken and beer was yummy but after two pieces I couldn't eat anymore and was scolded by LST the shatan.

Korean glass noodles which is a fav of mine at Bibigo in Singapore. Actually I preferred Bibigo's!
Omigod Dakgalbi, which is chicken and veg stir-fried on a hotplate with orange sauce. After eating half of the meat, you have the option of adding rice and Mozzarella cheese. So good. 
Turns out Samcheongdong was right at the foot of Bukchon. Celebrated my discovery by having a  very expensive fruit waffle (S$15). Although the waffle was super crispy, just the way I like it, couldn't finish it all, and it was really too cold to be having ice-cream too!

Read about Gwangjung market in some Malaysian magazine, which claims you can "eat non-stop from the start to the end of the market". Which is alright if you wanna eat blood sausages and innards I guess. I don't eat such stuff, and to be honest didn't really fancy any of the other foods there (porridge, dumplings and fried fish made up the rest of the options). But forced myself to order some fried assorted odds and ends since I was already there and wanted to try something different. For my efforts, the lady boss (who I thought didn't speak a common language with me and took ages to understand my order) started commenting in Mandarin later why I would travel and eat alone. So sad, kena judged by strangers.
Best burger in my life! At the airport before flying off. Super fresh and  juicy-- both the burger and the tomato. Would die for one now!
Our supper with rice wine and white oreos. Kinda tasted like instant tomato spaghetti. 
Our posh lunch in Jungsik in Gangnam (cue Oppa Gangnam style!) Flavors were much more  subtle  and sophisticated than the other meals we had. Presentation was so innovative as well.
Jajeongmeon at a random auntie run shop at a corner of Dongdaemon. I always love going  to places  frequented by locals. Even though the area is very touristy, this shop was slightly off the main street, and only had a few dishes. Auntie had no English and I wished I knew the Korean word for 'delicious' to thank her, I almost had tears in my eyes it was so good!
Warming up with pumpkin latte. I love pumpkin anything!
Traditional Korean bar snacks. So huge we couldn't finish. Inside was Kimchi (what else!) and beef.
Trying out LST's patented camwhore-with-food  shot!
Realised that not a lot of the food pictured in this post was orange. Oh well!!