from one guy to Three

I'd never been so blanked out before in my life, I'm telling you.

D*** miserable it was to sit there staring out the big glass window wondering what the heck I was going to do with the deadline looming so close and with nothing- absolutely nothing- in my head.

There're no excuses, or even if there are, they're few and far between. I couldn't go tell the boss that I'd nothing to hand in, could I? Neither could I go tell him to please wait, it is coming, could I?

But phew, a faint inkling came, and soon, there was this possibility, and there was that possibility. Soon one guy came, then later another one, and another one, and soon the gals came along too, and they all appeared like holograms in front of me.

And now I have three guys and three gals.

There's still work ahead, of course, I've not fleshed out what I'm going to do with them, but hey, at least I know one thing now. Sitting there staring and wondering and questioning does not always grant you answers. Sometimes it means stepping away from the self-enquiries , it means taking a break from the cognizance and learning to spin the camera around to look at it from the other side.

And then, slowly, surely, steadily, it comes.

Always. 

matcha And Azuki beans

There is this scene in the anime version of Avengers that has this character at a cafe. Why he's there, what he's there for, I don't quite recall, but the significant part of this scene lies in the presence of Iron Man sitting on his shoulder- and the fact that he's eating six bowls of dessert. Now, this character is usually disciplined, and so to have succumbed to the deliciousness of the little glutinous rice balls, and to have eaten that many bowls in one sitting only means one thing.

It means that there has to be something very delicious about it, and that it's no use just seeing a character enjoy it onscreen, and that you've got to go try it out yourself.

Today we wanted dessert.

Specifically, we wanted dessert at the Japanese cafes.

So after sharing a pizza of salmon and avocado at Shokudo Cathay Cineleisure- a diner on the upper floors where sunlight streams through the glass windows and where you can look across to the Singapore Power Building- we had this.  







matcha, mochi and azuki beans!



A snow-covered mountain of sorts that is soft, snowy, melting and faintly sweet, topped with little drops of azuki beans that look like gorgeous rock formations. A mountain which sits atop a bed of matcha shaved ice and which has surrounding its base, mochi coated all over with matcha powder, little mochi balls, and neat cubes of matcha jelly . Oh, and one little chestnut on the summit.

I got the chestnut. :)

Later in the evening, we were at Vivocity, and if you've been to the mall, you know that there're a few dessert cafes on the ground floor near where the water is. If you haven't been there, now you know.

Amongst all the cafes there's this one called St. Marc's. It's a cosy place, with warm lighting and comfortable chairs and like what most Japanese cafes have, a glass counter-cabinet at the entrance where bright, pretty models of their offerings entice you to enter and enjoy.

We stood there awhile, trying to make up our minds whether to go for the crepe or the waffle or the other desserts, until finally we decided on the waffle.

It was a good choice. 



hello, powdery icy buttery waffle

Thick, crispy and buttery, the waffle was served warm. There was a huge vanilla soft serve plopped atop, there were azuki beans nestling snugly at the side like a scattering of volcanic rock pebbles and cascading down the soft serve like a sprinkling of snow there was a scattering of rich green matcha powder. The flavors were wonderful. The vanilla was rich, the matcha tinted slightly bitter, the waffle buttery, the beans distinctly sweet.

And best of all, because the soft serve melts real fast, we ended up having great fun eating it, which, if I recall correctly, went something like this: A dip of the fork at the tip of the summit, a flick round the swirly, whirly curves, one little dollop of soft serve then knifed onto a single waffle square.



the Genki sushi Game

Some would call this a kiddy restaurant. Others would call this a family-friendly restaurant targeted for young children.

 

I'd like to call this a restaurant for anyone who is young at heart.

 

Because it's pretty much a game experience from the start.

 

Once you're seated at Genki Sushi, wait staff hand you a pad and into it you make your orders. Now, that might not be so big a deal, you say, given that many restaurants have embraced such technology to speed up their processes, but see, it's more than just a systematic, computerized, smart technology process. 

 

They've made it into a game for the consumer. 

 

There's a little train at the bottom of each page, and what you have to do is to press the < and the > button to get to the right selection, drag and drop the items- four at a time- to fit the  four windows of the train, press the 'okay' button, and watch  as the train zooms off the screen.

 

Presumably into the kitchen.

 

You'd think the game stops there.

 

But no, it doesn't. The game continues with the way your food is served... via a real train with little plates fitted snugly onto it like seated passengers- four plates at a time, the same way like how you sent your orders in. It's what we call a continuity- much like theme parks- where the virtual content on your screens continues into a reality mode that is tangible, visible and experiential.

 

It's remarkable fun watching all the trains zip by on the tracks above your head, so much so that even the waiting becomes an interesting time as you try guessing whether the train you see heading towards you is the one bearing your plates, and then feel a tad disappointed when it whooshes past you.

 



choo choo train choo choo train

 

But no matter.

 

You've got the self-made cup of ocha- ocha powder they offer- that you sip on whilst you wait. It doesn't take long, and finally, with a 'ding ding ding!!" that alerts you, the train stops at your table and you take the plates down, then press the big button on top and watch as the train whooshes back to the station.

 

We've been here a few times, and each time our orders have become our regulars. There's this seared salmon with black pepper where there're round peppercorns rolling all around your tongue.







wanna count the peppercorns?

There's this other seared salmon with pollock roe that tastes salty and squishy all at the same time. We've ordered the hana sushi, which is four pieces of salmon sashimi hugging a coin-shaped piece of rice and with a generous dollop of mayonnaise on top.

We can't get enough of the salmon belly either. We've had the vegetable kakiage that comes with a sweet lovely sauce and which makes great dining fun whether you tear at it with the chopsticks, whether you give up on the chopsticks attempt and go barbaric, yanking at it with your hands or whether you poke directly into the fried vegetable tower and twist it apart.

And then there're the fried oysters. Huge juicy oysters wrapped in a batter deep fried.

This is a country where Japanese cuisines of varying standards abound. In many places sushi is readily available. It depends on how you like your sushi to be, and how your wallet is for the day, and you'll lack no choices at the restaurants, the diners, the in-hotel restaurants, the cafes, the chain cafes, or even the supermarket.

But rare is it when a diner gets a juxtaposition of simple, childlike fun coupled with the thrill of seeing virtual trains and mechanical ones go hand in hand.

And rare is it here too that a sushi meal itself reminds you that Japan, with her cultures and customs, with her history and heritage, with her dynasties and her people, is also a place of anime, toys, games and fun.

 



chabuton Ramen

It's lunch time and I'm in the Orchard-Somerset area.

Specifically, I'm in the 313 Somerset shopping mall where there's a pretty good presence of dining options ranging from the uber casual to the casual. At the basement there're all the little popups that offer you a variety of snacks and takeaway meals. You've got Marche upstairs, a food court on the top floor and Popeye's Chicken somewhere. 

But today I'm in the mood for a bowl of ramen- and when I'm in 313 with the mood for ramen holding me, and it being lunch time, there's only one place to go.

Chabuton Ramen- at Basement One.

Because they've got a great lunch set on the menu where for $13/-, you get one bowl of ramen, one side dish, one dessert and one drink.




chabuton tonkotsu ramen

You could have the gyozas for  your side dish- they're pretty popular- but I like the tatsuta age, which is chicken pieces delicately deep fried and served with shredded lettuce plus a dollop of mayonnaise. The beverage of choice is either hot or cold green tea and for dessert, you get an offering of either mochi or konnyaku jellies. I like my tea hot, and I like the konnyaku jellies. :)

I choose the tonkotsu ramen today. 

Actually, I choose the tonkotsu ramen most of the time. :) 

Because between the shio, the shoyu, the spicy and the tonkotsu, the broth concocted from pork bones simmered in the pot for hours is what speaks most to me. Here at Chabuton, they do it such where I can taste the salt, yet the soup is not overwhelmingly salty, I can taste the pork, yet there is none of the heavy aftertaste sometimes found in pork-based soups. And there's a slight creamy, milky texture which I particularly fancy.

The broth alone would be comforting enough for me- that's how rounded it is on my palate- but I'm hungry, and so I work the chopsticks over my ramen.

They're soft, cooked the way I requested, with just the right amount of oil and salt. On top of the noodles lies the thin slice of char siew, balancing delicately with crunchy chopped bamboo shoots on the side and a scattering of fresh, green chopped leeks all over.

I'm enjoying my lunch very much today. I'm enjoying the Moment that I'm receiving in this atmosphere, this ambience. You see, for some, ramen might be just one of the meals to get through the day.

For me, though, to have a bowl of ramen here is to grant myself a Time where I allow myself to sit and embrace the Moment as she wraps me with her warmth, her presence, her calmness and her stillness through the connections of natural elements in her food, thorugh the beauty of structure, and through the symmetry of form.  
 





the toothpicks



and the chopsticks

hydrolytes for a hot HOT Day

It's a very, very warm day today.

I could have water or seltzers or sparkling water or fruit juice drinks or fruit juices or soft drinks or iced tea, which are all thirst-quenching, but instead I'm going for this.
 

100% coconut water

 

It's got a much wider distribution channel now.

I'm seeing it at supermarkets and provision stores. At supermarkets the packets aren't always placed where you think they're supposed to be, and you have to search here and there because they're kind of shelved all over the place. They could be in cartons arranged near the fruit juices or near the counters. They could be on the shelf next to the Ceres fruit juice drinks, or right above where the frozen pizzas are. They could be at the bottled water section, or the bottled tea section. At one supermarket, I found them next to the bottles of Ribena.

It's a hard category to place, this one, it being not a soft drink but neither a bottled water, it being not a fruit juice drink but neither a fresh fruit juice that needs to be chilled. It's not tea. It's not milk. It's not any of the regular categories. It's basically a fruit water, if that's how one were to put it.

But it's totally worth the search.

Coconuts are the new superfood right up there next to the non-GMO stuff, the gluten-free stuff, the goji berries, the flaxseed, the chia seed, the olive oil, the salmon, the nuts, the berries, the organic peanut butters, the hazelnut butters, the rice crackers, the organic popcorn, the rice chips and all the sugar-free stuff. But they're aren't the type of superfoods that cost you an arm and leg. It's pretty much affordable, with prices hovering between $1.50 to $3.00 depending on the size you prefer, and from where your coconuts are sourced from. I've seen those sourced from Hawaii, Phillippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

There are more qualities in the fruit that one usually thinks of- I don't really know what they all are- but this packet above tells me that there're five hydrolytes and so I'm sticking to five hydrolytes. After all, that's what I need on a hot, hot day as this, and best of all, I'm totally loving the taste. :)

flippity Flip Flip phone

the LG Lollipop

So I'm staring at this picture once again and d***, do I miss this phone.

This is (and I say is, because I'm still holding on to it) one phone that I really, really fell in love with. I don't care if it's called a dinosaur by users of touchscreens. I don't care if its OS is kind of outdated or discontinued or whatever. I don't care if everyone is going smartphone on me and such button phones are no more.

I'll always love this phone.

And why not? What's not to love?

It's slim, pretty, bright, with cute LED light patterns on the cover when you flip it open and close. It's got that satisfying 'piak' sound when the phone closes on its lid. Then there's that transparent part on the cover which has running lights and which you can change its running order. From right to left, left to right and centered and in a multitude of colors in red, yellow, green, blue, purple and turquoise, which was my favorite.

And it has buttons.

Yeah, it has the alphanumeric buttons but they're placed in such a pretty way that you don't feel old-ish using it. Instead you feel quirky, individualistic, even a tad cutesy rebellious when you're typing away, like you're defying what everyone else is doing and just doing your own thing, in your own style.

The Lollipop grants the user an entertainment UX, which is to say that whilst it pretty much functions like a typical 3G phone with the basic suite of features- camera, media player, settings, SMS, wifi and all... you don't feel the stolidity of Nokia, the seriousness of Ericsson nor the usability of Samsung when you've got it in your hand. Neither will you feel like you're holding an Alcatel or CDMA or Hutchison, which models have long disappeared from the current consumer market (but which some of us might still use, and still remember)

Let me put it this way.

I have a Galaxy III now, and I'm using it well. But place the LG Lollipop in my hand and at once I get into a cute, cute mode as if I were carrying cute little cloth bags with ribbons and lace all over, as if I had kitschy notebooks with sketches of animals and characters on the front cover, as if my hair was permed and styled and worn with a pretty hairpin. At once I find myself wanting to talk in a higher pitch, with much more blink-eye gestures and livelier voices... despite the fact that I'm still just me. :)

Or if I were to put it in another way...

I can't say that I'm feeling like I'm in Gangnam when I'm using the phone- it's not the glamorous sort. Neither can I say that I'm in Hongdae, cos' I don't quite feel the future when I'm using it. But I think I can say that I'm in Noryangjin, where on one hand I attend cram classes to prepare for the exam which will lead me to a stolid, stable future whilst on the other, I'm being very cute and youthful and girly going about it.  

the Backstory

face between coughs

Remember in an earlier post I wrote about how every picture has a backstory? That it doesn't matter how perfect (or imperfect) a shot seems there's always a story that goes along with it. 

We tend to associate pleasant stories with pleasant pictures and unpleasant stories with unpleasant ones. Many a time it is true. Yet, there are times that it can be directly opposite. 

Now I'm not sure whether that's how it is for others. I'm also not sure whether it is the same for the pictures we take from to time, but pretty often I'm in the dump of the dumps I whip out my phone and try to take a good selfie. Knowing that I'm looking pretty okay for that day cheers me up immediately.

It's like a happy mirror.

Like this shot above. I look fine, don't I? But what you don't know is that in between this shot I was coughing and sniffling away with a box of tissues in front of me. What you don't know is that I was had a hacking cough that went on non-stop, that I was blowing my nose non-stop, that I had to have bottles of warm water on the floor near me and, no, I wasn't sitting as upright as you see in the shot. I was literally stretched out because the flu had made my muscles all cramped.  

bad hair day

Then there was this day.

It was a day when the strands would not stay down and it was going haywire and I wasn't feeling too great with how I looked and I thought I was looking like a heck of a frumpish and I wanted to go shopping to change my entire outfit from head to toe and go absolutely crazy with my sense of style but I couldn't, and so I did the best thing I could. I tied my hair up, wore my color-changing lip balm and took a selfie.

after editing a long, long email

I was just waiting for the bill after having finished a great lunch  at Yakiniku where I'd eaten a bowl of teriyaki chicken don with gingko nuts hidden in the rice together with salad in yuzu vinegarette and wakame soup and kimchi... and after having edited a long email.

Okay, it wasn't really one of THOSE moments.

It was just that I was at the window seat and there was this glorious early afternoon sunshine beaming into the restaurant and I thought it made my skin look all glowy and bronzy and sun-kissed.

got THE gear

Hey, guess what???

I've finally got my gear! :)

It's a piece of gear that I've waited one and half years for and I'm happily using it now. I'm so happy I'm finally able to work at remote locations and sort out words and do all sorts of stuff with it.

So far, let's see, I've placed three songs, I've typed up a script, I've gone on Facebook, I've blogged, I've finished a couple of emails, I've changed the cleartype text a gazillion times, swopping between Lucida Sans and Lucida Bright and Georgia and Arial and everything else in between and I've adjusted the custom scaling as many times as well.

Most users don't do that, I know. They just get down to the grind and start using it, and admittedly, the repeat procedure of logging out and logging in does get very tedious sometimes, but I'm one of those users who is very particular about how it looks like. If it looks too stringy, if it looks too spidery, if it looks too small, if my words don't flow out smoothly as they appear on-screen beautifully, then that means there's still adjustments I want to be done.

I'm the sort that will keep doing it until I think it looks right.

It is complete madness and eccentricity and all... but that's me. :) I'm getting used to Windows 10 too. It's a very different approach from 2000 and Vista, I think. It's an OS that runs on apps that somehow seem rather heavy for the memory space of this gear but I'll just get used to transferring stuff in and out and out and in like how the tech people always do.

More than anything, it's a joy to be able to type easily once again. Between the mobile and the keyboard, I'm choosing the keyboard anytime. It's the feeling that one gets when your fingers fly over the keyboard. There's a certain click-click-clack one hears when one types on the keyboard and though it's hard to explain, there is a distinctive feel one gets when the keys underneath your fingers.

And by the way, after all the changing and font swopping, I'm glad to say that I've finally settled on one- a very kiddy one. :D
 

hi, here's my Face





#daiso #dailyglam

If there's one very important lesson I've learnt from taking selfies, it is that sometimes life gives you just that one shot.

 

And in that one shot, you have to get it right.

 

You know how people talk about being in the moment and all? That's exactly how it is with selfies. Because you can try to recreate that one moment in the very next moment where you're in the exact same place, same atmosphere, same surroundings, same lighting, and something seems off right away. It never, ever comes out the way you expect the shot to. Something just seems... different. Either you're smiling different, or looking different, or there's another factor out of place altogether.

 

It's just not the same entirely, and that really can get one's goat when one is trying to get it right. It's not as simple as one wishes it would be and it can get rather frustrating sometimes. The funny thing is, the more I try to make my selfies make me look presentable and confident and real, the more I think of all the work that goes behind the scenes of the influencers who shoot OOTDs to post on social media. They've done a pretty good job of looking like they simply breezed into the scene, struck a pose and grabbed the shot because they're this confident, this stylish and basically this good-looking.

 

But there really is plenty of planning, plenty of preparation, plenty of arrangement and coordination going on. There's work that happens before the shoot. There's work that happens during the shoot. There's work that happens after the shoot.

 

And behind every picture is a backstory. Behind every picture is a direction- whether self-directed, or directed by someone else. I do admire them quite a bit, I must say.

 

Because it does take a certain level of confidence to do what they do in general public. They don't have the luxury of a large camera crew and a production assistant to block out the staring crowds. They don't have the luxury of a production schedule that's tightly arranged and kept on time. Most of the time they're with just one or two people, mingling with the crowds, trying to appear conspicuous yet inconspicuous at the same time.

 

I've seen them sitting on the edge of the road on the curb whilst their photographer crouches down from the opposite side, camera in hand. I've seen them leaning in multiple tryouts against a particular lamp-post in the glaring sunshine. I've seen them in full make-up rehearsing their walk behind alleys. I've seen them place themselves in the oddest of places and grant the lens a smile like they just stepped into that place and decided that they'd capture that one moment. It's not easy, really, sticking yourself to a lamp-post in the middle of a steaming hot day with crowds of people thronging around you and who don't give a d*** about photo-bombing your shot.

 

Maybe that's why that there's never a shot that does not go planned. There's never a shot that can be done in one take, and if there happens to be one, it's a really, really rare one.

 

With a very efficient and effective photographer.

hotel Boss

It used to be an empty space beside the river.

Then for a long time, and for what seemed like an even longer time, they were digging holes along the banks of the river, blocking off this side and that side, making it such that if you wanted to cross over the other side, you had to make this huge round, and there were bags of sand here and bags of cement there which made it so inconvenient that you completely avoided the river for a time.

But now that's done, and in that space now stands a structure which I happened to watch as they laid the final fittings. One day they were laying the tiles on the fully sheltered driveway. Another day they were placing the glass doors. Still another day the gigantic chandelier meant for the lobby ceiling arrived. Brightened up the whole space, this huge chandelier did, and now it stands like a focal point of illumination welcoming guests that enter.

There're two restaurants. One is on the ground floor. The other is on the fourth, and it's right next to the swimming pool where there're open spaces to chat, smoke, drink, munch on peanuts, bang out emails, guzzle down iced drinks, suntan and basically do everything outdoorsy. There's a food court next door and there're a couple of shops where one can get chocolate, perfume, durian mochi, souvenirs, soya bean milk, ice cream and sushi from a small joint on the outside that looks out onto the main road. Oh, there's the money changer too. 

The room, when you see it for the first time, is a place where you can prettify and make it your own for a couple of days. The tables are in square and rectangular shapes with nicely-fitted drawers underneath. On a cute tray, they've placed the hot water kettle, the mugs, the complimentary coffee and tea and stirrers. On the wall near the door, they've placed nooks for your clothes and fixed to the ceiling near the window they've placed a sort of open wardrobe with hangers for the shirts, dresses and blouses. There's a ledge by the window for your knick-knacks that you wish to put out. There's a fridge for the cans of beer and Sprite and Coke and milk and juice and fruits. 

The bathroom is just as adorable. It looks basic with little frills, yes, but you'll find a charm to it when you place your personal toiletries- and your toothbrush- out.

It's essentially a blank canvas, that's how I see the decor of the room. Perhaps it might not be what one desires from a hotel. Perhaps it could be more colorful, or more elaborate, or even more thematic, but that's the charm of a neat, structured, simple room as such.

It is a place that blends in beautifully with your living habits.

Whether you're someone who places everything in squares and hangs all your clothes up neatly, whether you're someone who stocks up on fresh fruit and fresh milk and juice and nuts and dried fruits, whether you're the one who wants beer and soft drinks and potato chips in the fridge, whether you're someone who arranges all your electronic equipment with wires criss-crossing the room or whether you're one who feels happy seeing all your things laid out as they are, this is a space that permits that personal expression, that personal vibe.

And this hotel is juxtaposed in one of the most charming neighborhoods ever.





view^1

You've got Tyrwhitt Road in front. There's Jalan Besar Stadium peeking out from behind the blocks. On the extreme right of this view, lies Kallang and then Lavender lies further up. The nearest street here where the housing blocks are is Maude Road, with Kitchener Road next to it, and if you look hard enough, there's just that tiny glimpse of the Jalan Besar Swimming Pool next to the stadium.





view^2

There's Sungei Road to the extreme left. There's Scotts Road further back. From high up here you can see the Marriott Tang Plaza with her pagoda roof and you can see Mandarin Orchard standing tall and proud. There's a glimpse of Orchard Central with her distinctive panels and there's a whole patch of green somewhere there too. Then there're the structures of Ngee Ann City behind where Sunshine Plaza and of course, Peace Center, a structure which stands out really well.





dramatic clouds= drama view

The shop houses- the quaint ones that make the unique architecture of South East Asia- are right in front along Syed Alwi Road. This is a road that leads to Mustafa Center that leads to Connexion that leads to the area where Goldbell Tower is- in the far, far distance. 






trying to follow the river's flow

 And all this is just facing one side- the side where I was placed. There's still the other side- the side which faces the city center and the Marina Barrage, and to how the view is, well, I can just imagine it would be more airy, more spacious and equally quirky.