But first...
The days before the enjoyable long weekend summed up a pretty stressful week. I was practically on my phone intermittently throughout the day to settle some personal issues despite the piling work in the office. Fortunately, my colleagues were understanding towards my situation and nobody spoke about me being constantly on the phone.
I was also beyond thankful for the company of a gal pal who at short notice made the time to meet me after work for a good listening ear and words of wisdom even though she was drowning in work and had planned to OT. And then in a separate day of alignment of the planets, I met up with another gal pal for an impromptu dinner and chat at such a short notice too. Prior to arranging the impromptu dinner, we were texting and lots of coincidence in our situations were revealed and so we thought "Heck, it's a sign for us to meet."
Those signalled the start of a really good long weekend!
~*On Friday We Slept and Ate*~
I don't sleep a lot during the weekdays. My daily sleep averages to about 3 to 5 hours a day. Hence, I usually spend Saturdays sleeping till the afternoon to catch up on my sleep debt, leaving me with very little constructive weekend time. (Yeah, I seem to infer that sleep isn't constructive but you know what I mean... productive awake moments) Thanks to the long weekend, I spent three quarters of Friday sleeping and then headed out straight for dinner as hubby had cravings for the blue cheese mussels at Brussels Sprouts.
As usual, the hubby loves to over-order. He simply cannot gauge the amount of food logically whenever he is too hungry. We had grilled portobello mushrooms, beer battered onion rings and free flow of fries that came with the full pot of Fromage Bleu mussels and half pot of Laksa mussels. Hubby totally forgot about the free flow of fries when he insisted on ordering the giant onion rings. I didn't snap any pictures of those as it was too dark. Here's a picture of how we ruined our healthy lifestyle with booze. At 4.5% alcohol content, Lindermans Apple beer is just like sweet sparkling apple juice.
~*On Saturday We Ate, Cycle and Ate*~
The bimbo sisters had been talking about cycling for many months but it was difficult to find a perfect slot in everyone's schedule. When Tiff and I met up on Thursday night, we decided to just set aside Saturday evening for cycling and even if nobody else in the group could make it, we would still proceed to be on track with our healthy lifestyle goals.
It was great that cycling fitted into Zanne's schedule that Saturday so there would be 3 of us! And yes, you are seeing double of the same bicycle shot coz I couldn't make up my mind which effect I like better. Thanx to Tiff for the great photo of the Tiffany blue city bicycles!
I reached Punggol Settlement first at 4pm and was almost toasted just by standing in the afternoon sun for a minute! It really was a mystery how the weather app stated thunderstorm in the afternoon for the whole of Singapore.
With the time alone, I recced the place and found a bicycle kiosk nearer to the beach side which was less busy than the one at the end of the row of shops along the waterway. I was totally seduced by the Tiffany blue bicycles with cute rattan baskets that I had to drag Zanne and Tiff all the way there after Tiff nearly settled for a metallic purple city bike at the busier kiosk.
Psst... the rental for these pretty city bikes are $8 for 2 hours (1 hour free for 1 hour rental) unlike the not so pretty city bikes at the busier kiosk at $10 for 2 hours. Ok fine, if you don't need your bike to look pretty while cycling, you can settle for their BMX or mountain bikes at either kiosk.
Hungry Tiff was the last to arrive. In view of the scorching sun, we decided to eat a fuller meal since Tiff was dying of famine. And if you were on my Facebook/Instagram, you would have seen the caption for this photo which goes something like this:
"What kinda weather forecast is this? The sun is freaking hot. Let's go and eat till the sun is down then cycle."
#whatkindahealthylifestyleisthis #bimbosisters #bestie #bff #galpal #ilovemyfriends
We had crispy chicken strips and homemade fish fingers at Georges by the Bay. They looked golden brown and absolutely should not belong to the check list of Healthy Lifestyle but we deceived ourselves by saying that these were protein-rich food.
Oh yeah, could you spot a non-food item here? A shout out to Benefit Dream Screen. Tiff loves how smooth and non-oily the application is and so, good things are meant to be shared with good friends. The lotion to powder texture feels just like those Japanese brand sunscreen like Sunplay and Sunkiller only that my pores don't feel clogged with Benefit Dream Screen.
As if the chicken and fish weren't enough, Zanne and I had to agree on adding steak to share for our "tea-time snacks". What kinda healthy lifestyle is this?
I was totally mesmerized by Zanne's rainbow-coloured contact lens. The photo don't do justice. In real life, the amalgamation of colours reminded me of opal though more subtle.
Punggol is a really busy place! The whole park was filled with loads of people. At last, we found a scenic spot with not many potential photo-bombers and quickly snapped some pictures of us and our bikes. Watch the flipagram here.
How could we not take a wefie in the setting sun?
Join us, Zanne!
Soon the sun set and the moon was up. There was no more good light for photo-taking and isn't this a cycling outing? We were busy cycling instead of taking photos as you could see. We covered a long stretch and got lost at one point as we thought that taking a certain path would loop us back to where we came from. Instead, it brought us back to our halfway point.
By the time we returned our bikes, it was exactly 2 hours later when the sky was dark. From the buckets of perspiration, it sure was a good cardio workout!
So after cycling, it was dinner time. Time to eat AGAIN! We met up with Paul and had Din Tai Fung for dinner. Once again, our food looked brown or fried. Duh... we probably exercise only to eat.
Match the shoes to the characters!
Ok I reveal the answers...
I super love Tiff shoes coz they look so atas. This gal... go sports also so atas.
Love Zanne's pairing of bold-coloured lace with her Converse.
My Puma had a little plaster as its sole totally split till the heel and I couldn't tear it all out since it is connected all the way to the back. I was walking like a clown before the Zanne's plaster came to the rescue.
I thought of glueing the sole back and realised that these sneakers had served me for 7-8 years. Perhaps that's an excuse to buy new sneakers. I really do keep this pair of sneakers clean, don't I?
See, even Meow Meow couldn't be bothered to show respect to her fellow cat family. The fur that got in between the parts to glue made me lazy to glue them back.
My after workout (and eat) selfie.
Do you like my new "curry pok" fringe?
For my non-Singaporean readers, curry pok hair simply refers to hair that is combed backwards and hairsprayed till pouffy, puffy whatever.
I'm glad that my fringe is long enough to be styled this way now though I feel like cutting bangs again for many bimbotic reasons.
~*On Sunday We Shopped, Ate, Avenged and Ate*~
As I was typing the sub heading for each portion of this post, I realised that the long weekend consisted of lots of eating. I was supposed to shop for new sneakers but I ended up buying other stuff instead. Instead of standing around, the hubz went to TCC to drink some coffee while waiting for me. He saw that there was some bimbotic girly tea set on promotion and knew I would love to order it just because it was photo-worthy.
Just look at the shoe cupcake!
Actually, I always prefer the savoury items in tea sets coz the sweet ones are usually as sweet as they look.
Complimentary sample cookies were served to entice us to order the full set. I tasted unique taste in the cookies like bacon, tom yam and other savoury sensation. Not too bad at all. We didn't order the full size though as we reckon that this would make up for the overall bad service at TCC Shaw. Only 1 particular waiter saved the bad experience and coz of him I shan't complain about the overall bad service we had that evening.
After catching Avengers -- Age of Ultron, we checked out La Strada, a subsidiary of the award winning Les Amis Group. It is located at the sidewalk of Shaw Centre.
“Built on the name La Strada, which literally means ‘The Street’ in Italian, the team was inspired during a trip to Italy by the people’s love to socialise at the sidewalks over a meal or a cup of coffee"
The rustic décor, wood panels and green awnings exudes a homely Italian feel in this ristoronte.
For antipasti, we had Wagyu Carpaccio with Baby Arugula, Aged Balsamic Reduction.
What with ham, egg yolk, cream sauce and truffle butter, you really would expect a very heavy and cloying taste but no, I could finish this Carbonara all on my own. I wished there were more and I wished I had ordered his dish. His was the Chitarra ala Carbonara btw.
I know I ordered a tomato-based pasta but I cannot seem to find it on the menu on their website. I think mine was the Tagliolini al Granchio -- Homemade Thin Cylindrical Pasta with Mud Crab, Cherry Tomatoes, White Wine, Chili and Garlic. It was supposed to be Tagliolini pasta but they probably ran out of it. Porbably if the original thin cylindrical pasta was used, I would have liked it better. It was good too just that kh's Carbonara won hands down.
I would end this post with my failed attempt at OOTD (it's a selfie really). Well, the hubz doesn't like to take OOTD shots for me and it was dark anyway so selfie in the room to the rescue.
When I posted the pic of me and the cupcake shoes, some people asked about my top. This is a sold-out item on Fleurfaerie. We had lots of enquiries for restock both on FB and Carousell but unfortunately when we tried to re-stock, our supplier's new stock could not pass our QC. The material of the first batch was really good and the exact same top was selling on BYSI and other individual retailers for $40++ then. We wondered whether we should continue our hunt for this top with the frequent requests of restock even up till now.
It is another weekend, Mother's Day weekend in fact. Later, we would be taking our parents out for casual French food. I hope they like French food as much as we do.
Here's wishing all of you a wonderful weekend!
