At 2am this morning...

I bloody stepped on a f***ing cockroach barefoot!!! I was happily eating mamee (noodle snack) and I dropped a bit of it so I picked it up with my fingers.

I thought I dropped some again when my toes brushed against something and I was just about to use my toes to pick up the "bits" when I looked down and saw the huge yellow band cockroach! I was absolutely scared outta my wits and disgusted by it.

I am generally not afraid of cockroach and will not scream when I see one as I'm pretty used to them crawling around my estate. (Please just don't let them fly) However I actually screamed just now as I was really angry yet distressed that I nearly used my toes to pick up that gross thing.

You know what?

My hubby was relishing at the whole episode unfolding in front of him and he could not stop laughing when I was whining about how I stepped on a cockroach. He didn't see the cockroach at that time.

He was laughing the whole time when I was so distressed that the roach had crawled into the side of the bathroom's sliding door and went missing.

He was laughing when I half hopped into the shower to wash and soap and sanitize my foot. I half hopped coz I felt that my foot was unclean and did not want to dirty our room's floor.

I made him find the roach but alas, that little, no big, vermin was gone.

He even had the cheek to chide me for making him miss part of his TV programme!

So for the next few minutes, I sat with my legs up and all of a sudden, I heard him exclaim.

"There it is! Wah so big!"

So the same time when he realised how big the cockroach was, he also killed it.

And with that, he redeemed himself.

A mail from the Blogger Team

I received an email this morning from the Blogger Team which goes like this:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Final reminder to update your legacy Blogger account‏

Hello,

You are receiving this message because your email address is associated with an unmigrated legacy Blogger account. As we announced in April of last year, legacy accounts will no longer be accessible after May 30th, 2012 unless they are updated to the Google Account system. Any blog content associated with this account will also be unmodifiable after that date.

To transfer your blog to the Google Account system you need to visit the Legacy Migration page at http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/7JoJT9g0NC3Z7H right now to make sure that your account and associated blogs are claimed. If you’ve forgotten the Blogger password that is associated with this email address, you can use our Account Recovery page at http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/B9ODg1eLJe6IYz to request password information to be sent via email.

For more information, please see our initial announcement we posted to our blog at http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/YII5h4s3I94WQt . If you have questions, please visit our Help Forum at http://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/bH3fZc10cFws0b and create a message with [Legacy Account] in the subject line.

Regards,

The Blogger Team
Google
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
----
This e-mail is being sent to notify you of important changes to your Blogger account.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


I could not find enough information of the authenticity of this email from googling chunks of text from the contents. I was wondering if it is similar to those fake emails from the Windows Live Team whereby users are conned into revealing their MSN/ Hotmail passwords due to some account update. While I have received countless of such scam mails from the Windows Live Team, this is the first I received from Blogger.

Does any of you know what is going on here?


Edited to add:
The email is sent from the email @ "blogger-support@google.com"

Draw Something Part 1 -- What Type of Player are You

A while ago, practically the whole of the smart phone world was addicted to the mobile app Draw Something. I had so many friends playing the game and we were quite hooked onto it, drawing loads and loads of pictures to send to our friends during our free time.

"Draw Something is a mobile app developed by Omgpop. It was one of the Mobile apps which won the Flurry App Spotlight Awards in 2012. In the first five weeks after its launching, the game was downloaded 20 million times. Fifty days after its release, it had been downloaded 50 million times. In March of 2012, both Draw Something and Omgpop were bought by the game giant Zynga for $180 million." -- Wikipedia

For those who play this game, here is a humorous video to share with all of you.

What type of player are you?



Watching this video has regained my interest in Draw Something. Fast forward to now, the initial hype seems to have died down quite a bit in Singapore. I'm not too sure about the popularity curve of this game in other countries though. Maybe my foreign readers might want to share some knowledge with me?

I haven't been playing the game for about 3 weeks due to some bug in some of my friends' games which could not be fixed for a period of time. However recently, there was an update to the game and the bug has been fixed.

Along with the updates are new features like:

• Sharing drawings on Twitter and Facebook
• Save drawings to your devices' photo library
• Notifications for Android devices
• Increase of the max streak from 99 to 999
• Pull down to refresh game status
• UNDO button for your last brush stroke
• Even better performance
• More words
• And a slew of other fixes and tweaks

I am really more tempted to play now seeing that the max streaks would be increased to 999. After I hit 99 with a couple of people, we simply pushed all enthusiasm out of the window. In addition, the UNDO button would certainly benefit many people too.

I'm currently looking through my Draw Something folder in which I saved many __________________ (baffling/beautiful/facepalm/ugly) screen shots and am in the process of coming up with my own list. I really can't wait to share these screen shots with all of you!

Here's another list which I found off the Internet to end off this post.

Scramble with Friends Ninja

One of my favourite games on the iPhone is Scramble with Friends.

I don't know if anyone of you plays that too. My score ranges from a lousy 300+ to a 1000+ depending on whether there are double or triple letter bonus. This video was shared by one of my Scramble buddies (no, not the person in the video) on Facebook and after watching this video, all of us realise how it is possible to attain such high scores without cheating and hailed this guy as a Scramble ninja.



After I shared this video, I got many more people creating games with me.

My 2nd sister was adamant about not downloading this game as she claimed that her spelling is really bad. This was what happened after I shared the video on Facebook.



Ok I've to explain that I wasn't being sarcastic. Her username was first presented to me as some random digits and letters. After I sent the Scramble message to her, her name appeared.

Have you downloaded your Scramble game yet?

PS:
Thank you all for your words of concern regarding my illness. I'll get back to all of you soon!

An Unexpected Guest

An unexpected guest started to creep in on Monday.





I thought it would stay for a short while.


However, it has no intention to uproot its butt and scram.





The inconsiderate unexpected guest even burst my tap and it is leaking non stop now.





It all started with the hubby. I knew he was sick when he came home from work and slept for almost 24 hours over the weekend.





How I wished I could do this to him right when he told me he was sick.





I have not succumbed to such illness for months and I'm upset with myself for having such weak immune system.

I've got an important task coming up tomorrow (or rather in a few hours time) and I'm not able to sleep due to the blocked and leaky nose together.


PS:
Yes, I'm aware that my photos are not showing again due to the exceeded bandwidth and temporary disabling of photo links from PhotoBucket. The images would be reactivated on the 19th of the month, when bandwidth usage resets to zero.

So remember that whenever you can't view photos, think of the number 19 and come back again then.

Saturday Date Nights with the Hubby

I love Saturday date nights with the hubby!

Kh would usually pick me up from work. Thereafter, we would have a meal together and update each other about the week (because you see even though we see each other at night, I would be on my side of the table engrossed in all my laptop stuff or marking worksheets and he would be on his side of the table engrossed in his WoW or Dota). Sometimes we would shop around in town or catch the latest movie like any typical date nights.

While arranging and editing the photos in my folder, I realised that for two whole month of Saturdays, we practically had international dinner.


~

Japanese

We had Japanese food at Ootoya Japanese Restaurant 大戶屋 (Suntec).

I'm in love with Japanese Tofu salad coz it's healthy and delicious.




Our mains




It was his first time dining at Ootoya. My past two visits were with my gal friends at the Orchard Central branch and everyone loves the food there. Hence, I often raved about the food to him. Unfortunately, the branch at Suntec did not have as many items on the menu as the Orchard Central one but fortunately kh isn't the fussy sort.


~

Indian

We had a friend from America dropping by for a visit and so together with another friend, the four of us headed to Samy's Curry at Dempsey Road for some Indian cuisine.


It was our first time there and we almost did not know how to proceed with the ordering of food.






We ate and perspired profusely since the place wasn't air-conditioned and the food was really spicy. I hope our American friend stomached the food well.

~

Korean

A mouth-watering herbal soup smell would never fail to emanate from this eatery and linger around the vicinity whenever we walked past it in Takashimaya Shopping Centre.

There would always be a long queue during dinner time and since kh and I are forever hungry, we do not really like queuing outside an eatery if we aren't sure if the food is good.

That night, there wasn't any queue since it was already a quarter past nine when we strolled past it. We took this golden opportunity to try out the Korean food at Crystal Jade Ginseng Chicken BBQ.




While composing this post, I googled this place and realised that it is ranked quite highly on hungrygowhere.com for having pretty good Korean food at decent prices.


As usual, kh never ever learns his lesson and often points at his whim to whatever he feels like eating on the menu. Hence, we ended up having a 4-seater table full of food and the usual stares from people sitting around us. We finished almost everything except for a whole fish which we asked to take home and some chicken meat shreds from the soup.






Perspective shots:
kh took the pictures below on purpose to try to deceive everyone that I single-handedly wiped up all the food on the table.






Super huge Ginseng-- the only tell-tale sign of the origin of the eatery's name perhaps?




~

Japanese

We had late night dinner or supper rather, at Shokudo Japanese Coffee House (Cathay Cineleisure) before our midnight movie.

Since it is a coffee house, the food is more of those Japanese-Italian fusion kind of pastas and pizzas which I do not quite fancy. It is decent enough though and I would give it brownie points for having macha on their menu. I would never fail to order my macha drink at any place which serves it.






~

English

I have rather fond childhood memories at Jack's Place as it was the place my parents usually brought us for celebrations some 20 over years ago.

As the years passed, more branches sprang up all across the country and soon one could find Jack's Place at upscale shopping malls. We dined at the Marina Square branch that night.




Some fireworks display preview from Marina Bay Floating Platform in preparation for National Day then. You do know that this is another backdate entry right?




~

Italian

Saizeriya (サイゼリヤ) is a Japanese chain of Italian family-style restaurants.

Kh's Japanese buddy introduced him to this eatery at Liang Court and kh had always wanted to take me there.

"The place is damn cheap for Italian food and you being such a pig, can eat all you want without burning a hole in my pocket."

Thank you hubby. -_-|||

As you can see, the place boast a no-frills decor. Taking orders is advanced though with computerised system.




I was taken aback by the prices on the menu. Almost everything was less than $10. Main dishes like pastas and pizzas cost about $6.

Our starters consisted of smoked salmon and cheese-baked scallops. We had wanted the oven baked escargots which were out of stock. It is no wonder why for the dish costs only $5+. I heard that everyone goes there for the affordable escargots.




The soups needed more improvement though I'm not really complaining. If I remember correctly, they cost $2++.




Kh ordered the best seller (“Ren Qi” No.1) doria with meat sauce-- a creamy white baked rice topped with a special recipe of meat sauce. It isn't exactly fantastic but for the price of $4--5, I would say it wasn't too bad at all.




I felt like having medium rare ribeye steak after seeing that it cost a mere $12! The steak arrived almost medium instead of medium rare. I can't expect the best from that price and hence I devoured my steak like a glutton.




Lastly for desserts, kh ordered tiramisu and I had truffle ice cream which I found extremely delectable.



We would definitely be back here again for affordable Italian cuisine.


~

Otter Love

Awww... I especially love 1:15 onwards!

People say "puppy love"; I say "otter love".


Some nuggets of information about sea otters holding hands

When these cute little sea otters are not grooming or eating, they sleep. To prevent themselves from drifting too far off, they sometimes wrap themselves up in kelp like a blanket or even “hold hands”.

I was searching for some answers over the Internet on why sea otters hold hands and I found a list of answers from this random guy. I was pretty tickled by two of his answers:

"those otters were trying to make another otter jealous in the vicinity"

"otters are notorious for doing very cute things in front of people, especially those with cameras ... a nickname for the otter is attention whore"

A Day of Food, Friends & Family

Tif, Evan and I met up on a Sunday morning to have brunch at PS Cafe, Palais Renaissance.




I've been to this branch on two separate occasions but never in the day time. It was always too dark to notice the beautiful decor of the restaurant.




Do you always wonder who writes those chalkboard menus? I do. I admire their handwriting in chalk. That was the first time I see the writing in progress.




We had a very satisfying and filling breakfast. PS Cafe usually serves very generous portions.












After our meal, we chatted over pots of tea.

It is really lovely to catch up with friends on a lazy Sunday.




I was posing with Evan's Louis Vuitton Damier Berkeley as it was one of my dream city bag for a while until I carried hers and realized how heavy the bag was even without its contents.




We chatted and shopped till the sunset after which we parted ways for our own programmes.

~

For dinner, I headed over to L'artisan Bistro & Bar at Orchard Towers to meet kh and family. It was a day before my mil's birthday and instead of the usual Chinese family dinner, we decided to tease their tastebuds a little by opting for authentic European cuisine after our very favourable experiences here and here.

The second link would lead you to pretty detailed review of this place during my first visit there with kh.




My parents-in-law both felt that the dishes were quite unique and very different from our usual eats but they also agreed that the food was good.


These were what we ordered for starters.




These were all the mains.



When it comes to ordering dishes, it is the same for mine and his family. We tend to each order different dishes so that we could all snitch from one another and get to taste more dishes.

As mentioned before in my review, you can see that presentation of food is not on the top of their priority list. However as cliche as it sounds, "don't judge a book by its cover". In this case don't judge a dish by its presentation coz all the food was delectable and we finished every morsel of food on the plates.


Their desserts are to die for!
From left to right: hazelnut ice cream topped with kahlua, marinated strawberries with rum/kirsch (and other secret concoction), apricot sorbet... all home made.






Signing off with love,
Jo

Trekking Along the Railway Tracks

If you are no stranger to my blog, you would have read about my railway exploration when the KTM trains were still in operation and about my last train ride.

I have not set out to write a trilogy of railways and trains but it seems like the number three puts a complete closure to all good stuff.

From July 1 to 17 last year, the public was allowed to access and trek along the entire railway line, except for a few spots where minor works were to be carried out. Evan and I were both caught up with work during that period and could only set a date after 17 July. Hence, we got to trek along a few sections of the railway tracks.

Our first pit stop was to meet at King Albert's Park McDonald's to fill our rumbling tummies with junk  before setting off for Bukit Timah railway station.

There were so many people at the cast iron bridge so while waiting for the crowd to disperse, evan and I decided to take some shots of ourselves to while the time away.












After I took this shot, I asked evan if she thought this looked like an artistic advertisement for LV.




I tried to do the same for my Coach but failed miserably when it didn't look structured and symmetrical enough. It looks better real life than here, trust me.






With the digits 1871, we officially embarked on our walk along the tracks.




A bunch of kids in school uniform was walking the tracks with their teacher.




Hwa Chong boys decided to explore the tracks on their own. Where were those Nanyang girls?




It was IMPOSSIBLE to snap a PEOPLE-LESS shot of this bridge. We waited... and we waited... and we waited... but the people did not budge and new people appeared.




We had no choice but to use ourselves to block the people.






The hot scorching sun beat down mercilessly on us as we hiked without any comfort of shade from trees to  Rifle Range Road.






During rare instances when we did not bump into any soul, we quickly snapped shots like these:




We finally reached Rifle Range Road's sign board to capture our pit stop in photo.

There was a flight of cracking and worn out concrete steps which led us to the covers of tall bushes. These steps would eventually lead to the main road but nobody ever walked that path. Evan and I sat on the steps, rested and hydrated ourselves before we continued the long walk to the final pit stop -- the stretch along Rail Mall at Upper Bukit Timah Road.




It was a long walk from Rifle Range Road to Rail Mall but along the way, there was shade and also many things which deserved our shutterbug's attention. Hence, we kept pausing to take pictures.






Could you spot anything in this picture?




A monkey right in the middle of the sign board!












We were rather intrigued by this pink heart which looked a little like bubble gum yet not quite so.




Hurray for shade!




Shade = camwhoring time!

Ok my super worn out expression here is to depict how hot and tired we were but evan decided to pretend and play it cool.








An owl wide awake in the day










Finally we reached the iron cast bridge at Rail Mall and 185X marked our final pit stop. If you notice, we were walking backwards as shown in the descending numbers from where we first started.




Our hearts fell when we reached only to be greeted by even MORE PEOPLE on the bridge than the Bukit Timah bridge.

To mark our conquest, we had to take pictures of us at the bridge- without the people of course!




Nevertheless, thank god for people for I bumped into two colleagues there and we got them to help us take a picture.


Here's evan and jo ending the trilogy of railways and trains.



I hope you enjoyed the nostalgia walk with me through my photos and words as much as I enjoyed sharing them with you!