Killing time in between Yoga and Pole classes

Every weekend, I'll usually spend my time doing about two hours of yoga in town. As I have recently signed up for an Amateur Night pole dance competition, I also spend my weekends practicing my dance routine. 

With about three hours to kill before our allocated Amateur Night practice time begins, I decided to do the most important thing on my to-do list.

Lunch. 

I mean seriously, after two hours of Hot Stretch and Iyengar yoga classes.. ANYONE will be famished. As you all know, yoga classes are for clearing the mind of negative thoughts and stay focused on the self? Throughout class, my motivational thoughts were "FOOD. FOOD. FOOD." 

No wonder the fiance said I will never lose any weight. 

My stomach craved for chicken rice today and chicken rice I shall have. 

Went to The Food Inn, located at the Park Mall exit at Douby Ghaut XChange. 

What caught my eye was the price. $3 for chicken rice?! In Orchard Road?  

NOW THAT IS A STEAL. 

$3 for a plate of chicken rice and $5 for a set. NICE.

Roast Chicken Rice

Ordered my usual, roast chicken, breast meat and less rice. Health conscious lah.

Now before you ask me how was the chicken rice? I can safely say this, my bias is still Wee Nam Kee. But hey, I am not complaining? What you pay for is what you get and for $3, I'll say this is a fair amount for a plate of chicken rice in an air conditioned place. Some air conditioned food courts whom I shall not name, I pay like $3.50-$5 for their chicken rice and they don't even serve this much.

The Food Inn also have affordable nasi lemak at $2.30. Definitely a good place to eat at if you are on a tight budget and you are in Orchard Road.

After satisfying my craving, I still had time to kill. Decided to walk to the National Library and spend what's left of my time with books.

On the way, I had to walk past the art museum and I chanced upon this art piece.

Utama's Cat description

Apparently, in history, Singapore always had tigers but never lions.We can't blame Prince Utama for his mistake though because according to the folklore, when he landed and saw the creature, he apparently asked his chief minister if he knew what was that creature called. And I'm guessing that dude doesn't have the option to say "I have no idea, Sire." because he was in a cushy position as chief minister which I'm sure in the 1200s that definitely had better benefits than a foot soldier or a farmer... he decided to wing it and told Prince Utama "That's a lion." And because Princes tend to trust people around them, he believed the dude and decided to rename Temasek as Singapore aka Lion City. 

Good job, chief minister. 

And here's Utama's Cat. Well, lions are under the cat classification anyway.

 Eventually, I made my way down to the basement of the National Library and I saw this!

Holy mother of library's children's sections!

 What the heck?! When did the children's section became so cool!?

Ignoring the stares of other people, I decided to walk in and take a look at this bookworms' wonderland.

IS THAT A TREEHOUSE?!

 Now I wish I'm a kid again.

After reading a few mangas, it was time for me to make my way to class.

I was attracted to the exhibitions at the lobby and outside the library's lobby.

The first exhibition was pretty somber. Mr Lee Kuan Yew passed away two weeks back and they left a memorial wall covering his works at the lobby.

RIP Mr Lee Kuan Yew, you will be missed by us.

 After which, there was the SG 50 exhibitions.

Memories of the past

Nostalgic decors

Someone's garden in Singapore

Do you remember your first home?
You can take a piece of paper and pin it on the map of Singapore to identify your first home.

Interactive exhibitions for adults and children.

SG 50 is coming in August, it won't be the same without Mr LKY, and I rarely say this, but this exhibition is one of the rare times where I feel like I'm home and makes me feel proud to be Singaporean.

Today has been a really meaningful day.

Belated birthday lunch at Marina Mandarin's Aquamarine

Celebrated Easter and my belated birthday at Marina Mandarin's Aquamarine. The fiance and I also took this chance to take a look around the hotel as Marina Mandarin is one of my choices for our wedding banquet. 

But that's another story. For now, let us focus on Aquamarine. One thing awesome about Aquamarine is their huge variety of food and the best part is, it's HALAL. 

Well, I'm not a muslim but I thought that will be an awesome fact as the variety is really, really fabulous. Take a look at the photos. 

Boston Lobster

Alaskan Crab Legs and Sea Whelks

Seared Tuna

Smoked Salmon

Mussels

                                     

A whole wheel of Parmesan Cheese

As it is Easter, they had Easter Themed Desserts 

Peach Mousse Cake.. too pretty to cut but some sadist cut off the bunny's face when I came back to look at it. :( 

Look at all the kuehs

Macaroons? Check, Tarts? Check. Fruits? Check.

Seabass

Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding

Yogurt Ice cream dispensing machine with a tree of ice cream cones. 

 The buffet also had fresh sashimi, sushi, local delights like chicken rice, indian food like curry, pasta, chicken kebab, steak, mashed pumpkin, lamb.. and the list goes on.. there were so much food that I gave up taking photos. Definitely worth a try.

As this is Easter, they also had a clown walking around making balloons for the restaurant patrons.

My mom told him it was my birthday, so he asked me what I wanted. I requested for a crown.

My aunt went "Why not a tiara?" I told her "A tiara means I'm still secondary to the king, hence I would rather ask for a crown." I'm such a realist. LOL.

Anyway he made me a crown, which I made my fiance wear.

Look at his unhappy face, he's worried that it will mess up his hair. *roll eyes*

The clown then asked me what else I wanted. I requested for a cat. And he made me.... a Hello Kitty. I'm sorry, but what is it with people assuming I might like Hello Kitty?! I know a lot of girls/women like Hello Kitty (god forbid, I can never understand the reason why) but I am one of the very rare few that can't stand it. In fact, I'm still smarting over the fact that my dad swapped my Zoukout EZ Link card for a My Melody one.. I was like "NOOOOO, WHY MY MELODY, I WANT MY ZOUKOUT CARD..." T____T I decided to just be grateful that he had the thoughtful intention to change my EZ card for me because he was worried my Zoukout one might be expiring.

Anyway I guess the clown meant well, so I'm grateful for the Hello Kitty balloon. Also took my nephew's balloons for the below photo... just for fun.

Me with my balloons

There was also an Easter egg hunt outside the restaurant. The clown dude went to change to an Easter Bunny costume and asked us to go out to hunt for the eggs. Well, it's mainly for kids but as my nephew and cousin are both below 1 year old... I was nominated to help them to 'hunt' for the egg. Felt pretty bad finding the eggs so quickly while the kids below 13 are searching desperately for the eggs. I found two and offered one to a boy hunting near me but he rejected me and said he wanna find one himself. Fine. So I gave one to my nephew and one to my cousin.

Overall, it was an awesome meal and an awesome Easter experience at Aquamarine. Felt like I was below 13 again in Primary School hunting for eggs during Easter. Miss the experience. Glad to have relived it again before I get married next year. Now that's one item off my imaginary bucket list.

Staycation at MBS for our Anniversary

My boyfriend decided to surprise me with a one night staycation at MBS. So I gave him a challenge when I made my way there after work.. he is to order room service and order what he thinks I will like... 

When the food came.. guess what? He got it! 

I was surprised because I rarely eat codfish in front of him because it's always out of our budget.... yet he got it right! This is despite the fact that there's also chicken breast meat and salmon on the menu which I liked too. 

Anyway if you ever stay at MBS and order their room service, please do! The quality is there. The codfish is fresh, blends well with the soy sauce. I lapped up everything on my plate. 

Soy Codfish $40

 The mashed potatoes that came with it was fantabulous as well. Food was served hot.

Codfish came with mashed potatoes with scallions

Buttered mashed potatoes that came with the steak

Boyfriend's order of Steak $65

 After that, he said I can go down to SweetSpot and have whatever I want since he knows I'm a huge fan of desserts.

Sweetspot is located at the lobby of Tower 3 of MBS, exactly outside the lift lobby.

Though this place is considered quite expensive by normal standards, it is something you will have to try once in your life.... I mean LOOK AT THE STUFF.

Macaroons galore. 

How pretty the cakes looks!

Even their pastry looks drool worthy.

And their mini cakes.

 The Oreosaurus caught my eye. As a kid, I always wanted to be a paleontologist.. but I live in Singapore.. to put it bluntly.. Singapore DIG WHAT? Can you imagine me going "Hello, can I have a permit to dig up Wisma Atria because I think there might be fossils there?" Nope.

So my dreams of becoming a paleontologist and an archeologists (I had very weird aspirations as a child...just attracted to dead fossilised things for some reason)........had to be perished because of geographical location. (Singapore had this historical stone called the Singapore Stone but during our colonised days.. the British went and blew it up... and due to land scarcity.. what is there to excavate here? HONESTLY?)

Anyway, that aside, OF COURSE I HAVE TO TRY THE OREOSAURUS. It sounds badass!

ROAR ROAR DINOSAUR.

 And so it came... and it looked pretty sad... but who cares.. it's delicious!

Oreosaurus

 The boyfriend also got me a pound cake filled with choco balls. For $14, it was pretty filling.. I cut it into 7 slices for us to share.

Overall, the staycation was pretty swell.. enjoyed eating all the good food! Happy!

Annyeong haseyo Hansang Korean Restaurant!

Front of the restaurant at Turf City..
 that's my sister photobombing unintentionally. 

 Dad decided to drive the six of us down to Turf City to try the jjajangmyun which my sister absolutely SWEARS by at Hansang Korean Restaurant. It is righhhhhttttt at the end of Turf City.. kind of like a standalone restaurant except that it is still linked to Turf City.

The interior

 I walked in and the first thing I saw was the minimart. There is a minimart that takes up a small area of the property selling....... Korean snacks, instant noodles...basically Korean stuff. Then to the right, it's the dining area and I must say it IS huge. Looks like it can seat more than a hundred people plus they have private dining rooms as well.

My dad got down to ordering and the food came quite quickly. The first to come was some roast pork belly dish. I forgot it's name, but the pork was very, very tender. It fell apart when I picked it up with my steel chopsticks. Taste wise, considering the fact that they barely put any seasonings (or so I presume from the taste), I'm surprised it doesn't taste bland. It has this mild sweetness to the meat.

Next came the Jajangmyun. It's basically noodles in black bean sauce.. sounds gross but it tastes DAMN GOOD. I was slurping onto the noodles like a child.. but I feel no shame because it is so good. Definitely a must try.

Jajangmyun

 The seafood stew consisted of squid, prawns, flower crab, mushrooms, carrots, cabbage and well, as you can see, A LOT OF THINGS. But maybe it's just me, I find the soup too crabby for my liking. It is sweet yes, you can taste the freshness of the crab, yes.. everything in this stew is fresh, yes..but... it's just not my cup of tea.

Seafood Stew

 The ginseng chicken came next and it is pretty swell. Chicken meat falls off the bones nicely, meat is very tender (this is coming from someone who always only eats the chicken breast which is the toughest part of the chicken). The ginseng taste is just right.. I have tried some soup where the ginseng taste it's sooooo overpowering it kind of tastes gross, but this is nicely balanced.

Ginseng Chicken

 Now it's time for me to be bias, the Sweet Potato Noodles or Japchae is so so delicious. I love the sweet aftertaste that seeps into your tastebuds after the noodles slide down your throat. It is a dish that must be tried!

Sweet potato noodle

 The vegetable pancake came and I love the thick and tender consistency of the pancake. Some Korean places, the pancake is so soft that it falls apart when you pick it some, some it's quite tough to bite into.. it's hard to find one where they can properly balance it. This pancake is tough and crispy on the outside but soft on the inside. You can properly pick it up and it doesn't fall apart. Definitely a must try.

Vegetable Pancake

We ordered a grilled mackerel as well, which is very fresh (didn't manage to take a photo of it). Otherwise as mackerels go, it's ok. Below is the list of orders for 6 people. Total bill was about $170+. 

The entire list of orders

 And to end off this post, here's a photo of my new bob haircut today. Finally got my ass to the hairdresser to get my messy hair cut and tided up!