Turning 45

You know life is good when you have family by you on special days. Turning 45, surely the 50%-60% way mark depending on how far I get in life haha. I owe to Meimei to make it all happen so here's to another 45 together! 

Bday Lunch At Otmore Novena Square

We didn't deliberately come here for a Bday lunch. It happens we were at Novena so Meimei brought me to Otmore. On first glance at the deco, tables and chairs, one would be forgiven for thinking that it is a hole in the wall type of sushi place with rice bowls. But it turns out to be a fancy restaurant with a fancy price tag to go with it.

Unlike Sushi Bar, their sashimi are heavily marinated such that they are flavourful but also too salty for my taste. Meimei and I were turned off halfway through the meal due to the amount of seasoning on every piece of raw fish. The only one that didn't turn out half as bad was the beef. Sashimi should be lightly seasoned such that it still has that fresh raw fish taste. If it's not fresh, that's when you marinate it to mask the fishiness ... so is that what this is?

Anyways its not all that bad, just that I would not spend the kind of $$ for this meal vs the same at Sushi Bar.

At The Beach For Sand & Water

A fun outing at the beach again, this time with xy joining in. She has a little 洁癖 and refuses to step on the sand with her bare feet. Haha she has a lot to learn from our Kampong girl 萱萱.

Sashimi Galore At Sushi Bar Takashimaya

OMG ... food coma from having so much salmon sashimi!! The pictures speak for themselves ... look at those thick slices of salmon! 

Absolutely amazing lunch at Sushi Bar Takashimaya. They had a promotion for salmon sashimi and we didn't hold back. It was meant as a birthday treat for me so we went all out. Thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Team Building At Kitchen Showdown Boat Quay Singapore

The Component Repair Finance leadership are all here in Singapore for a Labour Productivity workout. For team building we are at Kitchen Showdown Boat Quay for a cooking competition. We are assigned to teams of 7-8 pax and have to cook 3 dishes, Hokkien mee, Cereal Prawns and Ondei-ondei.

Cooking is obviously not a familiar skillset for most of the team so everyone had a bit of a struggle getting the dishes done, even with the recipe and steps. I was in the sub-team making the cereal prawns and made a bad boo-boo coating the prawns with the egg and cereal before cooking it. So everything was wet and sticky and we had to start over. Fail hahahah

Overall it was clean fun but it kinda limited interaction to the sub-teams. Plus everyone was focused on completing the task that there was not more chatter or relationship building. That said, kudos to the organisers for setting this up. I would never be able to organise any team building like this. 

Lunch At Origin Grill Shangri-La Singapore

Lunch at Origin Grill Shangri-La Singapore with Meimei and YeeYee. It was meant as a belated birthday treat for YeeYee but I tagged along since I was available and could drive us there hehe.

We had the 3 course set lunch. I had the salmon while Meimei and YeeYee went for the beef. I had a salad which was passable but wasn't impressed so didn't took any photos. Meimei and YeeYee had the grilled octopus which looked much better. The only thing that made me sit up was dessert. The melting chocolate tart was very rich.

Overall it's a very good lunch set at a restaurant for the price. Would come again occasionally when I feel like pampering Meimei.

Elixir Haul #14

 

Fancier But Still As Slow

Arrived and left Bengaluru via Terminal 2 this trip. It's a whole lot fancier than Terminal 1 since its new. Arriving was much easier as they have more manned counters to clear the crowd. Leaving is just as bad as before. You can change the coat of paint but you cannot change the people. It's still a horrible exercise to clear the customs bag check. They need to get more sophisticated X-ray machines ... this is the only place I had to dump out everything in my bag to clear the checks. And when everyone needs to do that, it slows the whole process down considerably.

Simpler Breakfast At Marriott

Breakfast at the Marriott Bengaluru feels different from the Sheraton. The place is busier and the open air sitting is more cramped with many tables put side by side. The only thing it has going its way is the Asian styled fried noodles. I do get sick of it having it everyday but its better than other options (or lack of). 

Lazing In The Lounge

I recently discovered that Marriott was offering Platinum status to all GE employees. If I had known about this offer sooner I would have had lounge access on the last trip. That said I'm glad I found it and also shared it with one of my colleague so he got Platinum too. The most obvious perk is the lounge access where we get free soft drinks throughout the day, some light bites for tea break and dinner. They also serve alcohol during dinner so my colleagues had endless vodka mixes till the bar closes. They don't serve cognac so I usually bring my own bottle.

The other perk for me is that it's a place other than the room to laze about and work on the blog, watch videos, plan for the next holiday, play games etc. I like the open space to stare and think about the topics we ran through in the week and formulate my thoughts for the next.

I need to hit another 12 days after this trip to keep Platinum for next year. It's not a difficult task since we travel often. Definitely want to get the lounge access again ... travelling is different with it.

Destroying A Shirt

In Bangalore again for a 2 week workshop. Made a mess first thing Tuesday morning when I tried to iron the t-shirt. The moment the iron touch the fabric there was a burning cracking sound and it basically burned through and left a mark on the shirt. This was the ones with the company logo that I had shipped to Singapore at USD80 a piece.

Super pissed off is an understatement. I was livid and you can see the fumes coming out of my ear. Never had this happen at other hotels. No more ironing for the rest of the trip ... Dammit!

Kiddo Pic & Talk Sep 2023

Already someone in the family does that 

Meimei: “don’t leave the plastic in the cupboard. Thats a bad habit”

Meimei: "There is already 1 person in the family who does that and it’s bad enough."

萱萱: "Who?"

Meimei (poker face): "Me"

Meimei: “so you have to make sure you do it right and throw the plastic away”

萱萱: “but mama then you need to stop doing this so I can be the one not throwing it”

Meimei (dead silence) ... *内伤

Pokpok ... Laughing hysterically...

Korean Hip Hop

Meimei signed up the kids for Korean Hip Hop trial lessons. It's not free, we still have to pay for the class at a discounted rate. They didn't let us take pictures so Meimei had to secretly take a video when she could. She could only get one for 阳阳 whereas 萱萱's class was too exposed to whip out a phone.

Not sure if the kids had fun. Being at GR.ID mall along Orchard road makes it hard to really commit to taking the classes every Saturday morning unless the kids are extremely keen on it. At least Meimei thought about letting the kids try it out so we know for sure.

 

New Member On Evening Playground Fun

We have a new member for the playground runs. Xy is at that age where she can start going to playground regularly to build up her strength and muscles. It's good to bring her out so her world is not just the four walls in the house.

萱萱 and 阳阳 were overly excited that Xy is with us. They took turns to play big sister and big brother and brought Xy around the playground.

Mid-Autumn Festival @Yuneng Primary School 2023

萱萱's school has a Mid-Autumn Festival event for family of students this evening. There was crowd favourite treats like popcorn and candy floss. I think it's meant to get the kids sugar high so they can immerse in the activities. There were different stations with games and activities with simple prizes of colour pencils, erasers etc. So glad Covid is over and we can all get together for such family events at the schools.