Our 4th Wedding cum 8th Pak Tor Anniversary

11 Nov 2012 (Sun) - We packed C off to the Low Residence in the afternoon because it is our 4th Wedding cum 8th Pak Tor Anniversary today! 2 more years to hit our 10th year! We took this chance to send our wedding bands for replating at Soo Kee, haha.

Old Cat surprised me with flowers the day before. 25 roses in a willow basket.



I went for shoulder and back massage at JP after church, shiok! After packing C off to the Low Clan, we did something we haven't been doing for a few years - karaoke! Wahahahhaa! We went for KHappy at the Marina Square branch. Its been ages since we went karaoke! Had a great time singing for 3 hours.





We had dinner at Casa Verde located at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.















I made a card for the old cat.





30 Nov 2012 (Fri) - Finally got my belated wedding anniversary present! Cum X'mas 2012 and V'day 2013, haha! With a metallic pink BELK casing too!

Our Wedding Website

4 June 2012 (Mon) - We will be taking down our wedding website by mid June. It has been dormant since 2 years ago and we decided not to let the hosting company earn our hard earned money anymore. This is a tribute to our hard work.

Our 2nd Wedding Anniversary & Babymoon

18 November 2010 (Thurs) - We are back from our Hong Kong trip!

This is my longest trip to Hong Kong - 9 days. All thanks to the old cat who had to go there for business and I tagged along, haha. We also extended our stay to celebrate our 2nd Wedding cum 6th year anniversary. Oh, and Babymoon too. :)

Shopping:

I spent the first 4 days mostly on my own during the day, when Kitty was away at meetings and conference. I slept till at least 11.30am everyday, waking up when I couldn't tahan C's violent kicks anymore. She would kick kinda violently until I wake up. The moment I got out of bed, she stopped kicking!!! That joker! I would have my lunch in the hotel (usually sandwiches) before setting off to roam around the city until evening.

We shopped at Tsim Sha Tsui, Harbour City, Causeway Bay, Kowloon, Kowloon Tong..etc. This is the first time I didn't buy any clothes for myself when in HK cos they are mostly selling cold wear. We managed to buy a few nice going out clothes for C though. H&M has very nice and fashionable baby wear and I couldn't resist lah. Don't really like those baby clothes with cartoon or anything too sickeningly pink and girly. Anyway, I bought a really cute baby denim mini skirt and denim dress at the Harbour City branch. Can't wait to let C wear them, especially the mini skirt, cos its really cool! How I wish they have the adult version! The mini version is really cute! Costs S$21.90, but its ok lah. Its hard to find a baby mini skirt this cute, haha. Also managed to buy a sweet Carters cardigan for only S$6.60 - Super cheap! Also bought her headbands, socks, mittons and booties. Won't be getting her anymore booties or socks. I think she has more than enough, haha. She even has at least 5 pairs of shoes waiting for her to wear when she turns one year old, courtesy her shoe maniac mom who bought a lot from Philippines, lol.

There is a bookstore called "Book Buddy" that sells really interesting books for children. They have a great variety of baby books too and we bought some for C. They even have a baby Bible with lots of pictures. Very interesting, and we bought that too.

I have been thinking of whether to get a growth chart to decorate C's room but couldn't find any nice ones in Sg. They usually look kinda tacky. When shopping at Causeway Bay, we found a shop selling very nice kids decor stuff and they have really cool growth charts! It even comes with a couple of attachments to insert photos! Only S$20.20, so we bought it. Also bought a set of decor to paste on the wall. Same price as the growth chart, so expensive for only 4 items! They have a certain thickness and are more of wall attachments than stickers. I like the little girl in red, haha.

We also went to another H&M branch and bought more clothes for C - a denim romper, grey floral top and a short purple skirt with pleats. Cute manz. The clothes at H&M are not exactly super cheap, around S$16.70 each for those we bought, but I reckon the baby clothes in Sg ain't cheap either.

Bought a cot mobile too. Luckily Kitty brought along his 29" luggage and we managed to fit the box in, haha!

We bought mostly C's stuff, and I wasn't feeling too satisfied cos I didn't manage to get anything for myself. So instead of clothes and shoes, this time I bought facial masks (recommendation of Tai Tai) and TVB dramas. I also managed to find a Lao Fu Zi (Old Master Q) movie and bought it too, wahahahhhaa! So happy we managed to get past customs without any problem! Very cheap. Each TVB drama set only cost S$11.00, wahahahahhaa!

Celebrating our 2nd Wedding cum 6th year Anniversary on 11 November:

Kitty had a meeting in the early afternoon, so we celebrated at night. He surprised me with a bouquet of flowers that came with a teddy bear and a fake diamond ring as part of the decor. I was pleasantly surprised cos I was not expecting anything after he bought me the ASUS netbook as my present. There was a card too in addition to the Far East Flora ugly card, haha.

We had dinner at The Quarterdeck restaurant located at Harbour City. Western cuisine. The ambience was good. Kinda romantic and our table faced the sea/harbour with a good view. The food and service was good too!

I got him a card and a tie. Just a mini surprise since I already bought him his DSLR. :)

For photos, please visit my Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/phebeeeeee#!/album.php?aid=305039&id=645908032


Foodies:

I had been craving for certain foods since a couple months back and made a foodie list.

Here are the foods I craved for and am highly satisfied now, haha.


牛腩面 and Wanton Mee Soup at Mak An Kee Noodle Shop:

Super small bowl and expensive, but they are really good. Lagi best!


Roasted goose (Siu ngor) at Yung Kee Restaurant, Central:

Yung Kee serves the best Siu ngor in Hong Kong.

Roasted pigeon (Siu Yu kap):



The pigeon may be a tough bird with little meat, but its really tasty!

We also tried the Soy sauce pigeon (not at Yung Kee). Not bad, though I personally prefer the roasted version.




Snacks at Kam Wah Cafe:



Bo Lo You (Bo Lo Bun with butter) on the left and Bo Lo Bao on the right.

Kam Wah Cafe is well-known for their Bo Lo buns, especially their Bo Lo You. The cafe is usually packed with customers. They have a counter at the entrance of the cafe too and the Bo Lo You sells like hot cakes. Really very nice. Imagine biting into a hot crispy bun with melted butter. Super! The Bo Lo bun is also really good. Very crispy. Nothing like the soft ones at Crystal Jade.



I tried their egg tart too and its yummy! Very smooth. Tastes really shiok when its freshly baked!

Traditional dessert at Yee Shun Milk Company:



Steamed Egg Custard on the left and Milk Custard with ginger juice (薑汁撞奶) on the right.

Yee Shun Milk Company serves really good traditional dessert. The egg custard is really smooth. As for the milk custard with ginger juice, I can't find this in Sg. I ever tried making it but the result wasn't that good. I found it in SFO, but that was just not traditional enough, lol. I am not a ginger lover, but this dessert is really nice. Smooth milk custard with tad taste of ginger. The taste is unique.

Hui Lao Shan (许留山) Dessert Shop:



That's Mango Sago Dessert with Pomelo.

Our First Wedding Anniversary!

(Note: If the activities described in this post seem similar to the one by Her Royal Majesty's below, there's a good reason for this. Think about it.)

11 Nov 09 - As anniversaries go, Her Royal Majesty and I probably have more than the average couple. That's because we have a little celebration every month to commemorate the day that we went "steady".

However, every once in a while, we have an extra special celebration, and today was such an occasion. Today is our first wedding anniversary (since our customary wedding) and the fifth anniversary of our couplehood!

Our celebration took the entire day, and was packed to the brim with activities.

Lunch at Basilico

The first stop on our itinerary was Regent Hotel, where we held our wedding banquet exactly one year ago. It was a nostalgic little trip that brought back memories of that fateful evening.

We decided to have lunch at Basilico, an Italian restaurant within the hotel. As expected on a weekday afternoon, the place was filled with expatriates, tai tais and Japanese housewives. You know, the ones with the budgets and time for leisurely three hour lunches every other day.

When we arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they were serving a buffet. The service was impressive right from the start. The waitress attending to us not only showed us to our table, but also pointed out the various buffet stations along the way. Later, I also noticed that at least one staff member would keep coming around every once in a while to check on us. This was definitely service befitting of a five star hotel.

The food was equally impressive. While the variety was not the largest that I had seen, each item was exquisitely done. Like Her Royal Majesty, I really enjoyed the grilled salmon that was crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

It was also my first time seeing a cheese wheel as part of a buffet line. For the uninitiated, a cheese wheel is simply a circular block of cheese that is usually cut up for sale. It looks something like this:

At first, I thought it was a wooden chopping block, the kind that the uncle at the chicken rice stall uses. I eventually figured out what it was when I saw the serving spoon embedded firmly in the cheese wheel. Customers would use the serving spoon to scrape shavings of cheese straight from the wheel.

The toughest part of lunch at Basilico was deciding whether to plough through the main courses or pig out on desserts. Fortunately, I managed to tackle the best of both.

Singaporean Tourists

After lunch, we headed to Harbourfront where we took the train into Sentosa for the first time. It was like the LRT, except that it was longer. And purple. And it's windows could not turn opaque. Ok, maybe it's not really like the LRT after all.

It had been years since we last stepped into Sentosa. On our last visit, we were still pak-tor-ing, and gladly sweated it out under the sun hiking all over the island. Now, we started to complain the moment the first drop of sweat appeared on our backs.

Sentosa has changed tremendously. Sure, the giant replica of the Merlion is still dutifully hosting multitudes at the top of it's head, the beaches are still home to tanned and lithe bodies, and the prices everywhere are still "chop carrot head" high. But there are now additions such as the Segway ride, luge and skyride, and of course, a huge messy construction site that represents one of two great hopes of all STB officials --- the Resorts World integrated resort.

We bought the Choice package which allowed us to have access to a bundle of attractions at a promotional price. We chose the Segway ride, Images of Singapore, the Sky Tower and 4D Magix.

The Segway was an interesting machine, reacting to your body movements to move forward, backward or to the sides. Learning to use the Segway was almost intuitive, and when we were finally allowed to go on the circuit, it was disappointing to see that the circuit took all of 5 minutes to complete. Perhaps they should have allowed visitors to use the Segway to travel around Sentosa. Now that would be interesting and probably something I would be keen to try.

Images of Singapore provided the typical history lesson experience that museum buffs and history teachers would probably be interested in. I was just perplexed as to why they placed the scariest looking manniquin behind a simulated toilet door. If you or your kids are easily frightened by manniquins with faces and eyes that do not move in tandem, this is NOT the place for you.

The Sky Tower was a lesson in sponsorship marketing. The entire tower was plastered with the corporate colours and images of a local beer. While the ride itself was mildly interesting for the views, I doubt many would pay to repeat the experience.

4D Magix was the first time that I had been to a 3D movie. This one was about pirates, complete with jolting seats, wind effects, sprays of water and tickly wire-like mechanisms that shot out from the bottom of the seat. My only grouse was that the sprays of water blasted the audience right in their faces. I could only repeat to myself that the liquid dispensed must have been water.

By the time we were done with Sentosa, it was almost 7pm and we quickly made our way to dinner at PS Cafe.

PS Cafe

Dining at PS Cafe was like having a meal in the middle of the forest. We were seated on basic wooden furniture and surrounded by natural foliage on all sides. While this may constitute a relaxing ambience in the day, it was too dark in the night to see even the brightest flower. After the excellent gourmet experience at lunch, my dinner proved to be rather puzzling.

I ordered the BBQ ribs and it arrived with a stack of what seemed like round hash browns. I stuffed the golden crispy discs into my mouth and, to my horror, discovered that they were actually fried lemons! That's right, fried lemons! After forcing the first slice down my throat, I thought seriously about whether I was supposed to eat them or just squeeze the juice out of them. In any case, I decided to park them to one side of my plate and leave them there for the rest of the evening.

The ribs were very tender, and broke apart easily at the gentle prodding of my fork. While these were probably one of the most tender ribs that I had ever eatened, the fried lemons left an unpleasant bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

Gift Exchange

After dinner, we returned home where we placed candles on a small Oreo cheese cake from Swissbake and sang to each other a modified birthday song!

My gift from Her Royal Majesty was a funny card, a handmade gift voucher to buy my new handphone and a cool blue striped tie. In return, I presented her with a Tempur pillow and a handmade book containing our experiences from when we first met to the day when we became a couple.

Epilogue

This was definitely one of the most activity-packed anniversary celebrations that we had. While there were some misses as well as hits, the thought of having already spent five years with Her Royal Majesty was more than enough to end the day on a perfect note. Five years down, and many many more to go! :)

1st Wedding cum 5th Year Anniversary!

It's 11 Nov 2009, exactly a year after our customary wedding! Both of us took leave to celebrate this day, and boy it felt really good not to be slaving in the office haha.

I received flowers from the old cat in the office the day before. It was the first time I received such a dark bouquet, my no. 18th from him! It was so dark, that many people turned to look at me when I was out of the office, lol.

  



Lunch at Basilico (The Regent)

We decided to have lunch at The Regent, just like how we went back to Mandai Orchid Garden for dinner on our 1st ROM anniversary last year. We had our lunch at Basilico, a restaurant that serves Italian cuisine.



We could not decide whether to go for buffet or a la carte, and the staff was very nice. She ushered us to a private area and gave us a table that overlooked the lobby. Very nice. She handed us the a ala carte menu for us to look through, then brought me (the old cat had to look after our belongings) around the buffet counter, introducing the varieties of food that they serve, where I can find the hot and cold sections, the desserts..etc. This is a very simple action that can be done by any service staff, but so far none of the staff at the other hotels (not even Shangri-La and Grand Hyatt) I had been to for meals offered such good service! This simple gesture really sets The Regent apart from other hotels.

The Italian buffet spread:



One look at the buffet counter and I decided that buffet would be the perfect choice - they have such a fantastic spread!! Picture wood-fire pizzas, hand crafted desserts! I saw a lot of our favourite foods, and manz, they even have homemade gelato!!!

Here are some of the food stuff:



Bread is readily available at the buffet counter and we see many patrons helping themselves to the bread and cheese. The old cat and I did not take any as we weren't particularly fond of eating bread at buffets. The waitress would make her rounds around the restaurant and she must have noticed that we didn't have any bread on our table, cos the next time she came to our table, she brought along an assortment of bread for us! I mean c'mon, usually waitresses only appear at tables to 1) refill the glasses or 2) clear the plates. To top it off, when I was having some difficulty with the lasagne, the chef came over within 2 mins and offered his help! We are very impressed with the service indeed!

Ham pizza and a plate of roast potatoes, lasagne and meat (beef steak, lamb chop, grilled sea bass and grilled salmon):

  

The grilled salmon is really yummy, the best I have ever eaten!

A plate containing chicken fried rice, dou miao, spicy prawn (very fresh!!), ginger chicken, stir-fry beef with ginger and oyster sauce, and a bowl of Sea cucumber with dry scallop broth:

  

Fruit meringue and chocolate gelato:

  

Manz, the chocolate gelato is really out of this world! Very authentic! It is sooooooooooooooooooooo delicious! So smooth!!! Just like the ones we had in Europe!!! You'll have to try it to know it for yourself! They have different flavours too, but this one is so heavenly that I could not bother with the rest, waahahahhahaha!

Tiramisu and Chocolate Shot:

  

Other pics:

The old cat said to bring the bouquet along, enhances the photos you know? LOL.


  

  

  

  

  



The buffet spread is really good! We like the fact that the meat items are cut into bite-size portions even for the fish. No bones, great! I don't know about the old cat, but I will give Basilico 9 for Ambience & Setting, 8 for Food, and 9 for Service! We are very happy with our Regent experience! Service is really number one!


Next stop after lunch: Sentosa

We have not been to Sentosa for ages, and decided to be local tourists for the day. We signed up for the Sentosa Choice Package which entitled us to 4 attractions at $38.90 per pax. The package included island admission by Sentosa Bus or Sentosa Express (aka LRT) too!

     


We went to the following 4 attractions:

1) Gogreen Segway Fun Ride

This is something that the old cat wants to try when we go to the US next year, but honestly, I have never been too keen on it. Now that we can try the segway in Singapore, we won't have to try it in the US! Wahahahahaha!

  

2) Images of Singapore

This is definitely not as boring as the old cat had thought it would be. Or perhaps it is because I am one of those people who likes viewing life-sized exhibits of the past.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  



3) Tiger Sky Tower

This is Singapore's tallest observatory tower which offers panoramic views at 131 metres above sea level!

  

  

  

4) Sentosa 4D Magix

We watched "Pirates", a 15 mins comedy on pirates' adventure. We had to wear 3D glasses. Throughout the show, the chairs would rock, and we were shot with cold blasts of air and water. Haha, quite entertaining.

  

  

  

Other pics:

The Merlion, and giant Christmas tree at Vivocity Level 3

  


Dinner at P.S Cafe (Dempsey):



  

  

BBQ Ribs that look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Chicken Rossa Penne

  


After dinner, home sweet home for cake!

  

  

Pressie from the old cat:

Tempur pillow...



and a handmade book titled "The Story of My Heart"!

  

Pressies for the old cat:

  

  

Yay so happy, I can finally use my new Tempur pillow!!