"The cop made me do it"

I was heading home just now and saw that the road was cordoned off cos some huge construction stuff fell off a couple of trailers. So the traffic cop (very politely) told me that I had to get off the sidewalk and walk through the open field. I said, "That means I have to climb the fence?" And he said, "Yes, sorry for the inconvenience."

Sure, its been awhile since I climbed any fences but I'll give it a shot. Hell, the cop made me do it! And I climbed, and it was a breeze. I mean it was exactly like before. Toss my bag over the fence and then climb it.

Anyway, back to Japan. So I had technically one day of R&R, not exactly rest and recreation but more like retail rampage. One day cos of half a day in the afternoon and half a day the next morning before my flight back.

After finishing work in the hotel in Shinjuku, got out at about 4pm and headed straight to C&C curry rice for a very late lunch. Then off to make my biggest ever single purchase in Tokyo. A watch that I had my eye on for some time now. Far as I know, you can't find it here in Singapore. It looks a lot better in real life.

Then it was off to Harujuku to the special Uniqlo concept store. If you haven't heard about it or seen pix of it, it's really neat. Here's how it looks from the outside. It's just across the Levi's store.

Three floors of nothing but cool t-shirts, sold and packed in plastic capsules. Hundreds of them. Only 1,500 Yen each. That's less than S$20! Seriously man, these are really good! I bought 4 but had to get rid of the capsules cos of space in the luggage.

Anyway, I did buy bunch of other stuff along the way and the next day too. Here's a pix of just some of them. Not bad one-day-shopping coming for a straight guy huh? Let's see now ... in the pix below, there's the new Kit Kat flavours, kiwi fruit, melon and green tea (again), a Shinjuku JR line station key chain (got it since that's near where I always stay), an old school Glico man chocolate tin, a Japanese mag on food and more dice for my collection from Tokyo Hands at Takashimaya, these include a Zodiac dice, Yes/No dice, Who/What/Where/Why/When/How dice, emo dice, Food dice in Japanese includes Sushi/Tempura/Beef rice/chinese/Italian/french and a dice with Japanese characters that I don't understand. Guess which is my favorite. ;)

"Noodles-in-a-bun"

Alright, here are the food pix like I promised! Since I was there on official work, I couldn't really take my camera out every time we got served. So don't expect too many food pix this time. We'll start with the weird first. For the person who likes bread and noodles, we have the perfect meal for you. Noodles-in-a-bun! Really, it's what you see right here, noodles in a hot dog bun from a local convenience store. Only from Japan!

This is the famous Jyangara or Jangara Ramen in Harajuku. We love it and according to the menu, ex-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi loves it too.

The last time I was in Japan (exactly a year ago), I had this other new flavour from Haagen-Dass. This year, it's Chardonnay and Raspberry. Not bad but more raspberry than anything else.

Want to know the secret of making it rich here in Asia? Open a donut shop! It's already happening here in Singapore. Now look at the Krispy Kreme Q at Shinjuku. When I was there, the sign said average Q-ing time is 50 mins. Remember now, it's at least 36C in the sun, no shelter and we have men in suits.

"Why I don't date models"

Well, I'm back from Japan! And I got some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is my favorite porn shop in Shinjuku is gone! OK, the less said about this the better.

The good news is except for very minor bumps, everything went well during the shoot. The weather was bright, sunny and HOT (at least up to 38C according to the thermometer in my G-Shock), perfect for outdoor shoot. For obvious reasons, I can't say anymore about the campaign until it's launched.

Eating was quite irregular as we were out at the break of dawn, had to munch on buns and other convenience store food for breakfast (kinda like my army days). Anyway, I was reminded of something else during dinner there, the model ate very, very little, just little nibbles. I dated a model years ago, beautiful nice girl but whenever we were out, she hardly ate and I just felt so ...er... uncomfortable. I guess that's the reason why I don't date models. Hah!

Picture time! First pix is the break of dawn at 4.30am from my balcony!

Next we got some random flower shots.

Oh yah, just remembered something while posting the pix, remember the black cotton buds from last post? I was talking to the professional make-up artist there and he said he uses them too for make up and it's really good cos they don't stain or mark and cleans up really nice or something like that. So there you go, my make-up tip!

Coming up next, food!

"It was under the pork"

Here's an interesting gift I got from Hong Kong recently. Charcoal cotton buds, well, I don't think they are exactly cotton anymore. They are pretty solid as in the er, cotton or whatever doesn't come off. And if your ears are really dirty, you can see it against the black! But wait, you are saying 'but won't my ears be black from shoving charcoal into them?' I dunno, I can't see into my own ears.

I Had my first visit to The Marmalade Pantry last nite. Yah, really. Anyway, had the roast pork loin with caramelised sweet potato. Not bad except for the fact that the piece of meat was incredibly thick. Thickest piece of pork I ever had in my life. The sweet potato was great. And there was also a small serving of cabbage that came with it (it was under the pork) and it was done just the way I remembered in the army! Cookhouse flshback! And that's not a bad thing really. It was a little soft and soggy but still quite tasty.

"Drinks in the office"

So it's a lazy Sunday. Did a little work and emailed it back to the office. Thought I'll try something new with two of my favourite subjects, toys and food like my last post. Ha, remembered taking some pix with them together here and here as well, thought it was kinda neat.




Anyway, I'm gonna try it again but this time playing some angles and lighting. Ok, a little background on the Vodka Peach. First time I tried it was in the office at our semi-usual informal Friday 5pm 'drinks in the office' session. We mixed it up with ice and cans of Sprite found in the pantry. Well, obviously I liked it a lot otherwise I wouldn't have gone and gotten my own bottle.

Backup Plan 101. I ain't gonna sit on my ass thinking bout it. Come the last weekend of July if I ain't in Japan, I'll be having a games nite at my place with the guys over.

"Gonna jinx it"

This probably one of the best discoveries of the month for me. I been drinking this coffee liquer for months now and it's always with this brand of milk called HL Milk. Then I switched to the occassional Meiji Low Fat Milk which is less sweet but it's fresh milk (a shorter shelf life) unlike HL Milk which although it claims to be one, is actually made from some kinda processed powdered milk.

Anyway one nite I decided to try it with Meiji Low Fat Milk and damn! it was heavenly! The bottle is almost empty now but I got a brand new bottle of Bailey's coming up next.

Now what I'm about to say might not be the best thing to say. What I mean is I feel like simply by mentioning it, I'm probably gonna jinx it. Thing is I might be heading out to Tokyo in a couple of weeks for a four-day photo shoot business trip. BUT there are already more than a handful of problems creeping up. Firstly is the budget, if it gets cut anymore, I ain't going. And right now it's the stormy Tokyo weather too. Hopefully that clears up by the early start of the week. I sure would like to head back to Tokyo but right now it's not looking good.

"Freaky obese fatboy"

Here’s one of those toxin remover patches that the drug stores here are selling. You stick a patch at the bottom your feet just before you go to sleep and in the morning, it would have gone black by absorbing the toxins from your body. Apparently, it’s a science and it really does remove certain harmful toxins. Now these are pretty expensive, about S$80 for 20 patches I think. I managed to find this at a S$2 budget shop in Vivo City. A pack of 2 patches for only S$2. As you can see, it did turn black the morning after so I guess it did work. I mean, evil black stuff was removed and that ought to be good right? Ah, the wacky stuff a guy does when he’s alone in bed! I might buy more the next time I’m there.

Recently I been thinking a bit about good and evil, order and chaos etc.. Now I’m a big fan of fiction so I have read gazillion stories on good vs. evil. The consequences of one’s dark evil acts as well as the hazards of time traveling but I digress. But seriously, I’m just thinking why didn’t I turn out ‘bad’ while growing up? Why was I a ‘Child of Order’ during my teenage years?

Truth be told, I was a pretty ‘spoilt’ kid. I mean, as the only child in a ‘financially comfortable’ family. Almost anything I wanted I knew I could get (expect that damn chemistry set!) and as a teenager I could have gotten away with a lot of stuff. I could have stayed up all nite every weekend but I didn’t. I grew up along Orchard Road the shopping and party areas, people usedto tell me that if they lived there, they’ll be partying every nite. Er, I don't think so. Then what kept me in check? Why didn’t I go overboard? Till today, I still don’t know. I know there was a very small part of me that really wished to party and all but I didn’t. Well, someone has a theory and I think it’s the closest I heard. ‘Fear’ of disappointing my family cos I really love them and I know it’ll hurt them a lot if I did those stuff. As for my ‘Servant of Chaos’ days when I started working, that’s a story for another day. ;)

Oh yah, thank the stars I wasn’t so into food back then. I think I would have balloned into some freaky obese fatboy! Hah!

"Rest of what's inside the pig"

Its been a while since I wrote anything about food so it's a good thing I brought my camera out this afternoon. Had Bak Kut Teh (pork ribs soup) for lunch at the junction of Worchester and Owen Road. I believe it's a pretty famous stall but this is only my second time there. It's great, the meat is tender and the soup isn't the peppery kind. It's actually a little sweet. As you can see, we didn't forget about the rest of what's inside the pig. There's the liver, stomach and intestines in the other bowls too.

Here you got the main Bak Kut Teh bowl with lots of garlic, just the way I like it.

Followed by the rest of the pig.

And here's my 'complete' meal.

"Really nice butts"

This is too good to pass up. Continuing the last post on conversations with expats. Here's a gem that I had recently.

White boy: I can't believe the Asian women here have really great asses. Asian women in New York have no butts. But the women here have really nice butts.

Me: Er ... ok, I'm more of a 'face' person actually.

Sorry folks, no photos to go with that one.

So what else did I do today? Well, I played this freakin' music video at least 20 times on YouTube. No shit. The unofficial music video to the latest Die Hard movie. I'm a huge action movie fan especially Die Hard, Bond, Lethal Weapon and Indy. Yah, I did mention it before.
Just listen to the lyrics, the chorus, geez, if you got a husband, boyfriend, brother or anyone who loves the Die Hard movies, just show him the video, it'll sure to be a grin on his face.

Best motherfuckin' music video for the month! Yippee-ki-yay die hard mother fuckers!

"So where are you from"

There's been some expat traffic coming through the office these last couple of week. Obviously these guys skipped a lesson or two during geography. Some overheard conversations ...


White boy: So you are Chinese, you are from China?

Local: No. I'm Singaporean.

White boy: So your parents are from China?

Local: No, they are from Singapore.

White boy: So where are you from?


White boy: I love oriental food. I'm going to have Indian food tonight.


White boy: I can't tell who's Chinese or Malay. (pointing to Malay girl) Is she Chinese?

Caught Ocean's 13 yesterday, waaaay better than the Spidey and Pirates. Damn, I miss pulling cons. Good times.

"Was as vanilla as can be"

Hey guys, check this out! Got this slide show running and figured I'll throw it the Marvel villain collection I mentioned in my last post. Pretty neat, eh?

Now I was tagged by Imp's meme some time ago. So musical flashback coming up. So what the hell was I listening to back when I was 18? I gotta admit, I was at the mercy of the local Top 40 music stations. I remembered listening to my little radio walkman on long bus rides during my army daze. A discman was way too big and heavy so I got me a small radio thingy from Aiwa. Like I said, music wise I was mainstream all way, I was as vanilla as can be. It was mostly late 80s and early 90s’ US Top 40 stuff with a little Brit Top of the Pops thrown in. Nah, you guys don’t need me to write the song titles down, pretty sure you are not that young too. Hah!

"I'm cheap in the morning"

I just realized that when it comes to comfort food. I like the hawker, street stall types the best. My current favourite is the chee chiong fan with the red sauce and lots of sesame seeds (folks in the office would sometimes point out that I have some seeds in my teeth, very unglam!), followed by 2 soft-boiled eggs and cup of tea, all for S$3.80. While my comfort food for dinner is usually a pricy Japanese meal or a nice juicy steak (which I still can't find one near where I work). Yah, I guess you could say I'm cheap in the morning.

All right, time to put on my geek cap. Took some pix of my latest comic-book related acquisitions. Good time to try out the micro feature of this camera. Found these figures a couple of weeks ago in a little comic book shop and blew almost S$100 on all five of them. There are like over 60 figures in the collection and still growing. From the UK, yhey are lead figures, about 5 inches tall, heavy as hell and hand painted. Beautifully sculpted and oh-so detailed!

I was lucky enough to find all 5 figures of Marvel Comics' biggest and baddest villains! You got Doctor Doom, Magneto, Green Goblin, Red Skull and Loki.

Hey, guess where my next stop is gonna be! Hopefully end August...

"Not as fresh as my knuckle sandwich, would you like one?"

Had Sunday brunch at the much talked-about Pierside Kitchen and Bar. I must say, it's as good as everyone said it would be. Better than the Sunday Brunch I had at Glaze. Ordered the Minute Steak and the French Toast with ice-cream and honey dessert. Pix ain't that clear, it doesn't do justice to it, sorry bout that. The steak was ok, but what made it really great was the red wine sauce that came after I already ate a quarter of it. Hah. It wasn't as crowded as I expected it to be, considering the things I heard about the place. Anyway, good food and good service. Will try the other items on the menu, maybe with more friends.

Now speaking of food, here's an incident I really gotta tell. Was having my comfort food dinner alone on Friday nite (after a hellish week ar work, even had to work on Vesak Day!) at a small but rather well-known Japanese place at a famous landmark hotel. I was seated at the bar eating my sashimi by myself when my big CCO (or is it CEO?) boss came in with his local wife. I don't mean to bitch but almost everyone in the office hates him, for reasons I won't go into here. And his wife asks really loud, "Is your fish fresh?"

WTF?!? You don't go to a top Japanese restaurant and ask if the fish is fresh! Man, if I were the sushi chef, I would have said, "Yes, but not as fresh as my knuckle sandwich, would you like one?"

"Hey, it's a catchy song!"

In the words of Homer J. Simpson "Hmmmm.....donuts." Finally Dunkin Donuts is back in Singapore BUT its an online delivery service, for now I guess. If you read their delivery plans, it is kind of a hussle. They only deliver on Wednesdays and Sundays at train stations?! I guess they'll probably change all that if business picks up.


Not your usual Friday afternoon view. Click on it for a bigger view. The little watersprout that made the evening news and the Saturday morning papers. It's actually the second time in my life I seen in real life. The first was years ago when I was on an overseas assignment in Sarawak. Speaking of assignments, I just volunteered for an 'undercover' assignment. Nah, it's nothing as exciting or dangerous as it sounds. In fact, it's more of an observer role, lots of note-taking. Now I'm supposed to get my photo taken on Monday morning, for the fake ID that the agency will be giving me. If I can, I might write a little something bout it when it's all over. Which reminds me, I need to wear a shirt on Monday instead of the usual t-shirt and jeans.

I know its been awhile since I blogged. Here's a meme that b tagged me about a month ago (sorry, b!), I'm finally doing it!

It's called 7 songs.

Meme: List seven songs you’re into right now ... no matter what they are. BUT they must be songs you’re presently enjoying. Most but not all are in my ipod nano, some are from my co-workers' itunes that I listen to via office network. In no particular order, here we go.

1. Where did our love go? Diana Ross and the Supremes. I always enjoyed her early songs before she went solo.

2. Baba O'Riley by The Who. Believe it or not, I become a fan of The Who only after hearing them on all three C.S.I shows.

3. Shape of my heart by The Backstreet Boys. Found this guy's ipod playlist on the office network and he has got this whole bunch of Backstreet Boys' hits. Hey, it's a catchy song!

4. James Bond theme. The remix dance version by Moby. It's already a fast-paced piece made even faster by Moby. I put this on a loop while I'm writing.

5. The Rock soundtrack. Had tons of writing to do and deadlines to meet last couple of weeks. So I been listening to a lot of instrumental pieces. This the 'usual' high-octane action movie soundtrack by the one and only Hans Zimmer. I'm trying to get his soundtrack to the second Pirates movie but I can't find it in the shops here.

6. One wild night by Bon Jovi. Always a good piece to wake me up.

7. Tonight is what it means to be young by Fire Inc.. OK, I bet not many people know this number. It's from an old movie called Streets of Fire. It's an underrated 80s action rock and roll musical starring a young Willem Dafoe as the bad guy, Michael Pare as the good guy and a very hot Diane Lane. I remember watching it as a kid. Damn the opening number Nowhere Fast and this closing number were the best! Here's the video or rather the final scene. Picture this: hero saves the girl, she goes on to perform in her rock concert, he knows they belong to different worlds, leaves in the middle of her song. Check out the part where he finally walks out the door and the look on Diane Lane's face. You could almost feel her heart break!

"Damn it"

Damn it. My Blogger is still giving me problems. I still can't link anything to my posts. I can post photos but can't link any sites. It says it's a server problem and an engineer has been notified. Yah right, it's been over a week already.

Its been awhile but I finally had another one of those big epic dreams like I used to have like, almost every week, years ago. I call them my 'big budget action adventure' dreams cos they usually span a few years in dreamland but actually just one 'real' nite. One of my favourites had me as an Allied soldier disguised as an SS Nazi officer during WWII. If I could, I would link this post with my other dream posts under 'Weirdness'.

Well, this latest dream I had a few nites ago had the entire Earth being invaded by aliens. It's kinda like War of the Worlds cos I never saw the aliens. Only huge ships blanketing the skies. They just kept bombing the surface. It was a pretty depressing dream cos everyone was just so helpless.

Anyway, back to food. Managed to at last have a bowl of ramen at the popular (direct-from-Japan) Ramen Marutama at The Central on Friday nite. That's the side orders Dashimaki Tamago (egg rolls) on the left and Yaki Char Siew (pork) below.

My main order was the house speciality Aka Char Siew Ramen. Yah I know, I need to remember to hit the Flash the next time I take my food pix. So was it worth standing 20 minutes in the Q? Yah, it was pretty good. not too salty too. My colleagues who had the spicy ramen said it wasn't as spicy as they thought it would be. Generous servings too. Almost S$20 for my main bowl of ramen. If I remember correctly, it'll cost a little less if I was having it in Japan.

"Back to the ice box"

Back to the blog and back to the ice box. Look what I got from the supermarket again. Just like old times, more new ice-cream flavours. just this out, Royal Milk Tea flavour! There appears to be some problems with Blogger on my side here. The Dashboard has gone all weird so I can't link anything to it. That's why I didn't post anything for the last couple of days. But I'm still having the same problem.

The IT guys at the office finally took my ancient PC notebook away and passed me an ibook to work on. Its been like almost 3 years since I worked on a Mac. The new platform is gonna take some getting used to.

"Four-leaved clover of tea leaves"

Besides my luv for royal milk tea, there's another kinda tea I'm nuts about and that's Irish Malt Tea. Unfortunately, the only place I know that has it is at the Rose Veranda at Shangri-La Hotel. Ithink Hyatt has it too when I was there a few years ago.


I always order a pot when I'm there. Yah, was on leave and had lunch/tea there on Monday just before May Day. It has the "aroma of Irish whiskey" and "a hint of cocoa and malty Assam tea". It's really great!

The bad thing is I can't find it anywhere else in the tea shops, other cafes, no one here sells them. Been looking for them for year. It's like the four-leaved clover of tea leaves for me! So if anyone knows where to get them here in Singapore, let me know. Thanks a million!

"Six-legged Hotel California"

It’s been absolutely insane last couple of weeks. In and out of the office. Working till 3am in the morning in an office with no air-con is not a joke.

Anyway here I am at my 100th post and fer-the-luv-of-gawd I don’t have any thing special to write bout. Well, I did manage to finally do that labels thing after entry, to categorize each post. Look below each post! * Whew * that actually took a while to go back all 100 entries.

Need to catch up with the gaming buddies, some of them actually bought the new WOW TCG expansion set released last week. I thought they gave up on that. I bought a box and a whole bunch of boosters too. But the guys already finished their trading without me so hopefully I’ll be looking for other groups to trade my cards with. OK, at this point, I’m willing to bet my entire comic book collection that no one here knows what I’m talking about. Haha!

Check this out. Saw it at Toys R US and the line just blew me away! It’s called the Modern Insect Hotel, where little boys (now I know it might sound sexist but come on, let’s not kid ourselves) catch and throw bugs in there to (let’s be honest again) torture them. It’s like the freakin’ Bates Motel for bugs or six-legged Hotel California! Are the insects that check-in ever meant to check-out alive in the first place?! Calling it a ‘Modern Hotel’ is hilarious. I wish I had this when I was growing up. All I had as a kid was the freezer where I would freeze the bugs and then unfreeze them later to see if they live.

Damn, now I feel like getting one for my office desk…

"Toilet Bowl Muffins or the Tool Shed Brownies"

Happy Easter Sunday everyone! I was on a roll and the plan was to do more baking this weekend. But I had to bring some work back from the office and had a couple of other errands to run so I couldn't. Now why is it whenever I bring work back, there's gotta be something cool to watch on TV that nite? Just as I was about to start cracking on some copy on Saturday nite, I noticed that the MGM cable channel was showing that classic 70s murder mystery Dressed to Kill. I heard and read bout it but never saw it until last nite.

Anyway I wanted to try baking Martha Stewart's Kitchen Sink Cookies. Not to confused with her other recipes, the equally famous Toilet Bowl Muffins or the Tool Shed Brownies. Nah, I'm just kidding. So why pick this receipe? Cos a colleague passed me a Martha Stewart baking DVD and it looked sooooo easy when Martha Stewart was doing it.

Few of the cooking and baking books on my shelves but sure wish i have more time to actually try some of them out. Hey, it's my 99th post and I still dunno if I should do anything for my 100th.

"Kinda like Trump's hair(piece) on a cupcake"

Woo hoo! I'm back to blogging bout food! Remember the cupcake mix gift I got from Boston? Well, finally found some time and help baking them just now. Was reading the tube and apparently it's from some famous cupcake bakery from Beverly Hills. Simple enough instructions were found inside the container. There you see the mix from the tube, and it's enough for a dozen cupcakes. And right here you have the new digital weighing machine, first time in action.

Anyway, popped them in the oven while doing the frosting. All right, while topping the frosting, I realised that I totally suck at it! They had this nice photo of a cupcake on the container and it really looked nice and smooth. I used a butter spread and mine all looked like it had some weird comb over or something. Slapped across and pasted on them. Kinda like Trump's hair(piece) on a cupcake.

The chocolate frosting tasted great! The cupcake was a tiny little bit too flaky for me but the whole cupcake was pretty decent. Not sure if it's anything like the original in Beverly Hills but I'm fine with it.

Oh, check out this cool cupcake stand I saw while I was buying my baking tray. I believe it can hold 38 mutherloving cupcakes!