"It's a crab fest"

A great crab dinner is one of my favorite meals. Back home, it's a rare trip to the famous No Signboard Seafood Restaurant, really that's their name. My usual would be the White Pepper Crab. I actually had it yesterday with company before I headed back home alone, and had my fruity vodka.

So it's no surprise that while in Osaka, I found myself in one of their famous crab restaurants. I really don't know the English name for it. I remember Anthony Bourdain reviewing it in one of his TV shows. He didn't go in, he ate at the small stall outside the joint.

We had one of the many the sampler meals thatconsisted of eight (I think) different small crab dishes. You got your crab salad, crab tempura, grilled crab, crab sashimi, baked crab and others that I can’t remember right now. It’s a crab fest! Every little and I do mean little, dish was a pure delight. But just not enough meat, like those big Sri Lankan crabs back home I guess.

Here's the first dish which is kinda like a salad, I guess. After that, I can't really remember what came after that. Hah. But everything tasted great and as you can see, the portions aren't that big.

The one directly above is a sashimi dish while the one below is given the tempura treatment.

Next is the crab sushi and finally we got the green tea dessert. The hot matcha was actually poured onto the vanilla ice cream. Of cos, there were other crab dishes like the baked crab that I forgot to take. Heh.

There's even a handy urn to dump your empty crab shells!

"Do the maracas with the lot"

Well, it's a Saturday nite and here I am at home alone ... listening to Take That on my iTunes and trying to get drunk, well, the key word here is 'trying'. I think I am a little drunk since I just admitted to listening to Take That. Heh.

These pix were just taken bout an hour ago. Take a whole bottle of Classic Juice, apple and peach flavor, and a bottle of Absolut Vodka Peach.

Mix them with bout 1/4 of the Vodka to the entire bottle of juice. Add in the ice, do the maracas with the lot. Ah, its Tom Petty now ... cruising through the 't' s in my iTunes. ;)

Then pour them out out into a beer glass. Well, that's the only glass I had that was big enough.

oh, and if you think I haven't got anymore Osaka stuff, well, you are wrong ... I still another piece to write bout that. Heh. That one is gonna be on food with more food pix!

"I'll buy one if you'll buy one"

Wow! It's gonna be 2 years since this blog started... I gotta admit I am quite surprised by it all. It's been a great and unforgettable experience. The one main thing that I want to say/write right now is to say a big 'thank you' to anyone and everyone who has ever dropped by to read, leave comments and everything. I am honestly very, very grateful for your time. Have a great 2008!

I'm still giving out my movie postcards to anyone who wants them, just drop me an email with a mailing address and I'll mail a bunch of them to you, I'll take care of the postage. ;)

Thing bout the year-end holidays is you can always pretty much depend on a couple of things happening. It gets really, really windy as usual and I get the guys over for games just like before. We opened new games like the award-winning Zooloretto, Intrigue and Iliade. Other fun games we played were Ca$h and Gun$, Little Italy, Cheeky Monkey and Alhambra.

Oh yah, before I left for Osaka last month, I finally bought myself a Macbook! I was with my friend at the IT show and it was a case of 'I'll buy one if you'll buy one"... so he got one and I did too!

Which kinda led me to buying this while I was in Osaka. It's a memory card reader for the Macbook, thought it looks pretty cool. Strange that I couldn't find anything like this back home.

'Rhymes with prawn DVD shop'

Meanwhile back to my little Osaka trip, like I said, not much food this time and also, finding my way across the city was a little harder than I expected. For starters, there were definitely less directional signs, subway maps and menus in English compared to Tokyo.

I guess I did more exploring here, underground exploring actually. This is nice little dessert place right next to Osaka Station, near Daimaru. There are like about half a dozen different dessert stalls in there with all kinds of pastries, chocolates, cakes etc. As usual, top makes to all on presentation. Now, the first is a kinda little coffee cake. Not bad. The next dessert is my favorite, a slice of banoffee pie, you can see the banana pieces in there. It was heavenly.

Like all my trips to Japan, I did a lot of shopping too. Although this time, I didn't buy as much outfits as before as all of the shops were selling winter wear. What I did buy were lots of gifts for my ex-colleagues. And a pair of Evisu jeans for myself for a little less than S$200. Thanks to the marvels of vacuum-packing, I was able to pack all my thick clothes into my luggage, thus leaving me space for other stuff. I bought several (thick, heavy) Japanese magazines for them as well as lots of snacks and little cutesy stuff. The days were shorter and by 5pm, it was already all dark.

I went to Den Den Town, which is like 'geeksville' if you know what I mean. The stores along the street, well, it goes something like this ... toy shop, gadget shop, game shop, 'rhymes with prawn' DVD shop, toy shop, gadget shop, game shop, 'rhymes with prawn' DVD shop, rinse and repeat. And sometimes, it's all in one building! It's no wonder I'm trying to get guys here to go with me to Japan next time.

"Happy holidays everybody"

Hey, it's almost Christmas and I figured I'll take a break from Osaka posting and put up some old and I mean very old Holiday pix here instead. Been awhile since I posted any pix of myself during the holidays or otherwise so here goes. These are my kindergarden Xmas play pix and yup, that's me in blue as one of the three Wise Men, 'Wise Guys' as I prefered to call them, no disrespect meant. Happy holidays everybody!

"Giant freakin' mutant gingerbread Christmas tree"

Didn't really take as much food pix as before plus some came out a little blurry, probably cos I was trying to snap as fast as I could. Now Osaka has this HUGE underground subway mall that just goes on and on. Lots of small shops and places to eat as well as leading to big departmental store buildings like Daimaru. It's a huge maze to me and I got lost more than once unlike Tokyo which I found easier to navigate.

Breakfast was always at one of the deli cafes. Here's one with something I call 'giant freakin' mutant gingerbread Christmas tree', it's bout 2 floors high and was right in front of me while I had my breakfast. Check out those bagels, coffee mugs and loafs hanging from it! Now I can't really remember what I had in that particular deli but here's a typical breakfast while I was there. I'm actually a big breakfast kinda guy so yah, most folks I know would say it's a lot.

In this pix, the hot drink there is a green tea latte (or was it mocha?). Was perfect, unlike the other green tea stuff we have back home here. Breakfast (pastries or sandwiches and a hot drink) was usually bout little less than 1,000 yen so that's bout less than S$13, maybe around S$10.

This was a pretty memorable and sinful lunch. For bout S$15, you get a large serving of ramen and 3 huge scallops with lots of roe (the orange part), as well as the usual stuff! And you see that white square thing in the middle? At first I thought that was tofu, nope, it's a piece of butter!

Now, whenever I visit Japan, one thing I always buy and try is the their new Haagen Daz ice cream flavors. I don't think you can find most of these unique flavors anywhere else. Here, here and here are the ones I tried on my last few trips. There were more this time but think was only humanly possible to try three, Creme Brulee, Mont Blanc and Kokuto & Kuromitsu. Heh. My favorite was the K&K which was like brown sugar.

"Suit up"

So I was away for awhile to where else but Japan. Nope, it wasn't Tokyo cos there wasn't any tickets during that time (sorry Niki, wish I was there!) and neither was it Hokkaido. It was the city of Osaka where I spent a couple of days there.

Was real lucky the weather was sunny yet cool bout an average of 11C. Only time for me to, as Barney from 'How I Met Your Mother' would say, SUIT UP! And more importantly, to wear my buff! I call it my pirate hat. Nice to see those golden autumn maple leaves up close for once in my life. You know, you are not gonna believe this but there's actually an option for taking "autumn leaves" on my camera, yeah together with all the other weird features. But I only found out hours AFTER this shot. Well, it looks better on the tiny, teeny camera screen.



Food pix coming up next!

"You are paying me in book vouchers?!?"

Last Tuesday was my last day at work and here are the farewell gifts that I got. Hmmm...yah, the flowers was a kinda gag gift that we gave to both guys and gals leaving the place, so it was my turn to walk home with a bouquet this time. We also had a pretty good dim sum lunch that day. They also got some brownies and blueberry cheesecake ice-cream to go with it, and book vouchers from Kinokuniya. So right now, let me geek out with some pix of them.

"Brownies!"

"Guess what I'm having my morning cereal with."

"Here is your fee, Boba Fett."

"You are paying me in book vouchers?!?"



"Sentinel detects giant mutant flower."

"Think of it as an early Xmas present"

Yah, I know its been awhile since I blogged. Its been one big housekeeping, shelfcleaning, drawerclearing month so far. I'm playing Frenchmaid at not one, not two but three different locations. There's my apartment, my folks' old apartment and my old office.

Everything, all of it is coming back to my place so that means I gotta get rid of existing stuff from my current apartment. As I was tidying my cupboards, I found a ton of movie postcards that I used to collect. I figured I'll give them to anyone of you out there who's reading this! I'm serious, I'll pay the postage. Just send me an email and the kind of movie genre that you like, I'll see what I got. Think of it as an early Xmas present.

Anyway, my folks' old apartment got off to a slightly rocky start. The first guy that was supposed to fix things up didn't return my phone calls and kinda 'disappeared' so I got another guy in. And that's gonna push the deadline back at least a couple of weeks.

"Make that cab my toilet"

When I was a kid, most of the cars especially public buses and cabs don't have air-con like every vehicle today. I would just love to sit right next to the window and have the wind beating into my face while speeding down the road. My dad loves to speed so when he drove me to school like 7am in the morning, we would sometimes get stopped by the traffic cop. Back then, I remember being a little worried sitting in the front seat, keeping an eye out for the cops but now, it's kinda funny.

I sure miss taking those long bus rides, sitting next to the window with the wind blowing really loud in my ears. I think the last time I rode in a cab with the window down was a couple of years ago, when I was 'kinda drunk' and I knew I had to have the window down otherwise I was gonna make that cab my toilet if I didn't get any fresh air.

"Those were the days before email"

Was back at the old empty apartment clearing my stuff that’s been there for like, over a year. Just been too lazy to move them out but now, I gotta do it since meeting the contractor and real estate agent.


Here’s an old stack of letters from long lost friends, relatives, forgotten ex-girlfriends and old colleagues. Ahh … those were the days before email! It’s a strange feeling reading love letters from people who obviously don’t feel the same way they did when they first wrote them. I threw all of them out, keeping only some letters from my relatives. Like I said, you read those old love letters and you can’t wait to get rid of them, not because you feel mad or anything like that. But I just see no point in keeping them and I do have to clear stuff out, so really what’s the point of bringing all back to my apartment?


My old fencing gear and archery stuff are all still there. I’ll be keeping the mask and the arrows (strictly for sentimental reasons) but throwing away the other stuff. Other 'junk' I found, 5 broken old Swatches in the drawer, lots of trading cards and movie postcards.

"Better than sweaty palms"

Ah, here’s another meme I got! Niki tagged me with a pretty interesting one here.

Five things in my bag. Well, I have a weekend bag and an old weekday backpack that I carry to work, I’ll go with the backpack for this one.

• My keypouch/coin pouch.
• 1G thumbdrive with my portfolio
• Digital camera
• Glasses for watching movies
• My pass for getting into the office

Five things in my wallet. Opps, I don’t carry a wallet. I got a money clip and a card holder. Think I’ll just go with the card holder for this one.

• Bus and subway card
• ATM card
• ID
• Kinokuniya member/discount card
• Pokka member/discount card

Five things in my room. Again, I got my computer/study room with my computer, beanbag and action figure displays. And then there’s my bedroom. Since I don’t wanna geek out bout my action figure collection, I’ll go with the bedroom.

• Little bottle of Tea Tree Oil. Swear to Gawd, it's some miracle oil, takes care of almost anything from mozzy bites to my occasional sinus
• Tube of handcream cos I get dry hands sometimes (hey, its better than sweaty palms!)
• Coaster on my bedside table for my drinks
• Currently reading World War Hulk: Gamma Files
• Bunch of ‘Do Not Disturb’ and morning breakfast menu door handlers that I took from hotels during my travels, hanging on my bedroom doorknob. Man, those breakfast menus really look good on a weekend morning!

"Just background music"

I was tagged a meme by b but I been a little too busy job hunting to sit down, think bout it and write something bout it. Sorry bout that b!

Let’s see, the stuff I been listening to … hmmm … been going slow rock lately. Hysteria from Def Leppard. Some Aerosmith numbers. Then there was that nite when I was doing my PowerPoint portfolio, I remember listening to the Grease soundtrack as always. Some Hans Zimmer soundtracks too. In the office’s itunes network, there’s Good Charlotte, Latino heat courtesy of Tito Puente and a couple of anime soundtracks. It's just the background music. something familiar that I need while I write.

Now that I got some free time on my hands, had a talk with my folks and I’ll be renting out our old vacant apartment. It’s a 3-bedroom apartment in the Novena/Newton area, near town. Since we all moved out a couple of years ago, its been empty and well, kinda neglected. So starting later this month, I’ll be meeting up with aircon guys, contractors, painters etc. Set aside about 20 grand for the whole thing.




That's part of the living room and the one below is the kitchen. Ok. I am pretty excited, in a way, bout being a landlord and all. Guess I’ll be talking to a real estate agent or a lawyer to get the legal stuff outta the way. But I'll still be looking for a regular job too!

"5 hours of Martha Stewart"

Goodbye Soundtrack Channel, hello History Channel!

I am so seriously into the History Channel and the Crime and Investigation Channel right now. My love affair with history revolves around ancient history and with a major hard on for the late 19th century right up to WWII. Really, I’m always like spellbound by them old black and white footage! Usually after watching an episode, I’ll go read up bout it more in Wiki. When I was a kid, I bought tons of hardcover history books that were going like really cheap at Popular (that’s the shop's name) bookstores, and weekly/monthly WWII military magazines. I still got some of the books but the magazines are long gone now. Caught the 2-hour documentary, Last Secrets of the Axis over the weekend, that was really something.

The Crime and Investigation Channel is almost like the History Channel cept its all bout the history of crime in the 20th century, well, at least that’s how I see it. Lots of cool old footage too! Hah. I saw Gangbusters last week, which was bout the heroin trade in the US, how it started waaay back in the late 19th century with the Tongs in Chinatown.

And with the Tivo-like features, 60 hours of recording time I believe, I been doing lots of taping too. It’s amazing how I can go through 5 hours of Martha Stewart in bout an hour! After taping the weekday episodes, I simply fast forward past all the non-food demos and yakking-with-the-guests segments, and just watch the baking/cooking ones! Hah!

I’m also a sucker for old movies. Taped Peter Lorre’s Beast with Five Fingers the other nite but have yet to watch it. And of cos, I still need my regular sitcoms like The Office, Two and A Half Men, How I Met Your Mother and The Simpsons.

"Take the piss out of it"

Geez ... it's a Saturday nite and I'm at home? Oh yah! This pretty much sums up how I feel since losing my job ... heh ... that is the complete pix. You gotta admit, it looks cool and it does mean something to me as in it's how I feel right now. Even though it feels like I got a broadsword running through me, I am still trying to take the piss out of it, with a smirk or two.

"I just wolfed it down"

I been trying to get some of my stuff scanned into jpegs for my portfolio yesterday Friday. Running around looking for a cheap scanning shop at Bras Basah. Was really surprised at how much difference the shops are charging for an A3 color scan. You got from S$30 to S$1 for one! Needless to say, I took the S$1 scans. They turned out just fine, anyway I didn't need such high-res scans in the first place.

So from now till Monday, I'll be attempting to organise them into something remotely presentable I hope...

Hey, I haven't forgotten bout making this a semi-food blog so here are some pix of a friend's lunch taken a few hours ago at Ricciotti at Riverwalk. To be honest, I much prefer their other outlet Menotti at Raffles City for their set lunch menu. Menotti has a wider selection if I'm correct. The penne pasta I had at Ricciotti wasn't that great but I was pretty hungry (waiting for everyone to arrive) so I just wolfed it down real fast!

The dessert selection was exactly the same as Menotti, I had the tiramisu (as usual), wasn't that adventerous after the lacklustre main course. I wonder if they have the same half price off desserts like Menotti does every nite?

"Why didn't I head to a sleazy bar"

Well, I got my last day, laid off notice on Friday. It won't be till a couple of weeks maybe a month cos the contract with the client doesn't just end yet. I was ok in the office talking to the other guys who got laid off too and those who were lucky enough to stay. It was only when I was alone like on my way home and then home alone that you start thinking all kinds of negative thoughts. Started feeling down and all that when I was alone. Damn, why didn't I head to a sleazy bar like any normal guy who's feeling down on a Friday nite?

Anyway, started working on my resume over the weekend. Going though all my stuff over the years and deciding which ones to convert into digital format. Finally signed on to Facebook, seeing how almost every other media person here is in it. Good way to keep in touch with people in the biz. And I tried looking up some ex-girlfriends on it but couldn't find any, well, at least the ones whose names I remember.

"Draw them back on their heads"

Something I noticed recently ... seems like more young women are shaving their eyebrows and redrawing them also known as tattooing eyebrows. Why in the world are they doing this?! Only little old ladies do that. Someone said cos it looks better, redrawing them to the style you want looks nicer. Are you kidding me? They look weird. By that same logic, guys should just shave all their hair and draw them back on their heads with a black marker pen!

So what have I been up to? Well, I been getting together all my stuff that I did for the last couple of years into a portfolio. Getting jpegs, files etc. and thinking of doing a PowerPoint/PDF file. I been going through some of my files and I found a couple of more shots from my Japan working trip that I haven't posted.

The one-and-only Mt. Fuji in all its glory. Was pretty lucky to get a shot since it can get super cloudy almost instantly.

More shots of the country side near Mt. Fuji.

And here's where we stopped for lunch. A little roadside soba place. They were very generous with their portions. A full bowl of brown rice and a full serving of soba! Usually in Singapore, it's just one or the other, man, it was great, I was so stuffed.

Here's a shot of the place and a farm (I think) that's just round the corner, I thought it looked kinda cool, in a misty spooky kinda way. Heh.

"Sway with me"

Another earthquake struck Indonesia last evening and we felt it here again in Singapore just like earlier this year. Well, I didn’t feel anything this time cos it was in the evening about 7pm and I was outdoors, on my way home. Got a call from my folks bout it at around 8pm when I was already home alone eating my MOS cheeseburger.

Now the one I felt was this morning at bout 8am while having breakfast. The ceiling lamp moved, the water in the pitcher moved, the rows of t-shirts on the moved. Same nauseous feeling like the last time. All that was missing of the Pussycat Dolls doing "Sway with me" in the background.

First thought, should I change out of my boxers and old Army t-shirt and into my work clothes and immediately leave for work or should I just continue eating my breakfast?

Second thought, can I use this as an excuse to call in sick?

I was calm but I got a little worried cos the tremors lasted more than a couple of minutes.

Anyway, tremor no. 2 for the day hit us at about 11.30am in the office. By now, almost everyone was pretty much immune to it.

I also bought a mango swiss roll from the famous "Rich and Good Cake Shop" along Kandahar Street yesterday. It was the last mango roll in the fridge, at S$12 for about a foot long. Also bought two kaya swiss rolls for everyone in the office. As you can see, there are little sweet chunks of mango in there, it is as good as it looks.

"Who wants to be my pastry lab rat"

*Ouch* what a way to start my birthday. Bit my lip durig breakfast. Been doing some thinking last couplea days.

One good thing (and so far it’s the only thing) bout knowing you’ll be out of a job soon is making plans on what to do with all that upcoming free time. It’s different from taking vacation time from work, cos with that it’s usually traveling or chilling out at home and doing next to nothing.

To be honest, I do have enough chores to do around not one, not two but three apartments. My own, my folk’s and the another old apartment where we used to stay together, before we all moved out. Seriously, it would take at least a whole month to spring clean them all.

Then there’s also the urge of doing some more baking, been itching to do that again but just too tired on weekdays after work, and on weekends I just wanna rest, play games and eat my comfort food. Maybe now, we’ll see. So who wants to be my pastry lab rat?

Someone did suggest taking Japanese or Spanish lessons. One of those intensive day classes, like 3 or more days a week in the morning or something like that I think. Also need to catch up on all those DVDs, new games like this with great reviews and been dying to try it, work out, hit the library for books, meet-up with old friends and stuff like that. Of cos, I'll be looking for job and all that too.

Anyway, back to my birthday. Here's what I had for lunch. Made it to Pasta de Waraku in the afternoon and it was already pretty full at 12.30pm. Had the Hokkaido Crab in Wufu Cream Sauce and the Choco-Banana Pudding for dessert. Figured since I won't be heading to Hokkaido this year of the job(less) situation, why not have it now? Hah! Not as great as it looks but still, I was satisfied. The place was quite small and not in a cosy way. Bad acoustics maybe? The noise, people talking really loud, it all kinda seems trapped in there.

Speaking of people talking, we had a very interesting conversation with our American expat in the office the other day. Was bout dating habits here and the West. The American was quite suprised when we locals told him that it's NOT normal for us (Asians) to hold hands on a first date, let alone make out. He said it's perfectly normal for folks back home in the US to do all that on a first date. So I said, if I dated a girl there and I really like her but I don't make a move on the first date, she'll think I'm not interested, right?