'The Ladies of Asahi'

I just realized a couple of ‘disturbing’ things bout myself. I drink less water on weekends or when I’m not in the office. In the office, I have a huge water bottle that I fill up every morning with bout 1.5 litres of water which I always finish before leaving at the end of the day, that’s like 2 litres a day, that ought to be enough right? So on weekends when I’m out or just lazing at home, I usually forget to drink enough water and I think I drink bout half that amount by the end of the day.

The other thing I realized is I don’t think I’m considered a regular at any small Japanese restaurant anymore. It’s been months and months since I eaten at any counter seats with a sushi chef. My last few Japanese meals were at those big restaurants. Hah, I know it sounds kinda weird but being a regular at a quaint, intimate little place is pretty neat. You get that personal touch from the staff, maybe better sashimi cuts, a little extra dessert etc.

And continuing my ladies and booze photo shoot, here are some new shots. Introducing the Ladies of Asahi. So anyone knows anyone working in Asahi?

'One week in Sillypore 1'

Decided to try a little something different now. Now, I'm a big fan of the Dannychoo all-things-Japanese/anime website. Something he does occasionally is a 'One week in Tokyo' posts. Pictures of what his week in Tokyo was like, it's really cool and I figured I'll have a little one of my own. There's already a great 'One week in Singapore' series already, so maybe I'll call mine 'One week in Sillypore 1' that is until I can come up with a better name. ^^;

It was around the last week of the Chinese Lunar New Year when I took these shots. This is a really cool 'toy' from Japan. If you ever liked popping those air wrap bubbles, you'll luv this. It's an electronic toy that makes the sound of popping bubblewrap when you press on the plastic bubbles. About every 100 pops you make, it'll make a random sound such as a doorbell, a dog barking, "sexy voice" or the passing of gas.

A quick walk through Chinatown on my way home from work. Still with some New Year goodies on sale.

More good luck cats are on the prowl.

Home with my macbook, in front of the TV.

Sunny weekday morning in the local business district.

Lunch time at Maxwell. I was seated next to this chicken rice stall although I didn't have it. It's supposed to be pretty good, judging from the number of newspaper reviews its got pasted around it.

Here's something you don't see everyday. A cookout from the back of a catering truck, outside a Chinese clan association. This was on the last day of the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The bus ride to my aunt's place over the weekend. I figured why not take a shot, so I did.

Saturday nite dinner at Mellben Crab's Toa Payoh outlet. Having heard that the quality at their Ang Mo Kio has dropped. You'll be glad to know the that quality at Toa Payoh is still great. Probably cos the familiar main staff seems to be at Toa Payoh now.

Dessert at Icekimo. My first time there. Almost missed the place cos the entire building was under renovation. Had the blueberry cheescake and teh tarik (milk tea) flavours. Very good. Would luv to go there again cept it's pretty hard without a car.

'Should I or shouldn't I'

Was up from 3am to 5am by mozzies biting me last night, couldn't sleep at all. Now, it's 10.15pm on a Friday nite and I'm too tired to do anything else. I got 3 bottles of duty free Hoegarden beer in the fridge and I'm thinking should I or shouldn't I...



Ok, remember the book vouchers I got as a farewell gift from my old office? Here are most of the stuff I got.

Mac OS X Leopard for Dummies. It's one of those I-wouldn't-have-bought-it-with-my-own-money kinda thing. I thought I'll get it since I got a new macbook late last year. So far, I think I only used like 10% of it.

How to have creative ideas by Edward de Bono. Another great work from U2's front guy. Nah, I'm just kidding. It's 62 'mental' creative exercises, coming up with ideas and looking at things from different viewpoints. Great book for someone like me. ^^;

Net, Blogs and Rock 'n Roll. Another book that's coming in real handy for someone in the media industry. Explains how digital advertising works and the use of social networks, crowdsourcing, tagging, etc. A must-read for me.

Yotsuba&! Vol.1. Gawd, I'm in luv with her! Don't worry, there's nothing kinky here. Just go read the reviews (click my link!), pick up a copy, borrow one or even steal one and you'll know what I mean. Every weekend, I'm just waiting for the Kinokuniya sale so I can pick up the other volumes at 20% off!

"It's like a train wreck"

Recently I stumbled upon this local forum at SingaporeBrides.com and they have a sub-forum called Matters of the Heart. And to me, it's like a local online version of the Jerry Springer show (I caught a couple of episodes while in New York years ago), I mean almost every other post involves broken relationships between couples, in-laws, etc. It's like a train wreck where you know you are not supposed to stare but you can't help it!

But the thing that really gets me is how most of these posts go. Original poster goes something like, "my boyfriend cheats on me/is abusive/lies to me, etc. so should I leave him?". The next 50 posts all tell her to leave him but she goes "I don't want to leave him cos I still love him". WTF?!? Then why are you asking for advice if you already made up your mind? Do you really think that a guy who cheated on you like 5 times in the relationship would actually stop cheating on you once you marry him? I don't get it at all why can't people walk away from really bad relationships especially if both aren't married yet. Can anyone tell me?

"Some of them are pretty shifty-looking"

Happy Year of The Rat everyone! It's almost the end of the long Lunar New Year break. The first day or rather first 6 hours was spent doing the traditional visitations. After that at bout 4pm on Thursday I was pretty much 'free' to do whatever else I want. Cept that almost the entire island was closed for the next couple of days. Shops are closed, everyone's visiting. Which comes to my next little observation.

Tons of (male) foreign workers wandering the streets. Hordes of them. Some of them are pretty shifty-looking, if you know what I mean. Most of them are from China and India. I was like, where the hell they going? All the shops are closed and most of the labourers live in dorms at the work sites, so who are they visiting? Anyway, want to know how to tell the white collar ones from the the blue collar ones? The white collar ones all wear glasses! Really. Of cos, you can tell if you hear them talk, that's when you know you are right and really, the IT guys from India or the China lecturers, they all wear glasses.

Now for some food stuff which I know I haven't been doing much of lately. Passed by this new place by chance last nite, that's Saturday nite, and figured we'll give it a try. it's a new Japanese eating place at the basement of Raffles City, called Shokudo. It just opened a week ago apparently. By the way, today's Sunday papers did a rather positive review of the joint.

It's done up like the old Marche places in Singapore i.e. there are bout a dozen stalls, anything you order is recorded in a card, walk, see what you like, eat and pay when you are leaving the place. So all the stalls like are selling different kinds of Japanese food.

How was the food? Not bad but not that great either. There are way better Japanese places like Kuriya to eat at Raffles City. It's a pleasant enough experience and the whole idea of everything under one roof still works. The joint was almost full by 7.30pm. My suggestion is go there just once with some friends, if you like it then go again. If not, you ain't missing much.

"Score one for Internet justice"

So I got this little writing gig going on which really sucks so I’m not gonna say anymore bout it cos this blog is not gonna be bout things that suck.

Anyway, it’s almost Chinese New Year again. Looks like most of the popular places selling really pineapple tarts are all sold out. Looked at the pussywillows on sale this year and they really looked bad so decided to get this other auspicious new year plant instead. Sorry, but I don’t know the English name for it. It’s supposed to last a year and the twists at the top, they symbolize your luck improving, increasing, raising up etc. By the way, I didn’t tie those red ribbons. The lady who sold them offered to do it for me. ;)

One of the cool things I discovered is Kotaku.com. If you are a gamer of any sort, go visit it. It updates very regularly and its not just games, there are also lots of social commentary. My recent fav has to be last week’s Mass Effect/FOX News/CooperLawrence fiasco. Go Google it! It’s worth it! Basically, its bout ultra right-wing FOX News inviting Cooper Lawrence (some self-help author guru) to trash Mass Effect, the video game, calling it porn, bad for kids and so on (even though the average age of today’s gamer is like in his late-20s to 30s). Of cos, it’s all not true and Ms Lawrence even admitted to never even playing it but they STILL continued to do a witchhunt on it. No research was done for the news report, they just took a swing at the game.

Well, EA (Electronics Arts) the makers of Mass Effect issued a statement pointing out all the mistakes in the news segment but FOX refused to apologize. Then comes the cool part, the Internet gaming communities … they spammed her book at Amazon! At one time, there were over 400 one-star reviews! I saw them! Amazon had to keep deleting them! It was huge, hilarious and all over the Internet news!

After all, since she was so quick to condemn a product she never used/played, why can’t people do the same to her book? Score one for Internet justice!

She finally apologized on The New York Times over the weekend and admitted that the game isn’t porn at all (having watched someone play for over 2 hours). Nothing from FOX News though.

"That didn't come out right"

I was just thinking the other day bout how some kinds of food that most folks don't normally like that, well, I do!

1. Raw onions. I really like them. There was once I even asked for extra onions on my Subway sandwiches. But I kinda stopped that since I realized that although I love the taste of onions, its the lingering aftertaste that I (and people around me obviously) ain't crazy about.

2. Garlic. See above. Hah!

3. Cod Liver Oil. I love the white sticky liquid, ok, that didn't come out right. Been drinking Scott's Emulsion Cod Liver Oil since I was a kid and almost everyone I have met till today, can't stand the taste.

4. Chinese medicine. Well, I have drank my fair share of really foul tasting. Ok, it's not that I like taking them but it's just that I don't mind taking them I guess.

As for things that lots of people like, but I don't ... well, off the top of my head, I can only think of two right now.

1. Chilli or hot spicy stuff. My entire family loves them except me. Growing up, I saw my aunts, uncles and parents eat all kinds of hot stuff. My mom even grew her own chili padi and would bring to the dinner table. I would play with them but never eat them.

2. Almond desserts. Lots of people love Chinese almond desserts but I just don't like the taste. It's a weird taste that's neither sweet or sour or anything to me.

Here's a cup of Chinese tea that I enjoyed at the Imperial Herbal at VivoCity. Sorry for the fuzzy pix. There's a whole bunch of herbs and flowers in it. Let's see now, there's wolfberries, lychees, rose petals and ... er ... bunch of other stuff.

"Right down to the secret hidden bookcases"

This morning I paid off my entire mortgage and am now officially debt free and loan free! The apartment is mine, yup, right down to the secret hidden bookcases.

Strange thing that's been happening since the beginning of the year ... I been dreaming again almost every nite for like, the past couple of weeks. This is after months of dreamless sleep. Now I'm not complaining at all as I love my dreams as you can see here and here. So you can imagine how I felt when those ... 'adventures' started all over again, every nite. Crap, I hope I haven't jinxed it by writing bout it.

"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."