端午节

although this chinese festival isn't as widely celebrated here as places like hong kong or taiwan. you know it's round the corner when hotels and restaurants bandy new and sometimes bizarre flavours of dumpling. or when you hear news reports that the dumpling chains have increased prices or have long queues at their shops.

it only hits home when my mum makes her own today assisted by my sis. i contribute to the process by eating the dumplings. :) hehe...

i don't know if her version is cantonese or teochew because some of them have a dollop of red bean paste in addition to the usual ingredients of pork, chestnuts, dried shrimps and mushrooms since i'm not a dumpling connoisseur. this year, she didn't make the cantonese version that comes with steamed green mung beans.

my mum's version isn't too salty and she trims off most of the fatty bits from the pork belly meat that she uses, so it's less of a cardiologist's nightmare. i relish the annual indulgence for a few days while she gives some away while saving some for prayers on the festival which falls on this coming saturday [5th day of the 5th lunar month].

how did a festival originally meant to commemorate 屈原's patriotism and his love for his state become another gourmet experience? guess that's uniquely singaporean, isn't it? :P

bad blood

hmm... unexpected fallout from the icj ruling last week considering that both governments had pledged to accept the outcome with good faith.

i wonder if any singaporeans will feel so aggrieved to start something similar if the ruling had been otherwise.

party @ mac

jerrell is turning 4 and i'm invited to his party at macdonald's at king albert park.

met up with the gang and the little ones. all were present except for diane who is mugging for her exams. i think the kids enjoyed themselves very much. i mean it's nearly impossible to find a child who doesn't like good old mac and french fries, right?

check out my photos here. somehow, the pictures weren't very good. i think the shutter speed weren't fast enough to capture the action resulting in blurry pictures..

anyway, it was a great opportunity for the adults to catch up with one another as we went for drinks and ice-cream at the daily scoop at sunset way after the party. i had a double scoop of mango magic and cha which is flavoured with earl grey. taste great!

then janet suggested having the famous claypot chicken rice at block 328 for dinner. and we waited more than 1 hour for the food but it was really good and satisfying.

yummy. :)

weekend warrior

my 2nd 'mishap' during my days of self-declared vacation, i sprained my ankle while playing tennis with some friends.

i twisted my left ankle too much until it gave way. momentarily unsupported, i fell on my right bum. at that time, the fall hurt more than the sprained ankle.

but as the day went on, the swell became worse and i was limping around as if i had another gout attack.

ouch!

洛阳大伯公

first time there... went along because there was transport available. :P

it was still bustling even though it was nearing midnight, there was a continuous stream of devoutees the whole time we were there.

the prayer offerings package costs $2, consisting of 6 items: incense, candles, joss paper, another piece of 'petition' joss paper, crackers and tea leaves. the whole process of offering incense to the various deities has been systemised.

you start off with placing the offerings on the table. next you light one candle on each side. once your incense are lit too, just follow the numbers and proceed from station 1 to 12. a small card-sized note at each station even tells you the correct number of incense sticks to offer to the deity.

after that is done, you can proceed to offer the joss paper in the fiery mini pagoda.

what's so different about this temple?

1 of the stations is the indian elephant-headed god, ganesha while another i don't even have any knowledge of. hmm... so this is the temple that a certain minister had commented on how multi-culturalism had seeped into our everyday lives.

surreal.

bmw

bmw 1-series launch party at one fullerton.

hmm... so what has that got to do with a non-driver like me you think? well, 'cos i've friends like eric who share the good stuff. :)

free flow of alcohol and finger food. the moet champagne flowed for quite a while too. i had a cocktail, lychee martini, red wine and champagne. can't remember when was the last time i drank so much. the rest drank more! can you imagine that?!

apparently, the alcohol works wonders and doris is smitten with the 1-series. will we have a bmw owner in the gang? let's wait and see...

dinner and drinks

doris wanted to meet up with the guys and suggested having dinner at pasta de waraku. as usual gordon is late. kind of expected liao. :P

it was a rather long wait for a table of 5 and ky joked that we should have told gordon that the dinner plans are changed to drinks and desserts since a smaller table will be more readily available. haha...

fortunately, doris made a reservation at tcc next door and we didn't have to wait again for our drinks and desserts. it's a very small outlet but warm and cosy with an intimate ambience. as with most tcc outlets now, the look is posh.