one side of the story

Thursday, October 15, 2009

'Small Dragon Buns' Steamboat Buffet at Crystal Jade's

Headed down to Holland V. to meet the gang who was already there; I made a big detour from my tutee's place because I was unsure of the way there, so I reached pretty late. The 4 of them were digging into the prawns when I finally reached; they looked really fresh and they offered me one.

The place was really packed, and I'm guessing that it'd be near impossible to get a table without making any reservations prior. I sort of like went into the wrong branch before winding up at the Xiao Long Bao place (in the server's words) where the gang was.

we started off with 2 trays, and then 5, and then 2 again.

I was so happy when they finally brought the trays of steamed buns out onto our table; I love Xiao Long Baos, Crystal Jade anytime over Din Tai Feng's. The other steamboat ingredients came not too long after, and we started happily popping food into the boiling soup.

slurpslurps.

The variety of ingredients was pretty standard, but it included drinks such as coke, sprite, barley and Chinese tea and desserts like the red bean jelly and osmanthus flower jelly, which more or less made up for the price, I felt. It's branded steamboat after all mah.

the 5 trays. dig in!

We ended up paying around $24; inclusive of tax and service charge. I thought it wasn't too bad an experience, and I guess I'll probably be back again sometime soon.

To end the post off, I shall post a really tak-glam shot of myself. I think it's quite funny, my expression in here:

hot la!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Hives

There were red patches all over my body after my jog last night; at first they seemed like mosquito bites, but there were far too many of them to be mosquito bites. My eyes felt really uncomfortable and I had problems keeping them open. Looked into the mirror when I was in the toilet, and I thought to myself, "shit, I think it's hives". I looked like an alien. It worsened little-by-little by the minutes, my eyes were so swollen my upper eyelids were touching my spectacles frame and I had even more trouble trying to keep them opened when I finally reached the car park.

the day after, much of the swelling's gone down, but it's still quite obvious in the left eye.

close-up.

After much driving around (and a few near traffic-light beating encounters), we finally found a clinic that was opened at 3 a.m. in the morning and I got myself a jab. Slept my way through the entire day, and I'm finally awake again. The swelling's gone down significantly, but it's still there.

It was nothing life-threatening, but I'm still glad I have friends to turn to at times like this.

ps. new roomie tells me she's got a friend who's on permanent medication for hives, I guess it's not so uncommon after all.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Tired.

I was so tired after windsurfing today, I wanted to cry. And yet, in spite of the (near) tears, I felt a great sense of accomplishment that I haven't been feeling in a long time.

ps. It's 6.37 a.m. and I'm still not sleeping. I've just officially screwed my body up again.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

What I had for dinner and Sam's present from Taiwan

Training was great great great today; the freshies turnout was heartening, Richard gave me a mast-protector that stopped my boom from sliding downwards and I managed to hook onto the harness successfully. Launching and heading out of the bay was kind of a bitch though because the wind was blowing onshore most of the time, and the currents were pretty strong. But no matter, we all still managed to have a good time.

We headed down to Stadium's KFC for dinner, and it was soooo satisfying (I'm quite sad the portions have shrunk though).

I love crispy, deep-fried chicken with fatty bits

Funny how we never thought of heading to Stadium for dinner before, when parking is free and plentiful on weekend evenings, now that I realized. And the next time we're going to have fried chicken again, I will suggest for us to go to Arnold's. I've heard and read so much about them from my friends but I've never remembered to make a trip down.

fries were unsatisfying. I think my favourite place for fries will still be Carl's Jr.

And this is way overdue, but I'm still going to blog about it. Sam got presents for all of us when he headed to Taiwan in May. Novelty candies and snacks to be exact. I thought it was really creative and cute for them to manufacture them in the forms of our daily necessities; sanitary napkin cotton candy, condom candies, traditional Chinese medicine chocolate and so on. I forgot to snap pictures of the other snacks but here's mine:

The front and back of the box.

more description

It was actually white chocolate that fizzes when you put it in your mouth. So fun to eat!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Err... Impromptu Oktoberfest?

Headed down to Millenia Walk one hour after Jo's phone call. People were mostly gone by the time we started drinking; some white dude with a most-out-of-the-world hair-do offered us free beers because their tables were just too damned filled with beers, listened to some live music before we winded up at Dbl O. Dbl O's dancefloor was super packed with guys trying their luck; we were out in an hour or so. The hostess told us they were closing in 2 hours but they started chasing people out in 1; liar; that was probably the shortest session I've had. I don't think we drank much tonight; but the drinks we had were expensive!