This morning was a smoother drive to bro's school - sending him there, and coming back! While he was in school, I too had to do my own thang - buy the elusive ingredients! My bet is on PH of AMK. Unfortunately, I began the day too early. I reached the store at 8.15am to find it closed :( So thought I'd go to J8's library and get some books before heading back to the store at 10am (their opening hour starts then). Alas, library opens only at 10am too! Loitered around j8 for a little. Finished my book at toastbox with my morning cuppa. Then got breakfast ingredients at the supermarket before heading to the library. It was 10.15am already by then. J8's supermarket has lotsa Australian goodies - kept me up a lil longer than I intended. YAY. I finally hit the library. Had been walking past it day and night, to and from work. And i thought that one day, ONE DAY i shall walk in to indulge in all the literary gems.

I was really happy to find the French Laundry book - not 1, but TWO of them. Yayness. This book is big in size, content and certainly price. No need to pay through my nose just to partake in those exhilarating culinary creations. yippeeeeeee. The library rocks! Alright, gotta go back to the main task for the morning. Headed for AMK ave 3 blk 422. FOUND IT - the elusive packet of ingredients. Spent like 50 bucks over there. Hmm. I can't wait to get started.

On my way out of the car park, the brother called to say that he's done with school and he wanna go eat dumplings at margaret drive - that place i got lost for and never had a chance to reach there. HUH. I am so up for the challenge I got quite excited. Just these couple of days, I realise that I really enjoy driving through Lornie to Adam to Farrer to Queensway and to north buona vista and to holland.. The drive just feels so... free. Music and cold air blasting. It's a balmy morning or a sunny noon time. I really could feel the freedom in space and time. And also, a good feeling of running an errand for the family. I just feel like i'm doing what Daddy does every day. :) So dumpling stall was closed. We had chicken rice instead. Then it's home sweet home.

The moment we reached home - switch on the aircon and tv. Took out all measuring devices and electronics. Put them all on the table. The cleaning, prepping and measuring began. Then it's the cooking, bubbling and mixing. I can only say that the first batch was a failure as expected. So was the 2nd batch. XXX is really a tough one to perfect. While waiting for them to shape up in the oven, I took a moment to flip through The French Laundry. Wow - really good stuff in there. Absolutely inspiring - love it. Lotsa visuals and scenarios in my head while poring through every word of the first few pages and recipes. HMM. After dinner, dropped the bro and picked up my neighbour cum recently-anointed wondergirl, Rols, for a post-dinner teh tarik catch up. :) Babe, if you see this - follow your heart and just whack! DON'T WASTE TIME. You know it.

Nope, not talking about a guy.

Alright, I aim to sleep on time tonight.
Rise and shine. The early bird catches the worms.

Labels: daily life, family, friends

My parents have gone to Xiamen for holiday with their friends and family, so Mark and I are left with each other. So today's Day 1 of us without Dad & Mum.

And us, WITH the car.

My brother woke me up to fetch him to school in the morning. Rushed and got out of the house. Slipped into the car with me in the driver seat! We embark on our journey to Kent Ridge with my brother giving me the directions. Drove through thomson and reached Lornie Road. After inching bit by bit through Lornie, finally got to Farrer Road. Then we hit Farrer road and move further through Queensway. With a right turn, we hit portdown ave and moved along to finally reach Kent Ridge. 1st task in the morning is accomplished.

I had to send an email and complete some work early in the morning. So popped by Holland V and nestled myself at Starbucks with breakfast. After work is done, went to read a whole write up about baking XXX. What a great deal of info and various techniques. Wah piang. Alright, gotta get some ingredients for my grand baking plan of XXX. Darn! There were no ingredients that I needed at the Cold Storage. Nonetheless, I picked up some pork sausages, muesli and yogurt. LOVE LOVE LOVE breakfast. And popped by Provence for some warm chocolate wassants. My brother better appreciate me for this! haha okay. Even if he doesn't, i'd still do it.

So, got outta holland road and drove past cornwall gardens. I happily drove ALL the way straight before i start to realise I hit freaking orchard road. Where's my Lornie Road???? wtf. Okay, so i relied on the signs throughout until it got me to stevens road. Okay. Recall how the taxi always drive mum and I home from Orchard Road. Eventually, I hit Mt Pleasant! Drove through the 'forest' - thank God it's in the day. Tada, I see my familiar upp thomson road and drove home from there. Phew! I miss home already.

Watched City of Glass (1998). I noticed more details than I did as a 12 year old when I first watched it. Flashbacks of post PSLE period. How could a 12 year old enjoy such a mature show? I could remember myself not understanding some parts of it, but somehow still feeling poignant about the love story. Arh. I gotten in touch with lost love for this movie. Certainly, this is one of my favourite chinese love story.

Anyway, time flies and it's 6.30pm. Alright, gotta hit J8 to meet zc for dinner. Before that, gotta hunt down my XX ingredients. Unfortunately, it was a futile effort :( Dinner was nice - cheap and yummy and quite funny of course. But, big sister has got to run her errands. Time to pick my bro up - at Queenstown dumpling place. Where the hell is that? Okay okay, zc's instructions was - hit marymount road and then go by thomson road. Right.

I drove through marymount road and started seeing balestier turn left and novena ahead. Where's my Lornie Road again???? FARK. Decided to try to make it right again with a guess than Lornie Road should be on my RHS. So I turned into Whitley Road and started heading down Stevens Road. Errr. I'm on my way to freaking Orchard Road again. I decided to stop at a petrol kiosk to pull out my trusty street directory. (BTW i really love road maps.) To add on to the stress, my bro called. I knew he wanted to reach home by 9pm to watch his favourite 4 constables show, cuz he explicitly called me to tell me that before dinner. it is now 8.45pm.

"Eh zeh, where are you now? :)" Starting still got a bit of smiley face.
"Eh I'm now at Stevens Rd!" Try to laugh it off. "I'm looking at the street directory".
"Huh? You're at Stevens Rd? You didn't come down from home arh?"
"Errrr. yeah. I came by Marymount"
"Stevens Rd... Stevens Rd... (mumble to his friend how to come by stevens Rd)"
So anyway, I told him I'll figure. I stayed at the petrol kiosk for another 4 min still figuring.
Then the phone rang again.
"Eh zeh, where are you now?"
"Er, still at stevens road? The petrol Kiosk?"
"You know how to go there already?"
"OH YEAH! I figure i can go to anderson road, turn left down orange grove and i'll hit Tanglin Road which will lead me to Margaret Drive and then i'll be around Queenstown!" So happy.
"Er, okay. As long as it gets you here la." By then his phone had died. Fortunately, his friend was around.

So I went further down Stevens Road and was SO HAPPY to see RGS again. Cuz it's anderson road. As planned, I found orange grove and turn left. woohoo! And Fark. I realised tanglin road is one way only and it is NOT the direction i wanted it to be. My plan had failed = more time to re-topo = brother waiting longer with friend = less time to watch 4 constables. So, took a turn again to get myself back to Anderson Road. I parked in front of the RGS gate and whipped out the street directory to figure out what went wrong. True enough, i missed out the single direction arrow on tanglin road. URGH. then the phone rang again.

"Er zeh, where are you now?"
"Er, i am now at Anderson Road."
"Huh, you're still at Anderson Road arh?" they probably thought i took 10 minutes to drive 100 metres. "Why not we meet you at somewhere you can recognise. You know how to go to Adam Road hawker centre?"
"Er. Okay, I can try." Frankly speaking, I know how Adam Road looks like, even know how the flyover near it looks like. But, no idea how the roads connect to that point. Back to my street directory! Okay, I shall hit orange grove again, this time I go back down to stevens road to see bukit timah road, then turn left and go straight down. Then, I shall turn right into Adam Road. I vaguely see Adam Road FC on the map. OKAY. this is the plan.

So I did all that until I was happily driving down Bukit Timah Road. ah-huh, serene centre is on my left. I thought I could smell victory. Suddenly, i was at a crossroads - metaphorically and literally. Instead of following my plan of turning right, for a moment, I thought the signs told me to go straight. And as I drove straight ahead, I looked on my right and felt like Adam Road was calling out to me from there. I cried in my head, behind my eyeballs.

FARK. turned into a dinghy corner and pulled out the street directory again. I was thinking that my brother and friend have probably double-confirmed that I'm such a road idiot by now if they knew that Big Sister Has Missed the Turn Again. Map tells me that there's a u-turn ahead and I could later then head back and turn left into Adam Road. And so I did. Finally, before turning into Adam road, phone rang.

"Er zeh, I'm at the FC already. Where are you?"
"Er, i'm at Bukit Timah Road. Turning into Adam Rd"
"Hmm, you know which part of Adam not?"
"Er....."
"Which part of Adam are you at?"
"I think the part where I'll see a bible college"
Mumble mumble to his friend "Er, I think you've over shot already. Are you heading towards Lornie Road"
"Yeah I will."
"Okay he ask you to go to the petrol kiosk. You'll see it later."
"OKAY!!"
This is the how manyth time we changed meeting point.

I see the petrol kiosk ahead - my oasis in the desert. Parked my car. Exhausted. After a couple minutes, the door opened. My brother came into the car and let out a very flabbergasted, exhausted, and exasperated laughter. "Aiyo, what happened?" Shortly after, his friend's car slowed down beside mine and gave me a little wave and nod - a knowing nod. I couldn't figure if I was crying or laughing behind my eyeballs.

Home sweet home down my familiar lornie road and upp thomson road. :)

My bro caught the 4 constables for the last 10 minutes.

"Hmm, what time is your class tmr arh? I wanna make breakfast."
"Hmm, I need to be there really early tmr. 8am."
"oh."

"Hmm, you wanna drive?"

Labels: daily life, family

3 things:
1. Library books
2. Macaroon-making
3. Christmas stuff.

Labels: lists

Ahh I'm hooked on Privileged and I really want to wake up at 5.30am to see my parents off :(
TIME MANAGEMENT ZERO.
:(

But yeah Privileged.

Labels: thoughts

I bought a toy camera at GOD in hong kong and wanted to have a play with it, do some test shots. The vacation shots are taken through the camera and I have no scanner. So make do with the photoboothing of my photos. And pardon the lingering fingers at the side.

Labels: friends, travel

Hihi, touched down Singapore at 1.20am from Hong Kong and I'll be boarding another flight to Phuket at 9.30am. I am loving this. A chapter closes and another begins.

Labels: daily life, travel

Not too sure if you guys have watched this film. I thought the sets were beautiful. The old peranakan mansion with the interior modernised in each room - Meng's bedroom, Mr Wee's study with the huge golden pineapple against those dark wood and quirky, strong furniture, the pool of water under the air well, the master bedroom that reminds me of curse of the golden flower. Talk about old meets new.

The cinematography was amazing. The shot that caught my breath the most was when the entire family looked at the wake ritual from across the pool at night, and the water reflected on their faces with aquamarine.

Although it didn't have my favourite shot, I gotta show you the rest of the pictures.






Go watch if you haven't. This is one local production i'm proud of.

Labels: art, thoughts

theappletreebkk.com

Labels: fashion

Ooh. Haven't been blogging for quite a while.

I'm now at Green Door studio doing a little recording for Samba demo track. I hope our Super Star tour's gonna happen. :) Hmm the past weeks have been quite a ride, really. Some highs and some lows. But in anyhoos. Such is life, and life goes on. I guess the question is how fast you can bounce back. And how good you are at retaining all the goodness that comes from that whole experience. You'll still be a winner.

So today, woke up really nice and leisurely and had breakfast at home, did a bit of work. And i'm outta the house. Had a rehearsal at the oriental hotel - did a very casual sound check for a couple hours. Then off to Sambaaaaaa. Talking about singing, I am so in love with Janice & Sonia's cover on Tamia's Officially Missing You. Been playing this on loop the entire day every day for the past week, while doing PO and invoicing and other stuff on the lappie.
Yumms.

Alright, gonna flip back to my Bazaar editorials while I wait for my turn to enter that Chamber of Truth (all the samba-playing flaws magnified and you're all in there recording the track alone. line by line.)

Labels: daily life, thoughts

Labels: Visual Feast