Ixora

Managed to take some shots of the Ixora plant outside my house.  The Ixora was planted by my late granny a few decades ago and it has been blooming non-stop all these years.  Dad has been taking good care of it and the other plants all these years.

With this morning's good sunny weather, I couldn't resist taking a couple of photos using my iPhone.

I See More Elephants

I took more photos of the elephants - this time at Raffles Place, during my lunch hour.  There were a couple of them on display.

 

 

 

I See Elephants

The Elephant Parade is the world’s largest open air art exhibition of decorated elephant statues that seeks to attract public awareness and support for Asian elephant conservation.

Over 160 life-sized fibreglass baby elephants are on display along Orchard Road, Marina Bay, VivoCity, Singapore Zoo, Botanic Gardens, etc from 11 November 2011 till early January 2012.  Here are some of the photos that I have taken at Vivocity yesterday afternoon. 

Turtlefan

Kebaya theme - very Singaporean

"Punk" -- did you spot the "ox" on the elephant ?

One of my favourite, "The Elephant & The Cat" it's a different design on the other side.

This is the 'other side' of the elephant above.  Unique eh? :)

Reminds you of Twinkies or M&Ms .. :)
The theme for this elephant is "Happiness Maximus".

"Elephant Angels"

Banana theme

'Broken Pixels' was reconstituted using WERK magazine covers. The images were transferred onto the elephant sculpture by hand. Like every issue of WERK magazine, it was created with new print and design technology, but the finishing process was completed by hand.

What it looks like from the front.

Elephant Memory

Unique one in PVC jacket.  :)

Another of my favourite .. this one is with long eyelashes.  :)

What was inscribed on the back of the elephant.

Love the inscription .. :)

One that looks like Chinese Wayang .. love this one too !!

VivoCity plays home to 25 life-sized elephant sculptures which are on display at the Sky Park & The Plaza until 06 January 2012.

Farewell lunch

We had a farewell lunch for our Korean-born New Zealander colleague Su-Min on 15 Nov 2011.  She has joined our Team about 6 months ago and has recently been offered a job in an Australian legal firm.  She decides to move on .. back to the legal world.

She is quite adventurous - willing to try all the local Singapore food.  Her tolerence for chilli is quite high.  So for her farewell lunch, we decide to bring her to Lucky Cafe, one of our  regular lunchtime hangouts.   The coffeeshop sells zhi-char style fried noodles, economical rice dishes as well as ala-carte dishes. 

For 5 of us, we ordered the following dishes :

• Fried sambal beehoon
• Fried Hong Kong noodles
• Fried black seafood horfun
• Hot-plate Toufu
• Fried sambal kangkong
• Marmite chicken with basil leaves

The hotplate toufu is delicious.  It was fried wth bell peppers, garlic, carrots, corns etc and served with gravy.  My colleague said that there's too little eggs in it.

(top) Hot-plate toufu (bottom) fried kangkong

Marmite Chicken with basil leaves

The Marmite chicken was an interesting dish.  Everyone was fascinated with the dish.  I love it.  Marmite is a nutritious savoury spread that contains B vitamins, enjoyable in a sandwich, on toast, bread or even as a cooking ingredient.  As a kid, I used to eat it by spreading it on my bread or mixing a big spoonful into my bowl of porridge or rice.

For this dish, small pieces of chicken were coated with marmite and deep fried to a crispy texture and they were served with basil leaves on a big lettuce leave.  Yumz!

Whenever I visit Lucky Cafe, my usual order will be "sambal beehoon".  It's a hot favourite amongst my colleagues.  The sambal beehoon that we had that day was a bit too wet - not the usual standard.

We had expected the Hong Kong noodles to be more on the dark colour  (dark sauce) but the ones they served seemed to have a strong ketchup taste - resulting it to be too salty.  So most of us didn't really enjoy it.  It's our first time trying the HK noodles from this stall.

(Top) Fried Sambal beehoon (bottom) Fried HK mee

The fried black Horfun was delicious, it truly has the 'fried kway teow" taste.  One of my colleague enjoyed it so much that she finished them all.

(top) Fried black Hor-fun (bottom) hot-plate toufu

Lucky Cafe also does free delivery of food to nearby offices.   Prices are quite reasonable.  Usually a packet of noodles costs between SGD4.00 to SGD5.00.

小霸王

Xiao Ba Wang (小霸王) located at basement of One Raffles Place (formerly OUB Centre) is always crowded at lunch hours on weekdays.  It's a hot favourite with office workers in the Business District.  It is opened by Mediacorp celebrity Jeff Wang (王建复).


Menu on the wall

My favourite meal is the Dory Fish Set from which costs $6.80 and comes with potato salad and a milk tea (or flower tea) drink.  I love the potato salad and sometimes wonder why they do not sell it in a bigger size.

Dory fish set

Side dish - Potato Salad - it's good

Iced Milk Tea - may be a bit too sweet.  You cannot select the sugar level.  It's pre-made & ready to serve.

Mee Sua is good. Do not put too much chilli in the dish as it will be too spicy for your taste.

Deep fried Chicken bites

Another side dish - Mashed Potato Salad

The 小霸王 outlets in Singapore are located:

• Tampines One #B1-K7 10 Tampines Central 1 Singapore 529536
• Orchard ION #B4-33 2 Orchard Turn Singapore 238801
• Raffles City Shopping Centre 252 North Bridge Road #B1-57 Singapore 179103
• One Raffles Place (Formerly OUB centre) #B1-02B Singapore 048616

Meal at Cookholic

For just SGD8.00 a person, you can get a decent set-lunch for 2 persons at Cookholic which is located along Circular Road.

The standard set lunch for two persons comes with:

• a dish of 3 meats - roast duck, roast pork and char siew
• a plate of vegetables
• fried wantan (or alternative dish of the day)
• a bowl of soup (soup of the day).

These are served with either a bowl of rice or noodles - the choice is yours.  The roast pork is very crispy and delicious.

A set for 2 persons - SGD16/-.

Drinks are additional - you can have soft canned drinks or home-made Water Chestnut for SGD1.50.

The shop is located between the famous Nasi Padang shop and Shah Alam Restaurant, in Circular Road.

Coffee Club's Caesar Salad

My favourite dish at Coffee Club - Caesar Salad with Chicken Picante.  Served in a cheese bowl - sinful but delicious.

 

Caesar Salad wth Chicken Picante
 

Mini Post Office

Spotted this mini Post Office in Changi International Airport - Terminal 3 Departure Hall area. Interesting eh?

Side view

Front view

Hokkaido's Ice-breaking cruise

An exciting part of our Hokkaido winter vacation was taking an ice-breaker cruise along the Sea of Okhotsk.  There are two ice-breaker cruisers in Hokkaido:

-  “Aurora” at Abashiri
-  “Garinko II” at Monbetsu.

We boarded the Garinko II at Monbetsu.  There are observation decks on the cruiser for you to view hull smashing through the blocks of ice. Ice-breaker cruises are available from the end of January to the beginning of March, although the season varies from year to year depending on the weather. 

The seals give birth and raise their young in Okhotsk.

I'm wearing a few layers of clothings! Gosh, it was freezing outside!

Flo & me in front of the cruiser.

Monbetsu is famous for drift ice, a yearly phenomenon which reaches the city every January or February from the northern Sea of Okhotsk.  It is noted that Monbetsu does not have passenger rail service. There are buses to Sapporo and Asahikawa, as well as a daily flight to Tokyo from Monbetsu Airport.