Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year. As my father had to work today, we had to wait for him to come home from work before proceeding to our relatives' houses to 拜年. I knew we wouldn't need to go out early so I only slept at about 3 am last night and woke up at almost noon :P

We only reached my 1st Uncle's house at around 4.30pm. Our relatives had just left so it was rather quiet. My grandma kept urging us to eat the New Year goodies even though we were not hungry. She took out a box of 肉干 and said there were too many people just now so she didn't offer it to them, only to us. Ha ha... didn't know my grandma liked bak kwa so much :) After chatting for a while, we left for my paternal grandma's house at Hougang. She also brought out New Year goodies, but we only wanted drinks as the weather was rather warm and humid. We watched tv for a while before proceeding home.

Our routine was to have fast food for dinner, since most food stalls and restaurants were closed. However, as we couldn't decide which fast food to eat, we drove to West Mall on our way home. We finally decided to take away the fast food, so that we could order from whichever fast food we wanted and also enjoy the tv programs while eating. I went with my 小妹 to order at Mos Burger first, before calling my father to ask him what he wanted at KFC. It was only then that we found out that he had already bought at Burger King when he saw that there was a long queue at KFC. So we headed home to enjoy our meal :)

Reunion Dinner

Today is Chinese New Year Eve. I did some last minute cleaning up of my room before preparing to go to my grandma's house for Reunion Dinner. This year we ordered dishes from Neo Garden Catering on recommendation from my 大妹's friend. It was rather convenient as everything has been prepared for us, from the utensils to the plastic bags for rubbish disposal. There was even a plastic sheet provided to put over our table cloth, so that everything can just be wrapped up in the plastic sheet and dumped when we have finished.

There were 8 dishes in all - Golden Fortune Egg, Sweet & Sour Prawn, Deep Fried Fish Fillet with Orange Sauce, Ee Fu Noodle, Baked Scallop on Shell, Sea Cucumber Duck, Asparagus with Assorted Mushroom and Longan Red Date with Gingko Nuts. Overall, the food tasted quite good, especially when compared to those that we ordered from other caterers in previous years. My favorite dishes were the Ee Fu Noodle and Asparagus with Assorted Mushrooms :)

We went home after the dinner. I'm not too interested in the countdown programs showing on tv, so I would try to catch up on my anime and j-dramas now :P

2010 Movie #4: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Today 小花 and I watched the movie "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief". It has been some time since we watched a movie of fantasy genre and it did not disappoint. Although the plot was somewhat predictable (I even guessed the true lightning thief correctly :P), it was very entertaining and we thoroughly enjoyed it. There were funny scenes as well, and I especially liked the scene right at the end, where Percy's stepfather smashed open the lock on the refrigerator, only to be turned into stone by Medusa :)

Team Bonding at Coriander Leaf

Today our team had a special team bonding event at Coriander Leaf. It was special because we were to work in teams to prepare and cook a few dishes, which would be our lunch at the end. I was a bit apprehensive at first as I almost never cooked, but it turned out to be quite fun. One of the dishes was Marinated Strawberries in Phyllo Nests, and I helped to prepare the phyllo nests which would act as the base for the strawberries.

After about 2 hours of cooking, we ended up with about 6 dishes. All of us proceeded to the dining area to sample each others' cooking, and the taste was rather good. Though the chefs did help us out, I still find it amazing that we can come up with such standard of food. After the meal, we went back to office to continue with our work for the day.

Bad news... Tulip dislocated and fractured her right arm last night so would be on MC for some time. Oh dear... She's so unlucky when Chinese New Year is just round the corner. Hope she gets well soon...

Eating and Shopping at Orchard

Today my 大妹 suggested going to Ramen Play at 313@Somerset for lunch. She had gone with her friends previously and felt that the ramen was quite good. So we decided to give it a try since my mum also wanted to go to Takashimaya to check out the New Year goodies.

As it was already past 2pm when we reached, there were not many people so we were led to a table quickly. All of us ordered their signature Sanpou Tonkotsu Ramen. There were 3 types of pork toppings: pork cheek, pork belly and char siew. The egg was braised the way I liked it - firm egg white with soft yolk, though only half an egg was served with each bowl of ramen. Overall, the taste was a bit salty but still not too bad. However, I think I still prefer the one at Marutama :P



After the meal, we headed to the Chinese New Year Fair at Takashimaya. There were many people buying New Year goodies and we joined the crowd. However, as we just had our meal, we did not taste test most of the goodies, just a few that we were keen on buying. In the end, we only bought 2 bottles of Prawn Rolls from 美珍香 and decided to go home. As we walked towards Centrepoint where we had parked our car, we passed by a 美珍香 store and was shocked that they were selling the Prawn Rolls at a cheaper price than that at Takashimaya! We had never expected that there would be a difference in price, since prices are usually standardized at different outlets. Too bad lor... next time have to check out the prices first before buying...

2010 Movie #3: Paintball

Not sure if it was because we missed the first few minutes of the movie, but I didn't really enjoy it. Felt that the plot was rather lame, where a group of rich people pays money to watch players getting killed. Perhaps I was hoping for something similar to Harper's Island, where viewers were kept guessing who the real murderer was right till the end. In the end, I'm not even sure if the last survivor managed to escape as her pre-made "death certificate" stated that she died in a traffic accident but she didn't drive the car that was prepared for her. Overall, 小花 and I were disappointed with this movie.

After the show, we decided to go to Burger King for dinner. We usually ate at Long John Silver's or Carl's Junior so we decided to have a change. 小花 ordered the BK Chicken burger set meal, while I ordered the BK Fish burger as I felt that it was more tasty compared to the Fillet-O-Fish at McDonald's. When we have finished our burgers, 小花 saw someone eating drumlets at the next table and decided to buy a box of 4 drumlets to share as she could not resist the temptation :)

Last minute dinner

Our overseas colleagues were here for meetings this week. 小花 and another colleague were "arrowed" to take one of the overseas colleague out for dinner and 小花 dragged me along too. As we were all keen to get it over and done with, we headed to the nearby Akashi restaurant at VivoCity. The food was nice, especially the sashimi, which was very fresh. However, we always seem to order too much and ended up too full again :P

One of the dishes we ordered: King prawn with miso paste

2010 Movie #2: Tooth Fairy

Although 小花 and I had just watched a movie last night, we decided to watch another today as there were quite a number of new movies. We chose Tooth Fairy as there were a number of positive reviews and we wanted to see Dwayne Johnson aka "The Rock" in a comedy.

We were not disappointed and had a rather good time watching the show. There were quite a number of funny scenes, like Dwayne Johnson wearing a pink tutu and the parts where he had to work as a tooth fairy as punishment. There were also heart-warming scenes where he encouraged the boy to play the guitar, as well as finally rediscovering his own dreams as an ice hockey player. The plot may be quite predictable but overall we still enjoyed it.

2010 Movie #1: 20th Century Boys III

It has been quite a long time since 小花 and I watched a movie, and we decided on 20th Century Boys III which started screening today. We had actually wanted to watch it tomorrow, but the timing was really bad as we are unable to make it for the 6pm show and the next screening is only at 11.45pm which will end at almost 3am! There was a 9pm show tonight so we decided to watch it today instead.

We only bought the tickets at around 8pm but we still managed to get seats at the last row! Think not many people are interested in this show if they did not watch the first 2 installments. 小花 and I had also forgotten some parts but we were curious to know who "Friend" actually is. I thought the ending was quite reasonable and was a good conclusion for the trilogy. I also found the "Gu ta la la Soo da la la" song very soothing.

Back to work

First day back to work... Luckily I have cleared most emails yesterday or I would be in a mess today. During lunch time I distributed some tidbits that I bought at Hokkaido to my colleagues. It was then that I realized that I made the mistake of giving one box of 白色恋人 to my sister for her friend as it was meant for my colleagues. No choice but to give them only the corn chocolates.

It would be month end in the next few days... can't believe that the first month of 2010 would be ending so soon. Hope this year would go by smoothly and looking forward to more holidays :)