nothing in particular

;_; one by one my favourite food stalls are closing, disappearing EVERY YEAR!
What's this???!!!

First it was Geylang(Oppo UOB) Ipoh Horfun, then it was Damen Lou's Swee Kee..
then bad happenings didn't stop...it went on to 作记

And now WASABI TEI...NOOOOOOOOooooooooooooo!!!!

Nothing tastes good after I returned from Japan, now even my last few edible food joints are closing..
*MAO*

It's the first time Creative Culinaire is organising an Artisan Bread Course class, our first time at Artisan Breads and coincidentally its the instructor's first hands-on lesson too =D

Here's Hafizh explaining/ demonstrating on the usage of this huge production size mixer.
In this lesson, it was less hands on than we expected as the ingredients were mixed in large quantities like, for the whole class. Back in bread course 1/2, every pair in the class have to mix their own dough. But the main reason for mixing/dividing the dough together, is to ensure that everyone's dough can get into oven together. However, we still get the chance to shape the dough.

Lesson 1:
- Raisin Challah (made on our own)
- Challah (made on class scale)
- Baguette
- Pain de Campagne
- Boules


Soaking the raisins in warm water before use. This is for the Raisin Challah.


Making the cold butter plyable by using the rolling pin to beat it.


After adding the butter, mix till window pane appears.


Mixing the raisins in by hand.


Now let the dough rest for 30mins.


After 30mins, the dough is folded to give the dough more strength, distribute the yeast food and distribute the heat. The ideas taught to us in this lesson is kind of new and there were many ??? on everyones' mind.

After another 30mins, its time to divide the dough into the portions we want to work with. Hafizh showed us how we can make life easier for ourselves by putting the weighing scale, main dough, extra dough on different sides of the working space.



After dividing all the dough into equal portions, pre-shape the dough and let them rest seam up.


One of the patterns taught in class, this is made by the instructor =D


K's 6 plait challah, he got kind of confused along the way(which to plait next) LOL~



Meanwhile, the boules were being shaped and left to proof on the linen cloth called couche.


The finished product with sugar rocks (sprinkled before baking) for the raisin challah(above).
That's the 6 plait challah, nicely browned.


The crumb of the challah. The sugar rocks make this bread even more tasty :p


Whole load of baguettes. See the leaf like pattern made using the scissors.


The boules are baked till "black". Actually to us, this standard is chao ta but for artisan breads, it actually brings more flavour for the crust.


The inside of the baguette.


The class ended at about 8pm(after cleaning up and cooling the breads) and many students left at 7pm lol~ so each person had quite alot of bread to bring back >_<'

Back from Japan for 5 days, I am not digesting Singapore food for weird reasons?!
Tokyo is a pretty interesting city, however I would say that Taiwan is more FUN than Tokyo. Probably due to the fact that I prefer the sea, nature, wild flowers..going to a park to admire flowers is not my cup of tea.

Have been busy with post editing for the Japan trip pics, hopefully I can get them done by end of the week. Guess I will be looking out for more options before deciding where to host my travel review as blogspot upload function is really really troublesome.

It's pretty bad that I haven got mood to work. Not really due to holiday mood I would say, but its the dread of doing these stuff. I hope I will be doing something else within the next 1 year *GOSH*

Right now, I should look forward to my artisan bread course starting this Sunday.

K and I are going to Japan on NWA from 1st Aug 09 to 15th Aug 09.
He says he isn't really excited cos he doesn't know what to expect.
Silly boy -.-'

We will leave my place at 3am which is 2.5hours from now..I am sleepy zzz~
My wish to that we can visit 90% if not all of the places we planned in the itinerary.

Visiting:
- Tokyo(mainly)
- Kawagoe
- Hakone
- Shonan
- Enoshima
- Kamakura(maybe)
- And of course 2 outlet stores are planned for =D

Festivals during the trip:
- Bon Dance (4th Aug to 7th Aug) at Asakusa
- Enoshima Fireworks (4th Aug) at Enoshima

*Pray for fair weather*

Just a short update..

Bought this BNWT ripcurl bikini from ebay, hmm pretty good except that the straps are wrongly positioned..or should I say design fault?

Anyway, to correct this problem(of zaogeng)..I cut a pair of hooks off some bra strap and sewn them onto what I deemed as the correct position a.k.a more towards the centre. Tried adding new paddings to it, but this bandeu design does not have wired cups so paddings will only make the top"leave" my chest.
Zzz so no paddings and there's going to a Changi Airport when I wear this. But well luckily I have my tankini which is safer for water sports, so this bikini will be solely for tanning purposes.



Been DIY-ing some victorian style pearl necklace. I am using swarovski pearls, toggle clasp and a victorian cameo(bought from Far East Plaza). It looks kind of boring now cos I need some black colors on it..maybe black lace or some black beads(I can grab some from a necklace that I dun wear anymore)




I love DIY, maybe I should get a sewing machine soon.

Sometimes I don't understand people.

I don't know why my IA student is in the office despite having a sore throat, cough and flu symptoms. The next thing I know is that he has got a fever of 38.3 degrees and he's IN OFFICE! So our OPS I/C came along with a N95 mask on her face, and one mask for the student and escorted him out of the office building. This took place on Thurs.

Fast forward to Sunday night, I smsed the student and asked how is he and he said no one called him and he's feeling ok. He told me that the clinic said IF NO ONE CALLED HIM, it means HE'S NEGATIVE for H1N1. Ok fine, so he came back to office on Monday, thinking he's gonna be fine.

Fuck! Then came this phonecall from the clinic saying that his test results are out and he's POSITIVE for H1N1. *@&#*@^#*&@^#@&*^#&@%^!@$!%$@!%$
So now, the people who had first level of contact with him are all under home quarantine for 7 days. Well done.

But you know what's the most stupid thing here? The h1n1 test takes 2 days to show if one is h1n1 positive and my student was only given 1 day mc(for friday) which means he's not covered for monday. I don't blame him for coming to work, if you were a student whose lifeline depended on your IA grades, you wouldn't want to mess up too.

So the 5 of us were gathered and given N95 masks, disinfected with a spray before we got escorted out of the office building. I am amazed that the cab stopped and took us back home *touched*

For now, home quarantine for 7 days..

I want to go for my Japan trip and I think I hate IA students.

K and I took leave on 26th June(friday) to celebrate his birthday.
To make things more special, I booked a facial appointment in the couple room @ bioskin.

It's K's first time having facial.
In the couple room at 1030am *yawn*


That's K towards the end of the facial treatment. hehe~


Since it was too late to go to Wasabi Tei, we decided to drop by the Hokkaido Fair at Isetan for lunch.


K had a $34 bento set with sashimi and hokkaido crab.


My very crabby bento set, $24.


Freshness and quality wise it was so~so cos the fish is not that fresh but well its a good price for variety.

We bought this mochi thinking it was sweet but its salty ricecake with soy bean flour and red bean inside, INTERESTING~

And more add-on(s) , male shisamo lol~ and also Hokke(not in pic) cos we were too stuffed.


Pre-booked Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen tickets! Well, we smuggled the hokke into the cinema, but ate it after the movie XDD



Dinner was Pontian Wanton Noodles at the Taka Basement food fair which tasted fantastic compared to their normal branches YUMYUM~

Happy 32nd bird day to K. ~_~

We were told by the feeder auntie that a kitten of the same color as Crookie recently appeared(about 10th June 09) near Crookie's area. For the next few days, we combed the area but we couldn't see/hear any kitten noises. One evening, we finally hear a kitten mewing in the drain and out it came..could this be puggy who went missing at 3 weeks old???

Well, the drain area where it reappeared coincides with the account of one of the grannies who said the kids took the kitten to block 6. So we are convinced by the size, color, age, gender that this should be Puggy!

For the next two days, we couldn't find him again but he reappeared one fine morning at Block 1 where bbmm, zzm and llm roam.

15th June 09:
This is LLM sniffing Puggy.


The coat color looks just like zzm, who is Puggy's mother's -> BBMM's sibling.
Puggy is a hungry kitty who went "melllllllllllllmelllllllll" while jumping.





He's so thin :'( I wonder who took him away when he was 3weeks old and why is he back on the streets again.


Sad look in Puggy's eyes.


16th June 09:
We came on another morning and saw Puggy playing with 2 malay boys. They said that they will take care of him..We hope so.

Here's Puggy after a full meal, lying on his back. Just like Crookie, bbmm, zzm, llm..puggy has the trademark white mouth too, that's what makes them even cuter! >_<
I saw the malay boys cradled Puggy so I prompted K to try it as well.
Puggy was not really in the mood to be cradled but he stayed put.


K said he felt like a father and his baby is a kitten LOL~
Suddenly, K hummed some random mewing song and Puggy looks up stunned with his hands straight down.


17th June 09:
Didn't manage to see Puggy till the boys brought him down during dinner time. Puggy is quite attached to them already, I hope they will love Puggy well.

Precious moment for bbmm and Puggy, reunion of the mother and son. It seems like bbmm does sort of recall Puggy's scent cos bbmm didn't hiss at Puggy and even licked his ear tip after the meal.





After the meal, Puggy was poking his nose around the area and bbmm looked from a distance with this blur look on her face. Could she be recalling about her babies?

However, this is the last time we saw Puggy and the boys didn't come down to play lately too ='( , let's hope Puggy is fine.

Today's K's granny's birthday dinner..
Time to wear my new dress from last last week's bargains, thought it would be too sweet but seems like putting on a pink ball rubberband is still ok LOL~

K's having a stomach upset, so I camwhored abit >_>''' And this kitty pose from Asian Poses, something new to me.


At the restaurant. We were supposed to visit the kitties, but thought we would be too late so we skipped that. Behind us, are some previous herbs and dried whole lizard, deer penis..etc etc -_-'


Inspired by "Night at Museum 2"...I am thinking.


As dinner was nearing the end, the waitress came over and asked if we wanted to try scorpions. Being adventurous, we ordered one each round the table. Soon the scorpions came and hmm~ K's scorpion looks FAT N JUICY ewwww~~




This is mine. It has this weird taste when I chewed the body and the tail together cos entire scorpion came off from the fried whatever, in the first bite. The weird taste was like woody..or maybe musky??


K's juicy one. He enjoyed the tail particularly.

Finally we can say, we tried scorpions before =D

This is actually a long overdue visit we were supposed to make to Amulet's stall located at Bukit Batok industrial area. I wanted to visit her stall as I admired her entrepreneurial spirit, being a hawker is really tedious and requires tonnes of hardwork.

We actually rushed down today morning as we heard she's closing her stall and partly due to the fact that some EDMWers will be going down, so we had more information from the forum thread before this.

We alighted at the wrong stop -.-' so we walked for 15mins before finally finding this place >=0
Some said putting her baby's pic on the signboard was unprofessional, but I don't think so cos we are talking about an easily identifiable stall name/logo here.


We ordered the ngoh hiang, beehoon+noodle+kway tiao, fried egg and veggie. Tasted not bad overall...the ngoh hiang, egg and kway tiao was especially good.


Some edmwers were already eating when we arrived and since we didn't post our attendance in the thread, we decided to remain anonymous. Then some of them suspected us to be edmwers, so later on the organiser decided to call us to the main table. We joined them for awhile, but had no common topic so we left. Well, actually both of us were lurkers and what can we chat about since we are meeting for the first time, there's this silent awkwardness unlike the rest who are more talkative.

Btw, edmw is one of the most happening forums with the fastest updates and beats the 154th media anytime.

This is pretty sick..for the past 1 week something happened to LLM, BBMM, ZZM
First it started with llm and bbmm both down with limping front left leg, except llm had a more serious injury than bbmm.

Then when llm was about to recover after 4 days, she was down with another injury. This time its her hind left paw, it seems like a thorn is stuck in her pad or she got stung cos the paw swelled for the next few days =(


Today:
We registered a vet appointment for her, but she seems fine today. Maybe we should continue to monitor instead of putting her through the trauma of going to the vet in the carrier >_>'

Wed morning:
Back to zzm, we visited all 3 of them on wednesday morning. Fed them and we sat down at the Senior Citizens' Corner. Zzm came over and hopped up the stone chair.

At the same time, there was this half naked Uncle with a tattoo on his arm, sitting on the stone bench. He raised his fist as if wanting to hit zzm. K got scared and signalled me to leave.
As we had something on, we had to leave asap else there is no time to make the chocs and cake for my friend.

After we left, we headed to the nearby kopitiam for breakfast and that was where we saw the other feeder, Auntie Ping. She told us that her friend who feeds the kitties in the morning noticed this man who is sitting downstairs half naked, stared at her when she fed the cats. Another thing was that, her friend would fill up the waterbowls and find them emptied later. She suspected that the half naked man emptied the waterbowl. Upon hearing that, we nodded in agreement because the man was around this morning too and was hostile to zzm.

Thursday morning:
We saw the kitties and noticed that zzm had the same injury, left front limping leg as llm and bbmm. SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT!

So who abused my poor kitties ='(

Have been burdened by this certification exam for sometime..its finally over!
And its time to reward myself, however these are short term gratification as guilt follows shortly after -_-''

I have some long overdue shopping which was done during this week..ouch~ my wallet hurts.
Think the total came up to 2K+ ~_~
- Upgrade facial package
- Clothes ( 2 levis, 2 working tops, 2 working pants, 2 dresses, 1 casual top for fridays)
- Baking course for artisan breads

And there's still shoes and bags that I need to replace ._.''

I spent my entire Saturday shopping at Far East Plaza and Taka and it was rewarding. The main reason I like shopping is because I love to look for bargains. Well, as a rule of the thumb, I only buy things that are worth what they are. Too costly? Next please.

I am happy with my purchases especially the Levis Jeans. Not quite due to the brand, but because they had the 2 pairs for $99 and there was boot cut designs! Boot cut designs are rare these days, don't know what's nice about skinnys though. Esprit working tops are decent enough at $30 each. 2 dresses at $12.90 each, it says no trying so I kept my fingers crossed...luckily it fit me just right.


We went to the Science Centre, Singapore on Sunday using Corporate Passes. Yay for free entry.


$2 off Da Vinci Exhibition tickets -> $13. Well, its worth your every cent.


The famous drawing, all about the golden ratio.



We spent about 3 hours in the Da Vinci Exhibition and we couldn't get enough lol~
I can't help but shake my head, regarding the horse that Da Vinci spent 16 years on. He could have achieved so much more *sigh*

And unfortunately, the Science Centre closes at about 6pm else we could have stayed longer.



One best quote from Da Vinci:
Marriage is like putting your hands in a bag of snakes hoping to find an eel.

These 3 kittens were found abandoned on 24th May 2009 morning, under woodlands block 173 void deck.
They were in a card board box sleeping quietly when K saw them, they look about 1-2 weeks old.

K was holding a pack of raw fish, so he returned home first before going down to look at these cute kittens. They were unable to walk, yet someone placed a small cup of milk outside the box..LOL? I arrived in a taxi shortly and took these pics and placed them on EDMW...in hope that some kind soul will bring them home asap as they need mum's milk/kittens' formula.

Why didn't we buy the kitten formula for them? Well, K has a point..he says if we buy the formula, we can only feed them for TODAY.
What about tomorrow?
And the day after?
Are we prolonging their time in a cruel sense instead?

They remind me of bearbear and puggy ='(



*Kiss*


So cute...but their owner doesn't want them.
When we returned at night (after some postings and bumping of thread, no one adopted the kittens though) and the kittens were not there anymore.

I hope a kind soul took them in, or someone sent them to meet their maker.