moorookoo

 

The meeps and his brother, Daniel, who is visitng from Sydney.
As different as chalk and cheese, these two.



We were at California Pizza Kitchen @ Forum, which was a complete boo boo compared to Pepperoni's or Spizza. The only thing that got me excited in the menu was their red velvet cake, which coincidentally was on the front page of joyofbaking.com the week before last.



Soft and moist, but too sweet!

Yes, yours truly now trawls the internet for baking recipes in her free time. Did I mention that Candy and I went bread shopping at Provence and Cereal shopping (triple chocolate YOM) at Marks and Spencer a few Fridays ago? We ended up at Isetan Supermarket. I got conned! I thought she was bringing me to the shoe section!

YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!

YAY!

Take that suckers.

Sick.

:(

Off to Bandung for the weekend!

Dad's 60th birthday.
Visiting Christine and Bun + Jeremy!

:)

* Smirk*



Tuesday night, we were out to Paah-Per-Paah-Per, Paaah-Per Roni's for XX's 29th.

(Lady Gaga rocks lah. Go youtube the music video!)

Pepperoni's is located along a row of shophouse restaurants hidden at the end of Hillcrest Road. The place has changed much since my NJC days, with good quality restaurants decked one after another offering superb quality food. We drove halfway round the island specially to conquer yet another biggie - Pepperoni's 21 inch family sized pizza.



Even though I was mentally prepared for a monster to land on our humble table, the arrival of one piping hot bigger-than-our-car-wheel pizza still made me gasp out loud and recoil a little in fear. Our choice of topping - salmon and prosciutto. Note to self: never order 2 toppings that are both salty. I was so thirsty the entire night!

The strategy was to eat from inside out, since that was where most of the liao was. After a while, we got delirious and it became just about methodically forking it and spooning it to the mouth. XX can really eat man!

It got to a point where our taste buds couldn't differentiate between prosciutto and salmon anymore. I had to rely on pure mental strength to chow down the next bite. I wasn't full per se, just very jerlat-ed. The pizza cost us $45 nett. It could have fed 5 girls = 4 boys = 6 kids. Awesome value for money!

After my tummy was stuffed full, I had to use my other stomach (reserved for dessert) to chow down a cup of sorbet. Estivo, situated only a few doors down from Pepperoni's, has a good range of sorbet / ice cream, and the banana sorbet is blurdy damn good! So was the vanilla. And the hazelnut. And the chocolate. And the other 14 flavours I'm sure. YOM.

At this point in time, I was so full I was ready to roll over and die.

Happy night. :)

* * *
Yesterday I was in the loo singing Pah-per, Pah-per-Raaazzi in my sexy raspy voice and the meeps came by and purposely turned off the lights! He is so unappreciative of my talent. Ingrate.

The meeps and I watched Mrs World 2009 yesterday on TV. We scrutinised each and every contestant, picked out our favourites and boo-ed away the ugly ones. We did the same thing for the Miss Universe pageant too!

Janice: Mooooo, I wanna be Miss Universe.

Meeps: You ARE Miss Universe.

Meeps: Miss Singapore Universe



Meeps: Miss Singapore (East Coast) Universe



Meeps: Miss Singapore (insert our road name) Universe



Meeps: Miss Singapore (insert our block number and road name) Universe



Meeps: Miss Singapore (insert our unit number, block number and road name) Universe



* * *

Yesterday after I dissed all his favourites for Mrs World, he told me I was Miss Singapore (insert our unit number, block number and road name, STOREROOM) Universe.

*$(@)*#(@*)@*()#*@

Here I am, hair bundled up in a towel, savouring the last moments of Sunday. What a domestic weekend it has been - cooking and experimenting with new receipes, grocery shopping, watching endless TV, and enjoying the company of my pox-ed up meeps.

My first attempt at Baked Chicken on Sunday required dexterity with the stove as well as oven. I think I've finally gotten the hang of this cooking business - the art of coating my chicken in corn flour, getting the oil temperature right, setting the timer on the oven - basically just letting my kitchen intuition kick in.

WIth all things, practice makes perfect I guess.



The meeps gobbled 2 portions of the chicken and both our portions of the fries and snow peas. Since coming home from Sydney, his appetite has improved heaps.

Someone buy me a baking dish for Christmas pretty please?
Aluminium foil sucks.

Hi! My name is pie and I love eating chicken.



Nom Nom Nom.

Happy and full.



* * *

I cooked Tom yum / laksa noodles. It tasted awesome!

The meeps was supposed to come home today (sunday), but cos of the pox, he'll be back Friday.

:(

I'm going to bake today to cheer meself up.

Update:
My shortbread turned out like rock buns.

:(

I've been up since 4.30 am with nary a thing to dooo. Meh.

Stumbled home from KPO last night, shamefully defeated by 10 pm after 3 pints. Met a pretty interesting bunch of new people, finally managed to put a face to the nicknames of those I interact with during our daily skype conversations. It was like an IRC meeting, 10 years later. These people are long time friends of my shifu, all similarly addicted to trading the market. The 5 of them are your typical mid-40s sharp shooters who have made it in life somewhat, shown by their penchant for IWCs, croc leather shoes and floral themed shirts.

Our little space at the bar was filled with plates of sausages, some sort of payment in kind for a lost bet made during one of the lewd conversations in skype. Conversation was wrapped around cars, trading and girls, and then cars. I had a surprisingly enjoyable night.

At 9.30 pm, I told everyone I had to head home to call my boy. They put a pint of Blanc between me and the door, and that really was my waterloo. One taxi ride in an awful Toyota Crown later, I threw up. Bleah.

They should really phase out the Crowns soon.

omfg, I was surfing stomp (thanks to my shifu) and I came across this picture.



Frick! the girl on the left looks like ME!
omg.

I am not even freaked out when i see photos of my twin sister, cos we do look a tad different, but the photo above just takes the cake!
omg.

After a not-so-hearty Jap dinner at Cuppage yesterday, we headed to Rouge cafe to conquer their 9 deadly sins - a cocktail of 9 heavenly ice-cream scoops topped off with marshmellow, M&Ms and other suspicious nibbly bits.



5 of us polished off 18 scoops of ice cream! Eighteen! In record time as well.
It wasn't prohibitively expensive at $25 - we would even have gone for a third serving if not for that niggering iota of self restraint.


L-R: Marcus, Me, Dianne, Samantha, Daniel.

We left the beer buddies in the corner.


L-R: Jeremy, Yifeng

This is even better than lo hei...

 

It was so good Daniel slurped up the milkshake. Yucks. 
 

We laughed about all the sleazy places in Singapore. Brix, Archipelago, Orchard towers - I was too shy to admit that I used to push beer in all those places! Eh, money was good and nothing sleazy happened ok. For whatever it was worth, being a beer ambassador opened my eyes and made me see the world as it really was. I still have all the hot uniforms!

The highlight of the night - and I thought nothing could beat the ice cream - was when we all climbed into the back of Daniel's lorry. I L-O-V-E lorry rides. Even in my short Zara silk dress.

We drove through Orchard and saw the beoooootiful lights, alfresco-style. It was an awesome renegade kinda moment to feel the bumps in the road and hair slapping my face, smell exhaust fumes and fresh green grass one second and then curry the next. My hair was completely tangled by the time I was carted home. Spent 30 minutes in the shower and tonnes of conditioner trying to comb it out!

It was a grrrrreat night.

*    *    *

I'm real busy losing money in the market now. Laters!

I've got a shifu at work. He decided to let me in on the skype conversations between him and a few other traders. It's eye opening, cos I've always wondered what guys really talk about. Well, half the time they are talking about cars, chicks and postings on stomp. The other half is about the market and how it has bo ji, bo bak.

Trader 1: Let me flip my coin. My coin say Hoot!
Trader 2: Yesterday you were wrong about Dow.
Trader 1: But yesterday I did not flip coin. And based on action...I actually wanted it to go up. Coz I long.
Trader 1: Dun tell gals tat. kekekeke.

 (It took me a while to geddit.)

*    *    *
Trader 1: Vol thinner than Kenn's worm
Kenn: Simi worm?
Trader 1: now...Look down 90 degrees...spot btw your legs. Can you see it? No...of cos not. It's a worm.
Kenn: Chow cheebye, you.
Trader 1: no no no...it's not a CCB...look carefully.

They are like sex-starved teenagers.  

Long, short, pennies, up, down, protection, loaded up, unloaded.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

The meeps has gone to sydney to have chicken pox! I can't believe the timing of it. His whole holiday is ruined. Poor meeps.

Over the weekend, I ironed for 4 hours straight and scrubbed the whole house clean. There's something about smoothing out wrinkles on crinkley clothes - it's mighty addictive. I hung up 11 of the meep's freshly-ironed-crisp-as-biscotti work shirts in a colour coordiated spectrum, the sleeves painfully tucked away in one direction. It was a picture of love, those shirts - controlled, sterile and balanced. There aren't many aspects of my life I can control with such a cabaret-esque kind of psycho precision, so it really made my day.

6 hours after Project Clean started, the house was sparkling diamonds. I liked going in and out of the house cos the smell of fresh laundry was so enticing. I kept opening the cupboards to admire the ironed clothes (and even re-ironed 6 of the meep's shirts cos i spotted wrinkles). I loved my clean bathroom and speckle-free counter tops.

Yesterday evening I sat in my sterile living room, eating from my sterile bowls watching lame TV. It felt a little disjointed from reality. I would have given anything (anything!)  for the meeps to be there to mess everything up like he always does. The crumpled strewn tissue, hair on the floor, opened coke cans, dirty laundry and unwashed mugs in the sink; one scruffy unbathed meeps sprawled on the couch, yes i want it all! Even if he were all pox-ed and spottied. 

Talk about being sucha woman. Dirty must clean, clean already want the dirty back.

Airline: Jetstar (SGD$684), 7 hours with 1 hour transit in Darwin
Accomodation: The Lakes Cairns Resort ($140 AUD / night)
Days: 7

This tourist hotspot is great for couples or families with kids. It's mighty easy to navigate - from getting to the supermarket or malls, to driving from place to place, or even finding great food to suit every palate. The meeps and I turned up with nothing planned, but managed to book ourselves on 4 tours just by approaching the front desk of our resort!


Our resort was massive, made up of many apartments like the one below. Beautifully manicured landscape, hip sounding bars and bistros, designer swimming pools - similar to an uppity version of the HUDCs in Singapore.



We rented a Hyundai Getz for AUD $45 a day. Well worth it cos taxis aren't easily available. The car rental place arranged pick up and drop off from the airport.

 


Tour 1: Great Barrier Reef ( AUD $120 each)

There are many operators which offer tours to the reefs. Some use their boats as a platform from which you can snorkel, while others sail to an island and drop you off. We chose the one that took us to Green Island, 45 minutes boat ride away.


Rule of thumb: the further out the reef, and the further up north the location, the better. So choose your operator wisely.

As you can tell, Green Island is rather close to the coastline. I saw bobs of seaweed planted in sand, and one fish. All this while risking my life snorkelling drinking salt water through my nose and hyperventilating amidst a sea of choppy water. I was a complete retard out there! Water kept getting into my snorkel tube, my mask got foggy so many times I ran out of spit. As I hung on for dear life on a litle floating pipe they put out to help poor swimmers like me, I said to this blonde chick,"Shit, this ain't really fun is it?" She said,"Yeah, I can't see a bloddy thing!" It was hilarious, 2 foggy-masked girls having a rather despo convo.

After 15 mins, I gave up. The meeps gave up too. While we were in the water, he kept trying to show me how his Tag Heur Dive watch could glow in the dark. I was trying to stay alive so I couldn't be bothered with him. My meeps is sucha nerd! We hung up our snorkel gear and plopped on the nice fine sand to roast.



Clear blue skies and nice warm weather. Mmmmm.



We opted for a semi-submersible tour at 1.15 pm, which seriously turned out to be the best decision ever. It's like a space capsule on the lower part of the boat...like sitting underwater!



I got so excited when I saw how bountiful the marine life was. The boat went further away from the shore, and seriously, we would never have been able to snorkel that far out to see that much fish. I was glad we didn't anyway, because the size of the fish were scary! 45 cm long, which is 1.5 times your long ruler ok! There were so many of them, I think I would have fainted if they charged at me. The coral bed was very eerie, and the whole sea floor was like a face full of pimples. It was s sight to behold though, like going into another realm of life.

Fish and Chips? $10,000. That's the fine for anyone caught fishing off the reef.


Tour 2: White Water Rafting (AUD$109 each)

I was so excited to eat breakfast and read the brochure from raging thunder.



There are various difficulty levels for rafting and the meeps and I went for the easiest. Not cos we were chicken, but cos the most difficult (and most fun) course started in the morning and our holiday rules did not permit us to wake up that early.



Getting geared up. They even rented out shoes (AUD$4) to those who are wearing inappropriate footwear. I had on my trusty Charles and Keith sandals. Omg, I look like such a retard la. Why do I always look so retarded? The meeps looks soooo sleepy!

 

There were 5 of us on 1 raft. The guide - who was a hottie, I don't know why it's important but it is - manoevered us through a couple of rapids and taught us how to shift our body weight to get maximum leverage. Halfway through, we all jumped into the river and swam with the current. I drank so much water and it was delicious! (I kid you not). All of us had to float with our feet up in front of us so that we did not hit the rocks head first. Boy was it rocky...giant boulders hidden underwater. It was an awesome experience, swimming with clothes on... in a natural body of water... surrounded by rolling hills of green. I felt miniscule, and vulnerable and humbled.

Might I just add that the meeps did not shower after we returned to the resort. He claimed the river bathed him already. Everybody together now,"ewwwwwwww!"

This is us after. Look at the meep's smug face!
Machiam climbed Mount Everest sia.



I asked the meeps if he will ever consider buying the same kind of flip flops he rented (see above), he said no, which is all good cos long ago I decided not to date anyone who owned flip flops like that. Teeheehee, I digress. I paid AUD $25 to those suckers for 2 photos of our group. One photo was of the raft bent into a deep V shape, and coincidentally caught THE moment before I fell body whole on the fat Swede girl sitting in front of me. Very glam indeed.


Tour 3: Kuranda trails ( AUD $124 each)

Cairns is home to the world's oldest rainforest: the Daintree. That has nothing to do with where we went, but i'm just saying you know. We went to Kuranda - rainforest look-a-like - wolf in tree's clothing as the world's biggest tourist trap. I went there for one purpose and one purpose only....to fulfill a childhood dream...
 

Yes you guessed right! A picture with a Koala. I saw the brochure (below) of the girl with the koalas and I HAD-to-go.
 

 

Bloody animal clawed my shirt and stank rather bad, but I'm happy!




Look at Funshine with the cute roos! They stank. We spent a few hours walking around Kuranda. It was like a market place selling tacky tourist souvenirs. Me no like. Along the way, we did get to see the rainforest up close. See the pic on the left, those are tree roots growing upwards!


 

We took an old-school train up the rolling mountain to Kuranda and saw a breathtaking gorge. Postcard perfect.

We took the sky train down, our little capsule hovering just above the sea of trees. The rainforest encompassed us 360 degrees. It was so quiet, the trees tall and majestic. There was an aura that emnated across the endless treescape. I felt like I was intruding on sacred ground.


Tour 4: Dinner and Cruise (AUD $80 each)

To celebrate the meep's birthday, I booked us on a dinner cruise. It was very loh-man-teek. :) And cold.

*      *      *

On the topic of food, we gorged on fresh seafood at every opportunity.
We had lunch at Sushi Train, which is the meeps's favourite sushi place. They put avocado in everything! Yuck.

Lunch at 2 Fish and By the Inlet in Port Douglas.

Oysters Oysters Oysters! Mmmmm.

Mmmmmm.
 

Like my fedora? It flew into the water when I got off the boat at Green island and it's all wonky shaped now. I thought AUD$20 was cheap until I went to Bugis Street the other day and saw some going for SGD$15. Pui.

Everything is Cairns is expensive. Look at the prices for hair rebonding!

Siao. I can rebond my hair 3 times in Singapore for the same price. The only free thing in Cairns is the awesome sun and the wind.

Singapore noodles?

 

"Barry Trotter and the unnecessary sequel. The book nobody has been waiting for."
Good one.
 

 

I love this page from a book I got from one of the little quaint coffee places in Kuranda.



"Despite their fabled curiousity, cates are completely uninterested in the needs of others and, as long as their basic desires are met, are content to keep their own company and pursue their own pleasures. As such, they are not really a pet according to any reasonable definition - they are more akin to a kinetic sculpture with sadistic tendencies. A cat lover is, in effect, a collector of living art."

ok folks, that's it for Cairns!

Next stop: Bandung at the end of Nov.

The meeps left for Sydney last night. My poor boy's been feeling slightly under the weather so hopefully going home will cure him somewhat. I have an empty house for 10 days, with no one to have dysfunctional conversations with. Even the kids are gone. :(

All I'm left with is Gordon the Gecko, the resident lizard living in our kitchen. Maybe I'll take this chance to kill Gordon. He's gotten so fat he couldn't even climb the wall to escape when I shoo-ed him away the other day. I think he's been making himself comfortable on our dish rack. Irks me to know my clean dried plates have been touched by him. Ultimate eew.

Plans for the weekend have concretised. Ellen and Jeff are visiting from Indo on Sat. The meep's friend Chieh will be staying over at the house on Sunday - I promised him Satay and a turned-down bed with fluffed up pillows. Invited Tiffany over to stay with me for the week till the meeps gets back. Hmmm, since when have I become allergic to hermit-hood?

*    *    *

These days I am overcome by restlessness. It feels like I'm stringing along hour to hour, day to day , and the next minute is none as promising as the last.  I can't sit still, flitting between things like a child with ADD. Perhaps it's time to set some goals and lengthen my to-do list.

P.S. I found my phone on Tuesday in my sanitary napkin bag. Lol. And then it was gone again on Wednesday?! Dear phone, it's Friday. Please come home soon. Are you unhappy about something? We can talk things out you know.

I think I've lost my phone, not really sure.

The little bugger normally resurfaces after a day or 2 but it's been 3 freaking days! 
Such a cavalier attitude would turn a potential blackberry replacement into a white elephant I'm sure.

Pray I find the bugger soon.

*     *     *

The market is such a ghost town.
Why won't NOL just die already?

*     *     *

The meeps is going back to Sydney for 10 days. What am I going to do without him? :(

*     *     *

I haven't started training for the Standchart Marathon on Dec 6. Screwed.

*     *      *

I've written my resume. Just in case. 
Tomorrow, I'm draggin Tiff to see a Feng Shui master, and then I'll decide what to do.

Weekend festivities:

The meep's birthday cake!

Freshly made Pavlova (still on the parchment sheet!) with a scoop of fresh fruits set atop a dollop of whipped cream.

As simple as the receipe was, I still managed to screw it up the first time. Teeheehee. Misread the temperature as 250 degrees, when it should have been 250 degrees faranheit (130 degrees). The pavlova ballooned to twice its size and then deflated with much gusto. I sat on the kitchen floor, feeling deflated like my collapsed friend Pav, and started nibbling on its crusty bits.

I had no cake, one spanking new charred 9 inch spring foam baking tin, $70 of wasted baking ingredients, and a $30 parking fine from the earlier trip to the supermarket. I had to try again.

It may not have tasted mighty fine, but so much love that went into that cake.
(ok, excuses. But I did try really hard.)

* * *

Dinner for 8 at Jim Thompson on Saturday.

My lovelies took the liberty of planting 27 candles on the cake.
It looked like it was about to blow up!
I love their subtlety.



We had a hearty meal, and no, we did not clear out their Dom collection.
I leave you with peektures. (thanks Sheena!)




Alex and Melissa.


WTF.


Me lovelies.

Oops. No pic of Zac and Hong.
 

*    *     *

Ooooh yes, the meeps gave me the prettiest watch ever.
 

 

And I gave him a 1979 Penfolds Grange.
 

:)

30th October. 3.30 pm
Finally a full fledged Brace Face.