birthday girls!

Today was another day out with the Starhub gang (: we decided to try this new "xiaolongbao buffet" ($16.80++, comes up to about $19.80 per person). Ok, numerical value wise, it may not seem cheap, but considering that they offer food items like xiaolongbao and wasabi prawns in their buffet menu... it does seem quite a deal isn't it? Furthermore, its cheaper than the Crystal Jade XiaoLongBao buffet over at Holland V. So why not?? (:

Anyway, this restaurant is called Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant, which apparently is a culinary icon over at Shanghai (like how DingTaiFeng is legendary in Taiwan). So far, the only outlet that seem to offer this buffet is the one at City Square Mall, right above Farrer Park MRT (:

here's the buffet menu, you can check it out (:

think i need to grow my fringe, even jasper's is longer than mine now. >:(

this is their interior design. a pity i forgot to take more shots ):

it was FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD! check out some of the dishes we ate!

steamed egg with clams which was YUMMSSSS

a cold dish: poacked chicken something... hahaha.

cold dish as well: beancurd with century egg

homemade style beancurd which was quite tasty too! comes with thai sweet chilli and mayo!

shanghai fried rice and it was yums too! haha pity we didnt try the other rice and noodles ):

and now, here are the mains! XIAO LONG BAO!! teehee! compared to the Crystal Jade's Xiao Long Baos, this one's skin (only at the opening) is slightly thicker than normal. But nevertheless, there is A LOT of soup within each XLB (Y) and the meat is rather tasty! they have 3 types of XLB, and yes we tried all three- pork, pork and vegetable and mushroom! the mushroom XLB is probably the most interesting of the lot! the soup tastes like mushroom broth and i thought it was really quite yummy! you probably can only get it over here! haha

PORK XIAOLONGBAO!

MUSHROOM XIAOLONGBAO

wasabi prawns! and i am surprised at the quality. it was really nice i must say!

and these are barely a quarter of what we ate. 5 of us ate $400 worth of food (yes, crazy!) and we were sooo bloated. We ended up watching a movie to chill and let the food settle.

The sneaky boys planned to celebrate me and jieling's birthday and they secretly (and it was quite a failed attempt) got us a cake each! (: THANK YOU GUYS! i know that the whole mission is quite fail, but its the thought that counts!

jieling and her chocolate cake! YUMS!

me and my cheesecake! YUMS!

they asked me to pose for a wishing shot, AND SHAWN U ARE DAMN RETARDED.

Terence is gonna leave for USA in like 3 weeks time. AWWWW /: it will be like another year or so till we see him again. While we will continue having uber fun outings without him (oops!), he will truly be missed when he's gone. SO TER, COME BACK FOR ME AND JIELING'S 21ST BDAY!!

Fly Kite Fly Kite~

KITE FLYING+PICNIC DAY!! (: wheee!

The last time we went on a kite flying or picnic was almost a year ago! Thank goodness, the boy had some spare time for us to go out and have fun!! We prepared a 3 course meal (it was almost a 4 course meal), which proved to be slightly too much for us. But yay, cooking with him is always fun! So here's what we had for lunch- red date and logan drink (cheated, cause we got it off the shelves of NTUC), borscht soup (cheated as well,its campbell), Don's shepard's pie (cheated #3) and mango prawn salad (which we made ourselves, finally!)

Stupid us left out the spoons, so we had to drink right from the jar

This time round, we chose to go the the Marina Barrage, after the failed attempt near Anchorvale Community Club simply because there was no wind. Boy, it was such a crowded day till our kite got tangled with some other! And the weather was a killer! Just 1.5hrs in the sun and we were zapped out of our energy! If not for the hearty meal we prepared, I would have probably fainted there. Ok, maybe that's slightly exaggerating.

The winds at the Barrage made it way too simple for the pro! Like within 5mins, he managed to get the kite high into the sky! But, I would have been able to do that too! Hmph!

But anyhow, it was a really fun day-waking up way too early to prepare the salad and pack the food and all. This may sound brainless, but it's such simple pleasures that adds colours to your everyday life. No?? 

Lets do it again soon, <3

The Terracotta Warriors

It was off to Asian Civilisation Museum (ACM) to visit the Terracotta Warriors! I love visiting such special exhibitions in museums <3 Geeky me likes to be enriched with historical facts and quirky ideas, you see (: 

Anyhow, I have been wanting to visit the Terracotta Warriors for a long long time. Think once, I even tried to convince my parents to bring me to Xi'an to see them! Now that they've flown all the way to Singapore, there's no reason why I would miss this opportunity for the world! (:

The Terracotta Warriors were found buried together with Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. These figures depicted the army which would follow Qin Shi Huang in his afterlife. The army was discovered in 1974, in the Litong District, Xi'an, Shanxi Province. The construction of this mausoleum started in 246BC and involved almost 70,000 workers (talking about cheap labour huh!). Currently, there is an estimate of 3 pits of armies, with over 8000 soldiers,130 chariots, 520 horses (many of which are still buried underground).

The ACM had brought over a few figures and some replicas (as the original figures are too fragile to be moved). And it was really interesting to find out so much more about the Terracotta Army. The ACM had also very nicely designed an iPhone app for visitors to experience the sights and sounds of the wonderful Terracotta Army (: Find out more here!

(psst! its free entry for Singaporean and PR students ya!just rmb your ezlink/matric card)

Here are some pictures of today's visit to ACM!

this is our ticket to enter the exhibition!

camgeek, seriously.

contemporary version of the army! HOW CUTE PLS!

love the lighting of this photo <3

some pottery that were buried alongside the warriors

this is a replica of the original chariot, which is too frail to leave China ):

the horses are so mega cute though (:

warrior gear!

here's the real deal! this is a Terracotta General (:

some other miniatures which were buried in another tomb (yes, its not QinShiHuang's tomb)

extracts of walls leading into the tombs. these stones depict a romanticized version of a commoner's life.

creepy figurines. think they just depict commoners /:

figurine of a maiden buried in the tomb as well.

Well, maybe you should go down to the ACM to visit the Terracotta Army (:

Bangkok Day 3-Chinatown in Pictures

Day 3 was down to Chinatown! (: Was really excited to see how Chinatown looked like, but it turned out to be nothing much. Got a taste of the lifestyles of these Thai Chinese. Ahh, lets the pictures do the talking (:

HAHA ACT SEH!

Camera sensitive/shy Spencer(:

SPRING ROLLS! <3

You can imagine how the spring rolls tasted by looking at Jon's face! HAHAHA!

Chap Chye Peng in Thailand, totally redefined! they even have crabs as one of their dishes!

eating along roadside stalls

Just look at the amount of Chinese Sausages!

And, we took a little walk in their wet market (: A totally different experience from those in Singapore, its more like the type of wet markets you will see in those Hongkong dramas!

And, we had dinner at T&K Seafood. Ordered 10 dishes (yes 10!), and boy, the bill only came up to like S$10+/head! MEGA CHEAP AND FRESH SEAFOOD! here's what we had (: