1 What stole my weekend

It was a whirlwind of a weekend that ended much to quickly. In the name of saving time, I'll let the photos tell the bulk of the story.

1. The Amazing Spiderman! Although it boasted a typical storyline, it was nevertheless an enjoyable film with bits of humour and lots of swinging action. Andrew Garfield (who I prefer to Tobey Maguire as Spidey) and Emma Stone freshens up the blockbuster series with their younger personalities. James Horner is now added to my favorite list of composers, with his grandiose take on the main theme, filled with the fanfare of trumpets doling out a soulful tune. Just listen!
2. Crab bee hoon soup from Hong Kong Street Chun Tat Kee at Balestier Road. This cze char place is known to dish out a mean bowl of XO slice fish bee hoon and san lo hor fun. Wanting to venture out of our usual orders, we had the crab bee hoon this time round. This is my first time handling crabs in their fully shelled form and it was certainly an experience with the shelling and extraction of the meat. A very tedious and painful (literally) process but the reward was sweet, succulent and robust fresh crab meat. The stock was superbly flavorful with the crabby taste, with notes of hua diao rice wine dancing on the palate. It bordered on being excessively salty towards the end though. Our other orders were sambal kangkong and cereal prawns. After the tasty meal the bill came as shock though: $59 for two people!
3. Pizzeria Mozza.My sis and I had lunch here before the Harry Potter exhibition (see below). It's her first visit and my second, 10 months after celebrating my birthday here.
   

   Rucola, funghi and piave salad came as a mound of fresh rocket leaves with (raw) white button shrooms and shaven piave (an Italian cow's milk cheese similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano) layered in-between. The vinegary dressing did well to highlight the peppery tones of rocket, although it somewhat overwhelmed the less ostentatious shroom profile.

   

   Long-cooked broccoli, caviocavallo and chiles pizza. Another first for having broccoli on pizza. The long-cooked broccoli was tender and tasty on its own but I felt it didn't pair too well as a pizza topping. Caviocavallo is another type of cheese but I'm not an avid fan of cheese and especially when melted on pizzas, all the cheeses taste the same to me. On the whole this pizza okay, if not a tad salty.

   

   Of the Tomato, Sicilian oregano and extra virgin olive oil pizza and Broccoli pizza today, and the Margherita pizza the previous visit, the former is my favorite of the lot. If you're a tomato lover, you'll be most delighted. Intense tomato sauce topped with oregano, this upheld the adage of beauty in simplicity. You'll get your lycopene dose filled with this one!

4. Harry Potter exhibition.
   

   We breezed through the exhibition in 45 mins. It mainly featured the actual costumes and props used in the film. It was quite surreal to actually see the exact items used in the film right before your very eyes. The Marauder's Map and Potions book were some of the cooler items on display, filled with scribbles of wizardry language. I also enjoyed the display of the Yule Ball costumes; Hermione's lilac dress was so pretty! The souvenir shop of a cash-milking machine though. $50 for a wand?

5. Hacking open a young coconut. Yet another first this weekend. Much skills and strength is called for!

6. Church talk on Biomedical Ethics. An interesting and informative insight on biomedical ethics from a theological perspetive

There goes my weekend. It's past the 6-month mark of 2012. Scary how June whizzed past in a flash.Time to start relooking at monthly resolutions again.

0 The rage

Study trip to ACM and farewell to Ms Soh yesterday summed up a busy day. Less than expected number of people turned up for the farewell; the 07/08 batch had 5 people only. Just typing '07/08' makes me feel so old. Luckily it didn't last that long or I would have felt rather awkward. Just dinner + some speeches + photos + mainly catching up with QY

What I'm lovin lately: baked steel cutters. Advantage of this is that I can let the oven do the cookin' which saves the stirring time. It comes out chewier than stove up, another plus! Here's a banana version I made a couple of days ago. Drizzled geneously with Maranatha's AB.

0 Up up and up

Today I went to do some reflections at Reflections at Bt Chandu. It was a long but good walk up the winding road to Point 227. Halfway through I doubted whether I was on the right trail. There was not a soul around, no humans, no cars, not a single creature stirring (except for the ever noisy cicada) despite it being midday. I persisted and eventually got to the restored two storey villa.

As expected it was extremely quiet for a designated National Heritage site. Either there's a lack of promotion, a lack of interest in war and history, or it's too out-of-the-way, or a combination of all three.

This audio-visual narration employs a holographic 'pepys ghost effect.'

At the Well of Reflections.

I shall save all the intellectual talk for my essay. After tutorial, I made a stop at BRP for the essentials. (1)BRM's steel cutters; (2)Maranatha's roasted AB (on quick sale!); (3)Back to Nature apple blueberry granola (on quick sale too!); (4)Nakd cocoa mint; (5)Justin's dark choc PB cups. I figured that having saved much on the quick sale items, I could get more snackies like the energy bar and pb cups ;) Oh steel cutters, how art miss thee.

Ate super lots today. First, for mid-morning snack I had UK-style Ensure Plus i.e. in the 220ml bottle instead of the regular tetra pak 200ml. The reason for the switch was that the expiry date was looming for the former (01 2012 in fact). In other words, I was sort of coerced/obligated into drinking that. Nevertheless, that I completed it all in one sitting marks a significant departure from my normal practice.

Lunch was vegetarian in Arts Canteen. I didn't intend on vegetarian as I wanted to bulk up on real protein a.k chicken/fish. But by 1+ pm all the food at the economic rice stall look so yucks, so again I went back to the same stuff. The only redemption was the brown rice - which I completed all and this time I didn't even ask for less rice! I then contemplated if I should eat the Korean Fuji apple I packed, which I did, and mind you, it was a huge one.

I had more than usual for dinner too. Apart from extra dishes and larger portion of fish, I had four pieces of papaya. Now feeling a bit bloated, but surprisingly, not uncomfortably so. I think those digestive pills are seriously effective, or that my metabolism has gone wild. Whatever it is, at least I am having appetite now - on the right track of up up up!

0 Happening day at Kensington & Hyde Park

Can't believe exams are just ~2 weeks away and here am I, still galavanting around London like there's no tomorrow. Well, soon enough, this statement will indeed come true. To reward myself for NOT going out yesterday, I spent the whole day out today. Here's today in pictures!

First stop: Natural History Museum. Although I'm quite sick of visiting museums, a cumulative effect from the past few months of sightseeing, London's Natural History Museum is pretty famous and it would be a blasphemy so stay in London for 3 months without making a visit here. I was up bright and early and arrived here shortly past 10 am (my trip took longer than expected due to weekend tube closures) and there was already a queue snaking its way onto Cromwell Road. Good choice that I came early!

Natural History Museum basking in what's left of November's sun - beautiful weather today!

This place is catered for family & kids, and family & kids descended galore to this place. The dinosaur gallery could be mistaken for a kindergarten learning centre; the sheer amount of kids and parents trying to teach their kids was inescapable. "Say tie-ran-o-soar-rus," a mother would say. Apart from the crowd, the displays were not of fantastic quality but they were clear and simple - and abundant.

Dino gallery that was infiltrated with kids.

Baleen from the blue whale. Say eeeee...

Charles Darwin gets a prominent spot in the museum. He overlooks the entire center space.

After about 2 hours at the museum, I went to another museum - the V&A which is dedicated to art & design. You might think I'm crazy, but the two museums were just next to each other, and even though I was getting hungry, it would be a waste to skip the V&A. I didn't do a thorough comb of all the galleries; walking through them would be a more accurate description. I liked the photography, stained glass, postmodern furniture design and jewelry and silver section. I skipped the paintings and Europe/Asia stuff because I never know how to appreciate those things. At least now I can say I've been to the V&A :)

I was excited about my planned lunch at Ottolenghi, an eatery by the eponymous chef famous for cooking stunning vegetarian food that is a feast for both the eyes and stomach. I made my way down to the Holland Street outlet, devoured my eyes on the selection of cakes, pastries, and salads - and walked out empty handed. I just couldn't justify paying £2.60/100g of salad. The main factor was the lack the seating. It was a take-away kiosk. Just opposite the road, however, I spied this:

Menoo Eclectic Foods. Nice bow there, eh? I didn't realize it when I took the picture.

Not long after, this arrived at my table:

Leek quiche!

Although they also had a decent selection of salads at the display, I threw health to the wind and ordered a leek quiche (£3.50). To think of it, I can actually count with one hand the number of times I ate out in London. If I can make my own salads, why should I order them? Besides I haven't had a quiche in such a long time. Leek quiche it was. A side note: the staff weren't familiar with the food at all. When I asked about what was in the different types of quiche, he was squinting at the ingredients and mumbling something I couldn't catch. He tried to be helpful though.

Another picture, leaking with leeks :P

The quiche was bursting with leeks, literally, as they were spilling out over the crust. It wasn't too eggy, cheesy or oily (I think I'm starting to like cheese in small amounts now?). It was very sloppy and wet though, which I don't think a quiche should be. Whatever, as long it was tasty, and it was.

Refuelled, it was time to hit Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland!

There was crazy number of people there

The Wonderland was larger than I had expected. There were roller coasters, games, food stalls and the Christmas market. And it was PACKED.

Ready....

... and screeeeeam!

What a day! Back to work!
P.S. got Saf Kale & Spirulina crackers @ Whole Foods!