Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Monday, July 2, 2012

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.

Friday, December 2, 2011

0 December (alarm) bells are ringing

Source: weheartit


It's Dec!

The good: Christmas! Can you just smell the festive aura in the air?

The bad: exams looming, which is not a problem in itself; the problem is that I barely started my studying! (Just submitted my 4-page congress report, completed in record time. Usually I'll take note of every minute detail from the content to the formatting but this time, time is not on my side.) Another bad - the clock is ticking down towards the end of my lovely, escapade as I would call it, to London. Back to Singapore and the stress. :(

Meanwhile, I'm eager-beaverly looking forward to Wicked on 16 Dec! It's gonna be a wicked time with music & family!

Yogurt-style Orchard Peach Ensure Plus expected to arrive in the mail today/tomorrow! One thing why I love UK is for its sheer accessibility to the variety of products, which are not available in Singapore.

Sleepy weepy, it's 4.25am.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

0 Lights, music ... BOOM

I enjoyed myself thoroughly last night despite a mounting load of work to complete.

First: my first construct-your-own-salad from Whole Foods salad bar!
You choose either a small, medium or large box, and then fill stuff it to the brim with the tantalizing array of salads - from grains to beans to proteins to veg. I got a little crazy and took a little of almost everything, including (but not limited to, as I can't recall all of them):
- pearled barley risotto
- quinoa
- red rice
- mango salsa
- broccoli w sun-dried tomatoes and garlic
- curried cauliflower
- scrambled tofu (!)
- sicilian tuna
- crab cakes
- giant couscous (fregola)
- butternut squash
- grilled aubergine
- grilled zucchini
- "meat" loaf (made from tofu, something like a nut rissole)
- slice of something made from tofu

Wow! As I type I'm amazed how many items I managed to stuff into that small box, like Hermione's magic purse. I hadn't had time to eat much (and probably couldnt finish it anyway), so now I have lots of leftovers to last me another one or two meals!

Then I scooted off to the Royal Albert Hall for Classical Spectacular. The highlight and everyone's favorite was clearly Land of Hope and Glory, apparently a British patriotic song. That's why there were not only red, blue and white laser lights (forming the Union Jack), but also people were madly waving their mini British flags to the beat of the music. Looking around the great hall with people singing in unison was a sight to behold.

The (pre)finale was Tchaikovsky's 1812. I first learnt about it through the film V for Vendetta and was addicted to the song. I wished they had accelerated the tempo a bit more, but the fireworks and real pistols and cannons made amazing effects. I was nearly falling asleep during the slow part (can't blame me, I was tired from running about earlier in the day) and when the first shot fired, I almost jolted out from my seat. I paid only 13.50 for the tics (and a little more for booking fee) and it was more than worth it!