Day 11 - Vivo City and the meat coma

Today, my brother in law offered to take me to Vivo city, which is across the bridge from Sentosa Island. It's a new shopping centre that is trying to compete with the highly popular and touristy Orchard Rd and Suntec City.

Well, by the looks of it, they weren't doing too well.....



We split up and went abouts our own shopping. We met up 2 hours later, ravenous for some food. There was a new Brazilian Restaurant opened there called Carnivore. We get a table and hit the buffet salad bar. You gotta get some vegetables into you before all the meat comes out:

My veggie plate - with Feijoada (Black bean, pork rib and sausage stew)

The meat hits the plate - Round 1 of many

We sat and gorged for an hour until my stomach was going to burst. We decided to spend another 2 hours shopping since we've covered less than 1/2 of the shopping centre. When we go meet up, I'm still stuffed like a Turkey.

We go and pick up my nephew again, and this time, he's ecstatic to see me. He literally throws himself into my arms and then runs off to grab his bag! Hehe.

We get home and my sister is cooking dinner. I honestly can't put anything in my mouth right now. Instead, I take a nice long long walk to Junction8 where I spend a few hours just walking around and around and around.

On my way back, I grabbed a heap of snacks and drinks for the family as I promised I'll bring something back. I also stopped by the local hawker centre and got a small bowl of yong tau fu noodle soup for dinner. Something nice and light and also low on meat.

Yong Tau Fu rice noodle soup

Day 10 - Orchard and Chinatown

My niece took the day off school today to rest up. My brother in law also took TWO days off work to rest up after his weekend of "looking after the kids". According to him, he was exhausted. HA! Men. Anyway, he offered to take me to Orchard Rd since I haven't been for a few years. I guess the last few years I've only stopped for a day or two.

We get to Centre Point and decided to split up to do our own shopping. I immediately go nuts, but didn't buy much except for a few books for my niece.

We then head over to Takashimaya where I end up buying half the store. God I feel better now. I also walked around the food court, but since I was meeting up with my brother in law, I didn't buy anything:

Very common to buy fruit as a snack

Choose your own Yong Tau Fu stall

We walk across the road to Paragon, which is a more upper market shopping centre for lunch. Unfortunately, the Shanghainese Restaurant we wanted to go, had a line snaking around the corner. We went to the soup bowl instead:

REALLY chunky cream of mushroom soup

Chicken Caesar sandwich with salad

We kept shopping for a bit after that before calling it quits. We pick up my youngest nephew from day care on our way home. When he saw me walking through the gate, he stood there with the "Why is Aunty here?" look. Nevertheless, he's happy to have an early mark.

When I get home, I'm really not that hungry and just grab a quick bite with the rest of the family. Since the weather is holding up tonight, I hopped into a cab and went straight to the Chinatown night markets. Apparently most locals don't even know it exists?

I'm not really surprised as the stuff they sell is SO stereotypical asian. The jade charms and bracelets, silk cushion covers, Chong Sam, Sarongs etc. I didn't end up buying much and certainly didn't stay long.

The night market

Local old man chess club

The unplanned long weekend

With the crazy week I had at work, I could barely remember that it was a long weekend. I had to keep reminding myself not to go to work on the Monday. I guess because I've been so busy, I didn't plan to have a huge long weekend like I usually do. And maybe thats why it didn't seem like a long weekend to me. Anyway, with the weather the way it was, all I wanted to do was go home and curl up. Alas, I had arranged to have a catchup dinner with the old CBA gang. (Not before a few drinks though!) We headed downstairs to Chicane before 5pm and started hitting the drinks with a few of my workamtes. After A LOT of drinks, we battled the rain and wind to make our way to Encasa a good 40mins late. I had to walk in the rain since my umbrella couldn't fight the wind.

We actually ordered less food than when I went with Cookies and MnMs the other week, but I was SO unbelievably full I couldn't even drink sangria! Me! Not being able to drink sangria! Anyway, we had an absolutely wonderful night. I even did it as a surprise birthday thing for one of the guys. We didn't do a cake or anything, but I did rock up with a birthday hat and a lei, which he walked around the city with afterwards. And by the way, if you're ever at Encasa and they have a fig creme brulee special, GET IT!!! YUMMMM!!!

Saturday I slept in until about 11 when the doorbell started going off every few minutes. I spent the afternoon entertaining relatives and family friends before I met up with Cookies and Karen at Broadway for a bit of retail therapy. Battling the rain and wind, I managed to get there in one piece. We ended up watching Shrek 3 using my free movie tickets. I really enjoyed Shrek 3. It wasn't as good as the first 2, but after a hard week at work, it was great to unwind with.

After the movie ended, we decided to wander up and down Glebe Point Rd to look for some food. Nothing really inspired us so we headed to Spanish Tapas, a restaurant I've been meaning to try for a long time:

How cute is that jug?

Clockwise: Stuffed Capsicum in salsa sauce, Fried chicken wings cooked in white wine and garlic, bread for sauce mopping, creamy garlic mushrooms, fried potatoes with spicy salsa sauce

The food was nice even though it was bland. We had to ask for salt to season every dish. It was much nicer after that. However, it still couldn't measure up to Encasa. And it makes it particularly hard to compare considering I only had Encasa the night before! Their sangria, however, was delicious! I'm tempted to keep going back just for the sangria! Although next time I'll order Paella instead of their tapas.

Pretty much all of Sunday involved sleeping in and watching Ugly Betty. I did have a volleyball spike training session at night that left me all achy and sore. Who knew you could grow muscles around your shoulders like that??

Monday morning was absolute agony for me. Everything hurt. And it made it worse that I had to get up at 5am to take my parents to the airport in the freezing cold!!! After dropping them off, I quickly drove up and hopped back into bed. I refused to get up until after 12. It was then I dragged my half beaten up body out of bed. And again, more Ugly Betty and then grocery shopping. The one thing I love about my parents being away is that I can cook what I want, when I want. And to start off, I decided on a nice healthy and hearty breakfast:

Seriously! It is healthy! No butter on toast, practically no oil when cooking the eggs. I used leftover bacon that was sitting in the fridge, and most of it had all the fat trimmed off (Except for that one evil tempting piece at the bottom)

Expect a lot more home cooking photos!