Queen of My Heart

It's halloween today and it's also the Queen of my heart's birthday. Had our dins at Thanying Thai Restaurant located at Amara Hotel. It was previously at Clarke Quay and when we were little, our parents would bring us there for Mommy's birthday every year without fail. What I do remember were the ghostly figures at Clarke Quay since it was halloween and everyone was partying hard. Had no idea they were clubbers until I grew older haha.

Food was alright. Not that I remember how it used to taste like since I was still so little back then, I only remember eating their desserts and always asking for more "ah ta ji" (sorry I have no clue what it is called in English but it is some white oval shaped sweet chewy stuff). Still can't beat authentic thai food from BKK which is so much cheaper.

Happy birthday Mommy!!! When I start earning money again I will treat you to pampering spa sessions on your birthday, this is a promise I've made to myself. Love you to the moon and back. Stay happy and healthy always. & may all your wishes come true.

Halloween baby.

OOTD. Very proud to say that my shoes are from BKK and only costs SGD$4.

Her face too cute.

Her pose damn funny hahaha.

A place I used to call home

Suddenly missing those long walks back in Plymouth, basically the life there. Everything was slow-paced unlike SG. There is only one main shopping centre in Plymouth and it usually takes us about 20 minutes walk from the boy's house. We have never taken the bus in Plymouth b'cuz the whole place is pretty much walkable, and the weather is so cooling all year round you will never perspire from walking for an hour. The only one time we took a bus was when we were heading to the Zoo in Dartmoor (will get to that when I blog about it some other time). Other than that, we either walked or cabbed haha.

The shopping mall, Drake Circus, is usually filled with people. And mind you, even on weekdays at like 3pm, there are still people shopping around. Even in like parks, we see people walking their dogs at like 2pm in the day. The lifestyle is really different from us.

I wouldn't deny that I have been a bum the entire time there since I wasn't studying haha. The boy also took care of me really well and cooked most of our meals, but I did fry rice during his exam period and boil herbal tea for him too!

We will always do our own grocery shopping at Sainsbury & Iceland and in the beginning we would lug the shopping bags home, but eventually we got lazy and started cabbing home instead haha. The walk from Sainsbury to home was about half an hour or maybe even more, so in our defense we were not really lazy. I love grocery shopping even in SG. I just love food that's why.

The boy's school was near Drake Circus so we would usually head over after school and whenever we step into Primark (shopping heaven), I wouldn't leave the shop without getting anything haha. It's like a curse or something.

My fave sushi place is Yo! Sushi. I don't know why the rest found it yucky but I thought it was something different. I always bugged the boy but we couldn't have it all the time as it was pretty expensive. Food there is twice the price SG's food. I really like Marks & Spencers there. They have a whole lot of variety of food, SG's can be put to shame haha. On the way home from Drake Circus, there is a small Chinese Restaurant that sells really good spicy pig intestine noodles soup but it costs 8 pounds per bowl, which is SGD$16.

I loved going to the Chinese supermarket/warehouse. Always had to buy their frozen Dodo fishballs and kimchi even tho they were overpriced. We went to the fish market in the morning a couple of times to get really cheap crabs too. The fresh scallops and stingray there were fat and juicy too. Yum.

I spent most of my time watching dramas and Running Man on my phone and reading storybooks, while the boy studied. Other than that, we watched shows on teevee together like Cake Boss, Masterchef, River Monsters and sometimes Running Man together too. We had lots of maggie mee with kimchi for supper.

Caught movies at 2 different cinemas. One was really run down (Reel) and the other was better (Vue), but both can't be compared to SG's. Tickets were really expensive too, so we only caught a few shows. Went for some drinking sessions at Walkabout, where the rest really liked their food there but I personally don't as they were mainly fried food. They like to head there to watch football matches. Another drinking place would be Cuba, where they celebrated the boy's birthday. It sells great chix wings in the day, only found out when we were leaving the place, bummer! Outside Cuba, there's this hotdog stand that sells yummy hotdog bread, which only opens after 11pm. So you either get fat or get fat.

Maybe one day when we retire, we can visit the place again. Even tho we had only ourselves to lean on, I was happy to be by your side. I hope you were too. Even tho I missed home, the folks and especially Crystal, and SG's food, it was really a great experience for me. I loved it. & I'm already missing it.

River Safari

Woke up bright and early to a great day b'cuz we were going to the River Safari! I love "excursions" like these as SG is so small, there really isn't anywhere new to explore if you get what I mean. Got ready faster than usual and I was early b'cuz the boy gauged the time wrongly, but all's forgiven since it was a gooood day haha. Had Macs harshbrown for breakfast, one of my fave kinda breakfast, then met up with his family and we took an express bus there.

Explored.

My fave was the Red Panda. Ohmygosh, it's super cute. So fluffy with a super dooper cute face. There were two of them, one was just lazing around on a branch and the other one was running around and totally posing for us to take pics of him. If they sell red pandas in SG I'm definitely gonna get one.

Finally saw Kai Kai and Jia Jia. We ate panda baos too haha. I was so excited to take pictures with the baos, have been rambling about it to the boy since a few days back. Thank god for his sister, we only paid $4 for $100 worth of food as she had food vouchers! She also treated us all to this "excursion". Always thankful for her as she's always treating us to good meals all the time. Will do so when I get a job haha.

One thing I like about River Safari is that it is sheltered almost entirely, so even tho it was a scorching hot day, we were still under the shelter 90% of the time. We headed over to the Zoo after we completed River Safari as we still had time to spare before the next bus came. Took a tram around the Zoo before heading to his place.

Happy 41st Monthsary, Mochi! Many more to come.

Introducing the super dooper cute Red Panda.

Say Hi to Jia Jia, Kai Kai was in his own world so we didn't capture a great picture of him.

Fooood, glorious food.

My panda baos. Cute or what.

But a pity they tasted ordinary.

Love locked down.

OOTD, Stylenanda & New Balance.

Rey Turns One

Was invited to Rey's first birthday party, he's a mixed blood as his dad is a Singaporean but mom's a Korean. The venue they held the birthday party was at Amara hotel, Hyang-to-gol Korean Restaurant. Happy 1st birthday, Rey! There was a traditional game played where Rey had to pick an item which will depict his future and he picked the airplane haha cute pilot in the making.

Food was delightful. My love for Korean food never dies haha. The small side dishes are the best. Craving for more now as I type this. Forgot to take pictures of the food as I was too busy stuffing myself.

Decked in Stylenanda today.

Disneyland in Paris

The happiest place on earth has got to be Disneyland in Paris. I would love to go to Disneysea in Tokyo one day tho, heard that it is awesome. The boy purchased the express tickets months before we started planning for Europe, love it when he knows exactly what I like. I thought that Paris would be warmer than Plymouth, apparently not. It was a virgin experience trying out long johns that I thought could keep me warm, but it started to rain. Kinda regretted not going with jeans, couldn't enjoy much as I was really cold. Nonetheless, we still had fun, despite the rainy weather and the huge crowd. There were actually two parts, we decided to check out Walt Disney Studios first before heading to Disneyland.

I am actually a scaredy cat, so we skipped almost all the roller coasters (b'cuz I forced him to), we only took an indoor roller coaster haha and we actually got giddy and felt like puking after that. I know I know, such a waste of money right.

I am extremely delighted that I have the chance to go to Disneyland in Paris, never would have thought that I could visit it so soon. We had a Mickey Mouse hotdog meal and the boy bought a candied apple for me. We also went to an extravagant looking restaurant to have pork ribs. The food there was surprisingly good, usually you would think that Disneyland's food would be overpriced and not up to standard, but we were proven otherwise. The boy wanted to get me a souvenir there but we couldn't find anything nice, so we decided not to waste money haha.

It was still a magical experience for me. Being there just makes you feel like a kid again. Happiness.

Paris, City of Romance

Back in May, the boy finally completed school and we took the opportunity to travel through Europe thereafter. We were supposed to be apart for nine months, but we managed to shorten that dreary nine months to about five. He went over in September, I went over in December and we went for a short UK tour for about two weeks with his friends before I headed over to Plymouth (his home). I flew back for CNY as my sissy came back from Aussie, had to meet her since I hardly ever see her. I flew back to Plymouth in April to accompany the boy until he completed school and we went traveling Europe for a month and finally back to SG in July. Missing the weather in UK v much.

It was like the longest holiday for me, but I definitely hope there's more to come haha. Alright, cut to the chase. Our first stop for Europe was Paris. Truth be told, not exactly the most romantic city in the world to us. There were really nice and friendly people, but we also came across a handful of nasty ones.

It was really gloomy and rainy when we arrived, checked into our hotel, Holiday Inn Gare de l'Est, which was near the train station. We were in Paris for four days. Throughout the entire Europe trip, we always got lost while navigating to our hotel, it's not even funny. French people were all decked out in black with black brollies, fashionable or what.

We decided to cover a few famous tourist attractions since it was already late afternoon when we arrived. On the way to this church, we got lost but a kind soul helped us along the way. However, upon reaching the church, we almost got conned by a group of people. They were all acting chummy and friendly and they started to tie something like a friendship band around our hands and started making conversations with us. & when it's done they insisted that we had to pay them when we didn't even ask for it in the first place. We wanted to just give them a small amount and shake them off but they demanded for 20 euros instead. The boy hurriedly held my hand and warned them that he was going to the police and brought me away quickly. Still couldn't believe that they would try to do that in the public and right in front of a church.

One thing I love about Paris is their fruit tarts. Their pastries, to be precise. I am not a bread person, if you know me well, so when I say their pastries are good, I mean they are really good and fresh. I could eat ham and bread and not whine about it.

& not forgetting their waffles (altho I'm sure Belgium waffles would be the best but this is awesome!) We went back for more on a different day b'cuz it was so yummy. The sugared vanilla flavour was the best.

Just me, happy with my box of pastries.

Gloomy weather, but company made up for it.

 

Musée du Louvre.

 

Eiffel tower, been there done that. We didn't manage to catch the night scene of the Eiffel tower b'cuz I was lazy and it was nowhere in sight near our hotel. And to add on, after the con men incident, we decided to not stay out too late at night since it wasn't really safe as there were only just two of us.

Magnificent view of Paris.

The boy feeling the jitters b'cuz he's afraid of heights haha, but we were only halfway up.

Sun's out.

After walking and shopping around for awhile, we settled for lunch at this Japanese restaurant owned by a Jap, and I was impressed with the udon. It was sooo good. We settled for something soupy(instead of famous French cuisine in Paris) as I was already falling ill, yes just when we started the trip, I am such a wet blanket sometimes. My taste buds were pretty much gone, but I could still taste the broth of the udon, so it really is amazingly delicious.

Headed to the happiest place on earth next. Take a guess where?

Hello there, stranger.

To capture memories, jot them down, read back, reminisce, laugh. 

Crystal's fourteenth birthday has just passed. Here's wishing her happiness and health always, to live for as long as I do. I'm sorry if I haven't been around much to play with you and be by your side every second of everyday as I have been traveling pretty much, but you know you have taught me what unconditional love is. Your loyalty is so strong and you are just like a sister to me who has been there for me when I cry and when I am happy. Thank you for always being here for me, I love you so v much.

Introducing Crystal, my sister, my baby, my fave, my fluffball.