Other funny conversations

One of the days this week, i think it was wednesday, Bingkai's buddy- Kristine, brought us out for dinner at this mexican place...it was really nice! i dont think Singapore has a mexican restaurant thats equally good!

I can't remember if i have mentioned this before, but Kristine is EXTREMELY GENTLE. She speaks very softly, mildly and slowly. Its like, everytime we talk to her, we have to speak very gently as well...because she might just evaporate into thin air if we spoke any louder. Its quite hilarious really...when i see Bingkai and Mac talk to her. For myself its really an effort, shes so nice but i have to like keep my hands to myself and not wave around animatedly like how i always do.

Ok so coming back to the main point, can you see the rattan basket below? Yea it contains this roti-prata like thingey that we use to wrap the meat and vegetables (Fajitas) so Bingkai just jokingly said that the rattan basket looked like those that kept snakes. Oh my, Kristine was visibly shocked and she was like "oh no...please dont scare me with that" or something along that line. She was quite serious you know...so cute. haha.

This is actually my bed's headrest..dont you think it looks like a waffle! and my pillow case looks like the honey droplets on the waffle...i was changing my bedsheet when i suddenly noticed it! haha and i called the guys over to see 'something important' and they trooped over only to see my bed's headrest...oh and everytime they ask me about something or ask me if i can do something and my reply is a yes, ill say "yes sir yes sir three bags full", i dont know why!!!

And yes, this is the melted plastic chopping board i was talking about. This never ever happened to me before ok. But well, yea when i was cooking with wei, i got so engrossed that i didnt realise that part of it was touching the heated electric plate ...so yea...

and again some random msn coversations:

1. mac and i -- this happened when i was talking to my mother on the phone..haha!

is back in St Gallen! says:
(1) I've transferred the washings to the dryer le. Inside got one of my shirts
(2) the whole world can hear you talk
(3) thanks for advertising me, but I'm really only interested if the girl (assuming thats a girl u're talking to) is my taste

(actually i have to be honest and tell you guys that bingkai also msged me the same thing about being able to hear me talk from their rooms...oh well..the perils of living with me)

2. bingkai and i -- this was pretty long ago...i still remember my similies! haha. (im the black words)

oh and if you have time, please click on the link below and watch this video regarding the Mas Selamat saga. its not trashy ok, its from straitstimes.com. i just found the comments of one interviewee especially funny...

http://www.straitstimes.com/Video%2BNews/Singapore/STIVodcast_4058.html?playid=4058&type=Singapore

last but not least, i suddenly remembered this funny incident. When i was in spain, i exchanged some books at the hostel for spanish books. So i got hold of this book of Chinese myths, but in spanish! How cool is that! So Mac was leafing through the book and when he saw this title "Nu Wa Crea Al Hombre y Restaura La Boveda Celeste", instead of making an educated guess...he said, "Oh! i know Nu Wa created man and a restaurant in heaven!!!"

(it really means Nu Wa creates man and recovers the celestial vault, literally at least)

Stocks, Notts and more

This post is so named because this post is going to be about Dee and Wei who visited me from Nottingham and Stockholm respectively. I was really really really really happy to see them...so Dee and Wei..thanks for spicing up my life for those 2 days, literally! Dee- with your sweetness and Wei- erm with your acidic comments! haha.

Dee and Wei. Somehow i don't know why, when i saw this picture above right, it looked as though Wei was holding onto some weapon on Dee's shoulder...which in turn made me think of the picture below...

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/clipart/clip/ridinhod.html

HAHA! OK i'm so sure that Wei is so going to like..flame my blog and like start some verbal war with me, which i will ultimately lose because she is a lawyer and she is very good at tricking and confusing people...ok...erm...i think this last paragraph just made things worse...

So anyway Dee only stayed for 1 night so i was alone with Wei for another day...oh my goodness oh my goodness...haha seriously we abuse each other verbally like nobody's business and shout at each other (even when we are not quarrelling..so you can imagine how loud we are when we are). Tough love ok...trained up from St Nicks hockey days.

But really, it was nice albeit nostalgic when Dee and I recalled RJ hockey days and when Wei and I recalled SN hockey days...hmmm....haiyayayaya. It was really funny because 3 of us got really excited talking in the living room..and after a while, Bingkai and Mac just suddenly said that now they knew why I was like that...because my friends are the same! Haha.

Ok so this is an MSN conversation that took place between Bingkai (Brown words) and Wei (Black words); ok Bingkai thought he was talking to me until somebody came and took over my side of the laptop...haha

Ok look i don't starve my room mates ok, i was just feeling lazy and Wei deduced that i was trying to starve all of them...heh but when i was looking through my MSN history, i found this (below)..which doesnt help to vindicate Wei's claim in any way:

The first line and the grey small words are from Bingkai; the bigger black words are from me.

... ...

So finally i start cooking and due to some miscommunication, i ended up destroying Wei's vegetable recipe (or so she says) because i preboiled her vegetables when she wanted to slow cook them. And i finally got the chance to make use of Carol's chicken rendang prima premix! It turned out more like curry though but anyway both dishes were super yummy!

When i was grocery shopping with wei, it was really funny. I took one packet of chicken parts (6 huge parts) and she kept saying it wasn't enough for 4 people...so she bought another packet of chicken parts! You see, in stockholm she gets to eat really good food everyday- she told me that she and her friends each eat 1 cup of rice each time and they always have a lot of food! Apparently theres this girl, Crystal, who can cook really good, elaborate stuff.

OK i have to admit that her vegetables look much nicer than mine...

And the yummy rendang-turned-curry! haha..ok it doesnt look THAT nice because of the photo quality and the ladle right in the middle but yea it was really thick and nice!

You have ABSOLUTELY NO idea how much pain weiling and i both went through to whip up these 2 dishes i tell you. The kitchen was like world war II or something. I think the guys were quite scared of the commotion and decided to like stay far far away. To give you a hint of the gravity of the situation then, I shall just tell you that like 1/10 of my plastic chopboard melted away, and Weiling and i BOTH got burnt cos of splattering hot oil! HAHA.

Me encanta espana! - not in order...(edited)

I liked Spain because I found everyone very friendly and willing to help. The weather was fantastic as well! Like 20 plus degrees! Its really like a teenager's country because almost everybody wakes up late...11am onwards. And you have your afternoon siesta...you have dinner at like 11pm and you go out and have fun until 4am then you go home. Even if you take pride in being an early bird blah blah just like me, seriously theres no point cos you'll just be wandering along the streets by yourself...with birds as your only company. Plus, nobody really seems to eat proper meals here...you just snack the whole day on tapas...churros...chips....

But it was a very cool experience for me in general because I finally got to see all the places that i used to see only as pictures in my Spanish coursebooks!

Barcelona- has so many things to do, but we didnt have enough time to do all!

Barceloneta- a really nice beachy area

Gaudi...(Just in case: Gaudi is the name of the person behind the art...its NOT a case of misspelling for 'gaudy')

Las Ramblas- the most happening street in Barcelona with buskers and many many shops. (The pair of twins are not buskers, dear)

Parc Guell- more of Gaudi's work

Really good paella!


La Sagrada Familia.

Actually, i should have more photos of Barcelona but because we met Jingyi, Alvin and Chianlin...it was only right that we handed power over to the 2 SLRS owned by chianlin and Alvin. The quality of photos are almost perfect i tell you. I doubt you can really see the difference here though...the following 3 photos were taken by chian's SLR i think!

Chian was using her SLR to take multi shots..im not sure if thats what you call it...but basically the camera snaps for like many many times at one go...so we were supposed to do different expressions every time. OBVIOUSLY i was the weakest link because i was trying to do things with my hands. Didnt occur to me that i could simple just do stuff with my face! haha.

Valencia- the hometown of my spanish teacher and where ili billy is studying now!!!

Madrid
Despite the superiority of the earlier 2 cities in terms of attractions, i would say i enjoyed Madrid the most. And thats because we got to know Zing, Wollymei, Pris and Liz! It was such a coincidence that 3 of us were in the same dorm as Wollymei and Zing at the hostel. Its very easy to spot Singaporens. Usually the singlish gives it away. Maccann and I are able to tell the subtle differences between Singaporeans and Malaysians...dont ask how...

4. This is Elbow Street- aptly named because the alley is shaped like one!

Zhiying (aka Zing), Lea (aka wollymei), me, Mac and Bingkai

(Picture above) Clockwise from top left:

1 and 2: This really famous tapas bar where they sell 1 small beer for 1.80 euros and they give you a free plate of tapas. The free tapas are usually a lot of bread and potatoes. If you want to eat the nicer ones, you have to order them!

ok on the first day when i arrived in madrid, i really found it terribly boring because we had not slept all night and the weather was so gloomy! So at this tapas bar right, we bumped into this old Spanish couple who said "Oh Madrid is so beautiful, ____, _____ (insert good adjectives)!" .

And i just instinctively muttered "yea like real" and Lea was next to me and heard it. She cracked up like mad...! But i really couldnt take it...the couple kept raving on and on about Madrid when all i had seen that day was probably some apparently famous park where the trees were shaped into brocollis and this statue of a bear picking some fruit!

3 & 4: This Jazz Bar which made all of us get into the mood for sleep seriously...

The Ham museum above

CHURROS with HOT CHOCOLATE. oh man, do you know, i saw this exact place being featured on samantha brown's 'passport to europe' on ch 16? when i arrived in spain, i kept going on and on about finding this particular place where the chocolate was so thick that even a spoon wouldnt sink when put on its surface. So i tried 2 different places i think before i found this real place where spoons dont sink. The churros are just like the murukus...

Lefties is a store that sells clothes from the ZARA label. All the leftovers from ZARA go to lefties...thats why they are much cheaper!

Oh I forgot to tell you...

When the Copenhagen people were around...Jianfeng cut Bingkai's and Mac's hair...it wasnt too bad!

Ready...

Get set...

Go!

Easter break: Kilts and much more under that...

Scotland was SUPER fun! DSL stands for Deep Scottish Love and currently Maccann is experiencing that...like he goes around with this scottish accent "Its not a loch, its a freaking pond" (loch is pronounced lorhhhhhhhhhhh with a lot of air expelled at the end, and pond is pronounced porrrrrrrrrrnd). For the uninitiated, a loch is a lake.

So we went for a tour organised by Haggis Adventures for 3 days. It was extremely extremely fun...! www.haggisadventures.com We started from Edinburgh...went a whole loop on the Scottish highlands and then returned to Edinburgh.

Clockwise from top left:

1. The agency along the Royal Mile

2. In the coach: can you see the map and the sword thingey? Its Greg's GPS: Global Positioning of the Sword! haha

3. The cute coach

4. Greg, our driver cum tour guide. His classic lines are, "If you have any questions about today, tomorrow or life in general, please feel free to ask me" and "U-G-L-Y, you aint got no alibi!" haha

The views were AMAZING! In the last picture of the collage above...Greg was trying to recreate some scene...heh

The special thing about the lake in the photo above is that it resembles the map of scotland! Do you think so? ;p

Loch Ness!

I like this particular picture very much!

And this too...a deer's eye view...haha

See the picture on the left....Its called the Kilt mountains because of its pattern! cool eh...

So this is Greg telling everyone about the story of this lake...and according to legend...if you wash your face in the water for 7seconds, you will be beautiful forever...so ya thats me in the other photo...i mean..no harm trying right...except that the water was icy cold...

Disclaimer*: The whole busload of people did it as well ok....not only me...

In the whole kilt get-up...

And now for Edinburgh itself...

We went for another free tour...the girl in the picture above was our guide..really nice, bubbly and animated...Ruth.

Oh by the way, The Elephant House was a cafe thats so called the birthplace of Harry Potter because J K Rowling was sitting in this cafe...sipping her tea and looking out at the Edinburgh castle when she got the inspiration for Hogwarts and the whole omnibus...

The first picture on the left is actually a kebab....the cheapest thing alive in Europe...eaten mostly by poor folks...its just some vege with thin shreds of meat on pita bread...haha... i must say though that VALENCIA has the best kebab ever!

I was very very very amused by this poster i saw at this fish & chips shop in edinburgh...If you can see the logo at the bottom right corner..its reads "British Potato Council". I always knew that kantang was meant for greater things in life...