Alvin's spiel: 08/01/2005

isn't that Sally?

looks like Sally has many long-lost brothers and sistas out there. they are Havanese, descended from Bichon Frise bred in Cuba by spanish haciendas owners. always suspected that she has some Bichon or Maltese blood, but probably more like a rojak of mongrel terrier stock. even here in China, I get curious questions from passerbys about what breed she was? some think that's she's a Schnauzer because of her unusual grey colour. my usual response is "Le She Gou", meaning "rubbish dog" since she was basically picked off the streets of Taipei...

Sally has been under the weather for the past few days, coincidentally Robina is also downed with flu and cough. Sally puked up remnants of pieces of lotus root (Robina made soup and Sally had the meat and lotus root for dinner). She (Sally, not Robina) has been having carrots and meat from soup bone.

NDP@Padang

my first ever "live" NDP experience, even though I had participated in the NDP twice during my NS days.

the parachute drop was very impressive, especially with the HALO jump. everyone was craning their necks to follow the spiralling trajectory of the jumpers. as they floated nearer, we could appreciate how difficult it was to zoom into small landing area.

this was soon followed by the three Chinooks with the giant state flag.

managed to snap the starburst by the F16s!

President Nathan on his way to inspect the GOH contingent.

after the "usual" marchpast, the mobile column roared past the grandstandled by armoured vehicles. the smell of diesel fuel lingered in the evening air.

the highlight of NDP was the tons of fireworks! literally millions went up in smoke! but what the heck! u only turn 40 once!

Mumtaz lunch

carrying on from previous post, I met up with the usual gang for lunch at Mumtaz. We updated each other on latest happenings over a satisfying spread. see foreground...

Siva, Diana and Hubby. Diana is the frequent business traveller.

Peck Wai and Adrian. Jennifer aka Peck Wai regaled us with her disastrous experiments.

Adrian Loo, Cynthia, KMY and Airani.

Peck Wai bemoaning her slightly more expensive buy of "IP-challenged" LV bag.

revenge of the deprived

right after I landed in Singapore and blurry-eye from the late night flight, I was on the food trail to load up on local food. Just after dumping my luggage in the hotel, I headed towards Takashimaya food court for my caffeine fix in order to keep myself running (i was there before 10am and had to wait for them to open shop!). the Yakun kaya toast and soft-boiled eggs were excellent and so was the thick kopi!

next I met up with the usual suspects for lunch and Mumtaz at Far East Plaza. as usual their naan, bismatic rice, paneer (cottage cheese with spinach), chicken tikal and lassi were delicious. much better than the pseudo-briyani I get in Beijing (don have papadam some more!)

I was bringing some foreign friends around Little India and brought them to Banana Leaf Apollo for lunch. The curry fish head was marvellous with its piquant, sourish gravy and tender fish meat. my friends were drinking the gravy (neat!) even though it was the first time ever that they tried the dish!

very nice briyani and side dishes.

At No Sign Board restaurant in Geylang. I found that the food here was better than their Kallang stadium branch.Have yet to visit their esplanade joint but it must be more expensive. introduced local seafood dishes like sambal tua tau (glauconome clams) to my friends.

sorry, no picture of the chilli crab (which was excellent with delicious eggy gravy), I was too busy devouring it. here's the black pepper crab. right level of pepper spicyness, not too mouth-numbing and yet fragrant enough.

last weekend I was able to roam my favourite hawker centres in search of my fav dishes. Here is the famous Ghim Moh char kway teow stall! plus otah as an extra. the "see harm" (cockles) was large and succulent (Hep A also neber mind!)

this is the actual char kway teow stall. I was at Ghim Moh the next morning for their solid wanton mee. They were closed the previous day (boo hoo!)

Robina's National Day duty

while I was attending the NDP at the Padang, Robina was performing her NS in Beijing. many chinese, foreign friends and Singaporeans showed up to celebrate the occasion. many of the singaporean ladies showed up in cheongsam and kebayas.

sherry, alicia and robina (in yellow cheongsam)

robina and sherry

back in SIN

I'm now back in Singapore for a couple of days. been here since last sunday but has been busy with work. but still managed to meet up with frens and colleagues. attended the NDP at the Padang. exciting experience considering that it was my FIRST "live" NDP, previous two occasions were during my NS (will put up pics when I return!)

the parachutists were excellent because of the tricky air currents (and must not land on top of the President and the cabinet!). the F16 flypast was awe-inspiring. and the thundering hardware that rolled past the grandstand really showcased SAF firepower (and our tax dollars!). the fireworks were beautiful against the night sky and the Esplanade "lew lian" (I can almost smell the millions of dollars going up in flames, literally...)

also, been around loading up on local food (more pics on that too!). Ghim Moh Char Kway Teow, banana leaf curry at Race Course Road, Indian food at Mumtaz, fish ball noodles, Ya Kun kaya toast and kopi and chai at Anatolia (or Turkish teh O) etc.

oh my god/dog!

Apart from their expertise in plastic surgery, South Korea has another call to fame! researchers from South Korea made the breakthrough by cloning a dog. If dogs with their "difficult" reproductive biology could be cloned, technically there is nothing stopping scientists from applying the same to humans. the only thing holding anyone back is just ethics.

and don't think that it will be easy to have Fido v1.0 and Fido v2.0 running around the house. since dogis hormonal phsyiology is so unpredictable, the scientists basicall need to keep hundreds or thousands of dogs around to achieve this successful cloning. No one can induce a female dog to ovulate, so scientists had to WAIT for the female dog to do so, and as owners of female dogs know, they only go into heat twice a year. The scientists had to transfer 1,095 cloned embryos into 123 surrogate mothers to produce just three pregnancies, one of which miscarried. two puppies were born but one later died from pneumonia. Only Snuppy survived. so the days of practical cloning for dogs are far from here.

Robina and frens in Taipei & HK

Robina was gallivanting in Taipei when the typhoon visited as well. apart from from being caught in the storm, Robina went for some star-gazing as well. she met up with Wang Li Hom and FIR backstage at a Nokia PR event.

Robina got hold of FIR to sign their CD covers for her. Actually, Coolio was around too but Robina had no idea who he was until I SMSed her. Coolio did the theme song for Michelle Pfieffer's Dangerous Lives. Robina and her frens took things easy with visits to teahouse, Palace Museum, Taipei 101 (the tallest building in Asia - for a while) and shopping (of course!).