where's Sally?

try spotting Sally. she's visiting Melissa's place together with Robina

here's Sally, right on second floor stairs, resting her chin on the grille.
she's tired from running around the riding school while Robina was riding.
all the hormones from being in heat, had apparently addled Sally's brain. she's normally a diva, none of those pariah dog butt-sniffing for Sally. but today she allowed the resident male dog sniff her butt. luckily Robina's around to prevent Sally from being too flirtatious.

baby Karl's day out

Melissa brought Baby Karl out for lunch with Robina. Lunch at Nadaman was delicious! they gave us a big room which happened to be available.
Karl fussed a little since he wants mummy to carry him. Robina and I took turns to carry him.
Karl likes to smile and he seems to recognise Robina's face!
after lunch Melissa went for her facial while Robina became the babysitter. Sally was the official baby guardian. she's very excited and wants to play with the baby. Robina put a suitcase to block the door. Sally will be very tired tonight since she didn't manage to sleep in the afternoon. but she sneaked into the room to lick the baby.
Karl slept all the way after being fed. only disturbed by Sally's wet tongue...

beef noodles

wandered into the new shopping mall near our place and found this new makan joint: Master Kong's Chef Table. Master Kong is an famous and established brand of instant noodles in China, much like Maggi Mee in Singapore. it's a Taiwanese company that managed to capture a big slice of the pie. Some of our frens from singapore who visited us in Beijing, became hooked onto this brand of instant noodles. We usually bring a few packs in our suitcase when we fly back to pass to our frens.
So you can imagine that most people would wonder if the food inside would taste like maggi mee? Robina was skeptical but we went in to try anyway. their specialty was Taiwanese style beef noodles. it turned out that the soup gravy was delicious and the noodles al dente. the beef was nice and tender! so we had made the right choice after all.

traditional Katong kopitiam

just saw a docu on CNA about a traditional Hainanese kopitiam in Katong: Chin Mee Chin (204 East Coast Road, off Chapel Road). you know the kind that is famous for roasting their own coffee beans, making their own bread and kaya. even though its a very small kopitiam, the place is so popular that the regulars let themselves in via the back door, early in the morning even before they open the front door.
Robina and I was drooling from the sight of their home-made kaya, the brown colour type with no colouring and preservatives. they slap it on thickly on their home-made round bread buns. they make their own cream puff and pastries too!

desperate and hungry, we quickly dug up our emergency kaya supply and made kaya toast! must drop by Katong to visit CMC the next time we return to Singapore!

pics from yesterday.sg

Sally going into heat

Sally has been very lethargic and sleeps even more than normal. over the weekend, we discovered why: she's going to be in heat. Sally has been following six month cycle. her last heat was in previous Nov. over the past two days, she was dripping a few drops of blood.

when we returned home this evening, Sally was splashing blood droplets everywhere during her welcome tail shaking and running around in excitement. CSI would have a preplexing time analysing the blood splashes!

Robina decided to put Sally into her "Flashy Pants" complete with sanitary napkins! Sally's morale was even lower after the indignity of being forced to wear the red polka dot pants. but she also did not enjoy the discomfort of the discharge clotting her fur and wee-wee.
We did not "fix" Sally since we did not want to mutilate her for our convenience. Most vets encourage sterilisation due to the concerns of unwanted puppies, but that's OK with us since we will not breed her and we don't let her run around freely. when she was a puppy we believed that she should grow up normally with her physiology intact. Sally only drip for about 10 days. during that time, it could be a bit messy but we just cover our sofa (back in Singapore) with a throw-over rug.

lab BBQs

it seems like Joelle has been upholding the tradition of BBQs outside Ecolab (I see the familiar balcony). although we don have such an ya-ya grill last time!

We used to have such a well-oiled operation that we could whip out a sumptious BBQ (not just chicken wings n frozen frankfurter type) at literally a moment's notice, be it to celebrate finishing a thesis, welcoming/sending off visiting researchers or just plain no excuse at all (i.e. displacement activity for postgrads who should be doing their thesis).

the BBQ stand-by kit is always there: charcoal, BBQ pit (improvised baking tray balanced on two bricks) and tongs etc. the food is always top-notch. Cynthia could be counted on to a spring a whole salmon from the importer. Oi Yee will always provide the wheels to swing by HV Cold Storage to load up on food. Tommy's trusty drink dispenser would be filled up with ice and orange squash.

lest Joelle don know, generations of Molecular students from the opposite S1A block had nearly been pushed off the brink of despair when they are burning mid-might oil for their experiments while they see the BBQ fires stoked up by care-free Biodiversity types (yet again), swigging beer and BBQing chicken-wings in the S2 balcony. We only knew when Robina and Faith told us about this...

spanking new mall

Robina and I went to the brand new Shin Kong Place mall near our part of town several times over the May 1st holidays. the parent company Shinkong Mitsukoshi was from Taipei and the new mall was very similar to Mitsukoshi in Taipei. of course in Beijing, the new joint is even bigger (all 18,000 sq metres!)

they have a decent food court in the place, plenty of ya-ya coffee joints and even has a BreadTalk outlet. several "proper" restaurants on the 6th level, we tried all of them over the holidays including Din Tai Feng, Bellagio and Matsushin.
we had been to the Japanese restuarant's main branch near our place. the food here was cheaper but the portions were huge. I had the Sukiyaki
we tried the tuna sashimi, which was quite good and reasonably priced (RMB76) for a generous serving.
There's a Snoopy restuarant, Charlie Brown, which was quite cute (note: for Peck Wai's benefit)
the decor was bright and cheerful. we will try their food once of these days.
there was a creative water feature on the 5th level, below the skylight. the shower of water from the roof helped to cool down the place and add some humidity to the dry Beijing air!

long-lost friend

Mac Meetup at Geek Terminal
I was reading Siva's report on the latest mac meet-up in Singapore when I spotted a familiar face in the photo albums. a quick check confirmed that it was indeed my TJC classmate Danny Pang, one of the partners at Geek Terminal. Danny didn't look that much different (minus the goatee though) compared to the good old days, which was why I could spot him easily. turns out that another partner, Martin's sister is a mutual friend of Siva and also my colleague. really a small world!

Danny was my partner in crime back in JC when we were in the Students Council together. we sneaked into the JC building to watch 86 World Cup on a portable TV. a whole bunch of us TJC boys enlisted together and ended up in the same BMT company or even platoon. Danny and I was together in the same platoon and section.

will definitely drop by Geek Terminal when I return to S'pore and catch up on war stories!

scared silly

Robina was scared silly by this show on Star Movie, "Dark Water" with Jennifer Connelly. altho the Japanese original in 2002 starring Kuroki Hitomi (黒木瞳) was much scarier. even the trailer was scary that it can make you jump. Robina couldn't watch the Japanese original since it was THAT scary. She can cope with the Hollywood toned-down version but still need Sally and me around...