.Please Shut Up.

Okay, I know the title is un-glamorous. But oh well, I'm not rich so you can't really expect me to put "New Zealand trip" as the title so HAH!

IN any case, I stayed in my BELOVED grandma's house on Tuesday night all the way until saturday night. Her cooking is absolutely superb!! The tantalising smells that exudes from her cooking is really capable of turning the world-as my friend would put it-topsy turvy. My uncle is, too, a really generous person..Muahahaha! Anyway, my uncle brought me to eat at Tao's. SO, THANKS SMALL UNCLE!!!!!

TAO'S.

location: Peace Centre
(Alight at either little India MRT station or Dhoby Gaut MRT station and walk there)
*Opposite Subway

Price: $19.80++ per set(per pax)

Best Thing about the place: Service Food price

A restaurant that serves set meals. Each set meal consists of 5 courses together with a choice drink. The food there is really good!! BUT, the best thing is the service. I've never seen such GREAT SERVICE BEFORE!!!

e.g. I chose cremme brunee for dessert and I did not like the taste, when the waiters saw that, they immediately gave me a chocolate fondue for free even though I had already eaten some of the cremme brunee! The waiters are really observant and greet you when you enter and leave the restaurant. However, its NOT RECOMMENDED FOR HONEYMOONS as the atmosphere there is quite noisy--The christmas carols and the hustle and bustle of the waiters make the place akin to a fish market.

There was bread with a really savoury spread-NOT PEANUT BUTTER!! I ate 5 pieces of bread with my spread which comes in a pan.
*Can't choose the starters

Then, there was the starters. I ate "farmer's boy splendour", which came with chicken slices and greens. For reference, refer to KFC oriental salad and imagine a salad 10 times tastier AND FRESHER.
*The fruit salad is also not bad though it comes with crabmeat.

--------->>>By this time, my younger sister was already "bloated".

Allright, the soup comes next. I took the sharkfin melon soup, its not sharkfin dolt, "sharkfin MELON" is the name of a, well, MELON!!! Its clear soup and its really good. Over here, the great service was shown yet again when the waiters so me gulping down the soup, they gave me a teapot full of the soup-free mind you.
*The cream of mushroom is "homecooked" and the texture and taste is really just nice.

The main course (At last). I took lamb chops, yup, juicy and tender! But I still think that for the main course, places like Jack's Place serves much nicer steak.
*steak comes on a hotplate

Last of all, the dessert. **Note top about the cremme brunee and chocolate fondue which I tasted. The cremme thingy is like egg tart filling only much more classy-I hate egg tarts. I would recommend the chocolate fondue which comes with marshmallows, fruits that you can dip in warm chocolate top with nuts and savour.

And people, I'm not paid commision to do an advert for Tao's here but still, since my uncle's friend's brother is the owner, I think its okay lar. Yup, its quite expensive, my uncle paid for me so I did not cry over a holey pocket after the meal. My uncle gave a tip of course for the great service but I don't think its necessary. Anyway, my uncle, me and my younger sister went to eat there and my uncle paid $80 including tips. we were all full-I kept eating my younger sister's share. What? I'm growing and anyway, she was full at the 2nd course already.

Okay. At last to the err..Main topic.

BATAM TRIP!!

Went to Batam on Friday. Was quite fun lar. My dad gave me a hundred bucks to get my CNY clothing, not alot mind you. Anyway, woke up at 7am-so tired!! The ferry left the pier at around 9.45am.

The ferry tickets were extremely expensive. It was like $47!! I mean seriously, the tax has already increased by alot and yet the ticket price itself also increased!! I went there for a one-day-trip and it was not worth the ferry ticket. SO people, I would really recommend that you guys, and girls, go to BATAM for at least a one-night stay if you do intend to go there or:

1) You would feel very rushed

2) NOT VALUE FOR MONEY!!

Okay, continuing, we reached at around 10.30 am-mind you, I was not wearing a watch and my handphone ran out on me so the timings are estimates and even then it may jump between Singapore and Indonesia time. My younger sister was a little sea sick, I stood on the top deck staring at the ocean for most of the journey like some EMO freak even though there were people smoking on deck. Anyway, I slept for the rest of the time on my seat.

Oh yeah, the crappy automated passport check-in counter did not accept my passport, so embarrasin. I scanned my passport and the first barrier opened, then when I swiped my fingerprint, the second barrier did not open and I had to get help from security, like a terrorist..JI-H*D!! It was due to passport extension in the end, all because of army!!

K, cutting out the less interesting things..LUNCH!! Ate seafood (at a place next to 933-I think the name is 553 or something)!! It tasted really good although the coconuts tasted like lemon. It was sour, yuck! And the were leaks everywhere, so much so that my younger sister had to change her coconut twice due to coconut juice running down the table towards her. The menu (Can't really remember):

1) Sambal KangKong-OMG, really nice though can't compare to Singapore's East Coast Park Kang Kong

2) Chilli Crab-a must for all seafood, not bad! But still prefer SIngapore's No signboard and Thompson CHilli crab

3) Sotong, it was skewered on satay sticks, a little spicy but still, it was really nice albeit a little too chewy

4) Prawn theat resembled lobsters-something unique, I did not try it before, very rare in Singapore! According to my uncle, its way better tasting in Thailand

5) Mee goreng, half of the plate was left at the end, not very nice actually-maybe its just me who don't like mee goreng

6) SEA SNAIL (Gong Gong), does not come with sauce so tastes quite plain unless you dip it in chilli sauce provided!

7) I can't remember the rest of the dishes if there were any..HaHa!!

Allright, we went shopping after that, quite boring until I found a shop which sold T-shirts at 15000 rp, around Singapore $2!! Very cheap!!
*Exchange rate was $1-7350 rp

By the way, I went with many of my relatives-my parents on the other hand did not go!!

My aunty got me a shirt which cost around $22, my uncle got me a pair of jeans which cost around $17! In the end, I spent around $26 and got 1 shirt, 2 collar T-shirt, 1 T-shirt and 1 pair of jeans! Quite a huge buy!! Anyway, I walked around and ate some ice-cream in the evening when most of my relatives went for a $20 full body massage (1 hour)-considered quite cheap!! Yup, most of the things in Batam was really cheap, duh, that's why Kiasu Singaporeans like to go there!!--But not very smart considering the ferry tickets!! #$%##$%

Anyway, the dinner was not very nice, although the environment was supposed to be authentic and unique. Reason why we went there was to sit on the floor-hmm, sounds...-BUT, after I settled down on my floor seat, someone shouted cockroach and indeed there were quite a number scurrying around on the floor. Well, since we did not fancy sitting next to roaches, we sat on usual chairs in the end.

**The drinks were the best part of dinner, juice was really fresh and I tried the mocktail, no alcohol but above average nonetheless!! AND THE BILL WAS LIKE around $9 per person after we divided the total bill of around 860 000 rp!!

YUp, went back and reached grandma's house at around 11, bathed and ate supper then went to bed.

It was quite a fulfilling trip BECAUSE, I at least managed to get some clothes AND LOADS OF CRACKERS!!!!

By the way, my grand ma's prok chops are the best in the world and don't bother disputing that with tales of your own grandma's culinary prowess!!

haha, realised that I described loads of food, maybe should make my blog become a food blog!! haha, can combo with music blog?! where's the link?!

Stayed at my aunty's house on Saturday night and it was EXTREMELY fun, was woken by her dog "crystal" licking my face at 7am!! haha!!

MISS WORLD 2008: RUSSIA!! T&T and INDIA(yes, INDIA) came close to getting Miss World though!!

Quote of the day by me: If you stuff Oranges into your shirt, you're desperate. If you go for expensive chest treatments you're not only rich, you're sexy.

Word count(Alot of effort put in!!!) : 1520 words

6-7 DEC, went to BB LDC 2 camp (leadership development course 2 camp). Total people from Xinmin (45th coy): 9. 2 of then never turn up. The camp was held in BB/GB campsite, but too bad la, GB did not have camp on the same date as us. There were many people from different schools-all boys duh, its Boy’s Brigade! I think there were about 150 people in the camp and we were split into 4 companies (or groups), people from same school split evenly so that we’ll socialize more..! Then, within each group there are 5 squads, each squad with around 5-7 people, so you can count how many people altogether!!

1st things first, we had to volunteer a CSM (Company Sergeant Major)-I’m already the CSM for our school lar..Boy called Jonathan volunteered himself, so enthu! Xinmin people, its time to show our volunteering spirit too!! In any case, there were ice-breaking games which included blow-wind-blow, “parts-of-body-touch-the-ground” etc. By the way, the games were played on the muddy field so imagine when the officer said “4 BUTTS ON THE FLOOR!!” Quite gay lar, cos we had to be connected to each other in each mini group and we held hands…LOL!

Then, after the end of the ice-breaking games, we changed CSM. Okay, he impressed the officers by doing some push-ups commando style, haha! We had a pre-course test that was relatively common sense-our company had NO failures and 2 people got full marks, dunno who, they never say. An example question:

Q?) As a squad leader, how should you treat your squad members?

a) Punish them frequently to show your authority

b) Learn all their names so as to familiarize yourself with them to have better cohesion

c) Leave them alone so they will not feel you are bossy

Ans is obviously “b”, so if you got that wrong, please climb up the tallest tree and jump down. Thanks.

Then there was the lessons, I assure you, it is more boring then NG KIOK SOY at his most boring streak! Or, if you can’t relate to that, it is more boring then, err, George Bush’s anatomy-However, if you do find his anatomy particularly interesting, then kudos to you and your interest in old wrinkled bodies.

Allright, then there was the food, if I say that the better the quality of food, the richer I will be, then I’m sad to say that I will be very poor indeed. But was very hungry during camp lar, so not nice still eat two portions!!

Tell you what, one of the best things about the camp was the bed. A BED!! Seriously lar, a bed in camp is like abalone I tell you! It was double decker beds, 14 to each bunk! I slept on the top bed, cos bottom very warm-yes, yes, even though hot air rises.

Anyway, there was the usual water bomb game. The four Companies supposed to wet the other team’s newspaper wearer. There are 10 ppl from each coy wear newspaper around their necks, and opponents supposed to wet it so that newspaper tears. Guess how long the game lasted?

a) 7 minutes

b) 36 minutes

c) 55 minutes

Answer: a. This time, if you guess wrongly its okay, no need jump from tree, just jump from your window-joking. . There wasn’t enough water bombs!! I kenna one head shot right on my face. We played on the field at night and it was so dark, hard to dodge leh, that water bomb smack my face, my specs fly onto the grass I cannot find lar!

Literary: The panic rose like a bubble of helium, expanding to encompass the terror of the shattering glass. The stampeding feet, rushing apathetically by, the spectacles lying askew on the ground. The darkness closed like a suffocating net while I called for help, noone heard, noone cared. At last, when all hope had fled, my hands closed onto the redeeming object my spectacles, not broken, not shattered.

Yup, In the end I exacted revenge on Dun Hao-the one who threw that fateful water bomb.

Muahahahaha!! I gang up with Andy and bombed him, even taupoked him! But Andy failure, he jump on dun hao to tau pok, dun hao turn and in the end is Andy kenna tau pok!! NOOO, counter strike!!—err, counter-attack I mean. Funny lar, no more water bomb so me and Andy pick up those salvagerble water bombs, filled them again and pelted dunhao. But Dun hao sore lar, when I help to keep the bench that time keep poking me, I no free hand to fight back!! Kenna OWN!

Anyway, the MOST FUN THING about the camp was the Combat Skirmish. We had those Infared guns to shoot people, damn fun I tell you! No wonder go outside play so expensive!! I took the lightest gun, is not I weak, is got strategy okay! The place so small, get so big gun for long range is seriously no point! Anyway, my gun got AOE—area of effect—attack in a cone shape, kill 3 ppl at a time, damn pro! Muahahahahaha!!

At the end of the day, made MANY NEW FRIENDS!! Ya, all guys, too bad no girls there but still..haha! was a great camp—although there was ONLY ONE TOILET IN THE WHOLE CAMPSITE, make toilet so smelly lar, some ppl pooed! Haha!

Yup, I’m not going to be at home for the next few days till Saturday so won’t be using comp!! So busy..XD

Quote of the day by me: A papaya is not a coconut, If it is not round, its flabby.