Honey Glazed Chicken!
June 15, 2009 
As KL kindly mentioned, I only seem to cook those limited few dishes. So one day, I decided to try something new! Honey Glazed Chicken and Baked Potato with Bacon!
After all these while…
June 15, 2009 
I was in Bucharest, capital of Romania, lying on my bed sleepless with thoughts running rampant through my head. I realized that my way of thinking has changed over the past 4 months and I want to write it all down before I forget it again. To borrow a cliché phrase, this could be the 3rd metamorphosis of me, when I realized a few truths to myself. Or at least I hope that it is a truth. The first happened when I was in army when I realized that I was abusing my potential and wasting my opportunities. The second happened when I realized that I am flawed and I need to improve myself as I model myself against my peers in SMU. And this time, is when I finally interact with the world. Know yourself and the battle is half won. On this trip, …
1) I realized that there is so much of the world to see. I mean, I always complained that Singapore is a well with all the frogs croaking about its wet beautiful splendor. I realized that the most important thing is realizing it, and the next most important is to REALIZED it by actions. Carpe diem. Seize the day. Try something new every day. Fight your fears. Just do it.
2) I met this girl who has done everything I wanted to do. And she is just 19. She knows at least 5 languages (English, French, German, Arabic, Spanish and some others), was in the Youth Olympic Team, started travelling the world when she was 16, trains horses etc… Did I mention she has a job at a world famous magazine that learned people read? I mean, it is so oh, my, god. Just by talking to her, I want to run a marathon. Aint that a shock?
3) I realized how lonely everybody is. People who know me should know my callous approach to friendship. Oh hear my wonderful speech about friends being sands on the beach in which you can find many others. I guess that is true in some aspect, but I realized how lonely I am sometimes. I look at the people I used to talk to. I guess distances always play a part. Long distance is hard on any kind of relationship. And yet I’m weak enough to need friends. And vice versa
4) I realized how blessed I am in Singapore. For the foresight to use English as the first language and Mandarin as the second. For the ability to keep everything clean and safe. For being one of the most well-known islands in the world. And yet I still am irritated by the lack of freedom as compared to the western countries. By shackling us in our minds, we all will be just puppets in grand stage of actors. Why can’t we create thinkers rather than workers?
5) I am glad that I read so much. Meeting strangers from all over, it always strikes me that I am less shallow than my peers, being able to talk about world stuff. I am also more proud of my Chinese heritage too. I must challenge myself to always try and improve myself, learn new skills and enrich myself with more experiences. I must also learn to appreciate my own heritage.
6) I realized that I value my freedom. As much as I love my family, a part of me wants to be independent. To wash and ruin my own clothes as I pleased, to cook and poison myself with my dishes. Being at home is the convenience that will encourage my refusal to experience.
I am no longer younger and a good portion of the best parts of my life has been whittled away by a life of gluttony and sloth. I need to act out my changes rather than talking about it. Maybe it will finally fill up the emptiness in my soul. Hopefully.
Whoops
June 4, 2009 
it has been awhile :P I just uploaded most of my photographs on facebook though. go check it out there.
I been to Portugal and Spain, and really loved it. Now I am embarking on my 2nd Eastern (even more east) Europe trip with new Kakis, Glenn and Gerald. Life is pretty good so far. Been to Romania and am now in Bulgaria. Tmr I will be going toTurkey and after that Greece.
Going home soon. Such a bitter sweet thing.
The owner is travelling and getting fat(ter)
Im in Vienna now waiting for Jerry to finish showering.
Vienna is a really nice place. There is so much culture in this place. Drinking at wine gardens, chilling at cool hillside cafe, listening to orchestra… This place has so much history and the people has already attained a totally different social level.
I like…
On a side note, Budapest had nice buildings but I guess we went at the wrong time. Basically, we went on Sat and Sun and every darn thing was closed. And the buildings and statues, while beautiful, were kind of run down. Furthermore, there was like the smell of pee all over the place and was generally quite dirty. In comparison, London is like Singapore to us :P
Tmr, or rather later, I will be going to Salzburg and then off the Prague in the afternoon. The land of Sound of Music and Mozart. :)
Tiff will also be going to Italy to see her Pope. So there departs one of our merry party…
Dublin- St Paddy’s Day!
After slogging to submit our EM homework, we were all ready to go Dublin for St Pat’s day! Hooray!
After the super duper long queue at Dublin Airport, we managed to make our way to Lynn’s ,Tiff’s friend, hostel. After that, we basically nua-ed at the hostel for awhile before we headed off the Blackrock to see abit of Dublin, which wasnt very spectacular. Tiff and Lynn went off somewhere for her own adventures and we took the dart to see Howth.
Howth is quite pretty :) At the sea, there were seals begging for food and they look oh so pretty. Also, we had damn good seafood dinner there and practically enjoyed ourselves.
The next day, we went to the town center to see the attractions. Meanwhile, Des and I bought a St Pats day hat and we also went mad at the 2 Euro stall which to our acclimatised minds seemed damn cheap. That day, we went to Dublinia , which tells the viking history of Dublin, and also to the World acclaimed Guinness Factory. The experience was quite nice but too bad I dun really like Guinness much (and neither did the rest). I was the only person to finish the drink and we also had fun playing drinking games at the lounge.
We also did alot of SMU jumps at trinity college and at Howth. At trinity, a bunch of croations were doing the same thing and we did the jump with them. We definately rock more than them :P
St Paddy’s day was kinna disappointing I guess. I guessed that happens when we were so hyped up on how fun this festival would be. I din see any green beer and the only people dressing up were the tourist. However, we were like one of the coolest people with our camo cream on :P
Straight after St paddies, its on towards Barcelona!
Shag Sweden!
For those of you who kept track, I still owe a Sweden blog. Basically, I been rushing my work and lazing on my bum for the past few weeks. So here it is?
This has been one of the most shag trips I have ever made. Basically, we flew in on Thursday and on the same day, we took a 15 hours train ride all the way to Abisko (north of Kiruna). Our main aim was to see the northern lights and also to enjoy some snowy fun.
Stockholm was nice and we actually bumped in NUS exchange students while we were cam whoring there. After awhile, we had lunch at this Swedish eatery and left for Abisko. The train ride was uneventful but also damn bloody shag. Basically sitting on your ass for 15 hours isnt so fun after all. Maybe I should change my end goal from that of being a slacker.
Abisko is a snow wonderland. Everything is iced up and most of the roads are actually compacted ice. My stupid lousy SAF boots basically din have any grip and I was falling all over, thus injuring my food. Luckily, at the hostel, I was able to rent ski boots and walk decently while I was at Abisko. The only down point was that the place where we were staying were supposed to have dog sledding but did not have. That was because their owners went out for some stupid expedition and conveniently did not tell us when we emailed them. Apart from that, Abisko was fun.
On a side note, my hostel also have a traditional mountain spa that is mixed and all nude. Being shy, I din want to go inside the spa. However at night, 2 hot french girls came and I was like so tempted to go. But oh well, I din :P
During the day, we tried cross country ski-ing and basically we kinna sucked at it. If there was any traffic, we would have been deemed as a road hazard and a road hog. It took us about an hour to travel 2 kilometres and when we reached the other station, we just decided to walk back, lugging our skis with us.
At night, we went to Abisko skystation which was supposed to be the best bet to see the Aurora Boralis. To go up, we needed to take a ski lift which took 20 minutes to go up the frigid cold night. By the time we reached up there, I was frozen to bits and had to thaw in front of the fire. Part of the package was an explanation of the northern lights by this swede. It was interesting but I guess the toll of the day played its part and we were trying our very best not to fall asleep. Then, the swede let out a bombshell. Basically that night was pretty poor weather conditions. :(
After the talk, we basically went out the mountain top and try and see the northern lights. It was so bloody cold I almost lay down and died on the slopes. In the end, I wrapped my sleeping blanket around me and was hiding againts the resort to try mitigate the wind chill. After awhile, more people decided to go into the resort.
AND THEN WE SAW IT! Basically, I saw little green clouds appearing in the sky. While it wasnt very spectecular, at least we bloody saw it! Also, on the peak, I met these Singaporean couple who were there for the past 3 days and saw pretty nice lights. Oh well, at least the trip wasnt that wasted after all :)
The next day, we took the train to Kiruna and went inside the famous Ice Hotel for a look. Basically, every year during winter, the hotel would be resculpted and each year will have different designs. The hotel will melt during summer and wait for the next cycle.
And the ice hotel is damn chio can. One night stay is about 700 SGD but its such a novelty. One day when Im rich, I will stay one night in their design apartment. One down side was that I kept on falling inside the ice hotel. Luckily Im heavily padded :P
After the hotel, we realised we were stranded at the ice hotel as there wasnt any public transport on a saturday. it was like OMGKNNBCCB. Luckily, Shu managed to chat up this guy and since it was on the way, he send us to the train station. If not, we would have missed our train and flight and it would have been GG.
In Stockholm, we basically went to the old town, saw the Nobel Musuem and Change of Guard. After that, it was time to go home.
I guess it was a totally new experience for me going to a place which is snowed in. Rather interesting :)
Curry Misadventures
Just to update you on my cooking. I would say, my cooking with pastes (how hard can it be) has improved tremendously. Now, my food is mostly edible and sometimes decent :P
2 days before, I cooked jap curry which was actually super easy. Just cut out the ingredients and then cook. The only part that was a bitch was trying to cut the chicken from the chicken thigh. That was a total pain in the a**.
Since that response was favourable, I decided to try Rendang Chicken the next day. One of the instructions was to put in some coconut milk but nooooo, I added like one whole cup full of coconut milk. In the end, my rendang curry no look like rendang curry. It became rendang nonya curry. Tuan had to try to salvage it by adding chilli flakes and tapioca flour. So in the end, it tasted a damn milky version of rendang curry.
Well, we all learn ya :) Its a learning curve!
And I also cooked Pasta by myself too! And it wasnt half that bad considering the pasta sauce was damn cheap at 50 p.
Cheers!
Warwick
Ok belaaaaated post. Basically, I spend Valentines Day with Economics. Sweet hur.
I went for the famous Warwick Economic Summit over the V Day weekend. Initially I though it was a brilliant idea as I had nothing to do. However, on hindsight, its kinna depressing to be surrounded by economists. I think its like how other ppl feel when they go to a congregation of IT geeks :P
The talks (for those that I went for) were pretty decent but the most interesting one I had was by the Economist caricaturist. The guy who draws all the caricatures :P And he taught us how to draw George Bush which everybody was very enthusiastic about. As Im a pretty good mimic, my George Bush doesnt look half that bad.
Life been pretty boring recently…
… Mostly I been just skipping school and not doing much else. I went back Singapore for a short while for some private matters and now am back in London. Before that, I spent Valentines Day weekend at Warwick Economic Summit. Some of the talks were interesting but spending V Day there is still a little too… nerdy for me.
The temperature here is decent now (about 10) and life been pretty slack. My assignments have mostly been set out and I will start finishing them soon so that I can travel with a piece of mind.
The next trip I have is next thursday in which I will go to Kiruna Sweden to attempt to see the northern lights. While not keeping my hopes up, lets just cross our fingers and hope I see it :) then I can brag to u guys later on :P Then straight after, I will be going Dublin for St Pats day and Barcelona after that.
That one I promise you got more photographs :)
AMsterdam!
First of all, I apologise for the late post. After Amsterdam, I went to Warwick for an economic summit few days later. And in between and after that, I just been slacking and wasting my time on the Xbox :D
Anyway, Amsterdam is so beautiful. By a remarkable stroke of fate, the sun was shining brightly when I left the train. Everything looks so picturesque. Walking around, I was like THE tourist again, taking photographs wherever I go. I was so engrossed before long, I realised I was really in holland (throwback to the army term horlan, which means getting lost). It took me a while before I found my way back, asking kind strangers and discovering new stuff.
After getting to my hostel, I realised I couldnt check in till 3. So I walked around Amsterdam carrying my small backpack. My hostel is in a strategic location, smack in between a coffee shop and a strip club. Looking out of the windor, the red glow of the red light district just winks in. To the North West, is the touristy area and monuments. And my hostel, turns into a club at night. I tot it was pretty funky. So if you are going to Amsterdam, I totally recommend St Christophers Inn. Cheap and good. Who says you cant have you cake and eat it too :D
The next day, I went to see the countryside. Being ambitious, I rented a Dutch backpedal bike and almost got into a few accidents riding out to the countryside. I always thought that I was a pretty decent rider but I guess not. Firstly, I didnt realise the implications of backpedal till 10 minutes later. I only realised that there was no traditional brakes and I was trying to stop by using my leg aka Flintstone style. After awhile, I realised all you need to do is to back pedal and you will stop. And the bike was slightly too high for me, so basically, it was a Dutch Torture Device for me.
The views outside were nice and it was nicely match with a dull ache in my rear posterior region. I was walking like a duck for a few days after that adventure. However, if you ever go Amsterdam, you should really bike the countryside. Its beautiful. Even though it was 50 km and 6 hours of hell. Each time a car drives by, I wished I was driving too.
The next day, I met my friend and we went to do some touristy stuff. Basically, we ate dutch pancakes which rock, went Anne Franks Museum, went Sex Museum and went Amsterdam Torture Chamber. They were all interesting in their own ways and I really enjoyed it :). One thing about Amsterdam was that the very first image I had was of my big sister taking a photograph outside the Sex Museum. So I really had to go in there :P
The next day, we took a train to Den Haag and went to Madurodam. Basically, its a place where they make miniature models of important Holland buildings. You can see that each model is painstakingly build and was really beautiful. I also had alot of cam whoring moments in which I was a giant Gulliver killing Lilliputs and King Kong lost in Amsterdam. After hitting about 70+ number of models, we gave up and ran for the warm shelther of the cafe. After going back to Amsterdam, we did our usual touristy shopping. Basically, I bought a “I AMsterdam” shirt and a green shirt for St Pats Day. Kal went ahead and bought all the foodie stuff to bring back.
Amsterdam is a really beautiful city. I will go back one day again.
