Month: April 2008

Indian Cuisine

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Being vegetarian, Indian food is pretty much second nature … and I LURVE it!! Bring on the chapatti, thosai, bhatturas, chaats, dhal anytime. So yes, I’ve checked out most of the veggie places in Little India … needless to say some are better than others and my only advice is to avoid the area on Sundays 😛 but if you’re hunting for a simple veggie place, you should really try Ghaangothree along Hindoo Road in Little India.

eating love

How can you go wrong with a place that says its main ingredient is love 🙂 They have really good chaat. I love Dahi Pappadi Chaat and their Pav Bhaaji. Yummmmmmm!!!

pav bhaaji

It’s just a real easy place to have a simple and satisfying meal.  To the right, it’s the mushrooms, don’t forget to try them, they’re really quite yummy.  And what’s Indian cuisine without paneer?  That’s the dish on the left.  With some roti, it was too easy to over eat 🙂

veg and shrooms

Not the most healthy stuff but once in a while, I guess it’s ok 😉

Breakfast

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I reckon breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it’s usually the one I’m the most hungry for anyway. I just wish I had more time to prepare it every morning. So nowadays it’s a quick affair of throwing something together before I leave for work. Most of the time it’s inspired from my undergrad days where going to bed late at night and waking late for lectures was a rule rather than an exception.

However, I’ve cleaned up my diet since then so I’ve had to make a few improvisations. For example, cereal … I loved my Coco Pops, Frosties, Fruit Loops and ate them all with full cream milk. Since becoming a vegetarian (trying to be vegan) this is what I have as a cereal sub:-

millet and chocolate soy milksimply yummy

My healthier version of Coco Pops, puffed millet (which very surprisingly fills you up) and chocolate flavoured soy milk 🙂 It’s fast, yummy and keeps me stuffed till lunch time, which doesn’t happen with the other sugar filled cereals … … which I seriously think shouldn’t be fed to kids but but but I remember enjoying them all once too 😛

Happy Earth Day

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I’m a treehugger … in all honesty, it’s rather selfish reasons because I think I’m going to live a long life (that’s a whole other post how I know that) so I just want to make sure when I’m in my 80s, the air is still fresh and I don’t have to be cooped up in a capsule to survive.

So if you haven’t started, today is a good day to start doing your bit to recycle, reuse or reduce 🙂

April Birthdays

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April is an intense month for me when it comes to birthdays and although, they mostly come from different groups of friends, they are all so coincidently the dearest friends in the world. So I guess it means I get along well with Taurus people 😉

Anyway, before I left for LA we were planning a surprise do for Ms Chan and Ms Neo, one born on the 20th and the other 21st. It didn’t go too well i.e. they knew what was going to happen … well, Ms Chan did anyway … Ms Neo caught on as soon as she saw Zack’s car in the car park … so Resh, Zack and I realise we can’t do surprise dos and this will be the last attempt :p Here’s a picture of them patronising us.

surprised ms chan and ms neo

We kept it to a simple getaway at the Changi Village Hotel, you can’t expect great finishing with the Far East Organisation people but the Changi Village area still has a quaint feel about it. It started with tea and the cake cutting. Then Ms Chan had another party in Clementi, held in just HER honour to go to.

teaandcake

Dinner was in Saltwater Cafe downstairs where Shooshools joined us. Nothing to holler about, pretty standard hotel food with a very very strange chef at the barbecue pit who kept retelling a story about a customer who wanted freshly barbecued fish to anyone who was within a meter radius of him. Since we were seated near the pit, we heard the story over and over and over again.

dinnerdownstairsatsaltwater cafe

After dinner this group of 30 somethings, went for teh at Dynamic Indian Dining, which was a short walk away from the hotel. We basically chatted, caught up … not unlike any other time when we hang out … good times 🙂 I was still suffering from jet lag so was mostly incoherent and with the birthday girl still recovering from a cold, we called it an early night and chatted more back in the hotel room. The next morning I got early and found Resh already up.

squeezed out of bed?where did shools go?

It didn’t take long for everyone else to get up and it was to Changi Village Market for breakfast. There was so much to eat and I forgot about getting goreng pisang before I left too!!

breakfast

The walk along Changi beach was enlightening. It was quite packed with tents everywhere. Some families even had a generator with a TV going. Really brought new meaning to a cottage by the beach. Made me wish we had a tent too. It was a lovely day for the beach.

shools enjoying ice creamcheck out tents in the backme and zack

With 2 down, here’s the rest of my April Birthday buddies:-

20th April
Cherry, Daph and Eric

22nd April
Yoyo, Corrinne and Little Hannah

27th April
Claire

30th April
Colin

Happy Birthday, you guys!!!

Then May comes, that’s another month of family and more friends’ birthdays too!!! I guess I do have lots of karma with Taurus people 🙂

Jetlag

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Since 2001, I’ve been travelling heaps for work and I’ve even done the crazy thing of landing from the US at 6am in the morning, taking a cab home, showering and heading to the office by 9am. I have to say, this 33 year-old body can no longer do that. The 17hours from LA felt longer than usual … this, after having slept something like 9 hours on the plane. Yep, I fell asleep for 9hours and still managed to squeeze in 3 and a half movies, The Golden Compass, August Rush, Hitch and part of Hero. All quite enjoyable.

I got off the plane yesterday at 5:15am, cleared immigration within seconds, waited maybe 8minutes for my bags, got a cab and was whisked home by 6am. Quick shower and was grateful that I was lying straight on my back in bed. I have never felt happier to be lying down but I had to drag myself out of bed at lunchtime and I literally mean drag. It felt like I was suffering from a huge hangover, which is a real sore point considering I never had the fun of being drunk.

Right now it’s about lunchtime and I think I’m going to fall asleep … my brain still feels like cotton puffs … …

I remember a time not so long ago it wasn’t anything like that … maybe it’s just the cotton puffs talking … …

*yawn*

I have a cool job

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Yes, I’m saying it online for all to read 🙂 because my job had me having a meeting with The Jim Henson Company today. The Jim Henson Company, responsible for The Muppets, Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, Dark Crystal and more recently, MirrorMask. Stuff I was completely enamoured with while I was growing up, so you can imagine the excitement that filled me when I walked into the office and saw the exact Skesksis puppet that was used in the filming of the Dark Crystal film. My job is cool like that coz’ with it, I get to meet a puppet, not just any puppet, puppets from Jim Henson’s projects!!!

With the recent visit to Ghibli and now Jim Henson, my soul can’t help but wonder if I’m going to keep helping other companies make their dreams come true or go find my own way and make my own dreams happen … … my only problem is trying to figure out which dream I want to make come true.

kermit looking out to la brea avefraggle rockthe jim henson's company

The Jim Henson’s Company is housed in the original office and sound stage that Charlie Chaplin built for the production of his own movies. As I sat in the lovely patio in the middle of the compound on a beautiful California day and waited for the lunch meeting to start, I couldn’t help but be pumped up by the very air that surrounds this quaint little place that puppets call home.

Family in California

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Most of my family live in Singapore, Australia and after I got married, I have family in Canada too. At one time and soon again, I’ll have a cousin in Switzerland, she was living in Geneva in 2004 and at the end of May, she’s going to show Zurich what we’re made off 🙂 And now I have family in California too!! One of my other cousins is living out here, Palo Alto to be exact. He’s at Stanford and doing an internship in Silicon Valley. Yeah, we have a couple on geniuses in our family but he’s one of the brightest 🙂 So I asked him to meet me in Santa Monica when I confirmed my trip for Locations 2008. He got a good deal with Southwest and came out to chill for a couple of days.

my cousin and me

That’s me and him on the day he arrived. I can’t believe when I went away to study in Western Australia, Perth he was a little eleven-year-old boy and now he’s gone away to study himself. So while I’m busy with work, he’s enjoying Santa Monica and … watching lectures online and finishing assignments … I guess that’s what you have to do when you go to Stanford. I can’t believe how going to school is so different from when I was in school, if you miss a class just catch up with a wedcast online … I can only imagine how different it would be when my own kids go to school :p When I was done with work, we went for dinner and I brought my cousin to my favourite place in Santa Monica, Real Food Daily. He quite enjoyed too 🙂

asparagus and cilantro soupmy cousin in rdfdessert

With Sunday free, this 33-year-old and her 25-year-old cousin decided to spend it at Disneyland, where we stood in queues that started as early as the carpark, ate bad burgers for lunch and had a completely great time catching up and sharing rides, which brought us back to our childhoods. We even bumped into a few of our favourite Disney characters 🙂

in linebad veggie burgerin the buzz ride

buzz, gerald and me

jack sparrow and me

In a nutshell, we had fun and even started talking about a family holiday … probably one to Perth or a visit to his sister when she moves to Zurich. Can’t wait!! Looks like I have more holidays to look forward to later this year 🙂 My husband still owes me a honeymoon too!!!

good times 1good times 02

P/S: If I had to chose one ride to do again, it’ll be the Indiana Jones one so if you’re heading down that way, that’s one not to miss 🙂 and my favourite land was Mickey’s Toontown, it just brought animation alive to me.

Day One at Locations

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It’s a small space where competing destinations are pit against one another to woo Hollywood productions. Not unlike any other cattle call, I guess. For me, it’s like a reunion of sorts 🙂 I get to meet up with some real nice people who I only see twice a year, catch up on what’s happening in their location and realise all over again how much a people business the media business is. Hmmm … there any business that isn’t?

Anywho, after 2 hours of getting wires organised and figuring out where to put what, here’s what we put together.

booth from the leftbooth from the right

Quite nice, huh? On another note, when I come to the USA, I’m never surprised that someone I’m speaking to has no idea where Singapore is. It’s common for people to think we’re part of Hong Kong, a province in China, off the island of Taiwan. Sure, I’ve heard them all but today this guy has to take the cake.

The Guy: So Singapore is in South East Asia, can I take a ferry from Sri Lanka then?
Me: A ferry to Singapore?
Guy nods.
Me: You want to take a ferry from Sri Lanka to Singapore?
Guy: It’s not that far from each other, right? Isn’t South East Asia like a 30minute ferry ride from South Asia?

At least he didn’t think we were landlocked into each other.

booth table

Last time on SQ38 to LA

/ carlenetan / 2 Comments

It’s not like I’m never coming to LA again but Singapore Airlines is going to stop the economy class for the straight flights to LA and NY. What’s up with that? Only people with money can fly direct? Oh well, so for lowly ranked officers like me who only fly economy class, means no more SQ38 for me :p Honestly though, after my private production house time when we flew the cheapest flights regardless of transits, SQ flights suit me just fine 🙂

sq38 windowsq38 screenbefore take off

I even had time to enjoy the spanking new T3 at the Changi International Airport. They have this grouped holding area for gates A1 – A5 that is a little unusual. It was nice and with efficient wireless I caught up on the latest episode of ANTM and I reckon I can get use to coming to the gate early 🙂

t3still t3more t3t3 and antm

After 15 and a half hours, LAX immigration was efficient and quick … very unusual and for once, the traffic in LA was actually quite nice and it took me only 40minutes to get to my hotel in Santa Monica. Usually, it’s like an hour and a half :p Here’s home for the next 6 nights.

doubletree livingdoubletree bathdoubletree closetdoubletree bed

With meetings starting tomorrow, I won’t be spending much time in the room. As soon as I checked in and settled down, my hungry tummy was yearning for Real Food Daily 🙂 Yummy!!! It’s close to my hotel and took about a 10minutes walk where there was no seat even for one person at the counter. I had to wait for at least 25minutes for a table. So I ordered my favourite sandwich complete with my chai latte and chocolate cake to go and came back to enjoy it 🙂

first dinner

Now I’m happy and full 🙂 Signing off from Santa Monica!!

Till Next Time, Tokyo

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Before I head off to LA tomorrow, this is my last post about Tokyo and it’s been two weeks since I came home. I look through the pictures and it feels like a fantasy that didn’t seem to happen, a good fairytale that I want to reread over and over again. Like a friend said, it was my first time there and first times are always special … even eating very regular udon in a very tiny restaurant under the somewhat noisy railway tracks was romantic.

bits of tokyomore bitsanime bitsdog bitsmore tokyo bits

I don’t know if I would have enjoyed Tokyo so much, if the Sakuras were not blossoming and if Jules didn’t live there. We’ll find out the next time I’m there.

jules and me again

I once had someone tell me before that Singapore is a conundrum, I think Tokyo is the epitome of conundrum-ness. Two extreme of anything can co-exist in Tokyo, in fact, at some subtle level it’s encouraged. There are some things about Tokyo that left me dumbfounded though, like unrealistic pressures of society that make kids as young as 9, think about killing themselves … some actually did it. That was among the news while I was there … kept it all real for me … …

on the way to narita

My Dad’s right, it’s all about balance. Here’s my last shot from my bus on the way to Narita. Arigato, Tokyo!! Till next time, take good care of Jules and the sakuras!!!