I see the light

All those days watching from the windows

All those years outside looking in

All that time never even knowing

Just how blind I've been

Now I'm here, blinking in the starlight

Now I'm here, suddenly I see

Standing here, it's all so clear

I'm where I'm meant to be

And at last I see the light

And it's like the fog has lifted

And at last I see the light

And it's like the sky is new

And it's warm and real and bright

And the world has somehow shifted

All at once everything looks different

Now that I see you

Merry Christmas!

Christmas this year was a little special.Did not spend with bf only,but with his friends.Rather than going to town to soak the christmas atmosphere,I felt that having homecooked/delivered dinner seems like a good idea.Just chilling at someone's house instead of squeezing with the crowd would have been a better option.It was quite a last minute plan to hold a mini christmas party at Erwitt's house cos we got to know that his parents would be away for a few days from the morning of christmas.After quite a discussion,we decided to order 2 pizzas and the rest would be homecooked with love.Sadly Domino's pizza doesn't deliver to his area cos I quite like Domino's.We had to settle for Sarpino's instead.

Met up at nex in the early afternoon for lunch and did some grocery shopping at Ntuc before heading over to E's house.The moment I stepped into his house,I got attracted to the pebbled area as seen from the photo below.Felt so excited about it cos it makes a good background for photos-of my feet and perhaps,my dress haha!

I love this romper so much.It was love at first sight.My so called christmas gift from the boyfriend:)

After that,we were kept busy at the kitchen.Chef Chan delegated the jobs to us in the making of the apple pie.Relied heavily on his trusty recipe book and it's his first time trying out this recipe.We were all trying hard to follow super closely to the instructions and measurements,hoping that nothing would go wrong.It was quite a fun experience,laughing at one another because we're not as pro as the Chef.

Pizzas got delivered a little too early.Had to heat them up cos we were not done with the preparation of the rest of our dishes.We were trying so hard not to think about the crazy amount of food we have.We ordered 2 medium pizzas from Sarpino's,prepared garlic bread,potato wedges,chicken salad,honey baked ham,cream of corn,sausages and apple pie.

Not in picture:Another medium pizza,ham and apple pie

Look at how well we decorated the apple pie!A perfect treat with a scoop of ice cream,
especially my all time favourite cookies and cream

We managed to finish most of the food.Played a little wii and the rest of the night was spent playing Citadel,a new card game that most of us just learnt.Never even heard of this game before but it turned out to be quite interesting and entertaining.

Thanks to all the people who made Christmas this year so special.

Looking forward to new year's eve.

When I’m lost you know where just to find me
 When I kiss, see I know you’re beside me
 You are my miracle

I still remember like it was yesterday
When I saw your face
On that Christmas Eve I knew
I want to grow old with you 

My life would never be the same
Without you in my warm embrace
You’re the fireplace inside my heart
Forever we’ll share the spark

Suki-ya (Eve of christmas eve dinner)

On the eve of christmas eve,I met my uni clique for dinner at Suki-ya at Marina Square.It was such a perfect treat for a cold evening.

We chose kimchi and sukiyaki soup bases for that night.The sukiyaki base was so good I could keep drinking and drinking.

The chicken and pork shabu shabu were so good too.It was actually my first time dining here but I wouldn't mind having it again one day.

Jojo and me

Zhiwei and me

Sheryl and me

We went down to the first level for the Marks and Spencer fair but got so excited over the christmas decorations at the atrium and went snapping photos.

Jojo got this super cute strawberry pouch for us from Thailand.So sweet of her!

My cute owl tattoo!We all each have an owl on our arms too.

We had our yearly christmas exchange too.But this year,we decided to play secret santa.We did it through a website so we received emails tellling us who we are playing secret santa for.End up Jojo and I exchanged gifts while Sheryl and Zw exchanged theirs.We were still thinking maybe it will go in a round instead of 2 pairs exchanging with each other.It was still quite fun looking for gifts and doing christmas shopping.

I can't thank enough for these girls,if not I can't imagine how my uni life would have been.

Our short Johor trip (Part 2/2) 15-16 dec

Woke up super early the next day cos I was super kiasu.So I told bby to wake up at 7.30am while as usual I had to wake up way before him to wash up and get ready cos I take super long to do so.Woes of a girl!That log continued to laze in bed so we only got down at about 8 plus.We were super hungry at that time and the sight of all the food made us salivate,though the selections were kinda limited but still looked kinda good.

Look at the 3 cute little buns.

After breakfast,we went out to hunt for our banana cakes.According to what I've heard from people and reviews online,there is this bakery that sells super good banana cakes and they get wiped out super quickly.We had a hard time locating this shop and got lost halfway.When we finally found that little shop,we realized that we actually made a big round and missed that street.We were so happy when we found that shop,only to know that the banana cakes were not ready yet.We decided to head back to the hotel to check out before going back to that shop.

There was already a queue outside and the fragrance of the banana cakes filled
the air.

It was sold at quite a cheap price of RM4 for half a cake which is about 5 slices.Too cheap to miss it.We bought a total of 6 halves which came to less than SGD10!!The next time Im heading to JB,I'll definitely go get these yummy cakes again.I guess it would be best eaten when it's hot,especially when we got those when they just got out of the oven.

Lunch was settled at Ya Wang,a popular restaurant famous for their roast ducks.It was said that they were the advisory for Dian Xiao Er.I'm not so sure what kind of relation this is.But after tasting the roast duck,I felt that Dian Xiao Er's one seemed much nicer,at least for me.I didn't like the sauce as seen below cos they used some kinda peanut sauce which somehow did not exactly complement the duck.Anyway we also ordered hotplate tofu which ain't in the picture.

After a super filling lunch,we made our way to City Square for a last minute shopping but didn't managed to get anything much.Spent some time chilling with some ice cream and I could tell bby was so tired cos for a few moments,I thought he dozed off on the couch.

Cheap ice cream on a hot day

Busy nomming away

This trip was so short it felt as though time passed by too fast.But oh well,at least it was better than nothing.I guess our next trip together would be after we graduate.I shall be looking forward to that.

Our short Johor trip (Part 1/2) 15-16 Dec 2013

It was quite a last minute decision to spend a short getaway at JB. This 2D1N trip was booked sometime in the midst of his exams. We were considering a few places such as Malacca but because we're so poor we couldn't afford it haha! So we decided on JB since we wouldn't have to spend so much to travel there as it can be done by bus. And of course the best idea would be to stay as close to the checkpoint as possible. Everything would be so convenient. Oh yah someone decided to be a nice boyfriend so he paid for the hotel which was really cheap too.

We met early in the morning at Woodlands and had our breakie at Toastbox before heading over to Woodlands Checkpoint and then to Johor. It didn't take us long before we reached City Square so we started window shopping first. I was looking forward to visiting City Square cos it was renovating the last time I was there. I thought there will be major changes but it was almost the same. It felt as though there wasn't much to shop for. Thank goodness we were there for 2 days only. We then had small bites at Secret Recipe cos we didn't feel too hungry for lunch.

Bf thinking: I can't wait to eat you up but my gf had to take a last photo 

of you first before you end up in our stomachs.

Chocolate and banana cake x Iced Chocolate

I forgot the name for this but it tasted so awesome. Like curry puff.

My Day 1's OOTD. Nothing interesting haha.

By the time we finished our food, we felt it was almost time that we check in. The hotel was almost directly opposite City Square. Anyway it's called Citrus Hotel. Just a 3-star hotel but decided to go for it cos of its location. When we reached the hotel lobby, there were so many people waiting around. Waited for a while for our turn but we were told that the rooms were not ready. So there we waited for close to an hour until the whole lobby went from crowded to empty. But still there were no standard rooms available. However it was kind of a blessing in disguise cos they decided to upgrade our room to club room for free! Highest level and can enjoy club lounge and gym facilities-as if we have time for those lol. But at least the room would be much bigger. Lucky lucky! We hurried went up,dropped our bags and then headed to KSL via public bus.

We were starving by then. Settled for Causeway Bay HK restaurant. I hate the menu so much. Too many varieties! I had a hard time choosing. That's what happens when I'm faced with too many choices. I get so stressed up. Haha okay just kidding. Not so exaggerating.

Boyfriend trying to act healthy and ordered this pot of porridge which was

surprisingly nice. Just a little bit too watery it felt as though it's soup.

Okay mine looks super unhealthy. Some noodles with chicken in portuguese sauce,

which after some discussion, we guessed it was curry plus cheese. Quite a unique taste
I must say. The portion of noodles was a little big though.

The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping at KSL Mall. I managed to get 3 pairs of HWS which I love so much. Finally found the right fit for myself. And each pair was only about SGD10! Besides that, there wasn't much stuff to buy. The clothes weren't like that nice, maybe so-so only. We walked and walked and walked. Entered shops and came out empty handed. So we gave up since it was getting late too. But we went to the supermarket to get drinks and a pack of chips for tonight before taking the bus back to our hotel.

There is this popular stretch of food stalls near our hotel. Yes we did quite an amount of research before the trip. The street is called Meldrum Walk. So many stalls and somehow the Malay stalls were grouped together and the Chinese stalls were further down. As it just rained, the roadside tables and chairs were still wet so we decided to buy our dinner back. We were so tempted to get the bbq stingray but bet it will stink up the whole room. We bought Char Kway Teow, Ramly burger and a piece of popiah. Sinful to the max.

I was a little disappointed with the CKT cos the oil taste was so intense. It wasn't as nice

as what I heard from reviews. The popiah didn't satisfy me either. So sad.

I forgot to mention that we bought movie tix to the movie "Frozen" earlier in the afternoon for a late movie. So cheap to catch a movie at Malaysia. Shall do that again the next time I go JB. Their popcorn combos are also freaking cheap. Guess it was less than SGD4 for a large popcorn and a drink. Anyway it was such a great movie. I'm so addicted to the movie soundtracks that I keep listening to them every night haha.

Here's me and my dear boy! <3

Tiong bahru bakery

Met my boyf in the evening for a celebratory dinner cos it marks the end of his exams!*Throws confetti. I can finally go on proper dates with him,not to study but to just eat,shop,chill and talk.We met at Raffles City and wanted to have Cedele in the first place but ended up at Watami.The cool weather called for some hot soup cravings and that was what I had at Watami-Nabeyaki udon hotpot, while that boy had his stonepot. Dining at Watami was probably a wrong decision.His stonepot took not long to arrive but mine took forever.I saw tables of people around us who had ordered hotpots have been kept waiting for quite long too.Really wondering what went wrong in the kitchen cos it doesn't require much cooking what.Bf was trying to control his appetite by eating super slowly but even at such a slow pace,my food still hasn't arrive.When it finally came,I was utterly disappointed.The main reason I ordered the hotpot was to savour the soup and guess what? The soup was the saltiest soup I have ever tasted!!! Did the chef drop the whole bottle of salt in the soup or what?We tried to salvage it by adding water into the pot.Even after adding 2 glasses of water,it was still salty.Had no choice but to just eat the udon and the other stuff in the pot and settled the bill not long later.

I didn't even fill full after that.So we walked over to Tiong Bahru Bakery which was just outside Watami to chill over a pastry and a bottle of water lol.Ordered their Kouign Aman cos I heard much raves about it.Finally got to try it and it was really good.Crispy texture but it was a little sweet.

Thanks Government for the dinner(Inside joke)!

Baking day

Had the sudden urge to bake partly cos it was baby boy's last paper today,so I wanted to bake something for him to reward him for all the hard work and torturous days and nights of studying. Jio-ed my 2 girlfriends for a baking session.Our initial plan was to bake macarons but cos it sounds like a tough thing to do so we decided to do other recipes.We kept suggesting what to bake and after so long we've finally decided on apple crumble and chocolate chip muffins.We ended up baking chocolate chip cookies too cos we had lotsa ingredients.

The wet and dry ingredients for the muffins

These turned out okay but they were only our test batch.Made 3 muffins for the first batch.

So after we felt that the test batch was alright,we made the rest together and we happily chatted away without checking on our muffins.It was so careless of us.We relied too much on the timing of the recipe and totally ignored the poor muffins in the oven.By the time we went to check,they were slightly charred at the top.It was quite a sad sight.But they tasted okay lah.

We went on to prepare our ingredients for our apple crumble.We were hoping it would turn out well,if not today's baking session would have been a failure.It was our first time baking apple crumble so hopefully the recipe would be reliable.

 We peeled and sliced the apples before throwing them into a big pot to simmer with a bit of water,sugar and cinnamon.After a few minutes,these apples turned soggy and brown,just the way we like it.

Made the crumble and topped them over the layer of apples at the bottom.

Look at this!!!Doesn't it look good?!The texture of the crumble looked so crispy:)The moment we saw this,we felt so excited to give it a try.

And it was a success!I am gonna add this into my recipe book hehe.

After our successful second bake,we were all addicted to baking.Maybe more for X cos it was her first time baking and she was surprised how easy it was to bake.Cos of this,she felt so tempted to get an oven already haha.

Our last bake was an impromptu thing.Decided to do cookies so we went to search for a chocolate chip cookies recipe and just nice we had all the ingredients so we went on to bake them.

Stir,mix,fold,stir,mix,fold...We have some talented bakers right here!

Time to throw in the devilish chocolate chips!Yum yum!

Our chocolate chip cookies were a success too!It was a recipe that's hard to fail.So for beginners,I guess it's probably good to start out with cookies and then venture on to the more difficult recipes.

Our bakes for the day!

Tempted?Haha ignore the chao ta muffins please.

Looking forward to baking again for christmas!