Phui and Kevin

Welcome Aunt Phui and Uncle Kevin! General_

Actually, Phui and Kevin are my cousins but they are much older than me. Anyway, this is their upteenth time visiting us and I have yet to pay a visit to them at their home in the UK. Hmmm, must make it a point to plan for a trip to Birmingham sometime soon!

Anyway, Phui is Chinese and she went to UK a long time ago, and Kevin is Irish. This time round, we've brought them to Lau Pasat, Changi Airport and Bukit Timah (opp Beauty World) for some foodies ... wonder where is next?

Here are Some Photos!

Tyre Change

Today was on leave so took the opportunity to go do some vehicular maintenance ... General_

Went to the nearby tyre shop to look for some new rubber as the current Michelin Energy Xs are at 55000km already and are very noisy. They don't have stock of the new Michelins and recommended my the Bridgestone Potenza RE080. The tyre looks ok but haven't really heard much about it. (Later I found that it is the stock tyre for Suzuki Swifts) The boss told me its a pretty quiet tyre so I went for it. Bridgestone stuff shouldn't be that bad ...

BTW, THIS is a very good guide for those 4 pieces of rubber that keep you on the road.

At the same time I also had my battery changed. Uprated from a 40mAh to a 60 mAh Hoppecke-Tenax battery cos of all the gadgets in the car. I was real lucky cos the battery actually dieded after the car had its tyres changed! Lousy cheap factory OEM battery!

All in all, spent my entire National Day Bonus on the car ... *sigh*

Wonder how much it will cost to make it look like this ...

猫山王 (Cat Mountain King)

After dinner at our favourite Chicken Rice Stall (Ming Kee) at the Bangkit Road Coffeeshop, it was time for Wifey to look for durians. The last experience buying XO durians wasn't so good so decided to try some other variety. Inspired by the Straits Times (Sunday Aug 6) article on durians, I convinced her to give the "Cat Mountain King" variety a try.



FEAR FACTOR: BTW, I am NO fan of durians! I took the smallest bit just to see what was so "special" about this variety. (Took me almost 3 minutes just to finish that small piece ... ) General_

Verdict: Very thick gluey flesh and bittersweet taste.

Blackout

I am pissed ...

I took leave today to go for a checkup on how my bionic leg was doing. And first thing in the morning, there was a blackout! This meant I had to climb down 13 storeys, send Wifey to work, then huff and puff back up 13 storeys (carrying a laptop) to a home with no aircon, no fan, no TV and no Internet!

Note: I definitely need more exercise, felt like I ran 5km after the 13 storey marathon (12 + 1 basement)

Just as I was taking out my notebook to steal some free wireless bandwidth from someone who still had juice, the power suddenly came back on.

Now I am typing this complaint in comfort with aircon AND fan! General_

Still Life Part #1

Still life, shot #1, with lots of "Bokeh" ... Photography_



This piece of rope seems to have been around for quite some time. The loop and the rope seems to have been overpainted, and the paint has already started cracking ...

Anyway, can you guess where the rope leads to?
And have you ever wondered ... is this the end of the line, or the beginning ... ??

Stay tuned, for part #2 ...

Japanese Curry

Recently, while shopping for groceries at a local supermart, a small interesting box caught our eye. It was labelled "Vermont Curry". Closer inspection revealed that it was a box of Japanese Curry. Curious, we took the most menacing looking one, labelled "Hot" ... Food_

The instructions on the back of the box were equally intimidating. After poring through the Japanese text, we figured that basically, just add water!

Translated Instructions:
1. Stir fry meat with potatoes and carrots for about 2-3 minutes.
2. Add hot water to the stir fry
3. Add the Japanese Curry Mix.

BTW, the "mix" came in the form of a chocolate bar. Just "break off" the amount you want and dump it into the water. For a 2 person meal, just use half the pack of curry mix.

By Singaporean standards, the curry is not spicy at all. It is slightly sweet. The potatoes and especially the carrots and rice go very well with it!



Another bonus, the curry mix is not oily so washing up is also a breeze!