sg eats

didn't have much time in sg. always want to be around for longer but somehow something gets in the way and i end up shortchanged of entire weeks. need to be better at planning life! but what's nice is that family friends are incredibly generous and let me choose where i want to go. it's bad i get so spoilt that if i ever move back in the distant future, i'll be gutted to no longer get first dibs. hadn't realised i'd been missing peking duck till aunty M invited us to lunch at imperial treasure. their dimsum is the best, and the peking duck divine.

was also gutted the coffee shop in the 'hood has since been sold and renamed / rebranded :(

home cooked nasi lemak dins at our former neighbours who are like surrogate grandparents to me was incredible. so many happy memories of sunday lunches round their dining table.

and greek lunch with family friends that left us stuffed to the gills.

have a little tradition of celebrating with a pig and it was only fitting to dig into one with my law prof who brutally edited my personal statement when i applied to medsch. owe much to him and my lawsch dean who was my referee. five years on, i can't safely say i've kissed law goodbye and am still scheming of ways to marry the two skill sets. but that might have to wait a while.

home

grad ball, driving lesson, driving test (passed!!!) moved house then home to sunny ol' singers where this pretty face was up for an adventure. we hazarded the wanton mee queue on a whim and were richly rewarded for getting outta bed before noon.

then we lazed in the afternoon and it was like we were 9 years old all over again :)

dinner at porpor's is always a feast, especially because she knows what each of her six grandchildren like the best and is sweet to cook it in exchange for answers to personal questions.

and there was also a litter of rottie pups fresh from the oven for kisses and cuddles when my father wasn't looking :)

celebratory waterfall

found out i was a doctor in the morning and celebrated with a walk to the waterfall. figured why not and if i was late back for grad ball and the crisis management driving lesson so be it. in my joy and jubilation i also managed to leave my coat behind haha so guess which newly minted dr was shivering her timbers in the highlands... pride before fall!

slow drive back through berwick and wanted to stop at our trainspotting stretch for some choo choos but was already cutting things fine. although jacket potatoes at the antique cafe were worth being potentially late for.

neist point and trig point

having read lots about skye and seen some amazing photos, i'd some high expectations. didn't have all that much time though and had to focus on one part of the isle. did a scenic walk to neist point. went early before it got crowded with tourists and coach tours.

then for kicks thought it'd also be fun to hurl ourselves up to the trig point. little did i know it'd involve crossing barbed wire, streams and end with a steep incline over a sheer drop to the sea. amazed to have made it up and down in one piece, and probably should've been more careful in retrospect but lived to tell the tale.

mull and car ferries

tried to get some walking in on mull and bumped into bird watching sorts who swore by the hide. however we got lazy and didn't quite make it to the hide before midges attacked / i got laughed at for being scared of the dark. but endless coastal walks and scenic spots to stop at to take in the views.

ended up stopping for cake and coffee more than walking, really.

and followed our noses to dinner on tobermory the first night

here is where it gets a bit jumbled. again, weren't organised enough to check ferry times and maybe should've because it was a circuitous route to the isle of skye, with needing to go back across to the most western part of the british isles then driving some distance before boarding another car ferry. the stars had to align but in a way it was also nice to leave when we wanted and just deal, really, with whatever the ferry schedule was. instead of being at its mercy. because, really, the worst that happens is 30min wait over more tea and cake at the port.

postcard from the ends of the earth

i've a family friend who doens't like to travel but collects postcards. i make it a point to send one when i'm on the go and this was no exception, especially because it was the westernmost part of the britain! sort of hollered "STOP THE CAR" when i spied a postbox and quickly scrawled one to mail for the presumably exotic postmark. unfortunately this also involved some unglamorous unpacking and fishing around my very messy bag in the boot of the car.

mull cheese shop and am birlin

this was a sweet little find and pretty darn hipster if i'm being absolutely honest. picked up some whiskey marmalade for the folks and was tempted to have cheese too but G sniffed and said it didn't look like it'd have passed a health inspection (i'm sure it did!) and not to risk it if the soft and hard cheeses had been co-mingling. pfft! the occupational hazard of traveling with medics. it was nice though because i often exhibit questionable judgment and found it comforting that someone else was thinking about all these categorical no nos for me. plus every time i needed to wee i was asked about urinary symptoms and if i'd a UTI (which involved more concern and "hmm we'll be passing a walk-in centre pretty soon but you're too systemically well to be in the throes of sepsis")

another find was am birlin which struck me as a gem that didn't seem to know how good it was. excellent food, simple but done so well and i licked the plate clean despite not being very hungry in the evenings. swordfish was one of the specials but the mercury in it put me off :( think that's a photo of my pigeon breast with lentils though!

isle of staffa

reached mull in the evening and followed an insider tip to take the ferry from (can'trememberwhere) instead of (obvious place) to staffa. travel buddy was keen to visit fingal's cave and that's all i'd heard about on the drive up. were too disorganised to actually check ferry timings but got very lucky and rocked up at the right time for the daily departure. phew. and unbeknownst to me, it was more than fingal's cave but PUFFINS on staffa too! have a soft spot for puffins and they're my absolute favourite bird. so it was a huge bonus to see them on this trip having not anticipated any puffin activity prior.

thankfully the sea was smooth and the 45min ride passed without incident. we'd about 90min on the island which i felt wasn't enough cos i just wanted to sit buried in the grass watching the puffins. there were also two ferries to the same island, albeit coming from different directions and some hilarity about 'what if we got onto the wrong one' which i wouldn't have put past either of us. this is the saeme friend who's left me at a restaurant along curry mile, returned to the car in case we hadn't locked it, and then promptly forgotten which restaurant i was waiting at.

the basalt columns looked really familiar and i was wondering why the locals (or UNESCO) had made such a big deal out of the giant's causeway near belfast cos big whoop, more of the same over here. until i learnt that this was the other end of the same causeway and it's nowhere else in the world haha. oops.

the view was pretty darn amazing and i would've skipped along the ridge had i felt more energetic.

can't get enough of them puffins!