sky and hide

it's no secret that we'll soon both be based in the UK and as the manfriend prepares to relocate, we were gripped with omgi'mgonnamisssingers pangs. 

so what better way to assuage the pre-nostalgia than a bird's eye view of beautiful home city. i'd meet him at raffles place for our little dates and off we went to mbs for drinks at sky on 57, and a cheeky pre-dinner beef noodle. watched the sun set, drank more than prudent then ambled over to hide yamamoto for some japanese goodness. no photos of hide (see, told you had too much to drink!) but they were both winner winner chicken dinners and i'm more than grateful for my ever-indulgent manfriend.

esquina

have been a little slow on the tapas uptake but grad trippin' in spain in summer 2010 made a convert of me. my valentian friends taught me to only eat iberico, and to turn my nose up at serrano... so pseudo-ham snob i am, esquina more than surpassed expectations. you've got to go really early (5:30pm for 6pm opening) or really late (we strolled in for a second dinner at 10pm) because they don't do reservations and the 19 seater restaurant is usually bursting at the seams. really enjoyed talking to ash, the bartender, who was engaging and chatty without being intrusively so. plus he whips up the smoothest sangria ever. no tart cheap red with token bits of fruit biting your tongue. oh boy, this baby was silky and mellow, going down waaaay too easily. can't wait till i get to go back!

hat trick

hit the ground running with not one but three wonderful meals in quick succession. first up was the early bird special at luke's with a dozen oysters washed down by white beer. we've a thing for white beer, having subsisted on the good stuff while the manfriend was in leuven. tell a lie, i drank my weight in kriek, a delightful cherry beer but hey i'd have the occasional white beer too :) 

we passed club street social and having read rave reviews we were tempted to go in but duty called for dinner back home. but not before a buffalo wing fix from jerry's at club street. some things don't change!

short, snappy posts about the next two meals tomorrow and the day after...

two fridays in a row

were gainfully spent at no.28, one of the island's worst kept secrets.

http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2011/12/27/absinthe-cocktail-bars-shake-up-singapore/

phuket

was a dream. we both have great memories of phuket. i was there summer 2007, just before we started going out. in fact, i was there over his birthday and remember anxiously buying phone credit to call and wish him. i was with friends for a good five days at patong, he was catching up with friends in singapore before leaving for a year in leuven. we must've played it so cool for me to spend a week away during his last few days in singers. that said, having done the patong crazy, i was in no hurry to return so when we hopped over to phuket this time, i refused to leave our little enclave in the north :)

house hunting

it's been some time coming but finally got down to looking for a place to call home in london. now we've some permanence and visibility for the next few years, it made sense to seriously consider investing in the big smoke. feel like such an ingrate everytime i say i'm not overly enamoured by the city. it's a good place to visit, to live in for awhile but long term? really??? then i think about how tkx grew up in london, and how much he enjoyed the lifestyle it afforded him, and how he didn't turn out too bad, and reassure myself that maybe it's better for the future children. if nothing else, i want them to have options. both citizenship and educational and i want them to have a broader perspective of the world that living in a global city might confer. not that i think london is superior to singers! far from! having been there long enough, i feel it's pretty darn third world at times and the whinging singaporeans don't know how good they have it. i miss the hyper-efficiency i've grown accustomed to over the years. i miss the ease of the commute. i miss my bak chor mee :( but we've decided that the uk is a better place for us, for now, and we'll be back. just not too soon.

happy place

the last time i stayed here was 4 summers ago, when i was on exchange in stockholm and made a solo trip to london. having had enough of backpacking and hostels, i was very fortunate to get mates' rates at this cushy dive. well, it's not really a dive but i feel less opulent referring to it as such. the chinese restaurant is spectacular and it was hands down one of my most memorable meals that year. this time, lunch lived up to my already high (and inflating!) expectations.

 

drinking goggles

met Y's teammates for drinks at the local and had a laugh out loud night with much lost in translation. where shoe was mistaken for choux and we couldn't understand why their home made canoes wouldn't stay afloat. there was also the incident of the shrinking scottish hat, and whether brain cancer was something to worry about. (for the record, yes it is.)

punting

once again, Y's hustle scored us the best punting deal as she brushed off touts and made for the illegal punters with their bargain basement prices. my kinda girl! however, what you pay is what you get and we'd to make do with substandard story-telling which i made Y re-tell after the tour because she's so much better at it. i mean, the boatman couldn't even get who won the oxbridge boatrace right! and that's pretty elementary, my dear watson.

the orchard

after the dust had settled, Y sprung into tour guide mode and took me on a whirlwind tour of her adopted home. high on her list was her happy place, the orchard in grantchester, home to many a literary bright. it was as if time had stood still and but for my incoming whatsapps, i would've thought we'd returned to an era where rupert brooke was the coolest cat in town. there was a certain stillness to the gardens and the dappled light made for a picturesque tea of clotted cream and scones. funny story here. one of the qualities i admire most in Y (and believe you me, she has manY!) is her hustle. clever girl was the last one in the tea room just before they shut the doors at 5pm. in fact, they were almost shut in her face but she put her impeccable manners to good use and sweet talked the waitress into letting her in. score!

camby

would've lingered longer in the big apple, and even hopped across to DC, if Y wasn't graduating. but having penciled in the weekend since last year, i wasn't about to miss her third (and maybe not final) graduation for the all the sakura in the world. Y's one of my oldest friends, from back when her parents forgot to enrol her in pre-primary (gah! now you can guess her age!) and she ended up in my kindy class. we've been inseparable since, sharing the same school bus since primary school and traveling with our families in the holidays. in fact, it was quite a milestone when she joined me in valencia for a precious 48h during my otherwise solo graduation trip. our first time "away" without adults. also our first time getting flashed by a crazy with yellow fever. 

so returning the 48h favour was the least i could do with her all-important graduation. had a crazy drive down with her brother, D, who didn't save me from myself. which explains how i managed to scoff a dozen donuts single-handedly. while i would ordinarily balk at such excess, these weren't ordinary donuts and such indulgence is reserved for only krispykremes. we made it to camby in good time, and hit the ground running the next morning. 

how many doctors (and medical students) does it take to figure out a cowl?

batman!

senate house

king's chapel

masters peeps

my scruffy loafers had major shoe envy. 

i love that despite the 3 cambridge degrees each, they don't take themselves too seriously :)

more camby posts over the next few days. stay tuned for some punting and virginia woolf-ing...

a bientot, NYC

so many things to see and do, so little time. but most importantly, mission accomplished! with less than 100 days to go, i was starting to panic a little that i had not gotten my dress. conventional wisdom dictates that wedding dresses are sorted at the very least six months before the wedding. and believe you me, there was no shortage of horror stories of the last minute gown scramble. thankfully, this whole gown hunt took all of thirty minutes. i kid you not. had anticipated it to take hours and hours, maybe even repeated trips to various boutiques and having to devote much of my limited brain space to sussing out the right dress. but whaddya know, one hit, one kill. sure, tried on a couple after just to be very sure that the one was truly the one. and it was. i got such a high from this overt show of hyperefficiency that i was on cloud 9 for the rest of the trip. gown shopping? pfft. piece of cake. ironically, it took longer to ring up the dress at the till because in my excitement i'd forgotten to tell my credit card company that i'd be stateside and they blocked the charge -_-  

yay to fuss-free, drama-less gown acquisition. don't know why i had bride wars playing out in my head. was nursing an irrational fear that i'd end up in a tug-of-war with another bride-to-be. not even close :)

being in new york again for the first time in almost five years felt like an awakening of sorts. mega envious of those lucky ones to call it home and am sorely tempted to take the boards once i graduate and do my training there. am less enamoured by london and hopeful that we too will be across the pond in due time. seeing how the manfriend grew up first in new york, then london so i'm pretty sure there won't be any complaints on that front!

thanks for reading the new york series. have been to cambridge since, and am now in phuket catching some tropical rays as the manfriend remains in the throes of wedding planning. be back soon xx

penelope's

last meal in the city had to be a good one, and V's pickings didn't disappoint :) we tried penelope's at lexington and enjoyed its hearty brunch and charming interior. funny story: i was a little early and when i asked for a table for two, the host gave me a piercing look and said, "i know you." which sort of freaked me out, for all of a few seconds. i mean, i couldn't tell him from adam and uh mistaken identity much? but no. turns out he had taken my photo when i was waiting for T and E at union square on sunday evening, before dinner at masak. vaguely remember some guys toting cameras hovering around and presumed (rightly so!) that they were taking photos of the break-dancers, occupy union sq or the old men and their chess sets. apparently they also photographed "faces". which was still unsettling but oh well. and then thank god V arrived before it got too awkward. but seriously! of the millions of people in new york, i've to go to the cafe where a random photo buff works at. the city is so big and so small at the same time.

queens

ventured to queens despite the stereotype and was pleasantly surprised by how, well, pleasant it was. of course, i'd take the express train by mistake, alight and board a local but in the wrong direction and end up 30 blocks away from T's. but that was quickly rectified after consulting the oracle. T cooked chicken rice. from scratch. with a chicken so big it must've had turkey blood. and boy did i enjoy the home cooked goodness. best chicken rice ever! although i suspect if i wasn't this deprived, i wouldn't feel the same way. but plus points for authenticity. even ate the breast meat so you know it's one supremely moist chicken. the chilli (from singers, naturally) was the cincher and it was a truly satisfying meal. the pre-meal buttersnaps and honey liquor might've played a small part in my effusiveness, as might've my favourite mighty leaf tea that T so thoughtfully stocked. aww :) and the best part was talking to T and catching up after almost two years.

little tourist secret

that C let me in on was that the staten island ferry was free! after being disappointed by chikalicious, it took some orange cream popsicle comforting at momofuku, before i was up and running. snuck into the museum of native americans (free entry!) for a cheeky wee and was soon on board the ferry.

this baldie got in my way but i like how the light plays off the top off his egg head.

miss liberty herself!

touristy but fun :) while i'm adamant that guidebooks cheat you of a genuine experience, i'm glad i made this boat jaunt.