Olympic Sculpture Park at Seattle

Nostalgic Russian dinner

After a friend's post about Shaslik we went back for a nostalgic trip to this one place - fusion Russian Singaporean restaurant - that still has tables decorated with plastic pink flowers, at this age.

The meal started with the mandatory soft sweet bun, where eaten with the butter is heavenly soft. Then opened with the mandatory famous Borsch soup - which served with optional sour cream. I opted for Fillet Steak medium rare - and yes they serve the steak on hotplate with serving of mixed veggie (cubed carrot, kacang polong and all), and frizzy fries. We had fun watching the waitress preparing the Flambees or the Baked Alaska - cherry, but decided too full for desserts.

Shashlik Restaurant.
545 Orchard Rd #06-19
Far East Shopping Centre. Singapore 238882

Promontory meet up and MBS

Marina bay sands Photo outing.

For this clubSnap outing, I went to have my first Tripod. The guys at TK Photo Funan Mall are very friendly and knowledgable. They patiently explained the feature of 4 sections, ball head, the tripod setup, the long- and short- section, the low-ground setup, etc. I ended up purchasing Sirui K-1204 and G10x head from them, as a set for $349 as well as Kinko Pro-1 58mm lens filter and a lens hood from them. Here is a review from Clubsnap forum on the tripod and head combi. I will most probably write my own review then.

K-KI

My discovery at Ann Siang Hill. Just opposite my place, there is a famous small bakery called K-Ki (supposed to meant Cake in Jap katakana style). It shared a tiny space with a knick-knack shop. The whole place definitely has a definite charm to it. It has around 5 tables - wooden with the flimsy whimsical chairs pair next to it. When I was there majority of cakes were sold out or reserved.

So I chose this one: Cafe Dumo ~ chocolate mousse

For take away it came with a pretty box and small ice-pack glued to the side to keep the cake in good shape.

Yummmy. 

K-KI
7 Ann Siang Hill, 01-00

Captain America

Today had productive day. I went to mass, first time at the Church of St. Teresa - Kg Bahru Rd. I love the songs - the same set one from the Church of St Mary of the Angels. Oh how my heart signs with joy. The mass there at 1030 and another one at 12pm for now.

Then, went for quick lunch before catching the Captain America: the First Avenger. Chris Evans is so very cute and heart-meltingly sincere. It was an entertaining ride thru American patriotism, the WW II and the crazy warzone fighting. The scene I most enjoyed is the first part - with the frail little boy and his journey of discovering his fate. The rest felt right, but also predictable. You should not miss the clip after the ending credits - we almost left, luckily we didn't. I read somewhere that the hallmark of Marvel comic is the great character developments and plots. I have to agree on the way the director Joe Johnston portrayed the movie - from a pretty outdated settings at WW II to the modern day's patriotism and valor.

My most favourite song

In this lonely night, singing the song that is best for anyone looking for soulmate outthere.

Gotta Be Somebody by Nickelback.

Audit of my achievements

I went down for drinks then party yesterday. Woke up at 8am promptly without alarm - amazing.

Doing "audit" of my 2009 commitments - personal goal right now. As I am feeling empty, aimless, and lost. Perhaps I had been concentrating hard on certain aspects and neglecting others.

Audit results:
Scorecard metrics: 10 green (mostly exceeding by a mile), 1 yellow, 4 red (hmm not too shabby)
Red in love, well-being, social work and intellectual pursuit.

Thoughts:
I am perfectionist. I do things I focused on, and do them extremely well - depth, but overkill sometimes. Well I am overachiever. I guess the lesson is I have to focus on just a couple of things, and set high goals, coz I will exceed them :)

Focus and High Goal.

Farewell lunch and Birthday

Yesterday marked the departure of one of my closest collegue. I feel sad and missing something but I am glad and happy for her and the next opportunity awaiting her. I think she made the right decision so next step has been taken.

We went for a small team lunch at the Rocks Urban Grill+ Bar. The steaks, pizza, were good by natural consensus. A couple of tables were facing the bay and the natural settings are good. Some tables were grouped together on a simple white and black minimalist design, while a couple of smaller table outlined the tall bay windows.

The actual run

My Shape Run

Yesterday, I went thru the 30-minutes inventory routine.

Started at 6:33pm, as I was enjoying (late) lunch at Tampopo Liang Court. Spent time traversing Spice street of the Singapore Food Festival. Sure there was kebab, spices, laksa, some thai, tourist popiah, some taiwanese fares, but... something lacking. Until I crossed Clarke Quay, arrived at Liang Court.

At the ground floor, was Tampopo, Kurobota (black pig specialist). Promptly I checked the menu, and found its signature dishes. Tonkatsu - which is the breaded fillet, typically pork, served on hot short-grained rice, and heaps of cabbage. Both latter were free-flow. I had two plates each, pipping hot rice, and cabbage (best garnished with sesame oil that the waiter would bring out customarily). I ordered the premium BP (Black Pig or Kurobuta) Premium Tonkatsu set. The layer of "black" meat and white flesh were distinguisable! Yummy.

Highly recommended. The whole place was run by Singlish speaking Singaporean and throngs of Mainland Chinese waiters though.. hmm. Supposedly best Pork Cutlet (Kurobuta Katsu set) in Singapore arguably. I for sure enjoyed the meal. :) Here's the link to their funky website...

Then I counted, 30 mins Meidiya shopping, 30 mins Kinokuniya browsing, roughly 30 mins walk home. Then manga reading for 90 mins! I would slept soundly until the morning Shape 2011 run! Flag off time at 710am, promised XJ to meet at 640... so I am having headache. I hope for good run.

Happy July

It's been a while since I had the time and interesting content to update this blog. Many eventful stuff happens erstwhile.

June mostly inudiated with work. Emotional june, leading the closure. Year end drink parties... and stressful cases.

July comes and I felt mixed. A big relief mostly awashed with apprehension. Org changes, new HC, and roller-coaster feeling when I realized a post on June 30. I am no doubt slightly worried, and disappointed even mirrors largely my thinking. Mostly I am more at peace, now. Reset of expectations would be good. Emotional, needing to move on, and grow in other aspects of my life. Heath, eating, exercising, thinking about taking some advanced education, or simply hobby, spend more time in social networks, loving, and enjoying life. Perhaps cooking, travelling, or some new hobby. I don't know. Or volunteering social, overseas, or political. Take up energy levels to pursue my life.

GE 2011

Tiring, congested. Another example of good run is hard to organize, and taken for granted.
This year, the committee' complaints ranges from shirt that's too small (it bunches up when I ran among tummy), narrow sections, horrible water points, late flag-off time, and bad goodies bag.

Hot day, but I dashed off for my flight to Jkt soon after at 130 pm. Productive!

Desserts Galore

During the close, I had experience to taste a Chocolate Italian dessert, Profiteroles. It was a puff pastry with creamy custard filling, and sinful layer of cold chocolate ice-cream on top. In my recent gathering with my friend over Friday, the topic came up, and my mind momentarily gave way to local amnesia.

Not to be undone, here is my record of the delicious dessert. Profiteroles at wiki.

Bintan

My team just concluded team offsite at Bintan.

Bintan is a relatively small island off 1-hour ferry ride from Singapore. It is convenient, clean, luxurious, nice weekend getaway from buzzling Singapore. It is amazing how efficient we could be, with people managing schedules, arranging logistics; we zipped in and out with plenty of time to spare in 2.5 days, 1.5 days full meetings, squeezed in to-and-fro ferry ride, three lunches, and two dinners, drinks (social, at the bar, on the beach, in dinners), a massage, ATV group activity, and yoga at the beach. Plus emails sessions and my 1:1 with boss. All in 3 days work. Thanks for efficient logistics and all preparation - they are really cool.

I am tired and had terrible headache after we were back. Practically I worked thru Friday midnight, and had to pay with terrible headache on Saturday.

I must keep my energy level high, at the peak session. I am reading, learning, discussing, talking to expand my life. Work is not all there is to life. I must change my rhythm and start to take over my life.

Shakespeare at the Park

I had a good time with my gal friend. Watching Macbeth at Port Canning Park. It was performed by Singapore Repertory Theather (SRT) a charity non-profit organization. Conclusion, the play was better than I expected and I walked off feeling a degree smarter, and cultured :)

The show was at 730pm, we arrived strolling around 7 and the whole field were covered with picnic blankets by the time we got there. We had wine - white and red (ended up only consuming Moscato since it was hot and humid!), chips, dips, fruits, sandwiches. Very enjoyable and relaxing.

I signed up SmugMug

Smugmug i discovered is the preferred choice of site to host your photos, if you are an aspiring pro photographer, smugmug site is a must. So I did it, i created my (trial) smugmug site.

http://starelle.smugmug.com

And my first gallery

Enjooy!

Posting Profile Photo

I went to networking website and event rather for first time. Vainly trying to find a nice profile photo. Became interested in Photoshops.

So I have been following two videos on youtube on:
1. How to smoothen face:

1. Use Spot Healing Tool
2. Filter/Blur/Surface Blur
3. Duplicate layer with black fill. Pass those thru with White brush.
4. Filter/Sharpen/Smart Sharpen. Then do step 3.
5. Lights - duplicate with Quick Layer Edit (bottom left corner).
6. Duplicate layer and set "Normal" to Saturation -> Duplicate Layer (Ctrl-J) set to Soft Light and Overlay. Play with Opacity. 

2. Another method

1. Copy Red Channel over. Set RGB channel back to liven up.

Google Doodle

Today I saw a v unusual and impressive Google logo. Celebrating Martha Graham's 117th birthday, animated Doodle illustrated by Ryan Woodward.

It's first time I learned Doodle is Google's name for its logo when commemorating certain dates.

Copyright: Google

Transient times

2 weeks ago in a family gathering, my uncle and I had a conversation. He inquired about the procedures after I received the notice to become Singapore citizen.

That made me recall then... 2 years ago when I decided to apply for that change of citizenship. The decision was fairly easy one, that I didn't hover on. I had studied, stayed, lived, and worked in Singapore for more than 7 years then - my PR was due for renewal and I was very firm in my mind that I wanted to stay in Singapore for good.

Busy Sunday

On Sunday night, I was telling myself "Yeah, keep it up. Fill those days!".

Feeling energized from the good exercise on Saturday, I filled my Sunday with:

Waking up refreshed at 11am
Breakfast/lunch at Yan Palace Hong Lim. (I love the porridge and my fave cheong fun).
Facebooking.
330pm Indo mass at St Bernie - it's 2nd Sunday of the month. Mother's Day
5pm Gym at GWC
615pm forgot my clothes! Express shopping
Meet M and dinner with Y and M at Parkway
After-dinner walk along East Coast with some sob sharing
Long taxi queue (note to self : never attempt calling nor queuing for cab at East Coast on a Sunday night)
Gave up and took bus home. Home sweet home at close to midnight