A Lookback at 2011

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Sha

Overall, 2011 has been a 140% better (see what I did there) than 2010 and I’m very thankful for that. In fact, I have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Sure, I started the year unsure and almost afraid of what’s to come after a very bad year in 2010. The first few months were a bit of a struggle but as we neared mid-year, things started looking up. For one, I snipped off my pretty long hair and made it a cute bob. I haven’t had short hair in 10 years, so this was a drastic change! And it was a good change, as nervous as I was all throughout the time at the hair dresser’s. And now, 9 months later, I’m still waiting and waiting for my hair to be as long as it was before!

2011 is a year where I put myself first, perhaps as a step to self-recovery from the trauma of previous years. I travelled a lot – all for pleasure and not a single work trip (for once), and perhaps because I get away so often this year, I am truly a happier person. Let’s recall some of my adventures while travelling.

It was a year of picking strawberries fresh off a strawberry garden…

and watching dolphins jump and twirl at sunrise

and meeting people from books:

and island hopping at its best..

and go-karting accidents (in Malacca – some trips I didn’t blog about)

It was also a year of many firsts. I flew all the way to Jakarta to catch a Paramore concert. That was one of the best and worst nights of my year (at the same time), but still an experience I won’t soon forget.

I actually took a budget flight(not complaining, just highlighting a milestone – that goes to you dear hater), which wasn’t that bad after all.

Paramore wasn’t the only musical act I caught live this year. I won tickets to a Lenka showcase early in the year, and in October, I re-lived my fangirl days with BLUE at the ION Orchard fashion show. So awesome, I can DIE.

And speaking of musicals, I caught The Lion King this year (oh so many things unblogged!!!) It was fantastic.

Gadget-wise, who could forget the time I cracked my iphone 4 screen?

or the fact that I replaced both my pink sony vaio and my pink point-and-shoot with sexier replacements?

(oh yeah, this was the final look [sans the lens hood] of Sir Olympus’ makeover. I didn’t blog about him getting a faux leather sticker, but he looks cool doesn’t he?)

I kinda overdid it with spending on gadgets this year (no not really, because I really needed to get them replaced – and them *ahem* enhanced) but it was a good year on the gadget front.

And with a new pancake lens and a spiffy camera, came an influx of nice food photos

On the crafts/hobby front, no sewing was done this year for some reason – but I did attempt to bake. Successfully and not so successfully.

Attempt on red velvet cupcakes: More or less successful (turned out better than expected):

And one out of the box cupcakes (with edible glitter and all) which was a complete disaster! Besides the fact that I was trying to achieve the same effect as a photoshopped cupcake!

And of course our very recent adventure with ice cream making. Yet to make an ice cream at home!

Afterthought

As you can tell, this has been a pretty good year for me. And at some point I guess I started feeling happy about my life – but denied it for the longest time for fear of jinxing it. I’ve come a long way this year. I guess sometimes you just need to take a year just to focus on your own needs and wants, in order to find that spark of happiness again. My life is at such a stable state right now that I could barely even think to imagine in December last year.

This is the year I stopped living vicariously (and secretly envying everybody else’s life) and just focused on myself. It’s hard to just stop something you’ve been doing for a long while, and sometimes there’s minor relapses. But overall I’m okay. There’ll be a time and place for everything and not everybody will experience the same things at the same age.

I’m thankful that I’ve had the chance to travel to new places, meet new people, experience new food, able to afford the best gadgets (at this point). I’m thankful that my relationship with the boyfriend is even more heightened, and we’re closer than ever (how much closer can you get after 8 years? Go figure.) I’m thankful that even though there’s been a lot of changes to home life and family – the ones who matter are still close at heart and vice versa.

Lastly, I’m thankful for my awesome job that enables me to do techy things I enjoy and allow me to finally have a work-life balance. You’ll never know how rare work-life balance is until you’ve found it. And once you find it, you’ll never, ever want to let go

So this is me, signing off for 2011. Excited for 2012, because whatever happens, it’s just gonna be an awesome adventure!

Ice Cream Making Class at Tom’s Palette

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Sha

A group of us went for an ice cream making class two weekends ago at Tom’s Palette.

It is actually surprisingly easy to make ice cream by hand – without any ice cream maker thingamajigs. All the tools/materials/ingredients we used, you’d probably have some form of it in the comfort of your own kitchen.

(and if I can do this and come out of it without any disasters, you can too!)

So we were given this ice cream making guide booklet, which also has several recipes that we can try at home. But for our session, the instructor chose horlicks flavour and the ever popular chocolate flavour!

We started off with horlicks.

First we mixed an egg yolk with some sugar.

Then we heat up the milk, afterwhich we added horlicks powder to it.

At some point we added in the sugar + egg yolk mixture to the horlicks + milk mixture. And then we cooked the custard till its nice and thick..

Once the custard is cooked, pour it into a bowl and give it one last whisk. Then it’s freezer time!

Moving on to chocolate!

The chocolate one started similarly to the horlicks one sans sugar so let’s skip a few steps and get on with the action!

The reason why we didn’t have to used sugar was because these cooking chocolate is already sweetened. So what we do next is to melt the chocolates into the milk.

And then we added cream to the very pretty chocolate milk mixture:

And then the mixture is strained..

…before giving it a final whisk and putting it in the freezer.

So while waiting for all our handmade ice creams to be fully frozen, we were given an all access pass to all the ice cream flavours that Tom’s Palette offers. Free flow of ice cream, fancy that!

I tried the ever popular salted egg ice cream paired with lavender. The salted egg one is absolutely delicious and a must-try for everybody! The lavender one left both genders with no consensus – all the girls liked it and all the guys said it tasted like shower gel.

So after a long, long wait – our ice cream is finally (almost ready).

We had to whisk the semi frozen mixture before putting it back in the freezer.

[and then we took a lunch break, because both flavours needed time to freeze completely]

So here are our handmade chocolate and horlicks flavoured ice cream!

It was a really fun experience, great date idea for couples!

It’s $60 per person (with free flow of ice cream!). You’d need to book in advance for it.

Contact details for Tom’s Palette if you are interested in the class:

100 Beach Road
#01-25
Shaw Leisure Gallery

A Day at Central Festival Phuket

Posted on December 25, 2011 by Sha

My birthday this year coincided with our last day in Phuket. Since our flight was only at 10 pm that night), we decided to spend the day at the biggest mall in Phuket – Central Festival Phuket. Yes, I spent my 28th birthday hanging around a mall like an 18 year old. But hey at least it’s a world class mall!

One of the first things we came across as we started to explore the mall was these sushi doughnuts!

How could we resist. Of course we got them, and they were delicious.

And then we decided to have KFC for brunch! The KFC menu in Thailand is really interesting and the food didn’t taste like fast food (well except for the spicy drumlets).

This was my spicy roasted chicken rice:

We also tried the green curry chicken:

Everything was so yummy!

We decided to watch a movie at the SFX Cinema – a Thai movie at a Thai cinema, fancy that!

We got sofa seats at the price of a normal 3D ticket here in Singapore. Replica of our seat below, price excludes popcorn and drinks but still so reasonable!

We decided to watch this Thai movie called Summer Love. We’ve always loved Thai movies for its humour and because the poster looks promising, we had high expectations. But of course, we were disappointed. It was a plotless waste of time, but the sofa seats were really comfy. So I guess that balances everything out.

By the way, it was quite an experience watching a movie in Thailand. Somewhere in between trailers (and towards the start of the movie), everybody else in the theater suddenly stood up. We only knew that they stood up because our seats were right at the back. So we also stood not knowing what to expect. Shown on the screen was a video montage of the life of the Thai king. Very interesting experience, but I guess that how it is under a monarchy rule.

What’s a trip to the mall without a little bit of Starbucks? We had some cake and drinks in between window shopping and waiting for the movie to start (we got the tickets one and a half hour before the actual movie timing).

So I had some hot chocolate (not much else I can have at Starbucks since coffee is out of the question) and a strawberry shortcake (or was it cheesecake?) This cake was supposedly my birthday cake, lol.

Remember I mentioned that Steve Jobs died on the day we left for Phuket? Well this was what we saw at the Apple Store (can’t recall now if it’s an actual Apple Store or a reseller: tributes upon tributes upon tributes to the legend of a man.

Even little kids were writing tributes:

So I also took the chance to write one too.

So that’s our day at Central Festival Phuket. We couldn’t stay longer as our driver was coming to pick us up for the airport soon after the movie. I did enjoy my long birthday weekend in Phuket, I should travel out for my birthday every year!

One last photo before we were picked up. Check out the dark clouds looming again:

Beachy Adventures in Phuket

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Sha

This is more like a quick photo post.

Apart from the beaches we encountered while island hopping, we also indulged in a few beaches (in the Kata area) during the 4 days we were in Phuket. So here are some photos to depict the relaxed mood of our vacation!

On our second day there, we took a very, very long walk after breakfast just to explore the place. And we discovered this beach. It was well-hidden and we had to go down this very steep flight of stairs to get to it.

But once we got to the end of the steps and jumped off the final step to the sand (I promise we were not trespassing though it sure sounds like it!), we found a small but nice beach with big waves.

Here you go:

Shoes came off and we went barefooted and just soaked up the view, the wind and the sand.

Because it was a really small beach, we didn’t spend too much time there. But before we left, I had this photo of myself taken:

It was the hardest thing ever for me to climb up the rocks. Almost gave up, but pushed on anyway. By the time I got off the rocks, I was wet from waves. I kinda like this photo – I look young and happy. While I know I typically look younger than I am, this one beats all odds. I look like I’m 16! And I look like.. genuinely happy and relaxed. That’s a rare combination, considering I’m such a grouch.

So the rest of the photos below are random snippets of beaches we chanced upon on day 1. Not really too sure of the names because we tend to just enter the beach instead of looking for a sign of the beach name.

Footprints on the beach:

The photo below was taken just before all the sand on my feet were shaken off.

This was taken late afternoon before we headed for dinner that first evening. Recliner chairs, abandoned for the day having done their job.

And finally, our very first sunset in Phuket:

Phuket = beautiful beaches!

Island Hopping in Phuket

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Sha

We went on tour of Phi Phi Islands on our third day in Phuket. Even though it was sort of a rainy season in October, it didn’t rain much for the first two days. But of course Mother Nature decided to wait till we’re out in the open sea to shower us with the rains of rains. To make things more interesting FP and I were at the front of the boat with no shelter and hardly a poncho during the entire bumpy boat ride.

So the bus fetched us from our hotel at 9 in the morning and we proceeded picking up other couples/families from other hotels. When the headcount was complete, we were taken to the port where we were briefed. Our guide for the day is Nina, and she made all of us take a tablet each to curb seasickness at bay.

And then we’re off! Our first stop was Maya Bay, a beautiful island that was used in Leonardo DiCarprio’s movie The Beach. It took us an hour to get to the island and most of that hour was accompanied by crazy heavy rain. The beach towels we brought along didn’t help much.

Check out the beautiful clear blue waters!

And this is me looking like what the cat drag in, after an hour out in the open storm. Rainbow dress looks pretty on beach, no?

We passed by Viking Cave, where birds nests thrive and are collected.

While we were supposed to stop by Monkey Beach on the itinerary, we simply passed it by due to “weather conditions”. Soon it’s time for lunch. We were absolutely starving by then!

Lunch was at another small island, can’t really recall the name right now, but the buffet food was just alright.

Anything would have seen alright to a freezing and stubborn person at that point.

Our view during lunch:

We all rested up after lunch before we head off to our next destination – a snorkeling area! I didn’t snorkel because I didnt have any swimsuit with me, but I really wish that I did! Next time! Anyway, here’s one of our tour mates snorkeling away so happily.

Then finally, it’s time to be off to our final island – Khai Island, where it’s just a rest and relax session. There was a small part of the beach where you can actually snorkel and/or feed fish with bread – we were looking forward to feeding fish, but bread was sold out on the entire island!

So we chilled instead.

Love the rainbow umbrellas sprawled across the beach!

We found grilled corn! I’m sure you know by now that if there’s a food I absolutely can’t resist, it’s corn – grilled, sweetened – it really doesn’t matter. It’s the absolute perfect snack for the beach!

(ignore the big, hairy russian guy in the photo below!)

The bliss didn’t last long, about an hour and a half later, dark clouds start to loom overhead and it was time to go. Check it out:

It was a really wet, exhausting day filled with pretty sights and clear water – despite all that rain. Thanks to our awesome guide, it wasn’t so bad after all!

.: asylum for the sane :.

where rainbows end.

Monthly Archives: December 2011

A Lookback at 2011

Ice Cream Making Class at Tom’s Palette

A Day at Central Festival Phuket

Beachy Adventures in Phuket

Island Hopping in Phuket