Singapore flyer

Last Sunday, we finally got onto Singapore Flyer for the first time!
Mum's right. Evening is a great time for a ride on Singapore Flyer.
We boarded at around 7pm and managed to catch the sky darken to night.
Here's a compilation of the photos and videos I managed to take with my humble 2.0 Megapixel phone camera:

A splendid dinner @ Grill-Out

Take 2 flights of escalator up, in front of Orchard Central all the way to The Verandah and you will find this promising logo inviting you to unit 07-01 for a good meal.



Grill-out has both indoor and alfresco dining. If you would like to enjoy the air-condition and take a peek at the fresh meat and sausages you are going to order, go for the indoors side. Mark and I chose to go for alfresco coz there was a duet playing outdoors.



We chose to sit beside the glass walls where we could have a feel of the bustling night life along Orchard road. The traffic was really bad. Even at bad economies like this, Orchard road was still flooded by shopping addicts like me :P





A wide spread of vareities was shown in the menu and the price is quite reasonable. We chose a combo set dinner for 2 which costs about $40 after extra charges. One of the best bargains the restaurant offered was wine at $6 for any main course order. Unfortunately, we were not in the mood for booze since I havent had my shopping done. :P

Here's our spread:





FOOD ALERT!! Our combo meal has pork and steak. I am not too sure what are the sauces though. One of them has rasins and it's just super yummy~!

Dains Festival @ Esplanade

Dains festival is held in Esplanade, over different locations. From our observation, there seems to be many works from Asian choreographers. Later, we found that this is a support through the Artist Residency programme. Most of this performances are ticketed.

For passer-bys like us, performances in the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre is ideal. The scenery from the theatre is beautiful. It is right in front of the waterfront along Marina Bay. We enjoyed a maervelous performance by an Indonesian group under the starlit sky.

The dance group is Surakarta Panji Group. As shown in the banner below, the performance is called Wayang Topeng (also known as Wayang Wong). It is a tradition dance, using masks to differentiate the different characters in the performance.

For free and entertaining performances, check out the esplanade websites when you have time. It's a great alternative to hitting the cinemas like all other "made-in-singapore" couch potatoes.

Our Archery Trial Session

We have uploaded the pictures ages ago. I can't remember when we did this. Both of us have been too busy to update our blog.

On a very boring weekend, we happened to pass by this new archery shop in suntec city. It is in tower4, just opposite the row where the cinema and arcade is located. So we decided to give it a shot. Mark is just too shy to be in the picture. So here you only see my first attempt at archery:

It's a pretty cool activity. I feel like Zena or something. Hahahaha :P
The shop assistant is very helpful. He showed us the posture and guided us through our first few shots. There are several shooting packages avaliable: $5 for 12 shots, $9 for 24 shots etc. We went for the 5 bucks one since it's out first attempt.

Well, as beginners, we took some time to do manual zeroing. I think both of us managed to hit bull's eye 3 or 4 times after our first few shots. Mark was really thrilled. Ladies, not to worry. They have a female bow. it's super light. No struggle for me at all.

Probably a gd way to destress. Just imagine your enemy at the bull's eye! I wouldn't mind giving it a try again!

Address:
DM Archery
#03-040
Suntec City Mall
Entertainment Zone
Telephone Number : 97964754
Opening hours : 10am – 9pm

01 Nov 09 - Picnic by the River

After a long long time, we finally have something different to blog about..
We have been living in Singapore for about a quarter of a century. Like most of the other Singapore couples, we have kind of ran out of idea for dating spots.
Yesterday, we decided to bring our son out to our last Vday spot.



Instead of going for posh crusine, we were thrilled by a great variety of local favourites under the candlelight and the nice scenery by the river. Picnic by Kallang River is quite ideal if you're sick of typical posh restaurants and joining the crowd in Orchard on the special day. Since it was just a normal day out, we did away with the candles and wine glasses which we brought along during V day.

So where exactly is this spot? At the open park opposite the row of restaurnts behind national inddor stadium. This is the view right in front of our picnic spot:





Like last time, with a much smaller budget compared to the price of usual v day set meals, we went to Kallang Airport Market to buy our food from numerous famous stalls. Here's our wonderful spread:

1. Seafood Mariana Set inclusive od Mushroom Soup and Garlic Bread
2. BBQ Chicken Wings
3. Laksa
4. Oyster Omelete
5. Chicken Chop
6. Soup Sop Drink
7. Mango pomelo
8. Papaya milk







After having our dinner, we spent our remaining time flying kite... or should I say trying to fly one! It wasn't very windy that day. But we managed to fly it for a couple of minutes every time we tried. Though we tried to take a video of it, it was too dark to see us running around like silly lil kids. :P

4 Oct 09 - Bottle Tree Park

Our afternoon was spent in bottle tree park. Mediacorp has introduced this place a couple of times on TV already. It looked like a huge park with lotsa fun activities to do. So I brought Mark along to explore the place before we introduce it to our friends.

Bottle tree park was set up by 3 locals who dreamed of setting up a concept village with sports, recreational facilities, conference rooms, eateries and of coz nature, admist the bustling city. I believe that the idea is appealing to most singaporeans who spend most of our time in a very fast paced environment. It's a nice place to visit if you are sick of typical shopping centres and movie theatres in town. However, I found that it has not differentiated itself much from the other existing nature parks or beaches that we already have.

The highlight of the park are the exotic plants and trees which the owners have bought over from Australia. If I am not wrong, I heard that each bottle tree costs SGD30,000!!! WOW! I wonder if it's hard to maintain! There are a few spots for dining including a seafood restaurant and a pub. The pub is pretty cool. i would like to visit the place again in the evening.

The website boasts of various fun activities avaliable but I didn;t really get to see all of them. We only visited the prawn and fish pond, paintball playing field and 2 tracks for RC Car racing. The fish pond is especially popular amond the kids. It's kinda interesting watching the little kids trayign to scoop up small fishes all over the pond. Ha...

Overall, I feel that it's a refreshing place to visit if you are sick of the typical Singaporean weekend activities. However, my advice is not to allocate too much time for the place. It was actually quite a disappointment for me.

Address:
Bottle Tree Park
81 Lorong Chencharu (Yishun) Click here for Google Maps
Singapore 769198
Restaurant : 65 6759-7077
Office: 65 6759-5771
Fax: 65 6759-5796

4 Oct 09 - Cook Some Love

Mark & I finally managed to wake up early and go to the supermarket to buy groceries to make our first breakfast together after tlaking about it for a long long time. The picture below shows some of the items we used:

Can you guess what we are cooking from the pictures?

Well as usual, the guy is always using eye power. Poor me had to mix and cook practically everything. Here is a pose by Mark, pretending to be helpful (jus for show :P):

Tada!!! After about an hour or so, aunty came back and found her kitchen in a mess. Flour was flying all over the table. Ahahah~! It was only then when we finally completed our first breakfast together.

See Mr Pretend in action:

Pancakes by me, cheese sausages by me and eggs by me... well it was supposed to be scrambled eggs.. doesn't realli look like eh? but it tastes damn good, I PROMISE! Mark helped to pour orange juice and cook his own "weirdcake"...


It was a great experience, Breakfast was exceptionally good! All the love is in our stomachs!

A Visit to EIGHTEEN CHEFS

After much deliberation we decided to visit somewhere beyond the usual makan places. 18 Chefs was the name Shirley suggested. Previously she had shared with me the story behind this set up.

The restaurant was started by Mr Benny Se Teo who had gone in and out of prison due to drug addiction in his younger years. Fortunately he was offered a second chance in a restaurant specially set up to hire ex-offenders. He held the position of executive chef. Being given a second chance in the society again, he is helping juvenile delinquents to re-integrate into society by equipping them with culinary skills and jobs in his humble restaurant whenever possible.

Se Teo eventually learnt about Fifteen, a restaurant set up by Jamie Oliver to help bring young peeps led astray back on track by teaching them culinary skills. Se Teo saw something he could identify with: making an purposeful effort in helping delinquents via a common set up in Singapore. So there he went, a one month stint with Fifteen. Culinary skills he learnt, but more importantly, it was how to successfully create an environment that encourages and enlighten young misled minds that they could be identify as chefs than gangsters.

The place is a cosy simple restaurant with an affordable menu. We arrived early evening with the restaurant half filled. Half an hour later the place was packed, we saw that there was good crowd of mainly students in their 15s to early 20s. Well.. since we were still not that far away from school, we opted for the student menu. Interestingly you get to mix and match your meal. 1. Pick a sauce 2. Pick the ingredients 3. Pick the additional toppings. Ta da! $6.50! But an additional topping will cost $1.5 to $3 (it comes with another free topping) So.. hehe we gave in to temptation plus in addition I ordered a soup so all in all a meal cost around $10. Well I chose 'red and white' as the sauce and scrambled egg, mushroom and fish as the ingredients. Shirley picked tangy tomatoe for sauce but what were the ingredients again?? Oops.. The lemon tea was good the soup? Its alright..

Not known as a refined eating place with extra fine dishes, I thought its still value for money and a refreshing concept. 4 thumbs up out of 5 I would say.

Exact address:
3 Simei Street 6,
Eastpoint Mall, #01-36,
Singapore 528833
(Located beside POSB)
Tel: 6782 1298