Sometimes ah~

Not that I don't want to be encouraging or supportive but sometimes it gets quite exasperating if the person you're trying to enlighten doesn't see the light! Sorry ah, I don't know how else I can help.

Let's just say I have a friend who is single and she is very very very eager to find her life partner. Her wish is simple - which is to travel with her life partner.

But at the same time she is a wee bit mopey about it, gets discouraged easily, feels that her life partner will never come, thinks about it all the time, gets anxious and impatient, questions where her life partner is and why isn't God bringing the person to her, and sometimes I get the sense that she is envious of what others have because she knows she'll never get the chance to experience it.

I mean, 爱情不能强求 right? Like Saint's famous words, when it comes, it comes. Or the famous taxi analogy, it comes when you don't want it and it doesn't come when you want it. Or maybe it appears when you least expect it. Of course, always good to keep an open mind like when I was single hurhur and met a few weirdos during the Journey to Better Things - but treat it like a bonus. Excellent if you get one! But if you don't, well life goes on.

I understand where she is coming from because it can honestly get quite sian when all your friends are like busy with their other halves or you're out with a bunch of friends + their halves and you're the only single lonesome person. So I tell her, you need to be patient, let go and trust God since she believes that He has a plan for her. Good things will come. Then comes remarks like "easier said than done", "only I know the pain and how much I want the bonus (i.e. life partner)".

Hitherto lies the problem - if you are longing for it so much, the more you won't get it. Sometimes it's like the universe is conspiring against you. The more you want something, the more difficult it is to attain it. At least that's how I see it, especially when it comes to the intangibles like love, the more desperate you search, the harder it is to find. I think the best way out of this is to LET GO and stop harping on the fact that you have no life partner. Let the universe do its own thing.

Plus if your mindset's already negative then I would think like attracts like; people generally gravitate towards positivity. Also how do you expect to meet new people if all you do is to stay at home?

I would be very happy to see her happy because she is a very loyal friend and she deserves to be happy but sometimes I think my Ms Fix-It tendencies kick in and I try to give her advice, which ends up frustrating me because she is not receptive to my solutions.

Oh well. Sometimes there's no need to offer help when it's not needed; clearly this is a situation where she wants to be left alone to mope in her deep dark thoughts and she probably thinks that I am not in a position console her.

In other news, my LITTLE SISTER is reading the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. *horror gasp*
I tried to ask her (awkward much) if she knows what the book is about and I said there's adult content. (I obviously suck at the birds and bees talk.)

She said she already finished reading the 2nd book and wanted to read the 1st to have context of the story.
-_____-"

I am not sure if a book about SM and tall dark handsome men with issues and vulnerable young things who succumbs to said tall dark handsome man is appropriate for a 16-year-old. I didn't even read sex scenes in books till I was about 17 or 18! And I am not sure if she has the mental capabilities to differentiate between fact and fiction. You know teens these days tend to be very influenced by what they see and read. And not to mention the repetitive adjectives and descriptive phrases, I mean, this book is not what we would call "brain nourishment". At least read a book with better writing!!!

But then sigh, what can I do right. Even if she doesn't get the book from me she'll get it from other sources. I shall trust that my sister is smart enough not to be influenced by 3 books and repetitive words; I think teens nowadays are smarter than we give them credit for. And besides she probably already knows more than what I think she knows. I was a very suaku kid last time but times have changed! Unforuntately she is very very very angsty. I sure hope this angsty teen thing is just a phase.

Shinhwa's 16th anniversary concert was held in Seoul over the weekend and I forgot about it! :(
I have failed as a Shinhwa fan. Hahaha.

OK I have a stack of payment vouchers waiting for me to check. Sigh.

WISH I WAS STILL ON HOLIDAY. :x

So half the year is over.

It seems like nowadays my idea of blogging is to plonk down a bunch of photos that I took over the past x days of my life. :x

A photo is worth a thousand words right? It's easier to let the pictures do the talking. Heh.

So this is what happened in June:

Early Fathers' Day/Belated Mothers' Day dinner that cost me a bomb.
We went for a Penang buffet at Princess Terrace Cafe, Copthorne King Hotel.
This is very rare because we don't usually dine at such atas places. 90% of the time we settle birthdays or special occasions at a zi char place.

So here are my budding food photography skills put to the test!

 

Penang rojak and it doesn't come with 油条 :(

 

Salad and erm... some other delicacies in the background

 

Took a little of everything so I don't know what exactly is on this plate

 

Poh piah and kueh pie tee, self explanatory

Prawn mee bee hoon

Lots of colourful and mini kueh

Dinner came up to be about $68 per pax. Not cheap.

Shinhwa - The Return Concert at RWS

THEY ARE BACK IN SINGAPORE TO STAGE A CONCERT AFTER 6 YEARS!

如果不去，那就真的很对不起自己。

遗憾的是，my seats were damn crappy. Even though I paid a premium price for it.

CAT 1 tickets never mind, FIRST ROW seats never mind, but you charge us $268 + $3 sistic fee and I couldn't even see anything on the stage for 80% of the time?!?!

What's the point of paying so much to stare at the screens by the side of the stage?!

I feel damn cheated. Mosh pit tickets were only $208. Definitely can see the stage better. Even Cat 2 tickets have a better view ok!!! 

But ok la, I did manage to see them up close. But only when they walked to the extended stage, and ONLY when they walked over to my side.

They all look flawless (probably thick staging make-up) and SO GOOD LOOKING garhhhh even more handsome than on TV!!!!

Unfortunately Dongwan didn't seem to like my side much. He only wandered over like once or twice :( and didn't stay for long. :(

 

 

Banners and flags that fans made and distributed to everyone for free, how's that for dedication? 

 

 

Eric and Minwoo are the most popular it seems

 

One of the few times when my view of them was unobstructed

 

You cannot see this clearly but this is Junjin! Just metres away from me!

I also managed to take a rather crappy fancam before the guards could stop me. They are so bloody strict!!! But it's 80% filled with fangirly screaming and the stage lights are so bright I could barely make out who which blindingly glaring blob is.

Baking adventures
I haven't had the time to bake ever since my little sister's birthday in April...

 

 Saw this rainbow cake in KL and it looks pretty with all the colourful layers!

So I tried to replicate it in the form of a cupcake... 

 

Here goes the different coloured layers

 

The brown ones are Teh-C cupcakes which was quite #fail, didn't taste anything like Teh-C but tasted more of cinnamon

 

Rainbow cross section. How do I make the layers more horizontal instead of them all congregating in the middle?

The recipe itself is simple. The tedious part is creating the 6 coloured layers.
I read a few recipes and most of the ingredients are the same, I think the one that I followed was this - http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/13653/rainbow-cupcakes.aspx.

Recently I've got a couple of days of leave to clear and since Ms Koh is leaving for the States soon, I MUST SPEND MORE TIME WITH HER!!!!

So we had a hot (blazing hot!!!) date one leisurely Friday and I got to take a photo with a hot hunk. Evidence:

 

Check out the blindingly white smile :D

And the very next Saturday we checked out Open Door Policy and Forty Hands at Yong Siak Street. 

And yet on another afternoon we decided to do a spot of baking. 

 

 Baker Koh with the red velvet brownie batter

  

 

Marbled Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies. Recipe from here. I tried cutting them out into heart shapes like what was shown in the recipe but failed miserably coz our cake was too thick.

And today was a rare Saturday today with no Bukit Timah climb, no salsa, no meetups.
So, baking it was (again)!

 

Spent so long sieving the almond flour to this fine consistency -___-

 

Almost perfectly round-shaped macarons!!! If you recall my disasterous first attempt at macaron making, this is a huge improvement already. Haha.

 

This tray's slightly out of shape... they are supposed to be heart-shaped :(

 

 

Matcha macarons! The first tray was chao tah (the brown ones), the second tray was slightly undercooked (the green ones - but at least they still looked green) and the third tray had cracked surfaces! :(

 

My newly bought donut pans!

 Mini-donuts glazed with chocolate ganache

Psssst, the chocolate ganache has been sitting in my fridge for the past 6 months. I hope nobody gets a tummy ache from eating it.

The donut recipe is from http://food-4tots.com/2009/02/11/baked-donuts/ and I was trying to re-create the heart poppers from this website - http://ellenaguan.blogspot.sg/2011/02/valentines-dessert-heart-poppers.html but the donuts puffed up a little too much and didn't really look like a heart. :( I even bought colourful picks from Daiso for the heart poppers!

The matcha macarons looked so good here:

http://www.foodjetaime.com/2010/07/matcha-macarons-with-adzuki-bean.html

And while I'm still feeling adventurous, I want to try Earl Grey Macarons (as seen here http://www.foodjetaime.com/2010/11/earl-grey-salted-caramel-macarons.html) and Rainbow Macarons (http://duhlicious.com/2012/06/rainbow-macarons/). :x

Challenging!!!

What happened on Good Friday:


Drove in to JB and was stuck in a Jam at the Tuas 2nd link for 2 hours :x


The look and feel is the same, but the size is only about 1/3 of the ones in US




Coach is super expensive there





I am the official photographer hahaha

Oh and I finally bought the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens after much deliberation!
According to the guy at the camera shop (I was bombarding him with lots of questions haha), it's a good lens for potrait shots. With a lower F-stop (hence shallow focus - I think?), you can achieve the bokeh effect!

I haven't really had the chance to play around with it, so here are some test shots that I snapped.


Those out of focus lights in the background produce the bokeh effect!


My new buys at the Mitju sale. Cheap man! The silver glittery wedges were only $8 and the mustard flats $15!


Shinhwa's 10th album! <3 Collected it on Saturday and lugged it all around town. :x


My favourite test subject hee :)


My new pancake lens! Costs a hefty $545 but I managed to save $200 thanks to Capitaland vouchers + StanChart credit card cashback :)


The original lens that came with my Olympus Mini. The pancake lens definitely shaves off some of the bulk.
The flip side is that I can't zoom at all with the pancake lens. :( Guess I need to do "manual" zooming - i.e. walk nearer towards my subject!


This wasn't shot with my new lens but here's a nice photo of us at Canton-i! :)
Sad that the long weekend is over just like that. WE NEED MORE LONG WEEKENDS PLEASE! :x

Last weekend.

Since the friends wouldn't come to the panna cotta, the panna cotta had to go to the friends. And so I self-invited myself and Empress on the pretext of force feeding them my panna cotta and interfered with Saint's brownie baking (she had to bake some for a party). Heh.

(24 March, coincidentally happened to be Shinhwa's 14th anniversary and comeback concert in Seoul. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE MOST LEGENDARY K-POP GROUP OF ALL TIME!)




Rocky walls


Artistic much? LOL
April's Fool. Dinner to celebrate my dad's birthday.


The food is good so I would definitely "再来"!


Their specialty. Yums slurps.


Tofu with cai pok


Har cheong kai
I'm still slow at trying to take nice pictures because there are too many knobs and buttons to press on my camera. By the time I get the settings right...

-time passes-


Every dish was good! I liked the prawns with salted egg yolk but the close-up photo of it was overexposed :(


Not a morsel left
Then we went to see my sister's new house! Or rather, the showflat. :D




I'm gonna come and use their pool, their gym, their BBQ pit... LOL