a calendar day older

our cute looking birthday cakes!

Today's the first time my sister and i celebrated our birthday here abroad. The last birthday we had was in vigan, ilocos sur which was 10 hours away from manila. We joked around back then that on our next birthday should be either in thailand or anywhere overseas. What the heck, we made it happen thank God. We had bought pre-birthday cakes yesterday. We went to thomson plaza to grab ourselves one slice each of tiramisu and cheesecake for 3.50sgd a piece and yeah t'was satisfying 'cuz singaporean cakes are not so sweet compared to cakes we have back home.  We went to the cathedral of good shepherd in victoria street corner bras basah road to thank the almighty for another year. The homily was about Christ's TLC (yep tender love & care).

My sister and i realized that following landmarks and street signs from a map is a whole lot easier than rely on road/street directions say streetdirectory.com or google. Walking is one of the best way to get around here in singapore. we also burned those calories we gained by having chicken rice for lunch at the funan digital mall 's food court early today. The funan mall by the way is just walks away from the church. I didn't even realized we've reached that darn mall already because we were both busy trying to figure out where we're located looking at the map hadn't my sister said we've reached funan. Why is everything different in real life huh?

We checked out how much the gadgets cost not that we're planning to buy, just curious that's all lol. It's a haven for gadget buffs as it houses almost all tech gadgets there is from ground 'til the upper level. We found that they sell cheaper and cuter bubble earphones for 9.90sgd (about Php300+ back home) yet we bought our philips earplugs for a hefty Php800+! (about 25sgd). If you have a lot of money to shell out for gadgets, this is the place to be. At the ground floor, they also sell those easy heating tea kettles commonly used here in SG.  Along the way, we passed by the peninsula plaza, a place for myanmar citizens. It's like this, if we pinoys frequent lucky plaza in orchard, it's the peninsula plaza for them. 

The Peninsula Plaza is also housed to printing & photocopy centers. 

The Esplanade, Marina Bay, Boats of River Quay..

Good thing it's a weekday so the marina bay area isn't crowded. We enjoyed having ice cream sandwich whilst feeling the afternoon breeze in the beautiful bay area. No matter how tired we were after walking around, our tiredness were all flushed away after seeing the beautiful bay. Last itinerary for the day, Makansutra glutton's bay..

There's just one reason why we came back to makansutra--their chicken aglio olio!  It was well worth it for 6sgd. The pasta is served with a generous slab og chicken which reminds me of world chicken back home. We paired the pasta with some tamarind juice and yeah it was a weird match. We went home around 7PM. We had a lovely birthday.

On our way home, we saw this old woman (she's already hunch back due to old age) rushing herself to get to the train station. It was really heartbreaking because she stopped and rested somewhere, breathless and panting yet nobody cared. It was disconcerting. I hope the Singaporean government would come up with better options for senior citizens so they need not work anymore.

easter morning

the picturesque Singapore Botanic Garden in Cluny Road..

Happy easter world!

My routine's changed;  back home, i usually sleep really late and i mean 9 p.m. is an early time to doze off then wake up almost lunchtime. now, i wake up as early as 6 or 7am, read early morning news courtesy of Twitter whilst sipping hot coffee i brewed myself. 

what i love most living here in sg is that people cannot live without wi-fi and it would be weird for one household not to have wi-fi access as it's usually bundled with cable tv (they have here singtel, starhub etc). my e71 is so useful here because i need not have monthly subscription to have mobile data access.

anways, moving on, had a long day yesterday. my sister and i went to sg botanic garden and yeah the info we gathered online wasn't helpful as always. according to the instruction we need to alight at aft peirson and yeah we WALKED far including crossing overpass decked out in jeans and our backpacks just to found out that the botanic garden was literally a park and everyone else wore comfy clothing while we drench ourselves in sweat. haiizz. damn.

the botanic garden wasn't as promising. yeah, what do you expect from parks on a saturday right? the park was vast that you really need to be decked out in comfortable clothes like shorts and sleeveless to endure the heat. the greeneries was refreshing and the view of the lake made me just wanna sit back and read a book hadn't for the heat of the sun which left me more sunburnt. i don't think i'd ever regain my original color so long as we're here in sg because you need to endure a lot of walking and if streetdirectory.com says the place you're looking for is just nearby, trust me, they have a different definition of what 'nearby' means because for them it can be as near as 200 meters! oh good lord. i had hotdog sandwich with beef sauce paired with bottled orange juice at the botanic garden for total 9sgd and boy i was stuffed that i needed to walk a few more.

the ever busy Orchard Road..

afterwards, we headed off to tanglin mall where we checked out little shops (majority of which are for children like toy stores, kids clothing etc) and of course the mall's food court where my sister had some chicken rice thai version (deep fried chicken with sweet chillies) which she found really delectable for $4 while i suit myself with some blueberry shakes cuz i was still stuffed when we got to the mall.

while my sister is having lunch and myself sipping the brain freezing blueberry, i can't help but notice how our skin color has changed from fair to really bronze although it looked really classic and very malayan. a lot of local men were staring at me and my sister maybe it's cuz they coudn't figure if we're malaysians or singaporeans and their adorning eyes made me really think if our suntanned skin worked to our advantage hehe.

the busy Chinatown

here in s'pore, malaysians usually decked out fully covered from head to toe like the typical

muslims you see in quiapo (a place in manila predominantly populated by muslims since it houses one of their mosques), while singaporeans are the typical chinese you see everywhere else. so, if you're pinoy, unless you're a muslim, you can wear any clothes you want in this country which makes it obvious that you're not malaysian if you don't have cloth covering your head and you sport western clothing like jeans, tee, skirt and so on.

this is what i love about being a catholic, that, we are not bound and compelled with strict religious practices. we are free to wear and eat anything we want as long as it's not holy week because it's a practice for catholics to refrain from eating meat (as much as possible although not strictly imposed) during holy week as a form of abstinence/sacrifice.

hmm..i'm fleeting away again. so, going back, after tanglin we headed then to orchard road by

foot and we discovered that if you walk straight ahead from tanglin then turn right you'll be walking the streets of orchard road. we alighted at the dhoby gaut interchange towards harbourfront from orchart station to reach chinatown. we took the wrong exit but fortunately upon strolling around saw this small shop in the people's park complex that sells souvenir items. we bought 12pcs. of keychains for $10 and 4 for $10 fridge magnets.

my sister and i collect magnets for fridge by the way as a hobby

and so far we have collected one from boracay, puerto gallera, vigan, bohol and the singapore fridge magnet will add to our collection. we're looking to travel across asia to purchase more ;)

chinatown is the best place to shop for eccentric and eclectic souvenir items although they're quite pricey. yeah, what do you expect right? singapore is a tourist spot. i heard one caucasian lady as she left one of the stalls around murmuring "it's too expensive for an earring." i thought the philippines still sells cheaper souvenir items compared here because we don't have bucks :D

we had some pork satay (which tasted like bbq except for the sauce) and again mango pudding ;)

my sister complained that her feet ached and i can't deny mine ached as well (but it was tolerable though). overall, i had a great time. we're all set and prob'ly ready to go home to our homeland in few weeks since we have purchased pasalubongs (souvenir items) already!

what's on my list hmmm...rest for a week while i get my final pay check from my former workplace, go on a short vacation to baguio then possibly fly to malaysia..let's see ;)

homesick(o)

Today is good friday and in the Philippines, the holy week is widely observed since the country is predominantly catholic. here in SG, i don't think they observe it as much as we do i guess it's because most of them are Buddhist. it doesn't make any difference really whether it's holy week or not here. it's always quiet and places are barely filled with people (except the train stations). i'm freakin' bored and i've been yearning to go home. a lot of things happened since we left home; our oldest dog harriet recently passed away which was the saddest news we've heard since we lived here in SG. i know we could've expected that since she's really old and was 77years old in dog years/11 in human years.  life is a serious of moving on. we've lost many pets in the past due to old age. 

our little tribute to our dear Harriet.

dudeedoo...

i'm recently hooked to this k-drama called my princess that i spent hours watching the episodes online. i often watch them from bayan24.tv, this pinoy website that host local tv shows like the daily news, noon time variety shows, k-soaps etc.


Song Seung Hun

he's the reason why i've been yearning to watch my princess each and every day lol. he's a pretty good actor though.  let's not forget about that.

lau pa sat food trip

had my first taste of indian food in lau pa sat, the oldest hawkers  in raffles quay. my sister and i had difficulty locating lau pa sat at firts only to find we shouldn't have gone far from the raffles place mrt station as it's just few walks away. we should've just followed the signs, took the escalator and crossed the street.

it's our first time in raffles and it's indeed a business district,  a way better version of makati where me and my sister previously worked. going back, my sister was the one who saw where the hell lau pa sat was because of it's ornate rooftop. honestly, the place was situated on the outskirts of raffles place.  i've been yearning to try indian food because i'm really curious how it taste. at first i just looked around to figure how the indians eat their meal. i cam't understand the indian guy at the counter so when he asked which veggies i just said anything lol. well, eventually he picked potatoes with curry along with beans and something that resembles our 'Goto' (similar to porridge in the Philippines). i know it's kind of weird but i paired the meal with iced cold coke. overall, the meal was delectable and i was satisfied because i could finally add something new to my bucket list, to try other country's native dish. i'm still curious with their roti prata though. raffles maybe far from sembawang although both lies on the red line according to the mrt map but the trip was all worth it. it's a new discovery although i don't intend go back there anymore. we had what looked like mango sago for dessert.

temple hopping.

We visited Siong Lim Temple (Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery)
which is a Buddhist monastery in Toa Payoh.

we visited different buddhist temple today for some photo op time, our subject?something with an eastern flavor. my sister brought her DSLR camera off we went to this small temple in bright hill road then afterwards to the siong lim temple which we had a hard time to tracking. t'was near lunchtime and the heat of the sun was raging. it was really hot and it felt like the the sun will turn me to ashes any moment.  i really love the miniature dragon door knobs, they look good in every angle.

one thing i noticed about buddhist temples though, they love the color Gold.

met a friendly temple kitty. I think
we have cat magnet :)

a temple is similar to a church for us catholics, a religious abode so, taking pictures from the inside is not a good idea so we just took pictures outside instead. on our way to the siong lim temple, we came across this short haired tabby cat who approached us immediately as if we've know each other for ages. mr. tabby cat was very sweet and accommodating. he even allowed us to pat his head before he pranced away to chase a bird lol. tabby the cat even allowed us to take a photo of him and yes he was so close to the camera.

Orchard Road...

we decided to go to orchard road by random. it wasn't in our itinerary for today but, since we finished our photo op a little early, we had lunch at lucky plaza instead. It was crowded when we got there nevertheless we ate at this filipino restaurant inside lucky plaze. we had some adobo and chopsuey. the filipina woman at the counter thought we weren't pinoys hadn't we told her that's why we're both wondering the whole time why she never talked to us in tagalog lol.

photo ctto

photo ctto

dessert.
we got a li'l curious when we went to orchard a week ago after we saw this ice cream stall hogged by customers so we decided to check it out and found it was what they call a wafer cream ice sandwich. it was cheap for 1sgd. you should try it when you to go SG.

Sunburn

Haw Par Villa, your freaky little theme park in Pasir Panjang..

The contrast between my original color and  my sunburn is getting more and more visible each day my sister and i head outdoors. It's really hot here in singapore although not really muggy unlike back home. Even though i carry an umbrella with me, the heat of the sun is still unbearable. Why oh why? In this country you will endure a lot of walking 'cuz it's the easiest way to reach you're destination since waiting for a bus may take time if you're not aware what time they pass by your block. It's really oc organize here in sg, that, there's a designated path for bikers alongside pathways for people and each block has its own parking space for bicycles. How kewl is that?

Moving on, i had my first taste of this malaysian dish called nasi lemak yesterday after our trip to haw par valley. We had late lunch at the buona vista mrt station before we head off to orchard road. Nasi lemak is a combination of rice, chicken wings, chilli sauce (kinda like chilli con carne) & egg. I love spicy food that's why i liked nasi lemak compared to chicken rice. Well, maybe it's just my discriminating palettes. It's also affordable by the way as it only cost somewhere between 2-2.50sgd but some hawkers sell it for 1.30sgd ;)

i wasn't able to  get over my penchance for nasi lemak  today so we dropped by at the sembawang mrt station to buy some chicken rice and nasi lemak takeaway again aside from my sister couldn't get over her craving for some frappe with whipped cream. We then bought mocha frappe for 4.25sgd (originally 3.20sgd but if you wanna add pearls then there's an additional charge hehe). Stalls/hawkers here in sg always have change even if you pay 50sgd, only cabbies don't at times.

The eccentric haw par villa a.k.a tiger balm park...

Yes, the owner of haw par also owns the infamous tiger balms sold all over the world. HPV (i'll just abbreviate it for haw par villa) is one of the world's weirdest theme

parks found here in singapore located at 262 pasir panjang road.

You could reach the park via mrt and bus. Take mrt red line towards buona vista station as it's the nearest then board bus# 200 plying around north ridge road. Once you see the overpass please alight because hvp is very visible to your right already and yeah the park is really colorful so it's really impossible not to notice it. It's across the BBQ house by the way.

I love strolling around desolate parks wherein people wouldn't even clamour or bother to go to because you can take pictures of everything there is without hesitations since you don't have to wait for your turn just to get a shot.

Hvp is recommended if you like enigma. It's difficult to even wrap your head around the concepts found there such as their take on hell, slaughtery, animal heads on human bodies etc.

Over all, it's a different experience because first, our joints ached today since you will endure endless walks around the park, it's uphill so be prepared to be exhausted. Just bring along bottled cold water if you don't have spare coins for the vendo machines. If you're into photography then this may be a good place for your because you'll find ample of subjects. Well, actually, as a matter of fact they seemed endless as it will take you hours to finish scouring the place.

Hvp is a very interesting theme park so do check it out if you happen to visit sg. I mean why spend on theme parks when you can stroll around hvp without shelling a single penny? This park is for eccentric trippers i should say.

le bandung!

my sister and i decided to have lunch sembawang, the hawker close from the mrt station. we had some fishball noodle for 2sgd and this pink cold juice called bandung for 1.20sgd. she didn't like bandung because said it smell like a perfume. i think it tasted more like liquified rose petals though lol.  would you believe i even googled it and found that it was indeed rose syrup with condensed milk.