Last weekend in Singapore (for now)

The final weekend in Singapore has come and gone.  My emotions are a mixed bucket.  One second I’m feeling like the end of this trip is SO close and I start feeling all sentimental.  And then the next second it feels like I’ll just keep going on with life here in Singapore.  But this isn’t my final Singapore post so I’ll keep the sappy I’m leaving Asia and am so happy for the adventure and am ready to plan my next trip back but am also so excited to be reunited with my boyfriend, family, and friends post for tomorrow.

Let’s recap the weekend to take our minds off of the fact that its Monday and there’s over 3 feet (3 meters for you metric folk) of snow outside your windows!

Food Friday 16 - Food Feast

After much discussion surrounding my lack of Food Friday posts I figured I had to do one for my last Friday in Singapore.  Well then I got home from a fun night out on the town and fell asleep before posting it and so now this Food Friday post is coming to you all on Saturday but let's just play along alright?

Luckily I have saved a bunch of pictures from various feasts I’ve had and decided the best thing to do would be to overload you all with tons of food pictures!  It’ll be a Food Friday feast of sorts.  The best part is this feast won’t cause you any weight gain (but it might make you hungry and then decide to eat the closest thing to you). 

Here goes! 

The Adventures of Emily and Laura: the Asia Finale

We had two full days left of Emily’s visit and I wanted to be sure we took advantage of the work days without all the crowds of people.  When I had asked Emily before she came to Singapore if there was anything specific she wanted to do she said, “the Botanic Gardens!!”  So off to the Botanic Gardens we went! 

All pictures are credit of Emily's fabulous photography...including this one: 

These are our excited faces

The Adventures of Emily and Laura

Well where have I been?  Obviously not blogging, unfortunately not on the beautiful beaches of Koh Lanta, BUT EVEN BETTER!  I just enjoyed a wonderful visit from one of my very best friends, Emily!

Last Thursday I sat impatiently at work waiting for 7pm to come.  Finally it was time and I greeted my friend at the airport and brought her back to my place.  I think it’s safe to say that we were laughing our heads off in the first 10 minutes of being reunited.

Thailand Part Three - Adventures and Tastes

Saturday morning I was on a mission to find some baggy, comfy, elephant pants.  So after a quick breakfast with a view of the beach, we made our way to the main road.  There are plenty of little shops and restaurants lining the road that Time for Lime is off of so we walked for a while until I found what I was looking for.  Once I was satisfied with my finds, it was time to get back on the beach to cool off in the water and soak up some more sunshine. 

Thailand Part Two - Thai cooking class

Day two on the beautiful island of Koh Lanta started off soaking up the sun, swimming in the warm water, and reading. 

If you read my first post, I explained how Time for Lime is also a Thai cooking school.  Well watch out Chef Mark, your little sister knows authentic Thai!  

An Authentic Singapore Evening

You all have probably seen Glenn on the blog throughout my time here.  (He's the one on the right in the picture above).  Glenn is a Singaporean who befriended the girl in my program in Singapore last year and has since been passed down to each new set of us coming to Singapore.  He is very nice to take on the task of answering our questions about Singapore, showing us around, and making good recommendations on traveling in the area too. 

Food Friday 15 – Not your Maurchan Ramen, Red Bean Fish Ice Cream, and Food Court Finds

A good Sunday night dinner seemed like the perfect way to ease into the work week so Ethan and I headed to Chijmes in search of a good restaurant.  Yes, that’s Chijmes with a “j”, it seems silly but let me explain.  It is a former Catholic convent that was known as the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ).  The building has gone through renovations throughout its 100+ years of existence and all the while housed orphans, school girls, and acted as a refuge for women.  It’s last religious service was held in 1983 and has since been deconsecrated and the convent was closed.  Since then it has become a plaza with restaurants, retail outlets and courtyards.  It is also an event space that holds weddings too. 

Have I bored you with the history lesson?  Basically it used to be a Catholic Church/Convent/School and is now a place to go for great restaurants.  (And you architecture junkies can enjoy the beautiful architecture of the once church while you're there too).  And so the whole thing with the j in Chijmes is because it used to be the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus and so when they called it Chijmes they kept the j in there for historical reference. 

Food Friday 14 - Hot Pot, Night Market Dinner, and Brunch

Happy Sunday!  This past week hasn't been too eventful on my end, hence the lack of posts.  I also knew that Ethan and I had some good eats on the ticket for this weekend so I figured I'd jazz up the food Friday post by waiting until Sunday to fill you all in.

This past week would usually be filled with Christmas cookies at work, last minute shopping, drinking eggnog lattes (if your Jack), and enjoying a light snowfall.  However here in Singapore the Christmas season has been void of any goodies at work (my waistline doesn't mind).  To help me keep in the seasonal joys, I've been trying to watch a different Christmas movie every single night.  It feels like I'm watching Christmas movies in July though with the weather and I still find it hard to get myself into the holiday mood most days.  But hopefully the little holiday Ethan and I have planned will make us feel more Christmas-y.

Alright so lets get to the food!

Food Friday 13 - A little bit of Malay, a little bit of Lebanese

Usually these posts will have just a week's worth of new foods, but seeing as I haven't posted in a while you all will get a taste of some things I've eaten in the past 2 weeks.

Thanksgiving Thursday, my coworkers asked if I'd like to order delivery lunch with them and I figured it'd be a good opportunity to try something new.  Plus it would probably fill me up more than my granola bar and apple (it's not easy to grocery shop when you're homesick).  They showed me the menu to choose from and of course I had no clue what I was reading because it was all Malaysian food and none of it had descriptions!  Luckily my friend Mary helped me out and I decided to go with nasi goreng pattaya.  Yum!  This dish is fried rice, not like the stuff you get from Chinese takeout in the US, with seafood and then all wrapped up into an egg omelet and topped with chili sauce.  It was surprisingly really tasty, though I did pick out the fish cakes because those are not my most favorite.  

My first Singapore Dinner Dance!

First of all, thank you so much for all the kind and caring words from my last post.  Each comment was just another reminder of the great support and love I have from so many back home.  While I wish I could give you all hugs for your kind encouragement for now a shout out via the blog will have to do.  So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Backing up to Saturday morning (not long after I posted my homesick post) I decided to go for a little walk around my neighborhood.  I realized I hadn’t done this given my close proximity to the subway and other amenities I don’t really have a need to walk around the blocks.  It’s funny how an area you might pass each day in a car (or taxi to work in my case) suddenly has a different feeling when you walk around.  As I made my way around a couple different streets, I spent time taking in the scenery and suddenly I felt much better.  Taking a moment to think about what makes this place special and different from my home helped me to find that relaxed and adventurous Laura I had lost for a moment. 

Food Friday 12 - Vietnam Edition

Thank goodness Friday is here! 

Now hopefully you all have been reading along with the Vietnam posts and have been eagerly awaiting this week’s food Friday to get a sense of what I ate on my weekend trip (and of course this past week).  Well, thanks for waiting and without further ado, let’s get to it!

Food Friday 11 - Lunch

Happy Food Friday!

This week I was on a bit of a tight budget which meant not a lot of room for going out to eat.  So I decided the best way to fulfill my food Friday blog post for my avid readers was to give you all a glimpse of what work lunch looks like!  Lately I have just been bringing leftovers for lunch as, to put it nicely, my body doesn’t respond to the canteen food as beautifully as I would like.  But this past week I decided that it would be cheaper for me to get lunch at the canteen (café) for about $2.00 – 2.50 a day. 

So my lunch idea for food Friday actually hit me on Wednesday and so my recount starts there.  Let me first explain that Wednesday was a rough day for me…ok really this whole week was rough.  Without getting too much into it, I’ve been a bit frustrated at work, people were coming to work on my apartment which meant I had to sleep in the hot un-airconed 2^nd bedroom, and knowing that my trip back to the US is only a couple weeks away now made me just yearn to get back.  The truth is, as great as Singapore is, there are times that I just wish I could walk out my door and wish I was home.  Most days I’m not down about missing home but I just get little bits of oh if only I could grab a dunks on my way to work or CAN I JUST GET A PIZZA!  So this past Wednesday my morning started out tough and I went to the canteen with my fingers crossed that there would be just ONE thing I could look at and know what it was.  Oh boy was I in for a treat!!!  Chicken nuggets without bones!!!!  I wish I were joking about how exciting this was for me.  No joke-la!!  Being able to have chicken without bones is such a rare find here and to have it be chicken nuggets, well let’s just say I was about as happy as when Mom would let us get the Kids Cuisine dinners when the babysitter came. 

Egg, chicken nuggets, and random green veggie

Weekend Recap - Chili and Black Pepper Crab and Cuba Libre

As you probably have noticed if you've followed along, Ethan and I have had quite a number of visitors joining us in Singapore!  Most of them were last minute trips and so it’s been good excitement being able to try new things with our guests as well as show them what we have come to enjoy here.

Last week Sucheta, a fellow co-worker from the US and alumni to our rotational program, came for work related reasons.  But lucky for us (and her of course) she was able to extend her time here to get a couple extra days to explore.  Later in the week, Ethan’s close friend and one of my former roommates Tracey came!  She was able to get a full week off to come and explore!

Food Friday 10

Well folks its Sunday and I have missed my deadline for Food Friday but I can't deny you all the pleasure of hearing the tasty eats I tried this week.

So this week's eats to share with you come from my meal with Bekah, my highschool friend who came to visit last weekend, and her friends.  If you check out my last post you'll see that we spent the day sweating walking around the botanic gardens.  Later on that night we met up with Bekah's friend's friend and his wife who are both Singaporean natives.  They took us to a local Indian restaurant which I was a bit hesitant at first seeing as my last experience was when I ate fish head curry.  For all those who have been reading my blog since the start (thanks by the way!) that meal of fish head curry happened in my 3rd week I was here aka a long time ago.  Thankfully this meal was delicious and the spices didn't upset my stomach this time. 

Food Friday 9

Here we are once again.  Another week down and another post to recap the Singaporean pastime of eating.

Let me start by saying that this past week I took things pretty easy.  While I loved having guests to help fill the extra space in my apartment for a solid 6 weeks, I have taken the time to unwind after work and get some me time.  As a natural extrovert, I highly enjoy talking to and spending time with people.  However, in the past few years I've had a lot of time living on my own and farther away from friends and family.  One of the biggest lessons I've had to learn is using alone time to recharge me.  So the past few days I've taken the quiet after work hours to go to the gym, cook my own dinners, and just plain relax.  It was a wonderful and fun 6 weeks having guests and there are more to come, but I appreciate getting some time to recharge.

Reasoning for the above paragraph?  To better explain my lack of a variety of dishes to post about.  I kept it reasonably easy this week, meaning I made a huge batch of rice on Monday that lasted me through the week and required simple additions of veggies and tofu to make complete meals.

Enough’s enough, let’s get you all to the real point of this week’s post, the eats!

Food Friday 8

Happy, happy Friday everyone! Well happy Saturday.  I apologize for the late post but it was Amber's last night in Singapore and so we stayed out late and when we got back near midnight this girl was ready to go right to sleep.

This week’s post had me extremely nervous as Thursday night rolled around and I had yet to try anything new this week PLUS I had barely taken pictures of any of my meals.  Talk about the stresses of being a blogger, hah!  Luckily, Glenn (the token Singaporean friend of my travels here in Singapore) knew just what to do.  Amber, Ethan, Glenn, and I had planned to go to Chinatown Thursday night for dinner so I could introduce my intense love of xiao long bao from the Noodle Man to Amber.  I know, I know if we all had a nickel for every time I talk about my obsession with XLB aka steamed dumplings on this blog we’d all be rich (and you could all afford to come to Singapore and eat them with me).  But I am happy to say that Amber is officially in love with them too and completely understands my obsession or she has an awesome poker face.  Hey I’ll take it as a win for team XLB!

Amber's photo skills

                

 

Above photos courtesy of Ethan

Food Friday 7 - Century Egg

Well here we are once again recapping what Laura (and friends) ate this past week.  Lucky for you all I did not eat any heads, feet, or organs this week…though I did ingest part of a century egg YUCK!  (google it because if I write it I might get a bit sick).

For this week I want to focus on 3 meals because let’s be honest here, I’m sure you all don’t want to keep hearing about my undying love for xiao long bao (aka steamed dumplings) which I of course enjoyed on Niles last visit to Chinatown, Monday night!

Korean BBQ

Per request of Niles, we enjoyed some Korean BBQ for one of his last dinners in Singapore.  We chose a buffet style restaurant which meant all the delicious beef bulgogi Ethan could possibly eat!  Our grill included: bacon, marinated chicken, beef bulgogi, onion, and garlic.  As they were cooking, we enjoyed some sesame noodles and (not in the picture) some pancake type think?  Think scallion pancake – esk.  Once the meat and veggies were cooked, we took them off the grill and started assembling our lettuce wraps.  My favorite way to chow down was in this order – lettuce, white rice, sauce, meat, and maybe a piece of kimchi.  Yum!

Food Friday 6 - Singapore classic

It's that time of the week again, food Friday!  Ok so I need to get more on top of this because technically its Saturday morning in Singapore and for my viewers in the US I've only got 2 more hours left of your Friday.  Time to type fast!

So this past week wasn't full of too many exciting dishes so this week I'm going to stick with just a couple new foods I tried.

                                          

 

Hopefully you've read my Bali posts and saw some of the cool foods I tried there.  I don't want to re-hash  my love of the volcano cooked banana sandwiches or the smooth Luwak coffee so I'll let you all go to those posts on your own.

Let's talk snakeskin fruit!  This fruit grows near the bottom of the tree and is nestled in some pockets of the tree.  Why is it called snakeskin?  Because its outer shell has the same shiny, scaly feeling as actual snakeskin!  For those of you who fear snakes like this blogger, it's a creepy but great way to feel a snake minus the whole venom/constricting stuff to worry about.

Food Friday (Thursday) 5

Here we go again!  Let’s take a look at what Laura ate this past week. Also I apologize for the earlier than Friday post as I will be headed out on my first trip Friday so you'll have to deal with these yummy eats until I get back!

In the same nut-free fashion, Niles and I made our own stir-fry noodles.  Nothing too fancy here, we used Chinese la mian noodles and spinach noodles.  I have to say I’m digging the whole fried egg on top style that Singapore has introduced me too.  Great way to get an added bit of protein!