Something to Celebrate

Happy Birthday to this guy!

Friday was Ethan’s birthday!  To celebrate we met up with Singaporeans Melissa and Glenn at Hood bar in Bugis +.  Ethan and I hadn’t had dinner but were more in a munching, snack type mood so we shared bacon potato croquettes and truffle fries, yum!  Glenn ordered some fried calamari which was good, though I was skeptical of the moving dried fish pieces on top of it.  Lucky for us the bar had a happy hour special where pints were $10!!  So cheap to find here in Singapore, and I wish I was joking that seeing $10 pints of beer really makes me think I’m getting a bargain.  No joking-laaaaa.

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!

Supertree Grove

This post doesn't exactly follow sequence with what I've been up to but I realized I didn't talk too much to a fun night Amber, Ethan, and I had at Gardens by the Bay during Amber’s visit last week so I thought I’d share with you now.

Garden’s by the Bay is located just next to Marina Bay Sands, that big building with the ship on top that you've seen on my blog more than a few times now.  The gardens have two conservatories which you have to pay about $30 sgd to go into both.  I highly recommend them as they are cool experiences (especially the cloud dome) but if you’re on a budget, walking around the gardens proves to be just as interesting due to some unique pieces.

    

 

"I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike"

Happy Wednesday folks!  This past weekend was a holiday weekend which meant no work on Monday wahoo!

Saturday I sent Amber on her last trip before her journey home.  It was so nice having her here for a while but man did that week fly by!  And now she’s en route back home after 5 ½ months of being in Thailand.  It was nice to catch up and also to have someone to chat with about life on the other side of the world.  While our experiences are a bit different we could completely relate to the emotions and feelings you go through being far away from home and in a foreign place.

Sunday, Ethan, Glenn, and I planned to go to Pulau Ubin, a small island off the east coast of Singapore.  We were hoping to spend the day biking around the small island and checking out the nature.  Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who had that in mind for Sunday.  When our cab dropped us off we were greeted with a queue worthy of those long hot lines in Disney World.  With close to a 2 hour wait in front of us and then having to wait with all those people to get back before the 12-person ferries stop running at sunset, we decided to save the trip for another day (and make note to get there earlier).

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