The touristy pictures

Synchronised sleeping

Spot the dog

Hmmm

London peeps, what do you say? I don't hear anyone clamouring for bottles of Axe oil...

The best laid schemes of mice and men

Think it was from working on New Year's Day or something, that I had a day off in lieu, and cobbled some other off days together to get a three-day long break this weekend.

Did not think I'd spend my birthday with L in hospital. What a Dragon Year birthday.

Strange eats

Singapore foodies, weigh in on this one: pandan cheesecake.

It's not like New York cheesecake, nor even like baked Japanese cheesecake. It's a brick of pandan cake (and a darker than usual bilious shade of green at that) covered on top with shredded cheese. You know how some pandan cakes come covered with dessicated coconut? Well, this one had shredded cheese instead.

It's from Indonesia, and was given to us by our downstairs neighbour. I don't particularly like pandan cake, and L knew that he would never be able to eat this on his own, so he promptly cut it into two and shared half with the neighbour across the landing. (She was watching in amusement and lending encouragement to the two young girls that were sent up to deliver the cake, as they were summoning up their courage to ring our doorbell because they knew that would set off the dogs.)

Much later, neighbour across the landing asked L how he liked the cake. He conceded that it was strange, and so did she. She thought maybe we should gently heat the cake a bit, and melt the cheese, like what you do with a pizza. L didn't think so.

Must be our palates that are weirded out, because this concoction has apparently been around a while. There's a seal of approval thing on the side of the box that says: Fifth anniversary!

I could be The Stig

I studiously avoided the motoring programme Top Gear on BBC when we first got cable TV. I'm not a car enthusiast -- I don't even know how to drive -- and I was sure that reviews of things that zoom past very fast was plain boring. But Top Gear has a huge following. Last December, they were selling tickets here in Singapore for a Top Gear live special in Perth, Australia. I didn't know that the fuss was about. Until I caught an episode a few weeks ago. Now, I'm hooked.

It's not the cars. I couldn't give two hoots about the car reviews. It was solely the madcap antics of the three larrikin co-presenters. Each episode, they would have an absurd challenge -- oh, converting a three-wheeled Reliant Robin into a space shuttle; racing about an airfield in airport vehicles (a fire engine, fuel truck, a catering truck, a bendy bus, that thing that's stairs on wheels, to see which is the slowest vehicle that's causing flight delays); being roadies for The Who.

A fourth character, the show's test driver, shares the credit lines with the three co-presenters -- an anonymous faceless voiceless test driver called The Stig. They would have you believe that The Stig is not entirely human. His Facebook page (of course he has one) says: Some say that he's Mac compatible, and that he once punched a horse to the floor. All we know is, he's called The Stig.

It's a running gag who The Stig really is. I'm told T-shirts proclaiming "I am The Stig" go fast on the Top Gear e-store. Various names have been thrown up. All male. In the light of International Women's Day, has anyone considered that The Stig could be female? :)

Travel travails

By the third quarter of last year, I knew that I would be making a trip to the UK this spring. My travelling companion happens to be one of those Net savvy people, and after Christmas, had already found a good online deal on the tickets. Before the year was out, we had already booked our tickets.

This was a whole six months before the trip. I had never been so organised so far in advance before. I mean, the year of the trip wasn't even the year of the booking of the trip!

Now, with the trip two months away, we're down to the nitty gritty of making reservations. For overnight accommodation for the short trips away from where we're staying, for restaurant reservations, for theatre tickets.

And ran straight into a brick wall. The nights that we aimed to stay over were full, we could not get dinner seatings at a time that we wanted. This is two months away. On week nights. How could everything be fully booked already? I don't even know what I'm going to have for dinner tonight, how do so many people know exactly when they want to sit down to dinner two months from now, and where they want to spend the night?

There must be very many highly organised tourists out there. I'm in trouble.

And how did we book trips before the Internet?

Spot the dog

As long as you can breathe ...

Happy Valentine's Day

What L calls the Valentine's Party Pack. Not quite champagne in a flute and chocolate truffles, but a doggy coffee mug, breezer cocktail and well, chocolate. That'll do, a party pack for old marrieds. :)

An update 10 hours later ...


How to romanticise a pizza delivery dinner: stick candles on it.

There can be only one Queen

The pillow is wrong. Mummy is not the Queen. I am the Queen.

Saturday afternoon at home

Eat strawberries from a ziplock bag, and you're a frump. Eat them from a cute glass bowl that looks like a ziplock bag, and you're suddenly very stylish.

Friday afternoon

L left the front door open because he ordered a McDonald's delivery, so Rupert stood by the door and waited -- not for hamburgers but for me to come home from work. That's my boyo!

Day off

Tea time with the new cute little milk jug.

Gongxi facai

There's the traditional way to see in the Year of the Dragon ...



And there's this dragon's way of doing it ...



A prosperous year to everyone!

Sharing

The Queen gets the head of the bed (along with the pillows), and the minion gets the foot, and we all get along -- the humans will have to fit somewhere in the middle.

The other item at the foot of bed is Cat, the stuffed toy. One human (who wasn't wearing his glasses at the time) has been known to address Cat, thinking that it was Queeni (being the same colour and size as her) and wondering why he wasn't getting a response.

Blue is the colour

No real reason for this post, just that it's the first blue sky since, oh, Australia, I think. And that was in October. It was so bluuuue, I couldn't resist taking a photo of it. I hope this means that the monsoon is over.

And what do I do on a Sunday when it's the first sunny day with blue skies in months? I go to work. But instead of taking the train (underground), I took the bus, didn't take a seat but stood at the wheelchair bay and stared out the window.

Marking territory

Somebody dragged the life-sized stuffed dog into the crate. Now Nobody can get in.

The suspected culprit looks pleased with himself, and has a glint in his eyes.

It was a dark and stormy night

Beef stew made it better.

Not Interiors Digest

Why is it when you see pictures of reed diffusers, they look so elegant and when you actually have one in your house, it just gathers dust? And how do you clean dust off essence-soaked stickyish reeds? Bet Martha Stewart never had that problem.

Once in a blue moon

... they actually share something ... that is to say, the Queen deigns to let the Other One on the bed.

L thinks that it would be nice if that dog shaped thing you see in the rear -- a life-sized cuddly dog toy -- were a third living, breathing dog.

Q thinks that it would make the bed very, very cramped indeed.

Monsoon Monday

It's grey and rain soaked outside. I haven't seen the sun in days.

So I'm desperately counting blessings this thanksgiving week. Let's see -- I'm off today; there're heaps of sunny Oz pix in iPhoto; and oh, the Bondi Rescue tshirt arrived in the mail today. :)

Back to reality

The house guest has left (no thanks to Qantas), the spare mattress that she was sleeping on aired and put away, my own suitcase finally unpacked, all the gifts distributed, holiday laundry done and folded, and my work bag is ready for tomorrow.

It is as if the past three weeks didn't happen.

Thank goodness for pictures of sandy beaches and cute lifeguards. :)

Oh the irony

Locking out your staff and grounding your entire aircraft fleet but not pulling out your Visit Australia With Qantas ads.

Occupy Qantas Lounges, I say!

and other Australiana

I thought the Opera House looked a bit "veiny", something that you never see in postcards and photos. Turned out that it's because the roofing is covered in what's pretty much bathroom tiles. And the grouting needed cleaning, at that.



The Blue Mountains ...





Meet the natives ...






The dingo looked just like anybody's yellow dog ...