The Curious Incident About The Dog ... & A Wiimote

Although I was never a proud owner of a dog .... yet. I was able to experience the joy and tribulations in having a dog when I read "Marley & Me: Life and love with the world's worst dog" by John Grogan.

Grogan writing probably captured the essence of what it was like to have a dog, judging by the overwhelming responses by dog lovers on his blog.

The book is now and will be providing me with hours more of reading pleasure about the exploits of Marley the lab, when I am due to travel back to Algeria next week. It will make me more resolved to have my own pet dog some day after returning to Singapore. I would like to have an alsatian, although I wouldn't mind a labrador after reading the book.

Anyway, given my current fascination with the labrador, it was amusing to come across a very wacky news about a labrador that swallowed a Nintendo Wiimote whole. Now I cannot imagine what a labrador wouldn't do?

According to the news, a family in Colorado allowed their 3 year old labrador an old TV remote as a chew toy. Unable to discern better, the lab came across a misplaced Wiimote, thought that it was another chew toy, and promptly ate it!

When the lab started spitting up blood, the family grew alarmed and sent it to the vet. Upon an X-ray examination, it was revealed that the lab had swallowed the Wiimote. The vet was able to expel the wiimote after some medication and some belly massaging.

In punishment, the lab got an overnight stay at the vet for further observation. The son paid the ultimate price for misplacing his wiimote. He got two weeks allowance docked as a punishment to replace the chewed up wiimote.

Wish I could say "dog ate my missing PSP".

Can you spot the chewed up Wiimote in the X-ray? I can't

Another Update from Beirut

There was a bomb explosion last week, which killed a politician in Eastern Beirut. It was on the same day I was at ABC Shopping Mall in East Beirut for shopping and movie. I didn't learn about it until the next day but Xinyi and I was wondering the entire time, why there were scarcely any people at the mall?

"It was probably a weekday." was what we thought.

Political assassinations seem to be common in Lebanon nowadays. Yet no one is taking the responsibility for the killings.

The anti-Syrian faction, the ones doing most of the dying, are blaming Syria for the assassinations as revenge on the anti-Syrian faction for plotting an end to the Syrian political domination in 2005. The pro-Syrian faction alleges that the anti-Syrian faction is fond of using Syria as a scapegoat when killing off opponents.

The Lebanese people had grown rather accustomed to these political killings. At the expectant rate of one politician killed every few months, and except for a few unfortunate souls, who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, the Lebanese seems to be unperturbed by any of the violence happening around at all.

Unaffected they may seem though, the Lebanese are probably fretting about the long term impact of this political turmoil. Life goes on as usual but life may not be as rosy as before. Today, the taxi drivers are not bargaining as hard as compared to last year. They figured out that it is at least better to be paid less than to lose a passenger. Peopl are also complaining about the climbing crime rates. Tourism, I think, must be in shambles as tourist are giving Lebanon the detour

The tourist trade in Lebanon, a mainstay of the economy, was given no respite after being disrupted by the Israel-Hezabollah war in late 2006 . Followed soon after by the Lebanese political protest, although a peaceful sit-in demonstration, impacted the economy negatively in several ways, including the closure of downtown Beirut as a vibrant business and dining venue .

Mounting political tensions continued to keep tourists away as two anti-Syrian MPs were assassinated in separate incidents between late 2006 and early 2007.

Then in May of 2007, a bloody insurgency broke out between Lebanese security forces and an outlawed Islamic organization, Fatah al Islam. Ending only in the beginning of this month, it was followed by the explosion that killed the politician two weeks later.

If these events don't scare the tourists away, I don't know what would. If I don't have to stick to my business travel objectives, I wouldn't want to visit Beirut. It is going to take a long time and tantamount efforts before Beirut could regain its reputation as the "Paris of the Middle East".

On a different note, Xinyi and I had a great outing last week at the movies (Ratatouile, in my opinion is an excellent movie) and ate good pasta at Napoletana in ABC Mall.

Italy in your city, the restaurant promises on its slogan

Xinyi's plate: Spaghetti alla Carbonara. It looked pretty good!

My plate: Fusili alla Sicilliani which literally translates as Sicilian twisted pasta. It was an excellent choix.

An Update

All Quiet On the Middle Eastern Front

I will be working in Beirut for the entire month of September because I need to re-apply for my Lebanese work and residence permit.

Due to the unstable political landscape here, many stores and restaurants in the downtown area where I'm working, had relocated to other parts of Beirut. The entire area now resembles a cross between silent hill, minus the gloom and monsters, and an army camp, where you see troops, M113s and concertina wires everywhere.

People are hinting that the month's end election will foster a consensus between the clashing political factions. However, it seems that there were too many unrealized hopes in the past and it doesn't easily give credibility to this election as a resolution to the country's political problems. At least there had been no outbreaks of violence in the recent months.

News From The Home Front

Angus, my nephew, is able to sit up by himself and has begun to eat solid food. My sis has sent me photos of Angus celebrating his 'coming of age' with a foam party.

Fast Food & Algeria

There has been some speculation on why there is no proper fast food in Algeria. I'm talking here about big franchises like MacDonald's or Burger King with their standardized menus and ubiquitous restaurant outlets that are encroaching on the modern and traditional alike, thereby, ruining the historical picturesqueness of some places.

One plausible explanation was that there is a lack of freeze storage technology nor stable electricity supply that fast food chains like MacDonalds require to store their ingredients. Possibly also, there is a lack of trustworthy local ingredients supply (Algerian don't usually consider time nor quality to be essential).

Maybe it's a good thing that there is no MacDonalds or KFC. Academics has warned about the dangers of over-rationalization as exemplified by the rapid institutionalization of fast food and eating habits in society (see Weber's Protestant Ethics, 1958; Rizter's MacDonaldization, 1993; Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, 2001). Too much of something is obviously, no good.

Don't get me wrong, there has been fast food in Algeria for as long as anyone can remember. It is not difficult to get your hands on a hamburger with fries and coke from a local store, shamelessly named McMadrid or McQuince. The local fare is unfortunately sans taste and hygiene, in the "man, my burger is dripping oil and the meat patty looks suspicious" kind of way. (if you want a comparison, it's like Ramli burger sold along a ulu street enroute to KL BUT much much more awful tasting and messier!)

Anyway, depending on your perspective, it may be a bane or a boon when you cannot find the familiar golden arches everytime you turn the corner. For a person far away from home, I just want to sink my teeth into something familiar, something that is reminiscent of familiar times, with a predictable taste and quality.

I mean, a Big Mac should taste, smell and look almost similar whether purchased from an outlet in modern metropolitan Shinjuku or from an outlet in down-trodden, desolated slum of Southern Namibia. One can argue until the cows come home about the taste and quality of a Big Mac but we would be digressing.

So it is not an exaggeration to say that social change has finally arrived with the first opening of a Quick outlet in July 2007 at Ben Mhidi, Algiers.

Quick is a Belgian fast food restaurant chain similar to MacDonald's and has 400 restaurants located in Belgium, France and Luxemburg. It has made plans for 20 outlets in Algeria for the next 5 years, with the next outlet opening in Sidi Yahia.

Given the present situation, it wouldn't hurt abit if Algerians could learn a little bit more standards in food preparation and storage from the fast food MNCs. Food poisoning is a serious problem in Algiers due to lack of knowhow in food storage and the unhygienic way of preparing food. (http://www.algeria-events.com/article867.html). Every expat colleague of mine has experienced different degrees of food poisoning while in Algeria making the term halal food rather meaningless.

Often we encounter local restaurants that are simply no longer interested in improving their menu and customer service to woo customers anymore. The emergence of a fast food industry in Algeria will most probably drive competition up, forcing the local business to either level-up or go out of business.

Our Visit to Quick
Deepsixed, Pablo, Felix and me visited the first Quick outlet in Algiers downtown one evening. Was too busy to blog about it until now.

Like any fast food restaurant in other parts of the world, it was crowded with teenagers and families. Although the facade doesn't look like anything special but this IS the first burger restaurant brand owned by an MNC in the history of Algeria. (And we were there, Wow!)


We had to fight the queue in order to order our dinners from the counter. Algerians queue like the way they drive (me first! me first!). There is no respect of proper queueing, people are cutting queues and elbowing each other. It was so frustrating that I forgot to take a picture of the chaos at the counter. Since I grew up taking MacDonalds for granted and these Algerians had been waiting their entire lifetime to eat foreign brand burgers, I relented and allowed some of them cut my queue.

When it was my turn to order, the cashier was able to take my order for four persons correctly amidst the din the shoving crowd was creating (Incredible!). When she returned with our food, she had forgotten to give us fries, which is a typical Algerian habit of not delivering on promise. Anyway, deepsix reminded her and she quickily rectify the mistakes on the spot. A historical achievement for Algerian service industry!
Doesn't my burger and fries look neat or what? It has been a long time since I came across a burger that is nice prepared and neatly wrapped (if the ones in hotel restaurants are to be excluded). Interestingly, my colleague ordered Quick's signature burger, Giant, but it appears to be no bigger than all the other burgers on the menu. Giant is the name but do not necessary refer to the size, I was told later.

I saw a staff in the restaurant who was distributing balloons to children of the customers in the restaurant. Many patrons were approaching him to ask for free balloons, even asking for those that are not yet inflated. I presume that many of these people were asking for balloons for their kids, their next door neighbour's kids, their cousin's kids in the next wilaya, their former room-mate's kids or something.

Again, things that we took so much for granted, they are special here. I later heard that this is probably the first incident of free balloon giveaway in Algiers. Maybe the Algerians had never been able to buy balloons or get a free one before this.

Hainanese Chicken

What can I do when I'm stuck in Algeria but missing the food from home? I recently had a craving for Hainanese chicken rice so it was time to head for the kitchen.

The Hainanese chicken rice, an eponymous dish from Hainan Island, China, actually gained it's commercial success in South-east Asia and is now much touted as Singapore's national dish. I adored this dish as a child but had to refrain because, according to some advice, it might worsen my asthmatic condition. Years later, the asthma having subsided, I can now truly claim that Hainanese chicken rice is one of my favorite food of all time.

Based on a recipe from a cookbook that I brought here, I was partially successful in re-creating a taste of Hainanese chicken, sadly without knowing how to prepare the rice nor chilli. Er...soli but recipe book neber provide leh, how to do?...Cook is kayou!

Though it was no Chatterbox or Boon Tong Kee, the chicken turned out to be pretty tasty. At the very least, it satiated my craving.
Need serious help in how to chop a chicken properly! Anyone?

Lunch & The Little Spoon

My colleagues and I had for a while liberated ourselves from certain death by dreadful lunchtime catering. For a long time since we started working in Algeria, we have suffered under the hands of a caterer with a serious creativity crisis, who got the tender from management to decide the contents of our insufferably repetitive lunch menu.

Enough is enough. We decided to repeal lunch catering and leave the office for lunch.

Unfortunately, our office's poor location in Hydra don't exactly give us easy access to popular places. And there is a lack of information source about the locations of good food. Through word of mouth recommendations and a little bit of exploration, we discovered that there are actually several decent restaurants that can serve up a satisfying lunch.

A New Good Place for Lunch

The Little Spoon deserves some mention because it serves the best pizza I've tasted in Algeria so far. In fact, only go there for the pizza because the rest of the menu don't exactly live up to expectations.

The interior of the very small restaurant is fashioned like an Arabic tent, which, at first glance, seems cozy and lush. After staying a while, I noticed that the rest of restaurant furniture don't go along with this theme.


We were four so we ordered two Royale pizza (recommended) to share. We had a choice of beef (viande hachee) and chicken (poulet).


The pizzas look ordinary enough but I think the secret is in the freshness and choice of ingredients used. For example, the stuffed crust was filled with very special soft and light cheese that went very with the rest of the pizza.

Getting to the Little Spoon is like getting anywhere in Algiers. It is more convient to access by car and it took a few trial and errors. There's no easy landmark nor a proper street directory guide here so one has to rely on the locals, although they may not always be sure.

LITTLE SPOON
CJSTW (Lot Mimosa) No. 38
Ben Aknoun Algiers
Mobile: +213 (0) 51 143 506

Singapore National Day

HAPPY 42nd BIRTHDAY, SINGAPORE !

This is my second time I spend National Holiday overseas.

Does it matter?

Yes, it very much matters to ME to be away from my homeland, my country, Singapore on National Day, thank you very much!

Why, because of the simple fact that it is a public holiday back in Singapore but I have to work today!

I was telling deepsix that life is so boring here (work, work, work and work) that I'm actually excited about watching the web livecast of the National Day Parade (NDP) at Marina Bay in the office in about few hours time (It's GMT+1 here). Hopefully, my colleagues of other nationalities will cut me some slack, but hey, it's a day for Singaporeans right?

That's if the connection to the web livecast is successful. From my last year's experience, it was difficult to connect to the web livecast in Algeria because of the low technological infrastructure of the IT department in my office here.

In situations like this, it really puts one's patriotism to the test - how much effort do I wish to expand in order to watch the NDP live and express my fervor as a Singaporean. Based on last year's experience, I discovered that I'm not even close.

But I do hope that this year, the connection will be better. There seems to be a lot of hype put in to this year's NDP. For the first time, the parade will be held away from the traditional site, the National Stadium, as it has been closed for a few years of renovation. This year, Marina Bay is the location of the NDP. A floating platform, offering 27,000 seating capacity, was build along the waterfront for people to watch the parade.

To further "engage and entertain Singaporeans, from the young to the young at heart", claims the official website, the emphasis has been shifted from National Day Parade to National Day Festival, signifying that the celebrations will move beyond a single day.

If you are in Singapore, you can find the list of the activities tied to the National Day Festival here. If you have excellent internet connection, you can catch the live webcast from the official site (http://www.ndp.org.sg/)

As for me, I just hope that I'm able to catch some fireworks online this time round.

The following are some pictures from the rehearsal, gleaned from the official site.

F-16s performing a Flypast over the floating parade


Best military unit of the year - Commandoes performing Guard of Honour duty. That's what you get for being the best: burnt weekends rehearsing at the parade grounds.


The lightning strikes everywhere: Nowhere to run...

Like I said, life is so boring here, I have nothing better to do...

UPDATE (11/08/07):
The internet connection between first world and third world was really lousy, therefore, I wasn't able to watch the NDP live webcast successfully.

Watermelon Season

Watermelons on sale at our grocer at Cheraga.

Choosing from the bottom of the pile was a big mistake. The entire pile toppled. Some watermelons bounced all over the place and hit the parked cars besides. Some watermelons were smashed opened. It was a total disaster.
The culprit (facing camera). The store owner was kind enough for not asking us to pay for the damaged goods. It pays to be a familiar customer.

Finally, we only bought 2 good ones. As usual of watermelons here, they were big, juicy and sweet.

Congratulations To Jackson

I'm happy to announce here that Jackson has won a place in the Star Search Singapore 2007 final 20 contestants. That is no small feat considering having to beat 1,500 applicants from Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and China.

Jack, once again, All The Best!....

Actually, I learnt about it when we met in Singapore last month (I blogged it here) but I was sworn to secrecy until the official announcement in the media. Dude, I am capable of keeping secrets after all.

Do kindly throw my friend your support, especially if you are my friend and you are from Singapore. Visit here to discuss about Jackson on the MediaCorp forum.

Media Coverage so far....

In English


The Almost-A-Chippendale
Name: Tan Sia Chong Jackson
From: Singapore
Looks like: Taiwanese actor/singer/host Zhang Shanwei
Age: 23
Occupation: Student at Singapore Management University, Economics
Iron Man factor: Timing for his second Osim triathlon (1.5km swim; 10km run; 40km biking) in 2005 was two hours and 35 minutes and was ranked 21 out of 63 participants.

Jackson would be great prancing around in children programmes like his Taiwanese half if it wasn’t for his hulking V-shape build, no doubt a trophy from his participation in triathlons. In an Ally McBeal moment, I could almost see the buttons of his shirt giving up its valiant struggle to keep his tanned chest covered and doing a Chippendale in front of me. Yay!

In Chinese


翻版 张耀扬
陈侠中 Tan Sia Chong Jackson
23岁 大学毕业 来自新加坡
陈侠中身高181公分，身材魁梧、肤色黝黑，是最壮最man的参赛者。乍看之下，发现他长得和香港型男张耀扬很像。他自2004年开始参加三项铁人赛、脚踏车比赛。 陈侠中说自己非常向往娱乐圈光芒四射的日子，曾经有星探邀他当模特儿，他拒绝了，理由是：那个世界太“奢华”了。陈侠中外型非常“熟男”，好在他的个性随和，容易融入大伙话题，不至于显得格格不入。

Back In Algiers

I've returned to Algiers with my stash of goodies from Singapore. Bye to leftover lunchbox dinners...

My stash of ready to cook meals

---------------------------------------

BBQ at Turkish colleague's place at his Cheraga apartment.

Sleep

Dinner conversation with colleagues at our hotel in Casablanca.

A (58 years old): How to sleep 6 hours without waking up?

B (60 years old): Impossible! The most I can sleep is straight 5 hours without waking, especially after drinking. I set my alarm everyday but I always manage to beat the clock in getting up.

A : Yes, yes ... usually I'm up, looking at the alarm and waiting for the it to go off.

Sencha (gasps incredulously) : Wow... And I'm complaining that I have difficulties waking up every morning.

B : You are still young. As you grow older you start to require less sleep.

Sencha (thought) : Darn! I don't wanna grow old....

Mental note to self, start enjoying my full night's sleep for as much as I can before I grow old.

Dinner - Oeuf Benedictine

Bureaucracy: The Joke Is On Us

Happy Friday the 13th!

It's all quiet on the Moroccan front lately as the summer holidays are here and some of the staff are on vacation. I will be conducting a training for them in a couple of days time and I'm confident that the attendance rate will not be as planned because of the vacation season. Can their HR people plan better in advance?!!

I was reading this Singaporean blog and found out about a sad story related to bureaucracy.

In the story, a woman passed away due to massive loss of blood after childbirth. Unfortunately, the hosipital was obstinate in upholding its blood use policy of 'use 1 replendish 1', and refused to provide more blood for the woman's treatment, resulting in her death. According to the deceased's husband, it was explained that authorizing the use of more blood for her treatment was subjected to approval by more higher layers in the administrative structure. Usually, this kind of gesture requires time which a dying patient don't have. (You can watch the report on youtube here).

Has that hospital person-in-charge in question considered the purpose of the hospital before refusing to commit more blood? I believe that every hospital in the universe puts preserving lives somewhere in their mission statement. Therefore if that purpose was to preserve lives, shouldn't the hospital went ahead and provide what is necessary to preserve the dying woman's life? Perhaps I'm wrong, the purpose of that hospital was to watch their blood inventory level.

Shouldn't there also be a kind of a quick communication process up the bureaucratic chain whereby critical decision could be made for emergency cases? If the person-in-charge is afraid of making the decision, somebody at the top could be informed and could make a quick judgement call to release the use of blood . The hospital can worry about the blood inventory level later by mobilizing the public to donate in order to replendish the inventory. In my opinion, this kind of emergency don't happen everyday so there should not be a frequent break of policy.

But perhaps hospitals are so accustomed to dealing with life and death situation on a daily basis that nothing is out of the ordinary. The person-in-charge probably thought like this:

We just followed procedures so everything should be fine. Too bad that sometimes people die but hey, it's a given 50/50 right? The patient just didn't respond positively to our efforts as expected. Anyway, we tried, so good job, let's give ourselves a pat on the back and go grab a beer.

Much as I dislike bureaucracy especially red-tape, in the modern society, we simply cannot live without a bureacracratic structure to handle the needs of the masses in a professional and efficient way.

But I'm afraid that if the incident becomes more prevalent, then our society is approaching the day when we have bureaucrats that Max Weber dubbed "specialist without spirit, sensualist without heart". Believe you me that I really dread the day when Singapore becomes a society without bureaucratic flexibility.

We are facing so much of bureaucratic inflexibility in the countries where we are working. It really irks me that no matter how inefficient and incapable these people-in-charge are, I cannot do anything about them because they are preserved behind official positions and layers of rules (sometimes unstated and probably made up impromptu ... you sons of bitches!) and so can do no wrong.

Red-tape is the name of the game here. In Morocco, a colleague took almost 3 months to get a visa application approved when it should have taken 2 working days. For my Lebanese residential permit, there are simply too much layers of in the approval process that I get thrown from departments to departments for one fucking piece of crappy looking paper. More often than not, we received no explanation about delays and processes but instead all we get is the "take it or leave it" attitude.

Veronica Mars, I'm Loving It!

Just finished watching Veronica Mars season 2. Did I ever mentioned that I love this show? As Josh Whedon (Buffy and Firefly) puts it, Best. Show. Ever.

For the uninitiated, the series follow the ups and downs in the life of Veronica Mars, the title character played by Kristen Bell, who is part student and part super-slueth. The series basically maintains a good balance of elements like high school and college drama, social divide problems, murder-who-dun-it, romance, off-beat humour and witty dialogue. Now, if that's not good TV, then what is that? (Read also Deepsixed's blog entry about how much she likes this show too)

Recently, I'm becoming a fan of the hardboiled, gritty and chivalric gumshoe like Harry Dresden and Jack Reacher. And it was refreshing to see a young and cute female Veronica Mars fits into this kind of typically masculine role. I also found the witty dialogue, complex story arcs and plot twists as strong points of the show. The series had received good reviews from Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma), Stephen King and others.

Jackson: I don't care what people say about you, Veronica Mars. You rock!
Veronica: Yes, I do. I also take cash.

Anyway, I'm one season short of completing the VM franchise, since it has been confirmed that the show has been cancelled after the season 3 by the network after suffering at the ratings, despite critical acclaim. I can't wait to get my hands on the last season so that I can continue to root for the hot couple, Logan and Veronica.

Uber-intelligent, witty and cute Veronica solves murder mysteries like a walk in the park

...but can she spell?

For now, it is the beginning of a new struggle between a good night's sleep and starting a new TV series. This time, it is about intergalactic dog-fights, high tech battle cruisers manuvres, saving the humankind and women in uniform....ooooh I like Battlestar Galactica already...=)

Back To Singapore - 25 June ~ 1 July (Part 2)

Here's the rest of my exploits during my Singapore visit, blogged after I arrived in Casablanca.

Lunch with Benson

Benson: How's your living condition over there in Africa?
Sencha: It's not that fantastic. Living standards are pretty low.
Benson: Of cos lah! That's why they ask you to go, if it is that good, they ask ang mo to go liao.
Sencha: Brudder, you are the man!

Brudder, thank's very much for Battlestar Galatica and Lost series.

Krispy Kreme @ Xinyi's (it was flown in fresh from Sydney)

I is missing durians Catching up with good ol' friends...Ces't la vie

Mom's cooking...the best!

Baking diva, Socks, Sherrie and gang, great meeting up with all of you over at New York, New York!

Back To Singapore - 25 June ~ 1 July (Part 1)

Yipee! It feels good to be back.

But my week in Singapore is flying by fast. Today is already the second last day and I haven't met up with many friends yet. My schedule has been really really tight and I try to prioritize my time for personal errands and family.

So if I missed catchng up with you, please accept my thousand apologies.

The climate in Singapore is soooooooooo humid that I try to shower twice a day. North African's climate should be just as hot now but not humid. Humid aside, it is a nice feeling to be back from dusty Africa.

Monday
- Arrived late in the afternoon. My family was gathered at my sister's place in Farrer Park. I tried to take the MRT there but it's difficult to move around with a big lugguage. I made it as far as Bugis MRT and decided to take a cab from there.

Tuesday
- Had lunch with Xinyi's dad at Turf city. Got a delicious Indian bryani rice treat!!!
- Enjoyed playing with my nephews, Lucus (9) and Angus (0.5)

Angus

Lucus

- Shopping at Mustafa Shopping Center. My colleagues gave me a big list of vitamins and health food to buy for them.

Wednesday

- Hangout day with Jack. Saw Darwin's Nightmare which was a movie about the ecological disaster in some African country with a forgettable name. I'm still wondering why we chose to watch this movie and not a more entertaining one. It turned to be a very good but serious film. But, Oh Boy...talk about Africa again...

- We had our dinner at Botak Jones in Toa Payoh. Here are the photos:

Entree...Fried Stuffed Jalapenos

Viande...Grilled Rib Eye 200gms

Cafe....Iced Coffee (You can't find it anywhere in N. Africa! *shock*)

Jack, trying to eat a fork.

Dude, best of luck for what is to come!

Thursday

- Busiest day of all. A lot of personal errands to do...including:

• Buying TOTO to win the 3 million jackpot! Mental note to self, if I struck TOTO, immediately purchase air ticket to return to Singapore AGAIN next month. DO NOT FORGET to SNEER at workaholic colleagues!

Get International Driving License. It cost only $20 to apply for one. Mental note to self, DO NOT FORGET to SNEER at colleagues who paid USD100.

• Tze Xiang, nice seeing you at the MRT station. Unfortunately we couldn't linger to catch up.

- Dinner at the Sun with Moon Japanese Dinning and Cafe with family! it is quite a nice place located in The Central at Clarke Quay. Check out the pics...

Some of the appertizers:

Ebi Ten Roll (Prawn Roll)

Salmon & Potato Salade

Ton Toro Yaki (Grilled Pork Cheek) I fucking miss eating pork!!!

My order: Yakiniku Kamameshi (Isn't it an upscaled Yoshi Gyu don?)

Dessert: Sweet Box 4 in One (... and all for love =P)