Wedding Bells; Batam Trip; Posh Food; DS's Birthday Party

Updates for the past week!

1st Jan (Sat) - Attended my fellow Council TA's wedding solemnization ceremony at Bedok Reservoir Park, at the jetty area there, and it was quite refreshing because it's very cooling and quite quiet. Met up with quite a few of the ex-students there who were ex-councilors and some students from my 1st batch. The funniest incident was when during the ceremony, an old uncle who was topless ran across the bridge towards the central area where the ceremony was held despite some of the other people shouting at him to stop haha. Some of the kids then started cheering and clapping and it certainly made the event a lot funnier. =p

2nd Jan - Attended my fellow Council TA's wedding dinner at Mandarin Orchard and I was rolling back the years as that was the venue for my JC Prom Night haha. It's a nice place though - large and without any pillars to block your view of the stage and screens and decent food and service.

There was an ex-colleague at our table who's in MOE HQ now, at the Curriculum Planning & Development Division department which I'm thinking of joining so I asked her about life there. Generally, it's better in terms of working hours (for the "small fries" at least) and the work is very much related to teaching since it involves the development of new syllabus (for which a full cycle occurs every 6 years) though they need to be thick-skinned as teachers will tend to bombard them with questions and sometimes level criticisms at them when they go to schools to communicate regarding changes in the syllabus. This, despite them not being the ones who make the decisions regarding syllabus changes but only suggest recommendations after doing a review every three years. The power appears to lie with the politicians and sometimes if there's a strategic change for the nation, then it could mean a lot of work having to be scrapped or undone, which can be very frustrating as I imagine so I guess I'll just have to temper my expectations if I'm there - don't imagine I can do major changes to the educational landscape but just do what I can to improve teaching and learning.

3rd to 5th Jan (Mon to Wed) - Went to Batam with some of my friends in our Chem Unit! Though quite a few of us have been there just last year during the Jun Holidays, it's still a good place to go to whenever there's time for a short break cos it's so convenient and cheap! Think I was too busy last year and forgot to blog about that trip so here's some description of the places there. Had cheap and fresh seafood everyday for lunch at Delima's (about $13 per pax for a meal for 6 ppl which included 3 crabs), which was just 5 minutes walk from where we stayed - Holiday Inn Hotel.

1st day we reached at about 2pm Singapore time so we checked in and quickly went out for lunch before returning to play at the Games Room which had free table soccer! But we played 1 game only haha cos the table was slightly spoilt and also we had other things to keep us occupied. We also played Uno Stacko and it was fun cos there were quite a few exciting situations and we played forfeits for the loser and the loser had to answer questions truthfully. Went out for light snack at Nagoya Hills and we ended up at Godiva's where the drinks were good (the Avocado Chocolate was awesome!) but the food was utterly sucky and not worth the money also. Then we went for massage at this place called "Everyday" and it was pretty ok during our first visit where most of us had the Balinese massage and it was cheap also (about $11.75 for 1.5 hours). By the time we were done though, it was 10pm Batam time and the shopping mall was closed so we had to settle for supper by buying food from Circle K (it's like our 7-11) and some satay from a stall just beside it (was 10 Singapore cents a piece but wasn't good). Reached our room and then just snacked and talked before sleeping...

2nd day I woke up early to hit the gym (so disciplined yeah?) and I was motivated by what some of my friends said yesterday - that I looked a bit meatier and a bit more toned - so I wanted to make sure I keep up with the exercise regime that I had during the holidays instead of just the once a week sessions that I had for most of last year. After that we went out for lunch before coming back for some games of Monopoly Deal, which was pretty fun, especially against some intellectual opposition. Then we went to play a little bit of water polo which was a bit disappointing this time but I think it was cos of the ball haha. There wasn't a water polo ball so they lent us a volleyball, which was quite slippery and too often I found my shots flying too high or slipping out of my hand as I shot. =( Started with 1 v 3, which the other guys suggested and it was just insane cos I was restricted to taking long shots practically all of the time. When I did go out to try something different, I had to make sure I score or else the counter would be too easy. Though I took the lead, I lost 2-5, which wasn't surprising I guess given the circumstances haha. Then we played round-robin 2v2 and started off with a nice 5-2 win but got thrashed with another partner 0-5 and for the last match we were down 2-3 before calling off the game cos someone had cramps. Went for my first ever steam bath and then sauna and I can't say that I'm a fan for such things so that's prob the last time that I'll try those... Went Nagoya Hills again for massage at the same place and this time we tried the combo Thai + Balinese massage and it was awesome! I don't know if it's cos of the type of massage and/or masseuse but it was really great and really stretched some rarely used muscles like the butt and body and the hand and foot massage was really thorough and pressed every part of your palms and soles - baik lah! There was one very funny incident cos apparently one of the masseuse commented on my friend's butt was sexy - she said something like "sexy banyak" ("banyak" kinda means many, much and another friend said that the better word was "sekali" which means very but she prob thought that he wouldn't understand hence she used "banyak") and that became our catchphrase the next few days hahaha. I tipped my masseuse $4, which was quite a lot compared to the price of the massage but I thought it was worth it, while 2 others tipped 10k rupiah (about $1.5) and someone tipped 1k rupiah (hmmm... I rather not tip then!) We had dinner at the KFC there and I think the chicken there is much better than Singapore's! After dinner we headed back to our hotel where we played Monopoly Deal until almost 5am Singapore time! It was pretty addictive haha but now we've reached this stage where we all know each other's strategies so it becomes a matter of what cards we pick already...

3rd day was just a really chill day after the v late night we had so slept in till late then just had some breakfast, chat, then checked out and went for lunch before heading home... Reached back at Singapore at about 4.30 pm then headed home to rest. Overall a very relaxing and enjoyable trip and v. cheap - only $204.2 for everything - accommodation, ferry tickets and taxes, food, and massage!

Got some funny incidents and jokes but will save them for my next post cos it'll take me some more time and I should get started on work already!

6th Jan (Thu) - Reached school at 8am to try and settle some orientation matters and then cleaned up part of my workspace until about 5pm before I headed home to change and then meet up with my da jie for some v. posh dinner at Kuriya Penthouse at Orchard Central. I think that was the first time I ever spent $300 on a meal for 2 but it was quite a gastronomic experience! Started with a complimentary mocktail drink (I think he said it's Japanese vinegar drink??? Sounds really strange but I just googled it and apparently there are such drinks which are v popular) which was quite interesting cos the master bartender (yes, he gave us a namecard which stated he's a master bartender) said that if you're feeling well, it will taste sweet and if you're not, it will taste sour, which sounded pretty much like BS but it tasted sweet to me and sour to my sis so maybe there's some truth to it after all!

I had this Chef Omakase course, which I thought initially was the chef's name hahaha, but then I realised that it's a term for meals rather than the name and from what I googled it's supposed to mean "it's up to you", which means the chef will decide on what's to be served for the course, depending on the occasion (e.g. he thought of dishes related to the new year since it's the start of the new year) and other stuff... Let me try to recall what was in the course - (1) Appetiser consisting of black beans and pickles, herring roe, and anchovies (2) Japanese glutinous rice soaked in sake and with some vegetables (3) 4 kinds of sashimi - scallop, yellowtail, fatty tuna, prawn. Also had some shellfish and flounder from my sis cos she ordered 5 kinds of sashimi and they were all very solid! I usually only eat salmon and have eaten swordfish (which is nice) and tuna (which I don't really like) so the other kinds of fish like yellowtail and flounder was an interesting experience and it was great! (4) Deep-fried puffer fish - very interesting given that it's a poisonous fish and you need a special license in order to serve this dish. The taste wasn't out-of-this-world though but nevertheless something new and probably quite rare to eat this kinda stuff. (5) Foie Gras with steamed beancurd skin - nice combi and the foie gras was absolutely excellent! (6)Steamed chicken and vegetable rice - very smooth and soft rice which my sis said is like risotto and a pity we were too full by then so we couldn't finish it but it was pretty good! I think I forgot a dish somewhere but nvm, the menu changes once in a while so no point memorising everything in the course anyway haha. (7) Dessert - it was a mixture of mousse (there were mango, yogurt, and chocolate flavours) and the bartender served us on a dessert trolley cos the mousse came in shooter glasses and apparently you can eat as much as you want. Then we had a choice of fruits and we went for all the Japanese fruits cos they cost so much in Japan you wonder what's so special about them haha. They were really sweet and juicy I must say though I'd still prob not pay the kind of prices I see at the Japan supermarkets... Fine dining to me is a once-in-a-while kind of experience, not an everyday one haha - can't afford to! Unless maybe if I start giving tuition... Oh, they had an in-house magician to show some simple tricks and he did this rubber band thingie which I think I figured out how he did it and 2 card tricks which I couldn't really figure out (should watch more of the TV programme that reveals the secrets to magic tricks!). Overall the place is really posh, but the service is excellent (perhaps cos it wasn't crowded so the bartender had time to come chat with us once in a while, and all the dishes were introduced to us by whoever served the dish. I also like the fact that the bartender offered to and did concoct drinks for us that weren't in the menu cos it gave much more variety and the cost of the drinks were the same as those in the menu), food quality is excellent, ambience is very good (pity that the view from the place wasn't great considering it's a penthouse but the dining area was cosy and the alfresco part was cooling), though all this comes with a price (expected for any fine dining experience I guess). If I had tons of cash, I'd go back to this place frequently but for the normal people like myself, once in a while is good enough =)

7th Jan (Fri) - Reached school at 8am for staff meeting which seemed to last forever and went 45 minutes past the stated timing then after that had our chem unit meeting till lunch time. Went out with some of my friends to Downtown East and ended up at New York New York. Went back to school after that to help out a bit in setting up the net for Open House and try to settle orientation matters again before heading home to change and then out to Marina Bay Sands for DS's birthday party!

I had the idea that the party was going to be at a function room but it was a hotel room. Nevertheless, it was a HUGE hotel room (almost as big as my house unit and probably about 3x bigger than a standard hotel room) and there were less than 50 people I think so it was very spacious and the room was on the 54th storey so we had real good view of the Esplanade and the river - a very pretty sight indeed - but the cost is a whopping $900++ per night (though he had a discount so it was slightly less than $800). The best part of the night was playing Guitar Heroes and we played for like tons of hours and we jammed the night away till like 8am though some of them starting dying at like 5-6am haha. Had great fun playing the drums though I think I smacked it too hard cos after a few hours my hands were killing me cos they were experiencing a lot of pain and it was quite a struggle to coordinate the hitting of the drums and the pedal for the complicated patterns. The guitar was cool too though for the harder levels I tried to play it like a piano cos it was too crazy sliding my hand across the handle to hit the notes. Overall it was extremely fun and the best part was when we played our "Record of the Century" called "Bodies" and PY and YQ were singing like crazy and all of us including the audience were like ROFL even as we were playing. We played that song at least 5 times! As Randy would say, "It was dope, dawg!" In between playing that we played a little bit of other games as we let others play and Jon shot the moon in Hearts while I was pretty dismal when playing Halli Galli - clearly out of touch ever since I got out of IGC and my reflexes were woefully slow! Great night and minimal drinking this time after what happened the week before so it was just good fun!

8th Jan (Sat) - By the time we left MBS it was already about 11am and we were hungry after staying up through the night so we had a quick lunch at Marina Square (the saba set at one of the stalls was great but the aloe vera honey juice at the drinks stall was terrible) before heading home and I conked out for 9+ hours till almost 11pm before doing some work then sleeping again.

9th Jan (Sun) - did work in the morning and just finished gymming about 2 hours ago. Back to work for me again after this as I get ready for the start of school tmr! Doing well with my New Year resolutions so far - quite prompt in doing stuff, even in updating my blog! Gambatte for the tough year ahead! =)