yessssss i am going taiwan again next year during the june hols! already bought the air tickets. flying by china airlines again, which is taiwan's national carrier.
going with darling, yuanze, darling's parents and darling's meimei. xuanxuan's family still TBC because it all depends on her dad's schedule and can only wait until after CNY then can confirm. i really hope they can go. it will be an epic trip!
i am going to list down my wish list for food once we are there!
西門町新開的馬辣頂級麻辣鴛鴦火鍋(漢口店)！
美好年代(西門店)！隱藏在電影主題公園內的復古餐廳！
西門町超頂級燒烤吃到飽-上禾町燒肉吃到飽！和牛、帝王蟹、烏魚子、三點蟹、鮑魚、天使紅蝦通通吃到飽！還有壽喜燒跟火鍋，啤酒無限暢飲！
we did a staycation from 17 Dec to 19 Dec at Ritz Carlton. this is the best staycation experience so far. because of the super big room. and the super wonderful view from our room.
we did staycations before at marina mandarin, hotel Re!, intercontinental, marriott at tangs plaza, jw marriott, pan pacific, fairmont and grand park orchard.
in my honest opinion, ritz carlton is ranked first, followed by intercontinental at second, and marriott at tangs plaza will be third.
even though we did not get to travel overseas during this dec holidays, this staycation is good enough for me to recharge. and it really heartens me to see yuanze and enxuan play together so happily.
one thing that amazes me is that when the lift reaches our hotel floor, yuanze will always turn at the correct direction to go to our hotel room. but of course he do not know which one is the door of our hotel room. if like that he also know i will be even more amazed.
ok here are the pics!
the very majestic christmas tree at ritz carlton
全家福！
play here need to pay 10 dollars for an hour. what a rip-off.
i must say that enxuan looks very good in this yellow dress.
the mothers and children
dont you think they look like 姐弟? :)
and i told darling that after staying at ritz carlton, there is no way am i going to stay at other local hotels anymore. ritz carlton has set the benchmark. hahahahaha.
must document this in my blog because i have the honour to be invited to a student's wedding. and it is the first ever student wedding that i had attended. this shows that i am in the teaching line long enough.
i was sin ling's pe teacher in 2008 for 6 months, when i was still a contract teacher at the previous workplace. i remembered that she is a well behaved student and she dont really like pe hahahahaha.
one or two years back we found each other on instagram and we followed each other, leave comments on each other's posts, and a few months back, she invited me to her wedding! to be honest i was really quite surprised.
but still, i am very happy for her! congrats sin ling! i got a shock that she has been in a relationship with her husband since she was sec 3 (OMG!!!). and her husband's hairstyle at that time was... OMG. machiam like those japanese anime characters where the hair is more than the face. (think uchiha sasuke if you watch naruto)
i need to give special mention to this student, sock kuan. her parents open a famous wanton mee stall at tampines round market as well as another one at the coffee shop opposite my previous workplace. sometimes when i go to the coffee shop for lunch i do see her hanging around at the coffee shop. anyway must specially mention her because she is the only student who dun find it awkward calling me by my name (she calls me YY zzzzzzzz). but she is not a rude girl lah. hahahahaha. and very happy to catch up with mr kenny tan and mdm lim. mr kenny tan taught at my previous workplace for 5 years and left the education service in 2010. now he is a lecturer at temasek poly. he is one of the most passionate liverpool fans i had ever seen. and he is one of the most hardcore drinkers. he told me when he was a baby and he kept crying and his parents do not know how to stop him from crying so his mum got desperate and tried putting vodkha in his milk and he always sleep peacefully after that and that is probably why he can hold his liquor so well.
happy to see some of the students again and catching up with them! :)
anyway when i was leaving the hotel i took out the cashcard because i have a complimentary parking coupon. and when i drove out the hotel i forgot to put the cashcard back in and to my sheer unluckiness i drove past an ERP gantry. @#$%^&*
and a few days back i receive a letter from LTA saying that i drove past an ERP gantry without a cashcard. the charge was one dollar. so besides paying the one dollar, i have to pay another 8 dollars as admin fee. so i have to pay 9 dollars. seriously man. i really got the urge to scold all the vulgarities and profanities that i have stopped scolding since i became a teacher, but nvm, i shall keep my cool.
i thought of appealing then when i went to the website, the website say that majority of the appeals do not go through, and if i am penalised solely because of a lapse in the ERP system, then the appeal will be successful. true lah it was my mistake for not putting back the cashcard so i obediently paid the 9 dollars and still scold the vulgarities in my heart.
today is our 2nd year wedding anniversary. #061217
2 years ago, we got married at Tim Palace Restaurant. i can still remember that day very clearly. so happy to walk down the aisle together with darling, with all the guests standing up and applauding us. and so happy to receive well wishes from our family, relatives and friends.
1 year ago, we celebrated our 1st year wedding anniversary at taiwan. we were at taichung, if i remember correctly.
this year, we celebrate it at Joie, together with our beloved yuanze. :)
Joie is another establishment of Dozo, which is a japanese fine dining restaurant at river valley road, and unfortunately Dozo had closed down already. i really love going there, and i went there four times to eat. 1st time with my family, 2nd time with darling, 3rd time with my colleagues and 4th time with the 10.11.12 gang to celebrate my birthday.
Joie is at Orchard Central, on the 12th floor. all the dishes are vegetarian, and they have set lunch and set dinner. the 6 course set lunch cost $38.80++ and the 7 course set dinner cost $68.80. the 7 course set dinner have a cold dish, that is not available during the lunch course. 1 cold dish cost 30 dollars?! #raiseEYEBROW
ok without further ado, here are the pictures of the food that we ordered!
starter: chef's selection of assorted platter. the waiter recommended us to start with the sashimi in the middle, followed by the seaweed cracker and finally the raspberry sphere, and the whole sphere must put in the mouth because it will burst.
side dish: bailing mushroom on paper hot pot
side dish: tempura platter on mash (charcoal coated yam, eggplant, apple, banana with japanese sesame dressing). this one is a must order!
cold dish: dragon fruit lotus with truffle vegetable garden. (yes this is the cold dish that cost 30 dollars extra)
darling's cold dish is the Transparency of Pear (layered pear tataki with apple mozzarella and basil dressing). this one is also a must order! ok lah maybe that one is worth the 30 bucks, because of the wonderful food presentation and the special taste. sorry that we didnt take any picture of that dish and i cant find any picture of that dish online. :p
soup: infusion of cepes with truffle (cepes mushroom with white truffle oil and black truffles)
soup: clear tomato soup with garbanzo (tomato broth with orzo pasta and garbanzo served with spinach dumpling)
main: duo ravioli platter (duo of pumpkin and spinach ravioli, flower emulsion, cream sauce). i like this alot! is also a must order for me!
main: grill summer mushroom steak on "pu-ye" hot stone. (grilled monkey head mushroom on lava stone serve with truffle mash potato). also a must order!
i also told the restaurant that we are celebrating our 2nd year wedding anniversary and they prepared something special for us!
taaa daaaaa. thanks for the cake! :)
the waiter told us to do cheeky face hahahahaha.
side note: our yuanze grow so big already. :)
and this is a wedding anniversary present for myself and darling. lover's collection couple watches from gshock and baby g. specially chose them because they are white in colour, and our first march-in song is westlife's 'Beautiful In White'. :)
happy wedding anniversary darling~
