Berkelah Falls

I must say my trip to Berkelah waterfalls in Kuantan Malaysia has only one word to describe it : Treacherous. It probably due to the fact that no guides follow us as compared to the Ophir trip. The trip is mostly led by yr 1s com members of the NUS rovers and they lead by memory which resulting in a few backtracks along the way. Some part of the trek was so dangerous that one fall will land you into the rapid with little chance of surviving. Generally I would say its an accident waiting to happen. At one point a snake fell onto the feet of the girl in front of me after I led her through, meaning it should have fallen onto me(heng ar!). The snake quickly slithered away as I pointed it out, leaving no chance for the rest to see it fortunately since the girl might freak out and fall into the rapid below. Pretty enjoyable as whole as being experienced from the Ophir trip made this one well-prepared in terms of food and everything else. There was pasta, fried eggs(with salt n pepper), sausages and soup for the meals. Having donuts for the mobile lunch beats biscuits during the Ophir trip.

This is just outside JB checkpoint

The small waterfall
The big one(top)

The big one(bottom)

The entrance to Berkelah Falls

Now I know...

I bring this special report on why 'Ah Balling' is called as such. My Mom just told me its becoz of an ang moh who happened to pass by someone preparing this dessert and exclaimed,'Ah its boiling its boiling!' As everyone know our forefathers and foremothers have little knowledge about english so they named the dessert as Ah Balling. Apparently my mom heard about this from her mom, my grandma so there should be some truth in it then.

Spending Spree

I guess today must have been the day I spent the most, not considering paying for overseas trips which definitely cost a lot. Went to Brewerkz for lunch with Eugene today, my first time there. Ambiance wise is pretty good, eugene said its interiors is similar to Hard Rock(another place I haven't been to) but I must say its really pretty big. (photos will be posted after I upload them into my com) Split into outdoor (non air-con, by the river) and indoors (air-con, no smoking) the whole place is very suitable for those wanting to chill out and chit chat(preferably over beer). Eugene had BBQ'ed Combo which includes chicken breast, 1/4 rack of ribs, a small serving of salad(in a small bowl) and a choice of potato(fries/mashed/baked). I had Sausage Mash - 2 sausages from a choice of Brewerkz Beer Bratwurst, Spicy Italian or Garlic(I chose the first 2), with 2 servings of mashed potatoes from real potatoes and some onions in vinegar, stewed maybe sautéed. We shared a pint size(500ml) fruit brew (today was raspberry) which was ridiculously cheap at 5.99(before 3pm). A jug cost 11.99 before 3pm for all beer. I think the BBQ combo was pretty good since fussy eugene finished everything, my sausage mash was good too, pretty filling as well. Beer was so-so, maybe becoz its raspberry(read sour) so its not that sweet. I would have ordered burgers if not for eugene's constant persuasion not to, saw them on the next table after that, which looks really good, serving was quite generous as well. Its Salad noodles looks very generous in serving as well, the big salad bowl filled to the brim. Looks good, shall try that next. Service was prompt with only the price for the food not so nice, our total bill was about $56, though it should have been more judging from the menu, maybe its 10% for lunch or something. Good impression overall, suitable for those chilling out (preferably before 3pm) with thick wallets.

Walked to Raffles City, shopped around but no purchases, head over to Suntec. I bought a belt at Roots which was at 50% storewide, for those who have no idea where Roots is, its within the small side atrium accessible from GAP. Wanted to buy a jeans from GAP but the queue was too long and moving way too slow. Bought a pair of berms from L.P zone and 6 donuts from Donut Factory. The donut fad is fading away...

New pair of shoes from Prima Vera @ Marina Sq since my present one is a little worn out at the soles. Played sales assistant for fussy eugene at United Colours of Benetton taking all sorts of sizes for him. Big sales there, he bought 2 shirts at $56. Now we had plans for dinner at Bedok 85 but the sales assistant at Prima Vera told us we could get a $10 MS voucher if we chalk up $150 worth of purchase in UOB card. So we were a few dollars away and decided to have dinner at MS instead. Dinner at my favourite Imperial Treasure for fried rice and Xiao Long Bao which cost $32 in total for 2 of us. After my second try at Imperial Treasure, I've come to the conclusion of my own personal Xiao Long Bao ranking.

1. Imperial Treasure : Thin skin with tasty filling filled with generous amt of soup in it
1. Ding Tai Feng : Pretty much the same as Imperial Treasure one
3. Hilltop HK Cafe(Tampines CC) : Loses out on its relatively thicker skin
4. Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao(Holland V) : Smaller in size with hardly any soup in it

For those who aren't fans of Xiao Long Bao can try my next favourite dim sum - the wantons in chilli sauce which I've blogged before - here. Sheila and gang (core alliance would be wad sheila calls it) have tried it at Crystal Jade, really quite nice but a different in style from Xiao Long Bao.

So after chalking up more than $150 in bills on my UOB campus card, the counter told me the voucher is not applicable for debit cards but i'm still entitled to the lucky draw. Before I go, Merry Christmas everyone, Frohe Weihnachten! Auf Wiedersehen

This Week

Went to MOS on Wednesday with my sec sch core alliance (name given by sheila) after turning up at a super the crowded Zouk. My first time to MOS and it was quite enjoyable, I guess the company plays a big factor here. Some photos here, more could be viewed at Sheila's blog, all the unglamorous pics she's not posting will be here, haha!

From left: Me, xiuhui, kian, sheila & elson (zhihao shld be hiding behind)

Zhihao stealing a shot from behind like he always do

Sheila resting for part 2

The next day the same group of us minus a few went to watch The Warlords and had dinner together. Show was very exciting at the start but that's where the action ends, so action buffs will be disappointed with the show. Nevertheless, the fight at the start was gory, action-packed and exciting, Jet Li's performances was great.

Saturday morning was spent in NUS, meeting with the rest of the participants and trip leaders for the upcoming trek to Berkelah Waterfalls in Malaysia Kuantan. Collection of stores and meeting the people in your tents as well as delegating the purchase of food for the trip. I forsee a noisy trip topped with lame jokes after turning up at the meeting. The leader is a yr 1 girl from VJC or something with some of her frens joining the trip as well. They were laughing and talking while everyone were waiting to be briefed. This is the kind of leadership one should expect from varsity clubs, unprofessional. They were appointed presumbly based on popularity or just the fact that no one else is running for the post. From my experience last yr, don't expect too much, so my ranting shall end here. A trip to Vivocity after that gave us a surprise... meeting Adrian Pang and some of the Deal or No Deal models. They were playing the exact same game courtesy of items from Courts. Adrian Pang was rather wacky and witty throughout the show and some of the girls were really pretty. Cameras were clicking away the moment they're on stage.

Swordfish Collar

Regular patrons to Fish & Co. would probably recognize this dish from its menu and today I tried it. 2 reasons for choosing this dish, firstly the standard of fish and chips has dropped and secondly it looks delicious from the picture on the menu. When it finally came, I was stunned by the sheer size of it. The portion is really huge with 3 big pieces of what I supposed is the swordfish collar, a nice helping of boiled carrots and celery(I think) plus a choice of chips or rice(I chose chips). Though a significant part of the 3 big pieces of fish collar is bone but the amount of fish is really quite significant. Maybe its due to the calamari we had before the main courses came, I actually barely finished 2/3 of the fish collar, erwin helped me with the 3rd piece. Price wise it was only $1 more than the fish and chips so really quite worth it.

One thing I prefer road traffic than human traffic is the fact that many people(esp girls) take their own sweet time, strolling. Now, using the same principle on road traffic, we can consider that as serious road hogging. You can stroll, crawl or wadever all you want at home I don't care, but at least be considerate to the people walking behind you who might be in an hurry and there you are strolling, taking your time blocking others. Slow pace movement in congested areas in high temp Singapore just should not be tolerated. To me it just gives the impression that you're walking aimlessly, much like a zombie which really frustrates me, so pls dun do it if i'm around. The other thing is that there's no 'lanes' on a walkway. For some with their large group of frens, they may hogged up the entire pavement walking in the same direction, blocking those walking in opp direction and those in same direction(if they're slow like case 1). Again basic courtesy and consideration to others would prevent such incidents from happening, there's just no basic rules like on road traffic. I feel maybe we should if we can't instil such basic courtesy and consideration to others on people.

A different side of Lim Chu Kang

Now, I have been living in Lim Chu Kang as my 2nd home in most of my 2 year NS life in one of the ulu-est camp in Singapore there. Never quite explored the place until yesterday together with Sheila, elson and kian. We visited Farmart which is a cluster of shops and stalls selling foodstuff, probably local produce like honey, organic vegetables, exotic meat and stuff. There's a couple of restaurants there and the secenery is vastly different from what most urban dwellers are exposed to. Pets and aquarium shops also lined the place with a prawn pond that I heard attracts quite a lot of people at night.

Retro coke in glass bottles from Farmart with elson in background(not the one in green lah!)view from Farmart

We then went to Qian Hu fishery which was the main highlight of the day cos Sheila our driver for the day wants to try the spa fish therapy there. The place wasn't very crowded for a weekend but there are quite a bit of people there already. Fish tanks everywhere with lotsa different kinda fishes, 2 tanks stood out among all:

The ugly fishes
The fishes with numbers tatooed onto them(whoever wins 4D from the numbers here must treat me to a nice meal!)

Then in one corner is the spa therapy fishes(garra rufa fish) in a pond where people pay $10/30mins to sit around and let these fishes eat away their dead skin on their feet. The one most enthusiastic about this turned out to be screaming through the session whenever fishes tried to have their decent meal. It was rather interesting to see those fishes eating away on our feet, rather ticklish, an interesting experience anyway since those fishes normally live only in mid-east countries like Turkey. I guess the conclusion is the fishes prefer a hairy meal since elson and sheila had pretty few fishes 'feeding' on them.

This is my leg btw(hope u guys can see the fishes)

It was Holland V for dinner after that and this is my first time to Holland V actually so an eye opener for me. Dinner at Crystal Jade was pretty normal nothing fanciful, the main course of la mian was very normal, nothing to boast about. The xiao long bao was pretty small with few soup in there though the skin is quite thin and the taste was quite good. The dumplings in chili sauce which I had blogge before when I went to Imperial Treasure at Marina South was quite good. Not too spicy yet the dumplings were quite big. Service was normal though they were prompt to refill our ice water.

Dumplings in chili sauce(we already ate half before the photo was taken)
My spicy beef la main( really very spicy, not nice)

Sheila & Kian ordered the la main in meat sauce

Desserts at my favourite Bedok 85 with 'new' discovery. I found out last nite that they actually sell Ah Balling there, my god after going there so many times I actually dunno abt that! For the info, Ah Balling is a dessert pretty much like Tang Yuan with its glutinous rice balls filled with sesame, peanut, yam or red bean but the base soup is peanut soup or ginger soup. This stall does it pretty authentic and I saw Terrence there, my TJ senior in Swimming and a nus mech eng classmate. Fun day out but can't do it too often, no money!

New phone + Day out in Orchard

I just bought a new phone which is actually not that new, as in its an old model but first hand. My W810i, from mobilesquare in far east. I had a day out in orchard rd today as well, Christmas lightings were really beautiful while the traffic sux like hell as usual. Walked around the malls without buying anything unfortunately. Dinner at DOME at Scotts was amazing, the quantity and quality were more than justified by the price. Eugene and I paid in total about $27, he had seafood pasta while I had a meal of Pan-fried Dory, garden salad and cuppa tea. For 12++, the seafood had ridiculously amount of ingredients, 3-4 prawns, squids and fish.... it was really a generous helping. If they get praised by fussy Eugene it really have to be good. My Pan-fried Dory was pretty good as well, 1 big fillet of dory fried with herbs, getting rid of any fishy smell it may have. There's also broccoli and cauliflower which were well-cooked unlike some I've eaten. It was also topped with a generous helping of wedges. The garden salad was rather normal, nothing special, maybe I should have tried the soup instead. House peppermint tea was also rather normal. Overall the helping was generous and the quality was pretty good as well. In the end Eugene even left his handphone in DOME, realising it only until when we reached Taka, so we made it all the way to Scotts and the next customer on our seats had it with them, lucky for him.

How could u....

My phone just died on me today, actually yesterday and today. It almost made me miss my last paper for today at 9am. It totally failed to activate and sound the alarm, fortunately I was awake at 6am probably anticipated its failure. When I got home and about to take a nap, it failed again, this time I can't even switch it on. So now I'm using the Nokia 6510 found in my house which my bro n I used it for NS(non-camera). I could sense it was going to break down already, so recently I was already on the lookout for a new phone. Right now in contention are Nokia 5310 and Sony Ericsson W810i. The Nokia one is pretty new and all, specs wise is more or less the same as the SE's rather old model of W810i. Of course price wise the w810i is cheaper and in my opinion looks better and I dun have to switch to a Nokia platform which I'm fumbling right now(that explains my short replies on sms). The only drawback is that many shops would probably not be selling a rather older model like the w810i. Think I probably need to go down to Far East one of these days.