Feeding Frenzy

Hey all! Back from Vietnam and in one piece. It was just an overnight trip so I didn't get to see much of the city, but I did get a good feel of the traffic. First impressions, they have a lot of motorcycles and are experts in "creative" driving, of which one of the more innovative is driving against the flow of peak hour traffic.

Rush hour in Ho Chi Minh

I also had the most interesting massage experience. For the first time in my life, I had a full body massage done by a guy! The place seemed a bit dodgy cos men were massaged by ladies and ladies by men, not to mention the male masseuses were all young and virile. But at least mine didn't ask me if I wanted any "special" service. I think I would have run out screaming if he did.

It's called the Golden Lotus. Guess I should have known.

Anyway, the last weekend was a non-stop binge fest. And to Danny's absolute dismay, he wasn't part of it. He paid me back by yapping his head off during my nap so we're even.

Mom and hubby's birthdays are exactly one week apart, so although I brought hubby to Forlino for lunch, hubby got a family treat with mom at North Border Bar and Grill at Rochester Park.



I picked the place after reading the reviews from hungrygowhere.com. Love the ambience!



Food's not bad too!
The birthday tart was a special request from hubby. Knowing that I suck when it comes to hints, hubby hauled me down to Fruit Paradise at Raffles City about a month ago.

Hubby: Don't the tarts look nice?
Me: Wow! Ya. They look great!
Hubby: Good. I want one for my birthday.

Not very subtle, is he?

Anyway, I headed down just before dinner and picked out a Mango Tart with cheese cream and candles for 104 years. Looks yummy, yeah?


It was a big hit! There is loads of cream but even hubby's family loved it and they aren't cream people.

Here's another pic. I thought it was quite a cool shot of the cake.

The very next day, hubby had birthday treat number 3. We did the whole tourist thing and headed down to the zoo for breakfast with the wildlife.

Hubby's shy and wanted his face pixelated.

I really love the zoo! Every now and then we threaten to introduce Danny to the monkeys if he misbehaves (hey, if he's gonna act like one...). But the truth is, the monkeys are far better behaved than him.

Okay, FINE. They're orang utans. And they are very well trained. They came and left on cue without any fuss. One even tapao-ed a small branch on her way back.

I think the one in the middle is cute! Caption: "Er...what am I doing here again?"

The baby was uber cute!

The animals were only out for half an hour. We didn't have much time after that so we just wandered around for a bit after breakfast.

I'll leave you with clips from the otters' feeding time. Turn up the volume and you can hear them squeaking for the keeper to feed them. It's not in clip but the whole group of them went around the enclosure hunting for the keeper. They kept peering through the glass and under the fence.

I really have no idea how they know they are going to be fed! If anyone can figure it out, drop me a note.

The first clip really reminds me of Danny just before dinner time. Guess I should be glad I only have one dog.

Waiting for food

Feeding time!

Danny and other random stuff

Hey guys, just a warning upfront. I was really thirsty before I did this blog and downed a whole cup of punch before realising that it was seriously spiked. I'm feeling a bit wheeeee while doing this post so apologies if no one understands this.

Following up from my previous post, I did try to get the camera back from dad, However, every question was met with comments like "oh er... LOOK at the TIME!" before he scooted off. So, I really dunno what happened to the cam.

Anyway, I resorted to taking new Danny pics with my phone. Either I or Danny shook for the first one but I think the second looks pretty good! :D

"Hello! I'm back!"

Speaking of our friend, despite the overhanging threat of boarding school, he proceeded to completely destroy my bro's video tape the very next day. My bro wanted something recorded while he was at work and left the tape on the table. Somehow, Danny snatched it down and started to chomp on it. He did a pretty good job too. Two corners were completely gone and part of the tape was peeking out.

I've been really, really irritated with him when this morning NEA suddenly decided to fumigate the place without warning. I had mosquito-killing fog pour in from every opening of the house. Danny was in the balcony as usual, and he dashed in as far as he could, yelping away. At one point, he turned around a looked at the fog as it came in. He probably thought it was the end of the world.

Mom told me to close all doors and windows and I said "What about Danny?" Without skipping a beat, she said to toss him outside. I looked from her and then at Danny staring desperately at the weird smelly white smoke, and for a fleeting moment, I pictured him on his side gasping for any last molecule of air as the fog closed in on him.

I brought him in instead. I guess somewhere in between the incessent yelping and the active destruction of the house, Danny must have done something right.

He's an irritating furball, but he's MY irrtating furball.

"Saved! Whoa yeah!"

In other news, it's hubby's birthday today! I took him out for lunch at Forlino at One Fullerton. I read about it on Xiaxue's blog and decided to check it out.

It's a bit of a maze trying to walk to the restaurant but once you're in, you get a great view of the city.

Hubby and I had a great time people-watching. We were wondering why so many tourists were risking being fried in the afternoon sun to take photos at the Merlion, when we realised that's what we did when we were in Israel and the temp was like 40 degrees! I think all the Isrealis thought we were nutz!

Anyways, Forlino is quite classy. For ladies, they have a special chair for you to chuck your bags and the waiter came with a selection of napkins for us to choose from. We had an appetiser but I forgot to take pics. I should have though. It was sort of like mash potato mixed with bits of ham and fried like a harsh brown. Tiny thing on a relatively big plate but very nicely presented.

I did take a photo of the soup though...

...And promptly forget to take the main course. Still, I think the highlight of the meal was the LAVA CAKE! *drool*

It came with a small scoop of banana ice-cream. I was wondering why "banana" but really, it goes perfectly with the chocolate.

Hubby gobbled up half with cake before I even got a bite. (Humph! If it wasn't his birthday...) He was slurping it up when he dropped a bit of chocolate on the table. Being the highly mature person that he is, he fished out a mint leaf from the plate and started playing with the chocolate.
He calls this shot "Going Green". He said something about planting a tree in a nutritious pile of sh*t.

Humour the birthday boy, okay?

All this time, a waiter was hovering in the background. When hubby was done playing, he came over and promptly wiped the spot away.

We are soooo not five-star.

Not satisfied with stealing the lava cake, hubby continued on to swipe my cookies. I ordered the set, see? And it came with coffee and cookies. They called it something fancy, petite fours I think, anyway its cookies.

The one hubby's holding is almond, the white is a meringue and on the right are the butter cookies. Totally yums!

Despite his food thieving today, hubby's been quite useful recently. For the longest time, I've not been able to bend over when wearing certain dresses cos they're kinda loose on top, or having to bear with straps that slip off shoulder a bit too easily. (This is espeically since I started my blogshopping craze.)

I always hear about hollywood stars wearing gravity-defying clothes cos of some body tape but could never find it here. I mentioned it to hubby one day and in a couple of days he sent me a website and told me to look under "Hollywood Fashion Tape".

Considering it's just tape, it was a little pricey but I figured what the heck. No harm trying, right? The package arrived in a couple of days in nice pretty pink packaging too! It's like someone sent me a pressie.

I used it the other day and it really worked. I was out for about 10 hours and it held my top in place. Brilliant!

Got to hand it to hubby though. How in the world he could find girly girl stuff I really don't know.

Anyway, it's been a really long post and if you're still with me... yeah, cool! I hope to blog again really soon but given the state of my desk at the office, well, I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

Oh yes, this is really how my office desk looks like. It's not staged in anyway. I'm off to Vietnam next week for some conference so I have a ton of things to settle by then.

Take care, ya'll! And I'll see you real soon. Cheers!