Eat, travel, play and chill: January 2019

Good bye 2018....

Managed to piece together all the highlight photos for this past year 2018 and i have to say it had been a most interesting and eventful yet eye opening year for me. It had not been smooth but everything sort of work out eventually and I learnt so much this year.

It’s my first time in Iceland and Denmark and my first time seeing the northern lights.

Iceland-loved the Icelandic horses there as they were so tough and steady yet tame and calm to live outside in harsh Icelandic weather. The winds in Iceland was v strong and airports and all activities were shutdown or cancelled. Saw cars being overturned and it was scary during the trip to Snaellefelles as the bus died on us.

Denmark- was impressed with their transport system and their roads. They have separate roads with traffic lights etc just for cyclists unlike in Singapore where cyclists and cars have to share the same road and it’s a danger to cyclists...if only such system exist here, then OBike etc would not have gone bankrupt.

Creative figure illustration 1 course- it’s been a mind and eye opening experience for me into the world of arts. Learnt a lot of things and pick up many tips and techniques on drawing and painting.

Lyon/Geneva/EAFS- attended the European association of forensic sciences conference held in Lyon France in Aug. Made a great friend and a lunch buddy and visited Geneva Switzerland for the first time.

Japan trip in May- saw blue nemophilia at hitachi seaside park for the first time. Regretted gg Japan during the golden week. Tried the Totoro cream puff at the Totoro cafe.

Caninewellness-Sent Poochi for swimming and hydro threadmill therapy session as his hind legs are deteriorating with age. Poochi’s face became their Instagram mascot. Poochi condition improving.

Taiwan Nov- went Taiwan for a short trip after hubby’s 3 weeks attachment in France. Happened to conicide with Pokémon safari event!

Besides that, I also learnt to use the LCMS and GCIRD, 2 major equipments during that year. So, it’s been a great learning year for me. Hope 2019 will be just as amazing or even better!

The Little Prince exhibition at the Philatelic Museum

Visited the Philatelic museum during the last day of the year since it’s a half day workday.

I love the little prince and they are having the little prince exhibition now. How can I not go?! Especially since it’s free entry for Singaporean.

What I like about the little prince is the illustration and also the story which I am able to relate to.

No matter which time and age you belong to, the quotes in the story are all v meaningful and relevant to present day society coz even though our environment and appearance changes with passing time, the hearts of men will never change....

There was a dark room showing some of the little prince characters. It feel like another world...

Lotsa other info and exhibits on the life of the writer, Antoine de Saint Exupery.

Besides the little prince exhibits, there were other interesting stamp collections upstairs such as the ones made from silk, wood, ceramic etc and the ones with fragrance such as chocolate, strawberries and one pig horoscope stamp from China which had sweet and sour pork taste! Haha...definitely worth a visit.

Artea at vivo

Went to Artea with my colleague during lunchtime on 26th Dec as they are having 1 for 1 on their drinks. Realized it’s only for their non fruit tea....and somehow they dun serve fruit tea during that time when we ordered...dinoe why but I can’t remember the reason they said. Anyway we ordered their normal tea and a tiramisu soufflé pancake which took 30mins to arrive....quite ridiculous since there wasn’t anyone in the queue when we arrived.

However the queue built up and snake real long after 12.30pm....can’t imagine how long they have to wait for their pancakes....

Anyway the tea was nice, and the whipped cream on top was flavorful and creamy with some cornflakes on it. Yes, the cup was v big but it’s only half filled. At first we got a shock at how big the cups were and thought it’s really value for money....haha....gana cheated....

After exactly 30mins, our soufflé pancake was finally ready. Ok, it taste really nice, with a soft warm interior and a v bouncy texture. But no way I’m gg to wait 30mins for that during my lunchtime. I think they need to find a way to shorten the waiting time for a pancake otherwise it’s gg to be bye bye soon....

Ippudo shio ebi wanton noodle, Yifang bubble tea

Had lunch during the last week of Dec 2018 with hubby at Ippudo mandarin gallery. They are currently having this new item on the menu: shio ebi wanton noodle. At first I though it was a prawn based ramen. But it turned out to be a chicken based ramen soup with prawn wantons. Anyway, it was v delicious as the soup was v rich in flavors and it felt like I was drinking some double boiled chicken soup. The wanton was made from a whole prawn. Before I know it, I have finished drinking all the soup....

After that, we discovered a new Taiwanese bubble tea shop which just opened recently at the basement of Somerset 313 area. It called 一芳 Yifang and they specialize in fruit tea.

We bought the lugu oolong tea and the multi floral honey mountain tea.

The oolong tea was just normal to me but I really like the muli floral honey mountain tea. It’s not too sweet for me and I like the light fragrance of the tea.

Maybe next time I’ll try the Yifang fruit tea....hehee...

Taiwan trip-Pokémon safari Tainan

So happy that there was a Pokémon event at Taiwan during my trip there. The only con was that I need to travelled down to Tainan for that. Initially wanted to go Yangming Shan national park or jiufen but did not go in the end coz as a Pokémon fan, how can I missed gg for this event!

We took the high speed rail which is their bullet train from Taipei to Tainan and from there we took a train to Bao An station which was just a few stops away.

From the station, it was another 10 mins walk to the Pokémon event. Omg, there were SO many ppl there!

It was so unbelievable that there are still so many ppl playing this game! Everyone look like zombie waking around but staring at their Hp....haha....

The event was held in this large park where there is a very nice European style museum in the center.

This place was really nice if only there aren’t so many ppl and the weather was really damn hot and humid that time. I would recommend paying a visit to Chimei museum coz it’s really quite impressive.

Snapshot from my hp. This is how it looks like from the game point of view. The park was full of pokestops and it keeps spawning rare Pokémon like unown which are alphabets Pokémon and there are 7 of them which made up the word “Tainan zone”

There are also regional specific Pokémon called Relicanth which used to be only found in NewZealand can now be caught here!

So everyone was busy catching and catching.....haha....

However, the connection was not v good as there are simply too many ppl and v often, the game hanged halfway or could not connect to the server. V frustrating.

There was also a pikachu and evee performance. But I did not watch as there are too many ppl and too hot...

There was a stretch of road called memory lane containing pokestops of all the past wall papers in this game. Can’t resist taking a snapshot of them all.

After a few hours, we decide to leave as it was too crowded and our connections to the game was bad....

Dejectedly, we left and decide to come back again tmr morning to try our luck again coz we haven’t catch all the unown pokemons.

We stayed for 1 night at Tainan station at Shangri-la far eastern hotel.

Stayed on the 22th floor. The room was spacious and comfy.

The view from the window was fantastic! There were no buildings obstructing the view as the hotel was the tallest building in around. It’s like a million dollar view for us as we can see almost the whole of Tainan from our windows.