.....times of refreshing.....

I finally enjoyed a Sunday with my kid as it was a holiday today in Malaysia and to his delight, he was got an unexpected holiday on last Thursday which gave him a long weekend. I brought him to to his tuition, improvement classes and church school as usual and he got a surprise that there was a performance from his church school as he quickly pick up the moves during the rehearsal. My little princess was getting better after being down with hand foot and mouth disease earlier of the week. It was terrible for her as she can't even eat and drink due to the ulcers in her mouth few days ago. I can imagine how painful is it! Really poor thing.

Anyway, glad all these have cleared up and after a long day, we decided to have Japanese food for dinner to wind down. I ordered quite lot of food just for the four of us, two adults and two small kids.

A beautiful sushi platter for all

A closer shot at the ika sushi

A chawanmushi for my little princess

My sukiyaki beef bowl

Teriyaki salmon bento for my wifey to share with my little princess

Tempura which comes with a Udon for my kid

And , he can't wait to eat it before I snap the udon ...sigh...

It was a roller coaster week for my wifey who needed to take care of my little princess, day and night. I am glad at least I can drove them around today for a Sunday retreat at the malls as usually it is classes for my kid. How good if Johor weekends remains like last year. :)

The World Cup started taking a toll on me today as I felt sleepy in the afternoon. I only slept for barely six hours last night due to an exciting match between Argentina and Nigeria which ended at 2am. I woke up at 8am as I have a meeting to attend at 10am. Anyway, thanks to my hour long journey to work where I can catch a nap to and fro, and felt fresher especially in the evening when I reached my gym. And, I was greeted with a beautiful sunrise at the Bottletree park in Yishun.

A colourful sunset

After my workout, I decided to pamper myself for a nice bowl of Japanese ramen and chawanmushi in nearby Northpoint Shopping mall at Men-ichi Ramen. I seldom eat good stuffs thus, I guess it's ok for once in a while. :)

My all time favourite chawanmushi for a starter .I always thought that Menichi makes good chawanmushi though it's plain.

And my main course - Sapporo Tonkatsu Miso Ramen

The miso broth was very well done as I can taste the thickness and fragrance of it and the ramen seems absorbed the broth while eating. It was a great bowl of miso ramen. I like it very much! After my dinner, I did some errands before heading home and getting ready for another match of football. Good thing I got no meetings tomorrow morning unlike today and I can rest longer. In addition, it's a rest day for football tomorrow  evening as the second round begins on Saturday.

Have a good weekend, folks!

Somehow I felt weaken by the flu and was kinda easily tired while having a game of badminton tonight. Anyway, glad I managed to made it till the end of the game and most importantly to me, it is to sweat. After the game, I was feeling a bit hungry at 9pm as I haven't taken any dinner yet, just two bananas before the game at 6pm. Thus, I joined my two colleagues for dinner and the initial plan of having chicken rice nearby didn't materialised as the shop was closed. We ended up at an Indian restaurant, since that area was Singapore's Little India.

We ordered much than we thought of and we have to eat slowly to finish it. As for me, I gotta eat with 'extreme' care as I don't want to be down by another sore throat since these are spicy food. hahaha...

Papadam for appetiser

A refreshing ginger lime mint drink to quench the thirst. This is good to prevent sore throat as I start my adventure of the spicy indian cuisines soon.

My second glass of drink - Mango lassi, which is 'cooling'. The lassi was really thick!

Naans - A mixture of garlic and normal. Have to eat it hot!

A platter of lady fingers and vegetables

Chicken tikka masala - My favourite to dip with the naans. The chicken was nice too, though a bit salty.

Tandoori Mushrooms.

The mushrooms are a bit weird as it taste like tandoori chicken minus  the chicken, but mushroom.

And , here's my dinner.

Well, as my colleague said, I gained back more than half of the calories I lost during the game. LOL ...  OK la, once a while will do for these type of food. Btw, I had three pieces of naans and it's really very full!!

The World Cup tournament has gone mid-way and it's been a great tournament so far. There were some surprises as defending champions Spain was kicked out of the tournament after two matches while home favourites like England also went out. Some other heavyweights like Brazil, Germany and Italy  have to wait for their last match to confirm qualifying for the next round.

Although the time difference is almost 12 hours here, there's no stopping me as well as my friends from watching. Usually, I will catched the first match at 12am or the last match at 6am. That means I needed to sleep late or wake up early. Sometimes, I only watched the first half of the first match and the second half of the last match. There are no problems on weekends as I can stayed up to watch the matches.  However, with the second round beginning soon, it will be harder to watch as the matches will starts in the wee hours of the morning.

World Cup fever ... yours truly again selfie with my little princess... lol

Anyway, all the 'sacrifices' are worth it as this is a once in a 4 years event but I needed to take care of my health too. It will be easier to watch in the next edition as it will be Russia where the time difference is not that great. For now, let's enjoy the current one! :)

It has been a long weekend for me as I was on leave last Friday. Well, nothing grand over the weekend but I thought of spending more time with my kids, especially my son, who has replacement class on Saturday, while Sunday is his usual school day. As usual, we went to the malls to run our errands and most of the time, I will take an opportunity for a good coffee break. This time round, I had coffee with my little princess while my wifey get some stuffs with my kid.

First thing first ...selfie with my princess

As usual, she picked her favourite strawberry slice cake. The cake design seems change a bit from triangular to rectangular. However, it's still soft , delicious and lots of strawberry slices.

Halfway done with her cake ....

I also got myself my favourite sandwich too, ham and cheddar cheese ciabatta with fries. It's just nice for a coffee break, not too full and light. The fries were good too! I can smell 'potato' here compared to those in fast food chain, where it's the smell of the oil used to fried it.

And, lastly not forgetting my cup of Americano.

Have a good week, folks!

1. I have been getting much and much better after being struck down by the influenza virus which left feeling so terrible over the last weekend where I spent almost the weekend in bed. Well, I am back to my exercises as I really needed to sweat in order to feel good, but then, I only did light workouts on Monday and Tuesday and played an hour of badminton yesterday evening. I also supplement myself with 1000mg of Vitamin C daily.

2. I blogged about the disposable cleansing wipes for lens, eyeglasses, camera, tablets and etc back in April (link). My generous colleague got me this famous lens-maker brand, Zeiss, cleaning wipes. At S$10, there were about 50 pieces in the box. I tried using it and the pungent smell of alcohol was lesser compared to the brand that I am using while the effects are more or less the same.

Zeiss cleaning wipes for lenses

3. I was watching World Cup matches almost daily at 12am before I sleep and at 7.30am after I have just wake up but haven't wash up yet. Most of the time, I will just watched the first half in the evening and then, for the morning matches, I will go for the second half. The timing are just right! Lunches and tea breaks with colleagues are also about football. Am I 'eat' football, 'sleep' football  now ?

Breakfast at Subway

4. I try to have nutritious breakfast and good coffee after the matches so that I am fresh and alert for the day.  I had a Subway sandwich on Tuesday morning and two half boiled eggs with toasts yesterday. :)

I will be on leave tomorrow to bring my kids out for a nice day out. Have a good weekend! :)

Somehow I felt some of the best fish soup are found in Singapore. Or well, maybe I am not aware of other places in  Malaysia. I really like this type of fish soup which contains lots of thick chunky fish meat and a very delicious soup, added with fresh milk. There were also slices of ginger added into the soup. I didn't really see much of this type of fish soup in JB or other places in Malaysia.

Arh... I was down with a real terrible flu over the weekend ... on the eve of the World Cup. It seems all the exercises and nutritions have no match for the influenza virus! However, the good news is I never have had such a 'big' flu since two years ago, so I guess what I am doing is still right..LOL. And, I also needed to rest more as sleeping at 1am daily seems not doing a good thing for my health.  Well, I was bedridden for 2 days, thanks to the super drowsy meds and I had to miss the world cup matches, and only managed to catch the highlights. Anyway, glad I am better today and managed to catch the Italy v England match.

It was a soothing lunch today when wifey cooked up a boiled soup with lots of ingredients inside. She called it her steamboat kinda dish. Since I was kinda dehydrated, its very comforting to have something warm and soupy.


I will get some Vit C later as well as Hor Yan Ho herbal drink. I also requested the doc to jab me with a flu vaccine as I really hate to get another one. Hope it will chase the flu away for a long long time! Have a good week, folks!

It seems not a good idea to leave me alone in Singapore while my family was in KL holidaying. Well, I did spent my time well by keeping myself busy but yet, I also bought a lot of things and spent a lot of money since I got so much time for shopping over the last weekend. Besides running my errand and buying little stuffs that I needed, I also got the following which I like so much. In addition, it's the Great Singapore Sale!

A Nike back bag to replace my Camel bag, which was going to spoil soon due to overloading. LOL This bag comes with Nike "Max Air" shoulder scrap makes it comfortable for me to carry the bag. It was big enough for me to put my notebook, power adapter, small gadgets, running shoes and clothes , as well as my tablet or book.

I currently got two old running shoes, a Skechers and a Reebok. However, I find that the Skechers cushioning was very soft and usually my feet will ache after a while, even walking. The Reebok one was very hard and my feet will numb after wearing for very long. So, I thought maybe its time to ditch both my two year old running shoes and go for Nike again. It comes with a comfortable cushion called Fitsole 2 and I got a good discount since it;s the Great Sale.

My kid always pestered me to get him a train set as he always love to travel on the MRT in Singapore, while he was here two weeks ago. So, since I got a S$20 off for this train set from Takara Tomy, well, not a bad buy.


I got myself a nice dinner on a Sunday evening after a long workout which altogether it cost S$12.

Salad with thousand Island

Mashed potato

And, the main course - Aglio Olio with chicken meat and mushrooms.

It's still a long school holidays in Singapore until month-end and most of my colleagues were on leave for one week or two weeks. I also yearn to take off to go somewhere but too bad,  the Malaysian school holidays will ends this week. It's not too bad for my wifey and kids, as they managed to travel to some other parts of the country but not me as some of my proposed holiday plans doesn't materialised. :(

Fried Rice with braised egg, salted vegetables and crispy pork chop

My wifey and my kids had gone back to my in-law side over the weekend which means I am alone in Singapore. Well, coincidentally, there was a seminar on vitamins and nutrition, on a Saturday afternoon and I decided to spend some time listening to what the experts said, rather than lazing at home. After all, time is precious and how good it is to use it for our self-improvement and well being. After the seminar was over, I had food and drinks with some new found friends. It seems a great Saturday afternoon.

I continued my Saturday by shopping alone for my errands as well as checking out certain stuffs. It's really been awhile I had so much time shopping in Singapore. Most of the time, I always rush to get the things I want and leave. And, while the shopping is done, I rewarded myself with a fine bento.

A bento set for dinner which consisted of chawanmushi, teriyaki chicken, salmon sashimi, tempura and miso soup.

The dinner was really a lot and it kept me full for the entire night. I decided to plan for tomorrow, probably go to church in the morning and a long workout in the afternoon. By the way, it's time for me to write my post and reading other blogs. And, that's a wise thing to do, right ?  :)

The school holidays have started and I decided to take a half - day leave to accompany my family to shop at the west side of Singapore. The Jurong area was really bustling recently with the opening of three new shopping centres in recent years - J-Cube, Westgate and JEM. Somehow, I prefered Jem more as it's bigger and have lots of varieties. 

Vegetable roll .. one of the the popular Vietnamese delicacy

Fried rolls, which came together as a set of mixed roll which I ordered. My kid loves it. The six rolls cost around S$10.80.

I had a Beef Soup with beef slices and balls. The soup was nice , not too salty and filled with beef aroma. Cost S$8.80.

Hotspot seafood set - This is for two persons where my wifey shared with her sister. There's a lot of ingredients in the pot  - prawns, fish, mushrooms, mussels and etc. It's actually tom yum if I am not wrong as it taste like one. This cost S$14.80.

Fried Rice Seafood ... Seems a lot of folks having this. Cost S$8.90

And, not forgetting my favourite Salty Plum Soda a well as a Ice Lemon for my wifey.  Cost S$4.50 for the Salty Plum Soda.

I had this at Umatei  Japanese Restaurant in Permas Jaya, JB.

Marine Elements Body Wash and Intensive Cream

His condition before using the products

After one day, his skin seems clearer and less red.

After 3 days of using, the lesions seems clearing and he also mentioned its less itchy, though there's still some degree of itchiness.

After a week, I think the products really work as his condition seems clearing though we still have to apply the cream religiously. My wifey even asked me where can we buy the products in JB instead of online.

Somehow , fresh eczema flares out after the second week which also affected other parts of his body and there are fresh redness at the same part. I guess its due to his condition which we have to continue to apply the cream.