lavanderblues

Friday, December 29, 2006

i wish...

lin~*
2:27 am

tis' the season to be jolly

lots and lots of meetups and parties this christmas season. came back from jp's place earlier, and am soo tired. i dont have photos from all the parties, but they will all stay as nice memories in my mind - before they all get booted out by microB stuff. bah.

26th dec - lunch with ruth, grace, shiyun and fiona at Han's at the national library. lots of tales of ruth's travels and exploits as always, and this time, she's on the milo tin! i really have to go check that out.

after that was the wonderful xmas party at mirriam's house! that was truly great. the food was all good, i had rave reviews about my choc cake hooray, and i got a lot of lovely xmas presents from my doting friends! now that made me feel really guilty, because im not in the habit of sussing out xmas presents for people. i just have never done that, apart from maybe lawrence's xmas present last yr and this yr, but he's special. so i really apologise for the lack of presents this yr to all, esp marcus, cel, zj, joshua, and mirri, who so thoughtfully got me really gorgeous and sweet stuff! food was great! our potluck really worked very well, and everyone contributed great stuff =) wk's mum's glutinous rice, li's rendang that's really sedap!, joshua's sushi, enming's otah, weeming's pasta, marky's tang hoon and potato salad, bean's chicken pie, mirri's cottage pie, sandwiches etc, zj's tiramisu, my choc cake, cel's gorgeous log cake, i hope i didnt leave anyone's out!

and being amongst bffs, the atmosphere was just so relaxed and comfortable it was really good. =) and here's my cake getting zj's enigmatic stamp of approval.

lawrence and me on the mrt =) perhaps the last coupley shot for now.

wednesday saw me meeting up with yun, diane and liangsi for dinner and girly chats. di's whirlwind trip back frm 24-29 dec. it was fantastic to talk to these girls after soo long. dinner at glutton's square, and then dessert at menotti's half priced pastries after 10pm. a hilarious episode involving me and my dream long chain heart necklace which i finally saw at miss selfridge, but was gone after i stepped out of the store for 10mins to consider it. ohwells.

yun and i making new yr wishes on plastic balls in the esplanade. to be thrown in the bay to float around on new year's day.

and to end off, a hilarious picture at topshop.

no pictures from jp's party this evening im afraid. check out wenkien's blog for more pics of our bff xmas party and jp's party tonight!

lin~*
2:03 am

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

day trip up north from chiang mai

on the second day, we hired a driver, mr jerry, to take us on a private day tour up north, mainly to the Golden Triangle and to visit the Karen Hill Tribe. Along the way, we stopped at other gorgeous places such as this sun drenched place for morning tea which i dont know the name of because i was too sleepy, the Mae Fah Luang gardens erected by the Queen mother to encourage agriculture and horticulture in the northern regions of Thailand, the border town to Myanmar, and a tangerine plantation.

It was an insane trip - 730 in the morning till 830 at night, travelling a distance thats the equivalent of driving to KL and back in one day. haha, but it was amazing, and we got to see so much in just one day.

shall let the photos do the talking, whilst i read about mycoplasmas.

lin~*
12:35 am

my cooking class in chiang mai

for 3 glorious hours in chiang mai, i had a wonderful home cooking class with Yui and Kwan and their lovely son Sid at the alotofthai home cooking "school".

Chiang mai is known for its numerous cooking schools. These come in all forms, from high class hotel restaurant classes (e.g. the Four Seasons), to these more localised home cooking classes organised by locals in their own homes! i opted for the latter, as i felt that i wanted to get to know the city better through its people, and it'd be interesting to visit one of their homes, and get to know them on a more informal basis.

It was a good choice. I chose this school after reading a raving review about it on a thai food web portal, and gave Yui (the teacher) a call when i arrived in Chiang Mai. On the appointed time, her husband Kwan drove to my hotel in his van, and picked me up. In the van were the 6 other students i were to be attending this class with; 4 australians and 2 americans. They all came in couples, whilst i was alone. My parents had no interest in joining me in this venture. Despite being alone, and feeling a little awkward being the only asian in the group, the warmth of Yui quickly endeared everyone in the group to each other, and i felt less lonely.

We cooked tom yum soup, green curry, and my favourite pad thai. =) she did it in the way that wld be easy for us to replicate at home; ie using stocks and pastes that wld be more easily available and accessible to us, rather than doing everything from scratch, which probably would have been more authentic. But the thought of having to pound curry paste for hours before just to make green curry for eg, would definitely deter me from ever cooking it again at home. As it was, the dishes turned out great, and i have fair confidence in cooking them again =) We all had our own little cooking stations, and were allowed to customise the dishes to our own tastes and liking! (I astonished everyone in the group, even Yui, with the amount of chillis i insisted on adding in my food hahaha!)

The lessons also included a local market tour, which presented no particular interest to me because its basically the same as the wet markets in singapore, but was definitely an eye opener to the caucasians.

lin~*
12:22 am

Monday, December 25, 2006

images from chiang mai city

lin~*
11:09 pm