Fostering a dog
We have been wanting a dog even before moving into the new house and had seen and walked a few dogs. The lady at the rescue very kindly contact us immediately when a dog that's suitable for us came into her care. We got the dog from her yesterday night and are fostering the dog for her until 4 Jan 10 and then we can decide if we want to keep him.

He's such a lovely dog.

Snowed in

I love snow but not when I'm being snowed in!! My manager mentioned that she going off earlier (About 3pm) as she didn't want to be snowed in. I checked the Met Office website and there's no mention of snow in Essex (only mention of icy road), as such I continue working. At about 4pm, it starts to snow + sleet. I didn't think too much about it as there's no warning on Met Office website plus I was late coming into work this morning, thus stayed on. Left the workplace at 5.15pm and the snow was much heavier and there's a huge long queue getting out of the multi-storey carpark!

Walked to the car, listen to traffic news and also noticed that the cars in the carpark are moving very, very....... snail speed. Decided to walk around in the shops for a while for the traffic to calm down abit.

6++pm, decided to walk to the bus station to take public transport as there wasn't movement in the carpark. However, was informed by the staff at the bus station that not sure when the bus is coming. Lots of people waiting around too. Plan for public transport abandon.

7pm, decided to sit in Water Margin restaurant (overlooking the carpark) to have dinner and to monitor situation. Worst case situation = buy blanket at Asda (24 hours) and sleep in car.

8.30pm, cars are moving again. Decided to pay for the dinner and set off for home.

9.30pm, out of carpark but the roads are very icy and very slow getting out of town. On some of the icy road and upslope, the traction control button kept flashing (not good!!). Took the main motorway (M11) and travel at recommended speed (about 40mph).

10.15pm, finally home!!!

Next time, any slight snow, I'm the first to head home!!

Our house
Got the keys to our house on 10/11/2009, all becomes so real when I was driving to the estate agent to pick up the keys at about 2pm. It's officially winter but I didn't know how to switch on the gas/ radiator and electricity/ light. As we bought 2 reclining armchairs the weekend before and they were due for delivery at 4pm in the new house, I waited in the cold new house with my jacket on all the time (Sam was in meeting, thus unable to help me!!).

We decided to stay in the new place without bed, furniture, etc as Sam's monthly train ticket runs out the following day and my work place is nearer from the new house. We brought duvets, clothing from the old place, so managed to sleep with bare minimum stuff (no TV) for about a week until the movers arrive to pick up our things from old place on 19/11/09.

Had been busy shopping for furniture for the new place. We decided on the Ikea furniture (wardrobes, TV unit, bed frame) and had fixed up the furniture ourselves (That's an achievement!!). So far, we had been buying stuff for the new place (change locks, kitchen bin, etc, still more to buy!!), gone back to old place to tidy up, return the keys for old place on 11/12/09. All so busy, thus the lack of update.

Still to sort out the lowering of kerb for parking,

Cookie & Cream day 6


So happy that both of them are eating the lettuce while I'm holding it. Still frighten of us but not as much as first day.

House hunting progress

After weeks of waiting for the revised mortgage letter (postage strike, mis-communication as to whether it was posted/ processed, etc), the solicitor finally received it yesterday and we had just exchanged (10% deposit given, non-refundable) today!!

Completion date is scheduled for 10 Nov 09, next Tuesday, a week from today.

It's all real now!!

Cookie and Cream


Cookie (a buff self sow guinea pig, 7 weeks old, born on 30 Aug 09)


Cream (a white self sow guinea pig, born on 30 Jun 09)


The new pets in our family, bought home today)

Update on 1/11/09 : So glad that both of them are eating after a day of hiding and no sign of food being eaten.

Garden boundary issue

Think the house buying will fall through due to this garden boundary issue.

.......:(

Singapore week in SelfridgesWas informed by Renee previously about the Singapore week in Selfridges and have been looking forward to the event eversince and it's finally arriving!!

Known as the cultural melting pot of Asia, Singapore has a solid reputation as a food lover’s paradise. From exquisite fine dining to exotic hawker fare, the island has no lack of variety to satisfy even the most discerning gourmet.

Tastes of Singapore is a food promotion which will run in-store from 1 October to 7 October in the Foodhall, London Oxford Street to highlight the breadth and depth of grocery products available for use in sweet and savoury cooking from Singapore.

There will be 12 Singaporean brands stocked during this period with cooking demonstrations, food sampling and tastings each day.

The Gallery restaurant will also be offering a Tastes of Singapore Special Menu to coincide with the event from 28 September to 9 October. The promotion is in collaboration with the International Enterprise Singapore, the government agency spearheading the development of Singapore's external economic wing.

We look forward to welcoming you in-store to experience Tastes of Singapore!

Definitely going to London next week.

Mortgage
We thought Abbey has a backlog too after reading the forum, thus was prepared for the long wait when the mortgage adviser informed us end of last week that the survey will hopefully be done this week. Was in abit of shock today as we just received the mortgage details with the valuation survey done through the post!!

Valuation amount = our offer amount. Good news as we don't need to top up any diff!!

Now to wait for the solictor to sort out the paperworks......

Doggie
Since we were back from Liz's place earlier this month, we can't help thinking about the yellow labrador dog at Liz's. We been looking at different breeds of dogs, dogs training programme (The dog whisperer - Cesar Millian & It's me or the dog - Victoria Stillwell) to see if we are up to the responsibilities of a dog owner and the committment. We like an Airedale (as in picture), just need our keys to our new place and some convincing that we are up to being dog owners.

House hunting
After viewing 20+ properties, we found the one we like, put in offer, negotiate price and offer accepted last Wednesday. However the property will only be taken off from the market after payment to surveyor, thus mad rush last Thursday and Friday to sort out mortgage, appoint solicitor and surveyor. The property was off the market on Friday late afternoon (stated as SOLD subject to contract and there's no more viewing from today onwards).

Both of us are looking forward to owning our first house!

Walking with dinosaurs
Last Sat we visited O2 Arena for the Walking with dinosaurs tour. Due to engineering works, Jubilee line was not in service, thus we had to take the replacement bus service and took us ages to and from O2 Arena to Stratford Tube station (Central line).
Overall the Walking with Dinosaurs show was good, the texture of the dino and the blinking of the eyes were very real. Sound effect and co-ordination were excellent. However, I was disappointed that the big dino were not walking properly on 4 or 2 legs (there was a log like item in the middle of the big dino to control all the legs movements, although it's painted the same colour as the floor, you can see it very clearly).

My first attempt at Pulut Serikaya
Obtained the recipe from the Cooking to a degree cookbook from Jaster, it's actually much simpler than I thought. Just need abit more green colour and less rice.

Sam's comment : The green layer should be a bit thicker, but the taste is good.

Png Kueh 饭桃

Recipe for Png Kueh from these 2 website ( Asian Eats and Roseskithcen)
Ingredients - Dough
300g rice flour
50g tapioca flour
Boiling water, about 2 rice bowls
A few drops of red food coloring

Ingredients - Fillings
300g glutinous rice, washed & soaked for 3 hours.
Soy sauce to taste
100 g dried prawns, washed and soaked
4 dried mushroom, soaked

Fillings
For the glutinous rice, add enough water (I used the water from the soaked mushrooms) and steam until cooked.
Cut the dried mushroom into strips and stir fry it together with the dried prawns until fragrant.
Add the cooked glutinous rice.
Add Soy sauce to taste
Mix well and set aside.

Kueh
Mix the flour together, add the boiling water until dough is formed and mix with a wooden spoon.
Add the red food colouring
Mix well and leave for a few minutes until the dough is not hot to touch. In the meantime, you can prepare a small bowl of water with some oil (water-oil solution).
Grease the plate for steaming and the mould for the kueh.
Knead the dough using the water-oil solution.
The hardest part of the task - Wrapping the filling and make the mould.
Pinch out a small round of the dough, flatten it and placed it over the mould, like a bowl.
Put about 2 tablespoons of fillings into the "bowl" & wrap the dough by pulling the dough together to cover up the fillings.
Press the wrapped dough into the mould. Knock the moulded dough out.
Place it on the greased plate and steam for about 15 mins.
Pan fry later when ready to eat.

The above recipe makes about 15 png kueh. I think it's possible to make more than 15 as I kept pushing the filings in and the skins are thin. Some leftover dough, thus likely to make more than 15 if you go easy on the filings.

Sam comment : Too light shade of pink!

Weekend trip to Madrid
We booked a trip to Madrid, arriving in Madrid last Sat and depart on Tues. The weather was simply too hot for us, feels like back in SG!!

Flew via BA and stayed at Hotel Praga, all booked via Expedia. The Madrid airport and the city are very well connected, we travelled everywhere via metro.

On the way to our first stop, we got lost and found ourselves at the Atocha train station.
Large plants and a pond full of turtles in the centre of the station.

First stop = Reine Sofia Museum
Modern art museum, not our cup of tea. Anyway, the entrance fee was free at the time we were there, thus worth the trip to see-see-look-look.

Realised that restaurant serve dinner late, thus we had a drink at Hardrock Cafe and walk to 25 Juan Bravo for dinner (as recommended by Telegraph).
There's not even a word of English on the menu and dinner is only serve from 9pm onwards!! However, we decide to order drinks and wait for dinner plus the waiter was very patient and tried his best to describe the menu to us. We can only guess and hope for the best for for what we ordered. The dishes were a plate of jamon (which is ham,really good), baby squid with chick pea (taste like chick pea so assume so as we can't read spanish!!) and goat cheese with crystallised onion (we thought he meant lamb stew, how wrong we were!!). The waiter was far to nice to us and we tried to finish off everything, although the cheese was just too cheesy to finish off!

Sunday
Had previously booked the bullfight online, thus need to arrive before 12.30pm to collect the ticket from Plaza del Carmen near Gran Via. Interesting building on the way.

Realised that the ticket price was only 24.70 euro each but we paid 32.40 euro each online.... At least we don't have to queue for the ticket at the entrance and had got the seats we want (first row of Category 2 and in shade).

Plan for Sunday is sight-seeing/ shopping and watch bull fight in the evening.
On the left : Plaza Mayor
On the right : Mercado de san miguel Not within my plan, but it was a great find and stop over for lunch here.

Oyster is Sam's favorite, thus a MUST have!
The smoked salmon was good.

Bull fight

The stadium was located near one of the metro station (Ventas), very easy to get to. At the stadium, you can rent seat cushion. The salesperson informed us that the fee is 2 euro each, we declined as I remember reading the forum that it cost only 1 euro. After we walked nearer to our zone, we saw the the cushion were rented for 1.20 euro, the previous salesperson were trying to cheat us (luckily I had read the forum!).
It's damn hot in Madrid, good thing Sam insisted on buying the seats in the shade, thank goodness for that!
The event consist of 6 bull fights, the first 2 were interesting, after that it gets abit boring and repetitive. However we stayed on, not wanting to miss out on anything. Our seats were fantastic as there's a father and son seated above us with the son kept asking questions (questions which we also like to ask) and his father seems to be very knowledgeable and explained all of them, with us tuning into their conversation.

Monday
The main purpose of our trip was to visit Segovia for it's suckling pig!! We saw a TV programme in UK which feature the restaurant cutting the suckling pig with a plate (see link for info), thus have decided to visit Segovia eversince. There's a fast train from Chamartin train station (Medrid) to Segovia-Guiomar, half an hour journey and a shuttle bus from train station to Segovia centre (about 20 mins). However the frequency of the train is about 1 and a half hour and we just miss the 10.30am train, thus we waited at the station for the next train at 12pm.

The restaurant we booked was Mason De Candido. We ordered a portion each and it was very delicious, juicy and the skin was very crispy. However I was very disappointed as they don't show the cutting of the suckling pig using plate.

After lunch, we need to walk the fats off!!

The Aquaduct, a heritage site. Magnificant!
Streets of Segovia and Cathedral.

Alcazar (Castle) of Segovia and we managed to climb the 152 steps in the tower of the castle.

We were back in Madrid at about 7pm and walked from Sol metro station to Plaza de la Independencia.
We wanted to take some night shots using our newly purchased Nikon D90, however we forgot to bring the tripod plus the sun sets at about 10pm, too late for us as we are too tired!

Tuesday
Slept till 10am and packed up to go back home.

九层糕

Steamed the kueh today using this recipe, however I'm using creamed coconut pack, thus it's abit more oily than usual.

9 layers and a red top layer as requested by Sam.

Photographer

Save my last post re wedding for the photographer (save the best for last)!! As per my previous post, we signed with AMPM and CS Lim was our photographer for the wedding day. Met up with CS Lim a few days before the wedding and was shown the different albums available. We were impressed with the 8R album and decided to upgrade our package and top up the extra.

The photos taken were amazing, all were very natural and definitely capture the moments of the day!!

Fetching the bride
A bride in waiting(Left) My sisters for the day. Friends and families we had been to my parents' flat were impressed that the flat looks much bigger and spacious as the sister had hidden the fridge and sewing machine behind them.
(Right) Sam arriving in the wedding car.
(Left) Sam finally managed to pass through my sisters' tasks and was pleased to see me.
(Right) Under the red umbrella and on our way to Sam's parents place.

Arriving in Bishan
Love the greens behind us (taken at Bishan HDB carpark)
(Left) Parents were impressed with this picture as they thought it was taken at some park. In fact, this was taken at Bishan HDB carpark.
(Right) Sam taking out my veil.

(Left & right) On our way back to my parent's place. We were amazed that these 2 pictures turn out so well and they were taken at HDB void deck.

Photo taking in Goodwood Park Hotel
Lovely picture of us in hotel
(Left) Both of us were very tired by the time we reach the hotel, but got to finish the shoot before we can rest!
(Right) Taken by the small pool in hotel
(Left) Taken in hotel's restaurant area.
(Right) A classic picture in front of the hotel.

Evening dinnerUs waiting to walk in
(Left) Both of us standing at the reception greeting our guests.
(Right) Cake cutting
(Left) I love this photo to bits!! Lovely shot of me in my evening gown and my hairdo.
(Right) Toasting with friends.