Happy New Year 2015!

Wishing everyone a very happy new year (2015)! May everyone be closer to or achieving their aspirations and new year resolutions for this coming year!

Malacca (Melaka) Trip - Food Galore!

Trip was from 26/12/14 - 28/12/14. It's a short trip, but it was genuinely quite relaxing and fun. The food there was really satisfying, much so that I often overate and gloated myself up at times. :x

Checked in at the Hatten Hotel:

 Hatten Hotel-lobby

After checking in, My family and I dumped our bags and headed out soon thereafter for our food hunt!

Here is a collection of all the food that I had there and hopefully you'll get a chance to try them on someday.

1. Ah Hui's Bak Kut Teh

This was actually a humble shop near to our hotel and which we decided to give a shot.

The Bak Kut Teh broth was really flavorsome. It certainly did have a unique taste to it which differed greatly to those from Singapore which were usually more towards the spicy nature. You could taste the mixture of the ingredients in the soup which certainly left an impression in my mind. Top it off which some beansprouts, tofu and rice and you certainly have a great inexpensive and delicious meal!

2. Nadeje Melaka

This shop was something my bro recommended. Apparently it is a really famous shop selling Crepe Cakes. It was certainly welcomed by the people there judging from the looong queue, so much that we decided to join the (still not so short) take-away queue so as to be able to get our food faster.

There are loads of choices to choose from, some of which includes original, green tea, mango, etc. The cake itself had pleasure-rich layers of butter-soft creaminess; immaculate in terms of texture, subtle & not too sugary. One of the better cakes I've eaten in my life admittedly.

3. Jonker Street

This is the one place in Malacca everyone will go to. It is the busiest street with loads of shops selling all kinds of tasty treats and cheap keep sakes.

 Carrot Cake, Curry Fishballs

The carrot cake tasted really different from the one in Sg, but definitely in a good way. It has this crisp, aromatic flavor to it after ordering it from some street vendor. Not to mention, it was really cheap!

 Rojak

Oh my, the beancurd skin was so crunchy, everyone was fighting to get some of it! Top it off with some of the sauce and you'll be taking another before you know it.

 Satay

Blazin' Oysters!

This stall caught our eye. Their preparation looked really cool and flashy, so much that we had to order a set of cheese oysters from them. After seasoning the oysters, they got down to actually scorching it with a torch before serving it to us and it tasted heavenly! :D

Cheese Egglette

Otah

 Twisted Potato

These came in a variety of flavors. I believe in Sg Pasar Malams, the way it is served is that they put sauces on the whole stick before serving it to you. When we ordered here, the flavors came in the form of powder which was sprinkled all over it.

Jonker 88

Jonker 88's Famous Cendol!

Located somewhere in the middle of Jonker Street is a well known store for their (Durian) Cendol. We're pretty lucky to get some seats when we arrived and had to jump straight into ordering some.

Taste wise, it was super refreshing after all the walking we'd done so far on the day. The durian taste was really prevalent yet the sweetness was just right. The generous toppings of Gula Melaka provided a slightly different taste to all the Cendols that I've been used to, making it a memorable taste experience!

 

Hot Dog wrapped in an egg, topped off with mayonnaise and cheese. Mmmmm...

Quail Eggs w/ Ham

That night, there were also loads of shops selling really unique souvenirs, hand-made products and providing all kinds of services from hand-painting to fortune telling to foot massages. Never really stopped for those though as the only thing I wanted was foooood. I'm such a greedy ass. ~_~


Jonker Street - (Following Morning)

Revisited again the following morning to check out whatever we have missed again as there were really too many shops to go to.

Non-Alcoholic Cocktails

Got some of these bad-boys which looked like a pretty appetising drink which will serve us in what's there to come and that is queuing up for this chicken rice ball shop under the sweltering sun for a really looooong time. Apparently, this shop closes at about 2pm in the afternoon as it would've already been sold out by then which was why I didn't get to go to it the day before.

Chop Chung Wah's Hainanese Chicken Rice

 Shop Sign

Look at the damn queue to this place

Chicken Rice Balls w/ a whole Chicken

The rice balls were really soft and scrumptious. You could barely taste the grains of rice at all which means that they probably crushed and molded it till it is as such. In addition, the chickens (from what I heard) that they use is those kampong ones that are free to run about everyday which gives them a lot of exercise, making the meat more tender and less fatty. 

Served with lime juice and chilli which was quite 'gao', I'd say the meal was certainly worth the wait.

Continued walking down Jonker Street after the hearty chicken rice ball meal and here are more of my findings(loot):

 Gula Melaka 

Freshly-made Ondeh Ondeh

These balls of fluff didn't really catch my eye initially. However, after my dad bought some and told me to try it, I was swept away by it's sweetness enveloped amongst the dough and coconut bits.

This concludes the journey within Jonker Street. The time spent here on the first night and second morning was certainly worth it. Time to find look for some other local delights.

6. Makko

Based on many reviews and recommendations online, this was next on the list. Visited the place at around 5.45pm, only to find the place closed. Thank god it was going to re-open at 6pm though and more importantly, that we unknowingly had ourselves to be the first in line. Before we knew it, throngs of people started to come minutes after and a long line started to form behinds us

Basically the place served Nyonya cuisine and the staff were all dressed in those traditional Peranakan attire which was quite nice when we were served with our food.

 The spread

For a table of 5, we had a total of 8 dishes (Beancurd, beef rendang, otah-otah, potato leafs, chicken, mango salad, sotong and salted veg soup). Sounds overkill? Nah, we finished it all.

It was a really enticing meal. You could literally taste and appreciate the nyona influences in the dishes. My personal favourite was the sotong, stole a lot of those from the table! Haha.

7. A&W

 Sign

 A&W Bear

 A&W Root Beer Recipe

 A&W Family Meal

Fun fact about A&W is that the last outlet closed in Sg a while back and to my knowledge, there's no A&W branch left in Sg. This was the last stop we'd visit before heading back to Sg. My mom was pretty enthusiastic to try their root beer float which had a 'flatter' root beer base, topped off with ice cream. The curly fries were fantastic as well, adding on a couple of swanky frank hot dogs + chickens and burgers, it was time to get fat! Om nomonomomom :O

Oh yeah, got myself a pair of new walking shoes from a nearby shopping mall before heading back. (Thanks mummy!)

lonsdale shoes

Overall, the trip really did spoil my taste buds. Sometimes till the point where my stomache could no longer take it anymore... lol. Oh well, I regret nothing though! 

Malacca is definitely one of those destinations worth checking out if your planning a short-food oriented trip to spoil yourself a little. Not to mention, it is also relatively inexpensive compared to Sg. Exchange rates are pretty good now, so what are you waiting for? :D

Christmas 2014 Celebration

Merry Christmas! (Today) - 25/12/14

Though I stopped believing in Santa at about 12, it's still nice to have some form of gathering with your relatives that you have not seen for a while.

Had to visit both my mom's and dad's side every Christmas eve which can really prove to be quite a chore, but it's better to keep in closer contact with your relatives I guess.

(Yesterday) - 24/12/14

First was my mom's side, arrived at my aunt's house at around 6.30pm to get all the food ready, here it is:

The mini-spread

Sushi!

Log-cakes

Food wasn't too much, but it definitely was enough for all of us. I ate a lot of ham, good thing that my mom kept some extra at home for me after :) but that's besides the point. 

It was about 8pm and had to head over to my dad's side for a BBQ Xmas gathering as well on the same day. My family headed over to visit. We don't really meet with our dad's side as often, unless there are special occasions hence there are times where I feel kinda distant from them which is really a pity, but still I was glad that I was able to be cheerful in the setting and huge thanks to those uncles and aunts at my dad's side that made us feel really welcomed!

Headed back to mom's side again for drinks. Initially chatted up again with the cuz's on my mom's side and managing some of the difficult ones is sooo tiring but you really gotta do it sometimes, good thing for my cousin JJ being a great entertainment center (at first), till he got drunk and emo! Haha.

Drinks! ~_~

The goal was to get people as drunk as possible but I really forgot that people become quite annoying under the influence of alcohol and it becomes such a chore to take care of/manage them. Should have just ignored their asses.

Then came the gift exchange, here's the small spread of gifts among the 'younger' generation people:

Presents!

I guess generally everyone was rather o-k with their presents. Personally, I got a large photo frame which was from my bro. There were bolsters, face-wash, some fruit-mixer water bottle, chocolates, etc. My present was a personalised calender with pictures of the relatives on each month of the calender. Had to custom make it online and have it delivered to me. The delivery ($11) costs more than the gift($8) itself as I had to put it on priority delivery for fear that it would not arrive in time. ~_~ Good thing that the recipient liked it though!

Played a couple of 'party games' after, which included 'beer battle ships' and 'beer pong' till about 2am. People were getting tipsy and it got quite annoying to talk to some of them after they had a couple of drinks. I eventually had to go 'manage' people which was really quite chorish especially those stupid ones with stubborn and strong personalities. Oh well,  I really need to start ignoring those fuckers. =/

Headed over to a 24hour coffee shop stall for noodles and waited to catch the first bus back home. Slept soundly till about 2pm the next day (today) and went for a detox run to get rid of all the alcohol crap from my body. 

Overall, it was an o-k-ish christmas, feel that as I age I kinda lose some of the festive spirit in me. :(

Still, Merry Christmas everyone! Looking forward to the New Year (2015) ahead.

P.S. Oh yeah, heading over to Malacca tomorrow, so I'll get back to that when I return! :P

My Experience at SCMS 2014

I've posted a while back in August (here) that I've signed up for the Standard Chartered Marathon 2014, and the time has finally come.
Another one of the reasons why I actually decided to do a marathon now is that I am currently in the best shape of my life! It's the perfect time to do it, otherwise when you get older, you may not get the chance to go through such an experience.

Did some prior trainings to do this and hopefully it pays off on the actual day of the run itself.


4th Dec (Collection of Race Pack)

The official collection dates are 4-6Dec, I went on the 4th to collect it. Thanks to my friend for accompanying me all the way to expo even though you had no business there, was really nice. :)

Banners at Expo

Queue-ing up for the race-pack

After collecting my race-pack and the baggage bag, had to actually weave through a whole maze of sports apparel shops + tons of future running events that are happening in 2015, offering super early bird discounts before I could get out.

Contents of the Race-pack

Included in the race-pack is your no. tag, a wrist-band where you can engrave your timing at the end of the marathon if you want, a running singlet, muscle gel, brochure(s) and a baggage bag + form if you indicated that you needed one.

7th Dec (Actual Full Marathon Day)

Was late by 3 hours. What the hell! Apparently I shut my alarm clock off without even realising it. Got my bro to drive me to ~ the 18km mark (average timing of where the ppl will be in 3h) as there was no way the starting line was still opened and I was prob DQ-ed already. Still, I thought that I would finish the other 24km, if not really waste money sia. I eventually did in ~3hours.

Anyway, gonna talk about the race itself from where I started(18km):

The feeling of running with a large pack of people really gets your adrenaline pumping, with the addition of the new running music tracks that I've added to my phone, the run feels a lot more manageable initially due to the 'high' that I get haha.

It was really heartening to see that there were many people who were 'running for a cause'. I can see this from their shirts. E.g, their shirts had prints to raise awareness for people with diseases.

As for the run itself, initially it was alright, I was jogging at a really slow pace as I knew that it would be a long run, still overtook a lot of people though.

At about the ~35km mark, I was really in quite some pain. Walked a lot from this point onwards, tried running but my calves were about to give way. It's the kind of feeling where the calve muscle tighten so much that there is this sharp excruciating pain. If I were to exert it any further by running, I would have clearly fallen flat face first (literally), due to my legs giving out.

Oh well at least I'm done with it.

Post-Race Photos:

Would really like to thank my bro for sending me back home after the run and also for getting Mc Donalds fto feast on! :D

Well-deserved treat! Hahaha

Finisher Tee & Medal:

Front-view

Back-view

I know that I didn't exactly run the full thing (24km only) since I was late, but oh well, you can hate on me if you want for taking the T-shirt. I just had to, I kinda did pay for it ya know. (fuck this sounds just like some pussy ass excuse, shit) >.>

Peace out.