Sunday, November 21, 2010

Muffins on a Vintage Plate























My mum's marvellous muffins for tea time!

The old school carnival

It felt good to be back.

I have a lot of good memories in this place, seeing as my batch of schoolmates & I probably spent more years in this place than any others because of school-building projects.

My mother and aunts raised money for this school when they were in school.
I did my fair share of spell-a-thons and walk-a-thons too. At least I got to enjoy the new place.

Some things never change, for here we were attending a carnival to celebrate the school's 80th anniversary and well, the money goes into some upgrading projects, I'm sure?

It was an impressive carnival. Huge! Three bouncy castles!








































We soaked in the atmosphere.

It felt good to walk across the field once more.

We went back to the hall where we'd had performances, overnight camps and O'level exams.


















Back to the courtyard where we'd had art lessons like drawing still-lifes of these statues. I think my fondness for museums and literature was nurtured in my time here.

I remember a piece of calligraphy pinned up on a noticeboard near the statues. It read: I think that I shall never see a thing as lovely as a tree.
In some funny way, that has stayed with me all these years.


















Retraced steps where we'd scampered up and down as little girls and later on as more sophisticated teenagers. And peered at the staff notice board where we were astonished to see that some teachers were still there (bless 'em) and astounded to see that the most unlikely of people had become teachers themselves and returned to the school. Life is funny.























Am glad that all that fund-raising helped to build such a beautiful place :)

Comfort Soup













































Soup! Slurp. Shown here is my mum's radish soup with carrots, diced mushrooms, dried scallops and pork bones.

Yummy.

Sometimes, all I need for dinner is a hot bowl of soup and plain white rice.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Ye olde mixer

I don't know how old it is.
But it is certainly from a different era, waaay back in the day...
I like the brown. The old-school stuff has a certain colour palette.











Baking with my mum






















As you can see, we made cookies today.
They were remarkably simple to make and oh! they taste. so. good.





















They went right into these trusty containers.





















Figuring we'd need a savoury snack for tea, we made sausage rolls too. Yummy.
















And all the baking was done by 12 noon, after we had a morning walk and cooked mee siam :)

Retro Biscuits

Totally ka-poed this photo from my brother.

I think I may have bought the biscuits, though.

Pretty, huh?

Sunday, November 14, 2010

On google and travel

My brother is off on his first trip to Europe this week and has been thoroughly enjoying the fun of reading guidebooks and doing travel research and making the hotel/transport arrangements.

Ahh, it brings back memories of Paris.

Like this restaurant in the Marais area (I think). Asian-inspired.

Le Petite Marche
9 Rue de BĂ©arn 75003 Paris, France

Enjoyed the duck (below).
























Maybe it's best not to over-research travel plans and to just go with the flow instead.
But if you wanted to read some reviews, you could (Summary: the food's nice and good value for money but the service is allegedly better for locals). And if you wanted to see what it looks like, you could, courtesy of google map's street view (hey! that noticeboard below the word restaurant is still there!). And oh yes, I remember the outdoor heaters that are the secret to how one can sit outside on a cold day and look warm :)

Door

They don't make doors like they used to.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Bali 2010: Seminyak

One of my favourite things to do in Bali: take a long jaunt along the streets of Seminyak. Target destination: unknown. But how fun to amble past single-storied houses, admiring the displays and ducking in when the fancy takes you. Back out onto the street, traffic whizzes by you and moves in fluid motion to accommodate tourist jaywalkers and locals on bikes that appear suddenly from small lanes. Stop for a drink and a nibble if you want to. And hey if you get tired, it's really easy to hop into a bluebird taxi to get to your next destination.
























Love the embroidered look of this chair in Chanti, a fusion restaurant along Seminyak.
























A random burst of pink. Enjoy!

Friday, November 5, 2010

As sweet as a meringue

Memories of a happy tea time.

Love... Pretty plates, chocolate cake, pastel-pretty meringues, cute
tiny cupcakes...

Breathtaking sky

Oh, the joy of sight.

(Took this photo one evening from my window. God is awesome.)