Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Holiday Blues

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It's the time of the year where holiday seasons begin. I miss going on holidays ....

Thursday, October 30, 2014

3rd Wedding Anniversary

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3 years, 1096 days, we walked through another year of our marriage.

Happy Leather Anniversary, my love! 
 

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Malacca 2014: 5 things to do in Malacca

Malacca, located on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia, is often termed as "The Historic State". Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city centre eludes a strong blend of historical and cultural influences from Portuguese, Dutch and British rule. Over the weekend, the Sisters embarked on a road trip to Malacca, braving the infamous Malaysia jam to enjoy a 2D1N sisterly trip!
1. Asam Laksa at Jonker 88
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The most famous icon of Jonker Walk, Jonker 88 is no doubt the place to go for a bowl of asam laksa. Based on a home-made recipe, the laksa is served with noodles and tipped with cucumber, onion slices, tofu pok and a spoonful of tuna. Be prepared to brave the queue before you are greeted with a bowl of delish noodles. 
2. Conquer Jonker Street
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Conquering Jonker Street on a weekend is no easy feat. This street comes alive at night, bustling with roadside stalls that sell everything under the sun - ranging from tasty snacks to cheap souvenirs. We braved the human crowd (sweaty bodies, arms and all) and walked from one end to the other while sampling tasty snacks along the way!
3. Indulge in Chicken Rice Balls
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Don't leave Malacca without polishing off a plate of chicken rice balls. These rice balls are so tiny that I could easily eat 10 of it myself. Do not attempt to bounce these off the table, for they are not ping pong balls :)  
4. Fill your tummies with pastries
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Savour a wide collection of pastries housed under one roof, ranging from 老婆饼 to 豆沙饼. These pastries are freshly baked from the bakeries, we could even smell the fragrance from across the street. Lug some goodies home for the family and spread the love!
5. Chill at a Cafe & enjoy live music
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We headed to Geographer's Cafe for a girls' night out. Located at a corner of Jonker Walk, this is the place to be seen! With a drink in hand, we chatted the night away while live music accompanied us in the background. 

Psst .... detailed posts will be linked once completed, stay tuned!  
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 Read our Malacca adventures here:

Monday, October 13, 2014

Honeymoon: The Palace - The King's Grand Apartment

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*****
Been almost a month since the last post; I really need to find back the blogging motivation to document more memories of this lil space. Over the weekend, I made asked Leecher to vacuum my work table at home. Then, I swapped the ironing slot to blogging slot, so I could sit in front of the computer and begin typing this entry. From the Royal Chapel, we adjourned to the King's State Apartments. This is a prestigious collection of 7 rooms, each dedicated to a Roman deity. As the rooms were meant to serve as a venue for sovereign's official acts, no efforts were spared to decorate each room lavishly. 
 HERCULES ROOM
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The Hercules Room connects the chapel and the North Wing of the Palace with the Grand Apartment of the King. The room began construction in 1710, for King Louis XIV wanted the Hercules Room to be a showcase for a large painting. The work was finally completed 26 years later, with a painted ceiling called Apotheosis of Hercules. It is not surprising that the painting gave the room its name (Hercules Room). 
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The painting which led to the construction of the room, known as Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee. Simon was a gift from the Doge to King XVI, for he wanted the french king to support him in a war with the Turks. This painting was once displayed at the Louvre, but Simon was returned back to its rightful place in 1961.  
ABUNDANCE ROOM

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pic courtesy of google 

During evening soirees, the Abundance room was the place of refreshments, which consisted of coffee, wine and liqueurs. The King's vessels, a precious object in the form of a dismastered ship was placed on the sovereign's table on grand occasions. This was a symbol of power, for it contained the sovereign's serviette and everyone had to salute as they passed. Strangely, I couldn't find a picture of this room in both cameras, so I had to grab one of the internet.

VENUS ROOM
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The Venus Room takes its name from the Venus, the theme linked to the solar myth which inspired all the decor of Versailles. Venus is depicted on the ceiling with the features of the Goddess of Love. During apartment evenings, the Venus room was used for serving light meals in buffet style. We also get to see a full length status of King Louis XVI glorified as a Roman Emperor, which is the centerpiece of this room.
DIANA ROOM

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On evening soirees, Diana room served as a billiard room for the King. King Louis XIV was known to be skilled at billiard. The ladies would watch from benches set up on platforms, giving them a good view of the game. The ladies often applauded the brilliant strokes of the King, hence this room has a nickname called "The Chamber of Applause".
 MARS ROOM
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In ancient Rome, Mars was known as the God of War. The strong inspiration of this using Mars, the God of War, for this room for it was originally meant to serve as a guard room for the parade apartment. During King Louis XIV's reign, it served as a ballroom during his evening receptions. 
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In the centre of the ceiling, a painting of Mars on a chariot drawn by wolves can be seen. The work is then framed by two compositions; on the east - Victory supported by Hercules followed by Abundance & Felicity and on the west - Terror, Fury and Fright taking over the powers of Earth. 
MERCURY ROOM
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pic credit to Rhonda Krause

The Mercury room, named after the Roman god of Trade, Commerce & Liberal Arts was the parade chamber of the Grand Apartment, hence it's name of "bed chamber", even though this bed was quickly removed in winter in order to free up the space and install the gaming tables. Since then, it served as a gaming (card) room during evening receptions. The palace's famous silver furniture was kept here. Next to the bed is a painting of David playing the harp, one of the King's favorites paintings. Once again, I had to grab a pic of the internet for Leecher wasn't taking pictures despite him holding onto the camera, tsk tsk!
  APOLLO ROOM
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Dedicated to the Sun God, the Apollo Room was the most luxurious of all. Apollo was also the God whom Louis XIV identified himself with. While the paintings and sculptures remained in this room, the rest of the furniture has disappeared. The silver furniture, in particular a 2.6m high throne, was metled down in 1689 due to a war. The King ordered all the silver furniture to be sent to the mint to be melted down, so as to help defray the cost of war. Instead, a gilded wooden armchair replaced the throne. 

As we walked through all the rooms, I was largely impressed by the detailed drawings found on the ceiling. It must have been difficult doing large scale paintings on the ceiling without suffering from neck aches. The effort taken to complete each painting, regardless of sizes, was definitely commendable.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Honeymoon: The Palace - The Royal Chapel

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*****
Once we reached the front gates of Versailles, we headed to the ticketing office to get the admission tickets. There are 3 types of tickets available; namely The Passport, The Palace and Trianon Palaces & Marie-Antoinette's Estate. The Passport (€18) allows you to discover the Versailles estate in all its glory, enabling you access to all places.
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Since we came all the way here, I argued that it would be more worthwhile to get the Passport. This way, we'll get to visit the whole Palace and the surrounding compound. However, the entire compound span over 2014 acres of land. Thus, we had to time our visit to each destination, taking into consideration traveling time between the places of interest. 
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An audio-guide in 11 languages (included in the ticket price) is available as well. With the map in hand, we began our journey through the Palace :)
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The Royal Chapel greeted the visitors as soon as you enter the Palace. This two-storey palatine chapel is designed based on the model of the Holy Chapel in Paris. The construction of the Chapel first started in 1687 by Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Unfortunately, Jules did not live long enough to see the end of the construction for he died in 1708. His brother-in-law, Robert de Cotte took over the job and ended the work in 1710.
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The Cliquot organ is placed above the alter. Played by the greatest maestros like Francois Couperin, the Music of the Chapel - renowned across Europe - would sing motets each day throughout the entire Church service. Throughout history, all the kings (regardless of Chinese/English/Indian kings) are known to be the Chosen One by God. In French monarchy, the King was chosen by God and through his coronation, the king became God's "lieutenant" on Earth. As such, the paintings and sculptures in the Chapel evoke that idea in a series which start at the nave and ends at the gallery where the king would seat.
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Since Leecher took charge of the camera, I decided to utilise my then-newly-bought iPhone 4S and took tons of pictures, lol! Well, I admit that I did attracted a lot of attention with the Hello-Kitty cover, haha! The angmohs seemed to be surprised that such handphone cases existed!
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I loved all the lights that are found in this Palace! These gold-rimmed lamps lit up the arched passage way, which I think will be an astonishing sight during night time. Then again, we never got to stay till night to witness this :( Perhaps, they would switch of the lights to conserve electricity, lol!
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As we forgot to bring the extra memory card out for this day trip, Leecher had to make sure the camera had sufficient memory to contain the pictures that we'll be taking for the day. Thus, he carefully scanned through the pics to decide what to keep or delete.
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OK, no matther what, pictures of the dear wifey will NOT be deleted. 
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We came across actual documents that lasted through history! I tried to read a few lines but soon gave up. I do admire the cursive handwriting :)  We continued to explore other aspects of the Palace, which I will share more in future posts. 

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Honeymoon: Journey to Palace of Versailles

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It has been a long while since my last honeymoon post. Well, I sort of cheated by putting in a travel guide to Paris in between, so it doesn't seem that I have neglected our honeymoon trip. Truth is, I think I'm slowly morphing into a true-blue procrastinator :) Before I sink further into procrastinating mode, I decided to sweep off the cobwebs of the honeymoon folder, sort out the pics and blog about our day trip. We embarked on a day trip outskirts to visit the Palace of Versailles, which has been on UNESCO's World Heritage list for 30 years.
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In order to save time, we packed breakfast from Pomme De Pain, a French fast-food chain serving traditional French sandwiches and pastries. We grabbed a couple of bread, sandwiches and drinks to consume along the journey.
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 The RER C train will take you directly to the Palace of Versailles. Since the palace is located at Zone 4, ticket "t" or carnet can't be used for the journey. Instead, we had to purchase a "Paris-Versailles Rive Gauche" ticket at €4.10 each (one-way) to get there.
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 I'm the official navigator since Leecher is useless with directions. I have to admit that at one point, I was rather confused with all the train lines, esp when it crossed over to RER trains. Being in the city, we just need to pay attention to metro lines most of the time. There is always a first experience in everything, so we went along on our journey. Worst come to worse, we'll just end up in a different place heh.
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As RER C line forks at a certain point, I had to make sure that we board the right train heading to the right direction. On board the train, we overheard that this group is also making their way to Palace of Versailles! We decided to follow them since they seemed to know their way around much better than us. 
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During the train journey, I was too distracted to eat any food for I wanted to make sure that we are moving in the right direction. Now that we met the group of travelers, I heaved a sign of relief. While we were waiting for the last train that head directly to the destination, I felt hungry!
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  Cute packaging!
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 While we munched on the bread, we slowly arrived at our destination. We caught a glimpse of the countryside as we traveled outskirts, as the RER is the line which serves Paris and its suburbs.     
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Once you arrive at ‘Versailles Rive Gauche’, it will take around 5 min to walk to the main gates of the Palace. There are plenty of signs to guide you around, so fret not about geting lost. P5093983 
Ending the post with a "scary" pic of Leecher, who set the camera to dramatic mode to capture this. 
Palace of Versailles
Place d'Armes - 78000 Versailles 

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Korean Feast Weekend - Red Pig Korean BBQ Restaurant

I started to crave for Korean food 4 days after we came back from Korea. Leecher decided to cook kimchi jjiage for dinner to satisfy my cravings, yums! The hubby is simply amazing in the kitchen, whipping out dishes after dishes to feed my hungry stomach. Even though it was his virgin attempt, Leecher did a fabulous job that we gobbled down (almost) the full pot and truly deserved 2-thumbs up!
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The next day, lil bro texted me and asked us out for dinner with mummy dearest for she was craving for korean food too! Haha, mother-daughter-telepathy at work? After a round of brainstorming, we decided to head to Red Pig Korean BBQ Restaurant, located at Amoy for dinner.
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During the weekends, the CBD area is usually a ghost town but boy, I was so wrong when we walked along the shop houses. Most of the Korean BBQ restaurants were filled to the brim, some with a queue forming outside waiting for their table. When we reached Red Pig, the whole restaurant was crowded. I was half cursing myself for not reserving a table in advance. Thankfully, we managed to get a table within minutes.
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Cute cashier, very appropriate for the restaurant too. 
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Leecher flipping through the menu while we waited for mummy dearest & lil bro to join us. Well, there isn't a wide variety of food items on the menu. For dinner, there are 2 pages of food items that you can choose from - ranging from BBQ meat, spicy stews or other side dishes.
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We ordered 3 plates of  meat to kick-start the meal - Bbalgam Doiji (Red Pig, $20), Bbalgam Dak (Red Chicken soy sauce marinated, $18) and Galbisal (Beef rib meat without bone, $28). Lil bro can't wait to start, lol! They served pretty decent banchan (반찬) & my fave goes to corn with mayonnaise (one serving per table, additional at $5).
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Makgeolli for the alcoholic us. We even got mummy dearest to try this, but she gave up after 2 sips. The 2 酒鬼 (Leecher & lil bro) shared the bottle between them while I sipped on brown rice tea as I wasn't in a drinking mood.
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Out of the 3 types of meat we ordered, the best goes to Bbalgam Doiji (Red Pig, $20). For the pork lovers, there is another option of Ogyebsal (Pork Belly, $15). I strongly recommend the Red Pig version, since it is marinated with chilli+other ingredients and tasted more flavourful when BBQ-ed.   
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Mummy dearest enjoying her egg roll & kimchi. Being her virgin trip to a Korean restaurant, mummy dearest was excited that she finally got to eat the food that she saw in K-drama, lol! Looks like I should start training my mum more, so she can come along for our Korea trip next time, heehee!
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Seafood pancake ($18) which won praises from both mummy dearest & lil bro. This dish made it to the table twice, lol! The first plate was crispy and filled with a lot of ingredients. When we ordered the 2nd plate, it came slightly soggy and filled with more spring onions than seafood. Quite a disappointment but the rest still enjoyed it.
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The must order for me in all Korean restaurant, Tteokbokki! I wished this came in a spicier version though - this version is too mild for my liking.
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  With lil bro, who graciously paid for the meal! Wa, it's not everyday he offered to pay so must whack more, haha! 
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Mummy dearest lamenting that she still needs to "cook" for us during her off-days, lol! Well, can't be helped since she's the best & most experienced cook :)
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Enjoying her first BBQ-meat-wrapped-with-lettuce-experience (^^) & she really loved it!
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  Mum really had a good time & most importantly, we all got a free meal thanks to lil bro! 
Red Pig Korean BBQ Restaurant
93 Amoy Street
Singapore 069913
Tel: 6220 7176
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