Thursday, July 31, 2008

Apple Peeler, Anyone?

I am pretty close to adjusting to local time again and am certainly happy with the progress. I continued catching up with works that are still piling up here and there. Some are hidden on purpose inside the filing cabinet, those are the papers that I am supposed to work on but continuously try to avoid! Silly me! I have to get there by tomorrow and work them out as much as possible.



As I went through the pictures from Freeport, Maine, I stumbled into this uber large apple peeler picture from LL Bean store, that is definitely not practical for me but interesting to share. Some of you might have seen it, but we had not prior to that day. I would use my normal peeler and knife, or just eat the skin!!! I'd keep my $29.95. As simple as that. But then again, apples are not my favorite anyway.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Hanging In There



I was so ready for bed at 5PM, after waking up at 3AM today. My body really, really slowly started to adjust with the local clock. Duh! For dinner without DH, I simply put together rice noodles with chicken, fish cake, eggs, bean sprout and green onions. With the help from garlic, fish sauce, pepper and sweet soy sauce, our fried kwee tiaw dinner was served timely! I am hanging in here.

Tomorrow should be a better day! smile

Monday, July 28, 2008

Maybe....

Maybe I am going to be like owl over the next few days.... staying awake at night and falling asleep during the day.

This jet lag is still haunting me. It is now noon here and I have been awake since after midnight, being unable to sleep. I laid on my bed, watching one program after after another on TV. At some point, I woke up and tidied up some clothes in my bedroom, cleaned up my cupboard, turned on my laptop and started surfing.... After 4AM, I was back trying to sleep again. And got back up again because I was not able to sleep. After 5:30AM, I gave up and went downstairs to start my day, to the kitchen I went.

I thought I was doing well when I was able to go to bed at 6-8PM during the first two nights after I arrived and went to bed at nearly 10PM the next night. But then my US clock started kicking in, I started waking up at 12, at 2 and stayed awake until the next morning............. I am sooooo.... tired.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Sushi Girl Gets Her Way

Back when we were still enjoying our holiday in the USA, my little sushi girl and her partner in crime, DH, made plan on going to Sushi Tei to get their first lunch once we arrived home. But we were so physically exhausted after a very long flight that I vetoed the plan and postponed it to another day to make sure that we felt better and our car that was asleep for a month, was back in prime condition.



So came Thursday and off we went. Just the four of us, P had a Summer Job after her trip. Miss K had her regulars Salmon Mentai. Miss L opted Gyoza and a couple of sushi. We ordered fresh salad, some other sushis and a plate of salmon sashimi. They satisfied our cravings!









Thursday, July 24, 2008

From NYC Street

7th Avenue was having a street fair when we were there. Street vendors were selling everything from food, t-shirts, glasses, jewelry, and lots of other things. Prices were good too! Lots of great bargains. It was TMTH for us after a while. To TGIF we went. Lunch!













Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Kennedy Space Center


Fifth day in Orlando. It was a bright beautiful late morning. We arrived at Kennedy Space Center, about one hour drive from the hotel where we stayed at. I have read many good review about this place and everyone was excited about going here.



The lines to get the ticket were short but moving slowly, everyone seemed to take a few minutes to get the admission tickets and tour packages available. The basic admission fee is $36 for 12 years and above. The group in front of us with only one kid that qualified with the look of 11 years old got themselves four kid tickets that costs $26 each. Hmmm.... We bought four adult tickets with the damage of more than $160 after tax, the older lady behind us asked how old my little girl was.
She’s 12, I said.
She can easily be passed as 11...., she said.
Yes... the ticket is hefty!!!??? I know what you mean!



I did not care so much about coming to KSC, but I was very curious about it. I knew the importance of visiting the place and the lessons that we could learn from the place were worth the try. For a start, we joined the tour bus that took us to three different stops or more things to see. The total hours that we spent until we were back to the starting point was about three hours. I must admit that the place was becoming more interesting as the tour progressed, we all learned many new things today.



By the time we were back at the starting point we still had so much to do, but first we fed the very hungry man with us. Then we watched one of the movies in their IMAX theatre narrated by Tom Cruise.



Of course, we dropped by at the gift shop as well, they had lots of interesting stuff.






By then, it was nearly four o’clock. We made a quick tour around the place but had to miss another movie narrated by Tom Hanks. The sky was getting darker and we needed to rush back to our car and head back to Orlando

We parked our car quite far from the entrance and we had to run for our life as the rain started to fall when we got out of the building.



On the way back, we were caught in an extremely heavy rain that forced us to pull out by the side road along with many other cars for our safety and everyone's safely.cry It rained every afternoon when we were in Orlando this time, I certainly didn't expect that. It was nice and sunny when we came here in December. Ha!

Early Morning Production



Arriving early in the morning from a long trip has its advantages. It's good because it gives me plenty of time to unpack all the bags and to start washing tons of laundry and everything else that I need to do. I am the type of person that can't go to bed when the house is in a mess. So yesterday, I unpacked all the six medium-size and large bags and start wash three full loads of laundry. There's more to go but I am giving my dearest washer and dryer a little break.

I crossed the street with my little buddies to stock up the fridge with milk and cheese and whatever we could think we needed. It's so sad to see how expensive things are here when in the States everything is about 1/3 or 1/2 of the prices here. One box of Cheerios is S$10.75!!!! (around US$8!Outrageous!!!!!) Chocolate chips here is $7 (US$5.2) per bag versus US$ 2 there! Urgh... I wish I could stock so much more from where I just came from.

I did my best effort to stay up the whole day yesterday, but finally surrendered at around 6:30PM and went to bed, didn't get to see Miss P who had to work and didn't arrive home until later. By 3:30 AM, I couldn't sleep anymore and join the already-awake members. They were watching TV, of course, but I went to the kitchen and prepare my work station for bread making.



By six o'clock, we had a warm loaf of cheese bread, fresh from the oven!!
So wonderful to be home!

Good To Be Home Again

We were back to GMT+8 zone early in the morning when the sky was still dark and the humidity was hardly felt. I am thankful that we all were back safely. 25C, great temperature to arrive at. The sun started rising as we drove out of the airport and the street got busier as minutes passed by. The trip ended but the memory will remain in our mind for a long time. Should we ever forget, we have a zillion pictures to look at and relive the memories. wink

It was good to see the green, cleanness and tidiness of Singapore again after spending the last day in the busy streets of New York, that was packed with people, people and more people. The weather was uncomfortably hot and there's barely any friendly faces can be found. It was not my ideal way of spending the last day of our holiday there, but our flight was after 9PM and we had nothing planned. JFK airport was like JFK airport, we ended up waiting for more than two hours before we could finally take off. I am sure it was all meant for safety purpose!

So when we finally was able to fly, it was a great relief. We were starting another adventure all over again......

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Counting Down Again

In less than 48 hours will be on the plane back home again. Tonight is our last night in Orlando, we will be in New York again tomorrow and get ready to fly again the next evening. It has been a long journey, but it was fun and enjoyable. It might be hard to go back to my normal routine again, huh?

Back when we started the trip, we all thought that one month was such a long time. Every single day over the past one month has been a busy one and was filled with many new and different experience. Time flew! And finally, this trip is nearing end. We are looking forward to going back home and tackling a new set of challenges in life. I know that our home phone has not been working for more than a month and there's a possibility of leakage in my room. I have many hours on the plane to make a to-do list, if I want to.

Continue my packing now......rolleyes

Pad Thai Number 8


If we had the choice, we would like to have a home-cooked meal by now. It was only our second evening in Orlando, time for dinner again. Thai food was our next best thing to eat, although that only meant that we had eight Thai meals within 23 days of our trip. I am glad that DH has stopped his obsession on Chinese foods here, that are catered more towards the liking of people here. We love Pad Thai anyway!!! So bring it on!

Orlando has many Thai restaurants and many of them claim to have won some sorts of awards. We picked this restaurant because we had no choice after we were misled a number of times in one evening. We were lead by our new GPS friend to places that are not there or closed and finally were surrendered at the first one that really existed and opened for business, Ayothaya Thai Cuisine on West Sandlake.

This restaurant has a nice Thai traditional setting and the waitress was courteous. She let us know ahead of time that it might take a little longer to prepare the food because they were having a big party. We appreciated the honesty and didn't mind waiting even though we were starving. The food didn't take too long to arrive as it turned out.

Our typical order was fish cake, Thai Green Curry, Pad Thai and some sort of mixed vegetables. Why bother looking looking at the menu if we almost always order the same ones??? We do anyway, to see what they offer and DH normally takes his own sweet time to look at the dishes one by one and in the end decided on having whatever the rests of us want. wink

The food was great, their Pad Thai was excellent. The prices are a little higher, but they are still reasonable compared to their serving size. In most cases, we all agree that Singapore prices are higher than those here. If the economy is not so bad right now, I would almost say that it's a near bargain. But since stock markets all over the world are plummeting crazily, I should stop at that! Ha.

(I miss my kitchen, my pots and pans. And baking the bread......)


Friday, July 18, 2008

At The Universal Studios Orlando



The next day after we went to Islands of Adventure, we went to Universal Studios, we tried our best to be there by 9AM and arrived there just a little after 9. There were quite a lot of people, but more people headed to Islands of Adventure. To our surprise, Universal Studios that morning seemed quiet. We managed to got on rides and attraction pretty quickly, as the lines were short.




Quiet street inside, I really wondered what happened.


Universal Studios' new attraction: The Simpsons' Ride.


The guy in glasses was the front man of "Man In Black" ride at this Universal Studios




We skipped some rides that we weren't too interested or because we have done before and by noon, we were ready to leave to premises and went for lunch. We were a whole bunch of hungry people! We planned to come back one more day to both parks though!

That afternoon, it rained heavily in Orlando. I am glad we were no longer in the park.

Tasting Little Saigon

DH's pick for the dinner last Monday was Vietnamese food, pointing down specifically to Little Saigon in down town Orlando and a back-up of Pho-Hoa in case we were not able to find Little Saigon. We had a bad experience with our search for Thai food the night before when the GPS kept on leading us to non-existing places. The one that existed was closed and we ended up with a fifth or sixth place that was not even originally came across upon.



This Vietnamese restaurant has a very good reputation, having won many awards from Orlando publications in the past years. We found many other Vietnamese restaurants along the same roads as well as some other Vietnamese shops as well.

For appetizers we had Summer Rolls and Spring Rolls.






I had been craving for this type of noodle soup for a while and was quite pleased that we had the opportunity to satisfy my craving. DH and I were planning to share a bowl of Pho Dae Biet (Rice Noodle Beef Soup with Sliced Rare Beef, Tendon, Tripe, Brisket Beef Balls) but upon seeing how it looked, he decided to order one bowl for himself and left me stranded with a big bowl for myself. What a guy!


L, who originally didn't intend to order anything, changed her mind and went for Pho Bo Vien (Beef Balls over Rice Noodle Soup). K had some from both her sister and from me.


It was a good dinner, we were pleased with the food and the prices were reasonably low. smile