Thursday, April 27, 2006

random things again...

sensible grafitti... sometimes u really wonder what these punks r thinking, there is some nice building or monument etc... some even historical, n they simple anyhoe spraysprayspray... even if its nice it barely makes it ok, worst when they jsut scrible some signature/words that is barely legible...

another one of those signs... jsut to tell u 'NO' or 'STOP'... thats extra dude behind jsut did it la... its like 'THEY HAVE TO ' jsut add such extra stuff....hahaah


isnt it jsut sooo funny the way the translate instructions on the train! its like a freakin poem! n in nice cursive font somemore....

what else wont be da vinci-fied... i mean, SIMI da vinci lounge!goodness... n madness too...


sign in the train in rome... these italians ah, never fail to entertain me with their signs....


this is jsut thot it was funny... eating eyeballs...

extremely huge potato! i compared it with the usual size we get... htis giant potato was what, 3 times the size! madness... anwyay, when i cut it up, there was like some deformation inside man! it was like rough potato skin but on the inside... a highly confused potato id say...anyway, was cutting potato for 'spore curry' thanks to prima... n my dad :) its gd stuff i tell u....


ok, pastry time again! i had no idea hwat it was when i bought, i jsut go in n look at what pleases my tiny eyes n jsut get! so this was custard pastry.. it was nice...! the custard dont have those fako 'bird' brand kind of instant custard taste...it was thick n much creamier than spore ones... the pastry was firm n crisp... but i dont think ill pay e$2 for it again... tho it was quite big...

home made esspresso... well,the one on the left is some random cheapest brand kind of coffee gound, n on the right is lavazza! so we did the 'pepsi challenge' hting on out coffee to see if its really worth paying more for better coffee.. n walah! the lavazza even had foam when we poured out! n taste wise... hohoho.... big difference... n cost wise, its somehting like 1plus euro to 2-3plus euro....
well, we have yet to try illy coffee, elias so kindly got us a can for staying over at ours over the milan fair... jx n i was so excited abt it! then when i shook the can... wahlau... he got us coffee BEANS! even in spore id probably have ot use the tombok to grind them la! whatmore here... its a can of torture...sooo near yet soooo farrrr.....
but well find a way... thanks elias anyway! im sure we'll be smiling big time when we enjoy our illy coffee... thats assuming we get it grinded sometime...


ok, was in chinatown, exploring a lil more than our usual route, i saw prima pandan cake mix!(this is soo for u dad). but they only have pandan n nothing else. btw dad, i saw mini fruit tarts in ipercoop, n they were insanely expensive!! n i have not even converted to S$ yet!! man... i mean we are talking somehting like 9-14 euros for a box of 9-12 mini tarts!! ( i cant rem..exactly but they were as big as the prima ones)...

in chinatown again, its white rabbit sweet! the original one k...(then again, coming from china plus i didnt take THAT close a look u can neer be too sure) but anyway, they have strawberry n some other flavour! we dont ahve that in spore do we....

coffee from the vending machine... this is cappucino with chocolate... can u see the thick thick foam?? its really not bad compared to weak n sad ones we get in spore... n it even comes with a stirer! its e$0.35 here, they usually provide a machine that allows u to change notes etc to coins but the catch is,u gotta put exact amt if not u lugi the extra $ cos they dont give u change... u have no idea how many times i kana... sian

tttttttiramisu....

ok, i made my 2nd batch of tiramisu(ok, i dont know whether to call it that anymore, its more of like 'tiramisu-gay-liao'... hee...
anywya i wanted to chopchop finish up my other half of the mascarpone cheese.... plus the previous batch, tho despite my disappointed post, taste wise it was apparently not too bad, personally other than a less whipped cream, i passed myself! so ok, i went to get more cream 'de montare', the same mountain one cos it really cldnt be any of the rest with mushrooms(which i got also but to try baked pasta),cheese n i cant rem what else... i expected it to come out like a block but this time it was liquidy! n i was like yay!!!jsut like pour n whip! so i whipwhipwhip... n .... hwiphwiphiwp... till it finally started showing signs of being whipped n i was like 'finally la!!' it stuill suck to make stuff with the machine n all... hard work man!
so i now have more tiramisugayliao, with strawberry chunks n slightly-harder-than-sponge-fingers biscuits chunks(no one was eating that so i wanted to clear it) in it too ... so after leaving it a night, the flavours kinda came tog, like the cream had some strawberry taste etc... so all was gd... plus the cream was better this time.. yay!

today my mum sent me a recipe for tiramisu... n very excitedly i cldnt wait to try n make my very own! SO, i did run by the supermkt to get stuff n came back to make them.well... lets jsut say it didnt turn out tooooooooo well.... heh... n yess, i actually do blog abt my depressing moments...
lets start with grocery shopping...
well, for one, i didnt get caster sugar(bakign sugar which is finer than regular 'fine' sugar)... thot id save money n just use hte one i have at home, i mean in spore i dont bother getting caster sugar too...
then the cream thats meant to be whipped... this is the thing that totalyl screwed me up!!!! (jsut on top of other thigns) first i had to guess the kind of cream cos there were a few kinds of cream sold n had different names so must be for different purposes... there was some 'cucina' version, which translates to 'kitchen' n then there was some 'de montero' ( or soemthing like that), which i was cluessless abt so i shamlessly took out my translator n ti-ti-ti-ed it n got montero=mount... so im thinking... mount=like a mountain maybe? so maybe its trying to say whip till nice n tall like a mountain?? (seriosuly that was my train of thought) plus, cucina prob meant that it was for cooking which i didnt want.. so ok, jsut get the mountain one...
ok, then instead of kaluha, i got baileys instead, cos it was cheaper, n if i used kaluha, i needed only 3 tablespoons of it, n not likei wanna drink it n no way i can make that much tiramisu to finish the bot, baileys at least still more drinkable, n heck, baileys n coffee n tiramisu cant go that wrong... ok baileys i got! for e$9.90... for 700ml ..not too bad?
ok, so i got pretty much everything else, except for strawberries which i wanted in my tiramisu for the simplest of fact, i like them!
ok, then i came back had dinner n started on project tiramisu!
ok, first i had to sort the yolk from the white, needed 4yolks(the eggs r soooo tiny here i tell u!) after seperating nicely n skillfully 2 yolks, the 3rd egg, i dont know y, i dropped the dman white into the yolk container! argh!!! (must be the dyslexsic! msut be!) but i realised well, not the first time, for some reason i always have to think harder when i ahve to seperate the yolk-white thing... hai. so ok, re-do the 4 eggs, save the rest for fried egg for tmr's sandwich.
then measure sugar.. guess what, i dont have measuring scale! not even the damn cup! i jsut assumed like in jk(jalan kayu,my home if u didnt know) where i have everything! so ran over to my friend's n luckily he has a measuring cup... well, i jsut assumed it was 1ml=1g... i needed 80g, but the cup was so hard to read, so jsut wack.
then had to beat the yolk n sugar... when i looked at the suagr i knew i was sooo in for it... bloody hell coarse la!! freakin rocks for sugar! ok,figure of speech but these were coarse grain to the max! using fine sugar was tough, using fine sugar without a kenwood(mixer) is lagi chialat... NO KENWOOD+COARSE SUGAR... wah lau!!! i freakin hell beat like siao la! lynn cld totally hear my sounds effects when beating the damn thing.. thankfully she came to help n we kinda had to take shifts...in the end, we beat till i gave up.. some grains were kind enough to dissolved, the rest were jsut punks. so heck.
then now the cream... the mountain cream, when i cut open the pack, i knew somehting was weird.... i was expecting it to be liquid, like 'pour n whip!' but no way man, this is was thick, n almsot like cream cheese... so ok, very suspiciously i whipped anyyway, whip whipwhip then i look at it n man... its soo wrong... where the hell is my mountain? all i managed to do was to deform it, from the shape of a tetrapack to a creamy cream... no way n very very far form a mountain. so i thot maybe its a lil thick,n add a tiny lil bit of milk... tiny lil bit... but i whiphwipwhip again, more liquidy, n still no mountain! so ok, i sjut put in the fridge n took over fr lynn who was getting a muscle ache from the beating of yolk+rock sugar.
beating till i gave up, i jsut mixed in the mascarpone cheese(thanksfully this was an obedient ingredient to work with) n then suppose to 'fold in the whipped cream'... when i took our the cream... hohoho... like milk shake! ahhhh!!!!! ok, jsut mix n see how since the other mixture was rather thick.... the end result.... its like thick milkshake... damn dman damn chialat la... i was soo disappointed i wanted to throw away the cream mixture n get another cream tmr n try again... but in the end, i tasted it, it didnt taste bad, jsut not firm.. so jsut cont la, n see how, if still horribkle then tossed it tmr i guess..
so i made the coffee+baileys+milk(the coffee was esspresso, thot id add some milk to neutralise it)... tasted fine...really not bad actually! so ok, i soaked the sponge fingers... put in a cup n spooned in some cream 'sauce' n more sponge fingers soaked n mroe cream sauce... then jsut throw into the fridge n hipefully it wont eb THAT bad....
so i went on to fry eggs, wash up etc... n jsut b4 i started this blog i went to try a llil bit... NOT BAD man... jsut dont think abt the runny cream n assume tiramisu is like that... heh! taste wise, i can taste the liqueur which i like, n the coffee too! theonly thing is, the cream was a lil too sweet but not to a pt of death so its ok... overall, hai, still disappointed :( hate it when i fail! thats the thing with baking!(ok, tho i didnt ahve to bake anything to make tiramisu but u wont call it cooking wld u?) cooking u can still add this add that to try n save it, but baking ah, u make it or break it man! then in the midst of disappointment n still beaitng n mixing, i was asking myself, why on earth was i sooo damn it gay-kiang, wanna make tiramisu, n in all places in the world in ITALY where it originates!! liek who am i trying to bluff man! if i was i china ir india nevermind know, pple jsut assume its like that maybe? but NO, im in italy where pastries rule the world n tiramisu is probably their gift to the world....
conclusion : i must remember to not bake anythign that needs measuring or intensive beating cos i only have my cock eyes to agar agar ( its seriosuly cock,800 degrees nevermind, 1 side bigger than the other somemore... but i do have a badminton arm) n maybe ill try it out when im back in spore... hai...

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

my milan life...

ok, i was doing accounts since i havent done it in the past 3days! (thats is VERY BAD already..i used to do everyday, but no my table so small so i put the $diary somewhere else n when i dont see it i dont record it...) but nonetheless, got it all jotted down... since i keep receipts so i can still somewhat counter check my expenditure....

anyway, after doing accts, i flipped to the back n saw my note my sister wrote to me when i left.. she's damn sweet la, so all nosteigic n i all, i decided to read it again...
then she was all encouraging n said never to give up no matter what happens...may i quote 'dont give up even if u dont understand what ur lecturer is saying,dont give up if ur computer breaks down n u cant do ur work,dont give up if u have no friends there,dont give up if the weather is too cold n all ur pisai is stuck up in ur nose n u ran out of tissue paper....'

i tell u, other than the 'dont give up even if u have no friends there', ( which is awfully sad but luckily i chao-chao still got jx n lynn.. heh...) everything has happened to me... my com died, i fell asleep on my first day only to have the teacher bang the table at my face n scar me for life n the pisai part, when i read it, i twitched my nose n guess what?! got pisai! mei, now im starting to wonder if u were cursing me when i left... hai, but i know u wont, im ur favourite and only jie... so im jsut gonna say that ure quite a bit a of a fortune teller ay! ok, in my case, misfortune...
but to add to her list, my computer didnt jsut break down, it changed its race(now who can predict that!). i use my nokia becos my olympus is cranky n waiting for warrenty card fr spore so i can get it fixed here, i jsut realised i dropped/lost my travelling pass together with my student card, my internet is only available when im outside my apartment,my umbrella,tho a pok one, is missing...i jsut had a major pimple outbreak which i havent had this badly since 2yrs ago? i almost lost my passport n got a huge ass scare n scar me for life yet again...oh n i bought 2 bedsheets instead of 1 bedsheet 1 conforter cover n they werent exaactly cheap (tho already ipercoop brand)...

wow... i think i didnt quite pay $$ to come here n study ay... but oh well, guess all these will SOMEHOW teach me a thing or 2... liek recording expenses which i tried once but after 2wks... i never touched it again n my mum has been bugging me to record my expenses (lets jsut say im rather gd at spending...tho my dad wld probably beg to differ n say 'she's bloody gd, not rather gd...')

the other stuff thats a plus is i make it an effort to call my grandmamas... yet to call my kongkong in aussie tho...the thing is, in spore i didnt call at all! not even my macpherson mama... now, i call her, i call my shanghai mama n soon ill call my aussie kongkong too (ok, jsut typing that it sounds llike i have globe trotters for grandparents). its all thanks to skype. no they dont ahve computers, i use skypeout to call their house... its really cheap.. like 1cent/min n thats in sing dollars...
anyway friends, u all shld call ur grandmamas n kongkongs too man... :)

sneak preview to 'food-cooking-&-photography'

oh man this si so exciting!
ok, jx n i are on this new project to take pictures of the food we cook (nice pics of cos) and then do some multimedia thing with it! (flash, website,dvd etcetcetc)...!
it all started cos i needed credits so wanted to take this multimedia module here, but i had no grp formed so asked if jx wanted to take the module so we cld do it together but he didnt want to but said he didnt mind doing the proj with me....
then yesterday anna (ure how famous in my blog man) send me some foodblogs n ther was one with rather nice pics n so it hit us! to take pics of our food n do some multimedia thing with it! i mean its perfect! both of us love food (it takes abt 80% of our conversation) n we love cooking.. plus jx in really into photography so it all makes splendid sense!

ok, so let the preview begin!
1st up... jx's dinner...


jx's pasta with mince beef and celery
i pretty much leave the photography to jx.. he's gd la, i just know nuts... i mean, i shoot with a nokia! so oh well, i jsut put in mroe effort in the cooking, which i love.. so no problemo!

jane's mushroom & cheese toast

next is my lunch, baked the famous jalan kayu mushroom n cheese toast! for those who have tried, u know it never fails... but today when i did it i used alot less mayo.. other than it being fattening, i didnt quite have as much mayo as we do in terms of jalan kayu quantity... our mayo-kong is so huge at home!...i think we cld scoop ladels full out of it...what to do when u feed an army at home...

jane's cornflakes with maple ,butter and raisins

and lastly this... i baked it last night... wanted to test the microwave n it apparently can bake! ok, at least it managed to brown my toast n this...i always wanted to make this cornflakes thing but i never knew how! till pris mentioed the other day that its jsut cornflakes n honey! so ok! in my hyper activeness (thanks to the coffee i had, read previous blog) so i decided to try it out! i had to try n error a lil tho, initially they cldnt stick tog, then i remember they had to be bashed up n added mroe maple syrup.. oh! n i added butter.. i mean, i love butter... n how can maple n butter go wrong right...

ok, so thats all for now folks! ok, now we aint sure if we cna make it into some multimedia... we might do somehting else... but oh well, seems like we'll still cont to do this' food-cooking-&-photography' thing... we really enjoy it man! now the trick is, we have limited plates bowls etc... so we gotta figure out how to make it work if not it gets damn boring man....

Monday, April 24, 2006

coffee... n jx's cha bee hoon!

ok, my damn connection died on me again...
but i decided to blog this while i can rememeber it... heh... on my lil 'wordpad' again.. damn, dhl, pls hurry up with my cd roms from spore....thanks family!

anyway, i just made coffee, kinda outta bordem n laziness to do work(dont worry parents,ure not wasting ur money on me in milan i promise! i mean, i learnt to get my computer fixed myself... n ironed, n cooked n....)
so ok, i wanna try new coffee... ok, at least make my coffee-making time mroe interesting...to entertain myself...

ive tried coffee+nutella, n coffee+goober jam(dont bother trying this really...definately not for the faint hearted)... so this time, after lynn made some hot chocolate with the chocolate powder we got, i got a tiny lil creative... lynn's actually my muse!
ok so here;s what i did..


thats the ingredients u need, ok shit, i forgot abt the milk.. ok, pls imagine a carton of milk standing next to the coffee maker...


i boiled milk on a pan, having it boiled thickens it... so its more creamy...
then i stirred in the chocolate powder...
then i stirred in n melted 1 big tablespoon of nutella... (sinful but nutella can barely go wrong even ure the worst cook,not that im a cook... then again, can anyone call him/herself a cook so long he/she stands at the stove n whip something up no matter how gd or bad?? i mean if ure gd, ure called a chef... if not a random-cook? beats me...)
ok cont....then on low heat.... jsut kept stiring till it thickened.. to like say... chocolate sauce consistency...
it was creamy n sweet n hazelnutty... very yummy i must add, lynn can vouch for that esp after her.. well, weak hot chocolate cos she aint as gung ho as me when it comes to using liao(ingredients)...
then poured into a cup n then poured in my espresso....
then wa-lah! chocolatey-esspresso... tho it wasnt as thick n creamy as my chocolate sauce, but heck, the sweetness balanced out with the coffee n it was with much much omph!
i tried to take a decent pic of it, but it didnt look gd la, so heck, leave it to ur imagination... i have better luck with that to leave u drooling than a picture....

random i know but thats a pic of the standard house hold item here in italy... esspresso machine, ok i dont know if it qualifies as a machine... its works great i tel u! i totally got 1 to bring home! n no more 3-in-1 coffees for me man! ive been liberated!


so now, im rather 'high' n bursting with energy... heh... so then i decide to take my sketch bk out to possibly get some work done... but guess what, internet is down n now all i have are some foodblogs (thanks anna!) that well... i cant stop reading(i hate to read... u all know that,if u didnt means u dont knwo me well enough so now u know...ure now 1 step closer to janeyhia's world)...
so these foodblogs r totally making me excited so i started listing down places id like to go eat based on their reviews... so thats 1 list i started... the other is a 'food to try n make n hopefully succeed' list... which has well... 2 items now.. u'll read abt it if i succeed... heh...

once again random i know, but this is jx's cha bee hoon! thot id give him 1min of fame on my blog.. heh... the pic seriously doesnt do it justice cos well, its a nokia... but he is gd with bee hoons...pre-makes prawn stock jsut to fry the bee hoon n all.. damn serious stuff k to make bee hoon...!


ok, so now im done blogging abt it, or rather typing it... im going back to my foodblogs... sketching can wait... (parents : really, ure not wasting ur money on me... :) i miss ur bbq dad... juicy medium-rare beef n lamb... n mummy's pepper sauce.....ooooo.....)

Saturday, April 22, 2006

new house!

ok, the low down.. we r from now, n hopefully, fixed in this aprt, for 1000euros /month. its not too bad considering we paid 800/month in the much smaller aprt... so oh well, we're glad to be back n have some form of a normal n not nomad life... the moment we got back, we immediately hit 3 supermkts! ipercoop, chinatown n amico(cheap veg n fruits!)... so we r really quite well stocked... heh... but we need more stuff now, waiting for lynn to shower after doing a magnificient job of cleaning n mopping the floor... gd job girl! n many many thanks... looking forward to more clean floors! hah!


ok, this is outside of our aprt... jsut a lil door really... n next to it is my new com centre...n behind me is lynn's room.. which has a door that opens out to the.. well... open.. so she doesnt need to carry ehr table out....


ok this is our kitchen, the most impt place but erm.. kinda the smallest... there r only 2 stoves.. we had 4 in the smaller aprt damn... but we have a microwave now, but we dont really use it... ridge is a lil bigger so thats gd... the kitchen it the first thing u see when u open the aprt door... so when we cook, i pretty much always open the door, so everyone staying here knows when we're cooking.. heh... weather is getting warmer petty fast so we can opent he door more... gd gd!

SOMWHOW, lynn is always in my pictures.... glam or not, u see how la huh... haha...well, she is enjoying the fantabulous lemon tea which i made, n have been making... well, then again, she cleaned the floor so i have nothign to conplain abt... but the tea, nothing like jalan kayu lemon tea man.... not gao one, we're currently useing lipton tea BAGS to make.... how gao can it get... hai.. i think gao-power maybe 1/5 of jk... but it works still...



after the kitchen, u walk further in its the living room/janeyhia's room...there 2 r bedrooms here, 1 twin bed room n a single. jx took the single, or rather we gave it to him, to compensate for the last 5wks sleeping 2 steps away from the kitchen...
i took the mattress out of the twinbed room(lynn's rm now) n made hte living room my room so all 3 of us have our own rooms.. cna sleep at whatever time n not disturb the other...
so u see this red screen behind pris? thats my room.. or rather my scrren made form disposable party table cloth...
oh! kellyn came over to milan too! stayed with us jsut for a night.. then she went on with her plans... we left for rome the next mrng n when i got back she left milan already... so didnt quite get to spend much time with her.. but jx n lynn made a kick ass dinner that she enjoyed very much... :) i went to fetch kel la! not that i was a slack ass can... my make shift screen holder... im seriously wondering how long its gonna last me... its... well..dying...i mean, i had to use the cardboard roll from centre of the paper cloth! cant find antyhing else... so.. till it falls... till it falls....


ok, my room looks like that form the front... heh....


n this is my room! wa-lah! had to do some shifts in furniture n all.. but it worked out fine... the only thing is, i dont have a real door, n i get the food smell.. jx's lunch smell is pretty much my mrng alarm at abt 12-ish... heh


the gd part, i have a couch, so i throw all my barang barang there... n when pris n kel came, they had somewhere to sleep...


my com centre once again... tho now my com centre has been shifted to outside my aprt so i can get some decent internet... its madness i tell u... but beats going to the damn internet point or somehting.....
this is lynn;s room...



this is the bathroom... its big! wish the kitchen was of this size instead... anyway, not much to see but now, when someone showers, the rest can still pee/poo n use the sink etc.... all pretty much divided with doors n all too... so its gd.... n we get the day light in, so it look nice n brightly lit...
oh! we have wooden toilet seats too!! but well, tho the weather is gettin warmer, but i guess its still nice... heh

torino - chocolate festival

there was s chocolate festival some 2wks ago? got a train tic there n met pris... she said after the winter olympics, the place the pple are alot more alive... she said she watched the closing ceremony along the street where the athelets walked passed n there was this lil kiddo sitting on his daddy's shoulders n shouting 'italia! italia!' n everyone was cheering lots too. pris said even she felt proud for them... gd stuff ay....



this is the chocolate festival banner.. think the fest was abt 1 wk or 2, we went on the last day!

its a small festival really, jsut 1 piazza worth of space... there were many vendors selling, well, chocolate of cos..then there was also the usual choco suspects like lindt n cadbury...here, for some reason we found out, pple dont eat nutella with bread! they think its weird... we think its lago weird when they eat pastry with nutella but never thot of spreading on bread!maybe it was jsut that one person... i dont know... but at the fest, they were selling bread with nutella-gao n crepes too... n maybe waffles.. jsut plain nutella nothign else n there was a long line...im my fathers words, 'we can make that at home too!' so obviously we gave that a miss....

some stuff they were selling...we tried some stuff.. like chocolate jam/spread... flavours like mint, peperoncino(chilli, which was really quite spicy!), lemon with white chocolate... but mint won... never fails....n chocolate liquore!(duno how to spell again... :) ) i got a bottle of that, its thick n creamy n chocolatey... nice! for abt 12euro a bot.. not that bad la huh...

some chocolate we bought...none too memoriable really.. jsut the bottom one, the golf foil one, its like the famous chocolate of torino, its hazelnut chocolate, but not the hard kind, it was smooth n nice!the other 2 were jsut sweet i think... too long to rememebr...

this is ferrero OPERA, i tried one.. its jsut liquore in the chocolate... the kind u bite n it drips all over... i wont get it again if u asked me, then again, i was never really into such chocolates... but like i mentioned b4, here, my chocolate capacity n everything else sweet has increased by..... alot. im posivtively chubbier now, i can see it in my face n i lost my abs centre line...which i had b4 i left! then again i had tonnes of dance then too... i used to jsut wack the chocolates n sweet stuff here man! they all cant go too wrong...oh well.... im trying to watch what i eat now, i definately dont wanna wait till i get back to spore n realise how pui i am n then try to lose it... heh...


these r chocolate designs by students! here they have food design, which jx n i was really interested in but its a theory kind of lesson, n all in italian... so for us to take... damn chialat.... but interesting ah!

thats the icon or like flag or torino, each place here has its own, so milan has 1 too..think it looks like some swiss flag or somehting, white with red cross... or the other way round i dunno la...

ok, this is bata in italy. remember i told u fellas that here bata aint school shoes shop man...

see what i mean...!

my 10days temporary apartment

well, ok, if u fellas didnt know already, we got booted out for 10days cos the landlord screwed it up, but we knew abt it even before we came here, so we jsut had to suck it la huh....
but now that we have shifted back... wehave a even bigger aprt!!! yay!!!
in this 10days we were here, we had many visitors due to the milan fair... all my id friends of cos, had terence for 3 nights, then elias n sarah for 2, then lynn,alec,wend,gab came over for dinner... n a lil of lynn belated bday celebration.... we made char bee hoon for them, took forever to get thru 3 packs of been hoon la!! jx fry till he had to rotate his neck n all, damn chia lat, n esp when u dont have a wok n all.. so we fried it in a pot...
in the end, all was gd, ate like mad as usual.... n was nice to meet the rest... :)



ok, this is the living room, nice place la, its like a condo, maybe abt 16-20 storeys, very new of cos, there aint too many of these aprt here, usually 4storeys max... but this aint like spore condos, got swiming pool la, gym la, etcetc... here its jsut a building...

my 2 landlords... on the left is fulvio, n the other dude, i never caught his name.. this is a picture of a picture so its lagi blur...that painting behind is mande my fulvio... both r engin students at the uni. the best bit is they go home every fri n come back on monday afternoon, so when we were there, jx n i pretty much had the place to ourselves alomsot half the time!
these 2 r nice n easy going chaps la, when we arrived, fulvio even offered us his shower gel n hair spray! he prob felt bad the toilet was empty... heh... these 2 barely look like students, not a single sec we were there did we see them do any work, nor even a glimpse of their lappies...they werre watching soccer n fulvio was jumping n screaming thru out! of cos supporting ac milan... yet to catch a game here,but definately will.... so... overall, glad we had them!


thats my bed, or rather my corner of hte room.. small rm la, only had 2 beds. but they brought in a table n a rack for us...there werent any blankets,sheet or pillow, so i brought my lil red heart! i was totally on my entire trolleybag jsut to zip up the damn pillow but all worth it!

my initial inflatable pillow, for airplane trips la, its was cold n plastic-ey, so i wrapped it in my tshirt... in the end, my lil heart worked better as a pillow for my head n the other for me to grab... my mum packed this airline pillow for me, didnt think id use it but hey! gd stuff! thanks mummy!

this is jx's corner... oh after the 1st night of sleeping like a prawn, we went back to our usual apartment n got blankets form our neighbours, they all had extra! oh n a lil heater too... so that really saved us...

READ THE OTHER BLOG 1ST! (if not u'll be lost..) our food in farm stay

well, i decided to have a whole other post jsut for the food... heh... ok n some other stuff too la... the other one with all the activities too long!

RAMDOM STUFF...


here, orange of it didnt come form their own tree, well the least it had was leaves! have u seen a real orange still with it leaves attached? i have... ok, thanks to me, u can say it too!

OUR SUPERMKT DINNER...



well, remember we said meals were 8euros each n it wasnt even worth it.. so we got these from the supermkt... well there is strawberry jam, canned corn, some canned meat which we suspect its pork(we have no idea man...), pesto , lettuce, bread,chicpeas, anchovies...not too bad la, but jx died at the end, he got so sick of the canned food taste...the can in the middle of the 3 pics, we ahd to save the can n use it as a cup to drink... damn sad la if u saw us....

RAMDOM STUFF AGAIN....

freshly plucked mint leaves! its really smells nice... like ricola lemon-mint candy!

BREAKFAST...

fresh ricotta... we ate it for bfast, thats b4 we went to see them make cheese... it was a lil goaty tasting, so i didnt quite have too much of it, but othen than that, it aint strong tasting or anyhting, its like tau-huay...

some pie, which was sweet, had some cinnamon taste to it, not bad, but nthign great....

our last bfast, we asked maria if we cld try fresh farm eggs...well, it tastes jsut like any other egg la! but she served with bread n home made oilve oil... the oil was really really gooooood... very very virgin cos u can taste the greenest of it.... made it all so so yummy....

italian candy, they served it after bfast, tog with coffee.... well, i tried the gold-green foil one, it tasted just like sugar.full stop.

ok, there were some other cakes that came from boxes form the supermkt, nothing special n coem biscuits, noting special once again... so i didnt quite take a pic....

WHEN WE ATE OUT...



its a riso ball, or, rice ball... they use riso which is short grain sticky rice, cooked it with some tomato base n made into a ball with mozarella in the centre.... n fried it... not bad but it was WAY too salty.... all of htem were....


another riso ball, but this time with saffron(i think its saffron, they use it here very often, but jx n lynn says saffron is DAMN EX n only in restaurants so cant be it, here they use this yellow thing damn often so cant be expensive at all...) well, this ball had some peas,mushrooms... n was DAMN salty too...both rise balls were ok only la, nothing much n forgettable, i think i can make better... seriously... with extra liao!


this was some spinache n olive n cheese? pizza... not bad,but i didnt quite like the smashed spinach taste... or at least the way they did it...

pizzas, some tiny lil han-jing-peng tasting bread, more rice balls, n this folded pizza...

close up on the pizzas... the upper one we cldnt figure out... but ok only la.. the lower one has mushrooms which was yummy, u cld taste the mushrooms... n the 4 lil pastries tasted lil like hang-jing-peng... but i think, hanjingpeng nicer! heh....

this the folded pizza, very soft bread with cheese n ham bits... i liked it alot man.. the bread was soo yummy! n soft soft one... mmmmm....... here bread jsut taste soooo gd! was never really into pizzas in spore, but here, its always pretty gd...

more close ups to make u droll really...

RAMDON STUFF AGAIN AGAIN....

we saw this sign n of cos we stopped to take a look... i mean, pple here dont even get tourist! n probably barely heard of spore... u'll be surprised, at the farm there were a handful of americans from various parts n they asked, 'if we are from america n called americans, ure from spore, so what r u called?' they get damn fascinated when we tell them we have summer all round n have speak singlish....

anyway,this is, the sold flowers... maybe a franchise from far east florist??but who neeeds far east florist here! they have beautiful tulips n lilies jsut growing randomly! MAYBE far eeast florist is their buyer... hmmmm.... maybe....