Holiday Planning

Yesh, I am back from my trip and am now planning for my one last holiday in May before heading back. Planning for a trip is something I love and hate at the same time. I liked it because I can be in full control of where I wanna go and when I wanna go. And during the research you can learn more about the history and story behind the place of interest that you are going. But the researching and planning part can be a real pain in the ass.

To all my friends who are contemplating to plan your own holiday, here are some info/websites that I find very useful (might be more relevant for european countries). :)

1. Mode of transport. If you are planning to go to more than one city/country, then you can choose between taking a train, taking a coach bus, taking a plane or have a road trip. Do check out the rates of each mode of transport. Sometimes taking a train can be just as costly as taking a plane. If you wanna travel by train, then you have to book damn early to get the early bird cheap tixs. Otherwise you might wanna consider taking a budget airline. If you are traveling within Europe, you can checkout these airlines:

Easyjet
Ryan Air
Fly Be
BMI Baby

If you are planning to drive, then you can check out Hertz, Europecar or Avis. But before you set off please check the speed limit of the country you're going, how their speed camera looks like and do check to see if they have any restricted zones or peak hour surcharge. Do note that some countries have tolls and sometimes the tolls can be quite a substantial amount. To check out the toll, fuel charges as well as the estimated time taken and mileage of one location to another, you can go to Via Michelin.

2. Plan your route. Which cities and countries do you want to visit. I am a typical kiasu singaporean so I always try to go as many places/countries as I can. A good map would be useful to plan your route. Alternatively, you can log on to tour agencies (eg. tralfangler tours) to find out their route and take reference from them. After all the places they go to must be well worth a visit. :)

3. Places of interest. Wikitravel is a great help in this area. And also every country/city will have their official tourism website. They sometimes have suggested itenary or routes you can take which is a great help also. And most of the time they also have the map of the location, which has all the places of interest marked down, for downloading . And if you have a place of interest in mind but dont have the address or you dunno where it is located, you can search it in google map.

4. Hotels in Europe are rather costly. And sometimes they are expensive and yet crappy. For me and hubb, a comfortable room is important for a good rest after a long day of travelling. Hence we always book our hotel through booking.com. They have a wide selection of hotels and so far their prices are the most competittive. And they also have ratings for the hotels from guests who have stayed in the hotels before and the ratings are a good gauge of how crappy the hotel is. We usually book rooms with 7.5 and above ratings. A note when you are booking hotels in Europe: do make sure that the room you are booking comes with shower and toilet ensuite. It is common for hotels here to have shared bathrooms and toilets. And also if you are travelling during summer months, do check that the hotels have air conditioning. Most hotels have heaters but not all have air con.

5. Do check the weather forecast before you travel so you know what clothes to bring. Although it might be spring/summer, it can sometimes be quite cold when a cold front is passing through. And also you can plan for indoor activities on forecasted rainy days.

I think that should be all. I am no expert in holiday planning but all these are some of the tips I learnt while planning for my past holidays. Hope they help and may everyone enjoy their holidays!! :)

Oh My

Oh my. Sorry for not blogging lately. I've been busy with:

1. Planning for my UK holiday. Im setting off tomorrow and I've yet to finished my itenary!! But then I'm only left with the last destination and our program will depends very much on whether hubb got the tixs to see the MAN U match, which we will know the results by today.

2. Reading manga. One of the best thing I found on the web, it to be able to read mangas online. But sadly, the translation of the mangas I was reading were not complete. Hence I will have to wait for the translated volume to be out and god knows when. Seriously, I think reading manga is even more addictive than watching drama. To me at least.

3. Cooking, playing MJ, cleaning house and everything else.

Ok. That's all. Please pray together with me for blue sky bright sunshine at the places I'm visiting. :D

Box of Love IV

When I am down, I just need to think of all the wonderful people (my family, sisters n friends) I have in my life and I'd feel blessed immediately. Eventhough I'm about 10,747km away from most of them, the distance doesn't make me feel less loved.


Every now and then, very blessed me will receive a box of love from Singapore.


(Short recap for those who didn't read my old blog)
Box of Love 1 was from mummy, daddy n sis. It was a box full of cooking condiments and our xmas presents.

Box of Love 2 was from my 3 nana sisters. It was a box full of my favorite Singapore tidbits, magazines and instant noodles. I was told again and again, to share them with hubb.

Box of Love 3 was from my another good sis, FF. It was a box full of winter items for me to keep warm during my winter trip. Unfortunately, some misfortune happened at the customs and the box never made it to me :(.  But though the box didn't reach me, I still received all the love and kind intent in the box.

Box of Love 4 was from my chao FG!! The box came when we were away for our winter holidays. Luckily a friend received the box for us. I was so excited when An msged me that I have a parcel at her place!! And when I opened the box, it wass full of 好料!!

Inside the box are:

Instant noodles (half finished)

Chicken rice mix (used!!)

Porky (half finished also)

Sambal chilli (used to cook sambal kangkong n sambal stingray)

Mee soto paste (on waiting list)

Bah Kut Teh bag (haven use yet cos we still have like a dozen more BKT bags in our cupboard)
Jelly powder (wanted to make but I got no jelly mould)
Herbal Chicken Instant pack (cooked!! refer to past post)
Japanese curry paste
Gong bao sauce (on waiting in the list)
Sambal fish powder (on waiting list!! looking for the right type of fish for curry here)


Half of the box is empty by now and I'm still thankful and grateful that I have such wonderful family and friends. I only wished that I have been as wonderful a friend to you as you have been to me. Once again thank you my dearies. I thank you and I love you. :)

My CNY 2010

Sorry for the lack of posts. As you all know, CNY ended officially yesterday and for a home maker, CNY is absolutely the busiest period of our job. We clean, cook, wash and play MJ like 5X more than usual. So now after CNY and a few days of good rest, Im ready to blog again. :)

So this was how I spent my CNY 2010. My last CNY in France...

My hectic week begins 1 week before CNY. Or to be precise, 3 days before CNY...


11 Feb, Thursday.
Started spring cleaning. Threw away all unwanted magazines, faulty items, forgotten and expired food in the cabinets and stuffs I think I wouldn't want to eat/touch/use again. Dusted, vacuumed and  moped every corner of the house. Cleaned kitchen cabinets, kitchen walls, shelves, TV console with wet wipes.

12 Feb, Friday
Baked some almond cookies for CNY in the afternoon and went for the CNY dinner with hubb. I would have loads of photos of the dinner but alas I had a real bad breakout on my face and I forgot to insert my memory card into the camera. So, no photos. I did take a few though, that was saved direct into my camera memory but Im too lazy to go dig out the transfer cable right now plus I looked hideous that day so Im not gonna post my ugly pics here.

my almond cookies... melt in your mouth, not in your hands... so good i will at least have 3 once i start eating...

13 Feb, Saturday, CNY eve
This has to be the busiest busiest day of all chinese housewives. Hubb has to go out so I'm left home alone to prepare the stuffs. Reunion dinner was at An's place and we were having steamboat. I will settle all frozen stuffs and An will settle the fresh meat section. Thank god for her else I think I would never be able to cope. I wonder how mum managed to do it all the past years. So anyway, work begings at 1pm.

First, thaw all frozen stuffs in the freezer.
Changed bedsheets.
Marinate and prepare minced meat for wanton.
Clean chicken and start cooking steamboat broth
Baked another batch of almond cookies
Wrapped the wantons
Clean prawns and cut off all whiskers and sharp ends (on the tail and head)
Vacuumed and mopped house again
Cleaned toilet.
Cleaned washing basing and scrub bathtub
Check that all food is thawed
Lay food nicely in trays and plates.

wantons all wrapped up n ready to be thrown into the steamboat... :)

By this time An called to ask if I needed any help and came up to help me bring the food down to her place.
We started dinner at around 8, and this year round, although we reduced the quantity of food, we had too much food again.
At 9+ Su and her hubb dropped by An's place and we had MJ all the way till first day of CNY.



14 Feb, Sunday, CNY day 1 n Valentines day
Woke up late but still managed to video call mummy and wished them all a happy CNY. Saw my Valentine surprise on the dining table. :) Had dinner at our favourite seafood buffet restaurant, followed by more rounds of MJ.

my surprise... flowers n a big brown paperbag... loves!!

15 Feb, Monday, CNY day 2
Had a potluck lunch gathering at E's place. Woke up early at 10 to make ngor hiang for the gathering and glad that most of them enjoyed my ngor hiang.

Ngor hiang... Hubbs helped with the frying and cutting. But when he does the cutting, there are always missing pieces... hahaha

Thereafter, hubb and I went to get my spoiled boots exchanged. Story goes like this: about 2 months ago, before we went for our winter holiday, hubb bought me a pair of boots. And barely a month after wearing it, the zipper of the boots spoiled. I was very upset cos the boots are not exactly cheap. So, hubb called the store and they asked us to bring the boots down for them to check. But we can only do so on weekdays. Hence, we didn't have a chance to go to the shoe store till another month later, on 2nd day of CNY. It has already been 2 months since we bought the boots and we were half expecting them to tell us that its been too long for them do anything but to our surprise, the lady just checked the zipper, and told us that we can go choose any pair of shoes that matches the price of our damaged one!! I was so happy!! And to make it even better, the sales were still on so in the end, I gotten a new pair of boots that was originally cost 2X more than my spoiled pair, but it was on 50% off. Damn happy!! Ended the night happily with more MJ.



20 Feb, Sunday, CNY day 8

Invited An and her hubb over for dinner to celebrate "ren ri" together (I miscalculated). Cooked roast chicken (ang mo style, am going to try the chinese style roast chicken some day), fish maw soup, cereal prawn and steamed fish. An made some yummy yam ngor hiang and burbur chacha. We ended the meal over eating again as usual and played big 2.



24 Feb. Wed, CNY day 11

Was also hubb's birthday. At his request, cooked all of his favorite dishes for him which includes chilli crab, char siew and kailan. We over ate again and were so full that we didnt even managed to eat the 寿桃 that we initially planned to have for dessert.

Chilli crabs that were a tad too spicy and not sweet enough because I used sambal olek chilli sauce. Will try again using other type of chilli sauce. Should have better results.

28 Feb, Sun, Last day of CNY
The day to eat 汤圆. Invited Sam over for dinner. Cooked charsiew (again cos its hubb's favorite), braised duck (1st try but didnt turn out very well. Not flavourful enough for me) and chyesim. Ended the dinner with 汤圆 as dessert.

charsiew!! hubbs favorite!!

**

And there you go, thats my year of tiger this year, with loads of cooking, loads of cleaning and scrubbing (of dishes and kitchen floors especially) and loads of MJ. Sorry for the lack of pictures. I always forgot to take pictures of the food I cooked. By the time I remembered, they are already half gone in our stomaches. :)

Fell

Woke up to a piece of bad news today. Sis left me an offline msg on msn telling me that grandma had a fell outside POSB and fractured a bone near her hips. She is now in hospital and needs to be operated and she has to be hospitalized for a while, which means she will be in hospital during CNY. :(

While sis told me not to worry too much as grandma is quite alright now and the op is quite a safe one, I can't help but feel like something clouding over me.

But I really wanna thank the POSB staffs. They are really kind hearted. According to sis, they checked grandma's particulars and wanted to send her home and when they found out that she can't walk, they sent her to the hospital. Thank god grandma met good samatians. :) I will never complain about the customer service of POSB at that particlar branch anymore.


**
Good news: sis just told me that the doc said they can operate on grandma this afternoon, which means she'll be home for CNY. Thank god. I'm sure must be mummy's chanting. Please help me pray for a smooth and successful op.

Cheap Dining

Just finished watching local drama Daddy at Home (企鹅爸爸）starring Chen Hanwei and Li Nanxing. I have to say, I love Chen Hanwei's sibeh aunty character and curly hair. I think he is even more "aunty" than my mum.

So hubb was watching the show with me few days ago, while we were having our dinner and there was a scene where Li Nanxing took his family to a posh chinese restaurant for dinner. Later his wife asked him how much the dinner cost and told him not to waste such money in future (as he was retrenched). He said the dinner costs about S$200.

Upon hearing his reply, my first reaction to hubb was: $200?? Its not expensive at all mah... Thought they went to a posh restaurant?? How come so cheap?? There were 5 of them (4 adults and 1 child) so means per person is only S$50. Cheap mah. Hubb replied: Don't compare with the cost here lah. OMG I think when we go back Sg, you're gonna eat at all the expensive restaurants cos you'll think they are so cheap. You are going to 吃穷我!!

But seriously, S$50 is about 25eur and that is the price for a dinner menu at a normal (not posh at all) restaurant. In the past I used to complain that S$5 for a bowl of noodles in a foodcourt is expensive. I don't think I will complain about that anymore. Over here, 2.50eur can only buy you 1 corssaint and a cup of coffee. But... I still think $200 for 5 people is really cheap. :p

**

So, drama recommendation for Jan 10:

Daaddy at Home. You're gonna love the aunty Chen Hanwei.

Okay I gotta go do some housework and cut discount coupons now. Keke

Transformer Strollers

As the guys don't have to go to work early today, hubb and me and An and her hubby decided to go check out this baby outlet near our area. Since its the winter sales now, we wanted to see if we can find any good deals for baby strollers as alot of people tell us that the strollers here are of better quality.

 Well the shop wasn't very big but we were wowed by the strollers there. Seems like strollers nowadays have alot of functions. They come with car seat, detachable basket, this and that and there are different ways u can fix the strollers!! We were busy looking at the catalogue which has the different ways the stroller can be fixed and I told hubb: wah these strollers are so complicated. Can transform into so  many patterns, like transformer.

And the transformer strollers don't come cheap. Since we can't get the sales person to explain to us the functions (doubt they can speak much english), we decided to do some research on our own before buying one. So far I like the Mac Laren strollers best. Saw that their latest model of strollers even have a thermometer and a stroll-o-meter to measure the ambient temperature and how fast you are walking!! Nowadays strollers very high tech ah.

So... Any godmas to be out there wanna sponsor your god child his/her stroller?? Let me know :p

Disclaimer: An and I are NOT pregnant.

Start Afresh

I guess its a little late but hey, its never too late, right??


Why do I want to start a fresh blog??

When I read that some famous bloggers are earning thousands from their blog, it sets me thinking: If only I can earn some moolah from my blog... Of course I know that my blog is not as interesting as theirs but hey, its ok to dream right??

So here I take a small step. Hopefully I can earn some moolah out of this blog. I mean even if its 10 or 20 bucks, better than nothing right?? And the thought of possible earnings will give me motivation to blog more and keep here interesting.

Please support me by linking me and reading me. Hopefully, bring all your friends also. Haha.

I'll entertain you with my taitai stories...