That long awaited (at least for parents) day is here again! It’s the first day of school! Our school year here starts on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, we’ve been doing our usual share of eating…

 

Super Duper burgers

Tried out a newly opened Korean restaurant and it was quite good. We ordered bibimbap, corn cheese, kimbap, kimchi fried rice.

 

Currently…

 

Reading:

The Chocolate Maker’s Wife – Karen Brooks

 

Watching:

Chef’s Line

Listening:

 

 

Undeniable – Bill Nye

 

 

Eating:

I had toast this morning for breakfast

Drinking:

Nespresso

Cooking:

It’s still pretty hot out here so I’m reluctant to turn the oven on! Maybe I’ll just use the rice cooker more or cook pasta.

 

Last week:

I read:

Book Love – Debbie Tung
Skim – Mariko Tamaki
Naturally Tan – Tan France (audiobook)
Rocket Raccoon – Vol 1 Skottie Young, Jake Parker
Rocket Raccoon – Vol 2 Skottie Young, Jake Parker
Hawkeye Vol 3: LA Woman – Matt Fraction et al
Hawkeye Vol 4: Rio Bravo – Matt Fraction et al
Hawkeye Vol 5:All-New Hawkeye – Jeff Lemire, Ramon Perez
The Adventures of Superhero Girl – Faith Erin Hicks

I posted:

Eating Singapore 2019 #WeekendCooking

The Dragon Republic by RF Kuang #tlcbooktours

Library Loot (August 21 to 27)

 

 

 

 

Hello hello. It’s been quite a few weeks since the last Monday post and well, I was on vacation. I know some people may still put up posts while on vacation, and yes, I did continue with my co-hosting of Library Loot  but other than that, this blog remained rather stagnant for a few weeks, for we were in Singapore visiting family, friends, doing all kinds of touristy things (although I’m not exactly a tourist but Singapore changes so fast and every year there’s something different, something new, something being torn down, something being built, roads changing etc). We also took a mini trip to Bintan island, Indonesia, which is a one-hour ferry ride away from Singapore.

Here are some random photos of Singapore.

 

 

 

 

The boys went rock climbing – and I tried it too but the height kind of freaked me out a bit and I didn’t dare go too high.

 

View of the skyline from the rooftop of the National Gallery.

 

The amazing fountain in the new Jewel at Changi airport. The fountain simply gets more amazing as you go further down the levels.

 

One of the newest libraries in Singapore is at the Vivocity mall. It faces Sentosa island and is largely volunteer-run.

 

Currently…

 

Reading:

 

Lily and the Octopus – Steve Rowley

 

Watching:

Chef’s Line

Listening:

Naturally Tan – Tan France

Eating:

I had some homemade walnut bread for breakfast

Drinking:

Green tea

Cooking:

Bak Kut Teh or literally translated, ‘meat bone tea’. Essentially a pork rib soup with herbs and spices, sometimes very peppery. And delicious.

 

Last week:

I read:

 

 

Jessica Jones Vol 1: Uncaged – Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos
Loki: Agent of Asgard vol 1 – Al Ewing, Lee Garbett, Jenny Frison
Loki: Agent of Asgard vol 2 – Al Ewing, Jorge Coelho
Puddin’ – Julie Murphy
Jessica Jones Vol 2: The Secrets of Maria Hill – Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week…

It was my birthday last week and there was a lot of eating.

We ate at an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ. I wasn’t sure if I could eat that much meat. And if it was worth it for the kids (who paid 50% of the adult price) but in the end we did pretty good. The 6yo probably ate enough prawns to cover his tab 😂

The husband took me out to lunch (yes, no kids!) and we ate at Ramen Izakaya in Mountain View which seems to usually have a long line of people on weekends but on this Thursday, we could walk right in and get a table. I had tsukemen which is ramen but with the broth on the side to dip in. The broth was especially delicious!

 

 

Currently…

 

Reading:

 

 

 

Watching:

Stranger Things

 

Eating:

More leftover birthday cake

Drinking:

Lots of water – it’s a very rich cake!

 

Making:

More amigurumi

 

Last week:

I read:

The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon
Pie in the Sky – Remy Lai
Vox – Christina Dalcher
The Great Unexpected – Dan Mooney
Idaho – Emily Ruskovich

I posted:

#WeekendCooking Black Sesame Ice-cream recipe

South Pole Station by #BookBeginnings #Friday56

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Library Loot (July 10 to 16)

Books read in June

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Monday!

I’m sending the kids off to a Rocks and Minerals camp this week. Hope they learn all kinds of fun things!

Meanwhile here are some things we did last week:

Ate at a French bistro in Yountville – I had tomato soup and as my main course, rabbit

 

Bought pastries from Bouchon Bakery (it’s part of the Thomas Keller group). Lovely lemon meringue tart, fruit tart, chocolate eclair and what’s called “Oh Ohs” that wrapped chocolate cake at the back.

Made bread with the tangzhong method.

 

Food Truck Friday complete with kids play area (mini golf, table tennis etc). Tried arepas for the first time.

 

Lots of park and playground days as that’s what summer is all about!

 

Currently…

 

Reading:

The Priory of the Orange Tree – Samantha Shannon

(I’ll probably be done with this by the time this post is up tomorrow though!)

 

 

Watching:

Stranger Things Season 3

Listening:

Consider the Lobster and other essays by David Foster Wallace

 

Latest crochet project:

Eating:

Homemade raisin scone for breakfast

Drinking:

Yorkshire Gold with milk

Cooking:

I’m about to make some pizza rolls for the kids for their lunches this week – just homemade pizza dough, some ham and cheese and tomato paste.

Last week:

I read:

A Fire Story – Brian Fies
Spider-Gwen Vol 1: Greater Power – Jason LaTour, Robbi Rodriguez
Spider-Gwen Vol 2: Weapon of Choice – Jason LaTour, Robbi Rodriguez
Black Widow Vol 1: SHIELD’s Most Wanted – Mark Waid, Chris Samnee
Record of a Spaceborn Few – Becky Chambers
Beijing comrades – Bei Tong

I posted:

#WeekendCooking Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie

Library Loot (July 3 to 10)

Sadie by Courtney Summers

 

 

We were down in LA last week, returned on Tuesday afternoon, and as a result, I didn’t post my usual Monday update!

We had a great time in LA. On our previous trips down to SoCal (San Diego, Palm Springs), we just did a quick stop in LA for the day, so it’s been a while since we’ve actually stayed there.

The boys were excited about going to Universal Studios. We’ve been to the one in Singapore before but Singapore doesn’t have Wizarding World! The boys have listened to the audiobooks of the whole series, and watched the first two movies, so they were happy to be in Harry Potter land.

And it is really very impressive to enter first Hogsmeade – I love that the rooftops are all covered in ‘snow’. There’s Honeydukes and the Three Broomsticks and Ollivander’s. And then there is Hogwarts. And you get to walk into Hogwarts and take a fun ride called The Forbidden Journey. Well except if you’re not tall enough (48 inches min), like my 6yo…. But you still can walk through the castle. He instead rode the Flight of the Hippogriff which is a small rollercoaster and quite fun.

Also, the park is rather clever as you can buy interactive wands that allow you to cast spells around Hogsmeade, for instance, that makes the box open to reveal a chocolate frog, or lights up the lamps, or makes the big gate unlock. The non-interactive wands are just a few dollars cheaper but really, what’s the point of that?

 

We also had tons of eating done. Not just at the theme park (more on that in a proper post), but we had such great Thai food, Korean food in LA! I still dream of that handmade cold soba – it’s hard to find a place specializing in soba here! We are surrounded by ramen shops. I’m not a big fan of ramen, it’s fine once in a while but it tends to be rich and salty. I like the cleaner taste of soba. You can see my post on what we ate in LA here

Currently…

 

Reading:

 

Still taking my time with this one

 

 

Watching:

I’ve started watching Stranger Things. Very behind I know!

Listening:

Nothing at the moment

 

Eating:

Homemade baguette with butter.

Drinking:

Yorkshire Gold tea with milk for breakfast

 

Last week:

I read:

The Siren Depths – Martha Wells

I posted:

 

Eating LA #weekendcooking

 

 

 

 

The last official school day is Wednesday and hooray no more school lunch to pack! No more driving back and forth several times a day! The kindergartener will finally be going to full-day school in August (kindergarten here is half-day so he only goes from 1140-3pm, and to complicate things, every first Wednesday is morning session). Of course that means next school year, I’ll have to pack two school lunches. Oh joy. Luckily the kids are ok eating sandwiches some days…

Meanwhile, we have some of our summer planned out – the kids are attending a couple of science-related summer camps. So hopefully they will have fun and learn something. I’ll also take them swimming more often. And it might sound Tiger Mom-ish of me, but I also want to make sure they’re both prepared for 3rd and 1st grade! The two of them are in a Mandarin immersion program, and we don’t really speak much Mandarin at home so we are going to have to work on that, especially since it’s a big jump from K to 1st. And when we visited the 3rd grade class at Open House, I marveled at all the projects that were on display, some poetry, some research projects, some stories written, book reviews, some in Chinese, some in English. Definitely more challenging written work than in 2nd!

 

Things eaten last week:

I brought the in-laws out to eat dim sum. My father-in-law loves century egg porridge. Also one of my favourite things is the shengjianbao or a panfried bun with pork and vegetables.

I discovered that kimchi in a burger is an amazing combination. We ate at a fancy food court at the fancy mall so we had good burgers from Super Duper and my in-laws had rice bowls from KoJa and I took the kimchi and added that to my burger. Yummy

We made sushi for dinner and also had sashimi

More eating out – xiaolongbao

 

Hot pot on a hot Sunday.

 

 

Currently…

 

Reading:

 

 

 

Watching:

We watched Ocean’s 8 and boy was I disappointed. It was an awesome cast – Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling etc- but completely disappointing. Blanchett in particular was so underused. It wasn’t very clever and it strangely lacked tension – all the issues that cropped up were very easily solved. For eg, they needed a part, and tada one of the members just happened to have a genius sister who can engineer such a device. If this was the very first Ocean’s movie, it may have been ok. But how could this follow the first three? I mean, sure, it barely has anything to do with the original except that Bullock is Danny Ocean’s sister (and two original cast members appear) but with three exciting and relatively smart movies preceding it, this was such an utter letdown.

Eating:

Hot pot for dinner

Drinking:

Yuzu sake

Cooking:

To be honest I’m just excited that I don’t have to pack lunch on Thursday and Friday and haven’t a bloody clue what I’m cooking this week. I did however pick up some hamachi Kama (yellowtail cheek) from the Asian supermarket (6 big pieces for about $35) and will be grilling some. Just not today as I’m not turning on my oven in this heatwave!

Last week:

I read:

The totally awesome Hulk. Vol. 1, Cho time – Greg Pak
Peasprout Chen, Future Legend of Skate and Sword – Henry Lien
Save Me the Plums – Ruth Reichl
Unmarriageable – Soniah Kamal
I posted:

Homemade chocolate ice-cream #WeekendCooking

Moon Rush: The new Space Race by Leonard David #TLCBookTours

Library Loot (June 5 to 11)

Top Books From My Favorite Genre #toptentuesday