Christmas Lightings 2010- Orchard road Singapore

Santa Claus is coming to town.....Taken at Orchard Road..Not as beautiful as i wanted to them to be, will be back for more.  There were some parts with red lightings, and I thought it looked more like Chinese New Year than Christmas.  My favourite was still 2007 lightings, White & Blue.

 

Movies Summary for 2010

4 days into the last month of the year, December.  December is always the month to recap your year, whether it is a good or bad one, and get ready for the new year.  To some, it is also the month of eating, festive and hopefully, giving back to the society.

I will start the recap by looking at the movies that I have watched in 2010.  (Movies not in any particular order)

1. Inception
2. Eat Pray Love
3. Ip Man 2
4. Iron Man 2
5. Clash of the Titans
6. Unstoppable
7. Girl with the Dragon Tatoo
8. Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest
9. Sex & the City 2
10. Despeciable Me
11. Salt
12. Expendables

Total of 12 movies, meaning i watched 1 movie each month!

If I would to rank, my top 3 favourite movies of the year are:

1. Inception
2. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
3. Salt

Inception was the most orginal plot of all.  Though someone had use similar plot in the book, the movie brought it to the next level.  Leonado DeCarpio did a great job, i started to like him after his Blood Diamond in 2007.  I thought that he has improved a lot since his Titanic days, and he looked better as he aged.  The open ending left me frustrated, and had quite a discussion with my friends whether he was in a dream or reality. 

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a movie adapted from a book written by Stieg Larsson, a swede.  It was a trilogy, and there were two more books, that were also made into movie.

It was not your typical hollywood movie, and it had all the exciting and a bit dark theme, yet not too disgusting.  It talked about incest, homosexuality, rape & SM, murder, hacker, social morality etc...The movie opened with intriguing mystery, and you were totally absorbed into the movie as you followed the charcter to track down the murderer.  The only complaint that I had was it ws in Swedish, so I had to follow the subtitles, and in some scenes, it was white background with white subtitles.

Hollywood is making it, and the lead is Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara as my heroine Lisbeth. 
I hope they would not destroy it!

Salt- a typical Hollywood flick by Angelina Jolie.  Why I like it?  Simply because i like Angelina Jolie!  She was Salt in the movie, so cool, so heroic.  And her russian accent was just so sexy.  Salt is a James Bond, spy movie, with a female spy.

The most disappointing of the 12 was the Clash of the Titans.  It boasted 3D effect, and the only 3D thing was the subtitles.  Looked like one of those who just wanted to jump into the 3D bandwagon.

Look forward to more good movie in 2011..

Bedrock Bar and Grill- Best Steak in Singapore?

Bedrock Bar and Grill, the first time i heard of this was early this year, recommended by Jac.  She said that it was very good, and said wanted to bring me there for lunch.  That had not happened, so I thought that I could check out the place first.  If Jac said is good, it could not go too wrong.

Bedrock Bar and Grill was located at the Pan Pacific Service Suite Singapore, just adjacent to Sommerset 313.  I was a bit lost, and went to the wrong exit, and took a longer turn.  If you are going, take the exit that goes to 313. 

We were warmly greeted by the waiters upon entering.  The first thing that caught my eyes were a huge rack of meat, (I assume it was beef since this was a steak house).  The decor was mainly made of wood, and the places was quite small, with a few soft seats on the right. 

A warm and friendly waitress came to our table, showing us the menu, and telling us the wine list. I thought she was new as she seemed rather nervous and speaking very fast.

We settled for this Spanish Red Wine.  Like in other restaurant, she let us tried the wine.  I knew nothing about wine, but it sure taste good!  I always wondered what would happened if i said that i do not like the wine..will they refund it?

 She has kindly brought out another new bottle for me to take photo of it.  Very sweet of her, bringing service to the next notch.

The pita bread as appertiser.  It came with a whole garlic.  I am not a big fan of pita bread with garlic, I thought it should go with curry.  It was quie unusual that they served Pita Bread.

The big 400g giant.  Look at the fats and the thickness...

My 200g beef tenderloin, medium.  She has recommended medium rare, but i was afraid that it would be too bloody.  She assured that it would not be, because they aired their steak.  Indeed, it was not bloody.  Some parts of the meat was a bit red, but it was tender and juicy, simply melt in your mouth.  And i thought that 200g was just nice, too much of it will result in dimishing marginal return.

Dark Chocolate cake with some french cream.  I did not like the french cream, tasted a bit sour.   Chocolate cake was a bit too sweet for me.  I am always contradicting myself.  I like desserts, but it cannot be too sweet! And desserts are sweet, aren't they?  We had french fries as side.  Normal, nothing to complain.

It was a satisfying dinner, heavenly steak with great wine.  Between Bedrock and Morton's, Morton's still scored slightly higher due to their wonderful desserts.   Is it the best steak in Singapore?  I do not know.  Maybe we should do a blind test.  However, with the price difference, Bedrock is definitely a gem to satisfy your craving for steak, without too much damages to your wallet.  The only complaint that I had was that they had a two seating policy, 630pm-830pm or 830pm - 1030pm.  I do not have enough time to finish and savour my steak!  Will be back.

Bedrock Bar & Grill
96 Somerset Road #01-05 Pan Pacific Serviced Suites Singapore

Tel: +65 6238 0054


Company Trip to Kota Kinabalu - Day 3 (Nov 2010)

Day 3
Last day in KK.  We protested for having to leave the hotel at 9am as the flight was at 1205pm.  Protest failed, so we decided to use delay tactics, took our time for breakfast! Haha

I had my breakfast, and when I reached the airport and checked in, I still made my way to the Old Town White Coffee.  The group have concluded that I had python in my stomach, that was why I was always eating

Group Photo in Airport:

An incident happened before we board the plane.  Dino and I wanted to go to the washroom, so I happily followed her.  The moment I stepped into the washroom, I saw all men!!! And we realized that we went to the Gents!!!!!!!!!! Urghhhhhhhh

Dino and her sense of direction!

Some photos courtesy of Andrw and Raymond

Changi Beach Singapore

Had not cycle for a while, decided to try out the Park Connector in East Coast.  GT & I rented our bike in East Coast Park PCN stop, and cycled to Changi Beach.  I had wanted to check out the sunset along the Changi Boardwalk, so I brought all my gears with me, but it rained!!!  No sunset, grey sky instead.

This was after the rain

Before the rain, I saw a King Fisher.  Look at the beautiful blue beak.

Ended the day with famous nasi lemak in Changi Hawker Center.  Some said that the Nasi Lemak in Changi Hawker was over rated, and the long queue was self created (Read: They were slow).  However, I just loved their chicken wings.  They were crunchy and juicy.  GT's verdict:  They were great! 

Company Trip to Kota Kinabalu - Day 2 (Nov 2010)

Day 2 started really early!  The automatic alarm aka. the phone rang at 0545Hr.  I picked up the phone, half in dream land, said "Hello"  And i heard from the other end "This is your automated alarm..."  I went urghhh and went back to sleep, thinking that I have my alarm at 0615Hr.  15 minutes later, the phone rang agin!!  Urghh..Ok, we needed to get up, Rachel. 

Rachel was like a zombie beside me, she mumbered, Headache, stood up and went to take a painkiller.  I told her to get more rest while I went to wash up.  This was really not what I have signed up for.  Anyway, I dragged myself to the bathroom.  Rachel woke up much later, and I went down to have breakfast.

I was surprised to see Tim at the breakfast area.  "How did he manage to wake up so early after drinking so much?!"  I only knew when I was back in Singapore that Tim had terrible hangover.   Andrew, my MD was much annoyed that I wore my Man Utd jersey again (Blue one this time).  So he said he wanted to support Aston Villa tonight..haha.. Breakfast was fine til N sat down at the same table..oh well, I have to learn to be loving, so i decided to carry on my breakfast.

We departed for our 3 hours bus ride to the Canopy Tree Top walk.  During the journey, we made a couple of rest stop. One of them was the same stop that I made when I was there in August 2010, hmm..deja vu.

Mountain View.  Ah, i was there before :-)

 Natural Toilet.

 These were taken at one of the stops that we made, some fruits market.  We were supposed to go to the Canopy Walk, however due to some change in plans, we had an early lunch instead.  On our way to lunch, the bus stopped at a fruit market.  I think it was a plot by the guide to buy time.

 3 women deciding what fruits to buy

 These had nothing to do with lunch.  Just some flowers outside the lunch place, which was at some restaurant in a resort, near the foot of the mountain.  You could smell the fresh air.

This was the place where we had lunch

Start of the canopy walk

The hot springs were disappointing.  If you thought you were going to get the Onsen in Japan, then you would be very disappointed.  They looked more like swimming pool and hot water in tubs.  So we decided to pass it, and went for the water fall that was 400m away.

You couldn't see the fishes from the photo, but Adrian was doing his fish spa.

Photo courtesy of Dino, who was using my camera.  The smoke was to chase away flies and mosquitoes.

World largest flower- Rafflesia.

We had to pay RM25 to see Rafflesia, and it was disappointing as I was expecting it to be bigger.  But then again, I missed it the last time, so made up for it this time.  Andrew and the managers skipped the flower and stayed on the bus as they said they wanted to discuss something important.  When we were back to the bus, they were playing black jack!!  Very important indeed.

We travelled another daunting 3 hours bus journey back to the dinner place.  My plan to have Ba Gu Teh after dinner was spoilt by the heavy rain.  According to Dino, I have never been to KK because i did not get to eat their Ba Gu Teh.  We ended the day with foot massage and indian poker with the boys and Andrew!