A long weekend

We had a three day weekend due to the Hari Raya Haji holiday, and it was just what I needed!  Work has been a bit stressful lately (per usual), so a few days of relaxation was perfect for me.

Thursday night, we went to an area of town called Dempsey Hill.  I've been to this area twice before for work, and I really like the vibe - it used to be army bunkers, but now it is filled with cute little shops and restaurants.

Here is a funny story - we tried to go to this place called Prime Society bar and restaurant.  When we walked up, probably around 9pm or so.. we had a drink and an appetizer elsewhere.. the outside patio had  few tables open, and we could see that the inside was busy, but definitely not crazy.  (Singaporean restaurants don't really seem to get "crazy busy" from what I've seen.)  So we were a little shocked when we were told that there were no tables available.  There were some seats open at the bar (and the tables outside), but the hostess said that they were too full, so they weren't seating anyone right now.  We asked how long the wait would be.  The hostess went and talked to someone else, and then came back and told us "oh sorry - we are closed now."  Obviously, we were confused.  And annoyed.

But!  This actually turned out to be a good thing, because we ended up going to a place called Margarita's.  I've not heard great things about the Mexican food in Singapore, and my own experiences have all been sub-par, but one look at the menu at Margarita's, and I was very hopeful.  Turns out that Margarita's is freaking awesome!  Not only do they have a bar to sit at (Singapore does not have very many bars that you can sit at, and I, for one, love to sit and eat at the bar), but the service was good, and the food was delicious!

We had queso fundido to start (because I can never resist chips and dip!), and then I had enchiladas for my meal.  The corn tortillas were freaking delicious.  I may have eaten too much and had a mini food coma after dinner.  This is a huge discovery for me.  I can't tell you how happy I am to have found solid Mexican food here!!

I know it doesn't look delicious, but trust me - it was awesome.

The other big victory for the weekend was workout related, but not running related (I am still struggling with that).  I decided that I should probably join a gym since my idea of just being disciplined enough to work out in my apartment's facilities or go running outside is clearly not working.  So I did some internet research on gyms, and lo and behold - what is on the group exercise class schedule??

Body Attack is my all time favorite group fitness class ever!!  The best way to describe it is like jazzercise on steroids.  But I love it!  I know everybody loves Body Pump, but I do not.  Body Attack is a killer cardio class, and it has tons of body weight exercises throughout the class.  It can sometimes be hard to follow some of the choreography, but it is a lot of fun.  I was addicted to Body Attack on Sunday mornings at Hyde Park Lifestyles for close to a year, and I was devastated to find out that the YMCA in Nashville did not offer Body Attack.  So you can imagine that I am absolutely ecstatic to find it in Singapore!!  I went to the Sunday afternoon class, and I loved every second of it :)  I will definitely be joining the gym - the Body Attack totally sold me!

Other random things from the weekend...

Spent some time in the sun at Tanjong Beach Club!!  This kind of reminded me of an Asian version of Malibu Sands.. that beach club on Saved by the Bell.  Good times!

Christmas decorations have started going up... it feels a bit early, no?

I made carrot apple ginger soup!  (Finally went to Home Fix and bought a plug adapter for my blender.)

And sauteed brussels sprouts with lemon and garlic and topped them with shaved parm.  I love brussels sprouts - I know, its weird.  Side note - when I was at the grocery store, the sign for brussels sprouts said S$2.89 for 100g.  I have no clue how much 100g is, but I figured that was a reasonable price.  I picked out exactly 12 brussels sprouts (they were loose).  Imagine my surprise when my 12 brussels sprouts rang up as S$7.86!!!

But this was a big win at the grocery store.  These Puffins are normally S$8.90, but they were super on sale for only S$2.20!  And it's an American brand!!  I bought two boxes :)

And finally - this was outside a restaurant that serves "American food".  For some reason, I just find this hilarious.  "Romney meatloaf" is way more absurd that "Obama burger", but honestly, this just cracks me up.

A Trader Joe's request

Hi friends.. as most of you probably know, I can sometimes have a hard time asking for help.. but desperate times call for desperate measure.  I am wondering if anyone would be willing to send me a couple of things from Trader Joe's?  (Mom - there is no Trader Joe's where you live, so this is not applicable for you.)

Trader Joe's pumpkin butter is a seasonal item, so this is actually what is driving the urgency of my request.. otherwise I'd just wait til Christmas!  I think they usually keep this in the peanut butter or jelly aisle.

Corn salsa!  This is usually in the chip aisle with all the other tomato salsas.

I know it's weird to go out on the internet and ask people to buy you groceries and mail them to you, but I figured it was worth a shot.  So if you would like to send me these goodies, please email me and I will send you my address and my eternal thanks!!

In the kitchen.. finally!

Since my stuff finally arrived a few weeks ago, the thing I've been looking forward to the most is being able to cook!!  My travel schedule didn't make this practical for a few weeks, but I am happy to say that I was finally able to spend some time in the kitchen recently!

One thing I feel like I don't really eat enough of here is vegetables.  Obviously, I know that I eat vegetables here, but it just seems like I don't eat enough of them, and the ones I do eat are usually stir-fried in lots of oil or are boiled to the point where I'm sure that all the nutrients are gone.  Oh, and I definitely miss my beloved spinach smoothies, although overnight oats has definitely become my daily breakfast, and I love having them.

Ok, so I finally went to the grocery store and was able to buy things without thinking about how long of a shelf / refrigerator life they have!

Weekly grocery haul.  This cost me S$41.

I found an awesome sounding recipe from Tyler Florence that has caramelized butternut squash served with pasta and a butternut squash sauce.  The whole thing can be made without an oven (which is usually used to roast butternut squash), and seemed simple and healthy.  I saw this quarter butternut squash at the store and was excited to try out the recipe!

Other things I grabbed from the store - frozen spinach, bananas, a ton of grapes, and chocolate gelato - it was on sale for only S$7!!

This is me prepping to cook in my tiny kitchen.  I put a cutting board over the sink to pretend like I have actual counter space ha.

Squash caramelizing on the front burner and simmering for sauce on the back burner

Unfortunately, when I took out my blender to get ready to puree my sauce, I realized that the blender has a UK plug, and I still hadn't gotten around to buying an adapter for it!  Wah wah.  So I ended up putting the squash I meant to use for sauce into a Tupperware and having the caramelized squash and onions with plain quinoa.  It was still delicious, and I was so happy to be eating a meal that I made on my own!

Dinner

The biggest challenge with my kitchen in Singapore is that it is so incredibly tiny.  And not having an oven really sucks.  For those of you who know how much I love to bake, you can imagine that I kind of hate it.  And then on top of that, there are tons of savory foods that are made in the oven too!  Sad :(

So if anyone has some delicious recipes that don't require more than two burners or an oven, please feel free to send them my way!!

Night Safari and more scenes

Over the weekend, I went to the Singapore Night Safari!  It's basically just riding a tram through the zoo at night, but lately I've gotten this idea in my head that I want to go on a real safari, so I was excited :)

Fake elephants, obvi

The website basically just said that you could go to the Ang Mo Kio MRT stop and then take the 138 bus to the zoo.  Seemed simple enough, but it actually took over an hour to get there!  The Ang Mo Kio (which translates to "white man's bridge".. or so I'm told.. I've also been told that "ang mo" really means "red hair".. which Singaporeans interpret to be a direct translation to "white person"?) station is definitely the farthest I've ever been on the MRT, and then the ride on the 138 was probably another 30 minutes after that.  I basically had no clue where we were!

We had dinner at the restaurant at the zoo, and then watched some sort of fire breathing show.

We were standing at the very front of the audience, and at first, I assumed that the fire guys were just drinking alcohol of some kind to light the fires, but the air around us definitely smelled like gasoline.  Somehow I don't feel like holding gasoline in your mouth is a very good idea...

I actually ended up getting pulled out of the crowd to go on stage and "help" with some little props and stunts.  No fire breathing or gasoline for me though!!

After the show, we boarded the tram to do the safari ride.  Flash photography wasn't allowed, so I have no photos to share, but trust me when I tell you that some of these animals were ugly.  The weird thing about the safari was that there were tons of animals that I had never heard of before, but they were all sitting right near where the tram would pass by, as if they were perched and ready for observers and photos.  You know how when you go to a regular zoo, sometimes the animals are all bunched up in a corner or hiding under a tree or a ledge?  Not at the Singapore Night Safari. They are all just sitting, perfectly posed in a spot where the bushes are low and everyone can see.  It was kind of weird and made the whole thing feel kind of fake.  Very Singaporean, I guess.

Anyway, since I have no pictures of animals to post, I figured I'd post some other random Singapore shots.

This is the drink machine in the office.  No Flavia here.  Rather, you can choose from a variety of hot and cold beverages!  But don't be too jealous, the coffee is still semi gross.

I went to a work training last week.  This was the afternoon snack provided.  Spring rolls and white carrot cake.  (Obviously it's not carrot cake like we think of in the US.  This is actually white carrot, the vegetable, sauteed together with egg and starch - super yummy.)  Clearly, this is very different from the cookies we would be served in the US!

So intriguing.  I see advertisements for the McDonald's Samurai everywhere.  I think it's like the Singaporean version of the McRib?  A fan favorite that randomly comes out for a limited time only?  I can't quite tell what the Samurai actually is though.  The picture just looks like a burger, but surely there is something distinguishing about it.  Anyway - I'm excited to try it!

Alright friends - it's Tuesday night, so that means I have some calls with the US that start pretty soon.  Hope everyone is enjoying their week so far!

A running dilemma

I'm not sure if you guys can tell, but I've been a major slacker on the running front lately.  With all the travel, it has been hard to find the will to get up and run before work, but now that I am in town for a while (and the fact that my half marathon is only three weeks away!), I have been hoping to settle back into a routine.

I didn't mention this when I did my Australia recap, but after last weekend's 10K, I had a bit of pain on the outside of my right shin.  At first I was really worried, but by the time I got home on Sunday night, the pain was only on the side of my ankle/foot, and not in my shin, so that made me less nervous.  My foot was slightly bothering me at the beginning of the week, and when I ran on Wednesday, it hurt.  I decided to skip the rest of my runs for the week in order to rest my foot.  By Friday, it was feeling fine!

I planned to run ten miles on Saturday morning.  I took my Garmin watch and my new handheld water bottle (with my iPhone in it) and set out.  Unfortunately, by the time I hit around the five mile mark, my foot was starting to bother me.  I was also really having trouble motivating myself mentally :(

So when I reached the next bus stop, I hopped on and hitched a ride home.  Wah wah.

Ok, so not only am I disappointed that I didn't even come close to running ten miles, but now I am a bit nervous about my foot!  I iced it a couple of times last week, and it felt fine by the end of the week, but then when I ran on Saturday it started hurting, and it was bothering me last night when I was walking around as well.  My half marathon is in three weeks, and I know that I need to put in some miles beforehand or else the race will absolutely suck, but I'm nervous about running long distances with this foot pain.

Runner friends - advice please!!

Side note - I ran with both my GPS watch and with the MapMyRun GPS app on my phone.  However, they were reading out at different distances... semi significantly ones!  I think they were usually about 0.4 miles apart.  Weird, right?

Scenes from Singapore

It's Friday night, and I'm at home blogging haha.  Honestly though, this is exactly what I want to be doing right now.  I feel as if I haven't been in town a whole lot lately, and all the cross-continental travel has left me exhausted.  I went and got a facial after work today, and I'm planning to go to bed pretty early tonight because I'm hoping to run ten miles in the morning!

I've been taking random pictures, thinking "oh I should blog about this!", but then I never get around to blogging about it, so I figured I'd just create a random post full of random pictures and thoughts.  At least it will give you guys a little look into some of the things that have been catching my eye lately...

Ice cream sandwich.  There are vendors on streets that are more popular with tourists.  Ice cream sandwiches come in a variety of flavor combos - this is chocolate chip with wafer.  They usually also have vanilla, strawberry, mint, etc.  I've even seen durian flavored ice cream :)  The traditional way to order these sandwiches is with bread, but I always opt for the wafer!  This will cost you about $1 - perfect for a sunny afternoon.

Economy rice for lunch.  This was my lunch on Wednesday.  I think I've explained this before, but economy rice basically is just a scoop of rice and your choice of whatever meat or veggies you want to go with it.  I've decided that it is the Singapore equivalent of meat and three!  I got this in the cafeteria at my client, and I was lucky enough to get the employee discount (50% off!), so this plate of food was $1.80.

Side note - do you guys see how some food is so incredibly cheap and some food is so incredibly expensive?  It's very bizarre to me, but it is also why most locals in Singapore eat out all the time, but they only eat at local hawkers (food courts).

Can you see the two stickers on the back of this truck?  In Singapore, you are allowed to carry people in the bed of your truck, and it is regulated.  The sticker on the right says 13.. that is how many people are allowed in the back, and the sticker on the left says 70.. that is how fast you are allowed to go.  So it is very common to see tons of people packed into the back of a truck driving down the highway.. typically construction workers going to or from a job site.

Ok, my computer is now being super slow at uploading anything, so I'm done with blogging for tonight.  I'll put up some more random pictures soon :)  Have a good weekend friends!!

The Outback

Ok, so Australia was amazing.

Stephanie and I flew down on Thursday night after work.  Melbourne is about 7.5 hours away, but they are 3 hours ahead of Singapore, so our 9pm flight was supposed to put us into Melbourne around 7:20 in the morning on Friday.

Worst. Flight. Ever.

1)  Before we took off, a woman in the row in front of me kept asking the flight attendants for stuff for her daughter, and then before you know it, there are people coming over every five seconds to check on this girl.  (Does this sound familiar?  Remember the heart attack on my flight out of Singapore in April?)  Anyway - this girl had some sort of allergic reaction or something, but they decided that she needed to get off the plane, so our take off was delayed by about an hour.

2)  Since I had just come back from flying a billion hours to and from the US, I already knew exactly what the in-flight entertainment options were going to be on Singapore Airlines, and I'd pretty much seen everything that interested me.  So with nothing but the free episode of "Nashville" (am I the only one who doesn't love this show?) and the latest episode of "The Mindy Project" (I love this show!) on my iPad, I was looking forward to some good sleep on the plane.  Too bad there were THREE screaming babies right by me that were literally wailing the entire flight.  At one point, someone actually walked up to one of the moms and just told her "I think you need to just hold the baby for a bit".  Obviously, I am no expert at parenting, and I get that sometimes you just need to let a kid cry himself to sleep - but not on a plane with 400 other people.  (Side note - yes, 400 other people!  We took the double decker plane.. it was huge.)

3)  Air traffic control won't let us land due to congestion or traffic or whatever.  We circle the air space around Melbourne for a while (with crying babies the whole time).  Finally, we land.  However, the captain comes on and tells us that there is no gate for us to pull into.  So we just sit on the runway.  For an hour.

So, not a great start to the Australian adventure, but once we actually got our feet on the ground, things were great!  Friday, we went on a day tour down to Phillip Island, which is a nature park that is home to lots of animals!!

The kangaroos were the first stop!

A small tea time snack welcomed us

Wombat.. looks kind of like a giant rat?

I tried feeding some kangaroos, but they weren't too interested...

Me and Stephanie with a new friend

Then we boarded the bus and headed over to see the koalas.  Along the way, our tour guide showed us some cows and some asparagus farms, which was cool, but I was really anxious to get to the koalas.  This was my favorite!!

Oh hi there

We didn't get to touch any koalas, which was a bummer, but apparently it isn't allowed in Victoria.  But the koalas were so cute, and Stephanie and I spotted a bunch of them away from the rest of the crowd, so it was really neat to be able to just observe them without a ton of people around us!  Our tour guide told us that in Queensland and Sydney you can actually touch or hold koalas, so I guess I will have to get over to those places :)

The marquee of the tour at Phillip Island is the "Penguin Parade".  The south of Australia is home to little penguins, formerly known as fairy penguins.  They are super tiny and don't look at all like the penguins that are in US zoos.  Since Australia also has predatory birds that can eat the little penguins, they go out to the water before sunrise and stay in the ocean until the sun goes down since they can escape the predatory birds in the water.  So once the sun goes down, tons of penguins (I think they counted around 2000 penguins the night we were there) come up on shore and waddle up the beach towards their penguin burrows that are in the beach dunes.

While we waited for the sun to set, our tour guide showed us around a bit of Phillip Island, including some wallaby farms, the coastline, and the Grand Prix race track.  We also stopped along the beach for dinner.  

Fish and chips!

Unfortunately, no photographs are allowed at the Penguin Parade, but trust me - it was awesome!  I also learned a lot of random penguin facts along the way, which no one wants to hear, but its amazing how smart nature is.

If you are ever in Melbourne, I would 100% recommend the Penguin Parade tour.  It was the highlight of the trip - I loved it!

Since we spent our whole first day on the tour, we explored the city on Saturday!  Melbourne is absolutely beautiful.  A really clean city that is easy to navigate.  The river runs right through the city, so there is a ton of waterfront scenery to take in.  I loved it.

Hey-o!

 

 

Random story - we ducked into a mall to use the restroom, and guess what I saw?  A Bloch store.  Took me back to my days of ballet!  I used to wear their pointe shoes.. a long time ago

.

Back to my story.  Sunday was race day!  Stephanie did the half marathon, and I did the 10K.  We had picked up our race packets on Saturday, and that whole process was sheer chaos, so I was a little bit nervous about how the race was going to be organized.

As it turned out, the race itself was awesome.  Probably the best one I have ever done!  The course took us through some awesome views of Melbourne, and it was flat!  The weather was perfect - right around 50 degrees and sunny, which was such a welcome change from my runs in Singapore.  There were 9,000 people running the 10K, but I never really felt crowded along the course, which was really nice.  And even though I've been slacking off lately, it feel like my running has paid off a bit!  This is the first race I can ever remember doing where I consistently was passing people!  My official race time was just under 1:03, which I am super happy about.  (Side note - with all the bobbing and weaving that naturally comes with a race, my watch said that I ran 6.57 miles, so to cover that distance in just over an hour is extra awesome for me!)

Pre-race photo

Running through the city

Runners around me :)

Finisher!

Oh - and I ate a lot too.  Melbourne is known for their cafe culture, and as a coffee lover, I was happy to partake.  The coffee was outstanding, and there were so many charming cafes and restaurants everywhere.  Here is a look at some of the stuff I ate.  (Absolutely zero steaks, cheese fries, or blooms haha)

Ok, this turned out to be a super long post, but I had so much to share from Australia!  Hopefully this makes up for me not posting very much over the past couple of weeks.  I'm back in Singapore for a while now.  No travel planned until I start working in Penang again in December.  I know that several of you have asked about my apartment - my stuff is all here, but I am still working on sorting it all out.  I'll post pictures once I'm all set up.  Any other stuff you guys would like to see me write about, just let me know!