just got back from desaru
it was an insanely hot day
i carried my water bag today
so that made for five litres of water that i was carrying on me
not really used to carrying load on my road bike
that really put plenty of strain on my back
the heat today was a bit crazy
i was really feeling the burn today
i came back today feeling dehydrated
gonna throw back like a gallon of water tonight
i need to rehydrate
tomorrow is another long day in the saddle
with filming going on i need to have a clear mind
oh well
i better get some work done and go to sleep
dont know if i can make it for training tom
really tired.

category: before & after

after moving and fixing for about a week
the house is almost just about but not really done
at least the living room is all sorted out
but we still have no tv
because incredibly
scv doesnt run cable here
we have to pay to get them to install
genius right
but thats ok
i dont watch much tv anyway
the room you see in the photo is the living room
i dont know how we did it
but finally everything is in its proper place in the cupboards
moving is nostalgic
it lets you dig up old stuff that you havent seen in years
and you wondered why you never threw some stuff away
and you wonder why you didnt take better care of other stuff
oh well
glad its almost just about but not really over.

happy anniversary my dear.

its been a month
and i'm happier than i've been in a long time
we've had our ups and downs
and our fair share of misunderstandings
but its been wonderful all the time
and i really hope
that i am what you want
because you are to me.
so here's to us,
(i'm purposely not finishing this sentence)

another bike shirt.

another biking tshirt
this was the design we talked about tonight at meeting
it didnt really occur to me then
but when i finished
i thought it looked like one of those
"singapore is a fine city"
tshirts.
which cynthia happily pointed out to me also.
oh well, time to be more decisive lah
we have like tons of options
at least we're steadily accumulating
i suppose we might shortlist some of the better ones ourselves first
then we open to the floor for more comments and ideas?
not sure whats gonna happen
so im just gonna keep contributing to the ever
growing pool.

our first photo together
for u. till we meet again.

smux camp teaser.

edited version
you can play
"spot the difference"

09 tcr advanced sl

giant's 09 tcr advanced sl
the ones we've been seeing highroad race
is finally available to us mortals
it features a square downtube
much like cervelo's R3
i really think giant have outdone themselves this time
they've taken some very nice features from some
purebred racing machines
such as the downtube, the press cup bottom bracket
and the tapered integrated headtube
flared top tube
to make this one hell of a stiff ride
this model seems to have the new mechanical dura-ace
fitted on
the new crankset looks super fierce on this steed
im looking forward to check out and
grope the new shifters
they look freakin awesome

you've only been gone for three plus hours
and i already feel like
im short of something
like there's something not done
like i haven't said goodnight
like i haven't talked about my day
like im just going to bed without words
plus just after you scared me to death today
when you told me what happened
with that
i realise that the next few days
arent going to be easy
and that it must've been crazy for you to wait for me
when i went to thailand
and now i can't imagine going away for two weeks
can i bring you along?
just like how im wishin i could fit in ur suitcase
but i really hope you have fun
you finally have that holiday you wanted!
have a blast
i'll be right here.
with much forced patience.

living in a red light district.

finally moved into my new place
first night spent in the new house
i must admit i cant believe im here
after that long and tedious process of moving everything
but its all still not over
oh, useless trivia time
this place used to be a red light
in fact, there're still plenty of lupsup places here
and desker road is down the street
oh well,
should be fun
and i can take plenty of pictures around here.

teochew muay
near balestier/lavender

this was one of the many food places
around my new house
you really wont be afraid
to not be able to find food around here
i've already found two 24hr establishments
and this was some of the best porridge dishes i've eaten
maybe it was cuz i was hungry from a day at the house
i loved the sauce they gave with it
it wasnt salty and it tasted like chicken essence
mom was convinced some special ingredient was involved
anyway, the quality was consistent and high
nice haybeehiam also.

moving & shifting & transiting.

my new street.
its going to be a new life
a new start here
more nooks and crannies to explore
more good food to sample
finally
im out of the ulu part of singapore
and into a more central place
so i dont have to ride so freakin far
just to meet up with people
i move tomorrow.
who knows whats nice to eat in the Jln Besar area?

the moon reflected off the water at lower pierce
an incredible view
with the horizon glowing red
at 3 in the morning
once again our supposed haunted places recce
dug up more
"top-10-make-out-spots"
but im glad the route is finally settled on
im just gonna be incredibly busy this week
i move to my new place on wed
im going to be living in serangoon
10mins away from school
im going to love my new house
anyway
moving plus all my other stuff is gonna be one hell of a ride

my work for the biking team t shirt
it was really easy to do
each person has a bike in a matching colour
i was thinking if i could do a connect the dots thing
oh well
start with this basic one first lah

truly an amazing malaysia & thailand.

ben is back from his recce trip
it was an endless road trip
after 7 days of nodding off in the car
we're finally home
i'm too tired and lazy to blog so much about it
the panorama was taken in krabi
on this really amazing looking beach
which during low tide
you can walk to the islands
if its too small to see here click on it
i uploaded in quite a huge resolution
trip pictures here, here & here.

ride from the hut.

this marks the end of another
successful roadshow by the
ride from the hut (beach hut)
people.
i really think this whole thing is gonna work out
just fine
this thing is really the biggest thing im doing for summer
i leave this tuesday for the recce trip
i hope all goes well
im really tired.
took the 1am to 6am slot for the cyclethon
im totally like drained now

beef noodle
thaksin beef noodle
seah im food centre

the texture of the beef is nice
and the soup stock is pretty ok
my only gripe is the price
3.50 for a foam bowl
the presentation was totally sucky
and a real turn off from the start
so no matter how tasty the product
its kinda disgusting to eat it from foam
i have this thing against this kinda packaging
i get irritated when i scratch the bottom of it
it makes this scratching noise that
just gets on my nerves

i still love donut factory
happy days,
i love peanut butter.

my work for the ride from the hut banner
the roadshow is this weekend
i couldnt play in much of the planning
so this is my two cents worth
beach hut
sat - sun .

just trust me to go to fullerton for dinner
and forget to bring my camera
so i apologise for the crappy resolution
and the grainy handphone pics
i wanna like
strangle myself
anyway
here goes...

cream of celeriac
with roasted scallop and apple puree
fullerton hotel straits room
(so i have no idea where the food's from)

this is the picture above
its a soup, a creamy one
like duh
its my first time having celeriac
btw, i had no idea wth celeriac was until today
but it was pretty good
so good i didnt even know what i was eating for a while
i was thinking like it was celery
but it sure didnt taste like celery
but they had a whole roasted scallop in the middle
so u pick at it while u drink the soup
i had absolutely no idea where the apple puree comes in

tuna carpaccio with pan-fried foie gras

this is another way of saying
lets take sashimi grade tuna
slice it real thin
(serve less of it)
and call it carpaccio
but they sure didnt stinge on the liver
this baby was just right
firm yet crispy outside
creamy inside
ultra sinful
but the clean fresh taste of the tuna
made the lemak taste of the foie gras more palatable

chicken supreme
stuffed with mozzarella and basil
with broccoli mash
garden vegetables
and champagne beurre blanc

dont ask me
i have no idea what the champagne thingy is
did i memorise this?
no
i kopped one of the menus
anyway, for interests sake and generally useless knowledge
this is what a beurre blanc is
the beauty of gourmet cooking
is to stun everyone with this cheem language
then make it taste like something normal and nice
like cream sauce
which was what it tasted like
its almost the same
but then purists would crucify me
look
its creamy
its chicken with cheese
just call it a chicken cordon bleu
like everyone else
like whats with the "supreme" anyway
you wanna make it sound like fast food
yet blow me away with the complexity of beurre blanc
tell me you see the disconnect here

amaretto chocolate cake
with pistachio sauce

this was the ultimate in sinful
not too sweet
and super rich with cocoa flavour
but i couldnt feel the amaretto at all
thats not saying that it wasnt nice
while i may complain
it doesnt mean that im ungrateful
or that i a huge fuss pot
i loved tonight's dinner
which caught me totally unawares
which was why i didnt bother with the camera
which brings me to my final lesson of the day
always
always
be prepared.

ginger crumble ice cream w/ waffles

daily scoop
41 Sunset Way
clementi arcade

the ginger ice cream had this really strong ginger taste
which was good cuz i really like it
i also loved the fact that they had candied ginger inside as well
reminds me of my aunt's gingerbread cookies
the rest all thought the ginger ice cream was
a strange combination with the waffle
but the crumble part was just nice
not too much biscuits
and the whole thing together was really frangrant and nice
i loved the run & raisin too.

an ode to a burger.

relish by wildrocket
cluny court

i have been wanting to try this
gourmet burger joint since forever
so i decided to take j. there
to sample the famous burgers

i was positively starving when this baby came
hmmm from this angle it kinda looks like a zinger
and that looks like a kfc chicken patty
i shall not insult a 19 dollar burger anymore
because this seafood burger was packed with
prawns, octopus and stuff which i can't remember
then lemon mayo was put over it
the rest of this dish was nothing to crow about
the fried were of a reasonable standard
but on the whole i found it to be rather small
oh well
i thought that it was a novel place
with pretty decent and creative food
though a little pricey

thank you.
i had a great time last night
we should really do this more often
but then you know i have the thailand trip
and all my other stuff
and you have work
but hey
i'm glad we somehow managed to squeeze out time
to chill out together
hanging out with you is always nice.

katrina reborn.

after crashing umpteen weeks ago
i destroyed
ok maybe not destroyed
but i cracked my rear wheel
so my katrina
was out of action for a long while
forcing me to take edna to desaru
and on many training rides subsequently
being the onli guy on a mountainbike is tough
all the rest are zipping around on their machines
but im struggling to chase their rears
but i finally decided on a wheelset
that offered me great value for money
so now...
presenting...
my whirlwind woman
my hurricane honey
blow me (away).

grandma's xo crab tung hoon
went to the grandparents house the day before
grandma offered me food
which just happened to be this sweet crab vermicelli
there were giant cloves of garlic
and plenty of xo in this cool dish
i think i have a love affair with garlic cloves
but they have to be cooked
raw garlic is lethal
im not that insane
i love it when the whole cloves are cooked
till they are soft and creamy inside
i really want to go to the okonomiyaki place
to have those fried garlic cloves
beer too.

goldilocks.

'll be picking these babies up tom
finally after a long period of pouring over
tech documents and specs
i've finally decided on the best bang for my buck
which is not out of stock like the soul 3.0s
now the question is,
gold or silver?
maybe i should let katrina decide.

lovers trail.

went for a nightbike recce last night
supposed to look for creepy places
but for all the nice scenery we saw
i think we should seriously change it to like

"the 10 best make out spots"
or
"where to take your significant other"
or
"scenic spots in our island"

ah well, took a few shots
actually i took quite a lot
but i chucked alot of them away
cuz my camera really sucks at taking nightshots
everything gets really blur
i want my G9 soon.

liege waffles
The Sweet Stone Parad'Ice
2nd Level
Golden Mile Food Centre

hawker centre belgian waffles
as blogged about by many others
and myself, having gone there only today
because, i didn't realise the army market
was actually golden mile food centre
how smart could i be
and all this while i've been gettin some of my fav stuff
like the beef noodles
and the goreng pisang
but i've never tried these funky places like
the pasta or these waffles
firstly,
i have no idea why they call themselves
the sweet stone paradise
if this is just another name rip off
from cold stone creamery,
then its a really really bad one
because at least the others have the cold stone
ice cream mixing novelty thingy
but this is a hawker centre waffle store
with scoops of "gelato"
which was just normal ice cream to me
and btw, that set there was 6 bucks
what a freaking rip off
the waffles werent crispy or anything
its just waffle mix, ice cream and choc sauce
bloody hell
anyone could come up with that
a fancy ripped off name
and attempts to make it sound belgian
are not going to help if the food is crappy
the cheapo styrofoam plates didn't help
don't waste your time.

just got back from my desaru training camp

with the ride from the heart crew
we stayed at this lovely place called sebana resort
it was like this whole sentosa cove concept thing
except that this place was built in 1998
so you can see in the panorama here
this is the bloody beautiful harbour/dock
for the various ships from various lands to dock in
the five star trailer park of the high seas
lovely lovely views
the weather in desaru was insane though
but apparently so was the weather back home
it reminded me of the cloudless skies in thailand
where the sunshine blazed straight thru
assailing us with his rays
peeling off my shoulders
and withering our bodies and spirits
after two days of intense weather conditioning
i hope everyone manages their recovery well
and no one falls ill from the strain
training tom morning 5am
zzzzzz.

i leave for desaru tomorrow morning
grrr
my rear wheel is fucked
there's a crack... now i HAVE to buy new wheels
haha
then again that really isnt such a bad thing
hehe
yay!

Thai Fried Baby Squid
Magic Wok Kitchen
11 Stamford Road
Capitol Building #01-20

good combination of onions and bell peppers
which provided that extra sweetness
to deal with the fried oiliness
of the baby squid
the best part about thai cooking is that
anything fried with lime juice is nice
below is their deep fried fish cakes
which had chunky pieces of meat inside
some of the better fish cakes ive eaten

kukup.

the final leg of the week long smux endurance challenge
kudos to all those who finished the whole nine yards
or more like the whole 200km of it
it was great to spend stong and kukup with you guys
lingyi,weiyuan,jj,ce-wei,john,lester,zaoyi,weibin
i bet everyone is like half dead right now
haha but it was a really really fun week
i didnt really take much photos
cuz i didnt have time to take them
and everyone was taking photos of people already
so i only have random shots
oh well
it was to say the least a most eventful trip
we had like 5 crashes
megazillion punctures
and the safety car almost got destroyed
thank god for the 4 wheel drive
i swear my heart stopped when i saw the car stuck
but thanks to some skillful driving by chi-hao
we managed to get it out of the ditch
argh
the aar for this event is going to be a bitch
we've got lots of things to talk about

my stong stony.

finally back from a week of fun and excitement
went to gunong stong from mon to fri
its a 1400m mountain in kelantan
thats north malaysia btw
officially my first time outfield since leaving army
i must say that i really didnt feel like
going thru the horrors of the jungles again
but oh well
thanks for coming up with so much food
so i wouldnt need to feel cold and hungry
i hate the cold
so i have to eat a lot in the cold to keep warm
otherwise i'll start to shiver
so im glad we cooked so many nice meals
officially my best outfield in terms of food
ah well
i honestly miss stong
and yes i do think about it and feel about it
but i shall look forward
i hate the post trip blues and nostalgia
dammit im such a sucker for the past its amazing
oh well... moving on, moving on

picture taken from caryn's facebook, i took that pic, so technically its mine too? =)

my little shangri-la.

went to kukup today for a car recce
took a few photos
its a really chill out relaxed place
can't wait to go next weekend

ben the driver.

*gloats
my license photo is going to be mother ugly
forgot to bring a photo
so i took one at the centre
after taking off my hat
damn messy

my first award
goodness, im honoured
thank you!

road rash
after crashing on the descent of mount faber
the result of overconfident descending
and having more balls than brains
on hindsight
it could've been much worse
so i offer a silent prayer of thanks

Double Milk w/ Mango Juice
记得吃
8 Liang Seah Street

my eating partner in crime and i
both agreed that this was damn good
btw, its the white one
(yes we ate all these)
back to the point
the top layer is your nice and soft
double boiled milk
which is like fluffy light custard
which is really as close as i get to an explanation
but its nothing like custard
think of custard and tau hway mixed
and u would seem to get an idea
but the killer is below
beneath this is the sweet mango juice
which goes really well with the top layer
think of it as a very very good
mango pudding
ok im not doing it justice
but seriously, it was a wow dessert

Beef Noodle Soup
Mango Salad
Diandin Leluk
#01-67, Golden Mile Complex

i know i know,
boring food choices
but i was looking for some comfort food
and this is one of the best i've had
the beef noodles were seriously good and cheap
they were 3 bucks
and had like beef balls and sliced beef
the beef was tender and not hard
the mango salad was seriously great
they had just the right texture and flavour
some crunchy bits which i had trouble identifying
gave it that edge
paired with a bottle of singha
for that perfect comfort food dinner

the best friend.
Victor's Kitchen
Sunshine Plaza 01-21

after much deliberation
we decided to try out the place that
chubby hubby had posted on his blog

Victor's King Prawn Dumpling
the most common thing wrong
about har gau
is that the prawns are overcooked
and a sign of an even decent
dim sum place
is that the prawns in the har gau
must have a crunchy texture
while i seemed to doubt the freshness for a while
it does pass the first test

Yu Tiao Cheong Fun
this is your normal chee cheong fun
with a twist of you tiao inside
lately i seem to have been sampling food
with you tiao as the trump card
its that little extra thing to make something more enjoyable
i was pretty concerned that the youtiao might
have its normal chewy texture
but this one was fried crispy
which set it off nicely with the
smooth skin of the cheong fun

Tasty Queen Size Siew Mai
while it says king and queen size everything here
do not be deceived
these guys are tiny
lucky they were pretty decent
otherwise i wouldve had something to say
but the food here is slightly above your normal
standards of dim sum
but i think i've eaten much better dim sum
and that this place
was kinda just hyped up by chubby hubby

Double-Boiled Fresh Milk
w/ Fresh Ginger Juice
this one on the other hand was light and fluffy
and pretty full of ginger taste
but ive tasted better at liang seah