Yellow Ribbon

Today marks another day where I joined and participated in a running event. Collecting my second medal of the year.
To admit, I was kind of reluctant to run this morning. Firstly, I haven't been training for the run like at all. Second, I haven't ran in a month (or more) not since my Bumpy ran with me. Third, it's so early in the morning and my bed loves me too much to let me go. Hahah.
But well, it's a race I paid for, kind of not worth it if I didn't run in the end, even if I didn't really do well for it.

So up in the morning I got up (still very reluctantly), changed and got out to meet my friends to go together. The event provided free shuttle bus services from Singapore Expo which was really awesome. And that's where we parked as well. Getting there was no issue and eventually we hopped onto the bus, and were on our way to the starting point.
But first, baggage drop. I had to pack a change of clothes, slippers and towel. Standard packing for running.
They had trucks ready for the baggage drop off, and they provided big plastic bags for you to place your belongings inside and secure it with a band.

Kitty's caption: What are these people wearing yellow for?
Probably cats and hair colours the second main things on my mind right now. No hints needed to guess what's the first and last thing on my mind everyday.

The event was well organized, buses picking the runners up from Singapore Expo. Well seen signs to direct runners for their baggage drop off before directing them to the starting point.
Unfortunately, we weren't there as early as we hopped to be, and by the time we were done with baggage and friend going to the washroom, it was about 7.30am then. And the race was starting in about 15 minutes time.
Had to pick up the pace to reach to the starting point and even so when the siren went off, it took us like three minutes before passing the starting line. That's how far we were from the starting point. And with that three minutes lag time, the fastest person could have completed a km already (who knows?)

It was like the best weather to run. Despite other parts of Singapore having heavy rain, at Changi area it was cloudy (with the chance of heavy downpour as well) but it just didn't rain at all even after the race was completed. Though there were some times where the wind was a little chilly and with a sweaty body, it gives the chills.
Good run and venue, though the up and down slopes were pretty horrible. In my mind I was mindfucking myself and saying 'this is why I trained at MacRitchie'. It's kind of like self psycho-ing yourself to complete the race. And also how I know Bumpy wouldn't like it if I give up halfway during the run as well.

It's feel like a scenery run instead. Going back Changi Chapel & Museum, passing by factory and even having policemen cheering you on. Not bad I'll say. Hahah. And just at the last part of the run, we were running beside Changi Prison and the most unexpected is when we turned into the entrance. I was like overwhelmed. Like I'm literally going into prison. That feeling when you went pass the gates and know you're a 'prisoner' for a few hours. And turning the corners, you spot the big field where they have the end point and where everyone is gathering there. Inside I'm telling myself, just a bit more. You can see the finishing line already.

And with every race event, somehow the last km is the one where they mindfuck you the most. Just when you can see the finishing line, they decided to make you run a little longer. I thought it was a simple run to the end, make a U-turn and head back towards the end point. But no, they decided it was better to make another turn (Like straight and turn right, something like a L shape instead) before making a U-turn and running back. It's like that additional 300m that mindfuck you a lot. And quite a number of people didn't expect that and they started to pick up pace not knowing there was a little more before actually picking up the pace for real. Still sadly 'cause I didn't train for this run, I struggled a lot. And the last two km I slowed down my pace. Suffered cramps and it was just bad for me. Legs hurt like crazy while running 'cause there wasn't any proper warm up done.
Bright side, I finished the race though not my desired timing of below an hour. But it was 1.01:29. Just a minute above the hour limit. Hahah. Maybe if I didn't slow down that much at the last part it could be possible.
But hey for someone who didn't train or run for the last month. Spend every weekend pigging out with her boyfr and eating so much dessert. I'll give myself a good pat on the back.

After the race, first and second thing is getting myself an isotonic drink to hydrate and heading to the washroom. Hahah. Bad decision to be heading to the washroom though. I feel light-headed after the run and suddenly sitting down and focusing on something, I feel a bad headache coming up soon.
Thank goodness it wasn't a warm weather else I would definitely suffer a headache next. Yea I think my immune system getting weaker.

Headed off to collect our goodie bag and they give awesome items! Like they even personalized a piece of mooncake with the yellow ribbon stamp on top. Secretly saving that piece from my family to share with Bumpy (Shhhh!).
Collected a lot of can drinks as well. And even grabbed a big cup of water to proper hydrate myself instead of drinking too much isotonic drinks. Water is after all the best ingredient for the body. I was like holding the big cup the whole time, slowly sipping water from time to time.

The organizers even set up a separate tent where they display the route of acceptance. Elaborating how there are different courses that prisoners are able to take up while serving their time. From sport to culinary, you name it. They even have a mock cell to show you how small the cell is, the daily activities of a prisoner and the items they received.

The excited moment of texting my Bumpy to tell him my timing.
Was telling him that I aimed to finish my run before 9am and text him then. Hahah. And he surprised me back with long mushy messages.
We weren't able to play some of the games they had there (SIGH). Did want to spend more time there but time wasn't on my side since I was meeting my family later for lunch. Grouping back with my friends and finding each other, we got a group picture before heading to find the shuttle bus service back to Singapore Expo.

And here me...
Holding the big empty cup which I finally finish after an hour of holding it around.
And needing another cup of water instead.
On the bus ride home, I can really feel my wobbly legs and a bad feeling that I would be sore the whole day and the following day. Hahah. Next run, I better be prepared!

The formation of the Yellow Ribbon before grabbing a picture. And they are all wearing yellow caps as well. Hahah! It's a good run. And it is said that there were about 10k participants that morning running.
Well, sometimes during the run, I would be cursing and swearing that it is a long and tiring route, and why I didn't prepare well for it and also after 5k mark, I started to lose interest in completing the race 'cause it got boring running.
Other times, I wonder why am I torturing myself and joining race events when right now I should be running is to keep fit and for leisure. Not for serious training or anything. Then again, I got to work towards my final and last race event of the year; standard chartered. Wish me lots of luck on that, and hopefully to complete the race below 4.5hours.
Even asked Bumpy if he would like to accompany me to run, so at least I have company the whole route and not be even bored running the race. Probably asked him to meet me at the 21km part and he paced me the remaining journey together.

Life is like a race. At times we are not prepare for it, but we are ready to run it anyway.

Red-headed

So I heard that it is more fun being a red-headed.
Hahah! Went to dye my hair the day I ended my paper. And for once, I actually love the hair colour that I did.
I mean I tried a variety of colours before and usually it is nice for a while but eventually I realize that the colour doesn't suit me.
To think I wanted to try going purple-headed first.

Did three different shades of red. The initial idea was to get two different tones of red.
I requested to my hair dresser that I wanted the bottom half of my hair to be bleached and the top half to be lighten to the lightest blonde he can go without bleaching. The main aim is that when I apply the red dye, there would be a brighter and darker red on my hair.
I am using La Riche Vermillion Red for my colour.
From there, he helped me apply the dye and I got three different shades of red instead.
Super love the colours after the whole process.

Well, now the question is how long would my red last before it starts to fade.
My answer, I'm hoping not that soon.

Le Chocolat Cafe

Spending the whole weekend with my bumpy is becoming a regular thing to do.
Sometimes it does suck not to have him around always, but at the same time, you learn to cherish each other more, especially during the weekend when you just want to spend every moment.
You rather not waste time on other things which can be accomplish during the weekdays.
And better still, you also don't want to waste time on arguments or setbacks which waste time.
Bumpy's current favorite words is 'where got time?!'

To admit, it isn't easy being together with an army boy.
You wait for Friday to come each weekend and you scream in agony if the boy gets confinement or guard duty on the weekend.
Other times on the weekdays, you wait for 9.30pm onwards to come, stare aimlessly at the phone just waiting for the most important call of the day.
And suddenly, the rest of the matter can wait when the call comes in. After all, it's just for that one hour (or more or less) that you get to speak to him for the whole day. That you get to rant to him about things that bother you, annoy you, satisfy you, please you or anything that happened in the day. And in exchange, you hear about his day, how his training went, how was his e-learning and his awesome meals in camp. You learn to be positive for him, encouraging and supporting his journey.
In a way, both sides learn to be understanding and more supportive.

Anyway onto today's post. I met my bumpy at Serangoon mrt before we headed down to Chinatown for lunch. Today we did a mixture of hawker food and cafe finding.

As the Mid-Autumn Festival draws near, Chinatown is brightly and colourful decorated with lanterns.
Stringed across the road, the colourful lanterns will definitely captured your attention once you're in Chinatown area.
Now makes me wonder how it would look like at night when the lights are on.
Oh well, another three weeks later I would be walking under the block with Bumpy and at the end of the night, we would play with candles and burn the lanterns. Muahahah!
Of course not forgetting to eat mooncakes and have tea to go with it.

Outside Chinatown mrt, just the main tourist street, there lies another attraction. The lanterns are hand painted by students of different primary schools and they are proudly displayed for everyone to admire and snap pictures of.
The two pictures were kind of a monkey-see-monkey-do action. I saw another pair of photographer taking from that angle, and well, armature me decided to follow suit.

Decrease the exposure for these shot since I'm directly below the sun. It's either that or I would be taking a far too bright picture.
And surprisingly it turned out well, not too bad.
Improving in my photography taking. Time to be using my camera more often for pictures already since my phone is about to retire from pictures taking.
Moving into lunch, today Bumpy introduce me to a really nice place for roasted meat. And just nice the timing where I am in need of protein.
It's a store near People's Park Complex. Just around that area is the main hawker centre nearby, you just can't miss it 'cause of the amount of people stopping there to buy food.

The char siew is like the best I have eaten. A good balance between the meat and the fatness. Juicy stuff.
And the roast pork is crispy and crunchy at the top, with a good flavour of meat. Even the roast duck was like food-orgasm. Hahah!
The only downside of this store; the price. For a plate to feed both of us, it costed $19.20.
I'll say it's pricey for a hawker food, but tasting the meat, somehow it seemed sort of worth it. You got to admit that at times good food doesn't come cheap.

After that we headed off to find our dessert place. Heard about it from my friend that this cafe served rainbow cake as well, so it's a rainbow hunt to find it.
At the same time, we were finding a steak place to have after Bumpy' outfield.

Located at Club Hotel, we found our dessert place!
We ordered two types of desserts; the famous rainbow cake and brownie with ice cream.

From the first appearance, the rainbow cake looks sweet. Especially with the chocolate coated and dripping chocolate down.
At the second glance, it does have the six layers of a rainbow cake. However I wasn't satisfied with the design. The cake layer were unfortunately unevenly baked, with some layers being thinner or thicker than the others. And the stacking of the cake was also uneven. To top it off, it had a 'generous' serving of cream at the top.
To be honest, I hate cream on cakes. It put me off instantly and I would literally try my best to scoop the cream off if possible.
With this, I just felt that it was too much creamy and the cake was just disappointing for me. At the last part, I decided to scoop away all the cream before finally having the last few bites without the overload of creamy-ness.

The thick layer of cream both at the top and side. Together with the uneven layers.

The first bite.
For the second dessert, we had the brownie with ice cream.
Mainly we chose that dessert 'cause of the size of the brownie. I mean that thing is huge. It's like the size of my palm and usually we don't see brownie in that size. Hahah.

A good piece of brownie I'll say. Not too chocolatey and with the addition of nuts inside, it's not bad.
Decent should be the right word.

The food listed are priced before GST and service charged. A quiet place for weekend brunch or cakes eating.
Though service is a little slow despite that there wasn't much crowd when we were there. Pretty much less initiative staffs.

Le Chocolat Cafe
Club Hotel, 28 Ann Siang Hill
Mon - Sun 07:00 to 20:00

My Bumpy all booked into camp and I won't be seeing him for 18 days. It sound like confinement period all over again. Only that this time we know we're getting better at it, and that after his outfield, we will spam the weekend with each other.
Till then, we will wait another 18 days to compare skin colours and see much darker he will get.
Then again, who ever said love is easy?

Lola's Cafe

A little cafe that just opened a month ago (I think or more) along Simon Road.
Decided to head there on Sunday for brunch with Bumpy.
The cafe is a retro style and their table is even made from retro sewing machine. During the meal, I was busy moving the machine up and down, making a horrible creaking sound to annoy others. Heheh.
It was a cafe that appeared on 8 days and figured well it's nearby my area why not.
To be honest, I never really eaten at any cafe around my area like at all before. Seriously. To think the past 20 years that I stay around my area, I don't really eat here much. Maybe kovan hawker centre here and there. But that seemed about all.

Do love their clock though.
Definitely want such an unique clock in my future home. Decorate my home to have a slightly retro yet modern style.
And of course hopefully a couch beside the window. A place of relaxation, book reading and daydreaming. But of course the window better have a good view.

We ordered their brunch set.
Avocado Eggs Benedict and Full Meaty Breakfast.
I enjoyed Bumpy's brekkie more than mine.
The sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs are seriously awesome. The bread not really cause it's slightly hard for my liking.
But that's one recommended set to order when you're there.

The Egg Benedict is alright as well, decent meal, or maybe just learning that Egg Benedict not really my kind of brekkie/brunch that I would like to have.

For desserts, we tried their brownie and this salted chocolate tart with Kahlua cream.
The brownie deserve every thumbs up for the rich moist and chocolatey slice. Super happy that Bumpy ordered it.
Definitely coming back here just for the brownie and maybe more items on the menu. And another cafe to add to my list of chill out places.

Lola's Cafe
#01-00 5 Simon Road
Tue - Sun 11:00 to 00:00

The Coffee Daily

This weekend started with a little overdose of dessert.

And considering I had strictly placed myself on a 19 days of no dessert, a sudden overload of dessert intake does make me nausea. Surprisingly from a disciplined dessert eater like me. 

Then again I literally was off limits to desserts. It was terrible, horrible and I nearly fainted of low sugar level inside me. 

So when my Bumpy had his first book out on Friday night, I was happy to the maximum. 

Waited for him at Pasir Ris for him to come down from the bus and hopping into the cab to head home. 

The first awkward moment seeing him in green after 19 days and for the first moment it really did seem foreign. Like is this really my boyfriend. He doesn't look like my boyfriend at all! Hahah.

Okay he better not be reading this part.

But eventually having him beside me again even just for this weekend, I know this is my boyfriend. Maybe he's not entirely the same as before. Inside, I feel that he grown up. More mature, more appreciative, more loving, knowing his priorities and obviously more mushy.

Maybe after booking out, you learnt that you don't want to spend the weekend in front of the computer playing dota, you rather be spending it with family, with girlfriend and with friends. 

And this weekend, he managed to accomplish all. Above all, I get to spend all three days with him, even while I was studying for my paper. 

Another 3 more days and I'm seeing him again. 

Somewhat true that when you have an army boyfriend, your whole weekend practically revolve around him. 

Weekdays are then used for other friends instead.

On Saturday night we headed down to Serangoon Gardens for a little dessert and meeting with his friends.

Personally I did not enjoy the red velvet cake at all.

The cake texture was crumbly and the amount of cream cheese frosting was insufficient for the amount of cake available. Overall I felt that it was quite a piece of disappointing slice.

As for the rainbow cake, I enjoyed it as well as I did last time. Just that I needed more time to complete the cake. For a six layer happiness cake, you definitely do not want to rush through the process.

Probably or definitely damn sure that Bumpy died of dessert overload that night at the rate that he ate more than me. 

Next time we're heading there with a book and spending a lazy afternoon there just enjoying the atmosphere and cakes available.

75 Brighton Crescent

Mon - Thur 12:00 to 22:30

Fri 12:00 to 23:30

Sat 9:30 to 23:30

Sun 9:30 to 22:30

Rokeby

A little late entry, almost more than a week ago.
Just spend the last two weeks grounding myself at home, and didn't really find much mood to go out, or do much. Then again, studies do take up the rest of the time away.
Finished my first paper yesterday and my next one is on Thursday. After that it's three days worth of fun, eat, sleep, and do whatever before a new term starts again on Monday.
And 6 weeks later, another time to mugging.

Mood been up and down, depending on the day and activities. Some days are good, some days well, not that good.
Some days you feel like murdering those idiots, other days you wonder why you let them bother you so. While inside you still know you want to murder them. Hahah.
So on a Sunday headed down to Rokeby with Shermin for brunch.

A hidden gem in a neighborhood area. And just a few stops down there lays Wimbly Lu.
The cafe is decorated accordingly to an Australian style, which also explains the number of Caucasians exploring the cafe. And some are even more adventurous to take the seats outside, enjoying Singapore warmth and a nice cup of beer.
Arrived there earlier on time and my lunch buddy arrived late instead. LOL.
Got distracted with a little boy seated opposite me instead, little curious young kid whose adoring face melt the hearts of adult.

Their menu is simple. The main dishes on the front, and the back page is the different drinks available.
In additional, one thing that all Singaporeans would enjoy is the subtraction of GST and service charge in the total cost.
Decided to try their Eggs Royale for bunch and matched with a pot of English breakfast tea.

It's a competition between the Eggs Royale and Eggs Blackstone.
I do enjoy their hollandaise sauce and their salad of green as well. Though after a while, it does seemed too sweet for my liking.
Maybe slightly less sauce would be better.

Overall, the meal was nice and the atmosphere was not too bad. We had the corner and window seat which give us a perfect view of the road outside. A nice place for brunch, though I have yet to try their waffles. Perhaps another day.
One thing for sure, it's quite a distance to walk from Serangoon mrt. So prepared the umbrella and walking under the heat.
And if it's not enough, there always another dessert store just few steps away.

15-9 Jalan Riang
Singapore 358987
Tue-Sun from 9.00 am to 10.00 pm
Closed on Mondays