Privé, Keppel Bay

Realize I can never blog consistently, I either blog a few posts in a day or not blog at all for a long time. This month has been spent sending out many emails that are still unanswered, then I realize it's not as easy as I thought to find a full-time job. Though I'd very much prefer to do freelancing as what I am doing now, taking up different assignments, flexible timing... I have to get a full time job to serve the 3 years bond in Singapore. And they have a thing that a company must have x number of Singaporeans in order to hire foreigners, which makes it even harder for me because photography/design firms in Singapore are generally quite small. I've had people telling me "I'd love to employ you if I could! But we tried hiring foreigners and it's rejected." Kinda frustrating but it only makes me want to push myself even more to do something better.

So my life the past month... I'm either too free for a few days, have totally nothing to be done... just hanging around in Starbucks reading or doing post-processing, watching movies alone, or like the past 3 days - where I have to get up early for shoot/meeting different groups of friends, joining friends to go clubbing (after a very long time),  then getting up after barely enough of sleep for another shoot... Didn't even surf the net/facebook all that much, which is good! Feel like I have a life. haha

I think when I start blogging I tend to start ranting about my life, and don't think anyone is actually interested but I type them anyway... So I survived 4.5 hours of sleep last night and then a morning shoot after! I could feel my legs aching when I woke up - 'damn, why is it not raining so we could postpone the shoot a little...' hehe. But I got up and the moment I reached the location - Keppel Bay, I was so glad to be there. The weather was perfect, and it's quiet, not crowded like any other place in Singapore on a Sunday, which is absolutely perfect for me. Although I've been getting more and more tanned, I must admit I still love the sun.

And what's better to wrap a shoot than having good brunch at the bay (Privé Cafe) with great company and lots of laughter? Always blessed to be working with these lovely girls from Fashmob!

Ons Huisie

When I say South Africa has spectacular scenery, I'm not kidding at all, you see. Just look at the sunset!  Just to let you know, this is an extremely overdue post, it was the last dinner we had in Cape Town, which was already 2 weeks ago. The next morning we left to a much smaller town called Swellendam. (well, not like you know where it is :P) It also means that it was the last day we stayed with Beverly, our second host mom. She decided to bring us to this restaurant near a beach called Ons Huisie, that means "Our Home" if I'm not mistaken. Amazing ambience. In the photos it might look warm, but Shanni and I were actually freezing because of the strong wind. (we're too used to hot weather sigh)

Snook is a very popular fish they have in South Africa and I was having a snook salad, hmm it's so goooood! Shanni was having her favourite fish & chips, which is also the most famous dish of the restaurant. It was a great day, we just sat there and chatted the night away before we went back home to pack to leave the next day. I'm so gonna miss this city and the people here.

Queen & Mangosteen

I didn't intent to make this a food post, but I realized all the photos were taken at the restaurant. It was Windy's birthday yesterday - she's one of the very first friends I knew during foundation in LASALLE,  we were classmates. Slowly she became my go-to companion to have lunch, dinner, watch movies, IT fair... nearly everything. Can't believe it's only been a year! Now she's in interior design while I'm in fashion. One thing you need to know about her is, she can stand not eating and sleeping for 2 days, superwoman. 

Anyway, what attracted us into Queen & Mangosteen was actually the name of the dessert - Kate & William's Royal Wedding Dessert. how cool it is? It was quite a refreshing way to end a meal - fresh berries served with vanilla sauce, whipped cream and Grand Marnier (which is a kind of liqueur, if you're wondering) The restaurant has a relaxed setting with beautiful night view of Sentosa, it's a good place for people to have casual conversations after a long week at work. Oh it's located at VivoCity. The chocolate cake isn't from the restaurant, it's from Awfully Chocolate, bought by another friend of Windy :)

Toasts with Nutella

I find myself scrolling through lots of food blogs and recipe websites these days, looking for the simplest and perfect meal to prepare for the family, but it seems impossible to find something simple if you want something nice. And I'm just too lazy. I don't even remember when's the last time I had toasts with Nutella at home, Nutella simply goes with everything. The first two toasts I made this morning ended up in the dustbin because they were already overly black when I went back to them after cutting the apples.

If I ever cook or make something wonderful that requires lots of time and effort for breakfast or brunch, one of the main reasons must because they're so photogenic I want to create them so I could document and photograph the beauty myself. That's always, always a huge motivation to hand-make something nice - so I could take photos of them.

One more week till the school to reopen. 3-month holidays are almost over. Can't believe it.

Pasta al pomodoro

After staying in Malaysia for a week, Marco finally cooked us an authentic italian meal - Pasta al pomodoro. He did all the chopping, boiling, cooking while I was basically just standing beside with my camera, and suggesting things like 'more sausages? more water? more onions?' :P He brought the spaghetti and sauce all the way from Italy. I suppose It's the easiest pasta to make. All you need are pasta, onions, olive oil, tomatoes and seasonings. I insisted to add some sausages or ham because the dish somehow feels empty when there's no meat or vegetable. 

Now I can proudly tell people I've tried the authentic Italian pasta! 

Kueh Bahulu

Just came home from a short getaway to Genting Highland together with the Italian guy my family is hosting, what welcomed me home first was the smell of my aunt's baking in the kitchen. Just realized I didn't know what is it called in Malay/English when I wanted to type the title of this post - Kueh Bahulu. I wasn't a huge fan of it because Malaysians always have too much of them during Chinese New Year, but I fell in love with them when I ate the freshly baked ones my aunt made. The Italian exchangee - Marco then put some Nutella he brought from Italy with it, god, I think their Nutella tastes much better! Okay maybe I'm just being biased, but I mean it's Italy, and Nutella was first made in Italy, so it makes sense. 

I realized I have this thing about posting a long blog post. decided that blog posts don't need to be long all the time, or it'll be quite time consuming and tiring (thus I'd be lazier to update!) Now I want this space to be a ground for me to post and share images of all the pretty things of life around me. It's such a waste to keep them untouched in the memory stick.

Stressful July

Egg Benedict for brunch at Cafe Epicurious (Rail Mall)

It has been a busy and stressful week, yes it's stressful even though I'm having school holidays now. I had a few sets of photos waiting to be edited but at the same time another photoshoot is coming. So little time, but so much to plan, so many things to decide, to much to learn. I felt like I had difficulties breathing when I realized how much more to do before next week. Just got all the lighting equipment from a kind friend to shoot this Saturday- light meter, beauty dish, transmitter, receiver, umbrella, reflector, strobe light, battery pack, stands, etc. So many unfamiliar things to deal with. I lost a little confidence on myself when I realized how little my knowledge is. I think I'm just afraid of failure.

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill

Not easy. I felt like a failure for the first time just recently... So hard to handle that when everything had always been so smooth in my life. I think I just need to keep going and have fun! "Enjoy the fun of failure!" I accidentally stumbled upon this saying while I flicked through "The Happiness Project" in a bookstore yesterday. That makes me feel less afraid of failure.

And I just realized the photo has nothing to do with the blog post, that's just what I had for brunch today. haha

MU Parlour

One of the things I like about Singapore is that there's a flourishing number of intimate cafes that charm us with the whimsical and artistic decorations and beautiful atmosphere, which I extremely adore. Best places for meet ups. Bad thing is it's a huge money absorber.

Yesterday my friend and I went to MU Parlour, a newly opened cafe at Holland Village. It's actually the first time I went to Holland Village, I knew this place since I was in primary school because there was this SG drama that's named "Holland Village" haha. I like the place very very much, but it doesn't really look like what the drama portrayed, maybe it's a different part of Holland Village.

We went there not just to eat but mainly to edit some photographs we took earlier for a side project. I secretly hope I have a workspace just like that because of how simple, clean, spacious and even refreshing it is for you to breathe, think, work and reflect.

Probably not many people know this cafe yet as it's new and upstairs, so we were the only two customers when we went. Maybe the food isn't as good as what we expected, but the beautiful space and ambiance have counterbalanced it.

The moment I stepped into the cafe, I said "This place is gorgeous. I'm so going to blog about this!" I just wish I'm a better writer and that I can write a proper and more useful review on the cafe. Sigh, can anyone suggest me any ways to be a better writer?

Berries & Pancakes

Have been seeing so many gorgeous photos of pancakes on tumblr these days, made me crave for it more than ever. Today I'm finally back to Strictly Pancakes after a year! Brought my laptop over to do some works for my brother's wedding, didn't expect it to be so crowded. Wasn't as peaceful as I expected, must be because it was lunch time, felt a bit awkward to take too many photographs too because there were always people sitting next to my table.

I immediately took the top 2 photos when the people left. Tell me how can I not love 85mm? But then it's a little challenging to take my own food because they were too close to use 85mm. I must have looked stupid when the people sitting next to my table saw me pushing and placing my plate as far as possible to take photos of it, turning the plate slightly to get a different angle to photograph, then after eating a few bites, placing them there again to photograph. love-hate relationship with 85mm. haha. 

Anyway, I ordered Strawberries and Co. - medium stack with seasonal fresh mixed berries, cream and strawberry coulis served with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. gorgeous pancakes, aren't they?

Met my sister afterwards for dinner, salad was part of our dinner, it wasn't from Strictly Pancakes.
Trying to eat healthy these days :)

For the last photo, it was taken when I was walking back to school before meeting my sister. you know what carrying a bulky DSLR everywhere I go makes me do? it makes me constantly look at the things around me, so I could capture the beauty of the moments or places. This, perhaps only my camera could make me do. you know when you're holding your handphone everywhere you go, you tend to just stare at the screen every second that you overlook everything that happens around you. 

Saturday Chill

Few weeks ago my sister bought herself a watermelon ukulele to attend uke lessons. Then she was told that there's this event called Uke Madness which would be held @ Chijmes. That's pretty much the thing that brought us to this place. Didn't know there's such place in Sg town! When we pass up and see the buildings from outside we never thought it looks like this inside. Totally felt like I was being transported to some Western country, love it! 

This is gonna be a picture-heavy post because as you know, I couldn't resist when I see something beautiful to me. 

There are a lot of restaurants, from korean cuisine to japanese, chinese, mexican, italian, western and everything I could think of. We wanted to eat at the open-air mexican restaurant because it was just right in front of the lawn - where the event would be held, but too bad there wasn't any seat anymore. In the end we went to Pizzeria Giardino which is located beside the lawn. 

The newspaper-like menu.

my lychee martini.

If you realize, the titles of the dishes are all in Italian (if i'm not mistaken) that we couldn't understand.

It's not orange juice!

Sister came right after her voluntary work at Asia Dive Expo, thus she was still wearing the T-shirt. In case you think that's a glass of orange juice, no it isn't. We both decided to order cocktails - I ordered a lychee martini while my sis ordered a  mango bellini. It costs about $14 each glass, which is quite expensive for me, and when you see the amount of it maybe you'd be thinking 'huh so little for $14?!' but when you start drinking it you'd realize it's definitely more than enough, because it's quite alcohol-heavy.
Anyway my sister and I spent some quality time together drinking, eating, talking :)

passed by Raffles Hotel when we were walking to the bus station. Gorgeous.

That's all for now. Hope you enjoy the photos :)