This was part of my breakfast this morning. A small bowl of homemade plain yogurt sweetened with honey and dried apricots and sprinkled with toasted wheatgerm. Yummy :> 

A feast @ Hui Jen's house

Yesterday Slushy, Fairy Godmother and I visited Hui Jen and her family. Hui Jen cooked a feast for us. Delicious baked rice (fried rice and baked with salami and cheese), mini pizza (using puff pastry with a bit of wasabi), refreshing salad (alfafa sprouts, cucumber, bell peppers, red wine sauce, fish sauce, etc) and clam chowder (from Campbell).

She also has a handsome dog, Kippie and her sis' dog, Buffy who were very excited to meet us. Loud barks greeted us and they calmed down after a while and when Buffy was not trying to dominate Kippie.

We girls were busy catching up after dinner, holing up in Hui Jen's room. Dessert was mango and doughnuts, cakes and some melon seeds and we socialised with the dogs for a while before going home.

Were-Rabbit

You will know what I'm talking about if you have watched Wallace & Gromit - The curse of the Were-Rabbit. Sis and I watched it this evening and we enjoy it. Adorable rabbits, goofy looking wererabbit, wonder dog Gromit. Wonderfully shot scenes and considering all these are made from clay, it's no wonder that it took them 5 years to complete the movie. If you like previous Wallace & Gromit short film, you will love this too! Visit Wallace & Gromit website to find out more or admire the beautiful creations.

Unlike my brother, I do not have a sea of food before me. 

I prefer my comfortable bed and catching up with my beauty sleep!! 

While that brother of mine is busy gorging himself with food, I prefer to have my beauty sleep. The noises from the drilling the past few weeks are disrupting my beauty sleep. See my eyebags! (Owner's note: Zap actually sleeps too much and her right eye is back to normal - wide-eyed today!) 

I must be one of the luckiest hamsters in the world with so much food before me everyday! 

What are you looking at? 

That crazy girl gave me this soya bean. I better eat it fast before she comes fluttering down with her hands again. 

I'm the most unique creature in this house. I'm the only Campbell hamster while the rest are Winter white hamsters (4) and humans (4). I smell different too and the humans said I stink but I don't understand why this crazy girl keeps terrorising me and trying to catch me and stroke me! 

Every Monday, my parents will cook fried rice as Mum learns taiji with her 2 sisters @ the community centre on Monday evenings and fried rice is the easiest to prepare. They try to be innovative in the ingredients for their fried rice so that we won't get sick of eating it. Yesterday's fried rice was one of the best I have eaten with spicy sambal! 

I baked again yesterday! This time was because the 2 bananas @ home were becoming too ripe and I also wanted to test the old Moulinex oven which Dad was tinkering with its insides in the morning. I have actually got used to the new Toyomoi oven which used to burn my stuff until I bought an oven thermometer. The Moulinex oven on the other hand takes a long time to heat up, so I was apprehensive about how the banana lemon muffin (with bits of cornflakes) would turn out. I took a bite after dinner and was happy that it has a nice aroma of lemon and banana and not sweet (which people with sweet tooth may not like). Mum seems to like the taste though :> 

Christmas Day

Yesterday

8am: I woke up to a rainy day. I read the Straits Time while eating my brownie (which tasted better than the night before).

11am: KBox @ Toa Payoh Central. I was crooning with 2 other girl friends or rather one of them just wanted to be the audience and not sing. Another girl came in 30mins later. I sang English songs with the exception of this Mandarin song called Tong Hua which I sang with the 2 girls. The MTV for English songs are really terrible. Unlike the Mandarin ones which are authentic and features the singers themselves, the English ones either have cheesy scenes or music. I sang songs like "Longer", "If love is blind", "Dream a little dream of me", etc. They don't have Colin Raye's "Love, me" and I had a hard time searching for the songs I want to sing because they only classify the songs by titles and not by singers' names unlike the Mandarin songs.

However, it was a fun experience as it was the first time we 4 friends from secondary school days came together to sing. We paid about $11 each for 3 hours of singing and a meal (fried rice or pasta with chicken nugget or beef and small salad and 2 pieces of honey dew or watermelon) and a drink.

About 2.30pm: We went to one of the girls' flat @ Ang Mo Kio to have dessert (ice kacang, cheng teng, ginko barley) and view her place and chat.

6pm: I arrived at Orchard MRT station and was shocked that the place was packed with people. I quickly escaped to Wisma Atria since I was supposed to meet Psychedelichic at 6.30 am so I browsed at Forever 21 (nothing there caught my fancy), Isetan (I saw some tops in clothes section and Mango that I thought of trying but there was a long queue).

6.30pm: Psychedelichic and I went to Central, the Hong Kong eatery @ Takashimaya basement. We ordered cheese baked rice with pork chop, seafood hor fun, cold honey lemon, thick toast with peanut butter and condensed milk and eight treasures tea. The seafood hor fun was a bit disappointing. We had a nice time catching up about her dog, Grizzly and her kittens and also our lives.

9.30pm: The day would not be complete if mum and I don't go down to the nearby park to see Shadow and White Neck the community cats. We fed them the dry cat food and water. A short while later, 2 other sterilised cats (Fat Cat and Shrek) came to join in the feast. After saying bye-bye to them, it was home sweet home for us.

Sumptious dinner

My parents and I have planned to cook a nice dinner. This morning, they went to the market to buy the necessary ingredients while lazy me were still in bed. Sis had a party to attend in the afternoon and she just had to be home by 7.15pm to enjoy the food.

These were what we had: prawns ,
caixin,
steamed fish , chicken and my shepherd pie. The non-baked dishes were prepared by my parents.

Our dining table looked quite full from all the food. I didn't want to take any rice like my parents and attacked all the dishes. The pie was quite nice if you don't mind that the beef is very little as compared to the other ingredients and I didn't add any salt so that salty taste comes from only the cheese (cheddar, mozzarella and parmesan).

With so much food, we have to keep the remaining shepherd's pie.

It was a good meal and I'm happy that all of us enjoyed our dinner :>

Baking a healthy chocolate brownie

I have been eyeing this Fudge and Wheat Germ Brownie recipe as the ingredients used are quite healthy (oats, toasted wheat germ, fat free dry milk, chopped walnuts, egg whites). The other conventional ingredients are dark chocolate, butter (3 tablespoons only), baking powder, brown sugar and vanilla essence.

Before baking->

After sumptious dinner, mum and I can't resist in tasting the brownie. I was a bit disappointed with the taste. Perhaps it doesn't taste like the normal brownies and the one I baked not too long ago @ Slushy's place. However, after the 2nd bite, the taste of oats and walnuts and chocolate without the presence of flour grow on me. The brownie tastes really healthy! Mum likes it too.

Mum and I had popiah and fried dumplings (with pork and chives inside) yesterday for lunch. We had the 3 leftover dumplings and some nonya kueh for lunch today. Not really a proper lunch as we planned to eat more for dinner. 

Dinner @ Sup Sip

I met the nice people from Cat Welfare Society Committee for dinner @ Sup Sip Thai Restaurant @ Chun Tin Road near Upp Bukit Timah Rd. I took this while waiting for them to arrive. I sort of overestimated the time to get there by cab and reached before 7.30pm.

I had a lovely time chatting with the people on my table. We had to sit in 2 tables and the other table was for the others who were taking vegetarian dishes. On our table, we had vegetarian tom yam soup, thai fish cakes, chicken green curry, brinjal and a few other dishes. Some of them had coffee or pancakes with banana slices but I was too stuffed to squeeze in any dessert and I was told by many that the pancakes were yummy.

I also received lovely presents from some of them and this morning, I was inspired to draw this ecard for the friends I met and made last night.

To my blog readers and friends, I extend the same wishes to you too! :>

Visit to SPCA

On Tues, Mum and I visited SPCA to donate some of my stuff for their regular jumble sale on Sats. There wer a nice Silky terrier and other lovely dogs. As it was hot and around noon, the cats were napping.

Crowded polyclinic

On Monday, I accompanied Mum to Hougang Polyclinic for her blood pressure checkup. It was so crowded and we have to wait for about 100 numbers to be called before it was mum's turn to go to the cashier and get another number for her turn to see the doctor. Mum was a bit disappointed that her favorite doctor was on leave and she had to see another doctor.

I can understand why some people choose to visit the polyclinic's doctors instead of their nearby GPs for subsidised rates. However, I myself find it unbearable, waiting and waiting and I think my time is more valuable and if I feel sick, I would rather see a GP immediately. The last time I saw a doc in the polyclinic was when I was a baby.

Gloomy weather

It was raining yesterday and @ around 1.40pm earlier the sky turned gloomy and now it's raining cats and dogs. I hope Shadow, White Neck and the other community cats manage to find a place for shelter.

Pencil decorator

Hee. I don't know how else to call this lovely gift from Joan. The wire has been twisted to create beautiful design like star, christmas tree, angel, bear, heart. This is part of a fundraising project that Joan was involved in her company and the pencil decorators are made by students. I have been tasked by Joan to give our other girl friends the pencils when I go back to office next week.

Christmas Dinner, Magic show and Carolling

Yesterday, I had an enjoyable evening with my friends, Joan and Ann in the Grand Ballroom of Quality Hotel (@ Balestier Road). The Christmas Dinner ($25 per person) was part of CARE (Catholic Aids Response Effort) to raise funds for their recipients and projects. CARE is the only half-way house/shelter for HIV/AIDS sufferers who have nowhere to go and is planning to provide pastoral care and support and education services.

We joined about more than 100 people for a nice buffet dinner (yummy spaghetti, beef stew, log cake, etc), interesting Magic show (not like David Copperfield but Erico the Magician made us laugh with his jokes and tricks) and beautiful singing of familar Christmas carols by the Voices for Christ choir. All of us also got to sing along with the choir for a few songs and I'm sure everyone left for home with a smile :>

elephants

I like some of the elephant sculptures around the elephant enclosure. They look cheery to me.

This is how big my foot compares to that of an elephant in the zoo!

Flowers @ the zoo

These flowers @ the side of the walkways attracted my attentions.

One looks like a teeny weeny orchid and the other just has a sweet purple colour. The last one just looks unique.

Slushy and I noticed the directional signs have the heads of these animals. They look kind of creepy to us.