Get up and dance in His love

Have been mugging my brains out at home with quantitative methods (statistics) at home and I am totally becoming a N-E-R-D!!! Normal distribution, Correlation, Standard Deviation... ... though there are lots of formulas, it's actually tackling those questions!

Okay, it's 12.03am, must go back and study, if not Mr. Goh will scold me tmr and I'll be betraying his trust :( Sorry!

So this post is dedicated to the one and only Salome Sim, may we have many more adventures in future!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SALOMEEEEE!!!!

Met up with Salome, the crazy girl, on Wednesday, the day before her birthday and our objective for the day was:

1) To have lunch at 'Made in China'

2) To tour the secret tunnels at Labrador Park

Upon hearing the restaurant name in the above mentioned 1), my initial reaction was 'Made in China?? What if the food there is poisonous or contains some weird substance?' (This is because of the recent China milk scare in case you are a frog in the well) Salome assured me that the food would be okay for consumption and so we took a train all the way to Harbourfront and then a 143 where we alighted at Haw Par Villa. (Not without Salome making me walk from from exit to bus stop to interchange to bus stop, and I was wearing heels mind you, haha)

And upon reaching HPV, which houses the restaurant, I was sian-ed to discover that we had to walk uphill to get to the restaurant. However, since it was Salome's b'day, I conjured up an image of my favourite salted popcorn from Lido and I was happy again :) Our walk uphill was not without phototaking of course!

In the bus

Upon reaching HPV

Posed with the ladies on the bridge

Salome was disgusted by this deformed panda

Sumos of the next generation

You can also find a Statue of Liberty in Singapore!

Trying to act like shu nus

Upon reaching Hua Song, the place in HPV where 'Made in China' was located, we both rejoiced as we stepped into the air-conditioned restaurant and made ourselves comfortable. The ambience was pleasant and only three tables were occupied, including ours.

Realised that we couldn't have the dim sum buffet as that needed a minimum of four people so we ordered ala carte and I picked the right choice of hor fun!!! It's called seafood horfun with egg gravy, sounds very normal right? But as soon as the hor fun came, Salome and I got super excited because it looked so good and the taste was even better! The egg gravy was very thick (not like those outside), the prawns were gigantic and juicy, the fish was so tender and buttery tasting (I think it's snow fish, which is ex), slices of smooth cuttlefish and succulent scallops! Doesn't that make you drool? Salome and I kept praising the hor fun throughout the entire meal and we vowed to come back to have it again. Ahhhh..... I miss my hor fun!!!

The rest of the dim sum was good too, the siew mai had more of a mushroomy flavour which tasted different from the normal ones, ha gao was... .... ... ha gao and carrot cake was suspected by Salome to be homemade which was good! I burst my xiao long bao before eating it though, because I was trying to pull the slice of carrot out from under it and peeled out it's skin in the process, causing the warm soup to spill out :( I can never eat my xiao long baos properly.

Lunch was on me and I'm glad because we had a GREAT time having our fill and savouring Chinese food. I love Chinese food!!! (And my doubts about 'Made in China' are cleared)

The entrance to the restaurant (looks like we're in China)

Very Chinese feel

Pointing randomly at the map behind our table

The seafood hor fun which we are so in love with.. do not be deceived by it's ordinary look!

Ahhh... glorious!!!

Ha gao with ginger and soya sauce

Homemade carrot cake

Mushroomy siew mai

Xiao long bao

Looks like a spaceship doesn't it?

And we finished it all!

Full to bursting

Clean your mouths properly!

And hence, the journey of a thousand years begins with a single step...

Starting out on the long road

Where the unknown is unknown and the voyage begins

Lighting up the way with an ancient kerosene lamp

And we found ourselves on a pretty little set

Back to the old days of manual labour

Where ironing clothes is not a breeze but a real chore with a 3kg iron

With pleasures far and few but certainly treasured

Hellos and goodbyes exchanged on this outdated wonder

Hello to the grocer parading her wares

While a ma jie takes care of her employer's baby

Then, we came across this table where you could do calligraphy and yes we did it! I learnt it in secondary school before, it was quite a few years ago and of course my words didn't come out very nicely but they were fairly okay I must say. In case you a are totally hopeless in Chinese, it says wo men shi tou which translated in English is, WE ROCK!!!

I'm in the process of 'painting'

Completed!!!

Addition of our names and date

Chopping food up with on the old wooden board

Hot and steaming man tous lovingly prepared

The ever popular method of stir frying

Father and mother.. kidding..

After the journey of a thousand years ended, we went on to fulfill our second objective at Labrador Park. Again, I almost killed myself walking up the long windy road up the hill and I was perspiring by the time we reached the Secret Tunnels. Salome, remind me never to go out with you in heels again, haha.

Another uphill task, a good 15 minute walk in

The Secret Tunnels were apparently discovered in 2000, so it's very recent and they restored it and installed air-con so that visitors could tour the area. The tunnels were used by the British soldiers in WW2 to store ammunition and to load the big big guns. It was pretty dark and depressing in the tunnels and it's not a nice place to stay too long inside because you'll get claustrophobic. It was a good tour though, learnt more about our heritage and what went on down there during the war.

Note to Salome: Let's ask the guy for another tour and another tour and another tour.....