A Big Hole in my Wallet

After postponing the Father's Day + Father's Birthday celebration for abt a week, we had decided to visit Ippudo@Mandarin Gallery on Tuesday (24th June) for a meal, which also served as the celebration. Since the restaurant doesn't accept reservation, we made arrangement to meet there at 7pm and informed my dad to come home earlier from work so that we can make our way there on time to meet my sis and bro as they were heading there straight after work.

On Tuesday, Ivan came down to my house early and then we would drive down to Orchard Road. We waited for my parents and my mum finally came back at 6.30pm, which was nothing unusual. The unusual thing was that my dad wasn't back home yet. He usually come home at 6pm+ if he's not working OT. I clearly remembered that my mum reminded him to come home early the day before but why was he not back yet? I gave him a call and it ended up that he was still working, at 6.45pm. He complained that we didn't tell him what time we were going for dinner, but I was like, "What?!? We told you to come back early already right?"

"How I know your 'early' refers to when?" he replied.

There's no word to describe his absent-mindedness and/or absurdness.

We ended up ordering our food and were given a seat at 8pm+.. In my opinion, the ramen there are quite good, but the pancakes are the ones that I like most. My bro commented that Ippudo's ramens standard are somewhat similar to Ramen Keisuke Tori King's (can be found in Tanjong Pagar/Bugis) ones, however the latter is much cheaper, got more sides in the soup and they offer free flow eggs and beansprouts. My parents also thought that the ramens were too salty for their liking. Clearly, they didn't really appreciate the food even though it was a whopping $210+ in total.

"We should have gone Ajisen instead," my bro said jokingly.  

I think we should just bring them to some hawker centres like Chomp Chomp which sell good Hokkien Mee/ Satay/ Stingray etc... just kidding.

Personally, I don't think that I will initiate to visit Ippudo again. Ramen isn't the type of Japanese food I like best, that's why I don't think it's worth paying $20+ for one bowl. If I'm paying $20+ for one super good Chicken Chop or Fish & Chip then maybe I might consider.

  

Ice Skating at GEM

After fetching my aunt to Golden Mile to take the coach bus back to Malaysia, we headed down to J Cube for ice skating. It was one of the activities that we wanted to try out since long time ago and we were finally not procrastinating it anymore as Ivan is going to become "car-less" by end of this month. The skating sessions only come in a 2-hour block and we chose to go for the 5.15pm-7.15pm session. Before the session started, Ivan wanted to stand around the ice rink to observe so that he could try out what he had observed later in the rink. 

When it was time, we queued to buy the entrance tickets and boot rental voucher at $17.50 per pax. We bought our own gloves and socks so that we didn't have to spend more. I don't think that the gloves are necessary though. It will be good if you have it but it doesn't kill if you don't. It was definitely cold in the rink but Ivan still perspired while skating.. I didn't know how was that even possible.

I know how to roller blade, but the first time experience of stepping on ice felt very foreign to me. Initially, I was skating near the side of the rink fearing that I would fall. Subsequently, I got the hang of it and was skating more freely. Ivan fell a few times though. The sadist in me thought that it was a pretty funny sight the first time he fell, but after awhile, I just got used to it.
  

I risked bringing my phone into the rink to snap pictures instead of putting it into the rented locker ($2). Ivan was holding on to my phone for me at first, but I figured out that my phone would have a higher probability of survival in my hands since I was more stable than him. 

Ice skating was really fun and the scorching heat from outdoor won't be there to irritate you. It's also cheaper than roller blading on a weekend since the rental fee for roller blading shoes is $10/hr and there's no buy-1hr-free-1hr. We will definitely go back there again next time, probably on a weekdays so we don't have to fear that we will knock into others if we skate too fast.  

On the same day, we went to Ice Cream Scoopz at Upper Thomson Rd for supper. That is one of the cheapest ice cream waffle place around I think. 2 scoops + waffle at $7.60. We ordered jackfruit and rootbeer ice cream. When I was trying the jackfruit ice cream, the initial taste of it was quite disgusting but the after taste was nice and I ended up choosing that instead of durian. The place wasn't very crowded as well so it will be good for gathering. I had gone to Salted Caramel on a weekend night before and the noise level was so horrendous that it was difficult to talk to your friend sitting opposite of you. Unless I feel like eating salted caramel ice cream, I will visit this shop instead of Salted Caramel or Udders along the same street.    

Project Sunflower

I have recently embarked on a "project" to grow sunflowers. The inspiration came when WendyK, Zixian and I were having a conversation during a lecture break. Another reason why I wanted to do that was because my grandmother used to plant sunflowers at the "backyard" of my house when I was young (my house was on the ground floor before I moved to my current one), so I just feel like doing the same, probably as a form of commemoration, or maybe to relive those moments.

Although I wanted to do it, I had no idea where to get the seeds from. As such, I passed on this difficult question to Ivan and he was helpful enough, putting his 100% into helping me look for it despite his attempt to talk me out of it by saying that it's difficult to grow sunflowers in Singapore etc..

so TAAADAAA~ we managed to get the seeds from a nursery in Bedok, spending $11+ for the pots, soil and 3 packets of sunflowers seeds of different species. As I just finished my last paper that day, we went ToGather Cafe for lunch and tried the ice cream at Honey & Milk Gelato before heading off to catch a movie.

A few days later, we planted those seeds together, 3 seeds in 1 small pot. Fortunately, 2 seeds sprouted within 4 days! I was really delighted to see the shoots as germination of the seeds seem to be the hardest part to get through. As of now, the seedlings seem to be growing well and we had also changed it out into a bigger pot as the roots of the seedlings had already penetrated the bottom of the small pot. We planted 2 different species in separate pots. It seemed that the germination process of the seeds in the other pot failed entirely. We restarted again with new seeds, planting it deeper this time. Hopefully it will work out fine this time :)