Celebrated one of my colleague's birthday and we decided on the strawberry shortcake to surprise her with. I love fruit cakes compared to chocolate cakes or cheesecakes as it's light and fluffy and not as rich which leads to one feeling stuffed.

The strawberries on top were huge and juicy and the cream wasn't too thick and overwhelming, quite well whipped I must say. And the sponge was fluffy! Very important for a nice sponge cake. The size of the cake was really appropriate for just the 6 of us too. I spent a rather long time looking around for a reasonably priced and small cake that would taste good and I think I've found it.

Get this cake at $26.80 for a 12 by 12 cm size!

Admist the hustle and bustle of city life, I managed to take a day off to go to a breakthrough weekend held by my church. So great to be able to bask in His presence and be still before Him. I really enjoyed the sunrise devotion and the morning worship by the beach.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,

  and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

¹¹ 

Do not cast me from your presence

    or take your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² 

Restore to me the joy of your salvation

    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

I've been rather out of sorts as of late, and I was browsing through desiring God and came across this.
I had a rough day and the bf came over to spend an hr with me, and he sang this song to me.

                                      Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
                                      Because He lives, All fear is gone.
                                      Because I know He holds the future,
                                      And life is worth the living just because He lives.

I chanced upon La Ristrettos while I was in walking around Novena Medical centre. ( I do enjoy spending time in the garden on the 8th floor there!) The previous cafe had relocated and this new coffee joint had popped out so I made a mental note to bring a friend and try the coffee someday. I'm not much of a coffee person, but I love the smell of coffee.

I finally had the opportunity to try it out as I had a day off work and a friend happened to be free to so we decided to do tea. One of the main things I liked about the cafe was how small and quiet it was. I dislike places where you have to jostle with the crowd for a seat, wait forever for the waiter to take your order and then for an eternity for your drink to come.

We spent a few minutes discussing how well decorated the place is. " Oh look at the bottles of tea!" "Such a pretty Christmas tree that blends in so well with the decor!" "It looks out into the garden!" before settling in our seats and then proceeding to pore over the menu.I really liked how the menu was so well organised and the idea of using a clipboard means only specific pages need to be changed, instead of the whole menu (if it's a binded book!)

I'm not much of a coffee drinker due to my allergies to caffeine, so I decided to go for the ice mocha. It is basically a glass of milk with a scoop of chocolate gelato and a shot of espresso. (Not the best idea for people who are allergic to caffeine, but I guess YOLO). I like how it wasn't too sweet like how most mochas are, and the freshly brewed espresso mixed with the milk and ice cream was such a nice concoction, perfect tea time drink! I could only get through half a glass before my head started pounding but it was worth it!

My friend ordered a cappuccino and we were duly impressed with the pretty flower art that the barista created. The quiet ambiance allowed us to talk while enjoying our drinks, a perfect way to spend a Wednesday afternoon, away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

I liked how they served us glasses of water alongside the drinks we ordered without us even requesting for water. Attention to detail really does make a big difference in ones experience at an F&B outlet and I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon spent at La Ristrettos!

I finally got to try out the much talked about Salt Grill and Sky Bar, helmed by the renowned Luke Mangan. We went on for dinner on a wednesday night, and made a reservation for 6.30pm. It might seem rather early for a dinner reservation but this allows one to take in the views and more importantly catch the sunset!

 Dinner was decently priced, mainly due to it being restaurant week.

Service was pretty good, we were well taken care of right from the moment we stepped in, with the waiter getting our drinks for us rather quickly. ( Another perk of picking an earlier time for a dinner reservation!) The bf had the sydney crab omelette while I had the salmon to start with. I would say the food was pretty average, nothing worth gushing about. The omelette was pretty disappointing though, I felt it was slightly overcooked and somehow didn't appreciate the lack of crab in the crab omelette, plus the miso broth that came with it was slightly odd.

For the main course, I chose the grilled spatchcock, mainly due to me choosing to stick to a safe choice. It turned out alright, with the grilled chicken that was rather tender and moist and I loved the accompanying parsnip puree. 

I would say the view would be the only reason I'll return to Salt Grill & Sky Bar. Don't get me wrong the food is not bad and unpalatable, just that for that price you can get a more satisfying dinner elsewhere. Maybe it's just because it's restaurant week hence the rather restrictive menu, so maybe a trip down on a regular night might be worth a shot!

Salt Grill &Sky Bar

2 Orchard Turn  Ion Orchard 55/L, Singapore 238801

So I've recently started work and we had a training session in KL, which was aimed at getting us up to speed with the core values/company culture and also a networking opportunity for all the new hires.

After a rather long 6 hr coach ride, we finally arrived on the Boulevard hotel, where we checked in, put our stuff down and headed off to see a bit of KL.

The boulevard hotel is pretty decent, quite new and clean, with a rather large bathroom. I would have loved to just chilled in the room but it was time to go out and do some sight seeing. 

The first stop was the iconic Pavilion. It's pretty much like most shopping malls in Singapore, with all the designer store and high street shops, so we decided to try to locate something uniquely malaysia.

These are the pretty teacups on the fountain, and just across the road,there was sephora, in a very interestingly shaped building.

I had to take a picture of this because we no longer have A&W in Singapore and the first thing my bf asked me to do when I got to Malaysia was have the root beer float from A&W. However, we headed off for some more authentically malaysian food. 

Dinner was really great and somehow I had no pictures, it's really affordable with the strong Singapore dollar.

The next night we just hang out near the hotel and went to the Midvalley mall. We headed for dinner at a Japanese restaurant, which truthfully wasn't too impressive. But then the Krispy kreme Cafe more then made up for it On the trip back to Singapore, almost the whole bus had a box of krispy kreme each.

One really interesting thing was a queue at carrefour for pregnant ladies.

On the last night there, we went to Kenangan wholesale city for a lot of shopping! Managed to buy 2 dresses in 30 minutes because all the stores were closing.

It was a great trip and yeah, I'm pretty excited to be able to go back there at some point in time ( well it is pretty close to Singapore!)

Bye for now :)

So I've recently relocated back home and it's been a challenging time actually. Getting used to working long hrs( I guess that can't be helped in the finance industry) and trying to get used to the way of life ( read cramped trains, hot hot hot weather). But through the entire experience God has been very gracious, blessing me with great new colleagues turned friends and a very loving and supportive family and bf.

So I finally got to go to Disneyland at the ripe old age of 21. I'm kinda glad I went at this age because I really enjoyed it and was old enough to remember what happened! I've been to Disneyland Paris when I was 15, but memories of that seem rather vague and I didn't have pictures with many characters.

We drove from Sunnyvale to Anaheim, and checked into the Sheraton before waking up early the next morning to head off to Disneyland for breakfast with minnie.

We got to meet many characters without queuing, which was the main perk of having breakfast there because the food was nothing to rave about but more of the one on one encounters with the characters.

Captain Hook and I

We got to meet minnie for a second time that day at Minnie's air show :)

Took a pic for my sister and her fiance and this was so apt as their upcoming wedding is travel themed!

One of the highlights of the day was meeting Duffy bear. Last summer I got a friend to get me a duffy and bring it back from America for me, (Well I never thought I would get to go to Disneyland then!) so meeting Duffy in person was a big big bonus for me!

And who can forget wonderful happy donald!

We managed to catch the play parade at Disney California Adventure Park and I really enjoyed it!

We even ran into Cruella! 

One of the highlights of the day was.. MEETING THE PRINCESSES. I love disney princesses so much, yes even at 21 so I was thrilled to get pictures taken with them!

The beautiful Belle!

I even got their autographs :)

Ariel and I!

Towards the end of the day we caught the parade on Main Street as well.I love disney parades and think they are very well coordinated. You can't possibly go to Disneyland and be sad.

We finally made it to Cars land, which coincidentally officially opened on the day we were there and the set was amazing. Apparently queues for the rides in cars land was at least 5 hrs on opening day. Crazy!

I really enjoyed my Disney experience, especially catching the Aladdin show, Phantasmic and World of Colours. Disneyland, I'll be back soon!