Winter Wonderland 2011

It's the time of the year again. With the advent of winter and Christmas, ice rinks have popped up in different parts of London. So have Christmas markets.

We made our way to Hyde Park yesterday to get into some festive spirit and cheer. At Winter Wonderland, an outdoor family event, you will find food stalls, Christmas shops and many rides and attractions. A truly enjoyable day out for everyone, young and old.



Last year, we saw the Zippo circus which was good. But it was so cold we didn't stay as long as we did this year. Both girls had a whale of a time, which means daddy's pocket is much lighter too!

Checking in

My apology for not blogging. I've been kept busy with some things and also, I find it easier to upload photos over at Facebook. Something exciting is in the works and I'll share that when I'm ready. Meanwhile, I'll try to blog more often.



Autumn, a truly beautiful time of the year.

The Notebook

Last night I watched the DVD 'The Notebook' with hub. It's a romantic movie and not something most men would want to watch. But I made him.

I must admit I've never heard of this movie before and it was part of a box set of three movies. I'd bought it because of the other two - 'The Time Traveller's Wife' and 'My Sister's Keeper'.

So why I'm blogging about this? The pace of the movie was a little slow. Hub kept falling asleep and I had to wake him up, saying 'You're not allowed to fall asleep!' Haha! But I was very moved by the characters. No, that's not the point of this entry. Halfway through watching, I exclaimed to hub 'I've seen this scene somewhere!'. It took me about 5 seconds to recall where I've seen it. Here. I wonder why I hadn't realised when I bought the DVDs or when I popped the disc into the player.

After the movie had ended, I put the disc back into the box and read the back of it. Then something caught my eye. 'Based on the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks'. Hang on a minute, I think I've got that book! Yes, I'm sure I have it! So I went upstairs to my study and indeed I was right! My sister gave that book to me the last time she visited. You must have guessed by now I haven't read it. In actual fact, I'd read a couple of pages but I wasn't drawn to the story then. So it's been sitting on my bookshelf since then. I happily showed it to hub and he asked 'So are you going to read it now?' I said 'yes' and surprisingly he said he'll read it too so 'I can discuss the story with you'.



It was indeed a beautiful love story. Noah couldn't be more sweet and romantic than he was.



Something which I find very poignant....



.....'Can you ever escape your past?'.

Simple pleasures

Living in a foreign country, I always lament about missing all the different varieties of green vegetables. No doubt most are readily available at the Chinese supermarkets, I don't go often enough. I make the trip only when I need my bag of 10kg Thai fragrant rice or the usual condiments. These days, the local supermarkets also stock Choi Sum and Pak Choi but compared to the usual vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, celery etc, they are rather expensive. Two paltry stalks of Pak Choi cost roughly £1.20 (approximately S$2.40).

I'm very happy to announce I'll be serving more of the Chinese vegetables on my dining table from now on. The local supermarket where I buy most of my groceries from had recently undergone a refurbishment. The fresh produce section is pretty impressive. Everything is displayed in such an appealing way - woven baskets (not the old plastic ones), tags displaying country of origin, fresh herb bunches dipped in shallow trays of water for shoppers to pick. Very modern and shall I say more upmarket? Now the thing that got me really excited is they now stock plenty of exotic produce. Besides the vegetables you see above which I just bought today, they also sell lotus roots (my family's favourite ingredient for soup), Chinese chives, Gai Choi, Kailan, bittergourd(!!!), fresh tumeric amongst many other fresh spices, rambutans and whole coconuts. Furthermore, they are not pre-packed. I get to pick what I want and bag them myself. Pretty much like shopping at a wet market except the stall holders at the market bag the items for you.

You do know I'm an obasan if you've been following my blog long enough, don't you?