TeamWilliams

FENNEL FIXATION...

2008-10-02T10:15:00.006+08:00

Okay, so it has been a whirlwind month, trying to get used to a hundred million new things and keep my head above water. Will not bore you (or myself) with the details and will just get on with it. Am at work, so this is gonna have to be one of my speed posts.

Have an awesome recipe you must MUST try if you're so inclined. Tried it yesterday and Pete and I have decided it's definitely a keeper (ie, you're likely to try it if you drop by for dinner anytime soon). As you can tell from the title, this is part of an ongoing fixation with fennel (which is amazing, really). The recipe's really simple, and took less than 10 minutes to throw together (assuming you marinated the pork - or cooked the crab, or whatever you feel like putting on top of it - first. It's just as nice vegetarian in any case. Simple pleasures.).

There are a whole bunch of variations of this on the net (one topped it with roasted bell peppers), but here's what I did (I can't provide fixed quantities here, just a guesstimate, only because I tend to make it up as I go along. This exact recipe comfortably feeds two people a light supper):

Fennel, Mandarin and Pork Salad

Salad

Fennel - both the bulb - thinly sliced, about a handful, and leaf sprigs - roughly chopped for garnishing

Mandarin Oranges - about 8 wedges cut into smaller pieces for the salad

Garlic - 2 cloves, crushed

Rocket/Arugula - a handful and a half

Dressing

Salt

Pepper (you don't need heaps coz there's a nice spiciness from the fennel and rocket anyway)

Olive oil

Orange juice from two or three leftover wedges

Balsamic vinegar (just a drop or two)

Pork (I use pork loin, chops are messier)

Marinate with:

Salt, pepper, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, a sprinkling of red chilli powder, handful of basil (chopped)

Leave it in the fridge to settle.

Okay, the method: Get a salad bowl and chuck in the rocket, thinly sliced fennel bulb (I like using the shoots as well), the mandarins and the garlic, and then dress it with the salt, pepper, olive oil, juice and balsamic vinegar (the balsamic is not crucial. Just a matter of preference really). Pan fry the pork - the trick is not to over-cook it or it gets dry. About four minutes on each side should suffice), or grill it in the oven if you prefer. Plate, garnish with fennel sprigs (or whatever they are rightly called), and enjoy! Goes perfectly with a nice sauvignon blanc (A Tahuna or Monkey Bay is cheap and cheerful, or Kim Crawford is cool if you're feeling a bit lush).

It's as simple as it gets, really (idiotproof, even), and leaves a wonderful taste in your mouth. I had thought about topping it off with a poached egg, but honestly? It didn't need it. The orange and the pork go great together, even if the fennel pretty much drowned out the basil. It did lend a sweetness to the meat though.

Okay, enjoy. I gots to get back to the work day.

More to come soon,

Art

QUICK UPDATE...

2008-09-23T10:35:00.002+08:00

Sorry but the first week at work's been pretty hectic. Lots of things to get used to as you can imagine. It's a very different world is all I really can say, and parts of my brain that have assumed non-activity for a fair bit of my life have suddenly been kicked into action.

Anyway, more later. For now, though, our amazing niece, Nicola, has done her first piano recital for the school year. Check her out (and the funky top I bought her for it!). She's very good.

*Proud uncle and aunt beaming*

Okay, gotta get back to work. Will check in again soon!

Art

LEAVING HOME....

2008-08-26T15:54:00.001+08:00

Feels so strange blogging from the Mac. But of course, I don't have my little PC anymore. The reason being..... after a wonderful decade at ST, I have finally decided to move on and try something different. Finally wound things up in the newsroom (wait for it....) on 20.08.2008 (nice ring to it, no?), and am enjoying a temporary state of unemployment (while desperately how to figure out how to do this full time - and get paid for it... ideas, anyone?).

Anyway, from Monday, I begin writing a whole new chapter to my life. I join a new company (stay tuned for details), and it will mark the beginning of a brand new adventure.

It's quite a leap of faith, and to be honest, I am still coming to terms with the fact that this is actually real, especially since news of me having left has invariably been met with incredulous "no way!!" looks.

It has taken me a long while to come to this decision, not least because journalism is something I am so clearly passionate about and love. And it's been an amazing ride - from subbing to Life!, to Streats, to STTV, and then, especially, to the Newsdesk. I have made so many friends, some of whom have become more akin to family. There have also been those who have been instrumental in making the journalist - and the person - that I have become. Plus, it's very odd indeed, some might think, to leave a job you still love madly. Most people usually wait till they are sick and tired, or angry, or burnt out. But that was the one thing I didn't want to happen, because journalism will always be a part of me, and I hardly think the way to maintain that love for it is to wait for love to fizzle out.

There are things that make ST incredibly hard to leave though - my bosses, the team I work most closely with, others I have worked with through the years, the prospect of being able to run to work from home in 15 minutes... It feels like moving out of Mum's for the first time (actually, I think that might have been a little easier, coz I can still pop by whenever I want and help myself from her fridge, or put my legs up on her sofa, and she knows I will always be hers). This .... is somewhat different, especially since the new job puts me on the other end of the news spectrum.

Still, I guess this big move is about getting my butt out of my comfort zone and learning something new while I still have the energy to want to, and am not being tied down with things that would make such career experimentation impossible. The new joint also, evidently, has great coffee.

Pete's been great about the whole thing, though. And extremely patient. Not easy, since I am still yoyo-ing between being excited about moving on and wondering out loud if I have well and truly lost my marbles (not least when I think about 1) the commute 2) having to look remotely together at 9 in the morning, something that being a news hound doesn't quite prepare you for).

But its done, and dusted. A lot of people have been very encouraging, and have reassured me that I can always go back to being a scribe if this does not quite suit me. I'm trying not to go into it with that mentality, though, so that I don't fall back on it as a handy out clause.

I've still got a couple of days of freedom, though. And Gwen & gang have been in town, which helps, coz it means I'm not dwelling on whether or not I have made the right decision. They've just left for Hoi An, which is why I've been able to get around to blogging. We're likely gonna sneak off for a little weekend escapade as well, before D-day comes around, so the next update you'll get is probably gonna be when I have well and truly begun.

Okay, so, wish me well. Should be fun. We'll all soon find out. Exciting things are happening in the world of Pete too, but I'll wait till he gives me the go ahead to enter it into blogosphere.

XXX

Art

BREATHE

2008-08-04T21:22:00.003+08:00

Yes, we're alive.

It has been one hell of a month, not least because both of us are in so deep with the upcoming ST relaunch. Won't bore you with details, but needless to say, it has resulted in the blog being somewhat neglected.

The good news is that we have, in between, finally found a little bit of time from our Ireland trip (which now feels like it happened a year or more ago), and hopefully once things calm down, you'll (finally) find out what we got up to (that we're willing to tell you about). Heh.

Either way, wanted to quickly pop in and say a BIG congratulations to Sam and Ash on the birth of their little girl, Misha, who made her bold entrance on July 24. Snapped a picture but it's so grainy that I gotta go get another. It will come soon, coz you gotta see how gorgeous she is.

Okay, gotta run. Catch ya later.

Art

WEE STEPHENS ARRIVES! - updated

2008-07-03T21:52:00.004+08:00

A big congratulations goes out to the Stephens', who went from a duo to a trio early on Monday morning! Welcome wee one! (Hilary - have you had that pint yet???) .

They've finally given us a first peek at the wee one.... Check out the new Dad expertly feeding his son. It feels like only yesterday that Eoin and Hilary weren't even married, and were here for our wedding!

Update: The spawn has been named: Louis Joseph Stephens... Such a big name for such a little guy! A beautiful name though! He's adorable too - Mum and Dad are gonna have to spend the rest of their lives beating off the babes!!

Congrats guys, and welcome little guy!! Can't wait to meet ya in person!

TW.

TALKING COCK...

2008-06-30T19:01:00.005+08:00

We have a new neighbour.

It would appear that a rooster has made himself at home in the green edge of the MacRitchie catchment that borders our home. Not sure if someone brought him there, though I would think that with an animal so domesticated, it might point to the fact that some people may actually living in the green (especially since we sometimes see strange lights etc). But I digress.

The problem with this supposed alarm clock is that it seems to keep really strange hours (not that we're complaining about not being woken up at 6am or some other ungodly hour like that). But seriously, he crows at... of all times... 11am (which if you asked me is possibly indicative of a higher form of intelligence, since it is exactly the right time that Pete and I would probably want to wake up on any given day). Anyway, as I was saying, he gets going at 11am, and sometimes, equally randomly, at about 5pm (which, ironically, is about exactly the right time we would wanna be going home from work).

It could well be that the parents in the neighbourhood ganged up and did something to the bird after learning this: "In a recent USDA study, researchers decided that the crow of the rooster in the morning may have long term effects on the hearing of infants, whose ears are not yet accustomed to such sounds."

But coincidences aside, is our random rooster absolutely normal?? Or has there been some kind of serious cock up here??

TW

WHADDA WEEK...

2008-06-29T21:51:00.003+08:00

Got so much to report that I don't know quite where to start, plus I have something in the oven so don't have that much time for a complete update. Felt in the mood for experimenting and Pete's working, so decided to make a pasta bake. Went with a basic beef sauce but had a surged of thai inspiration, so in went some coriander and a couple of spices. Tastes pretty good, even if I say so myself. (update: chef extraordinairre Pete approves!!)

Okay, so first things first - a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to some of the most important June babies in our lives, who all just turned highly significant and momentus ages (though for the record its all the ripe old age of 21) - Mum (Gladys), Mum (Rita). A special birthday shout out too to one of our favourite nephews Luke Matthew Williams (Man U #5 for now!!), who turned a very very impressive 6 last week to the tune of racing games, chocolate, and a promise that he's still going to be able to beat Pete in bowling on the Wii when we head over next year! Oh, and then there's Claud, and Sujin.... realise we have a lot of mid-year born favourite people! Hope its a brilliant year guys.

We're still editing the photos and the video, but managed to pull off a great surprise birthday party for Mum at ours. Almost all the cousins made it (and on time!!), and the crew from over yonder even recorded their special greetings and emailed them in for us to screen. All the kids performed little skits/dances/instrumentals etc... And I think it is safe to say she had a fantastic time. What made it even nicer is that it was at home, so we didn't have to worry about noise levels, last orders, other people or doing anything at all we wanted at any given moment, which was fab.

Other than that, its been an eventful couple of weeks, between work and everything else, and believe me when I say its a lot more than the usual (will let on when the timing's a tad bit more... appropriate). I know we owe photos and stories from the trip, and we promise we'll have those, as well as both Mums' birthday shots, up soonest. Together with at least three paragraphs of excuses as to why its taken so long (we promise).

(cont'd) Okay, so what else... We've finally settled into the house again methinks. Was a bit hard. Came back, got sick, had surprised birthday weekend, worked, worked the weekend, and then covered the Water Summit (god wasn't it BRILLIANT to be back on the reporting circuit again! Had the time of my life back on the ground interviewing, writing, meeting people, and not least, actually making Happy Hour once or twice, which made the early starts completely worthwhile. But it realise made me realise how much I really like journalism.) But yeah, finally nestled back in, and getting back into my usual routine. We've started cooking alot again, which is great, especially since it means being able to eat lunch the next day without having to go to the canteen!! We've also been experimenting with a couple of restaurants over the weekends, but for lack of anything great to say, apart from the fact that the steak at Wild Rocket is still nothing short of amazing, will keep the comments brief. Very open to some suggestions for great places though. Haven't found anything particularly brilliant lately.... Anyone checked out White Rabbit at Dempsey yet? Thoughts?

Okay, so that's the deal for now. Gotta actually get to work, and trying to go in with a smile on my face even if it it (groans) Monday.

Will be back later today.

Cheers,

TW

SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T LEARN... SO LETS MAKE THE LESSON HARDER

2008-06-18T11:34:00.008+08:00

Question of the day.

Any creative ideas for getting rid of an unwelcome - not to mentioned, extremely stupid - blog stalker?

Yes, we know who it is, since this person has left her muddy paw tracks all over the place, down to her company name. Free world and all it is, and blogs are in the public domain, after all. And if this person so completely lacks a life and needs ours as a crutch, like okay lah I guess.

I guess I could simply make this person's identity and intentions fairly public. Would be a laugh and a half for most people familiar with her shenanigans. But any ideas for anything more fun? ;)

PS: Photos and accounts of Ireland trip to come soon (as soon as things calm down a little, we promise).

TW

HEAT WAVE.....

2008-06-09T23:09:00.008+08:00

Back in the Singers and boy is it flippin hot. Made a cursory stop in Dubai on the way back thinking the 999.99 per cent humidity there might buffer the impact but nooooooo.... It is HOT. And stuffy. What's strange though is that we never got super extreme cold in Ireland (believe it or not). Largely sunny but with a nice nip to the wind. Chilly late at night, but then we had the Big, Warm Bushmills/Guinness hugs to cope. Got about a day and a half of rain, but believe you me, in a country where it's destined to rain at least once (for the large part of each) day, we got sun burnt. Woo hoo! In Ireland. Go figure. We're back into the ***** now though. So.

It was a phenomenal ride (in the proverbial sense). Can't say much about the airline. Service - competant. Plane - competant. Alcohol - satisfactory. Food - shite. If Etihad is really going to be catching Emirate's wind (besides the arse end of it), it's really going to have to rethink its catering service. Or at least the people who cater for Economy. Got lucky on the last leg and became fast friends with the economy cabin service crew - who coped well, despite it having to deal with the fact that 1) Pete's TV screen didn't work 2) Art's screen worked but the remote control didn't, 3) Besides the vegetarian option, everything had prawn in it, which we are both allergic to. We didn't bitch about it, but they were nice enough to recognise the shite situation, and, to allay the crappiness, bring us 1) FANTASTIC leg of lamb from Business class, and 2) Glenmorangie from First class, which beat the Ballantines in Economy hands down. Pity we only discovered such generosity on the fourth of four legs though. Would have been handy to have such privileges from the first (erm, yeah, can we have aisle seats? yeah, and the one with the busted tv screen please? bulkhead with the screaming babies? and make sure the food is yuck. Sure!).

Still, it couldn't beat the tiny budget (read: We would charge for oxygen masks if we could) airline to Cork, where, after a traditional delay, the pilot casually went on air to say "Shirley, prepare cabin for takeoff....". Pete, of course, got a huge kick, and called the (by then, irritated) stewardess by name all flight long. How's that for personalised service? OH, SHIRLEY!!!........... Flight back to Dublin was even better.... They had two passengers with seeing eye dogs, which, unknown to the airline, apparently, need their own seat space, since it is pretty impossible to have a dog lie in front of a seat with non-existant legroom.... So, at least one (insert airline here) staff, who probably had free seats to Dublin for the bank holiday weekend, got highly unglamourously yanked off her seats... One went in the jump seat in front of us... the other, I am afraid to ask about. At least no one ended up using the seat in the toilet. Or at least that we know of.

Travel. Ah. I'd say the best leg was Dublin to Abu Dhabi. Nice empty aircraft. Suitably seated right in front of the galley. Four seater with two vacant. Not that we slept for five seconds. God bless international-time-body-clock-friggididodas. And Guinness. And Bulmers. And Bushmills. We did, however, on several times this trip (except the last, when the remote didn't work and A was the default answer) become Millionaires on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, at least in seat-back sense. We could have implored them for bubbly with enough cock-n-bull. You have to love long haul for the crap it inspires.

But again, it was a fabulous trip.

Will try too avoid detail so the pictures - once we have edited the million and three hundred of them - can tell the story in ways I could never imagine. Will do the abridged version (to prove we can remember most of it).... There was Cork and Dublin, where we saw Amy do her first Holy Communion, celebrated two birthdays (including the sunburn BBQ to mark Gladys' (my mum-in-law's) 75th and Maureen (our cousin's) severaleth 21st), spent some time with Matt (my father-in-law), caught me my first brown trout while fishing (which I released with strict instructions to "Find Nemo!!") n Lough Leane, chilled with Luke and Aaron, hung out with the about-to-burst Hilary and Eoin and watched Clint Velour - aka Paddy - and Jen tie the knot!. Speaking of knots, I got - thanks to Mum - my first Celtic wedding ring to mark our now three year-and-five month union, which is absulutely amazing, and which I will never take off.

And then Abu Dhabi and Dublin, where we marvelled at the pretentiousness and pomp, shitloads of sand, glod plated buildings etc etc etc, while spending quality time with my cousins, Mehirr and Prem, and just chilled out. It was great, filled with the same amount of food that could feed small countries, and I have to say, amazing quality time with the people that matter most - family.

All up, it was great. I would love to include some of the inane/insightful/incredible chatter/jokes/conversations. But like I said, I'll save the narrative for when the photos and videos come on board.

That said though, it was brilliant to just STOP. Stop and take stock on the people/experiences/dreams that really matter. The ones that I would fight tooth and nail for, and work day and night for. The ones that you want to think about the minute you wake up, be aware of, for the hours/minutes in the day, and the reflections you have at the end of it. The ones that make up the life that is worth living.

I will take liberties (with permission), in saying for that for us both, this was one of the most meaningful trips we have made both as a family, and for family, without saying the previous were less meaningful because I strongly believe, and always will believe, that wisdom, belief and appreciation are things that grow stronger with experience and age. For us, it prompted reflection, co-reflection, and a sense of communal belief that our life is really about the Williams' and Mulchands' that have come before us, and that will come after.

It makes you know what you want to wake up to in the morning. Forever.

With love,

SUNDAY, LAZY SUNDAY

2008-05-18T15:46:00.004+08:00

Had about a half a million things we were supposed to do today, especially seeing as we leave in FOUR days... there's presents to buy, basic essentials to stock up on... The house to prepare for the housesitter... Not to mention packing.

Ended up pottering around the house, and having a lovely lie in instead... Afternoon naps. Sigh. What fun.

Of course, now we're having to contemplate the prospect of not getting very much done at all, and need to rush here and there to try and squeeze what little we can out of the remaining daylight.

Still.

I. Love. Lazy. Sundays.

The countdown to being with the family, fishing (and hopefully being able to not let the fish get away this time!), catching up with friends, the wedding, and, of course, our first hangover cure from Odessa begins (Poached eggs on salmon for me! with a half pint of Murphy's) begins!

Getting pretty excited I must admit, even if getting there is a heck of a trip.

Art

Art

ON TIES THAT BIND...

2008-05-08T12:40:00.007+08:00

There are some bonds that you cannot break, and family has to be the strongest one. For better or worse.

Its hard to describe the situation at hand, bearing in mind who some of the regular readers of this blog are. So I'll spare you the gory details. But it involves a particular person who has been rubbing people the wrong way. She - lets call her X - seems not to realise it, even though it has been pointed out to her, sort of. So eventually, the stories start making their rounds, eventually reaching a relative of hers.

So.... now said relative is in the uneviable position of deciding what on earth she is going to do. She is friends with the people who are irritated. But X is family. Does she let on that she knows what's going on, and even if she does, what does she then tell X to do? Where should her loyalties lie, especially since she knows that X is in the wrong, and is in danger of not just compromising her reputation, but professional credibility as well.

It's a tough situation.

I have to admit that I put family above all else. No one messes with mine, and if you have something nasty to say, let it be known that even if you are in the right, I defend my family to the hilt, win the argument, and firmly put you in your place (even if I end up thwopping the offending relative on the head after - in private). The point is - no one messes with my family (any aspect of it), and doesn't pay heavily for it.

But this is one conversation I would NOT wanna be having.

Art

ALL THAT YOU LEAVE BEHIND...

2008-04-29T16:18:00.013+08:00

A colleague of mine recently wrote a column that got me thinking... It was about people calling from "unknown" cellphone numbers, and how he would never pick up such a call, since it is invariably some kind of telemarketeer telling you've won something (if you'll let them try and convince you into timesharing a holiday home that you don't need, and which may often non-existent).

Personally, both Pete and I do the same almost by force of habit. Our parents, siblings and close friends don't have caller non-ID. Neither do our bosses. So we can pretty much safely assume that its not quite critical for the person on the other end to reach us. Most often, we're right in doing so.

But the lengths to which some people go to ensure they don't leave their mark brings to mind how extensively, in this day and age, we actually do leave pretty clear footprints wherever we go, and often, don't think too much about it.

When you unwittingly call someone's cellphone using your own, you leave your traceable number (which they can then use to hassle you). When you visit a blog, Blogger allows a tiny encrpyted device to capture your ISP, and convey to the blog owner a whole bunch of information, indicating who you are, where you're accessing it from, how often you visit and even which details of that person's life you pore over. When you take part in some random lucky draw or survey, you can be assured that you're going to make it to some database, and that it is more than likely to end up in the hands of the last person you intended. And there are companies out there who put together extensive profiles about who you are, what you do, where you shop, what you buy, how much you pay for it, and eventually, that profile - YOU, essentially- gets sold as a product to marketeers.

It's pretty scary.

At the risk of never actually winning anything, I shun lucky draws, and the same goes for surveys, unless I have a really clear idea of what its for, and trust the person tasked with having to do it. When I visit a blog or a website, I am usually extremely aware that what I do/say on that website is traceable. When I post to this one, I also bear in mind that it is not just friends and family that read it, and censor accordingly.

I guess the next logical step would be to consider the "unknown" caller option. But that would mean Mr Kow, and Pete, for that matter, not taking my calls, so I think I'll just leave that as just something to think about, at least for now. :)

Art

LESSONS IN LIFE #762 and #763

2008-04-27T22:56:00.004+08:00

Things I learnt today:

#762: When your decide one day that you actually have two hours on your hands (quite literally), which would allow you to pander to your husband's known like of French manicures, try and put your keys somewhere that will mean not having to dig through your bag for it, inevitably ruining your brand new nail job in the process. Or at least make sure he's home to open the door.

#763: Before setting off for the said nail date, make sure dishes (and laundry, and all other housework that will even remotely involve your hands) are done, so you don't end up coming home to a full sink, and then feel guilty because you really, really don't wanna do them and mess up your nails, but think the prospect of leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight is too gross.

Sigh.

Art

CLAN BRAAM'S MUSICAL DEBUTS...

2008-04-27T16:24:00.004+08:00

Welcome to the Digital Age, when I can proudly declare that my family has FULLY embraced technology.

Not only have we finally got Dave onto the web, both our mums sending text messages, and almost all our aunts and siblings sending regular emails, but now, my sister Sangeet, now based in faraway Holland, has discovered YouTube! And despite such issues as "a beat up piano, lousy acoustics and an annoying three year old who thought jolting the video camera was fun", has put up videos of my wonderful musician-nieces, Dominque and Nicola. Watch this space, because Danielle's trumpet video is yet to come!

The last time we saw them, both - plus youngest Dianelle - were fighting for "lap space" on Pete and me at our wedding. Its amazing how much kids grow when you're not looking. Its hard to imagine that I held Nicola the day she was born at Mount E, and then was sent to Paragon in search of decent local food for the new Mum. And that, thanks to my crazy hours when I was a sub-editor, I did some of the night feeds for the twins when they were born, and got pretty accustomed to that heady scent of formula, bottle disinfectant, poop, and "baby" that hung in the air (someone should bottle it, really).

We're pretty lucky that we can watch Divya and Reuben grow up, since they not only live in Singapore but practically up the street. And technology means that through digital shots, YouTube, this blog even, we get to vicariously track Sangeet's kids, and Dave's and Gwen's. What makes me sad, though, is that we never had that option with Honey's kids, who are now all in their mid-20s and beginning illustrious careers of their own. We love them like crazy, too, and on some level, MSN, SMS, and having to travel to London for work has allowed me to remain close to Kirti. But what I really mean is those growing years, the darndest things they say (one niece, at my wedding, tried to convince me I shouldn't do it, because otherwise then who would marry her???). Still, I guess I should be grateful that we're getting this chance now, and without any further rambling..... Presenting Clan Braam:

Dominique, 7, plays E. Mollenhauer's Infant Paganini on the violin:

And Nicola, 10, plays J Haydn's Concertino in C on the piano, with three talented schoolmates.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Art

LIFE IN BULLETS

2008-04-26T18:33:00.011+08:00

(Warning: long post ahead. But hey, you did ask for it!)

I've finally gotten back a sliver of sanity, and decided to write again, not least prompted by the fact that some readers of this blog think we have simply fallen off the planet. Feels like it, sometimes (read: every second minute), but now is not the moment for complaints and apologies.

With the new gig I've got, its hard to wanna revel in even more words after 15 hours of doing it each day. But I guess I'm slowly finding a comfortable pace (read: Sorry boss, I have to leave the office now because despite my greatest efforts, my brain has run for the hills).... Hence, TW resurfaces.

But apparently, this blog still has its old fans (and evidently, some news ones! Welcome, we hope you enjoy your stay. Thank you for flying TW), so here we are again, ready to update you on the thrills and spills, the shennanigans and fennanigans, of life as TW.

So, the three month (has it been that long???) update:

Pete's doing brilliantly and really enjoying the My Paper gig (imagine, my Irish boy art directing a Chinese-English newspaper, who'd have thought), and now's sinking his teeth into yet another project (Argh).
I've been trying to get used to not being able to do as much reporting/writing as I would love to - but sneakily and vicariously have been getting my hound thrills through my colleagues haha.
We've tweaked the design of the house a little, and it looks oh, so very grown up and pretty! We'll get some nice pretty pix up soon.
I have started gardening! (Oi, don't cringe! It's super relaxing and Pete loves being able to reach into the balcony and surface with just about any herb or small vege we need). Was a little out of sorts and was off work for two weeks, and it kept me busy. Anyhoos, thanks to a little love and care, the lime, chilli padi, basil, mint, lemon balm mint, rosemary (i didn't even think it would grow) etc are going nuts, and tomatoes have started shooting and, like small children begging for their own bedrooms, are fighting for space. Can't wait for the first crop. Okay, you are permitted to say I have gone a little loopy. Nonetheless....
The break also gave me a little bit of time on my hands to do stuff I don't get the chance to do usually... like experiment in the kitchen, and it was brilliant being able to churn out strange meals that greeted Pete after a long day (AGAD!!! Is Art turning into a little housewife!!???!!). It was fun la.
We've adopted yet another shooter to the family of Canons, and its a ...... Ricoh! (who'd have thought huh). Pete's taken some amazing shots, which I promise we will post (eventually). He brought it with us to KL, when I managed to coerce him to rough out an eight hour train ride for me to write a colour piece on (great trip, horrible train - will create a post with the article I wrote).....

On my part, I've been mucking around with my faithful S2 and trying hard not to favour it over the rest, which Pete says I really should learn to use. Soon soon. I've also been lost at sea with the video cam, but my cousin promises she'll take me through it properly, so we'll come back from Ireland with some good stuff.

Speaking of Ireland (YAY!!), absolutely cannot WAIT to hop of a plane and get OUTTA here! Paddy and Jen (see pix) are tying the knot, and going by what happened when Eoin and Hilary got hitched, its going to be insane. The plan is for us to land into Berlin, and Pete shoots off to Paddy's bucks while I paint the town red with Suhaila and Tina. Then we muck around a bit (Pete loves Berlin and its my first time), before hitting the wedding of the century in Dublin, and the we end up back home in Cork (fly fishing!). We stop in Abu Dhabi for a bit of dune bashing on the way back. It's kinda whirlwind but, sigh, when is it never???? Really looking forward to a bit of alone time, away from some of the crap here.
Other than that, hum... what else. Oh, Eoin and Hilary's small one is almost here (Congrats guys!!) and is due just about the exact time we'll be in Dublin, so hopefully we'll get to see the baby while we're there. The very pregnant Sam is also due soon.
Pete, Claud and I have discovered that Sav Blancs and 7-11 mash potatos with gravy actually go quite nicely together..... Don't ask. Just cringe and try. Coupla nights ago, we ended up at Harry's at Holland Village, and after wasting funny money on individual glasses of Sav Blanc, we finally (stupidly) realised we should have bought a bottle. Of course, we also, at that stage, fail to realise that the bar shuts at midnight or something ridic like that. So, like silly teenagers, we end up with plastic cups and a corked half bottle at the coffeeshop. Felt remarkably like uni but it was such a laugh and a half. Came up with half baked and crazy ideas for what to give Paddy and Jen, and had not one, not two, but THREE cups of mash. Which says a lot, considering: 1) our severe doubts that they don't even contain potato, and 2) the fact that Pete's Irish. Perhaps it was the wine, or the lack of options (we realised only after finishing the mash that we could have bought prata. But I reckon prata, fish curry and our overpriced wino might not quite have become, erm, friends. But who ever knows.
I guess that's it really.... which brings us to the present. Just completed a really exhilirating course on editing. It was brill, not least because I found out everyone else was experiencing some of the same shitty problems. It also kinda showed me where to find the upsides, which, at the end of a long day, are the hardest to find. Was cool.

Next week its back to the grind, but will definitely pop in often to whinge, and occasionally, entertain. For now though, its Saturday night and I got things to see and people to do! Laters!

Art

TW TURNS THREE!

2008-01-30T12:22:00.000+08:00

Its our third wedding anniversary!! How time flies!

Can't believe it has been over 1,000 days (1095 to be exact) since we were

* stressing over caterers and venues

* stressing over friends and families

* stressing over my sudden lack of a wedding gown

* stressing over not forgetting the passports for the civil ceremony

and

* stressing over stressing

and despite all that, finally tying the knot.

As luck would have it, am having a super busy day at work, but just wanted to pop in, say hi, and say the biggest I Love You to the man of my dreams, Pete.

More to come on the festivities (don't wanna ruin any surprises!)

Love,

Art

HAPPY NEW YEAR...

2008-01-02T22:19:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the late best wishes for 2008.... We hope all your dreams for the year ahead come true.

It's been a bit of a strange start to the year for us. After what I unofficially dubbed a somewhat unauspicious 2007, I got the final prod from Lady Luck on New Year's Eve, when I not only managed to cut myself by accident, but I started feeling the beginnings of a cold.

Despite my hopes to give Pete a wonderful countdown and a great start to the year, by New Year's morning - actually, a couple of strokes before midnight - I had come down with the full blown flu, and he started the year playing nurse. Pampered as I felt, it was nothing like the start to 2008 I had imagined. Poor guy.

Ah well (at the risk of tempting fate), the year could only get better from here... We both have big dreams for the year ahead, and I really hope they will materialise. We know we'll be working hard towards that. As usual, I have made several resolutions, and I really hope to keep them up.

For my New Year's wish, I hope everyone out there puts in a prayer and a vote of support for Pete, who's relaunching yet another newspaper - his third since coming to Singapore, which is really amazing. This time, its not even in his lingua franca... Watch this space for more details. It means long hours and pretty intense work for now, but we're all rooting for ya, Pete :)

Okay, so, taking the cue from Gnatweds, here are some highlights from our 2007:

From Pete:

* Getting promoted to Art Director (yay!)

* Getting his hands on not just the Canon 30D, but the Ricoh GR as well

* Art coming back safe from Bali (scoring points here hehe)

* Getting out on the lake, and teaching Art to fly-fish

* Dune-bashing for his birthday in Dubai

* Mastering poached eggs (Art's vouching for this one!)

From Art:

* All of Mum's ops going well. While her arm's in a wee sling to minimise movement, her spirits are way up

* Finally getting the house done up nicely with a whoopass teak dining table

* Getting my first Handycam (Pete's Xmas pressie), after, what, three years of hinting?

* Getting a foothold on big changes in my beat at work, or as much of a foothold as one can get in that short period of time; and getting a change to be in Bali, which as fantastic as it was tiring

* Seeing Galway, and seeing Eoin and Hilary get hitched

Wish I could go on further, but I'm really drugged out by the virtual pharmacy I have to pump into myself so I can start 2008 proper. Will write more soon. The update on Xmas (which went well, btw, everyone loved their pressies and dinners) will come soon, I promise.

Hugs and kisses, and our best wishes for 2008,

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE....

2007-12-24T14:01:00.000+08:00

CHAOS...

We love Christmas and all that festive cheer, and we love the looks on the kids faces when they get their presents (and when Pete and I get mine!), heck, I'll even indulge in a carol or three. But seriously, as the countdown to the annual do begins, I wonder... What on earth have we gotten ourselves into??

Maybe, it's not so bad. Tree - check. Presents - check (sorta). Drinks - check (if we don't finish them while cooking). Ingredients for enough food to feed a small army - ch.. erm... eck (we'll see). Now all we have to do is cook, and figure out where to put the people. ARGH!!!!

Of course, I'll (fingers crossed) check in the next day and everything would have gone fabulously and everyone would have gone home happy, and despite the horror hangovers, we'll be pleased. For now though. *Pressing the panic button*. Let the cookoff begins.

Either way, Merry X'mas Y'all. Hope its a great one for you and your families :)

Lots of love, TW.

TW PRESENTS... LE TREE

2007-12-20T17:15:00.001+08:00

There ya go... I guess its really Christmas. I can't believe that despite how crowded the base looks, we're nowhere near done shopping! Trying to coerce myself out of the house to make something of the bank holiday, but cannot bring myself to leave the sanity of home. Its utter madness out there. Tis' the season for happy pills. God knows I am gonna need them...

As you can tell, its considerably smaller than our tree two years ago, when my metric-self failed to realise that "a couple of feet" added up to more than I thought. This year Pete, thankfully, was on tree duty, which means our living room hasn't disappeared in a forest of green. Its all of 7-something feet tall, and the house smells of pine. Festive indeed.

So, Christmas is 96 hours away and counting. Looks like we're keeping with our mish-mash of tradition this year. Turkey, roast lamb, mint and cranberry sauce AND curry, sayor lodeh, Myanmar styled chicken. Should be chaotic but good fun. Looking forward it... Well, to everything but the dishes after...

Art
XXX

HOME SWEET HOME...

2007-12-18T16:01:00.001+08:00

Am finally back from Bali and ever grateful to be home.

Don't get me wrong, covering the UN climate talks was a wonderful, eye-opening experience, even if it was exhausting, and I know years from now I will still be talking about having been there as climate change history was being written. Even so, I really missed home, Pete, family and friends, and because of the sheer intensity and long hours, two weeks felt like a really long time, especially this close to Christmas. Plus, now I can pay $1 for a Coke light and $2.50 for chicken rice. Yay!

Have tried to get into Christmas spirit and put all the preparations on high gear, but after one false start, I realise I am still feeling somewhat lost and a kinda scattered, like I haven't really landed on both feet. Not entirely sure why but hope it passes real soon, especially since we are running out of time. Have gotten the tree done, though, so the house looks quite cheery. Will post a pic soon.

Either way, figured I would check in and say hi. Will blog more later. Before I go though, here's a little snippet from Bali:

This is little Malia Nuemann - the youngest greenie at the conference, complete with her own accreditation pass. The three month old is the daughter of one of the journos covering the event, and is still being breastfed, hence found herself in Bali. The UN let her in the first couple of days, and then one insisted she get her own pass... Spotted her in the media room and could not resist getting a shot. Cute huh?

Anyways, gotta get back to work. Will check in again soon.

Art.

ARE YA GONNA GO MY WAY?

2007-12-13T12:12:00.000+08:00

An update from Bali, where we've put the fate of the world in the hands of a bunch of bureaucrats. In good faith, we're trusting them to somehow put aside their nitpicking concerns, and navigate a route to a future global climate change agreement to be signed in Copenhagen in 2009....

Its proving to be quite a task, especially if you take the word of one government leader, who said: "Before they can draw a map, they need to figure out which way is North".

Overheard in the washroom after: "At this rate, their Bali roadmap isn't even gonna get to bloody Denpasar and back, let alone Denmark."

Scary. But as the hours go by, increasingly true. While someone tries to get our collective governments a blinkin' compass in the 48 hours they have left, I ask myself: was this worth going without chicken rice for two weeks?

Art

XXX

GOIN' NUTS IN BALI

2007-12-11T22:03:00.000+08:00

If you're wondering about that promise on which I failed to deliver about keeping the blog updated, its because things were insane in the lead up to my trip to Bali for the United Nations climate change conference, and has remain so since I got here.

Great help, of course, is the fact that I have no internet access from my hotel room (as should be the case at all vacation destinations), which truly limits free time to blog in between trying to file stories.

Anyways, as bureacrats argue about what they are going to do - not do - to save the planet, I - along with 10,000 plus other delegates and media at the conference have involuntarily found a innovative way to lowering our own carbon footprint at the event - starvation.

The venue is completely void of any kind of affordable dining options (unless you make serious moolah... which I don't) which means choosing to go green (read: hungry) instead of going broke.
The Bali International Convention Centre’s snack bars - supplied by the adjoining Westin Hotel sell basic sandwiches at close to $16 each, and canned drinks at about $4. Multiply that by two meals a day and 12 days, and thats close to $500 on food alone. *Groan*.

Godsent has been the Indonesian Pavillion next door, which, has increased its traffic tremendously by offering coffee, tea, water and limited (read: I have manage to snag two cups in nine days) numbers of cup noodles to media for free. The crew at the hotel have also been sweet enough to look the other way while I stuff prepacked muesli into my backpack during breakfast....

But short of that, food is sort of a non-option. The things environment reporters end up doing for the planet....

More soon..

XXX
Art

Ola!

2007-11-11T10:19:00.000+08:00

Okay, so where do we start... In that long silence, we have been up to our ears. Family visits, keeping pace with work, Peter doing newspaper after newspaper, Diwali and both of us attempting to breathe in between.

But enough of all that.

TW is back. And we promise loads of pictures to back up excuses, all the fun stuff in between, and more regular updates. If things go the way we plan, it should all be better from here... So stay tuned. :)

We're alive and well, don't worry... Been a little playful that's all... and here's evidence...

XXX

Art

Greetings earthlings....

2007-10-18T04:37:00.000+08:00

In case you were wondering about the long absence of TW, we were using them in a study of how exactly the human mind copes with crazy work, crazy hours, and as much free time as a spider on speed.

We have now discovered that they have managed to get by with a little help from a friend named Jim, whom we are now in fierced persuit off. We understand he lives in Kentucky.

Either way, you can have them back now, seeing as we have no more use for them.... The female half of the duo, apparently, claims that we somehow made her miss a ridiculously important event known as a boozeday, or borthday, or something... She forced us to celebrate it either way... So here be pix.

Sigh. Humans.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

BACK SOON!

2007-07-12T13:43:00.000+08:00

FIVE THINGS TO EAT BEFORE YOU DIE

2007-06-25T22:18:00.000+08:00

Starting a new entry so we can start collating the entries for the Must Eats Before The End.. Come on, the rest of ya!

Wei's selection:
1) Sashimi at the Tokyo Fish market at 5am in the morning. I didn't watch all those discovery travel shows for nuthin'.
2) Special adult version chocolate chip cookies or brownies, like the ones they have in Amsterdam or similar, with an extra ingredient that I will not spell out in public.
3) Paella in Spain. Cos I want to go to Spain.
4) A meal at Tetsuya's in Sydney.
5) Fried chicken skin from one of the beachside restaurants in Krabi, Thailand. Incredibly addictive, forget the calories.

Here's Gnat's Top Eats (though this one busted the limit of five in a big way)

* Bebek Betutu at Crossroads Cafe in Ubud, Bali.This is a smoked/fried duck dish with plenty of Balinese spices stuffed into the lil un. It's considered a speciality of the island. We've had a couple of versions of this dish, even at the famed Dirty Duck restaurant which is supposed to serve the best version of the dish on Bali. Nah. Stick to Crossroads Cafe which is just a few steps away from the main market there.
Oh, ps, if you're on that beautiful island, try out the babi guling too - roasted piglet. Yums.Well, you also have to go to La Luciola, on Seminyak Beach if you're in Bali and looking for a good meal. It's not cheap and its Italian fare, but hey, the restaurant sits on a beach and you can see/hear the tide crashing just metres away. 10 points for ambience, maybe 8 for the food now - still good, but it seemed better four years ago.

* Cloudberries in Sweden. Fairly rare, since they only grow at certain times in the Artic. But we had these at a *gasp* Michelin Star restaurant in the town of Malmo, in the south of Sweden. They're small, yellow when ripe and a bit tart, sweet and bitter all at the same time. perfectly complemented the vanilla ice cream though - yes, it was real vanilla and hand-churned ice cream - all the lovely pod bits in the ice cream. Decadent but amazing.This restuarant also had this amazing cold soup with warm salmon bits in it. The melange of flavours and the contrast in textures, taste and yes, temperatures, was quite out of this world.

* La Carbonara in Rome, Italy. This is a restaurant that's been around since 1912, and supposedly, came up with the original version of... you guessed it, carbonara pasta. This one was just coated with cheese and egg yolk - none of this creamy sauce thing that somehow became associated with the dish. Of course the extremely fatty pancetta - ham - bits were quite heavenly. Each small tiny piece glistened with a large layer of lucious fat. Yums.I can't show you what the dish there looks like, but here's a map of where it is, at least.PS: dress up. And nicely.They are all Italians dining in the restaurant, and they wear three-piece suits to lunch, and you really don't fit in with jeans and ugly jackets.

* Real gelato from a gelateria in Italy. Preferably in a small-ish town, like Bolzano, where there ain't that many tourists.

* Coke Chicken in Chiang Mai. I have no idea what this woman puts into the stuff but its a small stall near the night market. It's supposedly coca cola, but it's soooooo addictive (we kept going back repeatedly for this stuff in our four days there) that I have to wonder if its the other sort of coke. It's a spicy noodle soup dish, and I MEAN spicy, and the nice old lady and gent running the store cannot speak a word of English. But wha, must try it once before you die - definitely.

* "Maguro Steak" in some suburb of Tokyo. Yes, it was tuna and cooked lightly in some sauce; fua.... eyepopping flavour in this absurdly small little place. It was recommended in the Lonely Planet - suspect because its the only one in that area that had a menu in "English" that you could point at to order and the proprietors didn't mind stupid Gai Jin walking in and fumbling up all the proper etiquette for food. I can't remember the name because I don't have the Japan Lonely Planet with me, and there's no way I'll find it on the Net.

* Harbor View restuarant in Pepin, Wisconsin. This small little restaurant has fans who will fly in from New York etc etc just to eat there. It doesn't take reservations, just show up and take your chances. It also opens and closes at very specific hours. Its menu changes regularly - but what I had was simply superb. A friend had fish that melted right in your mouth, and I had a huge chicken dish. It sits right in front of the mighty Mississippi, but is in a town so obscure and the position so remote that you'll definitely need a GPS to find it.

* Le Dalat in Bangkok's garlic king prawn. You get one prawn but man oh man is it big. And the garlic on top. Fuaaaaaaa.

* Cow and Chicken pho in Richmond, Melbourne. It has a name, but this shop is better known for the cartoon characters it puts up in its window. The cow looks suspiciously like the laughing cow trademark used by a brand of cheese, but anyway, the beef in the pho is fantastic and the broth it comes with is amazing. Stuff in a couple of springs of basil, squirt lots of Siricha hot sauce - this garlicky chili sauce - and you've got a meal that you'll want again, and again and again.

* This is a bit esoteric - but a "meal" to have before you die? Take a safari tour out into the plains of Botswana, settle down for sundowners, have some antelope jerky and a stiff, oh sooo stiff G&T.

Eh, but some of the best things can be found here man! Once at least before you die: pig trotters at East Coast Parkway food centre. They sell out damned super fast and there's a looong queue. But good lah.

EATS BEFORE THE END.....

2007-06-15T20:53:00.000+08:00

Yes yes, it has been insane, but I have resigned myself to insanity being the norm, and sanity making an occasional appearance. Life. A taste of the goodness of Cork is in order (best at the English Market, above). But Ireland is only slated for the summer. Siiiighs.

Singapore's in the grip of this dengue epidemic, and its been long days and longer nights. We're just hoping and praying it doesn't get so serious that 1) one of us gets sick (touch wood), or 2) one of us can't get away for our planned break next month. The plan right now is to - if we finally graduate from the unending waiting list for flights - to attend Kishore's wedding in Bali. *Fingers crossed*.

Anyways, Pete and I were inspired enough by food blog The Traveler's Lunchbox to experiment with the meme Five Things To Eat Before You Die. Its been done by everyone from Chubby Hubby and The Domestic Goddess in the aim of creating a Foodbloggers' Guide to the Globe.

In any case, we've decided we will do it too, and we hope that you'll add your fav five in the comments section. Heck, death is the inevitable end point anyway, so we might as well be sharing the best and most gastronomically satisfying routes...

So here goes... There's 10 between us (well, duh). Besides, while I completely agreed with Pete's five, I had a few others I simply had to include.

1. Poached to perfection eggs Benedict at Odessa, Dublin 2, Ireland. You haven't lived till you've tried this one, especially with their great homemade Hollandaise sauce. Had mine with salmon and the meal alone made the trip worthwhile. A close second is the poach eggs on toast at the Hick's Brasserie at Cotswolds House Hotel, Cotswolds, England. Amazing stuff.

2. Banh My Pate, or pate and baguette, flavoured with pickled cucumber, coriander and chilli sauce from a streetside stall in Saigon. The old lady near Ben Tanh Market is oh-my-god to-die-for good. The French would freak out. Now wouldn't that be fun to watch haha.

3. The crispy fish salad at Song Trang, undeniably the BEST restaurant in all of Saigon. The greatness of this dish even escapes description. The only problem is that its so popular now that you have to book a table like waaaay in advance. Ah well. (Make sure you try the lemongrass escargot as well, its phenomenal). There used to be one in Singapore, but it came nowhere close to the real one. Ask any local where to find it coz its kinda off the usual tourist radar. While we are on the topic of fishy business, the seared black cod at Brasserie Wolf, Robertson Quay, Singapore, is divine.

4. Anything at all from The Stinking Rose in San Francisco, California. Just follow your nose to this one. Its all garlic, all the way. Apparently, they serve something like 3000 pounds of the good stuff a month. Amazing stuff. The garlic dip with the bread was smashing. For a main, I had the Garlic Encrusted Baby Back Ribs, which were phenomenal. Pete had the 40 Clove Garlic Chicken, though he still complains it didn't quite have enough garlic. Madness. Quite fortunately, of course, both the boy and I love the pungent stuff, so it doesn't cause any, erm, tension. Ha Ha. Checked out the most recent menu and they now have a "Roasted Garlic Potato Onion Soup". And if anyone out there has anything close to a recipe, PLEASE PLEASE share.

5. Hainanese Delicacy for its chicken rice, top floor of Far East Plaza. Been eating there for yonks and finally introduced it to Pete earlier this year. We are both chicken rice fanatics, and anywhere else has since paled in comparison. The oyster sauce veg is great, second only to the salted vegetable soup.

6. Crubeens (crúibíní in Irish). Wikipedia calls em salted pig's feet or trotters, boiled/braised, and best eaten with cabbage, and either mashed or baby potatos (Goodbye Atkins). Pete calls em heaven. Best after a few drinks. They are traditionally eaten using one's fingers - yet another link to these Indian-Irish union. Made to be together we are, I tell ya. While we are in the Cork region, the clam chowder at the English Market, Cork, Ireland, is one of those die die must try things. Great chance, too, to load up on real Irish salmon, black n white pudding and amazing cheeses. The stuffed olives from the deli are amazing too.

7. Seafood (especially the grilled and soyo sauce fish) in Hua Hin (where the Thai king vacations). The restaurants are built on old piers where the fishermen used to offload, and while we can't quite remember the name of the one we went to, it was the third one down from the end. The food was phenomenal and I am sure the name of it will come back to me at some stage. We kena scolded by the waitress too - she said our eyes were bigger than our (collective) tummies and we were ordering too much. At the end of the day, we just let her pick and were happier for it. Only downside to Hua Hin - its a bit of a trek to get there (even though its only a couple of hours outside Bangkok). Its well worth it though, and it means a lot of the trash-tourists are nowhere near. Heaven. Closer to home, I would say a near second best would be the soya sauce whole fish at Ubin Seafood. at the Bukit Timah and 6th Ave junction. I have no idea what its called on the menu, but its done with ginger and spring onion. Pete's throwing in a third contender - the kopitiam across the street from the office that I only know as Wy Wy's Grandfather's Coffeeshop (Thanks, Alison). If you're familiar with the neighbourhood, its in the same block as Aroma but on the other end. Not bad at all for something near enough to work. The wait for a table can be endless, though. God, I am getting hungry.

8. Soto Ayam from a streetside stall in Bali. Words simply escape me. It's just different. Don't ask, just try. Two places come to mind, both of which I don't have names to. First one is near the Bali Hyatt in Sanur (Walk towards the beach, turn right, 100 metres down. Its the one with the blue sheet of canvas over it. If lazy, the soto ayam served by the hotel's Indon restaurant to the poolside passes the test) and the second one is near the Santika resort in Tuban (get out to the beach from the resort - oh, and the restaurant bordering the beach is Ooh-la-la too - but anyways, turn left and take a stroll along the beach. About 100 metres down is a restaurant on the beach front. It actually fronts a backpacker/budget hostel area. Very good stuff and the only cheeseburger in Bali pete gives three "beers" to. Considering how particular this boy is, that is generous). Try.

9. Samosas and coriander-mint chuntney at Rita's Kitchen, East Coast, Singapore. Don't bother asking for the address. This one's Mum. :) Haven't met a samosa or chutney I can take seriously other than hers. Revolutionary. I mean, at least one son-in-law wanted her samosas as dowry instead of anything else- and got it. Another son-in-law kicked himself for not being able to do the same at the risk of sounding unoriginal. Need I say more? Other dishes that stick in the mind - Mum's chilli fried rice, serve with fried chicken winglets, fried lady's finger doused in masala, and homemade yoghurt. Yes yes, a fried frenzy, heart attack in a plate, whatever. Awesome. Another one that comes to mind Mithi Loli - a kinda sweet crispy pancake, which Mum spoiled me with when I got chicken pox. Why, I have no idea, but it sure sweetened a shite period in my life. Oh, and mum's rice cooked in dahl.

And finally....

10. Curry chips from Aroma II, Wexford Street Dublin. Note that these have to be eaten at 4am, when one is pissed enough to ignore the cold, and stupid enough to wanna walk all the way there when the bar is just up from the hotel. "One" (being Pete) also has to be smart enough to send one's wife in for the fine stuff, just so she knows what queueing with drunk thugs in a foreign land. The chips - or at least the first five (until they complied with Irish winter weather and got cold) - were good though.

Sighs, I could go on.... I don't even have Chin Wah Heng's pepper crabs in there, or Bak Kut Teh, or Mussells from Brussells.... How can one only pick five/ten things.... Ah well.

Okay, your turn. I'm already tagging Gnat, Wei, Ling , Jonno, and the independent-for-a-few-more-days Gene. Everyone else, please please do join.

Hugs,

Note: Some of the pictures on this post are from http://www.noodlepie.com/ and from the WWW. Those lovely ones of the olives and the English Market and such are Pete's though.. Thanks to all.

SHOTS OF LIFE...

2007-05-23T17:26:00.001+08:00

Finally! Couple of snapshots from last weekend's wanderings. Was good fun but exhausting trying to figure out how to get the dang photos and captions up using the old Blogger. I think you'll still have to zoom in a bit to see of the captions... Sorry lah. Ah well. Still learning.

First couple of shots was Pete going at it in Chinatown. Then we hit Graze at Rochester Park for an absolutely brilliant meal (see previous post for our recommendations). Ended the night with Pete's virgin foray into St James. It was a blast.

Anyways Tell us what you think! More updates from life to come... Promise.

NEW WEEK, NEW LOOK....

2007-05-21T23:35:00.001+08:00

So as you can tell, we spent a bit of our weekend coming up with a fresh look for the ole' blog, with a new specially customised masthead designed by non other than Boy Wonder Williams. It looks a bit cleaner I think. Bits of it will change more drastically as I start taking out some elements and adding new ones. Do let us know what you think. What you hate, what you like. At least we'll know that the effort means something to someone out there! But at least I am inspired now to put a bit more effort to it. I am still desperately trying to get my head around html and all the labelling stuff. I will. Erm, eventually.

One of the things we were trying to experiment with was the photos/layout, but there's been a bit of the glitch with the files, so hopefully that will eventually sort itself out. Meanwhile, here's a taste of Pete's Chinatown adventure earlier in the week. He snapped it at one of the Chinese temples. Its one of those things they use to burn paper offerings I think:

And since we're still on the topic of Boy Wonder, realise that I never posted the page that Pete won the SND award for. Here it is with the citation. I'm not sure how it will look sizewise, but I have to say its one of my (many) favourite pages he has done. How can I not gloat?

Oh, we also discovered a FABULOUS place this weekend. Erm, okay, discovered is the wrong word because Carl and YP pointed us to it (thanks guys!) - Graze at Rochester Park. I hear the Sunday brunch is brilliant, but we ended up there for Sunday dinner instead. No regrets though. The setting is amazing, food superb and service excellent. Actually don't have a bad thing to say about it except that the prices on the wine list are kinda saucy. But this is Singapore, where bars get off charging the world for alcohol. Still, we were very satisfied. The lounge at the end of the restaurant was showing old black n white films, which was a nice touch. Would be a great event venue.

Menu recommendations: The stacked eggplant as a starter was absolutely brilliant. I had the avocado cheese salad thingy that I cannot for the life of me remember the real name off which I polished off completely. It was that good. I had the whole baby fish with sambal (bit chicken rice type chilli, but not bad) as a main and Pete had the pork chops, which were huge and really well barbequed and still juicy on the plate (from Pete: Fantastic criss cross and golden on the outside, but juicy on the inside). We were both quiet for long enough for anyone to know they were both amazing, though the mass potatos were a bit humm. But Pete's Irish, so potatos not done perfect are always already questionable. Was too full for desert but the menu looked out of this planet (note to self: do not eat before going to Graze again).

We topped off the night with Pete's virgin foray to St James Power Station. Bellini Room was closed, which was a bummer, but we got in a few at Movida, which was all salsa, and Powerhouse, which was playing, well, the more upbeat stuff. Caught up with a couple of friends and my one of my fav cuz', which was loads of fun. Will definitely be back there sooner than we think.

Oh, in other news. We are now proud owners of a *drumroll* grilled sandwich maker. Don't laugh. I swear I have always, always loved grilled ham n cheese sandwiches, something for which Pete has a weakness for too. Mum use to make fabulous ones in a silver-and-grey one that has since gone rusty (it is, I suspect, older than I am). Anyways, while we were out today, there was one that was simply too sweet to resist. It makes grilled and toasted sandwiches, toasted pastries and grills veges, sorta like a BBQ. Of course, the first thing I did when we came home from dinner was suggest we make ham n cheese toasties for supper. My hips will never forgive me, but it was oh soooooo good for the soul.

Tomorrow morning, BLT toasties for Pete, Nat and me. Might as well cash in when enthusiasm is able to triumph over morning-time grumpiness. Heck, it may even make us feel a wee bit better about being at work.

Art

FINALLY... PUTTING A CORK IN IT....

2007-05-13T04:32:00.000+08:00

Now that I am finally seeing straight again, here comes the update on our lives etc etc etc.

Both of us came back from Thailand only to be stuck down simulataneously by some horrid respiratory thing that caused near-mayhem. I reckon it had was what had already started creeping up on me before Bangkok, but apparently it was misdiagnosed, which means the first four days of antibiotics was pointless. I came back sicker than I was. Needless to say, I think Pete might have proceeded to catch it from me.

It was pretty tragic. Both bedside tables filled with mounds of antibiotics, cold, cough, throat and what not else medication, with whoever was feeling less awful than the other doing the refills for water, making dry toast etc. Not the most fun. That said, at least we were able to climb the walls together.

Ah well. At least we're both beginning to feel a little better, and even managed to get the final instalment of pictures from Ireland (sigh, don't laugh la. It's been a mad couple of months) off the ground.

These are the final snapshots of Cork and some... when I caught my first fish (almost!). I was kinda distracted when the fella took my fly and, sigh, he got away (really!). Either way, fell head over heels for fly fishing and Pete n Dave promise no less than two straight days of it in the summer. I cannot wait. I think it took both boys completely by surprise how I took to it like a, erm, fish. haha. I guess they figured it was a boy thing... When I outfish them in the summer, then they'll know! Muahahaha! Now, all I have to do is get used to being in the boat and throwing out my line without hooking someone's head/coat/line. Pete says I am actually half decent despite (and he didn't even add "for a girl"!!).

It was amazing being back in Cork. Have to say, I am actually starting to think of it as a second home. Was kinda strange how I remembered where everything was and could just about navigate around myself. I guess some places just grow on you real quickly. Wish we had more time there though.

Oh, realise in hindsight that some bits of the Birmingham video might seemed to not have had a head or a tail. Sorry, my state of mind was on the way out of the door when we threw together that post. The initial shots are of Warwick Castle, which is down the road from where Gwen lives, and the life-like statues/bears etc are part of the Madam Tussaud exhibit. It was pretty amazing. My heart almost forced itself up my throat once though, when what I thought was a statue suddenly turned around and asked if I was having a nice day! Could have died. Turned out to be one of the favourite tricks of one of the curators.

We also checked out the Rose and Crown near Warwick, where Gwen works part time and does the flowers for. Also managed to pack in a trip to the Cotswalds, and a trip down to the Royal Shaespeare Company and the church where the good man (who apparently was, incidentally, bi/gay) is buried. It was pretty amazing being there, not least so I could tell the man to his face, erm, grave, how annoying some parts of As You Like It are.

It was great, despite, like Cork, having spread ourselves a little too thin this time. Felt like we were perpetually on planes and packing. Next time we promise ourselves more time to breathe and settle down. Plus, it will be the summer, which will be great. Seeing the Emerald Isle in a different light and all that.

Plus, fishing! I swear, the time will not fly (pun fully intended) quickly enough....

Love,

Art

FLIGHTLESS IN FRICKING ASIA...

2007-05-09T01:57:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the radio silence. Just back from a work/supposed-to-have-been-short-holiday thing in Bangkok. Bushwhacked. Explains why you have not yet seen the promised photos from Ireland/England which now seems forever and a half ago. Sorry.
In other news, Bangkok did not quite go as, well, planned.

Got there, worked my butt off, and got the stories done. Never saw the outside of the UN building or the hotel room, but ate nothing but Thai food and managed to get a decent number of stories off before Sunday morning when the man was meant to get in so we could have a nice two-plus days together.

Meant. To. Get. In.

In what felt like a horrible mish mash of Tom Hanks films, here's what actually happened.

He got off work at 2am Saturday, and since he had to leave for the airport about 3 or so hours later, decided he would simply stay up.... So there was poor ole Pete, sleep deprived after a harrowing week. Anyway. So the boy gets to the airport, checks in, goes through the usual waiting-for-a-flight motions. Gets to the gate. Gets on the plane.

The plane - Thai Airways, no less - leaves the terminal, taxis to the runaway, starts down it with an (apparently) awful, air-leaking kinda sound before it ends up turning around, with the pilot announcing that the plane ain't going nowhere thanks to "hydraulic failure"....

@*(&*(&(^$)(*#%(*((*)(#$

So the boy and other passengers that have connections from Doha to Munich to catch get spat back out, when they are told (I am not kidding) that Biz class will get put on SQ, and the rest have to "fend for yourselves, or wait for our next available flight". which turns out to the half a blinking day later. According to Pete, it was nothing short of mayhem, with the airline not even offering a dang meal coupon to them.

Either way, he waited around, and got updates that ranged from "it will take an hour and a half to fix the plane", to "we are bringing in a plane and it will take four hours". He tries to see if there are other flights, but no, nothing. Flights are full. Argh.

The boy was, of course, as grumpy as someone who is stuck at an airport because their plane has "hydraulic blinking failure", and I decide to try and see if he can just go home and crash, and I'll come back instead, since I am sick anyway - but no, no dang flights are available for that day from Bangkok.

He's stuck in the terminal and can't get to BKK. I'm stuck in a hotel can't get to Singers. The plane, as it were, can't get nowhere. At least not while its dripping all kinds of shite onto the tarmac.

Double argh.

So what was meant to have been a three day break for us, turned out to be a one-long-nap and one-busy day. Sigh. Ah well. The trip had its (few, but pleasant) moments.

Deciding on the Hyatt Club proved to be a great idea - great location, brilliant service.

Pete finally managed to get in close to 5pm (which put an end to the Chatuchak idea). We had a short nap and then hit the lounge for sunset cocktails before hitting Suan Lom Night Market to shop a bit. Ended up getting Thai street food in an Italian restaurant after (don't ask) and then both conceded defeat and went back to the hotel to chill and see who'd crash first.

Had a nice lie in the next day and chilled at the hotel before hitting some of the swanky shops in the vicinity. Then we had a lovely Thai-Chinese meal in this really cute streetside restaurant that was amazing, thanks to Satwant (thanks babe!) and did a wee bit of shopping in Silom, before parking off for a few drinks at a bar with a live (lip synching) band.

It was, coincidentally, right across from a strip bar called, aptly, Supergirls. Decided against going in for the show, but did get shown the extensive "menu". Will resist going into details on what is, decidedly, meant to be a NC16 blog, but they involved ping pong balls, flame throwng and the creative opening of beer bottles. You know the sort.

Eventually ended up finally at a pool hall when I got my ass royally whipped on the table by lasses in five inch heels and two inch skirts. After three games I think my ego was sufficiently bruised to concede defeat and head back.

It wasn't quite the usual Bangkok getaway. No endless shopping. No cheap massages. Still, it was nice. I think even if all you do is chill, sleep and wake, there is definitely something therapeutic about doing it somewhere other than home, when the cell phone isn't ringing/beeping off the hook and you're not going to bump into any one you know.

Looking forward to our next PROPER break though.

Art

Ps: Yes, the rest 0f the vacation photos from Ireland will come now. So let's kick it off with Birmingham. Enjoy.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

RUB A DUB DUBAI...

2007-04-15T03:43:00.000+08:00

kay, so I have been bad. Work has been insane... Life even more so.

But we're starting to get hatemail over pictures promised and not delivered, so here goes, instalment number 2. Non-chronological, but seriously, are you really fussed?

This one's the furthest from the first it can get - Pete's (21st) birthday pitstop in Dubai on the way back home. Shall not even venture to try and describe the state we were getting in, but needless to say, we didn't let it get in the way of hitting the dunes hours later (literally).

Thanks to the Reuben and the gang at FTC, we were kitted and sorted before we could say "cure". Kinda appropriate then that we were stuck in a GMT time warp between St Patrick's Day and Pete's Bday because we had every excuse possible to be somewhat trippy yet gagworthy when we were coming down a slope at a 180 degree angle in a four wheel drive (I have new respect; note to Dermot and Mary from Pete: 4WheelDrives can do more than cart home truckloads of groceries... Really!?!).

The. Dunes. ROCKED.

Okay, so I will admit I got a bit green. Pete did too! But of course, the biggest challenge to our egos was Rajveer, the 6-year-old that belongs to Reshma and Ranjit (our ex-neighbour and single malt-kaki), who came along, and was COMPLETELY unfazed by 12-storey high dunes that had me begging for the mercy of anything or anyone who would listen... Sighs, to be young and fearless. I was too roughed up when we got back to the desert camp to brave the quad bikes, but I had a great time with the camels while I waited for the boys. Wait. That sounded very wrong. Ho Hum.

But really, it was awesome (and would have been even more so had we not been completely hungover and jetlagged). Pete's already booked himself for a trip back... next week preferably, he says...

Caught up with long lost cousin Mehirr and his fiance Amna, as we already mentioned.... It was really really great fun, especially since the last time I saw him was when I was 12 (which was, like, oh, maybe, erm, less than a decade and some ago....).... Very very strange but also oh so cool.

Hit the city two nights in a row, had great food, good drinks, bought brilliant spices. And before the nights were through managed to find ourselves on national radio (one of half a million things he does).... They played a couple of songs from Kal Ho Na Ho (to anyone who was at our wedding, it was, like, the recurring theme - the songs the kids all danced to) dedicated to Ravi (Pete's, erm, Indian name) and Arti Williams... It was utterly hilarious.

Okay, so enough of the rambling. Here's a peek into the mayhem.... Much more to come in the next 48 hours... Really! No, really!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Hugs,

Art

DO IT LIKE THE IRISH!

2007-03-28T23:22:00.000+08:00

As promised, the first instalment of shots, and what better way to kick it off than with the wedding, which I swear was the craziest wedding I have ever been to...

A big congratulations to Eoin and Hilary: You guys looks absolutely amazing and we were so thrilled to have been able to share in such a special day (though our livers are still recovering).

To everyone: The pictures here are in low resolution so we could put it up quickly, but if you see some you like, holler and we'll shoot off the high res ones to you...

But for now, enjoy...

BACK!

2007-03-21T14:32:00.000+08:00

Hello hello! TW has finally returned from its annual Eire adventure, with thousands (literally) of photos in tow. Not gonna have a chance to put them up till we do some major editing though (think about it - at least 5 gigs spread over three cameras, can die), some expect bits and bobs to appear over the next couple of days (read: weeks) together with the usual rambling commentary.

Despite our concerns that the weather would be shite, turns out we brought some of the tropical sunshine with us... We actually got blue skies and sunshine almost every day, and Pete even got a sun tan! Imagine, we go to Europe for the winter/early spring expecting everything from hail to snow and prepared for a bitterly wet vacation, and Mr Williams comes back brown. Freaky.

Either way, here's the short version. Caught up with Gwendy and gang in Birmingham, hit Warwick Castle and the Cotswolds, and even saw Shakespeare's grave (kinda creepy that).

Then it was off to Galway where Eoin finally made an honest woman out of Hilary in what might have been the maddest wedding I have ever been to (helped, no less, by the solitary insane Asian gal in attendance). Pete caught up with his NCAD crew and suffice it to say that it was nuts...

Staggered down to Cork after to hang with Gladys, Dave and the rest of the troupe. Went out to a gorgeous place called Ballyhass Lakes, where I learnt to FLY FISH! It was awesome. Crap luck though - caught a huge trout only to have it take off with my line coz I wasn't concentrating (bleah), so now I have my own "the one that got away" story. Pete and Dave had better luck - caught a few between them for our dinner/breakfast. Photo evidence to come.

Topped off the break with a stopover in Dubai for Pete's birthday, where we did a spot of dune bashing (BRILLIANT). He also got to mess around on the dunes with a quad bike, and then we had this amazing BBQ in the middle of the desert (complete with belly dancers). We also managed to track down and catch up with my long-lost cousin Mehirr, and met his fiance Amna, which was great. Loaded up on great Lebanese/Arabian/Asian food and enough spices to cook for a small country.

Anyways, more to come, we promise... But for now, mounds of laundry await. Bleah.

Later.

Art

BOY WONDER WILLIAMS!

2007-02-28T21:32:00.000+08:00

Woo hoo! Pete has just snagged his first award from The Society of News Design for the design and layout for a page he did for The Straits Times!! I am soooooo very proud of him, because it acknowledges the great work that he has done. He's won heaps of internal awards here at ST, but this is the first big international one that he has won at an individual level.. He shares the award with a colleague from the Life section - Andrew Tan...

Keeping our fingers crossed that he'll be sent to Boston for this year's SND so he can get the award himself (and I can tag alone from a holiday!)...

Can't put a grab of the page up here (tricky because of copyright I guess), but it was about furniture design, and he made it look all Ikea-instructional-booklet-like. It was really really good.... Really.

So exciting, I'm married to a world-class designer. Of course, one could argue that he has always been.... But *Swoon* ....

Heh.

Art.

LE-BLAZA... FINALLY

2007-02-28T21:27:00.000+08:00

After their dramatic ordeal trying to tie the knot in Belgium, Cass and Guy, as we mentioned earlier, finally had a brainwave and fled Down Under to do the deed... Looks like it was a beautiful wedding, and Cass has kindly agreed for us to share the snapshots... Have a look!

Congrats again guys... Wish we could be at the party in Belgium in April... Making Pete buy lottery ticket tomorrow just in case... :)

Make video montages at onetruemedia.com

Art

HISSTERICAL DAY.... LITERALLY

2007-02-22T19:11:00.000+08:00

Okay, I wake up this morning, and bleary-eyed, stagger into the kitchen to get a Diet 7-Up (I know, I know, its bad for me that early in the day, but that's not the point), and I spot, from the corner of my eye, what seems like a piece of thick black string next to Pete's shoes. I half consider picking it up and throwing it in the bin, and then walk away and figure I'll do it later, before instinct tells me to go back because the damn thing seems to be moving...

Two whole seconds later I'm running to the room coz I can swear it looks like a snake, but I won't get close enough to check... So I drag Pete out of bed, who thinks its all one big joke, until my galliant hero finally agrees to come see.... At which point, instead of reaching for the first heavy, lethal item he can find, he goes back inside to get the blinking CAMERA and leaves me in the kitchen eyeballing the dang slithering thing!!!

A snake. Like... argh. It was small and all that, but... argh. And of course, I'm wondering how the heck it could have gotten into the house, and if it decided to drop by alone! And it looked scary as hell.

Being the swaku-snake hating-urbanite that I am, the only thing I can think to do in between freaking out is call the cops right (okay, so I tried NEA and AVA as well), and then just hope and pray the damn thing doesn't move right, but the cops take so long and we're so afraid the thing will disappear into the house that Pete tries to pick it up with the broom to toss it, and the damn thing slithers under the shelf. Of course, while all this is happening, time's ticking away and I am dangerously close to being late for work.

Cops (finally) show up (just as I leave), can't find the damn thing, confess that they wouldn't know what in the world to do with it if they did, and then leave. And no pest control company is free to come right away.

That, of course, was the moment Slithers here decides to make his entrance again, and glides over to the washing machine, where he stays for a couple of minutes before making a run for the pantry. The pantry. Full of boxes and lovely places to hide. Double argh. Cops come back for round two, drag everything out of the pantry, and have no luck and leave. Again.

Meanwhile, Pete's stuck watching that Slithers doesn't get into the house. Again. Eventually, he has a brainwave that we try Pestbusters, who, thankfully, agree to come (thank god for friends in weird industries), and I rush home to let them in so Pete can get to work.

To cut a long story short - the Pestbusters crew arrives. The three guys hole themselves up in the pantry, and less than 15 minutes later, emerge with the, grr, thing. In a plastic bag. He, apparently, climbed into the bristles of a broom head to hide, and I told them to just take the whole dang broom head please thankyouverymuch. They check for eggs, skins, and anything else that might hint that the bugger's been here for a while, and for friends, and the place, fortunately, is clean. Thank god. He (great chap named Azman) figures the tree-cutting going on downstairs might have driven the bugger in. By the time the whole ordeal is over, the better part of five hours has gone by.

As it turns out, Slithers turns out to be a Paradise Tree Snake (Chrysopelea paradisi) that is among five species of FLYING snakes. Shudder. It was kinda small like I said, but apparently it rarely grows beyond two feet long, so guessing the one we saw may not be a "baby".... According to good ole' Google, we've learned that its not so dangerous to humans, although I swear it near caused us both a heart attack....

(Oh, before I forget, if you ever have any pesky pest problems, we'd really recommend Pestbusters - quick, efficient, very sweet, and they don't have a million excuses for why they simply can't this or that, unlike some of the others we called).

Sighs. What a day. Will be happy to never, ever, ever see another snake again. Maybe we should move to snakeless Ireland. At least for peace of mind.

Art

MANGO MADNESS...

2007-02-21T17:57:00.000+08:00

With the help of Google and a bit of imagination, tried to make chicken with mango salsa last night. And going by Pete's clean plate, figured I would share... There are loads of variations on the web, but this one worked for me and it was quick and simple, and even if you don't cook the salsa with the chicken, it makes for a really fresh salad, and it keeps. Thinking next time I might try it with fish .. So anyway, here goes....

Mango Madness
Ingredients
Chicken
3 chicken breasts, cut into halves (you might wanna use fillets if you want them to cook faster)
(Marinate the chicken with salt, pepper, olive oil and some fresh lemon juice; cover and put in fridge)

Salsa
2 large mangos, diced (I like them still a wee bit sour, but thats a matter of preference really)
1 red pepper, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 green chilli (you can use chilli padi for more kick if you want), chopped
2 onions, chopped (I like red onions)
1 handful of chopped coriander leaves
1/2 handful of chopped mint leaves
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp olive oil
Salt & Pepper
Sprinkle of red chilli powder
(You can use 2 chopped tomatoes too, if you like)

- Mixed up the salsa and refridgerate for awhile.

Hokay, so when you're ready to rock and roll, pan fry the chicken breasts in olive oil till they are pretty much cooked through.
Then add the salsa mixture, bring to a boil and cook for two to three minutes.
Dish it out and sprinkle some fresh cilantro. Enjoy!

I served it up with oven-baked wedges of garlic potatos, and, ideally, there would have been some peas to go with but they didn't cooperate. Ah well...

Bon Appetit!

Art

ANOTHER ONE THAT MADE US STOP AND THINK...

2007-02-19T17:22:00.000+08:00

YOU LOOK, BUT DO YOU SEE?

2007-02-19T04:22:00.000+08:00

Have surfaced from our day out in Little India with the boys (no don't get excited, we mean the Canon 30D and the EOS 300) completely inspired... Pete hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that there are experiences of a lifetime right on our doorstep that we don't stop long enough to really enjoy.

As a Singaporean who has been in and out of Serangoon Road a countless number of times, I am quite embarassed at all the wonders on display that I never stopped long enough to really see fully appreciate (especially since I tend to avoid the place like the plague on Sundays). Either way, dragged there by the bossman, and forced by my new toy and the constraints of film photography, I have to say that I really saw a lot for the very first time....

Wonderful stalls, beautiful angles, a kaleidescope of colour, smells, sounds, tastes, love, friendship... Organised chaos. Disorganised order.... Lovely...

The stuff from my black-and-white adventure with the 300 will be a while coming (in part because I still have 18 shots left on the film, and in part because we have no clue if any of the photographs I took will actually come out hahahahaha. Erm, am keeping my fingers crossed though.... Some of them were quite nice. Really!) but here's a taste of what the 30D captured (mostly by Pete) .... And believe me when I say that it is only but a taste... We hope this whets the appetite for a Sunday adventure in Little India....

Will not bog this down with rambling descriptions but will keep it to the bare minimum and let the pictures speak for themselves (note: we kicked off at Campbell Lane and then worked out way down through the back alleys and side streets)...

Some of the best stuff to look out for, though - a coffeeshop serving up Kingfishers accompanied with piping hot plates of chana masala (chick peas in Indian spices) .... Very, very civilised. I will never crave beer nuts again)..

And if you just keep going, you'll eventually find a little square somewhere in backlanes near Mustafa which is truly out of this planet... It was like walking straight into Bombay's Chowpatty beach... Street vendors armed with pails, chick pea mixtures, cucumber, fried stuff and a whole lot of arm power filling up cones of the most wonderful smelling bhel puri. And there were a whole bunch of workers on a day off battling it out on a carrom board that had been set up on the periphery (they were phenomenally good) ....

Amazing stuff.... Got a wee weird for a while coz, not surprisingly, I was the only woman there (and I would not recommend a woman going there alone unless you're quite gung ho and not easily irked by strange looks and comments) and Pete was the only ang moh there, so they eventually started taking pictures of us with their camera phones... Fair enough trade off I guess, given the fact that they were the subject of our viewfinders....

Topped the day off with this find..... I guess everyone needs a handy distraction when they're in the middle of a long phone call..... Not too bad for a day out we reckon....

More to come...

TW

FOTOS AND FINAL PREPS...

2007-02-18T14:35:00.000+08:00

Pete's been trying to get me used to our extended family of Canons, and I've been trying to get a little pratice on the S2s before taking the EOS 300 on a spin and wasting a whole lot of film because I'm so used to clicking away on a digital camera and then deleting away the crappy shots.

Kinda intimidated by the prospect of having to thoughtfully compose a shot because every single one (sighs) is gonna be costing me money... But I guess in the good ole day, that was how photography went.

Anyways, figured I would post some of my practice shots. Comments, feedback, tips or thoughts are most welcome. These two were taken down by the pool on Sunday, and I'm pretty proud of the one with the butterfly since I only had once chance to capture the moment before the little thing flew away.

Taking the EOS 300 out for its virgin adventure in a couple of minutes, and scratching our heads trying to figure out where would be 1) nice to take photos, 2) bustling on Chinese New Year, when the country seems to go into virtual meltdown. Wish me luck... will post a couple more pictures if any of them turn out well.

Actually, while I very much welcome the Year of the Pig (since the luck of the Dragon is meant to get much better, sorta kinda - and believe you me I need all the luck I can get, and Pete's luck is meant to be pretty good too), the whole Chinese New Year/Chingay deal has kinda made preparations for our trip kinda tricky, since the country is on "off mode" today through Tuesday, and next weekend Orchard Road is closed for the Chingay Parade, which can only mean mayhem.

Anyways, we're still managing to tick some things off the list, including the kids' presents and a whole lot of made-in Singapore curry powder.... Don't ask.

Okays, gotta run - running out of daylight hours to take pictures. Here's wishing a Happy And Prosperous Chinese New Year to all who celebrate it! May your lives be filled with fortune in the year of the pig! Gong Xi Fa Chai, Wan Shi Ru Yi!!

Art & Pete

Ps: A warm welcome to Raps, who finally found us... Good to see ya again mate... Enjoy the blog!

MEN ARE FROM.... ?

2007-02-13T10:18:00.000+08:00

So a colleague tells me this morning about her attempt to get a coffee at a Orchard Road cafe over the weekend. (Please note, some readers may find bits of the story that follow somewhat disturbing/disgusting/both of the above/remotely enjoyable).

Anyways, her hubby goes inside to pick up the caffeine, and she notices a young guy next to her, who sits down, pushes his chair as far under the table as he can manage, puts a file on his lap and a piece of paper on the table.

One hand's holding the pen, and the other disappears under the table, following which he, well........ yes...... to a girl in a spaghetti-strapped top a coupla tables down.

Meanwhile, friend's hubby comes back with a vanilla ice blended for her, which, well, she's not too keen on drinking anymore, for obvious reasons... and of course, after the guy semi-spasms over his table, she's completely blown away that he's done this. In the middle of the city. In the middle of the day. In full view.

The husband: He can't believe that the guy didn't even buy a coffee.

Art

JONNO ROCKS....

2007-02-09T21:25:00.000+08:00

First piece of business for the day: Testimony to the fact that you can take the Canuck out of Singapore, but you can never take the Singapore out of the Canuck, Jonno has made his entry into blogsphere with his very own version of Chilli Crab... Dude, we're gonna put you to work in the kitchen when you come to these parts again!!

In other news, the countdown to Ireland begins, and it could not have come soon enough. I think both of us are in desperate need of a good, long break, some mindless fun and Guinness that that does not taste like dishwater. The wedding promises to be great fun, especially since this is possibly the first time all of Pete's friends are at the same place at the same time (watch out livers).

The only thing thats causing come stress is the packing - while the international flights allow us 25 kg a piece, some of the internal flights within Ireland have ridiculous weight limits like 15 kg, and charge the world for excess. I reckon 15kg is how much just the winter wear weighs, and freezing is starting to look like a viable option...

Ah well, I'm sure it will sort itself out. Can't wait to see everyone. I think Pete's gonna have to drag me on that plane kicking and screaming when its time to come back.

Art

FELICITATIONS CASS AND GUY!!

2007-02-02T23:45:00.000+08:00

And just when we thought the wave was over, yet another "bridesmaid" has gone and tied the knot!!

Cass and Guy got married in Perth last month, and it looks like it was an amazing ceremony, and the girls look so cute. We wanted very much to have been there, but fate would not allow it. Sigh. Did manage a couple of nice catch up sessions with Cass on her way home, and we're both very much looking forward to their upcoming relocation to the region (Ho Chi Minh, here we come!).

Anyways, here be some more pictures of the couple of the hour! Cheers guys, here's to a wonderful life together... With love, TeamWilliams.

Ps: To some of our regular visitors: I guess you have noticed that the Comments Moderation has been turned on, and I'm really sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused. We all have some lowlife trawler to thank - someone who clearly has too much time on her/his hands, not much of a lovelife/life of her/his own, and too little intelligence to realise that thanks to technology, a clear trail leads right back to the source of the postings. So to our little visitor: If you have something to say, rest assured, we don't give a damn. Bugger off.

Cheers.

DOLCE VITA....

2007-02-02T23:17:00.000+08:00

Okay, the promised update on the amazing anniversary dinner. Both of us had to work on the actual day, but took the day before off, and then surrendered all decision making to Noel and the gang at Oriental's Dolce Vita, and my god, I wish we had done so sooner.

With some conspiring by Noel (who, unfortunately, had the day off), the staff were well prepared for us - gorgeous table facing the pool side, covered with lovely roses and rose petals.

The Moet was popped even before we sat down (guess no one told them about the effect champagne has on us, har), and in the spirit of the occasion, we indulged. Then came the lovely sorbet, and still-warm bread with olive oil.

And then things just got better, and better. Among the starters - tuna belly with a garlic sauce and chives, salmon with quails eggs and shallots (very yum), and portobello and wild mushrooms (you getting hungry yet coz it gets better).... The fish was paired with a lovely Chardonnay, and the mushrooms with a Shiraz I think...

Main courses (smaller than usual portions)were almond crusted cod (out of this planet) and pork belly with potato cakes... Of course we have cleaned off every single plate by the time we got to the pork there wasn't much place left for it!! Erm, not that it stopped us...)

We couldn't resist dessert either (despite neither of us having any kind of sweet tooth). It was hard to describe, it was like rasberries covered in chocolate moose, topped with an orange foam (very science lab-meets-haute cuisine).

They practically had to roll us out of there.

Of course, the perfect meal was topped off with fabulous service and the perfect setting, so needless to say, we're DEFINITELY going back... Soon. Would recommend it to anyone too...

Sighs, okay, now I'm hungry....

Art

TEAM WILLIAMS TURNS TWO!

2007-01-30T23:02:00.000+08:00

Can't believe time has flown by so quickly... Two years, imagine that. Will delve into the details of what might be one of the best meals we have ever had (thanks to the crew at Dolce Vita), but first, have made a little something for my man... Through the years.

Love you Pete, always.

Make an online slideshow at onetruemedia.com

LET THERE BE PHOTOS!

2007-01-26T01:26:00.000+08:00

Can't believe that its four days to TeamWilliams turning two... How time flies. But before that happens, the other half reminds me that there are Christmas pictures that I have completely forgotten to blog... Especially since in all the excitement of the last blog post, I forgot to put up the pictures from charades and stuff at Mum's and talk about Iqa's Christmas visit with Lil' Pete....

I guess there's nothing like family really....

On Boxing Day, the crew got together at Charlene's, so everyone could coo at the new addition to her household - her sister's son Triston - and spoil Lil' Pete. Twas nice. The littlle bugger seems to have inherited at least one trait of his uncle Pete - a serious attachment to cameras, and another distinctive gem from his mother - the unfailingly ability to look so damn cute in shots...

It was real fun though, watching everyone play Mum to the little tyke... And he loved the attenion....

Anyways, the night pretty much ended with Pete messing with his new toy... He's forcing me to put this one up... Grr.

Love Art

BEEN A BAD BLOGGER....

2007-01-14T20:26:00.000+08:00

First off, Happy New Year all, hope 2007 is brilliant for everyone... Sorry about the radio silence ... We sorta had a bit of a crazy end-2006 and a crazier beginning-2007. And when I say crazy, I mean pull-out-all-the-stops nuts, and not in a fun way.

Both halves of TeamWilliams have been ridiculously busy at work. Pete's working on a new project, and I'm in the thick of covering the NKF trial, which leaves me no time even to scratch my nose... Completely mad. Finally had a weekend off after working 12 days straight (and then of course had to use it doing other work-related shite. Bleah).

The weather's been weird as well.... Rain, rain and more rain. There were flash floods just up the street from the house again this week (coz its near the reservoir that runneth over), and the weatherman's being far from optimistic about the rest of the week. I don't ever remember January being this wet. And for the first time ever, Pete's actually COLD. Temperatures dipped to the low 20s today, which is very strange.

So, in any case, I will try my best to post from time to time if things let up from time to time in the eight weeks that the trial is scheduled to go on for. Or I will try and convince Pete to do his share of blogging. Erm. Okay, I will just try.

Okay, so here be updates:

Christmas was pretty quiet. Did the family thing at mum's on Christmas Eve, and then everyone played charades while counting down to midnight so the kids could attack the presents under the, well, money plant... We didn't quite put up the tree this year. There was such a huge pile of pressies though, that no one lamented the lack of. Oh, but back to charades - high point of the evening, Pete attempting to act out Puff, The Magic Dragon and Power Rangers... It was HILARIOUS. Ruben's attempt to mimic a bat hanging upside down for Batman was classic too... Everyone pissed themselves laughing.

Ooh, and we now have an enlarge Canon family of four. Pete got the EOS 30D, and got me the EOS 300 and photography classes. Very cool. Now I just have to somehow find the time to attend them. I got him a whole bunch of accessories as well. There's so much camera paraphernelia in the house now I feel like I married a photographer and not a graphic designer. Sighs.

He's been taking the new additions out a lot and has taken some amazing shots... Some of them were taken here - in Little India and stuff, though some came from his recent jaunt in Kuala Lumpur... Amazing stuff. See for yourself. Almost makes me forgive him for splashing out...

New Year's was quiet though. I never can stand the madness and the crowds, and I was feeling slightly crook, so I was quite happy to count down to 2007 at home. Did not need the drama of what was out there in any case. Pete took me to a lovely dinner New Year's Day though, which was nice, and then we had cocktails at the bar (mental note to self: Go back to the Mezza9 for the steamed fish again). It was nice, and, to me, a somewhat more meaningful way to start the year.

What else... Hmm... In between the craziness of work and trying to keep the house together, we've been trying to plan our upcoming trip to Ireland for Eoin and Hilary's wedding in March (can't wait, guys!)... The plan right now is to stop off in Birmingham for a couple of days to see Gwen, Andy and Lorc, and then fly down to Galway and explore the west coast a little before the big wedding weekend. We're still deciding what happens after, but a couple of ideas - mostly centred on fishing - have been tossed up, before we finally shoot down to Cork to see Pete's mum and the rest of the crew.

What happens after that is even more up in the air.... Ideas are most welcome. Pete was suggesting dune bashing in Dubai (since we were thinking of flying Emirates anyways) and a side trip to Muscat (oh, they have a BRILLIANT deal for internal travel, starting from US$50 per internal stop). Or we could fly KLM and do Holland.... Or Vietnam en route home... I donno at this stage. If anyone has any creative options to share, please do.

We're also thinking of a little getaway end January, to celebrate TeamWilliams 2nd (quick huh?) anniversary... some place modest we reckon, since the Europe trip's likely to really add up. We've been looking at Thailand, Malaysia, or ducking back to Bali.. But again, ideas and suggestions most welcome.. Meanwhile, looking forward to Lil's trip out here over Chinese New Year - feels like she's been gone forever. There's been a bit of chatter that the girls should all duck down somewhere, but lets see how that goes...

Methinks that is about it for now...

More soon.

Hugs,

Art

NEW YEAR, NEW LOOK...

2006-12-29T16:26:00.000+08:00

Our friend from over yonder has sprouted a new look.... And has offered up a picture that I promised him I would blog...

So, ladies and gentlemen: Watson. (insert your favourite beard joke here).

Regards of the Season Jon and Wan Feng! Hope that 2007 is brilliant for you and your families.

Luv,

Art

RAIN...

2006-12-19T18:39:00.000+08:00

The weather's been dismal. Third day in a row of non-stop rain day and night... And it doesn't seem like its going to get any better.

There was actually a physical blinking landslide in Bukit Gombak fergawd'sake, flashfloods all over the island. And my beautiful nursery in Thomson is waist high under water and so many little plants have been wrecked.

Can things get any worse? It doesn't feel like Christmas at all this year.

Art

Picture courtesy of The Straits Times Online.

YES, I KNOW HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN....

2006-12-01T11:32:00.000+08:00

Sorry, but simply have not had the time or peace of mind to write recently. Things on this end of the planet have been extremely busy.

I've taken on a new portfolio at work and it is really quite consuming, and I've had a horrid stomach bug that I haven't been able to shake in over a week. Sighs. Not a very festive start to the season.

In any case, don't have very much else to say. Just wanted to let everyone know I miss you and I'm thinking of you.

Love

Art.

So...

2006-10-29T20:22:00.000+08:00

Who, or what, is "Rosebud?"

Of course, I've got my own take on it too..... But would love to see the theories that surface...

Ps: If you actually have NEVER watched Citizen Kane - do.

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE....

2006-10-18T13:52:00.000+08:00

Its funny how when things seem to be spiraling out of control, something comes out of the blue that reminds you of the good times and the little things....

Lingus put together this little birthday montage with highlights of moments that we have shared... which is amazing, considering how usually either she or I are behind the camera, with the tragic result that we have so few photos together (so you can be warned that there are some pretty erm, strange shots)....

Still, it brought a smile to my face, and considering it also features some of the regular readers of this blog, I hope it brings the same to yours...

Lingus, thank you so much, and I miss you heaps. We've had some amazing times together, and shared some of the most important moments of our lives. I know you could not have physically been here for this one, but you certainly were in spirit - single malt variety, I promise...

Can't wait to see ya again.

Cheers

Art

20/10

2006-10-18T01:45:00.000+08:00

Sadly, the rumours are true, alas, the Artster has crossed the big bad barrier into ..... 20/10.... of course, never without drama...

To be honest we were both had a huge week, and were already feeling a little fragile going into the weekend, but when have we ever let that get in the way of a party right?

The evening started off beautifully - a pre-dinner drink at Attica's courtyard, and then up to the Coriander Leaf for Indian fusion (appropriate no? haha). Its always been a special place for us, even back when it was at the Gallery Hotel, and its a place that Gladys, Gwen and Andy will surely remember too. We had a wonderful bottle of Rioja, some fabulous food, and a very embarassing episode with a singing waiter.

Of course the highlight of the evening was my pressie, which you can thank for the lovely shots of the party that followed at The Whisky Store. Just as nice and so very fun was the specially designed 20/10 wrapper and cake, courtesy of course of Pete.

So... The party... Well it was a little bit different from the usual bashes... But some of the people I love most in life made it there, and I hope they had a good time.

For those of you who made it, a big big thank you for helping me stagger into the wrong side of 30, it's gonna be a hellava ride.

And for everyone else further than drinkin' distance, thank you for your emails, cards, calls and thoughts. You were missed, and are all invited to be here when I turn 20/11, 20/12, 20/13..... etc etc etc.

Judging from my slow recovery from the night (hence the delayed upload of pictures), they may not be as wild (erm, we'll see) - the parties, I mean. But as long as everyone is there, I am sure it will be as wonderful...

Love you guys heaps, and enjoy some of the snapshots of the night... (nothing incriminating... I promise... I think...)

Art

DVD photo slide show at onetruemedia.com

BACK TO LIFE, BACK TO REALITY...

2006-10-10T20:38:00.000+08:00

So we're back in the humdrum of real life now (to anyone who wondered what happened between Bali and Oct 10, well, we'd like to know too, because the tan has faded, the yummy Bamee goreng - special Indonesian noodles - is gone, and every relaxed muscle that thanked us for the trip is on the verge of declaring war). Bleah.

Came back to the final leg of the Wades' vacation, and it was great fun. Lots of nice dinners, funny moments, and learning how to play something called Yugioh, thanks to Lorc. And then a journalist-friend of ours from Vietnam had to come to Singapore for a story and crashed with us... We're expecting more visitors later in the month, and I'm wondering if we need a full-time concierge at this stage haha. No lah, I'm kidding. I love the sound of a happy and full house - comes from the years of training by Mum I guess... With our working hours and stuff, it gets lonely being a party of one sometimes....

Anyways, since Hieu (viet friend) headed home it has been horrifyingly mad. Pete had a whole ad campaign (his second for Stomp!!) on his hands, and has left his mark on virtually every library here, in addition to everything else he was doing, of course, and I, well, I'm not even sure where to start (or when it ends), so I'll spare you the details.

Singapore's currently enveloped in a horrible haze, and its really easy to let the weather get you really very down because everything seems really dismal, everyone's falling sick all over the place, and no one really wants to go out and breathe in all those pm10s (there are, of course, air-conditioned bars, which help greatly). The PSI hit a year-high on Saturday night - 150, considered unhealthy, and it was horrid, especially since Gwen's friends - Carol, David and their son Cole - were in town on the way to Bali.... Wish they could have seen Singapore under better circumstances. Keeping my fingers crossed that by the time they stop in Singapore on their way to Australia, it will be better. Not sure which way it will go though, its on the up again tonight. Bleah. I hope Pete and I don't get sick....

On a happier note, Div, Ruben and Sarah had their very first modern dance recital (they all take dance classes at a funky school called on Sunday and all of them were really brilliant. The first two munchkins shook their butts off and tapped their way through Carwash and look soooo cute, not missing a single beat, and Sarah wowed the crowd with her tap dancing. Considering that the entire show lasted 2.5 hours and involved over 17 performances by kids as young as 3, it was actually surprisingly easy to sit through... The kids were really very talented, and this one young guy - Elijah - who could not have been over 6 or 7, was brilliant. He was such a natural with such flair that I think half the female audience was obsessing (sigh, okay, not obsessing, but they were certainly watching him closely. too closely.).... You're gonna have to wait for pictures of our little dancers though, the ones on the phone didn't quite come out, so gonna have to bug Angie or Terrence for stuff off their cameras.

The weekend before was lovely.... spent the evening at Mum's (cuci kaki day - for whoever understands my crappy spelling) and ate waaaaay to much Sindhi curry. Mum even had chana and chutney on standby for Pete. It was real nice and a chance for everyone to catch up...

Oh, and just re-read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I have to say was amazing, even the second time around. Even Pete was impressed, especially with the use of visual storytelling integrated into the story itself.... Wonderful... Oskar is so endearing, and so believable... And I have to say, it takes real skill to tell a story from the simplistic viewpoint of a child and not sound put on - and I think too many people have forgotten what it was really like to be one.... It's right now on my list of "can't ever re-read too many times", alongside the likes of another fabulous "from the eyes of a child" book, Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.... Okay, okay, will not bore everyone with my literary obsessions.... Quickly moving on...

Other than that, its really quite the same stuff, different day... Looking forward to the weekend. Quality time with Pete, catching up with the crew... It'll be really nice.... Considering also popping our noses into Oktoberfest on Friday (despite, of course, having already gone crazy at the one at the Swiss Club last month, which was BRILLIANT, though I promised not to post any incriminating pictures here, heh).....

Of course, that is assuming I survive the dang week... Wish me luck.

Art

Ps: Yes, TWO posts today!! What can I say... making up for lost time... :)

BALI HIGH...

2006-10-10T13:21:00.000+08:00

As promised, the second instalment of pictures and idle musings...

Backtrack to mid-August, just after Vietnam. The Wades descended on Singapore, and it was so nice to have a crowded house to be honest, even if we were stepping on little toy heads every now and then. Anyways, the plan was for them to have about 8 days here, and then we'd all shoot off somewhere for a week, and then they'd have another week here to eat all the chicken rice they could.

We toyed with the idea of Malaysia, and hiring a car to go up the coast, and then we found out exactly how much the damn insurance on the car was and that idea very quickly went out the window.... Plus, eight hour drive up and 8 hours back, for a hotel that couldn't understand what in the world I was asking them on the phone was a bit much to handle...

So extremely late one night, as Andy, Pete and I pored over the Internet trying to figure out where in the world to go that was 1) nice 2) near 3) relatively cheap, the hubsand comes up with Bali.

It made perfect sense - two hour flight vs eight hour drive, $188 flights (no kidding - and yes, still available, and yes, you have to add $100 for airport tax) vs thousands of bucks in car insurance, Bali Hyatt's Regency Club vs some weird hotel we could not even find on the Net. It was pretty much a no brainer, plus, we love Bali and have been there so many times, it would have been easy enough finding brilliant food and sorting the Wades out.

Needless to say, it was absolutely brilliant.... We parked off in Sanur and stayed well away from the madness of Kuta. Actually come to think of it, the only real trip trip we did out of Sanur was to have seafood at Jimbaran Bay... The Wades went off the the volcanos and stuff but Pete and I were only too happy to crash next to the pool or rent bikes and take off somewhere...

We settled in so well that I couldn't bear to leave, especially without just one more bowl of soto ayam... Sigh.... The food was brilliant, the shopping superb, and waking up to the sound of the waves crashing was unbelievable..

I tell you, I will never ever get tired of Bali....

Check out some of the snaps:

Edit video online at onetruemedia.com

WHEN IN VIETNAM, EAT PATE.....

2006-09-15T00:25:00.000+08:00

Okay, first and foremost, I'm really sorry to all those out there who thought we might have died.... It's been a bit of a mad couple of weeks, with work, Gwen and Andy's trip out here, and just life in general, and I really did not have time to stop and catch my breath before I once again ended up inundated with work, and then I just didn't have the motivation to write..... You know how the story goes.

But I am back, so here are the much anticipated pictures of our adventures in Saigon and beyond.

Despite the initial reservations, Pete completely fell in love with the place - and the food, and we were completely blown away at how damn cheap everything was (we're already planning a trip back, this time incorporating some time in the North too). It was fabulous. Beers at US 75 cents - Need I say more? It was slightly hectic though, but can't complain because we were so well looked after, thanks to the gang at Tuoi Tre (thanks Hieu, Quynh and Thuat!)..

Super high point - the food... The absolutely best meal we had (I would have to say EVER) was at Song Trang (Means Moon River, and it SHOULD be your first stop if you ever head in the direction of Ho Chi Minh. The food was absolutely amazing, and the prices were ridiculous. Imagine this - we ordered every special on the menu, drank copius amounts of Beer Saigon, and the bill for SIX people came up to - wait for it - S$45. It was absolutely insane... and I dont think we've had a better meal anywhere (the fish salad is a MUST, and the pork belly thingy, and the sugarcane fish, and the escargot with lemongrass and.... sigh....). It was brilliant. Topped off the night at the hotel bar, which is right at the top of the hotel and affords a brilliant (albeit scary) view of the whole of HCM City.... They charged crazy Singaporean prices for booze though, so it was not long before the novelty of the joint wore out and we ended up looking for cheaper thrills.

The next day we pretty much hung out, shopped, and then ended up on, erm, one of them dinner-karaoke cruises (don't ask). It was, well, interesting. There was even a half-naked "dancer" so the men were very happy, even if she was dancing to blaring Vietnamese music while we were circling the habour... Ended the night at this very fun bar called 17 Saloon, which had a pretty good Filipino band.... Quynh (see pic, now the very happily married wife of Thuat) experienced her very first "Waterfall", though I think she thought it was a table performance of sorts, and did not fully realised that she was meant to drink the thing. Needless to say, she was the life of the party from that moment on.

Ooh, what else. Custom made an ao dai (designed, no less, by the man himself) and I cannot wait to wear it. Introduced Pete to Ben Thanh Market (Saigon's chatuchak of sorts), where he made the startling discovery that the Viets do pate on baguettes better than the French.

We also hired a car and driver and took off for a couple of days to a seaside town about four hours outside HCM - Mui Ne - and despite the pissy weather, it was really quite idyllic and extremely quaint. Got a cheap thrill from the welcome board, which welcomed "Mr and Mrs Arti". Haha. Thought we found what seemed to be an interesting restaurant for dinner, came highly recommended by the hotel, until Pete accidentally wandered into the kitchen and saw a lot he didn't like. But since we had already ordered we ate there anyway (although we had NO CLUE what we were eating), and all three - Pete, driver and me - ended up getting food poisoning. Bleah. Ah well, at least we weren't having to get in the car for a four hour ride the next day... Spent the day chilling and we were much better by the evening.

The hotel was kind of old and a little run down, but it was smack on the sea front, and the spa within it was brilliant, and massages were extremely affordable.

The whole driver thing was dem funny, though. Look - yes, his real name - spoke absolutely no English, except for "OK OK OK", which was his stock response to everything (in a deep growling voice - ask Pete to do his impression, its spot on). His, erm, unusual name also meant that when we were driving around, and Pete wanted to bring my attention to something, he had to use a word other than "look" to draw my attention to it or risk the driver slamming on the brakes because he think Pete's trying to tell him something (which happened a couple of times before we finally caught on, tragically)....

Spent one last night in Saigon before heading home, and ended up throwing a wee party in our hotel room (after sneaking the boys up because - get this - the security guard told them no visitors after 9pm). We were like, hallo, you think you my father isit, its a HOTEL!! Either way, we got our way, and they bought lots of preserved meats (called Nem and Cha I think), longans and, of course, Beer Saigon for supper. We so did not want to leave - so much so that I spent half the night on the phone with Singapore Airlines trying to get them to let us leave a day later, only to find out that the next available seat was two weeks later.... GRRR.... I think it was a conspiracy to get in the way of our fun...

Ah well, at least we came back with brilliant memories. And a half dozen ways of saying "look" without saying "look".....

Next up, Gwendy's trip, Bali, birthdays and all that.... Promise I won't fall off the planet this time...

Art

WHERE WE WERE THAT FATEFUL DAY....

2006-09-12T00:07:00.000+08:00

We haven't been blogging for a long time, and with good reason(s). Right after Vietnam, work exploded like you wouldn't believe, we had guests after guests after guests, and then came Gwen, Andy and Lorc the Wade man, and then we went off to Bali, and then came back and had to deal with yet another visitor and attempting to work the same time.

Breathe.

Well, the end is in sight. Sorta. Got a journalist-friend from Vietnam still with us and we're expecting a lovely couple we know who are on a post-honeymoon honeymoon next week. Part of me is thrilled, because they are really great people and they showed us a great time in Saigon, but part of me is starting to get palpitations at the thought yet more entertaining.

Good outweighs bad, though, really.

Breathe.

Either ways, the Gnat tagged us with their semi-serious 9-11 thingy about where we were, and I figured it was a good enough time as any to get the blog rolling and follow it up with pix of Vietnam (yes, I know, finally) and Bali.

Okay, so 9-11.

Actually Pete and I were together at the time. While we weren't a couple yet, I had solicited the help of the boys to do a piece for the paper. The topic (don't laugh): Finding out which Irish bar in Singapore did it best, from the craic and decor to pouring the perfect Guinness pint. The boys, of course, were ever willing to help, though I was soon to find out from the true blue Eire boy that all the Guinness in Singapore tastes absolutely nothing like the stuff back home... His choice of words was, clearly, stronger. Ah well.

I think it was when we were on our way from Muddy's to Father Flanagan's in a cab when I got an sms from a friend saying a plane had clipped the World Trade Centre Tower. Someone else in the cab, I forget who, said it was probably a Cesna. The truth could not have been further.

The Guinness tour ended then.

As we got to Flan's, they were attempting to get connected to a channel with the story, but it was too grainy. By then, we got wind that it was a passenger plane. At that point, we decided to jump into a cab and get to Molly's.

We got there to find dazed faces staring at the image of the WTC tower billowing with smoke. Some desperately tried reaching friends and family in New York.

And then came the second plane. And the third. And then reports of a fourth.

There was little conversation, few smiles. It may have happened far away, and most of our friends in the US were untouched by the tragedy, but that did not make it any less sad.

Most of us spent the rest of the night glued to those images.

Many others have spent the better part of the last five years forced to relive them, as they became the explanation and justification for more senseless killing to follow.

Today, five years later, the images incite a whole smogasboard of other emotions, and opinions.

This blog is not meant to be political, so I will stop here.

In the name of continuity, I am tagging Ling, Lingam, and hmmm.... well, let's leave it at that for now. Where were you 9-11?

Art.

WE BE BACK!

2006-08-22T16:14:00.000+08:00

Been through several phases in the last month, ranging from frantically busy to frankly uninspired, but have recently been reminded that people do actually read this blog. haha. So here's the update.

August in summary: Began the month trying to get some work in order - the annual National Day supplement. Again. Was an interesting project though, and both Pete and I were involved, which means that for the very first time in our entire dang relationship, we were actually both doing not just the same workweek (monday to friday), but also the same shift.. Pete did a fabulous job on the design though, I must say, especially the icons, and both Titus and Divya made it in there. Click on EXTRAS to read Divya's beautifully written piece about her favourite teacher....

Being the patriotic souls that we are, we took the first flight we could find out of here on National Day, and flew off to Saigon for a short break. It was phenomenal even if I did slow everyone down and we were limited in terms of what we could do coz of the crutches. The food was absolutely amazing and we had some of the most wonderful meals I think we have ever eaten.... The shopping was brilliant, and Pete even designed me an ao dai, which I got made.... My only complaint - I think it was too short, sigh, but vacations always are huh? We're definitely going back, and for longer the next time. In any case, will not go into details, but promise to write a looooong blog post with pictures tonight.

Then it was back to work and non-stop guests. Cass and Guy stopped by for a week and a half, and then The Watson showed up Friday, and on Sunday, Pete's sister Gwen, her husband Andy and their son Lorcan arrived for three weeks. Full house and I know it'll be busy, but I love houseguests so I can't complain, and its nice having family around.

Have started trying to get around without depending on a crutch and its taking some getting use to but I am determined to remind my foot how to work.... I really hope it has healed well because I wanna start running again and do the 10km for the Standard Chartered marathon . In any case, even if I can't run it, I don't mind walking it. One of those things...

Okays, need to get back to work but promise I will update on Vietnam tonight. XXX

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT...

2006-07-31T13:10:00.000+08:00

I am the first to say I hate mass mails and those "send this to 10 people or your eyelashes will fall out and you will be doomed to a world with no Diet Coke" chain letters, and admit that I tend to delete them without so much as a glance....

Strangely, though, was feeling a little down today, and while trying to distract myself by clearing the mass of unread mails in my inbox, happened to open this one.

Made much sense. Erm, except the freedom of speech thing. And too much email. Well, sorta.

Enjoy.

I AM THANKFUL:

FOR THE WIFE
WHO SAYS IT'S HOT DOGS TONIGHT,
BECAUSE SHE IS HOME WITH ME,
AND NOT OUT WITH SOMEONE ELSE.

FOR THE HUSBAND
WHO IS ON THE SOFA
BEING A COUCH POTATO,
BECAUSE HE IS HOME WITH ME
AND NOT OUT AT THE BARS.

FOR THE TEENAGER
WHO IS COMPLAINING ABOUT DOING DISHES
BECAUSE IT MEANS SHE IS AT HOME,
NOT ON THE STREETS.

FOR THE TAXES I PAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I AM EMPLOYED.

FOR THE MESS TO CLEAN AFTER A PARTY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE
BEEN SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS.

FOR THE CLOTHES THAT FIT A LITTLE TOO SNUG
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.

FOR MY SHADOW THAT WATCHES ME WORK
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I AM OUT IN THE SUNSHINE

FOR A LAWN THAT NEEDS MOWING,
WINDOWS THAT NEED CLEANING,
AND GUTTERS THAT NEED FIXING
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE A HOME.

FOR ALL THE COMPLAINING
I HEAR ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT
BECAUSE IT MEANS
WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH..

FOR THE PARKING SPOT
I FIND AT THE FAR END OF THE PARKING LOT
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM CAPABLE OF WALKING
AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TRANSPORTATION .

FOR MY HUGE HEATING BILL
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I AM WARM.

FOR THE LADY BEHIND ME IN CHURCH
WHO SINGS OFF KEY BECAUSE IT MEANS
I CAN HEAR.

FOR THE PILE OF LAUNDRY AND IRONING
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR.

FOR WEARINESS AND ACHING MUSCLES
AT THE END OF THE DAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN
CAPABLE OF WORKING HARD.

FOR THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF
IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM ALIVE.

AND FINALLY, FOR TOO MUCH E-MAIL
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE
FRIENDS WHO ARE THINKING OF ME.

CONGRATS HASH!

2006-07-17T23:11:00.000+08:00

Finally getting round to blogging again, and pleased to announce that yet another one of my darling nephews has done it. Hot on the heels of big bro Lavin, Hashvin has GRADUATED (yes, from university, and yes, making me feel extremely old).

There he is: Whiz Son (number two). Congrats Hash!

There's always something about seeing someone in graduation robes that makes me stop and think...

Part of it, I guess, is about missing school. The structure, the predictability, the ever-reliable odds that over the course of the day, at least one person you know - and who likes you - might have actually done the homework or read the reading and will give you the two minute version before class. Then there was the fun, skivving tutorials, the million parties. The lack of need to worry about tsunamis and planes smashing into skyscrapers. Life was good. And graduating, well, I guess it was the last hurrah before the real world sucked you in, mortar board and all.

But that sounds more depressing than it should.

What it is about more, really, is about witnessing milestones - and major achievements. It makes you stop and stocktake. You get hit with the realisation that time is passing at breakneck speed, leaving some of the "would be great to dos" that you carefully crafted (to be achieved by 20, to be achieved by 25, to be achieved by, whenever) shattered in its wake.

There were dreams about doing my Masters, PhD (and having my name prefixed with a Dr). Contemplating another job that I was good at. Getting my second degree. There were other things - learn how to wakeboard, bowl with one hand, make amazing desserts.

And now, counting down to my, well, 20-10th (Thank you Earl, I am ever grateful for the loan of the phrase) birthday, I realise that I have done few of these things. I jumped head first into my career, and am glad I did. I got married. As a couple, we now think for two instead of one. Suddenly, hanging on for dear life to a rope being dragged by a boat doesn't seem like that much fun, and (glancing at the scales), I realise I don't like desserts that much.

I have no regrets, really. But I do sometimes wonder - will I ever really get around to finally doing any of these things, achieving those dreams? And, do I want to?

I get the occasional pangs. Apart from receiving Hash's graduation pictures, today, I chatted to a good friend who gleefully announced finally getting his PhD by chastening me for not referring to him as Dr.

Then, a second contact and friend called to say he was leaving his successful radio career (of, like, a gazillion years) to go back to school. His wife and two children - one a young teen - were also uprooting and moving to Canada. He had always wanted to study film and theatre, he said, and now that he had a chance, he did not want to look back on this moment years from now with regret.

Makes you think.

Art

ERM, CLOVERS?

2006-07-16T22:10:00.000+08:00

The house just got a wee bit more Irish.... Look what popped up in the flower pot of the fern!

Wondering if it will harm the plant, or if we should just leave it be and hope that one day it'll sprout a lucky four-leaved clover and we'll strike 4D... I mean, stranger things have happened no? We didn't even know clovers/shamrocks/whatever in the world these are even grew in Singapore... Perhaps we have some sweet migratory bird to thank for this.

In any case, spent the weekend chilling out, mostly. T'was nice and peaceful. Had a couple of unexpected "visitors", like this chap, who was happy to hang out by the window and pose for snapshots... Also turned our most recent crop of chilli padis from Hotstuff into an EXTREMELY potent garlic chilli sauce... My lips are still burning from tasting as I was going along - and that was yesterday. Ah well... I'm sure I'll figure it the art of making it without suffering eventually. Hotstuff is thrilled with all the new space and has rewarded us with another 30 or so little ones that are starting to ripen.

In any case, things have been as good as they can be with one half of TeamWilliams on crutches, heh. Wanting to give me a day out (yay!), Pete and Pradeep conspired to whisk me to Colbar for a quick lunch today. The chicken curry and big greasy fry up combo.... Fantastic (note to self: We have to go to Colbar more often, it really is a wonderful place...). Was starting to get cabin fever so I was pretty thrilled. While I have been working from home and actually been rather busy, there's just something about being out and about and actual human interaction that is unreplaceable...

Second high point of the day - we went to catch the VERY superb Superman Returns before I ended up missing it altogether. Attempting to navigate a crowded mall was not fun, but it was completely worth it. Sigh. I donno what it is about that movie - and the Man of Steel - that's just so timeless... And while I have a very soft spot for Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh (incidentally, a Libran, too) is absolutely GORGEOUS. And I think the updated get-up is so cute... Swoon... Okay, will drop the giggly teen routine now.

I wasn't too impressed with Kate Bosworth (though I'm quite sure Pete was, haha). Thought she did a better job in The Horse Whisperer (which was a better book than a film in any case, but I digress). The opening credits didn't rock my world either... My heart was pounding from hearing the theme song again, but after a while, all that twirling and whirling started to make me nauseous (that might have been the mid-afternoon shandy though, ah well). But otherwise, its a 10/10.

Next up: Pirates of the Carribbean... Maybe I should dress to the theme - with an eye patch and a parrot, the crutches will simply complete the look.... Yo ho ho....

Art..

THE COUPLES OF THE HOUR...

2006-07-11T00:15:00.000+08:00

It's been a weekend of LOVE.

Newlyweds David & Triona O'Brien stopped by Singers on the way to Bali for their honeymoon, one-time bridesmaid Sam finally tied the knot with long-time love Ash, and little bro Kishore got engaged to Sheetal and will tie the knot in a year.

Congrats guys!

GIRL, INTERRUPTED...

2006-07-06T15:26:00.000+08:00

Meet Itchy and Scratchy. Apparently my new best friends for a while.

While there wasn't a fracture, it would appear that my little fall tore the crap out of the ligaments in my ankle. So I'm off my feet for at least a month more.

I am not particularly fond of them... They strain my arms and don't seem to always go in the direction I need them to (ok, ok, I'm not the best driver either)... But right now, they are keep me upright, so guess I shouldn't complain.

Plus, I am perfectly fine otherwise - hands and brain functioning as normally as ever (if you'd call what it was normal, haha), so not dying of boredom coz I can still work, albeit from home.

So... Hobble, I will.

Art.

PROUD MUMMY MOMENT...

2006-07-04T15:20:00.000+08:00

Check out how happy Hotstuff is....

Forgot to say, we just had a crop of 30 chillies and he's flowering again!

Art

IN SICKNESS AND IN HELL....

2006-07-01T17:07:00.000+08:00

If you didn't want to hear this story, blame Ling, coz her comment in the last post forced a lot of questions so its easier to just tell it. If nothing else, its worth a laugh at my expense.

The truth is, yes, I have been reduced to hobbling around on crutches. Why? Because I am an idiot, and because whoever made steps, and high-heeled shoes, are idiots too.

To cut a long story short, Thursday night, stepped out to go grab a cab and land strangely on a step. My high-heeled clad, well, heel, buckles under me, landing in what I imagine is a position it did not like. It. Hurt. Bad. Was pretty much seeing stars, moons, lightning flashes and Pete came to the rescue, whisking me off to the A&E where we had to wait THREE hours.

Eventually got in to the doctor (what a WASTE of a night), and thankfully, nothing was fractured, but its a bad sprain, which means not being able to stand, walk or move around very much... And my foot looks completely weird because its double the size. And blue.

This is not very fashionable.

Thankfully, the swirley office chairs that Pete made a couple of months ago are coming in amazingly useful.... Instead of inflicting major arm-strain, I've been rolling all over the house haha. He's been very good about making sure there's enough Coke Lite and food thats been cooked and stuff, so that he can guiltlessly go to work, and he's been doing just about everything I could possibly ask for. Very sweet. Plus, got prescribed drugs that are making this whole ordeal somewhat bearable (understatement: The Jackson Five have been playing "live" at the foot of my bed at night... )

Still, I (and, surely, he) can't wait for this dang thing to heal. It's completely getting in the way of everything, including my social life. In.The.Week.Of.The.Crucial.Matches. Argh.

I hope I'm up and walking for the semis so I don't end up having to watch it at home with a glass of milk in my hand, sigh.

On a happier note, our "pantry" is FINALLY ready. In the absense of us being able to make me a walk-in wardrobe, Pete's converted half the storeroom into a little walk-in larder cum wine cellar... It's really cool, and it means being able to everything from diced tomatoes to baked beans at a glance, heh.

Now, all I have to do is get on my feet so I can put the dang things on the shelves...

Ps: Is anyone getting slightly disturbed at the thought of a domesticated me... Besides, er, me?

Art

PETE'S ANALYSIS OF THE WORLD CUP SO FAR....

2006-06-25T17:21:00.000+08:00

The Germans are coming!! THE GERMANS ARE COMING!!!

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Ha.
Pete

FOR THE CHICKS IN OUR LIFE...

2006-06-18T16:11:00.000+08:00

Now there's no excuse. Especially for you - one of the best, and most useful, explanations of the Offside rule, courtesy of Wy:

You're in a shoe shop, second in the queue for the till.

Behind the shop assistant on the till is a pair of shoes which you have seen and which you must have.

The female shopper in front of you has seen them also and is eyeing them with desire.

Both of you have forgotten your purses.

It would be rude to push in front of the first woman if you had no money to pay for the shoes. The shop assistant remains at the till waiting.

Your friend is trying on another pair of shoes at the back of the shop and sees your dilemma. She prepares to throw her purse to you.

If she does so, you can catch the purse, then walk round the other shopper and buy the shoes!

At a pinch she could throw the purse ahead of the other shopper and "whilst it is in flight" you could nip around the other shopper, catch the purse and buy the shoes!

BUT, you must always remember that until the purse has "actually been thrown", it would be plain wrong for you to be in front of the other shopper and you would be OFFSIDE!
Sliante!

A CHOUGH IS...

2006-06-13T13:29:00.000+08:00

A couple of months ago, I announced that we were in the process of a bit of a "historical excavation'', which includes trying to explain the history of the Williams family, the name and coat of arms.

We learnt that the family's crest is a "Cornish chough, proper". Not that we knew what in the world a Cornish chough was. FINALLY, though, someone (Jon) has - erm, helpfully - pointed out that this is what it is:

Erm, a crow?

Edit: Authoritative sources (read: Pete) have just informed me that it is NOT a crow, but is, in fact, a raven, which, based on Celtic tree astrology, symbolises healing and protection. To be precise, the Cornish chough (which I still cannot pronounce) is the King of ravens.. Nice.

Not only that, but in Harry Potter, Ravenclaw is for the intelligent people - those with "wit and learning fit". Who's laughing now?

Heh.

But seriously, uncovered this Williams family tree from the wonderful web, and while none of the names seem familiar, it does talk a little more about the crest - well, assuming its the same one...

Williams Family Crest
Argent a chevron sable between three cornish cloughs proper each holding in the bill an ermine spot.

Translated into modern
English: A Silver Shield with black chevron separating three Cornish Cloughs each with an ermine spot in its beak. Argent is Silver. It represents Peace and Sincerity. The Cornish Chough is the King of Ravens whose stratagems outwit its enemies.

Now all I have to do is find a picture...

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE...

2006-06-12T00:54:00.000+08:00

Create your own video at One True Media

Couple of our favourite magical moments from the Big Day(s).... Better late than never right? :) Most of the shots are courtesy of sensational Sydney based shutterbug James Croucher.

REST WELL, OLD PERCH...

2006-06-10T20:29:00.000+08:00

After more than two years of unrelenting service and tolerating many hours of abuse, the sturdy ole Perch is finally getting a well-deserved break (Sorry, Dave!). The iconic bar counter in the balcony has been retired, and will spend his days of leisure at the other end of our newly designed patio!

It took a long tiring day of re-potting (courtesy of Mr Green Thumb Williams), furious scrubbing (the ole guy certainly left his mark -- a stubborn red ring of rust!), and putting in a bit of new furniture ... But here's the new look! Nice eh??

It's not entirely done... We're gonna get some nice wooden decking and couple of new candles to brighten the place up a bit, and perhaps a couple more plants, but here's to a future of being able to read a newspaper while hungover, and not having to worry about falling off the bar stool! :)

Art

TIME IS SOOO NOT ON OUR SIDE...

2006-06-10T17:18:00.000+08:00

World Cup fever has hit... And unlike the last time, when it was in Korea and hence we were actually catching matches at decent hours (working hours mostly, heh), now, time is so clearly not on our side...

Not convinced? Check out how one of our neighbours parked early this morning... The middle car, and yes, it is PARKED, several metres out of the lot and smack in the middle of the road. The car stayed that way till late afternoon, when the very embarassed aforementioned neighbour realised and ventured to move it.

In his defence, the timings of the games are somewhat brutal - the games are at 9pm, midnight and 3am, with ALL the semifinal and final games at 2am and 3am, which means staggering home at waaaay past 5am after battling the crowds for a cab... We were as trashed as Costa Rica this morning.

Gotta say though, it is pretty darned classic watching the World Cup in Singapore. It's about the only place where the gasps and cheers are peppered with multilingual curses - whatever the bar. Overheard last night... "Wah lan eh, kanena!! That CB goalkeeper going to make me die ah!"" (Get a friendly Singaporean to translate)... Ha.

Art

STILL UNDER THE SAME MOON....

2006-06-04T19:05:00.000+08:00

Captured by Pete last night from Gnat's patio during farewell drinks last night. He has such an eye for these things...

In any case, the duo are off to Minnesota June 19, where the good doctor has landed a stint at the Mayo Clinic for a year. I know it will fly by and everything, but it hard to imagine that the person I practically began my career with will no longer be around the corner and ready to skip out for a break with me. Nat, incidentally, was also the maid-of-honour at my wedding, which makes it even harder.

Ah well... There's always sms, email, Meebo, blog... And in case we need to OD on snow, we could hop on a plane and visit... I mean, how often do you get a reason to go to Minnesota, besides, er, to see the Mall of America.... Hmmm...

Either way, it was a fun sendoff, albeit tinged with a bit of reflection. That was one of many goodbyes we have said recently. Ling & Lu left not long ago to set up shop in Irvine, California... Jess and Miikka are doing the San Fran thing... And most of Pete's mates have moved on too - to Hong Kong, New York, Melbourne... Makes us wonder what in the world we're still doing here...

Time will tell, we suppose.

Art

LOVIN' IT... CLINT VELOUR'S NEW SHOW

2006-06-02T18:42:00.000+08:00

One of the best things we have heard all year... Background: This is Clint Velour of The Camembert Quartet fame. Trust us on this podcast, its fantastic.

Click here --- > The Clint Velour Show to subscribe.

Slainte.

iBlog... OR AT LEAST iTry

2006-05-31T12:41:00.000+08:00

In a wonderful show of support of my role as official family blogger, the darling husband went out and got me iWeb (Pix copyrighted to www.linqvist.com).

For the uninitiated, this is a fancy shmancy Apple programme that helps you create websites and blogs. It looks really funky - you can just drag and drop designs, videos, photos and even whole movies... Pete created a cool-as banner (which I have yet to figure out how to upload on Blogger) in something like 30 seconds flat.

In any case, it seems rather cool. It sets up the navigation, creates the summaries, does the archiving. Pretty much everything short of writing the posts.

Now all I have to do is learn to use the Mac.

Sigh.

Art

SANDS WINS, ART LOSES....

2006-05-27T14:32:00.000+08:00

Okay, Skinny reminds me that I have been a bad blogger. One of those weird weeks at work where nothing is meant to be happening but EVERYTHING happens.

Yesterday, for instance, Pete and I woke up completely confident that TeamWilliams was going to be able to make it to sunset-ish cocktails. It was all set. Pete was on morning shift. I got an early start on my story. Matt & Di had a table booked at Loof and all. Angela was coming. Party gears were oiled. I even wore my new dancing shoes. And then what happens? The Government decides to reveal who won the casino bid. At 5.30pm. Bleah. Plans flew right out of the window. Comes with the territory I guess. (For anyone who care, it was Las Vegas Sands).

FINALLY got out of the office at about half ten, by which time everyone was nicely half tanked so there was a fairly quick dropoff rate. Ah well.

But the good news was that I had reclaimed my Friday night, and to make it EVEN better, the Skaffaris, who are visiting from sunny SanFran, popped over to say hi. Had many Asahi's. Nice. Mood brightened considerably.

Turned out to be a pretty good night. I have made Mrs Skaffari promise that when she makes it BIG in the movies, I will get the big J-takes-Hollywood exclusive... In the brief period since we were last in California, she's managed to score at least three roles, so watch this space.

Been sadly reminded though, of how much we sorely miss SanFran... Gotta get back to the Valley to play... Stick our nose in their business... Sigh.

iLike!

2006-05-22T12:39:00.000+08:00

Had big plans for a bit of fun in the pool and getting some sun with the kids over the weekend, but Mother Nature (and consequently, their Mother) had her own ideas and rained out our plans.

The kids still ended up having a blast though, with the (somewhat) newest Williams' family member - Big Mac (Pete's computer), which does just about everything but the dishes.

Check them out messing around in the iBooth...

Art

BLAST FROM THE PAST

2006-05-18T19:55:00.000+08:00

Cormac, aka Vic Ferrari of Camembert Quartet fame, has dug into his hard drive for some old pix of Pete n gang from their NCAD days and created a site...
Check it out here: NCAD95 Crew.

Sampler: Here's Pete (with Rob and Cormac), looking dishy as always, but man am I glad he got rid of the fringe... :P

Art

BLINK, AND THEY GROW UP.

2006-05-18T17:57:00.000+08:00

In a blatant reminder of how quickly time flies (insert cliche cringe here), my nephew Lavin (Honey's son) graduated - with honours - from Wharton Business School over the weekend.

Congrats Lavin!!

The proud grandma headed to Pennsylvania for the graduation and seems to have had a blast (it was her first time attending a graduation in a freezing football stadium. Quite an experience I imagine).

I'm pretty blown away about how quickly he grew up while I wasn't looking. I remember when he was born, and his first trip to Singapore as a baby. I recall him as a quiet kid and a lanky, studious teen... I also remember looking at Honey's three and thinking: Gee, I must the youngest aunt in the world. And now *blink*, they grew up when I wasn't looking. And I am no longer the youngest aunt in the world.

In another indication of my spent youth, next month, my other nephew, Hash, will graduate from the University of Manchester, which is, incidentally, the next stop of Mum's World Tour.

I feel OLD.

ONLY THE LONELY?

2006-05-17T14:06:00.000+08:00

Interesting snippet in the news this week, courtesy of CNN (full article here):

Google: Irish the Web's loneliest users

Ireland may be enjoying stellar economic growth and seen as one of the best places in the world to live, but its inhabitants are apparently also the globe's loneliest.

Google Trends, which works out how many searches have been done via the Internet search engine on particular terms, showed the word "lonely" was entered most frequently by Internet users in Ireland: http://www.google.com/trends?qlonely.

The Irish, enjoying new-found wealth and a flood of immigration following more than a century of economic decline, are followed in the misery stakes by residents of Singapore and New Zealand -- although Singaporeans are the most frequent searchers of "happiness."

Google Trends calculates the ratio of searches for a given term coming from each city, region or language divided by total Google searches coming from the same area.

Ireland's capital, Dublin, topped the city list for "lonely" searches, followed by Melbourne, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand.

Personally, I'm not entirely sure how entering "lonely" in the search field translates into being the Irish being the loneliest people.

In any case, if that is how its gonna be taken, I think its even more scary that Singaporeans seemingly in search of happiness are expecting it to find it on Google.

I mean, I love Google and everything but er...

Art

STABLE BUSINESS?

2006-05-16T17:18:00.000+08:00

We don't know what they were thinking with the name. Spotted by Pete on Orchard.

AND THEY SURFACE...

2006-05-16T15:47:00.000+08:00

Been reminded by many, many people that we have been MIA for a bit, and we're sorry.

We were initially swamped by the elections (Yes, the PAP won, 66.6 per cent) and the hullabaloo that comes with one. It was utter madness for about two weeks, which is ironic considering that I was not even IN the elections team. Strangely, I still managed to get recalled for election stories all campaign week. Ah well. Gotta say, I had a real blast at the Opposition rallies, some real characters show up for those, armed with ice-cream and Tiger beer.. real fiesta kinda feel to it, strangely enough...

Of course, just after the elections came the frenzied rush to 1) Get the house back in some kind of order, 2) Try and bang out all the stories that I had pushed back because I was helping with the elections 3) Try and pretend we actually have a life.

Which sorta brings us to today.

So much has happened and not sure where to start... Ling and Lu and now comfortably settled in California, and trying to find a house. For some reason or the other, the airline, however, managed to lose Luna (the dog) in transit between Singapore and the US. She was eventually found somewhere in Frankfurt though, and has finally found her way to Irvine.

Gnat is finishing up her final days at work and will leave for Minnesota next month. She'll be living there the WHOLE year while Gene does some kind of attachment with Mayo, which is great for them, but we'll miss em so...

There's word that some of the old SPH/Blue Cow gang might make in here in June, and some others in August, which will be absolutely fab.

Gwen (Pete's sister), Andy and Lorcan have also decided to come to Singapore in August so that will be a real blast as well. We can't wait!

On the TeamWilliams front, no major major updates. We're very much looking forward to our next vacation, which we hope will be in Vietnam in July... check out HCM, crash on a beach on the coast, eat lots of Pho.. God, getting hungry just thinking about it.

Pete's been real busy with work, doing some of his superswish design work.. Its all a big secret right now, so you're gonna have to check in again to see the finished product :)

Okay, so now that I have got the blog rolling again, promise there's be more to come... SOON!

Art

PARTY MUM

2006-05-01T16:43:00.000+08:00

Got this snapshot from Didi Honey in Aruba... Looks like Mum's having a blast...

The caption to it said (and I quote): Mum and the Jailhouse Rock... I'm not even going to try and guess what that means!

ON FAMILY...

2006-04-30T14:29:00.000+08:00

Pete actually reminded me last night that I've been rather slack with the blogging thing, and I guess he's right... Ah well.

Truth - we've both been up to our ears in work, and spend what little time we are not at the office desperately trying to catch up with sleep. Plus, I have to admit that I have not been very inspired of late, too many other things on my mind, some of which are not entirely blog-propriate.

Also, we were also busy saying our goodbyes to the Chouasnes, who have upped and left for the sandy beaches of Southern California, where Lingus takes on a brand new life as a tai tai (*jealous*).

Anyways, I'm back... Currently working on several new TeamWilliams projects, including.... *drumroll*... putting together our family tree, making a scrapbook on our early years, and trying to make sense of where we both came from (just in anyone ever asks, haha). Never a better time than the present, I say, and the best thing about it, really, is that you never know what you're going to find.

So far, our historical excavation (with much help from Pete's Mum, Gladys, during our most recent trip to Eire) has uncovered some fascinating stuff, including an original tearsheet of Gladys and Matt's (my in-laws) wedding announcement, dated June 2, 1956, Pete's first Mother's Day card to Gladys, and documents relating to the history of the Williams family, including an explanation of the history of the name and coat of arms.

Apparently, "Williams" was most likely adopted in honour of William the Conqueror after the Conquest of 1066 , which radically altered England's history. The family's crest is a "Cornish chough, proper".... If anyone knows what that translates as in real English, or, better yet, has a

picture, please tell me!!

On that note, we welcome all information, snippets, pictures, short stories, anecdotes... Just tell us...

Okay, I have to get back to work and listen to a titillating *cringe* opposition rally (thank God elections are only once every five years) now... More later.

Over and out.

Art

OOPS...

2006-04-25T14:18:00.000+08:00

It looks like Ben & Jerry's has struck out with its latest ice-cream flavour, somewhat distastefully named Black and Tan.

Apparently, its is based on an ale and stout drink of the same name, but I don't think B & J's philosophy of "peace and love" are gonna get them out of this one.

OF MICE AND MEN...

2006-04-20T01:03:00.000+08:00

I always worry when the wife goes off to her favourite Swedish furniture store (Note: IN PETE'S OPINION: WOOD NOT SUITABLE FOR THIS CLIMATE). She usually comes home with "stuff" - "stuff-we-don't-necessarily-need" kind of "stuff".

On her most recent trip, Art picked up two bendable plastic chopping boards. Not quite what you'd need in the kitchen, I think, they slip all over the place.

BUT... I noted a lovley texture on both surfaces. And I'm thinking... that there chopping board just might be 'optical friendly'.

While alone at home sick, I ventured into the kitchen with a grin on my face, all cautious like a small child going to steal cookies.

She had bought two colours, dark blue and white. Being a MAC user, it was a no brainer.

With the white one under my arm, I made off to the study!

The board (Note: WOOD NOT SUITABLE FOR THIS CLIMATE) worked a treat! My mice are very happy.

So think twice before you spend $10 or more on an optical mouse pad (A5 in size) in some fancy or not computer store. This one's is A3, costs less than S$5 and everyone is happy.

Well, almost everyone.

Art did a double take when she came home and found two mice on her former chopping board...

Pete

Editor's Note of June 28, 2006: The reason we have removed the name of Art's favourite furniture store is because someone, evidently, notified someone else that Pete's post was slightly "objectionable". We're not sure if the fella is a big fan of the store, or his optical mousepad sales have been hurt. But we haven't heard anything else of it... Maybe the powers that be had all their shelves bend in the humidity too.... Ah well.

SIMPLICITY...

2006-04-18T19:04:00.000+08:00

No, this is not turning into some kind of cooking blog, and we promise our posts will get back to normal after this one. Or as normal as we can be.

Pete did something surprisingly simple but absolutely amazing with salmon the other day, and I reckon anyone out there who wants a great meal without being stuck in the kitchen too long might appreciate it, and so it was worth sharing (plus, its a favour to friends whose husbands/wives/other halves refuse to cook or learn how. Yes, it is this simple)
Baked Salmon

Two pieces of salmon
6-8 fresh button mushrooms, halved
A handful of snow peas
1/2 a red pepper, sliced
Spinach
Lemon
Butter
Olive oil
Salt/pepper
A glass of white wine.

Put a bit of olive oil and the salmon in an over-proof dish.
Season with salt and pepper.
Put two slices on lemon on the salmon.
Throw in mushrooms, snow peas and red pepper
Put in a couple of knobs of butter
Put in the spinach
Put in a glass - or bit more if you fancy - of white wine
Cover with aluminium foil
Bake at 180 degrees for 25 minutes.

That's about it. We served it up with some mash potatoes on the side. Twas good.

Burp.

THE ACCIDENTAL INDIAN, PART II

2006-04-17T10:03:00.000+08:00

In response to the request for a stove top recipe for the Chicken Pilaf.

My guess: remove the chicken pieces, add the two cups of rice, fry for a while, and then add two cups of water (for which I would ordinarily use three cups of water, but since there is already a cup of water added at the simmer stage making just over a cup of gravy, you'd need less). Cover and cook on slow heat till the rice is done, and then bring back the chicken...

This one's even simpler - it leaves the chicken in there.

Based on other esteemed sources, though, read: Google, most purists tend to go for this option:

Do the chicken first in the same way.
Spoon a bit of the oil off into a second pot.
Add two cups of rice and salt to taste, and stir till the rice is nicely coated.
Add one cup of the gravy from the chicken mixture and two cups of water.
Cover and cook on low heat till the rice is done (add a bit more water if it starts to dry out).
Once done, dish out the rice, and put the rest of the chicken n gravy on top.

Here's one Pakistani variation that goes in that direction. It adds yoghurt and mint leaves too, and sounds pretty good, despite the work.

Of course, you could just buy a rice cooker. :)

Cheers!

Art

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

2006-04-16T03:47:00.000+08:00

Congratulations to Hilary and Eoin, who have finally fixed the date for their wedding - March 9, 2007, in Galway, Ireland! We are so, so trying to make sure we are there!

Brief intro to the couple of the hour: Le Groom, Eoin, first met Pete at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, on an occassion I can only describe as a random chat, which, if you've ever been to Ireland, happens a lot. The two got their degrees together and have remained fast friends.

The other half of TeamWilliams met the two for the first time when they attended our wedding last year.

We were very grateful to them both for, despite putting them (or Hilary, at least) through the agony of attempting to buy a sari at Serangoon Road in the middle of Thaipusam, still
agreeing to do the Irish reading for the ceremony. Eoin did it in Gaelic (which makes him my most respected Gaelic speaker ever), which Hilary then translated (which makes her my most respected Gaelic translator ever).

Go maire tú do shaol úr!

Just in case we got that wrong: Congrats guys, and we love ya! (Art promises she will not doing anything to the fireplace this time. Really. Well, she'll try.)

Slainte,

TeamWilliams

THE ACCIDENTAL INDIAN...

2006-04-15T16:41:00.000+08:00

In the name of Good Friday, I decided to be, well, good and all and stay in.

Of course, by about 7pm, I needed some kind of project to distract me from the SMS-vites to head out, so I decided to try and make something my Mum used to make every now and then - Sindhi chicken pilaf. Real comfort food.

But, erm,

Problem 1: I had never made it before;
Problem 2: I had never paid proper attention to Mum making it;
Problem 3: I had no recipe for it and couldn't reach Mum;
Problem 4: Google was not cooperating - it had heaps of recipes which called for some ingredients I didn't have in the fridge, like yoghurt. Besides, all of them were stove top recipes, and I distinctly remember Mum quite effectively making the pilaf in the rice cooker.

What I did have was most of the ingredients in a simple stove-top recipe for fish pilaf from Poonam Vaswani's A Spoonful of Sindhi (which you can pick up at stores like MPH. The recipes are simple and pretty easy to follow, which is great, I'd recommend it).

So I did the next best thing, I made the rest up, adding a couple of ingredients here and there, changing some of the proportions, and praying it worked out. Its not very purist, so Mum, if I have this completely wrong, I'm sorry!

Either way, both victims of my little experiment gave it two thumbs up, polished it off, and feel perfectly fine today, heh, so I think it might be worth sharing. Hope it works as well for you if you decide to try it.

Ingredients

2 - 3 Chicken breasts, chopped into bite sized pieces
2 - 3 Red onions, chopped (Yellow onions are fine too)
2 Green chillies, chopped
3 Tomatos, chopped
1 inch Ginger, chopped
2 Garlic cloves
1/2 - 1 tsp Garam masala
(NB: I didn't wanna use Garam masala, and opted for fresh spices
instead. It was a bit of guesswork, but seemed to work. I used:
1/2 Cinammon stick
1/4 tsp Coriander seeds
1 Bay leaf
2 Cloves
Black pepper)

1 tsp Chicken masala
1 tsp Coriander powder
1/2 tsp Cumin powder (which I replaced with 1 tsp of Cumin seeds instead, coz I ran out of the powder)
1 tsp Chilli powder (less if you don't want so much of an edge)
Salt to taste
Olive oil
2 cups Basmati rice
Coriander leaves, chopped.

Using a medium size pot, heat the oil and fry the onions till they brown.
Add the spices.
Add the tomatos and green chillies, garlic and ginger, salt. keep stir frying.
Add the chicken pieces and fry a little bit to seal in the flavour. Add a cupful of water and simmer for a couple of minutes.
Remove from heat.

Wash two cups of rice, put in the rice cooker.
Add the chicken mixture and mix well.
Add about two more cups of water.
Cook.
(Some people like sultanas and nuts etc in pilaf as well, and I'm guessing it would be at the rice cooker stage that they would logically go in. I, however, hate sultanas, so I never had to try and figure that out.)

When serving, sprinkle the coriander leaves on top (lovely suggestion on Ms Vaswani's part, really brings out the flavours).

Enjoy.

The whole thing takes under 40 minutes and apart from the bit of time that goes into the chicken, it's really simple, since the rice cooker takes care of the rest.

Cheers,

Art

SEVENTH HEAVEN...

2006-04-11T23:30:00.000+08:00

Thanks to the vunderful Six Drunk Men, the good people who rescued Pete from a fate of drinking Guinness because they bring Beamish in straight from Cork, Team Williams found itself at the Standard Chartered Singapore Sevens last Sunday.

Of course, the slight problem is that while half of TeamWilliams used to play rugby, the other half knows next to nothing about it.

If you can imagine it:

Art: Pete, what you do call it when all of them hug and stuff? Like a huddle? A cuddle?
Pete: Erm, a scrum?
Art: Hmm. And why do they do that?
Pete: It's like a free kick, they gotta get it to the try line.
Art: Righto. Look, that man is cute!

We're not sure what everyone made of the fact that she cringed in pain everytime someone got tackled. Sigh ...

That said, we both cheered - very loudly for Samoa (aiyoh, so cute) and Fiji (they played England in the final. No prizes for guessing the final score. Matt was NOT very happy.)

Oh, and next year, Art's convinced she will make us dress up, so for inspiration...

We have to say though, someone's gotta tip Mary off on what these chaps have been doing to her lamb.

Oh, we also popped into the post party, where we got up close with some of the ruggers themselves. And we bumped into some of our very favourite ladies.... Think the pictures are self explanatory.

Back to good ole fashion rambling after this... Or so we shall try.

Slainte

LOOKIN' FOR SOMETHING IRISH?

2006-04-07T14:45:00.000+08:00

Something good ole Pete stumbled upon yesterday.

The Irish version of Google: Doogle!

I particularly like where clickin' on "drink" takes you too. Enjoy.

Slainte

GROWING UP IN IRELAND

2006-04-04T16:07:00.000+08:00

This came to us from Dave and Joy Williams (thanks guys!), and while I've tried my darndest to establish the original author, the furthest I got was on Artslink, which traced it back to an author named Lindsey K.

I reckon it started off as some kind of chain email of sorts, but it really did strike a chord with the man, and even if some of the localisms are a little different, it made me smile as well.

So enjoy:

Growing up in Ireland

I'm talking about Hide and Seek in the park, The shop down the road, Hopscotch, Donkey, skipping, handstands, Stuck-in-the-Mud, football with an old can, Dandy, Beano, Twinkle and Roly Poly, Hula Hoops, jumping the stream, building a swing from a tyre and a piece of rope tied to a tree - (If you live in Dublin the lampost) - building tree-houses, climbing up onto roofs. Tennis on the street, the smell of the sun and fresh cut grass. Coat hangers hanging from electric wires. Crossing the road when you saw some skinheads coming...

Hubba Bubba bubble gum and 2p Flogs, Macaroon bars and Woppas, 3p Refreshers and Wham Bars, Superhero chewing gum, golf ball chewing gums and liquorice whips, Desperate Dan and Roy of the Rovers, sherbet dips and Mr. Freezes, Marathon bars and everlasting gobstoppers.

An ice cream cone on a warm summer night from the van that plays a tune - chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or maybe neopolitan

Wait ...

Watching Saturday Morning cartoons ... short commercials, Battle of the Planets, Road Runner, He-Man, Swapshop, and Why Don't You?, Transformers, How do you do?, Bosco (SANDY), Forty-coats, the Littlest Hobo and Lassie, Chucklevision, The Muppet Show, MacGyver, Scarecrow and Mrs King, Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven, or staying up for Knight Rider and Magnum PI. And for the older ones: Magic Roundabout, Blue Peter, Pebble Mill at One, Felix the Cat, Wacky Races, Star Trek (in colour!), The Angelus, Daktari, Dr Who,

When around the corner seemed far away and going into town seemed like going somewhere. And how about going to school in the dark with your flourescent armband?

A million midget bites, sticky fingers and mud all over you, knee-pads on your jeans, Cops and Robbers, Rounders, Tip the Can, Queenie-I-O, climbing trees, Spin-the-Bottle, building igloos out of snow banks, walking to school - no matter what the weather, running till you were out of breath. Laughing so hard that your stomach or your cheeks hurt, Jumping on the bed. Pillow fights, Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles. Being tired from playing... Remember that?

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon

Football cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle.

And don't forget the Marietta sandwiches we'd make by buttering a cupla Marietta biscuits and stickin' them together. And that quare oul mixture made in a tall glass with HB ice cream and Taylor Keith Red Lemonade.

I'm not finished just yet...

Eating raw jelly, orange squash ice pops

Remember when ... There were two types of sneakers - girls and boys and Dunlop Green Flash and the only time you wore them, at school was for "P.E." - Gola football boots.

It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends, when nobody owned a pure bred dog, when 25p was decent pocket money, when you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny, when nearly everyone's mum was at home when the kids got there, when it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.

When any parent could discipline any kid or use him to carry groceries and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it.

When being sent to the head's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't because of muggings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! and some of us are still afraid of them!!!

Remember when....

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo." Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "do over!"

"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest. Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly", the game of life and connect four, atari 2600's and commadore 64's. The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was germs. It was unbelievable that Red Rover or Rounders wasn't an Olympic event...

Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a biro barrel pea shooter or an elastic band. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better. Taking drugs meant orange-flavoured chewable vitamins. Ice cream was considered a basic food group.

Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true. Abilities were discovered because of a "double dare"

Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors.

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED!!!!

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown up" life... I DOUBLE DARE YA!!! Bagsy it, no returns and no magical changes

WHEN IN IRELAND...

2006-03-31T18:40:00.000+08:00

Found this hilarious link to "signs" you're in Ireland and simply had to share....

Art

CLICK N HELP (warning: slightly serious post ahead)

2006-03-31T14:13:00.000+08:00

An appeal arrived in my inbox this morning asking for people to visit the The Breast Cancer Site to click on a little box, to "donate" a mammogram to an underpriveleged woman.

The chain letter claimed that the site wasn't meeting their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman.

Being the sceptic that I am, after visiting the site to verify if it was for real, I checked around for whether there was any truth to the claim.

And, well, more yes than no.

No, the site is not having trouble meeting its daily quota.

But yes, The Breast Cancer Site is very much real, and yes, if you click on the "donate a mammogram" button, they actually do go towards providing free mammograms to needy women in Mississippi, Puerto Rico, New York and LA, many of whom live in the inner city, earn low incomes and are homeless.

And, yes, their corporate sponsors/advertisers do use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

So while they haven't reach any point of desperation, they welcome more clicks towards the cause, because they do help.

Perhaps it might be happening to women far away, and maybe we need to do more in our own backyards to help women here, but hey, when its this simple to make a difference...

After all, it only takes a minute, and it costs you nothing. Why not?

Art

BACK TO LIFE....

2006-03-27T01:27:00.000+08:00

Been awhile since we've blogged just random thoughts - we've been kinda doing mainly backlogged photoblogging these days... Can't help it, been going nuts with the new camera...

But we're back. Woke up a wee bit fragile after the shennanigans at Matt's BBQ last night, which was held in honour of the important occasion that is better known as "being able to secure a pit". Heh. Actually, it was because Simon Wilcox - former colleague of all of ours - was in town, so Matt did the honours. It was a laugh and a half.

Dionne churned out some great eats.

Tah Nee (jap chap from earlier posts) showed up in his Jap-o clogs, bearing teriyaki and sake... Pete made chicken masala and mash, and Sharm made us all proud with her first ever spud salad, which turned out really yum. There was heaps more from everyone else but I'm getting hungry just talking about it so will shut up before I end up demanding supper right this very minute.

There was a fair bit of damage done though...

We had to call it a night a remotely decent hour, not a bad thing, really, coz Huge Cow (alias Hugh) was getting in from HK. Twas great to see him again - especially for Pete, since the last time the two were together was when Mr Chow flew in for just one night to give us a bottle of champers and have a bit of a laugh the night before the wedding. We were blown away. His boss back then was a bit of a cow and so he couldn't get in for any of the main events.... But he could make it in for just that night. Fab chap. Eight hours of travel for one night of damage (and you could see it in Pete's eyes as I lovingly accepted him as my husband!! Actually I accepted him as my "wife" thanks to the Justice of Peace... But that's a story I don't really wanna recount).

Anyways, it called for a big ole catch up session on the Perch. Big ole headache this morning. Ah well, you pay the price.

He'll be here for a bit this time, which is nice. And his other half's flying in on the weekend, so that's something to look forward to.

Trivia for the day:

We stumbled on this uber weird (yet mildly entertaining) site: Blogthings for stuff you can chuck on your blog... Today's entertainment: Pete n Me decided to find out our Hawaiin names...

And .... *drumroll*

Pete's:

Your Hawaiian Name is:

Mamo Meka

Art's:

Your Hawaiian Name is:

Alana Nalani

What's" your Hawaiian Name?

Sounds almost Sindhi...

Alana Nalani Williams??

Hmm.... Might stick to Art.

WILLIAMS' IN LEGOLAND!!!!!!!!

2006-03-25T03:41:00.000+08:00

In a beautiful gesture yesterday (and in a move completely unrelated to certain forms that need filling), the wonderful Mr Williams took us to our absolute favourite Japanese restaurant for a wonderful meal... just because he loves me.... *Swoon*

But tis a big secret what it is and where it is because if I have to fight with family - or anyone else - for reservations, I will be very very cross.... haha.... So I guess if you wanna try our sumiyaki-from-heaven-with-movie-star-chef joint, you're just gonna have to take us!! muahahahaha....

Anyways, as we were leaving, we got lost in the Legoland the inside of this really old building has become and the Man simply could not resist....

So this is our very best hint to the very best Japanese joint we know.... HAI!!!

HAPPY 21st PETE!! (er, again)

2006-03-23T02:12:00.000+08:00

Was saving the best for last....

So, of course the most important coincidence to Paddy's Day is Peter's Day!! Okay, okay, corney corney, but, *Leapin' Leprechaun's!!* How uncanny is it that my Irish boy happened to decide to leave the comfort zone and begin to make his grand entrance to the world on St Patrick's Day right? Am thanking my lucky stars he didn't end up Patrick Williams. It might have changed the course of history....

In any case, by the time he actually appeared, it was March 18.... Still, twas a day that went down in history.... And of course, because I am a good wife (who would like to retain my wife status), I allowed the event to pass without attempting too many embarassing photos (Pete kept the camera close).

Of course, Skinny, who doesn't have to 1) be married to Pete, or 2) have to be in the same country as he does after next week, is under no such obligations and promises to pass along some of the great shots she took, and I'll be sure to accidentally post them, I promise.

In any case, this year, Mr Williams turned *drumroll* 21 again (Hey, I'd like to live till my (again) 21st birthday too!). We marked it with some weird flaming drinks... which he was too smart to drink... Still twas a good laugh...

Even Mr Shithead showed up to wish him.

(Backgrounder: Mr Shithead is a stray in the neighbourhood who think Pete's his best friend. He keeps coming round the house - I am convinced its because he's come to believe we are tuna wholesalers since we never seem to run out. Either way, he pops around every couple of nights or so, eats, stays for a couple of hours, walks around the house like he owns it, manjas with Pete until he's carried and fed more, eats some more, messes the place up a bit, bites into a mint leaf again and realises that he still doesn't like it, wanders around a bit more, chats up a couple of walls until he realises they are ignoring him... and then whines to be let out. Once, just for a laugh, he decided to leave a souvenir (Yes, everyone else said: Eats Shoots and Leaves, too). Ah well. Of course, the sad part of this entire ritual is that about an hour after he's left, he realises that he we may still have tuna, so he sits at the door and whines and whines. By that time, we're, more often than not, already in bed and en route to sleep, so he gives up and tries again a couple of days later.)

So yes, where were we? Of course, Pete's birthday... What was really kinda nice was how ad hoc everything was... We were supposed to hook up with Matt and Dionne, and then Liluland suddenly got done packing and popped over, and Sharm appeared out of nowhere... All, of course, absolutely in the mood to imbibe.

Then, by sheer coincidence, Tah Nee (this Jap guy we used to know from our ACNA days - this bar we sorta found, grew to love, and then had our big engagement bash in) happens to walk by and joins us for what turns out to be the (almost) last round - wearing a kimono. Honestly, I don't remember the last time I saw someone wear a kimono socially unless it was

1) Japan

2) A Japanese restaurant

3) Some kind of cultural type affair involving ministers in Orchid-motif shirts

But there was good ole Tah Nee - in his formal Japanese kimono, fan in hand and all - which he whipped out and used every couple of minutes. It was like a cultural manga moment. Turns out it's one of em things that he just does. It looked kinda funky though.

Of course, the fan JUST had to make its rounds.

Tah Nee's kimono-fan combo caused a real ripple through the Living Room when he walked in too - especially when it sorta threatened to jiggy off on the dance floor......

We'll leave the rest to your imagination.

Needless to say, Pete enjoyed himself (not that he was in any state to admit it the next day).

Love ya Boy-O... Happy Birdday... From all of us...

PADDY'S DAY!!

2006-03-20T19:42:00.000+08:00

History-making moment: Singapore held its first ever St Patrick's Day Parade on Sunday, and, of course, TeamWilliams couldn't resist heading over to check it out, decked in green, no less. It was great Guinness-fuelled fun with an Asian twist... complete with Irish jigs, dragon dances and a Malay band. How much more Singaporean can it get huh? The guy in the white hat-

thingy? Yes, the Indian chap... That's St Patrick... No, we have no idea either.

All up, good fun, and the kids, clearly, had a blast. Div is now thinking of trading tap dancing for the Irish jig, and Ruben wants to be in next year's parade. Doing what, exactly, is anyone's guess. Maybe he can be St Patrick.

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW

2006-03-16T19:26:00.000+08:00

Very reliable sources (Pete) have just pointed out that snowflakes are a-falling in Ireland. And the situation is not much different in Britain...

Even more strange given that Summer is meant to arrive in a couple of weeks - or was it 10 days?

Its enough for the Mirror to ask: WHY HAS BRITAIN'S WEATHER GONE SO DAFFY?

According to the Irish Examiner:

IRELAND TODAY: Wintery showers and cold today. Some of the higher interior
hills may have a small accumulation of snow and sleet. Highs today 3-6C.
Moderate to strong northeast winds.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

TeamWilliams

FENNEL FIXATION...

QUICK UPDATE...

LEAVING HOME....

*BREATHE*

WEE STEPHENS ARRIVES! - updated

TALKING COCK...

WHADDA WEEK...

SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T LEARN... SO LETS MAKE THE LESSON HARDER

HEAT WAVE.....

SUNDAY, LAZY SUNDAY

ON TIES THAT BIND...

ALL THAT YOU LEAVE BEHIND...

LESSONS IN LIFE #762 and #763

CLAN BRAAM'S MUSICAL DEBUTS...

LIFE IN BULLETS

TW TURNS THREE!

HAPPY NEW YEAR...

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE....

TW PRESENTS... LE TREE

HOME SWEET HOME...

ARE YA GONNA GO MY WAY?

GOIN' NUTS IN BALI

Ola!

Greetings earthlings....

BACK SOON!

FIVE THINGS TO EAT BEFORE YOU DIE

EATS BEFORE THE END.....

SHOTS OF LIFE...

NEW WEEK, NEW LOOK....

FINALLY... PUTTING A CORK IN IT....

FLIGHTLESS IN FRICKING ASIA...

RUB A DUB DUBAI...

DO IT LIKE THE IRISH!

BACK!

BOY WONDER WILLIAMS!

LE-BLAZA... FINALLY

HISSTERICAL DAY.... LITERALLY

MANGO MADNESS...

ANOTHER ONE THAT MADE US STOP AND THINK...

YOU LOOK, BUT DO YOU SEE?

FOTOS AND FINAL PREPS...

MEN ARE FROM.... ?

JONNO ROCKS....

FELICITATIONS CASS AND GUY!!

DOLCE VITA....

TEAM WILLIAMS TURNS TWO!

LET THERE BE PHOTOS!

BEEN A BAD BLOGGER....

NEW YEAR, NEW LOOK...

RAIN...

YES, I KNOW HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN....

So...

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE....

20/10

BACK TO LIFE, BACK TO REALITY...

BALI HIGH...

WHEN IN VIETNAM, EAT PATE.....

WHERE WE WERE THAT FATEFUL DAY....

WE BE BACK!

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT...

CONGRATS HASH!

ERM, CLOVERS?

THE COUPLES OF THE HOUR...

GIRL, INTERRUPTED...

PROUD MUMMY MOMENT...

IN SICKNESS AND IN HELL....

PETE'S ANALYSIS OF THE WORLD CUP SO FAR....

FOR THE CHICKS IN OUR LIFE...

A CHOUGH IS...

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE...

REST WELL, OLD PERCH...

TIME IS SOOO NOT ON OUR SIDE...

STILL UNDER THE SAME MOON....

LOVIN' IT... CLINT VELOUR'S NEW SHOW

iBlog... OR AT LEAST iTry

SANDS WINS, ART LOSES....

iLike!

BLAST FROM THE PAST

BLINK, AND THEY GROW UP.

BREATHE