sleepsleepsleeping in seattle~

HELLLLOOOOOOOOO WORLD~! X)

I know it's been awhile but GOSH it's been a really incredibly hectic past week. A TON of things happened some of which include these:

- i attended my cousin's soccer match within2 hours of arriving in Seattle! :P Boy was it cooooold but such fun finally being away from the insane humidity and heat of Singapore. And all those little kids had so much energy running around the field...they made me feel tired just looking at them hurhur.

- i fell ill!! :( my aunt and younger cousin had already been down with some sort of flu and i arrived right smack in the middle of their evil virus phase... so i spent a good 2-3 days with a gross drippy nose, fuzzy head and general desire to lie down and vegggg out (not really very different from usual in that last aspect...just a more pronounced version I suppose)... those days were really NOT the most fun but on the bright side, it just allowed me to sit around and do nothing without feeling TOO guilty since it is the holidays after all.

- both my uncle and aunt's cars DIED. Well my uncle's car died and my aunt's car got into a little scrape with another crazy ass driver's car when she went to pick my uncle up pretty late at night. Nobody was hurt thank goodness, but we were left carless for the past few days. ;p Luckily my aunt is incredible and has friends who LOVE her and were able to carpool the cousins/us around. Now we have a cool new flashy red rental car to use for the time being.

Ok and mannny other things happened but I'm getting way ahead of myself here! :P Let me just show you the first batch of like a thousand photos I've been taking. I know there are a ton of photos of my little cuzzins but I'm SO not a paedophile alright? I just love taking photos of subjects who LOVE the camera and keep relatively still. And those cuzzins of mine are NATURAL cam-hoooars. :))

First day in Seattle:







This is my dearest little cousin, Teagan. :D She's 6 and is by far the more subdued cousin. Let's see what else... she's very sweet and loves cold weather, cuddly objects, cuddling up to people and rubbing her cheeks on people's sweaters... oh and a really gross purple and blue spongy toy tarantula that she's been leaving behind on the odd place in my room such as my laptop.








Lunch at Chinook's! :)

This is Hai-ying, the older one of my 2 cousins. She's 9 and well, can be a EXTREMELY SWEET at times and at other times... a COMPLETE TERROR. :((((((( She's a tough cookie. Very intelligent and curious and is ALWAYS questioning the actions of her parents. I'd be very frazzled if I were her mum. In fact, she already frazzles me quite a bit. But she's definitely improved from when I last saw her a few years back... So hopefully she'll become an angel when she's my age. ;p






Totally scrummy scones! :D They were soft on the inside, crispy on the outside and most importantly -- WARM. I totally piled on the strawberry jam onto these babies and lapped them up like a dawg.





Salmon and potatoes for the main course which I shared with Haiying (because the portions here are so ginormous ;p but i'm already starting to eat sooo much more so i have no doubt that in no time, i'll be polishing off U.S. portions with ease. *shudder*)




Oatmeal! As part of the kids' breakfast/brunch set. Believe it or not, this was actually my first taste of oatmeal! :P It's not really a common thing to eat in SG imo, so this was kinda nice, having my first taste of it. Except it was pretty bland and gooey and filling. No wonder it's diet food.



My dearest aunt and Teagan. :D My aunt's really the coolest, most enthusiastic, warmest aunt ever. She's really the one who makes Seattle fun since my uncle's always busy with work so she's the one who takes me around and takes care of the kids.








The view at the harbour was really pretty. :)




Ooo and this is the incredible view from my aunt and uncle's bedroom window. I'd kill to have a house facing the sea! I wish I could've captured the colors of the sunset a lot better but this was the best shot I got with the rays of the sun half blinding me while looking through the viewfinder.




Fruit smoothie whipped up within 1 min by my aunt. The trick? Frozen fruit from a packet. I'd never heard of that before but it works and gives the flavors too!

Stay tuned for more photos and updates... I've been a lazy lazy blogger and person haha in general for the past week. There's so much energy required to keep up with the kids that my optimum time to sleep at night is 10p.m. so that I can have enough sleep when I'm woken up by the sounds of YELLING/SCREAMING/CRYING by the kiddos at absurd hours of the morning. 6.30 a.m. is just wayyy too early, young ladies. But do they care? HELL NOZ. sobbbbbbb.


xxxxoooo

my 7 layered slice of heaven

Chapter 2 of The Breakfast Club Chronicles took place at an awesome restaurant called Barracks Cafe at Dempsey Hill. It's a restaurant in a building called House which used to be former army barracks (hence the name, I presume) and inside there's a cafe, a bar and a beauty emporium -- all under one roof. Yet another place that can only be accessed by car though because I can only imagine the walk all the way inside from the main road under the sun would be heeeellish. This place was amazing though. Thankfully, it was fully air-conditioned, service was prompt and there was a huge selection to choose from from the brunch menu .

Cute newsletter style menu.

Poached eggs and asparagus. Not great for me because the sauce was a little too sourish and creamy for my liking (almost like what i'd imagine rotten eggs would smell like ;p).

Oregon salmon hash. This one was DELECTABLE. It was a mix of salmon pieces, potatoes, chives all lumped together in a yummy sour cream based sauce that was sooo good and so easy to eat. I love stuff that's soft and that goes down the throat easily without much chewing. This was a little like luxury comfort food.

THIS WAS THE BEST. THE BEST. THE BESTTTTT!! And my fav photo of the entire day XD

7 layered pancakes!! My friend who introduced us to the place had read about it online and that was what we had all come for... It was pretty much the best pancakes I'd eaten in my entire life.
In between the layers were all these delicious NUTS and RAISINS and DRIED FRUIT and they even sprinkled such a generous helping all over the plate! =D I'm a huge huge huge fan of well, what you can call trail mix ingredients because they're so easy to eat and they cater to my sweet tooth while fooling me into thinking that it's a healthier snack option compared to other stuff. Together with the maple syrup it was sweet but not overly sweet because there was enough pancake to balance it out. I loved the feeling of stabbing a bit of plain pancake and then topping it with a spoonful of raisins/dried fruit/nuts. It even felt healthy if one didn't focus on the syrup...and the nutella in between the layers.

So basically it was heavenly... Too bad it was more like 1/4 of 7 pancakes piled on top of each other and not 7 whole pancakes eh?

Squid ink pizza. This one was kinda weird. ;p Because the crust was made with squid ink, it came out all black and dusty. We felt like we were eating ash. But the squid and veggies on top were decently cooked with a lemon tangy taste so I ended up eating the toppings rather than the crust. Muahaaa.

For dessert, we tried this dish called Rumbaba - something like a sponge cake SOAKED in rum. One bite and it was like woahhh! :)

Oh the multitude of desserts that we wanted to try but were too full/broke to order. There were so many cakes there that were really TALL-- possibly 5 to 7 inches high type of cakes. I'm definitely going back one day, if only for the pancakes...

maxi dress and vest: Topshop, sunnies: Witchery, necklaces: f21 and shop in Shibuya 109, Tokyo, sandals: Target.com

a little bit of you in everyone

For the month of May, my weekends were the best. I spent the weekdays at a hospital learning the basics of examining patients and talking to them to get a history out and most of the time
it was just tiring, extremely humid (my friends and i would always try to take the route that allowed us to cross into the air-conditioned wards for that few blissful minutes of respite) and demoralising because well, compared to my groupmates i was pretty terrible at everything. So glad it's over for now.

The weekends were the times when I would get to relax a little and spend time with my boyfriend and other friends and those were the little bits of the month that really got me through. Nothing like starting Monday a little less grouchier with the thought that Saturday
there'd be something to look forward to! :) Don't know if you guys feel the same about things like that in your life?

A couple of friends and I have been getting into this whole brunch movement (it seems like there are lots of great placesfor brunch that have been mushrooming up lately!) and it's quite a good idea because while it's a little pricier thannormal meals, you do skip both breakfast and lunch (2 for theprice of 1! sort of ;p) and end up eating a little less for dinner because you're so full.And the brunch experience is just priceless. I loooove theanticipation of a great pile of pancakes and eggs.

So Chapter 1 of the The Breakfast Club Chronicles took place at a restaurant called Prive at Marina Bay. Perhaps it was just an off day for them and normally I'm easy going about it but this time, service was REALLY BAD! It took ages for someone to take our orders and it didn't help that we were seated outdoors beneath the scorching sun. Customers were literally fighting to adjust the direction of the huge fans such that they'd point towards their table. Another table of expats beside us waited "45 minutes for oureggs and pancakes" (which never arrived) and ended up storming off to their yacht nearby (what a life eh? that's what I call storming off in style). We waited it out though and the result was decent pancakes and VERY TASTY smoked salmon eggs benedict. I'm so hooked on that combination now. :D

After that maro and I hitched a ride from our dear friend who had possession of his dad's car that day (THAT is the keyto even getting anywhere for brunch) to VIVOCITY yet again! I had a $25 left of a $50 Häagen-Dazs voucher to use up heheso we ended up tucking in to a deeeelicious ice cream + wafflecombo dribbled with chocolate sauce. I don't usually eat Häagen-Dazs very often (because one scoop is like ten bucks or some exorbitant price like that) but everytime I do I can't help but feel that it's in a class of it's own. We had a little combo dish of 6 different flavors and they worked sooo well together! 3 berry/fruit flavors, chocolate, rum and raisin and...(Wait for it!)...---TIRAMISU. MMM :D

$25 goes by very quickly at Häagen-Dazs unfortunately.

top and shorts: GAP, shoes: Urban Outfitters, tights: random, necklaces: F21 and gift, sunglasses: Witchery, bag: mum's

(ahhhaha watch me displace those sunnies by accident; in total dweeb-like fashion)

This is what happens when you spend too long in the changing room at Topshop, leaving your boyfriend to his own devices to pass the time. TSK TSK TSK. Men.

I ended up getting this grey drapey blazer and this maxi dress from Topshop! :D I'm really in love with drapey designs now because they just add this softness to the overall look... HURR this was the most substantial purchase at Topshop yet and for that -- I became a rightful owner of the awesome Topshop MEMBERSHIP CARD!! Haha 10% off every subsequent purchase and 20% off a single purchase in my birthday month. Topshop's one of my favorite shops ever, alongside Zara (UO's still numbah one though!) so everytime I look at my membership card, I just feel so HAPPY. :) Cheap thrill!

At night we made our way down to Orchard and had our dinner at a most unexpected place ever -- an "economic rice" stall (so said because it's basically rice + a number of other Chinese dishes that you can select and it's usually the cheapest option in any food court) on one of the upper floors of Far East Plaza! I had no idea there were stalls there that sold such good and reasonably priced food. I went for claypot tofu which was so tasty, warm and comforting after a long day of walking.

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Btw, GREETINGS FROM SEATTLE!! =DDD I arrived a couple of hours ago after a loooong and tiring 20 hours of flight (complete with layover in Narita airport in Tokyo) and now I'm finally at my uncle's house... So happy to be here because the weather is fantastic and my relatives here are just the BEST. The cousins are still driving everyone up the wall though.

I'll be updating about Seattle soon but right after one more post of photos from Singapore...

How awesome is it that it's only Sunday? I love gaining one day through traveling to a different time zone.