Cuckoo Clock

Figure 1.0

Impressive traditionally hand carved cuckoo clock. The traditionally handmade wall clocks are hand painted. A cuckoo clock actually stands for century long click making tradition, and it was origin from German craftsmanship. This cuckoo clock is a much simpler types where it does not have the chipper cuckoo bird perched in the window, but it has a fake cuckoo bird carved on the upper window with the cuckoo sound alert for every hour.

Typically, a cuckoo clock will strikes the hours with a sound like a common cuckoo’s call and typically has a mechanical cuckoo that emerges with each note. Clocks are essential element in any home design, unless you would not like to know what are the time of the day and it probably doesn’t matter to you. I believe that is what many of us wish to as you will never worried about the rush hour of the day and live with the fullest without care about the time.

Durian For Dinner and Diet?

Figure 1.0

The portion of durian above as a replacement of my usual dinner meal. My friend were asking, “Are you sure it is enough as your dinner?” and I answered him with a serious look, “Why not? I’m on diet dude”. I know some of you might show me with a surprised face and with the words playing on the mind, “Durian as a replacement of dinner meal and as diet meal as well? Crazy?”.

Durian is very high in calories and carbohydrates. In other words, durians can cause weight gain and it is fattening! Durian contains high sugar level and people with diabetes should be alert of their limit of durian intake.

At most of the time during durian season, you will find at the fruits stall where they sell durians together with another seasonal fruit, named Mangosteen. This two different fruits are seasonal fruits and the coincidence things that happen is both fruits harvest at almost the same season. Not too sure if you might notice about this. Therefore, since decades most of the Asian practice the culture of consuming Mangosteen after taking durians. The reason being is because it is believed that durian is a heaty fruit while mangosteen is a cooling fruit. Hence, Mangosteen is best taken to reduce the heatiness associated with the durian intake. 

Never ever consume durians together with alcohol. It is serious lethal combination to be concerned of. The content of the alcohol itself will rise the blood pressure level after consuming durian. 

For a durian lover like me would only able to tell you whether the durian taste nice or taste bad, when you ask me about durian. Perhaps, I can also tell you where to get a nice durian, for those which I tasted before. That’s all! Nothing more than that! However, if you were to ask a local connoisseur about durians, I believe they will be able to tell you from A-Z types of durians from various types of breeds. If you were to ask more, I believe they could even tell you the story or history of how each name of the durian breeds come from. 

At my last visit to Thailand, I was lucky enough to taste the durian in Thailand and I was told by my local friend there that one of the most expensive and famous breed of durian in Thailand is called “Morn Tong”. Another famous type of durian which we often see some of durian stalls where they wrote on the board, “D24” or “D101”. I definitely couldn’t differentiate the type from its physical look.

Recently, I even saw in Singapore that there is a type of durian named “XO” and the flesh of the durian has the taste of XO liquor. XO durian is one of the smaller durian species; the flesh is typically watery, clumpy and bitter. It is famous for having a distinctively alcoholic after taste. 

Some of you might be asking whether is it safe to eat XO durian, as there are fatal incident of consuming durian together with alcohol? The reason being is because of the mindset itself, where the first impression of XO durian to many of us is that the durian contains liquor content, when they heard the name of “XO” liquor in it. That’s not right; it’s only the aftertaste of the durian itself that taste like a mild alcohol taste. It is not a mixture or fermentation of any alcohol on the durian. You won’t get drunk if you eat the XO durian. 

It is quite hard to look for XO durian as not many places in Asia having this breed of durian. Therefore, you should not be surprised with the selling price of this seasonal breed of durian, especially when the demand is very high during a limited supply. If you would like to get a cheaper price, maybe you will need to wait for the end season of the durian, where the durian is over supply and it could not be keep too long, else it will be rotten. 

Jumbo Curry Puff.

Figure 1.0

Having a quick breakfast with this delicious pastry.

Curry puffs are commonly found in a buffet style party and they are usually made in a smaller size. A Jumbo Curry Puff could definitely cause Cibophobia (known as a food phobia) to the guests, as the portion itself is too filling.

Curry puff is a famous Malay food and it is better known as “Karipap” in Malaysia. You might find the exactly same curry puff in Singapore as well, but the difference is the naming of the puff itself, where in Singapore, it is better known as “Epok-epok”.

Figure 2.0

This Jumbo Curry Puff has single-layered skin and it is more doughy compare to another type of puff which is multi-layered with flaky skin.

The filling of this Jumbo curry puff is more on potatoes and there is no egg in the fillings compare with the usual curry puff with egg and yolk. The curry of this Jumbo puff is a bit milder, and it suits for those who prefer less spicy spice.

Anyway, just having one Jumbo Curry Puff is already more than enough for a full breakfast of the day. It is extremely full for me, as I took the puff together with a glass of milk.

2013 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix!

Figure 1.0

This is definitely going to be another historic event of night racing performance in town. It is the Singapore’s largest motorsports and entertainment extravaganza. The ticket sales for the 2013 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix is moving fast and most of the categories are sold out, which include the ticket above with Zone 4 Walkabout on 22^nd September 2013, Sunday. Perhaps you might still able to get the ticket now but it’s from other seller on some websites like eBay. However, the price for the ticket might be extremely expensive due to its high demand.

Figure 2.0

The world’s famous social media superstar, Rihanna is going to perform and raved about her 2013 Diamonds World Tour. Rihanna is going to be the headliner for the 2013 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix concerts.

Figure 3.0

Figure 4.0

The entry to the show is only included with any 3-days 2013 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix ticket or the Sunday single-day Pit Grandstand special ticket.

Figure 5.0

There is even another stage performance of 2013 Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix closing concert on Monday, 23^rd September featured by the famous Canadian pop star Justin Bieber and special guests at the Padang Stage.

Ice-cream Sandwich.

Figure 1.0

Who says only super-premium ice-cream taste good? Sometimes a dollar ice-cream sell along the street during a hot weather taste fantastic too, especially the ice-cream on bread or waffle. It is also known as ice-cream sandwich.

You might find the similar ice-cream on bread from various ice-cream pushcart sellers, but it only tastes the best with moist and tender bread. A fresh loaf of bread would have such taste. It usually comes with ice-cream wrapped with rainbows color bread, where the old folks pushing the pushcart around selling the ice-cream.

Ice-cream on bread slice is one of my favorite childhood treats. The funniest is biting the ice-cream with every small bites because just don’t want to finish the scrumptious favorite too fast and end up the ice-cream oozing out the sides.

You may also try out on your own with a toast bread. Hence, it will be ice-cream on toast. Maybe you can just try to imagine of French Toast. Although the ice-cream will melt fast due to the hot toast, but biting up the crunchy toast together with the cold ice-cream taste good. Try it and you will love it!

Goodwood Park Hotel Moon Cake 2013!

Figure 1.0

One of the most popular lunar festivals is around the corner! It’s the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration!

Moon Cake Festival is always a great time to spread your love by sending moon cakes to family, friends, and business associates.

Received another elegant moon cakes gift on 2013 from my associate business partner, with a nice packaging of moon cakes from Goodwood Park Hotel. I would say that it is an elegant indulgence with just the right touch for the oriental occasion.

Figure 2.0

The Goodwood Park Hotel’s repertoire of fruity snowskin moon cakes tastes great! I personally prefer the green one shown in the photos above, with the natural taste of Guava. The aromatic scent of the guava itself makes you never stop biting on it. It is a new flavour of the year, which is the pink guava with passionfruit and rambutan skin. The one with the yellow colour, which is the Mango with Pamelo tastes good as well. The snowskin moon cakes taste is superbly delicious. It is definitely worth for self-indulgence or as a gift.

Compare to some others snowskin moon cakes, the taste is not too sweet and it just suits well for health-conscious folk.

For this year, its packaging comes with a classy and elegant beige-gold with chrysanthemum motifs on the box. 

Shangri-La Premium Moon Cake Gift 2013!

Figure 1.0

Moon cake Festival celebration is around the corner and here are the premium gift set of moon cake from my business partner to commemorate with the 2013 Mid-Autumn Festival. The gift is really elegant, where the moon cake is encased in an exquisite and distinctive box.

The actual date for the celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival by the Chinese tradition is fall on the 15^th of August of the lunar calendar every year. For country like China, it is often a grand festival celebration, where people in mainland of China usually enjoy one day off from their work for the celebration with family and friends. Ancient Chinese culture believes that eating moon cakes could express their love for their family and their hope for a happy life. The roundness of the moon on the day symbolizes family unity and harmony.

Most of the traditional moon cakes are usually embossed with Chinese for “togetherness” or “harmony”, on top of the surface of the moon cakes. There are various types of fillings in the moon cakes, but the traditional moon cakes usually consists of salted egg yolks at the centre, which symbolize the full moon.

Mid-Autumn Festival is also better known as Moon Festival because as at that day of the year, the moon is at its roundest and brightest. Besides, it is known as moon cake festival, as every family will gather on that day itself to have a family reunion dinner celebration and at the same time enjoy eating the moon cakes. The cake is as round as the moon. Hence, it is called moon cake.

Have you started placing your order for moon cakes? There are so many moon cakes being paraded out there in the market.

I was puzzling around until I saw from an advertisement and just got to know that actually this year Mid-Autumn Festival falls on 19^th of September 2013, which is on Thursday!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Candy Crush is replaced by “Tanglung Crush”?

Figure 1.0

What is in your mind when you first look at the photo? Have it come to your mind in the first glance? Don’t it seems very familiar when you stare longer? Yes!! It looks similar to the most addictive and something which you often seen people showing on their mobile device, Candy Crush!

When I first saw this, the first thing that glance to my mind is Candy Crush game, but I would rather give it a different name, “Tanglung Crush” a.k.a Lantern Crush. It is a creative decoration of lantern for the celebration of lantern festival. I would say that it is something fresh and new to have in this coming festival celebration.

The Chinese Mid-Autumn is getting nearby and you may see many people started to prepare for the festival celebration. There are lanterns decorations hanging around the corridors.

It’s a new twist and fresh decoration of the latest trend, yet still never forgot the traditional cultural celebration. A more modern ways of using colorful light bulbs as a replacement of traditional candle lighting, but the shape of the physical lantern itself still maintain as its similarity.

Have you start your preparation for Lantern Festival? Happy Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival!