Nao & Tamotsu Hits Town...
17th September 2007, Monday
Thursday was my missus' birthday and she was pleasantly surprised with the model version of a Lamborghini Murciélago which is one her dream car, and she had a shrine for the car tio spur her own to achieve her dream...
It was all jolly till another of the habitual spats we had these days (surely the honeymoon period is over) when we were getting ready for the dinner with the Japanese visitors on Friday evening...
She got home by 7 plus and by the time she started the car engine it was 7.30pm and we had to be there by 8.30pm or so... However she had intended to dropby Geylang to pick up something from her client and she took a good 10 minutes with minimal illumination from the hood light while rummaging through the Street Directory...This totally incensed me as I wouldn't mind her doing her business before the dinner but at least do her homework with the direction prior to this...
Eventually she postponed her appointment with a sulk on her face as we engaged on a cold war along CTE till we finally got to Chinatown...
The dinner was at this little known vegetarian restaurant at Kreta Ayer Road and no surprise the organizer was the perennial herbivore of the brood, EK...
Call I am a selfish ingrate or insensitive friend, but I was feeling weary recently to accommodate the dining needs of our vegetarian friends at times...
Usually the food tends to be overpriced and not getting the satisfaction of dining...
However EK and his spouse are such valued member in our clique with undying enthusiasim towards all activities, I kind of overlook it...
But the fact that a 2kg vegetarian cake cost $76 was a bit too much for me to swallow even though it was a good gesture by him to help me get it..just that financial constraint (as if I will ever get out of this fix) got the better of me...
I'm such a staunch and selfish miser who's heart aches over a nice birthday cake for his wife but I can't help myself...
In the end, the lads were generous enough to split the cost together with the treat for the dynamic Iwate duo... I was overtaken by shame but the wallet lives and breathes another day...
So after weeks of aimless arrangement of the itinerary of their one-day stay in Singapore, the gang gave the pair a glimpse of our boring our island can be for the whole of Friday which include visits to the HDB hub in Toa Payoh, Chinatown and even some horse-racing action at Kranji Turf Club which got the expressive Miyano rattling on their adventure at the premium (and perhaps the only) horse racing track in Singapore for the very first time...
Of course the usual antics of thanking the grand winner for the notion of treating everyone dinner was pulled despite that poor Bryan only managed to muster a win of a measly $20 and he had been unemployed for a while now...
It seems like Nao who was the hospitable soul who took efforts to bring us for some trips in Iwate had some innate knowledge to know the pedigree of race horses by observing the anatomy...
Meanwhile his partner in crime, Tamotsu who we have seen for the very first time seems pretty beaten by the exertion at Mount Kinabalu or overawed by the number of people welcoming him for just a dropby to Singapore...
Throughout the dinner, they were enthralled by how vegetarian meals in Singapore is not solely restricted to just vegetables and fruits while Karen was entertained by Vincent's usual friendly beckoning of the waitress by calling her "Jie Jie (elder sister)"....
The 10-course meal sort of filled us to the brim though the good thing about vegetarian meals which I must harp about is that the lack of meat surely don't make you nauseous even you had an overkill with your gastronomical affair...
Therefore we had some space for the overpriced birthday cake which doesn't look and taste half bad (despite the lack of eggs I supposed)...
It was after 10pm after the hearty meal, and we had intended to bring them to some lantern exhibition near Pagoda street with the Mooncake Festival round the corner, hoping they would savor a Singapore-style matsuri (festival) but they seemed pretty worn out after an entire day of event, not as much as Chan though who had barely 4 hours of rest when meeting them in the morning after his night shift the day before...
So in our carnival of cars, we rode down to Tiong Bahru to Vincent & Miyano s' pad...
It wasn't long before the center of attraction was the Nintendo Wii and the Wii Sports which have Miyano raving about how the boxing game has put our huge friend in a sweat-inducing workout...
Most of us were skeptical of that claim but upon trying the wifi game console, it was all justified and the entire gang were immensely entertained while doing all the sports available...
The game also transcended language as our 2 Japanese friends joined in though it might have resulted in Nao having to hit the showers one more time...
While I suck big time in bowling, I crushed Bryan in a game of boxing...
The session surely perked our interest in Wii and it is definitely high on my wishlist for my forthcoming Japan trip....
Speaking of which, finally nailed the air tickets and lodging in Osaka and Tokyo from the NATAS Holidays travel fair held at Expo over the weekend...will go more into that tomorrow...
Before headingt o Expo, I managed to see our Iwatian friends off from Changi Airport Terminal One...
It seems like they had embarked on this Southeast Asian trip with a shoe-string budget thus chose the Taiwan-based China Airlines (which recently had an airbus being segmentated at Okinawa).
As in the case of Yu-kun, we had a parting coffee session at the nearby Kopitiam as sketchy plan for another visit to Iwate for next February seems to be in the air, except I wonder will I go again...
Nao and friend didn't really have a lasting impression with their stay here in Singapore but I feel we had done our part to repay the hospitality he had shown when we were there in February..the walk in the knee-deep snow field, the ice-fishing as well as the barnyard visit surely had been the highlight of our trip then...Let's hope more the the Iwate Youth Club gang would come by the next time and perhaps by then I would not be too affected by paying for a $76 vegetarian birthday cake...
Thursday was my missus' birthday and she was pleasantly surprised with the model version of a Lamborghini Murciélago which is one her dream car, and she had a shrine for the car tio spur her own to achieve her dream...
It was all jolly till another of the habitual spats we had these days (surely the honeymoon period is over) when we were getting ready for the dinner with the Japanese visitors on Friday evening...
She got home by 7 plus and by the time she started the car engine it was 7.30pm and we had to be there by 8.30pm or so... However she had intended to dropby Geylang to pick up something from her client and she took a good 10 minutes with minimal illumination from the hood light while rummaging through the Street Directory...This totally incensed me as I wouldn't mind her doing her business before the dinner but at least do her homework with the direction prior to this...
Eventually she postponed her appointment with a sulk on her face as we engaged on a cold war along CTE till we finally got to Chinatown...
The dinner was at this little known vegetarian restaurant at Kreta Ayer Road and no surprise the organizer was the perennial herbivore of the brood, EK...
Call I am a selfish ingrate or insensitive friend, but I was feeling weary recently to accommodate the dining needs of our vegetarian friends at times...
Usually the food tends to be overpriced and not getting the satisfaction of dining...
However EK and his spouse are such valued member in our clique with undying enthusiasim towards all activities, I kind of overlook it...
But the fact that a 2kg vegetarian cake cost $76 was a bit too much for me to swallow even though it was a good gesture by him to help me get it..just that financial constraint (as if I will ever get out of this fix) got the better of me...
I'm such a staunch and selfish miser who's heart aches over a nice birthday cake for his wife but I can't help myself...
In the end, the lads were generous enough to split the cost together with the treat for the dynamic Iwate duo... I was overtaken by shame but the wallet lives and breathes another day...
So after weeks of aimless arrangement of the itinerary of their one-day stay in Singapore, the gang gave the pair a glimpse of our boring our island can be for the whole of Friday which include visits to the HDB hub in Toa Payoh, Chinatown and even some horse-racing action at Kranji Turf Club which got the expressive Miyano rattling on their adventure at the premium (and perhaps the only) horse racing track in Singapore for the very first time...
Of course the usual antics of thanking the grand winner for the notion of treating everyone dinner was pulled despite that poor Bryan only managed to muster a win of a measly $20 and he had been unemployed for a while now...
It seems like Nao who was the hospitable soul who took efforts to bring us for some trips in Iwate had some innate knowledge to know the pedigree of race horses by observing the anatomy...
Meanwhile his partner in crime, Tamotsu who we have seen for the very first time seems pretty beaten by the exertion at Mount Kinabalu or overawed by the number of people welcoming him for just a dropby to Singapore...
Throughout the dinner, they were enthralled by how vegetarian meals in Singapore is not solely restricted to just vegetables and fruits while Karen was entertained by Vincent's usual friendly beckoning of the waitress by calling her "Jie Jie (elder sister)"....
The 10-course meal sort of filled us to the brim though the good thing about vegetarian meals which I must harp about is that the lack of meat surely don't make you nauseous even you had an overkill with your gastronomical affair...
Therefore we had some space for the overpriced birthday cake which doesn't look and taste half bad (despite the lack of eggs I supposed)...
It was after 10pm after the hearty meal, and we had intended to bring them to some lantern exhibition near Pagoda street with the Mooncake Festival round the corner, hoping they would savor a Singapore-style matsuri (festival) but they seemed pretty worn out after an entire day of event, not as much as Chan though who had barely 4 hours of rest when meeting them in the morning after his night shift the day before...
So in our carnival of cars, we rode down to Tiong Bahru to Vincent & Miyano s' pad...
It wasn't long before the center of attraction was the Nintendo Wii and the Wii Sports which have Miyano raving about how the boxing game has put our huge friend in a sweat-inducing workout...
Most of us were skeptical of that claim but upon trying the wifi game console, it was all justified and the entire gang were immensely entertained while doing all the sports available...
The game also transcended language as our 2 Japanese friends joined in though it might have resulted in Nao having to hit the showers one more time...
While I suck big time in bowling, I crushed Bryan in a game of boxing...
The session surely perked our interest in Wii and it is definitely high on my wishlist for my forthcoming Japan trip....
Speaking of which, finally nailed the air tickets and lodging in Osaka and Tokyo from the NATAS Holidays travel fair held at Expo over the weekend...will go more into that tomorrow...
Before headingt o Expo, I managed to see our Iwatian friends off from Changi Airport Terminal One...
It seems like they had embarked on this Southeast Asian trip with a shoe-string budget thus chose the Taiwan-based China Airlines (which recently had an airbus being segmentated at Okinawa).
As in the case of Yu-kun, we had a parting coffee session at the nearby Kopitiam as sketchy plan for another visit to Iwate for next February seems to be in the air, except I wonder will I go again...
Nao and friend didn't really have a lasting impression with their stay here in Singapore but I feel we had done our part to repay the hospitality he had shown when we were there in February..the walk in the knee-deep snow field, the ice-fishing as well as the barnyard visit surely had been the highlight of our trip then...Let's hope more the the Iwate Youth Club gang would come by the next time and perhaps by then I would not be too affected by paying for a $76 vegetarian birthday cake...
Japanese word of the day: 菜食主義者(Vegetarian) Still is bewildering how come leafy vegetables and perhaps some carrots and potatoes can cost so much more than juicy meat...
posted by Kei at
1:29 PM
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