Happy Tummy = Productivity? A Conspiracy!!!!!!!!

The company was having a 2 weeks integration projects with visitors from other countries together with local employees to make the project a success. What could we do to ensure the productivity is all time high? Well, there is a saying “hunger makes people grumpy” thus the 1^st step is of course to ensure everyone has a happy tummy. =)

Eat Eat Eat!!!

I must say our organizers had totally outdone themselves – there were breakfast, lunch and teatime from caterer everyday for the project members. If you happened to stay late, dinner would be delivered as well.

Here are some of the pictures of the food galore that made our tummy HAPPY & ROUNDER in just 2 weeks! I didn't managed to take all of the food pictures so we actually rammed down more foods down our throats than those pictures. Gosh! I think we must’ve gained at least 5 pounds after the 2 weeks!

Breakfast – sandwiches, local pastries and fried stuffs

Imagine all of these FAT-Laden Foods for Breakfast!!!

Look at the Size of that Hashbrown!

Lunch – they even had western food so that our foreign visitors would feel at home. Haha.. Basically it was a mini buffet spread of local + Western Food together with Soup/Dessert. Darn, they were trying to rise our cholesterol & fat level!!! Total Conspiracy!!!!

Mushroom Soup with Garlic Bread,
Chicken Chop with Onion Sauce, Calamari Rings & Broccoli

Chinese Style Longan Dessert Soup,
Fish & Chips (without Chips! Haha), Kam Heong Prawn, Chicken Wing,
Deep Fried Beancurd, Fried Tomyam Rice Vermicelli & "Lobster" Ball

It was a Public Holiday thus Caterer was Closed
Subway Set was Ordered with Soup, Chicken & Turkey Sandwich & Cookies!!!

Red Bean Soup,
Giant Sausage, Fried Rice, Curry Chicken, Linguine & Some Deep-Fried Fritters 

Creamy Pumpkin Soup,
Chicken Soup with Black Pepper Sauce, Vegetables, 2 types of Fried Rice Vermicelli & Deep-Fried Fritter

Mushroom Soup,
Curry Chicken, Fried Rice, Prawn, Broccoli & Fried Beancurd Skin

Green Bean Soup with Satay Stick (Ate before photo is taken, haha)
Fried Rice, Fried Rice Noodles, Vegetables, Prawn, Fried Chicken & Fried Salad Roll

Glutinous Rice Porridge (Bi Kor Moi),
Sweet & Sour Fish, Vegetables & Truly Delicious Pasta - i LOVE LOVE LOVE this pasta

Teatime – lots of deepfried stuff – whatever that makes you FAT!!!

One of the BEST Teatime EVER!!!
Cheese Tarts, Fruit Tarts & Tuna Egg Roll

To make matters worse, they’d decided to have an appreciation dinner on the 2nd last night – at Mansion 32 no less! We had a few main course choices and we mostly chose the fish set. By the time we finished the dessert, we could barely move. *bangwall*

Penny Chew is a Fish? Hehe...

In Mansion 32

Appetizer: Crepe of Mixed Seafood & Salad

Pumpkin Soup - Gosh! Look at this Food Presentation!!! EPIC FAIL!!!

Baked Salmon with Almond & Cranberry Crustm Slow Cooked Potato,
Willed Rocket & King Oyster Mushroom, Lime Beurre Blanc - YUMMY!!!

Sticky Toffee Pudding served with Vanilla Ice Cream,
Strawberry, Caramelized Apple - GOSH! HEAVENLY!!!

*** To my dear colleagues who are reading this – Yes, this is how much FOODsss you’d wolfed down during the 2 weeks period! Congratulations! You’d gain weight successfully!!! Don’t blame me! Don’t blame the company! Blame yourself for having no self-control towards FOODssss! *evil laughter* Me included… *Bawling*

An Unconventional CNY Foods Celebration

What is the food that pops in your mind when Chinese New Year is mentioned? An 8 courses Chinese food for reunion? The heart stopping peanut cookie? The waistline inflating deep fried chips? Well, this year we started the celebration with various types of food – anything but traditional CNY food. Hahhaa.. a rebellion perhaps?

Sushi Zanmai, Gurney Paragon

We kick started the CNY eve’s ever with a dinner in Sushi Zanmai at Gurney Paragon – this restaurant always has a long queue but luckily our timing was good. The queue started only after we got a seat. Hehhee….

In the spirit of Chinese New Year, we ordered the Japanese style Salmon Yi Sang which was void of artificial colored ‘vegetable’. The Yi Sang was made of cucumbers, carrots, pickles & other sea products – a far cry from the Chinese style Yi Sang. It was really scrumptious served together with 3 different sauces.

Sushi Zanmai Salmon Yi Sang with 3 sauces

A Closeup on the Yi Sang with Salmon, Vegetables & other Sea Products

We ordered another salmon sushi platter which consists of raw salmon, salmon belly & smoked salmon. I particularly loved the seared salmon belly which basically melted in your mouth. DA YUM!!!

Salmon Sushi Platter - love the one of the top left

After 2 cold plates, it was time for something hot so we opted for soba with tempura. We still preferred the soba in Sushi tei though. The soba dish in Sushi Zanmai was ordinary to say the least.

Soba with Tempura

Playing with InstaMag - total FAIL for 0F!

Crumbs, Gurney Paragon

After our Japanese meal, it was time for some desert and we went to Crumbs at LG floor. Actually it was due to we had an almost expired voucher *facepalm*. Our voucher enabled us to get a large frozen yoghurt with 2 toppings & a green tea mousse.

We chose oreo & “crumbs” as toppings and I must say the “crumbs” was truly delicious – it had a cinnamon taste in it and the crispiness blended so well with the slightly soury frozen yoghurt – thumbs up! The green tea mousse was okay but just not as good as the frozen yoghurt.

Frozen Yoghurt & Green Tea Mousse

After a food-worthy CNY eve’s eve, we’d decided to have a late CNY eve lunch in Strait Quay. The question was – what to eat??? We walked around the mall feeling hopeless & helpless on our meal. Then a light finally shined on us as “Uncle Albert’s” appeared.

Uncle Albert’s Fish & Chips, Strait Quay

Apparently Uncle Albert’s was just newly opened and was running a promotion of free soup, bread & iced lemon tea upon ordering a main course. We were served with carrot soup & Irish brown bread and both were kind of special.

Uncle Albert's

A Look Inside

Promotion!!!

Carrot Soup & Irish Brown Bread - something Special

Iced Lemon Tea

Finally our main course arrived – fish nugget & Chips and grilled fish of the day. We were also given a bottle of malt vinegar which I adored. The deep fried fish nugget actually had a much more sophisticated name but I just couldn’t remember if my live depended on it. Anyway, the fish was soft and fresh so it was really nice to eat it with the malt vinegar.

Fish Nugget & Chips

Malt Vinegar

The grilled fish was a bird hard & dry though but I guess it was due to the fish type itself. It tasted fine with the butter sauce served together. Anyway I still drowned it with malt vinegar anyway. Hahhaa…

Grilled Fish of the Day

Another InstaMag

It was quite a nice place for fish & chips though and rivaled Blue Reef which was located at the opposite direction. I did went to Blue Reef quite some time ago but just not that impressed with the beer-battered fish & chips after reading all the online review. But I guess it to each of their own. That was where we ended our little rebellion before going back to have our traditional steamboat. =)

Blue Reef Beer Battered Fish & Chips

Travel Log: A (Sort of) Cross-Continental (Business) Journey (Day 12-13)

Destination: Japan, Germany & Singapore

Duration: 13 Days 12 Nights (Feb 22~Mar 07, 2014)

Day 12: A Short Night in the Gardens

There was simply no sleep for me for the whole trip when the crew started to serve breakfast. I chose the fried vermicelli with wuxi pork set. The pork tasted nice but the vermicelli was simply too dry. After food, finally I felt asleep but was woken up when the plane touched down in Singapore 1.5 hour later at the wee hour of 6.50am. *facepalm*

Fried Rice Vermicelli with Wuxi Pork

We took a taxi to the Pan Pacific Hotel at Marina Bay. There were no empty rooms since it was still too early and since we needed to get to the office by 10am, we asked them whether there is anywhere we could refresh ourselves. We ended up at the Pool side changing room which has shower and other amenities. Ugh! The glamour life of business travel!

We managed to reach the office by 10am and of course there was works again. Colleague there bought us to the Marina Bay foodcourt for lunch and introduced us the Chinese soup set which tasted okay.

At Poolside Changing Room

It looked nicer than my house's bathroom!

Here is the Shower!

The Lobby

Can i take nap here?

A View from the Office

Our Lunch

A View from the Foodcourt at Marina Bay

Singapore Flyer

We left the office at around 5pm and finally checked in the hotel. Darn, the hotel room is big and bathroom is transparent! Hhaa...

Super Big Bed!!!

TV on the wall

Working Station

View from Room Balcony

Here is the Bathroom!

OMG it's transparent!!!!!!!

We did some exploring around Marina Bay by crossing the Bayfront Bridge to get to the island. There was this beautiful science museum at our right which is shaped like a lotus. We walked along the promenade before going into the Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands. This mall is so high-end!!! We ended up empty handed and ate our dinner in their foodcourt – an award-winning Chinese ramen store according to the newspaper cutting. We had the Si-chuan ramen & spicy ramen and I must say the ramen itself tasted very smooth and nice.

Japanese Restaurant Garden in Pan Pacific Hotel

Walking towards Bayfront Bridge

The Bridge & Marina Bay Sands

Sammy was there! The Science Museum was there too! lol

The Bayfront Bridge

Some real Lotus?

Palm Tree! Remind me of San Jose!

A Casino inside the Shoppe

Me & the Palm Tree.. :p

A Zoom to the Symbol of Singapore!

River in the mall!

Seafood Spicy Ramen

Si-Chuan Ramen

After dinner, we started walking towards Marina Bay Sands to get to Gardens by the Bay. After losing our way several times, we finally found the bridge to the Garden which was located inside the Marina Bay Sands itself. The sky was slowly turning dark when we reach the Garden and since SF was so tired, I continued alone to the Garden by crossing the Dragonfly Bridge.

Inside Marine Bay Sands

Nice Architecture

Walking towards the Gardens

Across the Dragonfly Bridge

A view from Dragonfly Bridge

I walked towards the Supertree Grove and the sky was turning really dark. Then something amazing happened! Music suddenly started and the lights on the trees were dancing! Oh my!!! What a great timing! Later I got to know that the lightshow (OCBC Garden Rhapsody) happened everyday at 7.45pm & 8.45pm. It was just pure serendipity that I stumbled there at the right timing as I had no idea about this at all.

Dancing Trees!!!

Changing Colors!

I should've taken video instead!!!

It's HUGE!!!

Like a Dream...

You could take a stroll along the OCBC Skyway that connects supertrees up on top – it looked so COOL to be up there but I just couldn’t find the ticket counter! UGH!!! Once the show was over, it was getting really dark there so I did not proceed to other attractions in the Gardens and just went back to Marina Bay Sands to meet SF.

There is the OCBC Skyway! Look at the Arc!

Nightview from Dragonfly Bridge

Yet another Nightview

At another Direction

Both of us slowly walked back to the hotel through the Bayfront Bridge and the Science Museum totally transformed!! My Gosh! Whoever designed this is ingenious! Not to mention the View at the Promenade was dazzling as well.

At the Promenade

Beautiful huh?

This calls for a Panoramic View!!!

Me at the Promenade

Walking along

The Science Museum at Night!

We bought an old style ice cream from an uncle near the bridge before continue walking towards another direction (coz we were kind of lost! Haha). There we saw this giant open door foodcourt which sold lots of mouth-watering foods but we were too full to eat anything.. *cry* It was just beside the Esplanade Mall and we wished we’d discovered it sooner. *pout*

Here is the old style ice cream stall

Red Bean Ice Cream

Nice Lights at the back of Open Air Foodcourt

The Open Air Foodcourt

A view from the Hotel Room at night

We finally got back to the hotel to catch up a much-needed sleep after a long long day.

Day 13: Last Day of the Journey

Breakfast buffet in Pan Pacific was AMAZING! There were so many varieties until you had no idea what to choose. I think I could spend hours there just to try everything! But I have no such luck since we need to get to office by 9am.

Lots of FOODS!!!!

I miss porridge with Salted Egg though

OMG!!! This is TO DIE FOR!!!

We had lunch at a nearby foodcourt in Suntech tower and this time we tried the Yong Tau Fu – Dry Yong Tau Fu to be exact. It was actually yummy especially with the chili sauce provided.  We finally left the office at around 4pm to get to the Changi Airport to catch our last flight of the trip. =)

Dry Yong Tau Fu

The best part was we managed to get the SGD40 transfer voucher courtesy of Singapore Airline to do a Chocolate Spree in the Airport before boarding our Silkair flight. We were served tuna sandwich in the short flight. We finally stepped on Penang soil after 13 days abroad – my longest business trip ever. =)

Muahahaaa!!! SGD40!!!

I only paid SGD3.50 for all this!!!

Sammy did not get a seat this time..

Tuna Sandwich onboard

Collection from the Trip!