My 22nd Birthday!

Hi there! Another hectic month for me with never ending presentations, projects and recorded lectures to watch :O But school work isn't gonna get in the way as I celebrate my 22nd birthday! My birthday was exactly one week ago and I had so much fun spending time with the people I love <3

First up! I got up early to meet Jiao for breakfast at Carpenter & Cook but before that I found out that Abbey wanted to make breakfast for me as I usually sleep in till late (teehee I love you so much even if I didn't get to eat the birthday brekkie you wanted to make for me). Also, I found out that my two adorbz friends Clara and Eunice wanted to surprise me at my house when I woke but I had last minute plans for breakfast. Oops sorry. heheh I love y'all many many *kisskiss.

So I was looking for a breakfast place that was convenient for Jiao and I, so I thought of Carpenter & Cook immediately. I love their lemon drizzle loaf and passionfruit meringue tart as I'm a sucker for fruity flavored tarts and cakes! Oh and it's also Jiao's birthday! haha we have always kinda celebrated it together for the past 9 years with Trisha and Marcus? I haven't seen Marcus in awhile though. Hopefully we'll have a get together soon!

After a good catch up with Jiao over some really yummy food, I quickly headed over to Marina Bay Financial Centre to meet Clara and Eunice for lunch at Level 33. I've read many good reviews about their drafted beer as well as the view of MBS from their restaurant, so I was pretty excited to dine there.

We decided to go for the lunch menu they offered at $33++ per pax which consists of an appetizer buffet, a main course and desserts. The appetizer buffet had a variety of salads, cheese, ham, pasta, smoked salmon and prawns. I really love their prawns! It was fresh and tasty! For the mains, I went for the fish & chips while Clara had the beef and Eunice had the burger.

After our mains and several rounds of appetizers, it's time for desserts! They had freshly cut fruits and a few types of cakes. All in all, I thought the food was pretty average and I would recommend people to come here as a place to chill at night, looking over the panoramic view of mbs and esplanade.

 

After lunch, we decided to walk to gardens by the bay as both of them haven't been there before.

After chatting for a couple of hours it was time to part ways and head to town to meet my sister and cousins. Round 3 of delicious food for today was at The White Rabbit at Dempsey. I've always wanted to try the food there and the setting of the place is so beautiful :)

me and Sher

Food that we ordered for the night: for starters, we had the Ranger Valley wagyu carpaccio with shaved parmesan, celery cress, balsamic pearls and truffle cream. I wasn't sure if I really liked it? But my sister and cousins loved it. haha so I guess its an acquired taste? I really wanted to try their oysters but none of them like to eat oysters :/ ohwell. Some other time perhaps. As I was really full from lunch, I decided to order their tagliatelle pasta in an appetizer portion and I liked it! The portion wasn't very small either. It was just nice. Abbey and Mel ordered the sea bass and they didn't like it at all :( while Sher chose the ribeye which I think was the best out of the 3 mains that we have ordered.

Wagyu carpaccio 

Tagliatelle, alaskan king crab with pork broth and kombu

Char-grilled brandt ribeye with rocket salad

Sea bass en papillote with lava beans and chorizo

Sauteed field mushrooms

After our mains, we ordered the white chocolate soufflé with valrhona opalys chocolate chip ice cream which tasted heavenly! :O I love the chocolate chip ice cream! The most delectable ice cream ever!! I wanna go back for more yumzz. The dessert came together with the words "Happy 22nd Birthday Sam" hehehe so cute and they even sang me a birthday song ^^

I love spending time with them <3 We laughed so much and so hard, I could have abs at the end of the night. hahaha. But that's not the end of my birthday. Round 4 coming right up at 2am dessert bar at Holland Village. Gosh, I'm gonna be fat after eating so much.

It was a mixture of friends who didn't really know each other but we had fun eating dessert and drinking wine :)

Plum dessert with choya

Mac n chesse for Zhengxi who was hungry after soccer practice

It was a really random supper outing but I enjoyed myself. It was a crazy and fruitful day. I felt so blessed to have so many awesome people around me, celebrating my birthday for me this year. Simple yet wonderful :) Can't wait to create more beautiful memories with them! Anyway, I gotta study now. Will post about my birthday part 2 with ZAG and my birthday trip to Bangkok with Clara, Eunice and Gabriel soon. Till then everyone, have an awesome week ahead!

With love,
Sam

Valentine's with the girls

Hello there! This week has been super exhausting for me, had assignments, presentations and tests. In addition, I've got to work in a few hours time. Phew, I'm TIRED :( So while I have a couple of hours free to myself now, I shall dedicate this time to write a post on how I spent my valentine's day this year! Not sure whether it's a good or unfortunate thing but this year I don't have a date? Haha. Instead I spent the entire day with my beautiful and lovely girls from ntu ^^

First up, I went to Evinne's house to drop off my slumber party clothes and a bottle of sparkling wine before heading to club street to meet the other girls for dinner. I'm sure y'all are wondering where I took the above photos at right? Well, it was at Evinne's house. Hahah her house is ginormous! Every part of the house looks picture perfect that I had so much fun taking photos there. When I grow up, I wanna have a pool in my house too :)

So at about 6:30pm, we left for club street to dine at club street social. I had heard quite a number of good reviews about that place and since reservations weren't taken, we thought we will have a higher chance of getting a table on V day.

Evinne!

For starters, we ordered the poached prawn, red peppers coulis crostini but we didn't realize that they had made a mistake in our order until the bill came (They actually gave us the duck rillette, peach compote and thyme crostini) lol. what bimbos we are sometimes. For mains, Evinne and I tried the much raved panini. I ordered the panini with duck confit and roasted mushrooms while she got the panini with proscuitto, mozzarella, tomato and truffle mayo. Maybe I had expected the food to be uber delicious that it didn't really amaze me? I found the panini to be a little too oily for me. Huiling ordered the risotto and she said it was pretty average as well. After our mains, it was time for desserts! I am a true blue sucker for desserts. No matter how full I am, I'll find space in my tummy for desserts. Hahah. So we decided to order the warm nutella bread pudding with vanilla ice cream. And to our dismay, it wasn't very good as well. The bread pudding felt dry and I couldn't taste the nutella too. All in all, we were a little disappointed with the food that night. I don't think I'll be going back there any time soon.

Huiling, Evinne and I

I haven't been to club street in forever and I was pretty surprised to see so many small cafes and restaurants. It reminds me of another holland village, guess I have another place on my checklist to explore now. After dinner, we headed back to Evinne's house for drinks and htht session. It's been awhile since all of us girls gathered due to our very busy schedules. I'm really glad I've met this bunch of girls through hall 9 :)

Anyway, Clari surprised us with gifts from the guys and Iimel. Hahah thanks guys! Y'all are really so so sweet. I still remember how the guys gave us flowers and personalized sewn bears last year and this year they baked cake pops for us! Such husbandly guys you all are! Hehe love y'all truck loads <3

I really had a wonderful time with the girls, we talked and laughed so much. It is one of the best V day ever :) Though we did cheers to not doing this next year again. hahahah. I love you girls many many! Till then. Enjoy the rest of your week!

With love,
Sam

Fabulous Feb

Hi everyone!! A little late but HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!! Guess it still counts since cny lasts for 15 days. Since I came back on 20th Jan, I have been so so busy that I can barely catch a break. Not that I don't love catching up or meeting everyone but I am truly exhausted. So what have I been up to lately? I have been busy with school and I even attempted to go for morning lectures when I returned to school for the first time (what an achievement, lol). I caught up with my hall clique, faculty friends, hall 6 buddies and a few of my cj friends. It's really great to be back and gosh, I miss can A and can 9's food! Satisfied my tom yum ban mian and chicken rice craving after not being able to eat them for 6 months; makes me wonder how I'd even survived without eating them in the first place. And of course not forgetting my two pretty and cute friends, Clara and Eunice! I've met them more than 3 times already I think? Plus Clara is taking tennis with me this semester. How awesome! ^^ Tbh, tennis is a difficult sport to pick up. It's deceiving how people serve or hit the ball so effortlessly. But I still find it enjoyable, though most of the time my balls are going everywhere.

Oh and I'm not sure if y'all realize, but I've actually started posting ootd's on my instagram! haha I'm pretty excited but scared at the same time. I'm kinda trying something new here and I do think it's fun to pose and insta my outfits. So I hope you guys will love it as much as I do! :) Those two outfits above are my CNY clothes for day 1 and day 2 respectively. I got both outfits when I was in the UK but they should be available here in Singapore as well.
Ootd day 1: Floral dress from Zara and the black 2-part heels are from Topshop
Ootd day 2: Coral chiffon top from MDS, flared skirt from Zara and the heels are from Topshop

Aside from my newly ootds, I am going to try and continue doing my travelogue, can't believe I'm only at Rome still :( I have so many cities, beautiful places and experiences that I would like to share with you. So I'll try to blog whenever I'm not schooling or working. Till then peeps.

Love,
Sam