Today's activities begun with a trip to the doctor for the maid to collect her medical examination reports.

After following mum around dropping off the maid to do her paperwork dunno what, mum picked up her friend for lunch at botanic gardens, the halia restaurant. I've walked by it many times but never ate there before for it looks so posh.

Mum's friend did the artwork that were hung up in villa halia that is opposite the halia restaurant. We first went in to villa halia to see the paintings and sketches before having lunch. The staff let him into the premises for they know him; he spent much time at the ginger garden studying the ginger plants there that feature in his artwork and hence visited the restaurant frequently. The artwork was beautiful.

The yellow saraca tree between the 2 buildings was flowering, with flowers growing in clumps along the trunk (base of the trunk only this time) and at the joints in the branches. Beautiful interesting Asia, one and only, I thought (plant can be found in indonesia).

We chose to sit in the alfresco area of the restaurant. It was cloudy and there were many fans, making it a comfortable place. It was also a chance to be "close to nature" and provided some opportunity for my mum's friend to take photos with the camera he brought along, a nikon d300 belonging to his son (his son wanted him to test out the camera, camera is "3 days old").

Mum and her friend had a "light set meal" which consisted of soup, sandwich and tea/coffee, $19 w/o taxes and other charges. It's just right size to fill the singaporean stomach, though on other occasions we can really pig out. I had the 3 course meal for $30, also under the same additional charges condition, which consisted of starter, main or pasta, dessert and tea or coffee. There's also a 2 course meal for $26 which was the same as the 3 course meal sans dessert.

Mum and her friend had the chef's soup of the day which was cream of asparagus with chunks of salmon in it, with croutons and served with baguette (the bread was cut like a baguette) and unsalted butter. I curi their bread and some of mum's soup and salmon. delicious. I like the fact that the bread served wasn't the hard breadroll type they usually serve with soup. I dislike that potential projectile. so hard.

Their sandwich was a beef sandwich with nice looking salad on the side. The sandwich was those restaurant type, to be eaten with fork and knife. The bread looked big and therefore not "light meal" but it wasn't dense. It was some bread that sounds like "chappati" but isn't (italian name). It was fresh i think, for it was soft and the skin was crispy. very delicious bread. mum gave me a big chunk of the bread to enjoy. they also chose coffee for mum's friend said it was good.

I have to admit I was a bit hypocritical to myself, I gave into temptation, it was delicious. Blue fin tuna belly with avocado, arugula (rocket salad), balsamic vinegar, tomato etc. I feel bad cos blue fin tuna is an endangered species for it's overfished. I wanna protect the environment. I initially didn't want to eat it but i saw the words "tuna belly" and on it's own, not part of the set, it would be $20 (and hence i make the most out of my set meal $). Mum allowed me to eat it and reasoned that the fish in the restaurant was already dead (same reasoning i give to eating sharks fin). It was so good but i won't eat it again cos i'm gonna save the tuna. canned tuna is different for it's a more abundant species.

I had prawn and mushroom linguini. The prawn felt very natural, in that it felt like there wasn't any caustic soda used to make the prawns crunchy like they do in some places. and the prawns were big. The dish tastes nice but after a while, it gets a bit too salty. I think it's the white truffle oil, cos i remember the risotto i had in sydney was too salty and it had truffles. I never knew that famed expensive mushroom wouldn't go well with me. dunno. i love mushrooms still, done in a simple way of course, for that gets that simple naturally savoury mushroom taste.

I had tea for i am not a coffee drinker and I drank the milk served in the milk jug too. Oh, the water is served in cute round glass tumblers, not those wine glasses or those usual conical shaped tumblers. The water and tea helped to wash down the coffee in my dessert: cappachino *something* dunk. It's a layered dessert, chocolate sauce at the bottom, vanilla (i think it's just like whipped cream) cream, and coffee shavings (which is i think coffee blended with ice) on top, served with two crispy brownies (it sounds ironical isn't it for brownies are usually mushy. these are slices of brownies toasted or dunno what until it's like a crispy biscuit) for dunking into the 3 layered things in a glass container. Why teenagers will love it: 1) fun messy dunking 2) chocolate 3) coffee. I'm sure MT will love it. Mum's friend and mum tried some of it too and they liked it. I didn't finish the dessert because it was getting too bitter for me for i'm not a coffee consumer.

We had a fun time chatting and lost track of time. When we finally left and when we were in the car did mum and I realise i was late for skating lesson.

I had no time to change so skated in my jeans, which wasn't much of a problem cos the jeans was a soft thin material one. I used my own skates and guards and borrowed the helmet. The instructor wasn't happy with the condition of the wheels of my skate; they were old and hence "the molecular structure has broken down". Being a chemistry student, I think it's unlikely that the intermolecular forces of attraction or whatever that gives the rubber/plastic the structure has broken for there have been no chemicals added to it and neither has it been exposed to major sunlight or heat or whatever, but instructor says that due to humidity and other physical conditions, the wheels will be like that lah. He dug out a small piece of the wheel with his fingernail to demonstrate his point. Point taken. He suggests getting only the wheels replaced for the boots are fine and he says that the bearings are good (meaning the wheels can spin well for he spun the wheels when he was saying that). He was suprised that I could still "get quite a bit out of them" for I could still do a wee bit of gliding, but yes, skating in it felt like skating in a bit of squishy putty for I couldn't glide very much and had to spend a lot of energy pushing off again and again as compared to the previous week when i borrowed skates from the instructor. tiring.

Another of Mum's friend, the one whose son is learning skating with me, skated for the first time :D.

Mum's friend's son and I learnt crossover and were left to ourselves to skate around the track over and over again. People have a misconception that it involves the foot crossing OVER and above the other foot, no, the foot goes around the front of the other, so it's still can be described as crossover. skated round and round and round, i think 8-10 rounds around the 400m track, so I skated 3.2~4km today. wow. a lot of exercise, especially after a heavy lunch. May have to end classes for I'm starting work on monday.

I gotta sleep. continue another day

unpacking

km's results. stupidity at its finest.

uni postings

my job acceptance

SAJC beat ACJC 19-11 in Rugby!!! WOOHOO! Finals on Monday at 4.30pm at The PADANG! OMGOSH, there! the padang! SAJC!