Of birthday celebrations- Part 1

so, i turned 21 on the 19th of September. in celebration of that, i had a few separate gatherings with my friends and family over the past 3 weeks. the last of my birthday celebrations was last sunday when i had a small lunch gathering with some of my church friends ^^ 

first up, birthday celebration with my family and my cousin, Pearl who also was also turning 21 a few days before me. we have literally grown up together. woohoo.

we had dinner at Tomo Izakaya at Clarke Quay

Bernice and the Hello Kitty/MLP balloons i bought for Pearl. How cute!

my grandfather. dont we look alike? somehow? haha

<3 i told him to wear white with me. haha.

me with the ice cream cake i proposed to have. not the nicest. haha. oh wells(:

my family. who resembles who?

with the whole gangggg

Dress: Abercrombie and Fitch (got it at about 1/4 of the price they sell in Singapore. SCOREEEEE!!)

Clutch: stolen from Bernice from BKK

Watch: Armani Exchange

Shoes: Bugis Street. these have lasted me a long long time.

next up, i met up with my JC friends, Sharron, Natasha and Jolyn. we headed to Timbre @ Arthouse. ive never been there! but i like the place quite a lot! very chill ^^

Top: Hollister. i love it to bits. but i cant eat too full wearing it if not i think i will bust the seams. hahahha

Cardigan: F21. really awesome thin knitted material

Jeans: Hollister

Watch: As above

Shoes: As above

Bag: Online

on my birthday itself, Aaron brought us to Regent Singapore for tea ^^ 

i'ld have to say it was really good! i especially enjoyed the scones. i never think i would like scones as they always give me the impression that they are nothing my dry biscuits. 

The Tea Room

 The Regent Hotel Singapore

best.gift.ever.

thank yew (:

Dress: Love, Bonito

Belt: F21

Necklace: Statement Muse

Bag: Kate Spade (steal!)

Watch: Fossil

Shoes (not pictured): Tory Burch

Singtel Singapore Grand Prix 2012

hey there! it's been a few week since i updated. i initially wanted to update on my other blog but somehow it failed to upload the post so here am i, rewriting EVERYTHING. gosh! haha. over the weekend, i attend the Singtel Singapore Grand Prix 2012 at the Marina Bay Circuit. this is my 4th year attending and yay. i thought  i wouldnt want to attend the races anymore since it's actually very warm at the circuit. haha. but we had tickets so why not? plus Aaron promised that he would not fall asleep DURING the race. how does one fall asleep DURING an F1 race?!??! he did that last year while the cars were zooming past.. lol. so anyway, picture time!

at the entrance Gate!

with Aaron and Warner. self shot because we couldnt find anyone to take a picture for us. lol.

one shot before the race started! we were rushing a little as we were busying buy the Vodafone shirts. haha.we're supporting Hamilton yo. so anyway, this is THE MOST EXPENSIVE SHIRT I HAVE EVER BOUGHT IN MY LIFE. $100! gosh. i never think i would spend so much on shirt! but to be fair it is quite a nice shirt ^^ and the dry-fit quality is guddd. so yay. 

we were seated at Turn 1 Grandstand this time round. just slightly ahead of the start/finish line. yay. pretty good seats ^^

hello there!

Aaron with beer my uncle bought us. Aaron doenst drink/cant drink anyway. haha.

cheering for the drivers/cars after the checkered flag

we walked all the way to the Padang to catch Katy Perry's concert after the race. it was so crowded! i think we took 30 mins to walk to the venue through all the crowds from where we were seated earlier on. gosh. we didnt stay long though cos it was rather late and the boys had school early the next day. still, it was fun to be part of the crowd, even if it was just for awhile.

The Parliament House against the CBD skyline. really quite pretty at night.

here are some tips if you are planning to go for the F1 in the next 5 years. haha. since they just renewed the contract to hold the race here for another 5 years. 

1. go early if you want to catch the other fringe activities other than just watch the race itself. like get the spray tattoos etc etc.
2. bring your own food/drinks AND WATER. it's crucial to BRING WATER. cos it's so warm there you would be really thirsty. and no, you wouldnt want to spend money on drinks at jacked up prices. i brought a couple of packet drinks that we enjoyed. and also we had dinner before going in so we didnt have to spend money on subpar sandwiches. hoho
3. dress lightly. cant emphasize this more. it's so humid and warm at the race tracks due to the crowd, the bazillion lights and the cars. shorts, slippers, sleeveless. well, unless you can afford the $8000 for the paddock club seats :p 
4. bring your own earplugs, save moolah. u wouldnt want to spend $2 for 2 small pieces of foam. heheh (which i stupidly did for the past few times)
5. take public transport if you dont mind. cos it's pretty convenient and the trains run pretty late during the 3 days.

so that's about it! till the next post! ^^

another SORTEDfood recipe!

totally awesome creation. i am tempted to try this! it looks so fun! i think this would be great for Halloween Parties right? yum yum yum.

p.s new post below! check it out!

Food I recommend in New York City

here's a list of food i urge you to try if you do get to visit New York someday (:

visiting New York was one of my dreams.and im thankful to be able to visit it so soon. albeit living in a cosmopolitan  city like Singapore, New York is nothing like what we have to offer here. there is just so much buzz in every street and avenues. the atmosphere is amazing. my friends and i took our time strolling along the streets to get from destination to destination. their grid paper-like layout is so fun! haha. you will never get lost! kinda. haha. here's some food we tried in New York. the list is exhaustive but nevertheless, food is a necessity and what more us Singaporeans are always game to try any food that has a long queue for it!

1. Cold Stone Creamery. 

we paid a visit to Cold Stone Creamery as we had a discount that was made available through our New York Pass, which by the way, was TOTALLY worth it. will blog about it soon. so, after a day of sightseeing, who can say no to ice cream and milkshakes? we have this in Singapore too but i never tried it. we had the cookies and cream milkshake which Joy totally adored. she loves milkshakes so much i bet she will have it every meal if she could. heh.

2. Carnegie Deli

this, i have to say, really made my New York trip whole. the best meal i had in NYC, hands down. this deli was recommended by my friend who had visited NYC a couple of weeks before i did. i took down some of his recommendations and after looking up some reviews, i brought Joy and Huiping to hunt this down one late morning. we forsaked the breakfast at the hotel for brunch at this place. and boy, were we glad we did. haha. while we were walking along the street to find the exact location of this place i saw a queue outside one of the shops. i looked closer and saw "Carneige Deli". i thought to myself. "if there is a queue, it means the food definitely good!" and good it was! well, not good. AWESOME. we were quickly ushered to our seats after a 10 minute wait which was bearable for me. we were totally filled with so much excitement when we saw HOW HUGE the sandwiches were. the seating however,  was rather crammed in my opinion. but anything for great food right? 

we were served these as an appetizer. if i am not wrong, they are provided free-of-charge. we saw quite a lot of people just munching on these pickles. they seemed really satisfying. personally, i dont fancy pickles. if you look closely at the picture below, you will see some that are lighter green. after speaking to the lady sitting at the table beside us, i found out that they were "half'done" pickles. which can only be found in NYC or Carneige Deli. either one of those places. and i though that was pretty interesting. heh. i tried it and it tasted pretty refreshing! close to the taste of cucumbers (:

on the menu, it stated they are famous for their Corned Beef, as well as their Pastrami sandwich. so we decided to try both! below is me with the corned beef ^^

i have pictures of the other food on my instgram but i am unable to upload them! 

we also ordered scrambled eggs with fries, a serving of onion rings and their classic cheesecake. their onion rings were the biggest i had ever seen! it had such fluffy batter. one of the best onion rings ive ever had. if only they had something like that in singapore!

i guess the star of our meal was their cheesecake. one can not say he has been to NYC without eating cheesecake right? it was an innocent looking cheesecake. but honestly, one bite and we were all in love. we were squealing with our mouths still savoring the thick creamyness of the cheesecake. it. was. amazing. from what i understand, these cheesecake, like many of the other cheesecakes you find in NYC are baked! honestly, best cheesecake EVER. honestly cannot be compared to the cheesecakes from The Cheesecake Factory. heh. sorry to The Cheesecake Factory Fans!!!

as u can tell from the amount of food we ordered, we obviously over ordered. but you cant blame us. we wanted to try EVERYTHING. haha. we ended up not even TOUCHING our beef pastrami sandwich and had a whole bunch of onion rings left. we were so full that we ended up having out leftovers at 12am that night. hahaha. still tasted good after heating our the meat. yum ^^ it was my first time trying beef pastrami too(:

i would say this place is a really must visit in NYC!!!

3. Grimaldi's Pizzeria.

the highly raved pizza pizza joint that serves authentic coal oven baked pizzas. on most days, in the afternoon and at night, the queues are said to be long and you have to be prepared to wait for at least 45 mins. the girls and i headed there rather late into the night and we had to wait for about 20 mins for our table. the food served is as is. no qualms about it. just plain, good ol' pizza. we went for the tomato base with pepperoni, mushrooms, ham and olives. i am a huge lover of olives. however, i think the olives were far too salty for me and the taste was overpowering. i wished that they were sliced instead too. Grimaldi's also serve pizzas with the white base. i saw a table ordering a white base pizza with no toppings. so i presume it's pretty good on it's own. Grimaldi's is located in Brooklyn, just under the Brooklyn bridge (: ps. i happened to be watching some episodes of Gossip Girl in New York just to soak in the atmosphere a little more and Grimaldi's was actually mentioned in one of the episodes! heh!

4. Shake Shack

and who can forget the Shake Shack?? the all famous burger/shake joint. when i first heard about Shake Shack though some vlogs on youtube, i KNEW i had to pay this place a visit. so we went on a hunt for Shake Shack. got lost a couple of times in between and finally found ourselves at the outlet in Madison Square Garden. when we were there around 7pm, there was a huge snaking queue formed at the burger stand. here's a list of what we ordered

1. The Shack Burger

2. Cheese Fries

3. Hot dog

4. Orange custard

5. Chocolate shake

*again, i apologise for the lack of photos because we were too busy eating save for some on instagram! will try to upload them somehow! 

the burger was amazing in my opinion. just the right kind of texture.it went well their thousand island dressing. which isnt the kind of dressing i normally go for. give me a messy wet burger any day! i am totally willing to get my hands dirty to get some amazing burgers. their fries were good too, though i think the regular one without the cheese would be as good. the hot dog however, didnt impress. maybe because we ordered the wrong one to try. haha. the orange custard was yummy but too sweet in our opinion. i would have preferred it to have a much greater orange taste (: the girls enjoyed the chocolate shake. joy loves anything chocolate. haha. 

all in all, it was a great meal at Shake Shack. sitting on a cold summer's night in the park watching the sun go down and the fair lights brightening the night sky against the backdrop of the New York traffic. it was a really nice feeling. something i know i can NEVER get in Singapore. oh! and there were cute squirrels too ^^ i think the patrons there feed them with their food (bad!) so they were rather brave to come up to you and stare at you, hoping you could offer them a fry or two. cute!

fun fact: Shack Shack even has food prepare for your dogs! kinda makes sense since their stand in right in the middle of the park and there were people walking their pooches there (:

5. Magnolia Bakery

how could i forget this one! haha. a highly raved bakery in NYC. it was one of the places on my to go list.but we had kinda forgotten about it. until we chanced upon it across the street while making our way towards The Rockefeller Center. by then it was close to their closing time. but it was still packed with people. we got a Red Velvet cupcake as well as a Chocolate one. i personally enjoyed the Chocolate one more ^^ i am no cupcake expert, but no harm giving the place a try ^^.

given a chance, i would totally go back to NYC and try EVEN MORE FOOD. i know this list isnt all that New York has to offer but i hope this post gave some of you a better idea of what to look out for if you have a chance to visit NYC next time! let me know what you guys think in the comments below!

SORTEDfood

today, i want to share this amazing youtube FOOD channel, SORTEDFOOD. their videos are just SO FUN to watch! trust me! watch one and you will understand why! their meals are just so simple, quick and easy to prepare. no atas ingredients, no complicated cooking techniques, no expensive kitchen tools. i feel that what's so great about their recipes is that they put a different twist to each and every one of their recipes. at the end of the day, i feel that recipes are not for you to follow to a T. you can feel free to add whatever extra ingredients you think you'ld fancy more and get rid of ingredients that you dont have in your kitchen. honestly i think i have watched almost ALL their videos. and i have so many of the recipes i want to try out! on top of their fun cooking recipes, they also have super funny hosts. hahahaha. they are all so cute and funny! 



check out their website here where they have a new recipe EVERYDAY.
and of course Subscribe to them on Youtube here...


enjoy! more soon!

First!

Hello everyone!

this is my new blog that i just started! i hope to post things that are food/travel related as well as hopefully some beauty related stuff in the future. in the next few posts, i would be doing a few travel/food related post here from my US trip from june-aug. some of you who read my other blog would be asking why i am starting a new blog. first it's because i was inspired by the other American/Britsh beauty Youtubers and wanted to create something that can allow people interested in food/travel as well as beauty related things to share interesting tips with me! Also, i have also had an increasing interest in cooking and trying out new recipes. cooking has some what been rather therapeutic for me! although i dislike the washing up after cooking.

after my trip to the US last month, i really learnt so much! in terms of travelling tips, eating tips etc. i am no expert. but i hope to share what little i have with people all over (: this might be a long shot, but this is what interest me right now and i would want to develop myself in this area ^^

thank for reading everyone and look out for more posts in the next few days! im still trying to work out the layout of this page!

love,
Amelia