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Hubby sent me an email a few weeks ago containing only one word…: Shopping? Hehe…that only meant one thing…he has a course or seminar in Singapore and he’s bringing me along…=)) True enough…he had a course on 10th and 11th November, and he’d planned to extend our stay till the 13th…yay yay! As his course was slated to begin on a Thursday morning, we had to take the Wednesday evening flight and leave straight after work. And so…after a flurry of hasty packing on Tuesday night, we were good to go! =))

Singapore Day 0

We left the office at 5pm only to be caught in a traffic jam on the way to KLIA. Luckily, we made it with time to spare (had a quick bite at MacDs too!)…=) 30 minutes later (plus a 15 minute wait while the pilot searched for a place to park the plane…), we arrived at Changi airport at about 8.30pm. After collecting our luggage, we joined the long queue to get a cab to the hotel. Just like last time, we were staying at Pan Pacific. Check-in was a breeze, and we were soon making our way into our room on the 31st floor.

Dinner was at the hotel’s Italian restaurant, Zambuca, as it was raining and hubby didn’t feel like venturing out too far (and it was nearing 9.30pm already!). The restaurant still had quite a few tables filled considering the time. We were handed the menus and given some time to decide. My first glance fell on the Tomato and Basil Bruschetta (one of my favourite starters), followed by the Baby Crayfish with Tossed Spinach antipasti. My stomach rumbled in agreement…=) Hubby ordered the Cozze alla Zambuca which were whole shelled New Zealand mussles with white wine sauce and garlic and Merluzzo “Croccante” Aigamberetti (black cod and prawns on top a green pea mash, with a homemade prawn sauce and accompanied by a summer herb salad), and we both agreed on the Mud Cake (rich chocolate fudge cake served with orange and cardamom ice cream and raspberries) for dessert. Unfortunately, the bruschetta topping was already mixed with pepper (which I don’t take), so I had to cancel the order. The crayfish was not available, so I agreed for it to be replaced by slipper lobster instead. Hubby’s mussels arrived first, steaming hot and smelling great. I tried two…very yummy, though abit spicy due to the red chillies that were added into the white wine sauce. My salad arrived next, followed closely by hubby’s black cod. I didn’t try hubby’s dish, but it looked pretty good. I really really loved my salad…the lobster meat was cooked to perfection and the spinach leaves were marinated in olive oil and really crunchy. There were caramelized onions as well…it added an extra zing to the salad. Of course, the best part of the meal was the dessert. The chocolate cake was super-rich, and the sourness of the raspberries set-off the sweetness of the cake perfectly. After dinner, we went back to our room, unpacked…or rather I unpacked…and settled down for a good night’s sleep.

Singapore Day 1

Next morning, hubby left for his course at 9am. After showering and changing, I made my way to Wisma Atria @ Orchard Road for a full day of shopping. I spent some time exploring the shops in Wisma Atria before makinga stop at Fond Hugs, the shop I went to the last time I was in Singapore, to see if there were any new tops or dresses. Unfortunately, none of their Autumn collection caught my eye…pity. Was hoping to pick up a few more tops. I finally ended up in the Takashimaya Food Hall, drooling over the variety of food in there. Lunch consisted of a sausage roll and pandan sponge cake and a freshly squeezed mango-orange juice by the water fountain near the food hall. Yes…if there’s one thing I detest, it’s eating by myself in a restaurant. With my tummy just nicely filled, I made my way to the stationary section of Taka…where I stumbled across a counter that made personalized handphone accesories! I must’ve spent a good hour there, searching for the different letter shapes, accessories, etc. I finally left with four for myself (three handphone straps and one lanyard), three for friends and one for my sis-in-law. Just couldn’t resist!

After browsing around the other floors in Taka for awhile (with a quick trip into Gucci and LV!), I made my way to Heeren. I never knew there were so many ‘hidden’ shops in there…I had so much fun browsing around…and I left with a pair of black Havaianas with pink straps from The Urban Male. From Heeren, I went over to Paragon but didn’t find anything interesting there so I ended up going back to Taka’s food hall to buy some food for hubby to eat after his course (fried chicken wings, and four brownies from The Brownie Factory (the original brownie (bestseller #2), Nuts About Nuts, an orange-flavoured brownie and the bestseller…Fudgy wudgy something something brownie…haha…can’t remember the name!). Luckily hubby’s course ended on time…in fact, he was back in the room a mere 15 minutes after I arrived! He quickly polished off the chicken wings I bought and one brownie, and we were off to Funan IT Mall to check out the price of the iPod nano. Most of the shops were selling the iPod at the recommended retail price (which is alot alot alot cheaper than the ones in M’sia, people!!!)…and I was really quite tempted. However, after speaking to some of the salesperson there, I was quickly discouraged as the feedback was that the iPod nano was pretty fragile and yes, the screen scratches easily. Hmmppph. Furthermore, the 4gb cost $438 while the iPod video costs $548 for a whopping 30gb. And the 4gb version was out of stock too! So how? Sigh. Anyways, I ended up following hubby around to search for new PSP games, and instead of games, he ended up purchasing this really cute wireless detector and a multi-card reader. As for me, I found a black Cool-Pad for my iBook (mvo has one, and it looks really useful) so I was pretty contented. Hubby kept on bugging me about buying the iPod video….*places hands over ears….no no no no no no no no….*….mean mean guy!

From Funan, we managed to get a cab to take us back to Suntec City where we made our way to…where else? Tony Romas! For the first time, I decided to order the ribs as well cause it tasted so good the last time I pinched abit from hubby’s meal…=) Between the both of us, we ordered a full rack of their famous baby back ribs and a half rack of the Carolina Honey ribs. Hubby had a bowl of pumpkin soup, while I added an extra order of Fried Mozzarella. Yummy! We were also given French loaf and garlic butter to fill our tummies before our starter and main course arrived. The fried mozarella tasted really good, although it got abit salty after three sticks…=) The ribs arrived together…my goodness, they smelt so good. The winner, hands down, was definitely the baby back ribs. The meat was so tender that it literally just fell of the bone…and the BBQ flavour was not too overpowering. Really really good…=) After dinner, we took a leisurely stroll back to the hotel, and after watching A Cinderella Story that happened to be showing on TV, we took a shower, and it was off to bed!

Singapore Day 2

Poor hubby…had to get up early again for the last day of his course. I lazed around in bed till noon (yes, NOON!), and took my time showering and getting ready. I left the hotel at about 2pm, and spent about 2 hours walking about Suntec City, Marina Square and City Link Mall. Hmm…nothing very interesting…=( On the way back, I stopped by at Jolli Bean to buy a packet of red bean/peanut roll…I really love ‘em! Shortly after I got back to our room…hubby walked through the main door! Yes…his course finished early, lucky guy!! As expected, the rest of my red bean/peanut roll disappeared down his tummy…hehe…=) After I’d freshened up, we caught a cab to Taka where we met up with J who was joining us for dinner with her boyfriend, K. J had emailed me earlier telling me that she bought *cough*YET ANOTHER*cough* LV bag…haha…so I finally got to see it…very nice! Couldn’t resist…so went into LV to take a closer look at the bag, and another one that had a different design. After leaving the boutique (empty handed, I might add…) hubby spent some time browsing in Timberland and Best Denki before we made our way to Lucky Plaza to catch a cab. The queue was pretty long, so J called a cab, and we were soon on our way to Corduroy and Finch @ Bukit Timah Road.

It was a lucky thing we had reservations…the walk-in customer before us was turned away as the whole restaurant was fully booked! The restaurant looked like a deli, with tables at the back of the building and on the first floor. The washroom had the cutest tap ever…see pic…:

And as usual, while waiting for the food to arrive, we snapped away with our cameras (though I’ll leave out the crazy photos incase J kills me….):

Oh oh…what did we order? Well, J went for the Hungarian Goulash, K had the Beef Tenderloin (rare), hubby had the Hungarian Goulash soup and Beef Tenderloin (medium-well), and I went for the Fish and Seafood Boullabaise and Bavarian Pot.

For starters, we were served foccacia-like bread (or maybe it was really foccacia) that had sauteed onions on top. Abit too salty for my taste. Oh…and drinks. J had homemade lemonade (which I’m sure she really really regretted ordering cause it was extremely sour and she had to ask the waiter to add sugar, then water…and still it was sour!), K had root beer float (which he quickly finished), I had Mango Smoothie, while hubby had an alcoholic vanilla milkshake (very very nice!).

And for the ahem food review…judging from K and hubby’s comments, the beef tenderloin was really good. I tried abit of the mushroom that came with it…yummy! My Bavarian Pot consisted of three sausages - one frankfurter, one pepper sausage, and one cheese sausage, sauerkraut and mashed potato with mustard….the sausages were delicious…yes…even the pepper sausage. The best was the cheese sausage! The boullabaise was abit different…I expected it to be tomato based, but it wasn’t. It was pretty light, but nothing really special about it. I really liked hubby’s Hungarian Goulash soup though…I wish I had ordered that. Reminds me of the one we had ages and ages ago when we visited Europe. Anyways, we were all stuffed by the time we finished our mains…but dessert awaits!

The special for the day was a Cappuccino Mousse with Orange Creme..or was it custard?!? Anyways, K and I ended up ordering that…

…while J had the Apple and Rhubard Crumble with Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream…

…and hubby went for the Tiramisu Sampler (Green Tea, Coffee and something else…). The wait for the dessert was more than worth it….all three desserts looked and tasted great. While I would’ve preferred the mousse to be chocolate, the cappuccino gave a new twist to the dessert, while the mango sauce and pineapple chunks provided an extra kick…=)

We left Corduroy and Finch stuffed and happy…hubby and I caught a cab back to the hotel to get an early rest…cause tomorrow’s gonna be a long long shopping day…=)

Singapore Day 3

Saturday dawned….and it was drizzling outside…=( Luckily, the rain stopped by the time we left the hotel, although the floor was still quite damp (and I got my shoes all icky and wet). We took a cab to Wheelock Place, which was near Marmalade Pantry @ Palace Renaissance where we had lunch reservations. We’d planned to check out the iPod video/nano at the Apple Centre there, but got sidetracked into Birkenstocks cause hubby was searching for a new pair of slippers (blur blur hubby left his Timberlands at Ipoh Swimming Club and it walked away and we never found it again…). We spent about 20 minutes in there with hubby trying out a few different styles, but didn’t buy anything in the end cause they didn’t have the proper size that hubby wanted for the ones that he’d chosen. After a quick stop at the Apple Centre, we took a brisk walk down Orchard Road to palace Rennaissance…boy…I was really looking forward to lunch!

Marmalade Pantry is situated in the basement of the building. The staircase connecting the ground floor to the basement led us right into the heart of the restaurant. It was quite full…luckily we made reservations earlier! We were shown to our table and given the menu to peruse. The review I got off the ‘net recommended the Crab Caesar and Wasabi Mayonnaise Steak Sandwich, which was what hubby ordered. I had the Chicken and Bacon club sandwich. The Crab Caesar was huge…and extremely good. The Caesar dressing wasn’t overpowering, and the whole salad was very very light. Absolutely lovely.

However, after tasting the Crab Caesar, my sandwich was quite a let-down. Hubby also preferred the beef tenderloin from last night’s dinner at Cordoruy and Finch compared to the steak sandwich here. Oh well.

We were too full for dessert, so I decided to ta-pau their famous cupcakes (recommended by mvo!). While waiting for them to pack the cupcakes, the table next to ours had theirs delivered to their table…and boy, did it look good! I left with three for hubby and myself…the Elvis (chocolate banana with peanut butter topping), Nutella (chocolate with Nutella topping), and Deluxe (just chocolate), with another two Limonatas for mvo to devour when we return on Sunday…=)

After lunch, we made our way back, yes…back, to the Apple Centre where I finally decided to buy the iPod Video (30gb). I was still vacillating between the nano and the video…but the other day’s talk with some store owners at Funan about the nano being too fragile and breakable, and the screen easily scratchable (my goodness…are those even words?) remained at the back of my mind and it really put me off the nano for good. And the price differed by only SGD110…4gb vs. 30gb, people! Unfortunately (or on hindsight…fortunately), the Apple Centre only had black coloured ones left for the 30gb, and there was no way I was going to get the black one after seeing it in real life….it looked like a cheapo imitation of the pristine white one. So we hotfooted out of Wheelock and headed to Lucky Plaza instead. Lucky lucky indeed. Hubby stumbled upon a shop that was selling the iPod for SGD510!! And he managed to get his 2gb memory card there as well for a cheaper price. We wandered about in that building for some time as hubby was searching for more games for his PSP. In the end, he gave up cause the one of the games that he wanted was apparently banned by the S’pore government, while the other was out of stock…or not in stock yet…depending on which shop you ask…=)

From Lucky Plaza, we took the underpass over to Wisma Atria and Taka….and hubby shepherded me over to LV as soon as we reached Taka! As usual, the boutique was packed, but I managed to get a catalogue of the latest designs….well, I actually knew which one I liked already, but it didn’t hurt to look around…hehe…=) I did see another 3 designs that were really nice, but after comparing all four bags, I settled for the one that I originally had in mind. Anyways, hubby approved…heheh…=) While my purchase was being wrapped up, I continued flipping through the catalogue and my eye fell upon their range of purses. I asked to see the one that caught my eye, and boy…was it lovely. It was in their checkered Damier design, and the leather inside was bright, eye-catching red! And more than enough compartments for credit cards, and a coin pouch at the back. And best of all, it was nice and slim. Too bad hubby was already in the process of paying, else I would’ve been really really tempted to buy it…hehe….=) And yes….the feeling of walking out of the store with a chocolate brown LV shopping bag hanging from your arm is priceless….ok ok, I know I’m being really shallow…*grin*.

While exploring the rest of Taka, we somehow ended up in Esprit where I promptly ditched hubby and started pulling clothes off the racks to try. Poor hubby was left to go off a-wandering, while I spent almost half-an-hour (and enough $$$ to get a free SGD50 voucher!) trying and buying clothes. I managed to find a couple of tube tops, two spaghetti strapped tops and this lovely skirt in dusky pink with a pink netting at the bottom. It’s so dainty that I can’t imagine why it’s placed under their office wear!

After Esprit, I went down to Taka’s food hall to purchase brownies for mvo (woman…you’re starting to sound like a glutton…heheh….) and two more for myself…tee hee…=) As it was a Saturday, the food hall was rather packed and I made my purchases just in time to rush off to Coffee Club on the 3rd floor to meet hubby, his boss and his boss’s wife for tea.

Coffee Club was packed! Luckily, they already managed to get a table! We spent about an hour or so there chit-chatting over tea, deep fried stuffed cruellers, soft-shell crab with wasabi mayo and a heavenly Muddy Mud Pie, before going our separate ways. After seeing the long queue at the taxi stand, we decided to take the MRT over to City Hall and walk the rest of the way to Funan IT Centre (again) where hubby was still in his quest for his PSP games and some techie stuff. He finally managed to find five games…though god knows when he’ll be free enough to play ‘em all! Laden with shopping bags, we stopped back at our hotel room to unload, and rushed off to Hotel 1929 to meet J for dinner at Ember. Unfortunately, I didn’t make a reservation and it was fully booked! Luckily, J has an alternative…she brought us to One Fullerton, and we ended having a really good seafood dinner instead…=) If I ever said that Singapore doesn’t have good food, I’ll eat all my words back. This restaurant had really good steamed man tao with pork in black sauce, the yummiest chicken wings, fried rice, and from hubby and J’s comments…really really good chilli crab (that went perfectly well with fried man tao). By the end of the dinner, I was literally too full to walk…but both of them dragged me and my lazy butt over to the Esplanade for milkshakes at Haagen Daz. I swear both of them have bottomless pits for tummies. I could only drink water, and even that made me feel like I was about to burst!

We left the Esplanade about 11pm and caught a cab back to the hotel. I tried taking some photos of my new clothes, but gave up in the end…damn *!*@#@&(* compact camera. Grr. I ended up packing all our stuff and new purchases so that we won’t have to rush the next morning….and of course, transferred all my stuff from my Gucci sling bag over to my new new new LV bag! =)

Singapore Day 4

We woke up late in the morning, took our time showering and changing, caught a cab and headed to Changi to catch our flight back to KL. We had a quick lunch at Subway Cafe in the airport and I made a quick stop at Gucci before we entered the boarding area. A quick 45 minutes later, we were back in KLIA…(this is the thing I love about going to Singapore…it’s so fast!)…and back to face the dreary Monday blues the next day…SUX. Hmmm….but not so dreary for me…cause I have my iPod Video & LV bag.

LVLVLVLVLVLVLV….iPodiPodiPodiPodiPodiPodiPod….ahhhhh…..