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BarCelona Wine Bar

hendrikch — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 15:51:42 +0000

Today was another event from the company as we went to BarCelona Wine Bar at Robertson Walk, just inside Clemenceau Avenue. I didn’t have my dinner before going there, but had quite a lot of finger foods like pizzas and chicken wings. As for the drink, we were entitled to two free drinks, so I ordered Whisky Cola for my first and Vodka-7-Up for my second. I could taste the liquor for my first drink, but my second drink tasted more 7-Up than Vodka.
We left BarCelona around 10 pm, but the adventure didn’t end there. We walked out from Robertson Walk to Clemenceau Avenue to grab a cab. We waited in the crossroad for about 10 mins, then realized that there were very few cabs going through that way, so we walked further up to try our luck, while at the same time trying to call for taxis. Seconds after we left that crossroad, a couple walked there and immediately got a cab. What a “luck” for us. So, we walked and walked until we found a taxi stand. We waited there, while at the same time, trying to call and flag cabs, to no avail. After a while with no sign of improvements, we walked to Liang Court, still trying to get call into taxi’s phone system. I tried all kinds of cabs, from blue color, yellow, green, silver, red, white, you name it, but none of them have spare line to answer our call. Siannzzz… until my phone battery died on me.
Finally, after 40 minutes or so of a quest to get taxi, we “hijacked” a taxi near the taxi stand. Someone was getting down from taxi, and without asking whether he’ll pick us up, we just hopped into it, and ask him to drive four of us home, to four different places. He wouldn’t have picked us if we told him earlier that we are going four different places.

Buffet Lunch at LingZhi

hendrikch — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:41:40 +0000

We are not exactly bored with all those hotel buffet, chinese food restaurant, or a simple hawker centre food, but today we went for something different. A totally vegetarian food!!!
Recommended by one of our colleagues, we went to LingZhi Vegetarian Restaurant at Far East Square. You can choose between ala carte or buffet. We went for the buffet steamboat cum dim-sum. Surprisingly, it was quite crowded given the nature of the food there. We are all healthy-eater today as we couldn’t find any meat there. What they have are dim-sum of fake char-siew pau, fake siew-mai, fake everything, which tastes very close to its fat-loaded original ones. Of course, you will find a lot of vegetables, all kinds of mushrooms including abalone mushroom (it’s just its shape resembles abalone), beancurd, carrot cake, etcetera etcetera. you get the idea.
For desert, they have pineapple mango sago. Taste good, but rather sour. And for information sake, how much was it? Prepare around $25 for the lunch. They have 10% discount for American Express card holder, but it’s only valid for ala-carte, not the buffet lunch. Next, I will surely have meat for my dinner tonight, and I will be looking forward to next lunch/dinner at Hua Ting Cantonese Restaurant, hahaha…

Headache :(

hendrikch — Tue, 31 May 2005 09:20:23 +0000

After 18 months of working in Avanade, today marks the first day I took MC because I am sick. That of course doesn’t count the five days MC when I went for wisdom tooth surgery early January 2005. It all started yesterday, around 4.30-5 pm, I started to feel dizzy and a bit of headache. Planned to go back earlier, but an issue in FF project affecting production environment forced me to stay back. As a consultant, my job is to, well, consult. But before I can consult, I need to first know what was the problem. So I stayed back to troubleshoot, until I resolved the issue. After that, I continued a bit of IE project before I decided to leave.
Went to Lao Pa Sat for dinner, then slept in the cab all the way until I reached home. This morning, I woke up still feeling the headache, so I continued my rest hoping that I can go to office around 10.30 AM, but in the end, after it didn’t get better even after lunch, I succumbed to my first MC, and slept the whole day. Now, 5 pm, I felt much much better, and back to office tomorrow, I will. Thanks everyone who have wished me well today. Appreciate that.
Oh btw, just in case you are wondering, my FF and IE project doesn’t stand for Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Mandarin, SuperBowl, Go-Kart, Tennis, and Phone Call

hendrikch — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 15:28:43 +0000

Yesterday was a half-day for our team, and so we went to Orchard Mandarin Triple 3 for $45+++ lunch. It was sumptuous, better than Amara’s or Fullerton’s buffet lunch, though the selection there was not as many as those in Amara. see this photo, and this one. Another round of lunch, this time in form of sashimi, oysters, scallops, prawns, salads, lobster, chicken, black forest, chocolates, etc. Hahaha… do you feel hungry now? After lunch, we headed straight to SuperBowl at Jurong for two rounds of bowling. My first round was so bad, I only managed to score, don’t laugh, 49 . Second round was better at 89 after that first round warm up.

Next up was Go-Kart at KartWorld Jurong. It was my second time go-karting, but it was the first time I played such a speedy go-karting. The first time in Genting last year was a joke. This is a high-speed, potentially dangerous, 50 kph at its top-speed with numbers of turns go-kart. 50 kph doesn’t sound that fast until you sit on an open piece of metal with two engine down your back. It was fun, tiring, and adrenaline-stimulating. However, it was very costly, S$1,980 for about 15 of us for close to two hours. More details here.

Reaching home, I still managed to hit one hour tennis session with my flatmate, although last night, I couldn’t really play well due to my right hand a bit crammed, numbed, whatever, from that bowling session.

And my night was summed up close to midnight, when I called my friend just to say Happy Birthday. It ended a 4.5-hours phone call. Yeah, and I down to my bed 4 AM in the morning. And no, she’s only a friend, really.

BBQ, Alcohol, and Amara

hendrikch — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 15:35:52 +0000

After last month outing in Zouk Wine Bar, this month we had a BBQ last night somewhere around Clarke Quay. Satay, sausages, chicken wings, fried rice, fried bee-hoon, string-ray, prawns, corn, garlic bread, and such are on the food menu, and a lot of varieties of alcoholic drinks and fruit juices for the drink menu. Last night, I virtually had most alcohol in one night ever, in my whole life. I started with what we called Avanade plus, a mixture between Sparkling Wine and Sunkist, followed by Tequila Shot, Jack Daniels, Whisky Cola, Vodka with 7 Up, closed by Red Wine with 7 Up. Wow … that was close to my maximum already. Amazingly, I was still quite sober last night, albeit a bit high. hahaha… Sorry, I don’t have any photos since the one who took the photos is now overseas, will post as soon as I have it.

Today, for lunch, we went to Amara hotel for $50++ buffet , I had a lot that starts with "S": shark fin soup, sashimi, salmon, sushi, scallop, shrimps, salads, and those that doesn’t start with "S" like lobster, beef, chicken, mango mousse, etc. etc. A very filling lunch indeed. But today, they didn’t have a discount for Citibank credit card holder, which they usually have, just because this week is the so-called Secretary Week. yeah right …

However, this week may still not comparable to what I may have next week. As of now, there are three dinners and one lunch already arranged for next week. Hahaha… so happy … Bring it on …

My own "transparent" screen

hendrikch — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 08:57:12 +0000

Following up from my post last week, I tried the “transparent” screen trick on my own. Not so perfect yet, you’ll notice the wallpaper is off a bit, but not bad for a first try, isn’t it?

Zouk Wine Bar

hendrikch — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 08:56:50 +0000

Last Thursday, my colleagues and I went to Zouk Wine Bar for get-along day, to know each other better, accompanied of course by food and drink. Here are the pictures.

My table, but from my face expression, I look as if I was drunk while I was not.

The other table.

Finger foods and drinks.

That’s Lychee Martini I was holding.

Installing day

hendrikch — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:47:48 +0000

Wow, today must be the day when I tried the most number of combinations of Windows, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Office. In short, an application didn’t work as expected on client’s side, so I helped them to troubleshoot and supposed to advice them on any solution . The kind of behaviour are very odd and inconsistent. So, I spent today to install the various combinations of Windows, Internet Explorer, and Office. Today alone, I have tried installing and using Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4, Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows 2003 Standard Edition, and Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition, Internet Explorer 5, Internet Explorer 6, 6 with Service Pack 1, 6 with Service Pack 2, Office XP, Office XP SP 1, Office XP SP 2, Office XP SP 3, Office 2003, and Office 2003 SP 1. Pheww…
So after few hours of my time, hundreds of MB of bandwidth used for downloads, ELEVEN machines were used to establish all possible and logical permutations, I am down with some conclusions, but unfortunately, none of the scenarios reproduced the problem exhibited on client’s side. Ah well, will try my luck again on Monday. Fingers crossed.

Charity Bike and Blade 2005 Report – Day 1

hendrikch — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:46:18 +0000

Update: Completed Kevin’s blog on this event from his perspective. Read on.

Back to Singapore (again, for the SIXTH time this year!!!!). It feels good, especially after a fun-packed four days of Saturday to Tuesday in Malaysia. I am a bit tanned but I should get my skin color back in a few days time. Okie, let me go through the event from Day 1 onwards.

Day 1
We flagged off at 6 AM from St. Andrews Mission Hospital at Simei, the cyclist and bladers went straight to Changi Ferry Terminal (CFT) to catch the 7.15 AM ferry. They all arrived more or less on time, then we all load the bicycle, sandwiches, drinks of mineral waters and 100 plus, and all our stuffs for the four days. It took the ferry around 30 mins to go from CFT to Tg. Belungkor at Johor Bahru, Malaysia. From there, the cyclist and bladers proceed their 150-km journey to Mersing, with two rest stops in between. The bladers follows slightly different strategy, they took turns to blade a certain distance. The cyclists, however, went all the 150 km to Mersing. There were up hill, down hill, steep slope, not-so-steep slope, but I can see that the participants are all very very determined to finish the course. It took around 1.5 hours for the fastest group to go a 40-km distance, while the slowest group can take up to 3 hours for the same 40 km. They still looked rather energetic when they reach the 50 km mark at rest stop 1, but when they closing in to 100 km mark at rest stop 2, you can see them sweating all over. We all had bananas and sandwiches for our lunch that day which was brought from Singapore. Few people dropped out the race as they couldn’t go beyond the 100 km mark, but most of the participants went all the way. Credits to them.

We spent the night at a hotel at Mersing, I shared the room with other three colleagues.

As for the photos, please be patient, I have more than 2000 photos to sort out. It will take some time to put up the photos for your viewing pleasure

[To be continued ...]

Off to Malaysia

hendrikch — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 08:43:25 +0000

Note to self: Now 4 AM in the morning, and I am on my way to Malaysia for Charity Bike and Blade 2005. We are supposed to be at St. Andrews Mission Hospital at Simei at 5 AM because we are going to flag off the cyclist and the bladers at 6 AM. The event will be for four days from today to Tuesday. We shall be back Tuesday evening. Adios.