A Day of R & R

Just read:


Lust for Life by Adele Parks

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We'd been planning to go to The Great Steak of Texas for the longest time, but changed our minds at the very last minute. Most of the events that we'd been to in TX have been disappointing, and we thought we shouldn't waste any more time and money on them. ( I miss Manhattan!!)

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We skipped yoga class for the very first time today. Both of us badly needed the extra hours of sleep. Yifan's talking about going to a proper "relaxation" yoga class instead of the power yoga we currently attend. Bella's yoga is unbelievably tough that we get stressed when Friday nights come, which totally defeats the purpose of practising yoga. I am not exaggerating when I say the yoga sessions we have here are TOUGH. It is nothing like what we expect. It is not so much meditation and stretching, as it is working out your biceps and thigh muscles. Nothing relaxing about it at all. At the end of class, we always feel like we'd just did the 2.4k run with an hour of pushups and duck-walks thrown in! So imagine the relief I felt this morning when we played truant!! :-)

Taste of Mazda 2006

Zoom zoom live!
Last Saturday, we went Zoom- Zoom Live -- a two-day event organised by Mazda to showcase their cars.

On the way there, we saw this mural painted right next to the expressway:





the brown building behind is the Lone Star racecourse.Horseracing season starts next week.






last-minute checks before zoomin' off in the RX8


eagerly waiting in line for the MX5


miata's interior.... it's a manual!


Mama MIA-ta!







It felt like Mazda was operating on an ultra-low budget. The tents were sorely lacking in aesthetics-- there were no carpets and rubber mats were used in place of them, there were 2 portable toilets that looked really revolting, and there was no free food! It looked more like Mazda's objective was to give people a free test-drive for the day. The crowd was mostly youngsters in pickups, just out for a good time. In all honesty, the event was a total failure where sales/potential sales was concerned. Not a single poster extolling the virtues of the cars were onsite. Neither were there any prices for people to look at while waiting for the test-drives.

We were not impressed.
Nevertheless, it was something to do on a warm Saturday afternoon.

Home to the Rich and Famous

Seattle, the Emerald City, is our next destination.

I haven't done much research yet, but there are some places and things that I know we simply cannot miss. For one, we HAVE TO visit the original Starbucks at Pike Place Market. And I'm hoping to get a glimpse of Bill Gates' mansion too!

The weather will probably be a slight problem since it rains half the time in Seattle. No matter. If we need to walk in the rain, we will walk in the rain.

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Today's the first day of the Plano Balloon Festival. We totally enjoyed ourselves last year, but our schedules are kinda tight so we may not be able to make it this time around.
Here are some of this year's participants:







If the balloons look familiar, that's because these are the very same participants from last year's Festival ( and you'd have seen the pics from my old post). Guess we won't be missing out much if they are re-using their old balloons.

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Maiden attempt:


fish head curry with a hint of assam

No peeping

Just read:


Tales From The Secret Annex by Anne Frank

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Our apartment overlooks the apartment in another block across the driveway. The buildings are not situated in a straight and direct angle, only our living room faces the bedroom of the unit across.

I have never paid much attention to whoever lives there, since for the most part of the time that we've been here, that unit had been vacant... until recently. Thanks to Yifan's bionic eyes, we found out that those new neighbors are a bunch of curious people. Well, maybe there's a peeping tom? Yesterday afternoon, Yifan caught the silhouette of a guy stooping at his window and looking into our living room. We are pretty sure that he did not just happen to glance out of his window, because according to Yifan, the guy was stooped so low such that only the top part of his head was poking out from the bottom corner of the window!

Kao Tom

Just read:


Maybe Baby by Lani Diane Rich

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I first tried Kao Tom at Nakhon Thai restaurant, and instantly fell in love with it. Kao Tom is a thai soup, especially good for babies and those recovering from illnesses, or people who need a boost in appetite.

This is my version of the soup:




Doesn't look like much from the picture, but I assure you that the taste is just superb. ( okay, mine is not yet superb compared to Nakhon's, but still, it is really good!)

Sweet and Sour Chicken Wings

I made a Nyonya dish this afternoon-- Sweet and Sour Chicken Wings.



Like most other nyonya dishes, this dish is a little tedious to prepare, but the end result was well worth it. We both loved the tangy taste.

So Close Yet So Far

While in downtown Dallas yesterday, we popped into Magnolia Hotel. Didn't see anything/anyone "interesting" though. That reminds me, I should send in my photo. :-)

She's All Grown Up

Just read:


Grace Will Lead Me Home by Katherine Valentine

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Elysia's just so cute. This morning, I received an invitation from her to join Zorpia. I thought her email address looked very familiar, and then I remembered this same id had tried to add me on msn messenger a few weeks back. At that time, I didn't recognise her email address so I'd ignored the request. Oops!

She's growing up real fast. She's 10 now. I remember how surprised I was when I first got an email from her asking how I was doing in the US. ( apparently, she had asked my father for my email address!) She was only 7 then, and already I knew she was growing up to be a very smart girl. She seemed a lot more mature than kids her age.

Yet, she still has that innocence about her that kids her age should have. I laughed to myself when I saw how she had labelled me in her address book-- just one word " auntie". Heheh.

Lexus Meet

Some weeks back, we met up with fellow Lexus car enthusiasts.







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We just found out that they are filming season 2 of Prison Break right here in Dallas! Just last week, the cast was over in Frisco for some filming cum meet-the-fans session. Dang!!

I am now considering sending in my photo for consideration as an extra for the show. They pay quite well, and the best part is I'll get to be up close and personal with Dominic Purcell and Wentworth Miller.

Maybe we should stake out Magnolia Hotel in Dallas where the cast is said to be residing in for the next 6 months (they film 10 months here!)

Hola Amigos

We had our first spanish class yesterday. It was a lot of fun. The pace was pretty fast, and towards the end of the lesson, we were already asking one another questions in Spanish. :-)

The language is somewhat similar to the English language, except that when it comes to pronunciations, this is where we Singaporeans, have a slight advantage over the caucasians. The way we enunciate words that start with "c" and "t" for example, are often different from how caucasians say those same words. They tend to have that sharp note attached to those letters, whereas we kinda swallow the sharpness of it, resulting in " t" coming out as a blend between "t" and "d". So when the teacher made us repeat spanish sentences after her, the american woman sitting behind us repeated the sentences so loudly and in such an americanized way ( stressing the "t"s too much) that she sounded like she was speaking very Americanized spanglish.


here's me trying to act like i'm hard at work



yifan not paying attention at class and taking pics instead

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We finally saw Cars. The movie is beyond cute. I especially loved the Kombi.

Day 5: Back Home

It felt like we'd just slept for 5 minutes before we had to leave Signal Mountain Lodge and make our way to Jackson Hole Airport.

During the 40 minute drive to the airport, we saw so many animals -- deer, moose and elk. It was a pity that it was too dark for us to take some final pictures ( it was 4am!).



boarding the plane back to Denver

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Just read:



With This Ring, I'm Confused by Kristin Billerbeck

Day 4: Yellowstone Park and Grand Teton

We left Madison Campground early in the morning as we had a long day ahead of us.

Just minutes from the campground, we saw this:


A bison crossing the road. It was really unexpected, and we nearly ran into it.

On the way to Old Faithful, we visited Firehole Canyon.




yifan admiring rhyolite mountains.
These used to be molten volcano lava millions of years ago



As we neared Old Faithful, we started seeing more geysers.


The geysers are really close to the roads, so that if you have the car windows down, u can get pretty clear shots of them.. and at the same time, get a good dose of the sulphur smell. :-)




The Mother of all geysers:


Old Faithful geyser erupting in the distance




Yet another shot of the Old Faithful erupting.. this time from an elevated lookout.


Old Faithful geyser erupts approximately every 1 1/2 hours so we were really lucky that we only had to wait 10 minutes to see the first one. ( all other predictable geyser eruptions could only be predicted in a +/- 2 hour time period, and only the Old Faithful geyser eruptions could be predicted more accurately.)

This shot was taken at the next eruption. We only had 10 minutes before the geyser would erupt, so Yifan had to run the 0.5miles up to the observation point that is elevated 200 feet. I opted to see it from below. Heheh.

There are a total of 150 geysers in the Old Faithful geyser basin. Visitors could walk a distance of 2.2km on a boardwalk that will take them to some of the most beautiful pools and geysers in the area. Most people especially the old and the very young were there only for the Old Faithful geyser, because walking 2.2km each way under the hot midday sun is no joke.

Along the way, there were some other little geyser eruptions too.



This geyser, called the Morning Glory, was the furthest one. But the walk was well worth it.







the Old Faithful Inn.. with a history of over 100 years


buffet lunch in Old Faithful Inn restaurant


inside Old Faithful Inn


rooftop terrace






We joined a group of elderly people for a guided tour of Old Faithful Inn.






a water-color painting of a geyser

I thought this was sooo cute.

a very old volkswagen


the driver's seat is in such a terrible condition i wonder how they managed to drive all the way to Yellowstone Park


dinner at the cafeteria in Jackson Lake Lodge, Grand Teton, WY


sunset as seen from terrace of Jackson Lake Lodge


A park ranger was at the Lodge with her telescope ( that everyone "borrowed" to look at faraway animals) and she had something else with her...


... a bear. Yifan made me touch the bear's fur because he said that was the only opportunity I'd ever have. There was also a small piece of moose fur. My conclusion is bears have really soft and silky fur, but the fur of moose is very rough and coarse.

It was late when we left Jackson Lake Lodge to head back to our hotel. We got on the wrong road, but all's good cos we saw this:

.... a moose. *think abercrombie*


our stay for the last night-- Signal Mountain Lodge


a view of the marina from Signal Mountain Lodge


our home for the night