[singapore] roti prata in a spur

i normally don't cook here (singapore) and boiling potatoes, heating food in the microwave nor making a toast are considered serious cooking. the lazy me thinks that there's so much involved in a real cooking and i have to do everything from peeling and slicing, cooking, eating (yes, included!) and the worst part in the end, i have to clean the dishes by myself! i know i shouldn't be complaining about this for i'm grateful that at least i have something to pacify my rumbling stomach. on a serious note though, i find it more expensive having to prepare a real deal meal (rhymes are cute). blanching vegetables is the closest gesture to cooking that i can do here.

i live across a mall where the eating places seem like extensions of our kitchen, as phrased by my cousin. mostly on weekends when sloth is a permanent visitor, we only head to our extended kitchen to get our meals. for now, this downright convenience has more disadvantages that significantly outnumbered the benefits. talk about laziness and next door shopping.

so one dinnertime in our extended kitchen, i had ordered a dish that surprised me when i reached my table.

[singapore] i'm an east coast girl

time indeed flies! and i have written about that a lot of times already. i am here in singapore for seven months and before i even know it, my first year could then be knocking on my door! seven months and i have only come up with 5 posts about my stay and most of them were about food. i have been here and there around the island but the mood to write about it seldom comes by.

i also would not want to equate singapore as purely work and the stress that most likely goes with it. of course, there are fun times although i think the money here tends to be more volatile especially for a girl, because retail therapy can be done in a breeze and worse, the sale that seems to happen too frequently.

to do away from imminent shopping, my best advice i can give to myself is to go to places with outdoorsy feel like parks instead of going to malls and even shops along the streets!

East Coast Park

phnom penh to siem reap: a different kind of baking

we might have spent too little time in phnom penh but the two days were worth it, although technically, we only had about 24 hours in the thriving capital. we arrived at noon on our first day and left for siem reap around noon the following day. but who cares? i still like to consider it as two days, given that we had an overnight stay! i'm so random having to argue this triviality with myself.

anyway, i seem not to get enough on writing about our host in phnom penh who was indeed a great help to us and in a way, made us let our guard down and a few of our inherent fears in staying at a new place or country for that matter.

as i age, i have slowly become a sucker for plans though i'm not into an OC-type of planning because i would very much welcome surprises along the way. part of the plan was to secure our transportation from phnom penh to siem reap before we would go about. it became a necessity since it was the weekend and my brother should catch his one and only flight back to manila in siem reap. i know my brother is close to a perfect companion because he willingly agreed with my plan that he would go to phnom penh to meet me and head back to siem reap to catch his flight the day after. he was intrigued with phnom penh's history so i like to think that we had a win-win situation. haha does this make me an evil sister?

back to our host in our guesthouse, mr. seng. he was the one who booked for us with our transport to siem reap which was scheduled the following day. he even echoed my concern that we should book in haste or face the grave consequence of paying hefty re-booking fees for my brother.

Our van from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap