Singapore In Pictures

Just last weekend, I was in Singapore to participate in the Singapore Debate Open, my first international tournament. Our bus left at 7.30 a.m. in the morning on Friday morning and we didn't arrive in Singapore 'til around 12.30 p.m. The tournament didn't start 'til Saturday, so we still had half a day to spend as tourists as opposed to debaters.

First things first, we gotta find a place that sells halal food for lunch after a strenuous Friday morning bus journey...

Brother Latiff (our head trainer - on the left) knows this place in Little India that sells Bangladeshi food.

They serve really good mutton.

It was pretty good. According to Brother Latiff, it's ALMOST like the food from back home. (He's from Bangladesh. Go figure.)

Afterwards, we got back to our hotel to refresh and prepare ourselves for our afternoon tour of the city. Camwhore!

That's me and Asyraf. He was my team captain for the Royal Intervarsity Debate Competition held the week before.

Me and Arinah, someone I consider as the big sister of the group. She was the one who took the picture of me and Asyraf.

Once we had enough of our break, it's time to hit the streets!

Some of them have really weird names. For instance:

Me, Habib, Khadijah & Arinah.

But the fun part was the bazaar on Bugis Street. Super crowded, hectic and chock full of knick knacks. Didn't buy anything though (not very surprising considering the exchange rate).

Asyraf with Tasneem, a senior debater. She'll be going to the World Debate Competition in Turkey at the end of this year. Rock on!

Super-cute T-shirts. Would probably find cheaper versions in KL. Anyone know where to find 'em here?

Notice how that sign is right above Habib's head.

Look! Something we'd never find in a Malaysian bazaar!!!

So we went inside. Us girls got freaked out by the *ahem* 'sizeable' expectations (interpret that however you will) they had on sale and quickly went out.

After scoping out Bugis Street, we decided to continue on with our journey.

This time, Arinah's cousin, Adila - in the middle - who was in S'pore too, decided to join us.

A view of the mosque at Arab Street. Arinah's the model, Asyraf's the photographer.

Me & Tasneem.

Really cool triangular building. Lily, do you know it's name?

The view from behind the Fullerton Hotel. Unfortunately, I didn't take any shots of the Fullerton Hotel, which is an absolutely beautiful building by the way.

Another view from behind the Fullerton Hotel.

We went to a bunch of other places after that - like the church where we had an old lady try to convert us to the way of Jesus; we wanted to go to a synagogue as well but ran out of time - but by then my camera got a bit schizophrenic so I temporarily stopped taking pictures for the day. When I get some more pictures, I'll be sure to share them here.

Come competition day, I was too preoccupied to keep taking pictures. But I did take this one. Lily? Are you reading this? You might find this one particularly interesting...

The one on the left is Kamal. The one on the right is Zuhri. Yes, I know Zuhri looks weird here. It ain't my fault that he decided to pull a face when I took this shot! He has better pics, I promise you. Those lucky ducks got selected for the international comptetition in Turkey. If only Kamal didn't rank higher than me, then I would be the one flying off to Turkey next week. Haih.

Needless to say, my partner, Shafiq and I didn't manage to break into the quarter-finals. We had a good run though. However, team Tasneem and Ervina (another trainer) managed to qualify. It was an open debate, so even trainers could participate. They even managed to get into the finals! Sadly in the end, they lost out to NUS's Ashok and Sathya (I hope I spelled his name right) even though many people thought Tasneem and Ervina should've won, I kid you not.

Here are the motions:

(Prelims)
Round 1: THW ban singles from becoming parents
Round 2: THW punish poachers and traders of endangered species in the same way as murderers
Round 3: THW cap executive compensation for all publicly listed companies
Round 4: THBT the United States should support and recognise a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinian Authority

Quarters: THW establish a quota for parliamentary elections for candidates under the age of 35
Semis: THBT the Western world should intervene in support of the student-led protests in Iran
Finals: THW ban parents from indoctrinating their children with their religion

THW = This House Would
THBT = This House Believes That

Anyway! I'm getting ahead of myself here. The quarters, semis and finals didn't happen 'til Sunday. On Saturday night, Ervina, Asyraf, Arinah and myself decided to celebrate Ervina's break in to quarters by feasting on chilli crabs! (We also wanted to make it up to her for not having dinner at Maxwell Street food court the night before - too much pork served there)

Introducing the Chilli Crabs from a restaurant at Geylang!

Sedap. Sangat sedap.

Are you drooling yet?

(Pay no attention to my antics in this second video.)

Yes, the crab did not die in vain at all.

Oh, yes. It was fun.

Alas, our trip ended on Sunday evening with the announcement of the champions and promised Facebook invitations. As a closing to this short but memorable escapade, we took a stroll along Orchard Road - with our suitcases in tow. What to do?! We already checked out of the hotel in the morning!!!

Yes, I know it's blurry.

'Til my next post, bye all! :)

The other side of Food

Given the choice to either clean the house or cook, I would definitely opt for vacuuming and mopping. I never had the passion for baking and cooking although ironically, I love to eat. Yes, I do help my mum prepare the ingredients for lunch and dinner but that’s as far as it gets. The closest to preparing a meal that I have done so far is cooking rice and maggi noodles.
*Don’t laugh*

Unfortunately or fortunately for me, living 5 days a week at Intec without coming home has made done the unthinkable… COOK!!!

Believe it or not, just a few weeks back I actually fried an omelette for the first time in my life though it turned out a bit too salty and ‘nicely brown’ (I won’t admit it was slightly burnt even when my housemates told me so).

Surprisingly, I found it quite fun to cook in my unit as my mum’s not there to nag and tell me that I’ve messed the kitchen. By the way, that’s another reason why I stay away from my mum’s territory, the kitchen at home. And Hazel, you could give me some tips on cooking next time, your potato salad sure does look yummy.

I even tried my luck and went ahead with scrambled eggs. Tip : Don’t ever use powdered milk cause it makes the eggs taste weirdly sweet, preferably UHT or fresh milk instead and using butter instead of canola oil makes it taste even more yummier. My poor housemates were my experimental guinea pigs who tried my cooking and gave critical comments. Haha… luckily not of them died from food poisoning =)

After a few failed attempts with the rice turning out too soggy or slightly grainy due to it being a little uncooked, I’ve actually successfully managed to cook fried rice, rice with baked cheese and even mini pocket pizza (using a bread toaster of course).

I’m not going to put up any pictures cause honestly I fail miserably at trying to make the food look tasty and appetizing. However, I’ll substitute the pictures of the meals I prepared with these instead :

Lone bowl out in the cold.

Today I found out I can send files from my phone to my laptop using Bluetooth!! Hahahaha. *proud*

But to the main point of this post...

Today I burned two hours of my precious afternoon to make this!

*tada*

Potato salad!!

Looks so yummy right? Too bad I had to leave home again before it was done chilling so I'll tell you how it tastes tomorrow. =D

But! This is how I made it:

First you take three medium sized potatoes (or 6 small or 2 big, you count la okay) and one medium carrot and boil them until they're soft.
Then you take one egg and boil that until it's hard boiled.
In the meantime you take 10cm of cucumber and remove the seeds then slice it very thinly.
Then you take one small onion and slice that thinly too.
Then you put them both into bowls and then add a little salt then wait till they ooze their juices out then squeeze dry.
By that time your potatoes and carrots should be done edi, so take them out and peel! Careful ah, very hot.
Then you cut the potatoes into small pieces and slice the carrot, then add some salt and pepper.
Then you take the hard-boiled egg and chop that up.
Then you wait for the potatoes and carrots to cool.
Then you can mix everything in edi! Add a lot of mayonnaise and then chill your salad for at least one hour.
Then.... Bon appetit!

Hehehhe. Welcome to 'Cooking With Hazel Beh'! Hehehehhe.

As of now my salad is STILL chilling like so:


... outside the house cos the fridge is full edi.

Hehehhe.

Okay spent too much time typing this, late for class edi! Oh no oh no.

Learning to Bake With Hazel Beh and Eswhy Tan.

Sometime last year or last last year I went to stay over at my piano teacher, Mrs P's house for a week or so. My friend Eswhy joined me during the last three days. One night we got bored and decided to lug all of Mrs P's cookbooks to our room, where we spent half an hour poring all over the recipes. We decided we wanted to cook mashed potatoes! And so we marched downstairs to ask Mrs P about it. BUT, she pooh-pooed at our idea of making mashed potatoes because it was 'too easy'. And so she taught us how to bake buns instead.

Here is a short tutorial on one of the important parts of baking buns: How To Roll The Dough. Enjoy!



=D

Please excuse the over-enthusiasm, I was feeling a little high then. XD