singapore dec ’08 – brewerkz

So when I said I was going to park my arse at Brewerkz all night long, I meant that I was going to park my arse at Brewerkz all night long. Am very happy that my friends like me enough to accommodate my request 😀

Just some quick photos though, because they say a thousand words 😉 Also because I am thinking of how and what to write on ‘Muallaf’, seeing that it is likely to be more important than frivolous blogging about alcohol.

Singapore Dec '08 - Winnie at Brewerkz
Winnie with our golden ale tower

Singapore Dec '08 - Dr Buckaroo and Suanie
Me with Dr. Buckaroo. Won’t see him for a while, as he’s leaving the continent…

Ah Seng came by and brought me a bottle of his home brew. Seriously, the dude should open his own brewery. It was a lot better than golden ale!

Singapore Dec '08 - Suanie with Edwin's home brew
Me with Ah Seng’s precious home brew

As mentioned earlier, I saw Yoon Kit on the same flight to Singapore. He and a couple of friends managed to drop by that night.

Singapore Dec '08 - Edwin, Suanie and YK at Brewerkz
Ah Seng, me and Yoon Kit

Maybe the reason I didn’t suck so much on the Brand’s Blogger Challenge was thanks to the golden ale and Ah Seng’s home brew. Heheh.. what? Some people’s version of nourishment is different, you know 😉

BTW I would like to plug Data Domain. They are like, so awesome that you should go and check it out right now. They are so great, it’s ridiculous how great they are!

They also paid for booze Kthxbai!

singapore dec ’08 – arrived!

Now we are chilling out at the hotel cafe while waiting for our rooms to be ready. Having way too much fun with the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music.

On the plane - KY and Suanie
KY and I with our trusty companions 😉

Saw Yoon Kit on the same plane. Hah, so coincidence one…

singapore nov ’08 – full report

Prince of Wales Backpacker Hostel in Little India

As mentioned earlier, we stayed at the Prince of Wales Backpacker Hostel in Little India. I’d seen it before — when FA and I were in Singapore last year, we stayed at the Perak Hotel, also in Little India. There were lots of people drinking and generally having a good time at the POW when we passed by the place, so that kind of stuck in my mind.

Hostel guests get S$2/3 off selected booze, so it was S$5 for a bottle of San Miguel. I know, I know… normally I’d rather drink my own urine than to consume San Miguel, but… I have no excuses.

Singapore Nov 2008 - Paul, Suanie and Fireangel at the Prince of Wales Backpackers Hostel in Little India
Paul, FA and I with our beer. Photo taken by Bob

Would I recommend the place? Sure, if you don’t mind the surrounding noises by the pubs and clubs around Little India.

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Nasi Beryani Ayam @ Singapore Zam Zam, Bugis

Bob suggested that we check out this restaurant in Bugis that apparently serves good nasi beryani and murtabak. Luckily he knew the way (I’m not familiar with Bugis) — it’s right opposite the Sultan Mosque. The place seemed popular and we had to wait a while to get a table.

Singapore Nov 2008 - Nasi Beryani Ayam at Singapore Zam Zam,Bugis
Nasi Beryani Ayam, Singapore Zam Zam

Doesn’t the photo above makes you want to attack the plate of food? Well, I randomly take okay photos sometimes, so lesson #1: photos can be deceiving. I was unable to finish my dinner, and Bob had a hard time with it too. It was edible lah, just terribly bland and tak sedap. Oh well.

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Esplanade – Theaters on the Bay

The next day we headed over to Esplanade for the reason we were in Singapore — Avenue Q. There was a massive jumbled-up hula hoops thing on display.

Singapore Nov 2008 - Art at the Esplanade
Obviously someone else appreciates this more than me

Art is perspective indeed. I don’t remember the description, but it had a very canggih and artsy-fartsy one. Looks like MS Paint to me.

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Avenue Q The Musical

OMAIGOD the show was more than brilliant! We had the best cheap tickets (‘cos we bought them in July) and everything was more than fantastic! The set, the songs, the costumes, the puppets, the actors/ actresses… I loved loved LOVED it!

Singapore Nov 2008 - Suanie posing in front of an AvenueQ poster
I heart Avenue Q!

It was a mostly Filipino cast, which was why the songs didn’t sound the same on the soundtrack. Still bloody awesome! We laughed so hard, we clapped after every song, and we laughed again. It’s on-going till Nov 16th, so go catch it if you can! Go alone, doesn’t matter, just go!

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Subway in Singapore

… has bacon as in BACON, and ham as in HAM. And honey mustard! Absolutely fabulous!

Singapore Nov 2008 - Subway  Melt in Singapore
Tidak ditanggung halal

I don’t think I’ll be able to eat a Malaysian Subway sandwich for a long time after having the Singaporean ones.

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Brewerkz at Riverside Point, Clarke Quay

My only must-go place in Singapore is Brewerkz after Edwin introduced it to me years ago. If you’d notice my blog banner, it’s a photo of me drinking a Brewerkz Golden Ale. It just makes me happy 😀

Singapore Nov 2008 - Having a great time at Brewerkz
A few of my favouritest people!

I think we were the loudest table there, heh. Sorry, but we had a most amazing time!

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Ramen @ Ken, Orchard Plaza

After our pints and a whole beer tower, we decided to have ramen for supper at Ken in Orchard Plaza. Edwin and Pinky insisted that the ramen there is absolutely delicious, and the fact that they close at 2 a.m. (while stocks last) is a major plus.

Singapore Nov 2008 - Hot ramen
Japanese ramen with char siew, stewed egg and other random bits

It was delicious 😀 Patrick stopped by for a couple of Asahi, more talking and yapping and gossping — I had an absolutely fantastic time! Thanks! 😀

Click here to view the entire Flickr set for Singapore, Nov ’08. 19 photos in total.

singapore trip report – part 1

So we went to Singapore last week, courtesy of Nuffnang ( thanks to us dressing up as pirates for a Nuffnang event ). It was a 3D2N stay, so I asked Pinky if we could crash at her place for a night, then transfer to the hotel the next day. She being the lovely, awesome creature that she is, agreed.

The journey to Singapore was ok lor. Not like I’ve never taken a bus there before, heh. But this was the first time in a bus where we were served food, fruits and a hot drink. So this was me camwhoring with the food, for oddity reasons.

Camwhoring with Aeroline food

We arrived at around 11.30 p.m. at Harbour Front. Attempting to get a cab at that time in that area was tedious, tiring and not awesome. A cab driver finally took pity on us and allowed us to share his cab ( he was waiting for a regular customer ), and took us to Pinky’s house. Showered, bla bla bla, crashed for the night, and woke up early ( for me ) to leave with Pinky ( cos she has to work mah ).

Tim said earlier that Ming wanted to belanja us makan etc, so earlier we made arrangements to meet Ming for breakfast. He showed up with HotIntern Hui Wen ( who was wearing Nuffnang colours, heh ). Took us to the Nuffnang SG office…

The Nuffnang SG team

Then took us to have bak kut teh, Singaporean-style. The reason why it can never be confused for anything other than Singaporean style is because, the soup was laced with tonnes pepper! If you did that in KL or Klang, you’d get weird looks. Heh it reminded me of the black pepper pig stomach soup that my mom used to make… damn a lot of pepper… Ming loved it though, said it was his favourite BKT place evar. Oklor… 5 hours bus difference and tastes in food changes by leaps and bounds 😉

Singapore bak kut teh with Nuffnang Singapore team

Thanks Ming for breakkie, heh 😉

Then Ming took us to our hotel at Perak Lodge. It is a quaint little place along Perak Road ( d’oh ) in Little India, beside Tekka Mall, opposite Sim Lim Square… see, I know my geography 😉 This is Ming posing in our room…

Ming in our room at Perak Lodge

After he left for work, we snoozed until 3 pm, then FA woke up ‘cos she was damn hungry. We had lunch at the food court next to Tekka Mall. One of the things that I like to eat in Singapore is pieces of braised duck and pig’s intestines… YUM!

After lunch, we took the MRT to Clarke Quay to Brewerkz, where Suertes was already waiting for us in the shortest possible pants of running shorts…

Suanie at Brewerkz with Suertes

Summary: Golden Ale is still awesome, though not as awesome as the first time I had it. Cherry ale sucked ass. Dr Buckaroo had high fever so he couldn’t make it. Sicky bugs suck ass. Overall Brewerkz was still awesome. I heart Brewerkz.

Then camwhored a bit along Riverside Point, walk walk a bit, look see here and there…

Suanie at Clarke Quay with Fireangel

Then FA went to meet her friends and I headed for the hotel. Too tired, tak tahan, old already…

in search of friends and booze (sg)

A few years ago, I got to know Pinky from an on-line chatroom. We got along rather famously, and she is one of the reasons why I gladly refrain from generalising Singaporeans to be similar to a certain other pink blogger, ahem.

Then came one Saturday morning when I was in the office and rather bored. Out of a whim I messaged Pinky and asked her if I could bunk at her place if I went to Singapore. She said yes. So I took the afternoon bus and arrived at Singapore at night. Pinky was a fabulous host, I had a most wonderful and memorable trip, we became good friends since.

(She did burn my toast, but that’s another story :D)

To cut a long story short, I did the same thing last weekend. Still don’t quite know why, probably a sub-conscious thing about my expensively renewed passport sitting alone in the corner feeling useless and rather blank.

We had simple food for lunch, but the company was great 😉

Pinky loves noodles

We then went to the city centre to begin an exhaustive search for Reese’s peanut butter cups. Gave up, had a break at Starbucks, then Pinky had to tend to a prior engagement. I asked my cousin who is studying in Singapore if she wanted to meet up. She said yes, and we had dinner at Bugis.

Cousin had an appointment with her manicurist, so I followed her for a bit.

Cousin doing a mani/pedicure

Quite scary, the chilli red fingernails. A bit like pontianak, heh.

Made plans to meet Dr. Buckaroo for booze. So I left my cousin to her nail thingy and took a bus down to the meeting place. The bus route was this straight road that was probably only a couple of kilometres, but it felt like the longest journey ever due to the many bus stops along the way, and the numerous traffic lights (along one single straight road!)

It was on the bus that I witnessed something amazing — when there was a bus in front of us, my bus driver stopped and waited for the bus in front to jalan first. Only then he’d go. SO MUCH PATIENCE!!! I mean, if this was Malaysia, my bus driver would have swerved sharply to go out and ‘cut’ the bus in front.

So polite = longer travel time = probably a hell lot safer.

Dr. Buckaroo was still as tall as ever. He also bought me beer. YAY WE LOVE DR. BUCKAROO!!!!! 😀

Dr Buckaroo and Erdinger

My cousin joined us later.

Suanie and cousin

She’s not underaged, but don’t even think about it 😉

Dr Buckaroo and Suanie

Another amazing thing happened — the pub peps called for last orders at 12.40 a.m. At 12.50 a.m. the bill arrived. At 12.55 a.m. we were politely ushered to leave. That’s like bloody early, innit?!?

Ah well.

The next day, Pinky took me to VivoCity to continue our Reese’s peanut butter cup quest. There wasn’t any at Candy Empire (which incidentally stocks a lot of non-candy related items and not a whiff of Reese’s peanut butter cups, herro?!?!?!) but we saw this tall-ass pseudo snowman, which I christened tall-ass pseudo snowman.

VivoCity pseudo snowman

You could cross the river to get to Sentosa Island if you are so inclined.

Suanie and Pinky at VivoCity Harbour Front

Walking towards the MRT after dinner at Tony Roma’s, we passed by Balaclava, where I fell on my butt a couple of years ago. Never showed my face there again.

We made plans to yum seng with Edwin at Brewerkz at Riverside Point.

I had the sample set. Golden ale rocks!!! Anyone wants to import it here? Or open a Brewerkz in KL? I will be a faithful patron, I promise!

Brewerkz sample set

Suanie and beer at Brewerkz Singapore

Ed: Want to take photo of me ar?
me: Yalar, what else.
Ed: Wait I pose kawaii style, like Fireangel.

Kawaii Ed

Ed: Eh you tell Fireangel I love her blog. I’m a fan, okay?!

Ed and Suanie after beer

We walked past four steel doll thingies sitting on a bench by the pathway.

Me: What’s that?
Pinky: Art.

Ed, Suanie, Pinky at Riverside Point

Fun with art! 😀

Art is fun

Thanks, brudder for the beers! Will come back again next year to fulfill annual free beer quota, bwahahaha!!!

Drunk Ed

Blah damn sleepy now. Wanted to write about me wanting to go back to BP from Larkin on the first day of Raya but there weren’t any immediate busses for that, only to KL, and how I had to walk 500m to get to the Air Keroh highway stop under the hot scorching sun carrying heavy bags because the bus driver was a fucktard.

Never mind, cultivate tolerance.

Anyway thanks to my Singaporean peps. Call me when you are in KL, I bring you to makan!