Christmas 2011

24-25/12/2011

Our usual Christmas celebration, will be meeting up at my house for our usual self-prepared steamboat dinner. This year is something different, we decided to celebrate in a hotel room. Some searching around, we decided on Re! Hotel which has got a wonderfully Retro theme to it. No matter it's the lift, lobby or rooms. There are other themes to choose from though, if you prefer not to sleep in a surrounding of Fushia Pink. 

This Christmas gathering is rather strange, cause after Claire checked in the hotel, Dar and I reached, then all 3 of us went out, Dar and I to Tiong Bahru and Claire to Jurong.-.-" Some sort of gathering huh?

Soon, Dephil arrived, Dar, Dephil and I laze around in the hotel room while watching Prince Of Tennis (Btw, complimentary Wifi) for an hour or so before looking around for our Christmas dinner.

Further, our idea of Christmas dinner arises as I saw this Korean BBQ buffet around Tiong Bahru on our way out earlier. Finally we settled on this "Ko Ryo Jeong" Korean Restaurant at International Plaza. Which foodie reviews said it's authentic enough. 

Being a boring person who normally only eat the more conventional food like Kopitiam, normal Western restaurants, this Christmas dinner will be an interesting one. 

Making our way to International Plaza was the start of the "strange" Christmas 2011. We met an interesting cab driver, who asked us whether we are singing Christmas carols! We thought, whoa~ do we have the word "choir" tattoo-ed on us? How did he know we sing? Then he continued to coerce us into singing a few songs for him. Unwilling, we tried to divert his attention by talking about other things, but this cab uncle won't give up. He said he learnt singing back when he was young and so is very interested in us. Even making an offer to sing to us! In the end, he sang a very impressive Santa Lucia for our Christmas, we really appreciate his vocals but preferred not to be blasted in a cab. ;p

Our Christmas Dinner! Ginseng Chicken Soup set, beef rice, hot plate chicken, Kimchi Noodles! Damn full!
Love the Ginseng Chicken, clear taste that is not too oily, fragrance of the Chicken and Ginseng absorbed by the glutinous rice stuffed in the chicken, can make a meal by itself anytime. The side dishes that came with the set were not bad too, though most of them spicy so I didn't try.

Hot plate chicken and pork were not bad, meat tender though too little in portion. Not exactly delicious but it will do way~~~~~ better than the one Dar ate at Tiong Bahru Kopitiam.

Full from dinner and laughter, we now ponder over where we should be going or doing next. Don't want to go down Orchard, where the crowd of foreigners will swam us. And hey! what is Christmas without log cakes~? So we set on our task to get log cakes or cakes. Google was your best friend but nowadays, iPhones (with workable 3G and network that doesn't go down when you need it) surpassed that.

According to some searches by Claire, there seems to be a place that sells nice pastries down Maxwell, which is actually walkable from International Plaza, so the 4 of us walked the deserted roads down Maxwell, when it began to rain.

In countries where they snow instead, this will be a beautiful sight ~ we're happy tonight~ walking in a winter wonderland~~ 

.     .     .

Then we found the shop closed. ;(( aw~~~~ We now wonder where we should go next. In the middle of nowhere, shops are in the midst of closing, without cake and drenched. Still very determined on our mission to get cakes~~ we decided to take a bus to Bugis!

Satisfied that we bought cakes (not log cakes~ just cakes from TCC), we decided to go back to the hotel, which was quite inaccessible if not by cab. Hence it's another walk in the rain to the hotel, in my new cardigan and a body full of rashes. Yea~ I've gotten some rashes, rather unsightly, Friday at work, unsure of what triggered it but the rashes quickly became full blown, covering my elbows, knee caps, trunk and neck. Big, swollen and damn itchy that tormented me cause I can't scratch them and I can't fall asleep.

Won't be showing you the photos though, cos here's food again!

Sleeping at 4am watching old old hong kong movies on the Star channel, we woke up with just enough time to wash up, pack and let Claire/Dephil down a bottle of wine each.

Then we had our brunch at Re!Fill in the hotel.


Again, it's a color that Claire won't fancy.

and these are mine! Though Dar took the potato, some of the meat + corn cob -.-"

There's supposed to be a 10% discount but we forgot to make use of the voucher when we made our payment.