beloved bel

Was super inspired by Alicia's mum on her simple chicken stew that it reminded me well of what my grandma cooks back home and so, decided to call home to get recipe! Only difference was my grandma adding in extra spices - one stick of cinnamon and some cloves of star anise. First attempt was last Sunday which turned out pretty good. Just that the sauce wasn't "seeping" into the ingredients as much as I would want it to be. Tonight decided to try my second attempt and also with steamed egg (I love steamed egg!), with Cynthia as the food taster. Good ol' home cooked food during this cold weather!! Both of us finished every bit of it. *slurp

Let me recount the days... Friday night , Alicia's parents are here so they invited us over for a simple home cooked dinner which was such comfort food on a cold and windy Friday night!! We had to brave the cold walk from Canary Wharf to their place! But well rewarded at the end of the day :) Cynthia, Joselyn and another of their friend went to Barcelona early Saturday morning. Went there with my jiemei's in Sept so no point going again. nvm, solo weekend then! Saturday decided to check out some places.. wanted to try this Jap restaurant Mugen recommended by my Japanese friend at Bank but it was closed!! so sad.. haiz which means I pretty much won't have much chance to try it since it's not close to my office and weekends it is closed :( the real London Bridge which every kid sings about window cleaners Walked over from London Bridge and took some pics along the way. Touristy stuff.. main aim was to take pics of this church for my bro called St Edmund the King

Ooh delayed post for last Saturday 15 Nov. Afternoon there was a Sisterhood with Christine Caine at the Emmanuel Centre. Joined some girls for lunch at Nandos before making out way down to the centre. I think it was the first time I heard Chris Caine and I thought it was a good session. It was so nice of the girls to distribute home made heart shaped cookies to everyone during the break :) ~~~~~ After service, I met Joselyn, Cynthia, Alicia and Jianliang for dinner at Chocolate Factory before going to this recommended club called Hoxton Pony at Old Street where another of Jos' friend joined. We all didn't really like this place so after finishing two bottles of white wine, they decided we shld join Eric, Gin n their friends at Embassy as they were celebrating Gin's birthday there as well. dinner @ Choc Factory Whoa what a crowd at Embassy. This is an expensive club coz cover was GBP20 with no drinks somemore! But then yea have to admit it was much better than Hoxton Pony (

woohoo~!! Alicia emailed early this morning asking us to see what's the weather forecast for this coming Sunday. Heavy snow!!! so exciting! (hope this forecast is accruate and so far BBC is pretty good in their weather forecasts) But before that... gotta prepare for a cold Saturday!

This is an interesting article on the top 20 most hated cliches taken from the BBC website. Have a good read/ laugh over it. According to an online survey, cliches like "at the end of the day", "24/7" and "literally" are among the most reviled. Here are 20 more that particularly irk Magazine readers. 1. My vote for most irritating cliche has to be "basically". I even manage to irritate myself by using it, although I do try not to. AS, Salford, England 2. A few minutes ago I said "basically" was the most irritating cliche. I've changed my mind: "To be fair" is the most awful thing anybody can ever say, particularly since it is invariably followed by a biased and utterly unfair comment. Ian, Sheffield >> I think it's funny yet true! 3. My most hated expression has to be "to be honest". What does it mean? Are you normally dishonest then? To my shame you might even catch me saying it. John Airey, Peterboro

God's creation is so wonderful.. over here I can appreciate the changing of seasons and I received this Day Spring prayer which I thought was nice and appropriate. Managed to take some shots around my neighbourhood. Winter is fast approaching, there are so much dried fallen leaves on the ground and trees have all gone bald. and best of all, CHRISTMAS is coming soon! My favourite time of the year! Lighting's up in downtown Oxford. Not as elaborate as Christmas decor back home definitely. But then we do not have the weather back home so it's all fair I guess? My colleagues keep telling me they cannot imagine a hot and humid Christmas haha but I do hope it will snow here so I can have my first white Christmas!

Cooked twice this week, one simple and one a lil more elaborate. Cynthia brought back this chicken rice paste so monday night I suggested cooking chicken rice. Ok this involves a bit of cheating coz we had this paste to cook the rice with. Other than that, I boiled the chicken seperately and steamed some greens. With that we had chicken soup too to go along. And we have a bottle of chicken rice chilli sauce! Cynthia joked this could be called "Ah Goh Chicken Rice".. or worse still, "Lao Goh Chicken Rice"! 0_0 Friday night worked a little late and I went home to fry some noodles, special sauce used.. hehe belachan chilli sauce we brought from Singapore. And some beef balls which I got from Tesco. Perfect! At least to me :)

A whole post devoted to food, glorious food ! Right so I was very inspired by breakfast at Cafe Rouge yesterday that I decided to make a nice breakfast for myself before going church. It's only weekends that we get the luxury to enjoy a slow breakfast like this (actually this is my first time but def not last).. simple but love it :) Egg on toast with ham and 2 small pancakes (see I still have the Ya Kun kaya.. luxury!!) And lunch.. hee.. I found myself going to ChaChaMoon again.. I guess it's really one of the few places with chinese food at very reasonable prices with decent portions. I ordered beef horfun thinking it would have gravy but it came dry with no gravy. It's okay, still nice esp the tender beef. Beef Horfun- a bit too oily for me actually and I ordered Vitasoy too (fancy drinking soya bean drink here) So for dinner back home... since my fridge is full now, I thought I'd finally cook our egg noodles with yet another chicken drumstick a

Have fun on this special day babe! May this year be an awesome one for you... and down with OTs!! God bless ya dearie.. *hugss*

I thought this was gonna be a solo & quiet weekend for me since Cynthia is in Lyon with Joselyn & Alicia but it was such a great Saturday :) :) Morning we had a combined connect group brunch at Cafe Rouge at Greenwich. It was raining, dark & gloomy when I left the house so I thought the turnout might not be that good. Boy was I wrong. The response was great in fact. About 20 of us turned up and I got to know more people in other connect groups near my place. It was really nice. The main guys I know from my CG are Amanda, my CGL, Liandi & Joel and another Joel. Turns out Joel's brother Noel and wife Faith are in another CG and Faith is this really nice girl from New Zealand. Anyway we started talking and she told me Liandi and her are gonna spend an "X-Factor night" at Chloe's place and invited me to join. Since I had nothing on... okie! Went for massive grocery shopping at Tesco after brunch since our fridge is empty. Christmas stuff are all out "