Snowy day of Pampering

Monday in New York - Snow Outside

What can a girl do?
Book last-minute spa and salon appointments of course!

• First up (11am - 3 hrs at spa)

Got me a Winter Refresher package at Dorit Baxter's

Wah, shioki-shiok (Bok, this is how you spell it!) - 1 hr massage, 1 hr facial and 30 mins scrub plus an extra spots-treatment.. Damage? US$236, not bad I must say

• Next: Wandered into Kate's Paperie

It's all very nice and pretty and cute blah blah blah, but seriously, was I going to stay at home and make cards? Nah! Got a cute rubber stamp and stamp pad instead. The wedding Guestbooks were also JUST ordinary..

• Late Late Lunch - Rai Rai Ken

Cute little ramen stall in the East Village, went there as reviews were good and I was meant to have a hair appointment at the Jap salon next-door but shock shock horror horror, they had moved to a new location a month ago.. Regardless, sat down and had me a shoyu ramen - very very yum! I think the store owner was a tad shocked when I said Itadakimasu ahead of eating (or maybe I was just imagining it!)..

Shoyu ramen at Rai Rai Ken


Pack'em in! This is exactly how 'big' the stall is..

• Cut and Colour at Hair Kuwayama (2 hrs)

Had a bit of a confusion over my appointment as the stylist couldn't quite understand 'my English' but managed to squeeze in a cut and colour (no highlights though). Instead, 'highlights' included chatting about KimuTaku, Won Bin and J-dramas and K-dramas.. what else? Stylist Nari looks a lot like a Jap colleague in Singapore so got a photo in. Damage? US$160

• Happy Hour at Bamboo 52 and Dinner at BYOB- Nooks

Zagat-subscriber and happy-hour crazed bird P's recommendations for drinks and dinner in our Mid-town vicinity.. Had a Bam Bam Boo (sake, lime, cranberry) and some very delicious Mushroom cigars (what? smoking even with the great NYC smoking ban..!) and lamb chops.

New York New York!

Got to the Big Apple Sat afternoon (24 Feb) and was quickly out and about in town with mates, piccies attached below:

A quick run-down on where we were:

Pre-dinner drinks

A sake bar-restaurant near S's abode at NoLita - Chibi's Bar

S says that she thinks of a nasty Hokkien phrase whenever she reads the name of the Bar, I'm sure you all get it.
Best thing about the bar? The pictures of the pug - cute.. Woof!

Dinner

Trip to The Stanton Social was not successful so ended chomping at Latino- Mexican food at a restaurant nearby - don't think any of us remembers the name.. nevermind, next!

Kara

Went to Sing Sing Karaoke, is this NY's finest? Hope not! Songs were outdated and manual flipping of crusty old songbooks were required for tunes-selection! Yuck..

Clubbing

First choice was The Shelter but no one knew the address then. For future reference, you can click on my hyperlink! So ended up at basement club Sullivan Room for great house music.

Supper

A greasy-spoons cafe near S's place, not very memorable (had a fairly good cheeseburger I think). Only remembered thinking to myself how I would not be caught dead in a kebab shop (probably the UK equivalent) back in London. Hope I was not eating rat-burger instead..

Aftermath

Back to S's place, the stragglers eventually left or went to bed at 5 or 6am. Bedtime was 8am for S and myself, zzzzzzzzzs..

Next morning

Nua-d (def: lazed, hokk.) till stomachs were growling, proceeded to Chinatown for pig-out session at Congee Village.

Our Order?

4 types of porridge

Winter Melon Soup for 4 - gan pi (def: real cheap, hokk.) at only $4

Beef fillet chinese style

Aubergine and tofu hotpot

Rice baked salted chicken (served in a log!)

Tao Miu (or Tou Miao - chinese veg)

Fried Rice with diced chicken and salted fish

Xiao Long Baos

....... I'm sure I'm missing something out....

That was all for the 4 of us.. 'crazy's aye!

Steamboat and Mahjong

Long over-due update on Chinese New Year happenings:

Friday before CNY:

This is not a CNY post per se, but defo worth a mention as it was a Korean night that ended with meeting a Hyun Bin lookalike shop assistant at the Korean Supermarket at Centrepoint (Tottenham Court Road). What started as an innocent query on Bibimbap hot sauce led on to more 'se' (def: colour - 'dirty', mand.) questions on all the other sauces on the rack as I was furiously bio-ing (def: checking out, hokk.) him. How I wish you were here S! Bokwok was not impressed by the bio-ing... Oh yes, ahead of that, we had Korean hotpot and Kalbi (see pic) at Woo Jung (def: friendship, kor.) Brought back memories of our night in Gangnam Seoul where we shared a hotpot after coming in from the rain, before the 'grreat' (pun on the korean language, if you get it!) experience at a DVD-bang!

Bokwoks' Food rating at Woo Jung: 3 stars

CNY eve:

Almost just like any other Saturday in the 'hood - steamboat, MJ and more MJ! Pics to be updated later, just want to let Y know for now that there was a Chen-Hao lookalike there (you can comment on the 'likeness' when I post the piccie) .

CNY:

Finally broke the trend of having steamboat. Instead we went to Laughing Buddha at Chinatown for some Lo hei (def: to toss, canto. - not to be confused with the Brit saying of 'to diss someone'). Again there was MJ, but there was also KARA (Favourite!), check out piccies of my adoring fans!

Ended the night with a movie screen at Curzon Soho (Movie: The Science of Sleep). Let me know what you thought of the giant-hands.. The Bokwoks loved it! The movie also had Gael GB at his cheeky bestness.. J, when I was watching it, I was thinking to myself how the movie themes (?) were so similar to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.. found out only later that it was written and directed by the same Michel Gondry.

Lost in Translation

Putie - our Computer
CarMo - our Car
Stevie - our TV
David - our DVD player
Victor - our VCR
MJ - our Mahjong set
MJ Jr - our Mahjong table
Della (also Lapps-the-top) - my Dell laptop
Lapsie-the-top - my Bokwok's laptop
John (renamed to Damien) - our rice cooker *

* renamed as I insisted there was no association between John and rice-cooker (Damien works cos of Damien Rice)

update on 1 jan 09..
Tique-Mo - our antique TV console
Phil Sr & Phil Jr - our Philips telephone handsets
Dirt Devil - our handheld Dirt Devil vacumn cleaner
Baby - our Dyson Baby vacumn cleaner

Lao Sai bum(per)

Disappointingly, Lao Sai mee was not as fiery-hot as before. Roast duck (a new order tonight) exceeded our expectations though (pretty Four Seasons-like), YUM! Have posted a piccie as requested.. Didn't turn out as artistic as I'd hoped but it's too late now to get in some retakes.

T'was a bitter-sweet V-night as dinner was YUMs but poor CarMo's picked up another crack to the bumper on the trip to get take-out. Boos!

By the way, Bok's suggested I pull together a legend to explain some of our quirky names/ sayings, e.g. Putie = our Computer at home, CarMo = name of our car (duh!), Stevie = our TV, David = our DVD player, Victor = our VCR but won't that get a tad tedious?

愛してる - Aishiteru

It's Valentine Day and just the way I like it. No fuss, no plans, no tackiness.. Instead, got a few sweet and naughty messages from good pals.. thanks for the bear hug C! Anyway, since I've not even prepared a card for Bokwok this year, this blog shall serve as this year's ingenious surprise!

So here goes……...

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!
To bokwok and all the girlies and other-halves..

Other ingenious surprises from previous years include:

Top prize: A self-made booklet of naughty and nice vouchers for Bok to redeem! I'll leave your imagination to run wild about the contents… but trust me, they were all of great value (or priceless..)! Till today, we have a laugh thinking about how Bok was so elated at finding this booklet stashed away in some dusty old corner of our old flat a couple of years on, only to be immediately crushed when I pointed out the 'expiry date' neatly printed at the corner of the vouchers. Haha, read the fine print!

Second prize: An unfinished scrapbook I started last year (or was it the year before?) - meant to be filled with poems (very un-me), silly songs, drawing and piccies of us but all that came to a pre-mature end after the first 2 pages.. Finally surrendered it nonchalantly to Bok when we were clearing out stuff ahead of the most recent house-move. So did we chuck them out after all? Who knows?

Third prize: Similar to second prize but this time I had trouble completing even my sign-off on a regular card from the shops! How terrible.. I think I held on it to until another clearing-out session from house-move before last.

What are you guys up to? Is Y going to Adam for some beers again?
We might be going to pick up some 'Lao Sai mee' from our dingy local Chinese take-out. Really cheap-and-cheerful Lo Mein with super-hot chilli oil, thus the christening of 'Lao Sai mee' (thanks to C for name-inspiration!). How very low-key..

XXX

Oh almost forgot! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Doggie! Did you guys know that Doggie's real name is Val-Boy? Short for Valentine's Day Boy. Bok, how old is Doggie ah?

世界に一つだけの花

Yes Yes Yes, hello from Putie!

Finally settled on this blog template, not very me I know but I guess it goes with my blog description 世界に一つだけの花...

That translates into "A Flower Unlike Any Other in The World" - a very popular SMAP song about individuality.

Did I mention my newest craze is Kimura Takuya 木村 拓哉 and SMAP?

The First and the Last?

Or the Beginning and the End?

So, I've been trying for a week to create a blogger account from Putie at home but failing miserably. Somehow it has worked like a treat at work but Question: Will I ever get to access blogger via Putie to make my next posting?