Monday, September 29, 2008

F1 Grand Prix Sunday in Singapore

It was Sunday evening and dh and I were down at the Padang this time to watch the race live in front of the big screen set up near the Cricket Club. Armed with a mini TV we were able to barely hear the commentary given live. The crowd here watched the race with the thundering roar of the twenty F1 engines blasting at the back of us. Here now to enjoy and relive the race again ....

Let me have the videos here do the talking .....


The race here began with all the cars jostling for better positions. It was great to see how the cars bunched up and then scrambled out. Massa lead the pack here.



A chance to see Lewis Hamilton face to face or should I say face to helmet LOL. See if you can spot his eyes through his helmet. He was leading the pack with 51 more laps to go.



What made the F1 race more exciting for the evening were the thrills and spills of several incidents happening which upset the top favourites and resulted in the underdog to win.
Here was the crashed car from Piquet and the stalling of Barrichello's Earthdreams car.
As a result the two were out of the race.


The Team Ferrari blunder at the Pitt Stop that dashed Massa's hope of ever winning the race in Singapore this year. When watching this I could feel the hopelessness of the driver who couldn't do anything except to wait and wait ... a good whole couple of minutes before his Pitt Stop mates arrived to remove the fuel hose. And even then when they arrived, they struggled for sometime before they could remove the jammed fuel hose. All that precious time lost and his race seemed at this moment to have stalled till the end. I felt so sorry for him.


With the last 4 laps to go Kimi lost concentration and therefore lost control of his car and crashed out of the race. This incident finally sealed the fate and dashed all hopes of Team Scuderia Ferrari winning the race here.


The winner of Singtel Singapore Grand Prix 28th September 2008 is .....
Fernando Alonso from ING Renault F1 Team

He was the underdog who started last in the grid position because during the qualifying round his car stalled and he had no timing. He went into the race saying that his race was already lost at the last grid position as chances of him overtaking in the Singapore Street Track was tough. For him to win at his position a miracle must happen in the form of the appearance of the Safety Car. And the miracle did happen for him .... three times during the race!
So do you believe in miracles? I do! I do! I do! :-)

Saturday, September 27, 2008

F1 Racing in Singapore

Dh managed to get tickets for the event and mind you, they were costly. Three days walkabout tickets for 2 persons at $320 would not be affordable for people below a certain income group. Anyway, dh and I spent the Friday night having our ear drums almost blasted away. Thanks to ear plugs which we managed to buy at the gates, the noise for the night became more bearable.
As we parked our car at the Golden Shoe carpark, I could already hear the deafening sounds of the sports car blasting and screeching away. It was already a deafening experience LOL.


Here you see evidence of my existence at the race LOL. A night race with a city circuit and daylight lighting condition. Many of us just stood behind the barricades to watch the cars zoom past and I had hardly any time to make out who was driving that car.
For those who are braver, you could book a standing spot at the dangerous turns and here the drivers have no choice but to slow down their cars to avoid collisions into the wall barricades. Only at these turns did I have a chance to at least make out the color combination of these sports cars.
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Here I managed to snap some cars zooming away and maybe one of them could be driven either by Lewis Hamilton or Felipe Massa or even Kimi Raikkonen. A chance to also be in the driver's seat? Just look up into the gigantic screens near the grand stands which were projecting information about the race live!
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Hands up ..... steady .... listen .... shoot! Here's the most common stance of the species with cameras during the night!


The fire fighter standing and hoping that the unexpected will not happen!

And finally what is attending an F1 Race without a sports car parking next to our car LOL.
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Ice Monster

This was the eatery we visited at Plaza Singapura when dh and I went for our R&R. There were many customers there when we had our dinner around 9 pm. It's a simple meal for us and the food is passable. However I find the sitting is really too close for comfort. I believe the food offered is mainly Taiwanese fair.


Taiwanese Beef Brisket Noodles ..... it was good with the meat being tender and tasty and the gravy too.

Fried Gyoza ..... the dumpling skin just had two folds over the meat and it came as a shock to me cos' I've never seen fried gyoza wrapped this way. Even though the meat was tasty I found the skin too thick for my liking.

Mango Salad wraped in egg crepe ..... the mango salad had a tangy and sweet flavour and as I ate it, the juices oozed out.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

This cheesecake is one of my boys favourite teatime and supper snack. I got the recipe from the book titled Fantastic Cheesecake by Alex Goh. I would definitely be baking this a couple of more times for the family.


Here's sharing with you what I did ....

Ingredients:

160 g cream cheese
25 g butter
120 g milk

40 g flour
30 g cornflour

4 nos. egg yolks

4 nos. egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
100 g sugar
pinch of salt

Method:

Line the bottom of an aluminium 8" square pan and grease the sides with shortening.

Place cream cheese, butter and milk in a mixing bowl and stir over double-boiler until thick. Remove from the double boiler.

Add the flour and corn flour into the mixture above and then the egg yolks and stir till well blended.

Whisk the egg whites together with the cream of tartar, sugar and salt until soft peak is attained.

Fold the soft peak egg whites into the cream cheese mixture till well incorporated.

Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake it in a water bath at a pre-heated oven at 160 degree C for about 40-45 mins or till the cake tests firm or golden brown.

Remove the cake from the oven and then remove the cake from the cake pan immediately.
Set aside to cool. Refrigerate when keeping cake overnight.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Jurong Fishery Port

Dh and I had the chance to visit one of the two fishery ports in Singapore. The Night Tour had us reached the Jurong Fishery Port at 3 am. It was bustling with activities with people unloading crates of fish, displaying lots of fish, selling and buying fish, packing and weighing baskets of fish.

The sights and scenes were mind boggling and not to mention the purine smell of fish too LOL

Let me have the pics do the talking ....




This is the auction area where buyers and suppliers gather. We the visitors were ushered to the viewing gallery which is at the left side of this photo. Visitors walk above the hall and we had a bird's eye view of the myriads of fishes there displayed mainly on the floor and also in baskets and some in boxes too. Most of the workers here wear yellow boots :-)




A fish merchant here displaying his fish for the buyers to make an offer. See the many kinds of fish .... can you name most of them? :-)




Another fish merchant displaying his fish. See the weighing scale in the centre? It's huge! And this is the first time in my life I see this many kinds of fishes lying on the floor LOL.



Here we have the fish merchant collecting his money after a successful deal was done. See his books to record deals and his calculate to punch out bargained prices ....


It was a good experience to have seen this fishery port. I was surprised to see quite a number of foreign workers coming into the port to buy fish. Many of them go home with at least a 2 kg fish in a red plastic bag. I can imagine that if I bought my 2 kg Thread fin fish here, I would need to pay only half the price that I had to pay at the Giant supermarket. But then who will help me process the fish, clear the innards and fillet them nicely for me? I am thankful that the fresh fish section of the supermarkets exist today :-)

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Rosemary

Dh and I had the chance to go on a Night Tour with our Catechist community. We arrived at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Vegetable Market at about 4 am. I managed to get this lot of rosemary all for $3. Usually I would have to pay $3 for about six to eight sprigs of these rosemary at the supermarket.

I think I can make maybe eight roast chickens with this lot of rosemary I bought from the wholesale market LOL. I gonna keep some of them in the fridge vegetable compartment and freeze the rest.


Monday, September 01, 2008

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Here's another challenge from Sweet & Simple Bakes and the original recipe is given HERE .

I baked this for dh's simple birthday celebration at home and he liked it. I baked the sponge cake in a single 8" cake pan and sliced it into two instead of baking two sponges. I also added in a quater cup Irish Cream Bailey's for that special flavour.




Ingredients:

For the sponge:
175 g unsalted butter at room temperature
175 g caster sugar
4 medium size eggs, beaten
175 g cake flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder sieved together with the cake flour
one quarter cup Irish Cream Bailey's

For the fillings:
enough sweet strawberry jam to cover the cut surface of the cake.

Buttercream:
75 g unsalted butter at room temperature
175 g icing sugar
1 tbsp Irish Cream Bailey's

Cream the buttercream ingredients together till you get a pale, fluffy and light texture.
There should be enough to cover the cut surface of the cake.

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar till the mixture becomes pale, light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs and the flour mixture a portion at a time till all are blended in.

Add in the Bailey's till well blended.

Pour batter into a lined 8" cake pan and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degree for about 35-40 mins. or till skewer comes out clean.

Remove cake pan and cool for about 10 mins before removing the cake from the pan to cool further.

When the sponge is fully cool, slice it into two parts equally and spread jam first and then buttercream before placing the other half on top.

I added icing sugar on the cake surface to get the birthday prints and also added some red sanding sugar to make the cake more festive looking.

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