Dinner with Dean et al...

What an enjoyable Saturday night!

Yesterday was a public holiday, and I decided not to work in another learning studio. I basically had the entire day free. In the morning, I just stayed home and did some house errands. I still got up at 6AM (it's my body clock!) and I ended up doing a bit of work, my laundry, and having my breakfast while waiting for my laundry to be done.

In the afternoon, I had a few meetups.

First was with Monay, who's in town with his family for a holiday. Originally, we planned to meet next week but I ended up rushing to Shinagawa Station for a quick meet. I just sent his entire family off as they were headed to Kyoto.

From Shinagawa, I took the Keihin Tohoku and got off at the next station - Oimachi.

Dean and I planned a house dinner at his place. I invited our common friend, Kohta, to the dinner. The last time I saw him was back in November. Thankfully, he was free yesterday. Kohta and I agreed to meet earlier so that we could catch up. Afterwards, we headed to the grocery to grab some stuff to bring over to Dean's place.

It was a great Saturday night! Dean and Ryan prepped the dinner - pasta, salad, store-bought dessert. Kohta and I brought some beer and umeshu and store-bought grilled chicken. Hehe!

Really great evening!

Thursdate with RKGreg and MkSurf8....

Mom and I spent most of Wednesday out and about walking around familiar places.

More about that in another post.

Our day ended with dinner together with two of my good friends here in Singapore - @MkSurf8 and @RKGreg. The two guys invited me to dinner last week but it had to be postponed to this week.

It was a blessing that the dinner was postponed since my Mom also got to meet them.

We had dinner at Wine Connection, definitely one of my fave places (although I didn't spend as much time frequenting it).

It was an evening with good food, a glass of wine, yum dessert, nice chitchat, and terrific friends. Every evening should have endings like this.

Thank you again, @RKGreg and @MkSurf8, for the dinner treat and more importantly, for the kindness right from the start. I'll always be grateful.

And happppppyyyy birthday, MkSurf8!

Dinner at Desmond's Creation...

It's been a crazy week at work and I'm just glad it's already the weekend.

This week is possibly one of the most memorable weeks in my life here in Singapore since I moved in 2011.

To celebrate the end of the toxic work week and the arrival of a weekend, I had dinner with PG Boy, Mon, and Richie.

Err, wasn't sure whether MonRich would be able to join PG Boy and me, but I'm glad that they managed to move some appointments tonight to accommodate us.

Or maybe PG Boy and I just didn't want to decide where to eat... or maybe I was just being too clingy.

We decided to eat Desmond's Creation. It turned out to be a good decision as I was craving for the superb food at the simple place.

After about two hours of dinner and chitchat, we decided to call it a night. MonRich had to meet with their real estate agent as they were moving houses. PG Boy headed back, I also headed back because I need to do my laundry. The weekend is going to be packed because Mom is arriving on Sunday.

Relaxing Friday night!

Dinner at Naughty Nuri's...

Some of the dishes from one of the welcome dinners for JB... hehe.

The other Sunday, we had a random dinner with JB. They suggested Naughty Nuri's at Capitol Piazza.

It was my first time at the place and I have to say, I want to go back. The food was gooood!

Nice dinner...

Dinner at Wheat...

I'm not feeling very well.

It's the weather I think. There was one night I slept with the AC really cranked up that I woke up with a weird feeling in my throat. I knew something was up because the next thing I know, I was starting to feel feverish.

If it wasn't for the scheduled dinner tonight with MonRich and PG Boy, I would've stayed home and slept early. Hehe!

Still, I went out and met up with the guys. We had dinner at this new healthy foodplace called Wheat. It's at the basement of Raffles City. I got a teriyaki chicken salad. It's a good salad place but I think I'd still choose Toss & Turn. Hehe! That's mainly because I'm a creature of habit.

The guys and I parted ways about an hour ago.

It was good because I was starting to feel worse and as a result, I wasn't contributing much to the convo anymore. Hehe!

Hope I'll feel much better tomorrow.

Dinner and dessert with visiting Richmond...

Just got back from dinner.

I rarely meet up with MonRich on a weekday evening. However, tonight we met up because of a visiting friend - Richmond.

Richmond, whom Richie knows since his university days and whom Mon and I know since early 2000, was in town for a few days with his family. He'll be flying back to the US on Saturday night. It was nice of him to ask us out to dinner.

Over dinner (at Wee Nam Kee because Richmond was craving for chicken rice) and dessert (at Robert Timms because this was our default go to for coffee and dessert), we talked about the old days - how Malate was such a fun place, how we used to be able to go on spontaneous out of town trips, and so on.

I guess one thing that stuck with us from tonight's convo was Richmond saying, "We need to create new memories!" It does make a lot of sense because we kept on harping back to the past. (Is it harping or harking? Hehe!)

Hmm, I think we have been making new memories. In fact, I think we've made tons of new memories. It's just that most of us have gone on different ways since the early to mid-2000. However, we still find ourselves at crossroads sometimes and when we do, we tend to remember the good old days. I'm not complaining though. Hehe!

Who knows when I'll see Richmond again? I'm quite sure though it would still be a fun get-together the next time we see each other.

Dinner with Bernice...

Bernice is in town again, but for only less than 24 hours.

She's flying to Bangkok for work, and as was always the case, she needed to transit either in Singapore or in Bali.

I'm glad that she flew in via Singapore.

We didn't really have any set plans. We just agreed to finalise things once she lands in Changi. I had training the whole day so I couldn't meet her at the airport.

Mon sent me a text message around 5PM to ask if I wanted to join him and Richie for dinner. I told them that Bernice will be arriving, and that she and I will join them if that's fine. (Of course, it was!)

It's the first time that Bernice and I hung out at Suntec area, I think. Usually, we'd stick around Farrer Park or Dhoby Ghaut or Orchard. It was a good change.

We ate at this Japanese place at Raffles City Link. I forgot the name but Mon describes it as atas Yoshinoya. Hehe!

Food is good and it's affordable. I ordered the curry rice and some sides. Bernice ordered the udon and some sides.

Afterwards, we were so full that we ended up walking to Suntec for tea and chitchat.

Good Saturday night! Looking forward to seeing Bernice again on Friday before she flies out back to Dili.

Zubuchon on a Sunday night...

Last night's dinner was sinfully delicious thanks to the kindness of a number of people. Haha!

When my friend NN was in town a couple of weeks ago, she told me that she will ask her friend Fe to handcarry the famous Zubuchon from Cebu the next time that Fe flew to Singapore for a holiday. I told her it wasn't necessary, but NN was insistent. Hehe!

Fast forward to yesterday, Fe messaged that she was already in town and that I should drop by her sister's place to collect the lechon. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see her when I went over to her sister's place. I went for a walk in the morning and by the time I reached Whampoa, Fe already left for MBS where she was going to watch the Bon Jovi concert.

I told JoAnn and Arlyn about the Zubuchon and I know that they will be excited for it! Earlier during the week, I asked them to block off their Sunday night for the Zubuchon dinner. Hehe! I also volunteered JoAnn to host the dinner at her place since she can cook, if needed. Hahaha!

It was our only choice because she's the only one with a well-equipped kitchen. Hehe! Arlyn brought ice cream for dessert. I brought the lechon. Lol!

So from the two kilos of lechon, JoAnn just baked part of it and then the other half, she cooked lechon paksiw. It was a super yummmm dinner!

Bed talk over dinner...

Over dinner the other night, one topic we talked about was beds.

Ann Marie, one of our friends, recently moved in to her own place. So, the past few weeks/days have been spent scouting for, making decisions about, and finally purchasing home stuff - including beds.

That day, she told us that she was contemplating between two beds. I forgot the details of one bed. The other bed, meanwhile, has a technology whereby sleeping person 1 won't feel a thing when sleeping person 2 climbs into bed. It's probably perfect for light sleepers who wake up at the slightest of movements. Hehe!

This started a discussion on why or why such a bed is good.

Richie proffered, "But don't you like it when you feel that someone finally climbs into bed next to you?"

Me being me, I naturally agreed with him on the above and on this - well, I do like it when in the middle of the night, I reach out to the person next to me, I could feel the person there. I certainly don't want to reach out to an empty space. Lol!

So, yeah, I think the only thing I want from my future is bed is to wake up with no middle back pain. Haha! But then, I dunno if that's because of the bed or if it's because of aging.

The discussion moved towards other home furnishings such as sink, toilet seats, lighting, and so on, but the bed got one of the lengthier talk time. Hehe!