10 days of chilling at FC

Time flies and before we know it, Sheena has come and gone! This trip was rather unplanned, in a nice way too because we didn't have to rush from attractions to attractions, place to place. No long road trips, just short excursions to nearby places for food and coffee.

Since it's her second time here (ahem, in half a year) and knew exactly how she wants to spend her time, we just jotted down a list of to-eat and to-do. The highlights are:

1. New eating places!

Silver Lake is along El Camino Real and we went there on Panda's recommendation (his colleagues brought him there for lunch). At $18.90 for a set of three main dishes and $1 per pax for rice, we couldn't ask for a more value for money lunch. We especially loved the salt and pepper ribs, and tofu rod cod pot!

We stopped by Soho Café on our way to Livermore Premium Outlet - it's just one exit away. Even though the reviews on Yelp are average, we liked the food there and I think it helps if you place your order in Cantonese! I tried their satay mee and it was yums.

Sheena is a ramen lover, like me! We had a girls lunch at Ramen Parlour because it's one of the best around, together with Ramen Dojo and Santa Ramen. I chose the garlic lobster pork soup base - thick and fragrant. The ramen also came with half a soft shell crab! Verdict for us: I think it's as good as Ramen Dojo (I love thick soup bases) but Sheena still ranks Hotaru's curry ramen as her favourite.

Spicy Empire, omg... I've been craving for Sze Chuan food for ages and Sheena gave me the perfect excuse to go because Panda doesn't take spicy food! We asked Vic to bring us there for lunch since he loves spicy food. I'm so in love with the 水煮鱼 and 蒜泥白肉. Will. Be. Back. Burp.

We sort of decided on King of Thai Noodle House at the last minute because we didn't know what to eat while we were in the city. It's a convenient choice since it's located near Union Square. The portions are just right. Their pad thai is better than their fried rice. And oh, Hoi Jor is good too.

Panda and I got a bit worried when Sheena disappeared for the longest time at the Great Mall food court. Turns out, she was queuing up for Great Khan's Mongolian BBQ. So you pile your bowl with as much food and condiments as you can, then someone will dump a pile of noodles on your bowl, and the chef will then cook them all up for you. How it taste is all up to you! But I must say it looks fun... trust Sheena to find this!

2. New gallivanting places!

We have no long road trips this time around, so we mainly hang around nearby places. I took Sheena to Philz Coffee at Palo Alto, and she liked it so much that we went back for a second time with Panda. (Actually, we went to the Facebook HQ branch without knowing that it's only for employees. Oops!)

Anyway, back at Palo Alto, we took a stroll along University Avenue. Love the Rocket Fizz Soda Pop & Candy Shop, which sells all sorts of quirky soda and candies, and Paris Baguette because their café mocha roll is so good! Cream, which sells ice-cream sandwiched between two cookies at only $2.50, smells lovely and there was no queue! A pity that our tummies were too full!

For our city tour, we skipped the pier because we've been there, done that. Took a walk along Chinatown instead, partly because we haven't really check out Chinatown before, partly because I wanted to look for good lup cheong! We didn't know all the good bakeries are along Stockton Street, since we went by Grant Avenue. We will save our tummies for next time!

3. New recipes!

Well, not exactly new new. Sheena tried Jo's guacamole dip in her last trip, so this time round she tried her hand at making it, under the supervision of Chef Jo. We also made many bags of potstickers, and baked shepherd's pie at home for the first time. I love it when we have simple home-cooked dinners!

For breakfast, Sheena also made us frittatas with bacon. It's quite yummy and the recipe sounds simple! I will try to make some in future too.

4. New shopping places!

Other than the usual outlets and malls, I brought Sheena to the Nike Clearance at San Leandro. We also shopped in the city for the first time. Among her goodies are two new pairs of TOMS from Sports Basement, and one new pair of boots at Skechers (I think she looks awesome in them!)



This sort of summarises Sheena's 10-day long break at FC. With an extremely relaxed and flexible itinerary, I hope she feels refreshed, satisfied (tummy-wise) and happy with her loot. Because I do, with my own shopping and eating craves fulfilled! Heehee!



I'm back after a week of silence

Oops. Why the silence since Halloween? 

I've been busy with the usual - preparing for Sunday School, going for French gatherings, trying to read etc. On top of that, I'm starting to prepare for my visa extension, and expanding the scope of the online part-time job. Work will be more regular in the weeks to come! Yay!

Have also been working on Wendy's 'order' of five clips for her friends' daughters. She's pretty open to new ideas so I tried a flower design. Instead of sewing the name on the leaf, like what I did with the apple, I placed the name on the stem instead. Was quite pleased with the results!

One more to go!

 

And I've decided to extend the 3rd month promotion to free international shipping. For the month of November, from my Etsy shop:

"Happy Holidays PROMO!! Receive FREE shipping with your purchase from now till 30 Nov.
For US: Please enter code 'OCT13SHIP' - no minimum purchase is required.
For other countries: Please enter code 'OCT13SHIP2INT' - minimum purchase of $20 is required.
It's the season to be jolly! Happy shopping!"

Let's see how this goes!

 

Another major update: Sheena has arrived in US yesterday! Her 2nd trip in half a year. She's out shopping at Livermore with Panda now while I stay home and prepare dinner. I woke up this morning with a slight sore throat and much lethargy, despite popping 2 Nyquil last night. I decided I should do the right thing and not to go for Veterans' Day sale. Yes, it required every ounce of willpower, but I think it's more important to listen to your body!

Spooky, spooky! It's our first Halloween!

 

We had a fabulous time bringing little Z out for his first trick-or-treat at Taylor Street, Millbrae yesterday! The houses along this stretch were known to be kids-friendly at Halloween, and they were indeed nicely done up with lights, tombstones, cobwebs, witches and ghosts. Families were just sitting on their steps, distributing sweets to hordes of kids.

The atmosphere got better after 6.30pm, as the skies turned dark and older kids started to arrive. One of the houses erected a giant enclosed black tent on the front lawn (supposedly a haunted house), and loads of kids were heard screaming inside. I peeped in and saw skeletons and gory masks accentuated by green light. No wonder this stretch of road attracts so many kids at Halloween - applaud these folks for their efforts!

(Side track: Halfway through our Halloween walk, Mom called and asked what I was doing. I explained that I was with my friend, bringing her kid out to get candies. Mom asked if I told him the real meaning behind Halloween - that we shouldn't be celebrating ghosts/witches/evil souls. I said he is too young to understand but his mom will explain to him that there's nothing to be afraid of, since it's all fake! Judging by Z's reaction, however, he was indeed a little scared. On second thoughts, it was fun for us to watch little Z in his airplane suit, walking up timidly to get his treat. But I couldn't tell if he found it fun or frightening or confusing. Whoops.)

We retreated to Wendy's place for dinner, where we were joined by a drag queen KTV papasan, a Japanese soldier, a minecraft, and... a basketball player. Panda was so sad that we didn't consider him for the group photo. We rejected his basketball player costume, because that was what he wore yesterday to watch the warriors games! He was appealing to us the entire evening, saying he wore track pants and brought a basketball. But we happily grouped him with Wendy (carrot/pumpkin wannabe) and Lawrence (just home clothes). 

Oh! I forgot to mention that I was quite proud of myself, for throwing together the leopard costume at the last minute! I only decided to dress up around 4 plus, and barely had 45 minutes to get ready. Rummaged through the wardrobe for clothes, made felt ears and tail, put on make-up. All in less than an hour.

The effect was worth the effort. And worth having my hair hot glue-gunned to the felt accidentally, in my hurry to get the ears done. Talk about a craft mess! Jo and Wendy said I looked more like Aki Mat Yoyo from their childhood Malay programme. Oh well, they are cute too!

The day before we had a pumpkin carving session at Jo and Vic's place. They were the 'experts', having a grand total of one carving experience when none of us had any. So they taught us how to dig out the seeds, scrape the insides till it's smooth and 1-inch thin, and design the funny face before poking the knife in. It's fun but it's also hard work. I can't imagine kids doing this all alone! I had to hold the heavy pumpkin with one hand and wiggle the knife with the other. All the time I was thinking I might slash my wrist by accident, and we would have a really bloody Halloween. 

Fortunately, no humans or animals were hurt during the process, and we had decent looking Jack-O-Lanterns at the end of the day. Cutest award goes to Wendy's Mr. Potato/Pumpkin head!

So we accomplished much for our first Halloween event - carved pumpkin lanterns, dressed up in costumes, went for trick-or treat. As usual, I'm really thankful for the fun-loving friends around us.

Happy Halloween to us!

I love polka dots

Black nails for Halloween? But the polka dots made it look more Kate Spade-ish! There's something classic, something girly about polka dots. Heh...

Goodbyes and hellos

The Real Housewives of FC

Goodbyes are always hard, aren't they? Even if you know you will see each other again.

This week, we bid farewell to Winifred and bb O as the family made their move back to Asia. We had an official farewell at Alana's café at Redwood City - a nice little cottage serving hearty brunch like pancakes, quiches, scrambles and toasts. 

There, we presented Winifred with our very own 'Winifred's Guide to Singapore'. We hope it will help her get acquainted with all the new eateries and to-go places back home. Relocation is scary, and little tips here and there go a long way!



Housewives hard at work

Ta-da!

The happy mama and baby

We drove them to the airport and helped with the luggage since we stay so close by. All the while, Bb O looked as if she knew something big was about to happen. As we waved goodbye to her at the gate, she looked as if she was going to cry. Argh... we are gonna miss this sweetie pie!

Last attempt to make bb O laugh at the airport

In the same week, we said hello to a new friend who has just arrived in the Bay Area. It's Jo's friend's friend, who also turned out to be Yiru's friend's friend. That we found out. Indeed, it's a small world!

Anyway, Yiru suggested Tootsies At the Stanford Barn - an Italian café serving breakfast/lunch, for our inaugural rendez-vous with Flora. I absolutely adore the ambience of the place - very cosy with its barn structure, red brick walls and pretty outdoor seating. Well, it's close to Stanford Shopping Centre so I guess it has the same European feel. The rest ordered sandwiches and burgers, while I opted for risotto balls which came with fresh arugula salad. Yums! But the thing I'll come back for is the hot chocolate - just the right amount of creaminess and richness for me!



Our big plates on the mini tables



Saying 'welcome' to Flora

After lunch, Yiru invited us over for a short session of tea and coffee before we zipped back to FC to fetch Z. It's really great knowing that the housewives' group is growing. It's so easy to talk to these girls since we are all around the same age and come from similar backgrounds. The husbands are gonna be real envious as we have more and more girls' outings!

Where has the weekend gone?

Oops. The weekend's over already?

Panda had finally gotten his visa issues settled and flew back yesterday - hooray! That's after being away for more than 2 weeks, much longer than we had anticipated. But I was doing alright here on my own, thanks to my awesome friends, who kept bringing food and inviting me over for dinners. On Friday night, I decided it was my turn to host and did a simple dinner.

On Saturday, we made an impromptu shopping trip to Marina Square Centre, San Leandro. The Nike Clearance store was located there and it's pretty cool, carrying more variety than outlet stores. I had to exercise A LOT of self-restraint, telling myself I have enough sports gear and I don't need another set of top, pants and jacket. But the wall of defense sort of fell when we went to Gap. Jo and I each bought a puffy vest. Well, that I don't have yet!

Sunday's pretty much a Cupertino day! I finally had a chance to try Layang Layang, which everyone opined tastes better than Shiok, the other Singaporean/Malaysian restaurant. I was debating between Mee Goreng, Nasi Lemak and Hor Fun. In the end, Hor Fun won and I loved it! Also tried a little bit of their Char Kway Teow. It's not too bad.



I forgot to mention that the reason we were in Cupertino in the first place was KTV. The gang had been itching to go for some time but we decided to wait for Panda. So while he was still somewhat jet-lagging, he gamely went with us. The sound system at Music Tunnel KTV is nothing to shout about (well, compared to those in Asia) but we still had tons of fun. The best thing was that we could order bubble tea and other snacks from the counter! Oh yums. And we only paid $20 each for 3.5 hours of singing.

We requested a tour of Cupertino from Len after KTV and he dutifully brought us to see the Merlion statue and Cupertino Village, where one can find a gigantic Ranch 99 supermarket and all kinds of Chinese cuisine. We wanted to try the porridge place at the village but it was unfortunately closed, so we headed to another one at Milpitas some 20 minutes away, called The Porridge - Mei Garden. The food is pretty simple, but I absolutely love it for it's home-cooked taste. 菜圃蛋 (fried egg with preserved radish) is the best!

Before heading home, we checked out Milpitas Square, another Chinese shopping complex with restaurants and a smaller Ranch 99 supermarket. I didn't even realise we have so many restaurant choices near us. The next time I have visitors who love Asian food, I'll be sure to head down to Cupertino.

Ice-cream temptation at Palo Alto



I love, love ice-cream. Correction. Chocolate ice-cream.

Which was why when Jo and Vic tempted me with an invitation to Tin Pot Creamery, I barely had a 1-sec hesitation before saying yes! I haven't even had dinner yet! But for good chocolate ice-cream, I would gladly reverse the meal order.

So tonight, I decided to be a little more adventurous. Other than a safe chocolate flavour, I ordered Earl Grey and Pumpkin Spice - October is the month for pumpkins, right? 

Verdict: I still like chocolate the most. Earl Grey was a little disappointing, Pumpkin Spice was interesting in a nice way, but Rich Chocolate with TCHO Shards was unbeatable!

And the good thing about Tin Pot is that its ice-cream doesn't melt fast (yay, cos I don't eat melty ice-cream!) The bad thing is that the shop closes at 9pm. Too early!

 

 

There were also no seats in the shop so we stood outside to eat our ice-creams. It was freezing but the feeling of eating ice-cream on a chilly night was awesome. Halfway through, we snuck into CVS to get some warmth while Vic checked out his stuff.

It was such an impromptu ice-cream night - you can tell by our bare/make-up free faces. Heh! But it was fun. And when I got home, I still have hot watercress soup packed by Jo as my proper dinner. My sweet housewife friends have been taking turns to pack soup/dinner for me the lone lady. So niceeeeee!

Arts & craft: the apple of my eye

This is for bb O, who will be flying back to Singapore with her parents next week. The family is returning home for good, which means we will have one less neighbour to hang out with in FC! :(

The design is called Apple of My Eye because I think that's what bb O is in her parents' eyes. She has the softest hair, sweetest rainbow-eyed smile, and heartiest laugh. And if you know her story, you will understand how just by looking at her, one is reminded of God's grace and providence in life. Oh, all the aunties are gonna miss her!

I thought long and hard whether to put this up on SGUS because I wanted it to be a special thing for bb O. In the end, I decide to go ahead because it's still a cute design which I love very much and want to share with others.

Already, it has two 'favourites' within the first 5 minutes of listing. It's always an encouragement to know there are people viewing and liking, even without purchase.

In any case, hope bb O will be able to use this someday, and remember Auntie Grace.

God bless this little baby!