New Zealand Travelogue | Explore Life Luxury Camping

One of the things I was most excited about on our trip was Glamping. Glamping, or Glamourous Camping, is actually something I've always wanted to try and when I found out that NZ had it I literally begged Brandon to allow us to give it a try. 

The campsite we picked was the Mt Gold Camp which was for couples although they do have other campsites for families as well. The campsite was off road so we had to drive down an unmarked lane, met up with Amy (our host) who brought us to the little parking area (there's no actual parking, we kind of just drove through a gate that marked the spot as private property and parked behind a bush to block the car from sight).

New Zealand Travelogue | Blue Pools

While doing my research on "must-do" things, I came across the Blue Pools forest walk. It's supposed to be a really short hike to this pool with amazingly blue waters. Just google "Blue Pools Track New Zealand" and feast your eyes on the beauty that is the Blue Pools.

The great thing about New Zealand is that there were so many public car parks that were free for everyone. If you're only going to spend a short time visiting a place, it'll be very annoying to have to continuously pay for parking at every single sightseeing spot.

New Zealand Travelogue | Otira Viaduct Lookout

The next stop we made was at the Otira Viaduct Lookout. It's just a small lookout point where you can see, well, the Otira Viaduct. We never see such things in Singapore so although it isn't a must-do, if you're passing through the area, there is no harm stopping by to snap a quick picture of two before moving on with your journey.

New Zealand Travelogue | Castle Hill

For the longest time, I've been meaning to blog about all the trips I've taken but I've obviously slacked off and didn't do so. Take this trip for example, I went to New Zealand with Brandon in April 2018, that's nearly 10 months ago and I haven't even uploaded any of the photos on Facebook. Since I'm on a roll, I thought I would mix up beauty posts with some travelogues, starting off with our honeymoon trip.

We took a direct flight with Singapore Airlines to the beautiful South Island and it was honestly the most blissful 2 weeks of my life. We basically did a road trip around the South Island, just Brandon and I, and we had the best time ever. Obviously I may miss out certain details at this point because it's been a while but I'll do my best to add in whatever I can.

Margarita's @ Dempsey

This post is more than a month late but I totally forgot about this and only just remembered I haven't blogged this so here we go. I've always been meaning to bring SH to have Mexican food because it's something I have slowly developed a fondness for, and I've never had a Mexican meal with SH before so I thought I would surprise him with a meal at Margarita's @ Dempsey to celebrate his birthday. 

Margarita's is located at Block 11 at Dempsey Hill which is the block directly opposite the Ben & Jerry's flagship store at Dempsey so this should give you some idea of where it's located. Parking at Dempsey Hill can be a bit hard to find during peak hours so be sure to head there for either an early lunch or dinner if you want to avoid the massive parking jam because parking lots are pretty limited (if you don't want to park a distance from your destination).

Films at the Fort | The Man Who Knew Infinity

Whilst the idea of watching movies under the stars may appeal to many people who live overseas, Singapore's weather isn't exactly the most conducive to do anything outdoorsy. It's usually hot, or humid, or hot AND humid. Dawn and I were both very interested in attending the Films at the Fort (Canning) but we were afraid that the weather wouldn't hold up and it would pour during the movie.

#YQXSH | Marriage Proposal

So... I know that this post is extremely late but better late than never right? Also, I only got the footage for the marriage proposal video recently and I wanted to post both the pictures and the video up together so here goes!

So the girls (Cheryl & Charisse) asked me out for dinner to celebrate my birthday a day earlier than the actual day. They refused to give me any hints whatsoever about the places we would be going and the food we were having so I met Charisse at the train station and she brought me to Capricci which is an Italian restaurant near Tanjong Pagar MRT Station. 

Saveur

#YQXSH | Wedding Proposal

I didn't want to leave this place hanging but I've been so busy everyday since I've been back and I didn't have the time to properly update this space. I'm flying off again tonight but I promise I'll try to get some posts up today and schedule them so I won't neglect this space.

In the mean time, if you haven't already heard.... SH finally proposed to me! I'm so excited to share this amazing piece of news with everyone here because this is something that I've always been dreaming of. I'll try to do up the post and the vlog (once I've gotten all the videos from everyone else) as soon as possible, but till then, I hope this little snippet suffices. Thank you everyone who showered me with your well-wishes and words of congratulations. I really feel so blessed to know that everyone is truly happy for me :'>

Whisk & Paddle

After the somewhat disastrous dinner at Big Street (disastrous for me, not for SH, he was pretty happy with his lobster prata wrap), I wanted to have like a proper date night with SH before I fly overseas so I brought him over to Whisk & Paddle after work for dinner.

I came here last year and had really good mac and cheese so I really wanted to have that again.

What I like about Whisk & Paddle is that there's a choice of alfresco sitting and being right beside a waterway, it was pretty breezy so we weren't hot at all. Sadly, the haze was pretty bad that day though but we braved through the haze to enjoy the amazing view of nature.

Instead of opting for one main each, we decided to order 2 mains and a side to share. We never share our mains because our taste in food is actually very different so this was a refreshing change because we got to try 3 different items (one of which was my mac & cheese, of course).

For drinks, Brandon got the Lychee Mint Cooler and I got the Passionfruit Lime Lychee and both were really refreshing drinks to have in the evening after work. 

Lychee Mint Cooler ($6.90)

Fresh mint leaves and lychees. 

 Passionfruit Lime Lychee Homemade Iced Tea ($6.90)

The first dish we ordered to share was the Pull Pork Quesadillas and they were on fleek. I really liked how the whole dish was flavourful without being too much so. I never would have pegged this dish to be a hit and it was, very much so.

Pull Pork Quesadillas ($12)

BBQ pull pork, pineapple, mozzarella cheese wrapped in tortilla, served with Mexican corn and lime wedge.

We ordered a Meats Thin Crust Pizza to share and it was pretty good. I'm not the biggest pizza fan of the pizza here and I think Timbre's pizzas are better but SH said "you can tell they made an effort with their pizzas". I have to say that I did like it though.

Meats Thin Crust Pizza ($17.80) 

Minced pork and beef, chicken, bell pepper, olives and onion.

And for the main reason why I wanted to go to Whisk & Paddle to have dinner in the first place, my Macaroni & Cheese. I loved how the mac & cheese tasted here, it's like the classic American comfort food. But be sure to share this dish with someone else because it can get pretty gelat after a while. 

Macaroni & Cheese ($13.80)

 Macaroni, honey baked ham and onion cooked in pink sauce and mozzarella cheese.

We basically sat there till the sun went down and we were stuffed before heading back to a The Vampire Diaries marathon. It was a really good night spent with SH and while I am really excited that I finally get to jet off with my parents, I'm going to miss him so much when I'm gone.

'till the next one, thank you for reading!

Big Street

So SH has been meaning to bring me to Big Street because he read really good reviews about this place. On Resurrection Sunday (otherwise known as Easter Sunday to the greater population), he decided to bring me there after Sunday service because it coincided with our 20th. I don't know why I just didn't have very high hopes for the place and thankfully I didn't because it was nothing I expected it to be.

It was nestled at the corner of a row of shop houses just along Jalan Besar and the cafe looked pretty decent from the outside with industrial-feel lighting, white walls and wooden furniture - my favourite kind of cafe decor if I were to be honest.

The first thing that truly shocked me was the prices in the menu. When I flipped the menu opened, I was some what prepared to see your typical cafe food. Bearing in mind that I didn't do any prior research to coming here, I was pretty dismayed to realise that they basically sold your typically hawker center food, just nearly 300% more expensive.

I would be pretty appalled to pay $4 for Hainanese chicken rice at any hawker center but they sold that for $10. Hokkien mee costed $16, Nasi Briyani with chicken was $10. They even sold roti prata, at $3 for 2 pieces of plain prata or $2.50 for an egg prata. Say what?! The prices were breathtakingly expensive and I wanted to walk right out of the place but SH asked me not to. This prices are like black market prices for normal hawker food if you ask me. It doesn't matter if the hokkien mee comes with "jumbo prawns", I don't even eat prawns.

The ice teh tarik was pretty decent and strong and it wasn't diluted at all which was great. But I wouldn't pay $4 for this on it's own. Would you?

Ice Teh Tarik (came with my prata set)

The ice berry sensational was... for lack of a better word, interesting. I didn't like it one bit and I actually think it wasn't meant to be drank with sugar syrup but SH didn't like it at all so he requested for sugar syrup and he managed to finish it so I would assume that it tasted a lot better with sugar in it.

Ice berry sensation dashed with lime & mint ($5)

This was probably the only redeeming factor to this place was this dish, the chunky crab meat prata wrap. There was a whole lot of crab meat in this prata wrap and according to SH (I don't eat crab), he said that there wasn't bits of shell inside the meat. Apparently it is hard to deshell crab without getting bits of the shell inside the meat? I don't know because I don't eat seafood but I would assume that $12 for deshelled crab meat is pretty darn reasonably.

Chunky crab meat in garlic chilli sauce ($12)

My dish was basically prata with chicken thigh in the curry. Now I didn't like how the phased it on the menu at all, it was massively misleading and I believe any one would have the same misconception as I did. 

On the menu, this was the description: Plain prata, (2 pcs) egg prata, curry chicken thigh, teh or kopi tarik.

This was what I assumed it would be, 1 piece of plain prata, 2 pieces of egg prata with curry chicken thigh and either coffee or tea. OR. If you give them the benefit of the doubt that they may have accidentally placed the comma in the wrong place, then 2 pieces of plain prata, 1 piece of egg prata and the rest.

OH NO. None of the above by the way. They meant that for $9 you only got 2 pieces of plain prata. If you wanted egg prata, you had to add on $1 per piece of plain prata that you wanted to change to egg prata. Say what? Some one needs to vet the menu before sending it to print because it is totally misleading in what the price offered. I snapped a picture of the menu for reference.

The prata was your normal coffee shop prata, maybe a tad less oily, but the curry was pretty good. Even then, $9 is a very steep price to pay for this dish.

Chicken ($9)

Plain prata, curry chicken thigh, teh or kopi tarik

Big Street

Address:

| 104-106 Jalan Besar, Singapore 208828 |

I will have to say though that staff were really helpful and polite (but they only spoke mandarin and I'm not the strongest speaker in that language), and the ambience was really good probably because there was only 2 other tables that were occupied when we reached so we basically had the place to ourselves. I only wished that they didn't play mandarin songs there but then again, I am biased because I prefer English songs over mandarin ones. 

I feel that if the prices were lowered by maybe 20-30%, or the food selection was more impressive than just food I can find easily at any hawker centre, I MAY come back again. But despite the great service and decent ambience, I'm sorry to say that I will not be visiting this place again.