A new beginning

So many changes this year, I got married, got the confirmation on my BTO flat which will be ready in 3-4 years time, I got a new job, new challenges in a familiar environment.

And this year also marked the 10 or 11 years of vizinity.com, a some what persistent yet infrequent blog which I maintained. So it is time (finally) to make changes to this blog.

This will be my last post. Yes, my last post. or at least till i am ready to post again. In the mean time, friends, I will still be available on my facebook, and if you are not on it, you know where to add me.

I did it, finally.

It is confirmed, I tendered my resignation to the company and I have been serving a flexible notice till end Sep. A significant turning point of my life as i have grown from a system adminstrator to a manager of indochina markets.

The days are long but the years are short. Looking back i see how i have changed, gained and losses too over these 10 years. The company provided abundance of opportunity for growth and now, it is time for me to look beyond current situation and reach out for new horizon.

Gonna start my new job on 1 Oct, which means no holiday for me at this transitional stage. this new job will still be a regional role with 75% of my time in Cambodia, the rest in Singapore.

Love to but can't expose the company yet but good to know that it is not liquor related, my liver is happy.

Wok Me: Stew Pork Legs [卤猪脚]

This is my first time doing this dish in Singapore and there are many varations from the internet. I chose from a few recipes and gave them a little mix to match what i believe will be palatable to me. Turns out to be pretty good.

Serving size: 5-6

Ingredients:

• pork leg (front), about 1 kg, chopped into sections
• 3 short Cinnamon sticks
• 1 star Anise
• 5 clove
• 4 tbsp rock sugar
• 8 slices of ginger
• 2 bulbs of garlic, do not remove skin
• Salt
• rark soya sauce
• 1 - 2 tbsp Sichuan peppercorn
• dry chilli 3-4, depending on taste
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tbsp chicken seasoning powder
• 1 tbsp of shaoxing chinese cooking wine

Method:

1. Boil the pork legs with 3 slices of ginger in hot water for about 5 mins, remove and throw pig legs into cold water immediate for another 5 mins, remove and set aside.
2. Add a bit oil in the wok and add in rock sugar, set on low heat till the sugar melt.
3. Add in pork legs, ginger and garlic into the wok and stir fry till the skin is brown, remove.
4. Add pork legs into the claypot, add dark soya sauce and water. Water level should be about 1/2 to 3/4 of all the meat.
5. Place star anise, cloves, ginger, garlic, sichuan peppercorn, dry chilli into a bag, tighten and place bag in the claypot. Add white vinegar, shaoxing chinese cooking wine, and chicken seasoning powder, bring it to boil.
6. Once boiled, turn to low heat and cook for 1hr
7. Add salt to taste and serve

Wok me: Potato Pork Ribs soup

This is a very simple soup which i specially made for my little niece last Sunday as she simply loves soup! I usually do not publish the full details of the recipe (not because i don't share, but i'm lazy at details).. this time round, i am going to attempt.

Serving size 4-5 persons:

Ingredients:

• 500gram pork ribs
• 2 carrots, cut to cubes
• 3 small potatoes, cut to cubes
• 5 red dates
• 2 tbsp wolfberries (goji berry)
• 1 hardboiled egg, de-shelled
• 300 gram minced pork
• Water
• Salt

Marinate:

• Oyster sauce
• Soya sauce
• Sugar
• Cornflour
• Egg white
• Seasame seed oil
• Shaoxing chinese cooking wine

Method:

1. Marinate mince pork with the marinate for at least 1 hour
2. Scald the pork ribs in hot water to remove the blood and other impurities, remove and set aside.
3. Place pork ribs, red dates and wolfberries in pot, add water and bring it to boil on high heat.
4. Add carrots, potatoes, red dates and wolfberries into the pot and set to low heat for 15 mins
5. Spoon the mince pork into ball shape and add to pot
6. Lastly, add the hardboiled egg for the little niece ;)
7. Once the meat balls float, add salt to taste and it is ready to serve

 It is a simple to cook, sweet based soup that anyone can cook.

Wok me: Century egg and pork porridge [皮蛋瘦肉粥]

Porridge is one of my favourite food to cook. It is easy to cook, healthy and at the same time i can practically throw in any form of ingredients into it like, overnight food.

This time round, since my sister and my niece is staying over, i decided to be a good uncle by cooking my little niece porridge. :)

I always start of with the soaking of rice for about 30 min to 1 hr so that the rice will breakup easily forming a more consistent texture later.

Next boil the rice with high heat till the rice expanded and start to 'crack' (about 10mins), then turn down to low heat and continue to boil for another 45min - 60 min. i use chicken stock cube to replace salt in the porridge. Previously i've used ikan bilis cube but the colour is not so appetitizing. Continue to stir the porridge at intervals till the texture you want then off the fire and leave it on the stove (covered) for another 15 min. Remember to add only hot water if the porridge in the cooking process becomes too thick.

Oh, you need to marinate the pork, i bought the standard grinded pork from NTUC and used about 100 grams, which is pretty sufficient for the three of us. Marinate with oyster sauce, soya sauce, sesame seed oil, cornflour, pepper and egg white

Depending how thick you like your pork to be, i always add the pork at about 10 min before i off the fire. Add in the 2 x diced century eggs just before you off the fire and i normally do not stir them in as it 'stain' the porridge.

Finally, to serve, throw in some chopped spring onions, fried shallots, dash of sesame seed oil and light soya sauce to your liking, and as you can see, i do not have any spring onion, but hey, that's home cooking. i deal with whatever i have.

Life of a corporate traveller #3 - Dont be hungry.

if you are a glutton like me, buy supper after dinner. yes. simply because it is just safer, both going out on the streets possibily alone and losing your sleep.

sometimes when you are all alone in the hotel, food can be a great comforter as long as you are not doing it too often.

sometimes if the food can last, it can be breakfast, giving you more sleeping time in the morning.

chill.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Life of a corporate traveller #2 - drying your laundry

what to do when you don't have a heater in the room? you use any strong metal pole, in this case I use the shower pole: wrapped my clothes around it and just twist it. remember to change the way the clothes is wrapped aroun the pole to make sure you take off excess water as much as possible. this will help the drying process later.






luckily this time, in this hotel has a fan! so I learnt that clothes dry faster on hangers and in wardrobe ONLY provided you can create a circulating air flow like in the picture. I set the fan to blow at the bottom of the wardrobe, the wind will move out at the top, providing a constant flow which dry clothes faster if you have more than one set. trust me, this is better than having the fan blowing directly at it as this normally dries the clothes quite unevenly, with the area getting direct wind dries first. not good for overnight drying as you are not going to get up and change sides.

chilll

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Life of a corporate traveller #1 - washing your clothes

life of a corporate traveller is my new series on vizinity which records a series of my life out here farming for a monthly pay checks.

I get a lot of envies about travelling opportunities as part of my work; part of the purpose of this series is to show you guys that it's not a bed of roses.

some background, I have been working outside Singapore for the most part of the last 4 years or so; most part of it in Vietnam and Cambodia.

anyway, first picture of the set. washing clothes in the shower, you wash your own clothes if you run out of it or the shitty hotel you stay in did not clean you room today. as to why in the shower? it saves time! you don't want to change to your new PJ and wetting them again anyway.

tip, always travel with a tiny bit of washing detergent especially if the hotel is not 3 stars and above. even if it is, it comes in handy when you clean your undies. yup, i don't throw undies to the washing system of the hotel, because I do not wish other peoples dried sperm to mixed with mine. or maybe that's just me.

Next picture, how to dry them in one night.

chill.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Geylang cleanup leads to vice in heartland (MPs worry that these activities are moving to residential areas)

Today's ST talks about vice.. look at the subject above, it did not mentioned anything about pimps or prostitutes, but we all know which vice they are talking about don't we? though i would relate more to the fatty food as more vicious then the prostitution.

Now the MPs are afraid that the aggressive cramp down on geylang and hourly rate hotels will lead to vices moving to residential areas.. err... no lor.. a bit stupid to think that any man would want to fuck prostitute in a place he lives, or even close to where he lives. i'm not buying milk you know?

well, i know i won't. what if the auntie whom watched me grew up sees me? "ah tiong ah, new girlfriend is it? wah, very beautiful hor.." or its not like one day on the way back home from from work.. i walk to the lift and hey.. a prostitute standing by the postboxes.. she says, 'qu4 ma1 qu4 ma1".. i go.. i'm tired, but hey its pay day.. cmon up to where i live, where my parents sleep next door.". that's not going to happen! if i wanna fuck.. i GO find one.. not fuck at the nearest 7/11 convenient store. that is not how fuck works.

So play safe.. go geylang.. the 'lau jiao' and many websites recommended it anyway, so cannot be wrong, plus I can always say I'm going for "cha kway tiao" or "frog legs" or "you tiao" .. no risks see.. so .. i think the MPs need to really go on the ground, talk to the pimps and prostitutes and understand how the business goes, what the market wants and etc. start an association of sexual services to regulate all these activities or something. If you destroy a centralised area of operation, they just have move their shops elsewhere to do the business in order to avoid being caught. they not going to close shop and call it a day.

MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC Christopher De Souza says "'A longer-term solution to the problem is to not allow budget hotels to operate on an hourly rate. I can assure you that there would be great resistance if any hourly rate hotel tried to open in my ward.'

Err.. since when budget hotels = brothel? this highly educated (i assumed) brain has such a backward and perverted view on budget hotels? people can only fuck in budget hotel meh? 5 stars hotel no prostitutes is it? wah lew eh.. or only poor people cannot fuck? those can pay full day rate or go 5-star hotel can fuck. i thought only my grandmother generation will have such an opinion. budget hotel is the problem? hourly rate is the problem?? c'mon, it is like saying that casino is the root to gambling problem. we cannot remove prostitution even by closing down all budget hotels. really. think harder.

And you also don't go around telling the hotels to ensure that no prostitutes will use their hotel for the activities.. i mean, how do they think that is even possible to enforce.. "err Ms, are you a 'social worker?'" .. "err Ms, do you know the  mother's name of this man whom i'm not saying that you will have sex with as a prosititute?"..or "Ms, please help to sign this I-am-not-prostitute declaration form" .. c'mon.. at least they are getting a room! what transacted mutually between two mature adults and as long as they are not doing it in the park, lift, or children section in the library, i don't see anything wrong with it.

the fact that there are so many prosititutes here is simply because of the increase in demand.. its all economics. more lonely foreigners + horny locals = more demand in sexual services.. plus getting in and out of singapore is simple. mas selemat will tell you that. we opened the flood gates to welcome the growth of population, shouldn't we expect all these to grow in demand as well?

funny. 

Yvonne dumpy had a great fall.

Finally i am back to full time work day for this week after taking one week of half days to look after yvonne. 

It has been a week and Yvonne is now regaining the ability to do simple chores like showering herself, using chopsticks and going to the toilet.. unaided. But she still walk with her right buttocks as the kneecap is best not to bend.

Luckily the pain went away, replaced by itchiness, which is part of recovery, that means itchy is good.

Seeing her speedy recovery, i can't help feeling a sense of accomplishment (hey, i took care of her ok!). No lar, more importantly is that nothing too serious happened.

So if everything is ok, she will be good to go (work) on Thursday/Friday, with a little walking difficulty that's all.

Happy.

Sunday brunch fish porridge

fish porridge
Originally uploaded by viz

My favourite food for brunch on a lazy Sunday. something that is not so fattening and nutritious at the same time, fish porridge.

This is the first time i try cooking fish porridge in singapore and boy the weather is hot. just wanted to said that. but really the fish IS expensive around here considering we are surrounding by water. about 500gm of fish burnt $15.00 in my pocket before i can even start my stove. if not for the graving, i would go for pork porridge anytime. (i only need 300gm of fish, 4 serving)

Anyway, i soaked the rice for about 20-30mins before i left for marketing, in this way, i save time in cooking them as i can wash the rice by grinding and rubbing them when i come back. kinda therapetic seeing the rice breaking into small little bits.

Then the rice and water in the pot goes on the stove on high heat, bringing it to a boil. watch it if your fire is powerful as you do not want to end up washing the stove when the water overflow.

But during that time, i did all the other stuff like cutting up the spring onions, ginger, fish, chilli (for soya sauce, because i like it)

after slicing the fish, i seasoned it with salt, sugar, pepper, wheat flour, 'Shao Xin' wine and throw them into the fridge to let the intercourse between the mixture and the fish take place.

Back to the stove, the water is boiling and i turned the heat down to medium and start the 'tedious' process of stirring. I took about 40 mins to get my desired level of 'dissolvation' at the rice dissolving about 78.38% (not that i measure) into the water, forming a smooth congee with visible rice bits. If you like 100% dissolve like the cantonese congee, pls, stir more.

Then after 40 mins of stirring, i added in 1/3 cube of the ikan bilis season cube for taste (though i prefer salt as the porridge will retain its 'whiteness'), but seasoning cube is what they are, seasoning, so the porridge does taste better.

Now the fish. I turn up the heat again and as the congee is bubbling, I added in the sliced fish, stir them up a little then threw in the ginger slices, chopping spring onion, cover the pot and off the fire immediately. Then i leave it alone for 20-30mins so that the heat from the congee will cook the fish to the right texture.

The result is pretty much what i wanted though i would slice the fish thinner next time round. the last two sauces i added before i eat are some drips of soya sauce and sesame seed oil. :)

My niece

My niece is pulling my lugguage. Haha. So comical.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

It works!!!

Swee steady! It works!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Let's see if this works.

Finally, after one night of troubleshooting, I've managed to resolve the directory issue due to the change of server and now my blogs are visible. Yeah! Now blogging from iPhone. Woo!

iPhone yes!

Finally got myself a iPhone 3GS. not extremely excited about it as i was alreasdy playing with iPod Touch for some time now. it is just a iPod Touch with Phone and a shorter battery life. the upside is that i can be surfing virtually anywhere anytime for as long as i'm in Singapore (God bless unlimited bandwidth). As for the iPod Touch, i wonder what i should do with it since i've already resetted it. any takers? it is not free.

Will be heading off to Vietnam for my holidays with Yvonne (not (entirely) for work). Central vietnam to be more exact. will be in the mountains, enjoying the cool and fresh air part of vietnam which my work do not really provide. First oversea trip with Yvonne! something for our photo wall moments. :)

I'm getting married

it is hard to swallow, sometimes it may even seen surreal, yes, the wild man is settling down, with a girl of course. and well, for those who already heard this news, yes, you are my close friend. and yes, i should feel happy, am i happy? checking again, yes, i AM happy. married to someone whom i dated exactly 6 months today. i think i'm insanely happy.

that's about all the updates on Viz.

same old thoughts pending on whether this site should continue or should i just move on to facebook posting. i need an inspiration, a theme, a mission, i need to change the world! oh well, maybe not.

till then.

Down with fever

Viz is down with fever.. in cambodia, where there is just too many things to do, but blessed as he is, it is the weekend.

Viz is down with fever.. alone in the cold hotel room.. but blessed as he is, business partner called and send panadol, water and water boiler.

Viz is down with fever.. under 2 layers of clothing, he feels blessed that he is not feeling worse than now and it is probably not H1N1 virus.

Viz is down with fever.. though uncomfortable.. he is blessed with room service, remote control TV and working water heater for shower.

a new life

Trust can either be earned or given. Today, I learnt that trust can not only be given as a gift, it can also be given in an instant, quicker than making 3-in-1 coffee.

Giving trust liberates one's soul which is trapped in the shadow of the past, destroy the demon which casts doubts, and free the mind from indecisiveness. Trust is the currency for relationship growth, without it, we can't get anything fruitful from relationship.

chill.

viz couldnt find a suitable title to this post, perhaps he shouldn't have started a post without knowing what to write. viz got a new notebook, a netbook from Acer, Aer Inspire One. 10.1" LCD married with red coat of paint on the cover and keyboard. one word, nice.

long gone are the posts for food as viz is no longer living in the old house but now rented a room in vietnam, the most important cooking is in the form of cup. but the interest in cooking still runs in the blood. given any opportunity, viz will definitely cook. perhaps in ros's new kitchen he wonders.

viz is on a confirmed flight to cambodia next monday till sat. the old viz will without fail run a back-to-back iternary to vietnam for another week. but the new viz.. will have to fill half his life with another person who is losing half her life so that both of them can be complete.