Unwelcome Guests!

Tonight I was in full meat loaf making mode when I went to add the bread crumbs and noticed some of the bread crumbs moving.  Clearly this was cause for alarm and upon further inspection we had a full on bug take over of the bread crumbs.  My first fear is how many other foods have these buggers gotten into, second fear how long have these bugs been in take over mode? Immediately I start to recall when I last used the bread crumbs as Nate headed off to the store to get me some creepy crawler free bread crumbs.  After fully inspecting everything else in the pantry I think they only infiltrated the bread crumbs, apparently closed containers are no object for these bugs.  This was our first infiltration by the bugs and hopefully the last!  I have however found certain items are very difficult to keep as the Singapore humidity just kills them.  I went to make a coffee the other day to find my powder creamer in one massive ball.  After trying to chisel some of it off I gave up and threw it away.
  Continuing on the food theme Nate and I tried a restaurant that serves up Nate's favorite xiao lim bao. I, being the timid eater have not indulged in these yet so I was living on the wild side.  I relied on Nate to order ones that he thought I would like.  We opted for 8 regular which contain pork meat, 4 shrimp ones and chicken fried rice.  We did opt to remove the chicken floss from the fried rice.  Floss in my mind should not be utilized in any other fashion, but to clean ones teeth.  The fried rice was delicious as always, although I still struggle to eat rice with chop sticks.  The xiao lim bao are definitely interesting and take a bit to get used to the consistency.  They resemble a dumpling, but contain meat surrounded by a broth.  When you first bite into them your mouth is flooded with the broth and then you bite into the meat.  It is almost like eating soup out of a dumpling.  The shrimp dim sum was my favorite.  I will make sure to bring any guests to Crystal Jade to try something a bit of a signature in Singapore :)

Restaurant

Picture of the meal

From food to workouts.  Back in July I stumbled across a groupon for a bootcamp.  Bootcamps are not a common occurrence in Singapore so this is not one I could pass up.  On Saturday morning I was suited up and ready to get down and dirty.  I quickly found that the Singapore version of the bootcamp is a bit different then the US version.  I still sweated as it was outside and any time you move outside you sweat, but it wasn't quite the hardcore workout I was expecting.  They did however post up some of the pics on their website so I thought I would share...

 

Back to Singy

We have returned!  Our trip home was amazing and it was so great to see family, friends, and of course the Milo Man...

Reunited at last!

I can now prove the "expat 10" to be a fair statement.  After indulging in all the foods that we haven't been able to eat we both found our pants to be a bit tighter then normal.  I also found my suitcase to be bursting at the seams after some very successful shopping trips.  The timing of our trip could not have been better as all summer cloths were on sale.  Poor Nate was stuck lugging around my giant suitcase for me :)  The flight was the typical misery.  I don't think I will ever get used to 30 hours of flights.  On the plus side I was able to fall asleep for a few hours on our last flight.

  We are still trying to adjust to the time change, but hopefully we will be back to normal soon.  I find it takes about a week to shake the jet lag.  We did the big "no no" the other day and fell asleep at 4 pm till 9 pm so since then we have been really off schedule.  Last night we were both awake at 3 am, which some of you might have noticed from my late night pinteresting.
  A few things have changed around Sentosa.  It now has it's very own grocery store.... AHHHHH!!!!!  I almost fell over the other day when I saw a cold storage on Sentosa.  Nate and I did a quick celebration dance.. well really I danced he gave me a high five.  I apparently need to leave more often.  I got so excited I had to take a picture of it.  I often chat about the strange selection of eggs they have here so I decided to take a few pics of them as well.  The brown "fuzzy" ones are actually century eggs, they are unlike any other egg as they have a brown yolk and rather bluish looking gelatin.  I saw them once at one of Nate's work dinners and I stayed away.  When it comes to food I tend to stay in my comfort zone.

Grocery Store!

Brown Fuzzy Eggs

Quail Eggs.. an essential in any diet

The Cold Storage is a much more westernized and the one on Sentosa seems to be particularly catered to the expats.  It is nice to have a grocery store that reminds me more of a "typical" grocery store.  This is what you are more likely to see in a grocery store..

After we got back and unpacked all of our groceries we heard some serious airplanes flying over head. We quickly ran outside and got to witness the Flag Fly by.  During the month of July Singapore celebrates National Flag month and on every Saturday at 6:42 pm 6 F16s do a fly by doing this really impressive formation.  Then 2 helicopters escort a chinook that holds an 80 foot Singapore flag.  It is quite a site to see and hear.  Nate busted out our new fancy camera and was able to take some good pics.

You can just see the flag in the distance

Helicopters escorting the Chinook

Chinook with the Singapore Flag