Greetings from Redmond Campus

Greetings from Derrick and Jingying from the Microsoft redmond campus!

Yup.. We did a "tourist" thingy by going to the Microsoft Visitor Centre. While we were there, i saw this postcard machine and we created quite a few postcards. Here's one for all the folks in Singapore..

Yikes I scratched the car

Yes.. Of all things, i have had to scratch the little red car on my way out to my driving test. YIKEsss.. And the worst thing was, i scratched the side of my neighbour's car.. Can you imagine how i felt all morning and during the test itself.. =( For the record, i have been driving for 7 years with different cars and i actually scratched this one on the day of my USA driving test morning.

Well.. I was trying to reverse out of my lot and.. Tryin to do the "correct" way of reversing.. which is to turn ur head.. I guess it's a bad mistake..

To change the side trim for my neighbour's door would have cost us USD$80.. Lucky for us, my neighbour's mechanic say it's a small scratch and did the paint for her free. So there was no need to change any part. Phew....

As for our little red car.. She have to be painted by us.. So poor thing.. Now she has scratches on both side of her front bumper..

*Side note* Good news is: I GOT MY USA DRIVING LICENSE. YEAH YEAH!!

Free Cone Day from Ben & Jerry

Yup yup, on tuesday, we made the 10 min drive to Kirkland to have our free cone. =) Imagine having ice cream in the cold.. But the whole experience was fun and good. The queue was rather short and people were having relaxed queueing for free cone. It's not like in Singapore where there's always a mad rush for free stuff.

And it surprises me that you have a big range of favors to choose from and the serving was big. The lady that served me threw away a cone just becos of a chip, and gave me a new one. I'm very impressed with the service. I was thinking, "it's free, so i'm ok with a chipped cone"

Well.. Here's the list of ice cream we had:
Derrick had Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl New! - Milk chocolate ice cream with a thick peanut butter swirl

Jingying had New York Super Fudge Chunk® - Chocolate Ice Cream with White & Dark Fudge Chunks, Pecans, Walnuts & Fudge Covered Almonds

Yogurt War

Yup.. It's Low fat(Red cups) vs Light Yogurt(Blue cups) and guess who's supporting which?

We were doing our grocery shopping earlier and we wanted to buy more yogurt. The previous week, i had bought 4 cups of the low fat yogurt(red). To my dismay, today i discovered that light is actually lower in calories than low fat. 1 cup of light is 110 calories whereas low fat is 240 calories. Morale of the story: Never be mislead by the term "low fat" as light may be a much healthier choice.

So i swapped all my yogurt for the light version which is the healthier choice. BUT.. seems that i still lost the battle as Derrick bought a lot more "low fat" than "light". He's having the red cups while i'm having the blue cups.

Not too sure about the taste for the blue cups though... But i'm sticking to the healthier choice for now and these cups are supposed to last us for 1 month.

Put this note in your calender

yeah.. It's free cone day from Ben & Jerry's on 17th April , from 11am to 10pm

Thumbs up for service in USA

I'm impressed with the service here so far.. And it puts the service you find in Singapore to shame. An example is our shopping trip at Home Depot where it sells building materials. We were there to shop for wood as we wanted to customize the TV stand that we just got. Shopping at a Professional shop is a maze. Hunting for sandpaper took a while as the entire rack of sandpapers is for machines.. But we had fun..

While we were walking around, we get nice staff coming along to ask, "How's your day?' or "Do you need any assistance?".. It's really nice.. And the thing is, we saw this piece of wood that fits our need but was too long to fit into the car. We almost bought a saw to cut the wood. And i thought, why not asked if they provide cutting service.

The guy that i asked was very friendly. Seems that they do provide cutting wood service and the first 2 cuts are free, subsequent cuts are at 50cents. but.. the electric saw was out of order and the guy pointed us to the Cut-It-Yourself rack. And you dun have to pay first before you saw. They have so much trust in the customers. So basically, you saw ur own wood and bring it to the counter to pay for that pc for wood you cut. I tink, this won't work in Singapore, cos you have ppl tryin to find ways to cheat.

And the best part of it all is, it's easy to cut on the rack. We dun have to clean the mess up and most of all, we didn't have to buy the saw that we aren't going to use again.. yeah yeah..


Another case: I was at the social security office to do my application. I was at the location pointed to me by the GPS, but i was looking ard to see where's the entrance to the office. And while i was looking ard at the carpark, a UPS track pulled up next to me. And this friendly UPS guy asked me "You looking for something?" I told him i'm looking for Social Security Office and he pointed to me the entrance of it with a big smile.. Yup.. People here in US are very friendly..

Sea of Tulips in Seattle USA

Yup, it seems that Skagit Valley which is about 1 hr drive north of Seattle grows tulips. And for the month of April, they have tulip festival. Derrick heard about this place from his boss and we decided to invite all the fellow friends to go too.

So 9 of us head up to Skagit Valley for Tulips.. The tulips were amazing.. They are much bigger sized than the ones i ever seen before. And when u get a sea of tulips, they are beyond description. And there are so many varieties of tulips grown, definitely an eye opener.

While we were there, we decided to visit few of the farms there such as the vineyard, cheese and the Shellfish farm. Yes.. At the shellfish, we bought 2 dungeon crabs, 3 dozen of oysters, 1 bag of mussels and 1 bag of clams. And we are equipped for our feast.. On the way back, we stopped by walmart to get some of the ingredients for the feast.

And cooking was a super busy affair at Kelvin's and Aaron's place. Imagine 7 people tryin to cook. We had raw oysters, grilled oysters, steamed mussels and clams, grilled mushroms, cooked stuff, chilli crab, pepper crab, with fried man tou, pasta, potatos, etc.. It's realli a big feast and there wasn't enough table space for us. it was fun cooking and eating with so many people. Never mind the mess and cleaning up though..

It's fun as everyone chipped in to help. Cooking, cleaning and even playin game (Streetfighter) on Xbox. And... we announce Junyong as the all-time player for that, he can even tell you the features in that version of Streetfighter.. Dun play play.. =P

For more info: http://www.tulipfestival.org/

Yeah.. I passed my Driving Theory AGAIN

lala.. Yup.. Again as in, i took my driving test before in Singapore, And now in US, i have to retest driving test again. And guess what.. I passed with 100%.. *ella with her smurk look* Well.. thanks to the tips given by derrick of coz... =) There are quite a few rules different from singapore. Like.. it's compulsory to stop for a school bus that's flashing red and in your travel direction. it will be 2 more weeks to my driving test, i better go practise hard.. =P *pss.. better pratice harder to make sure i pass*

Well.. i have been here for close to 2 weeks and the good news is; The weather is finally warming up. Yeah yeah.. Today we had 67° F/19° C .. That's considered warm here.. I do miss the sunshine in Singapore, where the temperature never flunctuates that much. Well.. it isn't that bad over here. Just that you can get freezing cold in 1 day and super warm day on another? But the air's rather dry here and i found a hidden treasure in the house..

Burt's bees hand care kit.. Yeah yeah =) Seems that derrick had this as xmas gift from some1. And it's mine now.. lalalala it's really cute and i loved it the minute i opened it. It comes with a guide book and a glove. And the best part of it all is, it isn't greasy and it really smells good. My hands look much better after 1 use already.. =) I'm now a Burt's bees fan

Today, we did some grocery shopping and watched 300 at bellevue cinema. It cost us USD$9 each. Another expensive outing.. But nothing is going to beat the following hands down:


You didn't see the price wrongly.. We were at Uwajimaya, an Asian supermarket and we came across kangkong.. It's called swamp cabbage and we bought 1 @ USD$5.34 = S$8.01. OUCHHHH.. That's super expensive.. Back home in singapore, you can buy this for like S$1? And over here it' like 800% more.. that's 1 kind of a vegetable that i will only buy again in a blue blue moon..

My ROM pictures

Yup.. My ROM pictures are finally up for viewing. Special thanks to my 2 photographers for the day. Adrian and Ben who have made the effort to take so many shots to make our wedding day a memorable one. There are still plenty of shots awaiting to be uploaded. *Ahem.. Awaiting for the edited version from my 2 photographers =P*

17-March-2007 has been a very memorable day for both me and Derrick. Surrounded by families, relatives and frens when we say our vows has been most overwhelming. I didn't want to be a crying bride on the altar, but the happiness in the air was just too much for me to handle. I feel the love and blessings everyone have for us. I feel blessed to be surrounded by our loved ones as we step into a new chapter in our lives. And now for the award winning picture.. The moment we are Mr and Mrs Quan..



p/s: There are still a lot of pictures available for viewing in http://www.flickr.com/gp/78492579@N00/nh6710

I'm in USA

Ya.. Today marks the date that I'm officially in the states for 1 week. Throughout this week, i have had to adjust to the cold here, ard 10degrees during the day. Trying to get used to the left hand drive as compared to right hand drive in Singapore. Miles instead on km. AND.. Coins remains a mystery..

Yes.. Over here, Coins come in 1 (penny), 5 (nickel), 10 (dime), 25 (quarter) cent and 50 cent denominations; there is also a dollar coin. Soo.. If you are paying a bill of 99cents. You need 3quaters, 2 dime and 4 pennies.. I am confused here.. Well, there's always a easy way out.. Pay with notes and collect the coins. Once you have a significant amount of counts, you can change them at the bank. I guess it's the British and American standard and i guess i need some time to adjust.

Today, Derrick drove us to see snow.. Yeahh.. SNOWw.. Well, it's the first time i touch snow and i was super excited about it. It feels like super soft ice shavings and it feels nice. Here's an interesting sighting. The staircase was snowed in. Yes.. Literally snowed in..

The ski season has ended but we see the pile of snow still remains. It must be super cool to go skiing, we give that a try the next season. I'm been staying on the sunny side of the earth and snow to me seems so exclusive.

We love snow...

Final Day of being pig in Taiwan

Yupp.. We flying out of Taiwan and decided on 2 things:
1) To revisit some food stalls again
2) To give our poor dying feet a break, so we stick to XiMending area only.

First stop to revisit: 阿 宗 面 线

Can u see the crowd behind us? There's no seats provided at this stall, so every1 have to stand to eat. It's amazing u see the crowd standing ard slurping hot yummy noodles.

Next: BBQ muah Chee

Black Sesame and Peanut both taste great....=P

Lazing ard XiMenDing, we chanced upon this cute cafe with swings and lots of soft toys hanging ard. Cool..


Guess who we 'chanced' upon in Taiwan? Our fellow countrymen Sun Yan Zi..
See how popular she is over here, nay.. we didn't get a chance to see her up close in person


On our way to the airport, we were quite lucky. A taxi driver needs to go airport to pick up his prearranged customer. So he took us to the airport for NT$400. We paid S$10 more than the airport bus ride. But in return, we got ourselves a comfortable ride and free luggage service. =P

And finally before we leave Taiwan, another round of bubble tea for both of us. Yup.. we brought it along to the aiport.

Derrick had 波 霸 奶 茶. That's big pearls.. If u wan the small pearls, that's 珍 珠 奶 茶. He had his less ice and normal sugar level. The thing with Taiwan bubble tea is, they make the tea upon order. And even with less ice, the price is the same at NT30. Whereas in singapore, if u request for less ice, u have to pay more. And.. usualli the tea u find in singapore is pre-made in factories. Maybe that explains the taste difference...


As for me, i had 奶 茶. Less ice and less sugar (70%).

Both of us have individual preference on our bubble tea. So for our last round of bubble tea in Taiwan, we each have 1 cup each. Cheers..

Day 4 of being a pig in Taiwan

We headed to 九 份 which we will need to take a 1 hour rail ride. The rail ride was an eye opener, it's definitely the older mode of transport. And the surprising thing is, they managed to build rail, train and high speed train all together at the taipei main station. Making the station a big maze.

At 九 份, we had hong zao meat, 古 早 味 草 仔, Fen Yuan in hot grass jelly, BBQ mushrooms, Almond milk,


We joined the super long q and bought the 古 早 味 草 仔. Nothing fantastic about it though...


Fen Yuan in Hot grass jelly was a mistake. The hot grass jelly wasn't sweet and taste yucky..
Next time stick with Fen Yuan in Ice or Red bean soup.


And here's the giant pot of Fen Yuan. 九 份 is famous for this


Tell-Tale time.. Yup.. We were so full and yet Derrick still buy these.. He says it's his samples to test test.. SOooo i leave u all to guess who's more piggy? =P

Next we headed to Songshan to buy the 佳 德 pineapple cakes. It has won awards and very popular with the locals. But it's kinda of out of the way. An interesting note, we realised that if u call pineapple 黄 梨, then u must be from Singapore or Malaysia. Cos every other chinese around the world calls pineapple 凤 梨.

Next stop Raohe Night Market
Over here, we only had beef noodles and the famous black pepper biscuit 胡 椒 饼

Our reward after joining in the q for this... =P

Taiwan pigging out round 3

Yup.. It's the third day in Taiwan and we are dying from leg pain. The thing is, we walked a lot and it really makes up for the food we pigging out on. With the constant ache in the foot, we decided to take a break and go Beitou for spring bath to soak the dying feets.

Asia Pacific Hot Spring @ Beitou

Yup.. this is kinda tourist stuff, but we love the beauty and it's soothing effects on our legs. hee.. As usual, we chose the spring furthest away from the station, more walking to go... As it's a weekday,, we got a nice swanky pool for about S$21 per person. Ermm.. we also had 2 hour of free soaking in the public pool, but we weren't feeling courageous enough to use this. *Public pools = No clothes/ swimsuit* Nay.. we aren't brave enuff to soak in the nude .

Eatery @ Beitou station

We had 猪 血 and 天 不 辣. You can't find pig's blood in Singapore, so definitely must try it in Taiwan. This brings back the fond childhood memories when pig's blood was still avail in singapore. As for the Tian bu la, it's tastes like yong tau foo...

Back to Shilin Night Market AGAIN !?!?
Yes.. Call us crazy but we headed back here for MORE MORE food.. There's simply too many food here that you can try all in 1 visit.

First stop 爆 酱 鸡 排
Chicken cutlet again.. BUT... this was sold out yesterday, and we want to try it for ourselves to understand the craze,

See our queue number.. 120th chicken cutlet for the day.

The wait is all worthwhile. The cutlet has cheese and ham inside. Very yummy.. Better than the other chicken cutlets u find.

水 煎 包

This is like 包 except that it has a crispy layer on the bottom.

Strawberries

OKkk. This is one of our fav. The strawberries simply melts in your mouth. And there was lots of carnation milk poured on it. So even though the strawberries were a little sour, it was yummy with the sweet carnation milk. *Many thumbs up*

Peanut Ice cream

This is weird, or should i say, it's an acquired taste. The peanut shavings with unsweetened ice cream serbet and Parsley..

After all the pigging out, we went to Taipei Main station for our shopping... =P And here's a pair of boots i bought at NT$200 = S$10.. That's super super cheap..


I think it's becos they are clearing out the winter stock for the spring collection, which explains the cheap winter clothes and shoes.. lala.. I bought my winter clothes each for S$5/10 only..

Day 2: Another round of Pigging in Taiwan

Yes.. This amazing place has plenty of chio gers and realli good food. It's really amazes me that the girls can remain so slim. Other than the food, we did some tourist stuff too. Like going to the ferris wheel.

Okk.. going to the ferris was a mistake for me.. Yes.. I have a super big phobia of heights and i dun know what got me to get Derrick to go with me. I freaked out on the ride. Basically screaming my way through. The ride is exactly 17min and i had the most agonizing 17min. It's worse than bungee jump. Cos for bungee, once you jump, there's nothing u can do except scream for the next few seconds. For this ride, u have to sit thru the long 17 min.

Shilin Night Market

This night market looks like a tourist area. Butt... who cares as long as there are good food ard. And yes.. the poster does not represent the food found in the market.

Hao Jian = Oyster omelette

Oyster omelette anyone? it's yummy. It's a little like singapore oyster omelette except that the Taiwan version has sauce. The oyster also taste fresher. I dun eat oysters as the fishy taste puts me off, but am willing to give this a shot.

Chicken Cutlet

Ever seen or eaten such a huge chicken cutlet? okk.. Although my face is round, i think this cutlet still wins my face size. it's a super huge sized Chicken cutlet.

Red Oil?

Yes it's called Red oil for the spicy and White Oil for the non spicy. Nay.. we ordered the White Oil as we dun know how spicy it is. It's very yummy meat wanton in peanut sauce. Yummy and very addictive.

Tempura?

Both os us dun like this. It's just plain flour fried with some sweet sauce. Just dun understand why every1's eating this. Maybe it's an acquired taste.

I'm in Taiwan

Yes.. I know i owe you all a lot of updates. But hey, i'mm now in Taiwan pigging it out le. Just reached taiwan last night and have eaten a lot of stuff to date. We 2 are kinda lost here becos of the super chim chinese they use here （繁體 ).

An example is the direction given to us for this 24hour bookstore branch. The lady say look for dong. We both aasume is 洞, so we were looking around for some underground tunnel. End up, we realise she is referring to dong, as in, the building. super fainted hor.. Hk was much better as there's a lot of English labelling ard.

Other than our Cannot-make-It-Chinese, it'a actually quite fun here. The food here is very good, the gers here are super chio one. And super super frendly people. If i stay here any much longer, i think i become a really fat pig. Cos within the 24 hour i landed in taiwan, we already ate a lot of stuff liao.

First Stop: Bubble Tea..

ok.. Ordering bubble tea has never been so complicated. they ask u about the amount of ice and sugar you want. All at the same price of NT$30 = $ 1.50. By some luck, we bought from this store as we saw a lot of people buying. It's much later that we realise that this store is ranked second in terms of taste. hee.. We are now hunting for the store No. 1. The drink here is very nice as they make the milk tea upon order. Not like singapore where it's pre-manufactured in factories. Even the portion of sago also super generous..
We going to have at least 1 cup a day. On our second day we have already tried pudding milk tea and buo pa milk tea.

Now the all-time famous: Ah Zhong Mian Sian

okk.. It took us super super long to find it as we were bad with the small roads. But it's all worth it. Mee sua with pig intentines. Really good. And the thing is, the store doesn't have chairs, so you see all the people standing or squatting ard eatting it. a lot of chio chio gers eating this while standing at the shop lo. They look like walking ads while i look like a small school ger. =) It's not "goooyie..." =P Definitely needs a second visit to this shop again. Derrick says the next time we buy, we buy the bigger bowl instead. =P

Partyworld = Hotel?

What's the craze taiwanese have with KTV? You see a lot of KTV ard and they are like hotels. The whole storey is the KTV and super posh setting.

This is a bank..

Yes.. Pukki's house is the bank. It's all pinkie colored and all the ATMs are pink.. So kawaiii..

Chinese Hotdog any1?

hee.. Nope.. It's not hotdog.. It's BBQ muah chee w peanut. Super super good. They take super long to bbq this, crispy skin with chewy chewy inside. Even the sauce is great.

Almost forgot to blog this: Fen Yuan

yes.. It's a giant bowl of ice kacang. We had yam balls, pumpkin balls, fen yuan (aka sago) and red bean. The portion is so big that it fills your tummy. But the thing is, every1 around us is having 1 bowl whereas we 2 are sharing 1. Nay.. I wan to eat more stuff. Not going to stuff myself crazy with 1 bowl of fen yuan each. =)

Cold Noodles

We just joined in the crowd and bought this. Very good cold noodles.

Onion Pancake

It's like prata with Spring Prata.. But where's the curry?? Hee.. we call this the chinese onion pancake. very fragrant and fluffyy.

hee.. see.. Within 24 hours, we have eaten soooo much. we 2 are really pigging it out. We 2 just buy those stalls where people are buying. **Tip: When in Rome, follow what the Romans do.. Observe how people order their food, den follow suit. **Dun care liao.. eat first den think about the consequences. =P keep all updated soon..

ella is a vampire

See my fiery red nails.. =P I had them done in this bright bright red for my brother's wedding. I think i look like a vampire with these super red nails.. lalla..

My Brother's wedding

Yeah.. the wedding was on last sunday and it was a blast. A very lively and happy Hokkien-styled wedding. All of us were super tired dealing with the mega-scaled wedding (800+ guests). And i saw a lot of relatives which i haven't seen for a very very long time.

I think the only damper on the wedding was the "Stomach Flu" Epidemic. 5 days before the wedding, the groom aka my kor was down with diahorrea. Next to follow: My mother, my dad and the bride. And it's serious bout of non-stop diahorrea and mixed with random vomitting. Poor thing... I was the only lucky one to escape it all.. So other than preparing for the wedding, i had to help take care of the sick and also help tidy up the house. On top of that, me and my maids cleaned the whole house with Dettol to be on the safe side.

Other than this, the whole wedding went very well. It was a very lively wedding with people singing Hokkien songs away. We had professional Emccee and singers too. This made the whole event very lively. Everyone was very happy and had fun. Netherless to say, some had too much fun and ended up drunk. It's one of the most memorable wedding i attended so far, cos you can really feel the happiness in the air with every guest cheering out loud.

here are some shots taken...

70 traditional wedding cakes to be given to the bride's family.

The traditional dowry plate

The groom waiting for his "Comb hair ceremony" at 12 midnight