KEEP CALM AND READ ON

August 11, 2013August 11, 2013

Review: Black Bottle Postern (Bellevue)

BH and I recently found a good restaurant that we love and it is really near our current place. [Thanks Alina for introducing this place to us first 🙂 ]

We dined at Black Bottle Postern with our friends and just fell in love since then. haha.. it’s funny coz we always drove by but nv get to come in and try the food here.. So, this place is really great for big groups as the food is meant to be shared. The ambiance is really nice – a mix between modern and rustic. I feel that it is rather charming.. and quite romantic 🙂 Imagine chilling out, drinking wine and just chatting

One Sunday, BH and I decided to do just that ! I was feeling particularly good because I finally caved in and bought a nice Lululemon top which was on sale (but still expensive) – love how the top shapes my upper body and you don’t have to wear a bra! hehe.. perfect for the warm weather now! Opps.. sorry.. I digress..

Back to the food~~

The thing that I don’t understand about this place is “Our unfussy, rustic dishes are intended to be shared….” (quoted from their menu) Like seriously?! Are you kidding me?! The food is so good!!! I just want the whole dish to myself!!! How to share!

Anyhow.. My favorite is the bread pudding.. I really love the buttery taste of the bread pudding… and crave for the bourbon sauce .. . Food was as amazing as the first time we dine here. This time we ordered:

-house duck sausage rainbow chard shiitake mushrooms( Our new favorite!)
-bulgar wheat harissa lamb meatballs & paneer
-Broccoli blasted (Of course!!! How can I get sick of this! It is super delicious! shall attempt to mk this one day)
-BREAD PUDDING!!!

As it was Sunday, there’s 1/2 off bottle of wine! We had a bottle of Riesling ($15) to go with our food. This is life!

Will definitely go back again very soon!!!

July 25, 2013July 24, 2013

Minions craze!

I am still collecting.. hope to have the whole set ( 8 minions) soon! 🙂

P/S: Luckily, the McDonalds here allows u to buy the toy (~US$1.90) w/o the meal!

July 24, 2013July 30, 2013

John Mayer concert at The Gorge

July 20

After hearing a lot about how beautiful The Gorge is, BH and I decided to head there to check it out. Together with Alina and Justin, we bought tickets for John Mayer concert and embarked on a 2.5 hrs drive. Nah.. we are not exactly John Mayer fans but just bought the General Admission tixs so that we could enjoy the spectacular view. General admission tics are the cheapest – we packed our dinner , brought a mat and pillows.. yes pillows.. to enjoy the concert. hahaha.. it feels like a mini camping trip BUT it was worth it. Food and drinks at the venue r VERY expensive!

It was a beautiful sunny day.. we stopped at a viewpoint to appreciate the beauty

These horses look REAL but they are not! Shall attempt to climb up and go closer on Maroon5 concert day ( yes, we are going for another concert at the Gorge in Sept!) This place was super windy! The wind was so strong that the car door swings open!

Arrived at the Gorge Amphitheater. FYI, we parked at the non-premier carpark for free but it was a walk to the concert venue

The view was amazing! Reminds me of Grand Canyon and I have no idea why. haha.. It was super hot.. I seriously can’t wait for the sun to set!

Finally, the sun set.. phew! Else I would have melted in the heat! Love the colour gradient of the sky 🙂

Left the concert early to beat the crowd. It was another 2.5 hrs drive home. Well.. the concert was alright.. maybe a little boring?! I mean.. John Mayer songs are slow BUT it was quite romantic to be lying on your back, star grazing and listening to soothing music. In case you are wondering, he didn’t sing “Your body is a wonderland” – maybe he sang it after we left?

By the time we arrived home, it was 1.30am already! A pic of us to remember the day..

Till the next concert!! 😀 Really looking forward to seeing Maroon5 live!

July 12, 2013July 12, 2013

Exploring Sequim,WA and Port Angeles

BH and I had been thinking about going on a trip to Port Angeles and Forks ever since the movie Twilight became popular. Well, it didn’t really materialised until this year 🙂

July 6

Our friends and us made a day trip to Sequim,WA and Port Angeles (nah.. Forks was just too far) It was a tiring trip! We started at 6.45am and only reached home at 1.20am, the next day! Glad we went ahead with the plan as it was very enjoyable!

We got on the ferry – Seattle > Bainbridge Island. View on ferry was very pretty! A nice day! See the new addition to Seattle skyline? The ferries wheel!

First destination was Olympic Game farm – This farm allows cars to drive through . However, you are allowed to feed some of the animals with wheat bread. To me, it was super interesting! I have never been to a game farm before! Feeding the animals enable me to see them super up-close!

The llama are the most aggressive! They actually chase after the car for food! haha.. we were screaming! so funny!

We only saw 1 zebra, which was quite greedy!! See… it’s biting the car window!!! shiver~~ Fear not!!! Most of these animals are trained!

The cutest animals are the bears!! they are super friendly! When they saw our car approaching the enclosure, they came right to the front and just sat there. It was as though waiting for us to take its picture! I mean I didn’t even know that the animals were trained to interact with humans until I read the website/facebook page closely. You know what?! the bears actually waved to us too!! Like really waved!!! gosh! I was thrilled – didn’t manage to catch it on my camera but you can see lots on youtube!!!!

Feeding the bears with bread is like playing an arcade game – haha.. they open their mouths and u got to aim it right! We had alot of fun doing that!

By the way, we bought wheat bread at supermarket and brought it there. You can buy bread from the ticket booth but it will be abit more expensive. The game farm keepers do check the bread before we drove in

There were many other animals at the non-game area but the drive through was the most interesting 🙂 It was a memorable experience! Hope that the animals are treated well…

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After the game farm, we head for lunch and drove to Olympic National park

We took a very short and easy trail ( not sure what’s the name) but the view was spectacular!

As usual, I got to complete the activity book to get the junior park ranger badge! 😀

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Somehow, time seems to pass really fast. Maybe we just spend alot of time driving. Thank you to BH and Justin for doing the driving!

Dinner was at Port Angeles(PA)! PA was mentioned several times in Twilight!

Below shows the movie theater ‘Lincoln’ which Bella and friends watched movie. ‘Bella Italia’ is the restaurant which Bella and Edward had their first date ( Edward didn’t eat) I am a ‘medium’ Twilight fan, so to me it’s a “wah!!! I’m actually here!” feeling! hehehe.. we wanted to dine at ‘Bella Italia’ but it was just packed! In the end, we ate “Next Door” literally!!

We headed back to Seattle after dinner. We were all exhausted! something I hate about roadtrips…it’s driving… and yes, but it’s the essence of a trip! gosh – who to drive? whose car to use? blah… Just felt that the driver enjoy the least and gets the most tired :/

Glad we had a safe trip and made it home 🙂

July 10, 2013July 10, 2013

Four on the 4th Dog Jog and walk

On 4th of July, BH and I decide to join a Dog walk w/o a dog. It was a good experience for us and we get to talk to many dog owners. They shared with us which breeder they bought their Corgis from and gave us more insights to the breed

It was a cloudy start of the day, quite chilly but comfortable weather for a 4K walk 🙂 BH’s personal favorite is the Cardigan Corgi – the bigger boned one with the white tip tail. According to owners, Cardigans are also more laid back compared to Pembroke

We had fun looking at many dogs dressed up for the occasion. The tix also came w no. tags and a nice t-shirt as souvenir. Hope to go to the dog walk with our dog in future 😀

July 10, 2013

Happiness comes with a price…

I wish mine was cheaper.

It had came to a point that I was going crazy with the insects at our current apartment. The last straw came when we saw a HUGE silverfish on the curtains and centipede on the carpeted floor! I freaked out.

I really don’t want to be a trouble-maker but I just want to be happy at the peak of our lives

Thank you to my loving husband who is willing to do anything to make me happy…

Wish us luck!

July 3, 2013July 3, 2013

Why we didn’t have a dog … yet?

Well.. It’s not the money.. It’s not the space.. It’s just… The lack of connection.. 🙂

Let me define “connection”
(1)somehow the dog and I just click.
(2)Though its the first time we meet, it felt like we have known each other for a long time.
(3)The feeling of ‘I have been waiting so long for you’

Hahaha yes.. I am looking for a furry lifelong partner!!

Friends or even BH’s co-workers would know that we have been yearning to add a dog to our family. It had been years! BH loves browsing rescue websites and watching breeders’ webcams and he will go…. “Aww.. So cute…” We also try to participate in doggie events so as to educate ourselves on dog ownership. Haha.. Talking to my family about Bambi just mks us want to have a dog even more – sometimes my mum do complain about Bambi but after the complains, she would tell me how smart Bambi is.. It’s hilarious!

Call me fussy.. Choosy.. But when I fall in love.. It would be LONGER than forever. We are taking our time.. Hopefully we will find that puppy soon 😀

July 2, 2013July 2, 2013

Re-exploring Ballard

*This is an outdated post*

16 June

BH and I wanted to take Mr Hyde on a ride .. so we decided to head to Ballard. Well, Ballard is a little like Kirkland – it’s filled with cafe and restaurants, vintage/consignment stores and a huge Sunday’s Farmer’s market

It was a very sunny and pretty day. Perfect to walk around! I love such relaxing Sundays 🙂

We chanced upon a nice cafe and sat down for some refreshments – Hot Cakes Molten Chocolate Cakery

Love cafes which are tastefully decorated. This cafe is popular for its molten chocolate in a mason jar! If you are a chocolate fan, you need to visit here.

We ordered the Dark Decadence molten chocolate cake. wah.. it’s sinfully delicious… and extremely refreshing when the weather is warm! haha.. ordered a Vanilla bean milkshake so that we don’t get chocolate overdosed

Next up… we went to The Walrus and The Carpenter for their highly raved Happy Hour menu.

This place will no longer have Happy Hour specials on SUNDAY from July onwards. Lucky us! We managed to enjoy the 2nd last Sunday Happy Hour 😀 Happy Hour starts at 4pm but we were in line at 3.30pm! It was a wait and not very worthwhile in my humble opinion

Once again, I like the deco and the feel of this place. This time we took the seats at the bar – it was nice to see how food was prepared. I just felt that the service was a little slow – maybe that’s their strategy for the ‘long lines’ and curbing the ‘happy hour discounts’. For happy hour, 4-5pm there’s 50% off oysters, 5-6pm 25% off oysters. The best part about this place is … oysters are local and very fresh, other than that, it’s over-hyped

Ok, so we had 12 oysters of four different varieties. Would love to blog more about the oysters we ate but I can’t rem the names anymore. You see, that’s the problem with an outdated post :/ This post is going to lack depth. Blah.. you get the point.

A very nice chef took the initiative to take a nice picture of us -we don’t get that often 🙂

We also had the scallop tartare – it’s basically raw scallops mixed with lemon juice and herbs. It tastes great, feel like some Japanese cuisine. hmm… we are quite glad that we didn’t order steak tartare (which is supposed to be really good!) – but I can’t picture myself eating raw beef?! BH also ordered Fried Oysters, which was alright – I stopped eating it after the first piece as I bit into a piece of shell and tasted sand. Bh loved it though!

Sadly… we didn’t have room for desserts 🙁

That’s all for our Ballard trip! We will be going on a Dog walk/jog (without a dog) on 4 July, Independence day! Hope to take more pictures and blog about it soon!

June 27, 2013November 5, 2015

The satisfaction :)

Today, BH came home and told me I have a fan mail from a kid! Well…. Turns out that it is not a fan mail, it’s a card from the educator. I ripped open the envelope.. And saw a picture which she took of me during he summer camp. I was touched to tears! Aw…. I didn’t expect anything out of volunteering and I got a ‘Thank You!’ card and a nice pic of me in action 🙂 This made my day.. A whole lot!!!

I rem the last day of camp.. I was feeling really sad that I won’t be seeing these kids anymore and I don’t even have a picture of them for keepsake… Just at this moment, a little girl came and hug me goodbye… That moment.. Priceless!!!! I controlled my tears from falling down.. How silly of me.. Haha.. The joys of volunteering 🙂

June 21, 2013June 20, 2013

Hi Mr Hyde!

BH and I had been thinking of getting a 2nd car for awhile. We have been looking for something we both liked.. however, it’s really hard to find a used car of our criteria. In the end, we pulled the trigger on a custom build Mini Cooper S. Yes.. we decided that since we are only young ONCE..and the chances of driving a coupe in future is silm..so we just went for it 🙂

We ordered our car on April 26 and only received it last week! It was a long wait but worth it! After 6 months of searching, we bought the car! that’s how long we took!

Here’s the process… Once we ordered the car, we could track it’s process on the Mini website

May 9 – Hyde built and waiting for transport on vessel Tulane