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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

An overdue new year wishes

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Hello everyone. It's well overdue but a belated Happy New Year to all and to all a good year!

Sorry for the absence but I sort of lost my blogging mojo for a bit after that long and exhaustive Christmas post. There has been a fair bit on my mind lately that came to a head since the 2008 rolled into place.

Being in a new country and starting everything from scratch is not as easy as everyone makes it out to be. We're knee deep at the moment looking for new employment and a place to call home. It's sort of a catch 22 - work and home. If you're not employed by the time you find a nice new pad, you're faced with the likelihood of having to dish out a minimum of 3 months deposit. If you 'are' employed before you find a new pad, then you find that you don't have any or enough time to find a place good enough to call home. Ahh how it sucks. I haven't had to go through unemployment and look for a home since 2002. =(

Anyway, please forgive the rant. Normal transmissions will resume soon. I do have lots of backlogged posts to share, like our trips to Luxembourg and Bremen, a tale about the chocolate creme de pot recipe that I made as part of our christmas lunch feast, muffins and loads more.

For now, I'd like to share with you some images from new years eve in London. From our "pre-new year" drinks at the Pizza Express in Lambeth (because our initial plan to queue up at Waggamama for a late dinner was foiled by crowd controllers who closed off access to South Bank at 7:30)....

drinkies

to Waterloo Bridge where we waited, some-what patiently in the drizzling rain with hundreds of other Londoners for the new year to roll in.

Waiting in the rain..

We reminisced about how quick the year went by. The new friends that we've made and the old friends that we've caught up with again. The trips that we've been to and reminisced about our favourite singers and bands of the past like NKOTB, Backstreet Boys and Westlife.. amongst the many that we imitated and their hits that we sung to whilst keeping ourselves occupied until... 3 mins to midnight...

5min to Midnight

and before we knew it, the crowd was already counting down the seconds left of 2007.....28, 27, 26, 25....

Countdown at 25 secs

10...
Countdown at 10 secs

...3, 2, 1 and we all roared.. Happy New Year!!

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and before we knew it, the fireworks displayed started to disappear and slowly became invisible because of the thick smoke that resulted from the rain drizzles touching the sparks from the fireworks display... and so because there was nothing else to see (although we could still hear the fireworks going off behind the smoke), we gave ourselves a pat on the back, a kiss on the cheek and then we all headed home...

The aftermath..


I hope you all had a memorable new years eve celebration as we did and I wish you loads of yummy goodness and all the very best for 2008. =)

Cheers!

Lovely Bubbly

Friday, December 28, 2007

This Christmas...

Christmas lunch setting

Last Christmas, we had 2 separate christmas celebrations. We had an early christmas lunch on the 17th Dec and then a Christmas dinner with our friends on Christmas Day itself. This year, thankfully, we only had one Christmas celebration that lasted the whole day from 1pm to 11:30pm.

What a perfect way to celebrate Christmas away from home than with your second family - your friends. :)

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1. Our posh Christmas set up - with plastic knives and forks to make up for the lack of serving ware


Christmas lunch setting


2. Our hosts this Christmas

Ali & Ange


3. The makeshift Christmas tree

Make shift Christmas tree :)
(See that notebook there? It blared christmas carols throughout the whole day)


4. The grog

The grog opener



5. Food, Glorious Food!

Appetisers, Entree and Main
Appetisers: Rosemary Infused "Pigs in Blanket" & Smoked Trout w/ Creme Fraiche on crackers (not pictured), Entree: Seared Scallops w/ Orange Butter Sauce, Main: Turkey w/ Wild Mushroom, Bacon and Sausage Meat stuffing, Hampshire Breed Pork Loin Joint w/ stuffing and all the trimmings.


6. What's a Christmas without some caroling?

Christmas carolling


KK
Photo courtesy of B.Wong


8. And last but not least

Chocolate surprise

Dessert:
A chocolate tasting plate -
A trio of chocolate delight - dark chocolate mousse, white chocolate and dark chocolate infused with orange and cointreau. Chocolate biscotti (with pistachios and cherries), Pistachio and cranberry biscuits and Matcha Truffles. (not in picture)

And that was our Christmas. :)