SMRT Carnival @ Holland Village Station

The Circle Line fully opens today and there's a carnival at the Holland Village station.
These two photos were taken in the evening.



Some time ago, when the authorities said that there's going to be a "Real" park instead of a "car" park, many people wondered how is it possible to have a park? Isn't the area too small?

By the looks of it yesterday, it seems it is a good idea to have a park there! It's not that big, but the greenery's a good change. Looking at trees and grass does makes the place more pleasing.



Earlier in the day, a group of "makan kakis" went for a Circle Line makan trail. It was fun to eat and also meet some 'twitter' friends in person!

Let's hope more lines and stations will be built. I am waiting for the station that's being constructed near by home to be ready. 5 more years of waiting!

What's that thing all covered in Green?

What's that all covered in Green?
That's one of the exits for the up and coming Circle Line MRT - Holland Village station.



I can't wait for the 'great unveiling'. It would certainly cut traveling time because the road's always jammed!

Spiderman Lanterns @ Holland V

Next Tuesday would be the Mid-Autumn Festival. The locals call it "Zhong Qiu Jie". It is also known as the "Mooncake Festival".

At our workplace, we have been getting boxes of mooncakes from our vendors. As practiced by many companies here, any gifts from vendors have to be declared. After that, we can devour them. The declare thingy is so that we wont be charged by the anti-corruption agency if contracts are not handled properly.


Children would be carrying lanterns too. This is a picture of how the traditional lanterns look like. Kids will still like Spiderman, Superman etc.



This is a shop in Holland Village, a suburb in Singapore that sells traditional lanterns.



Mid-Autumn festivals are celebrated in different cultures and countries. How do you all celebrate it?

Eskimos in Singapore?

This is an interesting bar. It's called Eskibar. The temperate inside is between -5 celcius to slightly above zero degrees celcius.

Yes, it's cold, I see people wearing winter jackets inside! haha...



Well do a search on eskibar and you can find their website.

Surgery in the day, party at night!

Hmmm, in the day time, Holland Village is very peaceful and quiet. Shops like furniture shops, surgery centres, dentist, chinese medical halls open during the day time.

But at night, the place is where it becomes a busy, noisy and at the end of the street, it reeks of alcohol! The restaurants and drinking holes turn alive, they are all mostly closed during the day (just like in this picture, taken at arond noon time).



In this picture, you can see a Lebanese & Middle Eastern Restaurant, Punjab-Northern Indian Tandoori Resturant, and Harry's Bar - a popular drinking hole.

Any of the above your fav?

Mexican? Turkish? or New York Cafe?

There's lots of cuinise that you can get in this place. From this photo, you can see a Turkish Restaurant, a New York Cafe and also a Mexican Restaurant.



Of the three, which is your favourite kind of food?

Do you know your old table might be worth a few thousand dollars?

This is one table at display at one of the antique shops around this place.

I am not sure what's the price of this table, but I guess it is one of the cheaper ones, since it is outside and not inside the shop :-)



Quite unique ain't it? Do you have old tables like this at home?

Holland Village Market and Food Centre

Holland Village is famous for its many restaurants, but the locals who live here do not eat at the restaurants daily. They buy their food both fresh produce and cook food at this centre.

This is the Holland Village Market and Food Centre.



This is the rebuilt centre. It was an old dilapidated hut like structure before. But some of the food stalls is still around after the big renovation.

Thambi Magazines

If you wish to get newspapers from all over, magazines from all over the world, you can get them in Holland Village.

This is Thambi Magazine in Holland V. I wonder if they got more collection than Borders or Kinokuniya? Hmmm



What are the magazines you like to read? Exercise? Health? Gossips? hehe...

Let's travel to Holland

There's Chinatown in most cities, there are also Japan Towns, Russian Town, for example in San Francisco. Singapore has also Little India and also Holland Village!

This is the wind mill in Holland Village in Singapore. This place has a bohemian feel to it according to many, but to us living nearby, it's where we go to eat! Other than that, if we need 24 hours groceries we head here too. :-)



But if you are a tourist, it's where you can find Asian arts, crafts, antiques and handicraft. During the night, this place has lots of tourist and expatraites and the locals having drinks at the many al-fresco dining areas with many kinds of cuisine.

Holland Village is named after Hugh Holland. So, you dont see anything Holland there except the Windmill!

Coffee and Desserts - The Continuation....

These are part of yesterday's desserts. I will show max of 4 pics again.
Coffee Club is one place that my colleagues and I love to go. We usually go for the mud pies. Nope, not shown here today :-p


Their menu. You can find Coffee Club on the net, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.


A cup of cappucino. Served with cinnamon sticks. (for you to stir your drink :-p )


This is something new on the menu. Apple Crumble Ala Mode. The Apple is nice and warm with crunchy peanut on top, served with Vanilla Ice-cream.


This is Tiramisu. Soft and delicious, sweet while retaining the flavor of chocolate. Our vote for the day went to the Apple Crumble. You should try it when you visit.

Birthday Lunch Treat

I got older today. I work with a superly crazy and fun bunch of colleagues. If there's an occasion to go out for a meal, we will do it. So colleagues and I went to Holland Village to have a birthday lunch. We all have a common trait: Fellow gluttons. We ate so much things. Ate at 2 restaurants and took hundred over pictures. 4 of us were armed with cameras.

But since this is a photo a day blog, so I will put up a max of 4 today.


We went to "Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao". This is a nice place for chinese food here in Singapore. For namesake, we obviously ordered Xiao Long Bao. (chinese for Meat Dumplings, literal translation means Little Dragon Buns) They come in 2 pairs served in a bamboo steamer. The thing about Xiao Long Bao is that there is broth wrapped inside. White cabbage is lined below, to give the dumplings a fragrant cabbage smell.


This is the inside of the Xiao Long Bao. Ready to be devoured by me. The moment the dumplings are opened you gotta quickly slurp the broth. Yes, I have done that.

The taste: light savoury broth that is not too salty. The skin's not chewy, but soft and succulent, it is firm when you pick up with a chopstick, but it melts gently in your mouth. The mince meat is mixed with chives and served with ginger strips with vinegar.



We also had Beijing Duck (some called it by its old name Peking Duck). Eating Beijing Duck is to only eat the skin of the duck that is wrapped in chinese pancakes with light crisp long strips of Spring Onions and Cucumbers. Some places it is DIY, where you wrapped them yourself. As this is a little upmarket place, we have the wonderful ladies wrapped them nicely for us, and served on a platter.

The taste: the roasted skin is crisp and not too oily. It is savoury and very fragrant. The strips of cucumber and spring onions make the taste light and fresh. The skin is also light in taste and not too chewy. It gives you satisfaction when you bite it. The crispiness of the veg and duck skin together with sweet and savoury soybean paste in it, is simply heavenly.


What happens to the duck meat? Usually the restaurant will cook a dish for you. Most people will like it to be fried with noodles. Just like the picture above. Delicious. We opted for noodles, because this restaurant is famous for its La Mian - which means pulled noodles. It's dough that is pulled and stretch till they look like noodles.

The taste: Noodles are cooked just nice, not rubbery and chewy, but just right. The roasted duck itself is tasty, now with additional seasoning for the noodles makes this dish delightful.

Tonite, my sis will be treating me for dinner as well. Wonder where we are going. Hmmmm....