Birthday celebration at Ritz Carlton Millenia Singapore

His birthday was a few days earlier than mine, and I got him cupcakes. Isn't it cute? :)



And for my birthday this year, we were staying at Ritz Carlton. I was so lucky that my birthday celebration for these few years were quite happening, last year I was in London, and the year before was at Pan Pacific. :D

Ritz Carlton Millenia Singapore
Once we entered through the entrance, a staff led us to the reception area. While the counter staff processed our check-in, she offered us a welcome drink which was either a glass of orange juice or ice lemon tea. While waiting, I noticed that the pens and writing pads are from Montblanc!

Once the check-in was done, she led the way to our room. It was at 20th floor with Kallang Bay view. She showed us around and explained the amenities in the room. The room was spacious, the bathroom was like another room itself. Eventhough it wasn't facing the Marina Bay, the view was still fairly nice. :)


Our room number 2003.






Posing with the view.


The view outside.


Complimentary fruits.


The bathroom.


The famous bath tub with view.


Another side of the bath tub view.


Got pillow too.

Inle Restaurant
And then we off to Marina Square for lunch. We were not sure what to eat, and ended up at Inle, a Myanmar Restaurant. We ordered two sets, each set came with rice and soup of the day. The main dishes we had were chicken curry and fried pomfret with tamarind sauce. The food was nice and reasonably priced. Worth to try it out.


Marina Square christmas decoration.


Chicken curry


Fried pomfret with tamarind sauce.





After lunch, we went back to the hotel to explore.


Christmas tree at the hotel entrance.


Lobby area


Poinsettia lining up the stairs.


The pool with waterfall.


The desserts at Greenhouse restaurant.


Look at the strawberry tree.


Chihuly Lounge was serving high tea buffet.


Pretty cakes


View from 20th floor window near the lift.

Afterwards, we stayed at our room until dinner time. The hotel is just a walking distance to Singapore Flyer, so we decided to go to Seafood Paradise for our dinner.

Seafood Paradise
We were seated indoor and the air con was so freezing. I guess it was because the lack of people to spread the heat. The Singapore Flyer was still suspended, that's why the restaurant was quite empty. But the good thing was the service was so attentive that you felt like you had a personal butler waiting at your table but it can be annoying though. Four different waiters asking us what to drink in less than one minute. :)


Drunken live tiger prawns in herbal soup.

The waiter separated the prawns from the soup. The soup was delicious!!


Fairly big size tiger prawns, the meat was firm and sweet.


1.3 kg butter crabs, the claws weren't as big as I would hope for but it was one of the meatiest crab I ever had.

We also ordered a plate of eefu noodles. It was nice and had a few sizable crab meats. We were very satisified with the quality of the food and went back happily. :)

Next thing to do after we return was to enjoy the bath with the night view. I think I was in the tub for an hour while sipping wine and dreaming how to get a house like this. :P

Exactly midnight, we had the birthday cake for supper.


Strawberry shortcake from Rive Gauche.





The next morning, I soaked in the bath tub again for the last time. :P



It was a wonderful experience, the best so far compared to the previous Hyatt and Pan Pacific stays.

Singapore Sun Festival

I received a pair of complimentary tickets from a client for Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra with Sarah Chang concert. The Esplanade concert hall was quite packed and we saw many Koreans in the audience. They must have come to give their support to gifted violinist, Sarah Chang (she is a Korean American). We were seated on the sixth row from the front, she is generous! :)


Sun Festival ticket sleeve


Our tickets


Art installation at the Esplanade lobby. Like this I also can lah :P

Sarah Chang looked stunning in her metallic green mermaid gown. Too bad that she only played one of the four songs in the programme. At the end of her performance, the audience were clapping non stop and she had to come in and out for six times but still no encore hehehe...

The orchestra immaculate performance was also given a thunderous applause that in the end the conductor gave not only one but two encores!!


Queue to get signatures after the performance.




Sarah Chang and Esa-Pekka Salonen (the conductor)



Both of us enjoyed the night out very much, we should do it more often. :)

Seafood Paradise at Singapore Flyer

Saw a promotion for Seafood Paradise crab at $8/kg (usual price is $38/kg) in Straits Times a few weeks ago. I didn't know that it was so popular and I only made a reservation at the last minute. The weekends were fully booked, only odd hour slot like 4pm was available. For weekday nights, the only slot available was 8.30pm, no other choice so I took it.

St. Andrew's Cathedral


Took Singapore Flyer shuttle bus in front of St. Andrew's cathedral.

Singapore Flyer


Singapore Flyer in color lights

Seafood Paradise
We came earlier to try our luck in getting seats. When we arrived, it wasn't very crowded but the captain couldn't give us an indoor seating, so we settled down in the outdoor dining area rather than waiting for another 1.5 hour.




The interior is quite classy with nice ambience, unlike the noisy Chinese restaurant.


The outdoor dining area was not bad either, overlooking the high rise buildings and quite breezy.

We ordered three dishes and 1 kg of butter crab. The three dishes came quite fast, but the crab only came after we finished the dishes. Soft shell crab with pork floss was just average, I felt that the pork floss taste overpowered the soft shell crab. I still prefer the plain fried soft shell crab anytime.


Soft shell crab with pork floss

Coffee pork rib was quite enjoyable, I could taste the strong coffee but portion was too small. :P


Coffee pork rib garnished with almond.


Stir fried kailan with garlic was ok.

Creamy butter crab was the reason I came here. The crab meat was thick and firm. The gravy was sweet (but not too sweet) and creamy, it was heavenly and sinful at the same time. Once a while I would just scoop and ate it just like that. :P

I think the gravy would complement a pasta very nicely. Should find a way to eat it with pasta one day hehehe...Usually after eating too much black pepper or chili crab, I could feel my fingers and mouth became warmer, but with this creamy gravy, there was no side effect. It was just perfect.


Creamy butter crab at unbelievable SGD 8!

The total bill came out to be SGD 49 only, which usually is only enough to pay for one crab dish.

Day 16: Washington DC (USA) - Tokyo (Japan) - Singapore

Holiday had ended, and we were going back home. I was kinda like the feeling, too many holidays already. :P It will be quite sometime before I plan for another trip.

Dulles Airport
We arrived there early, checked in our bags and straight away went to the lounge. We had some sushi and Nissin cup noodle for breakfast. I didn't know why the Nissin cup noodle tasted so good, maybe because it's from Japan?


ANA lounge



Hey manufacturer, make up your mind.. "naturally and artificially flavored" so which one it is?




Our airplane from DC - Narita

We were lucky, the economy class was so empty and the business was full! Hahaha.. each of us had the row of seats to ourselves.

Narita ANA Lounge
It was similar to the one we went few weeks ago but it was indeed a different one.







The flight from Narita to Singapore was also empty, those who were paying business class ticket would be pissed off. :P

I am so glad that we made it, everything is running so smoothly except for the not so good weather in some of the places but that's nothing we can do about it. My few hundred hours staring at the computer researching for this trip is paid off handsomely. It is the most difficult trip to plan since public transport is not so convenient, but with detail planning, who needs self-drive? :P


Fridge magnets for this trip