Gabriel’s Musings

Valentine’s Day 09′

February 14th, a well-known day for businesses to bloom – especially florists and diners
Valentine’s is over-commercialized to the extent that people celebrate V’day for the sake of celebrating it..
Well, that’s the pessimism side of looking at it..

If you’re the type of person that thinks the glass is half-full, then Valentine is a day to remind you to celebrate your love with your loved ones.. be it your special someone, your family, or your friends. For me, I celebrated my day with my special someone…

Guess it started from midnight.. I gave her flowers! Tried sneaking into her room to put the flowers on her table… But I dind’t see her in the corner at her wardrobe.. But I schocked her though.. lol

Then, we exchanged our gifts.. Well, I already gave her her valentine’s 2 weeks before… Thought she could use it first.. haha… I gave her a bag =).

And on valentine’s day itself, I gave her Moo’s MiniCards of us..

In return, I got a belt and wallet from Picard!

It’s a really nice leather wallet with lots of compartments in it (including coin compartment too!)

Okay, so in the morning.. we left NTU at about 10am… I didn’t want to tell her where I’m taking her.. Wanted to give her a surprise.. But basically, what she really wanted is to go to places she hasn’t been before and the ‘feeling’ of exploring around together.. Hence, I made it so natural.. lol..  Our first destination was IKEA. She said she’s been wanting to go IKEA for a very very long time but never had the chance.. So, we had to alight at queenstown. Coincidentally, I was having a bad tummy ache in the train, had a very strong urge to pass motion.. Eventually, I requested to alight at queenstown to use the MRT’s toilet. Bloody MRT station is having their toilet renovated until end of the month. We had to go to a nearby church to use their toilet. We self-invite ourselves into the church, all the way to the 3rd floor (cause their ground floor’s toilet is locked).

Anyhow, I said that we might just go to the bus stop and see if any bus takes us to where we’re supposed to go.. haha.. Conveniently, I acted like I was unsure and alighted bus 195 (the bus that goes to IKEA). We stopped a stop earlier so that we could be like we’re lost.. haha.. but eventually took her to ikea which was about 100m away.

I thought we would just do some window shopping at IKEA but we ended up buying quite a lot of stuff.. From towels to cups and to candles! haha..It’s always fun shopping at IKEA.. so many nice things to see.. I’ll go ‘crazy’ when I’m in the kitchen’s department.. lol.. I think I’m somewhat like an ‘auntie’.. Have a liking for cutleries, cooking utensils, etc. haha..

We had our lunch there.. Her first swedish lunch where we had meatballs and shrimp salad.. The meal was good.. and not expensive at all! Just about $10 for the both of us.. lol.. We continued shopping around and decided to go on to the next destination at about 1pm.

Our next destination is Singapore Botanical Gardens..! I made her guess our destination when we boarded the bus from Queensway. Gave her clues like ‘a place where we can see swans!’. lol.. she had no idea that we can see swans in Singapore (cause I told her it’s not Singapore Zoo nor Jurong Bird Park).

Anyway, she was excited when we were there cause she hasn’t been there before too. I think it’s a great place to enjoy nature.. and of course, to ‘pak tor’.. Lots of couples there, family chilling out, people walking their dogs, youths gathering around. At first, I thought of having a picnic there but we dind’t have much time as we still have dinner plans.. lol.. But there were so many people picnicking there. It was a very tiring walk there though. We walked from one end to another end… Got lost a couple of times and need to constantly check the map to avoid unwanted detours. That place is HUGE, mind you..

We saw someone used flower petals to form an “I love U” in the park! It was beautifully done..

We had a great time there… Looking at animals (swans and squirrels), plants and nature in general. There was even an area called the “evolutionary path” where it tries to educate visitors and simulate from when Earth was first formed to the present day – How plants evolved.

Best location that we went was the bamboo refloxology place. In other words, stone walking!! (around bamboo trees). After all that walking, the stone refloxology really helped.. Removed the weariness from all those walking.. lol..

We eventually exited from the other end (near the new Circle MRT) and took a direct bus back to Boon Lay.

We cooked our own Valentine Dinner. For appetizer, we made fried planta bread with Tomato Soup with a hint of cheese.

Main Course -  Cheese-coated Baked Potatoes with Bacon Flakes

The pictures doesn’t really do justice to the food as it’s only taken with my camera phone. It looks much more yummier especially with the cheese coating.. Can hardly see anything here..

We had all these together with sparkling wine.

Oh, there’s supposed to be cheesecake for dessert too but we were too full to have it. Will save that for the next day… =)