Diary of a Singaporean now living in Rome, Italy
Woke up on Saturday morning to a sore neck. Just turning my head hurts so much that I had to move very slowly. Even so, there were still sharp pains.
So annoying!
I’ve no idea what happened. Could it be my sleeping position or could it be this?
Thankfully, the pains were completely gone by Sunday. Maybe I should lock stickrinaz in the drawer just in case.
Other stickrinaz adventures :
Cafe world was one of the games that I liked to play on Facebook.
It’s a cute but mindless game where you manage your own cafe by deciding on what to cook. Some of the food could take as fast as 3 minutes and some would be as long as 2 days.
But normally the longer it takes, the higher the profit and you could use the money to decorate and furnish your cafe. But the faster cooking ones lets you have more food servings so that the customers will not lower the cafe rating and ensure that the traffic keeps on going.
One of the first few times that I played Cafe world, I was quite amused mainly because of the time it takes to cook the item. Cheesecake takes 12 hours to cook? Halibut takes a day to cook? Really?
But regardless of of the unrealistic cooking times, I find myself drawn to the food. It might be a cartoon, but it sure looked yummy! And who could turn away from a face like that?
I was intrigued enough to try to make it on my own and since I had most of the ingredients, I decided to make my own Smoked Salmon Latkes.
And its quite amusing to see friends on twitter quickly assume that I’m playing Cafe World!
Anyway, back to the recipe.
First you take two potatoes, peeled and sliced and then placed in the food processor and blend it roughly. Remove excess liquid and then put it in a bowl. Do the same thing to one onion. Drain the excess liquid and combine it with the potato.
With that, you add two whipped egg, some salt and pepper and three tablespoon of flour and combine together.
And then you take a small scoop and flatten it thinly in a pan of hot oil and let it fry till it’s cooked. If you like, you can leave the cooked pieces in the oven to keep warm while waiting for the rest to be fried.
Once the latkes are cooked, you could garnish it with anything you like like sourcream or even applesauce. Here I put some smoked salmon pieces. I wish that I had some creme fraiche and some caviar to add on top of the salmon but I don’t have them at hand.
Not sure if its the real thing but I like it anyway 🙂
But I don’t think that I’d be making it too frequently though, I don’t think it’s very healthy!
To me, make-up cleanser is a very important step at the end of the day. As much as I’d love to look immaculate 24/7, using make-up for an extended amount of time is really bad for the skin, regardless of what brand or how expensive it is.
Quite by chance, reading a review by beauty blogger,Tea Noir made me so intrigued that I wanted one of my own. I couldn’t find it in Rome so I had to wait till I was back in Singapore to get my paws on one.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Biore Cleansing Oil :
Wait … what? Oil to clean your face?
If you could get over how greasy it is, oils from coconuts and olives actually make good cleansers. It’s not supposed to cause acne since acne is a result of dead skin, hormones and bacteria. Not convinced? Try smearing some cosmetics on your hand and dab a little bit of olive oil and see what happens.
Thank goodness we have formulated cleansing oils that doesn’t feel so greasy.
I’ve been using this cleansing oil since January and I’m liking it so far. Firstly its quite affordable at about $10 SGD and its quite easy to use.
So here I am with my regular make-up on :
And then you squeeze out the cleansing oil in the palm of your hand. I usually need just one pump, you can pump out more but I’m trying to be frugal since I cant find this in Rome.
The oil is transparent, smells nice and fruity.
And then massage it gently all over your face and you’ll see that in no time at all, every bit of make-up gets dissolved.
Be it blusher, waterproof eye-liner, lipstick.
But be extra gentle with the eye area as I’ve read from a number of other reviews that the oil sting their eyes. I didn’t encounter the same issue personally though so I think it could be a new formulation.
And then rinse off the oil with water and admire how nice and clean your face is … Oops! Now you can see my blemishes!
The interesting thing is that after using the cleansing oil, my face feels dry. Which is weird since oil isn’t supposed to make your face dry.
So at this point of time, I’d slap on some moisturiser or if its time for bed, I’d follow up with the rest of my facial care – Cleanser, Toner, Eye Cream and Moisturiser and then dream of pimple and wrinkle free skin.
Have you used the Biore Cleansing Oil before? What do you think of it?
In all honesty, at first I wasn’t that interested in attending the Anti Berlusconi demonstration. I just don’t find politics very interesting. But curiosity got the better of me and Cart and I headed to the Piazza Del Popolo last Saturday.
By the time we reached there, it was bustling with activity. All the way from the metro to the piazza, it was crowded with people. Cart guessed that there were about a good 30 thousand people when we reached there at 3. There were even more people streaming in as we left later.
Many of these people were wearing purple in a demonstration against Berlusconi’s corruption like the hiring of unqualified girls for his party.
I was hypothesizing that since purple in Italian is viola, the colour was chosen because it was close to the word violare, which means to violate.
There were an impressively large number of people carrying banners and marching around
But I was amused and most impressed at this very well made effigy. Everywhere the dummy went, the camera would follow.
And in this picture, he was probably trying to make the kid in the red coat cry by lowering the dummy close to the boy.
Eventually the speeches started and everyone was listening keenly to the speeches being done on stage. And all around me was cheering and clapping at what was being said.
Even though I couldn’t follow smoothly at what was being said, I thought that the event was very well planned and executed. Every speeches went back to back with no awkward pauses.
But what amazed me the most was the unity and the very public display of protest. And yet everything was very civil. What an eye opener.
I couldnt help but to compare it to Singapore’s own Hong Lim Park and all its regulations.