Jumbo @ Dempsey Hill

It was Momo's mum's birthday and we had a celebration at Jumbo at Dempsey.

Momo chosed to bring her mum to Jumbo because the mum has been talking about crabs.
Satisfy the mum's cravings and you will have a peace at home. (That's a cheeky statement by me!) It was a great dinner with Momo and her parents.

Remember to book if you are planning to come here. The Dempsey area is getting more and more popular. We could not get a seat in the main air con area and got seated at the 'verandah' area of the old colonial house.

Here's what we ate.

*** Sambal Kangkong ***

Of all the choices of vegetables, we still like sambal kangkong. Why do people like sambal kankong so much? I have no idea. But we simply adore it.

*** Deep Fried Red Tilapia with Nonya Style ***

It was a choice of either steam or deep fried. In the end, deep fried was chosen because deep frying is something most of us don't do at home. Most of us steam fish at home to avoid too much cleaning up!

Also if you choose the deep fried version, we get to see the 'standing' fish! It was so crispy you can practically bite the whole fish! The nonya sauce was great with it too.

*** Slow Bake Chrysanthemum Pork Ribs in reduction of Jin Hua Ham ***

The name of the dish: Slow Bake Chrysanthemum Pork Ribs in reduction of Jin Hua Ham is such a mouthful! The ribs were served in individual portions. The ribs were big and tasty and really fragrant. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

But somehow I did not really enjoy eating it as I should. I think there is something that do not agree with my taste buds. I think it's something in the sauce, because I like pork ribs.

*** Jumbo's Chilli Crabs ***

When we ordered this dish, they asked if we would like the Australian version of crabs or something. Can't really remember, but we said we would have the usual Sri Lankan crabs.

The dish to please the mum. Spicy and sweetish sauce really whets your appetite. How many of you love soaking up the sauce with the deep fried man tou? Crabs and Carbs seems to go hand in hand eh?

*** Avocado Pudding ***

We were not going to eat desserts because we were already so full. Somehow when the serving staff said, you want to try a new dessert, avocado pudding, momo's eyes lit! Glutton girl.

*** Orh Nee ***

This was ordered for her mum. Her mum loves Orh Nee.

Happy Birthday Aunty!



Jumbo Seafood @ Dempsey
11 Dempsey Road
#01-46
Singapore 249673

Tel: 6479 3435
Web: www.jumboseafood.com.sg

Christmas Dinner @ Home

Let me wish all a very Blessed Christmas!

We had our Christmas Dinner at uncle and aunt's place again this year. Here's the wonderful dinner prepared mostly by our aunt. If you are preparing it for your party next year, this can be a guide for preparing your own party at home.

*** Christmas Turkey ***

The Christmas Turkey. We went with aunt to KAP Cold Storage a few nights before Christmas to get the frozen turkey. We found what she did a little amusing, she was trying to pick the nicest looking frozen turkey. She said there's a reason for it.

She was particular about the shape of the turkey when it was still frozen. She said if you pick a shape that's not nice, the roasted product won't look nice. Ah... Don't you think the turkey's shape looks very nice? It looks absolutely delicious too!

For the turkey filling, she decided to do something different. It seems none of us like eating stuffing and the stuffing usually go to waste. So this year, she put potatoes and lemongrass in the turkey's cavity. Lemongrass gave it a nice fragrance and the potatoes can be eaten another day.

*** Prawn Salad ***

This was originally prepared by me a few years ago, and it seems we still have it until today! Something very simple that you can prepare a day in advance. Just boil the prawns and peel them. Keep the in the fridge and then arrange it on a nice bowl when it's ready for serving.

You can prepare the dipping sauce by mixing mayonnaise with say curry powder or flavours you like. If you think that's troublesome, just grab some bottled thousand island.

Everyone loves prawns / shrimps!

*** Colourful Mixed Vegetables ***

I love all the vegetables in this dish. Get colourful vegetables and quickly stir fry them. Colourful vegetables are good for you!

If you have someone that has gout at home, or inviting friends that has gout, just omit the cauliflowers.

It's like a mini Christmas Tree and decorations that you can eat!

*** Asparagus with XO Sauce ***

Very easy dish to prepare and is well loved by all who loves asparagus. Quickly boil the asparagus and a quick stir fry, that's all you need to prepare this dish.

I love things cooked with XO sauce.

*** Roast Potatoes with Bacon Bits ***

Roast Potatoes with bacon bits. It's something that you can do when you are roasting the turkey. Don't waste the heat in your oven. Roast the potatoes with your turkey.

I am sure there are always guests at home that love to 'jiak kan tang', serve them this and they will be happy. I think the potatoes goes well with cranberry sauce.

*** Cold Ham ***

One of the things that's super easy to prepare. (or rather no preparation)

The ham's already cooked and you just need to put it on a plate. You can serve them with canned pineapple rings. If you want, you can heat them up.

*** Sausages with Black Bean ***

We went to an Italian restaurant recently and our aunt ordered this for her mains. Sausages cooked with black bean. She liked it so much that she has replicated the dish for her Christmas dinner repertoire.

Quite nice.

*** Roast Ribs ***

These ribs will look better when they are cut up into the individual ribs. I should have taken a photo after it is cut up.

Steam the ribs and then but BBQ sauce over it and bake. Aunt says it is easy. Well, it was tasty too.

*** Pesto Fettuccine ***

Fresh Basil, pine nuts and garlic with olive oil. Blend it and 'tada', easy peasy pesto.

What aunt did was to pre-boil some fettuccine till al dante and leave it aside. We then cooked the fettuccine and pesto in smaller portions. This dish tasted really good straight out from the pan. We wanted to serve it hot that's why we prepared them in smaller portions.

There's so much food, so people only take a bit at a time. So when the folks wanted more, we just fry stir fry in the pan and it's ready in 3 to 4 minutes.

*** Maltesers Chocolate Cheesecake ***

One of our cousins made this and brought to for the party. She's such a great baker eh?
It taste as good as it looks. Maltesers, it has been a long time since I had them. Sorry, I don't have the recipe.

(Maltesers was one thing we had quite often when we were studying in Melbourne. It was one of those fund raising gifts and when there's fund raising for activities, we will be having lots of it!)

We also had macarons that we made.  That's our Christmas Dinner this year at home.

Adventure on the Legend of the Seas - Part III: Exercising & Healthy Eating on board

These posts are also part of a competition I am entering. If you think I deserve to win the the Grand Prize which is a cruise 7D5N Western Mediterranean Fly-Cruise on board Liberty of the Seas, please visit http://contest.omy.sg/royal-caribbean/ and vote for me! You stand to win prizes too!

*** Early Morning Stretches *** 

While my roommate Darren was dancing the night away with some Japanese ladies double his age, (I was told one of them was 60!) I was already sleeping in bed, totally knocked out!  I did not even hear Darren come into the room. I think he came in very 'early' in the morning! So when it was his turn to sleep, I woke up. I woke up at 6.30 AM! I took a shower and was ready for my stretch class at the Fitness Centre on board.

Every Monday night, I would be attending Kickboxing and ABT Sculpt class at the Community Club next to my house. As I boarded the cruise on a Monday afternoon, I had to missed that week's class. Instead of exercising, I was feasting away on the cruise with the other 10 bloggers. So when I discovered there were exercise classes on board, I decided I would join it!




I was too shy to take photos during the class. So I took photos after the half hour class was over. What was the name of the class again? It's Stretch Class. What's that?

If you have been attending Mat Pilates,  Kickboxing and similar classes, you would usually get only 5 minutes of stretch in the beginning and another 5 minutes of stretch at the end. For this class, it  was half an hour of only doing stretching exercises! Basically, you stretch almost all the muscles you can stretch in your body! Oh, it did feel very good!

This man in the photo above was beside me for the stretch class. Since we were there earlier, everyone in the room conveniently eavesdrop he and the wife's conversation with the personal trainer. They were talking about their healthy living progress on board. They were talking about the exercises they did the day before, what they did to relax their minds and also what they ate the day before.

While, the bloggers were feasting away, I realised there are many who come to the cruise to be healthy or learn to be healthy with the help of the personal trainer! When I heard that they ate very few carbo, ate lots of veggies and only ate fish, I was in awe! Wow, they can resist all the wonderful food on board?




While we were having our stretch class, there are folks behind us were running and cycling away!
Young and old, these people woke up at 7 am to exercise! I did notice something strange though. The fit ones were all on the left, those that looked more unfit were on the right!

If you like training using machines, you would like training on the ship's Fitness Centre. Instead of TV screens, you have the view of the vast blue sea! You get to see the sun rise too! It was a beautiful sight!

After the stretch class, there was supposed to be another exercise class, but that was canceled because the trainer had a meeting. Sigh. I was looking forward to that!


Most classes are free, except for Yoga where you need to sign up and pay a fee for it.




This was the trainer Daniel Blythen. I felt he was quite good. The last 10 years, I have attended various classes by different trainers, he was one of the better ones. He was a bit too serious. Maybe because the class had mostly people way older than I am?




He seemed quite qualified though. He studied sports and exercise science and massage therapy!

I suddenly remember this Pilate instructor I had 8 years ago. She is studying her sports science degree now in Canada. The few of us who attended the class still gossip about her. Another friend keeps track of her blog and keeps us updated. She is still a psychotic lady that we knew. She will always says she is fat and needs liposuction when she's already skin and bones.

Let me tell you something funny that happened so long ago and I still remember. If you attend Mat Pilates class, you would be taught how to breathe. The instructor would always be shouting inhale, hold, exhale repeatedly. Sometimes we had to curl and do different postures that somehow makes you want to fart. 


This happened: Everyone exhale.... Now get ready to inhale again.... Then out of a sudden, I could not control and some gas leaked from my posterior. Oh my goodness, it came with a high pitch sound too! She said, hold hold.. Everyone hold your breathe.... Don't inhale unless you want to die of poisoning! Everyone just burst out laughing and could not not exercise for the next 5 minutes. No one knew who was the culprit!




There were many complimentary seminar. The topic for the seminar sign up sheet above was: "Did you know it takes 36 glasses of water to naturalize the effect of one soda? Would you like to learn more?"

Yikes and double yikes! The day before all of us had so much soft drinks! I felt like a sinner in that fitness center.

*** Breakfast that I did not touch ***

After stretching, I was hungry and I walked out to grab some breakfast.  Whenever we are hungry and walk to the restaurant and you will meet another food blogger heading there! I saw Catherine! Yey, I got a breakfast partner! It would have been boring eating alone in the huge restaurant!

Coming out of the Fitness Centre feeling like an outcast, I thought I better eat something right.



I saw all sort of cereals. There were healthier options like wheat and bran cereal, but it's not me! Next!





Walking further in, I saw donuts, different kinds of rolls and breads! They are freshly baked too! The smell whiff around, tickling and tempting you to eat it. Urggh..

No, no, no... walk away!




"Alamak!", the more you walk, the more tempted you are!

Look at this pastries! Sugar glacing over it makes it look even more appetizing. You can see the layers and layers of the puff pastry. When you smell the buttery smell, you can imagine the crispy sound when you bite it even before you eat it!

Flee from temptation!




Oh... this looked healthy. Porridge / Congee.  The condiments though was not healthy. My favourite!  Crispy ikan bilis, crunchy and fragrant 'you tiao'/dough fritters, smooth and glistening century eggs, pickled radish etc.

Should I or should I not? I normally would have eaten this, but no... let's behave for at least one meal!




Oh, something healthy! Grits. (That's ground corn). Maybe a bit too healthy! I can't swallow that! It looked like glue for making paper mache! (Sorry to the chef who made this, I don't mean to say you prepared glue) 

Stay away too!

*** Breakfast that I ate ***

Walking further down the long buffet line, I opened the bamboo steamer and saw char siu bau!
Resistance was futile this time.  I love char siu bau! I am taking it! Not too many, just 2!




Somehow char siu bau makes me happy! Mini char siu bau! Anyone loves char siu bau too?

By the way, later on the cruise when we went down to Phuket, I walked into 7 Eleven and saw Lay's with Char Siu Bao flavour!! I bought a pack back!





On to the hot food section, I was tempted again. But since I know I would be climbing the rock climbing wall later with the rest of the bloggers, I reasoned that I should eat something from here.

Eggs are good for me! I chose scrambled eggs. They were nice decent scrambled eggs.  I love sausages too! Trying or pretending to be healthy that day, I chose the turkey sausages! It was too lean for my liking! Haha... It was still nice though.




I finally saw something that I was familiar with! Oats! Some of you might know I eat this at home!
I gladly scooped up the oats and added my favourite dried fruits on it. Dried cranberry and raisins. I saw some sliced almonds and thought why not?

I was glad I ate this. My body registered it was something familiar and circuitry sent signals around that things are back to normal. The body's 'plumbing' system that was a bit cranky on the first day was repaired within half an hour after I had this meal! The huge amount of food we ate the last one and a half day was cleared! All flushed out!




I ended my breakfast with a big bowl of fruits! I usually buy guava on the way to my office every Mon-Fri! The options here were way better. I am totally lovin' it!

The rock melon was not sweet though. ;-)


Here's something hilarious:


That's some conversation that the 10 bloggers have in our Facebook group. We realised that my roommate had plumbing problems for the entire trip! Goodness!

Remember, fruits are excellent for the 'plumbing' system too!

*** Rock Climbing Wall ***

As some of you would already have figured out. The 10 of us had to 'work' for our free cruise trip. One of the many 'work' we had to do was to climb the rock climbing wall! Ya, you climb, and the camera man will film you.

Easy peasy! But... I could only climb the easy and medium difficulty wall. After that my hands and legs gave up on me!



The easy level is really easy! You can climb up very fast!
By the way, this was the first time I climbed it. I realised little kids can do better! Faster too!




I managed to get up the medium difficulty wall too. (Ya, that's me)
I wonder if the stretch exercise I did 2 hours earlier helped with the climb.

My hands and legs were too tired for the hardest climb. Later we realised, if you are gonna climb, go straight to the hardest after the easiest. Most people can't do 3 at a go. Your hands/arms and legs will be too tired. That's a tip if you are heading for this cruise and want to climb it.





If climbing is not for you, the 9-hole miniature golf course on the ship might be your cup of tea.
Just don't hit the golf ball into the Straits of Malacca!




There were all sorts of games and activities on board. If you walk around and you can see people playing all sorts of games like this one here. He's throwing a black bag into the hole on the opposite side.


I think my post is long enough. Any more details and you will be bored. If you think having a cruise holiday is all about eating and gambling, I hope this post gives you a different perspective.

There is an outdoor pool, 4 whirlpools / jacuzzis on board too. There's also an indoor pool in the solarium. There is also a Day Spa on board and many more. Check out http://www.royalcaribbean-asia.com/ for more details.



This post is cross-posted at http://blog.omy.sg/royal-caribbean/2010/12/30/adventure-on-the-legend-of-the-seas-a-royal-caribbean-cruise-part-iii/ too! Visit it too!

Making Macarons and serving them in Tupperware

[The awesome looking Tupperware container used in this post has been sponsored by Tupperware]

Almost every Christmas my sis and I will bake something for friends in church and also our colleagues. We thought for sometime and decided we would bake macarons! I bought an 'all about macarons' book and thought it should easy enough. Nothing that we can't reproduce at home right?

Making macarons at home was harder than we thought! But in the end, after around 6 or 7 failed experiments, we kind of succeeded. Since we finally got some decent ones, we made tonnes of it! A couple hundreds to give away! (Why not? Since we already bought the ingredients!)


For some, we packed some in small individual bags to be given to individuals. For the rest we brought it to parties / fellowships / outings. We can't packed them in some ugly containers. It had to be something decent and presentable. It was hard work after all.

The container of choice was the 'Tapau' set from Tupperware. It goes so well doesn't it?
We brought them to the venue and just leaving it on the table makes it so inviting!




Don't you think it looks lovely?

For the successful batches, we had different types of fillings. Some had ganache made from recipes pulled from the internet. When we ran out of it and was lazy to make more, we used peanut butter!

We started with Adam's 100% natural peanut butter. It's our family's most loved brand of peanut butter. It's only peanuts and unsalted too!

Geek speak: Next time, you go shopping for peanut butter, take a look at the ingredients, many brands have ingredients that you can't pronounce. Adam's just peanuts!

We ran out of Adam's at 12 midnight and since Cold Storage at King Albert Park opens 24 hours, I went there to get more. Oh no! There were out of stock! I got the other brands and a bottle of Goober Grape and Peanut butter too.




The version above was the Goober Grape and Peanut Butter version. After trying so many types of filling. The easiest and tastiest was with Adam's 100% natural peanut butter. It seemed to go very well with the sweet chocolate meringue shells.

One day we will experiment and make the famous 'pandan and gula java' filling for our macarons!

Geek Speak: That filling by the way is Justin Quek's famous macarons. 





If I say making it is easy, I would be lying. To make the shells, you would need lots of icing sugar, castor sugar, egg whites, chocolate powder and ground almond. The ground almond that we used was from ToTT. It's a stone throw away from our place.

Geek speak: Be careful when you go there! ToTT's like an Ikea of kitchen ware!  You might want to buy up the whole store!

We tried a few recipes. The first recipe we tried was from this book called "irresistable macaroons".

Geek Speak: Macarons or Macaroons, the book and magazine from UK spells it as macaroons. US and Singapore magazines spell it as Macarons. Ya, some say Macaroons is another thing. Don't argue. I have the book and magazine with me. Wikipedia is US.

For the recipe that we used, we tried the recipe from the macarons book we had. It failed miserably. Then we used a recipe published in the food magazine called "Delicious".  That recipe did not produce the "feet" on the macarons either.  These recipes required us to let the macarons 'sit' before baking. We tried sitting them for 5 mins, 15 mins, 1 hour and even 2 hours. None of them worked for us. The macarons never had the 'shell' that was suppose to form. I guess if your kitchen has no air-conditioning, it will be too humid for it to dry and form a crust.





These pink ones were made using recipe from the "macarons" book. Tried a few times and method with the recipe. It does not work. The outcome is so bad, I am not showing it here.

Geek Speak: We tried using greeseproof paper. It does not work as well. We read Silpat works best for prefect smooth bottom. I have 2 silpats at home, but I am not cutting them to fit into my baking tray!





These green ones were from the "Delicious" magazine UK recipe. It came out OK, but no "feet" came out. We tried it a few times.

Geek Speak: For this batch, we used  Non Stick Baking Sheet by Tefbake that we got from UK. Actually they were made in Ireland. It seems to give the best results for flat smooth surface.




Finally, we tried the recipe from David Lebovitz (Click here for his recipe). We modified the recipe a little, we used the fair-trade drinking chocolate from UK. As drinking chocolates have sugar, we used less sugar for the recipe. Instead of the 65 grams of granulated sugar, we used 50 grams.

Geek Speak: This batch, we used baking sheets by wiltshire. We saw it at the Robinsons sale and got them 20% off. Original price, $13.90. With the sale you get 20% off, with Robinsons Card, another 5% when your bill comes. ;-) These sheets do not work as well as the Tefbake ones though. But works better than greaseproof paper.




David's recipe says 180C. But we tried a few batches with 180C and it the shell cracks. We finally settled for 160C and it comes out really well. We baked it for 16 or 17 minutes. Less than that, the centre will not be cooked.




We were monitoring the macarons as it cooks. Look! Feet!




Ah.. Macarons!
After cooling, take two pieces and put in the fillings! Then eat!




Packing them in origami boxes and clear plastic for Christmas Eve presents.




For the rest meant for big groups, we put them in the beautiful 'tapau' set by Tupperware.  We brought it to the various Christmas parties and church fellowships we went to. Everyone loved the macarons. Some seem to love the Tupperware more than the macarons! 

Other than using it for packing. You can use the Tupperware to measure the ingredients too. Put the Tupperware on the scale and reset it to zero. Measure the ingredients in the containers and you save on washing! Since this 'tapau' set comes with 3 containers, you can sieve the ingredients into the deeper ones too. A set of Tupperware does so many things eh?

If you want to find out more about Tupperware, you can visit: www.tupperware.com.sg

There are also a Tupperware Brands Business Centre near you. Call these numbers if you want to find out more about Tupperware.  Bedok 9823 7122  | Bukit Batok 9368 5252 | City, Maxwell Road 9842 0690 | Jurong East 9617 2683 | Tampines 6789 8133 | Toa Payoh 9633 5008 | Woodlands 9271 1406 | Yishun 9781 6521


Hope you enjoyed this post.

[This post has been sponsored by Tupperware, but the baking experience are all my own]

Adventure on the Legend of the Seas - Part II: Packing for a cruise and boarding it.

These posts are also part of a competition I am entering. If you think I deserve to win the the Grand Prize which is a cruise 7D5N Western Mediterranean Fly-Cruise onboard Liberty of the Seas, please visit http://contest.omy.sg/royal-caribbean/ and vote for me! You stand to win prizes too!

*** Getting Ready and Packing for the trip ***

While everyone met up at the Singapore Cruise Centre at 10.00 AM on the 6th of December,  I went to work extra early that morning because I was still rushing to deliver a new software upgrade for a program. I had to deploy it to the production servers as well. It was a mad rush. I only picked up calls from certain users based on the caller ID on the Cisco IPPhone. When everything was finally done, it was 12:30 PM.

Thought it was a rush, I do not need to worry because I had already checked in online at least 3 days before the cruise! I know it will be a smooth check-in later. But I still have to rush home to grab by luggage and start my last minute packing! One thing about taking a cruise is that there is no weight limit! Do you know you can bring in as much things as you want on a cruise? That made last minute packing easy! Grab and dump and go!

Of all the bloggers, I would probably be the geekiest or nerdiest.  I grabbed my MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone, Canon DSLR and my stash of 8GB SD Cards I have at home and chuck them all into the luggage.



Yes, I have A LOT of SD cards at home. The geekiness shows eh? Why two brands? Redundancy!
7 cards because 7 is the perfect number.

I use a new card all the time. I will keep the SD Card and copy the contents of the SD Card to a hard disk drive. That's how I do my backup. To many non techies, backup is a hard concept to grasp.

Many people will copy the content of the memory cards to 1 harddisk and then reuse that memory card ya? Do you realise that is not call backing up? You need to have 2 copies of something if you are doing a backup. If you just copy it to your harddisk, and your harddisk crashes, where is your backup copy? You memory card already has no data because it is now used for a new set of photos. If you find my way expensive, copy your data into two harddisk. ;-)




Next I grab my toiletries bag and all of the above goes in. No, I am not sponsored by those brands above. I left the eye cream, toner of the same brand at home. Nerds and geeks read a lot and they know about cleanliness. LOL

If you think I bring too much things for a guy, my roommate Darren Ng brings more things! Oh that guy really takes care of his skin! I should have taken a photo of his stuff in our bathroom!

This geek uses a Philips electric shaver and a Philips Sonicare electric toothbrush too. Geeks don't use manual shavers and toothbrushes! Debatable.

By the way, on board the ship, they provide soap in the showers. Just remember to bring your toothbrush! One of the 10 bloggers forgot his/her toothbrush and did not brush his/her teeth. Shh....  But you can get toothbrushes at the 'multi purpose shop' on the ship.




Being a geek, I like buying stuff like this. I have been using GoToob for my last two trips. They are perfect containers I have found! You know the usual plastic travel bottle sometimes leaks when you check them into the plane? These don't! (or have not) They are made of silicone so it's easy to squeeze whatever you have inside. There is also a no drip valve, you should try it and know how well it works! What I also like is the suction pad on behind it too! For some trips, you might not be staying in nice hotels or the design of hotel bathrooms are pathetic! The suction allows you to stick them to the wall instead of putting your bottles on the floor. yikes!

Sorry, I got carried away.  I bought them from Robinsons because it has the 5% off card members. Planet Traveller and other travel shops have them too, but you pay a higher price.




I am not sure about you, but part of my luggage is usually a big bag of wires! If you are like me wondering what kind of sockets do they use on the ship, they provide two different sockets! I was panicking you know when I was packing, what if I can charge all my stuff!! So I brought different kinds of my own travel adapters, just in case!

Thanks to Royal Caribbean, being a special guest, I got the above travel adapters as souvenirs.

The stateroom provides a European Continental socket. If you are a techie, it's the Schuko plug (or CEE 7 /4 or Type F), the ones with two round pins of 4.8 mm diameter (19 mm long, centers 19 mm apart) for the live and neutral contacts.

They also have the Type A / NEMA 1-15, North American socket. I shall spare you the other details, there's always wikipedia if you are interested!

*** Getting on to the Legend of the Seas ***

During the briefing by Omy and Royal Caribbean, we were told to check in our luggage. Since we are going on a cruise, go in style! Check in and stroll leisurely into the ship.

When you see people who drag their luggage into the ship themselves, the crew says that a high percentage, these people are Singapore residents! They are behaving as if they are taking a budget airline! "Please hor.. Don't behave like that!" we were told. So I checked in everything!  (Next time you are near the Cruise Centre, observe!) By the way, your luggage will arrive in front of your statesroom or suite.

After checking in your luggage, you walk a few steps from the right side of the photo above and you can see the Departure Hall. Since I had checked in online, I only needed to present the checked in verification print out and my passport. I got my "SeaPass" card, that's all your need for the rest of your cruise. It's like the NRIC cum credit card on board the cruise!



I got into the cruise ship rather quickly. In less than an hour, I was all done and wondering inside the ship. I was wondering where everyone was so I texted fellow bloggers I know and the they said it's free and easy time. Do whatever you want, if you have not had lunch, go grab lunch!




On my way to my stateroom, I saw this on one of the doors. Someone's celebrating their anniversary on board! How nice of Royal Caribbean to stick something on the door!




I found my room on Deck 6. My roommate was Darren Ng. I knocked the door, no one answered and I went into the room! No one seems to be inside when I got in, but after a while, I heard the sound of someone showering coming from the bathroom. Oh, Darren's in.

But wait, I saw a problem in front of me! There was this huge bed in the room.  It's only 1 Bed! Oh no! Am I to sleep with another guy? Since I was busy working just before the trip, I did not google my roommate details! In the worse case scenario that we have to share a bed, who is he? Alamak!

He came out of the shower wrapped in a towel. Hi stranger. I have never seen him, and obviously he has not seen me for I never posted any photos of myself online. He looked like a nice guy. Yes, he looked pretty 'nice or fit' too. In fact, if you ladies (or maybe men too) want to know how he looks without his top, he had barred it all online! He's the winner of the omy Urban Homme challenge! Take a peek at his photos here!



Darren was too busy to go for the pre-departure briefing so we exchanged formalities for the first time in the room. It was already almost 3 pm and I was hungry, really hungry. He said himself he is a self confessed 'yao kui' (i.e. glutton, like me!). He had tried everything from the buffet line and told me what to eat and what I should not miss.

Guys are practical right? Just in case I did not read it, Darren said the Evian and can drinks are the things chargeable in the room, everything else was free!




When I met with the other 8 bloggers later, they also said they had only 1 bed. All we need to do is call House Keeping and they will come and split the bed! This was how the stateroom looked after the split.

*** First meal on the Legend of the Seas ***

Since I know no one on board except Catherine of Camemberu , I texted her. I told her I am going to have lunch at "The Windjammers". She said she and her roommate Eunice of Travel Blog Singapore will come join me for another round of lunch! Oh yey! Company!

I went to 'gasak' (wipe out) whatever I could see from the buffet line. I usually have lunch at 11.30am, but it's almost 3 pm! I was famished! I saw this piece of juicy fried chicken and I grabbed it! Juicy was the correct word to use! I think I went back for a second piece later!




I had some fish, and some stir fried beef too. Since I was dying of hunger from the whole morning of mad rush, the food was especially tasty! I think I gobbled everything down so fast. Hey hey, slow down! It's suppose to be a relaxing cruise!




After that first plate, it was nibbling with Catherine and Eunice. Eat slowly and enjoy every mouth of food! These ladies can really eat! It's either their 2nd or 3rd lunch for the day! It was nice to catch up with Catherine and got to know Eunice.

The Thai style prawn salad was nice. Tangy tasting and it is juicy and bouncy.




I saw the cold meats and cheese and decided to try it too!




What's your way of eating this? This was my way. Stacking it all up, and put everything into my mouth!




There were many Indian chefs and staff on board and that was probably why their Nasi Beriyani was good. I liked the rice, but the style of the meat is a bit dry for my liking. I noticed Eunice and Catherine were snacking on Papadums non stop!




I saw some cookies and could not resist! So many kinds of cookies! Do you know they are all freshly baked on board? We found that out when we went for the kitchen tour. Freshly baked. Yum!

*** The mandatory Muster Drill on the Legend of the Seas ***

It was amazing we could sit and eat for around 2 hours! We were 'chased' out of the restaurant at around 5 PM. It was time for the mandatory Muster Drill! Everyone depending on what number was printed on your Seapass card, was to go to their respective Muster Station.



I was allocated Station 14 and there's where I met Darren again!
The staff giving us instruction on how to use the life vest in case of emergency.




They were very serious about the whole drill. We were chided for not paying attention. We were too busy taking photos. The drill was over in a while and I went back to the room.

*** Getting Connected again.... ***

What does a geek do on a cruise? Go gets back to the room, open his MacBook Pro. He then tethers his mobile wireless connection through his iPhone. He then performs a SSH Tunneling back to his office network and when he gets connected to the network, he feels good! He checks his work email, his personal email, his blog email and he feels even better. He was so pleased with himself that the system that gone live works! There was no hiccups, which means no need to worry and can safety stay unconnected for the next few days!

He then updates his Facebook status, and starts tweets! At the same time, on his iPad, he makes sure he harvest his plants on "We Rule" and "We Farm". Not forgetting Smurfs too! Just in case there is no more internet connection, do not plant anything!

*** Other technical details that might interest you ***

More technical details if you are interested:

Internet Access:
- there's internet access on board the Legend of the Seas at the 'internet cafe area' on the ship.
- charges are USD28 for 60 minutes.
- there's also wifi, you just need to register an account tag to your Seapass card. Wifi is available at the 'internet cafe area', not in the rooms.
- the computers on board are archaic IBMs, so accessing the internet is frustrating.
- using the wifi on your own notebooks gives you better speed.



Since we are to blog, Royal Caribbean has credited an hour's worth of internet access into our Seapass card. Internet is charged by the minute as you can see above.



Mobile Roaming:
- when the ship starts sail, you will be roaming non stop.



When you leave Singapore waters, you will start receiving messages from various Indonesian telcos. Singapore telco will send you 1 message.




When you head up the Straits of Malacca, you will soon be roaming with Digi, Maxis and Celcom. Singapore telco will send you one text message again.





When the ship goes too far from the shores of Malaysia, you suddenly roam to USA!
I thought I was dreaming when I got the above message! It was then I realise there was a base station on the ship!




You want to know whom the  roam partner is? The telco bill says I am roaming with Bermuda Maritime. If your eyes are sharp, you will see this is for incoming SMS! Yes, you are charged when you receive SMS on board.

Turn off your phones! If you receive server notifications from your servers at work, disable them! Your colleagues will take care of it, just remember to buy them food when you are back.

If you are a techie, this is a friendly reminder, there are A LOT of other things to do on this luxury cruise. Stay away from your gadgets. Eat, socialize, swim, go rock climbing, have your teeth whiten, go for a massage, go for a slimming session, learn how to waltz, you will enjoy it better.


Am I being too technical for this post?
This post is dedicated to all techies out there!


This post is cross-posted at http://blog.omy.sg/royal-caribbean/2010/12/28/adventure-on-the-legend-of-the-seas-a-royal-caribbean-cruise-part-ii/ too!