Laingan.com

Sunday is a family day for the family members to get together. One of the best things to spend on a Sunday afternoon is to go to the restaurant or food outlet to enjoy some good food with the family.

I know that we should not spend lavishly when the global economy is having its downturn. We also wouldn’t know when the economy will revive to a promising level if not at its peak. However, this doesn’t mean that we cannot bring our family members to the restaurant to have some nice food.

As mentioned in my past few posts, many restaurants and hotels are promoting economical buffets to attract more people to eat buffet so as to bring in business. I think this is a good business strategy so as to make people feel that they are still able to afford to eat at the restaurant by paying less.

My family and I popped in to a Xin Hua style Chinese restaurant to order the Pu Tian cuisine at a nearby shopping mall. The price of $12.80 SG is considered reasonable for a high-tea buffet that starts from 3pm to 5pm.

Although there were not too many varieties of Pu Tian dishes to be chosen from, I think we should not ask for too much in view of the low price tag.

Pu Tian Fried Buns :

Pu Tian Spring Rolls :

Stir-Fried Yam :

Chili Mussels :

Drunken Cockles :

Duck and Yam Roll with Chinese New Year Cake :

Orange-Flavoured Chicken Wings :

Oyster Cakes :

Pan-Fried Gyoza (or Guo Tie) :

Steamed Pork Buns (or Xiao Long Bao) :

Mushroom Soup :

Yam Paste with Ginko Nut :

Mixed-Fruit Delight :

I would say Pu Tian cuisine has its own speciality that belongs to the Xin Hua style. It is another taste of the different group among the various types of Chinese food. Well, I still prefer the Cantonese cuisine to the Pu Tian.

Anyway, my family and I had enjoyed our high-tea buffet and we think this was value for money for the low price.

I didn’t update my Blog post yesterday as I was too sleepy and my mind was too tired to organise my thoughts. I think it is always difficult to write something when your head is nodding in front of the computer as you are agreeable to go to your dreamland 🙂

I was so tired because I  was staying up late at night recently. I only had had a 3-hour sleep before waking up on Friday morning. 

As Friday is my rest day, I usually stay at home to read books, surf net, write Blog posts, practise on graphic design, go out with friends, go for shopping with my sister and so on.

My friend told me that she was planning to resume her walking exercise on Friday so I joined her yesterday for a walk at the national park. She reminded me to bring along a bottle of water, a cap and maybe an umbrella as it rains quite often recently.

The reason for bringing a cap is because my face turned so red when I was walking with her under the hot sun near Changi beach two weeks ago. 

My two chubby nephews were mistaken that I was angry with them when I was fetching them after their swimming lesson on that same evening. They saw my face was so red and thought that I was angry as they were coming out late from the swimming pool that night. So funny 🙂

Yesterday, my friend and I went to the Pasir Ris park and started our walking exercise on the walking path. We saw big ships were parking at the bay for people to board them and buy goods inside.

Then, we walked to the swarm and saw many small crabs coming out from the sands. It was indeed an interesting sight. 

We talked and joked as we were walking. It took us about 2.5 hours to make an 11km walk at the national park. It was really very relaxing to go for a walk on a rest day. What an enjoyable walking exercise at the national park with a good friend!

I found many advertisements promoting economical buffets in today’s newpapers. Obviously, the aim is to attract more people to patronise them during the global economic downturn. 

Most people are cautious about spending especially when the employers cannot guarantee that they won’t retrench their staffs in order to survive in the weakening economy. Workers like us are not very sure we won’t lose our jobs if the economy continues to be bad.

So, it seems to be a luxury to go to restaurants and enjoy good food nowadays. But the fact is that life has to go on and we need to eat food no matter how bad the economy is going to be. We still need to stuff our stomachs with food instead of starving ourselves to death.

If nobody were to spend money, the economy is going to be worst from bad. More jobs will be lost and less jobs created. Therefore, it is very important to stay positive and optimistic. The whole environment will improve if we are not giving up hopes.

So, I still think that we should eat our heart out at buffet since there are plenty of economical buffet promotions out there for us to select from. It’s time to plan for gatherings and keep in touch with friends.

Just came to know that March is the Mental Health Month. But I’m not sure this is originated from which country. I got the email from my friend, the GFF, and I’m now doing my part by sharing it here in my Blog.

If you want to, you can send it to at least one “unstable person” and that will be your job done. 

It is perfectly OK to laugh insanely once in a while so long as you are happy especially in March the Mental Health Month 🙂  

I have been hearing people talking about and using Twitter nowadays. It seems like many people are twittering online. The next thing that you will hear from people who use Twitter is to ask you to follow them on Twitter. 

So, what is Twitter all about? The simplest answer that I got is that Twitter is a micro-Blog. The detailed explanation of what Twitter is can be found in Wikipedia as follows :

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them

A typical question that the Twitter service will ask its users is as follows :

What are you doing?

All you need to do is to type in your answer to this simple question.

Well, you can watch a video clip which explains what Twitter is all about in plain English to get an idea :

I just read an article which says that 80% of success is mindset. The measure of success is not how smart you are, how hard you work, how many technical skills that you have and so on.

Well, I do agree with what the article has written as I always believe that it is very important to have a right mindset in all aspects of life. Having a positive or good mindset will help us to go a long way in life.

It shapes us into what we are whether we are dealing with our work, family, friends, relationship, social well-beings and so on.

So, how should we go about improving our mindset then? Well, according to many motivational coaches, the first step in improving our mindset is to set goals in order for us to live a successful life.

In fact, most if not all of the success coaches have put goal setting at the top of their list. They believe that this is the way to increase success with a focus mind of what you want in life.

Success coaches also advocate the habit of writing down your goals everyday so as to give yourself the opportunity to improve your performance day by day. You cannot hit a target if you cannot see it.

So, start writing down your goals on a piece of paper and paste it on the wall for yourself to see it. The paper helps to remind you that you have the mission to realise your goals and achieve your success.

All in all, it is crucial to have a right mindset as it is the key factor to achieving success.

I was awaken by the alarm clock at 5am this morning and it was one of the earliest time that I got up during weekend. I washed my face and brushed my teeth after waking up. Then, I logged on to the internet to search for Brian Tracy video on YouTube. 

I found a few of Brian Tracy video clips and these are mostly short videos which take less than 2 minutes to play. Although the videos are short, there are a lot of good information in them. I think this is probably called short and to-the-point kind of videos. 

One of the Brian Tracy’s videos that I have watched is his “Four Steps To Getting Past Obstacles“. He said that : “Success is the ability to solve problem. Leadership is also the ability to solve problem. The fact is that a goal unachieved is merely a goal unsolved“. How true it is! 

Brian Tracy has a question for everybody : “How good are you in solving the problems that come up everyday?“. His answer is that if you want to overcome obstacles and achieve your goal, you need to become a continuous problem-solver.

So, the next question is : “How do you become a solution-oriented goal achiever?“.

1) Define the problems clearly

2) Ask specifically what is holding you back from achieving your goal

3) Determine all the possible solutions 

4) All the different things that you could do to overcome the obstacles

The next thing that you need to do is to decide which one to pursue since you have a list of solution already. Bear in mind that it doesn’t have to be the perfect solution but any decision is usually better than no decision at all.

The final and most important thing to do is to TAKE ACTION!

If the approach you have chosen doesn’t work, try something else. If it doesn’t work, try something else as well. You keep thinking things you can do rather than you can’t do. The more you think about solution, the more solution you will come up with.

Brian Tracy also said that all successful people are solution-oriented and this is what we found about solution-oriented people is that the more you think about solution, the smarter you get. 

The more you think about solution, the more solution you come up with. As a result, the successful people are more positive and optimistic. Thus, you must be as well. 

Enjoy Brian Tracy’s video clip on “Four Steps To Getting Past Obstacles” :

I went to IMM shopping centre after shopping at its nearby Jurong Point today. It was already 5pm so I headed to the food court to order some food before it was too crowded during the dinner time.

Actually, I was not hungry at that time because I had taken quite a heavy meal as I ate chicken chop during lunch time. I just wanted to take something light for the evening so I browsed through all the food stalls to hunt for my food.

I think one of the best choices for light meal is carrot cake so I ordered a plate of fried carrot cake (or Chai Tow Kway) and waited patiently for the stall keeper to fry it.

By the way, there are two versions of fried carrot cake. One is the black version that uses sweet soy sauce and the other version is without sweet soy sauce. I ordered the white version because it will taste funny if I were to drink coffee after taking the black version of carrot cake which is fried with sweet soy sauce.

Carrot Cake — The White Version (Chai Tow Kway) :

Carrot cake is made of rice flour and white radish. It is served in large rectangular slabs which are steamed and then cut into small rectangular pieces. The way to cook it is to stir fry the carrot cake with soy sauce, eggs, spring onion and garlic. 

Chili paste will be added for those people who prefer to eat spicy carrot cake. The small rectangular pieces of carrot cake are poured on top of a beaten egg to form a crust and stir fried.

I think it is not too difficult to prepare carrot cake if I were to fry it at home. What I need to do is to buy the ready-made steamed carrot cake and then cut it into rectangular pieces. Then, stir fry it with the ingredients.

I have just read an interesting and informative email talking about feet in relation to a person’s health condition as well as a person’s characteristics.

It says that you can learn about a person’s characteristics, personality traits and innermost secrets by observing the shape of his/her feet and legs. Sounds interesting, right?

Here it goes :

Some Excerpts :

Long, Lean and Smooth Legs :
When legs are long, lean and smooth, this suggests the person will enjoy a smooth sailing life with few obstacles. You are an active, hardworking and helpful person. You are likely to have a very good life before your thirties. After 30, your life depends on other destiny indicators.

Legs are Short Relative to Your Body :
When your legs are short relative to your body, this suggests you are smart, attentive and quiet. You prefer jobs which do not require you to deal with too many people. You may face some obstacles before your thirties, but after that your luck improves tremendously for the better.

Bony Feet :
When feet are bony, this suggests a poor person. Life has many difficulties and it is a struggle to make life go smoothly. So do try to fatten up your feet. Nothing like good fleshy feet to bring the good life!

Middle Toe Longest Among Your Toes :
When your middle toe is the longest among your toes, it is not a good indication as it suggests your destiny could turn irksome during middle age. You could suffer from a perpetual shortage of money and face obstacles that block your success.

Second Toe Longer Than Big Toe :
When your second toe is longer than your big toe, this suggests you will have plenty of food on the table and plenty of friends around you. You impress others with your good heart, so many will speak well of you. But you need to work hard to maintain your increasingly extravagant lifestyle.

I like the last one. Do you know why? This is because my second toe is longer than my big toe. A big congratulation to myself! 🙂
 

My friend, the GFF, sent me a brain-teaser kind of email recently. Inside the email, there were 7 words listed in bullet form for the reader to figure out what those words have in common. If you can answer the question, it means that you are smart enough.

I think it is an interesting email for people to tease the brain whether you are smart or not smart. I think it is very important that the person must not be under stressed or being too tensed up before attempting the question. 

This is because one would not have a clear and logical mind to think properly especially when the question is designed for a purpose to test people. You may get tricked if you cannot think with a cool mind.

Are you ready for the challenge? OK, good. You are ready.

See if you can figure out what these words have in common :

1) Banana

2) Dresser

3) Grammar

4) Potato

5) Revive

6) Uneven

7) Assess

Are you peeking the answer below or have you already given up? Give it another try. Look at each word carefully. This Is Cool. 

What is the answer? If your answer is : “The 7 words have at least 2 double letters”. Then, please try again.

Still cannot figure it out? Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Still wrong? Go and wash your face to refresh yourself.

Still scratching your head? Don’t have any clues? Still Stuck?

OK, let me disclose the answer. In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter, place it at the end of the word and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word.

Did you figure it out? No? Fret not, this doesn’t mean that you are not smart enough. It just means that you are too stressed out. I didn’t get it right either although my friends often tell me that I am intelligent 🙂