NEVER SICK OF THAI FOOD.

So before I embark on a 2-week journey around Europe without any decent Asian food or chilli sauce, decided to have one more go at Thai food. I love Thai cuisine and it's not hard to see why; 90% of the dishes are spicy and that's enough to beguile my palate anytime of the day. This time around is a very small homely stall at Downtown East called 'Basil Inn'

Fried seabass with mango salad



An extremely meaty fish with generous serving of spicy mango salad. Crispy throughout and complements the salad well. At $28, it;s quite value for money, you won't get such deals at Chinese restaurants.

Green curry chicken



Always a safe option and didn't go wrong at all. Curry is tasty and nothing too spicy.

Tom Yum seafood soup



Do consider asking for less salt when ordering this; makes it easier to eat and more suited to our local taste. This is probably the mildest and least spicy tom yum soup I've eaten but nonetheless, it's delicious and what's a Thai meal without tom yum soup anyway?

Mango sticky rice



My ultimate favourite dessert in the whole wide world, who can say no to glutinous lo mai kai with mango after a hearty meal? This one is good on portion size, just enough for one and at $4 it is extremely affordable, as compared to $9.90 at Porn's thai food.


Caught two cartoon movies recently! Feel the kid in me rise up again!

THE LORAX



An adaptation of an old classic fable, it talks about saving the trees and protecting our environment. Too cutesy and it's one of those kiddy movies that will leave you so speechless because it's just so lame. Even Zac Efron and Taylor Swift's voiceover couldn't save the last tree from falling.

blow-wind-blow-o-meter: 0/5

HUGO



To sum it up, this could potentially be the best movie of the year. Nominated for almost every Oscar award, including Best Picture, this is a heartwarming tale of an orphan living in a train station and trying to figure out a secret left behind from his late father. Note to all - you NEED to watch this in 3D; the film was created for 3D audience so as much as you hate the headaches from wearing those glasses, bite the bullet and you won't regret this. So this is the must-watch movie of 2012 so far! Highly recommended and you will get your money's worth!

choo-choo-o-meter: 5/5 !


Last day out with my wonderful colleagues before I leave for 2 weeks.





grilled calamari > fried calamari



London.Paris.Barcelona.Lucerne.Milan.23.march.to.08.april

EUROPE, WE WILL MEET LATER!

SAWADEEKA!

Had been a sick bird the whole week, not sure what hit me but been down with slight fever + flu. Didn't stop me from flying a whole 5 days though. No one really sees a doctor overseas; basically it means you have to be quarantined in a hotel for between 3-7 days and that's very tragic. But thankfully I got through it well and good, no big dramas and it's the start of my 3 weeks leave!

Sick or not, I'm a sucker for Thai food and went for a Thai a-la-carte buffet at Simpang Bedok yesterday. If you're in the area, skip your boring Spize or 89.7fm and go to TOM YUM GOONG instead. It's along the area of shops where Shell station is, beside Cash Studio.

Besides the buffet, there's of course an option to order a-la-carte and if you're there for lunch (which I frequent often) there's a value-for-money set lunch for only $9.

Either way, being a glutton I couldn't say no to a buffet with 3 other dining companions and boy did we had a feast.

MANGO SALAD



Quite easily one of my favourite dishes of the night. For the uninformed, this is no ordinary mango salad so proceed with caution. This is a typical Thai appetizer dish that mixes mango or papaya with spicy chilli padi! The sweet mango combines with the chilli to whet your taste buds, love that feeling! This is highly recommended!

THAI FISH CAKE



Another favourite among Singaporeans, this one is quite sad-looking and a little too hard for my liking. However ask for their sweet chilli sauce and it complements this dish very well.

PANDAN CHICKEN



The chicken is very delicious and easy to devour! Flavouring was just nice and portion was decent!

BONELESS CHICKEN WING



We dug into this chicken wing and then started asking 'Eh, no bone ah?' Don't know how they did it but yes, boneless and easy to eat chicken wing for your pleasure! Dip this into the wonderful sweet chilli sauce too and it's seventh heaven!

STIR-FRIED SEAFOOD



Just a simple dish of garlic stir-fried into a nice plate of squid, fish and prawns. Nothing much to shout about but worth a go anyhow. I can't say no to seafood!

CHICKEN SATAY



The meat is thick and tender but the sauce was a tad too salty; not sure if this is how the Thais like it though.

GREEN CURRY CHICKEN



Looked extremely bland and sad when it arrived and the curry needs a little bit more kick. Not the best green curry I've eaten but still good enough for me, worth a go.

SWEET CHILLI FISH



Quite crispy and well-cooked, goes very well with the sauce. Generous portion too.

BLACK PEPPER BEEF



Looks like a zhi char dish straight out of a Chinese cooked food stall and tastes just like one too. Pepper sauce was quite delectable though.

CHICKEN WITH CASHEW NUT



Give this a miss; chicken is tasteless and I felt it didn't even taste like chicken. The sauce is very bland and overall this was quite a disappointment.

SPRING ROLLS



The saving grace was the sweet chilli sauce accompanying the rolls and why not? Better than just having bland pasar malam spring rolls right.

RED RUBY



The little chewy red balls are very small and almost hard to find in this small serving. The coconut milk and red syrup blends well.

THAI TAPIOCA



And arguably my best dish of the night! Squishy tapioca dipped in coconut cream milk and doesn't fill you up but rather delightfully ends the whole evening on a high note! We cleared the whole plate excitedly!



So head down to TOM YUM GOONG at Simpang Bedok and give this a go! At only $18/pax, this buffet is a steal and please, much better than what boring Thai Express. Eeee yucks!

I have been very fortunate these past three years as a flight attendant. Fortunate in the sense that I've haven't experienced any major events that required an evacuation, rejected landing or even something as common as a diversion. I do, however, count myself unlucky on some occasions, most notably last year when I was stranded in New Zealand for one week due to the volcanic ash and of course, a rather memorable flight back dealing with a customer peeing openly on board. In fact, i've been thinking of documenting all my travel experiences into a book; after all the only books of such nature have been published by former SQ stewardesses and I think people out there need to know about flying budget and the differences between us and a full service airline. Everyone has the misconception that flying budget is unsafe and the plane will crash.

Okay fyi I AM STILL ALIVE. And plane crashes happen so rarely, you probably have a higher chance of falling down the stairs and breaking your neck. So don't be ridiculous.

Anyhow, for today's blog post I thought I'd write a step-by-step guide about how to survive in a plane crash! Wooooo sounds so Bear Grylls! These are critical steps that you should undertake that will make a difference between survival and meeting your maker. Plane crashes are uncommon, but there's enough crashes to even create the series Air Crash Investigation, so you better listen up! Especially when flying to Bangkok is as common to taking a train to Orchard, air travel is opening up and many travelers I encounter nowadays are first-time travelers who don't even know how to buckle a seat belt, let alone evacuate a plane safely.

1) Your seat

Window or aisle? The most common question you will hear when you check-in. Well, honestly it doesn't matter. Because statistically speaking, your chances of survival actually depend on which part of the plane you are seated. Experts say that passengers at the back of the plane have a 70% survival chance as compared to 55% for everyone else. I can only assume that upon landing, the nose of the plane will impact first and most catastrophes occur when planes take-off and land, and rarely in mid-air.

Either way, I will debunk that notion. Realistically speaking, and for extremely obvious reasons, you have the highest chance of survival if you sit at an emergency exit row. Plane crash, crew shouts evacuate evacuate evacuate, you open the exit, slide down and BAM! You can be posting photos on facebook on the burning tarmac while the other 200 passengers from rows 20-100 will probably be burnt alive or die from smoke inhalation. Simple enough justification! Except that flying budget and requesting for an exit row seat usually requires additional fees which turn people off. No worries; my advice is to request for the seat at check-in anyway and if your plane is not full, the ground agents will still allocate you that seat for free because it is airline requirements to have passengers seated at the emergency exits.

And for goodness sake, while you're at the emergency exit, please read the safety card and pay close attention to the crew briefing you. We don't brief you just because our company requires us to; we brief you because YOU are in charge of operating that exit in the unlikely event of an emergency. Which means our precious lives depend on your ability to operate that exit!

2) Safety demonstration

The boring safety demo. If only all airlines have safety demos like Cebu Pacific, dancing along to Katy Perry while demonstrating the use of an oxygen mask. Your life jacket, oxygen mask, seat belt and very importantly, the brace position are stuff that will save your life. "What is the brace position?" Ah ah ah, see what I mean? Fly to Bangkok so often but don't even know what's the brace position! Very simply - feet firmly on the floor and forehead resting on your arms and lean forward on the seat in front of you. Do not be a hero and stretch out your legs because upon impact, they will be crushed like Tong Garden peanuts and I don't know about you but I think I will need my legs to escape later.

Your oxygen mask - many people don't know this but the flow of oxygen will only start if you yank the mask down tightly before fitting it on. So don't just grab the mask and wear it. There's no oxygen flow if you don't pull it down first and in such cases you will be starved of oxygen.

3) Nearest exits

During the safety demo, the crew will point out the nearest exits and advise you to count the number of seats between you and the exit. Not really a huge necessity to me because the crew will direct you to the nearest slide and there's usually an exit front and rear of where you're seated. Problem only arises if you're seated near an emergency exit where the doors are operated by your fellow passengers. Once again, I reiterate the importance of this - your life is dependent on a complete stranger who is probably as excited to bargain at chatuchak market with you later. So take note of an alternate exit which is operated by a cabin crew and use that exit if necessary.

4) The cabin crew

Wah, how I love this part. This is where I get to brag to the world about how talented I am and how you should bow down and respect me! But seriously, as dumb proof as this seems, always follow crew instructions in an emergency. We are trained to aid you in survival, and we know the aircraft better than you know Bangkok (okay why am I always using Bangkok as an example? So stereotype!) so this is not the time to be a hero. And please, leave your Prada bag behind. This is not the time to be picky. It's your life at stake, and baggage can severely hamper an efficient evacuation so don't bother about bags.

Need more reason to listen to our instructions? Here's one - it's the law, and you are breaking the law if you don't listen to crew instructions. By disobeying us, we can actually summon the police to arrest you upon landing and you'll be whisked off to the next available flight home before you can even say 'tom yum goooooong'.

Mark Walhberg recently drew a huge amount of criticism when he said September 11 wouldn't have happened if he were on board those ill-fated flights. HAH. Easy to say now, but that's the problem with terrorism. You are 35,000 feet in the air and you don't have a clue if the guy beside you is going to bomb the plane. So as much as I believe Mark Walhberg is a brave and heroic guy, he would have gone down like a pack of cards too.


And so, once you've fully understood these essential points, you can now fly safely. Remember - the most important thing is this - DO NOT PANIC. Past incidents have shown that shock will set in and people will freeze. Move quickly, and just listen to the crew's instructions!