024. red, blue & hogwarts

Yesterday was more than awesome. It was so awesome that my legs are aching from all the fun we had. It was little sis's 20th birthday, I spent the entire day with her having some nice food, going to the Harry Potter exhibition and ending it by watching The Amazing Spiderman (why did they even add The Amazing? It just sounds lame).

I haven't used this bag in so long! Jiji, I have missed you.

We started the day by heading to Marina Bay Sands with no idea what to have for lunch, little sis spontaneously just walked into the first restaurant she saw because she was too hungry. In the end, we went to a celebrity chef's restaurant that we can't even remember the name of. -_-

Marina Bay Sands is the most luxurious hotel Singapore. It has a casino, an enormous shopping mall, Sky Park, Sky Garden and the ArtScience Museum (that's where the Harry Potter exhibition is at until September 2012). It's a tourist spot and the shopping and food here is awesome. I didn't appreciate the architecture as much until today when little sis started taking photos.  I also didn't appreciate Singapore this much until I became an Australian, I mean I still don't like Singapore in general but if you see it as a tourist (I am one, haha), it's actually quite amazing. Other than the fact that it's hot and humid all year round.

The birthday girl!

Foie Gras,  I haven't had this in a long long time.

Duck Confit, Lydia's lunch.

Scottish Salmon, my lunch.

I kinda always blame Dad for teaching us to eat well, but than again, what would life be without great food? The food here was good! I haven't had this in a long long time, we only get this when Dad comes back every few months. The most important thing was little sis being happy, that's all I want for her to be on her special day.

After lunch, we walked slowly to the ArtScience Museum for the Harry Potter exhibition. Which made me realize that we have always been doing something Harry Potter-ish for the last 5 to 6 years because the movies would always be out around our birthdays (my birthday is just 3 days after hers on the 18th). I thought last year was the last time I'll ever be doing anything Potter-ish which made me kinda sad (I watched Deathly Hallows Part II), but since the exhibition is here, this will be the last time we will be experiencing Hogwarts.

Ron's car from Chamber of Secrets! It was so cool to see it! *__*

We weren't allowed to take photos in the exhibition itself. ;___; Wish we could have, everything looked so amazing! So, the first thing when you go in, you'll get sorted into the houses by the sorting hat. Of course, they only picked one or two people to volunteer. Than you'll enter a screening room, it was basically a mash up of all the movies ( the One Piece exhibition in Tokyo, screening was much more mind-blowing). Next, you'll see the Hogwarts Express where I saw Sarah, my friend who works at the exhibition, couldn't talk much to her but at least she did wish baby sis a Happy Birthday.

I can't remember the sequence already, but I think in the room after that, there were the paintings on the wall and yes, some of them could move! And there was the Fat Lady of Gryffindor's common room! There were props for everything, Hermoine's time-turner, the Quibbler, their robes, everything. I really liked the Forbidden Forest, there were centaurs, Tom Riddle's grave, Dementors, Kreacher, gigantic spiders and even the Dragon Harry fought with in Goblet of Fire.

There was also Hagrid's Hut and The Great Hall. They placed the Triwizard Cup there, along with Hogwarts food, the Yule Ball Outfits and some stuff I really can't remember. They even had a room for Quidditch. You could throw the Quaffles in the rings. Little sis spent too much time there, while I went to pull out some Mandrakes nearby, yes they really do "cry". Haha. I don't think I could list out every single thing they had at the exhibition because they really had EVERYTHING. 

At the end of the exhibition, we went to buy some merchandise. I bought Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, the Marauder's Map (I always wanted it) and Xenophilius Lovegood's Deathly Hallows necklace. The necklace is so pretty! :D Also, they sold wands from Harry's to Bellatrix Lestrange's, robes, books, stuffed owls, chocolate frogs, Hermoine's time-turner necklace and so much more. I was so amazed with everything.

Banana, Black Pepper, Blueberry, Booger
Candyfloss, Cherry, Cinammon, Dirt
Earthworm, Earwax,Grass,Green Apple
Marshmallow, Rotten Egg, Sausage, Lemon
Soap, Tutti-Fruitti, Vomit, Watermelon

I'm so in love with this.<3

Finally! It's mine :3

After spending too much energy and gasping at every damn thing at the exhibition, we took the train to town. We didn't really do much for the rest of the evening, other than walking even more. When we couldn't take it anymore, we just sat down at Coffee Bean for some Hazelnute Soy Latte!

While having coffee, we actually tried some the jellybeans. I tried earwax first, it wasn't that disgusting as I thought it would be in the beginning than when the smell kicked in, I just spat it out. It smells SO BAD. Little sis tried Black Pepper after that and she spat it out almost immediately, she said there literally was black pepper in there. Ewwww. Than I tried Dirt, it's sooo bad. It tasted like dust? I don't even know, I got too repulsed and spat it out too. The other normal flavours were nice though, like Watermelon and Marshmallow!

We decided to go to Takashimaya because I wanted to get some art supplies. We stopped at Louis Vuitton on the way there, no I'm not that rich to get anything from there, but it's because I realized that Yayoi Kusama did a collaboration with LV, so I was excited to see how her art work would translate in Fashion. 

Mad was the one who told me about Yayoi Kusama a while back and we both intrigued by how obsessed she is with polka dots. She's a Japanese artist that does work in all kinds of mediums (paintings, installtion etc), I like the way she uses psychedelic colours and patterns. 

This is one of my favorite pieces by her. 

Polka Dots Madness 3, Yayoi Kusama

It's amazing how she can translate polka dots into this. 

I was looking at the video and books they placed in the store while little sis went to look at the glasses and bags. We are worlds apart, I know.

It's amazing to see art next to fashion, really. If they made shops like this, I will never be bored. And at least, I won't be bored waiting on little sis when she is trying out clothes and stuff. I really liked how the shop looked! So whimsical, it's like I'm walking into her wonderland. I also loved the work when Takashi Murakami collaborated with LV in 2002. That's my favorite.

More photos of Lydia being crazy shopping...

Haha, she never fails to make me laugh.

Of course, she didn't buy there.

After shopping, we made our way back to Orchard Central for dinner. We wanted to try a restaurant that Andrea introduced me to!

The escalator was up till the 7th story, pretty scary especially when you're afraid of heights. My legs were actually trembling when I took this photo of her.

So, Andrea introduced me to this restaurant called Ootoya on the 8th Level of Orchard Central, she said it was traditional Japanese home-cooked food! The word home-cooked made me want to try it even more, you should have seen the look on little sis's face when I told her about it.

It was really crowded and the restaurant was full of Japanese. You know a place is good if their locals flock to it. Little sis was so tempted to tell the waiter "Futari!" when he asked how many people were sitting, he was Japanese I think? Later when they asked us what we wanted to drink, I was so tempted to answer back in Japanese too because, yeah, Japanese accent just make me automatically do that and being there made me miss Japan and my babes. ;___;

I had "Aji" It's fried mackerel with rice, pickled vegetables, mushrooms and  miso!

This made me miss mornings in Tokyo. This is what I literally have for breakfast everyday whenever I am in Tokyo. The food was good as well! Little sis was grinning from ear to ear, yes, we are suckers for home-cooked Japanese meals! Sigh, Tokyo. 

After dinner, we finished our day by catching Spiderman. Although it's been screening for almost 3 weeks, the cinema was still so full! The movie was better than I expected it, I'm so skeptical about blockbusters really, but this one was better than the other 3 Spiderman movies combined, though it's a little draggy. I thought some parts were interesting and I didn't know why all my friends were obsessed with Andrew Garfield till I watched this. Haha. He's dorky cute and he really reminds me of Brendon Urie ( lead singer of Panic! At The Disco). Brendon is really cute in person! I met him some time back in 2008.

All in all, little sis enjoyed herself on her birthday and I'm more than happy she did. I felt like it was my birthday also because yesterday was just too fun. Hopefully we can think of something interesting to do on my birthday.