Food, Travel, UK

A weekend stay in the Forest

Most of us would have done a trek in a forest at some point of time. Whenever the conversation comes up, i always hear that it was an amazing experience and would love to do it again.

Now, how about a stay in the forest? No, i am not talking about setting up a tent and staying in it. When i was in my teens i guess i could live in a tent. I need my comfort. That being said – i need a nice comfy bed with a clean toilet with Wifi. These are the necessities. Anything else will be a bonus. 🙂

As part of the trip, there was a plan to have a weekend stay in the forest located in Gloucestershire which is just off Coleford. There are a lack of pictures as i did not plan to blog this trip.

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Food, Travel

Embarking on the start of my trip to London!

 

In this post, i will talk about my journey out of SG and the return.

This is the start of my trip which i have been planning for a long time. I have been procrastinating for about 2-3 years and planning for about 4-5 months.

Backtrack a couple of months…….

 

Initially i got many comments saying i am crazy or am i mad to travel for 1 month plus to some places. Will it be boring? Will i get lost? What happens if this and that… Oh gosh.. why are so so many people just so negative? I don’t understand.

On the flip side i got people who were so supportive and said that i should do it! Do it now or never. I guess for me it would be…. Do it now & again!!

So now the main part to convince everyone is to BOOK THE FLIGHT TICKET OUT OF SG!  Yes, i did that and choose Etihad as my airline of choice. The first flight was to London which was my base as i had accommodation at a relative’s place and a friend’s place. Yeah i had 2 bases indeed!

I have been told by some friends to take Turkish Airlines, Emirates or Singapore Airlines instead of Etihad. Now i will explain reasons why i chose Etihad. Firstly, i had been flying it a decent amount of time and had a build up of points.

 

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Food, Malaysia, Travel

Travel to Port Dickson

Due to busy workload and a build up of stress, i needed a trip somewhere and wanted it to be by the beach. Initially, i thought of heading to Bali as it has been a while and would be good to submerge myself with some great food and the beach.Well, unfortunately, that was not possible 🙁 as there were some events which i had to be around for. After brainstorming with the intended travel group, we locked in Port Dickson. Malaysia is just at the doorstep and it has not been explored too much. I was excited as i have never been there and heard from friends that its an amazing place.

After looking at some hotels and resorts, we booked Thistle which was just by the beach and had a huge pool. Yeah, ideally i would love to have a private pool but this was fine.

We reached SG customs around 8am on Saturday (about an hour odd later than expected) and there was a jam build up. It took ~ an hour to clear up and we passed both immigrations.

I stopped by the petrol kiosk to pump petrol before heading off and spotted about 15 Maclaren – which was quite a sight to hold. Perhaps one day i could have the opportunity to drive one. 😉

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Doesn’t it look good?? Oh it was an awesome Nasi Lemak which hit the spot well.

About an hour odd after driving, we reached Machap R&R that was an ideal stop. I had a hidden agenda though. It had a real power nasi lemak which i had during the last trip to KL.

After a good breakfast and a coffee, the drive continued for about 2hours before reaching Thistle @ Port Dickson. I didn’t realise that Waze was set to “Avoid Toll Roads” and it took a scenic drive thru the kampung areas.

Finally, we reached Thistle.

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Food

First attempt of making Bak Kut Teh

As some of you might know, i love Pork. It ranges from Bacon to Ribs to Char Siew.

One of my favourite of them all is Bak Kut Teh. As we all know there are 2 types (Peppery & Herbal). I have yet to find a really good Herbal Bak Kut Teh in Singapore. If anyone knows, please give me suggestions and i will be glad to try. When i head to KL, it’s a must have and my uncles will say that i should bring back a mini-bucket of soup as its sooo good. After trying out a couple in KL, i have nailed on a stall along Jalan Ipoh.

As i always like to try cooking something way out of my league sometimes i thought that i should try to make Bak Kut Teh. I thought if i can make it at home which taste similar to what i get, it will be a great accomplishment.

By chance, while i was getting some stuff from Giant Supermarket, i saw a packet of Klang style Bak Kut Teh which definitely caught my attention. I started thinking if should actually give it a shot this weekend or keep that for a later time. The next day i confirmed that i will give it a shot during the weekend.

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Food

Change screenshot locations of your MAC

Have you ever been in the situation where your desktop was filled with image files as your job requires you to take a ton of screenshots?

Well, here is a way of how you may change the location of the folder where your screenshots are saved to

  1. macbook:Desktop rickbath$ mkdir screenshots
  2. macbook:Desktop rickbath$ defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~rickbath/Desktop/screenshots/ (replace this with the path of your choice)
  3. macbook:Desktop rickbath$ killall SystemUIServer
  4. Done!

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How to monitor your brew

DISCLAIMER: I would like to emphasize that i do not take responsibility if anything goes haywire or representing any company. I did this as i was on a mission – to make brewing much easier which still confined to the limited space

 

In this article, i would like to provide you some information that monitoring your brew process has just got alot easier. I will provide you information of how you no longer need to tap out some beer into your hydrometer vessel to check the reading every 3-4 days.

Equipment needed:
Tilt Hydrometer
Bluetooth enabled phone

 

 

 

How to brew your own beer

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DISCLAIMER: I do not take any responsibility if anything happens/goes wrong.

In this article, I will explain how to make beer. It’s an easy process which is achieved over a couple of steps.

I have separated into the following sections:

  1. Overview of Beer Brewing
  2. Equipment Requirement
  3. The Brewing process
  4. Making your first beer
  5. Bottling your beers
  6. Enjoying your 1st beer

Overview of Beer Brewing

I’m sure, you have thought of the possibility of brewing your own beer. For me, it started when I started to appreciate my dark ales / Belgium beers – which does not come cheap. I then ventured into home brewing. The fermentation required an ideal temperature of ~20 degrees. This might be a challenge in tropical countries which is still possible.

Grains + Hops + Yeast + Water + Time = Beer

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