Who said F1 racing was a boring?

Ok, I might've said that before, but as I watched the preliminary (is that what it's called) and also the actual race itself, I found myself glued to the tv not daring to look away in case I missed something. But it wasn't the race itself that was exciting as such, it was all the mishaps that happened. Like when one of the cars drove away from the pit stop with the fuel hose still attached to the car and causing one of his team mates to tumble across the ground and consequently causing him to lose his number 1 position. Or when one of the teams got out of the race because their car got damaged after ramming into the barrier. And then finding out how penalties are awarded. How exciting! Hehehe....

The weirdest and annoying thing was hearing my FIL and MIL making running commentary as if they knew anything about F1.

Sick children at the Paeditrician or Clinic

You know, it really irks me when sick children at the clinics are left to run around unrestrained by their parents/caregivers. I think it is very irresponsible as they risk passing on germs and viruses to other children who are not sick and may be at the clinic to see the Dr for other reasons. If they're running around and not being near other children ok, but the ones I've seen have always been very close to other children including mine. And when you suddenly hear them cough their lungs out right next to your child (like it happened to us today at the PD), your immediate instincts is to grab your child and move them away. But children of course don't understand why they're being taken away from their new 'friend' and struggle out of your grip only to end up back next to that child again at the toy area. I don't think we really should care about whether we offend those irresponsible parents/caregivers right? We're just trying to protect our child. My fear when I take Caelyn to the doctors is that she'll come home with some kind of sickness that she picked up at the clinic.

Customer Service desks needed at local supermarkets

I realise not a lot of suburban supermarkets like NTUC Fairprice and Cold Storage have a Customer Service desk where customers can go and enquire about something or requests for exchanges or refunds. So it is rather inconvenient when you need to do either of the above and you don't know who to talk to and end up having to join the checkout Q and hold up the other people trying to checkout behind you. Seems only the big hypermarkets like Carrefour, Giant and the Fairprice at AMK Hub have a separate Customer Service desk.

Today when we went to Cold Storage at Kovan Mall, I had bought something that had been marked down and I guess unfortunately the mark down sticker must've fallen off. So after hubby had paid the stuff, we walked away from the supermarket and I went over the receipt to check if everything was correct since I wasn't with him at the checkout. When I realised that we had been charged the full price of the item ($2.15 difference) I made him go back to get a refund. I know it's not much money, but the way I see it is, I wouldn't have bought the item if it hadn't been marked down in the first place. We went back into the supermarket to double check and sure enough all of the same item had a markdown sticker on it and I was still sure that when I picked up the item to put in the basket it too had a markdown sticker. So we joined back to the Q of the cashier that served us earlier. We told her of the situation and you know what, she made us feel like we were cheapskates for trying to get our money back. Furthermore she made it feel like we were troubling her so much and she even proceeded to make it seem like we were stupid by saying, 'next time you have to get the item with the markdown sticker or else you don't get markdown price'. Like hello! We did that in the first place, we're not stupid! She still wasn't convinced that we were entitled to the markdown price.

Anyway, eventually she went to find a superior to help her (and so we held up the Q of people behind us). The superior then came over and we had to go through the whole explanation again to her and even she treated us with suspicion. It's not like we're trying to shoplift or cheat them! Eventually she just offered us to take 2 of the item to even it out so she wouldn't have to write out a credit note for the $2.15. We reluctantly agreed because we understood that it was troublesome to write a credit note for a measly $2.15. Still, what I'm saying is I'm not trying to be a cheapskate, I was just trying to stand my ground and I really feel that the supermarkets here still have a long way to go in providing proper Customer Service. I don't even know if we can exchange or return stuff here at the supermarket if we change our minds. My Mum was telling me that at Woolies in oz, if they don't charge you the right price for an item, they will give it to you for free.

On a side note, I am now reading all the labels of my food products to see where the stuff is made from. Steering away from all China made food products as much as I possibly can just to be on the safe side. I do feel sorry for the bad rap China's getting on their food safety, I wonder if that trust will ever be able to be rebuilt.

Korean Instant Noodle Variation

I'm a big fan of those Spicy Mushroom Korean instant noodles. For variety, try adding some miso paste, corn kernels and dried seaweed into your soup mixture. Yumilicious!

This dried seaweed sells for $2 at daiso and goes a long way. It's great to add to your miso soup.

My Home Made Sushi

Last week made sushi for lunch. They turned out fantastic. My favourite fillings for sushi is avocado, tobiko (flying fish roe) and raw salmon. This time however I only used avocado, tobiko, egg, crabsticks and cucumber. Wish avocado was cheaper here, then I'd eat more of it, but at $1.95 (when it's not on sale) per piece, it's a rather expensive fruit to eat.

So what do you like on your sushi?