TWG x Rome

I'm back from my trips and was itching for a tea session so I called Z to head out with me!

My WIW below, and a checkered blazer I tried in H&M but decided not to get in the end cos it was slightly loose on me. :( Couldnt find my sizes these days!

Boo. Need to put on a bit more weight.

I haven't been to TWG in Singapore (it was established in our good home country:>) neither did I in Hong Kong 'cos there was always a longggg queue so I did my first tea experience in Dubai (Dubai Mall) yesterday.

It was 1837 because Singapore started trading tea as a port since then.

Looked like every store in Asia - it had nice macarons' dispplay and shelves of tea tins.

There was at least 8 pages of teas so don't ask me how many there were!

Surrendering the magnificent list, we were spoilt for choice!

Can see Z was delighted to choose. We find the guidebook to tea extremely helpful since it lists down the description of each single tea on the menu.

We ended up with Z's choice of Orange Wood tea since we were both fans of classic and fruit teas.

Extremely pleased with the tea we had. The wood note wasn't too strong in this black based tea, yet it has a light orange note to it.

Ha, we looked extremely tired since we only returned home from Rome the day before.

We went for the aviator salad which was a poach egg with generous servings of char grilled chicken slices on top of romanian lettuce. The croutons were amazingly good, they're one good side to a good salad for me!

We shopped for a bit while I finally gotten my grey skinnies (hooray!) You can always trust Bershka in theirs.

Magnolia's our next stop - it was Z's first time while you know I always count on them for my red velvet dose.


Their signature Red velvet cheese cake.

Z chose to have carrot cake while I was on my usual fix.

paired with latte and earl grey with a dash of milk for me, it's an awesome combination :>


Rome
Did I also mentioned that Z and I were on work trip the day before to Rome?
Here are some pictures of us in the city of Roma.

We shared a pizza and aglio olio in a cafe which were quite a good $$ deal for us, but I didn't like what we had really. I doubt I can find a decent restaurant in Rome center.

Was at Piazza Navona when we walked around. It had its Christmas market which was bustling with life.
Quoted from Wiki:
" Piazza Navona is a city square in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the Stadium of Domitian, built in 1st century AD, and follows the form of the open space of the stadium. The ancient Romans came there to watch the agones ("games"), and hence it was known as 'Circus Agonalis' (competition arena)."


The Egyptian obelisk in Rome.

My kind of carousel :D

Shopped around tents with displays of christmas and souvenirs.


It was 4:30pm when dusk falls, winter makes the day seemed shorter and the nights longer.

The beauty of Europe is to have a cup of coffee in any of the cafes while you put your world behind for the moment.

It was raining heavily that night, so the coffee was much needed.

We also settled down for the pistachio ice cream near trevi fountain - I remembered one of my readers who told me not to settle for anything less - thank you :) The gelato is indeed the best I've had for 2 euros!


Till then, I gotta settle pictures for Amsterdam :)

so my 5 days rest goes like this...

I was on a movie marathon this week since I was on 5 days leave ( like the rest of my friends, coincidentally), so we decided to hang out for some healthier activities. No more beach parties and hottest clubs in town.

I was targeting to watch Titanic 3D but V wanted street dance, being quite a fan for dance themed movies, we went!

So one day, we did street dance 2 in 3D (honestly, I think the movie was so-so just that they did a little of latin dance which I really liked), and Titanic was still mind-blowing good.
For the fact that Dubai cut some steamy scenes (which cannot be helped really), I still loved the movie as much as I did when I first watched it 15 years ago.

That reminded me of something:
I am pretty sure I haven't blogged about the Titanic Artifact Exhibition that I attended @ the ArtScience museum, before I left Singapore for Dubai and it has to be the best exhibition I attended due to my interest in this ginormous ship.

I'm not sure if it's still on, but it's really worth the $21 that Hannah and I paid for. We had a "boarding pass" printed with a passenger name and at the end of the exhibition, there was a plaque with the survivors and victims names - which we would match to see if our "passenger" did survive.
Mine was a first class female passenger and yes- she did survive.
I guess due to the statistics of first class & second class female and child passengers, I wasn't that surprised really...

the very big difference between a first class and a 3rd class cabin - and 3rd class cabins only had 1 toilet for each gender :O

let's bring me back to the present, here r some pictures with our geeky 3D spectacles that we bought. Apparently they don't loan them like SG cinemas do, and they only cost SGD1 so it was cool buying your own!

(top: street dance @ dubai mall, bottom: titanic @ deira city center)

and we had time to catch up with magnolia cakes. this time I satisfied my cravings for carrot cake and red velvet. Gosh the carrot cakes are the best I had! topped up with cream cheese, i don't mind getting fat for them :D


Mike decided to bring us to a place for dinner, and he initially told Em that it was a "shack"type of house that we're going, and we were feeling adventurous to find out the type of food we were going to expect!

@ Bu Qtair Restaurant, a hidden place in Jumeirah where locals and expats who have lived long enough in Dubai would come for a seafood feast. Good that we had Mike who stayed here for 6 years!

me and my favorite austrian friend, well logically, I only have one :p

we ordered 2kg of prawns (we only managed to finish 1/2 of it) and a large fish (which obviously wasn't enough for the 6 of us).

lesson learnt: lesser prawns and more fish next time!

my dinner kakis, we were a good mix.
From left: Ems is a Norwegian, V a malaysian, Mike a Singaporean, Schirien is a Dutch-Egyptian, and of course we know Rita an Austrian.

miss these pratas (fried dough), they come unlimited!

V and I at our fish, wish we had ordered an even bigger one cos fried fish is good!

Rita and Schirien @ their food :)

Next was Courtyard, Al Manzil Hotel for some arabic desserts.
I'm good with food, but desserts....?  Initially when Mike was talking me into it, I was rather skeptical really. I don't think I dig Arabic spices, but well, as always, I was pleasantly surprised with what I found myself liking.


Doing mirror shots, the Asian style and Rita trying to feign her tummy into looking pregnant.

ugly faces before we moved to the conservatory.

A restaurant that serves up good arabic food and desserts. They do have western desserts but more known for their arabic ones and their shisha. We're really big on Shishas here.

Seated outside at a temperature of 23 degrees is cooling ;)

Ever since V showed us the magic lights (which changes 6 colors with a switch), the girls around the table has been fooling around with it. Check out Em's jewel blue eyes :)


took a picture with all of us here;


Mike took us a walk through the residences and boy are they beautiful. The rich and famous could afford to stay here.


then it was time to head back to the tables when the desserts came.


Introducing the hot and cold arabian desserts.

Cold dessert (light rose taste milk custard): Muhallebi

Hot dessert (bread pudding alike): Umm Ali

Schirien pouring us some Morrocan mint tea which goes nice with their arabic cookies :)

Us having tea and dessert the Dubai style! Thanks to Mike for the fantastic eating spots!


Off to london again this Thursday and hoping I get fully recovered before :) Looking forward to the month of May being my 3rd month here in DXB.