Life at the Expo

Nothing quite refreshes & recharges you 9 in da' morning other than a whiff of high quality coffee beans, prepared by quite simply, the best baristas in the world.

A group of us volunteered & helped with the gargantuan FHA ( food hotel asia ) event held at the Singapore Expo. And boy... were we in for a treat of our life-time.

The Asian Baristas Championship event, spanning 4 cruelly long days, allowed us to explore the undiscovered realms of coffee-making at its very best.

I've always thought that coffee making refers to just.. ----> boiling your water at 100 degree celsius & mixing it with the coffee powder and seriously.. it's a shitload more than that. It's about controlling your temperature of the milk ( 4-6 d.c ), grinding out the coffee beans leftover by the previous contestant, blending a supremely right balance of flavours incorporating ginger, orange juice, caramelised sugar, rose syrup ( in this case it's Scottie's, the runner-up australian's signature beverage ) he was the one who taught the bunch of wide-eyed audience that brewing of coffee should never be done with boiling water or it will " burn " the beans & this results in a " chao tah " bitter aftertaste whenever you drink coffee.

Only the creme de la creme from korea, philippines, india, taiwan, china, new zealand, australia, last but not least Singapore, got together & showed us the unrevealed side of professional coffee making & it's cool as hell!
I myself don't drink coffee, & infact, dislike it due to the lingering aftertaste that all-times, pisses the living crap outta me. Not this time, definitely.

Carl Sara of New-Zealand clinched the ultimate prize right under the nose of Scottie the Aussie with Jiawei the beast from Taiwan, making up 3rd spot.

By the way, the emcee for the event is hot.

Seduction is her game. Bubble butt is her name.


( carl the champion & i, of all places, outside the washroom )



( keith, the 'tuxedo man', drinking beer from his 2nd runner up pitcher in the national division )

( capitalising on rarely-given free time )

( scouring for free food in one of the 7 halls after ABC )


( part 2 of piggy-ing out )


( angled view of the stage, after the event )

Life's Little Lessons.

Well here it goes. Just that this time round, it's no longer the usual nonsensical shit i've always preferred to type.

I noticed how fake of a person i truly am.

I realised that when you need help from someone especially who is just a hi-bye, not-so-close-friend, you tend to reveal a disgusting fake-ness of yourself. Well in this case, its me.

And just put it this way, that particular casual friend, who is a classmate of mine, kindly offered me help.

It seems that in the process of ' over-offering ', i must've irritated my benefactor. Yes indeed he was of immense help to me but he was offended. I promised to get him breakfast, send him a lift down to the nearest MRT station yadayada... you get the picture.

But all in all, its only when he turned down my offer then i finally realised that all things tangible is never the main reason as to why we turn to offer our help to someone, be it a friend or stranger.

He only wanted a sense of appreciation for that tremendously little thing he'd done for me & i didn't realise it and in return, revealed the ugly-fake side of dan the man.

Humans are somewhat complex ass creatures but 1 simple thing that all of us do need in our quest for survival..

to feel important & appreciated. point taken !