Gingerbread House!

Still on festive gifts, I was totally thrilled the other day when Hubby brought this home!

A Gingerbread House!

Sooooo pretty!

Turned out that Hubby's colleague's family owns a bakery and every Christmas, they bake these gingerbread houses. This year, we were fortunate enough to receive one :)

Festive Gift fm New York!

Our dear friend from New York sent this to us ...

Something fm Mariebelle?

Now, what could it be?

Hot Chocolate!!! Exquisitely packaged hot chocolate!!! Don't you just love the box, and the ribbon, and the gorgeous tins? Lovely!

As D so accurately described, drinking a cup of this was like drinking pure chocolate ... totally utterly comforting ... and sinful!

Pretty Pansies

Last weekend, we went to the Jianguo Flower Market (it's fast becoming one of my favorite places in Taipei), and I couldn't resist these beautiful pansies. I just love the pretty striking colours. I wish I could've bought more, but I wasn't sure how they'd do under my lack of green fingers ... here's hoping they will do well!

My Marigold!

The marigolds I grew from seeds have grown so tall and healthy that they actually started budding! One of the buds finally bloomed and here's my very first marigold flower!

Update on my Seedlings

The black cherry tomato plants seem to be doing pretty well ... hopefully they'll continue to get stronger, and maybe sometime in the near future, I'll be able to have my first "crop" of black cherry tomatoes :)

The Marigolds also seem to be happy, but the violas (in the middle) seem to be struggling to come up ... I really hope they survive and get stronger ...

One of the marigolds grew so fast that we transpotted it to its own pot ...

Another marigold also grew so well, it earned its own right to its own pot :) And on the right are some other smaller sprouts of the black cherry tomato plants which also seem to be growing pretty happily ...

And remember the bean sprout like flowers? They still look scraggly, but seem to be pretty healthy ...

Lastly, the sage mealycup ... there hasn't been much change since the last time except that some of them seem to have grown at least 4 leaves. However, they are still pretty short ... maybe they are just late developers?

Arrowtree Taipei

I had been wanting to try the desserts from Arrowtree, a Japanese patissierie ever since I'd read about it opening in the new Hankyu Dept Store in Taipei. However, everytime I was around there, I had somehow just eaten and could not take another bite. So, this time, I decided to just get a tart to take away ...

The sales assistant at the counter informed me that this was their signature tart ... a mixed fruit tart ...

Doesn't it look delicious? It's basically a mix of oranges, kiwi fruit, bananas, strawberries sitting pretty atop a frangipane tart base.

Tea at TWG, Ion Orchard, Singapore

A couple of my fellow dessert-loving friends took me to TWG at Ion Orchard in Singapore. All three of us ordered the same drink - Lychee Rose Tea ...

Each of us also ordered a cake from the dessert counter ...

Profiteroles (aka cream puffs) ...

Apple tart ...

Passionfruit mousse cake ...