Macarons from Laduree

Last Sunday (12 May 2013), I bought 6 macarons for my mother as a Mothers’ Day gift but I also get to taste a bit (hehe). Sadly, in order to place the macarons in the box, you have to buy a minimum of 12 macarons. In the end, I just bought 6 macarons and place them in a bag. The photo of the 6 macarons I bought is as shown above. It’s also my first time buying and tasting macarons if you exclude those macarons on Bread Talk chocolate cakes.

I bought the following flavours: Chocolate, Pistachio, Salted Caramel, Chocolate Marshmallow, Orange Blossom, Chocolate Yuzu (in clockwise direction starting from the top left macaron in the photo). Since each macaron costs S$3.80 so I ended up spending S$22.80 on all of them. Since the macarons are quite fragile, I wouldn’t recommend you to buy it without a box unless you are going to eat it immediately or don’t mind having cracks on the macarons. As you can see from my photo, the Orange Blossom macaron has a few cracks on it. Oh well.

Anyway, let me share with you what I don’t like and what I like about Laduree. The first macaron I ate is the Chocolate Yuzu macaron. I thought I will love it since it is a marriage of chocolate and yuzu (which is similar to orange). I have always love chocolate and yuzu flavoured sweets. And so I took a huge bite on the macaron and I always vomit out once my taste buds sense the chocolate yuzu taste. The taste is overwhelming. The yuzu taste is way too strong for my liking. After some time, I get to taste the chocolate but the yuzu taste is still overwhelming the chocolate taste. Bleh. I will never buy this macaron ever.

I love the Chocolate Marshmallow macaron. It is like the nicest dessert I have ever ate. The chocolate taste is not too strong and it taste like Häagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream except that it is not as cold as the ice cream. One small bite will make me crave for more. Definitely a macaron that you should get if you are buying from Laduree! Unfortunately, it is a limited edition macaron so I have no idea when it will stopped selling. I should have bought 1 more of it so that I can have 1 whole macaron for myself and the other for my mother. My second favourite is Chocolate. The Pistachio also has quite a nice taste. It’s also my mother’s favourite among the macarons that I bought.

If only I have money, I would buy Laduree macarons again, in particularly, the Chocolate Marshmallow macaron. But seriously, S$3.80 for 1 macaron is just too expensive for me. Oh well. It’s not definitely something that I will buy often.

High context people tends to read more in the current situation/context and read less into the words used in the situation. Asians are typically high context in nature. Low context people, on the other hand, tends to read more into the words used in the situation and are more direct. Westerners are typically low context in nature.

So for example, someone who is low context and wants to pay for the bill, he/she will just ask for the bill and pay for it. For high context people, if they don’t want to pay for the bill but yet feel embarrassed about others paying for it, might just suggest that we split the bill although he/she might not have meant it. My instructor told us her personal experience when she was treated for dinner by her Aussie friends. Her Aussie friends invited her for dinner and planned to treat her for dinner. However, when the bill came, being a high context person, she suggested splitting the bill although she did not mean to really split the cost of the dinner. Her friends, who are low context, then took her suggestions and split the bill. What’s the end result? She ended up paying part of the bill although she is the guest and the rest previously planned to treat her for dinner.

That reminded me of the macarons incident that I had with Alex. Being a typical Asian and high context in nature, I tend to read the situation and read less into the words I used when I am interacting with people who are I am not close to. Yes, I know I am more of  low context when I am with people who I am closer to. Alex, on the other hand, is a low context person who reads more into the words. So when he asked how I felt about the Canele macarons and told me that he had never tasted it before the very next day after he gave me the box of Canele macarons, I will obviously offered to let him have some. What surprised me is that he took it seriously without reading in the context since he is the person who gave me the gift and he is asking them back the next day. So I thought he don’t mean to give the box to me and decided to return the whole box (unopened) to him 2 days after he gave me the box. What surprised me further is that his first reaction is “wah. you really only eat 1 macaron.” when I hasn’t touched it.

It’s such a perfect example of miscommunication with people of different contexts.

On the down side, I think I have to wait for a month or so for the goods to arrive since the seller has to ship to Gmarket Korea office then ship to Singapore, followed by my home. So many people to pass through… It’s going to be a long wait…

On another note, I didn’t shout “Graduate lor!” after the paper because more than half of the students have left early and I am sitting on the second row at the front. The prof is right in front of me. So I lost my courage (because the prof is in front of me) and the reason (because more than half of the cohort has left the exam venue). Well, I think the exam paper is too easy which explains why so many people left early. But Rong Quan said that some of those who left might have given up on the paper. Well, hopefully it is the case because I want to get an A for the module.

I guess it means more budget for me to buy a SLR. I want to get a Olympus pen but I have been using Canon cameras since young. Should I still to Canon or switch to Olympus then? Decisions, decisions…

I also want to save money to buy a house/apartment/HDB flat for myself in future… But housing prices is so high in Singapore. How many years do I have to work in order to buy my own house? Sigh. How much do I need to save every month in order to achieve my goal? I am in need of financial advice!

May Yee once told Janice, Wan Ling and I to buy insurance when we are young. She said that she bought insurance after she started work. I also should start looking up for insurance plans once I start work.

Gahhh. So many things to plan that I need to do after exams. Seems like I will be just as poor as I am as a student once I start working. So many things to save up for. Living in a country with high cost of living is a headache. Sigh.

Anyway, isn’t it epic that I am getting distracted from exams because of coding related stuff like coding for a new theme for VS and coding a new Android app? It’s like the ultimate level of distraction.

I want to go for a grad trip. I want to go Taiwan/South Korea/Vienna. But Taiwan has some cases of H7N9, the political tensions in South Korea is quite high and my commencement ceremony clashes with my NUSSO Vienna tour. Sigh. I don’t want to start work so soon. But I also don’t want to be unemployed for too long. Oh well. Dilemmas, dilemmas.