Blood Donation / kolo-mee Review

MuHu~!

Today's trip is rather meaningful to me, it sort of summoned the Good Samaritan out in me. In actual fact, I didn't really feel good about it. It feels like getting bitten by a mosquito initially, followed by a public display of myself laying still on a couch at Harbourfront MRT Station for around ten minutes. However, I'm pretty sure my contribution will help somebody out there in some way or another. Have you guessed what I did today already? It's the Vibrant Blood Donation Drive 2007 at Harbourfront MRT Station from the 22nd June to 23rd June!

This marks my second time as a blood donor, thus I'm very familiar with the whole donation procedure. First station is the filling up of my personal particulars and the questionnaire, followed by second station - registration. After they've registered me in their system, I proceeded to the third station - medical screening. A doctor's there to take down your temperature and blood pressure, as well as to go through the questions featured in the questionnaire with you to ensure that you've fully understood the questions and answered them truthfully. The fourth station's the blood donation station itself. The staff will escort you to a vacant couch for you to lie down, before preparing the medical items needed. First they will let you volunteer your preferred arm, before they begin checking the veins on that arm to see if it's visible for the shoot. Soon, they'll inject some anaesthetic around the area before injecting the catheter into your vein. Before allowing your blood to enter the blood bag, they will draw out several sample tubes of blood that will be clinically tested for various diseases and such to ensure the quality of the blood will not be compromised or contaminated. Let's take a look at some photos:

That's my arm you're seeing, in the midst of filling up the blood bag

My Blood~!

They covered up the puncture opening with a gauze followed by an elastic bandage

After you're done filling up the blood bag, you'll be given two slabs of ferrous fumarate (iron) tablets to help regenerate & replenish the blood cells in your body. There's also a Thank-you card with the date printed on it that represents the next date you're eligible for blood donation. Basically it's three months after your previous donation. Now, it's my favourite station of all - refreshment station! There's packets of milo, juices, water, biscuits, wafers etc, all for you to consume at no limits while you rest on a chair. With that, it marks the end of my blood donation experience.

Since I donated blood at Harbourfront Station, I might as well go shop at Vivocity~! I shopped for almost three hours, mostly focusing on fashion and accessories. When it's time for lunch, I walked into 'Jia Xiang kolo-mee Kuching Restaurant' at B2 of Vivocity. I ordered the prawn kolo-mee instead of the abalone kolo-mee, as the abalone meant an additional three dollars. For beverages, I picked the Luohan-Longan Drink.

Prawn kolo-mee $5.90, chilli's served separate in the ceramic urn (top left)

Luohan-Longan drink $2.00

The place has a rather authentic Oriental Kampong look & feel~

What stood out in the kolo-mee was the noodles. It's different from the usual fare of mee-pok or mee-gia. They claimed that their "special noodles are freshly air-flown directly from Sarawak". When chewed, the noodles provided a 'QQ' sensation. I thought the noodles were a little crispy too. The bowl of kolo-mee came with a generous serving of cai-xin, char-siew, minced pork, and a bowl of wanton soup with prawns. For the big-eaters out there, be warned that the servings would not be large to overfill. It fills me just nice, especially when I'm not a keen carbohydrates consumer. If you must know, there's two prawns & three wantons. The prawns were surprisingly fresh, it felt smooth, soft and sweet to the tongue. Other than that, it's pretty much similar to most wanton mee.

The Lohan-Longan drink's the winner here. I actually found longans and red dates inside the pre-sealed drink, impressive! It's very appetizing, if not thirst-quenching, and it also provided the required balance pairing for the kolo-mee. One's hot & spicy, and the other's chilling & sweet. This drink comes highly recommended by me should you need a drink to accompany your kolo-mee order!

Here's my conclusive opinion:

Prawn kolo-mee
Taste: * * * 1/2 (Prawns & noodle's the main attraction)
Value: * * * 1/2
Total: * * * * * * * (7/10)

Luohan-Longan Drink
Taste: * * * *
Value: * * * 1/2
Total: * * * * * * * 1/2 (7.5/10)

Please note that the above review belongs to my personal opinion and do not represent similar results for others.

I shall be posting again.

Chenkuieh~!