L A ♔ B E L L A ♔ V I T A

KIMBERLYKRISTEN.WORDPRESS.COM

2010-04-01T06:58:00.000-07:00

I've been on blogger since I was 16 (and livejournal since I was 14 for that matter) but I've been wanting to try Wordpress for quite awhile now. And now the recent problems with my blogger has given me a legitimate justification to move, so I won't be posting here anymore!

I'm now on KIMBERLYKRISTEN.WORDPRESS.COM. Do add me if you have an account and we can be Wordpress friends :)

I'm still on the same TUMBLR though! And you can ASK ME ANYTHING ANONYMOYSLY on FORMSPRING!

MUCHO LOVES X

IMO BT SUCKS.

2010-03-30T04:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't really been journalling because I don't have an active internet service right now. So frustrated with British Telecoms, they're completely incompetent. After moving out of my rental and into the apartment my parents bought for me, I've placed my order for broadband and landlines three times already. The first time they said they would call me back with an appointment date. They didn't. I had to call back four times until I was finally told there was no order record at all. Annoyed as I was, there was nothing I could do but place a new order. They gave me a new order number and told me that an engineer would come down on the 25th of March. On the 25th, NO. ONE. CAME. Finally, I rang them up, and was informed that the engineer would come the following day between 8am to 1pm. I even called to check at 10am and was assured that they were on they're way. Surprise surprise, by 2pm, still no one had appeared. I called them up again, waited on hold for a good forty minutes before finally being connected to an agent. They transferred me from one person to another, each time I was transferred, I had to wait another at least 15 minutes… only to have to repeat my entire story to someone who would transfer me yet again!!!!!!!

Finally, someone came up with the explanation. THERE WAS STILL NO BLOODY ORDER. And they had the audacity of accusing me of making up my order number. Honestly, with a order number format such as VOL 011-30376835328, do you think I could make something like that up accurately?! Then they told me it would take another 11 days before I could get any internet. In the midst of placing another order, they CUT ME OFF. PUT ME BACK TO THE MAIN MENU. AND NO ONE BOTHERED TO CALL BACK. WIN.

As much as I need internet in my life, there's no way I'm supporting businesses with appalling service like that so I've decided to apply for O2 broadband instead. If all goes well, I should be connected by this Thursday. I'm crossing my fingers and harboring high hopes even though everything I've learnt about British service and efficiency in the past two years screams otherwise.

In the meantime, I'm still at http://kimberlykristen.tumblr.com and on twitter. You know where to find me.

When we're apart, I find it very hard to Smile

2010-03-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'm loving the sunshine! It's still a bit cold, especially when the winds are strong, but the fact that the sun is shining everyday means Spring is definitely on it's way :)

Another happy fact: My parents, Godma & Grandma are visiting me from Singapore :) We went shopping in Covent Garden yesterday and bought up a storm.

One of my biggest weaknesses: American Apparel. Everytime I walk into AA, my wallet comes out thinner and sadder, but I'm much happier :)

I really love AA though it's kinda overpriced in the UK, but I just really love the basics, the quality (organic), the solid colours, the ethics of the brand. I actually did one of my final year projects based on AA last term :)

Covent Garden Buskers

Mama

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Last week, I brought my godma & grandma to Southbank and we went up the London Eye. Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my camera so my battery died halfway.

London Eye 4-D Experience

Southbank

My grandmother, who was adorably afraid of getting onto the London Eye because she thought it would be really really fast. Too cute!

土豆丝

--

Last week, the boys cooked me a "welcome home to London" dinner at their place.

That's Jason.

He cooked before disappearing to find his girlfriend, and the rest of us ate the Honey BBQ ribs he cooked with Heinekens.

And that's Kar Meng, our resident klutz :)

MMM, we finished half of Kar Meng's beef dish in the kitchen itself while the other dishes were still in the process!

And I don't have a picture of Zach, but he cooks up a mean Tom Yum stew, with salmon cheek, mussels and prawns!

--

Today, we racked up a 4digit sum (SGD) in Topshop. I think I'll be living on sandwiches and public transport for the next month. Poo.

After topshop, we had lunch Le Pain Quotidien

Daddy dearest.

And then went to kill our wallets some more at Carnaby Street.

Finally ended our day at Liberty's.

I love Liberty's and it's quirky eclectic range of designer wear.

Heheh, and to end off... I'm using the lipbalm Marc got me for Christmas :)

HAPPY SAINT PATRICKS DAY

2010-03-17T09:41:00.000-07:00

Here’s to a long life and a merry one.
A quick death and an easy one
A pretty girl and an honest one
A cold beer – and another one!

London celebrated St. Patrick's Day on Sunday (14th March) and I brought my Godma to join in the festivities at Trafalgar Square. For once, the weather in London was lovely so we basked in the sunshine, enjoying the live bands and beer, watching the world go by.

Why not celebrate being Irish every week?

The magic juice.

My Godma

The Parade was pretty amazing. Everyone was really just letting loose and having fun. Rather unlike the chingay or NDP we have annually in Singapore where everyone has to either be marching in tune or dancing in sync. None of that rigidity. We even saw a Mother pushing her baby in the stroller and walking with the parade.

Grass cars with funny faces!

Headed over to Covent Garden after the parade

Busker juggling a sword and a chain saw! cRaaazy.

This group of pretty hot girls were walking around in just a bralette and tights. Now, whilst I did say the weather was amazing, it was STILL cold, like 10 degrees with strong winds?! How they do it is beyond me. Hot all the same though ;)

Fred Perry 3D Logo.

Superdry.

Diesel

Doc Martens back in fashion! I really want the gold & silver pairs!

Virgin Active has a really bad attitude. There's a branch right next to my apartment building and a friend and I enquired about membership, they were really flippant and never called back. I guess they think we won't be good enough clients cos we're merely students as opposed to the corporate crowd they cater to. Guess I'll be little miss tubs for awhile longer. Oh well.

Here I am, with an Irish Superman (read:green underpants), wishing everyone a Happy Saint Patties Day! May it be filled with four leaf clover luck and lots of beer!

BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BE(ER) HOLDER

2010-03-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

Awhile ago, we threw a surprise farewell party at a two bedroom pool villa at the Capella Resorts for our friend, Marc, who'll be in Australia for the next three years.

The night before, I made jello shots and jello syringes. The red ones are strawberry daiquiris and the green ones are margaritas.

Upon check in, I was rather impressed with the service. We were also informed by the receptionist that at Capella "there is no official check out time, as long as there is availability, we will accommodate you". Needless to say this brought about all sorts of retarded comments from my friends. We ran into other minor issues though, like our fridge wasn't working at all, for one. But it was kind of cool that there was a touch pad remote which controlled everything from the lighting moods to air con, as well as a one touch button that would electronically draw open or close the curtains.

Daren, Kim (Huang), You Rong and CJ came by earlier to help me get everything prepared :) We filled all the sinks and bath tubs with beer, bought pizza and all.

Band Hero and Cards.

The guest-of-honor getting raped by the boys tsk tsk, we actually have videos of this, but I'm gonna spare ourselves the embarrassment and you the agony.

Craaaazy time in the pool... of confessions, shots, beers and cigarettes. Half the people in the pool were drunk, the other half force fed alcohol and cigarettes by the drunks...... Bringing swimming to a new level.

The sober-ish ones! Me, Cheng, Mark and Jeff.

Poor Marc got stripped naked by the boys whilst all the girls were still in the pool. I think he wasn't sure whether to stay in or to get out was worse. No one wanted to give him a towel.

Covering my face gahhhhh, fresh out of the pool unglam.

The V.I.P boy finally recovered his clothes (or at least a bath robe), here he is looking good and stoned.

Stoned as he is, the party goes on. At this point, I was still convinced I would make it for my 8am run at ECP. A few of us had previously signed up for a charity run in a bid to do some good as well as to lose weight.........

Later, some of them went out for dim sum supper/breakfast...... and others? In their intoxication and complete lack of sleep, my best friend, boyfriend and a few other pals actually trooped along to ECP and FINISHED THE RUN. HOW'S THAT FOR STAMINA BABY. Can't say the same for myself, Lau (who was smashed), Marc and Kim(Huang) who instead stayed back and made good use of the comfy beds and black out curtains.

Capella Resort & Bob's Bar

The next morning, we actually STILL had a tonne of beer left over! I think I ordered about 65 litres of beer (8 crates, almost 200 bottles?).... we had bottles of hard liquor, and the girls brought bottles of wine... Mmmm.. the night was one helluva crazy one with secrets and confessions, rock and roll, nakedness and nausea ....... and an enormous mess. Let's just leave it at that and not go into the details.

Timbre for Marc's last night in Singapore.

MMM.. look at how my friends treat the disabled.... kicking the wheelchair, sigh! Sending him off at the airport the next day. Au Revoir Marc!

Cambodia: Phnom Penh, Summer 2009.

2010-03-05T06:14:00.000-08:00

Day 3

On the third day, we got on a coach and took the 6 hour journey from Siem Reap to the capital city, Phomn Penh. Along the way (and rather in the middle of nowhere) we saw a young boy walking along the deserted stretch of long dusty road carrying bags full of goods he was probably on his way to sell. Boy got knocked down by a passing motorcycle and immediately started bleeding. The coach didn't stop and I was plagued with a sense of sadness and worry, and only after we travelled for another good twenty minutes before we passed an ambulance probably headed back to help him. Super tragic, and really reminds me to appreciate how good we locals have it in Singapore.

At the rest stop, we saw lots of locals selling creepy crawlies, and I'm not talking about regular creepy crawlies. The minute we got off the coach, we were approached with this girl who looked like she had a spider brooch the size of my palm on her chest. Turned out to be real (it didn't move at all till she touched it!!!) and we totally freaked. That's Viv and her mom with a lotus plant.. the seeds can actually be eaten just like that!

A bit of history: The Cambodian Genocide was brought about by Pol Pot, who was educated in France then returned to Cambodia and came into power upon the fall of Phnom Penh in 1965. He then served as the Prime Minister from 1966 to 1968.
During the two years of his (psychotic) reign, Pol Pot ruthlessly murdered more than TWO MILLION of his people.

Upon arrival in Phnom Penh, we had a quick lunch before visiting the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center. which actually used to be one of the many killing fields. About 15,000 of the 2 million+ victims were believe to be massacred here. It was a genuinely spine-chilling and depressing experience to have visited the killing fields.

In a tall glass case rests the bones and skulls of more than 8000 victims. Pictured below are some of the skulls belonging to " "Juvenile female Kampuchean from 15 to 20 years old".

The tree shown below is the actual killing tree which Pol Pot's army would use to kill children by picking them up by their feet and repeatedly swinging/hitting them on the tree until they bled and died ):

Just 10 years ago, Cambodia had not even begun clearing up the killing fields and tourists who visited the place would be immediately overwhelmed by the stench of dead bodies which were either carelessly lain on the ground or buried under overgrowth. Apparently, the stench was so foul that many tourists would faint before even entering the grounds. Today, they have begun to clean up the area, and as you see, they've transformed bits of the area into a memorial or mass graves for the victims. However, the damage was just too devastating and extensive, and the water you see in the background of the pictures were all actually once killing fields and the bodies in those areas have yet to be cleared as apparently, the government just does not have the capacity to deal with it yet. I think it extremely sad that all those victims have yet to be given the proper respect and resting grounds that they deserve. Sadder still is that today's youth of Cambodia have to resort to playing in the killing fields barefoot, wandering around the muddy death-water begging for money behind the barb wires, almost as though they are animals behind a cage in the zoo ):

Day 4

Visited the "Wat Phnom" in the morning. Basically, the name means temple on a hill. The myth behind this temple is that a Cambodian woman was around the riverside when she spotted four Buddhas floating around her. She then brought them over to this hill, where a temple was built to house them.

Tom, Viv, Daren & I standing in front of the giant clock on the hill, which was a present from China to Cambodia. The clock is apparently worth 90,000 US dollars, and whilst I suppose the gesture is kind of sweet and I'm sure much appreciated, I personally think that 90,000$ could have gone to a much more humanitarian cause. Do the citizens of Cambodia really need a giant clock when the vast majorities can barely afford homes, education, healthcare or even food and clean water?

We then made our way over to the Royal Palace, built in 1886 and served as the King's residence. The palace grounds were largely completed before WW1 and the Thais and French contributed heavily. In fact, Napoleon (the then King of France) demanded that a house be built specifically for him on the royal grounds, for when he came to visit. Unfortunately, he passed away before visiting Cambodia. The iron house engraved with his name on the door still stands today. Behind us in the photo is the throne hall where all the kings of Cambodia have been coronated .

The concubines have 7 different colored dresses for the 7 days in each week. One of the interesting things I learnt is that in her time, Cambodia was one of the richest countries in the world. Everything in the palace was made of gold, from ornaments to cutlery, temples and furniture, even the power sockets in the wall were made of gold. However, after a French diplomat noticed this and commented on it, the Cambodian royals decided to paint everything over with a coat of red paint so as not to give the image of being overly wealthy or arrogant, as well as to deter aggression. Today, even though the red paint has been removed, a reddish tint can still be seen on the gold.

After lunch, we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is a high school that Paul Pot and his army transformed into a prison called the S.21 (Security office 21). The classrooms on the ground and first floors were divided into individual prison cells whilst the higher floors were used for mass detention.

Thousands and thousands of victims were imprisoned here before being exterminated in front of their wives or children. Pol Pot's prisoners included workers, technicians, engineers, doctors, teachers, students, monks, minister, foreigners and even his own soldiers. After each of his victims was killed, Pol Pot regulated that his soldiers must take a picture of them dying or dead to prove that they had indeed been killed, otherwise the soldier would be punished. The compilation below is a collection of gruesome pictures of some of the victims. The list of "security of regulations" include "while getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all"

This exercise poles used by high school students got transformed into a torture method during the Khmer rouge. The interrogators tied both hands of the prisoners to the back by a rope and lift the prisoners upside down hanging on the pole until they lost consciousness. They would then dip the prisoners head into a jar of smelly filthy fertilizer or manure to wake them up before resuming their interrogation and hanging them upside down. Blood stains can still be seen on the walls of the prison today.

The actual electric chair used to kill prisoners is displayed in the Genocide Museum today. Instead of just electrifying the victims, Pol Pot preferred to torture them with a slow, painful death. The chair features an electric drill which would penetrate into the victim's skull while he or she was fully alive and aware, and then be left to slowly die. The skulls that remain in the museum have evidences of the holes made by the electric drills. Often, mothers were instructed to be executed in the electric drill chair with their babies alive in their hands. Only after their deaths would the babies be killed.

After that harrowing experience, we lightened up by visiting the casino, but no pictures were allowed. There we had our only good meal in Cambodia at a Korean Restaurant... Full bento meal with unlimited supply of the cold dishes like Kim Chi etc, and only $8 per person. I guess in general we didn't really enjoy Cambodian food, it was okay but nothing to rave about. We thought it was much like Thai or Vietnamese food, just blander, and without the burst of flavour.

The Independence Monument was built in 1958 as a memorial to the war victims as well as to celebrate the independence of their country from france. Their building features five tiers decorated with 100 snake heads.

After dinner, we took a TUK TUK for the first time in my life. It was craaazy, especially when the driver turned out into a two way road and was driving right into oncoming traffic! Crazy but actually pretty fun.

Spent awhile walking around the night market. I think Cambodians are not as well versed in the art of haggling, the way the Thais are. Once we walked away they would give us any price we wanted at all. Daren and Tom got tee shirts for cheaper than $1 and I got a watch at $4.... Crazy.

After a long day, the boy & I headed back to our room for a massage (I think the two masseuse who came to our room expected only guys, as they were dressed super sleazy and had very heavy make up, and seemed kind of upset....) Anyhow, after they left, we started playing with our Nintendo DS (we are tetris freaks, I know, geeks!!!!) when the room suddenly went black. We couldn't even use the phone to call down to reception and we were the only room with the problem I think, so Daren ran downstairs to get the receptionist who then informed us we would have to wait for a technician to come and it would take about half an hour. Quite funny because it didn't affect us much, as we were playing our DS the entire time we waited and even whilst the technician was in our room trying to fix the problem HAHA.

Day 5

Lazy day cruising down a river (i don't remember the name, haha)

I ♥ my straw hat!

The little ones

Group shot :)

Tom's a retard -_-

In retrospect, I would actually say that this is definitely one of the top 3 trips I have ever made in my life. I've never experienced anything quite like it, I learned so much and it was such a good reminder of how lucky we are, of how I want to help contribute to a better world. It was truly an eye opener indeed. The children there, staring up at you with desperation in their eyes. All of them so bright, if only they were given a chance. If they can be speaking in all sorts of languages and understanding the knowledge of bargaining at such young ages.... it's just a testament to their potential, only a pity that their streets smarts have to be brought about only because they have no other choice, no other way of life. The way they were so satisfied when I gave them cookies or shoes, and even though I know that 30 packets of cookies or 15 pairs of sandals are really going to make very little difference in their lives, I guess for me, I just want them to know that life isn't all that bad and to believe in hope and always have faith. We all need hope and faith in our lives to see us through. I would definitely want to go back to Cambodia in the future, and not just as a tourist. This country, with all it's paradoxical sadness and potential has captured my heart.

Could The Makers Of The Stars Hear The Sound Of Their Breaking Hearts?

2010-02-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

Siem Reap, Cambodia- Summer 2009.

Last summer, I made a last minute decision to visit Cambodia, and it was one of the best, most eye-opening trips I have ever been on. Have been wanting to post the pictures & write about it since then, but somehow never got around to doing it. In retrospect, I wish I wrote about it earlier because even though everything about the trip was unforgettable, the memories are just not as vivid and my feelings and emotions are just not as fervent or intense. Anyhow, here goes, the first half of our trip:

Day 1
Out first day started with a cruise of the TonLe Sap, which is the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia

The TonLe Sap is home to many Cambodians & Vietnamese people who live in fishing village clusters, they have floating homes, shops and we even saw a floating school!

I may be smiling here, but just seconds later I saw this little girl who had a huge gigantic snake draped around her shoulder and I. Completely. Flipped.

Alot of the children we saw were sitting in washing basins and using them as boats to get around alone. It was really sad, they would paddle up to the tourists speedboats and cling on tightly, begging for some money. I always gave the children a little bit, and after awhile, when the speedboats left the waves would cause the children to fall out of their tubs into the dirty lakes. Heartbreaking, seriously.

In the afternoon, after lunch & a nap, we visited the Artisans d'Angkor, which is both a craftsmen company and an institute created to help the young rural population to find work in their home villages by providing them with high skilled trainings and a vocation from which they can earn a living.

The process of silkworms being cultivated for weaving silk.

The 1000+ employees (who own 20% share in the company, making Artisan d'Angkor a fair trade company!!) practice crafts such as silk weaving, wood carving, stone carving, lacquering, ornamental painting and silk paintings.

Ended our day with dinner & a cheap massage!

Day 2
Up bright&early the next morning, having breakfast in our hotel.

Elephants for hire so that if they fancy, tourists don't have to tour the city of Angkor by foot.

The two rows of 54 stone statues on each side of the moat leading up to Angkor Thom depict the ancient myth of the "Churning of the Ocean for Immortality". To the left of the moat, the 54 guardian gods are pulling the snake in their direction, whilst on the right the 54 demon gods are pulling the tail of the snake in their direction, all of them trying to churn the nectar of immortality out of the ocean. To cut a long story short, good triumphed over evil, but you can read more about it on wikipedia here!

This is the "Victory Gate", entrance to the Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom was built in the late 12th century, and was the last and most powerful capital city of the Khmer empire. Historians believed it was home to a population of around 750,000 people then, and covered a land area BIGGER THAN NEW YORK today!

The Bayan Temple is just one of many temples in Angkor Thom, but as it was built right in the center of the walled city, it is believed to represent the intersection of heaven and earth.

The Bayan Temple houses many of these carved "face towers", each featuring four faces looking out in cardinal directions. Here I am, Kissing noses with the sculpture of the Khmer King, hehe. (King Jayavarman the Third).

Tom, Daren & I

I know this is really random (and totally uninformative) but these are the first time I'm actually wearing sneakers!!!!!! We were told to wear sneakers so climbing up and down the temple steps would be easier.

This smaller temple is the Ta Prohm temple, and used to serve as a monastery. In modern day, it has actually been used as one of the key locations in "Lara Croft, The Tomb Raider". The trees in this area have huge huge roots intertwined amongst the ruins of the temple, making the structure of the building dependent on the roots.

Daren is standing outside the echo tower. If you beat your palm against your chest, you'll hear a really loud echo. But amazing, if you clap your hands or shout or make any other noises, you won't hear even the faintest hint of an echo. The only way is to beat your chest. Crazy, or what?

Daren & Tom, Cambodian Children building sandcastles, their leaf-hats are adorable!

After lunch, I wanted to get some drinks from the mini mart, but stopped dead in my tracks when Daren pointed out the store stocked "cigaretts, soft drinks, wine&beer and SOME SNAKES (?!?!!)" Yes, it's my biggest phobia. // Adorable children would look up at us with big wide eyes and I would always find myself giving each of them something because it was just so heartbreaking.

In the afternoon, we visited the magnificent Angkor Wat.

The view was truly a picture of grandeur, it was absolutely breathtaking. My pictures do not do its magnificence justice at all. We just stood there in awe and amazement for a bit, before actually entering.

TSK TSK

Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century by King Suryavarman the Second as the capital city and as his state temple in worship of his Hindu God Vishnu. The Angkor Wat's key structures feature three pyramids: the first for the pilgrims, then the court officials and finally the King. I found it really interesting that the deeper in you go, the higher the pyramids are.

During the period of the 12th Century, the city of Angkor was actually one of the largest, most powerful, most successful and most sophisticated kingdoms in the history of Southeast Asia. SADLY, it was abandoned by the 16th Century.... through the years, the grasses and trees completely covered up the entire city (can you imagine?!), and was only discovered again in the 20th Century by Europeans.

We were about to leave the Angkor Wat and I was happily snapping my last few pictures when Daren started yelling that the clouds were moving craaazy fast and that a mad rain was approaching, and by the end of his sentence, true enough it started POURING!!!!!!! It was so sudden, the weather all day was mad sunny.

We all got drenched from head to toe (my shoes were completely soaked) but not before I managed to snap this picture of the boy against the grey grey skies.

恭喜发财，新年快乐，万事如意

2010-02-20T01:03:00.000-08:00

Chinatown on Lunar NYE.

CHOPSTICKSSSSS

We ran into Ah Nam, who was rather hilarious & super friendly.. he hung around talking to us for like ten minutes!

Lunar New Year Day 1 at My House

With my grammy!

The fairy lights in my garden spell out "xin xian shi chen", may all your wishes come true.

Jialing & I

BAND HERO, THE QUEENS OF SHREDS.

The Tiger Beer Mums

Bobby & I

Valentines Day Date <3

Lunar new Year Day 2 at Jia's

Kim Huang & I, Yuan Shen & You Rong, Aunty May & I

Lo He

Night Safari with the Little Ones

Brain Freeeeeeze!

Band Hero & Gambling at Mine

And I won, not much but still, YAY (:

And when I see you laugh at my clumsy ways, it just makes me want to spend the rest of my life with you so I can see a smile on your face!!!!

2010-02-18T06:13:00.000-08:00

So this morning I woke up and realized, I have one week left before my extended Christmas vacation officially ends. They're packing me up and sending me back to the winter~~wonder~~land. And what did I choose to spend my precious last few days doing? I'm sitting at the TCC at Terminal 3 right as I'm typing this (accompanying the boyfriend while he crams). In exactly one week, I'll be sitting right back here, grumpy&moody as hell. It's a bit of a tradition you see, we have my "last" meal at TCC every single time before I leave.

As usual, I have somehow found myself backlogged with photos again, but no fear I'll update soon enough (plenty of time doing nothing once I'm back in London).... In the mean time, some random fillers from my iPhone.

DAILY OUTFITS.

1. Purple Batwing Top from Bangkok, Faded Denim Jeans from Urban Outfitters, Pearl & Gold Multi-Layered Necklace from Tokyo, Marc by Marc Jacobs Standard Supply Tote, Burberry flats, Cream Watch from Marc Jacobs and my engraved "La Bella Vita" Bracelet.

2. Silk Black Leopard Print Top from Bershka, Black Shorts from FCUK, Quilted Chanel Bag, Black Marc Jacobs watch.

3. Super-cute Dinosaur Tee from Bangkok, Faded Denim Shorts and Slouchy Blazer, both from Zara, Baby Pink Les Pilages foldable tote from Longchamp, HotPink/Black Marc Jacobs Flip-flops, G Face Gucci Watch.

1. Cream Dress from Topshop, Ivory Vitello Lux from Miu Miu, Vivienne Westwood Heels and Cream Watch by Marc Jacobs as above.

2. Vivienne Westwood Jelly Heels. MAD LOVE. SUPER COMFY.

3. Zara V-Necked Sequin Silk Top, Tights from I-don't-remember-where, Hermes Bangle, Toywatch, Chanel Quilted Tote & Flats from Ferragamo.

1. Nautical Stripes Silk Blouse from Club Monaco, Faded Denim Jeans from Urban Outfitters, Cropped Blazer from H&M, Braided Leather Necklace from COS, Burberry Flats & Folder Bag from Balenciaga

2. Ironice LOVE tee from Bangkok, Vest from Urban Outfitters, Ripped Jeggings from Haji Lane, Watch from Egg Three, Bracelet from Christian Dior, Sandals from Mphosis and Frilly Black Tote from Burberry

Chinese New Year Gambling with the Home boys & girlzzz

"Shen playing Blackjack is like Bong driving on an empty highway... just holding up the traffic."

Food
Today the boyfriend & I finally had Crawford Lane Bak Chor Mee before spending the day at the airport (TCC & sending Bobby off) and then we bought groceries and cooked steamboat for Supper.

My Little Boyfriend

HOW CUTE IS HE?! LITTLE RAY OF SUNSHINE.

A video of my liitle boyfriend and my big boyfriend.

And here is the little man, wishing everyone 新年快乐 from the both of us (:

Oh right and even though I've kinda been MIA here, I'm still addicted as ever to Tumblr.

Forgive Me Fashion, For I Have Sinned

2010-02-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

Yup, that's right baby. The Safari Zoo Run 2010. My first ever run

I've never ever done a charity run or the big walk or even a cross country back when I was in secondary school or JC. Heck, I haven't even passed my 2.4km since.... Sec 2?

The boys who talked me into doing it.

Here I am, looking all pleased and proud with myself before the run. Although I have to say, the whole running shoe / sports gear thing? I'm totally not working it. It's just not my style. Gah. Forgive me fashion, for I have sinned ):

Thank God for Kim(Huang), who kept me company while the guys surged ahead.... We tried to keep up with them (for like 2 minutes) but they were just too quick, so we gave up and ended up just walking & talking.

Super proud I hit the 2km mark!!!!! Okaaaay, so it was meant to be 6km but we decided to just walk 3km and call it quits. But thick-skinned as we are, we stood at the finish line and camwhored anyway. When we finally found the boys, it turns out they finished a good half hour before us, and they ran the full 6km. Which means that we took the same time + 30 minutes to WALK 3km. UNCOOL.

That aside, Daren and I visited the Singapore Airshow 2010 and got ugly sunburn marks. Completely disgusting ): The flying display was pretty cool for the first 15 minutes or so, and then it just got kind of dull. Most of the displays were way too crowded, and the sun was way too scorching, so we just kind of left after that. Disappointing.

Spent a chill Saturday night at Timbre. The band had pretty amazing vocals! Sick talent + Good Company + Nursing my Pint of Bulmer's Irish Cider = The perfect way to spend a Saturday night..........

At the airport sending Marc off, but Leon stole the limelight with his wheelchair.

Oh, and this weekend, we also bought Band Hero for my wii, and I have to say it is absolutely addictive!!!!!!!!!!!

KINGS x QUEENS

2010-02-03T08:13:00.000-08:00

Thailand, January 2010.

Day 1: Arrived and took forever to get to our hotel due to the massive traffic jams! Quickly washed up & headed out to Suam Lum for dinner, a bit of shopping & a foot massage.

Day 2: Breakfast on the rooftop cafe of our hotel.

Jia & I at Bangkok's version of Singapore's Arab St & London's Edgeware Road.

In search of Ricky's Tailor, & then an entire day of hardcore shopping! Followed by thai massage & dinner at Fuji? Ate so much, like buffet but cheaper!

Lebua State Tower

The amazing view!

D & I

Bought the bestest porridge in the world back to the hotel for supper.

Day 3

super yummy chicken wings zaabbbs for ~~lunch~~ breakfast

tshirt haven

Lunch at a street side coffee shop, and then curly fries+rootbeers! ♥

Chinatown.

Seafood dinner in Chinatown! Yums.

Gazebo

Jia & I

D folded me paper roses and I actually had to pretend to look somewhere else so no one would see me blushing and grinning like a retard.....

Kao Shan District

Jia's fake tattoo

Day 4: Chatuchak

When I was in BKK, I ate & shopped so much that I swore I would not shop for at least half a year and that I would try to lose weight.... Needless to say, neither of those goals have been the least bit successful. It seems it's in my fate to be an unfortunate glut & shoppaholic ):

L A ♔ B E L L A ♔ V I T A

2010-01-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

Friday Night Beers

At Holland V.

Dinner at Yoshida. So yummy but so expensive. The yam dish & the negitoro maki each costs $24, and they were the cheapest items already! :/

Abit of randomness: That's Buddy and his hump buddy! And that's my Dad's platter of perfumes! Yes, my dad's, not my mum's!

BBQ

Anton playing with the control car we bought the kids.. he kept trying to tickle us by putting the car on our bodies and then using the remote to turn the wheels! Too cute.

My 2 favourite boys :)

Playing with bubbles & the games on my iphone.

Dinner with the boys. XO fish head bee hoon. We ordered lots of dishes and fish head bee hoon to serve 8 when there were only 4 of us! YUMS.

The ridiculously priced $450 crab, which was barely fleshy and didn't even taste that good..... We finally tried Hatch and while I love how the place is so chill, I personally found the food just average (the meat was good but the potatoes and toast etc, nothing fab?)...... And our favourite Crawford Lane Bak Chor Mee which we visit at least every other week.

Weekday Drinks... Holland V again, I feel like I live there.. I'm there like 4-5 times a week?

Yokie, Lauren, Jia & Siew. Was really good to catch up with the girls.

The boy cooks me supper in the middle of the night. So far I've had risotto, paprika sea bass, thai salad etc... and all from scratch! :)

And more chill out/beer/shisha sessions... You may be able to see a trend in how I spend my nights?

Kimmy wong & Kim huang .... and a group shot :)

My nails- black with a jagged french edge in silver! Would have been a perfect match for the killers concert, too bad it got cancelled ): Oh, and my entry/album is named after my bracelet, which I know doesn't look that nice but it's really pretty, I just have rubbish camera skills. We had it engraved last week with a "k" on the back panel, and "La Bella Vita" on the front.

Whenever I meet anyone, they always ask me "so what have you been up to" and my answer is always the same.... it's a resounding "ummmmm". Can barely believe I've only been back a month+ cos it feels like so much has been going on, even though really, I'm not doing anything remotely productive. Singapore for me always = family, the boy, the pals, food, food, drinks, shopping, TV, food, drinks, food...

Oh right, went to see Yeye today and I cried (it's been 3 years but still miss him.. no not howling weeps, but just a little bit).. and then we had lunch at my favourite Nanbantei (I always eat too much) before going for a shampoo/blow dry and a foot massage..

BIG NEWS: my little brother can drive, not officially, he doesn't have a license, but as I sat in the car he was driving today it struck me how everyone's predictions came true... MY LITTLE BROTHER ENDED UP DRIVING BEFORE ME. I STILL CAN'T MOVE THE CAR 2 inches without jam braking and screaming. EPIC FML ):

Now I'm waiting for the boy to come home from soccer so that we can have supper and watch Neil Patrick Harris guest-judge on American Idol. I absolutely love him & How I Met Your Mother.......

La Bella Vita, It's a beautiful life indeed! ♥ X ♥ X ♥

Dream A Little Dream

2010-01-23T09:48:00.000-08:00

Daren's Er-Yi got married right before christmas.

We arrived at her house around 8+ am and she was having her hair and make up done.

When the groom arrived to pick her up, she wasn't ready so he was instructed to wait in the car until the door opener (Daren) came to get him... Finally came up and had to do the usual sliding of angbao bribes under the door and drinking a mix of "suan tian ku la"

Her face lit up with a huge smile the minute he walked in :)

Tea Ceremony at the groom's

Adgil, Lei & Anton.

The R.O.M. and wedding dinner was at Halia.

The lovely bride and her pretty shoes!

The ceremony & the vows.

The Tan family :)

the little darlings

Anton & Adgil

Making silly faces, Anton is behind the camera :)

He tried to self shot! Too cute!

The speeches, popping off champagne, cake cutting!

Daren & Jade, Jade & I, The Bride & I :)

Christmas Trees exhibition..

Deutsche Bank, are you reading this? Will you please give him an internship in London?

back home, my hair :)

If It's Not Raining In Dublin, It's Going To.

2010-01-18T07:15:00.000-08:00

So our first day in Dublin was spent shopping & at Top Gear. On the second day, we took a day tour of out dublin city and even though the weather was so fickle- sunny one minute and grey&gloomy the next (it's actually visible in the pictures!), I was taken aback by the stunning beauty of Wicklow County!

St Patties Day, everyday!

Loch Tay, also known as the Guinness Lake because the entire estate was bought as a wedding present for a lady who married into the guinness family. On a perfect day, the lake also looks the perfect pitch of stout black, complete with a layer of "froth" at the top of the bank.

It was so windy that our bodies would be pushed forward by the wind! Crazy difficult to just stand still and it was pretty scary too cos we were so high up on a slippery cliff!

The tour guide told us that Tiger Woods once rented this gigantic estate at a price of more that US $500,000 for one weekend!

The road from Dublin Bay to Dun Laoghaire, passing through Dalkey is home to the likes of Bono, U2, Van Morrison, etc..

The P.S. I Love You bridge... you know the part where Hilary Swank was wandering about in the Wicklow National Park and reading the letter?

That's Hilary Swank (screenshot of P.S. I Love You) and then thats Us at the same spot :)

Purple Glens with Silvery Streams

The garden of Ireland.

"I just want to be there when the morning light explodes on your face, it radiates, I can't escape. I love you 'till the end."

Stopped for lunch at Lynham's of Laragh, where we tried the "recommended" Guinness Beef Stew, which to be honest, was really rather rubbish! Tasteless and bland... and so expensive for pub food, tasteless pub food at that ):

Beheaded Santa!

After lunch, we visited a monastic city built in the 6th Century.

Did you know that yew trees are believed to ward off evil spirits?

Glendalough, valley of two lakes.

The rain was pouring down and our fingers were all numb, we were freezing and drenched all over and our boots/shoes were completely soaked, so we decided to turn around and head back ):

After a good wash up & warming up back in our hotel room, we walked out to the city centre for a little bit of shopping before dinner (slightly better pub food & irish cider!)

And then we went to this cute little place for shisha.

Where he absolutely kicked my ass at scrabble ):

After which we bought kebabs back to the hotel for supper!

Before leaving our room the next day!

Lunch at a Spanish restaurant, the first(and only) good meal of the trip!

Visited the Dublin Palace

Notice how the emblem is much like the Guinness Harp? Except in the other direction?

And then we went to the Guinness Storehouse

Tasting the roasted barley

The entire building is huge, five stories if I remember correctly, filled with information on the process and samples and multi-decade old advertising campaigns etc etc

Up at Gravity, apparently one of the top 10 rooftop bars in the world.

Message wall!

Highlight? The store!

I actually think it's a pretty brilliant marketing strategy employed by Guinness! Currently, Guinness Storehouse is the #1 tourist attraction in Dublin.. by making it such a cute concept with the history, sampling, gravity bar and giftstore.. even non beer/stout drinkers are visiting the place!

We bought a whole bunch of souvenirs (way too many: tshirts, coasters, playing cards, chocolates, lighters etc and ended up spending more than 300 euroes! gah fml) and then left :) Look at all the smoke coming out of the brewery!!

I loved how our hotel was walking distance to Temple Bar and the City Centre! This is our kitchen, dining room and bathroom...

Our bedroom and the view of our bedroom from our living room! I like how they divided our suite into three sections!

And our living room and the view of our living room from our bedroom!

If you're looking for a hotel to stay in, we stayed at The Morgan and it was pretty nice, spacious and clean, and the concierge was amazingly helpful as well (:

TOP GEAR LIVE IN DUBLIN '09

2010-01-12T10:51:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Dublin in the morning, checked into our hotel, had lunch and did a bit of shopping and then took a nap in our lovely suite.

The Dublin Wall of Fame / Getting ready to leave our hotel room.

Got out of the cab at the RDS Simmonscourt and even though it was freeeezing cold, we just had to camwhore with these Top Gear banners at the gate!

Morgan Aero 8

Caparo T1

Open Hoods

1973 Mazda RX3 coupe... 13B stage 4 rotary engine... / We stopped for some super yummy Irish Bulmer's Cider.

The boy in his newly bought Scuderia Ferrari hoodie!

Basically, before going into the seating area, there's a Top Gear Hall of Fame with lots of cars (cartoon themed, vintage, supercars... you name it they got it) as well as booths offering vouchers/samples for thrill adventures like racing, bungy jumping, skydiving that kinda thing. We arrived only an hour before the show's start time so we didn't have that enough time to check everything out ):

Our Diamond tickets & Vip/Paddock Tour wrist bands! We bought the highest possible category of tickets, we really are super true blue singaporean-style-kiasu-fans :)

True to their promise, the show started with rumbling engines and balls of flames!

Stunt driving! Right on the stage! More than four or five stunt cars on stage at the same time! Crazy stuff!

Clarkson, Hammond and May demonstrating/racing with their 3 "vehicles" all self made with appliances found within the home like a leave blower etc etc!

And then Jeremy Clarkson did the "Cool Wall" just like he does on every episode of Top Gear televised on BBC. If you don't follow Top Gear, every week they put up some photographs of cars into categories of "seriously uncool", "uncool", "cool" and "subzero". Hammond and Clarkson usually discuss it with the audience and try to get votes, but it's really funny because most of the time Clarkson just uses it as yet another way to take the piss out of Hammond's height by placing cars Hammond likes into "uncool" and "seriously uncool", but way up high on the board where Hammond can't reach it. (I can't believe I'm posting this "seriously uncool" photo of me even though I look beyond hideous)

There we are on the screen, right next to him! Can you spot us? Jeremy Clarkson was THISCLOSETOMYFACE. OMG, I was SO excited! Just for the record, CLARKSON is my favourite of the three (: I love his sarcastic, grumpy humour! I really wanted to shout OMG I LOVE YOU but I was chickenshit and way way way too nervous and my heart was thump-thumping like crazy! Yes, I'm sure you get the idea: I am to Clarkson; the average Singaporean teenager five years ago to F4? 5566? I am crazy fan girl, there I said it.

Then the three of them started racing in 3-wheeled cars which kept toppling over!!!!!

Audience Racing. Basically, the audience is divided into 2 groups, and the speedometers for each side are fuelled by the voices of the audience on the corresponding side. So the louder the right side screams for example, the faster their car speeds? Mighty cool even though we lost ):

They actually played car soccer on stage!!! Like soccer except without using feet... but using the car instead? With goalposts and everything!

The show ended with the STIG! doing the first ever indoor loop-a-loop. Crazy cool.

Backstage passes, Paddock tour!

Upclose & Personal with "D4RKN355" and "GH05T", amidst all the other stunt/race cars we saw on stage..

Interviewing one of the stunt racers, the only woman stunt racer with the crew :)

"Some guys have all the luck"

Ended the night taking a ride in the Renault simulator.

And then we cabbed back to Temple Bar for dinner before heading back to our hotel and crashing.

For a girl who refuses to get her driving license, I sure am pretty damned crazy about this show. It's really so much more than just a car show though! It's really really hilarious, amazing and entertaining.

Take it from a girl who could only identify cars parked in her garage and couldn't tell a Honda apart from a Toyota before she started watching Top Gear.

Some of my favourite episodes/challenges if you're interested (I swear it'll keep you thoroughly entertained, alternating between being on the edge of your seat & in fits of laughter!)

The Vietnam Special Part 1

(you should be able to find parts 2 to 8 under related videos at the end of streaming Part 1)

The Bolivia Special Part 1

And if you're in UK, you should be able to stream all episodes from BBC2 HERE.
Enjoy (:

Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

2010-01-04T01:14:00.000-08:00

It's been a whirlwind since I've got back from London. Technically, it's only been two weeks but it feels like forever. I guess that's kind of what I love about coming home to Singapore, it's almost as though I never left at all- life just picks up right where it left off: the people, the parties, the lifestyle, old habits all too familiar.

Anyway, from the moment we touched down it has been one event/party after another. 2 weeks, 10 parties, countless bottles of wine/champagne. I'm beginning to feel like I'm too old for it all.. it's nice during the festive season but I just can't imagine how I used to be able to go on night after night after night all year round in the past.

The boy and I decided to spend the weekend hibernating from the world, locked up in our room with only TV drama and each other to entertain ourselves, working our way through bottles of still & sparkling, overdosing on strepsils and love. And as much as I adore the festive season, sometimes it's just nice knowing that you can sit around all day and not have anywhere to rush off to or anything to get done.. so I have to say, it's been grand! Anyhow, let me start with New Year's Day and attempt to work my way back through the holidays (:

New Years' Day Dinner at Home.

The settings on the main dining table & the tatami room table.

The colourful water tumblers, playing with my Ferrero Rochers..

The vintage turn table actually works (:

Delicious pork belly, Dom Pérignon Vintage 1999,

New Year's Eve

Slightly tricky because we had to be at three different places. Started the evening at Daren's Yiyi's house having our first dinner, then back to mine for a second dinner and counting, popping the champagne and all that... At the stroke of midnight, I was in Daren's arms, surrounded by family and family friends in the karaoke room, everyone screaming Auld Land Syne. And then we spent the rest of the night at Marc's house with the rest (:

At Marc's

Daren & I with the host, and then some rather disgusting rounds of Beer Pong!

With Bong, CJ and Cheng

The boys randomly put on some sexually explicit video, called all the girls out and started dancing...... Riiiight.

Shen, balloon face.

For some reason, chairs started to be thrown around, shoes thrown to the neighbors house...

You get the drift, basically chaos ensued...

And whilst all this was going on, our dearest host was just sitting on a chair looking at us kind of as though he was amused watching a telly programme.... completely contented in his own little world...

But of course, the boys couldn't just let him be.....

We're sorry we totally trashed your house ): Thank you Marc for an amazing night and for being such a gracious host!

Mambo

Bong & Daren

Funny story. I remember how not too long ago, when the lights came on at the end of the night usually around 330-4 am, I'd be really upset (definitely tipsy if not drunk) and insist that the deejay sucks for ending so early. This time, around 2am I was dying and wanting to go home. When I saw this sign pop up, my first thought was how there was absolutely no way I could stick it out till 430...

I guess it's time to face facts... I'm not as young as I like to think I am anymore ):

Cook Out

Lunch at Chili's

Grocery Shopping after, and Bong says my cutlery closet is his sanctuary.

Chef Tan & Chef Ong

Daren made Moroccan Salmon Cakes with Garlic Paprika Mayonnaise and Pan Seared Buffalo Mozzarella wrapped in Parma Ham:)

Mushroom Risotto that melts in the mouth

Everyone had pan seared taliapa for their mains and I, swordfish with the yummiest zestiest dressing. Accompanied with grilled vegetables and semolina baby potatoes roasted in goose fat, slurps.

The silly boys...

I tried to help but as usual I'm more of a nuisance than ever being any help... All the same, feel so blessed to have these two boys always cooking me amazing meals... awwwwww :)

Christmas Eve &&& Christmas Day at Mine

Preparations started the night before christmas eve... Chopping bags and bags and bags of endless mushrooms for the creamy mushroom sauce..

Really got to love my friends and their choice of gifts... condoms... lube.. jockeys?

Basically we drew lots, and in ascending order we'd choose presents from the centre pile not knowing who they're from... But when our turn comes, we can also "steal" presents from whoever got to choose before us... There were some more popular presents like... a carton of beer, the watchmen, wine/liquer bottles, starbucks vouchers etc....

Christmas Day, we made our own home-made pop corn for the first time since getting the machine (:

Really wish I'd taken more photos, such a pity. Mum did a splendid job, cooking a full 10 course christmas dinner (whole turkey, leg of ham, roast beef, lamb stew, eggplant parmagiana, creamy mushrooms, etc etc etc) for more than 100 people on christmas eve and more than 50 people on christmas day! Really should learn a thing or two from her, she's amazing!

We haven't taken down our decorations yet... so, from my family to yours, here's wishing you Happy Holidays and an amazing year ahead :)

Snow, and mistletoe, and presents under the Tree

2009-12-27T12:33:00.000-08:00

I know I'm late, but MERRY CHRISTMAS! (This is a super long post, which will hopefully make up for my almost-month long absence?) Anyway, I spent my christmas the way it should be spent- with snow and carols, indulgent foods and loved ones! ♥

Let it snow!

I am a complete glutton, if you look really close, I actually have a spot of mustard on my nose!

Festive yummies! We had nice hot mulled wine, gourmet burgers, bratswursts and sweet treats!

<3

I absolutely adore carousels & ferris wheels!

And then the boy bought tickets for us to slide down the Helter-Skelter, which was a wee bit scary because it's higher than it looks, so so cold, and with no seatbelts or safety precautions but it was also a ball of fun feeling like a child again and looking down at the whole of Hyde Park Winter-wonderland from up there!!

Me coming down the slide, and the darling boy still smiling after I unintentionally injured(cut) his fingers on the railings of helter skelter, gah, sorry bee! ):

A life-sized snow globe!!

Daddy looks like he really wants to roast us alive, heheh, probably because I forced him into the picture and he generally likes to avoid cameras!

We had a yummy Hog Roast Sandwich (:

And with that, we wish you a Merry Christmas (:

No, I'm actually kidding. That's not how I really spent my Christmas. I did have christmas carols, and an amazing buffet spread and all my loved ones around, but it was definitely not a White Christmas! Winterwonderland in London was just the lead up to my actual Christmas, but more on that in my next entry. For now, here's how snippets of the weeks in London before coming home.

Sem's Birthday: Chez Gerard for dinner, and clubbing at Boujis.

Sneaking in some photos, cameras not actually allowed because Boujis is rather a celebrity-spot (footballers, actresses etc).. What's left of oriental girls without their cameras when they club, huh!! ):

Backstreet Boys live at the London O2

Madcon opened with a DJ set. Bloody awesome. (Youtube Madcon, Beggin! They did a remix of an original Frankie Valli piece which I already love- both amazing.)

BSB are exactly the same as when I was a teeny bopping pre teen- they've certainly aged and um, put on weight but they still brought it with all the same cheesy dance moves and crooning love songs.

Crowd still went wild whenever they played their "classics" (if I can loosely call it that) like Quit Playing Games with my heart, As Long As You Love Me, Backstreet's Back.... Aww if you're anywhere between 18 and 30 I'm sure you get the drift.. or even if you have a kid between those ages haha! The majority of the crowd was surprisingly older than my age, I think.

Pizzas & Beers

Melia & Sem swooning!!

The ridiculous human jam trying to get into the tube station post-concert. Fortunately we had the foresight to call a cab (and I had an amazing boyfriend who insisted I call a cab before he went to sleep, time difference).

Steamboat at the boys'

D, Jason, Sem & I.

KM & Jason being retards!

Harrods

Alaskan King Crab Legs at Caviar House & Prunier, my favourite!

Second meal at the Harrods rotisserie

Giant sparkly red heels outside Harrods

Mum & I with Daddy & Daren

SouthBank

The boy won me a smaller stuffed porcupine we named pudding, very cute (:

took in some buskers & the dali exhibition

superman needed money too.. he was busking! i presume he needs a day job?

Ripley's "Believe it or Not" Museum

A mini cooper completely covered in more than 1 million swarovski crystals!

Giant rocking chair and a Beatles sculpture made out of GUM.

Gumball Art

Built out of matchsticks!

Punishment for Women who talk to much (blah), chastity belt and whale foreskin, eewww!

MIRROR MAZE, so fun! (without flash, so this is what it actually looked like!)

With flash.

The turning tunnel!

Drinks at Mine

Jason, Daren, Karmeng

"Pissed" Zach & Lin

Zach: "STFU noob", "I got disciprine!!!";;; Daren and I with Lovely James who helped me to clear up, get me water when I was tipsy, wake me up the next morning etc.

And we had ASSA for lunch the next day, which was also our final meal in London before leaving for the airport (and it started snowing!)

Randoms

Random Shopping Day

Cute kid who had her face painted! and reaps from shopping.

Breakfast with the girls, and then Mum smoking that giant cigarette!

Portobello Road Market- I was freeeezing so Daddy lent me his coat and the poor thing was walking around in just a shirt + vest when the weather was fluctuating between 0 and 2 degrees gahhhhh!

Cheng came down to London for a holiday so we met up (with James) for dinner at Covent Garden followed by drinks at Jewel Box!

The regent Street christmas light up, which actually looks identical to the way it did last year!!

Shopping at liberties, our shoes!

James cycled over

Touristy shot in Regent Street, IT SNOWED, Dinner with Hamdi

Did some last minute shopping the last two days in london!

And finally, you know you go to an Art college when the changing faces of the hallways are but another art installation.

How's that for a catch up entry? I still have so much to post and I really do want to post as much of 2009 as I can IN 2009, but time is fast on my tails! So much to do, so little time. It's 4:27 am now and I really should go to sleep (the boy's been asleep for three hours now) but I just want to write that I had the perfect lazy sunday today! Stayed over at the boy's house last night (cos we slept here the previous 7 nights in a row), woke up and had lunch with his family at Pow Sing (chicken rice, assam curry fish head, otah, fried tofu, bakwan soup, sweet potato leaves with belachan...) followed by coffee/root-beer floats and Happy Daze. Bong called so we drove down to Cluny Park and spent a lazy afternoon with him, snacking of ciabatta rolls & peach teas, talking about cars & families & futures, watching the world just pass us by and basking in the much missed sunny weather. Took a drive house hunting around Bukit Timah and then drove back home where D & I promptly fell asleep watching Black Adder. Napped till about half 10 and then the maids prepared us our super late dinner, we watched a bit of the notebook, and he fell back asleep. I could spend the rest of my life just like this. Bliss.

Bold all the things you’ve done in 2009

2009-12-27T09:46:00.000-08:00

Dyed your hair an odd color.
Went skinny dipping.
Bought something you didn’t need. (Just too many to name)
Snuck out of your house.
Became obsessed with a song no one knew. (Willie Nelson- Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground and a slightly more popular one, but still alien to my bestfriend- La Roux's Bulletproof! click links to download.)
Learned a song on your phone with your keypad.
Knitted something.
Ran a mile.
Fell in love. (Every day, over and over again, I'm Still falling in love with You)
Said, “like yeahh” too many times. (mm, like... yeah...)
Lost your closest friends. (this was largely 2008, but 2009 lost me a close friend?)
Got into a fight with someone you loved. (the boy, the mother?)
Climbed a tree.
Did something you said you wouldn’t.
Figured out who your real friends were.
Graduated High School.
Shopped online. (too much Asos, Net-a-porter etc!)
Created a tumblr. (kimberlykristen.tumblr.com)
Got addicted to tumblr.
Realized who you truly are.
Sang karaoke.
Flew across the world. (London, Macau, Tokyo, Dublin, Paris, Bangkok, Nice, Monaco, Cannes, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia.)
Performed in front of a large audience.
Met someone in real life you found online.
Found a new band you now love. (It took me soo long, but... Kaiser Chiefs, Rachel Yamagata!!)
Realized that Kanye West essentially sucked.
Got drunk.
Got high.
Spoke to a police officer.
Realized everyone is a hypocrite.
Panicked over something stupid.
Failed a class.
Fell out of love.
Played a video game for hours straight. (wii-raving rabbids! nintendo ds- tetris!!!!!!!!)
Spent time with your family.
Ate dinner alone. (relatively alot in London)
Cried in the shower.
Gained a new family member.
Shot off your own fireworks.
Made a snowman.
Got yelled at for no reason.
Waved at people you didn’t know in passing cars.
Sat on tumblr all day.
Changed your entire look. (okay, I didn't change that many things, but it definitely counts because i chopped off my hair to shoulder length, for the first time in 11 years and making it the second time in my life I had/have short hair and it's taking forever to grow out and it's really just not me. ahg!)
Made someone cry.
Ran outside naked when it was freezing out.
Made your own fire.
Laughed at something that made no sense. (way too much)
Fell asleep on the phone.
Told someone you loved them. (everyday.)

M-I-A?

2009-12-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

So I've left London and am back in not-so-sunny Singapore :)

As promised (ha ha), I have been MIA from the internet world- moved houses in London and didn't set up the internet, and been mad busy in the three days I've been back: a day of wedding festivities (+ the prep beforehand) and christmas kitchenware shopping etc! I should go to sleep soon since I have to wake up early for a facial tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, I'm still on kimberlykristen.tumblr.com and @kimmywong on twitter a wee bit more than I am here!

But I promise to try to post an entry before Christmas. I do really want to update and upload all my 2009 entries/photos before 2010 starts after all! I have to say though, I'm really excited christmas is here, I love all things christmas: the carols and the puddings, the lights and the presents under the tree! On another note, my friends in London tell me it's a snow day everyday! I guess their wishes for a White Christmas is coming true!!! I do really love this festive season :)

HOME IN 14 HOURS AND I CANNOT WAIT.

2009-12-17T09:27:00.000-08:00

This is us in the SIA lounge at Heathrow now. 14 hours to clean linens, my amazing closet & bathroom, 24/7 airconditioning, sunshine, best friends and good food! SINGAPORE HERE I COME.

The Boy Is HERE

2009-12-11T04:44:00.000-08:00

And it is bloody amazing. We haven't really done all that much because I've been in the process of moving so basically there are a million things to do from packing/unpacking to transferring of accounts and setting up everything. But thank God for my parents & the boy really because there's no way I could do it without them.

Anyway just came in to college today to submitmy final coursework for this term, which means that as of now TERM 1 OF MY FINAL YEAR IS OVER!!!!!!! The boy is still at home sleeping so I've decided to update this space with pictures from the final party at Butter before I came back to London town (I know, I am always so backdated gahhhh!!)

The boys & I with the crowns!

With the girls & Cheng

Kim(huang) & Yourong ★ Dee & I

I look so serious/retarded in the first picture, no idea why I look so angry though HAHAH.

the boys

the girls, yourong, diyan.

the boys & i

:)

With Kesleen & Chow & Pam

gossip gossip

now boys, this was supposed to be our couples photos!
so now we have: bong&leon, boon&kes, daren&kimwong, yourong&kimhuang! ♥

Titanic?????!!?

lightsticks

getting tipsier & tipsier

bong & boon

the boys & the girls (dee & diyan apparently fall under both lol)

girls girls girls

progression into drunkedness

deeper progression into drunkedness

yourong reached final destination. daren, bong, kim & i actually had to carry him to the car, deadweight!!!! have pictures but shall not tarnish his reputation like that online heh heh

the rest of us STILL drinking/getting drunk.. STILL opening bottles of champagne. i think when you're already high, you like to think you're not and just get higher.

retardedness

and with that, i shall end this post, about time I buy brunch home to wake my boy up! x

Forget The Nightlife, You're My Favourite Thing About This City.

2009-12-02T18:47:00.000-08:00

HELLO DECEMBER, I am so glad you are finally here. November was a month of homework, tests, homework, reports, tutorials, lectures, more lectures, never ending lectures and a month without the boy. The boy, who incidentally, arrives in less than 36 hours and we are gonna paint this town in colours that don't even exist and then tear it all apart. And as if that's not enough to make my year, the following week also promises a trip to Dublin & catching Top Gear LIVE (!!!!). I couldn't think of a more perfect way to kickstart this splendid month of festivities :)

In the mean time though (before I do a disappearing act from the online world, but hopefully not), let me try to post yet more of my way overdue photos from my summer back home. It's a rather mish mash lot, but here they are all the same.

★★★
Random Night at Overeasy

With Pam-the-ham & Bong-the-grouch.

Austen & D battling it out, mano a mano, on the air hockey table. Goofballs!

HI SEMIRAMIS PILAR. YOU SHOULD BE IN THESE PICTURES, AYE?

The rest of the usual gang were up in Butter, but Bong & Pam came down to find D & I cos we didn't want to go in (I was underdressed, no make up & grumpy as hell), and these are some texts that went on between Marc (upstairs) and Pam (downstairs)..... MMMMMMM.

grouchy boy became horny boy. told him i saw these babes in the ladies with "FUCK ME?" face painted on their cheeks and he actually ran to check it out. not before I made him pose for these hum-sup photos first though. True story by the way, about the face paint, hen night maybe?

★★★
Royal China

Royal China at Raffles Hotel

We ordered so much food, even the wait staff thought we ordered way way way too much! the dim sum was so yummy :) but despite having bulging tummies, we're never too full for dessert :) i loved my avocado dessert but d's & golden peony's is still better i think, for the avocado dessert anyway!

satisfied bellies :) much love to jia & aunty may!

★★★
Il Lido

Crab salad with avacado and red vegetable coulis &&& Frisee salad with foie gras and fig dressing.

I personally never acquired a liking for foie gras, so Daren had 2 servings of Foie gras instead, and he was a happy happy boy.

Tagliolini with Lobster &&& Braised veal cheek with Truffle mash potatoes.
Again, I don't eat veal so that kind of just went to waste, but the truffle mash was simply divine!!

We ordered the Degustation Menu. 6 course. TOO FILLING. But since I didn't have foie gras, I ordered an extra appetizer for myself : Tuna Tartare. Which turned out to be a bad choice, too be honest not very good at all and coming from me a tuna tartare lover, that's saying something.

And because I passed on the veal as well, I ordered myself a Beef tenderlion with mushrooms and marrow sauce....

And then for dessert, we both had chocolate fondant. TOO FILLING.

Lunch was followed by a trip to Pedder Red. Matching cow fur flats & bag.. the leather is seriously SO SOFT.

★★★
Dinner at my favourite Italian restaurant of the moment and one of those nights at HOUSE

Home first.

Then drove down to House

Posing with the mushroom: I'm gesturing that it's as tall as Jia. We have a long standing joke that she's much much much shorter than me, she's not half as amused as I am about the "joke".

Tiffin Punch, if I recall it's a concoction of: mumm champagne, bombay sapphire, lychee liqueur, grapefruit punch and real lychees, YUMMY.

I miss these days of no school... lounging around, just goofing around all day, drinks almost every night... just being retards really.. everyday and every night from monday to sunday is a holiday all the same :)

had my favourite favourite truffle fries and then ended the night playing wii back at my place.

★★★
Dinner at Wild Rocket

Our appetizers: Crab Cakes, Ahi Tataki, Salmon Carpaccio.

I've heard alot of amazing things about Wild Rocket, but I was rather disappointed with the ambiance in general, but especially with the standard of the food. It wasn't bad, but it just wasn't amazing either? You know how I always say that my pictures don't do the food justice? Well imo, this time, the pictures look as (un)appetizing as they tasted? Personally I wouldn't go back, but I do know of people who swear by this place, so you should give it a try to decide for yourself :)

The desserts were the best part of the meal I think, we ordered chocolate fondant with vanilla ice cream, tiramisu, and if I recall correctly, a lychee sorbet?

After dinner, we ended up chilling at House again..

We're gonna seem like pigs, but after that huge dinner, we still had room for more!

★★★
Random Mish Mash I can't quite categorize

Lunch at Spruce.

My new mac book pro & a gorgeous vintage Leica my parents bought for display.

i know these are all rather random photos, and they probably seem rather futile/pointless to you, but there's a story to each of them that I'm hoping these photos will help me to trigger, when I look back at them in the future.

best negitoro-don and best ochazuke ever. the negitoro don is cooked by my awesome mummy btw.

my favourite yakitori restaurant in the world. daddy brought me there before I could even pay for my own meals (haha as though i pay for my own bills now, but you get the drift) and i have loved it ever since. every one i have brought there has ended up adoring it as well!

★★★
LEAVING SINGAPORE :(

packing my drawers before leaving, the clothes I brought to London... haha yes my wadrobe is almost entirely monochromatic... black/white/grey with a random spurt of blue sometimes :)

HI FAVOURITE PEOPLE. I know most of my favourite people don't read this space but I CANNOT WAIT TO BE WITH ALL OF YOU AGAIN. MISSING YOU, AND SENDING LOTS OF LOVE YOUR WAY :)

And that is how I left Singapore and ended up here in London. November has been a month of tutorial and lectures and reports and projects and yet more lectures, a month without the boy, a month of rainy days and gray skies. So like I said, I'm really glad December is here! Have a good December, everyone! x

From Ten Thousand Lightning Bugs As They Tried To Teach Me How To Dance

2009-11-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

The second half of the pictures from the KL trip :)

So Jody picked us up from our hotel and his driver dropped us at this Japanese restaurant right in the city but so hidden we wouldn't have found it without him!

Here we are, the second one looks ridiculously much like a family portrait right hahahaha.

the table decided to order all the dishes to be shared, but as usual I was STARVING so on top of all that, I ordered an extra maguro don for myself and some nigiris :)

we ordered like x2 at least of most dishes

the middle dish is foie gras with hotate which was supposedly amazing!

on top of good food, the restaurant looked amazing as well. the entire place was decorated and lit in a super minimalistic chic kind of way. everything was so pretty and clean and zen, which went perfect with the fact that the place was kind of like a hidden gem. the building at the end is the main restaurant with the open layout style tables, but on both sides of the pathway leading up to the main building, there are glass houses to offer private dining :)

camwhoring after dinner :)

pam decided to do an emo shot, then jialing joined in, and I just had to as well. retarded :)

Drinks at Luna Bar: Pam, Jia and Jody & Justin, Daren and I.

Luna Bar is #3 on the World's Top 10 Rooftop Bars list by Luxury Brat which describes the place as "super sexy rooftop and poolside bar ... a long indoor bar with a chic design leading you out onto the breezy rooftop for the best views of the lights of KL." Have to say, the view really did look amazing, and these pictures don't do it justice :)

Boys on whiskey coke, girls on gin tonics & a supper yummy green cocktail I can't remember the name of. It was kind of like a bellini, but stronger? I don't know why it was green then. Hmm.

Moved inside to get aircon :)

Justin drove us to a "palace" for shisha. He kept telling us the place even had a moat and what not, so in the car we kept looking for a palace style building. As it turns out, this shisha kopi-tiam was called shisha palace or something, and it had a moat the size of a fish pond HAHA.

Notice that unlike the usual shisha, this one is served with actual fresh pineapple? Yums:)

Needless to say, I got teased mercilessly again for still being able to eat after our huge huge dinner. And then after we were done smoking & eating & laughing, Justin kindly dropped us back at The Westin and we called it a night. A night we couldn't have enjoyed without Justin or Jody, so thanks for the amazing hospitality guys :)

The next morning, under the kind recommendations of Sying, we went in search of a good ol' hawker style breakfast at Jalan Imbi. THANK YOU SYING :)

We literally ordered at least one item from every stall in the kopitiam.

The porridge was pretty good (8/10 maybe?) but nothing will ever be as awesome as my Bangkok porridge :( THAT IS THE BESTEST BESTEST BESTEST EVER. 10/10.

Jia, Daren & I

Empty Egg Tart Shells fresh out of the oven, The Uncle filling it with the egg paste, and finally freshly made Dan-Dar :)

And then we move on to another kopitiam for Fish Head Bee Hoon and Ban Mee.

After brunch, D stays in our hotel to get some school work done, so poor thing right. NUS (or Singapore unis in general) are so stress inducing!!!

Us girls on the other hand, decide to head up to the rooftop pool with our food belly bumps!

Pam actually did laps..

While I on the other hand... well let's just say when they came back from doing laps, they found me unglamorously stuffing my face like this... chomping away, not very lady like at all, but well :/ slurps.

Surprise Surprise, right?! Oh, did I mention the service was wonderful? Once we sat down, the butler immediately came and brought jugs of water, glasses of ice, platters of fruit & sunblock?

Pam, Jia & I :)

Headed back to our suite to pack up & wash up before checking out :) That's me hanging in the wardrobe in Daren & my room... and thats only half the wardrobe, it's a sliding door so you can't see the other half. That's how ginormous the wadrobe was, pity we didn't really use it :(

We did some last minute shopping.

And then walked back to Jalan Alor for dinner & durians :)

Pam knows how to open durians!!! OMG! I was so shocked! Unlike me, who only knows how to devour them. HAHA.

Oh well, we all have our strengths right? Hee Hee!

I GET TEN THOUSAND HUGS

2009-11-26T14:38:00.000-08:00

Before coming back to London, we made a short food trip to KL. We took a flight in to save us the hassle of sitting on a coach for a mind numbing number of hours. By the time we reached the KL airport we were starving but we still had to get a cab to drop us at our hotel.

We were staying at The Westin but because we were early, our suite wasn't ready yet. The service was pretty good though, they even offered us an alternative room to freshen up first. So we washed up, the girls touched up their make up, Daren messed up the bed, we raided the fridge for drinks, then we left our luggage there and were assured by the service staff that they would transfer it to our room once our room was ready.

So we set off in search of lunch, a very specific lunch actually. We cabbed to KLCC because Pam insisted we had to have Madam Kwan's (she read online that they have superb nasi lemak)

I went with Assam Laksa though. Check out how intense Pam looks.

Hunger satisfied, we decided to explore the mall a little bit.

Got bored soon after and they decided we should go check out the view of the petronas twin towers. As you can see from the following pictures, I am like "omg, i have to walk?!?! really? do we have to go?" and Daren is even worse, he is literally hiding/walking in the shadow of Pam so as to avoid the glare of the sun. WIN.

I soon cheered up though, picture perfect photo opportunity and all! HAHA. These are the pictures taken by Daren....

And these are the ones taken by me... so much nicer right? Thick skinned. HEEHEE :)
Daren / Jia / Me

pam basking in the sun, daren & i.

cabbed back to the hotel to rest for a bit (met a super nice taxi uncle who told us that it was actually only a 5 min walk away, and who ended up being a vital part of our kl trip!) before we headed out again.

a cafe for fresh coconuts, iced coffee and turkish ice creams. and then because we were getting bored already, we decided to take neo-prints, despite the protests from the boy.

And then we spent like 2 hours in the arcade, playing everything from bishi bashi, daytona, basketball, soccer, gun games, drum games etc etc... jia and i even made the top score list for one of the music rockband style games :)

Finally, it was about time to have dinner. Joy. The taxi uncle (as earlier mentioned) gave us directions to Jalan Alor which is supposedly a food street so that's where we went.

We ordered so much: clams, stingrays, hokkien mee, multiple plates of wanton mee, prawns, kang kong etc etc, and we finished most of it too. In fact, we finished everything except for the black sauce hokkien mee which we thought wasn't as yummy as Singapore's?

Dinner was followed by shisha at a super chill cafe.

Pam Liu, 21, Singaporean, Queen of Shisha.
Be forewarned: Will chide anyone who's not "smoking properly"

Pam & Jia trying to do a "couple shot"

daren & i

Back to our suite... the living room & dining room.

daren & my room and jia & pam's room...

our kitchen, wine, and the remote that electronically lifts and shuts the blinds giving us total darkness for a perfect sleep!

and then Pam insisted we meet back in the living room after showers to play spin-the-KNIFE-truth-or-dare! :/

-

breakfast at food republic the next day.. ban mian but malaysian style: dry, spicy, yummy.

our newly made taxi uncle friend picked us up and brought us to sunway lagoon

first attraction was the horror park which i actually suggested but when i found out it wasn't so much a ride as it was a walk-through haunted house, i chickened out.. they actually dragged me in at first but i screamed and screamed and scratched and stood by the entrance refusing to move so they let me out. i'm such a chicken omg :/

water ride, daren and i had super unlucky seats so we were literally jumping from seat to seat as the boat moved so that we wouldn't get drenched haha..

jia & pam

almost all the rollercoasters were closed, we felt so cheated!

we took the viking, and it literally swings 360degrees (apparently the only one in the world that goes 360degrees), insane, at one point it just held us upside down for what felt like the longest time and i thought i was going to die. came down feeling like my stomach had been turned inside out.

stopped to rest/eat at the only air conditioned restaurant we found inside the park. half way through our meal (daren was fast asleep, only the girls were eating) it started raining cats and dogs so we ended up ordering more food and playing 20 questions, which is a super funny game!

when the rain cleared, the sun came back stronger than before!

pam, jia and i trying our hand at archery (paint ball gun style)

the boy and i

and then we wanted to do ATV, so they made us put on these completely unglamorous hair nets (not to mention sweaty disgusting elbow guards)... jia and pam refuse to show their faces, but anyway here we are looking rather hideous.

daren, pam and jia on their ATV bikes :) this ATV adventure wasn't half as fun as the time Daren and I rode on the long beach, wasn't as fast or as scenic but all the same it was fun :)

and then we went go-karting, as you can see it was always three of their go karts really close and me lagging somewhere behind :(

the retards actually called me "an obstacle in the course" lol ahem pam and daren!

omg i look so messy and my hair is all over the place and i have no make up on and i look disgustingly chubby and sweaty and disheveled :/

jia & pam in action on the flying fox. i was trying to take photos/videos of them from the bridge so i was the last to go, even daren went before me... so basically i was super duper scared and i almost didn't want to do it (i'm really not the most outdoorsy adventurous person on earth) but the dude in charge was like go for it and he PUSHED ME OFF so I had no choice and even though I was scared like almost the whole way down (i kept thinking i was going to crash) i have to admit it was actually really fun and my favourite activity/ride of the day! so there i am looking (disgusting but) proud of myself for conquering it :)

okay there's too many pictures to upload so i'm splitting this food trip to KL into two entries :) so i guess if you learnt anything about me from this post, it's that I'm a complete chicken heart huh :( but really, i'm not ALWAYS a chicken. it's really the anticipation that kills me. i tend to have an over-imaginative mind and an overreactive heart ♥

YOU GIVE ME FEVER

2009-11-22T16:21:00.000-08:00

I know I said I'll blog this weekend, but I've fallen ill again. My immune system is so weak. Fortunately the parents are here for company and to look after me. Which means Mummy is here to feed me with home cooked porridge, meatballs made from scratch, bird's nest and so on :) If there's ever an awesome way of being sick, then I guess this is it. If I feel better tomorrow, more picture posts! I have so many albums I want to work through before the new year starts.

♥

You may say I'm a Dreamer But I'm not the Only One

2009-11-17T18:28:00.000-08:00

Wanted a bit of distraction from my impending mountain of work, and ended up writing a blog-length post over at my Tumblr! Will post a proper-picture-filled-super-backdated entry this weekend after I submit my dissertation proposal. Have an amazing week, much love ♥

CROP CIRCLES IN THE CARPET

2009-11-15T12:06:00.000-08:00

TODAY (15TH) IS MY BABY'S BIRTHDAY :) BUT I'M HERE IN LONDON, AND HE'S THERE IN SINGAPORE :( NEVERMIND, I SWEAR THIS IS THE LAST BIRTHDAY OF HIS THAT I'M EVER GONNA MISS :) :) HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARLING BOY, I LOVE YOU MUCH MUCH LONG TIME (22 hearts for the 22 year old who can no longer claim he is younger than me! )♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

The Lim family came over for dinner one night.

sake

with & without the oldies :)

mummy cooked japanese: fish karage, shabu shabu, okayu porridge, koniyaku etc...super yummy!

nellie & nedra

they wanted to play in the car so daddy put the top down and switched on the engine.

daren, nelly & i :)

daddy and his toys

i miss my house in singapore :( home in london is just not the same :(

chilling by the poolside

the boy & i finally finally stayed up late enough/woke up early enough (can't remember which) to have my mc dee's breakfast! yay for hotcakes and hashbrowns!

MSTRCRFT at zouk

at wine bar waiting for the others

bernard, jia & daren

daren & his beloved tapioca chips ► jia & (an already tipsy) sze ► the girls

yimin, jia & i ►►► jia, pam, me, cheng

rong kept buying jugs and jugs of screw drivers and diyan kept opening bottles and bottles of whiskey. got higher than i intended to be but it was all good fun :)

personal opinion? awesomest table in members.

super funny angmoh guy on the next table whom diyan stole shots from just for fun lol lol, he turned out to be quite nice and let me have lightsticks off his wrist cos the boys told him i wanted some.

cheng, diyan, yourong

POTLUCK & BOARDGAMES

max, bong & i

twas supposed to be potluck but everyone ended up just coming over to cook or not bringing anything at all hahahahaha

see the way we do it is, the girls watch and the guys cook. i like, very much :)

bong's mini beef burgers (inspired by the time we ate at applebee's in new york!) and daren's super yummy salted egg yolk prawns which on first look no one wanted to try, but turned out amazing and had everyone fighting over :)

we cooked jiao zhi, bee hoon, chicken wings, salted egg yolk prawns, mini beff burger and potato salad. can't remember what else right now.

cranium

followed by countless rounds of "imaginiff" which is really alot of fun if you're playing with good friends or people you know well :) and then we played hide & seek at like 4am, switched off ALL the lights in my house... at first we just played regular hide and seek, and then the subsequent rounds got super competitive.. we broke up into teams and then even later we came up with strategies to complicate the game.. like hide and seek intergrated with freeze and milk etc etc etc insanity. the boys so had an advantage cos they were willing to go out into the gardens past the trees and stuff .. leon got that grass stain on his butt from hiding out there. but the girls kept telling ourselves "no lah don't think they'll hide there".. we played hide and seek till like 6am! insanity! but so much fun :)

RANDOM MISHMASH OF STUFF I FOUND IN MY CAMERA

d & i paid a visit to doctor fishies

the day he got his beloved iphone! he put it in my bag while we were in the mall and told me to guard it with my life.. hahahahaha.

dinner at pietra santa, my favourite favourite pan seared cheese in parma ham dish :)

lazy days by the pool while the boys are in school, and east ocean yummies i would kill for right about now!

biggest moon cake i have ever ever seen, it was real/edible too!

live seafood!

Okay, am going to go and have my dinner now before I settle into my sofa to watch the first episode of Season 14. TOP GEAR premieres tonight on BBC TWO. YAY :) Hope you had a good weekend guys :) Much love! x

DREAMING OF REVELRY

2009-11-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

I have so many pictures to upload and my best friend is pulling the peer pressure thing so I shall attempt to do them more consistently. I have an hour to kill until I call the boy to wake him up anyway so here are the pictures from a random night at Overeasy/Butter back home.

Overeasy

Austen, Jia, Cheng & Bernard. Cheng was supposed to be in Bintan but after spending an insane amount of $$ stuck in a cab during peak hour jam to get to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal, he found out he missed his ferry. So he paid to cab there, paid to cab home and pre-paid for a ferry ticket he couldn't use, hahahaha. So he drove to pick Jia & I up and we came here instead :)

Cheng & Ber

Bestie & I, making silly faces, camwhoring while waiting for D to come.

D finally arrived :)

Jialing, Austen (awesome expression), Bernard, Sze Liang

and the retardedness begins

trisha & sze: in your headddd, in your headdd

austen has a million different hilarious expressions, especially when he's high.

daren bought us like a million jaegars.

more retarded expressions lol

"if its too loud, you're too old" says the man who refuses to grow up (and whose age i don't suppose i should reveal lol)

getting freaky with godzilla-thingamagik

"and imma have you first always in my heart, to keep you satisfied"

to the ones who have always been there, will always be there; to the ones who matter in my heart <3

and then we ended the night having supper at my favourite mee sua bak chor mee :)

Anyway, today I met Kar Meng & Sem for dim sum today. We bumped into Anna & Rachel and then Lin & Zach in the restaurant. I love Chinatown and how it makes me feel like home- all the smells and the accents and the dialects. They accompanied me shopping for D's birthday present after lunch. Wanted to find the Beat Check wallet he loved & lost but it's no longer stocked so I got him the Brit Check belt from Burberry instead (and couldn't resist picking up a bracelet for myself, fine two bracelets cos I couldn't decide on gold or platinum), hope the belt fits him. Also got him a Paul Smith Laptop Sleeve for his Macbook. Love love love it, it's got the paul smith rainbow stripes trimmings and the sleeve itself is soft leather, mmm. Wanted to get one for myself because I do need a Macbook sleeve too but I thought it was slightly too masculine. Other presents in his birthday gift box include a leather woven iphone case, an iphone mini-portable-external-battery (because his battery always dies when he's out) and "the little book of i love you" which is super cute and i'll probably share pages from it soon! Will visit the post office before going to college tomorrow, hopefully he gets his present in time. Wish I could be there to celebrate it with him, this is his third birthday I'm missing out on because I'm always in London, November = Term Time :(

It's been at least five years since I've last been to church, so when Sem told me she was going to church, I surprised myself even by saying that I wanted to go too. We went for the service at Hill Song and the worship team is honestly just amazing! Different to the kind of church I'm (or was) used to, but I guess the most important thing is not how people worship but that they worship all the same? The theme for the sermon was basically about how it's easy to rejoice in God when we're going through good times, but that we need to believe in Him in tougher times as well. I guess it spoke to me rather well because 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 was a really testing period for me, honestly some of the darkest periods of my life and there were times I remember asking Daren why God was putting me through that. I remember him telling me that I can't just want God to answer my questions when I'm down and not care about the way I behave otherwise. Little did I know, God was actually speaking to me through Daren. He did give me an amazing Daren to see me through those dark days, even if I wasn't able to appreciate it then, it's one of the things i'm most thankful for everyday of my life now. I don't think anyone would have put up with me or the hurt I inflicted the way Daren graciously lovingly did. And yes, I made mistakes, but Daren and I wouldn't be as strong as we are today if I didn't take the path I did. In my brighter moments now, I realize that through it all I grew to be a stronger person, and I wouldn't be where I am, with who I'm with today if not for all the prior trials and tribulations. I guess the crux of the message was that we need to learn to rejoice in every day that God has made, whether we're having a good day or a bad day, and be strong in the faith that God has a reason for everything he puts us through. So thank you God, and thank you Daren :)

On a lighter note, just last night I came across a quote that was super cute and rather hilarious, and also sums it all up pretty well: "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much."

p/s- i haven't figured out how to resize both landscape and portrait photos to the same pixel dimensions on my new iphoto'09 yet thats why the landscape ones are so big. ahg so messy! does anyone know how to do it?

こんにちわ TOKYO SUMMER 09

2009-11-04T15:37:00.000-08:00

We took an overnight flight to Japan and we were all grumpy, tired and starving by the time we arrived. Dropped our stuff at the hotel and went straight off to find lunch.

uni & ikura nigiri

chutoro & tarakoe

botan ebi & akagai

hotate & kazunoko

We ate so much sushi/sashimi in a one hour span it was as though we hadn't been fed for the past 10 days or something. I think we racked up like 20 plates per person? Which left us feeling so full we could barely move, so we ended up heading back to the hotel for hot showers & afternoon naps.

By the time we all got up, the sky was dark out and it was dinner time.

Walked to our favourite shabu shabu house in tokyo, and it was so crowded but fortunately mum had the foresight to get the concierge to reserve a table :)

The beef costs $25sgd a slice, making that plate cost like $350? But oh, so worth it. Melt-in-your-mouth good.

super cute giant bowl of noodles we saw on the street. i think from chopstick to bowl, it's literally 1/3 my height! and then waiting for my brother while he bought krispy kremes. i personally do not fancy them, not a sweet tooth i guess?

Can't believe we spent our first day just eating and sleeping but well, as it turns out the rest of the trip pretty much followed suit.

Mum & I, Bro & Dad.

We had lunch at a tempura bar, and we ate all sorts of tempura: squid, prawns, a million different types of fish, a million types of veges, chicken! It was a tempura lovers' dream but I'm not a tempura fan, like I pinch off d's tempura sometimes but personally I wouldn't order it myself ever? Oh well.

the parents went off to do their designer shopping but my brother and i went to wander the street stalls. usually when i'm in a foreign country, i like to explore all their local designers rather than branded stuff or high street stuff which i can easily find in london/singapore? so we walked on and on and on in the back alleys of tokyo/shinjuku.

porn & free tissue culture?

met the parents at ginza 9 for kani :)

i think it wasn't kani season though, so the crabs weren't as big as when we usually go in the thick of winter- dec/jan period?

super yummy all the same though we had kanisuki nama taraba, kani miso, kani karage, kani nabe, kani zosui, kani shabu... basically kani everything :)

woke up the next afternoon (the parents came back from breakfast/shopping and banged on our door and we refused to open it for the longest time) and went down to shibuya

brother/father went back to sleep and mom & i headed down to harajuku

and we had dinner at the shabu shabu place again :)

after dinner, i had razzle berry which i'm guessing, is japan's version of london's snog or singapore's frolick. the whole place is pink and sparkly, too cute <3 taste wise, i still love snog the best :)

razzle berry, and the testicular sized wine-grapes that my brother bought. juicy!

lunch: negitoro don without the negi, and maguro yamakake, both my favourites!

literally stuffing my face, hahahaha.

this is the takopachi that opened up in sinagapore's ion? where there is always a queue whether you go at 11am or 3pm or well, anytime at all it seems. i tried this in japan without knowing it's the same one until i accompanied daren to get some at the ion later on. the one in singapore only has tako fillings though. i think the one in japan has lots more choices :) yums.

dinner at a fugu-house in tsukiji, we've been going to this same restaurant since i was a kid, or as fast back as i can remember, and the kani house itself is at least 100 years old i think? amazing!

fugu sashi & fugu chiri

pufferfish ftw!

my retarded brother drags me out onto the streets of tokyo in my pyjamas to get supper, and of all the amazing japanese food we could have we had macdonalds.

lunch at sushi/sashimi bar :)

we totally uni overloaded! think between my brother and i alone we had like seven or eight orders of uni?

kazunoko and awabi. my mom loves loves loves awabi and it's not that easy to find in singapore so she overloads in tokyo. i don't like it, too chewy i think.

akagai/tamago/hotate. sushi bar concept where you just tell the chef what you want and he makes it on the spot for you :) instantaneous gratification!

walked to the ueno market :)

went to my parents' favourite tea shop

my retarded parents bought like $600+ sgd worth of tea?! and then we realized that we spent the remaining of our cash on tea, like we had already shopped/ate away all the cash my parents bought. tragic.

aside from selling all sorts of fresh and dried foods, ueno market also sells all sorts of consumer goods. i think it used to be a black market waaay back, but not anymore? they have everything from super colourful dunks, to a rackful of pink crocs and even pink/purple ugg boots!

life sized doraemon, huge huge huge gigantic ugg boot... nothing i'd ever actually buy at ueno but it's always fun to walk around :)

went for desserts ...

and found out after we ate that they don't accept credit card so we had to dig out all our spare cash/coins. insanity!

my dad spotted this couple on the roadside eating sandwiches and insisted they were hosts from japan hour or discovery travel and living show or something so we said hi and as it turns out he was right. they told him he watches too much telly, quite funny.

spent the rest of the afternoon shopping before having dinner at tian giu?

super yummy chicken wings & shishamo

we ordered like 8 dishes at first and the waitress was saying it would be too much.. after she left my dad said "she doesn't know my children" hahahaha and he was right, it wasn't enough we had to order more, we really eat too much. gluttons we are.

on the last day, we went back to the shabu shabu house for the third time! that slice of melon costs $9sgd :/

we did our last minute shopping before heading to the airport, got checked in real quick and then had dinner/snacks in the JAL lounge while waiting for our flight :)

we bought 32 pieces of onigiri :) and finished at least half of that on the plane, yums! my japan trip: lots of sleep, shopping & food. then again most of my family holidays are lazy, chillax holidays, so that pretty much sums it up!

and then it was back home and baby picked us up at the airport :) just for the record, the six days i spent with my family in japan were the only six days the entire summer that baby and i didn't see each other every single day. it was just six days but it felt so long and i even made him a leaving gift and he gave me something when i got home, i know, damn lame but whatever haha :) now that i'm back in london, i won't be seeing him for much longer than just six days, and my days feel so long without him in it, but on the brightside, the countdown is on, and it's less than a month. YAY.

SAIL INTO THE SUNRISE

2009-10-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

The final set of photos from our trip to the French Riviera. I resized them to the usual pixels that I use for journalling but somehow they turned our smaller than the norm? I'm too lazy to re-resize them and then re upload them onto photobucket again though, so these will have to do :)

The most amazing way to start the day.

Just waking up and walking five steps into our bedroom balcony where the perfect blue skies and the endless blue sea awaits us. Perfect.

have i mentioned i'm completely crap at jump shots?

Pebble Beaches.

♥

Lunch on a beach cafe!

Mussels & the best tartare ever: salmon and scallop!

Beach Sports

Jia & Karmeng

Getting geared up.

Parasailing! Do you remember what it feels like to be carefree? One of the most amazing feelings ever!

jiajia :)

and i

there's just something calming and happy about perfect sands & seas & blue sky

Pebbles!

got our hair and nails done at dessange which apparently is the official partner/hairdresser for the cannes film festival

while we were being pampered, poor km had to wander around nice on his own!

The Dessange spread: the styles they designed for Mischa Barton, Paris Hilton, Madonna etc etc, pretty cool. Oh and Nice is lovely the the airport was pretty no frills? Once we checked in there were only food stores were sellling chips/cold sandwiches which I don;t really fancy so I ended up picking up snacks like caviar & some preserved duck confit (which i initially thought was just air dried ham, i don't like duck)... bah :/

I am jetlagged (i miss my baby) and I'm going to sleep. Goodnight world.

LETS SPEND T♚NIGHT ON T♚P OF THE W♚RLD

2009-10-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

2 weeks ago, it was Leon's birthday so we were gonna have a party. It was also the same weekend that my bestfriend Jialing, who just graduated with first class honours (have I mentioned I'm mad proud?) , was coming home from London for good. She wanted to surprise all our friends with her homecoming so in order to convince more of our friends to come, we decided to declare it an early birthday for Daren and a farewell do for me as well. Daren didn't actually want to celebrate his birthday but then I decided since I wouldn't be around for it, I wanted to get him a cake after all. So that's how we turned out having a triple celebrations of sort :)

I was too lazy to cook, and I'm not a big fan of caterers (don't they give you a feeding-the-farm-pigs kind of feeling) in general so I decided to just get asian/singaporean food to go with the theme of a singapore homecoming. Ordered Otah, Ramly, Popiah, Chicken Wings and got the Satay Man to come down to the house to bbq satay :)

You Rong was the first to arrive around 7, but poor Jia had to wait in my room for almost two hours before most of our other friends arrived so she could come down and surprise them all at once. At least she has Sze for company I guess :)

Drinking Jenga

the boys.

Now there's a story to the balloons. When I went down to the balloon store to get a helium foil balloon, I saw they had lots of pictures of pretty balloon decor for parties, so I enquired on the cost, and basically it's about $199 and above for anything decent. Considering I was already spending a 4 digit number on the food & drinks, I decided to brave the balloon task on my own. D drove me all the way to a balloon supplier in tampiness to buy raw balloons and it was so far, he warned me not to give up halfway!

On the day of the party itself, I almost gave up. I remember thinking, wow, so the $199 is actually not for the balloons but the sweat that goes into blowing them up and putting them together. With D's help, I managed to get the whole thing up into an balloon arch though :)

I also ordered 40 litres of Hoegaarden and the tap to dispense it :) Our friend, Shen, nicknamed it "the mother of all hoegaarden taps" in his drunken stupor, and the name has stuck.

chow on drums and the birthday boy going for a float

jia's graduation/welcome-home cupcakes & soccer/newcastle-united cupcakes for leon.

daren's iphone themed cupcake and a picture of all 36 cupcakes :) aren't they just adorable?

the vips :) and even though it really wasn't my farewell, they started singing happy birthday and changed it to happy farewell to me. very funny and rather cute :)

the army sign-on boy being patriotic, shen wanted earphone to plug into his cupcakes, and daren with his named cupcake :)

somehow managed to convince leon & some others that the soccer ball decoration was actually a specially designed gobstopper candy :) took the tipsier ones up to 5 to 10 minutes ++ before they got scammed!

the ming & shen cousin show. (will upload the video soon! hilarious!) oh and then people started getting dunked.

40 liters of beer, countless shots and bottles of muscato later.......... (p/s- no idea what marc is doing around shen's underwear... and on my bed too!)

Neither do I have any idea why Leon is straddled on top of them... or why Marc is wearing the superman baby's bib..

AND STILL NO IDEA why Cheng is using the concussed Yourong as a chair, or why Rong has his thigh inside my MJ bag strap.......

So as you can see, 40 liters of beer, countless shots and bottles of muscato can have very different effects on people.

I also had this idea of buying art boards to make the 3 of them photo boards? So the night before the party, I sat down with my scissors, nails, ribbons, tags, markers and so on..... and came up with these. It was really late (and I had to wait till daren left to make them cos I wanted it to be a surprise for him as well) and by the second board, I got really haphazard and I think it shows it the workmanship :/

Some polaroids on the board... Yourong & Daren

and that's us :)

Anyway, I came online today and realized it's been three weeks since I've written a journal entry. I remember the creeping feeling that I had only a month left before my (extended) summer in sunny Singapore ends. Now, it seems like the time has just flown by and it's a matter of days before I leave. Mom's cooking my favourite korean dumplings & kimchi hot pot tonight so I can't wait :) Should make best use of my last few days here instead of lazing around at home/in bed/ watching tv all day.

M☀NAC☀ SUMMER 2☀☀9

2009-10-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

Last night we had dinner with D's family to celebrate Mid Autumn Festival and I totally binged on durians. We woke up grumpy at 5am today to send the parents to the airport, and then we realized for once we were early enough to have breakfast but the boy and I both forgot our wallets. Scoured the car and managed to find 8dollars in coins so we did drive through Mac's for hotcakes and hash browns! Fell back asleep and didn't wake up till almost 3pm, had chicken rice for late lunch, we ran some errands, watched How I Met Your Mother (hell yeah season 5!!!) and then we went to Vivo City to catch Funny People which was okay but just a bit draggy! Dinner at Michael Angelo's before he dropped me home. And so here I am, I've been totally procrastinating with updating these pictures but my best friend has been bugging me, and they really are rather lagging so since I'm not really doing anything else right now, I figured I may as well do a bit of it.

Bright & Early, and by that I mean like, noon.

Breakfast at a cute little cafe where we had omelettes and such, and yes, at noon.

I fell asleep on our way there and the other two didn't get off even though they both said they saw lots of signs reading "Monaco" and "Monte Carlo" glaring at them, so long story short we overshot and had to drop in the middle of literally nowhere (one measly hotel and a cafe that wasn't even open) while we waited for our ride back towards monaco at a stranded bus stop. Admittedly, the view is pretty awesome, but I was too grumpy/sleepy to take too many photos.

And then when we did finally get back, we dropped at the peak of Monaco, so we pretty much had to make our way down down down down to the coast from way up high, climbing tonnes of flights of stairs just like these.

Down we went until we finally all we saw was a mass of perfect blue: seas & skies.

And then we walked along "the champions promenade" which was much like the walk of fame in Cannes: Unimpressive.

just in case you were wondering, we continued walking: along the grand prix route.

AND THEN FINALLY we stopped in front of the jetty and the casinos, where we had sweet ice cream & crepes & ice cold drinks at a pierside cafe with hot pink chairs and i finally started to cheer up :)

jia, karmeng & i

on the boat

the view on board

Yatch Club de Monaco

grand prix monuments

we also ran into a cute singaporean couple who we ended up chatting to for awhile. they looked like they were on honeymoon but as it turns out they already have a baby boy. twas nice chatting with people who understood our need for a mummy's home cooked meal or some prata!

Nice dinner at a beach restaurant back in Nice

I am perpetually glued to my blackberry, which I miss alot now that I'm back in Singapore and have no service :(

dinner was amazing: the food was good, the wine was great, the company awesome. we sat for ages, drinking, eating, talking, debating about politics, soaking in the waves and the smell of the sea.

After dinner, we explored even more of the old town before we headed back to our hotel room, where we opened even more wine and played "i never"... oh the juicy things we found out about each other that night!

And then we went down to buy Mac Donalds, (kar meng & i even left our bb's in the room) and we ate on the beach, the riviera at our feet, throwing pebbles, playing shoot shag marry and even more i never, talking and all. We sat there for ages, mesmerized by the far away lights casting it's reflections on the sea, the breeze in our hair: the perfect last night.

DREAMY EYES & STARLET SKIES ♥ c a n n e s : s u m m e r 0 9

2009-09-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

In our hotel (Le Meridien, Nice) before setting off on a daytrip to Cannes.

Karmeng & Jia // Jia & I

Waiting for the train.

Arrived in Cannes within an hour!

The lovely street of shops, tres european!

Apart from the usual designer brands / high street fashion / casual luxury, the street was filled with lots of little cafes, cute patisseries, and chocolate specialty shops, as well as unique boutiques featuring the most random but lovely trinkets! Pictured on the right is "Victoria Couture", a shop which is designed and stocked with everything Hello Kitty!

We wandered through the little streets till we reached the beachfront where we stopped to take in the beauty & sunshine. And the grandeur of the Ritz Carlton!

Beachclubs & blueskies

Life is but a merry-go-round; And dreams are built on sandcastles.

Not sure if you've noticed, but the bestie and I have a completely different sense of style. Case in point: She is almost always in colour, and I'm almost always in monochrome.

We walked and stopped; walked and stopped whenever we felt like it, to take in the amazing view, people watch or just camwhore! It was a lovely day!

Making silly faces

I feel so happy just looking at how happy I was when these photos were taken :)

It took us forever to find the theatre and walk of fame.... turns out we had already walked past it so we had to walk backwards.. that's how non outstanding it was!

MASSIVE DISAPPOINTMENT RIGHT? THIS? THIS is where the CANNES FESTIVAL takes place?????

After that we started exploring the cute designer boutiques which were located right on the boardwalk by the beach! Talk about celebrities living lifestyles of the rich and famous, Cannes is definitely their place in Europe.

And then we had an early dinner before heading back to the train station

Basically, Cannes is a more expensive, more crowded version of Nice; and even though we only spent a day there, it was more than enough for us to walk the entire city! From a completely touristy point of view, Cannes can definitely be covered in a day since there's not much culture for you to soak up anyway. I guess unless you visit during the film festival, there's not much to experience in Cannes that you can't really do in any of the other island of the French Riviera! All the same, I'm glad we made the trip down because now we know what it's like :)

"A career is wonderful but you can't curl up with it on a cold night. " - Marilyn Monroe

YOU AND I WERE MADE TO GET LOVE RIGHT

2009-09-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

Last night, I was feeling under the weather so I didn't have much dinner, but ended up craving for some hot soupy noodles, and I absolutely refused cup noodles or packet noodles because it is mostly what I subsist on in London, and thus tend to avoid it in Singapore. Anyway, I was cuddled up in bed watching the telly while the boyfriend was preoccupied with fixing my mum's iphone when he said that he was gonna get the charger from his room. He took quite awhile (think 15 minutes at least) but I didn't go look for him, figuring he was probably just chatting with Mum or something. When he came back into the room, he was carrying the familiar green crystal jade plastic bag with wanton noodles in steaming hot soup :) Twas a pleasant surprise indeed. "You're my baby, I'll take care of you."
Today, he woke up at 9 to do a bit of studying. I woke up to find that he & mum had gone out to the supermarket to buy ingredients for lunch. Negitoro don and gyu tataki. My mum is an amazing japanese chef :) He did more work while I watched one tree hill (and he repeatedly insisted on checking my temperature), then we took a nap together. Snacked on Mushroom soup & karage before we pulled all the pillows off the bed and onto the carpet, lay down and watched Veggie Tales: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.
I spent most of it giggling like a five year old again, and Marilyn Monroe is right, spot on:The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead.

2009-09-18T03:11:00.000-07:00

I was going to blog today but then a rather tragic and unexpected turn of events took place this week. I'm still on tumblr and twitter as usual though.

Have a good weekend! Xx

Lay Back In The Arms Of Someone

2009-09-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

48 hours, a full spectrum of emotions: anticipation, excitement, disappointment, fear, confusion, sadness, optimism, trust, happiness, contentment, peace at heart, love.

One week apart, six lonely nights. Standing at the baggage carousel seemingly preoccupied with the simple task of collecting luggage, eyes scanning the crowd anxiously until I spot that familiar silhouette. The long, late night drive home. Having granny's home cooked porridge on the kopi-o style family table in the back terrace before showers and cuddles. Tears and an overflow of emotions until the slow steading breathing of slumber takes over. Awaking to your arms carelessly thrown over my waist. Morning goodness unfolds into a slow conversation, debate, argument about us. "We'll work it out, we always have, we always will." Lazy afternoon lunch and a ball of laughter over tummy crunches, or the lack thereof. We hit the arcade: like excited school children, we hold hands and cross our hearts and raise our voices; earnestly trying to clinch the prize, shoot the hoops, line the burgers and kill the mosquitoes. $20 dollars and half an hour later, we leave with a lighter heart and a fast approaching sore throat. An island wide car ride hunting for dinner- Thomson for Kampong Chicken, Sin Ming for Hokkien Mee, Newton for Olua & Rojak, Bukit Timah for Tau Huay. Night time nap, waking reluctantly so he could do his tutorial and I, unpack the harvest of my absence. Midnight MacD's, lying on his lap as we wait in the drive through, his fingers idly twisting strands of my hair, sex on fire blasting on the stereo. Two hours later back in bed, wide eyed, making jokes, trying to fall asleep again. Morning light streams through as he struggles out of bed and into the shower, betting with me that I'll still be asleep when he returns from school. He wins of course, when at lunch time he drags me out of bed to feed my starving tummy. Nap time again, hot plate bbq for dinner, a match of sheepy soccer 7-7 drawed.

Now: He's finished reading his chapter, and I, typing this post. We tiptoe past the other bedrooms to steal paddle pops from the freezer and are heading for a spontaneous walk around the estate. The night is young and explorers in love we are. Someone tell me, how do we freeze the clock?

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

2009-09-06T01:54:00.000-07:00

The last thing I heard before I fell asleep last night.
Arms linked, legs intertwined, head on shoulders: slumber.

YOU'RE BARELY WAKING & I'M TANGLED UP IN YOU

2009-09-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

Random snippets of photos from my camera. Summer vacation doesn't end for a month yet (thankfully) but the fact that summer itself has officially ended says everything that needs to be said.

If there's one thing I miss in London (apart from the best friend of course), it would be shopping. The first picture is from a day spent at Selfridges / Knightsbridge, and the second one is from a day spent at Bond Street (oh and I came home to discover my giant ASOS box had arrived!) I swear you can never finish browsing the shopping streets of London.

Waiting anxiously in the SIA lounge at Heathrow Airport. And then finally settling into the journey that would take me 12h50mins back home to where I belong.

LHR-SIN. The menu on board, as usual, was created and planned by Gordon Ramsay but I still thought it was pretty crap. Didn't eat anything except the rum & raisin ice cream and the cheese platter. Why can't airlines just produce good food? :(

Wala's

#1 Mummy's semi permanent spot at Paragon. The Valets always park her car there, right next to the entrance, and I've discovered she doesn't even collect a valet ticket from them, rather ~~dangerous~~ funny? #2 Random lunch at Gyu Kaku for my favourite Aburi Bacon :)

Dinner at Ma Maison

After dinner at Ma Maison, we walked over to the Ramen place, and had a second dinner there. Then headed to the 24hr Cold Storage at HV to pick up some wine.

And then back to mine...

...where we spent the rest of the night drinking muscato, playing the DS, and watching a re run of the MJ memorial tribute.

Random before leaving the house shots, this mirror is right before the main door.

Dim Sum Brunch at Cherry Garden (Oriental)

Chinese Tea, Vertu, Yummy Desserts.

Rain & Drive Through MacD's

Sashimi & Anatolia (alright, have to admit I ALSO miss the kebab/chickenwings/chilli in london, damn)

Daren, Mark, I.

Transformers FTW. And I could probably fit (squish) myself into that ginormous bag.

Up at an UnGodly hour (9am?) to surprise Mum with breakfast in bed.

So the boyfriend baked Chocolate fondant which was tres yummy!

And I cooked Pancake Stackers.

Random days where we have lunch, he does work, I annoy him, we run errands, have dinner, watch tv, have supper.. you get the drill.

Leaving the house to meet Bong/Ale for "Own Time Own Target" which was very crude (think: CB x100 times with kids in the audience!!) but pretty funny as well. I preferred the second play to the first.

Sasa (goodness only knows how we racked up a bill like that in sasa, for goodness sakes) and Mortons.

Took a trip down to Orchard Central, the boy's father's company did all the walls & ceilings & carpark.

lazy sundays

supposed to be movie marathon day. it became lunch, ONE movie (which we've all watched before) and swimming before we headed out for dinner.

Muscato & chit chat

Through the telescope: Bong checking out Jay's Mole, Jay checking out Bong's Biceps

Dinner at Hamdi's uncles restaurant (Arab St/Haji Lane)

The original retards:

Started this game where they would sub people and see if they could stand up together without lifting the chair (with their asses)

Ended the night with pool & poker (i lost but very minimally, biggest winners: dee & boon)

Chang BBQ: 6/10 & Chili's: 8.5/10

Sashimi Indulgence & King of all fruits!

We were lazy to pump petrol & the car broke down in the AYE cos of an empty tank. Cute cobbler sign, the cobbler uncle has been at HV since i was a kiddo!

Brought Viv & Tom shopping before they went back to England. Shukodu is not really good. 5.5/10.

Right, how's that for a completely random collation of photos. The past few days have been pretty amazing. The boy & I have been all tangled up in each other, spending lazy days alone, with friends, with family. We spent the whole of today doing nothing but eating & sleeping, now he's back with bakchormee for me (the uncle forgot to jia chilli, so sad!) and he's doing his tutorial while I'm contemplating starting a new back.

SUMMER DO NOT END.

I find it hard to hold a conversation, when words are not enough.

2009-08-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

#1: Retarded Games
Of late, Daren and I have taken to playing this game where we sneak attack each other with the shower hose or the extra water hose in my bathroom. The sprayer will attack the victim until he/she is completely soaked, dripping wet from head to toe. It started off simple and now we've brought the game so far to the point that after changing into a new set of clothes, the sprayer will somehow find a way to attack again and by the end of it all we'll have changed clothes at least thrice. Sometimes, we threw the towels into the shower as well, and for the past few days, we've used at least 5 towels everytime this happens. The entire bathroom gets wets, and because my bathroom floors are made of marble, it becomes mad slippery to walk on but then we've exhausted all 10 floor mats and well, now we just have to deal with the slip-risk! One time, D was squeeze drying the clothes/towels we had soaked, and I thought to myself "well at least we're clearing up" but it was a prank too! He suddenly came up to me and squeezed out the remaining water onto my hair. It was disgusting and I had just showered, but clearly I had to take ANOTHER shower. When I came out from that shower and was in new clothes, he repeated the cycle! Madness, that's what this game is, I tell you. Do not start it, it is madly crazy but somehow addictive. I have a feeling the maids are none too fond of our new hobby though.

#2 Feelings
Also, I expressed my feelings/insecurities earlier on and he assured me that I was being completely silly and that I'm always his #1 priority and his favourite person/thing. "The whole package." I wonder if it's a girl thing to just always wonder and let their insecurities rise once in awhile, because I know that truth be told not many boyfriends give as much time/effort/devotion to both me/family as my boyfriend does. Maybe I need to learn that just not everyone is as expressive as me. I guess it's true what the old cliche says: "Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean that they don't love you with all they've got." Right, that being said, things are actually a-okay on the love front so there's no need for worries right now. In fact, we spend like 4 or 5 out of 7 nights on average falling asleep together, have 90% of our meals together (and with both sets of parents), and on the whole, not a day goes by that we don't see each other. I'm actually worried about the end of summer and what it means for the dynamics of this relationship. LONG DISTANCE SUCKS.

#3 While You weren't listening, all our love songs became sad songs
Isn't it funny how songs have an uncanny way of reminding us of specific moments or people, in a poignant way, quite different from a photo- perhaps stronger because you're relying on association and memories rather than the way photos are tangible? In the past few days, eternal flame reminded me of you and how you said it was our song (9 years ago, wow!). And then there's High by the Lighthouse Family which was a promise another different you made me. When you said nothing at all. I've also been really addicted to MLTR's Complicated Heart; even though there's no real story linked to this one, they're just bits of it that strikes a chord. Oh, and Breathless by the Corrs reminds me of someone whose surname I can't even remember now, but you see, that's what I mean! The power of music!

#4 Macbooks!
Speaking of things I love.
I am Blackberry > Apple when it comes to handphones, and am always ready to argue with pro iphone users (like my boyfriend!) but when it comes to laptops it reverses into Apple for the win! I've been using my mac book for 3 years now so it's pretty beat up and old, while the boys are using the newer titanium ones with touch pad finger control & what not, so they're always making fun of mine when in the first place they bought macbooks only after trying mine out! So I refuse to buy a new macbook (even though I desperately want one) until a newer version than theirs is released, which if rumors are to be believed, will be quite soon with their new OS. Anyway, D showed me some cute Macbook vs PC ads, and we had a good laugh over them, the way they take the piss out of pc's through different scenarios, rather brilliant I think! They have a whole series of them which you can watch here but these are my favourite, enjoy! :)

I think my favourite favourite ones are Stacks (because i can't wait to get that version of iphoto), top of the line, surprise & PCs living with vista! How about you? :)

厨房 THE KITCHEN CHRONICLES

2009-08-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

Right, I've as usual been a shit at blogging. There are so many things I want to say. I have too many thoughts, but they are much too messy, and I am just much too (insert appropriate word) to put them down in proper sentences and as such you have no idea how many journal entries have ended up incomplete and un-comprehendible, saved under "show this entry to: just me (private)" in my livejournal!

Since I have some free time tonight while the boy has gone for water polo and L4D, I figured I'd just do some easy blogging and post some foody pictures :)

Parents invited some friends over for dinner, so I helped Mum with some of the preparations.

Home made chawamushi before it goes into the steamer!

Chopping the star shaped carrots :)

Japanese Cold Spinach

Shabu Shabu

Parents & their friends in the Tatami dining room.

One weekend we had a world renown dim sum chef in my kitchen teaching us how to cook :) Some e-articles about him at the World Gourmet Summit and the E Travel Blackboard websites.

Right so we started off making dumplings (we ended up making like four different kinds of dumplings!)

Shrimp Dumplings with Hua Tiao Jiu in Steamed Eggs & Crabmeat and then Dumplings with Sze Chuan Sour & Spicy Sauce

Making Ginger Paste for Chicken Rice

More dumplings!

Deep frying the silken tofu.

Scooping out the top and then stuffing the filling into it before putting it into the steamer. This turned out to be super duper yummy btw.

Right. Fresh Frogs which eventually became frog legs! Kind of gross watching the process of deskinning and chopping!

Seasoning the Fish Head --> Fish Head Dish which I personally do not eat.

Process of cooking the different types of prawns. We had: salted egg yolk prawns, wasabi prawns, drunken prawns and pak chiok har! My pictures do not do them justice!

My favourite avocado dessert in the making & some duck dish which they said was very good, but I do not eat duck.

Right. I'm super duper lazy to put up any more pictures so I shall do the rest another day.

Right and a recap of the past few days for my future self to remember what my days were once filled with:

The boyfriend brought me down to The Corporate Office today to enquire about my UK visa extension, we had lunch at Chili's again, came home and took a nap together before dinner.
Lunch at La Nonna HV yesterday and we thought both the service as well as the quality of the food cannot compare to the other branch at all. Dinner was just as unsatisfying because we tried buying fish from NTUC instead of the usual butcher/gourmet place that we go to and it was absolutely vile. It was like eating plastic, I kid you not, pretty much everyone didn't touch our dinners. Went to Adam Road to take away Olua. Wanted our fave dessert but the stall was closed already so we went to Island Creamery for some takeaway.
Sunday lunch with D's family at Pow Sing (my first time, and surprisingly good!) and then home for Top Gear before heading out to spend some time with my godbrother.
Saturday we cooked for D's family and then watched Top Gear. Supper with Bong & Pam at TCC. Reminiscent of when I used to live in Orchard and the boy&I would frequent that place at least twice or thrice a week.

And finally, just some random thoughts before I log off:

Was feeling kind of blue & moody today, but have convinced myself that I am being silly and should not kick up a fuss
Had a heart warming talk with a dear friend with whom things have been difficult lately, and am glad we finally did have a talk (if you can call it that) because I do actually miss him and want things to be like they used to be. Actually kind of teared (fine, cried) while I was talking to him because its been ages; it's been something I've been trying to push to the back of my mind and not deal with; and I guess I was already feeling blue before that. But am happier now :)
AM CURRENTLY OBSESSED WITH TOP GEAR. I know it's completely uncharacteristic of me, but I swear it's so much more than a car show! I love love love love it!
The replay song of the night on my playlist is: MLTR's "A complicated heart"

And Another One Bites The Dust

2009-08-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

So, I've been almost completely MIA from my macbook in the past 2 weeks or so, which is highly impressive considering it's me because usually I can spend up to 6 hours or more a day online and I am miserable without my internet/bb service. Anyhow, this means I'm way backlogged on my journalling again which annoys me because I like to have neat, picture filled, commentary accompanied entries of my life so that years down the road I can look back at my old journal pages and remember things I would otherwise forget. It's a habit I've been keeping for years... almost 8 to 9 years now?

Right, so the end of July saw Bong turning 22. Now Bong's birthday is quite a significant mark in the annual calendar because of many reasons for me. To begin with, one of the first times I met him was on his birthday so I guess in some ways it's a mark of the span and growth of our friendship. It also brings back fond memories because on that very same day, drunk out of his mind, he kept trying to help fix Daren & I, the details of which I want to keep a secret and we will always remember. And since I spend 1/2 my time in London, I often miss out on most of my pals' birthday and annoying I have missed out on every single one of Daren's birthday as well. Bong is one of the only one's whose birthday I have been around for every single year since that first one when I met him and besides, he sometimes refers to me as his party planner, haha. And boy have we got crazy stories to tell about every one of those nights. So yes, a flood of memories come rushing in every year when the calendar declares it's that time of year again.

Patiently awaiting the arrival of the birthday boy.

& the birthday boy arrives together with rong.

the tall girls (chow & eileen), the petite girls (alice & i), and then yourong & i

Edmond & Max

Wine Bar

Cheng starts the process of trying to kill the birthday boy, and Chow & Alice buy me a lethal looking Snow White (Beer & 7 shots) which we end up drinking as a group because my boy & godbro wouldn't let me have it alone. Thanks (and sorry), girls!

Pam, Alice & Chow.

This is the last you'll see of the birthday boy.

With the boys.

Group Shots.

Right and all these camwhoring is going on while our dearest birthday boy sits (practically) concussed on a stool next to us, such amazing friends we are. No, I kid. I did force feed him water, drag him to the toilet etc etc. (See how I'm pacifying my conscience? I kid again, of course.)

Right, so Daren, Hamdi & I drag the birthday boy to the car to send him home but D wanted me to stay back and kind of make sure the rest were ok cos I was pretty much completely sober, so off they went and I hung out with the rest in Winebar instead.

Light sticks (no idea where Max got them from) and Sunnies I found in my handbag = camwhoring.

The boys come back from sending Bong back.

Right, this was supposed to be a girly shot but then Edmond wouldn't hear of it so he stuck his hand in and kept jumping in and then one by one the boys followed, so eventually it became a group shot. As you can see, the girls are posing nicely and the boys are all craning their necks or stretching to be in the photo, retaaarded :)

Into Zouk

It was also Andrew's last mambo before leaving for his exchange in Europe

And many more drinks later, I present you TYR moonlighting as his classic self. Right, and these are the moderate ones, I have to censor the others for reasons of modesty, hahahah.

And then Diyan comes up with this game where whoever is wearing the sunnies have to do a crazzy kickass cheesy fly whatever solo dance and then pass it on etc etc etc.

I think it's safe to say no one quite rocked it like Diyan himself.

Right, so we stayed and drank and hugged and sang and danced till the lights came on, which led to loud protests from all of us because it's been forever since we've all let loose together like this I think (for me anyway being stuck in London and all), but it was a night of merry indeed.

The night ended with supper at Spize where Marc & Rong were both completely gone (one sleeping and the other awake but hilarious, hint to future self: chicken, gravy, table, mouth) and then Hamdi dropped us off near home & sent Rong home.

Bong called me up the next day to thank me for looking after him and to ask me about what happened the night before, poor boy couldn't remember anything (hopefully the pictures will help him trigger off memories? not that he's in all that many of them anyway since he knocked out so early!) but anyway my dear friend, here's to many more years ahead, Happy Birthday! Xx

These are the days.

2009-08-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

On Monday, we woke up and met for lunch at Demspey. Tried the korean BBQ for the second time but it simply can't hold a candle to ASSA. It was thrice the price as well. Drove home and took a long leisurely afternoon nap. Woke up around 6 and hit Chili's for the second time in a week. As usual we ate up a storm- burgers, fajitas, garlic prawns, onion strings, chili soup and buffalo wings! Down to Orchard to do a bit of shopping and to put together a care package for the best friend. Rushed down to the airport to send Andrew off for his exchange, we just barely made it in time. And then all of us drove down to Simpang to have Spize for supper. The boy & I dropped Marc home and then we came home. Ended up literally rolling on the floor with laughter and gasping for breath whilst we watched some hilarious videos. Brought the telescope out onto the balcony and we watched the moon up close- the texture and the contours, beautiful. Pity there were no stars out. An episode of top gear (inducing yet more laughter) and then it was back to bed. A day spent just sleeping, eating and laughing. Perfection.

Yesterday, we had lunch at Sakuraya- I haven't been there since Christmas 07 and boy, I sure missed the food. We were so hungry we ordered more than we could handle: Ohtoro, Sake Belly, Aji, Akagai, Tako, Natto, Ume Shisho, Una Don, Karage and yet more! Insanity but we did quite well, only two slices left behind. Bought some snacks and then drove down to Vivo for some shopping and errand running and then rushed down to Ang Mo Kio for dinner with D's family. Uncle Leong crab noodles- my favourite! And we bough durians too! Headed to his house to do some packing and stuff before heading back home. Grandma cooked us soup so we sat on the porch talking to her & drinking the tonic. Headed out again to the 24hr Cold Storage at HV to do groceries. We trial baked chocolate fondant for the brunch surprise we have planned for Mum.

This morning we woke up at 8 to make pancake stackers & chocolate cake. Served mummy breakfast in bed. Took our time to get showered and changed before we drove down to SGH to pick up my maid from the hospital. Our car broke down on the AYE but it was all quite funny. Within half an hour, we were on the go again. Lunch at Fish&Co was sorely disappointing. But our massage & facial at the spa was really good (I fell asleep) and we renewed both packages even though we still had 11+ credits left. So now we have 40+ credits again. Left the spa around 6+ and did a bit of shopping before driving to Newton which was a disappointing meal as well :( Home and gave mummy the present we bought her for fun :) It was a day of Mummy pampering, from surprises to excitement then relaxation and indulgence :)

Now I'm going through the usual mad rush to pack our luggage (I don't know why I always wait till the very last minute) and then we have to be at the airport by 4 am, so I'm going to sign off now and I'll be back next week with pictures (but I'll still be on twitter as usual)! Have a good National Day Weekend everyone :)

You Shine So Bright It's Insane, Hot Damn You Put The Sun To Shame

2009-08-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, the boy and I decided to spend some quality time with each other and we decided on: Sentosa. I know, so Singaporean right? I can't believe an entire week has passed me by in the blink of an eye again.

Checked into Amara Sanctuary (was rather dissatisfied with the service)

Had a snack at Crawford Lane (Bak Chor Mee) and then headed down to Rendezvous Hotel for Daren's Aunty's Birthday dinner.

After dinner we went to chill out at Orgo.

the boys.

Orgo serves the most amazing blended fruit beers .. we tried mango and passion fruit, both were yums.

We had my favourite mee sua bak chor mee for supper at boat quay before heading back to the Amara.

Lightsticks.

Outlining Daren's body with lightsticks.

♥ ♥ ♥ the boy & the mum

♥ ♥ ♥ the bestie & the godbrother

Bubble-licious

Don't ever ever eat here, the food is horrible & expensive.

SKYRIDE

Pretty view!

LUGE

the souvenir photo :)

♥

And then he taught me how to cycle and it was actually easy enough and super duper fun. I still can't do turns though, but no fear I will try again soon :)

All i need will be mine if you are here, your love puts me at the top of the world.

2009-07-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

"You looked so sad when I was leaving so I drove straight home to pick up my lenses, drove back as fast as I could, picked up your favourite supper, and came back here to surprise you. I feel like I haven't lived up to my duties as a good boyfriend the past few days, being sick and all, so I just wanted to make you smile."

I have the sweetest, most amazing, best damn boyfriend on earth.
And I can't think of anything better than falling asleep to the sound of your breathing and waking up next to you in the morning.

I say: If you can't fight it, eat it.

2009-07-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

Despite all the amazing things I have heard about Bangkok from anyone and everyone, I had never been there before this trip. I seemed to be the only person who hadn't been there amidst a sea of Bangkok-loving Singaporeans who seem to frequent the city multiple times a year. After all the amazing things I've heard from everyone and anyone, I held this trip in high anticipation. I really have to thank the (lovely, gracious and generous) Tan family for bringing me on this trip and of course my darling boy for allowing me to experience the city through his eyes.

This trip saw me: eating 5 meals a day and up, having some of the best food I've ever had, experiencing unbeatable Spicyness everywhere, bringing the 1 Singapore dollar so much further to 23.6010541 Thai baht, Chatuchak & Cheap Clothes, massages every day, dirt cheap 5 sgd +- taxi fares!!!!! The city that never sleeps, heat waves and fearing for my life every time we cross the road. Opening my eyes to the poverty, hunger and less fortunate in the world. The city that operates by day and by night. The city that never seems to sleep.

Right after we landed and checked in, we went down to the tailor to choose cloths and make orders for custom made goodness. And then we took a cab down to Chinatown for some amazing seafood! Assam fish cooked with kang kong, big head prawns, clams, chilli crab, tom yum goong, crabmeat fried rice and lots more. Even the freshly squeezed orange juice (mandarin oranges i think!) was so yummy!

Walked around chinatown stopping at random food stands to eat more (kuey chap, durians, hor fun) before heading down to the Patpong Night Market at Sala Daeng. The tiny lanes and sidewalks are crammed with stalls selling everything from souvenirs to counterfeit products, electronics to athletic goods, clothes and bags.. pretty much everything you can think of. The fragant aroma of food changes with every few steps you walk and even past midnight it is unsurprising to see the streets crowded with tourists, motorcycles and taxis and the traditional massage parlors still open for business. Aside from this, Patpong is infamous for being the Red Light District that launched Bangkok's reputation as the sex trade capital of the world, or at least of Asia. It is impossible to walk from one end to the other without hearing the words "ping pong" more than 20 times whilst a wilted brochure is persuasively shoved towards you. Bikini clad girls (and some aunties) stand at the doorway of clubs with neon lit signs like "Pussy collection".

Aunty was quite funny, she said "better hold on to our boys, later they get grabbed away before we even realize." Daren also offered to buy me lots of "tiffany's" but I politely declined :) Had supper and a massage before heading back to sleep.

The following day, we had breakfast at our hotel and then a second breakfast in a super run down street stall in a tiny lane near our hotel. It was the most amazing porridge I have ever tasted.

Took the skytrain down to Chit Lum to visit a supposedly famous temple, pity I forgot the name.

Temple dancers & prayers.

And then we took a cab down to visit the Wat Pho which featured a 50m long reclining Buddha in Gold. You can't tell by the pictures, but it was seriously larger than life. I was totally and completely caught off guard and surprised even though I had already been told how big it was.

Use us as a scale for how big the reclining buddha actually was! And then multiply that by like 5 or 10! The sole of the feet were quite interesting, it had different symbols representing different parts.

Daren wrote a dedication to me on a tile which will be used to built the roof of the next shrine in the temple, pretty cool.

I really like this shot.

Cabbed down to Siam for lunch at Fiji, a Japanese chain restaurant (I guess much like Sushi Tei but with better food variety I think) and then we went to explore Siam Paragon.

Visited Siam Ocean World, which is supposedly the biggest indoor aquarium in the world. We bought a package which included a background tour showing us "behind the scenes" of everything that goes on in Siam Ocean World.

Quite hilarious, they had an area for "problem/ill" creatures and this tank was housing overweight alligator fish! "I'm overweight! The doctor has put me on a diet" HAHAHAH they hardly look overweight though, no?

Huge crab! Bigger than the boys' face :) Oh I could think of all the japanese delicacies I could savour from this kani, slurps! ;)

Adorable hermit crab, the cutest aquarium tank decoration, and some colorful coral fish (that appears to me kind of similar to a globe?)

There's something therapeutic about just watching fishes go by. And yes, that's my bad (not to mention unglam) attempt of trying to emulate the penguins.

The water rats were actually really cute. Can't say the same for that ugly fish which looks like the CNY jelly minus the colouring, don't you think?

Goldfish in the microwave?

We also bought the package that included the fish spa because noobs that we are we've never tried it before.

And also the glass bottom boat ride, which wasn't all that interesting truth be told.

Siam Ocean World :)

Shopped & Walked around Siam Paragon for a bit before cabbing back to the hotel for a shower, and then heading out to Som Boon for seafood dinner. Had this interesting dish where the prawns are served raw, marinated in fish sauce. Massage afterwards :) And supper 1 at the roadside beef noodle stand, supper 2 at the Tze Char place near our hotel.

The next day we woke up and went back to the same amazing porridge and it was as amazing if not more so than it was the day before :) The egg yolk seamlessly melting into the soft porridge, the awesomest pork balls and intestines..... ahhhh, i'm craving it now. Don't be deceived by my lousy photography skills which do no justice to the porridge.

And then we set off to Chatuchak. I love how colorful the cabs are (and I especially love the pink cab) lined up so prettily like that.

We had lunch at Chatuchak and then left our belongings with the adults at the cafe/bar whilst we kids braved the heatwave, the crowd and the bargaining. Look at that pot of lard, it's instant cholesterol attack.

Chatuchak was alright. I guess I had such high expectations of it that it wasn't as fantastic as I imagined it to be, but all the same I managed to get some t shirts I really like for myself as well as souvenirs for my maids. I think the heatwave got in the way of us properly conquering the place, and we left after spending a few hours lost amidst the gigantic market.

Cabbed back to the hotel for much needed showers and rest, and then the baby brought me to Central World to have a bite (ramen, best damn kfc zaab wings ever, dairy queen) and a bit of shopping but I only managed to cover one shop because of how gigantic the mall was.

Took the sky train down to MaBuKong to meet his family for dinner. We had shabu shabu... but interestingly the concept was much like a sushi train... ingredients like beef, noodles, clams, prawns and such would go by on the food train and you could eat grab them off there and cook them in your own pot. Buffet. Interesting concept and I guess quite an experience but not something I would probably do again. I ate so. so. so. so. much though.

After dinner we started exploring the nightmarkets in the area, and I bought my adorable boyfriend a cute hat for 100 baht only!

The temple next to LV. The boys told me that this LV was completely fake. The conversation went something like: "did you know that in bkk, they have fake lv boutiques? like this one? everything inside is fake!!" To which I replied: "no way!!! isn't that illegal? doesn't the police do anything? they even have a proper store? and display windows? no way!", only to be conned: "yes! can't you tell all the good look SO fake? no one comes to catch them so its okay! Only in Bkk! I'm not sure about Burberry/Dior but this LV stall is confirm fake" ..... It wasn't till we were in the cab much later that I found out how retarded I am :/

Again we had a massage before heading back to our hotel for supper and sleep :) My massage therapist this time was so so good and we all agreed that it was the best massage place we tried in Bkk.

On the last day, we went down to Chinatown again.

Chinatown by day is vastly different than by night. We also had the best wanton min I have ever ever tasted, although to be fair I don't usually eat wanton min. But that's because I don't really fancy it, which just goes to prove how good this one was.

Rice cakes in pretty colours, Fish Maw FTW.

Would you buy from a stall that had stray cats just all over its products? I think not if Singaporeans live up to their KiaSee name, haha.

And then, we had THE MOST AMAZING KUEY CHAP EVER. SERIOUSLY, BURSTING WITH FLAVOR. SO AMAZING. The belly pork in the soup was STILL crispy, how?!

Went to the snack shop to buy Bak Kwa, Durian chips and so on but even that Aunty insisted on buying for me (and I bought like more than 15 packets of stuff), I felt so bad :/ but so lucky and loved :) Speaking of loved, I thought it was very sweet how Aunty will always peel fish for me at every meal and hold my hand or help me when we cross the road, so cute :) And Uncle also very cute, he eats as much as me :)

And then we went back to the massage parlor from the previous evening for our final massage of the trip before packing up at the hotel, checking out, having our last Thai meal and boarding our plane back home.

In many ways, my expectations of the city were fulfilled: Yes, the food was thaaaat amazing and yes, the shopping was pretty cheap, and unfortunately yes, the heat wave was as awful as everyone warned me it would be. But when people told me about their trips to Bangkok, they never mentioned the poverty and the lives of the people there; and unprepared I was for the sinking sadness and helplessness I was thus overwhelmed by. We encountered plenty of less fortunate people- some without limbs, some completely scarred, some carrying newborns- all very heartbreaking. But what tore me apart the most was when one day, we saw a child begging alone by the roadside. She was the first child I saw begging in Thailand. Following that, every 100m, we would see another child, alone, begging. It was alarming. And most probably, these children have been kidnapped and are being used by some gang or leader of sorts. I wanted to give them money, but was faced with the moral dilemma: I'm not actually giving the children the money, the money all ends up in the hands of the evil guy. Yet, not giving the children money just seems too cruel. They did not choose the fate they were dealt. Imagine living a life like that everyday, how do you find the courage to live through every day knowing you have to face the same tomorrow? Even the market stall sales people, the need for survival is evident even in those with jobs: the speed at which they move, the conviction in which they speak, the passion in which they push forward their goods. I think the saddest part about all the poverty and corruption and abuse is that it had been the same for the past 50 years, and it will probably be the same for the next 50 years. The knowledge that things will continue to be as bad, and that no matter how much we (or they for that matter) wish for a change, for a better tomorrow... for the bulk of them, their fate has been dealt and that's just the way that it is. I truly wished at that point, that I could pick the children up and just bring them home.

To sum up, I guess the way I see it, Bangkok is a colorful contradiction: A bustling, lively city that people all over the world escape to in search of relaxation and tranquility; modern megamalls fighting for the attention of shoppers alongside some of the world's most famous night and day markets; uber trendy clubs and fancy restaurants propelling the city into the culinary future yet everywhere you seem to see tourists and locals alike rushing for tables at every worn down food stall on every other lane; vast poverty gap, age old temples and monuments hidden amidst the ever expanding concrete jungle fast forming the city skyline. Amazing Bangkok.

Own Time Own Target

2009-07-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

I've just snuck out of bed and into the living room.

Now before you start wondering why I'm behaving like a 16 year old, let me explain. Every night, at bedtime, we draw the curtains. Daren settles into bed and I switch off all the lights in the room except for the coffer light in my wadrobe and dresser area. I then head back to bed and give him a goodnight kiss. He'll look up to me with big adorable eyes and ask "what are you going to do now then, baby?" and looking at him like that, I'll answer "accompany you to sleep, of course" and then he'll say "how come you're leaving the lights on, then?"

Resignedly, I walk over to the panel of switches and flick off the coffer lights before diving under the covers where we chat and laugh for a few minutes before he falls asleep. Sometimes, it takes me five minutes to settle down into slumber. Other times, like tonight, try as I might, I cannot fall asleep.

To emphasize the point I'm trying to make, tonight is a good example.

We had pre booked tickets for the play "Own Time Own Target" and were meant to collect it by 7 at the Arts Centre Theatre. At 740, the boys dropped Ale & I in front of the NLB so that we could collect the tickets whilst they parked the car. Ale asked what we did today so I told her that we didn't do much, lazed around, went to the garden to buy some flowers/soil for the garden and then showered and had dinner before heading out to meet them- "all very mundane" I said. She exclaimed that it was kind of cute and sweet, actually.

And I guess it's both, really. Somewhere along the lines, we've fallen into a cycle whereby our every days consist of just the day to day living, throw in a movie here, a play there, dinner with friends once in awhile or a glass of wine. Other than that we're mostly just at work (him), running errands (me), watching telly together or having dinner with either set of parents. Even when we do go out, we're usually home by midnight, eat da-bao supper, showered and tucked into bed by 1 or latest 2am.

Gone are the days where we clubbed every night till 5am, supper/breakfast at 6am, sleep at 7am and woke up at 4pm for lunch, only to repeat the cycle again night after night. Even if we wanted to do it now, I doubt that we could. By midnight we'd be craving the television or snuggling comfortably in bed. Case in point, Bong actually fell asleep in the last five ten minutes of the play tonight. Could it really be that only a year ago, our lives was so completely......... different?

And just for the record, let me clarify: Even though personally, I'm a bit of an insomniac (think: completely messed up body clock) I don't actually mind having to give up my hour before bed with my chick lit or randomly chatting with friends on MSN. No, giving up all that to spend the extra time and have the comfort of falling asleep with my precious boy is perfectly a-ok with me. So much so that when he's not around: I begin to feel like the room is all too quiet, he bed is all too big and the absence all too unsettling. Yes, I have to admit I've grown quite fond of the easy, predictable, comfortable routine we've fallen into, actually. I think I'm permanently down with the Love bug and completely loving it ♥

Having said all that, it's not that we don't have any fun any more. Fun is what you choose to make of it. Life is what you choose to make of it. This weekend, we've decided to spend it doing something out of the ordinary and we're pretty excited :) Just out of curiosity, is anybody else at the same point of life as we are? Or are we the only ones growing too old too quick? I guess the title of the play, "Own Time Own Target" though unrelated, is an apt title for the theme of this entry.

P.S- Can't believe I still haven't got round to writing up my Bangkok entry. I hope I won't have forgotten everything I wanted to say about it by the time I get around to doing it. Promise myself I'll try to do it come Monday. Seems like even though we don't do very much, time passes by so quickly. In retrospect, I don't even know where my minutes and hours that add up to days and weeks have all flown to. I guess as long as I'm happy and having fun, it doesn't really matter.

Life

2009-07-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Bangkok, I have so much to say, so much I want to remember about the trip but my thoughts are all over the place now, so in the mean time some random things about the past 2 days:

20th July 2009

Emma Watson is much too pretty and Mischa Barton is so skinny. I need/want to start losing weight but my love for all things spicy, cripsy and carbo-packed is so great. How :(
D says it's okay because he loves me most anyway :) And that I'm not fat anyway.
Funny moment in Mum's room when I stopped reading and starting "aspiring" on how to translate the smell, style, colour, shape, texture etc of my nickname into a human form. D laughed so so so hard that I had to admit it was quite silly. Mostly I liked the reminder that even after so long, we can still make each other shake with laughter. In my eyes, he is the funniest person alive. Sometimes I repeat his jokes to our friends like Bong or Jia and they always tell me to just slap him (bong) or stare blankly (jia) and then claim that only I think he's funny :/
D brought home my favourite Koi bubble tea, and then we watched 2 episodes of a new K drama with Mummy before dinner.
Went out to the porch to wait for my aunt to drop something and D came out to wait with me, made me "deathly promise" I will not eat less to try to lose weight. (I seriously seriously eat alot, I can have up to 6 ot 7 full meals a day, I kid you not.) Anyway apparently, a deathly promise means that if I break my promise, he will die HAHA, so cute.
I love how he has a way with me. Mummy has been bugging me to collate some photos that I have spent the past four months procrastinating about but today the boy made me the cutest deal so before the weekend comes, I'll be collating those photos :)
Mummy, D & I watched the Michael Jackson Live in Bucharest "The Dangerous Tour" DVD and it was amazing. He is seriously a legend, the king of pop, the man who lived & breathed entertainment. Next we're gonna try to get the only other released DVD (Korean/Japanese tour I think?) so far.
I am a hyper active introvert. It sounds a bit strange but this means that I'm really quiet around most people, or awkward at least. Unless you're really close to me - then I seriously don't shut up and am retarded and fidgetive and hyer active and loud all the time. Mummy was saying how I'm always like this even without sugar (I hate sweet stuff, and this inclues almost everything: from chocolate to coke), so I said that maybe I should start drinking sodas or eating sugar sticks and the boy quickly said "NO NO NO, I'm old already, don't start on sugar, I really cannot handle you". He's not even 22, so actually, I'm older than him :)
We played Human Golf. SO. FUN.
Back to our room for showers. And even though I loved our BKK get away, I'm also really glad our lives are back to our comfortable daily routines :)

21st July 2009

Was sleeping when the boy kissed me before he left for work as usual.
Met Lionel & interestingly Steve at Crystal Jade by coincidence.
Running errands alone in town.
Most painful female beauty procedure I have endured yet, am convinced the beautician was under qualified, or at least completely unprofessional :/
Parent's had hilarious friends over rocking out in the music room.
Had another 2 hour+ long conversation with Bong consisting of everything from serious stuff to gossip to plan making and jokes.
The boy had water polo training tonight, is now playing a bit of pool and will be buying home some good stuff (chesse prata and what not) from Azhar for me :)

I'll blog proper when I've got my thoughts all sorted out. In the mean time, let me follow a journal I've seen that shamelessly blatantly pimps her twitter (quite funny). I'm almost always on @kimmywong as well as occasionally on tumblr for my random thoughts on life, love & inspiration.

Nice Cote D'Azur ♥ The French Riviera

2009-07-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

Jialing, Karmeng & I took a trip to the French Riviera and found paradise. The trip really neutralized my view on France because prior to this, I'm sad to say that I'm not a fan of the supposedly most romantic city in the world. But the French Riviera is truly a beautiful paradise, kind of like a European Hawaii.

I am a worry wart, and as such was worried that the "Sea View Superior" would not be as perfect as described on the website- I am obsessive, whenever I go somewhere new, I must read every single entry (I kid you not) on Trip Advisor. But when we arrived at the Le Meridien in Nice, I was pleasantly surprised (and relieved) to find the most amazing view from the balcony of our room :)

Us on our private balcony facing the famous Promenade des Anglais with overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.... all the weariness from the trip/airflight melted away with the beauty in front of our eyes.

We set off to explore Nice

Beach Clubs on the Promenade des Anglais

Heading down to the Old Town... I love the best friend's bright red outfit :)

Three course lunch at a Seafood Restaurant in the Old Town

Mussels & Tiramisu

Ultimate Tourist Photos: Jia applying Sunblock & Kar Meng carrying a Gigantic Camera... Us posing in the Middle of the Old Town

European style- long, narrow streets

Set off exploring the Old Town

"Fucking Machine" HAHAH

The start of our brave hike up Castle Hill

Fifteen minutes in, we were perspiring like dogs and tired as hell but little did we know, we were still a long way from the top :(

Stopping to admire the view (any excuse to camwhore, really)

Along the way

Sat down for a rest because we were so tired and everytime we climbed a set of steps we thought that would be it, but for a long time it was always not :(

And then we FINALLY reached the peak, where the water fall was!

It felt like it was drizzling on us, but after that tiring sticky hike, it was quite nice to cool down.

We began the descend and at this point we asked Karmy if he regretted coming with two girls (massive whining & camwhoring & all) and he mumbled something about thinking more people were gonna come, and we burst out laughing and exclaiming that his jumbled reply was an indication that he did regret :)

Half way down we found the "Perfect Picnic Spot" that Jia read about in one of the guidebooks, so we stopped for a break & ice cream. I texted Daren to tell ask if he was proud of me for hiking all the way to the top without complaining and his reply was "Jia carried you all the way up right?" :/

Postcard perfect!! Click here for a virtual view of where I took these pictures from. A poetry reading was going on there, so quaint and old school and perfect.

We hit the beach for awhile

The bestie & I

And then back to our room, where we found afternoon tea prepared for us:

Washed up before heading out again.

Our awesome hotel.

Nice by night.

All lit up

We had dinner at The Old Town again, which was way more crowded at night, and then found this gelato place with more than 70 flavours including Bubble Gum, Coke, Thyme, Tomato, Basil and so on! Queer, and very cool.

And then back in our room, before calling it a night :)

Many more photos from the trip, but I have to be up by 7.30am so I'll upload them when I'm back from Thailand :)

Today was quite simply, perfect.

I woke up when Daren came over from work to pick me up for lunch. We ate at our secret date place, which we absolutely adore- completely unpretentious atmosphere, possibly the best pasta ever, and so cheap it's almost unbelievable. Intelligent conversation during main course, and sillyness (paw holding) through out dessert. Drove back to mine and he worked from home while I sat next to him and drew hearts on his skin. He headed back to work for an hour or so, and I went to run an errand. When he reached home and couldn't find me, the adorable boy rang me up and started whining and insisting that I tell him where I am (which I refused, cos the errand was ordering a surprise for him) and asking how long more till I come home etc etc etc. So juvenilely adorable. He wanted to pick me up, but I was already in a taxi on my way home- just for the record, wanting to rush home to him made the journey seem unbearably long. Came home and we lazed in bed for an hour before hitting the shower. Down to the back patio where we started pumping our inflatable pool floats (he did the work, i talked alot, as usual) and then he & mummy prepared my favourite home made dumplings for dinner, aww. Carole King's voice drifting lazily into our evening (piped in music), he twirled me around and in that moment it felt like all in the world was right. Drove the S convertible out for a spin after dinner and played with the night vision driving mode, way cool. And then home again where we hung out with Mummy doing some online shopping and having cake for supper. Back to our room, another shower, a bit of television and of course, our nightly conversations about everything & nothing. I started packing my luggage; he lay in bed waiting for me until he fell asleep. I just switched off the lights in the main bedroom, and am sitting in my dresser now.

Tomorrow, I wake up at 7.30 to shower & bathe. And then I wake him up at 8.15. We drop my maid in town, before heading to his place for him to pack. And then it's off to meet his parents.

You know you're head over heels when even the simplicity of daily life has a way of being quite simply, perfect. ♥ ♥ ♥

From Infatuation to Complete Adulation

2009-07-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

Last night after we had dinner at home, the boy & I went to catch Duplicity. Driving home, we started talking and I remembered the first movie date we ever went on.

I was sitting at Starbucks with Jyne & Keith when he texted to ask if I wanted to watch Rush Hour with him.

Rush Hour? Action?! Violence?! Jacky Chan?! Really???? Does it sound like anything I would remotely choose? Me? Chick-flick-Americanized-slapstick-Romantic-Comedy loving me??? Rush Hour? Really?!?!

Needless to say, I did what any sensible girl would. I texted him back immediately and agreed :) And if memory doesn't fail me, I might have even added that I've been wanting to watch it for some time, you know just to make it more realistic!

He knows better now, of course. So last night, I figured I could tell him what I was thinking then but couldn't say at risk of sounding like a desperate pyscho :)

That he could have been asking me to watch Rush Hour, or he could have been asking me to sit by the roadside and watch his toe nails grow. Either way, the answer would have been the same : Yes, yes and yes. ♥

L A ♔ B E L L A ♔ V I T A

KIMBERLYKRISTEN.WORDPRESS.COM

IMO BT SUCKS.

When we're apart, I find it very hard to Smile

HAPPY SAINT PATRICKS DAY

BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BE(ER) HOLDER

Cambodia: Phnom Penh, Summer 2009.

Could The Makers Of The Stars Hear The Sound Of Their Breaking Hearts?

恭 喜 发 财，新 年 快 乐，万 事 如 意

And when I see you laugh at my clumsy ways, it just makes me want to spend the rest of my life with you so I can see a smile on your face!!!!

Forgive Me Fashion, For I Have Sinned

KINGS x QUEENS

L A ♔ B E L L A ♔ V I T A

Dream A Little Dream

If It's Not Raining In Dublin, It's Going To.

TOP GEAR LIVE IN DUBLIN '09

Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Snow, and mistletoe, and presents under the Tree

Bold all the things you’ve done in 2009

M-I-A?

HOME IN 14 HOURS AND I CANNOT WAIT.

The Boy Is HERE

Forget The Nightlife, You're My Favourite Thing About This City.

From Ten Thousand Lightning Bugs As They Tried To Teach Me How To Dance

I GET TEN THOUSAND HUGS

YOU GIVE ME FEVER

You may say I'm a Dreamer But I'm not the Only One

CROP CIRCLES IN THE CARPET

DREAMING OF REVELRY

こんにちわ TOKYO SUMMER 09

SAIL INTO THE SUNRISE

LETS SPEND T♚NIGHT ON T♚P OF THE W♚RLD

M☀NAC☀ SUMMER 2☀☀9

DREAMY EYES & STARLET SKIES ♥ c a n n e s : s u m m e r 0 9

YOU AND I WERE MADE TO GET LOVE RIGHT

Lay Back In The Arms Of Someone

"You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

YOU'RE BARELY WAKING & I'M TANGLED UP IN YOU

I find it hard to hold a conversation, when words are not enough.

厨房 THE KITCHEN CHRONICLES

And Another One Bites The Dust

These are the days.

You Shine So Bright It's Insane, Hot Damn You Put The Sun To Shame

All i need will be mine if you are here, your love puts me at the top of the world.

I say: If you can't fight it, eat it.

Own Time Own Target

Life

Nice Cote D'Azur ♥ The French Riviera

From Infatuation to Complete Adulation

恭喜发财，新年快乐，万事如意