my past few days

after i came back from London, i have 4days of leave.. i told myself that i shall try to make full use of this time to spend some quality time with my family, boyfriend and 2 best friends which i never seem to have enough time for..

once i touchdown i met mingwei and spent a wonderful saturday and sunday with him.. slacking around, eating at siglap, and doing random things like examining the craters of the moon with his telescope..

on tuesday i met up with jingwen at Tea Party.. it's really nice to have the owner recognise me after so long (i used to study there real often back in school).. once i walked in, he just smiled and said 'your friend's upstairs'.. feels homey!

as jingwen studied for her bar exams, i finished 3 National Geographics and 1 August Man magazine.. in between i would just share interesting facts and pictures from what i was reading or pop random questions that came to mind..

and no, i don't think that counts as distracting her.. i'm trying to relieve my boredom make her mundane revision more interesting! =D

an example~

me: eh, i've 2 weeks off in nov 2010.. fancy taking leave to travel?
jw: *looks up from laptop* 2 weeks is too short for a holiday!
me: please la, 2 weeks was enough for me to travel london and barcelona earlier this year!
jw: but.. i can't go to places like.. like antarctica!
me: fine, that takes a month probably.. (because it can only be reached by ship from NZ) but most other places it's alright..
jw: and south pole too!
me: erm, u do know that south pole is AT antarctica right??
jw: antarctica is at south pole?! what about north pole??
me: alamak, north pole has no land at all..!
jw: *shocked silence*look of disbelief* really???


and for the 4hours that i spent at Tea Party, i had a mushroom soup, prawn aglio, fried chicken and 2 cups of tea.. she brings out the glutton in me!

SIGH..

anyway, tuesday was kwan zheng's 22nd too but i only met him up on wednesday! it was only then that i realised i haven't gotten my present from him too! lol, so we had a gift exchange at his place..

happily tearing open the wrappers

posing with my very own 'Grammy' in a dress!

him with the cookbook i bought from London

after oohing and ahhing over our respective gifts, we headed to Baa Bar for dinner.. sadly, food standard has really plunged.. unsatisfied, we went in search for yummy desserts.. i suggested Island Creamery but kwan zheng said there's this place even better!

i was secretly thinking 'really meh??' but went along anyway.. and boy, was i proven wrong! it totally totally hit the spot..!!!!

'Taste matters'
finishing off delicious lemon tarts at this cosy well-hidden dessert shop in Cluny Court

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in between i still managed to squeeze in a movie with haresh, supper with kelvin, lugging my cargo bag AND cabin bag downtown for repair.. quite a pretty fruitful leave so far if i might say so myself.. =]

comfortable in my skin

"... when i'm with you, i feel that i can do anything i want. i never need to worry about what impression i'm giving.

for instance, am i coming off as witty? am i being poised? is behaving this way uncool?

i can stuff my face with food as and when i feel like it and i can burp freely without a shred self-consciousness...!"

the above was what i told mingwei two days ago when we were in a cab. I was just thinking back on how fun that day was when it struck me that being with him has made me very comfortable in my own skin.

i'm not as overly concern, as in the past, about my looks or how people see me.. yes, i do whine when it's a bad hairday or when others are judgemental towards me.. but on a whole i get through it unfazed..

if i don't feel like dressing up or putting on make-up today, i shan't.. if i'm too tired to party, i'll just give a flat 'no' instead of giving in and going along when i'm dead tired.. if i feel i've drank enough, i shall stop with the alcohol, even if what i've drunk is a very small amount as compared to what others around had..

fyi: i think people who purposely drink non-stop till they are senseless (and think it's cool) are immature, irresponsible and dumb

i don't worry about being called 'not happening', 'boring', 'party pooper' or 'goody two shoes'..

"you think me look like i care your thoughts?"

• i meow to every cat i pass by,
• i don't watch TV at all
  
• i prefer wine over hard liquors and beers (even in clubs despite others sniggering),
• i like to hang out in a cafe by myself and waste the afternoon away with a good book,
• my favourite magazine is National Geographic,
• i would never part with anything more than a couple of hundreds on clothes/shoes/bags but i didn't hesitate to splurge on a DSLR costing me a couple of hundreds short of 2k,
• my idea of a wonderful offday spent when not flying is binging at a hawker centre in flip flops, FBT shorts and tshirt
• i think it's really uncouth and unbecoming to use swear words in any languages, hokkien, english, chinese etc (although i'm guilty of uttering them occasionally)
• the most high-tech function my handphone has is 3G and that's that,
• i don't take plastic bags, if i can help it, when making purchases because i'm a tree hugger,
  

the idiosyncrasies just goes on..

"nyah nyah! meow!"

Singaporean fooooood!!!

Being away in Rome for 5 days really had me craving for local hawker food.. especially with Italy being a country that serves only its on fare in restaurants.. they don't even have the normal breakfast in MacDonald's!!! they serve crossiants instead.. *shudders*

i wouldn't have that problem in australia or states for instance.. i can easily find Asian food anywhere there..

in defence, i'm not the only who feels that way for that flight! the crew had similar sentiments too..

we were fantasizing about char kway teow, BBQ stingray, ba chor mee and hot soupy dishes.. i mean i totally LOVE the pasta, pizza and gelato in Italy (they are mind-blowing!) but it's still nice to have a piping hot Asian dish at the end of a cold wintry day..

G-E-L-A-T-Oooooo.. <3

somehow the Italian food always get cold really fast.. i doubt it's the weather? because i never have that problem when i eat Korean food (considered as Asian dish also la) during Seoul's winter..

so the crew made plans to have supper on touch down day! headed down to the best BBQ stingray in town at Changi Village and ordered the biggest portion, together with char kway teow, ice teh tarik and jia jia liang teh!

the next morning i bought the black carrot cake, nonya rice dumplings and the colourful 9 layers kuey..

what shall i have for lunch later?

hmm, haven't decide.. yum yum.. I love Singapore!!

Out-dated post

my blogging has been kind of sporadic lately.. not that i do not have time but sometimes i just do not have the urge to do so..

different flights every week, meeting new people everyday.. so many novel things are constantly popping up all the time.. sometimes i feel so overwhelmed i don't know what to blog about anymore..

i really wish i can pen everything down but that would mean being fixed to my laptop 24/7..

however if i were to just write a one-liner to summarise it, it doesn't seem to do the "experience" justice either.. so more often than not, it never made it here..

but i shall try my best and attempt to summarise what i've been up to lately..

here goes..!

Sojourn Resort, Siam Reap

the Villa

Fish Spa!

it's so itchy when the fishes nibble

Angkor Wat at sunrise

people perched on the ruins around Angkor Wat

Mingwei wants to go THIS way

*jumps*

Angmoh dude having siesta at the temple

all smiley for Breakfast

THE "award-winning" photo.. lol

Ta Phrom, where Tomb Raider was filmed
(note the HUMONGOUS tree trunks! wicked!)

tromping around Ta Phrom's outskirts

gorgeous Bayon Temple (our favourite!)

the breath-taking ruins

Hurricane Ketsana said 'hi'.. %$#@&*

best french restaurant in Cambodia?

even the king dines here..
that's his signature on the menu.. awesome!!

we whacked our way through their menu
and the bill came up to quite a tidy sum.. opps! haha..

Osaka with Erica (right) and Irene (left)

taking the train down to Kaiyukan Aquarium

wah, big fish!

the whale shark in the Pacific Exhibit is magnificent!
largest fish in the world- full length 12m

came back for a quick bday trip with jingwen to Sentosa!

Sun-tanned the whole afternoon
but didn't get any darker.. crap..

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that's all for the moment!! part and parcel of my everyday life =] =] =]

back to the bottom of the food chain..

from today onwards, i'll officially be business class trained! although the 2 SNY flights have been relatively uneventful, i'm still a little intimidated by what will be in store for me in the coming months…

feeling unsure, making silly mistakes, getting tongue-tied, fumbling around looking for an item that refuses to be found...!

but i'm looking forward to the day when i'll be as comfortable in business class as i am in economy.. just hope that i can quickly get the period in between over and done with!

God, please bless me with sweet passengers and non-zappy crew! Amen.

Musings

are there days when you feel you are stuck in a roomful of people who just doesn't bring out the best in you?

i do.

i feel like my personality is suppressed.. i feel awkward, clumsy and totally uncool.. just like when how one would behave awkwardly around a crush.. but in this case, it has nothing to do with opposite sex jitters..

such individuals can be anyone from either sex, any age, race or background.. he/she is just some random guy or girl who totally sucks my sense of humour, wittiness and personality out of me (yes, yes.. whatever little i have u snide people!)..

when these "social vampires" appear, i just say the stupidest, most inane and unintelligent things.. i would somehow lose the ability to mingle and end up standing at the edge of the group sticking out like a sore thumb..

the confidence and self-esteem built over the years will dissolve, giving to way to this meek and boring snivelling girl that i myself don't recognize.. hell, if i'm the third party i wouldn't want to hang out with "myself" too..

maybe i'm too harsh on myself but that's how i feel..

if it gets bad enough, all the unhappy memories and insecurities that i harboured in my teenage years will ooze up if i allow myself to get carried away: the unrequisited wish to have a sense of belonging and to be accepted.. hating the fact that i must somehow be different because why else i couldn't clique with everyone..

i felt that way today.

it wasn't a really pleasant feeling.

i should just checked myself into a mental ward huh? hmm, i wonder whether my company covers that..

YOU hate me don't you?

i know someone up there hates me.. who? i don't know.. probably God..

the foul mood from saturday last till today.. hey, in fact i'm still damn pissed over it.. so that makes it a double whammy..

so what's the other thing that makes it double? let me enlighten you, dear readers..

i had one hell of a hairdressing experience.. it's like the most disastrous incident ever..

i thought it was bad that i had to go for a perm myself, spending hours alone on the stupid chair.. reached there since 3pm and waited till 4pm before my hairstylist was free.. it was only 6ish pm when she finally put on all the curling irons and connect it to the ceramic perm machine..

and my nightmare started..

the bloody machine broke down on me! fuck..

i was watching shows on the laptop and i felt something was amissed.. why isn't the irons heating up? when she then admitted that the machine was spoilt and panicked a little.. she offered to use hair dryer to do the heating up instead and i gave a flat "no".. hell, i'm paying good money for this and this is MY hair.. you don't try funny alternatives on it.. she then started making phone calls and stuff..

it was just so that may of her friends' shops were already closed as it is a sunday or do not have a similar machine.. thankfully a friend agreed to go back and open her shop for me to finish the perm.. unfortunately, she's out having dinner and we have to wait till she finishes then she'll give us a call, which came only 1 and a half hours later..

when we were waiting for the call, i thought it's better to settle the bill so i asked how much it is.. i totally flipped when she told me that i'll be charged the full price..

hello? because you only accept cash hence i always have to go withdraw cash to pay.. and now because your machine's spoilt, i've to go withdraw cash with all this ceramic shit hanging in my hair.. you still expect me to pay in full???

long story short, she gave me a discount and threw in a bottle of treatment cream for me.. and of course, i got sniggered at all the way from the shop to the atm and back.. did i mention that there's actually a queue at the ulu atm at circuit road in the middle of the night as well????

i rot at the shop for 1.5 hours listening to her prattling non-stop about how unfortunate it is for her that the machine broke down, how she should have checked and stuff.. i just grimaced and shut her out.. i was just so tired and my scalp felt sore from the heavy equipment pulling on my hair..

by the time we drove over her friend's place and i finish my hair, it's 10plus already.. to think, i stepped into her shop a grand 7hours earlier..

by the way, her mom and her wheelchair bound stepfather was with us throughout the whole affair and her mom drove me home after.. i can't be bothered to explain how her parents fit in..

the whole day have been so bizarre and it would have been hilarious if i wasn't the one going through it..

it's definitely ranked up there in my list of suckiest experiences..