Thursday, December 9, 2010
two steps back
back from genting/kl and back from things that i really don't want to have to go through again. whoever told you video games are bad for you lied. and thank goodness for my love of all things violence and gore because that at least means i'm not squeamish about blood. but make no mistake about it it was still terrifying not knowing what was going to happen, and lying in the dark too afraid to go to sleep and squinting to make out the slight rising and falling of the blankets with every breath. it's not something i'd wish on my worst enemy.
tune out the world ; 9:35 AM
anyway back. genting doesn't seem to hold the same magic it did back when we were kids. the whole place seems more dingy and run-down than ever before, and you seem to notice all the hairline cracks and spots that you never saw before. the mascots are just people in frumpy costumes, and the rides don't even look half as enticing as before. guess it's all part of getting old. and i swear i will not bemoan looking younger than i really am any longer, because apparently i look old enough now to get into the casino. i was half a step away from going up to the security guard and saying "are you SURE you don't want to check my id?"
):
music: keu yeoja; baek ji young
Labels: bad stuff, thoughts, trips
tune out the world ; 9:35 AM
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
i want you to stay away from my heart.
i'm back, but closing my eyes i can still see the streets and hear the sounds. and smell the fried chicken, haha. if there's one thing i miss most i think it's korean fried chicken. it's really different.
music: sick enough to die; mc mong ft. mellow
tune out the world ; 3:54 PM
i'm forever in two minds about everything, and never wholeheartedly committed to feeling something. happens for every single thing, which sometimes annoys me to no end. like coming back, i'm half happy and half regretful. okay, maybe more than just half regretful. more than once on the trip i seriously considered what it would feel like just giving everything up and staying there indefinitely, get a job that provides lodging as well and live my life day to day. but then sanity kicks in and i start thinking about all the impracticalities and how devastating it would be when i finally quit dreaming.
and then the half happy part of me thinks how nice it is to be home and safe and secure.
just once, i wonder how it'd feel like to be completely and fully happy. sounds very depressing but i'm not in any way feeling under the weather. it's actually something to work towards i think. anyway i've received so much on this trip i guess it's time to start giving back because like everyone knows only very special people are able to receive without giving.
thinking about school gives me this sick, sick feeling deep inside. ):
Labels: photos, thoughts, trips
tune out the world ; 3:54 PM
Monday, December 21, 2009
ciao bella.
haha i was stunned for a moment when the blogger homepage loaded and it was all in italian.
anyway, hello from italy guys! it's freezing here; the receptionist said it was -8 deg today but i don't think it was that cold. still cold enough that you don't feel your toes anymore if you stand still without moving for more than five minutes though. but it's been really cool so far! although we did have to walk a lot. but i guess it's pretty much worth all the walking because we've seen really beautiful sights so far, and pictures just don't do them justice. just today we went to pisa and did typical touristy things at the leaning tower. my younger sister tried to eat the tower and my older sister and my mum did the propping up the tower thing. but really the pictures don't show you the majesty of everything. you have to be here to see the sights in all their splendour.
but it's really tiring walking and walking and because it's so cold it just makes everything so much worse. my feet threaten to run away everytime i slip into my boots because they pinch my toes and are much too flat to provide much support at all. plus the romanticised notions of cobblestone streets? throw that all away because all it gives you is a very high probability of a sprained ankle.
and meals here are crazily expensive every single meal we've had so far exceeds sgd100. it's so bad that when we get a bill of 45 euros we immediately think "hey that's really cheap" even though that's more than sgd90 for 6 plates of pasta. but the pasta is really good! except the aglio olio. i've tried that twice here and both times they were served up dripping with oil and tasted of nothing. but the ravioli is good, and so is the tortellini. pizzas are pretty decent too but i miss the crazy overload of flavours back home with pizza hut pizzas especially the ones with cheese stuffed in the crust. here all you ever get are skinny pizzas which are nice and all but somehow lacking. i'm getting awfully tired of italian food though.
other than all that it's been really fun so far. (: cannot wait for venice and then paris and then london. but i'm going to have to find some place with internet for the 22nd/23rd/24th though, to do the awful GAPS thing. results on the 22nd too, but i don't really want to think about it.
okay, off to go do random stuff before sleeping so we can catch an early train for venice tomorrow. must find souvenirs!! haven't bought anything from rome or florence or pisa which is baaaaaaad.
anyway, happy belated birthday chin, if you ever read this!
rab don't steal sam away and sam i wanted to get you an apron/chef's hat but we walked away too fast for me to ask for prices haha! there was this really nice apron with types of pasta all over it. but then again we got you an apron for your birthday so maybe i'll just look for something else.
liyun sorry i didn't reply your sms but i'm not in singapore already anyway haha! maybe we can go out after i'm back on the 31st.
okay anyone i missed? i don't think so. alright bye!
music: wedding dress; taeyang
tune out the world ; 4:29 AM
anyway, hello from italy guys! it's freezing here; the receptionist said it was -8 deg today but i don't think it was that cold. still cold enough that you don't feel your toes anymore if you stand still without moving for more than five minutes though. but it's been really cool so far! although we did have to walk a lot. but i guess it's pretty much worth all the walking because we've seen really beautiful sights so far, and pictures just don't do them justice. just today we went to pisa and did typical touristy things at the leaning tower. my younger sister tried to eat the tower and my older sister and my mum did the propping up the tower thing. but really the pictures don't show you the majesty of everything. you have to be here to see the sights in all their splendour.
but it's really tiring walking and walking and because it's so cold it just makes everything so much worse. my feet threaten to run away everytime i slip into my boots because they pinch my toes and are much too flat to provide much support at all. plus the romanticised notions of cobblestone streets? throw that all away because all it gives you is a very high probability of a sprained ankle.
and meals here are crazily expensive every single meal we've had so far exceeds sgd100. it's so bad that when we get a bill of 45 euros we immediately think "hey that's really cheap" even though that's more than sgd90 for 6 plates of pasta. but the pasta is really good! except the aglio olio. i've tried that twice here and both times they were served up dripping with oil and tasted of nothing. but the ravioli is good, and so is the tortellini. pizzas are pretty decent too but i miss the crazy overload of flavours back home with pizza hut pizzas especially the ones with cheese stuffed in the crust. here all you ever get are skinny pizzas which are nice and all but somehow lacking. i'm getting awfully tired of italian food though.
other than all that it's been really fun so far. (: cannot wait for venice and then paris and then london. but i'm going to have to find some place with internet for the 22nd/23rd/24th though, to do the awful GAPS thing. results on the 22nd too, but i don't really want to think about it.
okay, off to go do random stuff before sleeping so we can catch an early train for venice tomorrow. must find souvenirs!! haven't bought anything from rome or florence or pisa which is baaaaaaad.
anyway, happy belated birthday chin, if you ever read this!
rab don't steal sam away and sam i wanted to get you an apron/chef's hat but we walked away too fast for me to ask for prices haha! there was this really nice apron with types of pasta all over it. but then again we got you an apron for your birthday so maybe i'll just look for something else.
liyun sorry i didn't reply your sms but i'm not in singapore already anyway haha! maybe we can go out after i'm back on the 31st.
okay anyone i missed? i don't think so. alright bye!
music: wedding dress; taeyang
tune out the world ; 4:29 AM
Saturday, December 27, 2008
i'm dreaming of a white christmas.
next year, my mum has promised to let us stay around in singapore for christmas, which we haven't done for the past 6 years at least. i kind of lost count after a while. not that i'm complaining, because spending christmas overseas with the family is very enjoyable as well.
and somehow i don't foresee any difference whether i'm in singapore or not for christmas, because i don't exactly celebrate it anyway. sure, we can all get caught up in the whole mess of present-giving and well-wishing, but i don't think i really understand how to spend christmas at all. it's not really a religious matter; that is, i don't think the reason i'm not very much infected with the whole christmas spirit is because i'm not christian. it's just... sometimes it feels a little hollow, this season of giving where everyone just seems so infused with happiness while i'm slipping along and distracting myself with the lights and sounds of christmas. i guess it feels like just some random other day to me.
at least the lights are pretty and the songs are catchy. ^^
anyway, i'm finally back from my taiwan trip. to be honest, it wasn't that fun a trip. it wasn't the company, because i absolutely enjoyed being around my family for the 8 days since we don't exactly get to stay around each other as much at home because everyone is busy with their own things. the food there is quite overrated really. i suppose the streetside snacks are good for a day or two, but then you get so tired of them after a while and frankly the ones in hongkong are way better. there wasn't too much to see either, nor were there many things to buy. and i'm so so sorry because i couldn't get much for souvenirs and i ended up buying mochi for the guys (because just about the only vaguely suitable things i could buy for you people were socks which no self-respecting guy would wear really; hence the mochi decision) and compact mirrors and socks (which would look gay on a guy but cute on a girl) for the girls. okay, that was a very long sentence, go back and read it again and make sure you understand it.
didn't take much pictures either, but i can finally cross one thing off my all time to-do list because i got to see a full sunset! we were at danshui for the day, and there was this pretty pier where we sat at and watched the sunset and took lots of pictures. my camera doesn't do the sunset justice; the colours were so much more intense, and the whole process so much more... i don't know, moving? alright that just sounds silly, but you get the point.
we also went to a hot spring, and a waterfall, and we got to see the changing of guards ceremony that frankly looks almost exactly like a fancy drill. but i guess the trip on the whole was fun. haha. the company counts for a lot. and we had a night flight back so there were all the stars up in the sky again. pity it wasn't a later flight like the one we took from korea back to singapore a few years back. the sky outside the plane looked like the pictures you see of our galaxy in outer space or something.
random pictures from the trip here. sigh, i wish blogger had a function like lj-cut too, so no one would have to scroll down through all the photos i want to look at but no one else wants to.
the sunset reflected in my mum's sunglasses. okay i was bored, and i was running out of angles from which to take the sunset from.
the actual sunset. i swear there was no editing done, and i still think the colours were prettier if you were there in person. in the picture it just looks all orange, but if you were there you'd have seen the faint blues, the pinks, the colour between pink and orange that i don't know the name of, and the slight reddish tinge of the clouds around, and the slowly deepening orange blot spreading out over everything...
mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, queen, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom. this is a bunch of natural rock formations caused by wind and rain erosion, and apparently the queen is due to get beheaded in the next 10 to 15 years because her neck cannot take much erosion anymore. if you follow the designated path and walk closer you can't see the shape anymore because the other side of her face looks like something freddy, jason, darth vader and the sharks from jaws had a go at.
you cannot imagine my delight when i chanced on this on the tv after flipping through about 3 dozen entertainment programs. i love ikkaku's bald head.
alright i'm a little lazy to upload the rest since blogger has such a strange method for uploading pictures unlike lj's perfectly fast and user-friendly one. sigh.
oh and on christmas eve, we went to the area around taipei 101 because we were told it would be all festive and all there, and i got accosted by these living statues haha. they were random street performers, and my mum made me go drop money in the guy's tin, after which he tried to make me shake hands with him. like i would, when he totally tricked the little kid before me into shaking hands with him only to do the old scratch-the-head trick. pffft. but they were really entertaining. and there was this mime artist, and a saxaphone player, and those portrait-drawing people. it was a very good, celebratory atmosphere, the likes of which you'd never feel in singapore.
AND, the most amusing part of the evening was this. i took photos and videos to remember it haha. see i was walking happily along when i saw this group of people holding big bunches of balloons.
and i really wanted one but they wouldn't give any to me, the selfish things! so i was sulking in a corner and growing mushrooms and then this happened.
if you haven't realised by now, or if you didn't watch the video, it was a marriage proposal. in the middle of a busy street. on christmas eve. it was a surprise, the girl thought she was on a shopping trip with friends. he sang her favourite song to her. if this isn't dripping with sweetness i don't know what is. haha but imagine if she had refused his proposal, ouch. she didn't anyhow, she was overjoyed and when she nodded and yelled down "wo yuan yi!" the whole street started cheering for the couple.
that's the girl in the centre. she didn't cry or anything though, surprisingly. oh and by the way, i didn't really go ask for a balloon haha.
anyway, come to think of it, this is the final week of 2008. i wonder how i survived the year, considering all the things that were thrown at me this year. and thinking of all the things i resolved to do at the start of the year, i wonder if i've actually even completed any of my things to do for the year. like how i wanted to be a better person, a better friend, a better daughter, a better sister -- i don't think i've done any of that. or how i wanted to be more assertive, and know what i want and work for it. or how i wanted to not have to regret whatever i wrote down for the exams, and not to have to worry constantly and dread the return of results. so many things i can't do anymore, not in the last 4 days of this year anyway. i did finally do something rather drastic to my hair, but i shall leave that to when i next see people. haha it's always been on my list of to-dos really. change my hairstyle quite drastically.
i wonder why we make resolutions anyway, when so many of us never ever keep most of them. i am in full acceptance of the fact that i never keep to my resolutions, but come the start of every new year, i make them anyhow, mentally or otherwise, even though i know full well most of them will never come to be. maybe it's because we all need something to work towards, and making a list of it (and checking it twice, hehe) helps us see it more clearly? i don't know. i make and make and make lists for everything, but somehow sometimes i still don't do what i should/want to do.
merry belated christmas anyway, people. sorry if i didn't reply your sms, i was honestly too tired to do anything more besides unpacking and washing up and then collapsing into bed. the plane only touched down at 10.35pm and by the time we were through customs it was 11.35pm and we had a grouchy taxi driver who made a face at us once he heard our destination. what, people who live close to the airport can't take cabs back?? pffft.
and i am awfully upset with the way rainbow romance is turning out, because kibum is being horribly blind.
okay, really long post today.
music: canvas; ken hirai
tune out the world ; 10:50 PM
and somehow i don't foresee any difference whether i'm in singapore or not for christmas, because i don't exactly celebrate it anyway. sure, we can all get caught up in the whole mess of present-giving and well-wishing, but i don't think i really understand how to spend christmas at all. it's not really a religious matter; that is, i don't think the reason i'm not very much infected with the whole christmas spirit is because i'm not christian. it's just... sometimes it feels a little hollow, this season of giving where everyone just seems so infused with happiness while i'm slipping along and distracting myself with the lights and sounds of christmas. i guess it feels like just some random other day to me.
at least the lights are pretty and the songs are catchy. ^^
anyway, i'm finally back from my taiwan trip. to be honest, it wasn't that fun a trip. it wasn't the company, because i absolutely enjoyed being around my family for the 8 days since we don't exactly get to stay around each other as much at home because everyone is busy with their own things. the food there is quite overrated really. i suppose the streetside snacks are good for a day or two, but then you get so tired of them after a while and frankly the ones in hongkong are way better. there wasn't too much to see either, nor were there many things to buy. and i'm so so sorry because i couldn't get much for souvenirs and i ended up buying mochi for the guys (because just about the only vaguely suitable things i could buy for you people were socks which no self-respecting guy would wear really; hence the mochi decision) and compact mirrors and socks (which would look gay on a guy but cute on a girl) for the girls. okay, that was a very long sentence, go back and read it again and make sure you understand it.
didn't take much pictures either, but i can finally cross one thing off my all time to-do list because i got to see a full sunset! we were at danshui for the day, and there was this pretty pier where we sat at and watched the sunset and took lots of pictures. my camera doesn't do the sunset justice; the colours were so much more intense, and the whole process so much more... i don't know, moving? alright that just sounds silly, but you get the point.
we also went to a hot spring, and a waterfall, and we got to see the changing of guards ceremony that frankly looks almost exactly like a fancy drill. but i guess the trip on the whole was fun. haha. the company counts for a lot. and we had a night flight back so there were all the stars up in the sky again. pity it wasn't a later flight like the one we took from korea back to singapore a few years back. the sky outside the plane looked like the pictures you see of our galaxy in outer space or something.
random pictures from the trip here. sigh, i wish blogger had a function like lj-cut too, so no one would have to scroll down through all the photos i want to look at but no one else wants to.
the sunset reflected in my mum's sunglasses. okay i was bored, and i was running out of angles from which to take the sunset from.
the actual sunset. i swear there was no editing done, and i still think the colours were prettier if you were there in person. in the picture it just looks all orange, but if you were there you'd have seen the faint blues, the pinks, the colour between pink and orange that i don't know the name of, and the slight reddish tinge of the clouds around, and the slowly deepening orange blot spreading out over everything...mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, queen, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom. this is a bunch of natural rock formations caused by wind and rain erosion, and apparently the queen is due to get beheaded in the next 10 to 15 years because her neck cannot take much erosion anymore. if you follow the designated path and walk closer you can't see the shape anymore because the other side of her face looks like something freddy, jason, darth vader and the sharks from jaws had a go at.you cannot imagine my delight when i chanced on this on the tv after flipping through about 3 dozen entertainment programs. i love ikkaku's bald head.alright i'm a little lazy to upload the rest since blogger has such a strange method for uploading pictures unlike lj's perfectly fast and user-friendly one. sigh.
oh and on christmas eve, we went to the area around taipei 101 because we were told it would be all festive and all there, and i got accosted by these living statues haha. they were random street performers, and my mum made me go drop money in the guy's tin, after which he tried to make me shake hands with him. like i would, when he totally tricked the little kid before me into shaking hands with him only to do the old scratch-the-head trick. pffft. but they were really entertaining. and there was this mime artist, and a saxaphone player, and those portrait-drawing people. it was a very good, celebratory atmosphere, the likes of which you'd never feel in singapore.
AND, the most amusing part of the evening was this. i took photos and videos to remember it haha. see i was walking happily along when i saw this group of people holding big bunches of balloons.
and i really wanted one but they wouldn't give any to me, the selfish things! so i was sulking in a corner and growing mushrooms and then this happened.
if you haven't realised by now, or if you didn't watch the video, it was a marriage proposal. in the middle of a busy street. on christmas eve. it was a surprise, the girl thought she was on a shopping trip with friends. he sang her favourite song to her. if this isn't dripping with sweetness i don't know what is. haha but imagine if she had refused his proposal, ouch. she didn't anyhow, she was overjoyed and when she nodded and yelled down "wo yuan yi!" the whole street started cheering for the couple.
that's the girl in the centre. she didn't cry or anything though, surprisingly. oh and by the way, i didn't really go ask for a balloon haha.
anyway, come to think of it, this is the final week of 2008. i wonder how i survived the year, considering all the things that were thrown at me this year. and thinking of all the things i resolved to do at the start of the year, i wonder if i've actually even completed any of my things to do for the year. like how i wanted to be a better person, a better friend, a better daughter, a better sister -- i don't think i've done any of that. or how i wanted to be more assertive, and know what i want and work for it. or how i wanted to not have to regret whatever i wrote down for the exams, and not to have to worry constantly and dread the return of results. so many things i can't do anymore, not in the last 4 days of this year anyway. i did finally do something rather drastic to my hair, but i shall leave that to when i next see people. haha it's always been on my list of to-dos really. change my hairstyle quite drastically.
i wonder why we make resolutions anyway, when so many of us never ever keep most of them. i am in full acceptance of the fact that i never keep to my resolutions, but come the start of every new year, i make them anyhow, mentally or otherwise, even though i know full well most of them will never come to be. maybe it's because we all need something to work towards, and making a list of it (and checking it twice, hehe) helps us see it more clearly? i don't know. i make and make and make lists for everything, but somehow sometimes i still don't do what i should/want to do.
merry belated christmas anyway, people. sorry if i didn't reply your sms, i was honestly too tired to do anything more besides unpacking and washing up and then collapsing into bed. the plane only touched down at 10.35pm and by the time we were through customs it was 11.35pm and we had a grouchy taxi driver who made a face at us once he heard our destination. what, people who live close to the airport can't take cabs back?? pffft.
and i am awfully upset with the way rainbow romance is turning out, because kibum is being horribly blind.
okay, really long post today.
music: canvas; ken hirai
Labels: amusements, photos, thoughts, trips
tune out the world ; 10:50 PM