gondola girls


on my first day in milano, my true love gave to me,
one train ticket to venezia.
yah right.

it has been i-don't-know-how-many-years
since i last visited venice with my family
and it is as watery and magical as ever.
this time round, i was with wendy,
we caught a train there immediately after checking into our hotel in milano,
it was teeth-chattering, wrap-up-like-bah-zhang-also-not-enough cold,
and we explored the city together with 4 turkish guys we picked up on the train.


i found out later that they actually took photos of us sleeping on the train
before we'd even started speaking to each other.
sneaky sneaky!

venice is linked by many bridges (or "bree-gees" - NABNAB!!! remember BREE-GEES?!)
but the best way to get round is by boat.
boat number 1 took us down the main "road"
and our ticket allowed us to hop on/hop off wherever we pleased.
we got a tad bit lost
but discovered many little lanes and crannies
that held hidden treasures...


...and had to make a stop at a restaurant
for some yummy spaghetti before we fainted from hunger.

when in venice, one must, of course, get into one of their famous gondolas.
the guys found out that a ride would set us back 100EUR!
i was so tempted to bargain
but i told the singaporean auntie side of me to shut up
since there were 5 other people to share the cost with.


the gondola man brought us into dark little canals
and told us brief histories of various palaces/buildings.
he rowed us to marco polo's house
and also to where casanova used to live.

he even lent me his hat!

once off the gondola, we took pictures on a big bridge
and tried to capture the gorgeous view and the setting sun behind us.


we walked along a bustling street lined with shops
and filled with people doing their christmas shopping
before hopping onto boat number 1 again
to get our freezing asses to piazza san marco.

it was dark by the time we got there
and, after a stop for some gelati,
we were greeted by the blazing lights of the piazza
and the bright, silvery moon hanging above.


it was truly magnificent.

had to boat number 1 back to the train station after that
so that we could all catch the train back to milano.
more than two and a half hours later,
we got back to milano centrale,
waved the boys goodbye,
switched two metropolitana trains back to villapizone
and finally got back to the hotel for a well-deserved rest.

we travelled to firenze the day after that
but i have to go to bed now so...later! =)

spreading some christmas jeer


buon natale, signore e signori!

am coming to you from my cold little room in milano,
while listening to fireworks a-crackling some distance outside.

it is midnight here now
and i've spent the past couple of days
doing a whole lot of traveling visiting venice and florence.
add an early morning barcelona shuttle today
and the rest of the day spent freezing my ass off
in gorgeous duomo to all that
and you get a very tired me who would be asleep
if it hadn't been for an annoying phone call.

half an hour before christmas,
the boss (whom i already do not like/admire/respect)
woke me up, harassed me, was rude and demanding over the phone,
and tried to pull rank to get me to wake the other girls up
just to join his pathetic soul for some christmas countdown.

seriously. do i look like i care?

if what he said is true and no one from our group is counting down with him,
then perhaps he should spend christmas reflecting on why that may be so.

i don't give a flying fuck as to whether or not you are the boss.
i am this close to reporting this to the office.

oh i'm so looking forward to the company-provided christmas lunch later.


hope the rest of you had a much better start to the day.
merry christmas and un-grinchy wishes to one and all!

dubai/istanbul, a third time round


it has been a year since my last trip to dubai
and little has changed.
there were the usual chicken tikka inn/silver eagle meals,
the requisite visit (or two) to choc & nuts,
every building seemed to be under construction,
and my luggage got so heavy i dragged it like it was a stubborn mule.

this time though, i went on a special journey out to the jumeirah coast
to finally set eyes on, and enter, the burj al arab.

said to be the world's most luxurious 7 star hotel,
the burj al arab was postcard perfect from the moment its famous sail appeared before me,
framed by my taxi's window.
all white and shiny in the sunlight,
i soon learnt that it would give off a pearlescent glow at night.

ok i sound like a hotel brochure.

anyway, it was all gold and glitter when i stepped inside.
i was greeted by a dancing water feature,
gigantic chandeliers hung overhead,
christmas lighting twinkled,
the massive pillars loomed over me,
and many many floors of pretty colors shone down on me.


i made my way to the top floor
for my afternoon tea at the skyview bar
after too many stops for photo-taking.

the staff were warm and friendly
and the ones who served me were from indonesia and the philippines.
the food, served on a silver platter sail,
was tasty but didn't cause much excitement;
the scones were served hot and fresh with homemade jams and cream,
and there were the more or less standard tea and coffee choices.


it was the view that made the difference.


the cab ride and terrible traffic back to my hotel
after that memorable first burj al arab visit
caused me to throw up most of my meal though.

that's more than USD100 down the toilet bowl. hrmph.

suite rates cost more than SGD3000 a night
and that is just for the standard one bedroom.
don't know if i will ever be so extravagant
but perhaps, someday, i will get to spend a night in one of them.

on to istanbul and it wasn't as cold as it was when i last set foot on turkish soil
so that was a huge relief.
went on my blue mosque/grand bazaar pilgrimage for the third time
coz it was a colleague's first time in istanbul
and three of us girls decided to be his guide.

we huddled up in a little cafe while he checked out ayasofya
and shisha-ed and apple tea-ed and camwhored.


did the touristy thing and paid for a dinner at istanbulin
where we ate the usual meatballs and chicken
and were entertained by belly dancers, a folk band,
and a singer who rasa sayang-ed us.


i am quite sure that last belly dancer WAS a guy.

it was a rather enjoyable night even though i was tired as hell
and we even got on stage to do a little boogie boogie with the dancers.

shall end with my favorite picture of that day:


i am severely jet-lagged which explains why i'm blogging at 3.30am.
*help*

question


would you rather live longer
and suffer the last 8 years in poor health?

or die earlier and not suffer at all?

the art of eating


dual city sessions: null seemed promising
but turned out rather bleak and empty.
old school was a breath of fresh air though
and i think much can come of it.


we trekked up emily hill thereafter
and feng managed not to faint.
more design fest stuff were exhibiting at white house
so we popped in for some italian design now
and i groped some ass before drinks and yum finger food at wild oats.

dinner at mimigar at the gallery hotel was fantabulous -
the succulent ox tongue was my personal favorite.
laurent, previously known as the chocolate factory,
sucks ass and will forever be boycotted.
places with disgusting service should just close down.

sho-u the night before had good bad-english service
(because we were the only "sweetey" diners there)
but we were so dissatisfied with the food that, after a $169 dinner,
we sat by the "crabtree river"
and shared two large packets of onion rings from burger king
before splurging on a whole lot of food at meidi-ya
for a third dinner back at normanton.

i love food.

i even went on an adventure
and travelled to the armpit of singapore
that is NUS' prince george's residences
just to have lunch with lam:


after which we hung out in his "office",
went a little mad, got caught in cats and dogs,
finally got a cab to town,
gaigai-ed and nicky-ed and starfucked and fenged and soba-ed.
but that's all for another post.

mutton goes "YAY".

number one


there is a relatively new man at my gate
and i would like to bestow on him
the title of "best security guard in the world".

he never fails to brighten my day/night
by coming out of his little house whenever a car approaches
to wave us hello/goodbye with a kindly, grandfatherly smile.

he pwns the other sleeping/grumpy/useless guards.
i won't be surprised if he's a retired raffles hotel doorman.

oh and someone rescued a rather new-looking toy car from the rubbish dump.
it is now parked in my basement carpark,
right next to the security guard's motorbike.
love!

fish out of water


i finally got down to working on these photos
that came out all bright and ghostly
due to the overzealous flashing of the lomo cam.
many thanks to johan for the photoshop lesson!

with mummy and daddy
and the girlies (plus the token male) at various dinners:



with my boys at lunch:


and of magnet and snapshots from the maldives:



roster's finally out and i will be spending christmas in *drumroll*
MILAN!
i'll also be ushering in 2008 in singapore! woohoo!

on a totally different note,
i have a single bai mao growing on my chest.
it looks very funny.
i think i am slowly turning into a husky.

i stole time...


...and captured precious moments.


spent my birthday supermarket shopping with mum,
preparing for the bbq,
driving and picking up my own cake,
and soaking up a year's worth of love.

thank you all for making my day.








i'm a quarter of a century (plus one day) old.
help.

halloweenie - the really small party


so i was all hyped up about going for some house party
in ulu ulu yishun with a bunch of strangers
and only a handful of friends
but the party turned out to be not-at-all-hot
so i was all dressed up with nowhere to go.
loser.

i was so excited about my cheapo easy-o costume though
and a total of thirteen friends saw it.
i thought that was quite a halloween number to stop at.

the best part of the night was its start
when professional johan took photos of feng and i.
i'm a true blue photowhore.

this is our favorite:


i wonder how many people get my costume
without me having to explain. heh.

had a rather dismal, headeggy end to the night
but i guess it wasn't all that bad
posing and giggling at normanton,
tu-ing at hock's,
popping by butter to costume-watch
and trying out mark tay's sweaty, fanny, brighty headgear.


so that's how i kinda popped my dress-up-for-halloween cherry.

journey to the west


was an early bird today
and took an hour-long train ride to woodlands
for an excursion to the sports school
which is currently hosting the fina/arena world cup.

the main draw (for me) was, of course, to watch mark swim
and provide a tad bit of rahrah cheering.
it's been such a long time
and we're all feeling more than a trifle old.

it wasn't his most magnificent of performances
but i'm blaming that on the snapped goggles
and the last minute notification that he's competing.

ernie, too, was one of the old guards still flying our swim flag high.
he'd told me he was only swimming tomorrow
but when he got to the pool just now,
he found out that he had to plunge in for an event.
so he did it in drag.
rather funny.

lunch at peperoni at greenwood with mark and his parents,
jaelle, mark's sister audrey and nephew augustine
was warmly satisfying
and i had a great time messing about with gus.

age really does catch up on us all
and i felt it acutely today
looking at all the youngsters
and realizing that, unlike last time,
i no longer know many of the people in the line-up
is scary stuff.

touché!


am blogging from my iPod touch for the first time,
coming to you from starfucks in paragon.
sweeeeet!

mark and I have been lunching
and we're doing the usual reminising yesterday
when we re-found long lost junlin
and the three of us decided to meet today
for a meal and to play catch up.

it's always nice,
to rediscover friends of yore
and to find that they've not changed all that much,
and be pleasantly surprised by how they've matured.

meeting junlin has also brought noelle back into our lives
and it was great hearing her voice after so long.

two days till my next flight,
might be going for a swim meet tomorrow
(man, it's been so long since I last went for one of those),
and perhaps doing even more catching up thereafter.

and it's halloween halloween!
i might be popping my halloween cherry
and attending some parties tomorrow.
so exciting!

i love my life.


that day, a friend of mine asked very innocently:
zenn, why do you always go for high tea?
is it coz you can't wake up for lunch?

bye bye old house


we've been living in our new place for a while now
but it wasn't till a few days ago
that we actually relinquished the keys to the old place.

no longer will we be able to make
those little visits to sift through the mess
and pack up bags of things we still want to keep.


i'll miss you, old house.

on to other business,
i just returned from a long trip
out to seoul and san francisco and back.
sf was a whirl of zombied roaming,
ting and popovers,
and a new (cute) friend from the apple store.

in seoul, i had time to go on a tour
out to the demilitarized zone that nicky'd told me about.

we started off at the imjingak tourist resort
some 7km south of the military demarcation line
between north and south korea.
there, i walked on the "freedom bridge"
where 12,773 prisoers of the korean war returned from the north in 1953.


the bus then brought me to the 3rd tunnel
where i donned a bright blue helmet and hopped into a monorail
(yellow helmet for those walking down)
that brought me into a 2m-by-2m big tunnel,
1,635m in length and, if i'm not wrong,
about 25 storeys underground.

this tunnel is one of four found by the south koreans
and was dug by the north in their attempt to infiltrate the south.
so far, the 3rd tunnel is the one found nearest to seoul.

on to the dora observatory platform next,
which is the northernmost observatory in the south
that provides the closest view of the north.
through telescopes, one can make out the border
and look past it to see a part of north korea.


the last stop of the tour was at dorasan station
which is the planned gateway between north and south korea.
upon unification, it is hoped that this station,
56km from seoul and 205km from pyeongyang,
will facilitate travel between the two koreas.
i got my passport stamped to remember it by!

the rest of that free day was spent wandering the streets of myeong dong
and spending way too much money on facial products.
i also had yummy yummy korean food on this trip
and discovered a nice little porridge cafe
that warmed me up after a long day of walking.

ok, so that's all said and done.
it's good to be home.

taitse and taipei
(lucky no taiphoon)

was in nicky's land for a day
so was his mailman and bringer of felicity.
he met me at taipei 101
where we had yummy korean bbq,
bought a piece of rock for breakfast,
waited damn long for two cups of watermelon juice,
got money from funnily-named banks
and bought the first wine we tasted at jasons
before finally making it to the taxi "rank".

he bundled me into a cab
and told the driver to drive off to a faraway mountain.
green man running, drive-in love motels,
one grumpy cabbie, terrible driving,
"er si wu" and "er shi wu", and several wrong turns later,
we got to his americano friend's obscure, old-school chinese villa
near the top of yang ming shan.


there was an especially lovely corner in the backyard
where we parked ourselves for most of the night,
picking things off the barbie
for a second dinner lit by mosquito coil.

the gigantic mozzies forced us into the sitting room sometime later
and we joined the rest in watching a mad tenacious d movie
until a taxi managed to find us.

onward to shilin night market thereafter,
and we only managed a few steps before being lured by a long queue
and big bright signs at a dessert place.
tried their "zhao pai" which consisted of gui lin gao and taro balls,
their soya bean curd with peanuts, and taro balls with barley.
interesting, and the taro balls were nice and chewy,
but it was otherwise not very spectacular.


two hours of walking aimlessly (on my part at least) ensued.
i hunted for ikuro,
bought little rubbishes like cheesecake and sparkly "anna s" makeup,
and a pair of little socks that nicky said looks like tiny underwear.

i also got a sheet of stickers with cartoons and my name made -
i'm going to go on a sticking spreeeeee!
(the first one went onto nicky's berms,
but i can't post that picture
coz he said he had four chins and something else in it.)

when words aren't enough...


a post for a friend
who is going through a difficult time.

my dear, i'm so sorry for your loss
and for the tough situation you're in.
my heart goes out to you and all at home.

don't be so hard on yourself,
take your time to grieve.
we will hold your hands
and walk through this with you.
*hugs*

back by (un)popular demand


been leading my ladida life
and not been taking many photos.
have gone to london, male, frankfurt and new york,
and other insignificant places.

caught up with friends of yore,
hung out with constants and freshies,
thrashed things out with my past,
and totally neglected this blog.

right now, i'm ill *coughcoughblownose*
waiting to have dinner with my folks,
looking forward to a self-invited party tonight,
and quietly anticipating the future.

but first, some shots from the past weeks.
more to come once mun sends me the roll of film
i left in the fisheye cam =)

of london and duck rice,
great company and tigertiger,
smashed champagne glass and mugs of beer,
shopping and evildisgustinginconvenient tube strike:


some people might like to get a train to work
or drive in in a beamer or a merc,
some guys like to travel in by bus,
but i can't be bothered with the fuss today
i'm going to take my bike
coz once again the tube's on strike.

london underground
london underground
wawa wankers, they're all wankers,
london underground
london underground

take your oystercard and shove it up your arsehole.

of loof and st james,
tian's birthday and edmund's party,
quiet lounging and mad dancing:


no pictures of the birthday girl herself
coz she hasn't sent me the fabulous photos
her wonderful camera takes. hrmph.

of frankfurt and new york,
pizzapasta and japkorean,
colleagues and friends,
longchamplouisvuitton and my new ipod touch,
little magnet of april and giant magnet of today.
of very nearly succumbing to guinea pig generation of iphone,
and absolutely zero photos from the week's trip.

yesterday, i saw a little hanger-on.
the hiragana i learnt in two days of japanese class
has led me to believe that his name is ikuro.


if someone knows where i can buy him,
please tell me!!!
i want to have him dangling off my somethingsomething.

raining cats and bitches


i'm flying off to male again in a few hours
and hoping that the weather forecast of thunderstorms in the days ahead
is wrong wrong wrong. *fingers crossed*

anyway, this post is just for you, biatch -
hope your stby doesn't get activated.
shhhhh.

kthnxbye

it's just not fair


meeting someone, falling for someone,
discovering that you can live with that someone,
that he might just be THE one.

then finding out that you're not the only one he's treating special.

meeting someone, being friends with someone,
knowing that he's a "good catch",
that he will always look out for you.

yet missing that special connection.


the ways and means God toys with me.

mussels in brussels


hamsterdam the second time round,
and i had everything all planned out for immediately after i touched down.

a quick shower and a skip and a hop on to a bus,
to begin a day-long tour to belgium.
we started off in antwerp,
finally getting there after a long and restless bus ride
that the guide spent pecking relentless on my tired eardrums
with her sharp and booming voice.


there was a festival going on in antwerp,
so there were balloons aplenty and a little pasar malam in the square.
the architecture there is amazing -
the towering buildings,
the glitter of the statues on the guild houses,
the looming clock tower of the church...


lit two candles in the church.
world peace.

out and about, spending precious minutes exploring the town,
we stopped to take away coffee from a busy sandwich shop.
we ordered mochas,
the guy said ok!
we got espressos instead.
a bench on the sidewalk became our spot
to make the coffee more drinkable (lots of milk and sugar).
i finished it in a gulp.


we also had a taste of the best fries in the world:


there were many many sauces to choose from,
so we left it up to the owner of the shop.
he decided that we look like his special spicy mayo,
so that was what we had and it was YUM.

onwards to brussels which was an hour's drive away.
we stopped for a photo-op at the atomium,
and were fascinated by the world's biggest iron atom.


the journey from there and through the little streets of brussels
was a whole load of "on your left, on your right, far away, behind that little tree" etc.
we took whatever photos we could
and gave up on even remembering the names of what we shot.

the most exciting moment was when our driver had difficulties maneuvering
our bigass double-decker bus through one of the narrow roads
lined on both sides, and at corners, by many cars,
and a squealing police car got stuck right behind us all the way through
and we could see men handcuffed in its back seat.

felt a bit like we were in a movie!


brussels was having a music festival or something
so i took a shot with the stage before moving on to more important stuff
like the manneken pis.


the world famous peeing boy that everyone flocks to take a peek at is TINY.
plus he wasn't naked coz apparently, they dress him up,
and change his outfit everyday.
responsible parenting indeed.

of course, once that was done,
all we cared about was filling our rumbling tummies.
we settled down in a cafe,
and attacked a big pot of mussels
before i went on to devour a rabbit
that will never hop again.


washed all that down with a belgium waffle
coated with a generous helping of chocolate sauce.
*burp*

the rest of the tour was even more "to the left to the left"
so that was that.
antwerp, checked. brussels, checked. YAY.

the next day started with pancakes and a cuppa,
following which i wandered the streets in searching of a globe,
and fell into a garden of flowers...


spent the rest of the afternoon in the van gogh museum,
leisurely admiring his amazing work,
and rounded the day off with a delicious slab of ribs at castell.
i amsterdam.

woman of leisure


been spending my days and nights
eating, drinking and merrymaking
when not working like a dog.

a night of randomness,
of driving from adam road to holland,
hunting for pulut hitam to satisfy chen liping's craving.
of bumping into louis-san and supermarket shopping together.
of french onion soup and lemon-orange tart making class back at normanton.
of a little dose of qian
and of reuniting with gingerbreadman and kangadick.






a day in the sun and in murky waters,
in a bikini and in board shorts.
in a boat and in lifejackets.
in heaven and in pain.






pictures above all courtesy of mun's slr

gracie's birthday tea at house.
yummy beef stuff and yucky cakes.
too much champagne and
a fugly dempsey fountain thing.
photos, food and cheers.




a piece of my life in still.