since you've been gone

i was finally rostered to fly to cape town and went on a frantic sight-seeing/photo-taking rampage once i got there, tackling the gorgeous table mountain on the first day, then cruising out hout bay to see seals and whales, the penguin colony, wine tasting at groot constantia, climbing up to beautiful, windy cape point and getting blown away by/at the cape of good hope on the second. (wah very long sentence).

i turned 26 by eating a lot - dinner at saint pierre with gracie and andong, drinks at klee, supper at crystal jade with the klee boys, buffet lunch at the line with the parents, maccas with chern, buffet dinner at daidamon with tian, gracie, netty, debra, chern, step, ian, daniel, ang, charles and gabriel, dinner with edmund at blooie's, and dinner at valentino's with mark, gary, pet and fai.

watched avenue q which turned out to be okay - first half was much better than the second.

bought a pair of green ferragamo ballerina flats when i was in LA. yikes!

chern got me the nokia e71 i've been thinking of buying =)

you are stronger than you think you are

it has been more than a month and still it seems surreal, a nightmare i can't seem to wake up from. at times, i forget, and those are the best times - when i can pretend that i will still see your rainbow appear on my msn list; when i can pretend that i can still reach for my phone and text you some inane nonsense i just thought of; when i can pretend that going to normanton will still mean lazing around with you, playing mahjong, eating good/junk food.

i guess it does get better with time but you are still sorely missed.

i just got back from bombay yesterday evening. the night i spent there, terrorists attacked several parts of the city. they didn't attack my hotel but hey, if they had, i would be with you right now and that wouldn't be so bad, would it?

all the things i should have said

my darling minmin,


i hope you read the little note i left you. i hope you heard me when i spoke to you, before the crowd gathered at your wake. i hope you now have special powers that will enable you to read my mind because i can't seem to find the right words to describe all i'm feeling (not that you didn't have before). i hope you know that i've missed you and that i never stopped loving you.

these past couple of months have been difficult for us. i was very upset and hurt when you pulled away. you declined most of the time when we asked you out. you didn't ask me out. and when i tried talking to you last month, you sounded really distant. i felt as though you didn't need me any more. i wanted to call you out to talk about it so many times in the past weeks but i didn't. coz i didn't have the balls to. i feared confrontation. i feared losing you. childishly, i wanted to give you time to miss me. i blamed you for not wanting me around. please forgive me.

you have always been one of my constants. the one i turn to when i need advice. the one i can sampat with and tell secrets to. we didn't always agree with one another but we've always managed to work things out. ours is a friendship, a sisterhood, that will last forever. i just didn't know that physically, forever can be such a very short time.

i think you tried to warn me, a couple of hours before you left. i found out around 9pm on wednesday that you'd been admitted into hospital. i texted you but you didn't reply. i called daniel when i got out of my movie just after 11pm and he said that he'd just left your bedside - you're sleeping, it's thyroids but you're okay. i made the wrong wrong decision to wait till morning before visiting you. i was with chern at that time and, as he was sending me home, i felt strangely sad and told him, "i don't want to go home". but he was tired and we had been out the whole day, so i did. i sent him a text right after he dropped me off: "i am upset, i don't know why. my friend, the movie, you, me. i know you've given me the day but i really want to spend tonight with you." now i'm thinking, maybe you just didn't want me to be alone when i received the call.

daniel called me at 5am and i kept hoping that i heard him wrong. i kept hoping you'd open your eyes and say, "sarh-plise!" when i stood by your hospital bed. but you didn't move. your family, daniel, grace and i. we couldn't stop crying. i went over to normanton after they wheeled you away. the boys, grace and i sat there in silence. the apartment felt different. empty. there was a moth flying around. was that you?

the first night at the wake, after most of the people had left (and there were so many. you have so many friends. you just broke so many hearts), a pretty butterfly/moth (we couldn't decide which) flew around above our heads, dancing with the lights. was that you?

you're a conduit through and through. i've spoken more to some people during your wake than i ever did before. you brought together people who haven't seen each other in donkey years, people who have heard of each other but have never met, people who have known you in various stages of your life. we swapped stories of you and learnt more about you. and it made me miss you even more.

just before you had to leave home today, your parents very generously allowed me to gather with them, your siblings and daniel by your side. they've only had kind words for me these couple of days and raised above their own sorrow to give me some peace of mind. i hope that in answering your parents' questions, i've done the same for them. they bade me to pass this on to all your friends (and i really hope i haven't mucked up the gist of their message): "fengmin's spirit will remain with us forever. she made a sacrifice so that, in her passing, she can teach us many lessons. minmin chose to leave us when she's young, but in the short 26 years she was with us, she made sure she touched all our hearts and lived life to the fullest, with only the best wishes for everyone around her."

grace chua and grace feng, minmin's parents also wanted us to know that we're the ones she always mentioned when she met up with them. through all our ups and downs, she never stopped loving us and caring for us as her best friends.

ah feng, i hope you like your new home - 5th floor, unit 32 - all the right numbers. i will come round as often as i can. i hope you don't mind me putting your ring in with you - i don't think it belongs anywhere else. i will always have mine with me.

so many things i should have said and done that i didn't; so many reasons i will be missing you. please know this will always be true: "i love you also can".

all the things i shouldn't say


it was like shooting a sitting duck
a little small talk, a smile and baby i was stuck
i still don't know what you've done with me
a grown-up woman should never fall so easily
i feel a kind of fear
when i don't have you near
unsatisfied, i skip my pride
i beg you dear
don't go wasting your emotion
lay all your love on me
don't go sharing your devotion
lay all your love on me

animal farm

just got back from a weekend in KL and my body is aching like nobody's business. but more on that later. first up, met up with belated-birthday boy mimi at robertson quay where he acquired a new best friend:


the cuddly dog belonged to a lady at the next table and just invited herself (the dog, not the lady) to dinner with us. she came round, climbed onto the bench on mimi's side, got on his lap for a few photos, then quietly sat by his side while we ate. friendliest bitch ever.

in new york last week and the trip kick-started my gastronomical adventure that i hope will end today coz i think i've gained ten pounds in the last seven days. ramen, pinkberry, korean bread, cheetos, a heavy dinner at sushi of gari with mun, after which he took me for an out-of-this-world dessert tasting at wd40; lunch on the second day at bouley - a fantastic seven course degustation menu that rendered me incapable of eating anything else for the rest of the day...


...plus brunch and pinkberry (again) on the last day. when i got back, gracie and i had an eat-until-cannot-walk teppanyaki dinner with belated-birthday girl tian, picked up stephen's dad and earned ourselves a couple of mangoes and rotiboys each, then had cheesecake dessert at cheesecake cafe.

on to KL. gracie and andong flew up while chern and i drove. because we started off late, we got to KL three and a half hours later past midnight. a pit stop at his aunt's place, then to the hotel. the other two didn't want to come out so we roamed heritage road and a very unhappening zouk before deciding to just have supper then go to bed.


one wake-up call later, we shuffled downstairs to meet adrian who drove us all to berjaya hills where we went horse riding! armed with tian's riding pants, i proceeded to spend the next few hours going updownupdown - it was very very tiring.


me on chester, gracie on fantasy, andong on penelope, chern on midnight, adrian on turner.


they set up a shady tent for us to stop for a picnic lunch and to let kylie the fourteen year old dog catch her breath.


the boys found a skinny snake where we washed our hands and prodded it several times before it finally moved.


i graduated to a gallop after lunch (and managed to keep all that rice from being thrown up)!

sore butt, achy back, tired legs but funfunfun!

back to the hotel and a shower later, the monkey and i went to klcc for a walkabout and some a&w! the curly fries tasted weird though and were quite a letdown =(


that night, he took me to have his favorite hokkien mee and stingray in some ulu kopi tiam and we polished everything up even though we just had dinner.

dinner. between a&w and hokkien mee, i stuffed myself with way too much pork at oversea restaurant. the char siew there is omfg amazing.


the rest of the night was spent doing a bit of lancing lancing in poppy (we went there the last time i was in KL!).

had a late start on our last day and, after checking out, we popped by chern's aunt's place one last time before grabbing lunch and driving away from the looming rain clouds to head back to singapore. the journey took more than four hours, i fell asleep for one, he missed the turning for tuas so we ended up squeezing with the scary masses at woodlands, we sang many songs and took monkey photos, and finished a crossword.


home sweet home and a smelly dinner at adam road (burbur hitam sold out boohoo) and that's my weekend. i need to detox and to go for a massage. oh rah my achy breaky back.

the wheels of the bus go round and round

every now and then (and chances of it happening decreases exponentially as you get older), you meet someone who makes you go, "maybe...just maybe...". more often than not though, events will unfold after that and leave you dejected, disappointed. there is some thing about the human race nowadays that just doesn't encourage much faith. it used to be so uncomplicated, no? boy meets girl, they like each other, they carve a life together, they do their darnest to make it work. now, loyalty is a virtue hardly found, many turn tail and run at the slightest bump, and people just don't really care/aren't all that sincere anymore.

where is the love???

is it that my rose-tinted glasses has lost its color with age and i've become more aware of all the dodgy stuff happening around me? or has society changed such that this is just occurring more rampantly now?

it's all so very depressing.

but one must hold one's head up high; rise above it all. pick up the pieces of a broken heart and slowly put it to mend. until the next act arrives.

sheer stupidity and bucket loads of this thing called "hope" will cause me to throw caution to the wind again and subject myself to the rollercoaster ride that will inevitably ensue (that's all part of the fun, yes?). maybe...just maybe...this time round, every twist and turn will lead to something beautiful.

too fast, too furious


take a step back;
breathe.

be still, my beating heart.

when baby ollie came to town...


all hell broke loose.

the weekend started with a long dip in the hot tub, followed by a quiet japanese dinner at akashi before we adjourned to helipad. sitting on the rooftop for a couple of hours watching people go on the gmax across the river prompted us to troop over just past midnight to follow suit.


we went on both the reverse bungy and the swing, with the latter proving to be the more exciting of the two coz of the sheer terror of being slowly cranked into place in the middle of nowhere before swooshing down.

went on to mos thereafter, a little wobbly and heart still palpitating, for a happy night of good music, lancing lancing, borrowed/stolen light sticks and falling down (and getting laughed at).


the next day was a sunday but paul van dyke was in town so everyone came out to play. yum cha in the afternoon, plus ang pow-shopping and spending a lot of time in a dodgy camera shop in chinatown, then a boot party behind zouk to kick the party off. pvd pvd pvd!





the weekend breezed past, baby ollie left us to return to china-land, and august rolled in and brought with it the nephew's first crack at eating crabs the singaporean way and gracie's 80th birthday...


and our nation's 43rd.




colin organized his annual red and white do at new asia bar and we went on to join in the bash at velvet after that.


free booze that tasted like sperm-gone-bad (according to lam) and a velvet that was less pretentious and more fun than usual. yay.

the rain in spain

it has taken me ages but i've done it! a million photos have been sorted out! woohoo!!!

so...wendy and i ventured to spain for a week's vacation. our home for four nights was a tiny room in melon district residence that has the smallest toilet i've ever seen. but it was clean and the place is secure and there's even a pool and sun deck on the roof.


we couldn't check in until 2pm so had about five hours to roam around, still smelling of the aircraft. we found a little cafe (where we proceeded to have breakfast at every single morning we were there), had breakfast, then walked to la rambla. had a little look-see along that famous stretch before heading back to the hostel for a long-awaited shower and getting back out to start with the sightseeing. first up, casa batlló, where we had our first glimpse of gaudi's amazing work.







from there, we went to a more ulu area where casa calvet stood, quiet and lonely...


on to the cathedral and wendy nearly got pick-pocketed by an evil old lady who wasn't at all discreet just as we were entering the place. once inside, it wasn't an all too pleasant experience as it was crowded and the staff there were really rude.


day two, we had a much better church-going experience when we went to la sagrada familia.






gaudi's unfinished church, with its spindle-shaped towers, grand façades and unique interior was a sight to behold.

on the way from la sagrada familia to our next destination, we attempted (and failed) to purchase some hats to block out the piercing spanish sun and had our first taste of paella.



the long walk to park güell was well worth it:




the area is a masterpiece.

dinner that evening was at a tapas bar:


walked down la rambla after that satisfying meal to port vell before calling it a day.


on day three, we wandered about and stumbled upon montjuïc where we were treated to a breathtaking view of the city and saw the palau nacional that houses the museu nacional de'art de catalunya.



travelled to camp nou after that just coz it's home to the famous football team and went on a tour of the stadium:




la pedrera was next. also known as casa milà, it was yet another display of gaudi's genius.






the last two places we visited on that super long and tiring day were port olympic and la barceloneta. there, we posed with gehry's peix, rested on the beach, and had dinner before going back to the hostel.


last day in barcelona and we decided to take it easy and took a train to tibidabo...





an imposing cathedral, the parc d'attraction and a bird's eye view of the city.

back to la rambla for one last time and we took a look at the fresh produce the mercat st josep la boqueria had to offer, stopped for a meal, and i had a cup of coffee with chocolate mousse at the cafe de l'opera.


bright and early the next day, we checked out and took a cab to the airport for our domestic flight to ibiza!


vueling got us there safe and sound and on time. from the airport, we took a bus to ibiza town where we were greeted by the walls of dalt vila and a lovely view from plaça d'espanya.



breakfast was yummy, buttery croissants at croissant-show:


after shopping for beach towels, we bused to playa de las salinas and parked ourselves under an umbrella at sa trinxa, where we soaked in some rays with gays, gorgeous people, and some naked individuals.


properly baked, we left the beach for san antoni and headed straight to cafe del mar. was there too early for the sunset but we sat on since we were too exhausted and chao-da to go anywhere else. the place eventually filled up as the sun slowly set.





watching the beautiful sunset accompanied by chill-out music was magical, as was the finale of getting mooned by a bunch of pirates on a passing ship.

took a much-needed shower at the yacht club before one last scrumptious dinner of home-made paella, then spent the night partying away to ferry corsten and above and beyond at amnesia. went straight to the airport from the club in time for our morning flight back to barcelona and took a short nap in the airport before hopping on to yet another flight back to singapore.

there we go. spain and the longest post in the world. phew.

*many thanks to wendy for plenty of lovely photos and for being such fantastic company, and to dave for the use of his dslr.