the three masketeers


minmin is very cute and turned us into animals:


*hop*

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received photos from a few months back (thanks gracie!)
and here are some of us
celebrating minmin's birthday at esmiralda:



they throw plates around, and break them deliberately,
for good luck every night.
they even pulled the birthday girl out
for a bit of line dancing!

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eddie finally decided to come home for a few days
and i managed to catch him on his last day back.
it's been a while since we last clubbed together
but it was just like old times:



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gracie and i went to the loo
and did a mas selamat:


except that this was before he escaped
so i mirrored (haha i'm so funny) paris hilton.

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munkao came and went and this was all he left behind:


the result of two becoming one.
daniel hearts munkao 2008.

million dollar baby

i did a flight with the girl made "famous" for getting a slap across the face by the wife of one of singapore's richest man and got smacked on the head, deliberately, by a little boy. all coz i was trying to help the brat belt up.

i wonder how much i'd get if i sue the pants off the bloody bugger.

i had fernando alonso on that same flight. he was on his way to sepang for the f1 and is, to date, the most famous person i've seen on a plane. he doesn't look half bad either heh

on a separate note, i really don't understand why some people insist on spelling my chinese name with two words. "yin rou" does not equate to "yinrou". i had a toothache and went to the dentist and the receptionist copied my name from my driver's license and STILL split it up into two.

i hate stupid people like her more than i hate going to the dentist.

the road to hollywood

the weather was great and warranted the rental of a sweet chrysler convertible for my first visit to los angeles. with the help of the all-important gps, we navigated our way from anaheim to hollywood and enjoyed a hearty omelette breakfast before moving on to see the stars in front of kodak theatre.




i took photos with jack sparrow, davy jones and charlie chaplin and elvis gave me a peck on the cheek. at grauman's chinese theatre, i photographed the handprints, footprints and sometimes, hoofprints of famous people/animals like marilyn monroe, arnold schwarzenegger, bruce willis and julie andrews.


drove from there down sunset boulevard/strip (just because we'd heard of it in songs) on to venice beach where we spent the next few hours basking under the scorching californian sun with throngs of people enjoying a weekend at the beach.


we walked from one end of the long strip of shops selling all sorts of drugs and touristy items to the other and grabbed a deliciously crispy slice of pepperoni and mushroom pizza each along the way.


there weren't many hulk hogans lifting weights at muscle beach that day.

when we'd had enough of the beach, we drove off through rodeo drive just to see what that famous strip is like with all its luxury boutiques and rich people with expensive tastes.


got to farmers market thereafter for a spot of shopping at the grove followed by some pampas churrascaria for dinner and yummy pinkberry for dessert.



went back to anaheim after all that but not before photowhoring with our wonderful car:


driving in the wrong side of the car and on the right side of the road took some getting used to and my friend actually turned into incoming traffic once. it was damn scary and the cars (and this hugeass dinosaur of a lorry) just kept driving towards us and forced us to reverse into a little lane (thank god there's a little lane). but we survived *pat on back*

in tokyo and i didn't get to explore shinjuku and downtown tokyo much because i went on a tour to mount fuji!


we were lucky and the sky was clear and blue and mount fuji stood high and mighty and unobstructed by any clouds. yay i use many "ands". i never knew that some people (mostly ang mohs) don't know how to use the "squat" toilet or, japanese-style toilet, and that's a picture of my guide educating them on the proper squatting technique. his use of visual teaching aids can rival that used in singapore schools.




because there had been heavy snowfall in the days before we journeyed there, we weren't allowed up to the fifth station which is half way up mount fuji and had to make do with photographing the volcano from a little further down. all pictures of the mount fuji kinda looked the same after a while.

our cute little tour guide gave us cherry blossom origami paper and taught us to make personal mount fujis that can erupt!


took a cruise on lake ashi after lunch and from hakone pier where we got off, rode an aerial cableway up to mount komagatake for a view of mount fuji and the sweeping landscape of hakone national park.


there's a temple at the top of mount komagatake that's accessible by locating the (hopefully) least muddy/snowy path and trudging through thick snow (thus wetting newly-cleaned uggs) and climbing stairs to heaven.


at the close of the tour, we went on the famed bullet train for a ride back from odawara station to tokyo station. the speed of the bullet train took me by surprised when i stood on the platform and one flew past me, threatening to pull me along. once inside though, it was so quiet that i hardly felt the rush and things didn't really zoom past me when i looked out the train's windows.




back in shinjuku, i shopped a little and had a dinner of duck soba on the 13th floor of takashimaya. returned the next morning for another bit of skincare shopping and brunch of mini sukiyaki and raw beef sushi (among many other things that the lunch set was made up of) in a restaurant on the top floor of takashimaya.


yumyumyum!

and that's it for my first sq12. think it'll be a good idea to go back to LA and tokyo soon to explore and hopefully, see some cherry blossoms!

herstory


how easy it was,
to slip back into the past.
to retreat into your familiar embrace,
to lose myself, again.

a chilly night,
a stroll by the quiet river;
fingers laced,
warm pit stops.

mock fighting,
sweet reconciliation;
animated conversations,
carefree laughter.

you reached out
and, perhaps stupidly, i gave in.
for one night,
it was as if we never left.

i'll be back

went to shokudo with glenn today to try out the newish jap marché at raffles marketplace and i'm pleased to report that my vongole in tomato cream sauce was really quite yummy and has many more clams than the soup pasta i had at bentendo at great world city.

*takes a deep breath* wow, what a long sentence.

had dinner at yum cha with feng, dan, colin and umer, followed by a not-very-satisfying bowl of zhi ma hu, then $10 KTV!!! cosy little not-sound-proof room with old-school wall paper, man-with-pants-pulled-high-on-waist singing loudly outside, free flow of drinks, complimentary starchy shark's fin soup that smells like pet food and, omg, songs i know how to sing!

i'm off to sunny (i hope) los angeles to visit mickey and minnie and maybe catch a glimpse of arnie. will also be stopping in tokyo and i'll FINALLY get to explore SHINJUKU!!! ican'twaitican'twaitican'twait!!!!!!

it's such a bitch having to go back to work after twelve days off but well, at least i'm off to somewhere new and relatively exciting. yay!

très sombre

being in my mid-twenties and on the fast track to the big three-oh, i'm seeing more and more friends getting into "serious" relationships, getting hitched, getting all "adult". while, at times, i enjoy my solo flight through life and scoff at being held back by anything as unreliable as a huMAN, i do so envy these friends and the coupley things i'm missing out on. there's this addictive charm about being in a relationship that seems to wash away whatever bad aftertaste previous relationships had left behind.

once bitten, twice shy. not.

or perhaps i've just not learnt and still remain hopeful.

in my little bubbled world i'm still waiting for that prince charming to sweep me off my feet. that one perfect match of mine who will never cheat on me and who will respect and love me for who i am. the "other half" to share my past, present and future with, to throw knowing glances at, to spontaneously laugh at a private joke with.

i don't think i've been very aggressive when it comes to searching for my him, and have, on more occasions than i can remember, been termed "passive". while i'm fully capable of admiring from afar and stalking via facebook/friendster/blogs (ah, the wonders of technology), i just can't seem to bring myself to take the lead. the fear of being rejected, the very asian worry of being too "forward", and my mum's drilling in of "it's better to be chased than to do the chasing" kind of override my yearning to take the first step.

it is rare to be attracted to someone at first sight, to feel that tension, that tingle, and even rarer to, from there, build it up to something substantial. when i do feel it, it's somehow always with the wrong kind of guy - either non-committal or committed to somebody else.

a defect on my part perhaps, or maybe i'm just "difficult", as one friend once put it. and as i get older, my social circle is growing smaller by the second which makes meeting new possibilities all the more impossible.

for now, i live in my lalaland where i share secrets with my imaginary partner and pretend that i have someone's hand to hold on to and someone to cuddle up with. (boy, it sounds like something out of a horror film).

my turn will come. i hope. but when somber thoughts take over and the loneliness sets in, it will never be soon enough.

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speaking of films, i finally caught le scaphandre et le papillon and had tears streaming down my face for a full ten minutes when papinou spoke to jean-do over the phone. i wouldn't wish that on anyone.