391: five hundred days is pretty long

The only people for me are the mad ones.

(As usual, cut for spoilers, 500 Days of Summer.)

376: if it’s too loud, you’re too old

Happenings of the past (last) week of holidays;

368: youth’s elixir fills our veins

365: when i look at you i watch the sun rise

I’m not counting. 

339: remember 2008

The year has been eventful, to say the least. I ushered in the new year at the beginning of the year (last year, now) in a variety of circumstances; every year with the Hwa Chong people, screaming “Happy New Year” at the top of our voices around the swimming pool, and then drinking Raffles beer at the front of Block B, our cars parked in a perfect straight line along the parallel parking lots. I was wearing a red dress, I remember, and the rest were happy and drunken.

307: all your stereotypes

Americans are noisy, Spanish girls are hot, Japanese guys are super hot, the Germans think Erdinger is good shit, the Chinese are fucking everywhere, and omg. OH MY GOD.

HOLLAND FUCKING SMELLS OF WEED.

(OK. That was my update. Other than that orientation’s been fun. But there is so much alcohol, and especially when it costs 1-2 euros a pint, everybody drinks like crazy. At orientation functions beer is FREE, and it’s pretty good beer, the pubs are everywhere, people are happy, and omg the weed. Today there was an impromptu party at the hostels near the university, so everyone went down to the lawn and brought down couches and like 5 cases of beer and a couple of bottles of wine. So many people turned up, from everywhere, and it was so good talking to everyone. The weather was great and it wasn’t cold at all, we were warm from the alcohol and talking so much nonsense, and Sharm has just stumbled off to bed. On the bad side it cost us $20 (11 euros) for a cab ride. Yesterday there was a welcome drink in the city centre and everyone was just. Drinking. And drinking. And drinking again. Tomorrow there is another party. Everyone is crazy and high and it is kind of funny listening to them talk. My liver is fucking going to die.)

306: all my bags are packed

Dear friends,

Another one bites the dust!

See you guys in Europe! :)

305: 天下无不散之宴席

Last Friday–my last Friday here in a year. 

Pictures behind the cut.

303: japan: dancing in tokyo

So – here is the last part. We spent three nights in Tokyo, but it was effectively two and half days left because we flew off in the morning. Less words before the cut now because there is just so much more to see in pictures.

296: japan: kyoto contradictions

Some think Kyoto is all quaint shops and beauty. It is, but there’s so much more than that. Maybe it’s because it’s the old capital. Nowhere else do you feel the contradictions more strongly: time-honored tradition living next to modern amenities; something as mundane as seeing two geisha clad in kimono walking next to a taxi. The men who frequent Gion have changed their clothes as the times pass, yet till now it is the wealthy businessmen who look to entertain and be entertained, in their dapper, dreary business suits, that sing and laugh with geisha in the comfort of the teahouses overlooking the river. Not everything Arthur Golden says is true, but it’s not all false either. As tourists throng to the temples frantically snapping away with their cameras, there remains the crowd of people that stays the same, going back to the temple year after year, month after month, praying for this or that. The wooden plaques always say the same things; human nature changes very little. Many things have changed, but there is still hope. 

Here, young girls still guide their hopeful friends, hands clasped and eyes closed, towards the sunshine and in search of love.

293: japan: osaka city riots

18- 21 May.

So, finally, here is Osaka. Most of what they say about Osaka is totally true. It’s a merchant town, and it’s filled with people who love food, love being happy, love being loud and funny and living life. It’s kind of like being Hokkien on crack. Being Japanese, they’re naturally polite, and really really willing to help. They’re the sort of people that, when you are standing alone on the train platform surrounded by your luggage, an elderly lady will totter over to you asking, 大丈夫か？ (Are you all right?). At this point most of what you can say merely consists of ああ、はい (Ah, yes) which is really rude now that I think about it. Yet the same elderly lady, when getting onto the train, will fight you tooth and nail to get in and give you a not-so-friendly push if you dawdle too long at the entrance. Osaka people are always hurrying everywhere; not in the same way as Tokyo or the big cities, where everyone needs to look like they have something very important to do. Here it is pure unadulterated rush. 

We spent four days in Osaka, and they were a good four days. We visited temples and parks, castles, got lost, did lots of shopping, checked out Kennedy’s wildly expensive t-shirts, gawked at more wildly expensive merchandise, ate and walked, and ate, and ate non-stop. 

291: it’s a bright, bright, bright, sunshiney day

I must say; it’s so hot it’s not even funny. I can just sit here and start sweating for no reason. I hate hot weather. And summer. And whatever arghhh.

I haven’t done anything these few days. I met Nurul to do our nails yesterday so now my nails are grey. It looks cooler than it sounds. I think. Other than that, I’ve only been meeting J for dinner and making full use of my Internet’s temporary connection to Megaupload (I have never been able to download anything from there before. Ever. J says it’s where all the porn is stored and MU has probably cleared all its servers so that horny Singaporeans don’t get to access it anymore…) to download 34689475968 episodes of everything. 

I now have on-going series (what is the plural?!) of Osen, Zettai Kareshi, Last Friends, and Nodame Cantabile. Also I found the subtitled version of the Hana Kimi special. GO ME! I now have a drama collection to rival Isaac’s. Who is obsessed with Nakama Yukie. Watching Gokusen for all the wrong reasons. Tsk.

Pictures of the super wonderful bento/don I ate the other day:

289: japan: yokohama city lights

It’s early in the morning now, and as usual, I can’t sleep. The sky is red and you know what they say about red skies in the morning and red skies at night. Tonight the moon is full, as it was last night, but tonight the moon hung low behind the tree outside my house and I had to look harder to find it. It’s just like most things, which disappear without you noticing in the hope you’ll look ever harder for them. 

#

This post is about Yokohama, with which I think I might have a special love affair. This is not to say that I didn’t love all the other cities I went to, but that they mean different things to me. Tokyo is the place of childhood and dreams, mainly because I went there so many times when I was younger, though as you grow older you discover its ever-increasing adult attractions. Osaka was all about food and relaxation and just generally having fun doing everything and nothing. Kyoto was full of history, but Yokohama…

Yokohama is full of lights and romance. Yokohama is the place you bring girls to when you want to impress them. It doesn’t seem like much because it’s so near Tokyo and it’s so easy to overlook, but it retains that particular, off-centre, sort of feeling. It’s near but not too near. It has its own voice, its own attractions, its own history. Some people say Chinatown wasn’t too interesting; sometimes you just need to know where to look. Stepping into Minato Mirai is fascinating precisely because we’re at an age where we can appreciate it, still: the free theme parks, ferris wheels, lights across the sea, the red brick warehouses and the smoke curling up from beneath the windows. It seriously is the number one place to bring a girl on a date. It is so romantic you can choke. 

288: japan: tokyo story

Erm. I’m sorry this took so long, but there were really a lot of pictures. 

287: and she takes me away to that special place

Right now I feel giggly and happy.

 

284: photo blues

Randomly, I am getting annoyed with the lack of good, free photo hosting sites. Does anyone have any suggestions? I need:

1) Nice layout

2) Slideshow feature

3) Unlimited photo storage

4) Preferably easily uploadable

5) Can be shared publicly without people having to sign up/be emailed, i.e. the URL can just be given

6) FREE

I uploaded 225 photos onto snapfish only to realise that I have to email people to share my pictures. Which is not what I want because it is so troublesome. ROAR. Someone please help me :(

283: the magical mystery tour

It was, you know. It was magical. 

I will probably post the photos by city, in parts, because there are too many and I love all the pictures. Of which I have 1377. Excluding the ones I had to take on my phone because my camera battery died (e.g. the entire night parade in Disneyland, which I am very annoyed about). After two weeks it was not that I didn’t mind going home, but it was also because I knew I wouldn’t be back for at least another few years. That was a depressing thought, but it was, and is always, such a magical country. There are so many thoughts I cannot articulate it all. It will be done, though, slowly but eventually.

282: 写真を撮って、いいですか？

Just a quick post: in Yokohama now, heading to Osaka tomorrow morning.

Everybody loves Japan, yes? I am no exception. I wish I could stay here forever, but we all know that’s not possible. However I thoroughly indulged my fangirl self ogling cute boys everywhere (and the girls are so pretty) including random Kanjani8 Nissin Cup Noodle advertisements in the subway, caved in and bought two KAT-TUN DVDs (haha did you know Johnny’s Entertainment has their own separate section in HMV?) and a magazine (the one where the photo below appears) while my boyfriend dragged me all across Harajuku and Shibuya shopping and looking for his weird obscure underground shops. Oh, and he bought about half of Uniqlo as well. Also, I have overheard more conversations about the merits of Akanishi vs Kamenashi vs random Japanese celebrity from girls with their boyfriends than I can count. Starbucks is freaking everywhere.

Today was good: Yokohama is a pretty place. Pictures when I come back; the night lights are beautiful. I’ve also sat more rollercoasters than I can count, including the ones in Disneyland (the parade was magical omg, but I got sunburnt haha) and some random super drop rollercoaster in Yokohama today, in a free theme park no less!

Lots of food. Ate orgasmic sushi at Tsukiji it’s like food porn. Really can die.　And my Japanese is super bad it’s so embarrassing.

More when I get internet again.

281: 日本行こう！

Pretty boys await. Back on the 27th.

じゃ、またね！

280: just like a graham greene novel

All this hate and love; it’s soft, it’s hooey.
There’s only things, Blackie.

 

 

279: dinner with cleavageman j

Did I ever tell you I love Muji food? Like, not the clothes, but the random selection of weird and wonderful foods they stock up near the back. Like plum cheese tarts and black pepper cheese bites. Yum. 

I should be buying less since I’ll be in Japan in a few days, but I can’t help it. Anyway yesterday concluded the neverending series of birthday parties (surprise, and otherwise).

278: and now for something completely different

I’ve been trying to plan for Japan this past week. So I got a notebook, copied down my accommodation and flight details, listed a million things to do and see (and eat !!!!). That includes Disneyland and USJ which are touristy like hell, but I’m a kid only once and who cares right? Finally getting to go with someone other than my parents. It never strikes you how shitty being an only child is until you actually get to a theme park and you have to go on all the rides alone. Bah. 

I’m halfway through Osaka. There’s still Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kyoto to look up. And funnily enough, my boyfriend has been put in charge of the shopping destinations. 

… what? Turnabout is fair play, no?

 

171: city of blinding lights, a city lit by fireflies

so you take a little trip down to town and find that nothing much has changed except the christmas decorations, although those at peninsula hotel always seem to have that extra sense of class, that magical feeling, those yellow stars. the neon lights draw you in, there are side alleys that lead off into darkness, into people sitting on wheelchairs begging for money, into unbidden surprises. one thing about hong kong is that appearances can be deceiving. walk into a shop and take the stairs down and suddenly a space becomes ten times bigger than it turns out to be. flowers are fake. a massage centre is really a pornographic wonder. there are stars on breasts, there are porn theatres, advertisements flashing out in neon colours that blind your eyes and are a grandiose swirl of colour. such nuances cannot be accurately portrayed by words nor by the unsteady hand of a camera. one day i’m going to go back into lan kwai fong and see the other side of hong kong, away from midnight curfews and parents’ prying eyes. it’ll be lovely. there’ll be lights.

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169: the timing is quite unusual

gayly, i realised that it was actually ONE week to hong kong from the last post, not two. i’m flying off on wednesday morning at the horribly ungodly unearthly time of 6.40am. i have severely underpacked. i hope i come back with a lot more things. the shopping better be good because i’ve not bought anything this great singapore sale. BAH.

my mum bought 2l of venezia ice cream last week. i feel a moral obligation to eat it because no one else will if i don’t.

i think tanning is one of those things you can’t do too often. i’ve gone to the beach 3 times since i got back from bangkok (and i tanned all week there) every 2 weeks and today i got bored by 4pm. i am also fascinated by the 7% GST. now all the parking charges are like, some weird number ($1.07)! i don’t understand why it is some incalculable number when there are no 1-cents in singapore anymore. perhap it is a ploy to get people to round up their figures so the government can steal a bit of money on the side by taking 40 cents instead of 37. 3 cents x 4 million per day is $120,000! imagine how much they steal in a year! bleh. actually i just punched it into a calculator. the figure is very depressingly $43.8 million.

anyway, today was a series of unfortunate events because the day totally did not start off on the right track. so we were supposed to go to the beach, and before that have lunch at botak jones at AMK (where we went yesterday and decided to come back because it was good!!!). so off we went. and then while parking head in, i heard a sickening grinding sound come from below the bonnet of my car. which only means one thing. seeing as i was not the one driving, i was very very very grumpy with the bf. thankfully however, it’s one of those places nobody can see (but now you know cos i told you). after that fiasco we walked into the coffee shop only to find out that botak jones is closed on mondays. FAIL. anyway in a bid to not waste time we sat down and ordered bak chor mee. when it came, it took the form of fishball noodles. when pressed for an explanation the bak chor mee auntie just said, “oh, we ran out of bak chor, just now forgot to tell you”. GRRRR. and although the fishballs were nice, the noodles were not. when we got to sentosa, cafe del mar was FULL. on a MONDAY.

anyway yesterday i went to town and had a nice day because i bought 2 books for 20% off, and then went off to the starbucks at liat towers at midnight (fast becoming my favourite peoplewatch hangout in town, too bad it’s closing). did i mention i hate book covers that have movie references to them? like the virgin suicides cover suddenly became kirsten dunst’s face after the movie came out. i hate those, but mainly because i am vain and i refuse to let people think i bought the book because i watched the movie, especially since this has actually never happened to me. book then movie, or no book at all. grrr.

randomly i have this urge to eat NYDC’s mushroom madness spaghetti and alot of fish&co food. that must wait till i get back though. ah well.

166: jump on board, take a ride, yeah

the past few days have been happy and filled with fun things to do. dropped by robertson quay two days in a row due to coincidence — on wednesday, we went to king’s arcade for lunch and then looked at the picasso exhibition at the tyler print institute. now i’m pretty sure i’m not a prints person, because it all seems very flat and one-dimensional. and lacking something. i like seeing the paint nearly flake off a frame in a museum, or something like that. in any case, picasso’s prints are a bit weird… hard to explain.

on thursday we went to chinatown to karaoke, i paid $7 for parking at a public car park in ann siang hill (sj i am never parking there in the day again!!!), waited for dennis to come till 6pm and sang silly happy songs, had dinner at maxwell, got lost on the way home and took caitlin and kenneth on a joyride around east coast for an hour, and thereafter i rather thick-skinnedly crashed a guys’ night out at brussels sprouts at robertson quay where there was nice beer and yummy mussels. i love robertson quay! such a bummy place!