363: 等下一个天亮

As I get older I realise I am less and less prone to subterfuge. It may be a good thing or it may not, but somehow I can’t find the energy to hide behind words anymore. There used to be a time when I took great pleasure in making everyone guess what I was talking about (strange how people put up with me, sometimes) but nowadays I’m tired of mind games and second guessing all the time.

352: vienna waits for you

348: they come, they come, to build a wall between us

(You know that they won’t win,)

Berlin is a wonderful place. For everyone who has been there, they will know what I mean. There’s nothing quite like Berlin, which continually surprises you and makes your heart stop at every turn. Berlin is a city where contradictions fly into each other and crash spectacularly. Next to a piece of history there is the unmistakable odour of youth. The crash and bang of paint and art hurls itself against unwanted buildings, forgotten roads, new life creeping into dead parts of cities. Slowly but surely the city is being preserved, sterilised against time, for a past they refuse to forget. And yet history is made relevant in the most startling of ways, through new life, new art, new ideas. Fresh ideas that refuse to be forgotten, old ideas that refuse to be erased. We cannot forget, and so we must remember. 

346: hearts on fire, i reach out to you tonight

Do I want this or what. I love it so hard it is unbelievable. Am tempted to buy a random canvas tote and sew my own, because I could totally do it, and not give Marc Jacobs an extra $1395 in his pocket. QUESTIONS. DILEMMAS. EXCEPT MY SEWING KIT IS IN SWEDEN. (EXCUSES.)

I want to go out, except nothing is open, because for once I don’t feel constrained by my bicycle. Except I have a ton of readings to do, so I should probably do them. As for planning holidays, things have a way of working themselves out in the end (I believe), so I should calm the fuck down and be less annoyed with myself and the world. Meanwhile, I have been sitting at home watching shows, spamming Top Chef like there’s no tomorrow, starting on Hell’s Kitchen (and the 45546 Japanese dramas/HK movies on my hard drive). I just got back from a weekend in Luxembourg, where the five-hour train ride was one of the better journeys, despite having to wake up at 6 in the morning. 

It was not bad, not bad at all. We stumbled, head first yet again, into a random cafe which turned out to be a gem. Score! I love wandering around aimlessly and finding things I wouldn’t have known were there. Going to Berlin in a few days! Excited.

344: singing my life with his words

Strange how the time flies; suddenly I’m back in school again, lessons are starting up, and as usual, I’m all happy and raring to go. It’s good to be back in Holland, which is slowly but surely beginning to feel familiar. Still, home is where the heart is, and sometimes I think that it’s not so much the country but the fact that I can come home to my own room, my own life and space, and just do my own thing. Travelling is fun, and so is meeting up with people, but sometimes all you need is time to yourself. I have always treasured having my own life, and now more than ever, I feel like I’m getting myself back again.

343: i have fought the good fight

There are things I would like you to know, if only you have the time. After all that has been said and done, after all that has come and gone, what matters that is what is left is you and me. Maybe you and me, on two different ends of the earth, maybe you and I, who have been different from the beginning. We have travelled these roads, gone up and down these hills — as uninspiring as they might have been, our journeys are what we make of them. 

How do you feel as you travel through time and space towards a love you cannot save? The train rolls on, and the landscape never changes. Here the skies are dark and wintry, and one barely sees anything through the windows. One makes out the skeletons of trees and the falling snow, grey against the dark ground.

One may ask, 好好的一份爱，怎样会慢慢变坏, but the answer is simple. You remember the times when he said, there will be nothing left if only one side keeps paddling. One is tempted to continually attribute fault to one person, but the fact is that the oars on both sides must move in order to keep the boat moving; and then, more than anything, it must take two hands to clap.

The train is less silent than one expects. In France it was full of Japanese, polite to a fault and quiet as death, whispering around each other, afraid of stepping on someone else’s toes. Here there are murmurs of conversation, muffled laughter, and the sound of little children. Everywhere on trains people sleep and start up again, their heads nodding in time with the jerk of the trains along the rails. If I could, I would whisper my love to you across the tracks, and maybe you would wake up too.

And yet, even if everything is doomed, we take the same chances; and in a warped way, we follow the same paths. We try to not hurt other people as we strive not to hurt ourselves, rejoicing in our youth as we hurtle towards adulthood, drinking in the year as if we were starved of air. Like maniacs we shuttle from place to place, checking off boxes and ticking off sights as we go along, as if each place were so easily explainable, so easily seen. As travelers we brave only the surface of the iceberg, intrepid as we are, and yet what swarms beneath is what is important. What is essential, you remember, is invisible to the eye — it is only in your mind’s eye that you can see rightly.

And then, we paint our pictures in our memories. When we prefer not to take pictures, each detail of every city is absorbed, and we cannot get enough. We struggle to remember everything, as if each day were our last, and we could only breathe that air once. It could be that the people are unfriendly, too friendly, or unnecessarily friendly or unfriendly, but if one is objective one remembers that we do not know enough to judge. All we have are our impressions, and our thoughts, and these are all we have to go on. 

All was good and seemed normal as she walked towards the train that would bring her away, far away from these memories and the things that made her sad. For some it must have been a journey they have made before, towards a future they did not understand. She laughed and joked and smiled, just as she did all this time, brave and strong as she tried to be. As she stepped into the train she waved half-heartedly, as if she knew it might not be the last time that she saw him like this — and yet it was too late when she settled herself, and sat by the window. As she looked out she found no trace of him, and it might have been then she finally realised — neither too early nor too late, perhaps — that there might have been a time when he would wait until she left, but not anymore.

And then — across the rails. The train began to speed towards a new beginning in the middle of the night. Unclear and dark, perhaps, to a girl alone and scared as hell, but still surging forward, the only way she knew how.

 

房子建在海上，就注定一生漂泊. 但连浪子也不会吃回头草. 只要自己能抬得起头往前走，就是对的. 自己问心无愧，光明正大地活着，这才是坚强，这才是力量.

341: i’m going to linger till dawn, dear

I’m back! For awhile, after a month on the road. The bus driver looked surprised when he stamped my bus ticket and noted that the last stamp was dated four weeks ago. And strange again, because I came home to an empty house, with a load of mail waiting for me. I’ve unpacked all my things, knowing that I will have to pack them again pretty soon, which is fine by me, except that I have a shitload of laundry to do by Monday. 

This past month has been good. From being with friends to meeting friends of friends, though somewhat randomly and by tenuous connection (one always marvels at how Facebook improves communications by leaps and bounds), we covered London and Paris and then Portugal — which I loved — Lisbon more than Porto, but still lovely all the same.

338: wishing only wounds the heart

We’re in Paris now, after a week in London. The journey to France has been tumultuous, to say the least. From changing travel companions to booking Eurostar tickets to finding last minute accomodation just as Christmas Eve drew to a close, the event that reinforced how this entire trip so far has been a godsend was the fact that we missed our Eurostar train yesterday morning due to rather unforeseen circumstances. And yet, we’re here, in Paris, freezing our asses off in the winter, but the night lights are lovely and the buildings sparkle.

It is vastly different from London, but I am glad to be here. Christmas in London was special, not just because I spent it overseas for once, but because I didn’t spend it with family. I was glad to be with friends, and not alone, and meeting new people on Christmas night itself was also fun. I was glad I took that chance. It scares me sometimes; how I seek company now more than ever, as if being alone is really such a bad thing.

It is not; but when the weather is cold, sometimes all you need are some friends.

I have bought a lot of things. Buying things always makes me happy, for some reason, and whatever that says about me, it doesn’t matter. We also ate an insane amount, from cheap food at the borough markets to expensive one-starred restaurants, went to the Tate Modern, took stupid pictures along the river and filmed retarded videos, and I haven’t laughed this much in a long while. My buys were good — Kwek was my porter, carrying all my shopping and my jackets and my bags (thank you) — while I tried on shoes after shoes after clothes after clothes.

I watched Wicked, which I enjoyed immensely. Some parts made me almost cry, but this is me being subjective. This is all I can say. I am trying not to live under shadows, to come out into the light and be myself again, the girl I used to be, or maybe the girl I have become. Remembering what I used to love, what I used to do, and all the things I have been.  I am getting excited over the old things, rediscovering new things, and indeed who can say if I’ve been changed for the better; but I have been changed for good.

WATCH IT. WATCH IT NOW. Funny and heartbreaking as hell.

(如果你能拿得起，我也一定会放得下)

331: we can stick around and see this night through

I told someone before that there was no way I was going down the same road again, but it seems that I am, anyway. I’m not making excuses, and who knows how long this will take, and it saddens me a little that I was arrogant enough to think I could overcome it. Because I have, before, and why not this time, right? It’s true; I’m a proud person, and perhaps insanely so. I’ve been brought up to believe that I can do anything, and by extension, if I must do something, it should be something I can do alone. It is perhaps part of being alone all your life; you learn to do things by yourself, or you remain at the bottom of the well. 

Because there is no point in continually dwelling on things I know I cannot change, I am going to try and make myself happy as I possibly can. And yes–there is no point dragging my cumulative luggage with me, though that takes a while to sink in and I probably have to keep telling myself that a million and one times, possibly to no avail. It is hard not to lapse back into the past when I honestly cannot remember the last time I was alone. But on the other hand I am only blind if I do not want to see. I have been talking to K a lot recently, and I am glad he is here; few people are as honest with me as he is, and after all these years, it’s funny how we can pick up where we left off. 

So, the things that made me happy today:

319: things will be great when you’re downtown

London was wonderful, even though I arrived with a heavy heart on Wednesday night following a pretty bad weekend. It was Guy Fawkes Day and I had loads of fun watching the fireworks coming up from random houses on the bus from Stansted into downtown London. I spent a lot of money shopping and spent half a day in Topshop alone (no kidding) and picked up something like 20 tops and/or dresses and trying them on endlessly before narrowing it down to just two; saving my money for the Boxing Day sales! I was so tempted to buy so many things because Topshop stuff is lovely and I miss it so much now that I don’t get to shop there regularly anymore. Had to keep restraining myself from getting things (“No, it’s winter now… and you’ll only get to wear that six months later when you get back,” and then a voice goes: “But it’s pretty! And you might not be able to find it again! And it’s summer all year round back home anyway! Cost-per-wear!”) including this grey blazer which cost 60 pounds (I didn’t!).

315: almost, but not quite

Traipsing around Italy pretending to be fashionistas on our limited budget. We were on our way to Prada.

 

314: come again another day

Nobody realises the importance of a bottle of soya sauce till they don’t have it anymore. 

Fortunately for me, I (finally) managed to find light soya sauce at the nearby supermarket, and it sounds gross, I know, but honestly I think I could just survive on porridge with soy sauce and soft-boiled egg.

XD

Updates:

Sorry. It’s not that I’ve been terribly busy or anything. We went to Amsterdam (twice over two weekends) and Munich last week for Oktoberfest, so basically I have a shitload of pictures I haven’t really uploaded, except on Facebook. Funny because my mother wants to see them but I keep saying I haven’t uploaded them and then my cousin goes and tells her I uploaded them on Facebook, so now she wants to be my friend. Not good. 

It’s October. I’m going to Italy in two weeks. Time flies, huh.

313: i swam across, i jumped across for you

So. Last weekend we went to Utrecht, with 5 other people from various countries. We met up with Gary, Zhiming and Crystal, who’d just arrived that week. It was lots and lots of fun. Utrecht is a beautiful old city, and because it was really the first of stereotypical Netherlands that we saw, it was great. There are lots of canals, boats, people cycling… 

I almost didn’t go, though, because I didn’t eat breakfast and we were late, so we cycled hard and fast to the train station. Then I felt really dizzy and couldn’t walk straight, and ended up sitting down on the floor after awhile and eventually missed our scheduled train. We did manage to get on one 20 minutes later, after Val forced chocolate down my throat, but I still felt queasy till we actually got to Utrecht and ate some breakfast. Hmm.

312: rain rain go away

We went to Amsterdam yesterday. Woke up at the insane time of 6am (unthinkable in this weather) and cycled all the way to school where we took a bus to Amsterdam. It was raining the whole morning and for the better part of lunch, but the weather cleared up marvellously in the afternoon. It would’ve been a great day if I didn’t lose my contact lens at the end of it.

But oh well. Here are pictures of my room from a very long time ago;

309: see your shoes and your spirits rise

Before we all know it, I’ve been here for more than a week. Over these few days there have been so many happenings, so many parties, so many exciting things to tell. From the first week of meeting new people and crazy random parties with lots and lots (and lots) of drinking, to cooking totally random food in the kitchen, we’ve also changed our housemate. He used to be an American who smoked weed all day and stayed on the top floor, but he moved out because of the rent and now we have a new Iranian housemate whose wife is coming to stay with him starting sometime this week. He is also Muslim, so we are having to deal with all this at one go. 

306: all my bags are packed

Dear friends,

Another one bites the dust!

See you guys in Europe! :)

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. 

292: go out and get her

I’ve been sick for the past few days… guess the heat has finally gotten to me. I went to Ikea on Sunday with J and felt like shit after eating my meatballs (hmmm, I don’t think it had anything to do with the meatballs, though), so I went home, and I’ve just been sleeping my days away because the medicine knocks me right down again every time I wake up to take it. My mum is now worried sick (ha, ha) that I’m going to fall ill and die by myself over there, but I suppose everyone who goes overseas goes through that. 

In any case, I managed to get a flight to Amsterdam on SQ! Hooray for the nice person who decided to free up his reservation :D 

Also, we are going to Munich for Oktoberfest! I checked the train tickets and it seems pretty reasonable… if I buy a pass. Even though it takes 7-9 hours to get to Munich from Amsterdam. Still, it’s an overnight train, so I can take it at night and arrive in the morning. We are currently looking for one more person to share accommodation with, though. That is, if you don’t mind staying in a caravan (and it’s only 99 euros per night! That works out to… less than 25 euros per person per night.) Current parties involved include me, J and Kenneth. If anyone’s interested (preferably someone all three of us know… but if not, we can work something out), you can leave a comment here and I’ll get back to you! Accommodation is in very very very short supply (as I have found out, the hard way).

I’ve been watching Nodame Cantabile; it’s pretty good! The girl annoys me less than she should, she is very pretty, and her dress sense is kind of cute. I want her boots, but her Japanese accent is very irritating. I guess Tamaki Hiroshi makes up for it…

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. 

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.

149: this was where it all began

took this off pak, so i don’t have to look at contract law for tonight…

East-West

changi airport holds too many memories to count, from when i was small enough to sit on the trolley and go whizzing past everything while my parents wheeled it around, to me dreaming of getting sent off one day, to sending people off
expo i only remember for the book sales. i only ever went once, i think – with ian and yanj
pasir ris – 10th birthday parties with yumun and her twin, sending ian off to tekong in january, bumping into haireez, weekend getaway at costa sands (:
tampines is where douglas stays – we watched soccer through the night drinking whisky and ice!
simei is where patrick stays, and that’s about all i know
tanah merah is a stop-and-go place, where there is a country club i don’t look at and people who stay there, but all i know about it is that i need to get off the platform to somewhere else
bedok is where my auntie lives, where douglas brought me to eat bak chor mee
kembangan is where my grandparents, grandauntie, and zing live, which is near siglap with all the nice food, which is near where caitlin and ruimin live
eunos is where my uncle lives, where 93 ends, and where i got lost one fine day trying to make my way to parkway parade in search of douglas (i dunno why my encounters are all so douglas-centric, maybe he is a harbinger of doom)
paya lebar – studying for A levels at the post centre, running to catch the no. 28 bus, desperately hoping i didn’t miss the last one on the way back from shuki’s house
aljunied – first a jamming studio in 2003, with a band i’ve lost touch with, and a trip to swee lee not so long ago
kallang – the eagles, eric clapton, jacky cheung concerts, sitting in the dark by the river just two people alone
lavender makes me remember the diamond shaped hawker centres with huge tables that sat 8 people with the nice fishball soup and SIR where i keep going, for whatever reason
bugis – where my dad used to work for intercontinental, where i cut my hair, the random shops in bugis village that hide treasures only if you bother to look hard enough
city hall, where i found myself in sec3 time and again after i got bored with going to town, to avoid people; there’s always somebody to meet at the starbucks at the top of the escalator
raffles place is somewhere where my mother used to work, and where there is lovely roast meat
tanjong pagar – we met in sec2 for a choir concert and i was walking behind charlene while whispering to somebody, i don’t remember who, that she was very skinny
outram park was where nadia and i got lost after taking the 190 bus to nowhere, and where we stopped to get to SGH to visit hailing after she fell
tiong bahru is where i stopped day in and out during the june holidays of 2003 to get to delta house
redhill is somewhere i’ve never been.
queenstown reminds me of ikea, which reminds me of meatballs, but more importantly the colourful furniture, and the dreams of the kind of room i wanted when i was a kid
commonwealth is just another MRT stop to me
buona vista is where all the RJ kids used to pile up, then it became the place to go when you lost your ez-link card and needed to replace it
dover is where rochester park is (:
clementi is where i went to go to the west coast, taking a bus whose number i don’t remember now (even though it was just last year)
jurong east was firstly for iceskating, and secondly for a place to go when there was nowhere else
chinese garden was somewhere that only appeared in my chinese textbook
lakeside is where keith stays!
boon lay is the furthest place on earth and yet i still go there, because i love my brother

North-South
bukit batok is where i volunteered, for a brief period, to take care of kids at a daycare centre type thing with bernie, and we always took the 157 home
bukit gombak is where shuki stays!
choa chu kang is somewhere i don’t know much about
yew tee is some part of singapore
kranji has a war cemetery, where we went in sec3 after being shown an abortion video during the first and only lesson of the day, biology
marsiling always reminds me of marsupial
woodlands is a passage to malaysia
admiralty is more recognisable as a MTR station in hong kong
sembawang has a nice park with friendly ice-cream uncles
yishun is where the first GV was, the last stop on our take-a-random-trip-on-the-mrt fest, and where i had a long and awkward train ride back to civilisation after settling some fac comm stuff at ziyao’s house, so much so that i couldn’t stand it anymore and got off at novena by cooking up some excuse, even though i said before boarding the train that i was heading to town
yio chu kang is where krystal lives
ang mo kio is where i used to stop alot in sec3, where a ton of people live, and has nice fish and crab beehoon
bishan is grocery-land, infested with RI boys i never used to care about till i started teaching there
braddell is where i sat on a bench at the platform in sec3 watching the trains go by for an hour
toa payoh is where i spent the first 3 years of primary school, and thereafter taking the no. 28 bus home almost everyday in secondary school, where i watched the bus interchange morph from the kind you find in yishun to another across the road to back on the right side but with aircon and a shopping centre
novena the church, the food opposite the church, those nights spent watching movies on our laptops, mugging for SLS in starbucks, spent on the overhead bridge
newton was spent, in my childhood, avoiding stingray, and then gulping copious amounts of it with lots of beer on late saturday nights after concerts and events along bukit timah road (almost inevitably involving a few chinese high boys)
orchard is somewhere where the whole world lives, where you can bump into almost anyone, where you bump into strangers that become familiar faces because you bump into them so often, a place that hides memories and creates them all at the same time
somerset is where i sold flags, fell in love at emerald hill, and had nice korean food
dhoby ghaut had booksales too, and got immensely cooler when the NEL opened – and now i only ever go there because i want to watch movies at cathay and eat carl’s jr while i’m at it
marina bay is somewhere i got stung by mosquitoes non-stop while the rest played capteh and random games

North-East

harbourfront was where we stopped by on the way to sentosa for a tan, and then where we got together one fine day
chinatown, land of heritage tours, too much smoke, too much red, lots of food, including dessert soup i love nowhere else, and cheap karaoke
clarke quay, where people stroll down by the river, falling in and out of love
little india is the land of primary school heritage education and masks a whole horde of photo opportunities
farrer park has a tunnel you don’t know exists
boon keng has a comics connection shop along the road
potong pasir is where somebody’s grandparents live
serangoon is where i grew up in
kovan has nice durian puffs
hougang is where i took a train to at 7 in the morning, sitting in the macs alone in my pajamas drinking iced milo, then sitting out in the open till the 10am sun emerged
buangkok is just another place the train whizzes by
sengkang is too far away for comfort
punggol has fish, and no memories for me