Baltic Cruise 2011

Long, long overdue, and oddly hidden in my GV265>Exams folder. Found it by accident when I wanted to show Cheam something. Still sick and moody.

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London-Harwich: 11th June 2011

I rushed to the airport, after rushing through showering and drinking a milo. The tube felt too slow, and my luggage rolled away at one point in time. Met my grandparents after 3 months, and was overjoyed, but also very very tired. Ate a tuna sandwich that my grandmother bought for me. On the bus I collapsed from sheer exhaustion, having not slept a wink the night before. Somehow, I forced myself to wake up and placed a very incoherent goodbye call to Rajan - the last time I heard his voice. As the call ended and I fell back to sleep, I caught myself thinking "why did I just bother to do that?".

On board the ship we were assigned to room 935. We ate lunch on board, and I ended up taking a nap on the couch. At dinner my grandmother kicked a fuss about the table we had been assigned to: it was too crowded. We were shifted to another table, with 2 old British couples and a 50-60 year old American woman travelling with her two nephews. The first dinner was awkward, with few people talking. We ate quickly and left. Slept.

At Sea: 12th June 2011

I don't remember very much about this day. I expect I read, then moped about. I watched Eat, Pray, Love in the afternoon in the ship's cinema. Dinner was formal, so I dressed up. The American lady and her nephews didn't turn up, because they had lost their luggage on the way to the cruise and thus had nothing formal to wear. They mentioned this yesterday and I eavesdropped. After dinner I wandered to the ship's library to read and write in my diary. Thus began my ritual of leaving every night after dinner to spend some alone time.

Copenhagen: 13th June 2011

The first city. We had signed up for a half day city tour which brought us to the main attractions of Copenhagen. They brought us to the statue of the Little Mermaid, then showed us the Danish Royal residences, and brought us to the riverside quay area which reminded me a bit of Clarke Quay in Singapore. Copenhagen was a very nice city, very quiet and clean. There were bicycles all over the town. We got back to the ship in time to eat lunch. And that's the extent of my memory for this day.

At Sea: 14th June 2011

Sea days are sleep in and bum days. Enough said. Plus again another day I don't remember much of at all.

Stockholm: 15th June 2011

The Stockholm tour was in the afternoon. I had lunch with my grandparents then we went out to gather for the tour. As the ship pulled into Stockholm, I noticed many seagulls gliding in with us. It was a nice sight.

It rained in Stockholm. It was kinda miserable as a result. We saw the outsides of the palaces, and did a small walk around the old town, through windy alleys. It was all quite quaint and all, save the rain. There were also many small interesting shops I'd have loved to venture in to, but oh well. I ended up taking a lot of pictures of lamps in windows, for some reason.

The highlight of the trip was supposed to be the Ice Bar. But due to the rain and road works, there was a horrific jam and we ended up having just 5 minutes at the ice bar. We shuffled in and shuffled out, taking the requisite number of touristy photos, before dashing out to the bus again.

Helsinki: 16th June 2011

We didn't really get to see Helsinki. The tour my grandmother chose was to see Porvoo, a smaller and older town about an hour's drive away from the capital city. As a result, I made a pact with myself to come back to Helsinki before I leave Europe, since C Rowley is there as a well. The drive through Helsinki was pretty, and the Senate house looked marvellous from afar.

Porvoo was a nice pleasant small town. I still can't decide if it's only touristy, or whether the locals actually go there. My grandparents and I went to a small cafe there when it drizzled for a little bit. We shared a meringue, the first time any of us had eaten one before. We bought postcards from the same cafe. Wandering around, I saw a small toy shop. Was tempted to buy lots of moomin stuff, but I refrained, hahaha. Instead bought moomin postcards for the Flat 8 girls. At the end, the entire tour met in a riverside cafe for coffee and carrot cake. It was one of the few carrot cakes I actually liked. Then, the bus brought us back to the ship.

St. Petersburg: 17th June 2011

The main highlight of the cruise was really St. Petersburg. Upon arriving, I severely regretted not brushing up on my 20th century Russian history. Luckily the tour guides were very useful, telling the entire tour bits of information about St. Petersburg as the tour went along. The first sight that greeted us however, as the bus drove out of the port, was not promising. State built apartments that overlooked the port looks depressingly Soviet.

The morning of the tour was spent in the Hermitage. The Hermitage, one of those lovely Wonders in the Civ4 game, gave me good geeky goosebumps (lol). It also reminded me sadly, of Christoph. We were the first group to step into the Hermitage today, before it opened up for the general crowd. The Hermitage was also linked to the Winter Palace, where the Bolsheviks first overthrew the Provisional Government in 1917. I got even more good history geeky goosebumps as I studied the dining room where the Bolsheviks supposedly stormed into, which had turned into a quasi-art galley as part of the Hermitage. The Hermitage itself was very stuffy, and after a while as the day drew on, I started to feel extremely tired and faint. When we finally left the Hermitage, I was very relieved.

For lunch, they brought us to some half performance half dining hall. It got called up to shake some damned musical instrument for a while. I ended up talking to a Mexican guy there, who was apparently travelling alone on the cruise. He seemed kinda lonely. Somewhere around this time, we saw policemen randomly stopping people along the road to check their papers. Apparently, the tour guide said, illegal immigration from the former Soviet bloc to Russia was rampant.

The second leg of the tour was to see St. Isaac's Cathedral, a lovely gold domed church right in the heart of St. Petersburg. Bullet holes from WW2 still remained in the large marbled pillars outside. Then we went to the Church of Spilled Blood, but couldn't go inside for some reason that I've now forgotten. We ended up returning to the ship around 5:30pm, a good full day out in Russia.

For dinner, it was open seating. This meant we changed table from the usual companions to whoever entered at the time. We ended up sitting next to a retired Filipino-American woman, who was entertaining to talk to.

St. Petersburg: 18th June 2011

Woke up feeling really tired. Still, I was extra excited today because it was the tour that I was looking to the most: The Last Romanovs. Our tour guide it transpired, was also a part time History teacher in a university in St. Petersburg, so she peppered us with loads of information.

It started to drizzle on the way to the town of Pushkin, on the outskirts of St Petersburg, where all the palaces were located. Pushkin of course, was named after the Russian author. Later, when we got back to London, I went to Foyle's and bought a book of his complete (and incomplete!) prose tales to read. Right outside Catherine Palace, there was a statue of Pushkin.

Catherine Palace was the first stop. It was named Catherine after Peter the Great's mistress. Afterwards it fell into the hands of Catherine the Great, and she transformed the interiors. As a result the palace is a mishmash of different interior styles, lol. This also is the palace which has the world famous Amber Room, which the Nazis looted during WW2.

The next palace we went too was the most sobering: Alexander Palace. This palace wasn't really restored, because it touched too close to present history - it was the palace where the last Romanov family stayed before they were transported to Siberia and killed. I guess the Russian Communist Party is still testy about the whole thing. There were items of the family there, along with photos of the family. It was kinda depressing :/

Then, we had lunch and visited the last palace: Peter III's palace. Given to him by his mother, Catherine the Great, because she didn't want to stay with him (LOL), his palace was yet another fine thing. You sort of understand after a while why the Russian Revolution happened really, the Romanovs really knew how to live it up in style. Nothing is more evident of that than all the palaces. Anyway I digress. I was kind of palace-ed out by the time we got to this one, and felt a bit bored. To entertain myself, I camwhored in the toilette set given to Paul I and his wife by Napoleon. Even my camwhoring is *intellectual*. Pfft.

After seeing Pauls palace (Pavlovsk Palace), we went on a walk around the palace grounds. It supposedly is the largest enclosed park in Russia/Europe/the World/I don't really remember. There, I watched an elderly couple with the group mysteriously walk at the speed of light and disappear from the rest of the group through hedges. As mentioned earlier, the park is actually pretty damn large. When they didn't appear a few minutes later, I told the tour guide. This set the whole group in a bit of a panic. They started checking to see if everyone they recognised was there, save that couple (the old lady was the only one with a walking stick). The tour guide called the driver and park people over, and after a while herded us into the bus. People made nervous jokes about being left behind for the KGB to find. Finally after a while, the driver appeared with the lost couple.

Apparently they'd followed the wrong tour group, which had been right ahead of us. Random people in the tour were thanking me, saying stuff like "it's good to know someone had an eye on us!" I didn't really want to say that I'd noticed them because I had been stalking them through my camera lens: I thought they'd make a good photo as they were walking hand in hand. I guess at the end of the day, everyone likes to think there's someone out there looking out for them. I just happened to be an accidental one.

Another memory: the palaces in Pushkin were all special because they were especially protected. In order to go in, everyone had to cover their shoes with booties to avoid damaging the wood floors. Just imagine, 300 year old wooden floors destroyed by rampaging masses of tourists! So anyway we all had to wear booties, but as mentioned earlier I was on a tour from a cruise. Well the median age of a cruise attendee is about mid-60s, and mid-60 year old people don't cope with bending down very well. I ended up noticing two men in particular, who struggled to put the booties on. I helped them, and ended up talking to them a bit. I guess nothing breaks the ice like bending down to help put booties on someone. They were school teachers from North England, and knew quite a bit about Singapore. Nice chaps. Later saw them on the cruise days later and they very merrily greeted me.

Talinn: 19th June 2011

Talinn was by far the most beautiful place we visited. It had earlier been recommended to me by Borko, the waiter in charge of the night Snack Bar where I'd go to drink and read every night. The tour group brought us to the Old Town in the morning, and the guide brought us through the streets, pointing out little bits of failed infrastructure maintenance as a reminder of Estonia's past Soviet heritage. She talked about how they really hated the Russians.

The Old Town looked like it came out of a fairytale. I don't quite know how to describe it in a way that it deserves but, if I could have just gone to one destination of the entire cruise it'd have to be Talinn. Domed tiled roofs and cobbled streets. We went into two churches, one Orthodox, one Protestant. In the Orthodox church, I used my scarf to cover my hair as a sign of respect. Inside, it being a Sunday, there was a service in progress. As I stayed to watch for a while, I was mesmerised by the service. It felt somehow at that right moment, I could literally feel God all around me. I stood and watched until I realised more than 10 minutes had passed, and I had to dash out to join the rest of the tour group outside.

The tour guide left at a viewpoint overlooking the rest of the Old Town, and my grandparents who wanted to use the bathroom, walked back themselves. For about 15 minutes, I wandered around the empty lanes by myself, fancying myself a lone traveller. Everything felt magical. A man coming out of a house said "hello beautiful" to me before walking by briskly. Estonians and their strange sense of humour I suppose. I found another lookout point, and took more photos. I bought Soviet souvenirs from a street peddler. Then I went to look for my grandparents.

The next part of the tour was to see Rakvere Castle. The tour guide pronounced it with much rolling of the tongue, like RRRRRRRRAKVERE. It was a most unexpected place. It turned out to have been turned into partially restored model of a Medieval village, complete with people dressed in kitschy costumes. There was a replica of a torture chamber, and 'hell'. There were also replica swords, which were heavy as hell. It was all great, silly, fun. Lunch was held on the castle grounds, and was terrible. Much of the discussion during lunch revolved around whether it was Medieval food or actual current modern Estonian food. An example: barley with hazelnuts (imitating rice?). It was most unpalatable. I only remember liking the bread, which was also quite queer, but was at least familiar in taste to German bread. I had a horseshoe made for fun, with my birthdate on it.

Last bit of the tour was a silly Vodka tasting, which all the silly 18 year old American idiots flocked to, acting like they were BIG SHITS for being able to drink alcohol (it being European laws and all). It was quite annoying. My grandparents and I took the opportunity to use the bathroom. On board the coach, I saw a small dog repeatedly trying to crash it's way back into the house after someone shut it out in the backyard. It failed.

I liked Estonia a lot.

At Sea: 20th June 2011

I remember nothing significant.

Gothenburg (Summer Solstice): 21st June 2011

Gotenburg was rubbish. Out of all the stops, I enjoyed it the least. We took a tour around town in a bus, but there wasn't much to see to begin with. We did however, see the canals and were introduced to the 'hair cutter' bridge and the 'cheese slicer' bride.

At night, our ship went under a massive bridge in Finland, and everyone scurried to the top to watch it. Apparently at the highest point of the ship, you could almost touch the underside of the bridge. I didn't stand that high up though. Also to celebrate, the ship held a chocolate buffet around 10pm. The chocolate covered strawberries were excellent.

At Sea: 22nd June 2011

I remember nothing significant.

Harwich-London: 23rd June 2011

We caught the train from Harwich to London Liverpool Street, and from there took a taxi back to my flat. And tah dah, we were done with the trip.

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In total I read quite a few books: Meg Rosoff's, Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Jonathan Franzen's Strong Motion and something else that I've forgotten about.

People at the Dining Table:
Valerie
Raymond
Brian
Sheila
Nancy
Forest
Ian
My grandparents
Me

Shit Monday

I woke up feeling sick, I can't go to Swing because I feel so sick, meanwhile I'm stressed and overworked, and Tiff's audibly arguing with her ex over the phone while chopping vegetables. This feels like hell. I want to die *$@NV$U@*$ U(

Afghan Hounds & Czech

There's a girl that used to go for Swing Dance, on and off, and I never knew her name. She's stopped going for at least months though. However I could damn well memorise her fact because it unmistakably reminded me of an Afghan Hound's. Anyway I just saw her again at the 4th floor, and pulled up a picture of the Afghan hound to compare and DAMN she really does look like one. I feel all goosebumpy now. Reminds me of how I give people nicknames if I don't know their names/as a tool to remember them.

On another note, a few days ago I found this on my hard drive:-



I was going to write about it (still remembering the details in my mind because it was THAT GOOD), but I realised I already did, years ago when the incident happened. Incidentally it's the only time I've ever written about the Czech Republic in this blog, but then again I'm not sure why I'd write about the Czech Republic, seeing as I've never actually been there.

Meanwhile I'm sitting in the 4th floor, dithering because I don't know how to even start writing my social police essay.

Today I met Shu, Jean, HM, Sye and ZW for breakfast at Holborn McDonald's for breakfast, because it's Shrove Tuesday! So we had McDonald's pancakes to celebrate (they call them hotcakes at home!) and I don't think I've eaten so much so early before in the day in a long time, considering how late I usually wake up. Kept my hashbrown though (69p) because I was too full after. Also bought some apples from the Holborn grocer on my way to school, to undo all the unhealthy shit I've been eating recently.

Mid-Term

As usual when it hits around mid-term (I think it's week 6 now, horrors), I get the mid-term blues. It's the feeling that one gets when one hasn't been able to rest for a while, and yet knowing that the end isn't quite here. As a result you sort of sink into a mode of general meh-ness, where you know you've got lots of work to do, but don't have it in your too feel too bothered until the deadline is absolutely pressing.

So anyway this weekend, in a I-will-fight-this-meh-feeling mood, I went to Oxford with Jia. Met up with Gen and Daryl for lunch, then had dinner with Cheam. Went to of course, to my favourite book place on earth, The Last (opposite Christchurch, as I finally learned). Bought 5 books, all for £10!

Peter Carey - Illywhacker (feel excited and want to start on it!)
Jane Harris - The Observations
Amitav Ghosh - The Shadow Lines
Yoko Ogawa - Hotel Iris
Luke Rhinehart - The Dice Man

And as an aside, today I finished reading the Wordsworth edition of Maupassant's Short Stories.

We had lunch at Brown's, where Daryl told us he saw Emma Watson before. Then we had cream tea at The Rose, which was absolutely delightful. Also never knew that English Breakfast/Everyday tea was a blend of different sorts of tea leaves. Not sure why it never occurred to me to question it before. For dinner Cheam brought us to a Spanish tapas place, which was packed (luckily he made reservations). By the time I had gotten back home (at 10:30pm), I was throughly exhausted. Still it was nice actually being out the whole day, and not studying once! Yesterday though, I made up for it by studying in school the entire afternoon with Shu and Sye, after going to church.

Not sure why I didn't mention this in the previous post, but on Wednesday I went with Dexter to the Science Museum, to see the Hidden Heroes exhibition. It was alright, I did enjoy it, but I was surprised at how sparse everything was. The upside was that inside the exhibition though, there were no kids. It must've been half-term or something, because the entire Science Museum was filled with kids. We also went to see the timekeeping bit of the museum, and the Wellcome History of Medicine exhibit. I love how they have bits of an actual old shop inside. But of course reality returned, and I ended up studying at Dexter's house afterwards before going home for dinner.

I will make the effort to go to the gym today, then head to school and study for a bit before Swing Dance.

A quick list of pressing things on my mind:-
1) Ex-landlord issues
2) Dissertation & all related issues
3) Government project (25% of grade!)
4) Columbia application
5) Social policy essay due this week
6) Mini presentation of Napoleonic art/culture

Cawston Apple and Rhubarb

A few weeks ago (in fact I might have blogged about this and forgotten), I was at Waitrose looking at UHT juices when a man who was studying the juice selection next to me suddenly turned and said 'this is very good! You ought to try it!' It was Cawston Apple and Rhubarb. I said that perhaps I would, and after that he walked off to the cereal end of the aisle. I decided there and then to be adventurous. I picked up the juice I had been studying for a while (something with guava and pineapple in it), and the Cawston Apple and Rhubarb. The Cawston juice was good, though I'm a bit mystified as to where the bit about Rhubarb came it. I expected the juice to look pinky too, but it looked like normal cloudy apple juice. Hmm.

Celebrated Tiff's birthday on Tuesday (coincidentally also Valentine's Day). She booked a room at Grange St Paul's for the night. We went to a real shit pub for dinner (we all thought it was a restaurant, that's what you get when you don't research a place I guess) and ate kevlar-grade chicken breast. What saved the night however was us walking to Tinseltown after, and HM and I shared a yummy ferrero rocher shake. We also got the birthday surprise of Tiff, and she was really embarrassed. How lovely. The MTVs were played a mix of retro songs (Spandau Ballet's True anyone?) and we sang along. Lots of Whitney Houston too. Then on the way back to the hotel Tiff booked for the night, HM and I sang the Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge. Come to think of it, I think Moulin Rouge's my most favourite romance movie. ZW, Tiff and I ended up sleeping around 2:15am, after we watched Burlesque, which was exceptionally inane. We stuffed ZW in the middle of the king size bed and slept on either side.

Amazingly I managed to wake up on time for my 9am workshop, and spent all of 12 minutes walking to LSE, stopping by at Wright's Bar to get a tea, and I was still early for my workshop. It was a nice walk, on a nice cheery morning, in the city of London. Sometimes I'm too caught up in day-to-day life to stop and remember where I really am.

Time Warps and Pear, Pork and White Fungus Soup

I don't know if this has ever happened to me before (for I find I am quickly losing my ability to recall things at a snap of a finger), but I find that I am often astounded to find that things that I thought happened ages ago happened mere days ago. It is all very queer. For instance I thought the Taylor Wessing ticket stub's been in my wallet for a quite some time, then I recalled that I went there with Shu just last Friday, on the same day that I was at Victoria Tower doing work. Similarly I find it almost hard to believe that yesterday morning, I had dim sum lunch with my friends. And meeting Mong, Cheryl and Cielo at Liverpool Street to munch at Breakfast Club for the whole of last Sunday's afternoon. And seeing Jia and Yihang just on Thursday when Jia came over to cook. Sometimes I don't know if it's me, or the medicine anymore. That and getting confused at the strangest of things, like misplacing passports and all. Hmm.

Yesterday I made Pear, Pork and White Fungus Soup. I left it to sort of boil overnight, mainly because there's no place to put it in the fridge. Today the soup tastes almost completely different, and the white fungus seems to have totally disappeared. It is all very, very strange.

Watched My Idiot Brother and Waitress this week. They both proved to be highly enjoyable.

Victoria Tower

That feeling when you open up a book of archived documents, and the document has been typed out rather than hand written!

Lord Curzon's handwriting stumped both me and the archivist at the help desk. Shall pretend those documents are irrelevant. Meanwhile I do note that everyone here, except the policemen/security personnel here at the Parliamentary Archives, suffers from a dismal lack of social skills, i.e. able to make small, pleasant talk.

Dye or Dirt?

Today I finally washed a pouch that I bought from Sapa, Vietnam. I had previously been using it to carry around my diary and a pen, and other small things. Today as I hand washed it, copious amounts of blue dye came out (come to think of it, maybe it's the local natural dye they use for colouring their own clothes dark blue), colouring the soapy water blue. Now hours later, after it's dried, I realised the fecking thing has actually changed colour: it's now several shades lighter, sort of like a turquoise kind of colour from dark blue. Amazing. Of course now I'm left to wonder whether it was dirt that made the pouch so dark coloured, or whether it was simply layers and layers of caked dirt because those villagers weren't exactly known for their high state of cleanliness.

I'm back to being super frustrated and dissatisfied with everything that my life entails again. Nothing new really, it's sort of like my 2nd default setting (1st being satisfied at merely coasting along life). But I'm more frustrated this time because of this one person I know, who's been depressed for quite sometime, is still depressed and in my view, refusing to help herself. She refuses to go for counselling, refuses to take medication, flat out refuses to do anything that might alleviate the problem. And it's affecting my friends, her flatmates. Am I being harsh on her? Yes, totally. Considering that I fight with depression all the time, it might seem rich coming from me, but on the other hand if I'm not hard on myself to fight my depression I'd just let it win all the time - and spend my whole life looking on from my bed. Depression can only be solved within oneself, and if you're refusing to address it even after such a prolonged period (anything more than 6 months), then well you're just letting it win, so in a way I think it is kind of fair to say that you're just wallowing in yourself and not doing anything.

Of course being the coward I am, I'd never say it to her.

I'm sick of all of this.

Brie My Baby

Before I left home today, one of the first things I did was to drink a cup of tea. Tea where I'd left the teabag inside the cup to stew for what seemed like ages (I'm more of a 3-4 minute tea bag person) as I guilty washed up all the dirty dishes I'd used yesterday. Now I don't know how long I took to wash those dishes up, but I'm sure it was more than 4 minutes. So by my definition, I had a pretty damn strong cup of tea. Except during class just now, I only heard about 50% of the words everyone said, and the rest was background noise. The only word that really stood out was when someone said 'middle eastern' and 'conspiracy theory' pretty near to each other, like in a sentence or something. And only because it was a class on economic policy, so words like 'middle eastern' and 'conspiracy theory' stood out. What, a conspiracy economic theory? To get them to buy up the whole of the UK, like they already are? Anyway so needless to say, 9am class was an utter washout. I also noted today that Murray Mint, has dandruff in his hair, but that somehow doesn't make him any less hot.

So anyway I washed up the dishes this morning. Now for some time, we've been having quite a mouse problem. The fucker has been in my room, eating my honey almonds, scattering the crumbs all over my high heels, and shitting all over my luggage and floor. Recently however, after the fucker appeared in Tiff's room on Sunday night, she went ballistic and bought a bunch of glue traps (with express delivery, she is most proud to add). So anyway Tuesday night, after I came back from Wild Times, I heard a bunch of scraping sounds. True enough as I came up the flight of stairs, I actually saw the fucker. EXCEPT: I saw really only half of it. The back bit. And it was half under Flat 3's door, and it seemed to be stuck.

So i screamed. And screamed. And Tiff and ZW came out and screamed more. And the mouse panicked and started forcing itself more through the little door gap, until it's bum disappeared and all we saw was it's tail. And then that made us scream more, and that then made the mouse struggle more, and blablabla ad infinitum. But of course some of the screaming made some sense. For example, some of it was: "JOSHUAAAAAAA! BENJAMIN!!!!!!!!!!!! OEIJ! OIEJ! WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS!!!!!!" (said by me, the names of the guys in Flat 3 upstairs), but most of it was "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" (said by everyone) and "OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!" (I think said by Tiff and me). And as we stood there screaming our heads off, we wondered why NO ONE SEEMED TO REACT. It's like if you scream in London, no one can hear you.

ZW managed to call someone, who then got in contact with the guys upstairs, and FINALLY they came down. And as they opened the door to 'rescue' us, we screamed more as we finally saw the full mouse, stuck to the glue trap. The first thing O said as he lifted the glue trap to look at the mouse was, "HAHAHA IT'S SO SCARED IT SHAT ITSELF". No shit, there were 3 girls screaming non-stop at it. If I was the mouse I'd be scared too. And then that's when they told us the bad news: it wasn't just A mouse we were reckoning with, it was multiple mice. Like a mice family. 'Cause they'd just killed one last week. Anyway we left the guys to dispose of the mouse. They said they'd leave it on the ledge and let it freeze to death, just like they did to the mouse they caught and killed last week. At night as I lay in bed, about to sleep, I heard the loudest singular SQUEAK I heard on Earth. I had just been contemplating at the moment whether to go use the bathroom. I decided against it and somehow went to sleep.

The next day, O and B came, and set up a bunch of glue traps in a row under their door. True enough yesterday morning, we woke up to a yet another mouse stuck. Except this time they didn't remove it straight away, electing to leave it stuck there till night time, when they got back to school. As I cleaned up the mess the mice left outside our flat last night with the vacuum cleaner, I could see it struggling and freaking out with the wail of the vacuum cleaning approaching. I wonder if you can suck a mouse up a vacuum cleaning, come to think of it. But I didn't.

Which brings me to this morning. So I was cleaning up the dishes, with my usual token Yellow Rubber Gloves. And those gloves + water + clean dishes = SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK. So I spent my entire time washing up in utter terror. I started singing to myself a made up song which was Christian gospel-ly. I thought of the mouse suddenly running out from under the sink and eating my toes, to take revenge for it's fallen comrades. I was freaked out beyond comparison, all the while conscious of the fact that DAMNIT IT WAS THE GLOVES.

So that's been my life thus far: swing dance and mice.

I also read Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild in less than 8 hours, from midnight Thursday to evening Thursday. It's a fascinating, fascinating book on the nature of youth.

"So what do you usually do?"

I always get asked this question often, along with "so where do you usually go?". And everytime, my brain sort of dies because honestly I don't have the foggiest idea what exactly it is I do or where I go. I mean I go to the gym, I go Waitrose. I exercise and I grocery shop. But I'm pretty bloody sure that's not the answer the asker usually wants. So on review of my life I've compiled a few facts:-

FACT ONE: I am a very boring person. All I do is spend time sleeping and slothing at home. I don't even study. I sort of just hack away at bits of the iceberg that is SCHOOL and spend the rest of my time in a totally inefficient manner, that makes me get frustrated at the end of the day.

FACT TWO: I like my comfort zones. Shopping? I go to Oxford Circus. Sometimes if I feel adventurous/am near school, I actually go to Covent Garden! Shocking innit? You'll never catch me near South Kensington. This also means I spend at least what must be 70% of my life at home, in my small 5m by 3.5m room. I've been to Portobello market 3 times, and at the same time never been to Spitalfields, that's because Portobello is Familiar and Comfortable (relatively). I also totally form going-out routines and patterns.

FACT THREE: The only thing I go out really is because I have a reason. Like I want to go to the V&A, or something. But even that I must plan about a week in advance. Which reminds me, I do want to see the Taylor Wessing prize at the National Portrait Gallery pretty soon. Often, studying is not a good enough reason. I need a pull factor to get me out of the house first, then only I can linger and stay and study. Often this reason is school or having to meet friends.

FACT FOUR: The currently most exciting part of my life is Swing Dance.

FACT FIVE: I do go out alone, for shopping, films, seeing exhibits. I don't mind being alone, and often enjoy it, but it also means I do it seldom because my inertia is just so massive.

Anyway I totally had a brain fart today. After spending hours bumming around at home, I finally left to run some small errands (post office, get prescriptions, look for an eyebrow pencil), just as the sun was setting. So anyway I bought hydrocortisone cream from Boots and the cashier asked me "when are you going to use it?". I sort of went "uh nuh-ooooooooowwwwww?" and gave her a really blank look. She then gave me a really confused glance and said, "I asked, WHERE are you going to use it?". Cue whale face
(-_________________________-")

I just booked a ticket to watch Confucius at the BFI by myself in Feb. Can't wait to feel Asian and go OH YEAH at a movie, unlike the pretentious shitfest that was Shame, which I saw last week.

A New Year

Just came back not too long ago from Flat 8, where ZW and I went to celebrate Chinese New Year's Eve, the day of the traditional family gathering. I made my awesome chicken wings, after marinating them for almost 24 hours, and I'm pleased to say they were wiped out by everyone. I grin inside as I think about it.

Flat 8 (esp Jean!) cooked up a veritable feast. They made siu yok (roast pork) and char siu (bbq pork), and there were traditional favourites like dried shiitake mushrooms. Made me think of him, where they usually have shiitake mushrooms with hair moss. Hair moss is a strange thing, because it looks literally like a pile of hair. When I was younger I think my uncle used to scare me by saying it was the hair of naughty girls. It tasty mainly because it's very good at absorbing and holding onto the thickened oyster sauce it's often cooked in. Mmmm.

There were 8 of us in attendance, mainly because Tiff was too tired and decided not to turn up. The table was nicely cramped full of food and people. For dessert, Hui Min and Jean made tang yuan (glutinous rice dumplings), which was really tasty and a nice surprise, and we ended up having a debate about WHY it was traditional to eat it. We ended up resorting to wiki. We really are half-assed Asian people.

After ZW and I came back, I started cleaning my room. I basically didn't clean it since coming back from Morocco, even though the mess was bugging me. Now for once in weeks, there is nothing on my floor that isn't actually supposed to be there - well except the two packets of Special Tea I have under my desk, because there's no space to leave it in the kitchen. I feel very pleased with myself, especially since I beat cleaning it up BEFORE midnight, because it's bad luck to clean the floors on the 1st day of Chinese New Year. (Not that I seriously care about such things, but it seems rather twee to adhere to them now) It's something about sweeping away the good luck that a new year brings.

So anyway, hopefully this means I'll get good luck for this new lunar year. Been feeling blah the past few days, and hopefully that rights itself after today, oho.

Dry Cleaning: £4.99

On my way back home today, I finally picked up my dry cleaning. The dry cleaner's shop is in reality, 30 seconds from my house, but on the other side from school. So I never really walk by it on my day-to-day path. This meant I manage to leave my sweater there for 2 weeks, despite them actually taking just a day to clean the damn thing. The more I think about it, the more I feel intrigued by my own behaviour, because I managed to deem a 30 second walk as "too far". That and I suppose I had no urgent need to pick up the sweater, what with it being so warm nowadays. Also for some reason I remember them telling me it would cost £6, not the £4.99 I paid.

Anyway today I went to the UCL Chinese New Year fair. It turned out to be something of a misnomer, for it was more of a Singaporean fair. I swear of the lot there were no Malaysians, no China Chinese, and no random other Chinese people, it was just Singaporeans. As a consequence I ran into loads of people I hadn't seen at all. I even ran into Gen from school, which was really nice. We ended up going out for coffee at the super hipster No. 114 coffee place along Tottenham Court Road. I initially went to the fair with Shu and Hui Min, and Jeff's family (their ex-JC teacher). I swear their daughter, Sophie, was such a heartbreaker. She's 2. Everywhere we went, people were cooing over her and taking photos. Even the girl doing the Wushu performance from Imperial (which was excellent and extremely enjoyable to watch), noticed her as she was doing her routine, and gave Sophie a smile. Also Jeff's mum was highly entertaining. She dragged me to go to the bathroom with here, and there she spoke about things like doing makeup and her red skinny jeans (all in Mandarin of course). Nice lady, nice family.

After I left Gen, I got slightly lost in UCL as I tried to find my way back out to Byng Place, because I wanted to go to Waterstones. I'm just thankful that LSE seems to be better planned out than UCL, with it's random appearing courtyards. At Waterstones I walked about a bit, enjoying the feeling of being surrounded by so many books. I just bought the BBC History magazine though, because I've got a massive backlog of books here at home. Aiming to read Into the Wild after I finish Parting Shots. I wandered into the FOPP bit and found the second hand DVD section. Picked up This is England for £2 and at the counter I impulsively bought A Town Called Panic for £3 (£5 w/o any other purchase). Remembered how last year I was trying to find a cinema near enough to Jeygrove Court that showed A Town Called Panic, but it only showed in all sorts of odd places.

Going out tonight to celebrate Hui Min's birthday at a dinner place. Need to remember to wrap her gift.

Love me or leave me

I have come to the conclusion that every single awful day I have in existence is primarily of my own doing. That and I seem to always be my own worst enemy, etc. etc.

Today as I walked back from school/Sainsbury's, I walked by the fruit seller (I just learned his name is Adel Shah) and said hi as usual. He stopped me and started talking in pidgin English about how he was sick today and had to close his fruit stand for 3 hours. Then he took out his wallet and pulled out an appointment card, telling me he next had an appointment on 30th Jan. I flipped the card around and then I very awkwardly realised that it was for a NHS specialist sexual health clinic in Archway. Then he took out his medicine and showed it to me. I took note of the name, because I'm curious like that, and when I came back and googled it, wiki said it was sometimes used to cure STDs.

I don't think he realised exactly what kind of information he was revealing when he showed all those things to me, because he barely speaks English.

In other news, I've been pigging out on Lindt Mild 70% Cocoa.

Skypeskypeskype

Got off skype with my parents a while ago, and something my mum kept saying is bugging me. She said she didn't think I was well enough to do a masters degree, because I'm already so stressed out over doing my bachelor's. Which I have to admit is a pretty good point. And as I dithered about my room half thinking about my GV227 project proposal, I couldn't actually think of a reason why I wanted to do a masters other than the fact that I WANT TO DO A MASTERS.

In other news I'm going out for social dancing again tonight at Wild Times. Looking forward to it.

NATWEST AND WRIGHT'S

So it's been 2 and a half years since I've been living here in this (apparently) Emerald Isle. I just finished my cup of Wright's Bar tea and DAMNIT I WANT MORE, except I'm sure my weak system will die from lactose intolerance and caffeine overload. What the hell do they put in their tea anyway? It's SO GOOD and for just 45p. Seriously. It's way better than all the teas I've had in the world, Moroccan mint tea included. Though I do remember having some sort of caffeine OD-sort of shivers before.

So anyway NATWEST, is a PAIN IN THE ARSE. Because I'm on a basic account I now can't withdraw ANY money from a cashpoint that is not Natwest, RBS or Tesco Cash. WTF. There was one day, I was feeling sick and hungry, and it was raining, and I had to frantically call Dex to come and give me cash because my card wasn't working at ANY cashpoint and I started panicking. As a result I've now taken to using Waitrose's cashback scheme, and drawing more money than usual at cashpoints that I can actually use. Fucking buggers, the lot of them. On another note, for the first time today, the Natwest cashpoint in school gave me two £5 notes. When I first came there were talks to put £5 notes in cashpoints, and how they were planning to do pilots in special machines located at places like Waterloo station. Once when I was taking 1 down to tutor in Bermondsey way back in 2009, I remember seeing one of those machines with a special '£5 NOTES DISPENSED HERE!!!' sign. Now it's London-wide it seems. Meh I feel weird to think of all the time that's passed.

I woke up at 11.11 am today

Some time ago (perhaps last year) my Dad told me that as you get older, time accelerates. Not quite saying I'm that old now, but it sure as hell feels that way as I marvel at the fact that I've been in uni for 2 and a half years. That and I'm still not sure what I've been doing when I think back on the previous term of school. Perhaps that's why I keep a blog, because my memory is like a sieve - attempting to keep some sort of record [any juicy, darker bits are written down in diaries].

Also I just lied, a big proper lie, for the first time in ages to my flatmate. She asked me to help her annoying friend do something. I refused. Haven't I told her enough times that I utterly detest that girl? PFFFFT. I am now playing my music very softly to pretend I'm not home.

A picture of the henna tattoo I had done for 60 dirhams (€6) in Marrakech:


I freak out a little everytime I see it, because I forget it's there.

Maroc + New Year 2012

So as mentioned in my last post, I was away in Morocco 'celebrating' the new year. More like the new year just happened to fall during our holiday. So New Year's was spent in Fes, where everyone (Paul, Cheam, Jia and Yihang) sort of said NO SHOWERING before 0000 hours and I had to shower at 0015 hours instead. I don't know why I remember that fact the most. That and the riad we were staying in, riad verus, very nicely served this super sweet cake to mark the new year. And then the next day, on new year's eve, I fell dog sick for the next few days and said "I want to depart from my body" at least once an hour. SO summary:

Morocco - 29th Dec to 8th Jan
Fes, Meknes, Casablanca, Marrakech
£700 max spent
5.5/10

+ Medinas
+ Food (initially), loved the well cooked tajines at the first restaurant - Sekaya - in Fes
+ Souks: always charming no matter which bit of the world you're in
+ Amusing language barrier (French, Arabic, Berber anyone?)
+ Traveling company
+ The hotel staff were very very friendly
+ Mid-day heat and lovely dark blue skies
+ Hammam: never felt so clean in my life
+ Camel ride: brief, but I liked it
+ Volubilis
+ Seeing cats everywhere, except when they startled me

- FALLING SICK, with flu then stomach flu: at least I think I saved loads of money and lost weight (minus at least 3 points)
- Casablanca: shithole city of the highest order
- Food: lack of variety, even if it was tasty; that and maybe it made me get stomach flu?
- Cold COLD showers at night, Morocco is not built for cold weather
- Taxi drivers always out to scam tourists
- Didn't get to see the desert, but this warrants a 2nd trip
- Getting harassed in Marrakech: first by some really black dude who shoves me right into a store, and then laughs at me when I get upset, getting almost pickpocketed in a souk near the plaza and finally some teenage boys touching/pulling my hair in a crowd for amusement
- Smokers, everywhere
- Feeling crazily dirty and dusty all the time

I bought 2 seasons worth of Curb Your Enthusiasm on DVD, and they greeted me when I came back. Mmmm. Had a slow day today with a 1 and 1/2 hour nap in the middle, really hope I can get back to my normal working schedule tomorrow.

Last Post of 2011

Tomorrow, I'm headed to Morocco with Cheam, Jia, Paul and Yihang. Specifically Fes, Meknes, Casablanca, then Marrakesh.

In the shower I was thinking about the whole of 2011, and realised it was probably my most travelled year. New Year's itself was spent in Wurzburg, then I embarked on two epic trips during Summer: one a Scandinavian cruise and the other a trek/backpacking across most of South East Asia. Then recently I went with my mum to Austria-Germany, and we covered Vienna, Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, then Munich. Other smaller trips include two beach holidays, one to Malaysia and the other to Bintan. Then there was the trekking trip to Snowdonia. Lots of travelling indeed!

Spent today at the National Archives, being grumpy from a lack of sleep and low blood sugar. Had the world's worst possible cup of tea (what tea brand is worse than P&G tips?!) for £1.15 too. Only bright spot was that I got to do some of the work I wanted, and one of the security guards was really nice to me.

Two random images to round off this very short post:


This is the bike I cycled on all the way from Russell Square to Earl's Court on Christmas day, because there was no public transport. Almost got killed a few times, and crashed into a parked vehicle en route. Didn't cycle all the way alone though, met Jia at her place along Baker Street and cycled the rest of the way with her. Spent Christmas with Yihang's friends, watched Home Alone 2 and Contagion, along with 2 eps of Game of Thrones. Mmm.



And this was just a bit of the archival work I was looking at today.

AND another note: I just saw a mouse run by my room door. NOT COOL. This, I blame directly on my flatmate: see previous post. I flipped out yesterday when they told me, and only because I'd seen it run past me in the kitchen.

Merry New Year, I think.

Peace on earth and goodwill to all men: EXCEPT IF YOU'RE DAFT

Facebook now is filled with all sorts of happy musings on loving the world and loving mankind. I however, feel quite the contrary but shall restrict my grinch like mood to this space. After all I seek to rant, not attract unwarranted attention from even more daft people.

Today is Christmas day. I came back from Munich on the 20th Dec at night. I spent the 21st being utterly depressed that I'd come to to find the house in such an utterly filthy and messy state - that and cleaning for half a day. Now I am by nature a messy person, but I restrict it to my own cave. Furthermore I am not a dirty person, I am instead totally OCD about dirt. So coming back from a very nice holiday, it was possibly the worst thing to greet me, although I did already mentally prepare myself for it. So point is: I cleaned up on the 21st to an acceptable level (Tiff'd have made it way cleaner though).

Last night however, I spent the first hour of Christmas cleaning up the kitchen. It was filthy again. I was very very frustrated, as I'd really cleaned only just days ago and the kitchen had fallen into such a state so rapidly. Then this morning I took all the rags out of the machine and discovered to my great displeasure that there were 10 rags. Now I don't know about you lot, but in my world when rags get dirty, my instinct is to clean them. And if you're not going to clean them, throw them away. But neither of this happened. So instead my kitchen is full of rags drying now. It's really too ridiculous for words and damn if this hasn't turned me into a grinch.

Snowdonia

This post is ages overdue. It was almost written many many times, but then I always never got around to doing it. So for some reason now, something like 2 weeks later and when I'm sitting in a hotel room in Linz, Austria, I am determined to actually write this damn thing. Perhaps it's because I'm agitated over my mum pressurising me about tenancy issue from my old flat (yes, I admit I went into self-denial and she's right to do it, but that doesn't make me respond in a more reasonable manner), and just like how some people go running, I angrily pound out words on the keyboard.

That and I've been crazily busy since that time period.

So anyway flashback to the last post(s): I didn't get the part in the performning group, and was absolutely gutted. Developed something close to an associated-panic attack to swing that was thankfully adverted. Went back for swing class on the day we (WR, JK, Tiff) left for Snowdown to find that Tom had learned my name. Sue says (very nicely) that's because he and Cici were debating about whether to let me into the performing group. Sue also said that the reason why I didn't get in was probably because they needed someone to pair a short guy and I was too tall. Sue is really too nice. ANYWAY SNOWDON.

So afterwards, Tiff and I left to meet JK and WR at Euston station around 10:30pm. Tiff bought some really nice fries from Burger King. We arrived at Birmingham New Street around 1am and we settled into the 24h Mcdonald's next to the station to be like hobos. We encountered an interesting mix of people there, I must say.

First was security man, who I couldn't decide whether he was creepy or not. He was inside Mcdonald's and was standing near the door when I popped out for a bit to feel the cold outdoor air. On my way in, he smiled and said that I looked very pretty. Which was alright, but then afterwards he kept looking at me and watching me through the class, perhaps hoping to catch my eye and garner a smile for me or something. I don't know. Then was outright creepy dude, also of a vague central Asian origin, who sat in the adjorning booth and kept half staring at us, prompting Tiff to put her coat on even though it was warm inside. The last was outright WTF, a legit high hobo with shoulder length ratty orange (?!?!?!) hair who came right up to our table and kept saying something that sounded like "an-ya-se-yo" (hello in Korean?) for a good 2 minutes while we attempted to ignore him.

Around 5am we left the Mcdonald's to catch our next train towards Holyhead, getting off at Llandudno Junction. Essentially once we got on the next train, we all crashed and slept, getting up only near our stop. While we're sitting still, half waking up and waiting for our stop, Tiff got the idea to go wash up. As she walked by, the pessimistic thought occured to me, "Hmm, what if...?"

Well let's just say true enough, it happened. Tiffany was still in the bathroom as the train pulled into the station, JK shoved WR and I off the train, with all our stuff, while Tiff was still nowhere to be found. And while JK was walking inside the train, WR and I followed him on the outside. Then just as the train made a funny sound, I sprang forward to try and press the train door open as JK was becoming frantic on the other side. The door did not open. According to WR and JK, my first reaction was to raise up my right hand and wave to him as the train pulled away. Funnily enough, I don't remember doing that although it does sound like something I'd have done. Instead what I remembered the most was JK's face as it slowly dawned on him the that the train was about to move off with him and Tiff in it:- a mix of disbelif, horror and dawning anxiety, as he kept pressing the button to open the train door. It was at the point that I wished I had the presence of mind to take out my camera. Anyway his eyes were a bit like Munch's The Scream, if one can imagine that IRL. JK's mouth was a bit more of the open-in-disbelief sort.

WR and I walked off the platform, and I immeditately went to the train station attendant and explained our predicament to him, framing it more along the 'so, when's the next train from Bangor due?' line. Somehow, I found the whole thing insanely funny. Which I guess it was. Even though I was very tired and usually extremely irritable. WR and I ended up stoning in silence in the small waiting room, listening to the local yobs waiting for their train. Was amusing. When Tiff and JK finally came, we ended up walking to the local Aldi and Iceland, before ending up at another Mcdonald's when we found the KFC closed. The next train was 4 hours later. Tiff bought breakfast for all of us, as penance.

By the time we got to Betws-y-Coed, it started raining a bit. Deciding we couldn't ditch our bags at the tourism centre, which closed at 5pm, we ended up carrying the whole lot of it to our trek in Snowdon. Anyway it was pouring like fuck when we got to Snowdown. It was Singapore-monsoon rain style. But we were there, and had endured so much to be there, so we started climbing anyway - against all common sense. We were quickly drenched to the bone. When I climbled, my jeans actually turned shiny for a moment as all the water got simply wrung out by the action of my leg pulling my body up.

On our way up, we passed 3 groups of men coming down. They all looked like the real deal too: proper gear, mid 20s to 30s, all fit men (in the literal and not British sense). They all said they tried going up, couldn't, almost got blown off, and decided to turn back. To this we went "ok! We'll try anyway", and then they gave us the most amazed looks ever, a combination of 'wow, you've got guts/you're nuts/what's the number of the welsh moutain rescue team?'. After a while Tiff and WR called it quits, but JK and I wanted to push on. After leaving Tiff and WR for about 20 minutes, we finally turned back after having to stop multiple times because we almost got blown off the mountain. There is nothing quite like carrying 15kg on your back, weighing almost 55kg, and feeling yourself get blown off a mountain because of gale force winds (which we were warned off before, in case our foolhardiness needs more highlighting).

Somehow, JK and I made it off the mountain in one piece. We spent the rest of the time in the poor cafe at the base, sopping off water everywhere we went. I discovered everything in my bag was wet, but my worn clothes were somehow the driest since my hair and torso were spared (thanks Karrimor 3-in-1 jacket!) We somehow made it to the town area, and found a lovely discount store (Rock Botton, by Cotswalds I think) where the staff were really nice. They allowed us to hide there till our dorm opened, while hogging the heater. At the same thing, they even nicely lent WR a jacket that was defective because hers was all wet. I managed to buy a 5 pound pair of pants to replace my sopping wet ones. WR later bought a box of cabury celebrations for the staff from a local food and wine store.

The rest of the time was considerably more normal. Dinner we had to drag our asses out, and we had it in a small restaurant bar while being served by a spritely old man. There was a jukebox and WR was very thrilled. WR and Tiff were telling ghost stories, and Tiff died because she was super scared, changing beds with me. The next day I felt like dying, and went to rest after breakfast. We took a bus to Swallow Falls, then walked to the Ugly House and took a nature ramble through fields on the way back to town, some 6km away. Lunch was at a local chip shop where all the locals stared at us, and JK accidentally dumped a whole large shaker of salt on his food because he knocked the cap off.

Back in London, after more Monopoly Deal, WR went home and JK, Tiff and I went to Euston Chinese to grab dinner. Then, Tiff went home to run and I went home to die.

The end.

Linked In

So I finally caved and got a linkedin account.

Actually I got it to attempt to figure out who G was, and of course I failed.

I'm starting to strongly think I'm one of those post-post modernist stereotypes who are overeducated, spoiled and utterly ambitious-less in life. Pah.

Babysitting is really tiring.

Da Da Doobie Da

So I went for the first audition of my life today, for the Swing Dance performing group. They wanted 5 girls out of 8, and we had to dance with three different partners, will being videoed. I guess I could do worse but holyshiteventhinkingaboutitnowmakesmefeelallonedge. My track record with auditions is simple: avoid at all costs. Similarly with interviews, presentations and exams, I crack at the idea of being analysed for my skillz. Still as far as auditions go, it was not intimidating at all. Feel annoyed that I missed so much of the beginning because it turned out the class was learning the routine for the auditions and I had to catch up really quickly - thus making a ton of mistakes in the beginning of the routine. Learnt a few names of those friendly faces around class though, so that was worth something. Friendly guy I like to dance with is called Ulrich.

Meanwhile being the retard I am, I sort of ran away from guy-that-I-find-attractive when he offered to teach me the beginning routine during the break. I'm totally mentally facepalming now as I think about it. That and he's a really great dancer. Su and the Singaporean girl I met in class, were talking about the auditions as we left class and we agreed [let's call him] G (attractive guy) was the single most best dancer in class. He'd definitely get into the performing group. Ahblagrpadhcw8ru3902

Babysat on Fri, today (reason why I was late for swing class), tomorrow and Weds. Will write about it soon I guess, cause I'm still too busy kicking myself over G to think straight.

Southwark

I've had this image kicking about my desktop for quite some time, waiting for me perhaps to do something with it. I took it when I was first trying to figure out how to get to Bankside from my old place at Hatton Garden. I was tickled by how Southwark tube station was changed into Katakana for some odd reason. I took a screenshot.

I now post it so I can delete it, and perhaps leave a small but yet sentimentally sad bit of my life behind me.

The Napoleonic Empire

Watched the Ides of March yesterday - walked out feeling like I had been blown away. Superb acting, superb script, superb cinematography. Some might argue that it's a bit cliched, but it was a good rendition of a cliche nonetheless. Then I sped walked from the Barbican to Belgo at Holborn, where I had a quick meeting with Dex and gang, before rushing off to an immensely enjoyable swing dancing class. After class I met Cielo and Hadi for dinner, and we returned to bum about my room into the wee hours. Busy busy day.

Today's essay day (tis due on Thursday!) and this is how I roll in my new room:


Still no proper internet line.

21 Degrees Centigrade

So after many calls, hand wringing and head banging, I have finally booked flight tickets to Morocco from the 29th Dec to 8th Jan. My ass is sore from leaning back in my chair too much, my throat dry from shouting so much (sorry Cheam) and my head spinning from receiving too many heat-radiation-waves from my handphone after talking so much. But, it is done, and woo hoo Jia, Yihang, Paur, Cheam and I are off to Morocco - for better on worse since it is a rather motley sort of crew (I almost spelt it as 'crue', Kurt Cobain would be so proud of me).

First world problems for the win.

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21 degrees centigrade is the average daytime temperature in Morocco for Dec to Jan.

SEA + China Part 1

Oh gosh I forgot that I had this lying about, was writing as I was actually travelling, just forgot to post it up.

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26th August - Singapore - Macau
Arrived in Macau near the evening, to realise how smoggy everything looked. The taxi driver brought us past the new Cotai Strip, and we saw the Venetian from the outside. After checking into the hotel, we took the hotel's shuttle into town and walked about a bit before having dinner. I did not like dinner. Throughout, I felt a bit nauseous as I smelt the water of the nearby fish tanks, splashing their dirty water everywhere. My appetite was not helped by the fact that I kept seeing a promfet fish swimming upside down, righted only when it drifted into the air pump - shooting it across the fish tank - and then flopping upside down only moment later.

After dinner we walked around Macao, looking for the ruins of St. Pauls. When we went there, we were disappointed to find it in darkness, usually it's lit up at night. However it turned out we had arrived on the first day of a special annual light show. After waiting around for about 20 minutes, the crowds came en masse, and the light show began. It was a trippy light show. Quite cool, but trippy, and not very useful at all. Then we had a meal of dandan/shuang pei lai.

The highlight of the night however was wandering into the various casinos. The first casino was the original one, by Stanley Lai, the . Then we went to . Finally we went to two random small crappy casinos, all because I was looking for those old school slots machines where you pull the lever. There were none. Instead everyone was playing baccarat, to my disappointment. No recognisable poker or blackjack. It was also smoky like hell. Then, we went back to the hotel for the night.

27th August - Macau - Zhuhai - Kaiping
Kaiping is home of the Diaolous, a UNESCO world heritage site. Diaolous are essentially houses-cum-fortresses built in Southern villages around the early 1900s, when the Qing Dynasty fell apart/the Warlord era began and there was no law and order and banditry was rife. It was funded by money sent from overseas relatives who had dispersed all over the world. This made for some really strange buildings, who had semi-Western features, in addition to being towering blocks amongst the other small village buildings. I'd first known about them when I watched Let the Bullets Fly earlier in the year.

We first had breakfast on the Macao side, and then crossed the border into China. Looking at the hordes of Chinese trying to cross the border into Macao, we thanked our stars that it wasn't us. The queue had at least over a thousand people squeezed in under the hot sun. Sometimes it's easy to forget that China just has so many damn people. Opportunists sold their places in the queue for sums of money.

We took the coach from Zhuhai to Kaiping and arrived there at about 1pm. At the coach station, we were met by a singular tout, and we ended up hiring him. He drove us to the incongruously named Milan Hotel, which was a nice place and waited for us as we checked in. Then he brought us to eat claypot rice, a speciality of the area, in a small local store. The first sight we visited, an entire diaolou village, was closed as they were apparently filming a new movie there. Still, we walked about and saw a small museum of the area.

The next sight we went to was another small cluster of diaolous in Zili Village. Amongst the diaolous there was the one they used as a facade for the movie, Let the Bullets Fly. My parents and I poked around, but after a while the heat started to get to us, plus the interiors of the diaolous were the same after a while. The next stop was the Li Garden, yet another cluster of diaolous by one extremely rich family. These diaolous had marble staircases and special tiles. Finally we went to a diaolou that was more like a fortress than a house. It was also the location of the last stand by 7 brothers/relatives during the Sino-Japanese War. Shell and bullet holes lined the exterior of the tower.

The driver the dropped us in the middle of town, to walk around a bit before we took a taxi nearby our hotel for dinner. Dinner again wasn't very good, and I remember not being particularly happy about it. Went to a supermarket on the way back to buy some bread and drinks for the next day.

28th August - Kaiping - Wuzhou - Guilin
Spent a total of 8 hours on board the bus(es), most of it sleeping. The first bus was a local bus. Felt frustrated when the driver, who smoked while driving, kept blasting his music while the guy behind me blasted his own music. It eventually turned out as expected: a volume war, with me caught between. Somehow I managed to sleep and woke up to find the driver had (naturally) won the battle. The bus kept making random stops to pick up villagers along the way who had flagged down the bus, charging arbitrary prices. The sole bathroom stop the bus made revealed old skool toilets with no doors. After 5 hours, we ended up in Wuzhou only to find that there was no bus to Yangshuo as planned. Instead we booked tickets for Guilin and then had lunch, where we ate a really tasty chicken soup.

Then we took the bus to Guilin, where I fell asleep again. Driving into Guilin, I was reminded of Hangzhou. For dinner none of us were really hungry, but due to sheer greed I ordered a ton of meat for the hotpot, partly due to the fact that I was thrilled that I could read the menu properly. As I ate, watching how annoyed my father looked, I kept thinking about the tumblr blog "this is why you're fat".

The Chill

Sitting on the floor in Dex's posh flat, I originally thought the underfloor heating was kicking in as I felt warmer and warmer. However a short while later I realised this was deceptive: it wasn't that the floor was getting warmer, it was that my leg was getting number and number, and for some reason that made it feel warmer. Oho winter 2012, here we come.

White Cabbage

I don't know why but everytime I'm in the shower I get an urge to blog. But when I'm actually at my computer, I lose the urge. But then I really ought to force myself to, because I need to inculcate some sort of follow-through habit.

On Sunday I got it into my mind that I wanted to make my usual vegetable soup that I drink back home, the inclusion of soy sauce being only thing strangely really making it Chinese. I bought all the ingredients, but as usual forgot to buy the critical and main one: white cabbage. So off I went to Waitrose on a Sunday evening, 1 hour before it was set to close. As usual it was packed to the brims with people doing last minute Sunday dinner shopping (used to do that last year all the time, and spend an agonising 15 minutes hobbling home while overladen with groceries). Then I walked to the vegetable aisle and to my horror I saw that there were no more white cabbages left, only the weird green and leafy sort. I grudgingly picked up a random ass cabbage for the lowest amount.

As I was about to walk off disappointed, I suddenly remembered that Waitrose, being the middle-class sort of establishment it is always has an organic veg section. True enough, there were white cabbages there at twice the original price. Just as I was about to suck it up and pay 2x the amount for a bloody cabbage, I spotted a discarded Waitrose Basics white cabbage hidden among the organic ones. Some middle class sucker decided to pay 2x the price for an organic white cabbage. Hurrah! I had my cheap 68p white cabbage. As I walked back to the general cabbage section, I had a massive and silly grin on my face. I felt very very accomplished.

Then on my way back to the flat, I peeked at the veg seller's stand and noticed he had bowls and bowls of white cabbage sitting out -______- 2 white cabbages for £1. Well admittedly I wouldn't know what to do with so much cabbage (soup needs only half a head at one time), but somehow it detracted from my joy anyway.

At least the soup was tasty.

un homme et une femme

I watched un homme et une femme last night, after spending ages before rolling about aimlessly on Tiffany's (my flatmate) bed while she watched the Law and Order episodes I passed to her. One 10am and two 9am starts every week never fail to make me feel like I am a million years old, although objectively there's just 6 real hours of academic time during those 3 days. So I just lay on her bed and sort of died, without actually sleeping, while Tiffany sort of laughed at me. My friday nights are happening, yo.

Anyway Un Homme is simply lovely. It is very very French, and very very charming. I don't know what else to say beyond that. Sadly it's proven to be one of the better movies I've seen lately. It's the London Film Fest and I'm being a film whore as usual. I've seen 3 films so far, one the pretty well known 50/50 and two more obscure ones, Mourning and There Was Never a Better Brother. 50/50 delivered the goods, but both Mourning and There Was Never a Better Brother failed to fully realise their potential. So I suppose, Un Homme was the movie (rather than Better Brother) that made my day yesterday.

Though of course I was attracted to Better Brother because I wanted to SEE what Baku, Azerbaijan was like, since I am focusing my History dissertation on it. It reminds me a bit of what I imagine Cuba/Iran to look like.

And on Monday, I watched Driving Miss Daisy with Dexter. Got to watch Darth Vader voice man in action. Cool.

BT/VM/3

I have not fallen off the face of the Earth. Rather, thanks to lovingly decaying British infrastructure, I appear to have fallen off the face of the Earth.

First Virgin Mobile tells us they will take 3 weeks to come over and set up the internet. Alright. This was a week before I was due to return home, so it really was 2 weeks. That was livable, I suppose. To augment the many trips of going to Shu's/Dexter's/the Library, I bought BT Open, which sucked and sometimes worked.

Then last week the Virgin Mobile men came. They were a friendly, happy lot the two of them. First the set up seemed very straightforward, then it soon became apparent there was Big Trouble ahead when they had to take a ladder and access the cables from the outside. They'd been cut and disconnected, they said, evidently mystified as to why someone'd do that. We'll get Virgin to give you a call back.

So wait we did, for that proverbial call. Then it came one day as I was at Shu's house, this Wednesday I think, and I hit the roof. The diplomatic female voice on the other end of the line said it'd take "6 to 8 weeks" for construction to come and install the lines. WHY? I asked, obviously seething with rage and frustration. "Because we need to get permits and blabalabalabala".

I went to 3 and got a dongle (either a terribly bad or terribly brilliant name). But because my 5GB a month contract kicks in on Monday, I am brought back to a place where I was when I was 12. Dial up pay-by-the-data/time-internet. So as I type this I am surreptitiously thinking of how much this is going to cost me (it says 2.72MB for this sojourn already!) BUT GOODNESS IT HAS TO BE SAID. RAGE RAGE RAGE, I WANT MY INTERNETZ.

Goreng Pisang

I've learnt something interesting over the past few days: Singaporeans (or maybe people in general?) have a bad habit of invading people's personal space IF they think they see dirt on another person. It's like a Obsessive Compulsive Thing, despite the whole Asians Like Their Personal Space thing. Ok maybe it's not a Singaporean thing, since one of the people who did it to me recently was my Korean pottery teacher, Ms. Lee.

So anyway yes, dirt. For the past two days I've been rocking what looks like a dirt patch on my right shoulder/back. It is not a dirt patch. Rather (surprise!) I've gone and gotten a tattoo because I felt tired of being scared of every damn thing in life, and wanted to push my boundaries and do something unexpected. So that dirt patch is really the new tattoo leaching ink out. However before I am given a chance to lie and tell all the adults around me that it is a 'old blouse, an old stain', they reach out and slap my back (HELLO FRESH RAW TATTOO-ED SKIN) in an attempt to brush off the dirt. It hurts. And sadly though I don't like lying, lying is just easier here. I could easily tell my dentist, my hairdresser, my pottery classmates that it is a tattoo. But then I'd have to do the whole Explain Why I Did It Thing, and Do My Parents Know? (yes they do, but my mum complains that it is ugly and I ought to have gotten a rose instead of a cross). Easier to just lie. And talk about other inane things, like the weather.

Today was my last pottery class. I glazed my pieces, and it was the first time today that I finally got around to using the spray gun. On a pot with a lid (I think that if I die suddenly, I want my ashes to go in there, seems morbidly fitting), I used copper dust mixed with water, and covered it with Shino White. The other piece I made, ages ago when Jessica was still around, was half Namoku Blue (such a beautiful glaze with such depth) and half Shino White again. I am eagerly waiting the results.

I had lunch with Diane, one of the pottery women afterwards. We went to the Tanglin food court and she treated me to lunch. I had pasta with chicken chop. In return I told her about chicken chop, Singaporean taxi drivers and their propensity to be anti-government and conspiracy theorists and about crime. It was all in all a very nice and good conversation. One of the best I've had in a while really, and all the better since I initially feared it'd be awkward. At the back of my mind I kept thinking about how sad it is that my net amount of speaking to middle aged British people was at least triple that of speaking to a British person the same age as me, nevermind that I'm surrounded by them in university. Pffft.

Then I got my hair cut, and found a goreng pisang store on the 5th floor of Far East Plaza. I have not SEEN goreng pisang in AGES. It's like all the places in Singapore stopped selling them. Goreng pisang is essentially bananas fried in batter, and it's bloody delicious. So anyway I bought one, even though I wasn't hungry at all. Then I bummed at some Taiwanese eatery, slowly sipping my milk tea (which made me feel sick - nice lactose intolerance) and read Brave New World as I waited for Ashraf to appear.

Dinner was at Skinny Pizza, where we both ate till we were stuffed. Then we walked about randomly, exploring the sad Toy Fair at the basement of Ngee Ann City.

I've been sniffing like mad all day. Sucks.

Tamara Drewe

"You've got an infestation."
"Of what?"
"Jody."

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I don't know how it got only 3 stars out of 5 on IMDB, but Tamara Drewe is easily one of the most enjoyable and funniest movies I have seen in quite some time.

An Asian Travelogue

I typed this up because the women in my pottery class, Diane and Christine, asked for it:-
Thailand
Phuket/Phang Nga
Phuket is the main area, with the more remote and expensive area of Phang Nga to the North. The main beach area, filled with backpackers, restaurants, bars and chaos, is Patong Beach. The nicer beaches are Karon Beach and Kata Beach. Tours brings you see James Bond island (where a scene from James Bond was shot in the '70s) and Phi-Phi island. Many opportunities for low-end shopping around.

Koh Samui
There is also another beach spot known as Koh Samui. I personally have not been here and don't know much about it.

Bangkok
Bangkok is massive, jammed, and a very chaotic city. It however, is a huge tourist hub. There is the Royal Palace, very nice and shiny, with the Vimanmek Mansion where the old Kings resided. There are lots of Buddhist temples here, if that's your sort of thing. There's Chatuchak market on the weekends, and Patpong night market for shopping. Bangkok is a launching off point for the floating market tours (tourist trap), the tiger temple (tame tigers, I wanted to see that but had no time), snake show, the River Kwai (of WW2 fame). You can ride elephants too if you want, but I think Phuket/Luang Prabang is a better place for that sort of thing.

Hua Hin to the North is apparently a nice beach about 1 hour away from Bangkok.

Laos
Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang was a little disappointing. It used to be the old capital, and there are lots of Buddhist temples around, in various unrestored states. The most famous/pretty is Vat Xieng Toung. All the temples cost about 2-3USD per person to go in, quite a rip off. There is also the old Royal Palace, which is worth looking around in. Then there's the morning alms ceremony where the monks walk large parts of the old town at 6am to receive alms. There is a Hmong market during peak season and a night market.

There are tours to the Pak Ou Caves and Kuang Si waterfalls. We didn't see the falls, but saw the caves. The caves were just caves with lots of bought buddha statues in them. There was also a whiskey village, were you can see one man brewing whiskey in a metal drum. He then puts weird stuff like snakes and various insects in them.

You can take elephant mahout courses there for a few days. That seemed interesting, but expensive.

Vientiane
There was not much to see or do in Vientiane. There are some nice Buddhist temples, but not much beyond that. There is also That Luang, a massive gold stupa. But it's just a large stupa that is gold.

Cambodia (visited Nov 2008)
Siem Reap
I loved Siem Reap. Home of the Angkor Wat, it is also nicely located nearby the Tonle Sap/floating villages. The town has a nice half rustic half touristy feel. There are night markets and handicraft markets. It's a fairly relaxed place. Lots of cheap silk the last time I was there.

Vietnam (visited Sept 2010)
Hanoi
Hanoi was very busy and hot. My family and I didn't like it, so we left for an overnight cruise in Halong Bay instead. There are the usual lot of cultural and military museums here, along with the infamous Hanoi Hilton where prisoners-of-war were kept during the Vietnam War. There is also the French Quarter with the old remnants of French architecture.

Halong Bay
Halong Bay is definitely worth going to. You can book a tour from Hanoi. They drive you to Halong Bay itself, which is about 3-4 hours away from Hanoi, one way. Halong Bay is essentially a bay filed with hundreds of limestone mountains, and is very scenic. A cruise brings you around the area, and lets you off to enter some of the tourist caves. The highlight of the trip is watching the sun set over the limestone mountains.

Hoi An
The nearest airport to Hoi An is Danang, where Silkair flies directly. Alternatively, Jetstar operates flights there, but require transiting through Ho Chi Minh airport. Hoi An is definitely worth going to.

The main attractions of Hoi An are threefold:- 1) My Son: old ruined Hindu temples built more than a thousand years ago by the ancient Champa kingdom. It's the Vietnamese version of the Angkor Wat. 2) Hoi An itself: the whole town is an UNESCO world heritage site, with impressive architecture built by the old Chinese immigrant settlers. 3) Tailoring:- good tailoring is very cheap in Hoi An, and there are many tailors there. I got a nice silk lined pencil dress for USD50 from Phuong Huy (http://phuonghuysilk.com/index.html). Some of the tailors can be a bit suspect though, with shoddy handwork/fitting. I've seen other customers bring pictures of runway outfits for the tailors to copy. Alternatively, there is also a beach nearby Hoi An itself, but I didn't get the chance to go there.

Hue
Hue was the location of the old Imperial City. However the Imperial City itself was damaged by multiple wars and fires, so the main structure is gone. Still the unburned parts are quite impressive. There is also the Thien Mu Pagoda and cruises down the Perfume River. Hue is also the launching off point for DMZ/Vietnam War tours, if you're into that sort of thing.

Hue is about a 2-3 hour coach ride from Hoi An (to the North). You can easily book passage from the tour agents in Hoi An.

Sapa (visited Sept 2011)
Sapa is very off the beaten track. It's about a 9 hour train ride from Hanoi (overnight sleeper). However if you're into trekking/seeing minorities, then it is very worth it. Sapa itself is just a launching off point, and you need to trek out of it to see the minorities. Cat Cat is supposedly a Hmong village, but it's really now a huge tourist trap. Instead, Ta Van is an authentic and easy to walk village. There are also special markets to see on certain days like Sunday and Tuesday, but I didn't get the chance to see them. Seeing all the minorities was very interesting, especially since they still largely preserve their traditional ways of dressing and living, except the one about the women learning English and obsessively following tourists around.

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I'll post about my trip soon.

Jetstar 514

I touched down in good old Terminal 1 at 12:40am this morning, and felt a strange sense of happiness to be back. Like, 'hello home', and knowing that everything is Predictable and not Unexpected and Foreign and New (except when it's one of those many newfangled malls that keep popping up). The taxi driver that picked up us was a jovial and friendly Malay woman, who told us about her motorcycle racing accident, while avoiding a sleepy swerving taxi driver on the ECP on the way back home. She kept telling me to go get a driving license.

This morning, all showered and changed, I finally feel Female again after a while, that is, Feminine as befits my birth sex. Strange, but I never gave much thought to it while traveling.

Hello There

I am still on the road, and currently in rainy Vientiane (it's been raining for more than 18 hours straight, I didn't know this was even possible in South East Asia). Tonight my Dad and I are headed across the border to Thailand, to catch yet another sleeper train to Bangkok (the 3rd thus far), hopefully the train will be more like the Lao Cai-Hanoi train than the Guiyang-Kunming train. From Bangkok we'll take a plane ride and get back in the wee hours (cheap budget flights) on the 16th Sept, making it a total of 3 weeks on the road.

It'll be nice to be home.

Panda Coitus

Today I met up with Cheam for lunch, before watching Hadi's play, Family Outing. We ate at a place I had found on hungrygowhere.com, because I was craving steak. It was disappointing. In turn, I did a very Singaporean thing: I wrote a bad review about the place. Then, we met Debbie, Mel, Paul and Eliel at the National Library to watch the play. It was by far one of the best plays I've seen in Singapore (which comes to about 5 proper non-school plays). It had a really good script, with good acting, lighting and sound. Quite a change from the usual standard of plays where I ended up feeling like I want to slap someone.

Afterwards the lot of us went to Seah Street to eat crepes (Debbie's suggestion). Pricy, but delicious as hell salted-caramel-butter-crepes. And I'm not even a big fan of excessively sweet stuff. Then Hadi came and the shop was closing, so we went to nearby Mcdonalds for Hadi to grab a bite. Then we all went off to get home, and I took the bus to my grandparent's place for dinner. After a delicious dinner of vinegar pig's trotters (sounds gross but, I try not to think of it as pig legs D: ), I ended spending ages trying to fix up my grandma's newly acquired toy: a voice recorder/mp3 players.

The highlight of the night however was after I had succeeded in fixing the player and had gone upstairs to see my grandfather for a while. The awesomely cold air conditioning (my grandfather likes it vaguely arctic) was a fantastic bonus. Upstairs, he first started off by complaining that I had arrived late for dinner (well they eat dinner at 5:50pm, wtf?). Then he went into his usual round of telling me that 'I have some bad habits that I need to change' (which include anyhow throwing things, and anyhow buying things - directly translated from Mandarin of course), during which I tuned out and made Mandarin Assenting Sounds like 'ORH'. As it happens the TV was turned onto CCTV4 (hello cable), and we're both watching TV as he's talking. It's some Panda breeding programme in Chengdu.

Given that my Mandarin is dismal from a lack of use and general suckiness, I'm not sure how but I remember understanding that they were closely monitoring the urine of the female panda to check for it's ovulation. Shots of pipettes (cool stuff) and vials of acid yellow urine appear on the screen. All the while my grandfather is working down his list of Things I Need To Change. Then suddenly the screen actually shows PANDAS and I'm like AWWWW, but I realise they're separated by cages. I'm still half listening to my grandfather at this point and he blocks out the commentator's audio for a moment with his monologue, and then next thing I see the bars between the two pandas is lifted up and one of the pandas goes into the other panda's cage. At this point I'm thinking "oh come on, no way in hell this is what I think it is".

But it is. Next thing I know I'm watching stunned as one panda (PROBABLY THE MALE ONE) fucks the other panda from behind. No this is not happening I'm thinking, I wonder has yeh yeh noticed it? And for a brief painful few moments I think maybe he hasn't because it's still pandas fucking on the TV. The male panda opens his mouth and makes weird moaning sounds. HOLY SHIT. And then mid panda groan, the channel changes abruptly to some Taiwanese game show. All the while my grandfather is still talking, but he falters slightly during the channel change. Um.

Even though the pandas fucked for maybe 5 seconds maximum on TV that day, I think that memory is forever, disturbingly, seared into my mind.

The Golden Notebook

There remains in my memory no other book which I have found so incredible, yet so difficult to read that I would not go through the experience again if possible. Lessing's The Golden Notebook is the first to fit into this ambiguous category: is it a good thing, a bad thing, or perhaps indicative of its remarkable nature? I don't really know.

The Golden Notebook was probably one of the most feminist texts I've ever read. Yet as Doris Lessing writes herself in the reader's guide that came with my book, she never intended it as a feminist text. It just was. Lessing's ability to portray human relationships, male-female sexual interactions in all their different shapes and messed up forms was mindblowing. She isn't one of those overwrought emotional writers which waste endless words, ink, paper on a simple interaction - her succinctness is probably one of the best I've seen. Yet at the same time due to the sheer mass of all her words, the density of content, made her extremely tiring to read. It was like eating a too rich cake. No wonder I could only plod slowly through.

Finally there is the aspect of mental illness: a theme I had not noticed as I read the book. Simply put, I had not noticed that it was there at all, because I legitimately thought that people did behave like that (and that it was acceptable). That idea, strikes me mostly more than anything else in the novel.

I guess I've found a book to add to the 2011 list.

Mints

My favourite mints are Tic Tacs. They're sweet, smell nice (in an artificial way) and have just enough minti-ness in them to do the job when my breath feels gross. I much prefer them to the more popular Eclipse mints, although I have to admit that the tin the Eclipse mints come in is way more fun to play with since the metal is malleable.

When I dream of cold hot chocolate, I dream one the one I first drank when I was on a date with Patrick and we ended up at Far Coast. It was not too sweet and had a wee bit of minti-ness to it. I loved it.

I am reading Doris Lessing now, and she makes me want to write things.

Holland Village

Bearing absolutely no correlation to anything in this post, I thought I'd load up a picture of a very charming desk I spotted on etsy.

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I spent most of today at Holland Village.

I met Sharyl for brunch, eating at Breko Cafe. I had a rather unsatisfactory pancake with Canadian-sausage meal, mainly because it was cold and started to feel greasy. It was good meeting up with her though, seeing as that I haven't seen her in over a year. It transpired she was going to Canada in a few weeks to study in university, which came as a pleasant surprise to me. Of all the friends I still keep in touch with, she really was the oldest one, from when we were both in Secondary 1.

After brunch, I went over to her house for a bit. Partly to help babysit, partly because I wanted to see her niece and nephew, partly because I didn't want to go home and return to Holland Village in a matter of hours. I learned something today: looking after kids is tiring. In the house there were a grand total of 4 adults (Sharyl, me, her dad, her sister) to 2 kids (one 3 year old girl, one 1 year old boy) and they ran everyone ragged. Not only that, I had trouble figuring out what was appropriate for the 3 year old's age group. When she said she wanted to go to the babytv website to play games, I wtf-ed because 3 years old is hardly a baby right?!? I really don't know. Then she said she was hungry and went to eat a sweet that her grandfather gave her, and that's enough to make her full?!? Then I realise I don't know phonics and all and was trying to figure out how to get her to spell 'dancing' and attempted to get her to write C by saying it in a S-sound way (it's like danSing right, come to think of it?!?). Then the 1 year old started crying like mad because he couldn't find his parents.

Ok good thing I won't be a mother any time soon.

Afterwards I met N Seow, and spoke to him as he was getting his haircut. After that I ate Chili at Wendy's because I was dying of hunger. Then when Kyle came to pick up Nic for his farewell dinner, I went home. I spent a good 8 hours at Holland Village.

Phuket

I've been to Phuket 3 times in my life. First time was in mid-2004 with my parents. Second time was with my classmates in IB, in early 2007, to aid rebuilding work. Third time was the past few days, with my mum, to celebrate her 50th birthday.

Spent most of it doing nothing. Started reading two books together, The Golden Notebook and The Book of Tomorrow. Both acclaimed female authors in different fiction fields, both about women and their diaries. Both going along very different courses (hello Nobel Prize winner, hello chick flick author), providing a lovely illuminating contrast to the women in the novels. Went to the beach and as I swayed while wading in the sea thanks to strong monsoonal tides, I tried to imagine what it was like when the Tsunami hit. The lifeguard kept blowing his whistle to chase people who had wandered beyond mid-thigh sea water level out of the surf. Ended up shopping alot (because naturally of my mum). I wondered what happened to my beloved Danger! Mines! shirt that I bought in Siem Reap as we browsed the touristy t-shirt stores.

I ended up sending loads of postcards out. A roadside vendor in Patong Beach charged me 40 baht for a 15 baht stamp. Later, I stumbled upon a post office along Patong Beach and went in to get more stamps. I ended up stumbling slightly backwards in shock when I entered it. I had walked into the darkness of the post office to be greeted suddenly by 5 pairs of staring, idle eyes. It was the emptiest post office I had ever seen in my life. Most post offices it seems, tend to be packed with tired public, all struggling to get a piece of underfunded public services. At least this is the case of what I've observed in Singapore, the UK, Germany and France. Thailand it seems, is unique in more ways than one.

I realised the tasty 'White Curry' that my class was served on our 2007 OEP trip was actually a soup: Tom Kha Gai. I dreamt terrifying dreams every night. Once I dreamt of Shu falling down a muddy slope, and her slipping out my hands as she tumbled down a yellow-ey mud precipice. Then I dreamt of a tiny dog stuffed into a ball that opened in the middle, and me losing it as it ran out of sight. Another night I dreamt someone was spreading a frightful rumour about me, and I was doing my best to stop it. Then last night I dreamt of R, that we were friends and I touched his arm, feeling his smooth velvety skin. I dream in colour, feel textures, feel real emotion. I dream in bouts, sometimes I go weeks dreamless, then suddenly I can't stop dreaming at all.

I ate a lot of drunken prawns tonight for the celebratory dinner tonight. My mum turned 50.

Funky Forest/Do the Right Thing/Poltergay

I spent today having yet another movie marathon with Patrick and Nic. We watched the immensely wtf Funky Forest (Nic's), followed by the rather bleak Do the Right Thing (Patrick's) and rounding out with my absurd selection of Poltergay. For dinner we ended up at Ghim Moh, eating at De Burg, some hamburger place at a kopitiam. It was then I realised that in a week and a half's time, Nic would be gone for Oberlin, that he wouldn't really be around anymore. That everyone was really going on their separate ways now. It felt rather strange.

Afrer, we ended up walking around Kent Ridge Park, and mucking about NUS to see the new campus. Then, they drove me home.