*566 - HK part deux

To continue, Day 3 in HK:

Travelling by myself on the MTRs
Meeting Nick in Times Square
Krispy Kremes
HK cafe for lunch
High end shopping malls with Katie
Street stalls on the steps - quaint!
Hunting down the best egg tarts
Taking the sky cable to the peak
Congee at Jordan







NY cheesecake krispy kreme




Random pretty melon








Stalls on the steps








On the peak






Day 4 in HK:

Dimsum breakfast with Nick
Going to Stanley - rather uninterested
Beautiful pier though
Heading off to Nick's place
Cute cat, cuter mum
Picking Katie up and going to a seafood restaurant
Millions of types of fresh seafood in tanks
Dinner: cheesy lobster, snail, clam, squid, veg, noodles
Drinks at LKF (clubbing area)
Everyone getting tipsy
Crawling home much too late

Dimsum served by ladies pushing carts






















Beeg feesh - Nick's place


So many types!!


Please don't make me eat this




Geoduck spurting water
(Don't they look unnervingly like ...)


View from the restaurant


Dinner






Pubbing


My first drink: "screaming orgasm". It was nice ;)






Checking if Katie was getting pink yet


That's LKF


Still tipsy in the bus?


Last day in HK:

Breakfast at the typicalest of typical HK cafes
Bidding a fond farewell to HK
And a WARM hello to home!







46 pictures; that's got to be a new record!

*565 - for you

So now there's a little more sense of closure to the chapter of my life that lasted a lovely >3 years. This is probably a bit belated because it's been some 2 or 3 months since that Sunday when I was pacing outside Quiznos right after church, clutching my phone to my ear.

Those >3 years. It was like driving down a dirt road while watching the sunset - we kept our eyes on the beauty in front of us amidst all the hard bumps, but in the end, it all slowly faded away.

I'm sorry that I did what I did. I'm sorry for hurting you all those times. I was a lousy girlfriend. I started off rather dim-witted about relationships and all things related. I'm better now, but I guess it's a little too late for you to find out for yourself. But thank you for changing me, and thank you for loving me despite everything. (I meant for that sentence to be in past tense, but I'm not sure how to phrase it.)

It kind of felt as though we faded away but never really put a fullstop to it. At least, for me. Just so you know, I haven't managed to take off my ring and keep it off. I've taken it off my finger, fiddled around with it, switched fingers, left it lying around - but I always put it back on.

We didn't talk much just an hour ago, but somehow there's a fullstop right at the end now. And looking at that fullstop makes me feel a strange sense of loss. 2 or 3 months ago, it was relief. 2 or 3 months later, I'm finally feeling the blow. Maybe I'll go have a good bawl and then turn the page.

I'm sorry. I really loved you. I really treasured you. You showed me what it was like to be loved. And I'm really thankful for what we had. I hope you don't ever forget that.

*564 - HK part 1

Day 1 in HK:

Long long bus ride and flight with Chae and Jingxiong
Getting lost without a functional cellphone, and borrowing one from a random kind Indian fellow to call the sis
Meeting the sis (and screaming the hotel down)
Going out for high-end mashed potatoes
Taking the ferry to HK island
Having dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant
Dying because of jetlag and returning to the hotel to concuss, while sis + friends went out







Day 2 in HK:

Waking up the next day to high-end dim sum
Bidding sis a fond farewell
Meeting Nick and Katie!
Going to Katie's place
Shopping at a huge mall in Shatin
Pottering around in Mongkok
Devouring delish Jap food
Devouring delish street food
Collapsing at Katie's place

Mango pomelo sago


Nick & black seseme


Mongkok street


By night


Conveyor belt Jap restaurant, yum


My fav: burnt salmon (half raw, half cooked)


Funny springroll-sushi thing


Street food


Gai dan zai (Little eggs! They're not eggs though.)


Looking back, I realise I packed an incredible amount of activities into my 4.5 day stay in HK. Wow. More pictures to come (:

Right now, I need to get well soon so that I can finally have a life and step out of my house instead of being glued to the tissue box at home.

*563 - mini birthday celebrations (:

Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! I'm really touched (: Had a great birthday, despite being severely ill. In fact, I just came back from a hearty chilli crab meal which was wholly wasted on me because I couldn't taste anything, but don't tell the family that. It was so nice having dinner with the entire family + new maid!! Although that meant that 7 of us couldn't fit into the car and mum + maid had to take the bus home hahaha. At least it was only 3 stops away. We need a truck.

Tipsy girls on the rooftop


Raisins for you?




Love the family! Hehe. Fell ill that night though.

Next day: Maddy came over (I LOVE MADDYO) and exclaimed over the pile of dead skin on the floor from my flakey legs, I went for an interview (and got the internship!), and then I met Liru who gave me such a lovely surprise <3





Cake for you?


And then, I had the most violent nosebleed I've had in years (so violent that the people next to me felt compelled to give me tissue and water), and then, I was supposed to go to the salsa club, but sis forced me to go home, so I did, and conked out at 11 pm, woke up this morning (afternoon) with a hacking cough and gooey running nose and croaky voice. And a smile on my face! Because I'm home! Still can't believe it hehe.

So I spread my germs to the rest of the family (they don't realise it though hoho) in the form of pseudo (non-yeast non-fried muffin-shaped) cinnamon sugar donuts, which didn't turn out like donuts in any aspect whatsoever! Taste-wise, texture-wise, appearance-wise. Heehee. But they make good cakey-bready-muffiny things, if you don't know that they were supposed to be donuts.

It was funny baking cos we have a maid now (granny's getting old!) and she was hovering around me repeating ingredient names after me because she's learning English. She now has added to her vocabulary teaspoon, nutmeg, cinnamon, vinegar, and grease! It was really weird, though, not having to clean up after myself like the way I've been doing it for my whole life. And to have an extra pair of arms to whip the mixture and an extra pair of eyes to watch over the oven. Haha! Yesterday when she first took away my dirty dishes from under my nose, I was absolutely appalled. I can't really wrap my head around the idea of having a maid just yet. But she's cute and I like her a lot, even though she's shy and can't speak English hehe.

Ramble.



Nifty new oven


Cinnamon sugar non-donuts




Mum was saying now that I'm back, she has to go stock up on mountains of baking stuff for me. Hehe. My presence at home is felt.

-

Nuf I want pictures of our Pangea birthday dinner! (: If we actually had any (did we?) Amazing meal with amazing service. And amazing person. Heehee (: COME HOME PLS.

-

And friends, I have a new handphone number, ask me for it! (:

*563 - i'm in my 20's!!

Spent the night eating chocolate and nuts and getting tipsy with The Girls (the sis and mumsies) on my rooftop (lesbeli vodka, yum) and then it was off to the sister's room to dance woozily until we were sweaty / until it was nearly midnight ... whereupon I commenced my yearly ritual of gathering the family and waiting for the last seconds of 22 May to tick past and then leading the family in a majestic chorus of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU (ME)"! It was awesome. (There's something about the birthday song and how it's never sung on key.)

"This is deja vu," remarked the brother. Hehehe. He gave me a pink carnation! It's sitting in a vase on my desk, waiting to blossom. I'm so touched. Joel <3s me!!

It's good to be home (:

*562 - home.

I. Am. Home. What an amazing birthday present (:

-dies of happiness and exhaustion and flu and Singaporean HEAT-

(Calling Maddy)
Me: HI guess who.
Maddy: Melissa?

(Calling Liru)
Me: HI guess who.
Liru: Dawn?

Haha!

Today, I will move into my new temporary 'room', ie. the study, ie. the tiniest room in the house, because they're planning for at least one sibling to move out before I return for good to Singapore, which means I don't actually have a room in this house. Haha!

Tomorrow, I will wake up late, sing myself a birthday song, go out for an interview, and peek at the GSS along the way.

Hongkong was great fun, and it was so good seeing Katie and Nick again. Crazy fun times all the time. Love them both.

Now, I will slump in my chair and sleepily wait for the sister to return from work so we can eat together. Shall bug everyone to eat on the rooftop (!) but I think it's too warm. Especially since it's curry (!) tonight.

Hehe life is good.

(But could be much better, and you know why! Stob.)

*561 - almost done

Finals this year were (are) insane. They came in 2 waves: 2 in a row last week, and then 3 in 2 days this week. I'm down to the last one tomorrow, and then it's END OF FRESHMAN YEAR and I'm zipping off to Woodbury, and then a few days of Ithacan fun, before I leave on Saturday for HK! Back in Singapore on the afternoon before my birthday - can't wait! Friends, let's go out :D

But first, one more paper to go. Which I haven't started studying for thanks to the ARCH final which I just presented wheee. The product of days of going crazy with Maya and Flash, frequent cockeyes, a tablespoon of tears (I'm being realistic with volumes here), an all-nighter in Rand, nightmares, diarrhea and other ailments, and a general sense that the ground is heaving and spinning beneath me. (I bet I could reproduce that in Maya in a jiffy.)

By God's favour the finals have been going undeservedly okay, looking at the amount of work I put into each paper. I was taking this morning's F&B final while half-asleep, with only 3 solid hours of proper studying in my woozy brain. I've already forgotten how that went already because everything feels kind of ethereal and dream-like right now. Heeheehee giggle. And then I think people liked my ARCH project cos it was cute and completely different from all the others. I think it's because I'm a Hotelie and didn't do anything related to architecture like the rest of them. I mean, singing mushroom organisms that dance to classical music? Naw.

Right now I am fighting the urge to concuss because I have to sit here (alive) for now, in order to get picked up and plopped down next to my nutrition books because they are not here in my room because I am an idiot like that.

But anyway, every day I thank God for putting fabulousness into my life to keep me going (:

Do. Not. Concuss. Maybe I shall do some online shopping for a bit to stay alive :D

Heeheehee giggle.

*560 - holy crap

Today, I exploded the toilet and experienced the trauma of toilet papery, hairy, dirt clumpy, shitty water fountaining out of the toilet cubicle, into the bathroom sink area, out into the carpeted corridor, and into the living room.

The term "oh, shit" never had so much relevance before.

(I'm still trembling violently.)

Hahaha, ha, ha.

Aftermath:

*559 - sighsighsigh.

Why does this keep happening? I try so hard, and I try so hard not to talk about it each time it happens. But I'm sad, because I never seem good enough.

It's good for me in a way though. Keeps my complacency in check.

Sigh. I suck.

(But what am I to do?!)

Finals begin tomorrow, and I started studying for real just yesterday. Hooray?

-

Explorations. Best dance class ever.

*558 - garden visits

Photos from today's field trip! We went around to professors' houses to check out their gardens. I wish I could casually say things like "we've got 35 acres of land back there" to visitors. The people here are blessed with so much land - I bet they could fit a few blocks of HDBs in their backyards. Hehe.

We got to play with animals too! We were looking at Professor Pritts' strawberry fields, and then he went "oh, come over here Bob and Ben" (I just made up the names because I can't remember their real names) and a pair of sheep came running towards us! He had a dandelion-chomping goat, and and and a delightful half-lop-eared bunny! I couldn't resist and crawled into its cage to play with it. Awww. Love bunnies.

When I took this, we were like "wow, looks photoshopped already!"






They like me!!










Phallic?


Meet Toby! Daintily crossing its paws, hehe.


Sniffing my finger! I'm in love :D




<3