Soda Pop.

Hello 2012!

2012-01-01T17:05:00.001+08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

I hope everyone had an awesome time with your friends and family!!! Wow another year has gone and now I'll have to get used to writing the date because i can never get used to the year part fast enough.

I thought I was going to spend new year's eve at home watching the countdown on TV but no! My dad suddenly decided to go for seafood with my aunt, uncle, cousins and their hubbies!! My cousin who's teaching in Beijing came back with her husband to check out gyneas for her baby (it's a boy!!! actually boy or girl I'm still an eager aunt). So I guess my dad thought a gathering is most apt for new year's eve :D after dinner we went over to my aunt's place for the countdown! on a side note, SMALL BOY IS TOO CUTE!!! he's super nice to squish and seeing him is just so AWWWWW ^^

I had an awesome year and I hope 2012 will be an even better one for all of us!

♥ ♥ ♥

I know there are some ~~idiotic~~ people out there who think that doomsday is looming and what not now that it is 2012. I honestly don't get them. Sure, the Mayans have been right with most of their predictions but then predicting that the world will end in 2012 is a bit...extreme? I'm not a believer of the world ending so soon because

1) I do not believe that all the natural disasters will hit us at one go. I just don't believe it is naturally possible -- those who never take geography, go educate yourselves.

2) By making a prediction, the Mayans are assuming that at least one factor remains constant. Because how else will you make a prediction if you don't assume something to be constant? My believe is that nothing can remain constant in this world. For example, even the earth axis can be shifted because of a 8.9-9.1 earthquake that occurred in Japan in last year March! This earthquake also caused Japan's coastline to change. So things that you believe to be constant like the earth axis can also change. Since there are so many things that can potentially change, there are too many variables to consider in their prophecy, don't you think it is not humanly possible to compute all these variables simultaneously?

3) Not that we are being ungrateful, self-absorbed new age people but don't you think our technology is more advanced than the Mayan's? If the world was ending, don't you think we will see it coming?

4) If everyone's so sure that the world is coming to an end in 2012 and are just going to give up living, that is how the world will end because everyone's just going to stop moving forward.

5) The movie 2012 is bullshit and I don't see why there are people who actually believe it like it is a true prediction of their future. 2012 is just a hypothesis, not a fact.

So to all of those who is of sound mind, please continue to live your lives, the world is still too young to end. I will only believe that the world will end if the sun burns out (because that's when the earth will be too cold to live in) and that's not possible because the sun is still a relatively young star (go read up on your astrology you skeptics).

So here's to those who believe 2012 will be just like another year! Cheers!

xoxo.

Chill Pills

2012-01-01T16:10:00.003+08:00

Finally Shiuan and I met up to go cycling!!! We cycled for like 2.5hrs straight so naturally our butts hurt so much we had to stop haha. The rental's not bad, with 1hr, you get 2 hrs free! Then of course we stuffed ourselves silly with satay, stingray, hokkien mee and chicken wings!!!

We cycled to Bedok Jetty - that day's weather was great! we took a plunge and tried our luck, and amazingly, the weather gave us a chance! The collage-ish photos are taken from Shiuan!

Then we cycled to Changi beach (?) somewhere near the Changi yacht loaning place

I'm not sure if it was the angle/some lucky streak of light but the iPhone camera can capture the awesome sun ray! -- suck it iPhone haters

And of course, how else better to end off the day with awesome possum food from east coast hawker? :D haha we had more than these 3 items, we were too busy eating after this shot :p

♥ ♥ ♥

Let's get Muddy!

A few days back, Geraldine and I went to try burgers at Burger Shack (also by the people behind Island Creamery!!!). I had tandoori burger which was alright and Geraldine's one is a mushroom swiss burger I think which looked pretty good! Regretted not getting it :p Then of course we had to go for some MUDPIE at Island Creamery!!! Thinking about it right now gahhh

xoxo.

I am an Apple Convert

2011-12-23T21:01:00.003+08:00

Steve Jobs may as well be smiling up in wherever he is after-life because he has people like me who are new Apple-converts. I am now officially an Apple convert because I am using my Mac! Awesomeness!! Using an iPhone and a MacBook, I daresay that they're very very user-friendly (not forgetting their combined chio-ness). I bought the Macbook Pro because my Lenovo may give up on me anytime now that it's 2.5years old. Apparently that's like a laptop's critical age? Plus I'm a heavy user :D But of course, people also buy Mac for it's chio-ness. Name me one (moronic) person who thinks MacBook looks ugly. Cannot right? If you can then that person probably is some PC hardcore fan.

I bought a clear hard cover and clear keyboard protector from Gmarket but then I will only get it in maybe 2 weeks' time 'cause it's from HongKong. It's cheaper and it's the same thing they'd sell in stores. Altogether less than $50 :D I will wait.

I love the keyboard!!! so nice to type!!! :D

Adios!

Merry Merry Nails

2011-12-23T20:47:00.001+08:00

Hohohoho~! Christmas is almost here so of course I've DIY-ed my nails for the occasion :8D they're done by free-hand and I'm no professional so they look kinda sketchy? but I think it's good enough as long as you can tell that it's Rudolph and snowman...you can see that right? Lol.

Ciao for now! ;)

"Look honey, it's snowing!"

2011-12-18T15:51:00.001+08:00

hellooo! i'm back from a relatively long hiatus haha. winter in seoul was AWESOME!!! finally i get to see snow, hold snow, and see the pretty snowfall! weeheee!! so anyway it's extremely cold in seoul as temperatures range from -8 to 1 degree during our stay there. but hey i'm not complaining, it's always awesome to wear pretty coats and boots ;)

the highlight of the trip is skiing!!! i love love loved it!!! how i wish there was a real mountain and snow in singapore..ho hum :-\ skiing was actually pretty easy for some of us haha some people in our tour group gave up after a few attempts. i guess my sister and i discovered our skiing prowess there haha.

beautiful scenery from our balcony at the ski resort in which we're staying for the night

we had to rent ski jackets, pants and goggles first before getting our ski boots, skis and poles

fyi, the ski boots are freaking heavy and they're up to your shins. it's also very difficult to walk in them because they're shaped funny. my sis and i getting our boots binded to the skis -- it's more effortful than you can imagine because lodging and dislodging your boots needs extra strength!

ignore the words haha they're added by the assisting tour photographer who looks like a less muscular and younger copy of rain bi! cute guy, but we were too paiseh to take a picture with him before we left :p

gentle gradient area for the beginners

before skiing we went to this place with a series of beautiful temples up the mountain. the place looks sunny but actually it's freaking cold!!!

haha check out my rainbow forehead. maybe my face oil is separating white light?

i love this photo! but then i'm so white i can't see my nose.

I CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF SNOW!!!

at night, it was time to relax -- time for hot spring at waterpia!!!

there are generally 3 areas, one is an indoor waterpark with slides and stuff, then there's a series of outdoor springs. both of which are coed so you would have to wear your swimsuit, then there's indoor springs that separates the males and females -- for this, you'll have to get naked. under the influence of a crazy tour guide, we, the tropical animals that we are, were convinced to follow him out into the winter cold to the outdoor springs. we braved the cold with just our swimsuit, body blubber and a measly towel! oh yes, not forgetting, stepping on occasional snow on our bare feet. sounds very bizarre but it's indeed an extremely exciting experience!! :D glad that i did it.

because it's my third time doing this, donning my birthday suit for a nice soak in the springs wasn't daunting. this time i only went with my sister because my aunt and mum are too shy to get naked. i don't understand, they already have children so why are they shy? don't understand, hahahaha. well apparently none of the tour people go for the naked one too. so my sis and i were the only foreigners inside.

삼겹살 samgyeopsal!!!

i didn't take many pictures at everland this time because i think i'd be taking the same pictures as i did in summer. anyhoos here's when we arrived just before they opened

santarinas greeting us. kinda like their capes :D

on the cable ride with pops! hahaha i can't get over the stupid look on my face -- i was more worried about dropping my phone than taking a good picture

the everland parade

oh yeah and to add, taking a roller coater ride in winter is like blasting cold dry wind on your face and into your mouth! lol!

making kimchi!

at 63 building: we went to the art gallery and the wax museum. but honestly, their wax figures are not very similar to the real person.

taking the ferry to nami island -- the famous set in winter sonata

note the matching jackets they got from dongdaemun!! hahahaha!! ...okay okay, thou shalt not laugheth at thine parents. ok lah actually it's quite cute.

leaving nami island

rain-bi-look-alike took this photo. ok lah he tried to photoshop it with funky edges, gotta give him credit for that :p

ginseng chicken! i didn't eat it during summer 'cause i couldn't find it anywhere? haha it's very good if you like the smell and taste of ginseng!

at the grand hilton. hands down the nicest hotel i've been to. i love the wallpaper!

you know, i cannot resist taking a photo of this. i know this is no surprise to many but check out the butt dryer!!!

oh yeah and the bathroom products are from crabtree & evelyn! nice!

the sweaters for winter are sooo pretty but pointless to buy 'cause they're too thick for singapore's (stupid) climate so i got stuff like accessories, nail polish and phone covers. sigh, if only singapore's temperate! here's part of my small stash, 'cause i found this really cool photo app called "Pixlromantic"! it allows you to add bokeh and lightstreaks among many other effects!

나는 한국이 그리워요~!!

Excited for tomorrow!

2011-11-27T14:11:00.001+08:00

I'm super excited for tmr! So excited for my last paper tmr!! I will conquer forensic science ;D

The Leopard of My Eye

2011-11-24T20:13:00.001+08:00

I am going to Korea. Again!

2011-11-21T12:23:00.001+08:00

YAY I AM GOING KOREA AGAIN!!! :D
Haha my folks decided we should go Korea instead of Thailand! So this time I'll be back in Korea with my family and in winter! Omg I hope it snows so I can see pretty snow!!! Please snow please please pleeeeeaassssee!!!!

Study breaks

2011-11-18T09:38:00.001+08:00

I did this 2 days ago because I had to take a break from studying SLA! With SLA down i am feeling a little...free? 2 more papers and I'm DONE. Omg I can't wait for the real hols to start!! Eggcited!!! :D

Dream

2011-11-16T11:02:00.001+08:00

Have you ever had a dream about someone you once liked (but the liking wasn't mutual) and wake up feeling like shit? Well I have :-/

I thought I actually forgot about him since it's been like 3 years and I have psyched myself to think that "hey you know what? 'Un-like' him already because anyway you're actually not his type". And I told myself that even before uni even started. So because the dream was so vivid, like seeing him again, I felt kinda sad. I mean to think that he still exists in my subconscious state? Man...

At this point you must be thinking why am I taking a dream so seriously, and that I'm probably becoming a psycho? Don't worry i'm not crazy. I'm not looking back anymore, what's done is done so the best thing that I can do right now is to focus on the present and the future :)

I guess I can say that he's the first (and the only) guy so far whom I really liked. Not the stupid teenage infatuation crap. I'm not the infatuation type. So maybe that's why I'm taking it a little hard? Oh well whatever it is by now I'm sure that he's history and I'm not gonna mope about this anymore :)

Chilling?

2011-11-11T21:40:00.001+08:00

Feels so awesome that lessons have officially ended yesterday and assignments are pretty much done (phono will be done soon, I going to hand it in earlier hohoho).

Now I actually feel like I'm holiday but that's NOT what i should be feeling. I should be beyond paranoid because of SLA's major test and 2 exams to follow. Maybe because this sem is so terrible my emotions become a little screwed up hahaha! ʕ•̀ω•́ʔ

Unwind with gradient nails!

2011-10-16T22:54:00.000+08:00

My DIY manicure craze is back! >:D I love love love Canmake's Jewel Glitter Nail (gold)!!!

Blogger App! :D

2011-10-11T19:41:00.001+08:00

Woohoo! New blogger app, makes blogging so much easier but problem is that, strangely, I can't upload photos using this app. But some people don't seem to have such a problem. Oh well but at least this is another way I can kill time while on the train and when I'm too tired to do anything hohoho.

I can only add picture(s) to the post if I use Safari on my phone nehmind at least now my blog no longer so dead. Why is it so dead? Well because my laptop is no longer a tool for leisure activities. It's a tool that...intensifies my bitterness for school HAH. No I have a whole new m.o. I am going to remain positive and as long as I get work done it's good enough HAH SUCK IT ACADEMIA-MANIACS! >:D

Ugh...tiredness makes me weird.

Fly away!

Moody Mondays

2011-10-10T14:08:00.001+08:00

Ureca makes me sacrifice a lot of my time. I see how beneficial it is for my FYP but then I can't ignore how stressed I am and how much more time I would actually have if I didn't do Ureca. Like I actually have my mondays free but now I will have to join the FYP/grad students' study group now. It's a great session because the insights they give to your project is awesome but then I wish I didn't have to spend 3 hours traveling for a 2hour study session...

I really pray that this will help a lot with FYP since kk said I can definitely continue with the same project for FYP.

Gahh rambling on the train. Can't wait for Monday to be over D:

I would like a good laugh

2011-10-09T20:59:00.001+08:00

So the holidays wasn't as swell as I thought it would be. Rather I had so many things to do in the hols. Well I guess it's a good thing since it's the time during which I can clear some stuff and work on projects. So I guess it's good in the nerdy sense haha.

Really can't wait for the semester to be over. For some reason or another, this semester has been a real...pain? Like more dreadful than usual. Guess I've just got to hang in there for another few more weeks. 5 more weeks I think? :)

I can smell the holidays

2011-09-19T10:24:00.001+08:00

Yay! Holidays are in 3 days' time! :D now that I say it like that it seems like it's coming real real soon! Haha I got Fridays free so I guess that means holidays would start slightly earlier! :D

So fast, 7 weeks of school would be gone. I didn't feel like I was in school for half a semester, time flies. but not like I was having fun hahaha. Even though I'm only halfway through the semester, I'm sooo looking forward till the end of the year because I'll be going to Chiangmai and Bangkok!!! :D hopefully nothing goes wrong with the travel agency. Ok I should study very hard so I can enjoy the holidays :D

Ciao for now! ;)

Retail therapy: a solution to stress

2011-09-11T21:58:00.001+08:00

I had an absolute blast digging through clothes at H&M and F21 last Thursday! The wine coloured t-shirt and the multi-coloured dress are from H&M and the maxi skirt and tribal print chiffon jacket are from F21!

My sis and I had to queue to get in to H&M but it was alright since the queue moved pretty fast. I was surprised to see foreigners especially Caucasians who I thought already have H&M back home haha well I guess crowds just attracts pretty much anyone :)

I was ready to spend a lot but for some reason I only bought 3 pieces of clothing and a bracelet. one of the tops I bought was for my mummy!! Haha she couldn't join us so I figured we'd get her something :D we got her a floral top and she absolutely loved it :D I'll be going back for more in maybe the recess week because only 3 items for myself at H&M doesn't do justice for what was suppose to be a shopping trip! Hahaha :D

Alrightie that's about all, ciao for now! :D

Finally the end of STARS wars

2011-08-15T10:43:00.001+08:00

finally i can say that my timetable's confirmed! i will only be in school for 3 days: tuesday, wednesday & thursday!! coolios!

i wasn't as lucky as i was the previous semesters, that is, i manage to get the electives i opted for previously. this sem, it's not that i am in a super unfortunate state but it's 'cause i only got my prescribed elective (forensic science) but not the mass comm unrestricted elective which i've opted for. so i've resorted to appealing for it although with the nagging feeling that the appeal may not work. i was desperate so i was grabbing on to any available opportunity.

miraculously i received an email-- "successful appeal"-- i was ecstatic when i saw it!!! :D feels a little like striking the lottery. i guess it's true that the appeal works better for the more senior students.

weehee!

I love learning korean in korea!

2011-08-09T22:22:00.001+08:00

this is my korean language classmates and 선생님 (= teacher; the one with flowers)! :D

had so much fun learning korean with them and our 선생님's the best! :D

Things I've learned in Seoul

2011-08-09T19:42:00.000+08:00

seoul has been fun and i've learned a lot there. i guess i grew up quite a bit there? that happens if you're away from your family for an extended period of time. i was homesick around the second week and i was questioning my decision to stay in seoul. but by the end of the 2nd week, i just hecked it and continued to enjoy my stay there!
settling in the dorm when i arrived was not an easy task. for starters, they overlooked my friend's and my request to room together. so i was stuck in a room alone, waiting for my friend to be back from an optional field trip so that we can find the adminstrator to sort out our problem. when we did look for the administrator, i wouldn't say she was the friendly/understanding sort. her face was as black as coal. perhaps she thought that we were just bullshitting and she insisted that we did not send her the request. so after my friend showed her our email and her reply, she went back to locate her email and found out that she had overlooked it. no apologies were made but at least we manage to room together.

luckily not all was bad about dorm life, i made some really good friends and thankfully my roomie and i just fit into each other's lives so easily--haha as cheesey as that sounds. i mean we just clicked so well and we only met each other randomly at the IRO in school.

koreans in general do not have good knowledge of english so if you do go there on holiday on your own, make sure you know korean. commuting is pretty straightforward other than the fact that there're no escalators in most subway stations, except for some. and they like to stare at people who look less like them? i mean my i have a chindian and an indian friend who hang out with us and they always get stared at on the train. getting physically pushed/nudged around is actually very common and it is not considered impolite. i don't blame people for pushing me because i understand that people don't choose their culture, rather, it's the culture that shapes them. so like around the second/third week i started pushing/nudging people too since it's considered acceptable to push people out of you way haha!
but sometimes it still bugs my friends and i since singaporeans do keep our personal space. like if someone is too close we would step away. but in korea it's not like that and i've learned to live with that. that's the thing i like about going to new places--discovering different cultures!

alcoholic drinks in seoul are super cheap and because of that i think i drank a lot there. and i'm sooo glad my friends brought me to a club on my second last night because clubbing there is so fun and cheap! a tequila shot is only about SGD$3 while it is about $12 at Zouk??! hello! cheap or what?!

i'd like to share all my experience here but my memory only comes in spurts and these are the more vivid ones i can remember! haha.

xoxo.

More of Seoul through my phone

2011-08-09T19:12:00.000+08:00

cold noodles! they taste pretty interesting. a good cold dish for a hot summer day! it's as cold as ice water and there's crushed ice in it too! :D

a night at hangang river

i was trying to pose with my wrist sticker but i end up looking real queer here hahaha

our favourite ajuma's shop. her hot plate and fried rice are divine!

ta-dah! hot plate filled with goodness~!

makkoli 막걸리 - korean rice wine. looks like 豆花 right? :D it tastes pretty good :D

korean style fried rice on a hot plate! yum!!!

mcdonald's in korea!

lunch at I-House cafe (near my dorm). the chicken's superb!

we were so addicted to the pho (hanoi rice noodles) we ate this almost everyday!

pizzaaaa!!!

last dinner in seoul, at Primavera, an italian restaurant, just round the corner near my dorm!

dina and zhimin :)

aglio olio could've been nicer if there were more chili padi

on the plane before take-off!

flying home! :D

서울,안녕! bye seoul! ;)

More food!

2011-08-09T18:31:00.000+08:00

the longer i stay in seoul, the lazier i get with picture taking :p
25/7

have you heard of the korean pop idol Se7en? well we went to the chicken shop he opened at hongdae for dinner and the chicken was good! :D i love korean glass noodles! they're thicker, chewier and flatter. nice!

got this uber cute phone cover at hongdae too! :D figure white looks most rabbit-like! they didn't have a black one for iPhone so i settled on white!

and a cute furry tail as a stand/screen-wiper

28/7 Fishmarket for Fresh Seafood

here's the fishmarket! the upper levels are actually restaurants. so you have to find the restaurant you want then go downstairs with the waitress to get your sea critters

see i love korean food because they always have something for you to nibble on before you start eating the main course. the lettuce is for the meat. what i meant is the side dishes!

sashimi thingy which i didn't eat 'cause i don't like sashimi

i ate love octopuses too! but the picture was too blur so couldn't post it here!

abalones are cheap! 4 abalones for about SGD$13 cheap or what?! and they're real good! i have never had a whole abalone to myself before.

prawns are my favourite! super yummy and juicy

there was crab too but i was too excited chomping away i totally forgot about picture...again :p sorreh.

29/7

dinner at myeongdong

love this carbonara udon!

The Aftermath of The End of Midterms

2011-08-02T22:04:00.000+08:00

18/7 63 Building

going up 63 floors in a speedy lift :)

night scene around Yeouido

up the observatory, there's an art gallery

21/7

and i finally got a pair of TOMS!!! TOMS are like $20 cheaper in korea than in singapore. i have no idea why.

i had to get a watch and i thought this one's very cute 'cause it's so practical i can see the numbers and the minutes very clearly. i guess from here you can tell that i'm a bit of a stickler for punctuality.

22/7 Boryeong Mud Festival!

at first i was suppose to go on a school field trip but the itinerary was so bad i managed to get a refund and we decide to get out of Seoul with the rest to Boryeong! we went to the annual mud festival which attracts many foreigners and of course the locals!

at macs for brunch!

in the express bus. thank goodness the journeys only 2 hours so i can sleep it off!

arrival at Boryeong bus terminal, seemingly a ghost town

our pension--we sleep on the mattresses like those in korean dramas. pretty cozy and comfy!

from left: dina, zhang chen, zhimin, sam, moi, shiuan, andreas aka bb cream & kenneth

couldn't take many pictures because most of us didn't bring our cameras out since we would definitely get our hands dirty. here at the beach! by then the mud is washed off by the seawater :D the have pretty cool waves so we rented huge floats so we can take turns 'riding' the waves on the float. FUN!

we went to a supermart to get food and supplies and we cooked and ate in! nice!

lotte milk shake for dessert

our house from outside! the whole of first floor's ours and upstairs is another group of people. for this each person has to pay $25 per night. we only stayed there overnight.

since we were at a beach-y place, what beats having seafood for lunch?

23/7

cafe night to chill. this cafe's pretty unique because it used to be an old factory building.

24/7 Gyeongbokgung Palace

pretty cool huh, korean words derived from chinese scripts

tourists can write 2 sets of their names and where they're from in korean then display one and keep the other!

Gwanghwamun

we were just in time to catch part of the guard-changing ceremony!

the modern landscape looks so weird as the backdrop of this ancient palace

haha we could wear the guys' hanbok. apparently they don't have women hanboks available anymore :( but we still had an awesome time acting as if we are gung-ho ancient guardians of the palace HAHA

actually after a while i got really bored because everywhere looks pretty much the same and the thing is, not everything is originally from ancient times. most parts of the palace are actually restored so the 'artefacts' were not the mind blowing awesome kind like the handcarved stairs in china's forbidden city.

dinner for the day: samgyeopsal!!! nice! :D

more pictures to come! sorry i'm just so lazy to put it up here! xoxoxo.

Fun times in the Far East

2011-07-30T02:34:00.002+08:00

15/7

alex, zhimin, sam, dina & shiuan! :D

shiuan's and my creative productions starring her eeyore a.k.a. orh-orh...

the food is great!!! craving for these!!! :O

bacon & carbonara pizza = insanely good

:-*

digging dina's nose? :p

:-*

but dina still loves the smell of orh-orh's pits...? heh heh :p

pretty restaurant!

then we went to Insadong

dina's having a pancake thingy shaped like poop, haha the pancake's delicious though! :)

at a teahouse

I LOVE OMIJA-CHA!!! apparently it tastes different for different people depending on your mood/health!

16/7

Breakfast at a quaint little cafe near our hostel

grilled bagel

ham & cheese sandwhich

cute utensils

so pretty! look at the pretty heart-shaped spoon!

my waffle! it's served with fresh cream, maple syrup, choco drizzle and cinnamon :)

onward to Seoul Grand Park!

HAHA

taking the sky-lift, fun!

17/7 Doosan Bears vs LG baseball match!

we have an awesome view!

great atmosphere thanks to the enthu fans!

and this guy from the audience proposed to his girlfirend during half time. it was super sweet!

on his knee!

omg ring!

oops, i think the guy in red realised i was sneaking a picture of his friends who were singing and cheering so spontaneously

alright i better get some sleep now, i still have about 3 more weeks' worth of pictures! xoxo.

Seoul Good

2011-07-30T02:02:00.000+08:00

[edit/ 30/7] i must be crazy because actually i wrote this post and saved it as a draft and it totally slipped my mind to publish it after so long!

HAHA sorry for the hiatus! but i'm back with more pictures!! :D teehee! i can't remember the days i took some pictures already but anyhoos, here's a healthy dose of what i've been up to in seoul!

we attempted to go to one of the parks for a leisurely stroll and watch performances but hangang river flooded the place :( still, the night scene here is pretty!

it's beautiful even though it's flooded

dinner/supper at our favourite ajuma's street food stall! she's super nice and generous with the serving! FIND HER AT EDAE

at Time Out. a gelato stall opened by Micky, one of the ex DBSK dudes. i'm not a fan of DBSK but i wanted to have some gelato!

some time later, my roomie bought this back for my lunch! awesome omelette rice!!

another day's lunch: simple lunch before i get to class

6/7 Samgyeopsal day! because we were craving for meat. meat is extremely rare in normal dishes/food so we had to go look for a samgyeopsal restaurant to have a good dose of meat

passed by KBS

8/7 Everland!

it was a bad day to be there but at least the ticket we bought is at a discounted rate (20,000 won) and there was a free lunch coupon because we bought the ticket through the school so it's not too bad lah. we got on some rides but the exciting ones were closed because of the weather

sam and zhimin :D

oh and btw, my fake TOMs heh heh heh...and my leopard print skorts are from H&M :D

haha this is a really cute functioning ATM

because we went as a group, we have a free lunch coupon for this awesome set!

would like to have gone on but the weather was pretty sucky so such rides are closed

there's also a mini zoo in everland

don't you think the way the bear stands on the far right looks pretty interesting?

dinner that day :)

9/7 Namsan Seoul Tower

lunch! i am totally in love with this fried rice. I WOULD MISS THIS WHEN I'M BACK HOME D:

we took the cable car up to Namsan Seoul Tower

ta-da!

i didn't go to the teddy bear museum but we could take pictures in the teddy bear museum merchandise store! the bears have nice squishy hands!

the famous love-locks. people come here to 'lock' on their love

pretty view

see, even thais come all the way here to 'lock on their love' :p

this view is from the observatory at the Namsan Seoul Tower

inside the observatory

queueing up for the cable car trip to get back to civilization :p

Insadong, Hangang River & Dongdaemun

2011-06-29T22:41:00.002+08:00

ok finally you get to see my room:
the blanket is damn lumpy but nevertheless still very nice to snuggle with. the bed is actually very comfortable :D as you can see, the room is narrow

'part 1' of the toilet

'part 2' of the shower & basin of the toilet

shower area

foyer

my table! i've got small packets of kimchi to go with instant noodles (on budget days) and snack on the top right. some documents on the left and bananas (need to maintain good bowel movement :p) and sunblock and what not on the right.

tiny wardrobe but just enough for the 6 week program!

28/6 Insadong

this building is unique as you can see the floors are sloped so actually you get up the floors by going about one round

met up with shiuan shiuan and her friend who has been studying in Korea for 4 months already

we shared this donut/pancake like thing with brown sugar syrup inside. VERY NICE!! but messy job eating it

Starbucks in Korean haha. oh btw, starbucks is very expensive in korea, about SGD$10 for a grande hence i haven't touched coffee and i don't think i intend to haha

Hangang River: it's like a park here, there're fishes in the river. people jog here, date here, picnic here and soak their feet here. according to shiuan's friend, this river used to be a dumping site. so you can think of it as something like singapore river...but only it's a lot longer (we have no idea how far it stretches) and i don't think anyone would want to soak their feet in the singapore river--you'll look like a total doofus.

there's the dongdaemun which means 'east gate'

actually dongdaemun stuff are not that cheap so i don't know why guidebooks and people ask me to go there to buy clothings. stupid. edae is good enough with clothes that can go as low as about SGD$6 and shoes about SGD$11. so yes i highly recommend Edae. besides the things you see at dongdaemun can most likely be found at edae.

back to school!

Korean Language Institute: place where i have my Korean language classes

forest! walk all the way up and turn right would be the hostel

New Millenia Hall (another building near my hostel)

i think Seoul is very hilly. it's like flat land seems pretty rare. i find myself walking up/down bumps/hills most of the time! and i get hungry very easily here! maybe because meat is a rarity (it's expensive in korea). i am unintentionally vegetarian sometimes, like my dinner just now i had cold noodles and of course with the staple kimchi! very nice!!! the noodles is very chewy. or maybe because i always climb up and down so i get hungry damn easily.

alrights, that's all for now! missing singapore already. i still feel that no matter how sometimes i can be irritated with singapore like with the crazy weather and what not, i still love singapore the most :D

Lotte World, Times Square and Edae

2011-06-29T11:19:00.003+08:00

26/6 Lotte World!

Lotte World in my opinion is only ok probably because the rides are not as mad as Battlestar Galactica: Cylon at Universal Studios!
yimin, alex, zhimin & shiuan shiuan

zafirah!

Upon reaching Lotte World we also went to some walk-of-fame sort of thing. because i only know Rain Bi, i figured i shouldn't waste my trip and take a picture with his palm print

his display. the stuff inside are items he used before in his performances, etc.

Lotte World!

view from the 'hotair ballon' ride

if you watch Running Man, you would find this ride extremely familiar! :D

27/6 Times Square

According to tourism websites, Times Square is the largest shopping mall in Seoul. the shops are all pretty high end so we just did some window shopping then went to get some groceries at E-Mart. We alighted at Yeongdeungpo Station then get to Times Square via an underpass. At Yeongdeungpo Station, underground area there are many shops selling clothes as cheap as 5000won (SGD$6) CHEAP OR WHAT?! i was busy shopping hence no pictures but not like i bought a lot of stuff, i must control myself since there're still about 6 more weeks in Seoul!

in the subway

changing train

they sell things on the platform! stuff like snacks, newspaper, clothes. so it's perfectly normal to eat & drink on the train. despite this, the train is still very clean!

at Times Square!

Faceshop goodies! polishes and SHATTER nail polish. the shatter at Faceshop is about SGD$10. and the pink plastic thingies are thingies which you put on your fingers which prevent anything from touch your nails during drying!

At Edae, Women's Fashion Street! again, cheap clothes and shoes but i only bought a pair of sandals because my old one actually gave way while i was walking around thanks to the prevalent rain these days! We ate at a Taco place!

Taco and rice seem like a strange combination but actually it's VERY NICE!!!

Dinner at Sinchon (area near my school-Yonsei) i forgot what is this called but it has veg, chicken and octopus in spicy sauce. NICE!!!

Here's my rental phone. it's like an army phone? i don't like messaging now because it's a quirty keypad without T9 function!!! so i have to key in alphabet by alphabet :-\

alrights i'll stop here for now, shall prepare for my class starting at 1.20pm (korean time) :D

Seoul searching

2011-06-25T02:00:00.003+08:00

annyeonghaseyo!

22/6-23/6

i am finally in seoul blogging because i can finally connect the LAN whatever it is, it is extremely irritating. it came as a surprise to me that actually majority of the staff at the school's hostel (a hostel for international students) actually have quite limited knowledge of english so between staff and students there was some difficulty saying what you want/explaining your situation. but they were pretty ok like doing their best to help the students so that's great! first day in seoul was not exactly the best because my friend and i had to drag our heavy-ass luggages from where we alighted from the limosine bus to yonsei. we figured that taking the cab is quite unnecessary. and while we were struggling with luggage, it was raining which made the journey to the hostel all the more challenging. and because of our arduous journey up hills and bumps, i earned myself a pair of aching arms HAHA. at this rate of climbing up and down stairs and hills, i think i shouldn't put on a lot weight while i'm here, in all i was so tired because of luggage pulling and insufficient sleep on the airplane!

to add to that day's bumpy start in seoul, the housing people made a mistake with our request to room together. so with some pleading, explanation, our broken korean, hand signing, they were nice enough to room us in a new room. i like the new room better since it's on the same floor of the lobby which is very convenient. also because the lift is mother slow so no need to wait and wait. in fact i haven't seen the person i was roomed with so it's ok, she won't feel like i abandoned her.

by night i was finally happily settled with shiuan shiuan my roomie and i got to meet new people from NTU as well, whom i have not met before. all of them came back from the jeju field trip which i intentionally not want to go because i think i would give scenery a pass. i am a city person :)

because we bonded so well over cups of instant noodles, gimbab (ok i'm not sure if i got this right but it's like a roll of sushi), banana milk, salad, we decided to go shopping yesterday(since now's already 1.23am in korean time) at myeongdong! btw, the bed is actually very comfortable, not too soft/hard :D

24/6

first, to start off the day i bought a T-card which is like ez-link card! HOW AWESOME RIGHT? TRAVELLING CARD IS SO SMALL, PORTABLE, CUTE AND ATTRACTIVE!!! it's only 6000won which is around SGD$7! i love hello kitty! but don't take this the wrong way, i'm not a manic fan i just think it's very cute :D

taking the bus to cityhall station. i realise their bus is quite small, has a large standing area and few seats.

a very good korean porridge restaurant to lunch!

the porridge would come this way!

my roomie! :D

i can't remember her name because we are always calling her 'gary' (haha a regular on this korean show called 'running man') and my roomie. these 2 are always funny together haha :D

MINE. beef and mushroom porridge. omg i love their pickled sides! the porridge is damn good and it's different from like the crystal jade type of texture.

a small part of myeongdong

shopping adventure at myeongdong was pretty good! they had MANY cosmetic shops and i got shatter polish from face shop i wonder if they have that in sg already but i know right here the SGD$7.90 ones in face shop are 5000won which is like SGD$6. and i bought this awesome thingies which you put on your fingers so your newly painted nails won't be ruined if you go about your stuff! cosmetic here is cheap too and i got BB cream which smells like sakura flower! NICE! if it works out for me, i will buy back in bulk HAHA.
i bought a top and bottom from H&M!!! not bad lah got sale but then i wouldn't say it's cheap. i believe the cheap-clothes shopping mecca is dongdaemun which i haven't gone to YET. watch me go insane!!! no lah kidding. haha one day i shall take picture of my stash. now i'm too lazy.

ok so i gave up on taking pictures on the streets so yes i am lousy.

after snaking through the streets of myeongdong, we got hungry and settled down at Lotteria which is the Lotte coompany's fastfood joint? that's an assumption but i know it definitely has something to do with Lotte. ta-da! my lunch: shrimp burger (4900won)

these fries are AWESOME i won't say they're like macs' but it's really fragrant!

DAMN NICE! feel like having another

oops you can't see but the shrimp bits are good!

alexandria's beef burger! looks goooood

so yes that's all the pictures i got haha sorrehh i am lazy.

alrights that's all for now :) i am missing HOKKIEN MEE how now brown cow??

haha

xoxoxo.

Getting Old School

2011-06-19T15:29:00.000+08:00

Minnie Mouse nails!!! :D it's a super easy to do design! i figured i would leave the rest of my nails only varnished so when my nails grow out in Korea, they won't look that grossly chipped :) oh my gosh 3 more days!!! my flight's on 23rd midnight which means i will have to check in on the night of the 22nd! eggcited!!! :D

i will blog about my Korean adventures here diligently. i guess blogging is the best way to store memories ;D

Give me red, yellow and blue

2011-06-14T20:53:00.001+08:00

as of now i am bananas for anything colourful like this new tie-dye layout. i love tie-dye!!! i've yet to find a shirt to tie-dye because normal white tees are so boring and the cutting of the normal shirts are very unflattering. till i find a good shirt, i will do tie-dye! also, i felt like looking at fireworks, i haven't actually seen pretty fireworks up-close in a while so i went to look for photos like this:

pretty 'init? :D

well today i realised that we are supposed to check our personalised date & time for course registration and i found out that mine's at 9.30am! feeling happy firstly because i think i have a higher chance to get major PEs i want and secondly i won't miss my lesson at Yonsei. the time for my batch is actually 1.30pm and i was feeling a little crappy because that will mean i have to do STARS registration in the middle of my class so i was contemplating whether i should skip lesson just to do registration. but thank the universe and the alignment of stars i got the earlier slot :) phew!

talking about my Yonsei timetable, it's pretty sweet because 1) school's only from Monday-Thursday 2) Friday is for our Special Activity. for me it will be Korean Traditional Cookery! 3) my first class is 1pm everyday which means i can possibly wake up in the morning and go running = eat whatever and not feel guilty. sounds like a pretty good plan :D

i think i've got everything i need for my exchange but i'm dreading the packing because..well...i hate packing. regardless, i hate packing for trips, i just wish my luggage could fill up magically by itself and clothes and shoes can magically arrange themselves in the luggage. i know i won't have to bring clothes-hangers 'cause someone on the FB group said that the hostel provides about 10 which i think is enough since the closet's pretty small. hope i get roomed with shiuan shiuan!!! fingers crossed!!!

i should really start packing the coming weekend so if i'm missing anything i can still get it before wednesday!

meeting shiuan shiuan and 2 other girls who're going on the program tomorrow for dinner, eggcited! :D

xoxoxo.

Baby Steps to Yonsei

2011-06-09T10:27:00.003+08:00

YAY! managed to get Korean language and Understanding Contemporary Korean Popular Culture & Korean Culture Wave!!! YAY YAY YAY!!! YONSEI I AM EXCITED TO SEE YOU!!!

alright, i am sorry for being so obnoxiously childish it's just because it's been so long that i've gotten mods i want. so yes, NTU STARS has tormented my soul and i have since become a very 'mod-deprived' person. HAHAHA what rubbish.

and my results turn out to be way better than expected. i couldn't believe what i saw actually. plus i have never reached/surpassed the coveted gpa 4.5 before so yes i am super DUPER happy :D

today is a good day :D i hope everyone else is having a good one too :)

xoxo.

Nail it

2011-06-05T18:30:00.003+08:00

I love Katy Perry's Teenage Dream! :D

And this is a 'snow leopard' attempt :{D

exam results will be out coming thursday...omg!!! keeping my fingers crossed!!! there's a nagging feeling that i may have screwed up something/somethings D:

Universal Studios!

2011-05-29T12:07:00.008+08:00

USS on friday was awesome awesome awesome! contrary to what most people tell me, USS was uber fun!! probably because all the awesome rides were working and the wonderful company :D thanks to pris, dots, nana and chlo my day there was free as (the best) birthday present!!!

most photos here are taken from nana's cam for being the camera woman of the day! i think we were pretty efficient covering 5 rides in a day! we conquered Battlestar Galactica: Cylon (which is more intense than the Human one), Revenge of the Mummy, Rapids Adventure, Canopy Flyer and Shrek 4-D Adventure!

when we first arrived, all happy, fresh and ultra eggcited(!!!):

my favourite shot with all of us in!

actually i prefer Betty Boop if she had a mascot head? instead of the odd wig. Betty asked us to pose like that one we're not so hiaw haha

i think this is Hollywood with the real deal's signature palm trees

New York: with the Beetlejuice guy. we felt pretty uncomfortable 'cause he snorts a lot when he talks. he's also ham sup and weird

Ancient Egypt:

Sci-Fi City: the blue one is the intense one-Battlestar Galactica: Cylon and the red is the Human. if you love roller coaster rides this one's pretty sick with lots of twists and turns and there are moments when you're upside down WOOHOOO!!! while queueing for the ride the weather was a little threatening and we were praying that it doesn't rain too hard/no lightning/thunder. thank goodness we manage to go on it!!!! we thought of taking the Human ride before going home but then we ran out of time and the seats don't seem as safe as the Cylon ride

one of the awesome upside down moments, see feet in the air!!

feeling high, flighty and very accomplished!!!

heh heh...

lunch time! the pepperoni pizza is HUGE!! and DIVINE!!!!

mushroom soup to go with!

man...i wish i had one right now

Far Far Away: haha so cute, i love Shrek but my favourite is still Gingy!!!

getting into Shrek 4-D Adventure

my shirt!

GINGY!

The Lost World: after riding the Rapids Adventure! we queued for one and a half hours for this! luckliy we had our ponchos if not we'd probably be soaked!
Don't know if you remember the Jurassic Park movie in which this dinosaur squirts venom on it's victims' eyes? here's a real life demonstration of how it'll be like if you see it:

on our way out: love the cars!

and that's pretty much our day at USS! gawd...we were totally spent at the end of the day. we were in there for about 7 hours and we still couldn't cover everything! so it seems like we may need 2 days to experience the whole of USS! so if you are going to USS, pray that it doesn't rain and all the awesome rides are working! :D

went town yesterday for some shopping and movie with sis! Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides IS AWESOME!!! actually i think it's my favourite out of the others. the mermaids are sooo pretty!! especially this one:

Tamara played by Gemma Ward:

and the clergyman is HOT. the mermaid, Syrena here played by Astrid Berges-Frisbey and the (HOT HOT) clergyman played by Sam Claflin:
xoxo.

Princess Leigh

2011-05-24T18:32:00.006+08:00

i'm not talking about princess leia but i'm talking about my new love: leigh wedge women (crocs)

i just got them today ladeedahdeedah hahaha so pretty! :D

i remember going through this order when i was working at crocs asia hq last year (they deal with stocks one year in advance) and today i thought i would try my luck with mummsie at vivo's crocs where we went for lunch and bought stuff from daiso! soooo glad i found a pair of wedges that are comfy and light! my mum doesn't like me to buy flats (regardless, just flat shoes/sandals) so i am buying more sandal wedges because they are more versatile/sturdier than heels and i can run around in them in school :D

i bought this awesome universal adaptor, very fascinating because it has all sorts of powerpoint shapes. can be used in europe, japan, china, etc. It looks like this (took the pic from the net):

AND THIS PICTURE IS DAMN FUNNY:

HAHAHAHA!!!

Dancing with the Stars

2011-05-22T12:33:00.006+08:00

i am digging this layout because outer space and starry night skies are beautiful.

my brain hasn't dissociated itself from the exams anxiety (oh god i hope i didn't screw up my papers). so like yesterday i had this horrible nightmare: i dreamt that i was late for exams for 59minutes which means i could still enter exam hall but only have little time left for my phonetics paper. HAHAHA. i had already taken phonetics last sem but i don't know why it emerged in my dream. then while i was doing the paper it's a little like A/E maths paper. i know right like WHUUUTT??!!! so yeah i was glad that i woke up 'cause as chaotic as my dream was, i believed it was real while i was dreaming. i wonder how Freud will interpret this.

learning korean now with "Korean for Dummies" haha interesting book and accompanied with a CD to listen to native speakers' dialogue! i'm somewhere at self-introduction :D jeoneun chooyan ieyo (i am chooyan). jeoneun gimcheereaul meogeoyo (i eat kimchi). the book focuses on daehwa (daily conversation) and korean culture. for now i think hangugeoga jaemi isseoyo (korean is fun)! the grammar is somewhat complicating because of all the conjugations but i will perservere! hopefully when i am in korea i am borderline conversant with simple dialogue.

annyeonghi gyeseyo! (goodbye!)

Last of The Poop

2011-05-19T12:36:00.000+08:00

I AM PSYCHED BECAUSE EXAMS ARE OVER!

And my cat is handsome :D

Feeling good at 21 :)

2011-05-09T11:35:00.002+08:00

Alrights I am trying out Blogger function to blog via email!

Yesterday was my birthday and believe it or not, as much as a nerd that I am I was studying for exams regardless. Yeah life will be more awesome if I didn't have exams. Celebrated mummy's day as well so we had this awesome chocolate cake :D my folks said since I'm not in the mood for any celebration, they'd be taking us for seafood this coming weekend! 'cause by then I will only have psycholing to worry about. Looking forward to chili crab and other cholesterol raising food :p

Thank you to all my friends and family who wished me! hahaha so touched 'cause I thought everyone's too busy with exams :')

Xoxo.

Squeaky clean toesies

2011-05-07T18:13:00.003+08:00

My very own french tips! the nail bed looks pinker than the picture though! D.I.Yed. i like it that french tips make nails look so clean haha! :D uploaded this not because my toes look very nice but because the photo-editing app is so cute! :D

I feel cool!

2011-05-04T23:51:00.002+08:00

hahaha i'm feeling so cool right now because i've just booked air tickets to(and from) Korea! alright alright because i have never done anything like that before it makes me feel all grown up heh heh heh... :{D

actually apart from that, this upcoming summer program is sooo exciting because, hey come on, it's korea! new land, new fun, home of hallyu which i've yet to understand :) also i think most importantly it's like a taste of what it really means to be totally independent. i like being independent in the sense that i like figuring things out myself, planning things. but of course i love to meet new people who would (hopefully) eventually become my friends :D and we can explore the land together. so far my parents have not much of a clue of what i am doing hahaha of course they know that i'm going korea and will be there for more than a month and yeah...i think that's all they know :p so, keeping a close eye on payments, booking air tickets, reserving a mobile phone to use overseas, planning what to do there, etc. are all on me. i love it that they trust me--which i am implying from their ignorance of what their daughter is doing and interest in korea. my sister is also pretty psyched that i'm going there because she wants "nice things there" hahaha.

i am determined to learn some functional korean before my trip, i have about a month to self-study korean after the wretched exams. speaking about the exams, i hope i won't screw up because i think i studied pretty hard so far :-\ ugh but how hard is hard right? compared to maybe a linguistic whiz/someone who is a hardcore mugger. i will strive hard so i can get decent enough grades and can proudly say that i have finished year 2 of uni! so fast, time flies and next semester we would be in year 3 (O.,o) woah...

alrights, g'night! xoxo.

The semester's ending!!!

2011-04-24T13:18:00.004+08:00

yay! the semester's ending omg, i can't wait to get over and done with exams and move on to summer program! I AM GOING TO KOREA! hopefully my stay there would be a happy and eventful one because i would hate to be away from home and have a terrible time for 6 weeks. right now, i am awaiting news regarding my hostel application, damn sian if it's not approved because then i would have to apply for off-campus housing. but aiya, no point fighting luck 'cause it's not like i can do anything about it. so, fingers crossed!

by some stroke of luck, fate and perfect timing, i met someone by chance at the iro who is also going Yonsei alone! yay! i'm so glad now i have friends there :D in fact, i realised that i'm not the only person going there alone, there are i think 3 more people. so i guess we can form our own "alone on summer exchange" support group! hahaha.

--

sigh...SIGH...i am going to be 21 in about 2 weeks' time and i'm not exactly super hyped up. i don't let just about anyone know about this, but i can't hold it back anymore: i'm a little worried because it would mean that through my entire life up to the brink of adulthood at 21 i have been a very single, single. i am so single, i think no one in this universe can ever match up to my standard. i think i would make an excellent nun because i would have no problems in the relationship department but the problem is that i am neither religious nor willing to give up meat. hahaha! shit. i can't believe i am even joking about such a sad matter right now. people tell me things like "oh don't worry you will meet that guy" stuff like that but honestly, i truly have my doubts. clearly, there must be something about me that repels guys. ugh..i am such a loser in the relationship department. very saddening and very worrying because i think i may probably end up single and unwanted (sorry i can't keep my chin up about this because i don't see a light at the end of the tunnel). at this point people may say "huh? but you are still young, blah blah blah" i would like you to stop trying to comfort me, because please be reminded that 21 isn't very young. it's 9 years to 30 and as people who have past teens you should know that 10 years isn't a very long time. so there, i'm baring my soul here, please don't attack me.

hah. i feel slightly better now and i can totally go back to books...omg! i have just justified what a loser and 'life-less' person i am. ok i should retreat to nurse my wounds.

I need to curb my shopaholism

2011-03-22T22:37:00.004+08:00

after quite a while of hiatus i'm back! :D school is consuming me but thankfully i'm still very much alive because half of the semester's gone and i'm quite excited about getting over with midterms and exams so i can quickly move on to summer holidays! :D

last week was recess week but honestly i didn't have much of a recess because i thought i had 4 tests when school starts so i spent almost everyday mugging. well i got child lang test date wrong, it's ok, at least i'm half done with it :)

i was nice to myself since i didn't get the chance to go shopping in town, i went to the best online shopping place (ok lah only to my limited knowledge of online shopping) : Gmarket.sg
If i could read Korean, i would totally visit the original Korean Gmarket. so just like that i bought 5 pieces of clothing online :p HAHA but they're really cheap (per piece is like $10-15) and nice and i couldn't resist!! i bought like 2 dresses for days when i am too lazy to match this and that, a jacket and 2 tops :D i feel happy thinking about them :D omg i think i sound crazy, please don't think i am! it's just that i'm pretty deprived of shopping, do understand :')

when i received my package, my mother was in shock & awe HAHAHA. so i promised her i WILL NOT buy any more clothings from then on. i even asked my sister to scold me if i am drooling over clothings online. note: my sister is 5 years younger than me, but i need someone to regulate me apart from my mummsie. 2 reminders are better than 1.

the 5 pieces of clothing gave me some form of energy boost which should last me till end of semester! ok off to bed!

xoxoxo.

Ang Pow Harvesting Season

2011-02-20T00:47:00.002+08:00

anyhoos, this is a very late update about CNY!!! it's been a great CNY and i'm missing it!

reunion lunch at Concord Hotel :D awesome spread but i was too busy eating i didn't take photos. got these photos from me mum's facebook!

happy family!

haha my uncle the birthday boy and my aunt, who's the one who hosted this lunch!

1st day of CNY, to my aunt's!

with old but cute Spiffy!

the adorable but mischievous Small Boy

'tis night we gamble

huddle up for some steamboat!

Day 3, to my uncle's place!

having fun with the folks! hahaha something funny happened, hard to explain but anyway we all cracked up pretty hard, even one of aunts laughed till she cried!

now that CNY is over, there's nothing much to look forward to leh...no special holiday or anything. guess i'll just be a good girl and focus entirely on my studies!

--

ok about yesterday's post regarding GSS. well i'm no longer sad! thought it over and well if it's not meant to be, no point fighting it. perhaps it's a good thing i'm not going. i mean who knows? what if something bad happens to me when i'm there? i would rather not go on exchange than to go and have something bad happen to me! ;)

xoxo.

I have S.A.D.

2011-02-18T19:12:00.002+08:00

i am sad/disappointed on so many levels right now. just received news about GSS and i've been placed on waitlist (for exchange placement) and if there is no news after 28feb i can assume that my application is unsuccessful. honestly, i think placing me on waitlist is just as well as telling me that my application has been unsuccessful. i think i should share my experience here so that in future if some NTU student googles to find out more about GSS he/she will find out (from here) that: although you scored GPA of 4.36/5 it is still not enough to make it to GSS when the cut-off is actually 3.6 (people who are probably sniggering at my 4.36, eat shit lah shit brains).

in essense, just do better than 4.36. there, a wonderful piece of advice if you want to know how well you should do to be qualified for GSS.

Valentine

2011-02-14T16:52:00.003+08:00

i have no plans on this commercialized special day 'cause obviously i haven't got a valentine and the girls have their own stuff going on. so after thai class i spontaneously decided that i should go vivocity to have tangy tomato soup at Soupspoon. so there i was sitting alone on the high bench eating and people-watching. it's actually quite fun like that, enjoying my soup and sandwich and looking at people going about their lives. i decided to count the number of couples i see but then there were too many and i gave up.

it's interesting that there are quite a number of couples wearing matching t-shirts. HAHAHA. i'm sorry, to anyone who likes matching t-shirts, but i really think it's a super back-dated trend and i would only forgive people at my parents' age who do that. i find it really sweet, that for any random couple, they manage to find each other out of millions in singapore and billions in the world, to want to get together, develop a relationship and spend a valentine's day together. i'm envious. finding someone like that with whom you'll share a special bond with is rare.

after lunch i strolled down to Forever21. it's the best time to be there since it's relatively empty probably because the couples are at the movies and the singles aren't out and about? haha i don't know. so anyhoos i got awesome clothes and accessories! happy!! :D actually the stuff at Forever21 are slightly cheaper than compared to the last time i went there.

when i got home and told mummy dearest about my day, people watching, shopping and swarms of couples, she said "don't worry, you'll get your turn". i sure hope so. ho hum...i dunno but i think chances are quite slim and i'm not having high hopes so finding a valentine/getting attached is not in my life's to-do list at all. yup i'm just going to sit around and hopefully like isaac newton, have a date fall from the sky, not apple from a tree. for me, i believe that love is not exactly fate. i think it's just plain luck.

ok there, i shall leave this little corner of cyberspace and do the most unromantic thing in the world on valentine's day -- do my readings! the professors must be so proud of me :B

Festive! ; )

2011-02-02T12:39:00.002+08:00

Tadah! My Chinese new year nails!!! :8D

Super festive huh?! Haha I got the red flower ring on a 70%off rack at Accessorize! So this ring costs $8 thereof only!!

On the train now away from school to have reunion lunch at Conrad centennial!!! Excited and very hungry now so I decided blogging can kill some time instead of staring at the person standing in front of me haha awkward! Oh anyways why didn't I just skip school today? Well it's because I have Thai class!!! Fun!!! I love my teacher :D I can't get my textbooks :-/ because Yunam Bookstore (ALWAYS) underorder books. It's so very inefficient compared to last time's Popular D: Popular, you were popular in campus, why close down? We all misscheww haha.

Anyhoos an early happy cny friends! :D

Xoxo

School tomorrow.

2011-01-24T18:06:00.004+08:00

school tomorrow!

feeling a little numb about it. oh well hope this semester would be good :)

on a more exciting note, i've submitted global summer studies application! there were some changes and some universities no longer offer exchange programs :-\ but regardless, Akita International University (Japan) is my first choice. Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany) and Wuhan University (China) are my 2nd and 3rd choices respectively. i thought TUD's program is interesting 'cause there'll be home-stay arrangement! coolness! so yeah i hope everything turns out well and i can get a place!

:-*
xoxo.

Awesome Possum

2011-01-18T17:49:00.004+08:00

YAY!!! the stuff i ordered from Gmarket (SG) are here!!! :D funny story, i just got out of the shower with a towel wrapped around my head but i heard someone knocking on the door. i looked into the peep-hole--the delivery man is here. i must be stupid because i was afraid he'd walk away after knocking for too long so i hurriedly took off my head towel and opened the door to claim my package. as i was waltzing around the house, celebrating the receipt of my package, i saw myself in the mirror. HAHA my wet hair was in the most peculiar shape!! i had half of the hair from the left side stacked on top of my head HAHAHA. i'm amazed he didn't point at my hair and get into a laughing fit.

Gmarket's not a bad place to shop around for stuff. it's like a korean ebay, you can buy things ranging from clothes and accessories to baby diapers and home appliances. things on Gmarket can be dirt cheap/relatively cheap, like the clothes i bought, or they're just normal retail price. i went to gmarket.com.sg not the true blue korean one 'cause i can't read korean. the SG one is in english so it's much easier!

here's my stash which only cost me SGD 28.96 altogether (!!!!) :

i love florals

there's an eagle thing behind

and i love lace (when tackfully matched)

if you're wondering if all these are for CNY, no not all, most of these are clothes for the well-being of choo yan. haha. but i'm actually pretty set for CNY, got my clothes and shoes already wheeeee!!! i decided against getting a bag because i think my dad'll flip! heehee :D actually i don't understand why bags make him flip when i use moolah i saved. men are weird :O they never understand why it's a woman/girl's need to have as many shoes and bags as possible. simple answer: BAGS AND SHOES ARE JUST SO PRETTY!

--

hearty-farty

something i did a week back. now i'm trying to think of designs i can do for CNY. i figured since i can do nail art for myself, i can save the $$ for mani-pedi.

xoxo.

RELIEVED

2011-01-18T09:15:00.003+08:00

so sometime around midnight dots called me up and we checked our cGPA together. relief, relief, relief, relief! :D now at least i can go to bed not feeling anxious and not being able to fall asleep. i just viewed the breakdown of the results (which are finally up), i can qualify to do a minor in comm studies (ugh..let's hope the criterion doesn't change)! omg so exciting! i think i will start in yr 3 since i didn't put any comm mods on the waitlist for coming semester. gosh, excited! and i can also apply for global summer studies! :D i'm crossing my fingers and hope that they'll put me in!

i was very convinced i screwed myself over last semester because i didn't finish one of my papers and i couldn't check most of my papers 'cause i was so bloody bad with time. thank goodness all of last semester is all behind me now and most importantly, i will no longer have anything to do with morphology and syntax! ;)

Spring cleaning!

2011-01-09T23:22:00.004+08:00

chinese new year is frightfully around the corner and i'm only half done with spring cleaning my room. and i haven't gotten my CNY clothes! erps. and after my room i'll have to do the cupboards of other parts of the house. thank goodness our house is not on the big side :O

oh and there will be 2 heart attacks next week: 1) 18th: release of exam results and 2) 21st: release of PE/UE allocation results. and that will bring us very near to the start of another semester D: hurr hurr...eeyer...i'm not ready to give up my days of relaxing for books and school :( hmph...

this is what i call relaxing:

like blanket-sniffer, toto

who knows how to enjoy life--use the pillow because it provides better head support and is comfier than me paws.

i wish i can be like toto my whole life.

i saw this sweetheart some time back at my void deck she's soooo cuuuute!!! if i could make family decisions on the spot, i'd bring her back in a blink of an eye. ya but too bad i can't. i don't see her around anymore. maybe she went away with the love of her life, or more realistically, someone adopted her.

--

the girls and i met up for dinner on thursday and had awesome jap food at Ichiban Boshi :D i'm not a fan of sashimi but i have to say, dot's swordfish tastes really good. i like the tinge of sea-sweetness of the swordfish. ok again, i forgot all about pictures because i focus too much on putting food in my big gob and realise picture-taking only too late. then we went to have some choco drinks at Max Brenner! cool place to chill out with your homies! :D NOW i remember to take pictures because i saw pris whipping out her camera :D

this thing is amusing because it wobbles if you shake the plate haha!

i forgot what you are called oh-delicious-one.

cute cup with a metal straw. somehow i like the stainless steel straw a lot but then i feel a little ridiculous if i really purchase a stainless steel straw.

sakau (er...that's how it sounds like, i don't know how to spell it)

ok, later alligator!

STARS, I do really hate you

2011-01-07T18:46:00.005+08:00

About 5hrs and 15min before now my life was in shambles. I told my sister to please keep my scissors a safe distance away from me. But then about half an hour later I recovered and felt zen because I realized that firstly in life I can't possibly get what I want and secondly when people get what they want it's probably because they've never gotten their chance. With some wise words from a young but very wise mind of my sister's, and some self reflection, I shouldn't whine because realistically speaking, with 4 linguistics courses, although not all my first choice, is better than nothing. And they seem pretty interesting to me after all :) here's what I got:

1) psycholinguistics
2) cognitive linguistics
3) child language
4) corpus linguistics

I think many people know that I'm not interested in children but I'm keeping child language just in case I don't get allocated PE/UE elective(s) and well who knows? I may become intrigued in the world of child language hahahaha.

Oh and for electives, I didn't continue with jap because the only slot which doesn't clash is too popular. So I put THAI. actually I've always been interested in Thai so keeping my fingers crossed!

Yup so that's about all for my little enlightenment. Haha ohhmmm hahaha ohhmmm.

What's wronggg

2011-01-03T10:55:00.003+08:00

i don't know what's wrong with me but my self-worth has been dwindling these days. i hope it's just a passing phase, i feel like i'm 15 again with all that hormones playing with my sanity.

there are 3 things that are messing with my head:
1) exam results
2) STARS
3) feeling very much single and practically unwanted. this is not an outcry of desperado but it's just that a lot of people 'expect' or 'think' that i 'should' be attached and i'm not, so i'm very disturbed because i think there is something wrong with me.

ugh. i am sad.

Beijing!

2010-12-30T20:53:00.016+08:00

Happy New Year! :)

i hope 2011 will be a more fulfulling year for us all :D

i've been hibernating these 3 days, 'cause my trip to beijing was a tiring but an extremely fun and exciting one :) despite the extreme coldness in beijing, it wasn't snowing, perhaps it was too dry and there was no precipitation. BUT we were super lucky to see tiny snowflakes falling from the sky when we were at the Forbidden City! i was psyched, it was my first time seeing snow and although i didn't get to see the streets of Beijing covered with fluffy, white snow, i'm thankful and very much satisfied with the tiny snowflakes :)

we stayed at my cousin and her husband's place which is a nice private apartment at Capital Paradise. the estate is very self-contained. it has its own community centre which includes facilities like an indoor swimming pool, a bowling alley a front-desk which helps residents hold on to parcels and even a posh hair salon! my aunt, mum and i went for a hairwash and it's super cheap! only S$8!!! there's also a supermarket and restaurants nearby.

this is a set of Mongolian bridal wear for my cousin and her husband (who's Mongolian) :)

these larger apartments are for larger families. apparently housing loans are paid for by the international school my cousin's teaching at. she could get one of these but then there's only 2 of them so a large house for only 2 person is kind of too big.

i wouldn't mind living here too

here's the lobby

through my stay in beijing, i realised that what a lot of people said about the china-chinese are wrong. our trip was not mainly to tourist-ey areas so i'm sure i'm seeing the real beijing. they are actually friendly and do not talk as loud as those china citizens who are in singapore, for reasons i do not know. the only thing i can suggest is that probably the loudspeakers in SG are not from beijing. with my newfound realization, i'm looking at the china citizens in a totally different light. also, beijing is as clean and as beggar-free as singapore. so i'm awfully surprised that the streets weren't as dirty as what many people said it would be! ok there're more spits lah, but SG also have right? beijing got more because they've got more people than the whole of SG right?

another fallacy about china food being not nice is grossly untrue. beijing offers many many many wonderful delicacies! most of the time i either forgot to take pictures of the food 'cause my first instinct was to eat or i was lazy. here're some of the food we had:

korean

the best bbq pork ever!

we also went to this japanese curry franchise which was great! too bad they don't have it in SG

great platter

at one of the towers in Jingshan Park. here's a bird's eye view of the surrounding town.

ta dah! here they have very good steamboat! hahaha i love steamboat! especially on a cold day!

very oriental setting

personal steamboats & succulent lamb kebab

our spread. haha i was busy eating and forgot about taking a photo of our spread so yeah some plates are already empty because we've been eating for a while already.
sometimes along the way when we're travelling around, we would stop by to have coffee. they have good toffee nut latte :D

these were 2 of the many dishes we had after conquering the great wall. the fried tiny prawns are to be eaten whole and they're absolutely tastey! the other plate is deep fried vegtable, of what species i do not know. i only know that it's delicious!

on the day when we were at the airport to take a domestic flight to Pingyao (平遥), we had KFC breakfast. SG's KFC breakfast sucks and the beijing one actually rocked! the chicken sandwich doesn't look fantastic here because, as you already know, my first instinct is to eat the food i get so...i think i made it look gross haha sorry. anyhoos, the buns have bits of carrot in it and the rest is pretty much like Macs' sausage McMuffin which i L.O.V.E.. oh and our flight got delayed by 4 hours for reasons we do not know.

i can't be bothered to take a good picture of the peking duck we were having because we walked a long way and all i wanted to do was sit down and knock myself out with good peking duck! haha. indeed this restaurant serves wonderful peking duck!

in addition to the good food, i like it that china preserved some ancient buildings/streets and revitalized them such that these buildings can be used as places for commercial purposes. below used to be an ancient 'shopping district'. there's Uniqlo here!!! jeans are damn cheap only S$40 but i'm so cold i didn't want to take off my pants to try it on :( my sis and i bought cute berets for ourselves though :)

Starbucks!

having a hot cup of latte in winter is just perfect. btw that's my cousin turning around.

haha i thought Swatch looks quite out of place here

a big shoe shop which actually sells this type of kungfu shoes.

UGG boots! love them to bits, thanks to my cousin!

this man shapes candy into animals. i thought about getting one but then i realised he shapes them by blowing into molten candy (which will harden when it cools). by the way the man on the left is Ted, my cousin's husband!

a lake in the process of freezing up

what's going to beijing without seeing Mr Mao's 'hamsom' face eh?

a totally frozen lake

the place where the emperor would pray for good harvest

haha cute sis

my cousin and Ted playing shuttlecock. my sister and i joined in to keep warm hahaha

the next day, we went to the great wall. this part isn't the great wall yet but a nearby village. oh ya there's actually a Subway here haha. cute camel!
we have to take the open-air cable car to the great wall. it was a fun-ride with only 2 seats and a bar to keep you in :D

teehee

we climbed about 5 or more of these sections! somehow being on the great wall made me feel so proud to be chinese.

donkey!

aww he looks so cute

these steps we climbed are not the actual steps of the past. they are remodified so that visitors can climb more easily.

we got down the fun way--by the luge! we could control how fast/slow it should go.

haha my mummsie looks like a kid here

en route to lunch after 'conquering' the great wall, we saw this FROZEN WATERFALL!!! :O so you can imagine how cold it was in beijing

at the airport. the machines are d.i.y check-in systems for domestic flights

the KFC at the airport

haha here it is again. gosh i feel like having this. oh the KFC in china also sells deep fried dough sticks--油条!

after an hour flight from beijing to taiyuan airport, and a 2 hrs drive, we finally arrived at homestay-ish place we're staying for 2 nights, at the ancient city of Pingyao (平遥), a UNESCO site in Shanxi (山西) province. this ancient city is popular among backpackers!

the blankets prevent the cold wind from entering the rooms

our bedroom :)

the streets of 平遥。it's quite a nice place but very sandy because the wind bring sand from the deserts of Mongolia.

and i found a cutie pie! she's soooo cute and she reminded me of Toto at home :3

平遥 by night

the city wall

this is the place where we had dinner. again i forgot all about picture taking because i was so hungry i just focused on eating when the food arrived. i think it's because of the cold made me hungrier than normal.

i forgot what's the english name for such a dog but in chinese they're called 北京狗'beijing dog', which are very expensive in SG. despite their high value, they're all over 平遥。

the gigantornomous Wang Family Compound. it's so huge it has over a thousand rooms!

and we ran into some people filming in this area. below are some guys dressed up as Japanese soldiers

and probably a funeral scene

this is less than a fifth of the Wang Family Compound!!! O.,o"

we went over to another place which used to be the military base and here's the underground tunnel. there are 3 underground layers, the most amazing thing about the tunnel is that THERE IS VENTILATION!!! unlike the famous underground tunnel in Vietnam where it is hot and stuffy.

ventilating hole

haha china's famous open air toilet!! sorry guys if i gross you out. oh speaking about toilets, even the beijing ones, they're pretty stinky. but some toilets are surprisingly clean. other than this open-air toilet, the other toilets i've gone to are enclosed :D

court room! does this remind you of Justice Bao (包青天/包大人)?

magistrate robes.

my uncle tried on the robe for tourists to take pictures :p

pussywillow

this is another place in 平遥 which used to be something like the Cisco.

she's so cute, resting like that in the middle of the street without a care in the world.

haha holy looking? like guan ying ma coming down to earth :p

going back to beijing
heehee on the plane :)

And the last day of our trip, we went to the Forbidden City

fancy stairs fit for the emperor

this is the peking duck restaurant after we went to the Forbidden City.

then we zipped down to the Bird's Nest for photos! haha my earmuffs look like hamburgers!! :p

we then went for hotspring at this hotel/resort. i couldn't take pictures there 'cause some some sections were for naked baths. and we showered in cubicles with (deliberate) no doors after soaking at the springs. but fret not, males and females are of course separated. you know some places in SG have got the fishes which eat the dead skin off your legs? the tiny black fishes? yeah they have it in one of the many hotspring pools. i tried it! it was ticklish at first but when i go used to it i could dip in further. they actually work! my skin, especially my legs felt super smooth after!

x'mas decor outside the hotel/resort.

i miss china and i'm really glad i got to see the real china. i can safely reject all the exaggerated and negative recounts about trips to china. people probably got conned because those who travel in tour groups are so obviously tourists. it's inevitable that they attract conmen. also, large tour groups full of aunties who are (i regret to say this) irritating may not be well received by the locals, hence the negative feedback about rude service people etc. besides, tour agents, no matter how branded, because of their tour budget, would usually bring people to have icky food once in a while. so in all, beijing was a great experience and it has become one of my favourite destinations! :D

Can't wait for this shizz to be over!

2010-11-25T10:01:00.004+08:00

I am having such a hectic last few weeks of school term, thanks to the assignments which came in late and of which the due dates are practically around the same time :( I can finish lah but it's like I have no time for myself for a decent break (ya i'm actually blogging on the train now on my phone so) so like any stressed kid my mood is quite erratic now :-/ ok but not all's shitty, I'm going china with my family and uncle and auntie to visit my cousin who's working in Beijing. The trip's not far away, it's actually after my last paper! So I'm flying the midnight after the end of my paper :) pretty exciting 'cause it'll be my first time experiencing winter :) but then I'm not super hyped up yet 'cause I'm too busy with exams and assignments D: good luck to you NTU people out there who are most probably having the worst time of your lives mugging and coping with assignments!!

I should learn to be as chillax as toto

Anyhoos I did this few weeks ago ;)

Ok, ciao!

Last week = Shit week

2010-11-03T10:40:00.003+08:00

Last week was a hell of a week thank goodness the nightmare is over, with all the tests done and over with! At least I can get enough sleep this week! So I did this during my free time :8D it's a gradient attempt well I thought it's mildly successful heh heh

I know my recent posts have been about nail designs and stuff but no I'm bot going to be a manicurist after what my parents paid for university education. This is just an avenue of interest, like art you know? Haha and I don't get high on the nail polish smell!

My Minions

2010-10-24T17:01:00.002+08:00

teehee! ok as sad as this sounds, this is about the only fun thing i did in the holidays :-\ i have no life. haha my skin looks deathly white here! well that's what you get cooping up at home studying for midterms. i shall be able to reclaim my life back once exams are over :)

Food is My Comfort

2010-09-26T22:02:00.007+08:00

dear xiao long baos how i wish all of you grew out of trees!!!
having 10 xlbs to myself was a life changing experience i was (-.,-) to this \(^ 0 ^)/ after having xlbs

erps i'm craving for xlbs!

oh my gosh, from tomorrow onwards it's week 5! :O one month of school is over and it feels like i've only been back to school for a week :o the good thing is that a third of a semester is gone and with another two thirds to go! fast or what?! this sem is quite stressful in the sense that the core courses are difficult. the rest seems fine...as of now. i mean who knows i may be totally bombed next week. haha. yeah i can laugh now before anything bad happens :D

xoxo.

Refuting a Salesman

2010-09-06T20:37:00.002+08:00

after an interesting seminar on Discourse and Conversation, a phonetics tutorial and satisfying nasi padang for lunch, which i've been craving for since going back to school, i was feeling tired and sluggish on my way home. but then this irritating salesman/charity-coercer came up to me/us. here's what happened:

Irritant: You see this is a charity *points to a logo on a document he's holding*
Me: *rolls eyes*
Irritant: How young are you all?
Me: Very young... *said while walking away*
Pris: We're under 21 years old!
-then the irritant backs away.

when i think back, i thought my reply's quite hilarious HAHA even though i know it's quite rude. erm we're 20 so i don't think that qualifies as 'very young'...? HAHA.

ok so new nails! (oh by the way i found these designs from youtube so ya that's a source you can turn to if you're looking for some d.i.y. manicure ideas :) )

and oh look at toto, he's getting real fat and lazy :0) i don't mind rolling around all day like he does...

erm but i don't wanna be fat lah...

xoxo.

S L O W

2010-09-03T23:30:00.005+08:00

my first week of school was surprisingly slack. i only got to school on wednesday 'cause monday's seminar was cancelled then on tuesday there were no tutorials. what was even more surprising was that the lecture on thursday was cancelled so i only got back to school today for my first CS100 lecture. i thought the lecture was fun! because my lecturer is a very entertaining person and the course is interesting on the whole. in fact it ties in quite well with another course i'm taking this sem so yup i hope the transfer of knowledge will aid me and not confuse me. because my first week of school was so incredibly sluggish i don't feel like i'm really back in school haha. perhaps next week i'll feel the BURN.

ciao!

School Makes Me Wonky

2010-08-31T20:45:00.004+08:00

i believe the onset of school always trigger a certain part of my brain. why do i say so? because i realise i always have weird obsessions when school starts/exam is drawing near. this time i keep changing my nail colour and pattern. and during the study period before last semester's exam, i kept buying clothes online. oh this weirdness didn't start when i got into uni, during the study period for A Levels, i will always have to watch a movie vcd/dvd after i finish mugging--every night. then there was O Levels when i was obsessing over wanting to bake brownies (i eventually did that on the day before my last paper, that was A Math). yup...these are the quirks i can think of right now. ok ya so...this is another design i did today!
haha starring my 'le biscuit' :D

first day of school tomorrow! :O i'm hoping that it'll be good! (>.,<)

I found a new way to clean leather!

2010-08-30T22:57:00.004+08:00

hello friends,

after scouring the internet for home methods to clean leather, the best solution the web offered is "use something alcohol based" but "not too strong to spoil the leather". among other home remedies were to use Dove body foam and some other substances. so putting the 2 together i tried my Clean & Clear toner and it worked!!! so happy now that my wallet looks much cleaner! haha i got tired of my 'Hermes-inspired' wallet so i switched back to my old-but-kickass-Guy Laroche, i just love it's leather smell which still lingers even after a year of use :D

so guys if you get dirt/minor stains on your leather goods, try facial toner 'cause they're mild and alcohol based. but then if there's an adverse effect on your leather goods please don't blame me 'cause i also don't know why it doesn't work for you.

ciao! :-*

Back to School on Wednesday!

2010-08-28T21:47:00.010+08:00

+edit: actually school resumes on wednesday!!! yay 2 more precious days to spend!!! :D i love good news on edveNTUre/NTU email :8D

i finally had jalan kayu's roti prata with my parents! :D heehee i've had everything i've wanted to eat/try this holiday so no regrets there! still, i'm kind of sad that this wonderfully long holiday is coming to an end :'( hmm i'm trying to psych myself out of this semi-doldrums :- but at least i got the electives i've opted for! i could get CS100 and HMJ2 so i guess school won't suck so much, knowing that i won't have to start the semester with trying to grab an elective during add/drop period, that would be a gigantic downer. although i have a 5 day week now, at least i've got my homies :D i would rather have 5 days of classes with my friends than to have 3 days of classes and no/few friends to go to classes with. yeah...i'm one of those wimps who find it difficult to approach new people :S i wonder if the upcoming semester would be as terrible as the last one, my gut tells me "no" because HG205 is out of the way, but then i may never know right, i may be in for a bad surprise e.g. being taught by XX again...erps *shudders* i hope not and i'll keep my fingers and toes crossed.

anyhoo, to try to cheer myself up + hype up the 'back to school' mood, i've done my nails in happy candy colours! :D

oh and we (dot, sam, chlo, ntn and moi) caught the YOG closing ceremony fireworks! nice! we were pretty close 'cause we were at marina square!

wow whee!!! :D

xoxo.

Touch the Pearls, Wipe the Tear and Wave

2010-08-24T21:48:00.017+08:00

i am very into the Miss Universe Pageant because i love the national costumes and final question sections so i actually woke up early to catch the live telecast of Miss Universe 2010 from Las Vegas on Star World. but then there was some transition/technical problem over at Star World so when Miss China stepped up i didn't get to see her because when the program resumed, her less than 1 minute of workin' the national costume was totally cut out haha funny. anyway the main point is--i don't get Miss Singapore's costume. she was just in a grey/silver evening gown? did i see that correctly? erm...how is that even representative of Singapore? hello, not evening gown section yet leh. when i saw Miss Singapore i just felt sad because it is not outstanding! i think we need to recognise that a costume should DEMAND attention because each participant gets like less than a minute standing there posing with her costume. here is what Miss Singapore wore for NATIONAL COSTUME: are you sad when you see this? because i am. we can afford missiles why can't we have a good local designer to design a proper costume for her? after doing some research on the costume-but-actually-look-like-gown, it's designed by a Chinese student from Raffles Design Institute. as a new person to Singapore, how does he/she know what defines Singapore, and thereby create a Singaporean costume?! and it is NOW that i realise that there are details on the train of the gown/costume. i didn't even see the details on tv!!! since i can't see it on tv, HOW ON EARTH CAN THE JUDGES SEE IT FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE STAGE?! if she were to walk out with a bikini top, consisting of 2 husks shaped like our esplanade, and maybe a merlion/mermaid inspired wrap skirt i would think at least it represented Singapore at the very least, however weird or shocking. many costumes were unique. Miss France wore a beret bearing a mini Eiffel Tower and Miss Great Britain's rocked a cute Shakespearean looking outfit! Miss Thailand's costume beats everyone's hands down and won the Best National Costume award! cute! it's like a stylized modernization of traditional Thai costume worn in the past.

i love Miss Mexico!!! and i'm so glad she won!!! :D finally, someone i like actually won--whoever i support, be it on ANTM/Australia'sNTM/Singapore Idol/etc., never wins. so this is the first time i actually supported someone who eventually won:
the designer of this gown is pure genius because the train of the dress gives such a splendid flow when she walks. plus, the richness of the red is already a winning element because it is simply stunning!

Miss Philippines is Southeast Asia's pride and joy since she emerged the 4th runner-up--i don't think any Southeast Asian beauty queens have gone that far right? i guess what lead to her somewhat disappointing placement is actually her off focused answer to a very simple question, in my humble opinion. she was asked what was the biggest mistake she made in life and what she did to fix it. she answered that in her young life she haven't made any big mistakes and she loves her family for their support and because of them she is here today. i couldn't help but laugh at her answer. i'm sorry, it was just such a queer answer. mistake of the century lor. maybe she was nervous or maybe she thought it was a trick question when actually it's not. i'm not the only person who thought she screwed up, even yahoo news is talking about it. so perhaps she could have gotten a better placement if it wasn't for the strange answer.

oh and it's weird that this year Miss Venezuela didn't even make to top 15. usually they're always the top few.

as i was watching Miss Universe, i was also multi-tasking painting my nails--ZEBRA PRINTS!!!

heehee!!! :D

Jenga Jenga

2010-08-22T21:41:00.004+08:00

this afternoon my sis and i played Jenga, quite old school but i love it!! we both have steady hands so we played till there weren't possible blocks left to pick--the layers were either left with one block holding the rest of the height or there were only 2 blocks left with a gap in between--no possible move! it was a tie. i guess when we're broke we could possibly hustle Jenga for money HAHA.

Keeping myself busy

2010-08-19T00:42:00.003+08:00

hello, because i am very free i've revamped my blog. created the main picture with Photoshop and learned some new skills heehee! :D i've taken out the tagboard 'cause i think it's quite useless for me to have it since it's practically dead most of the time, i thought blogger's comment system is better 'cause people can leave me a comment once in a blue☾(moon). haha cute moon! i found this list of html symbols while i was searching for some html materials, i even found this ☃ (snowman) :) okie dokes, that's about it and it's time for me to sleep!

ciao! xoxo.

Red & White

2010-08-13T22:21:00.002+08:00

somehow i like this shot. it's taken with my iphone. so surprise! iphone's camera is actually better than the blackberry's 'cause the bb photos seem a little more blurry and grainy to me.
can zoom also, i just realized there's such a function. so this is my national day colour themed nails. haha chlo's one was awesomer 'cause she had our real marikita flag painted on her nails :O

this was taken when i brought my mum to somewhere near my workplace, sometime last month. best yong tau foo ever! :D

ya k that's about it. i'm just itching to type something because i love the sound and the feel of laptop keys/keyboard. haha i have issues? cheap thrill lah k.

ciao! :3

Majulah Singapura!

2010-08-12T23:03:00.012+08:00

the sleepover at nana's crib on national day was fun! haha it's been long since i went for a sleepover. 'sleepovers' are ironic because it's when usually people actually don't bother sleeping. we had an early dinner at good ol' Carl's Junior at Vivo, then went to Giant to shop for some drinks, snacks, ice-cream, yogurt and kimchi noodles for supper :D upon arrival, we immediately kicked back to watch the national day parade! erm the grandeur of the parade wasn't what we were excited about, it's more like the anticipation of seeing some guy we know or have seen before in JC marching at the parade was cool. i mean come on, how often can you say "HEY THAT GUY THERE WAS FROM XX CLASS" or "OMG IS THAT HIM?! OOH OOH YEAH HE WAS IN SCHOOL WITH ME WHEN I WAS IN XX", you know? and of course spotting some cute officer/sergent/whatever would definitely be a plus side watching the parade.

sam!

nana!
dots!

weehee fighter jets and beautiful view from nana's crib
waving our arms in sync with "This is Home"
fireworks!

apart from some crazy fashion faux pas of most of the performers' costumes, i thought the parade was pretty alright. i think the surprise element of the entire show was actually the display of our MISSILES. i mean...WE HAVE MISSILES?! i appreciate and understand that tiny, lovely Singapura is very forward and developed but WE HAVE MISSILES?! gee...i guess it's a hint to the haters of Singapore to--as how Phua Chu Kang may aptly put it--"don't play play" with us. so yeah i'm very impressed that we are actually combat ready but i hope there is no need to use such weapons. i had history only up till sec 2 (and totally hated it), but it's enough to understand that missiles, bombs and pure angry men with machine guns/bayonets paint a very ugly side of humanity. after the touching finale of the parade sporting us 4, at home, in the living room, waving our arms in the air to the classic "This is Home" sung by songbird, Kit Chan, we watched The Proposal :D i love it and i can't get enough of it even though i've already watched it before!! then we finally went down to the playground where we were only on the see-saw and rocking horses for a little while then told to clear the playground because its closed. so we decided to play with the pool water for a little bit and had a wonderfully long girl talk :D i'm so happy with the sharing with homies i met only a year ago. so here's a shout-out to y'all good people: THANKS BABES :D IT WAS FUN AND I'D LIKE TO DO IT AGAIN SOMETIME :D

pris and moi!
cute people on rocking horses

so after washing up and changing we watched The Blind Side while drinking a little bit of alcohol mixed with the Coke we bought. we drank very little, like only half a glass of alcohol haha! so little none of us felt any effect of alcohol. anyways, the movie was very inspirational and i can see why Sandra Bullock received a distinguished MTV movie award (of which the title i can't remember) 'cause her Southern slang is pretty dang good. but i won't watch it again because i feel upset that racism and class divides still exist so strongly in some places because of stereotypes and most importantly, the people who adhere, hence maintaining, these stereotypes. sucks to know that there are many foster kids out there who are neglected and may not be as lucky as Michael, as in the film. ok digressing, so anyways most of us felt tired and dozed off at some points then when we shuffled our feet to sleep in nana's guest room, we felt awake after a while and continued our night of excitement with a game of monopoly cards it's fun although my properties declined steadily throughout the entire game while the others experienced windfalls and downfalls. haha see, that goes to show why i shouldn't take business or have anything to do with the economy/economics as a whole :p with drowsiness kicking in again, we slept at around 5.50am and wake up about 4 hours later! sam had to collect the YOG uniform and we were off to have breakfast!!! THE FRIED CARROT CAKE IS OUT OF THIS WORLD!!! i shall figure out a way to go there one day.

glorious fried carrot cakes!!!
mee siam was great too!
chwee kueh!

despite all the fun, i was glad to be home because i miss my bed terribly heehee and i miss toto! it was his birthday when i got home and we celebrated with Coco Exotic (my favourite-est cake on this planet) and some microwave popcorn! haha we are crazy like that, celebrating his birthday with food he can't and doesn't eat. ok technically speaking it's not his birthday but on the day he joined our family. oh point to note is that we couldn't remember the day of the english calendar but we could remember the day on the lunar calendar--first day of hungry ghost festival. HAHA to some this may be weird but hey we had toto in our lives for 3 years and nothing spooky has ever occurred. hmm well i guess there's nothing creepy about punggol. there's punggol beach where during the japanese occupation, many were executed and punggol is also home to the Matilda House. still there's no reports or sightings of the supernatural by the people who live towards the inner parts of punggol. i'm not affected by the hungry ghost festival, it only affects me if the people litter the HDB area with plastic bags, pieces of rafia string, wrappers or paper. these people fail to realize that cleaners have a difficult time cleaning up in the morning and they don't give a shit about their home surroundings, what losers. lucky my mum's not so inconsiderate.

popcorn!
BUTTERED popcorn
Coco Exotic=my love
actually i don't think he understand what's going on heh heh

xoxo.

Summer Time!

2010-07-31T18:30:00.006+08:00

guess what's this glittery, shimmery mass

it's my phone cover!!! the faux diamonds are not pasted directly on my phone. teehee! pretty!!! :D

woohoo it's summer! and i'm still happily bumming around :D i have also assumed the role of a personal assistant to my mummsie--i carry stuff for her for every trip to ntuc/cold storage (which is actually almost everyday). apart from that we find new places to go/to eat at. how i wish my life can be like that forever but no, i must go back to school in a month's time boohoo! D:

so i have some fulfilling things (ahem, according to my own standards) such as attempting gradient nails (HOT! they're the new cool), buying stuff (HAHA) and testing out my camera and it's functions. i think i should give my camera a name, i say Ruby 'cause it's red :8D and pretty :8D

gradient nails!

toto!

i've always secretly wished he's a girl because he looks pretty with diamonds :p i've added the diamonds using Ruby's functions.

and i thought Ruby has a great macro mode 'cause it's clear!

oh by the way, the roses with silver pins are from New Look, not bad, 5 for only $6.90! the red roses with gold pins were old ones :)

and I LOVE THE MINIONS on Despicable Me

aren't they cuuuuuuttee??!!! HAHAHA

xoxo

A Cool Thing Called The Bokeh

2010-07-24T22:31:00.005+08:00

because i'm happily lazing around at home, i've decided to do something more productive other than just tending to my farm on Farmville and watching TV. so i'm currently exploring the effects and art of creating/using bokeh, but not the common type of bokeh, i find joy doing heart-shaped ones. i'm not some camera savvy chick so it's not like i'm armed with a camera, snapping away at light. i downloaded a bokeh brush from adobe to be used on Photoshop, the brush is very versatile! i've yet to try bokehs of other shapes.

*what's bokeh: blurs--the aesthetic value of blurs in pictures.

attempt by photo montage and bokeh

looking more like light reflected from glitter? heehee :) it's now my desktop background.
another attempt for my sis :)
i love art. doesn't seem like NTU has a UE called artistic photography or something, if there is it'll be pretty cool and i'd definitely take it!

currently having a Harry Potter marathon with my sis HAHA. if the entire Harry Potter series was in 3D it'll be damn good--effects wise, not because i can see Daniel Radcliffe in 3D.

xoxo

When Ms Tan Became Mrs Soyulchogt

2010-07-18T22:03:00.018+08:00

Marriage is the perfection of what love aimed at, ignorant of what it sought.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

my cousin's garden wedding, at Mandai Orchid Garden, yesterday was uber fun! :D it was definitely one of the highlights of my (ultra long) holidays! being the bridesmaids my sister and i were early there helping out with decors and preps. as usual, dressing up and putting on make-up were the fun parts heehee ;)

so my sister was the 'calligrapher' 'cause i cannot manage consistent handwriting, plus, my handwriting isn't very neat :O so i was just running errands, looking for stuff or giving my sister ideas about what to draw to fully utilize the space on the little blackboards.

the living room which we used to put our stuff temporarily. i forgot and was also too busy to take a picture of our gorgeous changing room D:

soon, it was time to get ready for the reception area where my sis and i are in charge of putting a white sash around the guests. this is a Mongolian custom which is a way of showing gratitude to the guests for their attendence. for people who are wondering "What? Why adopt Mongolian custom?", it's because my cousin's husband's Mongolian! heehee my family is getting international :D i did my hair up this way, if i'm not wrong, it's called a french coif :D tada! (i took these hair pictures only when i got home. so Good Look hair gel is good because my hair is still in place after many hours haha!)

at the reception!

front row (from left)-my 2nd aunt, great aunt from Thailand, aunt (first uncle's wife), aunt from Thailand, mummsie, sis

back row(from left)-first uncle, melissa jiejie (who is tze kang gorgor's girlfriend), tze kang gorgor

from left: yingying jiejie, 2nd aunt, mummsie, big aunt, moi, sis :D

big aunt and hubby--proud parents of the bride! :D

the very important woman behind Eiling jiejie's wedding--Yanni jiejie a.k.a Eilin's sis :o)

heehee! lookin' very much alike. although i am scarily white with flash :-\
much better without flash! :D

DINNER TIME!

i did this by accident, coolios!!! i'll try to figure out how i did it soon.

pops! heehee
a quaint little wedding dinner
mummsie and pops getting a little silly
beautiful couple! \(^0^)/ (my uncle was being a goof suddenly popping in when i snapped :O)
scallop, dressed in cream sauce
then mushroom soup was served and which i forgot to photograph because i was too excited about mushroom-ey things.

crab cake

cutting the wedding cake!

my favorite! it's spaghetti, most probably tossed in Balsamic vinegar, i just love sour stuff.
toasting!

guess which one's water! this should be easy :)
beef steak
ooh pink on the inside
a piece of the wedding cake!

the dinner was fine, and i think we had more wine and champagne than food 'cause while we waited for each course, what we did was talk, laugh and drink. i love the champagne! altogether i had 6 glasses of alcohol, 2 glasses of red wine, a glass of white wine, and 3 glasses of champagne. i felt very hot midway during dinner but it went away after a while, still i'm very much surprised that i didn't get drunk at all, given the fact that i don't drink often. i drank red wine with an empty stomach when i was first seated for dinner. so now i know i can drink 6 glasses of alcohol without getting silly--i only turn red heehee!

sorry for some blur pictures 'cause i was using the wrong mode haha! still getting used to my camera! :D

i love weddings :)

Seafood Sinners & Stupid STARS

2010-07-10T15:59:00.006+08:00

last friday i had the best seafood feast in my entire life because i had steamed crab, black pepper crab and chili crab all in one seating. amazing!!! it was my cousin's birthday and her husband wanted to celebrate it with a big bang. i was blown away by the size of the crabs. they are mega! according to my cousins it's not the biggest yet but to me they're huge!

we were too excited about the huge-ness of the steamed crab, which came up first, so we ate most of it before it made sense to us to take a picture of it heehee. tadaa!!! bask in their crustacean glory!!! pics' credits to me mum! by the way, the crab's pincers (not very obvious is this picture) are longer than my hand as in palm+fingers :D

we had prawns, huge fish and a deep fried duck! haha i had an insane protein boost for dinner :p next up we sang a birthday song as my cousin's cake is brought out! :8D

heehee, happy birthday girl

i love this cake! it's CHANEL!! haha so cute. her friend made this cake and i'd say it's very my cousin :)

STARS-WARS, as my friend aptly puts it, is finally over. it didn't go too well for me this time 'cause i went into a manic frenzy when i had to register for other tutorial groups for my cores because the ones i've planned were snapped up in a split second. yes, literally split second. i wonder why some people have such quick reflexes and i don't--for clicking on the mouse that is...

but anyhow i managed to register for the ones similar to pris, dot, sam and nana banana, if not i think i will feel pretty miserable on my first day of year 2. so it's sadly a 5 day week for me this coming term but oh well looking on the bright side, they are shorter school days and there are public holidays and our ahem...self proclaimed holidays to look forward to :) i'm quite surprised with myself, that i'm actually cool with what i have now even after STARS system being such a dope. at least i've got good company, with that, i'm very much relieved :D

so now what we have to worry about is whether or not we got electives of our choice placed on the waitlist. the results will be out on the 27th Aug so i'm not going to worry about it now 'cause tmr's my last day of work and i have one and a half month of holiday to enjoy, a sleepover and prolly another vacation to look forward to. for now, i won't worry about allocation of electives 'cause that's just making myself feel pathetic :O

gee i'm hungry after doing this post :-\ i'm craving for double McSpicy and the new shaker fries!!! :p' totally looking forward to my cousin's wedding on saturday!!! yeeps!!! :D

Shutterbug

2010-07-05T14:32:00.004+08:00

i got this because it's something useful for myself and for my family :D ain't it pretty??? this is the nikon s4000 which is sneakily unadvertised by nikon. some of you may have come across nikon's sale adverts recently, one introducing some cameras and free gifts. so i initially thought about getting s3000 which looks almost like this. when i went Courts this very nice sales dude was saying that although nikon s3000 is advertised, the goods haven't reached them so he recommended s4000 which is a very popular choice. at first i thought he's the stereotypical sales person who persuades people to buy something expensive but he compared the specs and true enough s4000 had better qualities. s4000 shoots clearer pictures and has a touch screen whereas s3000 has not. but of course s4000 is more expensive--by $80. so $80 more for better quality pictures and for a touch screen i guess it's worth it :) oh and nikon cameras are pretty user friendly too, very accessible for a tech idiot like me. the colours available were fewer for s4000 but i thought the red is nice. nicer than the pink, the powder pink is too act-cute and looks like the colour of antibiotics... anyways, although they call it red, to me it looks more like dark hot pink :D hoho they've got many interesting modes like a special mode to shoot food, face softener-make your complexion look more even and many more! i have yet to explore everything and neither have i read the user manual. i don't like reading user manuals for electronic devices...and to add even though s4000 is not featured in the nikon ad, i still get the freebies which are featured in the advert :D HAPPY! i got a digi cam tripod, a cleaning kit which has another tripod stand inside, an extra battery pack, camera case and an 8gig SD card. now i won't have to rely on my iphone camera already :8D

now i'm in the office. i've just finished the filing, or rather boxing, of the Crocs order forms and invoices and am taking a break now. the entire department is away for some training/meeting thingy so i can't ask for something to do. oh wells i guess i should savour my last 2 weeks at Crocs 'cause although filing and occasional data entry is dull, i'm comfortable here with good people around :) still i feel lazier and lazier to come to work, actually i think the sian part is travelling to and from work everyday 'cause there's always a mad rush at outram. 9 more working days to go! woots!!! :8)

peace.

Aller au Marché

2010-07-03T23:31:00.005+08:00

before my sister resumed her enslavement to the school, i treated her to dinner at Marché, the one at Vivo City! i am absolutely bonkers for their rosti!!! ok to begin with, i am a carbohydrate fan so anything with potatoes rock! :D

we had their rosti with chicken cheese sausage. magic in a mouthful i tell you.

roasted chicken pizza

and a caesar salad..haha my carnivorous sister is not feelin' the veg :p

although we've shared only 3 dishes, we were super full after. i guess it was the rosti :p'

i'm intending to get a digital camera heehee! because it's the GSS now and plus i want to take better pictures at my cousin's wedding dinner in 2 weeks' time! it will be a simple garden wedding dinner without all the fussy ceremonies. i'll be her bridesmaid, helping her out with stuff but i don't think we'll be very busy 'cause the wedding concept is not complicated. my cousin got us dresses while shopping for dinner clothes just now!! so touched :') unlike the conventional thing that all bridesmaids wear similar outfits or outfits with similar colours we got to pick out our own dresses. my sis got a cute orange-pink tube dress with a sweetheart cut from warehouse, very adorable and she can actually keep it for prom! i got a floral printed dress from river island haha garden wedding so i should look as garden-y as possible :D love it love it love it! :D it comes with a belt too!!! ;0) my sis and i experimented our hair-dos for the wedding dinner and i am settled on a french twist, erm although it may age me a tad but whatevs i do not look like a 20 year old in the first place heehee! looking forward to the dinner! haha good food, good people, good occassion, i won't miss it for the world :) so excited!!! :8D

xoxo