nostalgic about the needle.

the seattle skyline

as seen from a ferryboat on puget sound

may'07

suddenly, i get hit with a wave of nostalgia.

and i'm yearning to head overseas to study again. contemplating a liberal arts program.

cherry.

cherry blossoms at the UW campus

april 2007

seattle, washington

it's the time of the year where the cherry blossoms bloom everywhere. here a different species bloom, and though they aren't the sakura, they are beautiful nonetheless.

today i drove along bedok road on my way home (after detouring to get starbucks), and was so amazed to see the entire road lined with cherry blossom petals that fell during the rain.

i'm reminded of 2 things. how much i miss seattle, and how beautiful God's creations are. :)

the travel itch.

A part of Lake Crescent
Olympic National Park
Washington, USA
Summer, 2007

itching to travel again, but too many things going on in december.

i miss road trips. i miss my crazy road trip days in US. where i can have a crazy idea, hop out and rent a car, plan the route, drive to safeway to buy food, pile into the car and just drive. and within hours, i'm surrounded by amazing views, a thousand and one things to see, do and explore.

when you live on an island of a small country, this is what you yearn for.

well anyway, thoughts this weekend:

#1 - new moon the movie was much better than i had anticipated. and the movie is 1000x better than the book, which i hated. so there it goes. sister and i were hoping we wouldn't run into our students in the theater. :)

#2 - just finished watching CNN heroes, the tribute. as always, anderson cooper is too cute in his head of silver-white hair. but more than that, the inspiring stories that showcase how amazing and how far a single person or a group of persons can go to reach out to those in need.

orphans in east timor, the homeless that go hungry in new york city, children in need of prosthetic limbs, iraqi children in need of wheelchairs, women and children in zimbabwe that are raped at 6 years old by 18 HIV-positive men, women without health insurance that need mammograms and SO MANY MORE.

this beats the nobel peace prize.

#3 - choices. and choosing wisely.

#4 - and recapping:

"I beseech you therefore, brethren,
by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."
- Romans 12:1

snap out of it!

the original starbucks outlet at pike place
seattle, WA
jan'07

today i headed to tampines mall in the sweltering heat, picking up tickets for STARS concert tmr, purple heels from mango sale, and a starbucks toffee nut latte to combat the sleepiness in preparation for my afternoon of doing assignments.

at starbucks, i stopped to smell the aroma of the coffee beans, and chanced upon a little label on the back of the vanilla syrup bottle, with the all too familiar seattle address. ah. these are the little things that brings back memories.

so as i walked out with my cup of latte, i'm reminded of those days, sipping a starbucks in the dead of winter, the sun shining brightly. only now, the sun shines and it's unbearingly hot.

i'm having trouble snapping out of the holiday mood. the sleeping in (which sadly is no longer possible), the worry-free afternoons of lazing with a cup of tea and a good book, the dvd marathons, the sundays at church for concert rehearsals.

it's the start of a new year, and i haven't snapped into 2009 yet. think i'll need a few more days.

washington (state) weekend.

due to some logistical miscommunication, i have no updates (yet) on nyc and the rest of the the summer trip. so here i present a weekend around seattle. my eldest sister arrived from singapore 2 days before my 2nd sister. and i met her at the airport, together with dan and gerri, my sis's friends that stay in issaquah, 40 minutes away from seattle.

after settling in their beautiful house, dan left for work at microsoft, while gerri, my sis and i sat around the table and chatted. when lunch neared, we left to drive to microsoft to pick up dan for some lunch in microsoft's staff cafeteria. it had good food!

microsoft offices, or campus as they call it, is filled with identical buildings with hardly any decoration. it's simple, frills-free, functional and compact. i was reminded of them when i visited the WB studios in burbank, california during my LA trip.

the microsoft company store, features staff security, cheap microsoft software and a whole range of microsoft memorabillia. i particularly like the 'geek' tees and the msn butterfly keyrings. (:

then we headed to costco for some grocery/dinner shopping. costco is this retail chain in US that sells everything in bulk. really in bulk. everything there, from cereal to frozen food to vegetables and fruits, were all packaged in HUGE packets/boxes. it's quite hilarious actually. and cheap. and you need to be a member to get in. so what the americans do is they either buy and keep, or buy and share with their neighbours. this way they save a lot of money. here is a huge selection of many wines from all over the world.

the next day, we had this yummy spread for breakfast. ahhh i miss it. and for the record i cooked the pancakes! so it was pancakes with maple syrup and strawberries topped with icing sugar and whipped cream, pan-fried bacon, sunny-side up eggs and toast. plus good coffee. yummyyy.

and it was a beautiful saturday. we headed south to tacoma to visit the famous tacoma glass museum.

an installation featuring thousands of wine bottles.



glass-blowing demonstration. the museum also produces their own glass art pieces. it was cool watching them shape molten glass by hand, mould and our very own air.

outside the glass museum. cool crisp saturday air.

that's xandaer, gerri and dan's older son.



railroad tracks.

the famous glass overhead bridge links the glass museum with the university of washington, tacoma campus.

and this is the very pretty younger daughter, miranda.

the bridge.

over our heads on the bridge.

and then we went horseback-riding! it was great fun! and my first time on a horse. sadly i couldn't take pictures of myself with my horse. they are in some other camera. so this is dan with miranda on a really greedy horse, who kept stopping to eat the plants. looming behind them is my eldest sister, riding the most handsome horse of the lot.

xander, on his pony, holding on to our guide's horse.

the tiny farm.

this is my horse! he is not bad-looking isn't he?



on the way home.

the next day, we headed to downtown seattle for some shopping for my sis, before meeting my 2nd sister who just arrived, all jet-lagged, demanding for a starbucks venti vanilla latte. then we all drove down to chateau ste. michelle, a very famous winery in washington state.

the main winery place for wine tours looks like a high-class villa. but inside, are high-tech machines to churn out bottles of wine each day to feed alcoholics like my sisters.

after the free wine tour and free wine-tasting (which was yummy by the way), the kids played outside on the lawn. (: while my alcoholic sisters roamed in the shop, buying 4 bottles of riesling.

then we headed back to downtown to see the olympic sculpture park, an open-air museum. a smaller-scale than the one my sis and i went in hakone, japan.

here is the familiar steel tree, also present in new york city. here instead of surrounded by skyscrapers, it's surrounded by the sea and mountains.

olympic sculpture park's signature.







art is all around.

the 2nd sister contemplates.




so the first week of school wasn't so bad. except for the slew of projects and presentations coming up, a stark difference to our usual lecture-tutorial-70%exam-30%quiz system, which i so detested. i like doing projects and presentations (even though sometimes they freak me out). the one i remember was for my genetics seminar - presenting a paper on my own, for 25 minutes, in front of undergrads with much research experience, plus a super zai genetics prof. but i survived anyway.

oh and i finished the west wing. finally. 7 seasons in 1 month. not bad at all. (:

on the move.

ok so i've been MIA-ing for quite some time. so here's an update. without pictures.

school has officially ended for me. i took my last and only final this quarter on saturday. the last week of school was CRAZY. i almost died. i had tons of readings for political science class to do, to prepare for that final take-home exam paper that was released on wednesday. where i spent most of my wednesday and half my thursday doing it 'cos it was due friday at 12noon. but i am rather pleased with the paper and i'm really happy that i put on my thick coat of skin and took the class, considering i have no background whatsoever in political science or communication/media studies. i learnt SO much and it was really a case of enjoyable learning and great teaching by my professor (who is this zai zai media/communications guy in US) and my TA (who is this really nice guy who amuses me sometimes with his antics, political science phd student who spent 2 years in japan studying their politics. so cool!). yes. so i'm going to miss this class. for real. maybe i really did choose a wrong major. who knows? maybe that's where my grad school plans will take me. but then again, singapore media and politics is nowhere as exciting as US's.

well enough of my political science class. you can see how much i liked it. i can go on and on. so on thursday i had a human resource management class presentation. that was also the deadline for our written report. which was so tedious to do and compile. but many many thanks to dan who agreed to be interviewed by us!

well on top of those 3 heavy loads to do. i still had to study for my final on saturday. but i survived!! =)

the past week seems like a blur. ever since the second half of spring started, it seems the weeks just pass me by without registering in my head. all i remember is going for my enjoyable political science class, and admiring the scenery and enjoying the great weather.

hmmm. UW's educational outreach programs office arranged a closing lunch for us. it was really poignant hearing the stories and speeches made by our program director, administrator (gretchen who helped us with SO much stuff) and suzanne my friend. our time at UW has really ended. and in a way, i enjoyed myself so much in UW that i didn't want it to end. even though school is more hectic and there are tons of homework, weekly assignments, presentations, take-home finals, i still learnt a lot from my professors and i realise i do love learning afterall. and i love UW.

well so now i'm back in new york city. the weather's hot!! at 23 degrees, i was constantly perspiring and wearing my shades. we touched down and made our way to the hostel. then we explored midtown manhattan on foot, did a little shopping, took pictures of new york. we were at 5th ave and herald square garden and the fashion ave (7th ave), where the largest macy's and gap were around. and many many shops like H&M, forever21, victoria's secret etc etc. had to stop myself from going in, or i know i'll spend more $$. then we walked to broadway and times square to check out discounted tickets for broadway shows. ended up buying les miserables. before the show started we had some time to kill, so we explored times square, took more pictures (this is my 4th time there, but i'm never sick of it. this time i kept thinking about the stuff i learnt from my political science class, about advertising and the consumer bubble and corporate censorship.) and we went into the HUGE M&M's store and the HUGE toys "r" us store and the hershey's store! hahahahahahaaaa. everything at times square is just magnified. buildings, ads, slogans and stores.

so les miserables was really really good!!! it was even better than phantom of the opera. especially the cast and the production set. the singing was excellent, esp the leads jean valjean (who had this amazing range and his falsetto range was SO controlled and in tune!), fantine (sung by lea salonga, the same girl who sang miss saigon when i saw the production in singapore years ago), epinone was surprisingly good, though still a little raw, the adult cosette was really good too and she looked like emmy rossum - the girl who played christine in the movie adaptation of phantom of the opera as well as javert. i normally don't give standing ovations unless i thought it was really good. and i did give a standing o. =) loved it. linda and i are probably gonna catch one more show here before we leave. i feel like i want to watch so many. a chorus line, lion king, beauty and the beast, mama mia, mary poppins, stomp, chicago etc etc. but no $$ and no time. plus cirque du soleil in las vegas is gonna cost about $90. argh.

so many many plans for the next few days, including meetings with andrew, zhihui, edlyn and glenda who all happen to be in manhattan now. then off to vegas to meet ian and his friend. then off to LA to meet my friend tina who studies at UCLA, then off to san francisco to meet shian chi.

let's hope i still have energy left. =)

time to sleep. early day tomorrow to liberty and ellis island. good night everyone from the city of all cities.

ferries and islands.

here we continue. on the ferryboat we arrived on bainbridge island 30 minutes away. lots of people who work in seattle live here. so they commute by ferry everyday.

bainbridge island is your typical idyllic island-small town. it's small, quiet, charming and amazingly beautiful.




the beautiful flowers blooming.

jiejie in a corner.

the sun sets and the shadow is cast.


on the way back to seattle. it was already 8pm and the sun begins to set.


one of my favorite pictures. i remember this funny scene where all 3 of us saw the sail boat coming by and we were like "quick quick! take the boat and the sunset!!"

the fluffy light pink mt. rainier.

the sun slips beneath the mountains. ready to peer out in singapore. oh it's actually already out in sg!


i like the trail that the boat leaves behind. it's just like the cloudy trail that the planes make in the sky. our footsteps in the sand. our past in the making.

hokay after that we hopped onto a cab and went to this nice brewery cum pub cum restaurant to eat seafood! it was yummy. =)

on wednesday i met the sisters after class to show them around my campus and yes my tiny miserable room. then took them onto the ave just a stone's throw away and my 2nd sis went mad. she loves it. all the vintage stuff and clothes and the university of washington sweaters.

this is my 2nd sis taking off her boots and wading in the cold water of lake union.

after walking around we headed downtown to catch hiromi, this unbelievable, girl-with-fastest-fingers, talented japanese girl who is so petite but packs SO much power in her piano playing. without score. and with a band. it was out of this world and i like her. i have a recording of her playing a jazzed version of "sakura" and the hairs on our hands stood. literally. she's the girl on the far left, behind the piano.

i shall steal the picture of us and hiromi from my sister's flickr. next time!

random: one huge box of strawberries make me happy. and i mean a HUGE box. not the usual punnets that you buy from NTUC.

ok now on thursday we went outlet shopping! and that's pretty much what we did. =)

then on friday we went to san juan islands to whale watch! it was fun and exciting and really memorable. i can fondly recall the days of watching free willy.

on the ferryboat from anacortes ferry terminal to san juan islands. it's an archipelago of islands and we're headed to friday harbor, which UW also has a research facility there. for marine biology/oceanography/geography studies etc. how cool is that.

spot the sister/drama queen.

the cars are on the boat!

just islands and more islands. beautiful.

3 of us again. it was cold cos of the strong winds at the bow.




a peak of friday harbor as the ferryboat pulled into the harbor. small quiet town, but more bustling than bainbridge.


we visited a lavendar farm! complete with outdoor sculptures! =) very pretty. and just touching the lavendar leaves was enough to make my fingers smell of lavendar.

favorite shot of the day. =)


pie = 3.142
spot the sister.

lavendar shrubs that only bloom in july. sigh.

here the bees are out and about grabbing their nectar. i took this shot and immediately ran for the tiny house that sells the lavendar stuff. bees freak me out.

okok. next time i'll kope pictures from my sister plus whale watching pictures plus some of the pictures from the weekend with gerri and her family.

school's driving my nuts by the way. just finished one paper and one presentation today. i have 100+ pages of reading to do, a project report+presentation to do, one more paper, and 2 final take-home exams. oh not to mention trying to absorb every sight of seattle, packing woes, booking accommodation for summer and planning the trip. looks like i'll only have time to plan during my plane ride.

argh.