missing japan.

colorful japanese trinkets on sale
asakusa, tokyo
december'08

yesterday i watched a youtube interview of jason mraz. he (and toca) was asked of all the cities and countries that he has visited, which one was his favorite? (p.s. toca's favorite was sydney, australia which i think is a boring response. heh. but i still like toca)

my immediate response was japan, though a tiny part of me hoped he'd say singapore (but that's quite impossible). and after some thinking, he said JAPAN! :) :) it's amazing how japan captivates. caucasians and asians alike. not china, not korea, not taiwan, not hongkong.

i am looking forward to going back to japan and exploring hokkaido, nagoya and the small towns. maybe i'll drag a friend-fluent-in-japanese and backpack all over. i don't care if it's expensive. :)

today i went into tampines 1 for the 1st time (yes i know i'm falling behind on trends), and went into uniqlo! it's quite big but not much variety. don't really like the layout. messy. but the quality of clothes still typical japanese. love the carpeted changing rooms and the take-off-your-footwear in the changing rooms concept. very very japanese. service staff sorely lacking in japanese hospitality though. i still love the uniqlos in tokyo. :)

i miss japan now. gotta go look at my japan pictures.

"he's kinda crazy."

while surfing around for news,

"It was like 10 o'clock. Everybody was asleep and we hear all this barking and jumping around," Mrs. Obama said. "The president and I came out and we thought somebody was out there. And it was just Bo. He was playing with his ball. And it was like there was another person in the house.

"He's kind of crazy, but he's still a puppy. So he likes to play a lot," she said.

The dog, unveiled last week after months of speculation, was a gift to Obama daughters Malia and Sasha.

"He loves to chew on people's feet," Mrs. Obama divulged to more than 100 children invited to a program marking the annual Take Your Child to Work Day.

-via Huffingtonpost.com

haha all dogs are the same. :) i remember hugo growing up, chewing on slippers and rubber things and people's feet. and just about everything he can get his paws on.

well today was FJ benjamin's 30% storewide sale at banana republic, gap, la senza, raoul, guess. and taka had this big crazy shoes and bags sale. and i spend WAY too much money on a gap white shirtdress, gap striped work pants, enzo angiolini booties and calvin klein clutch. ARGH.

long week over. more thoughts coming up. too much that my brain is overflowing.

hokay time to sleep.

retail therapying.

ok so the batam trip didn't materialise. which was met with a half-hearted sadness, having spent many many dollars helping the singapore economy grow this weekend. (1 bag, 1 dress, 2 tops, 1 book, 1 magazine, 1 pair of shoes, 4 CDs - david cook, john coltrane, sting, johnny cash, 2 DVD TV boxsets, 2 movie DVDs). in my defense, 90% of my loot is discounted heavily. :)
anyways thanks to J our batam trip has been miraculously transformed to a paintball trip, a BBQ+wii+games+rock band overnighter. yay.

(just realised my 4 new CDs are really a strange mix. eclectic. sounds nicer.)

my service learning project is over! in the midst of the planning frenzy and all the last-minute drama, all my frustrations were replaced with joy and love for the sweet children i met over the course of the 2 days. and i admit i play favourites with children that are lovely and cute and sweet and some who say the darnest things.

(in response to a boy who was throwing tantrums at the reception area) this girl looked up nonchalantly from her drawing and colouring and remarked,
"i feel like throwing naughty children down the rubbish bin... and flush them down the toilet."

someone please slap me if i spend anymore money before my japan trip (with the exception of c&k warehouse sale).

and speaking of trips, berlin photos are here. :)


the brandenberg gate in its sun-shined glory. :)


yummy breakfast at a breakfast joint opposite the train station.


the amazing marble artwork on the pillars of the entrance to the Reichstag. the reichstag first housed the parliament of the german empire, before hitler wrecked havoc, overthrew the government, declared dictatorship and you know the rest. reichstag was burnt down to the ground during the nazi years and they rebuilt it.

the roof of the reichstag.


the inside of the dome. amazing architecture.


the glass roof of the dome on the reichstag building. so beautiful.



this is currywurst, everyone. german sausages with curry powder and tomato sauce. really really good. road-side and delish. :)

the WWII memorial. in the middle of the city.


an old church in the shopping district of berlin. it's partially destroyed by the war, bombed by the allied forces. they left the destroyed bits as they were, perhaps as a reminder of the horrors.


shian, my dear friend on attachment in berlin, showed us around and brought us around for good food and provided free accomm. :) and my banana beer, oh-so-good part 1.


this is oh-so-good part 2. pork knuckle! my travel mates and i were already dreaming of this, german beer and german sausages before we even came to germany. :) :)

a fine, fine line.

There's a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend;
There's a fine, fine line between reality and pretend;
And you never know 'til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb.

There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.

There's a fine, fine line between a fairy tale and a lie;
And there's a fine, fine line between "You're wonderful" and "Goodbye."
I guess if someone doesn't love you back it isn't such a crime,
But there's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of your time.

And I don't have the time to waste on you anymore.
I don't think that you even know what you're looking for.
For my own sanity, I've got to close the door
And walk away...

There's a fine, fine line between together and not
And there's a fine, fine line between what you wanted and what you got.
You gotta go after the things you want while you're still in your prime...

There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.
- avenue q

ya know i actually wanna watch this musical a year ago. but there's just too many great musicals to watch and they cost a bomb. and now that i listen to the songs, it's really quite a funny and adorable musical that's kind of unique. so hmm that's gonna be on my list of things to do for nyc.

but more importantly, the lyrics really speak of something that i've never really thought about in that perspective. that a fine line is what separates the black from the white. where we have left the land of black and white, and now everything is grey.

ok i stole that last line from sex and the city. but like what sam seaborn from the west wing says, "good writers borrow lines from other writers; great writers steal from them outright".

***

there's something i love to do and i miss doing - grocery shopping. everytime i walk around the holland village cold storage where it is stocked with atas angmoh food, i feel so happy and the urge to buy everything and starting cooking and baking. it reminds me of my doing grocery shopping at safeway at university way and 17th ave and QFC at university village. my humble supermarkets in seattle.

i love every section of the supermarket. the fresh produce to fruits to cheeses to baking needs to vegetables to seafood (hunting for cheap fish and prawns!) to meats (i usually get the ones on sale which expires like on that day. hahh) to cereal to chips (kettle chips are so cheap) to biscuits (pepperidge farm and goldfish! and much more snacks) to ice cream (ahhhh i cannot forget the US$3 a tub of ben&jerry's, haagen daz, godiva - yes the chocolate brand has ice cream too!) to frozen food to the magazines (glamour/cosmopolitan/tv guide) to milk and vanilla soy milk to ham and sausages to fresh bagels and bread to of course, the booze (which is so cheap you can laugh out loud.). oh yes and the non-food items. those are less exciting unfortunately.

well today i had fun buying a bag of cinammon raisin bagel chips from new york at cold storage, philly cheese spread to put on my plain biscuits, some yummy bread from my favorite bakery provence at holland village.

i'm quite easily pleased, you know. (:

***

well FYP is slowly creeping to an end. i'm quite disappointed with my failed experiments which, if it were successful, would be such a nice brilliant end to my FYP, but after 2 tries it still refused to work. well, my supervisor said it would be too late, and i agree. but there's still a part of me that wonders if i should just pia it out. and try it just one more time. then i'm afraid that i won't have time to write my thesis. so good results or not, i won't get a good grade anyway.

hmmmm. anyway the weekend's here again. how quick huh. last weekend i spent it at the hospital and it seems like yesterday and now zeh zeh is discharged already and on the road to recovery. well it's time to worship the God that i love so much and learn more about His Word and to refresh my flu-stricken body and mind. (:

random. and ikea.

so some random photos tossed in with pictures from my ikea outing with suzanne.

first. i finished my exams! winter quarter is officially over. somehow thoughts about its end comes and goes and i haven't been able to sit down and collect my thoughts and write about it yet. maybe tomorrow, before i leave from the airport. new york, niagara falls and washington dc awaits. =)

things from home. the packet of spices. we're having emperor chicken and ba kut teh tonight!

recipes from jiejie! they took a longer time to come. but i have tried a few already! will really go and buy the ingredients when spring arrives.

this is for my other jiejie. as promised. picture of my stella mccartney sneakers.

spring is here!

the flowers bloom. more pretty pictures of flowers to come. all around campus and all around my neighbourhood. even the most abandoned shrub along the road blooms the most beautiful flowers. it's amazing. i wish singapore had the weather to have such flowers.

so as suzanne and i left for ikea on a relaxing friday with no afternoon classes, we saw this dog tied to a bicycle outside the library! so cute. so we went to play with it for awhile.

and as we walked past the red square, 2 ducks were quacking along, miles away from their pond. we reckoned that they were lost. and heading in the wrong direction. the ducks always hang out in pairs. one male one female. =) hee.

about an hour of bus ride we arrived at a city outside of seattle. called kent. reminds me of clark. clark kent. it's a small quiet town with absolutely no tall buildings at all.

the adventurers. in search of swedish meatballs.

and another 30 minute bus ride brought us to another adjacent town called renton! this is ikea! and as you can see, it's still blue and yellow. and still very very huge.

a very peaceful sight this is.

with beautiful weather. the big tall ikea sign. isn't my camera the greatest? haha.

and we got our reward. the thing i miss quite a lot. swedish meatballs with lingoberry jam.

for dessert we had this lingoberry mousse. very very good. and light!

and the apple crumbly cake with vanilla sauce. yum. =)

we bought swedish meatballs and some other stuff back. and decided to try the self-checkout machines! they really trust their customers. you just scan your stuff and swipe your card or insert notes or coins, sign or enter your PIN and get your receipt! i think in singapore they will seriously lose money.

the next day i brought some of my friends to the factory outlets again. bought stuff. again.

and what better way to end an entire day of shopping and bus-riding by eating iHop pancakes. banana flavored with bananas. yum. =)

adventures at pike place & downtown seattle.

ok i need to catch up with my photo-updates. i have 2 weekends' worth of photos not posted up yet. school work is piling up with mid-terms and quizzes and assignments. mostly due to the fact that half of my modules do not have a final exam, so my term work counts towards the final grade. aaahhhh!!!

so the weekend before the one that just passed, meaning the 13th/14th jan weekend, saturday was spent at international district with gerri, her neighbour echo (cool name, but she's a taiwanese) and echo's 3 children (who are all adorable.). it was a snowy day again. my neighbour, roommate and i piled into gerri's MPV and we went chinese groceries shopping and our bill totaled to USD110+. haha. divide that 4 ways. it's chinese food withdrawal symptoms lah. i felt like buying everything. then we went to a chinese restaurant and had more chinese food! =) =) so thankful for a car because we would not have to carry all our groceries back home. i miss having a carrrr.

sunday will be described in pictures. and monday, martin luther king day was a holiday, but we spent it at home catching up with work. sadddd.

ok. sunday. we went to pike place! finally. i love the fresh fruits and vegetables and fish (except the smell). it's such a happy delirious feeling seeing all the colors of fruits and vegetables gleaming under the lights of the stores. yes and we saw this guy throwing fish to the other guy. oh i love the little stalls at the flea market too. selling all kinds of interesting stuff and trinkets.

ok pictures tell stories better.

everyone takes the same picture of the same sign "public market", jiejie too. but when i saw this other sign down the road, i took a different one! the beautiful blue sky and the sun is out once again. =)

welcome to pike place! i didn't take many pictures of the stalls because i was too mesmerized. =) will definitely go back for organic flavored pasta and fresh fruits like cherries and strawberries.

the view from the public market place. more pictures of the views to come.

er jie this is for you! i know you love to say "wait until the cows come home", especially when we were in tokyo. haha. so i took this picture for you. so cute. the whole shop sells all things cow.

the original starbucks. but we were informed by a local that technically, this location is not the original location. the original original starbucks was located somewhere near, but they moved to this present one. and he added we weren't supposed to know that. oh well. glad to be at the birth place of my favorite coffee joint. they were throwing coffee cups (instead of fish) inside. and it was crowded!

cheers with a hazelnut latte against the backdrop of half of downtown seattle. =)

the view from the waterfront promenade. the vast water body you see here is not even the ocean yet. it's elliot bay. but it sure looks like a big sea to my singaporean eyes. yes i haven't seen the great lakes of US yet. the road at the foreground is one of the interstate freeways. probably I5, which runs from vancouver to san diego (?).

the sun! nowadays we're back to gloomy days. and don't be fooled by the bright sun here. that day was coldddd. probably just a degree or 2 above zero.

the stadiums. baseball and football. sigh the seattle teams are doing badly. just that sunday morning was a big semi-final football game against dunno who and everyone was SO hyped up about it, even my prof (who is one of the top researchers at a top research institute). and he came into class the tuesday after the game and told us "excuse me if i can't form my sentences properly or if i look depressed and glassy-eyed, i still could not get over what happened on sunday and i have been supporting them since they started out in the 1970s". haha. so funny. today i just read that the baseball team lost too. oh well.

4 very satisfied and high-on-caffeine girls.

these tall structures were all around, and they look tribal. but i have no idea what significance they carry. but quite nice against the urban backdrop and the water.

here. a better picture of the waterfront promenade and downtown seattle.

the snow is still around.

welcome to downtown seattle! here comes a story of nice seattle people. my friend was so blur she misread the bus guide and we were supposed to get on the express version of the bus no. 74 to get us to pike place, but she didn't know so we happily got on the normal version which does not stop anywhere near pike place. so we sat on the bus until it reached the last stop. and oh noooo. we asked the bus driver if we were anywhere near pike place. alas we were quite far away. we looked at each other, still wondering what to do, when the nice bus driver told us to sit down, and that he would give us a ride there as it was on his way back to the terminal. so nice of him right. =) we said like a thousand thank yous and we got our very own ride to pike place. and he let us off even nearer to pike place than we would have been if we took the correct bus.

a quiet day in downtown seattle.

the shopping stretch, which is quite a few streets. i heart shopping.

gap store! its huge! but we didn't go in.

the sun sets. and we still continued shopping. till after dark. before the 4 tired but satisfied girls headed home for dinner. felt too guilty about the $$ spent to eat out. haha.

the results of 4 girls' shopping. i bought a new pair of trainers from adidas's stella mccartney range, which was on sale and it was so nice! bought a starbucks coffee tumbler so i can bring my tea to school without having to spend a bomb everyday at starbucks. and a top and denim skirt from american eagle outfitters, on sale too. slashed like crazy. there are sales everywhere so i resolved to stay away from downtown for the next 3 weeks.

here i conclude our very exciting and nice day out. the next entry should follow very soon. toodles.