the kingdom of heaven

i was just thinking of the lyrics of a song-

i'd lay it all down again to hear you say that im Your friend

how much would i willingly give up to hear Him tell me that he knows me and that i can join Him where He'll be?

just right now

just right now i wish i were all grown up and married with a kid or two and i'll just be working mondays to fridays and taking kids for tuition classes on this day and that and doing boring mundane stuff. you know. i don't have to make so many decisions. and everything's more or less stable.

then again, the kinda stable above sounds extrememly boring. should i start liking boring? heh. don't think i'll like it very much.

wreckless

jake and i went cycling yesterday! i was supposed to meet him at his side of tanah merah but i told him i was mm.. too scared to cycle alone so he came over and we cycled to east coast heh :D
it was quite terrifying to cycle by the road though. half the time i thought i was gonna topple sideways and get run over by a car. and going down the slopes was scary cause.. i thought using the brakes while going really really fast would spoil the brakes. so. i didn't quite dare to break. hahahaha.. whaaat i sound like a bimbo!

oh i learnt how to cycle without hands! kinda. haha i can go for uhm.. about 5 seconds without hands.

AND.. i cooked mackerel for dinner. mummy says it was overcooked. BUT it was my first time! and i think it was quite good for a first time. i loved the sauce. it had red wine and apple cider vinegar :D

it's red all over

CHINESE NEW YEAR!
what can i say - i hate to see those empty red packets go to the bin and not get recycled.


eh heh heh.. i was back in malaysia visiting mum's side of the family.
dong asked me who i talked to most over there
and i went "nadine" (who's 3yrs old and who doesn't know what "red" or "blue" or "green" is.)
oh but she's mega adorable. she talks a LOT, with an aussie accent at that! heh. sam-ee says if she doesn't learn to speak, she'll be left out by her jie jies when they play and stuff. aww!
she's really eloquent for a three year old.

*then again, maybe she's 2. she told me she was three!

she makes me wanna have kids.

but thennn.. nahh.. children involve a lot of screaming
childbirth - mother screams
toddler - child screams
teenager - mother screams again

GRRR!

i'm getting very impatient. i really can't wait to go back to melbourne cant wait for school to start cant wait to meet new people and make new friends cant wait to buy veggies and chicken cant wait to cook myself cant wait to share my dinner with people who have strong stomachs.

to town to town

WENKAI BAKES HORRIBLY ADDICTIVE COOKIES. he came up to pass me a box of extremely DEE-LI-SHUHS chocolate cookies this morning. so sweet eh. finally met up with jakee today. twas good catching up on the train ride, over lunch and pool. mm.. haha i really suck at it.

OOH LOOOOK!!

LOOK WHAT I FOUND ON THE AGE!! :D read it if you have time, i love how Tulloch finished his article :D January 11, 2009 Cheapskate Richard Tulloch stays in the Katong district at a bargain basement price. I'm mean with money. That's reasonable these days. I remember when the Singapore dollar was worth a good deal less than the Australian dollar. Now they're almost the same. So, faced with an unavoidable stopover en route to a modestly paid job, I was determined to do it on a shoestring. I had one rule, though - if luxury was out of the question, my stay had to be comfortable, interesting and fun. That turned out to be easy to achieve. Don't take a taxi from Changi Singapore's cabs are affordable but, for a scrooge like me, the SMRT (I read that as 'SMART') metro system wins hands down. "Next train, two minutes," says the sign as I arrive at the station at Changi Airport. The ticket machine is a little daunting but, as I fumble for coins, a kind lady behind me presses the buttons, feeds in my $S5 ($4.85) note and out pops my ticket, with change. The trip to Paya Lebar station takes 20 minutes. No cab would have been faster. Cost: $S2.60 for a single ticket, $S1 of which is refundable when the card is returned. Walk from the station Singapore is not a walker's paradise - it's hot, humid and there's a lot of traffic. Not to mention the tropical downpour that starts as we pull into Paya Lebar. No problem, I think, pulling out a plastic poncho from my backpack. Unfortunately, I've brought the child's model, a souvenir of a family visit to Taronga Zoo. It looks like a baby's bib on me and the tiger picture on the front amuses the locals. So I scurry through the rain to a shopping centre and search for the cheapest available brolly. "Don't buy the first one you see," I think. An hour later, I find the perfect specimen; big, blue and on special at the Fair Price Supermarket. Delighted with my shrewd purchase, I stride bravely back into the elements to find the rain has stopped, as tropical downpours do. Cost: $S9.90 for unused umbrella. Stay in a simple hotel I have no time for a gym or a business centre. I'm not in the market for Gucci or Sony, so there is no need to stay near Orchard Road. Prices for hotels in that area seem to have escalated massively over the past few years. Instead, I book a place in Joo Chiat Road. It's in Katong, the old Malay area in the east of the city that now has a dubious reputation as Singapore's red light district. There are plenty of backpacker options but a double with ensuite is my limit (we tightwads like a little privacy). Hotel 81 Joo Chiat is basic but comfortable and there is no red light out the front. Cost: Standard double room, $S79. Explore Katong I'd downloaded a free walking map of the area from www.ura.gov.sg/rediscover before I left home, though thanks to my inadequate tiger poncho it has become soggy in my pocket. Katong is interesting, safe and, most importantly, it really feels like Asia. This area used to be mostly plantations and rice paddies. Even though Singapore's sprawl has now engulfed it, some 700 old buildings have been preserved. There are little shop-houses along Joo Chiat Road, decorated with brightly painted facades and ornate wooden lacework under the eaves. The ersatz Malay Village is a well-meaning attempt to recreate Malay culture in Singapore but it is run-down and all but deserted. A more authentic Malay experience is just a hop, skip and a dodge of a taxi across the road at the Geylang Serai Market. Chillies and exotic vegetables are piled high on stalls, food and drinks are on sale, women wear headscarves and everywhere is the rich smell of the east. It is quite unlike the modern, generic Singapore I'd seen before. There are mosques, churches and the Sri Senpaga Vinayagar - the second-oldest Hindu Temple in Singapore and a heritage site since 2003. Anything with rows of elephant-headed Ganesh statues looks good to me. All in all it is an enjoyable walk with no hassling hawkers and, if this is really the red-light district, then it's very discreet. Cost: Nothing. Eat a great dinner Joo Chiat is very well supplied with eating options and a meal of Singapore's famed chilli crabs or lemon chicken can be had for a fraction of the cost of a city restaurant. Your stingy correspondent wants to do even better than that, so I opt for the Katong laksa - a generous meal in itself. Cost: $S3.50 Evening entertainment Where else could you watch Survivor: Fiji in the air-conditioned comfort of a cosy hotel room? Singaporean television really has the lot! Early next morning I stop off for breakfast at Geylang Serai Market, where local workers are tucking into an array of unidentifiable dishes. I take the advice of a friendly Malay diner who, judging from his girth, clearly knows a lot about food. Egg roti with curry sauce is not my usual morning fare but it certainly does the job. And look at the price! Cost: $S3 Then it's back on the train to Changi Airport. A quick ciabatta sandwich for $14 at the airport? It seems a rip-off after the value I'd become accustomed to, so I wait until I'm on the plane and can eat the meal I'd already paid for. I sift through my wallet and find I have $S76 left. Enough to do it all again - if I'm a bit more frugal next time. For sale: Umbrella. Blue. Excellent condition. One owner. All offers over $10 considered. TRIP NOTES Getting there Singapore Airlines flies from Sydney to Singapore return from $1315.

YAY one more place to explore! who's up for this! (i only remember katong as the tution centre district where all my tuition classes were in pri/sec school. aww..)

one day as a half tourist

jacob and i went to little india on thursday! i think chinatown was a lot more interesting though, right mark? which is why im taking ching there tmr! woohoo! i took mummy there last week. can't get enough i think. it's nice and gay with lotsa people. the best part of little india was the food. i have a feeling we explored the wrong part of little india. but anyway, after lunch there, we headed to clarke quay! we walked around the surprisingly quiet area and explored Central. central wasn't much though. the best thing they have there is probably the hokkaido ice-cream store. clarke quay's good for slow walks (which was not quite what we were looking for) in the day if you want a tan as well. i've yet to explore that area at night when it'll be a lot more happening. maybe next break. it was late afternoon when we left. we trained to dhoby ghaut and walked from there to the national library and enjoyed the air-con PLUS looked at photography books.

so that was my day exploring my little island. beats spending a whole afternoon walking around aimlessly in town for the millionth time in a month. (ok, im exaggerating. but i was beginning to find town boring)

bored.

Elisa says:
when im feeling a feeling that i don't like, and i tell my friend, he'll always ask me what colour it is, and it'll always be grey. i think it's cause grey's not a very nice colour. so it goes together with not very nice feelings

heh oops, i fell for it too

so, elisa was bored and she decided to browse through asiaone.com.sg. and she came across a video/forum thread titled "she yells at cheating boyfriend on MRT train". to her horror/disbelief, she clicked on it, watched the video and read the thread.

maann.. im such a singaporean sometimes. people go to asiaone to read articles like "Fresh grads in for hard times" or "Bush to hold final briefing" and i end up watching quite a none-of-anyone's-business video and reading quite remarkably "auntie" comments on how the girl should dump her boyfriend, or why the video doesn't have english subtitles.

earrgh! but i must say though, that i found it all quite amusing - the comments, and the fact that someone actually recorded that video. i mean, if i were the yelling girl, i definitely wouldn't appreciate someone videotaping me yelling at my boyfriend in the train.

ACSI did it again

after staying home just hibernating for most of the past month, i finally decided to venture out to the outskirts of the tiny island of singapore. tiny you say? yeah right. i was fortunate to have daddy give me a lift to ACS at the other end of the island. it was strangely terrifying - the thought of going back to ac again. it's a weird school that.

it's weird the way it can make me feel so attached after being there for just one and a half months. it's weird the way it makes you feel like so many of your friends are there. yet at the same time, it makes you feel like you're the least welcome person there. it can make you feel watched and judged. but at the same time you feel like you just wanna be energized so that you can catch up with all the familiar faces.

i think one of the people i was most happy to see was terence chiew. i think he's still by far the bestest teacher i've ever had. mm. yeah.

oh i went back today with all the other 2008 year 6s cause it was the IB results day. the '08 batch did insanely well. EVEN BETTER than the pioneer batch. just read about it in tmr's papers luh. dr ong ended his speech asking the 9 perfect scorers to gather in front for the straits times. they're crazy really - averaging at 40.1 with 60 over percent of the cohort with 40 points and above over a total of 45?? that's just nuts. talk of the town - j. hadi. pwned with a 44/45. that's insane for a rugger who doesn't seem to mug.

anyway, i had a good time catching up with a couple of people like SU-ANN:D didn't manage to talk to everyone i'd wanted to catch up with though. i figured that i wanted to have one or two good conversations rather than have small talk with every other person. and i just realised today that (ok ching's on the line i'll continue later)



if i had stayed in ac i would have changed a lot. dong said that i'll prolly be a party animal. (im quite sure he was kidding. i think.) ah well.