MY LONG AWAITED BREAK

ITALY - Part I

2007-06-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

When i first planned for 13 days in Italy, I was quite apprehensive. Sure, people told me that Italy was nice and all, but would 13 days be an overload of sculptures and smelly Italian men? And of course, the fact that I would be giving up my last 2 weeks to be with Fang and stay in my cosy little room for the last time. By going, it meant that i only had 1 day left in Rouen before my lease was up.

But it turned out that the Italy trip was FANTASTIC! Ups and downs for sure, and bearing with the heat was a little trying sometimes (nope, dont remind me that Singapore would be 35 degrees. I know.) And I definitely got a lot darker. NOOOOO! but pasta everyday, and going from waterbuses in Venice to the Medieval City Florence to dirty but very charming Naples blessed with crystal clear waters and lastly the scultures and arts of Rome and of course, Vatican City.

When we first reached Milan, guess what we saw? STRIKE! :P

I thought this was really cool. A contrast of sorts. Old and architecturally artistic station combined with chic and modern D&G poster. I think it sums up Europe really nicely. Or rather what it is trying to achieve.

VENICE

My favourite city of all. I think that partly, it's because they have no old towns or metros, which i was beginning to get sick of. Instead, they have waterbuses which run 24 hours and they brought us everywhere, from the mainland Venice to the neighbouring islands. 25 euros for 3 days unlimited. Expensive yes, but I expected it. Touristy yes, but nonetheless it didnt take away the charms of the island.

Took this picture on our waterbus from the railway station to our hostel in a nearby island Lido. Breathtaking right?

Venetian masks.

We took a nice stroll around Venice at night and were pleasantly surprised to see that the night scene was so pretty! Armed with Isaac's little tripod, we set out to take many photos. San Marco square was our favourite place for night shots. It was slightly flooded though, because Venice is sinking and the water level is rising and that square is one of the lowest areas of Venice. Imagine uppity restaurants with live classical emsemble playing away for their guests, artists trying to sell their paintings and many couples strolling along the streets.

First Harry's bar

And lastly, Burano, one of the islands. You should definitely go! There's lots of colourful houses there. Isaac and I tried hard to remember the Nippon ad, but we couldn't. Took lots of pretty pictures!

This post is too long, I will continue with Florence, Pisa, Naples and Rome in the next post. :D

Isaac's coming tonight!

2007-05-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

Isaac's coming tonight! YAYYYY!

I guess this means that one phase of my exchange is coming to an end... the one that has all my girlfriends in it. Alvi baby, Fang bimbs and Rosh the bird conversationalist. :P We had a lot of fun eh?

Next stops with Isaac would be:
Italy
France with his family
London/ Coventry/ Cambridge/ Scotland
Switzerland

Looking forward to that... And meeting friends in UK as well, Lipen, Fon and hopefully Yirong.

Going to spend some time with Fang now... I'll miss her, that's for sure. And Rosh is coming back from Nice tonight! We're planning to cook a really yummy hot vegetarian pasta soup for her. :D

MONT SAINT MICHEL

2007-05-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

Mont Saint Michel is soooo pretty! Even though it cost us a BOMB to get there... Imagine 7 hours of travelling for 3 hours of sightseeing... Well worth it though, how can i say that i came to Rouen without going to one of the top 10 France attractions that happens to be so near? The abbey on top of a hill, surrounded by alot of sand and islands nearby... Where it would flood in the morning and cars wouldnt be able to park. Touristy though, and therefore, expensive to lunch in. But that wasn't really a deterrent. :P

The highlight of the trip was when we walked to the sandy area (there's quick sand!)and in Fang's anxiety to step on the least squishy area, she stepped on a REALLY SQUISHY area! hahahahahaha... :D it's soooooooooo funny i couldnt stop laughing for very very very long. but aiyah, poor thing, her black pumps is now er, grey. :P But nonetheless, she was such a great sport (only whined a liiiiiiiiitle )and we managed to have alot of goofy fun together... :P

my room. tonight alone for the last time.

2007-05-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

This WAS supposed to be our Sweden post. but thankfully i have a very very understanding girlfriend who understood my need to stay in my room for the last last time and just slack. and breathe. and recuperate from travelling tiredness. I love you Fang, and these few nights just watching Youtube together, House, Corner with Love, Heroes and movies were just so good. You are right, even if we didnt really make many international friends, we cemented our friendships here, together with Alvi and Rosh. So it's all worth it. I'm so sad that we're leaving this place soon. Sigh... I'll miss my bed, my messy room, my peace and quiet, and the whole ease of just being free and not tied down by school work, responsibilities and commitments. I will miss Rouen very much...

BERLIN, MUNCHEN, PRAGUE, BUDAPEST, WIEN, SALZBURG

2007-05-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

This is essentially my first reeeeeeeeeeeal long backpacking trip, where i have to bring my HUGE bag and lug it around from hostel to hostel. First, I HAVE to introduce my dear companion and lover, Rosh. We shared ice cream, shared food, shared sleeping bags and of course, shared the bed too. -wink- So glad that we came together on this trip, just the 2 of us... Got to know her alot better and had great times together, even if it was just over a bowl of hot and spicy instant soup and pasta. love you darling... :P

BERLIN - Moving on, whoever said that Berlin wasn't nice ought to be shot. Seriously! it's so wacky, eclectic and full of history. And the BEAR! oh i loooooove the Berlin bear. We can find it everywhere, outside shopping centres and inside museums, all custom made to suit the place around it.

Very artsy place, where alot of punk fashion thrives and i must say that it's really nicely done. custom made high top converse shoes, sex education shop that looks like a very tasteful furniture store, 2 huge silver scultures on the river banks, the Appelman (their socialist traffic light worker!)and of course, the graffiti on the Berlin wall. They tore down most of it already, so whatever's remaining of the walls are cordoned off. Pity, i thought i could write my name on it or something.

Of course we did the touristy things as well, visited the Reighstag, the Sony centre, the Brandonburg Gate (our favorite Berlin spot)...

But our highlight of our Berlin experience, and i think what made Berlin so beautiful to us, is our experience on the free walking tour by Sandeman. Our tour guide brought us to where Hitler's body and bunker were burnt (it is now a carpark, no plagues whatsoever, because the government does not want Neo-Nazists to have a monument to commemorate to), the Jewish Memorial made of huge slabs of grey cold stone (the guide made us walk across the whole area of slabs and think about why the artist created it that way. it was so interesting, and i especially liked the fact that Rosh and I really thought about the whole concept and had a great discussion about it), the 2 bricked lines that pointed out where the Wall used to be, Charlie Checkpoint, the Nazi Air Force Headquarters that is the only remaining Nazi building (still the most hated building in Berlin because it's now the Tax Office. HEHEHE. great joke...), to where the burning of books happened outside the oldest university Humboldtz (a famous Jewish writer wrote that "He who burnt books is a prelude to him burning the bodies of people". this was written in 1820, very apt to what would happen in Germany isnt it?) All in all, it was very very educational and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So if you are going to Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Paris or London, please join this tour! and remember to tip the guide!

MUNCHEN
Our first stop was to Fussen where we visited the castle that inspired the Sleeping Beauty disney story... Absolutely gorgeous and a breather from city air. Fresh air, lakes, mountains form the backdrop for the castle that Mad King Ludwig built. With our new found friend Russell from America! Met him in the hostel... :P

BMW Museum

Hofbrauhaus with Russell
That night was the BEST night in our whoooole trip. Where we just drank ALOT of very very good beer at the most famour beer hall in Munich ( I LOVE DARK BEER!), had great conversations with French strangers who sat with us, and a very sweet photographer who showed me alot of his photos, and how Russell tried in his drunken state to fend off dirty drunk old men for us... Where we sat there till it closed and had to move to Hard Rock cafe next door just to drink more. That day, I drank 2 litres of beer. from 10am to 2am. LOVED the experience. :D

Walked around the Old town (this is probably my 15th old town) and well, as usual, the usual churches, markets and ice cream stalls... :P no wonder, adrian kept harping on the German beers... cos that's really the best experience of all for us in Germany.

WIEN = VIENNA
Rosh planned it so well... Beer in Germany and on to Culture in Austria. Vienna is so gorgeous, it really isnt surprising Yishan spent her trip cafe hopping and trying cakes from all over the city. Just stopping occasionally to watch the street performances (so much more interesting than the other cities we've been to) where there are mimes, breakdancing and a very very very good pianist who trolleyed her piano to the middle of the street to perform. We were sooooo amazed and she played so well! Stood there for a long long long time... Vienna Boy choir was sooo good as well. Even when we had to stand for 2 hours, it was really worth it. Thanks Rosh for making sure we went! If we could, we would have watched the 2 euro operas, but time was against us. It's ok, when i start earning money, ill watch it with the Austrian High Society and sit on 100 euros seats. :D

We managed to catch the Vienna City Marathon! (And did ALL OF THE ABOVE in just 1 day. from 6am to 12am. Maxed out our daylight...)And guess what? We saw Fengling and Kaixuan! YAYYYY! It was such a great experience screaming and cheering for the top marathoner (top 9 were Kenyans) and the best Austrian runners... :D For 2 hours on the stand, we were really experiencing the Vienna spirit.

PRAGUE
Prague was just pretty. VERY VERY pretty. And cheap too! we found a hostel that had a really fantastic breakfast spread = 4 types of cereal, eggs, 10 kinds of jam, different teas, milk, 2 juices... Clown and Bard. Please frequent them if you want your breakfast and lunch settled. all for 12 euros a night too! The sad thing is i lost some of my sunset photos, i dont know why. :( Hopefully Rosh still has hers... Please go to Prague. You wouldnt regret it... It's just too pretty already.

BUDAPEST
It's a pity the weather wasnt fantastic, so even when everyone told us budapest was a must go, we felt that it was oooooooook. So we decided to make it a Taitai trip! Splurged on a very very nice Bath (you HAVE to go to a Hungarian Bath!), great dinner at St Jupen's Restaurant (Best Cheap eats!)and had a lot of fun and confusion talking to our multilinguist hostel man (he speaks damn good chinese, spanish, french, german, hungarian, punjabi, english and i dunno what other languages he can say) Rosh was so amazed by him. I was just stumped. his chinese is better than mine i think, and he can write Hungary in chinese. Thankfully i could too, or i would just have had to dig a hole and hide in it. :P

SALZBURG
The highlight of our Salzburg experience was that I accidently booked a hostel that was outside of the town, had to take a train out. So it turned out to be a B&B experience in a small village that overlooks the hills and mountains. where the air was so fresh it smelt like Nepal and where we spent our last night in Salzburg drinking wine and laughing like 2 silly crazy girls. The hostess wasnt very friendly though, we think it's because she thinks we're not straight. think about it. EVERYONE who came down for breakfast in the morning were couples. and er, so it's natural to assume that she prob thought we were too... hehehe. Mozart's town of origin. so most tourism spots were geared around where he stayed, his statue etc... It's a pity he died because he was stressed over financial problems. if he had just patented his own Marzipan chocolates, he would be a millionaire. they sold the chocs EVERYWHERE. and pity it rained the next day, so we couldnt catch the sound of music tour. but that meant we saved 30 euros and kept our 2 weeks trip well within 420 euros. -pat on our shoulder-

If you can read to the end of this, well done. :D It's such a long post!

PS: Pardon my english on the blog. Afterall, this IS a blog. :P

PARIS, BARCELONA and COTE D'AZUR with my family

2007-04-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

Dear all

This will be mostly pictures because i am rushing to Germany for 2 weeks and I know my sisters will kill me if i make them wait so long to see their pictures. :D I miss them already...

BARCELONA ( part of it... the other pics are with them)
Sagrada Familia - Gaudi spent 40 years on that piece of art before he was killed by a tram car. Very sad...

Another Gaudi's work, Park Guell.
The lizard, by the way, is damn small. And the houses, according to my da-jie-fu, look like Hansel and Gretel's house. With my da-jie as company (she majored in Arts), Barcelona turned out to be less of a shopping trip and more like the chase after Gaudi's works. Fine by me, but my er-jie nearly had to have her stomach washed. Or so she says.

All in all, they really enjoyed Barcelona and I'm so glad we had such a good view of Barce from Park Guell. Lesson learnt: Do not go to the Olympics Village and stay faithful to the Gaudi trail... :D

PS: Outside the restaurant La Quinze Nity (damn good Spanish restaurant) at Place Reial, is Calvin Clown. Who entertained me and my er-jie throughout the half hour queue. He is SO FUNNY. "na ne ne ne ne phey phey" he whistles, each time he makes a stunt. :D

PARIS
This is Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, La Defense and us on board the BATOBUS, which brings us throughout Paris' most famous sights for a very cheap price. Esp good when the French think all asians look alike and my sister could get in with student's price as well. EVEN THOUGH they prob graduated 10 years ago... HAHA...

NICE

Beautiful coast line, pebble beaches, top naked women sun worshipping, paranomic view at the Chateau, Cours Seleya for fresh flowers and produce, Promenade Anglais and the very very yummy Pasta Bastas along Rue de la Prefecture.

I think that Nice was the nicest among the few towns i visited along the Cote D'azur... And of all, it was the most organised and I had the most relaxing feeling there when I sun bathed by the beach... Thanks to my family who had to endure the sun (when women get older, they absolutely refuse to suntan.. freckles fear etc...only applies to singaporeans, cos the old ladies there were naked):P

On to MONACO...
The Land of the SUPER Rich. Quotes a sentence from a friend's friend's blog that i just read. Even the Singaporean's Richest may qualify for their welfare system. Known for Princess Grace (Actress Grace Kelly) and if you read the tabloids, her scandalous daughter Princess Carolina, F1 races, yachts, Casino Monte Carlo. We basically just stationed ourselves outside the casino and people watched. Beautiful young women and old men in antique cars, and lots of other damn chio cars which sadly, i dont have the names for. Luckily, my sisters redeemed our poor sad sorry looks by buying alot of stuff from Gucci. 3 cheers to working women and their husbands' credit cards!

CANNES
Was it glitzy? Nope. Worth going? Nope. Saw any celebrities? Nope.
Although i can proudly say i saw the Cannes fest's CHAIRS. Yep, they were preparing for the big show in 2 weeks time. Rosh, are you sure u wanna go?
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GRASSE - the land of perfumes and flowers
Went to Grasse for their perfume tour and I love it! The sales lady was really nice and we had a free guided tour, after which we strained our noses for 1 whole hour looking for nice fragrances. Finally i can start to smell nice after my perfume spilled on my flight to France... :P

Ok, this is the end of our 2 week family trip. -pats on my own head- for a job well done in organising this trip for my family. And many thanks to my sisters who paid for my expenses, even though it meant that they had to go on budget and burst their spending limits. i love you!

Next stop: Berlin, Munich, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg. -yawnnnnn-

Clubbing at La Hacienda

2007-04-22T05:07:00.000-07:00

This was when Ade was still with us at Rouen... We decided to go, even though the entrance was as usual a bomb = 15 euros, because it was an open secret that it was OPEN BAR. Shhhhhh. So we went! After a loooong bus journey (outskirts of Rouen), where we witnessed the embarassing scene of a French boy puking all over the bus and himself (they drank before the clubbing, it's called pre-party. We think its quite dumb, since it was open bar anyway, but most of the people on the bus were drunk already, so no one cared. Not even the guy beside that poor fella who was drunk also, and making ALOT OF NOISE cheering and singing at the top of his voice)

The vodka orange was quite mild, but ohhhhh the whiskey coke was DAMN STRONG. After 4 glasses, i was quickly and decidedly happy high and danced. DAMN FUN! It was even comparable to the experience in Argentina (ohhhh those days were soooo fun!), and there are not many clubbing experiences i have that can even remotely be compared to my South Am trip. (Gerald, JR, Sam, when are we going again?) All in all, it was great fun! Even though there were hiccups at the end, but still, I declare my last clubbing in France a very very very good one. :D

Spring

2007-04-22T04:09:00.001-07:00

It's always very strange to come back to Ango (my hostel) after every 2 weeks. The season changes never fail to amaze me. i remember when i first came back from a very long trip, the barren trees were starting to bud and as if to welcome spring, spring blossoms bloomed. Then later i left again and when i came back, the other spring flowers have woken up, filling the green areas around Ango with pretty, wild dandelions and some other purple and white flowers that I do not have the name for. My family was very happy to see these flowers, of course, that is to be expected. And they even had a long discussion on whether the flowers at my car park were peonies, etc... The giverny experience at the Monet's garden added to that excitement of the coming of spring. Now that I'm back once again, the flowers have dropped and instead, green leaves are growing on the trees. Not so much green as in the trees in Singapore, but light green ones that according to my sister, only happens to trees in countries with 4 seasons. The dandelions have shed their pretty yellow petals and are now balls of fluff seeds waiting to be blown away by the wind. So pretty. :D I love spring.

What donut am I?

2007-04-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

You Are a Caramel Crunch Donut

You're a complex creature, and you're guilty of complicating things for fun.
You've been known to sit around pondering the meaning of life...
Or at times, pondering the meaning of your doughnut.
To frost or not to frost? To fill or not to fill? These are your eternal questions.

What Donut Are You?

In the first place, i digress, this is not supposed to be about ME, but my travelling. But I was toooo curious to find out what donut i am, since i dont even go GAGA over them in the first place. not like Zee and Doy in Bangkok or Fang and Rosh in the Barca Dunkin Donut place... 12 donuts at one go... we were damn crazy laaaa :P

Thanks to Lipen for the link! :D Who happens to be a Sprinkled Donut.. The sinful kind with alot of colourful sugary stuff on top... What does that mean then? :D

GIVERNY

2007-04-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

Paris with my family... They were jet-lagged, so we didnt visit many places...
But we still went to Sacre Coeur (5th time for me) and Hotel des Invalides AND to the Artists gallery at the foot of Sacre Coeur (my mum and da-jie went crazy there. Er-jie got dammmmmn bored and I just ... walked. )

PS: Never travel with jet-lagged mums. They get really cranky. Seriously.

On to Giverny, where Claude Monet's garden is... my mum's dream came true... The flowers are soooo pretty! :D Thankfully they bloomed in time for Her Majesty, otherwise my head would have been chopped off... :S

For the benefits of various individuals: Namely my brother-in-laws, the next few pictures will be portfolios of their respective loved ones

1) For Da-jie fu

2) For Er-jie fu

Congrats! Aiyah, one more ang pao to prepare already, siiiiiiiiiiiiian. :P

3) For MaMa

4) For Isaac

To illustrate my point on how different my mum, da jie and er jie are

1) Da jie is mulling over art books
2) Mum is sourcing for postcards to draw for her new painting
3) Er jie is bored and fell asleep
4) I'm bored and decided to whip out my cam
They were in the Art shop for 1 whole hour!!!! #(*%@)(^)%(

US!

POLAND

2007-04-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

Poland was one loooooooooooooooooooooooong trip.

Mission 1: Find Jan a girlfriend
Conclusion: FAIL > Polish girls are NOT pretty. seriously, found only 4 in 7 days.
Mission 2: Eat super good and cheap food
Conclusion: PASS > with too colourful flying colours. Totally stuffed myself to death, eating with a Foodie (Ade) and a man (Jan, self explanatory)
Mission 3: Take it easy
Conclusion: Pass > Sit in the park. Sit in the church. Sit in the cafe. Sit in the museum. Sit outside the castle. Sleep on the car. Sleep on the train. Damn slack. :D
Mission 4: Visit churches
Conclusion: Pass with super distinction > Visited so many churches that I think we did AT LEAST 40 churches. In 7 days, that's dammmmmmmn impressive.
Mission 5: Sleep in peace
Conclusion: FAIL > Shit loads of bed bugs. Argh. I need disinfectant please... :S
Mission 6: Get to know a cute Polish boy
Conclusion: Pass la. I think Jan's brother is cute... HAHA... ok Jan cuter... but of course, Isaac's cutest. :D Still, Jan, without you, and with Ade and my non-existent Polish, we will never have made it so far. YOU ARE THE BEST!

Warsaw attractions

Krakow attractions

Kazimiere Dolny: A town in between Warsaw and Krakow

Cafe Camelot. Doodled, drink vodka shots and hot chocolate, chit chatted, played hang man to find out Jan's prediction of our goal in life. Jan says I'll peddle drugs. HAHA. Totally... :D

The highlight of my trip: meeting Jan's family. I LOVE THEM. seriously. best hosts in the world and i had such a great connection with Aunt Helena. Even though she cant speak English. She's so nice!!! Taught Ade and I how to make great Polish food and made my favorite Golabki. And they even gave Ade and I a Polish picture book each! Can I be their God-daughter please?

Pope John Paul II's death Anniversary. He was Polish, and sort of a national leader to the Polish people at a time when they were suppressed by the Communist government. People brought candles to the street named after him. Rows and rows of candles, it was beautiful...

Of course there were sad things as well. Auswichtz - the Nazi's largest concentration camp where out of 3.3 million Jews, 3 million died, where other POWs from other parts of Europe were sent to, and where many died of human experiments, torture, starvation and cruelty. Didnt take photos because we felt it wasnt right to act touristy in such a place of terror. And we also visited the Warsaw Uprising Museum where we had a very interactive tour on how events of rebelling against the Nazis led to the destruction of 80% of Warsaw's architecture, street by street, meticulously bombed. Thankfully they reconstructed most of the important architecture.

nonetheless we still enjoyed ourselves in Poland, stuffing ourselves silly with loads of super-yummy-and-cheap food...

My travel buddies... :D
I'm going to come to Coventry! FB me to discuss about the 1 pound ticket please! :P

AMSTERDAM

2007-04-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

Once again, this has taken yet a long time to update... with me being in Rouen for only 1 or 2 days fortnightly, i havent had much time to upload pictures or comment on them, or even just to rotate them to the right side.

Anyway, on to Amsterdam. I have Poland and Giverny to update too, so it'll mostly be pictures... Which, Chris Zhuo likes. HAHA.

Amsterdam was with 5 other girls... So after having cheated and smuggled one more person into the 5 bed room and having a nice cosy threesome with rosh and fang, i conclude that the trip was REAL GOOD. :D lots of laughter, anticipation over space cake and purchasing cheap 2 euro books.

First stop: SEX MUSEUM.
No la, not because we're sickos but because since we decided to go to the land of the free, WHY NOT? Lots of vintage porn, fetishes (think pig sex, horse sex, urinating AND drinking it, SM of course, and fat mama),huge penises on display, and the gross chastity belt that many women have died from: too much rust > infection > STUPID MEN)Anyway, vintage porn is damn funny la... and yes very explicit too...

How can we miss out THE sex symbol Marilyn Monroe? She looks damn pretty here.

Took a day trip out to Zaanse Schans... Gorgeous. Great weather too! Other than the fact that it was SOOOO windy we had to hide in the shops and museum cafe. fang actually said something damn intelligent "That's why there are so many windmills in Holland what!" ohhhhhhhhhh. :P
The Zaanse Schans is a delightful old hamlet on the banks of the river Zaan with characteristic green wooden houses, charming styalised gardens, small hump-backed bridges, tradesmen's workshops, historic windmills and engaging little shops. This enchanting hamlet gives an excellent impression of how a typical Zaanse village must have looked like in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Drugs, booze, sex. Need I say more?

Bicycle trip! 6 girls + 1 guy cycling = single file. mess. traffic hazard. thankfully we made it back safe and sound. though i went over 2 humps without falling, dropped my headlights 3 times and nearly died from a traffic accident at least 1000 times. NEVER let Ivy cycle. Lipen where are youuuuuuuuu?
Disclaimer: I still DONT KNOW how to cycle. hehehe. You know who you are that i am passing this message to. :D

Beautiful Amsterdam.

BELGIUM

2007-03-21T03:42:00.000-07:00

I have half an hour to post this because i am going to Paris soon, and tonight, to Amsterdam... Wheeeeeeeee! It's a big group and we are ALL EXCITED! :D

Brussels - the administrative capital of the EU.
and that's it. Haha.... There really isnt anything much happening in Brussels, other than the fact that there are a lot of bars and chocolate and Let Petit Julien - The Manneke Pis (the pissing boy)It is the national symbol of Belgium and is as small as the country is compared to its large neighbours of France and Germany. When I say small, trust me, it is REALLY SMALL. Basically we just spent the whole day bugging KinYew to bring us to the chocolate places and waffle places... :P

Voila! Our waffles! I tried the real Brussels waffle which was square and there's sugar on top (slightly fluffier) and the others tried the Liegois one which was round and had sugar baked into it. We tried the Strawberry jam (me), white chocolate (Rosh and it was damn jelat for her), chocolate (Shuz), whipped cream (Fang, ya... she's thin la, can afford to) and Kinyew just leeched on everyone's and got us all cackling with laughter when he keeps getting whipped cream on his chin and cheeks. hahaha. :D

Bruges, another city in belgium, on the other hand is SO GORGEOUS. it really looks like it just came out of a postcard. with canals (not singapore smelly kind), boats, swans and lots of flowers around... Yes, even horse carriages! As you can see from the photos, it is not my camera, but the scenery that is soooooo wonderful. If only it wasn't sooo freezingly windy, otherwise we would prolly just sit by the river and have a cup of coffee. We did, however, sit on a bench and just gossiped while eating chips and Fang's 1 day old cheeseburger. :D So the point is, if you wanna visit Belgium, DO NOT just stop over at Brussels and end there because there are other cities that are more gorgeous than that (i.e. Bruges and Antwerp)

Went into the Choco-Story museum in Bruges and learnt about the history of chocolate. As singaporeans, we even asked for an extra chocolate during the chocolate making presentation... hehehe.... oh well. :D but it really seemed damn easy man, just fill it with choco and freeze it. haha. i also can make. :P Pictures include the chocolate alcohol (which i guess prolly taste like Baileys), chocolate jam, chocolate everything... There was even an exhibition on myths of chocolate. I.e. WILL CHOCOLATE MAKE YOU FAT? Ans: If you are slim, you can, for example, eat a plain chocolate and you will be fine. If you are overweight, slim down first, then you can reintroduce chocolate into your diet. If you consume in moderation, you will not get fat. damn funny right!!! haha... Also i found out that my FAV chocolate - the white chocolate contains 0% cocoa and instead is just made purely out of cocoa BUTTER and powdered milk and SUGER. I am soooo dead. :( But still, i like. :D

Fries, Mussels and Beer! Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy.

Moving on to Antwerp, the city of Gays. In just one drinking session with 3 guys in a suuuuuuuuuuper nice hostel, i found out that they were ALL GAY. and not related at all. haha... one was a veteran gay who worked as an intern in a fashion house (Antwerp is just like Barce... soo many shops!), one was in denial (he said he was straight, but the other gay told me his radar told him he was gay) and the last one whom i got the closest to (shopped with him and heard all his stories...) was a newbie in the scene. :D sooo it was really fun to listen to their stories, learnt a new phrase (one-hour-fax... think one night stand, but shorter), and realised that men are just men, be it straight or gay. all they want is sex. oh well. nevertheless, he was a really nice person and hopefully we can keep in touch. haha... PS: Chimay beer is dammmmmmn nice! I love dark beer now... Namaste peeps, can we go drinking when Fang and I come back???

And lastly, friendships forged in belgium. This trip was SOOOOOOOOO MUCH fun because of the people... I am sooooo glad Shuwen found me on facebook and we got together after 5 years of no contact, and that she brought along Kinyew, our resident tourist guide who was soooooooooooooooooo much fun!!! (I'm still crossing my fingers you can come to Ams with us!) The jokes shared and the loads of laughter... The beer drinking and semi-highness from 9.2%... The counting of mussels and sharing of waffles... It's too good. We HAVE to meet up again! :D

All in all, Belgium was really fun and in fact it's one of our best trips yet. :D

i love bruges and antwerp!

2007-03-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

Dear all

i am blogging this from this real nice hostel in antwerp and i love it! the bar is nice and cosy and the owner is juuuust TOO funny.... :D brussels was oooook but Bruges was soooooooooooo gorgeous! i took like 200 photos today and i just adore the place so much... if you are only going brussels, it is NOT ENOUGH because these 2 other cities just redefined belgium in my dictionary. more pictures later but for now... i am going to enjoy a nice cup of tea, write in my journal and listen to very nice belge music. exactly what an exchange should be, i think. Great city, great hostel, great friends to enjoy it with; Kinyew, shuwen, rosh and fang; YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST. ok going going gone.

PS; it just snowed and there was HAIL. hhahahahahahhaha ;D

Headache

2007-03-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

I don't know who reads this blog. But if you have gone for an exchange before or if you have been to Europe before, i need some advice.

I have 15 days. Should I
1) Travel to Italy only and extensively.
2) Travel to Italy for 10 days and Greece for 5 days. Is that too little and too rushed?

5 days to Athens and Santorini only seems sooooo little. Maybe i should keep Greece and Turkey for another day. But im greedy and i wanna go everywhere!!!

h.e.a.d.a.c.h.e.

My favourite Rouen girls...

2007-03-13T16:45:00.000-07:00

People: Fang. Alvi. Wanling. Rosh. Cherysa. Shujun. Me +
Food: Pineapple rice. Sushi. Cauliflower curry. Ginseng chicken soup. Salad. Chicken Porridge +
Drink: Apple cidre. Sparking wine +
Fruit: Mango +
Drunk Bimbo: Fang
= LOTS OF FUN!

Wah liew, the party was damn fun la! Wanling, please send us the food pictures! My gosh, it was suuuuuuch a slumber PJ party at 8pm la!!! Where we bitched about celebrities, thought that Prince William's fiancee is not very pretty, painted nail polish, sang boy bands songs (not me, bleah), laughed over bed bugs and all sorts of bugs, moaned about graduation in one year, said all sorts of nonsense and laughed at Fang for her true-blue bimbsness. Hail the Queen! :D AND the walk to Le Plaide to send Wanling back was soooo good! Ahhhh, cold but cosy. it's such a great feeling! Love you girls... :P

PARIS - the city of lights and romance

2007-03-13T09:16:00.001-07:00

This is REALLY outdated, since my Paris trip happened twice - 27 Jan with the usual gang and 17 Feb with Rosh, Viktoria and Ann-Mari (From Sweden and Finland)

We were actually planning to go to Spain that weekend, but because of flight cancellation due to heavy fogging (it was still winter then), we changed our plans to Paris instead!

From here you can see the Paris metro tickets which cost 1.40 euros each, Rue Hermel which INSTANTLY reminded me and Rosh of HERMIEEEEEEE, on our way to Sacre Coeur (which means Sacred Heart, refers to Jesus i think...a beauuuutiful place where we can see a panoramic view of Paris, as we sat down on the stairs listening to people jam, it was a real bonding session that evening...), how artsy Paris is with the numerous art galleries and paintings and most significantly, that Parisians or rather French in general have DAMN SMALL cars and they park super damn close to each other. Fang and Alvi were lamenting about how pro the french's parallel parking skills are, although we did notice that MOST of the cars had bumps either at the front or back or both. :D

Lourve: Where we spent more than 7 hours walking around and listening to the audio-guide. it was a really good 5 euro investment cos it allowed us to understand more about the artworks, instead of just walking around aimlessly. Art isnt really art unless you know its history. :D And this brings back alot of memories because the last time i stepped in here when i was 12, my Da-jie brought me around and SHE was my audio-guide (she graduated with a fine arts degree) and i guess to a large extent, she was the reason why i had to come to France for an exchange. to experience it all again. i love you Da-jie! ok, emo aside, we managed to walk around quite abit and might i say, i think i finished everything i wanted to see. :D special mention to the french large paintings and the egyptian sculptures which rosh and i abbbbsolutely adored. :D

Dinner at the foots of the hill of Sacre coeur. loved the dinner and the company. :D

Monster Ivy decided that we should walk! haha, so i made my poor friends waaaaaaaaalk all the way from Sacre Couer to Champs Elysee... heyyy, and with that, we made our discovery: Paris Red Light District and Moulin Rouge!!! I think we're not attractive enough because no one tried to hit on us.. hahaha. Went into a Sex Shop called Sexodrome where the first level was merchandise (think lots of porn dvd, sex toys, blow up doll with blond pubic hair, and 12 channels of porn. haha), 2nd was strip tease, 3rd was spa, and 4th was PRIVATE. hahahahha. :D

Notre-Dame of Paris. Contrary to belief, there isnt only ONE notredame in france. in fact, there are MANY. one in each city (I saw one in Lyon, in Paris and in Rouen).

And to end off this entry, Lourve at night. Beautiful isnt it? Rosh and I decided to come here a 2nd time to do the Da Vinci Tour. It was AWESOME! the music and the pace of the recording was exactly what we would have done, so when the recording said "turn left and you will see a window", we turned and we SAW! haha... i love roshni, i think if i were an indian (or even a chinese man) ill like her. :D too bad i have isaac, hahahahaha. :D and the last bit of the tour brought us to the Holy Grail. where we took ALOT of pictures. :D it felt so good to relive the book which was awesome and the company made it even better. :)

I doubt this will be the only time i'll go to Paris, but the next times will not be with these best buddies. :D So this pic is for them. :D to remember the good times we had in Paris, talking to ducks and eating cheap biscuits and clementines. and thanks for sharing the Fanta. :P

THE FLEA MARKET @ ROUEN

2007-03-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

I declare today one of my best days in Rouen. The sun was purrrrfect, the company was fantastic, and it felt just soooo good to walk around, laze around and just enjoy simple pleasures of going to the market to choose the best chicken, photo-whoring with beeeeautiful spring flowers, walking with my best buddy Rosh and neeeearly got lost (which was perfectly fine by us, we were imagining all sorts of CSI images, dead bodies etc), having a great dinner conversation with my darling roomie Ying (who thought the risotti she bought were wantons, oh well, pity. but they tasted real good in chinese soup!) and to top it off, EIGHT episodes of Ugly Betty. Exactly how i imagined my exchange would be like! Who cares about clubbing and getting drunk? :D

This is the flea market at Rouen. It only operates at full capacity on Sundays till 1pm. So early birds catch the worms! They have furniture, old postcards, porn dvds, fresh veges, bags from China, cooked rabbits (alvi said so) and very pretty flower stalls. This is like a family hangout where the old people congregate to buy groceries and the younger people chill out at cafes lined around it. Pictures include the freshest strawberries that we've ever seen (and bought! yummmm, the biggest cheese, and the man who sold me my delicious dinner of potato and chicken and tomato for 4.5 euros!

Then we decided to photo-whore at a look out point near our hostel. Cos we stay on Mont Saint Aignan (mont = hill) sooooo the view was soooo good! And cos it's spring and we luuuurve the weed flowers that can be found EVERYWHERE, we decided to pose with them! haha... pardon us, 3 girls looking preeeeetty in our sunglasses and flowers. :D

This was yesterday where the girls had suuuuuch a great time doing all sorts of girly things. :D Sharing galettes, crepes and apple cidre in Le Tarte Tatin, a reeeeeeeally yummy restaurant. Smart of us to share the lunch menu for which we only paid 5.4 euros for a very very full lunch! The Tarte Tatin (apple tart) was sooo good! -drool- Later on we also had ice cream! Mine was strawberry and banana, which tasted sooo gelate... Fang's Caramel and Shujun's Hazelnut were sooo good too! :P ohhh i definitely want to have it again! Then we went to Saint sever (rouen's shopping centre) and shopped! Like the girly girls we are, we spent so much time in the cosmetics and beauty shop which was 50% discount storewide! (Tout le magazin!)I bought hand cream for 1.75 euros! cheeeap! We then went to the shops where Ivy decided to give up her shopping queen crown to Fang who had a shit load of stamina. but of cos, i only had 3 hours of sleep the night before, can't help it. bahhh.

The best place where we had super lots of fun was in... the toy store! posed with soft toys, lamented about our age and how lame we must look to the frenchies and their kids for trying out hula hoops, looked at kids' make up box, played with the toys, and decided that dinosaur toys are lame. (PS: the spiderman costume had ABS. seriously. padded ones. hahahaha. and there's actually a ninja turtle costume. who would dress their son as a turtle??!)

Mummy, it's Cherry Blossoms!

I love Spring and Rouen...

and all my friends here. love you all!

ROUEN - My home

2007-03-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

Well, many of you may wonder where exactly is Rouen? Pronounced as "Who-on", with a slight Frenchie accent. :) And when you say, "shall i visit you?", sometimes i don't know if i should be nice and say ok! or be honest and say, er, there's really nothing much here actually ( i welcome you! just that there really isnt much here la). buuuuut if you ask me, it's a really nice home, because i love my room, i love my roommates and i love the fact that everytime im tired after travelling, i have a HOME to come back to. and truthfully, we never fail to miss Rouen whenever we travel, even if it's only to Paris.

As you walk through the historical centre, past half timbered houses, discover architectural treasures for example Gothic monuments like the Notre Dame Cathedral, St Ouen Abbey, Saint Maclou Church and the Palais de Justice or Renaissance style monuments like the Gros Horloge, Saint Maclou Ossuary and the Bourgtheroulde Mansion.

As you can see from the pictures, Rouen is largely focused on its half timbered houses and its very own heroine Joanne D'Arc where she was tortured here and then burnt at the stake. Rouen Cathedral - A very large cathedral that i told myself i would go every week to admire its architecture, but i've only been there 3 times. :) The universities here are generally not coordinated like Duke and hence, buildings are all over the place with different designs. but places like Carrefour, Mexicoop and Place Corbert are definitely ones that i will miss (they are all supermarkets) haha. :D

My room is a hell of a mess. it WAS neat, but somehow, it just became messy. or rather, it just became ME again. haha. :D i love it! although i think isaac will shake his head in resignation if he ever sees it. oh well. :P my clementines are a must have, on my table, as my fruit of these 6 months. ultra juicy and cheap and my precious source of vits. 2 bottles of wine sitting lonely on my table, wondering WHY their owner only drank so little here. strange eh? haha... apple cidre is the drink Normandians prefer, and we actually really think it's nicer than wine. My coco-pops, milk (breakfast), my nail polishes brought from Singapore, my bag of accessories, my stash of food and precious pastes and i think that pretty much makes up my room. ohhh, and the most important 2 items: my colourful basket and my greenish blue floormat. rosh and i bought these when we went on a shopping spree to decorate our rooms. never regretted buying them cos they make my room look less hostelish and more like MY room. :D

Chris Zhuo says I write too much in my blog, so i shall end here. but Barce photos are definitely on its way. i just need to transfer them from Fang, Alvi and Rosh.

After all the excitement, the BOO-BOOs

2007-03-09T15:34:00.000-08:00

If only I am rich.

I will be able to go to Loire Valley as I planned. But now, there is apparently NO hostel there. SO it is only a good place to go if you want a romantic honeymoon (by staying in a real castle, cos that's their only accomodation there) or if you are f-rich. for me, neither applies. so there. poof. ill be staying in rouen this weekend. and i have tonight to find out WHAT i can do here. $#(*%@)(#

I will be able to book an expensive hotel in Amsterdam because ALL THE SATURDAYS ARE FULLY BOOKED. @!($#*@& I think people only go to Amsterday for a Saturday day trip to smoke weed and be merry for that ONE day. cos i wanna go from Thur to Sunday, I CANT BOOK! they need a min of 3 weekend nights to book. but with ALL the saturdays gone, i have no 3 weekends! = i cant book even thur or fri or sun on their own. @&#(@!*$ A word of advice to anyone who wants to book amsterdam, book 3 months in advance. seriously. the only person that is keeping me sane now is Cherysa (thank you darling!) for accompanying me to find the best solution. which may be ... (for your entertainment on seeing how desperate we are)

Shelter City CHRISTIAN Hostel - where they are reputed to preach to you at any opportunity they have
1) Thur: 6 beds: sleep comfortably with one person to one bed
2) Fri: 3 beds: sneak in at midnight and try to share bed.
3) Sat: 0 bed: camp at their commons room and pray that they dont know we don't stay there anymore "technically"
pengz. seriously. cherysa and i are really thinking about it.

Read conversation between us:

Cherysa says:
why not say we will read the verses with them also on sat night
Cherysa says:
hum maybe they will be nice
ivy:
quote the bible
ivy:
and get high on the psalms right
ivy:
we can sing choir for them on sat as payment for sleeping in the common room
Cherysa says:
lol
Cherysa says:
promise u wil preach 2 ten ppl lor
Cherysa says:
u can BS quite a bit
Cherysa says:
omg
Cherysa says:
u can totally quote one of the ten commandments
Cherysa says:
thou shalt not turn away a brother or something

To all Catholics and Christians, we are joking. about the preaching. very serious. about camping in their commons room and sharing the bed. do you think they will try to catch us?
HOW HOW HOWWWWW?

Plans fresh from the oven!

2007-03-07T06:33:00.000-08:00

10-12 Mar: Loire Valley (think chateaus and wine.... mmmm)
17-19 Mar: Belgium (chocolate!)
22-25 Mar: Netherlands (Amsterdam... coffeeshops...red light district)
26 Mar: Paris cos Ade is coming! YAYYYYY
27 Mar- 3 Apr: Poland
4-6 Apr: Rouen and I'm also going to bring Ade to places around Rouen. Maybe Normandy Beach? Fang what did we plan ah? I cant remember now... Anyway, somewhere near Rouen. :)
7-9 Apr: a break from all that travelling
10- 22 Apr: Mummy and jie jies are coming! Think Nice, Barce, Grasse, Monaco, Giverny. :D Hopefully they will pay for everything... hehehehehe.
23 Apr - 6 May: Breathe. Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Salzburg, Munich. In that order. Hermie, wanna travel from Vienna to Munich together with me and Rosh? that's roughly between 29 Apr - 6 May.
9-13 May: a couple trip with Fang Fang to Stockholm and Finland... Maybe we can take a cruise or something. Or even see Santa Claus Land! :D
Then I wait for Isaac to come visit me. :D Then we'll go to Switzerland, Italy, Greece and UK. YAYYYYY!

Trust

2007-03-06T14:38:00.000-08:00

This post is for a friend, whom i hope will get to read this soon. I stumbled upon it while blog surfing and i think it's pretty nice and succinct.

Before you decide to give everything up and feel that life is hopeless, please remember that you have friends and family who will support you and be on your side, no matter his side of the story (which as i said before, i dont give a damn). Read this babe, because everytime i talk to you, i never know how to dish out the best "advice" or claim to know what you've been through because i don't. But I hope that this few paragraphs can let you understand better what we've been trying to say so far and can touch your heart a little deeper than what we can do.

And if all else fails, you can still talk to me on msn or call me ya?

"I think when you are deciding if you can trust someone, you need to look back at all the ways that person has made you feel. There should never be any pressure, there should be no hurtful lies, there should be no belittling. The person you trust to put you in a helpless position should never have made you feel bad about yourself and they should be concerned about your safety too.

I know it is often hard to see the ways you have been manipulated until you can see it in hindsight and that often by then it is too late. At least it is that way for me. I have put myself into dangerous situations without being able to see that the man involved was only looking out for what he could get from me. Only later have I been able to look back and see that the he in question was always pressuring me to do things that I didn't want to do, that he would withhold affection until I gave in to give him what he wanted. It was only in hindsight I could see that he was always making me feel bad about myself to the point of making me believe that I was lucky that an unattractive fat slob like myself was loved by someone as good as he was. He made me believe that I was unworthy of him. So I know how hard it can be to be able to see an untrustworthy person for what they are.

So how can we trust ourselves to know when someone is trustworthy? If I knew the answer to that, I could make a fortune selling the secret to those of us that suffer from lower self confidence. All I can say is that if at any time you feel like it is something you must do to make him stay in love with you even if it makes your tummy feel ill, trust your gut and walk away before it goes too far."

Procrastinating and Bored.

2007-03-06T14:07:00.000-08:00

1) I need to do my french hw. SERIOUSLY. bleah.
2) I need to buy groceries because i am happily living off my roommate now.
3) I need to decide where to go this weekend and next weekend because i refuse to be bound to Rouen just because i have ONE exam. which i only plan to study er... maybe 2 days before the exam. There really isnt much to do, considering we don't have past year papers and practice questions. SO all i have to do is to read the notes. and make my cheat sheet. :D why didnt i bring coloured pens to Rouen?!
4) Please make Brussels, Loire Valley, Amsterdam, Germany, Czech, Budapest, Austria, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Finland happen within the next 2 months. :( I don't want to be stuck in Rouen!!!
5) I'm so bored. argh.

Dear Zee

2007-03-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

I hope you are feeling better now. :( I'm so sorry i can't be there with you, like we always share with each other for the past-i-dunno-how-many-years. but i know that you have a lot of friends with you who can be with you through all these. As long as you can take care of yourself, that's the most important thing. cos u're damn pretty and u'll be able to find someone real soon. and if you decide that i'm THE ONE, i promise to marry you. (that is, if im not married and you're not married by er... 50?) love you babe... biiiiiiig hug.
PS: i dont have alot of photos of u and joyce leh. how come ah? u never send to me izzit? this photo is HOW OLD LA!

NEW YORK NEW YORK

2007-03-06T08:10:00.000-08:00

New York is bloody cold. YA, i actually proclaimed that i'm cold. but seriously. it's damn mother f-cold. even when the temp says 6 degrees, which i can endure usually, it's the WIND that makes it so cold. soooo cold that i regretted not bringing gloves. yes roshni.. LAUGH. i actually layered my clothes (didnt even do that in France), nope not with 5 tubes. just 1 tube + 1 long sleeve shirt. haha... only rosh and adrian will understand that. anyway, the good thing is that i have my boyfriend's hands, which were just about the other thing other than my trusty Zara trenchcoat that kept me warm. AND my brown cap. there were even BLACK snow on the floor (not the ones that just fell, the blocks of ice that were there since a gazillon years ago that refuse to melt) but i still think that Europeans generally dress better. in boots and trench coats. the americans mostly wear winter jackets (wind breakers... very practical) and sweat shirts. so kudos to Zara and Mango and Topshop for contributing to the stylo-ness of the average European. :D
Some quirky things i saw on the streets of New York. These are random shots la. But there's a bloody huge M&M shop that if i bring my nieces and nephews there they will go OUT OF CONTROL. cos there's M&M cushions, M&M toys, M&M stationary, M&M in all colours u can imagine... alot of squirrels, i see them alot in Duke also. SUPER cute. an artistic shot i tried to do with the woman standing beside grafitti filled walls (i think she's an employee of some store, but she looks damn hookerish with her cigarette and standing in that pose) and the weirdest is of this round head that wants2bsquare, and proceeds to chop of the sides of him to make it a square. damn bizarre.
Wall Street. Sigh... Reminds me that i have NO internship this summer. other than the fact that most of the banking ones are for Ops (bleah) and that i have no time to do internship anyway, cos i'm only coming back in late June. BUT i shall learn driving. DA JIE, do u want to sponsor my driving lessons? PLEASE? i'm damn broke. ER JIE, if you want you can help to contribute too!
5th Avenue
Isaac told me i should have done some Audrey Hepburn pose in front of the Tiffany and Co. Regretted not doing it man.. but there was this damn excited girl who was posing with her new little blue box and her bf was taking alot of "model" shots for her, so i couldnt bear to seperate her from that sign. WHERE's MY BLUE BOX? hehe... the best thing is that i never dared to enter the store in Taka. but i actually went into the 5th Ave one. hahahhaa.. cheap thrill.
THEN i bought Abercrombie jeans for 70 USD. I know its damn ex la. but it REALLY fits me to the T and reminds me of my trusty cheap jeans that i bought from malaysia for S$20 that i wore for 4-5 years. may this pair of jeans live up to the last pair's legacy, even though it's so many more times more expensive. Adrian i thought of you! nearly called you to ask if you wanted Aber shirts, but i thought of my phone bill and gave up that thought. oops. :S ohhhh but the models wearing the shirts were damn hot. Super good body and damn tanned and very very pretty. but we realise that service is inversely proportional to hotness. the hotter the people, the lazier they are to serve you. so the fitting room staff are not as pretty but better service. oh well. that kinda explains life in a sense right. bleah.
42nd Street: Times Square
I declare this my FAVORITE place. going to Times Square makes me SO EXCITED! there's so many stores and they are all soooooo damn big and the neon lights just make the place come alive! Wish I had more time to explore all the stores though... but if you wanna come to Times Square, devote a WHOLE day to it please!

Entertainment in New York
Chilling at a Cafe in SoHo for very very long... having my New York Cheese Cake, super cheap pizza, super expensive Chicago B roadway tickets (YAY! It was damn good! Thank you baby for sponsoring the tickets, i promise i'll pay for more things when you come to Europe ok?) Super good sushi kindly sponsored by Isaac's dad as part of Isaac's b-day present (Thanks Uncle!) ohhhhhh how can i forget Village Vanguard, which is the place where alot of very good jazz players perform in. Entrance was USD35 EACH though. very expensive. wished there were vocal jazz tho, it's more my kinda jazz. but this is a must go for all jazz lovers... :D

Favorite place in NY: that little cafe in SoHo where we just read magazines and ate cheesecake
Favorite food in NY: the dan dan mian in the chinese restaurant. i miss chinese food!!!
Favorite place in Duke: Isaac's room which is sooooo nicely decorated
Favorite food in Duke: McGriddles! (Hotcakes + Egg McMuffin combined! YUMMMM)
Favorite travelling buddy: Isaac. Of course. :D

DUKE UNIVERSITY @ Raleigh, North Carolina

2007-03-06T07:16:00.000-08:00

Duke University is where I stayed for 1.5 weeks. Met alot of good friends (Gordon - super nice guy/ McGriddles buddy, Nachos - going with him to find his gf in Suisse in May, Tanvi - who looks like Lydia REALLY, Donnie - who is suuuuch an ass :P, Taylor, Joe, Megan, Lacey, Eric, Andrew Cheesman - who is damn cool and promised not to corrupt isaac with his alpha male thoughts, Amy, Kim, Tracy...) I really think that i socialised alot more there than i ever did here in France. some excuses can be that we're not supposed to leave our doors open cos its not safe, the canadians and mexicans group together like colonies, the senagalis cant speak english, we cook in our own rooms, the corridor is not condusive to mingle... oh well, there's alot of reasons i guess. but also i think it's because the people in Pegram (isaac's dorm mates) are definitely more open to meeting people, i go to their men's toilet to bathe so theres some form of er... bonding? haha, we congregate either at the corridor listening to gordon's sad stories or isaac's room. and i always feel compelled to just go into one of their open rooms just to say hi. so it's very different. and MOST importantly, people have dinners together. SIGH. that never really happens here, expect for gatherings between me, rosh, fang and alvi. :( that's why i've decided to make an effort to talk to my roommate more (she's from ShangHai and she's reeeeally nice) :D ill be cooking for her tonight.. i can't wait... deprived of that in Duke cos the supermarket is too far/ the organic market is too expensive.

anyway, to sum it up, Duke is NICE. i wish smu was like that. but then again, they pay a shit load more school fees, so i can't complain. and looking at them mug, and then compare it to the french people here who don't study at all, i'll rather mug. ahahahhahaha. (should try to come back to this statement when i start school next term back in good old smu)

Visited: Nasher Musuem of Art/ Sarah Duke Gardens/ Ice-Ball/ Pegram/ MarketPlace/ George's Garage/ Chapel's Hill/ Duke Chapel/ the Loop
Pictures featured: Isaac's cake baked by Amy and Gordon (Awwwww), Duke Chapel, the Gardens, Duke surroundings, a damn posh car to show how rich the kids are (they can drive BMW just to go from one side of campus to the other), Salad (the girls there are crazy about it, while i gorge down pasta, cereals, thai food, sausages all in one meal) and sushi takeaway!!! yummmmmm. i miss Igen (in Siglap, closed down)... :S

ISAAC

2007-03-06T07:07:00.000-08:00

When a part of his old home merges with his new home for 2 weeks.

It's the first time we've spent suuuuch a long time together and i bet he was damn worried that we'll be sick of each other, i'll mess up his room so badly that he wouldn't recognise it, i'll eat up all his food points (he made me eat a club sandwich to save on food points, only later he realised he's actually damn food-point rich), and that i'll be too bored. but turns out that i had a FANTASTIC time sleeping in all day long (20 hours everyday) and for the 4 hours i'm awake, i actually clean the room. (actually it's fake. ill never do that again. hehehehehe) and the ice-ball was damn funny. (think alot of american teens making out on the dance floor, dancing to rap in nice pom pom dresses, this one guy even SPREAD OUT HIS LEGS. seriously. oh well, kids.) ohhh, that little orange lily is significant, cos part of my housework is to clean out the pollens which will apparently stain something. so once a flower bloom, i clean it up. that's my "housework". and isaac CHECKS every night.

ok enough gushing about him. next post will be on duke university. :) i'm still picasaing my pictures. :D Does anyone know how to add a comment box?

Bimbs ALERT!

2007-03-05T18:48:00.000-08:00

Actually the only bimb is Fang la... the rest of us are damn intelligent. I decided that i would just introduce my closer friends here. before contemplating in what order i would blog about US, Lyon, Paris, Madrid and Barce. SOOO. there's Fang, Alvi baaaaaaby, Rosh my loooove and a Mexican girl that i super like. Loren. she's the one in the middle with damn big eyes. All mexicans are hot la, dammit. annnnnnd of course Isaac, who took care of me, fed me tooooo much and hopefully missing me now in US. :) (er, he's not in this picture)

PS: I still miss you babes! Come back soon!
PPS: I am definitely not forgetting my girlfriends back home: Ade, Zee, Joycey, Yi, Wendy, Adrian, Jo, Cheryl, Hermieeeeeeeee and Chris Zhuo ( i HAVE to put your name here) hahaha.

FRANCE!

2007-03-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

Dear all

this is the official FIRST entry of my long-awaited blog. SERIOUSLY. choosing a name is damn tough. and henceforth, i have procrastinated it for a gazillion years. names like ivyandhergoldheels (which is damn bimbo), ivyandcobbledpaths (rosh says someone used it) and ivy-in-france (which would be like anyother singaporean on exchange. i dont care, it has to be special). soooo as i was telling joyce, and now you all, DON'T laugh at my blog name because i decided today that i would not take TOO long to think of one. bleah.

Anyway, i'm in france and some people (SO HAPPY!) have asked me when im EVER going to write a blog. so here it is. a taste of where i've been and maybe and hopefully it'll be detailed enough for anyone who wants to come to europe for an exchange. since i have also read many friends' blogs to find out where to go what and when. (thanks to Gerald and a few others, Rosh's friends...etc)

Love you all!

PS: It's Spring now and the cherry blossom tree outside my window is blooming very very nicely.

Finally, a blog from me.

2007-03-05T18:24:00.000-08:00