J'arrive

I am here, back so to speak, in the land of my fellow countrymen, the land of beauty and industrialisation. The Middle Kingdom. Yes, Ladies and Gents. I am here, In China. Those of you no doubt will find out later in the day. Haha, I kept it a surprise, yes, a surprise. To freak those of you out, especially in MUN. Oh god, it feels quite good to be back. Though, my head is spinning from lack of sleep and I really should be going off to bed now. As is probably quite plain to see, I am not up to my usual standards of blogging, and beg you, my dear reader's forgiveness. I am only human. There are things to do here, like get a testimonial from Mr House, and... er. Lol well Yea. Things to do. Yes busy busy busy. Like, wash my hair, breathe, sleep, run around neighing like a horse, buy turquoise jewelry, and handbags. See lots of things to do! So yea, Don't go telling me this trip will be a waste!

A Story

The writer sat at the table, completely assured of his abilities, forever certain that someday, he would in fact be able to pay the bill for his daily cuppa, rather than his mother, his wife, his father, his lies. The sheer torrent of words that mulled in his head gave his an all consuming desire to write, and yet the connection between the spongy material in his head and his writing implements seemed once again spotty, if he was a cellphone, his agent would be getting a "Our system is not getting a response from the subscriber's mobile phone, please try again later". Not that his agent didn't call, he did, everyday, hounding him for the next sure-fire sell-a-million book. No, he thought, let me write a bomb for once, let the critics roundly hate me, roundly criticise me for losing my knack, for no longer being able to write, for deciding to get lost in the streets of Shanghai. His own life, had been decided for him since he was born. He knew he had write even as he was in his mother's womb, or at least in a profession that let him write, law, journalism, even joining an airline, because he heard of the mounds of paperwork pilots had to fill out to get up in the sky. He considered them all, and yet, here he was, a Writer. A poor writer, but still a writer. People wondered, what the hell is he complaining about, he's only poor now! But the publishers love him, he had the the looks-ish, the charisma, a million girls would kill to be him and a million men would kill him. But of course, they couldn't know. He was after all, a writer. No writer can continue writing if there wasn't something gnawing away inside of him. Some repressed urge to express the un-expressable. Some observation that if revealed would shake the very foundations of the Earth. He hated that cliche even, that old cliche that said writers had to be sad, depressed and disappointed with his lot in life. He could be happy, he had just forgone that right when he chose his line of work.

He wrote everything, and anything. From literary fiction, that was the darling of the critics, to solid plotty stories, with heros and heroin, guns and roses, women and more women, men with well, men. He knew what appealed to the public, and seemed to have his finger sorely on the pulse of the popular, the fashionable, and the interesting. He always knew that his gift, would benefit him, and benefit him it did, he was in turns rich as a sultan and poor as a student, had a loving wife, that kept him firmly on the ground, through the good, bad, ugly and vile. She worked herself, as a sucessful agricultural enginner in Spain, so money was never really problem, even though he hold onto the belief that men had to be men, bring home the bacon and have a loving wife to fry the afore mentioned bacon. He was going to try for children, and if that didn't happen, as often it didn't if twentieth century media was to be believed, he was more than willing to adopt. Nothing could stop him, and here he was, stopping, sitting at a little cafe along Orchard road, sipping away at his cappucino. He had used up his last million buying that strange little casino down in Monte Carlo, that ended up getting squandered away. He was a poor, but sucessful writer. Money was bound to pour back in at some point, and he just had to wait. He didn't quite know what was around the corner. And his life for now, was a complete blank slate. He decided to just wait, because that was the card fate dealt him, all he could do was see what game was coming up, hell, if there was a game to be played.

Sarah walked up to him. Kissed him on his lips. He stared at her, and loved her. All over again, he loved her. She started talking about fashion, the police, and the fashion police. Everything she knew, she told the writer, knowing that somehow it would trickle into his writing, and she would get an acknoledgement in his book, with the appropriate kudos coming from her friends, relatives, and taxi-drivers. He was in a light haze. Happy for a moment, and he swiftly returned to his expressionless face, his look of intense studiousness. He knew she was cheating on him, and he cheated on her. They led a 20th century lifestyle afterall, but they were married, and they loved each other only. There was nothing else in their lives worth loving, so along they carried on, in their own merry way. Why not, they asked their friends who held more conservative views, after all, love is all that really matters, and after which they would insert a intelligent comment like, "Oh Gosh, I sound like a 60ies hippie!" Prompting laughter and a subject change. They knew the routine and used it often. Friends loved them, invited them to parties and knew they would provide excellent company, they on the other hand treated it like a mathematical excercise, if you practice it enough, it was no problem at all.

And, so after finishing his cappucino. He got up, paid his bill, and walked away, into the sunset. Singapore's multitudes soon swallowed him out, and he disappeared from sight. You, my dear reader, would wish him all the best, as him would continue to lead his life ever so typically, ever so wonderfully, and yet so normally. Who's to say that normalcy isn't perfectly beautiful, isn't perfect in itself.

My 18th Birthday Champagne

Gather round my children, I shall tell you this interesting thing I learnt just now from my God Mother that happened after my birthday celebration. I went to the Lim Family (on my mother's side) family home(ish) and we had the whole shebang, by our own lofty standards. My contribution was 400 grams of meat. Yes, meat, but from Crystal Jade, so very very good meat. We went downstairs, me and my feisty grandmother, to the neighbourhood hawker centre, and bought a bunch of stuffs back home. Hokkien Mee, Stingray, yes, food that is artery clogging and yes its my birthday, so yes, I let my guard down. We also ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut. It was surprisingly edible. (Of course, nothing compared to Pete's Place or Garibaldi's, don't strike me down, Gods of Italian Cuisine!!!) And who was to show up but my cousin in the air force, Xiang, along with the parental units. I really do like those members of the family, they are fun, and actually like technology! Like me, but on a slightly less fanatical level. (YES! Buy an Intel Core 2 Duo but not anything else!!! NO, No ATI, Nvidia all the way!!! 133t H8xx00rz!!!!)

Anyway, I brought along with my meat, two bottles of drinks, A bottle of Sparkling grape juice, and Champagne. Proper Champagne, from the Champagne region in France. The family finished off the Grape Juice in about 10 minutes, and didn't even touch the really really expensive stuff! It cost me 55SGD! (close to 300 RMB) I was a little disappointed, and I really can't hold my liquor, I guess its a family trait. So ne grave pas, I left it to my Grandmother to pass on to apparently the only drinker in the family, one of the sisters.

Turns out they didn't manage to give it off. What they did then, as I told them that Champagne goes bad *flat* in 3 days or so, was to put the champagne into whatever meat dishes they had during that week, and it turned out, "really really great lor!" I was throughly surprised, and a little disconcerted, but hey, my Grandmother at this point in her life managed to create a whole new genre of cooking, French haute cuisine-asian homestyle fusion! I'll call it Frangapore Style Cooking! Haha... Maybe I should ask for her recipes! Hell maybe I should sell her recipes!

Biennale Singapore: First One Ever

Fantastic isn't it, we are now the proud hosts of an event originally started by the ever fabulous Italians, the First Singapore Biennale!! And what better way to inaugurate an event than the slightly staid sounding IMF and World Bank Board of Governers Meeting. Looking at it sends chills down my spine!!!

The opening piece of installation art as seen below, was/is (could still be there)... very beautiful. If kid friendly. Which I believe is the whole point of art, coz if you can't even get your most innocent, most precocious members of the audience to appreciate your work, how can you get the more experienced, more educated members of your audience to appreciate it. To the creator's credit, I thought it was really something else, something so unique and beautiful, though shortlived.




My fervent apologies for the incredibly blurry pictures above, that's the problem with nightime shots, you can't use a flash if not everything else is just black in colour, so yeah, those pictures above are the pictures Gloria and I took of the installation art, with varying degrees of sucess, either way, enjoy!

The poem shown above, though I did not manage to catch it all, was a stunning example of pure ingenuity. City Hall, was decked out in pink coverings, all over the windows and such with subversive(?) writings and such, and the beautiful white font, clear though this beautiful white font, the columns sort of obscured the writing, so unfortunately I did not manage to catch it, I am however, very much intrigued by this poem and given the chance I would definately make an effort to have a look see.


Anyhoos. It was a night to remember, for it spectacularly told us all you really needed to know about the Singapore party scene. (or any house party hosted by SSIS people at 9 pm) People were standing around, nodding, walking away horrified at the music being played, or just standing there stunned that they made sound systems that could pump out such noises, while a few slightly rockier people were, WHOO HOOing and dancing, and screaming... the singers/rappers/screamers/insane manic depressed persons on stage were, to be polite, not at all to my taste, while their bands were really quite good. I really really liked their string players, totally in the spirit of things and definately rocking. So all in all, just bordering on acceptable? God, I'm such a bitch. Its art, darling, you're not supposed to know that the artists are saying, its their creative vision... etc etc.

After leaving the Padang, we sauntered off to Boat Quay, where we managed to get into Q Bar, and I must say, this place was definately a lot cooler than many places I've been to, though definately too smokey for my taste. It was cool though afterwards, we walked the stretch of Boat Quay, and settled down at Harry's Bar, which coincidentally you can also find in Suzhou, and I passed by the Harry's in Venice too. There're just too many Harry's. Anyway, I had an Erdinger, Great German Beer, and got red (I just know you Suzhou folks are reminicing about my famous 1/16 Margarita incident). Gloria has a Kilkenny and didn't like it much. So we all stomped off to the Metro, (MRT lah, I know but must internationalify it for the foreigners) and I prepared to go off, to the warm comforts of my bed. But no, I ended up at Gloria's neighbourhood 24 hour prata store, and had 2 Kosongs (basically a flat crispy pancake, tastes 100 times better than it sounds). Yes, it was fun. Yes, it was surreal, having prata till 2 in the morning, but hey, its my one life, I'll live it the way I want to... albeit without too much drinking, no smoking, and definately no drugs, but hey! I rock, I roll, and I definately have the physical proportions to roll!!! So Yeah! Don't tell me I'm Staid!

I leave you with this picture of the St. Andrews Cathedral. Because I can;)

A Long Line Of Contradictions

So, guess what books I bought today! The South Beach Diet along with The Makansutra 2007! Yes, its in my most recent list of contradictory purchases. So yes, I feel so dirty. Not just because I was caught A LOT in the rain today, but because I've fallen victim to the impulse buy. The South Beach Diet was something I set out to buy because I really need to lose some weight, I simply can't exercise with my weight at this level. Its ... probably gonna kill off my heart like in a beat. So I'm gonna lose some weight through South Beach first.

I guess I could go use the Makansutra afterwards... yeah.