(A melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of repose or resolution.)
"But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever." - Psalms 52:8
Saturday, May 23, 2009
why am i still so tired??
ugh, unpacking and unpacking, then organizing all my pictures and videos, going to alvin's place to collect all the photos and giving him all the burberry's bags he'd bought, spending a lot of quality time with my family, and then going to parkway to repair loads of stuff that were broken.
no wonder i'm still tired. i'm going to crash after service tmr.
AND I HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED BLOGGING ANYTHING YET!! everything's leaking out of my head already... :(
egads, so many things to do. then work starts on monday.
- craving for ramen and soba - missing mickey and minnie - feeling odd about waking up so late (wow it's 11am??!?!) - wanting to stuff my feet into my walking shoes and exploring - wishing singapore was about 10 degrees colder - wondering where all my sleeping companions are
le sigh.
but i'm really happy to see my family!! and i come back bearing gifts and news (nothing to do with swine flu)!
chottomatte for some serious blogging and huge loads of HD photos. KA-CHOW!
this is great; i'm 95% packed and my luggage is only what, 80% full? definitely enough space to buy more, more, more!! (i also have one spare duffel, hehe.)
we'll be hitting shinjuku on our first day, and checking out the 100 yen shops (Daiso!), the 3 coins store and SWIMMER which has uber cutesy stuff. later in the night we'll be prowling through the streets of sleazy kabuki-cho. i think my eyes might fall off my sockets but what the hey, this is all part of exploring, no? :)
then it's disneyland/sea, then perhaps ikebukuro (THEY HAVE A CAT LAND!! XD) for some shabu-shabu :D~~
there're crap loads of shopping opportunities in ueno, harajuku and shibuya. mmm can't wait man.
now that i'm almost done, it's time to wash ALL my dirty clothes (yeah, 2 weeks should be sufficient for some mould to grow), clean my room and wipe my shelves and floor, AND THEN PLAY SOME ROCK BAND.
i came home feeling rather beat from the intense rock band session at alvin's (yes hanbin you were right to do the ah pek thing - stay home and NUA). after lugging home the xbox, drum set and both guitars, i looked at my very empty suitcase sitting lonely at a corner of my room... and groaned.
BUT!!!
it's all different now! because i started off with the most exciting - PACKING MY CLOTHES.
going to Japan for 11 days - $3500
prancing around the room trying on outfit after outfit, and discovering a new pair of skinnies that i forgot about...
the office is COMPLETELY empty. it's kinda creepy. even typing this post seems so loud.
---
so this is my last work day (and there're no bosses around whee!) before the whole Japan craziness starts. i think i've been so excited and geared towards the trip that i'm waking up extra early due to over-excitement. every morning, 530am. it never fails.
but there's so much to be done! maps to be printed, areas in tokyo to be located, bags to be packed, work to be delegated, and i need to plan for cell group.
slowly, one thing at a time. :)
aaaand before we leave, rock band party tomorrow! alvin and i tried the new franz ferdinand pack last night; i almost didn't want to go home. and and and! after all that history of playing my first ever guitar hero song 'take me out', and failing about 10+ tries, i finally got it right yesterday! and on the first try too! :D
the drums are so fun to play. and i'm slowly moving on from Medium to Hard! *jiggles*
over the weekend, my pals and i drove up to malacca for a good Labor Day break.
met xinwei and david in the late morning before we headed down to angel's for her birthday surprise!
i *heart* her cake:
her extremely smile-y corgi. kinda skinny though. :)
in the backseat (yeah the van was fitted with car seats - but they were not screwed down to the floor so at certain points i almost slid/fell/rolled off my place):
the driver:
and his laydeh:
and this picture of angel is PRICELESS!!! wahahahaha i now have one extremely unglam shot of both her and xinwei each. mel... your turn will come soon!
BEHOLD!!
it was a very long ride to malacca BUT thanks to angel's motion sickness pills it knocked both of us out pretty quick. woke up with a fear that i'd get deep vein thrombosis because i was just splayed out and sleeping in the same position for what, 2-3 hours? and leg was a little numb, so i got a little freaked.
YES IN MY STUPOR I FORGET ALL MY SCIENCE.
here's hotel puri, after circling around and looking for it on terrible one-way streets that took forever:
the view!
their little history corner:
angel going, 'WOAH CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH HISTORY THEY HAVE!!'
i love miniatures. see the teeny Ming vases inside? =)
the garden:
so this concludes our journey of the hotel! now we start exploring like little ninjas! skulking around little alleys... more like lost our sense of direction actually. haha!
the idyllic streets of malacca during the weekday:
then we had the WORST CHICKEN RICE BALLS IN THE WORLD - DO NOT GO TO FAMOSA CHICKEN RICE BALLS. PUI!!!
they only warrant 2 photos. one to show you the shape of the rice ball and a plate of DRY AND TOUGH roasted chicken; the other to show you, hey! the rice ball and fishballs are the same size.
extremely unsatisfied by our meal, we strolled around and found a cheap spa (more on that later) which we quickly reserved our slot at 730pm and then popped over to Nancy's Restaurant next door for some dinner.
THIS. WAS. THE. BOMB.
kueh pie tee which rocked, but alvin's grandma's one is still better. aunty! i want to learn peranakan cooking from you!!!
po piah - THE BEST I'VE EVER HAD.
it looks so unassuming...
BUT HUZZAH!!! CHECK OUT THE FAT STUFFINGS INNIT!!
sek bak - pork in peranakan spices
i'm an absolute sucker for soup. especially salted vegetable... the flavor just exploded in my mouth. judging from the other three's expressions of utter ecstasy, this is probably one of the best soups we've all had.
we're all supposed to give our shiok faces:
we cannot make it.
sigh, just show how happy u are then.
halfway through dinner i asked about the spa we were having after.
v: 'hey guys, what's the balinese oil massage like?'
STUPID DAVID LET LOOSE A VERY SNEAKY 'HEH-HEH' and i knew i couldn't trust him already!!
v: eh u don't say anything la. confirm bluff me one.
his face fell. but angel was smarter. halfway through our massage she said, 'eh you know in this kinda thing they massage your boobs right.'
I GASPED AND CLUTCHED MY SARONG TIGHTLY TO MY CHEST. 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. U'RE KIDDING RIGHT!!'
'no i'm not! i thought u went for this kinda thing before!'
'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...'
but they didn't. tmd, angel fake me. -_-
here's our massage parlour. it's so crazy cheap - SGD40 for 90 minutes oil aromatherapy FULL BODY massage. oh man, my calves, my feet, my shoulders and head and back... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
if i wasn't so afraid of being touched at inappropriate places i'd have fallen asleep lor. but no. i was too jumpy to fall asleep. -_-
after the oily spa, we were wiped down and sent on our way. my legs were still a little wobbly coz the spa made me feel so nua... :D
we walked a very long way to find some er, celup thing, ate a few pieces (and raw kangkong to boot! ugh!) then headed back to the same street housing the spa and Nancy's restaurant for some drinks.
after that we just sat and suffered through an agonizing hour of the live musician botching up all our favorite songs by MUMBLING HIS WAY THROUGH EVERYTHING; he even killed jason mraz's i'm yours!! gah!!!
we only tolerated it because we were having an awesome time playing dai-di. angel's a fast learner! :)
---
the next day we wanted to go to the baba museum... BUT IT WAS CLOSED BECAUSE IT WAS LABOR DAY!! zzz.
so we wandered into this little shophouse:
again, i LOVE miniature models!!
it was a blistering hot day, and we actually hid inside a coffee shop and had super 'gao' coffee for almost an hour. when we were done, though we were still rather stuffed from the late breakfast, we decided to go back to nancy's for some lunch.
xinwei's gigantic super efficient fan:
chap chye (the one at bugis is better)
ayam buah keluak! (alvin did i spell correctly? AND I HAD AN ENTIRE BUAH KELUAK TO MYSELF! aren't u proud!!)
a very fat and thick piece of otah
and we had another round of salted veg duck soup. hehehe.
once lunch was settled, we checked out of hotel puri and moved up to the Bayview hotel. here's the room.
here's the view from the room - sunset:
see the ferris wheel?
we walked from the hotel down to jonker street where it really comes alive with stalls every weekend. but first! dinner!
the malacca river which REALLY reminded us of clarke quay:
walking down the alleys to our dinner place:
we were so fortunate to get seats here. *phew*
oyster noodles (we attacked too quickly to get a good photo; this is only a quarter of the original portion left):
the tofu was so good:
the kangkong kinda surprised angel and i for abit because 'EH WHY NO BELACHAN ONE.' but the ginger version was pretty good too, and it balanced out the meal.
heh piah ji:
the spread:
AND THE BEST DISH I HAD IN MALACCA WAS THIS SIMPLE THING CALLED... yam er, pudding? OH YAM PASTE!
i hate yam paste. really. i think it's too thick and i've never liked it. EVER!
until that day... just look at the greed in my face man.
'seriously, viv... another helping?'
'i think you're nuts.' 'WHAAAAAAAT. NICE MAH.'
NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM
and then my camera's xD card went crazy and i had no spare so this is the end of the photo-run.
after dinner (it only cost what, $18 each?), we walked through the throngs of people in jonker street, bought knick knacks and saw so many retro toys!! it was really, really fun. when we finally returned to the hotel, made some niammy jokes and played a really long round of dai-di with beer and orange juice, we retired for the day, and came back home the next.
i only spent $150 for this 3 day trip! and it was greaaaaaaaaat!
