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I need to…

be more organised. Why can’t I be more like Bree from “Desperate Housewives” and less like Liz from “30 Rock”? I think I watch too much tv online?

I bought…

a van! Woohoo! I’m so super happy. Can’t wait to drive it everywhere! It’s an ‘05 Citroen Berlingo. Black and hardly used and in really good condition. It came in only just the day I went down to select my van, so I’m really blessed. I really need one for work since I’ve been spending so much on taxis and it’s taking me way too long to get to client’s houses if I take public transport. Which is saying a lot, because this is Singapore, and one should never have to spend more than an hour getting anywhere! The weather nowadays is not helping either. In fact, I think the weather is hating me big time.

I went down with a friend’s mechanic to choose it and I have to say, if you want to buy a second hand van, a mechanic friend is a MUST. He saw things that none of us saw and he can tell which vans have had accidents before. He also helped me test drive and choose the one that drove better. He is really just an old middle-aged Chinese ah-beng, but he looked so suave and cool when he was inspecting the vans.

Anyways, Labby would be jumping for joy if she could understand what I’m saying because that means more outings for her! Poor baby is so deprived. I’m gonna bring her out everyday if I can!

I love this shot

This hole was fun, of course I was really sucky. But the scenery is amazing and our hotel, Le Meridien, is in the background. The waves are seriously strong here and we saw this one angmoh surfing alone… scary man!

Too relaxed

If there even is such a thing to be too relaxed. My two recent back-to-back holidays have left me lazy and sluggish. I’m still in holiday mood and that is not good. The year is ending and I need it to end on a high note. I’m slowly starting to resume wedding planning and house hunting again. Wish me luck!

The amount of fun I had in…

Seoul was amazing. We drank every meal and ate with every drink. I swear they don’t drink water there, people only drink either soju, beer or coffee. Who drinks water when there is such a cheap and convenient array of indulgent beverages? I felt like such a nerd when I requested for ice water to chill my tongue. We drank non-stop. Either coffee or alcohol was available every five steps. There isn’t much they like to do except go to coffee shops or bars, and there is no lack of either no matter where we went. Food was also cheap and good, and ten times better than what we get here in Singapore. And the variety was so extensive, whoever didn’t enjoy Korean food when they went to Korea definitely went with a tour group.

I not only drank enough coffee and alcohol for the rest of 2009, I also shopped like there’s no 2010. Seoul is where shopaholics go to die. The service you get in stores is just way ahead of what we have here in Singapore. I almost thought they were shopping urban legends but then I realized that it was all true in Seoul. The women’s shoe department was served by an entire floor of men! How smart of them to make you feel like Cinderella when you try on every pair of heels and sandals. Not only that, there is a full array of services you can select from, like changing the height of your heels if you’re not happy with the original height, dyeing the shoe to your favorite color is also a common procedure, and even free delivery to your house if they don’t have your size in stock! I felt truly valued there as a female shoe shopper. Don’t even get me started on the range of brands, local and foreign, that the malls carry – there’s a reason most malls there are ten floors high.

Common shops on the streets open till at least midnight, and touristy areas like Dongdaemun is open till 5am. I didn’t sleep before 3am almost all the nights I was there. It was unbecoming to say you’re tired at 1am. Even my Korean friend’s mom was out later than me and woke up earlier. I think Koreans don’t sleep much. They are awfully hardworking, be it play or work. There’s just so much open at night and so much to do! I really felt that Singapore loses out in that aspect in every way. Come on, closing our malls at 9.30pm is such a disgrace. We have no mountains or rivers and no Lord of the Rings franchise tours or Wimbledon to lure tourists in, the least we can do is promise them overnight shopping! We are quite the lazy bums aren’t we?

Once you get used to being bumped and shoved around unapologetically by Koreans and seeing made up school girls everywhere plus the awful language barrier, you’re bound to have a nice time. Just make sure you have a Korean friend who can be your translator to bring you around. There’s nothing better than to go to all the local famous eateries and know exactly what to order and be able to bargain properly with shopkeepers and not feel like a sucker. Forget the cultural stuff and the history and the visits to all the different palaces and folk village because that is not what Koreans do anymore, it’s not that fun and honestly not all that important at all.

Oh and yes I got exfoliated by old aunties dressed in only panties at the local sauna bathroom, and when they scrape off all that fossilized skin, the soft and smooth skin underneath makes it totally worth it.

2010…

is going to be a great year. I can feel it.

10. Number of years we would have been together.
9. Months of planning all for one day.
8. Plus twenty will be my age.
7. Number of friends and relatives who are having their wedding too.
6. The month we head off to a spectacular honeymoon.
5. Number of new skills I would have picked up by then.
4. The month I hope we would have our own home.
3. The years since I started my full time vocation.
2. Number of dogs I hope to have.
1. A very important date in May!

Spontaneous trip of the year

Going to Seoul, Korea in two weeks. Kinda excited but I really didn’t plan anything for this trip. It was a sudden decision when my sis just told me she’s gonna stopover in Seoul on the way home end of the month, and so I thought since I’ve always wanted to go, why not now? All I have is the air ticket. I don’t even know what will happen once I reach. The last time I did a spontaneous travel was to Japan in 2007, so that was 2 years ago when suddenly my colleagues decided to go to the Tokyo Game Show and I thought heck, why not?

Spontaneous short getaways are so common and usually done in a party so that’s nothing new. But flying off to further places alone where I don’t really speak the language is hard. I don’t do this very often because it scares the shit out of me. I like scaring myself sometimes though. In order to do so, you have to shut down your logic department in your brain and just allow your body to go through with the motions until you reach the point of no return; which for me was hitting ’submit’ on my credit card details on the SQ website. Even though I know I’m going to have a great time and all, it’s scary to think that I’m gonna go and not know what to do in a foreign place. I am by nature a planner. I plan things and I plan damn well. I love planning holidays and planning what to do, and staying up till wee hours in the morning to research on the best eateries to visit in town or the best deal for hotels. I plan my schedules and I don’t fuck up by forgetting and I know exactly how everything fits and what I’m going to do next Monday from the minute I wake up to the minute I fall asleep. I know which groups of friends I’m going to meet, when and where and how often I meet who in a month so that no one gets neglected. I have an entire priority system in my head.

But once in a while, when the opportunity suddenly arises, I have the urge to just buy a ticket and fly off on an unplanned trip and just for once, fuck the planning and just go with the flow. I think that’s how my life can be confusing and contradictory. I’m never going to be two dimensional or predictable. I think there’s a little of that in all of us, and we should indulge that once in a while. After all, what’s the worst that can happen?

: )

Old people are weird

They wear their pants very high with a tight belt as if their pants will fall off?

They are fussy about food and you would think that the less time you have on earth the more you want to try new things?

They all like to watch tv and I thought tv will cause dementia?

They don’t make a lot of sense, but didn’t they get more training?

They are not good with technology, but aren’t they the generation who invented computers?

They all think they are down-to-earth, even with that much money in the bank?

They find young people silly or stupid or both, then why is it a four-year-old can learn to better operate tivo in a day?

They feel wise as if they stop committing mistakes past a certain age?

They bug us about wastage when they are the ones not being Eco-friendly because it’s expensive?

And the list goes on…

Honestly, I think sometimes old people are delusional. This stemmed from reading what a wedding planner posted about having very down-to-earth clients and how the Y generation is lacking patience and humility. I really think someone should remind her that her services easily cost five figures and she is saying her clients are down-to-earth? Maybe in the alien vs predator sense they are. But in the average human sense, I don’t see how people who splurge on weddings can be considered so. I’ve seen many many examples of lovely weddings on budget accounts done and I would say those people are the down-to-earth ones and truly creative. I don’t understand how people can think they are so enlightened and yet sound so blind at the same time. If you are that patient and humble then why are you complaining about young people instead of slowly teaching them? Every generation thinks they are better really, and the truth is every generation is different. There is no way we can have exactly the same kind of values and life skills so you should just agree to disagree. Really, I think we all need real friends and family to remind us once in a while to step out of the spaceship and smell the shit sometimes. Break those rose-tinted glasses and wake up to reality please.

Mostly…

I think I can do everything myself and do it better. Overconfident? Let’s just say I am anal and a control freak. But a zen-ish one since I have the appearance of being cool to the point of unreal. Yes, I am terribly conflicted or perhaps just terribly enlightened.