amsterdam flowers

greetings to all!

I'm very much well and alive, currently in in eindhoven now, the southern part of netherlands which is extremely quiet. just touched down here from paris a couple of hours ago. it's 2am over here and i'm feeling exhausted, still, i cant resist dropping a few times on my bloggie!

i've seen quite a bit over the few days, and i've got so much thoughts that i've accumulated along the way that i'm suddenly at a loss at where i should start penning them down. so maybe the easiest way would be to go in chronological order. yes, that means starting from the very beginning, even if it means making YOU bored!

so so i left on thurs night, on a close to midnight SQ flight. a bigg thankkkss to andre, zx and justin who came to send me off! i know it's damn far from your places, and i arrived late so you guys only managed to see me for a short while....so i really appreciate you coming. :) the flight to amsterdam took 12.5 hours. freaking long, but surprisingly time passed pretty fast. i fell asleep when the plane took off and it was so smooth that i didnt even feel it taking off. it's a nice change from all the small puny budget plane rides i've been taking. i watched sleepless in seattle (which i fell asleep watching), eragon (which i also fell asleep watching), and babel. hey babel was a damn good show! i dont understand why some people said it was rubbish. i can see why it won the best pic award.

digression! anyway there were some lines in sleepless that stuck..
Doc marcia fieldstone: do you think there's someone out there you could love as much as your wife?
Sam: that's hard to imagine...
Doc: what are you going to do?
Sam: Well, I'm gonna get out of bed every morning... breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while I won't have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out...

Doc: Tell me what was so special about your wife?
Sam: Well, how long is your program?

---

Annie Reed: Now that was when people KNEW how to be in love. They knew it! Time, distance... nothing could separate them because they knew. It was right. It was real. It was...
Becky: A movie! That's your problem! You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie.

---

'Verbal ability is a highly overrated thing in a guy, and it's our pathetic need for it that gets us into so much trouble.'

true true..

---

fly fly and fly.......finally reaching amsterdam's schipol airport at 6.30am. I'M FINALLY IN EUROPE!!!! the feeling was indescribable. the second joy came when i met my dearie for the first time after 3 months..it didnt take long for everything to feel just like it did in the past. :)


and so...the adventure starts here!

after checking into schipol airport hotel.

quaint hotel, not the sleek and posh kind, the interior design shouts EUROPEAN!

the view from the balcony of the hotel room: green, squarish pastures EVERYWHERE in holland. one thing that holland has so excessively that sg doesnt is space. holland is spacious, and flat. there are absolutely NO high rise buildings at all. therefore, the sky is beautiful to look at as it's vast and blueee and sometimes strangely cloudless.

we headed to the keukenhof, the spring park in holland to see the flowers. it was beautiful..though dearie commented that there were much lesser flowers than a month ago. most of them were harvested already, since it was nearing the closure of the spring park. cant miss what you've never had...so i still enjoyed the trip nonetheless!

long long queues

i love the setting, people sitting next to the fountain in al fresco setting, enjoying a cup of coffee in the cool weather! totally chill! the much envious relaxed european life style..

my little clog house

it's me, me and meee!!

dazzling flowers. holland is really all about flowers. along the way to the park, we could see pretty looking houses that looked straight from the postcards, and all of them are decorated with a wide variety of flowers, all well taken care of.

funky ikea exhibits with flowers

a rest for the tired legs..

songs of the sea

was out with mr Y last night at vivo, when we decided to head over to sentosa to watch songs of the sea, the spectacular light show on the sea that i've heard so much from my friends about. it was nice, not exactly mind blowing or anything, but a welcomed change from our daily routine.

a small pleasure of life, to take a moment out of our schedule to enjoy this 25 mins worth of water show.

the story

the ever changing colours of the sea

the fireworks!

and and..it's europe tmr!

growing up

met up with an old friend of mine today. i would say we've certainly known each other for a really long time, although we have never been particularly close before. it's amazing how time has flew. the last time i met him was 2 years ago, and boy, we certainly have all grown up. from the kid in sec sch, to the punk in jc, to army boy in ns, to uni, and finally now the working world. we've evolved. he is so much more mature now, more accomplished, more focussed, and know where he is heading in life, a major change from the boy i met 2 yrs ago.

he said i've changed too. changed to become more confident. really? is tay yiming of '05 different from tay yiming of '07?

3 more days to europe!

happy mother's day

we had a quiet dinner at a seafood restaurant at boat quay, along the singapore river.

one big happy family

happy mother's day!

lots of thoughts running through my mind. when do you know whether you're making the right judgments about people? i guess at times, we just got to trust our instincts.

escapade

just came back from a yummmyy lunch with alvin at the imperial restaurant at paragon. we ordered so much and our stomachs were totally exploding after that. haha..thank you for the very nice lunch!! i'm sorry i forgot my Ps and Qs.. :p

yang chou fried rice, pork, duck, siew mai, hakau, pork's rib soup, braised shark's fin soup...what else did we have... i even had tang yuan after that, though sadly i was forced to order under pressure and hence ordered the wrong kind. haha.

anyway something really embarrassing happened. i was eating my hakau when alvin, being the retarded him, cracked up some lame joke that made me slipped on my...mouth..and the hakau dropped into my bag which was on the floor! YIKES!!! hakau in my guess bag!!!! totally gross...grrr...and he still had the nerve to tell the waitress i fed my bag with hakau!!! -_-

i've been busy the past few days since i came back from bangkok, meeting up with friends, having lunches and dinners and partying. i'm a happy person, knowing that i've all the time in the world at my disposal.......

the zoukies on wed: zx, andre and me

and it is 5 more days to europe. :) honestly, i have mixed feelings towards the trip. on one hand, i ought to be feeling on top of the world because i'll be seeing my darling whom i havent seen for ages. furthermore the trip is something i've been looking forward to for as long as i can remember. it's EUROPE!!! it's venice, rome, london, paris, amsterdam and many more. i'm dying to see the stuff that i've only so far got to see on discovery channels, travel books and postcards. and i AM indeed excited..

on the other hand, this europe trip also draws a conclusion to my life as a student. it's my graduation tour, and i know that when i return from europe one month later, i can no longer resume the happy-go-lucky life style which i'm indulging in right now. i'm closing a chapter of my life and moving on to the next.

life in singapore has been complicated for the past few months. over dinner last night, sean mentioned that i'm going through a transition period right now, whereby i'm very uncertain about a lot of things in my life. it's a phase that everyone has to go through. one day..just one day i'll 'see the light', and i'll find peace. some people find it at 28, some people find it at 30, some people find it at 40, some people never do...when would mine come?

leaving for europe on the 17th may, next thurs night, flight at 11.30pm, and i'll be back on 16th june. an escape from singapore, an escape from all complications, an escape from life...

day 2 - cultural trip, temples chasing

we walked till we dropped on the second day, visiting all the touristy places in bangkok, the palaces especially. i can imagine what guys will say "why bother going? all the temples look the same anyway!" *roll eyes*, they do NOT look the same..well..similar..but..unique in their own ways haha. here are some pics.

the grand palace

even though we went there on a tuesday morning, there were LOADS of people. where did all these tourists come from??

gold and more gold, beautiful!

we were made to wear a long wraparound skirt because my pants werent long enough to cover my ankles, which is deemed disrespectful.

wat pho, the reclining buddha




wat arun, the temple of dawn

on the boat to the temple across the river

all red and flustered from walking so much

yooo hoooo...

cam whoring a cam whore

bangkok marvels

yes yes, and here i am back from my bangkok trip! well and alive, no bombings thankfully.. :)

it's funny, a lot of people say that bangkok is just like a big shopping paradise..true enough there are a lot of shopping malls and markets around, but then again isnt hongkong and china and kl the same too? also, in more ways than one, bangkok brings back fond memories of cambodia, albeit the former being a much more advanced version of the latter. the tuktuks, the bazaars, the sing-song language, the dark skinned scrawny people..and the polluted air!!

i hate globalisation. it makes everywhere in the world look identical. mcdonalds, starbucks, mango, zara, espirit, body shop.....they're everywhere, therefore we didnt really shop much at the posh looking shopping malls. we shopped mostly at MBK, which sells stuff reminiscent of those they have at far east, but at prices slashed by half. shoes, bags, shirts....ooooo...totally my paradise.

me and jas

air asia..waiting to board

thanks to ivan, we stayed at hotel intercontinental, which was one of the nicest part of this trip too! the hotel was soooo comfyyy..

day 1

at the train station

the 4 faced Buddha near our hotel

the night of sleaze

we spent the first night pubbing, discovering the night life of bangkok..what that lies beneath the surface, the ugly facet that only comes alive when the sun has set... thank god there was ivan to bring us around, i have no idea how me and jas would have survived the ordeal of pubs hopping if not for him. we would probably be too freaked out to enter the alleys. it was great fun, an eye opener, and i think we got more than what we would bargained for.......we went to three bars in total, the first one was a girls bar, where girls wore transparent tube tops, g strings and a transparent wraparound, all of which glow under the uv light in the pub. they were like sex objects displayed a long huge platform, waiting to be 'bought'. i dont understand..are these girls really that poor to have to resort to this? it's degrading. why cant they work as salesgirls in some boutique or sth?? some of them are really pretty, very nice figures, and they have really long slender legs too!

sigh. ok moving on, next we went to a tiger bar, where fat naked girls pop bananas out of you-know-what. like erm...does that really turn guys on??? it's disgusting. another girl held a burning candle and dripped hot wax onto her thighs, her chest..and into her mouth! OUCH!!!! what on earth does that serve to do?? only sadistic people will find pleasure in such feats. oh yesh ivan almost got into a fight here. initially the person who brought us there agreed to charge each of us 100 baht, but later on the female owner of the place demanded us to pay 300 baht each, 100 for the drink and 200 for the 'show'. ivan refused to budge and was on the verge of hitting the woman already...it was quite scary..but thank god in the end we managed to just pay 100 each and left the pub immediately.

and lastly, the gay bar. similar to the girls' one, except this time round they're all boys, pretending to be gays. they are not the least bit gay! the moment we went in, they were buzzing around us like bees haha. one sat beside me and started chatting with me. ok he was rather nice.....and he offered to sleep with me, for free!!!! madness. OBVIOUSLY i didnt take up the offer, in case any of you are wondering. :p he was quite cute though, and had a decent bod. hahaha.. we were 'lucky to catch the show. it was a little disturbing, watching naked boys masturbating on the stage. one even sat down beside me and talked to me while doing that, like it's perfectly normal. 2 boys were also 'broke backing' on the stage, doing it in every single position that you can possibly imagine 2 guys could. it was rather...amazing! doesnt it hurt...? and then they went around every table, and the front guy laid on top of the patron while the other guy did him from behind. he actually came to ours and leaned on ME and did the same thing!! i was like.."OMG..help.."..after that night..i'm sorry to say that i look at every thai boy on the streets in a different light now. hah!

okok to be continued. heading out.

"sometimes the heart knows things the mind cant explain" - ugly betty

dressing up

was at yy's dress up bday party yesterday. the theme was dressing up as your childhood fantasy. it was pretty cute..some of the guys dressed up hilarious! the event was held at haicenda at dempsey road, a nice little chill out place. it was fun! i brought the whole group to chris's friend, bernice's house party after that and we partied till late. i am feeling soooo tirrred now.

the babes, yy dressed up as barbie! can you guess what i am??

the boys

leaving for bangkok tmr and will only be back on wed night. :)

poor spiderman

some of my friends are saying spiderman 3 is draggy..and the movie is trying too hard to squeeze too many new characters at one shot. i watched it yesterday with andre, and i found it still acceptable, as long as you dont think tooo much. i guess the stories would have been more complete if there was more space given to develop each character, and more time for them to establish relationship with the viewers. but somehow i guess if you can tear your mind away from the technicalities and just..enjoy it for what it is..you probably would. or maybe it's just me, cos i'm quite the humane movie viewer. i feel, rather than think. which is again probably the reason why what i remember most about the movie are the parts that made me felt sad, and not all the dizzying parts where they were fighting each other.

poor spiderman. he had so much to handle in this episode. the villains, battling his inner demons amplified by venom, his strained relationship with MJ (i cant say i blame her though, he deserved it! guys can be so dense sometimes..:p), coping with the guilt for killing the wrong person, revenge for his uncle (aunt may: Uncle Ben wouldn't want us living with revenge in our hearts, it's like a poison. It can take you over and turn us into something ugly), animosity with his best friend (i thought james franco was really charming when he partially lost his memory!), failed career with the intrusion of eddie brock..oh man..poor spiderman indeed..

OK I GOT TO RUN! *poof*

my wednesday

i went for my first official job interview yesterday afternoon, under chris's recommendation, for a marketing position. sigh unfortunately it didnt go as well as i wish it did...i wasnt 'geared up' for the interview. didnt sound confident enough, wasnt eloquent enough, didn't elaborate enough on my work experiences, and hence..i didnt manage to make much of an impression on the boss. she thought i was too young and inexperienced, especially since i'm a fresh grad, who hasnt even officially gotten my degree haha. SIGH. the prob is, i KNOW i can do it, i know i can do what the job requires me to. i just didnt know how to project to her the image that i could. soo i was very disappointed after the interview..it's not that i desperately needed/wanted the job, i just felt lousy..like..maybe what others said is right..i'm nothing more than a pretty face... ARGH. :( oh ya, but the main reason they wont hire me is probably because i can only start in june, and they want someone to fill the position right away. on well..opportunities will come again right?

feeling rather down, i called ivan and we had coffee and chit chat at UE square, where his office was. i met him for close to 2 hours, but he spent like 3/4 of the time on the phone on a teleconference. these working adults..they just CANT stop working. ivan just came back from a diving trip and he looks soo much better now with darker skin tone. haha..a tan can work wonders. i havent seen him even before i started on the pageant journey so that must have been at least 2 months ago. we caught up and found out that he is going bangkok next mon to wed..so after much discussion, me and jas decided to embark on our trip at the same time tooo!! so i'll be away at the shopping paradise from 7th to 9th may. wheeee~~~!!

thereafter i met chris again for some drinks at nouvous..this chill out place cum restaurant at national museum and i helped him carry his shitloads of alcoholic beverages and wine glasses back to his office at 1 george st. free labour manz!!! that was followed by dinner with sarah, zx and marvin. sarah and zx thought they havent seen each other in 5 yrs when in actual fact, they met last yr during my 21st bday party. *ROLL EYES* so so we had a nice dinner at manhatten fish market which all of us agree that fish and co is still better than. then we head over to ben and jerry's at cathay for ice cream. believe it or not, that was my virgin trip to cathay.


and at night..guess where we went...ZOUK AGAIN!! i'm really zouk crazy these days, went last fri, mon, and now wed again. it wasnt as crowded as i thought it would be...i thought it'll be swarmed with people now that most of the undergrads' exams are over. zouk and velvet were reasonably crowded, phuture was crazy, but it has always been like that so..no surprise. it was totally impossible to squeeze through the throngs of people, so although i would have preferred the music there, we decided to camp at zouk's members instead, where there was more breathing space. oh ya we met up with chris and don, and chris was acting a little keee-siaoo, almost like a clown entertaining us. and in total, we bought like 4 jugs of chang dao bing cha (long island tea, i just thought it sounds nice in chinese hehehe) and 2 jugs of whisky coke. it was yucky yucky, but enough to get us all a little tipsy, and lim zixuan was 3/4 gone. it was soooooo funny manz! hahah sorry i had to say this, cos this is the first time i had to take care of anyone else. usually the table is reversed. :P now i know how it must have felt like for my poor friends who have had the honour of taking care of yours truly in my drunkard state..

funny faces

me and zixuan

chris and don plus the girls

pukish zixuan..hehehe it's not that bad right??? dont kill me for posting this!

anyway all was great. i was satisfied.

and yes to sarah tan who is leaving for her 3 months' internship to india on sat. i wonder how i'll feel if i were you... scared? cos you dont know what to expect. excited? there's so much new things to learn and see! happy? cos you finally can get out of boring singapore for a while! so so..whatever it is, do take care over there, have fun and take lots of pics kk!...i'll miss clubbing with you, girl!

stubborn wrongs

is it stubborn foolishness, or am i being foolishly stubborn? black and white, i can see. why do i insist on jumping off the cliff when i know that what lies ahead is only a headlong plunge into nothingness? because i lacked the strength to stop myself before i've reached the edge, or perhaps, i've already passed the edge...

what's up with us humans. we know what is the right thing to do, but so often, we insist on doing the wrong thing, and usually these are things which are bad for us. it's like smoking, you know it's wrong, but you just cant stop doing it.

dinner last night was fabulous. i met alvin and we had dinner at this quite and classy restaurant called brasserie along club st. it was a feast man! at least to me la, cos i was sooo full after that. we had oysters, escargots (verrrryyy delicious), lobster bisque, beef, lamb, dessert, red wine, champagne....... the owner of the restaurant is alvin's friend, eugene, so we hang around a little after dinner to chat and drink. next stop was muse, where i was sooo happy i bumped into yy there!! it's fate la hahah.i love clubbing with the girl. after muse was zouk, again.

just like to mention an incident that happened outside zouk when i was leaving. i accidentally hit my foot against a pillar and it hurt like mad, so much so that instantly tears formed in my eyes and i was squatting at a corner of the pillar weeping. this guy came along first asking me whether i was ok or needed help, i just said i was fine and he went away. and then next came along a couple who asked me the same thing. and then lastly came a bunch of malay boys. no they werent some group of drunkards or gangsters. they were genuinely very nice people who were very concerned about my plight, so concerned that it really caught me by surprise. they looked so worried for me and even offered to send me home. so in the end i shared cab with one of them who was heading to cck. anyway, i'll probably never see them again, or even if i do, i dont think i can recognise them. so i'm writing about this because, it made me realise.. there're indeed nice people in this world!!! strangers who are kind to strangers! :) or maybe it was just because i must have looked pathetic squatting by the pillar in a dress, with tears running down my cheeks. haha.

went shopping with zixuan today. whoa! i bought soooo many things!! i came home with bagloads of dresses, tops, belt, bangles, make up, earrings... the shopaholic-ism in me was unleased. shopping is not just about possessing something that you think is nice; shopping gives you a sort of invincibility that you're able to have whatever you want to. the joy is in the act of shopping, and not actually having. which why...i did not really give much thought to my purchases, or my financial status...t's like a reward for myself after all these 'hard times'.

someone said she feels bad for me. thanks..i appreciate it! really. :)

i suddenly feel that it's very tiring being me sometimes.