how iPhone changed my life

how iPhone changed my life

So I haven't been blogging much, again. But this time, unlike previous times, I don't quite feel the need to update. That's really quite unusual for a narcissistic social media addict like me! Haha.

Here's what happened - I got an iPhone. I don't wanna sound like an Apple whore, but I gotta confess I was rather excited when I got the phone. Maybe delirious is the right word. G can testify.

That's me at the unboxing ceremony of my iPhone.

I don't know how it works for other iPhone users/lovers, but what happened for me was that I was suddenly armed with a smart phone with a great camera and access to all the social media world! And the best part is, this smart phone doesn't make ME feel stupid! I actually know how to use all the functions I'd like to use. WOW.

Oh and then there's the whole galaxy of apps that allows me to constantly update the world on the perfect or epic moments in my life INSTANTANEOUSLY. You don't even need a story, a theme or any sort of coherence. You just need one line, one photo. And the best part is that it's INTERACTIVE. Your friends can comment and reply with such ease and it easily turns into a whole conversation! Yes, I think I've been sucked into the black hole of micro-blogging.

So this is how a typical one-liner update would look like:

Lovely weekend it's been! U-Town tour with G, random catch-up's with
friends thousands of miles away, time spent at home. 

Being connected to the world 24/7 also changed the way I spend time online. My first days of blogging coincided with the first days of Facebook, I think. Back then it meant that blogs were still the best ways to share photos, stories and other random facts about life. It also meant having to sit down at my now ancient computer every night, wait for the photos to load one by one while I rant away on the keyboard.

When I got my MacBook in uni, I was amazed at how connected I was because I was always using my Mac in school. So, can you imagine what the iPhone did to me?? I don't even feel the need to turn on my Mac every night!

And even as I type this, I'm tapping with two thumbs and not ten fingers, on the Blogger app while the train takes me to school. So who knows, maybe blogging in the train might just be my new favorite pastime, quite literally a way to pass my time!

Just watch this space. (:

p/s: Okay so I realized that I can't really figure out how to upload and arrange photos on this app. Hahaha back to the MacBook it is!

on my turf

on my turf

The people living in the west of Singapore are always complaining about the lack of good food. We don't have Katong Laksa, Changi Village, Bedok Bak Chor Mee, Geylang street food and Pulau Ubin Monkey Brains. We are always venturing to the far ends of Singapore, scouring the island for food, food and more food. Sometimes all we want is a nice little restaurant, tucked away from the crowd, and have a lazy weekend brunch or a romantic dinner. But the west side is a mass of HDBs with no such things! Unless you count my favourite Jurong Point. Hahaha.

Since the girls came back, we've been hanging out in our hood alot. We've discovered some real kickass hideout's, on par with Dempsey and Geylang. From all-day brunches to full-course dinners, the west side has 'em all! The touch girls will love this list because most of the restaurants are actually near Turf City - therefore my cheesy title. Hahaha. Please excuse me. And I was really kidding about the monkey brains.

Picotin - Turf Club Road.

Kais had her 21st birthday dinner here, and all of us loved the ambience. The bird cage lampshades really got me. The food was pretty good, with impeccable service. Perfect for avoiding town crowds during the holidays!

Hatched - Evans Lodge.

This cute little place serves ALL DAY BREAKFAST, EVERYDAY. I love it to death. My one pleasure living in Canada was being able to eat homemade (okay, self-made) breakfast at any hour of the day. I also fell in love with eggs, cooked various styles. You can see why Hatched is my kind of place. And the price is a real steal because there's no GST and service charge! One last thing - they have the best mash ever. It's the white lump of thing in the food photo, second from the left. Must. Eat.

Durian Place - near 6th Avenue, along the main Bt. Timah Road.

You will not miss this place when you drive along Bt. Timah Road. It's near the stretch with Ritz Apple Strudel and the Salvatore Italian restaurant. They have Mao Shan Wang and D24 and all kinds of durians and other fruits that you can imagine. And they even have hand shields for you to eat the durian with! Hahaha. The Mao Shan Wang was the price of dinner for 3 at Hatched, but totally worth the money.

Rider's Cafe - Saddler's Club, Eng Neo Avenue.

All the jokes about having to bring your passport when you travel to the West? They must be talking about all the rustic countryside charm. We felt like we were taking a mini road trip driving into Fairway Road, where Rider's Cafe is! Lovely scenery, huge portions of food. I will get up early enough one day to try their famous breakfast menu. Look out for horses sauntering right below the balcony, and the wafts of their manure that might come through in the breezes!

Whoever said there are no nice dining options in the west again?

skies from my window

skies from my window

Recently, the nation seems to have picked up kite-flying. The sky outside my window is often decorated with specks of colours and flickering lights. I love it. I often spend long moments just staring at them, sometimes snapping photos with my camera on the window ledge, probably looking like a peeping tom to my neighbours. :D

Hand-held butterflies.

Urban fireflies.

Post-script: The pictures do not do the scene justice at all! ):

pompeii: italy/singapore

pompeii: italy/singapore

Entrance to the exhibit. That's a dog contorted in its final moments of death.

Glenn and I had a very intellectual date the other day - we went to the museum, again! This time, we didn't just decide to go because we've never been before; we went to see a specific exhibit - Pompeii, Life in a Roman Town 79CE. I whipped out my phone and dialed Glenn's number the moment I read about it in the papers. How could we travel a gazillion miles to Pompeii (and miss its museum) AND miss this exhibit now that the mummies travel the gazillion miles for us?? We have to go!

The prettiest hostel we stayed at, which is right beside a super scary old church with a sealed entrance. Hostelworld described the landmark as a "little red church". Imagine my shock.

We had to take a million trains and subways and more regional trains to get there. Pompeii is near the Italian city of Naples btw. And have I mentioned we missed our last train back and had to take a cranky old bus which took 2 hours on cobbled streets and then WALK back to the hostel at 1am? It was mad scary cos Naples isn't exactly the safest city in the world and the fact that the police didn't speak English didn't help. In fact, I was so scared at one point I almost screamed and wanted to pick up an empty beer bottle along the roadside for fear of the drunkard across the street rushing over to rob us or something! This is why you stick with the boy even though at some points you feel like jumping off the moving train. And I apologise for the exceptionally long caption. Hahaha. One gets carried away with travel tales.

Authentic Italian food (for tourists) to start our day (at Pompeii, if you're confused by now Haha).

So after much planning, we re-visited Pompeii some 6 months after our actual experience of the Roman city which was completely buried by the first Plinian volcanic eruption (or the first that was so named) within 24 hours. The pyroclastic flow happened so fast that the people were buried in the act of running, and forever fossilized in that manner. Okay, there were not reaaally fossilized but they left impressions in the hot lava which a clever archeologist guessed correctly and then they poured resin into it and created the statues we see today. Or something to that effect.

I think I should add an disclaimer here: historical/archeological facts are NOT accurate. This is not Wiki, and even Wiki isn't 100% foolproof as all you academics should know by now! I'm sure you guys don't read my blog for geographic/historical information ANYWAY. Right?? Hahaha. I sincerely hope you don't.

Casts of the bodies and lots of artefacts excavated. Bottom one is an exhibit here.

So anyway, the point is that the town was buried for a good 2000 years and disappeared from the map and from history until someone found it about 200 years ago! The archeologists then dug up the 6 meters of volcanic ash and whatnots, and voila! Pompeii reappears on the world map! They found that much of the architecture was intact, or as intact as it can be following a volcanic eruption, so now we can walk through a town that is 2000 years old.

Main square of Pompeii town upon entering.

This is the volcano that erupted and took the town off the map.

It is pretty amazing because the streets are almost gridded, which is the system used in Manhattan today! There are eateries (the Pompeiians were very modern and loved to eat out), bath houses, stadiums, holiday chalets and even brothels! The roads were pretty well-paved, and if you look closely, you can even see two strips of dents created by the wheels of the carts (I assume).

Love these two shots and how the grey skies make for great contrast against the ancient stones.

Here's something you don't see at the exhibition - 2000yo brothels! The murals serve as some kind of karma sutra, inspiration for those who need. Hahaha.

Stadiums where gladiator fights took place. They estimated the size of the population in Pompeii by measuring the circumference and then dividing it by the average width of a person. Creative!

The exhibit in at the National Museum of Singapore did pretty well in recreating the city for us. The long murals bearing images of the city walls, the layout of a typical house, the strategically placed exhibits and the short 3D film depicting the eruption were really quite well done. Imagine the details that the curator has to pay attention to! Prior to this guided tour, I always thought curators had shit boring jobs, like wiping down the glass tops of exhibits and stuff. New found respect!

Imported mural and the ones at the actual site.

They imported this whole fountain so that we can see the details of the mosaic. Check out the shells embedded in there!

All other things that I enjoyed at the museum - the colonial architecture, the 3D film and the readily available clean toilets!! And of course, my outfit, which actually emits some form of fashion sense that completely disappeared in Europe with the constraints of a suitcase.

Anyway, the exhibit will go on for another 2 weeks, and guess what? It's OPEN HOUSE! Which means its freeeeee! I finished the last leg of my Europe tour at the exhibition, maybe you could start yours there!

Until the next!

new chill spot

new chill spot

This is new my chill spot on Sundays, where I go to between tuition and an afternoon at Glenn's place. Aren't you proud of me? It's not Starbucks! And it's different in a good way. I like spending an hour or so here by myself, waiting for the boy, watching Sunday afternoons unfold and doing some work quietly. I really enjoy the retro decor and the free book collection!

my miracle water

my miracle water

As much as I've been itching to try THE miracle water, contemplation continues because of its pricetag and mixed reviews. So anyway, I want to share MY miracle water - Avene Thermal Water! It's the best thing ever, and it's a mere 10bucks.

I use it to replenish my skin's moisture during long days in the aircon room. You might ask why not change to a richer moisturizer, but my skin is CRAZY on oil production so anything heavier than what I'm using now might make me a target for the USA a new oil field. Hahaha. So I'm sticking to this spray, and I'm so used to it that a couple of hours into my day and I find myself reaching for my facial spray. It also perks you up a little because it's so cooling!

Even if you don't have the oil field/desert dilemma like me, the miracle water is great for setting makeup as well, so you don't look all powdery and flaky when you first step out of the house. On other days, I use it to freshen up after I wipe off the sunblock with facial wipes at the end of trainings. Even when you're not doing rigorous exercise, you can use it to cool off from our insane weather. There're a million other uses for it - like soothing skin irritation after waxing or shaving, calming sunburnt skin and whatever else you like to do with it! Because it's just water.

But it's awesome water. It's miracle water. So miraculous that I decided to create a new label (a in, new label in my blog and not some new cosmetic label or anything, wish as I might, haha) for it, and hopefully other awesome stuffs that I wanna share. :D (Well fine, this post probably has something to do with my boredom level with my essay at the moment. Hahaha.)

DIY: liese hair colour

DIY: liese hair colour

I got bored of my hair, and decided to give it some colour! But having depleted all my savings running all over the world, I bought a bottle of off-the-shelf hair dye to try. After hearing several friends pay compliments to the new Liese Bubble hair dye, I gave it a try!

Now, I was pretty worried about what the stuff would do to the quality of my hair at first. The last time I dyed my hair the DIY way was when I got caught for my highlights as a wayward JC girl. Oh my poor hair. It just withered into black hay. Dry and fizzy. No, dry and fizzy plus waves.

But none of that this time round! My hair felt normal, and the colour turned out very natural! I was worried that the roots were lighter than the ends at first, but then I realized it was cos of the light. Hahaha.

Would I try it again? Well, it's 120bucks vs. 20bucks. So yes, I would!

something new

something new

I'm not abandoning this, but the tumblr bug has really gotten to me, so here's something new. (:

from my window

from my window

4.20pm: The pouring rain.

6.45pm: Dusk.

photo wall

photo wall



I've been wanting to show off my photo wall for the longest time. I love the photos with a white border on that narrow strip of wall beside the window. A random selection of the best memories. And here it is, bathed in the best afternoon light. If there's anything I'm gonna miss about my hall room when I move out, it's this.