Searching for the sunset.

Post-shoot town trawling with C on a Friday night. What turned out to be complimentary desserts after I found a stone in my sticky date pudding, but yummy nonetheless, and extremely comforting after a long, trying week.

 Where rainbows end

Searching for the sunset

Level 3 spicy wings with the poly quartet - yummy but nowhere near the virgin level 6 I had with the CS babes.

Girlfriends.

Girlfriends.

I can't help but notice that every booze session with the gossip queens entails them buying me drink after drink and a slew of incriminating pictures on Facebook the day after. This evening's session had me in splits, quite literally with K and M each holding a leg and giving my glutes one heck of a stretch on Morton's plush couch.

As much as the babes are bullies who like me wasted and silly for their entertainment, they get as many laughs out of me as I do from them, and there really is nothing like an evening of the gang's trademark crude humor to put an end to my self-imposed antisocial spell. And as much as their sole motivation in life seems to be getting me wasted and embarrassed, they are as protective as protective gets, as demonstrated by how quickly they summoned P up from the loo to intercept a tricky conversation.

Ma sistas got ma back. And it seems my legs too. Pics to follow.

Eccentric cosmic laws.

Eccentric cosmic laws.


March 2006

It's been over three years since our Bangkok grad trip and over six since we first met as strangers in a room full of hospitality management freshmen, but the boisterous laughter that the Fantastic Four produces remains unchanged through the years.

Losing touch upon graduation isn't uncommon, so it leaves me all warm and fuzzy inside seeing these familiar faces. Ties and bonds strengthen amongst those you least expect, while the one you thought would stick around turns out to be the master of vanishing acts. This week of several poly meet-ups has indeed served as a reminder of the eccentric cosmic laws governing our world.

Ain't that rad? :)

Sleepier than the city.

Sleepier than the city.

I thought I've seen the city often enough in movies and drama serials and I thought my slipshod Cantonese would be sufficient to get me by, but I still feel a tad overwhelmed in Hong Kong. I admit I'm kinda ill-equipped when it comes to urban holidays that do not involve lazing in the sun with the sand between my toes, but there is so much to see and so much life bustling about the aged streets that I still don't quite know to begin.

It's just as well Jins and Pinkie are here to take P and I around. We had a taste of local life early this morning when we yum cha-ed with Jins at a local joint, and later in the afternoon while squeezing with the crowds at Argyle Centre (Hong Kong's equivalent of Far East Plaza). We're just back from what Jin and P claim to be the best beef brisket, and I'm quite ready for bed after a night of ab-aching laughter over Yung Kee's famed roast goose, magaritas and Kamikaze shots with Pinkie in the equation.

My greatest moment of serendipity has to be when Jess, a hospitality senior in TP, walked out of the lift as we were entering to check into our hotel yesterday. The world is indeed a small one, and the hospitality circle is indeed pretty darn entwined! Off to the shower!

Batam bitching.

Batam bitching.

Since our gossips constantly stretched beyond our catch-up sessions, we thought we'd take it out of Singapore for a weekend. There really isn't much to say about the destination really, apart from expensive cab fares, cheap food and the most painful (and embarrassing) massage I've had to date. The highlight was of course girly company, dirty secrets and a lot of late-night laughter. Is it any wonder I returned more tired than before I left? ;)




Traveling with Polly Pocket (see how her ponytail curls?) and Rapunzel (growing out her hair).



The sudden rain foiled our plans for vegging out by the beach, so we headed to town for a cheap and good lunch that satisfied my post-Bali gado gado craving. How do the Indonesians do it? I've never had such tasty ones here.







Dinner at a near enough kelong, and sharing shocking secrets over drinks at the hotel bar. I shook the babes out of bed in time for breakfast the next morning, but I didn't get any post-brekkie sunning in. I was kidnapped from my deckchair just when I'd settled down for some poolside monopoly in the shade. Gotta hate them to love them.

Butterfly babies.

Butterfly babies.

I've got a last minute interview scheduled for tomorrow morning and those baby butterflies in my belly are starting to flutter their tiny wings. I'm not star-struck, but there's something about shrewd women that leaves me intimated yet slightly in awe. I have no choice but to strut in there and kick ass. Now keep your fingers crossed for me will you? ;)

Meanwhile, this is the only sane portrait from last night's insanity.



From fake birthdays just so we could have our cake and eat it to a falling gecko on my head, lewd jokes fueled by overactive imaginations to downing too much way too quickly in a whirlwind drinking game... I'm curious to know just what adventures we'll get into when we head off to a tiny Indonesian island two weeks from now. I'm psyched!

The days of our youth.

The days of our youth.

I was very fortunate to revisit the three happiest years of my teenage life: first at the alumni session back at TP, then at the HTMIG reunion dinner.

I maintain that the TP air smells different. A whiff brings with it a flood of memories: the late-night IG meetings, the Business School corridor, chilling out between classes at Jupiter Cafe... I can't believe it's been almost three years since we graduated!





Prior to attending a gathering, we often wonder how much people have changed.



It is a beautiful surprise to realize that while we have all grown, we are still fundamentally very much the same.

Deadlines and boys in pinafores.

Deadlines and boys in pinafores.

Yesterday marked the last of my internship interviews, but as part of the suitability test, I had to churn out a short restaurant review and submit it at 9 a.m. today. I haven't been checking out new nosh places since returning from my travels, preferring to stick to old favourites like Cedele and good old prata joints. Those aren’t places the magazine would want to feature, so I was in a bit of a fix trying to find one I could head to for dinner without busting my budget.

Thankfully Jem was a good sport about altering our Ice Cold Beer plans, so we headed down to Kinara at Holland Village where I’d already visited for Daph’s birthday lunch on Monday. I think I churned out a pretty passable piece on time, so I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed until the editor reverts.

We didn’t compromise our beers though, and we sat and talked the night away at this Spanish tapas bar right across Wala-Wala. Bumped into an ex-colleague from Sentosa, which was a nice surprise, as was Ceci's impromptu decision to join us.

It was Halloween, so we had the random witch and devil strolling past our alfresco table, along with way too many boys dressed in pinafores. Was there a cross-dress theme party somewhere I don’t know of?

All the drinking and word crunching left me pooped, and I only managed to crawl out of bed at noon today. Took a lot of willpower to force myself to get on my yoga mat. My hamstrings have been extra tight since I started running, and I think Sunday’s 10km run pretty much knotted the rest of my leg muscles. All the yoga poses have been a pain, but my ego just wouldn’t let me accept the fact that I am not as flexible as I used to be under Sunil’s tutelage.

I haven’t seen any vast improvements since my first session on Tuesday morning, but I’m hopeful that the grueling mat work would pay off. All the stretching, though a torture, effectively unknots the muscles in my shoulders and back, so no complaints. No thanks to me being a slave to my Macbook.

Off to the showers, and out for an afternoon cuppa with Shaun. Been a long while since we caught up!

Two plus two makes four.

Two plus two makes four.

I'm feeling mighty good, for I clocked in a 35-minute run this morning. So the timing isn't that great for 5km, but it's the longest run I've done since the crappy allergy and stupid fall. Evan checked in on me today upon his return from Malaysia - what a dedicated volunteer coach! I'd love to finally meet up and buy him coffee one day, hopefully soon.






Thanks to Mathew Yap's MICA-style teaching, Thursdays are no longer a drab and instead quite a stress-free end to the school week. And I like nothing better to herald in the three-day weekend than a good night out after school on Thursdays. This week, it was with Fagan, whose heart-to-heart chats I've dearly missed.

We haven't had a proper long catch-up since I left for India, so we had ALOT to talk about. Over a Japanese curry dinner at Curry Favor Cafe, a shared souffle and chocolate hug mugs at Max Brenner's over at the Esplanade, and when they closed for the night we took our conversations to the riverfront. About our new love interests, our families, and investments (his, not mine).

After duly updating each other in detail on all that's new in our lives, our conversations revolved back around to life, love and its many unanswerable questions. One thing this confidante of mine always says is inspiring - "If life were so certain, what's the point in waking up everyday?"

Boyish Fagan has indeed grown up. It's been almost six years since we first met each other. Him with his floppy hair, and me with my ex-penchant for way-too-low-slung jeans (Thank goodness). And there are our other two partners-in-crime, both of whom are in Australia right now. Those BizPark lunches and Tampines Mall food court dinners seem like such distant memories! Can't escape the fact that we're done with growing up and are now slowly growing older.

It ain't that scary really, once you put it into perspective.

Am up for a spot of muffin baking tomorrow morning for the evening's movie screening/picnic at Fort Canning with Ceci and Jem. Crossing my fingers and toes for clear skies!