25

i just celebrated my 25th birthday yesterday, the 19th of april. it was also freebird's 1-year old birthday. whoopee!

i started freebird a year ago when i turned 24, just to blog about my boring life which is really quite drama-filled sometimes. it was an avenue for me to put my thoughts into words, to share what i had to offer, and to update my friends and family from back home about myself.

i think i have quite a different take on life, as compared to other people. i get emotional about things, but i try not to take it too seriously. i bitch about stuff, but then by making a joke out of it, it lightens up the entire situation and sometimes, i manage to make myself laugh. heh heh. so i think freebird has actually been pretty good to me.

there are a lot of things i want to achieve with this blog, but unfortunately i haven't been able to blog as much as i would like to, ever since i came to new york. i guess life takes its own course and sometimes you just can't pre-determine stuff. but i'm finally getting better with managing my time, and yeah, i definitely have bigger plans in the future! (although i have to come up with the money for it. hmmmmm...)

so anyhow, it has been such a busy busy week. so much happened and there was no way i could really plan a real party, but i did want to have some dinner with friends. i was dead tired on friday the 18th. after all, i hardly got any sleep that entire week. i came back home and really just crashed into bed at about 5pm, and slept all the way till about 11pm or so. i woke up to shower and watch some tv, but crawled back into my glorious bed.

i mean seriously, when you're that tired, who cares if it's your birthday. all i could think of was my mattress, pillow and snuggalicious comforter.

however some friends decided that birthdays are not meant for sleeping, and called me on my phone till i picked up (even though i tried to put it on silent and ignore them for a while. hahaha!). i went over to their house for a few drinks at about 4am in the morning, before coming back home to sleep even more!

just in case you're thinking, "oh my god that pig slept through her whole birthday!", well, yeah and i loved it. sleep was the best present!

well, actually i crash into bed for hours every friday.

but anyway, some of my classmates and my roommate came to have a cheap dinner with me. i had invited some of them out for greasy fried japanese food and when i wanted to pay for dinner (i mean, there were just 6 of us and the bill was waaaay cheaper than i thought it would be!), they were like, "honey you're so asian! this is america, you don't pay on your birthday."

ahahahahahha it was so darn funny.

the cheap joint that we went to had a cotton-candy machine outside, and when we paid up, they gave us little cups with sugar in it to make our own. it was hilarious. two of my friends were making it for the 6 of us, but my guy friend turned out to be such a super pro at it, they all turned out perfectly shaped! we decided it was a career opportunity he should think about.

right after cotton-candy, i found out that they were so sweet! they had actually bought a little cake for me, so we decided it was best if they just came over to my apartment. we also pretended to be cool adults and drank some champagne. (hey! i AM 25 ok!) and from like 10 pm to 3 am when they left, we spent the hours bitching about parsons and other random stuff.

ooh it was so fun. it's amazing how much there was to bitch about. hee hee!

we've been so busy at school, this was the first time this semester we ever really hung out (besides all those group projects and stuff). this section has been really fun and i'm a little sad that we're all splitting up into different classes soon, but hopefully we get to hang out again during summer, when school isn't making us into zombies with bad tempers.

so! it wasn't a big birthday bash, but i don't like those, so i'm happy. it's nice just to get together with friends and sit down and talk. some of my other friends who were supposed to come, couldn't make it in the end. i got messages later saying they were so so so so so so sorry but they slept through the day. hahahahah i don't blame them; i can totally understand.

i wanted to sleep through my own birthday too!

so happy 25th to me, and happy anniversary to my little baby blog. i've made some friends through freebird, who i hope i manage to keep, and i want to thank those of you who constantly check back to see if i've made new posts!! i'm sorry if i've disappointed you on more than one occasion, but i promise i'll be posting more!

i want to leave you with this photo, which proves that even trash can be inspiring.

"become your dream, y'all!" (in a trashy, southern, britney spears sorta accent!)

thank you for loving me

it was the week of thanksgiving here in the states. i have been having a few days off from school, and have spent them sleeping!!! i went out a couple of times (hallelujah for some free time finally!!), and basically spent my entire week sleeping my ass off!!!

love it.

a childhood friend of mine, gerry, came down from new haven twice for day trips. we were great friends when we were in primary (elementary) school, but we lost touch after graduating and going our separate days. i guess when you're 12, you don't know the importance of keeping in touch.

so we haven't seen each other in like 12 years!!! crazy huh? we got in touch with each other again through the wonders of the internet, but she was in london and i was in tokyo. we finally had the chance to meet up when she moved to new haven, and i, to new york! it was crazy. she looked exactly the same! ahahahaha!! we went shopping and to have some japanese food. i think i've changed quite a bit since i was 12. i was such a tomboy. i think i still am, in many ways, but yeah i really looked like a little boy back then.

thanksgiving day rolled along and i wanted to go see the macy's thanksgiving day parade. it starts around 75th street and central park west, goes around columbus circle, then down broadway, towards the macy's departmental store. i thought i wanted to go have a look since i loved parades, and plus, it was really near my house.

but when i woke up, looked out of the balcony, and saw the crowd, i kinda changed my mind. toooo many people. but i stayed on the freezing balcony for a while to watch some of the ginormous balloons go by.

unfortunately they moved so slowly... like s o... s l o w l y ...

i watched ronald mcdonald go past. which i guess we all have to give thanks for, because c'mon, we all owe a lot to mr mcdonald's.

then i spotted snoopy behind ronald and wanted pictures... and somehow i timed it so nicely that i went to lie down for 20 minutes and when i went out to the balcony again, my timing was perfect!

(so my conclusion is, it was kinda cool to watch part of the parade while in my robe and pajamas, but it was freezing and i was glad to be home!!!)


on a more serious note, i have been watching fresh prince of bel-air reruns that have been airing on tv. i used to love fresh prince and watched just about every episode when i was a kid. watching it again, i still laugh at the same jokes and it still cracks me up, but there was one episode that i watched yesterday that i had never seen before.

it was the episode when will's father on the show, lou smith, appears for the first time, 14 years after abandoning him and his mom. lou explains to will that he left because he felt trapped. they go out and have a good time, and lou promises to take will on his truck with him.

for once, will thinks he'll get to spend the summer with his dad. will's uncle phillip gets really angry and tells will that he can't go with lou, because he doesn't trust that lou really does care for will. they get into a huge argument when phillip says "no", but will said he doesn't care because "you're not my father!!!"

phillip gets really hurt and upset because he's always treated will as his own son, but he apologises and tells will he loves him, and wishes him all the best.

will packs his whole bag and gets really excited, and even buys his dad a present. vivian and phil wait for lou to turn up, and when he shows up late, he says he just got a huge new job, and won't have any more space on his truck for will. vivian tells lou, "if you walk out of will's life now, don't you ever come back."

lou is a coward and wants vivian and phillip to tell will that he's leaving, but when phillip says he won't do his dirty work, lou decides to leave without saying anything. but will walks in at that moment, and lou tells him, "you know how it is", and promises to call.

will pretends he's ok, but phillip tells him "it's alright to be angry". will says he's alright, "at least he said goodbye this time. it ain't like i'm still 5 years old, sitting up every night asking my mom when's daddy coming home." he learnt to play basketball without his dad, went on his first date without his dad, learnt how to drive without his dad, went through 14 birthdays without his dad, and he doesn't need him. "i didn't need him then and i don't need him now." he's gonna graduate from college without his dad, meet some honey and have kids and take care of them like a good father, nothing like his dad ever was, because there's nothing his dad could ever teach him about how to be a good father.

but then will finally breaks down and says, "how come he don't want me?"

the show ends with the camera zooming in on the present that will had bought for his father, which was a small figurine of a father embracing a child.



it broke my heart.


today, i'm giving thanks for all my friends and family. because when it boils down to what's important, it's love.


oh... love and chocolate. hee hee.

mom comes to visit

so my mom was here in new york for a week from the 4th to 11th. it was her first visit to new york but i guess she came to see me more than the city, just to find out how my living conditions are, and stuff like that.

problem is, i am just soooo busy with school, that we hardly had the time to go out. so most of her one week was spent like wandering around by herself and then we'd meet up for dinner. good thing we managed to squeeze in some tourist-y things to do during the weekend!!

we started off in times square and boarded the double-decker open-top tourist bus that takes you around the city. before we got on the bus, we wanted to take pictures at the famous times square buildings.

but the naked cowboy was there, so we thought, heck we'd go take pictures with him. i mean, that's what a tourist in new york would do, right? i've seen him there a million times and have zero interest, but he was standing where i wanted to take photos from, so it was a "might as well" situation.

he is basically a character who parades himself on the most prominent corner of times square dressed only in his cowboy hat, boots, and underwear. i think he looks retarded and sure ain't good looking if you ask me.

well since it was just my mom and i, i thought i'd get someone to help us take photos. turns out that the naked "cowboy" has a manager who was handing out leaflets for his website, so i asked rather politely if he'll help us take some photos.

guess what he said?

"are you gonna tip me?"
"uh, okay." and i reached into my wallet.
"are you gonna tip him too?"
"uh...okay..."
"so you are tipping me right?"
"yeah."
"ok. just making sure."
"if this is a paid service how come you don't have a sign for it? isn't tipping like a gratuity thing? are you supposed to ask for it?"
"well i ask for what i want."
"what?"
"so yeah tip me and him."

i got so pissed off i put the 5 lousy bucks i had in my hand back in my wallet and took out two bucks. the way he said it, the tone of his voice and all that, was just disgusting.

then we took our photos with the cowboy and we got robbed - totally molested and it's not like he's some gorgeous dude that i'd even want to get molested by, you know?

i might be smiling in those shots but trust me i wanted to kick him in his balls. actually i'd rather kick his manager's, since he was the real bastard. then i took my camera back from that slime and gave him his two bucks. i mean, that bloody fuck isn't even worth a ten cent that had dropped on the pavement that i wouldn't even bother to try and pick up.

he took it and walked away but guess what i overheard him saying to the cowboy?
"she gave me one lousy buck. how the fuck does she want me to pay for my kids through college with one lousy buck!"

well i've got one thing to say to you, asshole. buy yourself a better attitude. and if you can't afford that then you've gotta sell your ass to the gays cos with that attitude of yours, that's the only way you'll probably ever make money. bloody dumb ass.

so if you EVER come to new york, don't even go near that stupid prick. it's NOT worth your time, nor your two bucks.

anyway.

it was really hard juggling schoolwork and going out with mom. like on the weekdays i'd be at school till evening time, then we'd go out for dinner or something, then i'd come back home and while my mom slept, i'd stay up till like 4 or 5 a.m. to finish up my work that i needed to get done. i was really tired and i was getting like 2 or 3 hours of sleep maximum, each day.

i brought my mom to la bonne soup, which alex and i had gone to twice when he was in the big apple. my mom loved it too. i'm telling you, it's really good. we went there for dinner once and then for a late lunch again! haha!!

with my lousy schedule, we only managed to have one great dinner, and that was with some really old family friends - ron, debbie and laura sheiman, and andrew. ron and debbie have been friends with my parents since like god knows when; i think before i was even born. i met laura before many years ago when we were still kids and the sheimans came to singapore, and i remember her and her sister, jill, so well because they taught us this really hilarious, full of hand actions, song. it was called "joe and the butter factory". have any of you heard of it before?

it's been years and i can't remember exactly, but it goes something like this:
"hi... my name is joe... and i work in a butter factory. i have a wife, a dog and a family. one day, my boss comes up to me and says 'hey joe, are you busy?' and i say 'no'. so he says 'churn the butter with your right hand'." then left hand then right leg and so on, you get the picture.

ok it's so corny but hey, when you're like six, it's the coolest game ever.

laura's getting married on the 20th, and if you recall me saying, it is her wedding dinner that i'm gonna be attending and i still don't know what i'm gonna wear!! help me!!!

andy's mom grew up with debbie, so she introduced him to me, just so i'd know someone in manhattan. she can't stop singing his praises and that's because he's smart and funny and at 23, doing really well in the real estate business. when i found out his age, i immediately felt old and like a failure. ugh.

well that dinner was so fun and i had such a great time. it was SUCH a pity though, that the waiter who helped us take a picture, did such a lousy job!! i'm so disappointed that the photo turned out blur.

after dinner the sheimans drove us around the city to show my mom how it is at night, and we stopped by grand central station. check out what i found on the bins!

Gilda's Club is a free-of-charge, non-profit organization that aims to provide meeting places where men, women and children living with cancer, along with their families and friends, can join with others to build a personal network of social and emotional support as an integral part of cancer treatment.
i made a small donation, and if you can, please do so too!!

my mom left at 6 a.m. on thursday, the 11th. on the 10th, the weather had gone really funky and it went from hot and humid to really windy and cold! summer to start of winter in one lousy day! where did my autumn go?!?! i haven't even had the chance to wear any light jackets and coats that i love!!

i walked my mom out to the cab and came back to sleep, but when i woke up, i had the worst headache ever and my nose was stuffy and my throat was itchy. i thought to myself, 'this is just great!!! my mom leaves and i get sick when i'm stuck here all alone and can't have anyone cook for me!?!?'

i guess all the stress and lack of sleep finally caught up with me and my body was telling me that it can't handle all the shit i'm doing to it. i was really tired, but getting sick now is just making the situation worse. i don't have time nor the luxury to lie back and rest!!!

my flu and sore throat quickly went from bad to worse and i'm really quite sick now. i had to force myself to go to school on friday morning cos we were having a quiz. but in the middle of it, i suddenly felt so nauseous i had to run to the toilet to puke. i was feeling horrid, but i think the toilet was so gross that i puked more than i was supposed to.

then this girl asked me if i was pregnant.

". . . . . . . . . . . ........."

huh? no i'm not. does my tummy look big?? ack! my nose is stuffed up and my throat hurts and i've got a temperature and i sound like a toad but no i'm not pregnant! and does my tummy look big!?!? ack!

so i'm on this antibiotics now and it's really helping a lot, although i still sound like crap and i carry my own box of tissues even when i leave the house. somehow i felt well enough on friday evening to go do my shopping report downtown, and i went to the patricia field store again. (more on that later!!)

alex was here

well he still is.

alex, my childhood buddy and one of my best friends, has been living in boston for the last 4 years now. he left for boston just a few months after i went off to tokyo. and it really sucked because our holidays back home to singapore, never really coincided. by the time i got back, he'd have been back for months already, and we'd have probably just a week to meet and catch up.

while he's back and i'm still in tokyo, he usually meets up with bib, my sis, and stella (my sister's friend who became a friend too and is equally bitchy as me hohoho *double winks to you, stella*)

i've known alex since i was about 9 and he was 10, so we almost grew up together. i won't say we know each other inside out, but yeah we know us pretty well.

anyway his neighbor, hilton club member, had a free week's stay at the hilton club hotel on 6th avenue, over the labor day weekend. but they could only stay a couple of days, and told alex he could stay there the remainder of it.

so alex took the hilton bus from boston to manhattan, and i moved into the hotel with him on the 4th. woohoo. no commute!! always a good thing.

the first night, he took me to this yakitori place called yakitori totto [251 west 55th street, between broadway and 8th avenue; 212.245.4555]. now i've been totally missing japanese food and i love love love yakitori, so i was so pleased to have found this place. it's pricey - twice the cost compared to what i pay in japan - but hell i was diggin' in.

on wednesday the 5th, the fucking cab drivers in new york city decided they all wanted to go on a strike to oppose getting the gps system installed in their cabs. so after going to the art supplies store and buying a ton of stuff that's just impossible to carry, i decide to take a cab back to the hotel after a long day at school. it's just 15 blocks back to the hotel and the cab driver says that because of the strike, they charge by zones - and i'll have to pay $15. *gasp*

and he only told me that when we were approaching the hotel.

all that was swimming inside of my head were swear words and various curses in different languages. yes, i can swear in english, mandarin, japanese, malay and korean. i like to think of myself as multi-lingual.

we went to another great place the next day: a pizza place called lombardi's [32 spring street, at the corner of mott street; 212.941.7994]. the pizza was excellent. the small one gave us 6 slices. i was full after one, and expanded my tummy on the 2nd slice. for the quality and service, it wasn't expensive either!! i'll definitely be going back there.

(totally irrelevant, but i just realised now,
that my camera is still set on tokyo date and time! shit!)

as we walk around soho, we went past the adidas store and i spotted the cutest pairs of shoes.

i totally love them. i love checks and i love polka-dots and i wish i could get them all but i can't so since i saw them i've been thinking and thinking about which one to get!!! what do you think?? i hope they have a red and white polka-dot... whee!!

alex had been yelping (and calling and messaging his girlfriend) practically nonstop on his stupid blackberry, there were times i wanted to snatch it and stomp on it. especially when we both had this huge craving for chinese dumplings and he spent the whole afternoon finding a place for us to go, only to lead us to this major dodgy, filthy and not at all yummy place in chinatown. eeks!!! we originally wanted to go to this other place called dumpling house [118a eldridge street, near broome street; 212.625.8008]. but when we got there, it was so crowded and there wasn't anywhere to sit. we should have known that crowded=good. the prices were dirt cheap too. but we turned around and went to option number two, that should really have been option number zero. fried dumpling was a complete letdown. it might have been cheap but the only way i'd say the food was any good was if i was completely starving.

after that terrible dinner where i ate just 3 dumplings and basically dumped the rest, pun intended, we wandered around and found ourselves in little italy. damn that stupid fried dumpling; why the hell didn't we eat anywhere else in little italy?? the place looked fantastic and i actually felt like i was in italy!! (although i've never been there before so it was just make-believe.)

every single restaurant was packed and looked so good. hell, even the parking meters and fire hydrants were so cute, painted in green, white and red! i loved it. we decided to go to a cafe and console our stomachs with some great dessert but the chocolate cake i had, called fuzzy wuzzy, contained 4 zillion calories.

this picture just doesn't do little italy any justice.
i need a better camera!!

on our way back to the hilton, we walk past radio city. fashion week has started here in new york, and at radio city was the fashion rocks event. amongst other artistes, aerosmith was performing. what i'd give to get a ticket!! when am i gonna be famous enough! bah.

on friday the 7th, the day started off in times square. i went to school in the morning, and alex went to get us tickets to see a musical show on broadway. we also had to check out of the hilton. bye bye to comfy sheets, a huge bed and room service. i think the best thing about staying in a hotel is going out and coming back to a super neat and clean room.

we moved into my new place!! i've found a place, finally, that suits my budget and is overall, pretty nice and decent. it's an apartment share and my room is actually pretty big and there's decent wardrobe space, and space for me to get a work table as well. the lady i'm renting from seems pretty nice and fun, and she has a super cute pomeranian, the smallest thing ever with a real fat tummy.

we went downtown to the east village after that, where i did some cheap shopping and found a fabulous belt. and we also found these 2 brilliant japanese drinking bars on st. marks place called izakayas!! the first was called kenka, which translate into 'fight' in japanese. haha! but it also says "delicious! cheap! fast!" on it's sign, which is what most japanese izakayas would say, but it looked SO japan!

just a few doors down was another place serving yakitori! it is called yakitori taisho, which turned out to be a branch of a chain that my friends and i actually used to frequent when i was staying in tokyo. i was soooo stoked!!! i didn't think i'd find it here in new york! i thought i'd died and gone to heaven. i have to email all my friends and send them this picture! it even has the same tattered and torn "taisho" lantern!!! i definitely have to come back here asap. it's quite up there in my to-do list!

later that night, we went off to broadway. it was alex's first musical and my third. avenue q wasn't what i expected it to be. the guy at the ticket booth did say that "it's sesame street, but for adults." but i honestly did not expect muppets to appear. it was an amazing 2 hours and i think every last penny was well spent!! i think it was one of the funniest things i've watched in a while. it touches on many taboo subjects, like racism, sex, drinking, porn, and hmm, even politics. we were definitely glad to have gone to see it, and if you're in new york i definitely recommend it!! the cast that night was amazing and it was wonderful being in the presence of people with such talent.

after the show, we took a cab to la bonne soupe [48 west 55th street, between 5th and 6th avenues; 212.586.7650], a cosy french restaurant. it was fantastic. we ordered the set and i had the french onion soup, rib eye steak and chocolate mousse.

i swear, i have never ever had french onion soup that good. it was rich in flavor and you could actually taste the onions - a far cry to the watered down clear soup with 3 stringy onion slices that i'm used to. the steak was also perfect, not overcooked, and was tender too. then came the chocolate mousse.

i am a (self-proclaimed) chocoholic and if i could eat chocolate for a living, i would. the chocolate mousse i had there was ab.so.lute.ly fabulous!!! i was so full after the steak, i thought i wouldn't be able to finish it, but no, i cleaned it up and licked my spoon in 2 minutes flat.

it was a great meal and all for just $24!!! super value for money!! definitely worth heaps more, but dear monsieur picot, please don't ever raise the prices!!

after spending all saturday morning cursing at paypal and amazon.com while i ordered my school textbooks, i joined alex in soho, where he had been shopping. my cab went by the armani exchange store and i told the driver to let me off there. there was a huge crowd outside, but what caught my eye were the models in the window.

there was a new underwear launch but i don't think anyone was buying underwear. i think everyone was snapping pictures, licking their lips and thinking how tight those white things were. by everyone, i mean women, gays, and jealous men.

there was more eye-candy inside the store, and too many turned-on people ogling at the male models. the security guard kept trying to get people to clear the doorway and was shouting, "you're either in, or out!! in or out! in, out, in, out!!"

then this woman shouted back, "give me some of that in-and-out!!"

i totally burst out laughing.

now, don't get me wrong, i really behaved myself, unlike several women and two gays, who couldn't stop shrieking, and went up to the models countless of times to take photos together, and to take close-ups. one woman pointed her camera at a model's you-know-what, another couldn't stop touching this model's pecs, and one gay man just stood in the corner, smiling and salivating.

besides, i had a new assignment for school and we have to do a shopping report on underwear and swim suits. so hello, this was totally not my idea to snap like 10 photographs. it was all for the sake of research!!!

saturday was also art parade day in soho. i missed part of it but did manage to see some glorious things.

as the parade trickled off, alex and i were both sweating buckets in this stupid heat, and decided to escape into any cafe that had bloody cold a/c. across the street, however, i notice this guy in a fabulous hat and even better hotpants. or is that just underwear. i love how he catwalked down the street but i wish he was wearing nicer shoes. i wanted to walk over to ask for a picture but he just hurried on too fast.

psst. i seem to be seeing a lot of close-to-naked people today. must be my lucky day.

inside the cafe, i also notice these 2 guys, who dressed and looked exactly the same!! they spent the whole time standing up and talking to their two friends, i couldn't interrupt and ask for a photo either. i couldn't figure out if they were twins, or if they were a couple, taking the couple-look to new extremes. it's not a good paparazzi shot but they had the same hair, the same white glasses, the same red scarf tied around their necks, the same white shirt and pants!! it was amazing!! they looked amazing! i was very amazed!

later, we walked towards bleeker street and guess what i found???

a gilda radner way! how cool is that!!! i wish i could climb up the street sign and scratch the "radner" out, but i was pretty stoked with it.

it was alex's and my last dinner together in the island of manhattan, and guess where we decided to go?? yep, we loved la bonne soupe so much, we headed back there. haha!! we ordered the cream of vegetable soup, ham, egg and cheese crepe, and smoked salmon with cream cheese crepe. it was gorgeous. you can tell i'm totally hooked and plan on making myself a regular.

alex leaves for boston tomorrow. i'm a little sad, although i know i'll be seeing him soon again. but i'm also a little relieved, because i have 2 million assignments due in a couple of days and i need to get rid of him! hahahah! just kidding alex, you know i love you.

i end this post with something i found scribbled in one of my notebooks. that nincompoop must have written it when i wasn't looking. it's something he used to do: sign his stupid name all over my books, back when we were kids having classes together. every page i turned, i'd see a "alex was here" sign. so i did a "tsk" just like i always used to do, whenever i found one of those scribbles.

boys will always be boys.

but it seems that years apart from good friends, can make them just slightly wiser. his "alex was here" scribbles have upgraded to a version 2.0.

today's get-up 31july2007

i've been rose-pinked!!

i went to get my hair colored..... then the stylist somehow convinced me to get my hair cut. i like it!!! but i do miss my hair!! suddenly i feel really bald.

i chose a rose-pink color. kinda reddish, kinda pink. it looks different under diferent kids of lighting. oh yeah.

• pink and red jersey gown (i caught a cold)
• green and white striped shirt by topshop
• dark blue sarrouel pants by sunao kuwahara
• navy tights
• brown leather boots by topshop
• toy necklace by mercibeaucoup

oh bloody hell. try as i might, i can't get it to look pink in the photos!!! #&$*#*!($#&**!!

my friends and ex-bosses, roger and yvonne, have all been pretty obsessed with this thing called phiten. it's been pretty big in japan all the while, but i never paid attention to it cos i thought it was all nonsense. it comes in all sorts of bracelets or necklaces (mostly really ugly) but the expensive stuff actually look like nice silver jewellery. it actually has some micro titan balls embedded within, and when you wear it, it apparently helps circulate your blood, which in turn gives you better energy, helps you sleep better, and overall improves your health. well the two of them and our mutal and family friend, edmund, swear by it. in fact, they talked so much about it, my sis and i decided to get some for ourselves and our family. we thought of buying it here in singapore but it's like major expensive so where else to buy it from but where it originated from... japan. much thanks to von and rog who just went there with our huge shopping list. i got myself a turquoise hello kitty phiten. i love it! it's so cute and doesn't look anything like a health product!

and beatrice made me the bracelet with that girl in a crown. isn't it so freaking cute? plus, i love crowns!

yesterday i went for dinner and drinks (i ate a cow and ended up with a tummy ache) with some old friends and ex-teacher, 6 of us in all, from secondary (middle) school. i've known them since i was 13 and we used to play hockey together. i haven't seen some of them in years, but i think because we used to share this huge bond (4 years of extra-tough training together AND winning the gold medal. of course we have a bond!!) together, all those years apart didn't matter when we started talking. it was like time had stood still all along and we're all still the same silly 16 year olds!! i had a lot of fun...... i've got just 2 to 3 weeks before i pack up my bags and leave for new york. i've gotta make sure they take leave off work to meet me again before i go!!

it's disgusting how we look the same after all these years!