Batam

The parents' bed

It was great. Ridiculously cheap package we got. All of us took the honeymoon package. Haha. And boy was it over-the-top brilliant for SGD100+ each. We all had a delicious 5 course candlelight dinner meal by the sea, 1.5hours of spa and massage, a free upgrade to the villa-cabanas by the sea. The cabanas were away from the main hotel so the privacy was excellent. The beds were decorated with flowers, so were the baths. There were chocolates and fruits wrapped up nicely on the table. We had an open verandah overlooking the nicer part of the coastline. The villa had only the four of us - me, riyan and the parents. The pool was also one of the grandest and most beautiful pools I've ever been in, yet it was empty because, well the hotel was quite empty as well. And did I mention the service? The service, food and everything was out of this world. I feel slightly embarrassed thinking about the price we paid for such excellent service.

from Harris' website (the spa looked exactly like this though!)

Then there were free tickets for lots of activities and even bus trips out of the hotel to the 'real city'. It was an eye opener, heading out there for three days. And the prices for the spas and massage in the city centre was shocking. SGD9-13 for 1.5hours massage and spa (with lots of choices from the spa menu), SGD 1-2 for facials, SGD10-13 for body masks and scrubs and so on. I can definitely get used to that. We had time to spare (plus aching feet and bodies) and decided to try one of their massages there to see if the quality will be compromised for the low price. It wasn't! The place was very professional, the ambience was great, nothing shoddy, and the experience was just amazing.

I didn't really do much shopping. I forgot to pay more attention to the clothes there. Or perhaps, at the back of my mind, I already know how much clothes I'm trying NOT to bring to Ireland from Singapore so I managed to refrain myself from serious retail therapy. I did go around asking for D60's prices there though - they all amounted to around the same price as back home. So I guess it's another long wait before I get my hands on that kit. It pains me sometimes knowing it could have already been mine, 9 months ago.

Moving along, we definitely had a great time there. I've heard people having quite a bad time on the island as well. So it could be just the people I got to meet or the hotel I stayed at. Though if it's the former, it would range from the security guards, to hotel staffs, to taxi drivers, and to the common people on the street - which basically means everyone. I enjoyed my time there tremendously. Now I'm back in busy Singapore, trying to pack my bag for the three months in Ireland. Bless me.

Fontaine bleu

I was passing by Upper Thomson Road today - the place we always ended up at when we hung out together. I'm going through withdrawal symptoms of some sort. I'm always thinking of the boys every time I see something funny and annoying happen. It's like, I imagine them all with me, with their own unique set of expressions and reactions to what's happening before me. And every time I whip out my lighter which is still in my bag, I think about the times we've misused it. Life was so much less sensible and serious with you guys around. (Haha) I really miss you boys, a lot.

Oh and I finally watched Star Trek after graduation on Wednesday. It was quite awesome, I agree. And that's quite special coming from someone who, pretty much, isn't into all these sci-fi shizzle. It's no wonder there's a sudden rise in 'Trekkies'. With a movie like that, who wouldn't love Star Trek?

Live high

"We're all human and we're all flawed. Who are they to judge who's fit to believe and who's not?"

It made me cry tears of disappointment. I wish things were simpler - so much simpler. I'll be away tomorrow till Thursday. Hopefully returning slightly more rejuvenated, before flying off for real on Sunday night.

I am slowly aching for the days to stop moving forward. So I will enjoy everyone being in this little country just a while longer. I don't want to leave this city behind - its flaws and all.

And I see everyone moving on already. It's a funny thing - feeling helpless, yet a scintilla of joy. Silently watching, silently smiling, silently accepting (very slowly) life as it is. Bitter, sweet, slow, quick.

Slipping conscious

There're lots of things I don't allow myself to pay much thought to for fear of seeing them evolve into reality. One of them being the idea that friendships are volatile and relative to time, circumstances. We may miss the friends a lot, then slowly progress to the stage of nonchalance, and finally reaching a dead end.

Those are mere words and ideas we, man can change if we only believe.

Signature dish

We were cruising along the restaurants in Boat Quay at night, stopping at every restaurant, approaching the waiters/waitresses for the first time instead of them approaching us first. All for the sake of getting the best valued chilli crab.

SGD48/kg
SGD40/kg
SGD60/kg
SGD38/kg
SGD50/kg
SGD45/kg

R: "There's another restaurant back down there, selling theirs at SGD40/38... And yours is SGD60/50?" (Acting like a true blue Singaporean by now - bargaining)
W: "But Sir, they're not Sri Lankan crabs! Sri Lankan crabs have more meat. But Sir, wait wait, we can give you a discount to SGD 45."

What a rip off. Especially the one who initially quoted SGD60 and then lowered the price to SGD 45. They must have thought "this European man wouldn't know a thing about the market price". They must have thought I wasn't local and easily fooled too seeing I was with three other foreigners. I mean, give me a bit of face or something. Haha. Quoting such a price to a Singaporean is almost, rude. We settled for the 38, of course and it was a Sri Lankan crab (supposed to have more meat and less redundant weight, i.e. legs etc). So that was, definitely a good deal.

And it was absolutely delicious and worth it. Service was great, atmosphere and view were both brilliant. I really liked it.

So it is

Graduated. :)

Dormant

So things do seem different. And it's difficult to explain. It's kind of stressing me out just a little - bringing two new people around my own city. I seem to have a high expectation of myself to be a good host yet I've been so used to having my own partner already being so familiarised with this city that, I almost don't know what's 'new' for the others anymore.

The fact that I'm a terrible insomniac does not help matters at all. There he is sleeping in the next room and all I can do is switch my dying macbook to go online for a little bit help on how the rest of the day should go on. I guess it's different when you have more than one to bring around, and people you don't exactly know what their main interests are, and if they have totally separate ideas of 'travelling' from yourself.

On a random note, Deepan's girlfriend gave me a call last night. Everything seems to be back to normal and they seem to be going on great. That's all that really matters. And, it was pretty hard getting used to the sudden total lack of communication with the boys. Pretty funny. They've been living in my phone - the calls, the texts. And suddenly, utter silence. Now I understand the whole emotional "This is the last night..." speeches and the confessions etc. It was because "We want to give you space and let you focus on your boyfriend. So we won't contact you at all okay." Sweet. I have the whole 3 months doing so anyway - he's going to be the first face and the last face I see everyday. In his own words, "You're going to be sooo bored of me". -insert sly grin-

Ah, what a future.

Map

I guess that's one song that might go down one day as being "our song", the song that is most likely capable of making us wide-eyed and bring back silly memories of the people we once were, are, and always will be.

Looking back now, everything we complained about, was just a blessing in disguise.

Always just a phone call away.

The precious call

-the arrival of the sweet one-

The last bus

A: So this bus goes straight to your home right?
B: Yeah. You?
A: I'd have to change buses but I'll most likely miss my last bus by the time I reach your stop.
B: So how are you getting home?
A: Hmm. Walk, maybe? -pause- Or maybe not. Since I'm a girl. They say it's dangerous for a girl to be walking alone late at night like this.
B: -frowns- No way you're going to be walking home. If you're thinking of walking home, I don't care, I'm going to walk you home.
A: You're going to walk me home if I walk home?
B: Yeah.
A: -with a big grin- Okay then I'll deliberately choose to walk home.
B: Basket!

The last bus did come in the end, so Jai was saved from all that hassle.

Anyway, today I got reminded of how fun it used to be when I was little and wrestling everyone when I got the chance to. All thanks to the two boys trying to steal my camera and almost breaking it apart. (No worries, really -ahem)

Riyan would know how I react when people mess with my things and refuse to give them back - I fight for them with my bare hands. I lounge at people, (sometimes) even punch people, beat the life out of them (I'm kidding), and demand they return my belongings. I'm sorry, don't judge me. It's somewhat, instinctive. So the locked in camera effect might just be thanks to me. But uh, let's just all share the blame like good friends do. I hope the guitar is dandy.

The supermassive black (hole) cockroach in Sanjay's toilet just had to spoil the moment. A whole colony of them barricaded me from the stairs to my home as well. Those cheeky bastards.

Killing Yourself To Live

We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It’s easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven’t even met yet, probably. They all count.

But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you’ll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years.

But there’s still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of these loveable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable.

The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they’re often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really, want to love someone.

But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.

-- Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself To Live.

Habits

I've realised something. The more I look forward to something, the higher the likelihood of things screwing up. I've always told myself not to want something badly, because the risk of disappointment is increased as well. Today was a fine example, I'd say.

It feels like everything I've done in the past week is pointless. Maybe it's the thought that counts. Perhaps, perhaps not. I guess I shall keep some for Riyan. In this case, I wouldn't need to redo everything from scratch. Now that thought just made me smile.

How could someone ruin a special day for a loved one? Beats me. If you love someone enough, wouldn't you be happy to see him/her happy? I would. I'd do anything just to see him smile. I have no idea what happened, I'm in no position to judge. But the outcome sure is nasty and bitter.

I really should care less. I only have 1 true free day left anyway. :)

-

On a random note, I visited this blog using Safari and Firefox and I found out that the colours actually turn up richer in Safari as compared to Firefox. Here, I printscreened the two:

Using Safari:

Using Firefox:

I honestly didn't realise there was such a big difference. I guess I'm going to use Safari a little more often now.

Excitement overload

I love this feeling. Being able to look forward to so many things, to making more happy memories. Tonight is going to be exciting meeting everyone, and seeing a surprise taking place. I wrote little cards for everyone and I made cheesecake! I hope everything goes by smoothly enough.

I also got myself a little excited talking to Riyan for a good 5 minutes last night. He was busy doing his last minute travel shopping. It's so surreal. My room is neater but nowhere near "done" stage. I hope he doesn't mind it being this way. I'm terrible at cleaning my own mess, it seems. I get lazy and want to throw everything out, only to realise the stash included my 2GB thumbdrive, Tony's makeshift iPod and other similar items. Once, I even nearly threw out my certificates and report books. I got traumatised then, and decided to never clean my room myself. Okay, that's quite a convenient excuse for plain laziness.

I love potlucks. And I love the fact that my friends love potlucks. I love barbeques too. I'm still awaiting the single one Akmal promised to plan but never did. Maybe my friends should get Keith to plan instead seeing he's as free as a bird. Come on, it'll be nice to have a massive gathering before everyone ventures off to pursue their degrees, start National Service, or leave the country.

Keep me safe from harm

So I finally found the preparatory items - now on to actually making it. That's for later anyway. A very intelligent man [Ain't that an oxymoron ;)] just contacted me at the very last minute. I could have done what I needed to do last night and bring it over today but, intelligent men like that spoil plans in their brilliance. Now, I just have to postpone it to tomorrow.

So Jai texted me at 4.40 am informing me that he still can't sleep. I was happily in slumber zone by then. I got up fresh and dandy in the morning to meet Dorm and Candice for the important graduation tickets! I was more excited for the photoshop application though which Dorm brought a wrong version of. Bummer! But it's okay, there's still time before May 31st.

In a few minutes, I shall be a pillion rider. Nothing really exciting - I hope. I only ride with the safest people. And so far, my dad's been the only one. Hmm. I've always been a car person anyway. The idea of having dust and everything stupid running into your face, annoys me a little. Though the idea of cheaper petrol and the ability to squeeze through traffic makes me understand why some people would settle for a bike - safe riders though.

Okay got to rush!

Sleepless days

I've been living on less than 5 hours of sleep almost every day, as of late. For some queer reason, I seem to only feel sleepy after 5 am and even then, I'd automatically wake up by 10 am at the latest. Yesterday night was the worst. I stayed up to settle some stuff and perhaps, I went a tad overboard with my appreciation of the silent night by not sleeping at all. What started as a little try out at Skype with a friend, evolved into some deep conversations and unraveling of 'secrets' from the past.

It seems like the more I do know, the less I want to. We humans are so predictably ridiculous. So clichéd.

The conversations then gradually mellowed, and my friend suggested we went out for a jog. I haven't had the chance to in a few weeks - using work as a convenient excuse and substitute for 'exercise'. So, why the hell not?

My flu was not done, my stamina was fucked. I felt GREAT. I'm thankful I'm still alive. I had fun though. The whole night and morning was spent (wasted away) in good company. I'm not even sleeping yet. I need to go check out several places for some springform pan adventure. (I just made some calls. Most of them are out of stock. Unfreakinbelievable.) Dear God, seriously, you could have done anything but this.

HALP.

How difficult is it to get a springform pan? Why are they always out of stock? I really hope I'll find one from the various bakeware stores here. Hands off, greedy. I'm not asking for much - just leave one aside for me please.

Living on a prayer

"So are you taking ___?"
"Nope, I'm heading to ___."
"So are you taking the bus there?"
"Nope, I'm taking the train, with you."
-stares at each other-
"Assuming, much."
-stifled giggles-
"Well, I've got to start somewhere. In life, we only get answers when we ask. It's not like revelations from God. I mean, I've tried...It never worked."
-more stifled laughs-
"Yeh, you've tried like every single day of your life."
"Every single day."

A brand new start

With a fresh new blog