Le Reunion...

It's been a long while since any of us have posted here. Reading the blog after two long years somehow brings a smile to my face...

And with vic saying we should continue to blog here, I thought I'd start the ball rolling again *grin* Especially more so with all of us in different parts of the world (i mean, seriously, en in sg, vic in jp, tzo in uk, me in us, ningz in jp... ((O_O)))

Thinking back to that trip, I remember a few things -

- vic suffocating me to death when I met her again after so long...
- en waylaid by dinosaur puppets
- that horrid statue in MOMA that tzo mentioned, called 'woman who has her throat torn out' or something along those lines. And remembering that the title and the sculpture made ZERO sense
- ningz in her white penguin jacket
- my first night 'enjoying' a hospital stay + drip treatment 'spa package' >.<
- gay asian dude on the ice at rockefellar center, and us making up stories about him *snicker*

kinda miss all that. We should do another trip again sooooooooon!!!! How's everyone doing?

Day 13

Qionghui is a little ill so she has gone to sleep, so I am taking over. Um.

Woke late. To Brooklyn Chinatown in the drizzle/sleet/hail to have dim sum lunch with one of Ning Sung's friends (and her sister). Much excitement over tofu (Ning Sung), carrot cake (me) and chee cheong fun (Qionghui).

Headed to Manhattan (the Brooklyn Manhattan commute is mind-numbingly boring, enlightened only by the bit across the bridge where one is treated to a view of the skyline). Qiong and Ning headed to Chinatown; myself uptown to 42nd St -- en route to the New York Public Library I wandered around getting very vaguely lost and accidentally bumped into Grand Central. Was very pretty, all marbled arches and large windows. Then, again in the drizzle, to the library, which was impressive in much the same kind of way. I gawped for a while at the murals and the gorgeous reading room, sneaked pictures of an old map exhibition, and contemplated taking a book out to read in the reading room while it rained outside, such scholarship. I got as far as filling out a call card for the complete works of Thomas Jefferson from the catalogue (his original handwritten Declaration of Independence is in the library but you can't just walk in off the street and call it up), but then found out that it would take a while to get the book. I decided I didn't really need to read Jefferson all that much, it was an intimidating if truly wonderful place (not, however, so intimidating as Cambridge's university library!).

I enjoyed that first part of my afternoon mightily. There is something about New York that lends itself so well to wandering around by yourself (something which I hadn't done yet) and just poking into shops and grand buildings, not quite knowing where you are going, yet knowing there is always something interesting round the corner. I am starting to understand people's love affair with a city that is noisy and dirty and expensive -- this afternoon I, too, loved it, and felt sad to be leaving tomorrow.

Went shopping in the drizzle. Added significantly to purchases, I am now completely and utterly out of American money, which is really not such a good thing. However most purchases black and practical. Huh, so much for the pika pika (En Ying don't be scarred, "bling" wouldn't be much prettier). Oh and En I bought that lovely $50 wool blazer from H&M, I have never in my life bought anything so expensive from H&M, but it was tailored so nicely and on half price, oh dear me I am a girl. Sent postcards from the Empire State post office, how New York.

Further shopping having met with the other two. Eventually down to Little Italy (I find it really difficult to say it the New York way - lidleidaly) where we had a very lovely if somewhat expensive dinner in a place called Novella, where Another Italian Waiter Tried to Talk To Me. I think I should move to Italy, I shall be much admired and men everywhere will tell me to keep smiling. Hnah.

Back early-ish. Qionghui is asleep still, her stomach is not doing so well -- but not to worry everyone.

day 12

Loss of two days to be blamed on Qiong's counting skills, ahem.

Due to certain accusations of incoherence I am here to sound hopefully less incoherent, although correcting past grammar as Q has requested is somewhat beyond the scope of my blogging urges at half past one in the morning.

Today, we
- saw En and Vicki off sniff sniff
- sat in JavaBoy (a place which sells guaranteed hot coffee, and we do mean hot in the other sense as well) and had a perfectly sane and non-gay morning (not, of course, that the two must go together) watching Regis and Kathy in Florida or something. Nevermind the posters on the wall advertising Monday night where you get cheaper cocktails if you have your shirt off. And very conducive bathrooms downstairs. Mood lighting in the loos, woohoo.
- [in other news, Qionghui is sitting beside me sniggering at our old poetry textbook, Calling of Kindred]
- Moved to Brooklyn, to Ning Sung's friend's apartment. Much Sex and the City Miranda deja vu-ness, although probably only I will get this.
- MoMA in the afternoon. They had a large-ish Pixar exhibition on, with lots of sketches, models, complete traditional and digital/animated artwork from their entire archives. Excellent stuff. Very impressive and, well, cute. Watched five shorts on a TV along with all the little kids, isn't modern art just wonderfully mass appeal? Also liked the architecture and design galleries -- actual modern art painting and sculpture failed to move me. Again. I liked this little insect/leaf-like sculpture until I read the plaque, it was called Woman with her Throat Cut, why would anybody want to call a perfectly innocuous sculpture this and put innocents like me off? Oh and saw the furry tea cup again that was at the Surrealist exhibition at the Tate Modern a few years back, I forgot who was responsible. Still, was glad for the visit for the bits that I did like. And got to see dear Vincent's Starry Night, you couldn't miss it, there was a permanent congregation of people in front trying to take photos.
- Shopping in the rain. Being very restrained whole trip and entire total of shopping now constitutes:
a) A trashy I love NY t-shirt, from Chinatown
b) Two prints and two postcards (Gainsborough, Ingres and Whistler) from the Frick Collection
c) A little present for the Boyfriend (which therefore cannot be revealed) from the MoMA shop
d) One party top, which is very very slightly pika pika (am I allowed to type this at least?)
Ning Sung and Qionghui both bought boots, the great boot search is over! I gave up on mine, there is always the madness of the Selfridges sales to come.
- Dinner on 9th Ave near St Mark's Place, good Japanese. For appetizer I had this crazy thing called the mermaid. Sashimi layered on top of a big pile of rice, very artistic.

Tired now. Only tomorrow to go. Plan is to wander around Greenwich Village if the rain stops. To bed, or rather the sofa, anything will do. Ning Sung is on the phone to Aaron and I think she has just said "you never buy me flower". Hahahahaha. I will take this back if I heard wrong.

day 10

today woke p early to send en and vic off before heading to brooklyn ourselves. Moved into Ningz' friend's apartment.

After lunch at a thai restaurant, went to the MOMA. VERY NICE ART ^^ I finally saw Van Gogh's starry night for real!!!!!! GORGEOUS!!! *sigh* also saw many famous works of art, my fav being the special exhibit by Odillon Redon. Lovely fantasy artwork with a very dreamy touch and beautiful colours. ^^ Beautiful.

Later had a good dinner at this jap restuarant called Sharaku (near St marks) before goign to a real japanese mart to buy some comfort foods ^^

and am now back in apt. Shall go shower. ta ^^

day 9

shhheeeeesh what a way to start the new year. 8sigh* got mighty sick and had to go to the A&E ward of the hospital sicne that was the only one open today. got put on a bloody drip and had to change into one of those disgusting hospital gown thingies. O_o you can imagine yours truly was freaked out since it was her first time in the ward and also the first time she’d ever been on the drip O-o And there I was going, “it’s just a flu!!!!” *lol* granted it was an experience, but I’d never want to try it again *lol* but thanks so much, you guys, for being there always *lol* and buying me all those stuff. *big big huggle*

vic and en took two hours to make their way to the Guggenheim in the meantime, and after several subway transfers and an apparently long walk, they were 'treated' to a view of the guggenheim, covered in scaffolding O_o bleagh, talk about bakd timing ^^;

Otherwise, nothing much liao. Am now in hostel room recuperating and hoping everything gets better soon. En and vic leaving tmw,,….*sigh* will so miss you guys!!!!!! *big big huggle* have a safe flight home!

day 8

slept in until real late before having lunch at L’Express, a French bistro with wonderful food. Later, we made our way to the frick museum collection. Beautiful house and rather nice art work. Only thing was I wasn’t feeling so well and hence didn’t enjoy it as much. Otherwise I was impressed by his sculpture collection and all. My fav was the room with all those veronese paintings depicting young love, and another room which showed various kids participating in adult activities like alchemy, art, playwrighting etc. My fav was this pic of a cherubic young boy looking shocked/scared as he expected the glass vial to explode during his experiment *lol*

it started raining really heavily while we were in the frick, and then later decided to snow O-o and then even later still, it snowed and rained at the same time. Ewwwww. *haha* ah well. went home, rested abit, got some dinner at an Indian restaurant before heading off to times square to attempt to catch the ball drop during the count down. Was rather sad that we couldn’t see the actual ball, but nonetheless we had a huge screen which showed us everything so we didn’t miss much. The atmosphere was real fun, had crazy Europeans next to us singing ‘I want to get drunk’ songs *lol* they even offered us their ‘traditional booze’ *lol* Also took pictures with firemen since those on duty were bored and wanted to join in the festive cheer so they happily obliged in taking photos with all the excited Americans. We merely followed like the good tourists we are *lol*

after that we went ot an italilan restaurant to eat before going home. Stole balloons along the way, ningz had a deflated pet balloon which tended to come when you called it *LOL* while tzo and en got normal ones which floated right. Mine was a long red one with a sparkly tail so it was fun to wave like a tour flag *lol*

and so. HAPPY NEW YEAR hahah

day 7

queued up early in the morning at TKTS to buy tix to Hairspray. After that sorta dilly-dallied around before heading to the theatre for our show. Was real fun! One of those musicals which tended to make you really happy after watching it. Music and all sorta like grease. Great fun ^^

Just before the musical, we visited St Patrick's Church which was right smack in the town center. It was gorgeous!!! And huge *haha* loved the stained glass and sculpture inside.

After musical went to meet kek and co for dinner at Joe’s ginger. Nice food and real cheap too! Haha. Amused ourselves seeing who could grab the most xiaolongbao without having it break. *lol* Later on proceeded to the rockafella center skating rink to ice skate. Was very fun but cold. Amused ourselves immensely watching Kashwa-aka-retarded-jock and Mitsubishi-aka-poncy-asian-figure-skater-wannabe play around on the ice below us *lol* En can insert videos/photos/amusing commentary here ^^

after ice skating, RUSHED to yoshionoya ^^ Ok, I RUSHED ^^ because it's Yoshi!!!! and i've not eaten yoshi for AGES!!!!! *yum yum yum* ^^ yup and that was supper. And after that we went home.

day 6

continued on said tour. of all days, it had to bloody pour. and this was when everyone got sick, since we were drenched. >.<

saw the Korean and Vietnam war memorial, and also trooped over to the Lincoln memorial where I was thoroughly disappointed since the statue was covered by scaffolding. >.< sigh. The Korean memorial was one of the coolest since it featured 18 soldiers marching towards a flag, and the entire thing was constructed such that the sculptures would reflect the black wall and thus appear as 36 soldiers (since the was was carried out at latitude 36 degrees I think) Also saw the Theodore Roosevelt memorial, which was quite boring IMO *haha* Very modern sculpture, which didn't really appeal to me. However i loved the quotes ont he wall. went on later to see the Smithsonian natural history museum, and saw the hope diamond, i.e. largest blue diamond in the world (I think)

After that was a quick lunch before the long bus ride back to Washington. After chucking our stuff in the hostel, went to meet kiat chuan and J&J and zhihao for dinner since it was kiat’s bday. That was followed up by a jaunt at starbucks, and then small talk over some beer at kiat's room.

day 5

woke up early. took the bus from Chinatown to Washington. it was a hongkong-er who conducted the tour, and hence the english and chinese was very weird. he pronounced river as ‘liver’ and the capitol building, which was domed, as the ‘dumb’ building. *lol* there was more, like how so-and-so statue was ‘to memorial XX’ *lol*

saw the liberty bell in Philly. Or rather, saw it from quite a distance away, since we didn't have time to go back *lol*

went to Baltimore to see the Baltimore harbour. which was pretty much like any other pier you've ever seen. So it was pretty boring to me.

also visited the Thomas Jefferson memorial (the white one at night) which was very beautiful. rushed through the aerospace museum too, which was impressive and featured the real space consoles. cool stuff!

stayed over at the best western pentagon. lol. was quite shiok, plenty of space.

aaand. that's it for now, someone please fill int he details since i can't rememeber. ^^

day 4

point form cos i wanna sleeeeeeep ^_^

- woke up SUPER early to let kiat in so he could dump his stuff. then went for breakfast at murray's bagels again ^^V good stuff!

- took a train down to Ground Zero... very very sad place there. As ningz says too, it's been 4 years, but the war is still going on....makes you think if anything's really being done, doesn't it?

- walked over to the Battery park so we could queue for the ferry to Liberty Island. And then decided not to, because the ferries from the island had black throngs of people packed llike sardines on them O-o It was amazing how the boat could even stay afloat! And the queues were sooooo long >.< managed to take some pictures of the Staatue of Liberty, but it was 'as small as a matchstick' as en says *lol* ah well... *haha*

- then trooped down to Wall Street so we could look at the famous stock exchange from the outside. We also stepped into St Patrick's (or St Peter's) Church for a look-see, since it looked totally gorgeous from the outside. And it was totally gorgeous from the inside too!! Beautiful. ^^

- Took a train to little Italy for some authentic italian pasta which was pretty good. Tzo got chatted up by the over-eager waiter..*ROTFL* reallly funny XD haha

- stepped into a cute japanese store near the restaurant to look at funky japanese fashion. Was amused how the japanese ladies manning the store were using a calculator to trash out the numbers for the tax etc *lol*

- went to Rice to Riches for some apparently famous rice pudding. VERY VERY COOL packagaing. The pudding itself was decent, but the packaging and marketing was awesome!!! fit for a design book in kino, seriously. Took lotsa photos, and we even had souvenirs!! (kept the spoons and bowls the things came in ^^) *insert pics here*

- took another train to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. VERY HUGe. The collections were decent, and it was very easy to get lost >.< Otherwise I rather enjoyed my expereince. Was just disappointed that i dind't get to go to the egyptian temple since the museum was closing >.< There was also a very interesting exhibit on the occult in photographs... O_o talk about weird exhibits...*haha*

- had dinner at au bon pain

- went to watch the alvin ailey dancce commpany.

-trudged home

- super shagged.

le fin ^^

Day 3

Today. Woke up early. And basically went SHOPPING *haha* saw a weird little store with a human model for a mannequin O-o Weird. And she wasn't even pretty! Had brunch at Murray's Bagles, which was gooooood. And then dinner at a place called Moonstruck which had gorgeous burger/sandwich things. *lol*

ok. Nothing else liao. tomorrow is liberty island and then ground zero i think *hahahahaha*

Day 2

En darling, it's BRITA. not Rita. *LOLOL*

On other things, I guess i've officially become the detail blogger ^^ So i shall live oup to my name *lol* In point form, cos i'm kinda tired (only waiting for my hair to dry *ho hum*)

1. woke up ealy, went to the Natural History Musuem. Had a simple breakfast of bagle and cream cheese and cofffee before trooping over to the main entrance to meet up with Andre, Chris and Aaron. Anyway. In short, MUSEUM WAAAAY COOL. We visited the dinosaur exhibit, and learnt alot of things on locomotion and neck stiffness and bone structure evolution. Super cool ^^ Saw many many life-sized moounted fossils, so with a leetle bit of imagination you could actually imagine a huge diplodocus towering over you, while behind you a T-Rex is frozen in motion giving chase. COOOOOL! The sheer number of specimens was amazing. One of my favourites is the new birdlike dinosaur found in china, called the Confuciusornis. *ROTFL* well, obviously someone ran out of names. *LOL* it's real cute, it's like a cute white puffin with two long trailing feather things. So funny XD Also saw a cool triceratops skulll and a very very cool fossil of a moose ancestor. The antlers were very impressive! Also saw some cool taxidermy exhibits (vic wennt nuts there...up till then she was singign the taxidermy song from the moment she walked out of the house O_o *haha*) In the ocean life exhibit, in particular, there were lots of interesting tidbits of information on deep sea life. My favourite was the one on male angler fish latching onto females: their insides degenerate and their mouthparts fuse into the body of the female, so eventually they become merely sacs of sperms for the female's disposal. *ROTFL* talk about fatal attraction....*snicker*

2. lunch at a small cafe called teriyaki boy. DAMN GOOD salmon sushi. And the price was good too. ^^

3. walked over to the empire state building and proceeded to torture ourselves with 90 min of queuing to reach the top for the view *lol* It was a nice view, luckily. We managed to just catch the last few minutes of sunset. So it wasn't a total gone case *lol*

4. dinner at The Harrison. >GORGEOUS food. ^^ Wonderful wonderful food (pictures insert here NOW ^^) Also had a good wine. I think it was german, and called a R-something (check receipt), which are supposed to be sweeter than the rest. Apparently some cabinet thing which means just a hint of sugar. *lol*

That's it *yawn* vic and en gave everyone really sweet presents 8grin* sankyuuuuuu ^^

*yawns somemore* okaaay. I think i shall sleep now. En is snorign next to me listening to some swedish rock music (pretty good stuff...what is the name again?) *lol*

over and out XD

MERRY CHRISTMASSSSSSSS ^_______________^//

You know you're in Chinatown when....

Backdating the post since i was lazyyyyyy ^^

Anyway, Christmas day. And where else to go but Chinatown, since only the Chinese work on christmas? *lol* Woke up real late to go hunt down Joe's Shanghai, supposedly the best shanghainese food in NYC. DAMN SHIOK. We called like 3 baskets of xiaolongbao, 1 soup, 1 noodles and 2 pastry things, and the whole thing cost 7 bucks per person including tips and tax O-o SHIOK hahaa.

But after that it started raining and raining *sigh* like singapore-style downpours O-o Which was miserable, and also where i discovered that my columbia jacket is not waterproof. T___T

Chinatown was HUUUUGE. Very very big. And so chinese!!! We were so happy that we started playing 'You know you're in chinatown when...' *LOL* Things we came up with included:

-you see a macdonalds sign and then you see a small declaration below that says 'three floors of seating' (to be read with the hongkong accent for full effect XD)
-you see andy lau posters
-you see many many stores selling the same fake scarves, pirated vcds and watches etc over and over again *lol*

etc. someone please filll this in *lol*

After more shopping we bumped into j&j and the mich pple O-o talk about small world lah. And then we eventually made our way to Columbia University to visit andre and have some dinner at the swish cafe ^^

Then it was a viisit to andre's room *lol* but it was raining so heavily...sigh. hahaha. the rooms in columbia are huge!!! or at least andre's was *lol* though i must say throughout the dorms, it's quite obvious that they have a very *koff* healthy *koff* alcohol culture *LOL* But the uni is very pretty ^^ if not for the rain and the darkness, ithink it'll be much pretty *lol*

watched BBC America over a bottle of beer shared amongst the 5 of us. There was a Creature Comforts christmas special showing, and it was susper cute!!! they were singing the 12 days of christmas and discussing between themselves the origin of the lyrics. *lol* Imagine depressed plasticine foxes, upsidedown partying bats and an operatic blackbird *LOL* En's fav was the singing clams *lol* Though i liked the slugs *lol* VEYR CUTE ^^ all done by the wallace and gromit animator so you can imagine what it looks like ^^

Later went to kenneth's house for some supper before heading back at 4am o-o Yes we did sing carols, and also ont he way back there was SO MUCH FOG O-o couldn't believe it hahaha. Ah well.

overand out. cos i can't remember anything else ^^ someone PLEASE take over this chronicaling job......^^;

yes. Today I arrived. And vicki went mad *lol* miss you toooooooo!!! ^^/

New york is GORGEOUS!!! I love the vibrancy of the city. It has this indescribable life of his own, totally addictive. The drive from the airport was very interesting, albeit VERY VERY dangerous. I'm surprised i even got through that alive O_o *haha* The driver was squeezing through very very narrow gaps, not really keeping to lanes, and changing lanes in split seconds O_o Man if i was behind him, i would be FREAKED out. As it is, sitting in the shuttle itself is TERRIFYING! I was gripping on to my chair the whole time, especially when the driver decided to accelerate on this narrow, windy and upward sloping road O_O Let's just say i'm not partiicularly keen to try it again O_o

But madcap drive aside, I saw many things:
a) new york's version of grave yards - unlike the peaceful, spaced out tombstones in ann arbor, with statues and engravings, these were somewhat...compressed. They were like narrow pillars, some with figureheads, while others were just stone pillars. And they were packed together so that the whole thing looked like an uneven concrete jungle, literally. Gives a whole new meaning to space conservation ^^;

b) broadway. GORGEOUS!!!!! I was looking around with wide-eyed wonder at the lights! Gorgeous. I somehow thought of that old song, Downtown. Beautiful. And rockefella centre!!! the christmas tree and the angels. Pretty ^^

c) KINOKUNIYA ^^V Hahahahahahaha. Walked in with vic and went Berserk ^^ Japanese books!!! Manga!!! Magazines!!! and OMIGAWD, japanese stationery!!!!!! Hahaha. One thing i really miss is pretty stationery. Or at least decent, aesthetically pleasing stationery. Americans really do not understand the importance of good mechanical pencils and colour pens *lol*

d) the REAL bebimbop is NOTHING like that shite in silly University Cafe. First it's delicious. Also the egg is NOT fried. It's raw and then you kinda cook it as you mix it. And the entire thing is in a hot bowl thingy. NICE. But now that means going back to university cafe and staring at the stuff they serve up in disdain. *lol*

haha. Also met up with the RJ councillors like Kenneth and Chris and Andre. Kenneth is seriously on crack *LOLOL*

MUSEUMS TOMORROW!!! *wheeeeeee* and shit i'm hungry. Over and out ^^V