Good like that

Even though my parents were out of town during the festive season, I had an awesome break filled with friends, food, random dancing and just enough alone time to feel rested.  

My mother is adamant about new clothes during Chinese New Year even if I'm hanging out alone at home, so I started the season with a breezy owl tank I bought in Krabi.  It doesn't quite match up to the Wallace and Gromit crew neck of 2007, but then, nothing really beats Claymation.  Cheeeeese.

I packed my little neon crossbody from Victoria's Secret and took a walk in the rain to get coffee.  (Thank you MacDonaldisation.  Even as the streets are silent, we can count on the Western joints to be open.)  

I am digging travelling light - the less you carry, the less you realise you need.  This pouch comes with handy compartments and was just big enough to stuff a rolled up scarf in.  Also packed: Starbucks card (duh), cards, money, delicious Coconut Grove Bath and Body Works hand sanitiser, EOS lip balm in Summer Fruit, Pure Seduction Eau De Toilette, keys and my phone.

         

Some cool houses on my walk. The area is filled with old shophouses that have been turned into residences or shops and I love how the moulding often looks like icing on a garishly-coloured cake.

After a very cheerful walk in the rain (not being sarcastic), I went over to my friend, N's home for dinner.  We started the evening off with cheese, hummus and Serpico, Al Pacino's first huge film.  It was tense and funny in equal measure and slightly strange in the way that movies from the seventies tend to be.  I highly recommend it!

At some point, there was a debate about the merits of heading out for the rest of the evening, and I suddenly found myself in Clarke Quay, dancing like it was 1999.  (I can attest to the fact that nobody really danced that year.  We all sat round the TV watching the celebrations, waiting for Y2K to get us and for everything to shut down violently, leaving us shivering by candlelight.  Of course, that never happened apart from a few fireworks going off.  We said, "Is that it?" and were all in bed by 12:02.)

We had an awesome time fist-bumping and singing "We Are Young" to bad live bands before finishing off with an early morning McDonald's breakfast, as you do.  

On the second day, I met with E and S for a very pretty high tea and a walk in the Botanic Gardens.  Like a dolt, I forgot my camera so iPhone pictures and overwrought instagrams will have to suffice.

I've never had tiered high tea before and I was really excited to be served three layers of sweet and savoury doodads that looked worthy of Downton Abbey.   Some of the desserts were slightly strange and as S pointed out, fruitcake is nobody's friend, but overall, it was a very well-balanced and filling selection.

My favourite kind of dessert: a heart-shaped macaron with chilli-chocolate ganache.

We had a very intense conversation about raising children, smacking and psychopaths (there was a link, I promise you).  A couple had brought their toddler son for tea and he was running wildly around, dragging himself along the carpet as children are wont to do.  Things came to a head when he knocked over a lamp and dented the lampshade while his mother was busy on her phone. 

"You little monster," she sighed indulgently as he crawled behind the curtain.  "Come here.  I said, come here.  Do you hear me?"

Tongues were clicked and judgements were made.  (I'm not suggesting the boy was a psychopath, mind.  S just suddenly piped up, "What if you had a child and suddenly realised they were a psychopath?!" and we stared at each other in mute horror.)

To walk off our fullness, we headed to the Botanic Gardens and took a stroll in the drizzle, talking in English accents.

When I was a kid, the Botanic Gardens was one large, well-manicured path winding through swan lake and topiaries.  Over time, they've expanded and put in lots of sculptures and now it feels more like Central Park - quiet, slightly overgrown and full of mysterious crannies.  I loved the secret wooden walkways and plan to go back with a proper camera sometime soon.

It's back to work tomorrow, but I plan to fully enjoy the last cool hours of the evening - probably with some scented candles and writing.  I leave you with this picture of a bonzai, because nothing says Gong Xi Fa Cai like an elaborately stunted plant.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Gratitude list: Free Time

1) This awesome book from the library at my school.

Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth by Chris Priestly is book of stories within stories - just the kind I like.  I cadged it off a student who had just finished reading it.  I love weird fiction and the books written for children in particular are just a little bit more strange.

A boy rides a train to London, but falls asleep in the cabin on the way.  When he wakes up, it is dark, the train has stopped, and his other passengers are still snoozing.  Except.  There is a new passenger seated directly opposite him, a woman in white, who has been watching him.  He checks around him and realises his watch has stopped.  Not knowing how long the train will be stranded for, the boy starts a conversation with the woman in white and she whiles the time away by telling him stories.  Creepy stories.

What I really enjoyed was how the stories walked the fine line between uncomfortably creepy and outright horrific.  Uncomfortably creepy stays with me for much longer but doesn't run the risk of keeping kids up at night.

There are some gems among the separate stories: The New Governess is especially unnerving and Gerald, though not completely original, was neatly crafted.

The unsettling little illustrations help too.

2)  High Tea

Whenever I'm at home, my afternoon pick me up includes a cup of milky tea without sugar and whatever biscuit, cake or snack I've been squirrelling away for the week.  I love my afternoon tea (so much so that I'm thinking of documenting all the mundane combinations in pictures!) and going out for the occasional high tea is an even bigger treat.

Earlier today, E, S, and I met up to enjoy sandwiches, pastries and cake at the Regent Tea Lounge and spent a very pleasurable afternoon lying on the couches and chatting about everything.  (I do recommend the tea set, the scones are the sweet, dense, old-fashioned kind that I've only ever had in the now defunct Compass Rose and in Goodwood Park Hotel.)

3)  Waking up luxuriously late and looking over to find what my mother has left me on the nightstand:

Nian Nian You Yu

Chinese New Year came early, too.  It's my favourite holiday of the entire year, and I love the joy of meeting up with friends and family and stuffing my face with prawn rolls and bak kwa.  (In fact I once ate so much bak kwa in a day that I was violently sick the whole night afterwards.  That part wasn't so joyous.)

On the weekend, Amanda and Ben invited us to their new (half-finished) place for a housewarming/ celebratory dinner of sorts.  It is beautifully done up, cosy but bright and with little touches that feel very personal.

You know how everyone has one dress that is super easy to wear, super comfortable and feels super flattering?  This is mine.  It's a purple dress from Cotton On that must've cost me less than $20 and I've had it for several years but I still love it.  My father says it's a shapeless sack, but I like that it's flowy, simple and that the neck is high.  And pockets!  Who doesn't love pockets!

As usual, Amanda and I got to work hamming it up.  "You can be the interior photographer!"  She declared, waving her hands at the living room.  "The photos must look nice, okay?  After all, aren't you from Home and Decor magazine?"  

I pretended to be flustered.  "Um... no?"

She looked horrified.  "Then why in the world have we invited you?"

I took tonnes of photos of the house anyway.  Don't tell the kit lens, but my prime is my favourite to shoot with, even if it does lend limited scope.  

My favourite things were the owl collection - Ben and Amanda had picked them up over the years - and the huge, well-placed chandelier in the living room. 

The lady of the house and I sat and ate pretzels and cheese while the rest of the gang arrived, and when they'd all come round, we made short work of the Indian food Ben ordered.

We took turns pretending owls in the shelf cubicles and Mel made me pose like, for lack of a better expression, I was serving my rack up on a plate.  Thanks a lot, Niño.  Thanks a lot.  

There was Yu Sheng!  I'm a big fan of Yu Sheng, more for the fun of the process than for anything, but my family doesn't usually get the chance to have it at Chinese New Year since we're not that traditional. 

... and you know how it goes.  We laughed a lot trying to figure out which food went with which sayings and trying to make the non-Chinese people recite various things.  Unfortunately, since the toppings had been squeezed into containers for ages, they fell out in unattractive clumps rather than being spread liberally over the salad, which only made us laugh more.

For those of you who don't know what happens afterwards (I get weird blog hits from places like Romania and I suspect they're all bots, but anyway...) you toss the salad by lifting it as high up as you can and shouting out your wishes.  Traditionally they're supposed to be things like health and prosperity, but people have started to get more specific with things like lots of money, new cars and hot guys (just me).

Even though the evening ended a little early because some of us had to work the next day, it was loads of fun.  Thank you for inviting us, Amanda.  My grandmother died last year so I won't really get the chance to celebrate Chinese New Year this week.  But it was awesome to experience the warmth of my surrogate family for one night. 

Here's wishing everyone a happy, healthy and wealthy Lunar New Year with your loved ones!

And I leave you with this picture of Jen's adorable Coach tote because... well, nothing says festive like a cute new handbag!

What I've been up to this evening

Stuff and things

One of the cool things about being in the United States was that I got to buy random things that we don't easily get back home like this cute variation on a typical American composition notebook.

I also managed to get to a Bath and Body Works.  It's going to sound odd if I say this was a lifelong dream for me, but it was, a little bit.  I adore bath products and even though I've had The Body Shop, L'Occitane and Lush within reach before, I never managed to get in spitting distance of Bath and Body Works.

Some of the things I bought for myself and for friends.  The little hand sanitisers make cute gifts, I think.  Hand sanitiser in Singapore smells like Dettol or something similarly anti-bacterial.  I'm using the Coconut Grove flavour myself, and it's a vast improvement.

I haven't actually tried the moisturiser properly yet, but in the shop it felt similar to some of the Victoria's Secret lotions - moderately creamy and deliciously scented.

After some thought, I also splurged on a Vera Bradley wallet in the pattern Indigo Pop.  I've always wondered what it would be like to own something from Vera Bradley (I'm shallow like that) and I love this wallet because it has an entire compartment for your Smartphone.  That really got me.

I used to try jamming my phone into all my other wallets and they would either get uncomfortably distorted or worn out.  Now I can just grab this and go, and it still looks cute.

The Grandluxe diary is my planner this year and it wasn't from the States but I thought it looked pretty there anyway.  I like the fact that the spiral is so tiny and flat in the middle that it doesn't interfere with my southpaw handwriting.

Finally, there are these candles, which are not from America either, weirdly enough.  Before I even knew that I was going to San Francisco, my colleague Vanessa and I decided to buy some Bath and Body Works candles online, just to try them out.  We'd both been using Yankee Candles and wanted to see how the Slatkin and Co. variety compared.

I'm happy to report that I LOVE them.  They burn really evenly and quickly, thanks to the three wicks (Yankee Candles sometimes tunnel, unless they're of the two-wick variety) and the smells are as delicious as they sound.  Vanessa got Winter and Marshmallow Fireside and she loves them too.  If you're looking to order online, now's a good time since all the holiday flavours are out. 

Well, off to spend the rest of the evening knitting to the smell of mint and chocolate.  Don't judge!

Gratitude list: The fundamental things apply

At present I'm reading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project.  I don't buy it sometimes - she is vastly privileged and her problems feel minute and contrived, but other times, she has much needed common sense in spades.

In one chapter, she talks about how she is thankful for the special moments that happen throughout the day but tends to take other basic things for granted, like having a roof over her head or personal safety.  It occurred to me that most people are the same way.  I don't think much about living in Singapore (except when it's blistering outside) even though it's one of the most stable places there is.  And I seldom consider my station in life.

So in today's gratitude list it's time to give thanks for the fundamentals.

1)  Family

I don't always think about my family with humility and thanks, but when I do, I see how lucky I am that my parents gave us a loving, stable foundation and the opportunity to live and learn in safety.  When I think about how they struggled to bring the three of us up, working full-time and running a meticulous home, my heart smiles.

2)  My friends

Whenever (and wherever) they are, at sleepovers or brunches or at work or on skype, I am grateful for all the people who look out for me and whom I look out for in return.

3)  The little things

 
Sometimes, I take the little things in life for granted too.  They can seem frivolous but it is such an honour to have a stable enough life that one has time for frivolity, time to look for happiness in small things like colours or trinkets or small pleasures. 

I don't have to worry about walking the streets at night or my safety.  Instead, I can enjoy silly things like peanut butter cups, a pet dog or these delicious red wedges and it means so much.   

Moments: January

The other regular feature I've decided to institute is a series of monthly moments that don't seem to fit in anywhere or tell any particular story.  Meals with friends, things I found aesthetically pleasing, random sights that I thought to snap, bits and pieces of days gone by. 

I really want to push myself to think a bit more about composition and taking slightly nicer pictures.  Travelling around with a camera (even if it's just a dinky iPhone camera) makes me look around and automatically frame shots in my head.  It's good photography practise, even if some of the results are less than perfect.

Let's be honest, it's just a glorified photo dump.  But who doesn't love a good photo dump?

Neon shoes for dinner with David at Saboten.  We eat at least four big bowls of cabbage between us. 

I didn't take this one, obviously.  The culprit shall remain unnamed.

And my personal favourite moment of the month: when one of our students slipped this rainbow tie on with his staid conference outfit.  Such a mood-lifter!