I've always loved taking (and being in) candid shots, freezing people in the act of doing something absolutely natural. And, sometimes, as in this photo taken at Grace's outdoor wedding dinner, spontaneous reactions of the characters just make you laugh. I hope to take some nice candid shots on my last day at work too. To remember the place I worked at for the people worth remembering.

On the topic of weddings, I love this picture I took of my friend Grace. It's like the light of heaven is shining down on her, creating a halo effect. The angel in white looking forward to marital bliss :)

say I do....at a plant nursery

Was at Singapore's oldest plant nursery (opened in 1911) on Friday to interview a landscape project manager. And I spent more time there than I was supposed to, well, cos I was checking out its suitability as a place to hold a wedding!

Not that I'm in any urgent need to get married, but I couldn't help thinking what a pretty outdoor location it was to say I do. Only problem was its ulu-ness - it is somewhere near the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. You have to drive cross the Kranji Dam to get to it, and in my whole life, I have only crossed the dam once.

The nursery offers its gardens for outdoor weddings, and even has a wedding consultant (a very famous one, styles for publications and big events) who offers the most beautiful table settings.

Such a refreshing change from the usual four-star hotel. I'm sure there're more interesting places in Singapore to hold a wedding?

Still

Still
Hide me now under your wings
Cover me within your mighty hand

When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with you above the storm
Father you are king over the flood
I will be still and know you are God

Find rest my soul in Christ alone
Know his pow'r in quietness and trust

I want to learn to praise God above all that's happened. It's been a long time since I picked up my guitar to play this song. Fingers hurt, with the callousness on the skin long gone. I want to be still and know You are God.

Cabby Wabby

Oh yes...I wrote the last post without talking about cabbies at all.

If you were to ask me what I've found most memorable about my time in this monopolistic company that I work for, it would be the taxi rides. Cocoatina, my cab conversationist (I always call her only when I'm zipping from one assignment to another in a cab) finds my adventures quite amusing, I must say.

1. There was the lecher who scanned me with those perv eyes the moment I closed the door. He kept on turning around to look at me in the back seat, with a smirk on his face. He even locked all the doors in the cab using his master lock, which freaked me out totally. He also tried interrupting my phone conversation with Cocoatina! I had smsed her his car number, she freaked out and called me, talked to me throughout my whole journey so he would know I had a witness! HAH.

2. There was the RUDE one, who barked at me when I didn't have small change for him. When I asked him very nicely how he wanted to settle the bill, he retorted: "Of cos go bank lah! If not then how??? HIYAH, I wanted to ask you one (voice trails off - he CLAIMED he had meant to ask me at the start of the journey if I had small notes, but of course, he didn't)." I chide him for his attitude, he gets angry and says: "Aiya, don't want your money lah. Go!" Of course I go, I get a free ride :) What an idiot.

3. There're the story-tellers:
- there's one who believes that there is only one cause for the downfall of all companies: the presence of traitors. I think he seriously watches too much TV. Apparently there's this J from XXX taxi company who defected to a new taxi company, wrote letters to all the good drivers from XXX and asked them to defect as well, promising them incentives. When I asked him how he knew, he proffered some proverb: "Where the bird flies, there are feathers. Where a man walks, there are footprints." Cheem ah.

- there's one who spouts great maxims like "when you work, you feel sleepy. when you don't work, you feel awake. when you go on holiday, you feel even more awake!". And he hoped to win Toto the next day. If he did, he would take one year off work to holiday.

- there's one new agey guy who speaks to his plants. He says that he had a plant which was dying, and he started praising it for a few days, telling it "you are so beautiful, you are my world bla bla" and the plant blossomed. He also loves the pineapple from this stall next to the Sub Courts and made me watch his taxi while he ran to get his favourite pineapple. The cost of waiting? 10 cents, which he deducted from my fare. So fair hor?

and more and more......too much to tell.

Interesting right? :)

Hen night, work and taxi drivers

I haven't blogged for quite a bit, so naturally I have lots to say! Don't know how to start, but here goes:

Last night, I attended a hen night held in honour of church friend Grace. It was pretty fun. At first I thought it was going to be awkward cos some of the girls didn't know each other, but we enjoyed ourselves throughout the night. Grace's friend from UK was super on, and bought pink halter tops for all of us. She also made a badge that said "Grace's Angels" that we had to pin on our tops. Grace, on the other hand, got to wear a specially designed white halter that said something about her celebrating her hen night. She wore a crown of fresh flowers with a long white veil pinned to it. Sweet.

Of course, there were the forfeits - she had to kiss a guy on the cheek, get a guy to dance for us, pinch the butts of five guys etc...Which were pretty hilarious. Nothing sleazy. We ended the night at Bar None, where two groups of guys tried to crash our hen night. So irritating. One of them came to our table like 10 times and kept saying "thank you", apparently cos we helped to sabo their friend who was having a stag night at the same time. Then this sleazy guy volunteered himself on stage when the singer was asking for volunteers to have their butts pinched by Grace. Wah lau! Of cos, Grace's angels booed him off stage. AND THEN, he filled up this glass with hard liquor and wanted to force Grace to down it, but big sis Khimmy stormed up and snatched it away. Bar None was quite nice too - the waiter came, took the glass away and changed it for a new drink, which was on the house. Awww....

Another guy bought us champagne. I think he was saboed by this other friend (we'll call him Fat Boy), who I think was THE one who bought the drinks. When we go over to thank the guys, Fat Boy says: "aren't you going to invite us over to your table?" Aiyo.....so lame. Anyways, we all kinda ignored him and he kinda faded into the background after that.

So that's the hen night. I couldn't drag myself out of bed today for my 9.15 interview cos I hit the sack so late. I had to do four interviews at NUS early in the morning and I'm telling people I've been NUS-ified. So now, I can't think, and I'm going to read 8 Days, cos I have another NUS interview at 4pm. But I must say I enjoyed one interview with a famous fertility expert. He's so humble, so accommodating, so pleasant. Totally no airs, despite the four world-firsts in research that he has achieved. Don't you just love people like that?

These few days, apart from feeling unmotivated about work (you know why), I'm also thinking about my life, my family, my future bla bla bla. Counting down to the day that my sorta life-changing decision will manifest in black and white.

Such mixed feelings.

But for now, I'm just soooooo tired I wanna go home.

This Crazy World

I sometimes joke that if life is perfect, where would the spice be? In hindsight, imperfect life, more often than not, gets too spicy for comfort.

I just wanna sing that upbeat Mayday song loud and hard, just like how Ashin sings it like it's the happiest song in the whole wide world.

Title: This crazy world (translated from Chinese lyrics)
Lyrics and melody: Ashin

If I say I have regrets, does it mean I could go back in time
Memories are so sweet, living is such pathetic existence
Why does this world always make us feel so sad
I don't understand, I have no wish to understand

I yearn to fly, to escape this crazy world
So much hardship, so much sorrow, so many absurd tears
I yearn to fly, to escape this crazy world
If you happen to discover me, please don't ask me back

After thinking of you for one whole night, I can't ever remember your face again
You are but a feeling, written in the summer wind
Youth is like water that you can't grasp, that disappears through your fingertips
So use your all to waste it, then use your all to regret

An example of one of the colourful houses on the island of Burano in Venice. Such pretty flowers adorning the facade of this house. The white laundry you saw in the picture below was hung just outside this house.

Looking at this picture I took again, I can't help but think what a Nippon Paint moment! The blue of the walls is splendid. (ahem, no Photoshop touch-up was involved.) Burano island in Venice is a fishing village with colourful houses red, yellow, blue, green, purple. I was exploring the little lanes on my own when I turned into this alley and found lots of white washing hung out to dry, fluttering gently to the light breeze.

Sisters, or not? Can't believe me mum will be 50 this month!!! Thank goodness it seems like I inherited youthful genes from her - people keep thinking I'm never older than 19. But why did she not pass on her slim cheeks to me aka fat face???!!! Anyways, I took this photo at Sudtiroler Platz (sort of like a bus interchange)in Vienna where we were waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the airport for our Paris leg.

Travelling Europe

It was a great trip and I'm really pretty proud of myself as tour guide! Haha. Though some pple don't believe me, as I'm navigationally challenged on roads. I read maps excellently in Europe (ahem) and brought my mum around - on foot and on the subways - like a real local. Well, almost. Chuckle.

First stop - Venice. This little city criss-crossed with canals is just so charming. The buildings are all made of stone, and some look like they are crumbling. But nice type of crumbling. However, once you step inside, you find the interiors very modern. Everywhere you walk, you'd find narrow alleys that lead to somewhere expected. A great place to get lost cos you never know what beautiful centuries-old church you might chance upon, or what peaceful quiet square you might come to where you can enjoy a packed sandwich for lunch, listening to the church bells toll from someplace afar.

No two maps of Venice have the same roads and configurations, I've realised. So we took to just following signs on the stone walls of the buildings. Some of these signs were even pieces of paper that people stuck outside buildings which said "300m Piazza San Marco". Obviously, lost tourists have been enquiring! Piazza San Marco, or St Mark's Square, is the prettiest square in Venice, where the magnificent St Mark's Basilica stands. We saw crowds of visitors each time we were there, either feeding the pigeons, enjoying wine at the alfresco areas while the band played, or simply sitting on steps watching people. Such a vibrant atmosphere! We didn't take the gondola rides cos they charged like 80 euros (about S$160) for half an hour, my mum eavesdropped.

We saved money by cooking dinner in our apartment's kitchenette too :) Mum cooked pasta and we drank wine/beer. She loved supermarket shopping, always keeping a sharp eye out for discounts. We shopped like the locals, bringing our own groceries bag cos plastic bags cost three to five euro cents (ie about s'pore 10 cents. Exhorbitant!). Public toilets cost 50 euro cents to visit, which is like S$1.10!!! So mum usually made me control my bladder till we stopped for lunch at a cafe/restaurant where I could use the toilet for free. Heh.

Second stop - Vienna. Great place to enjoy space I must say. The pace here was the slowest of all the cities I visited on the trip. Everywhere you see the Austrians carrying classical musical instruments. After all, Austria was Mozart's and Strauss' birthplace. I attended a recital by the Vienna Hofburg Orchestra, in the Hofburg Palace. Wonderful music, including my favourite The Blue Danube, which of course they played cos The Danube River is in Austria.

Third stop - Paris. The usual I guess. Cosmopolitan, but still full of culture. But mum didn't like it cos the pace was too fast. Everybody's just rushing to and fro and the busy metro crowds frightened her a little.

Fourth and fifth stops - Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Here Aunt Es was around to be tour guide. So I took a break :) Amsterdam, apart from Venice, was my other favourite stop. It's so cosmopolitan (42 per cent of the population is not local), has this great Hong Kong roast duck restaurant, has charming houseboats on the many canals, and the atmosphere is lively but not hectic.

We had to go to Rotterdam to take a ferry to Kinderdijk, which was the highlight of our Holland stop. Kinderdijk is a place in the country where there are I think 14 windmills - both round stone mills and thatched mills. They were used in the past to control the water levels in the area to prevent flooding. It was the first time I had ever seen windmills and they were soooo beautiful. It was such a pleasant walk too. We sat down on the stone benches right where the mills were to enjoy our packed sandwiches as well. Thank God the sunny weather only disappeared when we ended our walk. Cos it poured like crazy after that. Cold. Shudder.

Shall post pictures up soon. Watch this space!