Sunday, September 24, 2017

Sundaze

It's been an incredibly lazy weekend for me. Haven't seen the outside world for 2 days now which is great. My ideal weekend is being home, on my bed, watching endless shows on my laptop and take several naps. I don't get to do this on the weekdays so I like to busk in sheer nothingness on the weekend. 

I just had a McDonalds lunch and I'm always torn between feeling really fantastic after eating burger and fries or feel really guilty because damn, that's a lot of fast food. Doesn't help that there's a McDonalds just 3 minute drive from my house. I just realised I haven't done the 'one-month fast' that I used to do in the beginning of the year. We're a week to October so maybe I should restart with a No Fast Food month. And I think I need to skip on sugary drinks. I drink way too much sirap limau in a week. 

I've run out of most of my skincare products; cleanser, toner, essence, moisturiser. I hate how they always seem to finish at around the same time, no matter how big or small I buy them! My pay is only coming next week and I'm trying to be more sensible with my shopping these days. I even downloaded an app that lists, calculates and tallies my expenditures. It's such a no brainer app but it's such a useful one - a lot of my money goes into food so I'm trying to see how I can cut down on that. Bring my embarrassing water bottle out for lunch instead of ordering drinks and eating smaller portions of food. And no snacks! Not sure what my app is called but there are plenty for you to check out. They all work out pretty much identical anyway. 

So on Friday, (I know I'm skipping from one topic to another with no flow whatsoever but just roll with it ok) my friends and I made a mini road trip to have dinner at one of our favourite places, Garden Seafood. It's in Tanjung Malim and we got to know of it because we studied at KY. It's AMAZING, they are pretty famous for their honey sotong and it's a must order whenever we go. Ariff left KL for the UK yesterday so as a last gathering, he wanted to eat at Garden Seafood. So we planned the trip and went on Friday. We stopped over at KY with no expectations whatsoever that we'd get in because they've grown to be quite strict with visitors over the years. But they did!!! College was empty because it was a long weekend so the cafe, dining hall and everything else was closed. Would've loved to go to the cafe and see everyone (lol I don't know anyone in KY now). We moved on to Garden Seafood and after stuffing ourselves with homemade beancurd, honey sotong, kangkung belacan, nyonya chicken and ikan tiga rasa, we left for KL. Definitely will make the trip again.

Stopped by at the bus because Zain wanted to take a photo with... himself.


House rivalry is still *such* a thing. 


I think we were all a bit mesmerised being at the Saad Square. We've not only just left KY, we're also all done with university! So surreal to be back here.

My hangout place closed when we were there! Sad. 



Yum, doesn't this just look like a dream!!!!! Can't wait to go back.

I'm all showered and I have clay mask on (from Innisfree) on and I'm getting peckish. Need to find something to make. Have been wanting to eat samyang for so long so maybe that.

Damn it, tomorrow's Monday.

xx

Friday, September 22, 2017

The Intern

So in March, we had a new intern. Her name is Anis. I'll be the first to say she came off very strong. Like she was constantly clinging on to me. And I didn't even know her!! She was a strong presence in an office that otherwise was quite... mellow. But over the time, the whole office felt livelier, noisier, funner, and had more character. I looked forward to my days in the office because I had a friend. Not that I don't love my colleagues, I do, but Anis felt more friend than a colleague. She is not just the same age as I am, she was also born the day after me. Destined.

I love this girl. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not one for PDA and I don't like to be too clingy with anyone. It was my upbringing and I've always been pretty much to myself so when Anis came into my life, I was (like I said earlier) taken aback but I enjoyed it. She's such a ball of sunshine and makes everyone's day. She helped me so much at work and has always helped me get my A-game up. I never thought I'd find a lifetime best friend at work so I'm so glad we chose her to be our intern hahaha. Now I have one more dulang girl candidate! (I'm not getting married soon)

But anyway, she has officially left the company. She interned for a good 6 months and was given the choice to continue with us but she got a better job offer elsewhere and I told her to go. It was so obviously a better choice to leave for this other job she got and I didn't want her to be tied down to this company just because she felt obligated to. As much as I and the team love her. 

I'm pretty sad about it because my best friend left (!!!) but we're all trying to make up for it by doing our best to keep ourselves entertained. We had a good singing fest just now when the boss wasn't in. It's not like we won't see her anymore anyway but it's an absence that is definitely felt by everyone. 









Love you miss you and sayang you more, bestie. Be good, jumpa soon for dim sum or nasi ayam kukus Ilham. 

Thought I had to write this down because although I won't forget Anis (I can't possibly, she's texting me everyday) but I haven't made a friend in so long that I'm this close to so I wanted to immortalise this. For future me to see that I made a best friend at 24. 

xx

Crying missing

I'm in a ridiculously reminiscent mood. I miss the UK. I miss being there with my friends. I miss being a student in a foreign land. I really miss being a 21 year old. It feels so different now. I hardly see my friends who I was so close to back when we were in uni. Everyone's so busy at work now and I never was quite sad about it as I am now.

I'm crying as I'm blogging because I was looking through photos of my time there and I just started bawling. Like, straight up TEARS streaming down my face, uncontrollable sobbing all! It's the time of year where everybody starts going grocery shopping to stock up on their necessities for the UK. Damn, those were some great 3 years. Best I've had. Ever. It was such a wonderful experience and journey and I'm so glad I was so crazy about taking photos of everyone and everything and blogging about it because I get to relive it whenever I have the time.

It's not that I don't like where I am currently but there's just so much I have to think about now that when I was scrolling through my Path feed (where I post some of my UK photos 'cause it's more private there), I had a pang of utter sadness hit me like a ton of bricks. More than just a ton of bricks, really. Can't believe it's already been a year since I've been working. WORKING. Insane. The responsibilities are piling and the routine is starting to get to me.

Bring me back to my first flight (as shit as it was and I had the biggest pimple on my right cheek) to the UK with my friends, swollen eyes from crying, a whole new wash of realisation that this was it. This was what we worked for. This was where we wanted to go. It was an exciting time of my life and I will never, ever forget it.

3 years felt such a long time when I first got there when I was lugging my 2 huge luggages to my house (in which I continued to stay all three years) and clumsily fumbling with £1 coins for the bus fare. I still can memorise my UK address, my UK number, my bus number, my Lloyds bank debit card number, I remember the classes and which blocks they were in, I remember how to get Azam and Zati's houses and I remember that I used to play Arctic Monkeys every bus trip to London and Taylor Swift's album on my bus trips to the grocers. I remember that mushrooms were a pound per packet, and croissants were £0.67 each at McColls just down the road. One of the cashiers there is named Tania and I told her my sister shared the same name. I know the climb up to uni was hell but took 5 full songs to get there. Bus fare was £3 for a full day trip but £2.70 for a student (and just a pound to Morrison's). I spent £30 for a rail way card in my second year and that was when I went to London the most. I remember everything! It's still so etched in memory and I never want to forget my experience. It was the place that saw me grow as a young, independent woman. The first meal I cooked for myself was served on a mint green Ikea plate that I bought a week earlier. It was fussili and I cooked it with store-bought sauce, vege, herbs and spices, mushrooms, everything. It was an okay dish but it was my first ever attempt ALONE at cooking for MYSELF. I had to commemorate and take a photo of it to send to my family. And they were generous with their compliments.

I remember buying myself the then brand new iPhone 5S. For the first week there, I was surviving on a Blackberry and an iPad. I had to wait for my debit card to be ready to buy the iPhone so it was the longest waiting time because I wanted to Facetime comfortably and not with a big iPad.

I remember my Ikea trip with Zati who had arrived about 10 days earlier than I did. I spent so much for my bare room - bed sheets, plates and cutleries, a carpet and so many other things. It came up to £160 and my mum was like, "Err... what the hell did you get" hahaha. I'm so, so, so glad that I had familiar faces with me in Bristol. Like Azam and Zati. Azam came to the UK with his dad and they were GREAT help, especially with my bags and being on completely unknown territory. Zati's first year house was basically my place too. I was there so often because the company was fantastic. I slept there way too many times too. Adda cooked yummy lauk and we'd all sit ourselves in front of the small TV and watch whatever there was. Memoriesssssssssss. I saw Adda and Sofia for the first time in agesssss at a wedding last weekend and I was flooded with good times at their house on Boston Road. I remember sitting with this Asian girl named Lynn who spoke in an English accent in my first ever class. I was the only international student (Lynn was born and raised in Cardiff but her parents are Thai). And I hope to never forget Lynn, my only ever friend in uni who helped me the most in adapting to the new place. I would've not enjoyed my days there as much if not for her. I don't think she reads this blog but sigh, that girl was a gem and I really need to reconnect with her one of these days.

And all my holidays and trips around the UK and Europe were unforgettable. Ridiculous how much fun I had with my friends. This was us prior to commitments and work and crazy hours. Something about traveling with friends in your 20s that makes it unlike any other vacation you will ever take. From the heat in Monaco to the coldest I've ever been in Berlin, traveling with my mates was the best thing ever ever ever. I travelled with a group of 12 and I travelled with one other person but all experiences were divine. I still want to go travel with my friends but there needs to be some major planning because everyone has to be on their off-peak season and can afford to take their leave days.

I'll definitely post some of my favourite photos of my UK experience along with this post but that calls for searching and organising the pictures and I'm not in the mood to do that. I do that enough at work so I'll see if I'm up for it during the long weekend. But I thought I just had to post this because I needed to reminisce just about the best time of my life.

Ok before I start crying again, I'll end it here. Of course I'm so elated to be home but I really can't help but miss my UK experience and Bristol as my home. I can't wait to go back and relive it all.

xx

Monday, September 18, 2017

SGD

So on Merdeka weekend, it just so happened to stretch to a 5 day public holiday bliss. Can't complain, I love long days off. Since school! And I was glad I didn't end up using the annual leave I applied for Monday since we got that off too (thank you athletes, so proud and we love you).

I went to Singapore in April for work and I was reminded how much I loved it that I immediately planned on going again later in the year with my sisters. And now that I'm working, I thought it'd be nice to treat them out on a short holiday. This was a rather big achievement for me because I didn't have to borrow money from my parents. Which makes this hopefully, the first out of many holidays of me self-sponsoring.

We were there for 2 nights and we left on Saturday. Took an early flight with Scoot which is a new budget Singaporean airline. And I really liked the whole experience because i) We didn't have to walk to the airplane and ii) We arrived 10 minutes earlier from expected. Talk about being kiasu, amirite?

Got ourselves to our accommodation called Arcadia Hotel and it's situated in Lavender, just a stop after Bugis which wasn't too bad. And it's a boutique hotel so I thought it'd be cuter (also, relatively affordable). My mistake with ALL my holidays is that I always, always book for a damn early flight and then being in the dilemma of "Hmm now what do we do?" while waiting for our room to be ready. I know some people dump their things at their accommodation and go about their day. But after a flight, especially one early in the day, I like to wash up a bit before going on with the rest of the first day. So we went to go to a small café nearby and hung there for a good minute before going back to the hotel. The room we got was SO tiny, it reminded me of like a small student's accommodation. Felt bad for my sisters because we were squeezed in a pretty tight space so I asked for a bigger room but could only get it the 2nd night. Which was fine. What's a night of small tight lovin', right?



This was the only shot I had of this store because was too busy going around and loving everything. Iman bought an oversized denim jacket and I bought a pair of jeans and a striped top.


Dress from Zara (which I got half priced!) and maroon slides from where else, Nelissa Hilman.


CALIFORNIA PIZZA KITCHENNNNNNN MY LOVEEEE



Walked around Orchard Road because we wanted to take it easy. Even planned to go to Bugis right after but underestimated the amount of time we spent on Orchard that we just pretty much spent all our time there on the first day.

Made our way to one of my FAVOURITE stores ever, The Editor's Market. I loved everything and I loved the concept of it too. Like how you buy 1, you get it for a certain price but if you buy 3 items, you get everything cheaper and if you buy 6 things, you get it even cheaper. It's a pretty brilliant strategy because you go in the store thinking "OK, I need to get 3 things now because why not" or at the very least, people will bring in their friends and family to buy more so that everyone gets a cheaper price. And the clothes are already quite affordable in my opinion, especially compared to other mainstream retailers.

During breakfast, we were joking how we would have to go all the way to Seoul to eat good pizza (a good pizza for us is California Pizza Kitchen's pepperoni pizza) and I asked "Maybe ada in Singapore??" and I Googled and true enough, "California Pizza Kitchen, Singapore" appeared on the homepage and Iman was very close to crying happy tears. We really should bring it back to Malaysia, any willing investors? Promise you'll get your returns in like... a year.

I don't know about anyone else but one of my favourite part about a holiday is the hotel room I stay in. For me, what makes or breaks a holiday is the accommodation. I'd rather spend a good amount on a place to stay because at the end of the day when you're tired from all the walking and sightseeing, you just want to come home to a nice, comfortable place to shower, relax and sleep.

So we did just that. Hahahaha. It was so hot and we were sweating in all places and we woke up very early that morning so we decided to take an early night. We slept at 9:30pm!! We had to wake up early anyway because.... we were going for Yayoi Kasuma's exhibit! Yes, the one with a lot of circles and yes, the one with the magical lights.

This was the very last day of the exhibit and it has been running since June. I booked tickets a week earlier so it was a matter of collecting the tickets. We were slotted for 11am so we got there before 10:30am and there was already a 2 hour queue for people who wanted to buy tickets then and there. Craaaaaazy. Good thing I didn't leave it last minute.

The queue to get in the 4 different 'rooms' were also very long. It could just probably be because it was the last day and everyone was rushing to see it before it closes but man, the line!!! Was!! Absurd!! Though I have to say the line moved pretty quickly so it wasn't too bad. But still. Would've saved an hour from lining up everywhere.

We then moved to have 4 Fingers for lunch at Marina Square. Also, bloody hell, it was damn sunny. I know this shouldn't be news but damnnnnnn it was so sunny. Don't think sunscreen worked cause I'm still tanned! I scurried to any and every shaded walkway every chance I got but don't think that was too helpful. After having 18 pieces of chicken (!!! SO good!!! And I personally think it's so much flavourful in Singapore than the one here in KL), we made our way to Bugis to check out Haji Lane and everywhere nearby. By then we were SO tired, and just wanted to sit down somewhere and it was a Sunday so there were so many people everywhere! AND it was so hot. I think the reason why we didn't sit down at a cafe somewhere was because we much preferred going back to the hotel and lying down on our bed. So we did that... with a Grabcar. Couldn't be bothered to walk to an MRT station. 

All three of us didn't have internet on our phones and so we attempted to travel around with a map (that was, by the end of the trip, very well-loved, all torn and wrinkled). And we did pretty well, I think? Though I think CityMapper would've saved us a lot of time, surviving with a map made for great adventures and lots of "Wait, huh, what?". 

The walkway towards the National Gallery of Singapore was all polka dots! So cute.






















Just wanted to quickly note that I was ENDLESSLY impressed by how beautiful the National Gallery was. What a sophisticated and stunning place. Architecture, curation, interior, everything was so elegant. Reminded me of the National Museum in Amsterdam.

Yep, 18 pieces of chicken got nothin' on us.










One of the only photos we took together. And it's a selfie...



For dinner, we got a cab to Clarke Quay. Yeah, we couldn't do the whole walk/train/walk/train thing, got too tiring haha.

Loved Clarke Quay though food prices were crazy. Wanted to eat at the super famous seafood restaurant but there was an hour and 45 minute wait and we couldn't be too bothered. We managed to find a small Korean place and it was pretty good... and definitely a lot cheaper than the ones on the deck.

After we did some walking, we went back to the hotel to chill. I think we were at 11k steps the so we were pretty exhausted by the end of it hahaha.

Next day we took our time with leaving the hotel because we loved the room a little too much. So we walked our way to a nearby cafe and had breakfast. Got back and showered to get ready for our last day out! Flight was that evening so we had to pack up. Made our way to Gardens by The Bay where we went up on the OCBC Skywalk. The elevator up didn't feel too bad but it was actually quite high up. Tania didn't walk to the other side because she got the creeps. It's quite pretty, as you're surrounded by odd looking structures (like scrawny trees) and you have the Marina Bay Sands hotel behind you and you can see good ol' greenery all around you and see a good chunk of Singapore. It was quite windy too and Tania swore the bridge swerved but I didn't. It was narrow in the middle so can be quite daunting... just try not to look down too much.
















We then made our way to Chijmes, and it's like a big space for restaurants, cafe's and all that. It's a lot more lively in the evening than it is in the day but we went to take some photos and left to find ourselves a cab to make our way to have CPK again. Fulfilling Iman's pizza cravings from years back. And mine.

After that, we went back to our hotel to collect our luggage and left for the airport. But not after changing into a I Love Singapore t-shirt. The uncle at immigration read my tee and asked, 

"You love Singapore?"
"Yes, I do!"
"Well, at least that's one of us"

and another uncle joined

"You can only love it if you have money"

which I guess is very true. It's quite expensive to live in this place. Even if you do compare 1 to 1 on the transport costs, it's still quite expensive to travel around with the MRT. It's a pricey city but I really do like it because of how well the place is built. I still have loads to explore but I think I'm going to go travel other parts of Asia before coming back to our neighbour here.

OMG this post took freaking ages to complete and post! I'm so sorry that I'm behind my blog but work's been a bit busy these days and my days are so routinely boring that I have nothing much to talk about. I'm going to sit down properly and blog about what's been up with life and all that. I've started listing down the things I want to blog about but haven't come to actually writing it so one of these days, I'll definitely do that. We have a short week (we got Monday off because the team worked over the weekend at Riuh) and Friday's off due to Awal Muharram so yay!

Talk soon. Promise!