the blue lagoon.

pristine beach.

a path to nowhere.

jetty jetty.

a bench for your thoughts.

crystal clear!

a ferry from marina pier leads you to this secluded island for $15. but beware, on weekdays only two ferries visit the island per day. you are dropped onto this empty isle at 10am, and expected to occupy yourself til 2.45pm, unless you wish to camp overnight there. when i was there i only saw one other angmoh couple frolicking near the beach, two cats and three chickens. i walked the entire island in about 1 hour. theres an army camp there, (not that i saw any army recruits), a detention centre, a small mangrove swamp, three lagoons but only one is accessible and open for swimming, as well as a marine institute and aquaculture centre. the sun is blazing hot; the waters surprisingly clear and startlingly turquoise for those of us accustomed to the muddy opaque waters of east coast beach.

there are also basketball courts, a football field, benches aplenty and several barbecue pits. but if ure thinking of throwing  a BBQ party there, make sure you bring ALL your raw food, drinks and utensils with you, because there is no way you are going to find a shop there providing what you need. not at the present moment anyway, sentosa will probably develop this island for tourism sometime in the future. the draw of the island now (albeit a tiny bait of a draw), is its exclusiveness and its ulu-ness, which starkly contrasts overcrowded singapore. most of the people i met on the boat were tourists and not locals.

at 2.45pm, i was QUITE ready to go home, after baking in the hot hot sun for 5 hours and blown to sleepiness by the breeze; but the boat took us to kusu island instead, and stopped there for 1.15hours! before departing at 4pm. so by the time i reached marina pier it was 430pm, and had to rush like crazy back to clementi then to bishan for cell group. so make sure u allocate enough time if u want to head there for a day trip! the good news is there are more boat trips available on saturday and sundays, so the boat frequency is higher, waiting intervals are shorter and rational risk of being abandoned on said island without food and shelter is greatly reduced.

kusu island temple

kusu = turtle

by the time i realised the boat was staying put at kusu island for over an hour, (there is no form of intercom announcement on the boats; they just stop and expect you to know its st johns n its time for u to go; or that its going to stay at kusu island for an hour without any forewarning) i was grumpy and sunburnt. but i decided to step off the boat and see what kusu was like anyway. its about one third the size of st johns, read: Really Tiny. and Kusu means Turtle. They basically have 1 rather famous chinese temple, 1 turtle shelter (the pool above with turtles scrambling in the heat), 1 lagoon (at low tide and dried up at the time i was there), several hut-pavilions for u to sit under, 1 hawker centre that looked so promising on the map (but which i soon discovered was empty and devoid of humans or trace of food, possibly for a good few decades). Entire island is walkable in 15 minutes.

Thus concludes my account of exploring the ulu parts of singapore!

how lovely

Tokyo is a very extreme city. electric blue skies and hyperactive glitzy streets. neon lights and bleached blonde doll hair.  torn jeans and cosplay maid  outfits. then the city flips over, and shows what’s hidden underneath. zen shrines and the quiet hush of nature. minimal simplicity and a fetish for white. quiet and overtly polite. Tokyo is diagnosed with a certain type of schizophrenia; the kind that intrigues you to find out which self is for real- but you never really know.

was a smashing together of two extremes. fortunate and unfortunate. good and bad. sun and snow. laughter and pain. face and snow. \\

over the weekend, kehni, petra, jakub, ondrej n myself went to ondrej’s cottage in this town…whose name i cant remember. near a place called Rumburk. there was a ski slope there so kehni n i could try skiing for the first time!! it turned out to be a sequence of melodramatic turns. we left on saturday and reached there on saturday night, and had to turn on the heating system and water system for the cottage. in the meantime, we were freezing our butts off while waiting for Mighty Heater to warm up. the ground outside was covered with snow, which had been steadily falling since thursday. on Sunday morning, we woke up and decided to go for our ski experience. We had two cars (and lots of luggage n ski equipment), so Jakub drove Kehni n i, while Ondrej n Petra went in the second car. Jakub’s car pulled into the ski park’s carpark, and at that exact moment, a police car drove into the vacant lot next to us. They walked over and asked us for our passports. We were like…..whaat? why do we need our passports, we’re still in the Czech Republic! but apparently we did. We had unfortunately, left them back in Prague. so after a lengthy conversation in Czech of which i understood next to nothing apart from the fact that the police officers kept pointing to me and kehni like we were illegal fugitives, we discovered that we had to be brought via police car to the police station to verify our identities. By Police Car!! yes, you saw that right. Ondrej went with Kehni n me to the police station where we had to wait for 1.5 hrs, so that our records could be fished out of their dinosaur-ancient-laggy-computer database. After that, we were fined 500 crowns.each. That wasss..pretty upsetting, but after that we went back to the slope to try skiing. I found it slightly easier to master balance on skis, because it was similar to rollerblading; so Ondrej led me up the slope using the lift to try skiing down it. That might have been a mistake. I didn’t yet know how to turn and brake on the skis.. so i only knew, pretty much, how to balance and move forward. So that’s what i did! Down the initial gentler slopes, down the intermediate slopes, and eventually..down, TOO FAST, the steepest end slope. Down and down and down and all i could do was go straight down, so you could imagine it went pretty fast. Normally people meander down the slope in a zigzag fashion so speed is controlled. Oh, but i couldn’t. Its still kinda vivid in my mind. I remember hurtling down at scarily uncontrollable speed, digging my ski poles into the ground to try to effect a fall/because they were too long and were caught in between my skis, the stick rebounding off the ground and knocking me straight in my chin then my throat at high speed, then i fell down to the ground. I was in shock and discovered that i had lost my voice and my chin was bleeding. I didnt care about the blood so much, but the fact that i lost my voice really unnerved me! I didnt know your voice could be lost with an external hit. We went back to the cottage soon after, and i was in a really shaken/bad mood cos i felt awful and was scared about my throat. So ondrej had to take me to the hospital that night. It was a village hospital with virtually no one in it except the receptionist. She called a doctor to come, and after 15 minutes he came and told us he just came out of a surgery so he didnt have that much time. But he said my throat was fine and it was normal to lose my voice after an accident like that.. so that calmed my nerves. We went back to the cottage again, and i had to start making my architecture model which was due in 2 days. Ended up sleeping at 3+ am.

*

The second day- Monday, we tried skiing again. At first i was super paranoid and phobia-clogged when i saw the spot where i fell and the steep slope at the end. This time round i behaved more like a beginner and did everything reaaaalllyy slowly and painstakingly. Until i learnt how to make the turns and control my speed and stand while on the edge of the slope. So in that controlled fashion, skiing was really fun on the second day! I dont think it was that fun for Ondrej cos he had to shuffle between helping me and coaching Kehni..haha. But i tried the slope 6 times with Petra/Jakub and Ondrej at separate turns. Now i know how my friends felt when i got them to rollerblade down the slope at East Coast Park and they ended up falling down. I understand the fear! hahaha. Its really freaky to go fast at breakneck overwhelming speeds. And im sorry, friends. Promise to be underwhelming next time.

*

We were undoubtedly unlucky and extremely lucky at the same time; although i dont believe in luck, its just apt to describe it that way. Because after the police dropped us back at the ski slope after their pseudo ‘investigation’, they drove off! So we were the ONLY people they checked that day, and the ONLY people to get caught and fined. Goodness knows how many people skiing there didnt have their passports with them. I also had the privilege of visiting two places people wouldnt wanna go near with a barge pole- the police station and the hospital, in ONE day. However, on the bright side, we went on this trip without the slightest clue as to whether we could ski, because normally it doesnt snow in Czech Republic before Christmas! But this year was an extraordinary exception! On Sunday it was -17 degs (freaking cold but at least there was snow), and on Monday it was -7 degs (perfect weather for skiing). The snow was adequately padding our feet and our falls, and on the day we left, the temperature had climbed up to -1 deg and 2 degs in Prague..which meant that snow was melting and slowly turning into ice, which is horrid for any skiing venture. Temperature has been climbing and snow has pretty much all melted here in Prague..so we were really blessed to have had the opportunity to ski at all!

*

Its Christmas dinner tomorrow (Czechs celebrate christmas eve and not christmas- which is slightly strange.) We’re gonna prepare soup and some dishes n brownies and join Ondrej’s family for dinner! Exciting We bought candles and hopefully some decoration tmr to instill some Christmassy spirit. I wanted to make pumpkin bread pudding, but i was searching Tesco with a toothpick and i couldn’t find any pumpkin/paste/powder of any sort- and even after finding out that pumpkin in czech is “dyne”, nobody in Tesco understood me when i asked them if they had it there. Some Czechs seem allergic to English. The moment you speak it, they feign deafness and walk away, or start shaking their heads and shrinking away. Haha. Merry Christmas, everyone! Almost cant believe i’ll be back in Singapore in 7 days. !

I will miss you.

-

the second time i woke up this morning, i woke with nightmares. i dreamt that my friend and i just watched a magic show performed by two magicians. After they went around to receive tips, i stepped outside and saw notes lying on the ground. i picked up money that wasn’t mine. first, two $1000 notes and one $5000 note, and i split it with a friend. then on the same spot on the ground, a $10000 note appeared. we picked it up, and stared at it. but i felt like something was amiss; so we continued staring at it.slowly, the notes started changing and decreasing in value.. they were cursed! so i quickly reached into my wallet to remove the $1000 note that was in there; but i had a scrap piece of magazine paper in it.. and there were some words burned onto it: YOU TOOK SOMETHING YOU DID NOT OWN; NOW YOU WILL EXPERIENCE LACK OF OXYGEN TRAPPED IN A GEODESIC DOME.

No kidding. A geodesic dome. What the crap is a geodesic dome. (Something that architect Buckminster Fuller was fooling around with.) And the dream continued…i started praying. Asking for the curse to be broken. We met a new character, who was like a messenger from God or something.. who told me to draw a line on a really long board. My friend was told to draw a line too. So we kept drawing lines, until eventually it looked something like this:

The entire board was covered in waves. And apparently that meant we were going to be tossed about in the ocean on the way to the geodesic dome. There was no way to change the course of things. Great.

Notice i said above that this was the second time i woke up. The first time i woke up, it was 5:47am and i felt really good and well-rested! But it was early, so i went back to sleep. Mistake. The next time i get up, i should get up.

-

I had another dream before this one; that when i went back from Prague, instead of landing in Singapore, i met my relatives in Malaysia. Instead of the sashimi salad that i wanted, i got some lousy noodles. And instead of seeing Joel, my Aunt Jac said suddenly, ‘Joel is getting married in two weeks.’ ‘What??… My joel?’ ‘Yeah..Some medicine girl..’

Oh, let’s talk about nightmares, shall we?

growwwl! how does it feel like to be a man in bear's clothing? hmm.

kehni says we need sleeping bags for crashing in paris next week, cos we’ll be couchsurfing with her friend, so i searched around a bit and came across these fun fantastic options. hehe.

pressed from thetoyzone.com.

sleeping bag suits! now you can walk around without squirming like a worm once youve zipped yourself up.

some funky silver dress blows up into a comfy sleeping bag overnight... guess what happens if you didnt know about that and woke up in the middle of night? haha.

jabba the hut. the reason i hated starwars when i was young. might make a cosy hide-in considering the fact that he's so FAT. but, "Nightmares are included. Batteries sold separately".

aaand, the last option for paris? $5000 thermal spa in a bag- has water jets, massages, steam sauna n oxygen misting. apart from the fact that you're practically being pickled and getting your skin saggy beyond recognition by the time u pop out of the bag, $5000 could probably get me ten nights at the fanciest parisian hotel.

-

we missed the bus back to prague! it was otherwise an ‘awesome’ trip. on the first night, we reached generator hostel at about 8pm, settled down into our bunks and our surprisingly clean room, and checked out the surprisingly big and clean toilets and showers. one hour later, CJ came in and we were a little apprehensive about having a new roommate! but our fears were unfounded because we started chatting and very soon were laughing hysterically at anecdotes about our cultural differences. CJ’s american and his parents are brazilian and venezuelan (kinda exotic, huh.), ondrej is obviously czech, kehni’s malaysian and im singaporean so it was a mini little UN gathering of sorts in room 409. we started talking about the american habit of asking, ‘how are you?’ even though many times they aren’t interested in hearing the answer and just walk away before you think of the reply.. and the chinese habit of asking your family/ mostly your grandmother, ‘Have you eaten?’ In chinese, ‘Ni chi le ma?’ That was really funny and strange to CJ, and for the first time, we saw for ourselves how some phrases and habits we take for granted are really kinda quirky. We later started talking about how Czechs and Chinese are similar to the extent that we are humble, modest people. Hahaha. Well, most of the time. Like when someone compliments us, we tend to deflect it by saying, ‘naah, i’m not that good, you’re better.’ or, if someone says, ‘hey, that top looks gorgeous!’ we say, ‘oh, this? i bought it for like 5 euros at a store.’ Whereas americans would obviously say, ‘Hey, you think so too? thanks!’ Haha so well, we learnt from each other and by the end of the trip, I was saying all the ‘thank yous!’ and CJ was going, ‘ohh… you’re better, i’m not that great…’ hahaha.

-

CJ also asked, ‘how do you say “You’re Great!” in Chinese?’ We had to think for a while because its not common for chinese to compliment people like that. We’ll say, that looks so cute, or the food was good..or maybe your hair looks very nice today… but not ‘You’re Great!’ Well, so we told him, ‘Ni zhen bang!’ (aka You’re Really Great!) Eventually as he repeated it it sounded more and more like ‘Ni Zhen Pang!’ which means You’re So Fat! So we had to warn him about that scary, treacherous ground he was treading into. Czechs also tend to deflect compliments and be modest, according to its representative Ondrej, because it is the right thing to do not to sound overly obnoxious to our peers. But the difference was that while Chinese parents downplay their children and go, ‘Oh…my daughter’s not that smart lah.. yours is so obedient.. my daughter is so stubborn and lazy…’ Czech parents would go, ‘My son is the BEST!’ And American parents would say, ‘that’s awesome!! Wow!’ for every little non-achievement the child attains, which according to CJ is the source of many social and esteem problems as these children grow up and face real society. Debatable, so, any comments?

-

We collected quite a treasure trove of phrases and quotables over the trip, one of my favourites being, ‘It’s kinda whiffy in here!’ Cos CJ is a traumatologist in America, he worked with a doctor who said, ‘my patient’s kinda whiffy, isn’t he?’ He repeated that like 3 times and still nobody got him- apparently he meant, ‘my patient kind of smells, doesn’t he?’ Hahaa. So when we stepped into our hostel room and it smelt, we’d open the window and say, Whiffy’s still in here! Let’s get him out!

Another phrase was, ‘Excuse me German people, Excuse me German people! -Wide eyed- HAAAGEN DAAAZ???  We were hunting down haagen daaz cos we thought it was natural to do- eat german icecream in germany! BUT. We got cheated! Kehni just googled the brand and we realised the name was coined from two senseless words to make it ‘look scandinavian’, Haagen Daaz is basically an American brand!! Who knew that! ‘Haagen Daaz is also commonly mistaken to be a German brand. ‘

‘Daughter Doris Hurley told PBS documentary An Ice Cream Show (1999) that her father Reuben Mattus sat at the kitchen table for hours saying nonsensical words until he came up with a combination he liked. The reason he chose this method, was so that the name would be completely unique and original’ — Thank you, Wikipedia, for providing the facts, and for bursting my bubble! The icecream was reaaly good though, american or german, so no regrets.

mm mmm.

shall leave you here with a sweet tooth thanks ondrej, kehni, CJ for a wonderful and unforgettable trip. I will refrain from cursing Berlin bus inspectors here at the end of the post– maybe next time!

and no matter how much we try to change that, to make government policies appealing, nobody will be fully satisfied, or not everyone will be satisfied.

maybe we should see Institutions as those things that are big enough to inflict change on microscopic levels, and Important enough for everyone to want to have a say.

Institutions set up standards- and as long as you have standards, people will want to knock them down. Human nature, or institution’s fault?

(Writing my essay on Local Planning Regulations now, eg. STB and URA Policies & Recalling my Year One Architecture tutor’s comment:

Linda the photocopy lady- she’s an Institution.

She’s been here ever since i studied here, and will be here long after we’re gone.

hehe.

you know how i said in the previous post (or in 2006) that i wanted to be a painter in europe? i was an idiot. i have realised that cobblestones are only good for dreams and movie sets; they hurt your feet even if you’re wearing flats, and you wear heels only if you have the guts to get them stuck between the cobbles, twist an ankle or break a toe. and i dont want to be stuck on a bridge; i want to be travelling around the world seeing all the other bridges! before this year, i had no idea where czech republic was on a map. cities like barcelona, vienna, rome, venice, athens, santorini, prague, were a blur to me; member of Club: The Geographically Challenged. My younger brother knew more cities than i did, he knew where countries were on a map, and i didnt. (credits must go to european soccer cups for my bro’s knowledge) and now, i cant believe i have visited those cities, and have a clue now as to what they look like, the people these places contain. its wonderful to put a face to a spot on a map. to remember that hotel keeper, that waitress in the bar, that street from which i bought this top, so on and so forth.

found some old rambles from 3 years ago that i pasted here. photos of prague in the next post!

-

April26,2006 >> archive>>

the art of dreams

if i could be anything i wanted to be, i would be an artist sitting along bridges in europe, palletting the soft hues of sunset, the bustle of paved streets, the gray scent of rain, the naivete of colourful sweet shops, the scarlet red of Dorothy’s clackity-shoes. i would doodle abstractedly and dream dreams. dream day into night, and night into day.

snippet:
to the man slouching in the corner, warily eyeing people file out of the mrt gatesi saw him staring, him oblivious
to the discomfort produced in me,
by his drapery of distaste,
as they rushed out in haste.

he looked as though
there was something else to expect,
something other amiss.
as though the gates would be a fist,

or a fork, clamping-hard-jaws
banging down. hard. sudden.
on unsuspecting dancers whose long
fancy dress hem got stepped on, torn.

a falling backwards, in distrust of the gate,
a pushing forwards, in ignorance of the mate;
then in tandem with the millieu behind
and before, i rushed through as its perilous bait.

 

–

i am strangely afraid that i have lost the will

and the ability

to write.