　おいしい！

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Hello everyone, how dare Miss Ah Ying say that I'm lor sor... bish! Haha! Well, haven't blogged about my trip back to Singapore so here it goes. I can say it was really Singapore Revisited! Haha. Wonder how it will change in a year's time. Heard about the tearing down of the National Stadium and the construction of the world's first Sports City. Greatly amused by the toilet seat concept. First we had a phallic symbol for the esplanade, next we are going to have a toilet seat. How cool!

This brings us back to the story of homecoming kicking off with the Sri Lanka Airport.

Nuts anyone?

Of course, how could we miss out tea in Sri Lanka. Although they are outrageously expensive.

Let's go to Relaks Inn to relax, shall we?

The two storeys of the airport

Tribal masks depicting Sri Lanka

Duty-free as can be seen in every airport, everything is in USD though, products more expensive than other duty-free

The café that we spent all the transit time in.. altogether 11 hours drinking, stoning, playing cards in this "Plantation" cafe. 3 hours for the trip to Singapore and 8 hours for the return trip, weren't we just great?

Posing with the friendly sari-clad waitresses

Leaving Sri Lanka for Singapore

I hate the new blogger, does anyone know how can I change back to the old one? Till then, have a good day everyone. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my dinner later. Menu will be lamb bourgignonne, chocolate mousse and tequila! Haha. Adieu.

9:34 am　うまい！Y

Monday, March 19, 2007

Ah!!! Been having spring like weather for the past week and now it's snow and hailstones! I don't know if I'm lucky to have the chance to be rained on by hailstones or what? But one thing that I have to concede is that it was really really painful! Hailstones everywhere with nowhere to run! My first hailstone experience! One word - COLD.

Had my third driving lesson today and it was horrible, terrible and ________!(fill in the blank with a negative verb that ends with -ble yourself). My usual driving instructor Mdm LeCoq was not there today and so it was the guy. He refused to give me the pedals as usual and I had to drive a car that I had absolutely no control over, except the steering wheel! I should have passed my driving test in Singapore. *Repeat one thousand times to self*

Motivation fluctuating and I know that I should not and must not and cannot be experiencing that.

A list of short term goals!

1) Master the darn french highway code
2) Pass theory
3) Pass practical
4) Get a job in Paris
5) Get a car. (Freezing my butt off scooting around) OK, this can be listed under Long Term Goals, but whatever it is, must get my license!

I MUST ACCOMPLISH ALL THESE! THERE IS NO QUESTION OF NOT ACCOMPLISHING!

French lessons have come to a standstill. There is a limit as to how much french vocabulary one can squeeze into one's brain until one feels like puking. I know that is not an excuse.

What do I want in life? What do I want to work as? What do I want to do with my life? I am 24. Is that considered young or old? I don't know. Time is passing me by and there is no way I can hold on to it.

Once again, an old time quote

"If there is no wind, row."

Labels: hailstones

7:25 pm　うまい！Y

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Hey everyone, I've gone missing since I went back to SG eh? It's just been a mad rush, flurry of activities, meeting up with people, acting as a tour guide for my brother-in-law and I wonder how much time I actually had to spend with my family. Guilt, guilt and more guilt. One month is not enough. That is clearly an understatement. Note to self: The next time I go back, I'm gonna stay more rooted in the house, lounging in front of taiwanese variety shows and make my presence felt. One month passed just like that. At the end of it all lies nostalgia, jetlag and guilt. I am a very guilty person and it's been a lot of internal struggle for me to be here. On one side is family. On the other is my hubby. In search of a better life and self betterment, I need to strive for the best as clearly, the best is yet to be.

It was a crazy packing last day's morning as we had spent the last night at St James. Downing tequila shots, pops, vodka orange, cranberry and whisky dry. (Yucks for the last one) The last day of partying before coming back to tranquil old France. Had a lot of fun for a non partying kind of girl and had even seen very forward girls, coming over to invite Greg over to do a lapdance for their friend who was going to get married to a French last Saturday. A sporting, non-English speaking Greg was a good sport and went ahead. Alas, no pics as urs truly was too comfortable to move over and take pics of scandalous liaisons. =)

The 23 hours of flight (inclusive of 8 hours transiting in Sri Lanka) was arduous! If I had a choice, no more Sri Lanka! To be fair, the menu selection is great and the flight is still rather comfortable (minus the @~@### kids who cried non stop on the plane!) But that, the airline has nothing to do with it. Oh yes, also minus the fact that the staff at the check-in counter refused to let me check in since I had no return ticket and no proof that I am holding a temporary resident card in France. Was held up for a full half an hour, as the staff left the post to look for the supervisor, phone calls exchanged, supervisor coming back and telling me that it's not possible to let me board without any proof etc etc. It doesn't help that my resident card is lost in the French post and the temporary one is lying in the file in my drawer in Normandy. But being so used to such crisis (after being trained in Charles de Gaulle), I just looked her in the eye and asked nonchalantly so what did she expect me to do. I had nothing to show no matter what she might say. Finally, managed to produce hubby's credit card and matched against Greg's credit card and she's satisfied that both surnames are the same and decided to check me in complete with apologies and SOP of "sorry for the delay but you must understand our situation". Other than that, things are fine really. Just that the sodding laptop is really heavy and of course I'm too proud to let anyone help me with it.

I must be the worst packer in the world! Forgot so many things! Dad later scolded me on the phone that since I was no where to be found the night before takeoff, we cannot pack the foodstuff together! Belacan and Ribena are still lying in the fridge. My lip balm and strawberry
lotion lying somewhere but not in my luggage. Sob sob. Forgot many many things and my dark soya sauce that I wanted to make braised duck with! Ah...I forgot what I have forgotten but it's many many things! Oh yesh, the chicken rice mix, was in too much of a rush to buy it. I have one last line of hope though. And that is hopefully Mademoiselle xiuwen, if u r reading this, can you help me bring some over? hahaha, if you agree, that would be excellent! =) A million thanks in advance!

The 8 hours of transit was pretty well spent. I asked Greg to take out his poker cards and I began to teach him "diao hong yu". Haha, at that juncture, two other French, a father and son, came over to join us and I began to teach all three how to play "dai dee"! Hahahaha. Dai dee proves to be effective and we played that for a long while. After that, the French taught me a French game called "Belotte" and it's kinda like "Bridge" but more complicated. They are from Lille and as we all know, Northern French are very warm and nice. Cards for six hours and we collapsed for the last two hours cuz we were so drained. The darn waiter at the Sri Lanka airport cafe was a real bastard though and he was the one who ruined the Sri Lankan experience.

Firstly, he did not want to accept Singapore dollars on his own initiative as that jerk knows that USD and euros have greater power. However, he has absolutely no right to do that as the airport accepts Singapore dollars in their cafes as we had paid in Singapore dollars previously. Our drinks came up to 4 USD (stated in menu) and upon our insistence to pay in Sin dollars he asked us to pay 7 Sin dollars and that's what we did. Then he said that the airport doesn't accept Sin coins and we must pay 8 sin dollars then. That is the greatest piece of bullshit I have ever heard. Singapore has stopped manufacturing one dollar bills and i explained that to the dork and all he did was to repeat himself. I refused to pay 8 dollars because the conversion from 4 USD to sin dollars is only about 6.6 sin and why should I let him earn the extras. At that point I still had a 5 euro bill and I asked him how much it would be if I paid in euros then. That creep has the audacity to tell me that it would be 4 euros. Did he really think I was dumb or what? I was really pissed off and decided to asked the dad who came to join us for the card games to help us pay in USD first and that I'd pay him back in euros. Such dishonesty. It's staff like that that affects the reputation of the airport. However, the duty free in Sri Lanka is the most expensive duty free that I have ever come across and everything is in USD and not Sri Lanka rupees. Cleaners stretched out their hands and asked me blatantly for money when I used the toilets. With such a ripping off culture, I would say that the airport will not be ranked any higher in my list of airports anytime soon.

Had a bit of gastric on the flight since I wasn't willing to spend money to eat at THAT airport. But everything worked out well in the end when I saw hubby's face at the opposite side of the glass doors. (minus the fact that our cartons were the last to arrive) Minus the fact that there was a traffic jam in Paris and it took us 3 to 4 hours to drive back home when usually it's 2.5 hours. So after eliminating everything, I'm back in sweet old France, which causes my lips to crack, me to freeze and skin to dry. I'm happy. I really am. =)

Labels: return flight

10:33 am　うまい！Y