hotel club sandwich

There's nothing better than room service in a fancy hotel room. There's always a club sandwich in the room service menu of fancy hotel rooms. That's all I ever order. I look forward to hotel club sandwiches like my mother and brother look forward to dining in the lobbies of hotel restaurants.

indulgent fountains

The reflections on the water of the Medici Fountain in Paris is a giant painting palette. All the autumn colours have been swirled around, broken down, and refracted. The swimming ducks contribute to the confusion. They complicate the patterns even more with the circular waves they leave in their wake. The entire thing is a giant Impressionist painting rolled into a kaleidoscope that changes almost every second. I woke up stupidly early this Thursday morning in New Zealand and thought of being here two autumns ago.  

re-entering the atmosphere

I've spent the evening with this blog, trying to reconnect. I'm like a person in a long-term relationship, trying to rediscover what it feels like to be, once again, in the first pulses of love. A journalist once asked me to describe my blog and I called it "a love letter". Sadly, one day, the letters just stopped. Not because I didn't have anything to say. More like, I didn't really know who to send them to and I wasn't even sure there was anyone reading anymore. 

In September 2008, I started this blog during a rising crest of outfit-of-the-day blogging. We started off taking self-timered photos in thrift shop dresses, against rickety wooden fences, brightly-coloured murals, or wandering idly in fields of flowers. Back then, Rumi posed in Forever 21 mini dresses in front of her garage door. The years ticked by and the wave started crashing towards the shore. One by one, my favourite peers stopped blogging and I felt their absence like friends who one day, just stop talking to you.

There are some of you though who have remained faithful, still posting, still typing, still beaming out into the world. Now, you have pets, children, sometimes both. You're posting about home interiors and travel, not just those cute flats you bought yesterday or how to pack for a summer vacation. Each post I catch up with is a tinder and I am working for a spark.

Today, I realise that I cannot let go of my tiny corner of internet. It's a chronicle of a life - my life. And in a virtual world of unimaginable breadth and depth and size and volume, a tiny little life is nothing but also everything. Though no one might be listening, I can still keep talking and writing and communicating. Then maybe one day, my blog and I will fall in love again.

♥ Location: Lake Rotoiti, Rotorua ♥

to you and yours

To your hearts. They're broken every day and sometimes they mend. Along the crack and the fissures, you'd expect them to be stronger than before like bones that have melded together. But no. Those cracks and those fissures; sometimes they set in a way more fragile and tenuous than before. It's like a baby with an eggshell skull, knocking about, unable to avoid sharp corners. 

the something more

I spent much of this walk around Queen Elizabeth's Park with my head down, in deep conversation with a girl, miles away from her home in Berlin. She spoke with passion about all the things she had left behind; a broken relationship, a city apartment, a promising career in film. Landing in Australia with two back-breakingly heavy suitcases, she eventually wound her way to New Zealand, shedding most everything she'd taken with her and ending up here, in our tiny island country, with one backpack and restless feelings.

ramen and cake

A four-month long almost-round-the-world holiday was never gonna be easy on the budget. But then, what holidays are? On our first week back, my mum had to buy our groceries and parents had to lend us money. Suddenly, we were first year uni kids again! Here's two things we made (one each) to lift our spirits; ramen and Nutella cake.

dogged pursuits of outdoor activities

I am determined to fall in love with Wellington again. I've chosen to rise above the time when I rode my bike in screaming northerlies around Greta Point and got pushed into a fence by the wind. I have also wilfully ignored the slight numbness in my toes when taking ocean swims in a variety of bays. If you ignore the terrible weather, the unflinchingly hard light (thanks, depleting ozone layer!) and the brutal pollen count, this city is so shabby-chic-nature gorgeous, it hurts.

on lugging around film cameras overseas

Christian Quarter, Old City, Jerusalem

See the entire set on Flickr here.

I'm always towing around film cameras overseas. Yes, digital is way more convenient in every possible way. But I adore shooting film. My first major multi-stop overseas trip was captured on a little Olympus camera and I bought the cheapest film possible from various pharmacies and supermarkets. Sure I'd get a little jealous when my mum and brother would get to review their digital camera pictures at the end of the day. However, I still remember every single shot I took on that Olympus. I'm not sure I could say this about the trips I've taken on digital. The things I shot on film on that trip weren't disposable. Each one, to me, was a perfect little moment meant to be savoured. When we were away, Rob would sometimes um and ah about taking a picture and I would blithely say, "Take it. Pictures are free." On Polaroid and any other film camera, they actually aren't. Each shot has to, literally, be worth it. 

book reviews with my mother

One afternoon, my mother and I sat around my living room and she rifled through two of the books I'd lugged home.

promises in an jar of ube jam

The adoration of dessert foods made up of sweetened mashed root vegetables or legumes, or jelly-like substances swimming in liquid, I always think of as a uniquely Asian thing. Red bean buns. Bubble tea. Grass jelly. Buchi (sesame seed) balls. Mooncakes. A couple of days ago, my mother left me a jar each of nata de coco, white beans, macapuno, and ube jam. The jars, all lined up in a row, are like a promise that I can eat my way back to my childhood. Or at least, assemble a damn good halo halo stand.