shark meat for sale

saw this during lunch time shopping. it was on display for sale at the supermarket opposite my office.
isn't china an awesome country!

earthquake fundraising at le petit gourmand

ianne and i had an interesting dinner when we unawaringly walked into Le Petit Gourmand on Friday night. at the door, we were told it was a fundraising night and all we had to do was to put in a donation for the Sichuan Earthquake and enjoy a French buffet and drinks on the house.

Good thing we were early too because we got a nice seat in the terrace by the window.

appetiser

never knew spring rolls stuffed with red bean cd taste this good.

can't stand his friend

friends who know joa know that he's an exceedingly kind person. he's the most considerate, most patient and self-subservient person around all his friends with the exception of me.

so we're having a Pictionary Mania night and he's too kind to allow me to exclude inviting a particular friend of his who annoys me.

i don't know what else to do. we've argued about him. we've yelled at each other about him. i've made it clear that i can't stand him, i don't want to see him. but joa insists on being nice and considerate towards his feelings. not that that friend and him have a fabulous friendship. they don't. but joa just wants to be kind.

it's just him wanting to be kind. and me, just being evil (in his words).

cold weekend

i caught joa's cold when i (he had insisted that i) "raped" him on sat morning so the trip to the zoo and the jog in chaoyang park was called off. but we made it to the olympic stadium to watch some national heats since joa was given two free admission tix.

as an incentive to make me move my ass all the way to the haidian district at 9am on a sat morning, he promised to take me to ginza mall for mac breakfast even tho we were running late. thankfully we did because we've nv tasted hashbrowns this good.

the bird nest looked rather imposing from a distance. not big, huge and stately, but rather like an uncompleted structure still on construction. the night before, i'd asked joa what was the dresscode for the visit and he said, "bird nest clothes".

we took our seats which had a fantastic view of the entire stadium and surprisingly, i was having a great time. i think that was becos being at a sports stadium where you're allowed to talk at the top of your voice about the poor people running about while u sit in the shade slurping a cool drink is really quite a thrilling feeling. and joa was happily talking about the events and the atheletes and we got chatting and the lady in front kept looking back with a snarl. well, i didn't say anything about that pungent fish snack she brought in that smelled like a rotting fish. at first i'd ask joa if he'd brushed his teeth in the morning.

the spring weather is getting terribly warm. and it's starting to make me realise that beijing is really a desert town. we walked for almost 40mins under the sun to sanlitun to our favourite yunnan restaurant for lunch. i'll put up pix of the food next. but we had a sumptuous meal of black pepper mushroom, veggies in seafood sauce and a chicken potato stew with 2 bowls of rice each and 4 cups of ice tea. i love going to this restaurant with joa. it's inexpensive and the quality is fantastic. best of all, they serve some of the most amazing ice teas (with ice!) in all of beijing. so we usually leave the restaurant with a contented stomach and a very happy mood.

we went home and with the rest of our energy did a major wipedown of the house. he swept and wiped while i moped with our new mop, pail and floor detergent. and after a warm bath, we both collapsed on the sofa and put on a dvd. that night i took him to bookworm for chips and cola but we didnt really enjoy it as much because there was some function going on and we had to sit on the roof terrace where it was cooler and quieter but too dark to read.

on sunday, we dragged our feet to church. endured a most uneventful sermon and later had lunch at a manchurian restaurant with 10 other students from BLCU. young, fresh and so innocent. i've lost all of that. by then joa and i were feeling really sick so back home for more DVDs. we had a dixie asian-american gal come to view our flat. she's really cute and my type of chum so we're really hoping she'd become our flatmate.

last night joa tried singapore-styled fried oyster omelette only we replaced oysters with fishballs. and it tasted wonderful. we also invented another dish that we copied from bellagio restaurant - a taiwanese fine dining restaurant we went to two weeks back - fried long beans with salted egg. cheap and very tasty. we had porridge with it. i shall put up the pix soon since i'm finally resigned and getting back into the course of using my 2.0megapixels ixus.

olympic stadium

that's us trying to mimic birds.

good luck beijing

water cube.

love and marriage just not the same.

mum has always warned me about being naive. thought i never admit it, but on my solo walks i'd always feel underachieved - and that perhaps i'd romanticized the whole notion of love in a way that was just unrealistic.

after 2 failed relationships, i realised that perhaps each time, i'd been swept away by the fantasy of a strong arm, and an affectionate smile. love, give and sacrifice. but at the end of it all, it's how my mum would put it - well, what can they give in return?

i cd never accredit someone for their giving. in fact, it's something i cd nv get used to. if joa made me breakfast, i'd offer to cook dinner. if joa cooked dinner, i'd offer to clean up. if i cooked dinner, i'd still offer to clean up. if he bought me pancakes for breakfast, i'd buy him something else for dinner. the thing is, i cd never imagine putting him out. maybe becos in my world, i cd nv imagine anyone wanting to do anything for me.

i'm not sure what i'm talking about. but i truly believe that men are innately self-centred. they crave materials, status and respect. what they do not realise is that their ambitions make the women around them insecure. sometimes i doubt they understand what women really want.

every girl i know is talking about getting married. i remember on the first day of polytechnic, in the midst of our first business class, the mentor asked everyone to announce their ambition. out of every ten girls, 8 said their ambition was to be a housewife. typically, i rolled my eyes up and snarled. but suddenly, as i'm approaching my 27th birthday in 2 months time, it occured to me how natural that desire was.

i don't think i'd ever want to be a full time homemaker like my mum. i think it takes too much of a person to wait on an entire unappreciative family. but of cos like every girl out there, i dream of having my little own home, a sapphire wedding band and some sort of wedding portrait hanging above my bed. and although my last marriage left a stigma in me, still, i crave to belong and to have someone that belongs.

you know what i mean?

i'm not sure if where i am now has been a wise choice. but i try to be hopeful about it. there' s love and affection. i can feel it. but there just isn't a great sense of responsibility as yet. maybe it's what they always say about men and premarital sex: why buy milk when you get the whole cow for free?

so it's really not entirely the men to blame. it's really the folly of women and their stupid dreams of love. if love is all you want from a man, that's easy. but if marriage is the ultimate plan, maybe you should step back and think twice. it's almost taboo.

love fries, love you.

ever since we arrived in beijing, i discovered joa and i shared a common favourite junk food - yes, fries. i noticed it whenever we were at macdonald's and he'd be racing to finish the fries. and becos i always had a craving for it whenever we went to a restaurant, i'd beg him to order that as a side.

so it was his idea to set up a couple blog that reviewed all the fries in beijing. not sure if it'll ever manifest given that i havent raised enough money to buy a new camera yet, but it's a cute idea, ain't it? so he was thinking of a blog banner of a mountain of fries in the foreground, us in the background with fries sticking out of our mouths. ha-ha.

we had anor lovely weekend. saturday just idling around carrefour (and we bought our toaster oven!) and spending the windy sunday out at a park with lots of people. we didn't bring any food to share and that was embarrassing. but it was a picnic that i had dreaded to go which surprisingly turned out rather fun.

anyway, new week. i shd start writing again. like fictional stories and the like. u see, that's the thing with me. when i stop writing fiction, it means i'm complacent with life again. bad.

weekend plans

it's another smoggy day. and a very slow day at work. but i'm looking forward to the weekend. not the entire weekend becos on sunday we're heading to the park for a picnic with one of joa's interns who absolutely annoys me.

the activities for the picnic include football, hacky-sack, possibly kite-flying and sharing some of our nice food in exchange for something i expect to be cheap from the streets. and i'm not exactly the outdoor kind. my ideal picnic is just a nice healthy picnic basket with sandwiches and fruits, some magazines and a good novel to laze the day away with a beloved person. not struggling to play some games that's going to ruin my makeup and embarrass myself before 20 others.

i'm having a major culture shock. i'm over the chinese culture shock but having to deal with others is a big pain in the ass. i keep meeting pple who in my opinion, say the rudest things to me, egg me on to do/feel things that i am totally uncomfortable with. 4 years in melbourne has turned joa into one of them. or rather, he'd like to believe that he's one of them. and it's a normal trend i see with friends who study in melb. they come back trying to convince us that they've turned australians and cannot accept that they're congenitally asian. it's strange.

but no. he's not guilty of all that i'd mentioned. just that he's going thru a phrase that i hope he'll get out off by himself soon enough. each time he confides in me about his not adapting well to this foreign place, it makes me suspect that i might be abnormal to have gotten used to this crap environment and culture.

some of the most fantastic people i've met in this life are here in china. some of the most remarkable places and experiences i've been to/ had are here in china. i feel most proud to especially be here in 2008, what with the feb snowstorm, earthquake, tibet riots all happening in my backyard. and i'm wondering if he feels the same. i mean, nothing ever happens in singapore. and i'm starting to feel nauseous about singaporeans making a big deal over every slightest darned thing. and worst, that the politicians would play along.

but having said that, some of my worst days are here in china! i've learned not to compare it with any other country. it's just not the same. it's a different world in here.

we've started a taiwanese drama serial. my favourite atm. and it makes me miss taiwan hopelessly. the people, the culture, the shopping. so he suggested we cd perhaps make a trip to taipei early next yr. i'm absolutely delighted!

anyway, my weekend plans: i'm looking forward to saturday. sleep in, go for a nice brunch (i'm torn between sushi and pancakes), shopping at carrefour for a toaster oven, home-cooked dinner and finally watch a DVD. just all day with joa. honestly, i cannot wait. and then it's sunday and i'll have to go thru the mill of early church, picnic with lots of pple and then maybe dinner at a bbq fish restaurant.

earthquake

beijing was mildly affected when the earthquake ripped through cities and towns over on the other side of the country. i was through a press release when i felt a fainting spell. and when i looked up, saw the room spinning. i felt sick and my first thought was that something terrible was wrong in my body. vita, who was sitting next to me let out a moan and said it was an earthquake.

we had to evacuate so jiana and i, while the rest of the office were still at a loss, took the lift down. downstairs everyone had gathered and crowded the streets. i saw everyone peering skywards and jiana said they were looking to see the sky change colour which supposedly happens during an earthquake. we walked past the people and the mad traffic and to the phone shop to get her a recharge card. then we went to macdonald's, got a hot chocolate and sat on the bar table watching the frantic crowd outside. an hour later, we were back in the office and news got round that there had been a massive earthquake in sichuan.

the next day i received a call from my client notifying me to be on standby. now that the tragedy has happened, every foreign corporation wants to pledge their loyalty and support. so press releases and official letters to the government and media had to be drafted as soon as possible.

last night joa and i had dinner with tilly at a singaporean restaurant in our vicinity. it's called Lau Pa Sat and and it had one of those simple coffee shop decor which wasn't impressive. although we had been warned but joa and i still enthusiastically ordered black carrot cake, char kway teow, fried hokkien noodle, sambal fishcake, and 3 cups of ice milo. the food was bland and the portion was too small. worst of all, we paid almost SGD40 of what we probably could have get at 10 times better quality at just half the price. no way would i ever tell my dad about this experience. we swore never to return to Lau Pa Sat.

finally i bought 转角遇到爱, both season one and two! stumbled unto it at the video store outside the peking duck restaurant. the pricetag writes SGD39.90 for the double bundle so i waited till the next day and went back to get it at SGD24. not exactly a steal but an okay price. it debuts tonight on our tv set.

my canadian housemate returns home this monday, leaving his room paid and vacant till june so we need to look for another housemate. meanwhile, on our way home yesterday, joa asked me how much i loved him and i said, "as deep as the ocean and as high as the sky". i asked him the question in return and he thought for a bit before answering, "as deep as the ocean but not as high as the sky because at least the ocean as a limit". so yeah. i'm convinced there's a cap to his love for me.

he's been bugging me about his moisturiser of late. china has a bad stock of body lotions and moisturiser and the very few ones that are available cost a might. it just occurred to me that i've been looking so hard for his moisturiser that i've completely forgotten that we've run out of garlic in the kitchen and how am i to stir fry the chicken and the cabbage tonight?

i also need to get shrimp sauce and a toaster oven. was thinking of going to the zoo this saturday but there's a thunderstorm out there and the weather's been just miserable of late. so maybe we can just have a slow saturday and head to carrefour to have sushi and shop.

can't wait to get off work. there's a quake in my head. oopsie! bad time to joke like that.

mad fight

we had a huge argument last night. exchange of blows, yellings, insults and some flying furniture. i almost thought this was it. the evening had begun with me confronting my insecurity about an old flame of his that recently contacted him again. i was surprised that he quickly deleted her from his facebook. but that only made me more worried. i didn't want to appear like a neurotic, jealous gf. i wanted to be cool and full of confidence and admirable. he said why would he want to be with someone as self-centred as her when he cd be with me. i didn't understand that.

so i kept asking him if he regretted it becos i started imagining his watching-tv expression as a wistful silence: in his thoughts a million apologies to that poor gal whose friendship he'd have to deprive of becos of a mad, jealous gf. so i kept probing and was about to suggest to him that perhaps he shd reinstate her but he only told me to "not be crazy". so we ate the rest of the dinner with him very contented with the K-drama that i put on as our dinner entertainment and me, very confused.

later we were having a chat in bed about his visa status and we got into an argument and that saw me leaving the bed, taking my pillows and a duvet with me and slamming the door. i sat on the couch trying to think logically but all i that came up was that sunshine impression i'd had of him - the cute schoolboy who'd sat at the bus stops for hours with me listening to me bitch about a galfriend, the uni student who had a kind of shyness that looked almost too irresistably dashing - well, there was none of it for now.

and then i thought i'd just wait out till this bad feeling blew over and everything'll be fine but out he came dressed up to head out to the streets and suddenly i lunged at him and thrashed him with my fists. he tried to tell me he was just going out for a walk and get some grains but i started throwing the chairs at him and to counter it, he threw me down on the couch several times till finally, he did some karate thing and i fell flat on my back with his forearm suffocating me.

he told me to leave and i walked into the bedroom, pulled out my luggage and as he was yelling at me, i felt i had to retreat into the wardrobe but he stormed in and started lecturing me about spending my parents money and not getting over the depression and doing silly childish things. i told him to shut up but he went on and on repeating the same thing over and over. so i got up and started to walk out becos my throat felt like sandpaper but he pushed me back and told me to stay put. i tried to push him out of the way but he kept bouncing back and pushing me back onto the bed.

i told him to go for his walk and that didn't want to see him but he said i'd wanted to talk so let's talk. and that went on for about five mins and finally i wrapped my arms around him and cried telling him i didn't want him to go. so he said to stay while he go open the door for our flatmate (apparently he'd heard the door knocking but when i stepped out to pee 15 mins later, there was no one in the house!). he came back and he asked me if i'd wanted to leave him. i thought for a while not knowing how to answer and finally i said no, not now. i told him i'm happy. so incredibly happy that it felt unreal. he pinched me and asked me if it hurt and then raised his arm and told me to pinch him back. i didn't.

he said my fear would choreograph in real life everything that i didn't want to happen. we apologised while i realised my middle finger hurt and the side of my right hand had a little swell.

he held me tightly in bed and told me through tears that i was so important. nibbling my ear and kissing me all over, i was almost too drowsy frm the metformin that had begun to kick in. he said he'd wanted to make love to me tonight. i told him anor day becos i was too sleepy. he backed off and i started telling him about this new idea i had to play with my webcam during one of our 'sessions'. i felt he felt a bit put off by the idea.

i urged him to come on and then we delve into sex which was absolutely marvellous. he went slow and gentle and when he asked me to hold on to his bum with my legs, we both came only that he was shrieking and trembling for a much longer time. refusing to let go he'd started to cry again.

after the passionate died off, we both drifted into a deep sleep. i got up with puffy eyes and was touched when he asked me about my hand the moment he awoke. we were both still apologising profusely even as we were walking to work in the morning. i still feel sorry about being so distrustful. he ought to be forgiven for whatever and i ought to be less paranoid.

stumbled and stumped

omg! i saw this Apple Green V3 edition while idly shopping during lunch time yesterday. the salesgal quoted me SGD160 - which is kinda cheap for a brand new mobile if you'd think.

trying to spend wisely is tough. i've been looking all over for this and gave up when v3 almost but all phased out. but that's the thing with the china (black) market. you get anything you want!

it's definitely not original. for sure. but anyway. it's a juicy colour, dun u think?

i need a new camera more though.

forgotten...

there's something very uneasy about being too contented. and along with contentment comes forgetfulness. i sometimes feel i've forgotten how during the low that i tried to change - to be a better person, more tolerant of things and more optimistic of the future.

maybe it's the norethisterone that i'm taking. sometimes i feel i'm too confident of what i've been through and what i have. i've forgotten how i'd had to overcome setbacks, learnt to love people, and to feel in touch with my own emotions.

there's lots of doubts about everything. a lot of uncertainty that i'm afraid will jump at me if i let my guard down. joa has problems with his visa, with his work. and this has been affecting us. we both don't know what's going to happen. we unintentionally snap at each other and he's slowly retreating into his silence again while i'm trying hard to immerse in this big noisy city and all its problems.

with problems in the present and future, our past still continually haunts us. memories, experiences, places, intimacy, mutual friends, and old loves that cannot seem to get over with itselves.

it's not as bad as it sounds. surely i'm exaggerating. yesterday he suggested that we visit the new olympics bird nest and eat fries. i enjoy eating fries with him the most. he's at his happiest, most cheerful, and greediest. i like having to compete for the soggy ones and to see his face grin like a little child.

i've forgotten to do anything for him since i started this new job. i've forgotten to work at loving him when i should be doing more than just expressing it. wash his clothes, cook his dinner, clean up the room and do all the things that he wants to do instead of the other way round.

most adorable...

L to R: Xephr, Nicholas, Xavier, Aden