Memories

We never appreciate what we have until...we dont. 

Do you think maybe we go forward only to go backwards? Somethings dont change, somethings do, what if this never happened, what if THAT never happened...what would, what could? All these memories frozen in time, just like it happened yesterday. I miss everything. I miss those times we can never get back, the laughter, the friends, the family, the love, the crazy stories, the surprises, watching Abram grow up from when he was a little baby. 

I wonder if people kept memories of me in a box like this. Frozen and forgottened, but once opened...leaping out at you all at once, like a pandoras box. 

NO toby.

Does my shadow know how hot it is today? It says hi anyway. 

Scene 1: Sengkang, Singapore.

I've never taken the LRT in Sengkang before. I got lost and had 10 mins to get to my destination but all I could think of was how intense my craving for almonds and raisins were. Also because the weather was super hot today, almost 37 degrees, I kept thinking about the slimy texture of a piece of ice cold salmon sashimi, and just that thought alone... somehow cooled me down. But anyway, I noticed also how close the HDB blocks were to the LRT stations. How nice it would be to have a balcony and just watch the trains go by...thinking about the people it ferries from one end to the other, and their stories.

Anyway back to being lost in my own country, a slightly disoriented woman came up to me to ask for directions, but she didnt speak english...she just held out a card with an address and looked at me with blank eyes. I got a shock and my first response was to just wave her away and say I dont know...but its actually true, I really didnt know! So I explained to her that I was also lost and I dont know which train to take as well, but she kept pointing to the card with the address. I was like, oh shit oh shit, woman I want to help you but I'm late and I'm kinda lost too. But anyway, I tried making sense of the situation by checking google maps, but as I was doing so...another kind stranger came over to help her. So yay, reward myself with a sip of water. 

And then, I felt someone tap my shoulder again, so I got another shock. Yes it seems that I keep getting shocks. I'm like a bat in so many ways. I try to look scary but am easily startled, I eat fruit and not forgetting that I have bad eyesight. But anyway, she just said something like " omg hi i love your works, I'm one of your followers on ig " which was very nice. Thank you~~ Im so sorry I was in such a rush, thanks for pointing me in the right direction anyway, and it was very nice to meet you too! I forgot if we shook hands and I dont know if you read my blog but I just wanted to tell you this! 

Scene 2 : White Cat

Rush rush rush rush rush. 

Had 10 mins to calm down and have a quick bite (which was banana cake + yuzu lemon) before the next thing on my calender. White cat came along and watched me eat. I tried to connect with it, like send out some kind of brain waves that says " I am your friend. Come sit with me" and then the next thing... 

it leaped onto the chair next to me! hhAHAHAHAHHAhahahaha. 

So I spent lunch talking to the white cat, whom I'm going to name Toby. We kept meowing to each other, I was receiving weird looks from a grandma that was strolling by slowly. Toby doesnt mind so I dont mind. I asked toby what his day was like. He said it was super chill, they were doing some fogging around the area, so there were lots of pests that turned up from the rubbish chutes. And on Cat News Sg, the highlight is still about some cat killer who killed cats and left their bodies out in the open...like some kind of sick message. 

so whats my day like, Toby asked.

dear toby,

first of all, meow. 

my day in human world kinda sucks. I dont know what I want anymore. You know how sometimes you like to eat fish and then some days you wanna chase mice? Humans are the same too I guess. I'd rather be having this brain wave conversation with you than be on my phone. Its like, the world is so noisy, full of people and their expectations of you and commitments. I dont want to feel obligated to do certain things and then feel bad because I said no. Whats wrong with saying no? No just means NO. Why do people keep asking again and again as if to say that I dont know what I want and my No might mean yes maybe... and when I say NO they get all defensive and say whoa whoa whoa lol chill its alright dont need to get all uptight. I dont understand why I feel bad saying no. 

anyway, so I was playing with Toby's ears and stroked his back and then he bit me.

I guess he meant that as a lesson on 'NO' for me.

Thanks Toby. You've taught me well.

Eyes / Dreams / Stairs

Eyes. 

Sometimes the shape of the eyes can tell me so much about someone. The nonchalent ones, the bubbly ones, the lost ones, the ones that eat too much donuts etc etc etc. I just can tell. When I meet someone new, as superficial as it sounds, I judge them by their eyes... its like my kind of gut feeling. When people ask which is the part of my body that I dislike the most, I'd say eyes. Not that I dislike my eyes, "dislike" is a strong word, (sorry my eyes that are reading this, I appreciate you very much dont be angry) I feel self conscious about my eyes, in a way that I wonder...can people read me? My eyes do weird things sometimes, like...they dont listen to me. 

Dreams.

I dream too much. I dream every night. Vivid ones. I go to sleep tired, I close my eyes and then I enter the world of dreams, and then I open my eyes and its time to wake up. I wake up super tired. Believe me when I say this, I wake up even more tired than when I went to bed the night before. And this continues day after day after day. My mind is working even when Im sleeping. I used to think it was a gift...kinda, like being able to dream so much because it churns out so much ideas and plots for my work and because i love weird thoughts. But now, I just want to sleep. Dream suppressant. Stop dreaming. Sleep. Rest. Recharge. 

Stairs. 

I was climbing up this flight of stairs. It was steep. I dont really like stairs, especially going up because I have this fear that I'd fall backwards. I was climbing the flight of stairs, holding the railing, going up going up going up. And then the railing disconnected suddenly, I wasnt expecting that...so I froze and immediately bent forward to retrieve some balance and more importantly not to fall backwards cos yknow... bones broken, fractured skull, paralysis etc etc...so this guy behind me was using his phone and wasnt expecting me to stop suddenly, and his face bumped into my butt. I think he got a shock, I didnt even turn back... I felt the bump and then I ran to the station and never looked back. 

The South Beach

I was looking through my iphone photos and I realised I havent done a blog post on my AMAZING stay at The South Beach hotel in Singapore. The reason for this was that I couldnt post the photos up yet until the hotel was opened so I had to wait before sharing it. I was hosted as a guest at the 5 star hotel even before they were opened to the public, so heres what happened! 

Arrival

I got picked up by a private driver right from my house in Yishun, the elegance of the car and the driver in a suit looked super out of place in the HDB area. It was super funny, my parents were even taking photos all the way up from the floor we lived on. The ride was super badass!! Like a bausss!  Anyway, all I could remember from this ride was that I had a super bad stomach ache and I really needed to take a dump asap. Heres me texting Nicole, saying something along the lines of "I really need to use the toilet once I reach the hotel." 

But once I reached the hotel, there were SO many people waiting outside for me. I completely forgot about the toilet and my stomach ache. There were so many photographers snapping photos, even my brother (whom I brought along to take photos for me) was shocked...like... "who is my sister?" Even I was confused for awhile. I was presented this large bouquet of lovely flowers and had so many hands to shake. Firm handshake guys....firm handshake... no fish hands. Anyway, everyone was like "Welcome to the south beach Miss Lim" and I was like whoaaaa................. 

so now I was shown the lift...which is a feature of this hotel. The hotel is known as a luxury hotel of design with design pieces by Phillip Starke...and this lift is one of them. It changes color and it feels like you're entering a completely different space. Here you can also see how many people there were and entering a lift has never felt more stressful and complicated than this. *inserts laughing emoji* but also, I can say that Ive never had so many people walk me to a lift before. So in a list of Useless Life Goals: More than 10 people showing me to a lift...CHECK!

Now we arrive at the Ladies Floor. The South Beach has a floor dedicated only for ladies. It has an extra security door too, to block out all the men. A thought that I had was probably about how much Oestrogen this floor alone would have. 

The Room

I have my own personalised room!? The room is beautiful.  And Im not just saying that because I had celebrity treatment that day. I had personalised gifts from the hotel on my bed alongside with Margiela Pajamas to roll around in. At this point I was feeling very overwhelmed, but holy smhokes.... the bed is sooooo comfortable, I just wanted to lie down and listen to Clair De Lune and think of my dog and whether this was real. 

Also I had magazines like Kinfolk all laid out for my reading pleasure. So here, you can see me pretending to read whilst photographers snap away. Also, my legs look abnormally long here, which brings me to say that the part of my body I like the most are my ankles and fingers. *twiddle thumbs* Annddddddd ok moving on...

Also, I left the room for awhile and when I came back in, there was a bottle of champagne. And then I left the room again, and when I came back, there were big balloons for me. At this point, my brother suggested me leaving the room more and coming back to see if there were anymore new things that would appear. At that point, anything was possible so I actually tried hahahahahahhahaha.  

Lunch

Im not going to attempt to name the food because fancy hotel = fancy food name. I think this was duck and mashed potato. I remember it being some kind of exotic bird. Ugh, this is why I cannot be a food blogger. Anyway, I love potato, anything potato related, I will eat. Which makes me think about The Martian, yknow the movie? The part where he grew potatoes to survive on mars, I was so excited for him, all the possibilities of potatoes!! Mashed, fried, diced, grilled, with butter, with cheese etc etc...but I guess he's on mars so the possibilities are not so vast.

Hotel Facilities 

ok guys, The South Beach has a mirrored ping pong table, which is super stylish and modern looking, and also great for checking out your double chin when you look down and attempt to hit the ball. They also have an indoor infinity pool that has an amazing view of the prime areas of Singapore (think: MBS, esplanade, padang...) Super great area to watch the F1 and the national day parade. Also I was told that the security is also super high because great view = great chance of snipers and violent stuff. But anyway, heres me being non violent and avoiding the view of my double chin. 

At this point I would like to thank the hotel team Nicole and Sarah for arranging this stay for me. It was a great pleasure being one of the first few guests to stay at The South Beach. Thank you also for these floats which I couldnt use because I was having my period. T_T

The rest of it.

After a whole day of photo shooting and touring the hotel, I had to leave for a meeting with a client. This whole time I was just super excited to end the meeting and go home to my big bed and have a nice bubble bath and drink champange. When I got back to the hotel, it felt like I was returning "home" because the staff all greeted me by name. "Welcome back Miss Lim". Also because there were no guests around (because it wasnt opened yet), the hotel seemed like it was mostly mine which was a very surreal feeling. When I reached my floor, all the staff continued greeting me...it was like the whole hotel knew that I was staying there. Very very surreal. 

Anyway, once I got back to the hotel, they prepared my dinner and sent it up to my room. But at this moment, I got a text from my brothers saying that our dog has just died. So I had mixed emotions, here I was at this really fancy hotel room with yummy food with gifts and everything, but my dog died... So I was thinking that there is no better time than this to open up the bottle of champagne and drink to Merc ( our dog). He died of old age, he was very very old, 16 years old. So anyway, if you know me, you'd know that I dont drink at all. I CANT drink. I dont even like the taste of alcohol. But since I had this bottle and was feeling a bit sad, sure why not...

But the problem is, I dont know how to open the bottle. It looked so complicated with the metal wires around the cork. I even googled and youtubed "how to open a champagne bottle", and I was also laughing at the situation because it seemed so comical.. I was imagining me trying to open the bottle and the cork flying out hitting or breaking something... I wouldn't be surprised if that happened because I always find myself in these kinda super awkward and comically unfortunate situations. But thankfully in the end they sent a staff up to help open the bottle ahhahahahhaha. I drank almost half of it in the end, it was the long bath and the news of Merc leaving us...

but anyway~~~~

The toilets are super big, but the feature I enjoyed the most were the speakers and sound system in the toilet. I could connect to Spotify from their entertainment system and play it in the toilet. AHHhhhhh, the bliss~ just imagine having a nice warm bubble bath with Bill Evans playing jazz and reading Tolstoy. It was super nice, I could have slept there but soaking too long isnt very good I think? I read that people die from soaking too long in warm water. Just google "death by soaking in hot tub". But then again, you can die from ANYTHING apparently....

oooohayouuu~ 

Break fast in bed!! The South Beach really knows how to pamper their guests. Btw, the Ladies Rooms have hair dryers and pink hair straightener/ curlers, which is AMAZING because everytime I travel, I have to bring mine along to curl my fringe and the ends of my hair so it doesnt look to flat and yknow....but anyway, that concludes my stay at The South Beach, thank you again for having me!! I had such an amazing stay!
Till next time~~~~~~~~~~ ^^

Rain and Tears

I love dark clouds. It makes me feel super calm and small...like theres something big and mighty up there watching and somehow protecting us. Except dont make it angry because yknow... thunder and all. Holy shit, its been a month since I last wrote an entry. How are you? The past month has been completely chaotic and busy. I've probably offended a few people in one way or so because of this. But oh wells, you cant please everyone and still remain sane. 

Anyway, today she told me about flies and CDs. She said that if you want to shoo a fly away, you just need to point the shiny side of a CD towards it and it will not come near because its afraid of the light. We tried it, but the fly still came. She looked at me and said "I guess its the same with Cancer...." 

I started thinking about it but she continued telling me about the Old Lady who stays opposite the house...and how she talks to herself all day long because there is no one to talk to. She talks to the sky. She gets angry and starts complaining about her life really loudly, and then suddenly, she cries. I heard her cry once, wail actually...like how the wind howls when it rains, with the pitter patter of the rain drops echoing her tears and the thunder tearing the sky apart mirroring her anger. I asked H why the Old Lady cries so much, she said "I dont know, could be her children...but lets mind our own business." 

And then the Old Lady started crying again and in the background, the rain got heavier. Synchronised tears. Goosebumps.