old things and being burnt

I love love love old things. Like...REALLY old things. So when I was at the Foro Romano (roman forum) questions that ran through my mind would be like :

1) what happened here.

2) what did people do here.

3) who touched/built this exact spot.

I don't have all the answers, but I bought books at the museum because I really want thorough answers, I'll let you know when I have the answers. 

but anyway can you imagine, many many many many years ago when these structures and buildings were built, they used to be completely functional home towns, and entertainment for people like you and me...and now they're all broken. If walls have ears (or eyes), can you imagine if I plugged in a thumb drive into the crack of the wall and transfer all that it has seen and heard all these many years...what kind of things would I hear and see. I am imagining EVERYTHING! Maybe I'll see someone being stabbed to death with a fork, or maybe I'll overhear love being spoken in a different language. i mean, lets imagine this together...what would have the wall seen or heard? If the wall is a hard disk, it would have stored so much memories and stories and this is completely fascinating to me.

These were built by people so many years ago, whilst they were building this...did they think or expect that many years later, a completely random 25 year old asian girl from Singapore would come by Rome and touch (and occasionally hug) these exact walls that they've built? This is why sometimes I like to speak to old walls, you know, like in Interstellar...the scene where the father was behind the library in another dimension. I would go up to these old walls and speak to them in a small whisper "hello....??.......... are you there??.... tell me what to do......... I will do it. What?? move right?? you want me to move right? Im blocking someone taking a photo? oh okok *moves right* hello...?........ are you still there??" 

In Between Two Walls. "tell me what to do.....helloo????" 

Behind the scenes of embroidering the Foro Romano. 

This piece was fun. 

I mean, all my pieces are fun, but for this piece I had such a comfortable "table" overlooking this magnificent view with a nice cool wind carrying the scent of a ripe banana blowing occasionally. Whilst working on this piece, I imagined that this place was restored to its former glory and I was a servant girl looking out of her window. I saw children running around laughing, I saw men pulling their cows and bulls. I saw a former Rome and I imagined so many stories of people who used to live and hang out here in the past. An example of a short story I would think of : My servant girl name is Selena and as I'm looking out of the window I see my master casually walking and talking with a smart man next to him. He looks up at me and waves. We are secretly in love. I have his baby, and the town people found out about this and burned me to death. The end

And before I knew it, I was already done with my piece! 

and now I can take this piece of Rome back with me. :D 

How are you? I hope all is well with you from whatever time and space you are reading this from, even if you're reading this from inside a wall. But remember, whatever you're going through...at least you're not like Selena, being burned to death for having a baby with her Master. And speaking of burning, I'm completely burnt from the sun in Italy, and prior to writing this, I set the bath running with a nice golden glitter bath bomb so before I get into trouble for allowing the water to overflow, I should go check on the bath now.

x

Mt Kota Kinabalu, Fairies and Taylor Swift.

I'd never imagine myself climbing a mountain ever...EVER. I'm completely not sporty at all, I'm adventurous at times but not to the level of wanting or desiring to fly out of singapore to climb a freakin mountain. But thats what I did... and I have LOTS  to say about this like many weeks before this I was trying to train for this trip but I ended up falling sick and how I was completely freaking out about what shoes to wear because what if I wore the wrong pair and I ended up breaking my ankles or slipping off the mountain completely. And really, WHAT do people wear to climb a mountain? These questions NEVER crossed my mind before. I was completely anxious the night before. It was so intense I felt like I was going for an exam that I didn't prepare for. 

But before that, lets take a deep breath and look at some cloud photos. 

Beautiful isn't it. 

I was completely at peace with everything and everyone at that point of time because when you're faced with such a beautiful sight, nothing really matters. Not even the China lady that shoved her elbow into your face on the plane, not even the due date for the project that I haven't even started, NOTHING mattered. Not even the fact that I was wearing Crocs and my socks were soggy and my hair was in a mess and I have a huge pimple on my lip, nothing mattered.  

This was my spot, at 6am in the morning, just shivering and breathing in all this high mountain air and embroidering this sight, being fully present (and with no wifi) But first, I think I should explain the Crocs: I absolutely had no choice. These were house slippers provided by the lodge, and can I add that they're SO comfortable and the grip is SO good, I was like a ninja in crocs, leaping off rocks and tree roots, jumping across puddles of water just to get from the lodge to this serene spot to watch the sunrise. 

2 hours later, I'm done with Cloud piece. I was freezing. and for some scientific nature reason, the clouds were loosing its fluffiness bit by bit (see right side of photo), so I had to quickly stitch as fast as I could so I could snap a photo with the fluffiness. I was so happy being alone, sitting at the edge listening to Taylor Swift because it was the only thing on my iTunes on my phone because I bought the album when she took it off Spotify, but anyway... happiest moment of my life. 

But how did I get up here? 

Its one journey that I'll NEVER forget. As much as I was dreading the climb, the night before I was quite excited because I mean, how difficult can it get? Children and old ladies have climbed this. It might be a stroll in a park, a LONG stroll with friends with happy camping food right? NO. Hell no. It was mental training, it needs physical strength and also lots and lots of determination. 10mins after we started, I was like "hmm yeah this feels nice, using leg muscles whoohoo, no sweat" 20mins later I was like "OMG CAN I PLEASE CLIMB DOWN NOW, I CANT DO THIS". Honestly, I really wanted to give up...I saw an old man climbing down and I was like "hey where are you going? Are you giving up? its too crazy right!?!? Can I join you, I'll go down with you!" And he's like "oh no, I climbed up all the way yesterday so now i'm just making my way back down" and my heart just sunk to a whole new level.

I realised that theres no other way, I JUST have to do it. Step by step. Groan by groan. I was complaining the WHOLE way, muttering under my breath like "argh omg, i can't do this, my soul is leaving my body, i'll die here, thats it, i can feel my life slipping away, friends....goodbye." but my friends were so supportive they fed me granola bars and apples and they kept cheering me on. 

Anyway heres a list of things I noticed and thought about on my hike up and down:

1) Before the trip, as I was fussing about what shoes to wear...whilst climbing I realised that it really doesn't matter. You can even climb this mountain in Converse or even crocs for that matter. Theres no need to get really good mountain boots or shoes. I hiked up with my friend's army military boots which helped A LOT, but there were lots of people in normal sneakers and they were much faster and agile than I was .

2) "Winners never quit and Quitters never win". Keep chanting this and you'll reach the peak in no time.

3) There was a point of time when I was SO tired and I thought it was impossible to complete the rest of the hike up, but after that plunge of energy...there was this sudden renewed adrenaline that surged through me and allowed me to zoom up the rest of the mountain. I didnt even know where this extra strength came from. I was talking to the trees and the rocks on the way up, maybe they realised that I was their ally. 

4) Be one with Nature. 

5) Crazy things happen when you're on Survivor Mode.  Never underestimate yourself. 

6) I swear theres an elevator somewhere in the mountain that takes you all the way up. I kept tapping on rocks and odd looking stones, maybe if I had the right sequence like *tap tap tap...tap tap* the magical rock will open up and two fairies will fly next to me and say "welcome chosen one" and take me into the rocks and lead me all the way up to the summit where I'll be sipping tea and having cookies whilst I wait for my friends to make their way up. 

But of course that didn't happen. But it didn't stop me from talking and tapping the rocks and making friends with strange leaves because what if they're fairies. 

7) Imagine this: you're tired, its raining, your socks are soaked, your thighs are aching, you just want to make your way down back to civilisation and wifi, but you seem to be going round and round in circles, seeing the same tree, the same curve, the same plant the same route again and again. You're stuck in Mystical Forest. That was what happened exactly, except that I am exaggerating a little. 

The climb down was SO monotonous, everything was the same, the scenery was the same, the trees were the same. We felt like we were going round and round and round in circles with the same taylor swift song going on and on. It was raining so hard that the rain drops actually hurt my skin. But just imagine that you're really stuck in the forest, what would you do? That really scared me. 

8) But before I forget, there were old men and young boys as young as 16 carrying 30kg of load up the mountain at TOP SPEED. I found it extremely amazing. Where do they get so much strength from!? And wow, that determination. Its crazy...in a completely good way. 

(just btw, bragging rights, my friend Pea and I were the first to make it to the lodge) 

feel like I've reached a new level, I mean...I've never experienced whats it like to be drenched in sweat AND rain water and the kind of smell it produces as it dries on your skin and the kind of sticky and grimy feeling it leaves. To have a group of friends whom you can be completely comfortable being smelly and natural with, to snore and look completely unglamorous and know its ok. 

This piece is for you guys : Pea, Sherry, Nick, Mabel, Tim, Amanda and Giff.

Fune No Hoteru

Embroidering outdoors by the water, and the sun accompanied by the wind. It is an absolutely wonderful feeling...except for being sunburn of course. So slap on lots of sunscreen and wear a hat if ever you want to do this in Singapore. 

Out of here~

Whilst talking to my Oma over Skype just now, I realised that I miss her and Opa so much and she was like "oh when are you going to come over and help me plant some flowers...when are we going to Munich...when are we going this and that" OMG I need to get out of Singapore now. I just spent one hour looking at flights out of here, I am so afraid I might do something impulsive like just book a flight out to Germany tomorrow. I know that I am very very capable of that.

Then I remembered this movie scene where the lead actress literally froze her credit cards in the freezer in a block of ice... so to get to it she had to either wait for it to melt or physically try to break it. And then whilst waiting, she'll either not want to buy what she wanted to buy anymore, or just collapse out of exhaustion. I THINK I NEED TO DO THAT. I just told my maid to hide my card. Give it back to me tomorrow!!! But for now!! Please help me!!! hide it!!

Work trips are great because I get to travel, but at the moment I will be in Singapore. So does anybody wants to pack me in a container and ship me to somewhere exotic? I totally wouldn't mind. :D

Speaking of which, I am extremely thrilled that my travel embroidery series is getting a lot of media attention online. Its absolutely exciting for me and I am so extremely encouraged by everyones kind words. Thank you for your lovely words and support!! This month I will be working on adding Singapore to my Sew Wanderlust series. I mean, since I'm here for awhile I should just make use of my time here before I fly off to somewhere else. Which might be Japan and then Korea and then Germany & Paris in June and then NY in December. I am extremely stoked. I HOPE I HAVE ENOUGH MONEY. Can I sell brownies to raise funds for my travels? Do airlines except tears as payment? Can I pay in tears?