Philly

Of random things

I was looking around my room today and i was looking at my camera and i kinda decided that i show u more redundant things. Haha. But on a serious note, I once read somewhere that its the mundane things that makes life, life and the big occasions/activities are mere chocolate chips in the huge plain cake. So, heres my plain cake in Beaver Hall, Room 711 :D (perhaps, as u can see, I am 'bored' and dont want to start on my project due tomorrow at 1pm.HAHA.)

NO MORE WINTER SONATAAAA.. U know the weird thing is i hum the winter sonata song whenever im walking alone surrounded by snow. I BLAME U MAMA! hahahahha

Chilli is awesome. I put a couple of SLICES in soup or whatver and it gives a perfect zing to otherwise bland american food. ahhaha

Lilin and I have been looking for a kettle for ages! Good, boiled water is nice. I use it to make my lovely coffee now!!! Then i realised i brought SO MUCH instant coffee packets. whoops. hahhaa.

Cheerios! Havent tried them yet. I hope it isnt tt gd coz dont know if its sold in Sing... if it isnt i'll just crave it so badly when im back. Oh and another thing. Im hooked on ice lemon tea. Its just so refreshing when u eat it w food here. This is the instant powder version so i dont have to waste $$ getting a bottle of it everyday :P Hehe

Me! I brought earrings the other time. I likes. I still have my tan! YAY!

I don't know if ive taken pics for this, but this is the birdhouse we painted as part of the activity at HUB during weekends (Late Night Penn State). Koray and Lilin painted for me the birdhouse below while i watched the movie Rock and Rolla with Irving and Moayed.

Hehe, My wadrobe is a mess and growing still. I hope i can fit them all in the luggage when i get back!! HAHHA. Cant wear half of them yet cos the weather is still a lil cold -.-

Qiu Lin! This is for u! I told u i'll shop for u so whatever i buy now i think of u and keep in the best condition for ur SEP! So heres a white jacket. Nice and warm but useless in snowy winter but on for weather below 7 like today. It actually has a hood that can be zipped off (which i did here)Best part is it was only 7 US bucks. Not bad eh. hahaha. To tempted to buy more.

This is another. The sleeves dun provide much protection so this is probably for warmer weather. I love the design at the shoulders and like the jacket above the hood can be removed/attached. The fur arnd the hood is the in-thing here, so dont mind it. It actually is gd for blocking out the wind! Its was only 15 sing from TJ Max! :D

SPRING HAS SPRUNG! TJ Max and Making dinner

So, its is a random post of not so exciting events, just to show how its pretty much normal life here. Just like Singapore I shop for good buys and spend hours doing so, BUT unlike s'pore (or at least not as much) I shop to cook too, and i cook. Hehe...All I can say is thank god i have lilin to help me out w these things and give ideas abt cooking. If not i will just eat out. Hehe.

I started out my day yesterday (8th) with studying... wait, first waking up at 1pm (Lilin woke up at 12.30 but i refused to budge and went back to sleep. HAHAHA) and then slacking THEN studying. I had a test (50 mcq) the next day and i was still lazy. Im so happy i can do stuff like this here. Never in Singapore will i study a day before a test. Its too suicidal. :P Anyway, so we decided not to waste our day (or maybe i wanted to procrastinate - most probably :P) and go shopping instead! We went to this store (TJ Max) which Koray suggested we go to coz of cheap and gd stuff. So we contacted Xiao Zhi and met up w her. The bus was LATE and it wasnt gd coz i thot since there was no snow it would be warmer. WRONG> So i shiver in my jeans and sweater and hid behind who or what i could, from the wind. heh. ANYWAY, this TJ Max is big. The clothes are branded.. i found FCUK and Ed hardy, Micheal Kors among others but the designs arent tt great. However, the price they fetch is not bad really - arnd US10-20. I tried to look out for stuff for everyone i could think of but i didnt have time. Dont worry folks, i'll be back and grab sum nice stuff for souveniers. :) I bought a dress for 5bucks (have to alter though), a jacket and a blouse. So happy. hehe.

Then it was off grocery shopping and then sadly we couldnt do dinner at Big Bowl, so we had too... *horro music* COOK. So yeah, we whipped out our pasta, pasta sauce, cheese, chicken ham slices and ....CHILLI PADI (yes they are alive, dried and well!) It was superb. Not the most fantastic pasta u can have but kinda u feel proud producing as a first try! YAY! I owe this honour to the microwave too. hehe. So handy.

So yes, this is was my Sunday. Enjoy the pictures! Oh, and i was so shocked to look out my window today. NO MORE SNOW and SO MUCH SUN. Bittersweet though, i liked the whiteness of it all, yet the cold was suicidal :P Ah well, YAY TO SPRING and THANK U WiNTER!

Walking to TJ Max. The moon (if u can spot it) was huge by S'pore standards. Hahha. Pretty.

The proud cook of our first pasta meal!!

It took us 15mins w the microwave to get this guy to cook

I MAKAN!!! ... in a tupperware. -.-

I donated blood in the US.

So finally, something up to-date. I donated Blood today!! Thank God the people were nice coz the process sure wasnt. Thing is here, they have a sense of duty of some sort. Can u believe i had to wait an hr to get my blood donated? sheesh. Lots of qns for me to ans too coz im foreign - i cant be from europe or Malaysia either or that will cause problems. Plus, there was this goodu girl tt cudnt understand the way i talked and spelt my name as 'Shea'. But at least she was sweet. The process following that was basically the same -the pricking of the finger, blood pressure, etc... In contrast though, instead of sitting up, i had to lie down and the food after the donation was way good (great cookies and pretzel sticks) instead of lame snacks :P (sorry singapore red cross...). The worse part of it though was..... they DIDN'T administer jabs to numb the HUGE needle gg in the vein. The feeling is strange but apt - it feels exactly what it feels like to have a needle stuck under ur skin and sticking out and moving about whenever u move throughout the whole process. ARGH!!! Hehe, but it was over soon enough. ANd i had cookies. hehe. Yummy. Below are pictures of my arm to freak u out and poofy band-aid. hehe. Dont mind the yellow, its iodine. EW.

Plus, plus, today, after i did my work in the evening (yes i dont only have fun, but i have to write papers) and went for dinner at Irving's West Halls (YAY! They served rice and stir-fry broccoli!! I MISS HOME FOOD! CHERISH UR RICE PEOPLE!).. we 3 went for a play - Vagina Monologues. Enlightening. 2nd ive seen it. Nice to see it done bt ang mohs this time. Actually, no diff, actors in singapore. Those i saw was just as gd if not a lil more better. So proud :) So yes. No partying tonight tho coz i have to be a gd girl and finish my proj by tmr. ARGH. :( Still, NUS would have pounded me to the ground by now, so its nicer to be here nontheless.

Theres more sun now and if it gets a lil more warmer, it'll be perfect. Sunshine makes me think of home. It nice. I'm getting used to here too. The people especially. Initially i thought why do they have to advertise their life and feelings to everyone!! I mean, they can randomly talk to u, like everyone can be friends - an unnerving state of affairs for a singaporean i'ld say. But then slowly by slowly, its nice... u dont feel so shut out or shut in your own world. U set aside percieved differences u may have for a lil chat. I mean why not, it'll help us smile more for starters. I'ld like to try and start this in Spore, just a lil... then i'll get to having people hold doors for one another and make a habit of saying thanks HAHAH. :) I wished u all were here. Its an experience and i feel more and more blessed with every passing day. :) Thanks for this opportunity mama and ayah, this is an experience indeed.

SNOW TUBING!!

SNOW TUBING aka, sliding down a snow sloped in a tyre. :D ULTRA FUN. we did it alone. we did it in groups of 12... a line of 3-5... always fast, always fun. The snow shreds like ice kacang shavings and slaps agains ur face. We raced and we just fooled around. Super cold though. The cold seeped into everything, your gloves, jacket, jeans... all. But its so worth it! Stay tuned for skiing action!! :D

The Tubes. You sit in it like u sit in a donut, hehe. The leash takes u up the slope on a motored wire which hooks up to it... and u drag the tube like u wud a lil pet. Hehe.
Colourful 'donuts' and the glimpse of d ski slopes

The snow tubing slopes!! :) The middle on is the best!

The ski slopes. To be conquered soon. Not from the top tho. Hehe

Gathering warmth at the cafe mid way thru tubing. It got too cold i cudnt feel my toes in my boots. The tag is stuck onto ur zipper and gains u access to TUSSY MOUNTAIN's SKI SLOPES!

Good ol' fireplace.

EVERYBODY... except lilin and irving u decided to stay out in the cold! (Xiao Zhi (far left) is one of the sporeans tt came w the rest of us. She lives off campus, unlike 3 of us tho. :)

the creation of SNOW PEOPLE

I MADE SNOWWOMAN! hehe. At long last the snow was perfect for snow making. It wasto be a lil melted so it can stick if not its all crumbly like breadcrumbs or... sand? So yes!!! She was not perfect, but she was fun making!! Irving made a man-snowman, so it was just right we made him a mate. HAHAHA. Lilin add the lil touch to leaves for some dignity. Oh and we only chanced upon this opportune moment coz Lilin was bored of staying in on a saturday. Lucky i have her or else i'll never explore.. coz i'll just wanna stay out of the COLD!!! So here are the pics!

Sunset scenes at the park :)

I LOVE MY SNOW PEOPLE!

Shisha is Hookah here!

So another thing we found out we could do at Downtown... SHISHA.

Only that its known as Hookah here. erm. The name is just strange. I think in Arabic its called aquila? Yeah, so thanks to Moayed (see prev post), we got to our shisha place. Actually it was a failed attempt...at first. The place we were initially supposed to go to, Chronic Town, shut down coz it was deemed a fire hazard AFTER a fire got started there -.- So anyway. The next day we went to way cool JAMAICAN JUNCTION! hahaha. Looks like a hippie hideout. The Jamaican flag, music of Bob Marley, vandalised walls and drapped fabrics and hippie furniture was perfect! I wanna open a place like this in S'pore! hahaha. U can write stuff on the walls of doodle on paper and put them up. Nice touch i'ld say. We had a very nice waitress, Ashely. And we had 3 flavours of Hookah - Tenacious 'D (misture of flavors including passion fruit and melon) and something else, can remember what but it was grosser than the former. hahhaha. Then later we had Apple. So all was gd, except that the cold made the coal burn out faster according to Ashley. It was all a nice chill out! Except that they provided way weird nozzles which din fit right on the tip (see 3rd picture) hehe. Oh well, what do u expect for 4bucks :P