Weekend

By right, I should have spent my weekend preparing for my midterm tests, but well... I'm so used to slacking the weekends away. Even back home, I've always associated weekends with a break- work, dinner with my mum, sometimes shopping, lazing the whole Sunday away reading the newspapers, playing the piano and enjoy home, dinner with my family... except over here, it's not quite the same because the concept of being slack applies 24/7!

Friday night was spent laughing my head off at the National Comedy Theatre, where they had a competition between two teams of comedians who had to play games with input from the audience. They were really amazing... there was this game where this guy had to 'guess what he was doing' based on the gibberish talk and mimes from his teammates- I don't know how on earth he did it, but he managed to guess, 'I'm playing baseball, but the bat is a pickle, and the bases are the Olsen Twins, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton.' They kept speaking apparantly senseless stuff that sounded like 'bleah om ugh waata....'... impressive man.

I had grand plans to be really disciplined and stay home all of Saturday, but Cat wanted to go shopping around Grand Central and I couldn't resist... and actually, I'm really thankful we went out. It's been a long time since I've had 'girl retail therapy' with no guys around! (no offence to you guys, haha) We walked around Grand Central... always looking at FOOD as usual, bought Juniors cheesecake (decided to cut it into half so the guys can gobble up their share as fast as they like while we slowly savour ours...strolled along 42nd to 34th, looking at the stores along the way...

And we walked into a really exciting kids place- Build - a - Bear factory. It's this place where you can customize your stuffed toy... if I had a kid, I would definitely bring HER there!

First you choose your toy....then stuff it up...

...dry it and comb its hair...

...pick an outfit... (there're so many! Sports wear, statue of liberty, wedding gowns, suits...)

...pick shoes and a host of other accessories, like collar IDs, caps, integrated voice...

...and you get your own cute bear!

We checked out Macys at 5th Avenue too... just at the right time because it was having a one-day sale...except that it was so huge that we didn't have the energy to look through everything. There're just so many things to look, definitely going back there for more shopping! =)

On Sunday, I thought I would quickly go to the gym before lunch, then rush back to study... but I stopped by the supermarket on my way back... and argh, the supermarket is the bane of my existence over here! Everytime I walk in, I end up spending at least 30 minutes just looking through the incredible variety of food in different versions and brands-the cereals, the different flavoured oatmeals, the jams, cheese, salad bar... and trying to resist buying all of them. And if there's one thing about food that I like here, it must be the different kinds of bread... all the pitas, ciabatta, cheese ciabatta, garlic cheese baguettes, farmers bread, country loafs etcetcetc... They're all so expensive in Singapore, I'm so going to miss eating so many types of bread when I go back...

Happy Birthday dearest Mummy!

The Magic Flute

I went with Christian to watch Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) at the Metropolitan Opera today. We got tickets from Stern at 5 dollars... and oh my, I feel so lucky because this is probably the only time I'll be watching an opera there. The opera house was so grand... and the entire thing was so impressive- the singing, the orchestra, and especially the stage set-up and props. Even if I did not know any German and there were no subtitles, or even if I didn't like classical music or operas at all... I think just staring at the amazing set and listening to the soprano would have been good enough!

Inside the Opera House

Curtain call (Christian took the sneak shots...)

Chandelier outside the theatre

Outside The Metropolitan Opera

=)

I'm in an unbelievably good mood today for the weirdest reason...

I yahoo-ed the weather in the morning, and the forecasted temperature range for today was 0-8 degrees, which made me think, 'That's it, I'm wearing a skirt today.' So here I am, wearing what I was wearing in the following picture-

... I don't know why, but just wearing normal clothes put me in a great mood. And it's unbelievably warm outside! Didn't even have to wear my jeans under my skirt after coming out of the gym. I think i'm a lot more resistant to cold now- if I walked around in a skirt in 18 degrees air-conditioning at home, I would have been dying of cold.

I really sound so ditzy (ironically, that's 'Ditzy' with me in the picture - miss you girl!), but I think the happiness of wearing a skirt has been infecting everything I do today. I was exceptionally interested in Consumer Behaviour class today (well, it is very interesting, but even more so today)... and exceptionally happy sipping my 75cents coffee in class.

I think I shall take a walk back in the warm weather today. Going to the opera tonight!

Back from Washington DC

The bus ride to DC was so looooong, but I had loads of thoughts on the way.

We passed by many of the suburban areas with huge pretty houses, except that there are nothing but trees around... and maybe a few (squarish box looking) shops/restaurants every few miles,no busses, no nothing - which I think, is the kind of place most Americans outside the big cities live in. And I was really wondering if I could possibly live in places like that. Actually, I think I wouldn't mind it for about a week, as a change from the cities I'm used to... just to experience what living in a big house in small town is like... but probably no longer.

There were so many bare trees on the way, and I was suddenly reminded of a picture of my Dad which my mum used to keep in her wallet- one of him standing among a lot of trees in autumn, probably somewhere around the Virgina area.

The weather was nice and warm when we first got to DC... then it started snowing as we were walking around... which was pretty, white ground, nice monuments, azure blue skies and all... then the snow stopped, then it got warmer, and all of a sudden... the snow was SO HEAVY as the night came. I was completely 'snowed over' (i.e. covered in snow from head to toe). We wanted to take sheltar in a toilet, but there was so much snow that we couldn't even see the toilet. (According to the news at DC, it was close to a blizzard). As usual, I thought I was going to freeze to death... everywhere I go, everytime I get used to each drop in temperature, I seem to meet worst and worst weather conditions!

This is me trying to take a picture jumping in the air among the snow while it was still nice and warm. There's a limit to how high I can jump with the weight of all the jackets...

Capitol Bulding.

I like this!

Washington Monument - This brought back another memory. According to my Dad, when we used to drive by it when I was three, I would point and say, 'pencil building!' I'm not sure, but I think we had a recording of me saying that.. National Aerospace and Air Museum. It's actually a display showing how air pressure can cause things to remain suspended in the air...and Taitong and I decided to try to take pictures which looked like we were making it float.

Actually, we didn't have much time to visit most of the places in DC. We spent most of out time in the Holocaust Museum. 'Enjoyed' wouldn't be the right word, since it was really depressing... but I read quite a bit of the history stuff in there... somewhat overwhelming because I realized that I've studied these stuff, but I've been out of touch with History for so long, when I used to be really interested in it. And, it seems so unbelievable that the Holocaust wasn't all that long ago... while sitting down to wait for the rest, I thought, 'I'm so lucky. I've lived a life so untainted.'

If I had to live somewhere in US, it might just be DC. The place is nice, there're sufficient stuff in the city-shopping, movies... and most importantly, the transport system is great. The Metro is so much newer than the subways in NYC... much easier to navigate, and basically works the way the MRT does, which I'm so used to.

Oh, something hilarious happened over dinner with Justin, Taitong's friend who studies in Maryland. Erwin was really quiet for a long time... and suddenly asked Justin, 'Which kindergarten did you go to?' We were all pretty stunned by such a random question... and the next thing we knew, Erwin said, 'I was from the same school. You used to cycle around with me in the void deck!' I think I almost died laughing, the world is so small!

I spent most of my journey back listening to music on my mp3 player. And I realized, I haven't played the piano for so long. And I don't even think I will still be able to play by the time I get back.

CNY Eve

We decided to have some Chinese Food for dinner since it's Chu2 Xi1. That huge cup of Kway Teow made me a really happy woman!
The M&Ms store at Times Square is three storeys... I don't eat chocolates but it was novel looking at it anyway! The columns of M&Ms on the wall were simply amazing... (it's about twice as long as what's on the picture, couldn't get a shot of the whole thing.) And the Hersheys store was just opposite... they sell Hersheys shirts, caps, stickers, cups, pillows...and I got Hersheys earrings! Well, I'll be walking irony when I wear them since I refuse to touch chocolates...but they're cute!

Everyone has been asking how I spent Lunar New Year Eve... we spent it watching Mama Mia. We went to the ticket box two hours before to check if there were last minute discount tickets and got standing tickets for 21 dollars! I thought we'll be standing in a small crowded area...but there are actually labelled 'standing seats', where you can lean forward on the pillar... got a really good view because it was where the orchestra seats are. I think it was so worth it... I much rather stand for 2.5 hours than pay twice the price and sit somewhere on the third storey among the last rows.

And Mama Mia was really enjoyable, loved all the singing and dancing. And I can't believe they managed to fit all the songs into the story.

Happy CNY!

Dunkin Donuts Coffee!

I woke up this morning with a craving for coffee, so I called Erwin and half an hour later, we braved the cold to walk out...

... it was totally worth it! I LOVE DUNKIN DONUTS COFFEE! There I was, on the eve of CNY, dunkin ciabatta into my coffee...


Chengwei says:
I feel like eating another ciabatta
Erwin Teo says:
eat lah
Erwin Teo says:
so skinny.
Erwin Teo says:
can lah.
Erwin Teo says:
don't hink so much
Erwin Teo says:
ciabatta says
Erwin Teo says:
"eat me chengwei!! you want to eat me!"
Erwin Teo says:
"i'm so lonely on the shelf..."
Erwin Teo says:
"i wanna be chewed and swallowed!! mmmm. i'm tassty!!"
Chengwei says:
stop trying to make me like you!
Chengwei says:
haha i really feel like i can write a blog post about the coffee
Chengwei says:
don't u think like..the milk kind of blends in very smoothly
Chengwei says:
which makes it so nice when something soaks it up, hahaha
Erwin Teo says:
ok you're more or a coffee drinker than i am
Erwin Teo says:
for me it's like
Erwin Teo says:
"mmm. nice."
Erwin Teo says:
for you it's like
Erwin Teo says:
"the smooth aroma of the ground beans... with the silky blending of milk... serve to create a unique culinary experiance that will tentalize and delight your taste buds"
Chengwei says:
hahhaa i'm going to put that on my blog

I'm going to make sure Erwin and I take turns to grab some Dunkin Coffee every weekend from now on! He just had TWO DONUTS dunked in coffee...

I want more coffee....

Happy CNY!

I feel so funny as I type this...

The mike on my mum's laptop is switched on and I can hear everything that is going on at home... the tv, my mum talking to my brother, my parents talking over dinner, the sound of people eating porridge... and the weird thing is, I feel exactly like what I would feel like if I were at home now- back from Pee Gee Pee because it's Chinese New Years Eve, sitting on the floor in the corner of the living room while typing on my laptop because everyone else is still eating at the dining table. Just now, the TV sounded so loud and I almost said, 'Daddy, softer can...' It feels like I'm home.



It's really so hard to remember I'm not at home now when I keep hearing my family talking in the background...my Dad asking my brother where he came back from, my mum asking my my maid where something is... sounds so ordinary, but so entertaining all of a sudden.



Thanks to my mum, I'm starving now. She decided to show me what they were having for lunch by facing the webcam to the dining table. Omg, the food was just spread out in front of me, and for a moment, I felt like I could just grab a pair of chopsticks and reach out for food. My mum also said I looked like I was going to start eating soon, and that she hasn't seen me so happy to see food before, haha They were having plain porridge... and it made it feel even more like I'm at home because that's what we always have for lunch on Saturday. I almost forgot how much I loved eating plain porridge.



Today feels like a normal day. Well, a bit normal because I did a bit of work in the morning. Like... the equivalent of one tutorial in NUS.



Then I spent a relaxing 1.5 hours in the gym, came back, and spent the rest of the night being entertained by the noises of my house.



Happy Chinese New Year to everyone back home! Chu1 Er2 falls on Presidents Day, no school! So I'll be having a really un-Chinese New Year over at Washington DC.

Happy 21st Birthday to dearest Christine / X-ine / Bing / one half of the Friday Swing Sitters / One third of CCA! =) I can't believe we're all reaching 21 soon... we've come a long way! And... I'm wearing my friends T-shirt as my 'slacking-at-home' shirt this week in honour of you!

Heaps of snow on Valentines

Last night, while Cat and Erwin were on their way back to the dog show (I didn't go back, it was so boring...), they called back to say it was snowing... and I decded, heck, I'm not going to change just to go out and freeze. So Erwin walked around by himself for half an hour and came back to tell me it was 'seriously snowing'... yep, so I just pulled on track pants to go take a look... and it was really really snowing! Whatever snow there has been before this have just been little trickles that last for a couple of minutes... and it snowed through last night...

...and this morning, I got a shock when I walked out of the dorm to get to school. There were PILES of snow everywhere... I know it looks pretty in the picture above (Madison Square Garden), but it really isn't... most of it is brown and dirty, which made me feel like I was walking around a playground the entire day. Gross. After awhile, I got so tired of trying to hop about and avoid the piles that I just walked through them... my feet were all gross and wet from walking about so much today, yikes. And it's so painful when the wind blows the snow into my face... oh, I slipped and landed in a pile of snow outside Stern. :(
Estelle thinks no one should eat crappy food alone on Valentines, so that's us at a dim sum restaurant. (I ate kway teow, mmm)
Cat, me and our (sinful) food. We spent V-day evening The Vagina Monologues at Kimmel (that's the student activities centre at NYU) and I must say, it was much better than I expected...brilliant script, witty, hilarious. Many of the cast were theatre majors and they were really brilliant. I've never read the play in spite of all the talk about it... maybe I will now.

I must mention, I think Stern is really really really rich. There was free lunch in the lobby today... I thought it would be some crappy food, but it turned out to be truckloads of huge sandwiches (turkey, beef, salmon etc), chocolate fondue, cookies, muffins... and really nice ones. gosh.

Oh, something hilarious happened in my class yesterday. It was the class with the Singaporean professor... and halfway during class, he accidentally said, 'you know, those people can be really dua jia'(big sized)'... everyone just gaped at him and I totally burst out laughing as he apologized!

Time to get to bed. There goes my day again... no work done, as usual. I don't think I'll ever survive NUS next semester.

Pictures from Upenn and Philadelphia

Test is over (barely even studied), so here's pictures from our weekend trip to Upenn/Philadelphia...

Cat and I signed up for the Wharton Women Business Conference and it was good! The speakers were really prominent women and I especially liked listening to the CEO of Nieman Marcus speak about the entire retail business and selling to 2% of the richest Americans. (On a side note, she said that there're customers who ask for their remains to be kept in a Nieman Marcus carrier, I don't know whether to believe that!) Not to mention, nice food too!

And the Upenn Campus was beautiful... actually, anything's way nicer than NYU's city campus. I thought Stern was a pretty nice business school, but Wharton's really new and modern, and the facilities were amazing...

Oh, now I realize that NYC's exceptionally expensive. Everything in Philadelphia costs so much less. (Even chains like Dunkin Donuts are cheaper!) As usual, I was very excited to see food I'm familiar with in Chinatown...what more, a cheaper Chinatown... got Khongkuan biscuits and more vitasoy, yay.

Here's a dumb picture of us in our apartment, looking happy after yet another round of grocery shopping at Trader Joes.

I'm going to watch the Westminster Kennel Dog show tomorrow. It's supposedly the best dog show around... I'm quite looking forward to it!

Back from Philly

Just one picture first - I've a test tomorrow and I'm still procrastinating.

Philadelphia was COLD (wait, isn't that my comment to every single thing?) I hate winter, have had enough of it.

A bit more to say

Taitong and I spotted this car around school today! (Waited in the cold for the driver to leave just to take photos...)

I just remembered- I was really amused during my project group meeting today.

(1) I've kind of figured that there are a lot less choices in terms of cell phones over here, but apparantly, the cell phones aren't quite the same as those in the Asian markets...my project group mates were so amazed to hear that I charge my phone about once a week even though I don't switch off my phone at all. They charge their phones at least once in two days... even for the same brands (Samsung's really popular here), the batteries are not as good. Strange.

(2) They were equally amazed when the Korean girl told them that phones in Korea come with infrared... I think every single phone I've ever owned has infrared, and it's not even really useful.

(3) This guy who has been to Singapore was telling us about the rumours about the infamous case of the American who got caned in Singapore for attacking a policeman. The rumour over here is that he spat chewing gum on the road, and got canned for that, haha! (Well, he says he never believed a word of it.)

(4) Just the other day... he was telling us about how he loved the conveyer belts and self-order computer systems at Sakae sushi... I've always assumed it existed everywhere.

Ice Skating at Central Park

NYU is rich. As part of Winterfest, they gave out free tickets for students to iceskate at Central Park's Wollman Rink... free skates, free hot chocolate (I don't take chocolate, but the massive amount of whipped cream looked sinfully good...), free scarves... we went with Poi and Sirin (from Thailand), as well as Clara (from Korea) and it was really fun... only my second time ice-skating, so I was at the side most of the time.

Unfortunately, it was COLD (-13 degrees today, I think). Brrr, my toes were so frozen I couldn't feel the bottom of my skates and I kept thinking that I was more likely to fall because my legs were trembling than from losing my balance...

Anyway, I'm going to Philadelphia this weekend. Cat and I signed up for the Wharton Women Business Conference to visit Upenn and decided to stay the weekend!

The Lion King!

We went to watch The Lion King today - our first musical on Broadway... the music isn't particularly memorable compared to other musicals I've loved, but the effects and probs were so impressive! Lots of colours on stage, and they used puppets (including shadow puppets) to recreate the animals, which made it very different from any musical I've ever watched...and Timon and Pumba looked straight out of the Disney Cartoon... the guys playing them had huge puppets attached to their bellys, so they had to sing, dance, act and maneuvour the puppets at the same time, wow.

...and the theatre had a great view of Times Square!

This was from 2 days ago, when we took the ferry to Staten Island. We wanted to see the statue of liberty, but it was too foggy- that's Christian pointing to it in the last picture, as an attempt to show that we actually saw it, haha.

We walked into Virgin Megastore today at Union Park... and they had a whole lot of cool shirts selling at a 75% discount. It's crazy, can't believe I bought 8 shirts for less than $35. I'm sending a parcel back home this week... my lucky brothers have so many new shirts!

The weather's getting depressingly cold again. The wind is so crazily strong that I can hear it howling outside my window... so loud that I slept less than 3 hours last night. :S And today was so cold that we could feel the wind through the glass windows at the theatre... it's times like these when I feel absolutely no guilt paying for cabs...

Nolstagia

I really should be studying for my so that I can go ice skating (for free!) at Central Park the day before my Managerial Accounting mid-terms, but I've been looking through old photos and I don't feel like it anymore.

These were taken in during my last 2 days at home...there's Becky, Lady (I saw a dog that looked like her on the streets yesterday and almost called out), Liza, the car I've yet to drive (!!!), Dad and I at Coffee Bean, Dad, Mum and I at Sushi Tei because I wanted sashimi salad before leaving, grandparents during the last dinner, a pretty sunset around my estate...

Familiar faces I used to see around Business School... and there's barely anyone I know here.


Teh bing, I didn't get a good one before leaving :(


Manda (my fashion guru) and I feeling happy around town because our exams ended on the same day...



Our favourite picture on yet another shopping trip...



With Qiuyun (my penpal) a week before she left for North Carolina...


Jingyi and Christine... and the f.r.i.e.n.d.s from the good old days when we were in the ugly Nanyang uniform...


...Linda, my shopping pal who made lectures/tutorials so much more bearable...


23rd Dec 2005, F.r.i.e.n.d.s Day and we had zicha at Novena... I need GOOD, CHEAP food...


Darren, Serene Yizhen, Ray, Lynn... the gang who made my last overseas trip to Beijing soooo memorable


Ray still owes me coffee from TCC...


Ray again, my 'brother'... we look young in this picture!

F.r.i.e.n.d.s again @ hemispheres... life was fun.


The last time Linda and I met before I left...


Asian Aerospace 2006... with my mum and brothers... the days when I looked fatter (I'll probably return looking like that)

I want to go back, where I can wear skirts and sweat in the sun, eat bread talk, ban mien, crsytal jade porridge, sushi, kuay teow, paos, khong guan biscuits (this list will never end)and anything that doesn't cost more than 3usd, go shopping with Manda, Linda, my mum, lie down in my messy bed in my messy room...



We had lunch at Gotham Bar and Grill today... Winterfest Restaurant Week is happening around here- a time when restaurants offer 3 course set lunches for a fixed price (about 25 USD + tax and tips, but it's cheap for a restaurant meal here).

I don't think I've ever eaten such nice food before... but I think I rather go home and have everything I've mentioned above and more (which will still cost less in total.)