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Archive for July, 2007

Conduit Road

the sun is already out and exhaling its pink-tinged sighs all across the morning sky. it is too early for the sun, i think to myself as i pull the curtains aside to behold and admire. way too early; it is only about 5 in the morning, yet it is a peculiarity that i embrace. much as i bemoan the summer for its heat and entailing discomfort, sometimes i cannot help but be immensely thrilled by its silver lining of : girls in sundresses walking their dogs, a plausible excuse for ice cream, summer sales and of course, beautiful days, such as today where the sun is kind and watermelon and delightful in all of its gracious morningness.

we made a little trip out to Lamma Island today, the boy and i, and contentedly we took pleasure in the scenery, the seafood, chilled tau foo far, and the folds of each other’s company. a very quaint island village it turned out to be - many old people pottered around doing their frail thing whilst the seafood restaurants did brisk business dishing out overpriced fish to cap-wearing tourists. i must admit it wasnt the seafood (a notorious Lamma attraction) that engaged me into beseeching the boyfriend to take me there; the fancy was due to a TVB drama series (’Taste of Love’ starring Miriam Yeung and Lawrence Ng) i watched a long time ago that was filmed at Lamma Island. i had loved the series and was excited to see vestiges of this former 8pm Wah Lai Toi indulgence, but unfortunately our trip granted no familiar sights relative to the show. i wasnt disappointed however. chilled tau foo far and abundant kisses on the cheek seem to be particularly effective in taking all sad things away.

it is my last time in Hong Kong, or at least it will be for a long time to come. Martian is moving to Singapore, uprooting himself once again, and me along with him. i have but a full two days left here in this cantonese city of lilted speech and shirtless men forever fixing something, and honestly i am a bit nervous about how uneconomically i’m spending my remaining minutes here. so i took pictures of the Mid Levels escalator, a policeman, a fire hydrant, as well as a fleet of taxis waiting to pick up happy inebriated people at LKF, among many other scenes native to Hong Kong - for permanence lest my memory falters. and ordered a glass of tung lai cha just for good measure. i dont know what we are going to do today, but i hope it is something irrevocably and dreadfully local.

i sat on the ledge in the guestroom just now, that was where i admired the dawn before i came here to blog about aforementioned admired dawn. i remember a time when i sat there and he asked me, do you hear that sound? what sound, i asked. that dididididiiddid sound, he imitated. it is the sound of the traffic lights, he explained, the most ubiquitous sound in Hong Kong.

so today i sat there and listened to that most ubiqituous sound again, properly, on that ledge, in this apartment, as the love of my life slept peacefully in the next room. the telltale blue screen of an unfinished DVD flickered in the living room, patient and endearing. i wonder what the most ubiquitous sound in Singapore is.

27 comments July 8th, 2007

The Story Of Martian And I

the year was 2005, and the truth is, it was all Jovann’s fault.

there i was in the Coffee Bean at Mont Kiara, having just ordered a decadent belgian chocolate ice-blended that i couldn’t wait to try. it was at that moment that someone came up behind me and drawled, ’so, can i buy you a drink?’. i turned around to see him smiling smugly at me, this guy i’d only talked to online but had never met before.

he was moving to Hong Kong for work, he had told me via MSN a few days ago, and this coffee date was to be our first-time meeting before he flew off. i agreed, thinking that we would probably never cross paths again if we didnt grab this chance to meet. and so Mont Kiara’s Coffee Bean it was to be, around 9pm.

i dont remember what i said in response, but it was something (playfully!) arrogant and along the lines of, ‘i can buy my own drinks, thank you’. we sat down to chat and just to get to know each other better outside the confines of a blue MSN chatbox and our respective Friendster profiles (mine with too many pictures of myself, his with no pictures of himself). i remember being really fascinated that we were getting along quite well; i’d expected the whole thing to be very polite and at arm’s length, but he was warm and friendly and he listened to good music. he listened to good music! i liked him already.

the topic of that chinese horror flick, The Eye, came up, and i mentioned that one of my best friends loves that movie and said it was really good. YES THIS IS WHY EVERYTHING IS JOVANN’S FAULT. he was that best friend who loved The Eye and said it was a good show and whose testimony i believed.

and that was why i followed Martian back to his place to watch The Eye. even though we’d only just met like an hour ago.

dear god how can i just follow a guy back to his apartment like that!!! we didnt even know each other!!!

anyway. we met up several more times and shared some very brief romantic moments (we had our first kiss while watching a movie! and we had this totally cute ice cream moment!) before he left for Hong Kong. we kept in touch still; when he came back to KL for visits we would meet up once or twice, and one time we made a trip to Bangkok for the Bangkok 100 Rock Festival. he felt so alien and so far away, yet i found myself thinking about him alot. my friends who knew about him asked if i had feelings for him, and i mumbled that he was a make-out buddy; for obvious reasons there was no possible way we would fall in love or have a proper relationship. the idea just seemed way too big and so unrealistic it was almost comical.

fast forward some time later and it’s 2006. Martian was back in KL and we’d just come back from a daytrip to Malacca which, like our previous Bangkok do, sort of changed the direction we were heading in and nudged us towards one that we weren’t expecting. the day after we got back from Malacca, he asked if he could see me. i had this crazy amount of english homework to do (exhume all the metaphors from all 27 chapters of Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, arghghghgh), and so i announced imperiously when i got into the car that i would only give him 2 seconds.

(the truth is i wanted to see him longer than 2 seconds but of course these kinda things cannot admit wan right)

we ended up taking way longer than 2 seconds, and there was no way i could finish all that homework on time. so he graciously (baby why last time you so nice now not nice anymore) offered to help me do my homework. of course i said yes lah right. so we went back to his place where we sat at his dining table and did homework together. we took little breaks throughout the night, and there was one particular time we were lying in bed, and he was holding me.

he said, hey.

i said, yup?

and that was when he told me he loved me.

oh my god i was damn scared okay super dont know what to say. it took my heart and my mind about four seconds to summarise my feelings throughout the entire 2 years that i’d known him - that one year of online chatting and that other one year of noncommittal slow kisses whenever he came back from HK. it took me that 4 seconds to put it all together; i cannot quite describe the flurry of thoughts and montage of events that ran through my head, and that was when i felt the moment and just knew. and so i told him that i loved him too.

it’s been 1 year since that night :) that’s right, it’s Martian’s and my first year anniversary today. heehee i’m giddy with glee. it has been the most amazing year, with so many crazy moments, so many sulks where he would always hug and kiss me back after, so many conversations while holding hands in bed, more ice cream moments than i can remember, tickling fights that arent actually tickling fights, shower moments, tenderness and much, much, much love. i’m sitting here wondering, how could i have thought it impossible for us to love each other? right now everything just seems so right and so made to be.

i made him something for our anniversary. and apparently i’m going to get a surprise later tonight but i DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS AND HE WONT TELL ME. he wont even give me a clue. yes i am very excited. that’s why i’m rushing this blogpost so i can go home and see what it is that i cannot have now and must wait till later! come everybody let’s make guesses. my guess is this toy chicken that i saw in the window of a chocolate shop on lyndhurst terrace and really *really* wanted.

something cute Martian did last night : i had to postpone my flight by a few hours coz i was down with a bad cold and fever. so when i arrived in HK late last night, i got back home to find a gift for me on the bed! it was a little Hello Kitty bucket filled with a Hello Kitty handkerchief, sweets, a box of Panadol, a tube of Redoxon (which i love), sachets of Peckers (which he loves), a bar of Snickers and a box of Pocky!!!!! and a note that said, ‘Baby this is your healing pail. please get well soon. i want to play with you. i love you’.