Posts filed under 'New York City'
test blogging from my new iPhone. yes, I have joined the legion of Steve Jobs’ bright eyed and bushy tailed. liking the device very much so far, but like I tweeted recently, the iPhone 4 isn’t perfect until FaceTime can be used on 3G and there is an app that allows the phone to expel air conditioning from the speaker vents. but ok la still quite awesome cos it feels like a new world has just unfolded at my fingertips.
am attaching a photo of the Brooklyn bridge against a shimmering manhattan canvas. Kafka and I went to dinner last night in Brooklyn, and the view from our table was just spectacular. the restaurant rests on a barge anchored to the concrete shores of the East River, floating just under the majestic Brooklyn Bridge and ensconcing diners in the marvel of lower manhattan from afar. I have this recurrent dream where I wake up alone in an apartment tinted dark blue with this city’s amorphous skyline. the view from my bedroom window is always the same yet never feels familiar. it’s just one of those entities in life that will always be so gorgeous to the eye, but just a little painful to reflect upon.
i’ll be home in KL by two days. summer in New York has been exciting and relaxing but as always I can’t wait to be back in the familiar folds of friends, family and sang har meen.
could get used to this blogging from phone thing!
aiyak lari margins. will fix from home… on my macbook. haha.
July 7th, 2010
it’s been a weekend of tiered festivities, what with chinese new year and valentines’ day falling on the same day this year. Flushing, New York was redder and more boisterous than usual this weekend, with stalls of roses lining the streets and calls of 新年快乐! being jostled back and forth amongst the exuberant crowd. some of us had gotten together for our own reunion dinner the night before, courtesy of carol the domestic goddess, and this morning we all went for a dim sum brunch before scattering back to our various locations in the american northeast once again.
as we ate, we could hear the faint sounds of the lion dance drums rolling up from the streets beneath us, the familiar thumping rhythm calling out to our homesickness like the pied piper. some of us wanted to leave the restaurant to quickly catch a glance of the lions, but how lucky we were that the lions came to us instead. two of them, white and red with silver skin, burst into the dim sum parlour along with their troupe, and we dissolved into such excitement. i wondered aloud why they had the same colours. ‘twins!’ he responded. and suddenly i was young again, short and sitting on my dad’s shoulders, watching two lions with big eyelids prance around the crowd, soaking up love. ‘twins,’ the adults would nod in marvel and say knowingly, as if twin lions were rare and magical. i used to cry when i saw the big ceremonial platters of roast pig with its head still intact (complete with flower in its dead mouth), but i loved the lions. i loved the wooden ladders and watching the two lions dance up and down, up and down– before one of them would emerge victorious with the red ribboned vegetable in her mouth. i loved getting a fraction of the prize money from my parents if they won the gamble on either lion. and i did so hate chinese new year music, with its annoying pitch, but i loved the pink plastic cherry blossom trees and the red paper fishes that we used to help our aunts make out of angpau packets.
and of course i loved angpaus too. chern han and i chanced upon a little temple in flushing today, and we stepped in to offer joss sticks. they gave us little angpau packets (from Citibank!) as we left, and i thought they would contain some Taoist good luck charm, but instead each packet contained $2. i was so very thrilled, but the slice of authenticity felt strange in my hand. it was my one and only angpau this year. if i were back home, my brothers and i would be hoarding red packets, counting to see who got more this year. my mom called me today to talk about some money that i owe her, and i jokingly said that she could help me keep my angpaus from her friends as part of the repayment. she snorted and said that’s more like a rebate on the angpaus she had to give out this year anyway. and i laughed because it still seems so familiar to me how my mom used to usher us quickly into a corner and make us check how much Uncle This or Aunty That gave us, so that she could ‘pau’ the same amount for their children. in my semi-angsty teenage years i used to think, wow, how artificial this practice of giving angpaus is! but who cares! money is still money. angpaus are still angpaus and they’re still awesome and i still want them. the adults can worry about all the red packet politics!
we didn’t gamble last night but we did play games with cards. chinese new year does lack something without the crackling sounds of mahjong and the smell of new crisp paper notes. i was always the ‘water fish’ so i shied away from gambling, but now i wish i’d learned how to play from my parents and my brothers, who are all incredibly pro at anything involving cards and money. it’s something that you miss out on, just like how you’re missing out on a whole world of existence if you can’t read chinese and you find yourself in flushing or little bourke street, taipei or hongkong, or a chinese dessert place with no english menus. but at the very least i am redeemed by my ability to peel a very mean mandarin orange uni-peel.
i called my parents the other day to wish them a happy chinese new year. they were having reunion dinner at my grandfather’s home, as is the annual tradition, where my aunt makes the best foochow fishballs, steamed fish, fried glass noodles, wined chicken and all sorts of wonderful festival fare. my parents passed the phone around, and for 5 minutes, my soulless suite was filled with life as my relatives gabbled down the phone. so much shrieking! when they hung up, all was quiet again, and it was just me in a house of people who don’t quite get along, in a wintry state, surrounded with schoolwork and the problems introduced by dictatorial democracy, frenemies, long distance, and growing pains. i’ve grown so much stronger being here, even if i often feel helpless. i guess giving up some years of chinese new year and valentines days is a worthy trade.
this is my campus in the snow. it looks beautiful. i was late for class one day but stopped to admire the vast fields of snow as the blizzard raged. days like this i love my school and can’t imagine myself anywhere else. especially when we get snow days where all classes are canceled and there are snowball wars! though i’m still very bruised from particularly well-packed snowballs.
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early last night we walked past one of those flower warehouses that was open all night in preparation for the valentines’ day rush. the buckets and buckets of flowers and fillers and strewn newspaper everywhere reminded me so much of valentines day in 2005, and the flower project that we had in high school. we’d went all the way to cameron highlands, song jun and i, to look at the different grade of roses so that we could order them in bulk to make bouquets for sale. i vaguely remember us having them delivered to someone’s (aira’s?) house and storing all the flowers in her bathtubs before we started the wrapping. jamie, who’d worked in a florist the year before, taught us how to wrap bouquets and shred curled ribbons. it’s a lot harder than it looks, as is de-thorning roses. but we made so much money! it was the most exhausting valentines day ever, but so memorable. this year, i have a silly smile on my face. it’s quite like the silly smile that sieutheng used to get so aggravated by back in form 2. :) there is a lot of health in how i’m feeling. these smiles keep spreading across my face like– dandelion seeds! in the wind. and they are really quite unstoppable.
happy chinese new year, happy valentines day, and happy life, everyone! :)
February 14th, 2010
the snowed-over roofs of the car looked sad and lonely as i watched them slowly become unrecognizable. from the eighth floor, all the pain and misery at street levels feel sufficiently far away. i can look out at the horizon of softly falling flakes — holding close a mug of hot chocolate, remembering that both the mug and the cocoa powder are gifts from cherished ones — and i can feel safe and warm in my woolen slippers, and i can think how romantic all this snow is, only because i am up here. but when i run down the sidewalks and arrive eye-level with all the real suffering, my prior ignorance becomes unavoidable and so pregnant with guilt. how quickly we scuttled to the subway station, because it was so cold outside after the warmth and brightness of the boisterous restaurant where we had that wonderfully warm and hearty galbi shim dinner. we probably didnt see anything as we ran past. we talked about our crisp coats and tailored jackets, where we bought them, how much, what a lovely cut. can people die from the cold, i naively wonder. i remember how enghan told me that in dartmouth, it is a safety precaution to have warm cloths in your car during the winter because of how cold it can get there. you can die if your car stalls. how easily we say, i’m about to die from these whipping winds and the frost in my fingers. in malaysia, we can’t die from the cold so i guess in some way we are lucky. but what about that man outside red mango in ktown? he lived in a house made out of three shaking panels of cardboard. what did i do? did i do more than run past? one day when i make a lot of money i’ll spend it all on portable heaters for the people to whom snow means a lot more than romance or christmas cards.
December 12th, 2009
thank you to those who wrote kind comments in the previous post or sent me such lovely emails :) i really appreciate the time you guys took to comfort me or to leave me a little bit of your stories. the primary purpose of that post was closure, and i believe i’ve finally found that now within myself, with Martian, and with all else. and having achieved that, i want to close this chapter of my life. i thank all of you for your kind comments, but i really am so done with all this baggage. right now i just want to chase that bit of happy. happy that is found in things like:
#1 cupcakes! these are my favorite red velvet cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery in London, and they truly are the best cupcakes in the world. you think Magnolia is good? nothing in New York compares to this. absolutely nothing. these came with much love all the way from across the Atlantic, on an almost-missed flight, and really brightened up my week. i finished them all the first night they got here, and now i regret not making them last :(
#2 emily coming from the UK to stay, though i dont have any pictures of us :( actually, i barely saw her while she was here cos i was so busy with deadlines. wtf. she went out shopping one day and then couldnt come back into my dorm room cos i’d crashed after finishing all my work and didnt pick up her calls… so she had to go and stay with her other friend. yes i am the worst host in the history of the universe. /ashamed
#3 SPRING IS HERE. I LOVE THE WARMTH AND THE SUN.
it’s even warm enough to sit out in the grass now. i spent a delicious afternoon yesterday catnapping in the sun and getting a bit of color back into my pallid post-winter skin. it’s so good to be able to wear shorts again.
#4 Friday Me-Days. last friday was the first friday in the semester that i actually didnt have anything to do, papers to finish or people to meet. of the nine fridays this semester, i’ve spent three of those out of town, and the remaining six agonizing over work that just never seems to diminish… so it was absolutely lovely to have a nice spring friday all to myself to poke around the city. i used to have such frequent Friday Me-Days during my first few months in NY, but ah, how times have changed :) i have, quite tragically, become one of those college students obsessed with obtaining a 4.0. nevertheless i had the best friday i’ve had in a long time, exploring Hell’s Kitchen and having a quiet brunch by myself with a good book <3
at Good Enough To Eat, my favorite breakfast place near college!
Good Enough To Eat is really into cow motifs. the cuteness!
an anti-doormat at a card boutique in Hell’s Kitch
#5 The Strand, a huge secondhand bookstore in Union Square, and one of my favorite places in New York. i can spend hours in there just reading. spent half a day there last week reading a volume of Virginia Woolf’s letters, random cookbooks and travel stories, perched on a ladder in a quiet corner of the bookstore. the smell of crusty paper remained in my hair hours after i’d left. bliss.
#6 prawn mee. even if it’s americanized. it’s STILL PRAWN MEE.
#7 awesome things in the mail :) truly AWESOME things. i know i’ve been neglecting my What I Got In The Mail category… but one day very soon, i will put up all the pictures of the beautiful cards and gifts that you guys have sent me over the 8 months that i’ve been here. y’all have no idea how much i appreciate these things and the thought that comes with them. miraculously, i always find something in the mail whenever pangs of homesickness and sadness hit me hardest. sigh. and then i am happy again because i am reminded what’s most important. some sneak peeks:
yes i really did get this in the mail… haha.
#8 Food Expo. omg yesterday we had this Food Expo in our dining hall where random food n beverage companies set up stalls to give out free stuff during brunch hours. i wanted to kick myself SO HARD for having eaten breakfast and thus couldnt really eat much more. BUT THEN… i got a free sample bottle of what is now my new favorite tea — this brand of fruity tea called Guayaki. the passionfruit flavor is yums.
#9 umbrellas. when i first arrived in the city and was constantly getting rained on, carol sent me the cutest stripey umbrella in the mail. last week i took it out during a rainy night and accidentally left it at a bar :( went back the next day to get it but it was no longer there. sigh. as commemoration, here are some pictures of me, the lovely carol, and our umbrellas, meant to be put up a long time ago, from a day that carol and i traipsed down to Chinatown in search of bak kwa and hokkien mee:
#10 one of those days where everything is just perfect. oh and canceled meetings on sleepy afternoons :)
April 3rd, 2009
… is what the temperature will be in two days’ time.
… is also my score for the weekend. though if i were my own judge it’d probably be -20000. i’ve been very, very bad. some things, like unfinished homework due tomorrow, can be easily fixed with some time and effort. and some other things, like tequila, can be expelled in the morning. some things, like disgusting calculus midterm scores, won’t go away but are ultimately irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things. but some other things however. just stick.
more Halloween pictures!:
#1 sizzling hot firefighter bananatan and i
#2 K who was a kinky schoolgirl. also one half of the blow-up dolls the next day
#3 i have no clue who this girl is… haha but she’s a funny drunk. she was dressed as a sailor that night too, and as i was walking past her she just threw her arms around me and said OMG IT’S YOUUUUU I LOVE YOUUU LET’S TAKE ANOTHER PICTURE COS WE’RE BOTH SAILORRRRS. haha we didnt take an earlier picture, but i obliged and took ‘another’ one with her anyway. only cos she’s cute. that’s the Pope behind her
#4 the sailor, the pirate, the firefighter and the flight attendant! all very smexy
#5 B, who kept getting his suspenders snapped. i think he was a construction worker…?
#6 look! mario, luigi, and even PRINCESS PEACH HAHAHA
#7 this is T, one of the Mile High Club attendants from this night. i think i saw her in like 4-5 different costumes at different parties during Halloween weekend, and even the weekend before Halloween! shit la i osowan multiple costumes now
#8 E, whom i think looks sooooo much like Claudia Schiffer. anyway.. you guys wont believe who she’s facebook friends with….
#9 azn love! E and Y, two of my floormates. they are super cute :D Y has stickers of Disney princesses on her door
#10 number of crossdressers spotted : 8. at least. but my favorite halloween cross-dresser will always be androo <3 pictures here-on are from the actual Halloween day, where a bunch of us went out to the parade!
#11 when i stepped out into the lobby, this guy in the mask just started running at me. hahaha it’s actually quite scary when you’re being faced head-on with such a mask. and the annoying thing about such masks is that the people wearing them NEVER want to take them off and reveal who they are. but this guy started talking and his thick Nigerian accent gave him away. haha. hello alexander. i see you.
#12 THIS was what i wanted my nuffnang wild live party costume to look like!!! but noooooo instead i went as a sissy ladybug :(
#13 batman and wife taking the subway!! Batpod’s in the shop eh
#14 a sloppy obama. i am unimpressed. number of Obamas spotted: 3
#15 BANANAS! though i’m not sure why they have moustaches?
#16 i was quite blown away by this costume. i really was! but then as we walked around the parade, lots of people were wearing the same wind-blown costume. so.. cheh. at least this guy could pose well.
#17 choi sun do!!
#18 hahahaha a hot dog eating a hot dog
#19 not exactly a halloween costume, but this dog was MASSIVE. it’s actually BIGGER than the girl it’s trying to pounce on O_O
#20 girl in the middle? totally hot. and i think the girl on the left has a prettier sailor costume than mine :( i totally saw the costume at Ricky’s (default NYC costume store) weeks before Halloween, but i figured because it’s available at Ricky’s lots of people were going to be wearing it. WRONG! this girl was the only one i saw with that costume. bah.
#21 hahaha batdog and cat face-off!
#22 little batman <3
#23 a homemade robot costume. so awesome!
#24 and a little mummy! i asked him, “hey little man, are you a mummy?” and he went, “nooooo im a monster!” and started scuffing his shoes on the ground. i think my heart kinda melted.
#25 number of jokers spotted : 58390854. but no Joker Nurses, and definitely none as cool as Jolene!
#26 french friesssss~
#27 GUYS THIS IS THE BEST HALLOWEEN COSTUME EVER. EVER. EVER. THIS IS A POPE!!!!
#28 WHO CAME WITH THE WHOLE FREAKIN’ CONFESSIONAL BOOTH!!!! hahahahahahahaha he even called himself Pope Fiction. see his real legs on the ground? he made that look like the legs of a nun who was lifting up the whole confessional booth. totally awesome!! he really was attracting so much attention. there was this crowd around him everywhere he went
#29 this is nicole kissing the pope hahaha
#30 nick and i groping the pope, though the photographer cut nick out. okay mom dad Martian if you’re reading this i didnt really grope him okay! that’s a fake pair of legs!
#31 the Beijing Olympics panda haha
#32 girl picture outside bananatan’s room!
#33 and the most adorable duck i have ever seen :)
November 17th, 2008
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