Posts filed under 'Travel'
“your book not captivating you?”
and this is how it always begins. i took a split second to consider his choice of verb — why captivating and not something else? — but the truth is that i was immediately taken. i could repeat the umpteenth iteration of my affinity theory, but there was no need for such formalities when there was only one hour left in the streets of old san juan, and time was sliding away indifferently even as we exchanged quick opinions of our books. i had been waiting for the vintage store on the corner of calle de san francisco to open, but this stranger convinced me to get up and leave the vain endeavour. i’ll take you to the shore, i’ll show you the ghetto, you’ll be back before you know it. i went. i saw the shore, i saw the ghetto, and slummed it for an hour with the locals. everything moved very quickly and i wasn’t allowed to take any photos of people or houses. then he took me back to the vintage store and the hustle and bustle of the tourist avenues, and we parted ways, and i boarded the NYC-bound plane out of puerto rico. and that’s always how it ends!
but what a deliriously exciting hour.
spring break photos from old san juan:
#1 steph in her broad white hat, lending some modelesque quality to the streets of san juan
#2 narrow cobblestone walkways and dangerously asymmetrical homes
#3 nicholas and nicole outside the pablo casals museum
#4 plaster models of the doors of old san juan, found in an art shop
#5 a wedding was happening one of the days we were there. such gorgeous bridesmaid dresses!
#6 doesn’t this feel like a place to make a bond movie?
#7 these slot game machines are everywhere in puerto rico! usually found where fat old men are wiling the hot afternoons away
#8 a bar that was filled with pictures of marilyn monroe
#9 all curbside bars serve mofongo – a most scrumptious dish made out of mashed sweet plantains and meat. sounds gross but it’s not
#10 us on the sloping green hills surrounding the el morro fort. it’s the fort where amistad was filmed!!
#11 kites – popular pastime at el morro. remember when the skies at KL parks used to be full of kites?
#12 rolling down the hills in a race to the bottom – another popular pastime at el morro
#13 another picture for good measure
#14 view of old San Juan from el morro. check out the coastal cemetery! on this day i only saw the crashing waves from afar, and thought that they may just be the biggest waves i’d ever seen
#15 crow
#16 a strange sculpture outside the church that made me miss jovann!
#17 one of the many eccentric sets of windows
#18 the very retro ben & jerrys shop
#19 calle del sol at night; very quiet and domestic
#20 the bars with their gates thrown open to welcome the spring night crowds
#21 at one of the bars that had some very cool old beer and Coke ads on the walls. was tempted to ask if i could have one…
#22 party on the balcony!
#23 and finally- led by the hand to the slums and the unwelcoming coast
#24 the shore on rocks. i was so close! is it really that dangerous?
#25 graffiti at la perla, which was really all i could take pictures of
#26 couldn’t even take pictures of the ground cos of you know what :(
#27 sometimes a skateboarding haunt, sometimes a swimming pool, apparently!
#28 i still can never tell the difference between geese and really big ducks
#29 my oh my
more soon!
March 18th, 2010
my heart has been irreverently displaced by something very small. its tiny, pulsating force seemed so harmless in the beginning, but i can ascertain for now that my feelings have truly been hurt. isn’t it weird? i have no right to feel like this. i should be trying to finish all the work that i allowed to sit and curdle over the long thanksgiving weekend. but this is bringing back a lot of horrible sensations from 2003 that i can’t seem to fight away alone. i just want someone to make this better :(
pictures from boston, when joe and i went to visit dominic:
#1 dom’s very waspy suburban neighbourhood
#2 fall colors, all gone by now
#3 it has been my lifelong dream to climb onto a mailbox and take pictures
#4 but that picture didn’t come without a very ungraceful behind-the-scenes process
#5 success! after many, many tries where i trampled all over poor dom
#6 a slightly more graceful picture
#7 then joe decided to copy me. to add insult to injury, all he did was swing himself atop the mailbox T_____T
#8 mine now :)))))
#9 sunset spilling over the Charles River. i wish we’d had the time to walk along the river :( this photo was taken from inside a moving train
#10 dom took us to Quincy Market for dinner. it reminds me of some place in melbourne, just as bustling and with as many good smells
#11 joe and his lobster dinner. i dont think i’ve ever seen him so happy
#12 this picture happened because i squealed, “joe! let me take a picture of your mussels!!” -____-
#13 it’s a real place after all
#14 at the train station
#15 you know how sometimes you fall into these moments, and you feel like you must capture it in a photo… but as you are deliberating whether or not it would be polite to snap a picture, the people shift, and your moment is gone?
#16 for the first time i deliberated faster
#17 dinner with the very pretty xiao and her roommate ashley :)
#18 would you spend your dollar on mints or a tampon?
#19 our relative feet size
#20 i keenly apologize to all feminists in advance, but i was very drawn to the creative for this poster. at some point i announced, “she is all the marketing that harvard needs!”
#21 there is something about supermarkets that defeats their sterility
#22 i have never taken a newspaper from those stands. one day i must
#23 a house somewhere in the midst of the place where people go to get lost in boston
November 30th, 2009
so i am back in New York, thrown once again into this metropolitan maelstrom of instability, surliness and frost. i’ve been sleeping my days away, much like i slept my days away in London, but for different reasons both times — there, i was exhausted; here, i am hiding. i have nothing to speak of my return here. these days all i’m concerned about is how i’m going to get the shards of heart out of the carpet.
but enough mournful talk. let’s talk about London and how i love everything about it. so i’ve always had great expectations of London, expectations that are swollen with stories and imagery from some of my favorite books in the world. i close my eyes and i can see London… where the afternoons are filled with the treacle tarts, gollywogs, tea cakes and morning mist dresses of Enid Blyton. come nightfall, the evenings are attended to by the grown-ups of J.M Barrie who tuck their children into bed with bedtime stories and then slip out of the house — the men in tailcoats and their wives in white satin gloves — into the foggy streets of nighttime London. not far away, the pretentious laughter of Oscar Wilde’s corrupt and cunning haut monde ring loudly in the air! the rich make merry while Dickens’ young boys dart in and out of the cobblestone alleys, leaving behind them the sooty trails of innocence. and then i play with the word ’sixpence’ on my tongue. how many Willy Wonka bars can sixpence buy? will i find out when i get to London, i wondered when the plane swept smoothly off the tarmac at JFK one month ago. will i see old men smoking tobacco out of pipes? does the old curiosity shop really exist?
i have since discovered that London is actually far more than my imagination can take me to. at first i worried that i would be expecting too much of a city i’d never even been to, that i was furnishing it with all these overdressed ideals and ultimately destroying my own utopia… but now that i have come and gone, there is truly nowhere else that i would rather be. i think i left my soul in London. or at least, a hemisphere of it. this may sound hasty, but in London, i felt like i truly belonged. i’ve missed that feeling. i wore it like a second skin back home in Malaysia, but 4 months of being in NYC has completely sapped me of any such peace. no one ever truly belongs in a place like New York.
and contrary to forewarning, i did not hate London weather. in fact, i quite loved it – sissy sprinkles, puddles, clouds and all. all the grey brought out a kind of melancholy in me that was actually healthy. it encouraged me to think, which is something i haven’t had the opportunity to guiltlessly immerse myself in for awhile. there were days when i would oversleep and wake up to a 4pm setting sun, and i’d just lay in bed, smell the sheets and smile. walking down Marylebone High underneath the oyster-coloured skies was the most cathartic thing i did for myself. in London, i felt at home.
also, English people are as kind as i thought they would be. sure, there are the gruff ones, but mostly, everyone is… soft. kind. sympathetic. the women really do have kisses hidden in the corner of their mouths, and even the youngest of men have twinkles in their eyes. coming from New York to a place like London is quite like stepping into the warm and floury embrace of a jolly and portly grandmother. in New York, you are just a passing face; in London, people take the time to check out what you’re wearing. god, in comparison NYC is so bad for the soul, isn’t it? how does one feel human here? sigh. sigh sigh sigh.
some places in London that i went to and really liked:
1. Portobello Market
possibly my favorite place in all of London. Portobello Market is a long street market along Portobello Road in Notting Hill (!) that is open from 8am to 6pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. i’m not sure what it’s like there on the weekdays, but the market is absolutely bustling on Saturdays, an atmosphere that i absolutely loved. Portobello Market houses stalls and stalls of antiques, curios, independent designs, handicrafts, vintage clothes, bags and shoes, old cameras and jewelry, secondhand books… and just about any kind of bric-a-brac you’re looking for.
a shop in Portobello Market selling all kinds of doorknobs *___*
an enclave selling mostly vintage jewelry and secondhand books
pocket watches on necklaces
i love this place :) i could spend a whole day just sifting through all the beautiful things here.
2. Camden Town
thronged by London’s younger set, Camden Town is garish and brash, but never boring. there is a largely punk rock, emo-kid, gypsy vibe about Camden that is immediately apparent from the wild harajuku-ish merchandise that is both sold and paraded around the area, and also the dudes pushing marijuana on the sidewalk :P slightly dodgy zone, but definitely cool in its own way. there are several markets along the streets of Camden Town, but the best one is Camden Lock. everything else is kinda Petaling Streetish, but Camden Lock is a larger market within a courtyard that vends the artier stuff, mostly handicrafts and trinkets. there are also lots of new age shops in Camden Lock, with palm readers and the like!
the punk / emo-goth / lolita-esque clothes for sale
a little part of Camden Lock
3. Marylebone High Street
Marylebone High Street is the main artery of the little shopping district of Marylebone, and while the High Street is the street i like the most (it’s the most concentrated), the other smaller streets that girdle it are definitely worth checking out as well. the shopping here is demure and sophisticated, with the bigger brands giving way to the smaller independent labels. my favorite shops on the street: Mascaro the shoe shop which has gorgeous shoes (they also carry stock from Pretty Ballerinas, which makes ballet flats that are to die for…!!), Daunt the bookstore, and the Oxfam secondhand bookstore at which i spent too many an hour reading books that i should have just bought for 1-2 pounds.
Daunt Bookstore
the Oxfam secondhand bookstore
4. Regent’s Park
a huge, beautiful park in the heart of London that draws you in even in the winter. such a romantic place to be in when the sun is setting. also ducks galore, which always makes me happy :) apparently there’s a rose garden in here too, but of course none of them were in bloom when i was there.
5. Tate Museum of Modern Art
i love this museum right down to its secret enclosed spaces and the graffiti on the back of the doors in the women’s bathroom stalls. definitely a must visit in London, if you’re into art galleries.
one piece from the famed water lily series by Monet
this was my favorite display at the Tate. the artist worked as a maid at a hotel for a period of time, and while she was there, she took photos of the belongings and rooms of the hotel’s various customers each day of their stay, and also kept a journal describing the belongings and state of the rooms as they changed each day. she went through their luggage, passports, trash can even! she then documented her findings and turned it into art. ah. satisfies the voyeur in us :P the people in the photo are clamoring around just one of about eight or nine pieces.
graffiti on the bathroom door
6. Borough Market
greek desserts
Alvo thinks that Borough Market is an authentic British culinary experience, and i quite agree. Borough Market is a roomy food market in Southwark that sells all sorts of international gourmet food under one roof. foodstuff purveyed: freshly baked bread, imported herbs and spices, gourmet sausages, exotic meats like ostrich and pheasant, burgers, cured meats, sandwiches, falafel, chocolates, candy, mulled wine and a whole smorgasbord of other delectable things. the various vendors here make for good lunch stops. while i didnt venture to sample any exotic meat, i must say i had a very good steak in red wine sauce sandwich from a stall somewhere in the bowels of Borough Market. also had this hot scallop with a bacon and bean sprout mix which is purportedly a favorite at the market. both stalls shouldnt be too hard to find if you’re going to be poking around :)
a delicious chorizo sandwich
7. Oxford & Bond Street
i didnt explore either street as much as i would have liked to, but apparently it’s the only place Azlan ever stops by when he comes to London, so i suppose that must count for something :P it’s good shopping la i suppose. Bond Street is also where the almighty Selfridges is, which for some reason is a huge favorite not just with the Londoners, but also the rest of the world. if one more person tells me that Selfridges is their favorite mall in the world, i will scream. why? what’s so cool about Selfridges? it’s just like Metrojaya but with bigger labels… i must be missing something :\
8. Carnaby Street
i LOVE! it’s another one of those shopping districts; quite like Marylebone High Street, but younger and more contemporary.
9. Soho / Leicester Square / Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus
the Soho / Leicester Sq / Piccadilly Circus area is a lively and spirited junction that teems with good restaurants, pubs, bars and clubs. it’s also where Chinatown is, as well as many West End theaters. Covent Garden, a large touristy courtyard housing some rather interesting toy shops, is also nearby. i mostly descended upon and departed quickly from this area whenever i had to meet someone there, but i’m certain that some idle hours spent traversing the area would uncover gems here and there. nevertheless, i quite like the area — it’s convenient, diverse and effervescent.
entrance to Chinatown
a little carnival in Leicester Square
——-
i left London with a heavy heart, but writing this post has made me miss it even more :(
January 25th, 2009
after thrice missing the train to Nottingham (consequence of the lethal combination of oversleeping, taking way too long in the shower and the conniving machinations of Fate – he deliberately left me in darkness), i successfully cried my way to a free ticket onto the 11.15 Nottingham-bound train today. not bad eh? so i’m now lying on my stomach in songjun’s house in Dunkirk drinking perfectly-made hot honey with lemon, happy and contented while songjun snores away on the futon. Dunkirk is a little suburb in Nottingham that i recently learned is dubbed Taman Dunkirk Jaya because of its principally Malaysian population. i am jealous; how nice it must be to be constantly surrounded by lahs, yau mou!s and cibais. and the promise of marmite chicken…
anyway, because i am deathly afraid of missing my train back to London, i have vowed to not fall asleep tonight. so in the extra time that has newly been opened up to me, i have somewhat learned how to use iPhoto, and therefore finally have some photos of London to show! happy day! folks who have been emailing me about the dearth of photos in my blog, may you now be appeased!
#1 london suburbia
#2 a small toy store somewhere in south kensington. sigh <3 london is full of adorable shops like this one
#3 a toy sink from the shop. the 6-year-old me would have loved one of these. actually.. so would the 20-year-old me
#4 mince pies! in my younger days when i devoured enid blyton books like no other, i imagined the delightful mince pies of enid blyton’s world to be these robust, savoury pies stuffed with scrumptious minced pork and piquant herbs. alas, this sublime image has been destroyed! mince pies are actually sweet; in fact, they are awfully reminiscent of pineapple tarts. not that pineapple tarts are awful, it’s just that mince pies were a lot more delectable in my imagination…
#5 Tamtim and a mince pie. haha! he liked them a lot more than i did
#6 more cute London shops. this one is a baking utensils + cake deco shop. sigh! i was too afraid to go in, lest i feel like i must own everything in there. ginny, you understand me right.
#7 me and the famed Four Seasons roast duck restaurant in chinatown. verdict: VERY good duck. i think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that it’s the ‘best duck in the world’, because it’s really of a different category from the roast duck of malaysia and hong kong (the Four Seasons duck sits in an absolutely yummy dark sauce whereas the roast duck we’re used to back home is usually drier), but it’s so good that i could eat it every day. actually, i kind of did for the first week i was in london.
i also went to Gold Mine in Bayswater, where the renowned chef of Four Seasons supposedly ran to, and i do actually think the duck there is yummier, though marginally so. the sauces are different, i believe, but Gold Mine has the one-up of this tofu dish called pei pa tofu. it is to die for!
#8 the Tube. i like it SO much more than NYC’s subway — faster, cleaner, and less sketch. i definitely do not miss the drunk and violent bums nor the smells of eau de dog pee in the New York subway stations…
#9 punctuality, as they say, is the thief of time
#10 making friends with the lions of Chinatown.
#11 Gloucester Road station, the tube station i see every day!
#12 outside the Adelphi Theater, where i watched Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. it was the first West End musical i watched upon arriving in London. i dont know… it’s just not the kind of musical i like. it was campy, tacky and i could not appreciate the music at all :\
#13 voon emerging from the tandas! this picture is just too cute
#14 Tower Bridge in the night, en route to Valerie’s apartment, which is fast gaining the reputation of Malaysia Hall #2!
#15 andrew, emily and the glenister bros. look at andrew’s big happy smile!
#16 cute teapot i totally wanted
#17 calling home from the steps of a hotel near Bond Street. i was shocked to find that a mere 3 minute call cost me something like 8 pounds. T____T le sigh. never again.
#18 obligatory tourist photo with a london phone booth. i think i was making a face cos i couldnt open the door. mou sik fan!
#19 tamtim and i – partners in crime!
#20 tamtim acting fierce
#21 i also watched Les Miserables! which i loved to bits. officially my favorite musical now.
#22 the staff at Odeon Cinemas have their favorite movie printed on their nametags! this guy misspelled Memento, but he knew a lot about movies, which made for good conversation as i was getting popcorn
#23 at the Hummingbird Bakery, where i had the best red velvet cupcake ever. ever. ever. ever. more pictures another day!
#24 at a secondhand bookshop in Portobello Market
#25 another secondhand bookshop, but this one is in Camden. secondhand bookshops are without a question the one thing i like most about London. i think i’ve bought something like 15 books since i got here, and for under 30 pounds. /smug. some gems: Vita Brevis by Jostein Gaarder, a collection of letters by D.H Lawrence, a critical analysis on Virgil’s Aeneid, and a book of Oscar Wilde short stories for 20 pence. happiness :)
ah, london. i cant quite get enough of you.
January 14th, 2009
hello folks,
a chapter of my life has closed neatly. now, like the new year of 2009, a brand new chapter is dawning upon me. keywords in this chapter: embarkation, discovery, fear, confidence, leaping, solitude and education. it will be a time of much healing. 2008 drowned me in its unfair expectations and unwise judgments, but i have a curious suspicion that the new year is going to love me. i will be enveloped. there will be affinity and plenty of socks. there will be dreams and self-sustenance. it will be just me and what’s important.
i’m actually in Barcelona right now. gorgeous, gritty Barcelona with the grumpy old people and dizzy structures, where i will be ushering in the new year. it’s been a most haphazard and disorganized trip; i found myself here quite by chance and almost didnt make it. but now i’m glad i’m here. Barcelona is vast and labyrinthine – the wide streets beg to be skipped across, there is an infinite number of crooked cobblestone alleys to duck into, and even the massive throngs of people dont fully permeate all that Barcelona has to offer. you grasp, but you dont quite get your fistful. quite disorienting, but very exciting. i also had the best chocolate gelato i’ve ever had in this lifetime; Lygon Street has been dethroned.
but what i love most about Barcelona is the languid attitude towards time. everything here operates a couple of hours later than the rest of the world – dinner starts at 9pm, partying starts at midnight and ends at 5 in the morning, people sleep in late and stay up late. 2pm to 4pm are the siesta hours, where shops close and people halt work to head out for a lazy lunch and drinks or go home to take a nap. it’s so indulgent, i absolutely love it. growing old feels a lot less scary in Barcelona. here, it is a cultural and social norm to give yourself time to breathe. and sleep. and take bubble baths should you feel like it.
today i went to Parc Guell. how do i describe what it is? in a nutshell, it is a park featuring Antoni Gaudi’s architectural works that turns that little chunk of hill into an amalgamation of a theme park, the world of Alice in Wonderland, underwater, and a gingerbread house – all within the shell of a normal, everyday park with trees, grass, dogs and other parkly things. one day i’ll tell you guys about the trippy world of Parc Guell; just not today, because i want to talk briefly about bubbles for now.
so i was at Parc Guell, and in the midst of the main terrace, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, was a man making huge soap bubbles from a pail of soapy water and a hoop of rope. i suppose he works for the park authorities, and his purpose is to make Parc Guell feel even more fantasylike with his big, colorful rainbow bubbles that are reminiscent of Gaudi’s work. they’re just bubbles, i know, but everyone – myself included – was very mesmerized. the sight of huuuuuge curvy bubbles wobbling through the air and catching sunlight is a strangely soothing one. but what disturbed me were the two little children, a boy and a girl, running in circles around the man and trying to pop every bubble that he made. they were young, maybe 8 years old or so, but so destructive for all their blonde hair and blue eyes. it was shocking that such beautiful creatures could be so vicious – they were clearly enjoying themselves while destroying each bubble with their outstretched index fingers, completely ignorant that they were ruining the fun for a hundred other people who genuinely loved the bubbles and all their beauty.
but isnt that the thing about beauty? i dont dare say everyone, but i do think that the more ambitious of us yearn badly to be one with beauty, to be associated with it or even to have some fleeting form of contact with this ethereal concept. and so we stretch out our index fingers to touch, so engrossed in our own thrilled feelings and lightheadedness that we dont realize we’re innocently destroying the very thing we worship so. we all want to leave our mark and impose our influence on beautiful things, eager to carve our legacy into this beauty, but really, we are ruining these things forever with our selfishness. no one beyond us can then partake in the joy that was once brought to the world by that ephemeral beauty. and how do we live with the guilt, if ever it occurs to us? how do we make amends?
it’s kind of sad. and only 8 years old or so.
but then i’m 20 and still learning.
here’s to a happy 2009, everybody :)
December 31st, 2008
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