the random adventures of jojo

4am walks…

Before I even got to London, I already knew that getting used to the sun rising at 4am and setting at 9pm would make my brain want to explode! It’s just one of those ridiculous things in life that make my brain want to explode from not being able to comprehend it, and at the same time makes Pinkie laugh his head off at the uncomfortable and confused look on my face.

Within the first week of being in London, we happened to stay up late one night watching shows and I suddenly looked out the window and this sight greeted me at around 3.45am. It was quite breathtaking, for about 3 seconds – I started squealing in excitement after that. Haha!

I got out my LX3 and got a few shots in, when Pinkie suddenly asked if I’d like to go for a walk! Much to my delight, of course, because he’s not much of a spontaneous crazy person like I am. Hee hee.

We put on jackets and sped out of the house after that. The streets were empty, the weather was cool and it was a whole different experience watching the sun rise over London, and seeing the ones who head home late, and the ones who rose early.

Out of the whole 6 weeks in UK, that night/morning is still one of my favourites

—
http://project52.rumpledoodles.com/

Do check out the other photos by the people joining me on Project 52!
Zhan
Daniel
Pris
Hansel
Alex
Winnie

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There were days (a whole lot, to be quite honest) in London when I was too damn lazy to bring my camera(s) out of the house, and the only thing I had with me to capture what caught my eye was my iPhone.

If you didn’t know, I’m using the iPhone 3G so the camera is nothing to shout about. It was quite a pain in the ass editing them because they were grainy as hell! Hahaha. But I thought it’d be interesting to dedicate a post of photos shot purely on my iPhone during my trip.

Looking through the random snapshot moments as I edited the photos made me relive the various moments and days, and I suppose that’s one of the many reasons why I love photography.

So here goes.. my UK trip through the eyes of my iPhone!

it started off with Clara sending me off at the airport! oh, how i hate the off-focus hahaha.
i love love love that photo though! <3

we entertained ourselves with her new Ixus camera and it’s in-built fisheye function. amusing as hell!

it was my first time flying alone! and first time on such a long flight too. it was pretty okay going there.. flying back was a nightmare!

PINKIE!!!!!! first photo together after about 10 months! <3
this was taken in the cab on the way back to his place from the airport! hee hee.

a lot of our days were spent lazy about at home, taking our time to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. AWESOME! of course, it was the world cup season so we streamed matches too

while out one day we saw a group of ladies walking around with hot pink boas! haha so cute!

don’t know the name of this building but it’s a really nice hotel!
i love the old buildings all over london.. so gorgeous!

ketchup dispenser at GBK, a burger joint. yummy food, with awesome student discounts! hahaha

my burger from GBK! it had pesto in it, which of course made me happy

REALLY REALLY YUMMY. we snacked sooo much!

pre-prepared food from Marks & Spencer’s food hall. i miss their food hall SO MUCH. all sorts of ready-to-eat meals which are really nice too.

real and fake ray bans! heh heh heh

pinkie brought me to Maze, one of Gordon Ramsey’s restaurants in london for our belated valentine’s day dinner! i had a really nice steak

APPLE STORE!!!!! it’s huge inside.

i made a beeline to check out the iPhone 4! screen is gorgeous – i nearly melted there

LAVENDER! they smelt AMAZING when you pluck one and rub the flowers in your hands. really really really nice.. i kept sniffing my fingers!

some days were spent at my granduncle’s place in Northampton, which is the countryside. i loved the days there because it’s so different from city life. those days felt like i was living in an Enid Blyton story!

my granduncle’s flat was really new inside, but the exterior was a gorgeous old hospital!

we visited my granduncle’s friend’s place and they had a super cool ladder leading up to an attic!!!! LOVE!

it was horrifying climbing back down though!

waiting at one of the tube stations to head back home.. i love the tube even though it’s non-air conditioned (they don’t need it in most seasons anyway) and there’s absolutely no reception on your phone when it’s underground – train OR station. but despite that, i love the tube! super convenient.

I’M GOING TO HOGWARTS!!!!!

we also took a short trip to Edinburgh. this was the castle there! main tourist attraction, but still really lovely.

that’s belly, pip and skip!!!

huge pizza! was pretty cheap.. at a student eat place. i didn’t like it much though..
the domino’s there is really yummy though!!

i cooked brekkie for pinkie one day when i woke up early and he was still snoring away! HEE HEE

LES MISERABLES! it was a mighty big surprise when we collected our tickets and discovered we got front row seats! the seating plan online was uhm, of not much help haha. i really enjoyed myself that night

dinner at Koya, a japanese chain of udon restaurants, before the musical. food was really good!
i loved my cold udon with sesame dipping sauce!

the very nicely done egg at Koya! slurrrrrp!!

LES MIS! <3

ceiling of the Les Mis theatre. i love how each musical in West End stays in their own theatre, leased for a year or so, i think?

super yummy noodles i fried for dinner one day!!! now i wanna eat them again…

skip watching Les Mis performance videos on youtube with me

LOBSTER NOODLES!!!!!!!!! at bayswater. SO DAMN GOOD

and this, my friends, is london bridge -_-

CHURROS! we were introduced to a small and what seems to be family-run Spanish cafe by pinkie’s brother. loved the all-day brekkie and churros! i miss the food there OMG

paella! this was at borough market, which is basically a market full of food stalls – very fun to walk around! most of the food there is awesomeeee

giant meringue i got from borough market, supposedly famous. i could see why – it just crumbled and melted in your mouth! it was too big for me to finish though..

in a london cab! hahahahahaha

my broom to bring to hogwarts

i miss being able to wear leggings without wanting to melt and die. oh and those were my new shoes! they’re guys shoes haha.

lying on bed at my granduncle’s place just before we left to head to heathrow airport.. sniff..

Photos from my other cameras…… up another day. I can’t say soon. HAHA.

I MISS LONDON :((

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Today started last night, or very early this morning, however you like to see it.

It was one of those dreamy days when you’re caught off-guard by what the day brings, making it even more delicious to savour. I don’t have photos to remember today by; I only have words, so here goes.

My mum and Dad (they took turns), my brother and his friend, and Pinkie played mahjong til about 330am. It was a last minute spontaneous round of mad laughter – the kind I adore most. I wasn’t involved in the game directly (mostly because I am horrid at it) and thus wasn’t exactly in the midst of the mad laughter than erupted every now and then. I was either on the bed, or in my room, glued to my DS playing Pokemon because I was trying not to fall asleep, but I enjoyed knowing that Pinkie was around with my family. It was a quiet kind of enjoyment, the type that I like once in awhile.

He took a nap while I read a book until it was early enough for us to get out of my place to get breakfast and then head over to his place. He was too zonked for me to head to the market near his place to hunt for the fried beehoon breakfast I was craving for, so he picked up McGriddles at a drive-thru and I thought I’d just cook some instant noodles.

When we got to his place, I discovered (much to my shrieking delight) that there was a stall selling fried beehoon at the coffeeshop next to his block. Awesome stuff! I don’t think the auntie expected someone to approach her stall on a public holiday at 6 in the morning with an excited shriek of “OMG YES!!!!!”

The day passed lazily and comfortably.. we got lunch at an eatery in IMM which I’ve been craving for – that certainly made me happy The last time I was there was last year when he was back. That was when we discovered the place.

The Daiso outlet at IMM remains my favourite simply for its sheer size and what they stock, which is a lot more than the others. There’s going to be one opening at ION! You wouldn’t think it, but Daiso happens to be a (cheap) treasure throve for us with regards to school work. Heh.

I’m not sure what it is about today, but somehow it just felt different, like something’s changed.

I realised on the way home that since we met, every National Day would be an awesome day. On the first year we went to the zoo! The past two years, I got tickets to the NDP (much to his dismay, but he always had an unexpectedly good day anyway haha) and today was a really good lazy day.

National Day has lost its meaning for me (even though I love going for the NDP haha) and what makes it even sadder is that I don’t really care that it has. I’m grateful for Singapore, but that’s about the extent of my feelings for this country.

Someone tweeted that being overseas has made him realise how much he needs and misses Singapore, and it got me thinking – when I was overseas in UK for 6 weeks (not very long, but the longest that I have been abroad in any case) it made me realise how much I dislike Singapore, and would love to get away from here =/
What’s that supposed to mean?

This country is home, only because I was brought up here and because of (very) few people and hardly because I love it or that I feel for it. Sad, huh? I’m not sure why, but I think I am expected to feel sad about it, but all I feel is obligated and trapped.

O, how did this turn to become about Singapore? Happy birthday, anyway.

& just like a dream, the lovely day turned right around when I got home to news that Russell has carried on moping from yesterday, only he is much worse. He has been hiding in the store room the entire day, refusing to come out or to eat. He usually says Hi to me at the gate whenever I get home, but not today.. I opened the door of the storeroom to say Hi but he merely lifted his eyes to look at me. No wagging, no lifting of his head. Just a really miserable looking dog..

I’m really afraid that it’s time for him to go, and I’m so so scared.. He’s 13 this year, and I know his time will come one day, even if this is just a scare, but even so I’m still really scared for when that happens.

Over the past year, I’ve kept wanting another pet – and had phases where I had a terrapin and some fish but they died – and I kept wanting to get a hamster. I never got one because my mum doesn’t want me to have one at home. Sigh.

I think I kept wanting one because at the back of my head, I’ve been scared about Russell’s passing for a really long time.

I wish dogs went to heaven…

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It feels odd having my boyfriend back in the same country as I am!
The past 6 weeks don’t count – it’s different.

I haven’t had a goodnight phonecall in awhile

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I keep wanting to blog but can hardly find the time or patience (on a Windows machine) to edit photos, upload them and update this space about my days. Rar!

It’s been a wonderful past 4 weeks though – most of which is evident if you follow my Twitter account, but even that is seeing a lot less updates than is normal for me. Haha.

We’ve been spending the past week running around, trying to finish up all the sightseeing and plans we’d made before we have to leave London because being the lazy bears we are, we left them all to the last minute. Haha.

To put it briefly…

Tower of London was boring as hell. Edingburgh Castle was a lot more interesting.
Westminster Abbey is absolutely gorgeous, and when I got there I understood its charm despite being such a tourist attraction.
St Paul’s Cathedral was just like that, albeit in different ways. Also gorgeous, despite being a tourist site.

The various markets I managed to drag Pinkie too were awesome and a lot of fun, except Spitafields, which I didn’t like. I haven’t been to Borough Market yet, but so far my favourite is Brick Lane Market. A lot of buzz, food, fun and a bunch of young designers selling their stuff!

Oh yes, and having a squirrel walk alongside me has got to be one of the most magical experiences I’ve ever had. <3

Right now, we’re busy trying to get ourselves to clean up the apartment because we’ve to move out by Monday, returning it in its original state or they’ll charge us. Meh. The limescale in the water leaves stupid stains on taps and sinks and is annoying to clean up. BLEH.. and we all know how much I loathe packing.

We’re moving to Oxford for a couple of days on Monday and then heading to Northampton to spend the last few days in England with my granduncle (in his absolutely awesome flat!!!!).

Boohoo, I don’t wanna say bye to England

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HOLA!

I’ve been in London for 5 days now (or 4 and a half, as the Pink Bear behind me says) and I suppose I should come say Hi! Hehe.

Sorry, no photos because I haven’t been taking much, and also I’m incredibly lazy to transfer them and edit them on his Windows laptop. Which, by the way, is driving me nuts. And the keyboard also gets so hot!!! Crazy. So I’m typing this in a rush before it realises people are around and wants to burn them.

Anyways, the past few days have been awesome Super tiring though, cos somehow we always end up walking a lot. Haha. The weather is warm in the day (sometimes too damn warm, seriously..) but not as humid as back home, of course. It’s lovely in the evenings and at night cos it gets cooler and slightly windy. Heh.

Amazingly enough, we haven’t done ANY sightseeing this past few days. Hahaha. Mostly we just go out, and explore the random places around where he usually goes anyway. Heh.

I like Covent Garden a lot! Hate Oxford.. Bah. Too crowded, and people there are so grouchy. Oh but the hugeass Topshop and H&M kiiiinda make it worth it. Maybe.

Oh, he says I haven’t been to the hugeass H&M yet. THERE’S MORE?!?!?! WTH.

The Topshop spans 5 floors! :O
And each floor is huge la!!!!!! Walaoeh. Hahaha!

Covent Garden has a nice little coffee place called Monmouth, which serves DAMN GOOD COFFEE. OMG. I don’t drink coffee much, but I chose to have coffee over ice cream after lunch the other day. Yes, you may die of shock now.

Pinkie cooked fried rice the other day for lunch! :D Yummy! I want more, please, bear who is reading this off your TV screen. Hahaha.

We met Malcolm for dinner tonight, and then walked along River Thames and up to Big Ben (which is pretty, but they both couldn’t tell me why Big Ben is so significant and such a big deal anyway..)

Dinner was at this little place called Anchor and Hope. Their menu changes daily, according to what’s fresh or in season. We shared a starter of whole crab with mayonaise. The mayo tasted homemade, and went damn well with the cold, steamed crab which was really sweet and fresh.

I shared a main of onglet, which is actually hanger steak with Pinkie – damn awesome!!!!! Muahaha. Dinner wasn’t cheap but I think the beef was worth it.

The sun sets at about 9+ every bloody night, which means the sky is not dark til 10+…. this drives me insane cos my brain can’t seem to process it -_-

The sun rises at about 3+ or so in the morning, and the other day we happened to be awake so I opened the window to take some photos. Damn cool! We went for a walk at 4am just because it was getting bright! Hahaha, that was super fun! Cos the streets were quiet and gently getting brighter.. and it was nice and cooling! Hee.

How’s everyone doing?

I’m already dreading going back to Sillypore…..

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After an eternity of busy-ness, procrastination and oversleeping, I finally made it to an outing with tweeples! Hehe. This time, it was a photowalk around Queenstown! I was really glad to have been able to make it

In case you’re curious, those who were around were @ctham, @GenkiGenki, @tinyastronaut, @JiaJunStoned, @alkanphel, @avnjl, @hanshoots, @juzferyou, @inrsoul and @ladyxtel!

Wow, that took ages to type out. HAHA.

Turns out I overslept ANYWAYS.. =X Oops. We walked around Queenstown, going past the old cinema and a few blocks around the area. I love old neighbourhoods! Tons to look at and photograph. Queenstown is going to get redeveloped, which I suppose is inevitable, but damn do I dislike new neighbourhoods for their lack of flavour and depth.

It was a really nice day out, with tons to see, in my opinion. I’d love to head back there to shoot again with Zhan, cos I think he’d enjoy it too. Wonder how much of it would have changed by the time he gets back to Singapore.

I brought my favourite lens out – the Sigma 30mm/1.4. I know I should have brought the Tamron 17-50mm out to practice it more but oh man, I missed the prime so much! HAHA.

Here goes!
All posted in the order they were taken, in case you want to know.
(I’ll probably take some from here for my backlog of Project 52 posts. Hehe)

He looks like the rod got rammed through his head and he’s not very happy about it. HAHAHA!

LOL look at his grouchy face! Heh heh.

A shot that’s been done to death, but I love the pattern and colours of the tiles in this image.

@JiaJunStoned with his Yashica TRL. So gorgeous – now I want one!

@tinyastronaut!! Or RACHIEEEE as my brain remembers her. Heh, was good to see her after many years! She was from my secondary school, hehe.

Awww… young love. HAHAHA

I miss these..

And then we got to a playgroung where @GenkiGenki, or Chris, was christianed The Blue Man by the kids. Hahaha. They were all 11, schoolmates at Queenstown Primary (or was it Queensway?) and all so amusing! Haha! They kept running away from the cameras at first, but soon warmed up to us and even followed us around for abit.

HAHAHAHAHA!! He was SO funny, this boy! He refused to sit near the girls because… “she’s a girl leh!!” Haha!

They warmed up after we got some ice cream. HAHA. Pun unintended.
The girl on the left is Joelin, pronounced the same as my name.

Awww! And right after I snapped this, I burst out laughing because the cute boy was doing the whole tap his chest, kiss his fingers and lift it in the air move! HAHAHA

Joelin was telling us that her sweet friend on the left used to not like her when they’d first met. Hahaha!
So cute..

It has a face!

Tried out Rachiee’s Nikkor 50mm f1.8.. love how it renders the bokeh, love the contrast from the lens! This photo was edited slightly, though. Now I’m even more determined to save up for the 50mm f1.4! Hee.

The only reason I’d buy the BBF is the gorgeous shade of hot pink it comes in!

@inrsoul, or Kevin, our emo supermodel for the day. Hahaha!

@GenkiGenki, or Chris, against an awesome bright wall! He very kindly lent me a compact film camera to try out and bring to London. Excited to try it out!

& yes, I was a very happy bear that day!

The lovely day I had ended with an AWESOME dinner at my favourite Indian restaurant with Lee Teng. It was her first time there, and I think I made one more person fall in love with the food there. HEE HEE

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Headed out for lunch with Lee Teng today, and I’m happy we got to meet up again before I leave! I love random meals with her cos we just end up chatting on and on and on. In fact, I think my throat started hurting by the time I got home. HAHAHA.

We went to hunt down the famous claypot laksa at Alexandra, and I was super excited cos I’d read quite a bit about it last night when I was trying to track down the address of the original stall (but to no avail)

super thick laksa gravy!

Looks good, huh? We were so excited! HAHA. I loooove thick laksa gravy! In fact, when I am not having Katong laksa, I usually order my laksa with kway teow or meetaimak, just so it will soak up the gravy and make it seem thicker. Not a big fan of the usual thick beehoon used in laksa because it doesn’t absorb the soup!

The bowl we ordered was the medium one, priced at $4.50 and it’s a decent portion, but definitely not enough if you are starving.

It was served piping hot and looked promising, but I must say that I was a tad disappointed with it – it was too spicy! I know it’s laksa and it’s meant to be spicy, and I am the worst judge of how spicy it is because I don’t take chilli, but I felt it was a bit much because the level of spiciness took away the richness of the taste of the gravy.

I couldn’t taste much of the ingredients of the gravy because I was busy trying not to let my head explode, and I guess I prefer my food to be flavourful rather than just spicy fullstop.

It is worth a try though, and I believe a lot of people would enjoy it. I just hoped it was less spicy, and more pang. Heh.

The stall is located at Blk 119, Bukit Merah Lane 1, Alexandra Village.

After we were done with lunch, we headed to Ikea which was just nearby. I’d initially wanted to get ice cream and I fully regret seeing a sign showing off their cinnamon pancakes with honeyed apples for kids.

Ikea’s so-called cinnamon pancakes with honeyed apples

Most. Disgusting. Meal. At. Ikea. Ever.

First of all, how is that a pancake!
After tasting a bit of the flour and apples, I gave up. That’s how my plate looked all through the time we were at Ikea.

The pancakes (if you can call them that) were completely tasteless, and they didn’t have maple syrup. The honeyed apples were….. really really reaaaally bad. I can’t even begin to describe how they taste. Ugh.. I wish I’d just stuck to getting ice cream. Meh! Never again!

Aaaanyways, I loveeee my new camera!!!!! HEE HEE HEE. *hops about*
Despite the weight, that is.

Random peeks that do not make much sense but are pretty and make me smile anyways hahahahaha…

Photo walk this Thursday with some Tweeple! Any other tweeple want in?

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After spending hours and hours ranting to myself in my head about people I detest, and concentrating on holding it in so that I didn’t flare up, my mood was pretty bad, to put it mildly.

But then my dad came to pick me up at the MRT station, something he usually does when I am headed home after work because it’s a 5 minute drive versus a twenty minute to half an hour bus ride. After I got into the car, I realised that he had actually paid for Starhub’s telecast of the World Cup!

And then I realised that he was actually at home watching the first match but he left in the middle of it just to pick me up.

That simple realisation made me feel immensely loved, and the frustration from the entire day just went away.

Right now, I’m going to make a hot cup of milo, get some buttered bread and dip them into the milo! I’ve missed doing that.

And of course, there’s gonna be Chandler and the rest of his friends (including annoying as hell Ross) to make me happy too.

Tomorrow, I am headed out for lunch with Lee Teng, and we’re gonna try the claypot laksa at Alexandra Village! Slurrrrp! I’ve heard that that isn’t the original one but I couldn’t find out where the original one is so if you know drop a note okay! Heh.

My brother’s commissioning parade is next Saturday, and he just got his sword today! So cool. He also was informed that he’s gonna be a platoon commander.

No more work next week, freelance or part time.
It’s just time for me, and meeting up with various friends before I fly off, as well as a couple of photo walks!

Life seems pretty damn awesome right now. Save for the fact that I haven’t packed and am panicking more and more everyday!

I can’t believe it’s 10 days before I board that plane for a trip that I’ve been hoping for and anticipating for well, the past three years. ♥

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Soooo… My cheques finally arrived and cleared, so I headed out yesterday to bring home my new toy baby! HEE HEE HEE. I got my new camera body!

Took a few test shots with the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 that I got as well, and I was quite taken aback and of course very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the image and the colour rendition.

That’s my hideously messy bedside table – don’t judge me! Hahaha. But anyway, I love the colours! This image was completely unedited, aside from the resizing.

I love love love the huge and bright viewfinder on the camera!!!!! OMG. When going through reviews and opinions, people always mentioned how they like it but I didn’t actually believe them.. but it’s trueeee! It’s so awesome, and makes manual focussing A LOT easier. Hehe.

Feeling disgustingly broke now, but I thank God for his provision because without it, I wouldn’t have been able to go ahead and get them!

Mmmmm I can’t wait to go out and shoot and get to know my camera and lens better!
The new dude’s called Crumbles. Crumbs, as he is affectionally called. HAHAHAHAHA.

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I
CAN’T
BLOODY
BELIEVE
IT!!!!!!!!!
*hysterical screams*

Which reminds me, I *really* need to start packing!

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I wanna go out and shoot! And I want to get my camera soon! And bag! Pinkie’s buying me a wonderful lil cardboard boy, and paying for half of the Domke I want. HEE HEE! Belated birthday presents.

It’s 22 more days til I get to see him, and I am so excited hahaha! Excited cos I’ll be seeing him after TEN MONTHS, cos I’ll be going to Europe for the first time, cos it’ll be my first time flying alone and cos it’s my first long flight! Actually, no not really. I’m dreading the long flight. Haha.

More than anything, I just want all the things I am working on now to finish up smoothly so that I can just be happy and excited without worrying that something may screw up. Can’t wait for it all to be over!

I just realised that all my Saturdays before my trip are all packed already.. oO

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