the random adventures of jojo

It’s 2am, and I’m playing with matches instead of snuggling under the comforter in the artificial cool air of my room.

I play pick-up-sticks with matchsticks.
Do the games we play as we grow up really have to become more and more dangerous?

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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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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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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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Why did they rename the bridge leading to Marina Bay Sands from Double Helix Bridge to Helix Bridge? Hahahaha.

I met up with Alex on Tuesday with the intention of having lunch, picking up the Domke bag I’ve been eyeing for awhile so that I can bring it with me to London, and then taking a photowalk around the Supreme Court area and then to the Helix Bridge, which Alex wanted to shoot.

Turns out the bag was out of stock everywhere (in the colour I want anyway), the sun was blazing hot, and I had horrid cramps the entire day. Oh, the photowalk went on, which involved walking from the Supreme Court to Victoria Concert Hall to the Helix Bridge.

Let’s just say that walking around with cramps in the stupid sunshine that shines upon Singapore is….. a bitch. By the time we got to the damned bridge (which I don’t fancy, by the way) I was feeling faint and dizzy, and couldn’t see through the viewfinder properly. HAHAHA. Oh, well…… At least the hot day brought blue skies along with it.

Most of the time, my mood affects my photographs so it’s no surprise that my photos from that day were shitty.

It was my first time bringing the new lens I got out. Here are the few shots I got from that day anyway.. All were shot with the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8. I missed my prime lens terribly.
A couple were used for Project 52, as you can see from the previous posts

Turns out they’d set up the Padang and the area in front of the Supreme Court for the NDP this year.

Yet another monstrosity I can’t stand.

Such a cliche shot… Hur.

Much prefer this one cos it’s more….. ironic. Or not. HAHA.

The only shot of the bridge I kiiiinnnnnda like. LOL.

The grandma was so grumpy; funny! She was zooming past me, hurrying her two friends in front.

The super cute foreign workers at the construction site who made my day cos they all so happily posed and smiled when they saw me with my camera. Hehe. Love all their expressions in this shot, especially of the guy who isn’t looking at the camera!

Still my favourite shot from that day

So sad….
When I saw him my heart sank.

And then he got up really quickly while I was rushing to take more shots of him. Haha.

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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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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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The recent state of events in Bangkok has saddened many Singaporeans, judging from my active Twitter stream, and not just because we all love to shop there either.

Hearing the news about the situation there as it progressively got worse over the past weeks, I have to admit I didn’t feel much at first. I tend to do that sometimes, mostly sub-consciously – I shut myself out from bad news, sad movies, sad shows, and the like because I know that I’d be more than a little affected by it.

But there was one day when someone retweeted a photo taken by someone who was apparently there at that point of time. The few photos that I saw showed Central World on fire. The building was subsequently destroyed, if you didn’t already know.

Seeing those photos made everything seem so much more real to me, because it’s a place I recognise and have been to a few times. Heck, it was right across my hotel on some of my trips there.

I used to go to Thailand at least once a year, and I’m guessing I won’t be able to head back there for awhile now, til things stabilize much more. Sigh.. The whole situation is so sad, and I really hope things will be fine soon.

Here are a few more shots I took on my short trip there earlier this year. All shot on my LC-A, although I can’t remember what film was being used.

Despite my many trips there, it was my first time taking their subway! Haha.

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Ever since Pinkie introduced HIMYM to me last year (or the year before?) I’ve been in love with the show and I watched the first 4 seasons at one go. I love all the characters, the dynamics of the group and of course, Barney!

When season 5 (the current season) started airing, I thought the first few episodes were boring but I thought that was because I didn’t get to watch them one after another like I was accustomed to – I had to wait a week for each episode to be released.

Over the past few months, I’ve come to like it less and less, but like someone you care for, I kept watching it anyway out of habit, out of some sort of strange hope that the old snappy clever lines would return back to the script and the characters. I know I sound melodramatic but I really really love the series a lot! And I also had a ton of fun watching them with Pinkie when he’d first introduced the show to me – we spent many days of his summer holiday back in Singapore at his place watching episode after episode.

This week, after he’d watched the episode (ep 21) he emailed me and said “The awesome how I met your mother is back. Heh. =D”

Oh boy, I couldn’t wait to watch it when I got his email because I know he felt the same about the current season too!

I just watched it, and aww man! The old HIMYM I love is back, with a strong script filled with funny parts, depth and dimension for the characters and meaning. It’s a little sad, but it’s good and I’m so happy!

When listening to new songs, whether on the radio (hardly happens), on a show or introduced by someone, I usually decide whether or not I like it based on its lyrics – if it has a good singer, nice melody but stupid lyrics I just dismiss it.

On this week’s episode of HIMYM, a song played towards the end, effectively drawing out the mood and emotions of the various scenes and when it played over a scene of Marshall and Lily I’d made a mental note to look for the lyrics online – the scene was so sweet, and I love how that silly couple love each other so much despite their individual quirks. Hehe.

After I was done watching the episode, I emailed Pinkie to tell him that he was right, the episode was awesome and I’m so happy they are back!

Awhile later, he emailed me back with an attachment and a smiley face in the body of the email.

It was the song:

OOOOOOPS I just missed your call typing this up. HAHAHAHA DON’T KILL ME K THANKS.

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Instead of working on my CPJ, like I obviously should have been doing this entire week, I spent the time today editing my birthday photos instead. Oops?

Anyways, looking at my photos just made me happier this gloomy Sunday evening. I miss my camera, and I wanna go out and take photos soon! Anyone wants to go this Friday afternoon? Hee.

More details about my birthday can be found on last week’s Project 52 post, if you’re interested.

I started the day with my ex-colleagues at my favourite brunch place!

hhhhrrrroy. HAHAHA.

taken by andee

andee and his white ep-1!

eggs florentine that made me very happy!

and the most awesome pancakes everrrrr!

taken by andee

taken by andee

taken by andee

taken by andee

so cute, his ep-1′s super small lens cap! haha

my coloursplash flash sitting atop his ep-1.
notice how it is black. it was supposed to be pink, but mistakes and irresponsible blogshops caused it to remain black as a result of their folly, lack of following up, and my TOTALLY CANNOT BE BOTHERED TO CHASE THEM-ness. ahem.

ep-1 meets gf-1 meets Kiera, my d5000, and hroy’s new iPhone with Sigma lens =P

drowned in maple syrup

We headed to get drinks and pedicures, squealed at some dogs and cats before heading to get dinner at Da Paolo’s. I loveeee the king prawn pasta. Slurrrp. It was better than I’d remembered, like I’ve mentioned before, and now I’m craving for it again!!!!! Meh.

Dawnie came by for dinner, and looked scared by Andee who took this picture haha

Clara, otherwise known as my mad best friend, also came by though she was feeling abit sick. Loveee!!!! <3

Oh, but she had her revenge…

* I actually turned 24 lah. *sulk*

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So.

Can I just say that the weekend that just passed was hellish? Pftt. Spent it shooting for D&AD, and rushing 2 major projects for submission today, and one for tomorrow.

I know my Project 52 photo for last week is late.. I’m getting to it! *sulk*

Friday feels like it was reaaallly long ago despite being just 3 days ago. I can’t remember much from it, except that Daniel, Yiboon and myself went abit mad after making giant ice creams. Haha.

Saturday existed from 7am – 9am. The. Next. Morning.

Seriously. Longest day I have had in AGES. Also horrible because I was going nuts getting work done, slowly because I didn’t want to make mistakes and have to redo stuff. Meh.

Dragged myself out of the house for my favourite annual Chinese New Year dinner on Sunday despite not having completed the work because I think if I had stayed home, I would have gone crazy. Hahaha. Dinner was awesome.. so yummy! Mmmm.

I was sitting around after dinner and my grandmother (whom I don’t really like, hahaha) was on the sofa next to me. She turned to me and asked for my name. I told her (after shrieking it a few times cos she couldn’t hear) and she proceeded to inform me that her granddaughter has the same name as me. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Spray painting my skateboard drove me nuts. Well, not the spray painting part itself because that was the fun part. It was the making of the stencils and pinning it down that drove me up the wall. Meh.

Went to catch Valentine’s Day with Boon and Yiyang today after class.. Not bad. It was quite nice. I still prefer Love Actually though.. but maybe because it left me with mixed feelings.

What do you think about marrying your best friend? Or rather, should your spouse be your best friend too?
Heart still breaks thinking about it. Ha. Sigh. Oh well..

Oh and birthday weekend, with so few people around who I’d wanna spend it with. Why is everyone out of the country… damnit. Sucks!

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If I were to be accused of one of the seven sins taking over my life, it’d either be gluttony…. Or sloth. Goodness knows that if I had my way, I’d sleep at 4am and wake up at 3pm the next day, have lunch and then proceed to nap.

Oh, who am I kidding? That happens every weekend, much to my undone homework’s dismay. Don’t know what’s up with this semester but everyone seems to be sluggish about getting work done. I think it’s the 2 month Christmas break. Haha.. That has got to be the only drawback of long breaks.

Every Saturday, I’ve been forcing myself to sit at the dining table and get some work done, but I usually end up feeling guilty and pressed for time on Sunday. Haha!

I did manage to get some work done today, though! Still have another piece of work on today’s agenda so I suppose I’ll start on that soon.

School’s been alright, for those of you who’ve asked. It’s just a ton of work that I am new to, thus taking forever with each piece. Haha.

On a sidenote, my parents just got home and they forgot to buy me the dinner they said they’d get!!!! OMG WALAOEH I AM SUPER HUNGRY. I could have cooked noodles half an hour ago if they hadn’t said they would get dinner for me la!!! *EPIC SULK*

But they both were super nice and gave me money to get my CNY clothes so I shall just go and cook dinner nao. HAHAHA.

Before I disappear and ease the dizziness from hunger, I’ve overdue photos from when Zhan, Malcolm and I went out to shoot. We had brunch at my favourite place for brunch before that, and Felicia Chin was at the next table! SO CUTE. I have a crush on her, kthksbai. Hahahaha!

big bear paws!!! that’s an iPhone in his paws

poor tree…

malcolm has hair that is totally awesome to photograph!!! HAHAHA.

rarrrr!!!! hahahahaha

oh, shoo!

I don’t have proper photos from that outing because I hate the shots I took. Blerughhh. We didn’t go out to shoot this week either, so as of now I have no photo ready for Project 52. Ack. Shall see what’s around tomorrow.

Things have been a lil better at the home-front, albeit not knowing what is going to happen. Trying my best to leave everything to God, heh.

as with so many other things, i don’t expect you to understand. just keep the judgmental subtleties out of your tones.

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