I love Singapore. It was so difficult for me to leave, but once I set on the train ride back to Konstanz, I realise that Konstanz made leaving Singapore not so painful. I will def miss the three Fs: Food, Friends and Family (in absolutely no order of importance, I swear =)) and all those afternoons lunching out with friends. Sam brought me to this wonderful indian restaurant in Little India, Raj, and for the first time I had really really good and relatively cheap indian food! We shopped for clothes and other stuff at Mustafa's (that place is a maze!) and the little shops along the streets.
Seriously, I think Chinatown and Little India beat Orchard anytime. The wares are much cheaper, and much more unique to Singapore. Other than the sole purpose of eating sushi, I won't go over to Orchard.
It was quite a good feeling to see friends on the buses and to meet up with them all over, chat and all=) It is as though I've kinda set up another home=) Went to the English Bookshop the other day, and Frau Cook seemed genuinely glad to see me. That was kinda special, because she is usually rather reserved. I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder. We chatted about many things, like the caricatures issue, den Verstand des Menschen, usw. It seemed like quite an ok length of time, not like the last time when we chatted for almost an hour. My legs were dying then.
Zk and Yijin came for a visit. They arrived at 1.20 am in the morning=p Good thing about living in an ulu village: The bus services still go there in the dead of the night! Amazing. Was glad to have them here, we even got to explore parts of the Uni that I have never ever been to before! And as usual, having guests= good excuse to stuff oneself silly. We cooked Singaporean Chicken Curry, and Sara came over too for dinner. The two of them made quite a good impression on Sara=) But the curry and the veg i cooked were not salty enough I think...=P It was just ok for me, my tastebuds 'purified' by several weeks of my mom's healthy cooking=)
Frankly I was v happy that they came to visit! Wouldn't have known what to do otherwise...for although there are friends here to meet up with, it is just different having tong2 xiang1 ren2 over. And it was nice having pple to do all the veg chopping and grocery carrying too=D
Going to Leipzig, Dresden to visit Sara, and then to UK, London and Oxbridge. Take a look at my mom's dream uni for me=)
ting*
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Home sweet home=)
I have been home for almost a week! =D And what a heavenly week it was.
First surprise: I actually met Wenjie on my flight back home. Talk about getting a taste of Singapore before even reaching home.
I must admit that I had quite a strange feeling as I touched down home. As I got out of the plane, not even out of the air-conditioned comfort of the airport, the first thing that struck me was, how warm it was! (ok that is probably something that every animal that comes from a wintry land experiences when plunged into summer's warmth). Second thing was, I no longer have to look up so much when I talk to others. (nope sadly I haven't grown taller.) Third thing, the multilingual singapore again!=) Had to figure how to express a lot of things to my dad in hakka, ended up speaking to him in half mandarin, half hakka instead. I love hakka. It is just so...right. A tongue from your childhood.
As my pa drove down the expressways, into the neighbourhoods and all, I thought I was looking at my home with foreign eyes. Truly, Singapore seemed so 'fremd', as in, so orderly! Must have been gotten used to all that little bits of mess in Konstanz, especially with the Karneval going on and the strike of Verdi (the street-cleaners, they have been on strike in many parts of Germany, so you see streets strewn with rubbish in the city, as well as terminally full rubbish bins). The Karneval or Fasching, or Fasnacht as it is called in various parts of Germany, is a time when the normally quiet, let's-keep-to-ourselves germans would come out in droves, dress themselves up (as chickens, witches, clowns, devils, fish, bears, tigers, you name it they have it, but haven't seen an amoeba though) and celebrate. They march through the streets dispensing sweets to passers-by, and play typical karneval music. It is really fun to see them all, with self-made masks and costumes. The kids look especially sweet with their tiger, bear costumes=) You see, they look like a bundle of fur with a face peeping out from nowhere.
Here are a few pictures of the Karneval=)
Oh, and let's go back a few weeks, just after my exams ended. We went out quite a lot to party, and I took the opportunity to take a few pics of my friends. Here they are!=D
From left to right, Girls then Guys:
Johanna, Ingrid, Sara (behind) and Marlene
Constantin, Simon (face half covered), Johannes, Ivo.
And at the Karneval: Isabella, Stefan, Thomas, oh-dear-i-forgot-his-name, and Rebecca
OK fast forward to Singapore again. Went out with the Choir pple=) Shopped for Jiayan's pressie with HC and ZW, and we were at Suntec with ZW said that he wanted some Ben and Jerry's icecream. So we walked around Suntec, going high and low, detouring, looking thru exhibits until we finally got to the ice-cream shop. And guess what ZW said when we got there? "I don't know if I want ice-cream anymore." I couldn't help it; I gave him an incredulous look and just laughed.
We got Jiayan a great-looking necklace, HC chose it, his taste is really improving! =) Guess the guys got great 'tutorials' from "URBAN". Met up with Shaun, Becky, then went to Jiayan's chalet...it was great to see and hear them all once again, I must say. I miss singing in a choir too. The part about being a component of something big, making music together. Sigh.
Went to MPS last night with my brother. Was funny in that everyone thought that he was my bf, gosh, can't you all see the resemblance? I am just the female version of him. They all thought that he was from some JC too (that's great flattery to my bro i think=)) Nice to mix around with the crew again, Alex, Cheng Cheng, Enghwa, Derrick, Rene, KH (back from Saudi Arabia), all the familiar faces. Too bad I can't stay for the elections=p It would be highly interesting I think.
Right, really should get started on my hausarbeit now. BLEAH. I think I would have concentrated much better on it if I had stayed in Germany. Then again, life would be half as interesting. =)
ting
First surprise: I actually met Wenjie on my flight back home. Talk about getting a taste of Singapore before even reaching home.
I must admit that I had quite a strange feeling as I touched down home. As I got out of the plane, not even out of the air-conditioned comfort of the airport, the first thing that struck me was, how warm it was! (ok that is probably something that every animal that comes from a wintry land experiences when plunged into summer's warmth). Second thing was, I no longer have to look up so much when I talk to others. (nope sadly I haven't grown taller.) Third thing, the multilingual singapore again!=) Had to figure how to express a lot of things to my dad in hakka, ended up speaking to him in half mandarin, half hakka instead. I love hakka. It is just so...right. A tongue from your childhood.
As my pa drove down the expressways, into the neighbourhoods and all, I thought I was looking at my home with foreign eyes. Truly, Singapore seemed so 'fremd', as in, so orderly! Must have been gotten used to all that little bits of mess in Konstanz, especially with the Karneval going on and the strike of Verdi (the street-cleaners, they have been on strike in many parts of Germany, so you see streets strewn with rubbish in the city, as well as terminally full rubbish bins). The Karneval or Fasching, or Fasnacht as it is called in various parts of Germany, is a time when the normally quiet, let's-keep-to-ourselves germans would come out in droves, dress themselves up (as chickens, witches, clowns, devils, fish, bears, tigers, you name it they have it, but haven't seen an amoeba though) and celebrate. They march through the streets dispensing sweets to passers-by, and play typical karneval music. It is really fun to see them all, with self-made masks and costumes. The kids look especially sweet with their tiger, bear costumes=) You see, they look like a bundle of fur with a face peeping out from nowhere.
Here are a few pictures of the Karneval=)
Oh, and let's go back a few weeks, just after my exams ended. We went out quite a lot to party, and I took the opportunity to take a few pics of my friends. Here they are!=D
From left to right, Girls then Guys:
Johanna, Ingrid, Sara (behind) and Marlene
Constantin, Simon (face half covered), Johannes, Ivo.
And at the Karneval: Isabella, Stefan, Thomas, oh-dear-i-forgot-his-name, and Rebecca
OK fast forward to Singapore again. Went out with the Choir pple=) Shopped for Jiayan's pressie with HC and ZW, and we were at Suntec with ZW said that he wanted some Ben and Jerry's icecream. So we walked around Suntec, going high and low, detouring, looking thru exhibits until we finally got to the ice-cream shop. And guess what ZW said when we got there? "I don't know if I want ice-cream anymore." I couldn't help it; I gave him an incredulous look and just laughed.
We got Jiayan a great-looking necklace, HC chose it, his taste is really improving! =) Guess the guys got great 'tutorials' from "URBAN". Met up with Shaun, Becky, then went to Jiayan's chalet...it was great to see and hear them all once again, I must say. I miss singing in a choir too. The part about being a component of something big, making music together. Sigh.
Went to MPS last night with my brother. Was funny in that everyone thought that he was my bf, gosh, can't you all see the resemblance? I am just the female version of him. They all thought that he was from some JC too (that's great flattery to my bro i think=)) Nice to mix around with the crew again, Alex, Cheng Cheng, Enghwa, Derrick, Rene, KH (back from Saudi Arabia), all the familiar faces. Too bad I can't stay for the elections=p It would be highly interesting I think.
Right, really should get started on my hausarbeit now. BLEAH. I think I would have concentrated much better on it if I had stayed in Germany. Then again, life would be half as interesting. =)
ting
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