always love

I guess the next best thing after not having a UO outlet where I live/not living in a place that UO offers shipping to would be having friends who do (and who are willing to bring them items back with them as they return home for the holidays) :))).

(cardigan and dress: Urban Outfitters)

I'm really loving the print of this dress and am just bowled over by how incredible the designers at Kimchi & Blue are for having designed a dress with button-adjustable straps! This baby was 9.99 pounds from the UK site. :)) LOVE LOVE LOVE. I'm actually rather worried about losing my suitcase on the way to Hong Kong. After all, those things do happen eh? I'd just be pretty darn crushed. But then I suppose I'd get over it slowly and painfully by thinking that there has to be a reason for the way things turn out. Am putting all sorts of lovely items in there to wear in HK over the Christmas holiday there. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I'll be in HK for the next week! Soooo excited. 9 more hours to go! :) I hope it won't be too cold there though it would be such a relief to get away from the heat in Singapore.

And I can FINALLY wear these boots that I got ages ago in anticipation of eventually going to someplace cold enough to wear them. Well I was supposed to wear them out in Sg but I never managed to muster up enough guts to do so...

(Notice something new? THE BED. I finally have a bed to sleep on at night. It's quite a nice feeling being able to sit on something with my legs dangling and not simply collapsing onto a mattress at night)

I totally miss Christmas in Seattle. It's the only time when Christmas really does feel like Christmas. My Aunt is just the nicest, most bubbly and Christmas-loving aunt ever and there's always a whole lot of xmassy things to be done such as baking xmas cookies (i feel really hungry now and it's 3 a.m. aghh.), decorating the porch and the tree in the living room, playing the same xmas cd which begins with my fav song "The Christmas Song" by the inimitable Nat King Cole over and over again...

It's kinda hard being the only one in my immediate family remotely interested in and excited about Christmas. My dad (the Buddhist), scoffs and goes, "Christmas? Who's celebrating it?". My older sis, the biggest scrooge on the planet, gives me a look just short of "Bah Humbug". To my mum, it makes no difference whether we celebrate it or not but she does enjoy some festive cheer. Heh well to cut a long story short, it always never seems xmassy enough over here... I'd love to go back there again. :)

It's always the littlest things that jog up my memories of Seattle... such as the smell of cinammon in stores. It seemed as if all the little stores/even supermarkets or places like Walmart always seemed to smell of cinammon.




(the two cutest cousins ever. :) I can't actually remember how old they are now. Probably 6 and 9? These photos were taken just about a year ago when I spent Christmas with them in Seattle. They are such tykes.)

(Seattle, December 2008)

Probably the best memory I have of my time over there. Late nights spent bathed in a shower of coloured lights, huddled underneath a quilt, lapping up each second, each breath of cold air, settling into dreams.

P.S. In case I don't get to eventually, MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS. :)

my Christmas tree

So many Urban Outfitters videos to get through... I'll probably save them all for when I'm bored to death with studying for the next exam. :)



I loved everything about this one, except for the fact that it was so short! But the quirky, upbeat music and frantic movements just get me in a chipper (chippy? chipmunky??) mood each time.

Obviously this was UO inspired. :)

I shall be sleeping beneath my very own Christmas tree tonight. Let's cross our fingers in the hopes that it doesn't come crashing down in the middle of the night. That green industrial duct tape should hold.

2 more days till my bed arrives! I've been sleeping on a futon (Japanese style mattress) for the past year since we moved house and while it's been comfortable enough, I can't help but feel my back's been moulded to the gradually sinking mattress in a rather unhealthy, hunched manner. Once the bed comes, at least i'll have something to step on to adjust the lights. It's looking rather lopsided now.

(Oh and contrary to popular belief, the Christmas tree in the previous post isn't a fixture of my living room sadly. It was one of the trees on display in Ikea! :p)

god only knows what i'd be without you

Whoooo long absence here...! As always the case, I had to take time away in order to study for my exams which THANKFULLY, THANKFULLY, BLESS THE LORD I SURVIVED-ly is OVER. The exam was on friday and the time I spent since then till now has just been... the most fun ever. :) I know some people who get quoted in those 'words of wisdom' books often say stuff like you need to get through hardship before you can truly taste the sweetness of success or something to that extent. Normally I'd just scoff and say, give me life without the hardship please! I don't really need to know how incredible freedom/success is as long as I lead a blissfully ignorant and uneventful life. But times like these when I do sort of think there might be a shred of truth to that statement... ;) it just feels sooo good. To not have to dread waking up in the morning to a full day of studying.



(Yummy yummy Strawberry Cheesecake from a Japanese fusion food restaurant called Sun with Moon at Wheelock Place. I had a really nice chat with my former Japanese teacher who'll be going back to Japan soon and I actually managed to conduct a conversation with her in Japanese that lasted all the way through lunch. She's just good at understanding her students' broken Japanese.)

As always, Ikea is just lovely and even more so now at Christmas!!! Had meatballs, ice cream, fruit and shrimp salad (all Ikea staples) and tried searching the store for Christmas decorations but surprisingly they didn't have a 'tree trims' section...I did buy some cinammon-scented candles though which remind me so much of Seattle. :)

(Heh well I couldn't help but snigger)

I'm so excited for Christmas. :) I love love love love love Christmas. It's my absolute favorite time of the year. I love everything about it... the presents, beautiful wrapping paper, gorgeous shiny decorations, the feeling of people going out and about meeting up/shopping/just getting a whole lot livelier... I could go on and on about this. But i'll save it for another post.

(I'd LOVE to hear what everyone's got in store for Christmas though!)

Yayy to another night of restful sleep. It doesn't get better than this.

P.S. Oh noooo that terrible Miley Cyrus song, "Party in the U.S.A" is just stuck in my head because I heard it in the store. How could it have been top on the U.S. Billboard charts???? UGH.