from east village to west

Last Sunday, my roomie Sabrina and I traipsed all the way from our dorm to the heart of the East Village, all the way across to the West Village and then back again to our dorm in the heat of the scorching sun. I'd wanted to check out the hotel that my mum will be staying at when she comes to visit (in just a little over a week!) which is all the way over on West Eleventh. While I remember the heat to be pretty unbearable and nastily reminiscent of that of Singapore's (UGHHH I did not come to NYC to face the same sort of heat!), the afternoon's walk was made much more pleasant with the funky sights of the East Village and slow siesta feel of the West Village.

Funky Graffiti. I love spontaneous urban art like this. :)

Originally we'd planned on checking out the famous Cafe Habana for lunch but when we strolled over at 1pm, it was PACKED to the brim. We waited for like 10minutes and they kept telling us that the 'hostess' would be back soon (from where, huh??) to put us on the waiting list blahblah. The 'hostess' never showed up and our growling tummies lead us elsewhere. SIGH.

But we ended up at a quaint little cafe not very far down! I love how there are always great places to eat at practically every single street so it really doesn't matter if you don't manage to find a seat at an intended place because there's another great, albeit relatively undiscovered place just around the corner.

Our brunch at:

Prince St. Cafe

26 Prince Street

My "New Yorker" (it was literally called that) brunch special. AWESOME eggs benedict with scrummy hollandaise sauce. Only thing that wasn't fantastic was the bread that was crunchy at the sides but almost impossible to tear into pieces in your mouth if you aren't a dinosaur. So...you'd probably wanna help your granny with that if she ends up ordering it.

Sabrina's vegetarian sandwich. Yeah, she likes to eat vegetarian stuff. Like my sis. Go figure these people out. ;) I'd never foresake my bacon.

Fruit bowl for dessert! That was part of the brunch special. I relish every opportunity to sink my teeth into some yummy fruit when I'm over here... I love how Whole Foods Market has such fat juicy strawberries all the time... but that's a story for another day.

Walked by some street stalls. This one (without a visible owner) sold movie Scripts! I was so tempted to get the one for Dead Poet's Society (one of my favorite movies!) and The Social Network.

Isn't it fun how there are all these stalls along the side of the road that sell just about ANYTHING? You could get all the furniture you need for a new apartment just off the sidewalk... add a new coat of paint of your choice and it's good to go. :D

Quickie outfit shot taken outside our dorm (photos of me taken by Sabrina and vice versa!).

(top and bag: Urban Outfitters, skirt: American Eagle Outfitters, shoes: Aldo)

So I have recently discovered the awesomeness that is American Eagle Outfitters thanks to a fellow coursemate whose entire outfit that day comprised of A.E.O wear. I've never ventured into it before because I thought it would be something like a Hollister or Abercrombie and Fitch; just full of generic tank tops and hot shorts for summer drenched in cologne. But A.E.O had some pretty nice stuff! :D And the offshoot brand, Aerie, has such a nice collection of nightwear and lingerie for really reasonable prices too. And no, no one's paying me to say all this. X) I do recommend you check it out for some pretty summerwear and lingerie at decent prices. When I saw this skirt in the store, it really reminded me of some sort of whimsical oil painting on a canvas. I suppose the beautiful Kandinsky paintings were still fresh in my mind from last Friday when we went to the Guggenheim (sososososo good. One of the best museum experiences ever!) so I pounced on it. Imagine my happiness when I found out that EVERYTHING was 30% OFF!

Sabrina in her new shades that she scored off Prince Street at a random stall. She has such a great collection of colorful print clothes.

And before I end off this post, take a look at what I found nestled in a RECORD STORE.

JUST ABOUT THE FATTEST GREY CAT ALIVE!

We went into a random record store in Greenwich Village and as I walked down the aisle not really looking for anything in particular, something MOVED out of the corner of my eye. I nearly choked on my own saliva when I saw this monstrous fur ball right in the center of the store. It was probably the most grouchy cat I'd ever seen. -___- But cute in its own way.

Oh wow, I was so tired today but somehow at night I never really want to sleep.

loving each day

Hi there, from NYC! :) A week has gone by already and gosh what a week it has been. I'll be in NYC attending a summer program at Parsons for the month and ahhhh what an experience this has been so far! =) If you haven't heard of it, Parsons has what they call 'Summer Intensive Studies' every year during the summer holidays (basically summer school) and the variety of courses they have on offer is really incredible! They run the gamut from your awesome design courses such as interior design (which I really do want to take one day XD), industrial design, fashion design (of course), graphic design... to the more esoteric ones such as footwear design and I think they offer stuff like art history as well. :) The one I'm taking is Graphic Design. I was sooo happy when I randomly googled a few months back and realized that the time frame for the course fit exactly into my summer vacation. It's something I've always been interested in so I figured, why not give it a try now? When I'm young and malleable. And my mama was so understanding about it. Couldn't be more grateful to her for letting me experience this whole other incredible field.

So I'll be chronically my time here in bits and bobs.

This is what my dorm room looked like when I first arrived just a little over a week ago:

I was sooo excited! :) After all, I've never stayed away from home for an extended period of time by myself (since I have never even stayed at the university dorm back at home) and was really looking forward to experiencing life away from... overly concerned *coughnaggycough* parents. I'll probably take a photo again soon, maybe at the 2 week mark, just to see how my room has evolved. Mind you, now it looks... VERY LIVED IN. (My roomie's side, on the other hand, is still incredibly clean. How do people do it, honestly?)

When I first got to NY, I stayed with my mum's friend's place in Brooklyn and she was such an incredible help (she and her mum brought me to Marshall's and helped me through the maze of bed linen and pillows). I don't know what I would have done without all the help settling in (of course, the extra hands with the luggage was fantastic ;p). After checking in at the dorm, she brought me to this great Italian restaurant in Soho, called Il Corallo.

Il Corallo Trattoria

176 Prince Street

New York

NY 10012

I wish I could give a really nice caption of the dishes above as they were written out on the menu but I was too busy eating to remember to take note of the descriptions.

Honestly, that ravioli was one of the BEST mushroom ravioli I've had EVER. I don't even like creamy pasta usually because I've got mixed responses to cheese heh, but this one was simply DIVINE. I mean it. Every bit was a perfect blend of not-too-cheesy-yet-rich cream sauce and mushroom with chewy slices of ravioli. MMMM. I'm definitely going back there to have this dish at least once or twice more if I can. :D

(Soho is just full of quaint little boutiques like this.)

And here are my roomies! :)

(Sisi and Sabrina)

So in the dorm, I stay in well, I guess you could call it a suite, with two bedrooms and two people stay in each bedroom. Sabrina is my roomie while Sisi stays in the room next door. For some reason the other bed in her room never got occupied so it's just the 3 of us for now. Given that this is the first time I'm staying in a dorm with others and how I've heard of some horror roommate stories, I'm so glad they're such lovely roommates to live with. :D They're both doing the Photography course (Sabrina's taking digital photography and Sisi's taking film photography) and the stuff they get to do sounds sooo fun. Plus, they have hardly any coursework compared to me. -__-

Isn't she gorgeous? :) Sabrina's actually a fashion photographer from Uruguay! Check out her website HERE. Her work is really professional and she is such a nice roommate to have. For one, we love the same sort of music so she's introduced me to a couple of bands (some Spanish ones), we both love Urban Outfitters (anyone who's an Urbie fan is a woman after my own heart) and among other things...she doesn't complain about the mess on my side of the room. ;)

Here's Sisi. She's from China and is currently doing her masters in engineering in Boston. Pretty awesome, no? :) That day, she had to retake photos for her class because of some little accident in the dark room. Since it had to be portrait shots, Sabrina was her model and we all went to the nearby park for an afternoon of photos and fun. :D I loooove spending time with people who are into photography. No one finds it weird when you stoop down in awkward positions to capture a shot or break off from a conversation halfway to capture something you've just seen... and no one says no when you point the camera at them. :)

top: Fancy French Cologne (check out their website! lots and lots of pretty stuff and great service. The owner, Carly is really friendly and gets back to your queries about items really quickly. Obviously I've bought quite a few items from them already), jeans: Urban Outfitters, shoes: Aldo (recent buy in NY and soooo comfy), hat: Brixton

So this hat is appearing again, but I do love it. :D I'm too lazy to learn how to do my hair into some funky style so this will have to do for now.

(Stuyvesant Park, May 2011)

Ok, I'm so tired now. The one thing I still can't get used to is waking up for 9 am classes every day so I'm really looking forward to the weekend at the moment. Lots more to come soon!

Have a great week, guys. <3

At Christmas :)

I'm so happy that it's the Christmas season!! It's just my favorite holiday of the entire year. Even though I don't really get anymore presents anymore :p but since I was a little girl, I've just always loved the idea of gift-giving, present wrapping, cookie baking, eggnog drinking, merry making... I know it's the commercialized version of Christmas and that the real meaning behind everything is supposed to be the religious one but I happen to love the former a LOT. And it's so FUN. :)

I just started making ornaments again today. We don't have a tree at home unfortunately and we've never had a real one before (i doubt my parents would know what to do to keep it alive) but we DO have some pretty xmas lights. So I decided to take one of the new bookshelves that my dad recently procured and give it a makeover in time for Christmas.

Felt ornaments are my favorite to make. Simply because they're the easiest. I love putting on some music/switching on the television and making them at the same time. Today I listened to some old school HANSON music on youtube (because I can't find their CD in the mess that is my room :( ) and gosh it brought back memories! They released a record entitled Snowed In '97 and I used to play it every single Christmas as a Hanson-obsessed tween while laying on the couch fantasizing about Zac Hanson WHOM I JUST FOUND OUT IS HAPPILY MARRIED and he and his wife just gave birth to their SECOND CHILD on 15 Dec! Oh my wasted heart...

I remember flipping through a craft magazine once many years ago when I saw a "Santa's laundry line" ornament on a page and I just thought it was adorable, especially the long john's.

(Yeah, I know, that gingerbread man is just creepy. The next one will look more benevolent, I promise!)

So tomorrow I think I'll start baking some Xmas cookies. :) Anyone has any good recipes to share? I suppose the usual butter/sugar cookies would be the easiest to bake as well as decorate but my whole family's the more health conscious type so I don't think anyone will be lapping up the gorgeous colored icing any time soon. Are there any "healthier" cookies I could bake? :P Guess that's kinda an oxymoron.

Shall end my night by watching another episode of Party of 5. I ordered the first 3 seasons and had them delivered to my sis who's studying in the U.S. and who's now back for the holidays. Scott Wolf and Neve Campbell are simply gorgeous! I never actually watched the series very intensely before but I think now I'm in a better position to appreciate it. Recently I've been reminded of all the good times I had as a tween. Hanson... Party of 5... Baby-Sitters' Club... Thank god for those days.

xx

my heart's in so many places

Ta-dahhh! Finally a continuation of my posts on my travels this past summer. :p It's about 4 months overdue and there are still about say 500 photos I'd love to go through and eventually post so... at least that's something to look forward to till the end of this year.

So here's the next bit about my Seattle trip. I left off at the FIRST day of my time in Seattle. Now we're making the momentous leap into day 2 of the epic chronicles.

(coat: ebay, boots: shop in Hong Kong, scarf: Ruche.com)

Half opened eyes and face drenched in sleepiness? Puts the time of the photo taken to anywhere before 12 noon. That was pretty much my default outfit every day in Seattle because it was chiiilllly. I love though, the feeling of cold air so crisp and biting that it startles the senses every morning upon leaving the house.

First stop? Nordstrom Rack!! That was the first time I'd been into one so I had no idea what to expect. Racks and rows and shelves crammed to the brim with clothes, shoes, accessories... in so many different sizes and designer labels too!

Biggest score of the day? Swedish MIA clogs at a discounted price of about $60. I later found out the exact same ones were being sold in Urban Outfitters but for close to $100! Thank you, God of outlet shopping.

It probably wasn't on the same day but eventually I did manage to stumble in a drunken haze of happiness into the Urban Outfitters store at Alderwood Mall.

(BEST SIGN EVER. I just couldn't resist.)

(new basic striped shirt!)

Was really tempted to get this multicolored striped tee for my boyfriend since, who doesn't love a splash of color? But then I remembered most boys are timid and conservative when it comes to fashion. My future son, however...

(I love how they displayed all the shirts in that manner against the wall! :D Another reason to be in love with UO.)

So Alderwood Mall is pretty much one of my favorite malls in the entire world. Granted, I haven't really been to that many malls in the world but this one basically has all the stores I love under one roof. I remember the first time I was brought there by my aunt a couple of years back. I'd painstakingly written down a whole list of the stores I wanted to go into ("American Apparel... GAP... F21... Urban Outfitters...Payless") and didn't know how lucky I'd get with this mall. By the end of the day, with every turn of a corner inside, I was greeted with multiple surprises as I managed to locate store after store on my list, eventually striking almost everything off. (I think Anthropologie and H&M would be the only two missing ;p. That's still a dang high score rate!)

It seems that every time I go to Alderwood Mall I end up getting a Charley's grilled beef sub. ;p I remember being incredibly famished the first time I tried it out and it was SO good I've not really tried anything else every time I go back.

(Colors colors colors. I just brighten at the sight of them. This one was in the AA store.)

So this was just a random shot taken in a supermarket. Isn't it amazing, the sheer number of choices available for something as simple as burritos? I was just bowled over.

This Ted Talk I viewed recently discusses the paradox of choice and how too many choices actually overwhelms us, makes us indecisive, and paralyzes us in a state of inaction. :P Thoughts about it? I still say there's no question about it - the more choices the merrier.

Bye for now. I wish I could spend more time blogging but then reality always wins. School stresses and sleep beckon.

let's. live. fast

Less than 24 hours since I've touched down back on home soil and I'm already feeling the ache of leaving someplace awesome.

(Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, December, 2009)

This was just about the best holiday I've ever had so far. A week's too short. I could have gone on for a much longer time... but reality always has to be such a biaaatch. The entire trip was really all about eating eating eating, walking walking walking even more and... the occasional shopping :) HONEST! Haha this time there really wasn't much to get because it was all winter sales and while I swooned over many woollen cardigans, gorgeous scarves and boots, I had to remind myself every 2 seconds that I do stay for majority of the year in a place that does not entertain those who love wool/layers. The food was sooo good though. Ate a ton of snacks. :D I can feel another layer of tummy fat forming. :X

(I love the lights)

(scary Santa!! but I couldn't resist taking a photo with him since there was actually a sign (i'm covering it) saying TAKE PHOTO HERE!! (in Chinese lulz) This is the other side of Santa. The one who eats kids and only climbs into houses through chimneys in order to kidnap 'em for a bite at night)

I LOOOVE maggi noodles. Before the trip, I hadn't eaten maggi mee in forever... I know it's not the healthiest thing to eat so I never ever buy any from the supermarket. But I love how holidays are a time for indulgence. The boy was soooo scandalised when I told him I wanted this for breakfast. Apparently it's very un-Hong Kongish to even order these noodles but wth I just wanna fulfill my cravings!

So I have less than 20 hours before I need to get my bags packed for a trip to Korea. :) Some of my oldest friends and I will be going on a week long 'ski escapade' to Korea. Apparently the warmest temperature in Seoul now is -7. FARRCKK. I like cold weather but this is really pushing it!! O_O I've no idea how to pack for sub zero weather. Need my sis to come back from ermm Sri Lanka asap so she can lend me all the warm clothes that she used in college to weather off snow storms.

It wasn't supposed to be so rushed. The trip was supposed to be in May of this year but one of my friends came down with swine flu so it got pushed to Dec. But I don't mind the rushing from place to place. I think of it as a blessing. I need to squeeze in as much travel as I can before the next few years descend and school holidays become nothing more than week long STUDY BREAKs.

(source: http://fuckyeahmarykateashley.tumblr.com/page/6)

Such a nice long cardigan. It would be pretty darn perfect right about now. If only I had it in my closet and if only I had the legs eh? :) I think I'm going to start checking out more photos of MKA. I know they've been style icons for ages but i've never religiously followed sites dedicated to them... it'd be nice to get ideas on 'how to dress if you're a midget'.

School starts on January 4 for me. I'll be missing probably 4 days and depending on what time I get back to SG next Thursday, I'll probably end up missing the afternoon practical sessions which seem pretty important. ARGH. It was so easy to just say who cares, i'll play first and then worry!! but that was under exam stress and now that I'm faced with the upcoming term's schedule, I'm really starting to get worried.

I wish I were fervent about becoming a doctor. I wish I knew for a fact that this was my calling and that I had the strength to dedicate all my time towards furthering my knowledge in this area. I have seniors who are so into the whole med school thing and wish for us too to be 'fervent and enthusiastic'. Those words just make me very very uneasy because I should be that way but I'm not.

Times like this when I wish my retardo Maro pie were here to talk some sense into me. I always need wake up calls from him but he's off, probably uncontactable at the moment in wintry Xi An in China. At least we'll both be in sub-zero climates for the next week.

I should probably start thinking up some resolutions for the New Year. I'm always big on change but 20 years has passed and have I really become anything better than what I've always known I'd be?