Wow! What an experience! It sure was fun tossing beer in the air, shouting and cursing just because the situation allowed it. Go Holland!!!
Hola peeps! Pops has kindly lent me his DSLR for this trip but not without filling me in with the art of taking photos. How hard can it be right? Point, shoot. Point, shoot. How hard can it be? Well, now that I've had some practice (200 over photos over 2 days), I have to admit that there is so much that goes into a perfect picture. For this trip, I opted for the 85mm lens which has no zoom options and it's really close up. Therefore, my focus would be more close up, arty farty kind of photos. Hopefully my photos are of some 'standard'. Do enjoy!
Long time no see! Thought you mati... So much has happened since the last post and I do sincerely apologise for my absence. Also, I am (not so sincerely) sorry for not replying my flooding fan mails. Yes. Thanks, For your concern. I AM WELL. No. You're right. Let's not fight. Important thing is I AM WELL. Thanks again, for asking. Sadly, the lack of a moment-capturing-device has incapacitated my blogging style and therefore limited my posts. However, I remedied this handicap as of this morning. I woke up bright and early, determined and like a man on a mission, I pulled on my most serious of faces. I was going to conquer my economics textbook. I had to. It is do or die trying. I looked beside me at my darling fiancee, hoping to evoke additional inspiration from this sleeping beauty. I was definitely well greeted. This, is my angel. My darling. My soulmate. My love. My life. My everything. What could I say? I did try to encourage Becca to exercise. Doing yoga whilst sleeping is a bit of an overkill wouldn't you agree? Needless to say, I had a hard time containing my amusement. I love you darling!
Dear Frodo,
I am pleased to inform you that my stay in your hometown has been beautiful. We were treated very well and I am extremely impressed! Will definitely come back again! Best regards, Terence ____________________________________________________________________________________ Hi all! I am back from the land of New Zea... There are many things that struck me during my short stay there but one that really impressed me was the size of the Maoris. Omg... These people are mega! Take my word, never get in a fight with them. They look mean and huge and testosterone pumped. The women are huge too by the way. It's in the blood man... Size aside, did you know that NZL has a population of 4.2 million? That is less than Singapore's but with land size gazillion times bigger! The other highlight was the B&B we stayed at. If you ever have find yourself headed towards Auckland, do yourself a favour and book in with the Nautical Nook! The owners Keith and Trish(Patricia) are THE best hosts you can ever stay with. We almost died of gratitude from their helpfulness. This couple would go out of their way to make you feel comfortable. Not to mention, Keith is an avid sailor as well and he takes his guests out on sailing trips if they fancy! It pained my heart to learn that Keith recently was diagnosed with a terrible illness and I have thus made it a point to say a little prayer for them every night. As it turned out, sailing was a roller coaster of events. On our own budget, without a coach, we rocked up the day before the regatta and hoped to have our 6 year old charter boat working ok. After a short sail at 5pm, we were dismayed to find out the gasket had fallen out which meant at least 2 hours of repair. Not to be discouraged on a trip with no support team at all, we opted for before-the-first-race repair. So Roy and I headed to the club nice and early the next morning to fix our race craft. The first day's racing was mixed and saw us in second spot. However, a super light and insane second day race surprised even ourselves as we finished the only race of the day more than 5 minutes ahead of the next boat and pushing us up the leader board to gain pole position. A pitiful third day with more downs than ups lost us our lead and slip to second. The last day of racing was smooth sailing as we managed to increase our point differences between the boat behind us and catch up with the leaders. However, the penultimate race which carries double points was not enough for us to overhaul the eventual winners despite us winning the race. All in all, we had a great outing in Auckland and felt the money was well spent. The only disappointment was to find out that our country's pride - Singapore Airlines, whom we asked for sponsorship, and so quickly rejected us, actually were the main sponsors for Sail Auckland... Whenever Singapore Airlines was thanked in the speeches of the winners at the prize giving ceremony, it felt like a knife was being stabbed in my back for every mention of their name. A pity our national airlines endorses foreign athletes... Our journey did not end there, unfortunately... After driving us for an HOUR to the airport's B & B, Trish gave us a hug each and bade us smooth sailing to our goals. Roy arranged our new host to fetch us to the airport at 7.15am only to realise our flights were AT 7.15am. (Loud buzzer sound). Our folly saw us fork out another couple of hundred to get us back to Sydney, DOH! And alas, that was how the New Zealand cookie crumbled... Hahahaha!!! I have to tell yous something very funny. I went to a yoga class at fitness first yesterday and I must say some of the poses are quite fun, some quite vulgar and some just plain impossible. The hilarious part was at the end of the class when the instructor started to taper off into meditation, she told the class to take a deep breath and say 'ohm' as they released their breath. Naturally, I did not participate in the meditation/clearing your mind thing but what gave me a real jump was when the class did the 'ohm' thing in unison. I'm telling you, the WHOLE room vibrated and I almost LOL. It was really weird...
Since the ohm (i'm calling it the ohm incident from now on), I have finally completed my latest and coolest project thus far. I built a Zen Garden from scratch. Ok. A Zen garden is a concept that requires no water. Rocks are meant to be earth and the sand that is raked symbolises the water/river. The frame you see in the photos are separate pieces of pine wood glued, siliconed and nailed together piece by piece. Once completed, a few layers of lacquer brought a dark and rich walnut tone to it. I hate to admit this but I am pretty damn impressed by myself. Yup... Damn... Alas, a new chapter in life. Today is the official opening of our Rosebery apartment. If you were wondering where I was in the past week (I know you've been wondering...), I have been busy with packing and unpacking, lifting and downing, cleaning and getting dirty... If you haven't read my previous post (which I know you read...) and don't really know what I'm trying to get at with the above few lines and can't, for the love of God, get the hint the title is telling you, I. MOVED. HOUSE.
The pad is in a total mess bar my room and en-suite toilet and fashion runway. Yes, I have a fashion runway ladies. In case you don't know, Karl Lagerfeld is a close acquaintance and I happen to design some of his line as part of my pocket money income. YEAH RIGHT! Ok. However, the catwalk is no lie. I do have a runway and simply can't wait for Becca to come over to strut some serious stuff. Victoria's Secret, oh yeah baby! Finish gagging? OK. Here are some pics, dePICting the progress of my progress. It's quarter to six in the morning now and my room smells like vomit. Half an hour ago, I was awoken by the super loud bang. It sounded like something blew up. My first thought was the laptop charger but I could still see the green light emitting from it. Phew. I switch on my com for a little light an I saw my ipod under a pile of clothes. Everything was still intact. Phew. It was then that I got a whiff of something similar to strawberry yoghurt. I had yoghurt in my cereal yesterday morning and left the bowl in the room for a good whole day before taking it out to wash but there wasn't any smell when I slept. As I scanned the room for any glass fragments possibly from the light bulb exploding, I spotted my thermos flask's cap lying by itself. Penny dropped. My christmas present filled with some milky vanilla concoction that was left inside for a week blew up. That damned liquid oozed out of the flask and onto the carpet where it sat. Somehow, the fermented vanilla drink turned out to smell like sstrawberry milk with a hinge of spice and tang to it. Worst of all, I can't get the smell away.
I must say that I am so proud of Becca for being, I believe, the first and only person outside the sporting fraternity to travel, lodge and spectate the Singapore Olympic sailing team at such close proximity. Thankfully everything turned out pretty well this summer and I'm sure Craig Ferris would welcome her back if opportunity presents itself again.
Since my dear fiancee has returned home, I have been a figure of boredom. It's very difficult even for me to sit through any movie now and even my sleep has been plagued with death. Okay... Stop being so melodramatic... But true story and I'll leave it as that. Did I mention that I have to change my pad? Yup. I have to change my pad. HA! Women... I meant that I'm moving house la... The owners decided to crank the rent higher so we are being forced to seek cheaper pastures. Pity, since our current location is pretty good. Some of the apartments we viewed were quite pleasant actually so, fingers crossed, we hope our applications goes through. Pardon me for this shoddy post. I can't really sit still right now. Off to shower! |