Wednesday, July 3, 2013

平井堅 Ken Hirai

Was looking thru my old blog last night, and found that my fave song 白い恋人達 by 桑田佳祐''s link was missing, so I search youtube and came across this clip again by 平井堅 Ken Hirai. And somehow for the rest of the night, I was just listening to his song.




Thinking that he just sings cover, I did a search on one of the song I live from him, and discovered that the wonderful bleeding lyrics were also written by him. Here's one I like which reminds me of my favourite book from Murakami title South Of The Border, West of the Sun.



Sometimes you just have to let your heart bleed.
Also like this song 告白の写真, but can't find the embed code for it to share it on this blog :(

Ref:
桑田佳祐Keisuke Kuwata
平井堅 Ken Hira
村上 春樹Haruki Murakami
South Of The Border, West of the Sun

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Shopping in Seoul

Besides eating, the other thing I enjoyed doing is shopping in Seoul! It would have been perfect if I've managed to do some fabric shopping as well, but language and culture was a barrier and I only managed to buy only 1 meter of patch fabric from Dongdaemon. But I did manage to discover some stationery heaven!
And I couldn't understand why people keep asking me to bug face mask for them cause the last time I was in Seoul (in year 2000), it wasn't such a big thing yet, but wow the cosmetic shops in Seoul is crazy! The 3rd photo at the bottom are not even anything I bought, they are samples given out by the shops when you purchase something or when you're visiting or walking by.

I also especially love these chocolates here.

And lastly, bread in Seoul is surprisingly awesome! I later discovered that Fauchon is actually a shopping place in Paris. Why did I not know this when I was in France!
 
Ooops, one more fave thing I got from Seoul, my carrot-wabbit earings! I love them! But I can only wear the carrot cause the rabbit is too big for my ears :(  Still, they are so adorable!

Ref:
Dongdaemon Fabric Market
Fauchon Paris
Fauchon Bakery Seoul

Saturday, June 29, 2013

한정식 Hanjeongsik, Korean Set Meal

 One of the highlight of my trip to Korean was a traditional set meal we had in Insadong in one of those traditional restaurant which was probably a tourist trap. But since it had a "Good Restaurant" sign on it (click photo to view in full), we trust that it must be good, right? This is the view of the restaurant before entering.
Anyway, here is the menu with the price printed on it. Even the menu look expensive. We ordered two menus, one costing W38,500(SGD42.70) and W55,000 (SGD60.90), and yes we spend most of our money on food cause I don't really do shopping very well.

We were seated in a private room we shared with a group of japanese tourist who left shortly after we arrived. So it was just us and the waitress through out the meal.

Here are the dishes.
And as we were leaving, we took some nice photos of the restaurant as well. It was totally enjoyable!  I love the fizzy rice wine there!

Ref:
Hanjeongsik
Insadong

Friday, June 28, 2013

안녕하세요 (Hello in Korean)

Catching up post. In desperation for an oversea holiday last year, I did a crazy thing of coming back to Penang on a budget air and reaching Singapore Changi at 10:20pm, rush home to change, and be back in Changi again for my flight out to Seoul, Korea by 11pm. My heart never beat so fast before while taking a flight for a holiday. To think that I trust Air Asia so much to be on time to catch my flight speaks volume of my faith in that airline!

So I ended up in Seoul on 14 December 2012 in winter with only one bucket list item to clear, to see snow for the very first time in my life :)  Guess what. Mission accomplish the moment I landed on Incheon Airport. It was snowing and everything was white! But as we took the rail to Seoul it self, there was less and less snow. But I did manage to see some of it during our visit to the Changdeokgung Palace on 16-Dec-2012.

 
We also briefly visited the main entrance of Gyeongbokgung while we were walking past it looking for a Kyobo bookstore. 

It was a last minute short trip for me. My second time to Korea as my husband requested to go there as he has never been to Korea before. We spend a total of only 5 days there, reaching on 14-December-2012, and leaving on 18-December-2012. Most of the time we were only shopping and eating. Will share more in other post.

Some info on the trip.
  • Airport Transfer to Seoul, we went via Airport Rail costing W8,000 (SGD8.90) per person return ticket ( I think)
  • For Seoul transport, we got a T-Money card each good for trains in city costing W2,500(SGD2.80) each, and we top it up with W10,000(SGD11) each. It was enough to last us the whole trip, but then again, we did walk all over the city most of the time :P
  • We stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel, Myeongdong for  W107,500(SGD120) a night breakfast not included.

Ref:
Changdeokgung
Gyeongbokgung
Kyobo Book Store
Kyobo Official Site
Air Asia
AREX (Airport Rail Express)
T-Money
N Fourseason Seoul

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Home

1st entry for year 2013, thought I'll start with something striking, beautiful, and close to my heart. Above is actually a photo of a corner of my home garden outside my HDB unit. Yes in this concrete jungle, I still try my best to maintain some sanity in my life. My garden is one of my little joy in life here.

I thought I'll start the first entry of the year (even though it's already April now), by showing you little things around my home that brighten ups my day. When you're working day and night, Monday to Sunday, sometimes you need to slow down and look around you to see what your life have become. These little things help keep me rooted to who I am, and who I want to be.
For a start, there's a lamp in every room as I love the ambiance a lamp brings to a home. It's warm, calming and elegant (plus it really keeps the utility bills down!). My dining table is a classic kopitiam style marble table, probably the single most expensive piece of furniture in my entire home (most of my furniture are acquired "freegan" style).  On the dining table I have a set of hand sewed cat coasters (you can click on the link to view the coasters in detail). I would love to always have fresh flowers on my dining table, but the cost is rather high, so I got some fake ones instead. Me bad. Maybe one day when I have an actual garden, I can grow my own flowers and have them on my table daily :)

Photo on the right is actually my shoe cabinet. On it are three potted plants I'm trying my best to keep alive as I love the idea of having indoor plants, and perhaps herbs in my kitchen. The cactus in front of the scarecrow is one of the very first plant we got in our home. Behind it is a traditional peranakan tiffin which I got from my mother, who inherit it from my grandmother. So in a way, it's a family heirloom. I'm wondering if I can get it restored. Anyway, moving on, there's somehow always pumkins and scarecrow in my life, a reminder of a friend I am very fond of. And right in front, Hello Kitty! It's actually my very first DIY paint-by-numbers. I have a bigger painting which I'll try to show it here in one of my blog entry.
Recently during the long weekend, I suddenly have this urge to buy files to organize my shelves. So above is the end result. I'm especially please with how the files get label to tell you what they contain. This is just the first shelve I tried organizing. I'm in a minty green phase of my life recently, so green and white is my color of choice. Next to the files are all my Japanese books. One day! One day I'll master that language! The other three holders are actually my husband's. But all the naked volcanic dudes are mine :) They are my beloved hell guardians I got from Hokkaido.
Lastly I painted my gate minty green sometime last year, and just two weeks ago, I managed to paint the wooden door white. It looks rather weird from the outside, but I kinda like it. The white and the metallic part looks really good together. My motivation for finally getting the door done, was to purchase SGD5 worth of door numbering so that I can finally hang them on my newly painted door. I would like to put a hand pulled bell outside my door, but I'm wondering if people would come around and steal it. If it's not too expensive, maybe I'll give it a try.

So there you have it, the start to my 2013. I'll try to continue on my backlog from now on, so that at least when I try to look back at my life, it won't be just some empty pages and nothing to remember me by. I'd like to chart as many information here as much as possible. Stay tune!

Ref:
HDB Flat
Kopitiam
Freegan
Hello Kitty