hotel club sandwich

There's nothing better than room service in a fancy hotel room. There's always a club sandwich in the room service menu of fancy hotel rooms. That's all I ever order. I look forward to hotel club sandwiches like my mother and brother look forward to dining in the lobbies of hotel restaurants.

indulgent fountains

The reflections on the water of the Medici Fountain in Paris is a giant painting palette. All the autumn colours have been swirled around, broken down, and refracted. The swimming ducks contribute to the confusion. They complicate the patterns even more with the circular waves they leave in their wake. The entire thing is a giant Impressionist painting rolled into a kaleidoscope that changes almost every second. I woke up stupidly early this Thursday morning in New Zealand and thought of being here two autumns ago.  

re-entering the atmosphere

I've spent the evening with this blog, trying to reconnect. I'm like a person in a long-term relationship, trying to rediscover what it feels like to be, once again, in the first pulses of love. A journalist once asked me to describe my blog and I called it "a love letter". Sadly, one day, the letters just stopped. Not because I didn't have anything to say. More like, I didn't really know who to send them to and I wasn't even sure there was anyone reading anymore. 

In September 2008, I started this blog during a rising crest of outfit-of-the-day blogging. We started off taking self-timered photos in thrift shop dresses, against rickety wooden fences, brightly-coloured murals, or wandering idly in fields of flowers. Back then, Rumi posed in Forever 21 mini dresses in front of her garage door. The years ticked by and the wave started crashing towards the shore. One by one, my favourite peers stopped blogging and I felt their absence like friends who one day, just stop talking to you.

There are some of you though who have remained faithful, still posting, still typing, still beaming out into the world. Now, you have pets, children, sometimes both. You're posting about home interiors and travel, not just those cute flats you bought yesterday or how to pack for a summer vacation. Each post I catch up with is a tinder and I am working for a spark.

Today, I realise that I cannot let go of my tiny corner of internet. It's a chronicle of a life - my life. And in a virtual world of unimaginable breadth and depth and size and volume, a tiny little life is nothing but also everything. Though no one might be listening, I can still keep talking and writing and communicating. Then maybe one day, my blog and I will fall in love again.

♥ Location: Lake Rotoiti, Rotorua ♥

to you and yours

To your hearts. They're broken every day and sometimes they mend. Along the crack and the fissures, you'd expect them to be stronger than before like bones that have melded together. But no. Those cracks and those fissures; sometimes they set in a way more fragile and tenuous than before. It's like a baby with an eggshell skull, knocking about, unable to avoid sharp corners. 

the something more

I spent much of this walk around Queen Elizabeth's Park with my head down, in deep conversation with a girl, miles away from her home in Berlin. She spoke with passion about all the things she had left behind; a broken relationship, a city apartment, a promising career in film. Landing in Australia with two back-breakingly heavy suitcases, she eventually wound her way to New Zealand, shedding most everything she'd taken with her and ending up here, in our tiny island country, with one backpack and restless feelings.

ramen and cake

A four-month long almost-round-the-world holiday was never gonna be easy on the budget. But then, what holidays are? On our first week back, my mum had to buy our groceries and parents had to lend us money. Suddenly, we were first year uni kids again! Here's two things we made (one each) to lift our spirits; ramen and Nutella cake.

dogged pursuits of outdoor activities

I am determined to fall in love with Wellington again. I've chosen to rise above the time when I rode my bike in screaming northerlies around Greta Point and got pushed into a fence by the wind. I have also wilfully ignored the slight numbness in my toes when taking ocean swims in a variety of bays. If you ignore the terrible weather, the unflinchingly hard light (thanks, depleting ozone layer!) and the brutal pollen count, this city is so shabby-chic-nature gorgeous, it hurts.

on lugging around film cameras overseas

Christian Quarter, Old City, Jerusalem

See the entire set on Flickr here.

I'm always towing around film cameras overseas. Yes, digital is way more convenient in every possible way. But I adore shooting film. My first major multi-stop overseas trip was captured on a little Olympus camera and I bought the cheapest film possible from various pharmacies and supermarkets. Sure I'd get a little jealous when my mum and brother would get to review their digital camera pictures at the end of the day. However, I still remember every single shot I took on that Olympus. I'm not sure I could say this about the trips I've taken on digital. The things I shot on film on that trip weren't disposable. Each one, to me, was a perfect little moment meant to be savoured. When we were away, Rob would sometimes um and ah about taking a picture and I would blithely say, "Take it. Pictures are free." On Polaroid and any other film camera, they actually aren't. Each shot has to, literally, be worth it. 

book reviews with my mother

One afternoon, my mother and I sat around my living room and she rifled through two of the books I'd lugged home.

promises in an jar of ube jam

The adoration of dessert foods made up of sweetened mashed root vegetables or legumes, or jelly-like substances swimming in liquid, I always think of as a uniquely Asian thing. Red bean buns. Bubble tea. Grass jelly. Buchi (sesame seed) balls. Mooncakes. A couple of days ago, my mother left me a jar each of nata de coco, white beans, macapuno, and ube jam. The jars, all lined up in a row, are like a promise that I can eat my way back to my childhood. Or at least, assemble a damn good halo halo stand.

flowers for myths

I'm looking for a picture. I can see it in my head. It's of two teenage boys, one with wild, curly blonde hair, the other pursing his lips in the way people look when they're caught in mid-sentence. They stand in a high school music room and behind them, pinned up on the corkboard, is someone's school project on Beethoven. The one talking is wearing a t-shirt with the words Led Zeppelin and the lyrics to Stairway to Heaven printed. The picture is time stamped in orange: 6 6 '98. Today, I find out that boy is dead. 

incredibly specific kitchen gadgetry

My brother got us a SodaStream for Christmas. That's totally out of left field. Outside of, maybe Sweden, I know of only one person who has ever woken up and wished for a SodaStream machine. And that guy was kinda only joking. According to Wikipedia, 20 percent of Swedish households own one of these things. And no kidding. Look at the happy family on this ad insert! Target audience, much?

the amphitheatre neighbourhood

I'm lucky to be able to see my home through fresh eyes; I still have my tourist glasses on. The harsh light; too full of contrasts, making everything look too dark, then too white. There's a hodge podge of buildings along the waterfront, all angular, all different styles, different materials, nothing much to unify the skyline. The space. The big gaps between people on the street. The casual dress, as if everyone's just thrown anything on to buy milk from a corner store. Here, even our bars have outdoor sports, volleyball, tetherball, ping pong. People can't sit still. And the wind. My god, the wind. A friend of ours called it "limiting". Sometimes, I want to scream into it. It's a love/hate thing, this being home. 

it's not all eat. pray. love.

Day 99 & 100 Palm Springs, a drive back to LAX

There's barely two days left of this; our hundred-day flight from home. One of my favourite quotes is by Alain de Botton, in the Art of Travel:

If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest...than our travels. They express... an understanding of what life might be about, outside the constraints of work and the struggle for survival.

On our last day in Palm Springs, we're treating ourselves to a special brunch at the Parker. The waiters outnumber the guests by 3 to 1, it's so early in the morning. They all wear white pants. On the table across from us, a tiny little gryphon is ensconced on a chair, being fed bits of toast and waffle. 

frigid deserts

Day 98 (Christmas Day) Joshua Tree National Park

We're hiking in Joshua Tree National Park on Christmas Day. It brings back memories of Petra. But American. Which means you can drive to the start of the trail, the paths are clearly marked, and there's no one scamming you for money to use the toilet. Also, it only costs $15. 

jumping with cabazon dinosaurs

Day 97 (Christmas Eve) Upland, Cabazon Dinosaurs, Palm Springs

On our road trip to Palm Springs, we pass by Upland High School, site of Rob's early Californian high school days. He recounts the Taco Bell inside the cafeteria, the skateboard he bought from a friend which he brought all the way to New Zealand only to have it stolen, and the good grades he used to get because there was nothing else to do. Honestly, the scale and size of this high school is something else. I'm getting used to feeling incredibly provincial in America. Everything is B.I.G. Big. Sometimes, necessarily so. Other times? Questionable. 

last sunset at the canal

Day 96 Malibu, Venice Canals

On Tuesday mornings, at 7.30 am, the street in front of our Venice garage/shack gets swept. We wake up at the crack of dawn and blearily circulate round Whole Foods, buying Christmas groceries to bring to Palm Springs. We come to blows over dessert. It had to be over dessert. Rob wants to make a chocolate bowl and fill it with ice cream. I desperately want a cherry pie because 'Murica. In the end, my cherry pie wins the day. I gaze at the chocolate stand for a long time. There's nothing under US$3.99.

rollercoaster roads at Echo Park

Day 95 Echo Park, Costco Fail

I'm feeling like povvo Martha Stewart today. In the morning, I slap together tuna sandwiches and thrown in some funfetti chewy Chips Ahoy and fruit in a my souvenir Liberty bag. 

homeless at the end of the santa monica bike path

Day 94 Santa Monica Farmer's Market, end of the Bike Path

We have a love-hate relationship with our little Venice Canal garage. On Air BnB, it looks positively adorable with bright white walls, cosy quilts on a bunk bed, papier mache tigers, and Henri Rousseau-esque paintings on the walls. There's two bikes that you can use and you can cruise to the start of the Venice Boardwalk in less than five minutes. Throw a football behind you and it'll land in the canal, if there wasn't a wall.

It's still adorable in real life. But it gets bitterly cold at night and damp with heat during the day.  The bed sinks in the middle and there's barely any power. If you've got too many things plugged in and decide to take a shower, chances are the switch will flip and you'll be dripping water naked in the stall.  

stages of a sunset from griffith's observatory

Day 93 Santa Monica, Abbot Kinney, Griffith's Observatory

The night before I had to fish an insect out of Rob's left ear. True story. All day at the Getty, he'd complained about something fluttering in there. At night, I took a look with the aid of my cellphone flashlight and there it was, looking back at me with it's two tiny beady eyes. I don't know who was more scared; Rob because he had a living thing stuck in his ear or me because I was solely responsible for getting it out of there. A few Google searches later, we came out of CVS with the wrong-kind of tweezers (the pointy kind). In thirty minutes, I was stabbing Rob's ear drum with it. In the end, he got it out himself by pouring olive oil in his ear, drowning the bastard, and letting it float out. The next day, we look at all the suspiciously damp corners of the shoddily-converted Venice Beach garage we're staying in with new eyes.