Floating Island

just received my mail package from the lovely sewon of maps and fragments last night. this mini photo zine is made up of twenty pages of full-colour photographs which she took around in shanghai this past year. apart from the photo zine, she even included a postcard, a sticker and a personal note in the package.

i have never been to china but i have heard about the good, the bad and the obnoxious from my dad since he has been to the country before.

the way the city was being showcased through her pictures is really refreshing and i knew i had to get this - especially when i am such a sucker for good photography and travel. can't seem to resist that kind of combination!

12 years and going

happy 12th anniversary to the five guys who are very close to my heart and always making me entertained every day since the start of '08. it's no secret that they have been climbing up the popularity ladder these past four years and gaining more recognition but i am tremendously grateful for them staying the way as they are.

Cooking with dog

i know the title sounds misleading but it is definitely not about cooking with dog meat or anything of that nature. so happens that i found this awesome cooking channel on youtube, which is weirdly named "cooking with dog" and i have been obsessed with every single video since.

this channel showcases different japanese recipes and makes each of them look super easy to cook. i would love to try out cooking but i need to learn the basics first. sigh. since i have so much time on my hands, i might be trying out the mapo tofu recipe out soon!

oh and one more thing, i'm quite amused with that dog who happens to be observing as the woman in the video cooks those insanely delicious dishes.

Jakarta

From left to right: Moleskine planner, travel documents, black cardigan from Uniqlo, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, Ripcurl pencil case, wallet, free pen from Changi Airport, hairband, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, local sim card from Indonesia, vegetable biscuits, iPod touch

these were the things that i had with me in my kanken bag when i came back from indonesia about two weeks ago. surprisingly jakarta remains the same even when i have not been back for almost 2 years. 

this trip was not exactly a leisure trip. i booked a test date for my toefl test a few weeks back so i could take the test in jakarta. couldn't take the test in singapore since there were sadly no available dates for august and i needed to take toefl to fulfill my application requirements for arizona. 

it was very nerve-wrecking. felt like my heart was about to jump out through my mouth. i didn't do much preparation but i did familiarize myself with the format of the test and how it went about. my parents took this test before so they thought toefl would be a breeze for me - seeing that i am already proficient in english and it's my first language after all. to be honest, i was not all that confident. 

ets emailed me about the release of my results last week. i was surprised at the results of every segment that was featured in the test. well, my results are definitely above average. 

now i'm just looking forward to universities accepting me and whatever that lies ahead of me. 

Finally

i think it has been about 4 years since i've touched blogger. everything seems so different right now. wordpress seems a little restrictive when it comes to posting pictures so i thought i'll move back here for good. can't really guarantee that i will be posting frequently but since i'm pathetically jobless at the moment, i will try my best.

i've finally fixed the layout so i'm happy with everything here at the moment. also, i am glad that i have a permanent space to write in.

will probably talk about my trip to jakarta for the next post? :)