Melbourne June with Aili

Was asked to fly to Melbourne last min, not that I mind since I don't go to Melbourne often and I got a few friends there… this time I was planning to go to the 12 Apostles, its gonna be pretty taxing after work and it's a few hours drive away along the Great Ocean Road or something… but it didn't materialized anyway cos I was too tired. Decided to meet up with Aili, its been a while since I saw her and the first time I meet her outside school. She is finishing exchange program there and having her exams before heading to NZ for a holiday…

I didn't used to realize that she was such good company, and I felt a sense of ease and comfort when I was around her. We were able to talk about a lot of things though we haven’t met in a while and it's the first time that we actually went out for a meal together. So we just trooped around town area a bit, despite the flu scare before heading to Big MaMa, this Korean Japanese food joint recommended by her. The food there wasn't too bad, cos she had a paper 2 days later, so we didn't hang out too long, popped over to Chinatown to get some egg tarts before walking her back to the train station. Its always good to meet your friends overseas, this trip felt fruitful in the end… and i found new places to explore the next time... Yarra River and Docklands :)

Soccer weekend

first time i actually played so much soccer in a week eversince i graduated... played with adrian and co at futsal east coast on wed.. den patrick came back on friday.. we had street soccer on sat morning, at night, i had supper with roger and sunday eusoffianos... woots!! shiok to the max...

its been a while since i had so much time to spend with my friends... it was fun catching up after soccer at KFC... updating each other and sharing nonsense... these are the fun that i always miss out in my line of work... i miss times like these...

gonna be catching pat, barney, thams and maybe roger for dinner on wed before pat flies back to shanghai...

Fukuoka Yahoo!!!

got called up for this flight... so happy cos it disrupted another flight of mine and i would gladly take Japan flight anytime... actually wanted to go to Dazaifu but got a little lazy...

spent the first day having dinner with my colleagues, but before that i met Naomi to eat some traditional Japanese "Skep" men... its kinda ramen style but its cold dish and the noodles is more like udon.. and u dip the noodles in a separate bowl of soup condiments to eat... pretty different, tasty all the same... :) after that was eating at a famous ramen shop where they had an interesting panel outside the shop indicating whichever stand alone seat is free... a little shopping after that and i got the raisin biscuits and the yellow bean paste snacks from Hakata Station... nice!!

next day, i decided to explore the city on my own since the rest are only interested in shopping... passed by the Tenjin underground shopping centre on the way to the train station to take a train to Nishijin. reached there, its a place famous for having pushcarts market... where all the fresh produce are wheeled out daily from meat, to fruits and vegetables. armed with a map, i made my way to the Fukuoka tower, one of the main feature of the city and the Momochi seaside.... very windy and nice weather... i was enjoying spending time with myself and enjoying the sights of the city... den i embarked on the crazy idea of walking back to the hotel from the outskirts of the city... had my route planned...

next up was the Yahoo! Dome... baseball stadium.. home of the Softbank Seahawks... too bad there wasnt a game being played, otherwise i could have caught it... visited the Hardrock cafe and camped at the starbucks for a while to enjoy a matcha frappucino after walking so much in the hot afternoon sun...

next up was visiting the City garden, Ohori Park... its a lake with 2 tiny isles in the middle... nice and serene.. quite a lot of pple pinicking, jogging there... leisure monday afternoon... kois, mandrain ducks and turtles are easily spotted in the lakes... after Ohori park, i went to check out the Fukuoka castle ruins... most of the time i am alone in this entirely huge castle ruins... only occasionally, 1 or 2 pple appear... eerie enough, sometimes i do wonder if they are humans too...
cobwebs were often seen on trees indicating how deserted this place is... but there are plenty of sakura trees and plum trees there... i suppose it will get pretty crowded when its the right season.

chanced upon a school, was fortunate to catch the children training for their respective eca.. tennis, soccer, baseball... den i passed by the Gokoku Shrine, one of the bigger Shrines in the middle of the city... and proceeded back to Tenjin, passing by a street where there is lotsa shops by the 2 sides of the road, somewhat similar to orchard road but on a smaller scale.. not as posh but its interesting enough, to spot and notice the things that they sell in there... entered the Keigo Shrine on the way back... but it was pretty much closed as its evening... den i decided to have dinner before going back to hotel... had Unagi don and premium Asahi beer... nothing beats an ice cold beer after walking in the sun for the whole day... refreshing and satisfying...

more places for me to explore next time round i come to fukuoka.. :)

that hurts a little...

spent a little time with someone recently...
thought she is interesting to hang out with and see how things develop... but maybe its just me acting up again... maybe i got a little soft spot for her.. she being carefree, friendly and all.. i guess its just her nature...

we went cycling at east coast, and supper... last nite was dinner... shopping at Ikea.. not too much time, just about right for small beginnings... dunno if i am reading the right signals... but i guess i have to remind myself that she is the kind of person who is friendly with everyone and everyone wants to get friendly with... so whatever she does has nothing too much to do with her being interested in me, just a normal gesture to her, its just that maybe i am seeing her on the other light, thats why i might be reading things a little differently...

stumbled on her blog, she mentioned a negative on having someone special in her life and she is enjoying singlehood now... ouch tt hurts a little... uhuh... but i have been denying her and putting her down when she makes suggestive remarks that i am interested in her... the right course of way perhaps, cos i am still getting to know her. Maybe its right, i am interested to know her better, spend more time with her, thats about it so far. i havent found enough in me to say that i really like her yet. I guess she might be in the same situation, just exploring and just enjoying, maybe just that little bit of interest but nothing concrete... i shouldnt be reading too much into it. but she does look for me when she needs help or when she is facing problems... hmmm... maybe its a good sign.. at least she thinks of me when she needs someone, a positive way of thinking on my part maybe..

i am sure she has no lack of suitors anyway... we'll see how things go... we'll see... we'll see...

she's got a soft spot for red... and doesnt eat beef cos she's a Buddhist..

How Bizarre????!!!!

yeah... haven been blogging much... dun feel the need to blog too... din feel like blogging either.. even thou i just been to amsterdam and tokyo and los angeles recently... until tonite... something most bizarre i heard from my friend, made me wanna pen it down somewhere... cos stories like that dont happen everyday, you know it and i know it...

just a brief update... amsterdam trip, i went to Keukenhoff to try to catch the last of the tulips for the season... its a pity that i can no longer catch them in the fields cos they have all be harvested, but seeing them in the gardens is still not too bad thou, i would still like to be wowed by the vastness of the sight of fields of rows and rows of tulips... i dunno if i will be staying long enough for me to catch that next year...

this tokyo, LA trip is pretty much mundane and nothing too exciting.. been to a few new places yes... but they are nothing that wud take my breath away yet... LA, i followed a colleague to meet a friend who showed us ard newport beach area, visited the big bosses houses and the rich man area.. i think he must be pretty loaded himself, cos the houses that he showed us either belong to rich bankers or owners of roxy or some sort lidat.. either that or they overlook the newport harbour or the owners own boats... freaks!!! when can i reach tt stage... then there was some business deal about negotiating importing of some cabin bags for sale... pretty viable i guess but lots more ground work to be done... yet to decide if i will embark on it... but in tokyo, its pretty saddening cos i was planning to go to Mt Fuji, Hakone but it rained the whole time... the only sightseeing was to the Tsukiji fish market where we saw fishermen haul in their catch and sell them at the wholesale centre berfore they end up as sashimi in our stomach... saw all sorts of funny fishes... and giant tunas... and yes i mean tuna the size of humans or even bigger... tt pretty much sums up the whole month of not blogging until tonite....

maybe i can use our conversation here to make it simpler for myself...

Jingpei - too busy to even reply these days?
jt - :) haha
jt - yea man. im in nrt now
Jingpei - hows the big business coming along??
jt - meeting my fren tmr in LAX to firm things up,most prob not getting house, cos got other plans. i need the money for business
Jingpei - i was going to ask u how much is the bank gonna loan u...
jt - and my good fren may be getting the house so if he gets.. i might move in with him so far without submitting tax, XXXk
Jingpei - tts quite a lot actually
jt - yah but can have more after submit tax............i stay with him lor,we planning to get married
Jingpei - !!!!!???? stunned !!! u are kidding?? i dun get it..
jt - lol ,haha dunno how to explain but something along that line la. nobody gets it anyway..
Jingpei - so u are faking a marriage to get the house?
jt - no la, the house he is getting on his own, so dun need to get married la. just that its an amazing kind of fate that we met. honestly we did talk bout marraige i even went out with his mum and all alr. its a very twisted kind of fate
Jingpei - u just met the guy? or a long time fren? tts pretty shocking news to me
jt - long time fren, my jc fren
Jingpei - oh still shocking thou haha
jt - its very twisted fate la
Jingpei - yea its all twisted to me.first i met u on board... going hols with xxx...
next is me doing ams with u den u broke up with xxx not long ago... now u are getting married
jt - if he din come back to singapore, i wldnt have reconcile with him and..if i didnt break up with xxx , ill prob wldnt meet him
Jingpei - so.. hmmm he is your ex bf?
jt - LOL he is my buddy's good fren. he is like the male replica of me. we share the same interests we envision the same future.and we have the same ideals and passion
Jingpei - sounds bizzare to me
jt - its hard for pple to understand
Jingpei - its not tt pple dun understand its just too bizzare and sudden to accept. if u are telling me tt u just got attached, maybe tts something more acceptable. but u are telling me tt u are getting married...??? im like.. hello... am i in mars?
jt - cos pple wont understand unless they are in the same situation
jt - am attached la. married of cos not now la!!!!
Jingpei - u did make it sound like its gonna happen in a few weeks or a few months time wat. cant blame me there. so tt pretty much explains your recent disappearance
jt - no laaaa its just that really, if i didnt break up with xxx. i wldnt have met him again . and just nice he just came back to spore then cos i didnt intend to meet him at all, until i was single again, and he came back to sg for 2 weeks and i wldnt have met him or wld have missed the chance if things didnt fall into place nicely...cos he has been away for 5 yrs he came back for 2 weeks to settle some stuff and during that 2 weeks i broke up with xxx and my buddy kept asking me out but i refused until onw fine day he came to my house with him and he didnt even know my buddy wanted him to meet me and i was kinda forced to meet them cos they came all the way and my bdudy wanted to meet me to cheer me up after the break up so if i didnt break up i wldnt meet my buddy cos he wldnt contact me for noting and i wldnt have met him again
Jingpei - u cant put it tt way wat!! its just a nicer way of seeing things... if u wanna put it tt way... u shud have said... 25 years ago.. if your dad din meet your mum... there wudnt be u... tt wud sound ridiculous although its perfectly logical
Jingpei - hmmm.... i dun wanna sound like a skeptic or trying to empty a tub of water over your nice painting lah, to me its just tt its coincidental....
jt - i told him that things may be coincidental so be it. but we clicked so well bcos we share many similr interests we both do flips
Jingpei - tt is something u found out after u met him wat
jt - yah!! i mean i love mrtial arts and i love to do flips i wld never expect to know a guy who does that too. out of 10 guys how many are gymnasts plus other stuff like diving, golf, photography, our interests overlap which make us click so easily
Jingpei - im happy tt u found someone similar of course tts good for u lah. i guess wat makes it difficult for pple to understand is the way that u choose to put it across
jt - he knows i know can alr =) and honestly i never thought of getting married so soon and i told my best fren. he actually made me wanna get married and its really because of him. i met his mum recently and the mum told me that he called her and told her that he loves me alot. and she smsed me and told me that she loves me like a daughter and thankful that i made him happy .im ver y glad la that his mum loves me so much
Jingpei - lemme tell u how your love story sounds like... u are making it sound like its prophecized... and its just waiting to happen... tts wat makes it difficult for pple to understand i guess... naturally pple will be happy for u... be it tt things are happening purely based on coincidence... tt things just so happened this way... but the thing is u are making it sound like its following a script somewhere in some story book... not tt it bothers me lah... its just pretty unbelievable... becos of the way u put it across.. not because pple dun understand u.. im glad u found your fairy tale anyway
jt - cos i know its difficult for pple to understand anyway . im just glad cos i finally know what i want
Jingpei - but i am telling you now tt they way you are explaining to pple.. is exactly like wat i told u above
jt - u know wad?? i never explain to anyone before. i neevr even told anyone im attached!
Jingpei - are u going to tell me tt i am going to be the best man? hahaha, i need a super big red packet
jt - nahhhhh.... just that im really happy now and thats all it matters. he also HCJC ... wahahahahaha
Jingpei - tts ok... i know my place... i am just someone whom u scream HCJC at if i pissed you off... haha... but now i am going to lose tt privilege too. just kidding hhhahahaha

well... love story do exist huh... sometimes it just happened so bizarrely that its really hard to believe... its almost like watching a bedtime story unfold before your eyes. for an outsider like me who knows her from what she has to this stage of getting married in like a few months... you can put it across as a nasty shock... well... not exactly nasty.. more like pleasant actually but pretty much nasty cos it came all out of the blue...

fairy tales do exist huh... i wonder where is mine... ive been waiting for 27 and a half years....