i've fallen into that pattern of neglect again, it's been a week since i returned from malaysia and all excuses to not blog are out of the window.

i was initially going to blog about my week in malaysia but i wasn't sure if there was really much worth blogging about.

batu pahat, the town i spent half my time in, is a small, washed out little town that looks exactly the same every single time i visit. the houses are humble, and getting progressively run-down as the years go by, and sometimes along the streets there are huts from which satay is sold at obscenely cheap prices.. can't vouch for the hygiene though.
chinese new year was a quiet affair with a simple homecooked dinner around my grandparent's kitchen table. the three of us ate in silence, because my grandpa is deaf and conversation quite literally falls on deaf ears. then began the obligatory family patronages to relatives i have never seen in my life. i felt a little like a zoo animal as they all crowded around me, squeezed my fat (!!), exclaimed how i'd grown and proceeded to chat amongst themselves about children raised in white countries who clearly have forgotten their mother dialects, blahblah.. all the while i stood there wondering whether or not to correct them. yes, i DO understand, thank you very much. no, i am being quiet because i don't know what to say. T___T

my cousins are largely the same. they regard me with a mix of disdain and boredom, and turn to their ever-beeping mobiles that hang from their necks (god forbid they get separated from their mobiles by a distance that is sufficiently safe from phone radiation) and the youngest cousin has grown.

when i last came he shat on the floor and walked off
this year he attempted to look down my top.

my, children are so delightful.

my week started to pick up some pace when stef and i set out on our adventure day-trip to KL. KL turned out to be something of a disappointment, with many shops closed on chinese new year. the muggy heat really does get to you after awhile and we settled for lounging in hagen daaz with the mothereffing biggest fondue i've ever eaten in my life, watching the world pass by.. it was nice. :) most of all, the company really brightened up my week.

since i've returned to singapore i've mainly lazed around alot. i met up with ray and took him on the standard singapore shopping trip down orchard road; watched bride wars with giulia (good movie! i like! i aspire to have kate hudson's hair but i realised that it's useless, even if i have kate hudson's hair i don't have her face. fail!)

oh and today i went to a fish spa. basically you stick your feet into a pond and hundreds of wriggling fish swarm onto your feet and eat the dead skin off. omg, it's so ticklish and alot scarier than it looks. there's a pond for little fish, and another one with BIG fish like fkin.. 12cm long fish LOL i am not joking, they are big enough to swallow your toes if you let them. its a very weird sensation.. but a good experience. janean and i ran around catching guppies from an open drain.. (i suck at this activity i realized. janean is a woman of stealth and came out with like multiple guppies in her net; i only caught a sad 2 and one was a baby so it was quite a cheap catch.) and fed turtles.. big giant lazy ones.

all in all a good day! i'm off now. happy bday van!