Rallen fashion sia...

Rallen's picture was featured in City News Style Book... Ooh.. Click on this link http://www.chc.org.sg/citynews/?p=9447 to find out what they said about his style. and guess who bought that nice bag and hat for him hahah.
Admirable nonchalance sia.

Valentines Day 2009 Pt 2

Ray emailed me one day before 14 Feb 2009:




In the end, guess what, we got each other matching gifts! ha. His was the real thing of course. The one I gave him was a brown pillow which I sewed Domokun's face on, with an extra hat by the side. =)

Valentines Day 2009 Pt 1

What I did on Vday this year...

1. Wakeboarding in the morning with colleagues.....

I barely managed to hold that for a few more seconds...unlike my colleague...
HOT Mama alert!

2. ZZZZZzZZzZ in the afternoon......




3. Dinner with Ray in the evening.... Yums

It was difficult to settle on a dinner place as it was crowded with queues everywhere! We were so famished, after going rounds after rounds in Central. We walked over to Liang Court and finally ordered our meal at 9:15pm at Tampopo, a japanese restaurant at Level 1. I was craving for sashimi. The sashimi at Tampopo was GGGGGGOOOOODDD! Thick, succulent fleshy salmon at only $6.50.

After dinner we walked around the Clarke Quay area and found something interesting. This young man was busking with an electronic instrument which we couldn't figure out what was... How about electronic guzheng?


This is one of my more memorable Vdays. Ha I can't remember what I did last year. Wakeboarding was really fun, despite the extremely salty water. Hope to try it again soon!

touched by the piano

Now that school's out, I've been feeling less uptight about hanging out with friends and doing things at a more leisurely rate.
Just the other day I was hanging out with my poly schoolmates, lounging on the open-air balcony at Vivo City, listening and discussing about music. One of them, Owen, a hyper creative talented guy who drums, sings, plays a bit of guitar, beatbox a bit..(goes on la), he mentioned sometimes he would just put on soft music in his room, lay back and close his eyes and enjoy.
That night, when I went home, I thought to myself, why not just do what he did?

I put on my earphones and put on the "Diva-ish" playlist folder on my mp3 player. This folder contains the slow, mellow songs which I consider Diva-ish, since the singers have a big emotional voices.

First song on the list was The Voice Within - Christina Aguilera. I listened intently to emotions put into singing by Aguilera. It is a very encouraging song. In the middle of the song, I moved my focus to the background music, predominantly piano, violin and drums. The mix of strong vocals and musicality moved me and raised a thankful thought, "People might thank Abba for the music, but I really God for the music. It is way beautiful that such creativity is placed in people to put instruments and vocals together to tell stories in such an amazing way."

Second song was Only Hope - Mandy Moore. Yes i know, what sia Mandy Moore, like I sold out right. This song was written by either by Switchfoot, or Switchfoot's singer Jonathan Foreman. The opening of this song was piano. Pure piano. I was immediately drawn to the piano tune, how it blended together with the stages of the song. The more I listened, the more I was impressed with how the piano could capture the mood of the song. I was touched to tears by the end of the song, involuntarily. (I know so emo right)

Next song was Can't take take away - Mariah Carey. Another encouraging song with piano arrangements. I realised, all these powerful songs have very beautiful piano arrangements. The piano builds the story up and presents the message of the songs in such versatile manner, sometimes agressive, sometimes subtle.

After that experience, my breath was taken away by the piano. I've always loved the drums and I never knew I could be so awed by any other instrument. The amazing part about piano, is that like drums, it is also considered a percussion instrument since the keys have to be hit to produce a sound. Yet at the same time, it has the anatomy of a stringed instrument, allowing it to produce such melodious tunes.

I guess this is what loving music all about, dismantling the elements behind music pieces and enjoy each element like a wine connoisseur, in order to appreciate the full beauty of a music piece.