wouter hamel

discovered a brilliant artist while checking out monocle live: volume 3. beautiful voice, great lyrics, plus points for looking so cute and a dutch to top it all off. what's there not to like?

i think wouter hamel's going to be a big name soon. gotta get him to singapore somehow!

what to do with your ex's shirt...

this video's brilliant, and the designs actually look really good!

incredible india.

sugar cane stall indian style

it sucks you in, churns you around and turns you upside down before spitting you out. that's how i felt about my first trip to india. it was a short solo work trip of 3 days, and every single second was an adventure in itself. 

slums and poverty intermingling with luxury and wealth. waves upon waves of funky smells. beautiful yet derelict looking colonial buildings as a reminder of the british rule. being stared at by every single person who walks past. swarmed by a never ending sea of people. tuning out to the cacophony of car horns. 

the excitement and yet at the same time, fear of walking around alone - i never stopped walking and only paused for the slightest click of my camera.

i feel as if the country has won this time, leaving me a battered little soldier girl. which makes me even more determined to go back again to conquer the rest of the country.


this set of photos come unedited, as raw as the city is. enjoy!

home.

back from a whirlwind work trip to tokyo, hong kong and mumbai. was great to be back in tokyo and hong kong, but mumbai really overwhelmed me on all accounts. absolute definition of culture shock. that's another story for another day.

it's been some time since i've seen such refreshing shots of singapore, really impressed by singaporean photographer nguan! 

find out more about nguan here and here.

a piece of real history.

relatives found a really old family photo of my very young grandmother and her foster parents! gosh that must have been taken way back in the 1920s. 

how cool is that?

my grandma's on the extreme right!

i still miss my grandmother quite a fair bit, but it helps that my mum and i share openly about it. we're always joking that she's probably happily chillin' with my grandfather, so that's good. =)

10,422.72 kilometres away.

my prized find from portobello market in london - 

a 1903 map of the netherlands, taken from the encyclopedia britannica.
(large photos to showcase the font details)

it's a beauty, i'm in love with it.

when the week ends, the real weekend begins.

i've always dreamt about having a picnic at the botanic gardens with the full works sunday brunch style. finally managed to convince my canoeing mates that something like this was worth waking up at 7.30am on a sunday for. i offered to bring all the food just to persuade them that it wasn't such a bad idea after all and so the past two days were spent planning, grocery shopping, prepping and finally cooking! 

el menú

i might have been over ambitious to think that i could pull all of that off on my own, so thank god my elf chef (aka sister's bf) and loving mother offered to help cook and clean respectively. 

note to self: grocery shopping needs serious muscle strength. transporting everything from home to botanics also needs serious muscle strength. 

it was great fun nonetheless and save for the very small picnic mat situation, everything fell into place perfectly. good weather, great food (i would like to believe!) & fantastic company! =)

from left to right:
pancakes with vanilla poached peaches and caramelized bananas,
baked eggs with mushroom, bacon & cucumbers
elf chef's balsamic cream mushrooms and home-made salsa
smoked salmon and cream cheese with crackers
roasted pumpkin and spinach salad 

the grand finale - bread & butter-less pudding
(lovingly assembled by elf chef!)

missing in the pictures was the ultimate sunday brunch tipple - mimosa! the champagne and orange juice combination completed the picture. 

if you're interested, here are some of the recipes i used as reference:

Pumpkin and Spinach Salad 

(Fantastic salad combination, I also added feta cheese)

Vanilla Poached Peaches 

(Unbelievably easy yet delicious)

Jamie Oliver's Bun & Butter Pudding 

(Made a few adaptations by soaking the raisins in Cointreau, using French baguette, omitting the butter, cognac and zest. It was so yummy I'm still thinking about it now)

I hope you had a great weekend too, have a blessed week ahead! =)