kawaii neh!!

don't you just wish that you could escape reality for a while sometimes. away from all the troubles in your life. probably just lying down at a beautiful remote beach where the sand is fine and white and the water so clear and blue with gentle winds blowing. a beach far away where chances of you bumping into somebody you know is highly unlikely and you don't have to fear photos of you in your swimwear appearing on facebook with 25 comments from your friends asking 'what happened to you?' or 'can i pass your photo to my bulimic friend? she needs a motivation'.

that short while of pure escapism is such a nice state where you can leave all your worries behind in your 4room hdb flat back in singapore. and when you return refreshed from your escape, at least you know that reality isnt that bad and that you can always look forward to your next escape.


it's been quite a while since i had a nice long vacation and when most of my friends come back from their trips and show me wonderful photos of their holiday, it only generates envy.


smarties and skittles.


but luckily for Sheryl, who just came back from a really long holiday in japan, she brought us some lovely gifts from japan as a peace treaty

we met up with her over fries and sundaes where she relayed to us in detail about her fantastic winter trip to Japan.



jiafang, me & cecilia

look at all the stuff she got us. those rectangle things that looks like hell notes are actually a piece of chewing gum made to look like a ¥100 million yen note. yes you heard me right, that big rectangle thing is just ONE huge piece of chewing gum. there were other stuff too like japanese crackers, mochi, japanese sweets that were made to look like sushi and other stuff.




the girls then decided to head over to the esplanade to enjoy the lovely sea breeze and chat the night away.




it was such a lovely weather that we couldnt resist camwhoring. haha!


sheryl told me that in japan, a lot of people like to do the peace sign or the 'V' sign with their fingers when they pose for a photo. and instead of saying 'cheeese!', they will say 'kawaii neh!!'

i've always thought that it was such a blatant stereotype of the japanese that we usually see potrayed in the media, but alas, it's true.

so we decided to do it like the japanese.



also it was just a good excuse for all of us to act cute.



maybe i shall start doing that in all my camwhoring photos. shout 'kawaii neh!!' and do peace sign pose. (^.^)V

well, now excuse me while i go puke.


ciao bella!

this is a stick up.

my mp3 player looks damn ugly now can?! all the studs (diamentes) are like slowly dropping off one by one every single day. i think the problem lies in the glue i've been using to stick the studs to my mp3 player. but that shouldnt be the case what. the guy at the shop reccomended me this glue which he said was meant to stick studs onto stuff.

evil liar.


but not to worry my fellow readers, i have finally found the epoxy glue that xiaxue uses to zhng her stuff. and therefore, i foresee myself to be extremely busy in the next couple of days.



i shall start with that ugly white plastic light switch i have on my wall.





ciao

The Extremely Wordy Entry

it's really weird.

i found out that everybody in SIM is having a one week break right now. its weird because school has just started and you dont really expect a one week break anytime soon. also, SIM is made up of foreign universities from London, New York, Australia and so on. so you dont really expect them to plan a syllabus and include a break during the Chinese New Year period.

right now, you're probably wondering what this guy is complaining about having a holiday. you're probably either stuck in school or at work wishing that you could have a 1 week holiday too right. well, here's the thing. i don't quite like holidays.

now, since we've established the fact that i'm weird, you can stop rolling you eyes and giving me that 'what the fuck' look.

i just hate the idea of having a long period of time with nothing to do. you see, i've got an extremely short attention span. so i'll technically get bored by the 3rd day of the holiday. its not like i have nothing to do also. i do go out and i do do constructive stuff at home. in fact, in the past few days of this long weekend, i painted my room turqoise, did a major spring cleaning in my room, cleaned everything with dettol, i made lasagne, i went to Marina Barrage which was only fun for like 10minutes, went to Mustafa which was INFESTED with banglas, went to arab street for Zam Zam's murtabak which is not as nice as before and other random stuff.

and now, i'm bored.

so you see, i'm not complaining because i got nothing to do. i'm complaining because i'm running out of things to do. the thought of having nothing to do and just nua-ing at home totally goes against my principles of having to plan everything. how exactly do you plan to not to do anything.

thankfully, i was random blog surfing and when i was reading Ca's blog i came across this '5 Things' entry which i shall attempt to do.


Five Things I Love
.
1) Sweet stuff. my addiction to sugar is like so MAJOR. i need to go to some sugar rehab or something where they'll probably put me in isolation and away from all kinds of sugar. and they'll whip me everytime i think of eating sweet stuff. then again, i might actually enjoy the whipping =x.

2) Being in the kitchen. i LOVE to cook and bake. i thoroughly enjoy the whole process of making something from scratch in the kitchen. and that satisfaction i get from seeing whatever i cooked or baked turn out to be really yummy and very pretty is such a morale booster. just the smell of freshly baked pastry turns me on.

3) Spending hours at the supermarket. My record time is spending slightly more than 2 hours in NTUC. i get mesmerized by every little thing i see. i like to take items up and look at the packaging and read the labels, compare all the different brands (very auntie, i know. so shut up), every food item that i pick up will be like processed thru my mind on all the different ways i can cook it. i know where everything is at AMK Hub's NTUC by heart okay. and thats like the largest NTUC in singapore mind you.

4) Shopping. this is like a no suprise coming from me. i can spend the whole afternoon and night just shopping until the shops close at orchard road. and i can don't buy anything but then after that i'll keep whining non stop that i didnt buy anything. to me shopping is like a leisure activity. of course i enjoy the feeling of buying something. but i also enjoy the walking around looking at things to buy while talking to my friends. to me shopping isnt about the purchase, its about the process.

5) Camwhoring. enough said. please refer to every other post for proof.

.

Five Things I Loathe

.

1) Numbers. anything to do with maths, accounts or just purely number related i hate. just the sight of numbers makes me queezy.

2) People who dont dress up who pass judgement about others who do. i believe style is an individual expression no matter how weird it looks. so i find it extremely displeasing that these people who do not put in effort to dress up will mock those who do. its like if you dont grow orange trees, what right have you to say that my oranges are sour when you know nothing about planting oranges.

3) Waiting. i HATE to wait. i hate to wait for busses, wait in queues, wait for friends who are more than 10 minutes late, wait for people who take forever in the toilet. in short, i just hate to wait. i feel like part of my life has been wasted if i wait for something. also i got a short attention span so 5 minutes late to you feels like 15 minutes to me. to help me ease this problem, thank god i have my nintendo ds.

4) Having things not going to plan. now, you see i'm a perfectionist. i like to plan every detail in life. and i like to plan them waaay in advance. somewhat if gives me this feeling that i have my life in control or something. i donno. but i HATE it when i've planned something and either it has been called off or it just doesnt go according to plan, especially if it is last minute. when things dont go according to plan, that little void in my planner simply annoys me to the core. cause then i will have to plan last minute what to do during the void. and like i said earlier, i like to plan waaaaay in advance.

5) bus rides. i've got a really bad case of motion sickness. i cant read on busses and i cant exactly watch that tv mobile when i'm on the bus. that will aggravate it even more. and i hate it especially when the busses move and jerk. makes me damn dizzy. also, when i take an aircon bus and its crowded and i can't exactly feel the aircon. that stuffiness makes me feel like puking. so if i take a bus with you and i suddenly go quiet, you better shut up, or else i'll puke on you.

.

Five Fun Facts

.

1) i dont dress up when i'm going to shop hardcore. the difference between shopping and harcore shopping is that during shopping, i'm just there to walk around. during hardcore shopping, it means that i actually have things to buy and i'm all out to spend money that day. so when i want to shop hardcore, i'm usually dressed in tshirt, shorts and sandals so that i can try everything easily.

2) if you dont know by now, i'm the only child. being the only child has its advantages and disadvantages. i have never shared anything in my entire life. not my room, not my toilet, not my toys, nothing. but the downside is that sometimes when both my parents go to work, i dont really have anybody to talk to at home. sad right? but being an only child doesnt mean i get everything i want okay. my parents have always believed in not giving me money so easily. they want me to learn to value money more. which somehow has taught me that i dont have to have everything i want. life isnt all about materialistic goods.

3) it might not seem like it but i actually like sports. i like to cycle, badminton, basketball, table tennis and hike. in fact i've always wanted to pick up tennis. when i was young, i was quite active and i even played soccer but as i grew older, most of my friends now dont do any sports. so technically i dont have anyone who i can do such activities with. and thats why the only sport i do is virtual tennis.

4) i have a little habit of cleaning my whole room every other week. i wipe everything in my room with dettol, even the floors. i love that clean sterile smell. its like that smell u get when you go to a hospital. also, every other week i rearrange all my clothes in my closets according to the colors of the rainbow. so everything red is on the left and everything violet is on the right. since white and black are not colors but shades, i put them on the right side, at the end of the rainbow.

5) i love to read self help books. you know books like, 'The 10 Steps to Happiness' or like 'How to Talk to Anyone'. i love this kind of books because i can always learn something from them. i find all those fiction books like a waste of my life. its like i dont get anything from reading a book about science fiction or fantasy novels. so after reading it, then what?






well that somewhat completes my ULTRA lengthy post of the day. i know many of you are like, ''what the fuck, why so many words, where's all the pictures?!''

so to please everyone, i shall include one picture.




i shall call it 'Anticipation'.










ciao

Dong Dong Dong Qiang!

i HATE chinese new year!!


its like the most biased holiday we have okay.

firstly, Chinese New Year(CNY) gets 2 days public holiday. not even christmas gets such a privilege lor.

secondly, they ALWAYS have a CNY sale at all the malls. true, christmas has an even bigger and huge ass sale but then how about other holidays. have you heard of a deepavali sale? a hari raya sale? or even a vesak day sale? no.

thirdly, i have to bear with the incessant CNY songs being played in the malls for like 1 month. its not even a conducive shopping music to begin with. i get so annoyed with it, i avoid all stores that play CNY songs.

fourthly, they got 2 public hoildays for wad? especially when all the shops in singapore are closed on this 2 public holidays. i got totally nothing do during CNY can! i feel soooo bored to death.

i fucking played The Sims on my computer for 5 hours can?! for kicks, i make the sims swim in the pool, then i remove the staircase to come out and watch them swim till they die.

that was how bored i was la!



but since i got so much free time, i've decided to blog something!

Melvin's Birthday!!


dont ask me how delayed this entry is okay. actually the first picture can give u a clue already.




it was Melvin's birthay party later that evening and i met up with Barney to go shop for his present in the late afternoon. melvin's my secondary school friend from montfort and me, barney, him and a few other guys are from this little group call JMD. we kinda like hangout together every recess time.

after scouring the whole orchard road, we finally settled on this quaint little store in Far East Plaza that sells quirky stuff. i like to buy gifts that are both fun yet has a certain purpose to it. so since melvin, like me, loves to camwhore, i got him a 4 lens Motion Sampler Camera.





this one! it takes 4 consequtive shots in one frame okay. cool shit or what!!

it even came in a nice bag.




looks like somebody's lunch ar. hahha!


made our way to sengkang later on for his house party and was just in time before he was about to cut the cake. saw some familiar faces over at his place and it was nice catching up with old friends.




took a group foto with the guys.


hanged around for a while more until Barney had to go home for some reason. one last picture with the birthday boy.




Happy Birthday Melvin!!

loves you bitch!





ciao bella!

Of Peonies and Pussywillows

To all readers of www.ALI-JOE.blogspot.com,





xoxo,
ALI JOE

Neighbours' Night Out

i know i said i was going to update regularly but this whole week i've been really busy with school and going out after school. and on days when i'm not schooling, i making full use of the chinese new year sale to shop.

anyways, i hope you had a great week too yeah!

***

although i stay really close to my neighbour, Fara, we dont really get to see each other often due to her extremely busy schedule. busier than mine okay! haha! so we decided to meet up in town for dinner.

we decided to have dinner at Breekz, Ngee Ann City.




and then she decided to suprise me with my MAJOR ULTRA belated birthday present.





no, its not a little yellow handbag. thats like the box it came in with. and mind you, she made me carry that thing around town!!! anyway, she got me a watch but i somewhat forgot to take a picture of it. dang!




took a walk around town later where we spotted this bunch of buskers who looks damn cool can! very rasta! they were singing some reggae songs in korean i think. erm, imagine Bob Marley with slit eyes and singing korean, probably smthing like No Kimchi No Cry.


decided to call it a night since it was getting a little late.



we asked this couple of tourist from China to help up take a photo together and its seems that they found the ceiling to be more interesting than we were.

***

so i've decided to include the style segment of my blog together with this entry since the outfit is what i was wearing that day.

i decided to keep the look casual chic on that day. and since the weather was a little warm, i paired a short sleeve shirt with berms. but knowing me, i need to have a little 'quirk' in my whol ensemble. so there comes in the grey metallic shoes. and i know my shoes looks like canoes. i have big feet, live with it. but on the hindsight, you know what they say about guys with big feet right?




(from top to bottom)
Glasses : tortoishell frames from Levis
Top : multicolored checkered short sleeve shirt from some random shop in City Square in Johor, Malaysia.
Belt : Navy blue leather belt from Club Marc.
Bottom : light grey bermudas from Giordano Concepts.
Shoes : grey metallic shoes from Far East.

***

that's all kids!


ciao bella!

the wind blows from the east

i think being that himbotic blonde many perceive me to be is just an escape for me. i play along with that role because the truth is, the real me is too complicated to comprehend. heck, i dont even understand myself sometimes. i really wished there was this book that i can buy from Borders that will explain to me about myself.

Peranakan Flavour

singapore lacks a common culture. yes, so our national costume is the 't-shirt,shorts, havainas/crocs' combo, and our national pastime is shopping. but compared to countries like japan or india who have a strong traditional culture, ours is like a very confused teenage boy. the reason for i this i deduce is the fact being singapore is a multi-racial country.

i asscociate our country to a can of mix nuts. many different nuts living together in the same can.

the fact that many different races live together means that we have a myriad of cultures existing on this little ever-reclaiming red dot. i personally find this is the reason that makes singapore special. instead of having one common culture, why not 4?

and when 2 of this cultures collide, namely, the chinese culture and malay culture, it forms a recently overhyped, extremely colorful peranakan culture.

which of course was recently featured on television as an epic drama of the year, The Little Nonya. now, i have to admit that i'm a HUGE fan of The Little Nonya, missing at most 3 episodes in the entire season. personally, i HATE the ending but nevertheless, the whole show was extremely addcitive.

it got my entire family glued to the television every night. with my dad predicting what's gonna happen next every 5 seconds and my mum questioning every single scene in the drama, i simply sit there on my sofa every night enjoying the drama on tv and in my living room.


and with the show coming to an end recently, i decided to satiate my peranakan withdrawal syndromes with a peranakan inspired dessert.

so lets take a look into my cookbook and see what i made this round.






introducing...




putting a little twist to the much-loved Chendol dessert.

for those of my readers who aren't familiar with Chendol, especially readers fom australia, america and the likes, Chendol is a dessert made of beans, brown sugar syrup, coconut milk and this green jelly bits made of flour. it is served cold and is an extremely savoury dessert to slurp down on hot sunny days.


now, the dessert i'm making todayhas a little twist from the regular chendol. i'm making the whole thing as a jelly that u can keep in your fridge and enjoy it whenever you want.


Agar-Agar(Jelly) Chendol


Ingredients

Part A
1 packet/12g of non-colored agar-agar(jelly) powder
850ml water
200g caster sugar
200ml/1 small box of coconut cream
1/3 tsp of salt
5 pandan leaves tied into a knot

Part B
200g chopped gula melaka
100ml water

Others
200g of green chendol strips
20 small containers to set your jelly in (molds)


Directions

Mix all the items in Part A together in a pot and set to boil over low heat. While waiting for Part A to boil, mix the items in Part B together in a pot and cook over low heat until the gula melaka melts and forms a syrup. remove from heat and leave aside when gula melaka syrup is ready.

Now, when Part A is has been boiling for a few minutes, take out one cup worth of the mixture and add into the pot containing the gula melaka syrup. mix well. leave the Part A mixture to slowly simmer. right now, you should have 1 big pot of white liquid jelly and a small pot of brown gula melaka liquid jelly.

put in 1 tablespoon of the gula melaka liquid jelly into each molds. leave for approximately 15 minutes or until it has slightly harden. this will then form a gula melaka jelly top. once it has slightly solidify, put in one teasespoon of green chendol strips and and pour the white liquid jelly mixture until it covers the mold.

leave aside to cool for like 30minutes before shifting it into the fridge.

serves 20.


it will look something like this...





Tadah!


ps: for a healthier version of this dessert, you can substitute half of the coconut cream with low fat milk and reduce the sugar content.



wasn't that difficult right? now, do give it a try and tell me how it goes yeah!



ciao!

Experimental Eclecticism

maybe its true what my marketing communications lecturer said. a person who dresses differently everyday is a person who is unsure of himself.

i bet my whole lecture hall can attest to the fact that i tend to have an acquired sense of style. as much as most people assume that i dress up purely for attention sake, inviting stares is not exactly my favourite pastime. the fact that i dont adhere to the uni's conventional dress code of t-shirt, shorts and sandals, doesn't mean you can stare at me.

but like my friend said, ''if you dont like the stares then dont dress so differently''

doesnt that then makes me common? a bourgeois. i believe that the biggest fashion crime is not mismatching tartans and plaids, but instead, dressing with no individualism. which in another word translates to being common. and for me, common is a bad word.


i have always seen my style as 'experimental eclecticism'. i dont stick to one style nor do i religiously replicate what i see on the runway. i do however dress according to the weather and my mood. so that means even if it's sweltering hot, i wont wear a jacket just for the sake of fashion. i would however substitute it with a vest instead as i am deeply in love with creating layers.

experimental eclecticism. experimental because i like to mix trends with my own personal touches. and eclecticism because i dont stick to one look (i.e. vintage). i find variety to be more fun.

so back to my first statement. is it true what my marketing communications lecturer said, that people who dress differently everyday means that the person is unsure of himself?


well, if being unsure means that i dont take fashion too seriously and that i like to have fun with how i dress, then i guess i'm probably unsure.

probably?
because i'm unsure, thats why it's probably. isnt definitely unsure an oxymoron? how can u be definite yet unsure at the same time.


nevertheless,

this entry begets the beginning of a new phase for www.ali-joe.blogspot.com. an endeavour where i blog about fashion, trends and also where i focus on my outfit photos. so let's pop the bubbly and i hope this new column excites you.





top : shirt bought from Philippines.
bottom : pleated pants from Marks & Spencers
shoes: loafers from Pedro
bag : Revoltage, cineleisure
glasses : tortoiseshell frames from Levi's




ciao!

christmas part 2

day 2 of christmas, i met up with my BMT mates.







just a simple dinner at waraku.





had a gift exchange after dinner where we picked names out of a hat and we get the present from whoever's name we pick.





headed over to esplanade where we just chill the night away.




loves!

christmas part 1

you know my entries are beyond backdated when i'm only starting to blog about christmas now. but i'm already trying my best to push out a lot of entries okay. i'm even blogging this over lunch at school. see! i'm such a dedicated blogger. HAHA!!

christmas this year was more like a boys night out.

on christmas eve i met up with my friends from Bedok Camp. since we didnt wanna stick to a stereotypical christmas dinner of turkey and the likes, we headed to sakae sushi for a japanese christmas instead. and we did a last minute impromtu exchange of presents.

unfortunately, not many could make it that night since the decision to meet up was so last minute. nevertheless, it was still fun!




i made gingerbreadman cookies for everyone that night!



quee, leon and me

i got the present that quee brought which was a turn lock. you know, those type of locks that you have to turn to the specific numbers to open it.

THANKS QUEE. -___________-'''

quee got a condom from leon and leon got my gift which consisted of toys that we used to play during our childhood.



me, shaiful, shahul, leon, quee.


afterwards we headed over to town and it was like MAJOR croswded that we didnt hang around for long.

christmas entry part 2 another time yeah. gotta go back to class now!

ciao

rant

as much as i am a perfectionist who loves to plan every aspect of my life. i have to admit, i HATE to plan gatherings. especially when everyone cannot give me a clear answer.

"thursday? i donno whether i can make it on thursday lei? i cant tell you now. maybe i tell you on wednesday or thursday morning?"

i seriously dont get it why people cannot confirm whether they can make it or not. its like they're probably waiting for something more fun to come up, and if none, then they will join us.

and for goodness sake, please stop using the excuse that you're too busy. its not like i spend my days sticking diamentes on my nintendo ds. i do have school. and if i can make time to slot in a gathering and plan it at the same time, i dont see why you cant take 3hrs off from your 'busy' schedule to have dinner with everyone.


one word to sum it all : EFFORT

it just shows how much effort you put into this friendship. friendship isnt just being able to click you know.


and to the bff, i got this song that is so apt for you right now.






maybe the term bff means just another word to you.



ps: i'm not angry. i'm just annoyed.

hopeless

so yesterday i planned to wake up at 10am today so i could go for a run at the park near my place.

i woke up at 9am today.


and its now 10.40am.

i've had 2 toast with strawberry jam.
1 scrabbled egg.
2 hot dogs.
1 cup of milo.
1 glass of ribena.
half a box of raisins.




run? what run?

SIM suck less because of them.

you know the reason why my entries are so god-damn overdued is because i tend to spend a lot of my time editing the photos. and when i do this i get damn tired to actually blog about it. to solve this problem, i'm gonna edit my photos lesser and try my best to update my blog regularly.

that shall be included into one of my new year resolutions. haha! not bad right? not as far fetch as having 'to lose weight' or 'exercise more' 'start exercising' as a new year resolution.

right now, i have a gazilion photos in my 'To Blog' folder, so these few weeks, expect a vomit of camwhoring endeavours. wahahaha!


before the end of exams, my uni friends and i decided that we should head to town after the last paper and have dinner or something.

after much contemplation about where to eat, all the way from SIM and throughout the cab journey we finally agreed on fish and co!






another thing that we also planned to do after exams was to head the clubs!

made our way to Butter Factory until we found out that everyone of us was underage. ho ho ho! i never expected to be underaged for anything especially at my age right now, which is 18, in case you were wondering. ahem.

in the end we decided to go to St James -Powerhouse. never been there before so i kinda expected the crowd to be infants as the age limit is rather low. but most of the people there were around mid 20's. and the music was really good too!!






my uni mates sans weiliang who couldnt make it that night.




some other new people i just met that night.




yee ling! my favourite person to disturb in school! hahaha! whoopah!! (inside joke)




relax one corner.




dancing the night away!



xoxo

The Tea Party

i'm not dead. i've just been preoccupied with school and other stuff. yes, i know my entries are like more backdated than the VCR but you just have to bear with it yeah. once i get into the swing of things with school and all, i'll make sure i blog regularly okay.

anyways, here is the much delayed The Tea Party.




invites were sent out weeks in advance so that people had enough time to rsvp. i do apologise for the number of people who were not invited to this party. i wanted to make it as small as possible so that it felt like more fun than work for me. quality over quantity they say.

and so The Tea Party was held at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.







for the past few days it has been raining heavily somewhere around the afternoon so i kept having this constant fear of it being a drenched picnic. however, i thank my lucky stars that there was not one drop of rain the whole day and night!


i decided to make the picnic potluck so that everybody felt involved in the picnic.which is also a good excuse because i was broke. wahaha!!






and the food turnout was fantastic! we had more than we could actually eat. when i walked around, i noticed other picnickers had sandwhiches, fruits and simple packet drinks. well, compared to theirs, we could actually feed a village in africa. we had a few subway sandwhiches, kfc, pizza hut, 3 huge bags of Lays potato chips, 4 tupperware of fruits, god knows how many canned drinks, 2 huge containers of campbell's mushroom soup, curry puffs, french loaf slices, homemade cupcakes and probably some other stuff that i forgot.

well you can't exactly call it a picnic when you have a feast.






there was a performance by some kids later in the evening and the placed started to fill up with all of their families. and coincidentally, joy's younger sister was performing later on.




there were quite a few kids around the area that was just running around and playing with bubbles and thankfully, we got these 3 to scare them away from coming near us. HAHAHA!




some photos of maddie's holga before it turned dark.






nice right? makes me feel like getting a holga too!!


and then it got dark, and more and more picnickers started to leave. but i somewhat find it kinda cool to have a picnic at night. so rebellious.

LOL







and then it was time for the birthday cake segment. but this time around instead of getting a birthday cake i decided to bake vanilla cupcakes with lemon butter icing.




totally forgot to take a close up picture of it but there were damn pretty can? i slogged my entire morning just to bake and decorate these cupcakes before the picnic. hahaha!








packed up and headed to dempsey to chill the night away.





it was a really fun and fantastic afternoon and evening. i really enjoyed everybody's company!



love ya guys! lets do this again!