New York (Mis)Adventure

Finally, getting down to the bitching about my supposed SHOPPING trip to New York that didn't take place in the end.

Booked the tickets with some small time Lucky Plaza travel agent (TA) slightly over a month back. When Thai Airways decided to stop flying to New York from 1 July, it took me a while to put two and two together, to realise that I WOULD NOT HAVE A FLIGHT BACK based on my intended dates of travel.

Realisation hit one week before I was due to fly actually.

At first anxious, I called the TA to find out what was happening. The anxiety turned into furor when I realised that all these while, the TA never took the initiative to contact me regarding alternative flight arrangements. I had to personally call them. What if I didn't call, and I stupidly fly there, without knowing that there won't be an arranged flight back??

To make matters worse, the TA started to push me towards accepting China Eastern as the alternative. No way in hell will I be taking a China Eastern plane. And she could actually lie that their tickets are more expensive than Thai Airways'. Come on lady, who are you kidding?

AND if I want to opt for other airlines, I would have to TOP UP the cost difference. If I so decide to cancel the flights, I would have to PAY for the administration/cancellation fees.

I'm not about to go into a tirade of my utmost displeasure against such TAs which provide "service" for as long as till the money is paid up. Unleashing my knowledge of profanities, in English, Chinese and Hokkien I can, but why waste too much of my youth (anger begets wrinkles) on idiots like these?

In any case, with our current work commitment, it would be better if we postpone the trip till later in the year.

In the end, with some help and advice, I'll be getting back the full refund for the cancelled tickets. Never again will I go to small time TAs, never again Thai Airways.

"Thai Airways, smooth as silk" - in the words of one of my friends who's also a victim, "My arse is smoother than your silk!!!!"

So there, I'm still here in Singapore, not 5th Avenue, not Central Park.

On a positive note, I'm really glad that I will be there, for a couple of friends:

Olimomok, I'll make it for your wedding afterall! :)

PF, I'll be receiving your SMS from the maternity ward! :)

For my friends Coach, Kate Spade, Abercrombie, Victoria Secrets, and giant Macy's, see you in October (hopefully)!

Jemej Journeys to Italy

It was a very memorable trip, Italy is certainly beautiful.

The Boy likes to say that, given the amount of Gucci Prada shopping, this should have been the REAL honeymoon instead of meh-meh sheep New Zealand.

But I beg to differ. New Zealand offered the best of nature. Italy offered the best of Prada.


Finally, it took me eons to select from a thousand pictures, and even longer to upload and name them....

The Jemej Journeys to Italy...

Enjoy the album!

PS: Dreaming of the next trip already.....

A Day Trip Out of the Movie Set

We enjoyed Florence the most, followed by Rome. And Beanbean was absolutely right in saying that Cinque Terre, a cluster of 5 villages along the coastline in Liguria , would have been one of the most beautiful, charming destinations in Italy. It was in fact our top favourite!

It was like out of the movie set, so quaint, away from the "real city" life. Travelling 2 hours from Florence to get there, we walked an entire day from 1 village to another - which took about 1-2hours in between each village. And we only managed to walk till the 3rd one, Corniglia, before we were tired out and took the train the rest of the way.








One question that had me wondering for the rest of the trip - why do Italians like their window panes green? The houses tend to be pink with green window panes, so typically Italian! In fact, most of their window panes are green! So with all these little houses perched on the cliffs of the villages, the experience of being there was simply unforgettable. If we were ever to go back to Italy again, Cinque Terre would have to be the one place we must revisit.

Home Sweet Home

Feels good to be back home - the familiar smell we so love. Although the floor is a bit too dusty, and I had a case of a badly rotten onion in the cupboard, ewww.

Just cleared some of the emails (which has grossly grown into quite an enormous lot), feeling all jittery and nervous about going back to the mayhem at work tomorrow. I wonder what lies ahead, following the bad news I received on our last day in Rome.

Whatever it is, Lord, please let me be guided by your faith, your wisdom and your courage. No trials and tribulations that we suffer as mankind will come close to what Jesus suffered on the cross...

Meanwhile, on a lighter note, here's one of our "adventures" in Italy - The Boy conjuring up different words from the word "Bruno" outside the Bruno Magli boutique in Venice. His cheekiness and creativity really melts my heart, makes me laugh all the time - and he's really good at doing that to get out of "trouble".... ;)

From Rome: FREE Internet!!

We're here, our last night back in Rome. While there is a tingling bit of sadness that our vacation has come to an end, coupled with hearing some bad news back at work this morning, I'm looking forward to going home.

We miss our own home, we miss our families, we miss our friends, I miss catching up with bloggers, he misses his TV programmes back in Singapore (there is only 1 English channel here - BBC), I miss curry pok, he misses chilli crab, we miss our very Singaporean lives.

As we reflected on our 2-week adventure over a very nice dinner of more pasta and tiramisu earlier, some of the things we will definitely miss about Italy are:

• The beautiful, awe-inspiring churches, especially the Vatican and St Peter's Basilica; the beautiful paintings, sculptures by Donatello, Michaelangelo, Bottocelli, Leonardo Da Vinci etc - they are seriously true geniuses of their time....











• The leisurely morning breakfasts...







• The kickass Italian espresso - I proclaim Italian coffee as being the best in the world....




• The gelato we have been having every other day - we conclude that Giolitti in Rome is indeed THE BEST.....




• The carrying of our ever-growing heavy luggage - lugging them through train stations and through the streets in search of our hotels; the navigating - if there is a city that has more confusing street names, Venice will win hands down....

The Boy always has a nice way to end holidays - he will assure me that the end of one trip brings us closer to the next. :)

From Venice: 60 Minutes of Internet for 10 Euros

Day 11 in Italy, land where creativity with variations of pasta and pizza don’t quite hold a candle to our creativity with the flavours of pratas. Seriously.

Venice is where we are now, for the final night, before we take the train to Milan tomorrow. Most Italians hate Milan – they describe the city as a place that is just full of buildings, bad traffic and pollution. But since we are all the way here, I have to make it there, to complete my visitation to the world’s fashion capitals. Tsk tsk.

Back to Venice, Beanbean was right to say that the city is over-rated. Save for its heritage, we didn’t enjoy the place very much. I don’t recall walking alongside any Venetians. EVERYONE here is a tourist around us. One Venetian shop owner complained to us that Venice is becoming a floating museum. The shops that Venetians used to have are slowly turning to selling souvenirs, which is quite sad.

We very much prefer Florence. Florence was really beautiful, with the great food, culture, arts, sights… and outlet shopping. Also, paid homage to the SHRINE of Ferragamo, a grand Florentine name. Paid my dues there. Afterall, my feet deserve a good reward after all that walking!! And The Boy observed that I was a really happy girl here in Florence...


Florence aside, there are still so many other places of Tuscany that we would have loved to explore, but guess we’ll have to leave them for next time. No more time, no more euros to travel more days. =p

Meanwhile, news update from The Boy – the boss of Tip Top curry puff has been jailed for tax evasion. Thanks lor, that created my sudden craving for curry puffs. The calzones here are NOT THE SAME. Can someone please DHL one curry puff over???? And I think I was suffering from hallucination when he pointed out a funny name of a bar called “Bar Small” and I misheard it as “bak chor mee".

Then again, we've been having gelatos EVERYDAY. Yes, (to Karen, hi!), Giolitti in Rome, somewhere near the Trevi Fountain/Pantheon, was really good. Apparently, the Pope orders his gelato fix from here. Gee, I shudder, thinking about the number of kilos I have put on, since day 1 of this trip. =p

Meanwhile, here's an "e-postcard" with love from the Jemej to you guys! Catch up with you all soon....

Day 4

Day 4 in Italy.

I'm SICK of the pasta and pizza. Seriously. I crave for chinese food. So lunch today was at a little chinese restaurant nearby the Trevi Fountain. Texture was like rubber band. BUT I LOVED EVERY BITE OF IT. And the Chinese tea.... ah....tasted like heaven.

Much as I'm into western cuisine and all, chinese food reign, deep down inside.

Oh man, give me fried carrot cake for breakfast tomorrow please, somebody!!!!

The First Day in Rome

Bonjourno from Roma!!

Jemej here blogging from an alien looking keyboard that has other additional keys not found on ours back home. Check out these "new letters": ò ç é è à °. Cool!!

Even the instructions on this blog site itself are in Italian. So it's a good thing that I'm already familiar with finding my way around the blog, so here I am, putting in the first entry.

Just checked into Mr Frills, a B&B just a few minutes walk from the Roma Termini station. Host is a nice, friendly Italiano chap. Traffic here in Rome is quite crazy. Weather's really nice though. We're gonna get our shower and check out the Colosseum, Capitoline Hill etc next. Can't wait to have my first gelato!

And the shopping, yes. When the plane first landed, The Boy turned to me and said, "I love you." To which I replied, "I love Prada!", without thinking. Haha.

Ok, waste time no more. Ciao!

Ciao Italia!

I've been super off from the blogging and facebook world - there is simply too much to do, to clear before I start my 2-week vacation from TONIGHT.

It's always a very strange phenomenon that just while I'm getting ready to take a break from work, work just piles up all of a sudden. This week alone, it has been a flurry of events back-to-back and late nights. Alas for my team, just when I thought this could be a good time to get away before the year-end craziness begins, they have to brace themselves for an avalanche of "happenings" in the next 2 weeks. They call it "suay", that is, unfortunate. I hope they would be comforted by the fact that I'll be thinking of them while having gelato in Italy.

Packing for the trip - I've been terrible at it. It has been bits done here and there, because by the time I get back, I'm too tired to do anything else. Even at this moment now, there's still quite a fair bit to go. Ok, flight's at midnight - there's still a few more hours.

I was packing The Boy's clothes the day before. Decided to pack in one of his favourite t-shirts - a nice bright yellow Brazilian soccer tee he got from his recent trip to Sau Paulo. He looked at the clothes, he looked at me, and said, "Beh, you want me to get killed in Italy issit? Do you know that Italy lost to Brazil in the World Cup? Italians are very passionate about their soccer you know?"

Haha! How would I have known?!

By the way, he got himself ANOTHER bag. Given that we would be travelling quite a bit on trains, we decided that it would be easier to "jagar" if we carry 1 luggage bag and 1 backpack. And because we don't have a huge backpack, and my Sponge of a sista's backpack has since disintegrated, he went out to Beach Road and got himself a nice big one VERY FAST. Faster than all the times I ask him to run other errands. He hasn't shown more enthusiasm before. And he very proudly told me, "The uncle also gave me a money pouch free!" -_-

Tioman Getaway

In a few hours' time, Mudgod & Ms P will be officially married!! Thanks to them, we'll be continuing the celebrations in Tioman, in a boutique resort called Japamala Resorts.

Can't wait! Can't wait to see two of our dear friends finally getting married. Can't wait to catch up with our other friends, including Shutterbug, aka the official "Man with the Gifted Eye". Can't wait for the much awaited break we've been meaning to get.

The sun, the sand and the sea.... here we come! :D