Romance, murdered ♡

"The power of a hand-written letter is greater than ever. It’s personal, deliberate, and means more than an email or text ever will. It has a unique scent. It requires deciphering. But, most importantly, it’s flawed. There are errors in handwriting, punctuation, grammar, and spelling that show our vulnerability. And vulnerability is the essence of romance. It’s the art of being uncalculated, the willingness to look foolish, the courage to say, “This is me, and I’m interested in you enough to show you my flaws with the hope that you may embrace me for all that I am but, more importantly, all that I am not.” "

A quote from No Strings attached, which I found somewhat meaningful in this modern age where we clearly cast our lives to social media; which ironically casts shadows unto our true selves. Going to shower Cathy and snuggle up in bed with freshly brewed Chrysanthemum tea to nurse myself back to the pink of health, even though I'm still drunk with that laidback Aussie holiday mood.

Really thankful for the trip (except maybe for the cold drafts) with my family, to take in the sights and sounds of what Nature had to offer like a sunburn on the way to Queen Victoria market and a cold during lunch. Winter makes my hair and nails go awry, but winter never did sap the warmth that lied within the city - passion burning in an Artist, connections in an aged couple and the rays of sunshine of the afternoon Sun. Never did I had such a complex love-hate relationship with the Sun!

Preparing to develop the two rolls of film I brought along, secretly praying they weren't overexposed/affected by the X-rays through customs. The EOS650 proved to be a lovely companion this trip nonetheless! Just a glimpse of some of the picturesque landscapes peppered throughout the trip:

All in all, the outskirts were gorgeous and I was in awe in the presence of His creations ♥ So here I am thrown back into life, grappling on the pieces of reality I left behind. Missed some, didn't miss some. Barely two months of college holiday left, and so many more dreams in the baking. Home sweet home.

More than just an old stack of pictures,

It's a crisp morning perfect for snuggling under the warm embrace of my bed sheets 

but I'm sieving through old pictures - nostalgia much.

I miss how we could just spend the whole night in Hilton taking silly pictures

 and (attempting) to be demure but honestly we're really full of crap.

Contrast it against this very clumsy picture of me and my Primary 1 best friend doing the tambourine dance during Teacher's day for your viewing pleasure (I'm obviously not very skillful hahaha and that's not my hair, it's a black bandana I think)

 Looking through all of them, it dawned on me on how fast youth flies past. Soon, I'll be way past the teens and the next thing we know is that we're gonna party without teeth. (Edit: Awkward expression I know heehee)
Nonetheless, they really make me smile, time to really cherish and be thankful for these memories ♥ 

Blind as a wombat,

It's a beautiful day outside but there's not really anyone to spend the day with unfortunately - anyway I've been spending so much time out that I'm starting to miss the familiarity of home. So here I am sitting on my bed lazing around like any afternoon with a half-read book tagged with dog ears by my side, and Cathy curled up like a furball on my right. And work emails opened up in a separate window on Safari (most of which are dropping out from the food bazaar commitment, ohmygawd someone kill me now) Modernity has somewhat killed the perfect touch of human interaction but you could argue otherwise, our lives are now defined by words sprawling across the screen.

As much I love this public space, some things should always be left private ♥ 

Private post: Click to enter password

Pretty please with icing on top,

With an outburst of baking creativity, Felicia and I decided to spend an afternoon fiddling with coloured cupcake frosting (which we spent hours looking for inspiration on the net, talk about cupcake porn)

Popped by the nearby NTUC @ Dawson place to get the necessary ingredients ☺  

My favourite bit about baking is that you get to modify the recipe, like stuffing marmalade into pastries or in this case, we had strawberry jam fillings in the cupcakes which tasted really good with the vanilla. (which I just remembered that we forgot to add haha) Even the batter looked good enough to eat!

If you look really closely, we used triple cupcake holders for each because I don't like them too flimsy and they tend to get out of shape very easily. It gets a bit tricky if they come apart though.

Goodness bakin' in the oven

The frosting was the trickiest part; we slapped in tons of icing and egg white whilst beating for our lives (which was really quite fun) and seeing how the frosting took its consistency texture was really satisfying. It's also a tad scary on seeing how much sugar goes into those sweet treats from the confectionery, eek.

The piping bit was extremely entertaining because we tried beautifying the cupcakes with the various piping tips (some in vain) and it was a race against time because the frosting was slowly becoming runny (I blame the humid weather) Some of our cupcakes were successful, though some turned out a bit disastrous but really cute all the same.

Piping flowers didn't really work out

Playing around with the dyes

A dash of colour sprinkles was sufficient to transform them into drops of heaven (pardon the amateur piping though) Putting them in the fridge really helped to harden the frosting and they turned out really well, even though by the time I brought them to school for the gang to savour, they were half smooshed.
Had great fun talking to Feli too ☺

Failed attempt at creativity

Glad that the pictures turned out well, even though I was using my half-alive Canon Ixus digital camera ☺It's Friday but with Pre-camp greeting me at the start of the weekends, I'm feeling pretty disoriented. Nonetheless, the past week has so loving, with ice cream and rag work and baking and badminton and silly camwhoring and suppers and dinners (which has rendered me broke)

Broke, but happy.

P.S. Just received confirmation for my trip in Melbourne, everything has been booked and I'm bounded for Down Under in 8 days, very excited and hopefully promises of picturesque photographs ♥ 

Farmer's market @ Loewen gardens,

Disclaimer: Pictures from very long ago

75 Loewen Road
Singapore 248844
(Held every 1st and 3rd Saturday of each month, check schedule on their website here)

Many weekends ago, made my way down to Loewen cluster @ dempsey for the weekend farmer's market. (Proved to be a lot better than the attempt to explore the Thieves market, and more jacked up prices too) They had gourmet food products, vegetable produce and even ice popsicles; but for the selection of quaint food variety, vibrant colours and cute Caucasian kids running around, it was worth the stay.
Started by the owner of the The Pantry Cookery school (talk about fairy cupcakes), it's only a small venture so don't expect a food fair kind of scale. We had fun sampling food/sauces, but you really need an acquired taste to sink them into your tastebuds (the love for food routine in me still going on strong) but they had awesome stores (for the lack of a better word) like Wild honey and Masterchefz.
I also edited some of the pictures because the tentage shelter masked many of them in a green tinge, so pardon if some picture look strange. (Some from the Holga film camera)

Tacos - 3 bucks

Paella: Spanish seafood dish 5 bucks

Lovin' the alfresco but it was too hot

Gallivanted around the dempsey cluster, and found creepy old buildings at the back door of the market.
While it was intriguing, the scorching weather made it in extremely uncomfortable ☹

Took a break from the sun and settled for some air-conditioning and art appreciation @ The Contemporary Art museum nearby, I kid you not.

Hopefully not me in 10 years

Beauty emporium @ Dempsey, unfortunately they demolished the wooden swing!

I've quite a bunch of photo adventures not too long ago (albeit a bit pointless to post them at such an outdated time) so will upload them soon ☺
Plus, a cupcake baking adventure with felicia 2 days back which I have pretty pictures of ♥
Going out for lunch and ice cream soon, till later ciao!