salsa high

4th-5th April – I touched down in Sydney on the 4th?in the early hours of the morning, as you’ve probably read in my earlier blog?about my flight there… I slept most of the morning away, as Ty was away at the hospital. He came back at about 3pm. He had to dress formally when he went on hospital visits: shirt, tie and dress pants. And I made him wear his white lab coat and pose a shot for me. 😛

Anyway I was pretty much starving by then and was waiting for him to say he would be cooking somthing substantial..like rice, I was like “erm ok?” when he said he would throw up a salad for me. Hmmm…veg for lunch? Something I’m not very used to. I realized then, how he lost so much weight…haha..living on salad and muesli bars. 😛 But surprisingly it was good! Refreshing and pretty filling. We slept the afternoon away…haha…so much for jet lag…and by the time we got up, it was evening. 5pm plus and the sky was dark. Ty brought me to the supermarket which was just around the corner (for him but not for me lah). It was like 3 bus stops for me? heh…oops. But the weather was so cooling, I didn’t even break into a sweat.

I tasted Ty’s cooking for the first time that night (well excluding the scrambled eggs he used to cook for me back in Singapore…) and it was yummy! We had chicken cooked in red wine and?sphagetti with tomato sauce. Plus mushrooms with melted cheese. Yum. 🙂

The next morning was also pretty much quiet for me. Both Ty and his flatmate were out for lessons in the morning. Anyway they were holding a house party that night, so in the afternoon, we went grocery shopping again. Some of his friends came at 7pm but the majority started streaming in at 8-9 plus. Ty cooked more of his cheese mushrooms and risotto! Risotto is basically rice cooked in butter and white wine, with lots of cheese melted into it. Haha so it was a sticky and very filling rice dish, not to mention cheesey. But then Ty LOVVEESS cheese.

Unfortunately, I was still sick (got sore throat on the day i was supposed to fly) and was awfully tired (not to mention grumpy) by 9plus. And a few drinks (i was on medication…crap..i forgot) made me so sleepy that by 10pm, I could hardly keep my eyes open. And maybe becos I was still new to his friends, I couldn’t help but feel a little out of place. Anyway, I excused myself and hit the bed…I didn’t exactly sleep cos the walls and doors were kinda thin and I could hear the entire party going on all the way till 2.30am. Well, it didn’t help much to improve my disposition, which by then was near explosive. Poor Ty got the brunt of it….I’m not exactly very nice when I’m sick, sleepy and have a splitting headache. But thankfully I cooled down almost immediately when I saw that he was exhausted. Apparently a few people got drunk and there were problems trying to get them home. Nevertheless we hit the bed at 3am and didn’t wake up till late morning the next day.

I’m sure we all get some sort of blues when we come back from a long holiday…especially so when you have to go back to work/school after like 10 days of waking up late and having fun. For me, its worst cos that means I won’t get to see Ty till July. Thats like another 10 weeks…and 6 weeks was almost unbearable… Anyway, enough of the whining…all holidays have to end and having a separation means that there will be a reunion some time soon! =) I’m really eager to blog the last 10 days in Sydney! I had wanted to blog as we went along but there was just no time! Well, thats probably because we spend every single moment together…

I’ll start with my?flight back,?and work backwards from there. Will also try to put some pics up. Speaking of yesterday, it was really quite a stressful day for me at the airport. My flight was at 3.30pm and I was at the Sydney airport at like 1.50pm. And i proceeded immediately to check-in. Imagine what a shock I had when the lady at the counter told me that the flight was fully booked and that I may not get a seat on it. I had to wait till the airline released some seats. So we waited (thank goodness Ty was there to calm me down…I’m such a kan cheong spider..) anxiously till like 3pm before there were some seats being released. I was immediately issued a ticket and asked to proceed to the gate, which was closing in 15 min. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye properly to Ty…:( Just a quick hug and kiss and I had to run.

Only when I boarded the plane, did I realize that I was given a Business Class seat. And the minute I sank down in the plush spacious seat, relieved that I didn’t miss the flight, a stewardess offered me a newspaper. And 2 minutes later, a steward came round to offer me drinks. Man…that was sure worth all that panic. haha. And for the first time that I took a long flight, I actually felt very comfortable…the seat was HUGE and so nicely inclined…and every passenger was able to move to and from his seat without any obstruction. I was literally able to stretch out all the way. For dinner, the steward came around to take orders. I had a nice starters of king prawns, followed by the main, which was chicken and baked potatoes and a yummy huge slice of some red bean cheesecake with whipped cream for dessert. Not to mention there were chocs and tea. I was stuffed totally.

However, I was interrupted while I was happily gorging on my cheesecake….the lady beside me somehow smashed her wineglass by accident and it splintered all over me…great…just when I was thinking the bad luck from the “no seat panic” was starting to turn into “biz class” good luck. haha. Maybe Friday the 13th spilt over to the 14th.. Still, it was a pleasant journey and i watched 3 movies in a row to distract myself from thinking too much… I reached home at about 10.15pm. It was good to see my family again though. 🙂

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Ty cooked lunch! This yummy meal of chicken stew on rice. :)???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Contented tummies…

Its 9.00 am aussie time and I’m writing ths?blog?from Ty’s comp. I?touched down in Sydney at about 5.19am, 2 hours ahead of Singapore. The 7.5 hour flight was exhausting and not to mention the time passed excrutiatingly slow. Evertime I looked at my watch (which was like 30 plus times?) only 15 min had gone by. It didn’t help that the flight was delayed by almost half an hour at Singapore. However, the plane still arrived relatively on time; only about 10 min late. Then there was the long queue at the customs and an even longer wait for my luggage. After getting my luggage, there was still the luggage check. Thank goodness I took Ty’s advice “Just delcare something, anything! The Declare queue is always shorter. ” So I dutifully packed this small plastic bag of ‘kiam seng tee’ which I was more than prepared to have confiscated, and declared that I had some food with me.

Immediately, as Ty said, I was ushered?from the main queue (which was?like damn long)?to a separate counter.?I handed over my preserved fruit and the lady at the customs scrutinised and prodded it with her gloved fingers.?After which she did a quick check of my hand carry bag and concurrently kept asking me repetitive questions like “Is this bag yours? So this bag belongs to you? And you packed this bag? So you know whats in this bag?” I felt like an idiot answering “yes” four times in?a row.?Haha i was mildly irritated but oh well, I suppose she’s just doing her job.

I cleared the luggage check in 3 min flat. It was 6.20am and I was getting anxious, cos Ty had to go to his assigned hospital which was 2.5 hrs away from his place, this very morning. That meant he had to?fetch me and deposit me at his place before rushing off to the hospital. I certainly didn’t want him to be late. ?I was in a slight daze when I came out of customs and saw a sea of faces… I called Ty immediately and when he picked up and said “I see you”, I was so relieved. Then I saw him walking towards me with a bunch of 10 champagne roses. Yup that was how we met again..after 6 weeks. I just held him tight and for moments I was so overwhelmed at seeing him again that I couldn’t seem to speak.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Pretty Roses!!

We took a cab back to his place and man was it expensive! It was like $25 aussie dollars! And his trip to the airport cost him $27, so in total just for today, he spent $52 on taxi fare. Geez and we complain about taxi fares being expensive in Singapore!! Even with the booking fee it doesn’t even?come close to?the rates here! And the journey was like for 15 min only?

Anyway, he’s already off to the hospital and I have the whole house to myself. Yay! Its a pretty nice apartment! Very cosy and comfy. I’ve just had a nice hot shower so will prob crawl into bed now…haven’t had much sleep in the plane and my biological clock is still tuned to Singapore time, which is?only 7.30am…plus its raining and I don’t have to work today…

Just the other day, I got a fat envelope from Starhub…my phone bill for Feb…I almost didnt dare to open it…for fear that the bill would be sky high. Oh well but I did anyway and while its not ridiculously high, it was substantial enough for me to feel the pinch. $206…and when i saw the break-down of all the calls, i saw this phone call to ty that was like 1 hour and it cost $34. Haha..i thought my damage was bad…till Ty told me that his bill was 500 Aussie dollars!! Sheesh thats like $600 Sing…on overseas calls. Thank goodness he’s finally got his internet and land line…

?But then even with the webcam and phone calls, he still seems so far away. And everytime i reach out to touch his face, i touch the cold screen. Its been hard for both of us but we’re finally going to be done with Marathon Part 1…which would be 6 weeks since the day he left to the day that I would fly over. That reminds me, there’s only about 10 days before I see him again! I hope time passes faster…..Yeah that means I?now look forward to mondays…

The great thing about having the net is that I get to talk to lizzie a lot more.? It helps, I suppose, to be able to chat with her any time of the day – I look up from my books and onto my compter screen and there she is.? But when she says “see you later” it really hits me, that the familiar isn’t there anymore.? I remember when it used to mean rushing down from Boon Lay to wait for her at the bus stop outside Tanjong Pagar.? Then sometimes she’d surprise me with something she bought, be it moon cakes or curry puffs.? But mostly I’d give her a bear hug before walking down to Chinatown.? So will your head pop out?? But it doesn’t anymore and we’re reduced by webcams and telephones.? And I realise that those lazy weekend afternoons of the past have given way to melancholic mornings of photographs.? I wish I could go to the beach and bask but how can I?? But then I get her call and her voice makes everything all right.

Now, if you know me well enough you’d know how much of a greenie I am – and Sydney is greenie heaven!? I don’t have my time to type this post, but the gist of it is that I’ve seen so many Toyota Priuses rolling around the city and it brings such joy to my little greenie heart.? I’d like to drive one, but unfortunately I don’t have the moola to buy one.? Oh well.

Anyway, the reason you’re able to see my type this is because I FINALLY HAVE INTERNET ACCESS!!!? Like finally after 1 month and 3 days of primitive caveman life, I’ve finally seen the light at the end of the cave, a fluorescent one at that.? Unfortunately, though, I can’t stay online long.? I’ve got books and articles to read.? I’ll try to post more tomorrow.? It’s a 2 hour day so I should have the time.? Hospital was fun today by the way.

About 15 of us from Xen went to watch?a midnight movie, 300, on saturday night. The movie is inspired by the graphic novel by Frank Miller and its about the battle of Thermopylae where King Leonidas and 300 Spartan soldiers fought to their death against the huge Persian amry led by Xerxes. I must say the special effects were breathtaking. You could almost feel the heaviness in the air when the 300 spartans set out, never to return again. The battle itself was amazing. Aside from the amount of blood spurting in all directions and limbs flying, the ferocity of the fighting was exhilirating. These men were born and bred to fight…amazing fighting machines you can call them.

And when the spartans were marching out to the hot gates, i turned to Joyce and said “Have u ever seen so many 8-packs” and we both burst into hysterical laughter. Ok, i reckon many girls oogle at the 8-packs too. :p There were many funny?moments, like the part where King Leonidas was calming chomping an apple whilst standing in a battlefield of dead people. I liked so many parts! And of course being such a hopeless romantic, I was torn when King Leonidas, on his?dying breath, called?to his wife. *sobs* Heh Basically the show left me super inspired and awed by the courage of the King and those 300 spartans. A must watch for those who love lots of bloody action and great special effects!! I wished ty was here to catch it! 🙂

At 12.10pm today, there was suddenly a commotion in my office. As my room was tucked away at one corner while the rest of my colleagues’ rooms?were at the other end, I was quite oblivious to what was going on. All I heard were my colleague’s voices (and mind you my dept is an all ladies one) hollering for me to go for lunch. Lunch break is officially at 12.30pm and usually we adhere quite strictly to that…so I was more than a little puzzled at the apparent hurry to go for lunch. Nevertheless, I thought maybe?its because?my bosses?had left?for a lunch appointment already…so I took my time to gather my stuff….and that earned another holler from the corridor…this time a little more shrill.

Everyone was waiting for me and when you have five panicky middle aged ladies talking at the same time, you get a bit of a headache. Two of them apparently had felt tremors? and claimed that the room was swaying (or maybe themselves). One of them said the swaying was so bad she had to hold on to her table. The other one said the chair she was sitting on starting rolling back and forth, as though someone from behind was pushing and pulling it. What made them panick more was a call from our admin department asking us to evacuate the office as soon as possible. And oblivious little me was tucked away at the far side of the office, slouched over my work and felt absolutely no tremors….shucks…I would have liked to experience a little swaying….By the time we got downstairs, shenton Way was swarmed with people. Apparently many buildings had sounded the alarm and ordered an evacuation. There were so many people loitering around the lobbies of the buildings and some were just standing there smoking. Now, one would think that its most commonsensical to move away from these buildings, in the event they collapse or something…oh well maybe these people don’t know which way to go, afterall shenton way is so built up, you probably wont know which way to run if any of the buildings start coming down. Still, the images of the 911 attacks sent me walking at top speed…towards Ah Moy street, where lunch awaits. :p

Ah Moy was packed and everyone was talking about the tremors, which according to the radio news, was felt by almost the entire Singapore, esp the tall buildings around the CBD and beach road area. The tremors were caused by an earthquake that happened in Sumatra and it measured 6.5 on the Ritcher Scale. The epic centre was about 260 miles from Singapore, which is not exactly very far…too near for comfort actually. Thank goodness there wasn’t a tsunami that followed. At about 2pm, the second wave of tremors hit, followed by one more at 2.30pm. By then, everyone was feeling a little nervous…and my boss said we better make our own judgement call whether or not to leave the office if there was going to be more tremors. Earlier on, she was unfortunately having lunch with one of our tenants (to negotiate for a lease renewal) at the Chinese restaurant upstairs when the first wave hit. She said the plates on the table started to slide and vibrate…talk about bad timing….

Anyway, I was hoping that maybe the company would declare a half day off…for the safety of the staff…but I guessed not…oh well, at least it’s mid week already tomorrow.

I realise that I haven’t updated in some time but I’ve been busy. The medicine programme in UNSW is seriously no walk in the park. It’s only been a week plus and I find myself up to my nose in work. Get this, on Thursday I was suddenly bombarded with a group project and an individual assignment. I still don’t really know what to do with the group project. There’s an essay and a presentation involved with that, and for the individual assignment I’ve got to do an interview and write another essay. I’m still not sure what my assessors are looking for but I know that they both have to be completed by week 8 and it’s already week 2. Today I just got news that I’ve got to prepare a presentation about vaccination by next Tuesday. Like ughhhhh… This is all on top of the copious amounts of reading I have to do because lectures aren’t exactly very informative. Seriously…

Thank goodness I actually enjoy the reading and things in school are starting to get interesting. We had anatomy yesterday and I saw my first cadaver. THEY WERE SO COOL!!! Unfortunately, I didn’t have gloves so I couldn’t touch them – some nonsense about me getting infected by prions. I only got to touch a bone. Bleah. I’m so going to have to get myself some gloves. I can’t wait to touch like a heart or something. Oh, and I don’t know if it’s weird but I after that session I got real hungry. Perhaps it’s because the cadevers smelt like chicken. I don’t know, I’m weird.

I went for Med Camp over the weekend and it was a total waste of time. There was no plan or anything and the only fun thing we did there was to have a toga party. They were marketing it as “the best time you’ll have in medicine” and oh my goodness if that’s the best time then I think I’m going to be pretty bored. Seriously, and I got an email from medsoc saying that they’re hailing Med Camp 2007 a great success. Wake up your idea lah. How can it be a success if at least half the people thought it was a great bore. Everyone was so bored that we started playing cards. Honestly it was more like an extended and extremely expensive class chalet. $150 wasted. Bleah. And I didn’t even get the shirt because I was busy playing cards.

Med Camp aside, I moved in on Thursday. The place is nice, save for the fact that the exhaust fan in the toilet stopped working on Monday and there’s a hole in the wall instead of a telephone port. So I had to call Telstra and they’re coming to fix it on Thursday. Oh yeah, and this stupid fire alarm thing keeps beeping at random intervals. It’s tolerable but irritating nevertheless. Mental note: I’m going to have to do something about this soon.

I’d have pictures of the place up but I’m still using the computer at the internet cafe. I’m not going to be able to get internet for a while I think. This is such a drag… Ooh, but I’m having my first clinical tomorrow! I hope it’ll be worth the 5 hour journey… Haha. Should be good!

I went back for my first day of lessons on Monday at Xen, after a dunno how many weeks break. And I could still feel the inertia of having to move those muscles that have been collecting dust. I stepped into Xen during the tail end of the Afro Cuban class and although the music made me feel like moving, I still plopped down at the seat in front of the drinks bar. Lazy me…bleah. Anyway, I did make it to the Ladies Shine class. Yanqing was teaching. I had almost forgotten how much I liked her lessons. After shines class, I stole away to a corner to talk to Tien yew..for about half an hour…just the other day, we talked for 1 hr…sheesh..I’m so not looking forward to getting my phone bill this month. At 930, I went for isolation clasee. Now THAT was a killer. I ached full time the next day. Bleah..I need to oil those muscles again.

?On wednesday, I dutifully went down to Xen again, despite the rain and the cold. After dinner, it was phone-time with Tien Yew again. 🙂 My first lesson of the evening was Advanced class. We did some variations with lots of turn patterns…bleah I need to get used to spotting again. Need to get my balance back too. Nevertheless, I managed to do better after a few more attempts. I quietly slipped out when hip hop class was starting..:P And attended intermediate class instead, where I ended up being Grace’s partner while she taught the class. I haven’t attended intermediate class for a LONG LONG time, so it was a little weird at first dancing with all the guys in the class (come to think of it, I havent danced with any other guy for a LONG time haha). After the lesson, I decided I’m going to skip the performance class to do social. I really ought to dance more with other pple…so that I can improve on my follow and balance. I danced with teddy bear wai hwang and he dished out one complicated move after another. You would have lost count of the number of “AAHHHS!!!” that came involuntarily out. haha. I had a few dances with sam and nigel too, not to mention I was “forced” to do rueda becos they were short of 1 gal. As the 3 guys were good leads, i managed to go through all the variations, although the commands were greek to me. 😛 Anyway, as a result of all the spins and dancing, I woke up on Thursday morning with aching arms…in addition to my aching abs…just great. It feels good to start dancing again…but nothing beats dancing with Tien yew. And I do miss the guy…lots.