we sing, we dance, we steal things

I'm gonna be an obsessive fan and dedicate an entire entry to my most favourite musician in the entire world (*gasp* yes an entire entry! yes! i'm such a loser...unfortunately...) I'm obsessed over the incredibly talented, Jason Mraz. Not obsessed till the point i wanna throw my undies at him or try to break into his hotel room in the middle of the night to rape him...*rolls eyes*... no kidding, i know there's people who actually do that. I'm just fixated with his music, his wit, his humour, his eccentricity, his laid-back attitude and his ability to captivate the crowd. hmm, alright...it wouldn't be too bad to be Mrs. Mraz too (duh). His new album "we sing, we dance, we steal things" is coming out in May, please go support him and buy it (or maybe you could just buy it for me, lolx)!!

Anywayssss, the point of this entry is ... ...


I just found out that he'll be performing in Toronto on the 27th of April, 7pm at Koolhaus (Bless the Lord!)!!!!!! It'll cost about 40CDN to see him, which is not too bad a price if you ask me. Honestly, if you made me pay a 100bucks to watch him perform, i would empty my bank account without hesitation...wth, i'll even rob a bank to see the Man of Wordplay. No words can describe how awesome his live performances are, actually i'm just lazy but that's beside the point, his live gigs are even better than his album recordings, which is a lot to say about any musician. Look at some self-professed-skater-chick-and-i'm-better-than-britney-spears Avril Lavigne, she can't sing for nuts plus she spits at her fans & throws guitars at them, way to go girl(at this rate, u'll be left with no fans, corz they've all probably been spat on or killed by you...)! That's probably why her tickets are going for only 9bucks now, lolx. And then there's all the other whores who use more of their body than voice or rather their brains, e.g. the 2 simpson girls.


Okay, i realized i've sidetracked alot and i'm being really mean...anyway, the last time i went to a Mraz concert was during the Mosaic Music Festival in 2006, it was, needless to say, the best performance i've have ever gone to. He was armed with so much jokes, you'd probably think you were in a comedy club instead, he cracked the audience up till they could seriously pee in their pants. He didn't compromise on his singing though, it was equally superb too, not many guy musicians can reach a falsetto...other than justin timberlake...the man with the hot bod, hot face and hot vibes to boot....

I WANT TO SEE MRAZ AGAIN!! And profess my love for him!! i'll be one of the crazy fans to hold up a cardboard sign, "Marry Me! Choose Me! The other fans have rabies!"


So now, all i hafta do is book a ticket...

Music Magic Make Peace Tour Tickets at Koolhaus

BUT i'm not so sure yet, cause i don't know if i should sacrifice time spent travelling toronto to watch Mraz in action...hmm, i REALLY contradict myself huh? I'm soo fickle-minded, i can't stand myself. I guess i'm not THAT willing to sacrifice everything for the GEEK IN THE PINK.
dilemma, dilemma, dilemma....

Anyway, in the meantime, here's his awesome new single from "We sing, We dance, We steal things"...

Opps, i forgot to mention the title(in case you're interested), it's titled "I'm Yours"... ... oh gosh...i wana go watch him perform...i'm this close to booking the tickets...

get well soon!

GET WELL SOON!!

Bear with it and it'd be over soon, stitches will be gone and you'll be able to laugh as hard as you want, play your futsal and trim your non-exsistent tummy(which for some unknown reason, you insist you have)! SMILEZ!

easter trip

Just came back from a short easter getaway! Bee and i skipped school from wednesday 19th March to saturday 22nd March to go to Moncton & Halifax, which are nearby "cities" in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia respectively. Why the parenthesis u ask?? Corz they were FREAKING MINUSCULE, moncton was like soooo tiny, we pretty much saw all of it in one day (no kidding, actually make that half a day), Halifax was bigger but it was freaking ghost-lish, like a scene out of "Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street". SERIOUS. What kind of city has ghost walks as a tourist attraction?? AND...what kinda city is it that has more cemetries than shopping malls in the main tourist shopping areas??!!

Halifax!

halifax burial grounds in front of Dalhouse University Tech Campus(apparantly it has the highest school fees in the whole of Canada, bt it's still suffering from financial crisis) & along Barrington Street(where our hostel was)

can you imagine the students who paid big bucks to study in front of a graveyard...i wonder why...well, imagine boy sitting at school desk dozing off as the lecturer rattles on about philosophy...he starts to day-dream and looks out the window...right outside he sees black tombstones & probably a few ghouls --> an incentive to pay attention in class i guess...

It was raining the ENTIRE DAY when we got to Halifax. No kidding k, it rained from morning till night...i thought i could drown in the rain. We walked along Spring Garden Road, which Catherine recommended to us corz it has small little boutiques and nice cafes. There we saw AMERICAN APPAREL(a.k.a absurdly overpriced money rippers)...they sold plain tees for 20+ to 40+ CDN bucks. C.R.A.Z.Y. I can buy like 5-10 of those from the pasaar malam can. Okay...i did like one of the plain, white, oversized tee, but it was like 21bucks la, friggin money rippers!

And then we went to the wharf to see MORE WATER (machiam the rain not enough, we still wana torture ourselves *sheepish*). So we walked along the harbour and there were ships in the distance and a light house too.

One of the highlights of the trip was eating SEAFOOD!! That night(the first night we arrived in Halifax) we ate at Hamachi Steak House. We ate teppanyaki and I ordered Scallops, Jap Fried Garlic Rice, Miso Soup, Grilled Veges while Bee ordered Shrimps instead of Scallops. We were all blowing money into the meal, which was the priciest we've ate so far since coming to Canada (40bucks for me), and of course, I was expecting something really good and fresh. Well...it was alright, the scallops weren't THAT great, i mean, Halifax is near the sea and all, you would expect the seafood to be really, really fresh (u know, as though, they killed the scallop right before killing them in the extreme heat of the teppanyaki stove)...but they weren't...they were NORMAL...Singapore can find better, bigger ones i think

Chef Kwan cooking our teppanyaki meal (not even Japanese chef lor, make me pay so much...)

Hostelling International - Halifax (the nice, cosy hostel we stayed in at Halifax where we met Jane)

I truly enjoy staying in hostels cause you really get to meet people from all different cultures and background. So far I've gotten to know Brazilians, Japanese, French people from the hostels we've stayed at. This time round, we met a 39 year ol' Canadian woman from Cape Breton called Jane. It was really cool cause she hitch-hiked across Canada when she was younger (she never once took the train) and she told us tales of Jamaica, which she recently went to.

For those you who don't know, Jamaica is in South America and consists mainly of West-African descent. There is much unrest in the country and Jamaica has had one of the highest murder rates in the world for many years, usually ranking third after Colombia and South Africa. Jane told us that the people there freely smoke weed, and alot of them are addicted to it, but then the government decided to burn down the poppy fields and the people had no choice but to turn to cocaine(worse than weed). Jane told us that during her stay in Jamaica, there was one night when 21 people were killed...i was really shocked when i heard that, it's one thing to hear such thing on the news, it's another experience to actually hear it from someone...

Jane's Story

Jane was staying under a host family in Jamaica, she went there to seek recluse as she was suffering from depression and she wanted to get well. She decided to stay with a woman she met 10 years ago. This African woman (i shall now call her Herb Woman) was iliterate but has a lot of knowledge on natural herbs, and Jane thought that it would be a wonderful opportunity and honour to write a book to record down all the knowledge of the woman. However, Jamaica proved too dangerous to stay in, and at first most of the violence was localised at Kingston, but soon became widespread and the place Jane was staying at(she said it was a more touristy area) was placed under a ban and all tourists had to be sent back. (Sounds really terrifying right? We've all lived in such comfortable and protected surroundings, it's almost beyond us to actually believe that such a thing could happen...) Anyway, what happened was the government called on Herb Woman and asked her alot of questions regarding Jane and they placed Jane under the care of Herb Woman, meaning that Herb Woman would take responsibility of Jane's safety. Hence, Herb Woman became very obsessive(can't find a word for it), she felt that Jane had to be constantly within her sight, otherwise she might be charged for negligence(which was a bit crazy and silly). So whenever Herb Woman goes out to the market or anywhere else, she forces Jane to come along even though Jane wasn't feeling well. What Jane couldn't stand was the discrimination against the white in Jamaica. Whenever Herb Woman got angry with her, she would call Jane a "white woman"...and there were alot of expectations placed on Jane due to the fact that she was a white and whites are supposed to be rich. Herb Woman expected Jane to bring her riches and fortune, but what the former didn't understand was that Jane wasn't very rich herself and the purpose of her visit was to get treated from depression. So things got worse and Jane got robbed (she believed it was Herb Woman who planned it). After which, Jane left the country and returned to Canada.

Interesting eh? Most of the time we hear about discrimination of blacks, chinese, etc...never knew that discrimination against whites would be that pervasive too...

we went up to the citadel in Halifax the next day, the view from up there is pretty good :)

Canons again! Lolx, we've been seeing so many canons, you might think we have some slight fetish for this merciless guns...

Nice view of the clock tower!

Another nice place we went to was the Farmer's Market at Keith's Brewery, it's only open on Saturdays from 7am-12.30pm. It's really the authentic kinda market you'll find in Europe countries. There were violionists playing their concertos, street musicians strumming their guitars and there were many stalls selling fresh produce (meat, seafood, tea, smoothies, bread, cupcakes, cookies, chinese food, maple syrup,fruits, crafts, hand-made jewelry, paintings, etc.) Over there, we visited one of the Japanese girls Bee got to know in Quebec. Ai(the Jap girl) is currently on a working holiday in Canada and will be returning to Japan soon. She was working at one of the Cafe at the Farmer's Market called City Deli. The boss, Jean Paul, who was a French ol' man, was really friendly and warming. He comes from St. Pierre and Miquelon, which is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, 25km off the coast of Newfoundland,Canada. It's really weird though, cause St.Pierre and Miquelon belongs to France, not Canada, even though it is essentially in North America.

And guess what?!

Bee and I got offered a job! Haha, Jean Paul was asking us to go get work permits cause we got a job in City Deli...lolx. Would be nice to work there though! I'll get to taste all the tasty French dishes that Jean Paul cooks for Ai ever so often, she's tried wild rabbits even!

Farmer's Market! (my fave place in Halifax)

(Bee, Jean Paul (future boss, lolx) & I)

Cupcakes!!! So pretty right?!!

Strawberry Cream Cheese Croissant & Oatmeal Raisin Cookie *licks lips*

Saturday Menu for City Deli (Jean Paul should pay me for promoting his Cafe for him!)

the mind-boggling, gut-wrenching, stomach-churning thrill of a lifetime

i couldn't get to sleep yesterday after watching sooo many youtube videos of roller coaster rides in six flags, which happens to be THE amusement park to go for the FREAKIEST, CRAZIEST roller coaster rides in the world. It's located in Los Angeles, which i will be visiting this coming May, and yes, I'm going to go to SIX FLAGS!! But i'd probably settle for milder kids ride like ermm....the Buccaneer (aka pirate ship, lolx). It's scary hor...don't believe...click on the link below to see what i mean...it's DEFINITELY scarier than roller coasters in Genting:

Buccaneer(NOT a PUSSY ride)

See! Damn scary right?! So high la! No? Whatever...you're the scaredy-cat...You're only saying it's not scary cause you're watching it, you're NOT riding it

But what got me really freaked out was the Tatsu, Goliath & actually most of the roller coaster rides in six flags. Tatsu is like the fastest, longest, tallest roller coaster in the entire world, so you get what i mean. Wana die fast, just hop on and join the ride. So not funny. I read that a reality tv show in American called "Who wants to be a Superhero?", where contestants compete against each other in a series of tests which reflect what superheroes really stand for. And one of the tasks was to take the TATSUUUUuuuuu. Here's a video of the ride...WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED (might suffer from a bit of queasiness if viewed just before sleeping):



Tatsu (world's longest,tallest, fastest roller coaster)



Goliath(yet another freak ride created by freak inventors at six flags)



The only ride, i conclude, that i would even contemplate taking is Ninja, Dive Devil and Goldrusher...check it out...

Ninja!

Dive Devil!

Okay, i guess i got too excited about going to Six Flags, lolx, but i was trying to see if it would be worth the 27bucks i'll be paying to go there. You know, must check out the rides to see if i actually DARE to ride them mah...what if i end up going there only to ride the carousel?!! Don't worry, i'd probably wouldn't tell if i DO ACTUALLY end up taking just the carousel, i'd just take a snap shot with the tatsu & goliath & the likes & i'll just be like,"Oh! Yar! I took them ALL, DAMN SCARY..." *nods head*...

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...like real...

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Last but not least,

HAPPY BELATED 21st BIRTHDAY MYRNA!!!

happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday my dear fwen, happy birthday to you!!

jiayou for your exams alright! And have lotsa fun after that!! Miss ya girl!!

a taste of nostalgia

The day before, i went to luvena's house for a nice cosy dinner consisting of really, really good chinese food. I ate sooo much yesterday! There was nasi lemak, pao chai, herbal chicken, beef rendang, fu jian dan, hard boiled eggs with sambal, sambal prawns...it was pure heaven

very nice hor??!! machiam restaurant food!

Seriously, it's better than the chinese restaurants here, the food in Fredericton is H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E! I'm sooo satisfied now, can you imagine this is like my first chinese meal since....chinese new year!!! Oh gosh, soooo long ago! Luvena made arabian tea also, which she learnt online, it tasted very...ermm...unique, lolx, she added alot of things inside such as ginger, milk, sugar...

Group shot! (Extreme left: Bee, Ya-wen(Taiwan), Steven(Ya-wen's bf), Me(sitting down), luvena, Bilal(luvena's bf from saudi arabia) & not seen is bilal's brother, who was taking the photo shot

We smoked abit of sheeshaw too, this time it was grape flavoured with tobacco. There was a sorta exhilaration at trying out the sheeshaw this time round cause the water-pipe contained tobacco this time, meaning it was equivalent to smoking, which i've never tried before. And i guess it's the sorta feeling you get when you want to do something that you knwo you shouldn't be doing. It's the same feeling i got when me and my friends climbed over the school fence in SAJC in order to escape from school and the time when me, jess and sok walked out of class while Mdm Choo was teaching and also, the time when my JC mates and I covered ourselves in garbage bags and ran past the security guards who were standing guard at the school gate....lolx, now that i think about it, it seems like there were plenty of times i played truant.

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Anyway, time for picture post, i just remembered i haven't uploaded the pictures in montreal!

the legislative centre in montreal

the basilique notre-dame (a basilique is a church that has been accorded certain priviledges by the pope, such as being a landmark where the history of the architectural style are recorded)

guess how many pipes there are in this organ(aka The Casavant-Frères organ)?

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no prizes for guessing

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it's an astonishing...7,000!!!!!!! (my jaws literally dropped to the ground after the tour guide told us)

I can totally imgaine the organist having like 8 arms to play the friggin huge organ, he's gotta be an octopus, i'm 90% sure of it, if not how the hell would a human be able to play an organ with 4 keyboards, 97 stops and 7000 pipes??! That's why they place the organ at the back of the church on the second level! Because the organist would have caused too much of a distraction! He could be an attraction by himself, the church could probably charge an extra $2 per person in addition to the $4 church entrance fee just to see the organist and his amazing 8 arms!

this is the more intimate chapel behind the church, it's called the Chapelle du Sacré-Coeur (Chapel of the Sacred Heart), where they conduct baptisim, marriages and other more intimate events. the huge bronze carving on the wall is a depiction of the journey to eternal life and the heavenly goal. People at the bottom of the carving are seen going through 3 gates, each depicting a certain period of life, birth, life & death. And on the top is a dove & the hand of God, which is the ultimate goal.

Interesting fact: Celine Dion's 1994 wedding to René Angélil in the Basilique Notre-Dame.

dreaming of meadows

I'm studying for mid-terms on monday, and i'm so incredibly bored...can't wait to go to the Farmer's Market on saturday and eat nasi lemak, herbal chicken and vegetables with oyster sauce on saturday night. My lovely friend, Luvena is cooking for us! Okay...back to studying now...oh, i'm gonna rip my head apart if i hafta face that boring book again...i just want to lie in the grass meadows with the tips of my toes facing the dazzling sunlight...that would be sooo nice...

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UPDATES:

1. I'll be skipping school next week to go on my mini Moncton & Halifax Trip! I'll be gone from the 19th-22nd of March. Just in time for Alev's birthday!

2. We've bought our tickets from buffalo to New York, and we're probably staying at Catherine's house in Toronto, Markham, yay! Free lodging! Love her to bits! Time to research on what to do in toronto & the big apple! Can't wait! *Let's get out of the country! - Camera Obscura*

I love the piano piece in this amv. By the way, it's from the anime "5 centimeters per second". I have no idea what the anime is about though, but it looks horribly sad.

skating under the stars

March 2, 2008

I went ice-skating under the stars on the last night of quebec city trip. We rented skates for 6bucks and wheezed through the chilly winds of the march night sky. The skates were of terribly inferior quality, but for 6 bucks i guess we couldn't expect much. Beside the ice-skating rink, they were also selling snow and maple syrup(famous in canada). How do you eat it?? It's pretty gross actually... the shop owner basically pours hot maple syrup over a wooden box of snow, and you just wait till it solidifies and then you take one of the sticks provided to roll the maply syrup up into a twirl and there you go! People like to eat it with the snow :S (i accidentally placed my skates onto the same box of snow cause incidentally the shop also rents skates, so you can just imgaine how dirty the snow is, people just ASSUME that if it's white, it's clean...) The maple syrup sweet is similar to the "bang bang tang" we have in singapore, you know the ones they sell at pasar malaams?

and that's the shop! they have cones with maple syrup & maple butter in it. don't know who it taste like though, they're probably really really sweet :S probably get a few cavities after that.

March 3, 2008

the next day we walked around place royale, a street full of artsy shophouses and diners. we also visited the musuem of civilisation, don't have pictures of the latter though...well, not except for this...

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haha, and you were expecting some decent pictures...

streets of place royale

look at the vines, creepy but really nice in a surreal way


BEWARE!! CANONS!!

NOT TO WORRYYY!! GUTSY ALEV TO THE RESCUE!!! (oh gosh, what the heck was she thinking??!!)

Nice lil' group shot at the museum...(ahem, i'm posting this pic only cause it's time for some pictures with me, lolx)

And then we headed off to montreal!!

Our hotel, Glamour Hotel & Suites was really pretty, it's marketed as a boutique hotel. It's small though but the theme colour of the hotel is red. Alev was estatic when she saw the room cause she luurves red with a vengence. Lolx, and so we went crazy taking pictures of our room.

For dinner, we had the most delicious mexican food i've ever tasted at 3 amigos on St. Denis Street. But then again, this is probably the first time i'm eating at a mexican restaurant so i'm not exactly the food connoisseur here.

You see the huge glass cups?? It's pina colada, gosh, they're the most tasty beverages ever, EVER. mine was banana and strawberry flavoured with cherry and a orange on the side. *licks lips* and i had a taco with mexican rice, MAGNIFICIEEOOOUUNT!!

Okay, i'm getting a bit toooo detailed, lolx, i can't believe i'm actually describing the food i'm eating!! Lolx, i MUST be boreddd. But it really was super-duper yummy, please do give it a try if you're anywhere near montreal! After dinner, we went to a sheeshaw bar, it felt like an arabian brothel, haha. It had red curtains draping over the seats and wooden tables and chairs laid around and a small bar counter at the side. In case you were wondering what exactly is a sheeshaw, it's actually a water pipe. Look below...

There's a tube connecting to the thing and all you have to do is inhale. It's not like smoking cause it doesn't contain tobacco or the 100000 other toxic chemicals inside a cigarette. Well, not unless you request for the tobacco flavoured...but we took double,double apple as well as peach flavoured. It's more like a herb in the form of smoke. Drink it with tea and you'll find that the flavour of the smoke in your mouth mixes with the bland tea so you'll get peach/apple tea or whatever flavour sheeshaw you're smoking.

Look at all the smoke!! Alev taking the first smoke, apparantly it's harder to inhale at first, she can make smoke that is shaped in a loop!

Me trying out sheeshaw for the first time! Amateur, lolx.

Cosy eh? Very arabian...