I know so many people who loves Rnb. I’d say a good 90% of people I know pretty much exclusively listen to rnb – especially my fellow asians who seems to have an exclusive fetish for it. Anyways, for me who grew up loving rock and indie music surrounded by a bunch of rnb lovers, it was a pretty alienating and frustrating journey. I can safely summarize my feelings with:

Rnb. What’s so good about it? Yeah yeah it’s nice and can be technically challenging. But it’s sooooooo………………2 dimensional. Every song – seriously – pretty much EVERY SONG, is a love song. Yeah sure they can be about new romance, old romance, heart break, but its ALL about female/male relationships. I’d say there are probably 2 songs a year not totally about relationships but still 80% on relationships nevertheless. I admit, I like my occasional rnb when I’m in the mood, but for anyone who spend more than 90% of their music listening time on rnb – comon, there’s more to life than listening to relationships right?

When I listen to music, I like to feel a real connection with it, I like to feel inspired, but more importantly, I like to feel educated. That’s why lyrics are especially important to me. Man I don’t want to listen to 30 years of lyrics on how my boo loves me, but then oh daymn shortie cheated, and now my heart is broken but hey I found a man who loves me for who I am. I can handle 2 songs a month on that topic MAX, but after a while that stops benefiting my personal growth. And seriously with the current divorce rates evidently rnb is doing a crap job as a teacher of love.

I can’t fathom how people can not like songs with lyrics like:

There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold
And she’s buying the stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she’s buying the stairway to heaven.

That is…lyrical genious right there. The depth in that song alone blooooows. my mind. Mind blown so far away it traveled around the world and came back around into my head. In that verse alone teaches you about materialism, honor,  questions religion etc etc etc. If just out of respect, every person on the planet should love that song. But really just can’t stand Zepplin’s half dying voice? Fine, what about Ms Amos who sang:

Years go by
Will I still be waiting
For somebody else to understand
Years go by
If I’m stripped of my beauty
And the orange clouds
Raining in my head
Years go by
Will I choke on my tears
Till finally there is nothing left
One more casualty
You know we’re too easy Easy Easy

Too deep or depressing? Luckily there are even love songs that have more dimension:

You and I were two old and tortured souls
Repaired by a love of broken things
In a life, just some bodies growing old
No fear of the end, of anything

We’re just ordinary people, you and me
Time will turn us into statues, eventually

If I were a pen, I’d make sweet sweet felt-tip-pen kind of love to it, then I’d marry it, and have half a dozen pen/lyric babies. Though that analogy sounded less retarded in my head.

I always preach about 2 dimensional personalities. How do people get 2 dimensional personalities? Simply by doing 2 dimensional things. I’m not talking about going grocery shopping or doing the tax, but stuff that really touches your heart, like the people you meet, the things you expose yourself to etc, which includes the songs you pick. There’s no surprise when it comes to rnb. When I hear people say “oh I wonder what the rnb singers next song will be next”, I’m just…….*speechless face*. Buddy I’m guessing it’s about love no?

Just like reading a story, song writers are telling their stories through singing words. Rnb song writers unfortunately all writes the same, with a limitation to the type of words they can use because 1) it’s all about love and 2) there’s a technical difficulties in making a rnb song flow smoothly. However if you’re a true music lover, you should demand more from music than just recycled words on 1 topic. Just like how we read about the courage it took the King to fight the war to save his people, and the strength it took a young girl to survive in a concentration camp, there should be a certain level of depth and variety in what we put our head.

I don’t want to be condescending – I don’t. Rnb in its own right is a respectable form of music. But try something different for a change, and really try to appreciate it. And don’t just listen to it, try to understand it. Trust me that’s how I managed to eventually like rnb, even learnt to somewhat respect it. And I’m really glad I did, because even socially I feel like I have something in common with a lot more people, and I stopped feeling so stuck up about loving rock. Maybe people don’t understand how much impact things like music can affect someone’s wisdom, just try to expand your horizon a bit.

Picture post next week I promise.

This is bugging me: The whole idea of being “laid back”.

There seems to be a lot of people who wants to be laid back. Especially in Australia, it seems to be a personality that people want to emulate. Everybody wants to embed the whole “cool surfer dude”-esque personality that’s friendly to everybody on the planet, says “I’m not fussed” to everything and is relaxed all the time.

Is that suppose to be great?!

I think it’s bullshit. And don’t even get me started on “swag” – Oh please.

The truth is, NO BODY is that laid back. People are kidding themselves if they think they are. Everybody has hopes and dreams and ambition AND A LIFE, which means they are supposed to cry when they are sad, angry when they are mad, annoyed when someone is being irritating and sook when they are disappointed. What is with this fake fake FAKE pretence that people put on?!

I like people who are REAL. Not some person who look stoned when they are sober. I want people around me to be responsive, intelligent, and RELEVANT to the current situation. NOT someone who sweep their real feelings under the rug just to look chilled.

I think having humility, modesty and the wisdom to handle difficult situations is extremely important and I hate people who throw tandrums over every small things. But there is a difference between “This is not a big deal because I’m wise and compassionate to all creatures” and “Omg I’m so fucken mad but I don’t want to look bad”.

Stop. Kidding. Yourself. This is called lying to yourself and the people around you.

What’s so good about suffering in silence for those people? So they can look carefree? Do you know why guys who surf all day look like they don’t have a care in the world? Because all they do is surf and hang with friends and have that fabulous body from being in the ocean 5 hours a day. And let’s be honest, they probably live on government financial support instead of working. I’m not condoning or agreeing with that lifestyle, I genuinely think that with anything you do, if it’s not out of selfishness and harming someone then go ahead and do it.

BUT, the rest of us sheeps do work to make a living and or have a family to support and we have STRESS. So why pretend like there is none?? When you’re pretending nothing is wrong, you’re actually cutting yourself from the honesty and emotional bond that people close to you deserve. Who are you trying to look good in front of?! I have not a clue. Unless you have a load of money or little stress, why even pretend there’s nothing wrong?

I use to feel like an idiot because when I feel angry I just show it, but the people around me would act cool as cucumber even though afterwards they would bitch to me to death about what happened. WTH people, no one’s going to give you an Oscar for that performance.

But as I age along, I feel less ashamed of my straightforwardness. There is nothing wrong with it. I know I’ve had deeper connections with the people in my life than a lot of people I know. Because I’m willing to show my true colors so other people are more willing to share theirs with me. Even though in this society it’s deemed “uncool” because people are just supposed to laid-backedly take it all like a fucken black hole of uselessness, I’m glad to be the person that I am – I get shit done, bitches.

I can never understand why – guys grabs my friend’s butt on the street and all the girls say is “just ignore them” – I want to punch their face. Don’t you want justice for your friends?! And yes, I do feel better after I do what I have to do.

I don’t understand why – when someone is really angry with someone but don’t want to tell the person. We all know that’s a “great” idea – I on the other hand, would tell them straight away or after thinking about. And yes I do feel better after I tell them what’s bothering me and we come to a solution.

The examples go on and on and on. Maybe people just don’t have the courage, they don’t want to get laughed at, talked about, just in case they say something stupid. What happens in the end though, is a society of unproductive and repressed people.

At the end of the day, the only TRUE way to be carefree is to unload your emotional burden. Find someone you can trust and connect with on an emotional level, be it family, friends or girl/boyfriend. Just be HONEST and TRUTHFUL about the situation you’re in. For example I know I’m not a “relaxed” person because my life is stressballz. But I’m honest. If you can’t be honest with the world, at least have a few that you CAN be honest with. Unload unload unload, and maybe we can all truly feel as laid back as we like to appear.

When I had the super long hair I always got comments like “Wow your hair is so long!” from people, which I diligently took as compliments lol. I think it suited me well because if I didn’t brush my hair in the morning I’d look a bit crazy, which was 50% of the time, and seeing I am a bit crazy, it was totally the look I was going for lol. I must emphasize that I’m not being lazy, I’m just pulling a GaGa:

“I am a genius.”

So what’s been happening lately is that when I see girls with really long hair, what used to be “I’m jelly of her hair”, I would find myself thinking “what a freak.“. Then I’d catch a whiff of my own reflect and I’m like:

I think I just trolled myself.

When I started feeling that way I kindda knew my hair has come to the end of its days, I stopped seeing my hair as pretty and saw it as clunky instead. I’m trying to be less impulsive these days so I waited a good 2 weeks before taking the plunge. I even went to my hair dressers only to get a trim.

But on Sunday night, I took a pair of scissors and I just…chopped it all off!!

^ Before

^After (too much photo effects? rofl)

I had to tilt my hair in an awkward position to fit my hair into the before photo, there was no way my face could fit into the frame. But afterwards? Perfect. It’s been a long time since I could self-cam my face and all of my hair in one photo lol. It kind of feels a bit weird running my fingers through my hair and having it finish so quickly, but for the first time for a long time I didn’t get strangled by my own hair when I’m sleeping! Lol true story!

But to be honest when I was eating I only had one thought:

THAT, is how you know its some good shit.

^ Move aside boyfriend, move aside family and friends, these are the love of my life! I would trade everything I own, an arm and a leg, to spend the rest of my life in a bath tub full of oden……….*dreamy eyes*

Alright thats gross.

These are oden, and they are really REALLY good fish cakes. Depends on the size, for 50 cents to $1.50 you can get yourself one of these heaven on a stick. And daymn, with my stomach size I could only have 2! Then you grab a paper cup on the side and you can have all the soup you want. They have them in those tents all along the street.

But wait, there’s more:

(Spicy rice cakes)

(Waffles with icecream)

Tadaaa. You can get this mix in most street stores that sells oden. Bacally its a mix of blood sausage (sundae), and HUMAN LUNG AND LIVER MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA………………………

Um yeah… no, asian people don’t eat every animal despite popular belief. Those are pig’s lung and liver! You dip the pieces in that flavorsum pinky salty mix at the back of the plate and viola. Yum right? I know, removing that me gusta expression from one’s face right now can be difficult. Or throw up face, whatever. Just trust me when I say, homiez, its DELISH!

(Dried squid)

(Caramel round thing)

Some guy on the street makes these round caramel things which I forget the name of. They have different shapes in the middle, and what you need to do is break around the shape as neatly as possible. Mine’s a…duck, I think.

TBH, it didn’t really taste all that smashing lol, I think its just the novelty factor that makes it so cool. Unfortunately mine broke in the middle in the first snap haha. And my face was like straight to LOL oh dear.

I have many many many many many more food photos to come. But for now, I made myself super hungry, so I’m going to attack my fridge @_@ byez.

You know how once in awhile you go to a wedding that makes you go “wow”? Well, that’s me at every wedding because I’m easily amused, but that’s beside the point. We went to Min and Patt aka Mint Patty’s wedding 2 weekends ago, and it was simply a gorgeous wedding. They had it at the beautiful Deck House at Woolwich, it faces the bridge but just on the otherside, so you avoid all the city traffic – lovely!

My hair was like frizz to the max that day. Actually I think it got DESTROYED under the sun in Boracay. I’ve been feelsing like I have grass on my head FML. I tried my best to “style” it…whatever, I tried.

It was a super funny vow reading thingy bit because they both made some mistakes through the reading, including Min going “HUH?” to something the vow person (aiya, brain no worky) said, which cracked everyone up.

I really like how they displayed the table seating with this collage of printouts. It was really creative and yeah I loved it.

Too bad it was a Sunday and we couldn’t stay until the end. But it was a really awesome night LOVE the flower ZOMG.

*Cricket chirping*

I want a better excuse but I don’t got none. Alas, I must reveal my ultimate vice and admit to the world that, Hi everyone, I am a Bejeweled addict. SAD FACE.

It all started when I started playing Bejeweled on Facebook a few years ago. I was soooo addicted. I use to get NO sleep at night and go to work with zombie eyes for weeks. I played so much that when I closed my eyes I could see the jewels on the back of my eyelids LOL.

It took A LOT for me to realize it was getting too unhealthy, and I had to completely quit. Since then I’ve been sober for 2 years until……………………..for some stupid reason I thought I can handle playing Bejeweled on iPhone without getting addicted again. It’s freakin classic Alcohol Anonymous 101 to never touch the drug of choice for the rest. of. your. life. I’ve watched enough movies to know! But I thought I was above it.

Anyways this is ridiculous, I refuse to be medically diagnosed for being addicted to BEJEWELED. WTF please! I’m not THAT much of a loser! *Looks around uncomfortably*

Ok I am that much of a loser, because right now, its taking me A LOT to get away from my iPhone to type this post, so you know this be import’nt.

I’m going to talk about – Terra Nova.

What. Was the point to this show? Truthfully I only tried watching total 10 mins of it so I don’t really have the right to judge. But those “next episode” preview clips were SO BAD. This is a classic case of bad marketing. I remember watching one where it went something like:

*A family watching a baby dinosaur appear from hatched egg*

Daughter: Awwww…can we keep it??

Mom: *Turns to dad* Yeah can we?

Dad: *Smiles*

……….THE END.

.

.

.

.

Is that suppose to make me want to watch the next episode??? People. PEOPLE! The only way to retify this is if the dinosaur baby started talking, or the dad ends it with “Oh no dear, but its for dinner tonight”. THEN I’d think about it. It might be a great show, but it didn’t make me feel curious about it at all.

So I’m really glad to see it off air. I use to rage when I see its commercial. Admittedly very briefly, but still raged.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new channel 10 show the New Girl. What a funny show! I can relate so much to the main girl. I love love LOVE her. Does that mean I love myself? Nevermind I dont want to think about it that way LOL. I really hope they don’t screw it up too soon, that’d be sad, I’d be sad.

Anyways………………………I have to play ONE round of Bejeweled………………….yeaaahhh……………just one……………………………….

One thing I came to really appreciate Korea of, is how much attention to detail they pay to everything. The intricacy in everything builds up to a bigger, more exciting, and unfathomably harmonious picture. Especially in Insadong, I felt like the term ‘vandalism’ wasn’t associated with the suburb’s many graffiti. There was no random scribble of words on the wall or childish markings of territory. The graffitis felt like real artworks, that people respected, and in return, the graffitis respected the city back.

We spent an entire afternoon at Insadong. And just like last time, I took a million photos just walking down the street:

There are A LOT of animal mascots in Korea. I feel bad for them if I saw them wearing the suits in summer, but in that weather I was one jealous tourist! Where can I buy them from??

Wtf can I not have one convo without a meme in there now?? I wonder if I can write an entire entry in meme…………..

GAWD. Thank god I got a bf before this happened.

Anyhow I digress. The mascots we saw in MyeongDong were a bit snobby, they didn’t really interact with anyone – or maybe I’m just spoiled by the friendly mascots in Disneyland? But this lonely squirrel was VERY friendly though. One look at my uncomfortable smile should tell the story.

………

I lied, I SECRETLY LOVED IT! *Chases after the squirrel with manic laughter*

Check out the yellow sign! So funny!

It was a dark and stormy night as our heroine and her sidekicks trekked through Hongdae in search for food and shelter. A long day of shopping has tired all 3 warriors, and the conversation quickly turned onto this ancient tale. Her sidekicks, as they were both not fans of furry creatures, gasped in horror as our heroine excitedly retold the tale.

Cue lightning and fog….

……

OOOOOOkkkkkkkk… Imma going to let that finish, but that was only fun for the first sentence, after that it was like *too much effort, brain explodes*.

Anyways in layman’s term, something amazing happened when I was in Korea. My boyfriend, his cousin and I were in Hongdae after a hard day of – I don’t remember what we did, but it’s safe to assume – shopping. It was getting dark and I was feeling tired when my thoughts started to wonder off, and I remembered reading on the webz about this magical cat cafe in Seoul. My boyfriend is a dog lover and his cousin doesn’t like cats, so I knew it would be fruitless to ask them. But just as I was telling them about it, I saw a glimpse of a sign:

I LITERALLY just finished telling them about it when I saw the sign. I swear my heart skipped a beat. Could it be……? COULD IT BE??

Then when we went in all I saw was:

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ALL MY DREAMS CAME TRUE!!!!!*

*Term will be used in another post about another magical beverage inn in said far far away land (not cat related).

^ I want him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you say moar cat photos plz? NO PROBLEM MOAR FOR YOU:

The place is called CheongChong Cat www.ycat.kr. It’s located in Hongdae, Seoul. I think it use to be called Gio Cat Cafe?  I’m not too sure because the interior structure looks exactly the same, especially that bookshelf area in the second last photo.

There were a lot of rules to get into this cat cafe. First you gotta pay the $$ (not that much) which includes a drink per person. Then you gotta change into slippers which they provide, then you gotta deposit your jacket and bags, then you gotta sanitize your hands, then there’s no flash photography… In short there were a lot of rules….a lot of reasonable rules….a lot of them.

I really appreciate my companions for going with me, because I can see the bore/occasional-horror in their eyes. There is absolutely no where to hide from cats in there. I’M NOT COMPLAINING hehe.

Anyways I’m churning this post out because someone’s hassling me about Korea photos – so here you go! Hope you like cats! >:D

(Boat shot on White Beach)

Boracay was awarded in the “Travelers’ Choice 2011″ by TripAdvisor as the second best beach in the world. Boracay made a debut appearance on the Top 10 Islands list in the Travel + Leisure travel magazine World’s Best Awards 2011, ranking fourth.

Boy, have I been spoilt? For the last 5 days. I’ve been lying on the beautiful beaches of Boracay, tanning and tanning into a slightly alarming, yet wonderful shade of Lobster lol. My body’s been fueled mostly by fried chicken and various mango/banana/papaya/pineapple blends. And I think I’ve stored enough Vitamin D for the rest of the year!

We stayed at the beautiful Nami Resort on Diniwid Beach in their Suite Ocean View room. I might blog more about the hotel later but for now all I can say is that its very different to your regular hotel, the staff is personable, customer service is A++, it’s quiet and secluded – I love love LOVE its private beach! It was exactly what I wanted for a resort holiday. Although Nami Resort‘s cliff-side structure meant there were a lot of stairs, I found no problem to it. As long as I’m mobile, I would definitely stay there again!

White Beach is the main tourist beach on Boracay.  They didn’t have to try very hard with the name of the beach because the sand was, well, white. Hence I suppose the name? I don’t know, Wikipedia might prove me wrong or whatever lol. It covered from what I saw, a good portion of the island, with miles and miles of white sand, and equal amount of clear, torque waters.

Excuse me while I get lost in flash backs *dreamy look*

White beach was a short shuttle bus trip from Nami Resort for us. The resort provided free drop off and pick up shuttle services across the island which was awesome! Plus 2 points for the hotel. It’s pretty tame in the day time with your everyday old-men-in-speedos, painfully lobstered and charcoal colored chicks, local hustlers. But when the sun starts to go down, EVERYONE comes out, and the entire beach side turns into a massive party spot. Just look at the amount of people behind me in the last photo!

I have way more photos to come, but for now I need to recover from the hell of a trip back to Sydney D:

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HOWEVER, I haven’t had stable wifi since I got here and its been driving me CRAZY. Cannot surf the net on my iphone? Noooooooooo…….

I have so many photos that I want to post up, but I can’t find a USB port on this computor? I’m a bit technologically challenged… But I have many photos from Christmas that I’ve yet to post, so here are some photos of Japanese themed BBQ at Tri’s house.

(Foodz x 3)

Seriously who makes food like this for a BBQ? They aren’t a bunch of foodies without skills after all. There was a kitchen FULL of food, but I was too busy nomming to take any photos. I ate that oyster in the last photo before I remembered I had a camera, heheh.

(Dog, wasabi bomb)

Look at Michelle carefully making those wasabi bombs. There were 2 per plate and apparently the bombs didn’t taste too bad haha. This is what happens when the food is too dericious lolz.

(Me and Tri, ma face)

HAHAHA Tri and I always take awkward photos. The last one is the type of photo my bf likes to take of me -_-”

This is my first proper holiday in the last 2 years, it’s been so relaxing here I’m sad that the the last day finally came :’(
But I’m off to Boracay tomorrow!! Hope I can update more there!