::fragmented melodies::

watching my boss my hero has a positive effect on attitude.

along with johnny's music (with a private singalong session haha), foolscap pad, notes and stationery;
makes good environment for getting down to work.

am feeling extraordinarily happy at this moment.. i wonder why.

--- 07:33 ---

::fresh air of seven degrees celsius::

it is a day when you just don't want to blog about where you've been for record keeping's sake
or upload any pictures.
but anyway-
went to windermere in the lake district yesterday. 6 of us altogether, finally.
laid back scenic trip; walking around and a boat cruise.

the main point of this post is-
the fact that i'm
BORED.

although i've been away from manchester on weekends far more often than anyone in my group except mars perhaps, i never fail to be bored on those i'm in.
there comes a point when you just NOT want to stay holed up in the room all the time;
getting your brains fried with gossipy crap
clubbox and various variety shows
blogsurfing
reading notes
...
lose their allure just like that *poof*

i'm in the room nightly already... and i understand everyone else has their own stuff to do;
places nearby are relatively uninteresting;
and the british way of killing time at night ie. clubbing somehow doesn't have any appeal to me.
that's the reason why i suddenly feel like splurging on the now ninetyeightpounds to get to maastricht to find wjlizhong on an impulse and tour belgium meanwhile.

i thought i'd enjoy this much privacy.
why am i so freaking restless?

dumbdumbbigshot: cheer up k? u sounded really sad :(

so here's something to get the mood up~~ (kidding.. but its a song with a nice beat i like)
堂本光一: Addicted

--- 01:01 ---

::when an otherwise horrid day takes a turn for the better::

i found a totally pwned site XDDDDD~

also ran a celebrity lookalike check on my photo (don't ask me why i'm doing all these crap when i've not started on a 1500-word essay due on friday);
and i look 72% like jolin tsai...
which can't really be a bad thing given she's supposed to be cute =X
we even share the same surname lahhhh.

i'm still a little surprised about tegomassu releasing a single in sweden and in english!!
ok...
back to essay-ing.

--- 21:23 ---

::the city that sings mozart.::

back from a long weekend trip to salzburg, austria with the maastricht-ers liz, wj and hong...
was quite an impulse decision though. wanted to go somewhere together and ended up choosing salzburg, for i-forgot-what-reason.

anyway waited an hour for them at the super small salzburg airport;
which was deserted at eight pm save for a few people in the arrival hall.
took a bus to the main train station salzburg hbf, where we caught the train to our hotel.
decided not to buy tickets and ended up avoiding the conductor by just one carriage =X
so in the pitch black, the four of us wandered up a super steep hill which would supposedly lead us to our hotel... with the three of them carrying backpacks that easily weighed over ten kilos.
found the place by a stroke of luck-
which turned out to be very nice place :)



wandered around the city center the second day.

mirabel gardens; which might look familiar to some because the it was one of the scenes in the sound of music; where they jumping up and down the steps and running around the fountain.

geidtregassen; the shopping street.

salzburg fortress, high up on a mountain; and an aerial view of the city

took a half day tour on the second day to the bavarian alps, which is in the federal republic of germany. yups, we went into germany too~

went through steep mountain roads but with pretty pretty scenary outside :)

tried cafe baileys at some small cafe in a german town;
coffee and alcohol... hmm........ got a little light headed after that though =X

adventurous enough to try something called the "salzburger" as well.
which was a burger with the local type of bread, ketchup, mayo, onions and a meat patty; of which the kind of meat was unidentifiable hmm.
suspected there was more than one kind inside though, along with bits of vegetables and chestnuts.
no pictures though;
everyone was curious enough and before i thought of a taking a picture, it was all gone :(

were entertained by this group of young german/austrian kids on the train as well haha.
we were playing bridge, waiting for the train to move, and then this trio sat beside us and tried ALOT of ways to attract our attention.
they were laughing super loudly, and tried greeting us in all sorts of languages.
we identified german, french, dutch and english.. but i'm sure they used alot of others as well haha!!
we were also speaking in mandarin amongst ourselves and laughing super loudly in response =X
and when we got off the train, we waved at them and one of them nearly got out of the train to wave back!!!
super funny episode :P

but it was nice trip;
salzburg is more like a getaway city. just to relax and chill.
and so we did, playing lots and lots of bridge =X
and thanks for celebrating my belated belated birthday :):)

and not to forget...

***HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY to the LITTLE SIS!!***

--- 23:05 ---

::なんと！::

２６歳誕生日おめでとう、岡田准一さん！

時が流れて、もっと可愛いなってね。。。でも、可愛いでもカッコイイでも、そのまま変わらないでね。
Ｖ６の中あたし一番性格のことに似てる人なんです。
可愛いところ以外ね　＞＜

＊

(: 人生の小さな喜ぶ :)

--- 08:46 ---

::its めちゃ寒ッ here::

been addicted to「銀狼怪奇ファイル」these two days.
have been wanting to watch it years ago but never could find it coz it was probably too old (filmed in 1996)!!

but there's 光一, イノッチ and 健 inside.
had an urge to put up screencaps and pictures to compare then and now, but what's new? 怠け者です。
and it was my favourite type of drama; along the lines of 金田一 and 映児, although i got scared enough to skip some of the parts =X
abit too much blood and "supposedly" supernatural stuff inside...

「学校へ行こう！」MAX was super funny as well.
イノッチ as a 舞妓 was equivalent to a entire makeover.. although i agreed that he was デカスギ!!~ haha...
岡田 doing エーアウォカル was cute too. especially when he was so 恥ずかしい about screening it on air :P

note of randomness:
my V6 playlist of 78 songs has been on repeat for the past four days.

とは言え、土曜日にみんなさんへ、本当にすみませんでした。
あたしのせいで認めていました。

and if you're wondering,
the mixing of languages was deliberate.

its also amusing how my msn nicks seem to garner so much response from others.

--- 05:02 ---

::grazed fingers::

yours truly went rock climbing today...
at the manchester rock climbing center, which had wall types that singapore doesn't have, according to ky, whose girlfriend is a national climber.

conclusion:
i'm damn weak lahs boo...
although managed to conquer some wall which was about three storeys(?) high haha.

and i managed to miss BOTH the catered breakfast and dinner.
bleah~

--- 04:21 ---

::そう.. か~::

i miss not having kinokuniya around;
or any place where i can just stop to browse japanese stuff-
novels, magazines, manga, music...

expected it,
although i never thought i'd miss it that much...

meanwhile, something for you all to enjoy:
(from the album that i've been looping for a month)

堂本光一:　愛の十字架 ~Promise2U~
堂本光一:　下弦の月

--- 05:52 ---

::guinness, snowdon, and the sex city.::

second half of the semester starts next week;
i haven't done any proper work since arriving in europe, and i still find twopointfive hours to blog.
-shakes head-

anyway... loooong post ahead-
about what has been going on this reading week
for your pleasure (and mine).

left early saturday morning eight am to catch our flight to dublin, ireland.

city sights;
dublin castle, and lively irish pubs, which were filled with men singing at the top of their voices when we passed it at night.

our hostel and its very cosy lobby.
that's martin and mars in the picture, my travel buddies for the trip.
guinness storehouse; dublin's #1 tourist attraction.

everything smells guinness in dublin, as if guinness could be its new trademark.
had a complementary pint of it at the end of the tour;
but yours truly left half of it behind =X
and it does taste better and fresher than those in the shops.

millenium spire; landmark of dublin-
which was built three years late in 2003 haha.

got out of the city the second day;
into ireland's most beautiful county wicklow.

breathtaking scenary which cannot be captured by a simple mechanism known as a camera.

went past the filming location for braveheart- sally gap.
top left hand corner shows the humble beginnings of river liffey, which divides ireland into the north and south.
top right corner- lough tay, which was pretty beyond description.
rest of the pictures were taken in glendalough, which is gaelic for "meeting of the two valleys".
i love scenic tours :)

and because we travel budget, flight times were a little screwed-
we ended up spending a night at the airport, where yours truly caught a grand total of twenty minutes of slumber.
to return to manchester airport early monday morning just in time to meet stella and ky for a drive west to northern wales.....

drove along the coast of some sea (lazy to check it up :P) and stopped halfway to take pictures against the stronggggg wind.

top left is one of my fav pictures.
and beaumaris castle; which was never completed
and lightless through the creepy alleys.

misty mountain from a place we ended up at after the human navigator got us lost miles off track haha.
and our hotel in bangor; situated in a super ulu and missable corner off the main road, where we spent the first night playing monopoly X)

took many roundabouts before arriving at our highlight of the trip on tuesday morning-
the snowdon mountain; highest peak in england and wales.

took a steam train up the track through the mountain; and the pretty scenary from there.

it was the last day of the year the train ride operated but due to bad weather (strong wind and fog), we could only ascend up to 5/8 of the way- 680m above ground.
intended to walk down the mountain on the hikers' track as well, but weather didn't permit.. what a waste :(

lost again big time while searching for ikea in warrington on the drive back to manchester heh.
but thankfully we found our way after many roundabouts, motorways and asking for directions.

had a much needed rest and stoned the entire wednesday in the room;
kce on utaban, tfp2, vvv6, dk... you name it :D
...only to leave at four am thursday morning in -1 degree weather to catch a bus to the airport-
for our flight to amsterdam!!~

amsterdam has canals through the entire city;
and so that was our main form of transport- the canal bus.

the dutch are big on cycling it seems...
and the visit to madame tussaud's wax musuem resulted in loads of silly pictures with our favourite celebrities (so sad they didn't have inocchi =X)
anyway, was telling mars that the number of pictures yours truly took in europe easily beats the total amount taken in the past five years heh...

pretty view of buildings by the canals.

explored the city further throughout the day... and came across these selling freely in a souvenir shop.

kinda tempted to try aye?

the red light district was quite an eye opener, being quite different from kabukicho in shinjuku.
girls were showing their stuff in windows, posters advertising live demonstrations;
we even got asked to go into one of those sleazy places =X
we saw a shop window like that::
haha.

friday morning saw us taking different routes of the canal bus, before catching a train to koog zaandjik-
a tourist attraction for its windmills~

signs in dutch for the clueless trio and pretty pretty houses in zaanse schans with the windmills.

to our pleasant surprise, there was a mini cheese farm and clog factory as well.
and it was the first time yours truly ate so much cheese in a single day.
dutch cheese is really quite different!!

on friday itself, the weather was being super unpredictable;
raining fifteen minutes every half hour or so... much to our irritation.
but... it was all worth it when...

how nice is that?

so that was how i spent my reading week.......
...now its back to readings and tutorials...
:: sigh ::
first saturday free in manchester since the week before the visit to chester...
and the single digit temperature is making me feel perpetually sleepy zzZzZZzZ~

--- 02:48 ---

::nothing's worth::

daylight savings has ended;
now singapore is eight hours ahead of manchester
and sunset is at four plus pm.

and because i'm saddled with a load of things piled up in the midst of a mini travel marathon, i shall blog sometime next week :D

*and because it really slipped my mind on the day itself...*
HAPPY 11th ANNIVERSARY V6!! -throws confetti-

--- 03:45 ---