(christmas) baking

(CHRISTMAS) BAKING. I'm finding it impossible to get in the Christmas mood, despite 10000x different 'Last Christmas' covers (including Vietnamese version) running on repeat at the electronics shop across the street, mixed with the occasional Justin Bieber - Baby, of course. Yesterday, I did some Christmas baking to kick-start some Weihnachtstimmung, did not help much, but was fun nevertheless. :) after that I got a massage and now am heading to the gym. Yesterday night Kimi landed, this afternoon Sabrina lands in HCMC and then tonight Laszlo, needless to say I am beyond excited. :)

still alive

STILL ALIVE. Sveja arises from the dead... Sorry for the short break from posting, I kept forgetting to take my camera with me so I had nothing to share and truth be told I have not been doing anything extra-ordinarily exciting either. Today I went to breakfast with Daddy, Om Hau, my granduncle second or third, and his niece, who would then be my cousin second or third degree? The Vietnamese extended family tree can be so confusing... :) then gym, then lunch with my aunt, shopping at Saigon Square and then I brought baby Victoria to ballet class, which was just beyond cute and amusing. Just got back from dinner with Dad (guess where, surprise, surprise), just wanted to share pictures from today before heading to snooze-land.

today we...

TODAY WE... Discovered the cutest little coffee place in all of Saigon: L'Usine. It's super cute, right in the middle of town, but super hidden and secluded from the busiest of it all. There's cute cupcakes and quiche and baguettes, and, and, and. I cannot really  say how to food is, only had a blueberry banana muffin, which was really good. My hot chocolate was underwhelming, had to add sugar and I'm actually anti-ueber-sweet, but the whole vibe of the place was just nice to sit and read and watch other people come and go... (+ no Christmas music and only classy, modest Christmas decoration, always a plus in my book! :)).

lazy monday

LAZY MONDAY. Truth be told, every day is lazy day, I'm in complete vacation mode and loving it. :) today we...

sushi and sleep

SUSHI AND SLEEP. Just had a lot of the former and hopefully will be getting a lot of the latter tonight. I could not be more exhausted. Today was gym-day and I for some reason set my mind on running an hour instead of 40 minutes (7.5km, making progress, majulah! :)), which was surprisingly doable, but because we had a late breakfast ('late' being 10am, Vietnamese people are definitely early birds), we went to the gym around 1pm and then decided to skip lunch and just wait for dinner time. I was hence near-death when we reached Sushi Bar. There we were greeted by the typical yelling of Japanese greetings from all corners of the restaurant (coming from Vietnamese people) - hungry and tired this was more annoying than usual. No Christmas music, but little plastic trees on each table and everyone wearing silly Santa hats... It's 30 degrees outside people! Stop faking Christmas spirit! Oh well... I love me some edamame, cannot say no to that, even if it means high irritation levels. :)

twilight

TWILIGHT. Experienced my first lunar eclipse today, no biggie. 

fast forward

FAST FORWARD. Scusi, ze internet has been down the last few days. Right now sitting in Dad's office, I've been given my own little desk, so I'm feeling very important. :) in an attempt to get back on track with my posts, here are many multiple days squeezed into one post. Not much has happened so far though, except a lot of eating. Also, Daddy and I have been 'hitting the gym' haha oh yeah GTL, baby! Minus the tanning, and Ba Noi does my laundry... Anyways, surprisingly I am not doing so bad (5km in 40 minutes, slow, but hey... It's nevertheless an achievement, I've never managed to run so long :)). God bless Nicki Minaj for helping me get through it... I fear every minute that goes by though, knowing that when the day ends and I wake up tomorrow, I will be as sore as never before...

sofitel

SOFITEL. As many of you may have already noticed, Daddy and I share a uncontrollable passion for food, and boy was I starving getting off the plane (at this point I have to mention, TigerAirways: best Asian budget airline by far, AirAsia: I despise you)... It's this big thing in Vietnam now to have membership cards for places, Dad's wallet is filled to the brim with them, with the newest addition being Accor, so we decided to have dinner at the Sofitel. At first I thought I had never been there, walking in I directly realized the big wooden pillars and remembered having been there for New Years once with the fam and Kimihide's family too. A lot of things are changing in Asia, so it's always nice to walk into a familiar place... :)

bloodbuzz

BLOODBUZZ. Landed in Vietnam safely yesterday and already have a few pictures to share, but first I want to talk about an event I went to right before leaving Singapore. A few weeks ago I was e-mailed to come see the full winter collection for Bloodbuzz, a new Singaporean-based fashion brand, the one from which I got all my Zouk flea market purchases, so naturally I was super excited and made sure to draw a bit of cash from the ATM before heading there (ok, maybe I drew a little more than just 'a bit' of cash... :)). It was a perfect way to spend a rainy Saturday, there was a free flow of wine, a photobooth, free nail art, cupcakes and lots of other yummy nibbles, all under the theme of "London Calling" (the designer Kimberly is a recent LCF graduate). I loved a lot of the things I saw and ended up placing two orders that arrived at my doorstep the next day (now that is what I call service :)). No doubt in my mind that my new buys will show up on the blog soon, for now here are the pictures from the showing.  

brb

BRB. Sitting in my now empty room with my suitcase (and other bags, feel free to call me queen of overpacking)... Oh beloved Singapura... I cannot put into words how sad I am to be leaving. I've grown so fond of the city, the modernity meets nature feel of this place, the people, the food (!!!)... I've really come to cherish Singapore, all of it, even the flaws can be so endearing (population moves in slow-motion, population does not let one get out of the metro before they attempt to squeeze themselves in, and so on). I think having moved so much as a child has led me to feel at home in new places very fast: I truly feel I'm leaving home, saying goodbye to such a wonderful and enriching experience. I could not have wished for a better host country for my exchange. Majulah Singapura, I will be back soon. :) 

mermaid + lion

MERMAID + LION. A day at Sentosa, running on 5 hours of sleep, Bianca and I zombied through the aquarium, got the mandatory Merlion photo and then ditched as fast as the wind for surpriseeeeee Din Tai Fung (what to do when a dim sum craving comes along in Europe?) and a well-deserved nap afterwards... Ok, fine, whatever, only I napped...

drinkage local style

 

DRINKAGE LOCAL STYLE. For some reason, I love the blurriness of this picture... :) last Wednesday, Han Loong took us out for North Indian food (yuuuuum) and after that to Butterfactory, where I had already been with my Maastricht friends, but that night was super local, hardly any foreigners and boy oh boy, after 6 months in Asia I can definitely confirm that Asians cannot, I repeat cannot, hold their liquor at all and fail at practicing self-control (tut tut tut), because comes midnight they all start passing out and getting super sloppy, it's an amusing though sometimes perplexing and even disgusting sight... Oh well, "embracing foreign cultures" 2.0, I guess... :)

national orchid garden

NATIONAL ORCHID GARDEN.

bali: part III

BALI: PART III. First December post, time flies by so fast, only 5 more days until I leave Singapore for good... Bianca is here at the moment so we've been exploring Singapore (I realize now just how little I've actually seen haha sad). For now though, here are the pictures still left over from our last day in Bali: chilled day at the beach, then pool, then dinner in Seminyak. And then waking up at 3am to get our flight, eeeeek.