is a proud auntie

my first nephew was born 2 days ago!
I got the news a bit late because everyone was so busy with the preparation, hospital and all.
Even the proud daddy, my brother missed the birth experience when taking his breakfast, a bowl of porridge. LOL!


I have been calling him "petit mbe" a mix of french and slang bahasa language which means "small goat". Why? Because there were times when his daddy stank like goat!

I browsed for a flight ticket back the moment I got the news only to realize that my passport is still in process for schengen visa in Phnom Penh's France embassy! ARGH! well, it's life, I'll just have to wait until everything's settle by itself.

Those who knows me, know well enough that I DON'T LIKE BABY or KIDS but that's all what i will write down about them, otherwise it will be too gory and even offensive.

but this creature, this 1 particular baby who are hundreds of miles from me, oddly touch my heart ... It's soo weird that I feel an attachment and affection for this magical creature. weird, odd, strange and a bit creepy ... well, after all, we human are weird and follows our instinct

Next move is Siam Reap

Another move, we packed and ready for 1 year in Siam Reap.
A picnic in angkor temple on sunday evening awaits us!

This time's a bit overweight >..< with my new scanner and stack of books from Kinokuniya.
Perhaps it is time to consider Ipad?

la la land

me totally absorbed in my own world with my imaginary friends
some call it woofyworld or la la land but Bouh call it "in need of mental doctor"

back and forth

Found this photos in my messy photo folders and couldn't resist posting it.
This are some (not even half) of the tickets I collected back in the day when I had to fly back n forth, hundreds of miles, on d weekend, to meet up with Bouh.

It was one of the toughest ride, after the bleeding long hours
of working days and had to spend hours of waiting in d airport.

"moto'bike miss?"

I arrived yesterdday in Phnom Penh, cambodia to apply for a 1 year cambodian visa.
In no less tha 24 hours here, I already got hundreds of tuk-tuk/moto'bike driver offering their service wherever I walk. "moto'bike miss?" " where you want go miss?" "miss?" "miss?".
A constant hassle in every step I took, every minute I spent without my ipod and it really gets me, it's just extremely annoyed me to the point of, I have to spit this out.

I also realized that I had unconciously browsed for flight ticket out, a try to find an escape port (if there's any ..). I was here 2 years ago, stopping by for a couple of days and I remember that it was too much to take. I simply can't stand the place.

The good news is, I'll be out from this madness in the next 2 days (gee, still 2 days!). I probably going to spend those 2 days, coop in the room and loathe every minutes of it.

The bad news is, next month we'll be moving to Siam Reap, Cambodia for 1 year.
I faintly hope it will be a better place.. faintly. we'll see ... perhaps, I overworked and tired, one too many to handle.

potentially explosive

I can say that I'm not an explosive girlfriend, I've done my time being one of that kind of monster. Well, to bad for my ex, they did have the best of my monstrous side when only with a little spark, I could cause a nuclear explosion sans mushroom cloud.

This evening, I found my other explosive potential.

First of all, It's amazing how I can still stubbornly try to cook with a tiny kitchen, that is if you still call a microwave and a sink as a kitchen.
However, I still want a nice breakfast with eggs and make some good, proper salad for dinner. After the umpteenth time of going back and forth to 7-11 to buy a cold boiled egg, I decide to cook my own and buy a tiny equipment for microwave boiled an egg. I bought "the thing" because microwaved boiled an egg can be risky as it can easily explode.


I swore that I followed the direction, 5min on 350watt microwave setting for a hard boiled egg, filled the water on the bottom and so on ... but perhaps, I missed out on something, after all, I didn't really believe that "the thing" would work. It did magically work for the first and second time .. but not this evening.

This evening, I explode the egg, it went off with a loud KABOOM!
and really, I wouldn't be happy if I was the neighbour.


Shocked as I was, I instantly tweeted about the explosion and to make it worse, in less than 2 minutes, Bouh called from his office just to check on me. He was worried that I got an injury from the explosion (or perhaps worried for the microwave and the room).

At that very moment, I can see the dark smoky cloud on the horizon,
my upcoming faith, to be labeled as a potentially-microwave-explosive girlfriend.

pattern and colours

look at the beautiful pattern and colours, it's my new fabric collection!
I'm going to make some plushies, pouch and ... I don't know, I'm not sure what else, I"m too excited .. any idea?

Mighty ant vs Woofy

On our first day in Bangkok, we went to the city park and took a small nap on the grass.
Like in every park, there are ants ... just some tiny little ants, crawling on the grass,
sniffing for leftover foods ....
I actually didn't really bother the ants, I fell asleep almost instantaneously
and woke up with 2 small swollen ant bites ... it's how natures work ...
and come on, we human are stronger than ants!
We can squish them to death with our tiny little finger!
Give the ants a break, it's just a tiny bite ... spare their life

well, that's what I thought, until 10 minutes later, I felt a burning sensation
on my face and hand palms then tiny swells appeared all over my body.
The worse part? my face swelled like a balloon! I'm allergic to ant bite?!?!
I'm a weaker link than a tiny ant?! Their tiny bite poisoned my blood?! WHAT?!

well. nop, I won't post my ballooned face, I'll keep that picture in the darkest corner
of my messy photo folders but here is my dotted arms.
Bare in mind, this were not ant bites, this were the allergic reaction ...Fortunately the park is close with pharmacy, we went there and I point my finger
to my ballooned face while asking for a magical allergic solution (like a 10sec wipe-off-all-allergic-reaction potion, was that too much to ask?)

I got a pity look from the pharmacist and some allergic pills.
All tiny bits spots are gone within an hour and it eased the outrageous itch.

phew ... so much for a first day in Bangkok ...

Moving Out

How to reduce 2 person lives to 40kg of bags?
1. send unused stuff and souvenir to your parent's house
2. throw away some of your stuff
3. leave almost everything behind
4. close your eyes, take a deep breath and count to 3 and say "it's okay, it's just stuff .."
5. if all of that is not working, grab your wallet and be ready to pay
the excess weight fee,oh, do check it out, because every airlines
has different fee (our's 6USD/kg)

yesh, we are busy packing ... or in other word, stuffing our life into bags ...

and .... off to Bangkok - Thailand!

cooking for one

Its been 2 days since I last touched my skillets, I'm not in the mood for cooking and my bad mood is clearly written on my forehead and the amount of crisp, ice cream and chocolates I ate.
I just need to turn on "the desperate housewives series" and my housemate will surely began to panic.

He is worried.

Last night, he dragged me all the way to an art performance event on the other side of the city and he already make a let's-hav-fun plan to entertain me this evening.

When we just moved in, I asked Bouh whether I can adopt my housemate to join our daily dinner, yesh, I felt exactly like adopting a puppy and I love it, for me the more is the merrier.
Today, my karma pays off, he instantly adopt me knowing that I'll be a lost puppy for the whole week.

gee, I'm so lucky when it comes to housemate ... always have the best of them.

single for a week

Bouh is in Thailand for a week of kick-off meetings

I hate being apart

it sucks

I miss him

another hop?

last nite, after feeding Bouh with huge hamburger (which disappeared in less than 7 minutes, it's magic!?) I succeed in fishing out the ugly fact of our nomad year...
We might soon have to move to another country...
We've been in Hanoi for only a month, I just re-new my visa, pronounce bao nhiêu? (how much?) to an understandable level, we also live close to the hoan kiem lake, it's very picturesque ... damn beautiful ... and suddenly there's this news that we have to move again.

We thought that we are prepared for this nomad year but we also know that there's a motorbike we left in Indonesia in the hand of our good friend-hoping they will find time to dust it or sell it, our 20kg bag left in our ex-housemate's house in Saigon,our 50kg mail-package from Indonesia hasn't arrived in Hanoi yet and to top it all we paid our Hanoi house for 3 moths rent. so .. WOW!
This morning I've been wracking my brain trying to find solution on how to do this move but
on the other hand, I'm excited with this move, the rumour says that we're going to move to Thailand, only for a month or so .. but Thailand .. ever hear about the Thailand food? Tom Yum, Pad Thai, fried moth/eels/scorpion (okay maybe not that ... ), spring rolls, curry ... oh, i can go on and on with the list!so maybe .. in a week or so, I'll write this blog from Thailand, sipping coconut juice and munching fried scorpion ...
let's see ...
but in the meanwhile ... let us enjoy hanoi :

SHIT it's a SHIRT!

Shopping rules: never buy a shirt or fabric material which needs ironing!

which means I never iron a shirt ... never need to ...
as a kid when I wore uniform, I was too young to iron it by myself
I spent my adolescent with Kurt Cobain's grunge style tshirt (didn't even need to wash it, hooray!) and my years as a white collar employee spent as an art director, yesh those kind of people who looks homeless with their torn shirt and converse shoes which doesn't fit with their age anymore, if you ever see them, say hi from me, those are probably my ex-colleagues or boss.

basically, i'm not a big fan of shirt or whatever complicated dress material which needs extra care but the time to shed my ignorance has arrives, in the form of Bouh's working shirts.

For 2 weeks, I was heartless enough to watch him doing a double bent while ironing his shirts until his back ache starts to annoy me (he's 2 meters tall - bumping his head or double bending everywhere he goes in Asia)

Left with 2 options, his back ache or starts helping him ironing the working shirts
and I have no bloody idea .. how? how? how?

here's for the ignorance in need of enlightenment, well, theoretically:

links: ON HOW TO IRON SHIRT




now, he is left with 2 options,
1.letting me help ironing but also starts buying new shirts - NO i didn't burnt it! or did I?
2.live with the back ache of double bending until one lucky day we'll have a house maid

Chuc mung nam moi & Happy Vday

"Chuc mung nam moi" in english : Happy new year!
and Happy V day !! (this year it fell on 14 february, the same day as the valentine day)

Its a full week holiday, the city has been dead since the 13th, pesto is running low,
Bouh has been spending his holiday home - keep stealing and geeking with my laptop.
His laptop is broken n yeah that's why i couldn't post anything.

So anyway, I was running out of bread today and decide to walk out from the warm house and face the cold winter (13 degrees-it's frickin' cold for me!if you are from a colder country, imagine a 15 degrees drop from your coldest temperatures, get the idea?). It took me an hour scouring down the empty street and closed shop, looking for an open bakery or supermarket.

None was open, it's tet! We just have to live with crackers ... but then, I suddenly remembered that we actually still had the leftover from the Vdays cake .... we are saved!



well, I didn't remember it because Bouh bought it when we had an evening stroll. I grew up in asian culture, I tend to not express intimacy in public (that includes buying Valentine cake as a couple - sounds weird eh?). It's been a year and we're still curious and excited in discovering our differences, from language differences to language of love.

well, just want to say .. happy chinese new year and happy V day ...

Stocking up my fridge

Hanoi - Vietnam

I've been spending days walking around the neighborhood and taking notes of "what shops sell what in what street". In this city, they only have 1 BIG well-stocked supermarket and it's miles from home.

Of course, i'd prefer supermarket, as I'll only need to pick up the stuff and pay it in the cashier. So much simpler than going to a shop and look like a handicapped doing hand signal language just to get a piece of bread. My vietnamese is very - very limited.

I took my notebook and camera, taking pictures of the shop and upload it in my personal googlemap. I might be an ignorance foreigner but i wrack my brain to be so.

so here it is, my way of having a well-stocked fridge :

Googlemaps for hanoi