Just booked my trip to Hong Kong with Joyce :-) Decided to do this after much hesitation but finally I thought, I had nothing to lose. Hopefully everything works out fine, our friendship will grow stronger from this and I'll be happy from all my shopping and eating :-) Just the thought of dim sum makes me happy. I had dim sum at Chinatown on sunday and I had dim sum for lunch today and I could eat dim sum everyday. So excited for Hong Kong all of a sudden! Fingers crossed and hoping that this trip goes well.

Turkey with the family has also been booked, I'm also really looking forward to this :-) Went down with my parents to book this trip and the whole time, the woman selling the tour to us said repeatedly how lovely Turkey is for its "culture and history" and I thought "Yes, woman, this is why I wanna go to Turkey in the first place". It was a tough search but we finally found a trip with Antalya, which I've been wanderlusting for since noticing it at the Viennese airport, where I thought "Antalya" sounded like a beautiful place before finally googling it and finding out that it was at the Mediterranean side of Turkey which sounds even more beautiful because Alexandria is at the Mediterranean side of Egypt and I really liked Alexandria. Am also looking forward to Ephesus (archaeological site!), Cappadocia (underground cities!) and Istanbul (the St Sophia sounds really amazeballs + the markets!!!) which I've been reading about in Orhan Pamuk's book lately. I am really excited about Turkey, it is a gonna be a major geek-out trip :-)

It seems like I've been traveling to cool places this year. Vienna, Turkey... The only other cool places I've been to are Egypt and India and I guess Hawaii but that was in P1 and I barely remember it. These cool places are nothing compared to the many other cool places that people I know have been to. Which makes me jealous cos I really wanna travel the world. I like seeing other cultures and histories and societies, I like getting away from the Singapore that I know so well and am kinda bored of, I like to see the world, I like escaping away from the routines of my sad life, I like exploring and adventures. I like eating other foods, I like seeing other architectural styles (I AM NOT A SCENERY PERSON), I like seeing other people, I like seeing other lifestyles. If I could, I would want very much to live in Europe. The obvious reasons being how gorgeous Europe is with its history and architecture and beauty, and of how I wanna escape from my sad boring life in Singapore. I think the only thing I could really dislike about Europe is the pigeons everywhere! Everything else seems so lovely. The slower pace of life, the lack of traffic as compared to Singapore's, the music, the clothes (I really hate Singapore weather and how it's too hot to wear anything but a sleeveless/short-sleeved shirt and shorts most times; I love all my checkered long-sleeved shirts but it's too hot to wear them + HOW COOL ARE TRENCH COATS and denim/leather jackets?!), the churches at every street, the cobble-stoned streets, the cafes at every corner, the FOOD (imagine eating gelato everyday!), the weather, the LACK OF STRESS, random vintage shops, random quirky shops, random statues and fountains and clock towers.

Back to reality and SNOW PATROL IS COMING DOWN!!!!!!!!! The band that I've loved since sec 1, the band that I feel like I've waited forever to watch live. I've loved them way before I discovered indie music, since the days of The Fray, Lifehouse, Boys Like Girls, Jason Mraz, John Mayer, The Killers etc. And slowly as I grew older, my love for these bands/singers slowly faded..... Even for Jason Mraz and John Mayer, even though I would still say that I 'like' them... I'd definitely watch John Mayer if he came down and maybe it's because I've watched Jason Mraz before but I'm not even interested in watching him again this year (or maybe it's just because his new album sucks). Only my love for The Killers and Snow Patrol still remains but hands down, Snow Patrol > The Killers, hands down Snow Patrol is one of my top 5 favourite bands. And hence my excitement for Snow Patrol coming down. I don't even care if I hafta go for their concert alone, or that their concert is at shitty Fort Canning, or that their new album isn't all that great, I DEFINITELY HAVE TO WATCH SNOW PATROL, I'VE WAITED FOR THEM LONGER THAN I'VE WAITED FOR ANYONE ELSE and nothing's gonna keep me apart from them. I think they're the band I have the most albums of.... And omg Gary Lightbody! And their songs that have kept me going throughout secondary school, throughout the O Levels, throughout JC and throughout A Levels. Even other bands I love like Death Cab and Kings of Convenience and Stars and Bon Iver can't match up to the length of my love for Snow Patrol or the emotions that I've felt listening to Snow Patrol. Passion Pit is coming too and I've gotten tickets for that as well. I feel like, my love for Passion Pit was only in sec 4 cos that's when their album was released. But their 2nd album is finally gonna be released soon and I hope that will re-ignite my love for them, although I highly doubt so. Metric concert has just been announced too and Emily Haines is a woman that I definitely wanna watch live at one point in time of my life, but UGH I've spent so bloody much this year on concerts alone. And then on holidays. So I think I'll hafta give Metric a miss :( Especially when Metric is the most expensive concert of them all.

In other news, I've been growing fatter everyday. Especially since I came back from Vienna, I've been eating so much crap like carbs and chocolates. The biggest joke was when I went for IJ Fiesta with Court and we met Ms Puja and she told me that I've lost weight and Court agreed with her. I mean, what up??? If anything, I've definitely gained weight over the past few years. Anyway, IJ Fiesta was kinda awkward because all I felt was old. Don't even know anyone in IJ anymore, apart from the teachers. It didn't even feel nostalgic going back to IJ but maybe that's cos of the noisy environment that Fiesta had. It's like, my memories of IJ have been compartmentalised to some place that aren't as accessible anymore. Compared to my memories of AC, which I've known so well for the past 2-3 years. And I felt like, IJ is a place that I used to know well, but also a thing of the past where my attachments to it are slowly fading. But it was definitely cool seeing Ms Puja and Mr Chan and especially Mrs Tan Aye Leng. She's almost 70 and she's taught so many freaking batches of IJ girls and she still remembers my name, whaaaaaat. Ultimate respect. Plus she still looks so good! Wished I saw Mr Teh but I didn't, which is sad cos I don't think I'll ever see him in my life again. He's such a cute old man! I think he defined my love for cute old grandfatherly men lol. I feel like Mr Teh and Tan Aye Leng are teachers I would regard as being demigods. Because they're so old and so wise and so nice and they're really good teachers, legendary teachers who have taughts generations of IJ girls. And I think I feel proud to have been taught by these 2 people, like so many other IJ girls before me have. So much respect for these 2 old people :') I don't think any of my AC teachers even match up to the respect that I have for Mr Teh and Tan Aye Leng, no matter how amazeballs my AC teachers are too.

It's almost June and I can't believe uni is starting in about 2 months' time. I feel like I'm running out of time, what with Turkey and Hong Kong happening from end June - mid July. As much as I want uni to start so that I can learn again and be all geeky, I feel like I could also bum around forever. Time is a funny thing. Peace out.

12:53 AM;