Wicked Wednesday and Photography - Life in Monochrome

Finally it's the long awaited Wicked Wednesday! Wednesday, if I am a bear and you are standing right before me, I would love to give you a generous bone-crushing bear hug *HUGS* with a jar of Hundred-Acre Wood Honey stolen from Pooh.

Today marks the second phase of my internship at one of the youngest and well-loved start-ups in Singapore! I'll give you a clue, it's a major online fashion retailer, founded not long ago in our sunny metropolis by a young team of international talents.

If you've been to the Walkabout Singapore 2013, you might have seen me behind the scenes busy photo-journal-ing the extravaganza in my company!

All right, I'll put work aside and delve into what I have in mind for this Wicked Wednesday post.

As a photographer (disclaimer: amateur photographer), I'm always eager, impatient and obsessive about experimental shoots. But the truth is happinees only hit me when I manage to capture something unexpected, or happen to get what I camped for. And when I say camp, I literally meant loitering around the  potential scene of "crime" in order to capture just one perfect shot. That includes getting looks and stares from our very busy Singaporean public. But that, has always been a pretty good experience. Learning to pace myself and let my steps fall in line with the moments that capture my heart has indeed taught me much since I first begun my compulsive love for photography.

So here's what I have to share, they're mostly from my insane Instagram account - which has been my dumping ground for creative expression since god knows when.

Enjoy the Squarish Pixie Tiles!

Suntec City, 2012

Bishan MRT Station, Where the Crowd Diverges

Personally, I love how the faces were all hooded.

Lobby of NUH on a late evening.

Universal Studios Singapore, I literally lagged behind my pals to capture this shot.

My favourite local Mama Stall Kitty - she's as human as any feline can be.

Yishun Station, on a bright, ethereal morning.

Before the latest Smoke Ban Extension in 2013

Bus 96, departing from National University of Singapore towards Clementi.

There he is, Leonardo DiCaprio - but I was even more curious about the gentleman behind his daily read.

NUS Central Forum. A.K.A. the RAG site. On my way for a 8a.m. Korean lesson. (2012)

On the journey home after a Christmas party. We just watched The Lady in Black starring Daniel Radcliffe.

On a familiar taxi :)

Right before the doors of Isetan, beside Shaw Lido. We were shopping for snacks before catching The Life of Pi.

Star Bucks, Orchad

Our really gorgeous South Korean Palace Guide. Summer 2012.

Payar Lebah station

Laselle School of Arts

Khoo Teck Phuat Hospital, 2011. This, is easily one of my personal favourites. Captured by HTC Desire.

Subway Basker, I watched this gentleman play tirelessly for the crowd as a kid - he didn't get a chance to watch the child I was grew up though. I love his commitment to life, and an undying passion for music.

Making in progress: Tutu Kueh from our beloved Pasar Malam

Which were your favourites?

This is a personal documentation of the people I saw and spaces I've been to in Singapore. Good night peeps, have a wonderful day ahead.

The Sentimental Cheetah

Editor's Note: This blog has been moved.

Quick doodle with my Wacom Bamboo Manga, Corel Painter Essentials 4.

I'm always itching to start a new blog, motivated by the promise of a new start. Somehow, something about the current blog would not feel right and I would imagine myself abandoning the old one for a fresh beginning. It's like the mark of another chapter in life, you know.

Then again, being sentimental and a big worrier, I would stop myself from discarding the old for the new. And so I have made a decision - I shall focus on building this site - and maybe in time to calm get over the laziness and start to blog for real, with pictures. Because it's going to be a travel log! *wish me luck*

Oh, about the cheetah that appeared in the title - if you happened to click that button up there *points meaningfully* and direct your browser to my Tumblr page - you might have realised that I happened to name my Tumblr (unofficially) the Runaway Cheetah. There's no story behind it, I just love the silly way it sounds.

Too lazy to document every mundane little thing in my peaceful life, my Tumblr pictures are direct stream my overused Instagram account. I swear I post too much there because it is the best mobile application I ever had.

That said, I hope I'll have the discipline to put an entry or two every week when I'm in Seoul. It's so annoying how I always end up saying nothing after blabbering so much about any other thing.

Asiana Airlines and CJ Hostel

Credits to my Tumblr and Instagram

I JUST BOOKED MY DIRECT RETURN AIR TICKET TO KOREA!!! There's only 10 weeks left till exchange :D *confetti shower whoooooooo* I'm SO gonna work hard for my internship. The people there are AWESOME - and one of my fellow intern XQ is flying on the same DAY as me (she's going to Sweden - I know right, Sweden). 

Oh right, the air ticket - it costed me (my mom, because we had to pay via VISA) a total of SGD639.54 and the travel date's from late August to end December - around 5 months? It's not Korean Air, but it's Asiana. What more can I ask for? It's still one of South Korea's major airlines!

I CAN'T believe this is actually happening, everything's accelerating along the trajectory of time at such an incredible speed that I'm literally losing track of what I have to juggle in my clumsy hands. I just received (3rd June) an email from NUS that my Korea University acceptance package is ready for collection (huh, didn't they say it would be delivered to our MAILBOX?)

Thank goodness I have Su with me, she literally helped me through my flight booking (and she'll be collecting my acceptance package for me because I can't afford to take so many leaves)! A year ago I was the calm goddess trying to guide people step by step and making dummy tutorials - now I am the ganjiong spider myself, bitch please.

(Ganjiong - it's a verb from the Hokkien dialect and it simply means jittery, anxious, 긴장해요, 紧张）(Ganjiong Spider is a term I picked up in my Junior College years - it means jittery spider, pretty much a Singlish term and I'm employing it as a self-mocking expression.)

Su is such a wonderful angel, she has helped me out so much and I'm just thankful we'll be travel companions for the coming 5 months! The truth is, it is the people that makes the difference.

On a side note, I plan to return to my beloved "home" in Seoul - HongDae 홍대/ShinChon 신촌 and I'll probably be staying there for a good 4-5 days before moving to Korea University. Hopefully, I'll be able to secure a double room for CJ hostel! Click here to check out the student suite, and here for my favourite guesthouse in Seoul (the first and only guesthouse I stayed in for a few nights and I totally loved it there).

It's SG Time 1:50A.M. and I think it's time to sleep - I'll have to wake up at 7:15A.M. for work. AND OH GAWD, I almost forget it's results day for NUS students tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed, I signed up for Push SMS, which means my poor CAP would probably come beeping in the morning.

잘자! Goodnight <3

The Multi-tasking Bug-Eyed Intern and Crappy Blogger

Photo taken from my Instagram

I'm a word smith and a digital marketing intern who recently got addicted to caffeine.

Okay put the daily mug of coffee aside - actually I do have a more specific job and its amazingly rewarding
(if you ignore the failing eyesight part) but because of company ethics - and I REALLY love my company, I'm not going to disseminate anything into the digital fortress - not if I can help it :)

This is the THIRD week of my internship and I can't say I'm not doing what I love everyday - indeed, I just keep writing, keep thinking, keep creating and researching until I'm indefinitely saturated with fashion, style and beauty terms. It's a monstrous galore and I still find myself lacking. BUT the feeling of seeing my works getting publish is awe-so-fantabulous.

I have a pretty different persona when I write for editorials - the witty bit comes out much naturally than I originally expected of myself - but still, if you have 10 deadlines to meet every single working day,  it's not a surprise that one would soon turn into a bug-eyed digital geek from staring at blogs, boutiques, documents and more documents for hours straight.

For real, I'm not going to brag too much about my work because it would sound pointlessly narcissistic - let's just settle with the notion that I'm a crappy blogger who blogs at unearthly hours (like now, it's 1:30 a.m. Singapore time) because she only has less than 5 waking hours awake at home before the working cycle repeats.

Check this out, listen to the lyrics and hear the tragic cries of young undergraduates who refuse to be fettered by cubicles and shoe-box offices. Not quite close, but it's almost the #storyofmylife when I'm itching to go for a run or just chill at home.

When I graduate, I'll probably be returning to this wonderful, youthful and dynamic company for a career - or end up being a photojournalist or magazine writer instead (I'm still not going to give up on my novel). Because writing is thinking and I can't live without pushing my brains forward a little, every single day.

OH, did I mention multi-task? I have a piece of theory from the foggy scenes of a CNM lecture a long time ago - there is not much correlation between age per say and the ability to multitask. The trick is believing you're able to juggle all the digital gizmos and still be able to eat-sleep-run-walk-mug and do all sorts of stunts - and that includes filling your schedule up to the BRIM and still have the guts to squeeze in a thing or two at the very last minute.

Indeed, I'm a polychronic person who's a fool when it comes to multi-tasking - just look at the amount of things I actually imagine I can hold in both hands:

1. Internship: Mon-Fri, 9Hrs 
2. Short Film Production: Sat, half-a-day
3. This crazy notion design a clothing collection for my Faculty RAG.
4. SEP admin-work, loads of shit that should be fun, but because of arduously SLOW communication process, it's not fun anymore. People can't be so unhelpful - maybe because the staff ain't getting any rest when the students are supposedly "slacking".
5. Exchange Scholarship/Bursary.

These are the official stuff - but I have in mind a whole lot of other things to do:

1. Daily work out - POP pilates or Victoria's Secret ab workouts - whatever, I'll give a resounding NO to muffins.
2. Daily read on the painfully slow transport home (you'll totally get it if you're a Singaporean). Vogue Paris, Vanity Fair, London Fashion, National Geo and News - I'll speed read through the Flipboard yummies and drink them all in. Latent memory should be of use at some point of time in the future.
3. Guitar/Keyboard/Ukelele - Music IS life.
4. Blog, Tumblr
5. Needle Felt crafts
6. Watch: Running Man, Barefoot Friends, WGM, Once Upon a Time, Game of Thrones. 
7. Write my novel. 

Sighs, ain't nobody got time for that. 

Accommodation for Exchange Students

Retrieved from my Instagram. Yes, I take really random shots.

Can't stop LOOKING for places to stay near 고려대 (Korea University) - I was advised against staying in Annam 2 Dormitory in Korea University itself (which is cheaper than other options) and hence I had turned my attention to CJ International House in KU (For NUS students, CJ is kind of like our  U-Town - it caters to exchange students' needs.) Here's a link to the 2 residences I've just mentioned above and you can check out the room types here.

The rooms in CJ look pretty classy, spacious and they supposedly all come in suites - CJ house seems to have really good facilities for International Students and indeed, after checking out some Youtube videos, the rooms do have "hotel" quality. A single room costs 2000,000KRW in Fall Semester (Dear me, I've chosen the most expensive season to go on exchange haven't I?) and a double room would be 1580,000KRW per semester.

As for Annam 2 Hall, it's way cheaper because you have a community bathroom instead of a private one. It's 780,000KRW per semester - really tempting but I heard it's disappointing. But seriously, the price difference is too big!

Moving on, since I've already emailed reslife.korea for details on advance student booking, (taking the possibility of curfews into account) I shall keep my options open and look at what the OYSTER can provide (I mean GOOGLE/WWW hahaha)

Since I'm NOT going to plagiarise anything from anywhere, I'll just link you guys to some great sites that'll be good headstarts for first-timers including me!

Oh by the way, do check Seoulistic out on their webpage and Youtube channel! (I was rather surprised, I thought they were only on Youtube! HAHA)

If BUDGET is your main concern because you would rather spend all that hard earned won on drinks, clothes, entertainment, travel and education etc. etc. then these should be on top of your list! *points below*

1. Goshitel 고시텔/ Goshiwon 고시원
2. Hasukjip 하숙집 
3. Studio Apartments

Goshiwon고시원

From what I know, Goshiwon is a small room around 5 sqm (ranging from 200,000 - 400,000KRW per month, the bigger the place and the better equipped ones might be more expensive) for students, workers, travellers, and even the unemployed who can't afford permanent housing. As such, it IS important to check the Goshitels out, rather thoroughly before nailing any deal. This wiki resembling webpage apparently provides some useful tips! 

While Agoda is usually a rather decent place to start your search (since the hostels/guesthouses are required to be registered) I've come across another site "Habang" that have a list of registered Goshitels.! However, I don't think there's any located anywhere near KU? (But if you're looking for accommodations near Kyung Hee University, Hongik University or University of Seoul etc. you're in luck.)

If you're a college student like me, I believe goshipages.com would be a fine place to start as well :) The search engine operates via universities or subways - it IS quite an awesome page. 

Hasukjip 하숙집 

Hasukjib's are typically owned by 아줌머니s (Ahjummeoni-s) (a more polite way of saying Ahjumma or "aunties")  ***So if you want to nail that discount in Dong Dae Mun, try not to call the elderly ladies Ahjummas!***

Meals (perhaps breakfast and dinner) are usually provided and so if you're lazy to COOK, voila! Go look for one ㅎㅎㅎ (this means H-h-h or Ha-ha-ha)

 Hasukjips are usually used by students who prefer a closer accommodation to their universities. That said, because Hasukjips are run by Ahjummeoni-s who might not be tech-savy at all, it's usually harder to find online. However, most websites or blogs I've came across so far seem to conclude that the signs are not that hard to read since you'll find an abundant of hasukjips scattered around the vicinity of the universities! 

All right, I think I shall stop here tonight, Dad's home! 큰일을 났어!!! "BIG TROUBLE", it's 1:44a.m. and I'm supposed to report to work tomorrow*

Anyway, from my previous travelling experiences (all right, there's only ONE experience in Korea and ONE in Hong Kong) one can never be truly OVER prepared for an adventure - so it's all right to over prepare and absorb as much information while our neurons still can handle all that excitement!

잘자 everyone! <3

Korea, See You in August!

One of my Instagram snapshots. Taken during a 3-week Summer Exchange.

Yes, this blog might just come to life this coming August! I had some thoughts about scrapping this blog and restarting another one but ah well, I guess I owe this blog one, since I wasn't able to post during my Language Immersion in Yonsei back last summer.

That said, I finally submitted my formal Student Exchange Program (SEP) online application to Korea University this Monday ㅎㅎㅎ and now I'm just overwhelmed  and swirling with a cocktail of excitement and anxiety because there's lots of preparation to do!

So today marks the beginning of my SEP preparation - I guess the SEP briefing really helped in many ways.

Some links that I took note of today:

Blogs of SEP Returnees
http://wonderrrgirl.wordpress.com/
http://www.walkingup-korea.blogspot.sg/

Korea International Student Association
http://www.kinsa.org/
https://www.facebook.com/kinsa.org

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
http://www.mfa.gov.sg/content/mfa/overseasmission/seoul.html

Visit Seoul
http://www.visitseoul.net/en/index.do?_method=main

Possible Accommodations (Prospective Korea University Exchange Students)
What is 고시원 (Go Shi Won)
http://www.exploringkorea.com/goshiwon-hasuk-jip-and-one-rooms-in-korea/

고시원 (Go Shi Won) Near Korea University
http://goshipages.com/find-housing-near?id=1&search=university&query=Korea+University+-+Main+Campus

(I can't wait to go back to JK House in Hongdae though! There's still 3 months to plan!)



아이고...today also marks the end of my freedom. My first ever internship begins tomorrow in town! I guess this 3-month break would be a fulfilling one. HWAITING!

In the mean time, it's time to kick start the regime of preserving my Korean Language skills - I'm serious ㅋㅋㅋ it's getting from bad to worse, though I confess I think in Korean sometimes.


Things I guess I'll REALLY be looking forward to this 3 months:

• 아빠 어디가? Dad, Where are you going? (If you love heartwarming and hilarious variety shows- AND you absolutely LOVE Korean Kids, this has to be on your list this season! It has become kind of a "Family Thing" - I can't watch this without my siblings now! Each parent-child couple has their own amazing personas that WILL grow on you.) 

• Jin Woon and Jun Hee's We Got Married! (After Julian Kang, Kwang Hee and Lee Joon's WGM ended, this is the only couple that keeps me watching! Hahaha, WGM has its ups and downs too.) 

• Barefoot Friends  (The first episode takes place in Vietnam, our Barefoot Friends would have to live and work like a Vietnamese for 24 hours! Kim Hyun Joong's return to variety really came as a pleasant surprise, he's...as 4-dimensional as ever?)

• Once Upon a Time by ABC Production, Season 2 - if I ever get the chance to be a script writer in the Fantasy Genre, I would totally love to meet OUAT's production team :D 

Happy Holidays! <3 

CN BLUE MOON TOUR

Not sure if anyone read this blog anymore, it's rather dead - but anyway, CN BLUE CONCERT WAS 완전 대박!!! (Totally a hit) For photos, please visit my tumblr and Instagram - Boices do enjoy!

Ahhhhh I guess I'll just upload them here, at least some of it ;) All photographs are captured from the Moon Zone by Samsung Galaxy S3, with a fitting 12x zoom camera lens.