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The gluttonous yakuza

April 3, 2010 //
9

All the memories of last summer, when A and I ate our way through Tokyo, Kyoto and Hakone.

You know I couldn’t eat Japanese food for a full three months after I got back from Japan, simply because nothing back home could match up. I mean it when I say every single thing just tastes divine in Japan, even the simplest instant foods at the konbinis. Case in point: one of the best meals I had in Tokyo was a plastic bowl of piping hot oden, consumed in the most uncomfortable manner just outside a random konbini. I’m sorry if I’m inducing pathetic hunger pangs right now; I’m self-inflicting too.

And I’ve just about given up on finding good Japanese ramen in London. The place J and I went to at Piccadilly Circus plain sucked. Does anyone know of a good place? Pray tell! I’m having lethal cravings that must be satiated; a hungry woman is a dangerous woman.

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Categories Fotografik, iTravel, nomnomnom

Veedeeyeo

March 28, 2010 //
0

St. Gallen.
Most of what I wanted to say, I’ve said already.

Aren’t moving photo montages with music just that tad bit more fun than stationary pictures? I know; I’ll change my mind about this tomorrow.

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Categories Fotografik, iTravel

Zurich’s Sun feels like June

March 28, 2010 //
0

Tinkered around with iMovie this afternoon and realised just how much of a tech brontosaurus I am. Anyways there’s this song I’ve been listening to a lot. When June Begins, couldn’t find a better song to go along with the sunny snaps of Zurich. Check out some of Hugh Keice’s work; can’t wait for his full EP to be out.

And I should mention he’s from my school as well. It always feels good to be studying in the midst of such great expressionism.

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Categories Fotografik, iTravel

This, this is my street

March 27, 2010 //
0

When you revisit specific places you used to live at, there’s an odd sort of feeling that follows. You hope everything is the same as it was when you were living there, yet instead of pure relief that follows when you discover nothing has changed, you feel a strange little sadness. I’m not sure why, but this always happens to me. I felt this way when I drove past my parents’ first marital home last year, when I went to Ierse Predikherenstraat in Leuven two years ago and also, when I visited Rosenbergweg the other day.

I suppose this is because these places will always be special to me and there is this little tug in my heart when it feels like my past self is speaking to my current self. It’s odd, and a little sad, but it’s really nice at the same time. I can’t quite explain why.

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Categories Fotografik, Stories from everywhere, iTravel

Remember when thirty seemed so old

March 27, 2010 //
3

So, St. Gallen again, for the first time in five whole years.

Five years ago when I first took the hour-long train from Zurich Flughafen to this little town, it was my very first time in Europe. That summer marked a start to my insatiable wanderlust toward Europe; it’s pretty much of an understatement to say I haven’t looked back since. St. Gallen was a rite of passage of sorts for me and coming back again after so long was very special. Some things have changed but most of it is just as I remembered it. I saw classrooms with long wooden tables we were told to knock on as a form of applause for other students, I saw the school cafe where I nipped off for a hot cross bun every single lunchtime, I saw the long Müller-Friedberg-Strasse that H and I used to walk down to get home from school… I sat in the cathedral which I still consider to be the most beautiful in the whole of Europe, I took many detours into small lanes surrounding Marktplace, I smiled at good old Vadien guarding the centre of town, and of course I could not leave without getting myself an Olma bratwurst.

So some things don’t change; that’s wonderful to know. I think mostly it’s me who’s changed, along with the people I spent that precious summer with. It saddened me for a moment when I was sitting in the abbey: the realisation that years of innocence and youth are permanently and unreachably rooted in the past. But then I think about what I was like when I was 20 and living in St. Gallen, and I am quite sure I don’t want to be that person ever again. I don’t think I ever existed as my own person all the way till I was 23 and there is no way I would resurrect certain destructive relationships, the first telling sign of which actually did surface in St. Gallen. Instead of feeling so sad about precious years being robbed from me and all that wasted time, I really should be grateful that I’ve made it this far, stronger and hopefully, wiser.

So coming back again after so long, I left feeling very happy that things have changed for me, while old haunts remain the same. The memories don’t fade, but they always have a place to be.

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Categories Fotografik, Stories from everywhere, iTravel

Sunny days in Zurich

March 27, 2010 //
0

The sun was out in all the days I spent in Zurich and quite understandably, everyone there came out to greet it. There were people everywhere, especially along the waterfront. But the odd thing is – when I look at all the pictures I snapped, it seems like there is an oddly lonely note to most of them. It’s almost as if every single person carried a little isolation with them around the city and handed it to me with every snap I made.

That said, I certainly wasn’t lonely there. Seeing C and P again for the first time in two years only proved that we’re the type of friends who can pick up from where we left off, no matter how long it’s been. And of course, Daddy makes for fantastic company; I couldn’t ask for any better.

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Categories Fotografik, iTravel

We’re going to the Zu Zu Zu

March 24, 2010 //
0

[Tunic: Zara. Blazer: Thrifted. Shorts: Zara. Necklace: Vintage. Rings: Topshop, Swatch Secret Code. Tights: Wolford. Shoes: Neu Look. Bag: Burberry. Shades: H&M]

The sun came out in her full regalia today in Zurich. It was so nice out that I actually spotted someone sunbathing in a bikini top along the lake, which is mildly ridiculous because it’s not that warm. But I can somewhat understand the desperate sentiments of winter whitelings wanting to put the rosy back on their cheeks. Anyways I put the rosy back on mine with a platefulof luxemburgerli at Sprüngli, washed down with a glass of their signature cold chocolate.

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Categories Daily Kit, iTravel

Mistaken capital

March 17, 2010 //
0

Guess where I’ll be headed next week?

:)

p/s: I snapped this picture during my very first visit to the city in 2005. Nothing has changed about my preferences for pig-out places since then.

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Categories Fotografik, iTravel

Big P

March 13, 2010 //
3



It must be this horrid weather that the powers that be have bestowed upon London that make me pine deliriously for sunshine. And Portugal of course, for it is one of the most beautiful countries to visit in the summertime when the weather is high (oh yes, Mungo Jerry). There are so many beautiful memories I still have of the time I visited Porto, Lisbon and a couple of small seaside towns by the Algarve coast in 2007, but it was the dreamy beaches drenched in sunshine and amazing food that anchored Portugal as the top spot in Europe for me. With five month-long backpacking trips to Europe and a six-month stay in Belgium inked on my passport, that’s saying a lot.

I’ll be back before you know it. Mindblowing arroz de marisco and the best egg tarts in the world? Mmmmmkay.


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Categories Stories from everywhere, Wanderlust, iTravel, nomnomnom

Too much castle, too little Bath

February 21, 2010 //
0

I like pugs. Especially ones who shake their tushies as they waddle by.

[Striped top: H&M. Oversized hoodie: H&M. Olive green jacket: Lee Jeans. Shorts: Zara. Tights: Accessorise. Booties: Neu Look]

Our day trip to Windsor Castle, the Stonehenge and the Roman Baths was a tad disappointing. Castles and cathedrals just don’t cut it for me; give me concentric circles of blue stone boulders anytime. JP predicted I would be bored out of my mind at the Stonehenge, but he was wrong – I liked it! Enough to make two whole trips around the boulders just snapsnapsnapsnapping away.

I won’t write about Bath because it really deserves a full trip’s worth of  attention, not just an hour and seven minutes.

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Categories Daily Kit, Fotografik, iTravel
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