Sakura Showers

Waddup earthlings I'm back. Been bitten by a blogging bug but that's good I guess. Despite how OCD I am about blogging chronologically I've given up hope on ever finishing my documentation of 2012. Yep moving on, look what happened in 2013!! Impulsively booked a Tokyo trip up to join my parents despite my mother's fears of radiation, and we planned it such that I would be able to catch the full bloom of Sakura or the Plum & Cherry Blossom trees. Unfortunately, there's an asshole known as global warming lurking around, and this year in Tokyo it got really warm about two weeks too early and the blossoms, well, blossomed!! I was seriously devastated about missing the Hanami, but luckily managed to catch the very last of the spring flowers.

I left Singapore on a Thursday night at 9pm, reached Tokyo at 5am (deer lawd), took the train to our apartment and fell into bed after a quick shower (mum and dad were in Takayam since they left for Japan a whole week earlier). Woke back up at 1pm, met up with our Uncle Allan who lives in Tokyo and headed out for our fave tempura lunch. After which we walked to Yoyogi Park, and there I was devastated to see Sakura flowers not on the trees but on the floor! WHAT. Luckily me and my sis decided to hightail over to Shinjuku Gyoen instead to see if their flowers were still holding up. And holding up they were!!! We were so excited we spent about a good 30 minutes in front of the first Sakura tree we saw that was covered in white flowers. 

Usually during full bloom the trees have no leaves at all, but since they bloomed early the leaves all came out. It's much much prettier when it's just flowers erupting from their branches. 

Love love love this shot I managed to capture! This young (and very pretty) mom was dressed in some kind of traditional Japanese costume, not a kimono obviously but she was carrying her baby and lifted it up to the flowers, singing very softly while her baby gurgled with happiness. It felt like I was intruding a bit but a moment too beautiful not to take a shot of. 

It truly was a perfect day, blue skies and amazing weather, Sakura trees still in bloom, and a shower of white petals drifting like snow whenever a breeze blew past. To me this is the true epitome of Spring-- how your chest expands and swells, your breathe catching in your throat when you get the first glimpse of a shimmering tree of flowers in the sun. 

Good Times

I was trying to make more space on my laptop because my mac only has 2GB worth of memory left (which is ridiculous, I know I know), and I found myself going through photos of 2012, which was actually a pretty damn decent year: managed to travel alot despite having a full time job (yay for flexibility/no pay leave!), passed my driving licence, got a car for a birthday pressie (thanks mom and dad), and yeah had a good time in general. In particular my roadtrip along the West Coast of the USA, which has already been put on this blog waaaay back, was a highlight. Here's a moving memory snapshot, which I'm particularly proud of having edited when I got back from my trip, ah it brings a tear to my eye. Thanks iMovie, you're a star (A GOLD STAR!)

Roadtrippin' from JIAYI T. on Vimeo.

Roadtrip Dreaming

In less than two weeks I'm off to the USA for a much needed holiday, and I couldn't be more excited. Gonna head to San Francisco, LA and then back to Seattle where I spent a lovely 6 months on exchange. It'll be good to hang out with my Singaporean kids who are now sophomores and juniors, and also my housemates, eat all the food I miss like gyros and my cupcakes and cheesecakes hehehe! I'm even more excited cos when I am there Nicky T. and Colin K. have cars and can drive us everywhere. We used to get around by bus and on foot, and it limited us so much. Now we'll be able to drive around and truly explore! I'm totally inspired by this guy's amazing photography and quotes, and it's making me super excitedddd! Yay! Can't wait to get out of this city. I love you Singapore, and I will forever, but after awhile you always bring me down. 

The Universe Game

"Let’s play the Universe game.

I’ll be a star cloud because that’s what your presence reduces me to. A mass of luminosity and in those moments, I’m impossible to measure mathematically. Not with the naked eye, anyway. It’s simpler than that: you say my name and I’ll glow.

You can be the North Star, burning bright and hot. You’re Polaris because you stand out, because you’re a fixture in my sky. Because when I’m lost, I can find you and be okay. You’re my point of reference.

Speaking of Polaris, we can be the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Big Bear and Little Bear – whichever name you prefer as long as we’re partnered together in perpetuity. Our bond will know no lingual or cultural or geographic limits. No matter where two people stand on this Earth, they’ll look up and see us and know that we belong together.

We can be whichever constellations you like, at least in the beginning. In the beginning we’ll be all starburst and Andromeda and other striking sights that’ll inspire envy; but it won’t stay that way.

This is when the game loses its sheen.

Maybe we’ll stop communicating. I’ll grow distant; I’ll grow colder like Mars. And you’ll grow angrier, volatile like Jupiter. A mess of rock and metal and discarded things will separate us, an Asteroid Belt of our grievances. But I’ll overlook it; I’ll still sit by your side and will your storms to quit brewing. Anything to make them stop brewing.

Or maybe you’ll grow distant first. Perhaps you’ll become the Sun and I, the Earth — turning in on myself to revolve around you because you are the light and what keeps me warm. Me rotating around you. Your selfishness so belittling that one day, I’ll become too small to be the Earth. So you’ll take my place, and I’ll become your moon. This is a better fit because some days I’ll appear to be whole but others? I’ll look like I’m half, or a quarter, or just a tiny sliver of who I was. On rare occasions, we’ll still align. I will pass through your shadow and bask in your sunlight; my face awash in gold and red and I’ll remember the way things were. But lunar eclipses, they’re few and far between and they’re not enough to save us.

Perhaps one moon won’t be enough for you, eventually. Eventually you’ll want what the others have, you’ll want eight moons or sixteen moons or more, so you’ll become Saturn. You’ll have more rings, more moons than you’ll know what to do with. And I will have no choice but to take the hint. I’ll be Pluto: downgraded and disregarded and cast aside. “You’re not even a planet anymore,” you’ll say, and I’ll know we’ll never be the same again. I’ll feel really, really small.

Finally it’ll become too much, the heartache. So I’ll be a supernova, one who was once a star but is now explosive, exploding, exploded. And it will be spectacular, you’ll be impressed by the amount of light I had inside of me. You had no idea just how much.

But it’s of no consequence. Because you are all of the planets, and all of the moons, and all of the matter; you’re all that matters. You are the sun; and you’ll just keep spinning and spinning and spinning."

Haven't had much time to myself recently, because I've started work for an awesome online shopping website called jipaban and I didn't have the time I used to have to do the things worth blogging about (aka no longer a lady of leisure). But I just wanted to share this amazing piece from the Thought Catalog. I don't usually read the Thought Catalog because mostly it feels like pretentious bullshit to me, but this piece was beautifully written I feel like I have to share it. Of course, putting some of my favourite photos I see on tumblr. I apologize for the lack of credits, tumblr isn't the best place for copyright works. Happy weekend xx