A Prayer for the Chinese New Year.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

on a smaller note, but not that small really.

Please pray that my grandma has a speedy recovery and can be discharged tomorrow?

I would hate it if she couldn't make it for reunion dinner because she is pretty much the most important person in the family. She is an amazing person and she deserves to be with her family on such a day. Not in the hospital.

To those of you wondering what happened, she's been not well for the past few weeks. And this morning she said she was feeling extremely awful and that her heart hurt. She's had heart attacks before and numerous opts, so to be safe my parents brought her to NUH. Their still checking through reports to see if it is really a heart attack or something else.

It's crazy how i just wrote that my first resolution this year is to spend more time with her and this had to happen. Heartbreaking.

Either way, i believe ah ma is going to be alright.

She'll be there for my convocation, my brother's, my sister's, my wedding, my sibling's wedding, and she's going to play with her great grandchildren. :)

Thanks for all your concerned reply tweets and messages people. And also the prayers. I'm sorry i couldn't do it personally one by one. I truly truly appreciate it. My whole family does. :)

xxx

MUMBAI Day 5 & 6 &.....

Okaaay so i do realize that i'm totally breaking the flow by blogging about the trip in parts and in gaps of days. :P MY BAD. But i can't help it coz i'm blogging with my brother's laptop and he usually is using it anyway. Or at least, he's using it when i'm actually up and not sleeping. Haha.. graduating has made me a lazy bum.

we went to Morshe ( i think thats how its spelled. i'm too lazy to zoom in the picture to see the spelling.) mainly for Cheese Fondue. Damn, i didn't even know they had such a thing in Singapore. SO... where do i get it in Singapore? It's sinfully good. We had two of it. Haha..

Yummy right... Damn, i wish i had melted chocolate with marshmallows now.

After that, we went to the Sports Bar. Because *jeng jeng* there was a Liverpool v Man Utd match which my brother and i of course couldn't miss. Plus it's pretty cool to see the 'sports bar scene' at Mumbai. Well, there were other fans there.. but if we didn't request it from the bartenders, they would have kept the cricket game or Asian Cup match on.

HOW WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN MORE IMPORTANT THAN LIVERPOOL? :P HAHA

We went early. Coz we were kiasu like that. Plus with the time difference it's really cool coz the match was 8pm our time. My brother and i had a basketball/netball (in my case) shootout.

I WON.

my brother wearing my Liverpool jersey. And well, considering it's more of his size than mine.. it's fine. :P i'm wearing a top i bought in Hard Rock the night before anyway. :)

the crowd at the bar.

After leaving, we walked down the street and spotted a small stall that sells like carved brass keychains. Made a few for my family.

And then Pooja insists we eat this donuts that were beyond good. Thought i was going to die out of being overfull coz i pretty much drank 3 bottles of beer at the Sports Bar.

And yeah, it was good. Especially since i chose all the chocolatey ones. :) CHOCOLATE FTW.

Next we went for this carriage-ish ride. We could have had the normal carriage rides, but we decided to be crazy and take this one that spins round and round as you go. Needless to say, you end up screaming half the time along with cars around you honking. Instead of looking at the scenary. Haha..

After that we went to this old school looking amusement park. Friends from Singapore come in to JB, go to Danga Bay and think that the amusement park there is old school right? The one we went to that night was beyond old school. The ferris wheel was MANUALLY pushed okay. The way someone pushes you on a swing when you were a kid? Yes... it's the same way they help you spin the ferris wheel. It's pretty thrilling really coz it goes really fast, and it's made out of old metal which makes you wonder if you'll fall off anytime (being as heavy as i am now).

The next day... was our last day.

So i chop chop went saree shopping for the bff- Mariee.

I liked the one i got her. But she's taking forever to meet me and get it from me. GEE.

ALL MY EFFORT WOMAN! :P

i wanted to get one for myself but Pooja's grandma was such a sweetheart and gave me one. :) AND NOW, i just have to wait for an Indian friend to get married SOON so i have a chance to wear it. ANYONE? PLEASE GET MARRIED SOON!

We went to an Indian snack shop after it to buy a whole lot of nutty things.

Soccer girls, you know where i got your snack now. :)

Spent a bomb there. SEE! My brother and i so sweet right? Couple clothes some more. Haha..

Went to do last minute shopping...

and to a CD store to get Bollywood movies. I got two. One that a particular group of my friends will love watching. Only, that it ended up not having subtitles. GAHH! Bummer.

While waiting for Pooja, a sweet dog came towards my brother and sat in front of him.

He was constantly sitting around that area. My brother and i started having a convo on whether that dog is like Hachiko waiting for his master. You never know right...

Met up with Pooja!

And she brought us to a roadside store to eat Pani Puri. Something you only get there i reckon. She waited for our last day, so that if our tummies can't take it.. we can have our tummy flu back in Malaysia.

You have to stuff the whole thing in your mouth in one go so it won't spill.

It's nice really. I took about 6 of it i think? LOL. The face doesn't do the whole "it's nice" justice only because it's hard to bite with your mouth full. I don't wanna choke you know.

We went back to Pooja's for dinner. Yums. And then to pack up to leave...

ALL SET AND READY TO GO!!!

or NOT.

As most of you tweet followers should know, i ended up staying for 3 more days? Because we couldnt find my passport and it ended up being in the top compartment of my brother's bag (or rather Anthony's bag). One of those fateful moments, i can only blame my memory and my brother's inability to find secret compartments in bags. Haha..

So i had a few extra days, where i didn't go out much other than to the Malaysian Embassy when i thought i lost the passport. Okay, speaking of which , i just remembered i forgot to email the 'ambassador' or something that i am safely back. Should do it now.

But i got to see the veggie market on the way there.. and this is how it somewhat looks.

Veggie everywhere!

A picture of the room that i spent in for a few days. Pooja's sister's.

How can i feel not at home right? ;P

SO that's it. Mumbai for you.

I will MOST definitely be travelling to INDIA again and not just to Mumbai this time.

Perhaps not as comfortably as this time as well.

As to when i'll do it, we'll see.

MUMBAI Day 3 & 4

Took all my remaining energy (after shopping all day for CNY, lol) to blog this, since i promised. Well, regardless of if anyone else other than myself is reading this. Haha..

From where i last left off, my brother fell really sick after the day at the slums. Not too sure what hit him as well. So we started the next day rather late. Anyway, we started with the Musuem.. which is so beautiful.

DAY 3

like i said, my brother was sick. Fever and all. So he was freezing. At the rate on how we both were wearing two layers and the trees behind us that had no leaves, dont't you think we look like we were at maybe some fall seasoned country?

My brother wore it coz he was cold. I did it mainly because i thought an 'archeologist- look' matches a day at the musuem. Haha..

I DO look like i fit in don't i? Even my brother who didn't know that i was planning to look somewhat like an archaeologist ended up telling me "you kind of look like you belong here. all you need now is a big DSLR around your neck." Okay, that would maybe be more of a wildlife photographer. But alright, that's a whole other story...

Art art art! Reminded me of the Louvre.

Always taking tortoise/ turtle-ish stuff in memory of QT Darling.

After the musuem, the National Gallery of Modern Art.

where we were not supposed to take pictures...

but do i actually look like i follow rules?

After that, it was more sightseeing and meeting up with Pooja again.

If not mistaken, the two above are a University or some kind of education institution. But i may be wrong, because memory isn't my best trait.

We went to a mall named Phoenix after it. What? Didn't think they have a proper mall?

It's pretty big and nice. Things were pricey too. So yup, didn't buy a thing.

After that, despite my brother still being sick and me being exhausted, we still went to this pub/club place named Blue Frog. Good music and nice ambience really. Well, assuming you aren't my boyfriend who is metal-oriented or my brother who just sat there and looked incredibly miserable. Being sick and hating extremely loud music.

I just HAD to try dancing around the Indians (and okay, one Korean).

Group shot! :)

DAY 4

Day 4 was a day to be spent at Elephanta Caves. It's a 45 minutes ferry ride away.

My brother and i at the Gateway of India.

According to what i remember, it is a place built to welcome Queen Victoria in the past or something.

According to Wikipedia however, it was a crude jetty used by fisher folks and was later renovated and used as a landing place for British governors and other distinguished personages. In earlier times, the Gateway was the monument that visitors arriving by boat would have first seen in the city of Mumbai

Bought nuts at the middle of nowhere there...

and some other snacks as well..

45 minutes later....

we reached Elephanta Caves and got ourselves a guide, whom in my opinion looks like Drogba. Haha.. my brother says it's just the hair.

took a short train ride to the actual place from the jetty.

got off, saw a goat and followed behind it.

only for it to cross the train. lol..

first time seeing a monkey drink from a bottle.

outside the caves!

In the caves, it's basically a whole lot of carvings and sculptures that were left from the past. Though, much destroyed by the Portugese during their rule. So you can see Shiva, their God, sculpture's with missing limbs and faces.

That's him dancing.

Shiva and his wife Parvati.

the one sculpture that was left saved because the Portugese thought that this sculpture of the three faces of Shiva ( the Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the creator, preserver and the destroyer) was a sign of the trinity of God (the God, the Son and the Holy Spirit).

Pooja and i got adventurous and climbed up the rocks.

The brother didn't want to be known as a chicken, so he did it too. And higher.

When leaving, my brother found this amazing sweethearts...

TADAAAA! Oh man, we so wanted to bring them home. Then again, thats's what we always did since we were young. Bring puppies home only for my mum to scold us and make us bring them back to where they were. Or rather, just out my gate. :(

Mr. UB and the buffalo.

squeezed on the train/tram thing back to the jetty.

caught the sunset...

and a dog running beside our train.

On the ferry, there were like hundreds of seagulls following us behind. That was so incredibly beautiful. Sadly, my camera didnt manage to catch them together at one time.

Had a guava which wasn't cut in its normal way we get it here...

and i had my nuts! I brought more back coz i thought it was so yummy.

We went to Hard Rock Cafe that night for dinner..

Delicious food...

Great company...

and not to mention damn GOOD songs. I had a good dose of proper rock music that night. Loved it. :)

Mumbai Day 5 onwards... probably in another two days.

I've a show tomorrow and i am so dead tired. Rehearsal starts at 8.30am and i swear the makeup artist has better be incredible because my breakouts are beyond redemption these days. :( argh.

Goodnight!