waku ghin

on our most recent trip back to singers, there was reason to celebrate. being a not-so-closet hedonist, there's always reason to celebrate but this was an especially big one. hadn't been to waku ghin since it first opened, and then we were guests of a truly special couple celebrating their silver wedding anniversary. slight aside: there's a more conscientious review over there, when i was pseudo-eloquent and better able to articulate my thoughts before medsch dulled my wit and charm. anyhoos, the meal was the stuff of dreams and the memory of it still burns bright. before i lapse into even greater melodrama, let me first say i kept the menu but have seem to have left it in sg. oops. so i can't tell you in any greater detail what each of these courses are (sorry!) and the incredible uni with botan ebi and oscietra featured again but was demolished before i could take a photo. tell a lie. i did take a photo and sent it to a friend whose one word response was "blimey" so i suppose it must've looked exotic enough. the chefs worked their magic with the freshest of produce, and paired with tetsuya san's junmai daiginjo (spoilt now, can't have regular japan centre sake no more :( ) everything went down way too easily. relished each dish and was kept wanting more. even now, i would go back tomorrow if i could. 

on a semi-related note, was having a discussion with a dear friend who's based stateside but happened to be home the same time i was last summer. we were tucking into the aoki chirashi and decided that if our meagre means allow, it's best to eat <S$5 or >S$50 because every thing in between would be mediocre. huge fan of hawker food and defo got my fill but it's nice to punctuate the grease with something a little more glitzy at times.

officially autumn

officially the start of autumn and it's already turning cold. something about this season seems to kick off a maelstrom of cravings and i'm stuffing my face with greggs sausage rolls and donuts. well not just donuts but danishes, brownies and all the candy i can get my hands on. waitrose prawn crackers are another firm favourite. so much for being adult and having a healthy relationship with food! 

suppose greed is something most people struggle with and it's something i need to reign in more often than not. but speaking of which, it was refreshing to have A san and her friend visit. i like people who eat well. nothing annoys me like a house guest with dietary restrictions, if you get what i mean. so these two lovely ladies were down for everything. from a massive yumcha lunch, chased by bubbletea and snacking through the afternoon then more flights of beer than we should've had (complete with side of pervy stranger!) before coming home for home cooked goodness. (wo)men after my own heart. usually over order at the yumcha place but was pleasantly surprised that they finished everything, and dinner which is usually for 5-6 was put away in next to no time. C commented that she thought i'd be having leftovers till the end of the week but noooo! 

much as i'm as wary of excess as i am of over-restriction, they look perfectly healthy and are active so no, no binge-ing there either. it's just such a tricky topic, isn't it? with all these trigger warnings you're meant to put up just in case someone with an eating disorder wanders by. joining C and a colleague for dinner tomorrow and have been warned not to mention weight. not that it's on my mind much / something i usually bring up but hm, put on notice to avoid at all costs! pity - as it's always nice to have an open discourse and i'm a girly girl who rather be supportive and part of a strong sisterhood that engenders body confidence. but recognise not everyone wants to talk about it, and fair enough! 

digression aside, weather was mucky but like to think we made the most of it. hit up the museum, traipsed across the bridge, stuck our heads into the concert hall and just soaked in the sights. a little more soaking than i'd have liked with the spitting rain but what's a girl to do. thrilled that A san is the same delightful person she was all those years ago. we'd a good sit and think because ohmyword has it been five years since we first met?! really felt our age. was glad to know she thought i was the same (whew!) and it was as if no time had lapsed. to me, that's the beauty of true friendship and being able to pick up where we left off is a real blessing. and the funny aside with the pervy stranger - not quite worth repeating but constantly reminded how the world is a big bad place and a girl can't be too careful. long story short, we got talking with a lone guy two tables away. perfectly innocent, harmless banter - or so we thought. honestly, hand on heart, nothing untoward at all and i'm usually quite switched on about boundaries and my spidey senses were far from a'tingling. but back at the flat, A san discovered that mr. creepster had added her on fb (he must've overheard us talking about her full name...) and then started messaging and basically asked if she wanted to get it on. in less polite terms, of course. so we had a mini panic and i was glad we hadn't mentioned my address or whereabouts or anything vaguely identifiable other than her name (bad enough!). quick delete and block but A san was visibly shaken :(

didn't get much sleep, as expected, and went straight to a 90min prescribing exam. yay! having my cake (lemon meringue pie?) and eating it is something i'm always all for. even if it meant staying up after everyone went to bed to plough through 42 pages of worked examples. fun times - being a full-time student is the bombdiggity. i think.

and this was breakfast near the station! A san's first taste of porridge (english-style) on C's recommendation. she liked it :) gimme good ol' rice porridge any day, but oats with thick honey and blueberries is admittedly comforting on a blustery autumnal morning.

it's only mid-week and i'm already exhausted. busy weekend ahead. another weekend, another set of friends passing through london. there's E who i've not met in over 5 years. chance meeting at a dinner party and she was so kind as to have her hotelier father host the mister and i on his grad trip in south america. we went from backpacking on a shoestring budget to living in the lap of luxury with comp-ed stays at his arequipa then colca hotels. immensely grateful and still wanting to pay it forward some day. that's the beauty of kindness, isn't it. and there's A who's a swiss lawyer (judicial clerk) turned banker turned big swiss bank biz dev dude who's in town. dialing things up and see them escalating to high octane so bracing myself for a big weekend. there's also 7am spin (gotta make small dents at the autumn feasting) and perhaps a tiny staycation if i'm lucky. so hey, bring it !

activity

so a fortnight into fourth year, things seem to be picking up pace. changing gears, perhaps? i wouldn't know, being completely useless and unable to drive stick. then again, if my uk driver's licence is to be believed, i can! and motorcycles and massive lorry-type things too. funny how my one automatic licence when converted conferred me additional and undeserved powers. but i digress.

it's been o-k so far? funny regression to pre-clinical before it's fast and furious clinicals after christmas. enjoying the down time, maybe skipping more lectures than i should. i blame my short attention span (not so much ADD but you get the picture) and preference for reading over slides on my own (and not listening to someone drone on for 2h on end). 

some excitement in the next few days. a dear housemate from stockholm is visiting with a friend so that should be good fun. she's a sweetheart and being the nostalgic sap i am, associate her with a time when i was young and carefree. in a way i like to think i still am (me me me, oh dear!) but there's no denying that things are different now. we met on the very first day in stockholm and discovered we were corridor-mates (there were 12 en suites sharing a corridor!) which was nothing short of serendipity given how many hundred internationals there must've been. we'd natter away in japanese, much to the amusement of the corridor dad (dubious honour given how he was the only swede and been living there longer than the rest) he used to comment that we sounded like kittens, which in retrospect may have been more pervy than i'd have liked to believe. but hey, benefit of doubt + lost in translation! 

when it was time for me to leave, she helped drag my massive suitcase all the way to the tunnelbana and burst into tears as i crossed the turnstiles. and when i visited in summer, she let me stay in hers so it was nice to be back on our corridor to pretend i was still on exchange (when i had in fact just graduated and stared down an uncertain future of bar exam + medsch entrance exam + medsch apps.

we linked up in tokyo a couple of years later when she was working, and when i was in first year of uni round 2, we had a skype reunion. this time she was in stockholm with what was left of our then corridor, and i was in halls. finally finally two years on it's time for some proper facetime and i can't wait to see her again. only too happy to play tour guide and wish i was in edinburgh today (where she's staying with krishna, another of our corridormates but alas i took the commercial decision to stay put and patiently await her arrival. 

there we go - a lengthy preamble about why i'm looking forward to the next couple of days. it's the business before having houseguests now. supermarket run to stock up on milk and snacks, doing a few loads of laundry to make sure bedding is nice and clean, and general activity planning using accuweather as a guide.

fourth year

it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks since my housewife moan. was in sg for 9 whole days - the longest time since moving in 2011. usually back for 3-4 days so 3 days into this visit, i was all ready to jump on the first flight to londontown. not wanting to sound like a complete ingrate, it's getting harder to be an adult child at home. sad to see grandmothers getting on, older and more crumbly each visit. the inevitable goodbyes get harder too. 

what was nice was meeting friends. there was a sad element to that too - meeting friends who i've drifted so far away from that catch ups were stilted and painful. it's not always a function of time. there were friends i caught up with for the first time in two years who felt like no time had lapsed since we last hung out. yet there were others who i felt had outgrown me. but that's life isn't it? people change and move on and the sooner we accept it, the sooner we stop pretending we're closer than we actually are, the less awkwardness. something else i can appreciate is friends who make an effort. everyone is busy, everyone has a demanding job and it means a lot when someone tries their darndest to make it out of the office and be present for the short time you've together. been there, done that. know how challenging it can be and all the more grateful for friends who are intentional.

the B word was something that came up a lot. have absolutely no qualms sharing plans and views with nearest and dearest. in fact, i might even volunteer! but if it's a nosey aunty or acquaintance clutching at conversational straws then i get immensely defensive / crabby. i mean, in which universe is it o-k to ask someone about their family planning...?! 

it was an incredibly social week and a bit and met a few new people. part of me wants to minimise obligations in sg and just chill at home, while another part is more opportunistic (okok, FOMO) and craves the high octane social stimulation so easily sought when back for a short visit. 

now the summer hol is well and truly over and i'm back to school, life's slowed down to a more leisurely pace. kinda surreal that in a short 5 weeks, there was aix with jeanne, the cruise with my fam, lisbon, essex and then sg.  loath as i am to talk about uni, fourth year's looking pretty relaxed and it's a nice break from the crazy that is third year. so trying to scheme a couple more getaways, and defo down for porto en masse.

housewife-dom

not the prettiest of pictures but sums up what i've been doing the past week or so. my defunct instagram bio reads "undercover housewife" which i suppose holds a grain of truth given that it's essentially what i am when i'm not at uni. friends are often surprised that i cook and clean on repeat while the mister, bless him, doesn't. haven't entirely worked out gender roles in my mind but this arrangement works and i like being able to manage a house (ok, one bedder) on top of everything else. not like there are kids or extended family in the fray, so it's really not all that impressive. how hard can looking after myself and another independent adult be? MIL was up last month and remarked how quickly i hung up clothes. back-handed compliment, much? suppose there are worse things to be known for...

sushi samba

duck and waffle is on my little london list but i hadn't given much thought to sushi samba. my constant lament about london is that it rewards the hyper-organised (and/or the well-connected) because resos must be made way in advance. however, i think life is too structured and much as i crave certainty on the school/work front, i'm less inclined to pencil things in months in advance when it comes to down time. did eventually make it to a reso (instead of blanket bombing then cancelling!) and was pleasantly surprised. not the biggest fan of fusion food, much less fusion jap because i love japanese in its purest form, but this funny marriage of jap/peruvian/brazillian (?) was a love match. killer views, as you do, from so high up and would defo return / send friends that way now i know it's good. always appreciative when friends who hit up the recommendations tell me what their experience was like. loath to oversell and with f&b being the flippant industry it is, standards can change so quickly.

nigerian wedding

so the reason why i'd a room friday and saturday night in essex was because my very generous host had booked out the hotel. had a regrettably tenuous connection to the wedding couple but was up to attend my very first nigerian wedding. silly me, thought it was an english celebration for the couple's friends based in the UK. little did i realise that 90% of the 500 guests had come all the way from nigeria. and being the paranoid little poop i am, my ebola alarm bells started to ring. yes, i'm aware nigeria is a huge country and the chances of the guests having ebola was slim, but throw in air travel and possible transit in african airports and i got very worked up. that's why i'm only just getting round to talking about the wedding, when i'm safely out of the 21 day incubation period. when i learnt at the start of the wedding when 500 guests were under on glorious white marquee that most had traveled from far to be there, i inched closer to the open doors (thank goodness our table opened onto the grounds), tried my darndest not to shake hands nor cheek anyone, and made repeated trips to the ladies for the fresh air (good 10min walk to  the main building) and hand hygiene. of course, everyone i later related this to laughed at me :( and when i spotted a lone petechia the next day, i had a near meltdown. not fun.

oh and not just 500 guests but big names from nigeria (whizzkid, the jayZ of a-frickin-ca) were flown in for the party. didn't take much to turn me into a groupie (who kept a safe distance). weddings always make me think about mine, and gosh ours was so different. had lamb soup and pancakes at the next town for our 20+ guests for the wedding breakfast and were done and dusted in just over an hour. in contrast, this wedding breakfast was pretty darn marathon. started at 3pm and when i finally bowed out near midnight, the party was still going strong. what i did enjoy was the dancing from 6 onwards, and the endless supply of DP 2004 that the groom's father kept passing me. but too polite to chug my personal bottle, i'd share it round the table. then like magic, another would appear :)

double bill at somerset house

landed friday evening and hit the ground running. words cannot express how much i hate stansted, but that's another rant for another day. had been away for two solid weeks and felt like i needed a holiday from the holiday, much as i'd enjoyed the break. part of me thinks medsch awoke the sleeping workaholic within, and that addictive personality that makes me obsess with one thing (good if that's work, bad if that's work) because this six week break, ironically the shortest in medsch, has felt wayy too long. was talking to a friend about it and as grads, we're both keen to graduate and start work. but then i catch myself and make a conscious effort to enjoy the process for what it is. to suspend reality and postpone adulthood and its myriad of responsibilities for a couple of years more, not necessarily a bad thing, no? school's much easier than work, and it's such a protected, cosseted environment i've no reason to complain. 

but back to london! it's been a welcome change of pace to take things slow in the city, or pseudo-slow at least. started with a double bill (hairspray and springbreak) at somerset house. funnily enough, it's been over a year (maybe even two!) since R told me about somerset house and how much fun it was in the summer with open air screenings. can't believe it's taken us 2 years to get round to it, just like R's other recommendation of le garrick in convent garden. maybe next year! was too cool to arrive at 6pm when the doors open and paid the price by having to hustle the one last square foot of picnic mat real estate when we waltzed in at half 8 for a 9pm screening. oh summer nights, can't get the movie going any earlier for it was still too light out. 

hadn't watched the original (1988?) version of hairspray but preferred it to the camp john travolta recent release. hm then again i'm in love with michelle pfeiffer so tough call. was also too cool to bring food and drink (brought picnic mat, blankets and extra coats) but there was popcorn ice cream (free because the mister is charming like that) and poshdogs to be had. and beer.

tried not to think about how there was a hotel room in essex with my name on it that same night but that's a story for tomorrow.

farol

when i was last in lisbon, had an extra day. the wonders of fb, even back then in 2009, was that a uni mate had seen the photos and suggested we visit cascais. was backpacking on a budget and remember taking the train to the seaside town, then walking all along the coast to the devil's mouth (throat?). it was breezy, the weather was great and we passed this beautiful hotel en route. remember looking wistfully at it and while enjoying the rossio hostel very much (haha) i did entertain a pipe dream of abandoning ship and offering to wash dishes in exchange for staying a night. obviously that didn't happen, but five years on, it was kinda surreal to be on the other side :)

it was a lovely, albeit short, stay at farol and as a goodbye gift, the dolphins put on a show during breakfast.

palacio ramalhete, alcântara

after two nights in chiado, we moved on to alcantara to explore a new neighbourhood. stayed in a gorgeous, lovingly restored palacio which's basically what lots of buildings are called. what was interesting was the all-female team of sweet young things who ran the place. they were helpful to a fault and made us feel very welcome. i may or may not have developed a tiny girl crush on the manager-ess lady and was even about to suggest my brother extend his holiday to woo her, should she be available.

did have one tiny hiccup that i'm more than a little ashamed to admit. traveling as a fam, we'd a pull out bed in the living room area of the suite. but it was a sweltering summer night and the a/c was only in the bedroom, and the suite so big the gulfstream failed to reach the sofa bed. it was about midnight when i called the front desk to ask for a portable fan. the night lady said to sleep without the duvet (already doing that, duh) and open the window as they had no fans. but the window opened into the inner courtyard where all the a/c units were whirring away - adding insult to injury! someone else came up to see what the problem was and agreed that the window had to remain shut. but there was nothing they could do and the hotel was full. this frustrated me as if the room was going to be so uncomfortable, it should not have been sold as a family share. sent a couple of angry emails and um, it was a little awkward in the morning. constantly reminding myself to think before i act, to sleep on things that make me angry because, really, the manager lady was so nice about it the next day and comp-ed jugs of sangria. when we checked out, they didn't even charge for the extra bed. do think the same outcome (service recovery) could be achieved without as much undue nastiness on my part.

more photos of the pretty palacio ramalhete. playing with pano mode.

lisbon

everyone raves about portugese egg tarts so bright and early on our first morning we went in search of the holy grail in belem (pronounced belleh?) the insider tip was to go all the way as far into the cafe as you can, instead of of jostling for space with the tourists in the first couple of 'rooms'. because at the back, while there's often a short queue, the turnover is also higher. we'd a sweet waiter who spoke good english and i was just relieved we didn't have to order in sign language. that said, i couldn't understand the menu because i don't know what different pastries are called in portugese so i took a photo of the display case up front and pointed to the pastries i wanted. which wasn't hard, really, seeing how we ended up with one of everything.

gooey, hot and molten, flakiest filo pastry - thought these were good until we chanced upon a hole in the wall in alfama called pastelaria alfama doce at r. regueira 39 e 39A that was even better. so much for tourist traps in belem ;)

the next few photos were snapped over our couple of days in lisbon. the first thing i noticed was that i'm not a fan of portugese food. salty, oily and almost inedible. maybe we just had really bad luck but these were places the hotel / guidebooks / locals recommended and they were packed! maybe just didn't suit chinese palate so ended up eating hot dogs (cool place called hot dog lovers below) and japanese. not complaining, always up for japanese. the portugese restaurants we went to managed to destroy fresh fish so having sashimi to my heart's content was all the redemption lisbon needed.

good jap we enjoyed were sea me sushi in chiado and ozeki. wanted to try bonsai but it was closed for summer :(

beautes lisbon from porto do sol! whiled away an afternoon at a choice table in the shade drinking fizzy water and watching the world go by.

lisbon oceanarium

docked in lisbon bright and early and was sad to have to disembark after ten glorious days on board. did have a few days in lisbon to take the sting out of an otherwise abrupt end to the holiday. stayed in chiado in a sweet service apartment. actually, think it was a hotel but were upgraded to a suite that was like a serviced apartment with bedroom, living / dining, kitchen, bathroom and laundry room. complete with massive walk-in wardrobes and bathed in sunlight.  found lisbon to be relatively affordable, having backpacked there in while on exchange in stockholm. in fact, the best hostel i've ever stayed in (and believe you me, i've been to many!) was rossio in lisbon. so there. winning accom seems to be a thing!

chanced the oceanarium in the afternoon and hm to risk sounding like the spoilt singaporean i am, it was o-k? having been to the one at RWS, this paled in comparison. it was such a let down and i felt super duper cheated by 'second in the world' or whatever it was. granted, it had more exhibits like penguins and puffins (yay i like puffins but not so much in captivity) and more space, in fact it was sprawling, but gimme singers any day with its piped classical musical and relatively more genteel clientele. singers boleh!

oh and this was the view from our room!

lazy sunday

it's one of those glorious days that stretches indeterminably ahead. been on the go most of this year, be it at school or traveling, and it's nice to finally have a few deliberately empty days to recalibrate. i find the older i get, the more downtime i need. i also find the older i get, the faster life becomes. more things to do and people to meet squeezed into a shorter time. someone described it as high octane recently, and how i'm 20something (haha) going on 17. not entirely an insult but it did get me thinking, especially since the culprits escalating this are a good decade older. in that funny space between wanting to catch up with friends from near and far, and wanting to make like a hermit and not leave the sofa. the longer i'm away from singers, the more i want to cling to these tenuous threads that bring me home. and new people! oh hello new people :) have had the privilege of making a number of new acquaintances this year. sometimes i wonder if it's a function of time, like if we'd be so close so fast if we weren't all london transplants, or if serendipity hadn't intervened. but that's academic now, isn't it. what is, is. it's no secret that i'm a sucker for interesting people and had to stop myself from going into fan girl mode when i finally met an old friend of the mister's. without going into too much detail, this friend was even more articulate and engaging in person than on paper and despite the full-blown URTI i couldn't seem to shake, i pepped up for dinner. there's something to be said about being philosophical about it all, because the flip side is an inevitable sadness and sense of loss. my short attention span isn't something i'm proud of, but i do get like that with people sometimes, and wonder if it's a borderline borderline personality. or just life, really, getting in the way of things.

what i am proud of, however, is the coterie of close girlfriends who somehow haven't dumped me yet. and this summer has been a bit of a girlfriend jackpot, with one relocating to london from canada and more meet ups with R (NYC then london) than we've had in the last few years. these are ladies i'm in constant whatsapp contact with (god bless whatsapp) and to finally have literal facetime is such a bonus. and there are girlfriends in sg whom i can't wait to see. late 20s is an exciting age, milestones left right and centre with marriage, babies and/or big career moves. it's like this explosion of newsworthiness and occasionally the what if-itis gets to me. then my darling sister tells me how she remembers my time as a lawyer, funnily enough, quite different from the rose tinted episode it remains in my mind. hand on heart i don't think i'd it that bad, cocooned in the nurturing goodness that was the best team on planet earth. then i have coffee with two fresh off the team and feel great sympathy for what they've been through. so maybe it was an unreal world after all.

i've been reading lately, an old love i only recently returned to. might've been about two months ago on a particularly relaxed rotation that i finally picked up a book again then went through a phase where i was reading a book a day. which, too, was short-lived and i'm back to a more sustainable pace. it's escapism in a way and again with this short attention span i don't always finish what i pick up. there's a book i was reading over new year's in the maldives that's still on my nightstand, but with ebook and kindle it's a glut of options. maybe that's the problem, too many options, something a dear friend lamented about boys in NYC. but that's another story. 

back to the mister's friend, who is among other amazing things also a published poet. in fact, a lifetime ago, a friend from lawsch gave me an autographed copy of said poet's book and i was blown away. so to actually read drafts from the next collection, and to discuss it over dinner..?! mind blown. the mister said something funny after that. he said he was impressed to hear me talk about poetry. like after seven years, it was still a facet he's yet to really see because it's not often that i'm in lit mode. i mean, it's usually law/biz/med when we talk so to suddenly delve into kant's notion of the nouminal self was a change from regular programming. 

so there you go. the fourth week of summer break in a nutshell. two to go then it's back to school. have mixed feelings about fourth year. third was by far the longest and hardest, and fourth is reputed to be get out of jail. but i may or may not have been overambitious and organised some crazy electives where the pressure is on. no room for sloppiness, less room for failure. the mere thought of bringing my A game tires me. just when i thought i'd get a breather from the steep learning curve, might've just jumped onto an even sharper one. but again, that's life right? carpe that diem etc.

 one of my favourite photos from NYC that already seems so long ago

porto

wasn't planned or anything but this trip seemed like deja vu, with repeat visits to honfleur, porto and lisbon. was last in portugal while on exchange and when trawling through the archives, i was aghast by how badly i write now. oh medicine, what have you done to my pseudo-literary mind :( was a whistle stop tour of porto and flying visit to the port cellar before setting sail for lisbon. 

but in a strange twist of fate, turns out that i'll be in porto for a couple of days in october so hope to properly explore it then.

malpica

this was the one and only day of rubbish weather the whole holiday, which i suppose is in and of itself something to be thankful for. used to joke about the english being so obsessed with the weather but having lived here for three years now, it's something i've reluctantly caught on to. it really makes or breaks the day, despite my local italian deli man telling me not to worry about things i can't change. gotta love his mediterranean philosophy! rather fortuitously, planned to spend the morning on the boat with breakfast in bed and only head out in the pm, when the weather was marginally better.

ventured to the tiny fishing village of malpica and was greeted by, get this, mr. mayor himself! it was a sleep little town and very much involved in fishing. what was sad was how the lady with the mayor she ran the womens fishing net weaving association, but don't get me started on the sort of margins they were making on those hand-woven nets. actually, let's talk about that. from my pidgin spanish and poor memory for numbers, it was something like how the women earn EUR16/h, it takes 300 (wo)man hours to weave a net, and each net retails for EUR30k. something doesn't add up and i hope it's me! but back to the lady boss, she lost her father and brothers at sea, a common tragedy for old malpican families.

bilbao

docked in santander and took the bus to bilbao to visit the gugg. had heard the outside was more impressive than the inside and found this to be true. suppose exhibitions are always a little hit and miss, depends on what's coming through the rotation etc but was disinterested in yoko*ono's work. not something i can relate to nor find accessible, much of it i feel is pretty garbage and was annoyed that's mostly what the gugg had to offer at this point. did find it funny to see yet another bourgeois spider, having only just taken photos with one in aix at chateau la coste with J the previous week. i did like papi, the dog with flowers. if i could do bilbao all over again, i'd have admired the gugg from the outside then left to have coffee with C before linking up with the group to head back to santander.

bordeaux

i'm a big fan of supermarket wine but have never really been cultured enough to understand what all those labels mean!  so our visit to bordeaux (docked in le verdon sur mer) was quite the education. wine is something i wish i knew more about but there's only so much info i can pump from B. 

B's one of my oldest friends and we've swum together since we were four. he's a SEA games gold medalist, was in cornell doing pre-med on a swimming scholarship when fate intervened and he found himself eventually majoring in viticulture. he's since graduated and worked his way up the vines and is now a full winemaker on the east coast, having done his time in napa. when he heard i was going to be in NYC last month, he hopped over for the weekend, something i'm super grateful for. ever the gent (and because i'm a poor student) he bought lunch at fatty crab (good! go!) and better yet, came bearing wine that HE HAD MADE. it was as if christmas came early :) he's in the process of overhauling a family vineyard now and has made amazing progress. the rose was delicious (popped it with the grads after we learnt we'd passed hehe) and am saving the red for a special occasion with the mister. we then went to eataly where we'd crepes with, get this, wallace*shawn and B even got a photo with him (that i took). so all in all a winning saturday while the mister was wheeling and dealing in the city. 

oh, but back to bordeaux. vineyard tour, history etc. visited a vineyard bought over by a chinese company (yuck) and felt sad that it was so cheapened (double yuck). the end.

saint jean de luz

basque country amazes me, not least because some of my closest friends from exchange were a pair of lovely girls from the region. in fact, i last met C in NYC easter 2012, and S on my most recent trip. they've both really sold me on the area and i was excited to visit. bummed i was very briefly in bilbao (later in the trip) but didn't have time to catch up with C who's working there now. more about that in a couple of days. so we anchored in saint jean de luz and headed straight for st sebastian, which really needs no introduction, having the highest number of michelin stars second only to tokyo.

guernsey

visiting the channel islands was a first, after an abortive secretescape deal to jersey last year. i'm still sore that they overpromised, then called to cancel (claimed they were oversubscribed) after we'd paid in full. what nonsense. word on the ground is that there are two reasons to relocate to guernsey. either you're dodgy, or you're very dodgy. and a certain tax inspector had to be restrained from referring to the clients as 'the perpetrators'. but don't quote me on that! 

also have a classmate from jersey whose blood tests from the jersey ('local') labs went through but still pays international fees. what a cheap way of milking someone for money! and my mobile service provider did not cover me in guernsey, despite it being UK! what nerve. 

anyway, territorial and telco woes aside, guernsey was charming in its own way. all i wanted to do was to go on a cliff walk. but that fell through. chatted with the fitness instructor later and was even more FOMO that we didn't see the island from the sea, despite anchoring at st peter's port. because she's always had the 'in' from the other crew, she's always been short-cut-ed to the best way to see the port, which was by speedboat in this case.