Ragazze in Italia!

the people that came and went

2007-07-06T02:56:00.000-07:00

the loves. the people i study with (or not hah) every semester. they came down to milano for a couple of days. stuffing their faces on ice-cream. yup, that's pretty much what we did, stuff our faces and just hang around the house..

saz being grosssss....
the bao... being the bao. HAHAHHAHA.
steph erm... savouring her last bite. hah.
yixin... talking to her bf on the balcony... WHILE reading a book... POSING ONLY LAH! rarr~
happy lazing arnd at home! hahahah :)

land of weed

2007-06-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

so i just got back from amsterdam a week ago.

val and i had a ball of a time
with the drugs and the sex and the thumping night life
*winkwink*

pretty, pretty amsterdam!

so yes, whatever you've heard about amsterdam is true.
the sex and the drugs

one of the many sex shops that sell glass dicks

more glass dicks

and the orgasmic face that comes with it in the display
hurhur.

one of the (many) gay bars

magic mushrooms
(no, we didn't have any)

bongs!

dildos.

the well-endowed stuffed rabbit

giant clog and the enthusiastic val

rembrandt

our bike tour group
apparently our bike guide goes to singapore once a year just to eat.
(mm. bak chor mee.)

the dude on the left is our tour guide and
the shed/barn/house behind the cheese/clog farm with the most amusing farmer
and the most amazing cheese!

rows upon rows of yummy cheese

the cool farmer who can speak smatterings of
cantonese, mandarin and japanese

so the whole bike tour group trooped down to a random pub for some drinks
on the way we saw some serious looking roman columns
the inscription reads:
homo sapiens non urinat in ventum

go figure ;p

we went to take a picture with the famous i amsterdam

and had the best giant beef burger ever! yum.

we also made our way to the heineken museum
which cost 11 freakin' euros!
so we contented ourselves with a picture of the exterior and

the heineken flag flying high in all its glory
(cue patriotic gaze)

so then we took a stroll along one of the many bridges and saw
the cutest not-so-little clog boat!

val and her coffee fix

in the coffee shop (sorry, cafe) next to the van gogh museum

can you find steph? hurhurhur.

amsterdam by night.
pretty, innit?

enjoy!

2007-06-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

hi everybody
i got bored studying
so here's a picture of a magnet of david's schlong
we're going back to the city of art
in approximately 3 days.

yay!

NPV = PV - required investment

2007-06-09T06:07:00.000-07:00

while the roommate and the fengster are enjoying sunny/cloudy/windy ( i don't know anymore!!!) london with tan sherwayn, i am stuck in milano attempting to study for corporate finance, which is a joke. A JOKE.

anyway, ROOMIE AND FENGSTER DON'T FORGET MY SAINSBURY COOKIES OK!

muchos gracias amigos.

in case you forget which, here's a picture:

mMmm.

Giro D'Italia

2007-06-05T04:38:00.000-07:00

So, down came from sunny, or rather, cloudy London, my dear Tan Sherwayn, (note that it's not Sherwayn Tan... he's anal.. hah) to wreck havoc in my house once again. Being the bike geek that he is, naturally, he started showing me all the merchandise that he had managed to get his hands on this trip to milan. He started explaining to me the intricate details that went into making his bike shoes, as usual, and how each individual part of the shoes could be fine tuned. In his language "this is DAMN COOL LARRR~!! LOOK AT THE DETAIL!" *gleeful smile*. Haha, so cute. He was so excited, he started wearing them around the house and erm.... bounced...

and erm... other things... but you can see he was excited.
Amidst his idiosyncracies, he had managed to weasel me, steph and feng to join him in watching the Giro d'Italia (Italian equivalent of the Tour de France). The race was ending in Milan Central.
so off we went...
yes, he was trying to lead us there (porta venezia) and babe watch, I don't know which came first la, but we got there in one piece.... miraculously.
He insisted we get off the tram and walk even though we weren't really THAT near the finish line yet... so we walked....
and walked..... (looking lost.....)but we trudged on....
and walked.... this is still not near the finish line....
and walked....
stopped to take a picture.... and walked some more.... and then we saw it!!
HAPPY FACES!!!
EVERYTHING WAS PINK!!!!!
he started explaining what was going on again... or maybe he was just chatting feng up... tsk tsk bloody morning beer gay couple...
then he started explaining to me...
look at the "n" amount of people!!!! The atmosphere was crazy!!

Wayn...erm... couldn't really contain his excitement anymore...
waiting for the riders to come in for their final 10 laps, so we took pictures!!! and then waited...
and waited.....
and waited.... and then we heard the applause!!!
after the race.
PACKED LIKE SARDINES!!!! the dude on the left is cool, we made friends in the crowd. Or rather, wayn worked his THANG and put his arm around his shoulder or whatever.
Happy with the pink all around them.
oh yes!! timmy came from cloudy UK!!
and wayny left. i'll see u in london soon u worm! :)

what we've been up to part 2

2007-06-03T02:05:00.000-07:00

we've been *gasp* studying.

jo's true colours
i.e. no makeup and un-styled hair
(photo taken off after loads of screaming by jo that it's incriminating hahah)

last minute cramming has reduced us to
snivelling bespectacled uglianies
(but jo demanded i remove the photo so IMAGINE LA OK PEOPLE)

among other things,
jo cooked. (horror of horrors!)

we're still alive, as you can see.
(but she had help! heehee)

tribute to denise

this is denise, looking absolutely cock.
hahahahhahaha.

what we've been up to

2007-06-03T01:55:00.000-07:00

we had a ban mian party!

first you make the dough

this lump of mess

the (dis)array of ingredients

then you roll the dough ala roti prata
for which we had the prata man ameer
but we forgot to take a picture of him making the dough flat
so here he is looking like shit

then you slice the dough unless you have a noodle machine

then you put everything in the hot boiling soup and voila!
ban mian, albeit sans ikan bilis

slurp.

wk 13?

2007-05-31T05:25:00.000-07:00

sorry for the lack of posts. been really busy with projects and shit. will update soon. luv, mir

nicee is niceeeee

2007-05-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

Jo and I were bored on the bus. The ride was looong.. so yea. These are only like a few of them. Hahaha!broke for meals. me and ADAM the resident XIAXUE lover. YOU BOHOC!

The view along the french riviera. I jumped at the sight of the sailboats. (shuddap) Anyway, this was when we reached Monte Carlo. Water makes me calm some how.

THE GRAND PRIX TRACK!!!!!!!!! enough said. hehe *beams*

After walking around aimlessly in search for the Macdonald's... long story... we headed to Nice city centre and DINNER!
It was a crazy night. Right? KIAT? hahahaha. :P

The next day was...
Yes! Cannes. I went a little crazy over there. No, I am not always crazy. Anyways, armed with the hangover from the night before we decided to just spend the rest of the day chilling at the beach.
The Cannes theatre!!! The Cannes film festival was due the week after, so we couldn't see any celebrities. There WERE a lot of luxury cars though. *slurp*

THE BEACH! and my poster shots. HUR HUR HUR.

ameer attempting to tan.... or rather.. not.

ShoW DOWN!
I like this photo! :)
After the beach.
Jie after she "borrowed" my camera.
overall. happy. :)

another sunny day in milano

2007-05-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

so today ramona, val and i decided to tan on ramona's roof. yes, where the power generators are and where there is absolutely no one and nothing ('cept maybe a few bugs) encroaching on our much-needed time-out (from what? life, in general i reckon. hurhur.)

after lying around trying to get a tan under the cloudy morning sky, we decided to break for lunch, which was a shiokalicious home-cooked meal of pork chops, french fries and salad. mmm.

after which we went back to lying around under the sunny afternoon sky, and successfully got our desired tan.

aye, this is the life.

Paris

2007-04-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, summer came early this year, so Paris was a lot hotter than it should've been this time of year. Nonetheless, the four of us, Beng, Lian, Steph and I braved the scotching sun and made our way around the city of LOVE.

There was not much love though, there was, however, plenty of SUN... and ITALIANS! Just when we thought we were rid of them, us being OUT of ITALY and all... they decide to appear ALL OVER FRANCE!

We were so tired after seeing the Eiffel tower and the gate (left), that we started a massive search for Macdonald's. After a few minutes, we decided to sit down and rest! (slugs)

And being the usual gross people we are, we decided to take photos... of OURSELVES!!

After resting for about 15 minutes, we trudged on, hungry and exhausted from all the walking in the hot sun.

We did eventually get to Macdonald's and had 95cent MILLKSHAKES! Heavenly... *drools*

We then had dinner with the exchange students in Paris from SMU! Those sweet people cooked for us. That was that for day 1.

Day 2....

The LOUVRE!

We were there relatively early in the morning, beaming with excitement.

especially Kiat.

Yes, who can miss the famous GLASS PYRAMID!?

The compound was so huge, we got lost on our way out! We took years to find the exit. There was a point when we just sat down and took a video of our plight. Will upload the video soon. As expected, the Louvre was amazing. Mona Lisa wasn't that magnificent though. I can see why it is one of the greatest art pieces in the world but I think its name exceeds itself. The only downer was that photos were not allowed to be taken inside the premises. Any photos you have are usually taken secretly.

After that we went SHOPPING! Yes, it's PARIS man! C'MON! That was most satisfying! HUR HUR HUR HUR.

Day 3...

We drove to BeAuNE!!

Yes, meet Kiat, the resident driver. And me, the resident navigator.

And the goons behind.

SAZZLES decided to join us ALL THE WAY FrOM ISTANBUL! YAAAAAAAAAAYY! We had CRAZY GOOD TIMES MAN. Crazy!

The traffic in Paris was CRAZY! (I can so hear Kiat going "walau... zhai leh me.." Hahaha. But we somehow managed to get to VERSAILLES (our stopover) in one piece.

Versailles is HUGE. I don't even think that word fully describes it's sheer size. This is just the courtyard on the left.

Walking on one end of the parameter took approximately 30 minutes at least. This is really a showcase of the wealth of France yo.

The garden.

The fountain

Sazzles and my orange juice... WHAT?!

Beautiful huh.

Us chilling by the lake. Yes, there is a lake. In the palace garden. I know lakes are pretty normal for palaces but this lake... IS HUGE. Again, I cannot begin to describe how HUGE the palace is. Saz and I were having a discussion about how many gardeners they would've had to employ in those days without technology just to maintain this massive compound.

We chilled for an afternoon and made our way to BEAuNe! Land of good wine. :) We got quite lost along the way and only made it to Adele's house (steph's friend). Her parents own a vineyard. She was nice enough to put us up at her place, which was perfect. When we arrived at her place it was already 10pm and she was having a wine party. Her guy friends are SOOOO GOODLOOKING... the girls just stood there gawking the entire night. Hur hur hur, and they opened like 31 bottles of wine! That's what you get when your parents own the vineyard.

So then, the crazy night past and the next morning I woke up to find Steph and Saz still sound asleep. But i bumped into Jie on the way out and she told me everyone ended up staying over and they all were having breakfast downstairs.

So i washed up and headed down the stairs.

Past the record corner. (This is where they play the music from) So quaint! I like..

Past the living room, the dining room and into the garden...

where we spent most of the morning tanning, having breakfast and talking. Occasionally...

playing with the dog...
Taking photos...
having cheese and wine....
We didn't want to move from the table really.

After that we just drove around the town. I DROVE!! YAY!! I now have driven in France. :)

QUAINT LITTLE TOWN! Like Castellanza issit DEE?!?! hahahaha. :P

The last day in Paris was spent walking around and chilling. We went for dinner with debs (THE HORNY ONE) and proceeded to the eiffel after. The tower's more beautiful at night. :)

So there, this was Paris for us. London's not up yet... RARRR... steph? Can you do the honours??

where's wally?

2007-04-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

gutentag! we're in vienna now, squatting in fling's very cosy dorm room. because our first day here was all gloom and doom, we decided to liven it up by playing a game with our dear amici! (namely, YOU.)

so, where's wally? (or steph and mir, in this case)

answers will be revealed in the next post.

find steph.

find steph!

find mir.

yes, i is the STAR here. hurhurhur.

Roma/Firenze/Pisa

2007-04-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

WHO THAT?!

Rome, Florence and Pisa.

This is long overdue I reckon. Yes so here it is.
DAY 1

Ryanair, our trusty airline service provider.

prepare for a whole load of cathedrals and sculptures.

The Coliseum! I've ALWAYS wanted to go to the coliseum! Since FOREVER~!!

Jie... as herself. ERHEM.
Ancient Roma.

Poor Val... Her lips were swollen for the longest time. *pat pat*

We look like we're posing for the camera but we were actually trying to listen to the tour guide behind us. MUAHAHHAA.
See how massive the pillars are compared to the people walking below.
hiding from the wind.
the Trevis. It was much larger than we had expected.
the girls. Where the guys at?

Day 2
The Venice group.
St. Peters.

On the way to the vatican...... In awe of the architecture.
Caught this candid of Val in the SUN. hur hur hur.
and begins... the VATICAN museum.
This acorn actually has some significance to the history of the museum...

Medusaaaaa. (the head.)

Argh, too many photos... the place was HUGE! My favourite rooms were the Raphael rooms and Sistine.
An example of Raphael's work. I LOVE. His brush strokes are amazing, the velvet looks so real you can touch it! STUPID JEM IN THE PHOTO! rarrr.
the kiatster. BENG SHIT. truce ah truce..

inside St. Peters.
Waiting for the changing of the swiss guards.

I liked this view so took a shot of it.
resting after a long day of walking.
to do more walking.....
We cld see the whole of Rome from here.
Notice the hole in the tree.
waiting for the bus yo after really bad carbonara. HAH.

Day 3: Florence
Me and Joyceeee and our shack faces after travelling to florence.
KIAT THIS IS NOT BAD LOR YOU SHIT.

The parade!!!

These two shits were supposed to take us below but ended up taking themselves. -_- Can you see us below? Really really tiny though.
So we YELLED and demanded they take a proper one. MUAHAHHAHA.

Day 4: Pisa
Yes, the infamous. I don't have the other crazy shots! SEND THEM TO ME YOU MINIONS!
T'was a beautiful day!!
I bought Leaning MUGS from Pisa, WHAT?! I thought it was apt... but they broke. :(

On our way back from the long trip. I know i got the duration of the days wrong la. But I uploaded most of the relevant photos.. I hope.. *phew*

Argh, there's still the London photos, but we'll be heading off once again to Berlin/Prague/Vienna, see how la. Now time to hit the books, RARRRR!

miss you guys back home!

luv, mirmir

venice in pictures

2007-03-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

dooooods. i know this is late. but we got lazy. so..um.. enjoy. *slobbers*

LUrrrRve Letter to Val

2007-03-19T08:08:00.001-07:00

dearest ham jin pang,

we deeply sympathise with you upon the demise of your lips and your sore baby-smooth backside. don't fret, very soon you will be able to give fat slobbery kisses and stuff your face with omg-can-die good food again! we love you many many!! (awwwwwww.)

hugs and kisses,
mir and steph

thE LuuUURRVE EnTRy

2007-03-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

Buona sera my favourite people in the world!! (If you are reading this blog you are either loved by me and steph or just plain kaypo. I'd say it's probably the former.)

Pignoramus has been down with fever and a swollen throat today so she's just been resting at home most of the day. But today has been a blessed one cos I saw that there are nice people in the world! In the morning my croatian friend came all the way down to buy me tea, lemons and fruits to nurse the throat! And throughout the day, lovely things happened as well. Such as, these two:

came down to check on me and cooked me porridge (see below) for dinner! FRRRRRRIIIIEENDSS~

It's damn tasty! THANKS MY OCD FRIENDS!!!!! :P

Thanks woman for adding VAL-LIEW (read: value) with the lozenges you gave me! and of course...
STEPH MY LOVE! For cooking my tea and CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL! Don't kill me woman, you've enough nice photos of yourself here. -luv

As you can see mom, I'm well taken care of here! hahaha.. and to DE, who's ill as well, hope you get better soon woms.

This will prob be one of the FEWEST drama love entries you'll get from me, so don't get used to it.. *beady eyes* aiya no lah...

I LOVE YOU GUYS!

:)

let the pictures do the talking

2007-03-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

We spent the weekend at the place where SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE originated. The actual name of the sauce is RAGU. There was something in the air at Bologna, that made every one of us high. We literally bounced around the streets singing random songs. I'll let the photos do the talking...

the smu shot

the boys

the competing towers

the people who made our first traditional bolognese meal simply fabulous

tortellini al ragu - feast your eyes and drool

the beng and us

the lian (naturally, cos' she's the beng's girl) and us

chillin' in the park

val and me

t'was a fun trip. :)

nakamura sista, yo!!

2007-03-08T07:26:00.000-08:00

ciao, amici! guess where we went?

oh yeah, STADIO SAN SIRO!

our tickets to our very first Champions League game!

hordes of screaming fans

AC MILAN!!

perving at the footballers (up close, yo!)

rock on brudder!

the players coming out

happy as a lark!

Torino

2007-03-03T15:22:00.000-08:00

You know you've finally settled into a place when you arrive back from a day trip and feel like you've come home. The trip to Torino was tiring but fruitful nonetheless and, as usual, we took lots of photos.

Ah yes... arrival to torino. We were heading for the chocolate festival!

The chocolate addicts (read: PIGS) I went with... most of them at least.

The floor was clear...

i dunno....

We then proceeded to visit the SHROUD OF CHRIST. It was awesome. We all stood there in awe.

Tis the negative image of the men imprinted onto the shroud, it's said to be Jesus.

then we proceeded to the film museum!

I was having a moment of silence for the greatest actors in history (read: posing).

The original head sets used in The Empire Strikes Back. :P

I snapped a shot of the river. There were a couple of people rowing. So fun!

THE COUPLEEEEEEEE~~

THE THREESOME. VAL? WHERE WERE YOU?!?!?

In the end, we didn't eat any chocolates.... so much for focus..

in other news:

We caught the lunar eclipse that night and tried (read: failed attempt) to take a photo of the eclipse.

no, it is not a caterpillar...

k tt's all for today yo!

the days of yore

2007-02-28T06:56:00.000-08:00

cobbled streets with every turn
glistening water surfaces
singing gondoliers
navigating narrow waterways
accordionist buskers
san marco's basilica
palazzo ducale
la carnevale
pesce fresca at every meal
the perfect pairing of dolce pastry
and fragrant coffee
this is venezia.

incomparable beauty
and simply magical
it is as charming as it seems on film
in books and in conversations

marco polo's house
casanova's lair
a city steeped in history
and frozen in time
appreciate it for what it is
and what it used to be
ignore the obvious tourist traps
and you'll be enchanted

just as we were.

one night in milan

2007-02-27T04:52:00.000-08:00

so..we've been alive and kicking in milan but were just too lazy/indisposed, hence the lack of updates. but hey! now you guys get a spanking new entry so quit whinging.

i shall leave you with pictures of our crazy night of drinking (at our place so don't worry we were safe. and anyway we didn't get drunk. just..crazy. but you knew that already so.)

4 crazy girls eating chips with wine.

fish face and kermit the frog

erm..ugly.

next up, the incriminating videos. hurhurhur.

stay tuned!

BaCk iN MiLaN~!!

2007-02-19T05:51:00.000-08:00

hey sorry guys for the lack of posts!! we were away at VENICE!!!!!! hur hur hur hur.. anyways it was swell and we promise to put up photos when we've got the time k! cos our internet at home will only be up on 22nd.. or 28th! so it's quite diff for us to post much for now.

go check jieying's blog for venice pics!!!

(for those who are BLIND... it's on the top right hand corner of the blog..)

later!

here we are again!

2007-02-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

ARGH! Im using this small window of time online to UPLOAD PHOTOS! been bugged by too many pple to upload. so here goes!

kk enough for now... limited time!!!

CIAO!

2007-02-07T04:47:00.000-08:00

HELLO PPLE!!! sorry for the lack of posts and pictures. we took a lot! just havent had the chance to upload them yet cos we're using the sch's computers. promise there'll be coool pictures up k?

k over and out!

SNORT

internet down

2007-02-05T07:01:00.000-08:00

hello people

our internet's down so bear with the slow updates yah. we can use the net in school but it's closed on weekends so..yes you get the idea.

anyway, too tired to type anymore so CIAO AMICI!

freezing

2007-02-01T02:15:00.000-08:00

so i reckon it is -2 to -1 degrees right now because the fog has not cleared up. what fog you say? feast upon the greyness that is milan:

but no, it doesn't look like that all the time. it is usually nice and shiny, like so:

this fog was yesterday, in which i went shopping with my buddy (no i did not buy anything) and she cooked dinner for us. barrage of pictures incoming!

so we went over to my buddy's place for dinner but while waiting for her to dress up mir got hungry and started scavenging for food, like the pig that she is:

hurhur.

now mir's grossly pointing at our cooks cristina and carlo. cristina is my very sweet buddy and carlo is her friend. she's romanian and he's italian. however, for some strange reason carlo took over the cooking:

an italian cooking pasta for us!

anyway, we sat around talking for a few hours, during which mir fell asleep. hahaha.

ok lah, she's not really a pig. she really was not feeling well.

MIR DARLING I STILL LOVE YOU K! take your panadol and sleep and get well so we can go travelling you piece of shit. :)

sick

2007-01-31T03:55:00.000-08:00

yes, it is I... Miranda Zhang Mingzhen, who is sick, unfortunately, down with gastric and possible fever. Not to mention the headache. Don't worry mama! I'm fine, drank lots of water and popped down two panadols courtesy of the roomie. Now I'm feeling much better. Steph's out meeting her buddy, may be joining them later if I feel better. Currently resting at home having porridge for lunch. Well technically not porridge, just the soup from last night with rice added into it:

we just realised we can cook a lot more than we knew we could. So there people! Stop saying we can't cook or we'll never cook for you!

MUAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!

k steph has the rest of the photos from yesterday. will post them up later.

LATER!

numero due

2007-01-29T23:25:00.000-08:00

salve, amici!

i would have got numero uno, but there was this jetlag problem and then there were the various distractions...hurhurhur.

anyway, this is breakfast. not bad for a first, i say.

and this is me cooking:

and this is my roommate pretending to cook:

we're very jetlagged as you can tell. so, fare thee well! (for now at least)

milan milan

2007-01-29T09:06:00.000-08:00

buona sera! just given our legs a good work out, the jet lag is probably starting to creep in on us already... at 6.10pm! *wails* anyways, we haven't really had any chance to take any pictures of this old city, so we'll have to make do with lame photos of our apartment.

the bedroom. or at least what we've done to it over the few hours we've been here.

our kitchen.

the corridor.

ok that's it for now. too tired to post anything more.

ciao!