Blank Doll sighs.

Exams are finally over. Thank goodness.

For some strange reason, I got on the bus to Chinatown with Candice and Kristine and then spent an entire afternoon with them there. We had dim sum at some place which was surprisingly good given that the best dim sum is not found in Chinatown. Then we went all over the place looking for this place with tonnes of belt stuff (Candice's words, not mine) and she ended up looking at lewd playing cards. We did finally manage to go to this place where it was really hot and they were fiddling with buttons and stuff while I watched.

Lol.

Then they went to Club St. and I think girls really marry for the wedding cake, gown and the chance to dress up the baby. We went to this cake store that had really beautiful cakes, am determined to order the lavender cake for Ma. Then there were the little stores that were really cool. There was this one where they sold really nice furniture and stuff, I really liked the martini glasses and shaker set. Went into a baby shop, yes, don't ask why. Went to other places to and this art books place that had these really cool notebooks for the designer trying to prove that not all designers are dumb. Like, how can you call designers dumb when they manage to make so much money and make their job look good?

Sat down for a drink with them and then I rushed off first. Realized I was late for a movie with Xuan, Ying and Tzehock. I didn't actually realize what we were watching until I stepped into the cinema on account of me being late. I do not really try to be late just to be fashionable even if it often looks like I do. Turned out we were watching The King and the Clown.

Anyway, went for dinner thereafter. We ordered lots at the Spagheddi (how the hell do you spell that?) at Paragon so we could catch up and eat at the same time. I think I ate too much. Xuan was sick and I think she passed her sickness to me when I drank from her water bottle, so yes, it IS her fault even if she denies it.

Went to Kino. Hinted to them that I really wanted the Louis Vuitton collection book for all my professed contempt for that brand. It IS a major luxury powerhouse and helped launch the spectacular career of M. Jacobs that is to date on par with M. Galliano and only shadowed by the ultra long career of M. Lagerfeld and M. Armani.

Took the bus back home. It was a really long ride. It really is quite strange, the human capacity for friendship. You make friends and talk with people you never used to talk to. The friend you once thought closest to you turns out to be insignificant. You meet some people who remain your friends for life (I hope.) and there are people whom you meet once and hope you can keep them forever. Friendship is a peculiar thing and I think, much more preferable than love.

Taking honeyed water now to soothe my imminent sore throat.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll yelps.

Has everyone read the article in Time about Eton? God, what a mouthwatering school. And what wonderful uniforms! What lawns!

Yes, a parent's greatest gift to his son would be to send him to Eton. My goodness, Raffles looks like the pits in comparison to that school. Then again, Raffles doesn't get that much money either.

Damn British, they make class divides look so appealing.

Anyway, apart from that. My creative cycle is just roaring ahead. Let's see a woman in a white leather suit why don't we.

People of Asia, after a century of humiliation, we begin to rise once more. From Java to Singapore, from Malaysia to the coasts of India, from the Pearl River Delta to the Sea of Japan, from the farthest ends of Russia to the heart of China, a slumbering Asia awakens. As we do stand strong, let us also stand together so that Asia may once more be great.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll strikes back.

It takes a real nitwit to wallow in self-pity the way I do sometimes, which must mean that somewhere in me is a real nitwit.

My, that was clever.

Daddy was really sweet a moment ago when he called and Ma told him about how bad I felt about fucking up my exams. He went, "well, you aren't going to uni anyway so relax."

HA PEOPLE! You see the difference? Anyway, this is supposed to be a creative week for me and I've got the most beautiful dress on my sketchbook now. Am contemplating doing shoe illustration too.

But first, I think I'll look into gloves.

Oh and I was actually going to blog about the evil West and Us but then lost the desire to after the harrowing experience of taking a history exam and decided to leave pretentious but stirring rhetoric to next time.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll kills himself.

So, the fall is complete. Just as my hubris was complete.

Gloat while you can, lovelies. Tis' sad when I can predict my own fall.

Meet you at prelims then.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll pukes.

The Common Test thus far has been an unending period of distress and heartbreak although I fully admit that I deserved every little bit of it. Apparently, you can choose not to study for a quarter year's worth of stuff but you risk killing yourself if you don't study for one and a half year's worth.

Silly me, must be the math.

The point here being that I am now crossing my fingers so tightly they are bound to bleed in the hope that Promos 2005 does not occur again. Then I neatly scraped by with a B for economics and a B for literature AND a B for history. Let's hope that's my baseline and that I can go no lower than that.

All right, enough said about the Common Test.

I'm feeling sort of depressed lately. I think somebody's negative energies are rubbing off on me. Yes, negative energies are defined as energy that cannot be used for anything constructive so it simply makes you feel restless and useless. It's abhorrent and it can actually be contagious if the person radiating negative energies radiate hard enough.

Chocolates for me? A little note? Nah, I'm never really good at stuff like that. But still, I really really want to live in the Artic Circle. You know, dead. Wait, that does not make sense. What I mean is I want to be in the Artic Circle without actually freezing to death.

Incoherence follows melancholy. I simply hate it when I feel angst for no reason since I cannot give vent to it.

I need medical help.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll enlightens the ignorant.

We must all agree by now that Singapore is a lovely place to live on the condition that you own an air conditioning unit.

I would now like to add another condition: if we could just remove all the actual Singaporeans and replace them with Japanese and Filipinos. Well, all the disgusting ones at least. You cannot possibly believe how many disgusting Singaporeans we have and they're actually proud of the fact that they promote a culture of ill breed, a culture that is no culture.

Yes, I'm elitist and a snob. Yes, I'm ranting but do humour me and allow me to elaborate on my case.

A 13 year old boy, let's not bother with race here since I am of the opinion that ill breed in Singapore transcends race, knocks into somebody else, knocks his ipod onto the ground and doesn't apologize. He gets off at Yishun, well duh, where did you expect people like that to live? The thing is darling, all it would have taken was a little gosh I'm terribly sorry and I'd have smiled back and said no it's really all right. Everyone would have been happy about it and you wouldn't have to get off the train in such a rash of awkwardness.

People complaining about bad service. You know, do it with a little grace will you? Because there is a fine line between getting what you deserve and demanding for the foot when you've the inch on the grounds that you were given bad service. Asking for a total refund when you've been given a near full subsidy and demanding for it with no courtesy is appalling. I cannot abide by niggling. It is plain disgusting.

If we are to believe our newspaper, we are fourth from the bottom in terms of courtesy as ranked by Reader's Digest (so I only read the Life section. If you think letting your children read the newspaper will improve their English, think again. It's not so much their political views because I fully approve of a press that does not seek to be a political firebrand but the quality of the Straits Times is simply, well, non-existent unless you compare it to China Daily or something.). Why won't people smile when somebody else does something nice for them, why don't we treat salespeople better, why don't salespeople treat us better? It really does not affect our efficiency if we try to be polite. Look at the Japanese, their culture breeds courtesy, never mind that the people may not actually be polite, but a culture that makes formalities necessary is certainly better than one where efficiency without grace is the order of the day.

This is the point when somebody will point out that I'm being hypocritically righteous and my reply to you is that you're either a debator or stupid if you can't think that I can change. I'm all for formalities in case you didn't realize, I never said I was nice. So there. HA.

So the next time you little ingrates whine about the lack of freedom of press or the next hottest freedom you can think of, why don't you try to be courteous first? I'm sure when we're mature enough to open doors for one another, pull seats out for women and let them get into cars first as well as offer to pay for their meals EVEN if they insist on paying for themselves and you end up going dutch, then we can think about freedom of the press or dismantling the offending newspaper. Or at least teach them when the conditional tense is actually used.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll speaks.

To measure a day

By the moments of hurt, by the number of times you break my skin with the crack of leather, by the number of places where it hurts, by the number of bones you break, by the number of times my heart breaks, by the number of times my tears run dry, by the hours I spend wishing you were dead.

By the cups of coffee we share at the neighbourhood cafe, by the hours you make me wait while you choose your clothes, by the number of places we go to before you deign it fit for dinner, by the number of times you insist we watch a movie even though I hate watching movies, by the hours I spend hoping this never ends.

By the moments I spend thinking about you, by the hours I spend trying to catch your scent in everything, by the roads I walk just to see your reflection on the windows of some long forgotten house, by the seas I cry just to have you drift back to me, by the days I spend doing nothing but wait.

By the letters I read wishing they'd come from a lover, by the hours I spend alone wondering what ifs, by the roads I walk in solitude wishing the couples dead, by the ice cream cones I eat dreaming, by the sketchbooks I spent figuring out your face, by the nights I spend wishing I actually had you.

If I could actually have you.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll sighs.

Afternoon tea at the Fullerton tomorrow. This is relief, I tell you. I cannot wait for the Common Tests to be over because then I can reset and gear up. The holidays have unwound me to the extent where I know find layers of my intellectual self scattered across the floor like dense piles of rushes. This of course means that the room begins to get hot and until I gather my mind and store it all back within my physical core, I can't regain my indifference and my love for the subjects.

Borrowed the memoirs of Duc de St. Simons which is like the coolest book ever. The French nobility was beautiful while it lasted. Don't give me the talk about how corrupted they were and stuff because I probably know more about it than you but for now, let me bask in some noble ideal that no longer exists. I like courts anyway, be it Chinese or French. You see, the thought of doing nothing but intriguing and gossiping while the country goes to rot rather appeals to me.

And yes, I can say that because I'm not going to apply for Government's money to study abroad. See? One more scholarship place for someone who deserves it more (for hardwork) or less (for loyalty to the Country) than me.

Anyway, the idea of French courtiers being weak and insipid is so erroneous only ignorant people can think it up. We are talking of a race whom Castiglione described as warlike with no liking for scholarship during the Renaissance.

So the next time you happen to be tempted to use the word 'Frenchy' with contempt, pause and think. Because a) you are embarrassing yourself by not using the more appropraite 'Gallic' since that would make the word 'frog' alliterate and b) the French courtiers whom you sniff at could probably slice your arse into inches faster than you could slice bread.

Of course, the Chinese are superior since we are practically adepts at tricking barbarians into doing things our way. Just ask the poor Mongolians who find themselves under Chinese rule now. I would laugh at them if I were a Communist cadre but as it were, I simply find it amusing.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll waves.

Today has been wasted, utterly wasted notwithstanding the interlude when Jo was there to entertain me. She abandoned me of course, like, duh.

Shit, I really am dumbing down if I myself absolutely unable to not form a single sentence with, like, like.

Everybody have been major sweet recently. I'm not sure why.

Been thinking of all the shit people I've known in the past whom I thought were friends. God, I am a sucker for making friends with people whom I'd obviously be better off not knowing.

Is it just me or does a grey kidskin vest with a barrel collar sound really good? I'm still in my white phase though, does white kidskin look good? Do I ask rhetorical questions?

Nothing much to say today save for the fact that I'm really exhausted and would really like a good rub down now.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll.

Thought for the day: Sex and Birkins.

Forget emo shit about love. Tea at Marmalade Pantry's reassuring. Had the foie gras with apple prune brioche which makes me once more the slave to foie gras that I am. The cupcakes were divine and the iced chocolate beats godiva's hands down.

Tell me more about love and I'll tell you the sheer pleasure the material realm can deliver.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll oozes blood.

I feel a sudden rush of angst because I suddenly thought of something.

Picture this:

They are lovers drawn apart. Perhaps by a mere game of chance by some divine unknown, perhaps by some convenant that binds them to their fate until one or the other gives in.

Either way, they always meet. Before, they met on the battlefield. One a free soldier of Sparta, the corpse of his shieldmate strewn across the bloodied pastures and his arm numbed from the effort of war though training and inexperienced fear drives him on. The other a prince of Persia, attired in all the military splendour of the world's greatest empire though his head is shaved and his eyebrows are plucked. They fight to the harmony of some unspoken conversation, to the beat of clashing fates and they are oblivious to Death and his eager harvest across the fields of that day. Their swords meet and scatter. Their arms locked, blood unbound meet. Their souls extinguished by the raging fires of war that pay no heed to fate, nor a love that couldn't, shouldn't be.

They meet again. One the elder of one of Italy's great cities, perhaps even related to Lorenzo d'Medici. The other, a young woman just come of age, her cheeks swollen with the freshness of the vinyards, her loins nearly ripened. He cannot have her without mocking her youth. She cannot love him without earning shame. They meet in secret, the one bringing the other to his abode at midnight. They are found out. He a disgraced man, she a harlot. She is stoned to death, he dies with his heart broken. Age has nothing to do with their fate. No, their fates transcend the simple cruelties of age.

Once more they meet, once more it is the battlefield. This time, they are man and woman. It should be right, but it isn't. The Spartan soldier turned Italian noble meets her fate in a covent near the Somme. The other, the effeminate Persian warrior, the country harlot, is a German officer. They meet, he threatens to kill her, she defies him. He likes the way his lips form into a pout even though he can see her clenched fists white and trembling. She hates him for what he stands for, yet they are drawn. It happens. They make love under the eyes of God and for a moment, it seemed as if fate had relented. It hasn't. His mates see her. He can only be what he was born to be, trained to be. She dies though afterwards, he returns and buries her atop the hill behind the convent. He leaves his badge by the unnamed marker, he didn't even know her name.

This life, this life. The one comes, a graduate from a Little Ivy in her little bookstore in Greenwich Village, Manhatten. She reads Tolstoy, Montaigne and Kafka. She fills her closet with vintafe clothes and fills her two room apartment with Pottery Barn. Daylight brings her the little comforts of life, she drinks at night. Scotch. She waits. She wonders if somewhere out there is a man for her. Her life passes before her. She is content. She has friends, her family and even a beloved German shepherd and her descendants. Her hair turns grey, the world dims softly. She dies, the world closed to her. Her last breath a kiss unclaimed.

Somewhere in space, between the lives they spend living and breathing the air of our land, I fancy they meet in their metaphysical states. Their laughter echoes and touches the furthest star, they embrace and feel whole as if their souls were never parted.

Somewhere deep within the woman's heart, at the core of her soul. She must have been disappointed, waiting as she did for someone who never came. The other who always arrived though their love was always for naught. Perhaps if she had known, the games that fate play with their lives, she would have looked harder.

The one waits in space, time stands still. No more reincarnation. Laughter echoes back, retracing the infinite lives they spent apart. The other comes, finally, with a clenched fist. The fist opens and a whisper flies. The other returns the kiss and they are lovers apart no more. Even fate can be kind sometimes.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll sits still.

For some strange reason, I actually like the Democrats more than the Republicans even though I hate their annoying let's-coddle-our-neighbour-and-sing-a-song-of-political-correctness stance. Then again, I hate the Republican's Hallelujah-and-smite-thy-neighbour-who-ain't-white-and-a-lover-of-god attitude.

I am more than passing glad that our country is a model of political steadiness. Seriously, it takes courage or really good skill to maintain a country without a welfare system and yet not get kicked out of power as well as maintain the highest standards of efficacy and integrity in governance.

What am I talking about? I'm just a shallow boy who'd kill for foie gras.

Anyway, has anyone seen the Bentley Interncontinental Flying Spur? Absolutely fascinating. I could go on and on about it. What I really like is the fact that it's a four-door with such speed.

Moving along, PETA is weird. We're not talking about Indonesian paramilitary weird (it IS Indonesia right? Not Burma right?)here, we're talking about save-the-animals weird here. Of course, I'm never one to promote unusual cruelty for fun. Well, I would actually but not on animals.

The point being really that how can you advocate the non-killing of animals when the entire ecological order, Mankind's place at the top of it all, depends on it? It really is absurd that you will shun leather and fur but not wool which is shorn from cloistered lambs doomed to live their collective lives under the yoke of Man. Think you that plants have no feelings? Think you that the deprivation of life, the very act itself, knows the difference between a cow and a rocket (the vegetable, silly)?

Besides, fur and leather are beautiful fabrics. Keep your rubbishy cottons to yourself, unless they're Sea Island cotton. Or Egyptian cotton. With a thread count above 400.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll sits still and thinks.

When Jewel launched 03/04, she was accused of selling out since she'd changed her repetoire to one replete with thrasy beats and pop I can only call blondie, so rejecting her old mix of moral judgment and bleeding heart country.

In Goodbye Alice in Wonderland, she reverts back. Is it just me or is this an even bigger sign of selling out since she's bowed down to popular pressure and chose to stick to what people like instead of experimenting? I think I like her music because it's like the inner voice I should have.

Yes dears, I really couldn't care less about poverty because I'm all for social mobility and I don't like to soak the rich. The only people who care for the poor are the poor and people so rich they're indifferent to money. Sorry sweetheart, the world's unfair. So there.

On another note, I tell people to smile and go through life with one stuck to my face. I try to be happy and snipey and obnoxious when what's really down inside?

Hell, I'm getting restless already.

Currently compiling a list of things I'd sell my soul for. Love isn't one of them.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll says ouch.

So I dropped a fan on my foot. I would have shouted in pain but some part of me was wondering if a guy should shout in pain...nah. So I grinned and laughed it off.

The things guys do to affirm their self-worth.

On a brighter note, Tom Ford is coming back to Seventh Avenue with his own line of clothes to be produced by Zegna. Genius. I will kiss the land he treads on I tell you. Anyway, so he's planning on building a major house in Santa Fe? And his neighbours hate it? Sheesh, his neighbours quote the bible! How cliche? Like, get out there and buy into the Pierre. Now THAT's a real estate gem.

People who don't know the Pierre? Die.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll says so.

Suddenly I'm a teenager that can't take care of himself.

Sheesh.

Either the PMS vibes in the house is seriously contagious or I really am feeling something.

Leave. Me. Alone.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll sleeps in peace.

Today's economics lesson was absolutely boring and inutile. Like, really.

Which makes it equally boring to blog about.

Anyway, what really made my day was the claridges' website. I mean, seriously, how much cooler can a hotel be? And they have a genius of a chef as well as the Flying Spur Brentley to chauffeur their clients about London. I think my life ambition now is to have a room dedicated to me.

To those of you who'd much rather I be as intellectually poseuristic and morally righteous like this then sorry, I haven't gotten warmed up enough. Besides, I've never been able to blog coherently about politics since really, what is there to discuss?

Go ahead, pour your i'm-not-elitist bleeding heart out. Then go get yourself a nice Bellini.

Ooh, new cocktail. The Krapp. Haha, Take a swig of Krug Rose and a splash of apple juice. Voila.

Lol, nothing much to blog about actually since I haven't gotten out of my shallow funk. I blame this on my reading taste because now I seem to balance weighty non-fiction with fluff fiction and it's disrupting my system.

You know what I need? Afternoon tea. I CANNOT believe that I haven't taken tea ONCE this holiday, what the hell? Makes me as depressed as much sister.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll confesses.

I have something to confess. This is going to be distressing for those of you who know me and who actually care about me but, and this is serious, I have a fascination for the material. This explains my interest in food, clothes, apartments, real estate, shiny stuff, horology, antiques, cocktails, hotels, big cities and everything money can buy.

It's really hard having to balance all that with the other side of me which is the part that craves the intellectual rigour that can come from intensive reading on things like Japanese behavourial patterns, Oriental trade with the world and obscure things like the Byzantine economy in the first millenia.

Sometimes it gets even harder when I think about what I am going to be and do in the future. To succumb to this baseness must certainly be better than to actually be a base fashion designer with intellectual pretensions right? We cannot, and what pity, all be Prada any more than she herself can be. Some of us happen to love the sheer, unrepentant comsumption that is a Gucci or a Dior.

At this moment, I am openly drooling over the St. Regis hotel in Aspen because they have the most beautiful suites. This is almost as good as drooling over the Ambassadeur at the Hotel Crillon. Ah, the wonders of the Internet. Now I can look at all the perfect gems of a real estate at Christie's and Sotheby's with a click of the mouse.

Since I cannot have my perfect education with me locked inside a library full of every single book I could ever want to read as well as an unlimited supply of hot chocolate and muffins, I can at least dream about the perfect life.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll squeals.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. – H.L. Mencken

By this definition, I'm hardly a decent man. SUPPORT THE PAP PEOPLE!

Finding stuff to support international cartels is annoying when everyone now pay lip service to free trade and since the people whom international cartels suit never seem to speak up, there's hardly any information. I could think of many reasons why cartels could be beneficial but they only benefit the countries participating in the cartels, and then not always.

This is so pointless.

I think I'll go mash on my ps2 instead and hope to hell that the others don't kill me tomorrow. I can just see Shang with his List.

Ouch.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll reads.

The image of Blank Doll reading is laughable but nevermind.

"The history of the world should not be characterized as a movement from locally constituted closures toward increasing world integration and homogenization."- Frank Perlin

How true. The world 500 years ago was a vibrant trading realm. Damascus steel, also known as watered steel, travelled to most parts of the world with the exception of Japan where folded steel was still used. Chinese porcelain reached the outermost regions of the known world and we know all about Indian cloth. But there were other things. The Ottoman Empire traded arms with her neighbours, Dai Viet created some of the world's most beautiful bronze works and sold them northwards. Annamite porcelain may not be as well known as Chinese wares but they were certainly moving around alot. And who says there were no branding then? Made in China was THE brand. There were even specific provinces dedicated to porcelain making and their names became renown in the same way that Gobelin tapestries were renown.

The Rise of the West indeed. Pfft.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll whines.

All right, this will sound pompous and uncalled for but mainly, it will sound neurotic. So here goes:

Do NOT even call me up during the holidays or thereafter and even mention a single word that may have any relevance, direct or indirect, to school, homework or the common tests. I mean it. Don't ask me for help, don't call me for notes, don't even call me to whine about how you haven't studied for the test. Because I'm just going to skim through my notes to warm up my holiday chilled mind into action and I will not mug. So don't you even dare breathe that word near me because you will annoy the hell out of me and you won't hear the end of it. This is also, by the way, the only chance you have of beating me at an exam right now. This is of course, not going out to the people who have already thrashed me soundly since you probably reside in the Humans classrooms and do not know of my existence. I am stating this because I KNOW I will not do well for this exam so know that if you even smirk at me because you got a higher grade than me, that would be the last.

End of rant.

What I really wanted to talk about is pain and the possibility that we may enjoy pain. Actually, I have nothing really highfalutin (don't you love that word?) to expound on when it comes to pain since pain in its purest form is really the basest thing that Man may feel. It is after all, the other face of pleasure. Perhaps what makes pain so astounding is that just as pleasure may be brought to its highest form, pain can be made equally exquisite given the sufficient savoir-faire. It is just as surprising then that at its highest form, pain and pleasure are one and the same.

We are not, of course, speaking of the pain you feel when somebody rams a letter knife into your cuticles. That wouldn't be the sort of pain that trasnmutes into pleasure. We are assuredly talking about the sort of pain that comes from lightly pricking the skin with a pin. Now that's different.

Having said all that, please try to relate it to hell, heaven and suffering if you wish. I lack the intellectual willpower to do the connection for you. In any case, I don't believe in heaven or hell since I have no desire for either.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll says stop.

My French teacher has something about rebellious youths. He insists that youths want to rebel, they crave for revolution. They want change and they want it now. Well, good news, we don't want that anymore. We don't want a better world. We want successful lives, we want self-empowerment.

Can I say also that I love intellectuals who are either too foolish to have morals or can see through the folly of morals?

Can I also say that I need my hair straightened again and I still want to drink rum till I get drunk?

C'est tout.

Blank Doll returns.

I came, I saw, I ate. Ah, Hokkaido is good. As usual, I shall comment on my trip to soothe the homework-frayed nerves of the poor things who had to stay in Singapore to study for their exams. Sigh, tough luck.

First, let's talk about the physical place. The air was so fresh! There's something about the countryside that calms me, that makes me feel the sort of homely contentment which actually scares me. I wanted to be a spirit so I could stand a hundred feet above the mountains and the forests there. We take so much of nature for granted but here is a people who respect the land, whose hearts beat to the rhythm of nature. Hokkaido is a land of splendid fecundity. It bursts with the fruits of the earth, spread across her navel in careless abundance. I really liked the climate too! It was cold, cold enough for me. I think I thrived a little better there because of the fresh air and the chill. Everything was so fresh! Ah, you have to go there to know what's it like, to be in a land of rolling fields growing perfect vegetables and fruits, of cattle delivering the freshest milk, of mountains and seas that pamper the people with their gifts.

And hot springs which means ryokans with onsens. Oh the joys of bathing in a hot spring and then retiring to your room with chilled plum wine. Ahhh. Splendid. The Japanese have really thick skins I think since they can enter the pool as if it were nothing but warm water.

And supermarkets! We have such lousy supermarkets here. I love the freshness and the variety and the space. Going to Japan made me wish that Singapore had the same standard of living. I wouldn't mind if we had the same cost of living since we ARE converging on that, as long as I get bigger supermarkets and more air conditioned malls.

Enough about the land. Let's talk about food. Oh my goodness, I ate enough to have to work out everyday for the rest of the holiday and still not reverse the damage done. I drank like eight glasses of milk everyday because the milk there is unbelievably fresh. I ate three soft ice cream cones a day because dairy products there are divine. I ate a pack of yoghurt everyday. There was all that salmon. I ate kobe beef and nearly died. I ate toro sashimi and sushi at an actual Japanese sushi place. I ate ramen at a place the locals go to. I ate curry rice done the way only the Japanese can do it. Crabs. I ate crabs and then more crabs. Scallops thrice the size of those we get at home. Sweet prawns that aren't exported to Singapore. Chocolates. Tonnes and tonnes of the best confectionery and chocolates galore. Dark chocolates, individually made biscuits of chocolates sandwiched between wafers, chocolates infused with red tea extract, lavender chocolates, pralines, smooth gananches that melt in your mouth like butter. Gastronomic orgasms at every turn.

And the people. I love the people. I find the Japanese so sexy. The women with their perfect attires and their damn big eyes. Their lips touched by the sheen of lip gloss and their hair let down and slightly curled to face their face. The men with their strong features and clear eyes. I love the way they do everything with such courtesy and with such, I don't know, something we don't have. I didn't see a single example of rudeness anywhere. Where I would expect impatience or impudence in Singapore, none came save a pained grin or a bow and a smile. Not a single piece of litter on the floor yet strangely, no dustbins in sight.

In the end, I'm not sure what to make of the Japanese. I love their culture and the way everyone in society pays heed to some unwritten code of polite behaviour and comportment. I love their land. It pains me that we Chinese and the Japanese cannot get along since we are obviously brothers in more than one way. How do you reconcile this strange people? They are unfailingly polite yet massacred thousands in the world war. They're such nice social people, returning wallets with money inside and picking up the litter of others yet spawn murderers of the first order. Their land is at once nature unchained and the great bastion of technology and the effects of Man.

I guess I'll just have to go there again, won't I.

C'est tout.

Blank Doll sits still.

The word enchainement in French has the same meaning as it does in English, enchantment. Yet the word itself appears to be the product of two different sources. On one hand, there is enchainer, to chain up. On the other hand, there's chanter, to sing. So is enchantment the process when one is being bound or when one is within (en) the music? I guess it really does mean the process whereby one is bound within music.

The silly things I think of. Gee.

C'est tout.