what a year

my first year in uni has ended, and although part of me feels like i haven't achieved anything i had planned to before moving to london, another part of me is also really proud of the fact that i have survived a year of adulthood.

i'm happy to be back home, breathing in that familiar sweet scent of smoggy air, but i also miss the independence and the flurried life that i've come to associate with london. i miss being able to stay up and talk to friends about Life until the wee hours of the morning; being able to get turkish food, vegan ice cream, and egg tarts all in a 30 minute trip from my room. this constant movement is what i reminisce about in boredom-drenched days, as well as the wholesome (as mariana would put it) friends that i've gotten to know.

so – cue awesome segue – i have compiled a whole bunch of photos from the year to feed this nostalgia and to escape my current lacklustre state of mind.

brick lane vintage market

rough trade

mariana

zaana

kyoto garden, holland park

yvonne

v&a museum

over and out,

grainy photos from shanghai

photos from december on grainy film, taken in shanghai two days before i left for london.

over and out,

fireworks on nov. 5

some photos from guy fawkes night a couple weeks ago:

over and out,

dim sum with co.

i never really appreciated how much i would miss chinese food after moving to london. but i miss it. very very much.

i cannot even begin to express just how sick i am of white people food. i am tired of eating baked beans, sandwiches, salads, pasta. i need rice. i need congee. i need my mum's soup. every morning at breakfast it is baked beans on toast with hash browns on my plate, when really i would give anything to have mee goreng instead.

a couple friends and i decided that we were becoming too reliant on prêt a manger and needed to get a fresh dose of MSG, so we headed to chinatown in search of dim sum.

the food was alright – it was really fucking expensive, but considering how desperate i was for a taste of home, i wasn't too upset.

we headed to oxford street after food. we're students and we shouldn't be spending this much money, but the weather is becoming tit-freezing cold, and we needed winter jackets, so we had no choice.

it was a good sunday. i froze my face off, but i just see that as the ultimate experience of british lifestyle.

over and out,

hin bus depot garage sale

last saturday i went to a garage sale at hin bus depot in georgetown. the place used to be a bus depot (as the name very clearly suggests), but it has recently been renovated into a creative space, with art exhibitions and murals everywhere.

i brought my pentax to the garage sale because even after 6 failed attempts at film, i was still obstinately refusing to admit that maybe i'm just not good at it. this roll turned out to be my first successfully developed roll, after three completely blank ones (as they had gotten stuck in my camera) and three that looked like they'd been bathed in piss – they were horrendously yellow – by the studio that developed / ruined them. however, i'm still not wholly pleased with the results. there was a sort of greenish, yellowish tint in all of the pictures, and i ended up having to tweak the temperature on lightroom, which is bollocks, since part of the reason why i wanted to shoot in film was because there's no need for any editing. i tried, but some of the colours are still a bit weird.

nevertheless, i hope they're decent enough.

an installation from the kayu exhibition.

the mural on the right is by a lithuanian artist called ernest zacharevic, who is behind many of the beautiful murals that dot the alleyways of georgetown, including the 'boy on motorcycle' and 'children on bicycle'. the painting of the boy was by far my favourite mural at hin bus depot.

the run amok gallery was housing the minorities: report "Cambodia" exhibition by pein cheong lee.

despite the fact that i don't drink coffee, i love visiting cafés. there's something about the murmuring chatter of background voices and the smell of sugar and coffee and cosy interior designs that just make me a very happy gal. the bricklin café bar is right next to hin bus depot, so if you want to relax (or hide from the rain, like i did), just pop in there.

i've never been to a garage sale or a thrift shop before, but i've always wanted to buy secondhand gear because i find that worn clothes have a sort of timeless beauty to it, hidden in scuffed sleeve edges and patches of fuzz ball. i bought a wicked green men's jacket from this guy with the absolute best fashion taste and the absolute best clothing choices of all the stalls at the garage sale. my mum didn't really approve of my purchase (it's an asian thing – read point #5 of this link), but i adore it anyways.

over and out,