extra spice
behind my week traipsing the tropics
hello loves,
between graduation day, hosting my mom in London and job hunting, i haven’t had much time to sit alone with my thoughts, let alone write. so instead of cracking my brain to fabricate a piece from thoughts i currently don’t have, i’m going to use this lull to reflect on the moments that have stood out as of late. and what better way tell a story than through IG carousel posts? voilà: extra spice — additional snippets, notes and inside details of my life through the screen. because, despite what my mom insists, social media isn’t always performative. sometimes it’s a digital diary with anecdotes worth reliving.
home sweet home
my best friend Cherie took this picture of me sitting under one of the shophouses around Keong Saik, one of my favourite neighbourhoods on the island. we were trying to be fashion-girly chic and non-basic with our IG photography which proved very difficult because we are, as it turns out, quite basic after all.
another shot where you can see Cherie’s feet LOL. we were the first ones to arrive for our dinner date with our friends Clarissa and Jasmine at Puffy Bois (pizza joint and cocktail bar, what more could you ask for) and got silly with the shots. later, our waiter would ask “were you guys the two girls taking pictures outside?” which was lowkey embarrassing but also very funny.
my family cat Mia — whose full name was supposedly Mia (my/mine in Italian) Koibito (sweetheart in Japanese) — who is my precious princess. it’s also funny because she’s always MIA (she’s an outdoor cat).
sushi night at Cherie’s. with her good taste, love for food and encyclopaedic knowledge of (mostly Japanese) whiskey, she’s always an amazing host. her house is also stocked with so much alcohol of all kinds, we’ve been trying to convince her to open a home bar. anyway, alcohol was plentiful, so obviously good conversation automatically followed.
sunset view from the house — one of the things i’m missing the most in gloomy London. one of my favourite things about home which i never used to notice is how lush it is — fauna creeping in and getting tangled together from every direction in abundance.
another picture of me from that night before Puffy Bois. i’m wearing a satin halter from Zara, a bangle and jeans from COS and my puffy ring is from Mejuri.
me and my brother Kieran at Martini Bar for a Halloween party. i decided to go last-minute and didn’t dress up, but his Headless Horseman ensemble won us that bottle of Moët. he also took the MRT from home in that outfit and got a real kick out of it, which just reminds me that my brother is very odd in a very funny way.
i love roast meat, so when my mom took a break from cooking dinner one night that’s what she ordered home. pure heaven, and this was only my first serving. the pretentiously finessed drizzle of dark soya sauce was my handiwork and intentional for the photo.
me and Cherie’s cocktails from Puffy Bois. she had an Old Fashioned (as always) and i some type of gin/elderflower creation. Cherie gets an Old Fashioned everywhere she goes — including countless variations across London when she visited in September — and i feel it’s so cool to have a niche drink that you know well enough to critique. my frequent rotation includes negroni, spicy margarita, and bloody mary, but at the end of the day i will pretty much drink anything as long as it’s not too sweet.
a digicam snap of us in my bedroom before leaving my house for the evening. we had such a cute day: drove out to East Coast Road in the morning to get traditional breakfast, Bugis in the afternoon for last-minute nails and one too many coffee breaks in between.
Cherie, Clarissa and Jasmine sitting around a constellation of cocktails at Sago House, our second destination that night.
on a rare cosy night in i huddled in the living room armchair and watched Sense and Sensibility (1995), starring Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant. i love classic period films. i thought this line was weirdly funny and ironic given i was due back in London soon.
another one of Mia cuddled on my lap. i miss her already x