From London

I noticed it's been a good 3 months since my last post. And even before that, I'd started to slow down in my updates. I wasn't sure if I had any readers plus my own life was swirling downwards. But anyway, I am writing again today coz I got a comment recently from an anonymous reader, which I appreciated very much.

"I very much enjoyed reading your blog, as a fellow aSWer, your experience very much resonates with my own: Born in China, grew up in Canada, educated in UK, (had long distance boyfriend, now ex in NYC) and then moved to Singapore (for an investment bank) where i did not know a single soul.. it's nice to know that someone else is experiencing the same joys and pains of living a global life... the same optimism when it comes to dating even after you are heart-broken and dissapointed time and again. it makes me feel less alone.

It’s so hard you know, to repeat the same story over and over again; to meet strangers, become friends, and separate like strangers again; to cross oceans and not know much about the place where you will end up, the people you will meet, the joy you will experience or the hardships that you will have to endure.

Thanks for the blog, who knows, maybe see you at some point on an aSW event.

ciao "

Thank you, anonymous reader. It made me feel better that I wasn't just being some pathetic whiny person who over-reacted to what i saw to be the challenges in my life.

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The update now:

I am back in London and so happy to be back. I've got a lovely flat in the best area of London (W2 of course!). I've been catching up with old friends, making some new ones and also spring-cleaning some who don't belong in my life anymore. I've re-started my programme of Sunday Night Dinners and they've been super fun so far. I've been going on a number of dates (some good, some bad and some downright funny). I've found myself a climbing partner and am trying to go once a week. I've found an amazing pilates studio and go once a week to get tortured by my pilates instructor. I'm also trying to learn roller blading (finally after 3 years of owning blades!) with a lot less success. I've moved back into my old desk at work and it feels like I never left for NY. I've also figured out what my next career might be and am trying to work towards it.

So the upshot is, I am in a good place right now and I am going to savour every moment of it. :)

p.s. I will blog about my dates coz some were definitely worth sharing

Tomas Maier is a genius

Summer has come and gone. London is back to being cold and grey. And it doesn't help that I have a cold.

But this weather got me looking at the Fall/Winter RTW collections. I know the title of this post says this already, but I will say it again, Tomas Maier is a genius.




Now how do I find a sugar daddy to finance these frocks?

Appropriate footwear

Today was an exceptionally soggy day in London. Usually London rain comes in the form of a light drizzle, which whilst irritating, still allows people to go about most of their daily business without requiring a brollie. But today, the rain decided to fall hard enough to create puddles everywhere. By the time I got into work, my feet were almost soaked. Wet feet are possibly one of these worst ways to start your day (short of the horror of finding a long queue at the coffee store)

Anyway, if this was New York, everyone would be in their wellies. Stylish girls would be in their pastel coloured Hunters or Marc Jacobs wellies. And even the not-so-stylish girls would be in appropriate footwear. (I didn't stay long in NY enough to acquire a pair of these myself, but I certainly had my eye on a pair of baby blue Hunters.)

Now, London being a city which experiences more annual rainfall than NY, why don't people wear appropriate footwear around? Is it because Londoners inherently don't like making life easier for themselves, preferring to have the pleasure of moaning about wet feet instead?

It does seem as though the English pride themselves on a stoicism which on the one hand, represents great tolerance and endurance. However, this pride also allows for self-indulgence in the form of constant moaning about things not working, instead of them getting off their arses to get it done.

People tend to take on the character of the city they live in, or vice versa. Before I left London, I was definitely feeling defeated even before having tried and was ever so weary. This time around, I am feeling revived and energetic and ready to take on this city all over again. But it will be change in small steps and I will pick my battles this time, wearing the appropriate footwear of course!

2nd post

2 posts in one day after 3 months of radio silence?! Wow, this must be your lucky day! I will have to confess that the double-posting is a little more self-interested than that.

The Flatmate still isn't home. I am wondering if I should call the police yet. His last text message did read
"Sorry for not calling. I had an intense night. I come back tomorrow." Well, at least he's getting some whilst the rest of us (ok, me) are not getting any.

So I am home alone and getting bored waiting for my movie to download from iTunes. (And FYI, there are two versions of the movie Sabrina. You should only watch the 1954 version starring Audrey Hepburn. Watch the 1993 version only if you are Calista Flockhart and are actually in a relationship with Harrison Ford.)

And finally I am trying to get a boy out of my mind. A boy I met only last night at a house party. A boy with whom the conversation started with me telling him he should lie about himself when meeting new people to keep himself entertained if they were exceedingly dull or to keep them entertained if they were exceedingly interesting. For the rest of the night, I was not sure if he was lying in the first place and if he was, if it was for the former or latter reason. Anyway, as I have had so little to do today and my mind so otherwise unoccupied, snippets of our conversation from last night come back to me at random moments. And I realise that amidst all the lying and joking, actually there was a fair amount of honesty. And it's that mixture of lies and the truth which has intrigued me, enough to want to see him again. And I am annoyed that the Boy didn't ask me for my number even after he'd leaned in to kiss me goodnight in the cab. So annoyed that I am going to set up lunch this week with our mutual friend to make it happen. Boy gets my number, we go out on a date, fall madly and wildly in love with each other and live happily ever after. Yes I am losing it.

OK, hope this post has offered me enough catharsis to not come back for a third helping...

April 27th

What a difference a year makes. This time last year, I just arrived in NY, fresh from a month-long break and full of hope and promise about life in NY. This time this year, no month-long break but here I am, back in London, full of hope and promise about life in London.

Not going into details about why I decided to move back, but I think overall London offers a more sustainable pace long-term. And please, I offer no guarantees on where I will be this time next year.

So to follow up on a couple of things...

1) Eligible men in London - Hmmm, this one hasn't quite worked out. Eligible Bachelor 1 turns out to be a commitment-phobe possibly also with a fear of letting people get close. Eligible Bachelor 2 has taken a leave of absence and will only be back in London in August. And Eligible Bachelor 3, we are probably better off as friends. So if you know of any other eligible men in London, I scrub up well, am able to make fairly interesting/funny conversation and can tell my martinis from my whiskeys. Do let me know!

2) I now have a flatmate in London. He's French, Jewish and most definitely a ladies' man. At the time of writing, he was last seen getting ready to go "hunting" and that was about 48 hours ago. He will definitely be an entertaining flatmate...

3) In the past year away, I actually grew closer to a couple of my friends in London than when I was actually in London. Talk about absence makes the heart grow fonder. Anyway, now that I am back, I have managed to catch up with most of my friends. Some of them have moved on, getting married or settling into very long-term relationships. And whilst they remain interesting people and good friends, they're ermm...kinda...less fun to hang out with. So I am on the look-out for new friends in London too. If you know of any interesting and fun singles in London, do let me know!

4) Boy have I missed the English capacity to take the piss! Being back here made me appreciate the English self-deprecating sense of humour more than ever.

5) The restaurant scene around Bayswater has improved like 300-fold! And that is significant given that they already had Gold Mine* when I left for NY. There is now a great little Italian takeaway joint, Arancina, which has fresh pastas and pizzas. There is Bodean's, a great American-styled ribs joint. There's Cafe Anglais, Rowley Leigh's latest venture after Kensington Place. And there is Hereford Road, which has been touted as the St John of the West. Hardly surprising given the chef (Tom Pemberton) used to work there and the menu is strikingly similar. But I have a lot more confidence in the place as it occupies a great space in a very good location; I think it will mature into a very fine restaurant which I will be proud to call 'my local'.

And last one for today, in a NY-LON comparison, London flats seem to be poorly heated or poorly built for heat conduction. I'm freezing!

* In my opinion, the best Chinese restaurant in London.

February 1st

Last night, I had drinks with some friends who have been in NY for a while and are contemplating their next moves. I also had dinner with a friend who lives in Boston but works in NY for the week. I am not sure if it was because of my earlier conversation at drinks or what, but I just realized that all the comments I subesequently made at dinner about NY and America were pretty negative. How did it get that way?

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I had one of my best nights in NY last Sun. I had a bunch of people over for dinner, as I do every so often. What made it different on Sunday was I somehow assembled a group with the right chemistry. The night ended at 1am with 4 of us (out of 7) still at the table, after seven bottles of wine and an evening of great conversation, with many references to "Judith". (There's a looooong story behind that)

Perhaps the food was a sign of how the night would unfold. The food was, if you don't mind me boasting, beautiful! I definitely outdid myself this time. Loosely based around a Mediterranean theme, the dinner menu consisted of tapenade, parsley salad, white bean puree, roasted carrots and the piece de resistance, slow-roasted harissa-marinated lamb shoulder. (Boy I wish I had taken a picture of the lamb when it was served.) We finished with an incredibly light olive oil and Muscat cake served with Muscat Love.

Or perhaps I should have known when W burst into the room, overhearing a conversation fragment about Moscow, and went "I have a great Moscow story". W's personality dominated the evening. It was inevitable considering that he was the oldest at the table, lived in NY the longest and was not a banker/corporate type. The quieter personalities fell away quietly in W's wake, leaving W, K (W's gf), A (next oldest person at table) and myself at the table, or in W's words, "the interesting people".

It was one of my best nights in NY because not only had I managed to achieve some kind of culinary success, but I had also managed to bring together a bunch of strangers to share in a great evening. I definitely cannot say that my time in NY has been all that bad. I have managed to pursue my interests to a greater extent - practicing my culinary skills much more often, even going as far as to take a class at the French Culinary Institute. And even though I have been here only nine months, I have met such a wide range of people, some more interesting than others, many friendly but flaky. I have learned to cope on my own, away from friends who have tried-and-tested and thrust amongst strangers.

NYLON. I meant New York - London rather than the synthetic fibre. It is a relatively easy crossing to make. From NY, leave in Fri evening, arrive Sat morning, leave Sunday evening and arrive Sunday evening, in time for work the next day. From London, leave Fri evening, arrive Fri evening, leave Sunday evening and arrive Monday morning in time for work. And because you're going for such a short period, you don't need more than a cabin bag's worth of clothing/stuff so you're out of the airport as quickly as customs will permit it.

It does get a little absurd though when you've done your fourth NYLON crossing in nine months. And in the case of the last crossing, I only told less than 5 people because I feared friends were getting a little sick of seeing me back in London again. I was afraid people would figure out that I wasn't all that happy in NY and that's why I keep going back to London to seek refuge.

It does sound a little crazy for one to say that they are not enjoying NY. I mean, what is there not to enjoy about it? The fact that my dry-cleaning gets picked up and dropped off at my building without me ever having to go to the dry-cleaners? The fact that I can get any food I want delivered to my doorstep? The fact that cabs are cheap and plentiful? The fact that I have been on more dates in the last nine months than I did in four years in London? The fact that I have an amazing apartment with an amazing location?

I *have* enjoyed NY. But I have also come to realize that my heart is in London. I have become far closer to some of my friends in London over the past 9 months in NY. And I miss them terribly. I also miss the stoic English sensibility. And I feel superficial and uncultured over here. People seem to be too busy chasing the next better thing. Oh and I also shop waaaaay too much over here - combination of convenient Internet shopping and proliferation of pretty things around. Oh and the boys in London - well, that's for another entry...

I am not sure how many more NYLON crossings I will be doing or where I will end up, but I just wanted to put this down for now.

p.s. yes, I am alive!