Does it matter if you're black and white?

Black and white. 

I wonder. 

What does it do to the picture, I wonder.

What does it take away? 

And what does it add?

A white swan is still white.

 

 Pat at Thai Express, or should I say Pat Thai?

A white room is still white.

Cameraception

Nature does have wonders to offer us, but the best part of going for a stroll in the Gardens is the people that I see. Where have they been, I wonder. And where are they going? What have they seen that I haven't? And instead of stopping to ask them, I stop to take their picture so that I may go on wondering and remembering.

And who should come through the woods but Naruto himself in high form. What is he doing so far from Konoha Village? I waved and he waved back.

Umbrellas

 Don't worry. He wasn't poking him.

I take great delight in taking pictures of people taking pictures.

Botanical Cure

On Saturday, to inaugurate the Christmas holidays, I took a stroll through the Botanical Gardens, followed by erratic weather. Not to worry--I came armed with an umbrella.

Beauty in the front, business in the back

 One swan a-swimming

Spot the dove.

Raindrops on lily pads. Every time I pass by this pond, I take a picture. I can't help it.

  The beauty of nature is not to be underestimated. I can feel the knots of life loosening already.

Adam Road

 Bukit Timah is one of my old haunts, and I like everything about it. The area is green and quiet, filled with little shops and eateries. The Island Creamery is always a standout with its inviting idea of fresh ice cream, made on the premises. A little further down the road is Coronation Plaza, good for a variety of things, and one mustn't forget that the Botanical Gardens is just a stone's throw away.

Saturday morning was filled with erratic bursts of showers and sunshine.

 Unfortunately the eateries are sometimes outside of what I am willing to pay

so I visit the Adam Road Hawker Centre instead.

Bus Rides in the Rain

I ride the bus a lot. The best days are the slow days with empty buses and rain on the windows. I like the rainy season: I like even the idea of having a season in an indifferently sunny and humid island. The tropics offer their own sorts of beauties, other than snow and ice. Recently the Rebel Shang mused over out neverending deluge.
"It's been raining a lot recently," she said. "More than usual."
"Well, it is the rainy season."
"It is?"
"Yup."
"That would explain a few things." 

Power

I'm better! I have the immune system of a ninja. Perhaps that is why I am so teary-eyed and pathetic when I'm sick--"toned down" is how Jana put it--but I'm just not used to being out of sorts. Usually I seize the day by the throat and throttle it until it gives me what a want.

 Today I spent amending all the things I yesterday found to be wrong. I have taken out the trash, swabbed the deck, hung up curtains, paid some bills (in person and online), stocked up on laundry tokens, done four loads of laundry, and ended the evening by blowing  a fuse and plunging the house into utter blackness. I am now sitting in the dark with only the sound of rain to accompany me. I tried the fuse box and switching off the offending outlet, but to no avail. I called my landlady, and I suppose she will do everything in her power to get me mine back.

Swedish Christmas

I am amazed that no matter where in the world I go, I can always find reason to want to be somewhere else, or worse still, I find someone else's life to envy. These past few weeks, I have increasingly nurtured the vice of jealousy by reading my friend Clara's blog, gazing at her pictures of the Swedish countryside and dreaming of all the wonders of a Christmas up north and everything it entails--family and friends, baking, fika, long walks in the snow, a frosted countryside, and candle-lit evenings indoors.

I myself have been too busy to pay much attention to anything--I just finished up my first semester teaching, my apartment is a mess in every sense of the word, I haven't put out my coffee table Christmas runner, and I am lying on my couch with a headache and a sore throat, feeling bad that I ate so much chocolate on Friday, that I haven't yet decorated, that I have done no grading thus far, and ultimately sorry for myself and wishing there was someone here to hear my groans of anguish. I tend towards the dramatic side when feeling under the weather.
 

Clara in her light and airy kitchen

I want to be there, as much as I generally dislike the cold, to see my family, to eat rice porridge with milk and cinnamon, to bake cookies (and not those bland I-taste-better-as-dough American sugar cookies) and boil toffee to spoon it hot into little wax paper cups. I want to make paper snowflakes and put out the best tablecloth for company and hang the Christmas curtains. I am only begrudging my Swedish friends because I am tired and sick and quite frankly feeling a little the worse for wear. I hope that come tomorrow I'll be feeling ever so much better about things, but until then, I ask that you bear with selfish desires. My fleshly nature comes so easily to me.

All photos taken from Underbara Clara's blog.