Having "Me" Time

In a city of roughly ten million people, there are people almost everywhere you go.   Crowds of people move here and there and the din of noises ring in your ears. Bangkok is a bustling urban city.  It's easy to just get lost in the crowd.  However, in Old Town Bangkok, time seems to stay a little more still.  If you want to escape to somewhere quiet (other than your own home) where you can spend a good couple hours, sipping tea and reading a good book,  I say go to the Bangkokian Museum Tea Salon . In my previous post, I wrote about the Bangkokian Museum which is housed in a 1930's house, but I have yet to tell you about the Tea Salon.  Now don't expect something fancy with air-conditioning and wi-fi and a range of snacks.  This tea salon simply occupies a corner of one of the wooden houses.  There are a couple of tables for you to sit and a few chairs.  What I do love about it though is that you c...

After a decade of living in this apartment, I am moving house.  It feels surreal as I go through my belongings and throw away things I've kept for far longer than I should have.  Moving is good.  It keeps one energized and stimulated eventhough it's so tiring you forget where your days went.  Moving gives us an opportunity to go through our things and throw away the "excesses" and things that are no longer functioning. Moving this time I've learnt that I am a great hoarder of plastic bags, paper bags and now canvas bags.  You name it. I have every kind of bag you could possibly want.  I've got the tiniest paper bags to the biggest plastic bag you've ever seen. I got bags from different countries, continents and different designs.  Different versions from the same shop even.  Wow, I wonder if I am saving them to have a museum of shopping bags? I am not going to collect them anymore though.   I've learnt my lesson. I bought...

Happy Friday :) It's the first Friday of the month, and the first Friday of 2011. Somehow I feel like it has already been a few months since the New Years.  There is so much to do.  This year also sounds futuristic and as if it came from a sci-fi movie.  Nevertheless, it is here and ready for us to embrace.  The office opposite my building is certainly embracing it.  For a few hours now, they have been partying with food, music and dancing. It sounds fun.   The New Years is also a time for us to get organized and clean up our living space.  I've been trying to clear up my accumulated junk, but the pile seems to come out from Mary Poppins' bag.  Once I take things out of drawers and shelves, they suddenly blossom and grow in size. I have piles of things I have to donate, piles of things waiting to go into storage, and piles of things I have to sort.  The piles of things to sort is just so lar...

Not far from Osaka, Kobe is a city of approximately 1.5 million inhabitants and it is said to be one of the most attractive cities in Japan.  I thought it was a very "cute" and quaint city especially if you go walk around the neighbourhood of Kitano where there is a uniquely European-American atmosphere.  Very different from all the shrines, castles and small wooden houses found elsewhere. On this hillside, away from the hustle and bustle of centre city where all the shopping and businesses are located, I feel like I have just travelled to a little hillside town in the US or somewhere in Europe.  I walk up some steps and find myself in a little plaza where ice-cream shops and cake shops adorn the place.  I could be in Germany, I remember seeing a small area like this when I was last in Frankfurt, the only difference is that the ice-cream is all Japanese style, soft served in a cone and green-tea flavored and the people eating it are japanese. I walk further up ...

When you ask me what I do on the weekends, a most common answer you'll get is "clearing up my house."  I have so many things and belongings lying around the house and it is forever in a state of clutter. I never seem to be able to get it to be as clean as I want it to be.  I want the house to be clean like a hotel room. Bare except for a few essentials. That's my ultimate goal, but for as long as I can remember, I am forever "clearing up" my junk.   I spend hours on end clearing out magazines, advertisements sent through the mail, and sorting through the piles of paper. I line the books up on my self, all categorized.  Everything has its own place. Nevertheless, I have so much that if you tried to add anything new, there wouldn't be any space for it.  It'd be lying out on the table or perhaps sit quietly in a corner.   I have things neatly hidden away from the eye. In drawers and boxes. The question is:  who...