with love from NYC!

Merry Christmas! Miss you guys!


Strand Bookstore...18 miles of books!


4 floors of H&M....paradise.


my part tme job at the Museum of Sex


Times Square!


Inside Grand Central after shopping!


Grand Central Station, Art deco style with the Chrysler Builing behind.

new york, new york!

What better way than to spend your christmas and new year in THE city that never sleeps, the original city of lights, the capital of consumerism and style.

New York is everything i expected it to be - noisy, crowded, busy. It's a city that yells out at you, and it's a good place to holiday because it distracts you so well. It's just not posssible to think about work or anything when you are on holiday in NYC because everything screams to get your attention, and like a little child you are taken in by the lights and action.

I'm currently staying in a studio in the very hip West Village, a neighbourhood full of swanky, hip, young execs who think they are worth alot. More interesting than the neighbourhood demographic is probably that i'm minutes away from the Meatpacking district, (so called because it used to do that) that is now transformed into a stylish mecca for urbanites where all the clubs and bars are. Perhaps tomorrow night when i head out to Apt or Cielo's or Tao i might get to rub shoulders with Natalie Portman or Lindsay Lohan. Of course, velvet security is very tight and i'm going to have to depend on trusty friends for favours.

Yesterday i started my trip on Fifth Ave, went by the New York Public Library and then to Strand BookStore - a paradise of totally cheap and awesome books which kept me there for 2 hours. After, I did some shopping at SoHo until i came to Little Italy where i had an expresso. Chinatown was not far, but had to pass it for a walk down Times Square at night. The billboards and huge screens are truly a fourth dimension. After making a pilgrimage to Broadway, where i will be watching Phantom of The Opera on the 28th, i spent the rest of the evening planning my itinerary. Hopefully, the Met Opera still has tickets left for Tan Dun's new opera, The FIrst Emperor, directed by Zhang Yi Mou. And of course, the Museum Mile is on the agenda, along with a production of Tom Stappards On the Coast of Utopia starring Ethan Hawke and Cilly Crudup back on Broadway (tickets cost me a bomb)

Seems like i caught New York Fever pretty fast, my head's not stopping.

Commentary on Post Modern Love

in the midst of exam procrastination i found the closest to an idealized version of post modern love in a film by Hou Hsiao Hsien. It's a moody, seductive take on love in our time, fragments of feelings so well captured by the camera's lens. I'm currently obssessed with this film. The Chinese have mastered the art of telling a love story so close to our time that it had the power to make me patriotic.



Or watch the trailer. It's beautiful.



Every detail, every nuance is captured as if in a bottle of time (taiwanese version of trailer)

the solidity of friendship and love

Melissa just sent this to me..


LOOK how the pale queen of the silent night
Doth cause the ocean to attend upon her,
And he, as long as she is in his sight,
With her full tide is ready her to honor.
But when the silver waggon of the moon
Is mounted up so high he cannot follow,
The sea calls home his crystal waves to moan,
And with low ebb doth manifest his sorrow.
So you that are the sovereign of my heart
Have all my joys attending on your will;
My joys low-ebbing when you do depart,
When you return their tide my heart doth fill.
So as you come and as you do depart,
Joys ebb and flow within my tender heart.