Category: relationships

Without realising it, it was already his final day in Singapore. Where did all the time go?

After the pizza outing and that everyone has left, I started to feel my emotional turmoil again and the floodgates opened. All the other times I’ve always felt sad when we had to say our goodbyes, but this time round, the feeling of sadness was more intense than ever, that it caught me by surprise. My eyes hurt and felt swollen as I went on my journey home.

Friday, 4 Jan 2008

After I left work for the day, I parked my scooter in the car-park near the bed and Breakfast. When I arrived, Cart took out the last pack of pasta that my aunt has kindly made for him and asked me to join him for a late lunch. I was surprised as I would have been too hungry to wait for anyone. He said that he preferred to eat with me than eating alone. I thought that that was kind of sweet 🙂

It may not look good, but it tastes absolutely delicious!

After our lunch we decided to take the scooter and head to Sim Lim Square. We proceeded to the carpark and I was just about to rummage in my handbang to find my keys when my eyes scanned the scooter box. And my eyes went completely opened wide. My keys were in the scooter box!

How could I have left it in there! Someone could have just taken the keys and rode away with my beloved scooter! I must have been extremely stressed out. It was disconcerting. Cartcart tried to calm me down and I realised how lucky I was that the scooter wasn’t stolen.

At length with Cart safely behind me, we first stopped by to have coffee at ‘Geek Terminal’. It was open! We were finally here! I told Cartcart that Geek Terminal was the place where I believe serves very good coffee.

I didnt drink all that, this were what my friends had the last time we were at Geek Terminal

Here was what Cartcart had to say :

After our coffee, we then continued our journey and rode past Tekka Market and I parked my scooter in an area somewhere near Chinatown and in a short time, we had a leisurely walk to Sim Lim Square.

Sim Lim Square is a famous center for electronic gadgets. It was interesting seeing Cartcart there. As we both loved electronic gadgets, we were going about different stores peering and examining anything that caught our eye.

Eventually, after comparing the prices, Cart decided to get the Creative Zen. He looked quite pleased at himself after finding out that it was duty free. 🙂

The gadget was spiffy. I’ve been enamored over it after seeing the guys over at Tech 65 do a review over it. I tried getting Cartcart to buy one for me too but he said no. Instead he said, “I’m getting you something else.” I stared quizzedly at him and he continued, “Where is the nearest jeweller here? I want to buy you a ring”

OOH!!!

I was most excited that my mind couldn’t compute momentarily. I called up my good friends Geri and Juli to ask them if they knew of any jeweller in the vicinity.

Geri adviced us to head to Parco Bugis Junction as there were a number of Jewellers there. So we walked around and sure enough, there were about 5 jewellers side by side.

We walked into one of them. It definitely was an interesting experience being with Cartcart in a jewellery shop. I asked gingerly about their engagement rings. Already in my mind I knew that I wanted. A simple but classic solitaire set in yellow gold.

And the man at the counter showed us a collection of beautiful and exquisite rings. But I didn’t want any of them, they were all white gold.

So we tried going to the other jewellers, Goldheart, Lee Hwa, Soo Kee, Meyson, Citigems. And it was all the same. None of them carried yellow gold with them.

One of the goldsmith helpfully adviced us to go back to Chinatown to see if there were any jewellers there.

So we headed back to Chinatown. By then, there were a number of street buskers around. It was fascinating to see them. One of the performers were doing a beautiful piece of calligraphy using his mouth.

That was when we stumbled upon a jeweller as we passed by and I noticed yellow gold in their display case!

But when looked at their designs, I did not really liked it. The designs looked much too garish and what made it worse was that they were all very tight! Suddenly I felt very self conscious of my body type.

After a while, I found one that could fit me. Vehemently, not wanting white gold and with little time left, I looked at Cartcart and said, “I think I could learn to like this one.” Cart looked at me and asked, “Are you sure?” I just nodded my head and he proceeded to take out his card.

That was when the goldsmith shook his head and said, “Cash only please”. We were crestfallen. Eventually, the both of us left the shop quite dejectedly.

cart : I still would like to give you a ring

rinaz : Lets go back to parco, I dont really like white gold, but I can live with it

cart : Ok. lets go

We decided to walk by the other street as we both did not want to walk in Bugis Street where it would definitely be crowded by this time. That was when suddenly, out of nowhere, pops out a man out of a jewelery shop. It was Taka Jewellery. I wasn’t very optimistic as I was sure that it would be the same as the others.

Man : Hello! Would you like to come in?

Cart : Do you have yellow gold?

Man : Oh yes we do!

And just like that, I saw the ring that I wanted. A simple solitaire set in yellow gold. It was perfect! We were both pleasantly surprised at our find.

Later on Cartcart took the ring and slipped it to my finger, and proposed. Of course I said yes! 🙂

We had a quick vegetarian dinner at one of the hawker center where I had the yummiest spring roll ever. For a vegetarian one, I was impressed at how flavourful it was that I went back for seconds, even though I wasnt hungry.

We went back to the scooter where I found out that my cashcard was stolen! I had forgotten to take it out of the IU-unit and someone swooped in to steal it. That was twice the blunder that I did today. I was in extreme stress that I could not even think properly.

I was so upset with myself.

We rushed back to the bnb to grab his luggage before grabbing a cab to the airport. The cabbie was cheerfully chit chatting with us and when we almost reached the airport, both of us were amazed by the long queue of taxis at the airport. The taxi driver said that he had to wait about 3 hours once while waiting in line for a passenger.

As soon as we reached there, I began to feel very sad. I didn’t think we spent enough time together. I really didn’t want Cartcart to go.

But in what seems to be no time at all, he was in the ticketing queue and then I reluctantly let him go and waved while he disappeared off in the boarding hall. My heart just shattered. In front of everyone, I started to have tears rolling down my cheeks. I just couldn’t help myself.

Aftermath

Its been about 3 weeks now that he’s left. Of course I do miss him a lot. But life goes on. I guess I’m very lucky in that we both want to make this relationship work.

So for the moment, I’ll just try to keep being positive and hang on in there. We’ll be planning our wedding this coming December. But as much as just thinking of the expenditures and the planning makes me stressed out, I can’t wait to become Mrs Cartcart 🙂

Cartcart, I love you very much. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for being the way you are. Thank you for loving me 🙂

In this series :

• Part 1 : His arrival
• Part 2 : Of first lessons and I am legend
• Part 3 : Of science center and yummy spagetti too
• Part 4 : Gorgeous sounds of the handbells
• Part 5 : Meeting the aunt
• Part 6 : My classmate 10th year reunion
• Part 7 : Not enough time at the Singapore Zoo!
• Part 8 : Cart’s big day
• Part 9 : Of heavenly chocolate and earthly pizza

Its has been a week now that Cartcart left Singapore and I miss him more than I ever had before.

Saturday evening, 22nd December 07

I attended the FAQ Book on Public Speaking book launch. Even though I was a little worried since the event was so close to the time that Cartcart would be landing, I thought that I’d just drop by for a while as Eric has written such a nice, personalised email inviting me to the event 🙂

When I arrived at Geek Terminal, I realised that I didn’t know a lot of the people there. But the people at the event were very friendly and I met Eric Feng, the writer himself and said my hello after recognizing him in his photo from his blog.

Eventually I saw a couple of blogger friends like Daphne, Herry and Brennan.

Later we were introduced to the panel whom guided and inspired Eric in the writing of his book. Andrew Zhan, Kelvin Lim as well as Irene Ang, all of whom were very experienced and passionate about public speaking.

I got my book signed by them, shamelessly asking them to sign as “To Marina with love”.

For me, the event was like food for the soul. As much as I am interested in improving myself, public speaking being one of them, the event felt more like a group of close friends gathering together. One could really see the love between the interaction of Eric’s family and friends there and I cant help but to just soak in the love 🙂

I enjoyed myself so much that I nearly forgot the time and I had to quickly slip away to board the train to Changi Airport.

There were a lot of people already waiting outside the arrival hall when I reached Terminal Two. I peered anxiously behind the glass to find him.

At long length I finally saw him. And my heart warmed. How I’ve missed him! We are together again 🙂

Back in June last year, while I was in Rome with Cartcart, we paid a visit to one of the mosque there to enquire about conversion and marriage processes. I was surprised to find out that there were no Islamic studies courses being conducted there

I asked cartcart if he would be willing to undertake the lessons the next time he comes to Singapore and thankfully, he was open to the suggestion. Late Sunday morning, cart, mum and I went to Darul Arqam, a muslim convert center to register him for his Islamic studies.

When we arrived there, the area seemed festive with a lot of people. It turns out that they were having a sermon upstairs in liew of the aidilfitri celebrations. We sat down and I listened as the preacher was postulating about the responsibilities of a child to their parents.

I have to admit that the delivery sounded very different to me, having been used to listening sermons in Malay. But the essence and the message was still the same, in the end.

After the sermon, we met Nurul Jannah, one of the staff there whom gave a contact to a Haji Mustafa whom will be giving cart his personal lessons.

Later in the early evening, Cart and I headed off to Vivo City to meet Attilio, a blog reader and a friend. Call it a social experiment, but I’ve always thought that it would be interesting to see what happens when two Italians meet each other outside of their element. Thank goodness Attilio said yes!

We waded about in the human sea at vivo city and eventually found him waiting and one of the first thing I observed was how genuinely amiable they were to each other.

We stopped by starbucks and unsurprisingly, they started to converse to each other in Italian. It was like a jigsaw puzzle for me all over again. After ending my Italian language classes for some months now, I’m rather rusty. There were words that I could understand, and some which I could not. I had to concentrate hard to piece the image in my mind.

In the end, I could not keep up with the conversation and was just content to listen to their musical way of talking.

view in vimeo

After what seemed to be a short while, we were forced to say our goodbyes as Attilio was on his way to catch his flight back to spend time with his family.

We decided to have dinner at Secret Recipe. After which, I pulled Cartcart over to the area facing the sea to enjoy the breeze and the relaxing sound of the waves.

It was such a special moment for me. Just being there, enjoying each others company.

(to be continued)

Its been three years since we decided to commit ourselves to each other. Sometimes I am amazed at how well we get along, with our very different personalities.

But at the same time, it is our personalities are which complements each other – Your patience, kindness and rationality. My spontaneity, drive and resilience. I believe that we are good for each other. And it has been a beautiful journey since the start.

And I love you very much. And I cannot wait to see you this Saturday 🙂

Ti amo tanto tanto tanto. Aku cinta kamu sepenuh hati.

One of the reason in my visiting Cartcart was to give him a form of ‘hand holding’ in introducing him to Islam. We left home early on Wednesday to head visit one of the largest mosque in Rome. It was open to visitors only from 9.30 am to 11.30 am.

It was a very large place. We tried going there yesterday, but surprisingly, there were less than 5 people there and it didnt seem that there was anyone who could help us.

This time round, we were able to have an appointment with the ustadz. We waited about half an hour at the lounge area and I smiled at Cartcart. There were a lot of thoughts running through my mind. I was nervous and at the same time, raring to start the first step to overcome one of our first hurdles.

When we were called in, we walked across the corridor and entered the ustadz’s office. I saw a young lady with a head-dress, one stout looking man in office clothes whom I found out later was a translator and finally the ustadz himself in his robe.

“What can I do for you, sister?”

It was interesting to me as the ustadz was from Saudi Arabia, and he was able to speak in English but not in Italian, hence, the need for the translator. But we were all able to speak in English, there wasn’t any problems.

We spoke of conversion, he gave us a booklet pertaining the information. We spoke of marriage procedures, he asked me where I was from, then told us that I will need to have an official national marriage certificate and then have a ceremony in the mosque itself. Then I asked him if there were any courses on understanding Islam like the Darul Arqam, he said no, but he will give cartcart a contact on someone whom he could consult with.

We talked a for a little more, and then said our goodbyes later.

Cart and I both knew that there were alot of tasks in front of us. But I felt slightly better, now that at least we’ve started the first step. We looked at each other and promised that we will make it work.

Cartcart was adamant to cook some Asian food. On our way to his parents house, we stopped by a place called the Ricercaterre where food items from around the world were sold.

I saw some interesting items and recognized a few food stuff there, like the popular Meiji Panda biscuits, Dorito chips and Nissin instant noodles. But there wasn’t that much of variety of Singaporean daily foodstuff though. I dont think that I could get a dose of home here. Where can I have my daily Roti Prata and Nasi Lemak?

As this area is in a tourist spot, and you could see many different types of nationalities here, strolling and relaxing in the summer afternoon.

I liked looking at the buildings around here. As it has been around for a long time, the buildings looked rustic and full of character. I was even lucky to see a building with my name on it! 🙂

Beside Ricercaterre, there is a place called the Castroni which I liked to visit. Inside the shop is full of goodies like chocolates and sweets. Each time I visit, I’d be sure to get a bag of Gianduiotto chocolates and a box of Cremini Fiat. It’s really delightful!

The first thing that hits you as you enter the shop is the wonderful aroma of freshly made coffee. There is one area where you could buy ground coffee or have a cuppa. Mmm! Wonderful smell!

The biscuit display and the chocolate display alone was alluring enough to make my heart stop and my mouth water!

By the way, this is my current wallpaper 😀

A funny incident happened in Castello which made it memorable. I accidentally bumped into a Chinese guy and we both simultaneously said “sorry!”. Immediately I knew that he was Singaporean. It’s a typical Singaporean gesture, I think.

We took some time over at the area till Cart’s mum called him up and complained, “What’s taking you guys so long? The food is getting cold!” We rushed and then finally reached Cart’s parents house about 20 minutes later.

I have to admit that I was quite nervous meeting them again. They are future in laws after all and I do worry about what they think of me. We entered the house and I gingerly stepped and peeked in.

The only sounds I heard was from the apartment was the television. “Where’s everyone?” I asked Cartcart. And thats when his mum and dad came out of the room. His mum kissed me left and right while his dad shook my hand.

I mustered the miniscule amount of Italian that I knew

“Buon Giorno! Come stai?”

They replied back to me, speaking in rapid Italian. I looked at their face smiling, trying to fit the jigsaw puzzle with the bits that I can understand.

They were very nice to me. We had lunch together and over minestrone, they were pertinent and asked me some questions. Like how my dad was doing, how I liked the food they made (of course I liked it! Complimenti al cuoco!), how I liked my stay here.

We spent some time later relaxing on the sofa and watched TV. Cart’s dad wanted to rest for a while, while Cartcart joined his mum in making an espresso.

He came back with a cup of espresso and sat down beside me and held my hand while we were watching TV. I smiled sheepishly every time his mum walks in the room every now and then. It was hilarious that I am a grown woman and I still feel very self conscious.

Sometime later we said our goodbyes, and I waved to his mother as we closed the elevator door.

Cartcart : How do you feel?

Me : I’m fine, still a bit nervous

Cartcart : (Jokingly) Why? Were they mean to you?

Me: Of course not!

Cartcart : Mum was very nice to you. I think she likes you

Me : Do you really think so? Wow!

After the visit to his parents, we decided to stop by Gianicolo.

Gianicolo is a special place for the both of us. Cart took me here for the first time back in 2005 and we’ve made it a point to visit this place each time I was in Italy. Gianicolo was elevated, from here you can see many monuments such as the Vittorio Emanuele II below.

Click here to see a panorama view of gianicolo

There’s a little gelateria in Gianicolo where we’d have ice cream and relax while just enjoying the view. I can still recognize the guy who is serving ice cream from since I first came here in 2005.

I remember an incident last year while cart and I were in Gianicolo in the evening. We were standing by the lighthouse admiring the view and lights of the monuments below when a bus stopped by the roadside and out streamed a bus-full of tourists snapping pictures with flash (!) at the scenery. I was stunned. They left as immediately as they came.

What odd people.

Click here to watch today’s video journal in youtube

We headed to Larchetto Due again for a lovely and sumptious dinner. This time I tried having the salmone pasta while Cartcart had a variation of arrabbiata – Instead of chilli, it uses bell peppers. It was really delightful. I liked cart’s pasta better though, as it was tomato based. 🙂

The place was less lively today with no man playing the guitar and children with balloons. So it was a quieter dinner for us. It was still a lovely night, but in a way, I guess it was a reflection of what I felt.

Today’s experience was overwhelming to me. The visit to the mosque, the meet with the future in-laws. Cart even mentioned to me that he doesn’t want me to become a cleaner.

Suddenly something jolted inside and everything seemed more real to me. I may actually have to stay in Italy. Have a job in Italy. Spend my life in Italy. What on earth can I work as here? Can I really leave my present life?

And I panicked

To be continued

In Rome, there is a bridge called the Ponte Milvio. Its a charming place where you can see see loads of lamp posts heavily laden with locks.

There seems to be a custom here whereby you take a lock, write your name and your sweetheart’s name, hang it on the lamp post and throw away the key in the Tiber River.

I first knew about this place when I stumbled upon Shelley’s blog and I became really curious about the place. Cart and I were along the way and decided to take a look. We stopped for grattachecca before heading to the bridge.

Click here to watch in youtube

When we reached the bridge, there was a tv crew resting by the benches – I saw them interviewing some couples beforehand.

It was impressive to see the amount of locks on the lamp post. There were some lamp posts which were so overladen with locks, I wondered how the posts were able to hold up!

Cart told me this funny story about how there were so many locks in one particular lamp post that it broke under the weight and fell into the river below. Initially, it was suggested that the locks and lamp post be thrown away, but there were alot of people who got upset about it. Finally the governer decided to keep it in his office as a mark of respect.

For now, according to wikipedia, a website has been created to replace the real locks with a virtual padlock.

Click here to watch in youtube

Cart and I didnt put a lock on. We think our love is eternal even without needing a lock! Or maybe we’re just too cranky, old and jaded 😛

—

Later on, Cartcart took me to Ostia, one of the beaches in Northen Rome. It was about 9pm and the sun was starting to set.

Click here to watch in youtube

Its quite a different experience to have the sun set at such a late time since in Singapore, the sun always sets at about 7pm. Cartcart took me to a place called La Rotonda for dinner.

Its a nice place, you enter an African themed area with nice looking decor :

We had a seat facing the sea and in my mind, I was thinking of how romantic is was being here. And for the first time, it struck to me that I was actually on a date with cartcart. Hehehehe!

Perhaps the stop to Ponte Milvio brought out the romance after all 😉

However the food here was just meh. Although we enjoyed our appetizer, I didnt quite like my tonnarelli with lobster. The pasta was too hard and tough to be considered as al dente. And the lobster was tiny! For 21 euros (thats about $42 singapore dollars) one would expect that it would taste good. I felt so bad that I wanted to pay my share for the dinner. It was just unsatisfying.

Gah!

We went back home after dinner and on our way back, cartcart tells me that we may be stopping by his parents place. Last year, I was quite embarassed that I was not fluent enough to converse with them. I wondered how it will go this time.

To be continued

Check out this really hillarious conversation while on our way to the supermarket and listen carefully :

Watch in youtube

Another another lazy day. After having lunch, we decided to to go grocery shopping at a hypermarket, or what cart describes ‘commercial centre’.

There were so much variety of foods there! I had fun just looking at the interesting things there. There were so many kinds of bottles of pasta sauces, it was mind boggling. There were at least 5 refrigerated shelves just for cheese alone. I saw rows of different types of bread but Cartcart told me to be careful as some of the breads may contain strutto.

Cart introduced me to the Chinotto Neri drink which I absolutely adore. It’s such a unique taste, bitter and sweet at the same time. I dont know how to describe it, it may look like but tastes nothing like a cola or root beer.

After a while, we found a shelf which was selling Asian food. This was funny to me as I’ve never seen such peculiar looking food being sold in Singapore before. It was a little dubious to me.

Indonesian satay? Where is the satay?

After the grocery shopping and it was already night time. Cartcart took me to the festa dell’unita for dinner. Cart tells me that the l’Unita is the newspaper of the former communist party which has now merged with the left wing catholics. The festa dell’unita has been a mean to finance the party for dozens of years

I guess if Cartcart didn’t tell me about it, I would have thought that it was an ordinary night market. There were loads of things being sold here from clothes to toys. I even saw the picture frame which I bought for Cartcart in chinatown Singapore two years ago!

Watch in youtube

While we were walking I noticed a stall selling ceramic dolls and I admired the beautiful items there. My eyes gazed at the faerie section and thats when I saw this adorable faerie with green and white stripey socks. It was similar to my avatar while I was in cybertown.

I MUST have her. She’s beautiful. And at 16 euros it seemed a good deal.

Unfortunately, she’s also broken from the trip back to Singapore I’d have to get some superglue and hope that she’ll be as good as new.

There is a lovely little restaurant called L’Archetto Due in Trastevere, Rome. It’s a really fun place to be at and you might be pleasantly surprised at what you see there. On Monday, while we were there, the place was extremely lively with people. It was a lovely night atmosphere among all the charming and rustic buildings.

The food there was simply divine. I love practically every pasta that I had. That night I had pasta alla norma which had tomato sauce, fried cubed eggplants, cubed salted ricotta cheese and grated parmigiano reggiano. It was actually really tasty even though the ingredients sounds like a strange combination.

And speaking of strange combinations, Cartcart had pasta al limone. The first time I heard about this pasta, it was very interesting to me as I’ve never seen lemon used in pasta before. It’s made of milk cream and lemon zest. It had a light and refreshing taste and is really yummy.

By the way, Italians have a special way of eating spaghetti :

Watch in youtube

For dessert cart had strufolo which is a folded pizza with warm nutella inside while I had Panna Cotta! I’m totally in love with this now. The caramel tops it off nicely. Mmm! How can a simple dessert taste so good?

The restaurant owner is a mischevious man. Sometimes, every now and then, he’d go to unsuspecting patrons and carries a toy-pizza and pretends to drop it on the patrons. It was really funny to see. And on the night, there was a gentleman with a guitar entertaining the patrons. There were so many happy, smiling faces.

Watch in youtube

After dinner we walked around the area and enjoyed the night air. It’s really lovely to walk around Trastevere during the night as the temperature was nice and cool. It was significantly less crowded during the night but still bustling with activity as you can see people lounging around, chatting with friends.

I enjoyed the night walking hand in hand with cartcart, enjoying each other’s company. It was such a lovely night.

To be continued