Last weekend, I spent time with a small group of Singaporeans living in Rome. While it was just a simple gathering, I have a very lovely and enjoyable time updating and hearing each other about our lives over lovely at my favourite trattoria in Testaccio.
It has been a while since we last met. And I cant help but to marvel at how much we’ve all been through. From being newly married, being thrown into another country, feeling depressed and homesick. To having babies and well, pretty much adjusting and moving on with life.
I still remember one of our first meets. Meeting new friends can sometimes quite awkward, and sometimes with some relationships, you find that you sometimes aren’t comfortable with each other. And in the end, its best to be mature and be open minded and not to be too anguished and think too much about this situation.
But there are some people that you naturally get along well, and I’m glad that I’ve found people that I can feel comfortable with, without feeling that they are being judgemental of me. And its great that we are a pillar of support to each other.
I think that it’s been quite a milestone. While I’ve yet to meet the other Singaporeans from the other regions apart from Rome, I feel a sense of contentment somehow. Because from just a handful of us in the beginning of 2009, the group of Singaporeans living in Italy has been growing quite strong and we just passed our 100th member not too long ago. Kind of like seeing my baby growing up
And speaking of babies, it was like a baby convention! With Lynn having her twins and Xiangwen with her baby boy and a couple of other tables having their own babies.
And all throughout the entire dinner session, there were dozens of people purposely coming over, cooing-and ahhing and “Che carino!” “Oh bello!” and whatnots. And those who didn’t, sat at their tables and stared and smiled. Just like in the picture above. It was so amusing.
But I’m quite amazed that all the babies were relatively quiet. Even throughout the dinner chatter, they were able to nap and relatively keep still. This could probably be a skill that expat/european babies have I guess. Learning to filter out the noise.
Urgh. I cannot have too many babies around me. In just a few moment, the maternal instinct will kick in and I feel like having one too …
There are times when it’s not practical to wear make-up, like going marketing or exercising at the sports centre. But it’s nice to have a little bit of coverage. After all, not every one of us have perfect skin, and even after hitting 30 when the hormones are supposed to be more stable, I still get the occasional zits.
This is me, early in the morning, completely au-naturale.
While I was back in Singapore, I used to use a Blemish Balm cream when I want to go out but not fuss too much with cosmetics.
Blemish Balm or BB cream was said to be a cream that dermatologists prescribe to patients who were recovering from laser surgery because of its soothing and regenerating qualities. But regular people could use it too, to even out skintone, heal acne, have UV protection. Soon, it was all the rage in Asia a couple of years ago.
There are plenty of varieties of BB cream, but this is the Rojukiss BB cream that I bought some while ago at Watson’s in Singapore.
At about $39.50 SGD, it wasn’t cheap for something that came out of a drug-store, but if it rejuvenates my skin, even out my skin-tone and heals my skin like it says it would, it seemed like a good investment.
Squeezing it out of the tube, is a brown cream which almost has a buttery texture, without the greasiness. What’s interesting is that the consistency of the cream was rather thick, but once warmed and rubbed through the fingers, it becomes soft and more emollient and easier to spread through the skin.
You just need a few drops of this on the skin, because a little bit goes a long way. See how much coverage there is with just one drop applied to my skin?
Nevertheless I liked how dewy it made my skin looked. There was coverage but it looks natural and if I got the right shade, it will not make my skin look like I’m wearing any make up. For me, it lasts for several hours before my skin starts to get oily, so it’s perfect for days when I just want to pop down to the market or exercise.
My only big qualm with it is that the shade was too light for me. Unfortunately, most BB creams does not seem catered for darker skins and are just too dark for me. It would probably suit a fairer skin person. But I still use it because it gives a nice foundation.
Unfortunately, I’m running out of my BB cream and it didn’t seem to be all that popular in Italy since I’ve yet to see any.
So the closest that I could find here in Italy that kind of resembles the BB cream would be the tinted moisturiser. While there were many various brands of tinted moisturisers, I chose this one from Nivea Visage.
I don’t remember exactly how much this was, but I think it was less than 10 euro when I got it from the mall. This tinted moisturizer claims to hydrate the skin for 24 hours, contains vitamins, make skin more uniform and luminous.
The texture is quite similar to the BB cream, creamy feeling, thick like butter but without the greasiness. It has a slight fragrance to it though, and while it doesn’t bother me, it could be an issue to some sensitive nose.
And again, a little bit goes a long way! I only need a few dots on the skin to cover my entire face. The biggest difference between this and the BB cream is that, I had to be quick in rubbing it in my skin, because it doesn’t get more emollient, instead it seems to feel dry the longer I leave it unattended.
Nevertheless, the end result is quite pretty and luminous. While it didn’t cover all my blemishes, it does a good job in smoothing out my skin. Compared to the BB cream, I seem to have a more matte effect with this tinted moisturizer. Which is great as a foundation.
But again, my biggest issue is that it was too light for me! I’ve been reading other people’s review saying that this cream was too dark for them, but unfortunately it’s the opposite for me.
But I think its a passable replacement for my BB cream. Its not perfect, but after a month of using it, its not that bad either.
Sidenote :
Oh, since we’re talking about skin, I’d like to take the chance to ask you to guess, which one is my hand and which one is my mother in law’s hand after a week vacationing in Sicilia …
How are you? I hope that you and the entire family are doing okay. I saw some of the Raya pictures already from facebook through some our relatives and I really enjoyed seeing them. It looked so festive! I wish I was there! Bila Mak nak buat akaun facebook? Marina pun nak tengok juga gambar yang Mak petik!
Over here in Rome, it doesn’t feel so festive. It feels like a regular day and even Cart had to take the day off since Eid is not an official public holiday in Italy. But I’m glad that I could hear Warna radio station online this year. It always reminds me a little of home. I tried to record and sync the timing to suit our breaking fast times, but I keep getting into technical difficulties -_-
In any case, this year, in the morning of Eid, we finally managed to go to the Grand Mosque in Rome. This year we are lucky as we were joined with my classmate Meryem and her husband. They were really lovely company and I enjoyed getting to know them better.
There were 3 prayer session – 8.30, 9.30, and 10.30. We barely made it for the last session and I was worried that we would be late. So I rushed in to take my ablution, and had to fight through to find space in the prayer room. There were so many people there! I anticipated that there would be a lot of people, but what I really didnt appreciate was that there were a number of people who were sitting around, with no intention of praying, taking up space, and spent the entire time chatting in their groups. I dont understand why come in the first place. And there were children running around and screaming. It feels very chaotic Mak. And I felt dizzy after a few minutes. Oh pening!
After the prayers, I moved over to hear the sermon more clearly. But it was in Arab so I didnt understand anything! I’m very puzzled, Mak. Shouldn’t it be at least in Italian? After all, we are in Italy. Macam tak puas hati, begitu. But different country, different custom I suppose. Moreoever, Cart said that this is possibly a sensitive issue to discuss.
Anyway, after the prayer we went to have a walk outside the mosque where there were many open markets selling all sorts of things – kind of like the old Geylang Serai before its reconstruction. It was crowded and confusing, but you can see a lot of interesting sights there, like kebab, cookies, imported food and others. There was someone selling a used playstation game even :p
Check out this satay looking food!
Cart got some Egyptian sweets from one stall, and they were really nice.
One of them is called Kunafa – and its a hairy looking biscuit thing. Meryem pronounced Kunafa so beautifully and she corrected some of the way I pronounced some of my favourite Middle East Food. I should have recorded it :p
We said our goodbyes to Nizam and Meryem and then later in the afternoon, we prepared to get ready for a small and simple gathering with Cart’s family. Its so non traditional! We didnt make any Malay food this time and instead, completely Italian styled dinner! I think its better too anyway. Italian food is less troublesome to cook compared to Malay food. And we were done cooking in less than two hours. So together we made these :
Stir fried potato with spinach. Uh. No picture because I forgot to snap :p
And Cart managed to whip up some Honey Frozen Yoghurt too with the ice cream maker!
I had a lovely evening, despite how low-key it was, just relaxing, chatting with each other, playing games on the wii and just enjoying each other’s company.
Sorry you cant see Paola in this video, she’s being covered by a giant plant. Speaking of plants, people have been giving me a lot of plants as presents but I am running out of spaces to keep them! I feel tension when my plants die.
The next day, which is a Saturday, I’ve invited a few of my friends from Italian class and they brought along their respective husbands. Wah, it was such an international group! There was one from Morocco, one from Syria, one from Peru, one from Romania, and from Malaysia! I think all of them didn’t know each other prior to this, but it was a group of people that I enjoyed talking with and I hoped that they get along well.
Anyway, this time round, I thought that I’d try to make my most favourite thing to eat during Raya, Ayam Masak Merah and ketupat.
I also made some samosa, as well as some sweet and sour fish as a backup plan in case no one likes the Ayam.
This is not a samosa, but I forgot to snap a picture, also I used the same filling :p
Wah. Its a little bit of a hassle, having to prep, to shape, to coat, to fry, kedebikkedebuk. When the guests arrived at 7.30, I was just halfway done. Thank goodness the ladies helped me out. If not, I think I would have fainted.
I know its just a small thing for you though Mak. You are superwoman! You could make a full buffet with 6 different dishes by yourself. Sungguh power mak saya.
Anyway, Cart warned me not to make the Ayam Masak Merah too hot, He said, “This is for the guests, this is not for you”. So I cut only 5 pieces of dried chilli in the blender and it didnt look red. Even after a squeeze of tomato concentrate and a bottle of tomato sauce, the colour is still wont become red. In the end, I had Ayam Masak Oren.
But anyway, the ketupat were pretty easy to make. Not sure if you remember, but last year while I was back in Singapore, I bought a couple of packs of instant ketupat. All I had to do was to boil it for about an hour and let it cool down before serving!
This is one piece of ketupat mini
After it was boiled for an hour
Ketupat and Ayam Masak Oren
Its quite embarrassing, especially when presenting it to my Malaysian guests. But in the end, it was heartening to see them have a nice appetite 😀
After the dinner, we had a chat. Even my Peruvian friend did a demonstration and proudly showed off her country to us. She was like a teacher! Maybe next time I’ll do a demonstration about Singapore too! Hahaha!
It was so funny. Its a shame that time passes so fast when you’re enjoying yourself. But all in all, I had a lovely weekend. It was simple, but very enjoyable.
So there you go, that was how I spent Raya in Rome! I miss you Mak and I cannot wait to see you in December
Cart looks smashing in a baju kurung and songkok doesn’t he? He’s a bit shy to wear it here, but for sure I am going to wear mine and show all of Roma, Italia my nice baju kurung with pride
In any case, this month of fasting seems fast this year doesn’t it? It seems just like yesterday that Cart and I were waking up bleary at 4 am, and then suddenly, zoom! Its Eid already.
Not much time to blog this morning, but I’d like to take the chance to wish all my friends Selamat Hari Raya, maaf zahir batin. Happy Eid! And forgiveness, body and soul. Yeah, that sounds odd, but that’s the literal Malay translation
Sometimes there are some people who uses my picture in their website. While I cant really stop people from right clicking and saving it for their own uses, most of the times I don’t really mind it so much though since I’ve watermarked my pictures. Having it watermarked makes the images have a little bit of a semblance that the images belonged to me. So that I don’t get completely ripped off by some people.
What would be polite though is to use the images on their own host instead of leeching from my webhost. And a link back would be nice too.
In any case, yesterday, I received a very interesting message by someone who googled “Malacca Road trip“. The first time I skimmed through the offender’s site, I thought that she and I probably just had parallel interests. But reading carefully, I spotted a number of similarities.
So today, I’d to share with you this very interesting discovery (channel!)
This is hers
Sleep for 4.5 hours still can be groggy one ah?
This is mine
Mmm … I would love some Briyani right now.
This is hers
This is mine
Maybe I can give her my own home made chendol.
This is hers
This is mine
She’s obviously a very capable sex-change surgeon
This is hers
This is mine
And she also has a diploma in ctrl+c
This is hers
This is mine
Mr Komodo Dragon is femes!
Plagiarism or no?
I wrote my blog post in June 2007 while she in September 2009. I guess with all her travelling, she’s just too tired to write her own blogpost
I have to give credit to her though, she does take nice pictures.
Actually, I’m more amused than anything else. This means that I am FEMES! And people want to copy me! Yay!
My mum would always look at me all puzzled. “I don’t understand why you’re sending each other cards. Its for people you don’t meet often. You see each other everyday!” Regardless, I’ve kept each and every one of my cards in a metal box. Its in Singapore at the moment. I just hope that no one throws them away!
Anyway, lately I’ve gotten quite a number of cards. Probably after complaining to my mum that I didn’t get any during Eid last year. In any case, it makes me feel so happy to see the colourful stamps and cards and I’m not complaining now!
Unfortunately, I’ve procrastinated too much and I doubt that any cards I sent will arrive in time for raya … ANYWAY! I’d like to say thanks and do a little show and tell today 🙂
I was amused to see a KFC postcard till mum explained to me that she was testing the Italian postal system to see how long it took to have it sent from Singapo.
Here is a nice Raya Card
Courtesy of blog reader Hasliza 🙂
And here are two raya cards from home!
After her little experiment, mum sent me two! I dont know why, but the more the merrier! One of the cards is very special because when you open it, raya music will come out.
IRAS is a declaration form for those who are working in Singapore to be filled up each annually. For those who did not fill it up are usually fined an amount of money.
As I’m living overseas, I’ve had issues trying to fill it up though.
21 Aug
One fine day my brother tells me casually over plurk that I needed to fill up my tax forms. And it should be done by the end of the month.
Strange. I thought to myself. I live in Italy now. And besides, I haven’t been working since December 2008. Nevertheless, after consulting other Singaporeans living in Singapore, I decided to just fill it up online anyway. After all, through experience, it shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.
So I went to the Inland Revenue of Authority Singapore portal and see that I needed to log in using an IRAS pin. So I asked my brother, “Bro, can you check the mail for me? You should see a one time use PIN”
“Oh no. There isn’t one” He answered. Thus I thought to myself, “Not a problem, I can log in with Singpass. But since I’ve forgotten it, I’ll just have it reset”
It was easy to reset it back in Singapore. All I had to do was to head to a community center and ask for a reset. But since I’m overseas, the only other viable way needed 4 working days to have it snail mailed to my Singapore address.
Not a problem. I thought to myself, “Seems tight, but if all goes well, I could do this a couple of days before the end of the month“. Thus I asked my brother to please help to text once the new password has been received. I emailed IRAS and Singpass for help, just in case.
28 Aug
4 days has passed by. No text messages and no emails from anyone, I started to feel worried. And what made it worse was that for some reason, I started to have keyboard issues. And to top it off, my mob phone just died! Just like that.
It really didn’t help the situation with my electronic things making a pact to die like that. So I called back home. Mum picked up the phone and I asked if there were any mail for me.
“Oh yes! You have a mail from Singpass”
“Can you tell me what the passcode is?”
“s39bHsZE. Small s. Thirty nine. Small b. Big H. Small s. Big z. Big e”
“Oh! Ok! thanks!”
I tried to log in.
“You have entered an invalid SingPass ID or Singpass”
I tried again. And again. And again. I started to feel frustrated.
So I stopped.
29 Aug
The next day I called back home again.
“Oh sayang, what’s wrong?”
“It didnt work mum, can you tell me my password again?”
“s39bHfZE. Small s for Sariah. Thirty nine. Small b for Bakar, Big h for Haikal, small f for fish. Big Z for Zainuddin. Big E for Elephant”
“Oh! No wonder it doesn’t work! Thanks, I’ll try again!”
And thus, I tried to log in. Unfortunately, I left the log in page idle too long during the phone call, so I got a time out. I closed the browser and tried again. And to my horror, I saw this message in frighteningly red letters.
“You have one last try to login successfully. If your last attempt is unsuccessful, your Singpass account will be locked”
I started to panic. Even more so when I found out that I would be fined $300 dollars if I did not file the tax form. I hoped to have the log in count cleared the next day and crossed my fingers that it’ll work then.
30 Aug
So the next morning, I tried again. I took a deep breath and keyed in. Unfortunately my worst fears came true.
“Your Singpass has been locked”
And I went into hysterics and I called my brother, screaming and shouting.
“I ASKED YOU TO HELP ME! I TEXTED YOU! I MESSAGED YOU! WHY COULDN’T YOU REPLY BACK. I’M PANICKING RIGHT NOW! I’VE ONLY ONE DAY LEFT NOW! IF I RESET MY PASSWORD AGAIN, IT’LL TAKE ANOTHER 4 DAYS!”
Several hours later, it was already getting close to midnight in Singapore. I started to lose hope.
I started my browser and see a new email by my brother.
“Your singpass is as follows, s39bHfzE.” Not s39bHsZE.
Update : Yay! On the suggestion of ntt, I called up IRAS and now I have a 2 weeks extention!
Since the beginning of the internet, Emails are an integral part of life be it for work or for play. It makes it so easy for communicating with people. Type in your contents and click the send button and that’s it. It would be unspeakable to take away emails from daily life.
But there are days when I just cant stand looking at my email. And just to be clear, I’ve received many nice emails and has had nice conversations and went on to become friends to even meeting them in real life, which is really nice.
Sometimes there are a conglomeration of people who email me the same questions. While its not so bad once or twice in a span of time, it does get overwhelming when it gets back to back. Its like back when I was teaching computer applications to a group of kids, and the situation inevitably becomes like this :
Me : Okay kids, click on this button and you can make a circle. Try it!
Kid1 : Miss Marina! Miss Marina! Is this how you make it?
Me : That’s good
Kid2 : Miss Marina! Miss Marina! Did I do it correctly?
Me : Yes dear
Kid3 all the way to kid40 : Miss Marina! Miss Marina! Miss Marina! x 100
Me : Sigh
But in the end, that’s not so bad because although annoying, that these kids don’t mean bad and instead, genuinely interested to learn and get information. And throughout the years, I learnt to be a little more patient and understanding because its just better that way. But what are the biggest thing that really ticks me off is rude, demanding, and tactless people.
Example 1 : Dear Marina, could you please tell me how to _____ ?
I take precious time out of my busy domestic goddess life to reply back to you, and give you information. And that’s the end of it. The end. Nothing heard back from you. Not a “Oh hey, that worked!”, “Sorry Marina, I think that its too far for me”, “Thanks for helping me out, I really appreciate it!”
But no, not even a thank you. Would it kill you to have the courtesy to reply back to give feedback?
Example 2 : GIVE ME FREE!
Ok. So let me get this straight. You want to use my photo that I have taken to be used in a commercial website but you want my watermark removed, you don’t offer payment, or at the very least, not even a credit back to this site?
The answer is no.
Example 3 : I want you to do link exchange with me!
Did you even read the sites that you go to before putting your copy and paste text in their contact page? Is it so difficult to do a search on who the blog owner is? And is it so difficult to type our their name to make a little bit of a semblance that you give a crap.
No Scott, I am not interested. And if you took the time to read a few pages of this blog, you’ll see it is completely unrelated to your site.
But this guy that I’m going to show you really takes the cake.
Exhibit 4 : The creepy spammer
He starts off being a blog reader, putting his comments in blog posts. I thought that he was an eccentric, but mostly a harmless, retired man living in California. Then he started to use my contact page and eventually, I gave him my email address for easy communication.
And then he started to put comments like this :
And in the emails :
He tried to add me on facebook :
All of which I’ve ignored since he’s already has lost my trust. And not content that I’ve been ignoring him, he starts to spam me instead.
This is so creepy, its not funny! He compares me to my blog-mate Claudia constantly, he spams me even though I’ve already asked him to stop, and having known my email, he stops commenting on the blog post and instead EMAILS me his comments about my blog posts, and even my TWITTER! It is as if he has something to hide by not replying to the sites directly.
The last I’ve heard is that he’s been bothering other Singaporean female bloggers too! What is with this guy?!
Thank goodness there is a block function on gmail and facebook. I’d probably go ballistic without it.
I know I don’t usually rant in my blog, but you know, I’ve had enough!
I did a video blog about Pupa cosmetics last year, but I thought that I’d just blog about about them again Cart and I were at Castel Romano not too long ago and I think that no trip there would be complete for any mekap lover not to visit the Pupa Store. And I got me some lippies! I wouldn’t call them haul though, its not like they are SO heavy that they need to be pulled. So I don’t understand why mekap guru’s keep calling them hauls.
Anyway, Castel Romano, being an outlet store, the Pupa cosmetics sold there are way cheaper compared to the ones being sold in regular stores because the items were mostly out of season items. It really didn’t mattered to me though, it was still lovely! And with the month being the sale season, I just went crazy on getting a few things there. It was really cheap affordable.
First in line is the Brilliant Lipstick – Shiny Lips in 03
I quite like the simplistic style of the lippy. I appreciated that the bottom part being coloured as it gives me a preview of what colour the lippy will be and saves me the hassle of having to open the cap and see what colour it was inside. It was sold for 2.90 Euro while I was there, which makes it such a steal!
Putting it on, I love how very natural it looks on my lips. There is a hint of pink, but its not overly barbie. While you could see some specks of gold in the lippy itself, you don’t really see it on your lips. Instead it made my lips have a healthy shine.
In this picture, as well as the rest, I’ve used Michelle Phan’s Neutral Beauty tutorial by the way. And I love love love this look! Its the look that I’ve been sporting a lot lately. It makes me look natural but still polished.
Next is the New Chic Lipstick in 01
Excuse the stain. In my haste opening it for the first time, I smudged it a little. Urgh! I bought this accidentally, mistaking it for another colour. I didn’t really want to get this as the colour looks quite similar to my Kiko Red Emotion Satin Lipstick.
By the way, the case looks pretty elegant doesn’t it? With it being all gold and all, making it look more expensive than it really is. It was actually 3 Euro when I bought it so I didn’t feel too bad about the mix up. The only odd thing is that this lippy has a screw on top. So the first time I opened, I didn’t realised it and kept pulling the top and hence the smudge. Oh well.
Putting it on, it looked instant sexeh! Comparing it with my Kiko lippy, while both are red, this lippy is a bright and shiny red. A very eye-catching shade. Probably perfect to seduce a man.
And next is the New Chic Lipstick in 02
This is a really fun colour! Opening the tube, you can definitely see the speckles of gold in this lippy! And like the previous lippy, this was 3 Euro too.
Putting it on, it’ll make your lips a nice wash of peachy-coral pink and gold. Disco 80s! I feel so much like Farrah Fawcett doing her Carlie’s Angel thing while wearing this. I think its lovely for a summer beach look
And finally, this is the New Chic Lipstick in 54
I didn’t think that I’d love this colour, because from the tube, it looked very dark. And I’m not into those Goth/Emo dark lips look. But when I swatched it on, it didn’t looked too dark, instead it looked very wearable! This one was the most expensive of the 4 lippies I bought that day, but at 4.80 Euro, it was still a good deal.
I really loved how it looked like on my lips. Its looked sexeh and flirty and fun! And definitely kissable. Definitely not like what I expected it to be
By the way, what’s interesting about this lippy, and probably what’s making it slightly more expensive is that, there is a mirror inside. Making it quite convenient when you have limited space in your mekap bag.
Here is a swatch of the lippies in daylight. And all the pictures of me wearing my lippies are in daylight by the way
From left to right : Shiny Lipstick in 03, New Chic lipstick Precious Edition in 01, New Chic Lipstick Precious Edition in 02, New Chic Lipstick in 54
None of these lipsticks are drying by the way. I could put them on for hours and my lips doesn’t crack or feel dry or anything like that. Which is awesome because I have awefully dry lips.
With this, I probably wont be buying any new lipsticks for the next 2 years or so. I’ve so many nao
Cart looks smashing in a baju kurung and songkok doesn’t he? He’s a bit shy to wear it here, but for sure I am going to wear mine and show all of Roma, Italia my nice baju kurung with pride 
