But yep before I begin the long post, I present to you, ladies and gentleman, Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This, my friends, is a must-read. If you've spoken to me recently I'd have recommended it to you already! Anyway, I bought this from the book fair at Suntec a few months back and it was the only copy on one of the ulu bottom shelves where no hands hardly ever roamed. So happy to have found it! By the time I finished the first few pages I already knew I was going to love the book and true enough, at the end of it I thought it really took my breath away :) Love the old fashioned narrative and Carlos Ruiz Zafon is truly amazing at describing places/things/people down to the most intricate details. It was originally written in Spanish I think, translated into English by Lucia Graves. You know a book must really be something when it's been translated into 40+ languages! So to all bookworms like myself out there, mark my words. Get your hands on a copy asap and you won't regret it! There was never a dull moment and the storyline was so wonderfully crafted; an absolutely perfect mix of mystery, romance, horror, politics, humor, and tragedy, with numerous layers of interwoven stories that piece the main puzzle together like a brilliant work of art, the most intriguing characters, and excellent twists where you least expect them :) Hadn't been this captivated by a book in a long while. Anyway I just finished another book by the same author called The Angel's Game! It's supposed to be the sequel, but after reading it it seemed more like a prequel to me than anything although it was written after the first book. (No major connections between their plots though!) It was not bad, typical CRZ style with equally polished language, but somehow I still prefer the first :P 

Next up, The Meaning of Night and The Glass of Time (sequel, sort of) by Michael Cox! 

So excited to read them yay, 2 super thick novels that will probably take up a lot of my time, but I'm praying hard that they won't disappoint :) Hee I've pretty high hopes for these 2 books after reading some great reviews online! And from what I see from the blurb, seems like I'm in for another wonderful ride :D Haha sorry for being so bookwormy lately, I figured I probably wouldn't have this much time to read anymore over the next x years :(

OKAY enough about books hee before I bore you to death. Time for highlights of the past 2 weeks!

1. Elsa and Sandy, my best friends in 2006 from Taipei European Schools came to Singapore to visit Daniel and me! They'd been planning the trip forever and finally it happened. Hadn't seen all three of them in years, literally! Elsa for 5 years since late 2007, Sandy for 4 years+ since mid 2008, and Daniel for 3 years+ since early 2009 if I remember correctly. I was a little apprehensive about meeting them for the first time in donkey years but I'm glad our meeting(s) went well :) There were some awkward silences here and there but that's only understandable. HAHA and it was funny because Daniel and I had to convert from our usual Singlish hahaha otherwise they wouldn't have been able to comprehend us, but we soon got used to speaking in non-Singlish anyway. Mmm I guess we've all changed significantly in our own ways. Gone are the days of hyper/silly/retarded convos and doing stupid things together, but I guess that's all part of growing up :) I do miss those days quite a bit, but sometimes memories of how hyper I used to be do make me cringe slightly hee! But those were good times, really :)

Anyway, went to fetch them from the airport with Daniel on 3 August and they could barely recognize me! Sandy sort of did though, and omg Elsa brought like a whole variety of currencies and spread them out at me like some fan because she didn't know which one was SGD HAHA ahhh Elsa's still Elsa beneath all the superficial changes :) then Daniel drove us back to his place where the two stayed for the entire duration of their trip, which was, I think, 4 nights. Turned out his sister had some friends (both overseas and local ones) over for a nice gathering with her family, so we just sat down and sort of made friends with them after a quick tour of his new house hee they were really nice people!

Day 2 I met them at MBS for dinner! Daniel the fail Singaporean brought them to Marina Bay MRT station instead of Bayfront (Y) Took forever to find each other when they finally got to MBS, and only had about half an hour to finish our dinner (some platter thing we ordered at a Mediterranean restaurant) in the end before we had to rush off to catch the water show at 8:30pm.