Bevlyn Khoo

I am such a lazy bum huh! Takes me ages to blog this part 2…but I hope you enjoy these pics nevertheless (part 1 here)!

So the other exciting part of my holidays is Lisbon, Portugal. Portugal sounded exotic to me, I didn’t do much research on it before I went, I just knew I wanted to go. Maybe that was why the random discoveries were more amazing:

(L) We arrived at Lisbon on 18th Jun late evening and dined at a nice small local restaurant at 10pm. I decided to get this fish rice dish because seafood is big there. Interesting smell and taste but there was really toooo many small pricky bones! (R)The next morning, we woke up to find all the cars parked nice and proper right outside our hotel (and everywhere else actually). Lisbon is such a clean, organised and tidy city! The only weird thing we discovered was….there were many old people, which is actually quite uncommon for a capital city?

And I nearly went nuts when I saw this…..purple flowers blooming under the blue sky!!

Lisbon is famous for its tile-walled buildings…it’s so cool isn’t it?

And from the pic below you may see the St George Castle (5th century) of Lisbon at the background (click here for more pics within the castle):

(Above) 25th de abril bridge @ background - This bridge is built by the same company which constructed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco! So it’s like a sister bridge; longest suspension bridge in Europe too

One of my favourite moments was to just sit on the grass, observe the grass and nice insects crawling and flying around, bask in the sun. What a dread to have to rush to the next destination when you’re on holidays.

(L) Random postcard I really like (my friend pointed it out to me, actually)! (R) Incidentally, we bumped into a lion dance team from Macau - it was the Festival of Macau!

(L): Love love the feel of this view. (R): Rossio Square with blissful scene

(L) Lunch - yes sardines look like this before they are mashed up into cans. (Tooo) Many bones too! (R) Oriente metro station - reminded me very much of Spore actually…

Ok more coming up. We went to a music festival that evening and we bumped into a musician who looked very very much like Harry Potter. I’ll post his pics/videos soon :p (Meantime more pics not blogged on this page here)

I’ve been quite down recently, but this joke cheered me up a bit. Here’s sharing it with you!

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The pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won.

The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and it won again.

The local paper read:

PASTOR’S ASS OUT FRONT.

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.

The next day, the local paper headline read:

BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR’S ASS.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey.

The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent.

The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day:

NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The bishop fainted.

He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10.

The next day the paper read:

NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild.

The next day the headlines read:

NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE.

The bishop was buried the next day.

The moral of the story is . .. . being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery . . even shorten your life.

So just be yourself and enjoy life.

Stop worrying about everyone else’s ass and you’ll be a lot happier and live longer !

Have a nice day !

So 11th Jul 2010 was a mad day for me. In preparation for the performance, I woke up really early for the makeup and the hair, which was kindly sponsored by Jit Huey from The Makeup Room. I have to say she’s the best makeup artist I’ve ever had!

(Jit Huey from The Makeup Room)

And I’m happy to finally be able to use this birthday gift for a performance. For a good cause too!

(Jixiang and I)

I am thankful to each and everyone who came down specially to catch the performance and support this event (you know who you are!). As I’d said (in my facebook invite), I know at least 1 person with a kidney disease who had to undergo a kidney transplant, and I know how stressful and financially draining it is. It’s really heart-breaking though I’m not a victim of this disease. If you know someone with this disease, you’ll know how I feel. So thanks to the new NKF for inviting me to be a part of this very worthy cause!

Great to see this cute handsome boy (+ pretty mum) among the crowd!

(Michelle and I!)

After having a sumptuous lunch, I took a short break before going to GC saloon to have my hair touched up by Edward. He’s been my hairdresser for the past couple of years….he’s goooooood. If you wanna find him, he’s now at GC Saloon, Orchard Midpoint, #04-13 (Tel: 67333417). He’s the one to go to, especially if you have scalp problems (ok ignore the tatoo, he’s really a very nice man).

And then off I went to Compass dinner, which is the annual affair for all composers in Singapore. As spastic as it seems, I often hope that terrorists would not bomb the Swissotel on the day of our annual gathering because that would mean an instant disappearance of our local pool of composers/musicians. Ok, or so I’m mad.

L-R: Dean, Kewei, me, Matt

The first time I’m attending this dinner with the S2S Family.

OK so I’ve been back for 1 week, so maybe it’s about time I share some photos and my voyage!

My Europe trip was packed, with great views + nice friends to catch up + random friendly people (+ horrifying incidents which I may share if I have time)… I was most pleased to catch up with some friends, and also to experience for myself the change from Spring to Summer (i’m curious cos it’s summer all-year round here), and of course La Fete De La Musique (Music festival)!

So I bunked in with a friend who lives very near to Notre Dame, so I walked by this area really often…it’s cool, but after some time, it became too busy and crowded for me cos there were simply too many tourists (the pot calling the kettle black haha).

On the first day there, I went to my favourite corner of Paris, Montmartre. On the way near Sacre Coeur, I saw this lovely couple performing and I was so thrilled. They even performed ‘La Vie En Rose’ without me requesting!

And I had a good time looking at the paintings and all sorts of creativity at Montmartre (and fighting off artists offering to paint portraits of me for free). Then I chanced upon this artist, and I like his work very much. It’s charming that he actually painted for all to see at that time:

Anyway, I was walking so much for the whole trip, there were times I just want to do what the bird did (above). My poooor feeeet!

On the 3rd day, I went to Versailles! I’d been to Paris on other occasions, and this time round, I made sure I do a visit there. I dedicated 1 whole day to it yet I could not finish touring because it’s simply humongous! This is really one of the days when I wish deep in my heart that someone can plonk me and my heavy bag on a cart. The scenery was really breath-taking though:

(Above) The castle at the back and the nicely designed and trimmed garden.

This fountain is not even the middle of the whole area…See how it stretches on and on…

(Above) I really love the flowers…a lot of heart and thought and efforts must have gone into making this so beautiful.. (Below) And these are cute huh! (yes I live in a concrete jungle, deal with my silliness)

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I wish I had more time to just sit there for the whole afternoon, or do some canoeing and picnic… (below)

This room is kinda cool with the harp and the antique piano (I’d want it minus the scary mirror and the curtains). I’d speak with the King later in my dreams

Anyway I just want to say that angels are disguised as old gentlemen in France. 2 stories to support my claim:

1) When I was on my way to Versailles on RER C, I didn’t know I had to change my train to another. I was happily shooting video inside the train, then suddenly an old gentleman called out to me “Versailles!?” “Il faut que vous changiez le train!” (It is necessary that you change the train). I just blindly followed him and be led to the connecting train. Imagine if I didn’t meet him….and he was so nice and friendly to me!

2) I decided to go to Pere Lachaise to visit the tomb of Edit Piaf, and I actually forgot to take a map at the entrance. Initially I thought “Hey i can do this! i have sorta memorised the tombs’ locations!” And I was soooo wrong. After 10-15mins, I realised I was totally lost. And just when I was about to drag my feet back to the entrance, an old man spoke to me from behind. To cut the long story short, he was so nice to offer to be my personal ‘tour guide’ so that I don’t go back to get a map. He took me to the tomb of Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and some others. I realised I missed Stephane Grappelli’s one!

Tomb of Edith Piaf: I’m really happy I paid my respect to her….And this one is Oscar Wilde’s…with a lot of kisses and ‘i love you’ by his fans…

It’s funny because at the start of the conversation, he told me he lives ‘à coté’ (beside), and I imagined for a split second which tomb he’s ‘living’ next to. I’m crazy…

And ta-dah! Some of the albums I bought…hihi:

Will upload more photos sooooon!! This is probably only 1/3

So I’m back in Paris again, and this time round my visit coincides with the World Cup again. What with the buzz going on, my attention was really on meeting and catching up with FRIENDS, and, FOOD:

The food I had been dreaming for the last 4 yrs - Kebab

Maybe it’s just a kebab…but if you know any other kebabs which beat this, tell me! (btw the kebab is as big as my face)

And, my french friend Dim is so nice to bring me to a nice French restaurant, and the duck confit is to die for (in my opinion). Everything is just right and balanced (the skin, the meat, the juice, the fat):

And the dessert Ile Flottante (Floating island) as the name implies:

It was really a very enjoyable evening (minus the jetlag):

And another friend invited me to this nice restaurant called Bel Canto. What’s so interesting is, the waiters and waitresses break into song(s) in between your bites, and everyone stops talking/eating to look and listen at the performers. The waiters/performers we had that night are all professional singers (as opposed to some of the others who are music students), and the arias they did were simply breath-taking!!

Ok, more updates later! France vs Mexico tmr!

The Eclectic Palate Party organised by Select Group is really cool; first off, I like the fact that it’s a boutique hotel, hence it’s furnishings are really unique and colourful. And from level 27, this is what we see:

Yes yes, I like it cos I seldom see this view! Check out the tiny containers!

We were invited to be the live band, and we brought on a fusion of English, Mandarin, French, Japanese songs for the guests who were savouring all the good food that evening…check this out:

And, other than performing with a full band setup (my fav), I really dig taking photos with these peeps:

Kristen (from S2S) and I

Fabian, me, Shawn and James (Melvin was hmm…somewhere else!)

And my favourite pic:

I honestly have no idea why they feel the need to ruin the picture……

And yes I love how my hair is bunned up, I think I’m gonna do this more often for my future gigs heh. All thanks to Anthony Hair Boutique the sponsor. Muack muack to Amanda at Tampines 1!!!

And this, is so breath-taking

I like today!

“It’s like graduation day for you; after seven years of erratic Uranus in your sign, you are finished studying at the School of Unexpected Changes. Today, Uranus leaves fishy Pisces to enter enterprising Aries and your 2nd House of Self-Worth. You are beginning a long-lasting phase when you can improve your self-esteem and find ways to increase your income. Start by setting new goals at work but remember that the improvements will not happen overnight.”

Everything is timed…Everything in its time

I totally agree with her that there’s no way one can explain how one genuinely writes a song….More often than not, it’s a passing thought which is captured…and if I am under the right conditions to continue be absorbed into it….a song is born.

And this is such a powerful song, and of course sung by a powerful and very convincing singer…

If you prefer the lyrics version:

I stumbled across this song by Fergie…and I think it is really a beautiful song. Beautiful vocals, beautiful emotions, beautiful words, beautiful melody, beautiful arrangement.

Finally

Now my destiny can begin

Though it will have a different set

Something strange and new is happening…