my grandmother

My maternal grandmother's lungs are failing and she has difficulty clearing her phlegm. Every hour, the nurses at the nursing home have to insert a tube down her throat to suck up her phlegm, which makes my grandmother feel nauseous. Once the phlegm is cleared, her throat then becomes very dry, hence she feels very uncomfortable. So she will groan in pain until some phlegm is produced to moisten her throat. She will feel better for the next 5 minutes. However, more and more phlegm is produced and within 20 minutes, she will have difficulty breathing again. When the phlegm reaches the top of the throat, the nurses will repeat the sucking process.

And all the time, she cannot speak properly because her throat is either arid or phlegmy.

It was so so painful to watch.

My grandmother is a devout Catholic. When she could still remember dates before she was diagnosed with senile dementia, she never failed to go to church early every Sunday morning, sit at the first pew and say her Hail Marys before Mass began. She took her Holy Communion and asked the priest to bless her.

When she was first sent to the nursing home, she was so sad she couldn't go to her church anymore that she cried (even though she was senile and didn't know what was going on). Thankfully, the nursing home had Catholic Mass and the nurses wheeled her to the chapel every week. Even as her condition worsened and she forgot everyone's names, she never forgot that Holy Communion is to be left in the mouth until it melts.

Now, she lies in bed every day, is tube-fed and a tube is inserted into her throat every hour. She no longer takes Holy Communion because she cannot eat anything anymore.

Lord, please bless my grandmother and keep her safe, happy and healthy.

italy

Lovely photos from italy:

Vatican
st peter's basilica//the ceiling inside which forms the dome//egyptian obelisk//a swiss guard! (he was too far for me to see if he was cute)

The Vatican was breath-taking. As a proud believer of the Catholic faith, I was awestruck by the buildings and all the images, statues and paintings inside. When I went into the prayer room to say a prayer, I broke down and cried because the feeling was so intense and I was so thankful that I had a chance to step into the Vatican. I thank the Lord (and of course my parents who paid for the trip) for this chance of a lifetime.

Rome
me and daddy at the colosseum//fountain of trevi//the pantheon//bernini's fountain of four rivers under maintenance at piazza navona (did a priest really die there that's why??)

I love the Eternal City of Rome for its ancient ruins and cobbled streets. It's amazing how you can actually track through the entire Dan Brown's Angels and Demons in Rome. Unfortunately I only read the book after I came back from Rome. Yes yes, Wendy is so slow... :(

Leaning Tower of Pisa


Florence
me and daddy with the lovely view of florence//statue of david//santa maria cathedral (it is so huge I couldn't take a picture of the whole church)//signoria square

Florence is a beautiful and picturesque city and its main highlights are the statue of david, the huge santa maria cathedral which is made purely of carrera marble and its signoria square which houses all its famous marble statues in the open air. Nothing much to shop though. It is only a small and cosy city.

Venice
the waterways of venice//doge's palace on st mark's square//me with TONS of pigeons on st mark's square//gondolas

and of course...
me, mummy and our cute gondola man :D

I LOVE VENICE. It is so so beautiful because of its unique waterways. Thankfully not as smelly as I thought it would be. St Mark's Square is full of pigeons and it was so so cute looking at little caucasian kids running around trying to feed them. It was just really funny that I watched 007 in the plane while coming back and the entire building in St Mark's just came crumbling down. I was like, "Hey, isn't this where I went?"

Verona
apparently, rubbing juliet's breast brings good luck.

Nothing much in Verona. It is merely overrated because of Romeo & Juliet and all you do is rub Juliet's breast for good luck and check out her house and pretend to be Juliet at her balcony where she cried her well-known "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo" in Act 2 Scene 2.


Milan
gothic cathedral



Well, obviously I didn't take that many photos here. I had a greater calling above. And the silly tour guide only gave us 1 and 1/2 hours to shop. Like HELLO? I need 1 and 1/2 hours to check out maximum 3 stores in Singapore, let alone Milan!!! So we only managed to go to Prada, LV and Zara (Which is so not worth going. Prices are the same as singapore. Don't waste time. Go H&M instead). The sales people in the luxury shops only serve one customer at every one time, which makes it SUPER SLOW. It is good service no doubt, but when you have a time limit of 90min, come on, that stupid customer is just admiring the bag and will take another 5 minutes staring at it. Just find my shoe size for me! When you come back I am sure she is still not done staring at the bag.
I also wanted to buy a genuine Italian jersey but guess where it is made in? Thailand. I love my boyfriend, but seriously, Thai-made Italian jerseys which cost SGD40 more in Italy than Singapore??? No thanks. And I checked. The Italian jerseys in Singapore are made in Turkey. hmm...

Lake Maggiore/Stresa
mummy and daddy//me with the boat captain//captain wendy//an island in the lake

This must be the most beautiful lake I have ever seen in my life. Doesn't that island look like some place where they would shoot fighting scenes in lord of the rings or star wars that sort?

I love Italy. If I had the chance to go again, I would go to Rome and Venice once more and MILAN to shop for an entire day. Luxury goods there are average SGD100 cheaper PLUS we as tourists get 12.5% tax refund, which is damn bloody a lot if your LV bag costs 500euro there and SGD1300 in Singapore.

Ok I am done with Italy. Will post the Swiss photos soon!

zodiac

Went to manhattan fish market for dinner with tris and savoured its orgasmic tiramisu. It is AMAZING. Please please try it. They put less cocoa powder on top now, which is less shiok because you don't choke on the powder anymore (which is what a good tiramisu should do), but the creamy cheesy thingy inside is still ups.

Watched zodiac for free thanks to The New Paper. Thankfully, we didn't have to pay for it. It was so so draggy... ... Although it was 2 and 1/2 hours long, it felt like 4 hours. If you wanna watch it, I suggest you leave the cinema once one of the partners leaves the investigation team. The movie has a pretty cool website though. Check it out here if you are really free and have nothing to do while interning at some firm. =p

bebe

nice dresses from bebe:

silk waterfall halter dress


silk lollipop print dress


silk trim sleeveless dress

I WANT. Why is the bebe GSS only 10%??? boo... :(

tris' birthday

It's Tris' birthday today! :)

First we went for lunch at jack's for their lobster bisque and not very nice main courses (the standard is really dropping at a tremendous rate). Their baked potatoes have skins of old women, shrivelled and dry. Then we went shopping!!! Bought a pink skirt from mango. lalala...

After shopping we went for a 90min spa treatment at pan pacific at a ridiculously low offer of $128 per couple which included a body polish and swedish massage. Thank you Starhub for the voucher!

Then it was 'surprise' time! Well, it was supposed to be a surprise birthday party but thanks to a very good friend who gave the game away, tris knew about it :( Anyway, it was fun eating at aerin's raffles city and I hope everyone enjoyed themselves!

Thanks to ying for initiating the party, and everyone else for coming down: daryl, khel, yalan, mag, zhenliang, maurice, kong, kyle, pet, wins, waimun. Special thanks to adrienne who came down even though she was not feeling well. I hope you are feeling better! :)

Happy 23rd birthday babypoo! I hope you enjoyed spending almost the entire day with me. hahaha... I wuv yew!

tris, yalan & mag//waimun, pet, khel, kyle, tris, kong//everyone!!!//me and tris!!

tris photo-whoring with his cake

welcome to the bitch club!

true religions

It's the Great Singapore Sale and what better way to herald it than to go SHOPPING and BUY CLOTHES!!!

I finally got my two pairs of true religions at 30% off:


Johnny Big T urban cowboy


Johnny dark grey

Wendy loves the GSS. :)

Hi all

Hi hi!

Wendy is bored bumming at home so she decided to set up a blog for all to see!

Enjoy! :)