It's not easy to be The Sartorialist

My friends, Ayse, Toton and Haryo launched their new label TOTON at Blueprint fashion fair last week. I love  the details on their embroidery works and the spunky accessories.  

http://totonthelabel.com

Toton wanted me to try my favorite piece from the collection and do some styling on my own for their facebook page. I thought "YES, this is my first stepping stone to get on The Sartorialist ".

I chose a teal top with embroidered sleeves and combined it with my mom's batik.


Just before the sunset, we went down to Clarke Quay for the shoot. It's not easy to look like a natural sartorialist. Scott Schuman is darn good.


For a start, there is no way I'm crossing any bridge with those shoes if I have my way. Let alone looking graceful in them.

And this one says "I may be in heels and batik sarong, but if you mess with me, I'm gonna hit you with my sturdy little purse".

Let's see how Photoshop can save me.


In the meantime, check out the rest of TOTON collection on a real model at http://totonthelabel.com.


Like them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TOTONthelabel or follow them on Twitter @totonthelabel

The Great Fall of Singapore

I badly hurt my right leg 3 times in the past 3 months. I still can’t decide which one was worse. To burn my leg on a motorcycle exhaust pipe, to step on a rusty nail during holiday or fall in the middle of a busy road in Singapore. I can imagine the faces of certain friends shaking their heads disapprovingly.

In an uneventful Tuesday, I tripped over my flare pants while I was crossing Siglap Road and fell flat on the asphalt road. Luckily the card drivers saw me fell and stopped their vehicles. I could see car bumpers coming to my face. My knees bled, bruised and swelled. I cut my right palm and toes on the asphalt. So that day was eventful after all.

I’ve been limping my way around Singapore with my (still) stinging wounds, since. I found this place not very injured-friendly. The train doors close to quickly for physically-challenged people to board during peak hours – the only time I need to use the train. The train is very crowded that other passengers hit my wounds several times and because they couldn’t see my wounded knees, no one bothers to offer me a seat.  The red lights on the main roads don’t stay long enough for me to cross without forcing the work of the injured legs. I had to climb a set of stairs to take my Tiger flight while carrying my luggage. It was the death of me. Luckily a gentleman offered to carry my bag. 

I come to appreciate facilities available for the disabled and respect the disabled for overcoming the hardship of living in the world made not for them.  

The Royal Lao Adopted Family Photo

This is how I ended my stay in Lao - with a BANG.

The highlight of my last weekend in Vientiane was to gather with other peeps who like fun random activities, dressed up like Lao Royal Family members and did a photoshoot.

Inspired by Patricia, who had previous experience of dressing up as royal family member in various Asian countries, we went on a hunting for a photo studio which:

- has English speaking staff, so they understand when we say "this color makes me look a member of the jungle", "can I pose with the sitar?", "I'm Lao next top model" etc.

- Has a decent collection of Lao traditional costumes

- Offer competitive pricing

So on a very very hot afternoon, we gathered in an express digital photo studio across the old Talat Sao and the travesty began.

Being the sole male royal member for the shoot, Tim's preparation was the quickest. He was transformed from a Georgian boy in yellow shorts to a Lao Prince Charming in less than 10 mins. So he had sometime to check out the props.

A Lao prince don't usually wear pink cowboy hat

whattup?

  Our prep was fairly quick as well. We had similar themes, with different colors and hair dos. Sarah donned green, Patricia was red and I was a purple princess. Sarah wore hair extention, Patri has coned hair, I had a head wrap.

Green Princess in the making

They gave us specific royal-like instructions to pose. To assist with the photographer instructions which were not in English, we helped each other by translating his visions such as:

• Now stroke your luscious long lock while thinking of the man you love
• Bring those legs up and show them who da man
• Show your musical talent by pretending to play the sitar

Our imaginations were way better than the photographer instructions.I'm sure. 

The results as follow.

Pricess Sarah of Marseille

Princess Sarah of Marseille

Gubrakk 2

Gubrakk 1

Princess Patricia of Madrid

 

The Royal Family

THE TRAVESTY/I DANCE

Apparently the word Travesti in French and Travesty in English have different meaning. The former means tranny or cross dresser while the English one...hmm it's not that different then :p
  
My friends asked me to show them a little bit of Balinese dance at my farewell party. Well, it was only Patricia and Guilheme to be exact. So I perfomed a 2 minutes bit of a Balinese welcome dance (ironically at my farewell party).

Being the majority at the party, the French has kindly put together a short performance in return. So following a dance which techniques took me over a decade to master, the French performed this very entertaining can can dance. Okay,this one is Travesty.

Deenu summed the performance very well "And you wondering why the guys thought you were gay?".

I love you guys. This vid never fails to make me LOL.

Travesti/y is one of my favorite words now. in English and French.

Travesty dancers

Best lines I've heard in Lao

I haven't heard a Lao conversation, or having a conversation in Lao, for 3 days now.
I feel a little lost :p

But I do remember some of the best lines (or the most ridiculous ones) I heard around me. Such as:
 

“Nothing  good can happen in Vientiane after 3am”
A friend declined an invitation to continue club hopping at 3am.

“You’re the most high-so person in Vientiane”  
A comment addressed to me which I replied with PFFFT.

“Viscious”
A French friend said after realizing her croissant is not made with pure butter, while the person next to her is having one.

“Registration starts at 5.30am”
An invitation to an event organized by Lao Ministry of Health. 

“How do people get some intimacy here?”
My flatmate philosophical question after we stayed overnight in a traditional Lao house in a remote village.

“No Beer Lao, No Cry. No Visa, go to Nong Khai”
We came up with new lyrics at 2am.

The story of a travelling watergun: the day it took a bus ride from hell

I always remember Guillaume's story about a local bus he took in Lao some years ago. Together with some chickens and smelly fish sauce dripping on his shoulder. Euwgh.


So when I was stuck in a 10-hour bus ride from hell to Thakek in Central Lao, I thought to myself I rather have fish sauce dripping on my shoulder than going through the experience.You see, Pakse to Thakek are supposed to be 6 hours away on a civilized bus.So we spent 4 unnecessary hours in our lives on the road.


The faithful day started with us dripping wet in broad daylight from a Pi Mai new year's party in Pakse. It was held in a friend's family house. We arrived at the bus station late (and wet) because everyone at the party was too drunk to take us to the station while the sober one took the car for a drive in the city, with our luggages in it! So we had to wait until the car came back.


The bus was about to leave when we got to the station. We chose to buy a ticket on a local bus because it's half the price of a VIP bus and it leaves in the afternoon, while VIP bus leaves at night. BIG MISTAKE. The local bus carried more people that it should because it's Pi Mai period. The Laotians were travelling back to their home town. We stopped in 3 different bus stations to pick up more passengers in a bus which already had 50 people over its maximum capacity. The air con couldn't keep the heat away, children crying, old people caughing, drunk man sleeping on top of rice sacks (yep there were rice sacks on the alley and a half naked drunk old man) and Lao karaoke songs blaring from the speakers.

The doomed bus

The bus stopped 2 hours into the trip.Everyone got off the bus. We saw a technician working on the machine while other crew started moving our luggages on top of the bus. Half an hour later there was no sign of us moving on with the journey. I was taking pictures of some piglets by the roadside, squeezed inside a small rattan cage, when a pick up truck full of more piglets zoomed in and parked next to the bus. The next thing we knew, our jaws dropped and we were watching in HORROR as piglets after piglets were loaded inside the luggage room of our bus. What the heck is going on?

Half an hour later, we're still in the middle of nowhere and the idea of travelling with pigs for another 6 hours just sanked in. The crew finished loading the pigs, the truck drove away, we were getting ready to go back into the bus WHEN the same pick up truck came back FULL of GOATS.WHATTTT?

Goat stinks.Just ask the lady...

Here's what Sarah's think of her mobile farm experience.

We resumed the journey half an hour later with a bus chocked full of passengers covering their noses. And then there was a fat sweaty man came onboard in the middle of the road and took over half of my seat for 3 hours.


Lesson learned: plan your trip in Lao around VIP bus or sleeping bus schedule. Pay the damn fare to avoid the nightmare.

The story of a travelling watergun : Pakse & Champasak Part 2


Pakse day 2 and second day of Lao New Year. The water fight was getting more verocious.We were off to visit some water falls around the Boulevan Plateau and were prepared to fight back on our 38km motorbike ride to the sites.

The people of Pakse, young and old, were out on the street that day. Drinking beer Lao, throwing buckets of water at passing vehicles or parading on pick up trucks while simultaneously doing the first two activities.

We first arrived at Itou waterfall after lunch. Having been shot with mud water by a bunch of children. damn. So I shot the first bunch of children I saw at the waterfall.

Itou was an amazing scene of water travelling down at 200km/hour from over 20 meter high. I just stood there for a while admiring it. The water was perfect for swimming. But the tree branches under the water gave me many scratches.

On our way to Champi Waterfall, a group of teenagers shot us with colored-liquid. Creating patches of fungus-like purple, green and brown on our tops. Luckily I wore this ridiculous t-shirt that I got at a gift exchange party. The stains won't go away.



But Champi's beauty worth the battle going there.