HAPPY DAYS :-)




In a super-cute message left on my blog a couple of days ago my puddin' Petra pointed out that I finally look happy and that my mood has changed for the better. In fact this is a really happy phase for me and I truly feel that i am in a really great stage of my life. 2006 was a series of ups and downs, happy and sad, breakdown-tears and laughter-tears. Life for me felt difficult but i had incredible support from my family and my close friends and i realise that i owe you all a big THANK YOU for being there for me and being so supportive and so caring. You help me be who i want to be! That kind of encouragement doesn't grow on trees! :-P

Hong Kong is just lovely and I'm having such a great time catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. I feel like i am re-discovering myself so that must be a good thing right?! I know that great things lie ahead. (Afterall the old-bearded man who lectured me at the airport said that after my 24th bday it's a green light so off i gooooo!) So lots of new things lie ahead but most importantly you should know that i will never forget my roots and the people i left behind are always present in my thoughts. My heart jumps when i receive an email, read a sweet comment on my blog or when my mum calls and says 'Hi Pupetta!' :-) I am so grateful that even though there is distance between us you are still there for me.

I love you all! xxxx

P.S...Pe you said your message was corny? I think i just beat you! :-P

You may call me ... Martha Stewart!

Long, tiresome day here in the provincial town of Tuen Mun.

Our morning started off sitting on the couch, sipping tea and watching a group of chinese ladies doing their morning exercises. Seriously this is hilarious.. I never cease to amaze myself at their weird habits: I got over the chicken feet, their loud screeching voices and their weird dress sense... but the exercising?... I mean how can they possibly believe that swinging their arms from side to side for half an hour is gonna do them any good?! I know what you're thinking... ''at least they're doing something.. so it's always better than nothing'' ... but pleaaaaze ladies get your act together!! ... i don't see the benefit of tapping your hands on your head or walking backwards. Do they even break into a sweat?! Whatever happened to unconventional stretching!?

Sharon joined us for dinner so I decided to spoil the girls with a little maltese cuisine! I cooked 'mqarrun' which for you non-maltesers out there is a baked pasta with a meaty sauce. I also made a trifle for dessert ... sponge cake topped with cooked apples topped with custard and chocolate pieces. In all modesty.. it all turned out quite nice! I actually had a great time preparing all that as it kind of filled my afternoon! I also got my other housewifely duties done .. picked up the laundry ran errands, did the shopping! Candace and I also went to the gym and did our daily run! (Yes there were ladies there too doing some seriouuuuuus exercises)! Give us a break!

Dip Me In Chocolate Babeeey!

Last night Candace introduced me to the most diviiiiine invention ever!
Our night started off at a Vietnamese restaurant which is quickly becoming my favourite eatery in Hk! After a delicious dinner we headed to a quiet bar in Soho where we had a glass of wine topped with lots of girly talk! A couple of hours later we went in search of a place which Lilly recommended highly!

The place goes by the name of 'Feather Boa' and it is actually a kind of 'secret' bar because the entrance is just a plain-old looking door with no sign so you could walk right past it and not even realise there's a heaven of goodies in there. It's very Alice in Wonderland style: From the bleak Hong Kong pavement you step though the door which on the inside is draped with heavy gold curtains. Step through the curtains and you are transported into this Renaissance-like place : chandeliers, deep gold draped ceilings, candlesticks, paintings... and the best part... the most delicious drinks ever!! We ordered a strawberry daiquiri which is served in a martini glass which is dipped in chocolate!!! So when you sip your drink you first taste the delicious sweetness of the chocolate layer on the outside of the glass mixed with the delicious sweetness of the strawberry daiquiri! Soooo divine!! Candace was devotedly and shamelessly licking the chocolate off her glass while i was trying to be more subtle and ladylike!! hahaha youre embarrassing lilly!! :-P Well... we will definitely be back next time for the chocolate martini's with maltesers! Eeek! I might just lose my ladylike manners for that one! ;-)

Lazy Dayz!

Im really enjoying this! I wish I never have to start work! Candace is gonna have to drag me out of here when my visa is done!! hehehehehe! Most of the day i laze around, use the internet, eat, watch tv - Wait... before you judge me you should know that i run too!! Today i ran for 45min followed by stretching, pilates and weights! I'm getting back into my gym routine.

My friend Suzy who i met in Singapore sent me some pics from New Years Eve..so here they are!


The Persian Queens!! Me and my friend AyseguL!


Its raiiining! We picked up this guy in the street - We screamed ''Where you going?! Come with us!! Just come with us!!'' hahahaah he must have thought we were crazy!


Louise and me - singing away into my chinese tambourine...yes now you know who made all the noise!!

Heyyy Lillyyyy! :-)

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day! Words cannot describe how much fun i'm having spending time with Candace and even though we were friends before I think we have never been as close as we are now!

First things first: My visa update! So basically I got a call from the school saying that immigration department are having some trouble recognizing my documents so I had to go to another department that accredits foreign documents. This process whould take about two more weeks and after that my visa will be issued and i will finally start work! So i guess i got another two weeks of holidays which i'm sure will pass quickly since Candace and I are always finding things to do to keep ourselves busy! The GREAT news is that i found out which school i'll be working at, aaaaaand the area is Hung Hom in kowloon!!..and i am very pleased about that because it is extremely central. For my friends back at home I have prepared the map below to give you a better idea of what i am talking about!



The blue spot at the top is where i lived in 2005..that is basically close to the border of China. The pink shaded area is the centre of Hong Kong which is basically the area around Hong Kong harbour. The red spot is where ill be living this time round!! :-) The green spot is Tuen Mun which is where Candace lives. More great news is that I will be working in an International class which means that i will have my own class of kids for the whole day whereas with the chinese classes i would go from one class to another and give 20min lessons. I'm glad to be in the International class because i feel like i can build a better relationship with the kids. I'm looking forward to that.

So yesterday after rushing around to get some errands done, Candace and I headed to Soho (which is like a restaurant/cafe area) where the plan was to relax and people-watch. This turned into a couple of glasses of wine, a nice dinner and lots of laughs! After sitting there for a couple of hours Candace was all ''Lets go dancing!!!" so we dragged ourselves a couple of streets to the bar area of Lan Kwai Fong, which to our surprise was pretty happening for a Monday night! We sat and continued our people watching..pointing out who's cute and who's not (very Paris Hilton style)...and calling everyone 'lilly' cos thats all we've bee doing lately! (I'm introducing Candace to bits n pieces of maltese culture.. right lilly?! :-P ) We met these two guys from Switzerland and Austria but are actually half chinese, and we chatted with them for an hour or so! Candace got the cute one whereas i got the boring one! (You biiitch Lilly!) Anyways we finally dragged our asses home and because of another late night we are now lazing on the couch in lazy-mode!

I need a couple of quiet nights in Lilly! :-)

P.S Other highlights of the day..
1. discovering Starbucks' steamed milk with caramel flavour!! Deliciouuuus and not as fatty as the creamy frappucino's! Bye bye Frappi..this is an end of an era!
2. doing my impersonation of Sarah Jessica Parker in 'Sex in the City' walking the streets of New York with her Starbucks Latte! All i need is a pair of Manolos!!!
3. Oh baby.................. ................. when you talk like that......... inspired by Shakira... DONT ASK!! Cheers Candace!! :-D

HELLOOOOOOO LADIEEEEEEEEES ;-)








Candace, Sharon and me

Memories of Malaysia !! :-)

Finally i got my photos developed and though i've got lots of them here are just a couple that sum up my Christmas holidays!



The beaches in Langkawi were just amazing and peaceful! Below is a pic of my room at the hostel and my hammock! ooh i miss you hammock!







The fascinating tea plantations in Cameron Highlands and a butterfly garden...pretty poetic lol!



For my friends at home, a run down chinese shop..not quite like the Metro we know in the heart of Paceville!!

A couple of days before leaving Malaysia my friend Aysegul and I decided to get pampered and get our hair 'fixed'!! We thought it would be hilarious to have 'before' and 'after' pics so here is the result!!

Inspired from Candace's blog... here is an analysis of 2006!

1. What did you do in 2006 that you had never done before?
Ran my first half marathon! :-D

2. Did you keep your New Years Resolution and will you make more next year?
I never make New Years Resolutions! I am pretty perfect as is haaaa ;-)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No luckily!

5. Which countries did you visit?
Paris, London, Belgium, Malaysia, Singapore... not bad for one year.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
More independence, more enthusiasm for life, more understanding of myself.

7. What dates in 2006 will remain etched upon your memory?
1st January - New Year with my two best friends
29th January - a lunchtime fenkata with friends with lots of wine and laughs!
22nd March - a night out at the Opera with Woll
28th May - ran my first 20km race with my sister Giulia
19th November - a grassy picnic with Woll, Letizia & my dog Pippo

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting fit and healthy... learning spanish (just basics..long way to go)... learning a bit about running a business.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not a failure per se... but obsessing too much about travelling and leaving home

10. Did you suffer illness for injury?
No thank God!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
my ipod player (yes im a sucker for ipod accessories)

12. Where did most of your money go?
I saved a lot of it actually! haaa what a nerd!

13. What did you get really really excited for?
The day i left home for Malaysia.. i was so nervous my tummy ached and kept running to the loo! I was more nervous than the first time round..maybe because i had a better idea of what i was going in for.

14. What songs will remind you of 2006?
'You're Beautiful'..ad nauseum...Madonna's new album Confessions on a Dancefloor...'Let the Sunshine' ... 'From Paris to Berlin'.

15. Compared to this time last year are you...
happier or sadder? - happier
thinner or fatter? - more or less the same
richer or poorer? - maybe richer

16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish i socialised more!

17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
I wish i hadn't date so many hot guys... Yeah right hahahhaha

20. How did you spend Christmas?
I spent Christmas on an island in the north of Malaysia...lying on the beach and eating watermelon!

22. What was your favourite TV programme?
Desperate Housewives!! :-)

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didnt hate this time last year?
No..usually i'm the queen of arguments but i guess i had a pretty quiet year! :-P

24. What was the best book you read?
memoirs of a Geisha

25. What did you want and get?
I wanted to travel again... and i got it...

26. What did you want and not get?
A digital camera... been postponing it for years!!must get one this year!

27. What was your favourite film?
Hmmm... cant think of any...

28. What did you do on your birthday and old were you?
I turned 24 and i had a great night out clubbing with friends

29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
Nothing personal... but i loved patterned tights and badges!

30. Who/what kept you sane?
My parents, my sister, my closest friends and hard core workouts at the gym were my stress relievers.

31. Who did you miss?
My Hong Kong friends - Mark, Candace and Cassidy!

32. Who was the best new person you met?
Not completely new..but i hung out with my old school friend Sara who i hadnt seen probably since school! it was really great to get to know her better and i hope we'll be travelling together in a few months.

34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learnt in 2006?
The best things in life are not things.

From Kuala Lumpur-Sticky to Hong Kong-Cool!

I loooove winter!! I wish it were winter every day of the year!!!!! (Ok this is probably just a phase..ill be moaning for summer soon enough!) HELLO HONG KONG!! It's so great to see you! And it's sooo great to see Candace again! And it's so weird not to see you Mark! Hahahaha! Well here is a re-cap of the past few days...

Since my last blog i spent a few days in Kuala Lumpur with my friend Aysegul which was great fun, even though it was my 3rd time back in KL and it just seems to be the stickiest and hottest place in the whole of Malaysia so i'm not too keen on it. I decided to fly to Hong Kong even though my visa is still not ready, but Candace was nice enough to take me in (thanks girrrrl :P ) so I looked into booking my ticket and discovered that the cheapest way would be to fly from Singapore!! So back to Singapore i went! Said goodbye to Aysegul but really looking forward to seeing her next month when she finishes her Southeast asia trip in HK, and boarded the bus to Singapore. Now..i know you're on the edge of your seat waiting for my usual bus tale but unfortunately (and weirdly) i have no scary story today!! I arrived in Singapore and dragged myself (and all my luggage) to the airport. I left my luggage there and headed back into the cty to kill time and have some dinner in Chinatown which turned out to be delicious and probably the most amazing meal of this whole trip! At about 10pm i returned to the airport..bought a nice chocolate shake and my usual travel magazine and settles down quietly at a cafe. My flight wasnt until 6am so i had a whole night there!

After a while this old man with a huge white beard (he looked like an Indian father christmas) sat at my table and began to eat his rice. He was chucking it into his mouth and rice was flying everywhere but it was mostly sticking in his beard. I was watching him from the corner of my eye and trying not to laugh! Eventually he caught my eye and smiled and then leaned forward and said 'tell me when is your birthday and i will tell you if you are lucky'... so i told him...and he sat and analysed for a while...and then said that 22 is not a good number because it adds up to 4 (2+2) and anything that adds up to 4 is a bad number ...ie. 4, 13, 22, 31. Anyway... basically he explained that by 'bad' he means that it is the most powerful number and that i am a 'power' person - he said that i have a strong character, that i often do things blindly, that i am hot-headed and arrogant. I dont think that i am arrogant but the others i guess are right. He told me that after my 24th birthday the green light will go on and i will start to make advances in my life .. which is quite interesting considering I decided to travel again just around my birthday. He also told me that the man i choose to marry must correspond with my power number 22..and for that i need a man who is gentle and good-natured...which supposedly should complement my strong-nature. My man numbers are 1, 10, 19 and 28 (they all add up to 1) so i guess my first question when i meet a guy will be 'when is your birthday!'

Well after my fortune-telling episode i had a long, sleepless night at the airport but finally boarded my flight at 6am and practically passed out with sleep even before take-off! I slept through most of it and landed in Hk feeling dead tired but strangely excited to be back! Candace was there to meet me at the aiport and it was great to see her again! It was all a little surreal...i guess it felt like when i returned home and i felt like i had never been away...and now it feels the same way except that it's been 1 yr and a half since i left HK but it feels as though time stood still. It also feels strange that Mark is not here because he was the person closest to me, so meeting Candace again i was almost half expecting to see Mark again too! Mark, you must be laughing so much right now...Get back on a plane and come to Hk...its weird without you!!! Lol!

What i do know is that its definitely a good feeling and i am excited to start work and get settled in! Today Candace and I went into the city and did some shopping!! I bought a sexy white wrap-over shirt and a stunning pair of pink shoes that i am sooo in love with and i got on sale for like lm8 from lm38!! I also talked Candace into buying these lovely 60-style shoes she had been drooling over for months...so there you go...2 pairs of shoes= 2 happy gals out on the town next saturday night!! ;-)

Welcome aboard the Cockroach Express!!

Why am i so unlucky when it comes to bus rides? The last time i boarded a bus i had to deal with a pukey-child...but this time round we had to deal with cockroach infestation!! EUGH!

Goodbye Singapore I'm gonna miss you! I have to admit that it was definitely one of the highlights of my holiday, mostly because i had so much fun in the dorm room with the other girls!! Yesterday evening my Turkish friend Aysegul and I boarded the bus to Kuala Lumpur but after 5 minutes that we got on we realised there were these little baby cockroaches crawling everywhere!! We were jumping on the seats and slamming our shoes around but the rest of the bus was full of locals and they didnt seem to care much!! They were probably thinking 'crazy foreigners'!! Anywhere these things were everywhere and we were really freaked out about them so we kinda cooconed ourselves in a sleeping bag and slammed shoes around everytime we spotted one. Aysegul begged the bus driver for a spray or something but he kept telling her 'Sorry I am...Sorry I am!' and alas we had to live with it! According to the bus station we had to arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 6am but our driver must be a distant relative of Schumacher cos we got there at 3am!!! So we got a taxi to our hostel but we didnt want to pay for a room which we would sleep in for half a night so we decided to sleep on the sofas in the lounge area of the hostel! After about 30min the guy felt sorry for us and gave us the key to a double room and we didnt have to pay! YaY! :-)

So today we woke up in Zombie mode and decided that we needed to pamper ourselves so after a late lunch we headed to the hairdresser and got a colour and blowdry!! Aaaah bliss! I havent had decent-looking hair in a whole month!!We also had a good laugh by taking 'before' and 'after' photos so hopefully i'll get those on here sometime soon! I also got an email from HKsaying that they are checking about my visa status and they should get back to me tomorrow, so hopefully that might be ready soon, and alas that will be the end of my holiday here!

Hi 2007!

Happy New Year everyone!! :-) I dont have any new years resolutions to tell you about because i am pretty perfect and there is nothing about me that needs to be changed! HaHa (i'm expecting a lot of comments for that!)

Well 2007 kicked in quite nicely here on this side of the world in the beautiful city of Singapore. As i said in my previous posts i've been having a really nice time here and have met some really nice girls in my dorm who i've been hanging out with. Until yesterday evening we were still undecided how to spend the night but we just hang around at our hostel and had a couple of drinks and then walked to the esplanade which is the Times Square of Singapore! Of course we got there a bit late and there were crowds of people so we couldn't get to the proper esplanade but we still had a great laugh!! On the way there we even gate crashed a party at this old colonial building called Raffles Place and had the legendary 'Singapore Sling' cocktail... can't visit Singapore and not have a Singapore SlinG!!:-P

We were surprised that the locals that were gathered at the esplanade were not so hyped up about the New Year (in fact they were staring and taking pictures of us because we were the ones making all the noise!!) There wasn't even a proper countdown ...just seconds before midnight this lady on a microphone was saying 'think about your family'... 'think about your friends'...'now we'll have 1minute silence' (??!!??!what is somebody dead??!!?!?) and after 5 seconds the fireworks went off and we figured it was midnight! HAHAHA Weird!!
After that we walked to another popular spot where we stopped at a few clubs and then for something to eat. my roomies from Germany, Turkey and England

I hope you all had a nice start to the New Year! My New Year in Singapore was nice and i hope i can keep up this tradition of having a New Year in a different city (2005-Hk, 2006-Paris, 2007-Singapore...perhaps 2008-Tokyo?!) i wish! ;-)