CY@CY Says Welcome to my dreamscape. Where a Lim is also a Ling.

About a fortnight ago, I was at Popular Bookstore when I came across four books that piqued my interest and I ended up buying them. Two of the books, “The Bridegroom” and “The Crazed”, are written by Ha Jin, the National Book Award-winning Chinese-American author for the novel “Waiting.” The third book is “Chinese Cinderella” by Adeline Yen Mah, a ...

January 30 was a beautiful day in Tokyo. As we stepped out of our hotel at about 9am to begin our fifth day in Japan, we could see that it was a sunny day with blue skies. We went to Coffee Room Renoir Ginza not far from our hotel for breakfast. After breakfast, we walked to Daimon Station where we ...

January 29, our fourth day in Japan, was a Sunday. We were up quite early and hit the streets near our hotel in search of a place for breakfast.  The streets were eerily quiet with little traffic and few people.  We decided to have breakfast at Precious Coffee Moments.  We took our breakfast to the first floor so that we ...

On our third day in Japan, we travelled to Asakusa, arriving there at about 9.10 am. Asakusa is one of the main sightseeing spots in Tokyo. It is where the traditional meets the modern Tokyo. There are many small little alleys with unique shops, and is particularly famous for Sensoji Temple. Asakusa offers an experience of the sights, sounds and ...

On our second day in Japan, we took a bullet train from Shinagawa Station to Odawara. This is the first time in my life that I have ever travelled in a bullet train. From Odawara Station, we took a normal train to Hakone-Yumoto Station, the gateway to Hakone.  We spent a bit of time in the vicinity of the station ...

Shibuya is the shopping and entertainment neighbourhood with everything: classy shopping boutiques, wide range of restaurants, hip bars, world-class night clubs, unbeatable record shops and mind-boggling neon signs. Shibuya, Tokyo’s most colourful and busiest district, is a centre for youth fashion and culture, and its streets are the birthplace to many of Japan’s fashion and entertainment trends. The intersection is ...

On my second day in Singapore at the beginning of this month, I visited Jurong Bird Park alone while my wife and my son Leslie went shopping. A visit to the park has been on my bucket list for a few years so it felt great to be able to tick off that item on my bucket list. I bought ...

After our Japan trip, we stayed in Singapore for three days. On the first day, we made our way to Gardens by the Bay to visit the Flower Dome. During our last visit to Gardens by the Bay a few years ago, we only visited the Cloud Forest as the Flower Dome was under maintenance at that time. Gardens by ...

During our trip to Japan in the last week of January 2017, my son Clarence booked tickets online for the Robot Show at the Robot Restaurant in Kabukicho – Shinjuku’s red light district, Tokyo. Initially I was not gung ho about the show, thinking that it was for kids. When Clarence told me what the show is like, I was ...

Clean, polite, safe and cute….these words are often used to describe Japan. So during my family trip to Japan from January 26 to the 31st, I thought I was prepared for all these. But I found myself bombarded by a “kawaii explosion”, getting caught in a severe case of cuteness overload. The word “kawaii” literally translates into “cute” and symbolizes ...