A Puppy Shoe and About Air Tickets

Here's a pair that I customized for ming:

Got a call last night from my friend, Justin who's currently back on holidays from studying law in London,. He bumped into Jayrius at Pioneer Station, the second most western stop on the East West Line of Singapore's MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) Network. Having heard that I was planning to go to the UK to "pak tor" (his exact words - hokkien slang for "to go on a date") called to tell me about the fantastic promo fares that this particular airline of our neighbour's. Where seats for a flight from SIN-KL-LON costs only S$800 plus all inclusive, I was just only able to check it out now having been out for almost the whole of last night. Alas, everything was sold out.

We are now eagerly awaiting the reply within the next 7-10 days from a HUGE airline. Let's hope it's a "We are happy to offer....." reply instead of "We regret to inform you" reply. That would be a piece of real good news ain't it?

I just had another thought yesterday, if an airline is committed to flying X number of flights a week to a destination, in this current economic situation, wouldn't there be more empty seats than usual? And what real cost is there? An empty seat could stay empty, or it could be a marketing opportunity for them at near zero additional cost. I wonder how these big management people really think sometimes, perhaps there are also other factors that's holding them back. If the industry is booming and everyone is traveling then, yes, there is indeed an actual opportunity cost to giving up a seat, but if you are flying with empty seats.... I'm just puzzled. =)

Of Rising Oil Prices, H1N1 & The Financial Meltdown

One relatively huge Airline company recently replied to say that they were unable to sponsor a ticket for Will Travel For Love, citing the rising oil prices (to US$142.00 per barrel at the time of reply), the H1N1 impact on global travel impacting their business, as well as the effects of the Financial meltdown on the company which resulted in drastic cuts to their marketing budget where no new marketing initiatives or sponsorship could be supported if they were not previously budgeted for.

Considering the Airline comes from the same place where Oil and the mega rich can be found, it must have been serious for them to make such a statement.

Let's think about this for a moment:

Assuming the rest of the industry reacts the same way as this airline does - to cut back on new marketing initiatives and budget. Wouldn't there be a creation of a perfect landscape for ONE company to take the initiative in seizing this opportunity to reach out to potential consumers without having to compete with other industry players by having to shout the loudest in the cluttered, noisy, advertising saturated space. Let's face it, Cost of Full Page Color Print Ad in the Straits Times (in good times or bad) vs Cost of One One Air Ticket. That One Air Ticket would generate more goodwill, warm fuzzy feelings than any full page color ad could - at a cheaper price too.

It would be a huge mistake as well for industry players to readily subscribe to the belief that because the overall outlook isn't good and less people are traveling, they have to just accept it as an unchallenged fact and accept their fate. From what we see, it's almost like a case of trying to be on the "right side" even if it means going down. You know, at the very least, if they keep insisting that it's ALL these factors to blame and there's nothing one can do about it, when they unfortunately go down, they can always point the finger outwards to the various factors and say, it's all because of the oil prices, h1n1 and financial meltdown.

In any case, Will Travel For Love happens in June 2010. That's in the near future. Unless Air Travel gets replaced within one year......by teleportation!

Cartoon Animals on Shoes!

Dear Friends and Readers, this is a Photo Post! For those of you who are viewing the update through Facebook, please click through to the blog! www.willtravelforlove.blogspot.com

Here's two cartoon animals painted on shoes. What's your favorite animal?

More Shoe Designs - The Blogger Shoe

Dear Friends and Readers, this is a Photo Post! For those of you who are viewing the update through Facebook, please click through to the blog! Better still be a follower =). www.willtravelforlove.blogspot.com

Here's an open admission of something I got wrong: The sizes for the first pair of shoes I got her was wrong! It's the UK and US size difference and I finally got about studying shoe sizes after googling online for the conversion charts. Well, this mistake simply means that I have more reason to get more canvas to practice on!

This is the Left shoe of the Will Travel For Love Shoe (in the wrong size):

The Blogger Shoe:


I will post up more shoe designs tomorrow =) Stay tuned for the cute ones.

Shoes Anyone?

Dear Friends and Readers, this is a Photo Post! For those of you who are viewing the update through Facebook, please click through to the blog! Better still be a follower =). www.willtravelforlove.blogspot.com

I personally just realized how long the blog name is and probably worked a few calories of the fingers each time I type out the blog name in the address bar. I realized because I was trying my hand at painting out the words on a canvas shoe.

It has been a quiet week for Will Travel For Love blog, I've been exploring other creative experiments to keep my hands busy. I now present you......... Customized Shoes!

It started out with doing something for myself:

My plain old white canvas shoe was well used and torn, so I decided to buy another pair and make it a little less boring, painting in blue bordering in a simple design. It struck me as a fun personal project to invest a few hours into when the brainwave struck on Thursday. So on impulse, I got the white canvas shoes and paint (there's this story of how I got the wrong paint and had to go back again on Friday which I won't go into), while I justified the purchase as a need because my old white canvases were giving way, I suppose the real reason is that I wanted to experiment =)

I was relatively happy with the way the shoe turned out, because I wanted it to look clean cut with simple blue and white combination - something I would wear, but at the same time, I was left with the nagging thought that I'm too clumsy with a brush and they seem to be too soft to draw firm lines.

And so, today after a morning Tennis and Squash session with my sister and her boyfriend, I popped by a nearby craft store, hunted down a pair of shoes in Ming's size... and....







And yes, I think some of you may see this before she does, because I'm posting it up before showing her hahaha. Actually, after I showed her the blue one, she did say, "we could customize shoes to fundraise!"

What's your say people?

I personally think that the best way for us to do this for fundraising would be for you guys to tell us what preference of shoe type / brand / size you want. i.e. North Star, Converse, No Brand types.. and then we can customize the design upon your request. Possibly, This Will Travel For Love Design if you are in the mood for it or perhaps something cutesy, like cartoon animals and stuff... I can do cartoon cats and dogs pretty well =)

So anyone want to buy a pair?

Cost of Shoe (depending on brand and type) + Customization Fee (per pair S$30 onwards depending on color, complexity, size of customization??)

Any one can advise on what's the best manner to price them? Perhaps, a base fee for the creative hours in designing plus a flexible component where you pay depending on how much you love the design?

Tell us what you think!

Dear friends, if you are viewing this post in Facebook, please go to the actual blog posting at: www.willtravelforlove.blogspot.com because There Is a Photo to be Viewed! =)

Okay, here goes... We were thinking of what fundraising item we could potentially give away to friends who may want to help or contribute towards making Will Travel For Love a reality. We came up with the idea to make mini cutesy Will Travel For Love Cushions to fundraise.

The idea sounds simple but trust me, not being much of a tailor and not having given much interest to Home Economics lessons in Secondary school, there was plenty of experimentation with material, and means of holding them together, experimentation was costly but it's part of the process to try and improve the end product to make it look better and see if we could make the production of the cushions more efficient, without having to get it factory produced (we wanted it handmade so that it would be more sincere and we would actually have to work for it.) At times it got a little frustrating when the result didn't turn out as planned because of either poor workmanship and lack of skill or due to the lack of proper materials. The above isn't the best yet and we hope to fine tune it till it will be something we won't be embarrassed to give away to fundraise.

We need your help by telling us what you think of this, whether you would actually buy these for yourself or to give friends!

If you have ideas on how to improve them or better make them, do let us know as well. And more importantly, what do you think these cushions should be priced for it to be a reasonable price? Do tell us!

Which Brands Will Travel For Love?

For those who are viewing this post on facebook, head over to www.willtravelforlove.blogspot.com to read the full post. =)

We started the finger work of searching for Brands that will travel for love with us by looking at brands that we both love or are current consumers of. It would make more sense for us to look for brands and products we already have a degree of fondness for or a fair amount of familiarity with, because after all, it would be a fantastic opportunity to further grow the existing consumer -brand relationship already in place.

There were plenty of possibilities and hunting for the contacts, contacting them and waiting for their reply was an exercise that bore a mix of excited anticipation where one would constantly refresh the email in hopes of getting a reply (a futile act really if you're talking about it's direct relation to the number or rate of replies) and it's share of mild disappointment when no reply is heard out or when a polite rejection is conveyed. It would be nice to throw in some declaration of joy soon when the first brand decides that they Will Travel For Love with us.

For companies that have replied although declining participation, we appreciated them taking the time to do so - at least we can move on (as with any relationship I suppose where some one gets rejected hahaha maybe it would get personal? Just kidding eh.) Most cited or implied it was the fault of the bad economy while others are fully committed during that period of time. (but we aren't asking them to be faithfully ours and ours only.....guess they took their parents advice of you can love a lot of people in your lifetime but make sure it's one person at a time way too seriously)


Here's a guide to how to reject people:
These emails generally are polite and will inform the recipient that careful consideration has been taken before arriving to the decision, then proceed to cite a reason - i.e. economy or management or lack of money or fully committed to other events / sponsorship for the remainder of the entire year. Lastly wish the recipient best of luck in their project despite being unable to support, thereby implying graciousness.

Well, at least they took the time out to reply and that alone we are pretty thankful for, after all well wishes are better than nothing right?

It is our hope that we would receive more positive responses so that we can actually share tips on how to accept people soon. =)

Got idea which brands to contact? Comment away!

Got a personal contact or know someone from marketing and sponsorship who may be able to help? Gmail us at WillTravelForLove (at) Gmail (dot) com !

That's What She Said!

Hiya Friends!

Just a quick note to those who're reading this via the facebook feed: the full post is available @ willtravelforlove.blogspot.com =)

On to the post!

Since we first began publicizing the blog on saturday, many of my friends have approached me with excited well-wishes accompanied by some very brilliant (and funny) ideas. One of them said that she and her friend immediately thought of Nokia's ad after reading our blog. With an inspired hand-gesture she deftly linked our project with Nokia's catchphrase and proclaimed 'Will Travel for Love! Sponsored by Nokia - Connecting People'. We're both Nokia users so our first reaction was 'If only... *sigh*' .

Other friends have had some ideas for the places we should visit. A few of them left their comments on an earlier post which asked for suggested touristy destinations (Thanks!). One British friend of mine, a classy, leggy Londoner, suggested Brighton! She was very enthusiastic about it. Apparently it's very cool (exactly as Jane Austen would have described it) and has it's own lengthy tourist's carnival pier and funny old buildings. One very old building apparently looks like a mish-mash of Oriental impressions, so it has Taj-Mahal-ish domes standing on  strange un-English pillars etc. The pier is full of fun-fair type games you can play and spots where tourists like to take funny pictures. It extends a long, looong way into the sea. I really want to go to Brighton now... Scarborough's another option but Brighton sounds cooler to me.

Then her boyfriend started talking about Dublin. They went to Dublin together last summer and enjoyed themselves very much, so I guess it must be a relatively romantic place. Apparently Dublin is full of must-see literary museums, art galleries and beer/whisky breweries. And, of course, Dublin is in Ireland and the Irish have the most melodic, beautiful accents ever! I think in an accent-off (the accent version of a dance-off) the Irish and the Scottish would be tied in first place!

She also listed in brief the non-High-Street markets in London which are good for shopping. As any good South East Asian knows, the regular Singaporean spends approximately 30% of their spare time watching movies, 30% eating or looking for new places to eat at and 30% shopping (the remaining 10% is spent on occasional artsy hobbies like theatre-going or rare forays onto the beach or nature walks/reserves). So you can be sure that we'll be doing some serious budget shopping and eating on our trip when it happens! London's beginning to sound like a good place to concentrate lots of our efforts... 

Another British friend of mine, a pretty, petite ballerina, told me I had to see Oxford and Cambridge. Actually, I believe both of them might have recommended Oxford and Cambridge to me. For personal reasons, she was biased towards Oxford (I'm under the impression that if I've seen one I've seen them both). The old, almost-antique universities are worth a trip down to see and if the weather's right we can go punting! When I first heard of punting I thought it was some obscure form of golf or cricket but no, it's basically boating. I've a friend from Cambridge who told me about how, one summer, he punted right into a shoal of skinny-dipping old men... ok, I think we'll be going to Oxford.

I'm very sure many other people have suggested other places to me but I'll leave it for now and post things up as they come to me =)

Do Young People still have a thing for The Beatles?

View the full post at www.willtravelforlove.blogspot.com and feel free to comment!

These songs were created more than four decades ago, they became number one hits before most of us are even born. Yet, it is not uncommon for people of our generation (those born in the late 80s to the 90s) to have heard, sang along to, or even fell in love with some of these popular Beatles' tunes. Stefanie Sun aka Sun Yan Zi did a cover of Hey Jude in her 2004 Album titled "Start". In 2007, Across the Universe, a Julie Taymore movie was a visual spectacle which used songs by the Beatles to tell the Love Story of Lucy (Rachel Evan Woods) and Jude (Jim Sturgess) And soon, in this upcoming September we would see the launch of The Beatles - Rock Band, a video game on multiple platforms by the creators of Rock Band.

We know all of you are generally aware of The Beatles, you know they have mop-hair cuts, you've heard of and probably know the lyrics to their often heard songs like Yesterday, Hey Jude and I wanna hold your hand.

We both quite like "All My Loving" perhaps because it speaks to the part of us being away and missed, and perhaps it was because we watched Across The Universe together and this song got stuck in our minds.


All My Loving was released on 7 February 1964 and recorded in Abbey Road Studios, London, United Kingdom. Abbey Road was also an Album Title and the zebra crossing at Abbey Road was used as a backdrop for that particular album. See here if you don't know what it looks like.



We would like to do a crossing of our own at Abbey Road and if possible sneak a peek at the Recording Studio, after all, it's not just the Beatles who has recorded there. Artistes who have recorded at Abbey Road Studios include MGMT, Oasis, Keane, Spice Girls, Kayne West, Gnarls Barkley, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morisette, Snow Patrol, Robbie Williams, U2 and Mika.

It also served as recording studios for films such as the Harry Potter film series, Inkheart, Lord of The Rings Trilogy, Shrek and many others. Are these not reason enough to at least go down to Abbey Road and take a look for ourselves? And we think it may be fun if you could actually catch us on the webcam that Abbey Road Studios installed here. Perhaps we can test if it's really "live"

And above all that, I think sharing a birthday with John Lennon (Oct 9) might just be good enough a reason to pop by Abbey Road. What's your favorite Beatles Tune or which artiste do you like who has recorded at Abbey Road Studios before?

Staying connected with you guys will be expensive - so says my service provider

I gave the customer service department of my current mobile service provider some work to do, by asking them what my options are in terms of staying connected to mobile and Internet services while on the go and here's the reply I received.

We note that Pay As You Roam (PAYR) service is active to your mobile
number 9XXXXXX6. Please know that there is an additional 20% applies
on top of prevailing roaming charges applicable to PAYR customers.

Please be advised that Roaming Data charges are separately payable
and are exceptionally high. The rates differ among the different
providers in different countries. As such, please exercise caution if you intend to use the Data plan overseas.

This is the precise reason why we figured sponsorship is important, because I've learnt a lesson with my previous service provider where I racked up a $650 intercontinental phone bill where my calls roamed from UK to Singapore and to Taiwan. And that was for calls only.

If sponsorship doesn't work out, any one has any good ideas what are the cheap ways for us to stay connected easily while traveling in UK and Europe? Is there free or cheap mobile broadband plans for short term usages or are there Internet Cafes around certain parts of town that we could check out?

As of now the my current mobile service provider has rejected sponsorship after having evaluated my request carefully and regret that they are unable to support, as they have a lready committed to a number of sponosrship initiatives during that period and wished us every success for our project.

Well, well wishes are better than nothing =)

So much England so little Time

London, Edinburgh, Dundee, Manchester, York(!), the Lake District, Cambridge, Aberdeen, Liverpool, Blackpool, Belfast, Glasgow, Cardiff, Leeds, Birmingham, Brighton, Oxford, Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, Devon, Newcastle, Windsor, Canterbury, Dover, the Isle of Wight, Cornwall, the Cotswolds, Nottingham, Skegness....

The United Kingdom's WAY too big!! Little Singapore is 710.2 square kilometers and you could cross the whole island lengthwise in 2 hours. Us two Singaporeans wandering around the United Kingdom by ourselves for the first time is like pouring two goldfish from their tiny round bowl into the University of York's toxic Lake... 

What is Singaporean can be adequately summarized into a wikipedia article of sufficient length.. but what is 'British'? If someone, anyone, out there is actually reading this, give us your suggestions please! We want to know where in Britian you think it's absolutely Essential for us to visit and why! Even if it's somewhere you've never been to before yourself =) Myself, I want to go to Bath and meet Jane Austen, she's still there, isn't she? Either that or go into Nottingham forest and hunt down Robin Hood. 

All contributions will be so much appreciated that if we do manage to get ourselves to wherever you've suggested us to go we'll take a special commemorative picture just for You =D

Something that sounds rather similar to Will Travel For Love

Sounds really old school =)

Ming told me about the existence of this song and I found it on youtube.

Listen for this part of the song:

Well i might take a boat or i’ll take a plane
I might hitch hike or jump a railroad train
You’re kind of love drives a man insane
So look for me walking just a any old way.

The above sounds more like an adventure if I were to do it that way, I think it will take more than one month just to get to the UK! So I think I'll stick to the plane for getting there, jump in a train from Manchester to York and walk about and around the place instead! =)

Dawn

People normally wake up feeling hungry and uncertain. Then they get some breakfast, remember their day's schedule and the whole day gets properly started.

This project I'm embarking on now feels to me exactly like a morning. I'm hungry for it to work out a success, yet I feel so uncertain as to which way it will go. Like any day in anyone's life, it could dawn sunny but be monsoon-soaked by afternoon. The right word for how I'm feeling, I suppose, is 'trepidation' because it has the right mix of fear and worry implied within it. Yet, the very fact that I'm posting these words up right now must mean that I feel hope despite all my 'trepidation'. 

I suppose it's a trait common to the female kind. The closer something is to our heart the more afraid we become for it. Anyone studying overseas but in an ldr but understand that feeling: the wish to bring the person missed to the place where he/she has been most missed. As if that act would make up for all the times they've been missed and all the aching loneliness once felt would be erased and annulled. It is the most satisfying feeling any person who's missing another person could feel. My parents have visited me a couple of times and each time the joy is so complete that I'm almost glad to have been apart from them just so I could appreciate them more wholly. 

From the moment my boyfriend and I officially started our relationship, I wondered if he would visit me here in the UK. Our instances are special, I think, because we started becoming close after I left Singapore and got together during one of my brief visits home. The luxury of knowing the object of your affects, and the one of whose affections you are the object, is actually in the same country as you was always simply that: a luxury. I left him soon after we got together and those first few days when I was his girlfriend were also the days when we talked the least, out of necessity (I was in the UK and he was in Brunei on an army related thing). I dreamt a lot of silly dreams then. That maybe he'd surprise by just turning up on my English doorstep one day. Or maybe the next time we talked he'd make some crazy promise to visit me on a whim. I wanted to hint, the way girls do, at these secret dreams of mine but I knew, and I still know, that would be unfair. He can't afford it and I can't afford it for him either, so what's the point in asking?

But now he actually has made me some crazy promise and is attempting to do something equally crazy to fulfill it!

I'm so glad we're doing this together, this project. I so much hope that he Will Travel For Love, by love (or whatever we should call this mutual fondness we share), but for now the knowledge that he's made such a sincere and sincerely outrageous commitment for 'us' is enough to make me very very happy. Part of me wants to end off by saying something like: 'us working together on such a project is enough for me' or 'I can't ask any more of him than that he try, and he has' but that would be extremely unfaithful. I think I've now decided, though I was as yet undecided at the beginning of writing this, that will put my heart on the line and confess that I secretly believe this will succeed. I want to be realistic to protect both of us from disappointment and I'm honestly uncertain and afraid but I will hope for my dreams to come true. We're young and think we're in love and want to see new things together; I can be an adult in ten years, for now, I'd just be a wuss if I believed in anything less than success.

I have less than 365 days I suppose

"I will visit you in York" Those words constituted a promise I made to her which breathed life and hope into an idea which was previously floating about in our thoughts as a "wouldn't it be nice" notion.

We were together for slightly more than a year and I was in the second phase of my National Service life. I knew that she would very much like me to visit her and likewise it would be my chance to go some where far away and to see what's life really like for her over there, having heard about her experiences and stories when we skype and wrote to each other.

When I firmed up the notion that I would make the trip, the reality sank in, the finances and logistics of it started to pile up at the back of my mind. I saved what I could from my national service allowance, and for the last 6-7 months, I saved up more than half of my allowance for the trip. I kept telling myself that the trip is worth saving up for because I believe it would make her happy to have me visit her and it would some how make all the "I miss you"s said to each other worth it.

Not too long ago I was officially "unemployed", like most young men, I couldn't be happier because shouting "ORD loh" symbolizes a hard earned freedom. I would soon start a student's life at NTU and inevitably start to tap into the savings I have managed to put aside from my NS Allowance for expenditures that come with starting school life. Nagging at the back of my mind is the uncomfortable notion that I may have to give the trip up because the finances don't look promising.

I thought long and hard, mostly about how to make it happen. I decided that we needed to be resourceful in some ways. My mind filled with countless "HOWs?" and I realized that what we have is a story, a real story that has the potential to be a modern day feel good fairy tale of sorts. A story with the potential to inspire other people. Our relationship survived 1 and a half year now despite the long distance. I've heard of many other LDRs, some successful some destroyed by distance. Then some times I do look at people who have their other half in the same country (Singapore is a pretty small country) and simply take the proximity for granted.


Call it being caught in a spot. I made the promise and I have every intention of fulfilling it. I don't want her to think that I just promised her to make her feel good at the time of the promise. And to overcome the constraints we face, the dreamer in me feels that we have a great story, perhaps being storytellers could pay our way to and around the UK.

Every story needs an audience, and that's you my friend. And we hope to create the story throughout this one year and it is my hope that by June 2010, we will have the climax of the story where I will be able to step off the plane at Manchester airport and walk towards her with a red balloon in my hand. And all of you will be able to join me as we travel together and share all the good parts with you.

Let's make June 2010 a reality. Will Travel For Love!