I am just very shaken at the moment by the news of the missing Air Asia flight. I pray for the safety of the passengers and crew onboard and for the families to remain strong through this extremely trying time.
It broke my heart when I skimmed through the list of passengers on board. Some are clearly families who are flying to Singapore to celebrate the new year.
Although it is a different route, this is what my family has always done for the past few years. And for us in Singapore, taking the Indonesia-Singapore route just feels like commuting on a bus. You just assume that you will reach your destination safely because you have done that so many times. So it really hits home.
So my thoughts are with all of them, who are waiting at Changi Airport for the arrival and news of their loved ones.
Christmas has always been a special time of the year for me. When I was younger, my family always travelled close to Christmas time since that was the time we could escape from the tropical heat and went somewhere cold. As I got older, I had the habit of travelling on Christmas Day since that was when flight tickets are cheapest. In 2012, I had one of my best Christmases ever when I decided to take on a solo trip to Copenhagen and London after being deprived from my beloved Europe for two years.
As of last year, Christmas Day has just gotten a little bit more special, with the birth of this blog. Not only has this been my travel diary for this year, but it has also become one of my main sources of comfort and helped to get me through tough days – from days when I get a little stressed out over travel preparation, or when crappy things happened during travels to when, like these days, my travel plans look bleak and I feel miserable…
As I have mentioned in passing several times, earlier this month I moved out of the flat I have been staying here in Singapore for the past eight years.
A lot of people warned me that I would hate moving – it’s troublesome, dirty and tiring. While it was definitely not my idea of absolute fun, I found it pretty entertaining. Having stayed put in a place means I collected a lot of memories, as well as mountains of junk and forgotten things. The junk made me question my decision making ability (why would I ever think of buying those things?) while finding the forgotten things felt a bit like treasure hunting.
I will save you from the gory details of what junk I found in my house. Instead I will just show you the sole most important finding through it all:
I love Christmas markets. There is something very charming and romantic about those rows of little wooden huts with slanted roofs, fairy lights tracing their edges, selling everything from warm wine to cakes and earmuffs.
Over the years, I have visited Christmas markets in Copenhagen, London and Paris and never seemed to get enough of them. They are definitely one of the things that I miss the most from being in Europe.
So imagine my thrill and excitement when I found out that Christmas market has finally come to Singapore. I love it so much that I have been there not once, not twice but three times over the past week!
The Christmas market (or Christmas Wonderland as the official name goes) is located at Gardens by the Bay’s Supertree Grove. The Supertrees on normal days are already very impressive if not somewhat menacing (a lot of people have mixed feelings about the veins sprouting everywhere from the ‘trees’ and I do agree that from afar it looks kind of odd). I always compare them to scenes from the movie Avatar.
It is now officially 97 days (ninety seven!) since I last travelled. I did not know how I have survived without travelling for this long, but that is not to say that I have been sitting idly doing nothing. A lot has happened in the past three months, and in fact, as I have said many times previously, I have been very busy. I was leaving my previous job, and now have somewhat settled into my new one after a period of steep learning curve. Just last week, I said bye to the only steadfast in my Singapore life for the past eight years: the flat I have been staying since I first came to Singapore. It was part emotional, part stressful trying to move and throw away some eight years’ worth of junk. I can’t believe how much of a hoarder I am, but I really am one.
ANYWAY, I’m not here to discuss my habit of keeping-things-just-in-case-I-have-a-use-for-them-in-the-future. Rather, it just feels a little weird that it is December and this time last year I was getting ready to go for an epic trip to Myanmar. But here I am, in my new flat, wifi-less (I’m attempting to publish this post using Wifi hotspot from my phone plan) and travel-plan-less, and I have to say I did feel a little miserable earlier today.
Which is a bit unfair of me to say that I feel miserable to be stuck here in Singapore. It is after all a very cool place to live, and my friend just told me of a Christmas market at Gardens By the Bay which I’m going to check out next week. And to remind myself that it is not such a bad thing to be stuck here and to appreciate things around me more, I decided to write a post about one of my favourite places in this island: Geylang.
I know that Geylang isn’t a place where most people would consider their favourite. It is after all labelled the red-light district of Singapore, and it definitely does not look glamorous nor does it sparkle with the city lights that this country is so proud of. However, it is at the same time the least pretentious part of Singapore where things happen when they happen, and clearly no one seems to think there is anything wrong with a brothel and a Buddhist temple to be situated side by side.
Let’s be honest here, the street of brothels doesn’t seem all that interesting.
I’m going to cheat a little again and distract you from the lack of actual posts on the blog.
Just watched this video of Copenhagen, and makes me want to visit again! One of the main reasons is because I am dying to get the chance to stay in this dorm called Tietgenkollegiet, which was designed by award winning architect Lundgaard & Tranberg. You can see the student college shot for a second or so in the video.
missruslee 