missruslee

“To travel is to live.”

June 28, 2015August 31, 2016 missruslee2 Comments

I have never truly appreciated the wise words of Hans Christian Andersen until the end of last year, when I am denied of my ‘freedom’ to travel because I have decided to take up a new job. I have been very fortunate in my previous company, being able to take many days off to explore the world while still doing relatively well in the office. But all good things must come to an end when circumstances changed and I decided to take the leap and get my hands on a different career path.

My lifestyle for the past nine months have been by choice, travelling less in the name of pursuing my career. I have travelled exactly twice thus far: once on a cruise trip to Langkawi and another on a semi-photography mission to Bali. This is pale in comparison to what I have been doing the past few years – I used to plan a travel on average once a month, both to neighbouring countries or somewhere further north like Nepal and Alaska.

This low travel period has made me realise something. I have been bitten by the travel bug (to put it in a cliche term), and there is no turning back. I have attempted to be more grounded, using steep learning curve and lots of reading as substitutes to packing my bags and seeing the world. Those substitutes or rather, distractions, have not worked and I find myself daydreaming, browsing through old travel pictures and reading others’ adventures.

I crave to feel alive again and not run away from my calling. The only thing that has helped so far is changing my mindset about Singapore – that I can travel by staying put and that there are new places for me to discover. I start to appreciate the little things around me more and marvel at everything as if it was my first time seeing all of them.

But even this also makes me realise that perhaps 9-to-5 jobs are not for me, at least for now. I feel that there are so many other things that I could be doing rather than being tied down on office chairs, staring at spreadsheets and emails, leaving office only to continue doing work at home. I haven’t found meaning in what I do, and while I still have the energy, hunger and means to see the world, I should.

So I suppose it is only natural for me to decide to leave my job to pursue something different. I will reveal the details much closer to the date, but it is exciting (!!!) and will involve me moving out of this little island that has been my comfort zone for the past nine years.

For now, all I can say is, thank you Hans Christian Andersen for the beautiful words that have been my mantra all this while and brought me to the most incredible places in this world.

SEA Games 2015 Opening Ceremony, a consolation.

June 11, 2015August 31, 2016 missrusleeLeave a comment

I should be in San Francisco right now, getting ready to witness one of my best friends getting married to the love of her life. I should be hanging my dress in the wardrobe of my room at an ‘Amazing Apartment by the Seaside’ (according to my Airbnb description), rehearsing what I’m going to say during the wedding dinner tomorrow as part of the bridal party, and generally looking forward to an extraordinary day in a beautiful city with my beautiful friend.

But life has to deny me all that, because I have no means to travel. I shall not go into detail because it would simply upset me even more, but let’s just say this time, I have to begrudgingly bow down to limitations of rules and not travel.

Which I have to say is very unlike me. I don’t let rules tie me down from doing what I want, especially if I have set my mind to it. I mean I wouldn’t necessarily break the rules, but I would push pretty darn near the edge of doing so to get what I want (as long as the possibility of going to jail or getting deported is nowhere in sight).

Like that one time when my family was in NYC for New Year’s Eve and we were planning to watch the ball drop at Times Square. My mom, having a true blue tropical blood, can’t stand the cold, so we were not able to simply stand at Times Square from 7pm in 0 degrees waiting for midnight. So we decided to take our chance, and rushed to Times Square from our hotel 15 minutes into midnight and understandably, all the roads to Times Square have already been closed and guarded by burly NYPD officers. We tried street after street to no avail, and I was on the verge of giving up

Until I saw a group of girls being let in because they danced to the officer.

Fuming mad, I did the only thing I could think of. I went up to the police officer and showed our hotel key and said that our hotel is located along the street and he should let us in. And he did. I got in to Times Square by LYING TO AN NYPD OFFICER. We got in just in time when the song ‘What a Wonderful World’ was playing, and the tune had never sounded more welcome.

nyc1 — And here is a picture to prove our achievement!

Continue reading “SEA Games 2015 Opening Ceremony, a consolation.” →

Things to do in Copenhagen, personal favourites.

May 31, 2015August 31, 2016 missruslee1 Comment

I have so far lived my life believing that I was born to be a jack (or jill?) of all trades. I would be interested in something, learn about it, be somewhat decent at it and move on to new things.

Until I found myself in Copenhagen more than five years ago and fell completely in love with the city. Since then, I found that I can be especially good at something, i.e. travelling back to the same city over and over again just to do the same things that I love.

Till date, I have travelled to Copenhagen on five different occasions, and I have met the Crown Prince of Denmark (here we go again), which is why I think I am properly qualified to give my opinion on what the best things to do in this city are.

So here are my personal favourites, in random order.

Take a stroll at Nyhavn

My absolute favourite place, and this lovely harbour has been featured numerous times in this blog. Walking to Nyhavn from Kongens Nytorv Metro Station is like finding a colourful surprise after a somewhat gray (albeit beautiful) stroll at the heart of Copenhagen.

copenhagen1 — The mall directly on top of Kongens Nytorv Station.

Continue reading “Things to do in Copenhagen, personal favourites.” →

Making the most of Devil’s Tears Bay, Nusa Lembongan.

May 12, 2015August 31, 2016 missruslee4 Comments

I have been distracted and somewhat grim, judging from my past few posts (or lack thereof). There was work, my badminton journalism stint, being wheeled around on a hospital bed, a boy, and just lots of things that kept me away most of the time from my laptop to write.

But I just came back from Bali, one of the most amazing places in this region, and it would be a travesty not to at least drop by and say hello at my so-called travel blog. Truth to be told, I have lost a little bit of that overflowing ideas on my writing angle on my travel stories due to lack of practice, which is ironic since I’m about to move myself a few thousand miles north to pursue something writing-related (more about that in the coming weeks :)).

So I looked into one of my main sources of writing inspiration – my travel photos (the other one is my favourite travel blog Everywhereist). Apart from finding lots and lots of pictures of food, one place that really stood out was Devil’s Tears Bay at Nusa Lembongan, an island just one hour ferry ride off the the southeast of main island Bali.

It's looked promising since arriving. — It’s looked promising since arriving.

If you think that the name Devil’s Tears Bay sounds intimidating, wait until you are actually at the place.

Continue reading “Making the most of Devil’s Tears Bay, Nusa Lembongan.” →

Header of the Month: What the kids in Nepal taught me.

April 25, 2015September 5, 2016 missrusleeLeave a comment

When it comes to procrastination, I think I’m the queen.

I have been wanting to write this post for a while, and it took me two YEARS to finally get around to it.

I think part of me wanted to make this post perfect, since I felt that this travel story that I’m about to write deserves the best. Everything that had thus far come to my head never sounded good enough – I don’t even know if this post is going to cut it.

It took a terrible earthquake that practically damages Kathmandu to shake me out of this mentality, and I decided to write this post about the kids in Nepal, because I’m thinking of them, and I’m praying for their safety.

nepalkids8 — The historical tower built in 1832 that collapsed because of the earthquake.

I went to Nepal exactly two years ago on a mission. I had never been much of a charitable person, and definitely not someone who would proactively make time in the weekend to help people in need. And for that, I felt genuinely horrible, as if I were a very evil person. So I decided that perhaps a trip to the poorest country in Asia would make me more charitable.

I expected the living conditions and the tough terrain of Nepalese mountains would teach me a thing or two. And I did learn something from them. But the credit for the best lessons learned should go to the kids, really – I went there to teach them some Mathematics and English, but I came home feeling that I have learned so much more from them.

Here are some life lessons that I had the privilege to be taught by the wonderful kids:

Go the extra mile (or two) to learn

I remember complaining in my head when I arrived at the mountains and found out that we had to wake up at 6 AM the next morning to prepare for the materials because the kids are scheduled to start their class at 6 30 AM. Grudgingly I set my alarm, only to be woken up the next day before my alarm went off by the chirpy noise of the kids outside! The kids were there an hour early! What made me feel even more ashamed of myself afterwards was that I found out that some of them lived two hours’ walk away, which means they woke up at 4 AM, just to attend the classes that we were going to teach! I never recalled having so much motivation to learn, even though I had all the access to education right at my doorstep…

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Remembering Mr Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore.

March 31, 2015 missrusleeLeave a comment

Last week was a very long and emotional week in Singapore.

Eight days ago, the country woke up to the horrible news that Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the Founding Father of Singapore has passed away at the age of 91.

To say that the whole nation was struck with grief is an understatement. Eulogies after eulogies filled my Facebook news feed. I know of friends who cried to their sleep every night since the fateful Monday. I teared seeing the Prime Minister of this country almost broke down in tears during his speech at the state funeral.

Nevertheless, it was a memorable week, one that I would even say I was very privileged to witness. I can’t think of any other political leaders who seem to be so well loved by his people, that they attributed the success of a whole nation to him. The commendations were very well deserved, in my opinion, and there truly aren’t that many people who have successfully brought a tiny little island in Asia from being a third world nation to a first world country.

Continue reading “Remembering Mr Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore.” →

Header of the Month: the Holocaust Memorial.

March 19, 2015September 5, 2016 missruslee4 Comments

Trust me, no one has been wanting to see an update on this site as much as I have. Even though my actions don’t speak as loudly as my words, you have to believe me when I say that it has been hectic three weeks of March. A lot of things claimed my attention that I had no choice but to neglect this blog, but I suppose I could summarise all the madness in one word.

German.

I found myself unexpectedly hanging out with a group of Germans and even got myself jokingly offered a PhD programme in Berlin on Statistics (for reasons that I can’t fathom), which I obviously rejected because I am not an academic person like that.

Which is why you may or may not have noticed that I have sneakily slipped in and changed the Header of this blog and left it there without giving any explanation. So now that I finally managed to squeeze in some time to breathe and write, let me introduce you to the Header for March, the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

The Holocaust Memorial is one of my absolute favourite memorials, although the word ‘favourite’ may not be very appropriate for something that carries such morbid meanings. I mean this whole thing is actually called Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

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Copenhagen brunches.

February 28, 2015September 5, 2016 missrusleeLeave a comment

In my opinion, Copenhagen is one of the most underrated cities in the world.

From time and again, I still get questioning look from people whenever I say that Copenhagen is one of my favourite cities in the world. Some even go so far as asking, “Where is Copenhagen again? Is it in Europe?”.

That’s how underrated this city, and Denmark is. The city where the famous statue of Little Mermaid is situated. The capital city of where the world renowned writer Hans Kristian Andersen came from. The city where Carlsberg brewery can be found (everyone must have heard of Carlsberg, surely!). The city which hosts the headquarter of Maersk, the biggest shipping company in the world. The capital city where LEGO, the world-renowned toy company, comes from. The city where Noma, the world’s #1 restaurant is! I mean come on people. Either I only care about things that no one else in the world cares about, or most people are simply ignorant, or Denmark has the worst marketing team ever.

And now, I shall add one more thing to the already long list of why Copenhagen is amazing: the city has many cafés with some of the best brunches that I have ever had.

Now, brunches aren’t really my thing, so I wouldn’t call myself a brunch guru. But I have had enough of them, especially in Singapore, where they are simply unimpressive. Brunches are always overpriced for the portion that they serve and most cafés, at least in Singapore, only focus on decorating the place and making the food presentation pretty (so they can charge a premium to it) without paying much attention to how it actually tastes (there are exceptions of course).

But I remember being very impressed with Copenhagen brunches, at least those few that I have tried. Or perhaps I was just being biased about this city as usual. But who cares, here are the list of my favourite brunch cafés in Copenhagen (note: it’s all of them):

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A regret and a keyring.

February 20, 2015March 5, 2015 missruslee2 Comments

People deal with their miseries in different ways.

One of my main sources of miseries is from regret of not doing something that I could have done. It was something I had known right from the start I wanted, but over the years, I got distracted and the possibility of fulfilling that wish seemed a lot more remote than how it had been in reality. I could have visited London 2012 Olympics had I worked hard enough for it, but I had not. So the Olympics came and went and my life is still Olympic-less.

It is so unlike me to dwell in past regrets, especially those that happened a few years ago. But I just finished reading ‘Stardust’, a novel by Neil Gaiman and re-watched the movie subsequently. It was then that I remembered that the end credit of the movie was Take That’s ‘Rule the World’, one of my favourite songs of all time. Naturally, I went to YouTube to search for all the different versions of the song, and this came up:

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For the love of writing.

February 14, 2015February 28, 2015 missrusleeLeave a comment

I love writing. I really do. But for some reason, when I have to write about a topic unfamiliar to me or as part of an assignment that I will be appraised on, I get stressed about it. Perhaps because of how I have been labelled as a good writer, the expectations get a little too much at times.

I just finished writing my very first article at my new workplace. It was not even that difficult, just on an event that we have recently participated in, but for some reason I mulled over it a lot and it consumed a lot of my brain cells thinking not about the content but about how people would perceive my writing. And when I was finally done with it last night (or early this morning, rather), I felt so relieved that I had to reward myself with something: more writing.

Contrary to popular belief, I find writing difficult. It takes a lot of effort for me to come up with a piece with good content and coherent sentences. But I like it so much that I find myself keep doing it; perhaps precisely because it is difficult, I simply have to master it, and it could very well be the reason why I love it so much.

The thing about writing is that it always starts with a blank page. And blank pages can be both exciting and daunting at the same time. There is a whole story for you to create there, a word-masterpiece waiting to take shape. A blank page is going to stay that way if you don’t start writing on it, word by word, as painful and difficult as it sometimes is to do. But the magic about writing is, as you pen down your first word, the second will inevitably come, and the third, and the fourth, and the next paragraph will follow and in time you would fill up the page with your thoughts. And the blank page is gone, just like that, replaced by your very own creation.

The thing about writing is, when you have written something that is truly your own, you will want to do nothing else but create more. It is a point of no return.

So Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. I hope you get to spend time with the people you love, doing something that you love.