Four seasons, SG style

It was a hot day today. I like the heat, but every year, I seriously forget how hot it gets here during summer. This is how I would describe the four “seasons” in SG:

Winter (Dec-Feb) – oh this is actually quite ok, what is everyone taking about? There is a breeze and it is quite pleasant in the evenings. Balmy, even 😊

Spring (Mar-May) – things start to warm up, but you still get the odd breeze and evenings can still be relatively ok. The “feels like” temperature in my weather app starts hitting 40°C.

Summer (Jun-Aug) – it is hot. There is no longer a breeze, and you are just perpetually surrounded by this cloud of invisible warmth everywhere you go, day or night. You could go out for an evening stroll at 11pm and it’ll still feel like it’s 35°C 😂 The “feels like” temperature gets close to 50°C.

Autumn (Sep-Nov) – monsoon time in the later end of this season. A lot of rain can fall, which can cool things down, especially if the rain decides to hang out the whole day.

So based on my rough breakdown, I always recommend family and friends to come at the beginning of the calendar year, around January – February. They won’t feel as oppressed by the humidity during “winter”, and when they feel the relative coolness, they may even wonder what all the fuss was about, why everyone keeps going on about SG being so hot and humid when it’s rather pleasant right now 😂

Summer is also the only time I go swimming 🏊‍♀️ I get cold easily, hence why I love SG weather. And the only time I feel warm enough to go for a swim is if it’s 30°C+ outside, the humidity is oppressive, and the sun is out and beaming right on top of me 😂

We went over to a friend’s place for dinner and a few drinks tonight. We sat outside to eat, but everyone (except for me 😆) was dying from the heat, so we went back into airconditioned comfort straight after dinner. We watched this movie called Circle. I’d never heard of it before, and I don’t even remember how we ended up choosing it, but we did. I think half of us weren’t particularly interested in the movie, but the other half were completely engrossed. I was in the latter half. But to be fair, I think the other half struggled a bit because there was so much dialogue and their grasp of the English language isn’t that strong. If the tables were turned and the movie was in Chinese, I’d be struggling to follow the movie too. Another lesson learnt: choose an action or horror film where dialogue is not so important to follow the story!

But we had a good time nonetheless. A nice way to round out the long weekend 😊

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Changing things up

It’s a long weekend here, so we didn’t have our usual Chinese class this morning. So we slept in again 👍

After brunch at home, N went and got a massage, while I went to a local coffee shop and had an iced coconut coffee! That was different. A bit sweet for my liking, but still quite nice. But bloody expensive (almost S$9!! 😲). It better have been milk squeezed out of a fresh coconut for the price I paid for that coffee! They have different types of coffees on their menu, so I’ll have to make my way through it. But at those prices, I ain’t going there every day!

And then in the evening, we headed down to a sports bar to watch the France vs Australia World Cup match. We booked a table and specifically requested for a view of the tv showing the World Cup match. I’m glad we booked coz the place was busy as. Plus there was an Australia vs Ireland rugby match happening as well, and they were showing that on another tv, so the place was overflowing with people – and they didn’t have enough staff to cater for the demand. They would’ve raked even more in if they had enough staff to take all the orders. Particularly the drinks. They underestimated how much the Irish and the Aussies drink 😂 Great atmosphere, though. It was nice to see Aussie camaraderie in a foreign country. Ah how sport brings people together 😊 We’ll have to try and come down a few more times over the next few weeks of the World Cup.

That is, if we’re here! I’ve decided to join N for some of his HK trip, so we’ll be over there for the Denmark vs Australia match. I may miss some or most of the match, though, as my plane lands at 7pm and the game starts at 8pm. But I’m planning on going with just carry on luggage, so at least I’ll have one less thing to deal with at the airport. And their train from the airport into town is freaking awesome, so I do have a fair chance of catching some of the match 😊

And then we have the Vietnam comp coming up too. Wahhh… Too much disruption is throwing off my/our routine! 😩 But I do actually like change, so I’m not really complaining 😉 I know others who would hate this sort of upheaval in their lives, but I get a kick out of it. Each to their own, right?! 😊

TV and a pork knuckle

We got up quite late today, around 10am, and it was still very dark in the apartment. Apparently the skies were going to open up anytime now, and so my idea of cycling around somewhere today was ruled out 😔 So we stayed home and just chillaxed and watched a movie, Guardians of the Galaxy 2. I actually enjoyed it more than I expected to, and definitely preferred it over the first movie. Baby Groot helped, of course 😂 He is very cute!

We then went and had dinner at a German restaurant and ordered a pork knuckle. N asked if it was a large serving, and the waiter said that we could share if we weren’t that hungry. I was actually quite hungry, so we decided to share it and added some roast veges on the side. But the pork knuckle on its own ended up being too big 😂 I don’t know how one person could finish it! Nice food, but such a crazy huge portion for just one person.

And then after the gym, we watched the first episode of Younger. We wanted to watch something funny and light, so Downton Abbey wasn’t on the cards today. So after a quick Google search, I came across this show. The first episode was actually quite good! This could be our new show after we finish Downton Abbey 😊

It was a nice, relaxing public holiday ☺️

Resuming my routine

I lost a bit of momentum of my routine while we were in Melbourne, and then also feeling a bit off when we returned to SG didn’t help me get back into the swing of things as soon as we returned. I lost my daily streak in Duolingo and Drops, the two language apps that I’d been regularly logging into prior to our Melbourne trip. I started up again today, and I can see the difference in recall after not logging in for about a week 😔 You really have to just keep pushing on until things just become automatic, you can’t take such a long break. I guess it’s that much harder learning a language as an adult. Lesson learnt.

I also resumed my gym sessions, which also fell by the wayside in the past week. I would normally go the gym if we were staying in a hotel with one, but we didn’t stay in one this time, so I took a break from this too. It was a good session, I was particularly proud of my 3 sets of 35 squats, rising to my top toes in between each squat, which should help my strength in Ballroom, which is all about the rise and fall (except Tango, the black sheep of the Ballroom family of dances). Now my legs are totally spent 😂

It’s a public holiday here tomorrow, Hari Raya Puasa, the end of the fasting period of Ramadan. SG is very good at being fair across the different races and religions of the people who make up this small country, and that includes its public holidays. So I’m thinking of doing another cycling trail tomorrow 😊 I want to use my scooter 🛴 so maybe N and I can take turns on it, while the other one uses a share bike 🚲 I want to do a different trail tomorrow, just to see another part of SG that I haven’t seen before. Hopefully my legs will hold up after my 105 squats today 😆

And now I’m off to watch the first match of the World Cup, one of the few times when I actually watch football ⚽️ One of my old bosses got me into the World Cup in 2014, so this will be the second one that I will follow. Not that I can tell you anything about the previous one 🤣

A second spanner in the works

I felt a bit off today, I hope I’m not coming down with something. I had a bit of a headache this afternoon, and lacked quite a fair bit of energy. But I drank my usual amount of water, and I ate three solid meals, so it couldn’t have been dehydration or starvation, which is why I think I’m coming down with something 🤒 N’s feeling a bit off too, so maybe we caught something on the plane.

And now N needs to go to Hong Kong for almost two weeks for work, and then just a few days later, we head to Vietnam for our next comp. So today’s Ballroom lesson was our last lesson before the comp 😲 I knew my/our daily routine would be disrupted because of the trip to Melbourne, but now this unexpected trip to HK has thrown a second spanner in the works. Sigh. Oh well. Such is the way of our lives.

We didn’t go to Latin practice tonight because we were both feeling off, so we went straight home after our Ballroom lesson, watched an episode of Downton Abbey and called it a night. So it seems like we’re not going to get much practice in these next few weeks leading up to the comp 😔

A historic day

Today was all about the Trump Kim Summit at Capella Hotel at Sentosa. Channel News Asia had live coverage all day, so I was tuned in for some of it, either on my phone or on the Channel News Asia channel 😊 I did consider going down to Sentosa with the hope of seeing something – anything! 😆 – at the hotel. But I checked to see where the Capella Hotel is relative to the touristy part of Sentosa, and it looked like a bit of a walk, so I changed my mind and watched the live broadcast instead 😊

At the start of the day

After signing, at the end of the day before they parted ways

Kitty and I had a vet appointment this morning, and her vet is close to the two hotels that the two leaders were staying at, so I was concerned that there’d be traffic chaos. But my fears were unfounded, it was all fine. My Grab driver actually chose to drive past Kim’s hotel, St Regis, on the way back home, but even driving that close to one of the restricted areas turned out to be perfectly fine 👍

The summit was a step in the right direction.

I had vegemite on toast today at a nearby cafe. The staff member who took my order didn’t understand that I wanted vegemite as my spread, he didn’t seem to know the word at all. Apparently they had just changed their menu and he wasn’t quite used to its contents yet. But the point is, vegemite is now on their menu! So I took it as a sign to extend the Aussie feels, having just gotten back from Melbourne last night. I may have to order it again next time I’m at that cafe for breakfast 😊

Vegemite on toast! 😋 

Did I mention that we’re going to Vietnam for a dance competition next month? We’re trying to get the details sorted (visas. flights, accommodation). We’re only going for a few days, much like our trip to Melbourne, so it’ll pretty much be a fly-in-fly-out trip. I’m hoping to get the flights and accommodation sorted tomorrow. I’m quite excited about it, since I’ve never been to Vietnam. I’m hoping a few days in Ho Chi Minh City will give me a bit of an idea of what the city is like, and whether I’d want to return again. I’m glad we’re travelling a bit more for dance comps. It’s one of my goals for this year (to be more well known in the dance scene in the region), and we’re meeting this goal quite nicely so far😊

Back to SG

We managed to get out of the apartment for a quick breakfast at around 10am. We just had something small, as N wanted to have laksa at Chinta Ria, one of the food stalls in the food court upstairs in Emporium. I couldn’t quite understand why he wants to have a Malaysian dish while we were in Oz, since surely there are numerous Malays in SG who would make excellent laksa too. But when I tasted this laksa today (despite having had this same laksa a bajillion times before), I could now understand why he returns to this place every time we’re in Melbourne. Maybe my taste buds are finally maturing?? The combination of the fresh Aussie produce and the superb culinary skills of the chefs here make this a double whammy of deliciousness.

We then headed straight to the airport after lunch. Because of the Trump / Kim summit happening in SG tomorrow. SG airspace is restricted for the next few days, so I was expecting it to take a while for us to land. But it was all good, typical Changi efficiency 👍

I watched two more movies during the flight: a Hong Kong movie called Never Too Late and a Japanese one called Color Me True. I would like to know how they come up with their English titles because they do not match their titles in their native languages! The HK movie Never Too Late has a much more colourful name in Chinese: “爱情奴隶兽” (àiqíng núlì shòu), which I would translate as “love slave animal” 😂 The subtitles had it as “butt-licking slave”, so you get the drift 😂 But where does the English title come from??

And the Japanese movie was actually really awesome. The name of that movie in Japanese is “今後、ロマンス劇場で” (kongoo, romansu gekijoo de”, which I would translate as “from now on, at the romance theatre”. Both the Japanese and the English titles make sense when you know what the story is about, but why are they so different? Even if it isn’t a direct translation, why aren’t they even remotely close??

Anyway, I’m glad I watched the Japanese movie. I mentioned in my post when we travelled to Oz how I always seem to choose the el weirdo Japanese movies 😆 Well this one I totally got, and I absolutely loved it. I loved it so much that it could be one of my favourite movies. The storyline, the cinematography, the music, the way they used colour, the costumes. I thought it was all brilliant. I loved it so much that I watched it again a second time on the flight! I didn’t get to watch the full movie second time ’round, but I watched as far as I could. Maybe this could be the movie that I watch over and over again, as per that idea that I mentioned before, to work on improving my Japanese 😊

And to end the day, we got to be with Kitty again. She is all sooky now, so cute. I’m glad she is happy again, she’s looked so sad in the photos these past few days. It’s all back to normal once again, for all of us 😊 Except I may be a bit of a morning person for the first few days back, while I start acclimatising to the SG time again 😝