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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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 😝

Travelling day

Our day started at 7am, to give ourselves plenty of time to get to the airport for our 11am flight. But of course, as per usual, Changi does not disappoint, and we get through immigration in literally five minutes, if that. Customs took maybe the full five minutes 😂 But that was only because I had people in front of me who were rather slow, and held up the queue as a result. That is, it wasn’t Changi’s fault 😆

The flight itself – apart from when the pilot suddenly hit the brakes as we were taxiing to take off and one of the flight attendants fell over! – was uneventful, which is always appreciated. I watched two movies, a Japanese one and a Chinese one, my two target languages. I haven’t watched that many Japanese movies, but the handful that I have, have all been rather bizarre! 😂 And today’s movie (Tremble All You Want) was no exception. Maybe I just have this knack of choosing the bizarro films. Or maybe I just don’t get Japanese movies!

The Chinese movie that I watched (Namiya), on the other hand, was awesome, and I would classify it as being the type of movie that would fit in the sub-genre that I like. As for what that sub-genre is, I don’t know its name, if it even has one! 😂 It’s science fiction mixed in with everyday life, ie it’s not set in some imaginary world like Lord of the Rings, or set in a different time period. It’s just the normal world as we know it, but there is an element of science fiction in that world, which makes it that little bit more interesting.

Anyway, there is this awesome Chinese song that is sung a few times in the movie called 重生 (chóng shēng, Reborn) and I really liked it! I liked it so much that I used the opportunity to work on my listening skills and write out the lyrics to the song based on what I could hear. The sections of the song that was sung in the movie had subtitles, so that helped with a bit of the transcribing. Anyway, when we made it to Melbourne and we were back online, I looked up the lyrics to see just how close I was with my listening. I wasn’t too far off! But I did listen to the lyrics sooo many times, and she sings very slowlyyy… 😂 But doesn’t matter, I still consider this progress! 👏

And the Airbnb that we’re staying at in Melbourne is this cute studio apartment in the CBD. The owner met us downstairs, and gave us a quick tour of the apartment. Now we’re wondering if we can comfortably live in an apartment of this size… 😊 Our apartment in SG is pretty small already, and this one is just that next size smaller again… We’re getting to Japan-size apartments, and whole families live in apartments of this size over there, so surely we could make it work??

An actual public holiday

Today was an actual public holiday in SG, unlike the “enforced” one yesterday 😆

We did a lot of riding today: first, we cycled with our friends to Gardens by the Bay and back, stopping by for coffees, smoothies and milkshakes at Marina Bay Sands; and then lunch at Robertson Quay. I rode my scooter, while the others rode their bikes. I don’t get much opportunity to use my scooter, after I ruled out using it to go to the vet with Kitty, so I’m glad I decided to use it today.

After lunch, we parted ways and N and I did part 2: we rode the North Eastern Riverine Loop! It’s still very pretty, and once again, there were very few people on the trail. I rode the bike this time, to get a bit more of a workout, while N rode on the scooter. The scooter actually lasted all day, which was unbelievable. It only started dying when we were a few hundred metres to the finish line, its battery life is very impressive.

We were so knackered by the end of the day. I took a nap as soon as we got home, and then we finished the day with the third and fourth Jurassic Park movies. I’m all caught up and ready to watch #5! 👍

Dancing and a few firsts

We had a good Latin lesson today: we did Samba, which feels like it’s improving – until our teacher filmed it for us. Bleurghhh! It definitely feels better than it looks! 😞 I’d rather it the other way around! That is, looking better than it feels. Coz at least it doesn’t hurt the audience’s eyes that way! 😂 Oh well. I read this quote on the interweb today: “I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it” – Vincent Van Gogh. Pretty much sums up my life!

And then we actually lasted for the whole two-hour Ballroom practice session. Normally we die about 3/4 of the way through, but today I somehow managed to tough it out. Probably because we weren’t running through entire routines, and just focusing on sections of each dance. But it was good. Sometimes you just need to break it down like that, and work on the technique.

We decided to go to Changi City Point afterwards, a mall with a lot of discount outlets, to check out a sale at 2XU. It’s a pretty cool mall! We’ll have to come back another time, when we have a bit more time and energy to walk around. Coz today, after three hours of dancing, we were just ready to go home.

And then we watched The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the second movie in the Jurassic Park series. It’s the first time I’d seen it, and I definitely haven’t missed out on anything all these years 😂 It was terribly disappointing, after watching the first one, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Oh well. Two down, two to go. Hopefully we can squeeze the third one in sometime this week. Ooo, Tuesday is a public holiday here, so maybe we can watch it then 😊

So that was a disappointing way to end the weekend, but overall, it was still a good one 👍

A wet Saturday

I decided to wear jeans today. As soon as I walked out of the house, I could feel their heat insulating capabilities 😂 Why do I choose to wear jeans in Singapore, you’re probably wondering. I only wear them when I know I’m going to be indoors for long periods of time, because when you’re indoors here, you’re always in aircon. Always. Apart from when you’re at home, you can guarantee that you will be in air conditioned comfort. Shopping mall, restaurant, office, public transport etc etc. It’s only when you’re walking to these places will you be enduring the heat and humidity. And I get cold easily, so I get quite cold when I’m in aircon for long periods of time. Plus a lot of places have the aircon turned up to the nth degree, so my coldness is exacerbated.

So Chinese class; lunch (Bak Kut Teh! Haven’t had that in aaaages); and then a movie this afternoon (we watched Solo – not bad) – all indoors. My jeans were perfect 👍

And it turned out that by the time we were on our way home this afternoon, it started to rain, which washed away some of the humidity, and my jeans actually felt ok to wear on the walk home. Excellent choice in attire today 😊

But because it was all wet, by the time we reached home, we really didn’t feel like going out again. Plus N was feeling quite tired, so we skipped dancing tonight. But after a bit of rest, we still decided to go to the gym 💪 I actually didn’t have to fight with myself to go today, I think maybe because I already had it in my mind that we were going to dancing today, and the gym just happened to be the alternative.

And then we spent the rest of the evening watching Jurassic Park 😊 It’s been 25 years since the original was released, omg. A quarter of a century. No wonder I can’t remember it 😂 I want to watch the previous Jurassic Park movies before we watch the new one that’s coming out in June. I want to be all up to date, so that I know the back story beforehand. There were a few missing pieces in my knowledge when we went to watch Avengers: Infinity War, so I’d like to be a bit more prepared going into Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. So one movie down, three more to go…

A walk, a book and a paso

I was feeling a bit down today, don’t really know why. I wanted to run a few errands, but never got around to doing them, unfortunately, so they’ll have to wait until next week. In hindsight, I probably should’ve gone out and done them, if just to go for a walk and get some fresh air, it might have helped me feel a bit better. Oh well, I’ll remember that for next time 😊

I finished my next book, Friend Request by Laura Marshall. It’s a mystery novel, a Gone Girl type of book (not that I’ve read or seen that yet, but I know it’s in this same genre). I enjoy reading these types of books, even though they freak me out 😂 They keep me on my toes, and I want to keep reading to find out what happens. I’m thinking that perhaps my next book should be of a different genre… Not sure which one yet… I might have to browse my mega long to-read list… 😊

We went and practised tonight, which actually wasn’t too bad. And they played Paso Doble, which got me inspired to revisit that dance. We have a routine and all, we just never practise it, simply because there are so many other dances to do! And because we never dance Paso at comps (much like Viennese Waltz on the Ballroom side, they always leave it out of our events), the other dances then always take precedence. So maybe we can start working on it again after our next comp. At least just to remember the choreography again! 😆

The working week is now over, thankfully. I’m sure the weekend will bring joy and laughter with it 😄