Crashing down

I felt like I was crashing down from the adrenalin high that I’ve been living on the past few days. I felt really tired, lethargic, and had a mild headache the entire day. I spent most of the afternoon sleeping. A family friend is actually in town for work and we were supposed to catch up tonight, but I just wasn’t feeling up to it, so I had to take a rain check. We may have to catch up next time she’s in HK! 😲

I did manage to track a friend’s flight though, from Ho Chi Minh City to Singapore, on his way back to Brisbane. He’s spent the last four years in Vietnam, and is now on his way back home to pursue a new business venture. He too is starting a new chapter in his book of life. He came over to Asia just before we did, and now he’s going back to Oz. While we are just starting a new Asian chapter. It’s all happening.

Today is T minus 27, and for N, it is T minus 6 😲 I don’t feel like we’re anywhere near ready for the move 😔

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Wedding Day

It was the day of the wedding that we’d been invited to, the primary reason for our flight to Manila. They had their ceremony in a church, and then the reception was just under 4km away. But with the Manila traffic, this still took at least 15-20mins, can you believe it?? 😲

They had this band Rivermaya play at the reception, and virtually everyone knew the songs that they were playing. I asked one of the guys on our table if this band was famous, and he replied with “SUPER famous!” 🤣 He seemed incredulous that we didn’t know who these guys were 😂 I suspect we were the only people in the room who didn’t know this band. They were actually pretty good – well obviously, since the whole room was singing to their songs! So I have to go and listen to a few of them now 😊

And then soon after this band finished their last song, people started heading home. It was actually relatively early (around 10pm), so I was surprised that the wedding was wrapping up already. Chinese weddings seem to finish relatively early too. Maybe it’s just the western weddings that go on and on… 😆

And then in the Grab on the way back to our hotel, there was a cushion thing on the back of my seat. It was SO comfortable, I couldn’t believe how comfy it was. I was almost falling asleep in the car, which rarely happens! And we got such a good run back to the hotel too: half an hour to travel 14km. I now understand why the time taken to travel around Manila is such a big discussion point with the locals! 😆

Two decades and forever

Sooo… We got married today 😂 I’m not going to say much on this, except that HK (and Asia in general) doesn’t recognise de facto relationships. Never mind the two DECADES that we’ve been together. Anyhooo… moving on… 🙄

After having brunch with a few friends in celebration, we then had our calligraphy lesson in the afternoon. We wrote:

乎 – hū

手 – shǒu

之 – zhī

文 – wén

入 – rù

Look how simple these characters look, yet they are so damn hard to write! But they have all the basic strokes that you need to learn, so that’s where the beginners start. As with anything, you start with basics. And you keep working on your basics forever. That’s how you get good. Like rumba walks: if you want your Latin to look good, you do rumba walks forever 😆 I’m really enjoying this class. I’d like to continue with calligraphy after we move to HK, even if it’s just self-directed learning. While I continue working on my Mandarin 😆

Speaking of Rumba walks, we went and joined the last half hour of Latin practice tonight. I didn’t even get through that, as I started feeling really dizzy after about 20 minutes. I had just done a few spins, but I don’t think that was the sole contributor, as I spin all the time. I did have a few glasses of alcohol during brunch, and I probably didn’t have enough water, especially considering the alcohol and the heat today. So I felt off for the rest of the evening. I drank a fair bit of (non-alcoholic 😂) liquids after practice, and had a quick dinner near the dance studio to give me time to recover a bit before heading home.

And then we did some more decluttering while watching The Intern on TV. We’re slowly getting through our stuff…! 😊

Changes because of HK

We had a Latin lesson today. Our teacher asked to see all four dances, and I was thinking “pffft, yeah right! You’ll be lucky to see two today, before your eyes start hurting from our terrible dancing and you’re going to spend the next hour fixing just the first dance” 😂

But surprisingly, we got through all four dances! 😲 That was surely a first. We barely touched Rumba, he seemed happiest with that; Cha Cha and Jive were also not too bad; and he just really wanted to work mainly on Samba today. I guess he knows we can only do so much before our next competition, so he’s just fixing the blatantly obvious bad bits 😆 Sigh, we have to find another Latin teacher yet again when we get to HK…

We had a few friends come over for some drinks this afternoon. We were hoping to get through the whiskeys that we have, since we probably can’t take them with us to HK. But our friends aren’t big drinkers, so we barely got through any of the whiskeys! Argh! 😂 So I think we’ll be drinking a fair bit of whiskey between now and takeoff. Today is T-54…

And then in the evening, we watched the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing. They’re showing it here! 👏 Tonight was the first and second episodes. It’s the first time I’ve seen the British version, and it’s quite a fun series! The judges are harsh but fair, so I actually like that, it’s quite “refreshing”. If they dance poorly, the judges won’t have an issue giving them a score anywhere from 1-3 out of 10 😲 Their feedback is honest, so overall, I think the contestants are getting judged really well. And there’s a ton of celebrities on the show too! The show’s been going for years now, and they still manage to find celebrities each season, so they’re obviously doing something right 👍

I also found out that there’s this show called Casualty, which seems like a British Home and Away ie a drama that’s been part of the country’s landscape for donkey’s years. According to IMDb, it’s actually been going for slightly longer than Home and Away! 😲 Crazy stuff.

So we’re enjoying the British version, and we’ll probably watch it right up until we leave SG. Let’s see what tv shows we get to see in HK in a few months’ time…! 😒

Back to normality – except for one thing

Back home, back to normality. Back to the vet, trading and the gym. A stock standard day.

Except for one thing: we may be moving to HK! OMG! N’s been working with their HK office lately – hence why we’ve been over there quite a few times these past few months – to the point where they are now considering moving us over there on a more permanent basis. Well, as permanent as an expat can be…! So I may have to say farewell to this little nation very soon 😔 I will keep you posted on what’s happening when I have more info, but at the moment, it’s looking quite likely that it’s going to happen… New experiences, yes, but yet again, we will be uprooting our little family and plonking ourselves in new surrounds and starting all over again – and leaving friends that we’ve made while we’ve been here. It’s never easy.

I posted this article on FB a few years ago when I stumbled across it, coincidentally around the same time we had just moved to SG. I like to read it every now and then, even if I don’t quite agree with everything in the article. It just makes me ponder on life, on moving overseas and our decision to be expats. Do I regret the decision to move overseas? Not in a million years. I have grown as a person, learnt more about myself in the past few years than I ever did back in Oz, and learnt more about people in general. But I miss family and friends. I miss just being able to hang out with them on the weekends or after work. That’s the toughest thing for me.

Photos and healthy food

It was a public holiday in SG today, so we had the day to ourselves. I wanted to go see a photo exhibition in Joo Chiat, so I thought that was a good enough reason as any to go and have lunch there 😊

We went and had brunch with some friends at this place called Thunder Tea Rice. They serve Hakka food, which I’d never tried before, and apparently this place does good Hakka food, so I thought it was a good place to go and try it. However you’d think I was torturing everyone by choosing to go here 😂 No one else seemed to like the food here, but our friends were kind enough to entertain me by agreeing to join us, even though they’d been there already. I actually liked their food, I just wasn’t a fan of the green veg broth that accompanied the rice. I would order the thunder tea rice again, but just skip the green veg broth. We went for lunch part 2 because the others weren’t quite satisfied with part 1 😂

We parted ways after lunch, and N and I headed over to the photo exhibition. They had hired a room in this co-working space building. I was reading the blurbs of the photographers, and a lot of them had mentioned God and/or had quotes from the bible. I figured these photographers were quite religious, and thought nothing more of it. After I finished waking around, that was when I realised the meaning of the name of the exhibition: “Through His Eyes”, H in capital letters. So I’m guessing the photographers belonged to some church group. Their photos weren’t at all religious, so I think their church group was what bound them together and brought this exhibition to fruition.

I think the woman on the left in this photo was one of the photographers featured in this exhibition. Her photos just happened to be my favourite shots in the exhibition, which made this photo all the more meaningful for me.

After that, we just went home and N took a nap while I read more of my book The Diabetes Code. I am now even more freaked out about sugar – and eating in general! 😧 I’m probably catastrophising, as I always do, since I generally do eat in moderation, and I like to think that we do have a well rounded diet. But still, I know I can eat better. And I’m probably even more motivated now to do so, after having read this book. I’ve almost finished it, so I’m wondering if I can finish it either tonight or tomorrow.

Eyes 👀

I went and got my eyes checked today. But before I did, I had to go get a GP referral, in order to be covered under our health insurance. And that meant stopping by the hospital. And I don’t like hospitals! Well, I don’t like anything medical that pertains to me. It just freaks me out. Even when it’s just a general check up, like what today is. The nurse took my blood pressure, and it was 140/77. I was nervous as hell! I could feel my heart thumping as I was waiting to see the GP.

I went back to the eye clinic after lunch with my GP referral. They gave me eye drops, I think to dilate my pupils so the doctor could see right to the back of my eyes. They warned me that my eyesight would be blurry for the next 4-6 hours, so that meant no work today. And no reading! I was texting friends telling them about my eyesight situation, and I could barely see what I was typing. There was no chance I could read what my friends were texting back! 😂

But the most important thing that came out of all of this: the doctor said that my eyes are all ok 😅 OMG the relief that this piece of news brought to me. I was so happy 😁😁😁