1. Playing "Poker Face" game with hubby while playing cards with MIL (it wasn't planned, just made up right then and there). The point of the game is to keep a poker face while the other party makes faces to make you smile or laugh. Dang it was SO hard to keep a poker face that we ended up laughing like crazy over and over again. SO MUCH FUN!!! :-D
2. A grandma gave me a bar of chocolate at work. BLESS HER! And it wasn't even the first time for her to do that. :-) I shared the chocolate with hubby at home he he he...
3. We've booked the tickets to go to Indo via Singapore on our summer holiday, so we're spending some days in Singapore as well in between flying to my hometown and flying back to Finland. And we've also booked the hotels in Singapore YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!! :-D
4. I've contacted a few friends who live in Singapore and they've told me that they want to meet up, so I hope there's no hindrance for us to meet. EXCITING!!!!!!!! :-D
5. More feeling of freedom as I get less afraid of disappointing people when I feel that they have high expectations of me or when I feel that they expect something from me that I just can't give (something I just realized lately).
glitter-graphics.com
6. The sidewalk is now clear of sand and gravel. That means I can ride my bike at full speed again WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
7. Having lovely and fun coworkers who treat me (the only expat in the group) like one of them. I hope we can work together for a LOOOONNNGGG time. :-D
8. Listening to this soothing and comforting song. Death is not the end. We will meet again in heaven...
9. Laughing so much at these photos ha ha ha ha...I'm trying to imagine the amount of time and effort it took to match the characters with the cats ha ha ha...As a cat lover and a fan of Game of Thrones, I think whoever it is has done a great job at it. :-D
When I was still studying at the uni, I had many emailpals 'coz I wanted to improve my English. One of them became rather close to me 'coz we shared some similarities (he's a year older than me). He then had an idea to go abroad together with me, but 'coz he knew I couldn't afford going somewhere too far, he suggested Singapore.
While studying at the uni, I had started earning money by becoming a private English tutor. Back then I only had classes from morning until around 2 pm at the latest and on some days I only had one class, so I had plenty of time to teach after 2 pm. Through word of mouth, I got more and more students as time went by, so once I graduated, I had accumulated some money for travel. It wasn't much, but enough for a 6-day trip to Singapore.
So this emailpal of mine first came to Bandung to visit me for the first time in 2000 and then we went to Singapore together. Prior to his coming to Indo, I naturally had told my parents about our wish to go to Singapore together. My Mom supported me fully, but my Dad was worried. Being a hard-headed person like me, I told my Mom that no matter what I was going to go with this emailpal of mine. So Mom (BLESS HER!!!) became the bridge between me and Dad. If I had to go talk to Dad on my own, we would have had a fight probably. Mom's the best bridge of all time between me and Dad.
For those of you westerners out there, you may wonder why it's this way, but I grew up in Asia where things are different. I lived with my parents until I moved to Finland at the age of 28 years old, so I knew my parents would also consider me as "green" when it came to my wish to go to Singapore at the age of 22 with an emailpal I had never met in real life. However, I was adamant 'coz I wanted to prove to them (and myself) that I could come back in one piece. Why? Because all my life I have been wanting to travel abroad when I have the money and opportunity and if my parents can't trust me enough to go abroad with a friend at that time, they would probably have a harder time letting me go somewhere farther on my own.
In order to appease Dad's worry at that time, I conveyed the problem to my emailpal and he understood it (he has plenty of Asian friends, so even though he's a foreigner, he understands the Asian world). He then had this idea on how he could help, so he wrote an email to my parents (in English) to introduce himself and explain why we wanted to go abroad together. He also stated that we would take good care of each other. After printing that letter out and giving it to Mom (who then gave it to Dad), we got Dad's full permission. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!! :-D I was SO thrilled!
And my closest friends also helped by telling Mom how nice my emailpal was after we spent time with him in Bandung before we went to Singapore together and of course he also dropped by our place a few times, so my Mom could meet him beforehand. I'm sorry to have to lie to my parents by telling them that we'd stay in different rooms, but I just couldn't afford staying in a different room, so we had to share a room to keep the cost low.
But anyway, nothing bad happened. We enjoyed the trip and it was really fun. We almost had a scare when going back to Indo 'coz at Singapore airport, they asked for my emailpal's return ticket from Jakarta to his home country (so the itinerary was he stayed in Indo for a week, then we went to Singapore for 6 days, then he stayed in Indo again for another week). He said he didn't bring it. Finally the Singapore official let him go back to Indo, though they warned him that he might get into trouble in Jakarta airport.
At that time we didn't understand anything about it, so we just disregarded it. Turned out that when we were going out of Jakarta airport, the official wouldn't let him go unless he either could show that he had sufficient funds in his bank account (or credit card) or show that he had the return ticket, he wouldn't let him go out of the airport.
At that time he was still working part-time and studying at the same time, so he didn't have that much money nor enough limit in the credit card. Meanwhile, I had just graduated from university, so I also didn't have any credit card nor too much money in my bank account (in fact, I used up almost all of my 4-year savings that I got from tutoring kids for the whole trip, so I was broke when we got back from Singapore).
We were confused and anxious and worried at that time, but my friend finally decided to ransack through his backpack and ta-daaaa...he FOUND the return ticket!!! He didn't even realize that he had brought it all along! If he hadn't found it, I would have probably have to go back to Bandung alone to retrieve the ticket and go back to Jakarta. Phew!!! What a mess!!!
But all's well that ends well. That trip opened up more opportunities for me to go abroad on my own - such as when I first went to Finland for the first time in 2004. :-)))) I didn't even have to convince my parents anymore 'coz they knew I could take good care of myself he he he...
1. Being hugged by my MIL and seeing her brush some happy tears from her eyes after she read the Mother's Day quotation book I gave her HE HE HE HE...
2. The smell and taste of freshly-baked garlic bread. Crunchy and yummiliciousssssss...
3. Finding out from Juliana that my PR is up!!!!!!!!!! THANKS A LOT, Jul!!! ;-D That means I can write ads again to save money for my trip to Singapore. If I can really be diligent, I think the trip will be 100% sure HI HI HI HI HI HI...I'm TRULY psyched!!! *HUGE GRIN*
4. Talking much more than usual to my MIL. It feels nice to be able to understand more things and to be able to communicate more.
5. Seeing hubby's smiles and staring at him (distracting him while he's watching TV and making him so self-conscious that he tries to block my face away) HUAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...
6. Feeling the hot shower "massaging" my sore muscles after I exercised. I bet I'm gonna sleep REALLY well tonight ho ho ho ho ho ho...
As you probably know, I'll be in Indonesia for around 17 days in October (arriving on Oct 8th and leaving on Oct 24th). Yesterday we got some brochures on cheap travel packages to Australia and other countries, so we had a discussion on travelling.
I told hubby that it crossed my mind about visiting Singapore while we were on our vacation in Indonesia, but the only discomfort is that we had to go back and forth to Jakarta to do so as there would be no direct flight from Bandung to Singapore.
He said that he was interested in visiting Singapore. I was once there for 6 days in 2000 with my Aussie emailpal and I liked the country so much. I didn't get to see everything there, so I'd love to go back again.
I know we need to save more money in order to make this visit possible, but I think as long as we don't stay in any fancy hotel, it's a possibility. I'm not going to do any major shopping there, anyway, so I don't have to budget much on shopping. We can allocate our budget only for the plane tickets, room rent, food, and entrance tickets to touristy places.
There are some things I want to ask my Singaporean bloggers, though:
1. I'm thinking that 4 days (5 days 4 nights) would be enough to travel around, since after all we're not going to stay in Indo THAT long. If we're staying in Indo for a month, then we might consider staying in Singapore longer than that. But is it better to visit Singapore on weekdays or also on a weekend? Are there many more interesting things during the weekends?
2. What do you recommend for us to see or visit? We're not that keen on museums or art hi hi hi hi hi...but I know it'll take a WHOLE day to tour Sentosa Island, so what else should we do the next 3 days? Anything particular we should see? Any particular restaurants we should visit? Hubby doesn't like seafood, but I DO love seafood and Chinese food and European food he he he he...Well, I AM a foodie HA HA HA HA HA...
I'm not 100% sure yet about this trip since it depends on how much money we can save, but I HOPE it can come true. It'll be our second honeymoon and we can try making babies then HO HO HO HO...Plus maybe I get to meet some of my Singaporean blogger friends? ;-D
Okay, I'll blog hop later since I want to try making some snack for tomorrow. I bought Princess Cake already today from the supermarket since it was on a HUGE discount HA HA HA HA HA HA...so I'm just going to make some snack today.
Last but not least, THANK YOU SO MUCH for Karen (WaterLearner) for your handicraft. I LOVE IT!!! I'm gonna take a pic of it and publish it here, but later he he he he...
