Home is..

I started my holiday today. It is a ‘reward’ after ‘small punishment’ I did (by choice) last night. I did household chores to prepare my holiday today. My lumbar felt broken when I went to bed last night. My. Six hours of standing: ironing, tidying, and finally mopping just before midnight :-) I just loved to make house, particularly bedroom, looks neat when I’m away. Returning home after holiday should not ‘cut’ the holiday feeling. I would like to keep the feeling as long as could be. I don’t want to return to routine the minute I enter house.

To cut long story short, I’m in Singapore now. I’m staying in a nice home-hotel as shown in picture. I know this hotel by coincidence about two years ago. I was with my auntie tried to get hotel thru reservation desk in airport and nothing was available but this one. And it turned out to be a nice hotel (I stayed here a couple times). Small (40 rooms) and homy. It’s a colonial three-storey building turned into hotel. I like the location too, just off Orchard – the shopping belt. Five minutes walk (my walk… faaast!).

This hotel has small rooms. Enough for my size, not for bigger size – claustrophobic. Wooden floor, old-look knick-knack, but the most important are.. it has nice bed with nice white sheet and fluffy towels. I don’t need more.

Flight was okay. Only delayed 40 minutes in low-airconed cabin, waiting for crew unloading baggage!! Strange and scary. Five passengers (with boarding pass) didn’t show up so they had to take out their luggage. Very rational!

I got hotel right after noon. Like I had all day. I started slowly, it was humid hot outside. That’s one character of this city; outside is humid hot, inside is chilly cold. That keeps me off building most of the time (that’s good!! less shopping), even I like to dine outside although it’s hot but my body adjusts better.

I don’t have big and tight agenda how to spend my days here. I keep it open and take it easy. First day is for checking ‘home’ (read: shops where I usually shopped). Skirts, papers, sandals, supermarket, stationery,.. Silly stuffs. I loved paper shop in Paragon the most. Really love it. I could spend long time trying to make project out of their things. I have eyed some albums with black / red pages, but haven’t decided on which. Later…

Good I didn’t see any clothing I wanted. Hey I don’t come for shopping but have a look is not a sin, right? I ‘managed’ not to buy anything tho. Just a few cute things.. (like black thong sandal ha ha..)

MT texted me later. She asked me to meet her in a pub by the famous Singapore river. Great! I was so happy that here is different than in Jakarta. Here we can make last minute appointment and make it in time. In Jakarta? Forget it..

So I met MT and her lovely girlfriend, AR. It was a very nice atmosphere, sitting in open air by water. I enjoyed it! So the yakking! AR is a writer. She teaches in the same institute where MT teaches. Very interesting life they shared!

Later MT left to have dinner with her students!! I stayed with AR – more talking about writing. I’m happy to have met her. She’s very into writing, very inspiring. I told her to start a blog to make professional profile of her work. And as writing is easy for her, where she could just pick up stories from cab drivers, she could also share her daily life experience thru blog too. She looked bubbly with the idea tho! Am glad and could not wait to read her posts. Go AR!!!

I’m happy with how I ended my day. I got more ideas to work on. Still junk art plus.. writing!!