Planned to write something about my trip home after returning to Dubai but procrastinated till now. Well, better late than never. Before leaving for Singapore/PJ in June, I wrote a post about my "Dubai blues". Well, I made my month-long trip back, recovered, and am back in Dubai, good as new.
The first significant thing I did when back in Singapore was my trip out to the intertidal zone in Changi with Wildfilms, the second day I was home. Great way to start off my getaway. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't "getting away" from my husband. Just Dubai itself - its intolerable service standards, etc etc... the list just grows n grows.
Lots of new sights greeted me in Singapore, like the horrid "Wheel" that's almost done, the new Ikea, Giant and Courts in Tampines, Sheng Siong in Bedok, and VivoCity.
I spent about 10 days in PJ and 20 days in Singapore. My time in PJ was quality time with family and buddies. I think I've had enough Nescafe Ais to last me the rest of the year, as I was out at the mamak with Nat on most nights, sometimes joined by Sher Hui and Wye Li. Also managed to spend an afternoon in Bangsar with Jamie.
Sometimes I feel like a celebrity back home as my many "Ah Ee"s take turns to "chope" me for lunch appointments and such. It felt really nice, and of course, anything to do with makan is great!
Back in Singapore, I joined Wildfilms on a few more trips during low tide to the shore and a few islands. These were really splendid too - being close to nature again, and my conversations with like-minded individuals like Ria and Chay Hoon.
Earlier Wildfilms footage were shot on tape, so there are a few hundred tapes that need to be digitised, and a lepak "tai-tai" like me always comes in handy for nitty-gritty jobs like these. So I lugged back "Ziggy" (our pet name for one of the small handicams), 500gigs of hard disk, and four boxes of tapes to be converted into digital format. This should keep me happily busy till 2008 too!
I've discovered though, that there's a big difference between tai-tai and housewife. A tai-tai has a maid. I am a housewife.
Another eventful "must do" in Singapore was attending Jo and Leong's wedding dinner. I was pretty zonked out that day as I had spent the early morning out on Pulau Hantu, but the wedding dinner was a really refreshing change to the dreary grey of Dubai life.
Typical Chinese/Singaporean style - lots of red and cheery colours, as pictured here. When I'm really tired, my hands get really shaky, so I didn't take any pictures but have compiled a few here, taken by Mei Ling and the wedding photographer.
I was seated with Louis, Rabind and Wayne, and some intimidating-looking guys I've never met before. Felt pretty lost especially since I was half-awake and attending this as "Ben's wife". Introductions to people were like this, Hey, you know Ben? --- Fatty Ben? or Ben the Chef? --- Yea, this is his wife, Mrs Fatty Ben.
I must say, even though this was like, what... only the second time I've met Leong, and one might ask who I am to comment, I think he looked really, really happy. I hardly got to see or speak to Jo 'cos typical in all Chinese wedding dinners, the bride always kena change baju like a Hong Kong superstar at a concert. It was a beautiful wedding, and I'm sure, the happiest day of their lives.
One thing I sure didn't miss when back in Singapore... no, two things:
1. Being made to feel fat just cos I wasn't like all 'em skinny-ass skanks around.
2. Being told that I speak "very good English for a Malaysian".
I mean, what's up with people presuming that Malaysians can't speak English. If you sat in a foodcourt in Singapore, no, not even food court... If you were seated in a nice restaurant in Singapore, you'd notice that all the chatter around you is in Mandarin. Many Singaporeans think they speak "good" English just 'cos they begin each sentence with words like "Basically..." and try to sound eloquent by saying things like "forget a-bow-rit" and "am I right or am I right?"
First of all, there's no such thing as "good English". Learn to speak proper English, get your grammar, Ps n Qs right, before you go 'round questioning another's language proficiency based on nationality.
It's bloody annoying and such an insult when people ask, You're Malaysian? Are you sure? You speak such good English, I thought you're Singaporean. You studied in Singapore or overseas is it?
I'm Malaysian, I studied in Malaysia, I don't hold a degree, and I speak proper English. Lots of Malaysians do. Wake up....
Ok, back to happy stuff. What felt really good about my trip home was the amount of "me-time" I had. Ya, I know I don't work in Dubai so I have full access to "me-time" here too. But when I was in Singapore and PJ, I was a housewife on holiday!
No need to cook! No need to jaga the big baby! No need to worry about groceries. Hungry? Just walk out to the nearby kopitiam and be spoilt for choice. I didn't even have to make my own coffee. Just 80 cents gets me a nice cup of kopi pua sio. So shiok!
I met up with friends, mother-in-law, father-in-law. Mizan works at the i-Shop in Cineleisure, so he was one of the first few people I met and he even gave me a discount on the adapter for my Powerbook. I had a late lunch and coffee with Razmi just before he went off for National Service, and konlomee with Raena and Shorbs! Dinner with Ben's friends, as well as with my ex-colleagues from Crystal Wines.
I also met up with Peng a few times for kopi or makan. I told him I planned to ta-pau half a roast duck to bring back to Dubai for Ben, and he went ahead and bought it for me. Peng also introduced me to the latest drink fad, those awful cans of "Anything" or "Whatever"! And I finally met Brownie, his chow chow puppy!
All in all, it was a marvelous trip, and it was even nicer knowing that the end of the trip would signal my return home to Ben, so leaving didn't feel so bad. The housewife, refreshed and rejuvenated, is back on duty.
The first significant thing I did when back in Singapore was my trip out to the intertidal zone in Changi with Wildfilms, the second day I was home. Great way to start off my getaway. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't "getting away" from my husband. Just Dubai itself - its intolerable service standards, etc etc... the list just grows n grows.
Lots of new sights greeted me in Singapore, like the horrid "Wheel" that's almost done, the new Ikea, Giant and Courts in Tampines, Sheng Siong in Bedok, and VivoCity.
I spent about 10 days in PJ and 20 days in Singapore. My time in PJ was quality time with family and buddies. I think I've had enough Nescafe Ais to last me the rest of the year, as I was out at the mamak with Nat on most nights, sometimes joined by Sher Hui and Wye Li. Also managed to spend an afternoon in Bangsar with Jamie.
Sometimes I feel like a celebrity back home as my many "Ah Ee"s take turns to "chope" me for lunch appointments and such. It felt really nice, and of course, anything to do with makan is great!
Back in Singapore, I joined Wildfilms on a few more trips during low tide to the shore and a few islands. These were really splendid too - being close to nature again, and my conversations with like-minded individuals like Ria and Chay Hoon.
Earlier Wildfilms footage were shot on tape, so there are a few hundred tapes that need to be digitised, and a lepak "tai-tai" like me always comes in handy for nitty-gritty jobs like these. So I lugged back "Ziggy" (our pet name for one of the small handicams), 500gigs of hard disk, and four boxes of tapes to be converted into digital format. This should keep me happily busy till 2008 too!
I've discovered though, that there's a big difference between tai-tai and housewife. A tai-tai has a maid. I am a housewife.
Another eventful "must do" in Singapore was attending Jo and Leong's wedding dinner. I was pretty zonked out that day as I had spent the early morning out on Pulau Hantu, but the wedding dinner was a really refreshing change to the dreary grey of Dubai life.
Typical Chinese/Singaporean style - lots of red and cheery colours, as pictured here. When I'm really tired, my hands get really shaky, so I didn't take any pictures but have compiled a few here, taken by Mei Ling and the wedding photographer.
I was seated with Louis, Rabind and Wayne, and some intimidating-looking guys I've never met before. Felt pretty lost especially since I was half-awake and attending this as "Ben's wife". Introductions to people were like this, Hey, you know Ben? --- Fatty Ben? or Ben the Chef? --- Yea, this is his wife, Mrs Fatty Ben.
I must say, even though this was like, what... only the second time I've met Leong, and one might ask who I am to comment, I think he looked really, really happy. I hardly got to see or speak to Jo 'cos typical in all Chinese wedding dinners, the bride always kena change baju like a Hong Kong superstar at a concert. It was a beautiful wedding, and I'm sure, the happiest day of their lives.
One thing I sure didn't miss when back in Singapore... no, two things:
1. Being made to feel fat just cos I wasn't like all 'em skinny-ass skanks around.
2. Being told that I speak "very good English for a Malaysian".
I mean, what's up with people presuming that Malaysians can't speak English. If you sat in a foodcourt in Singapore, no, not even food court... If you were seated in a nice restaurant in Singapore, you'd notice that all the chatter around you is in Mandarin. Many Singaporeans think they speak "good" English just 'cos they begin each sentence with words like "Basically..." and try to sound eloquent by saying things like "forget a-bow-rit" and "am I right or am I right?"
First of all, there's no such thing as "good English". Learn to speak proper English, get your grammar, Ps n Qs right, before you go 'round questioning another's language proficiency based on nationality.
It's bloody annoying and such an insult when people ask, You're Malaysian? Are you sure? You speak such good English, I thought you're Singaporean. You studied in Singapore or overseas is it?
I'm Malaysian, I studied in Malaysia, I don't hold a degree, and I speak proper English. Lots of Malaysians do. Wake up....
Ok, back to happy stuff. What felt really good about my trip home was the amount of "me-time" I had. Ya, I know I don't work in Dubai so I have full access to "me-time" here too. But when I was in Singapore and PJ, I was a housewife on holiday!
No need to cook! No need to jaga the big baby! No need to worry about groceries. Hungry? Just walk out to the nearby kopitiam and be spoilt for choice. I didn't even have to make my own coffee. Just 80 cents gets me a nice cup of kopi pua sio. So shiok!
I met up with friends, mother-in-law, father-in-law. Mizan works at the i-Shop in Cineleisure, so he was one of the first few people I met and he even gave me a discount on the adapter for my Powerbook. I had a late lunch and coffee with Razmi just before he went off for National Service, and konlomee with Raena and Shorbs! Dinner with Ben's friends, as well as with my ex-colleagues from Crystal Wines.
I also met up with Peng a few times for kopi or makan. I told him I planned to ta-pau half a roast duck to bring back to Dubai for Ben, and he went ahead and bought it for me. Peng also introduced me to the latest drink fad, those awful cans of "Anything" or "Whatever"! And I finally met Brownie, his chow chow puppy!
All in all, it was a marvelous trip, and it was even nicer knowing that the end of the trip would signal my return home to Ben, so leaving didn't feel so bad. The housewife, refreshed and rejuvenated, is back on duty.
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