Back in Singapore

 

 Changi Airport, 2 days ago

It's been long since I blogged cause well lots of things happened! I just got back from Singapore last Saturday and I didn't get to blog while I was there. It was a great trip back to the currently-not-so-sunny-island (since it was raining for the 2 days when I was there), reuniting with my friends whom I've never meet in a year/months. And also meeting with my lecturers and also teachers made this trip back such a special one. I'll blog about my trip in this post! :)

So I left for Singapore on Thursday morning, and reached Changi at 11:30 AM. It was quite a smooth ride with no delay, so thankful for that. I quickly went to my hotel in Chinatown. Checked-in, dropped my luggage, and then went to SP after that to meet Syazwani, Joanne and Huijun! We decided to go back to SP for this meet-up. Co-incidentally it was open house so it was pretty easy to meet up with our lecturers, whom we thankfully met almost everyone :D

And also we decided to try the famous and recently opened llao-llao in FC3. Which to our expectations... Turn out to be alright. Well I wouldn't say it's horrible but I don't understand the hype for it. Anyway after our llao-llao and catch-up session, we walked around SP and met our lecturers! So great to see them again. I really miss them and it definitely feels good to see them again.

 Dr Simon Tan and I! :)

I was supposed to give Dr Simon Tan a surprise cause I didn't tell him that I'm going back to SP. But her appeared behind us while queueing for llao llao and (with a judging look) said: "You all came back to SP just for this?" Hahaha. Oh man his sense of humour is still there. He's my favourite lecturer in SP, someone whom I'm thankful to cross-path with and to be under the guidance of (during FYP). But as he was in a rush, we didn't get to talk for a long time. Nevertheless, it's good to see him again!

 Thanks for the llao-llao and catch up session!

While Huijun left as she needs to go, Syaz, Joanne and I walked around the open house for a while. And then the three of us bid farewell while I made my way to meet with Jesslyn and Kwok! Another two people whom I've been wanting to meet. It's great to see them again after such a long long time. Even though it was just for a short while :) 

 My first escargot, and a very yummy one too!

(Didn't take a photo together with Annabel and Cheryl :/)

I then made my way to Bugis to have dinner with Annabel and Cheryl! Can't believe it's been almost 2 years since the three of us met (back in 2013 February). We had dinner at Ma Maison, which is a super cosy and awesome French-Japanese restaurant. It is definitely one of the best dinners I've ever had in a long time. And we had some dessert after that. Chatting with them made me realise how much we've all grown up. We were once secondary school mates and they are both university students. The topics we talked about evolved, but the memories and our characters are still there. Though times have changed, some things remained the same. It was a great dinner and catch-up session, ladies! :) 

 Monks praying in front of Avalokitesvara

That's all for day 1. The next day I went to visit the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple near my hotel. Pretty awed by the interior of the temple. So beautiful and majestic! I prayed there first before I made my way to town to do a whole lot of shopping. I had lots of things to buy for my parents and sister haha. Managed to get all of them within three hours! Dropped them off back at my hotel and I made my way to Vithya's house cause I wanna meet her cute nephew! And yes, he is very cute and active haha. Man, can't imagine how active my nephew will be when he's of the same age as Vithya's nephew!

After that we both went to catch The Hobbit at Lido. And... We were both kinda underwhelmed by the movie. I mean it's a great movie but it doesn't give me enough "ooomph!" for an epilogue to the trilogy. But anyway I enjoyed the movie all in all. And it feels kind of sad that it's over, from LOTR to The Hobbit. I hope Peter Jackson will release a new story-movie from LOTR hah. 

 #sglyfe foreva!

We then went to Holland to meet Candy and Kai to have dinner at Cha Cha Cha. Oh gosh I miss Holland so much! And yes it's been one year since the 4 of us gathered together again and I miss all of them so much :( and being back in Holland really reminds me of our poly days where we'll go for a drink after exams/to celebrate birthdays and so on. We were just sharing our stories from universities and so on. Although we have all ventured on our own paths, it feels great to know we can still connect with each other. Thank you for the great night! And thanks Candy for the wine you got us!

And my day 2 ended. The last day started early with my meeting LTY for breakfast in Bukit Batok! We had an awesome prata and we were just talking about our travels in the US. God knows when was the last time we both met! It's good to see you again LTY, hope we can meet again in the future (recommend me more nice food!). I then made my way to Gombak to meet Jolene, Sharon and Weilun. It was Jolene's birthday 2 days before so Weilun and I went ahead first to prepare for our prata-cake surprise. And this time round it's a success! Hahaha. Unlike 2 years' ago when it kinda failed :P

 Cheers to the prata gang!

The last time we met was last year January before Jolene returned to Australia. This time round she has graduated and is back in Singapore for good! Meeting with them made me miss those days in SP where we used to study together in school, and then eat prata for dinner after that. We have all grown up I suppose. We were discussing about Singapore's education system and about tourism after lunch hah. Well, it was a wonderful time meeting all of you again. Lets make this an annual affair! :)

I made my way to Jurong next to meet Tacy over coffee. We went to this cafe called Crema and had an okaaay Earl Grey Teh-peng (inside joke) haha. Thanks Tacy for accompanying me to do some last minute shopping, and to hunt for curry powder HAHAHA. It was so funny, to realise that I went all the way to Singapore to get myself some curry powder. But anyway, it was a great time meeting with you again, and once again thank you for accompanying me to do all these shoppings haha. Sadly we didn't take a photo together, I'll just tag her with the curry powder photo hah.

 Ever changing landscape of Jurong

Anyway I was feeling pretty shocked to see how much Jurong has changed in the past 7 months, which was the last time I visited this place. Well Singapore always surprises me whenever I return to this sunny island. Ever changing, but the memories I have of the places I've been to never change.

And yes, that's all for my Singapore adventure. I went back to my hotel to get my luggage and made my way straight to Changi via MRT. It seems like a pretty hectic 3 days, but I'm glad to have made full use of it. Meeting with old friends, lecturers, and revisiting old places. I miss Singapore. Although I went back at the end of November last year, it wasn't a "proper" visit. 2 day is never enough for a proper visit!

I'm not sure when will I visit Singapore again. But I'm always looking forward to my next visit!

Alright that's all for now. I'll talk with you soon!