Check In Time! #2
9:37pm, Singapore. It’s recess week! Hopefully, that means more time to relax and catch my breath. Somehow, it took me really long to get down to writing this post. Maybe being frequently distracted by Youtube and Tiktok played a part, but another reason is due to me not knowing what to blog about. Ever since I submitted my research essay for one of my modules, I feel like I have lost interest in everything… help!! I have some class participation exercise for another module that I was supposed to complete last week, so I should be getting down to that.
Instead of the usual academic rant, I figured it would be more interesting to describe what I did yesterday with my family. I felt it serves as a nice reminder to everyone that amiss the chaos, there’s always time to relax and have fun–and I’m glad I took the opportunity to plan this outing beforehand. (Context: In Singapore, we are allowed to go out of our homes and shop/dine/visit tourist spots now, but we must practise safe distancing and wear a mask always or risk being fined (ouch). )
As most readers may have deduced, I’m from Singapore. Admittedly, it’s a rather small country;and I was always under the impression that there was nothing much to do apart from usual touristy spots and shopping districts (eg: like taking photos of the merlion). At the same time, on Sundays, my family is busy in the morning and I teach tuition then as well. So with only half a day left, I was skeptical at the amount of things we could do together.
But after researching, I realized just how wrong I was–and that yesterday was an extremely eventful day after all!
We first visited Sembawang Hot Spring, where it is Singapore’s only hot spring park (at least, to my knowledge). I vaguely remember it being reported in the news that it underwent some form of renovation, but never really took the opportunity to check it out. Some visitors even brought eggs to cook using the hot spring water. Also I have a new-found admiration for people who could soak their feet in that boiling water for ages–because I clearly couldn’t 🙁 There was also a lot of greenery around as well, which was a good change of scenery as compared to me usually staring in front of a screen during term time.
(not visible in picture but it was steaming hot, there was steam piping out from the hot spring)
We then got adventurous and visited the far west of Singapore–Tuas! Literally if one were to go any further west, one would be in Malaysia already. You could literally see the checkpoint from there. So it somehow gave the illusion that we were on holiday (even though that’s far from possible, thanks to Covid 🙁 ) There was a broadwalk leading to a lighthouse nearby, and we decided to go check it out. I wish I had known about this quaint spot sooner, because it turns out that many knew about it already and were busily snapping photos (sidenote: acads have really got to my brain. While people were taking selfies, I couldn’t help but think about my research essay on digital photography and personal photography….)
(if the sky looked more blue the photo would have been nicer! But overcast days are cooling too, I guess, especially when Singapore is hot all year round. Managed to snap this photo at a rare moment where no one was in front of me!)
We ended the evening off by eating at a Mexican cafe near my previous workplace. It brought back many pleasant memories, and the nice ambience was a great place to catch up and have a good conversation with my parents. It has been a while, especially with university life being so hectic.
I’m not sure how to end this post, especially with it taking a different turn than I expected. I just hope that over the course of recess week, besides catching up on studies, I hope to be able to spend more time with friends and family–and I hope everyone does as well! And really, cliche as it sounds, a big shoutout to my parents for tolerating my annoying self during term time. I know that I can be extremely cranky and trying at times, and I’m grateful to them for putting up with me (:
Hope everyone’s doing good! Feel free to leave a comment below on how you guys have spent/intending to spend recess week!