it seemed so recent that i was counting down the days to the BIG TRIP. it was like 50 days to go..20 days to go..12 days..etcetc..AND now its all over. Went to Paris, London, Tours(that's in France, in the Loire Valley where they make all the wines), Rome, Florence and Venice.

Being gone for a whole month makes you realise a lot of things. Mainly, home is the best place in the world. haha. after spending all that money, travelling halfway around the world, jet-lagged up to the nose and then having that sudden divine-like realisation, with the plane taxiing down the runway at Changi, when it hits you out of the blue. Boy, I was smiling all the way as i walked down the gangway(is it called a gangway, ahh.. whatever that thing is called) and into the terminal. Strange place, home is. Its good to be back.

Well, the other things i've realised is that Singapore is so unreal. Its utopianess, orderliness, peacefulness even and YES, cleanliness (of course, how could i forget that). Its all straight lines, queue numbers and equally-spaced-apart trees. Unreal, this city is. (shit, i'm even blogging like yoda, that's because i've just completed a marathon of episode 4, 5, 6, 1 of Star Wars) . For the past month it's been.. bus and train strikes, maniacal drivers- regardless of lights, red or green, strange gypsy women, tramps on streets, illegal workers running from the police (yes, they actually run in front with all their wares, calling their network of friends on their cells- and all this while the police is just about 50m behind them) . Coming back to Singapore is like coming back to Legoland city, where everything's almost perfect- with matching trees and colour-coordinated buildings. Its like so attached to the rest of the world and yet its not. It almost gives you a sense of complacency, living in a stepford-wives-place like this. Its no wonder that most people, in some point of their lives or for many in a large part of their lives get caught up in this Singapore-isolatedness and never really think beyond the sandy beaches. This is the world to many and in fact, the world is so much bigger.

OKay, enough of that. The heart-warming thing though, about our uniqueness- is the sound of Singapore. For example, in Venice, as we were strolling down the cobblestoned lanes surrounded by all its quaint-few-hundred-years-old buildings, taking in the atmosphere and doing all the touristy things.. from behind we heard these 2 girls saying.. 'ya lor, this one so expensive hor, lets go there'..haha, uniquely Singapore.. I think it should be distinctively Singapore. And in Paris, along the Seine, just on the other side of ile de la cite, with Notre dame in view and everything. the artists selling their paintings and stuff, old books and all kinds of knicknacks, with the cloudless sky so blue its almost as if you can see to the other side of the universe or something... then these 2 people come along in the opposite direction and you hear.. 'ya la, like the one in suntec.' Its heartwarming, really, the sound of Singapore, the sound of home.

Boy, it sure is good to be back.
~BigSis