Singapore-style cappucino

Kopi tarik (pulled coffee), foamy on the top

Rent-a-loo

Seen in Singapore

Christmas in Singapore

No snow but lots of trees.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Stay safe, do not touch

Small xmas tree is dangerous

X’mas in Singapore

No snow but lots of fake christmas trees.

Homeless

“Anyway, home is where you feel at home. I’m still looking.”

Holly Golightly, Breakast at Tiffany’s

Same as Holly Golightly, I’m still searching for home.

“Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia” is the location where my passport was issued. It was the place where I sepnt 19 years growing up and learning about life.

If home is where your family is, I’ve been away since January 2, 2011. More than 10 months being away from the house where my family stays.

But if family is the only thing that makes a certain location home, then I’ve not been away for too long. I had two trips this year which allowed me to see my family. I met up with my parents and my sister in June in Xi’an and I was away in Japan with my mother in October.

Kota Kinabalu is not really home. I don’t really see a place where I’ve not been staying in for more than 2 months in a year as home.

Frankly, I’ve not seen anywhere as home for sometime now and see places where my bed is as temporary accomodation. Perhaps, like my friend D says, I should be a gypsy.

Anway, here is a picture of the sky in front of my house back home. The rusty gate and mossy walls are still familiar.

This post is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project. Day 13: Home.

The rest of my posts for the project can be found here.

2012 can’t come fast enough

This morning I realized that it is already the end of November but I haven’t finished writing this year’s new year resolutions!

It makes today’s prompt for BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel blogging project even more funny. I haven’t made plans for my life but I’ve already made plans for travelling.

(Image from my TripIt app. Here’s a review of the Web program.)

Aside from the Chinese New Year tickets, the flights for the rest of the trips were bought on offer and I’m dang proud of myself for that.

Some of next year’s travel will be more challenging. For the two Vietnam trips, I’ll be going alone and I don’t speak Vietnamese.

But that also makes it more exciting because they’ll be like warm up for my RTW trip where I plan to visit many countries which I don’t speak the language.

Yogjakarta has been on my To Go list after I found out about the ancient Hindu temples nearby. I’ll be travelling with D, my travel buddy who I went to Bandung with a few years ago. (This trip also reminds me I need to visit Angkor Wat.)

The locations I’m going to are great for indie travelers because they aren’t really huge cities and you can cover a lot of the areas within a few days of wondering around.

Can’t wait for 2012 to come.

This blog post is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel Project. Day 30 (last day!): 2012 TICKET

Where are you going in 2012? Why is that place great for indie travelers?

The rest of my posts for the project can be found here.

What travel means to me in one word

ESCAPE

During my trip in Paris, I had an unhealthy obsession with escape signs. I didn’t really know why I felt compelled to take photos of every exit sign I see and to seek escape signs where I can’t see them.

In the description of a Facebook photo album titled Escape in France (related photos here), I wrote:

I discovered that I’m actually very fascinated with escape signs. In a novel, this would have deep meaning but in real life, it means I’m weird.

These few weeks I had been feverish with the wish to travel. Then one day, I realized recently at work (my mind wanders) that for me, travelling means to escape, to be free.

But to escape from what?

Is it to be away from the usual scenery and to be in an unfamiliar place? Is it to be away from the local food and to taste something different? Is it to smell a different air?

That, I’m to afraid to answer.

This post is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project. Day 29: ONE WORD

What does travel mean to you in one word?

The rest of my posts for the project can be found here.

Lavender-colored dream

(Image grabbed from Wikipedia)

Where do I want to be now? In a field of waist high (not possible) lavendar. I don’t care in which part of the world it is, I want to be there.

I want to be among the buzzing bees and intoxicating scent of lavender. I want to pluck bunches of the flower and dunk them in olive oil to make scented oil.

As you can see, I have a fetish for lavender.

I don’t know how that happened but I have the urge to buy every lavender scented product I see. Fortunately, my budget does not allow me to purchase much of the real or artificial lavender products out there.

When BootsnAll posted Day 27’s prompt: Wanderlust “Share a photo or video that just makes you want to GO. RIGHT. NOW“, I thought hard. I couldn’t think of a location or a monument I want to see now.

Then I remembered where I want my dream home to be: next to a field of lavender. So here it is.

The rest of my posts for the project can be found here.

Open Monument Day conquered

Armenian Church
Sitting in round chapel of the Armenian Church. D and I finished the 5 required stops of Open Monument Day. Received a pair of tickets for Already Famous, a local comedy featuring stereotypes of Malaysian.
Anyway, we went on a guided tour of Hajjah Fatima Mosque and Sultan Mosque with Alphonso (i think). It was a nice tour and it didn’t rain.
Sadly the Open Monument Day [in case anyone’s doing media monitoring] was badly organized. Although the concept is nice and makes you go around visiting different sites.
Details about the guided tour was only sent to me, not D. No one knew where the shuttle bus was supposed to stop. No one seem to know what all that stamps are about.
Sitting in this pretty church, I have sort of forgotten about the rain, bad organization and just feel at peace.
Amen.