Top 10 Memories of 2022

In the order that I recalled first: 

1) I started mermaiding! 

A very niche and expensive hobby that has cost me ~$2,000 in one year for lessons, the tails, pool rentals, and other equipment! This is an unexpected and serious dip into my savings. But I'm enjoying it and the added advantage of learning basic free diving. 

2) My paternal grandfather died at 103 years old on National Day. This was my first time witnessing someone pass away, and the experience was quite surreal. I have no more living grandparents. I love this grandfather and wish I spoke Cantonese so that we could have communicated better. 

3) On the topic of family, I became a "blood" aunt this year to my adorable niece and nephew! Both my sisters gave birth two weeks apart. I ADORE being an aunt (they call me 姨妈/"Yee Ma") and am thrilled that these two spirits chose to join our family. 

4) I traveled back to the States in October to spend time with my sisters and new niece and nephew. I visited my alma mater, Brigham Young University, and it felt different to be on campus as a working adult alumni than a student. So many (mostly good) memories came rushing back, and I could finally afford the expensive BYU paraphernalia.😁 In addition I was blessed to only encounter gorgeous fall weather and foliage (thank you God!).

5) Speaking of fall foliage, I never knew how much wide open spaces of untouched land meant to me and was essential for my soul (see THIS POST).

6) While in the US, I visited three LDS temple again after a long hiatus (Covid travel restrictions...urgh!). The last time I entered the temple was in October 2019, and I never knew how much my soul needed the temple until it was taken away. I was so blessed to  visit the Provo City, Idaho Falls, and Spanish Fork temples. The Spanish Fork temple is BEAUTIFUL. 

7) After 3.5 years, I was finally released as my ward's Young Women President. I love my girls but it was time. Sometimes you just run out of ideas and have nothing left to give. I'm still an AOA though and busy with that.

8) Work has been CRAZY busy with my boss involving me in many more projects now. But as always, people forge bonds during intensive refining periods, and this was no exception. I made so many new work-friends that I feel comfortable talking and working with, and gone on more hang out lunches with them.

9) Speaking of hang out lunches, I grew much closer to my maternal cousins this year. From late-night dinners to KTV singing to Dirty Santa snatching to binge watching... I finally feel as if I have a wider net of siblings to hang out with.

10) Sis Jean B. Bingham and Sis Connie H Gordon visited Singapore in April 2022, and I had the pleasure of hosting a meeting and lunch for them. They also gave a devotional for the women in the Church that was inspiring and relit my spiritual fire. You can tell that they are women of God who are steadfast and immovable, and a genuine love for the gospel and those around them.

Honourable Mentions: Musical box museum, SSO Baroque Christmas fundraiser concert, Singapore Food Festival, Sentosa Food Truck Festival. Small events that aren't at the top but made 2022 fun and excuses for me to hang out with friends. 

My Soul Breathed

Land -- a commodity so scarce in Singapore that people pay exorbitant amounts of money to own it. In my mind, land = money. This is also why owning a big home never appealed to me because I equated it with wasted time, effort and money spent cleaning the interior and maintaining the exterior. Even when I lived in the States, whilst people saw owning a home with a white picket fence and large open yard as freedom and bliss, I only saw money down the drain. 

But something changed during my trip to the United States in October last year, where I went on 3 road trips: 

1. My youngest sister, nephew and I made the 4-hour drive to Idaho Falls to see my other sister and new niece;
2. Solo trip to the Salt Flats for an Instagram photoshoot (shot by Yours Truly✌);
3. Solo drive to visit Andrew S. and his family. [Andrew is also a Church member, and we coincidentally entered the PhD programme at OSU in the same semester. I cannot stress how much his family was a bright spot during my time there. A few years after we graduated, his family decided to eschew the "modern life" and bought a farm in very rural Holden, UT. Holden is so small it doesn't have traffic lights, only "Stop" signs. Driving through felt surreal.] 

Part of the Bonneville Salt Flats

You must understand that I dislike driving. It induces my anxiety, and despite being a seasoned road-tripper (remember this ultimate 27-hour trip done alone...twice?), road trips are nothing more than the means to get me to my destinations.

Thus, I was taken aback by the wonderment that enveloped me as I drove to the Salt Flats and Holden. With the car eating up the miles through untouched land with nary a person in sight, I was awestruck by the never-ending miles of golden-brown land, and the towering mountains in the distant horizon backdropped against the unimpeded wide azure sky. As I gazed upon the rugged yet magnificent far-off landscape, I felt a shudder through my body, and a breathe through my soul. It was a literal sigh of relief. 

One of the moments I felt that "sigh". I was driving back from Holden and nearing the I-15.

Living in urban, populous and too-manicured city-Singapore had taken an unconscious toll on my soul. I didn't realise how much I craved the isolation in wide open spaces. 

View from the airplane to the States, so not from a roadtrip. But the principle remains -- miles of untouched land makes my soul sing!

To be clear, I don't want to own the land. Too much maintenance and the anxiety-prone me will always feel insecure about serial killers, carnivorous animals, natural fires, etc. And I'm still a true-blue city girl all the way!

But to be able to run away from city life and people for a few hours, and be surrounded by acres upon acres of land untouched by the human hand? Yes. 

Owned land is money. But unowned land is gold. 

Bought a selfie-tripod with bluetooth clicker for my photoshoot at the Bonneville Salt Flats. One of the best travel accessories I've invested in! 

(Note: Of course, a fun road trips must include blasting music, the GPS, snacks, and a reliable car with good gas mileage. So even activities related to unowned land will cost money. But such costs are more incidental and incremental.) 

Top 10 Memories of 2021

Note: This is a LONG overdue post but I figured I better publish this before the 2022 edition. So enjoy what I can remember of 2021!

 2021 - oh what a year.

1) The year started out with a bang: my sister had her wedding reception at Marriott Hotel Orchard on 01 January 2021. It was SO FUN to have her and her husband, and my youngest sister back for the reception. Food was great, and so was the programme. 

2) First cruise ever! My parents, two sisters and I went on a 3-day/2-night Cruise to Nowhere a few days after the wedding reception. Love that it was just the 5 of us (probably the last time ever), and we had so much fun eating, hanging out, lazing around, playing virtual reality games, and going for shows. 

3) Pandemic fatigue and prolonged semi-lockdown with a stupid "2-people rule". We had several months in which each household could only have 2 visitors per day, and we could only meet in groups of 2 in public. Try organising youth activities around this rule. Thank goodness the government loosened the rule near the end of 2021, otherwise it would have driven people MAD.

4)  I got vaccinated. Felt okay after the first shot, developed a one-day fever after the second. Will go for the booster sometime this month or next. (Update: booster shot done!)

5) My youngest sister came back to Singapore again in December, and I LOVED having her here. I really miss both of my sisters. 

6)  I was called as one of the six Area Organisation Advisors for the Asia Area (new calling). No idea what I'm doing, and I'm suppose to take direction from the Asia Area Presidency anyway. But I feel like I can be doing more...

7) I've gone to more exhibitions and performances this year than I have in the past 3 years (even pre-Covid...LOL). Some of the more memorable ones:

• Dale Chihuly exhibition at Gardens by the Bay (in love with his works!)
• S.E.A. Aquarium 
• Singapore Repertory Theatre's performance of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
• National Art Gallery
• Walked the Southern Ridges trail, aka Henderson Wave trail

8) The year I finally loved my calling as a Young Women President. There is an idiom in Chinese "不知不觉". It means "unknowing and unfeeling to you". I have struggled with various aspects of this calling for almost 3 years now, but  不知不觉 I somehow learned to love it. I think it's because of the young women. I know they struggle with the gospel and life. But they are trying, and they bring so much positive energy into my life. 

9) I finally checked off the goal of exploring the Joo Chiat/Katong historical area. I'm such a history nerd - other people look at historic buildings for 5 minutes and move on. I spend at least 3x as long looking at the exact things! 😁 This area is beautiful, and I'm so glad I got to take a few people there and show off its historical significance. 

10) Staycation at Goodwood Park Hotel with Vera during a May long weekend. A nice break from the stress and bustle of work without going far because of the travel restrictions. We ate A LOT, swam in the pool, and "nua-ed" a lot. Loved it.  

Honourable mention: I started driving in Singapore. I dislike driving (even in the States) and driving in Singapore makes me anxious because of the narrow lanes and parking facilities. But I've survived so far. I better learn to get comfortable with it because I'll soon be listed as the main driver whenever we rent a car. 

Now on to my 2022 edition...

What a classy decade the 2010s was.

Last September to December, I took an introductory class on computer software R, and the instructors used the below table in one of their slides to illustrate an example of good charts. I however, was struck by it for a completely different reason. 

David Taylor created this 2014 award-winning chart (first published at www.prooffreader.com but chart has since been taken down from source 😕) highlighting the top words in Billboard popular song titles from 1890 to 2014. 

Take a look at the more recent decades:

I mean...😒

It is mind-blowing that popular song titles in the 2000s (and all past decades) had zero curse words, but suddenly they burst to the top only a decade later. To be fair, since this table was published in 2014, the data for the 2010s is incomplete. A full analysis of the entire decade might yield different results.

But for at least 3 years, words such as "Hell", "F***", and "Die" were the most frequently used words in Billboard song titles. 

So classy, right...

I don't know what happened that caused this change but I'm not surprise. In fact, this table only provides proof to a theory I have -- Western pop songs have increasingly become a cesspool of highly vulgar and explicit lyrics since the 2000s. It is ridiculous that I have to google "clean version" or "radio edit version" of so many songs now. Even young up-and-coming singers swear in their songs like it's not a big deal.

I fear for the day when we stop having "radio edit" versions available because we have become so desensitised to such vulgarity and explictiness. 

Cruise to...Nowhere?

That's right, "Cruise to Nowhere". Sounds like a total waste of money but don't diss it till you try it! In a bid to somewhat save some of our lost tourism GDP, the government allowed two cruise companies to operate 2- or 3-night cruises to Singapore's open seas for local residents at half passenger capacity. Every passenger must carry a "trace together" token wherever they go, and the crew were extremely vigilant in ensuring all passengers complied with social distancing rules.  

My family went on the 3day/2night World Dream cruise in January, just after school reopened. This was the first cruise for all of us, and since we did not have tourists or families, our particular cruise only had about 800 passengers (~4,000 is max capacity!). As a result, the service staff treated us very well. We also didn't have to queue or pre-book the pool, restaurants, shows, and events. What a treat!

One of my brother-in-laws was actually in Singapore then but he couldn't go as he is not a Singapore resident. What a pity😩

We went for the upgraded balcony rooms because those were the only ones available, plus if we had to be quarantined, we wanted the more spacious rooms. We have ZERO regrets for this splurge. To sit out at night and be lulled by the sound of the sea...such peace and serenity is rare to come by. 

What we did:

THE POOL & WATER SLIDES

For crowd-control purposes, we had to book the jacuzzi and pool. But since there were so few people, we practically had two jacuzzi tubs and the entire pool to ourselves for a solid 45 minutes! There were also two water slides that that were fun, and brought me back to my childhood at the Sentosa water park (Fantasy Island).

SHOWS

• Sing-a-long to some classic "Oldies". Easy, simple, nostalgic fun.
• Magic show (duh...is it a cruise if there isn't a magician?) He was entertaining and pretty good. Photo of him below.
• (Free) Night-time laser show (set to Michael Jackson songs). There was supposed to be fireworks but they cancelled it on our leg. Guess it wasn't worth the cost with so few passengers. 
• My sisters and I also caught a gambling-bingo game. No one won the grand prize of some ridiculous number, but the consolation prize winner got over a hundred bucks. Enough to cover the cost of the tickets I guess😆 

VR CENTRE

We tried out the VR Centre, and my family had a grand time at the shooting game. But the roller-coaster ride (see below) was a let-down. 

This poor magician. He had a "fan meet" session, and even though we were 10 minutes late, we were still the first there. I'm sure he would be more popular if there were more passengers. We went there because of the promise of free VR Centre tickets, but of course, there is always a catch, right? We didn't end up using the "free"-with-conditions-tickets. 

MASSAGE & SPA

I know, probably one of the biggest rip-offs on a cruise, but my family enjoys splurging on massages during holidays. This cruise massage was relaxing but not the best. At least the package came with a sauna and steam room experience that was enjoyable. 

FREE CLASS

I went for the beginner ballroom dance class (the only one), and perhaps because it was at night and there were so few passengers, I was the only participant! It was embarrassing for me and the instructors. Thankfully my sisters joined me. We got a personalised, 45-min cha cha class, so that was nice. 

DINING

We ate at the complimentary restaurants, except on two occasions. The first was at the Japanese restaurant where we ate the shabu shabu. It felt good to eat such comfort food, especially because the complimentary Chinese restaurant was "meh". About $25/per pax for a filling portion. 

We also splurged on the fine dining Chinese restaurant. Not worth the extra money, but better than its free counterpart. 

The complimentary breakfast restaurant had decent breakfast food though! You can't go wrong with omelets, right? We also got a free ice cream for filling up a customer service form. 

WOULD I GO AGAIN?

Absolutely, with some conditions. 

• Sail during off-peak season when children are in school
• Get a balcony room or suite.
• Save up for the extra-cost meals because the free food gets old very quickly.
• Budget for the internet, which is not cheap. 

The "3rd day" also doesn't count since we docked back at 9am, and were off the ship by 10am. So it really was a 2day/2night trip. 

But I loved the experience and spending time with my sisters again. And someone with more discipline than me would certainly be able to not spend any money on entertainment. Did I mention there are plenty of movies and shows in the rooms for those who are room-bound? 

Overall, I had a wonderful virgin cruise experience, and would love to go for more! 

Floral Fantasy (at Gardens by the Bay)

Gardens by the Bay is famous for its two conservatories (and rightly so! They are so well-done). But I encourage Singapore residents to spend an extra $10 on its lesser-known sister, Floral Fantasy. Highly Instagram-worthy, and a good rest for your legs from walking around the park. It is a small exhibit, and I don't think the foreigner rate is worth it ($20 adult/ $12 child). But if you can get a resident to purchase the tickets, go for it! You are allowed to stay there for 45 minutes, and my mom and I relished every minute there when we visited in July.

I'm not good at photography but it was so easy to shoot naturally beautiful pictures at this venue.

The sight that greets you the moment you enter.

These hanging balls of flowers came up and down by a pulley. I tried to capture on video how magical it felt but the balls ended up looking like virus cells, so...

The exhibit seems to be divided into two sections, front and back. The front has the lovely summer flowers (at least this season) as those above. The back was more eclectic, and I believe the underlying message was to care for our environment and better manage our waste.  

Crocheted "Pitcher" bags and some other items made from recycled material.

The end transitioned into a forest-like area, complete with handing willows and a vivarium on endangered poisonous dart frogs.

It was SO COOL to spot these rare animals, and see how many we could find. 

I definitely want to go again, but next time, I'll dress up nicely and get a better photographer to take professional shots of me there.😄  

Gardens by the Bay: Glass in Bloom exhibition

 My mom and I visited Singapore's Gardens by the Bay (GBTB) this past Saturday. It amazes me that even though I've been there multiple times, there is always something new to see. In this case, it was Dale Chihuly's Glass in Bloom exhibition. 

I was first exposed to Chihuly's work when I visited the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas many years ago. The sight of the famous colourful glass ceiling is still imprinted in my mind, and you can imagine how delighted I was to find out about this GBTB exhibition. 

Warning: photos galore in this post. I didn't take every single piece of his works (and my photographing skills don't do justice anyway), but I took a lot.😁 The below are those I like more.

GBTB displayed Chihuly's work in 5 sections: 

1. Indoor Gallery
2. Outdoor "Gallery" (really the fields and mini-gardens at GBTB)
3. Flower Dome conservatory
4. Cloud Forest Conservatory
5. 3 of his works on public display for "free"

1. Indoor Gallery

For those familiar with  Chihuly's work, this section showcased his "Macchias", "baskets", "Ikebanas", works on paper, and glass art.  

Opening piece. Stunning right?

My favourite was (surprise) the glass paintings. They look "meh" until closer inspection when you realise they are actually layers of painted glass combined to reflect a certain look. My mom loved the top-left art piece because of the way the glass pieces reflect light onto the wall. 

2. Outdoor Garden in the fields and mini-gardens around GBTB

Chihuly's signature works are his Sun and Moon pieces. For this particular exhibit at GBTB, Chihuly created the Setting Sun (wonder how many other Suns there are...).

The Moon was situated in a field surrounded by bottle trees. This is my first time seeing one. How cute are they?

Obvious mastery in bending and shaping glass. One of his most famous pieces is the Ethereal White Persian Pond. Alas, my pictures of that piece turned out horrible so you will have to make do with Google.   

We also found these whimsical animal sculptures (by GBTB, not Chihuly) while walking around. 

Cute!

3. Flower Dome Conservatory

I have to confess that the pieces in the Flower Dome Conservatory were (personal opinion) nice-but-not-fantastic. But the way GBTB designed the display for his 1997 White Tower and 2013 Erbium Pink Fiori was very well-done. 

Looks like Setting Sun but a tower instead of a ball? Setting Sun looked cooler though.😅

That perfect dahlia. Also learned that the flower in the middle-row, far right is from the succulent Crown-of-Thorns. The stem is full of thorns, yet the plant still blooms such pretty flowers. As a Christian, I can't help but think that this plant holds deep symbolism. 

Chihuly's art displayed amidst a variety of bluebells. I don't know why but bluebells make me happy.

My mom loves succulents and pointed out these unusual looking ones.

I discovered a (new?) tiny spice and fruit garden. That space smelled amazing! There was also a wedding taking place when we visited. As I mentioned on Instagram, real-life "Crazy Rich Asians" for sure. There were ~100 guests, which meant every guest had to undergo Pre-Event Testing = a few thousand dollars more on PET kits alone! 

4. Cloud Forest Conservatory

My favourite piece:

Piece was suspended from the viewing bridge (see below pic).😲  

Caught the next rotating exhibition, which was on orchids, Singapore's national flower. Wasn't in love with this new exhibit but lots of unique orchids, such as the tiny orchids growing in bunches (they do that?) and the other tiny purple-white ones. Yellow ones in honour of my paternal grandmother who loved yellow orchids. 

Couple of his other pieces. Very cool but not my favourite, especially the green-spikey one which reminded me of a virus cell. Appropriate for our time but...not. And that's me with a sloth carved entirely from wood. Had to take a selfie because it was so cute and life-like!

For those who didn't want to pay, three of his pieces were on public display for free. Showing two of them here because I couldn't photograph the 3rd (Walla Walla) well. I LOVED these two pieces.

Slipped in a picture of some fuschias set against the Singapore Flyer because they remind me of Christmas, and I love Christmas. It was raining when I took that picture, but the weather cleared up later and turned HOT again.😰 Ah Singapore weather.

I loved the experience and thought it was money well-spent ($30 for the complete package for adults). And there was hardly anyone despite being a Saturday. It was a nice bonus for us, but this probably means the exhibition cost GBTB a financial loss. There is no way they recouped the money shipping these pieces from Seattle to Singapore with only locals paying to view this exhibit. Another casualty of the pandemic. 

I'm glad I caught this before it ended, and hope to one day visit the Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle when international travel is available again.