舍不得，又期待

Getting ready .... pretty much sums up how I am feeling at this very moment.
The past 3 months felt like it's passed by so so so very quickly. And tonight, I will be returning back to Singapore.

I will miss K and his dogged determination.
His face is already so so so so sad and depressed, when he saw me take out the suitcase.

But I shall be reminded of that gleeful look of him with lots of his balls.

Had my last good swim earlier this morning. Managed to do more laps of free-style without feeling breathless. Thankful for some tips received. I really will miss the pool, and especially when I feel I am improving in my strokes.

Managed to play some amounts of tennis in this heat. See the crazy sweat. My entire feet is soaked with sweat... until they seeped thru' the socks, and one time, even the shoes.

I can feel the "thap thap" as I play, the sound of movement between the socks and shoes.
The sweat is incredible.

Managed to have good lunches, good makans with different ones. For the first time, joined in a real tai-tai lunch group. Wahahaha.

And there are Koreans, Brazilian-American, Maltese, Singaporeans, Chinese... it's a good lunch!

Managed to complete at least all that I have to do by today, managed to marie-kondo my personal and work laptop today too. This - is an acheivement. :-D

And so, I now look forward to the familiar Singapore hustle and bustle, look forward to seeing my mum tomorrow, look forward to China trip and to see colleagues and friends, look forward to MacRitchie, look forward to all that is in store in the next 5+ weeks.

舍不得，又期待。

A "no experience" experience

To be honest, I was quite excited about my Friday night, because I've been invited to visit an local Emirati's house, to learn about the Ramadan and local culture, and to have the Iftar meal together with the local family.

So I was telling Steve and colleagues about it, and really looking forward to it. Besides learning about the culture and eating together, I was also keen to see the interior design and decorations of a local emirati family (because much has been said about the golden, arabic-styled home designs).

So you can imagine that I worked hard the whole day, telling myself that I would be in for a wonderful treat (literally) in the night!

And... it turned out to be a "no-experience" experience. :-o

Well, some background first - I got invited by Su Fen to join in this cultural exchange because she knew of this local programme that invites the foreigners into a local's home to have the iftar meal together. And she's been to 1 already - and thought I would enjoy it. Naturally, I was happy to say yes!

And when I hopped into Su Fen's car, she told me the host has changed the venue of the iftar dinner. Instead of his house, it would be in his yatch. Haha - my first response was - oh wow, would still be good, but I would prefer to see go to a real residence. And... his whole family would be in a yatch?

Well, we finally did meet up with the man, and went to his yatch, and it was actually not a family, but just with him. Conversations were okay, the food was reasonable, the yatch looks expensive and cosy, and we learnt about his family having a farm, him having yatches and a little about the culture.

Su Fen said it was a totally different experience from her first, and I would think so. :-D

My "no-experience" experience morphed into a good Friday night thereafter. Got to know another Singaporean, Yu Kim, who works at the Warner Brothers here doing costume design. It's such a niche area of work, and we continued the night chatting at the nearby sports bar. So it was still good though!


At the Yas Mall Marina - to go to the host's yatch. This is such a beautiful stretch. Reminds me of our marina yatch stretch in Singapore. :)) Sunset was beautiful too.


Inside his yatch - must say it is cosy and well-adorned. We just sat around the table and chatted a little.


And a wefie before we ended our short experience. :-]

My latest favourite drink is.....

WATER!

We recently came to a revelation that we had better buy water for ourselves here in the UAE. I think it hit me real hard when there was a water tank servicing 2-3 weeks ago, and when the taps came on again, I actually saw with my own eyes - brown water. And there were also sediments.

Also, our Singaporean friends started buying bottled water and water dispensers. And so, it didn't take much consideration and we got for ourselves our own dispenser too.

The market competition here is pretty intense. There are all sorts of bottled water brands and dispenser brands. Famous local bottled water brands here include the Al Ain, Dasani, Aqua, Nestle, etc, etc. And also the dispensers - you can get them from supermarkets too. In any case - we made a decision within a day - and got the Nestle bottles and dispenser - because if you buy 50 bottles, you get a whole dispenser free!

Haha - and I was so glad we bought it, not only because we could get hot water instantly, but because, suddenly water tastes so nice.

The water really tastes much much nicer, and I've been drinking a lot of water. It just felt like a really really nice drink. :-D

So my husband has been asking me these few days - Ey, why do you keep drinking water? Can you save save drink? 

Haha, that doesn't make any sense to me. As long as I don't drink until I get water poisoning, and because we could always get the refills, I don't see why I should save save drink. 

In fact, I think he secretly enjoys drinking the water too. Because few days back, he said - I think the water is very delicious. Haha. 


Maybe the hardest choice to make was the choosing the colour of the dispenser. There was red, silver-grey, white and black. We chose the good, o' black because silver-grey was out of stock, white is too boring, and red is too o-biang. haha!


And it is till very old-school here. To get my refills, I have to use a coupon. Haha! There are 50 coupons here - because we bought 50 bottles!

Cheers - to a healthy drinking life! :-D