Athens

Athens was a great prelude to the following 12 days of island hopping. It set the scene with ruins aplenty, delicious gyros, the blazing afternoon sun and the most incredible sunsets. 

We are now convinced Greece offers the best sunsets - while also harbouring a deeply set phobia of sunset-chasing which we did every single day of our 2 week long trip.

When we weren't stuffing our faces with gyros or searching for peaches, we were visiting ruins and hiking up mountains (my bad).

Here's the Panathenaic Stadium for a sweet 2.5 euros - thank you NTU for the student card sans an expiry date.

I'm not sure why I even included Mount Lycabettos into the itinerary. I mean, I ran 50m in the office yesterday while rushing to submit documents and nearly got a leg cramp. Must have been going through a particularly fitspo/inspirational moment while I was planning for the trip.

The hike up was very, very warm with no sign of a breeze, but a fitspo does what a fitspo must and so I kept going.

To be fair, the view was insane. I felt like I could see all of Athens from up there.

We baked for 2 hours while camping for the sunset so thankfully, it sunset was ace. If not I probably would have thrown a fit after all that walking.

So glad Sandemans is in Athens because they're pretty much the only walking tour I trust, and this too was great. To the uninitiated, Sandemans is a free walking tour company (mostly in Europe) and the guides are remunerated based on tips. This means that the guides have a larger incentive to interact more, tell more interesting stories and share more about the city. In short, they're far better than the fixed fee tours because they're far more interesting than a man reading off a script. 

The peaches were mad cheap - 99 cents euro/kg, and super juicy. I haven't found a better peach since.

Tada - the famed Acropolis which has strict rules on student passes and requires them to have an expiry date. So for the first time in a long time, I ended up with an adult ticket. 

But ok la full price for a temple that's withstood wars and nature's wrath over a course of 2400 years, I'll take it.

I'm terrible with night photos so here's a lousy one of our first ever open-air cinema experience (with the Parthenon overlooking us) at Cine Thision. I watched Victoria and Abdul (I, not we, because Jia slept through most of it) with the cool night breeze, wishing I had a nice warm gyros for company too.

I've been thinking a lot lately - about how I'd rather be back to my carefree, fishball self as compared to how life is now.

And it hit me in a Zara store (Marina Square, if you're looking for inspiration too) that I was stressed before I found a job, and now that I am employed, I'm perpetually stressed too. More so, even.

So if I've lived the past 22 years of my life being stressed then I suppose I deserve to live a little. Staying up till 3am to finish a drama series, cup noodles at 11pm on a Sunday night, KTV on a work night - ooh, living life dangerously on the edge.

We'll power through this week.

1.5 year old film

I'm currently going through a spontaneous streak which involves (finally) finishing and developing my roll of film. It's been sitting in my camera for a year and a half (!!) which explains why the first frame is Philo's graduation photo and finally ends with a seamstress in JB, shot over the previous weekend.

I guess the only perk of my procrastination is being able to see all these long forgotten memories jump back to life again.

Take me away

You know how certain smells take you to places? Not places, like countries or lands, but the ones that  take you back to a certain moment in your life. The moment is usually very brief, but the nostalgia it ignites sticks with you for a long, long time.

So today I was dumping out the last of the trash when I caught a whiff of the air out the window. Then I took a deep breath. And almost immediately - I found myself in my 15 or 16 year old self again - that's 6-7 years back, mind you.

Here, I was too, savouring the fresh night air, but at my popo's old home in Clementi. But - the old me had other thoughts on my mind - how difficult the IB was going to be, what I was going to write for my Extended Essay, when my library books would be due, who wasn't replying my MSN messages - you get the idea. All these worries then, almost laughable right now. They are a world away from the items and varied to-do lists running around my head. I was carefree and I didn't know it.

My popo's home was one of those old HDBs. They didn't even have lift buttons for each floor. It was just 1, 5, 10. She stayed on the 6th floor, so we'd have to get into the lift, hit the button for the 5th, get out, then trudge along the hallway and up one flight of stairs to reach her house. Oh it was a pain alright.

Her old flat had flavour though. It was overflooding with decades of memories - of her, her late Husband and her 5 children. It was built, piece by piece, layer upon layer by an impressively independent woman. My gong gong passed away long before I was born, so popo brought up 5 kids all on her own and then one by one, all us grandkids too. Everything in the house had been there for so long, every piece of plate, cabinet, stool and wok had its own story to tell.

Whenever we came back to Singapore for the Chinese New Year or summer holidays, I'd sleep in my aunt's old room in the flat. I'd pick up old momentos, point at old trophies and squint at the layer of dust that had settled over it.

They had an enbloc of the flats a couple of years ago - so popo moved over to the newer, more cramped HDBs. The fresh coat of white paint, air conditioned rooms, sky scraping HDB blocks all a glaring reminder to them as to how much Singapore has developed, and what has been given up in the process.

I must say I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this, besides that it seems that the best time is always in the present. Not necessarily looking back on what we've missed, nor looking forward to what we could have - but making the best of and enjoying what's right now. No better time for chasing dreams, that's what.

Guess I'm ready to battle through another 4 days of work. Although I am still expecting that mid-day breakdown tomorrow.

Kawah Ijen

About 2 weeks ago, I went on my first!! hiking trip ever (first one that I did willingly anyway). I'd long heard about how the climb for Mt Bromo and Kawah Ijen is a must do because they have amazing views for the easy (debatable) hike that it is. Plus I wanted something a 'lil different from the usual city hopping we've been doing - so this was perfect. 

In fact it went so well that my friends are now planning another hiking trip, this time to Rinjani instead...... perhaps the worst possible outcome but alright.

Our guide Esnawan lined up the most amazing activities, and Kawah Ijen was only just the beginning. It started raining halfway through our night trek (fun) so we were cold and miserable by the time we got to the top (really fun). But the fog from the rain and the hues from the sunrise gave us this misty pink sky - so I'd say it worked out in the end. 

Boyfriend may beg to differ cos he was dying in his 2 layers but never mind about him now.

The mist made it crazy difficult to see the crater lake clearly but!! we spotted a huge rainbow so I'd say that made the hike pretty worth it.

Esnawan and our guide up Ijen made us hot drinks and instant noodles which were heaven to hold since we were all freezing. Yeah, I was too, even in double layer socks and leggings and 4 layers of heat tech/ hoodie/ fleece vest/ windbreaker. 

On our way down we met a few sulphur miners who so kindly let us touch their blocks of sulphur and take photos.

Prolly the most anti-climatic end to a post ever - but it rained through the morning even after we got to the top, so we were soaked through. After we got back to the car we sat in our wet clothes for 2 hours until we got off at a rest stop where we proceeded to plaster the car with our clothes like the true barbarians we are.

Sunshine and dry feet had never felt so good.

Bali Parti

A while back we decided we'd get away from the mundanity of life and booked ourselves a trip to Bali. And it was soooo good having another reunion 'cos its been what, 5 years since our grad trip to Langkawi?? 

Anyway we decided to do a part 2 of it, meaning it involved a lot of eating, wading in the pool and sea, and not really doing anything. Life goals, really.

My absolute favourite day was one that we spent at Sundays Beach Club, aka old Finn's Club (says everyone else but I really dk 'cos I've never been so I'm just saying it to fit with the crowd).

The moment I saw this I knew it was the place of our dreams.

What started as "just one more step ok ok ok" slowly escalated into us throwing ourselves into the sea and subsequently going "this is nice oh no shit oh shit wave ohhhh fk". When we eventually picked ourselves up (actually no, Di had to drag my body off the floor because I was helpless against the waves), Di was staring into the sea going "ah............ my sunnies.....". 

Picture it, tiny Di against the large and seemingly borderless sea, watching mini waves that roll to shore carrying sand, shells and a hint of disappointment, Clara and I standing on shore squinting, hoping for a greenish glint in the sea so we could jump in to grab the sunnies - 

Until Di turned around and said "oh well they were only 10HKD anyway"

Oh.

It was 300,000 IDR for entry, of which 150,000 IDR goes towards F&B credits. Which sounded great!! Until we realised the food and drink prices were the same as those in Singapore, topped off with a 21% tax charge. Ahh okay.

I had a great mango smoothie and a tuna poke bowl so yeah I'm good.

It got mad hot and humid in the afternoon so we headed up to The Ungasan above to use their infinity pool. It was a reaaaal pity we didn't stay all the way till the evening because their free water sport activities only start at 5pm and they have nightly bonfires! But we wanted to catch the sunset at Uluwatu Temple so.......... (spoiler: there was no sunset)

At least the cliff views were stunning. But there were so many tourists around I felt guilty for even hogging the spot for anything more than 15 seconds, and so on we walked.

Ended the day with our driver demanding more money from us than we initially agreed on so - yes, what a great day indeed. Gonna be Bali dreaming for more days to come :')