The bus was quiet that morning (as it is all the mornings) except for a slight commotion when a Filipino maid was trying to settle down her two young charges on a seat. As I was day-dreaming about nothing in particular, I stared into space at the seat next to me across the aisle.
I heard voices.
"What are you reading?"
A Caucasian guy (aisle seat) asked the Caucasian lady (window seat) sitting next to him. The conversation began. They had a pleasant conversation about the book (I couldn't see the title properly but the book cover looked like those you'll see of John Grisham's). Apparently, the lady had read the book before in French and she was now reading it again in English. Then the conversation progressed to what the guy was doing in Singapore (he was on a 3 month work assignment here).
"I'm getting off here now."
"So am I."
They alighted the bus. As my bus drove off, I saw both of them crossing the road together and chatting happily. I have a feeling they would exchange their numbers and meet up again.
What a romantic way to meet your partner.
Remembered that I have not completed compiling my Gold Coast pictures:
Our hotel was a few hundred metres away from the lengendary Surfers' Paradise so we went to the beach every day after we came back from the theme parks. There really isn't much point trying to swim because the waves were really strong so we spent most of the time just frolicking in the waves. This sounds really silly but the sea is really salty. I should know since I drank alot of sea water and my eyes stung from the salt. A warning for future travellers: DO NOT WEAR YOUR GOGGLES. I wore mine because silly me was hoping wearing my goggles would help reduce the sting in my eyes. Sadly, I lost my favourite pink goggles to the Pacific Ocean the second day. The waves were very strong when we were at the sea such that when it crashed me onto the beach, I felt for my goggles on my head and it was gone.
Movie World was the second theme park we visited:
Didn't really enjoy Movie World because there was just alot of roller coaster rides and people dressed in Warner Bros movie character costumes. So there was Scooby Doo, Austin Powers, Batman and Justice League. The only nice thing I bought was the Gingerbread Man soft toy. Isn't it cute? In the end, I wasn't too keen to try much of the roller coaster rides so we just walked about in the hot sun. My siblings and I were so bored that we went to buy a pack of Harry Potter's playing cards and sat down to play Dai Tee while waiting for our coach to pick us up.
The last theme park we visited was my favourite next to Sea World. Dream World had lots of cool non roller-coaster rides and some animal attractions. We also had alot of fun taking silly pictures:
This was the best ride at Dream World:
I was on an adrenaline high the whole day.
Here are some of the animals (real and cartoon) at Dream World:
On one of our free days, we also visited Q1- the tallest residential building in the world:
As you can tell, there was a spectacular view of the Gold Coast beachline. It must be a very good feeling to wake up each morning to such a wonderful view.
Lastly, some pictures I took on the plane home:
The next "big" event in my life is on 01 June - when I officially start my gym membership at Fitness First. First time ever paying $150+ per month to join the gym. I would have never paid such an exorbitant amount in the past but now with work taking up so much of my time... Exercising makes me feel better about myself. Makes me feel I'm doing something positive for myself.
Work is depressing. Had lunch with a co-worker (different department) yesterday. She will be taking CFA this December. Her rationale - she needed to have some back-up in case she was made redundant. Everyone in JPMorgan seems worried about being made redundant. Worried about seeing more Indians from Bangalore coming here to Singapore to learn our work and bringing our jobs away.
So much fear and uncertainty. It's depressing.
Thinking of learning either oil painting or ceramic art at Tanjong Pagar CC. But oil painting classes are only on Saturdays. Which means I have to travel... on a Saturday all the way just for oil painting...
Perhaps this can be my back-up. Be an oil painter.