What's it Gonna Be?

Right, now that the pressure of the first post is away and done with, I'm sitting here wondering what's next? What do I want this site to be about?

I started thinking around themes. Like maybe a blog about finding beauty in the mundane (rejected: too conceptual), or one about walking trails in Singapore/and other places I happen to be living or travelling in (rejected: foresee won't keep up the walking and blog will fall to wayside), then had the idea of doing one about work-life balance (rejected: too contrived and a bit preachy really).

So then I thought, hell, why not just combine everything together and write one about my attempts to find beauty in the environment around me (very necessary when living in Singapore), while trying to carve a happy life in a manic society and not become the proverbial hamster in the wheel. So I guess that's what The Camel Diaries is about... my journeys (personal, physical, emotional, spiritual) in this lifetime, with a few rants and opinions thrown in!

Which brings me to the pic - my husband D and I spent the second day of Chinese New Year in the Southern Islands of Singapore. We loved Kusu Island especially. There were maybe 20 other people in the whole island (ok, so the island ain't big, but for Singapore standards, it was DESERTED) and we had a whole stretch of beach to ourselves. The water was clear, with schools of tiny grey-silver fish sharing the lagoon with us. I flopped on my back in the water and lay there buoyant, watching the blue sky. Had a strange feeling of deja-vu, and felt like I was back in the Dead Sea, bobbing up and down, doing water ballet with D & J all those months ago.

OK, hearkening back to my Eng Lit days now, but its like what T.S. Eliot calls objective correlative, where a situation, or a series of objects combine to evoke a very distinct emotion/feeling. I've been experiencing this a lot lately - Monday's Dead Sea experience being case in point.

Then there was the time when I was in the loo at work (of all places) and I heard the sound of a fan mounted on the wall, trilling from side to side, and I had the strangest almost out-of-body experience. Had the most vivid memory of playing in the lounge of my grandmother's (mama in Teochew) tiny flat, putting a home-made mask on my only Barbie's face (mix equal parts talcum powder and water to form paste). I swear I could even smell the unmistakable fried scent of mama's "gao he" (Teochew for garoupa I think). Only a moment, and it wafted away... but it really lifted my mood.

So back to Kusu Island. We left our place at 8:10 am, got to the Marina South Ferry Terminal and were on the island by 9:05am! We're talking white sand beaches, green, litter-free picnic spots, and best of all, we were far, far away from the shopping throngs in the malls!

St John's Island was a major disappointment though - wouldn't recommend it. It's very much a work-in-progress right now, bags of cement, iron gratings half-exposed, and views of... more construction.

But all in all, what a wondrous way to start the new year!