Cambodia, Laos and Singapore 2022

Today was fun because it involved lots of food.  We both had great sleeps because we had stayed up to get in sync with the local time (Singapore is 15 hours ahead of Vancouver).   Breakfast was included in our stay so we headed downstairs to enjoy a leisurely breakfast.  We did note an odd rule in the breakfast menu — both coffee and tea were limited to one cup per breakfast.  That seemed odd to us because neither of these are high cost items so limiting to one cup didn’t seem like there was significant savings to be made.  My coffee cup was small, maybe about 6 oz. (175 ml for you metric types).  The cup was chunky and the handle was too small to grip with one hand — so sipping was a two handed exercise.  Other than those two oddities, breakfast mushroom omelette for me and scrambled eggs for Judith were fine.  In retrospect though, we should have skipped breakfast because our tour was to Tiong Bahru Market — a combination of a traditional wet ma...

On the Friday morning before I headed off to Vancouver to catch my flight to Singapore, I was able to field a catch up/good bye call from my friend Jessie, one of the many people I feel guilty of not connecting with this past summer.  I have a long list of these people who live close to me and I just didn’t find the time to connect.  It didn’t help that I spent over 50 days this summer out of town mostly attending music festivals in my RV or hanging at a cabin with friends and family.   Since I was already packed and was going to be picked up at noon, I decided to go meet up with my 905 Walking Group friend and fit in one last walk.  I joined this group about a year before Covid (that’s become the new defining moment in time for many of us…) and it’s been great incentive to get up and out of the house and get some exercise.  We always stop for coffee for me, the social aspect has become a bigger bonus than the walk itself.  But this time I skipped the coffe...

It’s hard to believe that its been over 3 years since my last big adventure.  For me, time seemed to fly by during this global pandemic.  Like many others, I used the lockdown for self improvement, but the jury’s out whether anything worked.  I ended up gaining a few pounds which I attribute to my son working for a boutique candy manufacturer and sometimes he would bring home end cuttings of those delicious toasted coconut marshmallows.  I couldn’t resist.  Despite all that daily walking I did (and still do) my caloric intake ended up greater than what I burned off.  I tried to play lots of music but it’s not that much fun to play by yourself.  When the lockdown was reduced, it was much more enjoyable to be able to play music with others and made me realize what a gift playing music can be.   I think that my perceived risk of covid is reduced to a point where I’m comfortable with travelling again.  Although I spent most of this past summer aw...