Mellow in Yellow

When you're on vacation, there's nothing quite like being able to enjoy your breakfast at a leisurely rate without the dark cloud of work or school looming over your eggs and hashbrown. Now that I'm no longer on a Chinese tour that requires me to wake up everyday at 6:00 am to have breakfast by 6:30 am, I'm able to wake up when I feel like it (or for as long as I can ignore the noises of my parents and relatives making breakfast outside my bedroom). While it's a feeling that I should be reveling in, I think that the old adage "the grass always seems greener on the other side" holds true; I find that I'm already missing the hustle and bustle of my usual busy schedule in Vancouver.

Nevertheless, I'm certainly having fun eating delicious and cheap food, shopping to my heart's content (and my wallet's dismay), and exploring both old and new areas of Singapore. Today, I visited Haji Lane (a tiny road lined with interesting and hipster-looking boutiques), Bugis Junction, and Raffles Hotel; I also bought yet more items to add to my ever-growing Singaporean wardrobe.

Yesterday, my adventures were closer to nature as my family and I decided to visit the nearby island of Pulau Ubin. This tiny island is mostly jungle sprinkled with a few dilapidated houses, restaurants, and other small town structures. I am deeply convinced that village dogs outnumber the human villagers; we saw these thin, yet still cute, creatures wandering all over the island by themselves or in small packs. Since we had taken the bumboat over to the island after a major thunderstorm had ended, we ended up biking up and down trails filled with broken branches and even small trees littering the pathways. At one point, we had to get off our bikes and walk the rest of the way to the Chek Jawa wetlands areas as the path had been covered by two trees that had fallen during the thunder and lightning storm. In addition to all of that loveliness, my bike was extremely old and had no shocks to speak of. As a result, I nearly had several heart attacks riding down steep, wet hills covered with sharp rocks and deep potholes. Despite all of the setbacks, I truly enjoyed getting out of the city to witness nature and see new sights, such as a family of wild boar rooting for food a few feet away from us.

In these photos, I had just revisited an old favourite breakfast spot: the National University of Singapore (NUS). As my aunt now lives on the east coast of Singapore, we had to drive all the way over to the west coast to patronize our old favourite food stalls.

Singapore is really getting into the pro-environmental phase these days: I'm starting to see such campaigns being promoted in school cafeterias as the country tries to educate its youth on the importance of being "green".

My favourite: yong tau foo with kway teow (rice noodles) soup.

Top // Cotton On

Shorts & Shoes // Zara

Necklace // Aldo

Bag // Michael Kors

If you're in a new country, which do you enjoy more: visiting urban or rural sights?