Singapore, January 2024

• Female flight attendant walking in reverse through the airplane isle while in flight with her hair pulled up, food menu on hand while saying ‘Any puh-chaaase?’ as if with melody, similar to a magtataho
• Airplane window open with deep scratches on the glass, forming multiple hashes, as if scraped with nails. In the gap between both inner and outer glass are tiny rocks, like roasted sesame seeds
• Hotel roommates sound asleep, both under a singular white duvet, heads almost unseen, faint light from the window lining their unidentifiable form. Sounds of motorcycles buzz through the silence.
• Hotel staff receives smelly pillow, lightly sniffs, then walks away.
• Cherry Garcia. Period.
• Boarding staff at the gate takes my passport and boarding pass, asks that I remove my mask. He looks at me and I say: I aged a little. He laughs and hands me back my documents.
• On a dangling type roller coaster ride with a little boy. The ride starts and I ask him if he’s ok. He responds in Mandarin,with quite a long statement. I reply with a ‘Ni hao ma’ and boy doesn’t react, while both of us are thrown into an aerial turn securely. I realize the question sounded like a greeting, so I revise the question to properly ask if he’s ok and where his mom was. He replies with a line muddled by the wind as we zip through the air and he grimaces right after. A few seconds later, the ride slows down and just like that, we dock. We stand from our seats after we lift the safery rails and walk our separate ways. After I meet with my friends, at a distance I find him with his mom, exiting the ride area together.
• Pharmacy staff takes my purchases with a slight smile on his face as he punches each item through the cashier. I ask him about the free item with my purchases, and he smiles shyly saying I didn’t meet the minimum. He continues to punch a few more items then picks the free item from behind him and adds it to my shopping bag. I smile in disbelief and he simply says ‘yes, here you go’. I thank him in return and leave the shop happy.
• We do self baggage check in at Changi, with a machine kiosk and a luggage belt. We line our items on the belt and the machine tells me that there’s a problem. We wave at an airport uncle and he smiles and jokes that we don’t know how to use the machine and scolds us for placing 2 bags when we should’ve loaded them 1 at a time. He finishes our check in and we leave.
• A blonde girl by the plane window wears a pair of light gray headphones and picks a podcast to listen to on Spotify. Shortly after she pulls out a crossword puzzle book and a clicky pen from her bag. She flips slowly though the book as the plane revs up for takeoff.
• Google Maps confuses us as it takes us to a different bus stop after every refresh as we navigate our way home from a mall. We decide to take the train and easily get off our stop, and follow Google Maps as we walk our way to an exit we cant find.
• The long back and forth short walks in front of the War Memorial Park and a line of high end hotels as we find our way home in the nicely lit district, with cool winds lightly whispering.
• We step out of the elevator and friend stomps her way through the floor hallway quickly to reach our room.
• Friend uses the hotel bathroom with a frosted glass door where her moving silhouette is fuzily outlined by the street lights outside the bathroom’s open window.
• The pitch black sky as seen through the plane window is suddenly dotted with small white dots and I am momentarily in doubt of them being stars. I move closer to the window to see without wanting to understand. I take a sloppy photo to document the sight.
• Lining up to drive through the Luge trail behind my friend. A boy cuts the line and bumps on my friend’s ride and tells her to move. I tell my friend to just make way and my friend steers slightly to the right. The boy zips immediately through.
• The 3D animated boy character at the light show belts a soulful run in a group ballad, with an emotionless face
• The attempts to speak in Filipino about deeply personal stuff in a crowd of mixed nationalities, keeping in check when English words slip here and there
• The slight maze heading into a female restroom at an airport and suddenly feeling the nerves of being alone, as the place is completely huge but empty
• The group arrives at the cubby and ominous looking hotel lobby with a man at the concierge. I tell him that we’re checking in as a group of three and he utters my first name in response. ‘Oh, you’ve been waiting…,’ I reply
• Kenny Rogers: A man with ginger hair in a light gray shirt and olive shorts sit at a table and alternately taking a bite off his burger and a thin stack of sour cream Pringles
• We struggle to take a group photo in our seats on the plane and a male flight staff makes a peace handsign and interrupts to jokingly join the photo
• Going through the Donki goods maze, slightly confused as to why we are buying Japanese goods in Singapore
• Walking through grassy turf on a pleasant day with large reflective sculptural spheres spread out through the area, reminscent of the Chicago Bean. I jokingly call them Singapore Boba because we’re in Asia. We take mirror selfies on them and attempt to record a silly birthday video greeting for a coworker. After a few tries and being quite loud in the process, a tinge of embarrassment kicks in as we find ourselves in the midst of people.
• After suddenly being thrown in the air in a roller coaster ride, friend grips my left hand while screaming
• The worries of aging kicks in after realizing the last time you mightve been on a pretty intense theme park ride was 10+ years ago
• The thrill of being back in a country that’s extremely familiar and safe, but also with so much more to reveal
• A man with a face of salt and pepper facial hair scoots to give way as I sit beside him on the same row in the plane. I replay his face in my head trying to figure out if i know him from somewhere.
• Sitting on the plane, unintentionally counting down to a full bladder while trying to hold a fart
• Feeling the mesh surface of a cute BTV wallet in different colorways and walking out of the shop buying nothing.
• At 19:00 - Looking at the plane window and seeing mostly darkness but with thin sliver of orange, signaling the late closing of a day
• Kaya milk bun with butter and kopi c in a buzzing eatery filled with locals, with a few tourists mixed in
• A chicken rice place with a young-ish uncle waiting by the entrance and notices our intent to enter the shop hesistantly. He casually guides us into our table, in a tone that sounds like we’re being scolded, as we try to understand what he was saying in his accent. We enjoy our brunch, discover nice tasting chili paste. Friends express their satisfaction and would like to return given the chance
• On the bus ride to Sentosa, slowly helping us with placemaking as we realize how near yesterday’s touristy stops were from the place we live. Takes mental note of reviewing where destinations are before defaulting to train rides.
• On the way home via plane at night with the sky pitch black and the stars in stillness as we fly right above them
• Watching an episode of an unfamiliar show from a fellow passenger’s phone through the seat gaps; and seeing a half naked woman in a dungeon a few minutes in. It was definitely R18