Last June my friends and I went on a trip to Cebu, where we jumped off waterfalls and took naps on the beach. The post-vacation high somehow managed to seduce my web design muse out of wherever the hell she’d been hiding for the past year.
When I got back to Singapore, I started working on a remake of the summer-inspired layout that I created back in 2006. (Translation: I was too lazy and not quite inspired enough to start from scratch.) Unfortunately real work got in the way and sent my muse packing. I never got around to finishing the layout.
Well, not until now! You see, I went on another trip recently, this time to Batam, Indonesia with two of my fellow slaves colleagues. We went cable skiing, gorged on surprisingly fantastic pizza, tanned poolside, and spent hours being massaged into blissful, boneless relaxation. The trip gave me just the right amount of juice to finish what I started months ago.
I’m kind of in love with it, if I may be so immodest. I found a few bugs just now that would have normally sent my anal side on a rampage, but I’m just so happy that I don’t even mind. Take that, obsessive-compulsive tendencies! Let me know, if the layout isn’t working right on your end, though. I’m not too far gone to not care about that.
I recently took a much-needed break from work to go on a short trip to Cebu with some old friends. Let me tell you, it did my soul good. When I got back to Singapore, at least five different people told me I was glowing. Here are some highlights from our vacation:
We threw ourselves off a bunch of waterfalls. Calling all thrill seekers! If you ever visit Cebu, you have to go canyoning at Montaneza Falls. You probably can’t tell, but that’s me throwing a peace sign while rappelling down a 100-foot waterfall. Pardon my French, but it felt fucking fantastic.
If I worked at a leave-your-imagination-at-the-door corporation and excitedly told colleagues that I had just seen a dinosaur-shaped puddle on the way to the loo, the normal reaction would have been to say, “What the hell are you smoking? Go back to your cubicle and finish writing that 37-page report that no one will bother to read.”
Luckily I work at a quirky company with people who can appreciate a little silliness here and there. Case in point: when I dragged my coworker, Gabe, to see the said puddle, he snapped a photo, edited it to create the diagram below, then sent an email announcing the momentous dinosaur sighting to the rest of the office.
Nikki and Gabe, brand consultants by day, wicked awesome archeologists by night.
Entrance to Singapore’s Red Dot Design Museum is free on the first weekend of each month, so my coworkers and I decided to pop in one Saturday. (Wondering about the name? Locals fondly refer to Singapore as the “little red dot”, because that’s how the tiny city-state appears on most world maps.)
My hyper-abbreviated review: There were some interesting displays but nothing worth the $8 entrance fee, if one were to drop by on a regular day. We did manage to snap a few cool photos, though
Obligatory tourist shot. It’s impossible to miss the colonial building that houses the museum. It’s painted fire-engine red and takes up an entire block.
My F1-crazy friend, Chrissa, came to Singapore to watch the night race last September. While she was here, we jumped at the chance to get flung into the air on the G-max Reverse Bungy ride at Clarke Quay. We loved it! A couple of lessons learned:
Go at night to avoid being roasted in the sun.
Wear pants instead of a miniskirt.
Below is a video of our ride. The scream you’ll hear during the release came from the guy holding the camera.
We also went on the tamer GX-5 Xtreme Swing, but we unfortunately didn’t manage to get a video of that.
Do you know what else we didn’t manage to get? Pictures of the two of us that showed more than our faces. That’s what happens when you don’t bug other tourists to take your photo and just rely on the “hold the camera at arm’s length and click” method.
In other news, I will be jetting off to Manila this Saturday to take a break from work and to spend an entire week with my lovably eccentric family, my fabulously fun friends and my huggably neurotic pets. I’m practically vibrating with excitement.
