Thou Shall Not Expect

This was a break I had been looking forward to for a long time – we had originally planned to skip CNY celebrations and just get away to a beach resort in Vietnam. Then T changed his mind when he was advised to spend important occasions as such with the family. It was also right that we should be present to hand out our invitations to family members personally. As well, this would be my last year to collect ang baos. So we made up our minds to spend CNY in Singapore before whisking off to Bintan (Indonesia) to spend some quiet moments together and run through wedding stuff that has been shelved aside because of his busy schedule in Vietnam.

The week before we were to set off to Singapore, T changed his mind again. His family had requested that he went back and spent time with his family. Being in Asia, they hardly got to see him enough. They wanted to sit down and discuss wedding stuff with him and be involved in some ways before his big day.

Of course I understood all these. Still, I could not hide my disappointment and tears. Everything had been booked and paid for – flights, accommodation, ferry tickets etc.

In the end, we took separate flights to Singapore (because he was required to fly the first leg of the SGN – SIN flight to be able to get on to the SIN – LON flight). He spent 3 days with me during which he finally saw the hotel where the wedding will take place; went with me to visit SUS who had just given birth (how timely!) at the hospital; and had reunion dinner with my family before flying off to his family.


Welcome Natalie Sitara Lim!







As for Bintan, I went ahead on my own. Well, I finally found a friend who was able to come – everyone else either had CNY obligations/visiting or had too short a notice to take time off work. Stanley, who did not work or have to go visiting, said he would come with me.

Grateful as I am that I had him as a companion and did not have to give up my holiday and spend the days sulking alone, I had to admit it was a little awkward spending 24 hrs with someone I had only recently become acquainted with.

To begin with, there really wasn’t anything to do except eat, chill and tan. He, being a guy, wanted to do more activities, swim, battle with the waves at the beach while I just wanted to bum, tan and read. He didn’t like the sun nor did he like to sleep in complete darkness and silence and so it was an interesting struggle – during the day, I would be soaking in the sun reading while he either sat in the shade or begged me to join him in the water. And at night, I had to deal with the brightness and noises while he struggled to make himself comfortable with sleeping on a hard tatumi platform for 4 nights – I had a king sized bed to myself and had only given up 1 of my 4 cushy pillows to him.

So anyway, the holiday is almost coming to an end. Tomorrow, Tarek and I will find ourselves back in Singapore ready (or not) to go back to our normal routine life back in Vietnam.

Another lesson has been learnt – the higher your expectations, the greater the fall.

PS: There is no internet access so this blog will be a delayed upload.