For the first time ever (or maybe it did happen before but I can’t remember), I have declared to the whole world that I was feeling exhausted during (and after) my overseas vacation. It’s such a funny feeling because a holiday is supposed to be chill and relaxing but this time round, I came home feeling super tired. In fact, I was already feeling tired midway through the sixteen day trip and was questioning myself why I thought it had been a good idea to be away from home for such a long time. Oh wells, there’s a first time for everything and yep, i’m officially tired of being overseas, temporarily. Well, the last time I went for a trip longer than this (excluding my work holiday NZ), I think it was my trip to South Africa 8 years ago, which was almost 3 weeks long and yep, I remember feeling super duper tired as well. Hopefully I don’t make such mistakes of vacations longer than 14 days again but let’s see, I have a goldfish memory.
Sorry for being absent the entire month of February and not writing any legit posts for the whole of 2025. I wouldn’t consider my previous rant on Agoda a valid update (gosh I’m still so angry with them). 2025 had been a rather busy start as there was Chinese New Year, a whole lot of changes in my day job (still changing as I type), plus I spent the second half of the month in Japan. You know it’s funny how there had been many occasions (I was walking around, bathing, stoning) and I had that thought of like.. oh I haven’t written for a long time and then there would be an endless flow of sentences that flows through my head (as to what I would be writing) and somehow, none of that went into actual writing. I think about writing probably 10 times more than when I actually do write. In fact, just moments ago, I was wondering how cool it would be if I changed my style of writing to be in poems, short sentences, instead of my usual long winded style. I was thinking of something like:
February, it is the shortest month
Made it shorter when I escaped for half
Happiness came as easy as a breeze
When feasting and having fun brings a smile
From snow to blooms; from winter to spring
It was tiring but my heart was full
One thing was empty for sure
My bank account balance.
**
Okay that’s the end of my attempt to summarise my holiday. Sadly, I couldn’t make anything rhyme, and I can’t be bothered to spend more time on it so let me just stick to my usual style of writing.
Apart from spending a bomb and feeling very tired during my holidays, it was a really fruitful trip! I get to do many things I love and I went for my first ever ski vacation – clocking 4 days on the slopes (though not a lot of hours in all honesty). This had been a first time I was skiing consecutive days and gosh, I never expected to feel so physically drained in all honesty. In fact, my plan was not to ski everyday as I know my fitness is really crap but my friend did a good job in convincing me every morning that we shouldn’t waste the day. We were somewhat ‘unlucky’ as we were assigned a room on the top floor in a ryokan without an elevator. Friends had to deal with a whiny me whenever we had to climb up 4 floors at least twice each day (cause we had to do communal bathing on the first floor) and my knees/thighs/shin (my entire legs) were aching from the second day. That being said, a part of me was glad that I did not give up, came home with zero injury and still willing to try for a next season! Everytime I was back from a ski holiday, I would tell myself to get in shape so the next ski session would be a better one but I didn’t do anything significant for the past 6 years so I’ll probably still be saying the same thing after my next trip. Oops. Well, my ski instructor was 70 years old, and I guess I can, if I want to, ski for many more years. To be honest, if I can get my fitness in order, maybe I can give snowboarding a second try.. so tough but let’s see how things go.
It’s been a while since I last shared photos right?
The ski resort that I visited is famous for having these ‘snow monsters’ which are simply trees covered with accumulated snow. I really do think they look like monsters.
As you can see, we didn’t have good weather for pretty much 85% of the time and we had to ski in such ‘white out’ weather. To be honest, there were moments that I wanted to just give up and crash cause my legs were simply too tired. On my last day, I didn’t even have the strength to do turns while going down the slopes and I just pizza-ed all the way down which hurts a lot too. Oops. There were many moments where I asked my friend (like a broken recorder), why did we spend so much money to torture ourselves..
My favourite part of skiing is when I’m on the ski lift. I like the idea of dangling legs and ascending to greater heights. I guess being on the ski lift is one of the reasons why I haven’t given up on snow sports.
Well, here’s a rare ‘selfie’ from me (which can still keep me anonymous). Wanted to show you the few blue sky photo I can find on my phone. Even if you see a blue sky, chances are it wouldn’t last more than 15 mins. The mountains are moving and weather is ever so unpredictable.
Check out the accumulation of snow. So much snow that I doubt anyone walks up the shrine.
Also, I visited one exhibition in Japan and this fog thing was an exhibit. Looks really cool as I can be part of the exhibit.
Also visited the famous TeamLabs. To be honest, it was too crowded for my sincere enjoyment. Nice for photo taking but the crowd stifles my ability to appreciate art. Does that even make sense. Hmm.
I took a photo of the tree below because I felt the shadow was really pretty. I stopped and stared at it for a long while.
I was lucky enough to chance on early blooms in the gardens.
One of the highlight of the trip was me making a trip down to the beach with a somewhat acquaintance (that we met for the first time). Such wildcard meetings are always a chance encounter which can turn out either ways. I’m glad that we shared similar views on our idea of ‘relaxation’ and we clocked like 25k steps that day just walking around the coastal area cause I wanted to see Mt Fuji and wanted a quiet getaway from the crowds. We visited this area called Zushi (about 90 mins travel time for me) and gosh, we had the perfect weather. It wasn’t too cold, was pretty sunny but I had my hat and sunglasses. I was really glad that someone out there could enjoy walking along the beach in Tokyo as much as I do. Most people would prefer shopping, queueing and visiting crowded places like Disneyland. Side note, after this meetup, I realise that I do enjoy having such non-commital friends in other countries. I do have a couple of such friends in various Asian countries where we don’t speak regularly, but only when I plan to visit (yea, they rarely visit Singapore cause it’s expensive and could be kind of boring after 2 days). I have an overseas friend that we have been keeping in touch since 2015/16 and every time we meet, we spend an hour or more updating each other since the last time we met. Feels pretty cool now that I think about it.
Just one more cool thing to update. I chance upon this shrine near my accommodation in Tokyo and wow, it was a shrine to bless lottery tickets and winnings?
So what you have to do is that you place your item there and ring the bell on top of it.
Well, the reason why I’m sharing this is because.. it actually worked for me! I blessed my phone and my wallet and guess what, I won a small sum of money ($25) in the lottery when I returned. I have never won in a long time so I was kind of shocked at the luck that I got this time round.
Also, something uncanny was that when I visited a shrine which was famous for career/business and when I drew a fortune lot, the ‘advice’ was for me to ‘be thankful that you have a job’.
I guess it is something I really need right now if it is kind of a voice from someone/something spiritual. Things are not going exactly well for me in that aspect and I have been upset/complaining regularly but yea, I’m just reminding myself constantly to just be thankful.
I hope I find the energy to do a proper travel post some time in the future. There are many things I would like to share and remember but I guess that’s it for now!
Hope you enjoy my random updates as always ^^