Settling

Honestly, I still have no true answer to the often-asked question: "So have you settled in?"

I am very close to being a three-month-old Honk (how time bledy flies), yet I feel at times more like I am on an extended business trip.

Granted I have a rather awesome apartment to hang out in and fill up with groceries and toilet paper, but with all the surreal decor and furniture, I could have easily thought I had been provided a decent serviced apartment (with no service, of course - lousy, stingy company!).

But most of all, I can't feel totally settled in because I have not been staying here for anything more than two weeks at any one time so far.

The travels, though fun, have tired me out (now I found my excuse for the ironing lag). The weekly balling sessions I look forward to, have become the only thing that I seem to live for now: I get so killed on Saturdays, I take Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays to feel the least bit normalized again. Then, the shitty work just saps all remaining energy.

In between, I struggle to do my laundry on time just so I don't run out of space on the drying rack, run frivolous errands like buying soya milk for tomorrow's breakfast, burn thirty minutes on the treadmill during lunch, and squeeze in my chill-out fix.

I am not saying I want to live like a real Honk. I am saying I want to live like a happy single babe, lapping up the Honks (the country, not the men).

I want to go home early from work. I want to actually start cooking proper. I want to read the books I've brought over. I want to watch one of them damn DVDs in my crate. I want to have an easy run at the gym near my home.

I want to sign up for Japanese classes. I want to start my Pilates program. I want to plan a weekend getaway to Taipei. I even want to do a bloody facial! I can't even find the mood to apply my own face masks at home.

Still, I gripe too much, perhaps.

Life in the Honks so far hasn't really been that bad for me.

And I have plenty to thank for. My bro and his boys who have been here for me since day one, and who keep my Singapore slang alive (I feel so loved when they kanina me). The weekly balling sessions. Jay, who continues travelling to places with me, though now on subways and not in my car. The easy access to weeknight drinks.

The new Singaporean friends I just made tonight only make me count my lucky stars over again. Especially when they started to kaninabeychaoch**b**.

I don't feel so foreign here. I don't feel a need to create a life.

I just feel, I can possibly live my life here... anywhere.

I just gotta get that karaoke started, though.

*****

I am beginning to believe in fate.

On my day trip into Guangzhou today to visit the factory, the host graciously took us out to lunch... at a Japanese restaurant.