My life here has really started to be relatively routine:
Wake up as early as my body wills, after a night of interrupted sleep thanks to tiredness
Eat a quick breakfast, chug down milk tea or milk
Board two trains, hiss at some people pushing their way in
Board a bus then cover my nose because of [I’d prefer not to mention it, haha]
Walk a few minutes to the office
Read e-mails, follow up the delivery of the system and updates of items to keep up with our time plan
Have lunch and casual conversations with my team mates
Work, work, work
Go home, walk the added crazy crossing from the MRT station to our condo
Prepare and have dinner
Achieve my presence in social media
Sleep
In between these usual moments, I thought the world is moving all the time. It is only during weekends when I have the time to stop. And feel it. This weekend, I have embraced it. I just wished my loved ones were with me. Aww…
Since my second week here, we have been planning to go to Sentosa. It was only this weekend that we finally landed to this one of the most fascinating tourist attraction in Singapore. From Sentosa Station, we boarded the express monorail to the other three spots/stops: Waterfront, Imbiah and Beach stations.
Sentosa Island is fairly small, but even if each station is just walking distance to the next, exploring the island for five hours was tiring (or maybe it was just because I was not wearing sneakers). We took pictures mostly on the outside of Resorts World and Universal Studios, walked to the gigantic Merlion statue, visited The Luge, Tiger Sky Tower, the Images of Singapore museum and took a tram to tour around the man-made beaches.
The place was packed with many other foreigners and locals alike who entered Universal Studios, watched The Songs of the Seas, dined in fancy restaurants, spent cash and hours in the casino, stayed in exclusive five-star hotels and pulled off other activities I find to be luxurious. I only have the luxury of time but am happy nonetheless. It was a cheap thrill, after all; all it took me, cost-wise, was three dollars for the round trip.
During this roundabout (as I call it) and my many other explorations, I’ve come to a conclusion that people nowadays are considering luxury to be something very legit.
People in this generation know how to work hard to earn more than enough to spend for their leisure travels and adventures. I know from the stories of my parents that people back then had more meager resources and spending power was not as potent as the now.
These days, everyone wants their own story of extravagance, like traveling around the world, shopping like there’s no limit to money or purchasing items that must have been transformed from purveyors of fine goods to top notch services that make even the wealthiest elites feel more pampered and unique or simply owning a luxurious logo-infested piece that will be counterfeited to death.
As we increasingly urbanize, luxury has become a necessity, a way of indulging and rewarding ourselves for our daily grind. Agree? Already, as more people lust after and buy up and into luxury merchandise, luxury brands are already redefining the “L” word.
In sum, the proverb may indeed be true: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” In our busy workdays, we should indulge for spending for a little luxury from time to time. In my books, it’s the least one can do. Else, get prepared to get “siaw (translation: crazy)!”
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