Drew and the Tea

Gonna rewrite this post now that I am home from the trip and have access to my keyboard and computer.



I was in Seoul when I first typed out this post, and I had been feeling rather vex at the way Drew didn't come across as keen as I thought he should about our time together in Seoul. The original plan had been for us to hang out from the 3rd day onward, once his first half of the trip with his family was done and they had gone home. I was really looking forward to hanging out with him and was imagining us meeting up everyday for breakfast at a new cafe, and then explore different neighborhoods through cafe hopping together.

In my mind, I was picturing us having so much time together that we could actually take things slow on certain days and just hang out in a cafe to read our own books. I remember even telling him before the trip about my worries that he would get bored of me and he assured me then that he wouldn't.

So that was what I thought was going to happen when I first committed to this trip with him.

His part of the trip starts and for that entire week, the text started to slow down significantly, we went from sending daily text messages to each other, to just once every 3 day, I figured since he was with his family, it's only natural for him to focus his attention on them.  I didn't want to be greedy since I knew I was going to see him soon and we will be hanging out a lot then!


The day arrives and I head to Seoul, he actually texted me to ask me where I was whilst I was having my dinner at Myeongdong, and he just happened to be walking around Myeongdong as well because his hotel is within the area too.

We met up and it was nice to see him because at this point, we hadn't seen each other for 3 weeks, due to him just constantly falling sick, which led to us not being able to go out for meals over the weekends together before his trip.

We headed to a Matcha cafe nearby and just started catching up, he talked about how his trip had been and how he loved being in Korea because it was cold and nothing like Singapore, and when we were done with our drinks, he followed me to my hotel just to take a look at my accommodations, we chat even more, and then that was when he told me he couldn't join me as much as we had originally planned.

This was the original plan that I was really excited for...

Wednesday - Solo Day (My arrival day, and makes sense to be solo because I will only reach my hotel in the evening)

Thursday - Solo Day

Friday - First Half of the Day Solo, Latter Half of the Day with Drew  once his family leaves

Saturday - Full Day with Drew

Sunday -  Full Day with Drew

Monday - Full Day with Drew

Tuesday - Full Day with Drew until our individual flights back to Singapore. Mine was in the late afternoon and his was at midnight, so we could still spend breakfast and an early lunch together. 

The new plan..

Wednesday - Solo Day (My arrival day, and makes sense to be solo because I will only reach my hotel in the evening)

Thursday - Solo Day

Friday - Solo Day, (His family's flight got delayed until night, so our half day hang out session was gone)

Saturday - Full Day with Drew

Sunday -  Full Day with Drew

Monday - Solo Day, (His friends were coming in on Monday to surprise him, so he was going to hang out with them the whole day)

Tuesday - Solo Day, (... because he only gets up at 11am and I have to leave for the airport at 1.30pm, which means there is essentially no time to meet up, it's really the lack of effort on his end to try and get up early to spend the morning with me that really made me question my priority level in his eyes during the trip)

I mean look at how drastic the change is, it went from a trip with Drew to a solo trip with a bit of Drew along the way, not gonna lie, my reaction was a bit slow and I had told him it was fine when he told me the change of plans, that all I cared about was him hanging out with me over the weekend, but the more I thought about it, the more upset I got because I came on this trip under the assumption that we were gonna be hanging out a lot, but that turned out to be untrue.

Oh! And here is a kicker! 

He decided he was gonna switch to a hotel in Gangnam on Friday, the supposed start of our trip together after his family leaves, a hotel that is a 40  minutes train ride away from me! 

You stay within walking distance to my hotel on the days you are unable to hang out with me because your family were around.

But on the days when we were suppose to hang out, you fuck off all the way to Gangnam.

It was giving "I don't really want to hang out with you"

Anyways, he leaves after our meet up that night and I literally did not hear from him at all on Thursday and Friday, not a single text message, ESPECIALLY ON FRIDAY, when I was expecting him to text me at night once his family was gone, to firm up the location to meet, and I mean now that your family is gone, they are not taking up your attention anymore, so maybe you can direct it to the person who decided to join you on this trip instead?

There was nothing, and I was extremely upset about it because it made me feel like an afterthought. I decided to be the one to text because he clearly wasn't, so I did and ask him how he's doing? To illicit a response from him so we can then talk about our plans for the next day.

No reply...

We had talked about meeting up at 1pm when we had that short meet up on the day of my arrival, but hadn't set a location. 

Anyways, at around 11pm when there was still no response, I started to get really worried that he might have potentially ditched me, so I wrote an Instagram story to whine about it, but only to a select group of people in my "close friends" list.

Drew messages me back at almost midnight and confirmed the 1pm timing with me, but again, not a location.

The next day when I got up, I texted back immediately to confirm the location with him in the morning, but there were no updates, and by 11am, I was so fed up I decided fuck Drew, I am not going to waste my fucking time in the hotel room for him for a plan that is in the "maybe" stage, so I decided to visit Namsam Tower and just accept the fact that we will probably never meet up at 1pm, and if we aren't meeting that day, then that will be the end of whatever we had because that is just fucked up! 

It was so upsetting because in that moment, I really felt like Drew ruined Korea for me, not just the trip, but everything related to it because he tells me he loves Korea so much, and every time I watch a K-Drama or listen to K-Pop, I will think of him and how he fucking ditched me! 

At around 12noon, I dropped him another courtesy text and just told him we will probably not be meeting at 1pm anymore because I was currently stuck in a queue visiting Namsam Tower, and he FINALLY replies back at 12.55pm.

12.55pm! 5 minutes before we were originally suppose to meet.

"It's okay, let's meet at a cafe near Namsam instead then!"

No apologies for the late reply, no explanation as to why he only replied now, just "it's okay".

Anyways, we did eventually meet up at the cafe (he was like 20 minutes late) and I did have a good time with him, he proceeds to tell me how tired he was feeling after sending his family to the airport and back again. I mean sure, that makes sense, the travel from Seoul to Incheon, and then from Incheon back to Seoul is exhausting, especially because his family had a night flight, it must have been all the more tiring for him.

The day ends, and we had a great time, we spend the whole day together from 2.30pm - 8.30pm, then we went our separate ways.  (Although to be honest, to be meeting from 2.30pm onwards was more like a half way meet up instead of a full day one in my opinion, because when I was thinking of "full day", I was expecting to meet each other in the morning for breakfast and then spend the whole day together until after dinner, that is full day)

I had a bit of coffee to drink during that hang out session, so I actually ended up having some trouble sleeping that night, I remember Drew had visited the cafes we visited before during his last trip, so since I was bored, I decided to just go to his Instagram page to look for the photos from his previous trip and compare it to what we had, that was when I noticed I couldn't see any of his Highlights, they were suddenly all gone.

It was really weird, I kept refreshing his page but the highlights just weren't there. I thought maybe it was a glitch, so I switched to my alternate profile, searched up his name because his profile is public and viola, I could see all his highlights with my alt account, and I noticed he had new stories as well, I didn't click immediately but went back to my main account to check, they weren't showing up. 

That was when I realized he had blocked me from seeing his stories! I didn't know why, so I switched back to the alt account and viewed them.

It was a mirror selfie with the caption

"Got dead drunk at Itaewon last night but I survived!"

... that was why he was so unresponsive! He wasn't tired from sending his family to the airport, fuck, he still had enough energy to visit a fucking club to get drunk! And I believe this was the reason he moved to the Gangnam area, because it was closer to where all the clubs were.

That revelation made me feel really weird, and then a few hours later, since I was still wide awake from the damn caffeine, I used my alt account to check his profile yet again, and he had posted another picture of a tray of shots, he was at the club again, getting drunk, right after our hangout, when he told me he was "going to the gym" later.

We were going to meet the next day, but after seeing that, I wasn't so sure if we were because I was wondering if he would even be able to get up to meet me. 

I finally went to sleep, but feeling really uncomfortable about this whole situation and woke up to see my main account having access to his highlights again, after breakfast, I noticed he had posted a new story and it was a photo of the view from his hotel room, all the clubbing photos were gone, they were not gone because 24 hours had passed, they were gone because he had clearly deleted them so I wouldn't be able to see them before he unblocked me. 

He did drop me a text that morning at 11am and requested we meet a little later instead at 2pm because he had just woken up, he doesn't know that I know why he was so tired, but I know and it made it really weird.

We met up on that day as well and again, he was like 20 minutes late, it was bad because I was waiting at the station for him and he told me he will be late, but offered no ETA, so I literally was waiting there not knowing how long he will take.

When he arrived, I just waved at him, but on the inside, I was upset at him for his thoughtlessness and I was also very skeptical of him because he has clearly been hiding his clubbing activities from me, and it's not about him going clubbing that irks me, but the fact that he feels the need to hide it from me. Like why do you feel the need to withhold that information from me? 

I just felt really sad about the whole thing because it means he feels completely fine lying to me, I was talking to him with so much skepticism during the first  hour of our 2nd meet up, trying to spot the lies from his stories, and maybe he doesn't outright lie to me, but he is definitely not telling me the full story when it comes to certain things, like his clubbing at night.

I have very very mixed feelings towards Drew right now because when I think of the Seoul trip in general, I had fun and it was because of him, but then when I think about him on a deeper level, I start to question if all that "change of plans" that he had shared with me were fabricated just so he can spend more time going to the club to meet Korean guys to hook up with, instead of hanging out with me, everything just becomes iffy and whilst I did have fun hanging out with him, my trust in him has also taken a significant dip.

The general vibe I got from this trip was...

I wanted to spend time with him, he just needed someone to spend time with.

Anyways, we are both now in Singapore and he did drop me a text to let me know he has landed at 5.30am, and I just send him a text to welcome him back, but we have not exchanged any further messages after that.

I have since started swiping on Hinge again, it honestly feels exhausting to have to go through all that one more time, but hopefully, I will find my walking green flag soon.

Saturday Meet Up

Met up with Zo again yesterday for a catch up session after our last date back in August and it was honestly really nice to be able to see him and talk to him again, but this time just as friends.

We always have Matcha when we went on our dates in the past, so this time was no exception. He suggested we try out Hellu Coffee and I trusted his recommendation, the matcha pretty good, they do this vanilla Chantilly creme on top which added a nice touch of creaminess and sweetness to the drink, the croffle on the other hand could have been fresher.

We talked about work and just the general happenings of what has been going on in each of our lives, kept things a bit casual at the start since it has been 2 months since we last saw each other...

 ...visited a few perfume places after, this was a spot called The Scent Parlor which we had visited together a few times before, and we were just sniffing up a storm, after that, we had lunch together at Chinatown Point, and then visited a few more perfume places in Orchard...

... we were walking so much that we decided we needed to take a break, so we took a break at Awfully Chocolate in Wisma, our legs truly needed a break.  

They had this Cocoa Ritual Tea drink, that I didn't take a photo of because I was so tired, but it was really really good because it smells like chocolate, but it didn't have that richness of chocolate, it just tasted like a light cup of tea, and it was the perfect pairing to the sweet butterscotch brownie. 

The stay at Awfully Chocolate lasted for quite a while and we ended up talking about relationship matters with one another, well, it was mostly me asking him how he has been doing since he officially broke up with his ex, and I am genuinely happy that he has actually moved on and is in a better place. He then asked me how I felt when he called things off with me and it just reminded me how thoughtful and mature of an individual he was. 

I was able to talk to him about things I am unable to talk to other friends about and it felt really nice to have a listening ear, and not just a listening ear, but someone who also validates your feelings in the process. 

After having taken sufficient break and just talking a lot, we moved on to Zara and Uniqlo because I needed to get a jacket for my Seoul trip this coming Wednesday and he needed to get a black shirt for a funeral he was going to attend immediately after, so he got his stuff from Uniqlo and we bid adieu to each other before I headed back to Zara to look for my jacket. 

Sadly, the jacket that I had been eyeing was no longer available, and the others that they had just weren't really what I wanted or liked, so I headed back to Uniqlo and got the JW Anderson collab pufftech jacket that cost me $129.

I actually had to get a whole new wardrobe for this Seoul trip because I don't actually have any Winter Wear at home, the last time I visited a country that was experiencing Winter was when I was a child, decades ago. I am trying to stay positive and just tell myself that getting all this winter wear now will mean I am wardrobe ready for Winter countries and can actually properly consider visiting places during the colder season in the future.

Anyways, even though we did chat a lot, one thing I did not bring up to Zo was Drew, because I am not sure what is going on with Drew and I, but I might bring it up the next time we meet, whenever that may be.

Gaslighted

I have recently met someone new on Hinge, whom I shall refer to as Drew, and we have been going out on a few dates, we hadn't discuss about being exclusive and are still in the midst of trying to know one another.

During this period of getting to know one another, I have continued matching with new people on Hinge, not as intense as before, but I did recently match with this new guy called Billy and we were able to hit it off really well. We have been talking for maybe a week and at the start, it was very sporadic, in that he would reply immediately to my messages but I will take a few hours to get back to him, just because that is kinda my style right now so I don't feel too overwhelmed, but over the weekend, I became a bit more responsive after we shifted our conversation over to Instagram.

Yesterday, I had a date with Drew, and when Billy asked me if I had any plans, I wasn't too comfortable telling him I was going on a date, so I just told him very vaguely that I was gonna meet up with someone for lunch.

So the date is going on and I had a good time with Drew, in the midst of it, Billy messages me and jokingly ask me how the "date" is going, I didn't reply immediately because I was still hanging out with Drew, it was only after the date was over did I get back to Billy, and I told him it went well, to which he went...

"So it really is a date?" 

"Hello!"

... I replied to that with "Hahaha, you guessed it right!", and he proceeded to react to my message with a thumbs up emoji, since he hadn't ask me anything else, I kinda just left it at that.

When I "react" to someone's message without actually replying to it with any text, it usually means the conversation has come to an end, but I also don't want to leave you on read, so I will just give you a reaction instead to not be rude, I assumed that is like a universal understanding and thought it was probably what Billy meant. I honestly thought he was probably uncomfortable continuing the conversation with me after finding out that I was going on dates with someone else, and as such, decided to just stop trying to initiate any further conversation with me.

Anyways, fast forward to an hour or 2 later, I decided to post some photos of the date on my insta-stories and he replies to one of them almost immediately with...

"The date must have went well!"

...  I replied and told him it was interesting, and he then replies to that message with...

"I am getting the vibe that you aren't really interested in talking to me anymore"

... and that completely threw me off! 

He told me that he felt like the whole conversation between us is now giving him an odd vibe with the "sudden silence" and "change in tone", and I got even more fucking confused because what sudden silence and change in tone are you talking about? I asked him what he meant by sudden silence because what the fuck are you talking about? He then told me he felt like I wasn't interested to share with him too much about my date and took that as a sign that I was not interested in talking anymore, 

I explained to him that it was because I was worried he would be uncomfortable hearing me talk about my other hinge date, it just feels weird to talk to a Hinge match about my date with another Hinge match,  that is like going to a job interview and going into detail about your other interviews at other companies, it's just weird, and then he goes...

"It's okay bro, we are not even together, so I totally understand you going on dates. You don't owe me any explanation and you are not obligated to share the details of your dates with me."

HUH!?!?!?!

WHERE THE FUCK WAS THIS LOGIC LIKE 1 MINUTE AGO THEN??

YOU WERE THE ONE WHO BROUGHT IT UP! 

... holy fucking shit. I was so fucking confused the entire fucking time I was texting with him, I told him I enjoyed talking to him and had hoped we could just continue chatting as per normal and maybe still meet up for the movie we had intended to watch together, and he replied with...

"I am all up for that, but it feels weird right now and I don't know what is going on with this chat anymore"

You made things weird and now you are telling me it feels weird, well no shit sherlock! 

When I was trying to "explain myself" to him, it honestly started to feel really weird because I have only known him for less than a week, and we have only started to properly chat for like the past 2 days, I literally do not owe you an explanation. 

But I did and then he just replied with...

"ok ok"

... and then wishes me goodnight, so I did the same and thought that was probably gonna be the end of our interaction, but he sends me a good morning message in the late morning, so I replied back and we had a bit of an exchange, but the rapport and chemistry has completely disappeared.

NOW it feels weird to me. 

I really do not know what to talk about with him anymore and I really have no interest to try and initiate any conversation with him as well, this is 100% on him for making it weird.

Update 29/10/25 : 

Billy has decided to unfollow me and also removed me from his follower list on Instagram! 

He had previously removed me from his "close friend" list for a while before adding me back into it again after we had that awkward conversation about how he felt like I wasn't interested to talk to him anymore, so I think he is someone who acts a bit impulsively. 

With the "close friend" thing, taking me out and then adding me back into the list wouldn't notify me, I just happened to notice a few highlight stories of his were no longer showing up for me, so we can both just pretend he never did that, but unfollowing me and then removing me from his follower's list, that is a commitment that you cannot take back, and with that, he has now officially made it weird.

I was still thinking I could say Hi to him if I ever see him in real life, since we are in a similar line of work, the chances of us running into each other at a Tile Shop or something is a possibility, but with his recent decision to cut me off completely, it is just gonna be really awkward irl now.

Company Cruise Getaway from Work.

I didn't have very much expectations about the company cruise trip when my boss announced that it was happening, a part of me felt like it was a very last minute decision with hardly any proper itinerary prepared,  so there was no way our plans for the trip was going to be maximized.

And then of course there is a part of me that is also just battling this feeling of loneliness right now, so the thought of being stuck on a ship with my own thoughts, in my own little confined cabin was a bit depressing.  

But thankfully before this trip, I went a bit crazy on Hinge and was matching with a bunch of profiles, so I had a lot of texting with a bunch of different people to keep my mind busy, I felt like an online dating whore.

Day 1 - Embarkment Day

We had planned to meet was 10.30am, but I was there by 10am and decided to just check-in my luggage at the counter, then waited inside the place for my colleagues to arrive.

But after just sitting around, I decided I didn't want to wait for them anymore because the queue to check-in was starting to get longer and longer, so I joined and then realized, by sheer luck, that the 2 ladies directly in front of me were my colleagues who had been just eyeing around the crowd for me.

We checked into the counter and were given our room key, then headed to the waiting area to be embarked...

.. it has been a very very very long while since I last took a cruise, so everything felt brand new to me, our passports were taken from us before we boarded the cruise and then from there on, we had free reign within the cruise to do whatever we wanted to do.

Everyone went to put their luggage into their respective rooms, mine was checked-in, so I didn't have any luggage to put down, but I went to check out my room and it was small...

Shot taken a night when my luggage finally arrived.

... since the cruise was booked pretty last minute, we could only get the Oceanview suite, which meant there was a window but no balcony, so our view was literally the ocean. It was honestly decent for what it is and I am very grateful to my boss for upgrading me to my own room.

After settling down, all of us met at the corridor because our rooms were thankfully next to one another except for one colleague who got affected because he ended up getting his own room thanks to my request for my own.

 We headed to the top deck for our lunch...

... and the queue into the buffet restaurant was crazy long and barely moving. 

It sucked and I was completely bummed out at this point because if this was a preview of what to expect for the next 4 days, we are gonna be wasting a lot of time just standing around waiting to get into the restaurants. 

But mid-way through queuing, we were alerted that there was a smaller buffet right outside the main restaurant where we were, and it served a much smaller variety of food, but we didn't have to queue up for it, so we settled for that instead...

... it looked really sad. There is a reason why people would rather brave the queue than settle for this.

First meal on the first day, it was very disappointing. After the meal, we decided to just explore the rest of the cruise and walked around a bit, the weather was not great...

... the sky was overcast and it was drizzling, people were still in the pool swimming despite that...

... all the outdoor areas were wet as well, which was a bit sad.

... but the view of the ocean was pretty nice.

Once we were done with the upper deck, we headed into the lower deck and that was where all the action was happening...

... all the jackpot machines that lined the walkway were all occupied by these old folks and they were all locked in and gambling away.

There really wasn't too much to see, there were a few stores here and there, and I came across a few blind boxes....

... send a photo of this to Zo because ButterBear is his weakness. Thought I was going to get one for myself, just as a souvenir, but I didn't end up getting any. I mean it is cute, but it's just not really my style.

After walking aimlessly for a while, my boss decided we should go sing some Karaoke, so we went to check the price and it was $140 for 2 hours, which is insanely expensive, we decided to just go back to our rooms to rest, but after a while, my boss decided we should just go for it anyways because there was literally nothing else to do...

... the room was huge and they served drinks and snacks. Really could've given more snacks because all we got were 5 chicken drumsticks that were meant to be shared between the six of us. I feel like some tidbits like chips or biscuits would have been great, but they didn't serve any of those.

I don't usually drink, but I did during the Karaoke session, it was pretty fun, everyone sang, the older ones sang their oldies, and then the younger ones and my boss sang the more modern offerings.

We split up shortly after and I decided to explore the ship on my own, found a cafe in the lower deck that sold Matcha Strawberry Latte for $10...

... it was actually a pretty decent cup of Matcha, the colour was dark, the strawberry sauce had real full sized strawberries in it.

Went to look at some perfumes that the boutique store was selling after I was done with my Matcha, ran into my colleague who was also looking to get some perfumes and the both of us were there for quite a while, contemplating whether to buy or not because there was a 15% discount going on that was only going to be for the first day. I couldn't find any scent that I was particularly drawn to, so I didn't end up getting anything because it was still a little over a hundred dollars.

We split off and then got together again for our first dinner onboard the ship...

... the serving size for some of the dishes were questionable, the food itself was alright I guess, just not really my style so I didn't particularly enjoy this meal. Almost everything had bones in them, the pork ribs, the fish, the prawn had shells that needed to be peeled, They did serve us like char siew slices, but they only brought 2 plates that had 6 slices each, I felt like I was eating from a sample plate. 

We then called it a day after this because this was a late dinner, by the time we were done, it was probably around 9pm, so all of us headed back into our rooms, I took a bath and started scrolling on my phone, I was also kept busy with chats with a few of my Hinge matches, so they were able to really keep me entertained throughout the day.

Then I got an email from HDB about my BTO Application.

I had told myself that if I don't get it, it's fine because the BTO in Clementi is extremely expensive and the 10 year MOP is not something I am very comfortable with, so I went into the results with that mentality...

... sigh.

The feeling of not being able to get it still sucks, I didn't even manage to get a ballot number, that's how bad it was. I wonder if I hadn't cancelled my first ballot, would it have made any difference. 

I am not upset I didn't get the flat at Clementi, I guess I am just more bummed out by the fact that the idea of actually having my own place has to be postponed till the next exercise, and even then, it won't be confirmed. The good thing is the next exercise will be next month, but the options for next month doesn't really have any location that I personally like, only one I could consider if Jurong, so we shall see. I would like to apply for Tengah SBF, but the application rate for those are way too high.

My day ended with that not so great BTO Ballot result and my overall impression of the cruise in general is that it is seriously boring as fuck, I was so glad I did not go through with a solo cruise trip because if it was already that bad with my colleagues, I can't imagine how much worst it would be completely alone, it would be such a sad sight.

Day 2 - Penang

In order to avoid the insane queue, we all decided to get up extremely early and head to the restaurant for breakfast at 7am.

I was already up at like 5.30am and decided to spend the first hour just doing some exercise in my room, so by the time it was time to meet up with everyone else, I was already very awake, everyone else however had bloated faces and I could tell they had just gotten up.

The plan to skip the crowd worked really well because there were so much available seats, we didn't really have to queue for our food, and everything worked out really well. 

Since there wasn't any proper itinerary planned prior to this trip for what to do in Penang, my boss decided to just quickly plan one out, and the first thing he decided we should do is go to a shopping mall to avoid the afternoon Sun.

Disembarkment was at 11pm, so we all decided to just walk around the ship again...

... we headed out a little later to avoid the first crowd of people, and had a quick bite at the cruise restaurant before leaving the ship for Penang.

My boss called a Grab and managed to get one within 10 minutes, despite the crazy crowd that were still gathered outside the ferry terminal. 

Since we were a group of six, we had to get a big car, for some reason, my accountant thought I should take the center seat because I was the skinnier one and didn't need as much space.

I don't sit the center seat often because I am too tall, so I will usually end up blocking the rear view mirror, but I also didn't feel comfortable asking her to go in first because the middle seat tend to be very uncomfortable, it just didn't feel very nice, so I begrudgingly obliged.

It was the most uncomfortable ride of the entire trip, I was already having pretty bad lower back ache and the arched middle seat was not doing me any favors, the ride was 15 minutes long and it just got worst and worst.

When we finally reached the mall, all I could think about was the ride back to the Ferry and the middle seat I would potentially have to sit again.

Anyways, the mall itself didn't have anything too special, it just feels like any other mall in Singapore, there were a lot of familiar brands. 

I can't remember the mall's name, but our first meal on land was Penang food in the shopping mall's food court....

... there was nothing authentic about this, nobody was impressed, in fact, everyone was kinda disappointed at the food. We didn't end up finishing them because it just wasn't good.

We were done by around 2.15pm, and everyone decided to have a bit of free and easy and explore the mall on our own until 3.30pm.

It was way too long! I walked into a few stores, stayed the longest at this perfume place and smelled a bunch of perfumes I wasn't going to get, but the staff was really helpful so I felt kinda bad not getting anything in the end. I was pretty much done with the mall at around 3.00pm, by which time I ran into my boss and we attempted to wait at the main entrance until everyone else arrived, there wasn't any seating so it was not a great idea. 

I ended up walking around again because 30 minutes of just standing there would feel like forever, so I got myself some Famous Amos, just as a snack for the evening back onboard the ship.

When everyone was finally gathered, my boss called for a Grab to take us to the Penang Art Street, he then also offered to take the middle seat in the car after I complained about how bad my back was aching during the first ride.

... this place reminded me of Haji Lane, there were a bunch of shops and cafes everywhere, but everyone was walking and not really taking time to explore the different shops and cafes, it's like the goal was just to go there just for the literal sake of walking finish the entire stretch of road and calling it a day. 

I had done some research on the place the night before and knew there were some places to visit...

... like this little ice cream shop.

I wouldn't say it's a must visit, but it is better than just walking the entire stretch of street without actually visiting any of the cafes.

My colleague got their soft serve, and I was just helping her hold on to it while she went to get some more souvenirs at the store across the street.

I got their Cereal Milk Ice Cream, which sadly didn't come in a soft serve version, but it was good, it reminded me of the one at MilkBar in America, this one had bits of cornflake in it so there was a nice chewy bite to it from the frozen soggy cereal

My boss and accountant both taking pictures of their soft serve, which I thought was kinda funny in an endearing way. 

After the ice cream was done, we came to this spot...

Not sure what this place is called, but it's apparently a great spot for taking photos...

... and I saw this place that was selling Turkish Coffee, but because it was already 5pm, I was definitely not gonna get a cup of that, instead, I got a Nutmeg Soda, which tasted a bit like watered down Coca Cola.

After this, we did more walking, came across a local perfume shop, wasn't too impress with their offerings so I got nothing, but my accountant did end up getting their hand creams. 

It was hot! But luckily it wasn't humid, so we were mainly battling with dry heat, I didn't get sticky or overly sweaty.

The goal was to visit Kimberley Street for some authentic Penang Street Food, but it wasn't fully opened yet, and since we had to go back to the cruise by a certain time, we settled for a little hawker place we found instead...

We were still full from the ice cream, so my boss only ordered 3 plates of food,  but the general consensus was that this tasted much better than what we had at the foodcourt in the mall.

I really wanted to get something to eat in the ship at night in my cabin besides the Famous Amos cookies, so I walked over to a cafe nearby that sold Tiramisu...

The cafe was quite empty, so it was nice and quiet, and the aircon was very much welcomed after having been walking under the Sun for a while.

The plan in the beginning was for me to just get my Tiramisu to go, and then we will head back to the cruise, but my boss decided he wanted to have a cup of coffee before we head back, so he got drinks for anyone who wanted one, I took that opportunity to ordered a cup of Matcha Latte and all of us just chilled in the cafe for a while. I had a lot of messages to reply to because I was an Online Dating Whore on that trip, so I got to them and then we headed back to the ship.

There was another smaller cruise ship docked next to our cruise at the shore and the size comparison is massive, our cruise looks like a literal building.

Everyone went back to their cabin to rest up and bath, then we met up again for a proper dinner...

... what I had.

It really looks like IKEA food. The taste was alright I suppose, nothing to scream about.

After dinner we went to watch a show at the Theatre, I didn't particularly enjoy it very much but my colleagues seemed to like it, I just don't think I am someone who can appreciate those type of theatre shows, but it was a good way to kill time I suppose.

When the show was over, I went back to my cabin to have my durian tiramisu cake, no cutlery available so I had to use 2 coffee stirrers as chopstick to have my cake. It was pretty good! 

Day 3 - Malacca

The final full day of this trip.

We opted to have Chinese Food for Breakfast and it was a decent spread, not too much, for the six of us to fill our belly before our disembarkment into Malacca

The disembarkemnt was scheduled to start from 1.00pm, and there will be ferries that would go back and forth to bring people to the land and then back to the cruise,  we wanted to avoid the crowd, so we decided to go a little later...

So we did and got send to the theatre which was functioning as a waiting room, there was a staff who was just guiding and instructing us. We were in the theatre for probably a full hour before it was our turn to take the boat out to Malacca

In the middle of waiting, the staff suddenly felt like singing Karaoke and actually sang the entire Whitney Houston song, I Have Nothing, he was actually pretty decent and I just thought it was quite funny because no one really asked for it, he just wanted to sing and he was really into it as well.

The boat that we were ferried in was actually a life boat, it was small and it shook a lot, since my colleagues and I were the first few to board the boat, we were just rocking back and forth in there the entire time because the waves were quite strong, it was really really bad, and people were so  slow, especially all the older folks.

The ride to Malacca was equally bad because the boat driver was moving so fucking slow as well, pair that with the rocking of the boat caused by the wave, it was really causing major motion sickness on my end.

When we finally reached the shore, the crew let the people who were above deck get off the ship first, so the ones who came into the ship first and had to endure the stuffiness and the initial rocking of the boat were the last to get out.

I was just glaring at everyone who was taking their time to climb down the steps, because the slower they took, the longer the rest of us had to wait, and we all really wanted to get out of the ship.

We headed to Jonker Street once we were free, which was within walking distance from the Ferry terminal, and immediately headed for the first shop to get all the goodies. Since I hadn't really gotten anything from Penang, I made sure to get as much as I could here.

My boss got all of us chendol that was situated in that very same shop and it was pretty good. We also got all our snacks and souvenirs at this first place we visited, which I guess we had to because the store is right there and we probably weren't gonna come back to it again at the end of the day.

We pretty much walked the whole stretch of Jonker Street right after that, and it was just straight walking, we didn't really stop to visit any of the cafes or shops along the way, it was just like what happened at Penang, my boss just wanted to make sure we walked the entire stretch for the sake of being able to see everything, but also nothing at the same time.

At the end of the road, he decided to make a U-Turn and we ended up going to this cafe that is tucked behind another shop, it was a pretty quiet place because it's not really one of those "must visit when in Jonker Street" type of cafes, I did come across a few of those popular ones during our brisk walk, but they were crowded and my boss didn't seem interested to really stop.

I got myself a cup of Matcha... naturally. 

They had 2 options, their Original Matcha and Uji Matcha. Original cost about 15 ringgit whereas Uji was about 24 ringgit, I was too lazy to go divide it by 3 and actually calculate the cost difference in Singapore Dollars, so I went with the original one instead and it was a pretty disappointing cup. 

It tasted too much like the CBTL one, reminded me more of a dessert than actual Matcha Latte, should have just gone for the Uji because the price difference would have only been less than SGD $3.

We sat around for a while, discussed where to visit next and I honestly didn't feel like we did much in Jonker Street because of how quickly we were zipping pass every single shop.

Dinner was outside of Jonker street, so we took a Grab over...

...and this was recommended by our accountant, who is born in Malacca.

I generally do not care so much for Asian food, but this one was actually really good, everything dish was very flavorful, it was just a very delicious meal, I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. 

But it might also have to do with the fact that we didn't really have any proper lunch when we Disembarked because of how long it too for us to actually Disembark, which messed up our original schedule of going for Chicken Rice Balls.

There wasn't much time left after dinner was over since the last ferry back to the cruise was at 7.30pm. We took another Grab over to the Ferry Terminal, got there at about 6.30pm thinking it wasn't gonna be too crowded because it's cutting pretty close to the last Ferry...

We were wrong, there was a queue that stretched from the entrance all the way back here, I thought this was for the next ferry and that it was already pretty bad...

But Lo and fucking Behold...

We got ushered inside, got seated by the staff and then waited for about 30 minutes for things to happen, this photo was after 30 minutes when we finally got ushered out of the waiting area...

...only to find ourselves in ANOTHER waiting area...

We finally boarded the ferry at around 7.45pm and got back to the cruise a little before 8pm, thankfully the ferry back was a large boat, so the rocking and swaying was at a minimum.

According to my colleague, we spend 2 hours just waiting

My colleagues decided they wanted to catch the final show at the cruise theatre, so they went ahead and I decided to just go back to the cabin and rest because it's just really not my thing. So I washed up, replied to all the messages that I had because I was in my Online Dating Whore era on the ship and then met up again at 8.30pm for some Gelato.

We hadn't visit the Gelato Shop until this very evening, and it was honestly pretty good, I got myself a Strawberry with Chocolate Rice.

Then we just walked around the cruise ship a bit more, since it was going to be the last night for us onboard.

This was the main performance stage in the middle of casino area. 

My boss wanted to get a drink, so we visited Zouk on the top deck and it was extremely quiet because it was a headphone party, it was really weird. Didn't end up staying in Zouk because of how odd the atmosphere felt.

Since there wasn't much else to do, I broke off from the group and went to the cafe where I would get my Matcha to get some supper in the form of...

Strawberry Shake and Waffle Croissant. 

I guess only their Matcha was good because these 2 were kinda thrash, I felt a bit gross because I just had Strawberry Ice Cream not too long ago and I was already stuffing my face with that concoction. 

Day 4 - Go Home

There is really nothing much to report on the last day, normally I would spend the last day of my trip buying as much souvenirs and snacks as I can, but since we are stuck on a boat, there really wasn't anything worth getting.

We had our breakfast....

... and I decided to get my last cup of Matcha from the Cafe, and had as much of it at the cafe while I got back to replying my messages, after I was done with my all messages, headed back to the cabin and just stayed there until the timing to disembark.

If I had a book, the window area would have been a perfect little nook to just sit in and read, but alas I didn't and I only manage to come up with this set up 30 minutes before we were set to disembark.

Disembarkment took a hot minute, there wasn't any clear instructions as to what was going on, so people were just queueing up with no idea what we were actually queueing up to do, we are originally in line at Deck 6, then one of the staff told us to go queue at Deck 7 instead, so we went up to join the queue there, that queue did not move at all, and one of my colleague decided to go back to Deck 6 to check, realize the queue for Deck 6 was moving, so all of us when back down there...

... this is the queue, some were standing, others were seating, the problem is we didn't have any proper system in place, so most people came out of their cabins at the same time and it was honestly quite a mess. We could have and should have just waited in our cabin until the main bulk of the crowd cleared out because it took us an hour from leaving the cabin room, until we finally disembark, this was almost as bas as the disembarkment into Malacca, except we had to ferry that we needed to take to bring us to the mainland. 

The same staff who was guiding us through the Malacca disembarkment was also doing the Singapore, and like the last time, he also started singing. 

Most of us really just wanted to get off the ship at this point.

We eventually did and due to how crowded it was at the Ferry Terminal, trying to call a Grab just felt like a challenge, so I opted to take the MRT back, it was 450m from the Ferry Terminal, since there were a lot of senior citizens onboard the ship, there were also a lot who were walking to the MRT Station from the Ferry Terminal, and they were walking to fucking slowly it was driving me nuts.

I took the train to Newton, and then decided to just take a Grab back from there, got picked up in a Mercedez Benz, which was surprising, but the driver was extremely unhelpful and didn't bother to help with the luggage. 

I now have zero mood the work and the fact that there is now nothing in the immediate future for me to look forward to has brought me back into a slightly depressive state again. I'm just really fucking bored with life and with work in general.