Month: July 2020

Does anyone blog for fun anymore?

| pinaymama@sg

I recently realised that nearly 90% of “blog ideas” or “how to blog” advice out there inevitably ends with tips on how to “boost rankings”, “promote content” or “monetise” your blog. I arrived at this guesstimate while doing a quick Google search for fresh writing prompts and it got me curious…

Does anyone blog for fun anymore?

Now, before you answer that I have a confession to make: this isn’t my first blog. I wrote my very first post on Blogger back in the mid-2000s and named my blog ‘Girl Goddess #9’ (a small nod to one of my favourite books as a ‘90s tween). I wrote a total of 17 posts in that blog before life got in the way and I stopped. Since then, I’ve started — and abandoned, for various reasons — a few other blogs over the years.

Throughout the years however, the reasons why I start a blog have always remained consistent. I blog because of Three Cs: connect, create, and capture.

1) Connect.

The blogging community felt quite different back then. Everyone was still kind of new at it. Most of us treated our blogs like online journals, so the vibe was more intimate in a way. It felt great to find like-minded people from all over the world who cared about the same things as I did, but who were different enough from me such that I could learn something new.

That’s what I loved (and still do) about blogging – the connections I make.

2) Create.

It takes courage to put oneself out there and create, whatever it may be: long-form posts, poems, family recipes, photographs, reviews, how-to guides, even travel itineraries. There are so many cool and creative blogs to be found, each with a unique story to tell. I don’t think I’ve scratched the surface at all.

As for me, I didn’t start out blogging to make money. I first discovered the monetising route wasn’t for me when I accepted a commission to do sponsored posts years ago. I didn’t enjoy the experience at all. It felt like a job – which is exactly what I wanted to avoid by writing freely in the first place.

So, I decided from then on to just write about my interests and maybe share interesting things to others in the process.

With that, I say: sorry random stranger, I’m not interested in learning about SEOs. No thanks WordPress, I’ll pass on “integrating social media” to my site (I’m not sure I’ll have the time to maintain a Facebook / Instagram profile for the blog anyway). I think I’ll stick with my day job to fund my expenses.

… or not

I’m speaking for myself, of course. Your mileage may vary!

3) Capture.

When I write my #SundaySofaSojourns, I share a memory so that I can remember. (Also, I want to put you through that tongue twister of a title. 😉)

When I write about my experiences, I’m often trying to freeze a moment in time, again for posterity… if my kid ever thinks to look at his old ma’s blog (in the future, when he’s able to read beyond CVC words!). I hope if he ever reads it, he’ll find a glimpse of his mom doing, well, other things besides being his mom.

In other words, I’m usually writing for myself and those dear to me.

It’s what I find fun — and if it isn’t fun, why bother?

Think critically dear readers,

P.S. If you’re new to my little corner of the internet, please feel free to poke around. I hope you enjoy reading my ramblings — or maybe disagree so strongly you’re motivated to comment. Let me know, I’d love to learn from you. And to those who take their time to write me an encouraging comment or two, maraming salamat!

Featured image by Corinne Kutz on Unsplash

A Sign of the Times

| pinaymama@sg

Sentosa, Singapore’s self-declared “State of Fun,” re-opened on July 1st. We wasted no time in visiting the island over the weekend.

There are a lot of fun, free, kid-friendly activities you can do in Sentosa – ride the electric trams, walk the nature trails, and – most importantly for us – swim in the beaches. Sentosa has three to choose from: Siloso, Palawan, and Tanjong.

Relax on a hammock at Palawan Beach
A ride on the tram. “Mask up, see your smile soon”
The Sentosa Boardwalk

Our favourite mode of getting to Sentosa is by strolling along the Boardwalk from VivoCity. It’s shaded from the heat and there are moving walkways, if you get too tired. There’s also a lovely view to your right looking out towards the cable cars and Keppel Island. The other plus is if you go by foot, entry to Sentosa is free (it usually costs a S$1).

But the Sentosa entry fee is waived until end of this year anyway, so it’s free however you choose to get there.

There are a lot of renovations going on in Sentosa at the moment. The fountain and paths near the replica Merlion with the Cyclops laser eyes, as well as the seemingly Gaudí-inspired Merlion Walk with the colourful mosaic tiles, have been torn down to make way for the “Greater Southern Waterfront” redevelopment plan.

The replica Merlion, during National Day celebrations back in 2018.
The Merlion Walk mosaic fountain, back then. This section has now been razed to the ground.

One of the nice parts I like about the walk is passing by the rotating Universal Studios globe. It’s usually packed with tourists taking selfies, but these days it’s quiet and empty.

Social distancing for no one

I noticed with surprise that someone had replaced the signage displays at the Universal Studios ticket booths with these Photoshopped gems:

When you see it…

It’s amazing attention to detail on the part of Resorts World… but I can’t get the image out of my head of some poor intern tweaking the face masks so they looked “natural.”

What a funny sign of today’s odd times.

Mask up and stay safe everyone!

Think critically dear readers,

Sunday Sofa Sojourns #3: Reykjavík, Iceland

| pinaymama@sg

Seeing as all our travel plans this year (and the next…?) have been put on hold, to ease the wanderlust I’ll post a throwback photo every week from our past trips. Join me as I travel from my sofa!

It seems cliché to talk about bucket lists nowadays. But seeing the Northern Lights has always been near the top of mine. When I saw Iceland Air’s promo package ads in the London tube station, seeing the “most spectacular light show on Earth” was just too tempting to miss.

The trip did not disappoint.

No bench inscription on this one! But what a peaceful place to think

Years on, I still remember how cold my toes were waiting for the lights. They are a beautiful, if unpredictable, natural phenomenon after all. There was no guarantee we would see them on our trip. In fact, the night we were scheduled to go aurora borealis-hunting, it snowed very heavily, so our tour operator gave us a second chance the following night to try again, for free.

Why “hunt,” you ask? Well, because it really is a hunt, more than anything else. What happens is this: you go out with a huge bunch of people in a convoy of large buses. The bus driver switches off the lights and you all drive around in pitch-black darkness while the tour guide talks about the phenomenon, how/why it happens, its history, etc. The guide also asks all passengers to keep their eyes peeled out for any signs of the lights. They can be green or even red, it all depends on the conditions.

And like I said, there’s no guarantee you’d see them. Aurora borealis (or the Northern Lights) can be seen around November to early April. Best conditions to see the lights are clear, cloudless, and cold night skies far away from city lights.

The following day, our guide tried to manage our expectations lower because it had been snowing earlier that day. He even told us stories of disgruntled tour passengers asking for their money back because of an unsuccessful trip. (Of course, that’s not possible. No soli bayad.)

We finally stopped at what the guide/driver thought to be a good spot and disembarked. Everyone had their cameras and tripods at the ready. It was butt-freezing cold outside… the first and only time since then that I felt cold so intense, my toes seemed disconnected from my feet. I kept jumping from foot to foot, thinking of frozen North Pole explorers and hypothermia (overactive imagination thanks to NatGeo channel). We stayed outside for close to two hours – at one point even resignedly climbing back into the bus – waiting, waiting.

So, imagine the pure pleasure we all had seeing this.

*

By the time we visited Reykjavík, we had already travelled to a number of countries. 10/10, we always, always came across Filipinos – be it a noisy tour group; the old university org-mate we hadn’t seen in years whom we suddenly bumped into at the Spanish Steps in Rome; or the sweet manang cashier who, when she found out we were Filipino, gave us an extra cup of mashed potatoes in a Barcelona KFC.

I thought to myself that because Iceland was so far up north, this was finally going to be the place we don’t see Pinoys. The first morning after our arrival, Hub and I were getting ready to leave the room for the breakfast buffet downstairs when I heard, in clear Tagalog, not one but two housekeepers chatting in the room next door. They were tidying the beds.

Turns out, there’s a small community of Filipinos in Iceland, over 1,400+ strong. We Pinoys really are everywhere!

Think critically dear readers,

P.S. We just watched Will Ferrell’s Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga on Netflix last night — I had no idea the main characters were from Iceland! Fun film. Makes us want to go back, after all *gestures broadly at everything* this.

Our Happy Place

| pinaymama@sg

One of my favourite books is a book about books, ‘Ex Libris’ by Anne Fadiman. In one of her essays, she describes her parents’ library, with her dad and mom between them having “about seven thousand books.” In another she writes about having so many books in her loft that it “had come to look less and less like a home and more and more like a second-hand bookstore.”

While I don’t have a thousand (yet!), like Fadiman, I sometimes feel like we live in a bookstore too (think homely BOOKSALE rather than chic Kinokuniya). Back when Hub and I lived in London, I managed to accumulate a Billy-bookcase-and-a-half’s worth of books, aided in no small part by a wealth of choices (it was a literature lover’s paradise), cheap prices, and the convenience of book-shopping via Amazon.

Since we moved to Singapore, the family library has ballooned to nearly three tall Billy bookcases, not to mention my kid’s own growing collection. We were running out of space…!

It was such a joy for us then, to find out early last year that they were opening a library in a mall close to our condo. From zero bookstores within a mile radius to thousands of books at our doorstep! Bye-bye Amazon! It truly felt like Christmas had come early.

As a non-citizen, all I needed to do was pay a S$10.50 one-off registration fee (around Php 400) and a S$42.80 annual membership fee (around Php 1,520), and I could start borrowing up to 16 physical books straightaway. On top of that, I could borrow up to 16 e-books, so the total number I could check out was 32.

I don’t think I ever maxed this limit out borrowing books for myself, but the fees were truly worth it when it came to book choices for our kid. The selection of books we could read to him increased exponentially from what was on his little shelf. It made our routine “story-time bedtime” more interesting (both for him listening and us reading).

A trip to the mall library became almost like a weekly family ritual: we dropped by before a run to the grocery, while killing time waiting for a movie, after eating dinner out.

During the circuit breaker period though, libraries were one of those places deemed “higher risk” and were told to close. We thought they wouldn’t open until Phase Three. But – joy! – the government announced libraries across the country could open on July 1st.

We all wanted to visit it immediately, especially my kid. He’d been stuck reading the same old stuff from his bookshelves and I could tell he was getting bored.

But there were now a few extra steps we needed to do:

  • Pre-book our visit online. We were only allowed to stay in 30-minute time blocks and the online booking had to be done at most the day before the visit. The government’s message was clear – get in, get your book, and go home. But… but… who does that?! Libraries are made for aimless wandering.
  • Check the crowd levels before our visit. I admit, this feature is pretty useful. This link shows which libraries are crowded in real-time, so you can avoid the crowds and save yourself a walk. I would use it, even if we weren’t safe distancing!
  • Have our temperature checked and “check-in” by QR Code or government ID before entering. Like all other places now open in Singapore, there was a compulsory infrared thermometer scan at the entrance. We also had to check in via SafeEntry, the country’s national visitor management system, for easy contact tracing.

Of course, this didn’t stop us and we made it to the library – our library – yesterday. It took all of my kid’s self-control not to sprint through the entrance checks.

We had it to ourselves. There was a section right outside the library where the clouds reflected against the windows. It looked stunning, as if the books met the sky.

It dawned on me then that this truly was our family’s happy place.

Best 30 minutes spent this week.

Think critically dear readers,