Summer Trip!

family and i at Colosseo, Roma

in Madrid to watch and celebrate the World Cup finals win with the footballers!

i am now back in singapore! *do i call it home?* 

anyway, the last few weeks have created really exciting and enjoyable memories as i spent with family around europe. we visited london, lake district, paris, barcelona, madrid and rome. it was a trip that i planned for the whole family from the booking of flights to the hotels and the itinerary =) really enjoyed it! 

one thing i am realizing day by day is my love for people and culture. the more i travel the more i feel the need/want in me to meet more and more new people from various cultures. 

as i appreciate every single memory i had from this europe trip with my family, i am looking forward for the many more memories that will be created in due time =)

the trip ended of in a really unexpected manner. my granpa in Penang passed away on the afternoon my family and i touched down in Singapore from Rome. my parents and i took the next afternoon's flight out to Penang to attend the wake. so many thoughts and emotions ran passed my head as i headed back to Penang. since i was young, i have never been really close to my relatives and this time around, i actually gained much insight about my ancestral history that i have never found out about. it was also a good reminder for me that i have grown up, and that keeping in touch with relatives will soon be part of my responsibility.

one thing for sure this time around was also the feeling and experience of a funeral. it has been always a little scary for me since young as i attended funerals. but this time around i felt the peace of God as i spent my time at the funeral. it sure is quite something and i am really glad about. i don't need to feel the fear of death spelt before me.

the past 5 days since i have touched back down in Singapore felt like 2-3 weeks worth of experiences in itself. i have met people of so many backgrounds and of different nationalities in very interesting ways. one thing that funnily strung the different meetups were "entrepreneurship" and "life advice". all i can say is that i am just really excited about the times ahead and as i open my ear, hearts and mind, i am sure to be amazed by the new encounters i am headed towards!

at the same time as all this stuff are happening, i am stressed out by my product design for my final year project. i am hitting a design roadblock and i have a deadline for a report due next week. then again i was reminded that this was a God given project and i am gonna claim success over it =) 

sometimes it is really so easy to be so irritated, frustrated and want to give up when facing a roadblock, but when we take a step back, we realize the opportunity that the roadblock offers and it will give us a new insight into the reason why we are doing things and the needed "push" at that very time of need.