08-23

     I won't forget this number. It's my last apartment unit in Singapore, the third apartment I rented, before I was sent home to the Philippines for good by my stroke. I stayed in this unit from November 2014 to May 2019 if my memory serves right. It was my first time to stay outside of the busy central business zone of Singapore. My first stay was at City Square Residences, a posh residential apartment, then I moved to Toa Payoh to a flat. 

     I miss this residence of mine, my home office starting November 2014. I did not hire housemates as I was worried they may be disturbed of me working from home as I had a lot of teleconferences.

The grilled doors to the flat 

     It was in this unit where I experienced to be brought to the hospital three times, two of which were emergency situations. I stayed alone as I used it for my day work, working for an American chemical company for a regional post for Asia. My first open heart occurred when I was already staying in this flat. It was February 2015 when I woke up  very early in the morning, I had difficulty breathing, seemed I couldn't move my feet. I called a friend, a bartender working late at night, who told me he will call his wife, a nurse at the National University Hospital(NUH) of Singapore.  In a few minutes the ambulance came and brought me to NUH.

     In February 2017, I had a scheduled surgery to correct my aorta as I had a triple A condition, acute aorta aneurysm. After those two surgeries, I thought everything was in order when in February 2019, I had a stroke. It took almost 24 hours before I could be rushed to the hospital Tan Tock Seng. By some miracle, I was brought to the ICU and survived the ordeal but unfit for work which sent me back home for good.

Gloomy Day

     I didn't walk this morning as it seemed it was about to rain. It's a gloomy day. Forecast said a tropical storm is on the way. It drizzled for a while explaining the wet ground but now it has stopped. Luckily it has stopped as we planned to go to town as it's the opening of Metro Mall Alangalang, the newest supermarket in town, branch of their stores in Tacloban City and Cebu City.

What a gloomy day!

     I have ran out of topics to blog that is why it has been a while that I didn't write in here. I started this blog without any focus on an area to write about, simply write on anything because I had only one thing in my mind, train my brain after I have stopped working. I see the similarity to many so-called vloggers, some friends, who posted videos of mundane stuff. Many of them are extinct now, ran out of ideas to vlog precisely because they had no focus on a particular topic. Many of them I believe started vlogging because of the promise of earning from Meta, erstwhile Facebook. What they failed to see is the reality that they have to have many followers in order to maintain their vlogs. For me, my reason is simply personal, to exercise my brain. I think I should continue writing anything under the sky even without followers.

  

Best Islands in Asia

     Looking at this list of top ten best Islands in Asia, I am overjoyed to see that I've been to the top five islands.

When I was an OFW I got the chance to visit 

      I don't know their criteria for judging but my list for the top would be different. If I am to rank my top five in terms of natural beauty, facilities and ease of touring around, my list would look like this.

1. Koh Samui

2. Boracay

3. Phuket

4. Bali

5. Langkawi

New Condo Tenant

     I've got a new renter in my condo unit, the income from this helps me tide through now that my stroke rendered me jobless. The renter I feel is very entrepreneurial, no surprise as he is a broker by profession. He rents my place for short term staycation. No doubt he will make more money than me with the right promotion but it's alright as i don't want to be bothered by the headaches surrounding short term rentals. He even offered me to sell my unit, he will help market it which I said I have to think about it. I hope this new renter brings me more luck in the days to come.

My studio unit 

Memories

     I saw a distant relative's FB post which reminded me of my own memories growing up in the farm. I can fully relate to what she said.

Her FB post

     We both experienced to live without electricity, since it only came to our village when I was in Grade Two I think, around 1977. Before that, there was no electricity and we survived using kerosene lamps. When night time came, it was awesome when the moon was out because the atmosphere was lovely. But when there was no moon, it was pitch black. There was no internet then. We used books to read our school assignments. We had no TV so we couldn't watch TV shows. My family would gather around a transistor radio listening to radio dramas. That was the simple life we had in the village. There were no complications. 

Love Before Sunrise

     I started following this local drama series on GMA 7 from when it started because, aside from  it stars favorite actors of mine, Bea Alonzo and Dennis Trillo, I was curious as to the story line. Because the title reminds me of the rom-com movies, a yrilogy of Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight. Initially I thought it's something different, creative but as episodes go along, it seems the writer got the lot idea from those movies. There's nothing new in the plot, but of course they localize the story. I'm curious how they will end this series because in the movies, they didn't end up together.

GMA 7 latest soap opera

     Why they titled it this way, only the writer would know. They should not have given it this title so people would not think of the movies. Well, the soap opera is for the masses which I believe don't know of the movies.

Netflix' Lee Kwan Yew

     Over the weekend, a Lee Kwan Yew special was started on Netflix to commemorate his birthday. Lee Kwan Yew(LKY) was the first Prime Minister of Singapore and believed to make Singapore what it is today, a first world country.

Documentary on Netflix

     In this documentary, it showed how LKY envisioned Singapore to be after their separation from Malaysia. His brilliant mind built modern Singapore that recognized the talent and dreams of the people.