autumn is here

The leaves have turned familiar shades of red, orange and yellow. The first time I have seen this here in Belgium and a sight I never knew I had missed while living in Singapore.

Outside, my neighbours have crawling leaves on the walls of their apartment buildings, these are all changing colours. Some leaves have fallen to the ground creating a monet of sorts.

There's a crisp bite, a light chill, when I open the windows or take a walk outside in my medium-length black coat. All these things make it easier to live here in Europe. It reminds me of home.

I never thought four seasons were so important to me. Now I know it is. There was something missing from the tropical climates of the southeast which could never be replaced. Air conditioning left my lungs unsatisfied, always wanting more. Something that cannot be created artificially.

Damp leaves, wet pavements, half empty branches gently waving in midair. All these emulsify into a special smell that my nose instantly recognises as autumn.

It smells just like this in New Zealand too.

Plugged back into the Matrix

I haven't been without internet for a long period of time since... well 2005? It's been a new and strange experience not having the ability to connect to millions of other computers around the world in an instant and to do a 'search' on Google just because I found something interesting I wanted to look up.

There have been some advantages such as I needed to plan my time a lot better. Being without a constant connection encouraged me to really think about what I needed to do and when I can send my work across or check my emails. In a way, it made me more productive because I wasn't doing random things along the way - like write in my blog - to take up the precious time I had online. I took refuge at the internet lounge of the hotel connected to the serviced apartment.

The most annoying aspect was being out of touch with my business in Hungary, and also I couldn't read the news. Granted it was a weekend so there were no pressing issues to handle. If it was a weekday, I would have been livid with the serviced apartment people.

My alternative was to turn on the television and sit there listening to BBC 1 or 2 and CNN broadcast the news to me... I also watched a few films in French, which was great fun, but it made me realise that while I'm really fast at reading, I really suck at listening to French. Too many vowels for my brain! >.<

I am now digressing from my lunch to write this. But I'm seriously considering the positive productivity and health benefits of unplugging from the Matrix.

Days and nights...

Days and nights are going by so quickly in this idyllic period of my life. It's the middle of summer, people are happy on the street soaking up the sun. I look forward to seeing Antoine after work. We go for dinner, meet friends, or just chill.

I work at home during the day, typing on my laptop, creating websites, writing content, doing some design work. I think about promoting SELTI, how to get our name out there to our target audience?

Time seems to roll by too quickly. I'm planning my next visit to Budapest again, my third visit in the last 5 months and before you know it, I'll be going somewhere else. Brussels is just here and now. At the of the year, I'll be somewhere else. Somewhere new.

Days and nights they pass by so quickly and before I know it, my friends and I wouldn't have seen each other for weeks and months, and eventually, years.

Still...I wouldn't have my days and nights any other way.

keeping in touch with New Zealand

Recently, I have started to read New Zealand news again. I'm still pondering why I stopped reading New Zealand news while I was in Singapore; instead preferring international news or Singapore news.

Reflecting upon it now, there could have been a few explanations. Perhaps I was overwhelmed with the new culture and could not find the energy to keep up with my own? Living in Europe has suprisingly not given me a lot of culture shock (yet). Could it be because I have friends here that I knew from New Zealand? Could it be because I have more time? Could it be because the European lifestyle is quite similar to the New Zealand lifestyle?

While flipping through one of my farewell gifts - a small book on 'Singlish' - I realised that getting by in a culture completely different to mine required my full concentration. There were many things I didn't understand about Singapore culture - even though some people can live there and not feel "Asia" - I emersed myself, watched carefully and analysed the life of average Singaporeans. In order to make room for it all in my head, I had to limit my brain from processing anything that was not Singaporean or global in nature.

I wonder if I missed much... I'm busy catching up now.

Cherry hugs and chocolate kisses

Got an email from my boss yesterday and today. Well one is my previous boss - I just bought her a box of chocolates to thank her for her generous hong pow that she gave me when I left for Brussels, the second is the boss I had when I left the firm. They're both very cool and great role models for me... in terms of professionalism and also learning how to live life to the fullest. I was so lucky to have two good bosses during my time at the firm.

And replying to another email from a friend I met in Singapore gave me some time to reflect on my times in Singapore and the experiences I'm having here in Brussels. In Singapore I had a hard time dealing with culture shock and the fact that I had to start everything from scratch, meeting new friends and getting to know how to work in a company.

But now that I'm here in Brussels and I have friends here, I have Antoine here and I have managed to find myself a new and challenging part-time job, I'm discussing business ideas with a long-time friend of mine... I feel whole again. I feel like I really need to keep in touch with the people that I love and not let my old relationships collect dust, like they did a little while I was in Singapore.

So I've renewed my promise to ensure everyone dear to me, who's given me guidance knows what's going on in my life!

No mood to write but have new discoveries

I have a temporary writers mood block... so I started replying to emails and clicked on one of the curious gmail tag ads. It was called 'basic chocolate cake' www.101cookbook.com.

In 30 minutes time I had a mini adventure and discovered how to make a chocolate cake without sugar and white flour, who is Ginny Evans, a personal chef who specialises in food for special needs diets and a blog called Chocolate & Zucchini (two of my favourite foods).

It's amazing what you will find on the internet these days just by clicking from one blog to another website to another blog. I discovered a network of female chefs who have made it big and know how to promote themselves - they write cook books, they give private cooking classes and they know how to express themselves everyday to create a fan following.

Interesting concepts, great marketing. Things I now have time to explore and ponder.

Day Trip to Liege

On a spur of the moment idea, Yasmine and I went to Liege for the day yesterday! We explored the city just like any other tourist but with no prior expectations at all and it turned out fantastically :D

Liege being a tiny little town didn't require too much walking and there were churches, a palace, squares and shopping districts as expected. And giant steps, tiny blind alleys and gothic architecture from the 12th century which was unexpected!!

Crazy day out there leaving at 9:30am - one hour train - arrive 11am in Liege, quick pitstop at the tourist office, make a short plan of our we will tackle the town and then we were off! At 4pm we almost made it for the 4:00pm train but just missed it... were back in Brussels by 5:30pm.

Great day, cheap travelling and great time with friends... Yasmine coming at all from Singapore was a bit random but it was nice to have a little piece of Singapore here in Europe to remind me of the good old times.. (they were that long ago!) just one month :)