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  • Posted On: December 24th 2022 at 12:40 pm | 1 Comment
    Categories: Birthdays, Food, Overseas, Personal life, Pictures, With my NEX

    Hi everyone, I realised I haven’t blog about my birthday for this year so I’m back to blog about what I did on my birthday.

    Some of you might know that I came back to Singapore after 2.5 weeks (actually 20 days, including travelling) in US. I went there for a business trip then I extended 7 days more for leisure trip. I feel incredibly fortunate that my first trip post-COVID is partially sponsored by my company. That means even the travel insurance is also paid by the company since it is a work trip. I always thought I will go South Korea once travelling resumed but it ended up to be US. Well, company is paying partially for it so why not? Haha.

    I went to Scottsdale, Arizona for my work and went on to explore Gilbert (only 1 night), Chandler (thanks to my colleague and his wife for bringing me around after work), Tempe (day trip but it was raining) in Arizona. No, I didn’t go to the Grand Canyon or Sedona. Yeah, I am lowkey regretting my decision now.

    Most people do not wear masks in the places I went to in Arizona and they also cough and sneeze out loud. Kind of scary given COVID is not completely gone.

    I extended my trip to go to Los Angeles, California and also went to Santa Monica Pier for admiring the sunset. Took many great photos which I have yet to admire after I come back from US. Expensive hotels but at least it is cheaper than New York, which was my original plan. Public transport is really cheap with $3.50 metro day pass though haha. I feel that the public transportation in LA is quite safe but of course not as safe as Singapore. Tired office workers do sleep on the bus when taking the bus home. There are 2 CCTVs for the bus as well. Masks are also provided on bus and commuters do take it and wear it. People also double mask in LA.

    I also went to San Francisco, California for shopping. Many thanks to Gulabi for the accommodation. I saved on the expensive hotel cost in San Francisco. 😀 People do wear masks and is cautious about coughing and sneezing in public. The city has gotten much cleaner as well. Public buses are cleaner than the ones in Singapore too. Their bus terminal looks extremely clean. I wish Singapore will follow what San Francisco is doing and their cleanliness standards. It’s a vast difference from my last trip in 2018.

    Anyway, back to what I did on my birthday. I did lots of unpacking of the shopping loots that I bought in US. This time, I made a conscious effort not to overbuy stuff and only buy something I truly like. It helped that USD currency is quite strong when I was there. Unfortunately, this also means I bought some items from Hermes and Cartier which burst my spending quite a bit. However, even if I exclude the money I spent at Hermes and Cartier, I still spent quite a bit. My accommodation in LA was quite expensive. Food were quite expensive in LA and SF too.

    I also had dinner with Chin Hau at Beauty in the Pot. Have to go back there since we couldn’t get Bread Street Kitchen booking. We went to Bread Street Kitchen on another day for early Christmas dinner and oh gosh, their food standards have dropped. I’m glad I didn’t go there on my birthday or I will be very disappointed.

    I lost track of time and didn’t manage to get a birthday cake on my birthday but I managed to get it on another day. I will post the photo of it once I sort out my photos. Haha.

    My birthday cake in 2022 🙂