02828: Home Away From Home


It's easy to romanticize travel - I feel a lot of people get in this mode when they comment on my updates from Singapore. There's always the assumption of leisure and enjoyment and maybe a hint of envy thrown into the mix of things for good measure. I can't fault them - there's a lot to be said about the positive effects of travel after all.

But my trips are largely work trips and even then they're more unique because it's a family business that we operate in two countries. So I'm rather past the tourist allure of trips to Singapore and instead most of it is focused on getting things done and quality time with my family here. And these are not bad things either nor do they leave me feeling like my time in another country is being spent incorrectly to any degree. It's just a different way to enjoy things.

I can only speculate that my sense of satisfaction is similar to what people experience when they use vacation time to visit family in the provinces. Our family was always city-bound and thus had no immediate family to visit they far away so it was not part of our upbringing. But on the surface there are a lot of similarities - it's just that my province of sorts happens to be another country that's largely just a 3-hour plane ride away. But the rigors of travel are all worth it given the joy of seeing my sister, her husband and their adorable child. It's a treasure of an experience.

So I don't have very tourist-y photos to share when I'm in Singapore compared to when we travel to other destinations. And that's because what memories I do try to capture in photos or videos are more private stuff as they're family-centric updates and I don't need to broadcast that sort of thing. But I do value them dearly and I'm glad to take a lot of photos that may never see the light of day. It's all part of how I treat these trips and that's probably not apparent from my social media updates.

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