Hey guys!
New year, new travels. I ran an informal q&a on Instagram Stories sometime in January, and a lot of the questions that came in gave me ideas on useful things I might possibly look into moving forward in 2018. So after some brainstorming and evaluating of realistic ability (space and time constraints, etcetera), here’s my slightly idealistic plans to pen – jotting it down here both as a reminder to self and as a kind of checking mechanism, so if too much time goes by and I havent done a single thing, I guess y’all can call me out on it!
L O L.
Okay so:
Broke Student Guides
The BSG series is my baby, and what really got me started on my love for travelling. However, as of November 2017, I am no longer a student – I successfully completed my Masters in English, Creative Writing, kindly sponsored by the Singapore Government ( tax-free, thank you very much!). And lets face it, I’m 25, and no longer broke. So the term, while no longer a definitive truth of my existence, is more a guiding principle than anything else. I thought about whether I should change the name of the series from here on, but I think my super mega asian middle class upbringing does mean that I will always be cost-consicous, even if one day I’m a gazillionaire or something. And besides, there’s a good chance that I’ll go on to do my PhD/MFA after a much needed break, which means that I’ll be right smack back into being totally broke again, anyway. So the title stays, and so do the guides. Hurray! Expect more of these, moving forward.
#JemmaFlies
I do fly a lot, and I’m quite game to try everything. But I’m both extremely paranoid and mega cost-conscious, which means that I totally obsess and blow situations up in my head before even stepping foot on the plane, but this wont stop me from trying to take the most cost efficient option even if the airline has a dodgy ass rep. This has resulted in pretty funny situations over the past year, and it’s a waste if I dont blog about it, which I havent.
And on the other hand, now that I travel so much for work as well, I have gotten the chance to try some pretty awesome airlines in luxe classes that have totally blown my mind! And I realised that before I get on any flight, I do obsessively google reviews and forums and seatguru that shit and all that stuff. So why not write about my own experiences while flying?
I dont know why I haven’t done this before, but yeah. Think of it as a flying diary – I’m going to start penning stories from the airlines I’ve flown, documenting my experience. Some of this will be from memory because I might not have taken photos of the plane and all if it happened in 2017 before I’d decided to start doing this, but moving forward, this is something I’m gonna try to do. Coming up: this Asian girl flies United solo. And, China Airlines for the first time!
Packing Guides
I am working on weather specific packing guides for places, so I’ll try to come up with a checklist that you guys can refer back to when planning for your own trips. This is something a lot of you requested for, so thanks for that! I am also working on weather-specific skincare packing guides. As for in-flight skincare, please read my GUIDE TO INFLIGHT SKINCARE which I wrote in 2017 because I dont wanna have to repeat everything hahahahha thanks!
Destination dining
I wouldn’t really consider myself a foodie because I don’t know enough about the fine culinary arts to really tell you about how if the marbling of beef faces a fourty five degree angle against the rising sun in the east that means it’s ace, or whatever. But I do know that when I love a meal, I love a meal. My October trip to Melbourne just confirmed that for me I think, because I kept getting mind blown left and right. And I think I’d never churned out as many dining specific blogposts till then! So this is probably something that you’ll see more of when I travel. I do have an extensive travel sidebar linking all my travel posts, so if youre looking for suggestions for a specific destination, just scroll through the Broke Student’s Guide to Travel posts on the right hand side of this page.
Singapore Specific Recommendations
I think this was definitely triggered by my recent trip to Los Angeles. People kept trying to tell me all about these amazing dining places and half the time they turned out, well, mindblowingly mediocre. I’m not trying to be annoying, but I genuinely, in my heart of hearts, think that Asian food is the absolute best. This is my personal conclusion after years of globetrotting, and while I love Spanish and Mexican cuisine, I think it’s really, really difficult to fight with Asia when it comes to food. How can you dispute the emotional journey that is a good bowl of piping hot pho on a wintry day? Haven’t you seen the way people’s faces change when biting into a toasty hot slice of kaya toast, double dipped into half boiled eggs? Don’t you think that life would be boring and depressing without God’s gift to man – the entirety of thai cuisine? And whoever thinks that Singapore’s national jewel is not chicken rice can come and FIGHT ME!!!!
So yes. I think that in all my outbound travel, I have pitifully neglected the wonders of Singapore’s gastronomical landscape. As a multicultural society, we have access to top notch dishes from many cultures, and it’s a damn waste that we dont talk about this more! So talk about it I shall. Damn it, am I turning into a food blogger? I’m not trying to, but yeah, if its good, I’m going to talk about it, so help me.
Okay, I think that’s about it for now. I think there were some other questions, but I hadn’t had the chance to look through and synthesise all of them, and this is what I had so far. So yes! Excited for the new year of adventures to come 🙂
See you on the other side, y’all! X
X
Jem