after two years without my very own vacation - meaning flying somewhere without any assignments to do, today i have a chance to do some adventures with no deadline hanging on my neck.

i'll still do some writings and photographings - those two cannot be easily cut off from my vein.

but before i sign off for awhile, from the bottom of my heart, i wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year.

may your christmas be merry and bright.

and, may peace be with us all.

the night before i left this city state early this month, i dined at boat quay. while munching a sauteed baby kailan, i couldn't help but thinking on why i was eating by myself.

silly.

i could've ordered a room service inside my room, but eating by myself in the room wasn't fun either.

but, this city is so vibrant to just let go in the evening staying inside a room. i walked around with my camera in tow and snapped some pictures around.

a friend whom i've not seen for a long time and recently came across told me, "one thing that is so you -- solitude with a camera."

it was an honest comment to hear.

Friends who know me understand how i love everything about commercial airlines. collecting all the stuffs that could be collected from an airline. i mainly grabbed its in-flight magazine when i flew with a certain air carrier.

i remember like it was yesterday -- when i was about 5 or 6 years old, every afternoon, my father used to take me and my sister to nearby Kemayoran airport to see departing and arriving planes in its viewing galley above the terminal building.

seeing a Garuda Indonesian Airways DC-9 with its old red and white livery, i asked my father when i could be inside a plane to fly some cities i could never imagine. a 5-year old boy then was not like a 5-year old boy today. and, financially speaking, i now realize it, sitting inside an airplane to fly somewhere was a total luxury for my family at that time.

father saw my yearning eyes -- knowing that i really wanted to fly -- and told me, " close your eyes and make belief that you are inside an airplane to fly somewhere."

everytime i visited Kemayoran airport and saw a garuda plane taking off, i closed my eyes and visualizing myself sitting aboard that plane, taking me off to cities beyond where i lived that day. up until now, when i hear a roar of an aircraft engine and look up to the sky of a passing airplane above, i closed my eyes and seeing myself among its passengers remembering what my father tought me about visualization.

some say that the path of life will take you to the destination you wouldn't know and understand, but somehow somewhere somewhen, your destiny lies in the palms of your hands and the only one who can control it is yourself.

is the boy i was be proud of the man i am?

i think, he was.

the next evening, i walked from my hotel to boat quay by the river across clark quay. i can't help not to shoot this couple sitting by. it was just so romantic.

sadly enough for me, i bought a mcdonalds combo to go and ate by myself sitting by the river.

twice in a month i have to fly to singapore for meetings. and i couldn't be happier to be in this city state at this time of the year. it's christmas in the tropics time! all the ornaments and lightings are lit up to spruce the feeling. it reminded me of plaza light in kansas city during the holiday seasons minus the zero degree celcius temperature.

after meetings, i took time to stroll down orchard road to borders bookstore or kinokuniya. many times, i would go to food republic at the top of wisma atria, bought a beef balls and tendon soup to go in a container and took it down out of the food court. eating my S$6 dinner on the side bench at the pedestrian area in front of wisma atria while seeing people walking by in orchard road is the stress buster i can only have in this city.

sometimes you just have to walk away. we all hate to fail, hate to give up, hate to give in. we love the challange of life and want to keep on until whatever we are trying to win has been overcome, vanquished, beaten, or won. but sometimes it just ain't going to happen and we need to learn to recognize those moments to learn how philosophically shrug and walk away with our pride intact and our dignity high.

if a relationship is coming to its end, instead of playing out long and complicated and potentially hurtful end games, learn the art of walking away. if it's dead, don't digging it up every five minutes to check if there's a pulse. it's dead, walk away.

you may want to get even - don't get mad, walk away. this is much better than getting even because it shows you have risen above whatever it is that is driving you crazy. and there can be no better way of getting even than to ignore something so completely it can be left behind.

letting go and walking away means you are exercising control and good decision-makin powers. you are making your choice rather than letting the situation control you.

in a memory of a dear friend who has already passed away, she once told me that if i want to free write everything that is in my mind, write whatever it is with pencil. one reason -- pencil catches up your thoughts better than pen.

it's actually what i've been doing. sometimes, the ideas and the thoughts that came suddenly to my mind, whether it's a wording for an article's opening or whatever it is, passed so quickly. the thoughts flew faster than my hand could write everything down.

a pencil - the lightness of its being - helped me to capture all of the ideas on papers.

in one residential area in south of sydney, parrots are everywhere and funny enough they came to one house at the same time every morning and afternoon in a bunch. there were more than thirty parrots came aground.

it tells me that birds have sensory memory to remember the time of the day.

nothing is more exciting than bondi beach in the summer time. though the beach is not as beautiful as the ones in bali and lombok, you can feel the aura of summer everywhere here. the season much awaited for the people tired of the winter gloomy and rainy spring.

summer is when you channel your energy to outdoor activities. when the day is long and you want to be out all the time.

the buzzzzzz of people ready to get some tans, the sound of sea birds flying above, the panorama of hilly residentials afar, all give the essence of your being in the middle of summer time.

as silly as i was, i just realized why they called a flip flop for sendal jepit. it's because when you wear them and walk on a pair of a flip flop, you will hear the sound of flip flop flip flop. duh!

i feel like i can't get enough of traveling. but, i really want to have a long vacation where i don't have to do anything, just enjoying myself during and after the vacation. nowadays, my vacations start when i finish the articles about the places i visited. ugh!

i travel yet in no terms of vacationing.

standing in front of this table setting seeing the last ray of the day's sun almost set and glow of candlights lit up, i couldn't help asking myself, what would i do when i have the chance to experience a romantic candlelight dinner like this one for real?

i've been to bali so many times in the past two years and have seen so many romantic dinner table settings that have been set for the purpose of photo sessions, but as lovely as they could be, this particular setting, by far, is my favorite.

the beautiful surrounding enriched with the glow of the candles and the thick purplish stormy early evening clouds add the romantic feeling to this picture.

what would you do if i send you a bouquet of flowers with a note written -- have a dinner with me tonight.

won't be able to blog for a while. i'll be mostly out on assignments abroad until next year.