Countdown to Tasmania: One and Half weeks & cold weather packing tips.

Hey all,

It is one and half weeks till I leave for Tasmania for my delayed grad trip with my girlfriends. It has been a long wait for this trip. We pre agreed on this before graduating and when graduation came, we had all the time in the world, yet we did not have the money to travel.

Our initial plans was to go to New Zealand,  however a ticket to Auckland and Christchurch were easily SGD$1,300 and that was as good as us going to USA. So we decided to go somewhere nearer, Tasmania. Our planning process was tough, we were 4 very different girls, with different travel experience and expectations. To mash all these expectations up was not an easy task, however we did it. I don't know what those 10 days will bring, but I will put on my brave face and go for it. I will be vlogging my 10 days, so I will put up the vlog after the trip.

Anyway I will be updating on things to pack, so far, the weather has been relatively cold with it ranging from 6-15 celsius. I realise many of us tropic rats love to go to countries which are a good 10-20 celsius but cant handle anything lower than that. (Obviously there are the brave souls who love the cold) But whether you are clueless tropic rat or a fashionista who does not care about the cold. I will be talking about packing for low temperatures.

There is only one rule to cold weather packing, it is not going to Uniqolo to buy heat tech clothes (though those work to a certain extend), it is not looking for the fluffiest jacket you see and it is not going to the winter store and buying all the heat packs you find. The secret to cold weather packing is natural materials. The reason why girls always complain that having long hair is hot on the neck is because hair is a natural material and so it keeps you warm. With that being said, please don't be creepy and use hair as a filler in your pillow, blankets, jacket etc. Natural materials include fowl feathers, down and wool, anything that is not a synthetic fibre or man-made.

I bought a fleece jacket from Uniqolo thinking it would keep me cold through a winter in New York, however I wore 5 layers of clothes everyday just to keep warm.

Me in my Ravenclaw Scarf and Black fleece jacket

Thankfully my house mate told me that in order to find something warm, I needed to find stuffed with natural material. So i bought a brown coloured down and fowl feather jacket and that kept me warm all the way, even till the end of the USA trip and Japan. I still have this jacket and I will bring it to places that are cold.

With my friends at the performance of the Musical Once, all of us are in jackets with natural materials as fillings.

With it, for below 0 celsius, I only wore a jacket and a t-shirt inside at most. Above 0 celsius, I wore a t-shirt and the jacket.

Hopefully this helps everyone with cold weather packing, now on to packing my bag, perhaps I will share more travel packing tips.

Engagement, leaving my job

Hey y'all,

The last two weeks have been crazy.

Firstly right after my birthday, which happens to fall on a Wednesday, I got engaged on the Saturday. We have been dating for seven years so when it finally happened, I was surprise mostly, a part of me was saying, "I knew this day will come" adding the little fist bump in the head. Engage life is no different from dating, just with a wedding to plan now. I am very happy to be engaged to the man whom I love, through our seven years together, he has shown me how much God loves us. Before him, I counted some good events to luck or coincidences, but after he appeared, I learnt that nothing in my life is a coincidence, I learn that God is in control and I learn how to have faith and trust in God's hands. 

Many people ask me how I can be so sure he is the one, my answer to that is that his love for me is an overflow of the love God has given him. Each time we are together, I see prayers answered, I see miracles happen and I see us being save by God all the time. I love to post more photos and talk more deeply about the engagement and how it went down. But I will save that for a later date, much closer to the wedding.

The second thing is about me leaving my job, some people ask, "why? isn't writing what you love to do?" I love writing and I have a lot of fun, going for events and meeting people. However I needed to try out all the other different beats, experience the different types of companies and office that were around. I worked for a family business and I learn the ups and downs that came with it, I learn how to deal with difficult people and learn what a blessing my colleagues have been to me. For all the opportunities that I was given I am more than thankful. 

My next step? Taking a break from the working life, move house (that involves a lot of packing, I am a slight bit of a hoarder) and going to Tasmania for a delayed graduation trip. I am still praying about the sister hood of Mary trip. Despite my makeup class schedules, I have a certain peace in my heart to go for it. Now I just have to sort things out and enjoy myself. I plan to freelance write for different places and fill up this blog a little more. I have many blog post in my draft and no time to fill them out, so I guess now is a good time to do so.

So long!