The Return Home

For many people, returning home after a long trip can be accompanied by a great sense of relief. I can understand to a certain degree. It's nice to be able to sleep in your own bed or simply relax in familiar and comfortable surroundings. According to Laura, the opportunity to wear clothes that aren't simply "functional" is a major draw to returning home. I suppose for me, the chance to catch up on those G.I. Joe DVDs I got for Christmas is at least some consolation for having to slum it out in the Heartlands of Singapore once more. You certainly don't feel the pressure to feel like you're "doing something" worthwhile each moment of the day and using all of your time effectively to ensure that you get all that you can get out of your travel experience. But still, there's something about returning home (especially when the place I just came from is more like home than where I'm living now) that just doesn't sit quite right with me.

There's this odd feeling I get whenever I return from a long trip that in some way things here in Singapore have simply frozen in place for the entire duration of my absence. There's this sense that while have I changed in some way, or at the very least gained some further insight about the world or myself through my experience (such as the importance of not wearing a swimsuit on a hike because it will cause chaffing), that Singapore, and everything about it, has remained static. The same security guards at the entrance of our condo nod their acknowledgement as we pass by the gate. The same obtrusive voice recording on the MRT informs us of the same train stops and reminders to mind the gap between the train and the platform. The malls and supermarkets are still flooded with people who don't watch where they're going and inevitably veer into you or stop suddenly in front of you to check the latest text they've received. And of course the weather, being hot, humid and sunny, has not deviated from its course.

On top of this, I have to deal with getting myself unpacked, re-organized, clean the house, and all of those particulars - such as cleaning up gecko shit from the walls and floor that have accumulated over the past few weeks - that remind me that I'm no longer living a life of adventure and excitement but have come back to the exact same sphere of existence that I was attempting to escape from by going away in the first place. I'm serious about those geckos though. They might look cute in those commercials, and yes, they do us all a favour by eating insects and whatnot that might otherwise create bigger problems for us than having to scrape up gecko poo, but it does seem to get out of hand when we're away. It's as if the geckos see us leave and decide to have an enormous party with all of their gecko friends who are invited to come over and shit to their hearts content until the moment they hear the key turning in the lock. But I digress. It's at times like these, that despite being away for an extended period of time, I feel that in a sense I have remained exactly where I was. Just like everything and everyone else here. While this thought is no doubt a bit of a paradox, it is also a very depressing one that will no doubt result in me weeping over too many pints of beer over the coming weeks until we set off for our next trip (in which this vicious cycle will resume).

The real purpose of this post is to wish all of those faithful readers of this blog a happy New Year and all the best for 2010. While the future of The World According to B is unclear, I have committed myself to seeing things through to the end of this tour of duty, which ends in early June. 2010 will kick off with what might be called the most ambitious travelogue to appear on this site to date in the form of a video journal that documents the entire three weeks that Laura and I, along with my parents and sister, spent in New Zealand. While being Lord of the Rings in scope, it will actually be nothing like Lord of the Rings other than the fact that both films were shot there. There will also be volcanoes. And lots of walking. Lots of walking. And have no fear, no monkeys were used in the filming of this project.

Next up will be a trip to Bali, which I'm not sure how much will fuel the posts on this blog. I envision lots of eating, drinking, and sitting on the beach, which I suppose I could describe in great detail to make those of you in the Great White North jealous and spiteful of my very existence. Upon further thought, perhaps instead of walking around and over a volcano like I did in New Zealand, I could jump into a volcano in Bali, which would certainly add the necessary dose of drama to the story. After Bali, we're hoping to spend a week in Laos, and perhaps between it all, a smattering of weekend trips to nearby locales.

The big trip this year, however, will be a homecoming of sorts. Laura and I are planning a country-wide tour of Canada with stops in Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax, PEI and a host of places in between I'm sure. While exact dates have not been confirmed, I am taking advance bookings for invitations for breakfast, lunch, dinner and places to stay.

I'll leave you with this teaser image of things to come as I begin the onerous process of editing hours of video footage into something digestible.