Expressing gratitude, lots of blessings in my life

We booked the Royal Carribean cruise months ago in late February, we chose balcony stateroom at a price of $750 per pax and days after that, I kind of regretted not going to suites as there'll be access to lounges and certain privileges on board and so on. I waited till early May, which was a month before we set sail and placed my bid to get our room bumped up. Weeks after I placed the bid, Phase 2 (HA) happened in mid may and most people started canceling their cruise trip, so I figured out it'll be much easier to get bumped up in this case. Of course, I also pondered if its worth topping up or even if we should go ahead with the cruise as many people were canceling their trips since it's not worth the price without all the restaurant experiences. RC also canceled off trips of those in big groups as they have to operate at a 25% capacity during Phase 2 HA as opposed to 50% capacity when they took in the bookings.

Anyway, as mentioned in my previous post, we decided to go ahead as we like good food but food experiences is not everything to us. I also adjusted my bid in the RoyalUp accordingly, as I would not want to top up that much anymore since we cant be sipping wine in the lounge whole day long during our trip. Maybe the lounge is also non existent now. In fact, I'm also not sure if Suite dining is any difference from other staterooms, we'll only find out next week.  

We got bumped up! 

As mentioned earlier, there is a higher chance of getting bumped up as families originally occupying the suite will not be going for the trip anymore (not more than 2 pax rule). I was still pleasantly surprised and excited to receive the SMS that my card was already charged for the bid I've placed and after checking my email, I realised we got bumped up to the Sky level kind of Grand Suite and there'll even be 2 bedrooms for us. We are paying extra $500 per pax for the extra space for the 4 nights and I felt it's still quite worth it as there'll be free wifi package for us in this case, and of course I guess this is the one and only time we'll be able to book such a big room on cruise. The room is more than twice the size of our original stateroom and I guess we'll appreciate the extra space since we'll be spending a lot of time in the room nuahing.

Complimentary fruits and food

Super big and spacious bedroom with city view

It's so big with sparse furnishing that the sofa looked lonely

View from the room

The living room area for us

Garden view from the living room area

Even the complimentary bottled water was branded

Spacious toilet with bathtub 

Speaking of suites, we actually stayed in MBS Orchid Suite during our staycation in March and April. and it was also another very blessed experience for us. P had been getting those MBS free stays and so far we had been getting 2 nights stay per month since August 2020. They even gave us 6 free nights stay this month and we happily utilised all of it. The only time we paid for MBS staycation was in September 2020 when we did not get the offer and we had no idea the following months we'll have lots of it, so we bought over one night stay from P's friend. With P's connection, we were upgrade to Orchid Suite for 4 nights this year. It was a nice surprise as March was my birthday month and there were even staff waiting for us and we were brought right up the room once we arrived.

Living room and bedroom together

Spacious bathroom again

Only city view

We preferred this layout as everything was together

We tried two different room configuration of Orchid Suite for the two months and I guess we were very lucky as we did not pay a single cent for that. I've stopped trying out different restaurants for our MBS staycations after January as we also found our favourite steak restaurant somewhere in Robertson Quay. P first brought me to the restaurant on my birthday and the steak was really good and juicy although it was not wagyu grade. The price is also reasonable so we've been back almost monthly.

Menu outside the restaurant

The road to happiness, I was right all along!

"Part of us believes the new car is better because it lasts longer. But, in fact, that's the worst thing about the new car. It will stay around to disappoint you, whereas a trip to Europe is over. It evaporates. It has the good sense to go away, and you are left with nothing but a wonderful memory."

-- Daniel Gilbert

What I'm up to these days

Last night, I was watching a video of my first and only ultra marathon at Hakusan Shirakawa-go, cant believe that was already five years ago! It's already the second consecutive year that we're stuck here in SG and we cant travel during the holidays. As I watched the video and read the blogs of my traveling, I kept feeling the pangs of wanderlust. Sigh. Usually I have no problems falling asleep, but I could not sleep until 6am in the morning, therefore I did the previous post and update.

Well, other than looking forward to the cruise trip, I'm trying to get back to a healthier routine, making good use of these six weeks to get myself into better shape. Other than going to school last Thursday and Friday, I didnt step out of the house for a solid four days until last night when I took a walk with P to St Andrew's village. 

Clear sky with bright moon

Somehow, I've lost the motivation to jog or run for now, but I've been doing Chloe Ting's workout again and I've only skipped one day out of the past five days. P and I started taking these walks for awhile but we havent been going to St Andrew's for a few weeks already. Last night happened to be this super flower blood moon lunar eclipse night and we spotted the big and bright moon when we took our walk at 9pm+. We ended our walk at almost 11.20pm and there were still many runners, cyclists and people taking strolls at such wee hours. I've enjoyed the walk as it cleared my mind and there was also a warm breeze. Surprisingly, I didnt sleep well last night despite the walk so I did not go to school as planned. I woke up at 9.30am, did some urgent work and started my home workout routine so at least I feel better after that. 

Back to Phase 2 (Heightened Alert)

Something happened the past two weeks and our term was cut short abruptly. Community cases in SG went up from 0 to 30+ last week. It started around two weeks ago, when many primary school kids became Covid positive after a tuition centre cluster infection broke out. It was already announced that we are going into a heightened alert Phase 2 period whereby only groups of 2 are allowed outside and there is also no more dining in. A few days later, due to the Covid cases in schools, we went into FHBL once again in the middle of Term 2 Week 8 and finished off the remaining few days with HBL. 

Well, it's not supposed to be good news but in a way, holidays had started earlier for us and the kids as we are all just staying at home and completing our work from home, thus it is less hectic than normal school days. This turn of events caught me off guard to be honest as I was just expecting the rest of the world to deal with Covid, while we wait out in the safety of the country. For the coming holidays, the mood is certainly not as festive as last year December as movement is very much restricted these few weeks and kids are not out and about. (Silent hurray for us though) 

P and I had decided to go ahead with our staycation last week and we'll also head out for our first cruise trip next week. Even though dining is affected, we are not so much of a foodie and we figured out the whole place will be much quieter without the kids and families. Plus, we are really dying to get out for a trip, to international waters, even though we're just heading to nowhere. 

Hope and optimism

 I'll dedicate this day to explore my second strongest character strength. Hope. This is important especially in times of this never ending pandemic that has been affecting the whole world for over a year. I'm glad that I have this strength in me, as it contributes a lot to my general well-being. 

My two strongest strengths, hope and gratitude, are particularly connected with high levels of happiness. I'm sleepy right now, so I'll just make a note below and post whatever interesting stuff I've found out about HOPE and I'll on it another brand new day soon.  

Here are some tips from the science of positive psychology to help you start flexing your hope muscle!

1. Visualize your best possible self one year from now. This might be your best self in a relationship, at work, in your community or just everyday life. Consider how to use your highest character strengths to reach your best possible self.
    
2. Set a goal you would like to accomplish. Boost your hopeful thinking by writing down at least three ways to reach your goal, as well as the many reasons why you can reach it.
    
3. Journal about one good event and one bad event in your life each week. Consider why the good events will last and how they relate to the actions you take. Then consider why the bad events will pass, why they are limited in their effect and why you aren’t completely to blame.

The course to happiness

I'm taking this free course from Yale, it's about building happiness and being happy in life. It's a very interesting and insightful course. I was doing a survey about personality and strengths and GRATITUDE is my strongest strength, it is also an important element to bring about happiness. 

I'm glad that I'm alive and living comfortably everyday, life is not perfect but it is definitely wonderful. For this reason, I think I'm already happier than most people.