the Walk home

At the end of my last blog post I came up with the idea of a blog series featuring my walks home. A little background history for those who don't know, evening walks are a huge part of my life. It's always a time for me to think, talk to my best friend/bf, sing to myself, and watch the world go by. Besides, I love sunsets, and evenings have just the right temperature to be walking in tropical Malaysia.

When I was little, I walked to school every day. (#interestingfact If I walked really fast I can get to my second-floor classroom in 10 minutes, door to door) In lower primary, my mom would come get me after class, and we would walk home through the neighbourhood park. I had a decent childhood on those swings and monkey bars. And then if dad came home early, he would meet us at the park, or even if he doesn't, I would still look forward to welcoming him home. 

When I stayed in the dorms in high school, dinner was at 6pm. My friend JX is (was?) a firm believer of chewing 30 times for each mouthful after-dinner walks to aid digestions, and because I didn't have much to do anyway, I walked w her every evening. Our walks would take us around the school compound, and depending on our moods we would sometimes walk to (and then stand talking at) the flagpoles right in front, facing the busy highway, or down the basketball courts reachable by a flight of really long and steep stairs, or most times just round and round the academic blocks. These walks usually last 15-20 minutes, which is just about enough time for an installment of the latest teenage saga. We walked our way though homesickness, exam stress, family problems, boy troubles, our future careers (or lack of), and many other topics.

And then in undergrad I started taking public transport after deciding that it's much less trouble to do so than to rely on mom and dad for a ride to and from uni. I was an architecture student after all, no regular hours for us! Thus began the many walks to the bus stops. I chose to travel during those times because 1) Aforementioned cooler temperature, 2) I didn't like walking in the dark, 3) to hitch a ride with dad, and 4) aforementioned love for sunsets. Yes, I sometimes chose to brave the rush hour public transport just to catch the sunset that is prettiest round the corner to the bus stop.

After moving to Brisbane earlier this year, I treasured my evening walks even more. This was surprisingly because of the lack of regularity in my life. I have only three days of contact hours, and some of them depending on tutorial slots, so I never knew when I would spend the whole day hanging around in uni, or not step foot outside my place for days.







That's the background. Back to the series. I thought I'd share some of my observations on the walk home.