OMFG - so far in Singapore

A little while ago I showed up bleary-eyed and horribly disoriented to what appeared to be a building for Church housing in the middle of Singapore. After more than twenty hours in the air and three layovers (One which included having ten minutes to run from one side of Dulles in Washington to the other in order to catch my next flight. Might I add that this run included four moving walkways, about six escalators and a shuttle. Really guys? Really?) and a couple pills which helped make the journey bearable, I was skeptical that this building was where I was going to call home for the next couple months. Ten days later and I'm sitting here on the couch of my surprisingly spacious model apartment feeling very much at home; something I rarely find I feel when I travel. (It turns out the bottom floor of the building is indeed for Church housing but the top floors are just apartments. "Sexy as hell models pouring out of a Church building! It's bloody brilliant!" is how my charmingly dazed British landlord described the situation to me.)

Singapore has welcomed me with open arms and I couldn't think of a better city for me to visit alone for the first time. I've been lucky enough to of traveled quite a lot so far in my life: pretty extensively with my family while growing up, a couple trips here and there with friends and a fair bit of traveling with significant others who are no longer significant, but I've never actually traveled alone somewhere totally foreign to live. I'm someone who believes in destiny; that everything happens for a reason and that this opportunity came to me in a my life at this exact time has proved to be perfect timing. Toronto was driving me insane to put it lightly; it's a city I'll always love but I just felt like after my break-up, it was time to break-up with Toronto for a little bit as well. Everything was reminding me of something or the other and I felt like I just needed to fuck off and be anonymous for a couple months. Fortunately modeling gave me the chance to fly half way across the world on some one else's dime and I couldn't be happier.

Obvious superficial details aside (being that Singapore is spotlessly clean, beautifully designed, easy to navigate and endlessly entertaining...oh and they have Topshop here! I may or may not have squealed and done a little dance in the mall when I spotted the store sign glowing from afar...) this trip has meaning to me in that I feel its purpose is bigger than just simply to be in a couple magazines or runway shows. What that purpose is, I won't know until the trip is over and some time has passed but so far it seems that being independent; in a physical and emotional sense is something I had never really learned to do in its entirety before. I cherish my friendships and family more than anything, but to be all the way here without any crutches to lean on and not be mopey about it has been refreshingly liberating. I don't know that if I had taken this trip any earlier whether I would be as happy as I am here now. Actually, I can guarantee that I would be missing some one, or everyone really. Big changes in our personal lives, as perpetually hard as they feel while going through them, only usher in new phases that we needed to go through to become stronger. I look over the last couple months of my life and everything that's happened to me, both good and bad, have led to this trip happening and for that, I'm thankful. I realize it now and can let go of some of the negative feelings I had held on to for far too long because what triggered them happened for a reason; for personal progress.

Being 23 and modeling in another city is entirely a different experience than if I was still in my teens. It's an interesting scene here with many young girls coming from nothing in Eastern Europe or Brazil and to see how they cling onto modelizing men is amusing to say the least. I don't feel like I have to accomplish much here other than learning to be happy with myself being alone. Making decent money from jobs will be great, and I'm not worried about that because I'm pretty confident I'll work well here, but as far as making the rounds in the model social scene - -I'm just not feeling the urge to at all. I love to party but after a couple nights out talking in baby English to stick figures who barely can put together sentences and men who call me "baby" after meeting me for five minutes; well honestly I just rather be doing anything else. Besides, with Singapore's insanely strict laws against anything that makes parties where you don't know too many people fun, I think I'll save my partying for a side trip to Thailand or Hong Kong! This is my Eat/Pray/Love trip thus far and I'm loving the calmness and detox aspect of it so far. With the exception of ciggies, I've barely had so much as a glass of wine here and it feels lovely.

I'm only ten days into my three month long journey and I'm sure the unexpected will occur as it inevitably does...in the mean time however I'm finding that my week and a bit of a low-key existence in the sun has done what a summer in Toronto couldn't. The large black Samsonite I flew with is all the baggage I intend to carry back with me at the end of this trip...and I can feel the load lightening already.

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