Tag: sims

Solitude

Cléo and I dig around in old dirt piles in the temple first. I give her some pointers and make sure we can find the most out of it. Together, we dig up the base of an Observer Relic. I can’t wait to complete the relic and try it out.

Cyril ran down, all the way down past three gates to find a port-a-potty. He doesn’t see the irony in going against the plants and the jungle animals and the possible traps just to get to a fancy toilet. And then complaining about the insects he found there.

In other news, the food I brought was in my bag. You know, the one that now lives below quicksand. It was going to be okay though, because I thought we shouldn’t put all of our provisions in the same basket, and handed half of them over to Cléo before we left!

So Cléo has some food for us to munch on as dinner, right? She didn’t forget it, right?

Yes, she did. It’s very fresh, recently picked, but uncooked avocado and tomatoes for us tonight. I don’t mind, but Cléo and Cyril are a bit disgruntled. I promise them we’ll get a much more satisfying meal tomorrow morning, but I can tell from their hateful stares I’m really only making it worse.

In the meantime, the best I can do is also what I do best.

I get solving on the temple’s enigmas.

Some of them under the watchful stare of the omiscan llama god. Well, his statue.

I’m not saying I get it right every time. Far from that, in fact. I get the very first interaction with the temple guardian very, very wrong, and I get my first mystical touch of this trip.

And it’s a curse. A bad curse. I would rather have been turned back into a shiny blue skeleton.

Like a wave crashing on tired shores, I get overwhelmed by loneliness. The feeling that there’s no one in this world with me, no one who even wants to be with me, starting with my family.

And the dark side glances my siblings have been shooting at me don’t help.

Well, the side glances Cléo has been shooting at me. Cyril is still outside, trying to find more avocados, he said. Really, the three of us know he’s avoiding me.

Yoga

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At home, it’s only Dad and I again. Mom’s at work already, Cléo and Cyril at school.

At around 4PM, he knocks on the door of my poolhouse. “Wanna take a trip to the park? There’s a yoga class in an hour!”

So I drop the archeology tools, and we head to our favorite park in Willow Creek, and we get there just in time to change into sports clothes and hop onto the yoga mat. The day is overcast, but it isn’t supposed to rain for a while, so we can focus on our breathing and not our hair getting frizzy.

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Tree pose! I’m a swaying tree, but it’s my favorite.

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Two warriors in warrior II.

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And here we have the yoga instructor making the both of us look like potatoes. Dad fell on his back before he could even complete his wheel.

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We’re not the kind of family that gives up, so he puts his back back into it straight away, and curves it up.

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“Well done on not dying, dad!”

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“We’re the best.”

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“What say we run out of here before she convinces us to go for thirty more minutes?”

“Yep! Let’s go skating.”

The Next Morning

Partying is nice and pretty, but you’ve got to own up the next morning with some cleaning up. For Mom it involves cleaning the ash off her clothes. Cleo has noticed there are still some traces of it on the floor, so she brings out the mop. In the meantime, Dad and I are cleaning the kitchen.

Inspired by yesterday’s holiday — or her close encounter with fire —, Mom goes ahead and flambés our breakfast — and she doesn’t even come close to burning the house down this time.

And she stills makes it out of the house on time for her day of work at the lab.

Dad’s in love with our new swings. He doesn’t have work today, so his plans for the day only involve chilling.

And recuperating from yesterday’s events by napping on the terrace. Not for very long though. Cool summer breezes are always welcome, but when it plays with the carillions on the wall, you have to be able to sleep through the adorable but relentless sound it makes.

Dad can’t, so from the poolhouse I see him get up with tousled hair and hunched back, then go inside the house to finish his nap.

The Last Morning

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This is our last day in Selvadorada. The bags are packed, and now it’s all about making the most of the time we have left. We can’t risk another trip into the jungle — it would be too easy to get lost and miss the plane home, so the motorboat doesn’t leave the pier.

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One last time, we head to the food stall in the marketplace for lunch. We’re starting to get the hang out of Selvadoradan cuisine.

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Quite eyeing my food, Hannah, you’re not getting any of it.

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We’ve mastered the Selvadoradan tastes and spices. Granted I had a headstart on Hannah, after living for years just above the Spice Market.

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After lunch, Hannah goes to the pier to make her dad proud and bring him back some pictures of Selvadoradan fishes.

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In the meantime, I find Sara again, at her usual spot at the market.

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How do you thank someone who saved your daughter’s life?

You can’t, not really. But it doesn’t stop me from trying.

“It’s okay, Azalea!” she smiles. We’re obviously on a first-name basis now. “Just promise me that you’ll come back to Selvadorada, and that you’ll be more careful next time.”

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Meanwhile, Hannah’s reeling something in.

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She somehow found another omiscan treasure while fishing — this kid has a gift.

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Back to her exploring roots, she sets out to explore every single suspect-looking rock around the marketplace.

Before the Temple

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We don’t go inside the temple right away. There are still things to explore around the temple.

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First of all, I’ve spotted a rather odd tree. It looks like it should give bananas, but instead I collect colorful berries from its branches. It’s unlike any other fruit we’ve ever seen — well I know I’ve never seen a neon green fruit before.

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On Hannah’ end of the exploring, it’s all about the digging.

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The temple watches over Hannah, as if daring her to find all of its secrets under the dirt layer.

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Then when we’re ready, we climb the many steps to the entrance of the temple.

Well, Hannah climbs, I teleport.

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The most majestic place of all.

A Joint Tombstone

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Mom and Mam surrendered their last breath on the same day.

I was a long way away from home when it happened, so I had to learn about it days later, once the funeral had already come and gone again.

Mom had caught the flu, a bad one, and despite the doctors’ attention, in the end they all agreed it was simply her time. Grandma and Mam were not allowed in her bedroom for fear of getting sick, too, but it didn’t stop either of them.

It was not the flu that killed Mam that evening; it was grief.

Sometimes I wonder if she would have found the strength to hold on if I hadn’t been on the other side of the globe. But Grandma is always here to reassure me: this is how they both wanted it.

Grandma lost two of her daughters that day — she had lived longer than every single one of her children by then. Yet she still found it in her to be a bright, never faltering light in everybody’s world.

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Sometimes Grandma would tell me it was as though she till had talks with Mom and Mam.

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I couldn’t tell how much was true and how much she imagined.

Onto the Teenage Years

Once we’re home, Hanna her dad and I disappear to change out of our soy-sauce stained clothes. Because apparently, though Cyril and Cleo are the youngest, they’re also the cleanest.

On the other hand, they practically didn’t eat anything but the side of rice and sauce-less shrimp.

Then we get the cake out of the fridge, and Hannah blows the candles out.

Welcome to teenagehood sweetheart. It’s gonna be a blast.

The Restaurant

The day of Hannah’s fifteenth birthday, we head, at her request, to the Shang Simlan restaurant that has recently opened in the Spice District.

It’s actually on top of the karaoke bar Hugo and Shanna fought to save. And it worked! The first floor was renovated and turned into this beautiful place that Hugo and I have also been able to try.

Hannah’s request to go eat there is not motivated by Spice Market nostalgia: she just wants to discover tastes from another side of the world. She’s super excited to try dumplings — and not the kind you can find in food stalls Uptown. She saw Lily Feng try them out and recoil once, and ever since she’s want to get the authentic taste.

They did an incredible renovation here. This used to be a sad, empty space.

The hostess receives us with a warm smile. We’ve made the opening, and apparently we’re the very first clients!

Hannah is thrilled that she’ll now have the same birthday as what she is sure will become her favorite place to eat. She chats with the host about every possible simlan food-related thing she can think of, while the rest of us are already going through the menu.

It all looks so appetizing! We agree on a big family meal with a bit of everything.

And then we wait for the food to come, taking in the beautiful atmosphere of this new Spice Market spot.

Home

The summer ends, and we head back home. The first thing we do is remodeling the twins’ bedroom, to their grown-up tastes.

Somehow they manage to make it a mess in less than a day.

No other room in the apartment has changed nearly as much as this one over the years, not even the guest bedroom that is now Hannah’s.

But some things don’t change.

We still love playing in this room, all of us together.

And the kids feel safe and comfortable here, which is all that matters.

They do wake up in the middle of the night, screaming about monsters under the bed, but I just suspect Hannah is making them watch scary movies when we’re not looking.