OLIVIA SOH

I LOVE YOU, MAY 2026
(It's my birthday month — just so you know.)

Fifteen days. Rome and Puglia. One of the best Euro summers I have ever had. I always wanted to document my travels through video — a proper travel diary, the aesthetic kind. 

Slow, cinematic, intentional. Not the kind everyone else is doing, but my kind.
Somehow, I always end up with either too few clips or too little motivation to sit down and piece them together. Maybe it's perfectionism. Maybe it's just me, romanticising the idea more than actually doing it.

But I will always come back to words. So here I am, blogging.

This trip, funny enough, was born out of a sulk.

Earlier this year, I found myself quietly bitter about not going anywhere for Chinese New Year 2026. (A lot of well-meaning adults told me that the first year of marriage means staying with family. My husband is family — and he was right there — but no comments, and I learnt to compromise.)

This year, AFTER CNY Bangkok came. Vietnam followed. And then, finally — Italy.

There are places that hold a piece of you even after you leave. Italy is one of them, and it has been for a long time. 

Southern Italy felt like that, but slower. Louder in colour. Heavier in the best possible way.

Now officially become one of my favorite city - Polignano a Mare (pronounce: po-lig-nia-no)

Look at the sky.

One thing I fell in love with on this trip was the light — how generously it stayed. I got to spend more time outdoor. If i'm not mistaken, I was nearly 8 in the evening. I usually do my Euro trips in winter, you see. The sun has no loyalty :( It says goodbye to me at 4 or 5 in the afternoon.

By five, the streets are in darkness. I still remember about us driving through Switzerland in PICTH BLACK and it was only five in the evening.

Everything was unfiltered, taken by IP17P.

Another favorite place of mine Monopoli. 

Everything is blue.

The sea. The sky. The line where they meet — if there even is one.

And oh — the fish and chips.

You have no idea how much I missed it.

One of the shots from my morning run. 
Morning run has always surprised me with something like this. 

I love my life.

Summer without Aperol Spritz is a waste! ≽^• ˕ • ྀི≼

Polignano a Mare — almost a week, and it still wasn't enough.

Oh, and if you know me at all — I cannot visit a new country without disappearing into a supermarket for twenty minutes. Grocery shopping is my love language, wherever I am in the world.

We stayed in an apartment that felt immediately like home. A kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, a private bathroom — cozy in the way that only a well-chosen space can be, the kind that makes you want to stay in just as much as go out. Perfectly suited for two, comfortable for three.

The price wasn't exactly kind to us (probably the weak MYR hurting me)
but some things are simply worth it, and this was one of them.

Cost: House Rimembranze RM1119 per night excluded city tax.

Five minutes' walk from the station. A short wander from everywhere worth being. You never felt far from anything.

And the mornings. Oh, the mornings.

<3 lowkey love the espresso culture here. I drank at least 30 shots, at least, in 15 days.

I have zero idea why I screenshot this but now I'm glad I did this.

I had done my research. Mapped out routes planned it all carefully the way I always do. And then I stepped outside at 7AM and threw every single plan away!!!
YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT. 
I ran at a 7-minute pace, and still found myself stopping mid-stride to pull out my phone. Sometimes mid-run, sometimes fully stopped.

BECAUSE OF THE VIEWS!

Every single day amazed me. Every one.

Right, that's me done for the night — it's nearly 2200 and my bed is calling. More to come soon! x

2025, in Quiet Motion

2026 is only two weeks away, and I’ve just realised I never wrote about my goals for 2025. I've never been much of a goal setter. There's never been a dollar amount either income or bank balance that I've sought. I don't have a goal for lifting a certain weight. My way has always been to take advantage when an opportunity presents itself. 

This post is a simple recap of my 2025. Looking back, the year feels strange in that way—like it passed in a blink, yet somehow stretched across a lifetime.

For a long time, I believed I was living inside a pre-written script: work steadily, get married, and never even entertain the thought of having children. A neat, predictable path. Safe. Familiar.

But somewhere along the way, I stepped off that script.

I went back to studying and took up new courses, despite the quiet voice that questioned my age. I left a job I had stayed in for a year and a half. Within a single month, I made the decision to move to a new city. I joined fitness clubs, started running, and slowly—patiently—built healthier routines. I formed meaningful connections, returned to reading whenever time allowed, and took my first solo trip.

I found myself genuinely loving my job, even on days when it made me pause, scratch my head, and figure things out from scratch.

Thanks god for the good people I've met inside work or outside

I also became more intentional with money—learning to plan, invest, and save in places where withdrawals aren’t easy. I chose to keep zero cash on hand, a small boundary to protect myself from unnecessary spending.

Learning more about long-term investment, how to invest without out-of-pocket

and journaling.

Somewhere along the year, blogging became harder. I realised it wasn’t because I had nothing to say, but because I wasn’t fully focused on myself. Writing a recap takes effort—choosing the right words, deciding where to begin, selecting the right photo, wondering if this term fits better than that. And sometimes, the weight of all those choices was enough to make me pause.

My writing has slowed down lately. I hope to write more in 2026. Is that a goal? No argument with anyone who thinks it is but either way, writing regularly is a productive use of time. It leads to learning about yourself, it can help you work through things and solve problems and it's fun. 

Journaling, however, stayed with me. It became a habit—quiet, grounding, and surprisingly easy to maintain. I would write, stick, decorate, and leave behind a few words. Sometimes it was a full reflection; other times, just a random thought or a quote that lingered with me.

Moving to another city began with uncertainty, but it was mostly excitement. The energy there feels different—lighter, faster, more alive. I move more now. I linger less. Slagging turned into motion, and motion slowly turned into clarity.

2025 wasn’t loud. It didn’t ask for attention.

But it changed me—gently, consistently, and for good. My life and how I view things has evolved along these lines. I have no idea where it comes from but I think it corresponds to an idea we talk about a lot here which is knowing yourself, understanding what makes you tick.

I LOVE YOU 2025. IT WAS NICE MEETING YOU.