You'd think with all the displacement experience, I would still be able to sit down and output creatively while I'm in between apartments, right?

Straight after a two-week trip down under at the end of May, visiting years of stored memories and sorting $623 worth of coins in Australian currency, I returned to Hong Kong with a top priority of apartment hunting.

I went about the task with much fervor, seeing up to ten apartments a day. At night, I resorted to playing Sims to relief decorating anxiety, which if we had to lay it out in a formula, compounds itself by units of 10 per each apartment, 50 even, if already furnished, since I had to invariably remodel all the existing furniture, then replace with suitable pieces and colour. All this was exhausting for my tumour-riddled brain, so Sims it was. I modeled homes based on properties I saw during the day, which accounts for the cluster of two-bedroom, one-level residences now on the game. I decorated them with an ideal budget, which of course offers swimming pools, pianos and hot tubs, that now exists only within the game. I even got to style the people, down to their bountiful hair, set their career paths and made sure they 'wohooed' regularly. Sims, too, have to feel at home enough in their surroundings to maintain 'comfort' and 'environment' levels.

Dear friends from Shanghai who visited me the very first weekend remarked how already lived-in my new home was, and commented that I'm not the 'piecemeal kinda gal'. A matter of course. Piece, what piece? I want the whole goddamn pie. Instantly. All of the time.

The June morning the world mourned the loss of the King of Pop, I set out on my home furnishing collection journey, riding in between truck driver and mover, on my sweet, sweaty ride to reunite with long lost shoes in storage, then onwards to pick up pre-loved pieces at five separate addresses. I swept up some pretty neat deals with all the repatriation happening in this current retrenchment rage. My new shoe caddy had to be carried up thirteen flights of stairs, since it didn't fit into the elevator. Precious.

The purging mode must have consumed me way back in February in Shanghai, since I find I only kept a selection of my vast stemware collection. Browsing online, I found used wine glasses, red even. Coloured glass and bras with double straps are things I can never resist buying. I arrange to pick up said stemware at the vendor's home, a location that I instantly recognised as the taxi pulled into the driveway. As I walked into the lobby, I slipped into nostalgic shock. When she opened the door and invited me into her apartment, I was speechless. It was once my grandparents' home, over twenty years ago. We used to come here regularly right until our grandfather passed away, after which the family moved.

I was still in awe of the Universe when I left with those glasses. Their procurement aside, I decided later I didn't like them anymore - I was fooled by the colour and misjudged the size of the goblet. I gave away the glasses but they remain with the family: my sentimental mother is hanging onto them.

With Ann staying with me these two weeks as well as my new home truly warmed by family and friends, I feel centred and earthed again. Grounded, and able to create, welcoming inspiration and prolificacy. This website, too, is settling in well with a new, local host. I even have good news that tumours in my head are reduced both in quantity and size. Happy in the Valley indeed.

Surely my landlady and I sharing the same birthday is a good sign as well?

Highlights: The Universe