Could we make the 100km trip home on good terms?
I was stunned for a while after the warmth in my embrace abruptly disappeared, until the two heart-shaped foil balloons with a bunch of plum-colored helium balloons flying away into the sky caught my attention.
Tracing the sound of metal utensils clicking and chiming, I followed it through the glass sliding doors into the living area, walked past the bright brown leather couch, and stepped two stairs up towards the dining area.
It's at the outdoor grilling area attached to the dining area.
Hearing me walking up to him at the outdoor grilling area, he turned and smiled awkwardly, showing me the burnt slabs of pork belly on the grill.
"I didn't expect you to arrive home so early. Missed my barbeque alarm."
"Well, now we have super crispy pork rinds," I joked as I wrapped my arm around his, "Just scrap off the burnt parts and all is good."
He laughed as he examined the burnt layers with a thong.
We had a lovely dinner with the salvaged pork belly slabs after that and washed the dishes together.
When we were heading back down to the balcony, he suddenly stopped and turned his head slowly to look at me.
Looking at his unbelieving face trying to seek confirmation from me, I chuckled, "Yes, they are all gone into the sky."
I could tell by his facial expression at that time that he was really speechless and feeling hopeless for a night of all plans going wrong - partially lost his barbequed pork belly and lost all his handpicked balloons.
I turned and rested my cheek on his chest as I hugged him, "It's been a really sweet night, and I love it. Love you."
He sighed helplessly, then he kissed my head and whispered to me, "Happy anniversary, baby."
---
The weekend was fast approaching. We were both very excited since Thursday night for a special VR experiences package booked on Saturday morning at the newly opened VR theme park about 100km away from where we lived.
We read that one of the featured VR experiences was going to be a deep and emotional journey of the mind to discover couples' future love adventures. And we could choose from different levels of the challenge depending on how strongly we believe our love bond was. Wow! That definitely sounded like a test of our marriage strength - what a way to celebrate our anniversary.
So throughout our road trip, we were guessing all the different scenarios of 'test' that we might face in the VR experiences, and whether we could overcome the challenge together without arguing.
He joked that if we were tested on how to collaborate in the kitchen, or how to handle difficult conversations, be prepared to fail. I rolled my eyes at him, though I kind of agreed with him. Hmm, I hoped we still get to ride home talking nicely together through the 100km journey..
So after exchanging all the dramatic imagination and singing along with over 20 songs that we listened to on our way, we finally stood in the queue at the entrance turnstile.
I could only be mesmerized by how futuristic every part of this VR theme park felt. It's as if we were in a different world. The technology was evolving so quickly that I no longer thought I could catch up with it!
Though the queues remained long, they moved quickly with the efficient entrance scanning to verify each ticket holder.
Each person was given a pack of ginger gummies, said to soothe nausea during the VR experience while doubling as a great supplement for gut health and immunity. Upon being handed the pack of gummies, I frowned. Well, the first thought was, is this for the kids? Secondly, I associated gummies with confectionaries high in sugar and artificial coloring.
As I always did with any processed food package, I automatically turned to the back of the pack to find the food label. Surprisingly, per serving of the gummies contained only 1.5g of sugar. Okay, this theme park was onto something, and I began to appreciate this thoughtfulness.
I tore the packaging and popped one ginger gummy into my mouth. At my first chew, a rich flavor of ginger and its natural spiciness burst out in my mouth. Raising my eyebrows, I offered another gummy to my husband.
He was not a fan of confectionaries, and I kind of expected to see his disgusted face when he saw the gummy in front of his mouth. He opened his mouth anyway, and I was waiting to see his next reaction.
Yes, he raised his eyebrows too, and his disgusted look turned into a pleasantly surprised look as he chewed the gummy. Okay, he liked it too.
I peeked into the gummies pack and roughly counted, about 8 gummies left in my pack. So it's 10 gummies for a daily serving in a pack. And we had a whole day of close to 20 VR experiences to stay out of nausea, these gummies better deliver their promise.
Soon we stood in front of the introductory screen to learn more about each of the VR experiences we read from the registration website earlier. One word to summarise what I felt more and more as I read more - mind-blowing. Who were the geniuses who designed and developed these experiences? My excitement got so high that I was hoping the write-ups were not just hype.
When we reached the screen asking which level of challenge would we like to proceed with, we looked at each other with our thinking faces for half a second, and then we both looked back at the screen.
I went through from the lowest level once again. Puppy love? Nah, I thought we could do better than that. Intense love? Okay, let's see what's the next one. True love. Uhuh, I was nodding my head in my heart. The last one, Unconditional love? This one was.. surprising to me. My gaze softened and I started thinking about our marriage and our relationship, especially during these recent years. In those split seconds, I went through a mix of deep emotions thinking about what we had gone through together. I then gently turned to look at my husband. When our eyes met, he was already looking at me with a confident smile.
While I was still processing what that smile meant, he lifted his right arm and I saw his index finger heading straight to tap on the screen, with no hesitation! I immediately turned to look at him with my eyes wide open!