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1. Natural sounds.

For city folks, you’re probably used to man-produced sounds. Passing cars, even screeching cars on the road, sounds of the sirens from ambulances, repeated honking by vehicle drivers.  Construction workers with their machines and tools are nowhere to be found. Suddenly, you’ll notice the sounds of birds chirping or twittering. They’re a pleasant change.

2. Pleasant smells and fresher air.

I live opposite one of the major expressways, so once in a while, I will get a whiff of petrol, which isn’t a pleasant smell. Hey, it’s unhealthy too! Now that there’s the MCO in place, there are fewer cars on the road. Go ahead and take your time to smell the grass (hopefully, you have some natural grass nearby, since going to the park closest to you at the moment is not a good idea). Please also let me know whether the air around your taman/neighbourhood is fresher. Fingers crossed, it’s not as polluted as compared to most days.

3. Grocery shopping isn’t as straightforward – online isn’t even an option.

I was hoping to get some groceries and supplies from the supermarket. But with the MCO in effect, I decided to play around with online grocery shopping. First, there’s looking through the items displayed on the main/homepage and then searching for the items needed, before comparing the prices and the quantity to ensure that they’re worth buying. You proceed to checkout, thinking ‘Yay, I’m almost there!’… until you’re presented with that dialogue box/notice: Sorry, no delivery timeslots available until the 27^th. Hey, so who said online grocery shopping was easy?

4. The benefits of working from home.

There’s no need to commute to your workplace. You can interact with colleagues and superiors using technology-based communication and messaging tools if voice calls are impossible. Of course, in certain cases, it may mean more work, especially when misinterpretations arise from chatting on messaging apps and lengthy conversation threads, assuming that’s one of the ways you are allowed to communicate – given the circumstances at present. Then again, who would want to be stuck in traffic for more than an hour, just to get to work and vice versa? Even if you are a frequent user of public transport, you would surely appreciate not having to rush and stress out about being on time. If you have friends who would usually laugh at you and ridicule you for working from home, now, you might want to check how they’re coping.