Hello Wandergirl
My name is Holly, and below is my review of your piece Until Next Time
Please bear in mind that these are only suggestions on how I myself would edit it, if it were mine. It's your choice whether you decide to take my comments on board or not. Direct quotes from your piece are light blue, and my suggestions are lilac.
Gut Reaction
I really like the ending, for me it's the perfect way to end a short story - leaving the reader hanging and not knowing what happens next.
Tenses
It's noticable to the reader that you switch between past and present tense contantly. You definitely need to pick one and stick to it consistantly, as it disrupts the reader's flow.
An example is the sentence As we spent more time talking about this & that, I came to know that he is also not a chatty type, which is currently in past tense while the majority of the story is in present tense. It could be changed to As we spend more time talking about this and that, I come to know that he is also not the chatty type (I've also changed the '&' to 'and' which reads better, and changed the 'a' to 'the' before chatty type, and chatty is a type, and there aren't different types of chatty type, or if there are you are using it in a comparison to the protagonists type so 'the' should still be used.
Sentence Structure
Whenever a character speaks, a new paragraph should start.
If this section "So, how does living in Singapore feels like?", I asked. "It's great, I like the city, people are good, I love my job, so it's cool". "How about you? Do you love the work you do?", he asked. is more spaced out like so,
"So, how does living in Singapore feels like?", I asked.
"It's great, I like the city, people are good, I love my job, so it's cool". "How about you? Do you love the work you do?", he asked.
It is a lot easier for the reader to follow the conversation, and see who is saying what.
Plot
Overall, I love the idea of someone travelling somewhere new, being panicky about meeting a host, and then later enjoying experiencing all these new things. It is a grand adventure and you've definitely packed a lot in! I like that it's not just your average romance story, while there is obvious sexual tension between the characters, there is a lot of detail in the activities they do, which I think is very important.
However, the plot appears a little jumpy. For example, a lot of emphasis is placed on finding wifi in the airport, but then she texts her brother and host anyway. Maybe change 'text' to 'message' to make sense. There is also a quick jump to her being starving, when hunger wasn't mentioned previously, and due to the inferred quickness of the long immigration queue, the reader struggles to get a sense of the amount of time that has passed since her plane has landed.
Details
Some of your scenic description is really nice, especially the early morning sky description and your earlier skyline images, which really help the reader to see what the character is seeing.
However, I have noticed that little details don't necessarily go together. For example, she first describes her dress as a flowing summer dress, then it is hugging my body tightly, and then it is the dress is a little short and a little tight. Furthermore, her host says she doesn't have to worry about the dress since it's pretty fine considering the place and the company, which to me isn't really a compliment, but she reacts with How does this guy even thinks of such nice things to say? which I think is a bit of an over reaction.
And why, if they both had phones, did they have to take their calls one after the other?
Near the start she also refers to photos as stupid - if she thinks they're stupid why do they mean so much to her? Or is she implying she thinks the idea of it is stupid, and she feels silly and embarrassed?
It's things like this that for me, as a reader, confuse me slightly. Maybe you should have a read through and see if you can pick them out and change them, to make the story flow better.
Final thoughts
This story really has potential, it just needs a bit of work. Do you travel yourself? You seem to have a lot of travel knowledge!
Keep writing!
Holly
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