Tokyo at night
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
I quite like this nightshot of Tokyo from the top of Mori Tower's Tokyo Sky Deck in the very trendy Roppongi Hills (freaky expensive designer stuff). Its 54-storey high and offers a panoramic view (well almost) of Tokyo. We get to see Tokyo Tower and even as far as Disneyland. Well technically we couldn't see Disneyland at night but we did see the nightly fireworks from that distance though.
My grandfather-in-law (wilk's paternal grandpa) passed away last wednesday at the age of 79 and the funeral was held over 5 days (wed - sun). Feeling sort of drained now and everyone involved looked really tired.
I have a lot of emotions and thoughts whirling around my head about wilk's grandpa, his illness, his family, the funeral etc. But i think, they are much too personal to share at this moment, and i am also not sure what to make of them.
The one thing however i would share was that my strongest memory of ah-gong (though i may not have known him well) was the grinning expression in his face and his little 'victory' hand sign in the group family photo at the wedding dinner of wilkie & me. That photo never fails to make me laugh when i look at it. And that was the exact image that i recall during the numerous prayers & rites at the funeral. It may seem strange that while everyone else was sniffing and sobbing, i was actually smiling through my tears as i think about ah-gong. It may seems insolent or queer but i think it was my own little way of mourning his passing.
I may not share ah-gong's or his family's beliefs but... i hope he is happy and contented wherever he is.
Byebye, Ah-gong.
Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor
- Benjamin Franklin
Hole in the pillar
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
This little rectangular hole at the bottom of a massive pillar in Todaiji (Nara) attracts lots of children and adults while we were there. There was a pretty long line of people queuing to squeeze through the hole. Little children of course had no difficulties squirming their way through but the adults... that's a different matter altogether. In fact i was quite anxious for one or two of them who almost looked like they couldn't make it midway through the hole. Luckily, with a little help from friends pulling and tugging from both ends, there wasn't any causalities... yet.
Wilk and I gave a whack at it and made it safely through (but i needed a little bit of help la :P). It is believed that those who can crawl through this hole will be able to ascend to heaven when they die. Guess heavens is only reserved for children and not-so-large people eh? In any case, if that's true, looks like both Wilk and I just reserved ourselves a spot there.
Dogs on (Fashion) Parade
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
I wonder if it is only in Japan that people would dress up their dogs to look like 'Miffy'. When i saw this at the street market outside sensoji(Asakusa), i had a sudden vision of Ruskie wearing the exact same thing. It took tremendous will power not to succumb to that urge to buy it for my cat.
Phew.
I think i might have save myself a couple hundred yens and painful scratches from Ruskie.
Gaze
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
I didn't fiddle much with wilk's camera while in Japan, just taken a shot or two here and there. This is one of my favourite shots that i took though there was nothing much to do with the country per se. It was taken of this little 4 or 5 yr old English (or American) girl sitting infront of us with her parents & brother on the Shinkasen train from Tokyo to Kyoto (3hr+).
Think she might be a bit grouchy and sulky that afternoon because she didn't want to talk and sort of just stared moodily out the window most of the time. Or perhaps her parents woke her up too early to catch the train. Whatever it was, she still looked really pretty with her golden hair and big eyes so i wanted to take a photo of her. Except she didnt quite feel like being photographed because she began to avoid looking at me the minute i held up the camera.
In the end it was sort of like a bit of hide and seek (her continuing to look sulky, but interested) where i would hold up the camera and she turn her back towards me when she hear the camera click but then pop out to look at me again when i put down the camera. Finally, i was sneaky enough to click on the camera as her back is turned but remain poised to take a quick second shot when she predictably turn her head around to look at me as she told it would be 'safe'.
Heh heh i still remember that little girlish indignant look she threw at me and turning away in a huff when i managed to get a shot. But before you know it, she actually started the whole hide and seek thing again. And once wearing a cute pair of star-shaped sunglasses where she acted really like a diva avoiding the paparazzi. *chuckles* In the end i got a few shots playing this 'game' but still, i like very first 'successful' shot the most.
It might not be a very well composed photo or contain a very interesting subject matter but i guess sometimes its the story behind it that makes a shot memorable and "beautiful" in my eyes.
Not that i have that much time to blog... but i rather spend my time doing this than.. say, "work". Man, at this rate, i am going to suffer from work depression. What a 180 degrees turnabout from my first year at work. If you ask me then if i thought i would ever feel like this about work, i would have answered with a resounding, "No".
But it has become as such my friends.
It has.
"Either i will find a way, or i will make one" - Sir Philip Sidney
Dunno why but my side bar has gone 'down under' again.
Happens everytime after a few post though i did not touch the template...
Hmmm okie.. i did touch it but that was just to include Mr Tabs onto the sidebar and during preview and for a couple of hours, everything looked fine!
*frown*
What am i missing out on?
Pond Musings: The Pond Reopens for Business
Ngiap Heng, our wedding album photographer just came back from the a pretty long hiatus and announced that he is gonna stop doing AD wedding photography to concentrate on doing more commercial work & portraits at The Pond. A great loss to future wedding couples i am sure but heck.. good for him i'd say!
When we first met NH, he has already struck me as someone a trifle bit odd to be in the wedding photography business, especially when you listen to his ideas and philosophy of taking photographs. Frankly he is more of an artist and just have too much to offer than be doing AD for wedding couples especially most couples just prefer the run-of-the-mill sort of wedding photography and NH is definitely not a run-of-the-mill photographer. Just check out his website and blog and you'll see what i mean...
Still, i can help but feel a trifle bit glad that our wedding was before his decision was made cos we weren't going to have a wedding album unless NH could be the photographer. Phew, lucky for us! *grins* Anyway, really wishing him and his team at The Pond all the best. There's nothing more important than doing what you believe in... :)
AHA!
A new look for the blog.
A tad girlish and not at all my usual style but...
it's a woman's perogative to be fickle, no?
Took me about 2 hours to tweak and customize the original template.
Would have been quicker if my eyesight and mental processing have not aged alongside my physical body.
Ah well.
At least a productive way to spend the Youth Day school hols than lie on the couch to play mahjong on the PSII.
Now i am playing AND tweaking my blog!
*grins*
Thousands of toriis
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
At last, the first part of our Japan trip's photos is out.
All the 123 photos are ONLY for Tokyo & Kyoto.
And it is only SELECTED photos.
16GB... That's how trigger happy wilk can be.
Sigh... Man!
But at least, they were nice photos... even if there were occasions he nearly lost track of me because he lingered so far behind trying to snap a shot at every things he see. *heh heh*
Anyway... more to come later!
I want to change the template for my long-neglected blog.
Just to freshen it up a little, especially since the alighment also abit koyak.
But then i am seized by an overbearing sense of... lethargy.
That pretty sums up my life these days actually.
After 15 days in Japan and that's the amount of photos we have.
All of 16GB...
Good lord..
Makes me wonder how we are ever gonna finish sorting them through.
Japan was great though we had a couple of pretty 'harassed' moments initially as we hardly had time to prepare ourselves for the trip. Basically we worked right till the last minute and rushed home to pack before going to the airport after work.
The places we visited was memorable though the walking was pretty tiring. Shopping was great but terribly expensive, especially in tokyo. Food was quite affordable and hotels were not too bad though rooms in tokyo are pretty small. And most surprising was Japanese people spoke more english than we had anticipated, even if they didn't, you could always get an "eigo-menyu" (English menu).
Anyway, here's the itinerary...
Day 1 : tokyo - Ueno koen & asakusa
Day 2: Tokyo - Tsukiji fish mkt, harajuku, shinjuku,
Day 3: Tokyo/Kyoto - Explore kyoto station area, downtown kyoto & Gion
Day 4: Northern Kyoto - Fushimi-inari taisha, Nanzen Ji, Honen-in, Chion-in
Day 5: Southern Kyoto - Ginkakuji, tofukuji, kiyomizu-dera,
Day 6: Kyoto/Nara: Kinkakuji, Around Nara City & Kofuji
Day 7: Nara Koen - Todaiji, daibutsu-den, Kasuga Taisha
Day 8: Nara/Ise - Day trip to Ise Jingu
Day 9: Nara/Kobe - Harbor Land, Meriken Park
Day 10: Kobe (day trip to Osaka) - Osaka Kita area, Umeda Sky Tower, Osaka Aquarium
Day 11: Kobe/Himeji - Himeji jo, Koko-en, overnight at onsen ryokan hotel
Day 12: Himeji/Tokyo - Central Tokyo,
Day 13: Day trip to Disneyland
Day 14: Day trip to Yokohama (Yohohama Art museum & Chinatown)
Day 15: Shopping in Ginza, Akirahaba
Wish the photos are sorted and up... Makes it easier to write about them.
Oh well.. it was fun though and the trip back we upgraded our SQ tickets to business class and it was worth it, seeing how tired we were at the end of the trip.
Well, let's see how the photos turn out then.
Ruskie is recovering well and less grouchy these days... at least to me. Bringing him to the vet for his monthly blood test still drives him insane (the vet has never seen such a defensive cat in her practise) but at least he is coping pretty well with the fluid dialysis at home. He might growl but at least he stopped struggling to get out once the needle goes in and would lie pretty still in my lap till its done. The biting (when i try to inset the needle in) reduced too.
Good news is, after these few months of doing the fluids and daily medication, his eyes started to contract a little bit and he seems to get around places and obstacles very well (no more knocking into walls, even in an unfamiliar place)! And last week, just prior to his blood test, i tried stopping the fluid dialysis to see if it would cost his creatanin level to increased (normal level is ard 2.4 and ruskie has been hovering around 3.1, his highest was at 3.7). I know it was a bit risky but i just wanted to know if he could do without the twice weekly drip treatment (it pains my heart to 'poke' him each time and see him so stress) or at least reduce it. If the level shot up again, i guess we would have to continue that course of treatment then.
Fortunately, it was a risk worth taking because his level dropped further to a 2.9! First time since Dec when he first became sick, even the vet was quite surprised especially knowing that he has gone without the fluid for a week! In any case i felt a tremendous sense of relief to know that he is really getting better. After a discussion with the vet, she too felt that ruskie is holding up really well with the special diet and medication so she reduced his fluid dialysis to just half a bag weekly while we continue to monitor his createnin level. Hopefully in the near future he wouldn't need the dialysis anymore and ruskie can start to enjoy his life without painful needles again.
Horizon
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
Taking the first step into my 4th decade of existence. Quite a mish-mash of feelings right now. Some sense of relief that i have been through the first 1/3 of my life (presuming optimistically that i'll live to be at least 90 of course) with relative good fortune. A little sense of disappointment that i didn't achieve more than i could have. A nagging feeling of regret over some 'crimes' i have committed over the years. But generally happy, because it's after all my birthday today.
Just received an email about 'reappraisal' from a friend of mine and i guess i was at the state of reappraisal for the last 3 years. Damn long if you asked me, just to do some stock-taking and planning for the future. Yet here it is, the final 'deadline' before moving on to my next phase in life.. and i am still at it because my inventory list still have a couple of lobangs and my future plans remain hazy.
In the last 30 years, i have learnt to tie my shoelaces, play the piano & paint badly. I have obtained numerous academic certificates, which in the end i found, did not correlate to success in life. I have accumulated some unique experiences such as getting kicked out of school at the age of 8 and working for a 'smuggling syndicate' before the age of 12. I have been through financial upheavals where family fortune was completely reversed twice in these 30 years, once in 1984 (terribly bad), another in 90s (still on the way up). Through it all, i have understood my family a little bit more and made my peace with them after the rather angst-filled teenage years. I have also learnt to appreciate all that they have given me in terms of their love and support (no matter how odd their way of expressions are).
I started my first permanent job at the age of 25 and is still at it. I am still confused if my passion brought me my job or is it the other way round. I learnt about true compassion with the children i see and some people i worked with. Yet, i have also discarded my rose-tinted glasses and learnt the sad truth about office politics and experienced the person-numbing effects of work-dissatisfaction. I realized the importance of being tactful & watching the words i say because passion & drive sometimes turn others against you. With that, i've also seen how colleagues can be true friends & felt their protective presence the moment i realized that work is not as innocent & straight-forward as i have thought.
I have met many people and made many friends over the years though they came and went. Still, there were others who came back again and stayed for good (i hope). I learnt some lessons about friendships such as empathy & patience but sometimes i am still at a loss about what to do or say to a friend. I still have not learnt how to be a social butterfly but managed to be more extroverted in my early 20s. Over the years, i have also accumulated more confidence in expressing myself but occasionally froze when i had to address a group suddenly.
I went through emotional ups & downs in relationships from the age of 18, though my first ever crush on a guy was when i was in kindergarten. I might have some ideas how it felt like to be depressed, to be vinditive, to be betrayed, to be hateful, but also to be protected, to be honoured and to be loved. I have only ever dated 3 guys seriously and married the last guy after dating for 7 years. Though we continued to fight and squabble sometimes, despite the change in our "status", the love that was so intangible before, is becoming clearer as time goes by.
There are so many other things about other things i have learnt and experienced but here's the essence of what i know. With time (perhaps another decade?), this essence of me will have more flavour, like boiling a giant pot of soup-stock. Till then, i guess i will just have to keep stirring & adding in the years (and what it entails) as they come.
When a death occurs in the family... often it is the living who has to continue bearing the burden of what has happened.
Today, my aunt passed away suddenly after struggling with brain cancer over the last few months.
Her passing threw everyone around her into a whirlpool of pain, sadness and... unavoidably, guilt.
At noon today, a middle-age lady decided to walk out of her house with only an umbrella in a span of 5 minutes when no one was watching.
Perhaps it was an accumulation of stress, depression and pain...
Perhaps it was the denial of her cancer recurring...
Perhaps it was the fear of going through another round of painful treatment...
Or just the fear of not making it through.
God knows what else was going through her mind when she decided that enough was enough, and decided to end things on her terms.
God knows if she knew what would go through the minds of all of us now that she has left, so quickly, so desperately.
Whatever it was that went through her mind in her last moments... whatever it was that went through the minds of her family... in my mind, i can only remember the conversation during my mother's phonecall to me this morning at 11..
"Remember to go see your aunt later"
"It's raining so heavily... i will go after lunch"
Lunch never came... instead a phonecall did.
Sick Ruskie 01.JPG
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
Things are not looking well... Vet confirmed that it's kidney failure. Ruskie also has hypertension due to the kidneys. Hence both pupils are now dilated and the poor thing cant really see anymore... most likely to be a permanent condition.
Long term wise, Ruskie will need continual home-based 'dialysis' (putting a bag of fluid under his skin through a needle twice a week).
I am not sure if i am coming to grips with it all yet... especially when looking through some of his old pictures. Don't know how so much could have happened to him while i was in China. Worse thing is, i can't really explain to him why he has to go through so much pain over the last few weeks and he has been quite 'distance' from me, the "chief-torturer".
It's all gone quite mad since 2006 came around.
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