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.
�?????????????????�
???????????????????????????????????�????�????
�??????????????????�
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
?
?
?
?????????�???????� ? �???????�???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Profile Portrait
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
It has been a harrowing few days for poor ruskie when i was in Boracay. While i was away, he suddenly jumped out onto the balcony, refusing to come in despite pleas from wilk. By the time i got back, his left pupil had problems (cannot contract) and his vision was affected. Under such stress and staying out on the balcony, he became constipated and didn't eat for a while.
By the time i got home on sunday, he was one miserable and grouchy cat (understandably), and it took me a while to finally carried him back into the room. For the past 3 days, he still refused to eat and would growl/bite anyone who tried to carried him. The only exception was that he allowed me to pat him when he was in a 'relaxed' posture though he would give some warning growls whenever i tried to pick him up.
When the vet saw him last night (clinic was closed on tues and i kept him in to observe him on monday), she couldn't really say if his eye problem was due to a specific cause. He gave such a big struggle that eventually she had to sedate him to do the blood test and examination. Thankfully his liver is okie though his kidneys need some monitoring. Doc decided to hospitalize him for next 2 days to help tackle the constipation and dehydration problems. Hopefully that will reduce his pain and improve his mood. As for the eye, we can only see what could be the problem when the other things are cleared.
It is a stressful time for ruskie and a stressful time for me as well because i cant imagine if something were to happen to him. As it is, i am quite upset that he wont respond to me in his usual goofy way. Can't help but felt so guilty because i left him to go to Boracay and in some ways, felt that he is 'ignoring' me because he felt abandoned.
:(
Only hope now is that he can make it back home for xmas...
Sigh.
The concert was FANTASTIC!!!!!
Basically had a rocking good time during the concert and it took some effort for me not to swoon whenever Ashin sang. Ya... becoming a band 'groupie' at a ripe old auntie age of 29 is sooooo... unbecoming. But what can i say? I am dead in love with mayday (with prior approval from the hubby already)!
So there we were, my colleague and I, waving our hands with lightsticks in the air and singing every song that evening on the top of our voices, as if we were still 18. Gosh.. an amazing experience and a most remarkable band!
YONGDING, HAKKA TULOU 5
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
The inner arrangements of the tulous are simple (same for both round and rectangular tulous). It works pretty much like a row of step-up apartments placed side by side where a whole family occupies each segment of the 4 storied building.
The groundfloor is always the kitchen and toilet. The middle plot of open land is where livestock such as ducks, geese, pigs and chickens are kept together with a common well. On the second floor would be the storage area where the families would keep their grains. These are not kept on the ground floor due to the humidity and it would be unwise to keep it too high up and away from the kitchen. Finally, on the third and fourth floors would be the living quarters. Each floors are linked by a common passage way but each family's unit might be divided differently within their space.
It was said that as each tulou is so self-contained (with food and water), that during war times, a whole community can closed up the tulou and be self-sufficient for up to a year without having to step outside till the trouble blew over. And it is difficult for any attacker to lay seige to a tulou as the other walls were high to scale and the front doors could be double barred with stones. Local history has it that during the "Taiping Revolution" at the Yong Ding area, many rebels occupied the tulous and survived that way from the Qing army before moving onwards.
YONGDING, HAKKA TULOU 14
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
The round hakka tulous were built using mud bricks and wood, without nails according the a chinese 'ba gua' format (round on the outside, octagonal in the inside) which makes it a truly remarkable feat considering the durability and functionality of the architecture. The unusual structure helps it to retain heat in the winter and keep things cool and ventilated in the summer.
Each 'octagonal' side within the round tulous are reinforced with bricks, which serves as a natural firebreak, hence one section of the building can be burned down (accidents or during war time), the other parts can remain intact. The damage area can be easily rebuild to connect to the rest of the structure again.
It is really quite majestic when viewed from the top though most tulou cannot be more than 4 or 5 stories high due to the foundations. When looked from the side, the other walls of the round tulous actually curved slightly inwards which helped in creating a natural incline for the inside roofs to shelter each floor from the damange of sun and rain. The foundations are usually around 3m deep with the width at the bottom of the other walls around 1.8m while the top is around 1.2m. Due to the thickness of the walls, despite the years of sun & rain, the buildings remain sturdy though cracks and erosion occurs.
YONGDING, HAKKA TULOU 2
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
Spent 9 days (Dec 1 - Dec 9) in my annual trip to China this year. Half the time was visiting my folks and eating sinfully good food while other half was making a short trip to Xiamen & Yong Ding. Particularly memorable was the Hakka Tulous around the Yong Ding region (4 1/2 hr bus ride inland from Xiamen.
When talking about Hakka Tulous, most would probably think of the round community houses but in actual fact, most tulous are rectangular. The very first tulous built weren't round and it was only after a few years before round tulous appeared as it takes more effort and was more time consuming to build a round tulou. The sizes between the tulous also varies between having 3-4 families to 40-50 households within the same tulou, each a self-contained community. One village can make up of several rectangular and round tulous, usually situated around a river (the front door should face the water as the hakkas believe it will bring luck). Though everyone speak hakka, there may be slight differences even between different tulous in the area.
Most tulous has lasted for hundreds of years with minimum renovations (considering how poor the communities are, most probably couldn't afford to renovate), just strengthening some parts with bamboo strips or replacing wore out parts of the wood. Some have withstand natural disasters such as earthquake and man-made disasters such as wars.
Haven�t blog for a while because I needed sometime to �reconsolidate� my life especially at this juncture after I �transcended� from a Miss to a Mrs, into another plane of existence altogether. I don�t think I went into marriage with rose-tinted glasses but reality still takes a bit of getting used to and more often than not, I do have to �scale-down� my previously held expectations. In any case, there are just so much adjustment going on right now that I just needed sometime to get a hold of myself, perhaps even reconfigure who I am and what I want to be, taking stock of where I am at this moment, family-wise and work-wise.
It is hard to pen anything thoughts down coherently about being married after the wedding and the weeks that followed because I hardly had time to untangle all these new experiences before they were compounded by my overseas trip, work-related anxiety/stress and general load-of-crap. The only time I have for myself might be those snippets of hours when I vegged out infront of the TV before bedtime just so that I could be mentally distracted from reality. Other times, I am just busy tackling life on the whole and everyone that�s connected with it. It is at times frustrating and definitely physically and mentally draining. And that�s just at work�
I think I might have overloaded myself trying to do everything and be everything without first thinking through what is it I really want to achieve now. It�s knowing that I am the same but perhaps functioning at a different playing field. I want to do the things I used to do and though it is true, life shouldn�t change at the point of being married but yet, I can�t pretend that everything remains the same. I have new responsibilities and priorities that I cannot simply ignore or pretend not to exist just because I want to stick to �being myself� (well i guess the "myself" being pre-marital status). It�s like wanting to hang out with friends but somehow or the other, I couldn�t or shouldn�t, at least not like the way I have before. And when I attempt to accommodate my old schedules/habits with my new ones, I�m the one ending up tired and bushed.
It is not quite as dramatic or overt as it sounds but the subtle differences and pressures do add up. Frankly I am not sure how to structure my priorities yet.
Which comes first?
To be true to myself?
To be a good wife?
To be a good daughter?
To be a good daughter in law?
Would it be unreasonable to place them in the order which I�ve rather instinctive typed out? Perhaps I am more egocentric than most.
I have only been married for 2 months (exactly, come 9th Nov) and I think I asked more than once, how is being married now work out better than when I was dating the hubby? Other than perhaps having more money in the bank account now that two people are contributing to expenses. We spent just as much time together (and in fact, have much less time for ourselves) and continue to do things that we do together while dating (come to think of it, we seem to do them less now because we have to work in other things such as dinner back at the in-laws).
Yet�
I do feel something good about being married that is quite difficult to articulate. A certain sense of security and that added �stress� when worrying about this recently-crowned most important person in my life is surprisingly quite� sweet (in a little wifey sort of way).
I am trying to get a handle on it and I won�t be surprised if I still get those �I can�t believe I�m married!� moments and get a chuckle out of it but certainly, it shouldn�t inspire any more sense of blind panic and wild anxiety.
That�s the theory anyway.
from a wifey to a hubby... Hee hee
Many many happy returns darling...
Hope to celebrate your birthday with you every year for the rest of our lives...
*muaks*
The last 2 weeks or so has not been great, with bad news from home and of people passing on. Melancholia seems to seep into everything we do. As if what we were going through in NC was any much better. Heard from friends that while we were gone, colleague's parents met with a bad accident and her mom passed away and her father is seriously injuried. Soon to follow were news of a fellow trainee's uncle who had passed away and then her own dad coming down with a mild stroke. In some unfortunate coincident, i also received a call from my cousin who informed me that my uncle in msia has also passed away and needed to get in touch with my parents urgently. It was surreal being a bearer of bad news across the globe at 3am in the morning trying to reach my parents in china.
School has been turned upside down, literally because of the carnival and apparently some of my kids are NOT doing well, hence need urgent attention. Reports are overdue, no thanks to my fried motherboard on the old laptop, and tons of meetings have to be scheduled now that we are back. And oh, case conference is starting in 2 weeks.
On the brighter side of things, my mobile phone is working fine again and i am just glad to be home safe.
Sunset at Raffles Marina
Originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.
Finally all the actual day wedding photos are up in flickr. Wilk has uploaded them for me to see while i am in North Carolina & that was so nice because i am missing him terribly but the pictures helped put a smile on my face when i go through it. Wonderful memories and again, i can't thank all the friends and family who helped enough... because without them & everyone who took time to attend that day, wilk & I wouldn't have had such a memorable wedding.
Touched down in USA since sunday and life's a bitch.
In short:
1) Laptop's motherboard fried itself on my first day away
2) HP soon followed suit
3) Same with my Sony MP3 earphones
Seems everything electronic is slowly disintegrating once i got here.
I have nothing to work on... can't talk to love ones on the phone... and can only listen to my music on one side of my head.
Life sucks at this point.
Cant help but speculate that 1) i used up all my good luck for my wedding or 2) someone up there is punishing me for not having a decent honeymoon but spending my time working instead.
sigh.
help.
