Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Heaven and Hell in 4 days...
九寨沟… they call it a fairyland…so it seems…now the 3 Singapore Students decided to embark on a voyage to the legendary scenic land since it is a supposedly a stone’s throw away from Chengdu… Well… it is not exactly a stone’s throw…unless u have a professional pitcher who can pitch a stone like hundreds of miles away… we decided to go budget and take land transport instead of flying…and hence commencing the 10 hour journey…Day 1
Oh yeah, Day 1 starts at the ungodly hour of 6.30am where we were transported from a tiny van to a tour bus. Sad to say, the tour bus was already very packed when we boarded, so we had to take the seats towards the back. I was so lucky that I got a seat right at the back of the bus that boasted virtually no damping and guaranteed motion sickness. It really didn’t help that the roads ahead were in the mountainous regions complete with uneven paths and hair pin turns…Then I begin to praise myself for the ingenuity of bringing medicine for giddiness and nausea… Lunch was an eye opener and it definitely made a lasting impression on me or should I say ‘depression’…. dampened quite a bit of my spirits… didn’t realize the food could be so terrible… started to get worried about the remaining days…I admit that I am picky about food
Day 2
Breakfast rivaled lunch
Pretty waterfall
珍珠滩瀑布 the scene of Sun Wu Kong and his master pulling their white horse across filmed here
At night, went to this 藏 family’s house where a series of singing and performance were staged. They were adamant to make you drunk by toasting you homemade wine every now and then…of course…by the 6th cup…my face could actually put a ripe tomato to shame…wasn’t much of a drinker actually…then they make you dance and while other people were catching the beat…I was struggling to follow…and there was this over zealous auntie who was so into dancing that she did not realize that she had elbowed me below the shoulder in her haste to follow the beat and to this very day…the region hurts…yeah present tense….HURTS… had quite a bit of fun though…
Day 3
This day we were supposed to go to 黄龙 which was another scenic spot with lots of colourful lakes, ponds, pools… whatever u call them… What we didn’t know was that we had to climb up 4100m to reach the summit where the beautiful pool was…Many or should I say all the people in the tour group chose to take the cable car either up or down or both ways cos climbing was too taxing and those who chose to climb most prob didn’t make it up cos of high altitude sickness…Saw people carrying little bottles of stuff…then I realized that those were mini oxygen tanks...Oops…didn’t know that the mountain was that high…we have virtually nothing with us and so we were half prepared to drop dead and die halfway up….the motivating factor to move upwards was powered by the fact that we dun want to waste the entrance fee and also the sufferings on the road earlier…we held on yeah…Surprisingly, we were the only 3 who climbed up the mountain and then subsequently walked down... the other tour members were super impressed cos we got down even much earlier than those who took the cable car…the young and able...haha…it was indeed a beautiful place…just a pity that we could only see a few pools…I commented that it was such a pity that there was not much water at this point of the year if not it would be prettier…and Ming said ‘yeah, only the 五彩池 is in season’…In season…what an apt way to put it…
The evening was a particularly trying one with delayed dinner cos we had to get to the hotel which was at this particular place super far away…had to take like 4 hours bus there…I decided to curb my reliance to the medicine by refusing to eat it…and I realized that sleeping did nothing good but make u feel more terrible when u wake up…so I spent the first 3 hours looking out of the window, observing the driver drive, gazing at passing yaks and sheep….Realized the bus driver was quite set on getting us killed cos he was racing like at 120km/hr around hair pin bends along the mountainous road and I suspected he was super sore when another tour bus overtook him and he resolved to race the other bus just to satisfy his desire for road superiority at the expense of the 20 odd innocent tourists who just wanted to stay alive… Sun set and darkness came…nothing to see outside and I was resigned to singing ‘Pinky and the Brain’ silently for the last 1 hour to maintain sanity…
Day 4
Going home…going home…Ming had a lot of grievances against the bus uncle…well all of us had …but Ming had it worst cos she suffered the most from motion sickness…clinging on the dirty blue curtain as if her life depended on it with a 痛苦的脸according to zinc…but the bus uncle was the one who could get us back…we boarded the bus praying that we would be alive and kicking the same hour the next day… At last civilization was in sight…never had the smell of polluted air been this fresh and welcoming to my senses…yeah it did... the malnourished trio was so ready to kiss the Chengdu city floor after alighting from the bus…And of course…civilization means decent food …that’s important…
九寨沟 and 黄龙 are nice places to visit…simply breath taking and u will never believe that water could be so blue until u see it for urself…just bear in mind that the conditions may be trying or just dun go budget…
Posted by cloudy at 11:51 PM
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Monday, May 14, 2007
What are friends…
‘It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart’…It is this unspoken understanding that touches me…I wonder how you all are able to read between the lines and sense the gloom that lingers…A random comment triggered a stream of concerned questions and a simple ‘thanks’ received a ‘what are sisters for’…that did it…brought tears to my eyes…Another comment which looks totally normal to other people sent 2 other angels to ask after me and to do things just to cheer me up…(To the 2 darlings…Loved the song you sent me and although the pictures of food makes me a little homesick…I appreciate it)Thanks everyone…
Posted by cloudy at 12:15 AM
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Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Ouch…it hurts
My dou sha bao good friend, Zinc said I am a FOP… I do see the truth in it now… In the past, I used to think that the problems that she mentioned were self imposed (as in I voluntarily inflict the sufferings on myself)…but it seems that now the problems that are manifesting are pretty significant and really affecting my physical self…Dunno why I woke up with a throbbing pain in my left foot on Sunday…did some search and I think it should be Achilles tendonitis. Didn’t think it was anything more serious than an uncomfortable ache during locomotion. But apparently it was more than that… Today, concentration level in class boasted a new low (not that it was ever much higher). I think the long May holiday certainly has a part in this conspiracy but the pulsing pain in my foot certainly is the mastermind… I have to do something about it…Went to the school’s hospital to get my feet examined…I think the doctor was rather irritated with me for my incessant asking on how serious my condition was and how long my foot would take to recover…he gave a politically correct yet non informative answer... ‘It depends, some people respond better to the medicine and recover fast, some slowly, some never’…That really assured me… Then he noticed my ‘foreign’ accent or should I say poor command of Chinese language and he asked where I am from…The word ‘Singapore’ spurred an endless stream of questions from him…seems that he was really interested…from the food to the education system to the housing price to the average pay….blah blah blah…actually felt quite proud of myself that I could answer his questions…haha… Back to the diagnosis…He told me to get a certain herb called 白芷 and a small bottle of honey…I was quite amused when I saw that 2 words on the prescription formula…白芷 happens to be the first 2 words of one of my good fren’s name and she was telling us about this particular flower just weeks ago…didn’t realized I had this much affinity with it...Anyway...the doctor mixed the 2 ingredients into a paste and bandaged it up for me…I started to wonder how I am going to make it back with this mushy, sticky and sweet concoction plastered on my foot without the ants attacking me as if I am a candy bar …Well, the ants kept their distance thankfully, but the honey batter started seeping out through the sides… eurghhhhhhhhhhh…. With considerable effort, I made it back to the hostel alive…with half the stuff left in the bandage…That’s not the end…waterproofing the bandaged leg with plastic bag is apparently a brilliant idea just that I didn’t realize that the permeability of plastic bags to polar molecules like water can increase so dramatically when I use it… had to unwind the whole mess and dry it…I think my bandaging skill is better than the doctor…at least my bandage looks more sturdy now…Till now the stuff works but it is still under probation…hope it really does…
On a side note… I broke the toilet flush in my room today…some puny mechanism just broke when I pulled the flush…Zinc said it is about time I go bother the 服务员姐姐 since I have not been breaking any part of my room for a decent amount of time…
Posted by cloudy at 1:12 AM
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Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Is it me?
Most people know I have a ‘problem of the day’ problem. I always have full confidence in my ability to find something to brood over for the whole day. Pris says I think too much, some other people say I have nothing better to do. Maybe, but this ‘POTD’ problem is here to stay…That day was randomly clicking around on my comp and suddenly I found this new problem. My Help and Support function couldn’t work! Oh for goodness sake, how many people use their H & S function in the comp? Was talking to this friend of mine about this problem and the first thing he asked me was ‘What’s that’…Well, most people would just google their problem on the Net now I suppose… I would do the same thing…. But I couldn’t take it lying down… simply couldn’t live with something malfunctioning, I must TRY to so something at least…Googled my problem and it did return very useful results…Some websites describe exactly the symptoms of my comp’s disease accompanied with solutions… Great, so now the surgeon found the rotting flesh… with sterilized surgical knife and tweezers….BUT…but ….but ….it didn’t work… maybe the knife was too blunt…The traumatized surgeon had to give up and convince herself to live with it after half a day’s battle….
A lot of people say I am asking for it…should have spent my time better rather than on something I hardly touch…makes sense…but it is just me I suppose… I cannot stand my stuff having blemishes even if I dun use them… I think it is a form of 洁癖… My friend told me to reformat my comp if I really cannot stand it…but it’s different…. I told him reformatting does not nip the problem at the bud…it is like you have a dog called 小明，then小明 caught an illness which u try so hard but cannot cure…so u kill小明 and buy a similar dog and call it小明. However, if小明 2 catches the same disease, you will have the same problem and the whole vicious cycle continues…ok this analogy sounds a bit warped…
In the meantime… I think I will try to live with it….