Saturday, April 15, 2006
i'm bored and tired. my relatives are coming over this afternoon. so that means no sleeping for me. and it's back to school tomorrow.
exams are next week.
me wants some sun. it's been cold for nearly a week.
the past 2 days were pretty brilliant.
yesterday i finished the last 3 episodes of the chinese drama that i had purchased earlier. the one about an average Beijing family, the central theme neatly summarised in the title "Dong Shen Me, Bie Dong Gan Qing" or "Don't Fall in Love".
i find that i've watched quite a bit of drama to note distinct differences in dramas from different countries. taiwanese idol drama is just quite dumb. the language is pretty pointless. korean drama is a tad draggy though they've got very evergreen themes. J-drama has really flowery language coz of their courteous nature i believe. but chinese drama, is a lot more concise(mostly).
this one has a pretty tight plot, and the language is harder to catch, stimulating me to think more and to listen more attentively. the plot is also sweet, the ending a lot less obvious and harder to predict.
it left a warm and fuzzy feeling when i finished it. and i'll lend it to anyone who wants to watch it!
today i watched Brokeback Mountain. have been wanting to watch it for a few months. chanced upon it here in SH. but i hadn't gotten the time to till today.
the front was a little loose. kinda rambling-like. but it got a lot tighter. the accent was also really heavy so much so that i had some trouble catching some parts. but the plo is really sweet and so are the actors. i rarely notice how well an actor performs, usually only how badly they act. but this round, the 2 actors have got pretty good chemistry. and rather lively eyes, to be able to convey the feelings expressed in the show.
the last 10 minutes was absolutely heart-wrenching. yeah, i cried. the 'shirt-around-a-shirt' really sealed it. the gesture looks oddly commonplace, and yet it seems to be the climax. but without the earlier slow build up, it would have seemed very out-of-place.
had a talk with my dad just now. it's one of the most rewarding talks i've had. i learned a few things about myself which i didn't know previously. i know some people don't confide in their parents. they should. often, us kids think we know loads of stuff and that our parents know nuts about us. but they know so much more. they haven't been our parents for X number of years without knowing us.
i guess we're each of us at a turning point in our lives and pondering our next move. so where do we go from here? how do we get there? is there even a way there? all of which are but questions which we don't always have the answers to.
Friday, April 14, 2006
i'm back. from my 4 days/4 nights trip to 3 cities in Henan province. i shall now provide a detailed description of the tour.
it started on monday afternoon. went to school to board the bus to the railway station(railway not mrt). someone please remind me NEVER to use a trolley bag again. one of those Jack Wolf haversacks would be so much better. trolley bags are only useful when the ground is level and there aren't so many step.s unfortunately, railway stations here don't have many escalators, so i spent most of the time carrying the luggage instead.
we boarded the train bound for luoyang but we were to get off at kaifeng instead. i sat one of thse trains with st nix people back in sec 1 when we went on the silk road tour. but i have since found out that those that we booked were the first class cabins. this round, we got the cheapest bunk tickets. consisting of triple deck bunks with no doors by the way. so everyone just watches you sleeping when they walk past. it was a 15-hour train ride to kaifeng. despite the little inconveniences(such as the toilet and the dining car being really far away) and certain carriages had odd smells, i think it was a pretty memorable experience. i witnessed first-hand that koreans and japanese really love their booze. we were like 30 minutes in the train ride when matsumoto-san ordered 4 bottles of beer(he's a 64-year-old grandpa) and 6 of us started playing drinking games. me lost terribly. but being the youngest they were kind enough to let me get away with 3 small cups. ayako-san and miyazaki-san were with me too, classmates in class. got to know bung san from korea. she's a really nice lady. so energetic and youthful, makes me feel that i've aged way too early. and there was also keong jim, a guy from korea. had our dinner and breakfast in the dining car, the western breakfast looked a lot like chinese food. didn't sleep too well though.
the next day in kaifeng was really sunny and hot. 28 degrees i believe. totally roasted. some of us got a little sunburnt. went to kaifeng fu(the place where Bao Gong held court during the Song dynasty), Bao Gong Ci(a temple-like place for Bao Gong), viewed Bao Gong Lake from a distance. we also went Dragon Pavillion(Long Ting), the Northern Song dynasty equivalent of the Forbiddden City and Da xiang Guo Si to see this thousand-hand Buddha. i shall not bore you with the details of the places of interest.
we stayed in zhengzhou for the night. matsumoto-san and this 67-year-old korean uncle went to the disco to dance at night. so did lots of other students on the trip. i was really amazed. and the korean uncle kept saying that he was totally shaking his butt that night, and dancing salsa. i mean, i for one can't imagine any of us in MoS when we're 60. i gather that they also drank a bottle of Mao Tai. ayako-san and i were really sticky and tired so we stayed in the hotel playing cards in someone's hotel room.the japanese equivalent of Daidee. w also drank the worst red wine that we've ever tasted. it looks as dark as coffee and was really bitter and sour.
the next day was really cold. 5-11 degrees. most of us were freezing coz we didn't pack for the cold weather. our wardrobe consisted mainly of thin long-sleeved tanks and thin jackets. but what was required were parkas and fur coats. spent 2 hours traveling by bus to Luoyang. there's no heating and the windows were leaking in cold air. we never entered the city proper but visited the attractions in the outskirts instead. Long Men Shi Ku(Dragon Gate Stone Grottoes) boasts some 110 000 Buddha statues including a large one apparently modeled after Emperor Wu Zetian. she's apparently the Mona Lisa of the East coz she has the same whimsical and mysterious smile. we went to Shen Zhou Mudan Yuan to view Mudan Hua or peonies, the national flower of China. they only bloom for 20 days in april in a year so we were pretty lucky. we also visted Bai Ma Si(White Horse Temple) the first Buddhist temple of China. went back to Zhengzhou by coach. it's really sad that i didn't get to spend a night Luoyang. coz the architecture there is more traditional. and the city was a major capital in the past.
yesterday we set off from the hotel by coach to Song Shan in the outskirts of Zhengzhou. it was a one and a half hour coach ride. went to Shao Shi Shan and Shaolin Temple. the martial arts performance was pretty spectacular. but some of the acts performed got me a little freaked. i mean, i don't think heads were meant to break metal plates. so many kids learn martical arts in the area. many schools teach mostly just martial arts, it's like they have replaced the usual primary and secondary schools. we visted the temple itself though some buildings there were just replicas of the originals coz the originals were destroyed in the war in 1928. also went to Ta Lin(pagoda forest), part of the Shaolin tourism region. headed back to Zhengzhou for dinner and to board the evening train back to Shanghai.
the ride was pretty miserable coz lunch wasn't sitting very well. partly coz i was a little sick from the extreme cold the previous day. couldn't really eat any dinner so i had gastric the whole night. (15 hour train ride) still feeling the after effects now, coz i'm still a little sore in the gut. me thinks that my stomach has been eroded by the hydrochloric acid.
bunked with several indonesians. johap was really amazed when i tried describing Singlish(most of them think that Singaporeans are effectively bilingual). they concluded that Singlish is really quite hard to understand. the sentence structure was also pretty tricky and senseless in their point of view.
i think i reaped pretty great rewards from this trip. besides visiting 3 out of 8 ancient capitals of China, it's more of getting to know the differences in the local cultures. and of course, i was better-acquainted with everyone's idiosyncrasies and habits such as the Japanese generally think that toothpaste is bad for your teeth.
on a more personal note, i had a couple of dreams before i left for the trip. both were really vivid. both subject matters haven't been in my dreams for a long while. yet, i distinctly recall myself being really wistful in the dreams. espressing the same longing and want. and yet both dreams, especially the second one, were pretty firm in providing negative responses.
dreams are reflections of the subconscous.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
we had beautiful weather today. it was raining, a tad inconvenient, but it was cool and breezy. quite unlike the strong winds i'm used to.
went gym-ming yesterday. in a bout to improve my general health. my face is peeling so badly, that i look so sunburnt. did some stationary-cycling and that air-sliding thing. i'm convinced that my stomach muscles have been reduced to puce. i can't even do 10 sit-ups consecutively. *moan*
went to church today. it's palm sunday. the gospel was LONG! usually the priest speaks a little of the gospel every day in the holy week. but today's was like a compressed version. adding the fact that it wasn't in english. i practically fell asleep standing. proceeded to sleep through the homily.
off tomorrow to zhengzhou. gonna take the train for about 15-16 hours. they've got some triple decker hard beds. hoho! i'm find so long as they're not like planes.
