Where is home?

3 days back and I realise home is where my heart belongs to.

Yes, I'm back in my home sweet home. Have to bear with the humidity of course but being sweaty and smelly is a small price to pay to see my family and bf again, not to mention being in time for my martial arts group's 10 year's anniversay gathering (my gosh, has it been so long already!?) and also meeting up with a dear friend who is now swatting mosquitoes on a smaller island. Hasn't done much unpacking coz I was out most of the days and again, sleeping 6 hours every night, but for some strange reason I'm not exhausted and I have this new theory that every extra hour in bed is a waste of time. =)

Tomorrow is my Grandma's D.A. Every year I would call her from wherever I was to with her happy new year and she would talk to me in her dialect and I would answer her in mandrin, half understanding what each other is saying but fully appreciative of the love we have for each other. So strange that I can only talk to her through her tablet now. I miss her so very much.

MX is coming to visit tomorrow and I hope I'll get the chance to make the green tea ice-cream I promised him. It's great to have him around. I can let down my guard and be a little sheep around him. Needless to say I sulk less and smile more with him around. I think 60-80% of my 'unhappy' mood in London was because I could not have him by my side. It's funny how I always wished that he'll send me more things like cards, flowers and sweet little notes etc to reaffirm his love when we're apart but when I'm with him, just being with him is enough. There is no need for gifts and cards. One look says it all. And one smile makes my day.

a normal sunday

The workaholic in me decided to take a few hours off on Sunday to show my Japanese friend the places to shop for jap groceries in town and a supposedly 3 hour lunch-shopping date turned into a 5 hour trip plus ice-cream making in the evening and also a late night rendevous in our kitchen to try out our homemade ice-cream =)

Normally I would have guilty pangs for lacking in discipline but for some unexplainable cosmic reasons, I woke up on my own at 10am which was unusually early for me on a Sunday morning and thus, did manage to put in some good 3 hours of work before we set off for lunch at Misato. Then we had so much fun browsing around the different grocery stores (first chinese then japanese), going around comparing prices, taking turns to translate and explain the different food types and discovering some food items were pronounced the same way in both cultures, for instance, na-tou is na-tou etc. (it's such a 'duh?' discovery I know, but we found that pretty amusing *LOL*) The highlight of the day for the both of us was when we saw some green-tea ice-cream sachets and then found out that they were on offer!! I told Haruko that MX loves green tea ice-cream and wondered if it was worth getting some back to make it for him. I have no doubt that there will be places selling it back home but there will be better things to do than going around the supermarkets hunting for green tea ice-cream sachets, so I decided to get some to try out and bring the rest back if they are good. If I see them back home then MX can be twice lucky. =)

By the time we were done and satisfied, it was already 6 in the evening so we rushed home to make the ice-cream which was really easy, just add milk, egg, flavouring and whisk them together, all done under 20 minutes. Haruko was amazed that I could separate the egg yolk from the whites without using some kind of egg yolk sieve (no doubt another brilliant jap invention but quite unneccessary if you know the technique which I remembered from my mom's baking days). I learnt that japanese household uses their own special kind of measuring cups for cooking which came in pretty useful yesterday when following the cooking instructions.

In the end, I didn't not appear in college as planned but had a wonderful afternoon wondering around chinatown with Haruko. Hmmm.... so that's what life used to be, or rather, ought to be if I was not so caught up in my work. Nonetheless, I'll will still try to keep to my work schedule because I have a clear picture in mind of where I'll like to be in a years time which is worth sacrificing for. =)

Oh yes, the ice-cream was very good yesterday.... very good indeed... =)

Over and under

Alas, my seminar is a thing of the past. Glad to have gotten it out of the way before I fly home for Chinese New Year celebrations. Curiously, something always happens when I give presentations. It was a pretty bad bout of stammering the year before and this time round I blanked out and lost myself in my explanations. All other aspects were given very good reviews so I guess I really have to practice harder on my delivery. I know it was in part due to my brain being severely sleep deprived but I think it’s also because I am not an accomplished public speaker and I am rather weak at thinking out loud. Something worth making a new year resolution to improve on.

My health had been a source of major concern since Christmas but I was simply too busy to worry about it. Every morning I would look in the mirror and see a ghastly pale face, concentric eye bags and poor complexion and every night I would look into the same mirror and see the same features with tired blood-shot eyes good enough to audition for the role of Lord Voldermort. I was conscious of the damage I was inflicting onto myself by not eating well, not drinking enough water, drinking only coffee when I have the time to grab something and sleeping 4-5 hours everyday. I mean, I see the degeneration in my reflection every morning. But to hear a friend tell me that I look like I’m ‘breaking apart’ was downright scary. That should be my wake up call.

Somehow, I am glad that the itchy inflamed spots that had appeared recently all over my arms might have just been an allergy reaction brought on by stress and are not bites from nasty bed bugs. I think I would move out if there are indeed bed bugs in my bed, but I really like my hall and the people there and I have neither energy nor time to look for a new place. Jo said she had something similar some years ago when her immune system broke down because of a period of extreme stress in her life. I must learn to regulate the stress in my life then, another great new year resolution. =P

For the coming week before I fly home I’m just going to concentrate on delivering my work, taking better care of myself and hope that I’ll look less scary in two weeks time when I celebrate my first proper chinese new year at home in 7 years.

Downhill

Was scrolling through some old travel pictures that I've tucked away on my desktop when I came upon these taken at Downhill, N. Ireland, some 2 years ago. I couldn't help but pause to drink in the beautiful sight and was taken back in time, remembering the moment I first set eyes on this vast sandy beach, the clear blue water, huge white foamy waves and thought to myself I've never seen a more lovely beach in my life.

Downhill is a little town of no consequence, made up of a cluster of 5-6 houses right at the foot of a steep cliff and hence it's name. There are no shops, just 1 bus stop and a small rail-bridge where locals drive under to get to the beach. Luckily for us, there is a young couple who fell in love with the place and ran a youth hostel just beside the rail-tracks on the east end of the beach and that's how we came to spend one night at this amazing place.

We were forewarned that we will not be able to get groceries at downhill hence MX and I bought some food before we left the previous town. We thought it would be nice to have a BBQ dinner on the beach, listening to the waves and watching the sun set, hence we also bought one of those disposible charcoal filled aluminium BBQ trays and some seasoned meat. Unfortunately, we forgot that it was summer and not surprisingly, the sun still shows no sign of retreat by 7pm.

We were so desperately hungry by then and we can't wait another 2 hours for the sun to set but it was too hot to sit on the beach, so what do we do?? Haha, true to our national culture, we used an umbrella of course!! *LOL*

MX found a shady spot by the bushes and used his umbrella to block out the sun for me as I cuddled beside him on the beach and cooked. Sitting amongst twigs with the sun blaring from one side and the BBQ giving off heat from the front wasn't exactly comfortable and I was worried about getting sand into the food everytime we moved or when the wind blew. In my haste to start cooking before the flame has settled, the chicken was burnt on all sides and I remembered having to de-carbon them before feeding MX who was still gamely following the movement of the sun with the small umbrella which was pointing almost horizontally by then. Our situation was so parched, amusing, hungry, windy, sandy, uncomfortable, carbon-filled and sore (my back from nothing to lean on and MX's arms I believe) that that few hours on the beach had been forever etched into my mind. =) Ah... what comforts young couples would sacrifice for romance!! *grins* =) I guess finding that moment irresistably charming also means that I was so very much in love. =P But honestly, the whole evening was brilliant and I wouldn't change a single thing.

And this picture below was our view of the sea while we were scrunched up at the back of the beach BBQ-ing.

The sun set at 9pm that day and we had already returned to the hostel and showered by then. So, we caught it together from our hostel window.

It is true that the best moments in life are free.
So are happy memories.