Saturday, December 27, 2008
i'm dreaming of a white christmas.
next year, my mum has promised to let us stay around in singapore for christmas, which we haven't done for the past 6 years at least. i kind of lost count after a while. not that i'm complaining, because spending christmas overseas with the family is very enjoyable as well.
and somehow i don't foresee any difference whether i'm in singapore or not for christmas, because i don't exactly celebrate it anyway. sure, we can all get caught up in the whole mess of present-giving and well-wishing, but i don't think i really understand how to spend christmas at all. it's not really a religious matter; that is, i don't think the reason i'm not very much infected with the whole christmas spirit is because i'm not christian. it's just... sometimes it feels a little hollow, this season of giving where everyone just seems so infused with happiness while i'm slipping along and distracting myself with the lights and sounds of christmas. i guess it feels like just some random other day to me.
at least the lights are pretty and the songs are catchy. ^^
anyway, i'm finally back from my taiwan trip. to be honest, it wasn't that fun a trip. it wasn't the company, because i absolutely enjoyed being around my family for the 8 days since we don't exactly get to stay around each other as much at home because everyone is busy with their own things. the food there is quite overrated really. i suppose the streetside snacks are good for a day or two, but then you get so tired of them after a while and frankly the ones in hongkong are way better. there wasn't too much to see either, nor were there many things to buy. and i'm so so sorry because i couldn't get much for souvenirs and i ended up buying mochi for the guys (because just about the only vaguely suitable things i could buy for you people were socks which no self-respecting guy would wear really; hence the mochi decision) and compact mirrors and socks (which would look gay on a guy but cute on a girl) for the girls. okay, that was a very long sentence, go back and read it again and make sure you understand it.
didn't take much pictures either, but i can finally cross one thing off my all time to-do list because i got to see a full sunset! we were at danshui for the day, and there was this pretty pier where we sat at and watched the sunset and took lots of pictures. my camera doesn't do the sunset justice; the colours were so much more intense, and the whole process so much more... i don't know, moving? alright that just sounds silly, but you get the point.
we also went to a hot spring, and a waterfall, and we got to see the changing of guards ceremony that frankly looks almost exactly like a fancy drill. but i guess the trip on the whole was fun. haha. the company counts for a lot. and we had a night flight back so there were all the stars up in the sky again. pity it wasn't a later flight like the one we took from korea back to singapore a few years back. the sky outside the plane looked like the pictures you see of our galaxy in outer space or something.
random pictures from the trip here. sigh, i wish blogger had a function like lj-cut too, so no one would have to scroll down through all the photos i want to look at but no one else wants to.
the sunset reflected in my mum's sunglasses. okay i was bored, and i was running out of angles from which to take the sunset from.
the actual sunset. i swear there was no editing done, and i still think the colours were prettier if you were there in person. in the picture it just looks all orange, but if you were there you'd have seen the faint blues, the pinks, the colour between pink and orange that i don't know the name of, and the slight reddish tinge of the clouds around, and the slowly deepening orange blot spreading out over everything...
mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, queen, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom. this is a bunch of natural rock formations caused by wind and rain erosion, and apparently the queen is due to get beheaded in the next 10 to 15 years because her neck cannot take much erosion anymore. if you follow the designated path and walk closer you can't see the shape anymore because the other side of her face looks like something freddy, jason, darth vader and the sharks from jaws had a go at.
you cannot imagine my delight when i chanced on this on the tv after flipping through about 3 dozen entertainment programs. i love ikkaku's bald head.
alright i'm a little lazy to upload the rest since blogger has such a strange method for uploading pictures unlike lj's perfectly fast and user-friendly one. sigh.
oh and on christmas eve, we went to the area around taipei 101 because we were told it would be all festive and all there, and i got accosted by these living statues haha. they were random street performers, and my mum made me go drop money in the guy's tin, after which he tried to make me shake hands with him. like i would, when he totally tricked the little kid before me into shaking hands with him only to do the old scratch-the-head trick. pffft. but they were really entertaining. and there was this mime artist, and a saxaphone player, and those portrait-drawing people. it was a very good, celebratory atmosphere, the likes of which you'd never feel in singapore.
AND, the most amusing part of the evening was this. i took photos and videos to remember it haha. see i was walking happily along when i saw this group of people holding big bunches of balloons.
and i really wanted one but they wouldn't give any to me, the selfish things! so i was sulking in a corner and growing mushrooms and then this happened.
if you haven't realised by now, or if you didn't watch the video, it was a marriage proposal. in the middle of a busy street. on christmas eve. it was a surprise, the girl thought she was on a shopping trip with friends. he sang her favourite song to her. if this isn't dripping with sweetness i don't know what is. haha but imagine if she had refused his proposal, ouch. she didn't anyhow, she was overjoyed and when she nodded and yelled down "wo yuan yi!" the whole street started cheering for the couple.
that's the girl in the centre. she didn't cry or anything though, surprisingly. oh and by the way, i didn't really go ask for a balloon haha.
anyway, come to think of it, this is the final week of 2008. i wonder how i survived the year, considering all the things that were thrown at me this year. and thinking of all the things i resolved to do at the start of the year, i wonder if i've actually even completed any of my things to do for the year. like how i wanted to be a better person, a better friend, a better daughter, a better sister -- i don't think i've done any of that. or how i wanted to be more assertive, and know what i want and work for it. or how i wanted to not have to regret whatever i wrote down for the exams, and not to have to worry constantly and dread the return of results. so many things i can't do anymore, not in the last 4 days of this year anyway. i did finally do something rather drastic to my hair, but i shall leave that to when i next see people. haha it's always been on my list of to-dos really. change my hairstyle quite drastically.
i wonder why we make resolutions anyway, when so many of us never ever keep most of them. i am in full acceptance of the fact that i never keep to my resolutions, but come the start of every new year, i make them anyhow, mentally or otherwise, even though i know full well most of them will never come to be. maybe it's because we all need something to work towards, and making a list of it (and checking it twice, hehe) helps us see it more clearly? i don't know. i make and make and make lists for everything, but somehow sometimes i still don't do what i should/want to do.
merry belated christmas anyway, people. sorry if i didn't reply your sms, i was honestly too tired to do anything more besides unpacking and washing up and then collapsing into bed. the plane only touched down at 10.35pm and by the time we were through customs it was 11.35pm and we had a grouchy taxi driver who made a face at us once he heard our destination. what, people who live close to the airport can't take cabs back?? pffft.
and i am awfully upset with the way rainbow romance is turning out, because kibum is being horribly blind.
okay, really long post today.
music: canvas; ken hirai
tune out the world ; 10:50 PM
and somehow i don't foresee any difference whether i'm in singapore or not for christmas, because i don't exactly celebrate it anyway. sure, we can all get caught up in the whole mess of present-giving and well-wishing, but i don't think i really understand how to spend christmas at all. it's not really a religious matter; that is, i don't think the reason i'm not very much infected with the whole christmas spirit is because i'm not christian. it's just... sometimes it feels a little hollow, this season of giving where everyone just seems so infused with happiness while i'm slipping along and distracting myself with the lights and sounds of christmas. i guess it feels like just some random other day to me.
at least the lights are pretty and the songs are catchy. ^^
anyway, i'm finally back from my taiwan trip. to be honest, it wasn't that fun a trip. it wasn't the company, because i absolutely enjoyed being around my family for the 8 days since we don't exactly get to stay around each other as much at home because everyone is busy with their own things. the food there is quite overrated really. i suppose the streetside snacks are good for a day or two, but then you get so tired of them after a while and frankly the ones in hongkong are way better. there wasn't too much to see either, nor were there many things to buy. and i'm so so sorry because i couldn't get much for souvenirs and i ended up buying mochi for the guys (because just about the only vaguely suitable things i could buy for you people were socks which no self-respecting guy would wear really; hence the mochi decision) and compact mirrors and socks (which would look gay on a guy but cute on a girl) for the girls. okay, that was a very long sentence, go back and read it again and make sure you understand it.
didn't take much pictures either, but i can finally cross one thing off my all time to-do list because i got to see a full sunset! we were at danshui for the day, and there was this pretty pier where we sat at and watched the sunset and took lots of pictures. my camera doesn't do the sunset justice; the colours were so much more intense, and the whole process so much more... i don't know, moving? alright that just sounds silly, but you get the point.
we also went to a hot spring, and a waterfall, and we got to see the changing of guards ceremony that frankly looks almost exactly like a fancy drill. but i guess the trip on the whole was fun. haha. the company counts for a lot. and we had a night flight back so there were all the stars up in the sky again. pity it wasn't a later flight like the one we took from korea back to singapore a few years back. the sky outside the plane looked like the pictures you see of our galaxy in outer space or something.
random pictures from the trip here. sigh, i wish blogger had a function like lj-cut too, so no one would have to scroll down through all the photos i want to look at but no one else wants to.
the sunset reflected in my mum's sunglasses. okay i was bored, and i was running out of angles from which to take the sunset from.
the actual sunset. i swear there was no editing done, and i still think the colours were prettier if you were there in person. in the picture it just looks all orange, but if you were there you'd have seen the faint blues, the pinks, the colour between pink and orange that i don't know the name of, and the slight reddish tinge of the clouds around, and the slowly deepening orange blot spreading out over everything...mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom, queen, mushroom, mushroom, mushroom. this is a bunch of natural rock formations caused by wind and rain erosion, and apparently the queen is due to get beheaded in the next 10 to 15 years because her neck cannot take much erosion anymore. if you follow the designated path and walk closer you can't see the shape anymore because the other side of her face looks like something freddy, jason, darth vader and the sharks from jaws had a go at.you cannot imagine my delight when i chanced on this on the tv after flipping through about 3 dozen entertainment programs. i love ikkaku's bald head.alright i'm a little lazy to upload the rest since blogger has such a strange method for uploading pictures unlike lj's perfectly fast and user-friendly one. sigh.
oh and on christmas eve, we went to the area around taipei 101 because we were told it would be all festive and all there, and i got accosted by these living statues haha. they were random street performers, and my mum made me go drop money in the guy's tin, after which he tried to make me shake hands with him. like i would, when he totally tricked the little kid before me into shaking hands with him only to do the old scratch-the-head trick. pffft. but they were really entertaining. and there was this mime artist, and a saxaphone player, and those portrait-drawing people. it was a very good, celebratory atmosphere, the likes of which you'd never feel in singapore.
AND, the most amusing part of the evening was this. i took photos and videos to remember it haha. see i was walking happily along when i saw this group of people holding big bunches of balloons.
and i really wanted one but they wouldn't give any to me, the selfish things! so i was sulking in a corner and growing mushrooms and then this happened.
if you haven't realised by now, or if you didn't watch the video, it was a marriage proposal. in the middle of a busy street. on christmas eve. it was a surprise, the girl thought she was on a shopping trip with friends. he sang her favourite song to her. if this isn't dripping with sweetness i don't know what is. haha but imagine if she had refused his proposal, ouch. she didn't anyhow, she was overjoyed and when she nodded and yelled down "wo yuan yi!" the whole street started cheering for the couple.
that's the girl in the centre. she didn't cry or anything though, surprisingly. oh and by the way, i didn't really go ask for a balloon haha.
anyway, come to think of it, this is the final week of 2008. i wonder how i survived the year, considering all the things that were thrown at me this year. and thinking of all the things i resolved to do at the start of the year, i wonder if i've actually even completed any of my things to do for the year. like how i wanted to be a better person, a better friend, a better daughter, a better sister -- i don't think i've done any of that. or how i wanted to be more assertive, and know what i want and work for it. or how i wanted to not have to regret whatever i wrote down for the exams, and not to have to worry constantly and dread the return of results. so many things i can't do anymore, not in the last 4 days of this year anyway. i did finally do something rather drastic to my hair, but i shall leave that to when i next see people. haha it's always been on my list of to-dos really. change my hairstyle quite drastically.
i wonder why we make resolutions anyway, when so many of us never ever keep most of them. i am in full acceptance of the fact that i never keep to my resolutions, but come the start of every new year, i make them anyhow, mentally or otherwise, even though i know full well most of them will never come to be. maybe it's because we all need something to work towards, and making a list of it (and checking it twice, hehe) helps us see it more clearly? i don't know. i make and make and make lists for everything, but somehow sometimes i still don't do what i should/want to do.
merry belated christmas anyway, people. sorry if i didn't reply your sms, i was honestly too tired to do anything more besides unpacking and washing up and then collapsing into bed. the plane only touched down at 10.35pm and by the time we were through customs it was 11.35pm and we had a grouchy taxi driver who made a face at us once he heard our destination. what, people who live close to the airport can't take cabs back?? pffft.
and i am awfully upset with the way rainbow romance is turning out, because kibum is being horribly blind.
okay, really long post today.
music: canvas; ken hirai
Labels: amusements, photos, thoughts, trips
tune out the world ; 10:50 PM