I received an email I sent to myself. The thing is, I don't know about you, but I always send emails to myself, either to remind me to borrow a book from the library or to transfer information from one laptop to another (I know the thumb drive exists but what's easier than emailing yourself).

But the email I received from myself today was sent 5 years ago, part of the Forbes email time capsule project.

I couldn't possibly have remembered having participated in this project so when I saw the unread 1 email sent by capsule, with the title of Where are you now, I really associated it with some spam or another.

It must be amazingly refreshing to be reading what I thought of, and wrote down for myself 5 years ago. I sounded chirpy in the email and I now half believed that I could actually remember that day, that moment when I penned down the though-somehow-young-but-at-the-same-time-mature-in-the-thinking email. The email touched on the stuff that were important to me, at that age and from all along.

So thanks to that email that I wrote 5 years ago.

I made my day.

Because, I so love how he loves her.

As I constantly scan through book charts and read those book reviews to find the next best book, these are some of the books that I still remember reading them:

Stieg Larssons’ trilogy
I recalled myself enjoying one of the first two books much more than the other (as well as watch the bad movies of the books) such that it was only months later, upon recommending the first two books to another, did I find the motivation to finally finish the third book, and to only realise that it has all but ended. Having someone to talk to also sparkled more interest such that at one point in time I was reading up on the places featured in the trilogy, saw how those places looked like and thinking that one day I could be there too as Sweden is one of the places I have wanted to visit. Stieg Larssons’ death meant the half-written book 4 might never be published but really maybe sometimes only the best is the best, otherwise nothing is better.


Sarah’s key
I read this some time ago and enjoyed it enough to remember having read it.


The White Tiger
One day I was on the bus reading the last of Stieg Larssons’ trilogy thinking that it might take a while to find another interesting read when I spotted someone reading this while standing up (which means this must something good). Other than randomly reading its review, I borrowed and began reading it. It was easy read and totally hilarious despite painting mostly the cruel/dark side of the country/the developments.


A Fortune teller told me: earthbound travels in the far east
I read this review and expected the story to focus on a journey without planes due to the fortune teller’s warning of the dangers involved in flying. Which is exactly the kind of journey I enjoyed most- trains and trains and trains (and other forms of transport). However the author constantly sought for the so-called best fortune teller after fortune teller each time he landed in a new place so as to somehow justify his decision to not fly for a year and from his observations also concluded that developments have killed much of the soul of those places. Still the journey taken, the history and descriptions of those places, mostly in Asia/to Europe, were enough reasons for me to want to finish it.

"When he left Turtle House, with his half empty purple sack over his shoulder, it was as if he left behind a trail of little white stones - or breadcrumbs? - to show me the way towards new explorations."

"Distances became real again, and I reacquired the taste of discovery and adventure."

"Reading a guidebook while hopping from one airport to another is not the same as the slow, laborious absorption - as if by osmosis- of the humours of the earth to which one remains bound when travelling by train."

"Reached by plane, all places become alike- destinations separated from one another by nothing more than a few hours' flight."

"A railway station, on the other hand, is a true mirror of the city in whose heart it lies. Stations are close to the cathedrals, mosques, pagodas or mausoleums. On reaching them you have well and truly arrived."

"I was happy. I was alone, and I found the solitude (of my travels) a magnificent companion."

"Let us prescribe sea journeys for those who can no longer bear the burden of life, who feel suffocated and see no reason to carry on."

"The more one looks around, the more one sees that our way of living is becoming more and more senseless. Everyone is running, but where to? And why?"

"Only in a train, with so many hours of travel ahead, with the countryside gliding pleasantly past the windows and a fine sudden tropical storm bucketing rain you catch by the handful to splash your sweaty face, can you let yourself go like that, and talk without worrying about the time or the apparent absurdity of the conversation."

"Travel makes sense only if you come back with an answer in your baggage."

"I said that I travelled because my nature is that of a fugitive: sooner or later I always have to escape from where I am."

"The wise man knows that life is nothing but a small flame shaken by a violent wind."

I am almost obsessed with pasta/spaghetti that I can eat it anyhow, and I had it with prawns, mushrooms and capisums today.

The biggest things to me now have to be sleep, exercise, read and eat, in that order, for they are the best combat against thinking, which I thought was over last week. Another kind of thinking this time. And those songs of which languages I cannot decipher, but it must be about pinning, or so lost in love. Of how Joo-won cannot help but kept thinking about her and feel that she is always around.

And before the plot goes into that body-swap thing, that cannot really happen in reality, it is such a beautiful story of a man awaking to his feeling of love for the girl he didn't think he will.

And thinking will stop after tonight.

Rather than the act of practising martial arts or the graceful moves of tai chi, I exhibited dance moves like a 21st century robot; sometimes with too wide a move that nearly cause a fall, sometimes too narrow a move that requires awkward adjustment of the footing. Often needing second thought to differentiate between right and left (the instructor usually started off giving chinese instructions), and each time when I have to turn for the next footing, everything right became left and left were right and that someday I might jus walk into the pillar in the midst of entangling/un-entangling myself.

That was my first tai chi lesson.

frohe weihnachten

One of the two favourite photos of the night

I dont exactly know what beer other than it being german- the only one that I like. I was told to finish it but no I did not because its 1L.

Its fun, almost feliz navidad.

Sweet(s),

what's in between

what you imagine next to you

*

I am writing christmas greetings already, are you.

August 2010: About movies on the plane

Der tunnel (German)
I especially like german movies relating to Berlin wall even if I hadn't been there before. And this almost 3-hour movie, based on real life stories, tells us how people tried to get their family at the other side of the wall over by digging a tunnel underground. I cried and when I recommended Joanes this movie (the guy on his way back to Australia for his father-in-law's funeral), he said he cried too.

Jus that the characters later all had lives of their owns that I wished it was all but a movie.


The girl with the dragon tattoo (Sweden)
Never watch a movie if you have read the book before- but I still went ahead to watch it since it is pretty tough trying to find it and that the book and I enjoyed the book.


Kiss me again (Italian)
An italian movie that seems more french.

My father's guest (French)

Of sheer coincidences, I had been eating food from the memory/past. From mini steamboat in Katong to fried chicken in City Plaza and wanton noodles and HK dim sum in Sunshine Plaza. But this has to be the oldest past- Balmoral Bakery's cakes and puffs from childhood/primary school. After work, Mum used to get us pastries from the bakery. Walking into the now-renovated shop, we were overwhelmed by the smell, and excited over the range of pastries that we could still remember eating. In the end, we gotten $10 worth of samosa, sausage roll (my favourite!), chicken pie, old school chocolate cakes and cream cakes. I never quite fancy other cakes but this, we could/did finish them in a night. The only thing missing was (custard and cream) puffs.

What's eaten and not in the picture: sausage roll and chicken pie

Old school pastries

But the thing about food from the past was that they always taste better in memories, I dont know why. More often than not, other than the anticipation of finally-tasting them again, I dont quite enjoy the feeling of recalling how much better they used to taste like. And life, is about being brave/adventurous and living in the present so I guess most of the time it would be good to acquire new tastes.

And, we also had:

Mamee

Our version of peng cai

Kimchi

Sushi

White fungus

Kimchi pancake

For a moment I realised I couldn't write messages/greetings without sounding too funny/silly. And christmas is here but christmas isn't about being all that but jus being warm and sincere.

*

I have been thinking and thinking is such a demanding exercise, as I always already know, that seems to enclose you away from the normal course of life and the world out there. Thinking, most of the time, brings you nowhere further yet it seems to already pull you out of your current spot.

So stop thinking because, everything/happiness is simple.

*

Long overdue call to Paris.

*

Because I was told, I am like a plant who needs/likes sunshine (or photosysthesis) and water (swimming).

August 2010 (Cam to Heathrow): Toilet in a coach VS airplane

When I was dropped off at the bus stop in Cam, I was the first passenger such that I couldn't believe the driver it was indeed the pick up point. It rained for 40 mins before the bus came and took off. I realised quite a few strangers started talking with others; I tried to understand the espanol conversed but in vain.

Because of an accident on the expressway, we were caught in the jam and the entire journey took 4.5 hours instead of the originally 3 hours. Which meant that some on board missed their flight, though I still had 3.5 hours in the airport. Lesson learnt from 07, when raining and floods meant that we couldn't get on our train and after 2, 3 hours of waiting, the three of us decided to stop waiting and got ourselves in a cab that took 4 hours instead of the 2-hour train journey. Which also meant running for our flights.

And to add to my list, I did make a friend on board. This time, the little girl who sat besides me initiated an conversation. She was heading to Singapore, and the amazing thing is, she was taking the same flight as me. She is going to be in Singapore for a year of internship, and more amazingly, to be in Suntec as well. We had different seats onboard, but we still managed to bump into each other at the check point, considering how long I was in line waiting for the toilet.

*

I was delighted to know that there is a toilet on board the coach when I booked the bus ticket from Cam to Heathrow. Little did I know what it meant for it was the first (experience) for me.

If I thought it should jus be how visiting the toilet on an airplane, then I was wrong, because it was such a shaky, warm and smelly experience. I had to grab the handles and hold myself to ensure that I wouldn't get thrown off the toilet bowl. And located at the back of the coach, I suspect the toilet bowl was near the bus engine, because it jus felt so warm! And smelly especially when passengers started using it- those guys seated next to the toilet pinched their noses when I went in/out.

It took quite a bit of courage to visit it a second time, but for the price and ease, I would choose it anytime.

And appreciate the toilets on the airplanes; even if research indicated how little cleaning was done in between of flights.

Because life is simple- I jus have to remember this.

I dozed off and slept through the night, waking up to work on a card design. The only thing lacking is a swim.

It wasn't jus the fun and laughters that we had, or the massages we gave/received, or the game in which we were almost all entangled up together, or the sing-along. It is the friendship and bond that we established, those 4 years, of some 3 years, and the 3, 4 months.

There is/was, a song for someone.