Nightly Gathering
I dreamt of Claire Bennet in Heroes. I dreamt I was with my brother and sister watching Heroes together. Then I woke up and stared into the darkness of my hotel room and realized we will never get to watch shows together again. At least not regularly.
I went into the shower and thought about how long we’ve been doing this. And I remembered the photos our dad took of us watching shows. Since before my sister was borne (just my bro and I ) and when my sister was just a baby (that’s the three of us), we’ve been watching shows together (Smurf, Jam, Sesame Street, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles…).
Then I remembered at 10 we started watching shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer together. I never understood their jokes then.
At 15, we watched my ‘first’ anime – Trigun. Of course 2008 December during the Doraemon promotion in Queensbay did I only realize that my first anime was Doraemon, not Trigun. But since Trigun we haven’t stopped watching. Cooking Master Boy, Yakitate Japan, Haibane Renmei, Great Teacher Onizuka, Full Metal Panic… They were countless.
At 17, my brother left to UK. My sister and I got busy with senior years in high school, training, college… We didn’t watch much together, other than Peach Girl. I was pretty sad at the time, having left Yakitate Japan half-watched and my brother gone. But those days my sister and I grew closer. I also found Guo Yi.
In 2007, when I was 19, my brother graduated and came back. I was so happy that we could continue Yakitate Japan! That was so much fun. We also watched a lot of new stuff, this time more mysterious scary shows instead of the usual high school romance and crazy comedy (although we watched a few of those too like Nodame, Clannad and Slam Dunk). We also moved into American shows, now that there are so many good ones out there, such as CSI (usually without my sister) and Heroes and House! All those memories! There were so much fun, night after night gathering in my brother’s room at 10 for more shows.
Then this morning I woke up in the dark and realized that things wouldn’t never be that way again. By the time I return in July my brother would be in the two years full time training. After those two years, I’m not sure how the future would be. Maybe one of us would no longer stay with our parents. And hence the gathering can no longer happen. I took those days for granted, never realizing that they were reaching their end. Before I knew it, it ended. And here I am waking up in the morning without them around.
RIP our 11 year nightly gathering…
Buskers
Buskers are mainly beggars who perform on the street side for cash in countries where sitting around begging is not allowed. The normal thing to do is sing, play the guitar (or some other common instrument) or draw and paint local landmarks.
But at the Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, I found out there was a new kind of basking. LOL!
So I was walking along the road, when suddenly my sister stopped to snap a photo. I thought of waiting for her but decided to walk on since it was a sight I’ve already taken with my own camera from earlier on. So I walk a few steps while watching her when suddenly I heard a lion growl very near my leg and a plant jumped out at me! I darted it in fright and surprise, only to realize it was a poor busker with no talent hiding behind the plant trying to punk people. Oh well, I wasn’t harmed. I continued to walk on and I started to hear a lot of laughter. I look up and oh no! There were some jokers filming all the tricked people’s reaction! Last time I always watch this kinda scare-people-for-laughs videos and now I myself got fooled! Haha… There was nothing else for me to do but to put on a laughing face and walk on as that was the simplest way to go without generating more laughter.
I just hope I didn’t make it on Youtube. But even if I did, thank goodness for my sunglasses which hides my identity!
What poor people with no talent would do for cash, LOL. *edit* (He’s not poor at all apparently. He supposedly makes USD60,000 in a good year.)
My bro and sis couldn’t stop talking about it that evening.
*update* I just found out he is world famous. So I guess this is a pretty cool experience. For more on the World Famous Bush Man, click here.
Traveling in my sleep
925 is me, I was explaining to guoyi about what just happened about an hour ago.
925- says:
just now my sister woke up and wanted to go toilet. so she get out of bed
then she saw me turn from my side to on my back, then i said ‘hm… hm… no… k, 1 2 3 chak!’ with my left hand in the air clicking the button of the invisible camera
then suddenly my eyes open
and i woke up!
hahahaha
guoyi says:
0.o
u sure?
haha
925- says:
ya
i remember what i was dreamng about
guoyi says:
that’s really interesting n very cute of u
haha
925- says:
we were in san francisco then my dad was holding his hands up then i wanna take photo for him so i say ‘hm..hm..no’ cos his arm blocking some of the view… then when i arrange properly d, i say 123 chak! and click the button to take photo for my dad… then suddenly i opened my eyes automatically
haha
and saw my sister standing there stunned
hahaha
guoyi says:
haha
925- says:
then i asked her.. ‘err…. did i talk?’
lol!
guoyi says:
haha
San Francisco
Hello I’ve safely reached San Francisco!
I’m staying in San Bruno for the whole trip and today we’ll be heading to San Fran.
We’re tired and somewhat jet lag but I’m happy to be here =D
Bumped into Grace at the Penang airport
At Narita airport, Tokyo
Arrived at destination!
Polaroid on Emirates
I like Emirates airline, mainly for its entertainment onboard. They provide a whole long list of new movies to watch. Best of all, you can watch it anytime you want, and even pause, rewind or forward it.
Other than that, the cool thing about Emirates is on this one flight I took to Dubai or Athens, there was this Penangite air stewart who talked to us and decided to use his Polaroid camera on us. Ahh how kind of him, considering that Polaroid is now no longer being manufactured!
Little trips around Greece
During the 2 week stay in Greece we traveled to a few locations in order to visit the places the apostle Paul stayed during his ministry.
Locations: Thessaloniki, Philippi, Beroea, Meteora, and Corinth.
The records of apostle Paul’s ministry are in Acts, especially around chapters 16 – 17.
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki apartments
Ancient City of Philippi
The ancient city of Philippi was captured and fortified by Philip II, king of Macedonia in 356BC, when the Krenides were threatened by the Thracians and sought his aid. He named the city after himself.
Markings to aid the reconstruction of the ruins
This is a cool theater that amplified the speaker’s voice just by standing on the square box. It was loud enough for everyone to hear, and I mean just by speaking normally.
Apostle Paul's prison
Apostle Paul's prison
River where Lydia was baptised in Philippi
Europe first convert Lydia was baptised here as mentioned in Acts 16
Beroea
This is the hallway of the an institution for Greek Orthodox fathers in Beroea. Apostle Paul lived here for about three months.
Meteora
Meteora is a group of hills on which many monasteries are built. Fleeing saints long long ago hid on top of these hills from persecution.
Within the monastery
Corinth
At Corinth Canel, which was caved for ships to pass through, avoiding the hassel of going the extremely long route to the other shore. Julius Caesar courted this idea again in 44BC while the first consideration ever made for this was in 602BC.
Ancient city of Corinth where apostle Paul spent his time preaching. Sorry for squinting sour face, it was too sunny and I didn’t have sunglasses!
Behind me was the market place where apostle Paul preached. Before me (not in the photo) was where he was tried but no guilt was found on him. Sometimes I still feel the experience of being there is very surreal. Just imagine how even more surreal the experience of visiting Jerusalem would be!
Where they kept water in ancient times
Pillars again!!!
Greek sights and stuffs
My first Greek meal… and I fell in love! The Greeks have the most spoilt tastebuds!
The reason why I took this shot was because it reminded me of WoW, and I can just see a bunch of Kobolds running around mining for stuff.
Not a highly recommended thing to do while driving :p
So that’s it for the little trips in Greece. More posts on Santorini Island and Vienna soon!
USA part 3
I’m so sorry I’ve ignored this part for so long. It’s been a month since I’ve returned from the US.
Frankly, I’m sure you all have already seen my photos of USA part 3 in Chicago on my Facebook. To just roughly outline the trip to Chicago, I’ll bullet point the things I did there cos honestly I’m tired now and am going to nap soon.
- The Bean at the Millennium Park. This is just amazing! A big ass mirror to reflect the whole area. You can even walk under it and see all kinds of crazy self reflections. Many pics on Facebook for this.
- Freedom museum. Everything about the American rights to freedom and so on. I like this picture I took there. This section is on presidential elections. Actually there is a speech for guests to read on the stand, haha…
- Delicious french breakfast at Au Bon Pain cafe.
- Navy Pier. This is really beautiful, especially during blue sky days like the ones we had, and I’m sure it’d be so romantic for couples to stroll down at night.
- Architectural buildings around the city. There are so many by the way that they offer architecture cruise tours just to point them out. So I recommend this to Kay Tryn and Ying Xiang. Especially Kay Tryn, lol.
- Saw some random ah pek doing radio show. Mana tau this ah pek is former president of US Jimmy Carter! blek! So sorry he was reduced to just some ‘ah pek’ by foreign alien!
- Saw flowers. Pretty ones we don’t get here in Malaysia.
- Pretty neighbourhood around Northwestern University in Chicago. 1hr away from city by subway.
- Eating spaghetti with fingers. Cos I’m disgusting like that. :p No actually we went back to hotel early evening cos we fear for our lives at night. Too bad the tapau-ed spaghetti came with no cutlery. Just like the hotel room.
- Field museum (where they filmed Night at the Zoo) and this art institution’s museum.
I have one pic of me standing there but it’s with my sis. Another with some scary tikis in a dark room. It felt damn freaky and frightening to stand next to those gigantic and real but dead animals. There were sooo many of them. All kinds of animals that you probably won’t see unless you go to South Africa. The tiki tiki were very geli also. My sis and I felt unsafe when going into the animal room ’cause we were the only people in that room at the time surrounded by wild animals, haha
- Fake ice cream from hotel
USA part 2
Hey,
To continue my US trip blog entry, I will go on about Georgia, Atlanta today.
We stayed with bro Joe and sis Lynn Black. They are in their late 50s I supposed, with 3 adult sons and an adult daughter. I’ve only met two of their sons, Joe jr. (around 30) and Rob (23). The other son is in Austin, Texas while the daughter Anna is in Annaheim, California for full time training.
Joe and Lynn are the loveliest people! So friendly and kind and hospitable. Lynn is especially cute! I love the way she talks! It’s very sweet! She was caught by my sister saying ‘You know… I don’t know!!’ and my sis was saying ‘What in the world do you mean you know I don’t know’. We were also kinda mimicking the whole southern talk and accent thing, especially with ‘y’all’. Hahaha…
Basically, we went to Georgia to visit Georgia State University and Georgia Institute of Technology. We also went to Athens with Bro Joe to visit University of Georgia in Athens. The campuses were so-so for me, though I do like Georgia Tech very much. Georgia State is in the downtown area so there’s all kinds of funny characters there which makes me feel quite uncomfortable. There was this car with the number plate ‘WHATEVA’ and as we drove by I checked to see who drove such a car. And as expected, it was this Afro-American girl yakking away with attitude on her cellphone while driving. haha… that was interesting for me to see. That reminds me, in University of Texas, this big white car drove by and the windows were down. We heard all that rap music and the guys, OMG, big black guys with big white t-shirts and the bling and everything. Kinda reminded me of GTA’s gangsters. Yes, US is funny like that…
Other than the university visits, we also went to meet with the saints. Attended one home meeting (and this Laos brother had a very very very gorgeous home!) and a few meetings at the meeting hall. The saints were so welcoming and helpful and lovely. We met this girl, E, who surprisingly watched the same Korean dramas as my sis and I, listen to the same Korean band we used to listen to (TVXQ) and even knows a fair bit of Korean and Chinese. Very impressive for an all American girl who’s never lived in Asia.
Anyway I have no time to continue now, very sorry. But basically that’s it. Difficulty uploading pics so I’ve given up.
