life…

We are the slaves of our life. Or is it? Now…that is the question. But seriously, very often many of us allow our life to construct how we should behave. Very often you will hear someone say, “You don’t know what type of life I have to go through…”, or “You know how crappy my life is?”. When someone says that, I would say he has become his own slave.

We have to understand that we have a choice in life. Never ever say that you don’t have a choice. Well…fine. There are times, under certain circumstances, you are forced to do things you don’t want to (like when you have a gun pointing at you). Although so, if you were to trace back, you must have had a choice back then.

When any of us fail to realize that, we then become a slave to our own life. We allow ourselves to be living a life that is unhappy or so they say, a life that they don’t want. Well, if you don’t want that type of life, don’t live it. No one’s pointing a gun at you to ask you to live that way. It’s your choice of living. Even if your condition is at its worst, there is still ways to make the best out of it. Again, it’s your choice. It’s how badly you want to do it.

I whine. About my life. I sometimes do fall into the pit hole of being a slave to my own life. As I think about it, if it is a choice I make, I shouldn’t be whining, right? Yes, that’s right. Coz it’s a choice I made and it’s the life I have decide to live. So even if I am hurt living this life, it is still a life I choose to live, and if there’s anyone that I want to point fingers to, there can only be one person - ME.

Yes, there’s only one life. Making the best out of it only matters when you are happy as well. It is, your life after all. If you are not happy, what’s the point of living it? Well, yea, if a person you love is happy, u’ll be happy as well, but are u really happy? Now that’s another question to ponder. Selfish as it may sound, it is YOUR life. If you are not going to live it to its best, who will?

My last take on this - move on. Never live in the past. Never be a slave to your own life. There’s so much more if you only open your heart and your eyes to the future. The past stays.

It has been a week and a half now. Honestly, it felt like a month and a half. This week hasn’t been exactly my best week. Work sucks big time, leaving me with a massive headache for the past 2 days. It was seriously a oh-my-god-my-head-is-going-to-explode kinda feeling.

Anyway, I have exactly one more week to go from here. I’m just dying to go home. Like D.Y.I.N.G. I have been teaching the same class, doing the same discussion for the 4th time now. It’s getting annoying in a way. Now, I can’t wait for Saturday to come - coz I get to meet Joey. And then, I can’t wait for Wed to come. Coz I want to fly home. And thank god for direct flight from HongKong to Penang - so I don’t have to wait for 50mins in KLIA for no apparent reason.

Crap…my assignment is not completed yet. *sigh* This is just not my week. Not my week at all. Can’t wait for next week to come…hurry…

It has been a week since I’m here in motherland. Wimbledon has been the one thing that is keeping me…sane in a way. Thank God for Star Sports. As I’m writing, Nadal is playing Youzhny now. He’s leading by 1 set, which is all good. I think Nadal plays damn well and I think he deserves to be ranked at #1. He was marvelous during the French Masters Series. Awesome during the Artois Championship (or something like that). I just think he’s amazing…and cute.

I’ve watched a few Wimbledon matches. I mean, it’s live on Star Sports and there’s nothing else to watch on TV. The 4 channels I watch out of the 40 they have are;

• HBO
• Star Sports
• ESPN
• Channel V

Don’t quite get those Chinese channels. Anyway, Safin was rather good in one of those matches. I’ve always enjoy watching Safin. He gets pissed at himself for screwing up the game and he seriously plays bad when he’s pissed. But it’s always great to see if he can make a come back. Federer was alright. Beat Hewitt. Will be playing Ancic next.

Well, aside from soccer, tennis is the one match that I can sit and watch. Even if the game were to last for 3 hours (I can still remember this one match where Agassi played and it lasted for 3 hours. It was amazing. He’s amazing). Back to my point. Aside from loving to watch, I think I’ve always loved tennis. To play tennis at least (not that I’m any good…). My first tennis lesson was when I was 13. Ever since, I’ve loved playing a game of tennis. Of coz it’s also with the friends I learned with - they sure are good buddies to play with. I remember once, we even played in the rain. I’m talking heavy rain. It was a good 5 years of solid tennis playing.

Then I stopped. My friends moved elsewhere to study, and I have no one to play with. I stopped for 6 years. Until recently, I found a couple of ppl at work who played. I even found another friend who plays as well. And so, I’ve the determination to start picking up tennis again. The last time I played was the week before I came to China. I always feel good after a game of tennis. It’s like some therapy for me. If I’m pissed at work, one of the ways for me to release those stress is to either run on the treadmill or just stroke a little on the court. I will always choose tennis over the treadmill.

Tennis is one game you would be able to play, even at the age of 50. I must play more often, to brush up those rusty strokes. But yes, I love tennis. Yes. I love watching it. I love playing it. I may not be good at it. But I still love it.

Btw, being a retarded-slow-to-catch-things gal, I just realized that in the Wimbledon Championship, everyone wears white. No other color. If you watch some other masters series championship, you’ll notice that the game of tennis has transformed into some colorful fashionable game. But with Wimbledon, it still kept it’s white color. The color of tennis in the olden days. Hmm…why?

I have watched PS I Love You for the 3rd time now. It still moves me like how when I watched it the first time. Well, not just move but more like making me bawling my eyes out from crying. Anyway, as I was watching this movie for the 3rd time, there’s this one little thing that I came to realize. I somehow still believe that you can only be so madly in love with one person. And with this one person, it’s all about love. It’s not about how long you’ve been together, or how the relationship has turned into being grateful for each other, or how it has become a habit to just talk on the phone, even if they are empty talks, or…or…

It’s all about how empty you feel without him. It’s all about how he can make you feel like you are the only person in this world that is worth loving. It’s all about waking up in the morning and the first thing you want to see is his face. It’s all about how you miss him when he’s not around and how it’s just not right without him by your side.

What Holy and Jerry had was love. They fought alright but so what? They still want to be with each other. They want to go through every single bit of their life together. They are madly in love with each other, although they have been married for 10years.

Here’s the last letter that Jerry has written to Holly (depicted from the movie).

Dear Holly,

I don’t have much time. I don’t mean literally… I mean you are out buying ice-cream and you’ll be home soon. But I have a feeling that this is the last letter, coz there’s only one thing to tell you.

It isn’t to go down memory lane or make you buy a lamp. You can take care of yourself without any help from me. It’s to tell you how much you move me, how you change me. You made me a man by loving me Holly and for that, I’m eternally grateful…literally.

If you can promise me anything, promise me that whenever you’re sad or unsure or you lose complete faith, that you’ll try and see yourself through my eyes. Thank you for the honor of being my wife. I’m a man with no regrets. How lucky am I. You made my life Holly, but I’m just one chapter in yours. There’ll be more. I promise. So here it comes…the big one.

Don’t be afraid to fall in love again. Watch out for that signal when life as you know it ends.

PS: I will always love you.

Jerry

Well written don’t you think? I think till this very date, I still believe all there is to life is love. You can have a lot of guys all around you, but there’ll only be one, that is your best friend, your lover…your life.

And truly…there can only be one perfect first kiss (even if you have kissed 10 guys). Just like in the movie. I know it.

I’m a sucker for love.

To be honest, when I go to a new place, I’m one of those people who are very much into maps. I usually try to go get a map, just so I know where I am. I am the type that don’t fancy asking for direction (yes, I think it has everything to do with personal egoism… ;)). Unless the map is of no use (ahem! for instance Malaysia map - not all that helpful when it comes to road names), then I’ll start asking for directions.

One more thing - I trust myself with the subway and directions than trusting the cab drivers with my life and directions (China drivers are mad drivers).

I’ve brought back a lot of maps of Shanghai in the past, but being me, I just never keep them. So this time, I took a map from the concierge, again. Ahh…the wonders of map. I spread it out on the floor of my room and start to identify where I am.

The map

Pudong Shangri-La Hotel - my “Home” for the next 12 days

Well, after I have identified my location, I start to look for places that I want to go tomorrow (again, if the stupid weather persist). Let’s see…as posted earlier…I want to go check out that art place which sells Moleskine. It’s a good thing I called yesterday. I was planning to go today, but apparently, they have some exhibition of some sort and it’s not a public event. Hence, you can’t get in without an invitation. So, she asked me to go over tomorrow and that’s what I’m going to do. What I have to do is to walk over, using The Bund sightseeing tunnel, coming out from the Bund itself. The store is just along the Bund. Cool!

The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel - connecting Pudong to the Bund

After the art store, I’ll probably go to the Nanjing Pedestrian Walking Street. Probably have lunch there or something like that. The place is really a long stretch of stores for shopping and restaurants. If I remember correctly, it would take you 30mins to walk from one end to another end (I think).

Nanjing Pedestrian Walking Street

Next up would be YuYuan - to go get some tidbits for people back home. There’s a temple there as well. Well, after going there several times, I still have yet to step into that temple to pray. Maybe I’ll do it this time.

YuYuan Garden

One last place that I might want to go is the place where the whole road is actually a stretch of stores selling musical instruments. I think I mentioned it before - somewhere in my previous post. One of my favorite place of all times. Maybe I’ll go back to that store with the piano I wanted to buy a year ago (Yes, I was insane enough to think of getting a piano from here, shipping it back to Malaysia, sending it up to my house - my mum brought me back down to Earth when I told her my plan).

Jinling Road - where all musical instruments are

So that’s my plan for Sunday. I hope my feet would be up and ready for all this walking tomorrow. (Yes, I’m planning to walk - no cabs).

As for today…I’m just gonna stay in the hotel, sulk and miss home. It’s only 11.52am…sigh. What a long day it’s gonna be… Maybe I should just go back to bed.

I’m leaving for Shanghai after work today…Yup, didn’t go around Suzhou this time, but I guess there’s really nothing much to do here anymore. I mean considering the fact I’ve been here quite a number of times and I’ve been to several of the so-called must go places.

Anyway, my colleague and I were waiting outside for our vendor to pick us up for dinner. Having nothing better to do, I took out my worn out camera and took a couple of pics. Here’s what I mean when I say China is all gloomy these days. I have yet to see the sun. I miss the sun.

Here’s a pic of the weather in Suzhou. Gloomy.

Here’s a type of tree I like. I wonder if it’s the willow tree…If I’m wrong, enlighten me pls.

Willow?

Anyway, I’m closing in to the end of my first week here in motherland. How am I feeling? I still want to go home. That’s what I tell my colleague every day. Or rather, every moment I have. My exact words, “I want to go home”. Work is…well…relatively fine in a way. I was very close to losing my temper today though. But I hanged in there. Hence I’m fine.

Weekend…That’s like tomorrow. I have no idea what I’m going to do yet. My colleague say that we should try the dim sum buffet for brunch (well, I’m staying at Shangri-La - so, Shang Palace serves rather nice dim sum). After that, I’ll probably hit the bund and go search for the designrepublic shop. Again if weather persist.

Speaking of the weather, the taufan from Taiwan has arrived at Shenzhen (which is the southern part of China). If I remember correctly, all flights out from Shenzhen were canceled. It was pretty bad as there were some ‘red alert’ warnings of some sort. Anyway, it is estimated for the taufan to arrive at Shanghai some time July 6. I hope it comes later. At least until I have a chance to fly home (going home only on July 9). Or better still if it won’t come. *pray*

Oh well, may my days in Shanghai be better. But still, I want to go home. Anyway, here’s my favorite drink. Something I would buy everytime I come to China. It’s white grapes (yes yes, I know I don’t read Chinese all that much, but I do know this is grape juice - coz it’s written in English… *teehee*).

My all time favorite drink in China

Till the next post. Adios!

P/S: I do need to meet Joey when I’m in Shanghai. JOEY! Clear some time for me lar k!?

On my way to the factory this morning, the one culture that the Chinese do suddenly struck me as being a brilliant idea. I think the solutions to the recent hike of petrol price is…

Introducing…a hybrid…a cross between a bicycle and a motorcycle…

The Electronic Bike! (google an image of it - somehow with the sucky connection, I can’t seem to search for a picture). Okie…manage to get a picture of it from the road… hahaha… check it out!

Behold…the yellow electronic bicycle! :) 

some auntie riding the bike… 

Y it may be perceived as a solution? It doesn’t use petrol to operate it. It uses chargeable battery. It’s like a bicycle, with pedals and all. But it operates with a battery. hehehe…Maybe that would solve some of our problems. HAHA!

And yes, I’m in my motherland - of some sort. Flight here was pretty okay. I wouldn’t say it’s bad. I have my usual sickness, but it’s still at a bearable stage. I slept a lot on the plane this time. Imagine this; I slept from 7.30am when I board the plane in Penang, until the time the KL ppl board the plane and the plane is ready to take off to fly to HK. That’s like at 9.30am. Half the time, I have no idea what’s happening on the plane. *sweat*. After that, it’s 70% of sleeping activity for me, from KL to HK and then from HK to Shanghai. Amazing.

30% of the time…I did use my brains to think about stuff. I haven’t been blogging for over a week, and it’s actually becoz I have got nothing much to say. Remember me contemplating to give up and everything? I was giving it a lot of thought, thinking of ways to resolve it. And then I realize - there are things that you just cannot resolve as an individual. You may just need the force of several people to do it - maybe one, maybe two. Hence, I came to a conclusion of just leaving things as it is. Until the day when all this crap I’m in strucks me again. Someone left me a note on my post saying that “If there is no good reason to let go, try learning how to love what you wanna hold on to”. I guess that’s what I’ve been doing all these while.

I’m now in Suzhou (a place I still love)…but the weather is pretty horrible. It is somehow very polluted. My trachea appears to be smaller than usual. Must be the effect of the pollution. I’m having slight difficulty in breathing becoz of this. Somehow, the rain is not clearing away the pollution. Yup, it’s still raining. I haven’t seen the sun since I arrive here. It is kinda gloomy and sad. *sigh*

I’ve got 2 weekends in Shanghai this time. I think it would be a good idea to take a ride to “PuTuoShan” (普陀山). I’ve been to Shanghai countless times, and I just never did got to going to that island. It is famous in Chinese Buddhism and is considered as the bodhimanda of Avalokitesvara (观音). Click here for more info. I should go. Should go pray for awhile, for the goodness of people I love and care for. Of coz this trip is subjected to the weather in Shanghai. I just hope it doesn’t rain. *cross my fingers…and toes*

Other plans would include going to this art place call designrepublic. The store is located close to the bund and it’s not very far from where I’m staying. The website looks rather impressive and all. And apparently, they are selling moleskine. If weather permits, I’ll probably go check out the music street again. Really cool street to walk along.

OH! Which reminds me - I must go get some Muji stuff when I go back to Penang. It’s now at HKIA. When I was transiting at HKIA, I walked pass the store. I fell in love with the color concept of the whole store. Took a quick tour of the store and knew I have to come back and get something. Their products are just way cool. Love it.

I think the connection here sucks as well. I can’t tumblr. ARGH!

It’s only my 2nd day here. I think I want to go home now. I forgot to bring piglet this time. Make me feel more alone than ever. I wonder y I sorta just jumble everything up in this post. Oh well…I miss home already. M.I.S.S. *sigh*