The sight of seeing my dog in the back of the van and being sent away gave me a heartache. Seeing his innocent eyes into mine as if he was saying "Don't sent me away..."
Leon will be away for hernia repair and castration surgery for 3 days. This surgery must be done so that my dog can pass motion back to usual. I asked the doctor whether there is other ways other than castration, he said no. Then I asked again if there is such thing as sperm bank, he said no again. With great disappointment, I know after today, his generation will come to an end.
Before he was admitted into the clinic, I looked at him close enough to realize that he has actually grown old. To me, he is forever a kid, a naughty one. Grey fur are already growing around his mouth just like human's beard. This should be my greatest regret in him; I could not find him a mate, I did not help him breed...
All hopes in seeing his little children will be gone soon. All I can do is pray for him to recover and hopefully, he will still remain the macho dog of mine...
Don't be afraid Leon, everything will be alright soon...
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Sawasdeeka...
Before the day came, we already felt the excitement as my aunt who named this tour as Chang's (Our surname but also elephant as Thai's mascot) 大象旅行团, created a guide book (inclusive of our 4 days' schedule, transportation, MRT map, Bangkok map, hotel address, phone numbers, places' descriptions...); prepared rain coats with her very own Chang label and logo; name tags with our names on it for the 8 of us so that we will know one another soon enough; luggage tags... How can we not have the mood to travel with all these cute little designs as if we really joined a tour.
1st night
Arrived Bangkok at night. After eating, went to 7-Eleven and to my surprise, their 7-Eleven is like Taiwan's where you get to eat lunch boxes, delicious sandwiches, variety of drinks and desserts... and they are all cheap! I wonder if only Malaysia has 7-Eleven that sells nothing... After that my brother and I spent most of our time figuring how to use their SIM card and call back to Malaysia as we did not know the code and everything in Thailand is in Thai, even SIM card's instruction book. Took my brother and I one and a half hour to figure it out...
2nd day
Went to Ocean World @ Siam Paragon. I haven't been into KLCC Aquaria but my sister said this one is better than KLCC's. One of the most extraordinary thing we saw was:
Wine fridge transformed into fish tank
Fridge transformed into fish tank
Car transformed into fish tank
We went for a 4D motion after that. It was not as nice as expected but I was chicken enough to sit up straight to avoid the wind blowing to my hair from behind; used my bag to block the front from spraying out water; had my glasses off whenever I sensed danger; and had my feet straight up to avoid the strings from below to tickle my legs... but it wasn't nice, so I didn't have to feel everything after all.
We had some Thai food for lunch. It was quite tasty but the spiciness was superb and I just love it. In Thai, 'mai pien ma' is a very important word for us to use as it means 'less spicy' in order to rescue our tongue. We went to a Mango Dessert Shop which I've forgotten the name that sells only Mango desserts. Nothing extraordinary except for its mango sticky rice and mangos. Awesome!
After refilling our batteries, we headed off to Platinum. To our surprise, that place is just like Taiwan's '五分铺' where they sell cheap and really nice clothes. As long as you buy more than 2 items, they will charge you as a wholesale price. So my sister and I worked together on this. There was this shop selling 200 Baht (RM20) for a set of clothes (jacket + singlet) but if you buy more than 2 sets, per set becomes 130 Baht. I bought 2 sets and my sister 1 in the end which I only paid 60 Baht for an extra set.
1 and a half hour to shop at this 5 floor building was not enough at all. We had to rush to the MRT Station to be at a restaurant for dinner. We had seafood dinner at a famous restaurant. Everyone was too hungry due to long hours' of walking and decided to order as much as possible. It was good but the price was even 'better'! 450 Baht per person! Next meal might be cup noodles?
Then we were rushing again to catch the 8pm Thai Cultural Show. It's supposed to be a must watch show for tourist as apparently the government spent millions for this stage theater. Our 700 Baht was well worth spending. It was about Thailand's culture and history. I learned that some of the Thai are Chinese and Thailand was the only Southeast Asia country that has never been colonized because of having very able rulers... The show managed to capture back our tired souls whenever we were about to doze off. There was a small river enough for boats to pass through on stage, there was water pouring down up above the stage to signify rain, there were elephants passing by just right in front of us, goats on the stage... A lot of scenes amazed me and created my curiosity on how they do it. I probably should learn more about theater arts... Anyway, the entire show not only opened our eyes but also lightened our hearts. It was indeed a must watch show!
3rd day
We continued our hectic schedule the next morning by heading to the Ancient City. It was a huge place with over hundreds of ancient Thai buildings that you have to ride on something to go through the whole place. Hence, we rented 2 bicycles and a scooter. It was a wise decision as we were tired out half way through and we needed to take turns to ride on the scooter. We hardly had anytime to explore the buildings' description and history, we just chose unique buildings, snapped some photos and left for the next. We would have gotten lost without a map for their signboards were all in Thai, even exit signs I believe. At the end of the adventure, we gained some knowledge, had some fun and also some exercise! And true enough our lunch was cup noodles.
It was the same taxi driver who took us here, bringing us back to Bangkok. He tried to talk to us but we were clueless as he was speaking in Thai and not at all in English. We struggled at first, all we did was smile, smile and sometimes 'ok'. We found a few useful Thai words with explanation in our guide book. All thanks to this taxi driver that we were forced to learn Thai. We used words like 'ti nai' (where), 'tao rai' (how much), 'ma pien rai' (never mind) etc with lots of sign language. I suddenly realized that communication can be actually funny. We didn't know if he got the right message and so did we, but we just communicate like that all the way and he managed to drop us at our desired destination and we were happy... it wasn't that difficult communicating with people in different language I supposed... we were actually kind of addicted to speak in Thai! especially my brother... he's gonna become a Thai soon...
We went for Thai dinner again. After that, flea market nearby which all sell DIY stuffs. I learned how to make successful bargain after spending quite some time shopping in Bangkok. Their prices are usually hiked up to double and you can attempt to cut down into half the price. I came to this stall which sells DIY cards, when you open it, a pop-up shape will appear such as love shape, christmas tree etc. Since my aunt was buying, so I thought of bargaining a cheaper price if we were to buy two. The lady gave me a calculator instead and without further question, I pressed the amount I wanted. She gave a doubtful face but in the end also nodded her head. I happily gave her the money and when I was about to leave, a guy came to her and used his hands to show 'how much'. I turned around and asked my aunt, "Are they dumb?" My aunt replied, "Obviously. You didn't know about that?" After that, the guilt haunted me for a while until my brother came to me and showed interest in the card. I was so delightful to bring him over to the place and he bought another card. All thanks to me, they made a small board with prices saying that 1 card = 80 Baht, 2 cards = 150 Baht, 3 cards = 210 Baht so that they will use this board to reject bargains. To my relieve, if three of our cards combined, we paid exactly 210 Baht. My brother was my saviour!
Ever since then, I dare not simply bargain anymore, especially with calculators. Even when we arrived at their night market next, I lost my appetite in bargaining. Probably also because of a rough tuk-tuk (Thai's taxi bike) ride that I swear I will never ever take tuk-tuk anymore. If you wish to have some excitement in life, then you should go for it.
After buying some really cool clothes and happily getting lost around, it was time for our first foot massage. My aunt was sitting next to me, yelled whenever the guy put a tiny bit of strength on her foot. I believe the guy did the lightest massage ever and felt tortured and bored throughout the session and he gave weird looks to my aunt.
4th day
A foot massage gave us more energy to our feet to walk further the next day. We went to the morning market near where we stayed and bought a lot of unique food such as egg with its yolk on the outer bottom of the egg etc. It was our last day so we ate a lot.
Next was Jatuchak, a place as large as 16 football fields with thousands of small stalls selling many different categories of things such as handicrafts, accessories, furnitures, antiques, DIY stuffs, clothes and lots more. Given only 2 hours to spend, we dare not walk far and spent 2 hours of going round about near the entrance, we were lost... we wonder why too... but we still bought some little stuffs and food for ourselves. And for me, it was even more amazing as I spent RM0! Unbelievable?
Our last destination will be definitely back to our most favorite spot- Platinum. My brother satisfyingly bought his desired two pairs of jeans despite being forced to wear a skirt for changing purposes. They looked good on him, at least his butt looked smaller, haha. After a quick shopping, we were to rush back to our hotel, pack and leave for airport.
It was indeed an exhausting trip but still we didn't get enough of Bangkok and Thailand. The best thing about this trip is not about shopping, not about the massage, the spa, not about the things we explored, not about the food (definitely Malaysian food can compare with theirs!), not about their culture, not about their people... It's about the happy moments I spent with my siblings especially with my sister. It was one of 'the' moment I had with them. I'm also happy that more photos of us are now added into our photo album as our very sweet memories...
We just love Thai, don't we? And not to forget my wonderful and genius HuaLing gugu who made this dream came true for all of us. She was like our mother and tour guide who did research for this trip for months and also provided us everything we need, seriously, EVERYTHING!! I asked her to open a travel agency since she was so efficient... If she were to own one, I will be her first customer, hahaha... Anyway, thanks a bunch!
Domo arigato~!
T-H-A-I *love*
p.s. If you wish to see more photos, do visit my facebook. Thank you!
1st night
Arrived Bangkok at night. After eating, went to 7-Eleven and to my surprise, their 7-Eleven is like Taiwan's where you get to eat lunch boxes, delicious sandwiches, variety of drinks and desserts... and they are all cheap! I wonder if only Malaysia has 7-Eleven that sells nothing... After that my brother and I spent most of our time figuring how to use their SIM card and call back to Malaysia as we did not know the code and everything in Thailand is in Thai, even SIM card's instruction book. Took my brother and I one and a half hour to figure it out...
2nd day
Went to Ocean World @ Siam Paragon. I haven't been into KLCC Aquaria but my sister said this one is better than KLCC's. One of the most extraordinary thing we saw was:
Wine fridge transformed into fish tank
Fridge transformed into fish tank
Car transformed into fish tank
We went for a 4D motion after that. It was not as nice as expected but I was chicken enough to sit up straight to avoid the wind blowing to my hair from behind; used my bag to block the front from spraying out water; had my glasses off whenever I sensed danger; and had my feet straight up to avoid the strings from below to tickle my legs... but it wasn't nice, so I didn't have to feel everything after all.
We had some Thai food for lunch. It was quite tasty but the spiciness was superb and I just love it. In Thai, 'mai pien ma' is a very important word for us to use as it means 'less spicy' in order to rescue our tongue. We went to a Mango Dessert Shop which I've forgotten the name that sells only Mango desserts. Nothing extraordinary except for its mango sticky rice and mangos. Awesome!
After refilling our batteries, we headed off to Platinum. To our surprise, that place is just like Taiwan's '五分铺' where they sell cheap and really nice clothes. As long as you buy more than 2 items, they will charge you as a wholesale price. So my sister and I worked together on this. There was this shop selling 200 Baht (RM20) for a set of clothes (jacket + singlet) but if you buy more than 2 sets, per set becomes 130 Baht. I bought 2 sets and my sister 1 in the end which I only paid 60 Baht for an extra set.
1 and a half hour to shop at this 5 floor building was not enough at all. We had to rush to the MRT Station to be at a restaurant for dinner. We had seafood dinner at a famous restaurant. Everyone was too hungry due to long hours' of walking and decided to order as much as possible. It was good but the price was even 'better'! 450 Baht per person! Next meal might be cup noodles?
Then we were rushing again to catch the 8pm Thai Cultural Show. It's supposed to be a must watch show for tourist as apparently the government spent millions for this stage theater. Our 700 Baht was well worth spending. It was about Thailand's culture and history. I learned that some of the Thai are Chinese and Thailand was the only Southeast Asia country that has never been colonized because of having very able rulers... The show managed to capture back our tired souls whenever we were about to doze off. There was a small river enough for boats to pass through on stage, there was water pouring down up above the stage to signify rain, there were elephants passing by just right in front of us, goats on the stage... A lot of scenes amazed me and created my curiosity on how they do it. I probably should learn more about theater arts... Anyway, the entire show not only opened our eyes but also lightened our hearts. It was indeed a must watch show!
3rd day
We continued our hectic schedule the next morning by heading to the Ancient City. It was a huge place with over hundreds of ancient Thai buildings that you have to ride on something to go through the whole place. Hence, we rented 2 bicycles and a scooter. It was a wise decision as we were tired out half way through and we needed to take turns to ride on the scooter. We hardly had anytime to explore the buildings' description and history, we just chose unique buildings, snapped some photos and left for the next. We would have gotten lost without a map for their signboards were all in Thai, even exit signs I believe. At the end of the adventure, we gained some knowledge, had some fun and also some exercise! And true enough our lunch was cup noodles.
It was the same taxi driver who took us here, bringing us back to Bangkok. He tried to talk to us but we were clueless as he was speaking in Thai and not at all in English. We struggled at first, all we did was smile, smile and sometimes 'ok'. We found a few useful Thai words with explanation in our guide book. All thanks to this taxi driver that we were forced to learn Thai. We used words like 'ti nai' (where), 'tao rai' (how much), 'ma pien rai' (never mind) etc with lots of sign language. I suddenly realized that communication can be actually funny. We didn't know if he got the right message and so did we, but we just communicate like that all the way and he managed to drop us at our desired destination and we were happy... it wasn't that difficult communicating with people in different language I supposed... we were actually kind of addicted to speak in Thai! especially my brother... he's gonna become a Thai soon...
We went for Thai dinner again. After that, flea market nearby which all sell DIY stuffs. I learned how to make successful bargain after spending quite some time shopping in Bangkok. Their prices are usually hiked up to double and you can attempt to cut down into half the price. I came to this stall which sells DIY cards, when you open it, a pop-up shape will appear such as love shape, christmas tree etc. Since my aunt was buying, so I thought of bargaining a cheaper price if we were to buy two. The lady gave me a calculator instead and without further question, I pressed the amount I wanted. She gave a doubtful face but in the end also nodded her head. I happily gave her the money and when I was about to leave, a guy came to her and used his hands to show 'how much'. I turned around and asked my aunt, "Are they dumb?" My aunt replied, "Obviously. You didn't know about that?" After that, the guilt haunted me for a while until my brother came to me and showed interest in the card. I was so delightful to bring him over to the place and he bought another card. All thanks to me, they made a small board with prices saying that 1 card = 80 Baht, 2 cards = 150 Baht, 3 cards = 210 Baht so that they will use this board to reject bargains. To my relieve, if three of our cards combined, we paid exactly 210 Baht. My brother was my saviour!
Ever since then, I dare not simply bargain anymore, especially with calculators. Even when we arrived at their night market next, I lost my appetite in bargaining. Probably also because of a rough tuk-tuk (Thai's taxi bike) ride that I swear I will never ever take tuk-tuk anymore. If you wish to have some excitement in life, then you should go for it.
After buying some really cool clothes and happily getting lost around, it was time for our first foot massage. My aunt was sitting next to me, yelled whenever the guy put a tiny bit of strength on her foot. I believe the guy did the lightest massage ever and felt tortured and bored throughout the session and he gave weird looks to my aunt.
4th day
A foot massage gave us more energy to our feet to walk further the next day. We went to the morning market near where we stayed and bought a lot of unique food such as egg with its yolk on the outer bottom of the egg etc. It was our last day so we ate a lot.
Next was Jatuchak, a place as large as 16 football fields with thousands of small stalls selling many different categories of things such as handicrafts, accessories, furnitures, antiques, DIY stuffs, clothes and lots more. Given only 2 hours to spend, we dare not walk far and spent 2 hours of going round about near the entrance, we were lost... we wonder why too... but we still bought some little stuffs and food for ourselves. And for me, it was even more amazing as I spent RM0! Unbelievable?
Our last destination will be definitely back to our most favorite spot- Platinum. My brother satisfyingly bought his desired two pairs of jeans despite being forced to wear a skirt for changing purposes. They looked good on him, at least his butt looked smaller, haha. After a quick shopping, we were to rush back to our hotel, pack and leave for airport.
It was indeed an exhausting trip but still we didn't get enough of Bangkok and Thailand. The best thing about this trip is not about shopping, not about the massage, the spa, not about the things we explored, not about the food (definitely Malaysian food can compare with theirs!), not about their culture, not about their people... It's about the happy moments I spent with my siblings especially with my sister. It was one of 'the' moment I had with them. I'm also happy that more photos of us are now added into our photo album as our very sweet memories...
We just love Thai, don't we? And not to forget my wonderful and genius HuaLing gugu who made this dream came true for all of us. She was like our mother and tour guide who did research for this trip for months and also provided us everything we need, seriously, EVERYTHING!! I asked her to open a travel agency since she was so efficient... If she were to own one, I will be her first customer, hahaha... Anyway, thanks a bunch!
Domo arigato~!
T-H-A-I *love*
p.s. If you wish to see more photos, do visit my facebook. Thank you!
Staying Home
It's been a long time since I last stayed home so much. Even during weekends. It's an amazing thing for me to do. I stayed home alone most of the time, if you don't count my kakak, minding my own things, my sister left, no friends are back yet nor will anyone come visit, my brother's back to school, so is Kaden, my dad needs to work, my mom is happily in Vietnam... I've been like this for a week already and I don't mind being at home alone though I do feel lonely. The thought of going out to meet friends just give me a lazy feeling and I'll start to find excuses.
That's not exactly who I am, but I guess when you're used to the life, you're just accustomed to it. By then when my friends all come back and my old self might just come back and you won't see me staying at home.
But for now, it's a good thing for me. At least I'm like the rest, going back to hometown, taking my own leisure time doing my own things during holidays, and most importantly is to spend most of the time with family. I'm glad that I did for I get to help my parents to pick up my brother and help to keep an eye on our home. I'm also much closer to my brother (well, he's my closest family member left after my sister went to Taiwan for further studies), I know his schedule and plans, I know that he's actually not as busy as I thought last time, I know he studies everyday at home, and he is willing to accompany me to many places knowing that I'm alone. Of course, I know more about my dad and mom too. And my sister before she left.
Suddenly family's position in my life became few steps higher. And that makes me cherish them more and I want to stay home more.
p.s. if you wonder what I've been up to for the past 3 weeks, this is my answer, I spent whatever time I have with my sister and family
That's not exactly who I am, but I guess when you're used to the life, you're just accustomed to it. By then when my friends all come back and my old self might just come back and you won't see me staying at home.
But for now, it's a good thing for me. At least I'm like the rest, going back to hometown, taking my own leisure time doing my own things during holidays, and most importantly is to spend most of the time with family. I'm glad that I did for I get to help my parents to pick up my brother and help to keep an eye on our home. I'm also much closer to my brother (well, he's my closest family member left after my sister went to Taiwan for further studies), I know his schedule and plans, I know that he's actually not as busy as I thought last time, I know he studies everyday at home, and he is willing to accompany me to many places knowing that I'm alone. Of course, I know more about my dad and mom too. And my sister before she left.
Suddenly family's position in my life became few steps higher. And that makes me cherish them more and I want to stay home more.
p.s. if you wonder what I've been up to for the past 3 weeks, this is my answer, I spent whatever time I have with my sister and family
Thursday, September 3, 2009
What's Embarrassment?
What is embarrassing to you? Is it...
A. Opening a public toilet's door and not long after you heard a long screeching yell, you only realized that you're looking into someone's butt who was half way into doing her business and that the next thing you know is that you quickly close the door and pretended that it wasn't you...
or
B. You came out of the fitting room with a pile of tried but unfit clothes, you just wanted to throw them to aside but you saw this lady who wore formal, white shirt plus black skirt standing right before you not long you came out. You eventually threw the pile of clothes to her and the next thing is, you were told by your mom that she's not a worker here, and aunties around started laughing at you...
or
C. You finished eating the food from the stall you bought and eventually you will look for dustbin and you saw this white little basket on the table and you threw the rubbish into it. The next thing is the seller told you that that is not a dustbin and you realized it's for food's purpose...
or
D. On a phone call...
Someone: Hello
House Owner: Hello
Someone: Eh, you haven't leave your house?
House owner: Not yet
Someone: You're not coming to Angkasa? You don't know about the lunch?
House owner: Dunno wor...
Someone: Huh? Who's this?
House owner: You looking for my sister?
It's your vote! Which of these is an embarrassing moment. Hope you had a good laugh at it! I'm not telling who did all these... It's done by 3 different people...enjoy :)
A. Opening a public toilet's door and not long after you heard a long screeching yell, you only realized that you're looking into someone's butt who was half way into doing her business and that the next thing you know is that you quickly close the door and pretended that it wasn't you...
or
B. You came out of the fitting room with a pile of tried but unfit clothes, you just wanted to throw them to aside but you saw this lady who wore formal, white shirt plus black skirt standing right before you not long you came out. You eventually threw the pile of clothes to her and the next thing is, you were told by your mom that she's not a worker here, and aunties around started laughing at you...
or
C. You finished eating the food from the stall you bought and eventually you will look for dustbin and you saw this white little basket on the table and you threw the rubbish into it. The next thing is the seller told you that that is not a dustbin and you realized it's for food's purpose...
or
D. On a phone call...
Someone: Hello
House Owner: Hello
Someone: Eh, you haven't leave your house?
House owner: Not yet
Someone: You're not coming to Angkasa? You don't know about the lunch?
House owner: Dunno wor...
Someone: Huh? Who's this?
House owner: You looking for my sister?
It's your vote! Which of these is an embarrassing moment. Hope you had a good laugh at it! I'm not telling who did all these... It's done by 3 different people...enjoy :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
