Freedom Alas !

It's been a while,eh?

It feels so good to feel the soft keyboard under my fingertips again, god how long haven't I typed on a keyboard.
The cons of smartphones, they neglect laptops.

Today marks the end of my almost four weeks long end-of-the-year exams.

I have a whole two months before I have to even think about studying again, how wonderful is this ?
Now, it's back to full time drama watching, novel reading and relaxation.

During the Deepavali holidays, I went to Taiwan with my family for a holiday.
Here's the update eh eh eh :

At the National Palace Museum where we learnt more about the Chinese history and stuff.

All of a sudden, my mum wanted to take a selfie with me.

My mum is getting more modern than me, yikes.

At Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall to watch the changing of guards which occur every hour daily.

I actually asked my mum, "Why would they train special guards and change duties every hour to protect a statue?".

Still don't get the point but eh, the performance was interesting to watch.

The guards are really serious when they march and they don't laugh although I was making a rather funny face.

Professional enough.

At Xi Men Ting, a shopping place .

At the top of the Maokung station's mountain where we sat down to have tea and coffee,

here's me with my latte on a cold, windy mountain.

We saw many people lining up outside this dim sum shop called Tim Ho Wan which was suppose to be Hong Kong's most famous dim sum so what did we do?

We lined up too.

Finally got in after one hour and this is me and my younger cousin sister.

I can't believe we lined up for Hong Kong food in Taiwan when we can eat it in Malaysia too .

We did it anyway.

This was me in the Maokung Gondola, on the way up to the Maokung Station.

If you realise, the bottom of the gondola was crystal clear.

which basically means you can see EVERYTHING beneath you while you are a thousand metres above ground.

It wasn't as scary as I imagined and the view was really pretty because we rode above mountain grounds.

The grounds were filled with growing yellow and white daisies, it was like in a movie honestly.

Why do I always look like the most excited one?

At the Thermal Valley at Beitou,

the smoke is actually the vaporisation from the boiling hot spring water.

It is not possible to enter this place because obviously, you go in and you're pretty much toasted.

You can smell the strong sulphur from 10 metres away.

People in the olden days call this the ghost lake because ignorant people fall into the lake accidently and pretty much die.

I read that it was allowed to boil eggs with the hot spring water last time but not anymore since, they want to protect the water quality and they don't want you to fall in and get boiled.

You basically experience how it feels like in hell here.

At Dan Shui ,

The signature jumbo ice cream which melted faster than I can eat.

and gave me real bad cramps after that.

Picture perfect tho !

This place is a must if you are planning to visit Taipei anytime soon,

among all the night markets (and trust me, Taiwan has plenty),

I find Rao He Night Market sells the cheapest stuff.

We actually went back again because we couldn't get enough of the cheap stuff ohmgee.

At Taipei Zoo where we got to see loads of preschool kids running around screaming and butts of famous pandas.

Pandas are forever sleeping, we can be best friends.

That's pretty much the end of it.

Overall, we sat the 11o'clock pm flight back to Malaysia from the Tao Yuan International Airport and reached around 4:30 am.

We ate breakfast and waited until 6 am to get a taxi because taxi charges are double before 6 am.

Fell dead on the bed and slept until 2 pm since I didn't get any sleep on the plane.

I would do it all over again.

Currently reading this book called "And The Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hosseini,

I heard it's a good book so I'm going to give it a go.
I might do a book review if I like it .
Until then, toodles.

Holiday Update + HOLLER

Today, I had a sudden urge to revisit the old posts in my blog.
After reading only a few of my old posts, I sincerely apologise to everyone who had been following my blog since then.
I WAS SO CHILDISH OMG.
My reaction throughout the posts were like :

It was good tho in some parts, it was like walking through memory lane.

There were some posts where I recorded myself being sad or angry but now that I read back, I honestly can't remember why or what happened.

In just a few years time, it didn't really matter anymore.

This is like a reminder to me to not fret about most things because honestly, in five years time, which of it will really matter anyways?

The holidays are going on really quietly & I'm totally loving it.

Most of the days, mummy has to work late and Pui Ee comes home late from school as well so I cook myself and eat dinner myself.

Sure, it gets very quiet sometimes but it's pretty ideal.

I just hope the holidays would slow down and stop slipping away so quickly.

I'm so not looking forward to go back to school.

On a happier note, TaeTiSeo has finally made a comeback with Holler !

This comeback is rather stronger than most of the veteran comebacks in 2014 so I hope they will do well on the digital charts and other award shows.

you didn't honestly think i would end this post without a picture of my bias right ?

bah, thumbs down to you.

thumbs up to her.

H O L I D A Y

August Bumps.

Last month was seriously an emotional roller coaster for me.

I didn't realise at that time how wretched I was until I looked back at it .
I was an emotional wreck.

It all started when my grandpa begun his chemotherapy .
The day he got his first dose of chemo,  my entire brain will thinking of how all the possibilities although my body was physically in school.
I wasn't too worried then tho because the chemotherapy isn't too lethal.
Perhaps I was worried about the side effects but after calling him after school ended, it seemed that his symptoms weren't as bad as I imagined.
My fourth uncle suffered from cancer as well so I understood the symptoms of chemotherapy and my grandpa had it better than my uncle. (tho still, it's just the first dose)

I didn't realise that deep inside, I was dead worried about my grandpa's health.
To the point, the same night my grandpa did his first chemotherapy, I had a nightmare that my grandpa died.
I woke up at 5:30 am that morning (I haven't woke up that early for school since Form 1) and I found it impossible to go back to sleep.
I didn't realise it at that time but when I looked back,
I realised that I was more worried than I thought.

but that period passed and my grandpa's first try in chemotherapy went considerably fine.

Then came the second blow.
My Bell Bell was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her mouth and it was confirmed cancer.

As I waited with Bell at the veterinarian for her turn, I stared at her and I can't imagine her having a tumor in her.

She was so energetic and constantly trying to either eat the "in-her-opinion" annoying cat or sniffing other dogs.

I always have this sick thought whenever I enter the vet with Bell that I will never have my dog back.

It seemed very reasonable to think so because I can't remember a time when Bell wasn't sick.

Finally it was Bell's turn to be examined and the doctor had to sedate her because she hated the doctor wayy too much.

The doctor examined the tumor and that was the first time I had a close view of a real life tumor.

It was nothing pleasant, I assure you.

The first thing I thought when I peeked into Bell's mouth was, "Man, Bell needs to brush her teeth".

I know, sick humor.

Then, the doctor said there was really no way but to cut the tumor out because it was growing rapidly and soon enough, the tumor will grow too big that she can no longer swallow her food.

There were two options available, a normal surgery or a laser surgery.

However, the laser surgery was just too expensive and there was no other choice but a normal surgery.

The normal surgery had more risk of blood loss but it was a lot more affordable.

We couldn't afford to wait any longer to do the surgery because of the rapid growth of the tumor.

At that point, I was already crying.

My brain was processing a lot of ridiculous thoughts, "What if Bell dies of blood loss?", that sort of thoughts.

It was the longest hour ever.

Don't mistaken me, I don't cry easily in public.

but there are things that I can't stand and this is one of it.

Someone I love dying, even the thought of it is terrible.

Now that it's over, I'm just so glad and I hope for a better September.