Upcoming Excitements

Now that year end holidays have begun, there's two things that annoys me more than it should :

First of all, I actually miss school.

and no, I don't miss the studying, exams or certain boring classes. I miss being able to see my friends daily and having something functional to dread in life. When I do have to attend school daily, I look forward to the holidays. When I have a long holiday, I start to miss school.
How sick is that ?

and the second thing is, the back-to-school sales are already back on.

Just last Saturday or so, I went into AEON in One Utama and I saw many rows of back-to-school items like stationary, bags and school uniforms.
LIKE CHILL BRO, school just ended okay ?
School just officially ended yesterday on the 21st of November and you are already forcing us to go back to school.
noooo.

When school starts next year, I'm just going to miss the holidays all over again.

On a happier note, my friends and I are currently preparing to go on a 9 day long program called the Sunburst Youth Camp. It's held in Singapore for one week and prior to that, we have to attend a sort of training at Sepang for three days. The motive of the camp is to build an international bond between the youth and share understanding among the different cultures. Many countries such as China, Korea, Japan, India and many more are joining.
To join, we have to prove that our health is good and our body is fit because the camp involves mostly outdoor activities.
There will be extreme activities such as rock climbing, kayaking and also more cultural activities such as exhibitions and the final concert.

There is a lot of things to prepare but it's very exciting because I have never been away from home alone for so many days, let alone in a foreign country.
The camp is fully sponsored by the ST Endowment Programme (STEP) including my flight tickets, accommodation, meals and transportation in Singapore.
My accommodation, transportation and meals in Sepang Hotel for training is sponsored by the local Education Ministry.
I also got a lot of sponsored stuff such as T-shirts, jacket, bag and even pocket money so it's basically awesome that I don't have to pay much for such an experience.

I love free stuff, period.

My next post will 99% be about my experience after returning from Singapore.
For now, all I can say is I'm really excited and I wish for the best to happen and plenty of wonderful memories to carry home with me.

p.s : I just received my final exam results recently and I must say, it wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be. I expected at least a couple of Cs.

To Be Made

because the moment for me to make my final choice is approaching.

[DRAMA REVIEW] - My Spring Days

SPOILER ALERT : DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS 

Title: 내 생애 봄날 / Nae Saengae Bomnal

Also known as: Springtime of My Life / My Spring Days

Cast : 

Kam Woo Sung as Kang Dong Ha (45)

Choi Soo Young as Lee Bom Yi (27)

Lee Joon Hyuk as Kang Dong Wook (35)

Jang Shin Young as Bae Ji Won (32)

After I finished my finals, I immediately started watching this drama because I read that it was the top rated drama for the week and I must say, I wasn't disappointed.
From acting wise, Kam Woo Sung's acting was superior and tho Sooyoung is still much of a rookie actress, she impressed me during those emotional scenes (which was a lot since this is a melo kindda drama).

This drama emphasizes on the importance of organ donation. Eight people can survive from one person's choice of donating their organs. In this drama, Lee Bom Yi (Choi Soo Young) is a survivor of heart transplant, living her life to the fullest in memory of her heart donor. She visits Jeju Island because she knew that her heart donor originated from there, and there she meets Kang Dong Ha (Kam Woo Sung) and his two children, Poo Reum and Ba Da. Without knowing those were her donor's children, her eyes start to tear up when she saw the children.

The story continues with Lee Bom Yi getting ready to marry with Kam Dong Wook (Lee Joon Hyuk), Kang Dong Ha's younger brother. Feeling too pressured in the end, Bom Yi put a hold to the wedding knowing that this wasn't the wedding she wanted.
One of the conflict of the story was when Bom Yi realised her heart donor was Dong Wook's dead sister-in-law, she wondered whether Dong Wook fell in love with her or still hanging on to the memory of his dead sister-in-law who he once fell in love with .
Bom Yi also wondered whether Dong Ha really loved her or the heart that was beating inside of her . After a while, Bom Yi and Dong Ha started getting closer and finally they got into a relationship against all odds. However, Bom Yi collapses and the doctor verifies she was suffering from rejection symptoms.

Her heart transplant was failing after five years.

Wanting to get married, Sooyoung prepares a simple wedding environment at the hospital room with a few balloons and puts on a wedding veil. Dong Ha protests and says he wanted to give her a grand wedding after she gets better but Sooyoung insisted on a simple wedding.
I actually think this symbolizes the importance of living in the moment and just enjoying life.

In the end, Bom Yi got weaker and weaker but Dong Ha stayed by her side. She had the choice to get a mechanical heart or another heart transplant (with undetermined waiting time) but she decided in the end to give her heart as a gift to another person. Realising that she was lucky enough to have lived with a gift for five years, she decides to pass on this gift to another person .

The drama ends with Sooyoung being wheeled into the operating theater to die.

From character-wise, Kam Dong Ha is a man constantly miserable over his wife's untimely accident and death. Unable to get over his wife's death, he visits Jeju Island where his wife passed away every year on her death anniversary and drinks to sleep. Lee Bom Yi is a five year survivor of heart transplant. Being constantly kind and energized, she always lives life to the fullest and is thankful for the extra five years she was given.

The pairing of the two is just common, I wouldn't say that they had the best chemistry for an old man-young woman couple considering Yoona and Lee Bum Soo had better chemistry in Prime Minister and I .

The plot of this drama is really refreshing and I say, if you have time, give it a go.

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.