finally this looonnng week is over

quite a fair bit has happened these past 2 mths. sulin's gone already and our dept is only the 4 of us. work has been quite a pain coz have to deal wif morons and prima donnas so much that its starting to eat into me..making me a superbly bitter person. am trying to stay as positive as i can so as not to influence the rest of my dept...all 4 of us has cracked at some point since sulin left...but we're much better now. not too sure what the future's like for me in this industry. am starting to feel really really tired of all this bullshitting and having to deal wif stupid pple.

maybe its time i start considering my options....

its a friday nite but coz i've been exhausted by the whole week, am feeling too tired to even go out whilst everyone is still out drinking and partying. i feel so unhappening...sigh...what kind of life is this.

can't believe another yr's coming to an end...llast yr's christmas party just felt like last mth.. i've already been back frm nepal for more than a yr. think maybe next yr i should plan another trip back to nepal to visit the orphanage. at least just to make me feel more recharged to work coz now i'm so totally unmotivated.

guess i've killed enough time by updating ths blog.....its facial time tmrw!!! yiipppee!!! maybe i shall go for a back massage after that...hmmm.....

I can finally see clearly!!

i've finally mustered up all my courage to do lasik!! it was quite an ordeal staying off lenses and being on glasses for 2wks prior to the surgery, but it was all worth it. This is the first blog entry I'm writing without any visual aid!!! I have clear vision once again!!

lasik is certainly a very quick procedure, but i have to say it really freaked me out a bit. the process is gruelling coz u can see whatever's going on. there's absolutely no pain, but just ur imagination can drive u nuts as u stare into the red blinking lights and hearing the nurse counting down till the procedure is completed. so many thoughts were running through my head, 'keep ur eye straight', 'oh no, i can only see a mass of red flashing lights, am i looking straight???' don't have any sudden movement' 'don't move, don't move, don't move'............ but all in all, i'm really glad i've finally done it! =)

byebye orange glasses and byebye contact lens!!!

yeah!! finally i can travel without the hassle of worrying bout my contact lens drying up in my eyes after its been in my eyes for more than 12hrs...and finally i can sleep as and when i want to, without worrying bout my lenses in my eyes, especially when flying!!

hongkong here i come!! (...company trip, not self-paid)

exhausting week

after working past midnite every nite for the whole of this week, i think my body is in dire need of rest. and to top it off, this morning had to wake up at 7:30am to go for paintball game organised by our office. it was awesome, even though there were quite a few casualties, and i got shot in my butt twice..grr... but overall paintball is superb! it really hurts to get shot especially if its rather close range. thank goodness my butt is fleshy enough to withstand the force of the bullets. hehe...

after paintball, went swimming at amy's place...dont think that was a smart thing to do coz now my body reaaalllyy feels worn out. and there's tai's bday party thingo tonite in KL... hmmm to go or not to go...

tomorrow is going to be sleeping and recuperating day. will try to avoid going out of my house at all cost. i really need a nice long sleep...

eventful weekend

quite an interesting weekend. went for emil chau concert last nite, courtesy of my dad who got me free tickets. i'm not really a hardcore fan of his, but grew up listening to couple of his songs. brings back lots of highschool memories. even though he's rather old now, but his concert was quite entertaining...went on frm 8:20pm-12:45am....more than 4 hours!!! in the middle kind of zoned out coz he sang really old songs which i never heard before, but he picked up in the 2nd half of his show. managed to get some nice video clips too. by the time i got home frm his concert, after dropping my aunt and picking dian up, it was almost 3am.

next morning had to wake up at 8:30am to prepare to go for hanim's engagement..*yawnnn.. but becoz it was hanim's big day, and also my first time at a malay wedding thingo, was quite looking forward to it.

hanim looked gorgeous in her malay gown. i had to help her carry some 'hantaran' during the engagement process. it was quite fun, even though i had to keep telling myself not to trip over and fall flat on my face.

took loads of pictures....was wearing my mum's kebaya which i had to alter a bit.but it was still reallllyyy tighttt.......had real issues kneeling and standing and had to be cautious not to let it burst the seams. think i really have to get the skirt altered if i'm ever gonna wear it again. its the type of skirt that you can wear for sit-down/don't-move type of dinners, but if you gotta kneel and sit and stand and kneel and sit and stand.......its really quite a nightmare.

all in all.....a nice eventful weekend....but i'm so tired i wish it was still sunday tmrw.....hmmm don't i wish it was sunday all the time.....

my teeth is finally straight again!

i'm officially off braces since last monday!! its been one yr and 4 months of suffering with metal in my mouth and now my teeth are nice and straight! but now i still have to wear retainers for the next 6 months so that it doesn't move.

the last few wks ever since europe has been far from exciting. been just busy with work.

hmm..well last wkend drove down to ipoh for a colleague's wedding, which was quite a nice roadtrip coz we stayed in a rented house for a night. had quite some fun at the wedding coz it felt more like a naga company trip. practically one-third of the company was there! and when we went for drinks after the dinner, it was quite a feat as well. a convoy of 40 people which meant quite a few cars following after one car who knew the way. all of us had no clue where we were going.

yesterday was eugene's birthday. happy birthday dude!! called him and managed to speak to him and helen at the same time. about an hour later, meimei called. felt really nice speaking to these old friends who i'm glad till today we're still in touch. just felt a little bad for not having the time to contact each other more often. i wanna go s'pore soon!!!

been feeling really sleepy as well....don't know why. have been sleeping at least 8 hours a nite, but somehow i still wake up feeling very tired and at approx 3pm, my eyelids will start to feel heavy again. sighh....something's wrong with me......sigh...

anyways, hanim's engagement this sunday, apparently me, jo, and sharon are helping her to carry some stuff during some exchange of gifts thingo...quite looking forward to it, coz its officially the first malay wedding i'm attending. hope i dont trip over and embarass myself...

*yawn......sleepy again....

another lazy saturday...

feeling so drained from the past week at work... its been quite a hectic week with dian off to her homestay hence one less person in planning. hmm..no wonder she's been feeling so tired coz i was off for 2 full wks in europe..oopps... now its my turn to feel it.

been feeling really tired lately, have had sufficient sleep, but somehow still always feeling sleepy. brought work home to do coz have been procrastinating the whole week, and i better buck up before its end of the yr evaluation and there goes pay-rise...

now even feeling lazy to type, think i'll just take a nap again before i start work... zzz....

Back from Europe

After 2 weeks of wandering around the streets of Europe, it certainly feels good to be back home eating Bak Kut Teh, dim sum, and prawn mee. I really miss local food, they not only taste better, they cost so much less too. Spending on food was a killer. But other than that, my first trip to that part of the world was an enjoyable one. Think my leg muscles are so much stronger now from all the walking.

Amsterdam experience
Walk walk walk walk walk... Thankfully the weather was really sunny and cooling, making walking so much easier than in Malaysia. Amsterdam's a really pleasant place, easy to get around and the people are quite alright. All the mention about weed and sex is so not true about Amsterdam. Yes, there is a certain part of the city that is full of it, but there's also the streams, the parks, the little quaint alleys that make the city a really enjoyable place to walk around.

Tourist destinations visited: Anne Frank Museum, Van Gogh Museum, The Dam, Red Light District, Albert Cuyp market

Belgium experience
Stayed in Uncle Kim & Auntie Jackie's house which was superb, and had nice home-cooked food and a huge barbecue. Brussels wasn't anything that exciting, got a huge disappointment seeing the 'peeing boy' the size of a table lamp when i was expecting him to be a little bit bigger. And he was draped in an oversized Napolean costume, which made him look like a midget. Other than that, only remember the nice chocolate shops and a street filled with restaurants. And paying Euro 0.50 = RM2.20 for a toilet visit in McDonalds...(have to pay for most of the toilet visits)

One day River Rhine cruise in Germany
Wasted 3 hrs driving up from Wavre (Brussels) to Germany to take this boat cruise for an hour up the River Rhine, had lunch in a little small town, and took the cruise back where we started. Uncle Kim drove us to a nearby town where we walked around for a bit. And took another 3hrs drive back home to Auntie Jackie's yummylicious foood......*yawn

Switzerland escape
The best part of my trip. Stayed in a beautiful apartment with Anita and Stefan (a swiss couple me and Jaime met while travelling in Vietnam 3yrs ago). Brought us to so many places that no tourists would have been to, really experienced Swiss culture. Even went to Stefan's father's alp in the mountains and had authentic Swiss coffee schnappes. (alcohol level 60% - brewed by some friends in the other alps). And Sarnen (the town we lived in) was gorgeous. Approx half an hour drive frm Lucerne and one hr drive from Interlaken. No words can explain how great the trip was. Sarnen beat all the other places flat.

Tourist destinations visited: Lucerne, Interlaken, Berne, Mount Pilatus

Paris 'oui oui'
Arrogant and rude French people, dirty train stations, ridiculous queues to see overrated tourist attractions. LVs, Guccis, Pradas of the world all convene here, with shops filled with screaming Asian aunties and young wannabes squealing in delight over a RM4K handbag. thats not all...at the LV shop, you have to queue to pay.
Its not as bad as it sounds.....really.... =)

Tourist destinations visited: Eiffel Tower, Champs Ellysee, Arc de Triumphe, Galleries Lafayette, Museum de Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral ( i bet i've spelt half of them wrongly)

Back to Malaysia, back to work, 2 wks was just perfect. Now makes me appreciate home-cooked food even more....no more cheese, cold ham, and bread for a while...yippee..

time to sleeeeeppp.....nice comfortable bed.

lazy saturday

went karaoke with the corr-zins this morning. and accompanied them to do some shopping....it really sucks to go shopping when you know you can't afford to buy anything. am saving up for my europe trip in 2 wks time.. can't wait to go!! after that, its gonna be back to travelling to 3rd world countries again.

the past week hasn't been superbly busy in comparison with the earlier 2 wks but still been quite loaded with work. am quite glad i finally decided to install windows vista in my new laptop, and now it seems to be working all fine except for the Wifi at home.

was supposed to go out to watch the Man Utd vs chelsea match, but seriously feel too lazy to move my body an inch. just wanna laze at home and enjoy a bit of TV. well.. i managed to do the lazing bit, but mum and ah-fun-jie are watching some oldies singing competition..so there goes the TV-enjoying bit.

ah wells...but being at home in my shorts and glasses still beats being at work or socialising.. =p

yeeah...should i sleep or should i stare at the ceiling......

eventful perhentian trip

back to the city, back to work.. the past few days in perhentian was quite an experience. i headed there with the intention to just chill and relax all day, but lots of unexpected things popped up...firstly we couldn't get accomodation on kecil after spending the whole morning looking for rooms, ended up 7 of us had to squeeze in 1 room on besar. now we all know who snores the loudest, and who sleep talks. =)

hehe..then we also had to take a small sampan at night during a thunderstorm to get back frm kecil to besar. we were totally drenched and had to concentrate on protecting our phones / cameras etc whilst also trying to stop my imagination from running wild especially each time when i looked up, all i could see was darkness, and the only time when all was clear was when there was lightning.

....and my slipper broke while trying to climb into the sampan amidst the strong waves.

and in our room, 'batman' attacked, thankfully weisian was around to chase the bat out of our room, coz bern and kenny were out getting supper.

and on our journey back, waiting for the bus at jertei was also quite an experience. the bus station was filled with bugs that looked like dog fleas but humongous ones. and the malays were not at all bothered by them, but we were quite grossed out. the bugs were quite stinko. and our bus was delayed by half an hour, so we stood by the roadside fighting off bugs. =p

...but nonetheless, it was still a great trip!! managed to get a tan (bit burnt actually), everyone had a great laugh, and was a good break from work. but now i know, next time i go to perhentian, definitely go during off peak season. =)

grr back to work tmrw.....

i'm off to perhentian!

Finally got my new laptop working, so decided to put it to use by editing my blog which i've just resurrected. in 2 hours time i'm gonna be off to perhentian!! yippee doo!! even though this is my 3rd time there, but I fell in love wif the place since the 1st time I went. Hopefully the weather's gonna be nice and sunny.

2 days ago had major gastric, its the most gruelling feeling ever...almost thought i wouldn't be able to make this trip, but thankfully its much better now, just have to make sure i take my medication and eat my meals on time. and i'm gonna be off alcohol for a while...long while... think i've had quite enough the last few wks. first it was flu, then fever, asthma, period pain, and now gastric..all in 2 weeks. think its god's way of telling me its time for healthy living. no more ciggies, 2nd hand smoke, alcohol, and all the what-nots. time to detox!!

anyways, gonna pack up and head off for a nice tan!! yiippee doo!!!

my blog is alive again...

its been almost 5 months since i've been back from nepal. writing this blog entry from home is certainly very different from writing a blog entry when i was in nepal.

for one, i dont even know what i should write about as life in the past 5 months havent exactly been the most exciting months of my life. nothing new to write about except whine on about how work has been quite a struggle. well 5 months after nepal, 5 months into brand planning...everything's just whooshed past in the last 5 months working as a "strategic planner" - a glamourous name if you have really all the qualities to be a good one.

am still doubting whether i'm cut out for this 'much-sought-after' position that is only given to the 'selected' ones. sometimes i just wonder why go through all the stresses when you can take the easy option of doing something you really like.

ah well..i guess its not so easy for everyone to just drop off whatever they're doing and embark onto a total different career path. many a times i've been so tempted to just throw in the white towel, but thankfully i've been supported by enough sane people to keep me from doing something irrational again.

have concluded i'll just hang on to this job thats although driving me rather insane - and just learn whatever i can and take whatever comes next. guess when i'm really sick of this, i will throw in the towel no matter what anyone tells me.

la la la.. now i'm sitting at home coz had a rather serious asthma attack which the inhaler didnt work and i had to be on a neubiliser (the last time i used one was when i was 7!!) and this time i had to have double dosage coz i didnt feel that much better after 10mins of inhaling from the machine. actually my attack wasn't really that serious, i could still go for a half day meeting...i think that doctor just isnt that great....grrr.....had to come back coz my hands were starting to shake, and i was getting a bit light-headed from the stuff that i inhaled.

tomorrow's gonna be another long long long day........sighhh........when will these presos and meetings stop.....miss those days in nepal where everyday i just wake up feeling good bout what i'm doing even though my asthma was quite bad then..and also the fact i had to bathe in freezing cold water..=p..but certainly it felt great waking up not having to worry bout meetings and deadlines..sigh...

A new volunteer has arrived

Today's my official last day of volunteering with VSN. and my last day in pepsicola. will be moving to thamel to stay in the hotel with my parents tomorrow. having mixed feelings now... the whole experience feels like its just flew past me.

Spent the whole of this morning just resting in bed coz was starting to feel a bit feverish yesterday and the whole of last nite. Restrained from taking panadol coz Marty convinced me that we should let our body do self-healing instead of relyin on chemically-created medicines. So just flooded myself with bottles of water, and am quite satisfied that I'm feeling much better. Usually at the first signs of sickness, I'd reach for medication, but guess now might try to avoid it as much as I can.

Over dinner last nite, he was talkin about how our everyday diet is creating humans with a lot more deformities than previous generations ago...etc etc.. Very interesting things he brought up. But on the other hand, life is so short enough as it is, if we were to really pick on every single thing we put into our mouth, and put so much stress on ourselves worrying about what the next generation will be like due to our binging habits, what's the joy in living then? contradications...

while I was leaving the house to come to the cybercafe, met a new girl who just arrived. she'll be moving up to my room tomorrow when i'm gone. haven't had the chance to speak to her yet, but she seems quite nice, had a sort of uncertain look on her face, but thats really expected. considering how ur just whisked into a house of a stranger in a foreign land...really can be quite daunting.

everytime i write an entry in my blog, i keep feeling surprised as to how fast time has just gone past. next week will be my last week in nepal. and it's back to civilisation..and routine.. kinda looking forward to goin back to work. this trip has been a great break and really did change a lot on my outlooks on life.

thank you Sue for helping me setup this blog, or I wouldn't have been so consistent in jotting down my experience here and would have regretted that much later.

anyways, gotta head off to the orphanage now... kinda sad that i'm leaving them. will be bringing my parents on saturday to visit them one last time before we head to pokhara on sunday-wednesday.

byebye pepsicola....

happy birthday dear friend

yesterday was my last day teaching at the school. taught them 5 values since its my last class:

1) Dare to Dream
2) Never lose hope
3) Don't ever judge a book by its cover
4) Nothing comes without hard work
5) Stay true to yourself

Didn't expect to teach them these..it was quite spontaneous coz when i stepped into the class, felt that teaching from the textbk was quite a boring way to end my last class with them. so figured it might be more useful to teach them something not frm their books. thankfully their teacher was sitting in for this class, so he translated the meaning of the values into nepali for the kids. they sounded really interested in hearing what it was about. well...i guess thats my 5 cents worth of contribution to educating the children here. they were really nice kids, bought some sweets for them and gave some pencils and notebooks to the grade 4 class.

to my surprise, a few of the boys came up to me to give me some flowers. and one of them gave me a plastic flower he brought from home which said 'well wishes'. and this boy is one of the quieter ones who i barely gave much attention to in comparison with the louder kids. he was really sweet. took lotsa pictures with them and eventually had to say my goodbyes.. some of the kids asked me for my phone number in malaysia...hmm..was i really such a nice teacher? i doubt myself sometimes.

anyways, just been spending most of my time at the orphanage. this morning, sugandha brought me on his motorbike to a tailor to make my kurta - nepali dress. i love motorbike rides. especially now the weather's cool and the wind on your face is just a nice feeling. i had a friend who once told me he wanted to buy a bike, i never understood why he would spend all his money just to buy a bike when he's still in debt. and i never understood his love for riding on the bike. but maybe now i do...

something's been bugging me...some of the kids in the orphanage have been slowly becoming more attached to me...sometimes i question if this is such a good thing coz eventually i would need to part. in particular this young boy called suzan. he's a bright kid, very hardworking and very nice to the other children. always wanting to talk to me. yesterday while tsering lama (lady running the orphanage) was just chitchatting to me whilst the kids were doing their homework, she was telling me bout the history of some of the kids.

den she just teased suzan (with no harm intended) coz he had ran away from the orphanage 3 times. on one occasion even bringing 2 other boys with him and once they reached his parents' house, he gave them some money and told them to go back to the orphanage.

his parents live about one hour bus ride away from kathmandu. father's a diver and mother runs a small hotel. they sound quite well-off to me. but when this topic was brought up, suzan suddenly became very quiet and refused to lift his head up from his book. i wanted to ask why then was he in the orphanage but i figured i'd better skip the topic coz i could sense that suzan was feeling very upset bout it. the rest of the evening, he didnt utter a word and at certain times, i could hear a soft sniffling from him. i felt so horrible coz i tried to speak to him but he'd turn his head away. never saw this side of him coz he always looked so cheerful and lively. guess its tougher for kids who are about 8-11 yrs old coz at least the 5 yr old still do not know whats going on and just have a good time playing with each other. i don't understand why some parents know that they can't even feed themselves, but want to have a dozen children and make these children suffer. and for those who can afford, what for have kids if you don't intend to bring them up anyway. sheesh...

anyways, a proud accomplishment is that i'm almost done with reading my book "The tale of Murasaki" and only in 4 days!! usually i take months to finish a book. quite proud of myself!

alriteys, gotta head to the city to reconfirm my air ticket and will be heading to the orphanage after that.

to end this entry, dedicating it to a special friend:

happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear friend
happy birthday to you...

if only you were still around...

alone in nepal

chase has finally left Nepal and is back in malaysia enjoying her hot showers. so now its me here all alone in nepal. sorta used to it though coz while chase was sick, pretty much did things on my own like going to the school and the orphanage. another week has just dashed past and its sunday again. really weird how time flies here in nepal, even though we don't really do much in a day. altogether have been here for 3 weeks already!!

latest updates from the orphanage, me and chase decided to buy some food for them like 2 sacks of rice, eggs, vegetables and meat because the couple-in-charge has been very kind to us and made us stay for dinner twice. also from what we've been observing, the food that the kids eat are just loads or rice with not much side dishes - daal baat etc. They don't really eat very nutritious meals, so we figured it'd be good to buy them some vegetables, meat and eggs.

things seem to be looking good for this orphanage because for the past few days that i've been going there, have been seeing visitors to their orphanage like the school's principal, teachers etc. at least they seem to be getting more help from people. and on friday, they actually got a new washing machine. washing clothes for approx 38 children is no easy feat, and this is usually done by only the 2 older girls. at least now with a washing machine, the clothes would be also much cleaner than done by hand.

don't really have much to update now really coz have been getting into a routine here. teaching at the school in the morning, resting for a bit, then off to the orphanage. this week will be my last week of volunteering coz this would be my 4th week here. have to say i'm getting rather attached to the orphanage coz starting to get to know the kids better, remembering their names, even the quieter kids are warming up. don't really have much to say about the school..not to say i hate the school, but maybe i'd say i don't really like teaching. or maybe just coz i don't really like how the school functions and how their teachers are quite weird. anyways, just 4 more days of teaching and i'm done.

my parents will be coming to kathmandu on friday for approx one week. Am looking forward to their arrival. thats when i'd be leaving pepsicola and stayin in the hotel with them. hot showers here i come!!!! hehehe....

the house will be kinda quiet this week coz brian's gone to his placement house in another part of kathmandu. thankfully marty's still around till this thursday where he's gonna go off to another village for placement. and i'll be leaving on friday. so its all good. haven't been much new volunteers coming in, think there's 2 from england that just arrived but haven't met them yet coz they're staying in a different house.

gotta head off to the orphanage... adios.

sighh...no trekking for me this weekend

Originally i thought yesterday was a pretty alrite day for me considering I managed to find my way to the orphanage's new home. And after seeing their new house, I felt really happy for them coz this was such a great improvement! They now have more rooms, more space and this is a real proper house. The kids looked really happy.

After leaving the orphanage at about 5.45pm when it was getting dark, I made my way home. Only when I reached the gate did i realise my wallet was missing. arggh..to be honest, i didn't really know how to react coz maybe i've sort of adapted to this nepali lifestyle where sometimes you don't really bother reacting too much. i was kinda stunned, but calmer than I expected myself to be. we called the orphanage to see if my wallet was there but they said they couldn't find it. actually that was the only place that i had rummaged through my bag to take some pencils for the children etc but i really can't be too sure coz the wallet could have gone missing elsewhere. sugandha offered to fetch me on his bike to search at the orphanage but i felt is was not necessary coz if they said they couldn't find it, its not nice for us to barge up there to search again. would be kind of accusatory since i'm really not that certain if i really lost it there.

anyways... just quite thankful that i didn't put my USD in my wallet, so the damage wasn't that bad. just lost my IC, my credit cards (which i got my mum to cancel), and money for trekking which was about RM200. and also thankfully i put some ruppee in my pocket so that can last me a while just for coming online for an hour each day and for commuting to the orphanage for the next week.

maybe it's god's way of telling me i need to be focused. My purpose of coming here was to do volunteer work and not to be on a holiday. so the money in the wallet was for trekking which i've decided to cancel. hopefully can get back the 30USD deposit that I've paid.

anyways, hope that whoever picked up / stole / took my wallet will put the money to good use. maybe it might feed a family...maybe it might help pay for someone's uniform...ah well...not gonna dwell on it. guess staying here really changed me a bit coz usually i'd be jumping mad at myself for losing something so important. but now just sort feeling that there's really no point crying over spilt milk and making a big fuss out of it.

gotta head off to the orphanage, bringing a swiss lady wif me today. she's not a volunteer but on like a one week cultural stay program.

adios.....

chase KO

let me dedicate this blog entry to chase since i dont really have much to update today. rather normal day, just finished teaching at the school and killing time before i head off to the orphanage's new home. (hope i still remember how to get there.) she was supposed to fly back on saturday nite but fell really sick with fever and diarrhoea. we told her to just let the diarrhoea continue coz even after taking some pills, it didn't stop. thank goodness we fully equipped ourselves with medication from malaysia. dont think i'd trust going to any doctors here...u can call me paranoid. but nopez, will stay away from them at all cost.

anyways, we told her to just postpone her flight back coz she looked like she was gonna collapse any minute. i know this place isn't some 5-star hotel but we reckoned staying here was better than being quarantined at the kathmandu airport which is no where near even a 1-star hotel.

she's just resting and sleeping at home now. well, maybe the positive side is that i still have a room-mate for a few more days!!! =p evil me.... (no, i didn't poison her to make her stay longer.)

she's got a seat confirmed on next saturday. tried getting earlier flights but they were all booked out. yes i know many are wondering why flights out of nepal are fully booked. it didn't come as a surprise to me coz my parents couldn't even get flights on nepal airlines for their trip here in 2 wks time. they're booked on thai airways which is a bummer coz they need to stopover at bangkok for a couple of hours. and this also means i wont be able to be on the same flight with them when i return. sighh.. ah well...i think they are still trying to get seats on nepal airlines so keeping my fingers crossed. actually quite looking forward to them coming over...

anyways, time to head off to the orphanage's new home. public buses here i come!!!

chase, get well sooon!!!!! guess u have to look forward to more daal baat. =p

the orphanage is really moving!

managed to get back safe and sound from Thamel this morning all by myself. chase fell sick so she took a cab back to the house but I needed to run some errands in the morning, hence i had to come back alone. It was actually quite easy, just need to shout out your destination to the boy hanging on to the side of the bus and he'll tell you if the bus is going there or not.

here's the route: walk about half an hour from thamel to the bus park called Ratnapark. Catch a bus to Baneswor, pay 9 ruppees, catch another bus to Pepsicola and pay another 9 ruppees. It takes bout 15 mins to walk from the main road to the house. even though the buses have no numbers, no words in english, and they look like they're falling apart, but at least the boys working on the buses have been quite helpful by giving correct directions about where the bus is going.

had quite a nice time at the school today. couldn't be bothered to follow their textbooks coz it seemed so boring, so I ended up devising my own things to teach them or played games with some classes.

on the walk back from the school, i stopped by at the orphanage coz i saw a truck with some beds and furniture that seemed to be from the orphanage. Saw the woman-in-charge of the orphanage and she told me that they will be moving today. I offered to help but she said everything was in a mess, so she told me to only go over tomorrow. So I've got the rest of the afternoon off... sighh..now that they've moved, everyday i'll need to change 2 buses to reach their new home. arghh...so not looking forward to commuting.

time passes quite quickly here in nepal. its already 4pm, and in a couple of hours its bedtime.

some general things that i realised i used to take for granted back home:

1) Hot water shower - having a hot shower on Saturdays in Thamel is like the only thing we look forward to in the week.

2) toilet paper / tissue paper - we can barely get these from any of the local shops around because ppl here just don't use them. don't ask me how they blow their noses coz i dont think they do. or they just blow it onto the roads like how they spit on the roads all the time. i had to stock-up on tissue when i was in thamel (the touristy area).

3) washing machine - i've HAND-WASHED my clothes once and will need to do another round tomorrow. so lazy to do it but i've got no choice coz the air's so dusty here that everytime we go out, the shirt will just feel too dirty to wear a second time. wringing your jeans with your hands is no joke.

4) My own car - Having been here for 2 weeks and only commuting mostly by foot or by public bus to the city, I realise how much I miss my car. Last time I even used to complain when the carpark is a bit further away from the entrance of the shopping mall. Think I probably will think twice about complaining after all the walking I've done here.

.....there's many more things really, but these are the main ones that I've personally felt stronger about.

anyways, enough of my ramblings for now. will just stone a bit before heading back to the house. think it'll be a quiet night ahead..... will have to think of what to teach tomorrow... la la la...

Survived two weeks

today's friday..and tomorrow's off day again. Can't wait to head to the city for a hot shower! I've already been here for almost 2 weeks and I'm still hanging on. Yippe!! Everything in Nepal sort of functions in their weird way where there's really no definite plans or nothing's really explained clearly. Today went to the school to teach, only managed to teach 2 classes coz apparently on Fridays, the kids only have half day of school and they spend the remaining time playing in the field. I also asked the Vice-Principal for a textbook so that I could sort of prepare for the class, however he didnt have any. And he didn't even seem bothered to get one for me. Sighh...this school's really got no system. the teachers who were teaching the students English could barely speak a word of it and talking to them was like talking to the students themselves.

anyways, there's really nothing much i can do bout it really. so will probably be heading into the school earlier on Sunday to have a glimpse of the textbook before class starts.

we've moved up into sylvia's room, its much smaller than the one we were staying in, but at least this is higher up and it gets the morning and afternoon sun, so its not so cold at night.

feeling kinda lazy at the moment guess its coz of the hot sun and the dust. will probably be heading back to the house soon to wash my hair whilst its still quite warm.

la la la la la.....

walk walk walk....

today's such a long exhausting day. this morning, me and chase walked wif the kids from the orphanage to their school - a one hour walk which the kids have to do everyday. however, the good news is, the couple running the orphanage managed to raise funds to move their home to a house nearer to the school so the kids don't need to walk so far anymore. thats why today we walked with the kids to their school so that we could see where their new home will be. the new home is indeed a much better house because at least this is a proper house where the kids have a garden to play in and they don't need to walk so far everyday. they will be moving this saturday, so from sunday onwards, i'll be taking a bus to the orphanage in the evenings to play with them.

suzan also brought us to our school placement this afternoon. it was also another long 30mins walk from our house. we met the principal who's a really nice guy but the school is not really in the best condition. We sort of arranged the classes i'll be teaching - 4 classes a day (Grade 3,4,5 and preschool). the school's really weird, they don't really seem to have any system and we were just thrown into a class and the teacher just told us we could teach anything we want since this is the first day. obviously me and chase were quite lost, so we just spoke to the kids a bit, read the textbooks, and basically just spoke with them in English.

After that class, we went to observe a preschool class, which was so boring....the nepali teacher just basically made the kids spell out all the animals in the textbook one by one and had a spelling test after that. I can bet with you that the kids probably didnt even know what they were writing. and the lady teacher also looked like she couldn't be bothered to teach...sighh....apparently i'd have to take over this class from tomorrow onwards also. sheesh...anyone got any good ideas on how to teach preschool in a more fun manner??

i think for the next couple of days, my day's schedule should go something like this. teach at the school from 10am-2pm, go home to rest for a bit, take a bus out to the orphanage at 3 and come home at about 6. its quite packed, but i think i should do alrite.

sylvia just left for bangkok this afternoon, she looked really pleased to leave and finally get some hot showers. i think i'd probably be feeling the same when its my turn to go. me and chase will be moving up to her room coz its on the third floor and its not as cold and noisy as the room we're staying in which is on the ground floor.

yesterday was a really good day, we brought all the kids out for an outing. the original plan was to go to swoyambunath (some temple place) or to the museum, however, in the morning, there was a strike happening in the city so the roads were closed and we couldnt go out. so we changed plans, and brought the kids out to a hillside where they could run around and play games. they looked kinda disappointed when we told them we couldnt go out as planned, but kids being kids, they were ok once they started running around and playing games. it was really great coz the kids were having so much fun. we also made lots of jam sandwiches, bought cookies, fruits, etc. even though it was really exhausting bringing 35 kids out on an excursion...but when we saw how much fun the kids had...it was such a great feeling.

might try to arrange to bring them out to the museum or swoyambunath another time...will see how the timing goes. one thing we've observed also is that the kids here love taking pictures. everytime we take out our camera, they will want us to take pictures for them. and loads of it!!. even at the school, the children were asking us to take pictures of them. after a while, just had to tell them no coz it was getting out of hand.

anyhows, gotta go soon coz need to head back to the orphanage, they should be done from school around this time.

more walking.......

bringing the kids out today

it's been a couple of days since my last entry coz the last few days have just sort of whizzed by and just didn't have the chance to come online. yesterday was the last day of Tihar festival which means all offices / schools will resume tomorrow. it's been quite fun seeing how people celebrate the festival here. the 5 days of celebration here have different meanings. first day was a day dedicated to crows, 2nd day to dogs, 3rd day to cows, 4th day to lakshimi (wealth god i think), and yesterday was for brothers. (meaning people give puja to their brothers at home.) sugandha's family didn't really celebrate the festival coz his mum passed away 2 months ago and they are supposed to be in mourning for one year.

however, yesterday we had a pleasant surprise coz whilst me and chase were just cleaning up / stoning in our room, susanna came to call us to join them in their uncle's house (the house next door which has a connecting door to ours). they were singing and dancing in nepali with guitars, tablas, and all the uncles, aunties, cousins were all there. they couldn't have a formal celebration, but having a small gathering was fine. we joined in for a bit, and ate newari food. the food was quite tasty.

after that, ajit (susanna's cousin) showed me pictures on his computer - then only i realised how big Tihar festival is coz in last yr's pictures, their family had such a big-d0.

anyways, another interesting thing about Tihar is that all the people's houses are lit up with flashing bulbs like christmas and kids form small groups to go singing from house-to-house, asking for money in return. even in thamel, these kids go from shop to shop to ask for money. quite amusing coz most of them get turned away but they still continue for the fun of it.

speaking about thamel, we went to thamel last saturday to stay for a night in one of the guesthouses since saturday is our off day. apparently this is what all the volunteers do, so that they can take a nice hot shower and sort of recharge themselves. sylvia wanted to bring us to a nicer guesthouse but now's peak season so the nicer ones were booked out. eventually we settled for a dodgy looking one but at least it had hot shower and it was really cheap. showered twice and really scrubbed myself!!! we treated ourselves to some nice pizza in the afternoon, had a nice dinner at a restaurant called pilgrim's - vegetarian food but absolutely awesome, great environment as well. met up with kelvin for a bit, coz he happened to come to kathmandu for a holiday. after one full week of chaos here, it felt really good to see a familiar face...very comforting. thamel looked really beautiful with all the lights and candles lighting the shops, less cars, less dust coz it rained in the day, and for the first time, I really understood why this place attracted so many hippies as it really had its own beauty and mysticism that I originally didn't see amidst the chaos and poverty of this city.

about the orphanage, we went with anne to her orphanage last sunday, and was even more appalled at the conditions. the kids here are much younger and most of them don't go to school yet. there were 3 babies that were just left crawling all over the room, peeing all over the place and no one really seemed to bother. the kids here are very different from our orphanage coz they are more attention-seeking and will grab you, pull you for your attention. there's no piped water to this place, so they have to take water from the communal water area and thats why i guess the kids don't really clean themselves. hung around for a couple of hours and the 3 of us were really so exhausted after that. but the kids were just lovely, u really need a lot of patience teaching them their ABCs. or even how to spell. den was also at our orphanage for the remaining days, giving them pencils, notebooks etc, helping them with their spelling, playing games, singing songs, etc. oh yes, the kids here don't blow their noses, i think for the simple reason that most places don't sell tissue!!!! i had to stock up on tissue whilst i was in thamel at one of those foreign supermarkets. for those who remember, you should know how sensitive my nose is. anyways, couldnt resist giving tissue to the kids to get them to blow their noses but failed attempt as they just smudged mucus all over their face. sigh...

managed to do a bit of sightseeing amidst all that. went to patan (another old city area - didn't really like it coz it was just too dusty and dirty). and also managed to go to swoyambunath (a stupa on top of a hill, had to climb steps like batu caves to reach it, and its a place filled with monkeys. got some really nice pics)

generally, a lot of things been happening and the days just been flying past. i do understand why sylvia's been complaining about this place coz she's been here for 2 months and its really quite emotionally taxing. on one hand, u have to juggle your volunteering placement, and on the other hand you got to deal with all the chaos happening around you. to get to thamel, we need to change 2 buses. only costs 9 rupee per ride. it was quite an experience and novelty to blend in with the locals, but i guess after 2 months of it everyday, (she needs to do it everyday coz her placement is teaching english at a monastery somewhere close to thamel), it does get to you. the pple will try to hassle you, stare at you, but most of all, its just the polluted air that really hits u.

thankfully, according to sugandha, my teaching placement is within walking distance from our house, so thats not too bad. will only start teaching on friday coz thats when school starts. but at least now its holidays, so got to hang around with the kids at the orphanage a bit more.

well, wanted to keep this post short, but i guess it will never be coz there's just so much thats happening here. me and anne decided to go for a 4 day trek at the edge of kathmandu valley, in 2wks time, coz we felt it would be nice to get some clean fresh air after all this. won't be going to solokumbu (mount everest regions) coz its quite far from kathmandu, need to fly or take a full-day bus to reach there.

anyways, thats about all that i can remember for now. probably might be able to come online a bit more in the next couple of days. till then......appreciate the hot showers back home!!!!!