Thoughts beyond my life & my travel - Bel

I rushed back to parents' home one day and walked fast across the concourse of Central Station from one side to another. Something caught my attention. Two buggies were parked on the side with a mother squatting on the floor. It's not a very common scene especially for a western mother in this awkward position. When I passed by the buggies, I had a peek and realized that the mommy was breastfeeding her son alone with the buggies parked like the shields. The Central Station is almost the biggest in Hong Kong with thousands of people passing by every minute. I pondered if I were a mother, would I do that? I saw mothers breastfeeding in the bench in the hospital I work but we don't have a busy patient flow. To me, breastfeeding is not something you will do it in public but I know mothers will do anything when their babies ask for it. Maybe the train station should consider to have a breastfeeding / babycare corner for those mothers.

I hope I'm back to the swim routine again as it's a workout for your whole body. I used to know how to swim freestyle, then learnt the breast stroke by myself. Only till today I realised that I didn't quite know how to do freestyle. It's alternate breathing instead of breathing from one side. I'm still not quite sure whether I will do it the "right" way but I will definitely watch how many swimmers actually do so the next time.

I tend to think a lot more when I'm being with someone. One of the things that I learnt from my Master's study is that you could always learn more when working with others on certain projects. Maybe I can learn some new things when I'm not alone, that's why my brain is working harder to absorb something new from a conversation or interaction with others. There is a time when I think too much and even worry about things that I shouldn't worry about like the personal life of someone else. Then I start to wonder, "is it really better to be not alone?" But when I'm sick and I feel by myself, I can talk to someone and I can feel better just by hearing the familiar voice.

The temperature dropped to below 10C recently that made me start a sweater hunt. I couldn't find one at the Sedan Chair Bazaar last Sunday. So I kept looking and I walked around a few shops after the massage therapy class. And unexpectedly I found some sweaters on a big sale. They are of basic design but nicely made of wool, angola and cashmere. They are light, warm and tight fit, so I should be careful when washing it. I got some thick nice jackets but the older I am, the more I hate to wear heavy and bulky clothes. So finding a light warm sweater makes me feel better in cold days.

I saw my colleague bringing out a "white device" from her bag when we're riding on the shuttle bus. I was curious and asked her what was that. Oh, it's a kindle . I heard of it for long but I didn't know it looks quite stylist, cooler than an iPhone. It's A5 size, white with cute keys design but it costs over HK$2,000. Well, you can get a book cheaper from Amazon with kindle version but you must be a book worm to cover the cost of that kindle. It's true that you don't need to bring a heavy book here and there but I still miss the design of the book, flipping the pages and seeing myself getting closer and closer to the end of the page. I feel good when I finish reading a thick book, almost feeling like winning a small battle.

I resumed to read a novel a month ago when my sleep got better. Reading books make me feel alive because that means I have the energy to do something other than work and cooking. It's the thickest novel that I've ever read. The book is called "The other side of the story" by Marian Keyes. It's about love stories and the book business, specially catered for women readers. I wonder whether female writers usually write books for women only. I was excited when I was reading half way though there were over 300 pages to go. But when I got closer to 500 pages, I was almost addicted to it and wanted to finish it right away. I felt a bit down when I finished that despite there was a feeling of achievement of reading the whole book. Now, I'm ready to emerge into another book journey but I just need to find another good book.

I used to be living alone for years and had shared an apartment with a friend of mine once. I didn't mind sharing an apartment at all as there was enough room for us to have our private moments. I once stayed in my Japanese friend's place in Tokyo. She said that she always love to live alone but she told me that she felt okay while I was staying there 'coz we didn't do all the things together but we respect personal space. We could breathe and we could have our own private moments as well. I recalled what she said after my friend's visit. Will that be the best solution for two people sharing space?

It's just about a week that my friend left but it seemed like a month already. I've been missing the vacation time and trying to capture the moments we spent together. I always like to write a travel journal but the more I write, the harder it gets to note down everything that I've seen, I like and my thoughts. The travel journal for this vacation is a special one and I know I should write it down to keep my memory refresh and I'm not sure whether I should post them in my blog.

I rarely picked up friends at the airport as our airport is very efficient and it's not hard to go to the city centre with public transportaiton at all. Of course, I made an exception for close friends that I care about. On 17 October, I was counting down the time for my friend's arrival. I tried to relax and not to go to the airport so early but eventually I still arrived pretty early. I hated to find out that his flight was a bit delayed. I didn't meet this online friend in person so I was a bit nervious on whether I could recognize him. Sometimes I looked around and wondered if that person was him as he's there for some minutes and seemed to be waiting for someone. Well, his flight was delayed, of course, that's not him. I bet I just hated the feeling of waiting and wanted to spot him out right away and came home. As time passed by, there was no sight of him. I started to feel a bit anxious and couldn't help text him just in case. Soon that I realized some pe...

I spent to the hospital with my mom for the cystoscopy procedure. Mom said it's fine she could go without me but I knew that she's happy to have me around. That's the time I felt she's like a kid and I could take care of her a bit. It's amazing that the hospital staff let her walk around right after the procedure. I thought she should have lied down for an hour for recovery but the nurses said there were no recovery at all. She couldn't feel very painful till she walked down to the pharmacy when the local anathesia didn't work anymore. Whether we're healthy or not depend a lot on genetic factors. I look at my mom and sometimes I think "will I be like her suffering from this and that years later?" What if I could bear with that all by myself? I probably need to be a "stronger" person then.

Did I talk about sleep too much that makes the disorder kick back? I found myself more fragile when starting to talk about it with people whom I don't normally trust. Seem like the disorder drives me mad! Not I didn't realise that so many people are having a more tough life than I. Look at the old woman picking up cans in exchange of money. Check out the old man who asks for a dollar to pay the tram fare. See the lady who is pregnant with multiples but later find out two of them don't have heart beat anymore. Many people are having longer working hours and having more stressful jobs but why me? So I got a long "lecture" from a colleague today. Am I feeling any better? No, but more and more people point out that it's stress. So I decided to try another therapy from now on... "Positive therapy" What's the happiest thing about yesterday? * To see Alice, the 8-month old girl again. She's an orphan who received a hip surgery from a doctor and retu...

I thought I overcame my insomnia problem but the problem kicked in again. It's not like any flu or diaharrea but it's like your body is being chewed slowly. If you saw some paintings drawn by Frida, you can see how much pain she suffered. Now, I probably feel like this . I hope my beauty sleep will come back soon!

I always know sleep is important but I never experienced such a bad sleep. My quality of sleep has been deterioriating. Though I'm not extremely tired, the idea of lack of sleep just gives me stress and makes me mad! Friends, I hope you can pray for me to get some good sleep. That's nothing more that I want for.

When you travel from one country to another, there is always a time difference between two destinations. Then when you talk to a friend who lives overseas and travels to another country the same time as your travel, you definitely find it very confusing on figuring "what time is it" in different cities. I'm not particularly good in Mathematics but everyone can do some simple maths to figure out time differences but it came to a time that my head refused to figure out the local time for more than 2 countries. It was like my head having an argument with me saying that "how come you need to know the time in so many destinations. Right, so I negotiated with my brain and begged him to tell me just the time in one more country other than Hong Kong. He probably thought that it's a fair deal not to make him feel too confusing and tired. Ok, I could figure out the Frankfurt time while I totally put Vancouver timing aside. My friend wrote me a note last week, saying that s...

Korea has given us a high-tech and hip image in recent years. Korean fashion as well as LG and Samsung phones are quite a hit in Hong Kong and are being embraced by many young people. Cosmetic brands such as Skin Food, Laneige, Missha and Mioggi are quite popular, too. However, friends have been telling me that they love Japan but none of them find Korea a fun travel destination. So I decided to check it out myself and give it a fair judgement. Is Korea another Japan? Definitely not. I can only say that it lies in the middle of Japan and Taipei. Some of the shopping alleys do look a bit like Japan but the products are not that innovative and creative as in Japan. There are a lot more excitement wandering around the streets of Shinjuku or Subuya or even Omedesando in Tokyo. But I wasn't that impressed by the shopping areas in Korea. Is it high-tech? Maybe I didn't have a chance to check out its electronic stores so it's not fair for me to say anything I believe its mobile ...

I joined more tour groups recently as it's a cheaper way to travel and I didn't want to spend time planning for some of my trips. For sure, I prefer to travel on my own and find it more interesting even though I will get lost, spend more time walking or even spend more. I might not stay in a hotel when travelling on my own but I usually could choose to have a better meal no matter it's sandwich or a proper dinner. Of course, it's more fun if you meet an interesting guide in a tour group. The tour guide was a Chinese man this time. He's born in Korea but is so candid that you might wonder what he's trying to tell us. He's not eloquent in Cantonese and didn't know the hip things. The tour group stayed quiet most of the time. The only things he could get our interest was telling his love story. I bet that's the trick used by most of the tour guides in Asia. They always tell their personal stories (whether it's true or not) to relate to the local cul...

New airports were built in every city these days in order to stay competitive. Seoul also has a new airport built in Incheon located 40 minutes from the capital of Korea. I arrived early at the airport on the departure day and explored every corner of this massive airport. In terms of size, it surely beats Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Japan, Taipei and Vancouver. It's the biggest and the best I've seen, too. Overall, the new airport is very big, well planned and taken into consideration many elements that truly cater the needs of modern travellers. Massages are no longer new in airports. But if you arrive early or need to spend hours before transferring to another plane, no problem at all. You can go to the Korean experience corner to build a rice box yourself or go to the free Wi Fi zone where they have free notebooks setup with internet access. How good does it sound to you? If you have kids, just bring them to the kid playground in the airport. As Korean currency was depre...

There was headline news about some cough syrup having some substance that can make ones having huccination. It is strongly advised not to give such medicine to small children. So I sat in a doctor interview when a reporter was trying to do a follow-up story. An interesting interview! I learnt to realise that most of the medicine don't quite help with most of the cold but just relieve the symptoms. Therefore, I decided to take a "natural therapy" against the cold that I just went through, that is, to drink plenty of water, to have vitamin C droplets and have warm honey water so as to make my throat feeling better. Of course, it takes time to heal no matter you takes medicine or not. Believe me, it's not a good experience. But I felt that I had too many pills these days and having too many medicine won't do me any good. While I was having a chat with one of my colleagues about medicine and drugs, she suddenly came up with an interesting ideas, "won't antibi...

It's only been a few years that doctors here require to label their medicine. Believe or not, patients usually feel better when they receive a few packets of medicine rather than one or two kinds. So I brought the medicine that the specialist gave me to the Phamarcy, and asked the pharmacist and my GP to learn about what the medicine the specialist gave me. Surprise! Of course, the antibiotics and the cream should mean something but the rest of the three pills do not make a lot of sense. One is probably multi-vitamin, ok - did the doctor think my skin needs more vitamin intake? The other one is the gastro-related medicine, according to my GP, only lessens the impact of the antibiotics. So the specialist is worried about I will have gastro pain after taking the antibiotics? Or does he want more consultations? What's the third one - I totally forgot. So, should we opt for bringing home a lot of medicine? Psychologically maybe but as a matter of fact, we just have more medicine in...

I hadn't thought I would go to see a Chinese Medicine Practitioner as I'm never a fan of those Chinese herbs. Nevertheless I just had my first experience of seeing a Chinese Medicine practitioner last Sunday. I must say that it is quite an interesting experience but drinking those herbs are not funny. As I wanted my experience to be more delightful, I decided to go to the HKU Space one where it's nicely decorated. It's bright, convenient and doesn't have bad herbal smells. Well, it's a bit pricey but these doctors were supposed to be teachers so I bet I should be more relieved. And guess what? I didn't expect them all to speak Mandarin. And I didn't expect there were more than one student to sit in. Imagine there were three people checking your pulses, checked your tongue colour and your skin. Did I do anything wrong? I probably didn't have so much "close attention" by many others for so long. The most challenging part is to drink the bitt...

Advertising needs to be more creative during the financial tsunami. I heard some corporations hired people to have their logos tattoos on their bodies or even their bellies. Some people were paid to have their hair shaved to certain slogan or corporate logos. I saw an smart ad when I walked past the newstand the other day. See what McDonald did!

PCCW and HSBC were being attacked when they received the "caring company award." While they might be doing some work to be socially responsible, their act of cutting staff salary and laying off staff did not make many people convinced for how "caring" they are. Likewise, Park n Shop rebranded some of its supermarkets into "International" a years ago to emphasize that they stock more products from around the world and give customers more choices. I like such concept and am happy with the new look till recently that I realised that the management of the shop is so bad. Firstly, they always price food wrong or their cashiers' record are not in line with the price update, so I sometimes either pay more or have to spend extra time to speak to the cashiers to get the price right or cancel what I pick up originally. That didn't add up to a good buying experience and you find yourself in an embarrassing situation if the line is long. Then a customer found ...

I never celebrated Valentine's Day. When you like someone, you can celebrate any day. You don't have to be just happy on this day. It happened that the Valentine's Day fell on Saturday this year so there wasn't a race for getting flowers in the office. I did a brief research asking my married friends to see if they still receive flowers on that day. Most of them don't and don't think it's a must. So maybe married persons don't want flowers anymore and become more practical. Valentine's Day was such a happpy day this year. I did some experimental pictures and shared with a friend. We had good fun and laughs and played some games, too. Just need more creative ideas to make every day a fun day! Flowers are not a must but humour and fun ideas definitely help!

It is probably the worst year for the world economy that I experienced. The SARS period was sad and I almost felt being discriminated as other countries considered Hong Kong as an "epidemic" city. Overseas clients just knocked themselves up upon their arrival and felt so scared to the extent that they didn't want to meet anyone from Hong Kong. Some businesses were just moved out of Hong Kong but many of them could actually overcome the financial crisis. I was home, jobless for a while but I felt some positive energy like people exercising more, caring much more about hygiene and nurses saving lives. I did things that I didn't normally do such as waking up early in the morning for a gym class and helping kids to test their fitness with my fitness trainer. And finally I got help from a friend who helped me find a job and later I found another one, too. The financial tsunami this time is different. It's more global, more layoffs and we saw the world is more cruel to ...

I never saw someone who blushed so long except myself. I had such a good laugh and maybe I blushed a bit as well. It's really a good start of the weekend when you can laugh that much! Some people who look very serious if not smiling but they look totally different when they blush. The blushes just soften the character and make someone soft, adorable and cute at the same time. A photographer told me that goverment media officers only allowed him to take pictures of a government official when he smiles and at certain angles. That official looks unfriendly when he doesn't smile. I thought only women do mind whether they look good on photos, so some men do really take it seriously and hate being photographed, too. So we shouldn't be feeling bad when we're blushing in front of people 'coz we probably look more friendly, approachable and lovely when our faces are all red. We might feel like we're younger and being kids again, too.

Have you ever explored more about yourself with pictures? I'm not photogenic but I definitely have more pictures than before because of the digital cameras. We can take as many pictures as we can and see whether we like them or even fine tune them. Also we could take some experimental pictures like taking pictures of yourself in different mood, angles or in different dresses. It can be a bit crazy, creative, wild or even intimate. It's fun to check out pictures of people whom you know. You might realise they can be more fun, interesting and behave in a totally oppositive way that you expected.

The finanical tsunami has really affected many people. I started to learn from my friends who got less business, less job or their employment contract being restructured with less benefits. I hate to hear what one of my friends keeps talking about how bad a year she had. I think she should think twice how lucky she is having a job, still having some friends and does not lose so much money in the stock market like what other people did. It's the time for us to reflect what we have and what things we don't need. Life and living can be still good if we live simply with wanting a lot more. Definitely it's a lesson for us to learn to save to weather the bad times and how to think positively and live happy in another way. There was a very good TV programme talking about a few happy families. They are not rich. The dad of one family is going to be blind and couldn't work too. The floor of their apartment is discolored and it's not a big apartment at all. But the couple tog...

In spite of working in the healthcare industry, I never feel I'm so close to death until one day. It's natural that patients might pass away in hospitals but if you're not a clinical staff member, you may not be that involved as other health professionals do. I usually read from the news that people had accients or were seriously injured but a nurse told me that a baby couldn't survive in the OT one day. I felt uncomfortable and down. I was back to my room and did not have the mood to do other things. Well, I bet I should accept the fact that things like this happen and it's nothing unusual in this work environment and I will probably deal with more cases like this in the future. I learnt that a DJ-cum-a comedian was ill and hospitalised from a TV show. He's probably around forties. The host asked him a question, "Do you prefer you or your wife die first?" He said definitely his wife. He said so not because he was selfish. "I want to train her to ...

This happy new year was a bit unusual. I didn't expect Blackberry did help with my work till the New Year Eve and, the most important of all, I didn't expect I had to rush my work well before the countdown. Despite an unexpected call, some sudden news and additional work, I enjoyed my time seeing a movie and having a dinner with a friend of mine and did a countdown with an overseas friend. And I never did a countdown twice that made this New Year a bit more unusual and special. Thanks to skype, we could experience as many New Year as you want now. Well, the start of the year 2009 was already quite challenging but I still hope this will be a steady year. Be healthy, everyone.