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Monday, February 27, 2006

Love Universal

This scene held my attention and broke my heart as Ennis looked at the shirts with pain & regret over the things he could have. Never has small little things, unspoken things say so much. Even though the movie Brokeback Mountain is about gay relationships, the parallels are there: the happiness, the pain, the dreams and all those conflicting and sometimes unexplained emotions... Love is love whichever way you look at it, whoever you share with. D didn't watch the show with me 'cos it's not his kinda show (not action-packed enuf), but I have been telling him about the show, analysing the various scenes out loud to him. At least he listens and asks about it. I am never going to look at shirts in the usual way again. I am quite a sucker for these kinda emotion-driven movies - prior to Brokeback, English Patient was the other one that got me thinking deeply. It's not always that such good movies are made... kudos to Ang Lee.
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Duh Foto - S'pore Cookies In Phi Phi

We were staying overnight in Phi Phi after a day's diving, and were checking out the minimarts on the island when we came across some authentic and traditional S'pore Cookies... except that we had never seen these cookies in S'pore. Duh.
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Sunday, February 26, 2006

Work, Taxes, Quality Life

I hadn't been able to find the time nor the inspiration to write. Somehow, something else will take my attention and time away from blogging. School has started (again!!!) and we are into the 3rd week of the new school term.
But seriously, when I look deeper, I am not super duper busy. Just that the new American Idol season has started; I am doing my Lead Climbing course (6 lessons 3 hours each = 18 hrs) every Wednesdays; been bringing worksheets home to mark more frequently (cos everyone is rushing to complete the syllabus in view of the amount of time lost due to the school's anniversary celebrations & musical rehearsal); Amazing Race 9 will begin in March; continuation of Rescue Diver lessons... and the list continues. And I am supposed to learn driving, possibly after I complete the Lead Climbing course first.
Work has been ok so far, still keen to go to school each day, which I suppose is still a good sign. Afterall I have to remind myself, no work, no money equals to no holidays and pitiful liquid assets. I had received my HK income tax and to my horror, my taxes come up to a whopping HKD23k, which has to be paid over 2 instalments (the first which is due end of Mar @ HKD17k, and the balance later in the year). Drats that's like over S$4k, but then again, life's been pretty good and comfy in HK, so it's a payback to society for what it has given me. D's taxes are at least two times higher than mine, which means he feels the pain even more.
Hopefully the local govt here puts the money it has collected from us into good use, like providing for better care to the old folks I see always begging along the streets of Mongkok. It hurts to see them, reminds me of my granny, so I do give them some whenever I see them. I know some people will say that we shouldn't give them money as this will encourage them to beg even more, but heck what you think, that's the least I can do for them anyway.
D & I have decided to be more thrifty these next few months, more so than before due to the taxes we have to pay. In a way, it is good that we aren't going on any major holidays these next few months. Maybe a short dive trip during the Easter hols, or maybe climbing in Krabi... no firm plans yet.
My concept of work is basically to fund my/our next holiday... not very ambitious , very short-term. To me, it's just something I have to do, to fund a relatively good standard of living and to lead a useful life. I don't intend to use work to define who I am, I know some people whose work/career is their life and if you take it away (or if they lose it), they will be lost. So waking up each day, and still not dreading the fact that I have to work today, I count these as blessings that I am able to enjoy myself and my life even more in these last few years, and most importantly, I get to enjoy these things with D.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Diving Around Phi Phi & The Similans (2 Feb - 7 Feb 06) - Updated Entry

We are back from the underwater world... it was amazing, especially the Similans. D & I saw a different view of God's creation and I sure hope that we didn't mess things up for the fishes, corals etc while we were there. They must be thinking, "Great, these dark-suited neoprene humans with aluminium tanks and exhaling bubbles are gone now." We saw the King Cruiser wreck in terrible currents and choppy seas (I lost my appetite there & was seasick), moray eels of all sizes, countless fishes (wrasse, parrotfish, puffers, triggerfish, my fav clownfish, thousands of glassfish, barracudas, blue-spotted stingrays etc), a huge (possibly 6m) manta ray and a leopard shark which I am pleased to say that I spotted it before anyone else did.
On our first 7 dives, we were taken to various sites around Phi Phi (Koh Doc Mai, Koh Bida Nai, Koh Bida Nok, King Cruiser Wreck, Shark Point, Maya Bay). I thought visibility was quite good at those sites. We did 4 dives on the 1st day, rested the night in the hotel on Phi Phi Island, and did another 3 more dives the next day before returning to Patong. All of us had an "obstacle course" experience when we were at Phi Phi. As our dive boat was berthed some distance away with a few boats between us and the pier, we had to climb on and off these boats (one of which was utterly smelly as it is used to transport trash) just to get to the pier. After that, we had to trudge for another 20 minutes along Phi Phi beachfront just to get to our hotel.
Clownfish Family - My fav foto Glassfish In a Swim Thru' Cavern - taken by Brandon Moray Eel After resting in Patong for another night, we left early the next morning to begin our Liveaboard experience onboard SSD3, quite a floating hotel, luxury living on 4-storey boat. This would take us around the Similan Islands and our dive sites included Koh Bon (where one of my dreams came true with the huge Manta Ray gliding across the waters), Boulder City (lots of huge boulders and saw my first Leopard Shark there), Shark Fin Reef (sharks used to be quite common there but no longer), the beautiful East Of Eden (akin to that of an underwater Japanese garden).
The Magnificent Huge Manta Ray Scorpion Fish Jelly Fish I had used my sony videocam in its Ikelite housing to film most of the things we saw, while fine-tuning my buoyancy, enjoying the clear visibility and diving my first deepest depth of 34m. D was busy taking loads of photos, but had to be really careful with his battery usage as he realised to his horror, that he had left his battery charger back in S'pore.
This has been an amazing holiday. Each dive was different and made special by the fact that I was given the opportunity to be there, a guest in the underwater world.
Seafood dinner @ Patong Apparently none of us felt a tinge of guilt tucking into bbq squid, butter prawns & crayfish after diving.