Looking at the visit statistics, it's not hard to understand why I average 12 visits a day as of late... While I averaged 7 posts a month in 2008, so far in 2009, only less than 3 a month! And usually they are these useless posts about typhoon hits and misses...
Fun always remind me to update my Blog, but I told him it's pretty much RIP.
I don't think my life got... uneventful, or boring.
In fact, alot has happened in 2009.
Went to the Philippines twice, went to Singapore with pals, almost went to London but had to cancel due to work, and then had a short but eventful trip to France last month. This past weekend I was in Guangzhou for a whirlwind tour... was there for about 28 hours but seemed like we did alot: first time on KTT to GZ (tried the older Chinese trains before), stayed at a pretty nice hotel, walked around a thousand-year-old street, saw old authentic Guangzhou-style tenement buildings, saw Sandy in Concert, hit a hip local music club, had dim sum at GZ Lin Heung, strolled through the former foreign concession area of Sha Mian Island, had FIRE THERAPY that sounds as scary as it looks, and finally, missing the KTT back and had to route through SZ by taking the CRH for the first time and was quite impressed with the service.
So that was GZ.
In a couple of weeks I will make another short trip to Macau to see a shorter version of Sandy's concert, but apparently would be attended by mostly HK fans.
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Something else also happened in the last few weeks. A good classmate of mine passed away while I was in France. She had battled cancer for a few years already, during which her diagnosis got better for a couple of years, but the cancer eventually came back and spread to other part of her body.
I'm certainly not a religious person, but I do believe she's at a better place now (she was a Christian and was often surrounded by her church friends), after all that suffering and pain she had gone through over these years. Is it a sign of maturity, or have I been desensitized? Or are they one and the same? But death, I feel now, does not represent the End and it is not necessary a sad thing for all. On the day before my departure to France I did visit her at the hospital. Thinking about it when I learned the news, I remembered that even though she was mostly unconscious, as she was the previous time I visited her, she did give me a rare smile and she almost looked awake at a moment. That's the memory I will keep as the last image of her, along with those times we had during our workshops, classes, dinners, dim sums, etc.
About a month ago, another friend of mine lost his mother, to complications associated with cancer. While reading the eulogy written by her family and printed for guests at the funeral hall, I was touched by their simple words, they simple way of telling us about a husband's wife, a daughter's mother, the son's best friend...
Death gives us an opportunity to remember the ones that have gone before us. Some of us choose to do it in a more visible way, but I always believe these things are more personal and should be done so quietly.
RIP, Mrs. Yan and Winnie.
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Then there's the picture above. When I saw it I thought to myself... how come we always feel lighter and happier when we see sunflowers, especially loads of it?
