Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Dream Came False

First off, I'm an ice cream maniac. I love all kinds of ice cream and I don't care if it's a street stall one or a 5 star one . As long as it's yummy I heart it all.


For some reason, I deposit my heart with one of the ice cream street stalls in Muak Lek, Thailand. It's the best so far. And so far it's the best. That coconut ice cream never fails to impress me. Believe it or not, I always had more than 5 cups each time I went there. The owner really loves me. Duh! Haha Guess, she loses one great customer now. Next time when I visit there, I'll make sure I break my old records. Hehe And don't worry ice cream won't make you fat. Diabetes? Maybe, if you have it way too much! Oh how I wish I could FedEx it here now!


Anyway, my second favorite would be the ice cream cake from Swensen's. It was the best when I was in Thailand and that's why it captures my heart still...until...Until last Sunday. I was craving for it like months and I thought my life would be complete after having it last Sunday. Gosh, I was still on earth after having a bite of it instead of being on cloud 9 as I was before. The taste sucked. The decoration's okay. The price was somewhat $5 more than the one I bought in Thailand. Well, I first didn't pay much attention to the price at all. I know it's higher and all, but I thought it'd taste the same. Man, dream came false. Now thinking about it again, I don't know if the taste's really different, or I miss there too much until everything here tastes awful, or because it's not someone's birthday and I still bought it and had it, or because I had no one to fight over it with me??????? Guess, the last one ranks the highest. Sometimes, having it all by yourselves is not fun at all. I'm talking about food/meal/snack/ice cream here, by the way, not money guys. Those HUNGRY-LIKE-HEAVEN times when you fought with your friends over all kinds of food you're having together were just awesome. I wish I could fight with them everyday like before. And I wish my parents could fight with me over the food sometimes, too. Haha  
Nevertheless, I'm not going to give up.  I mean I'll still buy it. It's just that I'll buy a different flavor next time. An ice cream maniac you know! But what flavor should I buy because this one had three flavors in one cake already. Never mind, will decide when the time comes!


p.s. I'll post the pictures later because I was way too excited to take it with my dad's phone. So pictures up later when I'll get a hold of his phone. Until then, good night!  



Saturday, October 23, 2010

Hachiko

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/be/Hachi_poster.jpg
I watched this movie yesterday with one of my relative. It's a 2009 American movie based on the true Japanese story which happened back in the 1923-1935. It's about Hachi, one rare loyal pet/dog. It begins when a professor finds him at a train station. The Professor at first tries to find Hachi's owner or asks someone else to take him in, but no one wants him. His wife doesn't love puppy, but she finally gives up after seeing her husband's and Hachi's bonding. They are inseparable. Hachi always sends his owner to the train station when the Professor goes to work and come back home afterward. He will fetch the Professor again at the train station at 5pm when the Professor comes back from work and together they walk home. This continues for sometimes until one morning when Hachi refuses to send his owner to work. The Professor finally leaves without him. Hachi then goes after his owner with the ball in his mouth, the Profession is surprised but pleased that Hachi is eventually willing to play fetch with him. They play for awhile, and the Professor leaves on the train despite Hachi is barking at him. At work that day, the Professor dies while giving lecture to his students. At 5pm Hachi comes to the train station as usual, but his owner doesn't return. He is later given to the Professor's daughter and son-in-law. His wife moves to another town. Hachi escapes his owner's daughter's house. He finds his way back to his old town where his memories with the Professor were make. He walks to places where he used to walk with the Professor. He continues waiting for his owner at the train station and looking for food at the restaurant nearby where the restaurant's owner always feed him whenever he passes by. He sleeps under the old train carriage at night and wakes up when the train arrives to wait for the Professor's return. He waits patiently for his owner about a decade. One day, the Professor's wife visits her husband's grave, she tells one of the Professor's friend that she still misses him even though it has been a decade. Arriving at the train station, she is shocked to see Hachi old, dirty, and weak, still maintaining his vigil. She then decides to wait with him for the next train. That night, Hachi returns to his usual spot, lies down and falls asleep for his last time, dreaming of his owner, and later sees a vision of the Professor who picks him up before their spirits rise to heaven.

This is the official movie trailer:





Real Hachi:

Source: http://hubpages.com/hub/Hachiko


Source: http://hubpages.com/hub/Hachiko


Source: http://hubpages.com/hub/Hachiko


Statue of Hachi, Shibuya Station, Tokyo, Japan
Someday I'm gonna pose with Hachi!

Source: http://insidemybackpack.blogspot.com/2010/08/hachiko-dog-story.html

His stuffed and mounted remains are kept at the National Science Museum of Japan in Ueno, Tokyo.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D


The real Hachi was born in November 10, 1923 and died in March 8, 1935. Thankfully, I watched this with my relative otherwise I'd cry my eyes out. I was trying like heaven to hold up my tears. My face was red all over. I couldn't blog about it at all yesterday and thought everything would get better by today, but heaven NO!


For all dog lovers, I highly do not recommend this film. Make sure you have a hundred rolls of tissue besides you before watching it!


p.s. gotta love my dogs more!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

~Signs~

After looking at my recent photo for so many times, I saw so many signs. Signs which signal danger! 
I need to do something to erase these signs and I came up with these ideas:
  • A haircut, fringe/bang is a must
  • A new pair of spectacles/glasses
  • Eliminate those awkward stiff styles make when taking pictures
  • Don't smile too much because my eyes will be invisible/smaller
  • Always check the photos after each photo is taken to make sure that I'll look alright and not creepy!
That's all for now, I guess. And I'm still thinking if I should upload that creepy photo of me here! Haha

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

My Determination and I

Last week on Friday, October 15, 2010, I accidentally came across a question on Facebook. A 50/50 question that caught my attention. It's a question where you could claim for the prize, but it was limited to the first 3 people only and I was like 30 minutes behind. So it's a 50/50 question. The prize was the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Just in case you're wondering, the question was from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. They interact with Facebookers by posting questions, safety tips, health tips, to name a few. And I always participated in especially, the question-answer ones. The difference is they didn't give out prizes before, but they did last week.

Honestly, I never knew the answers right away after I finished reading the questions, but I googled and posted my answers. They didn't restrain you to do so anyway. Their idea is to get people to acknowledge their good activities mainly done in Cambodia. So I tried my luck even though I knew I was late for 30 minutes already. I was glad I was my old self that day. A person who would try it even though everybody said you couldn't. A determined girl. That was me! My new self is a hopeless hope because I have to ask others' opinion first before moving on to doing whatever it is. And it sucks. Enough said for the negative points here. This post shall be happy, excited, surprised, and honorable.

And this is the question they asked:

What year was the canal at the Barai Occidental in Siem Reap inaugurated? It was reconstructed with American aid to support Cambodian irrigation systems and inaugurated by Prince Norodom Sihanouk and U.S. Ambassador William Trimble.

I have to admit that this one wasn't easy to find as the previous ones they'd asked, but since I'd started it I'd to finish it, too. I read and spotted the key word, William Trimble. I'd check his working periods in Cambodia so that I could narrow down my search. After browsing here and there for awhile, I found the answer. I sent it right away as I'd instructed to. After a few minutes later, they replied back.

CONGRATULATIONS! This was the first word I read. I was on cloud nine. I thought I was late already, but no I wasn't. They said my answer's correct and asked for my contacts and they'd send it on Monday, October 18, 2010.

On Monday I waited from morning until... Around 2:05pm I received my dictionary. A man from the mail express company delivered it. I signed my name and rushed back inside to open the package. I found a letter of appreciation and my dictionary. I was and am still glad I did try it. Even though it's not something big, but sometimes even a small hug can put a smile on your face throughout the whole day. I don't care what other people think, I only know that I've done what I did in the past. A strong determined me! I hate how people around me tend to always put me down or object to whatever I want to do or achieve. At least I could prove to them that I'm not that worthless even though I know they'd think otherwise still.

 I'm not going to upload the letter of appreciation here for some reason. But you can have a glimpse of my dictionary.  

p.s. The answer to the question is 1960.

Monday, October 18, 2010

A Century of Stress

After climbing a thousand mountains, swimming across three oceans, crawling over a hundred fields full of thorns, flying a million miles with vultures, and racing with a billion of ostriches I got to hang out with my friends for 5 hours yesterday. 


We made a great plan. It could be considered as the greatest so far, but it didn't work out really well. Not a big deal though! Hehe We left at 2pm because it was raining in the morning and ... I even posted my wish on facebook asking for the rain to stop. And yeah the rain stopped around 12pm. We all met up around 2:30pm and we headed to Parkway for bowling. Yes, we wanted to play bowling. We never played before, but we watched people/cartoonists play it a lot so we wanted to give it a try. Haha
We were so ready for it. We even wore the thickest masks we have on our faces, literally speaking here. We knew we would definitely embarrassed ourselves in so many ways so we took out our best thick-skinned in store and wore it. Actually, we get used to those embarrassed moments already because we've had them so many times until our faces became numb or something. We were so excited and all.
The bowling place is on the third floor. We saw one cool cafe on the second floor and decided to drop by later after bowling. And yeah, we're here in front of the bowling place now. We were gazing from the outside, trying to find an empty spot. Heaven no! It was over full. Not full, but over full.  
We walked down to that cool cafe first and came back later hoping that it would be free later. The design of that cafe is so nice, so nice for couples to be exact. Couples would use romantic instead of nice, right? Okay, whatsoever! We fell in love with the design at first sight. So we went in. Gosh! The first sight look and the first sight smell was totally different. We're pretty sure it wasn't an aroma from the food, but we didn't know what kind of aroma was that either. Not a good one anyway. But for the sake of taking pictures we had to bear with it.No one inside was bothered to look at us, 4 beautiful cute girls, because they were busy dating. Haha Well, we didn't care about it, too, because we know we're perfect and all. In other words, we're A! (A in Cambodian means otherwise. Hehe) One of my friends was so craving for burger. We even had a hard time asking for the menu. In short, the service was bad. But we still could transformed it into jokes. And when they handed out the menu, man, we were pretty shocked. We once again felt like we were in an exam hall. They had a list of food and drinks accompanied with prices on both sides and we simply had to tick off whatever we'd like to have. Even the names of the food and drinks are weird. One of the ice creams was named something like Earthquake. My friends ordered three burgers and I ordered french fries because I wasn't hungry. FYI, my french fries' name is French Fries Self-Made at Home. What a creepy long name! We were joking about it, but didn't really pay attention to the meaning at all. While they took decades to make our orders, we were having fun snapping pictures. There was a couple sitting next to our tables. They came like 5 minutes after us, I guess. Sometimes later, they switched their table and you should know why. We were talking, snapping pictures, laughing, moving here, standing up, sitting down, moving there, and all. How could they be romantic having us around? Haha We knew we would be like this that's why we chose to sit at the far end corner of the cafe. Not our fault, guys! It's not like the cafe was full or something, why followed us? Anyway, we had so much fun taking pictures. Crazy styles, cute styles, normal styles, lazy styles, oblivious styles, etc. styles, we ruled it all! And when the orders arrived, we stopped right away. Haha The first sight of the food wasn't that attractive, but we gave it a way anyway. After a few bites, my friends realized that it's a veggie cafe. Gosh! We were spending over three years at a veggie college and now what? That fake burger meat reminded us about our cafeteria burger. So uncool! But my french fries was a bit different. It was really made base on its name. It's more like Indian or Asian fries to me since the color wasn't fair/white like the usual french fries. It's brownish/red. And the taste? Haha The taste was like the street stall potatoes fries. Not that bad, though! At least I know mine didn't have meat so my disappointment was lower than my friends'. We didn't finish the food and the drinks anyway. The price wasn't that bad either because the food and drinks weren't that good. Haha So we hurriedly headed to the third floor for our bowling place. Dang! It was over and over full this time. Over over full! Our dream shattered. We still managed to take a couple of pictures from the outside with the bowling place as a background, though. We walked back wearing frown masks instead. Poor us, we didn't get to use our thick-skinned masks there! Next time! Next time we must make it inside no matter what! Haha
Our next plan was to take sticker pictures in a photo booth at City Mall. Thought everything would be perfect this time, but heaven no! We couldn't find the place. We thought we mistook the floor so we kept going up until the last top floor and still we couldn't find it. I decided to drop at a Korean store and bought something and when I asked where's the photo booth to the store assistant, she said, it's closed already. What a lucky day for us! We didn't give up, though. We left there and headed for another place along the street opposite of Santhor Mok High School. Here's another nightmare! This place's closed as well. Well, since we've been taught to never give up easily, we spotted the last shop which is somewhere near my house thinking that if this one is closed as well, we'd go and eat the bbq nearby that shop because it's closed to my house and I had to go back before sundown. And that's it. We ended up eating another round. That last hope shop's closed, too. So we ordered using our styles we used to do in Thailand. Man, reminiscing the past with your dudes are so good. Everything was almost exactly the same except the taste. It wasn't that tasty here especially the sauce, but we still managed to finish two sets. Haha Same rule! Four girls two sets! No wonder, we couldn't lose weight back then when we were together. Our famous activity was eating. And well, I guess it is still the same except that we don't get to promote it every single day like before. So yeah, we finished our fun day at 6:30pm and headed straight to my oh-so-lovely home! I just hope I won't get stuck this long again. Life is so good when you can see more than five people everyday. By the way, my shopping list is still on. Hopefully, we can make it out again next week. Oh, I talked nonstop yesterday! Never run out of topics when I'm with my bestest dudes. Haha I think you can even tell here. I never wrote this long in such a short time for my college papers unless it's a final. Enough said. I don't think people will make it here, will you? We'll see.  



I have so many things to blog about today, but it looks to me like I have to divide my posts. This first post is a pain in the eyes already. Bear with me because I didn't get to hang out with my dudes for quite sometimes. The hype is high, you know! So for now 再见! 


p.s. Below is my facebook wish I posted yesterday regarding the rain thingy!

Dear rain, please stop now! I want to go out with my dudes...it's been years since we last hung out together. so please understand us especially me...I've been home for almost a century already! I promise you can even flood Phnom Penh tomorrow, but please stop falling now...just for today...please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And this is US!

 

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Rain and Thunder

Source: http://kpoprants.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/%E2%96%BA%E2%96%BAmblaqs-thunder-wants-his-sister-dara-to-date-rain/
I don't mean to disappoint you or something, but NO! No, I'm not talking about these two guys. I want to talk about those natural thingy here. The advantages and disadvantages of them, to be exact. It's been raining like crazy these last few days. It rains everyday. I "heard" (I use 'heard' because I'm stuck at home, it's as simple as that, don't ask!) it's flooding almost everywhere. It reminds me of my old days. I used to be happy whenever it rained especially, those periods before I entered college. Why? Because my schools would be flooding if it rained heavily or nonstop for a few days. And flooding here means no school. Hehe
Things changed when I entered college. There's no such thing as flooding you could use as an excuse to skip classes. It would never happen unless Noah's era comes back. My college is located in a mountainous area. So no matter how heavy or frequent the rain came, flooding was never meant to be there. Poor me!
How about now? I'm home. Yes, I'm home!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And my home is high. And my Chinese class is at home, too. So there's no flooding to look forward to anymore. Strangely, I've come to dislike it for some reason. Well, I guess I really dislike it now until I can make a list of advantages and disadvantages of it. Let's start with advantages first so that I can feel the hype and finish my post. Note: These advantages and disadvantages can happen only when rain, thunder, and lightning come together. If rain comes alone everything will be as usual.

Advantages:
- Able to finish my assignments early
- Able to read my books
- Able to sleep early
- Able to lose more weight

Disadvantages:
- No computer
- No internet
- No Facebook
- No Twitter
- No blogs
- No TV
- No phone
- No music
- No LIFE!

9 disadvantages and 4 advantages. Not bad! Haha
By the way, for those who aren't living in Cambodia, you may have some questions in mind to why I can't do everything listed under Disadvantages. Well, everything started a few years ago if I'm not wrong. Lightning has become fiercer and fiercer to a point when you can't use electrical devices while it's raining otherwise you'll be likely to reach a point of no return. You can't stand in the middle of the field or play soccer/etc. in the field while it's raining. You can't use sharp things like knife while it's raining. You can't stand/sit/sleep under the trees outside your house while it's raining. I hope you can understand what I mean here. And I'm not kidding. We have like over a hundred case already reporting of people dying from the lightning strikes. Oh yeah, that includes your animals and pets, too. So watch out!

I think that's all for tonight. Guess I can't read my books now. It's 11:55pm already.
So good night everyone!