R.I.P

March 19, 2010 was an important day to me. I have experienced a soul, Michael, who was one of my closest companions, passed away. It was dreadful and sad. I held on to my emotion throughout the day. I recomposed my thoughts at work as my mind was utterly blank. I recall the sweet memories we spent together: happy and cute look, naughty behavior, mischief attention and high note meowing. It was my first and the sweetest pet of my life. We have spent good quality time together for past 6 years and it was a turning point for me to appreciate a cat. He filled up my life with extraordinary experience. I felt happy as it was a relief for him. He was ill and has lost the quality of life. From this experience, I truly realize that I need to treasure every moment of my life. Appreciate my closest families and friends and spend good quality time with them. I have no regrets.

Farewell Michael, RIP. We’ll miss you!

-Fui

六分六的人生

Am I better than the yesterday’s me? We do not need to compete and compare with others’ talent and mimicking what others are doing. Everybody has his/her talent and is totally unique. The best thing is to identify our uniqueness and pursue what we like to do and make it better. Keep track of our progress everyday and repeat the process. We’ll then forget the competition and focus on doing the things we like. It’s simple, easy and straightforward.

-Fui

Homemade Prawn Noddle Soup in a winter chilly night

Sze has stepped up another level for making a delicious spicy prawn noddle soup. I gave it 5 star. She mixed in homemade chilly paste and prawn souce for the soup. The spiciness was 4 star and taste was fabulous. It definitely savages the freezing chill of a cold winter night. I managed to finish the whole bowl of soup with great satisfaction. what can I ask for more ... more homemade food !!! Thanks to Sze.

Osho:Awareness and ecstasy become one

Tonight I read a message from Osho: ecstasy and awareness become one. This tells me when I feel happy, in love and ecstatic; I need to be aware of the moment. This would make my life happier as those moments will always appear that way in me. Most of the times, people are only aware when they are in agony and depression. This would make lives more miserable and you always have those bad moments in your mind. I have this knot deep inside me for a long time. This has been answered today finally.
-Fui
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Subject: Ultimately awareness and ecstasy become one

The easiest is that when you are ecstatic that is the moment to be aware. In depression, in agony, awareness becomes more difficult. When you are flowing with joy, blissfulness, that is the moment to be aware, but people do exactly the opposite. When they are happy who cares about awareness? And when they are in anguish, then certainly they start thinking it is time to be aware and get out of anguish. But nobody has ever been able to get out from anguish directly.

First, one has to get out from ecstasy. If you can be aware of your joyful moments in the first place, the depression, the downs will not come. The door to get out is from ecstasy. So this is the simplest way:

Be happy and be aware.
Rejoice and be aware.
Love and be aware.

Don't put awareness aside saying, "This is a kind of disturbance; I am in such a great ecstasy." Awareness becomes like a disturbance; it is not. It may appear like this in the beginning, but soon you will see it will take your ecstasy to higher peaks. Ultimately awareness and ecstasy become one. Then those downs, depressive moments, agonies disappear.

karaoke season

It's near the holiday season now. Start thinking of food and entertainment as there are many holidays around. We have been downloading a lot of Karaoke songs lately. Listening to the old familiar songs that have been around my life for past 15 years. All those sweet and bitter memories start to float in my mind. Remembering old friends that I grew up with and how each song impact me at different stage of life. But this time, I really listen to the songs, comprehend the lyrics and sing with them. It's very different than listening to the music while doing other things together. Melody is a soothing remedy for me. I feel the inner self of me singing and being in different dimension of space. It is so free and natural.

Singing reminds me of my childhood. Every kid likes to sing. I was fortunate to participate singing on the stage. I did so well and natural at the very beginning of the years. After teacher introduced the term of prize and competition, I was overwhelmed with the stress. I think I did well too but the way of enjoying singing was immensely different. During my first year of secondary school, a few of my primary school friends also participated in a singing contest as a group. I don't remember how we did but I remember how I enjoyed the process of preparing for the contest. Sze just confessed to me today that she also participated in a singing contest in her first year of middle school. It was awesome to know that we have another similarity. But to be honest, she is more talented and sensitive to music than I am. I have learned some singing skill from her every time we did karaoke although none of us actually take formal vocal lesson. Well, what the heck, I'm sure I will have a blast on many karaoke sessions this season.

-Fui

A good taste on Japanese souffle cheesecake

I am not a big fan for cheesecake because I think it was too rich and usually a little bite seems enough. I am grateful to Sze Min again for discovering this Japanese souffle cheesecake. She made it during one of her off-day from work. I remembered I came home ~4.30pm in one afternoon, smelling so good when I stepped into the house. A normal ordinary looking cake was put on the breakfast table. I was not excited at all at the beginning. So we cut a small piece and shared. Somehow the light and soft texture plus the light cheesecake taste was so perfect mixing together that it melted in the mouth. This is exceptional good. I was so delighted at once and get myself a small cup of coffee. It was a true moment in the heaven while overlooking the nice greenbelt from the breakfast area. this is one of my favorite cakes thus far beyond chifon and blackforest cake. the cake was finished so quick and tasted so good that I can't stop to have Sze Min making it every month :)

Visiting Cancun, Mexico

We have decided to visit Cancun this time and gave up Florida trip. The swine flu has impacted Mexican tourism heavily. The hotels closed for 5 weeks and currently only have 50% capacity filled. The weather is hot there and the hurricane season hasn't started yet. We signed up for a 7-days trip living in Blue Bay Grand Esmeralda Hotel of Riviera Maya.
We went to Chichen Itza (not chicken pizza which the tour guy commented), one of the seven wonders in the world. It's an overwhelming architecture which was built ~400 years AD. The Mayan intelligence to build the structure is well respected. It's a sacred city where mysterious pyramid of Kukulcan (kukul=feather; can=snake) has 91 steps. During March 21 and Sept 21, we can see the formation of snake shadow on the wall of Kukulcan. Snake is a myth God in Mayan believe. The structure was built where they aligned the sun's position, some other hints on the structure also suggests that they might already know a year with 365 days and has their own calender system. They also used their own way to track the mathematics symbols and calculation. We walked through the sacred path of the ancient Mayan priets and experienced the sound and acoustic effect of the pyramid. We stood at the center of the building with opening at the top, we clapped and the echo transmitting to the entire field. we're told that this is how the information was transmitted from high hierachy to low hierachy people. There is a ball court next to the pyramid. It was one of the games impossible to be played by normal human being. The ball is ~6lbs in weight and players only used hip and a bat to bounce the ball to the ring which is 20 feet high. The Mayans needs god superpower energy to play the game. The wierd part is the winning team would be sacrificed to the god. The losing team would chop the winning teams' heads. It's believed to be a priviledge and the players would be inherented within the same family. The damage done to the building was pretty massive. Many buildings have been destroyed quite badly, like the temple and astronomical building. The damage was done by the intrusion of Spanish to Mayan land and the fact that Catholics didn't like "Snake" related believes in the Mayan buildings. Also only a few years ago the government banned visitor to climb up to the pyramid. It is a good thing to preserve the ruin.
My knowledge about Mayan has been broadened after visiting Tulum. It's another historical ruin from Mayan. It's located on top of a cliff overlooking Caribbean Sea. It was an astronomical center as well as a very important seaport. The city was built few hundred years after Chichen Itza so the architecture design was improved. However, Mayan built this city in a very fast manner so design was simple. The only ruins remained are temple and the dwellings for king and rich people (i.e. dentist). Dentist was famous there to implant black stone onto rich people tooth. There is one structure where its hole would line up the Sun and the Mars together in every 52 years and line up the Sun in every year. The beach next to the ruin was very pretty. Over half of the visitors there would jump into the water for a break of blazing sun. The sun was brutal that morning and luckily we brought an umbrella. After walking out from the exit towards the van, there was a performance where performers flipped upside down circling a blue pole while music was playing. There was a legend saying that the ceremony was meant to convey message to the god for praying for rainfalls on the crops.
We went on to a snockeling adventure at Ya kul (Ya=fish; kul=nest) in Xel Ha city. It's found to be the largest natural aquarium famous for its excellent snockel and crystal water. The snockeling started on the soft water then moved to the sea water. We saw variety of colorful fish in the soft water. We didn't go to the sea water where the reef is located. I was quite sea-sicked by the high tide current and Sze Min was not comfortable to get near the deep ocean. We have fun browsing through the stones and cliff where fish is mostly hidden. After 2 hours of snockeling, I couldn't manage to control my sea-sickness and threw up near the drop off area. A swamp of fish surfaced and ate the jerking stuff I provided. Sze Min ended up taking pictures on the fish :) Both of us had a terrible sun-burn.
On the way home to the hotel, we have little fun conversation with the tour guy Azmanzur while we exchanged information about Spanish and Chinese. He is learning many different languages (chinese, french, japanese and more) in order to get a better paid job as a tour guide. This is a different world as people are working harder to get a better paid.
The food and drinks are all inclusive in the hotel. we have a blast just by trying out all sort of cocktails. The favorite drinks we both like are pinot colada and coco-loco. The wine is not really good here as it's free and they are either very dry or sour. Afterall, we found the food is awesome and the people around here are friendly. There are buffet style Breakfast, lunch and dinner served in Festival restaurant. The theme changed every day and we have had variety of selections. There are also Mexican, Italian, French, seafood and Oriental restaurants serving la-carte dishes. On the last day, both Sze Min and I have a lobster french cruisine. It's served on one whole piece cooked with wine. Since Sze Min is a vegetarian, I have her lobster portion for the dinner. It was too good! The salsa in the Mexican restauramt was the best and we were there twice. Italian food was ok only.
During the night, there are performances like traditional Mexican dances, karaoke, belly dances and etc. we spent half an hour a few days by watching the show while sipping the coco-loco :-)
During the stay, I truly enjoyed the slow pace living style while I still have internet access. Llying on the beach front, bracing the breezing air, looking up the coconut trees, sipping some cocktails, reading a book, taking a nap; I am sure I can live there for the rest of my life. Simple life is what I pursue and hope to have family around me. This short break is totally relaxing and well worth.