This week's been an emotional rollercoaster, up and down, upside down and inside out that sometimes you end up wishing you never had a heart at the end of it all. I had to have that devil of a wisdom tooth extracted, and it was undeniably the most excruciatingly painful and traumatising experience of my life. Although it was pretty funny at the end of it all, thinking back about how I asked the dentist worriedly whether he would do anything to relieve the pain after the most painful sensation ever in my mouth, which turned out to be the injection to numb everything. But the feeling of the dentist tugging using the scary extraction tool is one that's indescribable and I believe is unlike any other in this world. He pulls and pulls and my tooth just refuses to come out, then he goes ahead and does something weird, and pulls for another five minutes (it felt like one hour) and then you hear the sickening craaaaack.
I walked out of the clinic dizzy and faint, headed back to my room and immediately crashed into bed, waking up every ten minutes to spit out blood. I'm thankful for roommates that hold my hand with me squeezing her life out of it, watch the entire bloody process and tuck me into bed, and for good friends that tell a bunch of lies to bring me my favourite food.
Last week at church was amazing, we unknowingly sat next to a newcomer, and she turned out to be Singaporean and is married to a Hongkonger and has been living here for four years. Joni looks really young (I thought she was our age), but she's really 29 and even has a two-year old son! I remember sitting there and wondering if she was a new Christian and whether I should share the 4SL's with her. I think back about it now and realise how God chooses to bless me in ways I can relate to, because over lunch with her, she told us all about her walk with God and about how her life changed drastically ever since she got married right after graduation and moved to Hong Kong. She reminds me alot of the two lovely ladies I hold with high regard in my life and whom I really admire and respect, my ex cell-group leader Janis and my current YA mentor Shirley. And without that kind of mentorship here, it really is amazing how Joni just came along out of nowhere. The irony is this, every day we walk past this really posh salon at Festival Walk called Hair, and it's a famed hair salon where many celebrities go to. It happens that Joni's husband is the director of that place, and he cuts celebrities' hair there, and charges HK$1200 per haircut (like the David Gan of Hong Kong). She said if we ever want a haircut there to just ring her and she'll give us a discount - how unbelievable is that.
Time is a parenthesis in the eternal timeline. Today's sermon was thought-provoking, and that was the key line in the whole message to me. It was about understanding God's calling and timing for you, and I felt that that line really struck a chord. This short time we have here on earth is a short period as compared to eternity, and being carnal perhaps equates to one who thinks, acts and feels that this world is our ultimate home. I think the message came at the right time, and it probably is time to re-evaluate my life once more and remove that impulsive and stubborn nature I like to define as things going my way in my timing.
Two more months left in this bustling city, and I should stop moping around thinking about what I want best for myself, but really, what God wants of me in my remaining time here.
Girls are associated with pink, candy and all things sweet. I know I can't do without my daily dose of them here, because there are some things that boys just don't understand. Conversations with no words, sitting there and daydreaming, how shopping cures a bad day, hot chocolate and marshmallow secret gatherings, the way to cure broken hearts, outfit selections and shoe shopping, television serial marathons, talking in bed in the dark, queueing up for seven hours for a new store, phototaking, why we take so long to get ready and why we say things we don't mean. Love 'em.
Since I was a little girl, it has always been my dream to visit all the Wonders of the World - or at least my definition of a wonder. Undoubtedly that includes the seven ancient wonders, modern wonders, or what other classifications there are today of the world's greatest sights. And so far I've only accomplished one, the Great Wall of China seven years ago. So once I heard of Windows of the World in Shenzhen, I knew that was the place I had to go.
Though kitsch, I loved taking in every bit of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Pyramids in Egypt, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, The Eiffel Tower, The Colosseum, Mount Corcovado, Taj Mahal, Niagara Falls and other attractions that have always been a lifelong dream. Walking around the huge park that housed the things other than shopping that leave me on an ecstatic high, we covered every inch of the place despite fatigue and some rare nerves down the flume ride at the Grand Canyon.
Definitely one of my highlights this year, and my little girl dreams are going to go from being castles in the skies to reality one day.
Once upon a time there was the grand opening of H&M in Hong Kong,
10th March at 11am was the long-awaited hour.
The girl had been looking forward to it for four months
Ever since the day she learnt she was heading to Hong Kong on exchange and was trying to figure out her shopping possibilities in the foreign land
She had been following news of the H&M fashion world religiously ever since.
Rumours of free Madonna autographed trenchcoats for the first 20 customers reached her ears,
Excited, ecstatic and ever hyper she became at 3am in the morning
She ran around campus trying to look for similar crazy people,
And found them in her two American friends June and Ly.
With her faithful and favourite roommate, the four of them cabbed down to H&M at 4.30am
68 Queen's Road Central was her new address, she swore as she stared in awe at the sight that beheld her.
It was a mall on its own, she believed, and she never expected it to be so massive,
Alas, they were number 21, 22, 23 and 24. But still the hope of free glamourous Madonna shades for the next hundred people kept her going.
She spent the first half an hour peering into the glass windows, swooning over the window displays and quickly mapping a route in her head to get to her desirables in the quickest possible time.
Dresses, shoes, accessories, tops, bags - they seemed never ending to her as she felt the familiar rush of adrenaline whenever she saw beautiful new clothes.
She remembered how crazy she went over H&M in London just half a year ago, and wondered if she would have the same experience here.
The next six hours were spent sleeping by the roadside, with the sight of shoes walking past and minibuses beginning their morning journey.
In between sleep, the four girls played rounds of 'dai dee', talked, had Macdonalds breakfast and listened to their trusty iPods.
She finally knew what time the sun rose in Hong Kong, because she had never seen 6am before. Although it wasn't much of a sunrise, just the sky becoming blue amidst the skyscrapers in Central.
When morning came, she called her best friend in UK and they talked for ages, with the bestie screaming incredulously into her ear, but not without the fervent "Buy me stuff from H&M!"
She gently reminded the bestie that H&M is located at practically every corner in the UK.
Then the interviews started as reporters and journalists from everywhere flooded the area
They stood around and looked eager, and that got them interviews and their picture taken by TVB, South China Morning Post, Cable Channel 13 and a German newspaper.
The moment was drawing nearer,
She could feel it as the security tightened and more and more people were walking past on a bustling Saturday morning and wondering what the commotion was about.
Then the ribbon was cut and suddenly they were ushered into a grand reception with the staff lining both sides of the store making a walkway for the customers
It was loud clapping and cheering and she felt like a celebrity as the lightbulbs flashed and cameras rolled right in her eyes.
Two and a half hours she spent in there, it was pandemonium everywhere and in the dressing rooms even with four huge storeys to boast of
Two floors for ladies, one for men and one for kids, it was a dream come true
She emerged HK$666 poorer,
And would have been even more in debt if she hadn't dropped a dress (which she really wanted) and a t-shirt somewhere in the labyrinth of a store because she was holding a mountain of things.
A new summer dress, shorts, a striped jacket, a necklace, gorgeous earrings and her free Madonna shades later,
She suddenly looks forward to spring and warmer weather to display her new buys.
After doing quick mental calculations, she realises that H&M in Hong Kong is much cheaper than the one in UK, and also costs less than her favourite Topshop store back home
She knows that H&M will be one of the biggest factors that will prevent her from wanting to leave Hong Kong in May,
Don't say you haven't been warned. There's only one place to be this Saturday at 11am, and I'm determined to be their first customer (you never know what perks you might get). H&M in Hong Kong is going to make living here the ultimate fashionista's dream. Move over, Topshop.
Singapore, for ten full days, a recluse back to my safe haven. The place I don't miss the least, only the people that fill my life with love. Indian-themed birthday parties, 'Precious Moments' moments, MacDonald late night chats, Starbucks conversations, buffalo wings at the secluded airbase, breakfast-lunch-tea-dinner dates in one day and surprise visits to my house, I could never do without those that made those memorable things happen. And only when I'm back here do I wish I could transport every single one of you here to be my safety net and my source of comfort. But I have much to show you all about Hong Kong, this experience has opened my eyes to way more than I've imagined -really the world is so vast compared to our tiny little island.
Home was a beautiful memory, and I know I'll be back in less than three months.
As we're slowly approaching the last day of Chinese New Year, and as I'm adjusting back to life back in Hong Kong without parents or GGs or a YA ministry backing, I think back over the last two months and how I feel I've changed somewhat. Not in terms of my personality or the way I look, but how I've grown to learn more about myself when I survive without my pillars of support. There are days where I feel I can't cope at all, days when I want to curl up in bed and not think, but then there are the liberating days where I feel independent walking alone in the streets with music my best friend and the shops my comfort. Shopping is constant worldwide, the feeling you get with a fantastic new buy doesn't change, thank God.
This is my twentieth Chinese New Year I believe, since I was born after Chinese New Year in 1986, and the years are just fleeting. Twenty reunion dinners, twenty years of receiving red packets, eating Chinese New Year goodies, going from house to house for two days straight, singing Chinese New Year songs and being up to mischief. There was that year when I was eight and Mark and I stole the most beautiful marbles from some random relative's posh carpeted house. Then three years later when we flung the remaining oranges into the air and watched as it smashed to the ground, spilling open with a satisfying thud. And the yearly tradition of breaking at least one umbrella, getting lost in the columbarium and finding joy in the pink coconut candy in that house along East Coast Road. My dad gets that air of nostalgia every Chinese New Year, as he drives along the road to the columbarium, taking his own sweet time, with us blasting Hillsong in the background and singing at the top of our lungs. And every year Mark and I will muse how in the next thirty years, the only place we'll have to visit every Chinese New Year would be the columbarium.
But of course things have changed, with the addition of so many new nieces and nephews now running around the big mansion at Bukit Timah, lion-dancing and playing Playstation all at the age of five and being followed around by adults desperate to get a photograph out of them. When I watch them I feel old, that used to be me not so long ago, where the adults would fawn over my cute little cheongsam or smooth pigtails. Now I'm simply watching the scene from afar, a transition phase in between, when the questions about marriage will start coming in a few more years.
I like it though, I still love the age-old tradition of Chinese New Year. For all it encompasses and means to me, and how it has evolved over the years, I look forward to the next one and I wait to see how it will change. I want many stories to tell one day to my grandchildren.
