Me:  WL is going to teach me how to knit gloves!

He:  Good for you.

So, in an attempt to rouse his interest, I described the gloves that I was going to learn to knit.  You know, those kind that expose part of the fingers, but you could also cover them with a flap.  He specifically talked about having those gloves (on the last winter trip) so that the fingers could be exposed if preferred, to perform tasks that require more nimble fingerwork.

Me:  I’m going to knit them for you first, then for myself.

He:  Erm… why don’t you knit them for yourself first?  If it turns out good, then knit for me.

Me:  No!  I knit for you first. Then learn from the mistakes and knit a perfect pair for myself.

Oh, I can be so evil at times.

44/250

Want to add one more of my own…

Just because I kept quiet doesn’t mean that I don’t remember.

43/250

Always liked this song because it has a marvellous MV, so much so that I will end up crying like a baby every time I finish it.  I think anyone who has seen this MV and is touched by it will marvel at how successful the director of this MV has been at conveying the message of this song.

A gist of what this song (and MV) is about… you have a group of people and a dog (who have lost someone precious – and I like to interpret that it is separation by death) boarding a bus called the ‘Memories Bus’.  The journey brings us through the process of reminiscing the past, the sense of loss, the dissipation of the pain and sorrow, up to the final stage of acceptance and moving on in life.  In short, it is a blessing to have loved, and have been loved.

The highlight of the MV comes on after the 5th minute when the characters on the bus spoke to their beloved at the seaside:

1. The elderly man talking to his late father about how he has tried to live his life the way his dad wanted him to, and hoped that his dad was proud of him
2. The young girl talking to her best friend, telling her how much she wished to confide in her
3. The young lady talking to her boyfriend about how tired she was, and wished he were around to hug her while she cried
4. The young man talking to his baseball coach about how he missed all the lectures and regretted not listening to him
5. The dog barking and thinking about his young owner
6. The elderly lady talking to her Japanese pilot lover, about how she has lived her life well for the both of them, and wished to meet him again in her next life
7. The singer talking to her late parents and how she has grown up and is proud of being their daughter – this part is entirely true, by the way

This song took on a new meaning for me after I lost Sugar and I cried buckets whenever the dog in the MV appeared.  I still miss her terribly, and especially more so because the two young furkids at home now are so unlike her in temperament.  They love me too, but in different ways from how Sugar loved me.  Watching this MV is a reminder that it’s high time I walk out of the grieving and embark on the healing process.

I really dread going through it twice more.  It might just kill me.

42/250

As a result, a rather strange and interesting phenomenon has occurred in Korean dramas, I have noticed.  There seems to be a lack of male actors between the ages of 28-33 because all would have been conscripted for military service.  To fill the void, producers and directors turn to the younger male actors.  Or older male actors.  So you end up having 24 year-olds or 35 year-olds trying to act like they are 30 year-olds.  This seems like a situation unique to South Korea, as compared to Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore entertainment scenes (that I also follow).  Out of these countries, only South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore practice mandatory conscription.  However, only South Korea is flexible in the age at which the males could get conscripted because as a general rule, Singapore and Taiwan require males reaching the age of 18 to be conscripted.  This is probably the main reason why we do not see very young male idols debuting in Singapore or Taiwan.  Most of them only become performance artistes in their early 20s, after fulfilling their military obligations.

I came across this very interesting chart summarised by a Japanese fan of K-Pop.  In essence, this charts lists down all the active male idols in K-Pop now, in accordance to the birth years.  This year, the male idols born in the years 1981-1984 should all be conscripting.  And some younger ones, by choice.

In K-Pop, it is believed that there is such a thing called a ’5-year curse’ for idol groups.  This is because some very popular groups like H.O.T, DBSK and SS501 disbanded after a 5-year period.  Instead of calling it a curse, you could also call it the ‘natural shelf-life’ of an idol group.  However recently, two groups have notably surpassed the supposedly 5-year curse – Super Junior and Big Bang.  In fact, Super Junior might be the first group in K-Pop history to actively continue with their promotion activities despite having temporarily lost some members to military service.  One of the members would be completing his service by April, when Super Junior would still be busy with their world tour.  It would be interesting to see how the entertainment agency deals with his return because for sure, this is something unprecedented in K-Pop.

Whether the younger male groups will suffer an eventual fate of disbandment under the ‘curse’, or rise the occasion and overcome it is anyone’s guess.  But one thing I know for sure, is that even if Super Junior somehow disbands and does not re-group after all of them have completed their military service (which is calculated to take a span of at least 8 years, unless the younger ones all get conscripted together), they will still make it in the entertainment industry simply because of their diverse talents in MC-ing, acting, singing, hosting radio shows etc.

If, in the event that I do not get to see them perform as a group again, I shall remember the last scene – the deep bow – from all their concerts.

41/250

A series of occupation pictures have been circulating on FB lately.  This particular occupation caught my eye, for obvious reaons I need not spell out.  Most of the misconceptions are true, especially what my friends and pilots think I do.  I remember how my friends used to ask if I were the person holding the ping pong balls and controlling aircraft.

40/250

Do not judge me by your own yardstick.  Although I may not agree with many decisions that you made, I never judged you.  Judging should be left to Him on Judgement Day, and we minions have no business in trying to do His work.

I am disappointed that you think so little of me.  I am aware of the differences, and the different needs; perhaps even more acutely aware than you do.

Have you forgotten that it takes two hands to clap?

39/250

This picture was initially shortlisted to be featured together with the rest of the shortlisted pictures on my post about Český Krumlov, but the more I looked at this picture, the more I thought it deserved a post of its own.  Furthermore, it just didn’t quite fit in the theme of the post it was initially meant for.

Something about this picture just gets to me.  The dark clouds gathering above the top of the crucifix with a tinge of blue peeking through, the lone man that was captured seemingly to be in deep thought, the overall ambience of the shot… just gave me pause when I was about to discard it from the folder of shortlisted pictures.  What was the man thinking about at that point in time?

38/250

It has been a rather long-time wish of mine to pick up the Korean Language, dating as far back as two years ago.  Between the Japanese and Korean languages, I picked the familiar one to kickstart the self-enrichment process again.  The rest is of course, history.

Now that I have reached a comparatively advanced level in the Japanese language, I wanted to start on the Korean language this year.  And promptly signed up for the class at a reputable school the moment placements were released.  Upon hearing what I did, the hubby commented that he foresaw some problems – that I am bound to be confused, taking both languages at the same time.  I scoffed at his comment, and vowed to prove him wrong.  One of the reasons why I chose to wait till now to learn the Korean language was because I thought I already have a strong foundation in Japanese, and since both languages are grammatically similiar, it will be quite beneficial to learn them both concurrently.  Right?

Wrong.  I went for my first lesson earlier in the week and I was confused with the pronunciation of the Hangul alphabet.  Of the few languages that I know, Italian and Japanese alphabets have almost exactly the same pronunication.  French isn’t so dissimilar from Italian since both are derived from Latin.  But Hangul is completely out of my league.  At this point, it is.

I wanted to pick up Korean for some very obvious reasons: wanting to understand Korean dramas better without depending on subtitles made by fans who are amateur translators, and wanting to understand what Super Junior talks about in Korean when they attend shows or programmes.  Actually more importantly, because Hangul has been acclaimed as ‘the most perfect phonetic system devised’.  I personally find the language intriguing and fascinating.  And due to prolonged watching of Korean dramas and listening to K-Pop, I already have a rich vocabulary of words commonly used.

Unfortunately, I thought my learning progress didn’t quite have a good start.  The good thing is, teachers always appreciate good handwriting, and if it’s anything that I have, it’s legible handwriting.

I came home from class (on Valentine’s Day, no less) and told the hubby that he was correct that I would be confused because I was already messing up with some of the vocabulary.  Words like sea in Japanese (‘umi’) and Korean (‘pada’) are very different so they are not easily to be confused with, but map in Japanese is ‘chizu’ and in Korean is ‘chido’… and they are so similar!  It will only get worse as I attend more lessons.  My, I’m asking for trouble, isn’t it?  Especially when this final 10 weeks of Japanese classes is so crucial to promotion to the next level.

The hubby is not in the least sympathetic.  In fact, he laughed a little when I explained my predicament to him (despite it being Valentine’s Day; I mean, isn’t it the one official day in the year where the husband should be nice to the wife?).  And to add salt to injury, he ended with ‘I told you so’.

Damn, why am I so obstinate?

37/250

A tiny confession at this juncture… I was compelled to choose the sightseeing tour instead of taking the Student Agency Bus and winging it upon reaching Český Krumlov because I was way behind time in the trip preparation.  In comparison, I wanted to spend the little time I had planning for our time in Paris and packing for the trip.  Thence, I ‘outsourced’ the planning of our time in Český Krumlov to a trusty third-party.

{One of the assistant guides picked us up at the apartment and walked us to the meeting place of the tour near Wenceslas Square.  The streets were still relatively deserted although it was already close to 9am.}

Clearly, there were many like-minded tourists like myself because our mini tour bus was packed to the brim with about 25-30 of us.  And apart from the 2 of us, there were 3 other Asians (Japanese, to be exact).  For some reason or another, they were mightily glad to see us when we boarded the bus.  I guess they didn’t feel comfortable being the minority race in the group?  Honestly, I was also mightily glad, but for another reason entirely.  I shall elaborate further in a while.

{Typical scenery while on the bus ride to Český Krumlov.}

The first stop we came by was sort of a picture stop right at the top of the hills where we could take in the view of the whole medieval town.  Very pretty indeed.  And along the way, I stopped whenever I thought I could snap a good panoramic view of the town.  As a result, I had several good pictures safely captured on my SD card.  With difficulty, I managed to shortlist 4 as below.

I was constantly lagging behind the group because I’m a slow photographer + like to take many, many shots of the same place at different settings.  You know, as an insurance in case the other pictures don’t turn out well.  The hubby was, as usual, upset with me because if there’s anything exemplary about my husband, it’s his consideration for others: he never likes to be late or inconvenience others.  And my lagging behind was obviously affecting the progress of the group that was walking in the medieval town on foot.  Except that I wasn’t the last in the group!

As I expected, the 3 Japanese girls were lagging even further behind taking even more pictures (of themselves, primarily) than I was.  And this was the reason why I was glad to see them when I boarded the bus.  Heh.  I’m evil, I know…

By and by, the hubby stopped hurrying me because whenever he did that, I just pointed to the Japanese girls who were lagging further and further behind.  He left me alone but kept a lookout for me while hurrying to catch up with the group to listen to the tour guide’s introduction of the town.  He was proceeding rather slowly because he had to repeat the same thing in 3 languages – English, Spanish and… was it Russian?

{The beautiful Castle compound that we could only view through the gates.}

Everyone who knows any bit about Český Krumlov would tell you that no trip to Český Krumlov is complete without a visit to the castle complex.  Very unfortunately, the castle complex was closed the day we visited.  I don’t remember why.  In fact I think I wasn’t even there when the guide explained why.  If I could hazard a guess, I was probably lagging behind taking pictures (while ensuring that the Japanese girls never overtook me).

Because of the closed castle complex, we ended up finishing the first part of the tour earlier than scheduled.  The tour guide then gave us some time to explore the town on our own before we congregate again for lunch.  The hubby and I didn’t want to venture too far out because we were only given 45 minutes.  We explored the main square where there was a mini Christmas market made of up 3 stalls, selected a postcard, bought some souvenirs, a stamp and posted the postcard.  Out of the blue, the hubby turned to me and asked, ‘Tell me again why are we here?’

‘Because it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site!’  I answered, mustering all the zest I could manage.

‘Ya… so?’  The hubby retorted.  Clearly, he wasn’t impressed with Český Krumlov.

‘Urm… urm… it’s supposed to be a very pretty medieval old town.  Very picturesque.  And the castle ground is supposed to be very beautiful!’  I invented along the way as I tried to redeem myself.  He just rolled his eyes.  He could see right through me, that his impressionable wife had made this decision based on some unreliable source on the internet again.  To my defence, he seemed to enjoy exploring old medieval towns and the likes during our past trips.  But I guess the novelty wears off after visiting too many similar ones in the span of 6 years: St-Paul-de-Vence one of the oldest medieval towns on the French Riviera, Peniscola the fortified seaport in Valencia, Cordoba in Andalusia and Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria.  He obviously wants a change in scenery because he has decided that our next Europe trip would be heading north towards the Scandinavia for the fjords, glaciers and northern lights.

Lunch was served at a popular medieval tavern in Český Krumlov.  There was already a huge group of Korean tourists seated in the tavern as we were filling in the restaurant.  We didn’t quite know what to expect, but thankfully everything that was served, from the soup to the main course and dessert was quite normal.  The main course was like pork chop, with a potato and veggies served on the side.  Rather delicious but too bony for my liking.  We also had a pleasant conversation with the elderly couple seated at the same table because the husband and my husband are both in the aviation industry… so a lot of common topics.

It started snowing the moment we stepped out of the tavern after lunch and the entire town was soon engulfed in a thin layer of white.  A very pretty sight although I cannot decide if I preferred the clear blue sky we saw earlier in the day or the overcast sky when it started snowing.  We were given some time to explore the town on our own again, and we walked up the slopes towards the church.  To our plesant surprise, we discovered a tiny terrace a little further up where we could have a panaromic view of the whole town.  It was a beautiful scene with the snow falling.

And as we were walking back to the bus for our trip back to Prague, we saw this and knew for sure this is an aqueduct.  You mean the Romans were here too?  I’ve underestimated the extent of the Roman Empire, apparently.

I liked Český Krumlov (in spite of the overpriced souvenirs) and I find it very picturesque.  It is somewhat a photographer’s paradise, like Venice.  It is most definitely worth the 6-hour bus ride to and from Prague, if you spend the 3-hour trip back to Prague taking a snooze.  Don’t mind the hubby and his signature cynicism.  He gets bored of things a lot quicker than most people, although he will defend his reputation by claiming that he can have the same food every single meal, every single day for the rest of his life.  I think that’s bull, by the way.

You could see how far behind I was lagging.  This time, I was really the last one because with nothing to shoot, the 3 Japanese girls have gotten ahead to rush to the bus.  The hubby was not rushing me one bit because it was the end of the tour and for sure, the bus would wait for us.  He even good-humouredly posed for a picture!

Hey, but not to worry, because by the time I reached the bus, the 3 girls were busy posing cutish poses and taking pictures with the snow. Always knew that I could count on them to stall time haha…

36/250

I remember the first time we held hands.  We were getting off the public bus and walking home.  You held my hand to cross the road, and my cheeks were flushed red with shyness, and heart pounding so hard I thought I was having palpitations.

From then on, holding hands was the most natural thing for us to do.  But first, we had to sort out something.  Both of us like to have our thumbs sticking out at the end, so eventually, I gave in.  Till today, you still like to reach for my hand prior to crossing the roads.  And you hate it when I doubt your judgement and pull you back to safety.  Without fail, you flare up whenever I do that.

I know you think Valentine’s Day is too commercialised to give it any attention.  So I’ll just keep it simple and wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day!  More importantly, I wish we will spend many more Valentine’s Day together.

35/250