Flight LH719

Wednesday 16th December. I am on flight LH719 to Munich. Next to me is an empty seat - Jin is several miles behind, a thousand feet below, and receding at approximately 300 miles per hour. That wasn't part of the plan.

We were together at the airport about an hour ago. We had got up early to pack, and for Jin to finish proof-reading a couple of documents she had to submit that day. I moaned at her for leaving it until the last minute, futile harsh words which seemed so important at the time. We got a taxi to the airport - we could have saved 50,000 won going by metro not to mention all the extra greenhouse gas emissions, but we were late - forget it. We got to the airport and then...

Jin got a call from her sister. Her father, in hospital since Saturday supposedly for a routine draining of fluid from his lung cavity had suddenly worsened the night before, and lost the ability to breathe for himself. He was given mechanical breathing assistance and in the morning was diagnosed with pneumonia.

Out of the window the Korean peninsula has disappeared from view. Below is only the rippled, silvery surface of the sea. Strange how from up here the waves look static, frozen in time. Where the sun is reflected strongest the texture is beautiful. It reminds me of those STM images of atomic surfaces. The few clouds there are cast dark shadows like wells in the density of states (sorry, but that's what it looked like).

Jin's father's prognosis is uncertain. He might recover, he might be dead in a few days. Knowing that, how could Jin leave the country? Should I have left? I don't know.

I haven't written anything for an hour. First the meal came. I ate it, it wasn't unpleasant except for the rather tasteless spinach, but I ate that too -- we vegetarians need the extra iron. After that I was distracted by the scenery: an enormous fleet of ships far below, then huge stretches of recovered land at the coast of China. A few minutes later we passed over a city, must have been Beijing judging by its size. Peng- it you looked up at the sky around 2:30pm and saw a plane overhead maybe our eyes briefly crossed. The city was followed by jagged mountains, and then a snowy wilderness which I guess was Mongolia. A few patchwork patches in the desolation were signs of a sparse population. Now below is a shapeless brown desert and no sign of humanity. The guy across the aisle is reading about "the greatest sex-scandal of the year", I wonder in which sense 'greatest' is used.

Should I have got on the plane? My heart was urging me to, I didn't realise how much I missed England - the country, my family and friends. But my gut reaction was to stay: what kind of husband leaves his wife at a time like this? Jin was begging me to go tearfully - I think she feels guilty about taking me away from my parents (she shouldn't). If I had stayed there would be nothing I could practically do for her father, but I could have supported her. Then again, if I insisted to stay and she felt so bad about it that could have burdened her more... Anyway I went. Should her father die or if she needs me I will get an early flight back.

On the inflight television now a computer-generated man is showing us the correct way to sit on the cabin seats. Apparently you should sit bolt upright with a rather constipated look on your face (maybe because you have a rod up your backside). The brown desert is still below but seems less impressive. Great, all of nature's beauty can inspire me for a little under two hours. What an idiot. I decide to go for a walk to avoid getting deep vain thrombosis.

On returning to my seat I am suddenly annoyed. Next to me a flight attendant is selling the 'sex-scandal' guy an obscene amount of individually wrapped inhalable toxins (they're tax free - hooray!). She is Korean and speaks English with a gratingly twangy American accent. She probably put in a lot of effort and spent loads of money to speak English like that, poor girl. What a stupid thing to get annoyed by. Of course, what I'm really annoyed by is that bastard god for stopping Jin and I spending a happy Christmas together. And I'm annoyed at myself for not knowing what was the right thing to do.

5pm Korean time. Less than 3 hours after eating but I'm already hungry again. Obviously that meal had all the nutritional value of a cardboard box. I consider chewing my nails but remember Jin doesn't like it. Instead I find a small packet of cashew nuts.

I'm bored. I wish I'd brought that sudoku puzzle book with me. I decide to try making my own. First I draw a 9x9 grid and fill in the numbers 1-9 following the appropriate rules. I put a one is each 3x3 square, then a 2... I get to 8 before I am forced to put two 8's in the same column. I consider starting again from scratch but come up with a way around it, transposing pairs of numbers in two columns until the problem is resolved. I feel quite pleased with myself. That was quite tiring, so I take a nap.

8 4 1|7 6 2|3 5 9
5 7 9|8 3 4|1 6 2
3 2 6|5 9 1|8 4 7
--------------------
4 1 7|2 5 8|9 3 6
6 8 2|9 1 3|5 7 4
9 3 5|4 7 6|2 1 8
--------------------
2 5 4|3 8 7|6 9 1
1 9 8|6 4 5|7 2 3
7 6 3|1 2 9|4 8 5

6:30pm. Nap not very successful but I feel more awake now so I continue with the puzzle. I cross off the numbers in the grid one by one, making sure before I cross off a number that its position can be derived from the remaining numbers. I try to keep a rotational symmetry but I don't get very far before I have to break it (more than half the numbers are still left when I get stuck). Breaking symmetry allows me to cross off another 10 numbers. I give up once my success rate drops to about 10 minutes/number. This is the result:

8 4 -|- 6 -|- 5 9
- - 9|8 - - |- - 2
3 - -|5 - 1|- 4 -
------------------
4 - 7|2 - -|9 3 -
- 8 -|- 1 -| - 7 -
- - 5|- - 6|2 - -
------------------
- - 4|3 - 7|- - 1
1 - -|- - 5|7 - -
- 6 -|- 2 -|- 8 5

Not sure if it's difficult or easy... seems like there are still too many numbers left. It took me about 2 hours to construct but a computer could use the same method to do it in seconds. I wonder if this is how they are usually produced?

Finally we land - 5:15pm German time. I did manage to get some sleep eventually, though I can see I'll be well and truly jet-lagged. I love watching out the window as the plane lands. First the clouds get closer and closer, then we dive into the cloud and everything goes blank until the ground below slowly emerges through the mist. I can see roads and houses, then individual cars on the road. Closer still and I can tell the cars are all on the wrong side of the road, a sign I still have a little more travelling to do.

Korean time it's 1:15am - Jin must be in bed. She might be staying at the hospital overnight - not unusual in Korea for the patients family. I hope her dad is doing alright.

And I’m back to ‘For every blog entry, I will write another one’

Happy Birthday Big BoyAnt!!! May you still in whole piece and is surviving French girls!
Happy Birthday Paradise!!! May you got your dream job and then come to Malaysia!

I miss everyone too! (Mark, you have left Pie out!)

I miss Mark’s office (with the most uncreative password and stupidest drawings on the white board). I miss spending whole afternoon with Hema chilling at an exotic café at the Portobello Market. I miss painting Luangpor’s kuti fence with Peng. I miss my cheeks being squeezed by Paradise. I miss sneaking into Joob’s room and count the number of teddy bears on her shelf. I miss Christmas at Ant’s house in Norfolk. And Pie’s evil plan…

It’s difficult being so far away from you all. People here are nice but they just don’t force me to go for tea breaks during exams. (I'm not sarcastic, I'm stressed! Nobody invited me for tea!)

In celebration of friends

I just wanted you to know that I am thinking of you guys. Happy Birthday to Ant, and to Paradise (on Wednesday). I hope you both have a wonderful year ahead of you. Good luck to Kay for her financial management exam (you can do it!), and to Joob for her approaching departure from the safety of the UK. Hema I hope you are reading this too, otherwise you might be surprised when I turn up on your doorstep in a couple of weeks time!

I miss Ant's puppy-like energy, and Hema's witch-like cackle, and Kay's abrasive sarcasm (although actually googlechat transmits that quite effectively). I wish we could all sit down together with some nice strong black tea and... let time pass.

It's difficult being so far away from you all. People here are nice but they just don't appreciate a good cup of tea.

For every two blog entries, I will write one…

Am supposed to be studying, but to hell Financial Management!

For months I have been planning for my study leave and when it has finally arrived, all I want to do is to sleep and to remember to study.

So my plan to Nepal, volunteering in old folks home or do some salsa dancing have all flushed down to the drain.

It was nice though, not to have my bosses calling 10pm at night or go back to office during the weekend…But I’m not sure I can cope with the idea of going back to work next Monday :P

Guess I’ll just have to start planning for my study leave in April 2010, or a serious serious backpack to Nepal+Bhutan+Tibet+India and Latin America after I passed all my exams and quit my job 3 years later...

Penguin's travel notes

I haven't written in English for a long time, so please bear with my broken English sentences. But I do feel that I owe my Warwick friends a lengthy update of my recent life. So here it goes.

So for the past month, I traveled in Southwest China. Yunnan and Sichuan, and had a lot of fun traveling mostly by myself. My first destination was Luguhu lake at the border of Yunnan and Sichuan, where the Mosuo tribe lives. Although it becomes quite touristy now, it's still one of the most interesting and most beautiful place I've ever been. Here is a bit about the Mosuo on wikipedia in case you have not heard about them:

The Mosuo culture is most frequently described as a matriarchal culture.[1] In fact, the Mosuo themselves frequently use this description, to attract tourism and interest in their culture. Sometimes, the Mosuo will be described instead as "matrilineal", which is probably more accurate, but still doesn't reflect the full truth.

The Mosuo culture defies categorization within traditional Western definitions. They have aspects of a matriarchal culture, in that women are, in many households, the head of the house, property is passed through the female line, and women tend to make the business decisions. But political power tends to be in the hands of males, which disqualifies them as a true matriarchy.

Young Mosuo men now grow a liking in female tourists. It sounds a bit awful, but not that awful if you take it as a romantic but one-off destination for lonely single female tourist. When you met those passionate and friendly faces, it is hard not to feel confident and young. The good thing is, after they treat you a good meal and all that, you can still politely say no, and with your best of luck, you can become friends with them. Plus a good number of Mosuo men have very good looking, dark and muscular! :D Anyway, nothing happened to me, I just politely said no. It was a bizzaar but rejuvenating experience. Apart from that, the lake is also a good place for family and lovers. Peaceful and breath-holding, very close to the sky, you get very nice view of sunrise, sunset, and a starry sky so starry that you can't help but to wonder whether it is a faked one as the ones they put upon casinos like the Venetians.

And then when I left Yunnan for Sichuan, the contradiction between the two places makes me feel really disappointed with Sichuan at one point.

The day I arrived in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, I encountered one of the first severe cold current in southern China. The room I stayed was freezing, and the sky was oppressively grey.

In Yunnan, even the busiest capital city Kunming presents to its guest a crystal clear blue sky, pleasant temperature, and crispy breeze. There is almost no industry in Yunnan. The province's economy heavily depends on tourism and tobacco. By the way, a traveler I befriended with on my way told me that you can easily find marijuana in Luguhu. People just grow them in their courtyard. Most likely, a passerby would not even notice these stuff.  Sounds like heaven isn't it, though I don't take weeds, but still, there is a hint of freedom and relaxation there. Even the little pigs eat tobacco leaves in the fields. The pork there taste really nice, I must tell you! Well, they are one hundred percent organic. So people are very friendly and relaxed in Yunnan, no matter what ethnic background they belong.

Sichuan, though right next to Yunnan, is very different. Due to probably its high density of population, people are very competitive in Sichuan. It is hard to get a taxi, hard to get a place in public toilet if you don't learn to jump the queue, hard to communicate with people if you don't learn to look tough and talk very loudly. The most incomprehensible thing is this is the place where the laziest and most relaxed animal Pandas are kept.

But day by day as you gradually get to know Sichuan, it becomes more and more likable. First, there are a great number of beautiful landcape and cultural heritage in Sichuan. It has one of the most prosperous Han culture heritage outside Beijing. And it's got a great diversity of geography. Here you can find almost everything apart from the sea. Snow mountains, waterfalls, endless seas of bamboos, all of which make you want to stay longer no matter what the people around you are like. We went to a place called Hailuogou (Trumpet Shell Gorge?). It was snowy at the time we arrive. We just went straight to the hot springs. On the first night we went to the most bizzaar hot spring I've ever been - it was a big swimming pool where the only two swimmers are my friend and I. We swam in a snowy night, it was nevertheless very pleasant to have the snow buds gently touching our faces. Then when the day broke, we went to another hot spring in the mountain, where we could sit there and watch Mount Gongga and the glacier said to be millions years old.  Signs were put up warning people not to play with the monkeys if they also come to the spring. I saw one of these chubby short-tailed animal on our way up to the mountain. They look quite nice and friendly. On a nice and warm day, it is very likely you can play with red pandas in the mountain.

So when we went back to Chengdu, relaxed and startled by the beauty of Sichuan, we felt that people became friendlier. I eventually ended up in a tea house on my last afternoon in Chengdu. For 8 yuan, you can have a good cup of tea with endless top-up. The teahouse owner is a typical goodlooking but a bit over-made-up Sichuan woman. There are a lot of locals in that teahouse, some are having their ears-picked, some are playing Majong, some are just chatting for the length of a whole afternoon. I guess this is where you can really find the spirit of Pandas. How wonderful it survives through such a competitive environment!

I think I'd better end here before it gets too long to read on. Hope I will see you guys again sooner than later!

Love and hugs,

Penguin

PS. You can find the pictures here

Lugu Lake
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44958217@N03/sets/72157622866394906/

and Hailuo Gou
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44478485@N07/sets/72157622741861455/

Life in Chengdu
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44478485@N07/sets/72157622743524379/

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HOPE YOU NOTICE THIS

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I cannot write comments through my proxy server for some reasons. So I just write it here.

To Kay:
Yunnan should definitely be your first destination in China - only in that order you will want to come to China again. There is almost no bad weather in Yunnan, especially in late October. Make your first stop at Lijiang, it is a bit touristy but there are still a lot to explore :D Yunnan food taste great, though 云南十八怪 tastes truly weird, hahaha!Anyway, I should write you guys your China travel plan - once you decide to come over. Let me know!!

To Ant:
I do need to write more here to catch up with you guys! Thanks for your inspirations here!

Alarm bells ringing

My morning ritual is robotic. I wake up 30 minutes before the bus leaves, which gives me just enough time to do the necessary preparation and tea drinking. I may be a bit rushed as I jump out of the shower, but I have always managed to catch the one bus there is to where I work. A few times I have had to chase it down the road or throw myself in front of it, but I had never missed it. Until last Friday.

The circumstances were somewhat complicated by the fact that it was my turn to bring in lunch (the Brits have a lunch club at work) and I had failed to buy enough items the day before. So I left the house extra early so I had time to pick something up in the bakery. There were already three women in the queue when I arrived, but I still had plenty of time. Waiting in line like a patient Englishman, I watched the first one order a whole tray of croissants, the second woman took one of every type of bread they made, and then I almost cried when the final lady pulled out her cheque book. I exited the bakery with my two pain au choc and looking at my watch I realised I had missed the bus.

The next working day, on Monday morning, I was awake bright and early after a rare early night. I had buckets of time and so I got ready in a more dreamy than robotic manner. I left the flat in what I assumed to be ample time, and gently made my way to the bus stop. It was gone.

Missing the bus once made me feel human, but twice in a row set alarm bells ringing. I tried to blame one of my prankster friends as I thought someone must have tampered with my clocks. However, the truth of the matter is that I am too dreamy of late! Last night I had a good yoga session and I think this has refocussed my mind. I have managed to catch the bus today, but only time will tell if I have enough sati to last the rest of the week.

For every one blog entry from you, I will write one...

For the time being, yes haha..

Been pondering the relationship with my work. Seriously, it has developed to an extent that I could not really comprehend. This love-hate can be likened a girl being insulted or embarrassed by her lover, still she loves it even more.

Thus, I have been waiting for my boss to send me work during my leave, feel unease when I have not received the instruction and got excited when I started working on it.

I have been thinking, is that the product of human evolution? To constantly improve onself towards the unachieveable ultimate perfection? I needed an explanation from the academics, but unfortunately Mark only do asexually reproducing haploid organisms because according to him. 's** makes thing complex' hahaha

Btw, the list of Christmas/new year/ birthday presents that I wish:
1. A DVD of a recent movie which my imaginary boyfriend is in it:
http://www.hancinema.net/korean_movie_My_Girlfriend_is_an_Agent.php
-actually this item is not a wishlist, cause someone owed me this!

2. Ann Summer. Forgot to the bring that gift back from UK...Okie I am just kidding!

3. More entries in this blog! This should come top of the list!

4. Don’t even think of kidnapping me from my work!

I am not too demanding right?

He is so cute~ isn’t he?

Painting pretty Provence pictures

The end of November is near, tomorrow the sun enters the Sagittarius sign, meaning the winter solstice is only a month away. The commercialised Christian festival is the prominent image in every shop window, town centres are already decorated with lights and business is booming in Aix's Christmas market. Mothers are talking of mince pies, mulled wine and presents for the little ones, while fathers frequent the local looking forward to festive football. It is a time for wrapping up warm or staying in with a cup of tea and a good book. Thick woolly jumpers are out in force, as are scarves and hats of all varieties.

Except in Provence. As I sit at my open window overlooking the small square with its fountain and overflowing cafes, it would be easy to mistake the scene for an early summer day. These lucky people are out eating lunch and drinking coffee in the open air. I have no heating in my flat, all my windows are open and the thermometer reads 20 degrees. Admittedly it gets colder in the evening, but right now I feel like I am being robbed of winter. I cannot associate this time of year with warmth. Some of the people I watch pass are wearing light clothing, but most are kitted out in their winter gear, as if they are waiting for the cold weather to pounce at any moment. Perhaps their hearts are in denial about the climate and deep down they are craving the cold. I have heard it said that Brits abroad miss the weather of their homeland most. It is easy to complain about rain, wind, clouds, mist, snow and a lack of sunshine, but they give her a sense of variety that the south of France is missing. I am tired of predictably good weather, every single day. I want it to be icy cold some mornings when I wake up, so that I need to struggle to get out of bed. I like the feeling of walking home from work in the rain occasionally, safe in the knowledge that a hot shower will rejuvenate the body.

All those people who dream of living somewhere warmer are deluded. Continuous sunshine gets boring, dull and breeds laziness. Give me a real winter any day!

Reasons for coming to Malaysia (apart from missing me!)

Right, I take it back, the reason in bracket above does not hold.

Anyway, check out Yahoo's top 10 HOTTEST countries to visit for 2010. By hot, I'm not sure whether they mean the weather, the country, or...the people. Although I have to say, my personal favourite on the list is Nepal, which seemed to be a distant dream for a lone backpacker with low budget :(
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-30332814

Let me know what else can I do to lure you guys to Malaysia? (Not working during that time is not an option :P)

Scientists play catch up

Its not science working out that meditation is good for you, but this recent study claims to have found some significant results:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8363302.stm

Last year this time, i was doing this...:P

Time flies. Still remember it was almost a year ago I went to visit Jin and Mark in Seoul. Last Saturday, after work, I went for a late night supper with my colleague. We went to this Korean area in Kuala Lumpur near Ampang. We called it ‘Korean area’ because there are a lot of Koreans living there, mainly because the Korean embassy is nearby. The whole place reminded me of Seoul so much because all the sign boards are in Korean, there are lots of Korean restaurants, supermarkets and people are speaking in Korean. Since Mark did not do a good job in getting me a Korean man, this place shall soon become my favorite hang out place :P

It has also been a year since I started working. I get quite lonely at times because it is not possible to date any man with such working hours. Facebook is my main source of socialization although I have been trying to attend 'physical' gatherings but it is just difficult to find common ground. The people whom I see 16 hours a day are my bosses and clients, which none of them I can date because they are either over 40 or subject to professional independence considerations (might need to declare my relationships to my employer).

There was a joke among the female auditors, every year we will deprecate 25% and after 4 years (after our 4-year contract expires), we will be written off as we would have no value in the dating market.

So why am I still doing this?

Good thing is, I have lost weight because of work, can afford to go on backpacking trips which I could not afford to do when I was at university.

If you guys are coming to Malaysia, I promise I will sort out all your accommodation and your travel plans plus logistical arrangement, excluding my physical presence :P Let me know!

Last week I fell in love with a French girl

And she has fallen out of love with me already this week. That is the gist of this story.

The worst of it is that it is only Monday. Had I been able to make it through to Wednesday or Thursday then I would have been quite pleased with myself. But as it is, I feel like a piece of half-chewed gum that has been prematurely spat out onto a busy street. I thought there was still some flavour there, but as it is I am very soon going to be attached to the bottom of someone's shoe.

I enjoyed it while it lasted. I think I learnt quite a lot of French last week. At least more than I have been taught in French lessons for the last 6 months. There is something about an attractive girl that focusses the mind like no amount of classroom work or mp3 listening can compete with. I thought I would be fluent within a month. Not so likely now. It seemed to be going too well last week, chatting on the bus and meeting up for tea. We were texting every five minutes and I was even a bit distracted from my work. Then things started to cool at the weekend as she did that annoying "let's just be friends" thing. Today there was almost zero flirting which was like the final twist of the dagger.

So after taking ten months to find a French girl, I am now completely unconvinced that I want to have anything to do with any others. I want to warn you guys, they are beautiful, but underneath they are rude, presumptuous, unpredictable and they smoke too much. My advice, stay at home with a pain au chocolate and a good cup of Her Majesty's finest tea.

Eighth of November

Hi all. Where are all the new posts I've been expecting??? Come on guys, Kay is dying for some gossip here! I'm going to tell her about the time I saw Rain naked in the shower but that might have to wait for a future post (while I get the pictures developed...).

A prize for the first person to tell me what day it is today! (Here's a hint, just copying the title of this post isn't gonna get you squat...)

I'd quite like to hear from Michael -- seems from the plethora of emails and facebook messages I've been getting from him that he is now the WBS organiser-in-chief, which suggests either he's finished his thesis and has some spare time, or he isn't going to finish any time soon... Which is it Michael?

Ok, I'll give out one more prize for the first person who solves this riddle (it's quite famous -- you might have seen it before):

In a street there are five houses, painted five different colours. In each house lives a person of different nationality. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, have a different occupation, and keep a different pet.

The Brit lives in a red house. The Thai keeps dogs as pets. The Dutchman drinks tea. The Green house is on the left of the White house (adjacent). The owner of the Green house drinks coffee. The flasher rears birds. The owner of the Yellow house is a star-gazer. The person living in the centre house drinks milk. The Chinese lady lives in the first house. The navel-gazer lives next to the person who keeps cats. The person who keeps horses lives next to the star-gazer. The spy drinks water. The Malaysian is a pencil sharpner. The Chinese lady lives next to the blue house. The navel-gazer has a neighbour who drinks beer.

Who owns the fish??? :-D

How have ur life been!?

Glad to hear from most of you :) Am interested to know what is your coming travel plans? Let me know if you guys are still interested in meeting up in Malaysia, although I can’t guarantee I can leave my workplace by 11pm and not work during weekends, because December and January is really peak period in finance and banking industry, but I promise I will definitely arrange for all your accommodations and transportations.

It has almost been one and a half year since I have met some of you (maybe apart from seeing Mark and Jin who were such great hosts when I was in Seoul : )). Am interested in how is your daily life like. E.g. I know Ant woke up 10 seconds before his bus arrived to pick him up to work. Jin is working 24 hours a day while Mark thinks it’s so wrong to stay in office after 6pm :P

Mine is sort of like living 2 extreme lives. During study leave, I'm very very free. Apart from lectures, I can go on cheap backpacking (don't tell my mum I went to Yogjakarta alone and stayed in a dodgy hostel), and to do some voluntary works (I was teaching some kids mathematics during my last study leave and this coming one I plan to see what I can do in old folk homes). Work wise, it was bad at the beginning but now it's getting better :) Love life wise, I'm still single and very very available...so if u have anyone you know, give me his contact number! hahahaha (Mark, you know my type right?)

Hugs and kisses...

New Forest Hermitage site

For those of you not keeping up to date with temple news, the Forest Hermitage and Bhavana Dhamma have a new website: www.foresthermitage.org.uk. If I was looking for meditation in Warwick, this is where I would go!

Hello all...now this has become manifest, the world shall know no end to our poetical power. i agree with you Mark, this space should be used very creatively....Love and Light xxx

From the land of morning calm

Wow! I thought this would be the first post! I'd been thinking of ideas for an introduction and so on but Ant and Kay seem to have done a pretty good job of that, so now I don't know what to write...

I just want to say that this should be a chance for all of us to write about whatever we are feeling, and nobody should feel they have to emulate Ant's wonderful prose, or even make any sense. If it brings us closer together then even reading inane ramblings will be worthwhile.

So, since my intended topic has been stolen, an ode to my bed.

When we're apart you merely furnish the room -
Cold, inanimate, unmade.
But bring us together and my heart starts to bloom,
My worries gently fade.

Oh! How I hate to leave your embrace,
From afar you call to me.
Oh! How I wish to end this rat race,
And lay down, eternally.


Peaches and love,

Setting the scene

Once upon a time, in a far away country where Buddhism was fashionably unpracticed, a group of Warwick students came together to cultivate mindfulness and friendship. While they were not always mindful (evidence will be cited in due course), they did succeed in laying down some deep karmic connections for this life, and probably the next. Like all worldly things though, delicious rice dinners, afternoon tea breaks, and weekend trips to the temple could not last forever. As degree certificates were handed out, individuals went their own way and the group became dispersed across all corners of the globe. Pain and suffering ensued. In time, each would adapt to their new surroundings and begin to build happy little empires...

Welcome on Board!

The idea for a group blog started a few years back. But just like any other attempts, may it be to distribute a written newsletter or to flood a victim’s mail box and emails every hour, it never happens.

Mark is now a professional husband, Ant is surprisingly so committed to his job (yeah I’m so proud of you!), Pie’s Wii and Xbox are collecting dust. Jin is working hard as usual (her lazy husband should give her massage!), Joob has almost done cutting rat heads and ready to be a wife *hint hint*, while Hema has always been my source of inspiration : )

Not to mention the crappy English I get from people who have been away from England for too long :P

Miss you guys loads, but I still don’t think I can get out of my office between Christmas and mid Jan…