Choices

"We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us"

-- Andrew Ryan (a character in the game BioShock)

The above quote sounds very powerful but what exactly does it mean?

If the shoes fit

I do not look forward to buying shoes as I have a hard time finding a pair of comfortable shoes that fit both my feet. This is because my right foot is slightly bigger than my left foot.

For the shoes below, the left side fits my left foot beautifully and they are very comfortable to wear but after walking for a while I find that my right foot hurts because the right side is just too tight and squeezes my right toes. As you can see from the picture below, it is a UK size 2 shoe. So into the shoe cabinet they went never to be seen again.


When I first tried on the pair of shoes below in the shoe shop, it felt great so I bought them but when I came home, I found that the left side is just too loose although the right side fits nicely so I bought some insoles to pad up the left side but still find it not comfortable to wear so for two years now this pair has never been worn even once. As shown in the picture below, it is a size 3 shoe. I am not sure whether the size refers to a UK or US size. What a waste of money.

This pair below is my favourite pair of sandals. I tend to be heavy on my right leg while walking so the right side was worn out way before the left side and I have to say goodbye to them. This pair is a size 4. I am also not sure whether it is referring to the UK or US size. They only served me for less than 1 year but I wore them almost everyday everywhere I went.

The sport shoes below are slightly larger than my feet as it is a UK size 4.5 but they are very comfortable to wear and they have served me well as I wore them for the whole 15 days of my Kyoto-Osaka trip last year. They were the only shoes I brought on the trip and I was really walking a lot then.

Now it's time for me to buy a new pair of shoes as I have no other pair of shoes apart from those displayed here. I am just wearing slippers from the night market as a temporary measure for the time being. Hopefully this time, I will be able to buy a comfortable pair that fits both my feet not only in the shoe shop but also when I come home. With US, UK, and EUR sizes, I really do not know what my shoe size is. I suspect my left foot is a UK size 2 and my right foot is a UK size 3. Now where can I find a shoe shop that is willing to sell me mix and match sizes, I wonder.

10 to 6

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
- Benjamin Franklin
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)

So from today onwards, I will go to sleep at 10pm in order to wake up at 6am and still get 8 hours of sleep. Hope I will be able to make this into a habit.

Non-stop battles at home

Barbaric, brutal, bloody, gruesome, violent, savage, horrific. The battles go on and on.

Source (Images above are copied from): http://www.gamespot.com/

My spouse has just got his hands on God of War III, a third-person single-player action-adventure PS3 game and has been enjoying himself playing it for the past few days. This game concludes the God of War trilogy. The ESRB Rating for this game is M (Mature) so that means it is not meant to be played by anyone below 17 of age (ESRB = Entertainment Software Rating Board) but I don't think parents here adhere to this guide though I hope they do. This type of game (bloody battles) is not for me but I enjoy the overall story and the superb visuals. In God of War II, I even helped to solve some of the puzzles. This time, I have informed my spouse to let me know whenever he encounters any puzzles. Let's see for how many weeks this game can keep him occupied.

No MATTA Fair for me

The first of the twice-a-year MATTA (Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents) Fair 2010 is on this weekend, from 12th-14th of March 2010 (10am to 9pm) at Putra World Trade Center (PWTC) Kuala Lumpur. I wanted to go and get a good travel deal but with no clear idea of when and where I wish to visit this year, it is no go for me this time.

Since it turned out this way, I just have to be contented with sitting at home and looking through our previous travel photos. Here are some photos from my 3-day Copenhagen trip from 3rd-5th of October 2002. We went there because our airmiles were going to expire so we used them instead of wasting them.

We stayed at the Ibis Triton Hotel, room 518. The above photo shows the view from the main door.

It has a very big bathroom.

We did not get to try the famous traditional Danish open faced sandwiches, "smørrebrød" because we were too full from dinner when we came across them but we managed to take a photo of them. They looked delicious so it was really a pity we did not get to taste them.

I am standing in front of the Kronborg Castle in Elsinore. This castle is the castle mentioned in Shakespeare's Hamlet and we spent a fair amount of time looking through each room in the castle. We also visited the Frederiksborg Castle but did not pay to go inside as there was not enough time to do so.

We went on a river cruise and admired the little mermaid from the boat. We did not manage to visit the Tivoli Gardens because it was closed during the 3 days that we were in Copenhagen.

As we went on our own, we spent most of our time walking to the castles from the train stations so we were very, very tired at the end of each day. But looking back now, it was a memorable short trip.

To admit or not to admit

For the past few days, I have been going daily to a government hospital to visit a relative who was admitted for tests and observation. It was a few days into CNY that my relative felt that her heart was beating too fast and after meals, she would have pain all over her upper torso. She self-medicated for a week before deciding to see a doctor and get a referral to be admitted to the hospital for tests. One year short of 70, with diabetes, high blood pressure and a history of heart disease, she does not look sick at all but she can tell that something is not right with her body this time.

The main thing that struck me during these visits was the sheer boringness of a hospital stay for the patient. Once visiting hours were over, there was nothing interesting for the patient to do except to lie there and wait for more tests to be carried out by the doctors. Sure, the patient could read a book and watch tv but the mind is not there and it is not enjoyable to read a book or watch tv lying down on a hospital bed with machines sticking to one's body.

Seeing this, it does not surprise me that some people would endure pain and discomfort to avoid a hospital stay and having tests done on them. Now I wonder which category do I belong to:

A. Someone who will consult a doctor and go to the hospital for tests when feeling some pain.

or

B. Someone who will endure pain and discomfort for as long as they can in order to avoid going to the hospital for tests.

I couldn't decide but I believe that there is a kind of pain that is so excruciating that one would not be able to endure it at all and would be forced to go to the hospital whether one likes it or not. But for everyone else, I would prefer them to be in category A because it is better for them and also for me if they get admitted to the hospital when they could still do it than for them to be found unconscious by someone else and be admitted then. For in the latter case, the condition would be serious and perhaps even fatal.

So it pays to make extra effort to take good care of one's health by exercising regularly and eating healthy food in moderation. Not to achieve eternal life but to avoid the sheer boringness of a hospital stay.

Bye bye CNY

Yesterday was the last day (元宵节 yuán xiāo jié / 十五暝 Chap Goh Mei) of the 15-day CNY celebration. Initially I planned to visit i-City Shah Alam at night with my family after seeing the pretty photos taken of the lights display by blogger Family First.

After I have visualized the trip in my mind, I realized that we would probably spend more time travelling in the car than admiring the lights. I also do not know whether the lights display was still on or not. There was no information about the lights display on i-City website. So I just googled for all the blog posts with photos of the lights and showed them to my family. All of us agreed that we have been able to experience the beauty of the lights through these photos so we do not need to make the actual journey there. I just have to say a big thank you to photo bloggers who enabled us to do so. Therefore, the trip was cancelled but everyone was happy to end the CNY celebration this way.

However, we are all looking forward to next year to celebrate CNY again as it is an important festival to ethnic Chinese all around the world. Although it is not a public holiday in many countries, Chinatowns around the world would still celebrate it in their own way, sharing this significant event with people from other cultures.

I was in London Chinatown during CNY 2000. There were many makeshift stalls in the street selling CNY goodies and the street was packed with people. All the Chinese restaurants were opened for business unlike here where many of the Chinese restaurants would be closed for the first two days of CNY. Chinatown was just bustling with activities. Good for Chinatowns worldwide for celebrating CNY!

1st Photo: CNY 2000 in London Chinatown

2nd Photo: A closeup of the little boy in the 1st photo. He is playing with a toy dragon as the year 2000 is the year of the dragon