Off the beaten track

So, yes, I'm back in Kingston, Jamaica again! Although it's been work, work and even more work since I got here, how many people can actually say they have the view that I have from my hotel balcony while they work?

Anyway, last weekend, I got a well deserved break from work when my friend invited me to balik kampung with her. Her kampung is a little village on Constituition Hill, about 30 minutes away from Kingston. Getting there itself was an adventure on it's own. The roads were ridiculously narrow, one side was the mountain wall and the other was a steep drop into the valley. Amazingly enough, somehow it can actually fit 2 vehicles and I'm not talking about Kancil sized cars here, more like Hiluxes and Landrovers. Don't ask me how, I just didn't want to look how close we were from falling off the cliff.

The highlights of my little village adventure was the traditional home cooked food and a domino match that I went to.

A traditional Jamaican breakfast is Ackee and Saltfish(nice - looks and tastes like scrambled eggs) and Roasted Breadfruit(nice- tastes like not-so-sweet potato) and Boiled Banana(plain yucky!). Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica and it can only be plucked off the trees once it has opened up by itself. If you eat an unopened Ackee, you'd be poisoned.

Ackee fruit

Jamaican breakfast

Now, the domino match. Did I say match? Nope. I should correct myself. It should be called Domino Kampung Cup. Every Sunday, the whole village gathers at a little shed to support their favourite domino team. Each team has it's own jersey, cheerleaders (complete with the team flag and banners), and everyone brings trumpets, lots of sticks and pots and pans that they can bang together and generally just make as much noise as they can on top of all the shouting to support their team.

A domino match

And how can I not mention the weed .... wow, lots and lots of weed! The men were smoking weed as commonly as you might find someone in Malaysia smoking cigarettes. By the time they finished their game, I had been at the match for about 2 hours and I was having a serious headache from inhaling secondary weed smoke. I was so glad to leave the place and breathe in fresh air!

So that was my little village adventure. It was off the beaten track - not a very "touristy" thing to do, considering I'm in the Caribbeans. But I actually appreciated this experience more than I would appreciate going to the beach because this is also Jamaica - the people and their culture. And I'm glad that the people opened up to me, welcomed me and showed me a little of who they are.

~Anya~ (now completely recovered from my secondary weed-smoke hang over) :)

Mother of all bad signs..

Recently I went on a short vacation to Cambodia ;) it was a very well deserved break and I honestly had a great time..

I was dreading this trip so much for all the “right” reasons.. (Note: its not wrong reasons) I think anyone in my position would have considered all the things that happened as a very bad sign and probably would have canceled the trip.. but im glad I didn’t :)

Well, the air tickets to go Cambodia was booked like 6 months back.. it all started there went I booked the flights to the wrong city, Phnom Penh.. because of that there was lot of confusion on how we gonna be traveling to the city I wanted to visit Siam Reap.. which is like 5-6 hours away from Phnom Penh..

Although we had the whole of 6 long months to prepare, being our great selves, we didn’t bother to prepare.. (also because we weren’t financially able to) I attempted to plan something and sort out the travel arrangements now n then.. due to lack of response from the other party, I just couldn’t be bothered at the end.. as we reached closer to the dates, I sort of gave up hope and was quite confident that this trip will not work out…

Only like 3 days before we were to scheduled to fly, we started getting serious bout this trip.. even then, we had a lot issues to consider, the biggest issue came from the financial sector.. after a lot of arguments and research and bla bla, we finally decided to go for it.. which was on Monday.. (we were suppose to fly on wednesday)..

Looking for a hotel at the very last minute, or I should rephrase, looking for an cheap/affordable hotel at the last minute was hard… I spent hours looking and finally on Monday night I booked it all n left home feeling relieved.. then I came to work on Tuesday, opened my inbox, and there were mails from the hotels I booked rejecting my booking… tat was a great start.. then I had to start the process all over again.. call up this n that, book this, book that, rush them on confirmation and finally on Tuesday night I managed to confirm the rooms… then I had to rush to KL to collect my camera and to change some money… I went to bank to withdraw money tat night, and the great atm machine retained my card for no good reason… bang! There I was with no money in hand and without my atm card…

Took a deep breath.. patiently left home.. woke up early next day, flyin in the afternoon.. went to the bank queued up long, and finally went my turn was up, the system was down... great! There I was again, with no money at all.. they told me try again in an hour.. Still didn’t loose my patience, I rushed to my office, to send out an important file, I went switched on my pc, was trying to get it done asap, n here we go… the office actually blacked out!!

Do you actually need any more bad signs? I did stop n think every time, if all this is a bad sign n I should just call off the trip… somehow we still wanted to go ahead…

By the time, I sort that out.. Rushed back to the bank to withdraw money n etc.. I was already running late to check in.. still rushed, took a cab to the airport and yeah guess wat.. the driver took a longer route n was driving extremely slow… by the time we reached, no prize for guessing, the check in counter was closed… although, we should have just shut up and came back, we didn’t.. and things actually started turning around well since then..

There was a kind lady at the counter who was willing to check us in… and the moment we landed, we were greeted by this sweet local guy, the driver, who was willing to take us to Siam Reap and show us around in his car for a cheap price since he had some work to do there… that solved all our traveling misery.. we checked into the 1^st hotel, which I was dreading after reading some bad reviews, and to be told that our room was upgraded to VIP room because they were out of room and we got it for a standard room price… everything else were just falling into place, the right places, throughout the whole trip.. We were quite worried bout going to be penniless there.. But we actually managed to live a good life, spent on everything we wanted, did some good shopping and did come back with some money in hand and great smile on our faces…

So see… the moral of the story.. U never try, u never know… no sign is a bad sign :)

By: ‘lilo

Lilo missing her frens...

This blog is getting rather pathetic.. No one is contributing anything anymore.. I don’t know what happened to my quarter-life-crisised frens.. Lilo wonders if they have all gone past the stage, overcame the crisis n too happy with their life to be bothered about this blog.. or they are all just too busy with their life to waste their time complaining on this blog..

Anyway, just to update on behalf of them.. Margie is in Prague now.. having a blasting time.. doin a lot of ‘adventurous’ things ;) she would kill me if i name them, although im very tempted to..

Anya is on her way to panama.. currently in Jamaica.. watching the sea from her room window and missing certain someone in the east Malaysia..

Snowflakes who never appeared in this blog, is missing in action as usual.. the last I heard from her, she’s currently very busy with mommy-sitting ;p

so that leaves lilo all alone.. sucking on her oh-so-usual boring life..

By: ‘lilo

The F.O.U.R letter word!

wow, i just realised the word "four" actually have 4 alphabets in it.. ok, ok.. before u all think i have gone crazy, just try from one to ten, none of it actually represent the number of alphabets in it.. see, i have a point!

anyway, my intention was just to write about the significance of the four letter word in my life.. LIFE yeah, (the 1st 4 letter word) SUCK! (2nd) n my recent over used word is, FUCK! (3rd) although i was recently reminded by a friend not to over-use it, as its so not me, well, im so PISSed (4th) with everyone and everything right now.. n this phase that i'm going through in my life, as turned me to be real MEAN (5th).. maybe, i have always been.. nway, im glad to be mean rather than being a bitch!

n im also very COLD (6th) towards people.. i just cant go all smiling n make friends to everyone.. recently also been called stone cold :p with no emotions.. anyway, so at the end of the day, i always fall into the SNOB (7th) category...

talking about 4 letter words.. my name is one.. although im not gonna say it here, its the 8th one.. coincidentally my nick for this blog too is a 4 letter word.. LILO (9th).. n im actually dating a guy, who also has a 4 letter name (10th)...

n all my life, I always only had 4 friends at any one point of time in my life.. like, primary, secondary, uni n etc..

n the number I represent according to the numerology thing is actually 4 (1+3, 13 which is my birth day)

although the number 4 plays a big role in my life or at least lot of insignificant significance in my life.. number 4 is actually dreaded by a certain community.. they actually avoid this number in anything they do, like when buying car, house, no 4th floor in a building, n etc... because 4 in Chinese is pronounced as "SEI" which literally means DIE!

now, doesn't that explain myself very clearly??

By: 'lilo

Horns beneath my hallow

Yesterday a friend asked me this : “25 years of living, 10 of it you probably don’t remember much of – but the rest of the 15, have to ever done anything impulsive? Something exciting, dangerous and mischievous?” Something that when you look back, you smile and feel really happy about.

It could have been just a general question and I could have given a befitting general answer but somehow I just stopped to think. Really, in the past 25 years, do I have anything to look back on and say with awed satisfaction “Damn! I can’t believe I did that!” Or have I just gone with the flow and did what everyone says I should do or is the right thing to do. For instance, when the time came for me to make a decision about choosing what field to study in university (unfortunately I’m not one of those people who knew what they wanted to be since the age of three :P), I basically had 4 options : doctor, lawyer, engineer and accountant. Although my parents pretty much gave me the freedom to pursue anything I wanted, these four professions have always been the profession of choice among my community (especially doctor). Not wanting to disappoint my parents and grandparents and for lack of better options, I chose the lesser evil in my opinion and ended up in engineering.

Up to graduation, I have to say I just went along with “the right thing to do” which was to get that damn engineering degree! But once I was living the single, young working adult life, I have to say I’ve been discovering that I have little devil horns hiding beneath my hallow. So back to the question about have I done anything that was incredibly impulsive and mischievous- the little devil horns should give you a clue ;)

^Anya^

H.A.P.P.Y

I can’t believe it has been a month since I last blogged… although I never failed to check on updates in this blog everyday, but I just didn’t have time to write one myself… I’ve been extremely busy and stressful; or rather life has been a bitch...

Work has been very stressful… lack of manpower, deadlines, new senior-ship, blur junior, everything is taking a toll on me..

And life, hell yeah, that has been pretty stressful too.. Lack of sleep, relationship, family, blocked credit cards, the hole in my wallet, zero bank balance, recent price hikes… oh yeah, lack of menstruation too.. (Counting to 4 months now)

But I guess this is what makes my life interesting.. Without all these, life would be so boring.. The truth is, I’ll be too free to think… when I think a lot, I analyze the tiny miny details, I deliberate on unwanted issues, I pick up fight over nonsense.. Conclusion, I end up being sad…

So here I am, extremely HAPPY..

~ happy that I have no time to even feel bored

~ happy that I have no time to pick a fight with my mom/bf

~ happy that I don’t have time to think how’s my future going to be…

:) ,

‘lilo

For Real or Fake?

Did I mention that the hotel I'm staying at now serves a weird buffet breakfast? It's a cross between western and local Jamaican food and somehow the result is just plain weird. But anyway, that's beside the point. What I really want to tell you about is what happened during breakfast this morning.

A French guy asked me out for dinner!

Ok, ok, I shouldn't get ahead of myself. So there I was, minding my own business, having my mandatory morning cup of coffee (there is no life before coffee. period.), when this guy walks up to my table and asks if he could sit with me. I gave him a blank stare, half my mind wondering if I've met him before and the other half wondering if he's a sales person. So he asked me again. This time I declined saying I was about to leave to work. Than he whips out his business card - United Nations!- (I'm thinking to myself : Ok, so aparently I'm supposed to be impressed but this is interesting : A Frenchie working for the UN in Jamaica asking if he could sit at my table, so let's see what he has to say) Now when I think back, I think it was his French accent and not his UN business card that made me agree for him to join me for coffee.

One minute we were talking about work and the pros and cons of traveling and the next he was asking if I have dinner at the hotel. Of course I knew what his next question would be, so I told him I usually have dinner with my friends; indirectly saying "No, I'm not going to have dinner with you". And I have to give him credit, he actually got the subtle let down. He gave a laugh and said (in that nice French accent) "I was about to ask you out for dinner but anyway, how about you give me your business card instead?". Of course, I tactfully said no. French or not, somethings are better to be nipped in the bud.

Later, after he left, I looked at his business card again and something caught my eye. His e-mail address. It was a Yahoo e-mail address. Now, I may be wrong, but wouldn't someone who works for the UN have a UN e-mail address?

So was he really working for the UN, assigned to Jamaica on some important mission? Was he even really French? Or was he just a big fake?

~Anya~