Nrt-pek

Nrt-pek

So exhausted and agitated, even though there's only an hour or so left of this flight. Been flying for over eighteen hours now. It's t getting too much already. I can't wait to have a hot shower and to lie down on a proper bed and sleep for a normal night till morning.  

The flights have been quite torturous, especially ad I choose to sit next to the window and am more or less hemmed in and need to ask for permission to get up and out. The fact that I got really ill last time I flew back to Asia has made me really paranoid. And somehow there are all these people who are sneezing and sniffing, making me really afraid of getting sick... 

So the final half an hour till we land in China. It will be interesting to see and experience for sure. From what I've seen so far , just the way people push and all crowd to board the plane, it's not pleasant. The plane already pushed back and passengers still got up and opened the overhead compartments. And  I could swear I heard the passenger behind spit. Is this normal? 

It is quite a historic moment, for I have long vowed I would not set foot in China, and have long held very negative opinions about the country. To be honest this trip was not really planned, and the main focus is really to see North Korea, the tour of which starts the day after tomorrow. But incidentally, I will get to see the People's Republic of China, this place which for so long holds such allure to many but to me is shrouded behind a veil of suspicion and animosity.

Last blog entry before the Great firewall of China.

On board bus to the plane. Surrounded by Chinese people...

This should be... interesting.

Den-nrt

UA139

Den-nrt 

It was just under a year ago that I boarded this same flight, UA139, the inaugural flight of the 787 to Tokyo Narita from Denver. How excited I felt then, my first flight with the Dreamliner. Today, is my third. That was the trip to commenmorate the  first anniversary of mum's passing.

A year can do many things to you. It can (and this year did...) make you older, more tired and pensive. It can heal you, wear you down, lift you up, or weigh heavy on you. A year on, and I feel very tired, perhaps mainly because I've slept so little and poorly over the past two, three weeks. And what better way is there to relax by going on a tour of the People's Republics of China and North Korea? 

I have been asked by many why I'm going on this trip. And the first instinct is: why not? 

Must there always be a reason to do things, a justification, an end? 

Can a trip just be the reason itself? 

I have been to many places in the world, and there are still so many more to explore. 

And North Korea is one of these places.

Sleeplessness

Three thirty in the morning. I am unable to sleep again, even though I just slept two hours or so. I don't know the reason exactly, but it may be out of fear of not waking up in time for my flight (and start of this exciting itinerary, "Tour of the People's Republics"...), and partly out of this lingering sense of defeatism I have been feeling since my exam yesterday morning.

Yes, I feel I royally did poorly. I don't know how. I just blanked out at one point for a few minutes and the question on paper said nothing to me. Two questions, worth thirty points in total were unanswered (one partly, but perhaps poorly...) Which means I already lost thirty points already. I need a fifty to pass, but it's still going to be very narrow. With some miracle, I may just scrape through, but I doubt it (being the pessimist I am...).

I don't know what happened. Perhaps I was just tired, exhausted from over a weeek of sleeping at irregular hours and trying to cram everything in at once. I studied hard, I tried so hard, and its all I  could have done. But maybe not hard enough? (It didn't help this "friend" told me a week earlier I wouldn't make it and won't be able to finish studying. How encouraging...) Maybe Im just not good enough; despite being so sleep deprived and feeling like I'm about to collapse because I'm just so tired. So very tired. I feel my body burning from exhaustion, and even putting my body through all that, I most likely failed the exam. And my stomach has been so upset over the past few days because of all the stress and tensions. No relief...

I knew the concepts, I knew the law, I had tonnes of notes, but I just couldn't make use of them. I just couldn't identify what the question was asking me and come up with a coherent answer. I just couldn't, at least not for the two questions I left blank...

I hate to have to repeat the exam again, especially as I already know I need to repeat one (Law of Evidence, this latest one I did was Property Law... ). What a blow it would be on my psyche and self esteem. But what could I do...?

I need to wake up at in half an hour. Just can't sleep. At least if I'm really tired, I could sleep across the Pacific. It's a way of coping with sitting on a cramped seat I guess.

What use is it to mull over defeat?
The exam was the way it was, right?
Perhaps its just not my year, as its been a rough few months since the beginning of the lunar New year, as the horoscope predicted

So is it really wise to be heading to countries of high risk, like the People's Republic s of China and North Korea...?

We shall find out.
And I say this with perhaps a foolish sense of bravadery, and  a hint of smugness, as if I'm trying to taunt fate by throwing cautions and numerous attempts by people to discourage me from going (and there have been many...) in the wind.

Mum's birthday

She would have been 62 today.

As I struggled on to finish studying, my mind drifted to events two years ago...
How I rushed to go see (worship) dad on a rainy day and rushed back to the hospital to bring mum (longevity) noodles... How days later, she was discharged from the hospital and my nephew (through my sistter in law) bought beautiful flowers and they stood there on the dining room table as she walked slowly and sat down on the chair...

I remember so clearly, and my blog entries back then coloured the blanks. What state I was in then...
How agitated, how tired (but strangely I did not need to sleep...I could go on and on without proper sleep, unlike now, as sleep seems to have become my refuge from the world), how pained, how worried I was then. And then, I was on the brink of my return to Canada for an exam. Then, as now, I was studying for an exam, for something that I promised mum I would complete--in a way for her, so that she could go with the knowledge that I would, at least professionally, have a stable career. Two years on, and I struggle still to live to that promise as I struggle to tick off all the exams I need to do to be admitted to the bar. 



Throughout the day, as I was reading through painfully dry material on covenants and easements, my mind flashed back to two years ago... My eyes would tear. There is a sense of relief that those days are now far behind me.. but in that relief is also a void as a result of losing no doubt the most important and dearest person in my life. Mum... I had a mum.

I had a mum I could hug. I had a mum whose hands I could hold and who would brush my hair and pat me on the back when I needed comforting. I had a mum who loved and cared for me unconditionally, even though then she was struggling with life and bravely fought cancer...

Two years on, it is all quiet here.
All alone, cooped in my room , head down, studying. The silence is only broken by soft classical music in the background, broken by occasional sobs and sniffs of a son who still longs for the love and touch of his dear, and now dead, mother.

Happy birthday, mum...

Thank you for everything.
I miss you dearly.