Cambodia and Back!

Cambodia's really something else! I'm not really much of a writer so I'd upload lots of pictures instead. =)

Cambodia -Siam Reap
The SUN was scorching!!! I think my skin cells died en masse the first day there. Singapore sunblock was no match against Cambodian sun. T_T But it's really a beautiful country. Simple yet beautiful.



Hotel looked nice but wasn't too good in my opinion. Well, we can't expect much from a 3* hotel... and I'm a brat.... *shrugs*


After an extremely hot and sweaty walk, bout 30 mins or so (instigated by miss backpacker of the year -loser tan), we reached the central mkt in Siam Reap. Usual tourist stuff, nothing much to buy there because I didn't want to spend my money on the first day.


The two crazy but adorable girls with me! The Bhai girl and Loser Tan.

Angkor Wat and other assorted temples....



Alrighty... we visited so many temples that day it made my head spin. Honest. I loved it.... to an extent. It was certainly impressive to say the least. But the restoration of the place wasn't done too well... the tourists were the hazards! Hmm... I'm certainly guilty of it too.


Beautiful isn't it?






Absolutely love these carvings... impressive for 12th century craftsmen.


The three of us... note the difference in height.... *sigh*


We went up the center of Bayon Temple. And because I suggested going up, when the time came for us to get down, I was the first one down. It sure was a long way down... =_=


But the highlight was this one! Much higher then the previous one...this one was in the middle of Angkor Wat itself and Loser Tan risked her life to take our picture! Haha...


Me and Loser Tan




The view from above was fantastic....well worth the climb...


The climb down was no joke. The tourists were soooooooo afraid... but the locals are experts I tell you. The old uncles and aunties seemed to "run" down those steps! Mothers carrying little kids can go down faster than us.... haha... Bhai girl had to ask the extremely old uncle after her to slow down quite a few times. hahaha...

Phnom Penh-Took a domestic flight to Phnom Penh


Visited the Genocide Museum Tuol Sleng, formerly known as the Khmer Rouge S21 Prison, in Phnom Penh. Extremely depressing place.



It was formerly a high school. Under the K.R, many schools, hospitals, even temples were converted into prisons.


Regulations at the prison... translated into english... it's fucking insane lah!


Picture of guy being tortured, chained to the bed.


Blk C -The only block with the barbed wire still intact. To prevent prisoners from committing suicide. Truly sickening.


5-6 men will fit into one of these tiny cells....


Women's cells were on the second floor, made of wood instead.


Pictures of the victims


Some of them merely children.


The Khmer Rouge. I simply don't understand how they can do this to their own people. It's truely abhorrent.


The prisoners in S21 were tortured and when they "confessed", they were sent to the killing field. It's a classic case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you confess, you'll be taken to the killing fields. If you don't, they'll torture you to death. Bloody hell!


The Khmer Rouge, like the Japanese soldiers, would fling the children against the tree to kill them before flinging them into the mass grave at the side. argh...


The sugar palm tree. The Khmer Rouge used the sharp edges of the tree to cut the throats of the victims. *shivers*


The skulls of the victims...


This is actually quite disturbing. Our guide told us that we're actually walking on some of the bones of the victims. Everytime it rains, more clothes and bones of the victims will be discovered. All these will be collected in a pile next to a tree. Every month, people will take this pile of clothes and bones and cremate them. We were real careful about where we stepped after we heard this.

After that. lunch was a depressing affair. The sheer amount of beggers on the street was astonishing and sad. It'd been said that on the average, 2 Cambodians stepped on mines everyday and when you see someone without arms, legs or fingers because of these mines, one can't help but feel that the impact of the Khmer Rouge is truly far-reaching. if only that old bitch Pol Pot never existed all these suffering might not have occurred.


A place of fond memories... spent the bulk of my money there.=_=
It was here that we returned to after miss "backpacker of the year"'s backpack was snatched away while we were on the tuktuk. The tuktuk driver tried to give chase. To his credit, he really tried.... but the combined weight of the tuktuk and 3 not so small women inside didn't really help. Oh well, nothing important was lost and it was a cheap backpack from central market anyways. Not much loss... the important thing was we were all right. =)


At the airport.... too early to check in....


The famous yellow backpack. 2nd generation....


Loser tan annoyed me with one too many comments bout my photography skills.... so i took off her head. hahahahaha...


Last meal in Cambodia... with a not so nice brownie. haha...

Home sweet home....

The one mitigating factor in school...

I guess I'm thankful for small favours in life. It could have been worse but it's not. Thanks to these adorable people...


Chilling out at the Irish pub at east coast after seafood dinner. Bloody expensive dinner but the company was good.



As stated in the Shin-ster's blog... from the same junior college to the same secondary school to teach... no wonder we get along so well. hahaha... these are my favourite girls in school!



So bored were we that we started taking nonsense pictures... as seen from the above pic. =_=



The Gong-gong dragon team! hehehe... we might not have been the best rowers this time round. But we'll do better next year! =)


Oh ya... I was looking through the pics and came across this one... hehee... I think I like Loser tan's irritated expression. =P


But my fav is still this one. I think we look sufficiently spaz...correction. Beng looks spaz. I'm cute. wahahahahahaha...

Nostalgia

There's still bout 20 minutes to go before I have to leave the house for dragon-boat. Through a link on another friend's blog, I came across this blog by a junior of mine. In her blog, she wrote about friends leaving and how she's the only girl of her batch left, how training's not the same when your batchmates leave one by one and soon there's no one left etc etc. It sort of reminded me of myself back then. I think I felt the same way when my batch withered down to just the 3 of us. I guess I was luckier. I had er jie, fendy, ZX, uncle wengkeong, all these wonderful seniors to fall back on. I'm not so sure of her batch though. I hope they'll have as strong a support group among their seniors. Training is definitely not about friends... but it sure is discouraging when you're the only one left.

Tons of things to do... and miles to go before I rest...

It's truly sickening when it's the bloody holidays and I don't seem to have much free time to just chill out and do nothing.
1)Extra lessons to prepare for my classes
2)2 weeks of extra lessons
3)Sec 2 Camp (ok... this one doesn't really count... i was just being a busybody. hehe)
4)Meeting up with my cadets to drill them for the inter-unit quiz
5)Marking extra assignments
6)Collecting and checking files
7)Filling up forms for I don't know what....
8)Sec 1 Camp (settle food, firewood etc etc)
9)Up-coming Johore trip with the Sec 4s
10)Find out about ticket prices for Sec 4 fieldtrip in term 3

Oh ya... there's the dragon-boating on Sat as well... hehe... Go TP Dragons!

I wonder how can I squeeze time in for my Hindi movies and blading... sigh...

The arrogance of some people never cease to amaze me...

Anyways, I was blog surfing as usual and went to this blog that I went to quite regularly. He's quite funny lah and the stuff he talks about is quite relevant to my line of work. haha... I'd admit that sometimes I don't quite buy his way of thinking and sometimes I find that he moralises too much for my liking. I mean, shit happens, deal with it. But I guess blogging is his way of letting off steam and who am I to criticise.

The arrogance that I found distasteful was not his. It's from this comment on his blog on a particular issue of how parents abused the privilege of writing parents' letters. This guy actually criticised the profession as a whole and claimed that we are "fools". Well, apart from the spelling and grammatical errors, his comment is really quite irritating to read. I won't nit-pick because my own language abilities is not top-notch in the least. And well, I won't say it had not affected me because it did. But what amazed me was the sheer narrow-mindedness, short-sightedness and selfishness of it all. That someone holding that point of view actually exists and could very well be the parent or the future parent of a kid.

"Actally, a child should make the final say on his outcome of his educaztion. After that, its the parents. You teachers should not have the right to decide the wrong from the right, the morally ethical to the unethical and above all u should never get to decide if the event is compulsory."

This paragraph seriously cracked me up! I was really laughing my ass off when I read it. I mean... hehehehe... he's seriously delusional. But since he's entitled to his own opinion, I'd say... I'm really glad I'm not teaching his kids or him for that matter. And I do wonder how well people with that kind of thinking will live in this society.

"And dont glamorize teacher. Nothing great about it. Alot of people can do that too. Hell, a fellow classmate usually does a better job explaining a concept than an NIE trained teacher."

Actually, I do agree with this sentence. We're not saints. It's a bloody job. We teach, we get paid. If we care, it's a by-product. There are good teachers out there and there are lousy ones. Bloody fact of life. Let's not generalise too much. But I would also say to this seriously fucked up idiot not to send his kids to school to be educated by teachers in the future. Try home-schooling if he's so great. =P It'll save us a whole lot of trouble this way.

In kimchi's honour....

Haha... my darling kimchi accused me of never updating my blog. So, this pointless blogpost would be in kimchi's honour. There! Hope you are satisfied. =P

Got to go and mark some more scripts before meeting J for makan. Ciao peeps! =)

Something interesting on BBC...Banksy!

Heh. Was doing some random surfing on the BBC and came across this very interesting guerrilla artist -Banksy. Went through his website and and saw some of his works. Must say that I was kinda impressed. Maybe I'll use some of his works as inference practice for my kids. Maybe they'll be more interested if it's something non-history but still meaningful in a way. *sigh*













Interesting stuff I must say. Hehe... especially like his tongue-in-cheek style. =)
His work made me smile... and made me think a bit. =) I think that's how I decide if I like an artist or not.

just random ramblings....

昨晚我做了一个梦。醒来后也都什么也记不得了。 留下的只有莫名的感伤和遗憾。 记忆就好比幻影。隐约看的到，升手想去触摸，却什么也摸不着。我觉得我真的老了。不再拥有无穷的精力， 也不再拥有那少女般的憧憬。 只甚下虚荣和疲累的心灵。看這那群十六，七歲的孩子，真想回到那時。現在回想起來，還是念書的日子來得輕鬆。不過，想想也就是這樣，人生也不過這幾十年，做人也不用太過執著。日子過去了，就讓它過去吧。

用汉字来写网落日记实在是一项坚难的任务！ 我的文筆本來就不是很好，再加上没用华文來寫作文已有十之八九年之久。 短短的几行字就花了我差不多半小时的时间。 真要命！>_<

Well, on a lighter note, I tried foot reflexology for the very first time!! Under the encouragement of the crazy bahyi girl and shin-ster. It was an experience to say the least. J, next time I’ll bring you to try it out k! We must suffer, I mean enjoy this experience together! =)

Bitten by the skating bug recently... Went with J on Sat and Nat and Gerie +hubby today. That's like twice a week! *feels accomplished* Resolution to self! Must learn how to stop without crashing into people or things! Heh.

Okie... enough escaping... must go back to making notes for my kids. argh...