Nursing the throat

"Until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have."

The Fellowship of Nine
Day 10- Prague (Old Town), Czech Republic

We reached Prague at unearthly 6am -.-. I guess most of us were still half-asleep while we wandered around the train station, feeling a little lost as all the signboards (which are supposed to be helpful) are all in..... the Czech language.

The subway in Prague, for example.

After a few wrong turns and exits, we arrived at Prague Lion Hostel, our resting abode for the next 2 nights to come. Miroslav, the staff who attended to us, was sooo courteous. It was amazing. He called us "madams" and on the second day, he correctly forecasted the impending storm. Luckily we heeded his advice to bring our umbrellas and ponchos cos we did meet with the "15min storms" that he warned us about...

Perhaps he set the service standard a little too high, almost all the Czechs that we met afterwards paled so much in comparison to him (Note: super unfriendly).

As usual, all of us were fighting over who should use the internet first.... -.- All of us slaves of technology..

The way, or rather, the walk to Charles bridge was relaxing, as the view was rather pretty. We incidentally passed by the Dancing House (Tančící dům), which has really innovative but baffling architectural outlines, by the Vltava River.

Pretty duck...

Some of us had a brief stopover on Charles bridge, attracted by this booth selling handpainted earrings.

And there we were, over to the Old Town of Prague across Charles Bridge. I wished we had more time to explore this part of the town cos the aged-looking shops seemed pretty interesting here, and alot less touristy.

We were brought by Alala Lin (our Prague I/C) on a funicular (something like the tram that travels up to The Peak in HK) to a nice picnic spot to have brekkie's.... that was after we had picked up some nice bread from a mini-mart.

See the circular bun with a spiral of green (spinach) and a big fat egg yolk on top? Tracy bought that and it tasted soooo good.

On the top of Petrin hill!

A bull-dog came to gate-crash our pinic party hahah. So cute.

Prague castle was the next attraction (I feel like a broken radio/non-stop tour guide using the same old phrases for every travel log post.. just cos I have such limited vocabulary) on the list.

The castle looked very gothic, nothing like what I had imagined (think German castles that appear in fairytales), but not as majestic as how I would have liked it to be. The scorching sun didnt help much, but I dint want to complain after I've seen how the Czech guards endured standing for hours at the entrance...

And of course our dear friends would like to take pictures with them...... and the guard couldnt smile :(.

We got our passes from "Third Courtyard". Our long tour includes Old Royal Palace, Story of Prague Castle, St George's Basilica, St George's Covent, Goldren Lane with Daliborka Tower.

While scrambling to get a good spot to catch the fanfare and flag ceremony, we witnessed the nastiness of some fellow tourists.

Trusty audioguides in hand again.

Meanwhile, the sun has risen to the top of the sky. Our loyal guards still stood firmly at the entrance, but with shades on by now.

We got rather tired of museums at this juncture and decided to leave Prague Castle pre-maturely, leaving 2 attractions (already included in the ticket) unvisited. Hungry and tired, we went on search of a 4pm lunchtime place.

Shared a wiener schizel with potatoes and salad + roast pork neck meat with cabbage and potato pancakes. Both supposedly "Czech specialties" but I think they are more Austrian or German- inspired leh. Anyway I loved the potatoes though the rest of the dishes were rather mediocre. Who can go wrong with potatoes right? =p

After the late lunch, we explored aimlessly around the area. Edwin took a liking to this peeing man/statue.

Alala kept nudging us in the direction of the arty handicrafts shops that she said we must visit to know more about Prague... and yeah we did. Oh I window-shopped alot. Yes, miserly me. But yeah, artistic things aren't very affordable, are they?

We also jumped into Wallenstein garden that Alala was very insistent on bringing us to. There we found some majestic AND arrogant peacocks strutting about. Not very fond of them but Lifang was bent on chasing after it for pictures.

At the riverside, we strolled along the little shops.. and grabbed a quick dinner again. Along the way home, we stopped on Charles Bridge to catch a live caricature-drawing session. It was funny how the lady puffed and puffed her cigarettes away furiously while she waited for her beau to be done with the modelling.

(Waiting for video/pictures of caricature-drawing from Alala...)

Most of the grad trippers were tired by the time dusk fell.. but a few of us were adamant at the thought of missing Prague's sunset and so we parted ways, thoroughly forgetting that none of us who stayed, had a functioning/fully-charged camera with us. Argh. Horrors of horrors!

And hence, in our desperation to capture the moment, we resorted to using handphone cameras. I had brought my SE K700i hp from n-years ago which sadly only has a 0.3mp camera -_-. So finally, wanqi's 2mp hp camera took the honour of taking our panoramic shots.

Don't you love the end-result? =)

Boy, I never regretted staying back cos the night scene was a gazillion times more beautiful than Prague in the day. It totally transformed from a gloomy, touristy city to a really really magical sight. (Sidenote: HK Disneyland looks really pretty this Christmas... I wanna be there!)

At the end of it all, we were happily strolling across the road, still rather dazed from the sight, when the red light just suddenly came on like after it was green for a mere 2seconds... and I just grabbed Xinyi's arm and started running. It was so dangerous yet hilarious at the same time.... oh wells who would have thought that the traffic lights in Prague were so erratic!!

Anyways, the earlier group who left before the sunset lost their way on the way back to the hostel. *gloats. HAHA. :)

P.S. I realised now that we missed quite a number of attractions on the original itinerary. E.g. Toy Museum, that I was looking forward to visiting. And cafes/restaurants to enjoy Czech beer?

P.P.S. The hostel was very nice! Regretted not buying back ingredients to cook cos the kitchenette attached to our 4-people room was surprising clean, new and well-equipped. And the bathroom, although shared, was bigger than the size of my bedroom back home? Can totally dance across the bathroom floor! (Ok rest assured I dint do that)

At Peace

I really enjoyed Christmas this year.

In the past I would be frantic trying to think of plans/programmes for Christmas Eve just because I didnt want to end up doing nothing.

Nowadays I think I'm able to appreciate the meaning of Christmas more.

Regardless of whether you are a Christian or not, Christmas is the season of giving, the season to be happy, and the season to be at peace with yourself.

Even though I may be whining on and on about gift exchanges and settling dates to meet, I know I'm the most at peace when I see my loved ones.

So I did, try make the most out of today, by spending time with those that I do care about :) Merry Christmas again!

I know I'm going to get killed for saying this again

..but I really want to grow some meat here and there. I'm like a walking matchstick and clothes are no longer fitting.............

Ok at least tonight I'll be able to have some peaceful sleep.

Tmr's Christmas Eve :) The mood is in the air..

Last Christmas~~~

Merry Early Christmas

The week has flown by and I've probably gotten just a glimpse of it. Everything seemed to have gone by in a blur yet I remembered doing so many things in this short period.

So some of the highlights were:

• Sun: Trial baking session at my place. The Hersheys' muffins turned out good but cookies failed big time.
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• Mon: CD about non-diabetes endocrine conditions till 9pm
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• Tues: Roll-called about my project workflow to the staff. Mass muffin baking session at CM's rented place, which by the way has a circular layout. Which means that every room of the house is within a few footsteps away. How convenient. Anyways we produced 120 blueberry muffins and Hersheys' muffins and gift-wrapped them very nicely into goodie bags in the span of 6 hours after work.
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• Wed: Final discussion after work for the party the next day. Mad rush upon reaching home to finish up the 2 videos as part of the games and performances. Power Director intro-ed by Wing is quite a a nice program to use, abeit a more complicated one than windows movie maker, which has many irritating limitations. Slept really late.
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• Thurs: Department Christmas PARTY TIME! :) Happy that it was quite a success, and quite a feat by merely 6 organisers. Happy that I took photo with preceptor, and happy that the staff seemed to like the videos :) Videos and pictures would come later.
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• Today: Dragged myself out of bed half an hour late. Ran to and fro OP and PP AND enroute to the office to grab stuff to recruit patients. 2 successes, 2 failures for PML project. My data for admin mini-project is lost. Xerostomia -> mouth dry as a desert. Ran really late for our outing but thankfully everyone was early this time and I just remember alot of laughs during gift exchange over desserts. Thanks!
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• Weekend: Go for PSS and probably take a chance to nua at home while preparing for next week's CS presentation....arghhh it has been postponed so many times that I have quite forgotten about the content of my case.

Have lost track of the many cab rides I had taken this week... 2 of them were really quite unforgettable cos of the drivers. Both were uncles who were so friendly and chatty that I couldnt bear to say that I dint want to talk cos I probably wanted to just conk out in the cab for 20min. Taxi-driving seems more like a favourite pastime to them, rather than a way of earning a living. One of these grandfatherly figures made sure I went home safe. I could hear the engine in the distance that he really watched till he saw my lift door closed cos it was really late.

Merry early Christmas everyone :) Shall continue on grad trip travellog soon :)

31st Dec = VIVA 2

I don't like being a push-over.

Thanks to 我的朋友们 for giving this week a much better ending =) Thanks for viewing the lights in town with me! Gave me instant joy!

Nights (and only nights) to look forward to:

17,18,22,25,28(pm?),31

Fa lalalala.. lalalalaaaa~

Cant believe that I'm waiting for my pay+bonus... to get money to buy Christmas presents!

What can you get for unisex gift exchange? Hmmmmmmmmm.

The annual Christmas party organised by the pre-reggers is coming. Dont particularly like planning parties considering how ill-prepared we all are this time round. But now I'm getting a little excited thinking about it cos we just sent our polo tees for printing =)))))))

Here's to a colourful Christmas to come!

You can't get over something overnight. Much more easily said than done. I guess I've overestimated my ability to recover this time.

Then again, I should quit getting angry at myself.

Okkkkk just need to vent, if not I'll burst from bottling everything up inside!

What is it?

It's not easy taking care of a sick parent, but it probably was even harder taking care of a child.

Do you remember the last time you were awful to your parents?

The last time that you had told them, "I have no time, dont bother me now?"

All you need is love

Never been a real fan of Starbucks as coffee has never been a part of my life and who would go to Starbucks if they aren't a fan of coffee?

Chanced upon the Starbucks Love Project Ad on Fb and hey, it brought a smile to my face. See cutesy hearts and red-ness of it all. How happy and Christmas-sy could it get!

Another of Starbuck's campaigns, but if the $ really goes to aid for AIDS people in Africa, I really wouldnt mind promoting it.

December is meant to be a happy month ;) The month of giving.

Ding-dong Here and There

A dramatic turn of events.

Saw it coming after the NUH phone conversation. I know you felt sorry for what happened. Guess there was no way that I could hide my disappointment, even though how gently you tried to break the news. I had wanted to do this independently. What's more, it was something that I was interested in conducting.

But I hope too that the change in direction will be a blessing in disguise.

Perhaps I will allow myself to mope around tonight, but I will move on from tomorrow onwards. :)

I've been talking to myself too much

Can I STOP spending online.. especially when I probably need some cash on hand for the Christmas season?

So poor. But good thing is, I've cleared my debt already. Hurray.

That said, I want a Kate Spade Wall Calendar!

And bright cheery red curtains for CNY!

And new bedsheets!

My room needs a facelift very badly. It's been feeling gloomy.

Christmas lights... that I viewed on other people's fb. Lol. Wait for meeee!

And there are some nice movies coming in Dec. Don't understand why Tracy and HM say eeee to them :(

"Why you always so busy?"

Because it IS. 24/7. If you are interested, I can always bore you with details :)

We are reaching the peak of pre-reg.

Everyone is burnt out, especially this week.

Tonight Dad brought me soup from the kitchen. I cant remember him ever doing that before. He had asked me more than once if life would continue to be like this after pre-reg. In the past I would have said no, but now I'm not so certain anymore.

Is it worth it? I shall still stick to my original answer.

The clinche saying goes, life is not a bed of roses.

But it is beautiful.

It's official! My hospital is recruiting. People pls send in your resumes!

(Fever) Spikes and (BP) Crashes

For no apparent reason. There are bound to be days like these. Yesterday was down in the dumps but today the sun was up again.

Been at the ICU this week. It's been quite a refreshing experience. Hourly parameters, ventilators, a gazillion tubes, TED stockings... What the physiotherapist (that I was attached to) said was very real. Even after you have done your duties for your patients, always never forget to tidy up their clothes and help them put on blankets to let them look their most presentable in their hospital pyjamas. That way, the family members visiting would not be too saddened by the sight that greets them whenever they come to visit.

Green sputum, blood in suctioning pump, foot ulcers, screaming lacerations no longer seem that alarming, after 6 weeks at the surgical wards. Physiotherapist said I was braver than her in her student days, but I think it's the desensitization. Even so, when I observed her doing the chest physio for the patient, my heart really went out to the uncle as he, in his intubated state, tried his best to cooperate by breathing as deeply as he could while she pounded on his back, trying to mobilise his phlegm out. Really a model patient.

At the end of the physiotherapy, he said, as inaudible as can be, "thank you" through the oxygen mask. And that watered my eyes a little.

Happy that he is in a stable state, and hope that he'll be out of surgical ICU soon. The gaping stoma post-op on his stomach is still rather glaring, and I really wonder how do patients with stoma carry on with their normal lives?

Anyways, can everyone please go and find out what physiotherapists and occupational therapists do? They don't only help people lift legs and such! Yet their importance is often forgotten. Rehab is as important, if not more, as acute treatment ok!

And I realise how religion can play a part in the fate of a patient too. I did not know that they would refuse an op because they want their family member to go to the heavens with the whole body intact.

There was once this case on the papers about doctors spotted grinning nearby some family members who were grieving over the passing of a loved one. Although it's of course not OK to even smile in such situations, I can now totally imagine the scene... that it was really not done on purpose. It could be just an innocent exchange that happened at the wrong time and at the wrong place. But of course what the public sees is yet another story, hence no excuses anyway...

Moving to the clinics next, and then to retail for 3 weeks... and poof! Christmas would come and so would 2010. Woo!

Still I feel like a greenhorn. If not for the friendly faces that I see everyday, I cant imagine how I can ride through these 9 months.

Now, that's exaggerating.

The Fellowship of Nine
Day 9- Vienna (Wien), Austria

Morning started with us rushing onto the metro to Burgkapelle (Royal chapel) in Hofburg. The aim was to catch the Vienna Boys Choir @ Sunday Mass, well worth it though all we got were 0euro cheapo standing seats that we can only watch the proceedings from a non-LCD screen TV. Well, we saved 16 euros, standing instead of sitting!

The queue was long, even though we made (some) effort to be early birds..

We force-took pictures with the Vienna Boys at the end of the mass. Some of the poor boy-celebrities were quickly whisked off by their parents away from the adoring fans haha.

Next we visited the Sisi Museum and pored over all the silverware collection..

and imperial apartments belonging to the past royal family. Also the place where I bought like heaps of souvenirs for the family.

I've quite forgotten what we had for lunch that day! Luckily there were photos.

The silver, unappetizing fishy thing that you see? Don't be fooled by its slimy looks. It actually tasted quite nice, though normally I dislike fish and anything raw-ish. Recommended by Xinyi.

GOLDMAN as Mozart..

And then 3omin later, at the world-famous Starbucks around the street corner, we caught GOLDMAN queueing inside Starbucks! Good job, Starbucks!

Burgartens was the park..

that Lifang led us to, for a peep at the Butterfly gardens (that unfortunately nobody except Fang was interested in) and also for a rest on the green fields where many others were suntanning on.

There were some beefy guys (whom somebody was eyeing) who were performing stunts right in the centre...

Mozart Memorial was found in Burgartens too :) Nothing much and of course touristy, but still a visit is warranted.. just because the treble clef looked so pretty!

We thought it would be a fantastic idea to try out a Viennese dessert specialty since we were there... Lifang suggested trying the Sacher Torte in Hotel Sacher. Sacher Torte is essentially a chocolate cake, served with some whipped cream.

Once we got to the entrance of the Hotel, we realised that it was a super atas hotel. -_-ll. But we went ahead anyway..

..only to be served by this snotty waiter who insisted that we could not share and hence MUST order one dessert/drink each. Grrrr.

Found the Sacher Torte (choc cake above) rather overrated. Surprisingly, the cheapest cake (which was real tiny) that we ordered from the menu just to make up the numbers, tasted the best of all. That tiny piece was merely 2.70euro I think lol.

We also ordered this Cheese Strudel thing, which was basically a very wrong choice. Maybe Austrians like such sour desserts? Not me. Give me Apple Studel anytime.

After eating, we were energized again to climb the Southern Tower of St Stephen's Cathedral.

We seemed to be climbing alot of towers for this grad trip! Ok, each climb got easier than the previous, and I can safely say that my stamina really improved during this trip.

Panted like a dog when I reached the top.

The view up there.

Heading down again~

Because I can't remember the roads that we walked on since everything happened almost 5 months ago (oh man), I'm copying and pasting what I think is correct. Apparently we walked via kohlmarkt and graben to stephansdom, to look for our dinner place - Wurstel Stand (famous at Hoher Markt).

This unassuming hot dog stand produced such heavenly hot dogs!! I had a Bratwurst with Cheese, the second German Sausage in this trip! =))))))))))))))

Maybe one day should go and try the Wustel Stand in Chinatown? The ones at Bugis Junction Billy Bomber's arent too bad either. GERMAN SAUSAGES!!!!!!!!! So hungry.

While eating, we watched this supposedly famous but not very entertaining clock that had figurines dragging themselves horizontally when the clock struck 7 everyday.

On the way back to the hostel, we passed by this opera house/performing theatre place, that had a giant screen outside showing the real-life performance inside, opened to public! If time wasnt at such a constraint, I would have loved to sit down and watch too.

Then came the most exciting programme of the day - walk the distance of 4 metro stations to find our way back to the green hostel. =.=

Hoho. It was a good workout though. I think poor Tracy really couldnt understand why we liked to put in so much exercise/torture ourselves in what was supposed to be an enjoyable graduation trip.

And then, we took the overnight train to Prague that night. One of the cabins had an in-built toilet/bath facility. NOT mine though. Booooo.

Shall make it a point to re-visit this very pleasant city another time!