Today, I have a date.

At the supermarket.

I walk, walk and walk, till I spot the most beautiful display ever.




Oh my love, gorgeous love. To hold you in my arms keeps me gay..


I’m so gay


My date grab a bunch and kneel down before me.


"I love you berry much… Please Berry me…"


*meltz* "Oh, I love you beerrrrryyy muchy too… Berrrry you I shall."


So we throw all the love we have into a basket.




We plan to spend our honeymoon in Hawaii, with a pink flower in my hair.


Delicious pink…


That night, I have a wonderful dream.


I dream of cookies… sweet dream


Then I dream that I am in a love affair


Chocolates~~ Mine, all mine!


I wake up feeling very guilty, and have to choose between the two loves I have.

I choose to part with Tira.


Tira, I will miss you so


Now with all the love I keep with me, I am lost, for a moment.

So I head online to search for my soul.

And found it!




Maybe the sky will tell me everything!

Thus I bid, to reach my goal, in search for my soul. (okay, this is getting cheesy)


Bahahahaha. Everyone shall bow down to my biddings! (enough with the pun)


I will reach for the sky~ I shall look for my love~

Wait for me~ my love.

Note: which embarrassingly, I lost the bidding in the end by 5000 points. Damn, these Malaysians damn kiasu... Never give up, next package here I come!!!!

End.





I do have one more problem.



Who’s going to help me eat all those cornettos in my freezer?!!!

Life in Sapa definitely slows people down. Everything is clearer and closer to nature. I like the life here, so serene and peaceful.


School in Sapa

Villages are spread all over the mountains with Sapa being the town where hotels and tourists group.

H’mong is one of the main minority tribe that inhabits the Sapa mountains in Vietnam.




Minority tribes in Vietnam are mostly poor, very poor. Planting and harvesting padi is their main source of income and food supply.





Padi


With millions of tourists visiting Northern Vietnam every year, selling handmade souvenirs to visitors in Sapa Town become a new way of earning a living.



A metal handmade musical instrument



Dolls


Some of these minority tribes can be very persistent when it comes to grabbing customers. Once eye contact is made, some of them tend to stick to you like glue. You can walk for kilometres and have them tail you like bugs.




I don’t blame them.




Well, that’s till after I met a girl named Ha.




Outlook of a six year old but with a very mature behaviour, Ha claimed she is 16 this year though her occasional outward attitude might exhibit childish features like the six year old appearance she has.

This girl changed my perception towards poverty and life contentment forever.

We took a stroll around Cat Cat Village with Ha. Fun in the mountains, is as simple as sliding down stone steps with flatten plastic bottle as your sliding board.




Kids run around the mountains bare-footed, miles away from their homes, alone.


We found this girl alone, looking at us. Looking… and looking~


There’s no age limit when it comes to playing your part to help the family earn a mouthful.


A H’mong girl not older than 6 carrying a basket climbing up the steps


Makes me wonder, how does it feel like growing up here?


Ha took this photo of Me in a H’mong Costume


We got invited to visit the humble house up in the mountain in Sin Chai Village of this lovely and surprisingly English fluent minority mountain tribe girl for an afternoon meal.

Little did we know, it involved walking several kilometres of windy roads up and down the hills,




And eventually got so tired we decided to take the motorbike taxi to reach what I thought as the entrance of her house.





The traveller in front look like dork :p


She then led us to an off-road pavement of nothing but rocks and mud down the levelled padi fields till we reached the foot where two mountains meet and a stream grace in between,


A wooden bridge that is still being constructed



Kenny taking photo in the distance


The road was rather muddy and slippery due to the rain that drizzled several minutes before.


Padi road





We crossed the bridge,




And up the most treacherous hill trekking experience I ever encountered in my lifetime; which involved wetter and slippery muddy rocks, steep ascents and descents and over streams on what looks like a slim tree trunk as a bridge.





My hand at this point (that’s before I dropped into the mud)


To think, this is what the locals here have to go through, every single day!!!

As Ha hopped from one stone to the next rock as though is it the easiest thing to do in the world, Kenny and I steadied ourselves cautiously, balancing every single step and even sitting down on rocks to level ourselves down. Which made us looked like wusses, especially when you were doing all these next to a little girl who’s as though walking on air.

One hour of mud bathing, we reached Ha’s house with minor injuries and earth-covered shoes and pants.


Ha’s house. Made of wood and no floor tiles


She then cooked lunch for us,


Ha’s kitchen


though simple, but the most heart-felt meal I had in years, compromising Vietnamese rice and some fruit-like vegetables (called “kok ka” in Vietnamese language) grown and hand-plucked from her garden.





After lunch, we spent the next hour hovering ourselves back down to the mountain and onto cement road again. Finally~

I am lying on the top bunk on the overnight train back to Hanoi as I am typing this, and even though it is just the first day of our journey in Vietnam, I felt that I have already gone a mile, or few miles come to think of it, with all the hiking and walking we did today.

I can only look forward to the rest of my 4 day trip in Vietnam, because so far, I’m loving every single minute of it.

But no matter how far I have gone in my life, I will never forget that wonderful moment I share with the sweetest local minority tribe in her mountain village – Sin Chai Village in Sapa, Vietnam.




Ha, I miss you.

*Drum roll*


cupnsaucer!!!


My answer for the contest is….

Dog meat.




I can’t believe none of you guessed it right for the first 137 comments. I thought it was a pretty easy guess.

Vietnam? Dog meat? Yes I eat dog meat!

No, answers like dried dog meat or meat don’t count, the people who comment in the chatbox don’t count either. (yes I am aware someone guessed it correctly in the chatbox)

Anyway, just when I was beginning to worry that everyone’s going to guess that it’s cobra meat because Kenny did a stunt on swallowing cobra heart and declared it on his Pacmee, Super Gentleman showed up and save my day!!

As commenting twice is not allowed in the contest, I am giving the prize to the second person who guessed it correctly. Cupnsaucer, one more commentor who manage to guess it right before I publish it. Phew...

And a reward he will get for being such a cup?! or saucer?

A HANDMADE sushi holder, made and bought in Japan!!!
You guys have to figure it out how to spilt the sushi.




The sushi is a Saba Nigiri-zushi.



Or more known as Mackerel sushi. Mackerel is not served completely raw, but is one of those fish that is cured in rice vinegar with some salt because it spoils quickly.

Learn your daily dosage of sushi here.


Congratulation cupnsaucer!!! The Lucky Winner of the Mysterious Gift! Again.