Runaway

Listening to: Escapade (Janet Jackson)

"I hope you can find the time this weekend to relax and unwind"

Whoa, if this is how withdrawn I am after a nice, relaxing, carefree weekend, then I can only imagine what drug users go through when they desperately crave the next fix.

Was away to Birmingham on Friday. Not a great time to be galivanting across the country when I have essays to write, presentations to give, meetings to attend, reports to hand in, papers to appraise, experiments to conduct...erm yeah, the list goes on.

Nonetheless, I always have time for friends and it was indeed a quality weekend break. Sincere gratitude to Siok Ping and Aun Yeung for their superb hospitality.

Siok Ping is a friend I met at Malaysia Hall in the summer. She is a radiologist at QE Hospital in Brum and has been here for almost 6 years now. She would soon be going over to Canada, with her husband, to do her fellowship there and I thought I should catch up with her once before she leaves for Ontario early next year.

It wasn't that long ago that I went to Birmingham for the All England Championships in March, so nothing much has changed. Well, Bullring is still bullish, and the town centre is as thriving and bustling as ever (which is, I must say, what I remembered most about Brum from my last trip, although to be perfectly honest, I didn't go anywhere but the NEC).

Siok Ping suggested taking me out for shopping and walking around in town, but sincerely, those of us coming from Asia will probably find shopping here less awe-inspiring than those multi-storey domes we have back home, so she thought of taking me to the countryside instead to have a taste of the Midlands.

Me and Siok Ping at Hidcote

We drove out 50 miles to Hidcote Manor Garden on Saturday morning. It's one of those National Trust sites that offers scenic, unpolluted natural landscape and as you've guessed it, 90% of the visitors were above 60 :)

Haha, not that I mind at all. It was nice to go out there and take in breaths of fresh air to keep my lungs healthy. We spent the entire morning at Hidcote, gazing at flowers, snapping our cameras away on sights which would make perfect desktop material, and plucking apples.

Yes you saw it right.

Erm actually, no. We didn't pluck them from the trees. We helped ourselves with windfalls =P

Hey look, if you paid 8 pounds for entrance free it's only fair you get something in return alright...

Later in the afternoon, we dropped by Stratford upon Avon and paid Sir Shakespeare a visit at the Holy Trinity Church. It was an interesting (albeit touristy) little town. A place which offered Shakespeare so much inspiration must be worth visiting.

Me in front of Shakespeare's statue

We walked along the river Avon and Hwee Cheng - Siok Ping's sister-in-law - couldn't help but lament that it was the perfect place for pak-toh (courtship), to which I silently nodded.

Haha, in spite of myself, and the cold, foggy weather!

Winter days are, as you know, short, so by the time we got back to Brum, it was pitch black (although it couldn't have been later than 5pm). There wasn't much point in doing more sightseeing, and since Siok Ping and her husband wanted to watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I tagged along.

IMHO, Cate Blanchett deserves an Oscar. Ooh Definitely. Even if she was only nominated and didn't win it at the end of the day, I just hope the person who beats her to it is worth more salt than Gwyneth Paltrow (remember the '98 Oscars?)

Sunday went by in a blur. I think we did grocery shopping in the morning, and then prepared lunch after we came back. Aun Yeung went to his room to fix his computer, while Siok Ping and I enjoyed a girly conversation or two downstairs in the kitchen.

Although there is quite an age gap between me and Siok Ping, I find I can talk to her very naturally, without any awkwardness on either side. We talked about work, life, relationships, family, you know, the usual sort of thing, but with a more matured outlook. Not that I'm slagging off my peers, but sometimes it is hard to talk about serious things with the latter without them thinking you're having a quarter-life crisis.

Yeah, I know people find me a tad serious sometimes. Ok fine, not a tad but very. Just the other day, we went for a mate's birthday party and I was engaged in an interesting conversation with a matured friend about life, present and future, when my coursemate came over to join us. She followed our conversation for 5 seconds and then she left. And when she left us to join another table, she chidingly said to me, "Honestly you guys, it's Friday night, can we talk about something else?"

I don't think the point is whether it's Friday or Sunday or Tuesday. I think it's a matter of interest. A matter of wanting to talk more than who's going out with who, or where are we going shopping tomorrow. I know not everyone is a fan of stimulating, thought-provoking conversations but I, fortunately or unfortunately, happen to be one.
I like talking and pondering about life. It makes me think less about myself and more about others. I become less caught up in my own world, and embrace a bigger one out there that I've only seen a fraction of, and wonder if I would ever see enough.