Oh yes, here I am, 9 years after the start of this blog. I'm currently in Istanbul, on an exchange program. I have travelled Central Europe for the four weeks before Istanbul.
And still, Diaryland's layout has not changed. Still html based entry form... Haiz.
This year has been surreal. Been to 10 countries, namely: China, Vietnam, Czech, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Montenegro, Turkey and Israel.
Places visited include: Beijing, Hanoi (Halong Bay), Prague, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, Zagreb, Plitvice Lakes, Hvar Island, Dubrovnik, Kotor, Podgorica, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Safranbolu.
I wonder how many UNESCO certified places I've visited. Well, it seems the panel of judges on the heritage board have different tastes from me. Not all the listed places are as spectacularly splendid as proclaimed to be. Chiefly, Halong Bay. For less price and more comfort, the Southern Chinese provinces have more impressive geological features than there.
Israel was cool, apart from those tiresome security checks. The unreligious me obviously could not appreciate the significance of the place as did the numerous American pilgrims did. Barely a month after I've been there, war broke out between them and Palestine. Haiz again.
After being away from home for the 5th month, I'm beginning to cherish my Asiatic roots. I don't really like the Ang Moh culture of living in the moment, casual sex (although I'm supremely jealous how the guys manage to have so many flings with the gorgeous Turkish girls), heavy partying and drug taking. It seems taking weed is the norm in the US, as far as I've gleaned from my encounters with the various US students on exchange here at Istanbul. And for all those Asians who idolise the west... please, cherish your own heritage, don't adopt another just because it looks cool. I've always thought that westerners were smart and hardworking. Being on exchange severely changed my opinion on this. After seeing how blatantly unprepared 99% of them were for class presentations and the disregard to the teachers, I really feel that the education system in my country had served me well. At an undergrad level, the lack of presentation skills (such as font type, choice of pictures and colours, summarising key presentation points, keeping text to a minimum, speaking at an adequate pitch and watching out for the time) really irks me. What's worse is their subpar report writing skills. Lab reports without formatting? Totally disorganised and secondary school. To be fair, not every one of my countrymen are like me. I've met much worse compatriots... but this proves a point that behind all the cultural and linguistic differences, everyone is really the same. The innate nature to slacken off, to do the bare minimum, trying to score with girls by being phony gentlemen...transcends all boundaries.
Perhaps I should step out of my comfort zone, and head down to a club to party too. But that'll break my 0 club visitation streak, which I really want to maintain. But no party, no chance to meet single and available hot girls? What kind of fucked up culture is this?
Let this be a time capsule for the next time I ever return to this blog.
Till then, 23 year old me signing off.
(my 2nd consecutive year spending my birthday abroad). For the nth consecutive year, I've hidden my birthdate from everyone to carry on my experiment of discovering whosoever remembers that date. As n number of years go by, the no. of remember-ers dwindled accordingly by a factor of n too. This year it almost reached zero excluding family members. Social media has evolved into a medium for everyone to remember birthdays. Can't there be more people who still remember such trivia by the good'ol human brain?