Monday, December 25th 2006 - THE BEGINNING

Dear All,

Many thanks to all of you who helped us to fulfill the wedding ceremony. Without your support we couldn't make it or we could but it would be a loneliest party in the world. The party went very well, nice house, nice people, good feeling. A friend of mine flew over from Satool in the south of Thailand to join me. Much oblige. It was good to see friends who last saw 10 years ago like Pae, my Rangsit friend. Some who could join send messages to celebrate and wish us to have a good married life. Some helped organise the party, set up the songs, HIFI, and another alternative presentation (We did it ourselves, liked it?). Nothing much but thanks again. See you around and enjoy the photos.

Rin

Friday, December 8th 2006 - Circle Game

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We are captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind from where we came
And go round and round and round in the circle game

Dear Joni,

This song is beautiful and I'd like to thank you for reminding us the fact of life. Moving from place to place give me three feelings all the times: a) Exciting and a bit nervous feelings come to me at packing time and these feelings get higher and higher as I am approaching the exit; bus, train, airplane, or whatever stations. I always have this kind of imagine sort of "not being able to come back". I don't know exactly why and how that kind of imagine come into my mind and it is. Has anyone experienced this before? b) Nostalgic. O.K. it's not that much like crying and dreaming of someone you left behind but again it's a fair bit of thinking of. c) Exciting and a bit nervous again because I am going back but this time it's about sadness. Not sadness because I am going to see those who I have left behind but because I am leaving the place where I have been staying for a while. One says that human being always afraid of changes. I agree. No matter what I try to accept changes that feeling still influence me. More or less depends of how much change I am facing. But your song, Joni, reminds me that life is always moving in circular. Sooner or later we will come back again to where we were before; not literally but metaphorically; and go round and round in the circle game.

Rin

Saturday, December 2nd 2006 - Sunshine Coast

Hi there,
Thanks for coming to pick us up from the apartment and so sorry that we were late, Bruce. Before I came here, I had no preference or any destinations that I must visit because a) the time was too short b) I didn't want to go to any MUST see places. I had no interested in those Must visit places, so neither Sunshine Coast or Gold Coast had caught my attention but I could not resist your host awareness for the trip today.
Since we all hadn't had breakfast (I had a little bit, actually) Bruce drove us through "His" Highway 118 km north of the state capital, Brisbane to Eumundi market. Eumundi market was established in 1979 and have become world-renowned and one of Australia's leading tourist market. I was the last person among us who got breakfast plate and she said next time we should order at the same time. She must have been done so hurriedly so my bread and bacon were burnt. Then we headed to Eumundi market and there I got a bottle of local brand wine here after tasted 4 white wines, this is the best among them. I thought because I didn't have western-looked and I saw no one in the market who looked like me, the nut-shop seller thought I might buy him 10KG plus whatever he had on his truck so he offered me $2 discount for each 2KG and it would become more and more as I bought more. Because I couldn't see the win-win point of this negotiation so I bought a 500g bag of raw macadamia for $13 and he said nothing. No more shopping, we headed to the beach.
Mooloolaba beach was our first target as Bruce recommended this one and it's his car and I had no idea so I let him took me wherever he wanted. You were right, Bruce that this beach was nice, it's indeed. However, you were wrong for one thing; Mooloolaba derives from the Aboriginal word "mulu" meaning "Snapper fish" or "mulla" meaning "Red-Bellied Black Snake". There is no shark involve ho ho ho. About a hundred people were swimming or, put it more accurate, there were hitting the wave. Bruce asked me if I was scared...Come on, Bruce, I have been living with the sea though I was not grown up under the sea but I was not scared. It was just because I didn't bring any changes cloth but a towel. I didn't know why I did that. Anyway, I got to the sea and hit the wave. I'll tell you what, I went to Phuket once and hit the 2 metres wave which push me 50 metres away without my arms straight. Luckily I had survived. So, as I said, I hit the waves and I had fun then we moved to another beach which was quieter and more appropriate for family with kids. It was the Kings Beach -- more than one king used to come here or they all wanted to own this beach; that was my guessed
Anyway, it looked like a lake to me with a small island within 200 metres. Kings beach is known as the main beach of Caloundra. Old folks and children were playing in the flat water, no wave; nice and peaceful. Nothing interesting but those surfers show attracted me from old folks and children. We stopped by to watch them for 15 minutes and it's time. Time for lunch, and you guess what we had, we had Fish and Chips. What fish? I just known there were more than one type of fish we can choose and because I couldn't imagine each listed on the menu so I chose a cool name one -- Snapper (I didn't know what were they looked like by the time). We ordered 3 fishes with $3 chips but we got 4 fishes with loads of chips. I also had Ginger Beer by Kerks which was really good!!! I liked it. When we were stuffed we headed back and stopped by the Ginger Factory and Nuts Factory. Our last station was the Opal Down Under where they sold...opals. Bruce might have got some commissions if we bought opal from here haha. I personally didn't see any values in these stones so I left with empty hand. We headed back and all of us were very sleepy. I wasn't sure if Bruce got a nap while he was driving because he wore a pair of sunglasses.
It was a nice trip Bruce. I enjoyed it very much and thanks for everything. Thanks a lot.