越是夜深人靜的時候, 我就越想你也越想哭
遠在天國那一邊的你, 有沒有吃得飽睡得好?
As with most things these days, I’m late again…in doing my usual end of year review. So, here goes
2008, I found enough white hair on my head to make me shit in my pants….again
2008, I ran more this year than I ever did in my entire schooling years.
2008, I actually lost weight from just going to work.
2008, I had work related nightmares. People who know me well will laugh their heads off at this. My mom did.
2008, I am thankful for the new friends I made this year and the old friends that I managed to keep despite my inability to keep in contact.
2008, I bought my own domain name. How cool is that? Now all I need to do is to utilise it. Hmm.
2008, JBJ died.
2008, India has her own 9/11.
2008, the world saw a financial crisis on a scale never seen before.
2008, 我對寶島的政治客轍底的失望.
2008, 我認為籃營總有一天會把臺灣給賣了
Maybe last night’s dinner was too good or we were just too tired but we didn’t managed to wake up early this morning for the beach sunrise shoot. The city was hazy so it was easy to justify sleeping in. The breakfast served in the hotel was meh although I did enjoy the noodle soup and some of the stir fry dishes on offer. The dining area has the look of a dining area in some nonscript China hotel as well…..I think if someone was to tell me that Danang was modeled after some nonscript China city, I would probably have believe them.
After a quick breakfast, we head out to the Cham Museum. If there is ever one single place you must visit in Danang, I recommend the Cham Museum. We hopped on a taxi whose driver thought we were from mainland china and took us on a big roundabout trip before finally dropping us off at a white single level gated stone mansion which looked a little at odds with its neighbourhood of grey buildings. The ticket lady at the front collected 3USD from us, handed over the entrance tickets and waved us on to the next door booth to have the tickets clipped. Very communist. There weren’t too many tourists at this early hour of the day and it was great to be able to to wander around the quiet halls and admire the various exhibits that were on display. After an initial apprehensive thought of “Can shoot ornot…” because it says no shooting allowed at the front entrance, the gear came out out of the bag when I realised nobody else seem to be paying much attention to what was written on that white notice board at the gate.
The museum is actually much bigger than on first impression. It was a good thing we spotted the museum site map otherwise we would have missed a huge chunk of the exhibits at the back of the main gallery. After a great morning at the museum, we went back to the hotel, collected our luggage, checked out and head to the central bus station to catch our bus ride to Hue.
There were buses going in every direction out of Danang at the central bus station. The very nice young cab driver who took us back to our hotel and waited to see if he could score another business from us found us the next bus to Hue and discreetly reminded us that we only need to pay what was written on the front window (~USD$3) and not a dong more. After thanking him for his help and storing our luggage, we hopped on the bus amid all the chaos and found ourselves a comfortable seat each. The bus got progressively more packed as it picked up as many passengers as it could on the way out of Danang. There was a young lady going back home to some village along the way for a visit, dressed in her most fashionable attire and clutching her precious cargo of a whole cake from a bakery in the big city of Danang. A young, looked to be fresh out of university, local couple going to Hue for a holiday were giggling away and munching on preserved plums. KH found himself sitting next to a university lad who wanted to improve his english and they managed to chat away for the entire journey to Hue. I was sitting next to a young lady who looked like she was about to collapse from sheer exhaustion but still managed to cajole the fare attendant into giving her a big discount for her bus journey.
The journey up north was on a straight 2 laned road with the glistering sea on one side and padi fields and lotus ponds on the other. After going through the tunnel, the hot dusty air miraculously start to feel a lot cooler, the sun seem a little less scorching and after about 1.5hr, we found ourselves in Hue.