Being this much in love makes me ecstatic when I'm with him, and miserable otherwise.

Today he sent me another bouquet, this time for things to come and sunnier days for now. 5 perfect sunflowers and 6 red roses, embedded in an embrace of pink, white and pale green. Flowers never used to mean so much; now every stalk speaks volumes, and a bouquet draws a dam of a tears.

I just can't wait.

I had the friggin' most amazing day today! My last visit to Sai Kung on the New Territories was last Sunday, when I went fishing with my training group on a farm situated in open water. Today Mr and Mrs Nipple arranged a great big wakeboarding trip with like 16 pple, with a fucking awesome big boat along with the little speedboat. So the day was spent chilling on the deck, snacking on crisps, getting a tan, jumping into the water from the top deck (which is fun as hell), attempting to motor a rubber dingy for two with five pple in it (we went in circles for 20 minutes), ending up swimming to the beach instead, covering up Albert in sand (we gave him a massive penis AND boobs), playing mahjong, and of course, wakeboarding.

Now the last time I went wakeboarding was something like three years ago. It was my first time and I was wakeboarding with 3 veterans. I can still taste the salt water from the repeated painful and VERY humiliating faceplants!!! It was a full day's trip in Singapore and I finally did manage to get up, for all of 20 seconds...

Needless to say, I didn't have much confidence in my success today, but surprise surprise, I got up after the first two tries and improved rapidly on every try thereafter. Minh, my si fu (master), thinks I'm talented, check ME out. I think I'm hooked now, I can still feel the waves beneath me and the giddiness of actual SUCCESS riding them!

I sound like a fucking retarded over-excited geek but what can I say, it was an awesome day. Here is the photographic evidence:



Poster for Womens' Watersports Society



Dionna: 'Rohid, Nick, you HAVE to do the Titanic thing!!' Denise: 'How original.'



Finally, a tan after MONTHS.



Chilling on the deck



Minh the expert takes his cue



The PRO in action (aren't I cool)

Being 100% Chinese (albeit Singaporean), it seemed ironic that the first time I should visit mainland China should be to see my French boyfriend who has set up home there. It was refreshing though, to see China through the eyes of a Westerner, while critically assessing it by my own biased judgment - manifestations of all those years of hearing without seeing, developing my own mental picture of the place which is simultaneously the home of my ancestors and the upcoming economic powerhouse of the world.

I hopped onto a plane to visit my lover in Beijing for 2 1/2 blissful days on the weekend. We stepped into the cab and the thickness of the Beijing accent, combined with my limited knowledge of Mandarin, threw me off guard - I felt instantly abashed at my poor grasp of the language, and my all-too-obvious foreigness, despite my skin colour.

Out the window, Beijing is an endless city, so vast it is hard to imagine that it is home to a multi-million-strong population. The pollution is thick and the greenery sparse. You don't get the idea that the city is rushing headlong into the embrace of Development; rather, you see the city romanced by the idea, teased welcomingly by it. Despite some hulking buildings cautiously uprooting, common people still occupy job positions long made redundant elsewhere - a woman sits on a stool in a lift to press the buttons; a man shivers on the pavement to entice customers into a warm restaurant; a human rubbish separator sorts through the trash for recyclable material. Beijing is not quite yet the fashion capital that Shanghai is, yet MNCs like Chanel, Nine West and Tiffany line the wide shopping streets with confidence. Strangers approach us in curiosity and to practice their English; one notices that foreigners are still few and far between.

As I was there mostly to see my boy and to chill out with him in his lovely flat, I only caught a few fleeting sights. Just a few pictures for now: -