SIA has really improved greatly in a decade. I could still recall the time when airplane food smelt so bad that it provoked a messy response from my mouth. During those days, games were the preferred choice of entertainment, for the movies provided were either too old or too boring. Today, it is no longer the same. Food was excellent and I would think that many might even ask for seconds were such an option provided. As for movies, I was totally enthralled and amazed by the wide array of movies available for viewing. When I saw that ‘Stardust’ was available for watching, I was pleasantly surprised and actually felt excited about it, for the bb27ths had planned to watch it on the coming Monday, which I would have to miss out on since I’m on holiday. And ‘Stardust’ was really da bomb! It was flawless – everything from the plot, to the actors, to design and animation, to graphics, to songs and music was perfectly woven into a heart-warming and, at times, amusing show that never fails to surprise the audience with unexpected twists and turns. Even if we all know that it will ultimately have a ‘happy-ever-after’ ending, it was done so artfully and tastefully that leaves viewers with a lasting aftertaste and a desire to want to watch it over and over again! Stardust is =)
You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn’t true. I know a lot about love. I’ve seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate… It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves… You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and… What I’m trying to say, Tristan is… I think I love you. Is this love, Tristan? I never imagined I’d know it for myself. My heart… It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it’s trying to escape because it doesn’t belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I’d wish for nothing in exchange - no gifts. No goods. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine.Once we have alighted from the plane, the first word that struck my mind when I saw the tour group my family has enrolled into was – ‘old’. Really, there were only 1 or 2 teenagers, apart from us, and the rest of the people are much older. Oh well, there goes the fairytale. haha, what fairytale, you might ask? Well, when I was young, I naively believed that when I go overseas, I would meet a girl whom I like and eventually fall in love with her. As such, even though experience had worn out the comfortable fantasy I used to believe in, the subconscious part of me must have recalled bits of the battered dream as my eyes roam to find out the composition of the tour group.
Dinner with my father’s old friend was interesting. Apart from the usual selection of Chinese food that was filling and nice, our sumptuous meal also comprises exotic food that I have never tried before. There was this mustard thingy (can’t remember what it’s called) that tasted quite awful – it was like the cousin of wasabi or something. I ate one and never touched it again. There was another wasabi-like food, and after trying it, I came to the reasonable conclusion that wasabi could be used to serve prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. After all, it inflicts such great torture on our taste buds. But again, there are people who acquired the taste for such weird food. Mmm, our world is really round.
I was reading The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason on the airplane just now and a particular line in the book has left a deep impression on me.
Strange thing, time. It weighs most on those who have it least.How true.
Right now, as I recall my experience of contained excitement and joy at playing Final Fantasy Anniversary on my brother’s PSP, I begin to realise why so many people of different background all around the world are so hooked onto these virtual games. The most ostensible reason will be that they allow us to escape into a different world and assume multiple characters, showering us with a multitude of options and choices. They grant us the feeling of control over our own destiny – or rather, the character’s destiny in the game – and allow us to relieve our innate desires of being the hero of a fairytale, the prince or princess of a story, or even the dreaded villain that everyone hates. But most importantly, it is the only medium that provides the opportunity for us to ‘turn back time’ and make changes in the game, that is. How many of us have consciously, or even subconsciously, wished to travel back through time and correct the past mistakes that have marred our lives? How many of us have wished that our lives could ‘restart’ and be played all over again? However, no matter how tempting games might be, they are still fantasy, whereas we are still living in reality. There are some things that nothing else in life can substitute or replace, warp or distort – our lives just happen to be one of them.
It is 12.41am now. Taiwan and Singapore has no time zone difference. I think I will start preparing the proposals for War Games and Human Chess. Camp is impending. =)
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