Monday, 14 May 2012

  • For Mom

    Mother's Day had came and went. I don't know when it started, but I found that it was being celebrated over here too. There were Mother's Day special sales at City Mart, and bakeries had "Happy Mother's Day" sprawled on their cakes. My boyfriend was having a trouble thinking about what to give to his mom (who was currently in another city with her elder daughter right now). I kind of just smiled ironically whenever I see posts about Mother's Day on Facebook.

    Tomorrow, it will be a year since the day that mom has left.

    There are so many things about her that I thought about writing during the year, the things I thought of during sleepless nights every now and then. But whenever the morning came, I decided not to write anything anymore.

    I still can't talk about her with anyone either. Except with my bf. I also don't want to talk to others about her because I don't want to put the burden of having to console me, or something. I also don't want anyone else to think that I am writing about her, or talking about her to make people feel sorry for me. One time of being thought that way is enough for me.

    So I will just share the happy cute childhood photos of me and mom. :)


    This photo was taken at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. I was just about 2 or 3 years old, (the one with the milk bottle). It was my sis that my mom was holding.


    Another photo at the zoo


    One of the school teachers (I think it was our Audio Visual Teacher?) took this photo during a Halloween parade. It was my first one since I got back to the states in 1995. I didn't know that we were holding a parade (or rather, didn't understand at that time) so my ESL Teacher fixed me up in that Red Riding Hood costume.


    Her 3 kids :)

    Yesterday, my bf and I had dinner at Black Sky, and we got a free cake because of our total purchases were more than 10,000 Ks. The cake had "Happy Mother's Day" scrawled on it. Since bf's mom was not in the city, he couldn't give it to her so he told me to take it to give alm to monks who come to my house every morning.

    Tomorrow, we will be having a small alm donation (soon kyway) to the monks at my home. It is a tradition of the Burmese to make some kind of donation event to commemorate the passing of someone in your family. It can be a big one, or a small one, like donating money to a pagoda or a monastery in memory of his/her name. For us, we will just invite some neighbours, and some close relatives. That's about it.

    -+-+

    I just hope that mom can be proud of us, her 2 daughters and one son, wherever she is.

Thursday, 10 May 2012

  • Down the Memory Lane

    Well, I've just turned 29, so now I'm 29, going on 30. Don't know if that's a good thing or not. ;P

    I didn't feel so much in a celebratory mood, but I still followed the custom to treat my friends and colleagues. Just didn't have a big party. As for the members of Myanmar Youths in Action, I treated them ice-cream after our volunteering at Kasone Banyan Tree Watering at Shwe Phone Pwint Pagoda on May 5th. On May 8th, the day of my birthday, I treated 25 of my colleagues with Shan noodles and donuts (those who didn't want to eat shan noodles had donuts). In the evening, I had a small gathering of 5 people: my boyfriend, an American friend whom I've incidentally known because of my blog here in Xanga - and have been friends for some years now, his friend, and Khin Myat, who is a friend and also an active social worker.

    So that was that for my birthday.

    -+-+-

    These days, I've been feeling kind of under the weather. I don't feel so enthusiastic about anything. There are things that I kept worrying about, things that I know I am lacking in, things which I am unsatisfied with, but haven't taken any action to change the situation. So many things on my mind.

    My love life is suffering a tiny bit from my moodiness though. Not that he is complaining, but I feel guilty about it. He sometimes says that I don't love him as much as he does. I feel sad when I hear that - I do love him as much as he do, if not more. I just think it is the age talking (for me) - I'm much more calmer these days and just don't feel the same as I did about love 3 or 4 years ago. 3 or 4 years ago, I was more or less obsessive about my one-sided love, and that person was all I could think of, cried about, etc. When I read back my older entries from back then, I can't really believe myself that I wrote all those things. haha. It feels weird that I don't have any of those feelings for that person anymore, cos he was supposed to have been the "love of my life" back then. Now the love of my life is a different person! ^_^

    -+-+-

    My boyfriend is practically the kind of man I've always dreamed of to be my boyfriend. He doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he doesn't even hang out with other girls, much less cheat on me, is caring, texts me everyday, a family man, you know the type. Probably the only things that he doesn't fulfill my dream man criteria was that he doesn't know how to play a (acoustic) guitar (I've always dreamt of being serenaded by a guitar-playing boyfriend), and doesn't like Lord of the Rings... hehehe :P

    When I first met him, it was during a Myanmar Youths in Action meeting at Mya Sabai cafe in August, 2010. We held a meeting there for our 1st youth conference. I remember that it was a rainy day - I had came in a bit late, almost all wet. I was a bit distracted and tired because of the rain and didn't even take any photos that evening to record the meeting. I just remembered that he first attended the meeting that day cos I had never seen him before. I noticed that he and his friend kept looking at me - his friend thought that he's seen me somewhere before, and was asking my not-yet-bf whether he knew me also, and I remember he shaking his hand and saying no. (Later, it turned out that his friend used to work at a company that I used to work for). But sadly, back then, I hadn't noticed him that much. :P

    The next time I met him was on tree planting workshop at Hlawgar Wildlife Park. He told me later that he first noticed me during this trip because of the way I was not afraid of dirt like many other girls were, and were planting 4 or 5 trees. But for me, I just noticed that he was quiet and looked kind of handsome.

    We met again at the Myanmar Youths Conference. I didn't know his name at that time, and I designed all the name tags and was handing them out to the members and I remember calling out the name of the card and he said it was him. (I think it was him :P) Then we met again at the Meet the MDGs workshop the next week.

    Then he disappeared from our activities for awhile. I think I added him in Facebook, but put him in limited profile during that time, cos I didn't really know him and didn't want him to see beautiful (*cough*) photos of me. hehe :P It was because he was visiting India and Thailand during that time, so he disappeared from our activities.

    In early November, he came with us to our Small Education project at an orphanage. That's when I really really noticed him. Haha ... Because he seemed so happy hanging out with the kids. He seemed a bit watchful for me also, because I always lagged behind taking photos at the orphanage.

    In late November, he joined our youth camp at Chaungthar Beach. Cupid must also have been vacationing at Chaungthar cos that's when he struck me (us?). hehehe

    And then.... the rest is history :) You can see how fast things developed in a short time if you can read the dates of my entries. :P It was like lightning! ;)

    It's fun when we walk down the memory lane of how we came to be together. We'll talk about how we felt during those times, and compare what we were doing at so-and-so time when we didn't know each other.

    As time went by, I became more and more sure that he will be the man I'm going to marry someday. That day is not too far away now... ^_^

Tuesday, 08 May 2012

  • My First Birthday Present

    You guys remember a post I wrote last month, about my visit to Junction Square shopping mall, and writing about wanting that big Angry Bird plush doll??

    Guess what I got for my birthday present!!!!


    A birthday present from my bf :)


    With the rest of the family

    =^_^=

Friday, 04 May 2012

  • Htam Sam Cave

    (Brace yourself! A Photo-Flooding Post is Coming!! :P)

    One of the places I visited when I was in southern Shan State was "Htam Sam Cave". It is a place that I've actually never heard of before. I didn't visit there the last time I went to Taunggyi either. So we rented a car from our hotel in Taunggyi to get there.

    Htam Sam Cave is located on Hopone - Loilin Highway, near Htam Sam village. It is 26 miles from the city of Taunggyi, and 12 miles from Hopone.

    "Htam Sam" is a Shan/ Pa-O word meaning "Elephant Cave" - Htam= Cave, Sam= Elephant).  It is a cave that was discovered not too many years ago.

    Don't be alarmed if you see soldiers there. The region is controlled by Pa-O Army, who just safeguards the area.


    On the road to Htam Sam Caves

    The Hopone - Loilin Road was still under construction, but it is still drivable, (at least in Myanmar standards :P). The drive to the cave from Taunggyi took about an hour.


    We can see the stalls of the Htam Sam cave from the road


    If you continue on the road, you will reach "Maing Pon"


    The entrance road to the cave


    A solider on the way from the restroom :P :P

    The stream you see in the photo flows out from the cave.


    The Burmese Griffin?


    Entrance to Htam Sam Cave

    When we first got there, there weren't a lot of people. But when we came out, there were so many!

    The cave has been renovated to make as a Buddhist shrine by a Pa-O monk called "U Pawritha", otherwise known as "Hopone Ko Yin Lay". So you will see many Buddha statues in the cave.


    A man-made landscaping of a natural spring lake


    Renovations still going on under the huge mushroom stalactite


    Huge hanging stalgamites

    The area of the cave is quite big, isn't it? In Myanmar, most of natural caves, like the famous Pindaya Caves, are turned into Buddhist shrines like this.


    On the way back to the entrance, many people just entered the cave


    A Donation Place for the Cave


    Pilgrims paying respect to U Pawritha (Ho Pone Ko Yin Lay)


    A huge wave of Pa-O people just got of a bus when we were about to leave


    Beautiful scenery near the cave area


    You can eat a free meal here - which is a vegetarian meal. Anyone can eat as much as you like, but not waste them.

    I also ate some, just to taste, but not to a full extent. The curries were Shan traditional food, so it was a bit weird taste for me.


    Since I was hungry, I bought these fried tofus at the vendors


    Also these vegetable fried fritters


    I just love the traditional clothings of the Pa-O people. Very simple and colourful headdress!


    I wanted to walk up to that hill to take a photo of the surroundings from a higher altitude, but father said it was time to go back home. :(

    If you want to read more about Htam Sam Cave, here are a few links:

    Nine Nine Sanay's Blog Entry (in Burmese Language)

    Royal Myanmar's Photo Blog about Htam Sam Cave

    Things Asian's Article

    P.S: I have also shared my photos of Htam Sam cave on Myanmar Times' website since 3 months ago. Just got around to writing about it on my blog now ;)

Thursday, 03 May 2012

  • Visit dawn_1o9's Xanga Site
    • Name: Dawn
    • Location: Yangon, Myanmar
    • Gender: Female
    • Member Since: 1/16/2004
    • True
Creative Commons License
This site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Contact me if you want to re-use the photos or contents for personal uses.
Don't worry - your calendar is here… to see it in action just click "Save" above and refresh the page.
Global Voices: The World is Talking, Are You Listening?
Native Myanmar

Pulse