Sunday, April 19, 2009

Gym Progress 2009.04

Got to catch up. I think I may have missed some good classes for the holidays, but I figured, not too much either. Bibi was on vacation last week, anyways, and cancelled the Friday and Sunday classes.

I got back from vacation on Tuesday morning, but wanted to spend some quality time with my SO. He was going to leave this coming Thursday - I figured, I could go all out after he leaves. *snicker* So I just opted to skip Tuesday noon and Wednesday night.

Its amazing how some factors now come into play that weren't used to be there before. I guess that's only more motivation to make sure I can juggle and balance them all.. there's going to be more juggling later - I might as well try the beginner juggling act now. I am SUCH a considerate person (hello SO. I hope you are reading this. You are forever indebted now.)

So here I am.. making my way through the week. Second time for partner step on Friday. I thought I was going solo, but ended up with another partner (strangely, Dom wasn't around for a while, it seems). I cant remember her name though - she's the nice woman with chinky eyes that was always with another girl with zig-zaggedy hair. I've always thought they were sisters.

I skipped a possible session with Jason on Saturday in CWB, but for a good reason - I got a much needed haircut. Split ends can get really irritating, and I was losing a lot of hair at a very fast daily rate. Clumps and clumps and clumps. I swear, I'm not sure why I haven't gone bald yet. SO complains about my hair all about the house... but its not my fault, is it? I blame it on genetics, and wash my hands of any contribution on my part! (hehehehe).

Its probably for the best anyway... I was drenched from head to toe that afternoon, after finishing the haircut. I'll probably write a separate post about it later.

Also.. Bibi's HILO class? Never fails to give me a smile. I was pushed up the first row (you can say it was the experts' row) for the first time, since the regulars seemed to have gone MIA, but it was a class well worth it. AWESOME.


Fri (HL,ASM): Bibi,Bibi
Sat (SM): Calvin
Sun (SM, HL): Jason, Bibi

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

My Childhood, Revisited

This has been one of the milestone trips of my life.

There are many stories and a past behind my Easter trip's destination this year. It is a place where I grew up and defined a big part of who I am. Just like how I grew up in the Philippines, and just like how I grew up in Hong Kong. I've always thought that I was an odd person out amongst my peers. Most of the time I lived my own world, and in this place I do relive some of those sentiments.

Where are you going this long holiday break, my Hong Kong colleagues asked.
"I'm going to pray."
Oh? to Taishan?
"No. I will be going to 南海."
[Pause]
... Where is that?

I've always thought that the place was bigger than life. It was a sacred place of worship for Buddhists, where pious people had to travel to, at least once in their lives. The island is imbued with temples, every nook and cranny of the very small island, with tales of Guanyin and her history, within this island. God knows, it takes a considerable amount of energy, time and patience to get there before. Almost 25 years ago.

The first time I set foot in
普陀山, I was barely 5 years old. There were no conveniences then. You had to travel by train for at least 2 days, and switching from train to train, having to sleep in a chair (or sometimes, possibly the floor) shoulder to shoulder beside throngs of people eating watermelon seeds and spewing the shell on the floor, smoking their brains out, and being moronously nasty and rude. Yes, I had to go through that as a 4 year old. Finally arriving at 寧波, from there, you had to take a long, slow boat ride - if memory serves, 12 hours - to get to the small mystical island.

You had to be faithful and avoid all meats and fish a week prior - a full vegetarian diet - to be able to be worthy of setting foot in the island and being true to its beliefs.


There were no clear roads back then - so rough hiking was required just to get to a temple. It was a long hike lasting days, going from temple to temple, saying prayers and burning incense. It was no easy feat, either. You literally had to climb mountains to get to your destination. My mom had me and my brothers in tow during one trip, and now that I further think about it, that in itself was a miracle and a testament to my mother's determination. We were all barely adolescents at that time.

During my first trip, I couldn't hike, since I was too small, so they had to employ 2 people to carry a transportable chair to carry me through the mountains. It was quite embarrassing, since I was pretty much more than eye level than everyone else - carried around like a king. But there wasn't many pilgrims back then. It was a quiet countryside, where prayers were done solemnly and in silence, and so I was able to only cook my embarrassment by myself with no more than a few laughs and odd glances.

We lived inside the 普濟禪寺 monastery each time. The rooms were wooden and cold, back then. Sleeping happens at 6pm, waking up at 3am, and a morning prayer at 4am. I remember I loved the food there, and the weather was always spectacular - it was always cool and slightly windy, and the vegetables always felt like they were all freshly taken out of the ground and straight into the pan. Everyone was polite and reverent ... it was like stepping into another magical world. The vegetables were nothing like those you found anywhere else in China, were they've probably been grown for their economic value - money, rather than the quality. The vegetables in 普陀山 looked like they were taken care of, very carefully and lovingly, because the ones who will be consuming them would be the monks themselves.

I remember many of their faces, but none of their names. There would always be one monk to accompany us to all the temples in the island. They helped us, and lead us the way, and I've grown to love and be accustomed to many of them, always remembering them with a soft spot. They were always patient. I wished I could have taken photos with each of them, every year that I went there, afterwards. Even if I could not remember their names, then at least their faces wouldn't be so blurry to me, in my memory.

But I always remember one in particular... I think he was there at the beginning. He was the one who greeted and welcomed me everytime. He was from a province near Shanghai. I'm not quite sure actually why I always remember him, but I always do, and with a tender fondness. He was always the teaching, wise old sage that tries to nurtures calm to a young child. He was the one thing that reminded me of Putuoshan.


Fast forward to 2009. I have not been there for many years since I have graduated university, and started working. It now takes less than 4 hours to get from Hong Kong border to 舟山 via a plane ride, and a quick 15 minute ferry to 普陀山. There are cars to drive you to most of the major temples, and you would be able to get to most of them within a day, and be back by Monday in time for work. Students and tourists come on the weekends, ferry loads of them, like the place was a tourist attraction. An abomination in my book.

Where have the reverence, piety and silence gone?

And yet, this is the first year that I will be coming not as a child, or an adolescent, or a teenager, or a working yuppie, but as a wife to a husband. The roads and paths are different, the atmosphere's different, the people are different, if not overwhelming in number. Even the newer, younger monks look grumpier than usual.. but in a deplorable, angsty, modern sense. (Trust me, there were nasty monks back then. Butwhen I say nasty, I mean, really "get out of the shrine and the head monk's way, or I will kick you 10 feet from here - I'm SERIOUS" kind of nasty.) It was all very depressing.

But before then end of the trip... I've had the fortunate chance to met with the sagely, kind old monk. I may have grown taller, and matured with age, but I always remember being a child when I do meet him - I have grown much, and and so has he, but our relation has not. I met him again, with my husband... and, he is still the sage, and I, the young 4 year old child. He may look like he is aging - and yes, he has been sickly a few years back with some serious health problems - but I was happy to see him this year looking quite healthy and looking as much like I remembered him when I was 4. And then, I was relieved from my worries.

普陀山 has changed - the place may have been transformed to a concrete, infrastructured place like any other city in the Mainland, with even hotels to boot - but the quintessential anchor has not. I am glad, that despite the new faces and younger generation of monks - even they seem hasty and modern to me - the memory that I've always known, are still there. The heart of the place remains the same, as it was back when I was a child. No one will touch that.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Gym Progress 2009.03

Not much for this week. I have an up and coming Easter trip starting Thursday, so that rules out this week's weekend classes, as well as Wednesday night, where I had to prepare for my "luggage" in preparation for the next day - I still DO have work then.

I did miss out on Jason though.. I was running late from the office and tried to ask Dom to grab me a BP space, but found out he wasn't attending either. So I swapped it with a BP class in Whampoa so I could make it in time. It could be better.... but its alright.

Got to get back next week!

Mon (BP): Diana

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Gym Progress 2009.02

This is the week I started with weights again. I've been looking forward for it for a few days already.. I couldn't wait to get off work just to start pumping again. The plan? get my back straight, my paunch gone, my leg muscles with more support for steps, and the ultimate goal - to get into my gym attire clothes again. No way am I going to spend additional money just to buy the same clothes but in a bigger size. I think I've already spent a small fortune getting the old size clothes - God knows, some of them I haven't even used yet.

I mean, seriously... I used to do this 15 hours a week, every day of the week. I never used the home bathroom anymore, back then. I was just taking a bath in the gym on a daily basis... hahaha It does have its good points - less laundry (the gym provides a set), complimentary shampoo, conditioner, soap and lotion... even the ear buds are included :P Point being.. I have enough gym clothes to last me a week. And some more. That's how MUCH clothes I had.

I was also in preparation for the coming onslaught of pain right after. Or should I say, on the day after. So I even scheduled an "early" leave on Wednesday to get some rest.. and right on the dot, I could barely concentrate at work on Wednesday. I was really aching all over.

Well, despite that, I obviously skipped Jason's Wednesday class. I could barely lift myself by 4pm that day. No way I can attend his class now.

Come Friday, I attended my very first Friday morning class again, with the usual routine. At night, the first time without my usual partner, I duo-ed with Dom. Not bad, not bad. :)

And on Sunday.. no way I am going to miss out on a double Bibi class (she cancelled the previous advanced step class, and provided only the high lo nowadays). So I gave myself a break on Saturday to recuperate... besides, my SO was in town, and I do have to spend quality time with him that weekend (at least, until Sunday afternoon :P)

So, as before... :

Mon (BP,SM): Gavin,Jason
Fri (HL,ASM): BiBi,Bibi
Sun (HL,SM): Bibi, Bibi

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

To Describe A Quaint Mystery (Hiro Leaves)

Hiro has left.

How to celebrate a relation that was as strange as it was fleeting? It wasn't quite the typical acquaintance, nor was it the best of buddies, nor was it anything serious. Despite our typical tendencies to put a label on everything, I couldn't quite put borders on this one. It was greyed, but shone like a light rainbow. It had texture, grainy and pitch black on some sides, smooth and cool white on others. It had an irresistible charm, but not actually addictive. In fact, I would even say it did, AND did not have any form. It was quite a funny mystery. But humor me, let me try my best to explain something that seems as if cannot be explained:

There are many coincidences to explain our friendship: From the time we first met, 2 ludicrously inane people, noticing each other at the Central gym branch on a Saturday morning, surprised at meeting again an hour later at the other end of the Hong Kong port stretch - in Whampoa Garden - and another 2 hours later, finding ourselves face to face in Causeway Bay. From the time we bump into each other on a Sunday morning in Central, to an hour later in Tsim Sha Tsui, and 2 hours later, will meet at Mongkok again.

It's also the same when we met on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays... and back all over again.

After more than a few weeks of peeking suspiciously at each other, we finally did introduce ourselves. What was important was the fact that we began this little mystery, as separate, completely unrelated individuals. It wasn't that I was introduced by him, or anyone to take up all sorts of odd classes, or spend 15 hours a week in the gym. I just decided to. So did he. We lived a block from each other, both early risers, with regular rountines. So, two separate, seemingly different inviduals. Yet the only problem was, both individuals seem to keep ending up at the same places, all the time.

We didn't merely attend step classes. We attended all kinds - aerobics, bodypump, bodybalance, and even yoga. It didn't matter if it was beginners, intermediate, difficult or advanced level, we were there. When I think back on things, why this was so... I'd say we didn't dislike instructors and didn't prefer going only to a select few, but unbelievably, enjoyed each and every one of them. We liked the challenge of a variable environment.

When asked by other possibly discriminating gym rats how we found other instructors, we both smile and mention good points. Bad ones? They didn't seem to matter that much- it seemed to me that we both always had fun, which ever instructor we went to.

At times, we gave each other vacation gifts when we were away from the gym, a token of our coincidental friendship. Flower jasmine teas, crackers, dried mangoes, phone chains, Pocky sticks, handy black bags, false goat milk pills, stamina amino acid chewable pills, heating pads - all the little token you can think of, and maybe a little bit more along the way that I may have forgotten.

He is the only Japanese I've met that doesn't like sushi. He also doesn't eat raw beef, and doesn't drink sake, but enjoys chilli instead. He would say strange but funny trivia tidbits like sleeping from 10pm-2am will have enough sleep to last for the day, or... each Japanese family has 1.xx child - it was quite an exact figure, something that made it hard to put on straight face when you do hear it. He has a funny tote bag he brings to the gym, regularly containing different kind of books each time - fiction, English, Cantonese, language - and together with his amino acid pills, and his towering 1L Pocari sweat bottle. And, he is an avid fan of Phiten - he has one in his neck, and both his ankles. He has a good taste in music - he's introduced me to a couple, of which I all like.

He will be nice enough to offer you a space, and save you a space, too, if you were a mainstay... But even especially when you weren't one.

He is a traveler, an adventurous one, and tries to know more about a place when he does indeed arrive and stay.

He goes to great lengths to attend the gym, foregoing his appendix operation, similar to the time when I was obscenely sick and delirious, but still came in for a class - getting me in a row with my brother. He likes spinning around the step, as do I, and the first time he saw me, he told me that he wondered.. "who is that amazing but crazy girl who keeps on turning?"

In the end, we ended up as partners. I would boldly say, we were good together - we both had the same passion, fast pairs of feet, a love for spinning, and a similar style when it comes to steps. I think I should have known and suspected this from the start. No matter which instructor it was, multistep was always a treat with each other.

And before he left, we both had bad deteriorating knees. :)

We loved routines, trying out new things, that's why we always coincidentally met. Preparation, timing, efficiency, picking out the fastest path to a destination... Many of the things we seemed to have in common. But most of all, we treated everyone, including ourselves, and life, with that light-hearted, self deprecating humor. I've never met anyone who reacted the same way as I did. In some ways, it was bizzare.

We weren't two opposite sides of the same coin, but, in the beginning, the same side of two exactly the same coins - identical base etching, but weathered in different durations, passing between different hands. Yet in the end, still the same, fundamentally. And that's why we kept on crossing each other's paths - we end up in the same mint, same bank, side by side.

You'd think we'd end up really close, but we didn't either. We never purposely invited each other. It was an amazing series of coincidences. You can say we let the coincidences lead the way. We didn't decide anything towards each other, but decided by ourselves. We ended along the same path, and kept going on, keeping each other company. For almost 3 years. It was a wonder it lasted for so long.

But in time, I slowly got caught up in the stress and pressure of life. I drifted, yet he kept on. No more coincidences, ... but strangely enough, there was still, some. We would meet downstairs at our place. Or in the supermarket downstairs to my house. On a ferry. At a bus stop. It was strange...

Before the end, he did something unexpected. After such a long hiatus from me, he openly asked me to be there for the last Friday for partner step. And I broke my drift - after 6 months, I came back. It was the strangest thing. It was like a beckoning to come back to who I was before... I was miserably unhappy for many months, but when I did come back, I soon realized what I have forgotten. And how much those coincidences meant. He was my reflection - and he was not miserable now, but I am. How did I drift away so drastically from myself in such a short time, so quickly?

The friendship that was, and also was not. Definitive, yet vague. Action, but also inaction. How to describe its existence and non-existence? The only words I can use to define: it is one-of-a-kind, yet, gleeful mystery.

These days, there's no more reflection, but I don't need one anymore: I remember now how it was, and what makes it worth returning back to. To finally remember who I was, and should remain to be. Its the best lesson given, and learnt. Hiro taught me a good lesson, by being who he was - like me. He's going to be sorely missed, though :)