Return from the homeland!

All right, a very tardy post on my travels to Hong Kong and Guilin (who even reads this still)

Any way, I always think pictures are worth a thousand words, so here they go (with captions to explain a bit of the more quirky ones)

Along the Li River in Guilin, China, world renowned for its pastoral transqulity and unique mountainscapes.

My sister stranded on a rock in a cave!

Inside a cave in Guilin, they have so many caves! Doesn't this totally look like it's from a sci-fi movie? The reflections are made by a shallow reflecting pool in the cave. Gorgeous! (photo credits go to a friend who is way more talented w/her manual speed camera than me!)

A beautiful show we saw performed on a lake in Guilin. It was a cultural show with 400 minority cultural persons performing. It's called Liu Sanjie (google it!) and it was produced by the world famous producer of "Heroes" (the movie know for it's cinematography) I don't think the beauty could be captured with words or pictures. Imagine the Guilin mountains as the background, talented performers dancing and singing traditional favorites and classical compositions, as well as technacolor light and water special effects. It's cooler than Cirque de Soleil! Oh. on the moon in the picture, there was a woman dancing on it. And the sparkly lights all around it, are dozens of "fisherman" on the little rafts that they have and they're all swaying and moving in a spectacular light display in sync with the music playing!

The Landmark is one of the chicest and most expensive malls in Hong Kong. Isn't is pretty?

The Big Buddha on Lantau Island is over 14 meters tall! It's the largest bronze seated buddha in the world! Lots of people go to pay pilgrimage to it. I went there to go visit and to check out the outlet mall that was also on the island! =)

I took a ride on a traditional junk boat in the harbor in Hong Kong.  A great way to view the cityscape from the water.

A view of Hong Kong Island from the Peak (the highest point on Hong Kong Island)

A visit to the local park in the New Territories, festive for the Chinese New Year. Yes, I did very touristy things during the day when my friends and my sister were busy working. I partied at night =)

My friend took me to a tea house in Hong Kong Park after a long weekend of drinking as a little respite and detox. I had white peony tea, I highly recommend it!

And just one pic of food, this is from a chain of dessert places in HK that specializes in mango desserts. Yummy!

I wanna go back there already!

A New Year, A Fresh Start

My new year's resolutions:

1) go to the gym, at least once to check it out, and consider going back (yes, my old resolutions usually inevitably failed cuz they were seriously overly optimistic, entailing me to go to the gym on multiple occasions)

2) shop less, like way less. MD sales tax is rising to 6%. I am moving to LA in 6 months. all these are clearly signs that I should STOP shopping for extraneous things that I don't need, or even like that much. it's so hard to resist sales. I must desist.

3) start over in relationships. 2007 was primarily spent moping around, thinking too much and doing too little. this year will be all about me. i will learn to love myself for who i am (so what if i'm high maintenance? i love it and so should everyone else!) and truly be happy being myself.

4) find a hobby. i use to have so many, like making arts and crafts, reading, being really into movies and film. now i just shop. see a theme here? i think i should go back to some of the more literary hobbies.

5) spend less time surfing the web. sure it teaches me things, like how to make a paper origami flower (and it works, i have one to prove that i know how to do it!) but also sucks up soo much of my time and forces me to go to bed later than i should and thus waking up late to work and making the other interns i work with unhappy with me cuz i'm always late! none of this anymore! i will be on time!

a story for the ages...

So I was in clinic last week and there's this mid-40s guy getting a pre-employment physical. A typical thing. He was started on lexapro (an anti-depressant) recently and he started going on why he was put on that. He said he was having anxiety issues surrounding his recent divorce. Just as about I was going to cut his story short (I wanted to go to lunch!) he starts telling me this:

"This is a really short story, let me just tell you. So my wife of 9 years left me for a younger man. So I looked up my old girlfriend (his first) who had left me 13 years ago suddenly, right before we were going to get engaged. She apparently had left me to take care of her two old invalid parents. And she said 'Why did it take you so long to find me?' Apparently she had never dated anyone else after me and she was staying home to take care of her parents. All this time she had been living at home with them in the same town as me and we had never run into each other. We were always soul mates and even though it's been so long, we picked up right where we left off and we can still finish each others' thoughts. So now we're back together and about to get married."

So I said, "well I guess you probably won't need your lexapro anymore!"

This story was just so sweet and romantic! So there is hope for all of us who lost our one true loves. Sometimes it a takes a little time and maybe a divorce (although i certainly don't advocate that)

It also teaches me that I can learn something from every patient, even if it has nothing to do with medicine, there is always something to learn about life!