19^th August 2013

Today’s weather wasn’t good. Woke up about 1.15pm and it was raining heavily. ‘Good day is not about the weather or environment, but deeply inside one’s heart’. I always believe that no matter how bad is the storm, how bright is the sun and how dark is the night; we can always find joy in everything. So, I woke up and received news reporting that we’re going back to Keelung, Taiwan tomorrow due to typhoon and our shore leave has been extended until 6pm. (p/s: I’m currently working with Star Cruise as their onboard Magician together with my partner (mentor) Zlwin Chew. Will be talking about that later on). So I quickly took a shower and rushed to get our passport. So we went out to Ishigaki, Japan for late lunch (3.30pm) real late lunch, and did a little bit of shopping in Max Value building with my Taiwanese group that I met in cruise.  

I supposed this sounds like an ordinary day to everyone and there’s nothing much to say about it. However, what most important was the journey and the things that happened in between. The taxi driver brought us to the wrong destination because he doesn’t understand English and Mandarin. We communicate with map pointing, hand gesture and very simple English which are yes and no. There are 5 of us, so we need to have 2 cabs; Japan is a country where the citizens abide the laws strictly. Obviously the second taxi that followed us reached at same destination as well. No choice but to have lunch at the nearby restaurant.

In the middle of the journey to the wrong destination -.-, I was holding an umbrella in the taxi and suddenly, the umbrella opened itself. Chinese believe that if an umbrella is open under a roof, ghost will appear. My Taiwanese friend was shocked and quickly asked me to close the umbrella. Ofcourse, me just being me, I laughed out loud looking his reaction and close the umbrella quickly, I’m afraid as well, things that we don’t see doesn’t mean it doesn’t exists. By the way, the umbrella opened twice hahaha! Walking under the heavy rain and strong wind blowing on us definitely was the favourite part of my day. I remembered how my mum used to tell me not to go play under the rain and the rebellious side in me always wanted to challenge her.

Typing all this while listening to Owl City’s album playing on my laptop, currently playing the track called ‘On the Wing’. So that’s all about my day and I still managed to find joy despite of the bad weather. What about you? Did you manage to? If not, you should because life is short and there are no time for unhappy moments. By the way, the ship is sailing now on the rough sea and I'm expecting rougher sea for these few days.

Looking back at the moment we cried, then we laughed,

Looking back at the moment we laughed, and then we cried.