Ok it turns out in these confusing times, i have also become confused and saved the draft to the entry i was talking about earlier in another blogsite... so... it went something like this. N btw, it so happened that i had one spanish take home test, where the course co-ordinator sent the test with the answers attached as well... and she said: "It seems that in these confusing times i too have become confused and sent out the answers to the test as well. I trust in your honesty not to print it out..." So confused that she didnt say that in our honesty we should not read or look at the answers, just not to print it. she's one confused lady.
anyway the entry went something like this:
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hey there im back in rainy california waiting for the sun to shine... it aint gonna sun much in ny anyway cos its freezing cold there. hello to everyone, my first entry in the year 2006~ hurrah!
im bumming around in california wishing i had my laptop with me. it might have been foolish bringing it to peru considering ive got an extra bag full of things for me house (like rugs and cloths). i also did consider asking grace to hold it for me in california (which would be so totally evil) so i didnt bring it so now im blogging on me sister's lappie. not nice i feel. my hands are too big for her keyboard. oh well i digress.
So i assume the question you guys might be asking would be: so wheres kin now? whats he doing? how was peru?
well
peru was so zhai can... its another one of those places where the fotographs just cannot replace the feeling of being there. if im not wrong, machu picchu is one of the places running for the official title of one of the 7 modern wonders. will list the site when i find it. vote! its a marvel really. anyway, most of the pictures taken are with cheewei cos he was the only one who brought his lappie with him, so we loaded all our fotos in his laptop and he's gonna burn a trip dvd. but for now if u want a sneak preview of some of the shots, u can come ask me and i'll link u. absolutely wonderful.
so the trip went something like this for me:
day 1, 24/12/05 - lima.
smokey smokey polluted dusty lima. when i got to youth hostel malka, everyone was asleep. not much here, except we had a 6.50 soles (1USD = 3.4 sol) lunch with starter, main and drink. cos we didnt speak spanish, and they didnt have menu, we managed to order our stuff via notebook. ie we all wrote down what we wanted to eat that was on the placard at the entrance of the restaurant. that was the first and only time we did that in peru, but hey the food was amazing! finally tasted rice that was nice and chinesesy. or rather singaporeanesy. i ordered a bistec a la pobre, which means poor man's steak. to my surprise, the rice was buttered, and tasted like thai rice. yummy. i also had the national dish for starters, ceviche, which is some sort of raw/semi raw fish, with alot of sour gravy and onions, much like lime juice on raw fish. brilliance. the national drink is pisco sour, which is kinda like a margarita except i like pisco sour better. the foam is heavy and has taste too. later walked from miraflores (which looks like a spanish town) to the edge of the pacific ocean, and we bummed around. also checked out the artisans market in lima and got prices of things we thought we might buy. later had dinner at pepe's which was like a rundown fastfood place not serving fast food. there i had anticucho de corazon (beef heart kebabs) which was rather rubbery, but something new nonetheless.
getting back later at night, we played ping pong and talked cock then jengaed until xmas. rather weird, considering it didnt feel xmasy at all. huisin bought 2 cusquena stouts, which were smooth and we shared them. nice. but still not xmassy enuf.
day 2, 25/12/05-cusco
its christmas but it didnt really feel like that. we woke early to catch a flight from the airport at lima to cusco, the ancient capital of the inca empire. at this moment, i have to clarify and say that the inca refered to the king of the quechua (pronounced kay-chua) people. of course what i say here is based on the words of our guide Wayra (pronounced wai-ra). since the language of all the people that the inca conquered is called quechua, the locals call each other quechuas, instead of incas as we commonly know them to be. cusco is a charming city, run mainly as a tourist destination, with the enchanting main plaza (plaza de armas) and the surrounding old buildings reflecting the spanish architecture of the time when the invading spaniards tore down old quechua buildings and used the stones to build their colonial buildings. some of the streets are so narrow a truck couldn't pass through, and yet they have a way of getting 2 taxis to pass through what appears at first to be a one way street. the old name for the city was qosqo, and was changed by the spaniards to cusco.
Anyway, we checked in to the Samay Wasi (Saa-mai waa-see) hostel, and proceeded to unload our bags. we then went out to the main plaza and entered the main cathedral where they were having christmas service. it was then where i saw that the dish on the plate in the middle of the table of the last supper on the painting hung on the cathedral wall had a scrawny animal on it. something they called Qui, for the sound it made. Turns out Jesus' last meal was a guinea pig. some of us had breakfast at the Baghdad cafe, overlooking the plaza while the rest slept in the hostel. we managed to catch some dances and processions celebrating xmas. apparently, most places have a replica of the nativity scene, and its considered a very important thing, having a replica of that scene. we explored the main plaza and the old inca walls of the city, which were excellently constructed and survived the earthquake of 1950, unlike the spanish constructs which were not seismic proof. bought some souvenirs there.
later, everyone woke up and we had lunch at a restaurant, which took forever to serve our food, during which it started to rain. yihui and yonghe were tired, maybe jetlagged or lack of sleeped so they went back while we discussed what to do. we decided on random exploration of the city, perhaps walking towards the hills and the residential areas, until we passed this guy asking us if we wanted to go to pisaq, a historical site with a tourist market. so happy at the apparent serendipituous incident, we all gladly boarded the bus. along winding mountainous roads and with many more locals squeezing up the bus, we eventually reached pisaq, bargaining and shopping heaven.
Cheewei and keith bargaining for some clothwork:
Yo esta estudiante pobre (i am a poor student)
Old lady selling clothwork:
Yo esta mama! tengo cuatro hijas... cuatro estudiantes!
(i am a mother...i have 4 daughters... mother to 4 students!)
well... the harsh realities of life yes.
by the time we got back from pisaq, i had a headache and so did haoxiang, who had not been sleeping well and had a horrible headache and nausea. we ta paoed dinner from a restaurant, which took a rather long time, and wasnt as good as the one from lima. oh well, lima is supposed to be the culinary capital of peru, and the rest were talking about this restaurant at baranco which had fantasic food. oh well. rather amazed that even at cusco which seemed so underdeveloped with poor natives selling their beautiful crafts, there were internet cafes, and our hostel had internet access too. wow. talk about culture clash.
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yup. and thats where i ended. ill pick off again. so much to talk about, so little time. till then, its me again, your friend.
