Ying Hui's Scrapbook: Don't wake me 'cause I'm dreaming, of angels on the moon...

...and of the days in Japan. My early red-and-gold Christmas. In no particular order:

1. I miss lying on the fallen autumn leaves at 2am in the morning, 5 black patches of winter coat-clad figures making leaf-angels and talking about everything under the moon. Smothered under a blanket of shining stars and cut out ones of yellowed leaves hanging off high branches, it gave us a sense of detachment from the world, a kind of numbness to the fears of reality. As Snow Patrol so beautifully put it, “Would you lay with me and just forget the world?” I loved the serenity, the sort you could get only from drifting on a raft in the stillness of a lake; or rocking to sleep in the arms of a hammock by the beach. We all did. And for some reason, I got a feeling that that moment defined our trip.

2. I miss being exuberant at simply anything and everything, the way a toddler is about the world. From the first step into my foster family’s home to the very last drop of Japan sunshine I tasted the second before boarding the flight, I was zinging with a wild energy that came to know as Sampatness or Kanasai-ness. I was obscenely eager to try every little thing, even attempting at puffing in a hyperventilating way that resembled a blowfish just to see my own breaths. Thank you, Azhar, for recording that embarrassing scene, though I could not bring myself to view it, thus I’d deleted it. Now I seem to be slightly deflated and uninterested in the workings of my daily life, I’d probably need a little more time to adjust back.

That feet warmer thing to put under the blankets

3. I miss the food. Then again, which food-crazed Malaysian doesn’t? I miss the gnawing anticipation of the following meal, the next feeding, even if we just finished feasting and would need to trudge through a million more miles before lunch or dinner. Ah, those saliva-inducing breakfast at okasan’s; a bowl of miso soup, a cup of green tea, a plate of salad complete with greens, cherry tomatoes, raw slices of fish and the magical sauce, fruit, topped with a yogurt-like dessert. And those breakfasts in Tokyo too, with the usual table of me, Gan, Joelle, Seong Seong and Izzat, and the occasional Azhar, they were the best I’d ever had. Oh, not to mention the food in Disneyland! Of course, there were exceptions, like the Z-grade ‘bento’ we had at the embassy, that served cold rocks of rice, fried chicken that tried to be crispy but failed and vegetables that looked as if the cook accidentally splattered them on the floor then picked them up to stuff into the lunch tray.

4. I miss the weather; the crisp quality of air, with a blast of cool, at times freezing, wind now and then; the fact that we would have sun rays piercing into our eyes by 6.30 in the morning: Mother Nature’s way of pouring hot espresso down our throats to wake us up; the undisturbed line on the graph of beautiful days. And the scenery, my God, was breathtaking: stretches of mountains and fields that were a green, red, orange and yellow patchwork of magnificence, during my and Gan’s stay in Yamagata City; then blobs of colour along the road in Tokyo, shedding trees circled by tiny heaps of fallen leaves. It gave me a damn good reason to smile every day.

The trees died on me boo >:(

Me and okasan (what we called our foster moms)

5. I miss Disneyland. And my previous posts have sufficiently summed up why.

6. I miss the company. I swear, I burnt more calories from laughing than all that walking. Granted, the perplexingly spastic ones had been mostly me (Ka), Gan (Na), Izzat (Sai), Joelle (the creator of Kanasai), Seong Seong (the manager) and Azhar (the ad/sign board translator). But the others had been good company too (: Our longest crap time had been that train ride; the 2-hour Shinkansen (bullet train) journey from Gifu to Tokyo, which was credited to sensei’s suggestion we (me, Joelle and Gan) spun our 3-seater seat around to face Izzat, Seong Seong and Ms Wan. All hell broke loose. Even Azhar and Khatijah joined in. It was like a cult group worshipping jokes of char siew baos and peeing dogs.