April 20, 2009
Fudge wasn’t quite herself last night. Very unusual for this little rascal to be quiet and inactive for more than an hour at any point in time. She seemed alright when we picked the cats up from boarding yesterday. Apparently, Fudge is the darling of all the other 15 cats at Ozono and had tugged the heart-strings of some humans with her personality. She was sleeping with the rest of the other cats when we got there. We were told that there were 2 requests by some Japanese who had wanted to adopt her! Haa haa! Both Andy and Donut pretty much kept to themselves. Donut is shy and Andy… Andy is as grumpy as Andy can get.
The poor kiddo was letting out more than 15 soft coughs in a row several times yesterday and this morning. She also seemed listless and lethargic, sleeping on my pillow throughout the night, hardly moving away from her spot. Very unusual, considering Fudge’s constant urges to thunderbolt, especially at night. At one point of the night, she crawled into the pillow case, slept in there for quite a while and meowed pathetically when I tried to move her out of there. Donut also seemed to fuss over her the entire night, letting out little squeaks and hardly leaving her side. He seemed to have a sense that something ain’t right, even chasing Andy away when she gets close to Fudge.
Turned out that she caught a cold and running a fever at 40°C (normal temperature for cats is at 38 °C). Fudge hates needles and would instantly growl the moment she is being held down. She growled and cried for the entire time as the vet stuck a needle in one of her hind legs to draw some blood. She’s just a whiner, of course, yet she is a sorry sight. It breaks my heart to hear her cries. Think we’ll have some peace around the house for a few days!
Here’s Fudge licking her ‘wounds’. The bandage is just to stop bleeding from drawing of her blood. Nothing serious.
April 19, 2009
That’s “goodbye” and “hello” respectively in Swahili, a language we’ve been lavished with in our 2 weeks plus in Tanzania. It is such a cool sounding language. I’m even contemplating to buy the phrasebook for it!
Tanzania has been an amazing holiday destination, especially so, if you are an animal and nature lover. It is such a beautiful country, undisturbed by humans…almost surreal. It is such a shame that for such a beautiful country, it is not so safe for tourist to travel at wimp, especially at night. On our first night, we were quite annoyed that the hotel staff followed us around when we made our way the nearest restaurant, just about 100 meters away from our lodge’s main gate. It made us really uncomfortable being followed since the staff did not mention anything to us. She had just walked behind us quietly. It doesn’t really help that Africans tend to have stoic faces and doesn’t smile very much, unless you initiated it first. It really felt extremely uncomfortable. We didn’t like the idea of being followed and they even insisted that one of the staff accompanied us back to our lodge when we were done with our dinner. We did thought that they fussed too much over nothing as we are not used to being “served” in such a way. We later found out that it was simply due to safety reasons. In fact, our local guide mentioned a few days later that he would not even go to the nearest supermarket on foot once dusk sets in. We realized that safety cannot be taken for granted anywhere in Africa.
Another downside of Tanzania is that, it is insanely expensive. There’s almost no way to get out of the tourist trap. Tips are definitely expected everywhere you go, or the service staff (mostly in hotels) will linger around you like pesky flies till you hand them their token. Again, such a shame!
Otherwise, Tanzania offers such a special and unique experience of nature and wildlife. Almost sad to leave the country (specifically the Serengeti), but boy oh boy! It does feel good to be home!
April 3, 2009
[VIDEO MONTAGE BELOW]
That’s how fast time flies since we got married almost a year ago. In truth, it had slipped both of our minds that our 1st anniversary will be up soon. Trust Silver Bullet’s best-man to remind me by leaving a note on my Facebook! Thanks, Dude! We have been more occupied with the fact that we are going on a holiday, rather than celebrating our anniversay. We are not big on celebration …so birthdays, anniversaries and what nots are not really a big deal for us. Besides, April is usually a period of long public holidays in Thailand due to Songkran. It really is just a matter of convenience.
However, having been reminded of that fact, wonder if we could use it as an excuse for an upgrade to business class …
Post wedding, I have actually done a collage of our wedding pictures, featuring those which did not make it to the Grand Album. This video has been sitting on my desktop since. So, here’s just a commemorative montage in lieu of our 1st year anniversary. We don’t look as good anymore…but at least it reminded us that we looked good just that once in our lives!
Images on this video courtesy of J&C Bridal’s Photographer and a freelance photographer, Ben Quek, Singapore.
