Alaska

Here am I sitting in Goldman Sachs, reading, researching and trying so hard to digest all the dense materials. Being a newbie to finance and all that is related, I need extra time and effort to digest all the information. Hence, my new found friend - investopedia.com. Till I found out that I can actually sign in here and blog! Gosh! I shall blog on my experience here next time. I'm feeling really guilty actually...

Alaska has been really fun and beautiful. I mean it's really different from other holidays where it is just city, history, culture, scenery, shopping etc. One word for this trip - nature. Where we had the Tundra Wilderness Tour and can only observe tiny white dots on the mountains and tell ourselves that they are dall sheep, or being quiet when we saw grizzly bears soooo far away not for our own safety but for the bears' peace? Weather was simply fabulous and scenery was very fantastic. I realised one thing - I love the sky. The sun, and the clouds especially. And one song rings through all these while - the splendor of the King, clothe in majesty... how great is our God, sing with me how great is our God... Anyway that was the road trip. We went for a few more activities, like heli flying to the glacier, which is simply awesome. When the sun shines on the glacier, it melts and reflects the blue rays. So imagine sky blue water on white ice. How heavenly. Fishing - river fishing was fine, though I keep getting stuck, I caught 2 fishes anyhow. They were released back cos of the love of nature, as Alaskans put it. Bottom-water fishing was fun. Enjoying the scenery while chattering under the cold wind generated by the speedboat travelling in the vast open sea, we cast out the bait into the 300-feet sea. Reeling in alone without fish is hard and tiring. It was fun. We caught 6 fish in total, with Jac's halibut weighing about 12pounds and my pacific cod weighing 7pounds. No wonder our muscle ached for the next few days, considering we don't exercise at all for the past 20 years. Yeah, and many more cool stuff, like whale watching, Salmon Bake. There were a lot of cultural and historical stuff too, where 9000 years ago the different tribes staying in Alaska, how their houses are like, their way of life, which is closely related to survival since there were about 1 bear per square mile of land in average, and how they keep themselves warm at freezing temperatures. Very interesting indeed.

We didn't shop very much, since they were selling jewellery only at every alternate shops. Mom kept on saying, i want bigger, and better quality. I saw a 15-carat yellow diamond, princess cut. It was BIG. But didn't catch my attention anyways. Still not my time to be able to appreciate diamonds for their price I guess. I won't mind people giving me, but I won't fork out my own money for them - not yet. Heh. Other than jewellery shops, there were only gift shops. So what do you expect me to buy? I was dying to see a city then, which explains my happiness when I reached LA.

Cruising was fun. We ate a lot, since food is readily available and free 24 hours in the day. Since daylight is about 18 to 20 hours, we don't know how late it already is when we eat at 10pm. Wells, maybe ignorance is bliss. But you suffer the consequences anyway. With fats wobbling around, I just feel so disgusted by myself. I'm trying to regain my way of eating still. Since we do not need to change hotels or travel by land often, cruising is very relaxing.

I realised that I'm not so much into deep thinking as I used to be. That puzzled me actually. Is it good or bad, to not think so much, but just walk everyday as it is. I just feel a little bit lost actually, cos I need to have a vision and purpose, not only knowing them but keeping them close to my heart and the feel of being right in the middle of the plan of God. Not the fact that I am in it, but I want the feel. If I go on this way and not look at the big picture, I will end up going to Emory. Haha. Cos in the physical realm that attracts me, contradictory to the spiritual and emotional realm. Help.