If you are looking for news or pictures regarding the cyclone, you won’t find it here as I don’t bring my camera with me today and most of the pictures are probably seen at other news websites and blogs. This post doesn’t contain anything that is news-worthy.

Ever since the cyclone hit Yangon, I have been cut off from almost everything. There’s no electricity and buses didn’t start running until a few days later. Our phone line was cut off for half a day but it came back pretty quick. I didn’t have to worry about water ‘cuz we have a well at our house since we don’t receive much water from the pipeline. My parents have given up trying to fix them as our money are just wasted. Since the electricity is down, I have to come downstairs to take a bath and go to bathroom. It’s frustrating but it’s better than having no water at all.

I stayed at home for 6 days straight and they ware the most boring days in my life. Everyday I wake up, eat breakfast, do some chore and read books. I read most of Edgar Wallace books and I re-read “Those Who Don’t Believe in Faith” by Jue. When I’m hungry, I could only drink coffee and eat crackers for a couple of days. Sometimes I eat mango with oyster sauce and chili peppers. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I went to a local shop nearby and ate Rakhine Moat Tee. The prices have risen everywhere and it’s not worth that much to pay 200 kyats for a small cup of Moat Tee. The salad (a thoke) prices are way expensive. The sad thing was it was the only place near my house which is clean. I didn’t want to eat from other places ‘cuz they might be dirty and I might get a diarrhea or something.

The cyber cafe nearby opened on Tuesday so my sister went there to check her mails but she said she lack patient to wait 2 hours to send one mail. That cyber cafe’s connection is so darn slow. Even through I wanted to check my mail, I didn’t want to waste my money for nothing so I waited patiently until my office open again. But we didn’t get internet connection on Friday :(.

Today is my last day at work so I won’t be able to use internet with fast speed again :(. I still have a couple of things to download but now I don’t have time anymore. I will have to depend on my sister to help me as I won’t get much chance to use the internet at work.

I quit my job as I got a new job to teach English to kids. I don’t have any experience in teaching but the boss said I’ll do fine. I’ll start working on May 12th as an assistance teacher. Wish me luck everyone:). I’ll try to update my blog but I might have to give up writing in Myanmar.

It has been raining ever since Monday. I am not quite fond of rainy days. It’s hard to catch buses when it’s raining hard outside. I missed the 42 bus this morning and I had to take the 168 bus. The bus is quite slow as it was drizzling outside. I was only one minute late to work but the red line has been already drawn on the attendance book. There goes another 600 kyats :(.

I read about Kim Minsoo from Monday Kiz passed away in a motorcycle accident and ever since then I’ve been feeling quite moody and depressed all day. It’s not like I’m a big fan of the band and I only started listening to them a few days ago but it makes me so sad to hear about talented singers passing away at such a young age.

I didn’t have much work to do so I spend the whole day searching for songs to complete my Yang Ga 2008 collection. So far I have collected 52 songs and I need 20 more songs. I’ve been collecting and listening to them and most of the songs are just sad and depressing although I like them but listening to SG Wannabe and Monday Kiz just really make me sad. Whenever I hear Chae Dong Ha, it make me sad that I won’t be able to listen to him together with the band anymore since he left the band.

Chae Dong Ha’s last performances with SG Wannabe can be download from FlyHigh.

On the day before Thingyan Eve, I met with a couple of friends from Native Myanmar forum. I was supposed to meet them in front of FMI Center at 10 am. I am usually late to meetings so I was afraid of arriving late but when we got there, my sister and I are the only one who arrived first. They all came quite later. I should have come half an hour later ‘cuz that’s the standard time for our forum meetings.

While waiting near the gate of FMI, I saw a couple of people with spiked hairs and creepy clothing. I guess those punks are trying to show off again since they probably paid a lot of get those hairdo. I really wonder how they go to sleep at night with those spiky things sticking out from their hair.

Since no one else comes after 10:45 am, we went to Bogyoke Market first. There was nothing for me to buy and the market was pretty much empty as the market festival has already ended. After awhile, we decided to go to a restaurant at Yauk Road. On the way, we met Ko Lynn Seck and asked him to join us. He recommended a restaurant which is pretty nice for large groups to gather. It is a quiet restaurant and I liked the atmosphere at first. I ordered an ice coffee and we all ordered lunch a few minutes later. The drinks came first but the lunch took quite a long time to arrive. I was hungry at first but after drinking the ice coffee while waiting and chatting, I wasn’t that much hungry anymore so I only ate a little.

We must have spent around 2 to 3 hours at that restaurant. I know that’s a long time but it’s normal for meetings to take that long as we have so much to talk about. What really annoyed me was that during our conversation, the restaurant suddenly playing music at loud volume and I could barely hear what others were talking. They was either trying to cover up our conversation as we were discussing a certain hot topic from forum or that they were annoyed with us and wanted us to leave quickly. Whatever the reason is, it is still quite rude and I don’t want to go there again.

I was browsing through the photo albums in the computer and I found these which I have taken a long time ago but had forgotten to share them.

This one is my second favorite Myanmar snack, Laphat Salad or Laphat Thoke. This particular laphat thoke is special ‘cuz it’s by Yee Mon laphat and the fried appetizers (is that the correct word?) are bigger and crunchier than other laphat appetizers.

This one is called Moat Lait Pyar. Moat stands for snacks and Lait Pyar means butterfly. Maybe who ever named it thought the food looks like a butterfly but I don’t really see it. Anyway, it’s a delicious snack but I rarely get to eat them ‘cuz they aren’t sold in most places. I bought the above snacks at the pagoda festival and they can also be bought in City Mart sometimes.

This one is Shwe Htamin which means Golden Rice. I bought them along with Moat Lait Pyar and although they looked delicious, the rice was a bit hard to chew.

On April 12th our family went on a short trip to Bago. My father wanted to take some Thingyan photos and we all wanted to get out of the city for awhile. My brother went to the mandat so he didn’t join us. I invited SYM to go with us as she was also bored stuck at home. There wasn’t much water throwing activities in Bago proabably because they didn’t enough water or they decided to have fun in Yangon instead. We first went to Shwemawdaw Pagoda and have a short snack on the way out. I didn’t get to eat breakfast as the electricity went out when I woke up so I was starving at that time.

Shwemawdaw Pagoda

On the way to Shwetharlyaung, we saw a big buddha reclining image which was newly built. We thought it was Sein Tharlyaung but it was Mya Tharlyaung. It was too hot to walk without our shoes so we only took some photos and left quickly. I want to visit there again when the weather isn’t so hot.

Mya Tharlyaung

When we arrived at Shwetharlyaung Pagoda, it was really surprising to hear Zaw Paing’s Thingyan album played at the pagoda with loud speakers. At Shwemawdaw, I only heard prayers but at Shwetharlyaung, it was really out of place to play pop music at a pagoda. We ate lunch at the pagoda near the car parking lot. Usually we go on trips, we eat at the restaurants but this time, we brought lunch from home instead.

Mahar Pagoda

Next, we went to Mahar Pagoda and after that, we managed to convince my father to take us to Koe Thein Koe Than Pagoda. He didn’t want to go there as my aunt once experience something which I rather not write about as it’s hard to explain it in English. We saw a lot of motorcycles going the same way and they were going to the Shwe Gu Lay stream where they play in the dirty water and drink palm juice. It was too hot to walk and my feet were burning so I didn’t get much chance to check out other pagodas beside Koe Thein Koe Than.

Shwe Gyu Lay Stream

On the way out, my mother bought 3 lacquerware jars, 2 is pumpkin shaped and another is min goot fruit, I might use one of the pumpkin jars to put candies at work. She also bought some ripe ovid fruits (that’s what the dictionary said for ‘ma yan thee’) for me as I have been wanting to eat them for a long time. On the way out from Bago, we visited a pagoda which I think the name is Mahamuni …something.

Lacquerware Jars

It still was too early to go back home and my father said he’ll take a drive around the mandats near our home so in order to waste time, we stopped over at a restaurant to drink suger-cane juices. When we arrived in Yangon, my father drove to Kyauktawgyi Pagoda and there we spent another half an hour at the pagoda. I would have like to sit and watch the scenery from the top of the hills but my father didn’t put our shoes inside the front (our car is a public car) and I got worried about them so we went down immediately after coming up. Only my parents stayed on top.

Truthfully, I don’t like going to mandats and getting water splashed so I sat at the far corner of the car while the rest of them got splashed with water. I have lost my Thingyan spirit years ago so now I don’t think it’s fun anymore.

Note: Althought I put my name as watermarks on the photos, I only took the last picture of the lacquerware jars. The rest are taken by my sister and my father.

Our office will be closed for 10 days starting from April 11 till April 20. Yay…I have been looking forward to this vacation ever since February. When I was younger, I always got excited about Thingyan ‘cuz I love throwing water to people from in front of my house. It was always fun to wait for cars to pass by and then someone will blow the whistle and ask the car to stop. The people on the car will prepare to cover themselves with towels and we will start throwing water at them with buckets and bowls. I never like going out to mandats or parading around the city. I’m too old to be playing with kids now but I wish I am younger again. Sometimes I was born a Rakhine so I can participate in their traditional Rakhine water festival. It looks like fun to see them throwing water to each other using the water from the long boats place between them.

My plan for this year Thingyan is

- On the 11th, I’ll be meeting with friends from NativeMM in front of FMI Center to go around for Bogyoke Market Thingyan.

- On the 13th, our family will be go to Bago in the morning and come back in the afternoon. I never been to Bago during Thingyan so I don’t know what the situation is like.

- For the rest of the days, I will be

–watching dramas at home. I won’t be able to finish Honey & Clover as I couldn’t download all of the episodes before the vacation starts. So I might watch Hana Yori Dango 2, 1 Liter of Tears or Legend (if I remember to download the subtitles).

–watching kpop performances and concerts which i got from Ma Yee Mon a few days ago.

–writing about my way overdue trip to Shan State during last year Thingyan. I wanted to write about it but I kept forgetting to do so later on.

–doing some translation about artists profiles for kpopmyanmar blog. One of the reason why I rarely post in English is that I am too busy writing in Myanmar. Someone has asked me to write about Big Bang and Wonder Girls. Another person wanted me to write about Super Junior so I did write about them yesterday but she might not be that happy with my writings as it was a bit on the negative side.

When I think of April 10, the first thing which comes in to my mind is “April 10, My Birthday, We went to the Pagoda, Oh….we were crazy (in love)”. That’s the translation of Sai Sai’s February Diary song. His birthday is today and he is 29 now. Wow…can’t believe he’s 29 already. He looks younger than his age. He will be having a concert at Hmaw Sin Island today to celebrate his birthday with his fans. I won’t be going again as I have nobody to go with. The ticket costs 5000 kyats so it seems like a waste of money before Thingyan. My brother said he rather go out during the festival than spend his money on the concert. I did tried the lucky draw from his website but I didn’t get chosen. I seem to have bad luck with lucky draws ‘cuz I never won anything.

Today is also the day when Hein Zaw from Acid, the first hip-hop band to debut in Myanmar, passed away. Sometimes I wonder if he was still alive, Acid songs might be better than current as now I have started to dislike them after listening to their recent releases.

The most important part about April 10 is that today is the day when I arrived in America 13 years ago. All I can remember about that time is that I arrived at night and some people bought fried noodle for us to eat but I couldn’t eat them as they tasted funny. For a couple of days, I always end up waking up at night as I wasn’t used to the different time zone.

A week ago, a journal ran a full story about a singer who have passed away recently as a tribute to him. In the article, the writers mentioned about a remake album of his songs by other singers. Well, now his family is pissed out so they released a warning and copyright notice in yesterday’s newspaper. The notice mentioned about unauthorized usage of his songs, music, photos but now one can’t even use his full name or his nickname without their permissions. I would have thought it was a joke if I didn’t read the notice myself. When a famous celebrity died, it’s common that the media will write about his and his songs, displaying his photos to please the audience. Who would have thought one would need such permission to even mention his name now?

I think my current hairstyle looks like Nakao from Hana Kimi manga.