Happy New Year

Day five of 2011 and Hiroshima is freezing, grey and utterly uninspiring!

Happy New Year, Everybody. Am I late?

At 430pm on new year's eve, I received a message from Tammy (not her real name obviously), my Vietnamese colleague, inviting me to dinner with her and Sally (need I say more?) our Indonesian friend. The three of us had met slightly more than two years ago and, because of the circumstances, quickly became a sort of triumvirate -- the Three Musketeers who are "tous pour un, un pour tous."

The message came just as I plonked myself in bed after being out for what I had felt like an eternity wandering alone and aimlessly in a nearby shopping mall. My ears were still scorched from the chilling breeze. I was tired. I was reluctant. I just wanted to take a hot shower and spent the rest of the day alone. But, in that little rectangular box, I typed in, "OK."

Tammy lost her mother a couple of weeks ago to leukemia. She lost her father even earlier. She doesn't have any brothers or sisters. And now that her mother was gone, she is orphaned. Can you imagine how heart wrenching that is? To turn around in this world and see all the unfamiliar faces, especially on a new year's eve. I knew I just gotta have the dinner with her even if it meant chilling my nuts off. So, I put on my jacket and braved through that caustic weather.

After dinner, we decided to watch Tron Legacy. Do you know, in Japan, you can own a pair of 3D glasses for 100 yen and you bring it the next time you view other movies in 3D? I know we get it free in Malaysia but think about it, would you rather have a stranger's sebum, dead skin cells and foundation smeared all over your face? It was a delightful impromptu decision but the movie was a major disappointment. Just as I had predicted it. In a nutshell, it was too much. I still prefer Tron circa 1982 even with its primitive visual effects.

On the way back, Hiroshima got preposterously colder and quiet. This is not an exaggeration. But at one point, there were only the two of us on the absurdly abandoned street. Sally went the other way home. I reached home just in time to wish Ross who was 2 hours earlier in Melbourne happy new year on skype. I then took a shower and ensconced myself in bed with a book. And as the clock turned 12, I faintly heard fireworks outside my room. It's New Year and I hope that it will be great for you and your loved ones.