Joy

Joy! It is exactly what i have been feeling today. At first, I mistook it for happiness. So what is the difference? To me, happiness is circumstance-bounded and oriented; it is the result of the interaction between the internal and the external. On the other hand, joy is circumstance-indepedent; it is solely internal. Nothing can take away joy, not sorrow, not sadness, not pain, and not even losses. It is that lingering taste of a sweet old memory. It is that anticipation of a long-awaited holiday. It is that soft imprint of the first kiss. It is that still voice that guides you home. It is that morning light reminding you that you are alive.

Happiness comes and goes, but joy is everlasting. You may choose happiness, but joy cant be chosen. It has to be acquired by the means of gratitude. It is merely gratitude that brings joy out in its simplest and purest form even in the darkest and most hopeless situation.

And the most beautiful thing about joy is it follows you. It shows; it spreads. It is infectious.

I know i've been a liar and i know i've been a fool

She loved him very much. But in her opinion, he would not bring her a secure future. So she walked away, getting married to someone else.
Did she love her husband? Yes she did.
Did she love him still? Yes she still did.
A few years down the road, she was diagnosed with cancer.
She died at the age of 34.
And his heart was gone with her.

It is a true story I heard today. She traded her heart's desire for a secure future only to know that she did not have much of a future.
It got me thinking. Life is too short, for fooling around with your heart and lying to yourself.

Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score. Then to that twenty, add a hundred more ...

"...
A thousand to that hundred, so kiss on
to make that thousand up a million
treble that million, and when that is done
let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun"

I saw this poem by Robert Herrick at Geneva airport :D
Talking about my Switzerland trip, it was really nice, the scenery, the hostel, the money we managed to save, and of course our superb host (my friend Nghi), who was willing to give up his bed for us and sleep in his sleeping bag on the floor. Hehe. The one thing which was not nice to us throughout the trip was the weather. It was so rainy and cloudy on our last two days, sad max cos we couldnt see the Alps cleary and couldnt see the lake at Lausanne either.
Geneva was nice with some attractions here and there: the lake with the fountain in the middle, the flower clock, and St Peter Cathedral (again haha). I wouldnt categorize UN building under attraction, and if i did, i would not say that it was very nice haha. We had a hard time trying to locate St Peter cathedral, just because we were too lazy to see the map and relied too much on tram and bus (to fully utilize our Swiss pass :DDDD). But it was worth it, the cathedral was beautiful on the inside. We went up to the tower to have the overview of Geneva and it was lovely! But climbing up was not easy with our heavy bags and the steep stairs!!!!

By the time we reached Interlaken it was like 630pm. Apparently Balmers hostel was uber far away from Interlaken Ost. Thank God we tagged along this group of Indians to find our hostel. But the hostel was super cute!!!!

It was so dark and empty on the street that we didnt dare to venture outside after 9pm! So we stayed in the hostel, drinking ice lemon tea and talking about stuff.
We woke up to see that it was raining!!! haizzzz!!! but Kim got to use her raincoat!!!! :DDD! and i breezed through the rain with my little-red-hood jacket!!!!

As then weather was so bad, we went up to Grindelwald only, to walk around and ate cheese fondue!!!! I hope the snow-covered mountain top is slightly visible!!!! :D

We took the train back to Interlaken and jumped on a boat around the lake!!!! It was the most beautiful thing that i've ever seen: the turcoise color of the lake, the clouds embracing the mountain side, the mystical fog hovering over the lake!!!! It is surreal!!!!! And after much admiring, we both nearly became two walking ice cubes, so we retreated into the inside of the boat :DDD

Then we took the scenic train towards Montreux. Scenic train is pretty lame cos its no different from normal train. Okay, they took the longer way so that you could see more scenery. And they gave you a small table lamp to light up the compartment in a romantic manner when the train went under any tunnel!!! Besides that, no difff!!!!

And the horror awaited us in Lausanne!!! We had to walk for like 20 mins to find a wifi spot to fb Nghi that we arrived. We found Starbucks and managed to fb him, but he was not online :(. And he thought we went missing, he even went on Twitter informing the world that i may be lost!!! After like one and a half hour of waiting and finding one another, we finally met!!!!! And we went back to his place, where he introduced us to all his friends hahha!!!! So sociable!!! Suddenly made me feel like a room bunny this whole time!!!! :DDD!! Nghi introduced to me this weirdest vietnamese figure on fb hahhah!!! We had a good time laughing at his different videos and stuff!!! And a horrendous time trying to throw away the food in his room, which gave so so so bad a smell!!!!!!!!! I felt like a thief!!!! The next day, Nghi walked us around Lausanne, a place very suitable for retirement!!

And we took train from Lausanne to Geneva airport to head back to Sweden!!!! :DDD
It was my first back-packing trip even though Nghi said my bag was too cute to be considered back-pack!!!