The day when the heavenly dog eats the moon

It’s been a long couple of days for me… from going to work super duper early, to meeting up with my uncle, to falling sick, to being totally numb at my experimental work. It’s one hell of a walkabout, I say.

To start off, I went to lab very early on Tuesday morning, 28th Aug – ‘cos our lab has limited gel tanks for experimentation and Davide wanted to use it in the late morning. Well, I could always came in during the afternoon to use it, but I thought it will be better to come in during the early morning as I still need to meet up with my uncle later that evening. I know that I couldn’t wake up in early morning – I hate waking up so early! So, I decided that I shall not sleep the night before. And so, didn’t catch any shut eye on the Monday night, and went to lab at around 6am in Tuesday morning. Almost wanted to just give up and sleep, but I persisted. =) Anyway, 6am in Sydney is just the right time for sunrise! And so, the sky had turned from black to light blue in a manner of minutes during my journey from my home to UNSW.

And during the walk back home from school under the sunny afternoon, I felt cold twinkling in my muscles and bones that I’m going to be sick, and true enough that spells trouble. Caught a couple of hours of sleep, but aren’t good quality sleep because Limin kept calling and disturbing me. Well, she wanted to make sure I woke up in time to meet my uncle in the evening. Coupled with an active dreaming mind during my sleep then, bottomline – I lack quality sleep. Anyway, went out of the house at around 7.10pm to the city to find my uncle who was staying at the Four Seasons Hotel.

And unexpectedly while walking from Circular Quay to the Four Seasons Hotel at around 7.50pm, I saw pockets of people standing and looking up to the sky. And I thought to myself: what’s so interesting up there? I turned, and I saw the ‘moon being swallow by the heavenly dog’ – lunar eclipse! I was like wow! It’s the very first time that I see such a natural astronomical phenomenon in real life! When I first saw it, half of the moon was already under the Earth’s shadow. The other half was still very bright, while the sheltered half was dim, reddish-orange in colour – blood moon. And there were pinches of total darkness within the blooded portion as well. And slowly within the next 20 – 30 minutes or so, the whole moon no longer glows. It was a full blood moon, dim and eerie, where it sends out negative energy that will twinkle down your spine if you are seeing it in a wooded forest alone. And it might probably have been the negative energy that initiated the uncomfortable irritation in my throat before becoming a full-fledged sore throat. Anyway, during the whole duration while I was standing amount the pockets of people with my head tilted to the night sky, I kept asking myself why I could forget to take my digital camera along! And from what I had read, this lunar eclipse is very different from the rest, as this is a total lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipse occurs about twice a year but is usually partial. And there I was staring up at a total lunar eclipse and not being able to take any pictures! Argh… tried taking it with my Nokia handphone camera, but the resolution sucks! Argh… The next total lunar eclipse will only come in Australia in 2011 – hopefully I will be finishing my PhD then and celebrate my completion with a glimpse of the lunar eclipse then!

Ok, anyway after spending 15 to 20 minutes of looking at the moon, I continued my journey to the Four Seasons Hotel where my uncle is expecting me. And wow, his hotel suite is simply big, and has a direct view of the Circular Quay, overlooking the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the iconic Opera House! Argh… why did I not bring my digital camera along! Argh… Back to the room, I think one way to really judge if a hotel or rather its room is good or not is to look at its bathroom! And oh gosh! The bathroom for the suite is so big – the top two pictures showing the bathroom are actually linked! When you walk into the bathroom, you will walk straight towards the toilet passing the basin. And from the toilet you turn right, and you will see a bathtub! Wow… if only my home has such a big bathroom!


Ok, enough about the bathrooms. Limin has bought a couple of boxes of mooncakes and asked my uncle to bring it over to me as well since he’s here on assignment for two days. So, thanks to my third uncle and Limin, that I finally am able to eat mooncakes from Singapore! Yeah! I’m so happy! But I miss those exotic mooncakes from hotels e.g. truffle mooncakes, liquor mooncakes, ice cream mooncakes etc… I don’t really traditional baked skin mooncakes unless it’s really yummy. Else, I prefer snowskin more than baked skin mooncakes. Anyway, my dear bought me a box of mini snowskin from Bakerzin and traditional mini mooncakes of assorted flavor from Tung Lok. Hmm… there are 4 flavors for the mini snowskin – sweet potato, yam, orange, and red bean – Yum yum…. As for the Tung Lok mini traditional mooncakes, they come in Pandan Lotus, Red Lotus, Pineapple, Black Sesame, Strawberry, Green Tea, White Lotus, and Kumquat flavor – 2 mini pieces per flavor. Hmm… so many different flavors and being branded to be from Tung Lok, so it must be good I guess. But… it’s not really as spectacular as I hope it will be. Tried the pineapple and red lotus and didn’t find anything special about it – just ok. However the pandan lotus flavor mini mooncake is much better in terms of taste than the previous two. As for the rest, I still have no idea yet, but I hope that they will be much better than the red lotus and pineapple flavored ones! But if I were to compare, I would definite give my vote to the Bakerzin snowskins… =)

Wow… this is one long post! Am going to stop here and go for my bathe… and I owe so many ppl tags! Oh man… if I forgot to do your tag, please don’t take it to heart ah … have been either busy, or really not in the mood to do since my experiments has been failing me since eons ago… =)