Home Sweet Home

Guys and girls,

I am going Home in two weeks time and want to let you know my schedule and the places where I will be. I hope that I can meet you while I am back home and we can catch up. As you can see it is quite busy and tight, covering all corners of the country, so if I can’t visit you, then this is the explanation and not that I have forgotten you.

7th of September:
- Quick tour in Amsterdam in the morning (Meeting the Undutchables)
- 6pm Landing at Henri Coanda Airport in Bucharest
- After 8 pm Dinner and drinks in Bucharest (place TBA)
8th of September:
- Travel to Iasi and wedding (not mine, but of my good friends)
9th of September
- Sleep-in and travel home
10th -11th of September
- Home in Szekelykeresztur (Cristuru Secuiesc)
12th of September
- Travel to Bozod and Marosvasarhely (Targu Mures)
13th of September
- Travel to Szekelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc)
14th of September
- Travel to Nagyvarad and Party there with friends (Sebi is the OCP) (Oradea)
15th of September
- Quick shopping in Hungary and then travel back home
16th of September
- Baptism of my brother’s kid at Szekelyudvarhely
17th of September
- Travel to Bucharest and take off at 17:40

Can’t wait to see you all :):):)

Exploring Cambodia

One of the places in Asia I heard so much about but I never managed to visit until now was Cambodia. So I was very excited to be on the plane on my way to Siem Reap, so excited that I got my first beer at 6:30 am on the plane just to celebrate that this plan of visiting the place is becoming a reality:):):).
Right after I landed, met my friends from Romania and had breakfast, we went to see the famous temples in the Angkor complex. Some of them have a 1000+ years and I have to tell you, it is an amazing feeling to walk among them.
I have a way of realizing if something or somebody is very unique and appealing to me. And that’s by making pictures. I think that great things are very very hard to capture on a picture and if I take few hundred pictures and feel that still did not capture the essence of it, then that’s an indication of greatness for me. It means that besides beauty, those feelings that I feel there are not capturable / expressible. I took few hundred pictures at Angkor but I feel that I still did not capture that thousand year that these temples represent and lived through.
I guess not much to write about Angkor, you have to see it and feel it. Hope that the few pictures here can give you a glimpse of it.
I think Cambodia is an amazing place not just for its thousand year temples but for its people as well. I am always overwhelmed by meeting the nicest people in places like Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines. I am back for two weeks but I still remember the faces of the people I met, the kindness and the smiles. I always feel that they know something about life that I don’t know, some sort of secret that makes them happy and good people. In the past two weeks I am thinking quite often about our tuc – tuc driver, Mr. Lim. He is one of the most genuine and humble people I have met and he seems to know that special thing about life and happiness. Somehow these people have the same smile and look in their eyes as my grandfather had, and he is among those people that I think knew something very essential about life.

When I go to these places I always feel that I need to move there and stay among them for a long time to understand and learn that secret of life. Or maybe it is within us, and we just need to let it come to surface by being good people generally.

One more thing that is quite stunning, you don’t really see old people in Cambodia due to the genocide, and you see lots of disabled people because of landmines remained from the war and you see so many kids. And those kids are so so cute. It really makes you fell like you want to become a father and have few of those kids. I stop here before this idea gets rooted in my mind, hehehe. It is amazing that they speak some really good English and they are extremely smart in the way they communicate and they reply to you. Fascinating. Again, I feel that it is something you need to experience and it is really hard to describe. And guys, the Cambodian women are so beautiful and sensual. Worth doing the trip just to understand what beautiful women means.
I would not be a true Asian if I would not comment on two things: food and spa. Some of my friends did not really like the food there but I think it is amazing. A must try is the Amok fish, but I ate some stewed veggie as well made by the hostel owner for the special Cambodian dinner and it was amazing and have to recommend it. At least o could it my friend’s portion as well, hehehe. I like the food more in Cambodia, Vietnam Thailand, Indonesia then the Chinese food. It is just fits better my tastes. And after walking so much around the temples we went for a massage as well. For 8 USD I got an hour of pure pampering and oil massage. So good. Wish I could have that every day here in Singapore for that price :):):).

It was also good to catch up with friends in Cambodia and have some good wine in the evening with them. It is interesting to meet people from Romania in a place like Cambodia.

Unfortunately could not stay too much in Cambodia because I had to come back to work, but it definitely got into the places I want to see and explore again. Who is joining me?

Getting Emotional...

One of the things that is pretty strong in our culture is that parents would sacrifice their "lives" to make sure that their kids get the best in life and get as far as possible. In return the children would take care of the parents when they get old and would ensure that they have a careless retirement.

Coming from a relatively poor family, my parents made lots and lots of sacrifices for us to have proper education and especially that I can finish my university studies. But not only my parents but my grandparents and the whole family. My parents and we kids were working all day long to get a proper life and proper education. It was very tough for them and for us kids as well. I know that my mother has so many health issues now mainly because of the heavy work she needed to do but she was not used to (like farming).

After getting on my own feet (starting to earn money), it was pretty much a strong decision from my side that I will need to give back to my parents as much as possible and make sure that I do lots of things to make their lives easier at least now.

The first objective for me was to make sure that they have a comfortable house and that they don’t lack anything from the house. My and my brother chipped in and helped them to get all these done.

Another big issue was always in our family the lack of a good car. I remember that since we were very young, we had the shittiest cars or no cars at all. Because my parents never had enough money, they always made lots of compromises and bought a cheap and shitty car that was not functioning well most of the times. Though their quality improved over the time, there was always a compromise on choosing the car and there always were some inconveniences.

I am really proud to say that now we achieved the second objective as my parents bought a new car which will help my father in doing his work and also they can use it to go and visit my grandmother and take care of her. And hopefully they will also use it to go on holidays sometimes. Me and my brother managed to help them financially (this time I am the main financer) and it feels good that I can do and afford this. My parents are very very happy about it and I saw my father as happy as a small kid when he gets his desired Christmas present. As the commercial would say in this case: “Parent’s happiness: priceless”

There is one more thing on my list, which is a dream holiday for them. I know that since the communism fall till recent years when we managed to be on our own (roughly 15 years) they did not have any holiday or any trip, except to go to my grandparent’s place to visit them on weekend or to visit my sister from time to time for a couple of days. Therefore I want to get them a month of travel and holiday around the world. When they were young they travelled a lot inside the country, they were camping and climbing mountains. Now they do smaller trips here and there in the weekends. But I want them to travel in few countries and see the world. Their effort made it possible to see so many countries and want to share this wonder with them.

Maybe is a coincidence, maybe not, but in the same day on which my parents bought the car, I was in a situation where I remembered one decision I made last year about whether I go down this road of staying in Singapore (and making some money that would enable me to help my parents as well) or whether I go and pursue a path that would not necessarily allow that but would be also good for me as an individual.

It was one of those decisions when you know that whatever you have decided, you make a compromise and will irrevocably change your life. And with all decisions like this you always think after that whether you took the right decisions, whether how would my life be now if I would have opted the other way around. Whether it was worth making that sacrifice. Don't have the answer to that question, but at least is a good feeling that the objectives for which I took that decision have been already partially fullfilled.