Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Charmed Lives

I remembered my first photograph taken with me riding on a horse. It was taken in Batu Maung, Penang, one of those rare family holidays with my parents made during Hari Raya. I still remembered staying at the then Merlin in Penang, with our room overlooking the sea. I remembered being overly excited with the soft drinks in the mini bar that I spilled the Fanta Grape I had all over the carpet and got a good scolding from my dad for it.

I remembered playing some arcade games (which I rarely had the chance to do since my parents are extremely strict when it comes to parenting) while my parents were chatting away with their friends.

And of course, there was this opportunity to sit on a horse to have my picture taken. I remembered distinctly two such black and white pictures. One was me sitting on the horse while another was with my mother standing besides me. I have been trying to locate those two pictures but to no avail. It is probably in one of the boxes we left behind in Malaysia.

Anyway, when I looked at this two pictures of Ryan and Chenya sitting on the horse, taken at the Kangxi Grassland, it reminded me so much of mine, especially the one of Ryan. The only difference is that mine was in black and white and taken by the beach and his was taken in color and in the vast grasslands of Kangxi in China.




Ryan is definitely leading a life much much better than I do in my childhood. I get to ride my first horse when I was in my primary school and he got his first ride when he was only five. He has been to so many places that I could only dream about when I was his age (in fact, I don't even think I know that those places exist in the first place, like the malay idiom "Seperti katak in bawah tempurung.")

And if you think that Ryan is having a good life, I think Chenya would probably surpass that very soon. She got her first taste of horse ride when she was only 2 and had her first aeroplane ride even before 2. I remembered taking my first flight to Perth when I was closed to 25!!


I am sure if we had our way and if things worked as planned, Ryan could be well be riding a horse on the vast grasslands in Inner Mongolia next summer, something that the daddy of his has to do it as part of his bucket list.

What charmed lives these two had and I wish that when they read this post sometime in the future, probably in my absence, that they will know how fortunate they are and to value all these experiences that we are trying to give them as much as we possibly could.

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