Happy Weekends 3: Two Books (or Three) and the Trip to Yilan

Hello, Tim!
It's Saturday today, and at this moment I am on a train! At 9:14 p.m.! With my mom by my side. We just started our trip to Yilan, the place where my mother was born. As you may know, Tomb Sweeping Festival is coming, and Mom decided to go visit her parent's tombs prior to the actual national holiday of the festival.
The weather was not bad for spring in Taiwan, for it has yet rained; we reckon it would begin raining soon, though, after a few days or so.

Contents of the Week

-One Week, Two Books
-On Cell Phones
-The Dreadful Midterm
-Tomb Sweeping in Yilan
-Why is This Becoming Another Long Long Letter with More Than 2000 Words?

One Week, Two Books

I can't remember when the last time was when this happened! Two books in a week is a nice accomplishment for a second-grader in high school.
The first books I finished was the Tiger's Curse I mentioned last week.
Taking the MRT to school, I normally have myself glued to my cell phone, but certainly no this week. I have been carrying my books around with me as if it's a lifeline, reading them whenever I feel bored or sensing that I am being unproductive.
I couldn't recall most of the plots of the escapades of Kelsey and Dhiren(I think I had mistyped Kelsey into Kesley in the previous letter), only that Kelsey suffered a lot from her past which drove into a grand denial if her feelings towards Dhiren, the Indian Prince from three hundred years ago who was cursed and needed the help of Kelsey to break the curse. They were in heated verbal fights as well as rigid cold wars, and the end took a heart-wrenching turn in terms of their love-related relationship (though I know in the sequel this gets repetitive and they ended up getting married.). I remember all these, but when I was rereading the books, little did I know that this has always been a series packed with intense adventures and dangers. Protagonists kept having moments when they almost die of a whole bunch of death traps. Normally, I would find the design of the plot not innovative at all, but the words rendered the suspense and the sudden of events more acceptable than I imagined.
The next book made the fifth book of the month and the second of the week. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Being the third sequel of the book, the author put a lot of suspense into this story and spiced up the whole atmosphere: a convicted murderer on the loose, guards of the prisoner being evil creatures, and even more secret passages. The whole story has never been confined to the school of Hogwarts it was described in the first book; tunnels that lead to a place no one knows while some help the protagonists sneak in and out of the campus for some justified mischief. I like how the spaces inside the school are constantly expanding, but consistently are the old places brought up so they don't seem left out.

While waiting for the metro

The story has become so intriguing that o didn't wish to put it down. The day the midterm ended(by the way, it's Sunday now, noon, on the train back to Taipei) I read on the sofa for more than two hours without getting up for water or bathroom!
The ending was very heartwarming, and I can't wait to start with the next sequel(which will have to wait before I finish another two books)
I apparently had spent too much time on this section this week, but I figured that there were so many things I want to talk about still and it just dawned on me that I am supposed to upload this letter by the end of this day (deadline's a deadline) so I'll have to put the next book I'm going to read in next week's letter.

The Dreadful Midterm

It's finally over!
The midterm has gone behind us, and we are finally entitled to some relaxation.
For this midterm, I was more diligent in revising than usual, so I hope that there will be more improvement in scores.
However, I still managed to fail my geography. It was quite unexpected that I still got a 52 on this subject which I had spent tons of effort in. It was nice to hear that I made some improvement in my math as well as economics. My English was as usual and I think I did quite decent on my Mandarin. The results for biology and physics aren't yet out, but I don't have high expectations for them. I think the main problem is geography, so I think if I do want to improve, I would have to start from the basics.

Tomb Sweeping in Yilan

This trip was planned two weeks ago, I believe.
Yesterday, when I got back from school (it was a special Saturday because we had to go to SCHOOL) I immediately packed for the trip with my mom. I must have been more than five years since I had visited the birthplace of my mother, and so is my mom.
We packed our clothes, some snacks, had a quick dinner and a haste shower, and we set off for Taipei Main Station for the train.

Snacks we bought at the station

In train.

The train travel took around two and a half hours, and though we have large seats, it still felt straining to sit without twitching. The cart we were in was unusually vacant, so we were given some silence to enjoy. With the train slightly delayed, we arrived at Yilan at around eleven in the night.
Walking to the hostel took another five minutes of walking from the train station. Being in the rural area IN MIDNIGHT, there were only my mom and me on the broad streets. The crackling of our suitcase rasping on the asphalt was so loud that I believe it was a rude obtrusion to the utter silence we were experiencing, so on the route, I handheld the heavy suitcase instead of towing it at the convenience of the wheels.

No one on the roads and it was so cold BRRRRRRRR

We checked into the small hostel recommended by my uncle (the brother of Mom), only to find out it was not as nice as I thought it would be. Such a small room it was, with no windows for ventilation; the air conditioner won't work, and on the hard bed was a thick blanket that easily became too hot for a spring night like the one we went through. Because of the lack of the air outside, the room was diffused with a moldy smell that made it even harder to fall asleep. I don't consider it much, the amount of money we paid for a room, but we couldn't help but think that there must be somewhere else better than this. Mom said she fell asleep only at 3:30 in the early morning, whereas I took no more than half an hour. Nevertheless, the alarm set off at five, for we had agreed to wake up early in the morning to see the sunrise by the beach.

This was the place where my mom used to live in her childhood, the place where she attended school (it was torn down, later on, said my mother) where she spent years with her large family of more than ten people in a small shaft. The light of the sun could already be seen, so we picked up our pace. Suivez le soleil, as in following the sun in French, is exactly what we were doing. ("Did you smell that? It is the smell of the flower of orange trees" said my mom) About twenty minutes into walking, we were met with a wide and expansive view of the beach and the sea. There were clouds clouding the sky, so we weren't sure whether we would see the sun or not. ("My mother (My grandma) used to get up early every day for the rise of the sun on the beach," she said)

Setting off.

We thought we wouldn't bee seeing the sunrise

Now let's let the "me from the past" take over, for I had written a small part of the letter on the beach then. I was first talking about the sand over there.
It isn't the sun-heated sand. It is not scalding, nor is it sharp and pricking; the cool sea-air-dampened sand is it, tranquil and chilling, like little schools of fish swarming past your ankles.
The waves crash, sending frothing sea water that soon dissipates upon reaching the sand-rock-formed shore. Accompanying are rhythmic and melodic roars that resemble the mighty thunder.
The sky was gradually lit up by the (unfortunately) nonexistent sun. Oh wait- there it comes-
The sun poked its head from the slits between the clouds as I was busy writing the small paragraph. Before the actual sun appeared, the sky was more of a shade of rose; the sun showed itself and shone, it dyed the sky a more pumpkin-like color- soft and unwavering, like a brush gently drawn across the canvas. It was beautiful, needless to say. Mom and I didn't have a word of exchange, for we were busy taking pictures (Mom did it because she was only here once many years, and I did it because I want to have them on my blog.) But neither of us had forgotten to marvel the scenery with our mortal genuine eyes.

Oh, there it is!

White waves

After the sun has risen to a phase we can no longer gaze at, we went back to the hostel and prepared for the actual objective of the trip: tomb sweeping.
Before the trip, I was really plotting what I am going to take pictures of at every place, but I decided it would be considered right to leave the cemeteries alone, and my mom agreed with me without thinking twice. That was why I took no photos around the cemetery.
By the time we have started with the clean of the tomb, the sun was blasting and beaming all over us, and nobody had expected it to be so hot.
We have some of the well-known traditions when doing tomb sweeping. One including the burning incense and the offering money, and the fish and chicken as the food offering, but there was one that was particularly peculiar; among the other food offerings, there are also hard boiled eggs. We were asked to get rid of the shell of the egg, and (here comes the weird part) to throw the eggshells on the tombs of the ancestors; even my mother doesn't know why. My guess is that shells are like fertilizers to the grass planted on the tombs? Too simple a guess I know, but I cannot think of anything else.
After the tomb sweeping is lunch. The others had lunch in the house that my mom used to live in: a rural small shaft that used to accommodate more than ten in normal days, and more than twenty during New Year and other festivals.("It was your oldest uncle who built the house," she called from the kitchen when she was doing the dishes) (Quite unfathomable, yes?)

My mother lived here for more than ten years

But it was a very small house.

The kitchen

Just how do you fit twenty people 

I used "the others", for I skipped lunch and skipped back to the beach. (My aunt wasn't so happy about this, but I had made up my mind so I knew I had to go)
Did I mention that I have always LOVED THE BEACH???
Never, I believe.
I don't like it for its nice sun and all the active athletic activities, but the lure of the sand itself. Sometimes I feel like sand is some sort of sponge, surreptitiously absorbing my thoughts as I wandered on it. I usually dig my toes into the smooth sand and set my mind adrift.
This time, I was determined to try something brand new:
Reading.
I stepped onto the sand for the second time of the day, not surprised to find the coolness of the sand in the early morning; still, it wasn't so scalding that I would jump up and down and run frantically on the hot sand until my feet get used to the heat. It was a mild warmth that came to my toes; Welcome.
Maybe it was still around noon, there weren't many people. The only group of people was some foreigners who left not long after I had arrived.

Noon beach

Anyway, after some swaying on the beach at the direction of the sea breeze, I randomly picked a place and sat down, careful not to have sand going into my shorts or my bag.
I pulled out my book (more about the book will be saved for next week) and started to read.
Have you ever been on YouTube, searching for some soundtracks of waves crashing to calm down and to focus? Well, when I have genuine waves crashing in the distance, why would there be the need to look for such soundtracks? The waves were indeed calming, and I found that time was passing at an incredibly fast speed. My mom called thirty minutes later, and we had to leave.

I loved this.

In this trip, I had seen a lot, of the beach, of the train, of the place where Mom became... Mom. It was an exhausting trip, but I think every second was worth it.

Why is This Becoming Another Long Long Letter with More Than 2000 Words?

I have absolutely no idea. 

The trip to Yilan was excusable, but it seems that I have spent too much time on rambling about the books I like.

Well, see if next week will be the same.

Or not.

Yours truly,

Hugo