sunday breakfast @ macs

our lives are usually so boring, that we decided to venture (on zk's & jk's bicycles) to west coast park for breakfast on sunday! pictures below :)

pumping air into our wheels before we set off at the nearby esso

view from the window at macs

haha i think this photo is super funny! zk is testing the angle to zi-pai while i have already cycled off to find a better spot!

fooling around on the super-high flying fox. mine didn't have enough momentum to reach the other side & i had so much trouble getting off it! realised then i might have a slight fear of heights!

sweet sunday morning shared by father & son

cool heart-shaped stains were strewn along the concrete path by the sea. i wonder who created them...

pretty flower back at zk's house

this photo was supposed to be landscape- not sure why it turned out portrait!

victorian-style flowers adorning the window of a neighbouring house

another cool flower planted by zk's dad

heartache

this morning while walking to the bus stop i saw a flattened, furry mass on the road. through half-squinted eyes i tried to make out what it could be. my first guess was a mynah, as i see them as victims of road accidents the most. but it was furry, and so 'squirrel' crossed my mind as i once saw a dead squirrel on the same road before. it was almost indistinguishable, and i was constrained by the flickering green man and also my fear/heartpain of staring longer, but i saw a distinct tail & tortoise-shell furry coat and i knew it was a cat.

maybe i am generally more alert towards observing objects lying on the road, i tend to see the tragic fates of many innocent animals. and each time, i feel such a heartache that i have to force my thoughts to not linger on what i saw in order to prevent myself from crying.

i can't help but try to re-enact the accident scene in my mind. did the animal just start crossing the road, or did it almost reach the other side and nearly escape death? was it aware of the danger of the swiftly speeding cars? did it feel fear while crossing the road or did it attempt to cross naively? i just hope it died an instant death, no matter what. i can't bear to imagine what it must have felt if it was seriously injured and in pain the first time it was knocked, and incapable of moving itself to escape subsequent vehicles. it would have been so scared, so defenseless.

what pains me the most is the indignity that they have to suffer in death. the moment a human gets knocked down, the police cordorns off the whole area- for investigation, for prospective insurance claims, for prosecution. when the victim is a poor, defenseless animal, its carcass is left there to get run over again and again, by unsuspecting vehicles whose drivers couldn't care less. nobody stops for a moment to move its body to the side of the road, nor grieve for its untimely death. it becomes an unrecognizable, volumeness mass, with a non-existent bone structure.

it's yet another instance when animals are harmed due to the actions & creations of humans....

rest in peace, poor little cat...

are humans really the king of all living things?

Excerpt from an auto-forwarded Reuters newsletter into our group mailbox.

CHICAGO, February 10 (Reuters) - The prospects look good for a record strong showing by U.S. meat exporters this year given the growing global demand for meat products and the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMB) in South and North Korea, which has led to the culling of millions of livestock in that region. But with rising crop prices posing a direct threat to livestock feeding operations, the road to success may be a bumpy one, and only those operators with diligent input-hedging practices will likely reap the full rewards.

What does reading the above news make you feel?

This, in particular, was most poignant in my opinion:

"..recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in South and North Korea...led to the culling of millions of livestock in that region.."

As I get older, and my beliefs start to take a more solid form, I feel more and more inclined towards turning vegetarian. Why should animals get killed simply for the safety and protection of human beings? Who do we think we are to take away the lives of 'millions' of animals just to secure our supposedly-more-important lives?

Humans only triumph in the fact that we have developed more powerful tools/technology, that we start rearing/owning animals just for the sake of killing them to meet our demands- diet, health, religious, fashion, and worst of all, hunting entertainment.

In the natural world, where other animals kill one another only for the sake of survival, there isn't even such a thing as a living thing 'owning' another living thing. Why do we assume we have the rights to regard ourselves as the invincible king at the top of the foodweb?

I'm not against eating meat for survival & health reasons. But for all other purposes, I think it's unnecessary. That is why I will make sure any meat ordered on the food table is finished; no animal should die only to get thrown away and decay subsequently.

I'm not sure about fish & crustaceans, but I'm rather certain that mammals & birds have feelings, thoughts & memories like us. Therefore as much as we fear death, they must too.

But I guess I still need more willpower to completely abstain from meat, especially if social circumstances or the inconvenience of locating a vegetarian stall deters a non-meat diet.

I'm uplifted by the fact that zk is starting to have these same beliefs as me. We have made a pact to eat only vegetarian when it's just the both of us going out from now on!