Heaven

Last week, the news of rebooting pig brains four hours after the animals have been killed was not actually a shock. That was an earthquake.

Research findings published in Nature challenged the dogma that large mammalian brains are irreversibly damaged after cessation of blood circulation. Scientists had connected 32 pig brains to an artificial perfusion system after killing the pigs, removing the brains from the skulls. Contrary to those who expected the brain to be stone dead - and believe it or not - they showed restoration of circulation to brains' blood vessels and cellular functions.

Unsettling as it is, it may be hard to resist the notion that dead brains are now being brought back to "life."

Honestly, I'm much more comfortable with reading Mitch Albom's The Next Person You Meet in Heaven. That's a fiction I'd borrowed from public library last week, fifteen years after reading the original story The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Another fable full of lessons and hope. People died in the story but they set us at ease. Annie, a lady whose childhood was riddled with mistakes, bully and insecurity, donated one of her lungs to her beloved husband and was soon whisked to heaven. When she met five people in heaven, she was taught something she didn't realise while alive. Her journey in heaven was an afterlife lesson we wished we have had learned on earth.

I would much like to learn the rules of life than to rule the life. That's pretty sure.

Travel

From nature trails and mountain walk to tree-top zip-slide, there's no better option for a family holiday.

With careful research and thorough planning, independent family travel is the best bet for freedom and flexibility. Why not? We know our kids the best and are therefore most capable of finding the magic formula.

Believe me, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much fun as simply compiling a wish list with family and making the dream come true. We did that when our family explored Hiroshima-ken this week. Three of us were relaxed and in good spirits. We always are when we travel.

When our flight left Hiroshima this afternoon, we were already counting the days until next trip.

Cycling

Nothing beats the freedom of getting behind the handlebars, whistling, pedaling on the open road. Well, nothing except pairing that adventure with the perfect scenic road.

A highlight of our recent Hiroshima trip is an amazing cycling experience along the Setouchi Shimanami Kaidō, a route featured by CNN as one of the top seven cycling spots in the world.

Not only does the route have instant "wow" factor, courtesy of its long suspension bridge across stunning coastline view, but it also boasts a bewildering range of stops, through towns and villages, past citrus groves and hitting a few long, thigh-burning inclines.

Think about the feat of cycling with a nine-year-old and you'll soon be humming tunes from the Disney song "How Far I'll Go" from the film Moana.

Every turn I take
Every trail I track
Every path I make
Every road leads back to the place I know
Where I cannot go
Where I long to be.

Hiroshima

Lots of places claim to be perfect for kids - and Japan is no exception.

What about Hiroshima?

Go on, admit it. The name is much more likely to ring the bell of an atomic bomb attack than your bucket list with children.

It’s not surprising that we haven’t picked this destination again since my last visit (with my wife then) twelve years ago.

Children, however, grow up fast and you'll never find a better opportunity to enrich their lives and souls than heading to a city with special story behind.

To us, the visit of Hiroshima is more than a prelude to an inland hiking and biking holiday. It’s an inspiring history lesson.

Trip

Bulbit. Bulbit. The sound was coming from the forest on Victoria Peak.

It's a cheerful song from red-whiskered bulbul.

I was up there with my wife after skiving off work today. A peaceful and leisure walk on a Wednesday afternoon.

We've been there dozens of times before. The oh-so-picturesque footpath and the songbirds were all too familiar. The main difference from our usual hikes was that we were not bringing our daughter this time.

Want to hear the reason Jasmine wasn't with us? She has joined her school's cultural study tour to Zhuhai, China.

And to us, the entirety of my daughter's tour feels like an epic adventure to faraway lands like Kilimanjaro. Part of me was relieved the moment had finally arrived: I wanted my daughter to be independent and take care of her valise. Another part could think of nothing worse: I didn't know if she could sleep well and get up by her alarm in the morning, and the blahs.

Thankfully, Zhuhai is a matter of two hours from our hometown. All she needs is self-confidence; I should not worry. Well, rationality is one thing, parental anxiety quite another.

Recharge

Screen time statistics on our iPhone is not for monitoring kids. It's more for us. That's the reality of it. Let's not pretend otherwise. Many of us are too attached to our phones.

Being awake means that I am struggling to deal with the message notification alerts or sounds. For those coming from pharmacist or nurses, I really have to respond right away because the sounds come from my hospital phone. For those alerts from other sources like WhatsApp or corporate mobile application, I try my best to take a look. But if I don't have time, I just ignore them and move on. The problem is that I could have missed important messages. Whether we like it or not, we can't ignore the messages for too long.

We all need down time. It won't be easy, but we need it.

So we can be free.

So we can be happy.

So we can go on living a normal life.

Another term for this recharging retreat is the "restorative niche." A restorative niche is basically a space and time in which we are allowed to shut out the noise and chaos of the world, to be alone. It can be a bedroom. A nook in the library. Or even a mental space. Mine is the one-hour run from my workplace to home in the evening. Ever since I picked up this habit, I'd taught myself to ignore my iPhone when I run. I'd tried to remember that looking at the screen serves no purpose except slowing down my pace. With time, I knew that distraction-free run is a healing for the chaos. A restorative niche.