In those days.....

Who doesn't know this?  Postman Pat

Why the postman Pat pic you ask?  HE was our closest link to home - to our families.  You see, it goes back to those days from 1986.  That was the year when Sam and I got sponsored to study overseas. Getting the sponsorship was not easy.  We had to work hard for it.  We applied for the Uni ourselves.  You can imagine the thickness of A4 size mail with our certs that we sent to UK.  The stamps were not cheap too.  And we had to send via registered mail.  Then, we had to wait for the reply.  No speed post.  No email.  No internet.  Unlike today they have UCAS to go online to apply etc.  They get to see the status of their application and they get their reply very fast indeed through email.

It just came to my mind that my daughter who is now studying overseas is able to communicate with me way way better and faster than during my time.

In my younger days, I have never travelled using airplane before unlike my children they travelled by plane when they were babies.  The furthest I went (once) was with my BTEC buddies to Singapore after exam.  That was just the spur of the moment decision with just enough spending money for hotel, food, taxi and some souvenirs.  There were 5 of us.

The flight to Uni was the furthest ever for me.  It was more than 13 hours flight.  Goodness!  Luckily I travelled with Sam.  She travelled before so at least she knew what to expect.  I didn't!

I remember when we arrived (if I am not mistaken), the taxi driver or the hotel porter who helped her with her luggage was asking Sam, "What did you have in there? Stone?"  Sam just smiled. She actually brought mortar in her suitcase.  Hee..hee...

Anyway, in those days, the means to communicate with families was via phone and/or mail.  Nowadays everything is at your finger tips like the internet using MSN, twitter, FB, Friendster, skype etc and the news is an instant update.  And you can video call.  Fortunately for us we have to wait for 1 year when we went home to see our families' faces.  Unlike me, my daughter won't feel so homesick as she has these technology to help her.  Isn't that so Ka?  During my time, some students needed to wait 2 years to go home.  Some even have to wait until they finished their studies 3 or 5 years depended on the course they took, only then they went home.  We have to wait for 2 weeks for the mail to reach our families and two weeks to reach us back (that is if they replied fast enough).  We normally called home once a month.  Calling home for 10 minutes was so expensive.  At the time the exchange rate was strong which was bad for us.

I remember saturday was our day.  Because on saturdays we expected letters from home.   We stayed in just to wait for the postman.  While waiting, we would listen to tapes/CD that we brought.  Nowadays, you just google and the songs can be downloaded and put in MP3 or MP4 orIPod etc.  I remember, everytime we heard the sound of the letter box, we would run down the stairs to see the mail.  When each of us received mail from home, we went to our room and read the letters.  We would read it again and again.  Don't mind breakfast, we wouldn't feel hungry once we received letters from home.  The smile on our faces would lingered on for a week/weeks (speaking for myself)...heee..heee...Saturdays were also the time to go window shopping and go to supermarket.

The above phone booth was another means of communication back home.  Sometimes, I need to resist myself from going to the booth because I can't affort to spend on calling home.  No hand phone in those days.  No text messages.  Of course we didn't have phone in our rented house.  We have to make sure we set aside the $$ to pay for the utility bills.  The phone booth was located very near to our house and when we called during weekend, we run to it wearing our PJ's (of course with outer jackets)..hee..hee..  We either called in the evening or early morning when there were less people.  Sometimes, either Sam or I just went to the phone booth on our own to call back home when we really really missed our families and needed to hear their voices.  

Alas...films..rolls and rolls of films.  Why the roll of film you ask?  Well, I like taking pictures especially landscape and candid pictures.  I like to use Kodak ASA200 like the pic above.  Doesn't matter how many rolls I have I can assure you I can use it very fast.  My finger just went clicking away.  In those days, no digital cameras yet.  So the pictures you take will need to wait until you get it printed from the shop.  You can see my disappointment when a few of the pictures didn't turn out right.  What a waste of money.  Now with digital cameras, if you don't like it you just delete it and you can take as many as you want.  No need to spend money to print it.  In those days, since I didn't travel much, I always have $$ to spend to print the pictures I took and to buy albums.  I always go for 4R size and it was expensive.  Only the special ones I would get it printed 5R size.  I would send some back home.  Nowadays, you don't need that as we have the digital album which can hold hundreds of pictures and your families can also see the latest pictures via FB, blogs etc.  All instant news and update of your latest activities.

So you see, good things do come with technology BUT provided we use it properly and correctly to our advantage.

Well, those were the days.......