it's no surprise i'm sick. symptoms include an occasional cough, but more debilitating is an all-body ache, cold chills, a feeling of fatigue. i've basically worn myself down to the point where my immune system was compromised: lack of sleep, tired from all the walking i did, poor diet, and cold weather all contributed in some ways.

despite that, i still managed to go to chongqing today (it was surprisingly empty, despite chinese spring festival not officially over yet - but most working people have already gone back to work and some are even working on sunday to make it for lost work days) to do some shopping (2 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, an ugly bedsheet set). baihong called me in the early afternoon to apologize that we couldn't meet up since she had some other business to attend to. i had all 4 cameras with me but primarily used my cellphone camera: this was after all a tactical shopping trip, not a photo expedition. but i sort of like the ease of the cell phone camera (8 megapixels), even though the photo quality can't compare to the dSLR. it has a wide focal length though, though i'm not sure what the 35mm equivalent is. the EXIF tag says f/2.2 3.7mm, and if i assume it has similar 7.64 crop factor with the iphone/samsung phone cameras, then the 35mm equivalent is 28mm, which makes sense (coincidentally, 28mm is the canon lens i just bought recently, although on my smaller APS-C dSLR with its crop factor of 1.6 the lens becomes a 44mm lens).

i got back to changshou by 4:00 - where i finally had breakfast/lunch. by then my body was struggling to keep warm and i could feel myself slipping away.

as if to continue the spending spree, i finally went ahead and ordered that canon 28mm f/1.8 prime lens. my rational behind it was it's sort of like a birthday present. i also ordered some filters to go with the camera (58mm thread). i will go to bed tonight dreaming of beautiful bokeh.

i'm going to try and get to bed early tonight, hopefully feel better tomorrow. if not, i have a cache of american drugs to fight these symptoms. i apologize for all those waiting for details about my 9 days chinese spring festival vacation. i have a mountain of photos waiting to be processed, hopefully i can get them done sometime soon...but not tonight. i just want to crash and see what happens tomorrow morning.