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Picca-A-ssoh's impressions

HangOut here

This place is cool. I finally found the short cuts up Mount Emily. Phew! Apparently, when Cathay building is completed, the lift will take you up Mt.Sophia and they will reinstate back the MGS stairs. Horray!

Mount Emily Park

Back again at Mount Emily. I wandered into the park. Except for a pair of joggers here and there, the park is mostly quiet and peaceful. It feels safe. Even so Jean says she handles an average of five molest cases in Sgp a day (!) and cautions that it is only safer than elsewhere but one should never be less vigilant.

I love the big old trees here. They should be several hundred years old.

Tucked away in the corner of the hill is the HangOut Hotel which is a hip budget hostel-hotel. Their restaurant, Wild Rocket, has received good reviews. The chef is a very pleasant, well-spoken and good looking fellow - Willin Low. I found out from yesterday's papers he was formerly a lawyer (!). I tried their crabmeat linguine. It is excellent, I highly recommend it.

The Road Not Taken

- by Robert Frost -

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

WAF. I've got all my sisters with me. Aw!

Last Wed, I visited to observe the June camp organised under the Beautiful People program for young delinquent girls, held at the Hangout.

I walked all the way from Bugis MRT and thought I knew the way and that there was a short cut. At the base of Mt.Sophia, I turned right into the lane where the sikh temple was, turned left at the old Rex theatre, past the old warehouse of vehicles. Thankfully, no more construction workers hanging out in the empty field there. Then finally, I arrived at (eeek!!) MacKenzie hotel at the bottom of Mt.Emily. It's not the HangOut.

Opps. I had to back-track up to Mt.Sophia. It was very dark but fairly safe. HangOut was tucked away right at the end of Mt.Emily, I had walked a whole hour by the time I arrived. Somehow I didn't regret not taking a cab. I got to see old sights again; like the shell of entrance to the first swimming pool in Sgp. I am grateful that some buildings are still there in that area, for a lot has changed and some of the quaint houses are gone forever. Now only memories remained.

[Invited speaker Tanya Fong shares insights about life in journalism with the girls;
while Diana Ser and Fiona Xie look on from the sidelines, they spoke to the girls about careers in the Media earlier]

The programs in the plans by Beautiful People are awesome. At the camp, the energy around touches me. An energy that exudes innocence and optimism. Some of the volunteers are just radiant. I feel fortunate to meet them, rediscovering something that I had to leave behind long time ago. It is like being back in MGS again. Their spirit of "we can do it" burns alive and brightly.

Fun facts about our Lion City

One of the newsletters I actually enjoy reading comes from NTUC Income covering community news and events besides the insurance bits which thankfully do not dominate their content.
I love reading these trivia :

1. Singapore's total land area is only 682.7 square kilometres, it is among the 20 smallest countries in the world. Note that the USA is about 15,000 times bigger!

2. Singapore's fitting symbol is the Merlion, a half-fish, half-lion beast."Singa" or lion represents the animal that a Sumatran prince saw which resembled a lion; the fish is a tribute to Singapore's history as "Temasek", the ancient sea town.

3. The Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in Singapore contains more species of trees than the entire North American continent.

4. On 30th September 2000, the Guinness book record for the longest human domino chain was set in Singapore! The domino chain was formed by 9,234 students, and it measured 4.2km.

5. The movie, Titanic, was the highest grossing movie of all time in Singapore, raking in S$6.65 million in 1997.

6. Tan, Lim and Lee are the most common Chinese surnames in Singapore.

7. Singapore has more than 3,000 kilometres of roads. They can cover the distance from Singapore to Hong Kong if the roads are stretched end to end.

8. The Night Safari, the world's first night zoo is located in Singapore.

9. The Great Singapore Duck Race, an annual event that raises funds for charity, set a new world record in 2002 when more than 123,000 toy ducks took to the Singapore River.

10. In the month of October, more Singaporeans are born than in any other month of the year!

11. UOB Plaza One, UOB Centre and Republic Plaza are Singapore's tallest buildings. What is the height of all three? 280 metres. This is the maximum height permitted by the under the air-traffic control restriction of Singapore.

Google Buy launching soon

CW sitting across me announced, to my horror, that Google is indeed going to launch their payment system * G Buy * in June 28. I shudder. The other gals around me were all falling off their seats and grinning at the comedy of it when I pronounced the message to them.

Ole Ole Ole

Watched the world cup for the first time last Saturday. Why now? Because:
1) the screening was at Artery, the pub managed by Ken and Kee-Lam,
2) Ken offered to reserve a cozy area for the group of us,
3) we would be watching it on a large projection screen,
4) watching with a group of friends so the atmosphere would be fun,
5) England is playing; in this event, against Paraguay.
At least 3 or 4 of us have never watched a football match before. Chak declared us the world cup virgins.

So you can imagine, I was quite blur. The game started without fanfare. No whistle, no horn. I was talking and turned round look at the screen, and the guys are already all over the field with the ball. So I asked,"Are these guys warming up?". Someone replied,"It has started! You think this is badminton match is it?"

I had barely orientated with what's going on, when England scored a goal just 3 minutes into the game! Aiyoh. Not sure what happened there. Well, they scored, so I am not the only one not paying attention. I then looked forward to see more goals but nothing, the rest of the game was very badly played and boring. Both sides did not appear to have any strategy or positioning of defence or attack. What a pity. Some of the guys said England always looked good on paper but usually disappointing on the field. That was surprising to me. Some savings came from the commentator who was so funny with his dry english humour, especially in the second half. He must be quite fed up. He was more entertaining than the game. We kept giggling at his comments.

Again without any whistle or horn, the game went into half time, or ended. I only know when the players walked off the field. Very bizarre to me. I think watching english rugby is more fun but tv never shows. Well, now I have learnt the cute guy is Owen and the tall one who likes to tackle the ball with his head is "Crouch". And Paraguay has a player with a dirty name called "Lampard", if I imagine the "d" is silent.

In the email (4)

Since we are on the topic of crooks...here is a very wicked man..

An older, white-haired man walked into a jewellery store one Friday evening with a beautiful young girl at his side.
He told the jeweller he was looking for a special ring for his girlfriend.
The jeweller looked through his stock and brought out a $5,000 ring and showed it to him.
The old man said, "I don't think you understand, I want something very special."

At that statement, the jeweller went to his special stock and brought another ring over.
"Here's a stunning ring at only $40,000," the jeweller said.
The young lady's eyes sparkled and her whole body trembled with excitement.
The old man seeing this said, "We'll take it."

The jeweller asked how payment would be made and the old man stated, by cheque.
"I know you need to make sure my cheque is good, so I'll write it now and you can call the bank on Monday to verify the funds and I'll pick the ring up Monday afternoon," he said.

Monday morning came and a very teed-off jeweller phoned the old man. "There's no money in that account."
"I know," said the old man, "but can you imagine the weekend I had?"

Mysterious disappearance

I had thought David Rasif ran off with the whole family but no, according to the Chinese WanBao, my ever trusty source of insider news (er..gossip), his wife is in the dark totally and frantically trying to reach him too. It seems he and Joyce had lunch with his colleagues on Friday and then they went to Bangkok for a break. He told his wife he still had some matters to settle and had to stay on, so she flew back alone to Singapore on Monday. Soon after, she heard people are trying to find him over some financial matters; troubles which she had no inkling of until then. His eldest daughter of 12 has been in tears since knowing the father has gone missing.

I had a conversation with TK and expressed my puzzlement as to why David left his family behind. If it is a deliberate act of dishonesty, his plan of 'escape' does not seem very well planned unless he can be so heartless as to leave his family behind forever. That is such a big weak spot. His phones can be tapped or mail read, it is too easy to trace him once he tries to contact his family.TK countered that, well, how is anyone to know if he wants his family anymore, they could be on the brink of a divorce, etc. So many other possible reasons. Yeah right, like maybe she is the one who finished him off somewhere and is the one who has the money. TK doesn't think the police in other countries will bother to nab him for sgp. I am thinking for the client.. for a client this rich, if he cannot use the law to bring him back, what is to stop him from hiring assassins.

Also imagine, what if David had only wanted a few days to clear his mind of the recent troubles and had gone for a retreat, not realising his face has been splashed across the front page of the newspapers. To surface back to society and be faced with the shock that he is a wanted man, viewed guilty more than ever, despite the headlines "..suspected of.." It would be quite horrifying because it is impossible to retrace your steps and be cleared of the stigma.

Such wicked imaginations we have.

So I guess we just have to wait for the truth in this mysterious case to emerge. I find it hard to believe he could throw away years of good reputation and the trust of his many friends and resorted to this. Is it gambling or a momentary lost of judgement? For things to be blown this big, I don't think now he is totally innocent. And some people in the newspapers sure don't like him.

I have a feeling they will find him.

Far Walk High Fly

远 走 高 飞 ... I read but don't usually watch the news, but I had it on tonight. So it was with some shock when the reports came on that David Rasif ran off with $10 million dollars of his client's money. The largest misappropriation to date. The last biggest sum was only 1.7 mil. in comparison. They didn't mention his family. The law society commented that it would cost him 7-12 years of jail.

This is someone I knew at Kent Ridge Hall back in the good old days of NUS. He was a rocker and participated in talentines and concerts. Charismatic and very charming; like a Bruce Willis type. Often a hint of a smile on his lips. He married a fellow kentridgen and beauty queen, Joyce. They are well-known in the law circles, I am sure. They stand out. After graduation, I hardly ever saw them.. until last year, I ran into both David and Joyce in the basement of a small insignificant shopping center in Bangkok, in of all places, of all timings. Just outside a pharmacy. We chatted briefly. He had brought his whole office out for a company trip. If I didn't recall wrongly, they have three daughters.

I think it is the shock that I had met him not too long ago, out of the blue and then now this. I wonder if his family has gone missing too. Probably. With that much money, maybe it is possible to go 'missing' forever. Did he watch too much movies? I wonder what he is thinking.

Luck Luck Luck

Smsed "happy birthday" to Anthony Ho today and he responded that it is the day with 3 sixes. Despite the bad association for the christians, a record number of 300 couples tied the knot today for being an auspicious day. The movie "Omen" opens in the cinema today. I told Ant, it is a good thing your name is not Damien..

Scholar Orchids

If two people speak with one mind, their words will have the fragrance of the orchid" - confucius


The China Society gave a talk last nite on the Chinese Cymbidium, which we know better as the orchid. More accurately, a type of Orchid - The Scholar's Orchid. The first half had Aileen Lau pointing out Cymbidium's significance by their appearance in the various chinese artefacts of paintings, porcelain, textile, etc from ancient times to now. Okay.. so this has about as much novelty as someone pointing out dragons and phoenix motifs in chinese arts.

The second part of the talk covered by Dr Tim Yam was more informative although he approached the topic from a technical aspect - what are the characteristics of the 4 classes of Cymbidium, how to assess and appreciate the parts of the plant, the conditions for cultivation. Apparently there is a really serious group of hobbyists and breeders of Cymbidium. There was ever a prize-winning pot that fetched as much as USD$650,000 (!).
Incredible!

Someone asked if it is possible to cross breed the Vanda Miss Joaqium with the Chinese Cymbidium and we found out that it would be impossible by conventional methods, and quite hard as it would be like cross-breeding a cat and dog! To us the laymen, we think they are all the same, just orchids!

The talk was held in China Club, on the 52nd floor of Capital Tower. The decoration is in oriental elegance and is awesome, not to mention the view too. It is a restaurant really, rather than a club but you have to be a China Club member to dine there. China club =X= China society (=X= : not equal). The food is exquisite. Nothing like the heavily-handled stuff dished out by My Humble House.

After the talk We had dinner with the Hunters, a Scottish couple in their 60s-70s, who are outside of their home country for most part for tax reasons. One half discovered cancer recently and claims that she is only having an infection and that the doctors in Singapore have cured her completely. Thankfully she is going for chemo.

The other half is having trouble walking and moves like a penguin. We suspect he is having Parkinson but he says he is seeing a physio-therapist. Both apparently still in denial and have not informed their children about their conditions. They are such a lovely couple and very dependent on each other, We feel worried for them too. It is quite unimaginable to us what it would be like for the other if either one of this couple is gone.