Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Almost blown away in Vietnam

2009-03-29T13:56:00.004+08:00

Yes, made a trip to Vietnam early part of this year, not the best of time to be there considering it rains frequently that time of the year. In Hue, it weeped day and night non-stop for an incredible four days. My impressions are also how haunted it is, almost every hotel, no star to five star, had funny sounds in the night. The only place I would ever go back to in Vietnam is Hanoi. I am happy to give the rest a miss.

Lily and guppy

2008-07-06T21:45:00.003+08:00

This is from my other pail which holds my lilies. It has been blooming non-stop, one after another. I don't usually get to enjoy the blooms as I will be at work when the flower opens fully under the hot sun. So it is in the weekends that I get to catch its beauty.

My happy guppies and my big orange long-kang fishes. They just grew very large (size of a thumb) after I fed them with the fish food produced by Tetra (a German brand).

Make-shift Pail

2008-07-06T21:22:00.003+08:00

The leak in the pail that holds my Lotus plant just got worse and I had to remove the pail to have the base fixed. The pail has to be put aside for a week for the silicone to dry properly so that the fish don't get killed by any chemicals. So what to do as a temporary pail?

It so happened that a neighbour bought a new tv and threw out his tv box at the lift landing. So, I helped myself to it, took it home, taped trash bags on the outside to keep the paper dry from when the cleaner comes around to wash. I re-used the huge plastic wrapping from my TV. Put the plant in and poured tons of water into it. Viola.

Big and ugly, even weird but it saves my plant for the time being.

First Toy and Comic Convention

2008-07-06T20:49:00.014+08:00

Our Lion City held its first ever toy and comic convention. According to the news, the response had been overwhelming. It was over only three days and I went on the last day, Sunday, by then it was not as packed (thankfully) but still very busy. Still had to jostle with people. There were some cute looking toys.

Part of the fun was seeing people in costume. I suspect, every toy or comic fair will have something from Star Wars.

On the whole, it was an okay event for me. I wasn't too excited by the stuff there. I mean there was nothing from my favourite manga artist there - Chen Uen. To me, he is the ultimate MASTER. Sci-fi Anime is often breath-taking the first half hour and then after that, the story gets convoluted and heavy and philosophical and totally numbs my brain.

If there is anything I went away with from this event, it would be the Wii products. There's this pad that people stand on and the pressure from the feet lets the system know if you are tilting left or right, so you have these games such as you as the gate-keeper bending left and right trying to knock the balls out of the goal post. Hmm..kind of interesting. Still monitoring what else they have out there before I get something to help me get some exercise.

Wiser

2008-05-04T21:43:00.002+08:00

Got side-tracked by Facebook. What an addictive toy. The only explanation to why there's been no time to update the blog. It is fabulous to discover people I've lost touch with for a couple of decades and who have moved to the other side of the Globe. And then there is the fun of sparring over Scrabulous.

So no, I didn't get blown away in the typhoon.

I arrived in Taipei to find no traces of a typhoon ever having passed through. The hotel really spoilt my trip as they insisted on charging one night of no show despite knowing full well this was a natural disaster and despite me calling them up early to inform them to release the room to other guests. Bastards. That would the last time I stay there and they are going to see nasty reviews about them on all the travel advisory sites if I can help it.

If anything good came out of this, it would be - I was forced to look for other hotels and I discovered cheaper,better rooms and better located hotels (halleluya). Plus in trying to recover the lost of my hotel deposit from my insurance, I discovered I could not claim that but instead could claim compensation of two days of flight delay which worked out to S$800. That basically paid for my entire trip (shopping not included). It made the experience somewhat more tolerable but still, the unpleasantness and worry were not worth going through.

It also takes adversity to see the true colours of people and I am yet to recover from the shock that it only took $45 for a s0-called friend to betray the true value of her character... I guess I am lucky to have only parted with such a small sum to see this earlier rather than later.

What I learned as I travel more and more:
(1) always buy travel insurance
(2) do not be misled that a travelmate who looks like a kitty by day, will not snore like a tigress by nite.
(3) do not travel with a companion who forgets that you are not a travel agent and who also have absolutely no control over the weather.

Typhoon havoc

2007-10-07T20:36:00.000+08:00

All set and dressed up but nowhere to go. Here we are on the way to the airport in the cab at 11.40am to catch the flight to Taipei on Sat (oh, yesterday! Seems like a long time ago with so much happening) when the call came to inform us that our 1pm flight is cancelled due to typhoon but we may rebook our itinerary without charges.

Damn, why pick this period to travel, you ask. Well, I was in Taipei the same week of Oct last year (see my Oct 2006 blog) and the weather was perfect. I booked this trip more than half a year back when the promotion was $98 per way (okay $150 with taxes). Who is to predict the weather these days being so erratic.

In some ways, I am relieved with the flight cancellation because I have been wondering if it is safe enough to fly but any changes I initiate would incur a penalty charge.

Well, only 1.5 hours before the flight did Jetstar make the call not to take the risk. What followed next was a flurry of phone calls to reschedule the hotel, the insurance coverage, to the bosses to extend the leave, etc. When we got that sorted, we tried to call Jetstar back to re-book our travel itinerary and it was hell.

My ears were glued to the handphone for two (yes, TWO) hours while the Jetstar jingle play on and on with the intermittent cheery taped voice announcing "your call is important to us, please hold and we will attend to you shortly."

I got desperate as their office closes at 5pm on Sat. I attempted the 24-hour hotline several times. This leads to a Jetstar customer service centre in Australia. I get through quickly but each time, the hotline staff claim they are not informed of any typhoon, nor flight cancellation and they will have to charge me $150 for the change in itinerary. They directed me back to use the local Jetstar number.

My gawd this is a globally connected world today why are these Australians playing dumb which only serves to impress that they are in the back waters.

Finally, at about 3.30pm, I re-dialled the Jetstar local number and selected to make a new booking instead of pressing the option for changes to booking. This got me through soon enough. After explaining my frustration, the girl was kind enough to help me with the changes and she quickly settled it without giving me more pain. In this small way, Jetstar makes up for the bad bits in other areas of their service.

I shudder at the thought of the dangers of travel these days. We live in dangerous times. Once my flight departure to London fell on the day just after the terrorists were caught for planning a blow-up using liquids. Now the typhoon picked the weekend I am travelling.

I am now flying out tomorrow. I wonder what lies ahead of my trip in Taipei - rains and floods? I hope it will not be as bad as I imagined. I will try and focus on positive side that there will be sale, sale, sale and more sales. After all, they must make up for lost time to draw shoppers back and their national day is just three days away.

Bubbles and Giggles

2007-10-06T00:37:00.000+08:00

More about CDOs

2007-09-03T23:19:00.000+08:00

Extract from a Philips Securities Research report:

"With the ingenuity of Wall Street, investment bankers were quick to offload the risky loans into bonds called Mortgage Backed Securites (MBS) through securitization. As they found it hard to sell loans with poor credit, investment bankers sliced the bonds into smaller portion, repackaging it with much safer corporate bonds or other assets backed loans and named it Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO). They then sold the CDOs to financial institutions and other hedge funds.

It was a challenge for rating agencies to give them credit ratings as many different loans were packaged into the MBS and CDOs. Rating agencies like S&P, Moody’s and Fitch can only use complicated mathematical models like Monte Carlo to estimate the value of the CDOs through assumptions like pre-payment rates, interest rates and default rates, and that the fair values were only as good as their mathematical assumptions.

As a result, in July alone, S&P announced 980 downgrades on MBS and placed its credit ratings on another 612 classes on RMBS backed by US subprime collateral on CreditWatch with negative implications. Moody's Investors Service cut its ratings for 399 residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), citing higher-than-expected delinquencies in the underlying loans."

江湖老大

2007-09-02T15:13:00.000+08:00

As a mark of his status of two, Kit is decorated with some drama tattoos :
- a passionate red heart on his left arm with a sloppy arrow and..
- a flying dragon across his chest (never mind that it looks more like a lizard)

YEAH!!

2007-09-02T15:05:00.000+08:00

Wish I celebrate my birthdays with such jubilation.

Turning Two

2007-09-02T14:52:00.000+08:00

Kit turns two

The danger of subprime mortgages

2007-08-19T15:19:00.000+08:00

I have been seeing a lot of this term "subprime mortgages" in the past weeks - a term I have never hear of before in the past. It seems to be the cause of the recent stock market plunge. I could never understand all those stuff written to explain it until this article by Tan Kim Lian (in MyPaper on 14th Aug). Boy, he is good. It is too good not to share:

"Why are the subprime mortgages in America causing problems to the global stockmarkets? Surely the economy in Asia is growing strongly. Why should it be affected by the mortgages in America?

The subprime mortgages were issued in America. A batch of mortgages are put into a portfolio, called "asset-backed security" (ABS). This portfolio is divided into different tranches. The most secure tranches were rated AAA. The BBB tranche is high risk. The least secure are the equity tranche.

The investment bankers take the BBB tranches of many portfolios and put them into a new portfolio called a CDO (collateralised debt obligation). The CDO is again issued into several tranches, from AAA and equity tranche.

The AAA tranche of the CDO is actually comprise of many BBB tranches of the ABS (which are high risk). These CDOs are sold to funds in Europe and Asia.

When the American property market falls in value, many of the subprime mortgages defaulted. This affects the BBB tranches of the ABSs and nearly all of the tranches of the CDOs. The AAA and AA tranches of the CDOs have fallen in value, by a lot.

Many banks invested in these CDOs. When they fall in value, the banks have to book the losses. This caused their stock price to fall. This is affecting the stockmarkets around the world.

Some of the money raised by the structured products sold in Singapore were also invested in the CDOs. They have also falled in value.

There is nothing much that the investor can do about these structured products. If they withdraw now, they will suffer huge losses. They can only wait for the maturity date. and hope that the market would have recovered.

If you read some of the structured products, they said that the investor can lose part or all of the principal. It can happen. Let's hope that it does not."

I am thinking isn't it unethical to repackage BBB grade products and pass them off as AAA grade. That is so sneaky. People who are not aware there is a difference will be misled into buying into such financial products. Are there more of such products out there besides subprime mortgages? Shudder.

Red White

2007-08-19T14:14:00.000+08:00

My show of patriotism

Kenny

2007-08-05T22:59:00.000+08:00

Someone from my RWMF group forwarded this link of the blog by Kenny Sia where he gives his perspective of the rainforest music festival. I think he is a Malaysian blogger who looks a bit like, well, mr.brown. His blog is hilarious. What a prize.

http://www.kennysia.com/archives/2007/07/rainforest_worl_2.php

Check out his other postings, especially the one titled "Men Need Help Downstairs Too".

http://www.kennysia.com

Wee..O...Wamaway...

2007-08-05T22:45:00.000+08:00

The Black Umfolosi is easily the most popular group at the festival. Their acapella harmonising is molten liquid - low, smooth, soothing, haunting. Calling up images of vast plains and open spaces. Their dancing is also very entertaining with mesmerising coordination. Wish I could record a longer clip but I was worried it would overrun the 100MB limit.

Zulu War Dance

2007-08-05T22:21:00.001+08:00

I had the greatest time at the Black Umfolosi workshop where they taught us the war dance of their Zulu culture. It is exhilarating to be with hundreds of people moving simultaneously in steps and stamping our feet in time. I hope you can feel the excitement and spirit of the class from this clip.

Rhythms of the Rainforest

2007-08-05T22:00:00.000+08:00

This is Richard Kensington giving a short demo on the "washboard" at the workshop named 'rhythms of the rainforest'. He is one of my favourite performers to watch. I realised percussions are always interesting or I just have an inclination to these performances.

Tammorra

2007-07-24T00:44:00.001+08:00

The first workshop I attended was "The Oldest Instrument in the World", described as "the human voice in different cultures". Different folks and groups took turns to sing and play. I captured a segment of this group from Salvatore called Tammorra.

Rainforest WMF

2007-07-24T00:05:00.000+08:00

Finally I am getting down to talking about RMWF. Well introductions first. This year 2007 is its 10th anniversary so it was expected that the programmes lined up would make up of some of the best groups from the past festivals.

There is so little information about the programme on the website. It was only when I got there that I found out all activities only start from 2pm every day and run till 1.30am, for all the three days. The afternoons cover workshops between 2pm till 5:15pm. There are in total 9 workshops divided into three time slots of 45 minutes each. For each time slot, you have to make a pick from 3 workshops held in three different venues: Theatre (aircon), Iban Longhouse, Dewan Lagenda.

The theatre is more like a small auditorium. It often gets so packed that the room is stuffy even with the air-con on full blast.

Iban Longhouse is a traditional house on exhibition in the Sarawak Cultural Village.

Dewan Lagenda is the large airy room with the largest capacity of the three venues. Dance workshops are also conducted here and withstood some serious vigorous stamping from thousands of feet.

In the evening, the concerts start from 7.30pm and go on till 1.30am.

Above is the crowd at 7pm when eager people start choping their favourite spot on the grounds.

This is the peak crowd on Saturday nite when the locals join in, swelling the numbers in the village to to some 25,000 people. The energy of the crowd is electric and high. It was akin to a rock concert. Friday evening and Sunday evening were less but still saw some 7000-8000 people.

Crab lessons

2007-07-23T23:19:00.000+08:00

On our first night in Kuching, Terismum organised a seafood dinner at the Palm Garden Seafood Restaurant, which was close to our hotel. It was part of the restaurant service to provide transport to pick the guests from the hotel and return, so was quite stress-free getting to the place.

Here is the address and telephone if you are interested: Palm Garden Seafood resturant, Jalan Santubong, tel: 082-846526. They will even organise overnight fishing for RM$1000 a boat that fits large group. Santubong is 45 minutes away from Kuching town btw.

We ordered pepper crab and Tomyam crab but I still prefer the former. Pepper is an excellent product of Sarawak - one of THE things to buy when you are there. The tomyam gravy tasted more like curry and it makes an uncomfortable combination with crab. We also ordered some delicious local vegetables which look like weeds with tendrils. These taste crunchy. We ordered tons of food which included a large fresh fish and it came up to only RM$30 per person.

So there we were picking out our food fresh from the tank. The resturant staff showed us how to tell a female crab from a male crab. You flip the crustacean over and look at the shape of flap right in the center of its body. The female has a large piece which some describe as a diamond or hexagon. The male one is shaped in a thin triangle strip.

Load off my mind

2007-07-22T22:09:00.000+08:00

I stayed overnight at the house of Teri's mum. She took out this wonderful gadget that she bought 30 years ago in UK which is a portable compact weighing scale, complete with leather case. She had bought several pieces then and given them away as presents to friends and relatives but everyone had lost theirs, except for this one, only piece left by her late mother.
I got to weigh my luggage before getting to the airport.

It works well. Folds nicely and is compact enough to store away. I love it.
We don't believe the factories make this anymore. If you come across any place that still manufacture this, do leave me a message.

Torturous cab ride

2007-07-22T21:31:00.000+08:00

Was away at the Sarawak World Music Festival last weekend. It was a great event and I will share the pictures and video clips in the subsequent postings. My friend in JB helped me book the Air-Asia airticket to Kuching way back in February at the incredible price of RM60 CENTS return trip. With the taxes thrown in, it totalled up to all of RM$130.20! I had to fly from Senai and the flight was 6:55am. So I went into JB on the evening before my flight, that is last Wednesday.
Someone told me to try and make it to the Causeway before 7pm to avoid the jam. I got to Rochor taxi terminal to catch the S'pore-JB cab. There was no queue but within 5 minutes, more people came and enough to make a group of four to car-pool. I was the only one with a luggage. I dumped it into the boot, got into the Johor cab and FROZE. Being the last to get in, I was in the seat right behind the driver and he had distinct body odor. The sort of dried sweat that linger in the air. The blood vessels to my brain instantly constricted as with my lungs. Should I jump out? How am I going to explain myself? It is not like I can ran out since I need the driver to open his boot. How can the other passengers stand it? How can the guy sitting right next to the driver stand it?!! My mind was in a struggle and all sorts of scenarios of how I could have extricated myself from such a situation then or in the future. Too late, no way to get out. Taxi already on the move. I tried not to breathe too much and could feel myself weakened into a semi-meditative state as a result of low oxygen. I tried to distract myself from the smell by focusing on the large mole perched on the right side of the face of the front passenger. It had several hairs that seemed as long as 10 cm sprouting out from the mole. A young couple sat on my left, chatting away ceaselessly. Maybe like me, they are also trying to cope with the situation. After all when they talk, they can breathe through their mouth without being obvious. It would be rude if they panted. I prayed and prayed. Thank gawd, there was no traffic jam and we all got out of it one hour later.

Ouch

2007-07-08T23:37:00.000+08:00

My starhub phone bill arrived. I nearly fell off the chair over two out-going calls made from Maldives which were about 6 minutes each. They came up to $65! What? When did I made those calls? Who the hell did I call?? Mum? After racking my brains, I finally remembered they were made to Citibank in my last hour to sign up for my travel insurance at 1 in the morning. Yes, only after I had arrived in Maldives. Right after my companion's luggage didn't come through the belt. Those two calls turned out to be double that of my travel insurance.

Surface Computing

2007-06-27T23:46:00.000+08:00

Check out this new technology involving multi-touch surface computing incorporated into a coffee table to facilitate discussions and presentations on pictures and maps. Things are easily moved around like they are physical objects and easily resized by touch.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid271552687?bctid=933742930

This may take awhile for buffer to download but worth the wait!

Look out for how seamlessly the sharing of photos happen between physical devices by contact or drag-and-drop. A photo just taken by the camera gets almost instantaneously transferred onto the table top by just placing the camera on the table.

On a separate note, Brightcove is an alternative to Youtube.

Press Display

2007-06-11T22:34:00.000+08:00

The Straits Times announced recently that they are opening up more of their content (breaking news) on their website. I took a look. The design is better, yes, but the amount of accessible content is still very limited, in my opinion.

Fed-up.

Actually, there are better alternatives such as this excellent site called "Press Display" (http://www.PressDisplay.com) which gives full-colour digital replications of hundreds of newspapers from around the globe.

This is fabulous if you are studying/working/travelling abroad but still want to keep in touch with the local news. You get full content and interactive access to newspapers from over 60 countries in over 30 languages.

A subscription is needed to see the full digitised copies (US$10 per
month vs ST's rate S$9.95 per month) BUT, wait!,
if you are a member of our Singapore National library, you will be able to access PressDisplay via the NLB website for FREE.

So how..?
---------------
First, register for a digital library account (free) on http://www.nlb.gov.sg

After logging in with your id/pwd, on the blue menu bar, select
eRESOURCES> eDATABASES

Under SUBJECT, select NEWS > LIBRARY PRESSDISPLAY.

Click on LIBRARY PRESSDISPLAY which will take you to the pressdisplay website.

Example: for Straits Times - on the search bar section, look for the
blue button and click [SELECT TITLE]>
[BY COUNTRY]> [SINGAPORE].

The page will display the following scanned singapore papers of the day:
* Lianhe Zaobao
* The Straits Times
* The Wall Street Journal Asia
* Today
Archives are also available, accessible via the calendar icon.

[note: You still need to have a library membership for physical book loans, otherwise the digital account will not grant you access]

Have fun!

One night only

2007-06-09T22:39:00.000+08:00

I don't usually pay attention to news about Paris Hilton. When I first heard on the radio that she was allowed to leave the jail because of a medical condition, barely 24 hours after being admitted, I was flabbergasted. My first thought was her family must have bribed someone big time.

Then I read the Y.K.Tay column in ST today who, in his usual nonsensical style of writing, described Paris "suffering, Tinkerbell-less, breakfast bell-less and bellhop-less, in that cold, dank cell she was briefly residing in with, I read, only three thin blankets, no pillow and the s**t bowl presumably at five bowls' length away from her."

Suddenly I got the picture, visions of Paris going totally beserk, induced by the culture shock in jail, came into my mind. Her going hysterical and possible indication of hurting herself might have been what was described as "medical condition". Yes, could have sent her to the asylum or the hospital but that didn't happen. So, yes, yes, it is back to this..definitely many palms were oiled.

Dolphins in the wild

2007-06-07T22:13:00.000+08:00

I went on the cruise to spot for dolphins. The hotel staff are quite experienced to know whereabouts to look for them. Even so, some amount of luck is needed to be able to see much of them. The cruise took two hours of searching but most of the time, fins were all we saw. OUr crowd on the boat waited with such great anticipation and excitement that even a small flick of their fins brought on a chorus of "oohs" and "aahs".

As you can see, a couple with a generous cash broadband hired a pleasure speed craft all for themselves..(lao nua, wish I can strike 4D)

It was only towards the end of our cruise that the dolphins rewarded us with jumps and back flips. Especially after we clapped and cheered them loudly, with the help of the neighbouring boat beating their drums. It was such a prize. Unfortunately, my video clip of that is over 100mb and cannot get it up on youtube.

The life beneath

2007-06-07T22:02:00.000+08:00

The men are cutting up fish and preparing the bait for the guests' fishing trip. More sand sharks and other marine species.

Jaws not

2007-06-07T21:44:00.000+08:00

Sand sharks are common in the waters near the beach. They look menacing but are actually quite shy and will move away when you try to approach them. The other fishes started to follow me after I fed them with bread squirrelled from the breakfast table.

Waters so clear

2007-06-07T21:24:00.000+08:00

Here's a closeup of how clear the waters are. The fishes are so friendly too, they swim close to the shore.

I was in Maldives

2007-06-05T22:34:00.000+08:00

...and got very dark.

It is a pity some of the glamour and exclusivity associated with Maldives is chipped away with the invasion of PRCs tourists - whether honeymooners or families. The tranquility of the place is often rudely ruined by their loud talking and any romanticism that could be evoked by such a beautiful place is dissipated by these peasants' constant craving for attention to make their presence known.

On the sunset fishing trip, every PRC couple is whining away when they don't catch any fish and when they do, they are squealing loudly to the whole boat and the next to announce their catch. The couple next to us made comments endlessly. On the beach, a PRC family could barely control their 9-10 years old daughter. The girl didn't talk so much as shriek literally. The air was pierced by her continuous screaming dialogue, I had to check several times to be convinced the mother had brought a child and not a banshee

Maldives it is

2007-06-05T21:44:00.000+08:00

Took the flight out after work on Wed to spend three full days in Maldives over this Vesak weekend. What is special about the hotels in Maldives is that every "island" is occupied by only one hotel because each island is so small, that I think they may actually be called Islets. Maldives have over thousand of these islets grouped into atolls and spread over 6 degrees of latitude, we are told it takes several hours to fly from one end of Maldives to the furthest islet. 90% of Maldives is under water.

The pictures of Maldives are always so stunning, which it owes very much to amazing clarity of its waters. The air and water are very clean and the abundance of fish around is incredible. You can stand on the shore where the tide is and without even getting your feet wet, see a great variety of fishes swimming near the edge of the waters. They are mostly near white in colour, perhaps due to its camouflage adapting to the environment. Out near the reefs, the same types of fish display much more vibrant colours.

Wish I had taken an underwater camera along. I did not or was unable to take as many picture as I thought I would. Unlike Bali, the areas around the hotel is not specially landscaped. I have seen more exciting and far more beautiful hotels in Langkawi and Bali (see my May 2006 blog), for the same/lower price. So if you don't like to get into the sea and just want to enjoy great hotel scenery, don't go Maldives. Malaysia and Indonesia offer much better value. If you are willing to spend some time enjoying what the sea has to offer, then this is definitely a place to be.

You can say the hotel is fairly rustic, as it allows a great range of plants to grow to maturity. I have only ever seen morning glories as creepers but in Maldives, they are grown to a shrub. There is also lots of hibiscus everywhere and in all sorts of colours. I don't remember ever seen that much hibiscus in Malaysia where hibiscus is a national flower.

Arts Festival Launch

2007-05-25T23:27:00.000+08:00

The Singapore Arts Festival took off with performances of people dangling in mid-air doing stunts. More like Acrobatics than Art, to be honest. Anyway, it was interesting in its own way. But I really came for the fireworks.

Not sure why this is displayed as image not ready but it is already available.Pls click on it

Scrowl and Chew

2007-05-21T23:18:00.000+08:00

Sports Day

2007-05-21T22:17:00.000+08:00

It was company sports carnival last Saturday where 600 people turned up. It was a colourful affair with lots of stalls and activities organised. Staff could choose to compete in team games like soccer, telematches or join in the dance classes (hip hop, line dancing, kebayaerobics, belly dancing). There were activities for kids too like the bouncy castle.

I must have been delusional when I signed up to participate since I have been MIA from the sports field in ~~decades~~ years and not exactly in any fit condition to be running around on the field, much less under the hot sun. Unfortunately I was standing near my house captain when the carnival kicked off and got kena arrowed to join the frisbee team game. We were taught how to hold and throw the frisbee by some young punk. The game rules were set where the five of us had to defend or attack one side of the field against another house colour team. Then off we went. After ten minutes of running after a flying white plate all over the field, I was gasping for breath like a wild crazy woman. The al fake-ko shirt they issued trapped heat instead of dissipating it. I nearly suffered a heat stroke.

My family and I each received a large goodie bag each. I have never received so many sponsored gifts before. In the end, my colleague had to give me a carton to put in all the stuff, since it was three of each item - mineral water, 2X drink pack, a banana, a pear, a bun, a cup of soya been milk, a bowl of bean curd, a packet of peanuts, a pack of khong guan biscuits.

Kindness

2007-05-15T23:48:00.000+08:00

This has been a day of blessing indeed, when I count the number of kindnesses I encountered today.

Kindness act 1:
After missing for five months, I finally turned up at my hairdresser to let her trim my wild hair. Okay, so her 20% discount helped. Benly had smsed me about celebrating the 4th anniversary of her business. I had my highlights done on my last visit in January but the colours are fast fading now. She asked if I wanted to freshen them up. I hesitantly agreed. She went through what I felt was the usual full highlighting service. It wasn't a few streaks. I had foil all over my head. The final outcome was more than satisfactory. I wonder why I have not made more time to come for her service more often. I have been her customer since 1997 but it is the first time I have not turned up for more than 3 months. At the payment counter, she told me the colouring would be complimentary. WOW. That is savings of at least $150.

Kindness act 2:
Went for dinner and order oyster omelette. My table was near the stall. The food arrived and I happily tucked in. As you know, one of the best things about oyster omelette is the slight sourish chilli. I was halfway through my plate and my dip was fast thinning. Suddenly, the stall owner called out, "Miss, would you like more chilli?" It took me a second to realise she was talking to me. I looked up to see her walk over with a tumbler of chilli and she promptly refilled my saucer. WOW.

Kindness act 3:
I got back my change of $1 from paying my oyster omelette, which I then slipped under my plate. I thought I might use it to order a drink after my meal later. However after my dinner, I decided to leave and totally forgot to take my change. Incredibly, the couple at the table behind me actually noticed my coin under my plate and alerted me to it just as I was leaving. WOW.

All this in one evening. How awesome is that.

Knock knock, anyone there?

2007-05-07T23:52:00.000+08:00

Wanted to take a short break nearby for Labour Day weekend and decided on Sofitel Johor. Besides being fairly easy to get to, it is also really cheap. The taxi from Singapore (Rocher rd) direct to the hotel costs a total of S$55. On the return, the cab from the hotel to the City Square is RM$40.

As it turns out, you get what you pay for, the hotel quality is only passable and not worthy of the 5 star rating. Things work but it is not in the best of condition (eg, bowling floor has 8 working lanes out of 10 and parts of the working equipment have tapes holding them together. Eg, Room has aircon but aircon is weak). If you do make use of the numerous facilities (most of them are available such as olympic size pool, jacuzzi, squash courts, tennis courts, bowling alleys, gyms, golf), it is fairly good value for money.

The biggest let down would be the service. I mean the folks there are extremely forgetful (or is it sloppy).

At the chinese restaurant, the waitress tells us to wait for her to clear up the table and then forgets to inform us when it is ready. We pop our heads back to see the table has cleared but there is no sign of any staff appearing at the door to show us our table after more than 10 minutes. We figured they are not interested with our business.

At the Japanese restaurant, the staff are more friendly but also suffer from short memory. Our request for wasabi are only met some 15 minutes later, by then our dinner is almost finished. The restaurant is not full and repeated reminders have to be made.

At breakfast, we follow the waitress as she is walking over to a table to check if it is available for us. Halfway there, a guest interrupts her with request for milk. Typically, a service staff would say "please wait a minute and I will get back to you". Not this one, she suddenly turned on her heels and rushed off to get the milk, leaving us strandled in the middle of the room baffled at the sudden change. She did not come back and obviously forgot that she has not finished serving us.

If you think the fish 'Dory', in the movie 'Nemo', is a figment of imagination, wait till you meet the staff at Sofitel.

My Daemon

2007-05-04T17:22:00.000+08:00

Japan festival Thai version

2007-04-26T22:07:00.000+08:00

Hordes of teens turned up for the Japanese festival held in MahBoonKong. Many dressed in jap school uniform and making cute poses. They unbashly posed for photographs. It was kind of bizarre to see Thai people with such a rich culture of their own idolising another. A little funny. A little sad.

What a change

2007-04-26T21:18:00.000+08:00

Recent visit to Thailand brought some surprises. A lot more malls are up now and some are really mega. Many boutiques are decorated tastefully. Before there were not much high-end goods to look at, now you can find any luxury brands there. The scene there now caters to a full range of shoppers. Sheesh, who will come to shop in Singapore anymore..

what used to be the World Trade Center

Shoes too big

2007-04-23T21:41:00.000+08:00

Little shoes are too troublesome to strap on, so why not just slip on granny's shoes for the time being.

How to ask for a pay rise

2007-04-15T22:14:00.000+08:00

Not happy you are not getting the pay hike like some garmen servants? Well, fret not, Hairy Donut shares how she persuades her boss to give her one too. Mwhahahhaha!!!

Logistical Challenge

2007-04-15T21:43:00.000+08:00

Rows and rows and rows of shelves

If you search the library catalog and the location information says "Repository Used Book Collection", it means the book has been shifted to the warehouse. For a postage fee, it can be recalled back for loan.

Baby Sylvia

2007-04-15T21:33:00.000+08:00

4 month old Sylvia who looks totally like John, I fell over laughing in amazement.

Elderly babe

2007-04-14T23:44:00.000+08:00

Two elderly gentlemen from a retirement center were sitting on a bench under a tree when one turns to the other and says,"Slim, I'm 83 years old now and I'm just full of aches and pains. I know you're about my age. How doyou feel?" Slim says, "I feel just like a new-born baby."
"Really!? Like a new-born baby!?"
"Yep, No hair, no teeth, and I think I just wet my pants."

Voice

2007-03-25T17:51:00.000+08:00

"We, who are so schooled in the art of listening to the voices of others, can often hear our own voice only when we are alone...For many women, the first choice, then, is to give ourselves the necessary time and space in which to renew our acquaintance with our lost voice, to learn to recognise it, and to rejoice as we hear it express our truth. " - Florence Falk, in her new book, ON MY OWN: THE ART OF BEING A WOMAN ALONE.

source: Oprah magazine, Mar 2007.

Alice who?

2007-02-13T23:02:00.000+08:00

Oh, did I really say Alice in my last blog? I meant Dorothy. Shouldn't be surprised by the mix up. The real secret is I have never properly read Alice in Wonderland nor Wizard of Oz. Ever. Watched bits of the movies on TV. Somehow never had the patience to finish it. Even with Sabuda books, I am too distracted by the wonderful presentation pop-ups to read any word. I just keep opening and closing page after page.

Pop-up Wheel

2007-02-11T18:09:00.000+08:00

In my last blog, the video shows the tornada sweeping Alice and her house into the land of Oz. Below is another marvel of paper engineering. With productions like this, printed books will always find fans.

Animated Books

2007-02-11T17:28:00.000+08:00

The recent Borders 40% discount gave me a chance to pick up not a few books that I have been eyeing for a long while. These are the pop-up books by Robert Sabuda (thanks Peng for the tip!). They look like children books but grown-ups will enjoy them no less. In fact they make great gifts for young and old. Here is a preview..

Of the lot, I am most impressed with the Wizard of Oz. Parts not only open up to a complex work of art, they may peep out from a wall, hide behind a window, wave and even spin. When I show the pages to my colleagues, their jaws drop and everyone wants to know where to buy them.

Rain on Stage

2007-02-09T23:40:00.000+08:00

The rain you never want to go away..

Mesmerising Stage

2007-02-09T23:39:00.000+08:00

Visual feast.

2007-01-29T07:12:00.000+08:00

Rain Rules

2007-01-23T21:28:00.000+08:00

World Class. That is how I would describe Rain's Coming concert.
The scale, the lights, the drama, the colour, the whole presentation - It is worth every cent.. if I had to pay for my ticket.
I would happily see a repeat of the show and gladly pay the next time, if I have to pay.

A lot of his songs sound the same to me but, WHATEVER, who cares since it is a foreign language. I mean Bhangra music all sounds the same to me too.

Man, this guy is so fluid with his moves. He is an entertainer. A dancer.

A face of innocence with a body to tease. Swooooonnnnn.....Check back again later cos I will be posting video snippets of this mega performance. In the meantime, sweet dreams...

Wine Charms

2007-01-18T22:19:00.000+08:00

Spotlight sale and idle hands.

Knit wine charms for treasured friends.

How to Bhangra

2007-01-15T18:07:00.000+08:00

In a blink of an eye and three weeks had flown by since my last update. Not sure what happened in between which took up so much time.

Let me see, on New Year's eve, I went to a Punjabi party (no, not typo error, punjabi..not pyjamas). There were Sindhi people there too who, I was told, are different from Punjabi people but they all look the same to me. I was one of the two Chinese there.

Anyway, I was asked if I can do the bhangra dance. My hosts and their guests were very pleased when I nodded my head. Armajit pointed out to me that Bhangra is very easy.

He asked,"Do you know how to change the light bulb?". He held up his left arm and demonstrated the twist with his left hand.

Then he asked,"Do you know how turn the door knob?". Holding his right arm forward, he demonstrated the twist with his right hand.

"Now, do both together." He was jiggling.

He further added, "Okay, you can also alternatively stroke the lamb", rubbing his right hand in mid-air back and forth.

Lata had other tips. Apparently True Yoga is holding Bollywood dance classes. In particular, this teacher called Sri provides a storyline with the dance steps which would have the class on the floor in stitches.

Infected now by Armajit's jiggling, hmmm...I might just check out those dance classes.

How time flies..

2007-01-15T14:50:00.000+08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Big Quake

2006-12-27T22:29:00.000+08:00

Didn't know Taiwan had a few earthquake as bad as 6.7 on the richter scale. It broke 5 cables under the sea and disrupted the internet access at work today. Not knowing, I even called IT dept up to ask why they had blocked access to all the public email sites.

On the taiwan cable news, one poor old lady lost 8 members of her family in the crumble. Quite terrible. The cctv recordings show very violent shakings. It is scary Taiwan lies along the cracks of the plates. Isn't it strange that catastrophes have been happening on boxing day?

I can still recall the last quake I experienced at home. How long ago was that? I amnot sure now. It feels quite recent. I was in the middle of a shower then. In those terrifying moments, I was caught in the dilemma whether to run out in suds half-naked or continue to rinse off and dress properly. In the end, modesty and hygiene won. Was it fear of embarassment won over fear of death, or simply the practical mind concluded either choice made no difference since I live on a high floor. Fortunately in that case, all was more alarm than danger and I suffered nothing more than a comic experience. Still, those flitting feelings of terror reminded me of how fragile we are under the wrath of nature.

One sister gave some tips to keep in mind in the event of a quake:
- doors go out of shape and can block escape. Open all your doors even if you decide to stay put indoors.
- draw your curtains to block glass that shoots out during shattering.
- bring a pillow along to shield yourself from falling debris

They are new to me. There's probably more. The only one I know is to hide under the desk.

Picture Editor

2006-12-21T22:39:00.000+08:00

Have a photo to edit but don't own any photo editing software? Fret no more. Pixer lets you edit your photo online. Just upload it, then choose the options to crop, resize, apply all kinds of fixes. Nifty!

Pampered

2006-12-19T23:01:00.000+08:00

I was taken aback when one day the office manager plonked a pack of fruits on my table.

Surprised me: "what's this??" [first thought - I didn't order anything, do I have to pay for this?)

Office manager: "Your healthy pack. We give out every fortnight."

Company sponsored. Something to do with a eat healthy programme or something. I haven't received such generosity at work in a long time. Not since the dot com days...a distant memory. I felt somewhat overwhelmed.

Some days later, a colleague send an email blast out to everyone: "I was on two weeks leave and informed everyone but what do I come back to when I returned? Fruits left fermenting and rotting on my table..thanks for letting me know how much you love me."

Some of us joked at coffee break, we will have to go help ourselves to the fruit gifts ("steal") left on tables of colleagues on leave. Maybe that will keep them happy.

Yeah, go poke around the desks of people on leave. Sheesh.

Wrap them up

2006-12-19T22:10:00.000+08:00

This must be my most lazy Christmas preparation ever. 60 new cards and only one sent out. Bought no presents. The rainy weather didn't help the mood for shopping.

No choice, I was forced to prepare the early xmas gift exchange that was going to happen at a birthday celebration. I rummaged through my box of "extras" made up of impulsive shoppings in the past especially gotten on travel trips, the regrets, the freebies that come from large buys, yet to open purchases. There are also forgotten gifts bought way in advance, like..er..years back. I will tell myself not to forget the next time but I forget again and run out and grab something new. Luckily for my friends, I don't have the habit of re-wrapping unwanted presents and pass them on. Can't bring myself to do that without guilt.

Maybe this was good. I finally have to deal with these many forgotten stuff. Well, some are fairly decent (like the usb thumb drive), many are clearly below $10 (embroidery jewellery box, retro bracelets, etc). Okay cheap. So, to prove (or rather comfort the receiver) that it is the thought that counts, I decided a little more effort should go into dressing up the packaging.

After some digging around, I discovered almost forgotten ribbons bought at Spotlight. I have tons. Also found these handy set of paperbags. Fished out my gift wrap book, armed with scissors and lots of tape, I got to work. Squeezed my creativity juice. Boy, it zapped as much energy as battling the torrential downpour to shop.

parking Idiots

2006-12-13T11:05:00.000+08:00

This is a good one about parking idiots in Singapore:
http://parkingidiots.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to snap those you come across and send it to the parkingidiot@gmail.com to put on the site to share with the rest of us.

Same yet Different

2006-12-10T22:58:00.000+08:00

I last saw him just two months ago but he has already changed so much.

Kit Returns

2006-12-10T22:30:00.000+08:00

Kit and his body guards arrive home tonite. He is full of smiles, pink in the cheeks and starting to be shy of strangers. His favourite action is shaking his head.

High Over New Domino Ad

2006-12-02T08:51:00.000+08:00

A relative forwarded me an interesting email (thanks! Useful relatives are nice) to this awesome Honda commercial featuring parts of two disassembled cars painstakingly set up to produce the domino effect. What you see is entirely filmed with no computer digital manipulation involved.

Here is some the background on its production which I reproduced from the email, with some..urm..major edits (snipping off repeated details):

" The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very
minor, didn't work.

They would have to set the whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. Only on the last 606th take did everything come together as planned. By the time it was over, they were ready to change professions.

The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including full engineering of the sequence. When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation - including the costs.

There are six and only six hand-made Honda Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film. On the new Accords, the funky windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet..
Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) is parts from those two cars. The voiceover is Garrison Keillor.

When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten.

They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real."

Where Lions and Designers converge

2006-11-27T23:12:00.000+08:00

"10 Touch Points" is a project that puts people in the center of the design process of our public places. YOU, WE the citizens, can nominate and vote for the top things in our Lion city that can do with some re-design, eg hawker centers, mailboxes, for better living. The top 10 favourites will be picked for local designers to work on and to bring to reality in public.

Designers, you can pick to work on the top 10 nominations by applying online before 11 Jan 2007
Other design competitions can be found at: Design Singapore Org.

Xmas lights 2006

2006-11-27T22:57:00.000+08:00

Lots of gold, dripping jewels, hanging birds.

Collaborative doodles

2006-11-23T23:57:00.000+08:00

One of the things I have to do now at my new job is to check out what are the tools available online that encourages collaboration among users. We then try and find out how they are used and think about how these features can be adopted in our projects. We can then create the "service concepts" of the tools we could potentially build.

Right, what I just wrote probably sounds like dilbert nonsense "blah blah blah" to most people. Never mind, basically what I am leading to is...the discovery of this fun tool created by GE.
My team ended up in giggles over the bad artwork we created together.

Fool around with your friends at the Imagination Cube.

Squeak and Moo

2006-11-20T21:59:00.000+08:00

Here's the unveiling of my sister's crafts blog - squeak and moo - which she set up with an old friend. It shares notes on handicrafts and ideas, plus works of their own crafts made as an outlet for their creativity. I guess it's a way for these two graphic designers to keep a grasp on their sanity whilst putting up with the endless drills of baby feeds and smelly diaper changes.

The stuff there look like great fun, it makes me itch to pick up my needles again and perhaps make that last effort to finish my own craft. The stitchings on my peranakan shoes; it has just this little bit to go and it's a shame (squeak!) that I haven't touched them in over 5 years (boo!).

22 years on

2006-11-19T22:15:00.000+08:00

Had a fabulous class gathering yesterday. It was called partly to celebrate the return of Paul and family from Denmark after 3 years. I didn't call everyone, just a manageable few handful. We went to Marche at Suntec and it was packed. So good to see everyone again. We looked not a day older since the time we graduated (I am lying of course); that was all we could hoped.

We laughed heaps and enjoyed each others' company. Regardless of the statuses of our classmates now, MD or lawyers or what-nots, there was no escape from the ribbing. It raised one uproar after another as long buried memories were called up and the discovery of little strange details our classmates remembered of us. We even ran into Adrian Pang at another table, on his nite out baby-sitting his boys while his wife was on duty. Even he was not spared from the teasings of how proud his old chinese teachers must be to have one of their anglophilic "kentang" sons join chinese drama.

My best autographer (see old entry "Mementos"), Tzu.K, was also there, looking gorgeous and slim, and fussing over me like his long lost sister. He questioned how I got such nice complexion. I insisted all the credit has to go to SKII, the poison seemed to work remarkably well. Although at the back of my mind, I secretly believed it was really all that job hopping that has helped to keep some of the wear and tear at bay.

Ms Dewey

2006-11-13T22:56:00.000+08:00

This search engine is..a hot babe. With an attitude. A bit of a xiao ting tong and Oh gawd, she swears too.

I wonder when they will come out with a Mr. Dewey. Hmm...

Pastime

2006-11-05T14:01:00.000+08:00

Piccahsoh's favourite pastime

SMU

2006-11-05T00:38:00.000+08:00

Was given a campus tour of SMU and this place is really something. Collectively five buildings in the heart of the city, the schools are linked underground by a long corridor which is said to be a kilometre long. The underground walkway is actually opened to public and has banks, eateries and shops.

This is the pretty view from the top of the Li Ka Shing Library, so named after the school received $19 million in donations.

An event held in the underground activity area during which the students undergo a challenge of endurance of standing on one leg for the longest period. A game only youth possesses the folly and physicality to participate. The last record is over 5 hours, this one is anticipated to be 10 hours. Who knows?

Our student tour guide raved about their gym which is said to cost half a million dollars.

Their lecture theatres may not be large but are the state of the art and the best ones are equipped with 8 movable white boards, two projection screens side by side, two large LCD panels for video conferencing, two smaller LCD panels for displaying projected material so that lecturer doesn't need to repeatedly turn his neck back to see the projection screens behind him. All these controlled from a small touchscreen LCD panel. They just haven't made the whiteboards capable of erasing automatically that's all.
The projectors can be controlled to show a freezed frame of the previous slide on one screen and present the new slide on the other. The well-wired room also allows the lecturer to choose to project what is on a student's computer onto the projector screen for discussion, displaying it next to the image of his computer screen.

Things have come a long way. In my time, my lecturers were still using transparencies, if at all.

My two front teeth and my funny hair

2006-11-02T16:34:00.000+08:00

Mummy mummy, can I get a new haircut soon?

Starting afresh

2006-11-02T15:10:00.000+08:00

Recent news report the wife of the criminal who ran off with $10 million has filed for divorce to take over the care of the apartment and childrens' insurance. Wise move. So many people have been betrayed for their faith in the man's character, and no one more so than his wife.

I think to most people, if this event happened to them personally, they would have preferred sudden death of the person than such betrayal. I still cannot fathom how someone who has shown all signs of lovingness to his three daughters and wife, can just abandon them with such ruthless totality. Could greed alone surpassed all that? The situation so challenges your past beliefs about this man that you start to question your own judgement.

Integrity? Love? Faith? Truth? What about this person has truly been real in the past? One doesn't know anymore.
The only plausible theory that I can come up with to explain for his actions is he seized the chance to finally go off to live a life he has secretly wanted all along, forsake easily what had only been a cover, to live above scrutiny and beyond the public reach, given the $10 million to start all over. A life with another man...

Temporary relief

2006-10-27T15:12:00.000+08:00

Finally some downpour. The rains these last couple of days have certainly helped to dissipate the haze.

Singlish

2006-10-27T14:01:00.000+08:00

This will tickle your funny bone for those of you who understand singlish. Check out this skit by two young american teens from the International Community School.

http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/10/the_mr_light_br.html

On foot

2006-10-12T17:40:00.000+08:00

Around Dan Shui on foot.

Dan Shui

2006-10-12T15:18:00.000+08:00

Dan Shui is the last stop on one of Taipei MRT lines. Dan Shui was a fishing village in the past, and still retains a laid-back atmosphere with little shops selling tidbits and folk crafts.

The Dan Shui MRT station

Soak in the atmosphere

2006-10-11T23:55:00.000+08:00

Exciting night life

2006-10-11T23:50:00.000+08:00

I love the night markets here, they are full of surprises and they are, in my opinion, the best I have seen so far in Asia (beating Hong Kong and Bangkok).

This is the Hwa Si night market which is a street of shops that look more commercialised than the stalls outside of this street. A major attraction here is the numerous restaurants selling snake meat soup, with some stalls competing for customers through demonstrations of how the snake is "expired" and hawking on the medicinal properties of snake meat. Understandably, no photos are allowed.

A stall selling crabs.

This is common hawker stall selling pork rib stew in claypots.

Throw a Ball

2006-10-11T22:13:00.000+08:00

This is like the hottest game around Taipei. These stalls seem to be everywhere, in the night markets, in the subway malls, shopping centers and there is always someone playing. Highly popular with both men and women.

See Saw Singing

2006-10-11T17:31:00.000+08:00

Decided to check out other night markets and followed the map which pointed out several such markets around the Longshan temple MRT. As I wandered in the area just outside the MRT, I keep hearing some ghostly singing. It is high-pitch with no decipherable words and actually sounds eerie. I thought my ears must be playing tricks on me. Thankfully, the mystery is solved when my curiosity drew me to check out a crowd of people whose attention are commanded by this performer. It is one interesting yet strange street performance. The things people do to make a living.

I saw a saw singing like no saw can sing,
making me think of what more will spring.
A poor king with no links,
wringing his thing to bring a zing,
Ooh.. tis enough to drive me to drink.

Catching your own supper

2006-10-10T23:18:00.000+08:00

This is the first time I have seen a stall like this. Rows of people squatting on a small stool and bending over oblong containers, trying to hook a small fish or a shrimp with a stick and string. For a fee of NT10, you can buy a stick with a string and fish any number of catch till the string breaks. The string breaks very easily but many people seem addicted to it and keep paying to get a new stick to re-try their luck. Like this angmoh here.
At the corner of the same stall is a charcoal stove with wire rack over it. People can barbecue their catch immediately. Here some people are cooking their own shrimp satay for supper.

Ear Candling

2006-10-10T17:16:00.000+08:00

Hmm.. Taiwanese is a pragmatic lot. No spa experience, no daintly beautician girls fawning over your face. This stall is run by a couple of gruff guys who look like they clean your ears by nite and could be working as fishmongers by day. You need to have some courage to have a burning candle stuck inside your ear while in a contorted sitting position and looked upon by a crowd of curious on-lookers. Well, if something goes wrong, you have dozens of eye witnesses.

A couple of americans were adventurous enough to try out the treatment and looked quite pleased at the end, when the stall man cut open the remaining candle and showed them the powdery clumps of wax in the tube. Quite disgusting. As you can tell, I was quite kaypoh and had sneaked a look at their results.

Shi Lin Night Market

2006-10-10T16:55:00.000+08:00

After hearing the name Shi Lin mentioned so many times, I made myself go visit this night market rather reluctantly, expecting them to be selling teeny bopper clothes. It turned out to be more of a food place.

I don't know why the tourist books tout this as the biggest night market in Taipei, it is your average hawker center size and half of it was closed. Feel a bit kena conned. I might have missed out parts of the real thing but anyway, I am not impressed with what I saw. Thankfully, some bizarre stuff there made up for the disappointment (see subsequent posts)

Rally

2006-10-10T16:29:00.000+08:00

Not sure if I picked the right time or the wrong time to visit Taipei, over their National Day. There's been a month-long rally to depose C.S.Bian, peaking on Oct 10. Hordes of people wearing red take to the streets around the Taipei main station. There are people selling red shirts, red head bands, red handfans, stickers, etc. Despite the crowd, people come with the mentality to carry out peaceful demonstrations so the affair is surprisingly peaceful with loads of people just seating around, shouting slogans "Chen Shui Bian step down!" as led by their leaders.
The atmosphere is almost carnival like with people taking their dogs out, turning up with friends and family of three generations. The streets are floaded with a sea of red. Even at traffic junctions, the people continue to cry their slogans and give the thumbs down as they cross the roads. Their cries echoing down the corridors of the streets. Very drama.
Quite an eye opener for me at how well organised this is overall. It is very impressive and I am almost ready to spent the whole day in their company, figuring my chance of getting arrested for meddling in Taiwan politics is probably slimmer than for voicing partisan views in sgp...Then suddenly a thought interrupted that I still have that Eslite shopping center to conquer which is more challenging and so lah lah lah, I flitted away...

Taipei food

2006-10-09T16:16:00.000+08:00

It is easy to get adjusted to the street food here than to those in Hong Kong. The range is broader than wanton noodles and congee. Surprisingly, I found Taiwan food not expensive, which tells me food in sgp is over-priced. Here is what I paid for S$5 (NT100) at a food court:

set: soupy mee sua, kang kong greens, oyster omelette,

First stop

2006-10-08T17:04:00.000+08:00

The main motivation was to come visit the "ku kung" 古宫 (Taiwan National Palace museum) which houses an astounding 650,000 artefacts removed from palaces in China when the kuo ming tang fled to Taiwan. It is said to have one of the most magnificent museum collections in the world.

One of the most popular pieces is the cabbage jade which the craftsman had ingeniously carved to have the white part of the jade to form the stem of the cabbage while the green part of jade becomes the leaves. The other amazing piece is a jasper rock that resembles a small tender slab of moist and layered pork belly. *slurp*

My favourite section is the curios which make up many of the Imperial toys. In Taiwan, many of the items are kept in its original set such as the Emperor's puzzle boxes fitted with miniatures, I am told those kept in China museums have had theirs taken apart and dispatched to different specialised departments, as a result some of the exhibits there have lost some context.

The really exquite ones are the miniature carvings such as this olive nut (actual size) that made into a small boat holding eight people with animated mannerisms. The bottom of the boat is also carved with 300 characters.

However, above all these items, the one I love most is this set of ivory boxes which have lattice patterns cut into them to form grid-like lace openwork on all its sides. The biggest of this box is perhaps only one inch by half inch, yet it fits 7 other smaller similar boxes (like russian dolls), plus long tiny delicate chains of ivory that ties each cover to its box. Exquisite beyond belief. Most people gasp the first time they lay their eyes on this. Unfortunately, photography is prohibited and I am unable to take away a snap for keepsake and no other pictures of this are in their guidebooks.

You have to be here to see for yourself that these are actually made-made, for it is impossible not to marvel that they are not made by the heavens.

Interesting clouds formations

2006-10-07T23:28:00.000+08:00

I wander freely as a cloud...

Safari

2006-10-05T09:14:00.000+08:00

Our package came with a free entry each to any one of the theme park. The Safari was picked because it charged the most expensive tickets. We went from show to show and got more than we anticipated.

The first video is on the bit in the elephant show where the baby elephant gives a female volunteer a back massage. The second video shows the baby elephant giving the male volunteer a massage. Unfortunately it was not a back massage for him. Not sure if this could be the incident which defined the end of his bloodline.

Melaka

2006-10-05T02:20:00.000+08:00

I launched my break with a trip to Melaka AFamosa resort with a group of friends. We had booked a villa for 8 with a private pool. It all sounded very glam and exciting but it didn't turn out to be Banyan Tree. It looked like the kind of spare house an uncle had let us go over to stay for the weekend and sunken in backyard was a pool. It was clean enough with three rooms, one of which had an attached bathroom. There was a shower room, a kitchen with a fridge, a kettle but opps, no cutlery. We pinched some cutlery at the breakfast table to snack on our supper of cup noodles. Towels and toiletries were provided.

The resort is huge with some 534 hectares of condomiums, houses, theme parks, eateries etc. Open shuttle buses speed around to pick up and drop people off within the compound and they rattle a lot. There is no hair dryer in the villa but you can take a ride in their shuttle services; the trip will do a nice job of whipping your hair about your head and giving it a good blow-dry. Of course, you don't get a choice of hairstyle but a quick comb through with your reliable brycream should pad down all your hair securely enough to survive your return ride.

Not all villas are built equal. The more newly built ones which has more beds are actually not as well maintained, not as thoughtfully designed and also less equipped than the older units which are closer to the reception center. So when you plan a trip here, I recommend you keep the group to 6 so that you can request for the older villas numbered between 200-300, which can only accommodate 6 people.

On our first nite we visited the Cowboy Town theme park which operates from 6pm - midnight. It was not crowded. Almost a ghost town with perhaps 100 visitors. We attended several shows, some were quite literally hot. We were impressed that fireworks are let off every night at 9.45pm. And boy, the works are as good as what you get on national day.

So long and thanks for all the fish

2006-10-05T00:29:00.000+08:00

It is already into October! I have not been able to settle down to blog. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of handover training, interviews, meetings, housekeeping, shredding, lunches, dinners. My colleagues have been fabulous. I will miss them.

I have hardly touched on work on my blog although I have wanted to mention some of the big guns and what an inspiration they have been but as it turned out, it has been kind of hard to find anything interesting to say about men with small pricks.

Trip down little India

2006-09-24T19:07:00.000+08:00

Made a trip down to Mustafa last nite after dinner, the Deepavali (Diwali) lights are up along Little India in peacock decorations. Really pretty.

Mustafa was busy but was only very packed in the old wing.

Betta

2006-09-24T19:03:00.000+08:00

New member to the family, my red fighting fish.

Companion

2006-09-17T22:07:00.000+08:00

Another piece from This is your life:

In any case, I wasn't on my own any more. Now I lived with the beautiful Betty. Betty was young and happy and loved me with all her heart. If she hadn't been a Border collie she might have been the answer to all my problems. She was, however, a constant companion for me - wherever I was in the house, she wanted to be there too. I drew the line at allowing her into the toilet with me, so while I sat on the lavatory she lay on the floor outside with her nose pressed against the crack at the bottom of the floor, snuffling and inhaling deeply for any clues as to what I might be doing in there. For the first couple of years, I'd also had a rule that Betty was not allowed into my bedroom at night. My reasoning had been that no woman I brought home would feel particularly inclined to throw aside her inhibitions and embark upon a wild night of naked sexual passion while a Border collie sat there watching, wagging her tail and barking at sudden movements. At some point I have realised that the absence of a voyeuristic panting sheepdog in my boudoir was not making much difference either way, and so now Betty was permitted to sleep in the same room as me."

mwhahahhaha.

This is your Life

2006-09-17T21:45:00.000+08:00

After devouring John O'Farrell's hilarious "May contain Nuts", Ihave just started on another of his book - "This is your life" which is about this bachelor who has always wanted to be famous and his extraordinary journey of how he bluffed and fumbled all his way to the top until he finds himself about to perform stand-up comedy in front of a packed theatre and live television. Except.. he has never ever performed anything before.

Here is one excerpt of his writing that shakes me with mirth:

"In 300 seconds' time I was supposed to be walking onto the stage with one of London's most famous theatre in front of two thousand specially invited guests. Here, I was to stand on my own under the glare of the lights and perform a brand new stand-up comedy routine, a performance which was, incidentally, being transmitted live on BBC1 to millions of homes across the country, who even now were glued to the spectacle of an all-night charity gala featuring dozens of theur favourite stars.

The prospect made me wonder what it would be like to be a librarian. That must be a nice job, I thought. Surrounded by books all day; warm and quiet, occasionally stamping the return date on a Catherine Cookson novel, smiling at the old lady and handing the book back to her. 'Due back on the twenty-fourth, Edna." Yes, I could live with that. There must be some stresses and personal pressures I supposed, having to stay late when there was 5 pence missing from the fines box or whatever, but I bet you don't often have to go out and perform a stand-up comedy routine live in front of millions of people. "

Shopping Carts

2006-09-17T21:17:00.000+08:00

Have been caught up in the whirl of things. Haven't penned a thing in awhile and starting to feel somewhat guilty but then I reminded myself, it's okay really no one will miss it. Still got residual pictures from my UK trip like the above and Kit's pictures to share Soon to be old news..Already now (too) busy researching for the best flight and best hotel for my next trips.

Character Design competition

2006-09-04T21:53:00.000+08:00

Here is a competition to shoot for:

"Calling all Animators, Illustrators, Interactive Designers, Game Developers...
Got an original character idea that you feel will make a great animation, storybook, comic, game or toy? Use the Web as a canvas to showcase your cool new characters and their worlds!

Synthesis is a content initiative that supports innovation and creative digital productions made for the Web. This year, the search is on for the best online character-based projects. Up to S$10,000 will be awarded for each approved project to be produced.

Application closes: 31 December 2006

More info at: http://www.synthesis.net.sg

Walk in the park

2006-09-02T18:57:00.000+08:00

Picca(ah)soh's latest effort

As changeable as the English weather

2006-08-30T23:47:00.000+08:00