chronicle SINs

Gone with the wind

2009-03-26T14:33:00.003+08:00

Mar 09 marks the month of bidding goodbyes. Death is such a hard word, bidding (forever) goodbyes sounds more gentle. Suddenly during one week there have been influxes of colleagues' parent/grandparent passing away one after another. And that just yesterday got news of a ex-colleague which though I do not know of well passed away in his sleep. And last and not least, my father's pet our parrot passed away this morning 11am plus. Seems that recruitment in the underworld has started and intaking a lot of people.

Dedicating this blog to her, a long lived parrot and smart one. Live to a ripe age of 32, by parrot standard benchmark an average parrot life span is 20-25. Though at times you might loud noisy and I don't understand what you want, you have been a good joy giver and house care taker. When stray birds flew into our house you will call out and not to forget cockroaches.

Hope you will find a new life on the other side of the world.

Nanjing Trip Recap

2009-01-25T20:55:00.003+08:00

Went along with a pal to Nanjing during the New Year and was wanting to write and post photos up for a while le, but haven't got a chance to settle down. Even now, here's a short brief of it :)

Nanjing Trip Itineary - Here goes.

Day 1 :-
12pm: Train from Shanghai to Nanjing, reach NJ around 2.30pm
2.30pm: From train station take the MRT to hotel, check in.
3.30pm: Tour around the outskirt of Xuanwu Lake, just nice walk down to a temple
5pm++: Jimingsi Temple (鸡鸣寺), in time for a prayer/offering for a start of the year!
6pm+: Proceed to Qinhuai River, visited Confucious Temple, Wuyi Alley, Qinhuai River. Too cold to take the boat but since CNY is around the corner great festive spirit of lanterns
7.30pm+: Dinner @ Qinhuai River and proceed back to hotel for rest
11pm: Got rallied to visit the pub bar street called 1912. Restored place from the old western residence style, nice alley. Drink to head spinning and left back for zzzz.

Day 2:-
11am: Late morning start up, decided to visit the Ming Emperor Tomb and Zhongshan Ling (Resting place of Father of China Sun Yatsen)
12.30pm: From public transport reach Ming Emperor Tomb, bought join ticket to visit both places. Fatal mistake not to have lunch in the city since this outskirt hill doesn't offer lunch canteen :(
1pm: Started the trip to explore Ming Emperor Tomb, huge place!
3pm: Proceed to explore Zhongshan Ling. 392 steps to climb to reach to the top to view the resting place of Father of China. That's a 20 storey high building equavilent, omg!
4pm: Down the steps, unfortunately lost my tickets, cannot proceed to visit the other tourist spots and pagoda temple on the same spot :(
5pm: Take public tourist bus to visit the President House, unfortunately it's closing hour now! Argh. Rest & break around 1912.
6pm: Dinner at Xinjiekou, shopping heart of Nanjing.
9pm: Rest relax @ hotel, too tired.

Day 3:
11am: Late start again - brunch at Xinjiekou.
1pm: Visited the President residence, this time it's open. It's also home to many office in olden days - 江南两江总督，太平天国emperor palace...
3pm: Teak break time, weather on 3rd day was colder and gloomy than first 2 dayss.
4.30pm: Foot massage and there after ready to take train back SH.

Trip photo view here
http://public.fotki.com/chronicle-sins/nanjing-09-new-year-trip/

Happy 牛 Year!

2009-01-25T20:49:00.002+08:00

Let's welcome the bull!

2009-01-22T13:52:00.003+08:00

As the ox years come nearer, I am also closer to going home!

However with this year reading the news around bring gloomy news of economic recession, export contraction...Although I am oversea working the news that I read of SG having -5 to -2% GDP growth is not positive at all. But one thing I am for sure is that we will be able to turn negative to positive in a shorter time.

United we stand we should be able to tide over such dull session as what we have been doing before.

Early wish for a Happy Chinese New Year! May the bull brings us all a bright & prosperous year ahead!

* will post my Nanjing trip photos up when I am back in SG.

'Meh' enters English dictionary

2008-11-17T23:52:00.001+08:00

LONDON - 'MEH", a word which indicates a lack of interest or enthusiasm, became the latest addition to the Collins English Dictionary on Monday.

The word, which beat hundreds of other suggestions from members of the public, will feature in the 30th anniversary edition of the dictionary, which is to be published next year.

Though the word apparently originates from North America, Collins said it was now widely used on the Internet, and was increasingly seen in British spoken English. [More...]

Isn't it because sg use more?

I guess from now on, it's common to use 'meh'?

Giant Drop

2008-11-14T08:26:00.002+08:00

Colleague going to visit Australia around end of the month. Australia always remind me of my little fortunate trip that I have from my NS time. And while introducing the different places at Gold Coast, the three worlds immediately came to my thought. Of course the most notorious ride of all - the Giant Drop still never fails to wipe out from my memory.

EXTREME FACTOR
Free fall time is 5 seconds.
The cruise to the top takes approximately 90 seconds.
Falling 120 metres is the equivalent of falling from a 39-storey building.

Based on the above, I can't believed that I did this ride before. The 5 second drop has been the most thrilling ride that I ever have - after it stopped on the ground, I still remember I haven't shake off the dropping experience. On top, I have a bird eyes view of the city, the tallest buildings are under my feet!

Comparing now and then I think if I will to go and select a theme park now I will want to visit the Sea World and see the dolphins and fishes. While they also have those rides, I do not think they will be that wild and fearless as compared to the Dream World. The last that I tried these rides at Suzhou amusement park I started to wonder if age have already catch up...

Real Life Pickpocket Scene

2008-11-06T23:48:00.003+08:00

Pickpockets - I finally seen the Xinjiang thieves in action last Saturday when I am walking towards the train station. Facing directing the Ah Yi (aunty) who was cycling in her bicycle with her handbag hanging by her hip near to the side of the road, it invited 2 Xinjiang thieves to sneak behind her. This one young chap 20+ sneak quietly behind her bicycle and went to start unzipping her handbag quietly. I was like wow, this act happening live in front of my eyes and wondering if I should give hint or what to the Ah Yi.

Another thought comes to me that if I hint in very obvious way, I might then be inviting myself for a bash by these 2 Xinjiang-ers and that from colleagues stories there might be some more ambushing in the background. Such hard act - to hint or keep quiet...

It didn't take long for a decision to happen. For the Ah Yi find something unusual and turn her head around (maybe it's me staring too long to the guy direction) and then started to ask "hey what you doing". Think she still haven't realised the whole situation yet. Seeing that the act kind of failed the Xinjiang-er like couldn't do much while the Ah Yi quickly cycle off. As for me I also quickly dash across the road seeing that the road is empty. In any case they might want to blame me if things failed I still have the traffic as a hurdle.

Thereafter I didn't turn my back to see as it might invite them to think further or what, so I continue to walk as usual for the next 100m till outside of KFC. There I stopped and pretend to wait for friend while scouting their image to see if they will still be lingering around. And obviously the answer is yes, they continued to prey for their next victims...sigh. Therafter I went off to meet my friend for lunch.

Xinjiang-ers nothing much good reputations about them throughout the cities of China. The local have marked them like this -> either they are satay stick sellers by the road (something decent) or they are pickpocket! Pickpocket wise can be as young as small boys of seven or eight years old. According to the locals, the police can't really do much about them. At most they will send them back when they are caught red-handed as there is a law protection against this "minority" group. Such halo protection, I wonder if it do more good or harm since their reputation has much been tarnish by pickpocketing...

Cupping

2008-10-14T10:14:00.002+08:00

Yesterday went for 拔罐! First time that I tried this method of reliefing my cold qi inside my body. Have been having cold and nose block for a long while, and saw another colleague who had even worse nose block got better the next weekend when she went for this method. So miraclely I thought to myself and decided to give it a try.

The whole process was short like 15 minutes and wasn't painful. When the cup was on the body it feels like having a vaccum suck onto your body. During the process I can really feel some of the cold qi out of my body, especially my one sided nose block got cleared off immediately after the process completed. That night I have the most wonderful sleep, as all the previous nights are plagued by the nose block.

The only post-threatment effects is that you got this cup marks on your body. If the mark is extreme purplish, that means you have intense cold qi in your body while extreme red means you are heaty. I have purplish mark with 1-2 extreme purple mark on my left shoulder and middle of back. A week after the treatment, I am now recovering from this very tradditional healing process.

This week has been an hectic weeks with friends who came in and out and also our design interns from TP went back. Write about them another time.

5km Track Mill Run

2008-08-21T09:38:00.001+08:00

Running track mill 5 km record now stands at 30:02min!

Anyone got the timing for the IPPT at the track mill one?

Happy Birthday Singapore

2008-08-10T15:09:00.003+08:00

Happy Birthday Singapore, 43 years old isn't a short period nor long period. But I know that it isn't a smooth path that Singaporean has taken nor will it be smoother in the future. Coincidentially the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony chosen by the Chinese is on Aug 8, even of our National Day. The opening ceremony I watch on TV was magnificent, shall blog another time then.

Trying to make a sense

2008-07-31T10:12:00.003+08:00

Life changed a bit after thew office have a shuffling action in early July. But other than that life is still normal, getting on with the new people, new management...don't feel like and not much to blog on that especially.

Feel like blogging but today the mind is just blank. The wind outside is strong due to the effects of the typhoon storm outside the coast of South China Sea. At least it's bringing breeze to the hot summer here in Shanghai. Never seen a real typhoon, and sometimes I do wonder if there will be a typhoon in the path to Shanghai or near Shanghai, that be scary...

Things that I want to do most of the time I am half-heart to do. Thoughts triggering me that I should do this and that but action wise still have to persuade myself more to it.
- plan for trip, hoping for monthly one trip out of shanghai
- plan for longer trip to outskirts of China: Beijing, Xian, Sichuan, etc...

BTW, security sucks, they are so tight at everywhere now in China...

This piece of words is like muttering nonsense, pardon me for this morning...

Red Cliff

2008-07-20T22:28:00.001+08:00

Yah hands up for Red Cliff! Can't wait for part two!

Life grouch...

2008-07-02T13:27:00.002+08:00

I'm going GYM.
I've went GYM twice, once per week over the last 2 weeks.
It's been probably like about 3 years since that I visited GYM.

Tried light weights around all the stations, body muscle all aching now.
Still like the track mill, the auto set 5km run is still my favourite.
5km run initially covered around 42mins ...
second try to cover around 37 mins.
I'm loving running!

Summer is here, heat is burning and that acne is spurring like volcano...
Keep saying to myself it be another 6 months before I packed and leave Shanghai in the winter.
Keep telling myself that I have broaden and engage with people
but then sometimes it's just so tiring to everyday meet up with people.

Lease expiring, landlord is kind yet calculative...
Should I look for another place with half year lease or just stay on
Grew to like my tiny place, yet the resident watching eyes at the gate are just horrifying...

I thought I knew the world well enough, but I was wrong.
People of all sorts, really amuse and surprise me on the things that they do.
Solutions are not all perfect thus leading to people succumbing to quicker means,
is this world too realistic and cynical?

* after thoughts... feel like writing poem/essay...

Short Break - Jun 08

2008-06-08T23:29:00.002+08:00

A week of breakaway from the office...feels so good to be away. Except that if the office work still bugs me for like one and half day with the sudden pop-up of meeting with SG client. Marliha's wedding was nice, although I think I still prefer to attend those tradditional malay wedding type. It got more atmosphere...and also the food :P

Nice gathering and catching up of the ex-blue gang, there's a invisible bond in there that is linking us altogether despite the years down and working at new places. New topics started to sprout in for those who are reaching 30s - buying house, wedding, etc. A topic that I can only wonder but still no solution to the named two issue.

Sacrasim seems to be in the play for the week. Given me a blissful wedding to attend and also give me a funeral. Out of the blue on Wednesday evening, received a call from my aunt that my mom's uncle's wife passed away. Met her a few times during CNY and festive ocassion, was a nice person and always appear lovely and cheerful. When I went back to visit my grandma during CNY also visit her and saw her in the pink of health. A stroke of misfortune with the impropoer handling of a poison with a type of fish just took her life away just like that. Perphaps this phase from one of the Chinese copywriter on MSN is more comforting when he used it for the 5.12 Sichuan Earthquake... "一定是上帝不忍心看他们在人间痛苦，所以带他们去了天堂"

Keep walking

2008-05-21T22:07:00.005+08:00

My one year stay since Jul 07 in China seems to have quite some happening natural disaster, luckily that I am not directly hit by any of the disaster. Going down the list.

Sep 07 bring along a typhoon sweeping through the land of China. Coming in from Fujian and on it's route up to Dalian track, it did not go onto track of Shanghai but nearby vicinity. During the 2 days when the typhoon was near to Shanghai, school were announced public holiday while some companies also shut down their office. However I have to work, and don't know why that 2 days was rather peaceful and calm :D

Jan 08 close the the CNY brings along the biggest snow disaster in China. It hasn't snowed for the longest time in the southern part of China, making rail tracks frozen and unable to link up to different cities, province of China. Many of workers are trapped in their working cities and unable to go back home for CNY.

Now May 08, the Sichuan earthquake brings along another sad tragedy. Watching the news, tv clips or video online brings a sadden picture of the fatal earthquake and that human are just too weak to brave against the natural wrath. However we also see the greatest difference in humanity is that we fought and show care towards the casualties regardless of where we come from and the effort that we put in.

Many donations were called upon, and our SG brand Breadtalk in Shanghai has this red bean bread shaped in form of crying panda to raise fund for the Sichuan earthquake.

While this earthquake rocks the homeland of Sichuan, I also see that it also unite the heart of the Chinese and that they will be able to brave on any other challenges.

Lastly, my condolence to the deceased and pray that those who live on continue to strong, strive on and that I am really fortunate to be in SG.

Xiamen full trip snippnets

2008-05-07T23:40:00.011+08:00

In response to Saffyz blog on the gang's KL trip over the May 1 to attend Tammy's wedding, on the other end of the world has another fun story to tell on Xiamen island!

Zam was in XM earlier last week but got off guarded by the Labour Day holiday, and happens that I can fly down to XM to meet him for some little XM tour about ahaha. Our trip were joined by 2 NYP interns - Justin who likes to mix his hokkien/teochew with his english (singlish maybe) but I like it as it sound really natural (maybe to me or sg people) ahaha and Sev a nice man of few words with his leisure in dragon boat and bleach anime/manga.

Here goes the fun snippets and moments...

Day 1

Snippet #1: Was very pissed off by the Chinese immigration for confiscating my acne cleanser lotion as it's a flammable liquid. Carried in out of SG and HK airport with no issues, this stupid HQ custom has to say it's flammable despite me saying that it's a medicine and my doctor did not issue any medical doc for that. Further more it's lesser than 100 ml, it's only 30 ml. Till now I'm still unhappy with their action...wonder what channels can I complain to. Adding to my frustration was my stupid flight was delayed 45 mins on ground because of some late comer who did not board before door closing and that they have to apply for his special condition to aviation authority...sighz.

Snippet #2: Visit to Gu Lang Yu island was pretty much okay, nothing special except to see some candle wax figurine and weird creature museum. J. was terrific to help the Zam and us get student price ticket to the wax museum where later he has taken many funny shots with figurines of Beckam and few others.

This photo was taken by a lady who called Sev "帅哥" who asked him to take a photo of them keke. Guess the rest not shuai enough ahaha

Snippet #2.1: The light bulb. At this stone, a couple was there earlier, girl posing while guy snapping away. Then they proceed to sit at the top of the stone. Too bad for J. who wanted to take a scenic photo of the s. Zam wanted to help in by posing as a light bulb, however seems that his light bulb power not strong or what, the couple just refuse to move. After we went up to take more photos they still remains there, and when they went down another batch of people came up. Well too bad for J., you have to photoshop out those other unnecessary views :P

Snippet #3: Steakhouse ~ Zam was confused with how much % of his steak to be cooked, initially wanted 60% and changed to 70%. Still doesn't help or maybe it's the herbs gravy causes him to have stomachache and that he says he stuck in the toilet for an hour plus in the night, while i already zzz... poor thing...

Snippet #4: There's a shopping street (Xi Chun) by Xiamen University which we went after dinner. See what Zam has, watched out that you won't get scared in the night with his cursed doll! Luckily that night he brought back didn't have crawl out of any cabinet or what hehe.

We made a visit to a pub and stay up till 1am chit chatting, been a while that I have not do that...nice...^_^. The pub people probably be quite pissed with us moving around tables, chair to get our good cool seats, too bad, your aircon not turn on.

Day 2:

Snippet #5: Nothing much to write about the day trip, except strolling along by the new beach Guanyin shan, XM Railway station and Zhongshan Road.

Night spent at Nice foot massage brought by Zam, but seems that the young boys are first timer and that their expressions are funny with the masseur. Many of them felt ticklish while the masseur has used the lightest pressure. And oh btw, if you are scared of tickle it's rumored you are scared of your wife hehe :P

Snippet #6: Arrgh, maybe Zam and I are just too old, lost 2 battles of DOTA to the young ones. Played game till 2.30am untill Justin's GF have to keep her tab on him. Maybe we are intruding the couple midnight chit-chat, so after that phone they went back to zzz. What a nice boy!

Day 3

Snippet #7: As in China not enough, I have to chance upon Alex's (my company intern) course mate inside Xiamen University. In the previous week before, I was having breakfast at McDonald and that sitting next to me was his friend chit-chatting away without noticing me. Told you walls have ears, I recognised one of them as met before and that he still bring along that NUS jacket... Now of all place in Xiamen I have to see them before Tan Kah Kee's statue. But while I recognise him we don't know him, is this what they can 有缘千里来相会无缘对面不相逢?

Snippet #8: Interrogation and confusion of Justin; We were curious of the 2 passport size photos in Justin's wallet, one of which is himself the other his GF lah. If you wondering why, it's because it's 2 separate passport size photos. Duh, if you are in relationship won't you have a couple shot photo? Get it? So Zam and I decided to ask him. So nice of him to confuse to us that both them didn't really care about take photo and when the last minute want to take neoprint, the shops disappear, close down or not around... I highly reserved my thoughts on this as I think places like bugis junction should have all these kind of stuffs.

End Conclusion:
Had fun over the May 1 holiday, better than me stuck in Shanghai. Only thing is that it leaving me a tinkle yearning for more such fun, it's been a while since a group activity. It is always fun traveling with a group together. Guess all ends well with MSN contacts, the wonder of the new age.

Xiamen Visit - May 1, 08

2008-05-04T11:57:00.002+08:00

Can't shrug off the short fun days at Xiamen for the May 1 holiday...Happy moments are always short, why?

After a year away from Xiamen, I see there are significant changes on the island. More newer version of the cabs (glad they changed that as the old ones should really go scrap yard), LRT train construction, more highways and stuffs. With new things there are old things that goes, the street shopping style by the Xiamen University is to be relocated for carpark construction next week. The new building for the relocated shops won't have the same flavour...wonder why they need so much car park space for...

The things that I like about XM is the nice breezy weather, the sun and maybe some hokkien dialect language which is familiar with, although I am not a hokkien. I still admit that I get confused with hokkien and my native teochew language.

Shall attempt to visit Xiamen once a year or so to see the changes, in the mean while I am still in the XM holiday mood, and also the yearning to go back SG, caused by reading blog from the NYP students...

5 Tips for Interactive!

2008-04-26T23:12:00.007+08:00

MSN Phenonom

2008-04-16T13:17:00.002+08:00

Love China, the resultant support of the Chinese for the olympic torch relay. In the face of the many difficulties that they encountered, they stand together to support their own country. On my MSN today (1pm) this the screen of the viral of Love China.

Camera Phone

2008-04-13T18:44:00.002+08:00

Missing my Sony Ericsson K750i for the cybershot camera functionality. It does have difference over the normal camera len that I am using Nokia E51 now. I like the Wifi functionality on the Nokia E51, which is why I bought it. Waiting for the next release from SE, hopefully having the WiFi and Cybershot camera, and that it's within my budget...

Manga Graffiti

2008-04-13T18:41:00.002+08:00

Nice graffiti in this manga building in Shanghai. See if you recognise who he is.

Overnight Hong Kong Trip

2008-04-13T18:32:00.004+08:00

The trip to Hong Kong incurred me below...close to HKD 1200. Something that I doubt I do in the past in Singapore keke. Oh yes must put my reason why coz my bag for the trip cannot hold the goodies from client...and I have to buy a bag, which later got up sale by the cute sales girl. She still continue to up sale me to buy others, luckily I stopped keke...

Moving on...

2008-03-15T18:47:00.002+08:00

Another add on to the dazy day of Mar 15, the travel agency which I always booked my air ticket to Shanghai has these 2 friendly CS. One of them let named her LY resigned last year Jul, but was then asked to come back. And about 4 hours ago, I got this thank you email from her telling her valued client that she is moving on...

What a day...

Shanghai Saturday

2008-03-15T16:21:00.003+08:00

Saturday morning... wake up with a daze that carries my soul with the lack of sleep feeling and yet the body is feeling tormented with tireness. As I ate my coco crunch breakfast and watch bleach episode 164, the humour in there doesn't make me laugh. The TV shows the getaway of Jiu Zai Gou, a nice place one day I will visit!

As afternoon will be spent in the office, I make a trip to Zhongshan Park Carrefour to run some errands. Gloomy mode seems to tag along with me as I found one of my favourite hang out restaurant decided to shift out of Zhongshan Park. Feng Long Bak Tuk Tek restaurant to my dismay was vacant, I haven't visit this place for 1 week and it became like this sigh. Another one lesser reason to visit Zhongshan Park... Saw the tag on the new address, haven't check it out, hope it's not too far out for I won't visit.
**Just checked, it isn't the way...doubt I will make frequent visit unless I hunger for it...sigh***

Groceries at Carrefour was as usual, if not for the cereal pack that I want to get, I wouldn't have visited Carrefour. Over at my place opens a new supermaket called City Market, nowadays I get my stuffs from there. Seems like it's targetting foreigners as there are many imported food. I saw australian, usa imported stuffs and singapore fish ball! Fish ball tempted me to buy back and I have been having microwave fish ball soup in some of the days this week.

11plus I have my early lunch at Master Curry. It was Master Curry that lighten up my day. Didn't expect their curry to be spicy, thought it was those lousy type, but I am surprised. Although spicy but still I like it, for I been having stuffed nose and cold during this week that I have no taste for any other food. Food and service at this restaurant was comparably better than elsewhere which prompt me to ask for a feedback form.

Alas, they do not have the feedback form, but I think I cheered up a bunch of chefs and waitress when I asked for that. Nevertheless I requested for a blank piece of paper and wrote my good comments of them and left.

As it seems fated, no cab for me to go back home from Zhongshan. Took the bus and at my place I have to walk a short distance from the bus stop. At the cross road junction, 2 SG-ers are chatting and the gal was speaking in English with a loud voices. I turned my head and saw many people turning their head with an expression looking at them. From their conversation I immediately knew that they are SG-ers!

Fellows SG-ers, they are NTU students on NOC exchange program here in Shanghai. Got an NUS intern here in office but their uni is far compared to this NTU one which is just a short distance walk from my office or home! Anyway I decided to approach them and start a conversation, and found out that the guy actually stayed 1 block down the street! I thought before that I am one of those few SG-ers living around this area, as most bunch of NTU/NUS people stays around in Zhongshan!

Phone or Camera?

2008-03-15T16:19:00.000+08:00

Snowy Snowy Shanghai

2008-02-17T21:43:00.002+08:00

Snow snow in Shanghai, one of the biggest event in Jan. Back posting this photos, before people say I didn't update blog mwhaha...

*ps my first time seeing snow


	More photos

A New Year, A New Hope

2008-01-05T14:31:00.000+08:00

A New Year, A New Hope?

Tell me about that, hehe...

15 days and going

2007-12-17T23:21:00.000+08:00

15 days consecutively and on-going...
i wonder how much longer will it last or have a day rest...
is this insane, or where is the cause of the problem?

Fake punk beggar

2007-11-24T20:47:00.000+08:00

Something prompt me to write this blog when I went for dinner - fake beggar.

On this walkway to the train station, I saw this young chap sitting on a skate board and decently dressed with a converse star hood and left ear have a stub. In front of him is a cart board with a marker and on it writes "急于无奈需要28RMB回杭州". To translate it means "desperate by circumstance, need 28rmb to get back to Hangzhou". Heard many stories of fake beggar most of time I ignored them.

Now on the opposite direction got one lady who passed by and have a look at the cart board. By then I have past that punk but turned back to see if the lady decides to donate to him. And probably out of sympathy, I saw her taking out 30rmb and pass to the young punk. That youngster took the money and subsequently fold the card board into half and took with him the skate board and begin to walk away.

Now I was curious if this is a case of fake or genuine attempt to borrow money. Thus I decided to slow down my pace and tailed behind him to see what's his next step. He walked from corridor A to corridor B where the ticketing machine is and get into the queue to buy a ticket. Seeing this, I went to top up my card, since my queue is shorter than his and that it looks real enough. On my turn with the counter person, I saw him walking away from his queue which I thought he had bought a ticket and going to get onto the train platform.

Instead of going into the train ticketing gantry, he walk in the main corridor. Seeing this I decided to tail him to observe some more. In my thought, I thought maybe this line isn't the right train line to get home, or maybe he went up to take bus. As the corridor was crowded, I missed him at a turn-about. And so I thought maybe time for me to go for my dinner, but since I am at the cross-way back to the original begging pavement, I decided to take a peek into that pavement.

Alas, it was disappointing. He went back to the same spot, cart board folded out again and sitted there to wait for another kind soul for donation. And so it proved one theory - most beggars in S Shanghai city are likely to be fake. Enough of him thereafter I went for an hour dinner and going back, since I have to walk past that corridor, I take note to see if he is there. This time, I thought of taking a photo of him to put onto my blog, but at that moment decided not. When I begin to leave, I saw him like starting to pack up, I think he probably remembered me as I hover around his spot on the second time for a while. After chatting MSN online with Lorinda, it occurred to me that his scene of buying ticket is an act as likely he has sensed that I am observing him. At the moment when I am busy with the top up counter, he made his sneak away! You might say I maybe having this petty thought but after putting things together, it somehow seems to be the case!

There is one more fake act which I heard from my colleague, think I shall leave it for my future blog such that I have stories to write.

The New Dawn of Solar

2007-11-22T17:35:00.000+08:00

Is this going to be the new solar energy harness?

Happy Reading...

"Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity. From there, you can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air. Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well, because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than burning coal. That’s the promise of thin-film solar cells: solar power that’s ubiquitous because it’s cheap. The basic technology has been around for decades, but this year, Silicon Valley–based Nanosolar created the manufacturing technology that could make that promise a reality. "

2007 record breakers

2007-11-22T17:14:00.000+08:00

Year 2007 I have set a few records, here are some listing.

- visited more countries (NS days not counted)
- stayed more days oversea (you know where) than in singapore
- all time breakers in entire life at night spots
- view the first ever gaming tournament live, and have dinner and took photo with star gamers
- write emails in Chinese, altot much still in English still
- trip to USA, Santa Monica
- ate mostly bread/buns for breakfast, i miss my hometown breakfast varieties :P
- japanese meal either for lunch or dinner
- foot massage, how can i forget this (added 23/11)

Night spots, got to clarify that I don't go there to drink and I still don't really enjoy or like those joints, mainly due to the loud music and smoky environment. However job nature the client is in the liquer industry and we are doing the digital implementations for them I have to be on ground during those days and went out to observe some others....For those who like pubbing probably will like this job, but I am tired and weared out by those late nights...

Bread/buns for breakfast, I am easy with breakfast. When in Singapore, Dad will always wake up early to go have his breakfast and thus take back goodies SG breakfast for us. This one thing I miss, of course there are Chinese breakfast here but most of time I stock up bread the night before. I just don't like going out on empty stomach. Sometimes on weekend I will then make trips to McDonald for the Big Breakfast or Egg Muffin.

Japanese food - why? Cause of all selections they are the healthiest, less oily and salts. The people here have a preference to eat food with a sweet tooth. However I think we are now more health conscious thus we have begin to scale down our taste bud to have less favor and yet tasty food. Singapore food is readily available at reasonable price once in a week or so will visit SG restaurants to have good home food.

Lecture Room

2007-10-23T22:03:00.000+08:00

The early week of Oct I been reading this 2 books from the Chinese show - Lecture Room (百家讲坛). Was flipping thru the TV channels in Late September and found a Fudan professor giving a lecture on the Journey to the West, the actual account of the walks of tripitaka from China to India.

Interesting to see how he dared to venture out of China to pursue his dream of obtaining the real sutra of Buddha. At the time, the Tang Dynasty was just founded and there is a law in place that restricts all citizens to travel out of China.

A comparision of his characteristics against the historical fact book Journey to the West shows that he is more courage and witty than what is portrait in the novel. In the novel he has to rely on his mighty disciplices to overcome dangers and demons. While in his records, we see that he is very faithful to his religion and after numerous encounters with bandit, he knows how to handle them well.

Other book that I am reading is this "品三国", bought the first part of the book last year but leaving it on the shelf until like this month read finish the first book. Got the second book but comparing to the first book, I am reading it slowly. Interesting disection of the three kingdom account and how some of the facts are not real in the novel. Example are the empty city besiege, they were debating that it cannot be real based on few reason, one mainly being Sima Yi was in Jinzhou as the governor at the time.

I like the way he analyse it clearing that there are always 3 version of stories passed down...
1) Historical record are not always true, it is based on people's writing perception.
2) Literature adaption, purely for drama, filming purpose so that it looks nicer.
3) Rumors among the citizen, thus making it hard to trace the accuracy.

Like the 3rd one, in spreading of Buddhism, Guan Yin was the wrong translation from the original language. Tripitaka wants to correct it but as it has been the commoner recognised and tongue, it's very hard to correct it once it has been out. Other reason being since it's a practice of religion, it doesn't matter if it's correct as long as you hold true to your faith.

Nowadays been playing games rather than blogging, but hope to write at least one article per month if not so...

September Archive!

2007-10-08T10:12:00.000+08:00

Hmm a month plus no updates, time to archive my blogs from memories...

Sept 07 - trip to Chengdu to witness and experience the world of digital gaming. They have star gamers just like your soccer stars, and people idolize them, get their signature, have photo taken with them...! Of the popular ones that were at the event are China - WE.Sky, WE.XiaoT, from Korean Sweet and Moon! BTW, they specialize in playing warcraft and have been battling each other all over the world in different competitions.

The next was somewhat over publicize and kinda turn out in dismay - Typhoon Wipha! Reports says Typhoon Wipha is one of the greatest disaster to hit China and especially bring great damages to Shanghai, the economic city of China. Typhoon Wipha came and went for all you know. Heavy rain poured in Shanghai when I was sleeping away. Big wind gusting on the road took me quite an effort to face the head wind obstacle on the next day morning to work. On the day that they declared school be closed, few companies also shut their office (but not mine), and can see the street quiet and peaceful. That day the weather was also nice but people on msn was asking me how's the typhoon and they were shocked to received replies saying nice and sunny!

Adult Expo

2007-08-12T21:02:00.000+08:00

Before you proceed reading, discretion here is that you must be of adult age in your own country keke, otherwise please exit.

Today did something naughty haha... saw on this magazine guide that this weekend there's this Adult Exhibition at the Shanghai Exhibition center. Thus I went to see and did exploration in the exhibition hall. The adult toys were a bit too common haha, whereas there's this part showcasing karma sutra collection is more interesting. Was supposedly photography prohibited but I came in from the other entrance and snap some of it already. Where as some of the latter I secretly took as they are just too interesting...view them here. Password protected, u can guess or ask me for it :P

There is this board that explains the chinese character, there are like couple of 100 over characters associated with sex! Some of them are 吉,士,妻,乃,今,舍...And these are documented since early Tang dynasty...

Other stuffs that I see...
- Karma sutra painting (supposedly to ward off evil at home)
- Wooden p***s (note saying this widow using for own satisfaction)
- 3 person fun (go figure out yourself)
- P***s worship statue

Too bad can't capture all haha...

Living in SH

2007-08-10T17:54:00.000+08:00

Just move into my new rented apartment place, luckily I didn't rent a bigger space. It be so weird to live alone with so big a space, probably i am not too used to it. The week before was hunting around for apartment, 1st one saw was very basic but was in my preferred area. I think I still like that area - Zhongshan though, but given that up when I thought find a place nearer to office, don't need to squeeze in the train and bus.

2nd place that the agent found was on the 6th storey! Place was big, with like resonance European furniture. Place was near to office, and train station, but the thought of 6th storey I decided against it. BTW, not in Zhongshan.

3rd place I saw was a bit far off from the Zhongshan central, but all the furniture was new and was the only one the bedroom has TV and some more flat screen TV! But too bad I don't like the location. I tried calling the agent back after viewing this one on the 2nd choice but snap up within 3 days of difference/waiting... Yeah I was told the better house rental get snap up immediately.

Lastly was this current one, sleeker, place 15mins walk to office, prob. 20 mins walk to the nearest train station. And I am so tired of looking around so I settled down for this one.

Sicked in SH

2007-08-01T19:03:00.000+08:00

Being sick and alone is no fun in a foreign land, especially in China. I felt terribly sicked yesterday, think I caught a flu. A day at work just can't seems to be relief off and have to strove myself through it. Luckily I can still endure it. When I got back apartment, I just ate my medicine and then slept very early around 9 plus till the next day 7.30am. Initially I really got difficulty falling asleep so early.

Food is also something that when you sick you wish you have something lighter, especially maybe your mom homecooked good porridge or soup. Or there's somebody who can help you bring back food, but here I am all on my own.

And come to think of it, today is 1 Aug, one month of my contract job has completed, another 11 more months to go hehe. And the next long holiday in China, I shall also be back in SG, which is also not too far away!

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

2007-07-30T18:50:00.000+08:00

You Are A Pine Tree

You love agreeable company, peace, and harmony.
Compassionate and friendly, you love to help others.
A natural poet, you have a very active imagination.
You are very soft on the inside - needing affection and reassurance.
You can fall in love deeply, but you will leave if you feel betrayed.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

Moving on

2007-07-23T21:44:00.000+08:00

I didn't really want to make it known but thought it might be alright to publicise my whereabout now officially. Some of you might have already know, I have accepted a year contract job to work in Shanghai. I didn't want to disclose the company name as with Google and such search engine, it's easily link which I didn't want to. For those who wants to know, please IM me.

Wish me luck and for those who wants to visit Shanghai, buzz me to bring you around.

Rubber Duckie World Expedition

2007-07-21T00:33:00.000+08:00

They were toys destined only to bob up and down in nothing bigger than a child's bath - but so far they have floated halfway around the world. And these bunches of rubber ducks are going to land on British shores after 15 years of journey. How interesting hehe.

Perhaps this is the arrangement of mishap turning into something of a fortunate incident. The cargo ship carrying the cargo met with a storm and the box was damaged causing the rubber ducks (there's turtle and frogs too) to be spilled into the sea. One good deed was that they help scientist to study the ocean current! [More news]

Sometimes I wonder what Gaia really arranges for us.

Rude awakening of Optimus Prime

2007-07-17T22:39:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Lorinda featured on her blog, for you leisure....

Revamp of Template

2007-07-17T11:35:00.000+08:00

As you can see I have revamp my template, more testing/revamping to find a suitable one is still in progress...

Home, IPPT and NSC

2007-07-17T10:03:00.000+08:00

It's just so good to be back at home.

My wake up hours is actually motioned by timing and the sunrise. Singapore although also GMT+8, however the sunrise is actually later than that of Shanghai. I can get decent sleep till 8am in Singapore. Maybe it's the worry free, since the timing around 8am or so I will get up. But in Shanghai, I will wake up in the midst of the night/early morning to see what time is it. Initially I wasn't use to the sunrise in Shanghai, the sun comes up like 4/5 am which just dash all my sleeping modes thereafter....

Am back for a couple of things and especially for the notorious IPPT. Before taking I was having the notion of going through the motion to take for the sake of taking. Since I didn't really train all the while, except with the occasional run on Sunday morning at the park in Shanghai...I hate the feeling of failing initially, it wasn't like the normal feeling like you take you should pass and get off from that record. So I was just like persuading myself to go just for the sake of recording purpose. Seems to me either 1) Miracle happens or 2) Some regular hard work pays off, for I managed to pass that hated chin up station! And thereafter with that thought it pushed me to really run hard in my 2.4km run and clear the whole thing as well! Timing was also unexpected...

Oh yes the other trip in Singapore was to go see the specialist at the National Skin Center for my acne and eczema. Sigh, wonder why so many problem, was it age catching up or just hereditary inheritances sigh... Alas doctor found another issue - brown spot sigh...Something that might grew lumps around the body or even affect the neuron (nerve), Doc asked me not to worry as I have been living for 27 years and been through the army so it should be fine. In my heart I am like oh yeah if my luck is bad I might have be gone before liao, I should count on my good blessing then...

Rush City

2007-06-04T07:43:00.001+08:00

Back to Shanghai this busy city of China. People are always seems to be rushy for something or otherwise the street cars and motorbike won't be stopping to let the pedestrian cross the road. Reading the news we have these following happening in China:-
- Contaminated water (from Shanghai Daily)
- Poison Toothpaste (from CNN article)
- Expensive Pork (from Reuter article)

Of the 3, the last one was due to inflation. The feed for the pigs is costing more for the farmer to maintain. His sale price for the pork hasn't increase with the inflation but the increase in price in the pig's feed has cause the farmer to re-think rearing pigs. When that happen the supply for pork on the market decrease and that will lead to pork price increase and then market will be shortage of pork, restaurant increase price bla bla... What a chain reaction. Kinda of remind me the time when Malaysia got hit by bird flu and our supply of eggs get cut and price rise for it.

Then the first two which I am wondering more of is - is it human cause for the cases? With the hunger to be fed with wealth, some unscrupulous merchants do not seems to care for the nature. They polluted and caused the mass civilian to suffer for their actions.

Every time I come back to Shanghai, there this smell that I can sniff thru my nose. Something that seems to be chemical I guess, which construction site have this smell, however, in established building, poster, cabs, etc, they also have it. I wonder if this is toxic, what is this smell from.

Water from the tap when rinsing, my tongue can taste the extra water cleansing material in it. Somehow feels close to kerosene oil smell, as for why I think it's because it's retreated water. Tap in Singapore doesn't have this funny smell. Notice the bath water in Santa Monica, LA is more of chlorine closed to the swimming pool standard though.

At the moment, luckily my senses are still functioning to know the difference ... but how long more can I last.

Nightmare with Vendor

2007-05-23T06:34:00.000+08:00

My worst experience handling with vendor.

1) We ordered some IT equipments and specifically put on the agreement stating that the ownership belongs to the company!
2) Orders are a bit expensive however we were hoping their service are good, unfortunately it's disappointing.
3) During the golden week holiday, the vendor installed the IT equipments on the rack, and boxes were not found around. Since I am not around, due unable to get flight back and got a SF colleague who went into to take a look claim to say this.
4) Everything was installed nicely. However horror stories turn up to be that after verifying the serial numbers with the manufacturer (C****), the serial has been registered under different companies! Only 2 out of 6 items are new. One of which has started since Sept 06!
5) Called the vendor to get explanation, and his ridiculous reason was that this is one of the normal way of distribution channel in Mainland. If going by the normal way will take 6-8 weeks. Further to that under their law, the physical item belongs to the company however the license and soft copy etc doesn't belongs to the company (can't and don't believe it).
6) Oh please, the contract says ownership belongs to company which should includes the physical and registration. No argument about it. If things going by the proper channel requires 6-8 weeks please advise beforehand and not after.
7) Negotiation about the "unwanted" goods begins, we didn't want to accept this disqualified items. Everything has to be accounted for.
8) Vendor brought in the Silver partner of manufactorer, another round of stupid reasoning, but we buy that. We wanted to return them at no cost charged.
9) Vendor agreed to take them back, however since the damage was done, and normal way of ordering the new batch requires another 6-8 weeks, we agreed to rent them from vendor. Vendor conceded to agreement and that we have to find rental company to provide quote for him.
10) Rushed by vendor about the rental quote. Since equipment too new and that the rental companies doesn't carry them, alternative was selected and price quoted to vendor.
11) Vendor doesn't agreed as the items not the same and insisted that his items are new. Vendor claimed he found another client to buy and absorb this batch of goods, even if we are to rent it, it should be 20% of the total cost of the equipments. Ridiculous again!
12) Final and painful decision to cut off relationship. SF colleague got other rental company to install in temporary equipments, and this batch of disqualified equipments are returned to them. What a pain!
13) To add on to that, other items that are on the quotation and the delivered items are not as per spec. They claim it's out of stock and replaced one is better and quoted high price than market. Stupid us to agreed out of good will initially, but after point 10 above come out, I am regretful for that.
14) Even after the last settlement of the difference to pay off, this vendor still insistent that they are right. SIGH!

And so this are the lessons learned when dealing with such vendor. And this vendor does work with BIG MNC companies and is recommended by colleague in the company! So please evaluate your vendor properly.

East and West Experience

2007-05-23T06:28:00.001+08:00

2nd day to my trip to the other continent of the globe. Difference that I see are below:

In this town in LA city, the descriptions are:
a) People are friendly, they smile to you, even the traffic warden who is an ethnic black!
b) Cars don't horn on the road unless you cause hazard to them. BTW, they give way to you if you jay walk, probably scared that you get them into accident
c) People do queue! I was getting my lunch at subway, and slip out of the queue to see what's in the menu, and wanted to rejoin into the queue but this nice lady ask me to go back to be in front of her in the queue. Isn't this sweet!

On on this other working city that I am in the Oriental, the descriptions are:
a) People talk like they are rushing for something or they are quarreling...loud, rowdy...
b) Car horn at the smallest issue on the road. It's a headache!
c) People don't know what's the concept of queue when there are lines, and instructions. They find the slightest opportunities to cut into your queue with the leeway.

See the difference, I wonder if the people will grow up to the nice culture that the friendly town in LA has. Coz people are going to look and scrutinize them in time to come.

A Quarter of 2007

2007-03-24T00:10:00.000+08:00

Missing from blog for closed to 3 months, I have to slowly pen things down during my free time.

Another week to end March which will sum up the 1st quarter of 2007, and I realised that most of my time spent in 2007 are in China rather than my home in Singapore. Good exposure that I got in Xiamen and Shanghai, something that's different from Singapore. When you really go out of the country and work for company out there, you will find Singapore too small a place.

Be back continuing writing soon.

Value Customers?

2007-01-07T12:29:00.000+08:00

Year 2007 started quietly with watching fireworks. But the week it seems to be moving slowly, due with the 2 public holidays in a week, 3 working days doesn't feel like working day.

Received a ridiculous reminder from my telco (the orange sun) reminding me I still have a part of the bill that I haven't paid. Well i deliberately paid two third of it leaving this one third to lump to the next bill. Companies nowadays just like to see monies and bills promptly paid, send me an sms and then this letter and telling me that the line might be cut off if i don't pay this remaining.

Oh come on, the next bill that I know of it will be coming in the next few days and what's the point of asking me to pay this remainder when it can be lumped to the next month bill. Called up the customer officer and he also stupidly saying company procedure, and then seen my records which I told him i promptly paid my bill, but another line coming from him was that those records are not as high as the last 2 months records. Oh yeah, if i want to play prank i wouldn't have paid the last 2 months bills already. Silly people there.

And yeah the other one that I encountered was even fabulous. Send me red bill just because it slip off my mind to pay a month bill for my Internet, and the next month I got a red bill. In the past the red bill that I saw was accumulative of 2-3 months of utilities bills. But nowadays the red bill are like used for even 1 month! Are they really seriously hungry for money or many bad debts out there that they have to employ such method?

Regarding the ISP red bill they are also wonders. They changed their billing system in Oct, and skipped one month of sending us the bill and then wooh, I got a big surprised when the Oct bill comes in which is twice the normal bill...and worse still they didn't even itinerized properly, making people think that could it be a system error...

Sigh, sometimes I really wonder are we treated as value customers or milking cash cows for their accounts.

Internet Earthquake

2006-12-30T10:53:00.000+08:00

The earthquake at Tainan had shake up some wakening ideas about the internet. We have been taking Internet in our life for work and personal activities for granted in the recent years. With the internet we have been able to do instant messaging, online chatting, emailing and real time gaming etc from locally to global friends. All these come to crumble when the earthquake shook up the broadband cable linking the regions of SEA, taiwan, china and hongkong to international site.

In IT we often talked about backup plans and stuffs. With this incident we see that the ISP here rely heavily on this cable linking to the international site. Re-routing seems like non-existent, either that the company didnt want to pay for extra costs or wasn't part of the plan. Ironically internet was designed to survive the attack of nuclear bomb, and yet this earthquake with the power of 6-7 times of nuclear bomb crippled much of our online activities.

For almost 1.5 days I couldn't get on to my gmail. Took some bit of efforts for them to recover and re-route traffic elsewhere,but quality was still wasn't that good in the initial recovery period. Messages send on MSN Messenger was either bounced back or cannot logged on. IP Telephony was also hit badly, my budget call card to my Chinese friend quality wasn't that good till a day after. Everything was reducing back to the dialup modem days.

Today I think for SG end here, much of the condition got better. Being able to access this blog to write about this is a good sign. Hopefully this incident can serve as a lesson to all that things shouldn't be took for granted.

Xiamen Dec 11-20

2006-12-21T00:25:00.000+08:00

After unpacking and all the stuffs, it was 12 midnight exact from my trip back from Xiamen. At the same time I knew that this temp 2 month project that I have been slogging off on this project is coming to an end on my official note. Which then brings to another part of my thoughts, what's next? With 10 more days to end of 2006 here I am feeling that I am back to square one again.

One thing I am sure, this project is not the end, and it's just passing back the baton to the official parent. I have finished babysitting it and I felt that I have completed the most of what the vendor and I can with the tightest time that was given. With unclear communications and changes halfway through the project this is really not nice.

As for what's next, somehow I felt that I am lost and don't really know what I should inspire to do at the moment. Taking a stable job and have a decent pay cheque? Find something to settle down myself? Met with some nice Chinese friends on the vendor side. The other day I was mentioning to him if he has any contacts that do web/software development and he invited me to met his wife's colleague who does that kind of project. I am thinking of doing outsourcing model if possible as it will benefits both parties if possible.

At the same time I can really feel that setting up a business is really full of uncertainties, or is it that I can't manage the uncertainties at the moment?

When I am at Xiamen, 2 friends asked me if I missed the place? Strangely when you are there, I told them that I don't really missed it much but there be some thoughts of it there. And now when I am back, I started to miss some bits of Xiamen. From what I see, Xiamen is going to concentrating on developing it's city. As the best city in Fujian and inheritance of history facts, it definitely can be a good developed city as Shanghai or Beijing in time to come. The famous Xiamen University is one of the top 5 university in China, big campus it is, the walk that I took didn't even explore the whole place.

Run, run and run

2006-12-08T08:55:00.000+08:00

Alas it's december already. Started off december with the Singapore Marathon on 02 Dec 06, but I took part only in the 10km run. Looking back this year would be one of the year that I took part in many runs. 6km run for the Sheares Bridge Run, 10 km for the Terry Fox run and this 10km Singapore Marathon run. Next year hope to aim for the 21km, but need to train up for it. Always felt that my body after the run like badly dehydrated and crumpling after the run.

During the run, some thoughts come into my mind. Why do they organize such an event? It takes up a lot of time for planning, gather resources and sponsors, and yet there are many of such events. In one way, for the organizers and sponsors, they got their publicity/advertising brought to the public. The other benefits would be bringing an awareness to the public about maintaining a healthy lifestyle thru exercising.

With the Sheares Bridge Run/Army Half Marathon, I believed it's a good test for the SAF to test their capability to organize a non-military event. They have many strategics for battling on the fields, but an event for run with involvement from many different units, aids in testing the cooperations between the units, the batch of helpers (there will always be new/old batch doing). The last and not least it's the basic to enhance the friendliness image of military instead of the harsh image.

As for Terry Fox run, I do see involvements from many organizations like civil organization, overseas schools and private sector companies. Each contributes in it's own way. Schools have always been an active target for voluntary work, especially local school whereby the students need to accumulate a certain amount of CCA points for their voluntary works. However I find it will be an enriching event even if it's just helping out, to get out from the norm routine of textbook. For the Terry Fox run, they involved the Canadian School students to take part in the run or helpers.

It is really heart-warming to see many people running for a cause, and although ages catch up with man, there are elderly who endeavor to run, and their record timing is fantastic. Some of them definitely did better than the young men (like my bro) with an hour or above.

Oh yeah, this year adidas came out with the campaign for their shoe, giving away bibs to write and tag on to the runner's t-shirt. It's so funny reading some of the people writings on the tag. Hmm I just recall one of Adidas's banner liner at the event which goes like this - "Impossible is nothing".

What's Your Personality Type?

2006-12-01T00:47:00.000+08:00

You Are An ISFJ

The Nurturer

You have a strong need to belong, and you very loyal.
A good listener, you excell at helping others in practical ways.
In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music.
You find it easy to be devoted to one person, who you do special things for.

You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist.

What's Your Personality Type?

边荒传说

2006-11-15T23:27:00.000+08:00

第1——45卷（全书终）　五胡乱华之际，在淮水和泗水之间，有一大片纵横数百里，布满废墟的无人地带，南方汉人称之为“边荒”，北方胡人视之为“瓯脱”，而位于此区核心处的边荒集，却是当世最兴旺也是最危险的地方。她既不属于任何政权，更是无法无天，主角燕飞、刘裕、拓跋硅置身于这混乱的时代开始他们人生的舞台，传说正是由那里开始。

终于看完了这45卷书, 花上了我差不多是四个月的时间. 当然中间因为工作忙, 有时一整个星期都没碰上一页, 有时兴血来潮湿半天都可以读四到五遍或在一天内读完一本书。从第一本书上手后，我就没法不能不读下去。

有趣的是作者黄易绸合了历史人物并加上现代理念。边荒集即危险，但却是个南北中原交叉区，汇合了各种人，事物和理念。人物从最初的各为自政到后期因事故而团结起来。事物和理念虽为最初的各为自政，但建在自由公等进争理念上，各派人物井水不犯河水。小说并在加上了道方面的玄理增添了神秘色彩。

书虽长篇，但有历史背景如淝水之战，战场上的描述和斗志斗勇无不叫人精彩万分。这本小说也让我看到了历史的一面，自东汉末年以后从没有一段长期的和平生活至到唐朝。但也在这时汉人开始接受北方胡人并融会他们的文化。

A Xiamen Working Trip

2006-11-09T23:36:00.000+08:00

Disappeared to Xiamen, China from 31 Oct - 08 Nov for a working trip.

Xiamen located southeast of China, and in the province of Fujian where most of our Singaporean Hokkien ancestors comes from. The place itself is getting urbanized. Heard from the cab driver on the trip to Xiamen airport at the last day that ten years ago and now the economic growth of Xiamen is tremendous. Cabbie driver was mentioning that the road and city planning most of it were modelled after Singapore city's planning. This was due to the exchange program between Singapore and China back in the early days. And yes I do notice the nice expressways and roads planned with familiar flowers/trees that we have here.

Talking about cab driver, there is one thing that I really cannot stand about them, and also not just them. Spitting seems like a common bad habit that they have there. Anytime, any day while driving as long as their throat are not comfortable, the sounds of grasping and then they will spit out of the cab window. Disgusted by this action but I can only see/watch...And some of their cabs need cleaning, dust accumulating that the seat belt when you buckled over, the layer of dust on it will stain your cloth.

On the weekends, one of the few things that I see makes me feel that I am fortunate to be growing up in this country that I am in. Just outside Xiamen University (one of their top ranking famous uni), a young chap (probably in the 20s age group) was begging for some money. When I went over to Zhong Shan road for a shopping spree, there is another youth doing the same act.

On the tiles of it wrote - "Please give me RMB $8, I haven't ate for days and the money is enough for me to have a meal and take a bus home..." On seeing the first time outside Xiamen University I wasn't having much feelings about it. Maybe it is first time seeing, beside the others who are disabled and begging for money. On seeing the second time at Zhong Hua road, I was a bit sympathized and wanted to donate, but then I realized I don't have small changes. Not that I am stingy, but my principle is that sufficient donation is enough for such scenario, otherwise it might become an abuse of sympathy. So I thought I will go have a dinner and come back to donate but when I was back an hour later, the young chap was not there anymore. Seems like some other generous donor probably have helped him out.

In the middle of writing this blog on Friday's night, I was disrupted by a work feedback and have to fill in the last paragraph over the weekend. But it seems that it has disrupted my mood to write the other stuffs....perphaps another time I can write about part 2 or 3.....

A Freelancer's Thought.

2006-10-17T01:11:00.000+08:00

Thinking about what I want to do, I find myself at a lost at this cross-road junction. I think this question/decision has surfaced every now and then since months back when I am freelancing.

Yes, I like freelancing, able to work from home, control the time to work. I like meeting with people finding out what I can do for them. As much as I am trying to get ahead of time to provide fast around, lately I been throttling back a project which been dragging a while and the turn around for a few replies.

And then I went for some interview recommended by friend/ex-colleague. And one agency called me up to arrange and interview with a Japanese bank. Went thru interviews and seems quite confident of getting it. Then last sunday evening another ex-colleague offer me a two months job contract with a good package. So I thought to myself its' rather attactive and although it might be tough, it is a good challenge for me to take it up and learn something from it. Then the after feeling of my guilt telling me that I felt sorry or injustified to the bank who I have went interviewed with. Am I some too much of emotions for this?

The reason why I went freelancing was because I wanted to take a break to do the things I want to do. The typical singaporean here will find themselves tied to bills, loans or family when they have family, committments etc. Foreseeing such, initially I was thinking to just do freelance for like half year to a year like that and get back to the work force when the time is ripe. But on and off I got this thought to urge me back to the main stream and so it left me thinking if I am not staying focus in my freelancing attitude?

Somehow it's rather complicated in my heart, the tag of war to remain freelancing or work the life of main stream. Got a friend from this agency which I just freelanced with, urged me to continue freelancing as the freelance pool of good developer is few. He has also offered me to join him full time developer in his agency but I turned him down politelly. Some how I am not too impressed of (advertising) agencies, their projects seems to be repeating much the same.

If i should continued freelancing, another about five more months to go will mark a year of anniversary. Don't know why some people likes to think that freelancer are people who are very free. And from some expression who has their jaw dropped, they classified them as the unorthodox class of works. These people I would say are too well accustomed to having regular fixed income montly. Taking about income, so far I am earning just enough to get by my living expense, with a few invoices on hold to chase after.

To complete off, I knew that I am less stressed and much happier as compared to my previous job. It seems so tiring and stressful at the last job whereby you are roped last minute into the projects that are failing/falling behind time.

Another two months of contract job and it's a new year 2007, by then should I have made a decision? I am still indecisive as it is, hopefully the next two months can further strengthen what I want to do...

Affinity or Coincidence?

2006-09-24T22:21:00.000+08:00

As the title goes, I really question the people that I met is purely by coincidence or is there a kind of affinity that is linking our paths to cross each over.

The course that I undertake in Polytechnic is a limited vacancy slots, even after four to five years, it still maintaining the same situation till they change the title. Me being in the first batch course student, many a few times I was enquired about if I know xxx student from the course...

Then in the many places that I worked or freelanced I encountered the following list.

DMSE - 1st batch: n x person from other classes (names that I heard but not familiar with them...)
DMSE - 2nd batch: 1 x person
DMSE - 3rd batch: not yet to meet one
DMSE - 4th batch: 1 x person
DMSE - 5th batch: 1 x person

So I'm surprise that with each batch of about two or three hundreds over students, I can chance upon one from each batch to even form a link.

Yo any 3rd batch DMSE student to help me form up the missing link?

Cinema Ethnics

2006-09-23T23:55:00.000+08:00

This afternoon I went to watch The Banquet. During the show there were so many disruptions that I really wonder if Singaporean really knows cinema ethnics. For the most simple thing you could do is to turn your mobile phone to silent mode. During the show, there were two buzzs from different mobile phones, what a spoilter.

I find the show a bit slow pace, and maybe that is why I can see a lot of people walking in and out of the theatre. Not too sure if they are going out to take phone call or went to the loo, but it's definitely more than the amount that I compare to those English movies.

The chinese paper movie critics were comparing this show to the famous Shakespeare story "Hamlet". Pretty much similar, a pitiful prince who's father (the king) got murdered and wanted to claim revenge on the ouster. However in the show, I couldn't feel any of the excited plot or any scene that arouse my attention. Yes, beautiful scenery, classic sword fighting and pretty actress but the story needs more solid weaving, much of it you have to also think deeper a bit to link up the missing pieces itself.

Maybe I am comparing the prince too much to the script of Hamlet, whereby I remember reading in my secondary school simplified Literature that he is such a pitiful fellow. But this show, I probably don't feel that the prince pitiful, can't felt his hatred towards his father's murderer, can't felt his hatred towards the woman who he loved and became his step mother and empress twice...

Blog Marketing

2006-09-15T15:48:00.000+08:00

Advertisement time hehe...thought it might be fun to help advertise a bit about friends' online stuffs... Here we go:

1) For the month of Mooncake Festival, brought by the sweet loving R. and GF, tasty mooncake from Eatery Palace for your tongue savoury! Try and munch the different Teochew style yummy yam mooncake! [Visit Store]

2) Anime collectibles for those avid fans of japan manga and anime. Carries a range of collectibles from past childhood characters to current popular item. [Visit Site]

It's good to be a girl, theme of an ex-colleague newly published blog selling hand made accessories. Going by the theme, of course it is for the ladies, then again, guys might want to check out and get something unique for your girlfriends? [Visit Store]

Punctuality

2006-09-06T00:53:00.000+08:00

Lately not in a mood to write too much...perphaps obessed with my Chinese novel that is 42 epsidoes long that I be slowing reading it online. However I want to blog about the Army Half Marathon/Sheares Bridge Run that took place a week ago.

Early morning, Neo, Robin and GF and us were to meet at Raffles Place MRT station. As we will be running, I want to run light and so carried minimal stuffs. A simple pouch that contains couple of tens dollar notes and the ez-link card is what I brought to the run. However the main focus that I be discussing is on Mobile Phone.

The invasion of mobile phone seems a commonly useful device in our daily life. Anytime of the day or night, as long as the person have a mobile phone, you are just one call away from him. Especially running for appointment, the most common SMS or phone call receives will be "Sorry I be late for about xx mins..".

And so the few people of us on that day morning did not brought mobile phone to run. All of us turned up punctually! That was when I think to myself, if we were to do away with mobile phone, will we be able to return back to the old days where people are more punctual? Where people won't just take the excuse of "hey i b abit late, I meet you somewhere else" or "You go ahead first, I catch up with you"...etc.

But the thing about punctuality it comes from a person's consciencious. Mobile phone just bring about the convience of informing people about the unforeseen delay that makes them unable to turn up on time.

To fly, we have to have resistance

2006-08-12T11:03:00.000+08:00

Last evening as I was on the way walking to the MRT station, I saw this physical challenged man wheeling himself to the MRT station as well. This thought came to mind initially... wah, he wheeled himself with his arms from the traffic light to the MRT station (about 200m or more) wouldn't his arm to tired? I remembered myself before when I do a certain repetitive exercise like lifting light weights above your head, after certain repetitive action you will feel your arm aching and refuse to hold as high as the first try.

Imagine if the wheeling action wheel him over like 0.5m, he will have to wheel like about 100 times for a 50m distance. This distance does not factor in roads that are not even, theres's a gentle up slope, and down slope for that road. And so my concerns is since this is just part of the journey, wouldn't his arm feel tired? Why does he take the effort to go take the public transport?

But the last question was immediately answered by my own second thoughts. Somethings in life maybe fair after all. You lose the ability in certain area, you gain some in other areas. In the example of the blind, most of them would develop a strong hearing capability. For his case, he might not be able to walk on his own, but I'm sure with his perservances and his pair of strong arms he is able to overcome the distance factor.

Nearer to the MRT station, they have built this slope for the disabled, however it seems like the conviences of the rest to just walk up or down the slope passage way. When this gentleman came wheeling up the slope, the passage way was conjested, and mind you for him to wheel up it would take extra efforts to counter the difting down effects. Luckily a kind middle aged lady gave him a push up the slope to make his journey up the slope smoother.

In lieu of all this, the national day speech commented about making the nation a smoother road for the disabled. For this I am sure we can do more for this, not just by building slopes or lifts for them, everyone of us can just make small efforts like giving ways for them or like the lady giving the extra push/support for them.

Reflecting back in my memories, I remembered reading articles about Dr William Tan who was wheel chair bound but never gave up his goal to be a doctor when young. He took part in the various marathon and charity events to raise for the different organizations. Then there is this ex-colleauge that is in the company, I wonder how he is doing currently.

In ending, I like to take quotes to reminds myself or ourselfs of what difficulties is.

Richard Bach - "Every problem has a gift for you in its hands."
Epictetus quotes - "It is difficulties that show what men are"
Albert Einstein - "In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."

World Cup 2006

2006-07-13T23:18:00.000+08:00

World Cup 2006 is finally over, actually over in like coming to a week already...

Initially I wasn't supporting any team, till like the quarter finals, which I'm more supportive of Italy. Watch the final match between Italy and France, I would say France played better in the second half and the extra time. Italy was busy defending against their enemy, but in the extra time something happened between the fine line of angel and devil which let to a great loss of team spirit to the France team. Italy won with good hardworking skill (not to forget mentioning some acting skill :P) and a bit more sheer luck than the France team.

During the on-going world cup matches, I read in the newspaper about the curse/spell of Italy and found it to be interesting and coincidential. The spell of Italy sets that Italy would always make into the World Cup Final every twelve years except a year which was postpone due to war. And 2006 coincides with the 12 year cycle that they have. The second spell, or more likely to be charm was accordingly to the Chinese zodiac, in the year of the Dog (which 2006 is), the winners of World Cup has always been Italy or Brazil. And since Brazil got kick out by France in the quarter finals, I'm actually starting to believe that maybe some force out there is arranging Italy to be the winner this year.

And looking at the setting stage that Italy in, Italy wasn't in a aggressive team in the qualify match, perphaps the most aggressive in the qualify was Australia. In the quarter final, even better, they were pitching against Ukraine while other teams were having a hell time winning the game. (ie. England vs Portugal, France vs Brazil). The match against Germany I find the tatics was beautifully played by the Italian coach Lippi, giving a surprise spring attacking the door of Germany. Eventually he played with the right card and won the World Cup.

Back to the final match, the other issue that caught the attention of the whole world would be the case of Zidane head butting the hooligan player Materazzi. It really draw the line between good and evil. And in my mind this chinese phase "一念仁, 一念魔" comes into my thought which also depict the good and evil, but with more descriptive.

It can be translated as the fine line between angel and devil is within split seconds of the thought. Today Zidane just released his reason for the action. It was confirmed that Materazzi has tauted him with violent insults to his family repeatly. Boiling to the limit of tolerance, the anger from Zidane erupted and caused him to become the devil and did the head butt action.

In ending this article, probably this quote from Jean-Louis Murat, France singer and fan of Zidane was aptly...

"Nobody knows if Zidane is an angel or demon. He smiles like Saint Teresa and grimaces like a serial killer."

大海里的自由

2006-06-28T22:13:00.000+08:00

我渴望自由，那无越无数的漂浮在空荡荡的大海里。
我讨厌那承重的累赘，如千斤重的石头，压着你喘不过气。
我讨厌那喘气的感觉，如身在海里，头在水面上拼命地张着大口呼气。
漂浮在无边无际的大海里，我渴望有个救生圈怀抱着。
我不要那牵着线的救生圈，牢牢的引着我的方向感，让我无从决定。
我不要被牵着进入另一个漩涡，永无止境旋转到水底里。
我愿穿着无线的救生圈，让海浪追着风带我到世界的某一个角落。
如有一天我找到一艘志同道合的船，我愿搭上随它旅航。

*PS: I do agree with Ni Kuang that the writing mechanism that we have currently is a bit slow. Initially this short depict surface while I was walking along the road to the supermarket. When I get home to write, it seems to be completely different from the original one that I wanted to write, alas, the human brain...

笑红尘

2006-06-28T22:08:00.000+08:00

在曼古的第三夜，疲惫的心灵本应以睡着，但带着七分睡意的身躯，三分清醒的思想却还在不思不眠地触摸着心底里的每一个角落。就这样的摸找，时空交叉的那一刻，这一首歌浮现在我的回忆里，一首简单又骄傲孤高的歌在我耳边清唱到至今。

笑红尘

红尘多可笑
痴情最无聊
目空一切也好
此生未了心却已无所扰
只想换得半世逍遥
醒时对人笑梦中全忘掉
叹天黑得太早
来生难料爱恨一笔勾销
对酒当歌我只愿开心到老
风再冷不想逃花再美也不想要
任我飘摇天越高心越小
不问因果有多少独自醉倒
今天哭明天笑不求有人能明了
一身骄傲歌在唱舞在跳
长夜漫漫不觉晓将快乐寻找

Pengerang Cycling Trip

2006-06-19T15:21:00.000+08:00

Last weekend my friend invited me to join their group to a cycling trip to Pengerang, Malaysia and I joined them. Came back and with body aching over and bit of sun burnt feeling at the skin.

On Sat, the group of us are to meet at Changi Food/Market centre at 9 am, but my bus trip was a long one and took me late of 20 mins to meet them. Reaching there, I saw my poly classmate at the jetty with the rented. Boy, the wait at the jetty for the boat was long. It took us an hour wait before it was our turn to board the bum boat and on we go the 11 of us, 4 girls and 7 guys.

The bumboat space was half-filled with our bicycle, and the rest of us seated at the remaining space or stand at the rear enjoying the sea breeze. Towards the end of the ride it was pretty bumpy, a nauseous feeling was eating into me. Thank goodness, it was a short 1 hour journey and we reach there shortly.

Pengarang jetty is a simple jetty some sort of like Pulau Ubin jetty, and operates with a small custom office. Taxis parked outside the jetty waiting to pick up customers who did not have any pre-arrangement transports to the town. Interestingly, people visits Pengarang for a variety of reasons - cycling, eat sea food, stay over at kelong, fishing, etc. There was another cycling group that I saw were there for cycling and seafood as well as we saw them at different locations for stop over. At the custom, we also saw one of our classmate who went over with her sister for a nite stay over at the kelong.

Cycling at Pengarang is a different experience than at Ubin. The road are a bit bumpy, gentle slopes up and down and mostly importantly the scenery. I get to enjoy the slow pace of the kampong life, the attap houses, family rearing chickens, cows. From time to time, rooster would crow away. Along the way we stop by the mango farm to check out if it is the season for tango mango fiesta. Unfortunately it wasn't the season yet.

As soon as we got to the hotel, we put our bags at the room and came down for a late lunch at the coffee shop around the corner. The previous cycling group that I mentioned, I saw them having lunch here as well. Lunch was a simple affair as the group wanted to have a good and better meal at the sumptuous seafood dinner. Following that we went on cycling along the coast line to Teluk Punggai Beach (六湾).

The steep slope down to Teluk Punggai Beach was breezing. From the Punggai Beach, we continue cycled along a small path. The sides of the path were grown with golden lalang, and completed with the sunset scenery, you can imagine the path to be blenched in a warm atmosphere. A different experience it is that you can never find in Singapore is the vast land that you can cycle on, and you don't see any high rise building.

Dinner was right up after that, and was decided to go to the Good Luck Seafood restaurant as most of the others have tried before and finds the Channel U recommended seafood restaurant was expensive. Dinner was a bit of a long wait with the business at the restaurant fully filled.

Since World Cup is around the corner, the night activity was of course watching world cup matches. The group of football fans gathered to watch the match between Czech and Ghana while the other smaller group watch the Saturday's featured movie - "Black Hawk Down". I haven't watch the movie and most of the time I'm not a fan of such military show, but this movie was exceptional as it was more real-life and realistic. It was adapted from the true story that's why. After the show I get to watch the last goal by Ghana, and they really deserved the winning for their hardwork at play.

If the world is that big, then I would say it's also a small world that the next day morning at the breakfast table I met one of my air force officer from the other section during my NS time. He was with his family for a breakaway from Singapore. Other than himself, there was another old timer air force officer retiree at the breakfast coffee shop which he introduced me. He was the one who setup the ostrich farm on the way back from the Teluk Punggai beach where my friend tried to peek into the ostrich farm gate to see if there is any tall big bird.

After the breakfast, we proceed to cycle back to the journey back to Singapore. We detour into a different route and my friend brought us to a hill. On top of the hill, there was this pyramid like structure which we think it might be used to absorb lightning strikes. From there we can see the coast lines of Singapore and Bintam. Subsequently the rest of the journey cycling back, I can see from the road markings which bears the numbering xxxx as we go and that we have cycled at least 10km to the jetty since from the first visible marking.

Journey back at the bumboat wasn't as rough as the departing trip. At Changi jetty, we ate our lunch and soon we departed separate ways home. Photo links courtesy of Juon

Multilingual people

2006-06-18T18:46:00.000+08:00

Hmm...one month of blog's writing missing in action wahaha...

These few weeks, am getting lazy to blog. Caught in between work and gaming, blogging has been neglected for a whle. I got a few thoughts in my mind, sometimes how I wish there is this device which can automatically convert your thoughts into writing and post it up. At least those ad-hoc meaningful thoughts can be posted immediately.

Wanted to write this article on what I see on Friday. While travelling on the train, I encountered a strange bunch of youngsters. Age I guess should be just over 20s or so, and it seems like there are 2 groups of people - a chinese and malay group mingling together. In the group two guys caught my attention especially as they stands out themselves on how they speaks.

The malay looking guy was able to converse in Chinese. Well this maybe nothing special as I know some of the parents sends their children to learn Chinese as their mother tongue language. Or through the working or studying life in Singapore, the Malays/Indians learns some bits of chinese. But this malay guy speaks a fluent chinese when replying to his friend who is a Chinese. Then after a while, at the other end, one of the Chinese guy was talking to him on another conversation in Malay! I can't imagine how many of the newer Chinese generation youngsters who can speak a bits of malay nowadays. In this urbanized city, such multi-lingual people are not common.

In the older days (our parent's generation) the people live in a closer-knit society, and I would say there are a lot more people who can speak a third language which does not belong to their native language. I'm thinking the introduction of English in Singapore has brought about a common language to communicate among the races, but it contributes to a decrement of such people. Since English can be a common language, why would they want to pick up another language to speak?

Of course with a lot more choices of foreign languages like French, Japanese or Korean, it has shorten the fuse for the local to pick up the remaining other races' language. Furthermore in my own opinon the privatization of having each HDB flats, some of us prefered to stick to our own live and would only say "Hi", "Bye" when met at the lift or common area like lift lobby.

It is a bit sad that at this stage, we have been criticised before that we are neither here or there at speaking proper English and Chinese (for the chinese). The other thought that I would think would be this is a growing country, a very young country and it is up to us to seek where our identity lies.

There maybe an evolution of a new language Singlish, which communicates between fellow Singaporeans, and on international grounds the proper language will be spoken/written fluently. Or it maybe that the Singlish culture may grow root to a language of it's own that we can never tell.

Lost and found

2006-05-18T12:58:00.000+08:00

In this week of Time Magazine publication, they are continuing the saga of the Top xxx...but this week is the Best of Asia. One of the rated article for "Best for the Soul" caught my attention is the cynicism cure. Here it goes...

In Tokyo, Japan, they have a highest return rate for lost property. Some example to prove this.
1) Of the 255,844 wallets reported mislaid in Tokyo in 2005 a heart warming of 194,139 were handed in to the Police Lost and Found Center in intac.t
2) About 95,000 of the 100,247 cell phones reported lost were also brought in to the police lost and found.
3) This is regarding to an editor in tokyo magazine, she losted her wallet 5 times in the last 14 years, and it has always been returned to her complete with credit cards, identification cards and cash intact.

Unbelievable? I would say this goes to the virtues to teaching their children to hand in lost items. Imagine you lost your previous item, you would be missing it and hoping that one day a kind soul will find it and return it to you some day. Stepping into their shoe, I guess that might be why they can return the lost items to the owner with high success rate.

I can't image in Singapore this high success rate. Of course there are some good kind soulds out there, but to compare to the above yield high results, it's insignificant. The signifance would probably be hopeful that one day Singapore or the world would become such a graceful society.

Of the lost and return cases that I heard locally, some will pickup the wallet and take out all the monies. After which they will put it in an envelop and drop it into the mailbox, and let it become the responsilibilities of the mail/post center to sort it out to return to the owner. Such act compromise the integrity of the signifance of return lost item. Although the wallet got returned, the person is actually expecting a fee for it and this act is actually an act of theft.

In the case of lost cell phones in Singapore, I think most people can forget the hope about getting it back. It would most likely become's another person's new toy or sold to second hand shop. Nowadays seems like Singaporean are quite loaded, can afford to change or buy new handphone when it's lost. Still to me the agonies would be the lost of contact, addresses book and information which is no amount of money can be bought with.

The act of return lost property and not keeping it to oneself reminded me of a Chinese teaching - "路不拾遗". The chinese characters in there aptly describe the meaning of it. Yup, we were taught to return lost items to owner, or at least report it to the police. However how many of us actually practice this virtue?

The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-18T12:40:00.000+08:00

Ever since the book "The Da Vinci Code" is published and filmed, there have been many news article about it. Especially so when it was filmed into a movie, and I'm going to watch it this Friday. Some interesting stuffs that people do around the world to stop the movie from screening...

1) Legal Action: Top Vatican official said the film's insult to the faith may merit legal action to stops its dissemination. Previously i read in the papers also some top vatican official to the Pope ask people for their support to not watch the movie.

2) Counterprogram: In Sydney Australia, the theaters will show a brief Anglican Church video challenging the film, as a effort to get 10% of the city's populatioin to become church-goers.

3) Preach: More than half US pastors polled by Leadership (a Christian magazine) said they planned sermons, classes or seminar to discuss biblical and theological issues raised by the film.

4) Yes, Singapore has rate the film to be NC16, as it challenges the norm radical and might mislead the underage of the twisted facts.

Above are the many different actions that some tried to resist the screening, while some are taking constructive action to reform the negativeness of the show to something positive.

Personally I am not a church-goer, but the base foundation that I believe in is to be open to all possiblities. The book Da Vinci book/novel was the first english novel ever since I read in the past few years. I wanted to read more about it before watching the movie.

Many church believes that the film/book tarnish the church image, as it contains twisted facts. They are fearful that those non-believers will believe the film fiction. The television effect has mislead children with altered stories line in history, thus their concern is not groundless.

However I am more supportive in the fact that the mature adult should seek truth contradicting to believing everything from the show movie or holy scriptures or book. To believe blindly is akin to an act of copying or imitation. To seek the truth, learn it and practise is what make a faith more convincing to believe in.

Anyway regardless of the oppositions, I am still going to watch and enjoy the show as I enjoyed the book.

Blessing to all

2006-05-07T22:46:00.000+08:00

The month of May passed by so fast, and this is the end of the first week. The election came and go, much as expected with the result. And in my area, I am not required to vote. Actually I was hoping for some contestants so as to have the chance to vote. It seems fun though, but of course the decision to cast for which party definitely is not child's play.

The last few weeks have been seeing a lot of things happening. For those who are in the tunnel, there be light at the end of the tunnel. Somethings are just meant to be passer by, let go and you be off to the next destination. For those who are feeling sick or so (as I write, my pa is not feeling too well at the moment) may the healthy cells trumph over the invading virus, wish them good health all.

And also am happy for friends who have found new job, bless them have a good working environment and hope that they found a better pasture to chew upon. As for myself, I feel like I am lost in this big illusionary world, or more likely to be running away from my responsibilities as the elder of the family. I find things nowadays are so taxing, there are endless of things that if you got on to it, you have to pay off with your lifetime or so. I hate this feeling especially. Waiting for the day where maybe I would then be contented with this short break that I have and then carried on with the journey.

True Colour

2006-04-26T21:48:00.000+08:00

My affinity with blue seems endless whaha...anyway for those who want to try your true colour, enjoy.

BLUE

You're blue — the most soothing shade of the spectrum. The color of a clear summer sky or a deep, reflective ocean, blue has traditionally symbolized trust, solitude, and loyalty. Most likely a thoughtful person who values spending some time on your own, you'd rather connect deeply with a few people than have a bunch of slight acquaintances. Luckily, making close friends isn't that hard, since people are naturally attracted to you — they're soothed by your calming presence. Cool and collected, you rarely overreact. Instead, you think things through before coming to a decision. That level-headed, thoughtful approach to life is patently blue — and patently you!

Cause and Effects again

2006-04-17T09:01:00.000+08:00

Never did I expect to see this or write this, however, this morning when I wake up and turned on my email, got this email alert from friendster that says one of your friend's blog is updated. Although I rarely go visit his blog, but this morning I just click on it to see. To my surprise the updated latest topic was cause and effect and the whole paragraphs goes like this...

"One reaps what one sows. It is very simple, and is agreed upon and accepted by most people. Every effect has its cause. However, if we talk about cause and effect without considering the condition, we are a fatalist. Buddhism rejects it. An effect can only arise depending on condition(s). Cause is primary while condition is secondary. In other words, a wholesome deed at present can be a cause of a good retribution/effect in future. However, a wholesome deed at present can also be a condition for preventing the bad retribution (evil effect due to the evil cause in the past), as a bad retribution usually comes in effect under adverse/unwholesome conditions. Even if it really comes, the effect is generally less severe, particularly if we sincerely repent of our evil deed in the past. Moreover, since cause cannot come in effect without condition(s), it is important to note that although one cannot change the cause and effect, one can change the conditions. This is why Buddhism emphasizes to change our fate by changing the condition.

If we cultivate the wholesome causes, we have good retribution. Thus, we should have a strong belief and deep understanding of the law and act in accordance with it, in order to have a better living with happiness and blessings. "

Reading this I feel like it's an extracts from somewhere, and so I went in search to pursue the truth. I thought there should be more than just this and I found the related study and it originates from the Law of Dependent Origination. When I have more spare time I would want to explore/study this law.

Cause & action karmic

2006-04-13T03:47:00.000+08:00

Sleepless night, I do not know why...It shouldn't be the way as it's the second time in the week. Perphaps I have zealous of energy to burn now?

Today interesting was discussing about reglion on MSN with two friends. One of the question was raised was do I believed in karma? Well yes I do for I believed in the action and cause, and that you sow the seeds of what you reap. Then I would know that the next question he would ask is that why some people did a lot of mean things and still enjoy the goods?

Taking the example of incarnation or previous life doesn't seems to be proving a science thing to him. Neither do i know how to answer this, but I found this answer later in the night. The stand that I have is using time as a measurement. In a human, we are jealous of the obvious, why are some people enjoying the riches and fortune while some people suffer? Considering a human lifespan is short, would they be able to see what history or time passed judgement much latter down the road?

Time is infinity for all that we know. It will continue travel in the forward direction, and will never stop even if it's end of world, it transit to the next level I would say. Since time is never-ending, it will create history and history passes judgement. That is where the judgement came in. Some judgement are immediate that is people are punished for their evil deeds. But some who's acts are not discovered in their life time, are now punished or branded with a bad reputation. They maybe despised by the people of their current generation of time.

Now another thought came to me was that since this is about planting seeds hehe, it's science to say that different seeds produce different results. And we all know that some plants their fruit bloom and ripe faster while some you take a life time to nuture it to bloom (Did you know that a palm tree they blosom once and after which they dies off.). So if you compare this with the earlier question, it's metaphor to say that the seed of action is like planting. Some got their good or ill-effect as their plant grow and blossom earlier due to the environment factor or the effect they take into watering, fertilizing. And they are those who's fruit may never blossom in their life or at a very long stage. Thus this cause and effect karmic rule that i believes in will stand it's ground.

Since this is a open society to choose your belief in, you decide for yourself if it withholds. For me I presented my stand, and when my time comes as what i told him, I will go into my belief practise.

Language

2006-04-04T22:54:00.000+08:00

I am thinking of something to write but yet nothing really caught the attention of my mind of what to write...A few things though I find it interesting to write about yet I am just not in the mood to write...Saturday night on TV this this show called a dialog with the PM, which I feel very informational. As much as he tries to understand the kinda of citizen that he governs under, commoners like us also might want to have a peek at how his view is like. Is he well-informed, aware of the situation that most local people experiencing?

The invited guests to ask the PM ranges from different classes of work, taxi driver, stall owner to business owner, lawyer etc. A few of the more common problems were discussed, and most of the time the session was kept at a constructive manner. I am impressed by the PM ability to speak full proper impromptu Chinese throughout the session.

In this mixed culture, our languages have also got mixed up. Our main languages have been blended, and a uniquely language called Singlish is formed. And if you tried using this oversea to speak to the client in US, or China, they will not understand our singlish English or Chinese... As much as possible that the country is promoting this mixture of culture, yet our language mixing is not recognised and we are encouraged to speak proper language, an irony?

This reminded me of a blog refered by 28degree that one of his friend is complaining loudly at her blog for the UN decision to use Simplified Chinese as the unifed Chinese language. Reading her blog, I can tell that she is young and naive, still have yet to understand how the world revolves. Her passion for Tradditional Chinese was there, but the complicated thing to write the character really slows down learning. But as for my view, it's not my decision to say it's good or bad for history being the time keeper will tell.

Two thousands years back when Emperor Qin burnt away a lot of books and unified Chinese, the people of the time finds it a pity and branded him as cruel. Yet however two thousands now, there are historian who compliment such an action help unified China, and prevented more languages barrier. History being history, for me I like the nice characters and symobolism of the Tradditional Chinese character. However to write it I still prefer Simplified Chinese as the strokes are a killer. Either or, I'm proficient with reading both of them!

Seems that as I started to write, the mood starts to get in and flow...

曹操

2006-03-24T23:13:00.000+08:00

《曹操》林俊杰
不是英雄不读三国
若是英雄怎么能不懂寂寞
独自走下长板坡,月光太温柔
曹操不罗嗦,一心要那荆州
用阴谋阳谋明说暗夺,淡薄
东汉末年分三国,烽火连天不休
儿女情长没法执着,有谁来祝酒
尔虞我诈是三国,说不清对与错
纷纷扰扰千百年以后,一切又从头
独自走向长板坡,月光太温柔
曹操不罗嗦,一心要那荆州
用阴谋阳谋明说暗夺,淡薄
东汉末年分三国,烽火连天不休
儿女情长,被乱世左右,有谁来祝酒
尔虞我诈是三国,说不清对与错
纷纷扰扰千百年以后,一切又从头

The latest song from JJ Lin Jun Jie. Personally I find a lot of books are quite bias towards Cao Cao, protraiting him as a more bad guy. Initially my first impression of him was that he was more of a dominating guy who wants to rule over China.

But as time pass, and story re-read or re-watch, my concept of his image changes time. I am beginning to admire his personality and I think this song lyric sums it up all well. For Cao Cao, is one man who is daring, and have his own mind and thinkings to do thing. He was one of the bold man who dares to assasinate Dong Zhuo.

Although the incident with murdering his uncle was unfortunate, but that i guess human can't be perfect and do err. During his battle against Yuan Shao, he was fortunate to have top notch advisors and generals who fought the battles with him. His extremes during the tough time probably would have be judged as cruel and murder, but in time of war, that small action taken to sacrafice the ration officer to boast the morale of the army works well later to win the war. Thus turning his table around to a winning battle.

I often wondered, if he still has his favourite advisor Guo Jia around, would he have rule over China. Unfortunately heaven depised talent man like Guo Jia as he dies of young age. Many of the battles were won with this advisor's strategem. And at old age, he commented that if Guo Jia was around, things wouldn't be that bad after he lost at the battle of Chi Bi, one of the turning event to kick off the separation of China into three kingdoms.

Many books takes side with Liu Bei, for his line of ancestorship goes well in his reason to protect his Han dynasty. Thus many accuse Cao Cao of usurping the throne, being unfaithful. However to me I think that during the warring times, there won't be any action of right or wrong, the winner be the one who lives down in history as ruler. Many commoner would have wish that they have peaceful lives and the war end early

Fortunately now there are a bunch of readers who starts to think and reason with Cao Cao, which I'm taking side with as well.

The happy prince

2006-03-23T11:36:00.000+08:00

Just a sudden hit came to me yesterday morning, although I didn't sleep enough the night before. Duno why but of all sudden one of the children stories that I read when I was young came re-surfacing back to my memory. And till now I still like the story but now the after feeling to finish reading the story is different now. When we were young the world just seems to be simple and free. Free from anything that is depressing, realism of the world..and that most of the fairy tale story the ending is always happily lived after or so.

The story that I been talking about that resurfaced to my thought is "The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde. I went to find the story online this morning and re-read it again. It would have most apt to be used to describe the realism of today's materialistic world. Somewhat similiar, both the happy prince and swallow always looked at the merry making side of the world.

Oblivious to the prince outside his castle, there lived poverty that most of his peasants is suffering. When the city casted a statue of him with fine jewellery and gold plated clothings, he then saw the world suffering beneath his feet. Exterior luxuries the statue has, but yet the heart of the statue is casted with lead. It seems ironic that the heart is made of lead and I think probably the author purposely choosen this material (he could have chosen any other beautiful gem to embed inside).

I don't know when this story was written in, but regardless of the time, there would always be a gap difference between the rich and the poors. The uneven balance of the rich masses against the hardship of the poors cannot be felt by one who have been born with a silver spoon. Especially worse when the spoilt brag always get his things with his own ways and not having a thought about the rest.

The foolishness of man as always portraited from the start to the end of the story by the mayor and his group of town councillors. Each bathing in the thought of how to glorifying themselve to the town, but does the peasant cares? Each structure or ornament that was placed in our city currently how many of us really stops by to think what is this ornament for?

The swallow in the story would have been a fortunate one, one who soar around the worlds and see the beautiful side of life. With his soaring around I doubt if he has stopped to rest around areas of slumps. I guess this prove one of the chinese phase "良禽择朽木而栖". (something like good bird would choose good spot to rest...)

At the ending was wondering if the author like a happy ending and added the twist of God's selection of two of the most precious item in the city. For those who wants to read the story, go here.

Cries...

2006-03-23T10:41:00.000+08:00

These few days I was accompanied by my baby nephew, chubbly cute and adorable. Cries, as simple as it looks for the baby to get attention. Few conclusions that I make out of cries...

1) when baby cries they are signalling for something and most of time they will get their wishes fulfilled. But when we grow older this doesn't seems to get true.
2) when baby grown up to be children they will still cry at times to get attention. But now, not all of their wishing thoughts will be entertained. Some might even invites for beatings to more crying haha.
3) as you get older you start to wonder what is tears. Crying doesn't seems to get attention everytime now...only when at the utter last remains of hopelessness, adult break down to cry to perphaps relieve themselves? And I would say this comes at a price of losing something or somebody...
4) cries of joyous occasion would probably override anything else.
5) did you know tears act as lubricant to the eye itself, or sort of cleansing agent. So sometimes during show or story you have touching moments tears juz drip down...it's normal as the eye also need cleansing...
6) when cries become silent cries, nothing can be heard... it must be felt from the heart to feel the bleakness of disappointment...

Draw a pig

2006-03-15T14:48:00.000+08:00

Draw a pig! Who says pig are silly and dumb creatures, this pig here sure tells a lot about your personality, go have a try and let mr wise pigsie tells u who you are!

http://www.freaknfunny.com/files/upload/draw-a-pig.swf

As for my result hehe...better not spill it out as it discloses how the game works :P

上善若水

2006-03-08T00:09:00.000+08:00

《老子》： “上善若水。水善利万物而不争。处众人之所恶，故几于道。居善地，心善渊，与善仁，言善信，正善治，尹善能，动善时。夫唯不争，故无尤。”

老子认为，有道德的上善之人，有像水一样的柔性。水的柔性是怎样的呢？水性柔顺，明能照物，滋养万物而不与万物相争，有功于万物而又甘心屈尊于万物之下。正因为这样，有道德的人，效法水的柔性，温良谦让，广泛施恩却不奢望报答。

For the benefits of english readers... i tried and found an english translation for the above and found this paragraph to be most apt.

Excerpt from Lao Tzu:

"The highest excellence is like that of water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving, the low place which all men dislike. Hence it is near to the Tao.

The excellence of a residence is in the suitability of the place; that of the mind is in the stillness of the abyss; that of relationships is in their being with the virtuous; that of government is in its securing good order; that of the conduct of affairs is in its ability; and that of any movement is its timeliness. And when one with the highest excellence does not strive against his low position, no one finds fault with him."

I think I need to learn the excellence of the water to learn more.

Rate of climb

2006-03-07T23:55:00.000+08:00

Recently quite a few incident of "Life is unfair" happening around me. Initially I was laughing away situation at this group of testers for an application whereby they were scolded for not testing the application while some people juz refused to test and got away scotted free with it. She commented with "Life's unfair and this is another scenario."

Then another one happened can say close to the surroundings. This fren D. was feeling vexed comparing that at these sort of things happening. I tried to consultate that well just some people are lucky with it, and this another example of life's unfairness. Esp. if compared to another person in the group which we know of it's pretty awkward if things are spelled out.

But both H. and I when we spoke about this, we also come to conclude that there's always two sides to a coin. An airplane that takes off with an exponential curve and gets into the sky higher might eventually rises at a slower rate of climb (Burn out too much fuel has to climb slower :P). However for another aircraft that takes of with constant performance, the rate of climb might have more chances of climbing a steep line.

笑傲江湖

2006-03-04T00:38:00.000+08:00

A never get out of touch classic Chinese song... I never seems to get tired of it even though it goes back a long while ago....

沧海一声笑, 涛涛两岸潮,
浮沉随浪只记今朝,
苍天笑, 纷纷世上潮,
谁负谁胜出天知晓.
江山笑, 烟雨飘摇,
淘浪淘尽红尘俗世几多娇.
清风笑, 竟惹寂廖.
豪情还胜了一襟晚照.
苍生笑, 不再寂廖,
豪情仍在痴痴笑。
啦...啦...啦...
啦...啦...啦...

Reflection

2006-02-14T21:40:00.000+08:00

I fear that I'm not myself anymore. Things slips by easily, patience as thin as a slate of ice...melting anytime soon...Focus is something that I need, and multi-tasking seems near and yet far away from me. I realised when I multi-task around, it's so hard to get error-free work. Perhaps my mood is not quite there, or I don't like the person that's giving me the task and yet so little time to do. Or a second level of check is missing, allowing problem to get through.

Used to be, when a problem is reported, I would take some serious time to look at it, but now it seems like in good mood I look at it, otherwise I would take a brief look and if it's ok, I will brush it aside. Am I too in-depth to getting things done and forgot about the quality of the work that is required?

I suppose the environment is also having some problem...for I received news that one of the shipmate has decided to row her own boat out as well. Is there a lack of communication between the board and the crew?

The only consolation that I have for writing this is that I found myself to be able to do reflects once in a while.

Expendable pawn

2006-02-12T23:30:00.000+08:00

Saw this few paragraphs from the recruits section yesterday, boy it's thick the papers yesterday.

"All work and no play can make you sick and lonely. If you are working so hard that it compromises your health and personal relationship, it is time to do some soul-searching."

"In today's economic, employees are nothing more than expendable pawns."

"Are you having fun in your job in spite of the long hours that you are putting in"

Sick, I'm feeling my health getting a bit on the down side ever since working, part-time studying and also occasionally freelancing. That's one area I don't want to neglect off and wants to take time to do soul-searching. Another area, having fun in the job, I'm not so sure if this is possible any more as it seems to be losing the touch.

As I decide to roll my boat to my open shore, I came to know of two other boats who would be making the decision at the end of this month. Is it just because the environment that bad that people are not having fun or the captain of the ship not taking care of the members?

Interesting if these two members, and the captains are going to hire new crew it's seems like a fresh new environment and it be interesting to see if history still repeats.

Free

2006-02-07T21:02:00.000+08:00

I decided to break free, let go of all barriers and holdings in my hands
To go take a longer break, resting my soul and pondering my next step to do.
Much as I do believe creating magical miracle and rescueing project timeline, the source of magical well has started to drain up.
Fellows comrades has been leaving one by one, leaving a sense of emptiness for remaining dwellers.
The limit has been max and stretch out, I need to find myself the ways to re-condition to earn the new tolerance level.

Decision Decision Decision...

2006-02-06T00:07:00.000+08:00

Isn't decision = choice? And choice can be headaches...
You made a decision over your choice, you would have to live and stick by your decision. A right decision will makes one feel the heavy burden of the serious decision offloaded, while a wrong decision may cause grievious consesquences.

Everyone at some point of time will have to make decision.

I ever wonder if decision was pathed by our hand or destiny of life. If it's destiny, then do we have a say of control to what we want if it's a path to doomship? If it's crafted by ourself, can we tell that the decision is solely made upon by ourself without influence of any other factors?

If a decision is influenced by the results of the decision, wouldn't it be unfair if one results outweight the other?

Red pill, blue pill, which is for the awakening of the mind, which is the one that one has to choose to take?

Lunar New Year Greetings

2006-01-26T12:14:00.000+08:00

Lunar New Year is just 2 days away, hereby I wishes all a Happy Lunar New Year, and may you enjoy a prosperous and smooth-sailing new year ahead.

Wedding dinner again

2006-01-21T00:29:00.000+08:00

Back from a wedding dinner, the second wedding dinner of the year.

Did enjoyed myself with this wedding dinner, it's more like meeting up nice friends who havn'et been meeting up for so long. Enjoyed the dinner the people and all...

Was ironic that across the table one of my friends was discussing her breakdown problem with another group of friends but luckily it's constructive thoughts say out and find some of the topic and thinking interesting. Still sometimes the issue really boils down to communication between couple etc. Like the news article send by 28d, a happy marriage is not how u changed each others but how you accept to cope with each other short-coming. As quoted with the casted interviewee, "if you want the butterfly, you have to accept the caterpillar."

Lately been lunching around MacDonald and been seeing bunch of secondary school students. Their rowidiness and playfulness reminds me of the school times where life can be as simple as abc. Although I'm not the kinda who would hang out at Mac and such, but seeing their cheerfulness and mischievous act of poking fun at classmate or so, makes me feel like going back to sec school time and want to relive some of the moments or alter it to have more funs.

Oblivious of the age gap, only on the way to the wedding dinner, I realized that oh dear, age gap between the school kids and me could have been a 10 years gap liao....time really flies and by the next moment around, Chinese New Year is here. Age really don't spare people, times flies, people aged and we see people come and go more often.

And I need a direction in my life I don't like my work and don't know what I want to do. The most things that is getting into my head is I want to try doing freelance, but I don't think I gain the support of my family and such...what heavy burden it can be from the transition from school life to working life...

Category: General

Slow to learn...

2006-01-17T22:58:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I would wonder to myself when I receives those problems reported by users. (Actually these problems shouldn't get to my inbox, but dunno why some arrow stills point the way to me sigh...) That when I'm and old, maybe like add 10 or 15 years to my current age, would I be a bit slow to process my thoughts or slow to learn. (Am trying to avoid the word retarded as it seems demoralizing...). It doesn't not seems anything wrong with slow or unable to learn, but the experience I feel it's demoralizing....esp when sad because of age catching up. Not that I am worried, but sometimes, it's interesting to take a step back and think a bit. Hopefully maybe it spur some action that can be done to correct the problem at younger age?

Category: Life

A story about fish and water - Part 2

2006-01-10T20:53:00.000+08:00

This blog article is to clear up some misconcept that 28d might have about the fish, the water and the sky. He probably might have think too indepth of this zen story keke. And for saffyz, just don't think too much haha...

The sky embraced everything under it's might hands, watching and nurturing the wonders of nature. While the fish aspired to be up in the sky, it's destinated to be in the water. Such the the law of nature, and nobody can change that.

Weddings...

2006-01-07T21:26:00.000+08:00

7 Jan 2006 and I attended the first wedding for the year 2006 with 3-4 more expecting to come lining up for the year not to include those unknowns. This year seems like a hot favourite year for friends, ex-colleauges and relatives to held wedding.

The wedding session that I attend today is different from the norm that most Singaporean Chinese held. Tucked in the remote part of Singapore (Raffles Marina Country Club at Tuas West Drive to be exact, with a few km you reach the Tuas crossway), I attend the wedding soleminzation of my ex-colleague followed by a high tea buffet.

I find the norm wedding dinners that most sg chinese held are quite meaningless. It's more of a show to inform your circle of friends and relatives that you are wedded. The other most likely reason would be a meant to get relative all together to eat and such, but this significance seems to be fading that it doesnt' hold.

Attended two wedding soleminization in my life so far and find it to be more meaningful. To hear the pasteur speech, although I'm not Christian, but I'm open to hear meaningful lessons. But this time round I couldn't hear what the pasteur is preaching as he have a huge korean accent. The wife to be of my colleage is Korean that has been residing in Singapore for a long while.

This colleague had held a simple yet grand solemnization with a high tea buffet following that. And the nice part of it is that his wedding dinner is only categoring to close relatives only. I like his style, no need for grand posh dinner and for girls they will still have their favourite to be in wedding gown and ring exchange. Chances are if I have my way on this I would also held it in the simliar way.

Category: General

The Year 2006 first trip

2006-01-05T23:21:00.000+08:00

Stepping into the fifth day of year 2006, am I a bit late to blog away the first blog for the year? Neh, it wasn't. For the year 2006, it shall be remembered whereby I spent the first day of the year travelling to an oversea place. Heehee, yup was at Bangkok for 3 nites and really enjoyed the trip with the Law.

Thailand was a nice place for tourist visit, personally I enjoyed Thai food. Nice, yummy sweet and sour, hot and spicy you get it all in the varieties of thai food. I am satisfied with the foods tried over there. I used to dislike Tom Yam soup, I remember the first time trying the horrible sour and spicy soup base of a instant noodle and i got disguised over it. What make me turn 180 degree to like it ... -> credits goes to my NS. Remembered my training in NS used to go over to Thailand and stop by there for lunch. The gang of good mixed who like Thai food and frequent visitor would order tasty dishes of Thai cuisine. And that is where it changed my taste bud, the authentic flavour of Thai cuisine yum yum.

For the 4 days 3 nite we make our treks exploring around Bangkok with the simple itinerary as below.

Day 1:	Reach BKK by noon, left bags at hotel and proceed to Chantuchek weekend market. This horribly huge pasar malam style of the bugis market, you couldn't image how huge it was. Went back hotel in the evening with a handful of small shopping bags. Dinner was at this nice cozy restaurant called Cabbages and Condom. What a weird name combination but it's a good place to dine and food wasn't that expensive. Got this off a recommendation from the web...
Day 2:	This is a walking day, walk from the Chinatown all the way to the tourist area of Wat Po, Grand Palace, sigh-seeing the Reclining Buddha and stopping along the way to visit temple. Didn't visit the Grand Palace and the Emerald Buddha as was rather lately. And further walk up to Khao San Road a road of backpackers gathering and stuffs. Dinner was at Lao Li hehe, and to reply Saffyz answer's we only ate one shark fins. Not that much that you might imagine hehe.
Day 3:	Shopping again...but lunch was at a nice restaurant brought by Law's friend. If not for her we wouldn't know this Anne's cafe as it was tuck away in some street. Visited their biggest shopping mall and Siam center following that...but nothing much to be bought hehe
Day 4:	Prepare to go Home Sweet Home and meet reality... At the airport meet interesting local Singaporean who's the other half spouse was a Thai and talking about the reality of the Thai world. Hear their pours of stories about the one way money lending with no return to relatives friends and borrowing scenario. I guess it's similar throughout the rest of the world, there'll be people begging for money lending and at the point of requesting the loan to be return all kind of stuck up excuses will come up. Reality of the world this is...

Now I am also having to get back to my reality...work work, and with the year 2006 I don't know what to really expect out, perphaps no expectation is the best consolation?

Category: General

End of 2005 summary

2005-12-31T15:16:00.000+08:00

This day marks the end of 2005...wonder when that time man invented calendar did his thought account into the meaning of the first day and the last day of the year. Or is it thru the occuring cycle that pathetic man feel that they wasted a year of their life and then begin to mark the first day to set goals and objectives and the last day to see if they fulfilled what they set.

The year 2005 seems like an eventful year for me. I glad to say I have completed my degree, now awaiting for a module grade to be published in feb next year. Been a ride in my job, my ex-company go busted and got merged into another company but I didn't really like the environment there and switch to my current company. My current company was nice, the people were great, if only the bosses are a bit more appreciative.... Past few months had been blogged down by many jobs and projects that I can't breath by my nose...

Lately in the latter part of the year got a few freelance projects which also attribute to lesser postings on my blog...Last but not least just last month, my sister give birth to a baby boy earlier than expected, making me have a nephew.

Looking back there's really a lot of ups and downs, good times, bad times but never the less we all will have to ride through time. Wishing all a happy new year for the coming year 2006.

A story about a fish and the water.

2005-12-24T22:32:00.000+08:00

In the water there lives a fish. The water love the fish and showered the fish with lots of care and warmth. Yet the fish fell in love with the blue sky above the water. One day the fish was in tears and told the water that you never see me cry cause I am in the water. The water replied "I can't see you crying but I can feel your tears as you are embraced in my heart."

Heaven play a fool on me

2005-12-07T00:04:00.000+08:00

Heaven like to play a fool on me....

Two years ago I was teaching a supposedly IT-proficient person A on how to parse a csv file into a table based on certain rules. And two years back here, I am back at this circle, teaching another person B from the same country who is of person A and is also supposedly to be IT-proficient this same trick.

And the scenario...

Rewinding back to 2 years ago...the source code and all were there, Mr. A can 1) read the source code and decipher what it's about or 2) ask people who wrote the code on how it works. Fortunately for him, he have the luxury of the 2nd option. Of course I'm also kind enough to provide him on how the flow works out and definitely other than me another fren/colleague also gave him hints and assistance. However in the end if I recall correctly, he did managed to get it working but with a lot of errors here and there, that someone have to clean the piece of code.

2 years after, at a new place from the above this interesting scenario surfaced up again! Well it was tasked to Mr B, however the coding has to be done in object-oriented style and no sample code for him. BUT on the internet there is some sample code provided if you look around. Hmm... initially don't understand how this processing work, but with bits of explaination and showing the way to google, this guy found some code. However, he wasn't able to adapt it to what he want to use. Similiarly as above, errors and bugs occured here and there, and I have to clean them up to make it work.

Interesting questions that I really wonder...
1) Do I speak alien language that they don't understand what I am talking? When I see the error, I know what's happenning and it's becoz they don't understand what's needs to be done correctly. And probably you reader out there might be thinking, maybe instruction is not given clearly. Nope, the clearest instruction is given, ie: A = B or transform A to B...
2) Why do they take up this occupation in the first place?
3) How do they pass the test and interview?
4) Lastly, if this is passed to a local who is a fresh grad, would the situation be entirely different?

Oh God, can you spare me this joke for the third time if possible, I don't know if I can take this joke again...

The masterplan

2005-11-19T22:16:00.000+08:00

Reading saffyz's comment - "The man up there must have better plan for this friends of yours"...

This makes me really wonder not once, but many many times what kinda of plan does the man above has for each and everyone of us. Each day we wake up, go to work, slog off at the office and come back home rest sleep and the next day continues the same way repetitively again. Does anyone question if this is going to be the kinda of life to go on for the rest of their life? For me I do really question, is it going to be like this? If not, how do I get out of this loop? Can I get out of this cycle? But how?

Probably some reader here must be thinking that I questioned too much, why bother cracking this tough question. For me I want to know if there is something planned out for me if possible. Fortune reading, forecasting, prediction seems like a way but none of this definitely bring you to the solution. Here it came upon me that there are two factors shaping the poor human soul.

Factor one: The ONE above, he who has the whole master plan.
Factor two: For those who don't believed in the ONE above, I would say the society.

Easily the ONE above is easily associated with the god of your religion of your choice. Because it is your belief, you believed that the god has a mission/destiny for you to fulfill.

As for factor two, why do I say so is because everyday we seems like working for the society. We tolled to get a sum of salary to feed our living. However, we can't have any or little influence on this society for any matter that is imposed on us. The big decision is made by the higher authorities and we obey or at most complaint to ourself.

This sounds very complicated, and indeed for factor two the realm of implications is far more complicated that can involves a lot of matter. For that matter, I think it maybe traced back to how our mankind society started off to work that has this flaw. It's easy to point out errors but hard to correct, so with my extremely small knowledgee I also don't know how to correct.

Can somebody provides me some ways to enlightment?

Condolence dedication.

2005-11-11T21:54:00.000+08:00

This entry shall dedicate a condolence to a volunteer police who passed away in his voluntary course of duty. Many might have read from the news about a volunteer policeman who got hit by a lorry on his duty and his wife was also hurt.

Why do I write this? The simple reason coz I know Ben Hur as he was a good friendly ex-colleague from my camp. He was working for ST Aerospace, supporting our unit for logistic stuffs. Working under the same roof his office is just next to us. At work, he will be striving for professionalism, and always friendly to everyone. Easy going positive guy, at that time we already know he's a volunteer policeman, esp with a traffic police. Everytime he sees me he always give warm greeting first and ask how's life. Now with that accident there be one lesser person that I know when I go back for in camp training.

At first when I read the news article, I saw the photo bearing very similiar traits of somebody that I know of. Reading it further, the description of the man who work for Air Force and after service get to work for a company along the same trade. What coincide more is working as a voluntunary policeman. BTW, my newspaper are in Chinese as my parent can't read English and I been reading all these years Chinese newspaper. Initially I thought maybe it's somebody else with the same traits and feature. Until last nite I ask cancerian to help me check the name, it then confirmed my suspicion was right all along.

My sympathy goes to him and his family as they be missing a great man.

Lazy Saturday

2005-10-29T22:07:00.000+08:00

Ah... a lazy Saturday...once more i am back to having lazy saturday. Some what no assignment to rush, got work to do but brush it all aside. :D

What did I do today? Nothing much really...what would you expect a lazy person to do hehe...actually was recovering from sickness on Wed, so didnt' want to do much strenenous stuffs. Now with more free weekends to come, I want to do something else more than this. Things on my thoughts to do:

To get fit.
Personally I feel myself a bit weak, quite prone to sickness...and so I want to get fit. Other than jogging once in a while I want to go gym. And the feeling of going gym alone is quite sian. Need to find ka kis to do common activities. Or maybe play an hour of badminton or tennis.

To pick up some activities?
What activities? i dont have any in mind at the moment. Maybe I shall go further my Jap. but not until next year then haha. Maybe some sport or cooking? Hmm...why cooking, so that I can have good food for my stomach wahaha...

Side line business
Another thought on my mind that I been trying to do is to do some kinda of side line small business, ie online shopping. And I don't have any idea of what to sell. Another area need to ponder and often get queued into KIV list...

Setup my own personal website or host some development area.
Another one of my overdue stuffs...why? I also dunno, just been too tired to diy it all by myself maybe.

And also anyone got good recommendation of any medication to keep down high blood pressure? Not for me but my aged parent, they are borderline cases. Abit worried though as with ages catching up, symptoms of illness and all those can just show up. Took mom to see doctor and found out this, however as the doctor was saying cause due to sickness the high blood pressure reading might not be accurate, and have take during normal health. Hopefully this is true.

Well well its going into 11pm as I write. Hopefully I can sleep better tonite, as I find myself getting abit of insomnia as well. Dunno well, maybe I have to redefine back a healthy life style to get back a good nite sleep?

Procastinate

2005-10-25T23:50:00.000+08:00

Independent - that's one word that I myself like to be in. Yes, I really don't like to be dependent on somebody. As much as I understand that this job/function might be the other party's responsibilities, however if I could help do it myself, I would most definitely do it. But alas, man only have 24 hours a day, of which around 6-8 hours is spent restly/sleeping. Many a times if the job is delayed too long I would take over it to do personally myself. I just don't like the idea of delaying too long a task.

As I write this blog I am wondering if this is an article to know myself better. Many a times when you sit down to write your cover letter you have to put down your strong points to sell. At those times, it's like you trying to dig something out of yourself and yet no brain juice comes out and have to put vaguely points that might be irrevelant or some common marketing traits.

On the above paragraph of delaying, I know myself sometimes to be a procastinator also. If an item that I don't like to do or don't feel like doing, chances are I will push it to the next week or delayed till I can't stand it and then settle it haha... So am I one who will want to finish earlier or delay things? Sometimes I wonder...

Train Ride Story

2005-10-22T21:26:00.000+08:00

I'm back! Wow from the last blog entry, it has been a long one month breakaway from blogging ...

The past one month I probably have felt physically fatigue and mentally stretched out. With the last bits of my Computing Project assignment to rush with last than 1 month worth of time, I glad it's all over last night. Only then I really feel a burden relief off my aching back, which of course would lead me to have more time to concentrate of some of the stuffs on my job. It's another tiring pit hole to handle but who doesn't have this?

Last night after submitting assignment and had dinner I took the train back home. Nowadays I rarely take train as my work place I go by bus. And normally if i work after 9pm I will take cab back and claim, why not since company is paying :P Anyway encountered this family - a group of 4 members consisting of a pair of parent and children (elder sis + younger son).

Don't know if it's the mischieveous characteristic of their son or the upbringing. This son of their really need some bit of discipline. We all will always stand at the platform waiting for the train to arrive and when it arrvies I would give way to let the alighting pax to alight first. But this rowdy boy want to get in first when the door opened. Thank goodness the mom pulled him back and told him to wait and have some patience. Ok so we all went in...on walking in his mom told him again, don't need to rush, just wait a while, but her son rebuked back to say waiting only waste time! What kinda of nonese is this, how much time can you waste on waiting for less than a min for the alighting pax to get off. This child really need some re-education on manner upbringing man...

Then again I had another incident while rushing to a destination taking the train. On entering the control station I saw my train was going to arrive in 1 min. And when I take the escalator down I saw the train arrive, people getting off already. In a rush to save time from waiting for another 5-7 minutes, I quickly rush down the stairs and tried to squeeze my way through the alighting pax. Then this pair of idiot couple was holding hand swinging and walking admist the crowd to their next platform. Our path crossed. I was expecting that they would let go of their holding hand for while to let me past. But they didn't, and that guy he raised his right arm to block my path from breaking their joining hands. At that time my arms was full with stuffs, a backpack bag on my back, notebook sling on my shoulder, arm holding onto the big pile of assignment printout submission got back with feedback. And this stupid guy prob. thinks that their joining arms are more important! Anyway since I can't cut into their strong bonded hands, I routed around that guy and muttered a distinguistable scolding word "Stupid". I hope this guy heard it and let him fume for a while, for that time I am really pey chey for a while before I got a seat and doze into sleep.

Who's right who's wrong in this case? I don't know but I prob. can say the train ride can encounter some many interesting stories around hehe

Kind hearted mistreated.

2005-09-19T22:41:00.000+08:00

This is definitely one group of people I dislike!

Client who thinks that they are GOD, my fooT! Do you ever encounter people who are insensitivte, who thinks that yes I am the client, I am the boss, king or queen. Have they ever spare a thought that you are just nothing but a fool who doesn't know how to do work and leverage on others to help you do this piece of work? Brainless people, this I shall learn a lesson that mean people are not worth to be treated good worths.

Recently last week watch the whole series of the Condor Heros (射雕英雄传) the one that is showing on Channel U on Saturday 9 - 11pm. The ending series was showing the hero, Guo Jing rebuking Gengkis Khan on his war conquerage. But what's most importantly is that a true leader will be well-loved by all below, and not a leader who is out to show the ego to conquer. And in the show <天龙八部>, Qiao Feng also brought up the idea that be it a life of Emperor or Commoner, they are equal, why should there be a difference in races, and war in killing each other?

I really wonder if Human is evolving for the good or just getting more deeply entrenched in the roots of sins.

Well was really cursing a lot at this group of people, but never mind I shall reserve it for their retribution wahaha.

Work? OT? or ...?

2005-09-11T21:55:00.000+08:00

Missing from blogging? Neh, juz that lately been busy with work and assignments...
Ever since taking over my colleagues's job when he have left I just don't have my time to do my original project no matter how I manage my time.

No to say that I don't OT, I do stay back sometimes. Don't know why but lately I just don't have that much energy as before to stay back and OT. OT seems like only if it's a must then I will do otherwise I just leave it for the next day...

This week seems like a gathering week to me, tue met up with my community group of friend. Was having this dinner at Suntec to send off a friend who will be leaving for his study sponsored by RSN in UK. And with that night also got booked for a wedding invitation next year for another friend. Wow so fast they all hahaha.

Next one month going to be another busy month ahead, let me finish my assignment and yes I shall be relieved from all, looking forward for that day.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

2005-08-26T23:03:00.000+08:00

I know i done this before, doing it again juz for the sake of fun heehee

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to obedience and warmth.

In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored.

You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please.

Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred.

In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Water!

2005-08-25T21:12:00.000+08:00

Was at client's office for a full whole day for a user training on the new site that our company developed for them...It's really interesting to see a bunch of 30's over people sitting there, posting questions and different behaviour to some of the happenings...Was wondering will I be like them when I reach their age.

Anyway there's this poster outside their conference room that reads something like this - "A person is like a teabag, you need to put them into a hot cup of boiling water to know the quality/taste of the drink..." (Can't remember the exact quote, rephasing here and there)

Interesting on the internet there's this phase, prob. the originality came from there
"A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Then I ask my colleage to have a look and jokingly told her, ya then you gotta throw them into a hot pot of boiling water man and then they would live in a hazardous(水深火热) environment haha. The mind is really good at associating things, one thing leads to another, whereby I came upon to remember the story our SM Goh told before (hopefully i'm not wrong)...

Also on pot of boiling water hehe; there are two pots of boiling water. In the first pot, the water was cool and there's a frog in there swimming happily, little did it know that the water temperature was increasing, water boiling... In the other pot, the water was boiled, and when another frog was thrown into it, it immediately jump out of the pot, coz it know that it can't survive. Back to the first pot, when the water reached boiling state, the frog was cooked as it was too comfortable with it's environment.

Well i would say the first frog was a bit too stupid ah, with no environment awareness. I would believe animal would have instinct to detect water boiling and then would jump out of the pot.

Coming back to the topic, the two story doesn't make sense, but they all share the same environment water! Water the essence of life it's what makes and also can break!