bish bash bosh

Go Rally Go Rally Go Go Go

2008-08-19T00:30:00.001+08:00

I think this year is the first time I'm actually interested in hearing our dear ~~Crown Prince~~ New Emperor Lee National Day Rally speech. Ok, he tried to make some joke. Not funny. Only the ministers are laughing. -shrug-

He started off with all the talk about the rising cost through the world due to the high inflation brought about by rising petrol cost. Oh yeah, of course. I thought the whole world is facing that? The usual gahmen propaganda speech. After going round and round about the gahmen around the world facing major issues due to subsidies and whatsnot, ~~he just says~~ I take it that he meant we cannot do it. Oh yeah, nothing unusual. We never expected that though we can dream about it, can't we?

Then talk about the 3 billions the gahmen put aside to help the Sillyporeans. The GST Offset that they have given out in cash had helped Siilypore to pay for some of their home utilities bills. Oh yeah, definitely. I have known of people who use the offset to buy the latest mobile phone. Oh yeah, I can't remember what I did with mine. And of course they are going to be giving out more payout this coming October. Oh yeah, we did hear it wrongly. Indeed more. As the wise old men had said it, when ah kong gave out moolah to you, be very afraid.

Then the topic got to Sillypore infamous ERP. Not this, but this! Like he says, now the gahmen has made car cheaper to help Sillypore fullfilled their dream of owning cars, the gahmen had to increase the ERP to help ease the congestion. WTF? Did I see a paradox here? And they are just rrying to justify why the ERP had to be increased and more gantries need to be added. Oh crap.

Of course, the talk on making Siilypore a more gracious place is good. I definitely like the idea and hopefully, there are proper and good campaign to promote that. Then another hot favourite topic is more babies. Don't look at me. I'm guilty as charged but what to do. I cannot go around farking women, right? Finally the right one is the message our dear ~~Crown Prince~~ New Emperor Lee wanted to drive across. Oh yeah. That is so crap yet so true. Then all about the match making and many other tinies about it. Why are we not getting married? Talk talk talk and its not anything new that we haven't heard of. First he kicked off a good rapport by saying that the gahmen will push the family day leaves from 2 to 6. Lotsa claps! Of course but none of my business right now. Then next, he said they are going to introduce something new. 1 week of unpaid leave for either spouses and some claps are heard. I did say some, right? But did they hear the word unpaid? WTF? What is new about that? Passed you a glass of Cordon bleu first, then trying to get away with it by throwing in another glass of Hennessy Silver. Sighz.

Then all about kids and education. -yawn- Yeah, that is just so not my topic. Then all the talk about the new media, how things are going online. And US politics and how Obama fight his campaign online. And how a great M'sian blogger winning an election. Then he mentioned that there are 4.5 millions people in Sillypore but 6 millions mobile set out there! More mobile per couple than babies! Oh yeah, did he knows that its easier to maintain mobile than baby? No diaper change for mobile too!

Then the key about controlling media. No political related media. Red tape shall still be there. Excuse moi, is that new? Since when does Sillyporeans got the freedom of speech? Yeah yeah, podcast, videocast, cannnnnn, but still must be responsible. In simple words, beware what you post up there, it might come back to haunt you. And we will still be watching you.

And yes, we lost to China. Our lost hope of ever getting a gold has to wait for another 4 years.

And in conclusion, I'm dozing off.

Euro Cup 2008

2008-06-22T22:00:00.001+08:00

The Russians has made it into the semi-finals in the Euro2008! So happy for them, and I always enjoy some upsets in the prediction of the game. The Turks won as well, after beating the Croatia in the quarter-finals. And guess what, I was going to bet on the finalist been the Turks and the Russians!

I din place my bet caused I lost my password to my account and the speed on the site was horribly slow! This was seriously like what had happened 4 years ago when I wanted to place a 10 bucks bet on the Greeks to win the cup. Back then, the odds of them winning was like 1:100 or 1:200. Because of that one statement, I lost that little bit of extra cash! And now, it had happened again!

Damn. Big guy up there just dowan to hand me that little bit of extra cash. The odds are no longer exciting now. Sigh.

FF3

2008-06-19T01:12:00.001+08:00

Yeah, the brand new FF3 is available for download. No, its not Final Fantasy. Its Firefox. The little fury foxy that is appearing everywhere. They are attempting to break the world record for most downloaded in 24 hours. You can also view the different region on how much has been downloaded in each country. Damn. I had to zoom to 100% before I can blardie do a mouseover on Sillypore! Sad, isn't it?

Sweeet. Download it guys!

Oh, I'm running it before the official release. Afterall, its appear inside my debian sid repository. Oh well. Got a couple of plugins not ff3 ready yet but on the whole, the major ones are good to go!

Will you marry me pleaseeeeeeeee?

2008-04-23T00:58:00.001+08:00

This must be the a very exciting ring for a network expert couple! Now that it got me thinking, have this going-to-be-ex network security expert guy getting married. I wonder if he had bought his wedding band. Anyone else? For that price, its amazingly cheap!

Its been a long long while!

2008-04-16T17:13:00.003+08:00

My last entry was so ancient ago. Someone asked me if my blog was dead. I said nope. Its just that for each day that I'm not writing it down, the amount of things to write gets longer and longer, and then when I think about writing them, I got very tired. Just like work, its piling up if you ever stop for that little coffee break. so maybe this is the starter and I will catch up on it real soon.

Saw this thing this morning. Amazing! Tempting design!

And it so totally remind me of this which is coming to a cinema near you soon.

I wonder if it will get too hot sitting in that panda chair. And then I saw this amazing design yesterday!

Another great temptation for me to waste my moolah on. Sighz. I'm so broke.

Sichuan - Part 2

2007-10-15T22:09:00.001+08:00

Finally, its the eighteenth and the last day. We were going to make it an easy and relax day. No more rushing from one sight to the other. No time searching for transportation and bargaining for better prices. No more cheap hotel searching. We woke up late and had our breakfast. How could fans of the Romance of Three Kingdoms (三国志) novel or games or franchises not come to Chengdu (成都) and give the Wuhou Temple (武侯词) a miss? After our simple meal, I sent my buddy on his way to the Wuhou Temple (武侯词). Having been to it on my previous trip to Chengdu (成都), I had decided to give it miss. Afterall, entrance fees had gone up yet again. Damn capitalism. I headed for the Orchard Road of Chengdu (成都), Chunxi Road (春熙路). Not that I wanted to shop but was looking for some gifts for my family members, upon confirming their request.

In fact, I had a hard time searching for them. I actually walked for 6 hours, including all the way back to the hotel! Half way through, my buddy finished his tour of the Wuhou Temple (武侯词), took a cab to Chunxi Road (春熙路) to join me. Those damn mascots. Not all major departmental stores were selling them. After the 4th one and could not find what I wanted, headed back to where we had bought some of our gifts at the previous departmental store. We had to figure out our way back to the same departmental store. Once again, relying on our instincts and almost negative sense of direction, we just bashed ahead and bingo, we did managed to find it back. My buddy ended up buying more gifts for more people!

I wondered how much distances I had walked over the 6 hours. And with that, we had finally came to the end of our trip. Made our way back to the hotel, tried the local bread for the last time, then had a quick bite before collecting our luggages from the hotel. Hopped onto the cab and made our way to the Airport. Nothing big hooha over there except that someone seemed to run into some problem. She had apparently lost her passport and boarding pass after checking in and when got stuck at the x-ray scanning section. Well, curious as we might be, we did not stayed on to find out the end result. Good luck to her, if she's flying on the same flight as us.

Oh, the interesting food for last night was rabbit waist (兔腰子).Tasted a little like liver but the taste were much lighter. Hopefully the next time round, I would get to eat the fragrance meat, not that I were dying for it but I just wanted to bring exotic stuffs.

Bye bye China, but believe me, I would be back.

Sichuan - Part 1

2007-10-13T23:15:00.001+08:00

Our 2nd last day, the seventeenth day, started without much of a plan, except we only knew we were going to fly back to Chengdu (成都). My friends wanted to buy me lunch, before sending me to the airport. In the end, he got held up at work until quite late. His german tourists were complaining badly about the lack of heater in their rooms. I never knew germans were that afraid of cold. I thought Germany was very cold as well. So we just had a quick bite across the street from the hostel before rushing to the airport.

We reached Chengdu (成都) without much hiccups except for my little hiccup of forgetting to place some of my airplane forbidden items into my checked in luggage. Thought of saving a little moolah by staying in a hostel. Took a airport bus to the city, then took a cab from within the city to the hostel. What I did not expect was the lack of room when I arrived. When I called them from the airport, they actually had room, but by the time we arrived, all the rooms where taken up in that 1 hours! Arghz! The reception send us on our way to another youth hostel near the area but without giving us a proper direction. So ended up on a slight wild goose chase, kept getting redirected by the locals to somewhere else. Ended up at a 2-star hotel. They actually had a twin room for 40Y but without a bathroom and 100Y for one with a bathroom. We decided to pamper ourselves on our last night here in China, so we took up the room with the bathroom.

So once again, after settling our luggages, we went out to hit the street. Started walking in a randomly selected direction, we ended up at a buddhist temple which surrounded it were rows of 2 stories ancient looking building which sells food and stuffs. Its either a tourist spot of some sort or some kind of more expensive food for the locals to spend their moolah on during the weekend. Tried some of the food found there. There was one that display Goose Egg (天鹅蛋). Was debating with myself if I should tried that. Was calculating the amount of colesterol in it, and finally given in to my desire to taste exotic food. Damn, when did I became so health conscious? And I felt conned! Its actually deep fried flour with some sesame on the outside. Arghz!

Then we continued walking until we thought we lost sight of where we were going. I only had a general direction of where our hotel was supposed to be. Anywhere we just continue walking until we came across a big departmental store. Ended inside it shopping for some gifts for some friends, and looking for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games mascots dolls for a colleague. And after we left the departmental store, we tried to find our way back to the hotel and we ended up in the direction, and then we finally came across that youth hostel that we were supposed to go as directed by the previous hostel!

We had the local steamboat for dinner. Its was flaming hot and numbing to the mouth. Almost could not take it anymore but we were closing to finishing our food already. For the 1st time I did not finish the plate of pomfret I ordered. Their pomfret was very small compared to those we ate in Sillypore. I tried the Harbin beer but found it no big deal. The beef was very nice though.

And with that, we ended up at an internet cafe to finish off our seventeenth day and final night in China.

Qinghai - Part 2

2007-10-13T22:07:00.000+08:00

Xining (西宁) was very very cold right now due to the raining for the past month. In fact I had put on 4 layered of clothes. After breakfast, we headed to Guide (贵德). We scaled to the base of Laji Mountain (拉鸡山). It was snowing up there, with the summit covered in snow. I had finally seen my real snow! Went out to take some photos and felt the snowflakes fell onto my face and melted away. Even used the snow to wash my hands though it left it a little frozen after that. Along the way to Guide (贵德), we came across Yellow River (黄河). We reached Guide (贵德) shortly after. Went to visit Jade Emperor Temple (玉皇阁). Inside it was statues of many taoist deities. Even Yue Fei (岳飞) and Guan Yu (关羽) had theirs there too. Of course, the Emperor of all deities (玉帝) had his there as well. Afterall, the temple was dedicated to him.

After finishing the temple, we made our way back to Xining (西宁). Along the way, we pass by Chengnan (成南), a new district that the real estate developer were trying to develop. A lot of residential housing were available and its relatively cheap but many of them were vacant. It was still some distance away from Xining (西宁). Reminded me when Sillypore Gahmen tried to get people to buy up HDB properties in Sembawang and Sengkang back then.

Today is the breaking of their month long fasting of the islamic Hui tribe (回族). Their mosque should be pretty packed with Hui people (回民). Along our way to and fro Guide (贵德), could see quite a few number of people bringing their kids with them to do visiting for their new year. I guess we were a lot physically and mentally tired. So we reached back to our hostel by 1500hrs. Dun feel like walking to the mosque to see the human mass orgy. So took a break, staying inside the hostel, relaxing away by surfing the net and watching The IT Crowd Season 2. Afterall, going to be flying back to Sillypore in another 2 more days, and thinking of the mountain of works waiting back in the office was sending the shiver down my spine. Sigh.

After that we had dinner by roaming the food alley (小吃街). Had some BBQ squid and pork ribs, and finally tried the ancient candy (冰糖葫芦). Its actually maltose poured over their particular plum or peach type stuff. Now they actually pour the maltose over fresh fruits or dried fruits. And after dinner, we ended our sixteenth day of no excitement.

Qinghai - Part 1

2007-10-11T22:58:00.001+08:00

First time we dun have to wake up in the middle of the night to get to our destination. We reached Lanzhou (兰州) at around 0914hrs. Bought our tickets to Xining (西宁) at 1010hrs but the train was delayed till 1040. Also our first time not taking the sleeper compartment. The hard seater tickets were not allocated seats like those of sleepers. We had to fight our way through the available hard seater compartment looking for seats. The "No Smoking" sign seemed to be useless, and even the passengers just spat on the floor. The train was supposed to be fast train but it kept stopping midway from the station. Dun look that fast to me.

Finally reached Xining (西宁) at 1500hrs. Since it was the final destination, we took our time to get off the train. No point in squeezing with those passengers who seems dying to get off the train. Finally met my friends outside the station. Took a cab to one of their friend's operated hostel. Sunshine Pagoda Hostel. Lovely place. Nice environment, nice staff. It was located near the main shopping street in Xining (西宁). Since we had another hour and a half to kill before meeting the friends for dinner, we did our usual walkaround. Trying their local self made potato chips. Very hot and spicy, cheap and nice.

Had dinner at a rather famous local muslim restaurant. Then headed back to the hostel. Luckily I checked my email, only to discover my flight back to Chengdu (成都) was cancelled due to bad weather. Had to postpone our flight to saturday afternoon. Only after I agreed to the change did I realised that the air ticket price had been reduced by another 100Y! Damn. My itinerary was fixed by the friend. Due to the additional time in Xining (西宁), the original itinerary had been changed. With that ended my fifteenth day in China.

Gansu - Part 1

2007-10-11T22:40:00.001+08:00

Twelfth day started at 0314hrs, as I had stated in my last entry. After alighting from the train, we made our way to the exit, forgetting to make our next train ticket purchase, from Dunhuang (敦煌) to Lanzhou (兰州), As we made our way out of the train station, there were already few hasslers around, looking for people to take their cab. Anyway, we just randomly selected one driver and went with him, getting him to help us find a 2-star hotel, as usual. The 1st one we went to was full, so we headed to the one across the street which got a room, but ended up we had to pay for 2 nights, since the time we checked in was considered as previous night. Damn hotel! And worse, the shower ran on solar power, so no hot water until later in the morning. So we only did some wiping before heading to bed.

Woke up at 1100hrs and still felt the coldness in the air! The windows to the room was not closed, so the whole room had dropped to below your standard aircon room temperature. And to make matter worse, there was NO HOT WATER at all! It happened to be a dark cloudy day with almost no sun. So its was very cold out there. We had to put on 3 layers of clothes. With my running noses, my resistances to coldness had dropped a fair bit.

Apparently there was no public bus to the local tourist spots. So after settling our lunch with one of the local restaurant, we called the driver who picked us up earlier in the morning to bring us to the local sights. So in the end, we decided on going to 3 just sights, skipping Wei Jin Tomb (魏晋墓). We started with JiaYuGuan Fort (嘉峪关关城). Quite a big place. After seeing castles in Wales some years back, I ought to see a chinese Fort. The fort was decorated with a man-made lake and museum around it. The inside of the fort retained most of its original style and this fort is an important fort back then, protecting the China's border due to its strategic location. We spent more time in it than expected. There was even an archery area, where tourists got to shoot arrows down at the straw dummy from the top of the fort. As usual, it was not free but its relatively cheap, at 1Y per arrow. There was also a GuanYu Temple ( 关帝庙) inside the fort too. There was a legend saying that a great man calculated the building of the fort to great accuracy that at the end of the construction, only one brick was left.

After that, the 2nd sight was a part of the Great Wall. We got to climb till the end of it. A few hundreds steps later, we were at the end of whatever was left of this part of the Great Wall. The climb up was a little unbearable. With a running nose and ice cold wind for companionship, it did took a fair bit of labour to get to the top. With each step I took, I was asking myself why was I paying moolah to put myself through such labour. At the top, we were rewarded with a bird's eye view of the city.

The 3rd sight was the 1st sector of the Great Wall (第一墩). It was the 1st section because it started from the end of the cliff. Frankly, only one small section of it was left and give it another couple more years, or decades, it will probably disappeared, with the erosion of nature. The cliff was by a gorge, which will slowly "eat" away the cliff. At this sight, we got to see an underground cave. It was purly man-made that contained fossil skeletons on the wall, and underground excavation sealed with glass floor for viewing, and a gallery that extended out of the cliff, having a good better view of the gorge beneath it. There were cable car service that brought paying tourist to the opposite end of the cliff. It was a single seater swing like seat. I'm sure one can felt the adrenaline rush while sitting alone, gliding across the gorge with no protection around you.

Slightly further away from the underground cave was a filming site. Its was constructed like an ancient army camp. We wondered around the camp with the cold wind freezing us. There was a bridge across the gorge to another filming site which was constructed like an ancient home, with well too. Looked exactly like those in a period drama. Crossing the bridge did gave me the adrenaline rush, with the chilling wind around me and the fast rushing but not huge enough river roaring beneath me. The bridge did swing with each step I took. Its about 100m - 150m across.

With that ended our sightseeing in JiaYuGuan (嘉峪关). We got the driver to send us to the bus station to get our tickets for Dunhuang (敦煌). Along the way, he pointed out there were restaurants that sell fragrance meat (香肉), which was actually dog meat. Sound exotic enough, I would not mind trying that but it was too far from our hotel and I could not remember the there. We ended eating at this famous bun restaurants called Gou Bu Li (狗不理)which literally meant dog dun care. After dinner we headed for the nearby internet cafe, after which we walked to their night market. It was a little boring compared to the bazaar at Xinjiang. The day ended with NO HOT SHOWER! I normally went normal tap water at home but temperature below 20°and ice cold water, bathing in my current condition was a bad idea. We could only made do with kettle boiled water to wipe ourselves.

Thirteenth day started with a mad rush. We headed to the nearby train station to get our Dunhuang (敦煌) to Lanzhou (兰州) train tickets. Due to some miscommunication, I was issued the wrong tickets. Standing there to argue was a bad idea since we needed to get ourselves to the bus station for the trip to Dunhuang (敦煌). So I was directed to the next counter to cancel the tickets and made a new purchase. The line was a little long with certain people having priority queue and computer hiccup. In the end its 10mins rush to the bus station.

The ride was uneventful, taking nearly 6 hours. We reached Dunhuang (敦煌) at about 1500hrs and a lady started hassling us to get a cab for the famous Mogao Grottoes (莫高窟). There was no public bus to Mogao Grottoes (莫高窟). So in the end we took one of the cabs to city central which was actually only 2 streets away. The hotel we stayed was the most expensive so far. Most spacious but looked a little rundown. The toliet was a little flooded after bathing too. But this was the only one that provided each room with cable TV! I tuned to latest movie channel and I'm looking at a movie I watched more than 10 years back! We took our shower without the hot water since the temperature in Dunhuang (敦煌) was a little warm by the time we reached.

We went to MingSha Mountain ( 鸣沙山) to climb the sand dunes and to view the Moon Crescent Lake (月牙泉). As we expected, the sights in Dunhuang (敦煌) was among the most expensive for this trip. MingSha Mountain (鸣沙山) was a 5A site, like Tianshan Tianchi but more expensive. According to Frommer's China guide, the climb up the dunes was some sweaty work. It was no kidding me. If you dun walk with controlled steps, a lot of energy was wasted. A step up, half a step sinking was going to happen, not to talk about my physique. Perspiring with chilling wind blowing was no fun.

With each step, the same thoughts ran through my mind. Why was I paying to suffer? But as always, the higher you climbed, the better the view got. Along the way, we could see people sitting along the side of the slope catching their breath. Some were playing with the sand, rolling in it. They were very fine sand. 2 ladies on the way down suggested to us to take off our shoes to enjoy the feel of the fine sand. Looking down at my boots, its not a good idea. There were shoes protective cover for rental, covering from kneel down to the floor. Its a good thing we came in our boots with gutters, so no sand could get in unless we sank to our waist.

From the top, I really got an awesome view of the Moon Crescent Lake (月牙泉), man-made lake as well as its surroundings. We hanged at the top for a while, enjoying the chilling breeze and the sweaty effort. One side of a particular dune was named the sliding slope. As the name suggested, tourists paid to sit on a float and slided down the slope. We chose to walk down the slope. Taking 1 last look at the surrounding so not to leave out anything else since I dun wish to climb up again, we made our way down.

We made our way to the Moon Crescent Lake (月牙泉). Its a naturally formed lake in the middle of the desert. A building was constructed next to it in the recent decades. The lake had been around for milleniums. Like the saying beautiful from far, far from beautiful. From far, the lake looked beautiful but close up, it looked disappointing. There were a lot of camels sitting around, waiting for their owners to get tourists to pay for the ride. Riding a camel in a desert looked so fun but my wallet refused to sponsor me. Sigh.

We left the place, taking the public bus back to town central. We then started our ritual walk around the town. We went looking for a place to eat donkey meat. I doubt I could try that in Sillypore. As usual, we ordered too much food again. We asked for small plate of yellow noodles but it looked like extra large in Sillypore term. Reminded me of the entrée spaghetti I had when I was in downunder 5 years back. Temperature dropped pretty fast in Dunhuang (敦煌) by night fall. We finally found our way to the main shopping street, somewhat of the Orchard Road in Sillypore. Went to the internet café to gather information on the train schudule from Lanzhou (兰州) to Xining (西宁). Booked our airticket back to Xining (西宁) to Chengdu (成都) as well. And that ended our thirteenth day.

We woke up early for the fourteenth day. Half a day at the famous Mogao Grottoes (莫高窟) was recommended. Our driver arrived earlier than we were ready. Mogao Grottoes (莫高窟) was at least a 5A site, costing us 160Y each. If you are holding any China guide, if it is not the current year copy, the pricing in it are mostly outdated. It was a 10mins walk in the early coldness before reaching the entrance. All cameras and big bag had to be deposited at the free deposit counter. A chinese speaking guide was provided for free but it would have to wait a group to be formed. The thing was that each guide might show you a slightly different set of caves though the 3 main caves would always be part of the highlights.

There were 735 caves in Mogao Grottoes (莫高窟), with 492 of those containing paintings and statues, out of which only 30-40 caves were opened to public. Each guide would show 8 - 10 caves, so we shall 10 + 1 caves. After we finished our guided tour, we were allowed to roam the place on our own. We came a group that went into a cave that we din see earlier, so we joined them. If we hanged around the place for a while more, we could see even more caves. But we had a time schedule to adhere to, so we could not stick around the caves all day. Photography were only allowed after stepping through the exit, from behind the fences. So a lot of moolah making opportunity for people outside the fences. They would take a photo of you from behind the fence while you were still inside. Photo to be collected after you exited.

One of the oldest caves we visited was more than 1500 years. At some caves, layered of paintings could be seen, due to different dynastic changes in fashion or repair works. Tang dynasty had done the best art, especially during the peak of the dynasty. The world 3rd largest buddha, but 1st for indoor buddha statue, was found here in cave 96. It rosed in rank because the previous 3rd and 4th was destroyed in... errrr I think Pakistan... by the extremists. That buddha was over 30m in height and 1 of the 3 main caves to see. First built during the Tang dynasty and repaired numerous times over the different dynasties. Inside the caves, one could see the layered floor tiles over the different dynasties.

The other one was the 2nd largest buddha in Mogao Grottoes (莫高窟), which was over 20m, in cave 148. The final highlight was the sleeping buddha in caves 130. The inside of the caves was shaped like a coffin depicting buddha's death at age of 80 years. 72 monk sculptures was added to the back of the buddha, each having a different facial expression depicting their different understanding of the buddha's death.

One of the caves contained a sculpture that was said to be the Mona Lisa of the East. From one angle, when light was shone onto it, it was smiling and from another angle, it had a different smiling expression. And this was more than 1500 years old. In another cave, many of today's fashion design of clothes were found on the wall paintings.

In another cave was a vast treasures of Mogao Grottoes (莫高窟) discovered. The cave was done up by a great monk. After his death, his disciples excavated a smaller cave within the same cave. In it was the statue of great monk which the disciples done to be a memorial place of him. Some 200 years later, the local people that smaller cave to hide all their religious and treasured artifacts. The area was entering a warring time. They then sealed up the smaller cave. Another 800-900 years had passed before a priest discovered the smaller cave while cleaning up the cave. He took some of the artifacts to sell. Slowly news spread about the treasures. Between 1904 - 1911, the germans, americans, russians, japanese and french came and bribed the priest with little moolah for the treasures inside. By the time the government took over the place, only 10000 artifacts were left compared to 50000 when the smallor caves were discovered.

His disciples believed that he had done great contributions to cave since he used the moolah gotten from the sales on artifacts and religious contributions to repair the cave. A plaque in memory of him was took up by the disciples in the but that plaque was now a reminder of his shame and treachery. After we exited from the caves area, we went around taking photos of whatever we could.

On the way back to town for lunch, we detoured to a Northern Wei Tomb (北魏墓) which was nearly 1800 years old. The tomb was discovered in 1981 only after they caught a tomb robber. He was only an accomplice. The main culprit was never caught. Almost everything was cleared out of the tomb, hence the owner of tomb was undeterminable. But based on the structure of the tomb, the owner was likely to be someone high up in the society hierarchy. The design of the tolnb was to make use of gravity to support itself. No cement was used at all. The tomb robber was very professional, knowing how to break into the tomb. Only the 4 corners of the roof was the possible way to break in. Removing a wrong brick would caused the tomb to collapse. It was said the real coffin of owner was to be found behind the wall painting found in the main room but no way to determine it. Removing that wall would caused the tomb to collapse.

After the tomb visit, we went back to town for lunch. Had donkey and lamb dumplings, together with wanton soup. We then headed for the West Thousand Buddha Caves (西千佛洞). Its was deserted with no tourists when we visited. This place paled in comparison to Mogao Grottoes (莫高窟). A total of 16 caves with only 6 opened for public. Many sculptures were unfinished. Due to weather and earthquakes, most of the paintings were ruined but works from Northern Wei could be seen. It showed the refinement of the artists' styles and skills over the dynasties.

Our final stop was at the Dunhuang ancient city (敦煌古城). It looked great and grand from the outside, similar to the JiaYuGuan Fort (嘉峪关关城). Only after entering did we realized we got duped. Its was a filming location. Many dramas and movies, including from Hongkong, Japan and Korea, had used the set. We just did a quick tour around the place and left. We headed back to town and killed some time, arranging with the driver to picked us up at 1800hrs. As usual, we sat down in an internet café to kill time.

The original driver we arranged with the day before could not pick us up for our day tour. Then the driver who came to pick us up at 1800hrs heading for the train station was another driver since the previous driver went to Liuyuan. With that we ended our adventures in Gansu. We paid the most expensive and cheapest entrance fees in Dunhuang (敦煌), together with the most expensive hotel stay for us. Our train would take us to Lanzhou (兰州) where we would changed to another train to Xining (西宁).

Xinjiang - Part 5

2007-10-09T21:46:00.001+08:00

As I was saying in my last entry, we were going to be visited 2 sites in Kuqa (库车). Our 1st stop was the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves. It had a total of 330 caves with only ONE Buddha and we did not even get to see THAT Buddha in that Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves. In fact, only 8 caves were opened to the public, so we only saw 8 of them, and most of them are in pretty bad shape due to neglience, destroyed by Islamic fanatics, destroyed by local villagers for the gold-plated painting or paints as fertilizer, or stolen by german archeologist. In fact the lower caves, which were built around the 3rd to 5th century had already collapsed. It was quite a sad thing. A culture and history lost forever.

In fact this driver was quite good. He noticed that I had a running nose, so he did not turn on the aircon the entire journey. Driving with the windows winded down was pretty common in Xinjiang. However, the road condition was not good enough for such it. Along the way to the 2nd site, Tianshan Mysterious Grand Gorge (天山神密大峽谷), it was an extremely dusty road. There were heavy construction going on, building another expressway.

We had our lunch at the foot of Tianshan Mysterious Grand Gorge (天山神密大峽谷). Its a little overpriced but still acceptable. We only had an hour and a half, at most, since we need to rush back to Kuqa (库车) to catch our sleeper bus to Turpan (吐鲁番). We walked as quickly as we could, kepting looking at the watch to see how much time we were left with before we had to descend down the mountain. It was a uphill walk, and at times we had to scale some rocks, squeezed between narrow grooves, climb some steel ladders and stairs. The good thing was the return trip was a downhill rush, so needing only 1/3 of the time taken to way up. We were about to give up till we came across this couple that told us that the end was just ahead. So we decided to take a few more minutes to continue, deciding to do very very brisk walk with some short run on the way down. I'm not sure if that was the original endpoint since it looked to me that there should be more passage upwards but due to a huge rock that collapsed down blocking the way. There was the signboard that tells all visitor that all were to stop at this point. At least I could say I had completed my walked through the Tianshan Mysterious Grand Gorge (天山神密大峽谷). With that, we started our mad dash downwards.

The driver decided to go a shortcut, which was about 20km shorter than the original route taken. The road travelled along the base of the mountain, and along the river. The road condition was poorer but much less dustier. We came to a point where we could see cars queuing. The 1st time that came across our mind was that it better not be jammed since we would be missing our sleeper bus to Turpan (吐鲁番). Luckily, it was only a short wait, since there were some road blasting somewhere further up on the mountain. The road condition was indeed bad. There were some very big humps and holes along the route. The driver had to drive very slowly just in case if the car got stucked. At some point, we even had to get out of the car to clear the holes.

We seems to be slightly ahead of time, so we stopped by a 3rd unplanned site, Subash Buddhist Temple Ruins. It was in very bad shape too. Hardly recognised it to be of any temple or monastry. In fact those in Angkor Wat were in much better condition. And with that we reached at the bus station in time to catch our sleeper bus to our final destination in Xinjiang. And that pretty much ended our ninth day adventure.

Our tenth day adventure started at the wee hours of the night. We reached Tuokexun (托克逊) at 4am in the morning. We were woken up by the driver, again, and got out of the bus in the middle of nowhere. Took a cab from the bus stop to the bus station in Tuokexun (托克逊). We dun felt like paying a night room for just a few hours of sleep. Just when we were thinking of taking a break by having a drink at the nearby restaurant, we were approached by a guy who were gathering people going down to Turpan (吐鲁番). It was 10Y per person. No argument there and it was cheap compared to all the prices we had been paying for transportation. After an hour and a half of delay, the minibus was finally fully loaded and about to head off when someone from the local Petrol Squad stopped him. After some begging and persuasion, the lady still refused to let him ferry us to Turpan (吐鲁番) due his bus load of I had no idea what. Look to me to be some huge sacks of potatoes or carrots or onions and an empty LPG container!! In the end, he ferried us back to the bus station and swapped us to another minibus. After delayed again, we were moved from the 2nd minibus to the 3rd minibus! We finally moved off from the bus station at 0830hrs, as stated on the official bus ticket.

About half hour later, we arrived at Turpan (吐鲁番). We gave the driver a call and he picked us up 5mins later. Got him to send us to a 2-star hotel. As usual, did our human waste dumping and hot shower before planning where to go. The driver recommended by Ho Sen was busy for the day. He got his younger brother to drive us around. Quite a handsome fellow, I must say. Like those taiwan teary Chongyao drama male lead, with a tint of foreign blood.

Since we had booked his car for the entire day, we tried all the sights within the day. At the same time, we tried to get the elder brother to buy the train tickets to JiaYuGua (嘉峪关) for us. Since we had to get the tickets from an agency, there was a 50Y commissions per damn tickets. What to do, the train station was 54km from the city.

On the way to our 1st sight, we drove past the Grape Valley (葡萄沟) entrance which so  definitely was charging an entrance fee. Our driver told us that we woúld be coming back to the valley later, and going through another entrance which was free! Sound good to us.

We started with GaoCheng ancient city (高昌故城). A city established more than 2000 years ago but had fallen into disused over the centuries. As with that Subash Buddhist Temple Ruins that we seen in Kuqa (库车), it was in a pretty bad state. A sign stating an unknown shape of a building to be a buddhist monastery. Either 95% of the building had corroded with time or people back then in the region some 2000 years ago were petite in size. We got persuaded into taking the donkey cart. We were told by our driver that its was fairly huge and walking to the end is some 2km-3km. So we took a ride to the end and came back some 30mins later. It dun feel that far and what was that distance comparing to what we had been walking. Sigh. Tourist stupidity.

Next on the list was Flaming Mountains (火炎山). There happened to have 2 entrances to it. The 1st had to pay the entrance fee. We drove past that and we could see several tour buses in the carpark. The latter entrance was free though the view was a little less grand, or rather it was a smaller part of it. We were fine with that. There was no one around, so we had the whole mountain for ourselves.

After that we had over to Bezklik Thousand Buddha caves (柏孜克里千佛洞). Again only a few caves were opened and they were mostly cleared out. We decided to hop over just for some quick photo shoot without going in. Seemed like the area where I wanted to snap could only be taken after going in. So we turned back to our next sight. Apparently they were building an amusement park or something near the caves, containing characters from the novel, Journey to the West.

We got to Tuyoq after the Bezklik Thousand Buddha caves (柏孜克里千佛洞). It had a four sections in it. Its own grand canyon, Uygur ancient folk settlement, Hojamu Tomb and Thousand Buddha caves! I was not expecting that many things at this sight. As we were walking through the settlement, we came across a group of people entering a house. So we followed them in and everyone started to take out their cameras and snapped away. Half way through, an old lady appeared out of nowhere and smile at us. She asked for some money for  photographing her place.

We then continued down the path looking for theThousand Buddha caves. Not sure how many caves were here but we saw four. We had to climb some couple hundreds of metres upwards before reaching the caves. As usual, most of the wall paintings had been gone with the centuries. On the way out, we thought we spotted the grand canyon but we did trekked it. We wanted to keep to our time schedule. We noticed some children playing by the path. One of them noticed us taking photo of them and started to pose for us. In fact they started fighting among themselves to be photographed. At the end of it, they asked me for moolah! Argh! I never seemed to learn my lessons! Took out a few 1Y notes to give some of them.

We headed for the Grape Valley (葡萄沟) shortly after. We did not go through any gantry. The route was probably used by the locals. We just drove through some of the grape vineyard without stopping. It was some 15mins later that we stopped by a store inside the valley. Its a place with exorbitant prices for anything.

After lunch, we headed for our final sight, Ermin Minaret (苏公塔). On the way there, we detoured a little to pick up the train ticket from the elder brother. After paying him and moving off, I noticed the timing on the ticket to be a little too early. Once again, we were screwed, arriving at JiaYuGua (嘉峪关) at 0314hrs. Damnit. Extra night of lodging for nothing. I could not possibly barked at the elder brother for getting tickets with too early a departure time. Ermin Minaret  (苏公塔) was a kind of memorial place for a local great man. We climbed up and down, up and down and we left. With that we ended our standard local sightseeing and headed back to the hotel. We made arrangement with the driver to fetch us to the train station tomorrow. Its more expensive than the minibus but saved us the hassle of taking a cab to the bus station and looked for the bus to the station for an unknown number of hours. Walking around with 20kg on your back was not enticing enough.

After an hour rest in the hotel, we started our walked around the city. We found the local bazaar and bashed through it, taking note of any local products to buy back. We just keep roaming the streets until night fall before heading to the night market for dinner. All the internet cafes we came across seemed to be closed for the day. I wondered if it was internet resting day. I knocked out pretty early hence ending our tenth day.

We woked with a startled on the eleventh day. Wanted to wake up earlier to do our last shopping in Xinjiang before heading for lunch, then looked for internet cafe to kill some time before heading to the train station. Ended up waking at close to noon. That left us with 3 hours. Headed back to the bazaar to get whatever we needed, then to a restaurant for a sumptuous lunch. The restaurant was not even ready for business. In the end, spent an hour and a half having our lunch, then walked back to the hotel to get ready for departure. The driver was late and it was not him who arrived but his friend. Apparently his wife was in hospital, either giving birth or something regarding him, his wife and baby. I could not seem to get a decent chinese response back from the friend.

The train was pretty spacious in fact. Quite liked it! The most expensive seat on the train would be the soft lower berth but we got the hard lower berth, which was just as good. So we remind ourselves to make sure that we get the same hard lower berth for our train ride from Dunhuang (敦煌) to Lanzhou (兰州), before switch over to Xining to meet that friend who helped me. And with that would be my last few hours in Xinjiang. The only thing I would be hating was getting off the train at 0314hrs.

Damn.

Xinjiang - Part 5

2007-10-05T00:56:00.001+08:00

As I was mentioning on my last entry, we were taking this long hour sleeper bus from Hotan (和田) to Luntai (轮台). We board the bus at 1700 hours though the bus was some 20 minutes late. While it was trying to be late, which kind of surprise me since their long distance bus seemed to be almost always on time, we got to know this Canada french. He's been touring in China for more than 4 months and planning to stay for another 1.5 months more. Wished I had time and moolah like him.

This luxury bus that we took was really quite a luxury one. Everyone was in lying down position, provided with a blanket and pillow. 3 rows of about 10 berths each, consisting of upper and lower berth. The floor was laid with carpet. I was everyone taking a black plastic bag when they board the bus. Since I had no idea what to do with it, I decided to adopt the monkey see monkey do mentality, taking one myself. As I was stepping through to get to my berth, the bus driver was shouting at me to take off my shoe! Now I knew why everyone was taking the black plastic bag.

Apparently the bus did not take us straight to Luntai (轮台), We had to take a cab from bus stop at Lunan (轮安). The bus driver did woke us up, but not just us but the entire bus caused everyone was trying to make sense whom he was calling to get up. At 0500 hrs and got woken up abruptly, it was kind of a mad rush to pick up all of stuffs and got off the bus. With the freezing cold night, we had to accept whatever fare the cab driver was going to charge us. Standing in the middle of nowhere, with cold wind blowing and minimum lights, bargaining for lower fare was not a fun idea.

We did get the cab driver to bring us to cheap hotel. After paying up, only then do we realise that we were to check out on the same day at 1100hrs since 0530hrs was still considered as yesterday, though the reception gave us a bit of allowance that we could check out at 1400hrs. At least we thought we could do some washing up after taking a short nap. Gues what? After we woke up at around 1030hrs, there was a water curfew and the staffs had no idea when water supply would be back! Huge waste of moolah and time. We should bought the direct bus ticket to Kuqa (库车) instead since we did check out ard 1130hrs and hired a car to fetch us to Kuqa (库车). The only thing I saw at Luntai (轮台) was that its a very dusty town, which I thought most of Xinjiang's towns and cities were dusty.

The car we hired brought us to the bus station, which we could get our bus ticket to our next destination at Turpan (吐鲁番). We decided to check into the hotel beside the bus station, which shared the same name as the one at Hotan (和田), called Traffic Hotel. But the one at Turpan (吐鲁番) was the smaller room we had come across so far. Suddenly we felt so cramped up in the room, with so little space to throw our things around. But on the bright side, it had a PC in it with free internet access, so here I was typing this entry.

We wanted to visit the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves today so that we dun have to rush for tomorrow's visit to a valley (天山神密大峽谷) near Kuqa (库车). However, the price charged by the cab was over our budget so we had to wait around to see if we could meet some other people who would be heading to the same place to share the cab. We got approach by a private car rental service whom had another 2 persons who wanted to visit the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves as well but wanted to hold back till tomorrow since they had only just arrived in Kuqa (库车) today. So we were hoping to get in touch with the 2 fellows to see if they were interested to visit the valley. In fact I think the valley was a more worthy trip than than Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves since there were several thousand buddha caves in Xinjiang.

So we spend the rest of the afternoon walking, again, in a general direction. Seems like a non-shopper like me ended up quite often in several of their departmental store here! But as we walked around since a 3km range from the hotel, there were some interesting buildings and places that we come across. As usual, there was a Quici Bazaar which consist mostly of restaurant. As I was mentioning to my travel mate that we had yet seen any local massage parlor, then did we notice one huge advertising board that was for food massage. The price look cheap too. A full packge for only 65Y, which I had no idea what it consist of. If the full package was taking more than an hour, I think its quite cheap. We walked into another area where the miniority groups trading area was, with street side stores selling dry food to fruits to cooked food. Bought some local dried tibits while we were there. In fact the owner saw me taking photography of his store, signalled for me to come over. Tried out his dried white date and sesame seed sugar coated peanuts. There was a brawling going on when we were there but I believe it would be very unwise to take out my camera at that moment.

We ended our walk and head back to the hotel, stopping along the way for dinner. Inside the restaurant, saw this group of han chinese teenagers. They really looked and dressed horribly, and ordered plenty of food yet eating only little of it. Damn, after seeing so many exotic beauties around, I think the Han chinese were starting to look bad for me, especially those who dressed up like some rock punk. They looked really really ugly, minusing the dressing. Since we were unabled to get in touch with the driver who was supposed to confirm with us if we were going to be taking his car, I had to activate some relationship (关系) for help hoping to get cheaper rates. Gave my previous guide, whom I got to know during my Roof of the World trip, a call. He was a really good person with a lot of friends and business relationship around China. He got me in touch with a good friend who was in the travel business in Xinjiang, whom got in touch with the Kuqa (库车) local agency. A lady gave me a call and the price quote for a rental car was cheaper than I was willing to budget for. Lucky me, I guess. The road to the valley was under heavy construction, making it difficult to travel, so I would expect pricing to be higher for that part of the journey.

Also made a call to a guy recommended by the fellow (Ho Sen) whose yurt we stayed in at Tianchi (天山天池). According to Ho Sen, with a friend recommendation, we would be able to get a cheaper rate compared to just asking for the price on the street. The price he quote was fair enough for us, since we wanted to include in a place called Tuyoq which was further than the usual 8 sights of Turpan (吐鲁番). In fact most travel guide books suggested skipping some of the 8 sights. Ho Sen suggested 3, namely Grape Gutter (葡萄沟）Gaochang ancient city (高昌故城), flaming mountain (火焰山). We shall plan what else we could see along the way since we had already booked the car for the day.

Time to turn in to end my eighth day.

Xinjiang - Part 4

2007-10-03T15:13:00.001+08:00

It was China's golden week starting today, which was my fifth day here. The night before, there seems to be some massive celebration going on around all over China since it was their National Day. Today would be my last day in Kashgar, after visiting the Kararul Lake. As I was saying, we got to know this couple at the airport whom we went together with to Kararul Lake. It did help us to save 50% of a normal priced bus ticket. As the chinese saying goes, 在家靠父母,除外靠朋友 (when one is at home one depend on your parents, when one is outside one depend on friends). It was a good thing that we met this couple. Because of them, we made some changes to our original plan and they were for the better. We decided to leave on the same night, catching a night bus from Kashgar to Hotan.

There were some delays to our morning plan to visiting the Kararul Lake. Apparently China chinese had to apply for a permit to visiting the Kararul Lake whereas foreigner like us just need to show our passport though the official at the outpost along karakoram highway did take note of our details. Apparently China chinese can travel around within China without having to bring their passport, only their IC suffice. Come to think of it, we dun even need to show our IC when we go over to Sentosa or Pulau Ubin or Pulau Tembakuli. The taxi we hired seemed to be a very careful driver who was not very keen on speeding, so we were almost overtaken by most of the vehicles passing us. It was a four hours journey to the Kararul Lake, which we might be able to cut down to 3 if he was to only exceed the speed limit!

As I mention earlier, we were lucky to have change our plan to stay the night over at the Kararul Lake . I was so not overwhelmed by the scene. So many travel guide books mentioned that Kararul Lake was worth the journey there. If i taken the public bus, it would be a 6 hours ride, which was our initial plan since we wanted to journey on a budget. It seemed to be a one way journey to Tashkurgan, the last chinese town before hitting Pakistan. So the return trip, we had to sit by the roadside and hoping to catch the bus going back! And even luckier that we changed our mind about staying on the night in one of the yurts at Kararul Lake. The peak season was over, lady winter was on her way to the place, so what should have been a huge peak of green grassland was nothing more than dried ground. However, from a distance you could see the local normads staying there. A little boy was trying to convince me to take a ride on his camel. As I talked to him, I learnt that they would be moving up to the mountain after lady winter had arrived. No shitting me! That was a minimum of below 30 degrees!

The couple did went for some horse riding since the girlfriend was so enticed by the horse. Somehow they had such a happy time that they had forgotten they were suppose to go back to Kashgar to catch their night flight to Urumqi. They were on a tighter schedule compared to us. Our last night bus was at 2130hrs compared to their flight at 2105hrs, and we dun need the 30 mins check-in period. We left Kararul Lake at around 1800hrs. After the couple been breathing down the neck of the driver to rush them to the airport, which they din managed to in the end, the driver did speed up on the way back. Think they had to change to another airline to catch a 2210hrs flight out. And for us, after nearly 8 hours in the car, its another 9 hours on the bus. The journey felt like Osim massage chair. The only time the bus was not bumping on the road was then it stopped at one of the stops for passenger to alight.

We finally arrived at our destination at 0530hrs. Lucky for us, there was a 2-star hotel next to the bus station where we arrived. We checked into that place and did some cleaning up and head for bed. After catching a couple hours of decent sleep, we headed out to roam this small town, a town famous for jade, silk and carpet. We missed dinner the night since we were in a hurry to catch the last bus out and together with breakfast this morning. We were famish by the time we headed out to start our day. We walked in the general direction of the Eastern Bus Station where we were supposed to be taking a bus to Minfeng (民丰). Had our brunch at one of the local restaurant where we ordered a little too much food. Din expect the potion to be so huge. What we had ordered is probably enough for 4-5 person. We tried our best but finish as much as we could but it was really too much. But I did love that dish of fish (回锅鱼). One whole fish chopped to pieces and fried in Chengdu spicy 麻辣 style for only 25Y! I could never get that kind of price back in Sillypore. Only problem I had with the dish was a little too many tiny bones.

It seems like there was no direct bus to Luntai (轮胎) from Minfeng (民丰). So we had to come back to Hotan (和田) after going to Minfeng (民丰). So we decided to give that a skip and headed for Luntai (轮胎) or Korla or Kuqa (库车). We had yet to decide which town to go next but we did had some time, and if the good thing about backpacking. Afterall, we had already we regained 2 extra days by leaving Kashgar earlier. After getting out of the bus station, we decided to try out their local bus services to get to the carpet factory. Their bus had little seats with a lot of room for standing. There was a bus conductor who would issue ticket when paying for the fare, and collected back the ticket after getting off the bus. It seemed to me that they dun use the buzz for the bus to stop. You tell the conductor and she (so far only seen female conductors) would shout at the bus driver to stop.

For some unknown reasons, we seemed to alight at a location that show no indiction of where the carpet factory was. Had to check with a local, to only realised it was some 500m down a dusty road to the carpet factory. Wait, the whole Xinjiang was dusty. I guess sand and dust was their middle name. There seemed to have no security guard around. We just walked into the factory, standing outside a glass room where the girls were working on the carpet. One of them noticed us standing outside for a while, before indicating to us to come in! Seemed like they could bring their toddler to work as well. And inside the glass room, there were some exotic beauty. How nice. Eye candy for me :-P

Shortly after, we were thinking of walking in a general direction of a silk or dunno what factory. A recommendation from the reception at our hotel. However upon seeing the returning bus, we changed our mind and ran after the bus to head back to town central. On the way out, the bus passed by this river (I think it was the river though it looked like its drying up, probably due to the season) with a lot of people on the bed, looking for something. Probably this was where they picked the famous 和田玉(hetian jade). We alighted nearby to one of the local mosque, which dun look impressive compared to the one seen at Kashgar. Then we went over to the local bazaar area, and I saw someone selling that ancient sweet candy (冰糖葫芦). I was very tempted to try this but I dun trust the amount of dust in the air!

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped over at this store where local bread-like pizza base staff, which I think was called nang, was made on the spot. We walked past the store earlier in the day, standing there taking photos of them. The people working there and standing around seemed to be fascinated with us. The female boss(I think) recognised us and signalled to us if we were buying. She attended to us pretty fast, and there was quite a queue. I guess that bread collected some dust on our way back to the hotel. Life was pretty much like this over here. If you got a pretty weak stomach, coming down here might be a bad bad idea for you. We bought some local satay-like stuff back to the hotel for dinner. That pretty much end our day 6.

Day 7 was a very relaxing day. Since we cannot figure out how to get to this river where the local did their fishing, we decided to just walk in another general distance and looked at whatever we would see on the street. We were leaving for Luntai (轮胎) on a luxury bus, which we bought the most expensive ticket and I hoped it was worth it, at 1700hrs. Travelling too far might be a bad idea. More exotic beauty as well. Inside one of the departmental store, we heard some Chinese and Western Pop music sung in local dialect. I wonder if they were paid royalties. Think I would be going back to the same store again to buy the bread stuff one last time before boarding the bus. It was nice and fragrance. I might get to eat it warm again. Most of the people buy in bulk and nang could be stored away for a long time since the humidity level was very low here. The bus would be going through the Taklamakan Desert, so that would be a ride of more than 10 hours. I doubt they will be stopping over in the desert unless there where stores or toilet break in the desert. I doubt. I really doubt.

Xinjiang - Part 3

2007-09-30T21:20:00.001+08:00

Without whatever remaining time I had left, I must say that xinjiang is full of beauty. Exotic beauty. If you are one who was into mixed blood or Eurasian looking beauty, there are way too many such eye candies here! Think this is the 1st time I'm getting my eyeful of eye candy on a holiday.

MUWAHAHAHAHA I'm such a sucker at that :-P

Xinjiang - Part 2

2007-09-30T21:14:00.001+08:00

We woke up in the yurt on Day 3, seriously felt like almost frozen to death, in the yurt up on the heavenly mountain. We went up a little unprepared. It was an amazing experience up here, and we were probably going to be repeating the experiences at Karakul Lake, missusing the climb up. After having our breakfast, we made our way down the mountain to catch the public bus to fukang (阜康), where we would be switching to another bus to get back to Urumqi. Took a cab straight to the Xinjiang Regional Museum. The highlight of it was to see the mummified Loulan beauty (楼兰美女). After that, we headed back to our hotel to take a short break and wash ourselves before heading for dinner and the International Grand Bazaar, also commonly known as Erdaoqiao Bazaar (二道桥巴扎). Eating those street side food stalls was a good way to experience the local cusine, in a much cheaper way. I believed we still get to pay more than we should be paying for the claypot noodles but the rest of the other food was still good. And with that comes the end of day 3.

We had to catch an early flight to Kashgar on Day 4. Met this couple on the bus to the city, asking us if we were going to the Karakul Lake. He was checking with us if we were interesting in sharing the cost with him in hiring a cab or booking a private car to get us to Karakul Lake. However, after he got some information about the coldness at Karakul Lake, he might not want to stay for the night up there. Apparently he is in the travel industry based in Beijing, so he managed to get a slightly cheaper rate at this 2-star hotel which happened to be at an ideal location for us. The hotel was just opposed to the Regional Bus Station where we would be taking our bus to Karakul Lake and Hotan, which was our next destination. Save us the trouble of lugging our luggage around. Apparently over here at Kashgar, their official timing was 2 hours behind Beijing time, which was GMT +8.

With one whole day ahead of us, we get to visit the bazaar, rather the many bazaars they had it here. The livestock bazaar was an interesting trip with some nice photos, but at the same time, a very very dusty one too. Then they have the Sunday Bazaar which was a rather famous thing over here in Kashgar.

Apak Hoja Mazzar (香妃墓) was one of the place of interest to visit in Kashgar. We got conned into visiting the orchard as well as the tiny room of antiques. 艾提尕尔清真寺 was another place of interest over here. We seemed to be able to finish our targetted sites to visit on the 1st day. Looked like we might be able to recover an extra day, and that might gave us the option of visiting Jiayuguan (嘉峪关) or Korla (库尔勒). My time over at the internet cafe was almost up. Time for me to get my dinner, and see what celebration they were having at the People's Park for National Day tomorrow.

Xinjiang - Part 1

2007-09-29T23:29:00.001+08:00

Here I am, blogging away in an internet cafe in here Urumqi! Oh yeah, I have started on my holiday. A holiday that actually gave me a lot of pressures. I haven't done any backpacking since I got back from Europe/UK in 2004. The only booking I did were my air tickets. Other than that, the rest was going to be on faith. Did I mention that I never really had any faith on any religon?

Had tons of work to rush before I start on my holiday. Everyone was seriously pressurizing me to get work done. It was starting to look like my holiday was a whole bad idea. Actually it looked bad at work because I will be gone for more than 2 weeks! And in fact, these two weeks, something critical was going on in the office. It had been a long time since everyone in the office was working on a high pressured environment. The bosses were making a lot of demand and setting deadly deadline. Ok, I'm not supposed to be talking about work. -zip-

And yeah, my holiday really did started with a bad day. The flight was delayed due to the heavy rain on thursday morning. Probably its a CAT1 thunderstorm. We only had 2 hours to reach Chengdu Shuangliu Airport and change to a connecting flight to Urumqi and we were delayed for an hour due to the bad weather. Just when we thought we might stil be able to catch a 100m dash through the airport to pick up our luggages and check-in within 45 mins, the plane got delayed due to technical issues! THEY MUST BE SHITTING ME. I called a colleague to check for me on doing claims on air ticket charges due to flight delay. After a conversation on the phone and a few sms later, her reply came back last with probably god want you to stay back for the unfinished work. #$#^&@*%$^#

In the end, we arrived at Chengdu Shuangliu Airport at 1540hrs to catch my 1340hrs connecting flight. I guess some god up there might be watching out for me since we managed to get the next connecting flight at 1640hrs on the airline that caused us our delay. We almost couldn't get the ticket since those seats are fullfare whereas the one I paid for on China Southern Airline was discounted price. Oh, by the way, Air China caused my delay. I finally arrived at Urumqi after 2000hrs and hired a taxi to fetch us to the city to look for a lodging. A 2-stars was my intention since I'm not a big believer of staying in luxurious rooms. Just roamed near the hotel to look for dinner and some water supply. And that ended my 1st day of my holiday.

Next morning, we were on a little mad rush to get to the 人民公园 (renmin gongyuan) to get our ticket to 天山天池 (tianshan tianchi, heavenly mountain heavenly lake). Our intention was to climb our way up, which was more than 2000 metres high, and stayed in one of the local yurt available up there on the mountain by the lake for the night. We did managed to climb our way up, though with quite a bit of effort. Frankly, it did not exactly taken my breath away. Guess after seeing quite a few lakes during my journey to the Roof of the World back in 2005, lake scene was starting to wane on me. Moreover, I'm pretty upset with the fact that my lens was giving me major problems! The shutter on the lens was failing on me!!!! Photos I had taken either turn out over or under exposed. It really really make my day badddddd. So friends out there waiting to see my documentary photos, this time round I might had to disappoint you guys a little.

There was this taoism temple beside the lake and we had to pay to enter it. Well, we did entered it and well, I almost got conned. It would be so unlike me if I dun get conned on a holiday. So there appeared to be a grand ceremony just about 2 months ago, and for some fate related reasons, some of the temple's top priests were giving free consultation for 有缘人(man with fate). We were among the 有缘人 to get to see the priest. When it was my turn to go in, the priest started telling me my character and fortune without asking me what was my wish(es) (I had a lot though). And came the purpose of the whole free consultation. I'm running into bad luck now and I should do something about it. So they offer to do something for me for a price. I tried to look like I'm really considering it but couldn't quite afford it (which was also pretty much the truth). Then he offered that I could do half the ritual first and finish it it up later! This was probably the funniest thing I heard. Once again, I had to reject with earnest. Muwuahahahha!

Our host came into our yurt to ask if we wanted to watch some performance by the lake. Initially we thought it was their local dance and drinking session. That would most be fun to attend. My buddy and I took our gears and followed our host to the performance. It turned out to be something of a world tour of a concert of the different cultures in China and Mid-autum festival celebration as well. 30 minutes later, we were bored. Commoner like us dun get to see it up close. We had to watch it from the top of a hill while the VIPs gathered at the bottom, with meals served to them. We left the concert soon after and head back to the yurt. We were so unprepared for staying up on the mountain, where I had enough reasons to believe that the temperature to near zero or even below it. My hands was numbing! I could almost not feel my fingers and the sleep was not sound. Waking up every now and then due to too much cold. My lips were cracking and bleeding. My face felt numb too. All in all, it was still an experiences worthy a try but must come prepared 2 days later, where we are going to be staying for a night at the Karakul Lake which was much colder and above 4000 metres! GOD BLESS ME.

Marry our daughter

2007-09-12T23:05:00.001+08:00

Remember back a long time ago, someone even asked me if I will ever go to something like mail-order bride type of stuffs. And then someone send me this link. Hey, they got some cute girls there. Did I mention they are chicks. I wonder if that classified you as paedophile. The question I popped back to the person who sent me that link was was that marry or buy??? Come on, there IS a price tag on it! Oh well, I can't afford most of them unless they accept credit card interest-free installment payment plan.

Cheating of the iPhone

2007-08-27T16:13:00.001+08:00

One hell of a cheating! I wonder how much is that guy selling it for? Of course, we maybe never be certain is the whole thing is true to its words.

Anyone of you interested in getting an iPhone??????

[via Gizmodo]

Deal?

2007-08-24T14:25:00.000+08:00

Got a call just after my lunch, while walking back to the office. I wasn't paying much attention on the call. Just heard something like I'm calling from xxx xxx from MediaCorp xxxx. 1st thing that jumped into my mind is, can those telemarketing company use the name MediaCorp? Must be trying to sell me some credit services again. Just when I'm about to switch off my mind, I heard the one-way conversation went like you are selected to come down for an audition .... Audition? I had to think hard again. So I had to ask them what audition. Oh so its that! A while back, I signed up to take part in the audition for Deal Or No Deal. And now they had decided to start auditioning people.

This came as a total surprise since I had so forgotten about it. Hey, my mind dun revolved that 250k. But damn, I had to wake up damn early at 9.30am to go down. If you had known me enough or read enough from my blog, I'm not exactly a person who believe in early bird gets the worm unlike got free hello kitty. No. I'm kidding. I wondered if I can finish the audition and get back to the Durian Building in time to watch the FloorPlay. And some more in the morning, its the Ironman Triathlon. My area is part of the route. Damn. I hate it. Why the hell did most of these marathon ran passed my place?

Nevermind, back to Deal Or No Deal. As promise to some friends, if I had managed to win some tens of grands from the show, I'm going to be sponsoring some of their dive gears. Good luck to them. Good luck to me.

Wow

2007-08-23T22:03:00.001+08:00

Read that M$ lost quite a bit of a fortune on those pieces of papers. Of course, I guess no one expected that Apple to bounce back all of a sudden. I remember a long time ago, Apple was seriously in deep shit, before Steve "wonder" Jobs rejoined Apple back in 1996. Apple was an almost unknown name in the world unless you are in the design field or you were such a nerd. Since the launch of iMac in 1998, Apple started to take the world by storm. Where I was working back then, I had people asking about iMac, even seeking advices if iMac was worth all the hype. There were even people whom had came to me, considering the option of taking the purge. I did not discourage that. I just listed down all the pros and cons. Based on some very easy and loose calculation, M$ lost some Bs. Give me that moolah and I could do some good for Sillypore, opposing a particular dynasty.

S.o.S

2007-08-06T23:16:00.001+08:00

This S.O.S is not your usual S.O.S but it is still an S.O.S.

I still does the fishes-are-friends-not-food activities. Hey, its an expensive activity, couldn't quite afford to do it too frequently. And some more being an unobservant observer, I had yet to see the seahorses. Of course, there are so many other things I have yet to see just as well. Anyway, I'm not too sure how much help it can provide though I doubt it will change anything, but of course, it doesn't exactly cost you anything to sign on it.

It all started as a conflict between the seahorse and development. Since 1995, massive port development around Pulai River Estuary have destroyed large tracts of seagrass beds, which are home to the Spotted Seahorse, Hippocampus kuda. The Spotted seahorses, which once thrived in the Pulai River Estuary, is losing its habitat as well as numbers. SOS is particularly concerned that they may vanish soon. We do not want the episode to end with extinction.

So help them to achieve their goal of 5000 signatures for their petition.

Friend?

2007-08-01T14:48:00.001+08:00

Friend :
a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: friends of the Boston Symphony.
a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile:
a member of the same nation, party, etc.
(a member of the Religious Society of Friends; a Quaker.
[via Dictionary.com]

People come, people go. So many people enter one's life in the entire lifespan. Some leave a longer lasting impression. Some leave no mark at all, almost without sign of existence. Some are close. Some are just brushing past. Some take the effort to be a really personal friend. Some just hang it around the mouth.

A wise old man said before, one may encounter many friends in life, but really good and best of friends are handful and hard to come by. As I said in for salsa before, a person who dance for a few years doesn't exactly means the person is a very good dancer. I had seen people who had dance for years and still have very poor dance etiquette or been good dancer. I guess the same thing goes for a friend. Knowing someone for a longer period of time doesn't exactly fit one in as being a good friend of that person. Old time friend doesn't mean good friend either. See how a person remember or does things for you could exactly tell you so much about that friendship.

Isn't it weird that people you hang out with more often cannot remember things while people whom you hardly see or meet in a year can remember. Just sort of weird. Afterall, that does tell a lot of the relationship between the two person.

Some things need not be said nor explain but apparently, the same thing can be viewed by different people in a thousand and one ways. I remember back a long time ago when I used to hang around with this group of friends whom we will spent our time around ~~talking~~ gossiping. We used to be laughing at people who was kind of cheehong chasing skirts. Many many skirts. We joked that as long as a hole exist, the person would just wacked. Apparently, I seemed to have gotten myself that reputation of chasing many skirts. I thought I'm been discreet already but a dinner appointment means I'm chasing skirt? And when I don't date any skirts and hang around with male friends, I had people asking other people if my interest pointed in the other direction. WTF?

I knew. You could never satisfied everyone and you only need to be happy with yourself and answerable to yourself. But seems like girls seems to enjoy sharing their trophies? Discussing who is trying to themselves? Probably just me. I pretty much preferred to keep my private life very private. But at least I now knew that I cannot trust some people out there. Afterall, the famous phrase from the hit series, X-files, back in the 90s said it all. Trust No One.

Nice treat

2007-07-26T12:20:00.001+08:00

A nice little treat. I wonder where to find them. If anyone come across it here in Sillypore, let me know pleasssssssse. Oh, did I mention they are actually ice cream? Not some display figurine though I believe you can always buy them and keep them frozen inside your freezer till the end of time? Or until it can decompose inside the freezer.

For a full size of this, click here.

Sinful delights.

More than meets the eye

2007-07-25T11:50:00.001+08:00

MUWAHAHAHAH This is so damn funny! Imagine in the middle of Sam's happy time, your life saving transformer need to jump out of your to save your life, or to fight against the decepticon. Oh wait, i think this one is a decepticon. [via Something Awful]

Charity

2007-07-25T11:37:00.001+08:00

Great creativity in these photos! I thought they are G2000 latest fashion statement at first moment. This reminded me when I used to take cab, then if the cab was to be 50 cents more than usual, I would be a little not to happy. But I realised that when I went out for a drink, a cup of coffee that a cafe could charge me north of 5 bucks and I would still pay, wassup with that 50 cents? A pint of beer costed much more. At least now I tried to build up abit of karma by giving more donation now. [via My Relax Place]

Funny no more

2007-07-24T12:17:00.001+08:00

This is probably why I'm leading such a sad life. None of the top 10 funniest films I had ever watched, and 2 of them, I had vaguely came across in title only. Look like its some to dig them out. Most of the titles were produced even before I was born.

Hot hot hot

2007-07-12T17:48:00.001+08:00

If soccer was ever this hot, I think its viewerships was going to go up a few notch! Then the gossips will be talking about which hunky plaything the sexy female footballer was ~~banging~~ allowed between the legs.

Are you famous?

2007-07-05T11:01:00.001+08:00

Meet a couple for dinner on Sunday after my religious swimming. Trying to find some place to eat and that different we were almost always going to the same old place. In the end, decided on the food centre at Zion Road. Had that famous Fried Carrot Cake there, and I never bother to queue for the Fried Kway Teow though my friend did. See lah, after all the exercising, went to see oily fried food. How to diet?!?!?

After dinner, went over to Grand World City for a walk. Dinner was a little too filling. So moving up the escalator from the carpark, my friend was looking at this girl and talking about her to the beau. So I asked who is she. Some mediacorp artist? Since she worked in Mediacorp, I guess most likely that person was. She was a mediacorp artist. Acted in dunno what drama. Well, I had not watch any local drama production since.. since I got broadband at home back before Y2K.

I looked at her, think for a second, then turned back to my friend and said that I did not recognised her. Even if I was not watching much TV and if I could not notice her, that probably meant she was not famous enough. ^^\/ She was laughing out loud, agreeing with me. Who was she? I cannot mention it here, in case I get sued. I scared lor. I pok-ed already. No moolah look for lawyer. I can only says she's skinny and tried to walk with a perky butt but there just isn't enough flesh on it to make it look delicious. And no, I don't like fat butt. And I think she acted in the drama Holland V and the current one showing on Channel 8.

Congrats

2007-07-04T15:31:00.001+08:00

Attended a salsa's friend's wedding last weekend. A real church wedding. I think this was my first time at a church wedding, organiser by the church-goers and singing (they, not me) the church songs inside a church. The one at chijmes was a wedding in a church.

Before the start of the wedding, a friend commented that the wife told him that church wedding was ~~boring~~ not as exciting as one would had as opposed to the one held in a ballroom.

Of course lah! No wine. No beer. No yum-sheng. No rowdy crowd. Of course not as exciting. But hey, its the couple's wish and I'm only a guest at the ~~holy~~ sacred (?) event. I'm not the lead, so who were I to complain?

But I must say, the Paster who delivered the speech before the solemnization was quite a funny fella, who also happened to be the groom's uncle. So one lesson learnt. Next time don't get people who knew your dark past, if you got any, to deliver any speech during your wedding unless you wanna cracked up the guest and exposed your dirty little secrets. Hmmm, I wonder if i should......

This is almost I think my first time ~~eating~~ seeing a REAL wedding cake getting sliced and cut and distributed. Well,

they still do the same ceremonial single slice on the cake, then you will see all the kakiah helping with cutting up the cakes. No, I did not try the cake. The cream surrounding it scares meeeee. Yeah lah, I'm dieting, can?!?!?!?

Ok, the cake was not of those multistories high rise cake. I can't imagine the kakiah having to cut that high rise cake and started to distributing them among the guest.

However, I'm just curious what were those little silvery pearly stuffs on the cake made of. Sugar with silver coloring?

During the speech, the paster commented that after the spark and dating was all gone, the true self was going to come out. It did. 2 hours later. The groom got hungry and tired that he went to dig in to the food while the bride still continued to look pretty and posed and smiled at cameras. Then the bride turned and complained to the Matron of Honor. The groom put down the plate of food and ran back to the newly-new wife. HAHA. That was fast :-P

My friend and I wanted to leave, and trying to say goodbye to the bride since we were friends' of the bride. But the bride was so busy, with everyone trying to get a piece of the action with the bride. My friend commented that why don't we say our goodbye to the groom, the MAN OF THE HOUSE. I commented that the MAN OF THE HOUSE just got scolded. MUWAHAHHAHA! -cough- My bad.

Anyway, congrats to you "muslim" Louisa and Jonathan. Enjoy your new life in Downunder.

Anyone?

2007-07-02T22:57:00.001+08:00

autobot bumblebee steering wheel
Originally uploaded by bishamon

I'm so loving this steering wheel. My friend was starting to scold me, saying that I'm turning my ride into an ah beng's ride! Hey, no way I'm letting the ride becoming that! No neon blue light hor! And this steering wheel will never made my ride ah beng. N-e-v-e-r.

Sighz, big question. Where to get it? I'm not that ready to dump a fortune on this thing. Proabably a benjamin, or another half benjamin tops.

Autobots and Decepticons

2007-07-01T23:53:00.001+08:00

I only have two words to describe the movie. Its GODDAMN FARKING AWESOME. Oh wait, that is three words. Nevermind that. Its seriously was damn awesome, nevermind the fact that Megan Fox is one hell of a hot looking babe in the movie. Nevermind the fact that a female friend who managed to get preview tickets to the movie before the opening, to only called me after she caught it to give me her description of the movie as FARKING AWESOME. Nevermind that it bugged me big time that they changed Bumblebee from my favourite bug car to the US-branded-but-actually-korean car. Nevermind the fact that Megatron was no longer a pistol. Nevermind the fact that there were flaws in the movie. Overall, I still say, FARKING AWESOME.

This is one hell of a movie that you should never never get those DVD from Sillypore friendly neighbouring country. Unless you have a very solid home theater system that you makes you tremble in your seat as you watch the movie in action with the sound effect blowing you away. And this movie definitely going to make tons of moolah, and that just a definite call sign for sequel. With that in mind, I just hope it will only get better. If Michael Bay can cough out a 4hr director's edition, I think its going to make the movie even better. I shall pray that such edition will pop out one day.

Megan Fox is one hell of a hotie foxie in Transformers. Bless me if I can handle such a babe.

my wishful breakfast

2007-06-19T15:34:00.001+08:00

my wishful breakfast
Originally uploaded by bishamon

After I bought my breakfast while on my way to work, came across this scene at the food centre in my neighbourhood. That pussy must be calculating if it could jump high enough to have its nice tasting breakfast. Food Food Food!

Nop, it did not had them. A second after I took the shot, 2 of them flew off!

Bad pussy. Poor pussy,

Rise of the Silver Surfer

2007-06-18T10:30:00.001+08:00

Caught that movie over the weekend. It kind of disappoint me. A little less action, a little more PMS-ing, and the superheroes were been held by the necked and been ordered around like a wusses. Damn. Just get the Human Torch to torch that black quarterback general arse, or Thing to smash some ground to unsettle him just that little. Mr Fantastic could always gave him some airtight squeeze or had the Invisible Woman bitch slapped him.

On the hold, the story just kind of slow with not enough action thrown in. I'm watching a superheroes movie, not some drama queen drama. But Silver Surfer did look damn cool. Oh, I love that Stan Lee cameo appearance. Funny shit. And Jessica Alba dun look as good as before. She looked weird. She lost too much weight. Without those firm meat, she's skinny and that is definitely not hot.

Oh, I got my tickets for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix free. Opening in a month time.

Stardust

2007-06-07T10:03:00.001+08:00

This I'm so going to watch! Hopefully the movie is as good as the trailer!

Caught Shrek 3 last night. Well, its funny, at some parts. I was lost on Pinocchio's rumbling. I must master that little trick, so you cannot speak the untruth without giving the truth away and so going to drive the people listening to it going nuts. And the three little pigs' sausage roll was funny as well. All in all, I think it was just a so-so movie that you can watch when you cannot find a much better movie to watch.

Surf's Up looks great on the trailer too. Funny as hell. Actually, who ever says that hell is funny? Metaphorically speaking? Nevermind. Not this early in the morning.

At World's End

2007-05-25T16:37:00.001+08:00

Going to the end of the world? Seems like its a very common place in many fantasy genre stories. And they always appear to be reachable by the sea only, and till the end of the world, where it will be goddamn cold. Well, I ain't the one saying that. The books say it. The movies say it.

Caught the finale to the ~~sea bandit~~ Pirates trilogy last night. I believe its going to be making tons of moolah again. You can catch the 1st one without the other 2. You can catch the 2nd one without the 1st. You cannot catch the 3rd without the 2nd. Went with a group of colleagues. 1 only caught the 2nd without the 1st. 1 only vaguely remembered the 1st without much remembrance to the 2nd. 1 watched both. Me? Definitely both.

What to do? Thought I got a good deal with the NTUC U Movies, having a discounted rate to catch the movie opening, but ended up with not very good seats. Just 3 rows from the scene! So up close! Damn, I haven't catch movies in such upclose and personal in a long time! As if watching pirated version, ie watching it from steep angle. Damn. Some more the guy next to me kept dozing off (hey, its not that boring, and there's Keira knightley!) and sounded like some old petrol powered generator. Double Damn.

Amazing action scene in the end, but sort of started out quite.. messy, I think. Its like the story is jumping through the story pretty fast in the first third of the movie, then it slowed down in the second third and breathtaking action in the final third. The humor were still there. Still pretty much laughable. Captain Jack Sparrow was still your love-to-hate and hate-to-love guy, though he's turning schizophrenic (ops, did I gave something away?).

Keira Knightley still looked amazingly good and hot and babelicious and definitely yummy! No naked Elizabeth Swann. Damn. No sexy kissing scene. Double Damn. No bed scene. Triple Damn. No hot steamy scene. ~~Damn~~ Wait, there was at the start (ops, another give away?).

On the side note, does flies (hor sin) hump each other? I was eating my lunch when something bumped into my arm, and then landed on the table where I'm eating my food. Then a second later, one flew off from the top of the other one. Or do you think they were fighting? 1st time in my life seeing something like this. I almost never had flies bumping into me. Flying around me? Plenty. Bumping into me? ~~Never~~ This one time and not just one!

Oh, just heard that one of my all time favourite childhood till now game franchise is going to have remake on my last year christmas pressie! I'm so going to be waiting for it.

The-god-damn-truth

2007-05-22T18:18:00.001+08:00

TO ALL THOSE WHO WERE BORN IN THE 50's and 60's / early 70's............

First, we survived with mothers who had no maids. They cooked /cleaned while taking care of us at the same time.

We took aspirin, candy floss, fizzy drinks, shaved ice with syrups and diabetes was rare. Salt added to Pepsi or Coke was a remedy for fever.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention

As children, we would ride with our parents on bicycles/ motorcycles for 2 or 3. Richer ones in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a private taxi was a special treat.

We drank water from the tap and NOT from a bottle.

We would spend hours in the fields under bright sunlight flying our kites, without worrying about the UV ray which never seems to affect us.

We went in to jungles to catch spiders without worries of Aedes mosquitoes.

With a mere 5 pebbles (stones) would be a endless game. With a ball (tennis ball's best) we boys would run like crazy for hours.

We catch guppies in drains / canals and when it rains we swim there.

We shared one soft drink with four friends; from one bottle and NO ONE actually worried about being unhygienic.

We ate salty, very sweet & oily food, candies, bread and real butter and drank very sweet coffee/ tea, ice kacang, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, till streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day – because we had no cell phone. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours repairing our old bicycles and wooden scooters out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, multiple channels on cable TV, DVD movies, no surround sound, no phones, no personal computers, no Internet. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and we still continued the stunts.

We never celebrate birthday parties till we are 21,

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and just yelled for them!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Yet this generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 40 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO

DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them!

CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the government regulated our lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

PS: -The big type is because Long-sightedness or hypermetropia at your age.

See, I think its so very true. The current stupid society issues are caused by the current generation. Oh god, I'm one of the current generation. Damn.

Technology

2007-05-10T09:17:00.001+08:00

With the advancement of technology and science, almost things that one real in the past as fiction can become a reality now. Check this out! Amazing stuff! Combining the technology of GSM, GPS and Google Map, they can actually pinpoint your current location! Have fun finding where your friends are!

Rice and Spidy

2007-05-07T10:43:00.001+08:00

Wow! I think this is so damn kool! I believe SAF should look into this! An option for the replacement of the current combat ration that had been forced down our throat. Wait, I think I haven't seem those greenie around for a while. Or had it become a myth already?

Caught Spidy 3 yesterday with some friends. Venom was so damn kool. The whole movie was kinda draggy. I'm not been captivated by the movie. I kept fidgeting in my seat. A little too much talk. A little too little action. Spidy was supposed to be an action movie, not a do-you-love-me-oh-I-love-you-so movie. If there was going to be a Spidy 4, I believe Carnage is so going to appear in it. They had already pulled out Venom, I won't be surprised that Carnage is next on the list.

Movie and Etiquette

2007-04-23T14:46:00.001+08:00

Oh yeah, this is good man. I think we should put this as our national education. Probably should show this on mobtv. Don't we all agreed that we have more than enough disturbance in the cinema? Hey, you and I paid the same amount, so what makes you think you can put your inconvenience on me? If you don't know how to put it on vibrator mode, then I believe you shouldn't be in there with me. Or you had reasons that you cannot put it off, then again I reason you shouldn't be in there with me too.

Had dinner with some friends yesterday. Interesting enough, this couple told us that they watched a movie recently, and they cannot recalled anything about it. And then we gone on listing some of the forgettable movies that I could possibly named. But they said no to all of it. So I remarked they had wasted nearly 20 bucks on something they cannot recall! Then out of the blue, they recalled it to be TMNT! No shitting me! I thought it was a good movie, though I had yet to seen it myself. I read reviews on it, and it was supposed to be better than its previous 3 movies. Then they tried to explained that it was a good movie, but somehow they just forgotten about it.

Hey, TMNT is part of my growing up years, together with Transformer, and Superman, and Spiderman, and Fantastic Four. This is going to be a great year on the silver screen, I hope.

Tears

2007-03-30T20:47:00.001+08:00

Tears, a powerful agent employed by the female anomaly, which at the very same time contains a lot of antibodies that are good for cleansing the eyes. When the female anomaly deployed it, I was at a loss even though I knew that I was not the cause of that action. But for some reasons, it will one way or another throw me into imbalanced. So what was the best way to avoid that kind of situations? Never even made a woman cry.

Cambodia - Day 5

2007-03-25T22:14:00.001+08:00

Our final day in Siem Reap was finally here. After days of trekking and temple viewing, we decided to end the trip with a day of nua-ing, slowing down our paces. We woke up a little later after a night out of drinking. Had a late breakfast and then sat by the restaurant and watched the world pacing by.

We headed to a bicycle rental shop to complete a friend's desire to cycle around. We tried to cycle to this horse range farm but sort of losing our way, so half way through, we u-turned back to town. After more than 3 hours of cycling under the hot and humid weather, our tshirt was drenched with sweat. And very very dusty.

Did our final shopping at the old market for any souvenirs. Was at this place buying the last souvenirs when we saw this parade of vehicles by a political party for their election next month. Then head back to the guest house to clean up, preparing to attend a cambodia wedding. Got invited by the driver, asking us to go to his friend's wedding party. Only I went in the end. The rest did not feel quite "alright" with it.

This was probably the 1st time and the last time I got to attending a cambodia wedding. It was also the cheapest angpao I had ever given, and most under-dressed. Everyone dressed formerly. The men were mostly in shirts and pants and the ladies in what looked like their traditional wear of gown. I was in jeans and tshirt! Hey, I'm on vacation! It was quite an experience. They did not wait for everyone to arrive to start the dinner. Once the table was filled up, it would start on its own, so when everyone was done, they would leave. The bride and bridegroom were standing at the entrance the entired night. There were cans of soft drinks, beer and bottles of mineral water on the table, so guests could just drink whatever they wanted. Freeflow of all those drinks. There was even a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label on every table! There were waitresses walking around, filling up the glasses with ice cube.

One did not prepared with the angpao. There were envelopes available on individual tables and each guest would then take out their wallets at the end of the dinner and put the moolah into it and dropped it into a box when the guests left. Even the bridemaids and brothers (I presumed) would stand at the entrance with the couple. When there was no guests arriving or departing, they would sit down.

Its a 7 dishes course dinner. The dishes however are geared more towards chinese style. Their tibits before the dinner consist of cashew nuts and this dried cuttlefish lookalike that tasted like pork floss. Nothing much fanciful for the food though their rice comes in the flavor of chinese style fried rice and plain rice. The rice was served together with a steamboat of chicken soup. For a moment, I was kind of surprised to see steamboat at a wedding. It truly was an experiences, a totally different kind of wedding from what I had seen in Sillypore.

After that, met the rest back at the guesthouse before heading to the Angkor Wat night market. Its a spot open specially to target tourist. Pricing was jacked up, which was to be expected. The whole place look like a very modern village, something that I had seen in Sillypore. Something like...errr.. let me try to recount... Asian village at Sentosa? After a quick look at the place, we walked back to the main old market streets and had a 2 hours long foot massage. I had a hard time trying not to doze off. Had an early flight to catch the next day.

Bye bye Angkor Wat. Bye bye Siem Reap. Bye bye Cambodia.

Cambodia - Day 4

2007-03-24T12:06:00.001+08:00

Temple! Temple! More temples! I'm getting an overdosage of temple
ruins! But the irony was that we had yet to get a good walk in the
main attraction, Angkor Wat. Today was the last day of our 3-days
pass. No matter what, we had to do our re-visiting.

It was getting to the point of you-seen-it-once-you-seen-all. They
were either hinduism or buddhism temples. Common among the ruins were
stolen statue or carving heads. Collapsed roofs and walls.
Destructions by huge trees. Corrosion by the weather. Anyway today
will probably be our last day of temple visitation.

Preah Khan. Neak Pean. Ta Som. East Mebon. Angkor Wat. And goodbye
Angkor Wat. Finally end of our trip. After all the roosting and
sweating, we wanted to slow down our paces and moved around leisurely.
Decided to give ourselves a good treat at a not-too-cheap thai
restaurant. Then we hopped over to the famous pub, Angkor What. Did I
mentioned that the first thing the restaurant owner said to me when I
went into this beijing dumpling restaurant last night was "you are
very fat" in chinese -.-" What a great greeting.

We learnt to bribe children with sweets to smile at us for some
photos. However that might not work all the time. There would be a lot
of many others that will hassle you to buy things from them but some
of them were really cute and witty. It could really melt your hearts.

Cambodia - Day 3

2007-03-23T00:50:00.001+08:00

Getting up at 4 in the morning was kind of straining myself. I
wondered if I'm here to enjoy or torture myself. By the time we got
there, there was quite a handful of people gathered in the darkness.
After making our way to a desired spot, we just setup tripod and wait.

I think I'm a little disappointed with the sunrise. Nothing exactly
spectacular. Then we moved off to our 1st destination. We planned for
an afternoon re-visit to Angkor Wat. Wanted a different sunlight. The
driver offered us 2 destinations that were off the central Angkor
area. Banteay Srey and Kbal Spean. The former was of hinduism religion
with structure made of red brick, unlike those of the buddhism which
utilized big stones. The latter was a waterfall site.

However there were extra charges to the locations due to the distances
traveled. Banteay Srey was about 37km from Siem Reap while Kbal Spean
was about 49km away. We agreed to the 1st location first, then would
decide 2nd destination after we were done. The site was a little
disappointing due to its small size. Being Sillyporeans, we had to do
some bargaining with the driver for the 2nd destination.

We did got our bargained price and off we went. You had to climb up
this hill(?) before reaching the river and waterfall. Again its a
disappointing sight though the hike up was kinda fun. After that, on
the way back we headed for another hinduism temple which along the
way. By this time, we overshot our schedule again, so we postponed the
re-visit of Angkor Wat to tomorrow.

After a late lunch, we headed for the famous Tomb Raider site, Ta
Prohm. This temple were almost in ruin, and had a lot of trees growing
into the wall. Interesting sites though. Finally headed for the final
destination of Banteay Kdel. All of these sites were not the hot
favorite, hence we saw far less crowd as opposed to 1st day.

We planned for some massge action tonight. Since we were too late for
it last night, we decided to do it tonight. I opted for the body
massage. Seem like a bad choice when you looked like a roosted
lobster. And our day was finally over.

Most of the cows/horses/dogs were skinny! But with all the jungles,
they ought to have plenty of fresh leaves to eat. I wonder.....

Cambodia - Day 2

2007-03-22T19:49:00.001+08:00

The start of the temple-temple-temple viewing day. Amazing huge stone
hand-carried hand-crafted structures. As with all tourist attractions,
they were clustered with lotsa people, which in turn meant that your
photos would have a lot of unwanted strangers in them to spoil the
photos.

There was a huge man-made moat around the new world wonder, Angkor
Wat. The moat was something like 9km in diameter. We did not start
with it. We drove in further to this Angkor Thom Central.
Crowwwwwwded! Sighz. The driver let us alight at the entrance to the
city wall gates, and told us to walked in while he would wait for us
inside after crossing the bridge through the gate.

We really took our time to walk through and started our tons of
snapping photos. From this angle. From that angle. Portrait.
Landscape. After we were through, the driver drove us in and its quite
some distance! What are those ancient people thinking again? City
walls encompassing a jungle followed by royal palace and temples?

We spent the whole morning walking through this ancient city. Bayon.
Terrace of the Leper King. Phimeanakas. Baphuon. Prasats Suor Prat.
Imagine walking from orchard mrt to somerset and it was no straight
line. Lotsa steps to climb, with some of them that was almost
vertical! Imagine rock climbing with 1 hand holding the camera and NO
safety rope. How you got up was how you got down! A slip of footing
would sent you tumbling down, crashing your body like one saw in Mel
Gibson's Apocalypto. They had really really small stone steps. Did
those ancient people borned with size 1 feet?

Inside the place, you had child beggers asking for moolah, or tuk-tuk
driver asking if you want a ride, or children/teenagers asking you to
buy a local guide/history/photo book, or if you wanted cold drinks. We
break for a late lunch back in the city, avoiding paying tourist
priced food and to recharge batteries. My batteries were faulty and
another friend's digicam was not long lasting enough for our massive
snapping time.

By the time we got to Angkor Wat, its about 4, left with an hour and a
half to bash through Angkor Wat. After arriving there, passed through
security check only to realize I left my good charged battery in the
room. ARGH!!! Told the rest to continue while I grabbed a tuk-tuk back
to the guesthouse. Too bad I cannot find my driver and we left his
number in the room. The tuk-tuk ride was actually quite an experience
if not for the fact that I'm rushing for Angkor Wat and sunset, and
the really dusty environment.

We met the driver at the entrance to move off to the sunset view at
5.30pm. We did not complete Angkor Wat, so we were coming back again
tomorrow. We had to climb up a hill to reach the top. At the top was
an ancient structure and CLUSTERED with people. Look like back in
ancient time, they were already enjoying the view, and probably using
it to do their stargazing activities. Even the climb up the structure
was no simple task. Small steps at almost vertical inclination.

I guess this was the 1st time I'm catching the sunset. Did a bit of
shoot. When the sun was finally out of view, the guards were asking us
to descend from the place. I missed wondering around the structure to
have a good view of the surrounding. Was busy trying to find a good
spot for doing the shoot.

And our day was coming to an end with nightfall. We checked with the
driver if they had a red light district in Siem Reap. Apparently they
did, so we ask the driver to drive us there to take a look after we
went to check out our next lodging. Look ONLY. Exactly like our very
own geylang fish tank. The girls were seated inside the "fish tank''
for the patron to admire. We left after a quick look, then headed off
for dinner.

We decided to go for something more expensive. Had cambodia BBQ. Its
not buffet style, so had to order our meat for the BBQ. Snake meat was
offered as one of the dishes. The 3 of us looked at each other like
its some irony eating our own species. Snake meat taste nice except
for the fact that the meat was kind of chewy, almost impossible to
chew it through. Went for ice-cream after that, then did a little
shopping for tshirts and small souvenirs. And finally ended our night.
Had to postpone the massage session to tomorrow since its getting
late. Had to turn in early since we need to get up realllllly early
for sunrise.

Cambodia - Day 1

2007-03-21T00:48:00.001+08:00

Had just 4 hours of sleep before waking up to catch the early flight
to Siem Reap. While doing my last minute packing then did I realized
that I had left my photos in the office. Sighz. Think gotta hunt
around the airport for those instant photo service. And they were no
longer available. With digicam and cheap photo printer, there was no
demand for such services anymore. Needed the photo for my multi-days
pass to Angkor Wat.

We arrived quite early, before 8. Its not the raining season yet but
apparently it rained the night before. Out of the blue! Even when we
were touching down, the sky was grey and drizzling. Nothing eventful
after that. Got out of airport. Met pick-up driver. Got us to this
irish pub-cum-guesthouse.

Since the previous guests of our room had yet to checked out, so we
went to recce the neighboring area, the Old Market. Spent about 2 hour
walking around the area. The ground was seriously muddy. Gotta do a
bit of leaping here and there. Other than a small concentrated area of
restaurants and lodge, the rest of the city was badly undeveloped.

Then we lazed around in the room to wait for our driver. Had an
arrangement with a driver to pick us up later in the afternoon for a
trip down to the Floating Village. Temple trips was going to start
tomorrow. Went lunchie just before the trip. Quite a good lunch. Cheap
and better than average.

The road to the Floating Village was bumpy and muddy. Quite a scene
along the way. Villagers who lived along the bank of the river. Their
one-room huts looked similar to those we saw on Pirates of the
Carribean: Dead Man Chest. Really nice for photo shoot but no photos
yet. Was rushing to get out to the sea(?) for the sunset shoot.

As we were about to board the boat, there was this girl taking photo
of us with a Sony camera. Its the high end model some more! And taking
us? I thought we were the tourists? The boat ride was filled with some
minor incidents but once it kicked into it gear, its a smooth and
worthy ride. A whole fleet on villagers living on water. Was a
disappointing sunset. No colorful sky with breathtaking cloud
formation.

And we were about to end the day with the return ride back to lodge.
After getting off the boat, we were persuaded to get this souvenirs of
plates with our photos printed on it! WOW! The first thing that went
through my mind was WHEN THE HELL WAS OUR PHOTO TAKEN? Then I recalled
about that girl with the Sony camera! WOW! That was fast! Too bad the
negotiator's determination not strong enough, so ended up buying them
but that was after some bit of bargaining.

By the time we got back to the guesthouse, it was dark. Seems like the
night over here set in faster than Sillypore. And we were amazed at
all the beautiful light up. Walk another round to enjoy the night
scene. Seem like our guesthouse was smacked in the middle of
concentrated area of nicely designed and well lit place, with police
guarding a few corners of it.

Have some beer at a rooftop bar, then simple dinner by the roadside
(hopefully no stomach upset) and we ended our adventures for today.

What a simple night

2007-03-15T00:37:00.001+08:00

Meet up with some friends for some simple dinner, whom some just came back from their holidays in States. Since someone offered to drive down to my place to pick me up, so we decided to go try out this famous nasi lemak along Katong road. Frankly, I feel that its not worth the queuing, plus the fact that its not even that cheap. Must try then you know if its worth it, right? Words of mouth are not good enough to be judge in taste. After all, one man's meat could be another man's poison.

So after dinner, a couple left while me and another couple headed off a couple of shophouses down the road for some Rocher tau huey (梧槽豆花) action. And we hang around for some gossip talk for a while. Just when I was about to call it a night, I heard a huge bang before me. And I turned my head quickly, I was someone flew and landed on the road. Someone with a helmet. A motorist. No fark shit. I was a little stunned at that instant. Then I had to ask my friend if I should called 995 or 999. Hey, I dun have such experience hor, and I dun exactly care for much of it. Called 995 in the next second. Think that is more important the the police at that moment.

Then a lot of people started to gathered around. One fellow quickly approached the floored motorist and helped him into a better position. I won't know if its better, I just assumed. Slowly vehicles started to clustered the road and traffic slowed to a crawl. I started to take note to see how long did it take for the ambulance to arrive at the scene. The other driver was calling for witnesses but seems like no one was offering for the service. That same civilian who helped the motorist went to direct the traffic, to get things going. Good thinking, else I guessed the ambulance was going to have a seriously hard time getting to the injured.

I kept staring at the motorist on the ground. His helmet had been removed. He looked totally stunned, like he appeared dead. No shitting you, till I noticed that the chest was moving up and down then did I let out a breathe of relief for that fellow.

12 minutes later, a couple of people carrying 1st aid kit rushed to the scene to help out. At first I thought the ambulance was there, but I dun see any white van around. And then I realised that they really looked very near, and wearing this white t-shirt with a huge red cross at the back? Is that the new uniform for the nurses and paramedic??!? In the end, I figured they were with the Red Cross at TKGS. But where did they appeared from? Is there some new arrangement that will activate these students living nearby accident scene? I had no idea about that!

Another minute later, the big red van finally arrived. The damn crowd were still crowding around trying to catch some action. Idiots. With some help from the public, they finally got the injured up onto the stretcher and load him up the ambulance. And off they went. Then I was thinking, what was going to happened to that motorbike at the scene. Where were the traffic police?

They finally arrived a couple of minutes later. The TP looked kinda a little lost to me. One look like a reservist fellow and another a NSF. I believed that was going to be a poor combo. The TP finally decided what they were going to do. That civilian was still directing the traffic!!! The one that was not taking over the traffic control spoke to the ~~crowd~~ busybodies if anyone had witnessed the accident. No one responded. So he told me that the show was over, nothing left to see, everyone could be dismissed!

And yesh, I did finally called it a night.

ps - I not busybody horrrr... I not squeeze in to the front to see the action horrr. I remained seated at where I was having my tau huey. No, I dowan to be witness. I din really see much of accident, so I had no idea what truly entirely.

TREMOR!

2007-03-06T14:46:00.000+08:00

Tremor in Singapore. I felt it! For the first time! Oh my god! For a moment, I thought I was feeling so hungry that I'm going to faint. Wait, cannot be. I'm not that hungry. Ok, which idiot was running so hard and fast in the office. Looking around, no one lehhhhh. Everyone was staring at everyone. Someone mention, leave now! Even my director came out and started to leave.

Overheard someone mention "shut down your pc". Shut my area lah. If it was going to collapse, what was there for you to shut down? Sighz. These people.

The one thing that was going through my mind, my backup, my configuration, my files! See, I'm so devoted to my work! :-P

Everyone evacuated from the building, to the main road. Most of us was like standing no more than 10m from the building. Yeah right. If the building came tumbling down, we would be covered in dust. I bet many would take out their camera phone and started snapping away. Some colleagues went to drive their car away. See, that was important. Heavy liability lor! My boss decided against that. To him, if it did collapsed, he would be waiting for a new car! How optimistic. Then he told me that it reminded him on the Hotel New World incident.

Everyone went for early lunch while I head back into the office for my siesta. If it did collapsed, I could at least said that I died in my sleep. Channelnewsasia was really really slow. I think the whole damn Sillypore was trying to access it. I guess everyone wanted to read this, to confirm their suspicion.

At about 1400, 2nd round of tremor visited us. Again everyone stared at each other. My boss quickly went to his car this time round! One department evacuated immediately. The rest of us just waiting for instructions and staring at each other. Me? RUSHING to backup my stuffs. Only one girl left the office of another office, starting instruction was passed down to stay put. What to do, she feared for her life. She got 3 children and waiting to take her driving license. When she came back, everyone applauded for her return.

Then there was this building announcement going on, trying to assure the tenants that everything was fine. Its just tremor in Sumatra. Sound machiam like passing shower lor. ....People, give way.. tremor passing thro'.....siam..... In the mist of all these, my HOD was distributing our annual increment letter. The first thing he told me was I dun think you can get your car. Sighz. See, I'm waiting for a fat increment to buy my new toy. Sighz.

What an exciting day. The last time my office was this excited was back when Nicole Highway incident. That one no tremor, only loss of power.

Vista

2007-03-05T23:02:00.000+08:00

Vista - noun

a view or prospect, esp. one seen through a long, narrow avenue or passage, as between rows of trees or houses.
such an avenue or passage, esp. when formally planned.
a far-reaching mental view: vistas of the future.

[Courtesy of dictionary.com]

And yes, I'm only 10 minutes into the very very much delayed latest WOW Operating System from Micro$oft and its running me nuts. If you haven't watch this, go on and watch it. For the fun part, the anti-mac ads is here. That is so un-vista of the os. And yeah, like the video plays, that is your WOW OS. Whatever you tries to do, its kept asking for permission. Within seconds, its remind me like I'm working on my linux/unix box. Oh yeah, I'm fine with that, but hey, I do all that in command line. And I will su/sudo the command if needs be but no, the damn vista ask for my acknowledge non-stop. I tried creating a folder in this highly important place that existed since windows 95, the "Program Files" folder. And it already ask for my permission 4 times!!! ALLO! Once is fine, twice is acceptable, but NOT FOUR TIMES. If I'm the damn hacker, you can ask me 10 times and I will still click continue x 10.

And no, I doubt I will be keeping this OS. I'm just testing to see how it look like, since I just upgraded my PC. I havent bring up the new PC yet. Its been more than 2 weeks. I cannot decide what OS I wanna run on it. Linux? FreeBSD? Windows XP x64? Windows XP? Oh, did I mention that its kinda slow? Or maybe I haven't tweak it enough, and I'm running on 4G ram if you are going to tell me that I don't have enough RAM. And yeah, my graphic card comes with DDR3 memory. Vista is just so goddamn hungry for power.

Hmmmm... or is it because I'm running the Ultimate edition? scvhost.exe crash once right after a fresh installation upon booting up. Oh great.

ps - a lot of people was saying that I'm missing at my favourite salsa place. Now, this is one reason why.

V day yet again

2007-02-14T11:29:00.000+08:00

Its the v day again. No, I'm not feeling sad. Nothing to feel sad about. I just feel glad that I had saved some good moolah. ^^\/ Anyway, knew a couple of friends whom birdday were on this special day. So happi birdday to them.

Speaking of flowers, there is this bet going around that if this auntie colleague of mine got flowers together, I'm getting a can of abalone. And the first thing when I stepped into the flower, couple of people were already asking me if there was going to be flowers from me. I said I will be buying them later. And next moment, that colleague got a call from the reception to go pick up her flowers. Everyone was laughing their heart out. Even our boss came out of his room to make fun of the colleague. Ok, that flower was NOT from me. I haven't place my order yet.

Anyway, seems like she was telling the world that it was from me! Now, I'm getting credited for nothing, then again for that can of abalone, why not? She was scared to call her hubby to see if it was from him since he never send her anything for the past years. Anyway, I did intended to go get her chrysanthemums if situation demanded it. I think that was a great choice. First she got flowers. Then wait a couple of days, she could sun-dry the flowers and use to make tea, and chrysanthemum tea had cooling effects, now that Lunar New Year with all the heaty goodies is popping by in a couple of days.

Oh, this and this inspirational video for your viewing pleasure for you though it might bring a tears or two to your eyes. The interview of the Team Hoyt.

Colors for your CNY

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

I got this in my email. Believe this is probably the first time I receive something like this. It gives you the tips of wearing a different colour of clothes during CNY for better luck So mahjong players, take a good look! And there is this "no suitable". My colleague interpretation is going to work naked! MUWAHAHHAHA I like that idea! hmmmmm did I mention that colleague is a lady?

新春衣著吉利顏色 (auspicious color to wear on CNY days)

鼠

牛

虎

兔

龍

蛇

馬

羊

猴

雞

狗

豬

rat

tiger

rabbit

dragon

snake

horse

goat

monkey

chicken

dog

pig

立春 1st day of spring

白 white

紅 / 棕 red/brown

淺紅 light red

紅 / 棕 red/brown

紅 / 淺紅 red/light red

紅 / 棕 red/brown

白 white

紅 / 棕 red/brown

白 white

初一 1st day

白 white

紅 / 棕 red/brown

淺紅 light red

紅 / 棕 red/brown

紅 / 淺紅 red/light red

紅 / 棕 red/brown

白 white

紅 / 棕 red/brown

白 white

初二/ 三 2nd & 3rd day

綠 / 淺青 green/light green

米 / 黃beige/yellow

綠 / 淺青 green/light green

米 / 黃 beige/yellow

綠 / 淺青 green/light green

米 / 黃 beige/yellow

黃 / 米 yellow/beige

米 / 黃 beige/yellow

綠 / 淺青 green/light green

初四 4th day

白 white

白 / 淺藍white/light blue

藍 / 綠 blue/green

白 / 淺藍 white/light blue

綠 / 淺青 green/light green

白 / 淺藍 white/light blue

白 white

白 / 淺藍 white/light blue

白 white

初五 5th day

白 white

淺藍 light blue

白 white

綠 / 淺青 green/light green

白 white

新春開工衣著吉利顏色 ( auspicious color to wear to start work)

鼠

牛

虎

兔

龍

蛇

馬

羊

猴

雞

狗

豬

rat

tiger

rabbit

dragon

snake

horse

goat

monkey

chicken

dog

pig

初四 4th day

白 white

淺藍 light blue

不宜 not suitable

綠 / 淺青 green/light green

白 white

初六 6th day

白 / 淺藍 white/light blue

淺藍 / 米 light blue/beige

淺藍 light blue

淺藍 / 米 light blue/beige

綠 / 淺青 green/light green

不宜 not suitable

淺藍 / 米 light blue/beige

米 / 黃 beige/yellow

淺藍 / 米 light blue/beige

白 / 淺藍 white/light blue

初九 9th day

白 white

紅 / 棕 red/brown

淺紅 light red

紅 / 棕 red/brown

紅 / 淺紅 red/light red

紅 / 棕 red/brown

白 white

不宜 not suitable

紅 / 棕 red/brown

白 white

年十二 12th day

不宜 not suitable

紅 / 棕 red/brown

淺藍 / 藍 light blue/blue

紅 / 棕 red/brown

紅 / 淺紅 red/light red

紅 / 棕 red/brown

淺藍 light blue

紅 / 棕 red/brown

白 white

Pussy wants to play oso

2007-02-07T16:57:00.000+08:00

When I got my X'mas pressie last year, I knew that its well worth it. Of course it ~~was~~ is. I'm still losing sleep on an almost nightly basis so I can allocate bit of my nights hours to it. Now, its even attracting the feline to it just as well. Now, kind of remind me abit of my her maomao. And no, I doubt I want another pet into my life. I might love them but I just ... errr... the amount of time spent on them is just.... sighz, nevermind. I'm more than being occupied already.

Fruits chooser

2007-02-06T13:53:00.000+08:00

Sigh. After such a long period of no posting, my first post in weeks is this kind of crap. Anyway, I thought it do look interesting. Ok, lotsa things in my head to write about, but its about writing them down. Soon soon. Some new stuffs, some so yesterday stuffs. Oh crap.

--------------------------------------------

Which fruit would you pick first if you were handed the following:

Orange◎Apple◎Banana◎Coconut

◎Banana◎Pineapple◎
◎Papaya◎Mango◎Cherry◎Black Grapes◎Peach◎Custard Apple◎Pear

Did you know that you can tell what kind of personalities people have by the kind of fruits they like?

Choose now!!
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Don peep at the answers ah
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Don play cheat ah I tell you
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Cannot choose 2 fruits hor, only 1
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Finally the answers below lah.

♡╮Orange╭♡
If an orange is your favorite fruit, it speaks of a person who has enduring patience and willpower. You like to do things slowly, but very thoroughly and are completely undaunted by hard work. You tend to be shy, but are reliable and a trustworthy friend. You select your partner with care and you love with all your heart. You avoid conflict at all costs.

♡╮Apple╭♡
If an apple is your favorite fruit, you are an extravagant, impulsive and outspoken person, often with a bit of a temper. While you may not be the best organizer yourself, you make a good team leader and are good at moving things forward. You can take quick action in most situations. You enjoy travel immensely. You ooze with charm when you are with your partner. You have an enthusiasm for life, unmatched by most.

♡╮Banana╭♡
You are a softie! Loving, gentle, warm and sympathetic by nature is the banana lover. You often lack in self-confidence and are quite timid by nature. People often take advantage of your sweet temperedness, and sheer vulnerability to a situation. You adore your partner in every which way, both for their mental and physical beauty! Because of the way you are, your relationship is always very much in harmony!

♡╮Coconut╭♡
The coconut lover is a serious, very thoughtful and contemplative person. Though you enjoy socializing, you are particular about the company you keep. You tend to be stubborn but not necessarily foolhardy. Shrewd, quick-witted and alert, you ensure that you are right on top of any given scenario, especially at work. You need a partner with brains and while passion is important it certainly isn't everything for you.

♡╮PineApple╭♡
You are quick to decide and even quicker to act. You are brave in making career changes. You have exceptional organizing abilities and are undaunted by the size of the task at hand. You tend to be self reliant, sincere and honest in your dealings with others. Though you don't often make friends very quickly, once you do, it is for life. You rarely, if ever, make romantic overtures. Your partner is often impressed with your sterling qualities but disappointed in
your ability to show affection.

♡╮Papaya╭♡
You are truly fearless and take much that happens in life in stride. You give considerable thought to things you do. You have a sense of humor that along with your generous nature keeps you in most people's good books. You are a go-getter in your professional life, and have a knack for being in the right place at the right time. You enjoy meeting new people and seeing new sights whenever you can. Your sense of humor is what attracts members of the opposite sex to you more than anything else. It is simply charming!

♡╮Mango╭♡
A mango lover is a personality to be reckoned with, quite often it's a person who has quite fixed ideas, and
influencing you is not an easy task. You tend to be an extremist with strong likes and dislikes, and at times even like to control a situation. You enjoy getting involved in something that presents mental challenge. Strong as you may be, you are like a kitten when you are with your partner. You accommodate the love of your life, and make up for all the strong will elsewhere!

♡╮Cherry╭♡
If cherry is your favorite fruit, life isn't always as sweet for you. You often face ups and downs, particularly professionally, and find that you make small sums of $$$, instead of a lump sum. You have a fertile imagination and are often involved in creative pursuits. You are a very
sincere and loyal partner, but find that expressing your feelings is not very easy. Your home is your haven, and you love nothing more than being surrounded by close family and your beloved partner.

♡╮Black Grapes╭♡
You are a polite person in general, but do have quick fare-ups of temper that cool down just as quickly. You njoy beauty in all forms, including beautiful people. You are very popular because of your warm, gregarious nature.You have a zest for life, you enjoy everything you do, right from the way you dress, to your style and your day-to-day life. Your partner must share your zeal and zing for life to enjoy all you have to offer!

♡╮Peach╭♡
Like a peach, you enjoy the juice of life and all its lush ripeness! You are the friendly sort, and are quite frank and outspoken, which adds to your charm. You are quick to forgive and forget; and value your friendships highly. You have an independent and ambitious streak in you, that makes you a real go-getter. You are the ideal lover, fiery and passionate but sincere and faithful in love. You don't however like to display all that passion in public.

♡╮Custard Apple╭♡
You are a modest and conservative person who can be quite sensitive at times. You tend to be thoughtful and contemplative, and therefore are rarely rash in doing things. You are quite ambitious and are good at anything that requires much detailing or working with numbers. You are quick at finding fault with others. While looking for a partner, you value a person's intellect far above their looks or good old passion. You are quite shy and not very comfortable demonstrating affection.

♡╮Pear╭♡
If you put your mind to something you can do it successfully, but by and large you tend to be fickle and have trouble completing a task with the enthusiasm you started it with. You need to know the results of your efforts almost immediately. You enjoy mental stimulation and love to get into a good discussion!

Beauty yet again

2007-01-10T23:46:00.000+08:00

Men are born to enjoy and appreciate beauty. Again. When I ~~thought of~~ was flirting with the idea of changing my mini and it had decided to play punk with it. Many problems were appearing even before I had truly decided on its replacement. And just when I thought I had settled on its replacement, then I came across this. A rumor that had been floating on the blogshere for a very long time. And now its appearing with an official announcement. Man, its such a beauty. I am falling in love... again... Look like I had to wait another 5 months before its released, and then dunno how many more months before it would arrived here in Sillypore.

Enemy of the truth

2007-01-05T11:43:00.000+08:00

Got an email this morning. A forwarded email to be exact. The kind of emails which many, yeah I say many, mindlessly forward to others without doing a proper research on it, or at least prove that the information is valid and reliable with a few different sources. Google dear, use google. Google might be becoming evil but they still can do what they do best, ie search.

Wait, I'm suppose to be talking about that email, not google. That email was about stevioside or stevia being used in a number of commercially available food/snack that were taken off the shelves. Then I stumbled upon this article which had quite an insight on some mis-information of stevia. And then there is this. It just showed how old that piece of news was. Remind me of that sister Mars visiting mother Earth outdated news. Or wait, was it my source of people having an even slower source? The article mentioned about how fact could jolly well be distorted into mis-information and myth.

There is paragraph in that article that got me thinking though.

I like to defend the US as well. The official stand of the US Foods and Drugs Administration (FDA) is that stevia is “not generally recognised as safe”. The FDA did not even say that stevia is harmful.

Not safe does not imply to harmful. I'm trying to work out the logic on it. Ok, I think its like un-safe sex is not harmful, they just increase of catching diseases and parenthood.

The article reminded me of what a friend said during a scandalous night supper conversation. That friend mentioned a quote from US President John F Kennedy.The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive and realistic. Indeed it is. Lie is of course not the enemy. Without lie, the truth cannot be a truth, that goes along with that fact that without evil, the good is not really a good.

Drunk state

2006-12-31T03:46:00.000+08:00

Oh yeah, it seems like a long while since I had updated my entry here. Well, what to do? Got new toy now, been spending a lot of quality time with it. Oh, wish this friend of mine a belated happy birthday and she got a great party. A lot of people showed up for her party. A lot of bottles got their bottom up. A lot of people show up for the free entry into this new clubbing ground.

There seems to be a huge bets going around betting what time the birdday girl would last. Ok, she did not last through 2am, which was quite a feat, since many people did planned to knock her out before the clock strike 12. Cheers to her for holding off, then again, it was because we wanted her to cut her 9 inch white chocolate hard dick. Yeah, you heard me right. Its a hard dick. White chocolate, I think, since I'm not going to put a dick in my mouth. One hell of a 9 inch STANDING hard dick. The ladies in the house were going wild with that hard dick. She had one hell of a hard time swallowing it. Look like she can't deep throat :-P No photos honey. Too many cameras snapping away that I'm too lazy to take out my mobile.

Anyway, after the hard dick ceremony, I proceed to Movida to look for some other friends who were there. I think this was the first time I was clubbing with a DJ repeating his track. Sound to me like its one CD on a repeat function. As another friend comments, its not called DJ spinning, its CDing, or Playing (hitting on the play button). The live band was great though. Now, that was my fun for the night. After one set of the performance, left go to back to the birdday girl party. She was knocked out by then.

So another friend and I had to coax her into going out of the place for fresh air. Yesh honey, its fresh air technically and literally. She refused to go home, in her drunk state. Different people always had different reaction. When I knew I'm going to reach my limit and going to lose control of my body, I wanna hit the sack asap. I would never want to be caught sleeping on the ground. Anyway, back to the birdday girl. A wise old man said that a person in his drunken state speak the truthest truth. Now, that seems to applied to the birdday girl. She did not revealed a lot of gibberish shit but some key scandals was leaked. Now, I guess that would the highlight of the night. Now, I did not ask her any question or digged anything out from her. And I'm not the only audience. Now, scandal was going to get leaked. Good luck to her then.

And of course, h-a-p-p-y n-e-w y-e-a-r 2-0-0-7!!!

Finally...

2006-12-20T10:41:00.000+08:00

Ok, I had been thinking about it for a long time. And now I had finally got my own X'mas pressie. And this is it! And I'm so happy that I got it, and I'm so sad that I spend quite a bit for it! See, sometimes pressie could be such a double edge sword. Damn! I'm so going to cut back on my social life! This game is a good stimulator for your brain. Oh, its selling very very well in land of the rising sun. And this had fantastic graphic, almost couldn't quite like your first generation gameboy!

Oh shit!

2006-12-15T02:09:00.000+08:00

Damn, someone called me a cradle snatcher! Oh shit oh shit oh oh shit!! Wait, I din even do anything! That is another shit. Sighz.

Disappointment

2006-12-14T13:55:00.000+08:00

Caught the movie Eragon last night. Its a movie that I'm so looking forward to. Before I read the book and after I read the book. I finally managed to finish the book before catching the movie. Oh wait, I did that before already. In fact before I went to catch it, I read the review in the local paper, again. And in my mind, I thought its was kind of crap. Anyway, I dun quite like that reviewer. And I guess I had to agree with him for giving it a 2½ stars movie.

As I read the book, I don't find the book amazing. Its not that it had some extraordinary plot nor outstanding track record. In fact, I felt that the boy (oh yeah, its a boy of 15 when he first wrote the first book) was trying to hard to show off his wide variety of grammars and verbs and nouns and whatever. I read it thinking it might be interesting. I consider the book somewhere between fair and good, though it did hadsome fancy names and mythical characters.

The movie? Its a total fark up. Even if I had not read the book, I still think its fark up. Its trying to do a very cheap version of LOTR and D&D. They almost rewrite everything details at every turn of the story. Wait, what story? The movie was moving so fast, trying to catch the midnight last train. Sephira looked farking ugly in the movie. No farking magnificent breast at all. I thought Draco look so much better and that is 10 years old technology! The only one thing I like from the movie is the baby Sephira that just hatched from the ~~rock~~ egg, that lasted for like... 5 mins? Or less.

Maybe they should just leave it alone. If they had try to shoot it as a 3 hours movie, it might just turn out fine. But no, they just had to do it as short as possible, and hoping to gain as much revenues as the LOTR or HP would. I can't believed that I kept wishing for the movie to end, asap, in the cinema. Hurry up honey, hurry up. Get me over with it. Oh, lucky for me, its free thanks to our dear NSportal. And thanks too for the not-so-tasty free popcorn.

WTF

2006-12-13T11:52:00.000+08:00

WTF?!?! Are we getting too free? Have we got the cure for cancer? Now we are talking about funding search on birth control for SQUIRRELS! What is going on in the world?

External beauty

2006-12-04T22:34:00.000+08:00

Just done The Devil Wears Prada. Fabulous opening. Now, that is soooo shallow, right? Of course. I cannot stress how much on the world is that shallow. So I might just indulge in some little fun of shallow-ness. So our dear Princess has now grown up to be a woman. How knows, she might just be the next Lindsay Lohan, whom I first noticed in Mean Girls. She did climbed her way up the certain amount of stardom and at the same time, came packaged with the star temper.

As I watch the ~~prata~~ Prada show, I realise that it reminds me of Mean Girls. Both of them had similar theme, which was nothing new. Both innocent girls got introduced to the world of the vanity, though both entered for different reasons and struggled through with the same different reasons and found themselves changed, becoming one of the vanity world. In the ~~prata~~ Prada show, size 2 is the new 4 and 0 becomes the new 2. Errr, wait.. that is just so too, in the farking insane real world. Honey, get a life. You eat to live and then live to eat! Allllo, I'm a size...err.. somewhere 20? That reminds me, the used-to-be Lindsay Lohan used to looked like this. Oh, this ain't the only example but probably chosen for the correlation in this article.

As the wise old man said want beauty, dowan life (ai swee mai mia).

Sunday

2006-12-04T01:08:00.000+08:00

Sunday. A day of rest. Even big brother up there also said its holy sabbath, so we shall all rest. However, because of some plans with a couple of like-minded friends to go up to our neighbor's territory for some shopping and cheap food, so ended up waking up early. Its considered sinful for me to wake up so early on a sunday. What to do? This was in fact the first time I joined this group of like-minded friends after numerous invitation by them. Just when I was about to step out of the my place, got a call from one of the like-minded friends that the triped was postponed due to unforeseen circumstances. Its a suspected circumstance that we thought might happened, and it really did. I guess probably the trip wasn't meant to happen.

So we changed plans and headed down to chinatown area for some dimsum. Its was only then I realised that my area was affected due to the marathon. Road closures led to disruption to bus services. And the worst part, no one put up any bus disruption notification at those bus stops, other than some big yellow board along some lamppost, stating the road closure. While waiting at the bus stops, can hear this auntie complaining very loudly about why not clear clarification at the bus stop, let people waste time waiting at the bus stop. How come my area was always affected by this and that?

So had to walk some distance to catch a bus (taking a cab in a jam was as good as throwing moolah into the drain), traveled along a very packed and crowded, and jumped off(literally) at the nearest train station to get myself to chinatown. This was actually a direct bus to the place but with the terrible jam, changing mode of transportation was a better option.

So finally settled down and had my dimsum. Yummy. As usual, we just do random topics and then somehow we were ended up talking about some might-be famous ancestors. Then I had , Jiang Ziya(姜姓，吕氏，名望，字子牙，也称吕尚), Empress Lü (呂雉), Lü Meng (呂蒙), Lü Bu (呂布), Lu Buwei (吕不韦). And then there was this. And yeah, indeed how very true. A lesson learnt with many lives, but a lesson used by history.

Means to an end

2006-11-30T09:53:00.000+08:00

Finding a solution to a problem has always been how this society works. Solving a problem and not creating another problem is the way to go. Speeding is always a problem in any countries, unless and of course in places there moolah can solve the problem, then its a problem in the first place. Yeah, a wise old man once said that any problem that moolah solved is not a problem.

In the past month, Copenhagen left me with a good memory, with cause to remember it for. FC Copenhagen beats Man U at the Champions League F grouping. And then now they have came up with an innovative way to ~~slow~~ stop the traffic. No shitting man! Are we ever going to see such innovative idea in Sillypore? Damn, I think I'm so going to mark that place on my atlas. A place I'm so going to visit.

On a less horny issue (hmmm hot young under 20 virgins in porn act ain't horny? Nop, they are just business), Uncle Sam came up with this CAN-SPAM bill that was suppose to be combating spammers and their unsolicited commercial email. And guess what? The horror of Mark Mumma [via iGotSpam] getting sued by a spammer and asked to paid millions of greenbacks. This is so going to change what ~~crap~~ complaints on your blog. Do you call this creative suing? Can someone point me in the direction on who to sue so that I can have a couple of millions in my bank account to bring forward my retirement age?

Death by bikini

2006-11-28T21:33:00.000+08:00

Caught DOA last night. Amazing show! Amazing not because its some great show with great plot. Or great artistes. Or great CGI. Its practically a show for eye candy. The feline looking shinobi princess Devon Aoki. The slim muscle-less wrestler Jaime Pressly. The sexy master thief Holly Valance. The oh-so-innocent Sarah Carter. The avenging purple head Natassia Malthe.

Beside those eye candies on the show, with them in hot sexy mouth-watering bikini is probably the main dish of the movie. Other than that, I don't think there is anything else to look for. Forget the acting. And best, this is a show for the guys and the lesbians. Girls, stay out unless you enjoy staring at those to-die-for-bod with ~~jealousy~~ awe.And of course, not to forget the finale. Sometimes its just good to watch some no-brainer show and just let your eyes enjoy it for what it is suppose to be.

MEGA school

2006-11-26T01:07:00.000+08:00

As I was saying last week, that my old school was going to be closing down. Did manage to force myself to get up early and went back for one last look, that it is still a school. Its really a walk down memory lane, reminding me how time really flies. And how old i was becoming.

Seems some old teachers, and just as I was expecting, they dun really remember me. Of course lah, more than 10 years no contact, and they were seeing and in contact with at least 50 new students each year. Anyway, just walked up to 2 teachers and said hi.

Seen some teachers that I my kakis used to dislike. Remember back then we had this chinese teacher we seriously disliked. And most of his class was right after recess break. So what we did was during recess, we rested in the classroom, and when his lessons started, we just went for our recess break. Now, if you happened to be thinking that I'm some kind of a bad student, nop, I'm not. I did study! Did I even mention that I was in the supposing best class. Nothing to be proud of anyway. I think its just luck. Really. Oh that teacher I my kakis used to dislike was now a HOD of mother tongue department. Good for him.

Also seen some schoolmates that I had not seen since leaving school. Took a while to recall who some of them were. My class only had two, that's me and another friend, went back. So pathetic. Went for kopi with them for a while. Talk about old times. Reminded ourselves of fun times we had like Swing Singapore, getting caught for leaving classroom without permission, which boys was going after which girts, playing mahjong the day before our O level exams etc. Missing classmates and their status were a common topic among such meet-up.

So my friend and I just walked around, went back to our old classroom and I used that toilet for the last time. Look like the merger of the two schools that I mentioned caused the two school name to disappear into history. Reasons been the declining of number of students. Heard from one of the retired teachers that the current trend was now into the keyword MEGA. So merge them and combine the resources together have a MEGA school. MEGA my arse.

Goodbye my old school, goodbye......

Bad? Good? Lucky!

2006-11-18T04:53:00.000+08:00

Haven't exactly had a good week. First i could feel the symptom of fever coming along. I always knew its coming when I'm feeling really really cold and shivering away. Hot on the inside, cold on the outside. Then its gone again. Then suddenly it back again 2 nights ago. Thought I'm going to see my doctors, but the night before, I start downing a lot of herbal tea (凉茶). One whole damn pot of it. Imagine I'm like rushing to the loo every now and then. And yesterday I woke up feeling better, so might as well head down to work.

Even my colleagues were asking me, how come I'm not going to the see the doc to get my medical certificate. I guess since I'm feeling much better, I might as well head back to the office. Then rush home to do my run. I still believe that sweating it out is a good cure to fever. After the run, rush off to meet some friends for dinner.

After dinner, I'm actually trying to decide between going to the train station or the bus stop. The former to get myself to my usual salsa club while the latter to go home. Standing in the middle of the two and trying to decide make one look kinda foolish. In the end, I ended up at my usual salsa club. To think I still go down though I'm not exactly feeling that great, though the after the run, I'm so much better.

And man I had no regrets. Something almost hard to believe happened. 2 ladies-who-don't-ask-guys-to-dance actually ask me to dance. And they were actually of the advance caliber, and one I had never dance with before. Never because it just never come across my mind to ask her for a dance. Nop, nothing got to do with been dao. Just no intention. Now, I'm so going to make someone bang ballz tonight if I tell him what happened. This was so going to be fun.

Happened to be talking to this friend about when I started salsa and it almost 4 years since I started out, and basically its almost like my mistress/wife/lover/girlfriend. Almost my weekends are spent with her. And occasional weekday nights. Oh man. Time really flies. And after spending such a long time in the scene, you just gotta look around and find things to entertain yourself. A person who stayed around for a year was quite good. Two was a commitment. Three became a religion. And four? I had no idea.

Remember one night I'm so bored that I just tell myself that I'm not going to ask any girls to dance that night. Well, in most scenario, its should be the guys asking the girls to dance, unless and of course if you are not from Sillypore, ya handsome and dance excellently, then that would be totally different. Girls queued up to dance with you, and might even fight over you! Back to that night, it did happened. Quite an amazing night. I got asked to dance instead of me having to go around asking them to dance. But this cannot do it too often, else very soon, one would have no girls to dance with anymore. Isn't quite good for reputation, I guess.

Gone for good

2006-11-17T00:46:00.000+08:00

Got a SMS from a friend early this week, informing me that my secondary was closing down! Oh mine, I never really know that school do get closed down. Look like it seriously is going to close down. Or rather I heard that it is merging with another school within the same vicinity. A school that I rejected to go to when I was given the option. Probably because i heard not so good things about the school when I'm in my Primary School (they were next to each other only) and one of my uncles got a good friend teaching there. All the more rejected the idea. Anyway, time do not turn back and I had no regrets going where I'm going.

I had my ups and downs there, and my life could almost be said to start shaping from there. I could almost put it that I have known some good friends that and my life path might just be different had I gone to another school. I still recalled that I actually changed one of my choice of schools to this one and I actually ended up at this changed choice. I wondered where my life will lead if I had not made the changes. Like one of those what if comics world.

Remembered having this good friend when I'm there but that friend is as good as gone after almost no contact in the last few years. Though I knew about his contact but somehow, no one just put in the effort to contact each other. The mom was willing to give up his Permanent Resident status so that he could "avoid wasting 2-2.5 years" growing up to be real men, wearing green. Actually wanna talk to the mom on that, that she could hardly control the son when he was in Singapore, how was she going to expect him to be in self-control when he was all alone in downunder.

I'm right, to certain extend. He went to some school, gave up half way, then went to another school, and then gave up again and the cycle was repeating itself. Though the last thing I heard that he had decided to really sit down and study well, to be a skilled employee instead of bumping around.

When he first went over, we did wrote to each other, from a weekly letter to a bi-weekly to monthly to several months once and then it just stopped. I guess boys were still boys. Writing letter was just no fun, and after some time, we just stopped contacting each other. Like the wise old man said there was no banquet in the world that would not end (天下无不散的宴席).

Something amazing about my class was that by the time we got to secondary 4, at least 50% of the class had been together since secondary 1, another 20%-30% for 3 years in the same class. So one might had thought that we are pretty close? Not really, in fact everyone had their own clique and you don't really joined up with other clique unless its due to some school projects. Matter of fact, I had one classmate that was in the same class with me since Primary School, but no, we were not best of friends. Character clashed, I guess. No idea what had happened to him. Probably married and a father already. Actually nothing surprising at all. At my age now, many were already settling down and started a family.

On the brighter side, I'm still in touch with a handful of friends from that era. You know, its not easy to say that you still have a close friend around you, who had known you for more than 15 years. Its just not easy. Maybe I should just go back one more time for its closing ceremony, and
catch up with some teachers, if they could still remember me. Afterall,
its been more than 10 years since I had left school. Had only went back
in the 2-3 years after leaving school, then life caught up on me and
then there were tons of excuses for not going back.

Maybe I should. Maybe. If I could wake up. If........

Windows CEMENT

2006-11-08T21:49:00.000+08:00

Wow! A legendary never-make-it-to-the-shelf OS from Micro$oft. Check it out here.

Microsoft has combined the strengths of its three most powerful operating systems to crate its next generation operating system.

Long short life

2006-11-07T00:53:00.000+08:00

How long do you think you can live? Why not try this out? It estimated that I would probably die at the age of 66. No shit! 66! I'm still thinking 200!!! Sighz. I guess a wise old man once said that its not a matter of how long you live your life, its how meaningful you live it.

Funny lecturer

2006-11-01T11:18:00.000+08:00

If only my lecturers are ever this funny, dun think I will ever fall asleep in class! I just wonder if this guy is so inspired by this comedian. But definitely, his act is simply funny. And if you really wanna know if he got sexy bald head (unlike me) or intellectual moustache or he makes you horny or he's sexy, here is his portfolio.

Another gr8 product from M$

2006-11-01T10:10:00.000+08:00

WOW!! Amazing product from M$! Finally they know what is good for them! Check it out man! Firefox 2007 Professional Edition worrrrrr!!! And the most amazing thing, an improved pornographic algorithm to help you surf better with the Internet! Remember this song? I think someone at M$ must have notice that video too! [via InsiderMicrosoft]

ps : if you don't get it, try purchasing it
pps : if you failed to purchase it, leave me alone.

New me

2006-10-31T01:40:00.000+08:00

Sometime life does get too boring that one will decided to do something ~~foolish~~ ~~daring~~ interesting to spice things up. On Saturday, I had wanted to do it but because I had bought the famous Tanjong Rhu bao, I postponed to the following day. Hey, you cannot leave the bao out in the cold too long, the skin would hardened and spoilt the taste of the famous bao. And later that night, saw another friend who had done it! Look like it was going to be a fun weeks in the coming. But of course, it wasn't already the first time we had done it, though on different occasions.

And yesh, finally done it on the sunday. I felt lighter. I felt colder. I felt naked. And then I went on the meet some friends for Dim Sum @ Li Bai. Arranged on Saturday night itself when I got some sudden urge for Dim Sum. When a friend suggested Li Bai, my instinct was 床前明月光，疑是地上霜...... the famous Tang Dynasty poet. Seems like they were a little shocked what I had done to myself. They kept asking what happened? And not just that, when I'm back in the office, I got just about the same kind of reactions, and some were simply... laughable. As I walked to my table, my AGM first looked at me, smiled, and then look away. And THEN he looked at me again, smile some more, and then laughed! Then he asked me where is my yellow robe! WAH LAO EH! The kopi auntie walked past my table and then retaced her steps and had a look again. Then as she delivered kopi to my boss, she asked my boss what had happened to me! Then my boss looked at me, and asked me that same question when he bumped into me at the loo.

Some colleagues walked toward me, stood there and looked dumbfounded by what stood before them. Many came to me and ask me what really happened. I even had my director's secretary walking to me, thinking who was this new staff. I put out my hand, offering a shake and said that I'm the new staff. Sighz. Its very tiring, ain't it so? I got questions like were you dumped?, something tragic happened?, were you going to Tibet?, are you going to be a monk?. I felt like hanging my answers on a board and worn it around my neck, saving me the trouble of repeating my answers to everyone. I got tired of it and start giving varying answers, among different groups of people. Reasons like I could go part time after working hours to help raise more moolah for my pocket, I wanted to increase my karma, I wanna get spiritual etc.

Now you saw it, that is the new me. No idea how long I'm gonna keep it that way. Probably do it till I got tired and wanna try something else, though I believed it would take a couple of months before I can play with anything new. Speaking of the monk and robe, my AGM's secretary was saying that she saw someone of that manner, sitting in one corner smoking away. My response to that was that cigarette was vegetarian and no laws in the buddhism society states that one was not allowed to smoke.

Maybe my new nick in the scene should be botak bish.

Infectious kimchi

2006-10-30T23:57:00.000+08:00

I had started on my first kimchi drama, and maybe I might just started on the 2nd one. Recommended by a friend who proclaimed that he simply dun like kimchi drama. And then 2nd by this kimchi crazed friend. So I might just give it a try. I don't mind a good laugh. But I definitely won't get infected by it. I had more than enough activities to take up all my time that 48 hours a day would hardly be enough for me.

Out of the blue, I got a message from my sister, asking me if I had any lobang for kimchi lesson. No shit! My instant response was are you having too much moolah and time? And then she threw in that mother is interested too, do they have one that conduct in chinese? Double no shit!! Look like my mom was so going to be infected with the kimchi craze. Reminded me back more than 10 years ago, when I wanted to learn sushi language. Beside the sushi drama, I wanted the do the language for gaming and manga and anime!!! I did finally get to learn it in school but gave most of them back since I hardly used them. I could probably only remember bits of this and that left. What to do, no japanese hot babe to converse with !! :-( But by the time the sushi craze hit Sillypore, I had move on to some other things.

Precedence

2006-10-29T23:56:00.000+08:00

When reputation indeed precedes you, whatever you says, people tends to think tis kind of an excuse. How come I'm getting reputation for no good reason? Know for this... known for that... he cannot be into this... he don't like such person... Hey, I haven't even open my mouth to defend myself, I can have people speaking on my behalf! I was dancing with this lady last night, and lady friend A was asking lady friend B if that lady was my new interest (lady friends A+B told me just now at dinner). I was seriously staring at lady friend A. Lady friend B just took a quick look at that lady I'm dancing with and turn to lady friend A and said no way. Her reason? Cause that lady don't have a bikini bod. HEY!!! Did I ever mention anything about wanting o-n-l-y a bikini bod? I had a beer barrel bod myself, so I cannot be asking for too much, rite? Then the 2 lady friends went off to some other topic! Hey, I'm not even given the opportunity to defend myself and they had came up with a conclusion!!

Sighz. What had I done again? This was just one of the many things. Sighz.

The world is dying...

2006-10-26T00:08:00.000+08:00

No farking shit. Now, if man can't produce the sperm that woman needs for the egg, then will mean human production will come to a halt, rite? No farking shit. First there is the peppermint. Then you get your cigarette. And now even technology is coming to haunt you! So what's next? Too much sex cannot replenish in time? Damn again. But I know the infamous phrase too much sex makes you shortsighted.

BSoD around the world

2006-10-24T16:34:00.000+08:00

Windows had its infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) since PC OS entered the GUI age. Ok, maybe slightly later with Windows 3.1. I don't ever recalled touching Windows 1.0. Think I took a Jump, from DOS 2.0 and moving up the ladder to 6.22, before finally embracing Windows 3.1. And as they said, the rest is history. How many times did one walked around shopping ground and found those LCD/Plasma TVs that did advertising to be displaying windows error message? And now here, you had some top 10 BSoD around the world. Thanks to digg.

Hypothesis

2006-10-23T10:24:00.000+08:00

Had dinner with some friends last night and was talking about chicks and the world and importantly, gossips. Come on, gossips were one of the main highlights of many dinner gatherings that occurred often among birds-of-the-same-feathers-flocked-together.

Then someone and someone came up with a hypothesis, woman with high pitched voiced was a little ~~empty~~ shallow up there. Nop, I'm not saying its airhead, but maybe just not deep enough. And then they turned to me and asked if this person had a high pitched voice. I had to think for a while before coming up with an answer. No. So they says that person might be an exception. Now, I had to join in my fun and overthrown their hypothesis. The idea of an hypothesis was that all sampled data must fall within the it, making the hypothesis true. If one sample was not true, then that made the hypothesis not true.

Why that person? Because a handful of people came in contact with her mentioned that she was kind of interesting. Interesting? There were just been politely nice. Afterall, this person is friend of friend. A little more urging and well, the comments became a little empty up there. And yeah, the someone and someone who came up with the hypothesis were ladies. So girls, it ain't no men who came up with the hypothesis. So do you think its true? Go check it out yourself.

End of the night, before going off to bed, was talking to a friend, talking about life sucks. It always happened when things ain't going your place, dunch you think so? Then something dawned on me. Another hypothesis. Women who were into branded wears could be empty up there? (Hmmm, how come we were always talking about air?) Now I wonder how true that hypothesis is? Then again, some people would take brand as class. -shrug-

Time Traveller's Wife

2006-10-21T17:45:00.000+08:00

When I recommend Time Traveller's Wife to friends, the review I got back from people were pretty good, so far. IMHO, I really think its a nice good, the way the book was written. I like the book. I'm not exactly a great support of romance stories but this is not exactly a romance book. Even as I'm reading this book, I was thinking that if they could possibly put it on the silver screen. And with reading Da Vinci Code, the same things come to my mind. In a book, its so much easier to put in referencing for reading, explaination the history or the theory or whatsoever its going to be in it. However the author had to control over it as well. Too much of it might ended making the book like a whitepaper or thesis, like Christ Clone Trilogy I read. However, on the silver screen, it was even a harder thing to do. The Da Vinci Code movie did quite a good job though I still felt that the movie is still lacking. And now they had to do a reverse chronology of the adventure of Robert Langdon. Oh, did I mention that I still had not quite acceptted as Tom Hanks as him. And now Hollywood is going to bring Time Traveller's Wife to the silver screen. But guess gotta wait till 2008 before we can see anything.

Beauty

2006-10-20T01:01:00.000+08:00

Man are born to appreciate beauty. So I believe Big Brother up there decided to create man, I'm sure apprecating beauty is part of the blueprint. I thinking im so falling in love with this beauty. I wonder if I will get a chance to see this beauty in Sillypore.

Oh dear, I think my heart is so going to be broke........

A royal job

2006-10-19T09:27:00.000+08:00

Now, this sound very interesting, working for the royal family. I wonder if they will let me have a go at it? I wonder how many ~~dirty linens~~ confidential information such a position will come across.

Food?

2006-10-18T14:23:00.000+08:00

Man was on the way to the market to look for food. He was sort of hungry. Not exactly hungry but kinda, caused its like... oh, its 1pm.. time for lunch... He looked and looked, wondering what was good. Then come across this spring chicken that look marvelous. Fried to the right level of crisp. Looked tender and delicious enough to make man's mouth watered. But he missed to eat the chicken. The last piece was taken up by someone else who just arrived teeny weeny bit earlier.

Man went to look for other food then. What to do, you don't expect man to go hungry because of missing the spring chicken, do you? Then he come across a special meat. He believed that to be horse meat! Wow, kooool! Horse meat, never tried before was what flash across man's mind! Heard that Mongolian drink horse milk and they definitely taste better milk from the cow, or mother (then again, that taste was so many donkey years ago, when police was still wearing shorts running around). The queue to the horse meat was long, and seems like the person taking the order wasn't exactly too friendly. Did I ever mention that man hate queue? Man rather go for simplier food than to queued a long queue to try the said-to-be-excellent food. In fact man gave up on the queue after a while, since the queue dun look to be moving much.

So time to look for new food again. Up and down, left and right, forward and backward and wala... there's a store selling exotic snake meat. Wow! Look interesting again. Snake meat !! Heard its good too, then again think its the guts and the blood that was good for one's body. Not too entirely sure of the meat though. Whatever it was, no harm trying. Again there was a blardie queue. What was wrong with man. Always ended up on some queue, and man h-a-t-e-d queues. He queued, he tried, he waited and the queue wasn't exactly moving again. In fact, seems like seller was all the more unwilling to even sell it to man, even wanting to chase man away. Hey, what's up with that?

Man walked away thinking, why was it so difficult just to fill the belly. He looked back at the spring chicken store, and seems like stocks were in and not too sure if the queue was going to reform around it. The horse meat store don't appeared to have a queue either though. Yet. Man stood there and wondered, should he walked off and try them out again? Or should he walk to some other stores searching for food again.

And then he walked... and walked... walked...

Muchachos y Muchacha

2006-10-17T08:19:00.000+08:00

My very first performance. Imagine all the stress and tension building up to it, waiting beside the stage. And worst, mine is the very last items. So had to see everyone's performances before I will get mine done with. I hope you will enjoy it.

Salsa rueda salsa

2006-10-16T11:05:00.000+08:00

Its a long and exhausting weekend. Very. And of course, its finally over. So now its back to the office monday bluez. The event is our very own very first salsa festival in Sillypore. And that meant that one of my nitemare was over as well. Oh did I not mention that I'm performing during the fest? The month long practice is taking it toll on me. I'm glad its over now. I can now shift my mind to something else.

I'm still glad I did the performance. Its my virgin performance leh. So where got no screw up? But still, overall, I had done it, in a creative way (according to someone's word). This is my first time and it might also be my last time. The stress and tension building up was no joke, especially so when there were conflicting ideas in the team. I had my fun and joy, I have my regrets as well. But to sum it up, its still an experiences. And so I can at least now said that as been there done that.

During the fest, Sillypore is attemping to break the Guinness Book of Records for the biggest rueda circle. And yeah, we did it!!!!! Edie the Salsa Freak commented that the records was first set in 2001, with 173 couples, and for 5 years, they were trying to break it without success. And Sillypore tried and done it in one time!!! Congratulation Sillypore salsa community. And, yeah, I am one of the 176! In the article, that guy with the cap, he's french. How I know? Bump into him after the attempt at the Kopitiam buying dinner. Same store :-P And he said its a very interesting thing and he's from France. But of course, its not all make up of Sillyporeans. We have people from Ireland, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, France, US and I-dunno-where-else.

Everyone was waiting for it to happened. By the 146th couples, the inflow had slowed to a crawl. Everyone looked to hope to put it off and to help putting Singapore on the map again. You could see people started pulling out their mobile phones to activate their friends. By the time the 174th couple walked in, everyone was like high on drugs. Now only we broke the record, and we set a new record with 10 calls. The previous set it with 5 calls. This was probably the slowest moving rueda I ever done since my 1st rueda class eons ago. By the end of the song, I believed I had not even move 30% of the circumference of the oddest shaped rueda circle I had seen in my rueda lifespan.

3 continuous nights of party was taking it tolls on my feets, not to mention 2 full days of workshops. Its a killer. And this is not even the most happening festival I had attended. Ok, I only did 2, one here and one in our neighbouring country. Wait till I check out Japan and Korea congress, think my feet might just detact itself.

The wrong step

2006-10-05T11:35:00.000+08:00

Very interesting and funny site here. Trivial news on big stars who were casted-then-kena-fired, turned down for all kind of funny reasons, considered or whatsoever reasons like lying six feet under. Do you know that Sean Connery rejected the roles of Gandalf and Morpheus. No shit! That man was quite a legend already but still, he turned down 2 big casts of two of the biggest trilogies in the last 10 years and probaby many years to come (Let's see how Eragon is going to do and Harry Potter bo-pa-keh and new Star Wars is living on past glory). And to live with his regrets, he went to do LXG even though he still catch no ballz on the script (the very same reasons given for the 2 big trilogies). The movie wasn't quite a success though its one of my favourite movie genre.

Oh, Many were considered for the Neo. Will Smith rejected it! Val Kilmer rejected it too! Ewan McGregor did that too! Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise was considered for the role. Man, imagine how Neo might had turned out should one of these fellow taken up the role? Imagine seeing Captain Jack Sparrow fighting off Léon with James Bond in Matrix.

Yeah so you just have to live with ya mistakes. Don't look back. Time stop for no one.

ps : I'm trying to allocate time to read Eragon before the movie is out for the X'mas festive.

bubbly

2006-09-27T00:44:00.000+08:00

If someone who is bubbly and talkative turns kinda quiet and silent when with you, that means only thing. One fine thing.

Get away from that someone.

Technology and skill

2006-09-20T09:53:00.000+08:00

I miss the good old days when things are about skill and not technology. That is also the time when people were paying people for skills, and not the technology. I have always believe in camera angle. Something that take times and experiences to full master the skill in doing certain technical stuff. But now, we got this? How much bullshit is that?

There were enough grumbles in relating to certain affair of the ~~lust~~ heart that sometimes things are what-you-see-is-not-what-you-get. So now, next time when you people saw a picture of someone whom you are going to be dating, and not even seen him in real, remember HP. Remember its technology!

Great for weddings, and resume, and blind dates, and ... funeral?

Singapore in 5 minutes

2006-09-19T18:15:00.000+08:00

Haven't post anything here in a long while. Having a brain dead period now. Sighz.

Anything, here's a funny clip that describe Singapore in 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

Hot or cold?

2006-09-08T08:20:00.000+08:00

Holy shit! Early morning wake up, first news I saw is this! Man, this is so very hottttt, or was it coooooold? Like that how to work? Damn, I'm already in a need for speed to get so many things done and this is sending the blood off the wrong way. Damnit. But then again, this seriously give me a good reason why its about time I take up ski-ing. But here in Asia, where do I go and ski? Up in the tibetian holy mountain? Bhutan?

Me and my big mouth

2006-09-03T15:49:00.000+08:00

After a long while my last entry, since like this entry is going to be marked the calendar and my and my big mouth. Oh yeah, as I always says, in the salsa scene, there is politics. In fact, e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e where is politics. So unlike you only someone super small fries, but I'm no small physically, and of course I ain't no big in the scene. I think I must have accidentally offended someone, saying that the performance team this person used to belong to is an un-impressive team, at least in terms of salsa.

That is no good. The last thing I want to be salsa-ing away my nites is to thread on murky water while doing that. Of course I know of people who did that and pretty oblivious to the whole thing. I just wonder if they are that thick or they are being stupid or innocence is the right word? Or who knows, they might just be playing their strategic political game.

Frankly, until today, I don't find their performance a wonderful watch but one must not say such thing out loud. As the saying goes, you don't go shitting and eating in the same place, right?

-pinch- big fat mouth -pinch-

The next age box

2006-08-18T22:21:00.000+08:00

You know, it seems like when you are move out of your current age box, entering a new age box, its as if you are going to be entering a whole new world. A world where you have more excuses for yourself, in term of physical.

Met up with some incamp friends for dinner last weekend and we were talking about some of the good and bad times of our active days, as well as our incamp training (ICT), and not forgetting how not to overwork our aging body in our ~~coming~~ current ICT. The good, the bad and the ugly. Its kind of funny how you would express your excuses in the emphasis of your age, the start of the new age box.

At the start of our ICT cycle, we were all looking at the loooong 13 10 years cycle. But of course, if we have army like this, I think it would be a sweet sweet cycle. Probably Army would always be overflow with people volunteering to go back for ICT. And now its already our 7th ICT. Time truly flies. 3 more to go and we would say bye bye to the green. Every time when we went back for ICT during the early years, we would be talking about work, career, girlfriend and of course, hot-blooded youngster shotgun marriage. Basically we had one such case each year we went back for our ICT. Then it graduately become talking about marriage and family, kids and wives. Then you will get your usual questions like those you get during your Lunar New Year visit to your relatives of when are you settling down. And now, you get questions like don't be so choosy when you tell them you are still single. Why cannot be choosy?

During ICT, you can truly see someone's characters. Very very much of it. For some weird unknown reasons, when people put on the green, they almost automatically become a group of adults that had the very mentality of children. They had problems following orders. They were afraid of doing m-o-r-e than others, or getting less benefits than others. Empty vessals still made the most noises. And just as useless as well.

At the same time, not to forget, the very organisation that conduct the ICT was at times at the centre of the stupidity. If they ever had to go through external audits for cost saving, a lot of people was so going to be in deep deep trouble. Oh well, its all the dynastic issues.

Happy birthday Sillypore

2006-08-09T20:24:00.000+08:00

H-A-P-P-Y 4-1-S-T B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y S-I-L-L-Y-P-O-R-E

As with every year, fireworks has always been part of the celebration. But this year, they tried to make it grander with a series of more fireworks. I wonder who is paying. And also this will be the last time we will be having our national birthday celebration at the old national stadium. The new one won't be ready till 2010.

Every year this day, it went bom-bom-bom. I will go noisy-noisy-noisy. People from all around the island will make their way here, to see the fireworks. People like me who stayed around the stadium will try to get out and got stuck in the jam. People travelled here and waited for hours just to see that couple of minutes of fireworks while people like me just stayed inside the house and not even bothered to walk down to the river to enjoy the fireworks. Such irony, isn't it?

Its going to be quiet around here this time next year, and the year after next, and the next, and the next.

And also happy birthday to the few people whom I happened to know who shared the their birthday with the nation. Enjoy your day too. Have fun.

Party party party.

Buying scripts

2006-08-01T17:22:00.000+08:00

The Infernal Affairs was one of the best HK movies to come out in the recent years, and I'm only referring to part 1. The rest of it was just, lost somewhere. And well, as usual, seems like hollywood latest trend is in buying scripts of Asian big hits and remake them for the white. The Ring, The Grudge are the examples. So catch the The Departed trailer here .

Big big universe?

2006-07-28T15:58:00.000+08:00

Comparing the size of the Earth with other planets

Now compare it with Uranus & Nepture

Now Earth against Sun

Against Sun, Earth is like a dot.
Think now. Where do you find youself now??
Now imagine the creator of this universe???

Don't tell your ~~Big Brother Up There~~ how big your problems are.
In fact tell your problems how big ~~Big Brother Up There~~ whoever you believe is.

ps : sound very much like taking on faith, aint we?

Age is a number

2006-07-27T15:19:00.000+08:00

George Carlin's Views on Aging

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

"How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key.

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

"How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!"! You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life, you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . . YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

But wait! !!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

Dound this inside my mailbox. Interesting thing though, wouldn't you say. Depending how you wish to look at it, but isn't it how true we do say our age? So why not juz relax and let us age with grace. Like wine. Further down the email, there are some pointers for the aging aged on how to stay young. As they says, its about up there, its just all up there in your head.

Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay "them".
Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.
Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.
Enjoy the simple things.
Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.
Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

So do remember the 1st rule, and, age is just a number. So is weight and height.

Drunken Fist

2006-07-24T09:55:00.000+08:00

The old wise man once said when one got drunk, one spoke the truth (酒后吐真言）. Catch up with a friend whom I haven't seen since the police stop wearing shorts. Meeting someone whom you had yet to see for a long time when you were ~~high~~ not sober was not exactly a good idea. Especially so when you were not entirely sure what bladerdash that cames out of the drunken mouth would ever get back to the ears that were not supposed to hear it.

Things like getting youself laid was not a good idea. It dun have to have any attachment with the person. Its a nice way, its called one night stand. But of course, we had the not so nice way, we called it the fark and run away. Knowing this person for a couple of years, so when conversation turned this way, I'm more than sure that he was no longer sober. Even not so when you were married and you were telling me that? I believed they had a term called adultery for them?

Ok, he still bugged me and kept telling me, sober or not, to stop being so picky. Time to settle down. Damn. Am I back to that question again? I know I know. The years going back and time waits for no one. And the tax rebate did look attractive. But hey, its not so simple. You think its like going to the supermarket and buy vegetable? Now let me put forward to you in another phrase. How could you not be picky. This thing you are going to swallow down for the rest of your life. It sounded very far away. It did sound very far away. How could you be eating the wrong vegetable for the rest of your life? Remember, alimony ~~was~~ is very expensive.

And any appointment made during this drunken state can be forfeited. Its highly likely the person cannot even remember making the promise nor appointment. So like I always says, a person in a drunken state should not be held responsibility for anything that he might/could/would do during that state. I think that includes getting laid. I think.

Act blur live longer

2006-07-09T17:59:00.000+08:00

As a dancer, what really irritates most is when someone ask you to teach them a dance. Especially at a social nite out. Its not about unfriendliness or whatsoever, but rather, we are there to social dance, not teach. And there are proper channel for one to pick up the dancing. So its a very bad thing to hog someone to teach one to dance, especially when one was not so willing.

This is the 2nd time I got into such shit. Even worse when its involved with people you know. This friend asked on behalf of another friend, asking me to introduce someone to him to teach him the hot salsa. He wanted to learn but seems like he dun wish to pay for it. Now, that was not so wise. Even considered the amount of time and moolah and effect someone else had put into it?

And what could be worse than that? He would even put up request like wanted a hot and pretty lady to teach him. The lady had to be single. What the fark? What was your intention? This kind of lobang ain't meant to be introduce to anyone. Ain't meant to be. Sighz. If you ain't putting your heart to the dance, then I think I'm ruining a dancer. Oh well, the golden rule of act blur live longer has always been a good rule.

On the side note, this is one funny shit. Laugh your heart out, people.

Your soccer fans

2006-07-05T23:57:00.000+08:00

Swedish fan

Portugese fan

Trinidad & Tobago fan

Polish fan

Paraguay fan

Dutch fan

Brazilian fan

Australian fan - at least she drinks beer....

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And you all time favourite english fan!

The storm of a lost mobile phone

2006-07-04T14:17:00.000+08:00

The wise old man once said that the good men will have good return (好人有好报). How many of us ever hope to have your mobile phone returned when you were to accidentally dropped it on the cab? I don't. I really don't. Most of the time, I would just take it as lost. Personally I had known people picking up mobile from the cab, losing mobile on the cab and not once does these people returned nor got it back. As the saying goes, finder keeper.

But look at this. I know, I'm w-o-l-s. I'm always w-o-l-s. I have more than a month of backlogs on my emails. Trying, really trying to clear those emails and feeds as fast a I could get. I think its one hell of a funny story. At least it still tells you that there were still some good in the world. How a lost mobile phone bring about a storm. Storm that hailed 2 families into the limelight. What shocked me a little was the helpfulness from the service provider. Wow, I never knew they can be this helpful. The storm of how a lost mobile phone involved so many people, and lawsuits being considered. Lying was a poor excuse against logging.

Logs. People. Logs. When the person you are talking to keep logs and post them for public audiene, you don't lying through your teeth. And please, speak good english before you got ridiculed at. Know the technology. Know the tools. Know what you were doing. Din your papa and momma told you that lying will caused your nose to grow very long?

So people, next time you do pick up a mobile phone, be afraid. Be very afraid. And remember, don't go shooting your own porn flick. Since you might get the limelight like someone else. At least knows the functionality of phone before doing anything stupid. Smartphones were meant for to help people do smart things, not stupid things.

The end of the hottie

2006-07-03T10:08:00.000+08:00

The hot favorite for the world cup had exited the scene. Something kind of unexpected since samba players were performing much better than the Frenchmen since the beginning of the game. Oh well, as I always says, the ball is r-o-u-n-d. I was upset myself when Ghana exited the scene caused by the samba players. Hey, I was expecting the black brazilian to lift the cup hor. My last ticket at stake hor!

Something else that was more interesting was how a Frenchman bought a train ticket to travel all the way from Paris to London to place his bet of 10 grands euro bucks to the samba player to lift the trophy. The funny thing was that the frenchman never heard of a recent invention known as internet?

The English were going home. Great! I was at the club watching that match. Most of the people in the club were supporting for the English. Then again, I'm not too sure if their support for true support as fans or because of the ticket they bought. Although one of the ladies was supporting the boy-band face of Ronaldo, not the big fat samba player hor, its the young portugese talent though she would rather preferred the English to win. Why? Cause the boyfriend won the ticket for the English to win. Its ok. I'm more than happy to see English going home. I'm really thinking of giving my support to the Portugese for now. But they seems even to be having big problem scoring against the 10 men English side.

Byebye 10 grands euro. Byebye samba players. Byebye English. Welcome Portugese. Egg tart niceeeeeeeee.

The next Micro$oft?

2006-07-02T23:31:00.000+08:00

If this guy ain't no shitting us, I think he is just about to be on his way to setting up the next Micro$oft. Water to replace any form of fuel. This is so kool. This guy is so going to be rich.

The end

2006-06-20T16:58:00.000+08:00

After so many days of non update, probably its a good sign that lady luck was no longer on my side. Oh yeah, I lost all my winnings in one silly game during a highly suspected drunken state. So its the end for me now, or almost the end. I'm just left with 7.86 buck in my pot. Of course I could play to make it grow again but I realised that its no good for my health. I sent my blood level going up over a stupid ball that 22 men in the fields were so desperately trying to kick into the net.

Since there was a minimum sum for withdrawal which I was , I had decided to use this one last bit of moolah to buy the outright winner for the world cup. Saudi Arabia had the highest odds, at current point of this entry. 1:5001. Now, if they really won, I';m so going to merrily happy. But then, would I even buy them? Nop, I'm not that drunk yet. So how leh? I'm thinking of Ghana. Maybe I'm half drunk now. I rather be. I have enough people telling me that I'm going to waste that last bit of hope. I'm ok with it. Have faith. Black is going to be the summer color again. Its going to be. Have giant leap of faith.

Chatted with a friend last night, a friend I had known long time ago through some online forum. As always, I still enjoy making fun of him and he enjoyed retaliating it back, I think. Its fun anyway. Well, the first thing he did was to test my eye sight. He was typing white color font on white color background. See, isn't that a great way to start all those poking fun and testing each other sanity.

Sad to hear that he's back and he din gather us for a meal. Ok, not that its mandatory for him but well, would be nice. But its sadder to know that his mom just left the world. My condolences to him. My dad left me a couple of years back, quite suddenly actually. The term drop dead quite literally fit the scenario. That was also the time that I realised that one will probably only had one dad in one's lifetime. Once gone, forever gone.

On a light note, another friend got rom-ed. Someone whom we always used to call the diamond tiger wong (砖石王老虎）. Congrats.