life's an enjoyment

Tenth Installment

2008-07-21T13:49:00.001+08:00

… a packet of rice on the ground. It has not start to rot… Someone must have been here today and threw this packet of rice on the ground. Where is MeiFong? HongKun have a sudden urge to shout out her name. However he did not let any sound escape his mouth as it might cause harm to MeiFong.

HongKun reached the corner of the corridor where the candle is. After the turn, HongKun came face to face with the carpark door. It was shut but the tiny window on the door allowed him to see what is happening on the other side. HongKun moved slowly and as quiet as possible up to the small window and take a peep. The entire carpark was turned into a made shift home for beggars. Some of them are young, with the exception of a few old ones lying around with no sign of life in them whatsoever. Hongkun suspect they belonged to the beggar syndicate where young children and old people were kidnapped to beg and steal things from the shoppers.

Suddenly HongKun heard a loud cry that almost made him drop his gun. "Please don hit me anymore…." Another voice shouted, "Then how the hell can you let him out of your sight?" "I ask you to follow him after you give him the box and you can come back here telling me he disappeared?!" "there will be no dinner for you tonight! And you better stop crying or I will break your legs!" "Just now that stupid girl cried so much, until I pissed off and kicked her rice away. You can have it if you want…don waste my money." "later you better go find that bf of hers if not I will bring her to Bali and join those beggars over there…" HongKun then saw a man as he appeared from the slope leading down to the basemen2 carpark. "you guys better watch them! Especially the girl! Call me in the middle of my dinner. I told my wife I go out to answer a business call. Now I have to rush back to raffles city." "Tomorrow if the boy cannot find that guy I will kill you two together with the boy and feed the dogs!"

The man got into a black car and drove off. HongKun raise his head to allow himself to see a bit more of the car park. He could not see MeiFong. "she must be at basement 2." HongKun thought to himself. "How I get to basement 2 without being noticed?" The door leading to the stairwell was locked and the lifts are no longer in service. Seconds ticked by as HongKun racked his mind for a solution.

Minutes later, the perfect solution presented itself to HongKun. He saw a little boy walking towards him. The little boy was non other than one who passed him the box earlier. HongKun quickly moved back along the corridor to prevent himself from being noticed by the others when the little boy opens the door. True enough, the little boy was coming for the rice that was on the ground. The rice has brought the fateful pair together again. The little kid noticed HongKun straight away when he entered the corridor. He was shocked… "How you come in one? The security guard never see you?" the little kid whispered. HongKun smile and replied "the security guard was not that the desk…" without a word, the little boy lunched himself forward and hugged HongKun tight. "thank you for your four dollars. It saved my little sister from dying of hunger." Tears already began rushing to HongKun's eye. "Everyday we have 100 packet of tissue. We have to sell finish and beg on the streets. At night before 10 we need to give 100 dollar back to boss. If not we got no food to eat…" "the old uncle they all cannot give 100 dollar so they no eat for a few days le." "my sister and I we from Malaysia. They catch us when we go shopping with mama and bring us here." "my sister also cannot get 100 dollars. So I sell very hard and try to make more for her also… but always not enough." "that time you give me the money I go buy food and penadol for her eat. But we always wet by the rain and she not strong." "she died last year le…" Tears flowed down the little boy's cheeks…

The little boy wiped his tears away quickly. "So I cannot die. I will escape and go back to mama and tell them about sister." HongKun was speechless… He stared as the little boy picked up the packet of rice and ate all of it slowly, even though the rice had been soaked with MeiFong's tears and was stepped on. HongKun told himself "I can no longer be weak anymore." "I will save MeiFong, the little boy, and everyone here…"

Ideas began to appear from the much calmer mind of his. "what should I do?" HongKun quickly reached into his pocket for his phone but it was no longer there. "boss asked me to steal one. If I don't then he will kill girl."

1. take the gun and shoot the guards
2. wait everyone sleeping and take the risk and rescue MeiFong
3. go up to the streets and call for help.

Ninth Installment

2008-07-09T14:39:00.001+08:00

Standing at the cross junction of Heeren shopping center and the road leading to Cineleisure, HongKun saw what is in the little boy's mind when he wrote the note. Red lights engulfed the small Singapore visitor center and just beside it is non other than the green Orchard Emerald shopping center. HongKun heart began to beat faster, even when he hasn't eaten anything since he knock off from work. The streets are starting to clear up now as most of the satisfied shoppers have already headed home. HongKun walked slowly toward the building. As he was proceeding up the steps, he remembered MeiFong once bought a grey dress from one of the push cart situated at the open area in front of the entrance. The thought made him more determined to do what it takes to rescue MeiFong out of the building.

Kicking away the wooden planks that were sealing the area, HongKun take a look around. It was dark, and there were only a few light bulbs around. The security guard was not at his desk. HongKun steal a glance at the security monitors and found out that the one situated at the basement was out of order. HongKun could not find anything unusual from the other monitors. HongKun had a hunch that MeiFong is at the basement. As he walked towards the broken down escalator, he took out the box and pull out the gun. It's magazine was full with bullets. Putting back the magazine in place, HongKun proceed down the escalator, trying hard not to make any noise and at the same time listening to MeiFong's voice.

HongKun could see the stalls of the abandoned food court. A thick layer of dust that was covering the tables and stalls have robbed the food court of its glamour and made everything look more eerie… There was no sign of life in the food court. After looking around, HongKun was about to turn around and proceed up the escalator when he noticed some foot prints on the think layer of dust on the ground. They were definately not his. They were leading towards the toilet. HongKun was trembling with fear as well as hunger. HongKun was not the adventurous type. However, his legs showed no sign of slowing down. Holding the gun tighter, he followed the foot steps. As HongKun took a turn into the corridor leading to the toilet, he could see the end of the corridor being lit up by flickering candle light.

"Surely they must be there" HongKun thought but he could not hear any voice nor see any shadows of living thing. But the thing that make HongKun legs weak, but at the same time know that he is on the right track is

1. a streak of blood stain on the ground leading to the end of the corridor…

2. a packet of rice on the ground. It has not start to rot.

3. drawings of vulgarities on the wall…

Eighth Installment

2008-07-09T14:38:00.001+08:00

HongKun was very sure it was not his tears playing tricks on him. He wiped his eyes and take a much closer look at the drawing. It was shabbily drawn using a normal pen. It looked some how familiar but HongKun had no idea who could have drawn the sign and what is the meaning of the sign.

He began to trace back and hoping he will remember something. "Before coming inside the cubical I was looking at the mirror. I told myself that this would be the last time I can admire how handsome I am anymore." "nono… it has to be before that" "I was walking towards the toilet." "I did not notice anybody." "the only one was that little kid ma"

"the KID! I remember him!" "He was the one that I bought tissue from at the road side!" HongKun remembered the 4 bucks that he gave the little kid, he remembered the big smile and the victory sign…. All of that seemed to have taken place only yesterday…

"Where can I find the little kid?" "What does he want to tell me?" "I am sure the gun is not from him and he cannot be asking me to kill myself after I gave him the four dollars back then."

HongKun got out of the toilet… he walked out of the building and to the spot where that fateful transaction took place 5 years ago. The little boy was nowhere in sight. HongKun felt his heart dropped. The pavement was still wet and flooded with shoppers. Feeling a sense of loss slowly creeping up on him from behind, HongKun sat down at the spot where the little kid once sat.

"So many people… business must have been good for him then…" HongKun thought as he bow his head in despair… suddenly, at the corner of his eyes, something white and dirty caught his eye. It was a piece of wet paper. It looked so ordinary, almost like a piece of tissue paper that one of the shoppers have thrown on the road… except for a small victory sign on it which made it stand out so dramatically in HongKun's eyes. Picking the paper up carefully, HongKun unfolded the note and look at the contents…

"many people look at me, so I cannot talk to you.

girl at boss there

at green building beside red center there"

HongKun wished that the little kid had more education. That would at least make his life a little easier.

"No wonder when I looked into the eyes of his, he looked as if he wanted to tell me something…" "so he was watched." "that settles the first line"

"second line requires no explaination"

"the thing is the last line…" "what is green building what is red center?" "there are no green building here… blue I know is wisma…" "oh! Maybe its Wheelock Place?" "the glass cone looked green to me…" "but is it near any red center?" "the red metal structure of Ion doesn't sound very centre to me" "the little boy's thought can't be very complicated. Its has to be more obvious than this."

HongKun tried to fit each and every building to the description of green and tried to figure out if there is anything red beside them. He was about to give up when he reached Cineleisure.

"I cannot give up…" "not on the hope that I can turn everything around…"

1. where is the place? :D

Seventh Installment

2008-07-09T14:36:00.000+08:00

"Since I am going back home and I can get my pocket money for the next day, why not?" "but then NOW u are left with no money. What if u need to use it urgently?" HongKun took out his wallet, took out the 2 pieces of purple note and passed it to the little kid.

"1 packet please" HongKun said. After laying his eyes on the money, the little boy's eyes looked at the hand which was carrying them, and up to the eyes of the owner of the hand. The little boy let out a smile and hand HongKun a stack of 5 packet tissue. HongKun stuffed the tissues nicely into all the pockets he can find on his clothing. 2 on his butt, 2 at the sides, and 1 on his left breast pocket. HongKun stood up and just before he starts walking, HongKun turn around to face the little boy again. "Spend the money on yourself, and go get something nice to eat ok?" the little boy responded with a victory sign and a big smile.

HongKun's heart was beating at an unusual rate. For he has just slipped the box containing the necklace secretly into MeiFong's bag. MeiFong was off to the washroom as there was still some time before the flag raising ceremony. HongKun could not focus on anything that day. He kept thinking about how Meifong will respond to his note.

A loud peep on his handphone pierce through the silence of the class and broke HongKun's strings of thought. It was a message from MeiFong.

"There is a box in ur locker :D"

HongKun almost felt his heart skipped a beat. The wait for the class to end felt like the longest wait in his life. After the class, HongKun raced to his locker and there indeed lies a small box. It was the same box that he placed the necklace and the note in. HongKun opened the box and inside lays the note he wrote for Meifong. The necklace was no longer there. HongKun unfold the note and it looked no different from the copy in HongKun's memory….. except for a small "Yes :D" at the bottom right corner of the note, written in light blue"

HongKun can't believe his eyes. Looking closely again, the light blue word and the smiley is there to stay. HongKun was overjoyed. He took out his handphone and messaged MeiFong. It only takes a few seconds for the message to reach MeiFong's phone. Opening up the sms, a smile registered on MeiFong's face. On her phone lies the following words…

"Do I have the honor to put the necklace on for you over dinner today at Fish n Co?"

MeiFong replied the HongKun and catch up with her friends on their way to the tutorial class.

"Yes… My tutorial will end at 5.30. I'll see you at our usual bus stop :D"

Everything seems quite different as they stood next to each other at the bus stop. HongKun cannot stop smiling, MeiFong cannot stop blushing. During the bus trip they merely chatted about their day in school. Soon after the bus alighted at the bus stop at Plaza Singapura.

They had seafood platter for two and it was the most fabulous dinner HongKun ever had.

"Alright following up is an interesting dedication from a guy by the name of HK… today is the day they got together, oh congrats HK, and he would like to delicate the next song to his beloved gf, MF. Haha… ofcause I won't ask the couple to stand up thou I have a huge hunch that they are sitting on the right half of the restaurant. The song I chose- I don't wanna miss a thing, aerosmith." Said the singer before he begin singing.

Everything else seems to stop moving as HongKun and MeiFong listened to the song and just as the song finished, HongKun stood up and placed the necklace over MeiFong neck. Fulfilling his promise earlier to MeiFong on the bus when he took the necklace from her and told her he would make the day special for the both of them.

MeiFong was touched. She tried to resist her tears from falling but the force of gravity is too much for the amount of water deposited at the edge of her eye.

"You are so sweet…" whispered MeiFong as HongKun reaches over and wipe away her tears with the serviette.

HongKun felt his eyes moist, as he holds on to the box in his hands, still sitting on the toilet bowl. Suddenly he remembered. This box is the box that box he used to put the necklace that he gave MeiFong! He turn and look at the box closely. Just as he was looking at the bottom of the box, there lies a drawing that he could have so easily missed. It was a drawing of…

1. A victory sign
2. A heart shape
3. A water tap

Sixth installment

2008-07-04T15:26:00.004+08:00

"the idea of a small necklace seems most sincere…" HongKun thought to himself. "Well I think I should do that. Restaurant wait till when I propose for marriage…" So HongKun was thinking of where to buy the necklace for MeiFong. It wanted to make it special. So taking all of his saving, he head down to takashimaya…

"Hello, welcome to Cartier…" the door attendant said to HongKun has he entered the posh restaurant. HongKun walked around, looking at the blinks, each attached to a tag that weights a bomb. HongKun really feel like buying something from the shop, for each piece of jewellery seems so special. Then at the corner of his eyes, he saw this necklace. Simple and elegant, the humble necklace stood high amount the high profile thick heavy blinks. Looking at the price tag, $200. HongKun open his wallet and took out his atm card. He raised his hand to alert the sale personnel. And after a long 5 min, one of them noticed HongKun and came over. The sale attendant took HongKun's card and left him without saying a word to him. HongKun followed the sale attendant after keying in the pin number, 2 words appeared on the transaction machine "transaction failed." "So sorry sir, transaction failed." The sales attendant say it with a tone that seems he is expecting this outcome. HongKun took out 100 bucks from his wallet. "can u charge 100 to my card and I will pay the other half with cash?"

"Thank you for shopping with us" the sale attendant hand over the small paper bag and HongKun's card, with a smile that seem so well practiced. Its almost like Micheal Jackson's nose on his face. HongKun walked out the shop. He took out the little brown box, and opened the cover. He placed a card inside and closed the cover.

Inside the box, resting above the necklace, is a card, that contained the words

"Dear MeiFong,

Magically beautiful you are,

Elegantly luxurious you always look,

Intelligently logical you always sound,

Fun loving and funny you always behave

Originally creative you think

Nicely groom you always insist

Genuine sincere you treat me.

So would you be my GF?

HongKun

HongKun was on cloud nine, he likes the gift. And he knows MeiFong will like it too. There is this little boy, skinny and dressed in rags, sitting at the side of the pavement, selling tissue paper. "Tissue uncle?" HongKun knew he only have 4 dollars left in his wallet. He is in a rush to make back home for dinner. What should he do?

1. buy 5 packes of tissue for 1 dollar

2. give the little boy 4 dollars for a meal

3. reject kindly and carry on walking.

Fifth installment

2008-07-04T15:25:00.004+08:00

HongKun sat down on his wooden chair in his room. What should I write to make her happy yet making sure she will not throw away my present? HongKun was looking desperately for inspiration. As he calm himself down, words started creeping slowly in to HongKun's head. The note goes like this….

"Hi, my name is HongKun.

My class is 3 doors down ur classroom.

I stayed in Ang Mo Kio,

My friend used to call me Pinocchio.

Because I am very lousy at lying,

Just like I am at courting.

But I hope we can be friends,

It may not be until the world's end,

But at least it will make my world a better place,

If I can talk to u face to face.

HK."

HongKun folded the note and place it together with the strawberry lollipop into a small box which he had bought from Prints. He liked the present. He hoped that Meifeng will feel the same way too….

3 days have passed since HongKun placed the box inside her locker. "what if someone else gets it before MeiFong does?" "what if MeiFong threw away my present?" HongKun can't help but worry about the fate of his present and MeiFong's reaction when she sees it. He was so deep in thought that he could no longer hear his economics teacher's voice in the lecture theater. His thoughts were broken when everyone starts to stand up and walked towards the exits. HongKun quickly tug his pencil box and notes into his bag, stood up and walked up the stairs towards the exit. Due to his shy nature, and his habit of looking at the floor, he noticed a pair of legs wearing lacy heels. "Who would wear this type of shoes to class?" HongKun thought to himself. As HongKun looked up at the owner of those legs, he was shocked to see MeiFong. She was standing there all by herself, and as their eyes meet, she smile and waved at him. HongKun felt as if he had just been struck by lightning.

"Hi, are u HongKun?"

"yes…"(his eyes trying to look everywhere else but at hers)

"Do u take XX301?"

"yes I do"

"would you like to walk together to class?"

"of..of..cause I do…"

And they walked to class together, chatting along the way…

"o ya by the way I quite like ur poem. And how u know I like strawberry?..."

Ever since then, they have been attending classes together… HongKun felt that MeiFong is actually a very nice person to talk. Although she always looks so perfect and cool, MeiFong likes to joke around and always stain her lips with chocolate whenever she eats the Chocolate dip from Ya Kun.

Days that have passed turned into weeks and into months, before he know it, HongKun and Meifong have been friends for close to 1 year. HongKun felt that maybe its time for him to pop the question. What should I do to make it special?

1. Bring her to a nice restaurant and ask her over desert.

2. Buy a small necklace and make a note

3. Buy her Chocolate and ask her over the phone

Forth installment

2008-07-04T15:24:00.001+08:00

Inside his mind, he know he can take the gun, walked into the crowded Cartier follow the lady who has bought a ring out of the shop, maybe when she is alone in the carpark, he can rob her there and then. "but how far can I run?" "the police will get me in matters of days… or maybe a matter of weeks since the police seem not so efficient after the Selamat incident." "if I get Meifong, can we go overseas and start all over again?" "am I ready to leave everything behind, even my mother at home, for Meifong?"…..

On the other hand, he can just throw the box into the bin and walked to the bus stop and take a bus home and pretend nothing has happened. Meifong can just be a beautiful memory in his mind. He will go back to his office and finish that pile of delivery and things will go back to normal. But this is not the outcome he wants. Meifong has been the motivation and the happiness of his life. "What is life without happiness and motivation?" he thought as a drop of tear glided down his left cheek…

A light voice from his mind seemed to say to him, "I choose C, Meet Meifong in paradise." HongKun opened his eyes… He had made his decision. He felt slightly proud of himself for making such a bold decision. He walked slowly towards the toilet as he feels that there won't be many people over there and thus he will not cause a huge commotion.

As HongKun walked towards the neaest toilet, in his mind, he hoped that the walk to the toilet will last forever. At least he won have to die. But soon after, he found himself inside a cubical. HongKun closed the door, latched the lock, and sit down on the toilet bowl. His mind began to think about the happy times he spent with Meifong…. HongKun had used to admire her from afar hoping heaven will give him a chance to even be noticed by her. And on that fateful day, he accidentally bumped into her while attempting to count the tiles on the corridor when waking. After countless attempts to apologize, Meifong just returned him a sweet smile and walked away. Soon after that, Meifong has been lingering on HongKun's head. The smooth short hair, nice features, and most importantly, the smile that almost stole HongKun's soul from his body...

Soon after HongKun decided to make his move on Meifong… he have thought of hundred of ways to know her. But finally he ended up with 3.

1. To leave a note on her locker + a lollipop
2. To wait for her after school, pretend to walking into her "coincidentally"
3. Try to get hold of her msn without her knowing and chat with her online with a fake ID.

Third installment

2008-07-04T13:09:00.002+08:00

The little boy was dressed in ragged clothes. Standing on the cold marble without wearing anything on his feet, the little boy looked so odd in the mist of the many festive shoppers rushing around in huge shopping bags. His 2 big eyes looked at HongKun's, they seems to be telling HongKun something. Before HongKun can ask anything, the little box stretched out his hands, placed the box in HongKun's trembling hands and ran off into the crowd.

HongKun immediately open the box. Inside the box lies a small pistol and a folded note. HongKun was terrified. "where is Meifeng?" "who is that little boy?" "why is this pistol doing in my hands?" HongKun mind was racing like a mad cow. He unfold the note….

"Cartier on the left, Montblanc on the right,
Take this gun, break in either one, get the biggest ring to set things right.
If you prefer otherwise,
Pull the trigger with the gun pointing at ur head to meet Meifong in paradise."

HongKun immediately put back the lid of the box. He stood there motionless. "what should I do?" "shit…….."

1. take the Gun and rob Cartier
2. take the Gun and rob Montblanc
3. pull the trigger with the gun pointing at his head

Second installment

2008-07-04T13:09:00.001+08:00

So HongKun decided. "Why should I wanna give up my life to do something that I am not being appreciated for?" he thought. "What if tomorrow I cannot finish?" HongKun told himself that he is going to have a good time with his gf and everything else comes later. Even if he cannot finish, that's something for tomorrow to worry about. So off he go carry his bag and leaving the piles of delivery papers on his desk.

Cool wind blew across his face as HongKun walked out from the mrt station. The roads and the pavements are still wet from the rain earlier but that do not affect the marching of packs of shoppers along the pavements. HongKun was supposed to meet his gf under the big Christmas tree at takashimaya shopping center main lobby. As we was walking along Wisma, he started checking on his attire. Pulling out a small comb from his bag and make sure his hair's presentable. Hundreds of little man-made candles hanging on the giant tree greeted him as he entered the lobby. HongKun had no time to admire the majestic sight for the time now is already 8.30. HongKun had no one to blame. Its Christmas and its knock off time and today happened to be a Friday. To make things worst, he left his cellphone in his office due to the rush. His eyes were already running about frantically in their sockets trying to locate the beautiful MeiFong. He can almost imagine her standing at one corner looking down on the floor, tired with all the waiting. But reality is far from imagination. For the lobby is flooded with last minute shoppers.

Suddenly, a cold hand pierced thr the crowd and touched his shoulder and broke HongKun out of his frantic search for his gf. HongKun turned his head and standing behind him is…

1. a pretty sexy girl which he had no idea who she was
2. a little boy looking up at him holding a small box.
3. MeiFong

First installment

2008-07-04T13:08:00.002+08:00

Once upon a time, there lives a young boy by the name of HongKun. He was a shy boy by nature. He worked in a logistic firm over in Changi. He joined the office as a small logistic planner that helps his boss to plan out the schedules of the deliveries. His boss is a man who could not care less on the welfare of his workers. So poor HongKun was dumped with piles of deliveries to sort while his boss just relaxes in office everyday.

It was just like any other day when HongKun was about to knock off when yet again his boss threw a pile of delivers on his desk. "By tomorrow." Said his boss before walking off out of the office with his bag. HongKun looked at his watch… it was half an hour to seven, which is his knock off timing. He knows that he will have to overtime again. Although it was one of the many overtimes he did without complaining, today he have to be at Ngee Ann city at 8 to meet his girlfriend… as seconds tick by, HongKun can't help but start panicking.

What should he do?
1. Call his gf and tell her he cannot meet her due to work
2. Go and meet his gf anyway, since he got a life to live anyway.

Good things are worth waiting for...

2008-04-14T20:32:00.006+08:00

such as this blog entry... haha... exams are round the corner. Today is 14 of April. Another 3 days I will be sitting yet again in the exam hall, marking the start of the exam season for me. This year, the torturing season surprisingly don't last very long. Start on 17, second one on 21, third on 24, and last one on 30. Fast and furious. The time has come again for us to load our rifles. Some choose to load theirs in the library, some at the canteens, but for me, its going to be my hostel room. Reason being the fact that I am going to move out... and never move back again. Lots of things are coming to an end and everything seems to be entering a giant surreal dimension.

I have spend 75% of my ntu life living in this block, 2 years in this room and 1 year at the one beside this. Gone were the days where my roommate and I played dota until the wee hours of the night, until the birds start chirping. Gone were the days where we bbq and made the toilet smell like sotong... Gone were the days where my roomie's alarm clock woke me up and I had to wake him up to stop the alarm. Gone were the days where our speakers roar,"MOn..mon..Monster Kill!" and our friendly MIC friend came knocked on our door and said,"对不起。我明天有考试。" Gone were the days where the grasscutters and the stupid bird irritate the hell out of my morning sleep. Gone were the days when lightning struck my block and everything went dead, including the pump of my roomie's fish tank and the room was flooded with salt water. Gone were the days we move out of our rooms during the renovation week and my Mini Compo speaker tumbled down the long flight of stairs to block 5... btw its still working fine... lol.

This is part and parcel of life. One chapter's closure is another's opening. To all the children of computer engineering year 4. The time has come where the last bowl of shit is infront of us. Let us enjoy... rich and creamy, down to the last bite...

Mid month November...

2007-11-13T09:09:00.000+08:00

I think I have butterfingers... more often than none, things seem to just find their escape route out of my 5 fingers. Like this morning, when I finishing apply wax to my hair, then just when I want to close the lid of the round case, the cover slip off my finger and dive straight into the slap of purple wax, causing a deep line of indentation. Sometimes I wonder would it be nice if mosquitos have butterlegs? Personally, if I happen to see one, I would hit it softly and pick it up when its unconscious. Then pluck off 1 hind legs and let it fly away. I believe it will have a hard time sucking blood next time. Wakaka...

Anyway, exams are REALLY round the corner... 28 29 30 I have one paper each. Every year, little children of computer engineering have their exams at the last few days of the exam season. I keep telling myself that the lecturers of computer engineering want to give us more time to prepare for our hard paper. That's why we start our exams so late. But when everyone starts studying, we will tend to start studying too... and when they finish their exams, we are still studying. When they are playing and going out, we still have to to study. To all the little children of computer engineering out there," life is a piece of shit... rich and creamy down to the last bite..."

Talking about eating, thinking back of all the nicer places I have been, NYDC came to my mind. But after some thinking, I conclude that the restaurant isn't that fantastic at all... No, fantastic shouldn't even appear here... some people may misread and thought that since its not fantastic, it may be a bit lousier than fantastic. Sorry about that... let me correct myself, that restaurant isn't that "worth being in Wheelock place" at all... The soup, more like whipped cream + cheese + mushroom, really didn't wet my appetite. Baked rice tasted like what a baked rice should taste like... on the minimum. Doesn't have the wow factor... Verdict, either they are trying too hard, or they are just not trying hard enough...

Went to watch Mr Tony Leong's big movie over the weekend. Lunch was at Ajisen Ramen. Ordered volcano ramen with prawn mayo, my gf ordered Piku ramen with fried white fish sticks. Piku stands for ribs, and the ribs they used is not those racks which you ordered at cafe cartel. They are those with soft bones. Wow factor: the soft bones are so soft that I thought they are some kind of paste. When you send the chucky piece of Piku meat into our mouth, as you bite, every little taste buds of yours will reach orgasm. As for the Volcano ramen, what more can I say, the meat was good. But 3 little pieces really dulls the excitement of the instance roller coaster ride the name promises... As for the prawn mayo and the white fish sticks, don't be misled by the pictures. They looked yummy in the picture, but in actual fact, they are pretty much so so only. The thing worth mentioning is that fried white fish really goes well with the sauce, made with sweet and sour sauce with a bit of mayo inside. When mayo mixed with the clear sweet and sour sauce, the look quite turn off la. But then taste wise, really quite different.

Ok, enough of crapping... luckily I cause a glimpse of those nerds waiting outside library one at 8.10am on my way to breakfast. Now I can recall their sorry faces and use them to motivate myself to study hard... wahakaka...

NOvember...

2007-10-31T00:07:00.001+08:00

Sometimes when something bad is coming, and you are waiting for it to come... its the feeling of a sitting duck. When is the last time when you think that there are so many things which you can do better given another chance? Like yesterday I carried a cat into my room. The cat stared at Fa Mou(my roomie's hamster's name) and attack the stupid cage causing the cage to drop from the table and poor little Fa Mou got a scare of his life. Thou separated by a layer of clear plastic, I am sure when the cat tried to attack him, Fa Mou's life sure flash before him... actually that hamster don have much of a life la... everyday eat and sleep only. Well at least I created one highlight of his life by putting him into a bottle filled with hamster food.

Mm Lee came to Ntu couple of weeks ago, told us things about Singapore, and we leave the auditorium feeling good, feeling proud of our country. I am quite happy that I am born here. At least there are many trees everywhere, as well as ah tiongs and ge lengs... the ah tiongs are like the hongkong magazine paparazzi, while the ge lengs are like the agents in Matrix. They are everywhere! And pretty soon, I think if Singaporeans don't buck up and make more babies, they are gonna take over the system man.

November, a month where bullets fly, brave brain cells soldiers bodies piled up in trillions, and all of us, sitting ducks on the conveyor to the processing machine of exams, some of us will come out with a smile, some with an upside down smile. Life still goes on... don't feel sad for what you lost, treasure what you already have and be contented of what you achieved... Afterall, you gain some you lose some... 五短必有一长!

Happy Childrens' Day

2007-10-01T19:14:00.010+08:00

Today is the first day of October... To all the little ones who can go in mrt without paying, who can always assume their right of way in any circumstances, and the ones who can go shopping sitting in their little thrones with wheels, uncle tiny wishes you all a happy childrens' day.

Well of cause I am not a children anymore. But I was one before. During those days, I looked at the toy car model and told myself next time I want to be a F1 racer. Then a few days later I looked at the aeroplane in the sky and told myself I wanna be a pilot. Pilot din't last long either. I looked at people who have playstation, gameboy, and I too want to have them. I wished I am a computer game maker... I want my parents to buy me this and buy me that... pretty soon I want myself to grow up so I can be whoever I want and buy whatever I fancy. Time really flies... that day finally come where I can finally decide what I want to do... and guess what... its not as easy as it seems... being a computer engineering student, I began to understand the shit I have to go through to become a computer game maker... Really big big pit of shit... Nowadays, its not about becoming what you want. Its becoming what people want you to become. Its the simple demand and supply market theory.

October came like a thief, like an alarm with no sound. Its that time again, where you will feel so tortured and that you constantly ask yourself why you have to go through all these shit... Yes... the time has come for us to MUG... As such, for a morale booster, I went to the newly opened Central. With more than 4 Jap restaurants, its really quite a good place for those Jap food lovers. Waraku is my choice for the day. For drinks, I ordered Ice-lemon tea. The waitress brought me this very very nice glass with ice... and then, a can of seasons ice lemon tea. $2.80 is the price of the drink. Well I guess, price of a can drink can really differ alot, considering the place and the situation. Hot afternoon with the mad sun hanging in the sky, having a window side seat with nice nice cushions and a view like this, aircon blowing from the ceiling, not forgeting the people that constantly say "thank you" and "welcome" in Japanese, and having a cute girl who is also my gf sitting opposite me, I think the price of the lemon tea is quite acceptable. I had curry udon with grill chicken, and my gf had beef + mushroom paper steamboat. Served in a black bowl that is bigger than my head, the curry udon really looked quite little. Things always had their way to play tricks on our eyes... The truth is, its actually quite alot. The thick curry, together with the smooth udon, and the chuncky grilled chicken... really killed any potential complaints. The brooth of the steamboat really very nice... beat the shit out of the sushi teh's one which is so salty. Maybe for the sushi teh's paper steamboat its to let the ingredients soak up the brooth. But the beef cannot fight with sushi teh. Waraku also has a pasta restaurant situated 1 floor down. No need to see menu de. Cause all the dish is handing on the glass outside the restaurant. Can see and choose what you want before you go in.

A few weeks ago the famous duo was at vivocity de sushi teh. Ordered chicken bento, beef + mushroom paper steamboat and chawamushi. The beef really very very power. Sashimi grade de... sieok. Well a picture speaks a thousand words. I have 3 pictures some more... So feast your eyes over the pictures...

When we are children, we want to grow up... when we are students, we complained about studying and everything that comes with it. And finally when we are working, there is more things for us to bitch about. In the end, you feel that you never really lived before...

Its the fact of life... Its time to walked out under the comfortable wings of our parents and learn how to survive... and inturn be the comfortable wings for the next generations. Its easy if you are flying with the wind, but what makes you soar is when you fly against the wind... Enjoyment always taste sweeter after torture... to all the little soldiers fighting the war in 1 months time, have faith in the sweet slacking after the exams... Keep it Real!

2007-09-24T18:47:00.001+08:00

Time has forgotten to wait for me...

2007-09-14T11:30:00.000+08:00

Well I know its damn long since my last update... the "write your blog!" seems to linger at every page of my planner... hiaz... I don't think I am very busy... neither I think I am being very productive... looking at my lecturers talking in class, effort trying to understand them slowly wear away at the onslaught of tiredness.

Comex is the biggest thing that happened so far... I went... and as usual, the whole place was invested by humans... People standing on boxes, shouting" come come and get our xxx mp4 player... its so nice, people will all admire you because you have the xxx mp4 player at 100bucks cheaper than current price!" "Buy it now. Its everything you need... and once you buy it... YOU WILL BE HAPPY..." ya right...

Sometimes when I am back home during weekends, I will feed my sister's hamster and let them come out of their cage for a walk... Usually I will do so when I am shitting. So I let them out, then I go shit. After I shit then I put the hamster back. The title of this picture is... "so near yet so far... " I wonder if those little fur balls have feeling... if have sure feel very sad for their life... whole day running to nowhere in the wheel and trapped inside the small little cage.

I went over to wisma and eat at the food republic. I really have to comment on their effort to decorate their foodcourt. It really make the food taste better. I had the Indonesia grilled chicken set while my gf have the fried fish beehoon. The sauce for the chicken really bring the taste of the grill chicken to greater heights... I was telling my gf how I choose my food. Think that every food can speak, when you walk pass them, try to "hear" their calls to you. "eat me! eat me!" "I'm delicious! try me!" In the end, chances are, you will come to your decision faster.

I have come to the end of my blog entry... More often than none, we are really stuck in a moment we can't get out of it. Try pulling someone from the streets, ask him or her," eh do you like your life now?" If you are lucky to get an answer, chances are the answer are not very positive. Then you ask the second question," eh then why don't you do something about it?" If your luck really good, you will get an answer. Chances are they will say,"bo bian leh... I also want... what to do?" Life is an enjoyment. If you don't believe me, then think of life without it...

It's the third week of school already?!

2007-08-23T16:26:00.000+08:00

Fact of life - Time and tides waits for no man... How I wish I am Hiro Nagamura of the Heros series... Well come to think of it, I hasn't been doing much from the time school reopen until now. It seemed that it was only yesterday that the school term started...

Well looking back, hall camp has ended, and gone with it were THREE weeks of school! Gosh... what was I doing? I remembered that day when my bus broke down... in the middle of the expressway. The bus engine went off with a loud bang as it was turning along a bend. I thought the double decker bus would collapsed and I will have a chance to appear in the TV... But luckily enough, the bus stopped at the road side... we got out and collected our complementary tickets and waited for the next bus to come.

I remembered too when I decided to try this korean fried chicken fast food restaurant at cineleisure with my gf. We were just looking around and this little restaurant by the side caught our attention. First impression I got was,"Fried chicken? Not again...." But I just wana find out how come anyone would try to rival KFC or try to sell this super unhealthy idea and hope people will buy it. That was then I found out... Fried Chicken with 100% OLIVE OIL. There is a small screen at the counter where it shows clips of people eating the chicken and all nod their head and show their big thumbs to the camera... So I thought, "might as well give it a go." I ordered 2 pieces of Original fried chicken, while my gf order their very original Gingseng fried chicken(chicken heavily marinated with gingseng + ginseng powder on top). The chicken looked no different from KFC. Sadly speaking, for the price of 4 bucks per piece, the marginal ultility really is not very high... Oil is still oil. I know its olive oil. But when I take one piece of chicken skin soaked in olive oil, its hard to tell myself its healthy... Anyway, the manager of the restaurant saw us with only fried chicken so she decided to give us some samples of their char-boiled chicken. Basically its bbq chicken chop la... Surprisingly, it taste rather good... tender, spicy, and free some more. The sample is not like those small little cubes with tooth picks. She gave us two big pieces... Eat until I got chicken phobia...

I also manged to catch the fireworks festival over at the marina bay... Show supposed to start at 9pm but got delayed till around 9.20pm. However, from 7.30pm, the best seats along the river banks at One Fullerton were already gone... By the time it was 9pm, there's hardly room to walk. Everyone that night was treated to a 20min fireworks extravaganza... The sky was littered with colourful fireworks and the massive amount of smoke produced when the fireworks exploded. At one point, the smoke was so thick that we could not see the fireworks sia... lol... I thought the floating platform at marina exploded...

Come to think of it, because of development, our little children have to spend 1/4 of their life studying studying studying... just to fit into the society... and the rest of their life trying to survive in the society after that.

A for August

2007-08-03T21:13:00.000+08:00

August is here... which means the end to the long long holidays and also marks the start of the final lap of my school life... after this year, there will be no more exams... ever.

Life in Singapore is really like survivor series... everyone trap in a small island, everyone begin to put too much attention on the small little puny things that are happening around us instead of stopping and try to look at the big picture... because there is simply no time... no time to even sign when you purchase, that's why there is the tap and go visa card... Everywhere you see and hear, advertisements will tell you that life has become so much simple... with this, with that, life can be better better better... so much so that we are living in a life so simple that its only 2 simple steps: Sleep and running in the rat race... Its like we are all in this little red and white ship, complaining about the aircon not cold enough, room too near toilet, instead of deciding which direction the ship is going, and looking at the weather of the sea...

Anyway, my aunty and her family came to Singapore because the kids are having school holidays in China and that the weather in Shanghai is actually hotter then Singapore... I thought Singapore is already the ultimate... I babysit the 3 kids for 1 day with the help of my gf... Torturing sia... I come to realized one thing, being a nanny is actually a very professional job. It require superb communication skills, high level of stress threshold, and loyalty to the job. Quite similar to the requirements of recruiting an executive. These are the picture of them, namely Jane, Sherry, and George.

I also went to paint my gf's house door... It may seems like a damn easy job. But its really not. To add on to the challenge, we painted the door in 2 colours... We also painted the ledge and the metal grille. We cover half of the door with newspaper and masking tape, then we painted 1 colour. After which the next day we took our the newspaper and painted the second colour... This is the final product... from far look very nice, from near, if you are a Singaporean, most prob you will complain... cos that's the national hobby.

I went for dinner at al dente on the national day parade preview to see the fireworks. Well it was really quite a view. Saw the heli flew pass, and the fighter jets, and the bla bla bla... I seriously think if there is no fireworks, 90% of the people will choose to stay at home at he comfort of their sofa and watch the tv instead of paying like 100+ to dine at the roof top of the restaurant.

Talking about food, I went for a cooking cum catching up session with my gf's pastor... I made pasta while my gf made soup... First time cooking using the induction heater. Really quite cool sia... except when I toss the bacon the olive oil wouldn't catch fire... the kitchen is like those cooking show kind, with a huge table top, so can chat while cooking or preparing the ingredients. I like it...

Here I am... standing at the bottom of yet another mountain... I still remembered I said the similar thing when I started my ia at Shanghai. Each week stands for 1 hill that is on the mountain... Starting that time, whole day bitching about the climb, then halfway up no mood to bitch anymore, when reach the top, finally see some work done, and when its coming down, time pass so fast and before I knew it, its already time to move on to yet another chapter of my life...

One life time is not a very long thing... especially now that the world is killing itself in the name of development. I am happy that I have a hand to hold on to, a voice that whispers encouragements into my ear, a smile that gives me hope... when I take on the challenges of tomorrow.

One Month in Singapore...

2007-07-21T20:16:00.000+08:00

One month after I returned from Shanghai... and one month since my last blog... haha... so sorry to my ardent fans of my blog... well life is definitely different from Shanghai... I no longer care about the weather forecast for tomorrow and today is just as hot as yesterday... I no longer need to cook for myself anymore, because I have my beloved mama to cook for me... I no longer need to pay my own electricity bills anymore... on the other hand, I no longer get to enjoy the cheap food, the cheap taxi, and the cheap shopping... I am back to my own room with my beloved bukit timah hill view... however, life has never been better, for 5 months, I have been hearing the voice of my gf on the phone, looking at her pictures on the computer. Now everything comes to life... and best of all, we like spending time with each other, doing nothing at all... maybe is my sleeping aura... haha... This is my name, drawn by her, on a mushroom Swiss burger, at the airport :) the nicest looking burger I've ever seen...

I wish to take this chance to say happy birthday to my father... This year, my father had a very special birthday... this is the first time in his life he sit in front of a cake and people sing happy birthday to him and he make a wish, and smile at the camera, and cut the cake... I thought I saw his eyes turned wet... haha... This is the cake, and this cake may look ordinary, but when one piece of it slide down the throat, it seems that you have taken a bite off a creamy d24 durian... and on top of that... My gf and I travelled all the way to jalan kayu to get the cake and carrying it like a precious baby all the way back. When we see the smile on my parents' face... I thought everything was worth it...

I went to the ikea @ tampanies to see see look look, it was situated just beside courts, and giant, in the middle of nowhere... I guess that's why they can have such big spaces... cos land in the middle of nowhere is nowhere near expensive... the design of the place, quite similar to the ikea @ Shanghai... the restaurant design also around the same... the toilet and the food counter... However, one thing that is different is that there is a special counter for nasi padang... like those curry vege rice like that... where you can choose what you want to eat from a variety of dishes in front of you...

Talking about food, I chanced upon this fast food restaurant a few days back... situated at the basement of vivocity, the name of the restaurant- "SuperDog". The slogan- "hand grilled burgers & hotdogs". Famished like crap, my gf and I ordered a chicken burger, a chicken hotdog, and chilli fries... take a look at the pictures and let them speak to you... When I sink my teeth into the hotdog bun, I can taste the juicy premium hotdog, grill to perfection, together with the fresh onions and tomatoes on top, and the toasted bun. The thing that blows me off is that thin crispy bacon that hides itself underneath the hotdog... The fries, there are not just fries, they are crispy fries that my hand cannot stop putting into my mouth... When the fries are combined with the cheesy chilli meat sauce, the taste is heavenly... It really makes me wonder why are there still people sitting in Mac and LJS and KFC... they should all come down here man!

Sentosa has really changed... now no more sitting of cruise to Sentosa... then no more those lame Asian Village theme park and volcano island... at least the new monorail service is good... can squeeze really alot of people inside. The beach also not bad, given that there are private clubs and shops setting up along the beach... now can sit the bus from the beach monorail station all the way out to Singapore instead of sitting the blue or yellow bus then have to change... Managed to take a few pictures along the way... Towards the last day, our faces were almost like this little girl...

Spending time together does not have to be packed with lots of programs... the objective is not what we are doing, but who are we with... Strolling by the sea, holding your hand, kicking the water, life has been an enjoyment, because of you... happy 6 months darling...

GoodBye Shanghai...

2007-06-27T13:40:00.000+08:00

I still remember how I felt when I was standing in the cold, looking at the company which I was going to work in for 6 months. Hour by hour, day by day, each day went pass with the increasing yearn for the end of my IA to come... and finally it came.

Last week of my stay in Shanghai... off to 新天地, the alleys of pubs really come alive when the sky turned dark... along with it comes the many westerners and of cause the feeling of slowing down the pace of life to enjoy a cold sip of beer...

Went to the old villages at the outskirts of Shanghai too... I must say its shopping heaven for aunties like my mum... everything also cheap cheap, everything also buy buy... and poor me at the back everything also carry carry... After we whacked the old villages, we proceeded on to the oriental pear tower. Standing at the most expensive district of Shanghai, the tower offers 360 degree of view of the area around the river. I was quite lucky that the sky is quite friendly... no rain, no fog... There was not much people inside the tower, so we got into the lift quite fast... as usual the lady inside the lift gave an introduction about the tower and Shanghai... but what is interesting is that her speech started when the lift door close, and ends rights before the door open... I think they must have practise it for countless times... We went up to the second ball first... there is a buffet restaurant at that ball... but whooping 40 buck SGD is no joke... so we just snap some pictures and came down to the bigger ball below. The bottom ball is actually a space city... they managed to packed a mini roller coaster inside and all the lame rides... Anyway I went on that roller coaster... I thought it would be just like those "cho cho" train thingy... I still take out my hp wanting to take some pictures... the attendant told me to keep my hp in case my hp drop inside... Lucky I listen... 3 words to describe the ride - short, intense, fierce.

Towards the end of my mum stay in Shanghai, I brought her to 杭州. The lake really bring in huge money for the state sia... people come all the way to walk along the lake... We had a hearty lunch at this glasshouse restaurant... there are actually many nice restaurants with very good concepts along the lake... and they have 1 street selling all the branded goods from Europe too... Fierce de... After our meal, we joined the walking gang along the lake... basically it was a 5 hour after meal stroll... walk and walk, there was this chap, that followed us, telling us to go for his tour thingy... he would bring us tour around the lake, bla bla bla... I said no. Apparently he cannot understand the word no, neither he can understand my shaking of head... and he went on pestering me like a pain in the ass for 15 min... Anyway soon we came to the little temple of general yue fei, but didn't went in. My mum said there is nothing much to see inside... But of cause I never fail to take some evidence of me being there back.

My mum and her friend went back one day after my birthday... Before that ofcause they wip out a feast for my friends... First time in my life so many people sung birthday song for me together... really touched... my cake was a tiramisu cake with a cute little cow sitting on it... To make things better, every single member of the puxi family turned up... and of cause... the kodak moment before I made my wish and chop the cake... thanks so much once again to everyone for making my 24 birthday a special one... I liked boon's expression... act serious look... wahahaha....

As my aunt waved her hand at me, as I walked into the gantry, as I looked at the plane which is going to carry me back home, I can't help think about my apartment, the path which I walked every day to work, the mini mart which I bought my breakfast. Once called my home, now they are just ordinary places and soon they are gonna be memories in my head...

There is a Chinese saying," 天下没有不散之宴席..." Everything comes with it a closure... and with that comes the opening of another journey... Really glad that I didn't submit my rejection letter to the GIP office 6 months ago...

"Looking forward to spending every moment with you, hand in hand through every journey ahead of us..."

a simple picture

2007-06-06T10:40:00.000+08:00

There was once a picture; drawn over the years... it has a blue back ground, with a boy on the right side. The left side of the picture was not drawn. The artist had been trying so hard to draw on that area. Always after drawing a few lines, the picture just don't seem right. The drawing paper seemed like it's gonna tear soon with all the erasing... however, just as the artist wanna give up, one girl came along. They soon became friends... As the time they spent together gets more and more, the artist can't help but having the idea of painting her in the picture of his. One day the artist found out that the girl drew a line on the blank area in his drawing... the artist gathered all his courage and asked the girl if he can paint her in the picture. She agreed... and the artist was over the moon... As the artist paints the outlines, the smile, and body, everything seems more and more fitting... the artist knows that it's not the same as sketching anymore, as now every stroke he paints is an irreversible process. At first, the artist was very scared to put on the colour as if it does not look nice, he would have to draw the whole picture again... therefore, every month, the artist took out the colour pencil, and tried to put some colours to the painting. As time goes by, he has learned to colour better, knowing which colour makes the sketch look nice and which one does not. There have been times which the artist drew wrongly and the made the lady disappointed. Sometimes the lady will get impatient and became angry over the hot weather or hunger, or the wrong things the artist said in their chat while painting the picture... But he was glad at all these while, the lady has been standing there, posing for him... As the month goes by, the area that he coloured is bigger compared to the previous ones... the artist finally understand the reason why. He cannot wait to see the completed picture... and every night and day, he has been thinking of how the completed picture will look like, where he will hang it, and what he will say to his friends when they see his picture...

It was a simple picture... Made special by you.

Meet me halfway across the sky

2007-05-21T22:44:00.000+08:00

Like I always say, “its been quite a while…” Time passes by quickly, and come to think of it, a huge part of my stay in Shanghai has flew past without warning.
Shopping has become the best sport in this city... having to stand and walk for hours, lifting heavy paper bags... woot... good exercise...

Managed to travel to a few parts of China, namely Nanjing, and Wu Yuan... Nanjing we visit the usual places of interest, the Mr Sun tomb, the Fu Zhi temple, and the parliament house. Overall, it was quite an experience... from the start, it was a test of endurance on the bus... with a few breaks in between, we managed to land our sore butts in the city. Before we knew it, we are faced with this huge flight of stairs... I think all the tours in China sure have to climb one. Anyway, paid liao so no choice have to start climbing... each step go pass with the increase in the yearning to see what is awaiting us at the top... The top is non other the old man’s tomb... managed to squeeze in and take a look at it. Before going in, I remembered me asking some of my friends, they gave me a smile and say, "not bad!” After I went in myself, I never knew that squeezing with over 100 people in a small stuffy room after climbing so many steps was actually not bad... Anyway, when I come out, I also show the same smile to my friends and say, "not bad!”

The night scene was decorated by the many colorful lights.
We take a walk around the fu zhi temple, see see look look, bargain bargain, and take a bit of pictures here and there. But one thing caught my attention... the shops actually hire people to stand outside the shop, doing nothing but clap hands... quite an interesting way to attach customers...

The next day we went to the nanjing parliament. Nothing really fantastic la... just like those olden times office and buildings... really nothing fantastic... maybe, its meant to be this way... Wahahaha...

Wu Yuan was a place where people go for small bridge flowing water.
We visited those stone coves which they said was covered with water for many many donkey years... It was quite a sight, something like those kongfu shows where the people fell inside the cove and they meet some kind of super power old man, then they have secret training inside... with the sunlight piercing through the opening of the coves... quite impressive... at least next time I see those shows again I can relate better.

We then visited some old houses in those small villages. Mostly build with wood and have intricate cavings on every wooden surface of the house. Last time people don really have a lot of things to do... everyday spend their time sitting in the main hall, master one side, the wife another side, separated by the tea table with a huge painting on the wall behind them. The place quite ok la... but given the fact we traveled so long until our ass quite pain le, the marginal utility of the places just drop like crap...

The last day we went to climb mountain again... climb and climb, and climb... till we reach the suspended bridge on the top connecting two summits... Its said that last time the dragon king once came to the mountain and take a rest... thats why there is a temple right at the top of the mountains... Chinese very good at cooking out this type of stories...

When I was in the middle of the stupid bridge, some people from the side go shake the bridge, small shake at the sides become big shake at the middle... wah lao... damn scary... I some more go look down... the height blardy scary sia... Then I found out that my camera was dangling on my right hand... and my left hand was holding on to the rope. I chop chop let go of my left hand, keep my camera in my pocket and use 2 hands to hold on to the ropes at either side of me... then slowly proceed to the next side. Anyway, climb so hard at least managed to take a picture of the view... great wind, great view but sucks when wanna take picture and some “friends of china” came by, stand in front of the camera and act blur.

Some say its good that Shanghai was occupied by foreigners... cos because of that, the city develop fast, and most importantly, there are many good food... such as the jap curry,Cocoichibanya... comes with a choice of the ingredients, from fish to pork to beef to vege, and a choice of 5 levels of spiciness, and the exact amount of rice to go along. I ordered lev 4... not too bad I must say, really will perspire after eating...

We went to jap buffet too... whack a bit of each... some of the interesting things include the horse sashimi,
and the sea urchin... The key to eating the horse meat is to tell your self it's a nice piece of meat that taste wonderful... never go imagine how the horse look like and how it sound like... I dunno how to describe the taste of the urchin. its soft, can really melt in your mouth and that taste rather alright... But given the fact that its so hard to prepare, have to give chance a bit. That night our staple food is Big prawn tempura. At every sight of the waitress, we will order 12 of them... and in the end, we had so much of the prawns that we have to play guessing game to eat the rest of them... We wrapped the dinner up with 3 bottles of sake, 2 cold and 1 hot... Taste like rum I think, and its not advisable to hold the wine too long in the mouth...

Every start of a laughter comes with it an end...
and when everything became quiet, we began to see what are the things that we hold on closest to our hearts. As I lift my head to look at the sky, I know I am looking at the very same sky above you...

“Meet me halfway
Across the sky
Out where the world belongs
to only you and I“

Apple of my eye

2007-03-18T17:00:00.000+08:00

Its been quite a long time since my last blog… if I were to think of an excuse for that, it would be – lazy. So I took time off my Sunday and sit down in front of my laptop n the tv, listening to 周杰倫 singing at the background, I shall try my best to do a good one.

After the freezing cold jan, I thought that feb should better. Its still cold… after feb I thought that march should be better. I was wrong again… The temperature still cannot break out of the 15 degree ceiling. Fifteen days after the Chinese New Year, its referred by the locals as 元宵节. In the morning 6am, Shanghai turned into a battlefield. All throughout the day, the serene silence was pierced by the irritating loud song of firecrackers. In the night, it was worse. The night sky was lid up with countless fireworks. The fireworks basically works on a simple logic. The thicker and larger the box is, the higher and bigger the explosion will be. I stayed at the 17 storey. My bedroom was on the 18 storey. Guess what? Some asses set off one box right outside my lobby. And it exploded right outside my window. By the way it was around 12 am ++. My whole bedroom lid up like kena camera flash like that. And the sound was damn loud. I knew something was wrong. I drew the curtains and this was what I see. I must say that I was inches away from an exploding fireworks.

In shanghai there is a building which sell books… total of seven storey selling nothing but books… and of cause talking about book, how can we miss out on the famous little red book. As I flipped open the book, inside is all the quotes by chairman Mao.
Cool… A tiny book no bigger then a notebook cost around 80 RMB. Cool…

The start of March also marks the start of school for me. Fridays 8.30am to 4.30pm and Saturdays 8.30am to 1150am. Good thing is I no need to work on Friday, and I can sleep in class. Bad thing is I cannot wake up late on Saturdays if I want to be a good student. But I shall try to be a good student at least for one month. The school is 上海交通大学. Located at one of the prime district of Shanghai, we no need to travel very far to find entertainment. The school is very old… if such a school is to be found in Singapore, tomorrow you will find bulldozer coming liao. We were like damn sian when we saw the buildings. I really scare the water will drip from the ceiling when it rains. Our building is at the international corner of the school. Here mostly you can find many students from Japan, Koreans, and Europeans. Its quite surprising that the girls can wear short skirts while I am shaking in my thick overcoat… either their acting skills very good, or they are really “hot”. I have to say, some of them really is those “nose bleed” standards. Anyway, as we walked up to our classroom, the building never fails to confirm my fears of dripping water…
The corridor lights only managed to light up 1meter of air around it, the walls are peeling, and the look of it really makes the hair stand. I really cannot imagine what goes on in the building at night. However, as we open the door to our classroom, first step into the classroom, I thought the 10 thousand year old cement turned into brown color. I cannot believe I was stepping on parquet.
The windows have automatic blinds that will come down when the teacher wants to show something on the projector screen. The room was so finely furnished that its like we have entered into another world when we step through the door. I was lost for words, partly because the room was really unexpectedly nice, another reason was I was late for half hour. I try to appear as sorry as possible. From the side of eyes I remembered seeing the teacher smiling at me, welcoming me into the class… The teacher told us that in the school, the direction is very clear- student comes first, teacher are just here to be of a service to the students. I was amazed… we had 5 modules in all. I had seen 3 of the teachers so far… and I must say, the teachers are really damn blardy nice la… the history teacher even tell us to go see which place we wants to go and tell him he can go with us. The 汉语 teacher pass one cd ,which consisted of the different methods and routes to travel China, to the class rep. The food in the school is cheap and good, one big bowl of hand made ramen (really is make before your eyes) cost 6 yuan. And one sandwich consisted of ham, vege, mayo, egg, tomato when paired with a hot fragrant milk tea, cost 5 yuan. The calling card is also cheaper then outside. I was lost for words… if there is one word I have to force it out to express it all, it would be “wow…”

How can we forget about food? Recently we went to this steam boat restaurant call 小肥羊.
One look at the name of the restaurant you know what to call for… Not only the lamb was nice, the beef, vege, mushrooms, all the different kinds of balls we eaten, all taste good. The service was not too bad, and the most important thing is that its not very ex… Basically everything made in china is cheap. What comes from outside is ex. For example, we went to this Japanese supermarket. Inside all kinds of jap food you can also find, along with all kinds of prices… like this fuji apple in my hand… 128 RMB.

Talking about apple, to most people, there is sure to be an apple of their eyes… be it the sleek nokia phone in their pocket, or the bright red metal on 4 wheels parked in the garage, or the only kid in a china family… for me, I found my apple. It looks nicer than a fuji apple, taste sweeter than a fuji apple and most importantly, she loves me…

A new year getaway...

2007-02-24T00:20:00.000+08:00

hoho... new year come liao. Holidays 7 days long. So my friends and I landed ourselves in the ancient city of xi-an. Going thr a 15 hr train ride was no joke... before I go over, I got the thinking like if the train will be like the one in harry potter movie. But it was different. .15 hrs on the train in harry potter movie I think I will puke blood. This train got bed for the passengers to sleep on. But it does not have seat. There are a total of 6 beds, 3 on each side. After the torturous ordeal, we checked in to this hotel Its like a oasis in the desert sia... the room was nice and cosy, and of cause our mood took the turn for the better.

First day was jalan jalan... second day, the fun starts... we went to 华山. It was a bloody tall mountain made of rocks. There is a choice. 1 - walk up yourself(approx.4k steps; free) or cable car up(seated; 103rmb) The choice is obvious. The 4k steps only lead to the cable car station near the lowest peak. After that still have to climb alot alot...There are a few peaks to attack. Managed to conquer a few summits but we did not reach the top as we had not alot of time.

And that the last stretch was like a 2 hrs straight flight of steps to the top. The steps were small, and the gradient was disgusting... But if we have more time I would consider going up. Night was lantern festival the city of xi-an, in the middle of the city, there is this city wall. Very much like those you see in the jay chou movie de. I think if singapore build 1 wall like that around the country, then war that time we just camp on top and shoot machine guns down. Sure very good. Last time arrow already so good liao. Many huge lanterns we saw, and our camera flash never stops... haha...
Last day ofcause is the mission that every tourist come to xi-an have to do... terra-cotta warriors! in chinese is 兵马俑. We first go for a sieok sieok hot spring bath. Then we wack the terra-cotta.
The whole tomb was like around 1+ to 2 km. So the tour busses have to park at a far away carpark then walk in. Well in total have 3 pits. The first one was the oldest pit, only consisted of soldiers and horses. Its like they dig out everything already. Then they have to piece back and put inside for display. But a huge part was still covered with soil. This is because if they took everything out, they do not have the technology to preserve them. The warriors actually have organic paints on them. But then a few min when they touch the air, the paints just vanish... very scary. So they are quite careful. Some people might feel very pissed off, everything covered in soil. see wat see. Some people also don care the "no flash" sign. Just trigger happy and shoot their way thr.

When the sun sets on that day, it marks the end of our trip. We took the bloody train back and when we reach shanghai, we wacked the most expensive dinner we have ever eaten since we got here so far. The place is "Face". It is a villa type hotel in an elegant setting. There is one small lake, three separate but connected garden and four villas of different European styles. We had thai food at the restaurant call Lan Na Thai. Just imagine, the first thing you step inside, you feel like you go back to 60 70 years. Everything is made of wood, its like those Shanghai building where there are girls in cheongsum walking around. The restaurant is at the second floor. First thing we go in, my mouth was wide open.The only lightning comes from the spot lights that were hanging over the tables. The first appetizer was bbq chicken wrapped in leaves. Then they changed the plates and after which all the food was served... we had green curry, gang kong, roast chicken and alot others. But wat blew me away is the desert.
Seated in the rectangle long plate, the trio packed a punch each. Far left was a rum ice-cream with a thin piece of sugar coated biscuit. In the middle, its the pudding, and lastly on the right, its the chocolate muffin with hot chocolate oozing out. When you put a little of all 3 into the small spoon, and put it inside your mouth... I dunno how to describe that feeling...

When you are about to enjoy the good thing, the feeling of anticipation is sieok. When you are enjoying it, the feeling is even more sieok, and after you enjoyed it, the sweet memory will keep you company for a very very long time. As I think back on the trip, the second day, 20Feb 2007, for me, is the best of the best day I ever lived so far...

Life's an enjoyment

2007-02-11T12:10:00.000+08:00

One week has passed again... . This week is my company de new year dinner. .It was held at this hotel. From far its like a mini city... like suntec or ngee ann city in singapore. But yes. This is a hotel and nothing else. And one more thing is this is a full suite hotel. As you walked to the entrance, you will find that inside the grand marble entrance, there is an old entrance made of wood. This hotel has a freaking long history and the wooden entrance is the entrance of the old building. Then after upgrade they conserved the old entrance and build the new building behind it. The hotel food quite ok only. But the reason why its freaking ass expensive is because the hotel is littered with antiques... from a old trishaw, to super old bank notes, to ancient stone structures... they have it all. Even the freaking toilet look so posh that you don mind having tea inside.

Anyway, as the night draws to a close, it also marks the start of the weekend, the weekend that we all yearn. However, its like a few weeks more before our school starts... when that happen, its like 8 30 we need to report to the uni. Friday study to 4 30 and sat study to 11 30. not cool at all. Cannot imagine the war scene at the mrt in the morning. Nevertheless, yesterday, which is sat, was one of the happiest sat in my life. In the morning my aunty and my little cousins all come to my apartment. We watch tv while the maid do some cleaning. After which off we go to a soup restaurant. The food there was quite ok. The soup is cooked in a tall pot, like the 佛跳墙. The rest of the food also quite nice, although they are pretty simple, like fried rice and normal vege fried with garlic. After which my aunty took me to 7宝古城. Cos last sat my friends went but I din have a chance to go with them. My aunty everything also buy abit for us to eat. From smelly toufu, to giant 汤圆(the size of a baby's fist), 麦芽糖and串串. Eat until I so full. The place like those old china streets, with very small alley, and wooden shop houses by the sides.

At night, I had new year dinner with my aunty and some of her relatives. After the dinner, I went home to a sweet phonecall and a good rest. Well I guess compare this weekend to the others, this weekend might be a bit less eventful, basically just hang out with my aunty's family and resting at home. However, spending time with my cute little cousins, see them say things that are even more witty than adults, see my little cousin wear shoe on his own, now I know why my aunty although how busy she is, every weekend she will spend time with family. For me, I came to this place throwing everything I have in Singapore, only to gain things I can never ever imagine. To sum up everything in 4 words, it would be- Life's really an enjoyment...

Warmth...

2007-02-04T22:48:00.000+08:00

Its the weekend again... 5 torturous days have finally passed. Nothing special really much happened during the week except that we are given this goodies bag. Inside, the biggest thing is a bottle of baileys. Secondly is a bottle of olive oil, butter cookies, belgian chocolates, sweets, nuts and mixed dried fruits... However, we have yet gotten our pay... I think they are trying to bribe us with the goodies bag. Anyway, 4.45pm on the dot, I just close all the program on my computer and chop chop leave the company... after that its steamboat at my apartment as usual. After which we go down stairs and play with fireworks. Its not those like fly up in the sky and explode de. Its a mini version. Fly up around 1 meter high and explode less violent. 6 shots cost 15 rmb...

The saturday sun rises up with me sleeping like a pig on my bed... I was hoping this weekend would be a restful one. Because I am pretty sick of walking aimlessly around Shanghai looking at those buildings liao. Sat as usual I went to my aunty house and we had dim sum for brunch while my friends go visit the 七宝古城. After which I joined them for dinner. Dinner was at this ultra posh restaurant. Its nothing like the pekin duck palace setting. This one is more power... This is zen like, one look you know the restaurant mean business. We have a total of 14 pax. And we booked the restaurant 1 week in advance. So while alot of people is waiting ourside to be seated, we just go in like vip. We had a room like the vip room, inside is a long dining table. The restaurant is a stamboat restaurant. But the special thing is that its a personal steamboat. You can choose from a large variety of soup base and the food is shared. We ordered hell alot of shit... from all kinds of balls, to beef, to vege, to fish paste and also mushrooms...Usually those pekin duck, those chinese restaurant very nice and grand at most only 50+ rmb per person. This super posh meal cost us 100 rmb each... by far the most expensive shit I've ever eaten. After dinner its the usual clubbing. However I gave it a skip. I returned home to my beloved bed and... a sweet phone call.

Sunday my friends were saying we go find some good food... so that we can get our morale high before the start of the week. In the end, we found this power restaurant that serves..... Sinapore food! From Laksa, to fried guay tiao, to hokien mee to chicken rice... and sides include sambal kangkong, cuttlefish with beansprout, otah, and many many more like chilli crab and fried carrot cake. Although the meal cost around 60+ rmb, we were more than happy to pay for it... the desert was an ice cold bobochacha... sieok!

After I eaten the meal, I had the same feeling as when I go outside the building... the weather is getting better and the sun is shining quite brightly... Yes the feeling is warmth. Warmth comes in many ways, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle... But wat I know is right now, right here, sitting on the foor of my living room, I felt warmth...

The Distance

2007-01-30T19:24:00.000+08:00

Shanghai, a city that is the tip of the spear of advancement of China, is one of the most advanced city around. Nice buildings, nice towers, crazy neon lighting, and bridges that spread throughout the whole city like blood vessels, are nothing but a representation of their status in the world. Amazing… I must say.

During the weekends, I managed to find time to explore the city. The streets are crazy. Its worse than grand theft auto. The middle divider is just a yellow line, painted on the road. So its not very rare to see busses traveling in the opp direction, and blasting their horns at those cyclists who just cycle and don give a damn to them. Its like they are the sheep and the bus is the sheep dog. Sat night when I first stepped inside the club “babyface”, I was shocked to find around 8 girls, standing in the row at the entrance greeting me. China really no lag of manpower. I sent my coat and bag for safekeeping before going in. There is the hip hop room and the normal clubbing music room. We got a table in the latter. The lights, music and the girls really blew me off my feet. We dance quite a bit. Cos that is the only exercise we can get. Entrance fee 80 yuan. 1 bottle of chivas 550 yuan. 6 bottles of green tea to mix with the whiskey 210 yuan. There are some pictures of the more famous buildings I took when I was more sober the other day. It’s the museum and the government building and also the science and tech park. Never really have the time to go in see see. Well down here, money is really no enough. My friend told me 250 a month u can live like a king. No lor. We eat at this restaurant, we had quite a few dishes and the stupid pekin duck. In the end cost us 50+ yuan each. That’s 1/5 of the king’s money… more of like saying can live like a king for 1 week and survive on air the other 3 weeks. Me now quite sian of Chinese food liao… I want to eat chicken chop and bryani….

Like any other famous city, not everyone can keep up with the pace and jump on the band wagon. As you walk thr the streets of the poor, they make a living by selling fake goods, cheap food and some resort to begging. Just imagine… a posh mrt station like this, during peak hour, that’s the amount of human traffic. And everyone push when the door open. They don leave a space for the people who wants to come out. So its kinda fierce battle between those want to come out and those want to go in. And once you go in, when the mrt is less full, you see "them". They will usually arm themselves with a mac drink cup. They will walk up to those sitting down, and kneel infront of them. Then they will “kou tou” once and ask for money. If the person sitting down ignores them, or pretends to sleep, they move 1 seat down and redo the whole process again. And to the other side and to the next cabin and so on… some may bring their little kids along. Its such a painful sight… so I always keep some coins on my coat… incase I see them then I give them.
As you walk down the streets of the poor, you will find that the homes of the poor is so dilapidated that they might crumble when the wind is too big. And all this is just like 2 streets away from the posh skyscrapers. Sometimes you can’t help but stop and wonder, life is really so unfair. Anyway, after eating at the posh restaurants and eating at the broken down road side stall, the food is not much of a diff… its not like the road side stall food taste like crap. They also not too bad. And they are dirt cheap. Like 2 yuan for one big bowl of 18 +- dumplings. Quite cheap for a city like this.

The definition of a rat race is that the rats are just running to beat each other in a never ending race. Some rats may be in the front, driving huge cars, eating good food, wearing nice clothes, some may be behind, living under the bridges, and burn wood for warmth… but the fact is they are all rats… why should anyone despise the poorer rats just because they have a bit more of stuffs then them? The best things in life more often than none are free… When you find yourself so caught up in the rat race, its good to take a break, enjoy a simple evening with the ones closest to you… because in doing so, you are actually enjoying the most precious things in the world…

Some where over the rainbow

2007-01-20T11:52:00.000+08:00

Six months some people say is a long period of time. Some may say that 6 months come and go in a blink of an eye. The last six months when I stay in hall two… time really passes like a bullet train. Right now I am starting to get used to life here in the new city which I shall be calling my home for the next six months. The company I have been assigned to is Corning shanghai fiber optics. Life there is not very good. The job that was assigned to me sound so difficult its like asking me to climb a mountain wearing a pair of slippers. Hours of the days are spent going into the production area which I have to wear that stupid clean suit. If not, I will sit at my office spot reading some stupid stuffs which are all in Chinese. Yes this will be my life for at least a few weeks before my school starts and the working days will be cut to 4. Anyway, whenever there is free time, sure must enjoy.

The most recent decent place we went is Ikea. Its also comprises of two storey like Singapore. However its much more bigger. The food is quite cheap too. After a feast, we walking 1 round and bought some small stuff for my apartment.

But every time after work, after we go out, after all the fun and laugher, I will return home alone. Its like living on a mountain top(cos i stay at 17 floor). Quite sad... I sleep rather early because I have to wake up early for work. I also dread that morning bath… the stupid water right, when hot it will go hotter and hotter. But when I turn the tap to make it slightly cold, it will start to go colder and colder… but I am naked and its like 6 plus in the morning… I cannot imagine myself doing that in Singapore.
But one week has passed with me doing that every morning cos I know I will feel better after that.

I always believed that happiness tastes best when its been shared. And when sadness is shared, it is easier to bear. Just like when my mother cooks something she thinks is nice, she will always ask me to eat. Similarly, when I helped my mum mop the kitchen floor together, I know she will feel much better. Like a comedian on stage, to him its an enjoyment to make people laugh even though he has a make a fool of himself. If there is someone out there whom you want to share a good dish with, sit on the long bus trip with, be there to dry the tears, and share everything that is good and bad with, I believe, life is really an enjoyment.

Things can only get better

2007-01-15T23:26:00.000+08:00

And so it does… I made friends. To be exact it’s a total of 11. All of us are working at the west side of Shanghai. I learned how to take taxi (its not exactly dirt cheap), so I also got myself a easylink card. The mrt here is different from Singapore. If you think those aunty in Singapore mrt is fierce, wait till you come here. First thing, the mrt door here will not care less about the passengers’ safety. Second, there are many many people here. (Its China after all) When this 2 problem combined together, a nightmare will result. People will push and shove their way without giving a damn about others. I learn the lesson the hard way. That time I saw this aunty shoved and squeeze to get out. So I thought I let her out first. Then to my horror, the stupid door shut after that. I had to go to the next stop and come back again to meet my friends. Nevertheless, we visited a few of the more famous places in Shanghai. Like 新天地, 南京路, and 人民广场.

Due to the fact that the sun here rises and sets early, people like us who woke up at 11+ 12 only have a few hours to walk before the sun sets.(the sun sets around 5 pm) And also because of the cold weather, we don usually like to go out and walk so much. We prefer to slack in coffee bean and chat.

Down here, one thing good is, you can go anywhere you like, shove as much food you want into you stomach and its not gonna cost you more then 10 bucks in Singapore. After a few meals my aunty brought me to eat, I encountered some dish which I never see before in my life. Imagine one fresh fish, killed and slice nicely, place in a big bowl. After which hot boiling oil is poured in, in addition, tons of chilli and pepper is added. Ofcause we only eat the fish... the pot of oil, pepper and chilli are jus to enhance the taste of the fish... now oil price rise they still waste so much. +.= Usually when I eat with my aunty, starting will come 6 or 7 starters, then come 2 or 3 main, then the soup, then come the desert… in the end, like eat buffet like that... that time my aunt treated my friends and I to Bejing roasted duck, we eat until want to explode... but 10 people only cost 400++ rmb. cheap like shit. Clothes here also not very ex. But with the exception of those branded goods. Electronic goods also not very ex. Ofcause I am refering to the fakes... haha like I bought a ipod charger for 80rmb... looks like the real thing, feels like the real thing. best...

Things can only get better, like the weather, the people which I am going to get used to, the many more places I will go, the many good food coming my way, and the many many more to come…

A New Everything

2007-01-13T11:05:00.000+08:00

Looking at the golden words “Hall Two AARON” printed on my right sleeve, I know that I am not alone. I am playing this game for my hall, my squash team, my friends… It’s a wonderful thing to have oneself belonged to a group. We won hall 4 to defend our championship. Sieok…

Waking up the next day, things turned more then 180 degree for me. I threw away everything that I know and familiar with to come to Shanghai. Alone at the airport, I flew to a foreign land all by myself. When I reached, I met up with my aunty and she took me to my new home. It’s a service apartment at the junction of 古龙路 and古美路. It’s a small but cozy place. I seriously don’t understand those people who want to stay in single room in hall. Now that I have a single apartment all to myself, it’s nothing near great. For me, I would like to share the nice things in life with friends around me. So I have made up my mind to invite those people who are working in the same company as me to come over to my apartment to stay.

The first day here was hell. Its freaking cold.
My aunty have tried her best to make the apartment as cozy as she can by filling up the drawers with everything I need, including the carpet at the toilet bowl. When I got back at night to my apartment, I was greeted by the sudden cut of electricity. I called the technician in and he told me that I was using too much electricity. I cannot on 2 warmer at the same time. Wtf… the apartment has 2 room heater and one living room. How come cannot on 2 heaters at the same time? >.<

On the brighter side, my aunt’s driver drove me around and I found out that the university I am studying in has many shopping malls around it. The lights made everything looked so nice… Hope the weather turn warm soon. God is kind to me. He sent an angel who made me a little toothpick postcard. It’s sitting sluggishly on the side table of my bed. Dunno why, when its freaking cold, the look of it brings some warmth within the layers of cloth on my body.

2007 is here

2007-01-09T10:07:00.000+08:00

Yes, now write date is --/--/07, not 06 anymore. Lucky I do not have alot of chance to write the date, saves me from quite a few embarrassments. It not hard to see everywhere they are removing the deco, the thousands of light bulbs hanging on the trees, the famous tree which has been the backdrop for countless photos. For every year, the man made Christmas gets better and better. More lights, More sale, More people singing along the streets, and of cause, much much more people squeezing in the train and cars on the road just to land themselves in the middle of "The Celebration". One thing I totally hate is to squeeze with all the bangla along orchard road. I was on the bus on my way to meet my friends in town. I was quite tired so I slept. But sleeping in the bus is not totally ko. Cos still have to keep track of the location in case I miss your stop. That's what I do too. I opened my eyes and saw Tangling mall, with all the ang moh and their kids dancing around the stupid tree. So I closed my eyes again and tell myself I can sleep for another 20 min or so before the bus reach city hall. But to my horror, around 15 min later I open my eyes, it was still at the thai embasy. Its been quite a while since I am stuck in a jam. West side no jam de. So I began to look out of the window, at those people inside the cars. Non of them smiling sia. But I thought its the festive season? I guess they are like me, and many many other people, all colliding into that small dot on the map of Singapore to meet their friends. The irritating Christmas songs played in departmental stores suddenly all become chinese new year songs, and its 10 million times more irritating. I think its slowly starting to sink in now... a new year has come, along with many challenges and opportunities. For me, its loading of good memories before I fly off to work in china. Dunno its me or the trip, I always have small little things to settle, like the atm card (cos i forgot the pin), singtel line suspension( cos I will not be using the line), apply for extension of luggage weight limit (cos student can have 20kg more) and ensuring that I have got all the things I need.

I still remember that time, I joined the queue outside singtel shop @westmall. The shop was about to open in 5 mins time. Then there was this bangla. First he place one of his foot in front of me (which is in the queue), but his body still outside. Then of cause he was damn close to me. Ofcause natural reaction is to step back, in case he touches me and I turn into charcoal. Then conveniently, he stepped in with his other foot ( now he is totally in the queue and infront of me). I was curious to find out how he is going to pull himself off after blatantly cutting the queue. He looked up at the hello sign on top of the entrance, then he let loose a frown, as if he was deep in thoughts, then after a while, his expression returned to normal and now he is officially part of the queue. Wah lao... first time I see this. I dunno want to laugh or ask him to get lost to the back of the queue. After some time I finally get to voice my request to the receptionist. I wanted to suspend my line because I will not be using it when in China. She asked for my mobile number and told mi no. I asked why, and she said I am still in contract. The only way is to pay 250 for the penalty of the contract and then she can suspend for me. If no contract, I will have to pay the normal monthly subscription and 8 bucks every month to suspend my line. WTF! I take the simcard give the bangla use I still save 8 bucks man. After this contract ends, dear singtel, you are gonna lose one customer.... and that customer is gonna make sure you lose more.

On the brighter side, imagine one big bowl of fried fish, with smooth thick beehoon, swimming in a big bowl of milky soup base. On top of that, you can smell the hint of XO inside. Located under a modest hdb block over at holland village, this little stall serves generous helpings of their famous XO fried fish beehoon. If I were to use one word to express the food, it would have to be "sieok". First mouth, the soup go inside, its a strange but nice sensation. Which will make you drink the second mouth, after which the "good" word is registered inside your brain giving signals to all parts of the body to express your happiness. Then you will try the fish and beehoon and the veg, only to know that they all add up to the sieokness of the soup. In the end, you will find yourself floating in the sky, submerged in the goodness of the food. If you had a bad day at work, you might want to try this place.

Well truely a new year has come... its started to sink in now. Some people may think its still life as usual, morning brush teeth, eat breakfast, go work, lunch, work, dinner, sleep and next day repeat again. Look in the mirror, be glad that you live to see the start of a new year, time is in your hands, approach everything with a positive attitude, and more often than none, success will come more easily. When they do come, do remember to share them with the first person that comes in your mind.

the month of the year...

2007-01-03T22:48:00.000+08:00

December... a month which many people looked forward to. Not only it promises cool weather, no school, it also bring along christmas and sum itself up with another holiday which is the new year. Really a full package sia... well there are different ways to spend this special month, depending on which type of people you are.

For me, I am not those very adventurous type, partly because my pockets are not loaded with cash. As a results, I tend to try to enjoy the free treads in life. Cuddling in the cold bed, while rain splattering on the umbrallas of those shoppers in Orchard, having my eyes glued to that black box in the living room, and ofcause, playing games... Other than those, I also sometimes indulge in finding nice food and shoving them into that mouth of mine, for the old saying goes," You are.. what you eat." I am the type of people who strongly belive that a bad meal will screw up the entire day, and that a good meal will do otherwise.

I dunno about others, but sometimes when I was doing things that I am unsure of or I don like, moments before that I get this strange feeling. Its like the real you is numb and you are just like a walking corpse throwing yourself into doing the things you don like. Something like a car with a brick on the accelerator but the driver is sleeping. Like that time, when I was going to sign that acceptance form to go for China trip, six month of uncertainty awaits. I cannot make up my mind. But in the end, I just sign and walked up to the office with the feeling mentioned above and hand it up. And there was this time I called my friend to go gym with me, deep inside me, I was against the stupid idea. When I was running on the stupid treadmall I can almost hear this loud voice inside my head," aaron wtf are you doing? You are suffering.... Why do you put yourself in such a situation?" at the point I was already making decisions to stop running. However, this part is very important. There is this little voice inside me that tells me to carry on... and it promise to give me something that is worth the suffering in return. There are times which I trusted this little voice, and times which I listened to the loud one. But one thing for certain, when I choose the little voice and endured the suffering, the enjoyment that comes after that is really worth my suffering.

I guess the two voices are the little devil and the little angel sitting on my shoulder one shouting into my left ear and the other whispering into my right....... "shutup u little devil, stop telling me its a waste of time to blog and asking me to go sleep." btw its raining outside... i guess this time i compromise a bit... haha

Vivocity is "Big"

2006-12-18T01:35:00.000+08:00

"wah the place damn big la... I walk until the end liao then suddenly see another part. So many parts cannot even walk finish..." <- this is the comments my friend gave me before I go to Vivocity. I was rather skeptical about the place. "How big can a shopping center be... Bigger then Suntac? Bigger then marina?" Today, I finally walked into the doors of vivocity. First thing I must say, the place freaking long man... and like inside one giant octopus like that... many long long arms. I dunno its the place big or the place confusing, me and my friend kept getting lost. "where is all the food? where is bens & jerry? where is the cinema?" Those are the questions we asked each other most of the time. But one thing I must say, that place has all the shops i can think of under one roof. Topshop, zara, tangs, toys 'r' us, giant, marketplace, mache, nike, adidas, forever21, challenger.... And to top it all off, there is a open air floor which people can enjoy the view for free. Free de ofcause i have to go see.

If one is gonna ask me about that place, I would say that its a fine place to go, one stop stopping paradise that caters to all your needs. But that is if you don mind the travelling and the crowd.

As the IMF just passed, places around marina suntac have all gone through major revamp. If you are the kind of person that prefers the finer side of life, and that you would like to sit back, relax, and let time pass you by, pan pacific hotel lobby is a rather good place I must say. Just imagine, "once your ass touches the sofa, you feel like you are sinking inside a soft quick sand. then lean back rest your head, and pull up ur leg in that usual "4" position, music playing at the stage, nice lightning, pretty waiteress(with the exception of some lao goh wearing the chomsum then can see the bulging tires.)" not too bad right? The place also serves all kinds of drinks and has complimentry nuts. Me order this blue cocktail, while the pretty girl beside me order the yellow one. Forgotten what their names are.

The point is, things that look nice, taste nice, comes in a nice package, usually cost a bomb. Yes they do...

freedom never taste any sweeter

2006-12-15T00:48:00.000+08:00

Staring at blank space without having to pull urself back to reality is actually quite sieok. Sleeping until ur eyes refuse to shut rocks too. I guess this is the feeling one get when suddenly all options of how to spend the day turn green. But the thing is that, this type of life style is not gonna last very long. 3 weeks at the most. Early jan my feet will be touching the cold grounds of Shanghai, and its gonna be my home for the next six month. The reality is starting to set in, along with the pain of the vacinations I took, the long bus trips I have endured to get the paperwork done. I guess no one is gonna feel comfortable about uncertainty, including me. I guess I just have to embrace this experience with an open heart, be it good or bad.

On my way to taking x-ray at the medical center, I was rather shock when one lady was asked to get off the bus when she had no coins. She enter the bus and tried to tap her card. But suay suay the card no money and the stupid machine produce that loud beep causing everyone's attention to be shifted on the lady. Then she proceed to the nearest seat and try to find coins. This type of situation if you are the driver you should close one eye mah. The lady also not purposely trying to smoke her way through. But then the driver stop at the next bus stop, came out of his driver seat, and personally ask the lady to get off. What an assholic man.

BBQ: grill, iron framework for cooking an animal whole; (outdoor) social occasion at which meat cooked over a charcoal fire is eaten. My friends and I add one too. But our bbq is the same as the latter defination. The venue was at my hostel. Almost all food you place on the fire, they will surely turn out nice. That is if its not burned. Some good example include steak, prawns, sotong, and not forgetting the usual chicken wings. After everything go inside the stomach then wack the alcohol gao gao. sieok.

During weekdays, there are not many night spots around. Most of the time me and my friend will drive around aimlessly looking for edible stuffs to eat during the wee hours of the nite. Usually we ended up eating plata and more plata. But if anyone with car and going to eat at nus cheese plata shop, you might want to try driving at the bends near kent ridge park. It can give you a rather good experience of driving on the roads in initial d. After you reach the top of the park, still can feast your eyes on the view. Not too bad I must say.

One is happiest when one is doing the things he/she likes. But most of the time is spent trying to get to that stage and the process is a long and shitty one. Well i guess thats life. Some people no need to try already there, some people try whole life but never reach there. I am still in the process. All those people who are also in the process, one sentence - "Sometimes things happen that are just out of your control."

Suddenly... it all ended.

2006-12-04T02:30:00.000+08:00

I remember clearly as it was yesterday. My first paper of this sem. I din feel good at all. I just don't have the mood to keep tat ass of mine glued to the chair and let my eyes feast on the notes. Instead, the free time was wasted on staring at the notes, editing pictures, playing games, watching shows, mixxing coffee with chocolate syrup, chatting about nothing with my friends.... bla bla bla.

the second paper came and went without warning. And it rung the emergency button in my brain. Dunno whether its me or the exams. The damn papers are freaking hard... Hard beyond imagination. It was difficult to a point that its almost amusing to be sitting for the paper. Forcing my self to study, my morale began to drop and drop... until it almost kissed the floor. I remembered it was the 2 days before the last paper. Almost all the friends that I knew were playing and enjoying their holidays. At this point of time, my sec school friend messaged me. "Hey check this out." then he paste me this link. "study hard and maybe you have a chance to appear inside." After watching the video, fond memories of the past seemed to broke through the dam in my brain. I remembered my first day of school in SJI. I was so freaking proud that my school as a track. I was so proud of the many things my school has, a gym, auditorium, street soccer court, a huge hall with gallery level...etc. But one thing my sec school do not have, is a basket ball court. Until now I still don't know the reason. I remembered last time when we eat at the canteen and that if one person drop his tray of food, the whole canteen would give him a standing ovation. I remembered there was one day when we were told to place the bird's egg into a beaker of acid and the shell of the egg will turn into a membrane. The whole egg was like a rubber ball, bouncing on the ground. I din belive it won break, until I threw mine as hard as I could... on the celing of the corridor outside my classroom. lol. Luckily no one saw. There was yet another time, I kicked a bottle and it flew straight into the face of the founder of the school. Iiterally. Its was the portrait of the founder that I broke. Me and my friends were so afraid. We shut the doors and tried to pull out the broken glass, and place it back. We thought the teacher won notice. However one loose glass managed to get it's way to my finger and blood oozed out non stop. "Don't worry, I got the keys to the scouts room and I can get some bandage." Not long later I found my finger wrapped up like an onion. but blood still dripped like a loose tap. I was ordered to wait outside the teacher room for my punishment, holding the broken picture with my bleeding hands. The teacher looked at me, probably felt sorry for my hands, asked me to replace the glass by the next day and he will take it as nothing has happen. I still remembered we got into hell lots of trouble for secretly throwing a old javelin. lol. But thats a story for another day.

Time has passed... so quickly that it leaves us no time to feel regretful for the wrong things we have done. We just have to make do with all the things we have and make the best out of it. That was why I was able to pulled thr my last paper without gaming. And yes, exams are finally over. It time to relac and do the things we have always wanting to do. That includes driving to 3 macdonals at 2 30 am trying to buy 2 ice-cream cones. lol. It was because the first 2 mac restaurant were washing the machine. I have started to plan how to spend my one month of holiday before leaving for china for internship. Till then I shall be posting more of interesting things that I have done. ^___^

war has started....

2006-11-19T15:57:00.000+08:00

and so it does... by now, I guess most of the students would have taken at least one paper already. This year, due to the increase in the amount of students, there is an additional exam timing which is at 5pm. This is an expected outcome of a small head trying to wear a big hat. More students in the school would mean more people at canteen, more people taking bus, more people going to the library. And although there are so many "more", other factors of production stays the same. Yes I am refering to the same number of stalls in the canteen, same number of busses going around the school, and that library sitting sluggishly on top of the canteen. Even the uncle selling chicken at the market know that if there is an increase in the people, he would have to get more chicken and more importantly, expand his little puny stall and hire more people so as to cater to the influx of customer. But apparently not all people know this simple theory... sadly.

Taking exams is like going to war. Why is that so? Going to war there will be many soldier, there are weapons and usually the weapons do not give the owner enough confidence at all. However, a handful of the soldier will be flying planes and driving tanks. They are like the scholars in the school, who deal maximum damage but using minimum effort. Although we studied the enemies' pass year method of attacking, they never fail to amaze us with new tactic every year. That is the reason why soldiers hate about going to war. Either alot of people died and win the war and the result is enjoyed by the elite people. Or alot of people died and lost the war. Either way, the fact is that alot of people died..... every single day, blood are spilled and cries can be heard. In the morning 9 to 12, afternoon 2 to 5 and the last attack before sunset which is at 5. Some unlucky people will have cock up schedules which they have to fight 3 times a day. or 1 time everyday for 3 days. Tiring sia...

Taking about preparation, some people choose to go the library and polish their weapon and load the magazine together with other soldiers. Some prefer to go home and spend time with their loved ones, while some other prefer to stay in the bunk in the camp and go practise with their friends. One good practise spot I would recommend is mac at king elbert park. Sitting at a secluded place along bukit timah road, there are usually not many people in the evening. However, in the afternoon, waves of students will be poured into the restaurant after school. This is due to the concentration of schools along the road. So the best time for us soldiers to go polish our gun is around 8+ pm, just after dinner. The people there don usually care if you go cold storage and get urself one big drumbstick or 1 big box of sushi and eat it in the restaurant.

Usually at the times of war, people will yearn for preceful life, and the little joys that comes with it. Well this is life I must say, when in a situation that one cannot change, one tend to think of the good things and hope that it will make the process more endurable. However, there are some exceptions where one actually liked the war. But those are rare. Anyway, I have a simple advice for all the soldiers taking the war. "Do keep that bandage which you like best in the left pocket of your uniform. For in times of need, they are the ones that will save ur life."

Why is everyone mugging their asses off?

2006-11-09T04:34:00.000+08:00

Why sia? Come to think of it, if the whole ntu just don study and anyhow do the exam papers, what will happen? The lecturer cannot possibly fail everyone. If not next year ntu rating sure go down. Moreover if really fail all, next sem will have double size lecture, double size tutorial and its gonna be chaos... its a win-win situation right? everyone no need study, lecturer no need mark, and everyone is happy.

But why until now there isn't such case yet? This is due to a group of people whom they think they are smarter than others, they put in effort, and therefore they should get higher marks. They are those people who say that they never study, "this time sure die already". But away from the eyes of yours, they are mugging their asses off... They are those whom you ask them a question they smile at you with a dumb look and said," oh man... I really don't know the answer. I haven study the subject yet." But actually up there inside their brain is already working out the answers. They are the people that tell you," relax don't worry... everything is gonna be alright. There's still time." when you are starting to panic. Yes life's a bitch sometime when there are such people walking on the face of the earth.

However, on the brighter side of things, I am glad to have friends that would lend me a shoulder when I am in need.... in need of answer for my astro quiz. Due to the overwhelming number of students taking the subject, the teacher has taken the pain to produce 4 sets of papers with different questions. Even some questions are similiar but the sly teacher has jumbled up the answer order... (wat an ass) As a result, sitting together with friends also cannot copy. Looking down at the paper, I realized that most of the questions I do not know... what to do? the answer is - ask friend by telling them the key words of the questions and options. But what if the whole paper I only know how to do 1/10 of it? the answer is - pass the paper to my friend and ask them do for you. After that, pass to another friend for double checking and do the questions that the first guy did not fill up. After we passed up our papers, my friend told me, "eh you know just now we help you do your paper, the stupid teacher was looking leh. and I pass you the paper you still talking to other people. You want to die ah?" +.=" Lucky I din know the teacher was watching. If not I would not have acted so 'natural'. Anyway, thanks to my friend, 'liverpool ming' (cos he wore the stupid liverpool jersey today) for helping me in the test.

For those people who thinks that they do not have the luxury of such friends, all is not lost! Cos by reading this, u know you have one ^^ And being a nice friend, I shall share with you some of life's little perks which I think will make your mood significantly better in shitty times, just like how they made mine better. When you are trying to understand a super dry topic and every cell in your body is trying their best to put up the strong resistant, do give in to them by taking a tea break. Its like 'bribing' them. After the break, they will give in more easily. Meal is very important too. Careful selection of food will give you satisfaction and inturn up the morale. For me personally, chicken brayni with curry vege or chicken foldoverer with green tea would make my day. Lastly, I shall share with you some sites which are in the "tiny's top 5 list" (don worry, no porn or scary shit) 5. The gadget shop 4. The receipe book 3. The gallery 2. Bleach episode 101 and finally, 1. The game - stickman Sam To all my friends out there who are together in this big shit hole @ boonlay, "hang in there man, before you know it, you will get used to the smell. Before you know it, you will be out of the shithole, and you will miss the smell." ( that one not sure. my senior say de )

Wow its the weekend again...

2006-11-05T14:07:00.000+08:00

The use of an alarm clock is to wake a person up. However, what happens if the person does not want to wake up? Ultimately, the alarm clock only reminds the person to wake up, and the decision whether to wake up is up to the person. For me, after the alarm clock sound, a battle in my mind kicks off right away. "If u don't wake up, you will end up eating alone!" "don worry, there is always the break then you can eat with your friends, after all you go lesson you also doze off, why not doze off here..." "you are a student! you don't go lesson you waste your money!" "there's always video lecture dude" "but then if you go back to sleep, you will not have quality sleep! thats wasting time." "who cares, you are enjoying it right?" finally... "you don't go lesson you will fail!" Usually, at this time I will wake up... however, if it started to rain.... "remember that time you went for lesson and you were drenched. How did it feel in the aircon room?" case closed. I will snooze for 1 more hour, and if 1 more hour still raining, another hour. However, this stupid week alone, everyday there is rain. And so lucky it always rain around 10am, just when my 'war' starts...

Waking up in the afternoon would mean half of the day is already gone. Add in the slacking and the eating, before you know it, its already evening time. Do a bit of work and its time for dinner. After dinner its slacking plus playing. Yes this is the life I have been leading... a life with no life. Moreover, now that the lectures have ended, it gave me more reasons to wake up late. It was yet another of those days which me and my friends chanced upon this place. It has everything one can expect from a study place and much more. A huge table with 8 arm chairs surrounding it, a white board that is not white but light green (sorry I know I maybe a bit outdated but this is the first time I saw a white board with a glass surface), aircon with remote control for you to adjust the temp, all these enclosed in a carpeted room with glass walls all around it. On the door, its call "The Cove". There are other rooms with strange names too, like "The Deep Blue", "The Hive" and many more. I tell myself, if this is not a good enough reason for me to pull my ass off to school, nothing else is. With that, my life seems to take a turn for the better.

Weekend is here and activities started to line up. Dunno is my lousy luck or what, activites always seems to have timing that clashes with each other, if not there will be no activities at all. wtf... for a simple sat, I am supposed to study at marina with my friends and watch soccer after that. I am supposed to study with my room mate and go with him to a birthday party in the evening. Last but not least, I am supposed to join my friend for dinner and drinking at pub. In the end, I chose number 2. I went for the party. It was a buffet dinner and the food was not bad given the fact that I do not have to pay a single shit. wahaha. So without much hesitation, I stuffed quite alot into that round stomach of mine. The place was rather nice too. I enjoyed the company of some of my crasy friends and the long wait for the birthday cake to come. In the end all ends well as well as a day without studying. Which means my ass will feel the heat tomorrow.

Come to think about it, the technology is so advanced now, everywhere you see people earning big bucks, building ultra luxurious apartments, new car plates attached to nice looking cars running on the roads. Everyday you see news the broadcaster forever smiling. The million question is, "what is the catch man?" There is a saying, "there no free lunch" The only thing that is free is the toilets in the shopping malls. So where is the place that list down the requirements to fit in the society of the future? Where to get the big bucks? I guess that question will be amplify several times in my mind in around 2 years time. Prying open the crab with hands at the hawker center with good friends or that special someone beats sitting in the super posh restaurant where there are more than 10 utensils lying infront of you, and we are paying to torture ourself by acting high class. Though life will be so much easier if there is money, but I think life's greatest enjoyment should not be so expensive and exclusive for its the content, not the process, that counts.

A story

2006-10-28T19:35:00.000+08:00

Once upon a time, there was this farmer who lives with his wife. Life was bad because the havest was not very good. Due to the haze, his wife fell sick as they have to spend long hours working outdoors. The old farmer was at his wit's end. In the end, he decided to sell his bull away so that he can bring his wife to the doctor. However his wife say " you sell away the bull then wat do we use to plough the farm in future?" the old farmer replied" i rather have you by my side than a bull." The wife was touched so she agreed. The farmer pulled the old bull the next day to the village to sell. Half way through the journey, he met a man and the man asked the farmer what he was doing with a bull. He then found out that the old farmer was taking it to sell. He put his hand into his pocket and took out some beans and said "these are magic beans. You go back plant. Then the crops will bear gold" The farmer thinks for a while and....
he took the beans and hand over the bull to the guy. The farmer was very happy walking back, looking at the beans. Due to his old age, the farmer did not hear the horse carriage that was coming towards him. Luckily the driver of the carriage missed him but the poor old man was knocked onto the ground and his beans squashed. The old man cried sadly as his only hope was gone. He dare not go back to see his wife and thought of commit suicide. Just then a young lady came out of the carriage and noticed the old farmer. She asked the old man if he was ok. The old man cried and told the woman what happened. Feeling sorry for the old farmer, she decided to help him. From then on the farm was handled by workers and the couple supervised the operation. Years gone by and profit grew. The old couple had the finest years of their life after that incident ~the end~

(Some people might ask, "where got so lucky one?" So heres a bad ending for them)

...The old man thought for a while and looked at the guy and barked, "you stupid young chap from the city, you want to bluff a freaking old man like mi? I may be old but I am not stupid!" He pulled his bull and head towards the city. It was a long trip and finally he sold the bull. With some money on hand, he walk down the city in the direction of his farm. When he was just outside the city, he saw a familiar face, this time with some friends. It was the same guy from before, who offered the old man the magic beans. Before the old man could say anuthing, he was beaten up and robbed. After which he was left to die. His wife on the other hand was sitting on the broken wooden bed, coughing as she waited for the old farmer to return. However he did not. Night falls and she got up to prepare dinner. She thought that the old farmer must be having a hard time selling the bull as it was an old bull after all. She used the remaining food and tried her best to make the best meal she can for her husband. The meal was done and she waited at the table for him. Hours passed but he did not return. The wife was worried for him. She waited and waited on a empty stomach. She thought," maybe I'll rest my eyes a while and when I wake up, my hubby will be here. This way I don have to suffer the pain of waiting." So she put her hands on the table and rest her head. However, she never did wake up. ~the end~

(Its hard to leave with a sad note, so...)

...The old woman opened her eyes. She stretched her arms and looked at the food. The old farmer was still not back. She stood up and walked to the door of the shaddy little hut. She looked over the hills where the small winding road lead. Tears began to drop from her eyes. Cold wind blew, almost freezing the tears on her cheeks. Suddenly, over the hill top she saw some one familiar, it looks like the old farmer. Yes it is! The old farmer caught sight of her standing at the doorstep of the house and he ran as fast as his legs could take him. Finally the old woman threw herself into the embrace of the old man. "why u took so long?" the woman asked with tears flowing down her cheeks. The old farmer told her "I was robbed then they left me on the barren land outside the city. I tried to crawl back but until my last breadth, I could not. I closed my eyes and when I woke up, I realised that I could walk again" The old woman thought that the same thing happened to her too. After waking up from the rest, she don't really feel the hunger anymore. Just then they realised their feet was not touching the ground, they saw a bright light shinning at them from the sky. An angel was standing at the door that was hanging high up the sky. Smiling, the angel opened the door and waved to them. The old couple knew at once that they both had already passed away. The old woman turned back and saw herself still sleeping on the table. The old farmer turned and whispered into his wife's ears," I will never leave your side again." With that, they held each other hands and walk through the door of heaven. ~the end~

Super Sunday

2006-10-22T17:34:00.000+08:00

Sunday, a day which most of the people spend their morning in bed due to the late night sleep on Sat. For me, its the late night gaming. Nevertheless, this sunday is a bit special. This is because there will be a soccer match in the evening. Man U vs Liverpool. As usual I went to teach tuition and strange enough, there are fans of both clubs in my tuition class... which only consists of 3 kids. To be exact, one fan each. The female student don watch soccer. they pestered me to take sides. So in the end, I took Man U. The stake was a mac meal. Who ever loses will have to buy lunch for the winner the following week.

When I reached home, I realized that no one was at home.... and I forgot to buy lunch back. Damn. Opening the cupboard I saw maggi mee, and nothing else which I know how to cook. I was about to reach out to take the packet of mee when I suddenly realized I have been having that same shit for lunch on sat. Determined to have a nice meal, I walked all the way to cold storage and bought a beef steak. Cooking the mee on one stove and pan frying the steak on the other, I made my lunch- beef steak with curry maggi noodles.

After a short nap, I dragged my tired body to the bus stop. Still feelling a bit drowzy, I cross the road. There it was, this red honda, started to speed up after turning at the bend which is like 80m away. I mean I know I was wrong to jaywalk but everyone else does it anyway. The stupid traffic light is at the bend which I have to walk back 80m down to reach the busstop on the opp. side of the road. Any sane people will jaywalk man. "Whats the use of speeding up?" I wondered. "Want to bang people? Or trying to show of your piece of red metal can move very fast." Either way, I became fully awake as that driver zoomed passed me inches away from my body.

The venue was hog's breath @ chimes. When I saw my friends, first question that popped out of my mouth was," why you all don want to go down and join Jamie Yeo at thee big screen?" That was when I found out that big screen and hot babes come with a blistering price tag. 40 bucks per table. So I ordered this Boss Hog Double Burger which looked the most decent out of all the burgers. After throwing everything thats on the plate inside my stomach, final verdict - 7 out of 10. The beef patty CMI la. once the knife touch only, everything like dominos fell apart already. Like eating beef floss like that. Taste wise still can accept. BUT it got such a good verdict because of the look.

We managed to clear all our food before the match starts. Plates away and hands on the drinks, we heard the black man blew the whistle. The match was rather exciting but it was a one sided match. Liperpool got beaten fair and square.... and I won the bet! hoho. Next week me and my student get free lunch. Anyway, during half time I got up of my seat and took a picture of those sitting downstairs. That was when I saw those horny ang moh trying to get flesh with jamie yeo. Take picture with her, then hug here touch there. Lucky Jamie Yeo smart. She brought her man along. But I can see glenn's face black black. haha liverpool supporter. today not his day la. But come to think of it, life in singapore is really nothing but creating something out of nothing, all in the name of Uniquely Singapore. If not for my friends, life would still be better if I sink my butt on my personal couch and watch soccer on the tv.

Its that time again....

2006-10-16T08:26:00.000+08:00

Bloody indo farmers are not giving up man... after the news that the haze is dying down. Now the haze even more power! WTF!!! Ask North Korea to shoot 1 missile over can or not? Go orchard see everyone walking in the haze, really like resident evil. Making whatever shit tourism advertisment go down the drain. Things in Singapore really very efficient. Once haze TV top left corner immediately pop out one small PSI value. TV idol show make money then suddenly so many idols also come out. Charity show call can earn money then one year so many shows, all say call call call. How much money come out from our pocket, but what the money is used for no one knows. Maybe go buy thicker toilet paper for the Chairman of the organization to use.

Its that time of the year again, when the number of the month become double digit. Taking turns, different people will go into depression and then enter euphoria. First up is our young little pri 6 kids taking PSLE. They are already playing their asses off now. Following will be Sec 4 and then JC and followed the rest.... and last but not least, NTU computer engineering students... finishing at early DEC. WTF!!! Actually there are good and bad. Good is because people like us we don give a damn about school for the previous 10 weeks. Exams end late means we have more time to study. Bad is when we are studying, the library is empty.

To gain some good karma for my exams, I went to donate blood. Together with some my friends we registered online so as to skip the waiting time. But when we go there, we still have wait hours for our blood to get drained... "Next! Right hand." said the nurse. I realized its my turn to go for the donation. I looked back at those people in the queue, most of them got the 'damn sian la why have to wait so long' look their faces. Ofcause I also have to pretend a bit and give the
'hiaz, its my turn at least. Let get this over and done with.' look, while my heart beating like crap la. My stupid pulse was 80+ when I stole a glance at my friends' paper theirs were like 60 odd. I laid down and placed my right hand on the support. The nurse set up the stuffs, then gave mi a injection then poked me with the big ass needle which was connected with the 'pipe'. Then she hand me this stressball and ask mi to squeeze. I gave a slight nod and began squeezing. Don really feel pain at all. But the fact is i am loosing blood... and truly speaking, if I know I need to donate so much blood, I would have reconsidered my decision on donating.

After the ordeal, they gave mi this 'no chicken award' because I successfully donated my blood for the first time. I din feel anything wrong with my body, so I went on doing my normal stuffs. However, the next day, I woke up to a terrible sore throat. I remembered that the nurse told me to drink more fluids. I thought she was bullshitting. It was then I know I am such a cock. So I popped a sorethroat pill down and drunk more water the whole day. During the evening, I found out that the sore throat is not the only side effects of the donation. During squash training, I played best of 3 with my friend. First set was ok. Second set I suddenly felt no energy. Could not keep up with the pace. sigh... result? tio trashed. Nevertheless, I din regret doing that good deed. Life is not about getting everything you can dream of, but also sharing them with people.

With that thought in mind, I decided to try my hands on making the cocktail 'irish cream'. Putting whisky, cream, milk, chocolate syrup, coffee powder, vanilla and almond extract into the blender and out came the cocktail. It tasted not that bad, but looks wise, lose to baileys. I decided to share with with my friends around me. Some say nice, some say not bad, some say a bit strange( i know they trying to give mi face). All these years, I strongly believed that life is not about getting, for giving makes life more enjoyable. Cos ultimately, when you give and inturn see the smile on the person's face, you'll get a feeling that is hard to describe...

life where got an enjoyment when the haze is so bad?

2006-10-08T12:42:00.000+08:00

Nope this is not genting, nor is it raining, its DA HAZE!

To all the freaking indo who are still burning trees now: KNNBCCB!!!

a series of fortunate and unfortunate events..

2006-10-06T18:40:00.000+08:00

Freaking hell la... wats with the bloody haze... curse those irresponsible assholes in Indo burning the tress. I wonder the land in indo is free de ah? Just burn a piece of land then can say its yours because u burned it? If not why those assholes keep burning land? either what i said is correct or they plant trees in their field then when tress big already they burn them all down, then plant again. which is kinda stupid.

Cursing and swearing about the haze, I came back to my room. I can't help but looked down. Where the fark all my shoes and slippers go? My roommate's ones also gone. Then I saw them, arranged nicely on the shoe rack beside my door. Either the cleaner aunty or its my roommate is responsible for it. But its really not my roommate's style to do that. 3 years staying with him... No it can't be. So that leaves us with the cleaner aunty liao lor. My impression of her is one quiet thin malay aunty always slowly cleaning the corridor. Never really see her talk to any other cleaner. Sometimes when I managed to wake up in the morning for my classes, I would see her along the corridor and I will greet her with a small nod of the head. Well, incase I forget, thanks aunty for arranging the shoes on the rack.

The door swung open, followed by a loud thud which broke the lazy silence of my room as I storm in together with... the self invited guest- da stupid cat. Throwing everything that was handing on my body, I yanked open the fridge and took out my trusty bottle of cold water. As the cold water flows down my throat, I cannot help but look down again. This time, the bloody cat is also looking for something. Or maybe its just for the cooling sensation. Who cares, out came my foot and a mini front thrust to the cat's face, followed by the shutting of the fridge door. The cat looked up at me, with those "please give mi some food" eyes, she let off a meow. My little heart become soft. wahaha... or can say I took pity of the poor cat. I gave her 1/4 of a mooncake to eat. Thats the only food I think is nice in my room.

With the cold water inside my stomach and the 3/4 mooncake, ofcause it will be followed up by the usual laying back movement. As soon as my head touched my pillow, I began to wonder, 'Is my ass becoming hot? Do i really feel the heat of the exams?' Sometimes, its not that I don feel hot. Its just that I purposely pour cold water on my ass to drive away the heat. The more heat I feel, the more cold water I pour. As a result, a smoothing sensation and times pass by like a gust of wind.

Well life in university is not really a enjoyment. There are times you feel like ur soul and ur body are about to pull themselves apart. Some of my pri school friends they are already working now, some married, and suddenly one of them say to me on msn," still studying ah..." Can't help but feel farked up... but they used to say train longer come out is strongest. Like is warcraft, quiet quiet there farming while the rest is trying to kill each other with small sword will own the game when the hero gets big badass item. Well i supposed the big bad ass item is the piece of paper I will collect from SAO after i finish my 4th year of study. Or is it the feeling of the uphill climb, from the blur year1, to the 'act as if i know everything' year2, to the 'no actually I don know anything' year3, to the 'finally i know something' year4. I guess when you forked out money, time, and effort in exchange of something. Its gonna be worth. For the chinese saying goes, 1 cent of money 1 cent of goods.

All my money, time, and effort thrown in, I imagine myself sitting on a crouch, with music flowing out from BOSE speakers. Resting my eyes on the widescreen Samsung tv, with a lovely wife sitting beside me. I guess at the time, I can really say, Life's an enjoyment.

its sunday again... but its 5.22 in the bloody morning...

2006-10-01T20:46:00.000+08:00

With my butt on the cold hard floor of my course mate's hostel room, and looking at the 3 of them furiously typing away on their laptops. I too have to show that i am doing work too.... but the thing is... i have done my part. So I also furiously typing on my laptop, except that I am typing this instead of my business plan. Waiting for them to finish theirs and then we can join everything up and call it a day... or rather call it a morning.

Yes its non other than the bloody business plan that I haven been doing the whole of the bloody recess week. And our plan is ~ to start off an online supermarket. Actually there is already one big one currently on the web if you think no one has done it before. check this out man.

On a brighter side of life, a few hours ago, clan EnS, my warcraft bnet clan finally had a successful outing! 8 of us turned up at cineleisure... woah! Actually i remember them by their online nick rather then their names. lol. They are m6silver, jy, kellwx, mouse, chenyan, snaffie, flyboi, and Feria(which is me). Had a great dinner and 2 hrs of 4v4 at cine lev9 lan shop and then chatting at outdoor cafe at hereens. however i have to leave early to come back and do my bloody business plan.

When I reached boonlay from town, i looked at my watch. It was 12 10am. I walked slowly to the 179 berth. Guess wat? there are people waiting there! The gigantic signboard above them says mon - sat last bus - 00 00 Which part of 00 00 they don bloody understand man? There is no more bus coming! But... the thing is I also join the queue....

Everyone stood there watching the buses leave 1 by 1. Finally it was 12 30am. It was then the people including me resign to the fact that there will be no more buses coming. After the inevitable 7 bucks. I reach hall2 and here am I.... wasting my life away on this shit business plan. This 30 pages pile of crap shit is dedicated to my beloved cpe184 lecturer. May you have a great time reading it.

O ya... happy children day to all the little kids out there. including my 3 tuition kid...

lazy sunday...

2006-09-24T07:52:00.000+08:00

Standing at the window of my room, with the cool breeze brushing softly on my cheeks, I suddenly realized that I AM LATE FOR TUITION! freaking sat night gaming...

Wasting no time, I washed up and chop chop eat my bar chor mee which is inside the rice cooker (which my mum bought 4 hrs ago), then rush down to tuition~

There they were, waiting for mi to come. My 3 little kids. Nowadays, pri 4 kids are so different from the pri 4 kids of my time. Last time, if I remembered correctly, we played marbles and catch spiders during our free time, while the girls play zero points and 5 stones. However those bloody kids now are playing trading cards and trading items from Maple story. WTF... while we were blowing on our stupid Saga Saturn cartridges when they cannot load, they are going to lan shop to play counterstrike... Well I guess times have surely changed. Children nowadays are doing things that are done by people much older at our times. This clearly shows that not only the society is developing at an exponential rate, so are the kids. Who knows in the next 50 years or so, pri 4 kids may be driving cars on the roads... Maybe the legal sex age will be brought down to 14? muahaha. Good also wad. Since Singapore is encouraging more babies, we should start young. Nowadays u ask a sec school kid," eh little boy, have u seen an RA show before?" First reply u'll get is," eh who the hell u calling little boy?" followed by," fei hua la! Who never see before RA show, I saw them when I was pri 6 man!"

Parents nowadays some of them really need to upgrade, seriously. Like computer software, when u buy something that is the state of the art now, 1 year down the road u see everyone using it man. One of my friend told mi his father's bangla worker showed him a Mr brown podcast on the handphone. Fierce right! That's why some of the parents are still using the methods their parents used to look after their kids... That's like freaking 1 generation man! Talking about generation gap...

The golden rule now is : never say no to a kid... Even u want to say no, u have to rephrase to like: maybe some other time(which will never come la) . If it doesn't work, then maybe have to let the kid understand why u reject his idea or action. Easier said than done! Some stuck-up parents would rather die then say sorry to their kids... Blame it on the bloody Chinese culture la. Last time the golden rule is: listen or ur ass will do the job for you. Last time the policemen wore shorts man! To all those stuck-up parents out there, its time to loosen up man.
Finally, after the tuition I was able to get them to pose for a picture. There u go, my 3 little cute naughty kids.

TGIF

2006-09-23T05:30:00.000+08:00

Thank God its Friday... low on cash but nevermind! weekend is coming~ Pulling my self out of the bed this morning, I saw my room mate sleeping. This is quite a rare sight as usually its the other way round. With much difficulty I finally dragged myself to the lab and try to make myself useful.

Lab is all about following the instructions on the lab manual(which is supposed to be read beforehand) so u can better understand wat the lab is trying to 'teach' you. For mi, reading the lab manual is a waste of time. Time on Thursday night is meant to be spent on G.S.M - namely gaming, supper, movies. However, things will usually turn out fine if I follow these 2 simple rules. 1. follow your instincts when unsure. 2. turn off the power supply if you smell burning rubber. Its hard to make no mistakes when u are looking at one of these shit boards when u just woke up 10 mins ago.

Anyway, things turn out fine, with occasional rubber smells here and there. Special thanks going out to my friend for providing mi answers to the lab quiz. Right now, after a huge serving of chicken cutlet, I am in my room once again, getting ready for my afternoon nap...... and MY FREAKING ROOM MATE IS STILL SLEEPING.... ARGHHHH

and so they say," life's an enjoyment..."

A start of a new journey

2006-09-21T15:54:00.000+08:00

After much hesitation, I finally set up my own blog. Some people might find that blogging is a way to cry out for attention, others might think that its a outlet to express their thoughts. Either way, who cares? my blog its here to stay. So dear friends lets rock on together man!