Monday, June 28, 2004

*burp*

guess it's been some time since i blogged? haha. somehow this does not find its way into my schedules of 'must-dos' very often nowadays.

well, today was quite slack. left office at 1330 for lunch and never returned. with dr D's blessings too. haha, since there wasn't very much to do now at office. though i was supposed to go run with chris today.

well, chris is this super-duper-fit guy who'll be studying to be a personal trainer. yar those type who have a 'body' tt would do more justice to appear on fitness magazines. he's super fit lar! trash me at my 2.4km.

anyway i signed up for this nike REAL run with chris tt's happening on 15th aug at sentosa. $15 is the reg fee, which gets u a goody bag too. which actually includes a nike dry fit shirt. quite worth it lar i think, even for the shirt itself if nothing else.

yar, so we're training now, running ard camp every mon and thurs, 10km each time. we're trying to hit < 40 mins for 10km. yea, working towards it. hopefully 35 mins.

anyway, i was thinking about this - why did the ttsh pple issue stickers? it's actually totally irrelevant when u think carefully abt it. cause whoever enters the hospital per say must have been screened liao since they have checkpts at every enterance, and u cannot enter the premises if u have not been screened. which means the sticker only serves for pple with itchy fingers to paste them somewhere... asking for it those pple.

anyway, tt's over now since SARS is a thing of the past. as dr J says, "bygones man".

i'm so full now. have been eating rubbish for the past few days. fast food...

*burp*

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

For Old Times Sake.

just came back from jon aow's piano concert, thought it was quite good. well, actually tt was really to be expected right... it's really very amazing how these pianist move their fingers around the keys, and it really doesn't seem like anything less than magic - just touch a key and a beautiful sound proceeds.

well, i can't say tt i throughly throughly enjoyed myself though despite such an enchanting performance. in fact, jon aow only performed nearer to the end of the event, being one of the last 2 performers. (well, the other guy was quite 'built for the stage' as stella nicely put. one who thrives in attention i guess. he played rather well too i might add.) the rest of the little boys and girls before the 2 final performances were mostly cheap-entertainment. oh well... really was quite bored 1/2 way through.

clapping for the sake of clapping.

trying hard not to fall asleep.

yea, stuff like tt.

actually come to think of it, jon looked bordering on psychotic when he started playing his 1st piece, which really sounded weird to my untrained ears. the way he stared at the keys, gently depressing them. *brrr* it must take trained ears to pick out the melody in tt piece. unfortunately mine arn't. and strangely, his fingers seemed to be 'plucking' at the keys. haha. :)

*shhhhh*

well anyway, i heard a very interesting discussion recently. seems like X is coming back from overseas and wants to organise a class gathering / meeting with close friends. well, Y and many others took it face value and didn't read in too much, which is probably a good thing, cause Z probably read well and saw it as a more 'personal' invitation, and hence easily jumped to ridicule Y. probably due to X being on Z's mind most of the time and Z thinking too much about X.

well, tt's the intepretation i got. Z's a saucy lad nonetheless.

he who has ears let him hear. :)

anyway, we went for a drink at starbucks at raffles city after the concert, tried the strawberry frapp thingy. don't drink it pple. wasnt to know how it tastes? go get some strawberry ice cream and melt it. yep, tt'll prob be what it's like. what's more, $5.50 could get u almost 2l of strawberry ice cream.

very bloated now. gotta go camp a bit earlier tml morning. work's getting a tad more exciting now tt there's suddenly more work to do...

Thursday, June 10, 2004

LATE!

hmmm finally. posted a bit of the hk experience. so far i've typed out tt for thurs, fri and sat. still got sun and mon to go, but i'm too tired to continue. argh! still have to sort out laundry... will continue tml.

for the record, the hk trip was from 27th(thurs) to 31st(mon) may 2004. and i remember tt 1st june i had to report for attachment liao...

SAT

0810


we're now on our way to lamma island liao. the bus is going to other hotels to pick up more pple, 30 of us in all. and the tour guid told us tt since they're 30 of us, we'll be taking a speed boat instead of a ferry. whoh~ :) should be quite exciting!

had a very good night's sleep yesterday. quite tired now actually, couldn't wake up in the morning. :)

0900

hmmm, we've realised tt the standard if living in hk is really quite high. an average meal at a coffeeshop is about S$4.50, a meal at a food court is about $7-8, and even their erp equivalent is about $5.00. and although singapore had much nicer and cleaner streets, the cost of living is relatively lower. hmmm.

editor's note: the cheapest fare on the mrt is about 80c. a bit more exp too. and also, the lunch is a RIPOFF. we were supposedly going for this scrumptous seafood lunch. well, it wasn't nice nor cheap. we paid 150HKD each. ripoff... didn't even get sharksfin or abalone. and the seafood there is supposed to be cheaper than singapore's or even those on hk island. fyi, 150HKD is about 35SGD.

1613

we're at the wishing tree now at taipo, going to the peak later. right now, we're waiting for yiqing to get her orange up the tree. and there are a gazillion things crawling over me.............

aiyoh. terrible.

met 3 pple just now when we went lamma island - clarence, weiliang and shawn. shawn's a saf-mta scholar and is studying at westpoint. guess he's back for the holidays. pilot, so earning a LOT of % even now... weiliang's a saf scholar too, studying at nus, engineering. clarence's studying chem engineering at nus, but apparently he doesn't know emily. guess the faculty's just too big.

hmmm, threw 1 orange, 2nd try i got it up. :) well, we paid 1 HKD for each orange. wrote my 'wishes' on the paper attached to the orange for family peace. haha.

well, at least we're done with the wishing tree now, cause i didn't really like it alot.

oh yes, lunch was ok i guess. though i think it was a ripoff. 150HKD for a seafood lunch. the lunch was much in want i might add. food wasn't fantastic. ok, eached taipoh station liao, getting off to go take train to central to get to the peak.

editor's note: peak was magnificent. very beautiful, and really quite indescribable unless u see the pictures urself. very very touristy too i might add. we had dinner at marche. and really, something really interesting happened regarding the 3 stooges. haha, i think it's really embaressing at the least. i didn't finish the blogging for the day cause i was really very tired when i got back to the hotel room, just showered and slept...

FRIDAY

0825

wah, the boys are ready liao, but not the girls. we woke up earlier. i think in part due to some crazy prc husband and wife screaming along the corridor at about 0700. INSANE.

just had a bath, wearing a nice pinkish shirt tt i bought yesterday.

going to ocean park today, though we won't be taking the star ferry there because of time constraints... hope tt it'll be a better day than yesterday. :)

both ivan and alvin went to make their hair liao, i think quite nice. aiyar... my hair always liddat 1 pattern one. :) haha, i think never mind lar. i don't like the feeling of a whole lot of gel in my hair hehe.

i'm hungry. i go change contacts and look all shuai first, then go for breakfast liao... girls say 5 more mins, maybe it'll be about 15.

editor's note: it's was 15 in the end.

1305

oh yay, we're now at ocean park. the rest have gone for this ride called "the abyss", which is a free fall thingy tt u find in genting too. haiyoh, they have tried to convince me to go for the past 1/2 hr liao, but to no avail, which is precisely the reason why i'm sitting here blogging. :)

i appreciate the efforts very much to drag me along to take a ride - afterall, it isn't really very wise to miss out on most of the rides when the one-time entry fee of 185HKD gives u unlimited... but i think this phobia's jusy something tt i'll let rest in me for a while. :)

sweaty, hot and feeling oily. aiyoh. hope things will get a bit better later in the evening at the peak. :)

oh, there they go, they just ascended the ride. haha. qichang is screaming like mad. hehe. ok, i better pack and go wait for them.

editor's note: qichang was screaming VERY VERY loud. i could hear her distinctly from the ht of abt 10 stories.

1400

we're having lunch now, after walking all around the park (which isn't very small) but in the end coming back to the same place (where we first decided not to eat at) to look for an air-conditioned place to eat. the weather's SO humid and hot. terrible.

on the upside, i finally went for the roller coaster ride and even "the abyss". haha, can't believe it myself. but yes, we did it. not by myself, but because of all the encouragement tt the guys gave. haha. esp huiting who was puching me to the queue and yiqing who agreed to sit beside me during the roller-coaster ride and even went for "the abyss" once more beside me even though she herself was afraid of it. thanks guys.

ok, ivan got his food liao. lunch!

editor's note: not only yiqing, but also alvin. both of them (at least) were telling me tt "it's not so scary one lar...", and only told me they're actually quite scared when the stoopid thing started to ascend up into the sky. i SCREAMED and SCREAMED lar. but then i realised tt there was nothing i could do lor. i was feeling more resigned rather than afraid liao... but thanks again guys. before this i've NEVER gone on a proper roller coaster before. not a single loop-the-loop. the one i went in ocean park had 3 of those. scary.

1629

well, now we're waiting for the dolphin show to start. got a good 5th row seat, hope tt we'll be able to see much later and get some good photos. :)

aiyoh, this place is SWARMED with SO MANY prcs tt wherever i turn pple are talking in tt ever-irritating accent. bah.

editor's note: SWARMED is not an exaggeration.

anyway the girls just now wanted to do a caricature. aiyoh, don't know leh, but i think this type of thing can do anywhere mar... and i was quite worried tt we would end up with no seats again. yes, "again" cause all the seats were filled up and we decided to wait for the 1700 one, coming to ocean park w/o seeing the performance would really be a shame...

well, it's a very cloudy day and i think we're reconsidering going to the peak today because we may not see anything at all.

1850

yay, just left ocean park, sitting on the comforts of the aircon bus shielded from the rain outside. aiyoh, so sao(3) xing(4)...

editor's note: there was a minor 'dispute' as to is it shao(3) xing(4) or sao(3) xing(4). well, chinese lit pitted against the others and it seems tt 'the others' were right. haha, go figure. :)

so, we're not going to the peak today afterall, reason being tt there are simply too many clouds today. (duh! it's raining...) so instead we're going to do some light shopping at causeway bay later, taking the train there from central station.

hmmm, i think we're all very tired and demoralised now, so we're just going to take the stop-and-rest-when-u're-tired approach later at causeway bay. from the looks of it, i think we're probably going to be resting quite alot! :)

the dolphin and seal preformance just now was fabulous. i think it was worth the time waiting afterall. :) haha, i think i took a couple of good shots of the dolphins jumping out of the water. i think can post when i get home.

editor's note: well, i need a place to host the photo i realised... anyone one got any recommendations??

so... we were actually quite kan(2) cheong(1) just now after the show ended, cause it was slightly past 6 liao, and the official last cable car out is 6pm. aiyoh. thankfully it was only an 'official' time. we still made it out. :)

aiyoh. traffic jam ahead. sigh. think i'll take a nap.

editor's note: we were actually stuck on this expressway-flyover. and below us was another jam. when i was typing tt out i suddenly rememered how i marveled at how the authorities constructed these flyovers and underpasses and mrt system. it's insane. if u've seen it u'll get a hint of what i'm tokking abt. the flyovers are like SO SO SO close to the buildings. everything's disorganised, yet luan(4) zhong(1) you(3) xu(4)...

2230

yep, another day has ended. i think today was super-tiring.. anyway, we didn't go to causeway bay, but instead dropped off from the bus at admirlty, and we went to pacific plaza for dinner.

and the foodcourt there is FIRST CLASS. though quite expensice actually. and the utensils come in nice sealed packets with each meal, including a spoon, chopsticks, tissue, and a toothpick. the packaging quite nice too. deco of the food court is very nice too. i think it can easily pass off as a japanese restaurant! haha.

editor's note: oh yea, no joking. the foodcourt is better than any in singapore. but the food is expensive. average meal would cost about 40HKD, and tt's not the 'jap food' type of food. more like the char kuay tiao type...

but anyway there's this interesting stall tt sells "singaporean fare". quite interesting to see someone selling "singaporean fare" when u're from singapore. maybe tt's how prcs feel when they see ban mian stalls...

in the end settled for a "spicy cheese ramen", which was actually korean food. haha, names can be deceiving, cause it's actually quite nice. :)

tired as we were, we sat down to gossip about... well, alot of stuff and pple. :) haha, really had a good laugh when qichang and huiting started parady-ing alvin's banging of walls and ivan's mornign call to the girls. wah. i think i laugh just a bit more i'ld have stomach cramps lor.

editor's note: yes, i do realise tt much if not all of the laughter-inducing effects are gone in this poor transcription of the joke. do ask the individuals for a demonstration if u get the chance.

anyway now back to the hotel liao. should get a good night's sleep cause tml we're going to lamma island at 0750. what more today so tiring.

THURS

1215

ok, now i'm on the bus on the way to the hotel. qichang tells me tt the ride will take about an hour plus... qiyoh. just want to get there quickly...

the plane ride was ok, and i guess quite comfortable too since i fell asleep twice, with breakfast in between. the food was quite good too. i had scramblem eggs, a sausage, and a crossiant, with milk and orange juice. united airlines is quite good.

haha, actually i was a bit worried just now, cause i left my camera and this pocket-pc in the check-in luggage. i think i was very relieved when i finally got my hands on the luggage in hk.

oh, it seems tt we reached the hotel liao. :) think it must be the goof traffic conditions at this time. :)

1240

haha, the hotel is quite miserable. alvin was kbing non-stop ever since he came in, toned down a bit now... we're going out for lunch soon, have to change into my contacts first.

the '3rd bed' is actually a makeshift bed, with wheels and black iron frame... sad... but i think it's still quite comfortable lar. although both of them now say tt they want to rotate the beds, i think i'll just sleep on this lar...

alright. go change contacts now and look all shuai. *grin*

1300

oh no, ivan's luggage leak water. a small part of his clothes are wet. aiyoh so suay...

1530

SUAY... wacked my head against the tv at kfc. 2nd time i hit my head totay.. don't ask, of course it was quiite painful.

oh, btw, alvin and i realised tt the guys here have quite nice hairstyles. :) we're sitting in kfc now resting our tired legs... didn't buy anything yet though the rest have already bought some stuff liao. never mind no hurry, still got 4 more days.

aiyoh, head still pain...

2200

wah... just got back to hotel rroom. and we're all VERY tired... when i started unpacking, i found tt i spent much much much more than i actually expected(was supposed) to.

oh dear. i think it was 2 days allocated spending money just in 1 day. what's more, this is only the 1st day leh! but i also got almost all of the presents tt i'm supposed to get. probably only left with dad's and alex's. i bought luke a nice bag cause he did well in his exams. though it was quite expensive. on hindsight i think i was probably ripped off. *sigh*

well, i'm waiting for my turn to get into the bath now. alvin's in there, ivan just came out. the room is horribly small. got to remember to charge the camera batts later. they ran empty this afternoon and i had to borrow alvin's brand new batts.

well, we walked from yau ma tei to mong kok, then to nu(3) ren(2) jie(1) where we bought most of the stuff. bought for myself 2 shirts and 3 t-shirts. bought for the aunts some chopstick sets and pla-mats. also got a nice winnie-the-pooh set. 8 cuddly poohs in all tt are all dressed differently. :) but also got ripped off for tt buy too. *bah*

we had roasted goose for lunch today. the char siew tt we ordered too was much better than ANY char siew i've eaten in singapore. the beef noodles for dinner were heavenly. so many succulent tendons! *drool*

editor's note: even now when i'm typing this out a 2nd time i'm really starting to get hungry...

tml we'll be going ocean park and the peak. gonna charge batts now. head still hurts.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

slacking

the title says it all now doesn't it. i'm now in the canteen at camp where they have comp terminals and arcade machines ard. nothing much to do today and tml probably, cause mostly finished the work i was assigned to do. :)

haha, tried taking blood just now! tried twice lar, i think both times suceeded in the end. the first time i took it was quite shocking. because after i poked in no blood came out into the sryinge. scary. the medic then told me to move the needle silightly to the side and the blood started filling! hehe.

2nd time was much more uneventful, but nevertheless fun. :)

tml the pple are going down to SMM to draw blood, which is why they were 'practising' today. just thought i would like to join them to learn something new instead of rotting away in office...

anyway, i heard tt pple are waiting in earnest for my hk blog. aiyoh i tell u, it's such a headache lar... still can't extract the info from the pocket-pc, i really think i'll end up typing everything out again. which is really not very nice to think about.

oh yes, measured my % body fat just now, it's terrible. 18.1% i think. aiyoh. still trying to come to terms with it... (haha no lar, joking)

took a tympanogram too. there's something wrong with my ears, got barotrauma in my right ear. so don't blame me if i don't hear u hor. :)

gotta get some food. oh drats. better not be too oily.

Monday, June 07, 2004

bright spark

on my way home today i just happened to notice my shadow tt was cast by the lamp post as i walked along, and an interesting thought occured to me.

well, u see, i sort of realised afresh tt i could never walk faster than my shadow. hmmm, so is this something where we can accelerate travelling speed? well, is there a parallel of this light-object-shadow relationship tt we can apply to ourselves too?

and there're alot of limitations too, cause the shadow is not exactly me; and shadows are supposedly intangible stuff.

hmmm, or are shadows really intangible? just like pple thought light was weightless, maybe shadows are really matter too.

so in fact we're sort of sending a fainter image of us travelling at an amplified speed ahead of us!

yea, come up with some equation relating the 3 parameters and we'll have something tangible to work with liao.

haha, just some crap tt a tired person thought out. anyway, dr daniel (my boss) is away on a sailing trip, so i'm going to try to push back my 'book-in' time to 0845. shhh, don't tell anyone. haha.

Sunday, June 06, 2004

holy matrimony

today was quite a hectic day i guess. there was 1 combined service today at the indoor stadium, cause the pple were leaving for church camp after lunch.

haiyoh. so i was quite sian, cause almost my entire cg was going, and i was going to miss out on it. well anyway, i quickly snapped out of tt baseless tantrum-o-matic state. service was good, we had bryan houstan as a visiting preacher. they'll be back on fri anyway.

so... then i went to asri's wedding! wah. never been to a malay wedding before, what's more exciting is tt this is a friend's wedding. haha, thought about it a bit, and i realise tt we're really not tt far away from marriagable age liao, as th tut grp was discussing on our way to the mrt.

but yes. the wedding was quite interesting to observe, esp the rites tt they have to go through. there was this 'event' where guests who wanted to give their blessings to the couple had to perform this short kung-fu display before approaching the couple to put the guy's (asri's) hand on their forehead, before they back off in the same kung-fu display again.

hehe, tt was interesting. didn't see this sort of thing before.

qich brought the hk photos to show the tut grp liao. and apparently there's this shot of me in my shades. haha, i do seriously think tt my shades are too big for my face... haha. i think i look like a fly. :) cheesie also brought her photos from her korea trip with her mum to show us. quite scenic. i think i prob won't dev the photos lar. too expensive. maybe just a couple of them to put up in photo frames.

everyone seems quite occupied now. spoke to jack, he's quite tied down with his project, and it seems tt even until now it's still data collection and entry, which is positively the MOST boring part of ANY project. though it's probably the most essentil part of any project still.

after tt went my aunt's place for dinner and majong and taidi. wah, i lost $20 at majong lar... sianz. i emptied all my chips in my little drawer, exactly $500 worth. but we were playing divide by 25, so i lost $20 lorz. yep, not even a single cent left lar in my drawer. EXACTLY empty. so...

well, taidi was no $ one, just the usual loser-shuffle-the-cards thingy.

still haven't extracted my blog from the palm top. aiyoh, so inefficient. apologies to anyone who's kept waiting... well, if anyone at all. :P

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

back.

alright, my room is officially in a MESS. i really need to start packing. the stuff from hk are still lying ard, even some of the tioman stuff are strewn over the place. i had meant to tidy up my room this morning, but ended up watching this show on c5 just now.

so, my room IS in a mess.

and i've got a couple of errands to run too.

haha, and the irony of it all is tt i'm still sitting here blogging my time away. well, i think it's well-warranted since i've not posted a new entry since who-knows-when. well, i did blog when i was in hk, cause i brought a small laptop along and just recorded events along the way. well, i think it would be impossible to recall the events tt happened during the trip if i should be sitting in front of the comp now w/o any form of reference whatsoever, esp given my fabulous memory. :)

so, the reason why i've not posted the hk blog yet is cause i FINALLY realised tt the laptop doesn't have a USB port. (yes, it's an old model tt serves very minimalistic pourposes) so, i've got to look for those ports with the 'male and female' connections type in order to extract the info.

i've started working liao since yesterday. will be at sembawang naval base for the next 2 months. the pple there are very friendly, find tt can mix with them quite well. yes, and there's this another shuai MO there again. (haha, i'm sure this comment will cause much worry in some pple, though i can asure u it's undue) and it turns out tt he's also a regular! and what's more, he attends the same church as me too! though he seems a bit uptight about work and almost the least friendly guy amongst all the MOs there. though still a very nice guy. i heard he appeared on some channel u show before.

yep, the least nice amongst very nice pple is still nice. something along those lines.

well, congratulate me, cause as u may have realised, sembawang naval base is quite a distance from my place. takes me about 1hr to get there from the time i step out of my house. i think i'll prob be working on at least 2 projects, of which the 1st one tt i've started work on is about dyslipidemia, which is simply the abnormal levels of cholesterol/HDL/LDL/etc in the blood.

(listening to lisa ono now, quite nice. if i rem correctly, kim asked me for the cd, already some time ago liao. haha, i should rem to bring...)

going to meet the qns setters in an hrs time at plaza sing, better go bath now. hope to post my hk trip soon.