Singapore.

I have been back in Singapore for a couple of days and because of my activities (or rather, the lack of it), I haven’t been updating everyone about what I have been doing back home. To make things short and condusive for reading, here’s a quick roundup:

25 Jan 09 (Sunday)
Started the day in Sheung Wan with a ferry ride to the Taipa Ferry Terminal in Macau. Did the check-in at the airport and went over to The Venetian Macao for a quick walkabout to kill time. I even had time to lose $20 to the slot machines! Returned to the airport just in time to get on the plane, and then it was a boring three and a half hour flight to Singapore. Landed in the Budget Terminal which really looked, erm, budget.

Dinner was steamboat with Mum. The dinner was wonderful, though I had the displeasure of scalding myself on my right arm.

26 Jan 09 (Monday)
With about 60% of Singapore shut down for Chinese New Year, we didn’t really do much on this first day of the year of the Ox.

27 Jan 09 (Tuesday)
I had Nasi Lemak for breakfast – that’s the highlight of the day! Besides that, it would be lunch at Din Tai Fung in Jurong Point. Not as authentic as the ones in Taiwan, but we had the pleasure of trying Taiwan Beer in Singapore – we don’t even get that in Hong Kong!

28 Jan 09 (Wednesday)
The hightlight would be dinner with some of the NCSH3 people. We had some nice Japanese food with wonderful desserts. After that, we headed over to the Pump Room in Clarke Quay for a drink, before I adjourned to Zouk for my dose of Mambo Jambo. It was a fun session, with me being able to show off my (limited) dance skills on one the platforms. Reached home at about 3.30, way before Mambo itself ended. I think I’m getting a bit too old for all these partying.

29 Jan 09 (Thursday)
Every time I come back to Singapore, I will be spending a day in NUS visiting people. So today was the day. I went to NOC to meet Huimin for lunch, then after lunch I went back to the NOC office to have a chat with the people there such as Prof Teo, Gabriel, Peng Kee, Sarah, etc. After NOC I just had a walkabout and sitabout round campus. I was joined by Neng Giin after that and we headed over to OSA to have a chat with Ms. Lim, before heading to Holland Village for dinner, where we subsequently met Virginia, my boss in Shanghai. The whole day was truly enjoyable, though we didn’t get to see any naked people walking around the area. Wasted.

Another busy day ahead for me tomorrow, but it’s all good meeting friends and catching up with them.

Saturday.

I’m sitting in my office right now, doing some work before heading off for my Lunar New Year holidays. I’ve about done up the most critical tasks already, so I think I can go for my break knowing that things probably won’t go wrong.

The weather today has suddenly turned for the colder again today. Apparently it’s only 9.5 degrees in Kowloon City, the town nearest to my office. In a certain way I think it’s good because a Chinese New Year should be cold (wonders why I’m heading back to Singapore for the New Year though), but the bad thing is that the temperature just dropped so suddenly. On Thursday the highest was about 25 degrees, but today apparently the highest it would ever go is 14!

For those of you who have followed Hong Kong news these two days, you probably would have known about the terrible traffic accident that took the lives of 6 people. I was appalled by the fact that the accident was caused by an irresponsible idiot who was drink-driving and slammed his truck into a taxi, killing all 6 passengers and driver in the cab. To make matters worse, the accident was just before Lunar New Year, when everyone should be happily spending time with their families in reunion. It only took an irresponsible idiot and a moment of madness and 6 precious lives were taken away, leaving 6 families torn and broken. I think no matter how heavy the penalty handed out to that drink-driving idiot would be enough to compensate the loss of human lives.

No excuse is ever valid for drink-driving in my opinion, and drink-driving is as good as murder – I’ve seen and heard so many newspaper reports about people getting killed by irresponsible drink-drivers, and such stories are always one too many. So one advice to those of you who drive and like a good drink, please for God’s sake, don’t do both at the same time.

Tasklist.

The last time I was back in Singapore I didn’t really have a tasklist, so I ended up slotting in appointments with friends on a rather impromptu basis. As a result, there are a few things that I didn’t really do, and I was left cursing and swearing as I boarded the plane. So to avoid the same mistake, I’ll draft up a tasklist of things to do to ensure that I know what I need to do.

1. Zouk and Velvet Underground. Maybe twice.
2. Take pictures with friends.
3. Try to meet the NCSH3 people.
4. Go for a good dinner with the whole family.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

There must be more things to do, but at this point of time I can’t really think of anything yet – those who have an idea are welcomed to email me at the usual address.

And yes, I hate auditors.

Macau in Pictures.

I promised everyone that I’ll post some pictures of my most recent trip to Macau, didn’t I? Anyway if you have visited my Facebook page you probably would have seen them, but here’s to those of you who somehow haven’t do so.

Welcome to StarWorld Hotel. The second time I’ve stayed overnight in Macau, and the second time in a 5-star hotel. W00t!

They even welcome me on the TV screen! Thank you Charles, it was a great stay (though I could do with a slightly cooler thermostat for the air-con).

The bed in my room – actually the setup of the room kinda reminded me of the Ponte 16 Sofitel, the last one I stayed in.

The view from the bathtub from my room. I never quite understand why they want to have a see-through glass for the bathroom. Though there is a TV speaker inside the bathroom, so I guess the purpose of the glass is to allow the guest inside the bathtub to be enjoying his dip while not missing his football match on TV.

At the lobby – a group performing songs and dance! The thing about the StarWorld Hotel lobby is that it’s always buzzing with people and there’s always something happening. I quite enjoyed that.

The view of Wynn from StarWorld Hotel.

This time round me and my sis finally made it to the Macau Tower.

The view of the Macau Tower from the Macau Tower itself, if you know what I mean.

A bungee-jumping teddy bear in the Macau Tower. For a few hundred patacas you can go for a bungee jump and have a DVD taken as a souvenirs for your troubles.

The Venetian Macao – I think I’m a junkie for The Venetian.

The Venetian Macao logo on the wrapper of the hotdogs that they are selling at Wang Leehom’s concert. I could roughly work out the cost of the hotdog: MOP1 for the hotdog bun, MOP2 for the sausage, MOP2 for the ketchup and mustard, MOP1 for the wrapper, MOP19 for the Venetian Macao logo sticker.

My first-ever feast of Portuguese cuisine at the renowned “O Santos” Portuguese restaurant located in Rua da Cunha, Taipa – this is the suckling pig which apparently isn’t available everyday. Brilliant stuff – it’s a must-try.

Then a Portuguese seafood rice. Just as good, though it was slightly too salty for my liking. The best thing about this restaurant (besides the food of course) is that Santos, the owner, is a very friendly man and he speaks almost perfect Cantonese!

And of course, my next trip to Macau (that’s discounting the stopover in Macau en route to Singapore next week)!

Chinese New Year.

The Chinese New Year holidays are beginning next week, and for the first time in 5 years, I’ll be spending it in Singapore. Yes, I’ll be flying back to Singapore for Chinese New Year, and while I haven’t really booked the tickets yet (somehow I can’t seem to be able to get them purchased online), I should be flying back on 25 Jan and returning on 1 Feb. The difference this time round is that I’ll be flying from Macau instead of Hong Kong because the tickets from Hong Kong were either too expensive or the planes are already full.

Then you may ask, why the sudden plan to go back? Well, initially I really did not consider flying back because I could not get leave on 29 and 30 January, which would have made the whole holidays too short to make a meaningful trip back to Singapore. Then suddenly because of some changes in programmes in office, I was able to take the two days off so my leave could become much longer. Initially I was offered to go Japan for a visit with the Postgraduate Association, but since I’ll probably be in Japan in April (or May or June) for leisure, and after all these years away from Singapore for Chinese New Year, I decided that I’ll fly back to Singapore instead.

So to those of you whom I didn’t manage to meet last month, grab this chance! And Velvet Underground, here I come again!!!

Sick.

I fell sick yesterday and had to call in for a day off. I woke up feeling absolutely lambasted and my head decided that it was too heavy to move away from the pillow. It seemed strange that I was perfectly fine before taking the medicine, but once I started taking them, all the symptoms of the flu start to come at me. The only thing that I didn’t experience was fever, which I shall remain eternally grateful about.

So what ensued was a long sleep – a very long one, may I add. Apart from a brief disruption at about 11 by a phonecall from my colleague, I continued my illness-inflicted sleep all the way until 5 in the afternoon. So that made for about 19 hours of sleep as I went to sleep at 10pm on Monday night. I’m amazed at how much I’ve slept, but that also explained how sick I really was. After all those rest, I’m feeling much better today and while I have not fully recovered, I think everything seems OK – at least I’m not feeling giddy and all that, and I still somewhat have energy to do all the work that I need to be doing.

School has restarted and in fact I’ve gone for 2 days of classes already. My Tuesday class, Information Technology Leadership Forum, seems like an interesting class and I think I’ll have fun in that. And being a non-examinable module it means there’s no more studying and revising trying to prepare for the dreaded examination. In comparison, submitting 6 reports of 2000 words on a fortnightly basis is actually not that hard, and I think I’ll gladly do that instead of an examination.

Last semester – time sure flies, eh.

Macau.

I was in Macau over the weekend for Wang Leehom’s concert at the Venetian Macao. Both me and my sister agreed that after this concert, we will not watch any concerts by those so-called Hong Kong artists. The thing is that I’m not even a fan of Wang Leehom, but I still feel that the concert was nice. You just have to give it to him for his talents.

Anyway besides the concert, me and my sister had a walkabout in Macau, enjoying ourselves tremendously. We even had a bit of fun in the casinos at The Venetian as well as the StarWorld Hotel. My sister played mostly on the slot machines, while I played at the tables as well. In total, I lost $300 out of my budgeted $500, and I thought that wasn’t too bad. At the same time I also applied for the membership at Venetian and StarWorld Hotel. It’s not as if I really would spend a lot of time (and not to mention money) at the casinos, but I thought that the membership cards look nice, so I signed them up anyway. Anyway I’ve uploaded some pictures into my Facebook photo album, but for the benefit of those of you who for one reason or another aren’t signed up to FB, I’ll upload them in my little journal at a later time.

Mayday would be having a concert at The Venetian in February – no prize for guessing if we are going to be there again. Haha.

It’s still cold and I’m down with a serious bout of cold as well – I think I lost my voice.

Cold.

It seems that every year around this time the weather will turn very cold. When I woke up this morning the temperature was at 10 degrees – and it’s going to be 9 tomorrow morning! It’s very cold, but I think I appreciate it. Even though everyone says winter is disappearing in Hong Kong, I’m just grateful that I get to experience some kind of cold weather every now and then, and I guess if I really were to move back to Singapore, winter would be something that I’ll really miss.

My colleagues and I went for dinner together yesterday evening and I must say that it was one of the most enjoyable dinners that I’d ever had, though at the same time it was a pretty stressful dinner as well as I was being bombarded with questions that I don’t really know how to answer. That said, I think it was still fun to have such sessions once in a while. At least it builds the camaderie (is it spelt like that?) among us. And honestly, I appreciate my current bunch of colleagues very much and I think it’ll be a wreck when the day finally comes for me to leave this place.

Was on Facebook just now and saw that my JC classmate, Xueling, just got married and looking at the pictures, and it was really nice to see some familiar faces on the pictures. I knew some of them in the pictures, and I think it’s great to see everyone still look the same after all these years.

There might be a slight chance that I’ll be heading out to Japan during Chinese New Year. Nothing is confirmed, and I’ll let everyone know when it does get confirmed. Y’know, as I said previously, you can never plan too far ahead because nothing ever gets confirmed!

Would be heading to Macau tomorrow to watch Wang Leehom’s concert at the Venetian. I think it should be an interesting experience, just that I’m not sure how cold Macau will be as the weather forecast there puts the temperature to be between 7 to 13 degrees – are you sure it’s Macau that we are on about?!

Conscience.

Conscience is a magical word. On its face value, it means “the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one’s conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action”, but if you were to split the word up into two, it becomes “con” and “science” – the science of conning people. It almost feels as if there is a scientific way to con others, in order to reap maximum benefit for oneself. And I guess very often we are trapped between “conscience” and “con/science”.

So much for the phiolosophy of the day. Anyway I realized that my second semester at CityU ends on April 25, meaning that if I were to return to Singapore, I could theoretically do it on 26 April. So when I told you guys back home that I can pencil my return in May/June, I think I’m about right.

Sometimes I wonder if it has been a mistake returning to Hong Kong, thinking that there are so many things that upset me within these 2 years since returning. Perhaps deep inside I still appreciated my time here because even though I did not work in any profit-making companies, the experience I gathered here was still valuable. Having said that, I believe it’s probably such experience that made me getting more and more disappointed with this place. It’s strange considering that I used to loathe Singapore and wanted to return to Hong Kong so much, but after really being here I discovered that perhaps Hong Kong really isn’t such a great place after all.

In human geography, we have learned that there are push and pull factors for people to decide on doing something. In my case, where I’m considering returning to Singapore, I really think it’s the push factors originating from Hong Kong that’s at work rather than the pull factors from Singapore. I’ll perhaps spend the next few months seriously considering this.

Hong Kong.

Returning to Hong Kong after a 6-day getaway in Singapore was never a good idea when the difference in temperature between the two places are so huge. It’s 30+ degrees in Singapore and suddenly to come to terms with 15 in Hong Kong takes some getting used to.

Work so far has been alright for the morning. As I could check my emails even when I was back in Singapore, I kind of knew that there are quite a few things that I need to be looking at, and so far I guess things are getting fine.

I’ve put some of the photos for my Singapore trip on my Facebook account, so for those of you interested please kindly adjourn over there to see them. I thought I would take a whole chunk of photos, but in the end I had about 30. Strange but true.

My final semester at CityU is going to begin next week, and I hope everything will turn out to be fine. I’d be getting the results for my Law module last semester, and I would be mightily chuffed if I get anything more than a C. I checked my academic calendar again, and it turns out that if I don’t have any examinable modules, my semester would end on 25 April. So that means it’s slightly more than 3 months of suffering!

Back to work, though I’m yawning away.