Misadventures of Nonsense Boy

2010 - Half time review

2010-07-29T13:43:00.001+08:00

That's what the schools are calling the mid term tests these days - half time reviews. Anyway, it seems that my posts are turning into quarterly updates rather than just random postings. I find myself asking that same question again - where have the past few months gone?

Since my last post in April, we have:

(finally) gone to Pengerrang. Twice in fact - once by boat from Changi Point, and another by car because I was adamant about not being left to the mercy of the bumboats. Apparently, the boats won't move till they have filled their maximum quota of 12 passengers.

This town is so laid-back, I'm actually contemplating of retiring there. Maybe open up a foot reflexology place or something. The seafood was great (in particular the steamed lobsters *slurp!*), the bay tay sor was heavenly (hot from the oven!) and the kopi peng at the coffeeshop was POWER!!
found more old primary school friends on Facebook, who proceeded to upload embarassing pictures of us way back when. Realised nothing much has changed - I'm still the clown now that I was 20 odd years or so ago.
sold our flat and moved back with my parents, which feels odd after so many years. From having our own place, we are now squeezed into one single room - bed, clothes, TV, guitar, laptops and associated peripherals. We had to rent a storeroom at IMM's Extraspace to store the stuff that we didn't need for now.
moved our church premises from CSC to International Community School at Jubilee Road. This was the old building which was Yusoff Ishak Secondary School eons ago (for those of you who are old enough to remember). RHC's application to take over the old Queenstown Bowl is still not firmed yet, and has left us wondering if the whole fiasco with City Harvest has affected this. But we trust that God is soveriegn and will bring us where he wants us to go.
finally gotten our website for our business up and running after applying for a grant from the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), which should be unveiled soon. On the verge of punching the designers, but I reckon when all this is over a letter to the Forum page and the relevant authorities will have more impact.

At the end of it all, God has been good. He has led us this far and I am positive he will continue to show us the way.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

2010 so far

2010-04-07T21:46:00.002+08:00

Not meaning to sound like a broken record, time REALLY flies. It’s been over three months since my last post and since then many events have transpired. Christmas came and went, the Lunar New Year came and went.

Vel finally went to P1 in January. She was probably more excited about it than we were, polishing her shoes the weekend before and waking up in time to gulp down some soft boiled eggs and her mandatory glass of warm milk. Being the typical kiasu parents, we tailed the school bus in our car to make sure she got to school just fine.

Career wise, my job still wasn’t getting anywhere. So in January, I decided to go back to what I loved doing best – teaching (albeit privately). The Lord has been good and opened many doors for me; I am now a Speech and Drama trainer by day and a full time tutor by night (or more specifically late afternoon). On hindsight, I should have thought of this sooner rather than hopping from one dead end job to another for the past year or so. I now have more free time on my hands that allows me to dabble in other endeavours, less sleepless nights and about the same amount of money (without the fringe benefits like annual leave of course).

Penny and I have also embarked on a new business venture that is somewhat related to the previous post about the prophecy that was given to me. We didn’t really plan for it, but one thing led to another and before we knew it we were opening a bank account for our business. Things are still a little misty now while we work on a few prospects, but so far the Lord has been good and blessed us with many open doors to ‘test water’. Nothing concrete thus far, but I believe that God has something in store for us when the timing is right.

It has been a rocky first quarter of 2010. We’ve had ups and downs but we will persevere. I believe that this year will be a year of breakthrough for us.

Cactus in the wilderness

2009-12-22T12:47:00.000+08:00

Been feeling down of late. That same question that has kept awake on countless nights before has returned to keep playing over and over again in my mind like a broken vinyl - why am I faced with another challenge YET AGAIN just when I thought I had left one behind and could finally move ahead to straighten my life.

That being the case, I have been fasting, praying and crying out to God the past week while meditating on some scripture from Psalm 55:

'But I call to God, and the LORD saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice.' (v16-17)

This portion of scripture penned by the psalmist described exactly how I felt. Desperate, alone and drained from the many assaults that he had been put through. Truth be told, what the psalmist experienced was perhaps far worse than what I had endured, but the resulting emotions at the end were certainly similar.

On Friday night, during worship at cell, I continue to literally CRY out to God and ask for strength. I was not even interested in singing the song right, just opening up my heart and stretching out my hands, asking God that I may just dip my finger into His presence just so that I know He has not forsaken me. As always, God never disappoints.

At the end of the worship Rob said 'Rennie, God impressed upon me to share something with you'. I was speechless. From a guy who barely knew me personally, I knew it had to be from God because the words he spoke were so true and it sent a resounding vibe of reassurance ringing through my head. Here was a man with his own struggles, yet he was willing to be used by God to encourage a fellow brother who was too caught up in his own turmoil to hear God speak.

Rob went on to say that God gave him a vision of a cactus in the wilderness. On the cactus was a fruit that God was tending to. It will be tough for the fruit to bloom in the wilderness, on a cactus no less, but when the time was ripe for the fruit to be finally harvested and eaten, it would be so sweet that even the genetically engineered fruits in the world would pale drastically in comparison. He mentioned that God has seen my heart comparing myself with my worldy peers around me, wondering why I've not achieved as much as them. But God said to look to Him and nothing else because there are several areas He is continually dealing with before that fruit can be harvested.

Needless to say, I was in tears by the end of it. All because I serve and awesome and mighty God.

Vel's graduation

2009-11-23T10:09:00.001+08:00

After missing last year's graduation concert as a result of her chicken pox, we made sure Velouria didn't miss this year's as it was going to be her last with Grace House. We, along with her teachers, were quite worried as she had taken ill for several days before the concert and hence missing out on quite a few rehearsals.

But praise the Lord she recovered pretty much quickly and was back to her usual nonsense self again; reciting all her lines (apparently the graduating K2 class was given the honour of giving an opening address to the audience on Mandarin), dancing away and singing all the songs with much gusto.

We were up bright and early and made our way to the school before the required 8am. Judging by the crowd there, we were not the only kiasu parents and being typical Singaporeans a queue started forming outside the hall even before 8.30am. Amazing!

As always, the pre-concert wait was a long one, made worse by our attempts to reserve seats for my parents and brother who had problems parking. When the concert finally began, we were so all excited and straining our necks to catch Velouria whose already petite frame was made smaller by the distance of the stage from our seats.

There were many endearing acts by the various classes, with one of WWE proportions where one boy started using his toy guitar (they were doing a rock n roll number) to hit his classmates around him. He was eventaully removed from the stage and I can only imagine the embarassed parents cowering in their seats.

Finally, it was time for Vel's act. They were doing a Chinese dance number and despite reminders to stay clear of the aisles, I still managed to sneak to the front of the stage to catch a small reel of Vel in action.

As always, the concert ended in a finale where all the classes came out to sing a song together. The area was so crowded that we lost Velouria in the sea of heads!

After the concert ended, even the pick up point was crowded with parents eager to pick their children up. I didn't bother to elbow my way to the front of the crowd and just waited for the crowd to slowly disperse. One of Vel's teachers eventually spotted me chilling out in my corner and brought her out for me.

Famished by then, we all headed to Red Star for a fantastic dim sum lunch to end of the morning.

Vel's P1 orientation at St Margaret's

2009-11-23T09:54:00.003+08:00

There are several monumental moments in a parent's life with the Primary 1 orientation being one of them. It marks a new chapter of your child's life journey as she leaves the laidback kindergarten life behind and heralds the begnning of what I term as the 'stressful years' - homework, tests, assesment papers, exams, more homework, more tests, more assesment papers, more exams and, of course, CCAs.

Fearful of the parking, we arrived at the school quite early, only to find that parking was STILL a problem. Tired of driving in circles around Mt. Sophia, I finally decided to leave the car just a few metres from the main gate (blatantly ignoring the double yellow lines since there were already cars parked there). Penny and Velouria were nowhere to be found and I realised that they were with the uniform vendor. It was a quite a hilarious exercise just watching Vel try on her soon-to-be school uniform and PT attires. Despite putting on the smallest size available, it still looked too big for her. I'm sure I will look back on this day with fond memories when she finally outgrows her current uniform.

On the way to the school hall, we even bought a teddy bear in St. Margaret's garb to support some parent volunteers who were raising funds for needy students. As we were ushered into our seats, the girls were all seated in the front on the hall seperated from their parents. Velouria, as usual, was more than enthusiastic to mingle with her new friends. The girls were later ushered out of the hall to be taken care of by 'big sisters' while the parents remained to sit through the orientation programme with usual - speech from the principal, familiarisation with the school's facilities and various programmes, etc.

When it ended an hour later, all the parents burst out of the hall and began to visit the various vendors to do the necessary. Me, I took a stroll in the rain to Parklane to withdraw cash to pay for the schoool bus, books, etc after the uniforms burned away most of the money I had on me (who knew that the vendors only took cash, whatever happened to those mobile NETS machines?? Sheesh!!).

We ended our afternoon with a little snack at the canteen and chatting with a parent of one of Vel's future classmate. Only one thing to say - so exciting!

Durian session

2009-10-30T10:03:00.003+08:00

Some liken the pungent odour to a pair of overused, sweaty socks; others will drive for miles and kill their closest kin to find and savour the perfect fruit.

I obviously belong to the latter group and found it only fitting to celebrate the end of my long bout of flu with a round of the thorny fruit. It had been a while since we last binged on durians (we used to have ‘durian parties’; aptly named because we had nothing but, er, durians!), so when Penny suggested that we take a short drive to the nearby market to get some I was all for it.

They are probably in oversupply this year because we were spoilt for choice when we reached the stall. Normally price-tagged by weight, there were D24s that were priced according to size – ranging from $1 each for small ones about the size of my head to $3 each for larger ones about the size of Andre the Giant’s head.

Not wanting to look el cheapo, we settled for the $2 ones because they didn’t look very much smaller than their $3 counterparts. We singled out about five of these little babies and proceeded to consume them kampung style – squatting on the floor and prying them open barbarically with my bare hands.

Licking every finger on both our hands, we ended our jaunt by picking out another five to pack home.

Akan datang: drum lessons

2009-10-29T23:05:00.002+08:00

They say the best way to learn is to teach. Since I started drumming in church again two years ago after my century long hiatus, I have been toying with the idea of taking drum lessons. However, several lame excuses ranging from the lack of time to a supposedly deteriorating hand-eye-leg co-ordination had convinced me otherwise.

Recently, Justin and Natalie, along with their friend Deon, had been bitten by the drumming bug ever since they witnessed an 8 year old girl playing in their church's worship team. 'If she can do it, so can we' became the order of the day for the past few weeks. Since their parents saw no sense in signing them up for lessons or getting them a drum set to annoy the neighbours with, I volunteered to give them free lessons and probably a jam session or two. What better way to go back to basics than to hustle a couple of kids, eh?

Lesson number one was, of course, getting some sticks for the kids since all my spares were 5Bs and too big for their hands. Not being able to find anything suitable at the crappy Yamaha retail store, we headed down to Drum Resources as I only trusted Nigel and nobody else. True enough, he actually stocked some Pro Mark Junior sticks, which I eventually bought for Natalie and Velouria (who INSISTED on having her own pair as well). For Justin and Deon, a pair of medium weight, ball tipped 7As each ince I reckoned their grubby paws were huge enough to hang on to a regular pair of sticks.

Lesson number two will commence at the next Hushhouse jamming session at Mel's place. But first they'll have their exams to contend with.

Light at the end of the tunnel

2009-09-28T10:44:00.003+08:00

A strange sense of deja vu had been plaguing me the past few months. It seemed that my life has been moving in circles and I kept asking God where all this was leading me to. Desperately wanting to understand God's will for my life, I was worshipping and waiting upon the Lord more fervently that I was normally used to.

I have always wondered to God why he never gave me an interest or talent in the financial, real estate or business arena - stuff that would REALLY earn the big bucks. And suddenly, like an epiphany, He pointed me towards the direction of education. It was like a refreshing splash of cool, clear water on my otherwise sullen and distraught spirit. I had been lamenting about not being able to find a job that I enjoy or something that was recession proof so that I didn't have to keep worrying about whether the gloomy economy would affect my paycheck and other similary nonsensical thoughts.

It was an epiphay because I had always loved teaching. I love working with children because it gives me a sense of immense satisfaction by imparting my life skills and knowledge to the younger generation with the hope that my (sometimes harsh) words would help mould them into valuable and effective individuals in future.

Going so far as to submit an application for a teaching post with MOE (which I never got a reply for so I assumed that is water under the bridge), I had a friend who introduced me a training post in a company which specialises in 'contextual learning'. The beauty of this system is that it not only applies to the education field, but can also be used for corporate training. It's basically a psychological technicality that simpletons like me would not be able to wrap my mind around. Yet.

I'm not at liberty to share too many details. Yet. But God has been great and I can finally see that small glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. God had opened a floodgate of blessing which I am suddenly afraid to take on because I know I am not capable of handling it with my own strength. I continue to wait upon the Lord to guide me.

I'm humbled and awe-struck by what God has revealed to my heart. All I had to do was just trust and seek him.

Hungry for Hungarian Goulash

2009-09-08T14:55:00.004+08:00

It's hard to find a nice, thick Hungarian Goulash these days. I'm talking those with chunky bits of beef, potatoes, carrots and beans. Instead, the order of the day seems to be those sissy, diluted ones with no beef in sight (probably just strands of it) and what I absolutely detest is that they stew it so long till the teeny cubes of potatoes just melt away in your mouth before you can even land your molars on them.

We chanced upon Soup-erlicious, a soup café (which are another dime in a dozen these days), in Suntec one weekend. After walking around in Carrfefour, Vel complained that she was hungry and wanted some bread. Thinking that how boring it was just to eat bread alone, I suggested why not have some soup to go along after sighting the café as the nearest eatery to go to as we stepped through the check out counters. In actual fact, it was a ploy to find something substantial to fill my stomach as I was feeling slightly peckish as well.

To my amazement, the goulash was wonderful! It came with pieces of foccacias cut up into rectangular blocks (making it ultra easy for dipping) and the soup was the thick, gooey and chunky kind that I loved and missed so dearly. The soup was fragrant and flavourful, yet the beef was tender and the chunks of potatoes and carrots still had a nice crunch to them.

It was supposed to be a snack but the bowl was so huge that after draining it dry and wiping up the sides with the foccacia, I was stuffed (not Velouria though)!

Yummy indeed! I’ll definitely be back for more. My next target – Wild Mushroom Soup!

Dinosaur eggs and Bee-Bee

2009-08-31T09:02:00.005+08:00

Another sign of my entry into premature mid-life crisis – I’ve been longing for snacks that I used to nibble on as a kid. For some strange reason, I had been reminiscing about those colourful little egg-shaped candies that we used to affectionately call ‘dinosaur eggs,’ owing to the colourful and speckled exterior of the chewy confection. Just the mere pondering on where I could get some kept me awake on many countless nights.

Surprisingly, I chanced upon these little treasures at the mamak stall tucked away in a discreet corner when we were at Bras Basah Complex one day. Of course, I bought a pack (along with a couple of packets of Bee-Bee to go around) and savoured them sparingly over the next few days (there are still a couple left in the fridge).

What can I say? Shiok, man!

The H.E.A.R.T. of worship

2009-08-24T22:58:00.002+08:00

Attended RHC's worship workshop cum audition held by Aidan on Saturday. I'd been looking forward to this day since I read about it on the monthly flyer three weeks back. Honestly, I couldn't wait to getting back to playing with a worship team but yet felt somewhat consternated as I knew the people here seemed to be more technically inclined than what I was used to back at NCS i.e. there was no more ‘blur in, blur out’ anymore!

As a member of the worship team, I was taught that we should offer our best to God in terms of skill which involved constant practice and an effort towards self-improvement. Frankly, I didn't think my drumming was anything fantastic given the fact that I'd never had any professional training and am beginning to feel my co-ordination (or lack thereof?) get the better of me. That, of course, also does not mean that an absolutely tone deaf person should attempt to sing back-up.

I'd become so preoccupied with giving God my best that I'd forgotten to check what I was offering to Him. Psalm 78:72 says that ‘…with integrity of heart, with skillful hands he led them’. To put it simply, the skills are as every bit as important as the heart, one is not of more importance than the other. While not exactly a revelation, this concept has sort of been relegated to the back of my mind as I became preoccupied with learning the guitar (with the hope of picking up the bass some day) and drumming my a** off week after week.

The H.E.A.R.T. of worship consists being:
Humble – humbled by God’s awesome grace
Expectant – that God will pour out His presence in the midst of our worship and do something radical in our hearts.
Attentive – to how the Holy Spirit is moving
Real – God asks us to worship in spirit and in truth
Together – every individual united as one to build God’s house and see that His will is done (dialokismos in Greek – means to be of one mind and one accord)

Damn cheem. But still essential nevertheless.

Pigging out - a 'hum'-ful night

2009-08-22T19:51:00.003+08:00

Penny was down with a really bad bout of flu for the past two weeks. When she finally did recover (not fully), we thought that it was only fitting that we celebrated it with a rather restrained pig out session at East Coast hawker centre (which is kind of an oxymoron when you think about it) since we didn't want her falling sick again soon after she had gotten well. Having being deprived of all the evil fried and oily food for the duration of her illness, she was craving for all the wrong things.

We started our feast with a plate of chicken wings, some satay and a couple of drinks. When we realised that all that stuff could barely fill us, Penny went in search of more grub to gobble up. Gone for a good ten minutes, she returned with a plate of the famous (but only okay by my standards - I still prefer the one at Balestier) satay bee hoon and, horror of horrors, a plate of see hum!

Armed with a toothpick and a saucer of sambal belachan, we went at it and soon all that was left was splattered blood and a pile of shells on the table. The cockles were barely cooked but that was what gave them that signature crunchiness. I never felt so disgusted but yet equally satisfied at the same time.

As always, we left rubbing our tummies, deeply satisfied with our meal.

Balloting @ St. Margaret's

2009-08-16T00:38:00.006+08:00

Ten harrowing days. That’s how long it was from the time we registered to the day of balloting at St. Margaret’s. We trusted that the Lord would place Velouria there but the thought of 78 people vying for 73 places was still enough to place a fragment of doubt in your heart (having two sets of twins in the list of names didn’t help ease matters much either).

So there we were at 7.45 a.m. (Penny was sure that the balloting started at 8 a.m.) thinking we could chill out somewhere and have a coffee. The canteen was out of bounds so we headed straight to the school hall and counted every single minute to 8.30 a.m., when the balloting would begin.

As the seconds ticked on, more parents started streaming in. We were quite pleased with the fact the chaplain of the school opened the session in prayer at 8.30 a.m. on the dot, then off we went as the principal presented the ballot slips to the audience (via those old school projectors – they still have some use after all!) one by one before placing them into the box.

When the balloting began, the atmosphere was so tense that you would imagine someone getting thrown out if he so much as let out a fart. God spared us further torment as Velouria’s name was called out quite soon (didn’t keep count but reckoned it was within the first twenty). We were so relieved, but yet at the same time still felt quite tense for those parents whose daughters’ names had not been called yet.

But in the end, we all knew there had to be five who were not able to get in. Again, the chaplain closed the session in prayer and asked for God to guide those five girls and their respective parents. Praise the Lord! This is exactly the kind of environment we wanted for Velouria.

New beginning - reprise

2009-08-09T16:45:00.003+08:00

So here we were. Our first Sunday out from New Covenant Sanctuary. It was a day we'd been looking forward to, with trepidation due to the new and unfamliar environment, and with anticipation with the knowledge that we were working towards bringing our walk with God to a whole new level. We'd been here before and we were comfortable. It wasn't a big church with tens of thousands of people, a huge stage for the worship team that looked more like a rock concert. But most importantly, we identified with Pastor Simon's vision of centering all aspects of church and personal activity around God's Word, with all else being secondary. Knowing it well was one thing, but applying it was a whole new ball game altogether.

Redemption Hill now had two services - one at 9.30 a.m., the other at 11.30 a.m. We figured it'd be better for us to attend the latter as it would give us some time after the service was over to speak with Pastor Simon and introduce ourselves as we had promised.

The worship was simple and touching. It has been a long time since I let my tears flow freely during corporate worship. The sermon was straightforward but impactful as well - Pastor Simon was speaking about work life and how we should use that to glorify God. It sort of changed my perspective of work and slogging it out with survival as the usual excuse.

We mingled around a bit and even got ourselves into one of the cell groups who meet every Friday evening at Hillview. Cool! We promsied that we would make ourselves available then. Grabbing some biscuits and drinks, we left the service feeling somewhat refreshed and burden-less (for lack of a better word).

We are REALLY looking forward to next Sunday. Haven't felt like this in a long time.

Pri 1 registration

2009-08-09T16:26:00.003+08:00

The dreadful day that we've been waiting for had finally arrived - it was time to register Velouria for her Primary school!

After scratching off the option of MGS from our list (given their track record of not having vacancies for Phase 2C), we were left with St. Margaret's. Our resources indicated that they were not very academically inclined but we didn't really care. Who wants to put their kids in a school where they had to go through tons of revision papers every day and had to burn their Saturdays having extra lessons anyway? We sure don't! Most importantly, we wanted a school with a Godly environment that would nurture Velouria's desire to walk with God as she grew up.

Being the typical un-kiasu parents that we were, we sauntered our way into the school in the afternoon on the first day of registration. We went through the usual registration routine, which nowadays also includes a mandatory temperature taking, and waited for further instructions. The entire process took less than 15 minutes before the teacher came back to us with a couple of forms and told us 'That's it! Wait for the results to be announced after the last day of registration'. Satisfied, we went home.

It turns out that out of the 127 vacancies in Phase 2C for St. Margaret's, there were 132 applicants. Which means that we would have to go through the nail-biting process of balloting. And to deepen the suspense, we had to wait till 11 August (after the National Day long weekend, dammit!) to do so.

We await with bated breath...

Getting into the groove

2009-08-09T16:13:00.002+08:00

After being together for almost a year, we are finally getting our act together as a band. I am a subscriber of the notion that music soothes the savage beast. So what better way to end the work week than with a jamming session, in a nice studio downtown no less!

My Saturday afternoons have become preoccupied with other arrangements so our only option left was to jam elsewhere since Mel's home studio was a great big no in the evenings, lest the neighbours should complain about the din we were making. It is therefore also subtly ironic that we are currently toying with the name Hush House, considering the amount of noise we make and distortion we use in our music.

So we found ourselves at Shiin Studio on North Canal Road (just above Settler's Cafe) where Mel apparently also jams with his other outfits. Cosy little place with two small studios, but with some rather decent equipment. Finally, a nice set of tight, tuned drums to pamper my sticks with. Here, they were equipped with a 6-piece Gretsch that came with double pedals (not that I needed them anyway - getting too old for that s**t).

All in all, a great (but albeit costly) evening of wonderful music making. We even got to try out our cover of Beach Boys' Don't Worry Baby with me on backing vocals. Cool!

New beginning

2009-07-20T17:42:00.004+08:00

After months of hesitating and asking God for direction, we finally came to a decision to leave New Covenant Sanctuary. Maybe it's just us, but Sunday after Sunday, I feel that Penny and I were just going through the motion of going to church and serving our respective ministries. I cried out to God and asked for forgiveness that we'd become so passive. What had happened? We don't even know. I guess we came to a point where we were fed up of everything going in circles, and church was the last place we'd expect to deal with spirals.

Many have asked us - what if it was God's will for us to be placed in NCS, wouldn't we be going against His will by leaving? It's a case of being stuck between a rock and a hard place - we'd be damned if we did and damned if we didn't. Again, I prayed for forgiveness and told God that I'd rather sin in an attempt to get closer to Him than to remain there and sin anyway by harbouring so much bitterness that would kill our spiritual lives eventually.

I couldn't bear to leave everything that we tried so hard to build up, but I asked myself 'Would I be able to make a difference?'. In the end, it's all about doing it for His glory and not mine. I remember the prophecy given to me was that I'd work with youth of THE church; the prophecy didn't say THIS church, so I comfort myself with the thought that it's still His house no matter where we serve.

If it was really God's will for us to be there, guess He would send a 'big fish' to 'swallow' us up and spit us out back there.

We continue to pray for the people of NCS as we begin a new chapter in our walk with Christ.

Beaten at Monopoly Junior

2009-07-13T20:58:00.008+08:00

I suck at Monopoly. In fact, I suck so bad that even Velouria can beat me. And we're not even talking about the standard Monopoly. We're talking about Monopoly Junior. With smaller notes. Less expensive property. Lesser squares.

Velouria had just gotten a hand me down set and I, being the kiasu parent attempting to educate her about the benefits of board games, decided to have a go at it with her.

The set came without any manual, so I distrbuted $100 to both of us and off we went. Being the aggressive 'businessman' with no strategy whatsoever, I just started buying up all the property that my token landed on. Just my luck that I got all the cheap, crappy ones. Velouria, on the other hand, was a scheming strategist that would have put Donald Trump to shame, buying up properties after a tremendous amount of thought. Only God knows what went on in her head in the midst of all that contemplation.

It seemed to have worked however. In the end, after mortgaging all my houses and selling off all my property, I had no moolah in my box. In stark contrast, Velouria had a handful of blue (her colour of choice) houses left on the board and a considerable stash of cash in her box.

Beaten by a six... no, five and a half year old girl, in a board game designed for pre school children. Major bummer.

Hilarious TVC

2009-06-06T22:24:00.004+08:00

Rarely does a TVC catch my eye - most have got me reaching for the remote to channel surf, bolting to the washroom for a quick pee break or waltzing to the kitchen in search of something to satisfy my insatiable appetite for the munchies.

The last one that got me to sit up and notice (not to mention make me tear even) was Leo Burnett's TVC for MCYS's 'Beautifully Imperfect' campaign. Other than that, most other ads simply make me cringe:

a. with lousy acting (the Allwell herbal drinks with the couple at a hawker centre)
b. with cheesy, hard sell scripts (the Sinsin Soya Sauce ad with the grandma advising the dude against OD'ing his food with soya sauce and the wife jumps to his defense by saying that it's low salt, blah, blah)
c. just by being downright irritating (the Carlsberg ad with the beer and foosball table delivered to three dudes camping on a ledge of a snowy mountain)
d. all of the above

I happened to catch Heineken's new TVC today. Honestly, it caught me completely off guard and I thought it was going to be another silly TVC advertising some household product or some other contraption you DO NOT need in the home.

Damn funny lah. From a guy's point of view anyway.

Open up the sky

2009-05-16T13:19:00.008+08:00

It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night
Psalm 92:1-2

I've played the drums for the longest time. When I offered my talent to the worship ministry, I did it with the intention of offering my best to the Lord knowing that this was one thing I knew I could do well without screwing up too badly. I love music and I have experienced first hand what the power of worship can do. While I take my drumming very seriously, I also love to sing and it was my hope that one day I would be able to lead the congregation in worship. To lead them to that realm of worship in order experience the touch of the Holy Spirit.

I take my drumming very seriously. Really!

Since I had some kucing kurap guitar skills, Daniel thought it'd be a good idea for me to try playing some songs. I'd led a few praise songs over the past few weeks, my signature tune being Tim Hughes' Beautiful One (I chose it for the simple chord structure and crowd 'ra-ra' factor - I'd heard him playing it live at the Planetshaker's concert last year).

Just last Sunday, Daniel decides that I should try leading the whole praise and worship. Praise wasn't going to be a problem, but worship was a totally different matter altogether. I decided to try Deluge's rendition of Open Up The Sky although I wasn't entirely sure if we could pull it off since the original was so heavy.

My benchmark for a good worship song is that it has to make your hair stand the first you hear it and cry the second. I cried the first time I heard this song and I had it on repeat in the car's CD player until the A-E-D-A riff was etched ever so clearly into my head. I have since played it umpteen times in my own worship with the Lord. Somehow the words of the pre chorus and chorus kept resounding in my head.

We won't be satisfied with anything ordinary
We won't be satisfied at all

Open up the sky
Fall down like rain
We don't want blessings we want You
Open up the sky
Fall down like fire
We don't want anything but You

It had been my prayer that our congregation be overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit during worship and the chorus seemed to echo that thought. For the Lord to fall down like rain and fire to completely engulf and surround us.

I just let the Spirit lead me when it was time to play. At one point, everyone just stopped the instruments and we just sang our hearts out. It wasn't even my intention at all but it all flowed so perfectly. Amazing what God can do when you surrender completely to His perfect will.

Can't wait to do it again.

Claying around

2009-05-11T17:32:00.008+08:00

After having to do so much from Mondays to Fridays, Saturdays always seem to be a good day to slow down and chill out and basically do silly things. On this particular one, somehow we ended up at Bras Brasah complex after strolling around a flea market that was taking place outside SMU's Arts Faculty.

We wandered into the insanely huge Popular bookshop and ended up in the crafts section on the upper level. Before I could even utter a single word of protest, Penny and Velouria ended up with a pack of white clay, some poster colours and brushes and insisted that we went home to make something out of it.

It was off to work immediately when we stepped into the house. We cleared a table that would serve as our workstation and set our materials on it. Taking out a morsel of clay from the packet (these were air dried so we had to be extra careful), I proceeded to make the simplest thing that came to my mind first - a worm.

With furrowed brows, I began to scuplt my masterpiece despite Penny's incessant reminders to strengthen the sculpture with toothpicks. I ignored her, my argument being that I wasn't making a complicated sculpture and there was no need for internal skeletons of any kind. She proceeded to do hers with a toothpick within regardless. And ended up with a sausage. With grill marks, no less.

The worm looked kinda freaky when I was done. It looked more like some creature out of Dune than Sesame Street. What I intended to be the mouth added to the seemingly malevolent guise of the poor catepillar.

I went on to apply the colours anyway, choosing a green for the body and filling in the lines with brown later. It was a lot tougher than I thought! It was an intricate matter trying to paint something so tiny. My hands were so tired after having to make such precise, controlled movements.

Not bad for a first try! My next sculpture - a tortoise. Stay tuned.

Silly Singaporeans

2009-05-06T22:03:00.006+08:00

Despite the seemingly high levels of education and affluence of the people in Singapore, I am repeatedly appalled by how many of us still have not seemed to grasp the necessary aptitude to fill up entry forms in its entirety. In my course of work, I am required to compile customer information into our company databse and this somewhat mundane task is made increasingly frustrating with incomplete fields, illegible handwriting or even nonsensical answers. Honestly, is it too much to ask to draw a dash or pen the alphabets NA on fields that are not applicable to you?

Other idiosyncarcies of nonchalant Singaporeans:
- 28 Dover Court: no postal code, either this person does not care or is totally oblivious.
- 28 Dover Court #02-02: do I assume this is an apartment block? Or is the person trying to make his address pass off as one in a condominium?
- #02-02 28 Dover Court Dover Road S'123456: don't they know there is a specific order in which addresses are written in?

There is no end to the sheer level of inanity which continues to baffle and annoy me. Graaaaah!!

House visiting

2009-04-20T14:16:00.010+08:00

Penny and I have been dreaming of getting our very own brand new home for the longest time. We have sort of given up on that hope after being unsuccessful in HDB's countless balloting exercises for new flats. In the meantime, we just satiate our appetites for our new abode by visiting other people's and convincing ourselves with the 'it's not God's time for us to have a new home' mentality.

Our latest foray was to Jarrod's and Fiona's. After several invitations, we finally made time to drop by at their newly acquired property of a semi-detached house. It was a lazy Saturday and since I had to work, it was a good opportunity for Penny and Velouria to have breakfast and chill there.

It was not hard to find despite them telling us that numerous people got lost looking for their place before. I mean, seriously, how hard is it to get lost in our tiny island nation?

From the outside, the edifice looked simple and straightforward, nothing elaborate like some of the houses we passed on the way in. Upon stepping in, we were greeted by a wide and spacious living room, with a TV area and a sofa accompanied by two armchairs. They had opted for an open concept kitchen so we could see through to the back of the house just standing at the door. The kitchen, like the living room, was uncluttered and practical with all the necessities and nothing more.

Surrounding the kitchen and dining area were floor-to-ceiling glass doors swathed with roller blinds, which allowed natural light on fair days and providing the option to keep the light on days when the sun blazes mercilessly.

Just beyond those glass doors was a tiny little garden big enough to lay a mat to have a picnic on. Fiona was also attemtping to grow some herbs which were placed in a huge pot that was used to conceal a sewerage cover.

We decided to explore the upper level next and the first thing that caught my eyes was the light bulbs dangling from the ceiling. Again, nothing fancy and very practical but yet tastefully done. It was just one of those things that make you go ‘Damn, why didn’t I think of that?’.

The upper level was equally cool. They kept elements of the retro fixtures that came with the original house which was built in the 70s like the staircase railings, the mosaic tiles of the guest room and even salvaged the old window grilles from the master bedroom into a trellis-like fixture to hang their plasma TV from.

In short, the whole place was groovy without being too ostentatious. Just practical and uncluttered, just the way we like it.

A-roi krub... again!

2009-04-03T13:51:00.006+08:00

After the excellent (in spite of it being expired for more than six months) tom yum soup we had a couple of weeks earlier, we went back to Giant and bought ourselves more of the similar range of Thai food from Thai Kitchen. Apparently, Giant Hypermart brings this brand of products in by themselves so it explains why we could not find it anywhere else.

We decided to buy the tom yum kung again, and also purchased a tom kah khai, which is basically a tom yum stew of chicken with a creamy coconut milk base. It's been ages since I had a good one and thinking about it now brings me back 20 years to our Telok Blangah flat where this dish was normal fare whipped out by the Thai domestic helper we had back then.

It had been a crazy week and I was too lazy to cook, so I guess the tom kah khai came in really handy. The recipe called for chicken slices, but I was too lazy to debone the chicken parts we had in the freezer. Instead, I used the chicken pieces, with bones intact, and it still turned out wonderful. As with the tom yum kung before, all the ingredients were individually packed into several numbered packets, so all I had to do was boil some water and add the chicken pieces.

The final product was nothing short of wonderful. Penny was too stuffed to eat much, but I sipped up every last drop of soup.

Excellent!

Fearfully and wonderfully made

2009-03-25T21:30:00.006+08:00

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:14-16

The above Psalm describes how well God knows us, perhaps even better than we know ourselves. I've always thought this to be a tad hard to swallow - can it be remotely possible that someone knows me better than I know myself?

God answered that question when He blessed us with Velouria. Seeing how Velouria has idiosyncracies and physical behaviour that is a combination of both Penny and myself has convinced me and very possibly a reminder from God to tell me that He indeed knows me and can even create a 'mini me'.

The year Star Wars Ep. IV was released, I was lying on the floor of an apartment in Outram Park having my favourite drink of the moment.

Some 28 years later, Velouria does likewise on our bed. In the exact same pose.

I would have excused it if it was the left leg over the right, but noooo... it had to the EXACT SAME POSE! Albert Einstein once said 'Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous'. Couldn't have put it better myself.

Watching out for the Watchmen

2009-02-27T12:30:00.007+08:00

The top movie on my 'Must See Movies of 2009' is opening in 2 weeks time. After so much controversy and production hiccups, I'm glad DC finally gave the thumbs up to Zack Snyder to direct the screen version of the much-acclaimed comic that was first published in 1986. In my opinion, he did a fabulous job with 300, capturing that dark, enigmatic feel of the Spartans from Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name, and I'm confident he's capable of doing the same with Watchmen.

Check out the trailer below which almost made me soil my pants. My fanboy palms are sweating in anticipation. So exciting!!

The 12-issue comic series found crtical acclaim as it came during a time when American comics industry was facing an all time low since the 1950s anti-comics movement. Not only did it shatter all comic book superhero stereotypes, it was a political and social commentary touching on the uncertianties of the 1980s. Revisiting the plot now serves as a poignant and stark reminder of how things could have been and also how volatile things are in this crazy, callous world.

Read up on the Watchmen here before catching the movie so it doesn't spin you in circles.

I await with bated breath.

The world will look up and shout 'Save us!' And I'll whisper 'No.'

~ Rorschach

A-roi krub!

2009-02-26T14:16:00.006+08:00

I've always been a sucker for Thai food. But it's hard to find really good, authentic Thai food in Singapore (we usually go to Ying Thai Palace at Purvis Street but they are quite pricey). The crap they serve at places like Baan Thai are what I term the 骗红毛 kind of fare you'd usually find littered around the island. They serve you that oily, red, just-spicy-and-not-much-else tom yum soup and they don't even have chicken feet salad on their menu.

Just yesterday, I had a sudden craving for tom yum soup. Too lazy to go out there and find a good one, we rummaged the fridge and realised that we had this tom yum kung soup package that we'd bought eons ago but never got around to cooking it. It came with all the necessary herbs, spices and sauces required to make ourselves a nice, steaming pot of that mouth-watering, sour and savoury broth. And we could add whatever we wanted! Lovely!

I prepared some prawns (the scrawny kind although the recipe on the pack called for king prawns), squid, some chicken and a whole lot of straw mushrooms. It was so convenient - just boil some water, throw in the mushrooms with Packet #1, bring to a boil, add Packet #2 and the rest of the ingredients, bring to boil again and add Packets #3, #4 and #5 before turning off the fire. That's it!

We were drooling by the time it was done as the fragance was overwhelming while the soup came to a boil. Slurp!

*Sorry, no pic of the final product since we were famished by the time the soup was done!*

Spritual surfing

2009-02-04T11:05:00.009+08:00

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1

Faith is a peculiar thing. Just when you think you have it, it eludes you and starts whether or not God is indeed there. The Bible tells us He is always there, however our sin separates us. How then do we not sin? Is it even possible while we live in a fallen and sinful society, surrounded by secularity each day? The Bible tells us it is possible; ‘I can do all things through Him who strengthens me’ (Philippians 4:13). But in order to truly believe in that, we need to have faith.

Hence my dilemna. I seem to be caught in a vicious cycle. Every Sunday after a good praise and worship session or a good sermon, I feel ready to take on the world after being touched by the Holy Spirit. Somewhere along the way, just when I thought everything is going to be great, things just don't seem to go my way. So my faith gets zapped and begin to wonder if God is there. This feeling of hopelessness sometimes even carries into Sunday when we go to church, so while everyone is worshipping the Lord, I’m wondering about what is going on in my life and what God can do FOR ME. From there, my logic takes over and I begin to take things into my own hands, which of course ends up

Evertime I pray, God tells me to trust Him more. How do I trust Him if I don’t have faith? Faith comes from the Word of God, so the Bible says. But again, if I can’t even bring myself to sing a song of praise, how do I open up the Word of God to focus on what God is saying?

It’s a sucky feeling to have to go through this cycle over and over again. Each time I think I’m up there, I find myself down below again. Day in, day out I ride the tides of wavering faith.

I reckon what I’m going through now seems akin to surfing. You see a great wave, you think you can handle it so you swim out and take it on. Halfway through you get wiped out and you ask God ‘Where were You when I needed You?’ Then God picks you up and sends you out there. You get complacent and the whole cycle repeats itself. Bummer.

Maybe one day I’ll have enough material to write a book. It’ll be entitled ‘Spritual Surfing: Riding the Tides of Wavering Faith’ and go on to become a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. I’ll be filthy rich from royalties, get complacent and find myself back here again.

The Lunar-cy of the Lunar New Year

2009-01-24T08:52:00.007+08:00

It has begun. As much as I hate festivities and all the hoopla that comes with it, there is no escaping the insanity of the Lunar New Year since we are, after all, Chinese. It started a couple of weeks back with the purchase of a CNY-ish plant which I don't even know the name of, putting up obiang looking 福 paper cut-out decorative thingies (must be inverted, no less), getting crushed in the markets and, the part I hate most, spring cleaning.

Our refrigerator is filled to the brim with stuff since the Chinese are a superstitious lot (i.e. my mum-in-law) and believe that the house should be chock full of food as we pass into the New Year. And that is not even taking into the account the junk food we have sitting outside the refrigerator.

Is it just me getting old? Or is it just my overall nonchalance with life that I just can't seem to be bothered with such things anymore? Given the choice, I would just pass the holidays quietly without any visitations or parties whatsoever. But I suppose my family wouldn't have any of that.

As I am typing this, Penny and Vel are off with the MIL to the markets in search of the perfect fishballs for our steamboat tomorrow. I'm like, whatever.

恭喜发财，身体健康.

Tortured

2009-01-19T11:15:00.009+08:00

I've done threading on my eyebrows before, it's part and parcel of my beauty regime. It hurts like mad - no amount of military training can prepare you for such an intense pain and I used to wonder why women still insist on torturing themselves this way - but it's way more effective and prodcutive than plucking with a pair of tweezers.

Penny decided to take a trip to Rimpy's, our usual Indian eyebrow threading parlour at Clementi Central, to do her eyebrows. She ended up threading her whole face and came out even more satisfied than usual. As if that were not enough, she glances at my face and decides that I needed one too. I thought, shouldn't be that bad and it's been a while since I had my last threading anyway.

When my turn came, I lay down on the chair as usual and the auntie proceeded to do my eyebrows. It was a totally different sensation altogether when she moved on to my face. To describe the pain as excrutiating is a severe understatement - I had half the mind to jump out of the seat and yelp. All I could do was grit my teeth and grunt, twitching a little once in a while.

It was the longest 5 minutes of my life, but my face seemed a little brighter after the whole procedure. Or so Penny claims. Same same, but different.

Relieved! So *%^# painful!

I love shopping

2009-01-10T22:50:00.006+08:00

Yes I really, really do. Maybe it's one of the many occupational hazards of being a marketeer - having to prowl the retail level to keep myself updated, steal ideas, etc. I just enjoy looking at stuff and studying every little detail on the packaging (for processed items like food) or analysing the stitches on a certain shirt or figuring out how another weird kitchen contraption works. But being a typical guy, the way we shop tends to differ from the way the opposite sex does it.

Our DNAs are programmed in such a way that we can walk away from something we don't need and we purchase only when we have to. And when we finally do, we have a pretty clear idea of what we want. Just like a few months back when I bought my ultra cool pair of boots from Primevera, I chanced upon some vintage inspired T-shirts at F.O.S. by Junk Food Clothing. Apparently, celebrtities in Hollywood are lapping them up and it is the 'happening' thing to wear now. It is available on the Junk Food website and over here in Singapore they are available at NewUrbanMale as well as other funky shops at Far East Plaza and Heeren. They are, in my honest opinion, quite ridiculously priced given the quality of the fabric and also because I never believe in paying more than $20 for a T-shirt.

So imagine my glee when I found out that the they were going for only $19.90 a piece at F.O.S.!! I was quite peeved that the female selection was way wider than the males (and they came with much more reasonable sizes too!), but at such a bargain I couldn't complain.

I ended up with only four pieces that came in a Medium - one cool, green with a Green Lantern logo; another green one with an old 80s Atari-esque Pacman accompanied by power pellets and ghosts; a brown one with a M.A.S.H logo (the old 70s sitcom) and another brown one with the Community Chest livery from the Monopoly game.

Who cares if they are fakes? I don't! Who can tell if they are factory rejects? I certainly can't!

Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine

2009-01-08T11:24:00.012+08:00

There's nothing like a good fanboy movie to put a grin on my face. Along with Terminator: Salvation and G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, another movie that has got my fanboy palms sweating is X-men Origins: Wolverine, slated for release in May.

While poseurs all around the world lapped up the X-men trilogy on the big screen, I wasn't particularly pleased as I felt the movies couldn't do much justice to each of the characters as individuals. Unlike the Spiderman movies which worked well chronicling the life of Peter Parker as he became Spiderman, the X-men franchise works better on print due to its ensemble of characters which can never be fully fleshed out and explored with 120 minutes of screen time. The Dark Phoenix saga was one whole mini series by itself, but it was barely covered in X-men 3: The Last Stand.

Which is why I was pretty excited when news of the Wolverine movie broke. I'm not particularly pleased that Hugh Jackman was chosen to play Wolverine (I would have preferred the more feral-looking Dougray Scott, who passed on the opportunity to participate in the first X-men movie due to film committments on Mission Impossible 2), but I must say he has done a pretty fine job munching on cigars, cocking that eyebrow and going on berseker barrages. He reprises his role as Wolverine, which is a prequel to the X-men movies set 17 years before the events of the first Xmen movie, exploring how he got involved in the Weapon X program (that gave him his adamantium-laced skeleton), why he's always hell bent on ripping Sabretooth's head off, and hopefully his obessession with Harleys, etc.

**TRIVIA NOTE: Wolverine's mutant healing factor slows his aging process drastically, which explains why he looks the same 17 years before and after.**

Far more exciting than Logan's flashback is the fact that this movie also introduces a whole host of other mutants from the X-men universe - the suave card flicking, pole fighting Gambit; the fat bouncy dude known simply as Blob; my favourite wise-cracking, cancer-ridden ninja-commando Deadpool; a younger Storm whom Logan is supposed to meet as a pickpocket in Cairo (according to the comics, but not sure how it'll be portrayed in the movie) and a younger Cyclops (dunno what he's doing here - they never met according to the comic book storyline).

The trailer looks REALLY exciting. I await with bated breath!!

Washed by the Water

2009-01-06T10:49:00.006+08:00

Even when the rain falls
Even when the flood starts rising
Even when the storm comes
I am washed by the water

Even when the earth crumbles under my feet
Even when the ones I love gonna try to crucify me
I won't ever ever let you down
Won't go, won't go, won't go
As long as you're around me

Washed by the Water by NeedToBreathe

Have been quite frustrated with myself of late. There seems to be so many things that I know need to be taken care of but I just never seem to have the motivation to get them done. I am starting to question if this sense of nonchalance and procrastination are a sign of a mild depression setting in.

I have to admit, I have problems even trying to cry out to God. As hard as I try, I can't seem to even sit down for 5 mins and wait on God anymore. So many thoughts stirring in my head but yet I can't utter any words to speak to Him.

Just when thoughts of trying to stay afloat and keep my head above the water in a stormy sea, God speaks to me with Washed by the Water by NeedToBreathe (just like He did before with Restore To Me by Glory Revealed). Strangely, this song has been playing in my phone for the past two weeks (I ripped it from the WOW 2009 compilation I bought) but the words suddenly rang with such clarity that I just couldn't stop listening to the song all the way back from work.

Water in the Bible symbolises cleansing and purification. I sense that God is sending me a message to purify my heart again and set Him above all else so that I can stand firm with Him.

Hebrews 10:22-23 says: 'Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.'

New Year's Eve @ 477 JWest

2009-01-02T09:25:00.011+08:00

After having so much fun at the Christmas sleepover in church a week earlier, the youth suggested that we do something similar for New Year's Eve. Although some came up with the crazy idea of camping on the beach at East Coast just so we could see the fireworks display at Marina at the stroke of midnight, I was crazier to suggest another sleepover in church plus a hike up Mt Faber close to midnight for a glimpse of the aforementioned fireworks display. But both options would have left us cold and hungry, so I opted for a BBQ at our place instead (Blk 477 at Jurong West, geddit??).

We had purchased all the necessary items earlier, going to QB Foods at Chin Bee to purchase a one-kilo slab of sirloin, frozen mussels and other similarly congealed foodstuff. It was half day at the office so it was on with the preparation the minute I got home.

Some of the youth started to arrive at about 5PM, so they helped out with the prep work while I got my hands dirty trying to get the fire going. An hour later when the red hot charcoal burning at a nice, slow pace, it was time to start bakar-ing all our stuff.

The food was great - my favourites have got to be the wings seasoned with honey mustard (my idea!) and the squid with cincalok that never fails (though a tad spicy). Penny started baking the mussels in the kitchen halfway through, but only managed half of the box as the rest were soon forgotten amidst the hoo-ha happening outside.

Of course, most of them couch potatoes took a break to catch Love Blossoms at promptly at 7PM and later at 9PM to catch Little Nonya.

Despite worrying about not having sufficient grub for the kids to last through the night, we had enough leftovers to last us for the next few days in the end - a bag of otah, two more kilos of chicken wings, one bag of sotong balls, one bag of cocktail sausages and five slices of sirloin steaks.

The major spoiler of the night was when Joel was 'recalled' home by his mum, punishment for not keeping her informed that the party was a sleepover and making her worry into the night. It sort of dampened everyone's spirit somewhat and after Joel left for home reluctantly (accompanied by Philip to cushion the impact), everyone was just too bummed to do anything else. Despite an attempt at some card games to reignite the party spirit, it was somehow half-baked with the thought that our brother was getting his @$$ kicked by his mum back home.

By 2AM, I was too zonked to carry on so I left them to go about their activities - Ash and Carissa were glued to the Korean drama series on DVD that was recommended by Penny, some were sleeping in our room while other just crashed in the living room. I found a corner in the living room to spread out a thick blanket and KO'ed there before my eyelids became too heavy to keep open. Amazingly, Ash and Carissa were still at it when I woke up in the morning!

I hate to admit it, but age is REALLY catching up. Can't keep up with these sleepovers like I used to.

So many babies, so little time

2008-12-31T10:59:00.009+08:00

Never before did we have friends giving birth consecutively. About a month back, my secondary school mates Kenny and Belinda were blessed with Faith, their third child after two boys, on 1 December. A day later on 2 December, Michael's (my primary school mate) wife, Cindy, gave birth to Aydan (or, according to Michael's hilarious cyber-speak SMS, the Aydan 1.0 system came online), their first after the months of anticipation since they first broke the news to us.

So fast forward a month later, we suddenly had two one month baby showers to attend. All because the Chinese are a superstitious lot when it comes to such things and firmly believe that birthdays should be celebrated earlier as doing it later was taboo.

We rushed off from church at 12 noon and headed to Aydan's first, which was held at Persimmon's at the new Link Hotel. Nick and Pat, along with Grace who was ecstatic to see Velouria, were already there when we arrived. It was a nice place with a rather nostalgic feel to it. The rattan chairs and marble table tops used were reminiscent of those old coffee shops that we rarely see nowadays; the buffet spread included the red eggs and ang ku kuehs (must have items that are traditional to Chinese one month old baby showers) as well as herbal tea and chendol; an old spitton was also used as an ornamental flower vase, which I thought was quite creative.

More friends arrived later (Jenny, Alaric and Wai Min) and it was great catching up (and gossiping!) with everyone while enjoying the rest of the simple fare that was offered at the buffet spread. I particularly enjoyed the sweet and sour Thai style fish and the mushroom soup with shao shing cream.

We didn't have the time to touch the dessert as it was soon time to leave for the next baby shower. Fortunately for us, it was only around the corner at Teresa Ville. This party we attended with a certain tinge of awkwardness as I haven't met many of my friends for the longest time (about 20 years?) and I wasn't sure if all of them would remember me, coupled with the fact that Belinda and I almost had 'something' going on but neither of us had any follow-up or closure to that issue (it was just 'one of those things' that was forgotten as time passed). By the time we arrived, the party was almost over and it was a pleasant surprise to meet so many of my old friends after such a long time. Apparently, they had been organising reunions for quite a while now since finding each other again on Facebook; I had already missed a couple and this was my first. This was, again, a sombre reminder for me of how time flies. Major, major bummer.

Too stuffed to eat anymore, we just hung around to take photos (many of which have been uploaded onto the Facebook group) and catching up with my old friends. Many of us took our turns carrying Faith, some albeit rather awkwardly, while she just slept throughout. I reckon she must have been tired and confused by the array of activity going on around her along with all the screaming, jumping older kids (Velouria inclusive).

We left a while later together with most of the group, only to get stuck at the playground for another half an hour after promising Velouria 5 minutes. She was only willing to leave after her skin had broken on her hand from all the swinging from the bars.

The harsh reality of Christmas

2008-12-24T09:32:00.008+08:00

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

John 3:16-18

It's that time of the year again. Frantic last minute shopping, lelong sales everywhere, rehashing old unwanted presents for office gift exchanges, ugly Singaporeans exhibiting the worst of themselves at shopping centres across the island and that unmistakable monster of a traffic congestion at every corner of Orchard Road.

For all intents and purposes, I believe that Christmas started off with the right note. Although some reseachers believe that Christ was born in late October, everyone knows that Christmas is celebrated to commemorate His birth. Along the way, however, a jolly, fat, bearded old man with a hearty laugh and dressed in a red suit flying around in a sleigh driven by reindeers gets thrown into the picture. Then all hell breaks loose and people start buying presents not only for children to keep the story of Santa Claus alive, but for grown ups as well.

People know that Christmas is the time for giving, but many do so miserably more for the sake of conforming to society while missing the driving force behind the spirit of giving.

God gave His ONE and ONLY Son to die for the world, to redeem us from our sins so that we may come before Him, spotless and free from sin. Imagine that – His ONE and ONLY Son. The Lord of heaven and earth, with all the power that created the universe, who created man and everything around us, He could just give up on us and let us revel in our sin. Or worse, he could just smite us out of our very existence. But instead, He sends His Son to die for US so that we have a Way to Him, His Kingdom and hence, eternal life.

He loved and He gave. So that we may believe and live eternally. For those who don't, I can only say 'What are you waiting for?!'

How cool is that? Think of that tonight as you’re exchanging gifts.

Merry Christmas.

Proud parent moment

2008-12-21T20:02:00.007+08:00

There are various landmark occasions that that would denote your journey through parenthood as you observe your child growing up. Crying baby out of the womb in the delivery suite? Check. Baby starts walking? Check. First birthday with lots of fanfare? Check. First day of school with video camera and grandparents in tow? Check. Second birthday with even more fanfare? Check.

Today, 1838 days after God blessed us with Velouria, marked another significant proud parent moment for Penny and I. Today was the day we decided to remove the training wheels from her bicycle. I figured since she could handle her skate scooter with ease, that same sense of balance would augur well for her when handling her bicycle on two wheels. So off to the void deck we went!

She did have some problems starting out and we had to support the bicycle so she could concentrate on getting her balancing act right. Being a proud little girl with her own ego, she did give up (albeit only for a short while) and went back to her skate scooter for a few rounds when we teased her about not being able to handle her bicycle. Within these first few tries, she did manage a short straight which ended when she reached the wall as she hadn’t figured out how to turn yet. Naturally, she got tired after a while so we decided to head for lunch.

Reluctant to give up, she requested that we continue with the cycling at the playground. Her excuse was that the many pillars at the void deck were distracting her and she needed an open space. True enough, she did manage to get it right and she couldn’t stop going on and on around the playground even as the scorching afternoon sun beamed down on us. Her bum was starting to hurt (the seat was in an awkward position) so she stopped on and off to get a few drinks. She only agreed to go up after promising her that we would come down again at night when it wouldn’t be so hot. Which we did, and she went round and round and round again.

Praise the Lord for such a wonderful daughter.

In retrospect

2008-12-17T11:00:00.008+08:00

Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions.

Ecclesiastes 7:10

Of late, I have been constantly attacked by pangs of nostalgia, wondering about where my life has gone the past 11 years since I graduated from poly. Perhaps it is my passing 30, or realising that Velouria is already five and she’ll be in primary one soon. Or maybe it’s just paranoia setting in with the silly notion that my career is going in circles (after wasting six years of my precious youth with the RSAF). Obviously, life gets more complicated as you grow older and I’m at that point where I’m wondering to God every day, ‘Why must everything be so damn hard?’

It just dawned on me that Penny and I have been together for ten years now, which have been filled with laughter, tears, frustration and anger, along with numerous instances of almost parting ways. We have come a long way and as I look back I can’t help but admit that along the way we have changed somewhat (I always saw myself remaining 20 forever). Friends that knew me from way back always seem to say ‘You’re still the same guy I remember, but yet different at the same time’ – as the Vietnamese are likened to saying ‘Same, same; but different’ to illustrate two distinctly different entities that originated from fairly similar circumstances. I suppose some hard knocks in life will do that to you, and over the years I’ve come to terms with the fact that these hard knocks are just God’s bizarre ways of whipping you into shape.

Along the way, God blessed us with Velouria to remind us how much he loves us. She came into our lives at the most unexpected and under the most unfavourable of conditions – I had just left the RSAF and was still jobless, halfway through my Bachelor’s; someone had just jumped out of his kitchen window, landing on our car and totaling it the process, which led us to rake up some debts; Penny’s job was in limbo, her boss was on the verge of losing a battle with cancer and the future of the company was uncertain. However, as she grew, we noticed that Velouria was actually a combination of Penny and I – she sleeps like a log, enjoys fellowship with senior citizens, eats like a bottomless pit and is a true-blue couch potato who can recall any jingle, movie trailer/sequence/dialogue. Only a Creator who knows us better than we know ourselves could take the best (and worst!) of both of us to create such a bundle of joy.

The other indication that triggered my nostalgia was also seeing the 25th Anniversary G.I. Joe: a Real American Hero 3¾” action figures on the shelves of several toy stores. I remember clamouring to grab every single figure I could get my hands on – from Metro, Daimaru, Yaohan, OG, Kiddy Point (at Centrepoint) and Kids’ World (Wisma Atria and United Square) 20 years ago. This went on well into my poly years as I acquired figures and vehicles that friends had understandably couldn’t wait to give up. With the advent of technology, these figures have now been rescuplted with more detail and given a make-over to bestow upon them a more contemporary look (it has, after all, been 25 years since the first obiang-looking series of figures was launched). More figures are in the line-up, as Hasbro seems keen on revamping all of the figures by the time the G.I. Joe movie hits the theatres in August 2009.

Being on Facebook has also been a double-edged sword as I soak in my ostensibly retrospective take of life. I have, for the longest time, tried my utmost to resist conforming but the resistance was ultimately futile as my curious search for long-lost friends ended up with me starting an account. And, boy, did I find some friends and tons of old photos! It’s amusing to find old friends, get an update on what they’ve been up to, look at photos of their children and hallelujah at every single one that, like me, have turned to Christ. Comparisons are almost inevitable as I begin to look at each of their profiles and realize how everyone has grown, despite being the angst driven youth at one point of our lives, proclaiming proudly how we’d ‘stick it to the man’. Everyone expected me to turn into some arty-farty, skater-type, struggling rock musician/DJ/comic book illustrator/toy sculptor; but somehow I morphed into a God-fearing, corporate ladder-climbing, family man. Conversely, the shy and quiet, studious types have transformed into chain smoking, alcohol guzzling, Zoukout-type party animals.

Which leads me to ponder about the jungle path that I always imagine my life to be; along the way there are many junctions, forks and small hidden tracks. How different would my life have turned out if I took a different turn at one of the junctions, or decided to follow a small, hidden track along the way? Am I back on the main path now? And more importantly, where is it taking me and what’s waiting at the end for me?

Am I complaining? Not really. Am I truly happy? I would be lying if I said I am. Truth is, I’m still struggling to be content with whatever God has blessed me with ‘for he knows the intents and desires’ of my heart and be grateful that He has sustained me thus far.

What do the next ten years have in store for me, I wonder? Only God knows.

Bible insights

2008-12-11T10:14:00.007+08:00

The Bible is one tome that never ceases to amaze me. At times placidingly simple, it can also be deeply profound and rudely awakening (in a good way). Nevertheless, it has provided me a wealth of information with regards to the puzzle we call life and often provided a direction amidst the confusion that surrounds us. It is not surprising to feel that the Bible speaks to us as John 1:1 says 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God'. So as we pray and seek God, He speaks to us through His Word - the Bible.

Recently, I came across some study material which dwelt into the ten plagues that hit Egypt when the Pharoah refused to release Moses and the Israelites. Having watched the Ten Commandments (with Charlton Heston - woo hoo!) as a kid and later on the cartoon (or 'animated feature' as they like to be called these days) Prince of Egypt as an adult, I always wondered why those specific afflictions. Were they just random outbreaks designed to badger the Egyptians to the utmost? Most definitely not.

I've always been told that every single detail recorded in the Bible was allowed by God to happen for very specific reasons. Similarly, these outbreaks were purposed to attack the spiritual heart of Egypt as each one of them had a specific relation to the nature-based religion of Egypt. Through this, God would prove His authority by using His creations to wreck the idolatory beliefs of the Egyptians and the so-called gods that were supposed to protect them.

So for the beneift of everyone (myself inclusive lest I forget this), these are the ten plagues and why God brought them upon Egypt:

1. The Nile turned to blood (Exodus 7:14-25)
The Nile was the centre of Egyptian religion and the agricultural lifeblood for the nation. The gods Hapi and Osiris supposedly protected the river.

2. Swarms of frogs (Exodus 8:1-15)
In Egypt, Heqt, the frog god, was the symbol of fertility and resurrection.

3. Dust became lice (Exodus 8:16-19)
The Hebrew word for lice, kinnim, refers to gnats.

4. Swarms (Exodus 8:20-32)
The exact nature of this swarm is not certian, but some commentators believe it was the dog fly, a bloodsucking insect that laid eggs on other creatures and "swarmed with a voracious appetite, attacking every man, inflicting painful wounds". Kheper, represented by the scarab beetle, was the insect god shown to be impotent by the third and fourth plagues.

5. Pestilence (Exodus 9:1-7)
This was a fatal disease for cattle, which were also considered sacred and supposedly protected by the bull-god Apis and cow-goddess Hathor.

6. Boils (Exodus 9:8-12)
These painful sores were seen as a failure of their personal god of healing, Thoth.

7. Storm and hail (Exodus 9:13-35)
This plague destroyed the crops and food supply. Nut, the sky god, failed to stop this weather-borne disaster.

8. Locusts (Exodus 10:1-20)
A locust can eat its own weight daily, and locust swarms of 400 square miles have been recorded (a single square-mile swarm could contain 100 to 200 million locusts). Osiris, protector of agriculture, was seen as the ineffective god in this plague.

9. Darkness (Exodus 10:21-29)
Ra, the sun god of Egypt, was the god mocked by this plague - a plague of darkness that was so thick it could be felt.

10. Death of the firstborn of man and animal (Exodus 11:4-5; 12:29-30)
This plague marked the failure of Pharoah himself, who was considered a god. He was powerless to stop it - even losing his own firstborn.

The above is an excerpt from the Discovery Series booklet Moses: His anger and what it cost him from RBC Ministries, publishers of Our Daily Bread.

Vel turns five

2008-12-08T12:30:00.006+08:00

Five years ago on this very day, God blessed us with a little baby girl that we would later name Velouria. Looking back, it seems like only yesterday when we were frantically driving to the hospital as Penny's water broke, then the seemingly nerve wrecking 12 hour wait as I went walking around Orchard to while my time away.

We woke up a little late - our initial plan to go to the zoo were hampered by the rain that had been coming down all night. I reached for my guitar and sang a 'Happy Birthday' for Velouria as she woke up. She thought it was quite amusing so she decided to reach for her toy guitar and joined me in a (mock) attempt to play something.

It was already quite late by the time we had washed up and packed the house a bit, and since it was a nice, lazy morning we just decided to head to McDonald's for breakfast. Being Velouria's birthday, Penny and I made a pact earlier to accede to all her whims and fancies as long as they were within reasonable means. No better way to perk up her day than to start off with a Hotcakes Happy Meal!

After a roundabout to the Science Centre and back (the crowd there was horrendous!), we ended up at the McDonald's at Jurong Green Community Centre. Tempted as I was, I decided to have my usual SME instead of the Mega SME (after the disappointing BK stacker, I had but lost all hope in these supersized burgers). Velouria, as usual, couldn't decide whether to play with her toy or gobble down her Hotcakes. I guess she enjoyed the latter more as she ended up with margarine and maple syrup all over her cherubic little face.

It was back home after that. I had to take a crap and Velouria wanted to take her ang pao that Uncle Mike had blessed her with a day earlier before we went shopping. We had promised her that since the money was hers, she could buy whatever she wanted. We never made it for our shopping trip - the lull of our comforting home coupled with the cool weather made it difficult to leave again.

Before we knew it, it was time for lunch! Already quite tired of outside food which was deepened by the thought of dining at a restaurant that night, Penny and I just raided the fridge and dragged out whatever we could to whip up a simple meal. Which consisted of (among other dishes) a minced pork omellette, stir-fried celery with crab stix (we didn't have chicken to go along) and boiled brocolli.

Tired out by the array of activities (we seem to get tired easily nowaday), we decided to take a little nap since it was still drizzling outside. We planned to hit the Toys R Us before we to Liang Court to meet Yeh-yeh and Nai-nai for dinner, but our little afternoon nap took a little longer than originally planned and we only awoke at about 6PM. A little freaked out, we quickly washed up and changed before zipping out of the house.

Liang Court sort of took me by surprise when we walked in. The last time we were here, it was still the dead town that had become so familiar ever since Daimaru and the flea market at Clarke Quay ceased their operations. Confused by the shiny bright lights it took us a while to finally figure out how to get to Dragon Phoenix where we were suppose to have dinner.

Everyone was already there by the time we found the restaurant, so the dinner got underway a short while later. The food was, no surprises here, of a standard expected from such retro restaurants i.e. yummy! We started off with sharks' fin soup, had a yam ring, Peking duck and a crispy roasted spring chicken along the way.

Velouria, of course, had fun opening all the presents bestowed upon her, among which were tau sa piah from Hong Lim Complex - my mum's idea of a prank (yes, Velouria enjoys such traditional snacks that appeals largely to the senior citizen crowd) and a colour pencil set that strangely had a price tag of £1.50 still attached to it from my bro.

After opening all her presents, Velouria got bored so she dragged me outside to the hotel's kids' corner where there was a PS3 hooked up to a plasma TV (it was very well concealed behind the TV - the only reason I knew it was there was because I saw a kid playing there as we walked into the restaurants) while everybody else was chilling inside. The only game in the PS3 was Sonic, so I turned it on for her to entertain herself.

The game pretty much sucked so she got bored after a while. Fortunately, by then it was time to head for home anyway.

As we hit our beds, I thanked God for the fabulous five years that He has blessed us with Velouria as I looked back at all the ups and downs we went through while raising her. My prayer every day is that we will raise her to be a God fearing child who will bring glory to His kingdom.

Hopefully, I will be able to attest to that a decade later when I look back.

Burger no enough

2008-12-02T12:21:00.013+08:00

Of late, two major burger chains have been duking it out with each other for who has the most monstrous burger in town. I reckon they are feeling the heat from Carl's Jr, the chain with the REAL monster burgers.

I've never been a big fan of Ronald, so we decided to pop into a Burger King chain last night. I've always favoured BK as their burgers seemed to have that freshly grilled taste as opposed to others that always had that pre-cooked, microwave taste. Being someone with a rather big appetite despite my slim frame, I was gunning for the Quad Stacker. But since Penny also ordered a Whopper Jr meal and even upsized it, I relegated it instead to a Triple Stacker.

Imagine my surprise, horror and disappointment when the burger arrived on the tray. My first reaction was 'Huh?! So small?!' This reaction was echoed further when I unwrapped it. Firstly the beef patties were wafer thin, nothing like what was being pictured. In fact, they were so thin I had a problem figuring out if there were indeed three patties sandwiched between the buns! They had to rub salt into the wound by even running out of the so-called 'special' Stacker sauce that was supposed to be added.

Sorely dissatisfied with our dinner, we grumbled that we would have been better off at Pepper Lunch. So much for being Brave. I suppose it wouldn't take more to be Ballsy.

Back to Carl's Jr for me!

Napoli - il giorno sei Naples - day six

2008-11-13T14:30:00.016+08:00

We barely had 6 hours of sleep before we got up. Like our flight from Singapore, I reckoned we could sleep on the flight back. Our flight to Munich was scheduled to leave at 6:30AM so we were just being typical Singaporeans and wanted to check in 2 hours before departure time. I awoke at 3AM to wash up and pack up all the things one final time, trying desperately to shove all the junk food that we’d bought without crushing the two huge bags of potato chips into our hand carry luggage (we could munch on the plane!). We bid our final farewells to our nice cosy room and headed down noisily (our luggage was damn heavy) to the reception to check out. Within five minutes, our cab to the airport arrived and sent us there in another fifteen since the streets were dead at this time of the morning.

When we arrived, the departure hall was dead quiet, save for one uncle mopping the floor. There were other travelers sleeping on the benches, perhaps in an attempt to save themselves from paying for an extra night at the hotel. My watch read 4:15AM, but yet signs of life were minimal. Being so used to a bustling Changi airport, the least I expected was some airport staff milling around. About an hour later, when my watch read 5:20AM the staff manning the check in counter finally came. We proceeded to check in to get our boarding passes for our flights to Munich and subsequently back to Singapore. Not knowing what else to do in the otherwise activity-deficient airport, we headed towards the departure gate, but even there the staff were just waking up and hadn’t even unlocked the doors yet. It took them another good ten minutes before they woke up, unlocked the doors and got the X-ray machines powered up.

‘What’s up with these people?’ I wondered to myself. Our flight was less than an hour away and these people seemed to care less. As we approached the boarding gates, I realized that the clock hanging from the ceiling read 5:15AM but my watch was already reading 6:15AM, just like the TV clock back at the hotel. I thought my watch had died on me without my knowledge again. Since, according to the clock, we had about an hour to go, we went up one level towards a café for some light breakfast. It was there that Penny learned the time was turned one hour back on Saturday (the day we were in Rome) as it officially marked the beginning of winter. But nobody told us, which meant that we had been living an hour ahead of time all this while. Which suddenly made sense now with the long wait at the check-in counter, the clock at the hotel, the café staff getting mad at us when we went down waaaaay too early for breakfast, etc.

Finally at 6:25AM, the boarding gates opened and we boarded the bus that would take us to the plane. As the plane took off, we could see the sun rise beaming down on Naples to wake the city up. We bid our final farewells to the city that was etched so deeply into our memories for so many different reasons. The in-flight snack came next before we could get some shut eye – it was that same sandwich made with parma ham, but without the accompanying chocolate bar this time round. The bread was so hard that you could probably hijack the plane with it, so I only took two bites of it and went to sleep. Next thing I knew, we were in Munich.

It was drizzling when the plane landed and the cold 10˚C temperature sort of took us by surprise – we expected it to be cold, but we didn’t expect that it’ll be made colder by the rain. As we got into the main building, we headed to clear the immigration and asked the information counter for directions on taking the subway to town. We figured since we had 4 hours to kill, we might as well see some sights in Munich. But the €18 ticket and the thought of scuttling around again made us rethink our plan. Fortunately, the airport had another shopping area attached to the main building so we headed towards there in search of ‘breakfast’ (it was only about 9AM by the time we got out) and hoping to kill some of our 4 hours. We found a little Nordic seafood shop and ordered some hot soup which I’d been craving for since our second day in Naples (contrary to what I thought, minestrone is NOT Italian) along with some tea. We never felt shiok-er (for lack of a better word)! After slurping up every drop of soup and wiping the bowl dry with the piece of bun provided, we proceeded to explore the rest of the shopping centre - stopping by a toy shop to purchase a Playmobil set for Danielle, Grace’s daughter; hanging out at a book shop browsing through comics and cookbooks in German and some German porn (segregated into different categories depending on your fetish!). We ended our shopping at a supermarket to buy even more tidbits (chocolates for me and a Wall-E Pez dispenser for Velouria since we’d promised her a Wall-E toy).

As we reached the boarding gate to our flight, we realized how crowded it was and were quite gloomy with the possibility of the flight home being full – which meant we didn’t have the luxury of spreading ourselves over 4 seats to snooze like our flight from Singapore. How were we going to while away 13 hours of flight time without being able to lie down and sleep?? True enough, it was indeed full and we were shoulder to shoulder with a plane full of Ozzies and Kiwis (they were continuing their journey on a connecting flight in Singapore to Australia and NZ respectively).

The flight was rather uneventful. We couldn’t really sleep as we were seated upright, so we just dozed a little here and there. We couldn’t stomach another meal of meat and potatoes and since we were craving for hot soup, we requested for Nissin cup noodles, which the attendant was nice enough to bring back later (try that on SQ and I’m sure they’ll tell you ‘Sure, we’ll stop the plane and you can go buy your own’). We managed to sit through Meet Dave which was quite hilarious (albeit a little too short to burn a substantial amount of our 13 hour flight) but the rest of the movies we’d already seen on our flight from Singapore.

Funny thing was (perhaps it was my dozing), the flight back was not as painful as I thought it would be since we were seated upright all the time. I didn’t even get out of my seat the entire flight - something I’d never accomplished before on any flight, let alone a 13 hour one! We landed in Singapore at 8:30AM and we couldn’t be happier to be home.

I can’t say this enough, but praise the Lord for this wonderful blessing that He’s given us. We just wanted to head home to sleep, and then probably head to Redhill for a hot, steaming bowl of our favourite fish soup and a nice massage to soothe our aching backs and necks.

Napoli - il giorno cinque Naples - day five

2008-11-10T17:49:00.027+08:00

On our last day in Naples, we woke up really early since we went to bed rather early as well the night before. We wanted to hit the markets first thing in the morning, and since breakfast was served at 7AM we were up at 6:30AM having gone to bed at an unlikely time of 9:30PM the night before. We had to go down three times just to get our breakfast – at 7AM only to be told by the reception that breakfast was served at 7:30AM; again at 7:30AM only to be told by very grouchy café staff that they weren’t ready till 8AM; finally at 8AM when everything was ready. In between we just passed our time watching He-Man and the Masters of the Universe on TV. In Italian.

Breakfast here was simpler, not as fancy as Grand Hotel Oriente. Only one type of everything - bread, biscuit, tart, juice (orange from concentrate; it wasn’t even freshly squeezed!), ham, cheese, cereal, tea. But praise the Lord, they had cappuccino and Nutella! That was all I needed. Nutella with bread, Nutella with biscuit...

Crossing the road from our hotel, we decided to hit the supermarket first. Needed to buy something for the folks back home, and what better to give than local produce? As usual we just ooh-ed and ah-ed (being the Singaporeans that we are) at all the assortments of hams and cheese at the delicatessen counter, along with all the other merchandise on offer. We ended up with only sweets, chocolates (all the Ferrero stuff, with a dark chocolate version of Rocher!) and other manner of tidbits because everything else was just too damn expensive!

After heading back to our room to lighten our load, we went to the bus stop again (this time knowing full well where to get our bus tickets from!) to make our way towards Via Antonio Ranieri, the Napoli version of Hong Kong’s Temple Street. We got off the bus that travelled along Corso Umberto after spotting some stalls at a little lane off the main road – I still couldn’t figure out where the street signs were and the map didn’t make much sense to me. We followed the lane and, voila, found ourselves right smack in the middle of a horde of stalls peddling shoes, clothes, handbags, sunglasses and other fashion apparel. After circling the whole market, we only managed to find a pair of Converse-esque sneakers for Velouria. Dissatisfied that we still hadn’t satiated our craving for street food, we crossed Corso Umberto to head towards another market around the Via Rafealla Conferti area.

On this side, the market was older skool. The streets were lined with quaint little shops selling bread, groceries and gelato, among other things. The buildings here were older but still retained a certain charm about them. It was like one of those old neighborhoods that you’d see in an old black and white movie with Sophia Loren in it. Out of nowhere there was even an arch – a lovely piece of architecture that you’d least expect to see in an old, ramshackle neighbourhood.

Then, by the grace of God, we finally found one! An inconspicuous, kopitiam style shop in an unassuming corner with a little counter at the front selling pizza by the slice (at €1.50 a pop) and other fried fritters. With the help of a nice Italian lady who was also there buying some stuff to munch, we ordered some mashed potato fritters (something like a croquette) and some corn fritter (we heard the Italian lady say ‘mice’ initially, which had us taken aback for a while, but she actually meant ‘maize’).

Satisfied with our loot, we made our way back to Via Anotnio Ranieri in search of a some running shoes for Penny as her feet were beginning to hurt. Although we didn’t manage to find anything, we did have time to stop by a funny little toy shop – it was almost Halloween so there was plenty of amusing items being merchandised. We ventured further into the neighbourhood as I wanted to search for the Spacconelli - the longest and narrowest straight road in Naples that apparently split the city between the ‘old’ from the the ‘new’. However, after walking around in circles again (the map said we were there but I didn’t see any long, straight road), we decided to call it quits as we needed a toilet break. We ventured down one of the streets that I reckoned would lead us back to Corso Umberto (where we could hop onto another bus) and found an Asian supermarket selling stuff you’d normally find in your neighbourhood Econ mini-mart – Yeo’s Asian Drinks, Lee Kum Kee Oyster Sauce, Lee Chee Seng Sesame Oil, Royal Umbrella Rice, etc. Purchasing a can of herbal tea, we made use of the opportunity to borrow the washroom. Penny (as usual) struck up a conversation with the store owners and we found out they were from China (there they are yet again!).

We continued to make our way towards Corso Umberto again take a bus to the other side of town (we were what was considered the ‘old’ Naples, there was another street market at the ‘new’ Naples). It was a long wait for the bus as every bus which we could take seemed to be packed to the brim! When we finally got on one, it was a huge squeeze and Penny almost died being crushed by all the bigger, taller ang mohs that surrounded her. A change of bus later and we found ourselves at Villa Communale, the huge park by the sea looking out on to the Bay of Naples, where the famous aquarium was (though we never went in). Our stomachs were already rumbling despite the fritters we had earlier, so we decided to head towards our lunch venue first before hitting the street market.

Having had Italian food the past few days, we were craving for a thick slab of juicy steak so we headed to an American joint called Bar-B-Qool. Sources tell us that the American Consulate was in this area, so this was where all the cool restaurants and hang-out joints are since the Italians are so enamoured with all things American.

True enough, the Bar-B-Qool didn’t disappoint. We sat outside since it was such a fine day (but the wind nearly shrank my b***s). The staff spoke really good English, so we indeed got what we ordered (no surprises like the lobster spaghetti here). The appetizer of some chicken wings made with their home-made sauce and our main entrée of a ribeye steak was nothing short of fantastic. To top it all, we had live entertainment in the form of a road accident happening right in front of us (though we didn’t actually see it ‘cos we were so engrossed with our grub) – two scooters had crashed into each other and one rider was flung from his bike and quite badly injured. Interesting thing was, everybody just rushed out to help – passers-by got off their vehicles to help the victims, while others helped to direct traffic; the manager from the restaurant went out as well, with one of his staff bringing water to the victims. If it were to happen in Singapore, people would just stand around waiting for somebody else to do something, while they are copying down 4D numbers instead. Within a minute, the police and ambulance arrived. Impressive!

Satisfied with our lunch, we went off to hunt for our market. We went down the (in my opinion) wrong street where all the luxury boutiques were – Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, et al. The staff were surprisingly friendly, unlike those in Singapore who would give you that ‘get out if you don’t have money to buy’ kinda look. Yes, true, we didn’t have the moolah to buy anything, we were just there to check out the designs so we could buy the fake ones later. We got lost for quite a bit as, again, I was confused by the map and all the street names. We did pass by some interesting monuments though, like a statue in another piazza and some embassy where security was tight.

We sauntered on and finally stumbled upon the market we were looking for. Unfortunately, it was already quite late so most of the stall holders had already begun packing up. Here, more clothes, bags and other fashion apparel were on offer but looked more fashionable than the ones earlier. Penny almost picked up a bag for €20, but later changed her mind when I concluded it didn’t make sense since she bought her fake Gucci for the same price as well.

Disheartened by the lack of any bargains, we stopped by an espresso bar for some cappuccino to take a break after all the walking (again!). And, wow, was the coffee wonderful. Perhaps it was the chilly air, or maybe it was just the ambience (the very being of in a streetside café in Italy) that made the cappuccino taste exceptionally good! We took a break to take stock of where we were heading for next. First thing we needed was a toilet break – public washrooms are hard to come by (we Singaporeans are so spoilt) - so we decided to walk back to the restaurant we had lunch in earlier (luckily they remembered us, else we would have just peed in our pants) and proceed our walk further back down Via Parthenope by the sea to see Castel Dell’Ovo.

It was beautiful as we strolled by the sea. People were hopping out onto the wave breakers to just chill out and we were tempted to do likewise. But we didn’t have the luxury of time to chill out on rocks so we proceeded on towards the ‘Oval Castle’.

A really long walk later (the entrance to the castle was actually below it near the back so we had to cross a bridge and walk around the side), we finally entered Castel Dell’Ovo and just blur our way around. Somehow or other, we found our way to the top and we did the usual touristy things, taking in the view that the height of the castle provided (we must have been about 15 storeys high – I almost fainted when Penny told me to sit on one of the side walls to take a pic of me with the city in the background), snapping photos of some strategically placed cannons and such. It was quite an amazing sight as the castle was quite huge – with its own streets and all – and it was being refurbished into an office building.

That was the last stop for the day. The next mistake I made was to walk down Via Parthenope to the bus stop to catch the bus back to our hotel. I had misread the map and miscalculated our distance. And, schisse, was it a loooooong walk. We ended up circling the entire seaside before reaching the bus stop when we should have just walked back to where we got off earlier to get on the bus (where the bus would cut through a tunnel to shorten the distance). Quite obviously, I was given an earful by Penny about making her walk miles and miles since our first day and about how her legs were aching. Oops, my bad!

We finally got onto the bus in one piece and got off at Via Medina (where we had our ketok case lobster spaghetti) to walk (again!) back to our hotel. On the way, we passed a street kiosk selling freshly squeezed orange juice (strangely, we never noticed the guy before despite passing this spot on numerous occasions before this). It had a tinge of lemon juice in it too and it was a welcome refreshment to our parched throats after all that walking.

We took a short break in the hotel room to wash and pack up, not knowing what to have for dinner – contrary to what I thought, we were quite tired of having pizza and pasta at every meal. There was a Chinese restaurant across the road but it just seemed so silly having to pay a bomb for what we could normally whip up at home (that meal at the Chinese restaurant in Gold Coast which cost us an arm and a leg came to my mind). We decided to just walk around and walk into the first restaurant that looked enticing to us.

Surprisingly, many restaurants were closed (it was only about 7PM) and the streets were starting wind down. We passed a McDonald’s and saw a poster which featured a Quarter Pounder made with ciabatta bread and Italian cheese, so we thought ‘Hey, why not?’. It may seem silly to be munching on a burger when we were in a city that had so much more to offer, but I had no regrets ordering that burger! The combination of the ciabatta bread with the parmaggiano regianno cheese, along with the thick beef patty, was something extraordinary that you would perhaps only find in Italy. It was a delightful shock to the palates with all the different sensations that the ingredients offered – a tad bland with the bread; the rich savoury taste of the juicy beef patty; the amalgamation of sauces and the light, sourish note of the cheese – which makes me drool just thinking about it.

After the wonderful meal, we took a really slow walk back to the hotel. It was, after all, our last night in Naples. We took the effort to breathe in the chilling night air and remember every sound that the city made. Over the past few days, we had meandered around the city so much that we seemed to know it at the back of our hands (more or less).

We packed our things one last time as we reached our room – our flight was at 6:30AM and we had to be at the airport really early. We were really grateful that God had blessed us with this trip and couldn’t have asked for more. We fell asleep with that thought, grateful that we were blessed enough to be flown halfway round the world into a country that we would have least expected to visit.

Napoli - il giorno quattro Naples -day four

2008-11-07T09:56:00.011+08:00

After two days of intense walking and tons of activities, we decided to sleep a little later on Sunday. Spent some time with God after waking up since we couldn’t find a church to go to; it was Sunday after all. As usual, we headed downstairs for breakfast – our last in Grand Hotel Oriente since we were going to check out from here and move down the road to a cheaper hotel, Hotel Executive (rooms here cost S$240 a night, compared to S$117 down the road).

We gobbled down our breakfast and proceeded to bid our farewell to the hotel, paying €2 for a bottle of sparkling water we took from the fridge (they don’t serve complimentary bottled water here). Dragging our luggage down the street was more difficult than I thought with the cobbled stones on the pavement and the tiled roads! By the time we reached the next hotel, my arm had almost gone numb. But we couldn’t check in till after 12 noon, we were told, as the rooms weren’t ready yet.

So off to the market we went again. As we walked around, we realised that everything around us was closed. We thought it was a morning thing but later found out it was a Sunday thing. Even the McDonald’s next to our hotel was closed! It was like a ghost town.

According to the guidebook, La Pignasseca was the only market that was open on Sunday so we headed back there again. This time round (probably because it was quite late) more stalls were open. We relished the sight and smells of more live seafood, fresh flowers and delectable confectionery and pastries. There were more fake handbags on sale too – guess all the peddlers were eager to cash in on the weekend crowd. We walked along and found a fruit stall, so we bought ourselves a pear and some strawberries since our diet consisted of nothing but junk in the past few days. Gobbling down the sweet strawberries, we reached the end of La Pignasecca without coming across anything else that caught our fancy.

With everything else closed and nothing much else to do, we decided to do the customary tourist thing and see the city via the Napoli City Sightseeing bus (similar to our Hippo Tours, where all the ang mohs would hop on to see Chinatown, Esplanade and other such touristy places) . We took a walk towards Castel Nuovo where the bus terminus was. We sauntered around Castel Nuovo a bit and snapped some pics, since it was one of the many legendary, must-see sights in Naples. Never in my life have I come up close and personal with so many castles within such a short span of time (this was the second one after Castel Sant Angelo in Rome the day before).

The bus that we wanted to take, the route that travels along the bay of Naples, came by but it was too full to get on. I suppose we were not the only ones who wanted to see the postcard picturesque view of Naples with Mt Vesuvius in the background. After a few no-goes with the next few buses (credit card machine not working, too many people, among other reasons we couldn’t fathom because of the guides’ atrocious English), we were starting to get impatient so we just hopped on the next bus (the historic route) that came along.

We got off at Piazza Dante, after passing by some sections of the ‘old Naples’ with the chapels and medieval buildings, which is supposedly some intellectual corner with all the old bookshops (probably an equivalent of our old Bras Basah) and Speakers’ Corner-esque activities at night. We got on to another bus (the artistic route), which brought us past the Museo Archelogico (an archeological museum with artefacts excavated from Pompei and Herculaneum), the Sant Gennaro chapel (with the catacombs underneath, yikes!), the MADRE art gallery (some hip-and-happening contemporary art place) and the Museo e Bosco di Capodimonte (their national museum?). We got off the bus near Hotel Executive as it was past 12 noon so it was time to check in.

Our new hotel had a classic, rustic charm to it. It gave a homelier, cosier feel compared to the hotel we were in the past few nights. At S$117 a night, it was also relatively smaller than the previous S$240 a night room. But who cares, we only needed a place to lay our head and shower. After checking in (our luggage had been brought up to the room once it was ready) and going up to our room, we asked the guy at the recep for a recommendation for lunch. We were famished! He pointed us towards Ciro’s, a tratorria along Via Medina, a street perpendicular to where we were and just a 5 mins walk from the hotel. Along the way, we gave a quick call home to Vel who was at my parents’ since it was Deepavali back in Singapore.

The lunch, as expected, was fabulous. We realised that it was a norm to have pizza as an appetiser before the meal. Knowing that the pizza was too much for either of us to finish, we ordered one to share. The shocker of shockers was our main course of spaghetti. When we asked for a recommendation, the head waiter told us of their ‘special of the day’, with tomatoes from Vesuvio and something which we couldn’t figure out ‘fresh from the sea’ (we thought it was clams or something). It turned out to be lobster. Penny couldn’t stop laughing when she my face as I thought to myself, ‘Jia lat, kena ketok liao’. Praise the Lord the bill only came up to about €50, considered a reasonable amount for a decent meal.

We left Ciro’s feeling absolutely delighted with our lunch and headed back to the front of Castel Nuovo to wait for the Bay of Naples City Sightseeing bus. Surprisingly, it was quite empty now, perhaps because it was already rather late in the afternoon (it was about 3:30PM by the time we boarded the bus). We found a good seat on the upper deck and couldn’t wait for the bus to move off.

It plied along Via Parthenope by the sea, passing by Villa Communale along the way, before we hit Via Posillipo where the swanky residences are. From the top deck, we could see boardwalks extended from people’s houses and there were actually people sunbathing in the 20˚C weather! Insane!! It was windy as hell and it didn’t help that in our haste to fill our stomachs I had forgotten to bring my sweater with me! The bus came to a stop at a point that provided that typical tourist postcard shot – a full view of the Bay of Naples with Mt Vesuvius in the background. The bus moved along after everyone had their fill of snapping. On the way back, the bus plied along the sea again, passing Castel Dell’Ovo along the way and finally coming to a halt at the front of Castel Nuovo.

We took a walk back to Piazza Plebiscito, where the concert was a few nights back, since it was nearby - we wanted to take a look at it during the day. We hung around and snapped some photos and made our way into the Royal Palace. To our surprise, the ineterior had actually been converted into a museum.

Arty farty sculptures aplenty, we walked further in and ventured into the museum which housed displays of items and artefacts that were used in previous productions staged at Teatro San Carlo, the oldest theatre in Italy. We milled around a bit, being our usual nonsense self and trying to make sense of the arty stuff.

Though we failed, we tried to sneak into the Teatro San Carlo for a peek. Unfortunately, it was under renovation and the fursthest we went was the stairs at the entrance. As we made our way back, we strolled pass Galleria Umberto just to gawk at the intricate architecture. This was another old, colonial building refurbished to house high-end designer boutiques today. With nothing else to do, we made our way back to the hotel to get some rest before coming out again to hunt for our dinner.

We set out at about 6:30PM and decided to hit the streets again. We were not very hungry as the pizza and lobster spaghetti we had for lunch was still very much in our stomachs. Since we were quite tired with restaurant food, we walked down Corso Umberto in search of a small café or pizzeria to junk on some nonsense. Unfortunately, everything was closed as we trudged along although it was only 7PM. We finally decided to call it quits when we walked two-thirds of the looong Corso Umberto and reached Piazza Nicola Amore. As we circled the square, we noticed lights coming from a small shop selling cigarettes and titbits (kinda like a mamak stall). Delighted to see that something was open, we walked in and bought ourselves some titbits to bring back to the hotel.

We munched on our crackers and Tronky and washed it down with Coke as we vegetated in front of the TV. What a way to spend a Sunday evening when you’re halfway round the world. Penny was quite tired so she slept early. Me, I spent the rest of the night watching Back to the Future II in Italian. It didn’t matter thatIdon't speak Italian as I’d seen this movie umpteen times and knew the dialogue at the back of my hand.

As I went to sleep, I noticed that the clock on the TV read 20:32 while it was already 9:30PM on my watch. Strange…

Napoli - il giorno tre Naples - day three

2008-11-05T09:51:00.022+08:00

Tired out by the activities we embarked on the day earlier, Penny and I woke up rather late. After washing up, we zombied our way down to the café for our breakfast. It was still the same old spread as yesterday. At least they bothered to change the flavour of the yoghurts.

Today was the day we hit Rome. Apparently the train ride was only 2 hours so we intended to spend our day there, coming back in time for dinner. We headed for the bus stop to hop onto a bus to Garibaldi Centrale where we would board the train and, again by the grace of God, learned that we had to buy our bus tickets in advance from a shop behind the bus stop (what a weird arrangement!). All because Penny needed to break up our notes for some change to dunk into the jackpot machine.

As soon as we reached Garibaldi Centrale, we headed for the office where we could buy our train tickets from a very grouchy man, who was attending to two Chinese girls (there they are again!). Turned out these girls were actually studying in NTU and were there for their vacation!

Superbly excited by our visit to Rome, we were quite annoyed when our 10:30AM train was delayed. We stood at the designated platform buying titbits from the vending machine (€2 for a packet of Twisties!) and finally at 11:00AM the train appeared. Unsure of what to do we just followed the flow of the crowd and plonked our butts down at the nearest carriage we could find. A short while later, a woman came in rambling in Italian; turns out we were in her seat. It was then we realised that the tickets had seat numbers allocated on them. Again by the grace of God, we somehow landed in the right carriage but in the wrong seat!

Moving out from Naples, we passed by mostly farms and countrysides and through a few mountains. With nothing to do, Penny and I tried to get some shut eye since we were still quite zonked. Couldn’t really get into a deep sleep as the seats were not reclinable like those on an airplane. We filled our time by munching on our expensive titbits and snapping photos. As we neared Rome, we could see ruins of what used to be the city walls. This was confirmed when we asked the Italian woman whose seat we’d taken earlier, ‘Roma Termini?’ and she replied, ‘Si, si!’

We were like bats out of hell when we disembarked from the train; the anticipation deepened by the delayed train was killing us! We made our way towards the subway (which I figured should be connected to the train station) and bought a one-day ticket. That would allow us to move around freely without having to worry about purchasing tickets again. We took a ride to the Colosseo station and, boy, was the train packed (we only realised later that night over the news on TV that there was a demonstration going on and there we were scratching our heads over the strong police presence in the vicinity).

The famed Colosseum was right smack in front of the subway entrance when we got out. Again, I was awe struck by the sight of the structure itself – it was just marvellous! Our stomachs were rumbling a little so we grabbed a sandwich from a kiosk nearby (costing us €6, wah lau!). Crossing the road to join the already crowded area in front of the Colosseum, we came across more fake bags and knick knacks being sold. A few pictures and one sandwich later, we came across a group of guys dressed as Roman soldiers. We thought it’d be fun to get a shot with them, so we went up and ended up getting hustled of €20. I’ll never trust Roman soldiers again.

We circled the magnificent structure and made our way back the entrance, planning to buy our entrance tickets. But the extremely looooong queue made us abandon the inclination of entering the Colosseum premises. We crossed the road again and up some stairs to a higher vantage point. There, we took more photos of the Colosseum as well as the Foro Romano next to it. Our next stop was the Vatican City so we asked for directions from some policemen lounging around. According to them, there was a ‘manifestazion’ going on (we thought it was some Chingay-esque festival but this was the demonstration we would see on the news later that night) and the streets were closed, so our best bet was still the subway.

As we went back down the stairs, we passed by a woman beggar whom we’d ignored earlier as we made our way up. Strange thing was, simultaneously, Penny and stopped dead in our tracks and turned around. I was digging my pocket for loose change when Penny said, “I think God just reminded me of something”. I couldn’t agree more. Just as we were passing the beggar, a small voice inside reminded me of the scripture that says we are to show kindness and mercy to the poor. We drop some change into the woman’s cup and made our way into the subway station.

Squeezing with the crowd, we got out at the Ottaviano station. From here, it was a short walk to the Vatican City. Along the way, we passed more boutiques and replica handbag stalls. Penny picked up a fake Gucci along the way from an African dude for €20, which was quite a steal considering he was asking for €45 up front. Moving along, we passed by a side gate of the Vatican City and there were throngs of people there snapping their cameras away. It was not long before the columns of St. Peter’s Square were visible. Again, I was awe struck by the enormity of the whole square as we stepped through the columns and out into the open. As was with the concert the night before, I wanted to cry as I couldn’t believe I was actually there in person.

We milled around the square for a bit taking pictures here and there of anything we came across. The queue to get into the City itself was also really long so we didn’t bother. There was a mailbox just oustisde the entrance, presumably for people wanting to mail stuff to their loved ones living within the city itself. Even the washroom was a monument by itself! Penny took a little trip in while I waited outside for her.

Having seen enough of the Vatican City, our next stop was the Castel Sant Angelo which was just down the road. As we walked down, we passed by a very solemn Roman Catholic procession going on - chants of 'Ave Maria!' and such were audible. Didn’t manage to find out what it was about since everyone was so sombre. Next thing we knew, an open top double decker bus dressed in High School Musical 3 livery screeched around the corner, filled with screaming teenage girls waving to passers-by. Quite obviously, this was a stunt to promote the upcoming movie. Juxtaposed to the solemn procession that had just gone by, it was just hilarious.

The view up the street as we approached Castel Sant Angelo was another postcard-worthy shot. We could see the dome of the Vatican City sticking out in the background of a very long, straight street. Back at Castel Sant Angelo, we didn’t have much time left to go in so we just hung around outside to snap some photos (of which one was taken by a very rude and grouchy German tourist who got evidently grouchier when he couldn’t find a view finder to look through on our camera). It was a very touch-and-go stopover as we planned to stop by a few more sites on the way back to catch our Naples bound train. We walked back to the nearest subway station (with Penny’s legs almost giving way) and hopped onto the subway back to Roma Termini.

Still, we managed to hop out of our trains to see the Fontana Tritone, the Teatro Dell Opera, among other things. Somehow we missed the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain... dunno why.

It was almost 5:30PM when we got back to the railway station. With about an hour to burn, we plonked our tired asses down at the nearest café we could find and ordered a chicken set meal. We were both too tired to eat but our stomachs were growling since the last thing we had eaten was the sandwich at the Colosseum. Our train for Naples left at about 6:45PM (delayed again) and this time round, I knocked out for most of the journey back, despite sitting next to an old, irritating couple who refused to open the window and almost suffocated everyone as a result.

It was about 9:30PM when we got back to our hotel. We were never happier to see our beds – we didn’t even want to worry about what to do tomorrow…

Napoli - il giorno due Naples - day two

2008-11-04T09:13:00.020+08:00

I was up at 6:30 AM sharp on the second day (technically, it was our first effective day in Naples). God blessed us with a beautiful day; the sun was just beginning to rise as I stepped out onto the balcony and the city was just beginning to wake up. Breakfast started at 7:30 AM so being typical, kiasu Singaporeans we wanted to grab breakfast first thing in the morning in order to squeeze as many things into our itinerary for that day.

We headed down to the second floor (secondo piano, the elevator announced, which was actually the third floor since they start counting from piano terra - the ground floor) where the breakfast was served. It wasn't a fancy spread - just some buns, ham, cheese, tarts, eggs (who eats hard boiled eggs in the morning??), yoghurt and a selection of tea. It was sort of a letdown as I was expecting those intercontinental spreads that we were so used to at 5-star hotels. Gobbling down some buns with ham and washing it down with tea just to fill our stomachs, we made our way down to the reception to ask for directions and other touristy questions.

We decided to hit the La Pignasecca market first. According to the guidebook, it was the oldest market in Naples and the nearest one to our hotel. The rest would just have to wait. To get there, we had to take a stroll up Via Toledo, which is a shopping street filled with boutiques and cafes. Nothing was open at that time of the day - there was just the morning crowd rushing to work. About 10 min later, we wandered off Via Toledo into this little street (couldn't figure out where the street signs were, but we realised later it was actually La Pignasseca itself) because Penny noticed some fruit stalls. She even bought a sweater from a stall run by some Chinese folks (aren't they everywhere these days??) for €7.

Wandering further into the street we found a seafood stall which had so many different variations of aquatic life forms on offer. Just looking at the clams alone, there were at least six varieties there (not counting the mussels and see hum)! And there were fish in all different manners and sizes, squids, octopuses (or octopi?), stingrays - it just made my head spin taking in everything! If we had access to a kitchen, I reckon we would have bought ourselves a few crabs and fish just to get a taste of the Italian sea.

Having irritated the stall holders enough with all our picture taking, we moseyed further yet into the market and came across a vegetable stall. Again, we were awed by the variety of fresh produce they had to offer! Everything looked so succulent like they had just been harvested from the ground (there was still dirt and mud on them)! There was so much vibrancy and colour to the vegetables that we were tempted to buy one of each item just to bring them back with us.

As we wandered further, we realised that perhaps we were still too early so many of the stalls were not open yet (the guidebook says the market opens at 8 AM). We decided to head back to the hotel to book our day tour to the Pompei city ruins and Mount Vesuvius, the volcano responsible for burying the said city. The bus for the tour had already left, so the tour agency sent a Benz to send us to the first stop – Pompei city.

Our guide there, Esmiralda, bought the tickets for us and explained how to use our audio guides (we had missed the group by about 45 minutes so we didn’t get a speaking guide with us). We opened up the map and almost fainted when we saw how big the entire area was. We had only one and a half hours to cover what would normally take 4 hours. So we ran! We decided that since we didn’t have enough time to cover everything, we could only see the major stuff. We stuck pretty much to the main street, turning off every once in a while should we come across anything interesting or to snap some photos, but our main objective was to see the colossuem at the other end of the city. Which was pretty much worth it in the end - the colossuem was just incredible!

It was magnificent but yet heart-rending at the same time as we went about viewing the other excavated remains of Pompei city. Remnants of what used to be residences, gymnasiums, amphitheatres and town centres served as grim reminders of Mount Vesuvius’ enormous eruption which buried the city in 79 A.D. With Mt Vesuvius looming in the background, it wasn’t hard to imagine how frightening it must have been back then.

In an enclosure were also other excavated artefacts that once belonged to the people of Pompei – vases, pots, push carts and sculptures – along with actual human and animal bodies that were preserved by the volcanic ash. Fascinating but creepy.

We made our way back to the entrance in exactly one and a half hours and Esmiralda showed us to a nearby restaurant, Ristorante Vesuvio, for our first Italian lunch. We started off with salad (no dressing, just EVOO and lemon) and a plate of fried battered sotong and prawns. Up next was a spaghetti vongole (with ultra sweeeet clams) and gelato for dessert. Wonderful!

Our next driver, Feliche, arrived and ushered us into yet another Benz to drive us up Mt Vesuvius. He didn’t speak much English so most of our conversations along the way were accompanied by a lot of gesturing. After about a 15 minutes drive up the winding roads (which nearly made us puke), we stopped at a car park that was near the peak – we had to hike the rest of the way up! We almost fainted when we looked at the long trail ahead of us that disappeared around the side of the volcano. But the long hike up was quite interesting as we looked down on the city – makes you realise how awesome God is by creating everything around us.

Half an hour later, we heaved a sigh of relief when we finally got to the crater. The trail continued, circling the crater but we were satisfied with getting to where we were. Several snapshots and some massaging of our legs, we started to make our way down again. We almost slipped on several occasions as we made our way down the rocky trail. We hopped into the Benz and made our way back to the hotel. I had to close my eyes as I REALLY felt like puking this time round. It was about 4:30 PM by the time we reached the hotel. Our tickets to the Andrea Bocelli concert were sitting on the table! Penny and I both took a quick shower and hit the bed, wanting to get some rest before heading out again.

We got up again at about 8 PM, changed and headed out into the streets. The concert was starting at 9:30 PM so we didn’t want to be late! We hit Via Toledo again and walked towards the venue, Piazza Plebiscito. Surprisingly, it was quite dead for that time of the night – all the shops were closed! As we got closer to the venue (I didn’t even realised we’d reached as I expected the walk to be longer) at Piazza Trieste e Trento, there were cafes and restaurants here so there was quite a crowd. Piazza Plebiscito was just next to it so people were already crowding around to get a good spot to watch the concert. Guess you didn’t need tickets for the concert after all!

As we approached the entrance, we were told to put on our wristbands (I was wondering what they were for) and ushered into a VIP area for some drinks and light snacks. God is great – not only did He bless us with a free holiday, He sent us to a free concert with VIP passes! Not being able to eat (the lunch was causing havoc in my stomach), Penny got herself a drink and we hung around savouring the moment. We finally took our seats about 15 minutes before the concert was scheduled to begin.

After what seemed like eternity, the members of the backing Czech National Symphony Orchestra filed onto the stage to take their seats, accompanied by their conductor, Steven Mercurio, to do a sound check and an opening number. A while later, Andrea Bocelli finally appeared on stage, with rousing applause, to give an opening address presumably to talk about his upcoming album, Incanto, and why his performance in Naples.

The performance itself was nothing short of spectacular. Even his mother was in the front row watching her son perform! Bocelli had three guest performers with him pepping up his act - Italian movie star and singer Massimo Ranieri, flutist Andrea Griminelli and Italian soprano Cecilia Bartoli. The night ended in an encore with Bocelli and all his guests appearing together on stage to sing a final number for the ecstatic audience. Following all the fanfare and standing ovation, the performers disappeared backstage to address the Italian media who were also there to cover the performance. Clamouring for more, the audience (us inclusive) was evidently reluctant to leave even after the lights started to dim, signalling the end of the concert. Only when all the lights went off and the cleaning crew arrive did the audience realise that the concert was indeed over. We started dragging our feet to leave the square, all the while straining our necks to hopefully catch a last glimpse of Andrea Bocelli and his friends.

Starting to feel peckish after all the excitement, Penny and I headed for a pizzeria next to our hotel. We were disappointed that the guy was closed (an earlier check with the boss told us he closes at 12 MN but it was only 11:30 PM), but he did refer us to another pizzeria down the road. We quickly made our way there, sat down and ordered a pizza to share (although we were baffled by the Italian menu). Satisfied with our first true blue wood-fired Italian pizza, we headed back tour room for a well-deserved night of rest after having engaged in so many activities.

Tomorrow we go to Rome. Woo hoo!

Napoli - il giorno un Naples - day one

2008-10-30T15:42:00.019+08:00

Too excited to sleep, I woke up bright and early on Thursday morning at 5 a.m. (despite sleeping close to 12 midnight the night before) to do some last minute packing. I went through my list that I had prepared the day earlier to make sure I didn't leave any important stuff out. Penny woke up a while later and joined me in the packing after washing herself up. We were all set to go when Velouria woke up, insisting that she go to the airport with us.

So off we went! Praise the Lord a cabbie was just moving off as we reached the carpark, saving me the trouble of running out to the main road to hail one. We reached the airport slightly behind schedule, but still managed to get the seats we wanted at the check in counter. The flight wasn't full so we had the luxury of switching seats later. A quick breakfast, a short prayer with Velouria and several hugs and kisses later, we made our way into the departure area eager to get onto the plane. It was going to be a 13 hour flight, with a 2 hour transit in Munich before hopping onto another 2 hour flight to Naples. We couldn't wait to shut our eyes as we didn't get much sleep the night before - we wanted to be fully rejuvenated to take on Naples!

The plane took off as scheduled. As soon as the plane levelled, the snacks and drinks came out. We finished it quickly and proceeded to find some empty seats around us to get some shut eye. It wasn't long before lunch was served. Penny was too tired to eat so I gobbled down my beef and potatoes and went back to sleep. I awoke a while later with the first in flight movie, The Nanny Diaries, already screening. Penny was already up watching the movie so I got my headset connected and joined her.

With nothing much left to do after the movie ended, we both went back to sleep. I awoke again a few hours later with the second in-flight movie, Get Smart, already screening. I jumped back into my seat to put my headset on. Towards the end, Penny woke up and joined me as well. We were both hungry by the time the movie ended, so we headed towards the back of the plane where there was a mini buffet going on. Nothing fancy, but wonder of wonders, they had Nissin Cup Noodles! We cooked a cup each, grabbed a couple of sandwiches and some juice, and headed back to our seats to wolf everything down.

It was back to snoozeland after our little snack. But we couldn't sleep much and we awoke a while later as dinner came. We didn't have much space in our stomach left so se just nibbled a bit here and there. The last in flight movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, filled up the time between our dinner and the end of the flight.

Before we knew it, we touched down in Munich! After we got off the plane, we gave a quick call home (it was 10:25 p.m. Singapore time) just to hear Velouria's voice and proceeded to mill around the airport. The airport was structured in such a way that we had to go past immigration to catch our connecting flight to Naples at the departure hall one floor down, so we thought we might as well go out and breathe some German air. And boy was it cold! It sort of caught us unprepared so we made it snappy, retreating into the building again before we froze our fingers off! We headed into the departure hall again to do some shopping (we found, to our greatest delight, Vel's frog stuff toy that she'd lost - Penny bought it from Frankfurt a couple of years back and we suspect our maid Estella packed it with her when she left for home). We also had some time to stop by a food court for some juice, a cup of yoghurt and a sausage - costing us a frigging €13!

After what seemed like eternity, our flight to Naples was ready for boarding. The crew served us a little snack of a sandwich and chocolate - we couldn't stomach the sandwich as the bread was rock hard and the ham too salty for our palates, but decided to keep the chocolate for later consumption. We landed slightly ahead of time and - praise the Lord - didn't wait long for our baggage. There was no immigration to clear, so it was straight to the arrival hall to look out for a guy holding a sign with my name on it. He found us in a jiffy (we must have stuck out like sore thumbs) and whisked us away into his vehicle.

As the limo made its way into the city, the reality started to sink in - we were in Italy! The streets were pretty dead for that time of the night (about 9pm) though we did see a few pizzerias still open and countless Vespas zipping by. We reached the hotel within 15 minutes and checked into our room. We emptied our toiletries from our bag, proceeded to take our shower and prepare for bed.

Needless to say, we were dead beat after being on the move for almost 20 hours. But we couldn't wait to hit the streets in the morning after having our breakfast bright and early at 7:30 a.m.

Back from Naples into reality

2008-10-30T09:47:00.010+08:00

It has been a wonderful trip and it was evident that the Lord was with us the whole time, now it's back to reality. We had great flights (both there and back) that were not painstakingly bad, just bearable, despite the long periods of time being hurled through the air at 900km/h and the lengthy transit times in between. Our days were jammed pack with activities that still somehow turned out right despite our laid back nonchalance or perhaps our minds were too preoccupied with the hustle and bustle of the city.

We stumbled into a train carriage without realising that the seats were actually allocated on the tickets; turned out we were actually in the right carriage, just the wrong seat. Penny and I both made an about turn at the same time after passing by a beggar sitting on some steps in Rome (recalling the scripture about showing kindness to beggars in). Our hotels turned out really great although I had my doubts.

I suppose the only grievance I have is how expensive everything is – we paid €3 for a cup of orange juice at a street kiosk!

I can't say this enough, but God has come through for us despite our lack of trust and demonstrated (yet again) just how faithful He is when you simply put your trust in Him.

Full story and pictures coming up.

Napoli que vaniamo!! - the prelude (part 2)

2008-10-22T14:50:00.006+08:00

One more day to go before we fly off. Received more info today - now we know that the concert will be held outdoors at the famous Piazza del Plebiscito. Wow!

Still waiting for the Universal Music people to call me. Apparently, I have to sign some indemnity form to sell my life away for this trip. Heh heh.

With what little time I have, I did some research online to find out what to do in Naples, how to get around, etc. While looking for a city map to print out and bring along, I realise that nobody seems to do a plain old skool printable map anymore. Now all the maps are interactive showing you the exact spot of certain locations with satelite imagery and all that techno jazz. Turns out the Piazza del Plebiscito amphitheatre is not very far away from where we're putting up, about a ten minute walk.

Getting excited now. Stomach is churning. Can't think. Could be the footlong Subway Club I had for lunch though. Praise the Lord for this wonderfeul, wonderful blessing.

Napoli qui veniamo!! - the prelude

2008-10-21T13:52:00.010+08:00

I am of the opinion that every Singaporean likes to be aptly prepared for any circumstance that they can anticipate ahead of time. Exams, interviews, weddings, arrival of a new baby – we will do anything and everything to source for pertinent information regarding the subject at hand. Somehow, perhaps embedded deep within our Singaporean DNA, we don’t feel at ease taking on something at the spur of the moment. That, suppose, is a polite way of implying that we are all kiasu.

Me, I relish surprises. However, excited as I may be, I wasn’t particularly thrilled about leaving for Naples without having much time to do my research. Our flight details had just been confirmed by Universal Music this morning (the organisers and sponsors of this trip), the Andrea Bocelli concert is on Friday evening and the major bummer is that we have to leave on Tuesday morning (the return leg takes almost a day due to the long transit time and different time zones - we will only arrive in Singapore on Wednesday morning). That’s about all we know at the moment. A quick check online (God bless the advent of technology!) has revealed that there are tons of things to do in Naples – museums, art galleries, monasteries, a volcano (Mt Vesuvius, the only active volcano in Europe), the ruins of the unfortunate cities Pompei and Herculanean that were buried (and simultaneously preserved) by volcanic ash from the aforementioned volcano, island hopping, shopping, et al. With satellite technology, I could even see the hotels that we were going to put up at!

The task at hand now is to learn (very quickly) some conversational Italian enough to get us by – the usual pleasantries (hello, goodbye, thank you, do you speak English, numbers) and some other unpleasantries (should the need for cussing arise).

I suppose we’ll figure out the rest when we get there. Two more days to go! Woo hoo!!

This trip has been blessed by an Almighty God. So I trust that He will plan and lay everything out for us.

Napoli qui veniamo!! -- Naples here we come!!

2008-10-18T22:31:00.009+08:00

'Someone once said if God had a voice, He would sound like Andrea Bocelli. And I REALLY need to hear God's voice at this point in my life!!'

I received a call from MediaCorp TV on Friday evening. The lady, Sandra, introduced herself and said 'I guess God has heard you'. Obviously, I was lost for a moment as I tried to recall all the dealings I've had with MediaCorp the past few weeks. The only thing that came to mind was a job application with the Promotions Department.

When Sandra said 'We're sending you to Naples to watch Andrea Bocelli', the only words I managed were 'Shit. No way.'

MediaCorp TV had been running an SMS contest over the past week to promote Andrea Bocelli's new album Incanto and were giving away a trip to Naples to watch him live. Penny was lamenting about how nice it would be if we could win a free trip so she egged me on to send in an entry.

The words at the beginning of this post were in my SMS. And I remember praying to God, 'Father, sorry to use Your name in vain, but if it's in Your will please let it happen because only You know how much we need a break from all the craziness swirling around us'.

It all happened so quickly, I'm still trembling from the shock. We leave on Thursday morning for Naples. Everything else is still sketchy as we haven't received a lot of other information as of now.

Praise the Lord. We're going to have wood fired pizza for every meal and gelato for dessert every single day.

Lunchtime in CBD = WAR!!!

2008-10-15T17:11:00.007+08:00

One thing I've always detested was to have lunch in the CBD area during weekdays. In fact, I still do! So for the past few days when I had to lunch alone, I would pack my lunch to have in the pantry in order not to return drenched in my own perspiration and I also need not have to worry about getting into catfights over tables with corporate beyotches.

Case in point - I was queueing up for my Heng Kee curry chicken noodles (my first of many to come I reckon *drool*) at Hong Lim, there was an empty table in proximity to where I was. A young lady came and stood next to the table, but didn't sit down as she realised she'd lost her friends in the confusion. You could see that she was looking around for her friends and it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that she already wanted the table. As she was fishing for her mobile, presumably to call her lost colleagues, a middle-aged auntie just came and knocked her aside and immediately placed her umbrella horizontally across two chairs. It didn't matter that the umbrella kept falling off as it was OBVIOUSLY TOO SHORT, the auntie just beckoned her friends to occupy the seats and started to discuss what they intended to eat, all the while ignoring the poor girl. Bewildered and shocked, with the mobile still in her hand, the lady stood there dazed for a good five seconds (I kid you NOT, I actually counted) before she realised what had just transpired. Evidently outnumbered, she just walked away sheepishly with her tail between her legs.

Auntie - 1, Office lady - 0

I had half the mind to slap the auntie on the back of her head and scream in her face her 'What the f**k's wrong with you?? Very hungry is it??'.

The monster called the Fugly Singaporean rears its head again.

Ashamed by my faithlessness

2008-10-13T11:31:00.013+08:00

Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

God has once again put me to shame by revealing his faithfulness to me. The words of my prayer in the past few weeks have been more of a complaint than anything else, whining about how I never seemed to get any of the jobs that I had interviewed for, how I was getting worried, blah, blah.

Then, just last week, I saw a job posting on an online portal which I had applied to before (that post had been open for a couple of months now, although being advertised by different agencies and even the company itself). I never got a reply and I knew this was for that same opening since the JD was the same. Somehow, I just had this urge to be thick-skinned and try again. The recruitment agency responsible for the ad called me back and for some reason I never mentioned to them that I had applied for this job before but never got selected.

A day later, as I'm going for another interview, I get a call from my ex-colleague. She asked me, 'Hey, you looking for a job huh? I know the Marketing Manager that you're reporting to lah!'. Apparently, the agency had given my CV to the respective Manager I was supposed to report to so she called up my ex-colleague to do a reference check since they knew each other for quite some time now.

On the day of the interview, they only asked me 3 questions - why I quit without a job, what kind of job am I looking for and when could I start work. I was stunned.

Strangely, I had applied for this same position a year ago after the hoopla at Silver Bird but I didn't get it, ending up with that post in YHS. After one whole year and a series of seemingly coincidental events, I end up here again.

Although I'm on a 2 month contract for now, I truly believe and have faith that if it's God's will for me to stay here, it will happen. All in his perfect timing, not mine.

Just like the song.

Mooncakes and pomeloes by the beach

2008-09-19T13:01:00.015+08:00

Every September, kids of all ages (yours truly included) gather to gobble down mooncakes, play with sparklies, burn their lanterns and go on a little arson spree - setting fire to anything regardless of how potentially inflammable it may be. This year was no different. The older folks (i.e. my mum-in-law) was dead set on going to East Coast for dinner, despite protests from the rest of the gang, on the pretext that the kids go play on the beach, blah, blah.

So off we went! Took us about an hour to get there as Nancy wasn’t a very good driver so I had to drive at 70 km/h, all the while checking my rear view mirror to make sure I hadn’t lost her. But despite my best efforts to drive at my slowest while not hogging any traffic, she still got lost anyway.

We finally settled down at the hawker centre; getting a vacant lot in the carpark and trying to get a table to plonk our asses down were gargantuan tasks given the more than usual crowd as it was the Mid Autumn weekend.

After dinner, we headed into the darkness towards the beach to start our bonfire of lanterns, candles and other assortment of combustible materials. It was hell trying to light a single candle, let alone start a fire. For starters, some smart aleck (i.e. me again) forgot to pack the lighter. And the wind was so strong we were almost certain some typhoon was coming our way.

Following a few frustrating attempts, we finally got the lanterns lit up. So out came the mooncakes and pomeloes for desert! Even the skin of the pomelo wasn't spared from becoming another lantern for us.

We decided to call it a night when we were all out of candles and sparklies. More desert in the form of ice-cream and we headed for home.

Religion vs. Christianity

2008-09-19T13:01:00.009+08:00

Having been a staunch Buddhist during my younger years, it is almost inevitable that I get asked quite frequently 'So what is the difference between Christianity and other religions?'. The answer was always at the back of my head, that Christiniaty wasn't so much a religion but more of a relationship with God.

Today, I saw these words on a T-shirt that brought fresh revelation, clarity and terseness to that thought:

RELIGION is HUMANS trying to work their way to God. CHRISTIANITY is GOD coming to men and women through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Impromptu barbie

2008-09-08T11:21:00.008+08:00

It was just another lazy Saturday. We had half the mind to chill out at East Coast but were too lazy to pack everything into the car and the thought of having to unpack later made us change our minds. Eventually we fell asleep (me with my glasses, waist pouch and phone still on me) while deciding what to do. By the time we awoke, it was already 6 in the evening. Damn, the whole day had almost whizzed by while we were ding-donging.

Penny was craving for barbie food, so since we had some charcoal left, we pulled out what we could from the fridge- two pre-barbied sotongs from the streets of Taiwan, a few pork chops and some sotong balls from Nancy's barbie earlier in the week, a packet of NTUC cheese sausages and a few sweet potatos. A quick dash to NTUC for a packet of pre-seasoned chicken wings, Dodo Crab Stix, two ears of corn and some fizzy drinks and we were good to go!

As always, I fired up the pit while Vel and Penny prepared the food. Surprisingly, we had quite a spread despite using mostly leftovers! Vel, as usual, was eating mostly sausages and corn, leaving Mummy and Daddy to finish off the rest of the food. We had a nice slow fire and it was a cool breezy evening, so we took our time to cook our food. Fortunately for us, our neighbours weren't home so we didn't have to worry about bothering them with the smoke.

We called it quits at about 10pm when Penny and I were stuffed with so much carbon (carbonised food and carbonated drinks). Not surprisingly, we didn't manage to finish all the food (we couldn't pry apart, let alone cook, the pork chops as they weren't thawed enough).

God sent some rain as we were ending our little party to cool everything off. We fell asleep feeling gratified that God had once again blessed us with a wonderful day.

07.08.09

2008-09-05T21:53:00.005+08:00

Remember this date. That's when the new G.I. Joe movie will be released. Like any other fanboy, I can't wait! Just looking at the preview pics of my favourite Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow was enough to bring a tear to my eye.

Many years ago, any mention of me collecting Transformers toys would be reciprocated with implications of me being immature, childish and other such similar gobbledygook. Nowadays, every Peter, Paul and Mary wants to be an Autobot or Decepticon with all those silly T-shirts, decals on their cars and what nots. So who's childish now, poseurs?

You have been warned. G.I. Joe will do to 2009 what Spiderman did to 2002 and Transformers did to 2006.

Yo Joe!!

Swinging at Colbar

2008-09-05T21:39:00.006+08:00

In search of a nice, quiet place to have a chilled out lunch a few days back, we found ourselves at Colbar again with our friend Angeline. Honestly, the food isn't fantastic, but I've been there enough times to know that you couldn't go wrong with their Chicken Maryland and milk shake.

After chowing down our meal, we found ourselves at the tyre swing that was hung from the branch of a really old tree next to the hut. Velouria was the first to go, then coming back to bug all of us to join her.

Even Penny hopped onto the tyre to attempt to swing herself around. I ended up having to push her around after she gave up.

I reckon this one of the last few remaining places in Singapore where you can find such old skool stuff. They even have a rusty metal slide and a rickety wooden see-saw. Ultra cool!

Let's just hope it will remain this way for a while.

New secret weapon for my beautiful skin

2008-08-27T13:00:00.003+08:00

What can say, I'm vain. Not in a psychotic 'Mirror, mirror on the wall' but in a metro-sexual kinda way. I'll have to admit - I love looking good! I tailor clothes when I went to HCMC (dirt cheap!), I spend hours looking at my hair everyday, I make sure my shoes are absolutely free of gunk before I step out of the house (the ladies ARE looking at your shoes when they look down and NOT anywhere else, gentlemen!).

Cue 2 weeks back, Penny came back with some FANCL products (didn't know they even amde biscuits!?). Naturally, I went into a fit as I know their stuff don't come cheap. She paid $20++ for a small little bottle of 'Washing Powder' - sounds like something you'd use on your washroom floor with.

But surprise, surprise, Penny's face actually looked more radiant about a week later. Of course, she'd been using the stuff dilligently. Point is, it made a difference. Even the old woman of my mother-in-law noticed the difference. So off we were back to FANCL and Penny decided I needed a bottle as well.

Apaprt from the 'washroom detergent', I ended up walking away with a bottle of moisturer too. Penny paid for them, so don't think I should complain.

If all goes well, I should be back in a couple of months time to restock. We shall see.

Abstract artist in the family

2008-08-19T13:15:00.003+08:00

A few nights back, we left Velouria to play on her own. She was up to her usual tricks, dragging out her Play-Doh and what nots while we were chilling in our room.

Then she called out to us, asking to look at her 'boy and girl'. Curious, we went out of our rooms to where she was and when we looked down, we saw this little 'sculpture' that Vel had created with her Play-Doh. Her abstract impression of a boy and girl.

I'm so proud of my daughter. Dude's hairdo is a little freaky though.

Another one bites the dust

2008-08-16T18:55:00.010+08:00

In my honest opinion, we are losing our Singaporean heritage and identity bit by bit as our country morphs into a thriving metropolis in an attempt to keep up with the rest of the modern world. Modernisation is just not a good enough excuse in my books to remove old architecture only to make way for more contemporary ones.

So far, we have lost the National Theatre, Van Kleef Aquarium, the blocks of flats at Outram Park, Taman Serasi hawker centre (previously opposite the Botanical Gardens), Satay Club and most recently the old National Library to make way for that silly (and absolutely redundant) tunnel along Stamford Road!

Another location that looks set to join these pieces in the history books will be the tiny hawker centre at Labrador Park. Tucked away in a corner of Pasir Panjang just as you make a right turn from Alexandra Road is a small, unassuming hawker centre that is known only to people frequenting that area. Looking like something that was left behind from the 1960s, this edifice greets you as you turn into Labrador Villa Road while you make your way to Labrador Park.

Famous for its nasi padang as well as other Indian and Malay fare, this place is popular during lunch with the office crowd working in the area. However, come end August, this hawker will cease operation as the National Environment Agency has decided to shut it down. Most of the hawkers we spoke to have no intention of carrying on their business, citing old age and higher rental at relocation premises being the main reasons.

I recall those days when I was still living in Telok Blangah, my friends and I would stop here for a bandung on the way into Labrador Park to ‘catch spider’, climb trees and try to make sense of the random concrete structures we came across (little did we know then that these were actually WWII monuments). Labrador Park has sicne then been revamped into a new swanky seaside chill out place, complete with BBQ pits, playgrounds and even restaurants and a spa at the top of the hill. If my memory serves me correctly, they probably reclaimed some land as well when restoring the surroundings.

Anyway, there we were having a little meal of nasi padang, nasi bryani and mee goreng before finishing it off with some goreng pisang. There’s nothing like a dirty, old and smelly hawker centre to add some flavour to your otherwise unexciting meal!

Kids will soon have to grow up in Singapore with only shopping malls, mobile phones and the internet. They will soon not know how it feels to graze their knees while climbing trees to pluck rambutans, or their hearts pulpating with excitement as they rummage through undergrowth for spiders to catch.

Major bummer.

New boots

2008-08-15T11:02:00.005+08:00

Guys are such klutzes when it comes to shopping. We never buy anything unless we really, really, really need it. Like when holes start appearing on our boxers, our deodarant starts spraying only cold air or our wallets start getting warped out of shape. And even when we finally do, we just head straight towards that particular department where we are seeking our wares and get the deed done. Go in, get the stuff and get out. Like a Navy SEAL rescue mission.

So it was really unglam for me to become all 'kuniang' after I set my eyes on a particular pair of boots at Primavera. The design totally rocked; it was gaterised so no fumbling with laces, it was high cut so my pants could fall nicely around the shoe (I'm anal that way) and had nice little details that you would hardly find on a pair of, say, Bata shoes. It could go well with jeans too for a smart casual look! But the price was way too steep for me. At $229, it was way over what I would usually pay for a pair of shoes. My most expensive pair cost me $150, and they were a pair of skating sneakers I bought from Australia.

When the Primavera outlet at Marina Square was having a 'Closing Down' Sale, the boots were slashed down to $169. But I still managed to convince myself that I don't really need another pair of shoes and just walked away.

So there I was at Vivo City with Vel a couple of weeks back. We passed by the Primavera outlet and the were having a sale. The boots were there staring at me AGAIN! So just to satisfy my curiousity, I walked over, picked them up and looked at the price tag.

$99!

Without hesistation, I beckoned the sales assistant and asked for a size 8. Perfect fit! Naturally, I bought them (after eyeballing them for so many months).

Moral of the story: never buy anything during GSS, buy them AFTER. *snigger*

Punch Buggy redux - continued

2008-08-09T17:29:00.003+08:00

We finally made arrangements and got down to jamming at Mel's place. After going around in circles (why do all these private housing estates all look the same??) I found Mel's place and went up to his 'studio'.

I was really taken aback by the state his drum set was in. And to think he paid $800 of his gig money to get it! The metal parts were all rusty, the bass drum sounded like crap and it came with one 10" splash and 18" ride cymbals. It made me sad just looking at it. I mean, what was I supposed to do with only one 10" splash? The least they could do was throw in a 12"!

Then I was reminded 'In all things give thanks', so I thank the Lord that at least we had a drumset to use. Selwyn, our bassist, turned up a short while later so after the usual pleasantries we got down to it.

Although I screwed up a little here and there (Mel and Selwyn had already been playing together for a few years prior to our reunion), overall it was quite a good jam. Mel was up to his usual nonsense (the chord structures for all his songs are more or less similar) and it felt like how it was 12 years ago. We covered about four songs within an hour and a half so it wasn't that shoddy at all.

I'm so looking forward to the next jamming session. Drum set needs a little maintenance though.

Hungry + tired = angry

2008-08-09T17:06:00.004+08:00

I've just realised that Velouria has one more thing in common with me. She gets REALLY grouchy when she's hungry and tired.

On Tuesday, she spent one whole day with her school mates at the Hort Park and only came back close to 4pm. Naturally, since it was past her afternoon nap time she was feeling very sleepy by the time she reached home. And because she only had 4 pieces of chepati for lunch, it obviously wasn't enough to fill the insatiable and bottomless pit that she is and so she was also hungry when she came back.

Coupled together, it made her one grouchy little girl! I had to coax her with seaweed, peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a cup of Horlicks just to get her into the house. After sitting at the door to gobble up two packets of seaweed, she finally took off her shoes and went to the room. I made her the sandwich and Horlicks, but the poor girl kept nodding off while seated at the side of the bed. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore so she decided to lie down and it wouldn't take a genius to figure out that she would soon fall asleep with the half-eaten sandwich in her hand.

I then took the liberty to finish off whatever was left of the sandwich and Horlicks.

Yikes! Big mistake. Imagine the monster she became when she awoke and found her sandwich and Horlicks were gone.

Chepati and dhal

2008-08-04T21:58:00.006+08:00

Penny has found a new love. She has moved on from her Korean craze and is now into chepati and dhal curry. She apparently got the recipe from a true blue Indian native and has been dying to try it out as chepatis are supposed to be healthier than pratas since it uses whole wheat flour and isn't fried with ghee. So we went on a wild hunt for the ingredients (lentils, mustard seeds, Indian sesame oil, etc) at KK Market and Little India a couple of days back since we had not much to do.

It was all flour and curry when we returned home, with Velouria even chipping in to make mini chepatis proportionate to her small frame. But, praise the Lord, it all turned out pretty well and we wiped out all the chepatis.

In fact, it was so good that Velouria even requested for more of it to bring with her on the school excursion the following day. She probably wants to show off to her friends that she has something different to eat.

Yummy.

Punch Buggy redux

2008-07-22T16:55:00.006+08:00

Singapore is such a small, small place. Just about a week and a half ago, I found a long lost friend through Max, the media planner in the agency that was doing stuff for us. The first time we met, I found his persona strangely familiar, like one of those things you seem to remember from a dream you had the night before. It was only after taking a second glance at his namecard that I realised he shared the same family name as a friend whom I'd long forgotten.

I took a stab in the dark and asked Max if he had a younger brother named Melvin and, true enough, he said yes. Max immediately gave his younger brother a call and there we were, Melvin and I, trying to catch up on what had gone on in the past 12 years since we last met.

In 1993, Melvin and I found each other through the free ad postings in the now defunct BigO magazine. He plays the guitar and was looking for members to form a band; I was just starting to play the drums and was looking for a band to really jam with. So, voila, Punch Buggy was formed.

We had the same kind of musical tastes which were, at that time, mainly made up of jangly stuff like Teenage Fanclub, Weezer, The Posies, Lemonheads and the like. We were also skating buddies who would go everywhere on our skateboards - jamming, skating to his place from Sunset Way (they used to reside at a condo called Bradley Ville or some fancy name like that opposite Clementi Park condo). Somehow after I graduated and Melvin found his niche with another local band (Silverspy which then evolved into Suchness) and we lost contact.

Upon catching up, I realised that we still have more in common than I thought. We both wear skating shoes to work (despite being frowned upon by our bosses), we love buying Bata shoes and (this one takes the cake) both of us relish the sound of this band called Silver Sun because we are of the same accord that our band then would have sounded like this had we continued to master our craft.

Anyways, it turns out Melvin still writes songs and is a bedroom musician now. Not that he wasn't back then; we used to fool around with a 4-track machine which recorded on a cassette. Which in turn is unheard of anymore. He's turned one of the rooms at his (parents') place into a jamming studio so we're getting together this weekend for a little jam session.

Can't wait.

Terminator Salvation

2008-07-21T12:33:00.005+08:00

The past few months have been like a fanboy's wet dream come true. It started with Iron Man, then The Incredile Hulk, Hellboy 2 and now the hype with The Dark Knight. Being a fanboy myself, I can't say that I wasn't jumping with gleeful joy at the thought of all these wonderful works of pulp fiction being transposed onto the big screen to be fleshed out in their full glory.

Speaking of Batman, the next movie in line that is making the palms of all fanboys (myself included) sweat is the highly anticipated (aren't they all??) Terminator 4, which coincidentally stars Christian Bale again as John Connor, the much burdened leader of the resistance. I'm really glad that they decided to leave Arnie out of this whole deal! Unlike the Rambo franchise, which rocked big time despite an ageing Sly Stallone (I'm sure they made a deliberate effort NOT to cover up his wrinkles and bulging belly!) the Terminator series isn't all about a T-800 wlaking around in a leather jacket armed to his teeth with firearms and blasting everything in his way, all the while mouthing cheesy one liners.

Check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXnELk6pZVk

The battle with Skynet begins...

Last day at work

2008-07-14T16:12:00.005+08:00

Today marked the last day of my journey at YHS. Time has zipped by really quickly due to the tons of work that seemed to be always piling up, especially in the last 2 months when I took over the work of another colleague who left, despite my best efforts to get everything sorted out. The phrase ‘so much work but too little time’ seemed to take on a literal meaning for me. It was only logical then that I had slowly begun to doubt my own work efficiency.

It seemed like yesterday that I stepped into the company premises reporting for my first day of work (still recall my VP telling to remove my tie – apparently, to my relief, it wasn’t the culture here for guys to put on ties!). I was all revved up to get going, eager to prove myself. Over the next couple of months, I must say I definitely did. Time and again, there was always something waiting to blow up in my face. But by the grace and mercy of God, things always seemed to work out fine in the end despite me breaking out into a cold sweat at the beginning.

It’s a peculiar feeling when you wake up in the morning knowing that it’s your last day at work. Like people on their deathbed, you know that today would be the last chance for you to right the wrongs that you’ve always wanted to but never had the opportunity. Like these dying folks worrying about leaving out something in their will, I likewise pondered about the things I had to hand over, worrying that I may have omitted some little detail in my handover list that would snowball into something huge.

I (finally) sorted all my documents into proper files, having to hand them over to Desmond (my colleague who’s taking over me). And after so many months, I finally cleared tons of junk that served no purpose other than to clutter my already limited cubicle space (I seem to be removing a lot of clutter in my life lately). My cubicle was finally clear and I was so proud of myself!

Leaving the office at 9.30pm, I was actually quite sad. While this job has given me many sleepless nights, I am going to miss all my colleagues who had grown to become friends over the 10 months I was here. A wise man (can’t remember who) once said ‘The only certain thing in life is change and progress’. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Adios, amigos…

Guitar lessons

2008-06-15T17:00:00.004+08:00

I've finally gotten down to starting guitar lessons. For over 15 years of my life, I never had the patience to sit my ass down long enough to actually learn how to play the guitar. Always had the desire to learn though, as all the guitarists in the band always seem to get the chicks (see Richie Sambora from Bon Jovi, Dave Navarro from Red Hot Chili Peppers, among the many). Guess it was a case of 'mind is willing but the body is weak'.

I used to play a bit of bass, which was much easier. It was just press with one finger on the left hand and pluck with one on the right. Bed of roses considering the fact that the songs (mainly punk ditties from the Ramones) I played back in those days consisted only of three or four chords at most. Which also explains why I picked up the drums then cos I'm impatient that way. Just sit and whack and you get results!

With the guitar, it's a little different. You have to contort the fingers on your left hand to unimaginable positions and strum with the right hand. And you have to get the strumming right as the upwards and downwards strumming movements will give you different sounds, blah, blah.

Today, my motivations to pursue the guitar has drifted from impressing bevies of young chicks to a desire to praise and worship an awesome God. I found this young chap over the internet who teaches both the acoustic and electric guitar. Great for me since I don't reckon I would want to torture myself by learning the acoustic, then the electric. So far I've only learned four chords and played one song (Brian McKnight's One).

Not too bad for an hour. Now, I just need another gazillion hours of practise and more chords to start rocking the house.

Hail, hail rock n roll!

Removing clutter

2008-06-04T16:20:00.007+08:00

We've had it with our wardrobe. After being so badly warped and as a result wreaking havoc on the rollers (this one came with sliding doors), we finally decided to replace it before the doors fell off and hit one of us while we were asleep (some of the brackets holding the shelves had already given way due to the intense warping of the sides).

So Penny and I removed all the stuff from the old wardrobe and, boy, was it a tiring job! I never knew I had so much junk accumulated over the years - old notes and newspaper articles from my Adv Dip days, comics, prayer beads (used to be a Soka member), old DVDs and games, G.I. Joes in little Ziploc bags and more toys that were long forgotten (a Star Wars Snowspeeder complete with two Rebel Alliance pilots!).

We ended up with 4 large garbage bags of trash (our wardrobe could really gooble a lot of junk!) and we still had things that we wanted enough to clog up our room, the living room and parts of the kitchen! What can I say, we're sentimental people.

After that, we had to take the old monster apart, which was the fun part. How often do you get to rip something apart with your bare hands? We had to remove the old wardrobe and clean up the whole area before the new wardrobe arrived. You can never imagine the amount of dust that can accumulate in 10 years.

Obviously, we were both dead tired after that. But that was not the end. We had to wait for the new wardrobe to arrive and move back all the stuff that we wanted!

Becoming an ah chek part 3

2008-05-26T10:16:00.004+08:00

As if the Goldlion shirt and white hair weren't enough, my knees have started to hurt of late. Penny keeps nagging at me to stop jogging but I still maintain the stance that I need to train for my yearly IPPT and starting to run a month before is just a big no-no. Even more so now with all the sudden deaths during 2.4km runs.

Anyway, so I couldn't take it anymore and bought myself a knee brace. It got so bad one day that I had so much problem stepping on my clutch while driving. And to top it all off, I had to kay kiang and join the youths for an afternoon of basketball. Needless to say, my knees were screaming in pain along with other unimaginable parts of my lower body for about a week following that.

It sucks getting old.

Becoming an ah chek - part 2

2008-05-22T18:00:00.004+08:00

First it was the Goldlion shirt, now I discovered another sign that is signalling my journey into 'ah chek'-hood (for lack of a better word).

White hair.

Penny had quite a ball plucking them out for me. Now when I look at myself in the mirror, I no longer look out for pimples. Maybe it's the stress getting to me, or perhaps really it's age catching up. Regardless, I can't deny the fact that they'll continue to populate my once wonderful crown of nice, black (albeit a little dry) hair. Hopefully I'll end up with a cool pepperish shade like George Clooney.

Now all I have to do is try my best to imitate that irritating smirk.

Becoming an ah chek

2008-05-16T15:52:00.006+08:00

It's official. I'm leaving my youth behind and entering the ah chek chapter of my life. I've always been under the (false) impression that I'll be 21 for the rest my life, staying cool and funky and in touch with the youth of today, hanging out at Heeren, reading comics, blah, blah. But, shocker of shockers, I recently acquired a piece of something that many middle aged men would wear with pride but cool and funky youngsters would avoid like a HFMD infected school.

A freaking Goldlion shirt.

I once told Penny I'd never be caught dead in any Goldlion apparel. So I have to eat my own words now. Truth be told, the design (which was what caught my eye in the first place, not the brand) is quite cool. And, damn, the shirt is comfortable. Unlike new shirts that give you that itchy-scratchy feeling on your skin, this shirt was smoooooth.

Will this be my first Goldlion shirt of many others to follow? I can't say for sure. Maybe I'll drop by a Lacoste boutique next...

Of goats and vegetables

2008-04-29T16:44:00.012+08:00

It's been a while since we last visited Hay Dairies. Since Velouria has been on powdered goat milk for quite some time now, we thought it'd be good for her to have some freshly squeezed goat milk.

We made plans to meet Nick and Pat there too (along with Gracie of course). After some breakfast, we made our way there just in time to see the milking process. This was followed of course by the feeding of the goats with the $2 a packet dried grass (or hay or whatever they feed the goats). Nick and I were joking that this was a very smart marketing ploy; getting visitors to pay to do their work. Who knows, maybe they'll come up with a farm stay package soon that allows you the total goat farm experience, i.e. milking the goats, cleaning the pens, etc.

After downing a couple of bottles, we decided to make our way (with vague directions from Pat's father) to a vegetable market that was allegedly on the other side of Lim Chu Kang. Apparently, my mum-in-law had been there before too, but she's directionally impaired so her instructions were as good as naught.

We found ourselves at Kok Fah after a 10 min drive. I was dumbfounded, I never knew that a market actually existed here, right smack in the middle of nowhere! All freshly grown, no less! After a few minutes of walking around, looking at gigantic fish and what nots, I got bored. So Nick and I bought some drinks (honey with fresh aloe vera bits, yum!) and sat down with the kids while the aunties went havoc buying up all assortments of fresh produce.

Finally, about half an hour later, the aunties decided that they too were parched and decided to get themselves a drink. That was our signal that the shopping was over and it was time for us to head home.

Farny Engrish

2008-04-18T17:36:00.004+08:00

Saw this box of Wang Wang biscuits while browsing around at CK Department store. Typical Taiwanese English (or Taiwanglish?). Of course 'don't crash', the poor dude is dressed only in a singlet and what appears to be a pair of briefs. And with such a huge head, I'm sure that's a magnet for disaster!

I think they meant to say DON'T CRUSH.

Chewren, do not be copy, okay. Or you teacher will kok you head.

Rocking for the Rock of Salvation

2008-04-12T12:29:00.009+08:00

The last concert I attended was when Coldplay and Travis performed at the Indoor Stadium in 2001 (I think; it was soooo long ago I can't even remember the exact year).

So when I heard the Planetshakers were coming again and that some of the youth from our church were attending the concert, I jumped at the invitation to join them. It's been a long time since I did some pogo-ing and punched my fists into the air.

My meeting ended early so I arrived at Sing Expo at 5.30pm. So I milled about for a bit, visiting the 7Elevens around the area. At 6pm I headed for the MRT station and saw Jedidiah there. The rest decided to honour us with their presence at about 6.30pm. After some delay, we finally joined the queue at about 6.45pm. And it was reeaally long. It barely moved and people were getting impatient. Apparently, you could get priority seating by registering on their website so those who had tickets could get in first. Dang.

We finally got in about an hour later and the concert started as promised at 8pm (they delayed it slightly due to the crowd). I never felt so old in my life, being surrounded by so many youths.

After a short prayer by the emcee, the concert got off to a rocking start as the Planetshakers came out singing 'Oh praise Him, Jesus, Jesus' (sung to the tune of the 'Ole, ole, ole!' soccer chant, what a way to get the crowd going). They sang many other great songs, mostly from their new album (but of course; they were selling it at the podium), for about an hour.

Next up was Tim Hughes, who surprisingly also rocked despite having a smaller band than the Planetshakers. He sang many crowd favourites such as 'Beautiful One' and 'One Way', which got many in the crowd (me inclusive) screaming at the top of our lungs.

The concert ended at about 10.30pm with an encore performance by both groups (it was deja vu, Coldplay and Travis did the same thing at that concert I attended) and it was a very loud encore indeed. In the end, we all came out with legs like jelly and Rod Stewart-esque voices from all the jumping and screaming respectively.

The kids were queueing up to get autographs on the CDs they had purchased (idolatry!). Me, I had to begin my long journey home as it was way past my bedtime. An enjoyable evening nonetheless despite the long wait.

Going retro

2008-04-08T10:10:00.008+08:00

We love Tiong Bahru. There's something about the architecture and ambience that seems to suggest a slower, more laidback pace than the breakneck speed of society we are so accustomed to these days. We wished we were staying in that vicinity, but given the atrocious property prices nowadays, we knew owning a home there was way out of our league. For now.

The night before, we were chilling out at a small little cafe at Eng Hoon Street with Michael and Cindy after our steamboat dinner. Being the pig that I am, I still managed to chow down a little 'snack' of fish n chips (supposedly Vel's dinner), a sinfully delicous chocolate cake and washed that all down with an iced lemon tea.

The morning after, we found ourselves at Eng Guan Street. Michael swears by the fishball mee here (apparently he has breakfast here every morning before heading to work) and being the connoiseur that I am, I sure had to give this a try! This tiny little gem of a coffeeshop is tucked away in a little discreet corner that we somehow never noticed despite passing through that area umpteen times. A small, cosy place where seats are a premium, we were blessed to get a table within minutes of stepping in there. We ordered some coffee and kaya toast to tickle our palates while waiting for our noodles.

True enough, it didn't disappoint. The noodles had that taste of 'retro-ness' (with wooden chopsticks!) you won't get at swanky food courts. The fragrance of the vinegar hits you first as you take a whiff of the noodles. And the texture of the noodles was just nice; not too soggy (I totally detest soggy noodles that get stuck together!) and not too springy. The fishballs, though a tad tiny, were springy enough without that DoDo fishball kinda taste. And my favourite part - the ingredients are placed in the soup and not together with the noodles, just the way it's supposed to be!

Needless to say, I'll definitely be back for more! Though Penny still prefers the one at Lengkok Bahru.

A rare Saturday outing

2008-03-17T09:20:00.006+08:00

It was the end of a mundane, brainless, stress free three weeks of reservist training. Since I was going to get sucked back into reality (i.e. stress, endless emails and sleepless nights) next Monday, I decided to alter my original plan of going back to the office to clear some work.

Our first stop of the day was Botanical Gardens. We have never been there since they revamped and Penny had read about some 'children's park' of some sort that we thought Velouria would love. My last memories of Botanical Gardens were the huge pond where we, as children, used to go to feed the fish and swans (or geese?) would roam around the park (or was I dreaming?). Regardless, it had been reeaally long since I last went there.

After some boo-boos, we finally found our way to the 'children's park', the Jacob Ballas' Children's Garden. Apparently, Velouria had been there before during a school excursion and she was all excited and Energizer bunny-esque as we turned into the car park.

Truth be told, the place was quite fun. Velouria had fun especially at the treehouse playground and drinking from water coolers was still a novelty for her. I tried my hand at sliding down the tubes at the playground too, hurting my butt in the process of getting stuck on the way down (the tubes were obviously NOT designed for adults in mind).

We wandered around aimlessly for a while, crossing little streams and coming across arty-farty looking trees. Before we knew it we were back at the entrance, so I guess that was a sign for us to leave. Of course, Penny had to spend a bomb at the kiosk to buy some artificial flavour laden, ang moh packet drink for Velouria before leaving.

What a morning! But that was just the beginning. Somehow, despite being drenched in perspiration, we still managed to muster enough strength to go home, pack our things and head to SAFRA Mount Faber to go swimming. I amaze even myself sometimes.

Velouria's pizza

2008-03-17T09:19:00.013+08:00

As was always the usual practice, Grace House had planned another field trip for the end of the first semester. Velouria was so excited about the trip to Pastamania's kitchen (they had learned about pizzas a few weeks prior) and she could not stop yapping about making her own.

When the day finally arrived, she couldn't keep still and hopped onto her school bus gleefully when it came to pick her up, eager to sink her hands into pizza dough.

At the end of the day, she came back with a bag of goodies (a cute little T-shirt, a balloon and other similar nonsense) and a pizza box with a label that read 'NOT SUITABLE FOR CONSUMPTION' stuck on the lid. Which got me thinking; was it inedible because it wasn't cooked yet or because the pizza preparation wasn't prepared according to the normal hygiene standards being adhered to? Knowing kids, the latter reason was the more probable explanation.

Nevertheless, I'm sure Velouria had fun. She threw a fit when I told her we had to throw it away due to the imminent arrival of flies after a few days. I had to soothe her by showing the picture that I had taken, just so we will have memories of her deformed pizza.

Serving the country

2008-03-17T09:19:00.011+08:00

It's that time of the year again. I had to rummage the store room and cupboard to dig out my shoes, No. 3 uniform and coveralls. Yes sir! It's time for my reservist again. I even had to dig out an old mangkali handphone (that is, one without a camera).

According to friends who had gone before me, they had already warned me that gone were the days of lazing around and going for canteen breaks. This reservist was a back-breaking, nerve-wrecking one as we had to follow the regulars out as the prepared the different forms of munitions for use. After so many years, this was the first reservist that I actually perspired and had to even go home on one of my lunch breaks to change my T-shirt as I was soaked.

But it was a good break from work. For 3 weeks, I didn't have to worry about things in the office (although my mobile did ring occassionally with suppliers asking me this and that). Just brainless, simple, mundane tasks. And more canteen breaks with curry puffs, samosas and sring rolls.

It suddenly dawned onto me why there were cases of people collapsing halfway into their 2.4km run. Their diet is so damn sinful! Fried noodles with chicken wings for breakfast (it's that or nasi lemak), chicken chop or fish and chips for lunch (cookhouse food still sucks even after it has been commercialised) then curry puffs for tea break.

With all that junking, I'm surpised I passed my IPPT!

Slain

2008-02-18T09:05:00.003+08:00

Though tragedy, heartache, and sorrow abound

And many a hardship in life will be found,

Just put all your trust in the Savior of light,

For He can bring hope in the darkest of night.

—D. De Haan

It was a wonderful service we had at church yesterday. The Holy Spirit was evidently among us as our guest speaker, Ps Victor Rodriguez, gave us the Lord's message and later gave an altar call for the whole congregation. He went around prophesying for everyone. Nothing like this has ever happened before, and Penny and I were holding each other and crying our hearts out to God.

But that was just the beginning. He soon came over to us and gave us a prophecy from the Lord. Previously, I've felt little tingles and funny sensations whenever the Holy Spirit was touching me. But this time was different. As I stretched out my hand to the Lord, they started trembling involuntarily. I thought I was crying so hard that my body was convulsing and it sort of freaked me out because this never happened before.

Then it came. He said, "The Lord knows the anger, frustration and confusion you are going through as a couple. The Lord has put you in a desperate situation so that you will look to Him and seek Him more". I lost it. A man who hardly knew us and he spoke words that were spot on. The covulsions intensified so much that I had to grit my teeth and couldn't even hold my hands open. I wanted to shout out to the Lord but only managed a few grunts. He even prophesied about my desire to work with the youth and Penny being a woman of Proverbs (she has been meditating over Proverbs 31 for some time now). When he said, "Someone get behind this couple", I knew what was going to happen next. He continued praying but I was too busy trembling to hear what exactly he said.

Just like clockwork, as he counted backwards from three, I just fell backwards on one. I didn't even care if anyone was behind to catch me, I just went backwards. Not voluntarily, though, it just sort of happened. And then I was pinned there on the floor, my whole body trembling. My neck was beginning to hurt from trying to lift my head up and my fists were clenched so hard that my fingers were cramping up from trying to open them. I just cried and cried and cried. Again I thought the trembling was caused by my crying. But the funny thing was, it just stopped suddenly when Ps Rodriguez said, "Everybody quiet down". It was then I sat up, dazed and tired from all the trembling. I couldn't even stand up and fortunately, Ps Ronald was in front of me to help me up.

I thought to myself, "That was radical!", but it didn't end there. As the worship continued, I sang in tongues at the top of my voice and continued crying out to the Lord. A mixture of tears and mucus (haha!) were dripping onto the floor but I didn't care. Then it came again, that same convulsion and trembling like I was being electrocuted. It continued until the singing ended and Ps Don took over the mike.

As we stood behind the congregation thinking the worship was over, Ps Don started singing again. I could barely stand or lift up my hands as I was physically drained by then, but I stretched out my hand anyway (I was hanging on to Penny with the other arm). And it came again! Suddenly, I was caught in another wave of convulsions and I just started crying out to God again. Though there was a strong desire to shout His praises, again I had to grit my teeth and all I could do was grunt and snort.

Then when the singing stopped, my trembling stopped too. Just like that.

I was totally dazed and fatigued by the time the service had ended. But it was a wonderful feeling. Wonderful because today I was touched by the reality of who God is and felt the closeness of the Holy Spirit.

I believe and have faith that this is just the beginning of a new chapter of our walk with God.

The Greatest Love Of All

2008-02-14T08:50:00.005+08:00

Yes, it is that time of the year again. Overpriced roses, chocolates and 'special set menus'. As we ponder about our loved ones today, I stopped to think about the One who first loved us. And came across this on today's Our Daily Bread:

For God so loVed the world,

That He gAve

His onLy

BegottEn

SoN

That whoever

Believes In Him

Should Not perish,

But have Everlasting life.

John 3:16

Coincidence? I doubt it. Albert Einstein once said that coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous (he was Jewish in case you didn't already know). I couldn't agree more with that statement. He (God, not Einstein) works wonders that we could never even begin to fathom in our lifetime with our feeble minds.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Ushering in the year of the Rat - squeak!

2008-02-13T16:15:00.004+08:00

This year's CNY was one the most laid back ones we ever had. Due to the standoff with my parents and also due to the fact that I had been working for both weekends prior to the CNY holidays, I was not in the mood for visitations of any kind when CNY Day 1 arrived.

It started off on the usual note. It was half day on CNY Eve at the office with less than half the people actually reporting to work. After clearing some paperwork which had been sitting in my In tray for the longest time, I went home for a quick lunch and a snooze. Awakened by clanging pots and pans, I realised that the reunion dinner was at my sis-in-law, Nancy's, place and not ours as was the usual practise. All of us went about preparing our dishes; I was in charge of the cold dish so had to season the jellyfish, prepare the topshell, boil the prawns for making the salad prawns, etc. Dinner was a quick affair as we had to rush home to prepare for the next day's popiah. Bedtime was late as we had so much to do.

On CNY Day 1, we woke up late in the morning, me with a horrible pounding headache (the kind that shoots across the back of your eyes; haven't had this kind for a long time). After popping two paracetemols and going about the usual pleasantries, we started preparing for lunch (Steamboat! Woo hoo!) with the CCK gang coming over to our place. After gobbling up the food, Velouria and my mum-in-law left the house (to follow the CCK gang and to meet her friends respectively), leaving Penny and I to some peace and quiet. We knocked out until about 6pm when we woke up to catch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on TV. We decided to sleep early after rotting in front of the TV for so many hours. Heck, we were so lazy to move we just slept in the living room.

On CNY Day 2, it was the same thing again. Woke up late (with the headache that refused to go away), Vel came back with the CCK gang to have lunch, vegetated in front of the TV for the most part of the afternoon, decided to go East Coast for our dinner. And what a ketok case it was! It cost us $36 for 20 sticks of satay and a ketupat, one mixed grill, one plate of fried prawn mee, three coconuts and 2 cups of sugar cane juice. Milled around for a bit looking at the silly people wakeboarding in circles at the lagoon, then we took a drive past Orchard Road just to see how dead it was on the way home.

On CNY Day 3, we decided to drop in on my grandma. Took her out for lunch and went hunting for gifts (for Joel's and Jireh's birthday party later in the day). Before sending her back, we dropped by our place to pick up our swimming gear for later (it was, afterall, a poolside party). Then it was off to Penny's friend, Jean's, place at Bedok after dropping grandma off. Sat for barely half an hour there before we shot off to HarbourFront to get the boys' gifts. Praise the Lord we managed to get everything we wanted there! Rushed to Sarah's place (The Icon) and made it just before 7pm as we planned! Whew! After stuffing ourselves silly and doing a few laps in the pool (it was too c-c-c-cold to swim for too long), we called it a night at about 10.30pm. Rushed home to sleep as we knew that it was going to be another long day tomorrow.

On CNY Day 4, woke up late AGAIN! Arrived at church at 9.30am when the guys were already halfway through jamming! Urggh! We didn't join the rest of the people for lunch as they were eating at Botak Jones. After so many days of pigging out, we were longing for something soupy so we headed for Bao Gong for our favourite sliced fish beehoon. But being the pig that I am, I had to have my beef hor fun. Vel fell asleep halfway there so we just left her lying on the chairs as we gobbled our food and finished it off with a box of durian puffs. We went home for a nap, but I was awokened by the incessant ringing of our home phone. Got so fed up that I plucked out the phone line. But since I was already up, decided to spend some time with my PS2. Spent the rest of the night watching Spiderman on TV and getting ready for work.

Time flies when you're having fun. Just like that, our four-day break was over.

Where did January go?

2008-01-31T11:00:00.000+08:00

Time flies. Really. One moment we're busy celebrating Christmas in church, then I got entangled in the whole Sharapova hoopla with the last minute promotion that we slapped together. Before I knew it New Year came and we were making resolutions and the usual nonsense (no countdown party though, we didn't even stay up to watch the cheesy countdown show on TV).

A few wasted parking coupons and some stressful weeks later, I find myself at the end of Janaury. Eagerly awaiting the nice break that is coming with the Lunar New Year, I wonder to myself where did January go? I'm sure February will fly by as fast and I'll be wondering the same thing four weeks later as I wish myself Happy Birthday.

My point? Time flies by whether we like it or not and it sucks. I always don't seem to have enough time to do all the things I'm supposed to.

And all my paperwork from December is still piled up in my 'In' tray.

Old wedding pix

2008-01-24T13:44:00.001+08:00

While clearing our stuff some time back, Penny and I found some of our old wedding photos. These were 4R-sized printouts of the same shots being used in our chunky photo album, which we seldom took out of its box to look at it anyway given the bulk of the tome.

It's hard to imagine we've been married for over 8 years now. Looking back and considering the shit we've gone through, I can only say that it's God's mighty grace that has kept us together for so long. Amen to that!

And the pix look damn 'obiang' now! But these don't look as bad as the indoor shots, at least we got to have our photo taken at the famous Katong 'Red House' bakery before it got torn down.

Also on hindsight, it was ultra silly of us to spend such a bomb on photos that we seldom take a look at. If my memory serves me right, I think we forked out something to the tune of $5ooo. Crazy! I suppose our only consolation is that at least we had a chance to be professionally photographed and that the pictures will stay with us for a long time to come, providing a good laugh every now and then...

'Guan beh zuay lee eh meng tor'

2008-01-19T10:38:00.001+08:00

All of us have our guilty pleasures; some listen to Backstreet Boys when they are driving alone, some gorge themselves silly with potato chips when nobody is looking. Me, I love listening to Hokkien songs. There's something heart wrenching yet at the same time endearing about Hokkien songs that no other English song is able to express in a similar capacity.

Just a few days back, Penny came to me ranting and raving about this Hokkien worship song that Nancy had passed to her. She said that this song somehow touched her and she cried when she first heard it.

So this morning we played it in the room and I was amazed. Such simplicity in the lyrics but yet so true, I wanted to cry as well. Below is a rough English translation of the song:

BEING THE LORD’S DISCIPLE
words and music by Kelvin Soh

Hold my hand, Lord Jesus
I ask for Your protection and your guidance
Protect my heart and guide my steps
That I may never stray from Your way

Hold my hand, Lord Jesus
I ask of You to open the way for me
Step by step, following Your footsteps
Never afraid of how difficult the path may be

CHORUS:
Lord Jesus, oh, Lord Jesus
I want to be Your disciple
Lord Jesus, oh, Lord Jesus
I want to be Your disciple

Somehow the English translation doesn't seem to carry across the same sentiments as the original version. This song is just beautiful and I can't it out of my head.

It's beautiful because it basically summarises Luke 9:23: Then he said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me".

And we all know how difficult that can be.

Jurong 'ink'

2008-01-08T21:37:00.000+08:00

After another long, tiring day at work - we had a last dance rehearsal at the event location of our sales conference- I finally got home at about 9pm. I could just muster enough strength to down some porridge (despite having a 2 pc KFC meal earlier) and get down to preparing for the next day's program. This included ripping off the sleeves of my T-shirt and applying fake tattoos on my arm. We were, after all, doing Kal Ho Na Ho (a Bollywood dance item).

I never thought much of fake tattoos before. Applying these now brought me back to my younger days when we used to play with those on the wrappers of 10-cent bubble gums available at mamak stalls. Velouria was her usual curious self and kept insisting that she get one as well. Since I had one whole sheet with me, I thought why not and decided to give her a small one.

It surprised me how easy it was to apply. Cut, slap, douse with water, peel and - voila! - there it was! When we were done we were so proud of ourselves that we just had to show them off.

Sometimes, it's these silly little things we do as a family that keeps me going. Takes my mind off the mundane things that keep me awake at night.

Praise the Lord for blessing us with such a nonsensical daughter.

Robbing God

2008-01-04T10:15:00.000+08:00

8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings.
9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me.
10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Malachi 3:8-10

Just had a sudden revelation while praying to God. I mean, I've known this for a long time, but it never occured to me with such clarity. All this shit that we've been going through with our finances and all, boils down to one simple fact.

I have been robbing God.

It has already been ordained in His Word that tithing is part and parcel of obeying him. But time and again, I have been compromising on my tithes to pay our bills and trying to resolve everything MY way. I decided that this has to stop somehow so I started my New Year with my tithing again. I even forced myself to give more than 10%, not so that I can claim credit for it but because God deserves all the glory and honour.

My prayer and resolution for 2008 is that God will fill me with His Holy Spirit so that I will learn to fear and revere Him even more through His Word and that He will break this stronghold of finances that continue to bind me.

I am, after all, the strength of the household and all things must be set right in me first before everything else will fall in place.

Rest

2007-12-07T09:23:00.000+08:00

Come to me, all you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

The past few weeks have been really depressing. Had another disagreement with my parents so we aren't talking to them now. Penny and I just have so much to deal with at the moment that we decided it's best for everybody that we leave them alone for now.

Our finances are becoming a strain on us. Again, this month I've compromised on my tithing to pay our bills. Guilt stricken, I keep crying out to God to forgive me for 'robbing' His kingdom. I've got so much to do at work, what with the new product launch in January, keeping up with all the paperwork and with dance rehearsals (for our marketing conference in Jan 2008) coming up.

Haven't been sleeping well either. The slightest noise keeps me awake at night (there's a lone bird that keeps chirping at night) and I had to put on ear plugs to go to sleep. But that didn't help much too as the sound of my own breathing was amplified a hundred fold within my ear canals. By the time I got to sleep, the birds (all of them, not just the loner from the night before) started chirping and it was dawn again.

Prayed to God two nights back and told Him that I was really drained and all I needed was some good quality sleep. For the first time in two weeks, I fell asleep without ear plugs. I woke up to the sound of chirping birds and the purplish sky outside the window. I thought to myself 'Wow, what a beautiful day!' (though the sky turned dark later in the morning and rained for the next two days; I'm sure this was God's way of motivating me). For some reason, that depressive feeling was gone. Not that my problems had gone away; I knew we still had bills to pay, I knew there was still shit to clear at work. But somehow I felt a heavy burden being lifted from my shoulders and felt so much lighter and happier.

All because I serve an Almighty God.