:AveraMel'au:

Major overhaul of Tiankongshini

2009-07-09T08:19:00.000+08:00

Well, this blog is not dead as yet. As days, months goes by, I've seen much of the blogs are dying off or already dead.

This can't be happening here. Therefore, after being a 1 year soldier, it's time to give some ventilation to it. New and super duper simple skin template. But still, i have to say that I can't blog as often as during poly time, where I blogged daily. Oh man! Sounds like I'm some daily reporter on Strait times.

Blogging is so hard to be commercialized now. Bo lui...

Cheers and signing off!
1 more year for freedom!!

-- Post From My iPhone

Finally, i've uploaded all my pictures of Hong Kong

2009-06-24T18:45:00.001+08:00

to facebook!! It was an incrediable feat and now, I have to transport into fuller more complex details into my blog about the venues, exact location and my feelings towards some places.

Meanwhile, do keep a look out for Food and Travel magazine as I'll be featured in a small part in the mag.

cheers everyone.
LCP BY Lau.

adidas Sundown Marathon 2009, I've done it.

2009-06-01T14:00:00.012+08:00

Crazy it seems but never do I know that I would attempt a marathon 5 or 10 years back in primary or secondary school. In the past, running idealogy was very different then. I loathe running, i would really try to cheat / bluff / do whatever things along with my khakis to avoid running. One of the main reason was also I fear that my asthma attack would come back again, another reason was, I was plainly lazy and a fat bump.

Failing shuttle run and 2.4km was a norm thing to be, nothing much to be surprised or sorrowful about it as sports to me was like, why the hell should we do it?

Over the years, when I got older, I found many life experiences that reflects sports rules,

endurance and mentally fused well together. I wasn't faithful to one sport, first it was swimming then later I've changed to some badmintion. During my poly years, I've tried frisbee then later on volleyball. Different rules and different techniques, but there's one common thing in all the spor

ts i've did, which was having fun and the patience to learn.

Back in the poly years, I admit that I had many things on my mind. Tried out many hair colours and styles, went various saloon to get my hair cut. Clubbed, Danced, Sang, Performance, studies etc. It was a huge rush and 24 hours wasn't really enough (at least though it's still not enough, it's much better managing my time now). Tried many kinds of craziest business ventures with many people, some failed some went well etc.

Once I got into the army, I realised that I really could not maintain the lifestyle that I was having before thus I went 'Back to the Basics'. I've got a really simple hair cut now, get a cheap spectacles (with good lens though) and I've not worn a contact lens for donkey years. When was the last ti

me I've clubbed? It was like 10 months to a year back then. Life is more serene and sort of more focus in things that I'm doing. Most of the concept that I am following now is taken from Apple, where their designs are simply so simple, yet very complex.

Now, joining marathons, runs and etc is the craziest and most contridicting thing to do. I hate running in the past, why the hell I started off running the Kallang Expressway Open House 10km and suffer under the humid and hot tunnel? It was the feeling that you can't experience when your chip, your entire body thrust forward to the finishing line. The feeling I could simply put for now is "YES! I'VE FINISHED THE RACE AND GOOD RIDDANCE!" Yea, that's really the simplest way i could describe my feeling.

During early december, I was helping out at the Standard Chartered Marathon 2008 Expo and there was a booth heavily advertising for Sundown Marathon with their early bird special fees etc. Intially, I remembered that I wanted to join subUrban 10km run only as Hivelocity was organizing it but never do I know, due to the awesome freebies and discounts for sundown marathon, I've also joined a full marathon. After all the trasaction was done there, I was like "Melvin,

you are in for sure.. no way of turning back but only to waste your money if you're not particapting it. "

So I thought, there's about 6 more months to go and I thought I could really train for it. But soon after, many obstacles came into my life. Tourettes, my new vocation, new peers in army with tonnes of politcal stuffs (much more of what North Korea is having with US now.) I didn't progress anything or gain anything significantly through this 6 months. It was hell and I've no mood to train for 10km too.

Every single day, my physical fitness was rotting away. Btw, I'm much fatter too, due to lack of exercise in my vocation too. I was practically rotting my 6 months, doing jailbreaks for people (it's a really successful venture you know!), doing my work in camp, meet councellors and neurologist etc.

Till 29th May, it suddenly struck my mind, oh.. I've a marathon to run tonight. What have I done for the past 6 months to prepare for it? Oh yes, the 15km Passion run which was just a week before. And hell, my legs was like 95% recovered from the 15km Passion run.

What I have prepared before the race?

No brainer was that I should load as much carbohydrates though I was plum already. On Friday, I had huge curry fish head feast with my parents and loaded quite a bit of rice into my diet. On saturday, I had mee goreng and puffs for breakfast while attending Asian Youth Games briefing and due to the busy and hectic afternoon of getting a desktop computer for my parents, I had to skip lunch.

I had dinner with Siew Yee and Kewei, at Botak Jones really had the most last minute awesome carbo loading dinner with fries, pasta and fried fish. Actually, during that evening, I was beginning to be worried. I had many thoughts in my mind and one of them was "Melvin, are you very sure that you've joined the correct time? Look, you've not done 21km yet but you're trying for 42km? Your mother has already told you that you're really siao to run for this, are you sure"

I wasn't very sure then... Not until I finished the entire ordeal.

My adventure begins...

Both Kewei and I were late for the marathon, we missed the flag off timing and we were like 10 minutes late from the flag off timing.

I started really slow pace on the first 1km, because I've 41km left to run. Within 30 seconds we started running, I lost kewei and he's far up hopping, jumping and speeding ahead. I've read online about social pressure and nothing's gonna beat or influence me to keep on par with him. I know my limits and continued at my own comfortable pace.

I realised that night runs are much better to run compared to morning.. You need not have to worry about the sun and etc. It was quite cool yet humid when I ran.

The complaints.

At the east coast park, there was a U turn back to the 21km point. they should have a check point there because I do see people cheat when they took a shorted U turn! That tempted me to U turn and cut through to 21km too but I resisted and was scared. Because what if there was indeed a check point at the U turn range? I would be forfeited and running meaninglessly for the rest of the marathon. BUT THERE'S ISN'T! WHEN I REACHED THE U TURN POINT, I WAS LIKE DAMN! DAMN YOU ALL LUCKY CHEATERS!!!

But well, at least I did really run the full marathon.. oh wait, actually MUCH more than 42.125km.

I was really proud of myself at the 33 to 35km mark, during that time, it was around Siglap park connector where I saw many, really many people taking a seat at the playground, benches and took off their shoes to massage as they couldn't take the intense muscle ache. All thanks to my long stamina of standing and running about in my Japanese Restaurant for 13 hours max, I could actually 'tahan' walking and jogging non stop sia! I didn't know that I could take it, though slow but I didn't stop to take my shoes out or massage my legs!

The long, endearing last league of the race

It was hell i tell you. My legs were really feeling the full impact of the numbness, pain and so many other gruelling things to describe it but unable to explain it. Starting from 38km, the journey took so long to reach 39km. Kewei and I suspect that there was some problem with the signage because practically, it takes like many LIGHT years for me to slow jog / walk from 38km to 42km.

At the very last 600m, those 6 hours and above had to run a very different route. And it was EXTREMELY different and grueling shit. They have diverted the course to so much longer than 42.125km. I'm very sure those participants will complain that they cant finish it earlier by crossing the elevated bridge but instead, have to go one huge round the damn river to reach the finishing line.

Upon reaching the finishing line, my mind was blank but only 2 things in mind, get the finisher tee and medal and GRAB A BANANA.

Lastly, I want to thank my parents for letting me going for such a crazy marathon. Though my mother said I was crazy to join such race, but she still allowed me to go. Thanks!

Circle Line Discovery + Passion Run

2009-05-24T23:19:00.000+08:00

Whoosh! What a sudden rush of event that make me feel like I'm back to normal in my poly days.. I said the word "feel" though.. not really back to the post army days as I still have funny commitments in the army.

I'll keep you guys updated again. Cheers everyone!

Britney Spears is not an "Ordinary Singer"

2009-05-14T22:14:00.004+08:00

Ever wonder why she captured and stormed the world with her songs? She was the highest, most searched singer on search engine and her legend lives on.

Why her songs are so catchy? Because mainly and plainly, her songs are satanic and evil.

Everyone do know about "If You See Amy", formally known as "If You Seek Amy". Her original lyrics is "all the boys and all the girls are begging to If You Seek Amy". Who the hell has such english paraphrasing and sentence structure? "to If You Seek Amy"?

Well, you will only understand you see it in this angle ""all the boys and all the girls are begging to iFyoUseeKme" which literally translate to "all the boys and all the girls are begging to F-U-C-K me"

That's her main goal. To breach the censorship and deliver her obsene songs without being edited to the masses. How smart is she? Well, she's extremely smart in conveying evil messages.

Remember the song "Gimme More"? It was extremely catchy and we thought she came out of her total craziness, depression state with this song. Never DO I know that she's venting her hatred in this song.

Here it goes, "Gimme More" played backwards as she talks more about her life in depression state.

What about If You See Amy? She didn't mind singing it again and inserting the word from "Seek" to "See" that makes the whole song cleaner. But how clean is this song?

Her song played backwards are full of satanic phrases and sing phrases for satans.

The new reversed lyrics:
Al al al alal al al al
They hate me, seek me, touch me/ you make me sick
Just 'cuz I have an invisible husband
Hey matrosjka, senorita
This are a mistake, noo
Hey matrosjka, soo.

They hate me, seek me, touch me/ you make me sick
Just 'cuz I have an invisible husband
Exile we streak, in fear he run

Mwahaha hihi haha ho
Dis ist ganz nicht
But at least she got da boobs, boy
And a normal cigar

And here come the forwarding, yaha
Oowha, who else was I, gone easy, buy me west
Ooho, oohoo, galis dans ich nooit met jullie bear
Mymy, that musical good
Myea, let's take the queen's and shake that baby baby

Hoo hell suck my nipples magician, North apimacion
And this be many super heavy, but baby

They hate me, seek me, touch me/ you make me sick
Just 'cuz I have an invisible husband
Hey matrosjka, senorita
This are a mistake, noo
Hey matrosjka, soo.

They hate me, seek me, touch me
Just 'cuz I have an invisible husband
Exile we streak, in fear he run

Mwahaha hihi haha ho
Dis ist ganz nicht [German for "This is totally not"]
But at least she got da boobs, boy
And a normal cigar

And here come the forwarding, yaha
Oowha, who else was I, gone easy, buy me west
Ooho, oohoo, galis dans ich nooit met jullie bear
Mymy, that musical good
Myea, let's take the queen's and shake that baby baby

Hoo hell suck my nipples magician, North apimacion
And this be many super heavy, but baby

Al al al alal al al al

Now, do you underestimate Britney Spears? Can Christina Aguilera or Katy Perry create such magnificent songs that able to decode the hidden messages? I wonder...

Will there be a 2nd time? Mr Mas Selamat?

2009-05-08T08:23:00.001+08:00

"It's only a matter of time" - said the health officials of Singapore about the H1N1 flu being spread as a community in Singapore. For this, they are so certain that there will be a casualty in Singapore.

What about Mas Selamat? He has escaped 3 times and will there be another time?

Can Singapore afford to lose him due to security lapse again? Will Defence Minister quote the Health Minister's saying "It's only a matter of time."?

Hmm, what do you think, guys?

Inter-School Aquathalon 2009

2009-05-02T09:10:00.003+08:00

Hello everyone! What you guys have been up to? Okay, i think the answer would OBVIOUSLY be, please check out my blog lah!

But hmm, after going rounds into my friend's blog, I conclude that there's only like 20% of the who blogs about their lifes and spaces and in the 20%, about 2% of them blogs extremely thoroughly, i thought i was reading their life's Wikipedia.

Anyway, enough of the funny crap. I presume that I can resume my frequency of blogging now. Nuffnang hasn't been giving me ANY advertisements from their banner but I can't complain lah, though my viewership is still the same as before BMT Times (interestingly), but I guess that nuffnang would not give advertisement if you haven't been blogging for a long time (with some commercial means tho).

First and foremost, I am proud that I was invovled in this cuddly, cute'sy event, Inter-School Aquathlon 2009 where children from primary school, all the way up to university students took part in this light aquathlon.

Now, WHAT THE HECK IS AQUATHLON? IS IT A AQUA (GAY/LESBIAN) thing?

It's simply, swim like you've never float before and run like you never walk before.

Preparations were made for this event and I am really proud that I was the shirt designer for the event. Loads of brain cells and creativity were lost during this event. The design of the shirts were a blast and well-received by participants! That positive comments from participants and organizers brought my designing skills into another level. Remember hunkies, and babeies, I wasn't from a designing course.

Smack! This was the design that i LOVE the most. Based from the controversial MRT sign, I've design to create this for 400+ participants and 300+ volunteers because it's catchy, retro and media oriented.

Primary base.

Shirt Front

Shirt Back

But organizers found it really 'media oriented' and excessively retroistic. It does not really cater for children, esp primary / secondary school children. I tried to change the colour and fonts to make it slightly more childish but still, catchy in the eyes of the public to be more AWARE in such sport event.

Therefore, my second draft for my organizers.

Front side

Back side.

I've bumped and kicked the colour up, fresh lime green with childrens' hand writing font, in short, Kristin IC lah.

This was controversial and having loads of mixed reviews. Some loved it yet some still found it to adult looking. The final verdict? For a thought, i thought that the organizers played Amy winehouse song, Rehab. "They tried to bring me to rehab but i said NO NO NO.."

This rejection does really dented my heart and motivation to design something though. But i preservered and did something simpler yet more catchy and direct an obvious message to the public.

Though i spent like 30 minutes creating this image, it took me half a day to brainstorm something so cute and simple.

This concludes something, being and creating something simple isn't easy. Just like life and gadgets, to create something simple and easy to be liked, it requires a lot of effort to deal with it.

Front Side.

Back side.

I was not confident that this design would pass by the organizers initially. I didn't have as much high hopes as the previous design.

But unexpectedly, THEY LOVED IT AND APPROVED THE DESIGN. It was a defining moment because once again, after the OSIM map designing, this T-shirt design is another breakthrough to my designing skills.

Happy event day!

My sister got herself an awesome

2009-04-23T00:17:00.001+08:00

NEW FUJITSU LAPTOP!

What an awesome specifications for slightly higher end performance! Now, im starting to loathe my laptop performance and want to head on getting a macbook pro.

Darn!

I'll get back where I left off soon.

Last Published, 22nd March.

2009-04-04T01:38:00.000+08:00

Where's all the motivation to blog? Where is it? The main reason I am blogging now is because my sister had just asked me why i am not updating my blog for a long time. LOOK! My template is still stuck with the valentine's day thingy.

I've got so much to tell, really.. about my life, about my social circle in National Service, ex school mates, volunteer mates. But the main reason isn't about all this social gatherings or events that I am yearning to blog and stick a memory of it. But rather, about my life in National Service. It's really a hard one and I'm pretty sure no one (including councilors) do understand the mental ordeal that I'm experiencing. People who listen to you will definitely goes " Oh yes Mel, I understand your plight because I sorta went through the same ordeal with you. It wasn't great and blabla..."

Not to be a pessimist, but I feel that a true listener does ask you relevant questions based from your confides about your medical condition, domestic woes and etc. But hell no, forget about even confiding using MSN, the messenger that changed peoples' internet habits and communication. Confiding via MSN seems to be like punching a sand bag and it retaliates back (by hearing the other party's reply going "oh", "oh no, that's bad...") and basically they are playing or multi-tasking in other computer activity such as facebooking and etc, if I have God's senses to overlook what they are doing. Even having a personal face to face counseling session with someone isn't going to work, trust me. It just gives you a brink of hope, sorry, did I say hope? I meant false hope.

Therefore, I have to tell you all, or rather, to confide my blog or facebook notes that I indeed have Tourettes, muscle tics. Nothing fanciful of being insane or not in a sane mental state, it's just that my brain motor doesn't operate as well as before now. I get muscle tics when I get anxiety, depression or a slight discomfort from the environment. If you are curious about Tourettes, read on then.

" Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive, stereotyped, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics. The disorder is named for Dr. Georges Gilles de la Tourette, the pioneering French neurologist who in 1885 first described the condition in an 86-year-old French noblewoman.

The early symptoms of TS are almost always noticed first in childhood, with the average onset between the ages of 7 and 10 years. TS occurs in people from all ethnic groups; males are affected about three to four times more often than females. It is estimated that 200,000 Americans have the most severe form of TS, and as many as one in 100 exhibit milder and less complex symptoms such as chronic motor or vocal tics or transient tics of childhood. Although TS can be a chronic condition with symptoms lasting a lifetime, most people with the condition experience their worst symptoms in their early teens, with improvement occurring in the late teens and continuing into adulthood."

If you are fine and able to accept my 'special ability', just read on and see the video further.

This was an evidence that I was having tourettes, a milder version of eye blinking.

Therefore, this post will reveal it all about me, my syndrome and my life that I am living now. It's not meant to hurt anyone here but rather, I just wished that there's someone out there who really understands what I am going through and able to put me into their shoes and go through such ordeal.

I have Ptosis. What is that heck again? I have lazy eyes, and that means that I have bilateral lazy eyes thus to those who first met me, they will have the impression that I do not express interest/attention to them. Instead, they think that I am sleepy. However, majority who reads my blog now are viewers who know me for long and do know that I am not sleepy every time and have shown acceptance to my lazy eyes.

Let's back track a few months back about my life.

In November 2008, I was posted as an Amour Technician. A technician that I have to deal with Bionix, m113 huge tanks that weighs about 17 to 30 tonnes. The engine or rather the powerpack weighs about 5 to 7 tonnes and if the engine falls on you, you'll just die like Hotcakes in Mcdonalds. I endured 9 weeks of my technician course as a TANK technician and one day, I told myself, "Melvin, stop this endurance now. Your eyes just doesn't seem to help you to be a tank technician where you have to bent low inside the tank body chamber, unscrewing stuffs in a dark environment." It was totally unsafe and I sounded off to my instructor who anxiously reported it to my Platoon Commander. It was then I went to the Medical Officer and he got me out of the course of being a technician. Out from this course wasn't a smooth one too. I counted myself as a bad luck guy i guess. I have no idea why when I have a valid 'black and white' paper to certify that I'm out from this course due to my ptosis, my chief clerk still insist to recourse me for another 3 months and do the same thing again. I found no logic but according to her, her logic was that there wasn't a recommendation from my specialist that I should be out of the course. But hey! My MO did and recommended. Thus, I photocopied the same thing, submitted my documents to her the 2nd time and she finally posted me out. The ironic thing was that it was the exact documents that I've submitted her the first time, but it wasn't approved by her initially. I do not know why when she requested the documents the 2nd time, she took action to find me another posting. Was the reason that she didn't read my documents? Or she lost it? I didn't probe it further because finally, I'm not a technician.

But alas, I was out from that course and I was glad that I was out of it. My peers who stuck through the course, are complaining that they want to get out from this by any means.

In early January, I was posted as an armskote personnel and the hours were extremely irregular. At times in the middle of the night, the armskote personnel have to wake up and retrieve all the arms from the cadets and yes, it's a stay in job. In fact, Sungei Gedong camp is a stayin camp with some exceptions.

I couldn't take such pressure especially what's happening at home and my condition, tourettes. In fact, the beginning was I could not accept the fact that I am posted to the place I didn't want to be at; Sungei Gedong, the most out of civilisation camp in Singapore where you are only greeted with wild boars, tropical trees and weird, bright coloured birds there.

Since posted to this camp, my tourettes became extremely bad due to some anxiety problem too. The environment there wasn't for me and inevitable, I had to go to Neurologist and counsellor for help. Yes, I went all those, just to get my tourettes surpressed and domestic problem 'fixed'.

Because of my ptosis, I was PES C1L9 and there was not a single reason that I should be in armskote because i was technically excused from firearms. I had no idea how the SAR 21 works because during BMT, I wasn't trained on it. In fact, I was excused from all kinds of firearms; rifle, grenades and etc. Therefore, how could I bear the responsibility fixing / maintaining those arms with my eye condition like this. What if something went wrong because of my partial vision lost? Besides my tourettes was really affecting my social, mental and physical side of me. Who would want to see a guy who always twitch without any warning and twitch more when there's some stress level involved in the activities like being a armskote personnel? What if I make someone lost their life due to chamber explosion in their rifle? So am I to be blamed?

I fought hard, actually really hard to be posted out again and finally, settle down with being a clerk, overlooking a computer lab. I went to see specialist from Tan Tock Seng and the doctor found my condition really rare though he heard about it. He had no idea what to do to me and referred me to a younger specialist doctor who was well learned and informed about Tourettes. He made the necessary prescription and written a memo to my Medical Officer to excuse me from staying in because it does aggreviate my syndrome.

Till now, I guess I am still fighting out from this by taking medicine daily to suppress my 'already aggreviated' tourettes. I don't have much friends in my existing wingline mainly because in the entire computer lab, I am alone inside the lab which means slightly more freedom. Those from my wing line are stay in and this group of people have known each other for many months (in fact almost a year) in that unit thus the unity is so unbreakable, I couldn't blend into their clique well. I'm fine about it and well aware that I was the special case one, muscle twitching, not staying in the same bunk as them do make them feeling I am the inferior one.

But I don't mind, as long as I do my job and duties with no more weird complains from my superior, I am very well happy with this kind of army life and pass out from this in 1 year 3 months time.

Not much expectation within this 2 years, I simply just keep a low profile and a simple army life. I'm not going to care about the ranks, friendships in this camp but only stay true to the friends that I truly think they are.

I have the feeling that a lot of people are going to despise me. But it's just a feeling only, I should not care much though. I just want my tourettes to be suppressed fully and have a peaceful life, that includes my family.

Hong Kong Hong Kong!

2009-03-22T21:38:00.002+08:00

I can't believe that Josline has eventually blogged finished about her Hong Kong trip while i'm still stuck at the first day!

I better start blogging about my HK trip before i lose my pictures!!!

http://tiankongshini.blogspot.com/2008/11/my-hong-kong-day-1.html

Here is still my Day 1! Cheers and urgh, pathetic!

I'm so lazy to blog

2009-03-21T19:14:00.001+08:00

and even till the extent that nuffnang forgets about my advertisements for now! oh my..

well, if people are interested to know how I am doing.. I am pretty fine at the moment. I've just recovered from my food poisoning, stomach upset or whatever do you call it and finally, I am able to eat army food, restaurant food, hokkien mee and other oily stuffs!

I realised that drinking Vitagen or Yakult is extremely important in the digestive system. Mainly i drank that and my intestine worked pretty fine.

I think this blog might be dead anytime soon. Facebook is indeed much easier to update, posting pictures and etc.

PS: Thank you shirley for taking my position and ran the 5km for Suburban run. I was still feeling weak lah! That's why!

Ironman event, here I come!

Free - Corrinne May

2009-03-13T00:58:00.001+08:00

Thank You Cindy Jie jie for this album. This song comes extremely handy in the situation I am at now.

I see the morning glory
It winds upon the tree
It tells the untold story of how things were meant to be
You saw the universe
Caught up in desperate dreams
You came and changed the ending
Changed it to save my fate
You led the revolution
You left your legacy
Embraced the struggle
in the face of mortality
I know I'm not alone in this
Help me believe

I can be free
I can be free from this place
Beautiful healer
Beautiful grace
Help me to see
Everything fall into place
Wake me from dreaming
No more deceiving
Break these chains

It's still the same old story
This great divide
Between the want and waste
And all the hunger inside
I heard the news today
Now I'm trying to find my place
I'm just a single voice
What can I do to erase

All this misunderstanding
All this anarchy
Six degrees of separation
Sometimes it's so hard to see
That we are not alone in this
I need to believe

I can be free
I can be free from this place
Beautiful healer
Beautiful grace
Help me to see
Everything fall into place
Wake me from dreaming
No more deceiving
Break these chains

I puke, I shat, I blew my health out.

2009-03-09T20:34:00.004+08:00

Everytime something happens, we will suspect on the cause. This is natural and this is very human. As for me, I got food poisoning. oh wait, i think it's food poisoning, if not it's stomach flu, gastric pain or dengue. But i leave dengue out because I do not have rashes.

On Thursday evening, I had dinner with Meiyun and Kewei out at Far East Plaza, that time my appetite was overwhelmingly great but my stomach wasn't feeling good after the meal. Soon, my right hip bone starts to hurt and I think it's the cause of a stomach viral attack that makes my whole body muscle ache.

But it was the initial start of the nightmare and I didn't give a damn about my queer stomach. I went on to drink milk at night and ate spicy food. that was suicidal.

On Friday morning, my stomach was sort of well AGAIN and I rushed down to order Chicken rice with kang kong. I never regret eating it because it was extremely delicious. But wait, my stomach gave me a warning signal on Thursday evening but I've ignored it. Instead, i went ahead to eat the OILEST cuisine, hainanese chicken rice.

I give a pat to my stomach for being strong and withstanding the oil, spices and lactose till Friday afternoon where it gave way. I was having lunch with kewei (btw, I took 2 days LEAVE BECAUSE I WENT FOR A COURSE) and we had shanghai cuisine. Initially i was really hungry and wanted nice shanghai cuisine. But after i went into the restaurant, the smell of the food was overwhelming but wait, it didn't smell like food to me. As i was feeling extremely nauseous, the fragrant smell of the food doesn't appeal to me and it actually smell like vomit.

Poor me, i ate one shanghai dumpling and I told kewei that I'm full. Poor him too, he has to eat everything that was meant for 2 person and he ate everything, quite a huge feat for him eh! Immediately after we paid the bills, i vomited everything out on the drain. I should take a snap on the vomit and the mess I've made on the drain. Just imagine shredded chicken, bits of undigested rice and kang kong spattered on the floor with gooey sticky phlegm. Yes, that was it @ 2pm.

I tried to concentrate during the course and hopefully i can last till 5pm but i didn't. In fact, i vomited again at 4pm and it was torturing me. My stomach was like a deflated air bag. It has involuntarily squeezed my guts out and puke everything that I have, all the stomach acid, the shanghai dumplings and the Bao Ji Wan medicine that I took to curb with the nausea. It was all down to the toilet bowl. The most embarrassing thing is that my colleagues heard all the rumbling, vomiting going on in the toilet while they were having lesson.

I told myself that this was it, i need to see a doctor because this is really bad and I don't think it can be self healed.

After the course, i took a taxi with kewei and went down to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, just to see a pharmacist and see a doctor to get my medicine quickly. Never do I know that I would be landing on A&E ward for such seriousness. The doctor has put me on drips and kept me for observation for 4 hours.

I didn't know that I had to fast for the 4 frigging hours which means that I didn't eat the entire day because i puked my breakfast and lunch out. Now, I didn't know I could not have dinner thus the nurse fed be with chicken porridge and Milo. Oh yes, i didn't know that I COULD NOT TAKE MILO for diarrhea too due to the milk solids in the Milo. but the nurse went ahead and gave me. How cool was that?

Dr. Loi finally came at 10pm to review me. He told me that my blood test was perfectly alright and have nothing to worry. He advise me to drink isotonic non-carbonated drink such as H2O and juices to replenish my water and salt intake. When he said no milk, no milo that part, I sat straight and puke like a merlion. PRACTICALLY LIKE ONE FRIGGIN MERLION on the BED.

Brown fluid with spring onions, shredded chicken came out from my mouth and Dr. Loi said vulgarities because no nurse came to attend to me straight away with a plastic bag. They let me puke till it was about to be over and alas, they gave me a plastic bag. For what? Wipe my mouth is it? that's why Dr. Loi was extremely furious.

Half and hour later, Dr. Loi came back and counselled me to stay overnight at hospital because he said i was fasting for 4 hours yet able to puke so much stuff. I told him that I didn't want to stay in the hospital overnight (because i do worry their services)and told him that they actually fed me with porridge. Upon hearing this, he took my status slip at the side of my bed and shouted at the nurses "Can anyone tell me who doesn't know this sentence, No Hand By Mouth"?(Some kind of sentence like that that describe that I should go on a fast).

Everyone kept quiet and he said "don't give me the EXCUSE that it was the previous shift people who did this. I'm sick and tired of all the excuses.."

Alas, he walked away again without telling me whether I could stay out and not overnight in the hospital.

They gave me 4 packets of drips which accounts to 2 litres of drips into my body. One occasion, they forgot to on the drip and my blood back flowed from my wrist to the tube. how frustrating was that? I tried to wave at the nurses but they didn't reply, only when I pressed the alarm and let the alarm sound off, they looked at me and said "What is the matter??" in such a cold tone. I briefly told them that my drip was closed and my blood was back flowing. She simply just rub the switch to turn it on but it was dripping extremely slowly, from the tube that i saw it was dripping. it was like a drip in 4 seconds?

Lastly, when i could actually get out of this scary place and went home, i puked again at Bishan MRT. Thankfully Meiyun and Kewei was there and guilded my weak body home. Initially we took mrt but i felt nauseous again in the mrt and alighted at Bishan MRT. As usual, I've puked again because the fish smell at Manhattan Fish Restaurant. When you feel nauseous, any kind of food you smell or imagine makes you want to vomit, trust me. wait till you feel nauseous and you try to smell a fish. You'll definitely puke everything.

At that time, I practically have nothing to puke but a lot of stomach acids and remains of my porridge. It was hell because I crunched my stomach like there's no tomorrow. It was extremely tight and I had no air to breathe while I was vomiting.

The last 2 vomit was when I was at home on Friday Night, Saturday morning. It was torturing. I was running a fever since Friday Night till Sunday morning and puke twice. Once on stomach acid again and the another on my medicine. The medicine was extremely bitter when i puked, it was dissolved partially and when the vomit touches my tongue, it made me want to vomit further because it was extremely distasteful. EXTREMELY bitter.

4days of runs, 2 days of vomits and 2 days of fever. I am still not recovering well...

Happy Valentine's Day to all

2009-02-15T01:23:00.004+08:00

handsome guys and pretty girls.

Alright, amidst of all the lovely dovey kissings, flowers and chocolates, please do vote for Kenneth's review on his take for Chingay 2009!

Voting should be easier but sigh, you ought to have a Singapore Stomp account in order to vote. Thus, if you are extremely free, please do join Singapore stomp and please, vote for KENNETH!

Click the link here.
http://youthphoria.stomp.com.sg/shoutbox/showthread.php?t=1141

P.S. I think my banner shocked you visitors for a while, bear with it for the moment ah!

Every hair counts.

2009-02-02T17:16:00.000+08:00

I am Liu Wen Yang

2009-01-31T00:46:00.004+08:00

"We shall name him 'Melvin'!" - my parents decided on my name. Liu Wen Yang shall be the name we've gotten all the way from Malaysia.

Life has been on the rocks in 2009. I completely do not know how whether I can achieve my happiness resolution in 2009 because right the smack of January 2009, so many events have happened till I thought i've passed a year just for Jan alone. I couldn't explain this phenomenon but all the negative problems just happen to me. It's not the thoughts but rather, the problems. When u hear about the way I describe my words "negative problems", it has been weighed heavily because "problem'' is already a bad thing, but "negative problems"? It's worst, i tell you.

It's not that I am negative in terms of thoughts, in short, pessimistic about life but shit happens! It just happens so rhythmically, it rides along with your life now. While it's riding, you just can't believe yet having to accept that shit happens all the time for now.

Social problem is one of the obstacle that is happening now but it's just the way it is. For this, I am glad that I still do have friends who stand by my side and support, encourage me all the way up the ladder. Thus, this can be shrugged off because this is just a pea obstacle.

** I just felt that I should stop blogging about this problems. Though this is a good avenue to pen down my thoughts and access the situation around me. But I hope this post will make me remember of the dark times I have in the past and appreciate the present.

I use to conclude that whatever day is the worst day of my life etc but didn't give a thought that this period is one of the darkest and worst period of my life. I wouldn't easily conclude it as the worst but rather, one of them now as I do now that there will be even worst obstacles after this. Let's face it, shit just happens.

Happy Birthday

2009-01-23T23:40:00.002+08:00

Ok, Happy Birthday to myself.

And thanks everyone for all the wishes. There's quite a lot to reply back to Facebook and all thanks to Facebook notification. Suddenly everyone remembers my birthday.

HAHA!

Ok la, i do pray for better health and better happiness in my life.

My Tourettes syndrome has been getting bad to worst. I need to see someone.

I love this song, We've only just begun. This should be the song for all 21 year old birthdays. We've only just begun 21 years old, and there's many more endeavours ahead of me to settle and conquer them.

We've only just begun to live,
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we're on our way.
We've just begun.
Before the rising sun we fly,
So many roads to choose
We start out walking and learn to run.
And yes, We've just begun.
Sharing horizons that are new to us,
Watching the signs along the way,
Talking it over just the two of us,
Working together day to day
Together.
And when the evening comes we smile,
So much of life ahead
We'll find a place where there's room to grow,
And yes, We've just begun.

My (Birth) day, 21st time.

2009-01-18T18:19:00.008+08:00

During a typical day in December where everyone are mostly gracing and anticipating for Christmas, my mother suddenly popped up a question, "So Melvin, how are you going to celebrate your 21st birthday?"

I was stunned, I didn't think of anything much just maybe a nice dinner outside with various people without the hassle of doing up an event etc, booking of places and food in advance.

But well, my mother said that it was once in a life time affair that everyone enters into an era, where the public sector sees u as an adult, throwing you more responsibilities, less discount privileges for being an teenager, let alone being a child. Being a true adult is something that I didn't really yearn for, or even something that i detest. It just happened, it's a natural occasion to be 21 years old product from earth and woa la! A stroke of midnight on your birthday, you are able to sign contracts, being a guarantor, decide on the most difficult situations in life.

Not many very privilege people in third world countries make it to 21 years old, or even have the form of simplest celebration being 21. Therefore, this are some of the reasons that I must have a blast on 21 years old because the next blast will be 50 years old, where I will have to wait for 29 years just to be a half a century old.

Initially, it was a bigger chalet @ Aloha Loyang. The unexpected thing? All the weekends for January 2009 has been booked up and I can't be affording $200++ for a bigger, more luxerious chalet in Aloha Loyang.

Being simple and not having high expectations to holding a party is good, okay, it's best. Long gone those days where I am usually the one booking chalet, organize events since secondary 2 class parties because things always don't go the way you want it to be. During my poly years, I am very sure that organizers, like you and me, handing some event always wish to have something huge and fruitful experience coming out for an event but in the end of everything for some reflections, things always don't go the way you wanted. That's one of my opposing reason not to hold something big like doing up an event because I do want to uphold my resolution, just be a simple and HAPPY person. Being happy is not an privilege, it's an entitlement where you have to sacrifice somethings and earn somethings.

That's where after some intense consideration, I decided to hold a small chalet @ Costa Sands Pasir Ris. Cheap as it can be, $90 rental to house everyone comfortably is good enough.

Rental of place done, food and invitation time.

The food was easy part as my mother did most of the decision. Initially, I thought of having a BBQ, but again, who's going to BBQ all the food? My guests won't be the one bbq-ing, i know guests, they are lazy. Who really want to come for a party where you have to bbq your own food just to eat? They want ready cook food, or rather, I prefer ready cooked delicious food and not having to smell @ a birthday party. Thus, I think everyone was happy that there was a buffet, instead of a BBQ where I can have a jolly well chipney, carbon infused birthday atmosphere. (Sounds like heaven eh? Where smoky clouds fill the place and everyone stinks with bbq meat and sauce)

So, the food was done and we got the food from Bibik's catering (in house caterer from Costa Sands Resort).

The last part was the most difficult, the invitation. Sending invitation ain't difficult though, due to the power of facebook, I send invites with breeze as 99% of my friends do have a facebook account. Facebook has really changed the way we lived, I can't say that to MSN messenger because my friends DO have a facebook account but know nuts about MSN messenger or any other IM messenger.

The difficult part is that who do I invite so that my friends don't really feel left out? I can invite a special friend over but if he/she doesn't know anyone or even a soul there, it's not going to be a memorable one for me. Thankfully, the 4 groups or cliques that I've invited are cool with it. It is just like United Nations you know, where group members do cross over and chit chat with others. Not forgetting that the group member among themselves are also very chitty chatty kind.

Therefore, the final verdict was having my NYP closest mates, relatives, TAS friends, Sentosa outgoing gang and lastly, my long lasting friendship with my Secondary School friends (with some elements of primary school ones).

And on the faithful day on 11th January, 2 actual birthday candidates (Ley Yee and Uncle Thomas) came over to my party! It wasn't intentional. I can't possibly having my party nearer to my real actual birthday because many will be flying off or doing spring cleaning during the pre-CNY celebrations. On the 17th and 18th of Jan, not many are able to make it too because of the Zoo Run expo. 11th of January was then chosen because it's the only SUNDAY of the month where almost everyone is in Singapore, doing nothing much.

Without further or do, let's roll out the pictures!

A big thank you to my sister, Kewei and Siew Yee who were very anticipated to doll up the place.

Look! She wasn't scared of the balloon bursting on her body!

They are figuring out how to make out the words.

My mother finally gotten the ice cream cake ordered @ White Sands Shopping Center. We ordered Red Velvet ice cream cake. Not many people would have the appetite for a fluffy breaded flour cake.

It looks really nice on the net though!

Climbing up and down to paste alphabet by alphabet ain't easy you know!

I was so hungry that I ate curry puff right before the buffet.

It's about time.

Ain't that cool? Debbie talking to my secondary school friends?

Cheers and bottles up my dear secondary school friends!

TAS!

SENTOSA!

FAMILY!

I was drunk. Thanks to Kelly.

I really tried to open my eyes as HUGE as possible. I said huge.

Sweet Sentosa gang.

Thank you kenneth!

And again, my friend says both of us look really compatible. But we're just mere good siblings eh!

Cassey is the bomb. We should have taken a shot during our primary school years lah! Ah sian..

Frankly hor, I've gotten to know you better AFTER secondary school years. LOL

This is the true birthday girl who took time off from her birthday time to celebrate it with me! Thanks Leyz!

It's cool you know, that Rudy and I wore almost the same and both of us looking at Kelly Chua.

My precious cousins who were with us all the while since young. Awesome Amanda and Daryl!

My parents with my relatives.

My uncles and aunties, with mama and papa.

The hippest Auntie and Uncle.

Our friendship is almost 2 years already bro! Since NYP!

My uncle and auntie, who are also my registered God parents, have well taken care of me and my sister. They provide us with almost anything that we ourselves, can't afford for.

Thanks Rudy. You should know what I'm thanking you for.

It's really amazing you know! Maria and Jeremy are people that you can count for a long term friendship. They are incredible.

Needless to say, Cindy and 2 of us are simply Charlie's Angels. We're going back to the Zoo for a different cause this time round!

Jiayi! Someone whom I've never thought that I could talk to and befriend with. From classmates, to attachment mates, to clubbing friends and so on. Time do really mold our friendship!

You know what, viewing all the pictures here, taking all the solo shots with them makes me think about how we became friends. Thanks Joyee, I still remember vividly we practiced Volleyball with Gold Fish and we laughed a lot. I am blessed to know everyone here.

Nisa! Cindy has certified that both of us think alike. Guess what, I have forgotten how we knew each other but I didn't forget those times where we went to Bali, you treated me and bobby for dinner and etc. Ok, i feel super blessed now.

Cindy is the 1st on Forbes Most Eligible Bachelorette.

Twinsel caught the attention of everyone, not the birthday boy!

Debbie, she's the first one whom we've met in Sentosa. So to say, the longest friendship in the entire Sentosa friendship timeline.

One huge family, as Joyee said.

This are my really purest friends in secondary school life. There's more like Izwan etc but it's a shame that they didn't come.

Real birthday girl and advance birthday boy.

In this shot, there's 3 birthday candidates. 2 real, 1 fake. LOL

May our wishes come true!

3 of us cutting the cake.

MUAHAHAHHAHA! CUTTING TIME.

I love my friends, they made the most awesome jumbo birthday card, with loads of sweet messages.

One last shot before it's disfigured.

It's a mash shot because why? EVERYONE KNOWS EACH OTHER. I dunnoe why, but it just happened.

As always, this kind of shot reminds us of the drama, Holland V.

Although I love this shot, i would die for this shot if Sophia, Elmo, Diva came into the picture. It's priceless.

I just have to tickle him.

Thanks everyone. Surprisingly, I got 2 laptop bags for this birthday. Thanks everyone for the practical presents!
Thank you secondary school peeps with the 5x5 rubik's cube and I think i'm going to take 5x5 years to solve that. Not forgetting the shots game where we will definitely play when we meet up for some gathering!
Thank you Cindy, Nisa for the laptop bag. There's a lot of compartments and it feels really sturdy when i slot my laptop in it.
Thank You Joyee for the ang bao and the book, "The LOVE as a Way of Life". It will be a good read when I'm in camp.
Thank You Jonathan and Bobby for the Adidas Shirt. So cooling lah, i feel naked wearing that.
Thank You Rudy for the cuff links and tie. Though I won't be wearing at the moment, only No. 4 uniform, it will be a great tool if in future interviews.
Thanks Debs for the mini mini soccerball!
Thank you TAS gang, along with Rong Jun and Leyz on the Wilson Tour Bag. Another awesome bag where I can slot virtually anything with it. It fits my laptop perfectly too, although it's meant for slotting the tennis racket!
Thank you my bestest, awesome buddy, Kewei for the Brazillian Praia Sandals. I love it, it's really time for a new sandals.
Thank you Jiayi, the prettiest one for the 21st birthday beer mug. It will be solely drunk with beer and other alcohol drink on that mug.
Thanks to my relatives for the ang baos, Armani Xchange accessories.
Thank you Meiyun and Ley Yee for the birthday card. Esp Meiyun's card, it was really warm greetings.
Lastly, Thank you Robin for the "I've survived Singapore". Though I've survived Singapore, Singapore army is another factor.

Cheers everyone. It was really memorable birthday for me.

Videos.

Cheers and Bottom's up with my friends.

The birthday songs.

CAN! run

2009-01-11T11:55:00.002+08:00

Yes I can! Yes I can overcome any obstacles! Therefore, Kewei, Meiyun, Weihua and I went to the CAN! run.

What is it about ?

It's really lame though, but well, we have to run 2010 meters just to get some goodies and celebrate the launch of the YOG logo.

Here are the pictures and we ran like mocking bird just to be one of the first to collect the shirts if not, we're running for nothing.

We got our bib numbers in running order. Initially, i was about to become the outcast one as i've registered myself in another counter and the lady gave me a totally different BIB no. But thankfully I've a mouth and the cheek to ask her for running numbers..HAHA!

Therefore, this is our first run with RUNNING NUMBERS.

Wah! So many people ah!

Wah! Look at all the balloons wasted! So poor thing leh!

Here we go! Running and snapping photos!

Weird and thwarted faces. Thankfully I used the sports mode on SE thus it appears to be thwarted face instead of BLURRY faces.

Kewei and I clocked about 12 mins 30+ seconds on the run with abiding to Traffic Light rules and jammed with people at specific locations.

and this is the place where you're supposed to get your goodie bag!!

The Library at SMU

Every run we go, there will be a shot on the starting point. Here's another collection of it.

See the logo at the right? That's it.

Overall, it was a memorable event that we've had. We also played the carnivals and collected the 5 limited editions of the YOG badges.

I'm so wanting to watch Transporter 3

2009-01-07T22:56:00.002+08:00

I read an online article on how to increase luck. Yes, i know that you guys might think I'm supertitious or something. But true enough, luck isn't a super-natural thing. Luck is simply all about sneizing all kinds of opportunities that comes to you.

Try as much as you can and who knows, you'll get something and people will say you're lucky. Deep down, you know that you've created your own luck. I'll share the article soon when I google it again!

Or simply just google "How to increase luck for oneself?"

Easy.

Kenneth's Christmas Par-tee!

2009-01-05T19:50:00.004+08:00

I'm so into the "Par-tee" word, all thanks to Kenneth who invited this word in his Kenlish Language world.

Finally Kenneth made a breakthrough by inviting his closest friends aboard into his wonderful journey, his humble home @ chong pang. I still remember vividly that piles of books are stacked high (higher than the plant he has right now which outgrown his height too) during secondary school. I remember the old compaq computer where we used to hear all sorts of mp3s, do recordings with his cassette tape recorder in his room and sang / talk all kinds of weird stories up.

Those old good times where I have to be out of Kenneth's house before dusk as his parents will be back for dinner with him etc.

7 + years have came by just like that he finally open up his house like a 30 yrs reformed China that open their economy for investors. And he did it right, it was really a fun party for Christmas.

I was late for the party but nevertheless, others were late too thus haha! Next time Kenneth will make the meeting time earlier just for us to reach the ideal time at 6pm! Ha!

The humble Christmas tree welcomed us.

Kelly barged into the picture and said hello!

It was really nicely decorated kenneth. Or does it comes in a package on this tree?

A big thank you to Kenneth's mother who helped us on the serving of the food. biggie thanks if you happened to stumble on my blog via Kenneth's browser history or cookie!

The meeting place.

QUEUE UP! WAIT FOR UR TURN! GET UR OWN PLATE AND SCAN UR 11B! (er, wait, scan what?)

Here comes the Turkey that Kenneth and Kelly painstakingly bought it from Marriot Hotel. Am I right? or Mandarin Hotel? It cost about $128++ if my memory doesn't fail me.

The baby potatoes, and it's my favourite. I love their skin, so deliciously edible. Er...

The Turkey and the fat arse.

We simply can't wait to conquer the food! Stripe the turkey, chunk the baby potatoes!

Kenneth thinks "Should I be naughty or nice this christmas?"

We started to play all sorts of card games ranging from UNO to Heart Attack. Of course, every folks love this game called heart attack because it keeps our mind, physical body going. The best part? The beating from the winner. Damn shiok to see people get tortured during this game. Hahaha!

Caught on camera! This are the pals from Kenneth's JC.

Upclose and personal to the Logcake.

It was deforestation time for the logcake as every Christmas celebration should have at least a cake to celebrate Jesus's birthday. I can't imagine or rather believe if anyone in the world would get a cake to fit the capacity of 2008 candles for Jesus's birthday.

Familiar logo?

There's Santa and the Frosty.

Look at Kenneth's expression! Let's deforest it!

Kenneth's balcony view.

I love the warm feeling at the void deck.

the 3 of us!

And the one big big huge family from Northbrooks!

Frosty says : "Wait, there's one more party to blog about! Kelly's Countdown party that went of with a pasta carbo loading bang!"

Christmas Eve Dinner (慢舞 - Rui En)

2009-01-03T22:06:00.005+08:00

The menu and the price that my mother calculated for the Christmas eve Dinner!
爱像跳慢舞
紧紧抓着一起踏步
选对舞伴万众瞩目

Hungry Papa.

但我們舞步
为了追寻完美
练太熟了反而虚伪


I know it looks a pile of guey dung but it's sirlion steak with the steak sauce on it! There's a lot of steak sauce because I simply love the sauce catalyst the beef flavour.

飞旋一起飞旋自我麻醉
旋转不停旋转忘了彼此抓紧
此空虛无止漫步跳舞
小心翼翼舞步
心里有数是最后支舞
就闭眼忘了呼吸的投入

All the prove of my mother's hardwork.

像漫步跳舞我们不哭用默默地祝福
只等这远去渐渐静下来
我们学不会跳的慢舞结束

The salad.

The Turkey Ham.

My sister enjoying her food and as you can see, no vegetables on her plate.

My father kinda enjoyed the food!

We had Sparkling juice on that night, no wine because of recession lah please!

This was Kewei's plate, 2 'eyes' and a huge 'mouth'

My mother brought Kewei for a dinner too! If not he'll be spending Christmas Eve alone though..

We got a cake from Bakerzia.

It was Tiramisu cake and the flavour, smell was overwhelming fragrant. I could actually taste the tiramisu instead of smelling it only.

The cake wasn't too sweet and the flavour was just nice to be called an 'atas' cake.

Kewei's take.

The midnight drive out.

After church at the stroke @ midnight, my family went for a spin down Orchard Road, playing the cd of all the Christmas hits.

Hearts Everyone!

After entering Orchard Road and get greetings of Merry Christmas, this is what you see next 10 meters apart.

Deserted and quiet.

My present for my parents.
Phillips Divx DVD player

Now, they do not have an excuse on not knowing how to watch movies that are .avi format.

Man In The Mirror (Fireworks Countdown @ Fullerton)

2009-01-02T22:54:00.004+08:00

I'm Gonna Make A Change,
For Once In My Life
It's Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .

As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favourite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See
Their Needs

A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man's Soul
They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya' Know
'Cause They Got Nowhere
To Go
That's Why I Want You To
Know

I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change)
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah)

I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish
Kind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No
Home, Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They're Not
Alone?

A Willow Deeply Scarred,
Somebody's Broken Heart
And A Washed-Out Dream
(Washed-Out Dream)
They Follow The Pattern Of
The Wind, Ya' See
Cause They Got No Place
To Be
That's Why I'm Starting With
Me
(Starting With Me!)

I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
(Ooh!)
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Ooh!)
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)

I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
(Ooh!)
I'm Asking Him To Change His
Ways
(Change His Ways-Ooh!)
And No Message Could've
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make That . . .
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make That . . .)
Change!

I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror,
(Man In The Mirror-Oh
Yeah!)
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Better Change!)
No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make The Change)
(You Gotta Get It Right, While
You Got The Time)
('Cause When You Close Your
Heart)
You Can't Close Your . . .Your
Mind!
(Then You Close Your . . .
Mind!)
That Man, That Man, That
Man, That Man
With That Man In The Mirror
(Man In The Mirror, Oh Yeah!)
That Man, That Man, That Man
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Better Change!)
You Know . . .That Man
No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah
(Oh Yeah!)
Gonna Feel Real Good Now!
Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah!
Yeah Yeah!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah
(Ooooh . . .)
Oh No, No No . . .
I'm Gonna Make A Change
It's Gonna Feel Real Good!
Come On!
(Change . . .)
Just Lift Yourself
You Know
You've Got To Stop It.
Yourself!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!)
I've Got To Make That Change,
Today!
Hoo!
(Man In The Mirror)
You Got To
You Got To Not Let Yourself . . .
Brother . . .
Hoo!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!)
You Know-I've Got To Get
That Man, That Man . . .
(Man In The Mirror)
You've Got To
You've Got To Move! Come
On! Come On!
You Got To . . .
Stand Up! Stand Up!
Stand Up!
(Yeah-Make That Change)
Stand Up And Lift
Yourself, Now!
(Man In The Mirror)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Aaow!
(Yeah-Make That Change)
Gonna Make That Change . . .
Come On!
(Man In The Mirror)
You Know It!
You Know It!
You Know It!
You Know . . .
(Change . . .)
Make That Change.

New Year Resolution 2009

2009-01-02T00:13:00.005+08:00

I made a mistake on my 2007 and 2008 resolution. Oh, well... I think I've made a grave mistake on my 2008 resolution where I didn't fulfill at all.

http://tiankongshini.blogspot.com/2008/01/auld-lang-syne.html

It's weird, to think of being an influential person in 2008 but Obama took it away though. As for now, I shall keep my resolution as simple as possible, thus I'm definitely able to fulfill my wish as it won't be a burden, thus I'll be happier (which is my resolution for 2009).

Ranking from the most important to the (normal priority)

Happiness
Fitness
Health
Wealth

It's really easy for 2009 now. In 2007, i was wrong about my wish although I did achieve the things that I resoluted for. All thanks to Winston and Mr. Lee Hsien Long about being the heaps of mountain top peaks. Try to be at your best in everything you do.

Life doesn't come like this as in being the best in everything. There's no such thing and you have to narrow it down. After reading the book "The Journey to Success", I was extremely enlightned and every word from that book made sense (well, to my life because I've experience tonnes of rubbish for the past few years achieving something that didn't last).

I shall review and recommend the book to you readers out there, if you are really keen on reading it, don't hesitate to ask me as I will not hesitate to lend you such motivational book.

Thus, as for the 4 points I've mentioned above, I'll elaborate further.

I just want to be really happy. I don't want to achieve something great and neglect the people that I want to seek attention for. "Yes! I've done it! Hoorays! Er, so where's my friend? I've done it my friend, I can't wait to tell you that I've succeeded!" In the end, you realized that you're running your race alone. No one was there to cheer you till the end where you succeeded. Yes, in a way I'll be happy because I've achieved my goal. No, I have no one to share the happiness with me.

Fitness, what can I say further? I've been fat since primary 4 and it's a real deal of dung hardship during my initial poly years where I've slimmed a little. How? Working in Watsons was a miracle. It really give me good memories and I'd climb about 100 steps everyday up and down, loading and unloading stocks @ my Toa Payoh Watsons store. Sometimes, I have to resign to fate. During those years, Tang Bin and Kewei would pass by my store and now? Kewei is my best friend. That's something I can't explain. Anyway, in this upcoming May, I'll be running 42km for Addidas Sundown Marathon. Everyone has already gasped and said " Melvin! Are you sure? Goodness!" Yes yes, for the KPE 10km run, I almost rolled, glide to the road during the last few kilometers but I'm determined to increase my stealth for this year. For once, just once, let me see my 6 packs as I've never seen it in my 21 years of living on earth. I only occassionally see my 6 packs in my damn dreams. Thus, make it a reality Melvin.

Health, self explanatory. If I can't achieve this, forget about my next resolution up next.

Wealth. No health no wealth. Damn simple.
I've been receiving a steady flow of about extra $200 a month doing my jailbreaking of ipod touches and iphone. All thanks to mocca.com.sg, ebay, db88 etc that publicized my experiences of jailbreaking this high tech stuffs. Remember, Jailbreak doesn't destroy your warranty. Trust me, I got my BRAND NEW IPOD after a year. The button died on me but i just exchanged an jailbroken ipod touch and received a damn new shiny one. It's beside my keyboard now, oh! She's smiling at me now!

That's all for my resolutions. Do blog about your resolutions or at least tag on my board thus I know and get inspired by your resolutions! Come, set yourself a target and I sincerely wish you all the best in your resolutions and see you achieving it successfully on the 31st December 2009.

Peace and Love you all.
Melvin

Riding 2008

2008-12-31T12:40:00.005+08:00

I do know that reflecting on the year 2008 seems like a cliché for everyone here, but isn't counting down to 2009 a more cliché practice too? It's only once a year affair and once you've written for this year, that's it, gone shit. There is no way you can come back to 2008 and reflect in it again.

Life on 2008 hasn't been a smooth riding one. In fact, this year has the most changes involved than orientation years in poly (2006), secondary (2001) and lastly primary (1996). Can't you believe it? The swift and quick transition from a polytechnic student to a full time supervisor and designer in Ramenten earning $1.6k+ to an army personnel ( where the pay is a quarter of what I earn on my previous job).

The transition isn't what many guys enlist go through and I believe that some of them are adjusting badly on it.

I didn't expect that life would turn out this way in 2008 and there's been many shifting of friendship cliques from the start of the year till the last day of the year.

Let me talk about the thankful ones first.

I've known Kenneth Goh since the 1st year of secondary school and it's really incredible being in contact with him till now from various activities. It's inevitable that during secondary school years, we meet everyday for lunch, lessons, back home and lastly, our cca (concert band) practices. I thought we'll lose contact after graduation in secondary school but I was so wrong. Maybe during the initial years after graduation, we didn't talk much because he was busy transiting from secondary school to jc whereas for me, busy transiting from secondary school, to Watsons full time and lastly,entering into a poly.

But all this didn't make us stray away from the friendship we had during secondary school. We did occassional chats on msn and meet up with Siew Feng and gang for a lung at nyp (which Kenneth made a daring trip to our poly by just crossing the grey bridge. DUH!?!).

When Kenneth went to army and I'm pretty busy with FYP, that still didn't bring our friendship into bleakness, till the extent I had with many secondary school mates; a hello, smile and bye gestures. Soon we got into Toastmasters and we were well in contact with each other with commitment to meet every fortnightly.

During the phrase of my army life ( it's still in going, mind you), I have too many things in my back. Maybe it's just me dr being weak mentally, unable to take mug stress outside of army and hoping more real peace and quite after booking out. I started to give up temporary and permanently on some of the things that I stood on to. One of it was Toastmasters, where Ive been actively not going since October. When the membership renewable came to me, I pondered really hard on this. I asked myself " Is this the activity I want for this road of my army life? My current posting is a temporary and I may be posted to any other unit that requires me to stay in. In that case, I would wasted my membership fee and having a poor attendance right?" I didn't regret my decision to quit this wonderful and exciting meeting every fortnightly and almost got the posting as a President of Membership but the future of this is too bleak for me even to think of completing the first level of communication skills practice.

Back to topic on my buddy kenny. Who says that after toastmasters, it's hard to keep in contact? I know that I'm tired of planning events for friends (even my birthday celebration, my mother is doing most of the work), but I do try to meet them out once for a while like Kenneth's awesome Christmas party.

Therefore, it has been a revival friendship for me with Kenneth in 2008 with all the toastmasters, stompchomp events and kelly's activities.

Bobby is another friend that I'm truly amazed in keeping in contact with his good old time friends. He makes a point to chat with me, understands me and probes me when I'm down. Truly, he's someone that I'll know that I will not lose contact with because we still got Bondevia! Remember? Haha!

There was a time where we question where our friendship heading to and yes, it's really too late to change anything since I got closer with Kewei and Meiyun, we were cool on what we are presently and to me, you're still my buddy! Such friendship must be treasured despite obstacles facing us since we got to know each other.

What about Meiyun? She's special. She's someone at times can be really quiet (means she is fussed up! teeheehee! Ladies are ladies lah, they do fuss up at times.) but in most situations, she's really helpful and understanding lady.

I still remember the times where 3 of us got into the same course and during java and flash lessons, I didn't really pay attention to class and yes, all the lab work stuffs are dreading me to do and complete them. Kewei wasn't the one really willing to pass me the answers but instead, it was Meiyun as I first got to know her better than him. She would be the one helping out me and Kewei will be like" Why help him so much and etc?"

Never we knew that A.M.K. would just come out like that and to date, she's still someone whom I treasure this friendship that blossomed in 2008. It is really cool and unexpected to know them, getting along much better than my peers in poly.

The Person of the Year 2008 would be Mr. Xu Ke Wei who made a difference in my life. He's not just any other special person but someone who really poise as a leader and push me up within my capabilities.

He can be really nice to you at times but occassionally, he can test your patience to your limits and make me flare up like a tiger is all ready to devour a cat. Though it wasn't an direct teaching to me but he always make me learn new things and experience new things in life.

I'm sure Meiyun will agree with me that we were not into marathons, triathlons or any other sports events until he came around, showed us the spirit and the sport. He was the one who set the barrier and the limit. Usually, most of us will set a limit in our lifes e.g. "Okok. i'll stop running because I'm in pain. What if I'll die from heart attack if I exert further? Oh shit oh crappy no. After I've finished the race, I'll get some hainanese chicken rice. Or maybe, some KFC to pamper and reward myself after the run."

As for him, he showed a different kind of spirit that many dare not try. Running 42.125km is not an easy feat but he pushed his limits to earn as much as he can before the race by helping out in race expos and scanning of championchips. If i were him, i'll jolly well stay at home for the entire week towards the event day. But he didn't, he showed great leadership and the 'i can do anything' spirit. That's some special qualities within him that dearly have to be showcased to everyone who is slogging out with chips.

One thing that everyone knows from Kewei that he is a diligent and intelligent who excels super well in his education. For that, I failed to learn from him.

On the contary, I've learn how to take up running as part of a life journey. Running is really indeed a journey, not a goal. KPE Run was my very first run that exceeds 2.4km. Last year, I was amazed that I ran 3km during the treadmill and I thought that this was my best. Never do I know that 3km is just nothing compared to other guys and ladies who ran 42km and fought with the pain they have in their legs. All of them believed that "Pain is temporary, Pride is permanent." Thus from 2008, I've learn that nothing has a limit. You think that you've done your limit but in reality, there's much more can be done. That's what Kewei has shown me. I have to say that my life was rather smooth riding than Kewei had for the past 8 years here in Singapore alone. He showed me that even you think that today might be your dooms day as you think that you've lost everything, but there's always something good coming out from a bad thing as long as you try to do something. For the past 8 years, he was being cheated countlessly in rental of rooms, O level tuitions and even the latest incident where Weihua and I witnessed, his flight ticket back to Shanghai. He was alert and sharp enough to know that the guy was out to cheat his extra $50 for the flight back and Kewei literally fought it out mentally by rushing to many other flight agencies and determined to get the best price at 8pm, where 90% of the flight agencies in Chinatown is closing.

I gasped when he finally found the cheapest price of $630 for 2 weeks in Shanghai, from the inital cheated price if $680. He believed in himself, he believed that he can find it cheaper. As for me, I couldn't. Most probably i'll resigned to my fate and fork out $50 to save the hassle.

He is my best friend and my gauge in excelling in life.

Therefore, closing this chapter of 2008 doesn't mean that I'm closing in my life for now. Life is a long journey, not a destination to relax and die off.

Yes, there are some friends whom I treasured so much during 2007 and the initial years of 2008 but falter off like footprints being washed off from the tides. However, I do believe that friendship will rekindle back as Kenneth has proven it that friendship do rekindle if you make it a point to preserve it.

In not so distant future, who knows that you'll get back the friends that you've lost them along the way?

In conclusion, 2008 was really a roller costa ride where initially, there's smooth straight ride and before you know it, you're dived down and screaming your hearts out without knowing what's clearly happening in your surroundings.

You may lose some friends along the way, but you'll definitely gain some like TAS special peeps, weihua, sophia, siew yee etc.

Life's like this. I've got my resolutions done and shall reveal it tomorrow!

Times that I'll not forget in 2008

Hong Kong Trip with my fellow colleagues
KPE 10km Tunnel run
Enagement in volunteering for many special sports events such as Vertical Marathon, OSIM Triathlons, Standard Chartered Marathons etc.

I'll still strive on and move forward!

Bondevia Reborned

2008-12-28T22:41:00.005+08:00

We had a meeting today. Bondevia will be better, different and bleacher (bitchier) than ever. New logo, new suspicious crews, new contents.

Tiankongshini even had an total revamped.

It's time to kick start the new year with new lease of old lao jiao blogs.

Tiankongshini will be almost done after CNY with host of new plugins to serve viewers better navigations to my blog.

And damn the lightbox 2 effects that has conflicts with my existing scripting.

Good bye to... the old Bondevia.

Ting Tings

2008-12-28T11:51:00.002+08:00

I just have to blog about it because I don't believe that I would like them now. I used to hate them with their quirky lyrics but suddenly, their songs are good for jogging.

Especially, this song, Great DJ. Definitely there is elements of MaMa Mia tune incorporated into Great DJ. Awesome..

Another thing, Ting Tings songs can't be in 'Don't forget the lyrics' reality show. THEIR SONGS ARE IDIOTIC SIMPLE AND KEEPS ON REPEATING!

Fed up with your indigestion.
Swallow worries one by one.
Folks got high a quarter to five.
Don't you feel your growing up undone.

Nothing but the local DJ.
Said he had some songs to play.
What went down from this fooling around.
Gave hope and a brand new day.

Imagine all the girls,
Ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
And the boys,
Ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
And the strings,
Eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee.
And the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums,
The drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums.

Oh
Nothing was the same again.
All about where and when.
Blowing our minds in our life unkind.
You gotta love the BPM.
When his work was all but gone
Remembering how this begun.
We wore his love like a hand in a glove.
His preacher plams it all night long.

Nothing but the girls,
Ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
And the boys,
Ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
And the strings,
Eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee.
And the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums

Imagine all the girls.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
And the boys,
Ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
And the strings,
Eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee.
And the drums,
Ah ah ah ah, ah, ah, ah, oh.

All the girls
Ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
And the boys,
Ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah.
And the strings,
Eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee, eee.
And the drums, the drums, the drums, the drums

MONTBLANC Wallet

2008-12-27T21:40:00.003+08:00

Thank You Mama for this Christmas present, this is officially the most expensive wallet I ever owned in my life. I still remember the wallet you got for me during primary school, Cerisi cheap wallet where I can only store coins as the primary school canteen sells food that coins are more of a practical use.

My exclusive leather wallet. Ok, finally a real leather wallet.

Bye bye!!!

Cindy's BBQ Bashy!

2008-12-27T11:57:00.004+08:00

Oh my my my, what can be more stress relieving from all about the army stuffs (yes, i'm grumbling again because i'm still worrying for my next posting) is to visit Cindy's little warm condo @ Robertson Quay.

She decided to throw a bbq dinner because everyone will be flying off starting from Christmas time such as Maria, Jeremy flying off to Spain and London, Kewei and Sophia to Shanghai, Cindy will be flying off to NZ for CNY. (Yea, there's full of initials here and there)

Thus, I'll let pictures (with speech bubbles) do the talking for the whole event.

*Disclaimer - Some of the speech bubbles are not 100% interpreted in actual real event. Some are created up for comedy purposes. Muahahaha!

Nisa loves Grey's Autonomy, that's why...

Btw, this is Claire and she works at KK Woman's Hospital in researching some special diseases among children.

Oh Funny Chaps. :D

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2008-12-24T17:12:00.006+08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone. This is the time of the new year and let's not forget Baby Jesus was born (er, once again in 2008th times.)

Therefore, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!

I'll do a short recap from last year Christmas to this year's one. This year Christmas is different, ain't that much hype as last year mainly because due to army (yes, I'm saying this again) and graduation of my peers in poly, we didn't keep much in contact thus we didn't really have a theme for Christmas. Moreover, most of my Sentosa peeps are busy trying to get back to their hometown to reggae in their Christmas celebrations.

Therefore at the present, I AM ACTUALLY WAITING FOR MY MOTHER'S GASTRONOMIC CHRISTMAS DINNER!

Feast feast feast, that's all I can celebrate about this year. Army (again...) has bleached my holiday mood away. That's what I really call 'A White Christmas'.

PS: Enjoy my new 'intelligent' template where u can practically search anything from my blog history contents. I've turned my template design into minimalistic kind so that it looks cleaner, more directive and easier to use. Performance wise, needless to say, i've re-written and copied new codes in this blog template thus it loads super fast on iPhone and iPod Touches. Using AJAX technology where facebook is 100% pure AJAX, i'm trying to pump more technology into it yet simple design.

Next, I'll introduce LIGHTBOX2 into the template where u can practically view my pictures in cool zoomed photo without using flash. (http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/)

One obstacle course being lifted.

2008-12-22T12:45:00.003+08:00

Entering National Service is just like a long journey with many possibilities that are not expected during your carefree years being a civilian.

I've officially Out Of Course from my technician course as today is the commence of a new fresh pool of blood technicians that just came out from the Tekong Oven. (It's freshly baked)

Thus, being an expired soldier here where else the rest has gone to their respective units as a technician for the rest of the 2 years, I have nothing much to do but just logging to the net, doing some IT administrative work. It's been 4 weeks and it's getting boring. No, wait. I shouldn't say that it's boring because most NSF would love this kind of temporary vocation because there's isn't much commitment. I have my breaks anytime I want, I do not have restrictions to my lunch timing and I can eat as long as I want. I surf the net; check out latest news and informations, chat etc. I also hear radio to alleviate myself that I am in the place called Earth because this room here, is extremely quiet.

Right now, there's no one here as all the Auxillary staffs has started their new course today and this means that I am the only one left waiting for my new vocation. This is where this term called 'Life' can be boring.

I don't really want to choose that Life is boring but it's a bad habit and a mistake for me to always compare life during army and the life before army. It is inevitable that I will have some recollections on what did I do on this day, last year.

Last year on this day, I was working hard for my projects and I do rememeber that I was rushing through my Flash Mobile Game project with Meiyun and Kewei at Ang Mo Kio Mcdonalds till wee hours. It was tiring but the thing that, it wasn't boring. In fact, it was really fun to yank around that we are tired, listless after writing / copying so many codes to make the programe work.

I thought to myself, why the life before was more fun and interesting despite that it was much more tiring? I thought for a while and found the cause of it.

I'm not really very regimental in life. Though I know I must have 3 meals a day, brush my teeth in the morning and before I sleep (i seldom brush at night though), I dislike regimental stuffs such as marching to my workshop and to my cookhouse for lunch. I even have to march 4 steps just to 'exit' from the platoon and this drill is called "Keluar Baris".

I know I shouldn't talk much about this and many people will be suggesting to me "Just accept life that way it is, you can't escape it". I am well accepted this in my life. However, pardon me for being really listless this period of the year and maybe the 1st quarter of 2009 as it's really a long transition for me to get my carefree life.

Why so? The thing that I can't stop pondering is my next posting. When will I know my next posting and where will it be? I've a chalet on the 11th of January next year and if I am holding a party on Sunday night, i have to book in later at night if i have a staying in vocation. Oh no no no, I don't want to have a staying in vocation and the whole quabbling goes on.

I shouldn't really whine about the life that I have now, compared to those African children etc, but I just want to leave a note on this blog on the transition that I am going in my life.

Everyday is just another day nearer to ORD, i tell myself. But I can't plan my remaining 19 months of my national service life properly if I do not know whether my next vocation is a staying in or out. If it's a staying out unit, see me fly and change for the better during my NS years.

This blog template is getting real spiderwebs now. I'm starting to learn Ajax and see this blog transform into a very simple, clean yet intelligent blog soon. That's what we need to implement in life too. Simple yet intricate.

The fall of Tiankongshini?

2008-12-16T11:29:00.003+08:00

Life's been like this all this while, slow paced and lifeless. Morals ain't high and my time has its limits. There are quite a few events to blog about and kept as memory but alas, Facebook came about and influenced my life. Tagging of photos and writing comments has become a breeze. Uploading them is as easy as eating the AWESOME MUSHROOM CHICKEN PUFF by Old Chang Kee (It's not a publicity stunt though).

I have small plans to revive/kick start the atmosphere here. Take a look at my template, it's 9 days to Christmas but not even a Christmas Tree being added into the template of mine. It's pathetic, I know. Life in army do change someone's perspective of life and yearns for more simplicity to blog; such as facebook! All my pictures are uploaded there, more viewers comments about my pictures and I simply give a brief description about my picture album aka a simple blogging on top layer of my album.

Take a look at my facebook albums, status updates and walls, and compare it with Tiankongshini. Has Facebook devoured my own personal blog, Tiankongshini unknowingly? I bet so. My tagboard here has amoeba, dust, dirt and other elements where humans don't visit them.

People might have been thinking "Though this blog hasn't prepared for Christmas with no Christmas deco such as candies or 'hohohoho' Mr Big Santa, but I do see cobwebs as part of the template!"

Therefore, I will surrender to Facebook for doing updates more than Tiankongshini at the present moment. But nevertheless, Tiankongshini will reign soon when i diversify facebook and this blog apart, where this blog will be more specific about my events and the events / friends that i truly enjoy.

Life's like this.

Shelter - Corrinne May

2008-12-14T02:00:00.001+08:00

What's wrong, what's getting you down?
Was it something I might have said?
You're walking around with your head to the ground
And your eyes are watery red

I know you've been through tough times
Kicked around, thrown to the ground
But you've always been the strong one
So don't tell me that nobody gets you
'cos I'm standing in your corner
Knocking at your door
You don't have to be alone

Just call my name, let me be an answer
'cos it hurts me to see you this way
I wanna ease your pain, help me understand
Let me be your shelter my friend

We share a bond, you and I, we belong
We're like coffee and morning trains
You strip my defenses, I catch your pretenses
The same blood runs through our veins

I swore I'd be your lifeline, made a vow
That I'd surround you with love at every milestone
I'll listen when nobody gets you
I'm still standing in your corner
Waiting by your door
You don't have to be alone

Just call my name, let me be an answer
'cos it hurts me to see you this way
I wanna ease your pain, help me understand
Let me be your shelter my friend

It was not too long ago
You sought to understand
You helped me mend
Remember when

So promise me you'll call my name
Let me be an answer
'cos it hurts me to see you this way
I wanna ease your pain, help me understand
Let me be your shelter my friend

Womanizer Keeps Getting Better

2008-12-10T10:46:00.003+08:00

I bet many of you know this songs and I just can't get out from them. This 2 lady power house has emerge and Christina Aguilera do know that a threat has been emerging thus she has done a wonderful song of "Keeps Getting Better". This song has been rumoured to be in direct competition for "Womanizer" sung by Britney Spears as Britney Spears indeed make a remarkable comeback to the entertainment scene.

I just can't get 2 songs out of my mind and it's a hassle to always select tracks in my iTouch playlist. Thus, a new rendition is created. All I have to do is to hear one song yet enjoy both worlds of crazy, futuristic genre sounds of Christina and Britney.

Here, I present to you Womanizer Keeps Getting Better. Alas, how I wish they play it in St. James with their thunderous bass and club whole night with this damn power songs.

I just can't get away with Circus too. Lyrics are plain but it reflects much of Britney's life though. It's a circus with hysterical laughter and danger.

I think Britney is womanizing Christina's fans and bringing them into a Circus; full of fun and enjoyment. Let the real battle begins. Rihanna, sit down and rest for a while.

Mini Class Gathering

2008-12-04T11:29:00.005+08:00

Well well, it's really a long time since we had a class gathering and it's still a pity that some of our gentries mates aren't able to make it for the lunch we had @ Manhattan, Plaza Singapura.As this is my first time patronizing this restaurant, my initial ideology was a replica of Cafe Cartel. But looking through the menu over, most of the food items resemble Fish & Co. The main difference is the pricing, Manhattan's items aremuch much cheaper.

This gathering is much more meaningful and serves the purpose for the ladies and Desmond as we've not met them for many months. However for Rong Jun, Jinyi, Geng Guan and me, we practically see each other almost everyday! Puzzled?

We are in the same army camp. Ayer Rajah Camp. Therefore, it's another lunch time talking cock session for 4 of us! Haha!!

I had Soup of the Day.

Pathetic as it may seems, I do not have much money and i'm well living off with my own pocket money. Thus I got myself the Soup of the Day and there was a promotion! $4.90 for a soup and a large drink. $3.90 on ala carte soup.

Thanks to Leyz who intended to treat me lunch @ Manhattan. But in the end, as I had my heavy breakfast in the morning, thus Leyz didn't treat me lunch. (So I'm still entitled to my birthday present hor!! for 2009)

This are the girls, including Leyz, Jasline that are present. Aiyah! I didn't take a picture with Ley yee!

Jasline & Ley Yee
As usual, this is Jinyi's trademark shot.

We wanted to get a shot of Desmond but he wouldn't budge.

Do You Know?
Do you know that Desmond had the most shots taken from us but we didn't get a direct potrait shot? Holly goodness.

At least we managed to get Geng Guan!

And gotten Rong Jun too, who is going to Sugei Gedong soon as a Leopard tank turret technician.

Thank goodness that I caught up with Sze kee and all the best for her job seeking now!

Lastly, look how much we progressed from Gentries to graduants and now, everyone has dedication to jobs, boyfriends, girlfriends and lastly, The Singapore Armed Forces. =)

Er, goodness.

JOSH GROBAN - February Song

2008-12-01T10:34:00.006+08:00

Where has that old friend gone
Lost in a February song
Tell him it won't be long
Til he opens his eyes, opens his eyes
Where is that simple day
Before colors broke into shades
And how did I ever fade
Into this life, into this life

And I never want to let you down
Forgive me if I slip away
When all that I've known is lost and found
I promise you I, I'll come back to you one day

Morning is waking up
And sometimes it's more than just enough
When all that you need to love
Is in front of your eyes
It's in front of your eyes

And I never want to let you down
Forgive me if I slip away
Sometimes it's hard to find the ground
Cause I keep on falling as I try to get away
From this crazy world

And I never want to let you down
Forgive me if I slip away
When all that I've known is lost and found
I promise you I, I'll come back to you one day

Where has that old friend gone
Lost in a February song
Tell him it won't be long
Til he opens his eyes
Opens his eyes

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In Memoriam: Ms. Lo Hwei Yen

Mumbai, The New York City of India

2008-11-29T13:02:00.010+08:00

I am using my iPod Touch that delivers anything that I request, videos, personal organizer, music, web pages, facebook etc. But what I didn't realise that my little gadget also give me news that were saddening and bringing me a well darn hard knock on my head that terrorism still exist. I thought that I was not complacent and did a great job to deter terrorism and ensure that I do not leave my belongings unattended in public transport (er, leave alone the alertness during transport rides because most of the time, I am either chatting with my friends or sleep like a log in rides. I am sure that most of you are guilty for it too!) When I was passing by a wifi zone by Nokia Wifi, my ipod touch picked the network up and sync Today newspaper news to me and I was flabbergasted; not in a postive amazement but in a deep surprise shock.

This was the time when I walked to catch the train and I saw this headline.
I was thinking that it can't be true as everyone knows one of the terrorist lines during the break in, "Any American or British passport here? Please come out now!"

True and surreal enough, terrorist are simply terror, we cannot believe their words or promises. They have killed a Singaporean lady who is believed to be the first Singaporean lady to be killed overseas under terrorism. Just a few days back, I was informed that there was a Singaporean held as a hostage in Oberoi Hotel but I didn't think that the terrorist would waste their precious bullets to kill a Chinese Singaporean who was no associations nor blood lines with any westerner.

Why her? She was just going there for work related issues and she was a lawyer. What is so dangerous being a lawyer? Comparing a lawyer job and a construction worker, which has a higher risk of death? A lawyer died under the hands of a foreign terrorist? This is not justifiable.

Let's back track to the days where we got to know the news of a Singaporean hostage, she was well alive. She could even text her family back in Singapore that she was held captive and was very calm. In my opinion on she appeared calm in her smses because she knew that she's a Singaporean where

Expectation of Singapore embassy workers will hunt her down and get her out of this situation is high as Singapore is a place that takes good care of Singaporeans.
As she is a Singaporean and a Chinese Lady, the chances of being killed is low.

Overseas SMSes, Mumbai, Singapore

If I were the advertising company for M1 that produces ' Mr. India Curry House', I will shudder that I did create this advertisement. Without hesitation, I reckon be buying 4D, Toto right now as I didn't know that I could be so accurate in predicting stuffs. (2 Big 2 Small, No money to gamble so much due to the impending recession)

Nevertheless, M1 should be pleased that the advertisement created such a big hype during that period and it has surfaced unknowingly again. Cheaper calls to India? I guess many would be switching to M1 currently to enjoy their promotions calling Mumbai who are currently stuck there.

NOT QUITE SO ORDINARY SINGAPOREAN.

The Singaporean who died under the hands of terrorism is Ms Lo Hwei Yen.

"Ms Lo, a lawyer at Singapore-based offshore firm Stephenson Harwood, had been taken hostage on Wednesday night when armed militants took the Oberoi Hotel where she had been staying with guns and grenades.

The terrorists had threatened to harm her if Indian security forces continued to storm the building, said MFA’s director of Consulars, Mr Jai Singh Sohan. " - ChannelnewsAsia.

It was a tragic news for her father-in-law, Mr S Puhaindran who is a grassroots leader in Mr Goh's Marine Parade constituency. Therefore, the Singapore government felt the inevitable shock and saddness over the death of Ms Lo.

Militants relayed message to India via Singapore: FM spokesman

SINGAPORE - Militants who seized hostages at a Mumbai hotel relayed a message through Singapore that Indian forces should not storm the building, a foreign ministry spokesman said Friday.

Now, what I want to know is why didn't the Indian government or the military counterparts didn't heed the request made my the terrorists? Is eradicating the terrorist is more important than the lives of the hostages?

What are your views?

Honestly, I feel distressing for their family and friends as she had a really bright and optimistic future. A lawyer with great personality, who graduated from NUS, had a great husband and they got married in Bali just within a year.

Fate and Destiny abruptly change like that. Heartfelt condolences to her and her family. "Just Stand Up - Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, Fergie, Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge, Natasha Bedingfield, Miley Cyrus, Leona Lewis, Carrie Underwood, Keyshia Cole, LeAnn Rimes, Ashanti and Ciara" is dedicated to you and your family.

A Singaporean lawyer that died innocently under the hands of terrorists.

Check it out: Kenneth's voice out for Mumbai's killing spree.
http://greenbearwithit.blogspot.com/2008/11/welcome-to-mumbais-black-parade.html

My mama and papa on Stomp?

2008-11-26T23:52:00.003+08:00

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/viewContent.jsp?id=42831

My parents does not have a single idea about it.

I guess they'll know after reading my entry. DIE!

Bondevia is coming.

2008-11-25T23:51:00.002+08:00

stay tuned.

Marina Barrage

2008-11-14T16:59:00.005+08:00

Once I heard about the Marina Barrage was open for public, I was really curious on what view I could get if I went there.

Curious enough, Meiyun, Kewei, Sophia, Siew Yee, Jared, Sam and I went down the last Saturday.

As usual, Kewei and the rest were late thus Meiyun and I went down first. There was free shuttle bus services but the interval for waiting is 15 minutes! Thus, the queue for the bus was like friggin long catapillar and only those who are patient enough, are able to take the free shuttle.

Despite having the free shuttle bus service to make life easier, there was a traffic jam @ marina way road and it was really endearing for both of us to 'tahan' the squeezy bus.

Once we reached there, the camera comes to play.

When we entered the Marina Barrage entrance, we were greeted with this pretty view. (only pretty ah, not the best yet ah!)

Thank you ah Meiyun for this shot!

We started advancing to take shots of other people and scenes.

Sisters having fun.

This the facade of the water pump. It doesn't look like a factory pump or something, it's more of like a clubbing area.

As we walked at the first level, the dusk is setting in.

This is the water playground where all young and old can have real fun lah!

From my deduction / opinion, this monument tells me that 'What goes around comes around, beware of Karma.'

Both of us under the karma monument

The front side view of Marina Barrage.

Meiyun and the curves.

Th city skyline when the sun is setting.

Both of us are enchanted by it.

This is my very first time taking a photo with the city backdrop. I've done it!!

The reflections..

This are the people who went with me.

Sophia and Siew yee @ the Marina Barrage.

A fun shot not taken by me one hor!

A.M.K. once again!

The Singapore Flyer

The barrage.

The fusion of moving people.

The man who can't be moved.

This is the entrance to Marina Barrage Bridge!

The huts for romance..

The water effects and wonders of reflections.

The rooftop hut

Lastly, the favourite photography will be this as I piece 3 photographs into a paranoma city skyline. It will be my most favourite photo of all time.

After Marina Barrage, 3 of us are able to squeeze into Jared's car and we drove down to Lau Pasat, as for Sophia and Siew yee, both of them were so daring to ask strangers who have their own car to drive them down to City area before heading down to Lau Pasat. This was so american style of getting a ride!

Thus we ate the smelliest tofu in Singapore. Or i should say, the smelliest smelly tofu at Lau Pasat!

Crisp and smelly at the outside, soft and fragrant inside. This is what i call Ying & Yang..

More pictures coming soon

2008-11-13T00:52:00.001+08:00

Next post, Marina Barrage.

The best place in Singapore for a nice picnic or romantic date out. Cheers everyone!

Cohesion Day 31st October 2008

2008-11-11T23:51:00.004+08:00

This is the DAY that we can really enjoy, let our hair lose (shit, BOTAK LAH) and have fun. It was held at Vivocity (my favourite place) and we did a cohesion game slightly like Amazing Race.

At that time, there was one station where our group have to solve 3 RUBIK'S CUBE IN 15 minutes and I do not a single idea how to solve the damn box looking colourful stickers stuck on it. After the cohesion day, i was determined to do it and finally, I know how to sovle a rubik's cube at 4.37mins. I know it's still slow lah but at least, I know how it works now lah!

I let the pictures do much of the talking. There was quarreling, smugglings, and bribery to skip one of the stations! GOODNESS US.

This was a hard to spot attraction. My group have to find special momuments and this was one of them. Our group was the first to spot this as me, the damn LAO JIAO who use to come to Vivocity every saturday, knew where was it.

This is another momument where most would know where it is. The gymnastic statue.

This one was a hard one too! I didn't know where it is!

This was the items that we have to buy and eat. Every alphabet in the front and back of the FOOD ITEM has to be linked with the following food item's first initial.

So it was really hard to choose as our given budget was only $40. Nevertheless, WE WERE THE 1ST TEAM TO COMPLETE THE WHOLE OBSTACLE COURSE!

List of weird items to buy and eat!

After the games, our entire wing had our lunch at 香港 Central.

The food sucked anyway.

This is 98% of my wing including my sergeants, warrant officers. It was really fun that faithful day. Once we're back to army camp, life is back to the world of a soldier. Oh sigh.

How 6 Songs Collide

2008-11-09T13:20:00.003+08:00

Here I am presenting to you one of the best slow moving song mash ups.

My random shot of hibernating dog.

My Hong Kong, Day 1 (香港游玩第一天）

2008-11-04T00:08:00.003+08:00

Finally I am able to squeeze out sometime to blog about my Hong Kong Trip. We didn't get to go Disney Land, Ocean Park or in short, all the theme parks in Hong Kong because it defeats the purpose of embracing the culture of 香港.

For the entire 5 days, we roam around 3 islands in total. The Lantau Island, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Island. I went to explore how the government want the people to work, the culture and way of life.

Therefore, this 6 days 5 night trip was indeed a fruitful one. We met up early at 3am, thanks to my lovely father who fetched all of us to Changi Airport and we checked in about 4am.

We ate a simple breakfast at Burger King and set off to departure hall to relax and chill out. Jetstar was the flight that we booked and the entire trip 2 way cost only $288. It was a promotion period where it's only $88 per trip! Therefore, when airport taxes was included , it was just $288 per person and it's a sell off trip to Hong Kong.

Always remember to be at the gate 30 minutes before or else risk losing your flight and pay more!

Therefore, we waited 30 minutes before it. I felt very excited about flying up because I've not flew for almost 10 years. The last one I could vaguely remember was just my bangkok trip.

The Air stewardess of Jetstar. They are not too bad looking actually.

The Taking Off.

The Taking Off Part 1

The Taking Off Part 2
The plane was supposed to fly at 6.40am but there was a slight delay. Thus, I manage to catch the extremely breath taking (i literally mean absolutely, definitely, extremely breathe taking) rising sun rays from the east.

It was really warm as the rays kisses my skin and my camera lens. Everything seemed to perfect when the plane was in between the clouds and the sun. It was around 7am then when the plane took a turn to the north up.

The crack of dawn.

The scenery still didn't give up it's beauty. This was taken at 9 ++ am.

I love the cotton clouds. Do take note of the shadows casted on the sea bed. It's really cool.

The tallest clouds among the rest.

When I was in the plane,a can of green tea and movie kept me entertained. I was watching the Bucket List, and it somewhat reflects on what I am doing now. Visiting Hong Kong is one of my bucket list.

It's a 3 and a half hour flight thus I will get bored at times.

Touching down to Hong Kong International Airport.

It was a great feeling having a lot of turbulence while touching down because there was a lot of clouds belowing Hong Kong, but that doesn't mean that it's going to rain!

We have arrived Terminal 1 and it's the best airport in the world for now. But i reckon so.

Counting down to Beijing Olympics.

We made it to Hong Kong!!

When you have just arrived in Hong Kong, the only way to get out from the airport fast is their Airport express train where they travel in high speeds like about 150km/h. It can be costly but well, this is the fastest and easiest way out. If you are travelling hong kong for more than 5 days, i recommend you to buy the standard ticket instead of the tourist pass because the pass is only valid for 3 days and that's it.

As for me, we got the standard pass for 4 person. It cost HKD $250 for 4 thus $64 per person, which rounds off to about $11 just taking A TRAIN.

Don't expect this to be a contactless card, its design is the flimsy ones that singapore use to have it for MRT.

Dennis is proud to own one!

Me too!

The interior of Airport Express Terminal.

The speed of the train is super fast but it cannot be compared to a bullet train. As the airport is extremely far away from the City, the speed of the train has to be extremely fast just to reach ot the nearest MTR stop, Airport station.

The train has a compartment for you to store all your luggages, not only that, there's ample space for you to sit around as the seats are so comfy, you can take a 10 minutes nap to city.

This is one of the flats mass produced at Lan Tau Island. The building facade is actually ULGY. Unlike Singapore where the government set up HDB, public housing, all their flats there are owned by Private companies and many of them do not bother re-painting or upgrading the flats facade. Thus, Singapore caught up very fast in the designs of the flats and looks cleaner although Hong Kong was one of the first who build mass houses in a flat.

If Singaporeans have to transit from Changi Airport MRT station to Tanah Merah for travelling other parts of singapore, then Hong Kong has this station called Airport station where you transit to the normal MTR train stations.

And it's definitely much much bigger and nicer than Tanah Merah Interchange.

After travelling for 5 days in Hong Kong, it's not difficult taking the complex MTR lines.

From Airport -> Airport MTR Station - > Central Station Interchange (Taking the Tsuen Wan line) -> Jordon MTR station.

This is a huge interchange station i must say. The MTRs are all over with no proper alignment of stops. I actually captured one of the train station having a curved protection door thus when the train stops and passengers alight, the train is not aligned straight but curved.

Thank goodness there's english signage. I'll kill myself completely if everything is in Chinese or rather cantonese words.

This is awesome because I can hear my music player without having either to look out the window or take out my ear plug just to hear which stop is annouced. Every stop the train arrives, the led will be lit.

VIDEOS:

Inside the MTR.

Squeezing out from the MTR. It's really busy and squeezy.

Not only that, it also inform you which door to alight just in case the exit door is not always at the left or right. This is somewhat like a transition of Bishan -> Braddel .-> Toa Payoh where the doors are not always open on one faithful side.

Forget about it fat people. This is gonna be a hard time getting in and out of the Jordon train station.

OUR HOTEL

There's a lot of budget guest house and it sucks. The lift itself sucks already because it's damn small.

This is our entrance to the budget hostel.

And yes, this is the concierge and it's small. I thought it was for hobbits.

This is our door number and there's only 2 single beds in it. We felt cheated because we booked for a Quad Room which means 4 beds. The owner told us that the Quad room is upstairs and it's not air conditioned thus she gave us the 2 single bed room. Isn't this the ridiculous answer to expect? Upon check in, they should have told us that there's no more quad bed, but she told us until she opened the door for us.

Not only that, the receptionist and the owner wants a full real copy of my UOB monthly letter payment but I didn't bring it. She wants to see my local address and the paypal number and I proved her with my internet banking details. She finally gave in but her husband and the 'accountant' still insist that they must see the letter so that paypal is able to issue them the money.

If we can't prove that we were the ones that used paypal to pay for the rental, we only got 2 choices. Move out or pay by cash in full price.

My friends are older than me but they do not have any debit card with them (isn't this also weird?) thus they depended me on the cash in and out via Visa. They can't pay them in full Hong Kong cash and I do not have that much money to withdraw and pay in cash. But this was not an issue too because all of us have the money to pay SGD $385, they just do not want to stay in that hostel.

Therefore, we bluffed them that we will have another guy coming the next day as 'he booked the next day flight' and he will have the money to pay in full. Thus, both party agreed to pay for the first night without any discount.

After settling with the rental for a night, we headed out to fiind other hotels around and yes, we found a decent 3 star hotel and it's quite amazing and cosy for me.

Just don't visit this place in the night because this place is infested with Negros and they are rather nasty. There's a lot of gang fights in the night at Chung King, thus never ever get a hotel near this place. Trust me.

Da Jia Le, Cafe De Coral

After settling down in our filthy hostel, we headed out out for a meal and the first stop for us was Da Jia Le, Cafe De Coral. This fast food chinese restaurant is one of the many fast food joints that aims to make chinese meals a quick and casual dining at affordable price.

If you wanna compare it with Singapore, the closest one you can guess will be Kopitiam or Food courts. But still, it's far from that.

The practice for Chinese Fast food is you order and pay at the counter. After you do your payment with the wide array of chinese cuisine selections and weird, messy linking to a set meal, you will be given a receipt to 'redeem' your food.

The cashier does not communicate with the Out food kitchen area. Thus, you have to pass your receipt to the kitchen aka, Out Food Area.

You will pass the receipt to the chef and they will whip the food within 1 minute. That's really fast because all of them have prepared the rice, soup and the roast duck slices already. All they have to do is just 'throw' them into a plate and fling it to you.

Thus, this is what you get for a 1 minute delivery. It's quite a decent job actually.

You can forget about seeing 'RED' in this dish because Hong Kong'ers do not have a practice putting chilli, or red capsicum or chilli padis into their dishes. That's something I really hate because I LOVE CHILLI. ESPECIALLY FOR THIS DISH, I LOVE TO HAVE SOME SHREDDED CHILLI PADI WITH GARLIC BUT ASS HOLE, I EAT IT WITHOUT ANY CHILLI.

Dennis is actually my colleague, Business Development Manager. He seem to be very contented with bread, some bacons and salad.

Ah yes, you can see my antagonizing face here without chilli.

Nathan Road

After the not spicy hearty meal, we isle down to Nathan Road, i can call it the tip of Nathan Road as it's near the HK Space Museum.

Ahh, there you can see the eggy building. That's the Museum. Therefore, the walking journey starts from now and we didn't take any taxis or buses since then. It's more of trekking the entire Kowloon Island.

We went to this shopping center and was quite impressed that SOGO survives well in Hong Kong. In contrast to Singapore, SOGO has left Singapore for good. Daimaru has left too. Muji shrunked and I have no idea where are they now. All it's left in Singapore is a $2 shop, Daiso.

Therefore, HK still has a retaining factor for Japanese retailers.

And you thought that compartment where I take this shot is just a pathetic SOGO stall? You are wrong because the entire building is SOGO.

They have the widest range of Japanese dry food. It's too many till I can't be bothered to buy. Just imagine a simple Pocky Brand has so many flavours, I just can't be bothered because first, I am not crazy over Pocky and next, I am fine with chocolate and strawberry flavour.

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This is an interactive map, you can click and swip here and there. Basically, this map locates where all this attractions are.

AVENUE OF STARS

Exit the building, walk down and cross a road. You will reach Avenue of Stars. One of the landmarks in Hong Kong where all tourists have to pass this rite of (I HAVE VISITED HK) ritual. Who doesn't know about the Avenue of Stars deserves a big slap because all the actors, actresses, singers did come down for autographs and hand printings.

Not only this, there's a relatively good view of Hong Kong Island. I always think that Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Island reflects very well on Shanghai's geographical names, Pu Dong and Pu Xi.

Hong Kong Island is just like City Hall, Battery Road and Tanjong Pagar. Everything you see is urban people with wines, beers and the night life there is nice. Thus, it's a business district just like Shanghai Pudong.

As for Kowloon Island, it can be slightly the feeling of Tampanies where there are shopping centers, HDBS and smaller offices. Therefore, it's more of a homely place and Shanghai Pu Xi is somewhat like that too.

Psst, Shanghai might be the next place I'll be dominating later.

It always seem that me and Dennis are the cam whores here but I don't care. I'm in a foreign land thus I must give myself a memory that I will not forget in my lifetime.

As you can see, I am @ Avenue of Stars and behind me is Hong Kong Island and Victoria Harbour.

This is the most prominent and famous building that shapes of a bamboo tree.

Movie Reels at Avenue of Stars.

When I was in Secondary 2, I knew about the avenue of stars and I told myself that one day, i will get to visit this place and I get to fulfill my wish after 6 years.

It's really a moment for me, able to walk down the Avenue of Stars in a breeze.

In Hong Kong, investors, tourism is their main income for their Hang Seng Index. Well, correct me if i'm wrong but I do know that Tourism accounts a lot to their revenues and GDPs.

Therefore, no attractions in Hong Kong is left alone to rot, this guy is painting the attractions, washing those bronze statues and touch up on the autographs on the floor at Avenue of Stars.

Here are some candid shots that we took.

Ming Yao and Winston.

Did he shouted 'Action!' or 'Cut!'?

Don't mess wiht Bruce Lee or you will get bruises.

It's really a shame that I couldn't figure out on how to take this bright red Canton boat.

This boat symbolizes that race colour isn't about power and authority now. In the past, Caucasians are only allowed to sit on the upper deck (white level) while the other Asians are only restricted to sitting the lower deck (the dark green level). In present, just be rich and you will be able to sit the upper deck with awesome view. And Asians are able to afford such decks now.

At times, I do take Hong Kong citizens and their walks of life.

This wise man is fishing @ Victoria Harbour.

The Salisbury Bridge.

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This bridge is one of the famous bridges for Hong Kong movies. You can see this bridge in ghost, romance or action movies and it's constantly maintained to it's optimum colour.

The width of the bridge is large thus the traffic flow will be moderately fast if there's a lot of people walking on this bridge.

After the bridge, we headed down to the unknown and if my geographical skills didn't fail me, this shots are taken along Mody Road.

一串串

Singapore has Old Chang Kee. Hong Kong has 一串串。

Actually, this is somewhat I call Geylang.

The hustle and bustle of Hong Kong Road! I love it.

Take a look at the building reflecting the clouds. Ain't that magnificient?

Chatham Road South

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And we walked futher down to...

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After viewing so many 一串串 stalls in Kowloon, we decided to settle down with this stall.

There's a lot of sauces for you to choose from and surprisingly, there's sweet chilli sauce!

And I SIMPLY LOVE IT! I'm just like a vampire, wishing for some chilli sauce (blood).

Another remarkable private flat.

After a short snack, we headed down to Cameron Road.

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Get gearing for shopping and food along this stretch of road!

Familiar? DBS is not that really famous in Hong Kong, but rather, HSBC is.

mannings? Just say guardian.

In Hong Kong restaurant, many of them do believe that their restaurant branding and image sells, not the food. They will do utmost it can to create awesome posters or take beautiful pictures of their food items just to attract crowds. They have customers that flows like a river, do not have much regular customers like what Singaporeans does.

If we have our favourite Char Kway Tiao in Old Airport, we knows and try to go there for more. In Hong Kong, most of the 茶餐厅 are monapolised, just like the old Mcdonald format.

That's why as a poster designer, it's not how good is your photoshop skills but how will you are able to design in simplicity or complexity to attract customers. That's the goal.

First 2 storeys can be pretty clean and well furnished but they upper levels, it's hell.

This is a familar franchise but wait, the franchise boss is different thus the quality of the ramen is different from Singapore.

Oh, who says there's only wanton mees and tim sums?

Egg Shaped Chocolate Waffles

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At this Granville Circuit, walk slightly further down and you' ll be able to see this shop that sells Egg Shaped Chocolate Waffles. This is the authentic shop that sells the most delicious waffles you can ever find in Kowloon. Thus, don't get cheated if you find other places selling it because theirs are not authentic, this one was been featured in newspapers before.

Alas, I didn't get the chance to take the shop image and the owner itself. He was the one doing the waffles for me.

You have to eat it while it's hot because after about 10 minutes, the waffles starts to lose it's crisp and turn soggy. There's a lot of flavours and mine was chocolate flavour. There's plain flavour too.

Inside the eggy shape, it's hollow. Don't expect the chocolate oozing out like some kind shit. HAHA.

Knutsford Terrace

At this street notice, turn to your left and you have to climb up a small slope. It's not that eerie though it can be quite dark. Upon reaching the top of the slope, turn to your right and you will be greeted into a small little Boat Quay feel where there's pubs and wine bars.

You see, people do not really stay in their house as much as Singaporean do (because they want to watch Beach.Ball.Volley. or what ever channel 8 shows) but in Hong Kong, they usually go out at night and at their void decks, there's a pub where they can chill out before going to bed.

Top storeys are just houses. Owners of the flats have been smart to release the land space of the void decks to pubs or dining area so as residences do not have to travel far for some bites.

Therefore, I have to conclude that the residences are quite well off because of the exorbitant pricing @ their void deck restaurants. As for me, I have a coffee shop and 7 11 at my void deck area (Singapore, Yishun one la.)

Well, this is something you don't get to see if you're travelling by Tourist agencies. But this is what you get to see if you're a Hong Kong resident and you know that their hygiene of the buildings is far from Singapore.

Security in Hong Kong is relatively good as there's polices patrolling in deserted areas, thus you will feel as safe as Singapore.

I pity those cars having to accelerate up the hill, quite a hefty load of fuel to burn when driving up!

Kimberly Road

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Kimberly road is a street that offers all kinds of wedding boutiques. Therefore if you want something unique and specialised, why not drop by at Kimberly Road and walk down the lane with ur love ones for some good inspirations for your wedding.

This is Kee Wah Confectionery and it sells quite a lot of pastries and the all time famous Wife's Cake. However, this is not one of the best wife's cake there.

Can you believe this? They are selling cosmetic product in this little machine here. Excuse me, where is the tester and mirror please?

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Canton Road is quite a famous road for all kinds of street shopping and you can find all kinds of fashion accessories and clothings there. This is something like Bugis Street but bigger and better.

Burger King has their line up of fashion clothings too, especially the Chocoolate series. Take note of the double 'o'.

How I wish i had a limousine, cruise around Kowloon and open the top of my limo and watch the beautiful buildings around me.

But I only got the luxury to walk down. :)

Harbourfront

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In Hong Kong, sun set views can never disappoint you due to their geographical location, their sun set is awesome.

This is one of the leisure cruise, Star Cruise in Hong Kong.

One of the Hong Kong'er took this photo but he has bad skills la. Sian ji pua.

Indeed, this is what you will actually see in Hong Kong at this time, 19:01. Taken by Winston.

The harbour.

This is quite interesting and captured my attention. Unlike the conventional yellow plastic one.

Evening shots of the Hong Kong Island.

I feel very blessed with their clear skies as Hong Kong has a reputation of hazy, foggy atmosphere.

This is their famous chain of Japanese tibits stall. In fact, Hong Kong has a lot of Japanese tibits stalls!

HONG KONG ICE CREAM VAN

Anyone who goes to Hong Kong cannot forget to try this ice cream van's ice cream. They do play some melodious tinkling music to attract customers, unlike in Singapore, they use bells and it's a motocycle, or bicycle.

You are able to use your Octopus Card (which serves like a EZ link, Cashcard) to buy your ice cream!

Oh great, Winston used my ice cream to smash on Dennis face.

HONG KONG ISLAND SKYLINE 2008

This is the skyline at 8pm. Isn't it more beautiful than Singapore's?

Remember this view that i created?

Well, Hong Kong is definitely much nicer.

I can see that my camera focus doesn't reflex well sharp images now. Dang! But still, the view is absolutely nice.

Everyday night @ 8pm, there will be a laser show that lights up the entire Hong Kong Island and it's really incredible. Here are the 4 segments of the video that I recorded down and you are able to watch them in High Quality via youtube page.

Hong Kong Laser Show 1

Hong Kong Laser Show 2

Hong Kong Laser Show 3

Hong Kong Laser Show 4

Not only I've captured the breath taking views of Hong Kong Island Skyline via video, there's pictures too!

The Hong Kong Sampan (I have no idea what is it called lah!)

The standard ferry to transport people in various hk island.

The Spaghetti House

After the show, we walked all the way down back to Kowloon (Hon Tao Dou) for our very last dinner on the first day, The Spaghetti House.

The environment here is something where you're not able to feel it in Singapore. It's dark warm yellowish lit yet vibrant place for dining in. This place mostly sells western food and their customer services are rather commendable.

Example was that when we were waiting for a really long queue, they offered us a cup of coke or sprite while waiting. This was rather cool lah! Not forgetting giving us the menu first to check out their food items outside the restaurant.

I had this, lagsana and this is my favourite, protein rich dish.

Look at those juicy thick slices of lemon! It's much better than the ice lemon tee at S11 kopitiam!

As for Mr Dennis, he had thick chunks of creamy chicken pasta.

I simply love my lasagna.

That concludes the first day of Hong Kong and more posts of exciting travellings coming your way real soon! Hong Kong Day 2,3,4,5! All damn jammed pack awesome and I really darn miss going overseas now.

Dine out @ Cineleisure (Shokudo Japanese Pasta and Pizza)

2008-11-01T21:45:00.002+08:00

Just after I've POC'ed, i tried to meet up as many of my friends as possible but still, there's some that i might disappoint them.

Nevertheless, I managed to dine out with the bunch of Triathlon Association Singapore (in short TAS) pals @ cineleisure and AMK HUB many weeks ago and I'm finally able to blog about this gastronomic experience! (for future reference).

Shokudo Japanese Pasta and Pizza

We went to Shokudo Japanese Pasta and Pizza and it was really a Japanese Twisted Western flavour restaurant. The prices are rather steep for a 'sandwiched' class people just like me thus it has to be definitely an once a year affair meal deal if you get your bonuses etc. (Bad ecomony la, what to do.)

Using my Sony Cybershot K800i, here are the photos of fun and laughters.

Kewei's iPhone can do a unique shot too.

This ladies simply hates the camera. Especially Sophia Shao!

I think I concluded wrongly...

A solo shot of me and this is how I look in like a month ago. All this photos are long dued!

Sophia loved this shot while we were viewing the menu. As for kewei and I, we were like paparazzis as we're busy taking photos.

We even played with refractions. Goodness us.

Everyone looks fat here.

Ah ah ah.?

I forgot what is it called but I think it's the only soup they have there. It tastes awesome and if you're planning to go there, just order this soup and tell 'soup' to the waiter and the waiter should figure it out.

Thin crust with juicy fillings.

New York New York.

Then I have no idea when, all of us again went down to AMK hub, New York New York for dinner and we had a damn filling yet appetizing dinner there.

OMG. LOOK AT THAT HUGE COLD CRAB.

That's all folks. Back to my army days and Armour tanks.

Beyonce Knowles - If I Were A Boy

2008-10-25T23:53:00.004+08:00

http://frankyphotoblog.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

To all strong-minded, will powered woman in the world. This song goes to you.

If I were a boy
even just for a day

I'd roll out of bed in the morning
and throw on what I wanted and go

Drink beer with the guys

and chase after girls
I'd kick it with who I wanted
and I'd never get confronted for it
cause they stick up for me

If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man
I'd listen to her
Cause I know how it hurts

When you lose the one you wanted
Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

If I were a boy
I would turn off my phone

Tell everyone it's broken
so they'd think that I was sleeping alone

I’d put myself first
and make the rules as I go

Cause I know that she’ll be faithful,
waiting for me to come home, to come home.

If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man
I'd listen to her
Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

It's a little too late for you to come back
Say it's just a mistake,
think i'd forgive you like that
If you thought I would wait for you
you thought wrooong

But you're just a boy
You don't understand
and you don't understand, ohhhh
How it feels to love a girl
Someday you wish you were a better man
You don't listen to her
You don't care how it hurts

Until you lose the one you wanted
Cause you're taking her for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

But you're just a boy

The 30 cents surcharge

2008-10-25T08:51:00.004+08:00

My father drives a taxi and I do take taxis at times thus the 30 cent surcharge definitely concerns and impacts me.

I've read the news on disgruntled passengers with the 30cents (nia) surcharge. "With 30 cents, I can buy one cheap marmee liao loh! Why waste on Taxi leh!?"

Story from The Electric Newpaper: http://www.tnp.sg/news/story/0,4136,181199,00.html?

Why still 30 cents despite diesel price dip?
By Elaine Yeo

YESTERDAY, pump prices went down by another 5 cents a litre - the tenth straight reduction since July.

Yet, taxi companies have been slow to remove their 30 cents fuel surcharge, introduced in July as a reaction to rising fuel prices then.

Why? Disgruntled commuters have been quick to call the newspapers, complain on online forums, and write to forum pages.

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One such unhappy commuter is Mrs Nor Aishah Ali, a housewife in her 50s.

The price of diesel has dropped from $1.83 a litre in July to the present level of $1.47 a litre after discount. Yet the surcharge remains.

Even some airlines, including SIA and British Airways, have cut their fuel surcharge.

Said Mrs Nor: 'Now that the price of oil has plummeted, I don't understand why taxi companies are still keeping quiet.'

She says she has no option but to use taxis as she has an elderly mother who needs to go to the hospital often.

'I try not to take taxis, but it's unavoidable when you have an old person to shuttle around,' she said.

But two cab companies, responding to The New Paper, said they had maintained that the surcharge would remain until prices returned to $1.19 per litre for diesel. (See report, right).

Call for response

Most readers appear to agree with Mrs Nor, citing extraordinary times and calling for extraordinary measures by cab companies.

Said Mr S Ravichandran, 33, civil servant: 'It may be 30 cents, but it still adds up to a considerable amount.'

Housewife Jane Yeo, 58, agreed: 'With the economy getting worse, fewer people would want to take taxis.'

Mr Sanjeev Thavarajaloo, a 22-year-old executive, pointed to logic: 'If fuel prices have come down, the surcharge should be abolished.' Simple as that.

But there are some who are resigned to the surcharge.

Miss Noorlin Wahidah, owner of Noorlin Seafood restaurant, said simply: 'Everyone has problems; what can we do?'

She points out that both taxis and passengers are at a stalemate: Taxi drivers need to survive, passengers need to save.

Said student Desiree Tan, 20: 'As a passenger, I want a price drop, but it's hard for cabbies to make money in the first place.'

Chauffeur Jeffrey Ang, 56, feels that it's not a matter of business - taxi drivers can still earn money during peak hours anyway.

But student Kelvin Yap, 19, said: 'I think the taxi drivers deserve it. Petrol prices are still higher than they once were. It may be 30cents, but it's still worth something.'

Additional reporting by Eoin Ee

We'll review surcharge: ComfortDelGro

TAXI companies ComfortDelGro and SMRT told The New Paper that they are monitoring the situation.

ComfortDelGro said it would remove the 30-cent surcharge when pump prices fall to December 2007 levels.

It said: 'At the current level, market pump prices are still retailing at a premium to the December 2007 level of $1.19 per litre.'

The companies did, however, acknowledge the decline in diesel prices.

ComfortDelGro is reviewing the surcharge with its taxi associations.

SMRT said that it made its stand clear in July. It plans to remove the surcharge only when diesel prices fall to $1.19 a litre.

My Stand/Verdict

Why keep honking on removing the 30cents surcharge la, because of the diesel price haven't drop to $1.19 la, then so hard to remove la, cannot la, later taxi drivers get angry la and blabla.

JUST MAKE IT 20 CENTS(20美分) SURCHARGE LA! SUBSEQUENTLY DROP TO 10 CENTS SURCHARGE IF THE DIESEL PRICE FALLS TO $1.30! AND LATTER, NO SURCHARGE (0 cents) WHEN THE DIESEL PRICE DROPS TILL $1.10 LAH!

Everything Tak Boleh! Like duh>?!

Disclaimer : This is a post that concerns mainly Singaporeans thus, grammatical errors, misuse of vocabulary is deliberate action.

Change Your Mind - Boyce Avenue

2008-10-24T00:40:00.000+08:00

There you are with your perfect way
You’ve got that little shine in your eyes
To hear one word would make my day
But there’s no room for me in your life

Oh you’ve got me down on my knees
Oh and in my mind I can see
How perfect everything could be
But you won’t give us a try

If I could change your mind
How would you want me
Would you say you need me
Cause I need you now

I try to move on but your perfect way
Has got this little child asking why
But this world keeps spinning
As my heart stops beating
Is there still no room inside

Oh you’ve got me down on my knees
Oh and in my mind I can see
How perfect everything could be
But you won’t give us a try

If I could change your mind
How would you want me
Would you say you need me
Cause I need you now

If I could change your mind
(Please tell me I’m not the only one)
(Please help me believe I’m not the only one)
If I could change your mind

If I could change your mind
How would you want me
Would you say you need me
Cause I need you now
If I could change your mind
How would you hold me
Would you stay forever
Or just leave me here to drown

If I could change your mind
(Change your mind)
If I could change your mind
(Change your mind)

Kate Havnevik - So:Lo

2008-10-19T13:22:00.003+08:00

I know it's late but i wanted to call
No everything is fine
There's nothing wrong
Just needed to talk
I hoped you would answer this time

'Cos I'm so low
Everyone's speeding
but I'm still going slow
And I'm so low
Everyone glows
I see love affairs
Everywhere
But no-one will do
But you

If we could speak
we could have a good row.
which off course I’d win
What I mean is I’m missing you now.
This freedom is wasted on me

'Cos I'm so low
Everyone's speeding
But I'm still going slow
And I'm so low
Everyone glows
I see love affairs
Everywhere
But no-one will do
But you

'Cos I'm so low
Everyone's speeding
But I'm still going slow
And I'm so low
Everyone glows
I see love affairs
Everywhere
But no-one will do
But you

A,J & K's Birthday Bash (AJK)

2008-10-12T20:45:00.002+08:00

Time and time, i watched my buddies with their birthdays passed just like mine. Some I've attended, some I've not. I wish that I could attend Bobby's birthday bash but well, I guess serving the nation is more important or rather, got forced to serve the nation. Therefore, I am quite regretful that I wasn't born 1 year later but who's gotta to be blame? No one la.

Anyway, this post was due long ago as Kewei and I just celebrated Meiyun's birthday last month. The post was on my draft for 2 weeks and finally I am able to regain some free time for myself and continue creating the post. But without realizing that I also celebrated Kewei's birthday too and this post is dedicated to both of them, the smarties arties from NUS. (NUS has recently been ranked 30th university in the world.)

Without typing so much, let's rock withe pictures!

Meiyun's 21st Birthday Bash

Thanks to lovely Meiyun who cordially invited Kewei, me and the TAS team to her party at Costa Sands Downtown east. TAS was late but I didn't forget Li Zi hui who helped most of the party start ups. I was rather guilty that I couldn't be there early to help out.

Li Zi hui and her beloved boyfriend who recently POP aka Graduation Parade on the same day as me. He was from Pegasus company.

This 2 fellas always fight and quarrel and they missed it after not meeting each for a long time!

Let's zoom in to Kewei's face ah. This is an award winning face where everything goes priced, only this picture is priceless.

'I'm pissed by Zi hui!'

So basically when we're there, we chatted, ate and laze around. It was pretty peaceful birthday because there wasn't much sabotaging. During that period, i had a super bad Tekong Cough. Thankfully we didn't get to drink alcohol during games or else i will be the first person to die of Tekong cough! Then again, Mindef have to write in reports on the dead NSF and etc again.

It was the cutting cake time!

Meiyun's cake was au natural chocolatety. I guess she indeed love loads of chocolates!

Birthday Cake for Meiyun.

The lighting up of her candles. 2 big 1 small. I'm not talking about 4D bettings.

I shall not post her family pictures online here. But her family was warm and friendly, especially her parents!

The cake and her.

Her charlie angels that went through life together!

Ah, how can we forget the picture of us? Here we go!

I find this picture shows the nicest smile!

Once again, Happy Birthday pretty cloud!

Jacelyn's & Kewei's 25th Birthday Bash

This guy is old (a quarter CENTURY old) now, but his success stories are never too old and out dated. I'll see him fly very soon once he graduate from NUS. Though he is struggling in NUS now, but he never fails to have fun with his volunteer activities and sports. That's something I must learn.

Therefore, we were supposed to give him a birthday surprise since he hasn't had one or seldom have one. This is also a revenge time for giving me a HUGE birthday surprise that I cannot forget.

But the plan flopped somehow because some of his friends that I got them over didn't know that it was a birthday surprise. They thought it was a mere birthday gathering thus i was really very' sian ji pua' when he showed me the smses from his friends like "Hey kewei, i can't attend the birthday party this Saturday" and he was puzzled for a few moment. Damn sian la...

But still, it was a good one because he didn't exactly know who is coming for the party.

First stop, Meiyun was present! How can we miss her out? They have been good friends more almost 4 years and counting!

She doesn't want to be seen! Oops

Oh yes yes, here we have our Diva, Jacelyn and Sophia who is a pretty Shanghai girl. Now, she has shown justice that there's pretty ladies over @ Shanghai!

Kewei ordered this soup, cream of mushroom it was extremely fabulously delicious! I love the thick creamy smell of the mushroom and soup.

Birthday boy is showing some stuff that he has a long long neck. Or rather, he wants to tell everyone that he is lazy to even lift off that jug to drink. We drank mermaid and it was really too much for 3 of us sharing.

I got myself Cajun Salmon and I must tell you guys that I am totally addicted to Cajun flavourings. I must have cajun chicken, cajun fries and now cajun salmon. I love cajun chicken from Botak Jones, cajun fries from Popeye @ Changi Airport T1 and now, cajun salmon!

My treat to Birthday ~~boy~~ man.

This is like an army of prawns in Senang Diri position. Prawns Armed Forces. PAF.

It was a conducive environment for diners as there was a bar and a band playing around 8pm. I dedicated a song to the birthday birds and they played the song Happy Birthday but alas, they read the dedication too softly and we heard the dedication in drips and drabs.

I took this shot because i thought that it was unique and cool.

The girls are rather chatty. That's really good as it keeps the conversation going non stop!

I really miss going out and taking some shots thus I took some time out to take shots around me.

The sharp edges.

As cold as ice water.

It was the climax moment. I got to ask Eric, the manager of Fish & Co. to help us celebrating the birthdays of Kewei and Jacelyn and he was extremely hospitable. He attended to us with the cake, took the trouble to bring his staffs over and cheer for their birthdays.

Eric forced Kewei to blow his cake standing on top of his chair.

Besties forever!

The AMK gang. Oh man, i look so haggard.

The people who were involved.

Look ma! A new bag! All of us know that he wanted a old Wilson Tennis bag because he wanted something practical to store his 17inch MAC BOOK PRO 2.4Ghz with 4GB ram (hefty powerful machine).

But we tried all avenues and even wanting to order the old bag from Germany which cost us $160! But it wasn't really practical to do so because that bag is outdated and it cost $50 at that time.

Thus, i had a hard time explaning and persuading him that this bag is good too. He was not used to it because of the design and colour. But now, he is carrying it most of the time along with his macbook. Cool stuff!

Even Meiyun agrees that it looks nice on Kewei, right?

He had to explore the bag for a while first before he carried it. There was many shuttle bugs around while he tried the bag. At least 3 cameras were involved.

Both of them got a Wilson Tennis Bag (Wei hua and Kewei)

You can really see this 2 are crazy fellas at that time.

Look at their expressions after carrying the same bag!

Jacelyn (6th October) Kewei (3rd October)

This shot was taken after we got out from Fish and Co. and heading down to Kbox Cineleisure for some karaoke!

Sophia had to punish and sabo him on that day. She made him hug the tree.

After punishing him, they camwhored.. Er..

Once again, Happy Birthday to all of you (s).

กันและกัน

2008-10-11T21:16:00.002+08:00

A direct translation of the most simple and beautiful song in the world.
(Hear the song that I am airing, no harm hearing and reading the lyrics below)

If I said that this song is made for you, would you believe it?
It's probably not melodious, not affectionate, not beautiful like other songs.
I want you to know that if there's no love, you can't write a love song.
But for you, my dear, do you know? I wrote it easily.

You've probably heard hundreds and thousands of love songs
that's probably impressive
but with a similar meaning altogether, but if you listen to this song,
a song that's written simply for you.
For you to understand the meaning of it, our hearts will then have a connection.

Let it be a song on our pathways that consist only voices of you and me.
Together as long as possible.
As the meaning is told in a poetry that as long as there's love naturally there's hope.
Means whenever your love shines through the heart, I have a goal.

There is a lot of facts found in love,
and in the past I used the time for the sake of finding the meaning.
But soon, I'd just know it, whenever you are near me,
That if life's a rhythm, you are as good as the words that is melodious and touching to the heart.

Let it be a song on our pathways that consist only voices of you and me.
Together as long as possible.
As the meaning is told in a poetry that as long as there's love naturally there's hope.
Means whenever your love shines through the heart, I have a goal.

There's a pathway for us to walk side by side and there are voices of you and me.
There's a pathway for us to walk side by side and there are voices of you and me.

The silver lining

2008-10-06T22:54:00.004+08:00

I see the potential of this unit that I am posted to; Maintenance Engineering. I know that I am repairing tanks, have to go outfield and repair those huge chunks of metal bodies, but I found myself getting used to this kind of life.

Now and finally, I got some time myself to sort out the priorities during army life and I've learnt one harsh cold lesson to succeed.

Sacrificing == Succeed.

I've dropped Toastmasters, and one business venture. What's next to come? I hope this chinese saying to come true "旧的不去，新的不来。。"

I pray and fight.

shiat, my posts are tilting to the emo genre.
Cannot liao!

Feeling wretchedly better

2008-10-01T23:20:00.003+08:00

Busy times ahead. I will blog when i got the mood! Josline got a thousands of post liao. I just 695 posts.

I must win Josline! haha! :D

I'll post more events soon once i start to pick myself up. I am still finding my soul, where is it?

Changes

2008-09-28T11:47:00.007+08:00

This is really funny though. Having me to write up an emotional post because of major changes that I am experiencing in 2008. This is something that I didn't expect for. It's only September but I feel like I am writing for a conclusion / reflection of 2008; where this post should be posted on December.

Everyone has been asking me, where am I posted to, what am I doing right now and how's BMT (Basic Military Training) like. Hilariously though, army should be the time where I will have a lot of stories to share, however, I have a lot of woes to share.

I am sure that being a clerk in no matter what unit, stay in or out, it will be one of the best units to be slacking in your 2 years. This is the kind of job that I do want be posted too. However, I didn't get what I really wanted mainly the reason is that my PES status is only valid to a year. After one year, I will be re-evaluated on whether should I be increasing my PES status as my eye muscle disorder (Ptosis) is something that can be cured with a simple yet expensive operation. That's the reason that even though I am in PES C, i will not be doing the slackest job as CMDB classify me as a fit guy with eye disorder thus unable to touch firearms (guns and ammo).

But even so that I am excused firearms, the unit that I am posted to has firearms involved; Buzzles, guns etc.

Hello everyone, I am an Auto Technician for A VEH (Armour Vehicles). There is one slogan that all Armour technicians use is "Once an Amour, forever an Amour".

Shall we call it as a fate that I'm posted to this unit? Many months ago, I attended Singapore Airshow and saw tanks on display. It was just a mere interest to see the mechanisms and the designs of it thus I took quite a fair bit of pictures on it.

Never do I know that I will be posted as a member taking care of this machinery for 2 years.

View Larger Map
Therefore, my camp is at Ayer Rajah Camp, a place where it's really old and was built in 1980's. I am posted to OETI, Ordnance Engineering Training Institute. Some might call it as Only Eat Talk Idle (OETI) but frankly speaking, there's a lot of rules that we, trainees have to abide too. Oh yes, after being a recruit, i am a trainee now.

The Good Side of OETI.

There are some good benefits in OETI. I can't possibly conclude that this place is a hell place where there's so many strict rules and etc. We do have tea breaks from 15 minutes to 30 minutes at 2 intervals. Most of the time we have our tea breaks will be 9.45am an d 3pm. As for our lunch breaks, we do have cook house and get free lunches from the cook house and down to canteen to buy other tidbits if we still feel hungry. Not forgetting that if we are lazy to walk all the way to the canteen, we also have vending machines at our workshops for drinks and tidbits. (Did i say walk to the canteen? Actually, we are supposed to march to the canteen. This is just like Tekong life).

Our lunch break duration is about 1 hour and last Friday, we were informed by our staff sergant that we are able to go to our classroom and take a 'rest' which is sleeping in the duration of an hour. This is a bonus because not many camps, they allow us to rest during lunch breaks. Lastly, this camp is a stay out camp which is 8am - 5pm. Though they do boldly publish and state that this is a stay out camp from 8 - 5, the real fact that we have to reach the camp on 7.40am if there's no Healthy Life Style Trainings and 7.20 if we have Healthy Life Style Trainings. What is healthy life style training? It holds on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, every single week. However, if it rains, we are excused from running / jogging on the stipulated dates.

How far do we have to run? Every training, we have to run 3km per session and i thought jogging/running is a past in tekong. Never to know that in unit life (be it clerical work, any other units), there's also jogging and running. Initially, I was really disappointed and upset because I thought only our unit has to do jogging/ running until i was informed that other units (clerical work, other units) have to do such exercises too.

The Darker Side of OETI.

Let's talk about the least advantages of being an A VEH techician.

There's 3 classes of a technician and unfortunately, or some might say fortunately, I am one of the most stressful, competitive groups of technicians, the A class. There's 69 trainess (normal in take is about 20 trainess) and we handle / maintain Tanks such as M113 and so on.

Touching Grease, oil and dirt are just like having meals everyday but all this occur after 3 months of lectures, classes and exams. In this 3 months as a trainee, I have to study like a student soldier. There will be exams, tests and light practical works. Besides that, I have to wear coverall; a technician uniform.

After 3 months (22/12/2008), I will be commissioning as a true technician and this is the time where I get 'decoration' on my coverall, and no.4 uniform which is a logo of a technician. This will be really spectacular because I would gain some recognition from others that there's some 'rank' on my uniform. But the happiness doesn't last over there after 3 months, I will be posted to another unit for 2 months where I will go some of the most grueling moments in my NS life, Out Field. I will be practically hands on, repairing all kinds of tanks out there.

If I get posted into Sungei Gedong where it's the main camp area for all kinds of amour vehicles, I have to bid good bye to my social life for my remaining NS life. I will be seeing the civil world only on Saturday and Sunday whereas for the rest of the days, I will be stuck in the secluded camp in Lim Chu Kang where I will be cut from all kinds of enjoyment in the true Singapore entertaimenet world. On the average, I will be able to celebrate being a civilan about 104 out of 365 days in a year.

There goes my plan for more ad hoc jobs and concentrating other areas in life rather than army. This sounds really depressing to me because I always want to have the chill and spills of staying out for the entire NS life.

Therefore, I've been biting sour lemon of my life now, accepting on what I have left and try to cherish the things that I can do and forget on what I can't do. I'm going to give up a lot of things in my life due to army but I do know that I'm going to pick up new things in my new life in NS.

I'm still scraping my life back from pieces into a whole. I know that I am coming back because I am blogging now. Sorry for not blogging for a real long time not because I hav nothing to blog, in fact there's so much stuffs to blog.

It's just that I wanted to be alone for while and detested blogging for quite sometime until now there I am lifting off from where i stopped.

Hi, This is Melvin Lau Boon Yang, Private Lau Boon Yang and is assigned as a Amour Vehicle Technician. If i get to stay in camp, my life will indeed change totally for the 2 years. Not much of the physically part but 80% from mentally and 20% spiritually changed.

They say changes is good, but for me. Changes is just something where you must always see in a different light.

This might be a long post with full of grammatical errors. My English has gone bad to worst despite helping my buddy Kewei, on his absolute difficult NUS module (ET1000). It's machiam doing General Paper.

Enough of this saddening, depressing life about me. I never felt so down about my life before ever since secondary school..

Let's talk about Singapore Grand Prix F1 and I was so fascinated with the performances of the 20 drivers and especially Alonso who was so lucky in this competition.

I'm definitely gonna watch the next one, Fiji and Shanghai's Grand Prix. Enthralling and Thrilling to me!

Bobby's 21st!!!

Lastly to my dearest brother Bobby, I know you are doing super fine in army! This was taken before he got enlisted and it's his 21st birthday treat from me.

Mr Bondevia.

And another meet up with Mr Jon, The Bondevia who recently commissioned as an Officer. Therefore, i have to salute him as I'm a chao private.

He's really someone now.

Life has been messy

2008-09-23T22:49:00.002+08:00

This is the year 2008.

This is the year of changes.

This is the year that I will not forget.

This is the year where I have tonnes of events to adapt.

Finally, 2008 is a year of adaptation. And I hope dear Melvin stay strong.

Sorry for not blogging much as I really showed a lot of negligence in a lot of aspects of my life.

KPE RUN

2008-09-15T00:59:00.002+08:00

and more pictures from this event to come!

Hello, I'm PTE B Y LAU.

2008-09-10T22:18:00.010+08:00

Hello everyone, this is Private B Y Lau here. Life in BMTC as a PES C has been a rough riding one.

Being a PES C recruit has a 'si nang' life without much stress and punishment from sergeants and commanders but there's a lot of 'sai kang' jobs to deal with.

Kenneth, now I do know the meaning of your email you sent me before I got enlisted and a big thanks for those encouragements and a sneak preview of what PES C life will be.

So yes, how did i spend my time there?

Everyday, I had my remily timing @ 5am and have to do 5BX (5 Basic Exercise) at 5.15 am. Initially, it was hard getting used to it because i never had such an early exercise and breakfast. And as you know that a typical teenager doesn't sleep early nor wakes up early thus it was really tough waking at 5am. But soon after, i got used to the timing and tend to wake up at 4.45am without the aid of my alarm clock.

What does the 5BX package has? Firstly, there was the star jump. Followed by, squat benders, high jump and push ups. The thing i hate about push ups is that they make you hold on pressing down for long thus I tend to get shivery all over my arms and a big grin on my face (of course, not a happy one).

After our 5BX, we 'senang diried' and marched down to the FoodFare cookhouse, manned by NTUC people. Breakfast was always something that i don't really look forward. Most of the days, we had 4 loaves of brandless bread, kaya, plastic smell omelet and a sausage. The most delicious part of the meal was the drink; coffee, tea or milo.

With this, our day really starts. We had marching drills and the rest had gun drills. I didn't get the chance to learn all this because i was categorized as a Level9 recruit, which means that I am excused from firing and grenade tests. In conclusion, my life there wasn't really fruitful or to say, i didn't learn much from BMT.

The guild to have a healthy survival in BMTC is to simply 'suck thumb' and try to be as optimistic as possible. It is exactly reflects your emotions in a war, or rather much worst because there's lives at risks and everyday, you just wished that you could survive another day.

There's really nothing much to post about BMT actually, but here are some glossary to survive in the BMT language.

GLOSSARY OF TEKONG SLANG

Chee Bye, Nah Beh, Fuck, Fark, Kana Sai [nouns] - not actually bad words to them but just a full stop to every singlish sentences.

Tao Pok (pronounced as pork) [noun] - it means squashing you on the bed with layers of recruits on top of you. They just wanna squeeze you out.

Confine [noun] - nope it's not the meaning of 'Deprive of freedom; take into confinement' but rather, a freely to say word to threaten recruits in a joking way.

" For those who use the ET sticks and poke into your buddy's ass, confine...."

Blanket Party - An abreviation of having a mini orgy party on bed. But don't get me wrong, just tickling and laughing like hell.

Eh! Eh! Chio Bu - a desperate abreviation on telling your buddies that the pegasus platoon are coming with army ladies marching down the line. When recruits enter the army, they go blind about girl's appearance. Even if the girl is a butch, as long there's breast. She's hot.

Expect sergants, officers and captains to say this particular word almost every second; 'OK'.

1 X Hero or other words - it means how much weight or effect on the noun after that. if it's 2 X hero, it means that you are more heroic or daring than 1 X hero.

Other examples are 1X confinement. To have a harsher confinement, 2 X confinement.

Not feeling well, BETTER SOUND OUT - Sound out doesn't mean that you have to squeak animal sounds to the commanders. If you want to 'keng', tell the commanders that you have leg pain and sore throat and that's it. No more than 2 illness and above or else you will be charged of manligering. If it's real, tell 'em that it's real; it's fever baby.

Anybody's temperature 37.5? - in short, just tell yourself; 'damn, i'm having a fever man..'

The SAF 7 core values are - you should ~~reply~~ scream this following words "LOYALTY TO COUNTRY, LEADERSHIP, DISCIPLINE, PROFESSIONALISM, FIGHTING SPIRIT, ETHICS, CARE FOR SOLDIERS!" Eh? Ethics? Doesn't really been praticed in Tekong! don't forget, drown yourself with 500ml of untreated chlorine Tekong exclusive water. Somesay it tastes better than NEWater.

That's all I can think about it now. Try to add more my tagging my board on the 'tekong' slang words as I have forgotten a handful of them.

Tomorrow will be my daring stunt. I don't know whether I can survive the run but well, you never know if you never try!

Cheers everyone!