1) Fish have tongues!
At IS's wedding dinner, a menu item was steamed live soon hock.
mf: Live? How do you steam a fish live? Certainly unlike drunken prawns!
When the fish arrived, it was rather crooked; it must have been thrashing about until it died =(
And hence the tongue hung out!
2) Shinjuku, Singapore
It was a Mon morning, almost like that Mon morning in Tokyo except that I woke up after what I recalled to be the loudest thunder clap I'd ever heard instead of an earthquake.
Waited for the rain to abate before leaving for work. That was the first time I took the train to work at that hour. When I reached Tanjong Pagar, it was so full of people and immediately I thought "Shinjuku", although I didn't get swept along..
やっぱり, we are not as crowded (yet?)
3) Warding away the ticket
An amazing number of parking coupons!
And about tickets, received an sms from Singtel:
Easi-ERP lets you pay your ERP violation charges @ reduced rate via your STM bill.Dial *ERP(*377) to register NOW & enjoy 60% off your ERP admin fee(U.P. $10)
Winner..
4) Mr Bean!
So cute.. I like his bear too :)
5) Song mee
At first I thought that was the name of the shop, but it was its key item
There's the super song version too: fried :p
6) Ominous sign
Took this just before my driving lesson two days before my test (which I failed)
7) Dear Grams
Aunt came by to cut her hair, snowy white..
I’m moving in with her soon cos the internal works for the upgrading will start on 10 Apr..
Went to Na’s new place on Sat (with little 饅頭), very nice! Quite inspired by her room lights, hmmm.. We went shopping after that, girly things, homely stuff, お久しぶりね! :) From that trip and others, got myself two pillows, one duvet, one pink princessy canopy for the bed, and a whole lot of bathroom accessories! Oh oh, and my white towels too :p
Honestly, I can't remember the last time I went to the zoo; it must have been secondary school, or even primary school!
Last day of term break, there were countless screaming children, but I only remember one who pronounced scary as scaaaly..
Scary! :p
My obligatory poser shot aside..
White tiger! So so beautiful..
But it was a little unsettling to see the male pacing - very quickly - as if he was contemplating if he could clear the moat to reach the noisy people!
Interestingly, all white tigers alive today can be linked to one ancestor called Mohan, and tigers are only found in Asian. And, the zoo didn't seem to have regular tigers, not on map anyway..
I like big cats but the photos of the leopards etc didn’t turn out too well..
The baboons caught our eyes with their red red butts.. The reddest butt belongs to the alpha male, or the female in heat- we actually saw a very quick fuck :p The female had a horribly big, red and ugly butt! We were so traumatised..
Picking lice :p
I can’t get over these babirusa. I think they are mathematical, sleeping in parallel so that the flies couldn’t reach at least a part of them - they were asleep but madly twitching from the flies!
A hippo yawns to show affection. If you go "huh?", a zebra bares its teeth for similar purpose, to attract mates or something.. Maybe to take attention away from the dizzifying stripes? ~.~
Tight ass I’ll kill for, but oh, dizzy…
The giraffes are less dizzifying, though they can give me a neck strain.. Still cute, those two things on their heads :)
(Well, I can’t get a clear shot of the tall animal’s head.. Make do with a picture of a banner :p)
Koalas eat shit as babies - serious! Nutrients and all that shit.. Oops.. POS, you're useful after all, can rear baby marsupials, heh heh :p
These free-ranging orang utans were scary - they peed from up there, I saw! Luckily no one happened to be right under.. We steered clear..
But the elephants are cute!
Alright, maybe the real ones aren’t as cute.. But I’m always intrigued by their trunks and big ears (Dumbo’s fault :p)
Learnt quite a bit of stuff from this trip :) Oh, our zoo is going to focus on Asian animals so the younger polar bear will be sent to another zoo when the old mother dies.. I like polar bears, so pretty, although I distinctly remember a warning sign with a cartoon of a polar bear having a boy for food cos he jumped into the polar bear compound..!
It was a bit warm and threatening to rain. But it was so much fun! Fuelled by KFC, amused and entertained just by staring at our four-legged friends, and satisfied by ice cream when it finally rained at the end =)
She spent a record of 68 continuous hours in the house!
Sore throat erupted on Wed and escalated out of control in no time. Chirpy doc said throat was inflammed, hence the sore throat, flu, fever, cough..
Quite stoned on Thurs and Fri, just trying to find a good position to be in so I could breathe. The best positions were found on Eeyore! No pillow ma :p Poor Eeyore was so flat on one side at the end of it!
Cough worsened on Fri, but the stuffy nose and fever dissipated by Sat. It must be the ant I swallowed - I was convinced an ant fell into my cough syrup!
Had nothing but porridge on Thurs, Fri AND Sat (plus a spoonful of Sito's hor fun) - was so sick of it that when I woke on Sun, I spread kaya on my bread for the first time in a long time, and packed hor fun for lunch! :)
Have to learn to eat more sensibly. Haven't been so ill for a long time. And a total waste of time, weekend time! Gaaar!
But it was a good rest, watched a lot of TV since I couldn't do anything else. Now I'm addicted to the weekend 7pm show on Channel 8 :p And I saw the MIO advert - so cute! :)
The second week of CNY was hectic and tiring, but exciting and happy too! .. Ok, sans Mon when I flunked my driving test (can't help but whine about this :p)
Had to do some ridiculous research on Mon after driving test, BUAY SONG was written all over my face - value-add?: not sure; "extra"?: definitely!
Luckily things got better from there..
Our boardroom became ops room for budget debate from Tues. Ordered KFC for dinner. And while we worked, we talked.. Alright! We gossiped, we complained :p So it was quite fun la, and funny too, especially when one of our laptops ran low on battery..
Word du jour: juice
Common definition: as in fruit juice
Definition in office: laptop power
Connotations: everything imaginable
LY: I need juice!
mf: Um, that sounds..wrong!
LH: Juice, I also have!
Fyi, LH is still lactating..
!!
For interest, I went to M-W and found eight definitions! Besides the usual of (1) the extractable fluid contents of cells or tissues, and (2) motivating, inspiring, or enabling force or factor, there were also (3) the natural fluids of an animal body (plural), and (4) a medium (as electricity or gasoline) that supplies power!! We have been using (3) and (4) :p
It was quite late by the time we were done and it was also the time when cabs were hard to come by. So LY, LH and I shared a cab. The cabbie on Wed night was the funniest ever! Four of us were just chatting and somehow..
LH: 男人都不是好东西!
And uncle almost braked in the middle of nowhere!
LH: I mean, office 的男人都不是好东西! :p
Uncle: Ya, I thought you meant that, so I carried on driving, heh heh!
Quite nice, gave us something to laugh about at the end of a long day =)
But little did we expect an even longer Thursday..
Everything for Fri was sent up early but somehow things started to flood in towards the end, and there were so many changes!
After too much dim sum the past couple of days, we had chicken rice instead, followed by LY's birthday cake! She turned 3X on Friday :)
The poor girl, we were joking that she might have to stay until midnight and we could wish her happy birthday.. But the joke came true!! 她一脸无奈...
Some debris.. Leftover breakfast
We killed trees..
.. and sapped the earth’s fuel!
After sending up the fifth version of the day, we left the office looking forward to an easy Friday, just watching the proceedings..
But our simple wish was not to be granted! There was yet another change, at 654am! It filtered to us at only 911am and we started working madly again =(
We left office before ten, hoping to carry on in Parliament. But we were held up by what I called "the most efficient" security clearance..
Rushed out everything by 11 plus, prepared a set for the bosses and finally sat down in front of the TV in the business centre.
Minutes rolled by. Perspiration dripped right to the heart, chilling it; we were running over time!! To put it simply, we were eating into other departments' time and one department was sitting with us in the business centre! Stress..
But we were lucky; we were given extended time!
After confirming the final delivered speech, we went for a really late lunch and returned to office by 5+
Quite an exciting and fun journey, don't mind doing it again but pls spare us the last minute changes!
Btw, check out Mr Brown's podcast on the 6.5m population (which is a landuse planning parameter, not our desired target ok...)
I did! But only during the second quake..
It was nothing like the tremors I felt in Tokyo one spring night in 2005 - I was shaking side to side in my futon - but because this time we were in a high-rise building, it seemed to feel scarier.. Or was I freaked out by everyone else??
Chinese New Year came and went all too soon! Yesterday was 元宵, no 鲍鱼鱼生 like last year (hee, 鲍鱼, not very 生 :p) but we had prawn 鱼生 instead, neither 鱼 nor 生 :p
This year quite good, in the mood for photos again! Amid all the CNY happenings, I failed my driving test, and had a lot of fun working long hours (next post, with photos too!)
Our super yummy steamboat lunch!
WT shocked us in the middle of lunch with his appearance - dread locks! So everyone wanted a piece of him.. Actually just a picture with the star..
This one is like Beauty and the Beast!!
This one, WT cheated; he stood on tip-toe
Oops, my bra showed up very clearly in the photo :p
After spending some time lazing in Aunt’s room…
... the cousins crawled into Grams' room for games!
And this year, Yan excused herself from visiting her godmother so we spent the pm together watching TV, lazing in the room, munching nuts and getting fat :p
Family photo :)
Eldest Uncle painted pink over the ugly green doors.. But somehow I miss them ugly green doors..
Sito popped by in the evening for dinner. The aunties were so excited! My third aunt hunted him down, and asked him what his dialect was and - best - shouted his reply across the living room to the kitchen!!
Warned him about what happened to Ling's bf - Grams gave him a lot of food during lunch! True enough, Grams came over with an extra scoop of rice! She was nice, he could eat - good! :p But she chided me for letting him do the dishes :p
Watched a bit of Harry Potter before we left for Just Follow Law. Quite funny but thought the central theme didn't come across very strongly..
Second day of the new year, I watched the second movie of the year with CY - Protégé. Quite a heavy show for the am but it was good, I like the ending scene of the little girl and Daniel Wu.
Went to CY's place to 拜年 before she came over, took some 大头贴!
(See my ugly pimples? Sighs..)
*gasp* CY’s hand was on Bow’s balls! :p
The boys came over shortly. CY couldn't recognise Ting anymore - actually even I could barely recognise him! He's 16 this year, so fast.. And his bro and cousin are now 13 and 12.. But these boys ah, simply refused to take pictures! Unlike these younger kids at PS's place, very cute right? :)
Btw, I finally managed to carry LH's boy without him crying! Learnt from them that I had to distract babies from their parents by pointing out the birds in the sky, the ball in the driveway etc - really 骗小孩! :p
Went to Sito's place to 拜年 last Sunday. Read a lot of my 长恨歌 while he worked - I finally finished it yesterday morning!! After more than a year!!
Some random CNY pictures now..
The head of the roast chicken at Beng Hiang, during our (pre-)CNY lunch :p
Passed by this place on eve of CNY - everyone was buying roast chicken or duck!
This side said 不斩, the other read 斩 :p
Returned from first day of work to find a lion dance team downstairs! But they were only drumming, no lion..
But during another lunch, at Amoy, I saw a lion dance! Interestingly, it was a Malay team!
(Oooh, we like the noodles at this stall!)
Was roaming Chinatown last Sat, and ジャンジャン!
No more pictures from this point, just some thoughts..
Just a few years ago, CNY used to be very fun. But it had been variable in recent years, like, last year wasn't too fun somehow..
In the first two decades of my life, CNY was the time, the only time, when we got new clothes, new shoes, excluding school wear of course. It was about $200 for all of us every year, so there wasn't much we could buy.
Now that I'm finally financially independent, new clothes and new shoes and even typical CNY goodies come easily, but that has also diminished the significance of CNY..
Which only made me realise that the only way to revive the good old CNY vibes is to inject new life - we need kids! :p To that end, I have two married cousins with one couple holding their ceremonious wedding in June and Ling is due to get married in the second half of the year. Got hope =D
mf failed =(
No big mistakes but I accumulated a pile of tiny faults..
Kel, your "lucky pebble" didn't work for me!
I'll try TO's short skirt next time..
I knew that I would be too busy to do a proper one so I had been diligently "clearing house" since Nov last year.
The soft toys were the first to go. As a kid, I loved these things but never had many; about half of my collection were presents from 7-19, the rest in my 20s. A bit strange considering the length of each period!
Last Christmas, I packed a full bag of toys to the Boys' Brigade Sharity Box. Unlike CY, there’s no space for display where I stay and I only play with Meh, Eeyore and Bow anyway. Rather than letting them sit idle and neglected in my box in the cupboard, they might be happier with children who could appreciate them and in turn make these children happier..
This was from Yan in 1992, lovely elephant, still so clean cos I never played with it, but, oh so sweet!
Spidey was from an older cousin when I was even younger, maybe 9? It’s a glove but of course my hands are now too big for it..
PS: Those received in the past couple of years are still with me, no worries, just that I don’t guarantee their longevity with me, heh heh :p Oops, the sheep next to me (last picture in link) is now looking at me through big fearful eyes :p
Also had to empty out a few cupboards in preparation for the upgrading. Haven’t touched my old Pentax since I got my Ixus in 2004. Found that it has since died from old age. Lots of sentimental value cos it was my first camera and the one that accompanied me through Oxford and so many cities. I couldn’t bear to throw it but there’s no point keeping it too, sighs..
Then I also dug out my pretty musical box. Found some old earrings and some pretty hair pins. Dumped the earrings but kept the pins. I thought they were Mother’s cos I asked her for them many years back when I saw them in her jewel box. But she now said they didn’t belong to her. Oh well, I like these old pins, will keep :)
Don’t think I’ll have time to clean out my books but I'll attempt to arrange them neatly under my mattress.. Gosh, I need to factor in a book shelve in my room… Maybe the soft toys can sit on the same shelves? :)
Got this test from CY. My results:
Happy Planet Index
Your personal Happy Planet Index (HPI) is 50.3, which is similar to that of Nepal. Not bad. This is above the world average of 46, but still below the target value of 83, so there is more you can do to improve your health and well-being, or reduce your environmental impact. Your score is above that of your country, 40.8.
Below is a breakdown of the various components that make up your HPI score.
You: 50.3
Average: 43.3
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]
Life Expectancy
Congratulations. Your life expectancy is above average for your gender and country. Whether it's eating well, not smoking, getting regular exercise, or just being lucky enough to have the right genes, you're doing something right. However, nobody's perfect and we could all improve our health a little! Aside from getting all the above bits of your lifestyle right, there are some more surprising factors that can influence your life expect - for example, giving up your car, avoiding living alone, moving out of the city or shrugging off stress.
You: 84
Average: 80.8
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]
Ecological Footprint
Your ecological footprint is 4.92 global hectares, or 2.73 planets. This is equivalent to the average in countries such as Belgium, Luxembourg or Iceland.
Your ecological footprint is below average for the country you live in.
You are using between and one and a half and three times your share of the planet's resources (assuming no resources are put aside for other species). This is an amount typical of people in many industrialised countries, though just below the average for the UK. As such, if you are living in an industrialised country, you are probably doing some things well and some things not so well in terms of reducing your ecological impact. Seven ways that everyone can reduce their footprint include:
1) It's obvious, but we have to say it. Conserve energy. Turn off the lights when you leave a room, buy energy-efficient bulbs and appliances, turn off your TV completely, rather than leave it on standby.
2) Reduce your waste. If there are ways to recycle where you live, try and do so. If you have a garden, start a compost heap. Re-use plastic bags. Give away clothes you don't use, rather than throwing them away. There are hundreds of little things you can do.
3) Live with someone! Whether it be your partner, family, children or friends, sharing your living space means sharing your ecological impact. It will probably also increase your well-being!
4) Leave your car in the garage. Car use has a huge impact on ecological footprint. Obviously it's easier for some people than others, but where possible, try to use public transport more. Or, even better, get on a bike, or simply walk!
5) Go local. Why buy tomatoes from another country, if you can get home grown ones? For those living in Europe - think about all those miles travelled by wine from South Africa and Australia, when Europe produces some of the best wines in the world.
6) You don't have to become vegetarian, but cutting down on meat, particularly beef, and particularly from animals fed by imported soya feed, is an effective step to reducing your footprint.
7) It has to be said that air travel is one of the biggest contributors to many people's footprints. For example, flying direct from London to Sydney and back would add 5.44 g ha to your footprint - that's the average Briton's footprint for an entire year. Flights with a connection add even more polluting air miles.
You: 4.92
Average: 5.38
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]
Life Satisfaction
You reported a life satisfaction of 8. This is the most common response across UK and indeed all of Europe. However, it is above average, so we are happy that you are so happy. Only in two countries is the mean life satisfaction higher - Switzerland and Denmark.
You: 8
Average: 6.75
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]
Well-being
The new economics foundation (nef) recognises that there's more to life than feeling good, which is why our model for well-being is based on four domains – personal feelings, personal functionings, social feelings and social functionings. 'Feelings' refers to your attitude to the way you, your future and society are. 'Functionings' looks at whether you have the opportunities to do the things that bring you well-being. Like with life satisfaction, a score of 5 is theoretically the middle score, but, given the way most people respond to surveys, is below average.
Personal Feelings
In this online questionnaire, personal feelings are assessed with two questions – one testing your optimism and one testing your self-esteem.
You are optimistic about the future and probably also about yourself.
You: 7.03
Average: 6.03
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]
Personal Functionings
In this online questionnaire personal functionings are assessed with five questions – two evaluating your subjective opinion on your health and how activity you are, the other three testing you for feelings of autonomy, purpose and worth.
You are healthy and overall feel autonomous, purposeful and able to demonstrate your abilities to others.
You: 6.04
Average: 6.15
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]
Social Feelings
In this online questionnaire social feelings are assessed with four questions – three assessing your opinion of your community, whilst the last looks at personal relationships.
You have a strong sense of trust and belonging in your community and a happy personal life.
You: 6.3
Average: 5.68
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]
Social Functionings
In this online questionnaire social functionings are assessed with four questions – two assessing your job / studies, one your free time, and one your community participation. If you did not respond to the work / study questions, your score is judged purely on the other two aspects.
Your job / course is not really allowing you to function socially in the way that you wish. Either it is very dull and unrewarding, or it is very stressful, leaving you little time to do the things you enjoy - or a bit of both! Are they any ways you could make it a little better for you? Alternatively, one way to relieve the boredom of work, can be to find other focuses of interest. Many take up voluntary work to offer them an alternative purpose.
You: 4.83
Average: 5.6
[Average is of all online responses to this survey - not the average for your country]
Calculations for the Footprint are based on, and are copyright of, Best Foot Forward Limited. Please note that calculations for the Footprint and life expectancy are based on UK statistics. Conversion factors are used for other countries, but these are conservative and may underestimate differences.
IT'S PLAIN BAD LUCK!!
Yesterday, also a Wed, I was again in a hurry and just as the green man came on and I stepped off the kerb, I slipped and fell on my right knee..!
Bloody ugly cut and a huge bruise under the cut, but no photos this time cos my leg is way fatter than my thumb :)
I could attest to that; just had a freak accident on Wed.
Was going for a meeting. When I got out of RQ's car, I - me, myself - closed the door on my right thumb! My left hand was full but luckily LH was in front and helped me open the door.
Didn't scream cos there was little pain on impact but once it was free, my thumb was seriously throbbing! I held it for a while and took a look - oooh, bloody bruise! Nvm, could wash when we got up there.
But I started feeling faint as we walked to the lobby. I handed over my ID for visitor's pass and thought I needed to bow my head on the counter to let the blood get to my brain but the next thing I knew, I had a nightmare..
Can't remember it anymore but it was a nightmare alright; I was about to cry when I woke *.* Thought I was sleeping in a weird position cos I could see one shoe on my foot; the other shoe was loose..
I thought I would go back to bed and closed my eyes. But I heard LH saying my hands were cold. Then I opened my eyes and saw a security guard then LH.. That was when I realised I fainted..
When I became more conscious of my surroundings, I got up. Realised that RQ was holding my head. LH said he happened to behind me when I lost it. Heng ah! Else I might have become mf the Idiot.. Or worse..
LH stayed with me while RQ went for the meeting. My thumb was looking and feeling gross. She told me how she had such an accident with her car boot a while ago - she was stuck for a while before someone walked by to open the boot for her cos she caught it in a corner and couldn’t reach the lock with her other hand! She showed me her recovering nail and, ya, I’m going to have such a nail for a couple of months after this one dropped off and die. Died and dropped off..
We went up to a toilet to clean the thumb. It started to bleed slightly again through a small puncture and I started feeling faint again! Sat on the toilet floor - thank god it was clean! - and we thought should be anaemic that caused the fainting while not ruling out shock.
That was almost 7pm (late meeting) and people were leaving the building. Each of us met some friends and they were like "Fainted?!" :p By the time LH’s husband arrive, RQ was out of the meeting and sent us to the car. LH sent me to the clinic.
What nice bosses I have! :)) Sorry to have caused any trauma though..
CY waited for me at the clinic. Was supposed to meet her for dinner but cancelled cos of the meeting. In the end, we still met :p But guess what, the clinic wasn’t open on Wed nights! We walked to her doc, whom I was reluctant to see cos I remembered him to be fierce when I went to him as a kid.. But anyway, he was closed on Wed nights too!! Down that same corridor, we found her other doc, whom I recalled to have a big scary face (I was, like, five, and didn’t know I would grow up to have a bi face too!) but he was overseas! Wa liao, 生病还要选日子! I had never wanted to see doctor so much! We went all the way to the market and found a doctor, phew!
Doc, who didn’t look fierce and wasn’t fierce, checked that my nervous system was fine by making me follow his finger moving only my eyeballs and he pressed a bit on the thumb but couldn’t assess if anything was broken; apparently it might not hurt very much if the fracture was tiny. And my blood pressure was under 60/90. He firmly asked me to go to A&E =(
We took a cab to Alexander Hospital where Sito met us. Doc was right, this A&E was not crowded :) But still waited for a while cos I was labelled as a trolley case but I walked into X-ray room so the chaps didn't call for me; no trolley what!
But the wait was ok. CY was funny, said she was hungry and as I was suspecting, she asked me to share the sandwich from the vending machine that we were talking about just a minute ago!! So we shared a nice and cheesy mushroom sandwich :)
No broken bone, heart was fine (did an electrocardiogram) despite the shock (which was the likely cause for the blackout), so they bandaged my poor thumb to stabilise (?) it and sent me back with this amazing amount of painkillers that I didn't touch at all. It was - still is - painful but I was a lot more bothered by that gross feeling.
Trivial: They asked me to write my phone number at the registry and sign to say that I wasn't pregnant for the X-ray. I looked at my right thumb and was like, um.. And they went, "Oh you're right-handed ah?" as if they knew more people who were left-handed!
So glad for the two of them, 我是幸福的! :) Else I would have felt so miserable about that gross feeling and cried! =(
The next morning, I changed the dressing cos more blood drained out during the night. Couldn’t do any chores in the house, decided that I could at least type so I went to work.
Found that it was so inconvenient without my right thumb, e.g. brushing teeth (my left arm got sore), tying hair (finger cramp), washing face (wasted a lot of water), washing hair (my left arm almost died), wearing bra (had to hook in front and turned; didn’t even do that when I first started out!), fishing for coins in wallet (the zip and all), even eating (unsteady left hand for utensiles)!
Some gross pictures to share :p
My nice and big bandage..
My pink panther plaster underneath! (I referred to it as underwear and intern said I had issues *.*)
Jang jang!! It already looked better after the nurse cleaned it up..
Quite unlucky, me.. And guess what? This morning on the way to work, an insect fell on me and when I took it off, it pooped on my hair!! Washed a bit in the sink just now but I’m so going to wash my hair at a salon during lunch!!
PS: Siok just called and reminded me that I could ask for 10% discount for manicure! :p
