Category: Diary

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Diary Travel Blog

Bandung Chronicle – Part 1 Of 6

This is a journal of my year end trip to Bandung, Indonesia.  Observations more or less arranged in a chronological order, chopped into 500 words per piece.

1. Chicken in Bandung

Some see only dirt in Bandung, some see charm in every corner.  Some see the chicken meat in Bandung too tiny to be served as a dish on a dinning table.  I happen to love the chewiness, the leanness that reminds me of how vigorous the chickens had once exercised.  My vision of a bunch of chickens in joy, running around under a hot Bandung sun chasing each other and playing games, that essence of happiness permeates into the meat grilled to perfection, now served with sweet chili source, slices of cucumbers, and a few pieces of green lettuce.  I feel happier eating that than those caged chickens force fed with feed of questionable origins, supersized by means of hormones and chemicals.  There is little happiness eating chickens of that sort, even if they are meatier.

2. Airport Security

Round about the same period when – finally – a highway is built linking Jakarta, the capital, and Bandung, the second biggest city in Indonesia, AirAsia flies direct between Singapore and Bandung.  I suppose Bandung airport seldom sees International flights.  After the plane touched down – the only plane I saw in the entire airport – we have the opportunity to walk from the airstrip to the terminal.  There is no baggage convey belts either.   Instead, bags are transported and piled up at a common area ready for collection.

At the immigration counter, one of the two officers signaled me to place my four right fingers onto a metal box fitted with a glass top.  A flash of light followed by my four left fingers, another flash of light followed by my two big thumbs.  I was excited by the new experience.  After recording my fingerprints, the officer said to me, “Open you glasses”, which I suppose meant, “Take off your glasses”.  He pointed to a small camera in front of me that looked like a webcam.  Many movies flashed in front of my mind – “Mission Impossible”, “James Bond”, just to name a few.  With one hand holding my glasses, I moved really close to the tiny camera ready for a retinal scan.  That appeared to have caused a little commotion.  The queue behind me gasped – including Cynthia – and the officers frantically signaled me to stand back.  Then I realized.  They simply wanted to take my mugshot.  I stood back, forced a little smile, and after seeing the officer’s nod of approval, I left the counter thinking: how cool if it was a retinal scan instead.

3. Warcraft Withdrawal Syndrome

I often look forward to my trip to Bandung, treating it as a detox program staying away from the Internet for a change.  Once I worked in Paris.  One client of mine blindfolded himself for the entire weekend.  For what, I asked.  Many things, he answered.  The absence of advertisements and how blessed he …

Categories
Announcement Diary Reflection

Merry Christmas, And A Brief Summary Of 2010

What a year 2010 has been!  By the time you read this, I am very much on my way leaving town, looking forward to meeting Cynthia’s family and enjoying the serenity of an Internet blackout.  Back to basic, somewhere in Indonesia.  I can imagine how I would hear the ringing in my ears at night, be greeted by the rather cool air in the morning, the prayers from a mosque nearby before the break of dawn.  I would have so much time to exercise, to read, to revise my Spanish, to take a walk in the neighborhood, and to taste the local food.

The official announcement was out yesterday.  My entry of “Sea Turtle” has won over the judges from the HP team, against some of the stiffest competitions.  I have read some of entries written by fellow bloggers showcased at the HP Singapore Facebook page, and they are good.  I am thrilled, very thrilled that the judges were won over by – quoting from the email – my creativity, relevance to the topic, and the originality of my story.  And I dedicate this little achievement of mine to you, my readers.  Especially those who think that I should take up writing more seriously, and the encouragement I receive when I venture outside my comfort zone – in terms of writing.  Also, thanks to Amelia from Waggener Edstrom who has been encouraging and reminding me to complete the entry.  Your positive energy is a blessing to those around you.  You should be my agent, should my writing career takes off.

I enjoy writing “Sea Turtle” a lot.  Because it took me a few good weeks to research on the subject matters down to how sea turtles hear and what sea turtles do.  And it took some good thinking in order to put together a folklore, as inspired by Italo Calvino and his lecture notes “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”.  I am not literature trained.  I wish I was.  Having said that, I would probably hate writing if it was so.

*     *     *     *     *

This doodle of mine (on top of this post) is titled tentatively as “Rain of Heaven and Fire of Chaos”.  It started as a ginger bread man – Cynthia can vouch for it.  But I tossed the idea away and started afresh, with something more complex.  Because that ginger bread man and Christmas tree composition was going nowhere.  I am not sure if anyone would get what this drawing is trying to say.  It is a rather private piece of composition.  Hence the zipper.

*     *     *      *      *

Instead of spending time to write a batch of posts to be released while I am away like I used to – which I suppose most readers would be busy celebrating the festive season and new year with family and friends – I dedicate my time going through all my year 2010 posts.  OK.  Retract a little.  Before I went through my posts this year, I tried to recall what I did in 2010.  Nothing significant came up.  The other day, I had lunch with my good friend Shauna.  We concluded that time flies, year 2010 has disappeared as quickly as it arrived.  Cynthia and I had dinner with our good friend Tong Kiat two evenings ago for his birthday celebration at Dempsey Road.  We also concluded the same.  Now, when I did take time to look through what I have done, here are some of my favorite entries that you may or may not have read.  Some, I have even forgotten that they were written.  Back to the first practical reason of why I blog.  Time does fly.  But not without leaving behind some of the fondest memories.

In no particular order, there is a brief summary of my year 2010.

  1. My niece Bethany was born in January!  When I look at my little sister, who is so full of heavenly joy, it is hard to believe that she now has a little daughter.  My photo is seldom featured here.  The one taken on Bethany’s 100th day birthday still melts my heart whenever I look at it.
  2. I do many silly things in life.  Regardless, these would have been my talking points if we are to meet face-to-face.  Like that toilet bowl incident.  Like that little operation I had on my toe and my buddy still thinks that it was not a piece of hair.  I should have kept the specimen, as what my doctor has suggested.  And like that hard sales incident that till today, whenever I am inside Thomson Plaza, I try to avoid that counter.  Cynthia would say: Don’t worry, you are with me and no one will touch you! Yep.  I feel so much protected with Cynthia around.
  3. If I have to pick one post I enjoy writing the most this year, besides that sea turtle post, that would be the koala post.  Or the one on Indonesian forest fire.  The style is similar.  It takes effort and tons of luck to chain up the stories.  What if I fail to chain them up?
  4. Well, the materials would turn into the “Snippet of My Life” series, which has been running for more than three years.  Snippet without a doubt holds a special place in my heart.  Of all that I have written this year, episode 27 is my favorite.
  5. Our band has performed live gigs in Bali Culture, which unfortunately the land that the restaurant sat on has been repossessed by our government.  Our band has not been doing much lately, due to a missing drummer, and subsequently, lost in momentum and motivation.  Sometimes in life, there are something that I wish.  And there are something that are out of reach.
  6. Writing travel journals takes so much time and sustained concentration.  However, I am glad that I do.  My favorite albums would be Gorges du Verdon in France and Lamma Island in Hong Kong.
  7. Counting how much time and money I have spent on learning Spanish is, scary.  From time to time, I use what I have learned from my Spanish class as an inspiration for my posts.  When I was 18 is one good example.
  8. What else?  Of course, for many years to come, Cynthia and I would still be laughing about how we spent our 10th wedding anniversary.

*     *     *     *     *

Yesterday I was on leave.  Ever since I have been relocated to the east, hardly do I have the opportunity to meet my sister for business lunch.  Because she works at the west.  So I was thinking: Why not gang up with Bethany – my niece – (together with Benny of course) and  have a Surprise!! lunch with my sister?  The logistic turned out to be more tedious than I thought.  So instead of a Surprise!!, we have a “surprise”.  Lora was fully aware of our visit.  Still, it was a fun day.

Below is a photo taken with my niece Bethany possibly mouthing and gesturing “I am number one” or “My mama is the best” or “My papa is the coolest” or “Hey, pass me that camera of yours, would you?”  In the middle is my sister Lora, and by her sides, Benny and Bethany.  Now that I look closer at the photo, I am very much convinced that Bethany was mouthing MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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Diary I See I Write

David Archuleta, And The N8 Launch Event By SingTel And Nokia

Looking back, I think it was the little disagreements that glued Cynthia and I to American Idol.  Cynthia supported Elliott Yamin and I, Katharine McPhee.  We would debate for days that (a) I was not staring at McPhee’s boobs and mesmerized by her look and (b) I thought McPhee really sang well and sang really well.  But who would have thought that Hicks would beat those two?  Have you checked out the latest Christmas album by McPhee?  Even Cynthia agreed with me that she has a good voice, finally.  Season 6, I supported Jordin Sparks and Cynthia, Blake Lewis.  It was a dull season.  Nevertheless, you know how that season turned out.  In the following season, we have David versus David.  I think Cook rocked and Cynthia was in love with Archuleta.  Again, it was my shoulder that Cynthia cried on.  And then something happened in season 8.  Both of us supported Adam Lambert wholeheartedly.  And our hearts were shattered into millions of pieces.  Really?  The idol of the idol did not win?  We have boycotted American Idol since then.  The morale of the story?  I think I have a better chance to pick a better singer than Cynthia.

Ha!

OK.  Jokes aside.  One fine day, a media invite arrived at my mailbox.  It was on a Sunday.  Normally I would think twice because of this work-blog-life balance of mine.  Weekend is a time to do something very personal, may or may not be blog-able.  Before I hit that tentative reply button to that media invite, Cynthia exclaimed, “Can I come?!” and I went, “Erm … your were in love with Archie like 2 years ago.  Are you still a fan?”  I guess her undying love to Archuleta is as strong as mine to McPhee.

The event was organized by SingTel and Nokia for the launch of the Nokia N8 mobile phone.  Our hosts were Muttons (hilarious Singapore DJs) and David Archuleta was there to sing us 5 songs in an acoustic setting.  He does have a great voice, especially on stage.  Cynthia was in high spirit and so were the ecstatic fans in Zouk.  His new album “The Other Side Of Down” was released very recently and the fans already know all the lyrics!

We had Japanese food near Zouk and made it home in time for the final race of F1.  What an eventful weekend.  Here are a few photos to share.

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Diary

10th Wedding Anniversary, Festival Of Lights, And A Grueling Drive To Fraser’s Hill

Friday morning, I woke up feeling woozy.  Cynthia has been having this bad cough at night lately.  When we reached the bridge that connects Singapore to Malaysia, on a Friday late morning, I was not able to comprehend what the signboard said.  It said: A back-flow of traffic from [I can’t recall the village name].  What does back-flow means?  Have they reversed the flow of traffic?

Clearing the Singapore Customs was a breeze.  As we drove through the 2nd link from Tuas (the 1st being the one in Woodland), our spirit was high.  We love road trips.  For our 10th Wedding Anniversary, Cynthia has suggested to stay over at Fraser’s Hill – our favorite location to relax in Malaysia.  And then, we saw it!  I was hyperventilating.  I wanted to pee!  If someone from Singapore Customs was to stare westward, he or she would see a massive built-up of traffic flowing from Malaysia to Singapore.  That explains “back-flow”, probably.

Friday was a public holiday.  It was Deepavali.  The story is rather romantic.  And I shared it with Cynthia as we crawled through the three-soon-to-be-expanded-into-four lanes of traffic.  A story I heard from my Indian colleague.  It goes something like this.  Once upon a time, there was a titan.  A good titan who ruled over the world (or the Indian part of the world).  When the titan was given the power by the gods, he started to abuse his people, making them suffered.  The only person who could stop this titan was his mother – the goddess of mother earth.  When the titan was finally struck down by the goddess, before his death, he asked his people to celebrate his death in a festival of lights (hence Deepavali).  Legend says that the good titan was corrupted by power.  And with power, he lost his humanity.  I love this story.  It causes us to reflect on what the wielding of power can do to us.  After I finished my story, we were still stuck in a massive traffic jam.

I did a timing.  At worst part of the jam, it took us 40 minutes to move 500 meters.  The jam was 4 to 5 km long.  You can do the maths.  That was why I panicked.  We had no water and food in the car.  And I wanted to pee.  I read somewhere (or was it in a movie?) that someone was holding his pee for too long and his bladder exploded.  He died painfully of course.  What a horrible way to end one’s life!  Throughout the FOUR AND A HALF HOURS traffic congestion, I saw one driver opened the car door and emptied a plastic container of fluid onto the road.  I did not want to know what that was.  I also saw one kid holding out a plastic bag of fluid.  I also did not want to know what that was.  Some left the cars or buses and have decided to walk to the Malaysia Customs.  One Malaysian BMW broke down.  Engine overheated or out of petrol, I have no clue.  I felt for the young couple.  There was little chance that a tow truck could reach that Bimmer before dawn.  Every inch of the road was utilized by vehicles.  We saw one Malaysian driver alternated between pushing his car and driving it.  That was critical fuel saving mode!

By the time we got through the Customs, it was late.  Some cars raced pass us in some ungodly speed.  Maybe there was some real emergency trying to reach the toilets not too far ahead.  Before we could see the petrol station, we saw another jam.  There were some police labeled cones and there was a road block.  Since all of us have suffered through a 4.5 hours jam, I feel that it was really cruel for the police to set up a speed trap right after the Customs.  Who wouldn’t speed?  Fortunately, I have mind over bladder.  I stayed at 110 km per hour for that few minutes of short drive from the Customs to the roadblock.

Fraser’s Hill is about 500 km away from Singapore.  In a normal day, it takes between 6 hours to 7 hours and 20 minutes to reach.  The last 7 km was called The Gap.  The road is so narrow that it can only be a one-way traffic.  So odd hours to go up, even hours to come down.  The gate closes at the 40th minute so as to make sure that the last car enters is able to cover the 7 km (in worst scenario, one may need to wait for 1 hour and 20 minutes for the gate to open).  By the time we left the highway, it was pitch dark.  The road was wet due to raining.  Occasionally from afar, we saw the fireworks.  A celebration of Deepavali by the villagers.  It was a pretty scene.  Fireworks on our 10th anniversary!  That momentarily suppressed our supreme hunger and worries (did you know that petrol stations such as Petronas that do not have a higher quality fuel selection are not allowed to sell petrol to Singaporean cars because standard petrol is subsidized by the govenment?) and I muscled the car through the hilly and windy, wet and slippery roads.  I could hardly see what lied ahead but there was no time to waste.  Time to switch the car to sport mode (there is really such a mode, and not figurative speaking) keeping the accelerator floored.  When we reached The Gap, it was so late that it was free for all.  As we drove up, we had encountered 5 cars coming down.  That was the reason why we needed to press on and cover The Gap asap.  We reached Smokehouse before 10 pm.

On Sunday, when we came down via The Gap, it was a totally different scene.  Fraser’s Hill is now so commercialized that there is a huge tourist bus taking tourists up and down the highland.  It took the bus half an hour to cover the 7 km distance.  Emerged from The Gap, we were stuck behind a train of traffic.  It was real exciting to go wheel-to-wheel with the cars in front during our overtaking maneuvers through the non-existence straight lines and some really tight corners.  Some were more defensive than others.  Nonetheless, we were very determined to hit the Malaysia Customs asap.  Because I have a F1 race to watch on TV at midnight today.

We love to stay at the Smokehouse.  Cynthia said that it is her 2nd home.  As for me, I count Hong Kong as my 2nd home, Bandung as my 3rd, so Smokehouse has to be my 4th.  Over the years, Fraser’s Hill has become more and more commercialized.  Now, according to Henry, the man-in-charge (OK, he is not the boss but he is in charge when the boss is not around), there are budget hotels being built and new F&B areas being built.  In a way, Fraser’s Hill has lost a bit of the charm we initially fell in love with.  There were so many tourists visiting the Smokehouse for breakfast and tea.  Some only wanted to stop by and take photos of the unique British cottages.  We miss the serenity.  Perhaps we shall visit Fraser’s Hill on a non-peak period.

So what do we normally do in Smokehouse?  We love to read books in the garden, sitting on the swing.  We love to play Scrabble in the living room.  The tea and scone served between 3 to 6pm is divine.  We love the British bed-and-breakfast feel.  If they were to serve steak and kidney pie (the one at Cameron Highland does I think), that would be perfect.  Henry (and his team I believe) comes from Myanmar.  It is such a joy chatting with him even though he always remembers us as somebody else.  Four months ago, he had a bad motorcycle accident.  Lost a few teeth, has quite a few stitches all over his face.  But he survived.  That is good news.

We played the Spanish Scrabble this time.  Boy, it was hard!  As you can see in the snapshots above, both of us were referring to the dictionaries all the time.  We have learned a few new words.  I hope in time to come, this will become much easier.  In fact, it reminds me of the time when I first played English Scrabble.  I struggled no less.

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Diary

An Unexpected Turn of Events That Led To Sulfur Delivery And Super Scrabble

After the act, our good buddy TK asked: Are you going to take a picture of this and share it on Facebook?  Staring at the yellow powder, my immediate response was: No way!

My Sunday was not meant to be like this.  I was halfway through collating my travel journal and was about to pen down the captions for the shortlisted photos.  Then something happened.  Something so messed up that none of our parents knew exactly what to do.  Something so messed up that I am not going to write about that here.  I shared this domestic crisis with our good buddy TK on a Sunday evening over Google Talk.  Not only did he manage to procure a heap of yellow sulfur, he drove all the way from the east to deliver it to our home.  Gosh! When I heard that he had not had dinner, I said, “Please stay.  Cynthia is going to cook us some of her legendary bee hoon.”

Besides, I have been itching to try out my newly imported Super Scrabble from US.  Super Scrabble is a super-sized Scrabble.  There are 200 letters.  The board is bigger.  The reward is more (up to x4 letter and word score).  And the game was painfully long (click onto the picture above to zoom in).  The three of us started the game while Cynthia multi-tasked between preparing for our late dinner and forming words when her turn came.  We watched “How I Met Your Mother” on TV when we were having our dinner.  We resumed the game after our meal and 2012 was playing on TV.  We were still struggling with the game when Underworld was playing on TV.  By the time we were done, we felt this big relief.  A huge big relief.  Yes we did it, with a combined score of 1,111 after a grueling 82 turns (27 rounds).  Super Scrabble is not for the faint-hearted.  If you are a big fan of Scrabble, you would love Super Scrabble.  Best played in a very comfortable setting (read: not on the floor).

I hope we can put behind our domestic crisis.  At some point, I could picture the three of us staring in “Bones” or “CSI”.  Lesson learned.  Time to move on.

Categories
Diary

Two Israelis And A Singaporean In An Organic Tussle – Of Salt And Butter, Diamond Dust And Cucumber Gel

We human beings feed on social interaction, however much we think we prefer to live the life of a hermit.  That probably explains why today I have finally decided to stop, turn around, and greet the foreign looking salesman whom I always see in this favorite mall of mine when he shouted out loud at my direction, “Hi, can I ask you a question?”.  I was alone in the mall, yearning for human interaction.  Singapore is saturated with people on the streets, in the malls trying to sell something.  The other day, in the same mall, some salespersons eagerly asked me to sign up for a credit card.  I looked closer and realized that they represented my bank.  So I stopped and gave them a brief team talk to boost their morale.  Have you eaten?  This late you are still here, you must be the hardworking type!  Do you enjoy what you are doing?  How many customers sign up for our credit cards a day?  Where will your next roadshow be? They must have thought that I was some big shots in the bank.  No matter.  They felt happy that someone stopped and chatted, unlike 99.99% of the people they hassled.

Back to the story of today, I stopped in front of this organic beauty care store.  The friendly salesman is from Israel, has lived in Singapore for six months.  And we clicked, like long lost friends.  “How old are you?” he asked.  “Old,” I gave him the standard answer like I do to all those who are curious about my age.  “Let me guess, 40?”

FORTY?!

Wow, he was good.  My skin is that … bad?  Immediately I felt the desperate need to stock up some skin care products.  I am still far away from that four-O.  Please.  As a polite Singaporean, I did not shame our nation by losing my temper.  Instead, I smiled, “After 25, I stopped counting”.  He paused and answered, “Ah.  As for me, I am still counting!”

Great, a young handsome dude who by the way, if I was wearing skirt, I would have gotten head over heels, devouring everything that he offered.  Especially when he offered to give me his phone number much later on.

Like a magician, he took out a small white jar and showed me the content.  “What do you think this is,” he asked.  I took a peep and saw some bright green gel looking stuff.  “Erm, no idea.  It looks very green,” I replied.

“This … is cucumber,” announced him.

“Really?!  That is cucumber?” looking dumbfound I stared at the jar.  I truly could not make out the connection.  Neither did the vast difference in the shade of green helped.

“Do you know what is a cucumber?” asked him.  OK.  I really hoped that this was going somewhere.  He then asked me to show him my wrist and before I could protest, he applied some of the bright green gel onto my wrist while explaining to me why cucumber was chosen as the magic component.  After half a minute, he started to rub my wrist with his thumbs really hard.  He then asked, “What do you see?”  Quite frankly, I saw lumps of green stuffs on my wrist.

“This is the cucumber going into seven layers of your skin and mine and [it extracts] all the dirt and oil [inside],” said the Israeli salesman.

My skin and yours now in green lumps?! On my wrist?  Gross!

He then took out a piece of cotton, removed the green lumps from my wrist, and asked me to compare my right wrist with my left.  “Can you see the difference?”

“I see one wrist is greener than the other.”  No kidding.  Imagine applying that to my face.  By the way, that was a no-scrubbing-needed-exfoliatiing-facial-product.  He then applied some moisturizer cream onto both of my wrists and asked, “Can you tell the difference?”

To be honest, the wrist with the seven layers of dirt and oil exfoliated absorbed the moisturizer cream much better than the wrist without.  My skin looked fairer too.  At that moment, I was sold.  Even though at the back of my mind, I was not sure how Cynthia would react to I turning into a green Hulk once a week.  So I asked, “How much does it cost?”

“One hundred and forty dollars,” he answered.  “You see, these are organic products from Australia.  No chemical.  Do you know how much does an organic melon cost?  Forty dollars!”.

ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY BUCKS for that?! And no.  I would not wish to eat a forty dollars melon.  That moisturizer costs more than a hundred bucks too.

Sensing that I might need some time to digest the three digits figure, he moved onto the next product and asked, “How often do you shower?”

How often do I shower?  What sort of question is that?!  How often do Singaporeans shower in general?

“Once a month,” I answered.

“Really?!”  It was his turn to be dumbfound.  Ha!

“How often should I shower?” I queried.

“Once a week?” he joked while showing me a much larger jar full of what appeared as salt.

“Hold you hands over the sink,” he commanded.  I hesitated for a bit but my curiosity got the better part of me.  He proceeded to spray some water onto my hands and scooped a spoonful of salt onto my hands.

“Now rub your hands like how you wash them after you use the bathroom.  You do wash your hands [after you use the bathroom], yes?”

Wow.  I began to wonder if it was due to the wrong impression he has on Singaporeans or in Israel, people don’t shower nor wash their hands often.

I rubbed my hands with salt.  Gosh, that felt really rough.  By the time he washed the salt off my hands, I was shocked by how smooth my skin felt!   Like a baby!  I really loved the product.  The Israeli salesman then applied some body butter onto my hands.  Are these really my hands?! Imagine what this salt and butter could do to the entire body.  Hundred and one sexual fantasies had immediately flooded my mind.

“When was the last time you wash your hand?” asked he.

Is that a trick question?  He then asked me to look into the sink, specifically at the pool of water gathered after he washed the salt off my hands.  Yuck! The water was gray in color.  Again, sold.  I asked for the price and he replied, “The salt is S$140 and the body butter is S$120.”  And he was willing to throw in the green gel and the moisturizer for free.

SO MUCH FOR BUTTER AND SALT?! No way.

Soon, the reinforcement arrived.  She too is from Israel – I presume – as they were locked into a foreign language that I could not decipher.  Again, she asked how often I shower.  Hmmm.  Did I smell that bad?  I tried to explain to them that in no way I could spend hundreds of dollars on some beauty products without getting Cynthia’s buy-in.  There are hundred and one ways to say no.  Delegation to a higher authority is one.  The Israeli saleswoman immediately responded.  She asked how many women I have at home.  I took a big gulp and answered: officially one?  She showed me something that looked like a rubber we use in school and asked me to hold out my fingernail.  “Do you know what this is?” asked her.  Israelis must be the intellectual bunch.  I have not been so mentally challenged by a sales pitch for a long time.

“This is [made of] diamond dust,” said she while rubbing the rubber against my index fingernail in really fast motion.  “Organic diamond dust,” added she.  Erm.  I would have thought diamond is … inorganic?

“Woah!  It is getting hot!” gasped I.

“Oops!  Is it because of me or this?” she laughed and slowed down the rubbing a bit.  When she showed me the result, I was tongue-tied.  My index fingernail was smooth and shiny.  Very shiny.  So shiny that it stood out like a sore thumb next to nine dull looking fingernails.  I needed to unshine my fingernail!  Now!

To be honest, the process was pretty complex.  She had to rub my fingernail with one side of the diamond dusted rubber, and then use another side, and then applied some cream, and then repeat.  I looked confused by the process and she said, “See the erection?”

“The what?!”

“Erection.”

“THE WHAT?!”

“Erection,” said she as she pointed at the instruction menu printed on the box.  “Oh, direction,” I said with a big relief.  Israelis have an interesting accent.

The whole idea of the fingernail polishing demonstration was that I could spend hundreds of dollars on salt and butter (for me) and have the fingernail polishing pack free as a gift to Cynthia.  I must say that it was one brilliant piece of marketing strategy.  Throughout the half an hour interaction, I tried my very best to will one of my friends to ring my wireless phone so that I could step aside to take the call and then disappear into the crowd.  That did not happen.  After a tussle that lasted for more than half and hour, I did not buy anything from them.  I was hungry and I bought some food to eat instead.

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Diary Photography Travel Blog

On Day 6 and 7, We Have Visited Nice and Monaco

With a blink of an eye one month has passed since I have written an article for our recent trip to France.  So much have happened in the last one month.  We have visited Hong Kong.  There has been a good lineup of blogger events.  Our Spanish class has moved up one level.  My reading passion has been reignited.  And of course, away from home for a week makes me miss my video gaming hobby even more.  Catching up on the TV recording of How I Met You Mother takes up time too.

This weekend is a bizarre weekend.  I had this strange flu like the one I had in Hong Kong.  It got quite bad and I reckon it was due to my sensitive nose.  It disappeared as silently as it arrived.  Cynthia blamed it to the evening we had spent in Kazbar.  We seldom have a Friday date, just the two of us.  We often spend time with our friends or stay at home.  Since she worked late, I took the golden opportunity to sip beer in a pub, read a book while waiting.  We ordered some Mediterranean food when Cynthia arrived.  I love the candle light dinner with the belly dancer occasionally came out and danced in front of the crowd.  I admired the sensational dancer while she fixed her attention to Cynthia.  I think that is a win-win-win situation if you think deeper, logically deeper.  Saturday morning we had a breakfast date with my niece Bethany at the Botanic Gardens.  It was her 9-month birthday (I can always trust my beloved little sister to come out with all kinds of reasons for celebration).  I was so excited that I woke up an hour before the alarm rang.  The breakfast was great except I was quite concerned on the number of dogs around us.  Some were so huge!  If I was a baby, I would have freaked out.  But not little Bethany.  She wanted to hug one.

If you think that watching F1 on TV is boring, try staring at the TV for two hours waiting for the rain to stop.  It was raining in Japan and the one hour F1 qualifying session on Saturday was delayed for two hours and then canceled.  In the evening, like every other evening these days, I teamed up with my buddy to play Starcraft II.  We love the game and we are visibly getting better at it.  On the topic of video gaming, I am being selected to participate in a closed beta testing for a racing game Test Drive Unlimited 2.  Unlike the last closed beta testing I did, there is only a window of time whereby testers from all around the world can participate.  Naturally, like any global conference calls, it takes place in some wee hours.  But I am not complaining.  It has been a fun experience so far.

Back to the travel journal, we have moved onto the second leg of our journey and into the south of France we went.  There are so much to see, so many places to visit.  Interestingly, Cynthia booked us into a rented apartment in Nice.  The pros?  We had lots of space and could do our laundry.  The cons?  We had to do one round housecleaning before returning the keys.  And that, you can read more in various ways:

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Diary

Titled Nightmares – A Doodle

If you are amongst the rare ones who follow my doodling career, you may realize that this picture contains quite a fair bit of detail.  Quite possibly one of the more ambition drawings I have worked on to date.  It is titled “Nightmares”.  One early morning, before the break of dawn, before the train started to operate, in our bedroom that was dark and quiet and inviting for a few extra moments of sleep before the screaming of the alarms at seven o’clock, I felt someone was frantically grabbing me.  I woke up, could not go back to sleep.  Cynthia woke up, realized that it was a nightmare, and went back to sleep.  Hence this doodle.  With me, eye wide open and her, eye wide shut.

In the morning, I asked what happened.  Cynthia rarely dreams.  But when she dreams, she always finds herself running away from something.  This time, her dream has something to do with knives and cut wounds on the arms.  Many knives, many arms.  Hence, the right side is composed as such together with the arms inside her head.  But as you can see, the arms and knives that appeared so real to her were merely illusions to me.  Hence the abstractly looking, distorted arms and knives on the left side of the composition.  I like symmetry.  Round about the same period of time, I had my share of nightmares.  About work.  About people from work.  There are four unnamed colleagues who are especially scary.  Hence the four figures inside my head.

OK.  There is a bed with a headboard too.  In case if you wonder what it is.

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Diary

Mid-Autumn Festival – Museum Crawling In Hong Kong

Today is Mid-Autumn Festival.  For the single guys out there, may the space rabbit grant you a ticket to moon and meet the immortal maiden, Chang’e.  As for me, I have waited long enough and have decided that someone from Earth would do.  Talking about the moon, today Cynthia and I have visited the Hong Kong Space Museum and have watched the ultra realistic space video clip called “Cosmic Collisions” at the huge dome shaped Sky Theater.  Inside this documentary clip, it is said that when Earth was at its infancy, a rock smashed onto its surface and sent billions and millions of small pieces into space.  Within a month, these small pieces consolidated into one huge rock.  That rock has become our Moon.  Incredible!  And the Moon in turn gives the Earth tidal waves.  Such a romantic notion.  Perhaps that was where Italo Calvino drew his inspiration from, when he wrote that fascinating “Cosmicomics” and a few others.

The last time I have visited the Space Museum, I was a small kid.  The museum seems to have shrunk in size as I grow bigger.  Wednesday is a good day for museum crawling in Hong Kong.  Free admission for all the museums.

We have visited the Hong Kong Museum of Art next door too.  There are ancient Chinese drawings that are painted on a thin horizontal stripe of paper that seems to extend indefinitely.  Landscape drawings with paths and stationary objects and people that lead your eyes from one end of the painting to another end.  There are vertical drawings too.  The same concept that leads our attention from the bottom to the top, which is often the mountain top and the cloud.  During our visit, there is a special exhibition of the late Wu Guanzhong.  The theme is “Lofty Integrity”.  It is eye opening to see Chinese culture incorporated into modern art.  Each painting comes with a poetic short description, which I appreciate a great deal.  The title of the painting illustrated above is “Leaving Youth Behind”, courtesy of Hong Kong Museum of Art.  The translated description is as follows.  If you come across an exhibition of Wu Guanzhong, don’t miss it.

When a tree is old, its roots are exposed.  When a lotus is old, its stalks break.  It is better to break than to submit, leaving no regrets even when youth is gone.

On a lighter note, there is an exhibition called “The Ultimate South China Travel Guide” that attempts to recreate the history of Canton after the First Opium War (1839) in an entertaining manner.  I felt as though I was transported back to that era.  There is even a phrase book that translates the “Chinese Pidgin English” (a distorted form of English frequently spoken by the locals back then).  From the obvious ones such as I no know and I no understand, to the obscure ones such as give dog chow-chow (give it to the dog) and my hap sick (I am sick).  One day, if there is a phrase book for Singlish (a distorted form of English frequently spoken by the Singaporeans I suppose?), I wonder what would people think of cannot also can?

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Diary

Big Toe Got Poked

My mother and I are telepathically connected.  Just when Cynthia and I have exhausted all means to remove a foreign object that had been mysteriously embedded into the soft and fleshy underbelly of my right toe, just when we have exhausted all explanations short of labeling the object as an alien implant – a gift from the return of my recent alien abduction, and just when I was thinking of calling my home in Hong Kong for an answer, my phone rang.

“It looks like a piece of hair, mom.  1 cm long.  It could be inside for quite some time,” said I.  “How can a piece of hair get into your toe?  That has to be a splinter,” replied her.  Whether she is right or wrong, it is comforting to hear my mother’s voice.  And we agreed that I should see a doctor the next day.

Later that evening, Cynthia offered to take it out for me using a needle.  I adore Cynthia, don’t get me wrong.  But I doubt that she can play the role as a nurse, when it comes to working with my … big toe.  Cynthia laughed and said that if her mom in Indonesia was to know that I was going to see a doctor for this, she would be laughing hard.

This morning, the rain was horrendous.  Part of the road was flooded.  I braved the rain and walked to a clinic that was a few blocks away from where I parked my car.  By the time I was inside the consultation room, my shoes were soaking wet.  As I took off my socks showing my favorite doctor in town this strange foreign object inside my toe, he asked, “Have you been to the wood lately?  Were you barefooted?  When did this happen?”.

To be frank, if not for the recent occasional sharp pain and over the months numbness, I would not have even noticed.  I mean, how often does one examine the bottom of his feet unless he is diabetic?  In any given day, this chubby friendly doctor always looks happy.  But this morning, he looked serious.  Very serious.  I asked if he was OK.  And he said he needed to think.

OK.  I kept quiet, lying on the bed waiting for his next move.  I wanted to ask if he has done this before but that probably would not help the situation.  So I put my arms behind my head looking relax as though I was waiting for a foot massage by the beach overlooking the sea.  Still keeping mum, the doctor pulled out a small steel tray and started to line up the clinical tools in front of me.  Gasp!  That reminded me of either (a) a typical spy interrogation movie scene or (b) TV series such as “CSI” and “Bones”.

First, I felt a needle poked into the underbelly of my toe.  OK.  That was not that bad.  And then I felt the needle again, again, and again.  Deeper, deeper, and deeper.  Hmmm.  That was not looking good.  The doctor tried to pull the foreign object out using the tweezers.  And then I felt the needle; and then I felt the tweezers; and the needle; and the tweezers.  Ouch, ouch, and ouch!  I tried to get distracted but all I saw was a bookshelf, with not too interesting books.  If I was a doctor, I would have put a beautiful landscape picture on the wall.  Preferably a beach overlooking the sunset.  Sunset is good because it transcribes to: Time flies and it will be over before you know it.

Some say that having a religion helps with time like this.  I recited the Lord’s Prayer in my head in near fluidity only to be punctuated by the needle.  But I suppose if I was to recite Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – one of my favorite play – that would have had the same effect.  From the distraction point of view of course.

The doctor took out a bigger pair of tweezers, with more poking into my toe by the needle, but nothing seemed to work.  I saw a cotton soaked in blood.  I was breathing hard in pain.  At one point, he paused and called for the nurse.  The nurse entered the room looking calm and she wore a surgical mask and a pair of surgical gloves as the doctor explained, “There is a splinter inside.  I need you to open it up like this.”  Uh-oh.

By the time the good doctor managed to pull out the foreign object, I was in joy.  He showed it to me.  Yes, it was a piece of hair, just as what I have observed.  “Do you want to keep this?” asked he with a smile.  Huh?!  Before I could reply, he turned to the nurse and said, “Get me a Ziploc bag please.  I am putting this inside for him.”  And she went: Huh?!  I am not sure if it is a common practice for patients to keep foreign objects as souvenirs, like bullets.  But I know for sure I don’t want to keep that piece of hair with me.  I declined with all my heart.  During the debrief, the doctor recapped on what he has gone through, why he needed to attacked from all angles (because the hair moves versus if it was a splinter), and as he gestured the operation in excitement, I thought of Starcraft and added, “So, this requires strategy.”  “Strategy!  Yes, strategy!” exclaimed he.  “Have you done this before doc?” asked I.  “Splinter, yes.  Hair, no”.  And we laughed.

When I called home later that day, my dad picked up the call.  He was as comical as ever.  And he said in all seriousness, “Yes, that happens.  That’s why you need to watch out and be very carefully when you take a shower.  And try not to step onto any hair.”  Whether he is serious or not, it is comforting to hear my father’s voice.