Woah … I have just posted 2 writeups to my webite. Kind of feeling exhausted. Especially the one on the year 2004 reflection. Took me quite a while to type them out. Next, I really wish to showcase the photos I have taken in 2004. Just something to share …
My original plan of a Chinese New Year holiday was as such: take 3 days leave and enjoy a 9 days holiday in Hong Kong. Didn’t work out because my work prevents me from doing so; my wife’s work prevents her from doing so.
Then I was thinking of spending Chinese New Year in Bangkok. After much consideration, between trying to kill 3 days on my own in Bangkok while my wife is working and me having 2 days of public holiday in Singapore, I kind of more leaning towards the second option. Afterall, I have been to Bangkok too many times. The greyness and the foreign land in a Chinese New Year … not quite my kind of celebration.
So, I am going to spend Chinese New Year alone at home. That, is new to me. Like I said, it’s going to be an interesting holiday for me.
When I left Hong Kong to study in UK, my uncle has given me a golden necklace and my mother given me a piece of jade to go along with the necklace. According to Chinese belief, jade is a good indicator of the wearer’s health as well as taking the damage for the wearer. (Now you know why granies give jade wrist bands for new born babies).
I have been wearing this necklace since 18 and for the past 8 years, I had no idea where it has gone.
And today, as I packed the blankets that my mother and sister used during their visit in my home into the wardrobe, I have spotted two wooden treasure boxes that I bought in Jakarta (and I have spotted a new bolster that has been hidden for the past 4 years too together with two very nice little clay jars!). My necklace was in one of the boxes.
Surprisingly, the gold was as shiny as ever. I thought it was be tarnish like silver. Now, I see the value of gold. As for the piece of jade, I brushed it using toothpaste and old toothbrush. It works!
When I left Hong Kong to study in UK, my uncle has given me a golden necklace and my mother given me a piece of jade to go along with the necklace. According to Chinese belief, jade is a good indicator of the wearer’s health as well as taking the damage for the wearer. (Now you know why granies give jade wrist bands for new born babies).
I have been wearing this necklace since 18 and for the past 8 years, I had no idea where it has gone.
And today, as I packed the blankets that my mother and sister used during their visit in my home into the wardrobe, I have spotted two wooden treasure boxes that I bought in Jakarta (and I have spotted a new bolster that has been hidden for the past 4 years too together with two very nice little clay jars!). My necklace was in one of the boxes.
Surprisingly, the gold was as shiny as ever. I thought it was be tarnish like silver. Now, I see the value of gold. As for the piece of jade, I brushed it using toothpaste and old toothbrush. It works!
Today (Thursday 13th) was bizarre. Perhaps it was too much Vodka I drank the night before. It was so surreal. First, my computer crashed this morning – after quite a while of false sense of stability. And I was full of sarcasm on virtually every topic. Next, I needed to work till midnight that voided one of my less than glorious plan (not going to elaborate, sorry and plus the computer crashed that disable me from retrieving the needed info). On my way back after a drink, I have nearly overshot a police car travelling at 90km/hr while I would have caught driving at 110km/hr had I not jam brake. According to my friend JT, the police starred at us. Exited from the highway, we were met with a police block which is kind of unusual and I swear my face was all red due to alcohol effect. I was holding my breath till the police let us go.
Eventful day …
Back to work after such a long hoilday is kind of surreal. Meeting everyone in the office and perhaps it was the festival mood, people behave differently. Better mood or just changes due to … new year resolution? Or just too much party over the weekend?
Anyway, I was happily surprised with the Christmas gifts that my colleagues have placed on my table. Kind of bring a warm feeling to my heart. (see photo on left)
The problem is that I am never good at getting gifts for my friends. I guess I will have to think of something else.
Perhaps my new year resolution is to observe more on what may have been a perfect gift to my friends.
I was in Bandung isolated from world news when my friends and family sent me text messages asking if I was affected by the earthquake in Sumatra. What earthquake, I asked my wife. And where is Sumatra? My wife told me that Sumatra is nearer to Singapore than Bandung and it was my turn to ask if my friends in Singapore was okay.
Looking forward, I believe that there is a silver-lining to all that happened.
Before the tsunami swept across southern Asia, Indonesia government was at war with the Aceh. The rebels in Aceh was fighting for independence. Indonesia government had 30,000 strong force deployed in Aceh.
Somewhere not too far away, Sri Lanka has issues with the rebel Tamil Tiger.
After the disaster struck, when 80 percent of the capital of Aceh was destroyed and when the Aceh government totally shut down – dead, missing, or busy looking for loved ones – Indonesia government steps in and helps. Call it political propaganda, I doubt if the Aceh conflict will renew itself in the short run.
And in Sri Lanka, both the government and the rebel recognised that something bigger than war has happened and hopefully, this will turn into something better in the future.
Something on the light side, when one of my friend sent me a sms telling me that Sri Lanka was hit the worst, I asked should it not be Sumatra that hit the worst? Apparently the statistics from Indonesia came late but I joked in return that there may be more animals died than human beings (I was not aware if there was any major civilisation in Sumatra).
It turns out the animals may have sixth sense on natural disasters. Reports have confirmed this interesting finding during this recent tsunami.
It took me 1 hour and 15 mins to fly from Singapore to Jakarta. It took me 2 hours to travel from the airport to the hotel which is located at the Central Business District via taxi. It took me 6 and a half hours to travel from Jakarta to Bandang in my brother-in-law’s car.
It is amazing to learn that an average Indonesian spends so much time on the road. Take my brother-in-law as an example, every morning at 7, he drops off his girlfriend at her workplace. Then he took another one and a half hours to get to his workplace, which according to him is very near to hers. I really think that the Indonesia government should do something to stop wasting her citizens’ precious time.
Can you imagine how much an Indonesia can do with all these unnecessary travelling hours? He or she could learn something, enrich thyself, spend more time with friends and families, push the economy by spending more time and money in the mall … anything but getting frustrated in the car accepting such a horrible transport system. Cynthia told me that if by 2005 the government does not do much to overhaul the road system, the average speed in town will be 10 km per hour. Oh God.
Back to the 6 and a half hours roadtrip to Bandang, first I saw police car openning up the opposite lane so that my direction of traffic became a one-way dual lane road. Nice. But what happened to the traffic on the opposite lane? To my surprise, all the cars from the opposite lane were just waiting in front of a police blockage. I must have seen miles and miles of traffic all waiting for the police to re-open the lane. Does this really solve any problem at all?
And after some detours and some ferocious overtaking made by my brother-in-law, we were met with traffic at a crawling speed. In fact, I would say three quarter of the entire road journey was commutted at a crawling speed.
At the end of the jam, I have discovered that in this one lane that take us from Jakarta into Bandung was nothing but a T-junction (I was kind of thinking that it was a stupid traffic light that slows down the traffic). And in this T-junction, there was a big jam to the left and the road to the right was wide open (we headed right). Basically, cars that intended to turn left at the T-junction blocked all the traffics behind including those that wanted to turn right.
Duh!
This is so cool! Google rocks! I haven’t even submited my website to Google (and I did submit to Yahoo! and still waited for it to crawl to my website).
I am a happy man …
This is so cool! Google rocks! I haven’t even submited my website to Google (and I did submit to Yahoo! and still waited for it to crawl to my website).
I am a happy man …
Finally, I have collected 24 Heineken Beer Caps that are qualified to exchange for a set of small glasses. Considering that out of 6 bottles of Heineken beer I bought each time, I have an average of 4.5 qualifying caps, I must have drank 32 bottles of Heineken beer. That, is a whole lot of beer for 2 to 3 weeks.
The entire day has just gone and I wish that I could have done more. In fact, I could have done more had my day was not so unproductive. Can’t and don’t want to say much about work and by the time I got home, it was already late. Recording bass guitar for the two Christmas songs was not at all easy. It is so hard to correct bass guitar mistake (using punch-in) and I ended up recording the entire track again and again.
I still wanted to record the Jealousy song using my 12-string but don’t know why, I just can’t play well today. Perhaps I am tired. Perhaps I shall train my finger strength more …
CD therapy for such an unproductive day.