Information overload

Hmm between yesterday and today I bought quite a lot of stuff.

"What's so amazing about Grace" by Phillip Yancey (I've browsed through it in a library years ago and thought it's a very good Christian book. There's a purpose I bought it actually... you'll know soon, if things go as planned...)

Stef Sun's new compilation album. Because I haven't bought most of her past albums (same reason as the one for SHE's Forever).

Another Japanese album by this singing group called WaT. Heard that they're quite accomplished back in Japan, so...

As for manga...

Initial D volume 33 and Pokemon Adventures volume 22 (both of which are in Japanese!)

Keroro Gunsou (that froggish sergeant series I'm a bit crazy about recently) volume 1, in Chinese. The reason I bought the first volume in Chinese was because I wanted to at least have a clear understanding of the background story before I try reading the Jap versions straight.

Infomeshon obaaloodo de arimasu!

The feasting begins

Yesterday I watched "The Banquet" with Jiansheng.

Well... about 10 minutes into the show, I already knew what made the show an NC-16. The fighting and killing scenes are very graphical; you just see blood lah.

Overall there was quite a lot of build-up to the climax of the show, which is the banquet itself, where various plots will unfold.

Basically the show tells you one thing -- what goes around, comes around.

The Emperor in the show (played by Ge You) was actually the brother of the previous Emperor whom he killed in order to grab his power. There was one official who was still loyal to the previous Emperor, so the new Emperor got him executed in this very elaborate way of beating someone to death.

Read: About 10 sticks on a criminal, and not only hitting him on the ground. The criminal will be tossed about and will only be given the fatal blow after having his limbs and back broken. The official was beaten to death in such a way. I was very sympathetic for him until it was said that...

The official was the one who invented this type of punishment when he was serving the prevous Emperor.

Moral of the story: Quit while you're ahead.

The Queen Wan (played by Zhang Ziyi) was the wife of the previous Emperor, but whom the current Emperor wanted to marry as well. Originally she found the very idea of it repulsive, but she had to accede to the new Emperor's request for the safety of prince Wu Luan (played by Daniel Wu) who was supposed to be the rightful heir to the throne (you know... the father and son thing).

Qing (played by Zhou Xun) was the daughter of a high-ranking official and she's in love with Wu Luan.

OK I shall not talk too much (if I'm not revealing too much spoilers already) for the sake of those who don't want to be spoiled. But you'll probably know the ending of the show, so just allow me to carry on about the ending, which occured in such a way that the Emperor had to say, "perhaps it was because my plots and strategies couldn't compare with a pure heart". Go figure.

And then, Wan, for some reason, became Empress and while musing about all this fighting and killing resulting from human greed, and how she was the only one to rise above all the, erm, battle for power...

WHO KILLED HER?

Under Attack!

Last week I'd been looking forward to this Monday, as it was decided that it would be the day when the understudies of Nick, Dom and Bernard would be posted to our unit.

Well they came first thing in the morning! Welcome Kelvin (Nick's under), Reuben (Dom's under) and Chiang Wee (Bernard's under)! From the looks of how they'd been doing these few days, I say they're doing pretty well.

As for attached personnel, we're having quite a few of them in our branch now... including Shaun (who's from Temasek JC too!), Aloysius (we bade farewell to him yesterday as he left for OCS... all the best Aloysius!) and Joash.

Congrats to Nick, Dom ,Weijie and other colleagues who became DDFs (Double-digit Fighters -- those with 99 or less days to ORD!) with effect from yesterday!

On Monday I joined Dad for badminton. And I forgot all the basics of holding the racket, as it was so long since the time I had some proper badminton lesson (which was in Sec 2). Yes, you can't hold the racket as you like! It's called discipline!

Yesterday I went to gym along with Dom and Weijie for the first time. I did about one hour of workout and it was good shit, man! What I love about working out is the tense feeling you feel in your muscles right after finishing the exercises.

And the aches that come haunting you on the next day.

OK lah, At least I'm not aching as much as I was on Tuesday from the badminton.

Nevertheless, I want to carry on with habitual exercise. It's good for me. And as pathetic as my badminton skills were, I want to challenge myself to do better at this sport.

Shit... it's so remeniscent of the emotion that got me starting playing Initial D one year ago. Haha.

And I realised that I've gone into a frenzy of getting small little ornaments to decorate my work area in the office. Here's a new member of the formation.

I bought a finger puppet figurine of the Keroro Gunsou series... each box has a figurine of a random character... and as you can see, I got CPL Giroro again! Haha.

Don't worry, that photo wasn't taken in my office.

On another day I was walking past an SK Jewellery outlet and...

Ahem. Well... gramatically speaking, "every woman deserves to shine", but "you deserve (no 's') to shine".

Today I heard over the radio that America condemned the coup in Thailand as some act contrary to democracy.

I couldn't make any sense out of that.

Well, wasn't Thaksin ousted for allegedly removing democracy from the Thai government? Doesn't that mean that the coup was supposed to be part of a fight for restoring democracy in Thailand?

OK it's a coup after all, but if a nation's democracy was in danger, how do you expect to remove the threat to democracy by voting?

And if the use of military means to bring about political changes in a country is wrong, please do explain the Iraq war.

Wang GOCHO

Yi ran fan te xi

Haha I saw posts in Mindef Forums calling it "Hai shi fan te xi". OK lah, it still (pun intended) has the meaning of "Still Fantasy".

And then someone had to make it "Hai shi fan ke xi". What the heck?

Ben cao gang mu rocks.

Anyway, this week I watched Singapore Dreaming. Quite a good show lah, I would say. The beginning was quite ordinary... the usual Singaporean family... haha and the son's girlfriend, Irene, is the typical photo-blogger!

However, everything was not really going well. The son (Seng) didn't seem to be able to settle down after returning from an overseas study trip (in terms of career and relationship)... Dad favours son over daughter and gives unconditionally to the son (in terms of finance). The housekeeper Mum who loves to make herbal tea. And a former Guardsman (Wow!) who became an poor-performing insurance agent with low self-esteem.

Everything crashed down after the demise of the father. I won't give spoilers here but I just want to say that I find the ending quite appropriate. Not a "happy" ending, of course, but appropriate.

Something about this show... the funniest moments are at the saddest moments (read: Lim Yu Beng speaking Chinese).

Yesterday we had class dinner. Class 10/04 I mean. We had a seafood steamboat meal at Marina south... ate mostly the cooked food before venturing on to trying to cook the raw ones. The pork came in really large chunks! And Joel had to take my meat pieces after I flipped them over and over and over on the pan...

OK lah, since some of the meat were actually taken for Joel anyway...

Mussels were not bad. Really nice feeling, you know, taking them straight out of the hot pot and into the mouth. Hot hot hot!

Then Joe and Jee Shiang had to arrive when we're about to go!

OK lah, there was still K-box after the dinner... I knew Kaicheng and JY were there for sure, but I don't know if the other guys joined in, because I had to go off before they went into the KTV... due to the lateness of the hour.

Zannen da ne... what a pity!

Not wanting to go off so soon, however, I walked around Cineleisure after parting with them ("I wanted to sing!!!") and went into this collectibles shop (they actually sell the Hardgay sword-and-barrel toy, "Kuroi-Gay Kiki Ippatsu", whose name loosely translates as "Gay in Black, Sudden Danger"). I didn't buy it, though. I bought a $2 (haha cheapo!) handphone ornament (again?!) of this series, "Keroro Gonsou" (Sergeant Keroro).

It's actually a super random humour anime serial about a platoon of a froggish alien species led by this sergeant called Keroro (whose name is derived from the Japanese rendition of a frog's cry, "Kero Kero") which hails from a foreign planet and is bent on... erm, conquering our planet.

For which every attempt ends in hilarious failures. The aliens, however, developed friendships with the humans they ended up living with. Anyway, the figure I got was CPL (or "Gocho", as Japs call corporals) Giroro.

The froggish platoon, with SGT Keroro on the right

CPL Giroro

They looked really cute in those headgear haha. Even when it's a bit remeniscent of WW2. Some say this series is made to mock at the old imperialism idealogy which fueled Japanese participation in WW2.

Thick

Well... quite a lot of corrections these days...

But why didn't I realise it earlier?

OK I said Jay's "Mi Die Xiang" (now I know it's the Chinese name for rosemary) was Cha-cha style. But someone pointed out that it's Bossanova, and it suddenly came to my mind that it's indeed Bossanova.

Silly me, haven't I been listening to Olivia's Bossanova album for quite some time already?

Anyway, today we had Ramen for lunch, or rather La Mian (OK it's basically, noodles), as it's a Chinese stall selling it. The noodle was quite nice... Bernard had this Sichuan (a province in China known for its spicy food) La Mian and he was sweating like mad after the meal.

Curious.

I ordered Beef La Mian, and my noodle was mysteriously thicker than what the rest got.

911

I actually went to write in my post yesterday that it was Sep 11.

I've removed it already.

This week, office life needs some translation

Tell me if you're tired of this Tokyo Drift line thingy.

But first, do talk to the Chinese distributors of Korean Drama, where they sought to use the word "Ye Man" (they call it "sassy", I call it "barbaric") in the translated names of the drama serials every time they got the chance to; the latest being, I guess, "Princess Hours".

Back to topic...

Ever since that Saturday when we brought Jap students around Singapore (or you may say, around the shopping areas; I wished I could bring them to the heartlands...), Yichuan and Jireh, who were already learning Jap got even more interested in the language. Even Max, without background whatsoever, started learning along with Jireh as well!

Yichuan, sitting just opposite me in the office, tends to ask me about some Jap expressions which he didn't know... well, for me it's a chance to practice as well!

And to realise how much of the Jap language I still haven't learned.

Oh yes, you should listen to how Jonathan tries to imitate Japanese words... even more so if you're having a bad day.

---

Still fantasizing?

Not anymore... 9 September has come and gone... and Jay's latest album, "Still Fantasy", is now mine... all mine!!!

Well there's been the hype about the collaboration with Fei Yuqing, but I guessed you've heard about it already... from my blog or other sources.

Well... when I first heard "Qian Li Zhi Wai", it didn't really appeal to me, as I've been expecting something totally different. Not better, just different from what I was hearing.

But then, after listening to it a few more times, I'm starting to find it nice.

Other songs include "Ye De Di Qi Zhang" (7th Chapter of the Twilight), "Ben Cao Gang Mu" (Compendium of Materia Medica), and "Ting Ma Ma De Hua" (Listen to Mom).

OK... in this album there are songs which are quite standard... Rap songs, F-Major slow rock, C-Major piano-accompanied songs, but I really don't agree with what a certain article in a local magazine said about Jay being satisfied with status quo and not looking for breakthroughs.

Well... you can't be asking Jay to stop doing raps right? And also, there're songs with quite different styles as well, like "Mi Die Xiang" (sorry I can't translate that) which is a Cha-cha song (that got me totally surprised).

Also, his singing has improved loads in terms of clarity of pronunciation of the words. Really. Listening to one of Jay's cheena songs "Ju Hua Tai" (Crysanthemum Shed), Jireh was saying something along the lines of "Ah, now he's really singing".

I've only got 2 words for this album: Good job.

---

Hmm... Kelvin is in Taiwan now for firing range sessions. Because the range there's bigger.

And I jogged yesterday...I had to go back to jogging because of the humiliating failure of my 2.4 km run in the last IPPT. I've really gone off-form these days... not only was my timing pathetic (22 minutes for 3.6 km), my body got heated up so much after the run that even a shower at home and a drink of Ribena Mobile couldn't cool my body down until I went into my air-con room and waited for about 10 minutes.

OK the weather then may have had a part to do in this... it was the hottest period of the day.

Oh that overheating episode was the reason why I was slightly late for cell group yesterday... haha.

After cell group I followed some of my cell mates (Jiansheng went home, sob...) to the "85 market" (as I used to call it during my AHS days... Jane's place, where we had cell group, was quite near AHS, you see) for dinner. after that, on my way to Tanah Merah MRT station, I got nostalgic and took some pictures.

This plant is quite abundant on the walkways of the neighbourhood next to AHS... I think it's what the Chinese call "Tian Tang Niao" (Paradise Bird)

I guess I took this picture at just the right time in the evening...

One of the tall blocks built at around the time I left AHS

And I have to comment about how pissed I get when people put things in all the wrong places.

A collection box!

Collection of message cards, hmm...

However, what you see in the box, the red cards, are actually SMRT brochures discarded by uninterested readers. And there're even coins in the box. Goodness!

I apologise for the VGA quality, but tell me you do see the coins in the corner of the box.

Now for random pictures I took during the week... well things are getting better for me in the office... I'm no longer busy to the point of madness so...

I was intrigued by the "Greenish" effect of my phone camera so...

Actually, other than greenish, there are bluish and reddish effects too, so in this stairwell lit by the glaring afternoon sun, I took these pics!

Stairway to Heaven? Yeah?

This week, Saturday needs some translation

Lots of it, actually.

Yesterday, YMCA organised an activity in which local volunteers would bring groups of Japanese students around some places in Singapore.

For some reason, Yichuan was among the volunteers, and he asked the NSFs in CPC whether they would like to join him.

The response was overwhelming.

For what I could remember, Jireh, Max, Nick, Dom, Kwok, JY, Bernard, Peng and I volunteered to joining him. That was almost all the NSFs in my branch (Kwok and JY from other branches). Oh there was Howard, an RP (Regimental police) from our Camp Commandant Office as well. Howard actualy took Jap in MOELC too, and could still remember Ono Sensei who taught Pre-U classes.

I didn't know what gave me the courage to actually go and join them. Perhaps it was because YMCA side did not specifically ask for people who know how to speak Jap. Meaning that the Jap students speak quite a lot of English.

They fantasised too much. You'll know why later.

Anyway, I was beginning to think of not identifying myself as someone who can speak Jap, lest I embarassed myself.

Wishful thinking. One of the first things that happened after I stepped into the YMCA educational centre was my colleagues telling those guys I could speak Jap.

Oh well...

Then came the Japanese students... who easily filled the reception hall. Max, who learned a couple of basic greetings from me and other friends, was already introducing himself to some of the students... haha.

After being seated in our separate groups in another dining hall with my local volunteer partners (who were total strangers) and the Jap students we're supposed to entertain (all girls. Zenbu onna no hito datta. Heh heh...), we played some memory game.

I won't even call that game an ice-breaker, because for my group, we, the local guys (yes, all guys. Which makes it a guys-entertain-girls event) were doing most of the scribbling of answers, and I was kind of guilty seeing the Jap girls had nothing to do.

Thank God that game was short enough.

After the game the Jap students were supposed to show us how to do Origami for stuff like - yep you guessed it- cranes.

Well, I did started speaking up at that time. And oh I didn't tell you... it turned out the Jap students hardly spoke English, so speak up = speak Jap.

OK lah, my Jap could still make it lah...

Then, we had lunch which was provided by YMCA side. Then we're supposed to bring them to places like Orchard or City Hall. Originally other places were not allowed, but my group of Jap girls actually asked for a chance to go Chinatown and succeeded.

So, we hopped on the train ("Hajimete!", exclaimed the girls, meaning it's their first time taking train) to Chinatown. After alighting, I heard those girls walking around talking about "tamanegi".

Hmm... why'd they talk about onions in Chinatown?

As it turned out, that's their description of the dome on mosques, as they visited one on the previous day. Haha.

In the end we didn't venture very far from the MRT station... just went through the few rows of shops near the station. And they bought things like handphone ornaments, fans and Merlion pens (at quite high prices...).

Next stop was Takashimaya, where they bought... nothing but drinks. Haha they actually treated us local guys to the drink! So OK lor...

They then said they wanted to go to a "purikura". Thanks to an episode of HardGay I watched recently, I knew that purikura means those shops with a lot of fancy photo sticker printing machines.

We went to Cineleisure then, since Weihan, my partner, said that there's one purikura there.

Wow they're really great at that sort of stuff, man.

After we got the stickers, the girls said they're thinking of returning to their hotel already.

But it was only 3 p.m.! I thought the time they had to return to the hotel was 5?

It was then when I found out that it weas their last day in Singapore... and they weren't quite done with their packing yet.

So... it was early Sayonara for our group... hmm.

Actually, I don't know why I took this pic

I thought I was smiling. That's why.

Here's a photo of all 5 of them!

AFOP

This week there was the Air Force Open House.

I went for the preview with my colleagues.

Before going to Paya Lebar Air Base, we went to Bugis for lunch... Bernard brought us to this restaurant called V8. The seafood spaghetti was nice, but the restaurant sure could use more staff.

After the meal I went to buy some stuff and they went to Kinokuniya (but I think they're just going there to wait for me... oops). Basically, when I go to a shopping centre I haven't visited for ages, I go to those shops where they sell those small ornaments and collectibles to look for handphone ornaments and "rare Pokemon".

By that I meant the Pokemon Chara-kids figurine series.

Well my search wasn't futile... I got an Octillery figurine!

"Octy Octy!"

I think this is one nice shot, man... the lighting and the angle were just nice.

Besides my Octy, I also bought a new handphone ornament.

The original "dog tag"

Now for the RSAF open house...

The whole thing was quite fun (except that the weather was really hot... but then again, rainy weather in such cases would have been much worse...). We gathered at the Food Zone to escape the hot weather before moving on to the stations at a later hour.

You actually get a chance to sit in the cockpit to see how it feels like, but I didn't bother

Now you know what to do when your friend boasts about his big titanium muffler on his zhng'ed car.

The Apache...

And its little missiles in a beehive-like housing

"Arty arty!" Well they do showcase some ground support vehicles too, like Arty and Armour.

Personally, the Arty gun photo is my favourite. Must be the angle from which I took that shot... gives the Arty gun more "presence" don't you think?

We later stayed for the air show (some of our colleagues went off already. I actually was damn shagged at that time as well but I believe it's really not worth the trouble going for that open house if you missed the air show), in which they show us how air vehicles can attack and also support ground troops in combat.

Those garang F-16 pilots had to endure up to 9G (9 times the force of Gravity) of force. Wow those drifting cars which experience a few G's already get their drivers dazed. Imagine 9G!

I found the image of a Chinook chopper transporting a suspended Arty Gun a very cute sight.

Was I slow, or were the F-16 fighters so fast, that... I only managed to take a shot of the smoke -- what's left of their exploded target.

Our regular performers at the National Day Parade: the Red Lions parachuting team was there as well! And we really got to see them at close distance!

Why was I suddenly reminded of Time Crisis 3?

After the whole thing I went home to sleep for one hour before coming out again to have a KFC meal with Kelvin and running into Kailun and Alaric, and...