More on this week...

Sayonara to Jessie and Jireh, who left for a new workplace and reached ORD respectively. CPC will be missing you both.

Haha on Friday I got to meet up with my upper YY again, and Junming as well. Junming brought us around SMU... both the school compound and its website, whose collections of students' photos got me impressed until the realization came that the photos and names didn't tally.

Yesterday I went to Bras Basah Complex with Jiansheng... he was looking for those kind of 3D puzzles and I have actually been thinking of going there to make a... how to say... that kind of seal where your Chinese name is carved in ancient Chinese script... ah that's damn cool.

Yes, I got it made and I'll be collecting it next week. Will come in handy when I become a teacher in the future and have to sign all my students' result slips... just "chop chop"!

Will publish the photos here ASAP.

Talk about photos... Dad gave me this polo he got recently... from the Air Logistics unit I suppose.

Last but not least, a very happy Children's Day! May all children around the world be well cared for just as the Lord cares for them.

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...

Grey Grey Sky

Today at office, I had this feeling that time was going so slowly...

Or maybe it's just the dark skies which give me a feeling of lateness plus my watch which insisted on showing me a time that's earlier than 1730.

Hmm anyway...

Supposed to go gym with some colleagues today, but due to unforseen circumstances (read: WORK) I couldn't leave office with them. Thought I could join them later (when they're, like, at their last 15 minutes there), but in my haste I left my PT shoes in the office.

Imagine a bloke in vest, hotpants (Hoo~!) AND leather shoes.

Wow.

Of course, in the end I decided that going home straight away would be a much better choice. They said they're going to go gym every week anyway.

Air Force open house preview this Friday...

Happy Birthday Bernard

Yesterday, after making that long post about CDs, I went for a quick swim and then for cell group with Jiansheng.

Hmm it's time I take a step of faith instead of just stop going for church and cell group. And Jiansheng's cell... well I have a feeling I can settle down there once and for all. Hopefully.

After that I went for Bernard's birthday dinner at Fish & Co, Dhoby Ghaut!

It's a standalone building with glass walls and roofs... some more with sports channel inside. AND there was a match between Liverpool and West Ham yesterday.

More about that later.

It was my first time (OK that's so very typical of me) in Fish & Co... so I didn't really know what to choose. YY was telling me about this "Seafood Platter For 2" which will easily leave 2 persons very full.

Now that really made me excited. Chor Bin and I decided to share this meal then, and we're even talking about the prospect of challenging Peng (famous for being a big eater) to finish this platter alone.

Soon the platter arrived and I, erm, deflated.

Not that the serving is small; I actually didn't feel hungry anymore after finishing the meal (though I really have to apologize to CB for taking most of the squid), but on the other hand, I could easily have finished the whole thing alone.

Then came the match.

We stayed during the first half (they were trying to explain to me the meaning of "Offside", to no avail...), at the end of which LFC's Crouch scored a sudden goal which broke the tie. So sudden that we didn't even have the time to shout "Goal!".

We left afterward for City Hall to play LAN. It's been a long time since I played Counterstrike, but I'm glad to say that I haven't quite lost my touch.

On the not-so-bright side, I didn't have so much "touch" to lose in the first place haha.

I surprised myself in the first map which was AWP (the sniper map), and in another map where we all pick up weapons instead of buying them, it was only halfway through that I remembered to choose the shotgun. Easy to makan people using that.

During the match I changed my nickname to "CPL_Wang" (yeah yeah dream on, Private!), and after that those guys started changing their nicks too, to various ranks ranging from REC (Recruit) to LG (Lieutenant General). I even became a RAdm once.

At about 2300 hrs CB and I went off, and the others stayed there to play, since they're supposed to go for duty at the Army Half Marathon at about 4 a.m. anyway.

MORE music

Much more, in fact.

Recently I've been to Cash Converters to look for old Japanese song CDs to, well, learn Jap as I listen to those songs. Haha.

I actually got quite a few good ones there, like a compilation album of hit songs, and also an album by Speed.

This week I went on a hunt with Bernard again... 2 brains and 2 pairs of hands really upped the returns big time, man! This time, between us, we got Chage & Aska (and yes, "Say Yes" is inside), another Speed album, V6, Eriko Imai, Ami Suzuki and some other compilation album of dorama theme songs (with the song I was looking for all the time: "Believe" from "Overtime"). And others too. In other words, overhaul!

Now for some 1st handed CDs... I got a copy of Ken Hirai's 10th anniversary compilation entitled "Utabaka". Haha.

Baka. Baka baka baka.

And also, a few albums by Olivia Ong, this Singaporean girl singer whose songs are mainly marketed in Japan.

Japan?

Well this makes sense if you know that she was once from "Mirai", the Singaporean girl group from n years back which sang mainly Jap songs, and then got disbanded, according to OliviaOng.com, due to "some circumstances". She later worked as a model before returning to a singing career.

The first of her albums that I bought was "A Girl Meets Bossanova". Bossa Nova is a type of Brazillian jazz and the words mean "New Wave" in... Portugese? Actually, one of the reasons I bought this CD was because there are 2 songs inside which I know about.

First was "Fly me to the Moon", a song which people who watch Neo Genesis Evangelion might know about (it's in the soundtrack, sung by a diffrernt person of course). I first heard the Evangelion version during some Farewell event in my JC days and I liked the song immediately after hearing it.

Another song was "The Girl from Ipanema". Ipanema is some place in Brazil. Well I happen to be playing this song on my electone and I find it nice.

So I decided to see what her rendition of these songs will be like.

Well her rendition of "Fly me to the Moon", sort of, erm, flew me to the Moon. And not the teeny weeny, "pruney" (if there's such a word) white coloured moon you see everyday from your HDB block, but that big yellow moon lighting up the starry (to the power of 10) sky of Pulau Tekong Firing Range (minus the noise of the gunshots).

In case you still don't know what I'm trying to say, I was mesmerized. By both the accompaniment and her voice. Yeah.

The arrangement of "The Girl from Ipanema" in the album was nice too, and the part when she was humming to the first verse.

Hmm, hmm hmm hmm hmm, hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm-

OK I shall stop trying to portray it textually.

Other songs in that album include "My Favourite Things" from "The Sound of Music".

I bought 2 other album of hers, namely "Precious Stones" (her first non-Bossanova album in which she wrote the lyrics of all the songs... in English of course.) and the recently released "A Girl Meets Bossanova 2".

Tokoro de...

I missed the broadcast for Jay Chou's new song entitled "Qian Li Zhi Wai" (Thousand Miles Apart) which, I heard, was a collaboration between Jay and veteran singer Fei Yu Qing.

"Shu shang xiao niao ti...."

And I also heard that the song turned out to be quite nice.

Now 8 Sep really seems like "a thousand miles" from here.

For example...

During some point in this year, I got a bit tired of swimming for no apparent reason.

Not so anymore.

Thus I've been swimming quite regularly these days... I'm going to go for a swim later again haha.

Can lah, I'm on leave today (heh heh...). My colleagues at Depot must still be having lunch right now. I've spent my morning watching my Ini D 4th stage DVD and taking naps...

OK back to topic. During one of my swimming trips I came across this sign in the changing room... well the picture will say it all.

A good example of a negative example.

Well I don't know if someone coincidentally left the key there, or they really mean for it to be some demo of really careless behaviour, but don't you find my caption funny nonetheless?

*faint*

This summer, an eventful week needs no translation

Haha I met Wenrong at Tampines Mall while I was on my way to catch Toyko Drift!

NYJC Vs SAF

Looks like NYJC's really that cheena. It actually made Chinese Language Wenrong's best subject!

But I think his recent dose of Mandopop helped a little. He hardly listened to Mandopop in my AHS HO days.

Tokyo Dorihuto was quite action-packed, I think. One thing that made me uncomfortable was that they kept using the word "drifting" when they're actually just talking about car racing. Otherwise, hmm deep down I actually have no problem with the fact that the key Japanese roles are all played by non-Japs.

At least there's this cute Jap girl in the cast! Although she doesn't talk much (I've read that she's currently learning English, so OK...), well, I'm cool with it.

Keiko Kitagawa, the Jap girl I was talking about. This picture is closest to my impression of her in the movie.

Dorihuto Shite Iru Ehu Di San Esu!

Check out the skid marks, man... but I'm not comfortable with their modifying the Evo (a world-famous 4-wheel drive) into a rear-wheel drive just to make it easier to drift. Thank goodness they didn't do it to my favourite WRX Impreza.

Besides the abovementioned stuff, this week was quite eventful. 10/04 guys outing... public holiday... learning day... you name it, we've got it.

Not that the class outing was that successful, though...

Haha no lah, it's just that most of us are now NSFs and not all our NSFs are hoh-miah clerks like me, Kido, JY and Joel (who's actually not so hoh-miah as he's a stay-in unit clerk), who turned up earliest for the outing. Duh.

Our garang commandos had trouble booking out early (welcome to SAF), so they managed to arrive about one hour later.

And as usual, typical of NSF guys meeting up, we talked about army life and hardly anything else. Commando training was really siong, but like what Jeremy (a signaller) said, they're the ones who command a lot more respect than other soldiers.

Yeah, just look at the red-beret 1st Commando Battalion marching at the National Day Parade. Seh!

Kido was damn funny... he left straight after meeting our commando friends.

I don't think I have to say more about National Day, when I was happilly ripping CDs at home while trying to catch Jiansheng among all the Camo-faced Load-Bearing-Vest boys in the NDP.

For our Branch Learning Day this month, we learnt wbout the basics of sushi making from our Branch head, who is actually an enthusiast for culinary stuff. She actually prepared the vinegared rice by herself.

Even though it looks easy, like just putting the rice on the seaweed thingy and wrapping it up, sushi-making actually requires very good estimation of the proportions of the rice and the stuff you put in. Some of us (like Jireh) managed to produce quite professional sushi in various shapes and sizes.

Well, my first few attempts were not really that worthy of mention, but in the end, I guess my fishu-saapuraizu (Fish Surprise!), which consisted of Unagi (eel) and fishcake (our kind of fishcake, not the Jap one with the pink coil on it), worked out in the end.

Getting it all stacked up

A closer view before I roll it up

Fishu-Saapuraizu!

But I had to admit, the filling is a bit off-centre...

We not only made Maki-zushi... some of us attempted Nigiri-zushi (the kind where you put a slice of something on a rice ball). Although most of the rice balls they made are a tad too big, people like Max actually came up with quite interesting ideas like...

Ubi-zushi. Too bad you can't eat this.

My attempt at the Gunkan-maki-zushi (Gunkan is the Jap word for "battleship") which consists of the same rice ball + the same topping + seaweed wrapped around the whole thing could only be summarized as: Too much rice, too little space for the topping. And there's the same old fishcake!

Fish Cake Gunkan

By the way, I was the one who suggested using this kind of fishcake. Haha.

We had green tea to drink as well (to create that Jap atmosphere) and we're given our own foam cups with our names written on it (a good way to avoid mixing up).

My Cup!

Music to my ears

Bought quite a lot of albums recently... SHE's "Forever", David Tao's "Too Beautiful" and Yu Heng's "Real".

In "Forever", the song that gets most attention should be the one composed by Jay Chou, called "Chu Dian" (Jolt). It tells of a girl expecting the beginning of a romantic relationship, and I think it brings out this emotion better than their classic, "Lian Ren Wei Man" (Not lovers yet), which tells a similar story.

"Goodbye My Love" is quite a sad song. Sadder than "Zi Teng Hua", another of their new song which uses the tune from Westlife's "Soledad". What I like most in "ZTH"'s lyrics is the part that says something like "The most torturing part is not the parting. It's the memories which renders you unable to move on, thinking that you can still go back to the past".

In "Too Beautiful", there's this song "Wang Bu Liao" (Can't get you out of my mind) which takes part of the lyrics from an oldie, "Bu Liao Qing" (Endless love). It's quite a cute adaptation, especially the rap near the end of the song which sort of chides the hero of the story for being unable to get over the girl who dumped him.

"Too Beautiful", the song for which the album was named, tells of a woman's enduring love for a guy who hurt her more than once.

Another song that I like is "Zhu Ni Xing Fu" (literally means "wish you happiness" the English title is put as "I don't wanna know"). If you're dumped by a girl who went after another guy, this is your song!

I got to hear most of the songs in "Real" in some segment on YES 933 Fm, and there're quite nice songs in it like "Nu Sheng Zhi Jue" (a girl's intuition) and "Yi Kou Qi Ai Ni" (Love at first breath).

Waiting for Jay Chou's next.

Happy birthday

One thing I'll call Singapore -- a miracle.

41 years of independence... not that "independence" was such a great thing on this day on 1965. It was said that Singapore was "Out!".

On its own. Abandoned. A "moment of anguish". Not really something worthy of a celebration. Most people were actually worried about the future of Singaporeans at that time.

It's the passion of our nation builders that changed things. It took passion to improve conditions like housing and health of the people. Many say that Singaporeans were too co-operative. But if not for co-operation of the people, our nation could not have made it this far.

Some say we're a red dot on the map, but then again, our small size means that it's not really difficult to centralise things and set standards. Which was a good thing, of course.

Freedom from natural disasters was a plus point, of course. But we're lacking of natural resources as well, which is sort of like a price we had to pay for safety.

It's really our people that made the difference.

Fried

Well... a few more days of work, work, work.

And the frustration that I can't get my things done quickly.

PLUS the frequency of new tasks coming up.

Guess this is like school life in some sense... where every of your subject teacher thinks that his subject is the only one you're taking.

But unlike studies, the feeling of being heavily loaded will be instantly gone come knock-off time. And to get my mind really off work, 1 day of leave is actually enough for me.

...

Had dinner with Keon again at KFC... something happened that he said he would blog about... but I guess he can't care less about blogging these days haha... not telling about it is only to my benefit.

...

OK lah... I got normal fries for him instead of cheese fries lah OK? But seriously, the fries at KFC really needed the cheese sauce. Otherwise it's tasteless.

Anyway, he just got some license for driving some armoured vehicle and I had the "honour" of being the first one to have a look at it since he booked out.

Bought S.H.E.'s latest Greatest Hits Compilation, "Forever". Hmm... to some it's not worth getting a CD with only a few new songs, but in this case I don't have most of their CDs since "Together" (their previous Greatest Hits album), so it's worth the money for me lah.

Just that it would be better if I can choose whether I want the DVD or not... I don't really mind not having the MVs if I can pay less for just buying the songs CD.

Recently Jianyuan went into cross-stitching, and for starters, his first attempt was actually quite a major task... a very detailed image of Sagitarius.

Hmm sounds quite fun... so I decided to give it a try too. some would say that designing my own design for a starter is really too much, but to me it's a way I start with any easy picture which I'm interested in. Besides, I'm already done with the design.

Will post the picture of my first cross-stitch piece here after it's done.

Saw an article on the New paper about single adoption (people who don't want to marry but want "children" choose to adpot them). This practice raised some issues.

Well, for me, I'm instantly turned off by people who say they don't believe in marriage.

Also, such practices can be described as "wanting the pleasures marriage can bring without wanting the commitment involved". In this sense, one might go so far as to say that single adoption is like cohabitation and premarital sex.

OK maybe not that serious lah, but why should one back away from marriage?

Vindicated

Yesterday, something happened that made me realised how good it feels to be... vindicated.

Seriously... I can tell that most of my colleagues won't trust most of my claims... because even I can't be sure of things as well.

But seriously... I have this feeling that if a certain "someone" made the very same claims I would have made in my place, the claims would have been well recieved.

Forgive me for being unfair to you guys when I feel that this is unfair to me, but this is how I feel.

Photos

Regretfully, I couldn't put the photos together with my posts... so here are the photos which explain what the heck was really going on in my previous posts...

That day when we went to Marina Square to watch "Road to Guantanamo", there was actually supposed to be an autograph session with Jolin Tsai at 8 p.m.. Wow. We didn't stay for it (except for Nick, who was playing LAN until about 8) unfortunately... but then again, it didn't really matter. If it's somebody else like S.H.E., then maybe I die die must stay lah.

Look at the crowd! We actually saw one TJC alumnus among the crowd... and both Jianyuan and I (the only ex-TJCians present at that time) knew her.

More crowd! The group sitting in front of the guardrails were what I heard to be the fan club members.

Forgive me for having a ceiling fetish... but here's what I took from Marina Square anyway.

Yuh Chian and Songyu, for whom the farewell was organised as they'll be going overseas soon.

The birthday cake!

Happy birthday...

Our blow-soccer we played on Friday. Hi Mr Toh.

Iruka* HOO~!

Haha... I've always had mixed feelings about playing capsule machines because there's a probability that you'll get repeated stuff.

Recently I saw this capsule series at Toys'R'us Tampines Mall which consists of Characters from Winnie the Pooh wearing suits of all kinds of animals. It's actually quite an old series which kept on having extensions... I remembered my friend having one of these tiny figurines... hers is wearing a super kyuute penguin suit.

Well there's no penguin in this extension of the series but there're animals like the dolphin (blue one being more common than pink one) and the ladybug.

These are just part of the series. I couldn't find the images of the rest of the suits.

Well, since it was only $1 and I decided that my handphone could use some decoration, I tried it out and got a Tigger in an apple tree. Haha.

And I was thinking that the dolphin one would be nice too.

Today I went to try my luck again, and I wasn't thinking of getting the dolphin straight away, of course. As long as it's not another apple-tree-Tigger it would be fine. I put in $1...

And out came little Pooh sleeping in the dolphin suit!

---

Iruka: the Japanese word for dolphin.

R-OH

Yesterday we went for this BBQ gathering organised by my unit as a celebration for promotion of some of our officers.

When the whole bunch of us NSFs (including guys from the previous batch like Junming, YY and Yuh Chian) arrived at Changi Haven (where the gathering was held), we started off by watching some Korean movie followed by Mr and Mrs Smith (I found it to be quite an interesting show -- at least there was a "happy" ending). In between the movies we played this game which was like soccer involvng a tennis ball on a table... we scored goals by blowing the ball into the opponent's side.

Then we started with the BBQ! They actually ordered noodles from a caterer as well, so our dinner wouldn't be lacking of carbohydrates. Surprisingly the DXOs were the ones who got the pit started, and the NSFs were only "deployed" to man the pits after that.

The usual stuff like chicken wings were present, and also seafood like fish and squid (Yeah!). There were crabs too, and it was the first time I attended a BBQ session with crabs! Inexperienced as I was, I didn't manage to get much flesh out of the crab I took. Or maybe those crabs were meant to be that way... I actually saw one of the crabs being cooked alive! And it must be the expansion of fluids in the crab's body which gave a whistling sound that gave me the impression that the crab's screaming!

Ugh.

After some eating we naturally divided into small chat groups... I was with Jianyuan, Peng, Chorbin and YY, sharing with them some of the incidents that occured during our WOPC rehearsal. After that YY left and the remaining 4 of us were talking about BGR when one of our officers offered red wine to us. By sheer coincidence (or rather God's will... as it turned out to be a blessing in disguise in 2 ways) I didn't get a cup (well our Sir only brought 3 cups).

OK just to provide some background... During WOPC when I was, erm, "offered a chance to" drink half a can of beer I couldn't stand the taste and made a decision not to touch beer again. However I was curious as to whether wine would taste slightly (only slightly) better than beer.

Hence, when I didn't get a cup of wine, I was initially very keen to have a go at some of Chor Bin's share. I took a sip and

*bleah!*

Forget it. I'm done with alcohol.

So they drank. And they drank half a cup again... Jianyuan wasn't that bad... Chor bin was red in the face already... and Peng took it the worst -- he was really drunk! After that we went to the beach (quite a dangerous thing to do actually...) where I spotted some lone durian shells (erm OK...) and Peng was reciting verses and verses of cheena poetry.

From which I realised that most of the Chinese Lit stuff I've learnt were... gone.

We then headed back to the BBQ site. Peng didn't get any better and we started to get worried. In the end he threw up and we sent him home since he was still having a headache. I wasn't actually the only one who was sober, but I consumed the least wine, so naturally the 3 other guys came under my charge lah. (Hehe...)

P.S. Happy birthday Nick.

We paid.

We paid, for a peaceful journey home.

We paid to take the private transport so that we don't have to stand all the way home, and it's of course better if we can have a short nap on the way.

Of course, nothing is perfect.

Today is one of the days when Justin's on board. You know... the kid whose photo I took a few posts back.

Nobody who sat beside him had a chance to sleep. Even though I was one of the only guys that he would talk (very loudly) to in the first place (the "few guys" include my colleague Bernard), most of the time if he gets to his peak, even the aunties who were sitting beside him couldn't sleep also. Near the end of the journey I felt like apologising on his behalf to those aunties whose displeasure were pretty obvious.

We paid for this.

The Name Game

My E-mail address, is feralig87@hotmail.com.

OK... now what's the colour of a red house?

What's the colour of a blue house?

What's the colour of a black house?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

What's the colour of a Greenhouse?

.

.

.

.

.

.

And what's my e-mail address again?

No way!!! You can't remember?

See, that's why I regret naming my e-mail address after a Pokemon (even though the Feraligator really rocks).

Sigh... I wish my surname is Pan. Then can name my son something like Jia-an. Then his initials will be J A Pan. JAPAN!

Cool huh?

Never mind... but if I keep my surname and name my son Ruixian, then it's not bad also. WRX.

Talk about cars... my platoonmatefrom BMT set up a forum about cars together with some friends. Its url is http://www.2uned.com/forum/index.php.

Hmm maybe I can learn more about car tuning there...

The End

Phew!

Recently I've been missing the return journey on my private transport because I've been leeving the office quite late. Today I finally had the chance to take my transport again, and the air-con had to break down! Haha.

At least after the journey, I wasn't as sweaty as I thought I would be.

Made a trip to the arcade again... and further proved my hypothesis that the less frequently I play Initial D, the better I get. Also, I got to see the ending scene of Time Crisis 4 after much wait... last time there was a guy who gave up during the very last battle, but then again, it's not very sensible to spend $2 just to give the final boss one shot and end the game...

The guy I saw today finished with 1 Hit Point. That was close, man!

Work

I realize that I've not been blogging about work recently.

But not much to blog about as well, except that things are getting better now, like the dawn after a long cold night.

Seriously, I still don't know what got into me that made me screw up Paradestate (basically it's taking attendance) 3 working days in a row. But that's the past. I hope.

Saw my upper again last Saturday when we went for Yuh Chian (Peng's upper) and Songyu's farewell (and learned that CPC has seen generations of good singers before us)... too bad I didn't take pictures (the Karaoke room was way too dark and my camera phone didn't have flash haha) that day... at least to let my dear readers know what he looks like.

Been doing a lot of exploraton these few days... trying to do some Foxpro stunts... no lah, just making data reports lah. But even that task cost me about half a day.

Lots of work to clear, but I gained a better understanding of how my upperstudy's programs work...

Isn't that what I say all the time? Haha.

Got lots of new games recently. Besides Pokemon Fire-red (which wasn't really recent "anymore"), I got a Megaman and a Zelda game too.