Shopping for Love (in Singapore)

YES I KNOW IM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING IN THE PAST WEEK... SUUUUUUUUPER BUSY AH

OK now boys and girls, here's a short update for today.

I saw this article on today's The New Paper but in my haste to get out of the NEL station (cos there was a BIG CHIOBU in front!!!) I simply just junked it into the bin.. what a waste of good stuff..

Here is a story about a lady who went to this new shopping center along downtown Orchard which only sells one thing - the sign outside reads "HUSBANDS FOR SALE" and outside stood a young dashing hunk (not as dashing as me though haha) who shouted slogans to the tune of "Ladies, shop for a husband here" & "We have 7 floors full of eligible guys to choose from!"

The lady thought to herself... "Finally, I get to choose a husband of GOOD STANDARD. Fine, ill do my shopping here!"

Upon entering the shop, she was presented with a whole entire juicy row of guys behind a glass panel. In front of the glass wall stood a sign "WE ARE A PROGRESSIVE ESTABLISHMENT. THE HIGHER UP YOU GO, THE BETTER THE QUALITY" & "1st Floor - Husbands who have at least an 'A' level"

The lady felt that those guys on the 1st floor were too lowly educated and decided to proceed on to the second. The only condition, as explained by the kind attendant was that once you have went up one level, you cannot go down. Lady thought to herself, why not, since she had nothing to lose anyways.

2nd Floor signboard said
"Husbands who have at least a Masters degree"

Lady proceeded on further...

3rd Floor signboard said
"Husbands with a Masters degree who cook for you"

Lady was surprised and wanted to get more, seeing how the quality indeed progressed as she went up..

4th Floor signboard said
"Husbands with a Masters degree, cook for you and will take care of the kids"

Oh boy, Lady was beaming from ear to ear by now. But she wanted more, afterall, there were 7 floors in total. She thought to herself, why shortchange herself when she could get the best deal out there. So she went trudging along..

5th Floor
"Husbands with a Masters degree, cook for you, take care of the kids, well built AND ARE ROMANTIC!"

Lady was so happy that the word "happy" itself couldnt describe her ecstacy. Wait a minute. There are 2 more floors out there. Lady knew she would not want to settle for second best. Afterall, she herself was educated and in the peak of her career. Second best would not suffice.

6th Floor
"Husbands with a Masters degree, cook for you, take care of the kids, are romantic, and listen to your every unreasonable demand"

WOOHOOO! Lady was over the moon, exactly what she wanted! Alas, the draw of the 7th floor was simply irresistible. Lady purposed within herself that she would want the best of the best, took out her newly commissioned Visa Platinum card from her Prada bag and waved it frantically to the attendant who was waiting at the 7th floor rooftop reception for her "Hey you! Missy! I want a husband from the 7th floor!"

7th Floor

THERE WAS NOBODY HERE. The attendant simply referred her to the computer sitting in front of her... "Ma'am please leave your contact details in this database as one of the 3,543,925 other women who have left theirs. We will contact you once a suitable candidate has been found. In the meantime, thank you for your patronage. Here is the lift which will send you directly to our store's entrance."

HAHA WHAT A LOSER!

So whats the morale of the story? ;) Ladies, treasure what you have now. Getting second or third best isnt such a bad idea, really.

P.S. I know V-Day was just a couple of days back and this may seem like a strange untimely post, but the answer is NO, I didnt get dumped by anybody. Cheers.

Thailand North East Visit - December 2005

This is the way we ate for most meals in Thailand's North East. I went visiting the rural churches along with the saints from Bangkok & Mahachai. The experience was simply FANTASTIC! Shall blog more about this trip in later posts.

October 2005 USA Trip - First Week

I was in the USA for the most part of October 2005, both on work and then the remaining time spent to visit. Was just sorting out some of the photos earlier on and did some thinking back... so I decided to blog it down to share my experiences with everybody.

Well the story goes like this. I had two major work-related tasks to accomplish on the trip, first was to setup a series of machinery in our Los Angeles facility for expansion purposes, and secondly I was invited to give two speeches (well one tutorial speech and another keynote) at a conference in Anaheim. We never did visit Disneyland though we were literally just a few steps away, due to the hectic conference schedule and lotsa interesting discussions going on, I decided to do what I do best - Being A Geek :)

Week 1

I arrived at LAX after one of the longest flights in my life, yet was surprisingly refreshed. The new A345 Leadership certainly lived up to the buzz it built up for being one of the best "Executive Economy" package. Indeed, I was kept so occupied during the flight that 15 hours whiffed past like a normal work day. Managed to catch a few winks of sleep but then I decided to make use of time and brush up on my German with the inflight simulator. BTW I'm continuing on German from where I stopped in primary school... gee i should have just finished it there and then :)

I never like Customs.... this isnt an exception...

The first encounter at Customs was quite hair raising. I had actually written two different addresses where I will be staying in the USA into the immigration form and was promptly greeted with a bark by the customs official "Where aboust are you going???"... I squealed a tiny "Los Angeles.." reply which was quickly blasted back by "BUT YOU STATED FOUNTAIN VALLEY IN THIS FORM, WHATS UP WITH THAT?". For the next 15 mins I had to stand in front of the officer (who btw was comfortably rooted to his chair) and explained that I would be visiting different places in the USA, how I am planning a mix of hotel stays and visits, road trips, staying over at friends' places, etc. FINALLY, he decided to let me off. I pulled my checked baggage from the carousel and headed straight to hail a cab.

The Cab Driver..

I had many interesting encounters with cab drivers on this trip, but the first was rather boring. Hopped onto the cab, "G'day sir, how're you doing today? I need to get to the Wilshire Grand, do you know the way?". The reply was a "No problemo, get you there in a jiffy." That was a relief, I thought things would be going on fine for once.. but i spoke too soon... our dear friend apparently was the very talkative type... wait.. talkative complain king type more like it. You know those taxi drivers in Singapore who always like to complain about why NTUC raised the price of toilet paper by 1 and a half cent type of thing? Yes, this is exactly what I got.

The Hotel..

For the first 3 nights, I stayed at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. LAPD was just across the road, and every night without fail I would hear the cops at work dutifuly. Now the hotel experience was generally good, they actually gave me a room with 2 beds (DONT ASK ME WHY, I MYSELF DONT KNOW TOO), a nice big living room, two toilets (Guess again...), a big couch & HUGE walk in cabinets. Now I know some girls would simply love the walkin cabinets, why? because even I liked it haha.. General look of furnishings was more towards the OLD side.. but I think they renovated my room considering it was on the executive level. A very nice feature I felt at-home with was that the lifts were security locked to only allow those with cardkey access to my floor to get in.















Picture of one of the toilets, with mirrored closet doors.















The living room... in my bedroom :)




Talk about home offices.. I had literally everything needed to run a SOHO on that table... Laptop, Phone, Data port, wireless LAN, cellphone (2 in fact), headset, VoIP adapter and the TV remote :) Ok the remote was for "recreational purposes". One must know when to take breaks, right?

So you would think that my experience at the hotel was generally good? NOT.

I was in for a shock the next day. Being the usual late morning type of person, I only left myself half an hour transport time between the hotel and workplace for meeting in the morning. So when the alarm rang, I jumped into work mode and went down to concierge.

Concierge: "Gooooood morning, how may I help you?"
Me: "Gooooood morning to you, you're looking good today! (It was the same helpful guy who helped me with all my bags the previous day). Could you kindly notify the limo that I'm ready to get on the road?"
Concierge: "Sure, I'll check with front desk."

After 10 minutes of waiting and frantically checking the time...

Concierge: "I'm sorry Sir, we did not receive a request from your company to get a limo booked for your transportation"
Me: "Are you sure?"
Concierge: "Positive"
Me: "Where's your manager.."

Manager: "I'm sorry sir, your company management has to sign to authorise the transport. We do not have this on file at the moment."
Me: "I AM the management"
Manager: (looking at me sheepishly) "You're kiddin me... come on..."
Me: "You can check, I am from room XXXX booking made by my company, I was the one who signed the approval on the paperwork to even approve the booking!"
Manager: (with the sheepish look again) "Righttttt..... but I still can't help you."

Fine. I decided that this conversation wasnt getting anywhere and time wasnt on my side either. Considering the fact that workplace was only 5 streets across, I decided to walk for it -which wasnt such a bad idea afterall.... Korean Airlines stewardesses alighting at the front of the lobby ;)

I did make a mental note of the manager's name and purposed within myself to shoot a really long email at the end of the day BUT then again reality set in.... there really wasnt a need to make a mountain out of a molehill although it was obviously a problem with them. Suddenly, I felt a silent joy within myself, you know, the type of i-knew-i-could-have-made-my-point-but-chose-to-forgive feeling deep inside. At times we get so mad at even the tiniest of things when they obviously dont go along the lines of how we plan them out to be. Therein lies the challenge. Some people call it being HUM (singlish phrase for cowardice) but take a step back and think again. My violent actions could have cost somebody along the line their job or a potential end of year bonus which they would so badly need. Trust me, the hotel sales manager was lobbying hard to get our annual contract to put employees there everytime we travelled on business.

Feeling quite sour and "disturbed" about my earlier decision to let things go (i'm human afterall) I headed for the Executive Floor Lounge and to my surprise met somebody who brightened up my day... well night to be exact... The lounge waiter was actually packing up for the night (I had arrived 5 mins after closing time) yet upon seeing me walking in with dull face, walked up, introduced himself and asked to serve some food. He promptly brewed me a SUPER-DUPER-REFRESHING mix of Starbucks coffee! We spent the next half an hour chatting about things like getting around Los Angeles, which places to visit, even how to get cheaper rates at that same hotel in future haha... I had made a new friend on the first day, his name was Francisco. See, I dont just remember names of females unlike what Hanwei always assumes ;)

I would love to continue blogging about my first couple of days, but they were generally uneventful. Adding to that, I shall spare you the anguish of trying to understand my work technicalities :)

Next post shall be on events for the following week..

How to travel around the world for less... headache & money...

I was preparing my flight itinerary for next month this afternoon, the usual scouring through Zuji, Travelocity, SQ website, etc comparing prices and finding flight availabilities and chanced upon this very useful tool. This is called the StarAlliance Mileage Calculator and is VERY useful if you fly frequently on any StarAlliance carrier. Basically what I did was to key in my destinations, intended flight timings and the calculator planned out all available flights for me! It even plans out the total mileage you will earn on the entire flight, thus saving me at least 2 hours worth of searching on the Internet.

Now another thing I found out is that it is quite significantly cheaper for you to make two return trips instead of one round the world trip. For example, my recent booking required me to travel outbound from Singapore first to the USA, then Canada, and finally Germany before heading back, all this supposed to be completed within a span of a month and a half. (Yes I do miss home if I am overseas for too long).

What most people would do is to plan one way trips beginning with the originating country, stop by the required destinations along the way, and finally end up back in Singapore after travelling 'around the world'.

A typical route travel map would be as follows:











Now...

What I did notice was I could also make two separate travels, one from Singapore to the USA and Canada, then returning back to Singapore. The Germany trip would then begin a couple of days after that comprising of a return leg to Frankfurt.











Surprisingly, flying this way had the following plus-points:

• Less costly!
• less baggage required on each flight
• MORE mileage! Yeah! :D
• More time with family in between trips
  

An interesting find..

I was just rummaging through Dad's old laptop (which he had so graciously gave to me) and found this picture. Apparently it was used for one of his management training workshops, and I paused to think for a while.

How true!

Indeed it only takes a few seconds to hurt the people you love, but that hurt takes years to heal - if it ever does. So all the more we should be careful about the words we use, the emotions we express as well as the thoughts we try to convey. Everything little thing adds up and I believe nobody would like a good relationship to be soured till the point that it takes years to mend. 

yikes! 

What This Blog Is & Is Not

Qn: Whats up with this new blogging thing altogether?
Ans: Earlier on today I was looking through my collection of photos from travels, visitings, friends, just about everything I took in the last 3 years and it does seem like quite a big collection. As I was browsing through, remiscing the good ole times, something struck me - there're actually a lot of friends whom I have lost contact with, as well as many others who want to know whats going on with me lately.

Qn: So you decided to start a blog purely because of this?
Ans: Well yes, kind of, erm.. ok I think I'm just bored :)

Qn: How often will you update this?
Ans: Politically correct answer- as soon as I can. Not so politically correct answer- when I feel like it.

Qn: (From my dearest cousins) Ohhhh I know already, you are going to post pictures of your girlfriend up to show all of us right?
Ans: What nonsensen... nothing of the sort... what pictures? what girlfriend? nilch..

Qn: (From Brownie) Does this mean you'll spend less time with me everyday? You're already so busy with work... (looks at me with sad eyes)...
Ans: No my dear I promise to still walk you................ whenever I have the time. Meanwhile, Piggy can fill in for me.

Qn: So what makes you think you are qualified to start a blog?
Ans: Because I got an 'A' for my GP and I am full of crap. What better thing to do than blog right?

Qn: Will you post pictures?
Ans: Yes

Qn: Will you post audio?
Ans: Yes

Qn: Will you post more pictures?
Ans: Yes, whats your point???????

Qn: You know... there are lurkers and blog-hunters who arent very friendly nowadays...
Ans: Yeah I know that, and unfortunately some of my professed 'friends' are too. But then again, what to do? If people like my face so much that they want to save it into their computer, what can I do right? Having said that, I would LOVE to post up pictures of my travels and stuff like that wherever possible. On last count, I had close to 8GB of photos in my portable USB :)

Qn: Can I have your autograph?
Ans: Sure, that would cost you only $1.99 each, buy 5 and get 1 free :)

Qn: What do you work as?
Ans: Something to do with what you are looking at now.

Qn: Are you enjoying it?
Ans: OH YES!

Qn: Why?
Ans: The working time schedule is flexible & I end up having more time to serve. Now this is the most important reason.

Qn: When are you ever serious?
Ans: Most of the time la...

Qn: Are you evil?
Ans: Yes I am. For the faint hearted, dont read on. Parental discretion is highly advised (YAH RIGHT WHOEVER READS A BLOG WITH THEIR PARENTS NOWADAYS)

Qn: So you are going to be the next big thing on blogging?
Ans: I dont think so.

Qn: But why?????
Ans: Cos I want to shop in peace, have a decent meal downtown without getting noticed, not being jerked about for an autograph when I travel, having peeps take pictures of me using their camera phones, and the list goes on...

Qn: Im already bored of you...
Ans: Good. This isnt meant to be entertaining, informative rather.

Qn: Do you have a girlfriend?
Ans: No..... HEY I thought I have already answered that earlier on, is it a trick question? Stop asking!

Qn: Why dont you?
Ans: Cos I know the right one when I see it.... her i mean...

Qn: (Cousins say out loud) You're just picky la!
Ans: So? Cannot ah?

Qn: I'm beginning to like you ;)
Ans: Dont kid me. I've barely began blogging.

More questions? Ask away! :P

Hellow World

What a nice day (night actually) to say Hello Everybody! Guess what, I just broke my 3 year tradition of staying away from blogs. Why? I dont really know too, but thanks in most part to the overseas saints who have always been concerned about whats going-on with me. :D

Hip hip! hurray!