25 Apr 2011 – Baptisms

Sat: Arrived KCH before 0900hrd, met by Lawrence who was really busy as his whole family has recently arrived from KL for his and Mabel’s baptism later in the evening. Thank you to Raymond & Agnes ONG for the hospitality and their kindness to accommodate me for the evening; to Lawrence & Mabel, for a delicious dinner at the Sarawak Club. It has been many moons ago since I had the opportunity to be in Lawrence & his whole family’s company.

The mass at St Joseph’s Cathedral started 2000hrs and there were over 200 baptisms. The location had no air-conditioning and the congregation was so packed that chairs were placed outside. Half way into the service, heat/prickly rashes were so uncomfortable that we had to head outdoors to get some air. Was not prepared with any ointment for the rashes, plus Leonard’s shirt was drenched with sweat were the reasons we sat outside. Thank goodness we could follow with the service over the speakers outside and got back into the location to witness, Lawrence, Mabel, Chuan and his brother’s baptisms.

Sun: Easter lunch with Lawrence & family@Spring Mall and dinner with Chuan & family@Sarawak Club.

Mon:  a nice day walking thru’ the dried goods, wet and spice market, plus more eating! Appreciations to Lawrence & family and Chuan & family for the honour to be part of this very special occasion and for all their graciousness. Without Leonard, there would not have been pix for this posting! Arrived in SIN with more surprises!! Cordelia & Leonard, thanks for the ride from the airport to the apartment.

Photo credits to Leonard.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother – Kahlil Gibran

22 Apr 2011 – Good Friday/Earth Day

Last year’s Easter Sun was on 4 Apr (posting 4 Apr 2010, Richard YUNG’s Bday). Easter (death of Christ) is the holiest day, besides Christmas (birth of Christ) for the Christians. Back in the dark ages, 1970s/80s! in Norway, practically everything was shut down and most of the natives will disappear from town to retreat to their mountain cabins to go skiing. It was not even possible to buy milk for nearly a week. But of course that is not the case now.

Today is my turn to make lunch for Kenson and it suddenly dawn on me that this is the first Easter we are celebrating together! He is my oldest friend and godfather to May. We have known each other since 1954 and he made many visits to Norway during his student days in UK. Even painted this lovely drawing of the cabin up at the mountains in Norway. So how is it possible that he was never there during Easter? The only explanation is that during our student days, we stayed in Dublin and did not travel to Norway. That must have been the times we drove around Ireland. Need to dig up those old colour slides to refresh the memory.

To nephew Clement & Audrey, thanks for coming by to dinner and helping to clear the food 🙂

As far as Easter is concerned, Good Friday to Easter Sunday and Easter Eggs, they have all been posted, 4 Apr 2010, 11 Apr 2009 so no point repeating them! But this Easter is going to be a special one. Tomorrow in KCH, Lawrence & Mabel are getting baptized and so is Chuan. Will be flying off bright and early Sat morning to attend their baptism. Seems like I was just there…

Most people outside of America won’t get it. It’s the Easter bunny. It’s another lie and I don’t understand why we had to invent this character – Todd Rundgren

20 Apr 2011 – A National Monument

This place brings back childhood memories! Glad to see that it is going to be a National Monument. And knowing the SIN system, this place will be immaculately refurbished and maintained. Was there a couple of years ago arriving with the train from KL to SIN and it was a rather run-down sad-looking colonial-style building. Looking forward to visiting when it gets restored back to its heydays. Ariel pix credit to Straits Times and the rest of the pix credits to Raymond CHAN.

1950s, first trip on a train was either from or to this station. Was intrigued with the toilets. They were not flush-toilets but what one could see was the moving tracks at the bottom; for a child, it was scary doing business onto the moving tracks! No wonder they could not be used when stationary or when in stations!

Second sister-in-law would take the train from Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia/near the Thai border to visit SIN now & then. Whenever we saw her off, the customs checks were very harsh. They would take out every single object including the clothes, to see if they are anything hidden in between. When the clothes look new, there would be a fine and if you could not pay, things get confiscated and believe me, these so-called custom-officers were unkind and even mean to an extend (hmmm wonder who benefits from the confiscated goods?). It was quite a painful and time-consuming ordeal 🙁

Choo choo train, chugging down the track,
Gotta travel on, never coming back. Ooh!
Got a one way ticket to the blues – Neil Sedaka                                                                                                                                                                                      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmcwBkt0xfE

18 Apr 2011 – Pick Your Choice!

Decided to blog these silly pix today, actually more funny than silly! Appreciations again to Chris in London for sharing. This is to help chase away the Monday Blues for Aileen and for the spastic stiff neck muscle which is a headache! In additional to being SPAMMED in FB again yesterday, twice within last week, first Hunky Harry and then Cute Robin who were spreading their viruses like wildfire (lessons for playing with fire!) Spent hours last night (no help to the neck!!) to clear and update everything. Can hear some of you moaning, oh please let her have her camera. Enjoy the silliness for the time being… hehehe!

If your garage door is boring, and most are, you may like to consider one of these alternatives or design you own! Just stick a new decal on your door! Make an impression and statement with your garage doors and be assured that you will always find your way home 🙂

Do it yourself…

In case of car problems!

An invitation to burglars 🙂

Ahhh… that’s my kind of garage and you will get heaps of visitors, cheers 🙂 🙂

Too clean to be Manhattan…

Last but not least 🙂 🙂 🙂

The doctor must have put my pacemaker in wrong. Every time my husband kisses me, the garage door goes up – Minnie Pearl

How coincident, the doctor who attended the stiff neck at the Polyclinics this morning is Pearl HUAN! No kidding and NOT HIGH on muscle-relaxin or pain-killers… YET!!!!!  Have a wonderful week.

16 Apr 2011 – A Relevant Comment… 

From now on, I’ll connect the dots in my own way – Bill Watterson

The comment below is from squidoo.com and the reply is as simple as it can get! Forgot to mention that even if and when the dots can be connected, the big pix is life itself and the end result is still death! So just live life to the fullest with good intentions so that you can face yourself within. Appreciations to all the readers and to those who have bother to comment. And yes ALL comments are read and noted. This is another example of what WordPress considers spam. It does not matter that it is spam, more important to thank you for all the encouragements. Please see posting 15 Dec 2010 regarding as to why the responses are limited to the comments where WordPress has already filtered into the spam box.

Lanell Kesten squidoo.com/iolite-portable-vaporizer 4Guanche@gmail.com 200.24.227.170

Submitted on 2011/04/15 at 13:46 Throughout this great design of things you’ll receive an A+ for effort and hard work. Where exactly you actually confused everybody ended up being on your details. You know, as the maxim goes, details make or break the argument.. And that could not be much more correct right here. Having said that, permit me inform you what did deliver the results. The authoring is actually quite persuasive which is possibly the reason why I am taking an effort in order to opine. I do not really make it a regular habit of doing that. 2nd, although I can notice the leaps in reason you come up with, I am not necessarily certain of exactly how you appear to connect the points that help to make your final result. For right now I will, no doubt yield to your position however wish in the foreseeable future you actually link your dots better.

14 Apr 2011 – No Camera…

Camera has gone bye-bye to me 🙁 Lawrence is giving me his camera next weekend, so will have no camera until then! Life without a camera means more words since a picture is worth a thousand words – Napoleon Bonaparte

1,000 words are not the forte in this blog, so will blog about one of the favourite pastimes-movies! The other favourites being sleeping, eating, catching up with family & friends and hiking. The weather here is no fun to hike in but somehow it did not seem to bother during childhood days when cousin Wilki and I were roaming Mr Faber and it’s foothills, climbing every climbable tree! Does age play a role or is it really global warming??  Would like to think that it is the latter 🙂

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart****a single girl notices a handsome hunk in the office building across the street. A quirky romance ensues as she starts communicating with the stranger through paper signs. Her fate changes when she is approached by a misfit. They start talking, become friends and she starts helping him to rebuild his confidence to get back on tracks. However, she meets the hunk and falls for him. Complications in a love triangle but an entertaining and feel good HKG movie!

Spoken in both Cantonese and Mandarin. Have once commented that will not watch another HKG movie here in SIN as the Cantonese is dubbed to Mandarin, thus lost in translation! Surprised and thrilled that this flick is not dubbed. The Hongkies spoke in Cantonese while the mainland Chinese spoke in Mandarin with English sub-titles. The 5*rating by local viewers was the reason that got me going. So sometimes the ratings can be right!

Norwegian Wood***Japanese flick but had to watch this with a title after the classic Beatles song Norwegian Wood! Watanabe is uncertain as to how to view life after the death of his friend Kizuki. Watanabe is a quiet and serious Tokyo college student who falls deeply for Naoko, an introspective young woman who was Kizuki’s girlfriend. Naoko feels as if some integral part of her has been permanently lost.

When Naoko decides to quit college and become a recluse, Midori comes along. Midori is outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident and basically the very opposite of what Naoko ever was. Watanabe is torn between the two women whom he is deeply attracted to. A melancholy slow drama befitting the mood of the title but in the Japanese culture!

Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad – Victor Hugo

13 April 2011 – High With Actions!

Limitless***an action-thriller about a writer who takes an experimental drug that allows him to use 100 percent of his mind. As one man evolves into the perfect version of himself, forces more corrupt than he can imagine mark him for assassination. Out-of-work writer Eddie’s rejection by girlfriend Lindy confirms his belief that he has zero future. That all vanishes the day an old friend introduces Eddie to NZT, a designer pharmaceutical that makes him laser focused and more confident. Now on an NZT-fueled odyssey, everything Eddie’s read, heard or seen is instantly organized and available to him. As the former nobody rises to the top of the financial world, he draws the attention of business mogul Carl, who sees this enhanced version of Eddie as the tool to make billions. But brutal side effects jeopardize his meteoric ascent. With a dwindling stash and hit men who will eliminate him to get the NZT – Relativity Media

Too much action, too unrealistic but at least not slow! Would not have chosen to see this flick if not for obliging an out-of-town guest. Perhaps a touch of action and fantasy will do no harm at this moment… 🙂

Lawrence is in SIN until tomorrow. Thanks to Ivy, Les & Jo for dinner two nights in a row. Poor Les, he just arrived from his 50th Blackrock Reunion in Dublin and was jet-lagged and tired. Today Lawrence, Jo and I was at Mandai Crematorium to pay respects to our parents. The crowds have thank goodness thinned out after the actual ChingMing/清明=clear bright date, 5 Apr this year. Also known as Tomb Sweeping Day and All Souls Day. And no to the burning of the paper stuff as mom & dad did not believe nor practice this ritual. If interested what ChingMing is about see posting 29 Mar 2010.

Pix from today will be borrowed and downloaded from different sites until the Nikon CoolPix can be replaced! Camera is really acting up and will have to look for a new one 🙁

What if a pill could make you rich and powerful? Everything is possible when you open your mind – Limitless