12 Feb 2013 – Reunion with Family, Friends & Food/Part 1

The cutest greetings from the grandchildren in USA!

Sun: appreciations to sis Jo and niece Sue for driving. 1000hrs first day of the visits, starting with the most seniority person, 4th aunt Poh Kau (99yrs) and always great to catch up with cousin Wilki & Pattie visiting from HI. Somehow the camera went into hiding after this pix, or more like forgot to capture the moments until evening. Ouch!

Continued to 10th, 11th & 13th aunts. Thanks to Les & Ivy for a lovely lunch. Thank goodness for the tentage as the rains were relentless for some hours. Mid-afternoon to aunty Kwok (99yrs) & KK, great to meet up with Ken who is visiting from London.

Was fortunate to arrive at cousin Karen (in grey) to meet up her parents (who are visiting from KCH) and with 4 more long-lost cousins from paternal grandmother’s branch. Pix of 2 aunts with their families. Aunt Anna CHAN Ai Noh, Karen’s mom is the one sitting next to Karen, do remember aunt Noh from the early 1960s when she visited SIN at Temenggong Rd. She is the daughter of CHAN Hung Tong, brother to paternal grandmother, CHAN Swee Ngor.

Karen, tkx for the invite and the scrumptious feast. First meeting with aunt Kit.

Cousin CHAN WengKei of this branch who lives in Christchurch/NZ has an excellent record for the CHAN branch who makes the best KCH laksa and they are all wonderful cooks, just do not understand how they keep so slim, must be the CHAN genes 🙂

Mon: world’s best Chinese almond soup by sis-in-law Poh Kit and many tkx to her for sharing her secret.

Yeah, Aleoca folding bike/S$89.90+accessories/S$40, Brother sewing machine/S$139 and Akira rice-cooker/S$21.99 which will be used more for steaming and slow-cooking were delivered today from Giant/ FOC delivery for S$200+ spent.

Look before you leap, for snakes among sweet flowers do creep – Proverb

9 Feb 2013 – for the Capricorn Ox

Now for some fun with all kinds of astrology readings 🙂

This is for those born 29Jan1949-16Feb1950, the Earth OX

An Ox in the year of Snake will be a good year. Good times predicted for the Ox person. She will find it easy to make money. Things are all within her reach this year. YEAH to that! On the darker side, she may suffer from a misunderstanding with some associate or find that some friend betrays her confidence. Have given up on those kind a long time ago.  All her problems can be resolved if she is open to discussion. As long as those discussions are what I wish to discuss 🙂 🙂

The most reliable and diligent Oxen belong to this collection of Oxen. The Earth element balances many of their negative characteristics. An OX that trots on 4 legs will have better balance!! These Oxen are show good judgement, a good characteristic for successful financial dealings. Sure, that explains all the failed relationships and living on a budget 🙂 🙂 🙂

Other people tend to look up to Earth Oxen because of their reliability, sincerity and their modest ambitions. HuH!!! They are willing to tackle the workload when it become overbearing for others, Oh Yeah, talking to the wrong OX and are loyal and compassionate with family and friends. REALLY, that’s news to me 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Oxen are made of true resolute. A sustained effort allows them to achieve a very comfortable way of life. RIGHT on, for once!!!! They are conservative and responsible and will work long hours to provide their loved ones with security and comfort. 1st part yes, so 50/50 here.

Some people have lost their common sense and prefer to believe so that they can live with this scapegoat and not take responsibilities for their own actions and consequences.

Fun to be able to do this once a year and check at the end of each year to see what a bunch of rubbish these so-called fortune-tellers, or rather fortune-hunters who con people to pay for this. But then there are those who want to believe. Each to their own.

Capricorn is the goat of the zodiac and they are born 21Dec-19Jan. This is an approximation because of the irregular rotation of the earth and therefore not every year will Capricorn begin exactly on 21Dec or even end on 19Jan, like the Lunar Calendar when East finally meets West!
Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great judgement Seat;
But there is neither East nor West Border, nor Breed nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth –
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

Normally self-confident, strong-willed and calm. Often hardworking, unemotional, practical, responsible, persevering, and cautious and capable of persisting for as long as is necessary to accomplish a goal they have set for yourselves.

When the Capricorn is combined with an Ox, any one of those adjectives there will surely find a way to creep and fit in.

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Now that you have had your smiles, it is time to puff away the Dragon and let the Snake slither in to wish each and everyone…

Happy Healthy Wealthy Year of the Snake.

6 Feb 2013 – tomorrow might never come…

Fri: arrived HKG in blue sky and warm weather. Thanks to John for meeting me and taking me to lunch before checking into the top and 21st floor of Habour Plaza Metropolis/Hung Hom in Kowloon. First time walking with John around the Whampoa area where a department store is built in the shape of a ship!

Appreciations to Harry for a refreshing midnight walk in the Hung Hom in search of supper.

Sat: exploring the Tsim Sha Tsui area. The renowned Peninsula/香港半島酒店 opened in 1928 and has been recognised as an internationally leading hotel by Condé Nast  Traveler magazine and Travel + Leisure. Strolled down Nathan Road and to the Cultural Centre.

Former Marine Police HQ/前水警總部 now known as the 1881 Heritage. This compound is one of the 4 oldest surviving government buildings in HKG.

Waterfront Promenade and Avenue of the Stars/星光大道 opened 2004 is located along the Victoria Harbour waterfront honours celebrities of the HKG film industry.

Fun celebrations, Bdays for Elize and Helen and anniversary for Helen & Brian. Dinner at Kitchen YinYang**** Ship St/WanChai.

Painted the town red after dinner and did not get back to the hotel until 0300hrs. Appreciations to these young people for including this grandmother in their celebrations. Had a blast.

Sun: lunched in town with John. Delightful live latin music while walking thru’ a mall with a cute little girl swaying in perfect rhythm to the music.

Sight-seeing on the tram from Central en route to Tin Hau. The crowds in Causeway Bay was overwhelming and glad that it was not my stop!

Johnny made a delicious and impressive reunion dinner. So nice to catch up with Johnny & his pet LokLok, Richard and their group. Thank you Johnny for a wonderful dinner and appreciations to Rico and Ryann for the washing up. Pix credits here to Richard and John Jonas. Another late night!

Mon: with a cracked heel and Mother Nature not in my favour, it would be stupid to hike. In addition, the stomach and body are not happy with the over indulgence of good rich food and lack of sleep. Took an easy day, napped and located the bus stop for an early start tomorrow. Thank you Harry for delightful dinner company at the hotel.

Tue: after going to bed between 0100-0300hrs for 4 nights in a row, managed to sleep nearly 4hrs on the Tiger in spite of a toddle kicking from behind! Uneventful on time journey to SIN. Need to rest before the CNY, could never even party like the last 4 days in my youth, so what on earth makes me think I can do so NOW 🙂

1 Feb 2013 – Extreme Weather Patterns

The recent fires, floods, mud-slides, smog and FB weather conditions postings between Linn in SC/USA and Kim in Brisbane/Australia have not been good. The extreme temperatures are certain signs for global warming and the weather pattern is and should be a real concern.

And the not so encouraging reality is that as long as we live, we are contributing factors to global warming in one way or another.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=80232&src=eoa-iotd

Believe it or not! One of China’s richest men is giving away fresh, canned air in polluted Beijing/China. Wow, what such strategic marketing and no wonder he is the richest! The irony is how much is he contributing to the environment by producing these cans, hopefully they can be recycled!! Lorax déjà vu!!! You think that love & fresh-air are FREE, think twice 🙂

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c5#/video/world/2013/01/30/sm-china-canned-air.cnn

On the other hand, there are such beautiful and spectacular sides to this extreme weathers. In Nazaré/Portugal report a 30.5m/100′ possible world record for a wave. HI Garret McNamara surfed this largest wave but claimed that there had to be something wrong with him as the thrill was not as he had hoped!

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/30/travel/nazare-portugal-surfing/index.html?hpt=hp_c5

Watched 3 movies, Elles, Cloud Atlas and Beasts Of The Southern Wild but did not do much for me and will probably be soon forgotten. Perhaps it is unfair to rate movies this week, the mind and focus are more on the environmental issues.

Riding the Tiger again and this time bound for HKG. No posting till I get back middle of next week.

All across the world, in every kind of environment and region known to man, increasingly dangerous weather patterns and devastating storms are abruptly putting an end to the long-running debate over whether or not climate change is real. Not only is it real, it’s here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster – Barack Obama

Feb’s specials dates:

2 Feb – Happy Bdays Cathrine HALD & Garry ROGERS

4 Feb – Happy Bday Lawrence LAM & Kurt FLORY

14 Feb – ♥ ♥ ♥ Happy Valentine’s Day ♥ ♥ ♥

15 Feb – Happy Bday Guri STENSETH

16 Feb – Happy Bday Mike FREED/AT Trail name LOON

18 Feb – Happy Bday Henry LIM

20 Feb – Happy Bday YEO YatSoon

24 Feb – Happy Bday Bjørn EGGEN HERMANSEN

28 Jan 2013 – aka G.I Executioner

Sat: a lovely dinner at IndoChine**** by the SIN River to get into the mood for this movie!

Screened at The Arts House, Wit’s End is the 1st made in SIN American movie – about an US journalist who gets mixed up with a stripper and secret agents. Acting is nothing much to write home about, thus unfair to rate according to todays productions. The 1969 SIN scenes in this flick are priceless, especially for one who can recognise many of the places!

Pleasant cool moonlight walk by the river with Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of SIN with his back to the skyscrapers and skyline! Comment from John in Russia when I asked why: He’s looking out for more land to reclaim and build on. LOL. Me: Oops, wrong place, this is not the fishing village I discovered in 1819, hahaha!

What a nice wait at the bus stop by Fullerton Hotel, with live entertainment light show from MBS. Top left corner is a real moon.

Sun: an early start to drop Ting & CH off to SIN 1st Green Corridor 10k Run. Way to go Ting & CH. Being a supporter of the Green Corridor, would like to see it used as a walking, running or cycling path. The small old stations can be renovated but keeping the old charming original facades and turn them into cafe like what was done to the VA Creeper Trail/USA.

http://www.vacreepertrail.us/

http://www.thegreencorridor.org/

Tkx to Les & Ivy  for yummy tapas lunch at Don Quijote at Dempsey****on a road lined with beautiful Caesalpinia pulcherrima/peacock flowers.

Ended this lovely Sun at Great World City grocery shopping at Cold Storage with the non-local guy making pizza who gave me permission to take this pix. Impressive!

Ideas  are like pizza dough, made to be tossed around – Anna  Quindlen

25 Jan 2013 – Just a Simple Bike!

Thu FB posting: on a search for a small folding bicycle without paying a fortune. Anyone knows where I can find one like this or similar here in SIN??

Thanks for comments from cousins Lock & Yun and to Helen, Gel & Ting. Lunched with Pat at Lavender Food Square and we got to check out some bikes in the same area. For my kind of cycling,  S$700+++ does not justify it. Aleoca S$90 is the one Helen Ng mentioned from any of the Giants in SIN ( like a Super Wal-Mart but not 24hrs). Will still keep checking but can probably only afford the Aleoca!!

And that bike will be the choice thanks to cousin Lock again for sharing this:

http://cyclinginsingapore.blogspot.ca/2012/06/field-biologist-review-of-s98-aleoca.html

Coincidentally one of FB friends posted this after my bicycle search posting! Is this a hint?? 🙂

Thousand thanks to Ellen Brox for her translation: Old Olga celebrated her 100th Bday, and the Mayor brought flowers. Olga, it is incredible that you managed on your own! What about home care a couple of times a week? Think about it and call me. Olga was considering this for a couple of days, and then she called. Hi, this idea about home care is OK. But it must not be so far away that I cannot use the bike!

The Impossible***based on a true event about this family Maria, Henry and their 3 sons caught with tens of thousands of strangers, in the mayhem of one of the worst natural catastrophes of our time. Unexpected displays of compassion, courage and simple kindness that Maria and her family encounter during the darkest hours of their lives is really rather touching and at times emotional…

Nothing is more powerful than the human spirit – Tagline from The Impossible

10 Years***the night before their high school reunion, a group of friends realize they still haven’t quite grown up in some ways. Did not know what to expect in this movie but thought it was strange to see that the school name is Lake Howell High School, where Jeff, Linn & May graduated from. For a split of a second thought I saw an old pix of May. Later to discover that the writer and director Jamie Linden graduated LHHS same year as May, 1997. So it might have been a pix of May

The Sessions****what is it that the past 2 weeks of movies, this is the 3rd one based on another true story! Mark O’Brien, a man in an iron lung who decides he wants to lose his virginity. After consulting with his priest, he gets in touch with Cheryl Cohen-Greene, a professional sex surrogate. Good acting projecting sex as a natural act of wanting to help another to learn to be aware of their own body to be able to fiv and receive pleasure without motives.

22 Jan 2013 – 11 Years Ago Today…

Happy Happy 11th Birthday dear Katy, hugs and XXXs to her across the oceans.

In OK City when my 1st born made me a happy and proud grandmother with her 1st born Katy. Today Linn tells me that her internet is down and looking forward for her FB pix postings. Some pix posting here until she gets online again.

Visited OK City then and Gator was only a puppy. 2002, when the year of the Horse fell on 12 Feb, so Katy is born actually in the year of the Snake 22 Jan 2002. The year of the Snake was then 24 Jan 2001 – 12 Feb 2002. People born in the month of Jan do get into this confusion. Same with my birth date, 15 Jan 1950, the year of the Ox was then 27 Jan 1949 – 17 Feb 1950, so am considered to be under the year of the Ox and not Tiger.

Anyway not that it matters but just to know when the older generation ask which animal are we under! The Chinese calendar goes by the lunar calendar!

Astrology, fengshui, horoscopes, prophecies, Tarot cards etc are for entertainment, so do NOT make them into self-fulfilling prophecy or be obsessed by them. Somehow the posting below has been the most read posting and not sure why???

http://amylamsg.com/2011/01/22/forecast-for-the-year-of-the-rabbit/

Realised that today is also the Bdays of Siv Lotherington and Natalie Norton/Norway, Mike Jensen/Belgium, Kimberly Fleek/USA. Happy Bdays to all.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is an assumption or prediction  that, purely as a result of having been made, cause the expected or predicted  event to occur and thus confirms its own ‘accuracy’ – Paul Watzlawick

21 Jan 2013 – Oops and Huffda

Fri: thanks to Les for inviting me to Secret Lives of Birds, an interesting talk given by Dr YC Wee at the SIN Polytechnic Graduates Guild. Learnt that birds can get drunk and they are not monogamous as thought! Believe it or not but homosexuality also exist among the birds!!

Sat: Lawrence is in SIN from KCH for a short visit. He leaves this afternoon and it was great to have caught up with him the past few days. What a lovely day to be indoors with Bach, Beethoven, Beatles, good reads and snoozes. Rained relentlessly since 0100hrs, nice, cool and wet.

Choosing the not so serious links to share. Disheartening news like Syria or Algeria with the hostage crisis and the severe weather around the globe can stay in the background this weekend even when they are actually the headlines!

How many people would have known that there is a difference between the Canadian and Norwegian maple leaf??? Certainly not me 🙂

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/money/story/oops-norwegian-maple-leaf-dons-new-canada-20-bill-20130119

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1131222/singapore-hong-kong-face-happiness-deficit

All that glitters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told – Shakespeare

Have been often told that people like me are not the true SIN!!! So not being a true SIN and certainly not a Hongky, then happiness or emotions do not apply in this case!! Am just a simple being who enjoys living life to the fullest no matter of place or race 🙂 🙂

Sun: another cool and wet day. Tkx for catching up, Sebastian and good to know that he is thriving in his new job. Lunched at my favourite veggie joint, New Green Pasture Cafe****

18 Jan 2013 – @Urban Redevelopment Authority/URA

Wed: this is the first (South Bridge Rd, starting at the junctions of Cross St to Sago Lane) of the many more which will be blogged and posted for the CNY. The ariel view (pix credit to Eugene Tang) gives a better perspective of the length and the best CNY decorations ever in SIN. The Year of the SNAKE starts 10Feb! Appreciations to nephew Clement for a lovely afternoon in Chinatown.

Checked out SIN City Gallery at URA, highly recommended for anyone who is interested in the development of SIN thru’ the decades. The pix of then and now show how far SIN has progressed.

Silver Linings Playbook***Pat has lost everything. He now finds himself living back with his parents after spending time in a state institution on a plea bargain. Pat is determined to rebuild his life, remain positive and reunite with his wife. All Pat’s parents want is for him to get back on his feet and to share their family’s obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles football team. When Pat meets Tiffany, a mysterious young woman with problems of her own, things get complicated…

Arbitrage***suspense thriller – buying low and selling high-depends on a person’s ability to determine the true value of any given market. Billionaire hedge fund magnate Robert is the very portrait of success in American business. But finds himself desperately trying to sell his trading empire to a major bank before the extent of his fraud is discovered… would not have seen this if not for Richard Gere!

Intouchables*****a true story about a quadriplegic aristocrat who was injured in a paragliding accident and a young man from the less desirable neighbourhood. The paralyzed millionaire and the Senegalese parolee he hired to take care of him, how two totally different worlds create a unique friendship. Beautiful acting with good humour.

• Antoine: These street guys have no pity.
• Philippe: That’s what I want…no pity

16 Jan 2013 – Still More Questions…

The environment issues have always been within me and on the 63rd years onto life’s journey with still so many questions without answers over the years of so-called progress have only left even with more questions and not any wiser! And if you ask 63 people, you will have 63 answers 🙂

Mon, the first day of the Maha Kumbh Mela, Hindu devotees gather at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati river on Makar Sankranti. Millions of Hindu pilgrims are expected to take part in the large religious congregation, which falls every 12 years and lasts for a period of over a month, during which devotees wash themselves in the waters of the Ganges believing that it washes away their sins and ends the process of reincarnation…

Both over pop and pollutions on top of ignorance, greed and the chase of the materialistic values and power will eventually destroy our beautiful planet Earth. At present China and India top the contribution to most to the over pop and pollution issues. Unfortunately we are all culprits as we add to the problems by being consumers and being alive!!

Francis in FB so eloquently puts it – The threat of China to the western world is unfounded because most of the people in China will soon die of cancer derived from air pollution, contaminated water supply, toxic baby powder and dangerous, unsafe food chain.

Pollution levels of 300+ is bad. The US Embassy in Beijing City measured a level of 800+ but were asked not to officially announce it!! Over the weekend, while Beijing/China pollution levels hit 800+, Røros/Norway had temp of -33.6°C and if is this not global warming, what is?? All pix credits to The Straits Times as there is no way this life journey chooses to be near any crowds and smog.

After paying respects to my parents at the crematorium with some reflective time, will take the opportunity to thank each and every one of you for your Bday greetings. Appreciations for your thoughts and kind words. Your beings have made this life journey worth while even with all the questions without answers…

Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are – Oscar Wilde