Assorted Ravings of the Slightly-Weird

A Weekend Jaunt in Jerusalem

On a whim I took a quick trip to Jerusalem.

That's right: the Holy City.

I hopped onto Turkish Airlines from Shanghai (on the tail end of a work trip) on a Thursday night and by Friday mid-morning I was in Jerusalem. Woohoo! My first impression: the whole country is extremely rocky. My second impression: all the houses look the same, 1- or 2-storey buildings in the same colour.

As I walked around the Old City, I just kept wondering what it must have been like back in the year 1BC. Some of the streets are so narrow, they look like they've been there forever. But then some of the buildings look new enough that you don't really get the sense of history seeping through the stones. Plus, most of Jerusalem feels quite commercialised so perhaps a traveller making a pilgrimmage may be disappointed. As for me, I was glad I hopped onto the plane. 3 days may have been a tad too short, but I did manage to visit most of the historic sites and to immerse myself a little in the culture.

The only snag was that when I got to the airport on Sunday, my flight was delayed and as a result Turkish Airlines put me onto a different airline to get to my final destination of Shanghai. In the end, it wasn't really much of a snag because I ended up getting home 9 hours before scheduled :) And, I managed to watch Kingdom of Heaven on the plane as well, which was kinda apt.

Photos are here. I only brought my Fisheye Lomo as I didn't have space in my luggage for a big bulky camera. Lomo rocks!

Sipadan Photos

I finally got off my lazy ass and put up the Sipadan photos here.

Unfortunately, we didn't manage to go to Sipadan on each of the 3 days that we were and ended up diving at Mabul and Kapalai only. My verdict: if you can't get to Sipadan, the diving at Mabul and Kapalai is only so-so. The coral life was not as abundant as other places I've been and while the fish are big (check out the pomfret in the photos) they weren't teeming as they apparently do in Sipadan.

The biggest surprise was the number of nudibranchs I saw on the trip. I love nudibranchs; they're my favourite thing to spot. On this trip I saw much more than I expected to, with one spot having not less than 5 nudibranchs of different sizes. My diving buddies weren't as pleased though, as they were there to see the big fish and not the small teeny-tiny stuff.

Would I go back to Sipadan again? Probably, but only if we could get some sort of assurance of getting the permit. Otherwise, there's better diving elsewhere. Having said that, the resort we stayed at (Sipadan Mabul Resort) was one of the best I've stayed at so far in terms of quality, price and efficiency. It's a really well-run organisation so I'd recommend it to anyone thinking of going to Sipadan.

Enjoy the photos! I am in Delhi for the next few days, brushing up on my head-shaking and gorging on Indian food :D

Happy 2008!

Back from vacation and facing a relatively clean desk, for once.

The vacation was great - we went skiing in Whistler, there was lots of snow and the weather wasn't too cold. I also took a day off to try snowboarding, which was fun but also tiring as I kept falling. On the last day I chickened out and switched back to skis, which was a great idea cos the last day was one of the toughest days. The only bummer about the whole vacation was that it was too darn short!

Now I'm back at work and trying to rev up back to 2nd gear at least. It's tough! I keep thinking of the snow, walking around Whistler after dark and having Cowie Wowie (one of the best ice-cream flavours EVER!). Oh, and FYI, the best pecan pie in the world can be found at Hy's Steakhouse in Whistler.

*drooooool*

Anyhow, photos of the birthday party are almost up. I was trying to upload them today during lunch but for some reason the uploader was being extremely kooky. Photos should be up by tonight here.

Okie dokie... time to head out :) Here's to a great 2008 for everyone!

Slowpitch Photos

Now that I'm done with my presentation (more on that in a later post) I'm free as a bird! So I decided to take some time to put up some photos from the recent slowpitch carnival that we took part in.

Photos are here. I especially like this one :)

More photos should be coming soon, especially from my recent Russia trip, which was a total blast in terms of catching up with and hanging out with my colleagues.

And I'm off this weekend to NY to catch up with more friends. In terms of catching up with people, this trip has been especially fruitful since I got to catch up with 2 friends in London, all my colleagues in Russia and 8 more in NY! It's value for money! :)

Weekend Update

Softball season started yesterday! Woohoo!

I started at third base and caught more balls in one game than all of last season. So, it was a fairly busy afternoon for me. Photos are here if anyone's interested.

And here's the tailend of a 5-3-2 double play, which helped to preserve the shut-out:

COOL!

Tioman and BQOTD

Sorry for the long absence, no excuses really.

Anyhow I spent the weekend in Tioman catching some sun. The diving continues to impress me, or maybe my standards (for Tioman at least) are set really low. Stuff that we got to see: cuttlefish, lots of reef sharks, blue-spotted stingrays, a turtle, boxfish. And, a bigass Titan triggerfish that almost attacked one of the girls.

Photos are here. Sadly, we didn't bring our underwater cameras so no fishy photos this time. Next trip will be before June so anyone who's keen, drop me a line.

And today's BQOTDs:
A: "You mean [insert name of cute Hollywood hunk] is gay? Well, at least life is fair..."

And:
B: "Sleep deprivation is SO NOT WORTH IT when you don't get any."

Finally, (Some) Photos Are Up!

I had some leave to clear so I'm off today. And I've accomplished a SHIT LOAD of stuff while staying at home.

1) Scanned and saved some of my many many photos
2) Uploaded photos from my US trip which occured in May 2006, I'm ashamed to admit
3) Uploaded photos from my trip to Goa
4) Ran errands for my mom
5) Met my insurance agent and caught a game at Kallang
6) Made a necklace

If only I was as productive when at work!

Onto Better Things

I did my first run of 2007 yesterday and it sure helped clear my mind. Maybe extreme pain is the answer :)

Anyhow, time to stop being maudlin. A year's not long and it'll definitely give me time to get rational. So you go figure out what you want, and I'll work on getting what I want. Sweet.

Okie dokie, now it's time to do my year-in-review.

1) Weddings attended: 2 really important ones amongst the few this year.

2) Parties thrown: not too many this year, thanks to crazy travel schedules and generally being busy. I've got a couple of themes in mind for 2007 though.

3) Mileage racked up: maybe about 10,000 km. Hm... I'm driving less and less.
3b) Petrol: $2054.21 - driving less, paying more. Damn it.

4) Holidays taken: 4 - NZ, M'sia, AU, US.
4a) Work trips taken: HK twice, Seoul, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Beijing twice, Shanghai twice, LA, Mumbai, Goa, London, Barcelona. GOSH.

5) Jackasses: a few minor ones, one major one. Pun fully intended. I gotta get rid of the jackasses.

6) Most ridiculous thing I've done this year: Aside from the painfully obvious, it'd have to be showering with goggles on. Which I still have to do, btw.
6a) Funniest thing I've seen this year: 2 year old kid who's high on one sip of red wine and starts singing at the top of his lungs. Damn funny. Guaranteed to put anyone in a better mood.

Ok photos from NYE are up here. Go see!

Photos Are UP!

Not a very productive day at work because I spent most of my time uploading photos, haha. (And I also beat my high score at sudoku: 4 min 14 seconds for the "Evil" level.)

Photos of the wedding are up and they're here. Photos of the dive trip should be up fairly soon, but don't hold your breath.

Check out the flowers at the end of the album - I did them! Heh. I'm gradually adding to my portfolio, woohoo.

Off to India

Ok folkies, I'm off to India for the next few days. Back in town on the 18th.

I've done some reorganising of the photo site, just because I seem to be adding a lot more clubbing photos. So there's a new category unimaginatively titled Party Time. Photos from the recent (slightly disastrous) trip to Mambo are here.

Ok. Time for dinner. Good thing I enjoy Indian food :)

Childrens' Day

To celebrate Ms B's birthday, we had a potluck dinner party on Saturday night.

The Menu
Starters: Crab Bisque and Salad with Portobello Mushrooms
1st course: Linguine with tarako roe
Main course: Roast leg of lamb with tri-flavoured mash and tomatoes with pesto
Dessert: Tiramisu cake and gin & tonic jelly

I made the tri-flavoured mash which was basically mashed peas, roasted pumpkin, and potatoes with cheddar. All three tasted very different, and the colour was quite striking as well. So I was fairly satisfied with the way it turned out since the mashed peas and roasted pumpkin were experiments. Everything else was really yummy as well, so it was a successful potluck. We lingered over dinner for about 3 hours, giving us ample time to digest everything. There's really nothing better than spending a quiet evening with a group of good friends and family, just chatting away with some music in the background.

Photos are here.

After dinner a couple of us headed over to Mohd Sultan where I had the very novel experience of snorting tequila up my nose. I'd recommend it for anyone suffering from a blocked nose cos that will just clear it right up. It's like liquid wasabi.

All in all it was a fairly quiet weekend, compared to the last two weekends. Just drinks at Loof on Friday night, the dinner party and drinks on Saturday night, and some beers on Sunday night. Which probably explains why I haven't yet had to take my customary nap in the office :)

Oktoberfest!

Oktoberfest! Woohoo! Beer, sausages, more beer, sauerkraut and yet more beer... what's not to like?

I had a blast last Saturday at the Oktoberfest, held at the Swiss club. Photos are here, if anyone's interested. Nothing too incriminating, thankfully.

Then on Sunday, I went wakeboarding for the first time. And my body is still aching from it today. I've discovered a whole new set of muscles running down my back and my forearms are threatening to cramp up any moment, thanks to my hanging onto the rope for dear life... But, I had a great time and hopefully I'll be able to go again sometime soon.

But right now, I just need to recover from 2 solid weeks of clubbing. Since coming back from HK, I've gone to Zouk, Loof, MOS, Butter Factory, Oktoberfest and MOS, in that order. My feet are whining like hell from all the dancing (and on Saturday it was for 7 hours straight) and I think there's more alcohol than blood flowing through my veins.

Whee. What fun :D

New Jerseys!

We've got new jerseys! And they're sleeveless, so that our tanlines aren't as ugly as before. Yay. The only thing I don't like is the colour scheme. Please, for once, can we break away from the red and white? It's so... patriotic.

Check them out here.

Softball season is almost winding to a close and this season has basically been a wash for me due to the lack of training. Next year, I definitely need to put in a lot more time. Sigh.

More tomorrow when I get into the office. I need to cool down first, and grab some sleep as well.

Photos!

Finally, some photos.

These are from the bride's last night in Singapore, which we spent at MoS. Well, half of it. The other half was spent taking care of two drunks.

There should be more photos coming up, once I get the files from the bride. Somehow I can't save them from her site. Weird. Either that or her site is screwed up. (Did I ever mention how much I hate Multiply?)

In other news, two different people over two days have told me that I look like a butch. Man. Is that what having short hair means???

Addendum: Ok, managed to get the rest of the photos. So, go see!

Finally!

It's been more than a year but I finally managed to get the photos from my Mauritius trip up.

Hey, better late than never...

Go here to see the Mauritius photos. Yeah I know, I wish I was there too... I need a clone.

Photos!!!

Ok dudes. After 3 nights of intensive scanning and photoshopping, I'm happy to say that the photos from my recent US trip are up. Also included are photos from a friend's wedding (where I did most of the flowers for the wedding, including the bridal bouquet, the bridesmaid's bouquet, the corsages, the boutonnieres and the bridal car) and some softball photos, just to use up the remaining film. Waste not, want not...

Go here to see the US photos.
Go here to see the wedding photos. (More will be up once pple send me their photos.)
Go here to see some softball photos.

Sims Update

Recently I've started playing The Sims! again. I had to stop after my computer went cranky due to some rogue hacker but I managed to save all my families and neighbourhoods so I'm happy to say that the Sim-Leongs are still around.

Sim-June is now a tabloid reporter earning $420 a day and Sim-Kim is a science teacher (hahaha) earning $350 a day. They see each other every evening after S-Kim gets home from work and before S-June goes to work, and they now have 3 friends.

Last night, the S-Leongs received a phone call from an adoption service, and they agreed to adopt a baby. Man, those sim-babies are irritating. They keep crying and once they start crying the whole household wakes up. And you have to keep them happy for 3 days before they grow up into kids. Otherwise the welfare service comes to take them away.

Sadly, the S-Leongs weren't able to keep their baby happy, so on the 3rd day (!!) after much sleep deprivation and some no-showing at work on the part of both S-Kim and S-June, the welfare service came by, chastised them soundly for neglecting their baby, and took their baby away. BTW the baby was named Nemo.

I'm going to try and get them another baby, and this time around I will take photos. In the meantime, the S-Leongs can continue to enjoy their nice big house with the flat-screen TV, new stereo system and a pool in the backyard.

UPDATE:
Photos are up! And S-Kim is now an inventor while S-June is a meteorologist...

Mauritius!

The trip was a great getaway and I came back really relaxed and slightly tanned. If you're looking to dive/snorkel, then this time of year the water is a bit too cold (but you get used to it after a few minutes). But it's a great time for tanning because there's plenty of sun and yet a nice cool breeze prevents you from overheating. Also, there's less cyclones lurking on the horizon than in summer.

We stayed at the Beau Rivage, which is a really nice hotel on the eastern coast. Every room has a sea view, and the food is great. Just one word of caution though, if your accomodation is on a half-board (i.e. breakfast and dinner) basis then be sure to pack some nicer clothes for dinner! Most of the hotel guests were European and they dress up for dinner. We were conspicuous enough as the only Asians in the hotel, but we also stood out as the table that wore the same thing to dinner every night, because we had only packed one set of 'nice' clothes. On our last night, it was "Gala Dinner" and I had visions of being sent to eat in the kitchen because we weren't appropriately dressed. Luckily that didn't happen :)

Most of the seasports are provided FOC at the hotel, like snorkelling, windsurfing, kayaking and water-skiing. Mauritius has a coral reef around it, and the waves break about 200m from the shore. So, we decided to paddle all the way out to the edge of the reef because we saw a fisherman standing in the water and we wanted to see how shallow the water was. By the time we got close to the edge, my oar was scraping the top of the coral, and I felt a bit like Reepicheep (ref: The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis if you have no idea what I'm talking about) paddling to the Edge of the World. Then, the hotel coast guard came out to get us (hehe) but instead of getting a scolding the guy just said that we should keep away from the edge because if anything were to happen to us, the water was too shallow for the speed boat to help us.

On our last day, we took an excursion to Ile des Deux Cocos - sounds really nice in French but it basically means "Island with two coconut trees". It's a small island (you can walk around it in 20 minutes or less) just off the south coast of Mauritius, with a Moroccan villa, a beach, and snorkelling nearby. If you've got spare cash to burn you can rent the villa (sleeps 4) for 100,000 Mauritian rupees a night. That's about 3500 USD or about 6250 SGD. For that sum, you get the villa (which, admittedly, is very picturesque) and the whole island to yourself, plus food and drinks. The snorkelling is supposed to be one of the better spots around as well. Our excursion included a buffet bbq lunch and free flow of drinks, including champagne and various liquors. Very relaxing.
Oh, and by now there's about 600 coconut trees on the island so maybe it should be renamed as Ile des Six Cents Cocos...

Sadly, we didn't go very far afield from the hotel, so no comments on Port Louis etc. The local people we encountered were all extremely friendly and they parlez anglaise! So it's easy to get around.

The only things I have to add are
a) the roads in Mauritius definitely need improving, and;
b) once you've passed the immigration checkpoint when departing Mauritius, there's no currency exchange booth, which means that if you have leftover rupees and you want to change them, you'll have to buy something at the duty-free shop and get your change back in USD or Euros.

My photos are developed but not scanned yet (NAT! We have to go get me a scanner!) but here are some photos from the digicam. Enjoy!

Murphy!

Thanks to Nat, I now have a photo of Murphy the Moose. She took this photo after lunch on Tuesday with her handphone so if it looks weird... well, it's a handphone, what do you expect??

This is Murphy! Murphy sits either in the front seat or has his ass stuffed into the space beneath my dashboard (like the photo) and keeps me company when I'm driving. Most people like to squeeze his nose when they sit in the front seat, and sometimes he gets mauled by my sister, but that's another story...

Oh, and I HATE computers. My laptop was all screwy again this morning, and I was on the line with the help desk for 2 hours until it suddenly decided to stop throwing a tantrum and start working normally again at 1130.
Grrr.

Finally!

Ok it took a long time in coming, but I finally put up some of the photos from my Argentina trip. Yup, just took me slightly over 3 months to do it :)

Anyhow, these pictures are all taken with my brother-in-law's digicam. I have lots more photos in 2 physical albums - let me know if you want to see them. For those who've already seen the physical albums, these photos are slightly different.

Enjoy!

More Photos!

I've been struck by this desire to post photos and more photos. So tonight, I've posted extra photos for CNY 04, featuring our first ever family mahjong tournament. From a field of 16 eager contestants, 4 are chosen to duke it out for the title of Mahjong King/Queen of the family.

And the winner of our inaugural WFC Mahjong Tournament? ("WFC" is my grandmother's initials)...

ME!!! Hahahaha. Heng ga bei si, which basically means I was very lucky. I managed to get the top seed in the finals by winning big (7 doubles ok!) in the last game of the 1st round, and in the finals, it was winning big (zi mo 6 doubles!) in the 2nd last game of the final round that put me over the top. Ah, my lucky 6 bamboo...

Now to try and complete the Slam by winning the golf tournament, which will be no mean feat since I don't even know how to play! :D

New Old Photos Up!

"HUH? What is she going on about?" is probably what you thought when you saw the title for this post. Aiyah, it just means that I put up some old family photos up on the photo site. Duh.

Ok. Dilemna here. I have 4(!) icons for Photos and I cannot for the life of me choose between them. So here they are. Suggestions??

And yes, once I get my scanner (hint hint Nat! heh) I will put up MORE photos. Photos galore! There'll be Argentina, CapeTown, softball stuff, more family photos, Bangkok...

New Photos Up

Hola mis amigos,
He agredado mas fotos a mi website. Si tu tienes tiempo, vaya y mire por favor.

And if you have no idea what I'm going on about, this handy site will tell you.

More Photos

So I guess by now most people would have seen my tattoo. If you haven't, here it is.

(psst: click on the photo to see more)

But having gone through it, I'm going to get another :) Comments/suggestions on where and what design are most welcome!

Top 10 reasons for moving to Brazil

Ok, I am moving to Brazil. Or anywhere in Latin America, for that matter. And why?
1) Beaches beaches beaches
2) Sun sun sun
3) Tons of diving
4) Guys guys guys
5) Cheap stuff everywhere
6) Party atmosphere - CARNIVAL!
7) Food, glorious food
8) Bossa Nova and samba (and the tango in neighbouring Argentina)
9) The rest of Latin America a stone's throw away, instead of a 24 hour flight away

And finally...
10) They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here goes:

Most of those words would be DROOL...

Want to see more of Rodrigo?
Go to "Say Cheese" in the Links section or click on the photo! Another new skill I've picked up :)

Slowly Getting The Hang of Things

Ok, I've mastered the linking bit of this whole website-thingy. For those not in the know, let's just say I'm technologically-challenged and leave it at that.

Two links for you guys:
1) My photos - always a work in progress... largely dependent on when I can get my scanner set up and when I can find time to scan photos. And no, no digital cameras for me. Right now there's stuff on some trips I took in the past 18 months, as well as a section on mi favorito jugador del tenis.

2) Des's blog - Des is one of my oldest friends and she's always got interesting things to say. Read her blog!

Oh, and I've also included the links in the Links section (how original) on the RHS. And check it out: I've learnt how to put in a picture, thanks again to Nat! Fun fun fun!