Wed 27 Dec

I went down to Sim Lim again to get my gf's computer checked. It turned out that the graphics card was faulty. I spent a long time negotiating, because the shop did not have any more stock of the same graphics card, and changing to the next better one was beastly expensive relatively. In the end, just as we decided to just switch to another brand and retain the same specifications, another salesperson in the shop told us that we could just go up to the 6th floor and swap it for a new card.

I went upstairs to look for the shop, which manages distribution and not direct sales, and when I highlighted the problem, one lady out of the three people in the shop told me that they were having lunch, and if I could come back twenty minutes later, because they needed to check. I left the shop, and as I walked away, I felt that something was not acceptable. Out of the three surely one of them should be able to help. And how long do they need to check one card? Furthermore, the technician from the shop that assembled the CPU already ascertained the problem. My gf took it up, and went to the shop to insist politely for immediate help, and finally, they budged. I was waiting to see if they would acquiesce, or else I was going to demand angrily. It took them less than a minute to plug it in, see the patches on the display, and issue us a new card. So much for the service scene in Singapore. With all the good work of GEMS campaigns and the like, there are still plenty of black sheep around. With that, my gf's computer was finally up and running. After I ensured that, I headed down for cell group.

Thu 28 Dec

I rested at home for the better part of the day. Actually, I should be working. There is still something left undone for next semester, but I just can't bring myself to start on writing the lesson plans and scheme of work for the topics I am assigned. This is the bad part about being on the forefront of the Integrated Programme; since I'm taking on the year 3s, which is the first batch, I have to draft up detailed lesson packages alongside my two colleagues taking the same year, so that our 'successors' can use them. For those who do not know, writing lesson plans is one of a teacher's worst nightmares. Of course, having said that, I know a couple of insane teacher friends who actually enjoy writing them. Hmm...

In the evening, I met J and shups! for dinner (I only had dessert since I ate at home), and then we went for pool. The results of the night's matches were interesting. It was like rock, paper, scissors largely - shups! defeats J, I defeat shups!, and J defeats me. I played horribly at the start, and took about two games to get it right. I don't like being out of practice and having to warm up awhile every time. I think the irritating thing was that I don't recall making any spectacular shots the whole night. Sigh.

Fri 29 Dec

I finally went back to school today, because we had a staff meeting from 2 to 5.30 pm. It was long, but at least there was a break with good food provided. Next year looks set to be a busy year, with all the buzz about the college's 30th year celebrations underway. There seems to be quite a few administrative process changes too, but it looks like it would be for the better.

After the meeting, my gf and I went to watch Death Note 2. The movie was good, and surprisingly humourous at many points. The ending was satisfying, and sufficiently moral to be diplomatically correct, with enough twists and clever scheming for Light and L. I don't know how accurate the movie is with regards to the manga, and I highly doubt its consistency, but on its own, it still wraps up the story nicely. The only grouse I have is near the end where a flashback was done so abruptly and jarringly that there was no clue as to the fact that we were watching a flashback, and I think everyone was thinking, "Huh? I thought she died?" In any case, now that I'm following the anime, if the movie was satisfying, I would expect the anime to be spectacular, since the episodes so far have all outdone the plot of the first movie. If you like the movie(s), try to catch the anime - L and Light would appear way more intelligent, meticulous and sophisticated in the anime than the movie ever captured.

Sat 23 Dec

I went to my colleague's Christmas party in the evening with my gf, and a whole bunch of other colleagues. It was quite good to see her form students present as well, so that was encouraging. There was good (free) food, games, and carolling to enjoy. The only thing was that there were too many colleagues present, so it felt too reminiscent of a meeting than a reunion, and school's reopening is looming in the inevitable near future. Sigh.

Sun 24 Dec

Today's nursery duty was simple, because there was a fixed Christmas program. We only need to entertain the kids for a while doing craftwork, and then they get to worship and watch an animated Christian movie about Christmas, which looks like a spinoff from Finding Nemo, except that the character designs are uglier, but there is great meaning in the message of the short movie. Christmas service was surprising lacking in Christmas carols. We sang maybe two Christmas carols at most, so I guess this was the least Christmas-y service I can remember. I had a long but good cell group after that, and I think the youth camp really did my spiritual sons a lot of good.

Mon 25 Dec

Originally my gf and I meant to spend Christmas at home with our families. However, her computer crashed in the morning. I headed down to Sim Lim to get a new harddisk, though I had some doubt that it might be the motherboard but figured that this would be the cheaper alternative to test first, and went over to try to fix her computer. It turned out that my suspicion was correct, so she decided to replace her CPU, but recycle some of the parts. We would have gone down to Sim Lim straightaway, but I think because it was Christmas, they were closing early at 5 pm.

I started work on a new extension of my website, which is for my G12 group. I'm curious to see how it will turn out...Hmmm...

Tue 26 Dec

I went down to Sim Lim with my gf to purchase parts to assemble a new computer. We managed to recycle her harddisks and sound card, but everything else needed an overhaul. The guy at the counter was very helpful, and I think we got a fair price for the whole setup. Unfortunately, the problems arose after we reached my gf's place to install the Windows OS. Somehow the screen was filled with little green rectangles, if not weird dotted lines. I troubleshooted for a long time, and finally identified that the graphics card itself is faulty, and it wasn't some driver issue. At least I helped her install various software while using the integrated graphics card. It looks like I need to make another trip to Sim Lim tomorrow.

This will be a heck of a long (6-day) post.

Sun 17 Dec

This week was Magic of Love week, so the youth service was cancelled, and relocated to the English and Chinese services. I had my nursery duty as usual, and instead of seeing a surge of children, there was still a decrease. I guess many are overseas with their parents on holiday. I rushed to Chinese service with my gf, and we felt that the Chinese service was powerful. I think there was a lot of ministry done at the altar for the filling of the Holy Spirit, so we saw a lot of people slain (fallen under the power of the Holy Spirit). I realized that I quite like the Chinese service. I could catch everything that was preached, and translate it to English when I took notes. Heh.

After service, we went to Bedok Food Centre opposite Bedok Camp to eat. Junhao's parents were changing their popiah stall to a prawn noodles stall, so we went to try out the popiah for the last time, and it was excellent. They added a secret ingredient which they make themselves which is crispy and all, and the whole popiah tastes good. And this is coming from a person who doesn't really like to eat popiah. I had char kway teow, which is far from the standards of those at the hawker centre near my place, so the popiah was the best dish of lunch.

My gf went home with me to wait for my blood brudders to arrive. They were coming over to play Xbox 360 for a while before we all go for a dinner to celebrate my birthday. This year the Birthday Gift is resurrected, and I received a wireless controller for my console as a present; in recent years, we just gave the birthday boy hard cash, not even in an ang pow. That came in handy as we spent quite some time playing Gears of War in cooperative mode. Before we left for dinner, they raided my cupboard and took away many anime titles, movies, Xbox game and controller. I guess I would see those the next birthday, as usual.

We went to New York, New York for dinner, and it was my idea. I recommended the place because it is fairly easy to get a big enough place for many people, and the food is excellent. The dessert is only so-so though, but the main courses are all good, as far as I have tried. After a satisfying dinner, we headed over to Menotti at Raffles City for dessert, on Yvonne's repeatedly insistent suggestion. The tiramisu was as good as she claimed, but for those of us who tried the ice cream (gelato), it was a letdown. Every flavour is either extremely, intolerably sweet or sour (I ordered lemon). The ambience is nice, and feels like a classy pub, almost. If I go again, I guess I'll only eat the pastry.

Mon 18 Dec

It's my birthday today! I went to Ikea Tampines with my gf to eat lunch there and to check out the place. The food at the Ikea Cafe is good, but the best thing is that there are two lanes here to queue, and double the counters, so the congestion is not as bad as the one at Queensway. Of course, the place is huge, so there are more seats as well. I think the range of furniture and products is essentially the same as the one at Queensway, but with more space. We wanted to check out Courts as well, but when we boarded the shuttle bus service, it went back straight to Tampines. I still don't know what happened exactly, but next time I'll just walk across the big road if I want to see the place.

In the evening, we met Ruhui and Kok Ang for dinner at the hawker centre near my place. It started pouring cats and dogs while we were eating, and it looked difficult for the two of them to walk home with only an umbrella, so I invited them over to my place to wait for the rain to die down. I introduced Kok Ang to Gears of War, and we played for a long while as the two girls have their private girls' chat. He also raided my cupboard and took back two anime titles. I think my cupboard is just too inviting.






















And this is with a lot of titles taken away already.

I spent the evening packing, because there is going to be a youth camp tomorrow! That will take up three precious days of my holidays, considering how many things are still undone at this point in time due to sheer procrastination.

Mon 19 Dec

I went down to Marine Parade in the early morning. It wasn't a good sign that it had been raining since last evening. I was teamed with two facilitators, both girls, and we did our registration and icebreaking with the kids in our group. Two of my boys were with me, and one is coming tomorrow. We then walked to East Coast near the canal after Macdonald's (quite a distance) to our camp site to pitch our tents. It was drizzling when we were walking, but we went on anyway, praying that the rain would stop. We stood around to eat our lunch in the rain, after pitching our tents fairly quickly, but before we could go on with the games for the day, it started pouring.

We all went back to our tents to hide, and after a long time in there, we saw some water leaking in still. Eventually, after a long time of heavy rain, we evacuated back to Touch Centre, so we headed back again. We had our wet weather games, which was quite fun still, but the most amazing thing was that the morale of the people were high, despite getting drenched. After dinner, we had a sermon session with Ps Adrian Ong, and there were three ministry sessions as his message was broken into three main parts. The presence of the Holy Spirit was very strong in the place. Some people wept, some people were slain, and a couple of campers were undergoing deliverance. After the Lord was done with me, and I stopped weeping, I went around passing tissue to those who were still crying, and my two boys were among those. I felt very relieved, because in recent time, they had not displayed much sign of God touching them, so this was a much needed assurance for myself.

We were told to head back to the camp site when the rain died down a bit, but this time, as we were almost reaching the camp site, it started pouring. The worse thing was that the tent we pitched was flooding already. In the end, the organizing committee managed to secure some of the church rooms opposite Touch Centre, and we headed back again. I was in charge of moving the bags of my group by means of Eric's car, and we were the first back. However, that meant that I helped the other groups' representatives unload as well, so after a while, I was equally drenched as those who walked back.

A funny thing happened when I was using a public phone. I brought my old phone to the camp, and the battery went down to one bar surprisingly quickly, so to conserve its life, I used a coin phone. I put in a 20c coin, called my gf, and when I saw the credit gone to zero, I hung up, and out came a 10c coin. Strange, because such machines indicate that no refund would be given, and I had used up the 20c worth already. I put the coin back in, and called my mum, and when I hung up, a 20c coin came out. So I got to make free phone calls. Heh.

It was overall messy because of the rain, lack of shelter and some miscommunications, but again, amazingly, the morale of the campers were strangely high. I didn't sleep well because I had to attend a briefing first, so by the time I hit my sleeping bag, it was nearly 3, and the boys I slept between gave me surround sound snoring, with one of them elbowing and kicking me in his sleep from time to time.

Tue 20 Dec

Praise God that the rain finally stopped. According to my gf, the rain was phenomenally high, reportedly the highest in 75 years! I was asking God why it happened this way, during the first day of the camp no less. God pointed me to the book of Genesis where He flooded the whole earth to destroy sinful man, but let Noah and his family, as well as two of every animal, survive, and from Noah's descendants, the earth was populated again. God told me that the historical rainfall is a symbol of the cleansing work He is doing in the camp, and that this would be a new beginning for everyone, just as the Great Flood was for mankind. In any case, from a human point of view, the facilitators all noticed that the group members bonded better with each other through the adversity of the rain storm.

In the late morning we did a vertical challenge. The youth network in the church has this 7000 challenge thing, so for the camp, we were targetting to climb 7000 floors. The purpose of this is not for the sake of breaking any records, but rather to achieve something big collectively as a big family, where a single individual or even a single cell group could not easily accomplish. I climbed 14 storeys with my boys to the top of the block to keep track of the kids coming up and down, and amazingly, those in my group covered either 84 or 98 storeys each! After that we had a land relay challenge at East Coast. Each group had one hour to do as many 100m relays as possible. It was tough because the grass was slippery and muddy after the rain, and most were wearing slippers, so in the end, we almost all ran barefoot. I joined in to help as my group was quite small (some members had not arrived yet), and ran about 7 times in total. One boy from the next group raced me, and in taking up the race, I overexerted myself, and my legs ached badly. Old age or lack of exercise, I can't tell. Following that we did a sea challenge where we were doing ball passes half submerged in the sea water. Each group was to do as many chains of ball passes (without the balls dropping in the water, or else the count restarts), and at the end of the day, the campers broke the 7000 mark for all. That in itself was satisfying in that no one really thought it was possible originally.

I treated my boys to dinner at Burger King, which was newly opened along East Coast, and I noticed the introduction of some big, new burgers. I was wondering if it was to rival Carl's Jr. I remembered the time wrongly, so we rushed back by brisk walking to Touch Centre. We actually reached much earlier than many, and those who took a car back were shocked that we were back that fast. There was another session of ministry, and many were filled with the Holy Spirit. Another of my boys had just joined me before dinner, so I told him that he must receive a double portion of ministry since he missed out the action yesterday, and true enough, he was the only one I noticed who was slain twice. Maybe I'm prophetic. Heh.

At midnight, we walked back to East Coast to play the night Cluedo game. It was a murder mystery of sorts, and we had to interview many story characters to find out who the murderer was, the time and venue, and how it happened. The facilitators who acted as the story characters were amusingly good, and they were really role-playing very well, especially those who acted as gang members. We played till about 3.30 am in the morning before heading back, and thank God the heavy rain came only after we reached the rooms. There was a finale where they acted out the final scene and showed the murder, and it was to parallel the story of Jesus where he was betrayed by Judas. We ended the night (or morning?) at 5 am, and slept till 8 am.

Thu 21 Dec

After packing up, we headed back to Touch Centre chapel to end off the camp. We wrote encouragement cards, took a lot of photos, had worship, debrief and all, and called it a day at somewhere around 2 pm. I went home, had lunch, and my gf came to keep me company for the day, and brought me excellent chocolate muffins that she baked.

Fri 22 Dec

I went to the dentist, and brought my gf along. She needed some consultation, and seeing that my dentist was nice and professional, I recommended her. I did my routine cleaning, and thank God I had no cavities at all! I think this is the first time it happened; every time I went for cleaning, there were always some discovered cavities. My gf decided to let my dentist follow up after visiting him and seeing his high-tech equipment and pro-ness. Heh.

We went to Sakae Sushi at Citilink for lunch, and to use up my vouchers from Starhub. The softshell crab was very crispy today, and I think this was the best I had tried from Sakae so far. The sashimi though tasted as if it was thawed not long ago, so there was an icy feel within the meat, but it was still good. We went window shopping a while, and then I headed home to rest before meeting my graduated students.

My cg 14/04 had a class reunion at the Village, and invited me along. When I went there, I discovered that it took over Marche's venue, had exactly the same system, had exactly the same stalls with some minor changes to the layout, and the exact same prices. It seemed to me that they had only renamed the restaurant. Surprisingly, none of them changed drastically, and even the girls still seemed the same. I think the changes in appearance will kick in when they reach second year, and somehow attain awareness of their image or vanity. It was great catching up with them, and I found it thoughtful that they invited me and their civics tutor along. One of them was considering whether to join teaching, and asked me about what I enjoy about teaching. I guess the answer is exactly what happened tonight - to be remembered by my students even after graduation that they would want to catch up and meet up with me. This alone says a lot about the relationship built while they were taught by me.

Fri 15 Dec

I went down to Suntec to collect my repaired phone. Sigh. 10 days old already waste my time to travel to and fro to get it fixed. I took my time and went window-shopping by myself. There were many little things that looked affordable and attractive, but I just couldn't bring myself to splurge.

I finally got down to start on some school-related work after a long hiatus. The bug of procrastination got me, and it got me for quite a long time, compared to previous holidays where I still can prevent myself from relaxing too much. I think it is a lethal combination of Xbox 360 and a backlock of anime titles. Fortunately, I managed to refrain from signing up for beta testing of some online role-playing game, else I would absolutely squander the time away.

Sat 16 Dec

It's Magic of Love again. I met my boys and the friends they brought, and two of my current students from my civics class. I have been watching it almost every year so far since its inception, and this year's show had some modifications which made it visually more spectacular. Some of the illusions really were amazing, but after a few years of watching, I think I finally saw through a couple of illusions. Maybe in years to come, I'd figure out how the magicians manage to switch positions and locations so swiftly. It's a shame the rest of the class couldn't make it to the show.

In the evening, my gf presented to me my birthday present - a Braun electric shaver! She also threw in a Christian book which was very interesting, so much so that I had ideas for a big new article to add to my Christian website. Hmm...holidays are always a time where I get a whole truckload of ideas of things I want to do; if I can manage to do even half of them, I think I would have accomplished a lot already. Back to the shaver. It's lean, cool, and it works really well. I haven't gotten such a clean shave for a long time, so it looks like my Gilette Mach 3 is going to take a backseat for quite a while, and become my shaver for my spare toiletries pack for camps/chalets/trips.

After a grand total of 9 days, my N73 decided to give me problems. Actually, on the second day after purchase, the screen already had problems. The bottom two-thirds of the screen became a bizarre blend of colours and lines that day, but after switching off the phone and restarting it, it worked fine.

Until today. The same problem reappeared, but unlike the previous time, it did not go away no matter how many times I restarted it. In the end, I went down to the Nokia Service Centre at Suntec City to get it looked at. It turned out that there was indeed something wrong with the screen, and the technician replaced it. Not a good sign at all. I pray hard that it will not turn out to be like my gf's previous Sony Ericsson which got her to the service centre 5 times in less than 10 months.

God, bless the phone. Please? There's a bible installed in it leh, so it's a holy phone... Amen.

Mon 11 Dec

I finished an anime series Innocent Venus. It is a short 12-parter, but it is quite fascinating. Despite the almost cheesy sounding name, the storyline involves genetic engineering and mecha. Although there are only 12 episodes, the story runs smoothly, and there is a slight mystery unveiling in the background as to what is going on. There is also politics and backstabbing thrown in, and lots of action of big robots fighting one another. The story revolves around a young girl Sana, codenamed Venus, whose background slowly unfolds till the last episode, and we finally get the big picture, although one can guess most of what is going on. An entertaining short anime.

Now I'm onto a new series Blood+, which is going to take a while, being 50 episodes long.

Tue 12 Dec

I went down to Sim Lim square today to top up my DVD recordables, and bought a laser mouse (it is really precise), a USB hub (about time I did), and a mousepad with gel wrist support. I left my computer on in the midst of downloading, but switched off the monitor. In the late evening, Huijun called me to ask me to look up some information for her on the web. When I switched on the monitor, I realized that there was no connection. After troubleshooting, I found that the entire device seems to be missing. I thought the driver was missing so I used my school laptop to connect to the internet and download an updated driver, but it didn't work. The error was that the device could not start up, so that was that. My network card died.

Fortunately, I have so many things to do that do not require the internet so I didn't suffer from withdrawal symptoms. Haha.

Wed 13 Dec

My gf actually has a spare router and adapter at home. They came free when she signed up for Maxonline, but since she has only one computer, she didn't set it up. So I tried setting up the wireless router at my house. After some trouble at first, I managed to set up the whole thing. The dumb thing was that to configure the router, the computer needs an active connection to the internet. Duh. It's precisely because I had problems connecting to the internet. Fortunately, my school laptop was lying around, so it saved the day again. Now I'm running on wireless. When I get that free laptop from Starhub, I will reach a new level of multi-tasking! Bwahaha.

Fri 8 Dec

In the evening, I met J to go to Regent Hotel to meet spiritual father Adrian, where he had a meeting, and we drove down to pick the rest of the cell brothers up, and headed to the checkpoint. Going there apparently was pretty fast, and we reached the hotel pretty fast too, thanks to Eric, who seems to be a regular in Johore Bahru. It was a first time for many of us: Adrian's first time driving up, my first time staying in JB (I've only passed through it many times before but had not stopped to explore), and similarly for J.

We stayed at Puteri Pacific Hotel, which was better than we expected. The lounge area itself was big, and the place looked fairly posh. Our rooms were roomy, and the facilities were all there. I think it's a 4 star hotel; I was originally expecting maybe a 3 star hotel.

We then headed off for dinner, which was in itself, a little misadventure. Eric's friend recommended him this place with good seafood Taman Hua Yuan, and gave him directions too. However, following the directions did not get us there, so we stopped and asked a pedestrian for directions. She apparently had not heard of that name, but gave us directions when we said it's a big seafood place. When we reached where she described, it was not what we were looking for, and we then realized that 'Taman' seems to mean 'garden' (hua yuan in mandarin hanyu pinyin), so we felt quite dumb to ask a local for directions to 'garden garden'. Anyway, we decided to eat there, and we paid about ten bucks SGD per person, eating a black pepper crab, chilli crab, kailan, kang kong, fu yong egg, sweet and sour pork, and a plate of their signature bee hoon dish. And tons of rice. The crab meat was superbly sweet, and we had a satisfying meal.

At night, we played Texas Hold'em poker, which is the same one James Bond was playing in Casino Royale. It was quite exciting actually, and we had a few spectacular face-offs, though none as improbable as the last game Bond had. We used Uno cards as chips, which turned out to be the only function the Uno cards served, unfortunately. Those who lost all the 'money' had to do 45 pushups, as we all start with 45 'bucks' initially. It was fun! I realized that we were all good ol' honest folks who don't bluff, so when we raised the stakes, it's usually something interesting unfolding.

We ended up sleeping near 3 am in the morning.

Sat 9 Dec

I woke up punctually at 6.30 am. I asked J, who shared a room with me, if he wanted to use the toilet first, but he mumbled something barely intelligible and went back to sleep. I woke him up by the time I was done, and went over to the adjoining room to check on Collin and Eric. When we were all done, we called Adrian, only to find that he and Runze were asleep. So we ended up watching Discovery Channel for a good while. Actually I think Discovery Channel really has some interesting documentaries often. Anyway, the breakfast buffet had a pretty good spread, and the food was generally good, and for me, the nasi lemak rice was extremely fragrant and tasty. But to get the breakfast, we had to pay $16 more per head for the room cost, so we ate and ate. I saw evident for myself that my band of brothers generally can eat a lot. Two have rather monstrous appetites, and it is no longer me! I've fallen from great heights ever since the weird viral infection a couple of months ago; somehow, I just don't eat as much as before.

We started our proper agenda after breakfast, which was, more or less, an extended cell group. We had an almost 4-hr session, and then we were about to be chased out of the hotel. Apparently the hotel was fully booked today, so we had to leave by 12 noon, with no exceptions. We then headed down to Jusco, a big shopping mall further away from the city centre. It was big, but relatively limited in terms of shops that interest me. There were a few shops that sold anime, and it was cheap, but the titles were not new to me, and if I bought some titles, it would be to replace the current VCD ones I have, so I decided to save the money. We had lunch at Secret Recipe, and the standard there was pretty much as good as the outlets in Singapore. As expected, the cheesecakes were great! And the price is about 3/5 that of what is available here in Singapore. I think food is definitely more worth it in terms of cost. I was proven wrong in the evening though, but we'll come to that later.

There was a cafe by the name of Kafe Vivo, and the word 'vivo' reminded me of something familiar. Hmm...I had this Mango Delight smoothie, and it was one heck of a tall and big glass. I really couldn't finish it, and it made me go to the gents a few times, I reckon.


















Speaking of toilets, I was sprayed by the out-of-order urinal behind me when I was in one. The place where you press the button to flush was missing, and the water came out from that gap. I had a wet back when I went to the cinema. At least it didn't come from inside the urinal...

We went to watch The Host in the cinema there. This was the only decent movie which none of us had watched yet. I actually wanted to catch it in Singapore when it was screening, but somehow it got indefinitely postponed. The movie itself was quite engaging, especially considering we were six tired men who lacked sleep. It wasn't spectacular, but it wasn't bad either. I think there was an over-reliance on sound and sudden shock to thrill, especially when the cinema's sound system was abnormally loud. Upon hindsight, I think the movie had an environmental message, which was obvious, but more importantly, it seemed like a satire that critiques government, agencies and media. I can't pinpoint it, but that is a gut-feel impression I have.

Anyway, the mall reminded me a bit of Vivocity in terms of shape, but I think the latter had more extensions out from the basic ellipse shape. Here's a shot of it.


















Dinner was yet another misadventure. We stopped by some restaurants by the roadside to eat, but didn't spot anything that looked good or interesting till we chanced upon this newly opened (as of 1 Dec) Japanese buffet restaurant named Sosaku. The price worked out to be about 20 SGD including all the pluses, and we gave it a shot. At first, the food was promising. The tempura was quite good, teriyaki grilled stuff was good too. We also ordered three plates of each kind of sashimi (8 types), and then something like this came (I forgot to capture the first plate, and this was the second plate, minus the salmon...more on that soon).

















Note that each piece of fish/squid/octopus is approximately half the size of what you would get from, say, Sakae Sushi (the photo obviously did not capture the scale well). So I asked the waitress if the other two portions were coming, and she replied that this plate had all three portions.

...

Our rating of the place dropped one big notch down. Right away, we asked for another plate of 3 portions of all sashimi. After eating a while more, we asked for 20 plates of salmon sashimi and 10 plates of swordfish. We were all big eaters, and each slice being so small was not enough for us. The waitress later came back to us and told us that salmon was sold out, and they had none. Our rating plunged rock bottom. How can a self-respecting Japanese ala carte buffet place run out of salmon, one of the more popular choices? Worse still, when we probed later, it turned out that they did have salmon, but they haven't thawed the meat yet, and it wouldn't be in time. Sigh. I decided to rename the restaurant from Sosaku to Sosaki, to be pronounced as So-Sucky.

Returning to Singapore was a nightmare. We took about one and a half hours to get from City Square to clearing the Singapore side of the customs. There was a jam the whole time, and we started off at around 10 pm at night! I don't believe how many Singaporeans actually go to JB, and I don't understand why people would waste time like this just to save money...to me time may be a more precious commodity that money can't buy.

Sun 10 Dec

My gf and I went for nursery duty, and today's duty passed peacefully. We left earlier than planned for, because my gf was a bit unwell, so I sent her home before going home to rest a bit, and in the evening, we went to emcee for our friend, Sharon's wedding! It was at Goodwood Park hotel, and I think the food there is of excellent quality. So was the service. The bride and groom were very generous with the ang pow they gave us. Maybe it was because the bride and my gf were the best of friends, so the money that they gave to each other in the ang pow was probably in direct correlation to the depth of the relationship. I guess, in this sense too, money talks.

Congratulations Michael and Sharon! Have a baby soon! Hmmm, while you're at it, have more, and be patriotic to your country. Heh.

I'm going to Johore Bahru later in the evening with my cell group for a short retreat. Yay, seafood dinner tomorrow!

In the meantime I actually managed to update my Photojournal website with pictures taken at the kelong in Cibu, and Album 2 with pictures of school or with colleagues. I'm almost done with tying up all the loose ends for my website, and then I can concentrate on making a new extension. Bwahaha.

Wed 6 Dec

I spent a long time last night and this morning fiddling with the new phone. While it has many added features, there are some things that I can't do anymore that becomes frustrating. I can't change my sms tone to something from my computer. Or maybe I haven't discovered how to do it yet. Anyway, after transferring a large number of mp3s to my handphone, I realized that the phone reads the mp3s the same way my mp3 player does - not by the file name I gave it, but by the 'author' and 'title' field in the properties section. Hence, I ended up with all sorts of weird names and I specially went to rename everything so that at least in the phone, the songs appear in the order that I want them to, and not have '????' all over the place as singer name or song title. I think sometimes the phone is too smart for its own good.

In the afternoon, I went with my gf to Goodwood Park hotel to meet our friend Sharon, who's getting married this coming Sunday. We are going to be emcees yet again! Haha. So today we went to check out the location, layout, and test the microphones. The ballroom looks very classy actually. After that, Sharon wanted to treat us to dinner, so we headed down to the Heeren to show her the nicer version of Pontian noodles (as compared to the Bedok one), and went for some shopping. I bought a nice shirt from Jean Pierre. The interesting thing was that I tried the shirt on, and was hesitating because of the price, and the manager just threw me a 10% discount when it was a fixed price item. Now that is a generous gesture.

Thu 7 Dec

My gf wanted to look for accessories for the wedding this Sunday, and a new bag, so we headed down to Bugis junction to do some shopping. Along the way, I bought two tops from Natural Project, one of my favourite shops in Bugis Junction. It sells only men's wear, but is usually around $40 for a tee or polo tee. I chanced upon a section of $19.90 tops and went to try some, and ended up buying two. I usually end up buying something when I go to this shop. I bought another shirt from Vintage at The Edge upstairs as well. The ironic thing is that my three tops today is only slightly more expensive than the one shirt yesterday. Hmm.

In the evening, we met my blood brudder Junzhong and his girlfriend Yvonne for dinner. On my suggestion, we headed down to Vivocity, and where else did we have dinner but Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant! After two failed attempts to eat there when it was yet to open, I still did not give up. Bwahaha. I noted that the ones in KL are called Kim Gary & Beyond Restaurant, so I wonder what happened to 'Beyond' when it opened here? Anyway, the food is quite good, although somehow the impression is that the KL one is better. The price is quite cheap, and I was right - it is the same price as the KL menu, but in SGD instead, but for a restaurant in Vivocity, having a set dinner for $7.90 to me is quite a good price. There's also only service charge and no GST. Here are some shots of the food.






















I ordered rice with fried egg and minced beef (which had too much garlic in it for my taste), and it comes with cream soup and a drink. I chose iced Horlicks, which was super thick and yummy.


















My gf ordered pork chop with rice, and the borsch soup that comes with it tastes like thicker version of minestrone, with a heavier tomato taste. The drink is some strawberry with aloe vera thing.






















For dessert we had apple snow mountain. I wanted to try a different flavour because we had the mango snow mountain in KL already. The greenish colouration is due to apple juice and pulp, and at the bottom there are black jelly cubes, corn and red beans. Not bad, but I think mango would have been a better choice. Or watermelon.

The service though wasn't that great. The waiter for our table missed out one order, and even after rectifying the situation, the spaghetti took more than 15 min to come. Also, because of that mistake, one of the drinks that was supposed to come with the set was billed separately, and strangely enough, the system doesn't allow them to modify the bill, so this waiter came over and paid us cash for the wrong billing, and apparently he will get the drink that comes with the set that was missed. Anyway, the place is currently cash terms only, but I guess it is only temporary. I think I would eat there again if I am in Vivocity, but the food is not as fantastic as what I remember the KL branch to be, so I doubt I'll specially make a trip to Vivocity to eat it.

I finally changed mobile subscriber and got a new phone, but it was an odd process. Originally I had wanted to get a N73, so during Sitex, I bought myself a mini-SD card. However, after much deliberation, I decided that I didn't need all the extra features and in getting the Nokia 5300, I can save myself a total of $268 by using the $200 voucher that Starhub gives for new line sign-ups. Then the issue is that the mini-SD card becomes redundant, because the 5300 uses a micro-SD card. I decided to call up Parisilk and see if I can exchange my mini-SD for a micro-SD and top up the difference in price. If the shop allows it, then I will get the 5300.

I made my way to the shop at Bedok, and upon reaching, I found out that they had run out of stock for the 2 Gigabyte micro-SD. I had forgotten to mention the size, and the guy on the phone forgot to ask me either. He checked the other branches, and told me that he could get it sent down by tomorrow, and he will charge me the Sitex discounted price when I top up the difference. That, to me, was a very generous and thoughtful gesture, which I didn't expect. So I happily headed down to Plaza Singapura's Starhub to sign up for the corporate plan. Anyway, the reasons for changing subscriber are that firstly, M1's plan seems more expensive to me and I could do with more SMS (which is the reason why my bill exceeds the price of the plan) and free incoming calls, and secondly, I think the rewards system of M1 is bad, especially for small-time users like me. The lowest number of points to redeem something decent is 1500, which, with my usage, I cannot hit even in 2 years.

So there I was, waiting to sign up and get my 5300, and then the Starhub guy told me that 5300 is out of stock, and no one knows when the stock is coming again. After some further deliberation, I decided to just go for the N73 as I originally planned, because the voucher expires on 22 Dec, and if the stock doesn't come by then, it would be too late. Also, I still have the option now to keep the mini-SD card; if I change to a micro-SD card tomorrow, and the stock doesn't come in time before the voucher expires, I'll be stuck with a micro-SD card. So after one big full circle, I have returned to N73. Ah well, guess it is meant to be.

I had dinner at Secret Recipe. I can't remember who told me that the food was substandard, which resulted in me avoiding the place till curiosity got the better of me today - the food was quite good actually. I tried their award winning Irish lamb stew and it was really nice. The meat was tender and juicy, and the stew tasted delicious. The mushroom soup tasted very Campbell-ish, but it was at least done well. I had the cheese chocz cheesecake, and it was really tasty. Now that I tried it for myself, I can only conclude that it is better to verify with my own tastebuds before jumping to conclusions.

I finished watching Ergo Proxy. It's another anime that I don't know how to analyze. While it started with seemingly the same premise as Ghost in the Shell, it turned out to be drastically different in content and theme. The anime uses a lot of terms, symbols and imagery borrowed from psychology, literature and more obscure religions and mythologies. There is some mystery regarding the background of the main characters Vincent Law and Real Mayer, and technically everything unravels only in the second last to last episode. I saw through some of the plot points way ahead, but there was still a surprise near the ending. However, there are some episodes where Vincent encounters Proxies, which are powerful creatures, who use mental entrapment to confuse him, and the style of those episodes seem to deviate hugely from the main storyline. The animation itself is quite stark but stylish, but there's a lot of deep dialogue to plough through sometimes, and even then not everything in the plot seems totally coherent. It's one of those plots which I think could do with some refinement to become superb.

I've updated my website a little bit more today, so album 3 is now up to date.

Sun 3 Dec

Today's nursery suffered a shrinkage. I think many parents must have gone on holiday, and took their kids with them. Today, the boys I'm accustomed to sticking to me are not around, and I ended up with two new boys. One was a very obedient kid who listened to instructions (which is rare, I tell you), but he clung to me as if I was his life support or something, till he made friends. The other boy, interesting enough, was Isaac Khong, the grandson of my senior pastor. That boy is energetic and playful, but adorable. A guy, also here on MPC duty, commented that I looked like I was having fun. I guess I am, actually. On the other hand, he has a slightly tortured look on his face sometimes, and I think the whole 10 weeks would pass much faster if one tries to enjoy it.

I went to Sitex...again! Unbelievable but true. I went during lunchtime (that makes it the third time), but oddly enough, I didn't go for the technology; I went to one little corner where there were food stalls. The issue is that at Hall 9, the waiting hall for my church, the food, in my opinion, is too expensive and far from delicious. So is the food at the food court nearby, which leaves only more expensive options or fast food. At Sitex, at least I have a variety of food to choose from at the back. My gf had the Katong Laksa, which tasted like the Worst-Laksa-I-Have-Ever-Eaten from Downtown East, from one of the stalls. I had some Japanese pizza thing which tasted not bad. We had some dim sum which was quite good too, and muah chee, then topped it off with some dessert from Snow Ice.

I went to Sitex...again! This is not a deja vu paragraph, because I went a fourth time to Sitex. I recalled that I wanted to change phone, and I needed a mini-SD card, so why not get it while it is cheaper? That turned out to be a bad move though, because now I'm considering getting the Nokia 5300 instead of N73, which uses a micro-SD card. I went down to Tampines with my gf to check out the mobile phones and packages. Today, Tampines seems less crowded, and I think maybe most of the easterners went down to Sitex already. I underestimated the discounts at Sitex...the N73 was a full $100 cheaper at Sitex. Anyway, I've decided to hold out for a while and see if there are better promotions, and I'll go check if I can exchange my unopened mini-SD card for a micro-SD card and top up the difference.

I've been quite amused by the latest Singnet advertisement, which featured two wrestlers fighting in a ring. The red superhero-lookalike dude, representing Singnet of course, is depicted to be superfast, which the opponent was much more sluggish. It is fascinating that the opponent's costume is green mainly, with some yellow stripes. How much more "subtle" can it get? On the other hand, I saw Starhub's advertisement at Sitex, which featured something about ADSL not being as fast as it claims to be. In the advertisement, a green lobster was racing a red crab, which got thrashed, and ended up in a sandwich. Not very subtle either.

Mon 4 Dec

I've finally started to update my websites with this year's content. I've just updated my portfolio site, and I'll get to the photo albums eventually.

Fri 1 Dec

I headed back to school just to collect my Civil Service Card. I got it replaced because it was chipped, cracked and my photo was worn till I was invisible. The chipping and cracking is probably due to where it is kept in my wallet, so that's my fault. But the photo fading is clearly an issue of quality. Anyway, it was a 1 hr and 10 min ride back and forth just to get the stupid card, and to apply for a day of leave to go for my upcoming cell retreat in Johore Bahru.

Blood brudder Yuren came up to my place a while to try his hand at the Xbox 360, and after that we went to Happy Chef to eat good western food. We spent too much time on both, so we ended up reaching Sitex at the Expo only by 8.15 pm, and the closing time is 9 pm. We went straight for the Starhub booth, because I wanted to find out if there were good deals for recontracting. Originally, I had already planned to recontract and get the laptop offer which I saw on the Starhub website, but I figured Sitex must have some goodies thrown in, so I went to check it out. Indeed there are - I got a $150 rebate on the laptop, so I got an upgraded laptop for $19, and $40 worth of Sakae Sushi vouchers. And some fridge magnets out of the lucky draw. The only thing I couldn't figure out was why would anyone take the Xbox 360 over the laptop? It is clearly worth much less in value, and if it were me, I would go sell the laptop, and that would get me enough cash to get a Xbox 360 plus many games. Hmm.

Sat 2 Dec

I dub today the Curse of Public Transport. I was meeting my gf at Expo station, because we wanted to go have a better look at what is available. Yesterday was too brief a session to see everything, although I settled the most important thing. Heh. When I was at Lavender station and the train arrived, this young man in front of me took his own sweet time getting into an already crowded train, and stopped at the door, even though there was still some space inside. I had half a leg inside the train when the doors closed on me! Out of reflex I withdrew, and wasted the next 7 min of my life waiting for the next train. On hindsight I really wanted to shove the guy in my way into the train. What I couldn't understand was how the train driver could have closed the doors when I was visibly getting onto the train already.

At night when I was coming home from my gf's place after sending her home, I reached Bedok bus interchange at 11.10 pm, and saw that bus number 7 was leaving at 11.20 pm. Walking to the depot, I saw bus 32 leaving. I decided not to run for it, even though 32 gets me home too, but needs an extra 5 to 10 min due to longer distance of the route, knowing that 7 was leaving in 10 min. I got there, and waited, and waited. Up to 11.25 pm there wasn't even a bus number 7 parked in the depot! At 11.28 pm a bus 7 returned, so I thought I'd have to catch it at 11.30 pm, the last bus timing. At 11.30 pm, the bus driver got on that bus, switched off the lights (i.e. off duty), and drove off! By 11.32 pm, there was still no 7 in the depot, and I saw 32 leaving, so I rushed off to catch it. On its way out, I saw the returning 7 at a junction 3 min away from the interchange at 11.35 pm. At that point, I was so frustrated I think I might have been capable of some random act of destruction. Wasted 22 min of my life this time.

Hmm if on average I waste 10 min a day waiting for public transport, I would waste an hour in 6 days, a day in 144 days. That's roughly 2.5 days in a year. My goodness. Every year that passes by, I spent two and a half days at a bus stop or MRT station in absolute unproductive futility. Maybe I really should get a PDA or something and reclaim the lost time doing something more productive. And that is not counting the journey time on the bus or train when I'm alone and merely plugged into music.