Beijing Olympic 2008

Few months, few weeks to few days before the Olympic begins, disaster and unfortunate events came as if they had been queuing to fall on the same time, to prevent China into fulfilling their Olympic year. Politic, disease, terrorist threat, economic, social problem, even pollution and natural disasters took their turn in significant and big scale. Few had confident that the country will be able to host the Olympic well, many cross their fingers, yet many speculate and sit back to watch whatever next controversy might be happening next.

Today, the Olympic has come to the end. Despite all the controversy and discouragement that China faces, it manages to pull out a sensational Olympic that makes Asia proud. They certainly put their weight, their resources and effort into making it a successful event.

To salute all the athlete who scarification might be beyond imagination, with the warm fulfilling heart watching with pride as they make their national anthem echoing in the stadium, Olympic should always be an event where, if all else fail, be the one events all nations celebrate and gather with peace, spirit, pride and patriotism to be part of their country and part of the world.

It should never be tainted with politic, war, hatred if, ever possible.




I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures.
~Earl Warren

If only Hitler and Mussolini could have a good game of bowls once a week at Geneva, I feel that Europe would not be as troubled as it is.
~R.G. Briscow

Are You Afraid of Death?

Are you afraid of death?
My friend once asked this question. To this, I answered undoubtfully, nahh…
To my surprises, there are quite a number of friends answered yes. Not afraid of the process of the suffering leading to it, but afraid to lose everything, and again, uncommon, not to material, wealth or physical existence but afraid of losing what they had gained all their life; knowledge, memories, experiences.

To me, I never think that far. I’m not afraid because once I kaput, that’s it, that’s all, shouldn’t be a burden to me at all. From a very little time I spent thinking about it, I thought if I kaput, it would be mostly by accident. Don’t know why I thought so, perhaps of my true desire to be able to enjoy life until the end. I don’t want to be weakened or driven down by sickness or to count my days off when I know it would be, I hope not.
Somehow, to put aside all the choooooi of thinking about it, maybe I would prefer if it happens when I do something that I love. Nothing to extreme, at least maybe I would have been more prepared. Maybe.

Not long ago, I never took a second look of something called insurance. Blah blah blah.., that is my impression. A talkative unstoppable annoying fellow trying to talk you into buying something that you don’t need. I’m still right about it, although I detour my impression a little bit. The agent I have now has become one of my friend, seems like not all of them are annoying, and if there are some, they are doing it for the sake of work. No harm, as long as they don’t hard sell or force sell to people who are not able to defend themselves, like senior citizens. Really, sometimes, they are far too nice and can’t persistently say no. I curse all time-share company in this world because at least on two different occasions, they tried to harass my parents. Hard selling shouldn’t exists in any strategic marketing plan at all, it undignified and low. I have learned how to piss these people back, but for many others, it can simply ruin their day or separate them from their hard-earned money outside their willingness. Damn hard-sell. Drop dead.

Back to subject, insurance is maybe not something that I always need. It’s also for something your loved-ones might need. But that depends on what kind. For those claimable after death, it’s obvious. But I have come to realize that I do need those like hospitalization, partial accident and even diving accident insurance to ease the burden of cost in case something unwanted occurs.

For almost every trip that I take, I always buy travel insurance. Putting aside my important datas to be discovered and emergency contact if needed. We even put our DAN tag on our BCDs, those who know, knows.
Kaput, I think I’m still not afraid of my own, but selfishthetically (yes this is not a word) speaking, I fear more for others. Forever, since young, I always afraid. If in car or plane with someone I care about, I can’t even sleep in peace unless I knock myself with pills. I’m almost always scared, always afraid, when I drift into sleep I would always wake up feeling that the car or plane hit something or drop from mid air. Selfishthetically, because, if I’m alone, even if the plane was rocking or the car was swerving, I might not be as scared.

I fear for others safety because I’m damn selfish, I admit. I afraid if I lose them, the suffering of remembering, the memories, the experience, the knowledge of them.
So I think I can relate to what my friend said about fearing of death, in much much more selfish way.



- It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."
- On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done easily as lying down.
- Woody Allen

The one who goes is happier,
Than those he leaves behind.
- Edward Pollock

Sunrise at East Coast

This year National Day, we joined Alan and Dor for quite a different activities. To stay up all night and go around Singapore. Something we found might be interesting and different.

Started at 9.45pm Friday night, we went together to his ex-poly. The facilities there is quite mouth watering; sizeable swimming pool, tennis court, activities halls, karaoke and mahjong room,and their own bowling alleys. It’s explainable because the place closes to student at night and opens itself to members. Those facilities are all new aka they weren’t there during our friend’s study time. I think it would be really good to study with those facilities, but then again, I remember my own uni which I still prefer..! Maybe it was down to earth, but who else in the world have lakes, stadiums, gigantic jogging tracks, trees to climb, grasses to lie down to while listening to music made by the wind and the bamboo? Nahhhhh… that is still the best possible place where I like to spend my study years.

We went around the campus for a while. Around 11pm, we already reached Jurong Point although we still had some time before we caught the midnight show, first in the list of the itinerary . In some point I was wondering why I felt tired even before the program started. No need rocket scientist, I forget that it was actually suppose to be the end of my whole long day. No wonder!

We watched Journey To The Centre of The Earth, too bad, they didn’t show it in 3d here. Otherwise it should be interesting. We just sat back and enjoy the show.

Around 2am, we headed for our destination to Jurong Fishery Farm/Port. It was a market plus the port for new incoming seafood where for wholesale and individual purchases. I must say I prefer to see all those fish in the sea. They have regular fish but there are also others, I hope it’s they were accidentally caught, because there was only a few or even one or two of those; barramundi cod, napoleon wrasse (baby size), guitar shark, hammerhead (baby size). Sniff…

Other than that, it also quite heartbreaking to see hundreds of stingray piled together. I just wanted to imagine seeing the big school of them in the sea and how glorious it would be. If this is how much that people consume every day, times all the fishery in the world, soon the sea would be devastated. There might be more fish there compared to all the fish we had seen diving for four years.

Leaving earlier, we headed to Four Season 24 hours Durian Cafetaria. Although we can find durian all year long in Singapore, this is the seaon. We were half sleepy and dozed off in the bus here and there. But we woke up when we decided to try the king of all durians. We got special rate but even so, it’s still expensive. The durian was called Cat Mountain King, cost us 40 bucks. Earlier in the week, my colleague told me about this approx 50 bucks durian and I was like, what is so good about this durian to fetch the ridiculous price? So now there was the moment of truth.

The durian was very fragrant, the flesh is cream yellow color with very very thin seed. The seeds were all irregular and soft. How do I describe the taste.. it was rich, creamy and delicious. I think it deserves the reputation. Maybe it was us, but this durian behaved well, it didn’t leave our finger stink or left un comfortable taste in the mouth. Wow, I guess it just spoiled the standard of all durian for us, ever.

Leaving the durian café, we had light dimsum and ‘dawn tea’ in Hong Kong restaurant nearby. It was almost dawn around 5 am.

Reaching East Coast Park, we walked to the jetty and set our position there. Highlight of the night, sunrise! The semi dark sky and the warm sea breeze was gorgeous in the morning. Like the instant greeting from the sea, it’s how we missed it. Along the pier and the beach, there were tents and fishing poles. There were many joggers or families or friends enjoying the activities there. Nice, peaceful and romantic, I didn’t know there are actually many people here who enjoy early morning dose of fresh air.

Uncommon here, there were stars on the sky and we were hopeful for the good sunrise.

The sun rose around 6.30, we practically spent around two hours wondering around our spots, no camera for me, so our hubbies busy catching good shots while me and Dor just relaxing on the bench and enjoying the ambience. The sky was then filled with cloud and we only managed to catch the orange gloomy sky. Nevertheless, it was still beautiful sight and we had good time.

Around 7+, we went back to campus and reached home 8+.

We were happy that we managed to stay up through the night, something that we doubtfully thought we would able to do so. Well, we are all pass our sleepless night at school and we are not night owls…ha…

But not to laugh to fast, the sleepless night really took its toll on us.

Dropped to the bed near 9am..we only woke up..errr…. at 5+… in… the… afternoon…

We basically don’t know what happen, the six hours of our lives were disappeared just like that!

Poor Froggy Frog N Fish

Last week, I just had D & D (Dinner & Dance) in my new company. It was time to see people I had never seen before. Problem is, it was done on Monday night, because we have to fit into the schedule of those VVIP. The venue was far far away and there was a serious threat that the allocated busses might not be enough, my new colleague offered to give me a ride. The other two from my department went earlier because they were involved in the committee/program.

It was the first time I rode motorbike in Singapore., I must say it was quite fun to see the town in different light. Old shop houses, ongoing F1 track, and places I had never seen before, and I love it when the wind hit my face, although my eyes were full with rocks. Rocks, yes, it was so big that it needed more than a few blink to get them out, but it didn’t matter.

The D & D itself was quite enjoyable, beside the prizes we got from sponsor, the MC that night was funny and entertaining. This company of mine definitely has a lot of shameless people. I mean, those good sport who were willing to’ perform’ and be fooled on stage. Hell yes, even though they didn’t have their chances on the stage, they did their own backup dancing behind. Maybe that is what animal spirit we got from the contagious working environment. What to say, when I left half an hour to midnight, the party was almost just started for some. I had to be like Cinderella to leave before midnight to catch my train. There is no taxi in my dictionary, I mean, no Singapore taxi in my dictionary, if I can prevent it with all my will. Again, my nice new friend saved the day.

I mentioned about prizes from sponsor, some prizes are quite cool like cold hard cash but to avoid ‘bribery’ it was converted into vouchers, which I’m lucky enough to get some. It was 50% chance but even so, I’m not normally ‘lucky’. But..Wohoo! $100 voucher, it must be the best lucky draw prize I ever had, and it’s considered only consolation prize. Some other prizes are short getaway trip or some electronic devices. I’m not talking about prize for the sake of talking, because of a prize, we killed four lives today. Four!

The story is, one of the prize we sort of wondering what is the wonder is, a fish tank completed with light, water filter and 8 tiny goldfish. It was given to my new colleague because the winner didn’t really fancy it. However, we were told that we can’t keep fish tank which can consume electricity yadda yadda in the office. Another option was to have hamster, but we dismissed it afraid that it would be too extreme, and anyway, I don’t want hamster. Its lifespan is really short, and when they fall sick, vet normally gave up on them because it’s too difficult to do anything major to their tiny body. It was fun but traumatic for me.

Since there is a way out to house the fish, we settled for empty tank. So, we decided on an option., to have a frog tank.

Fish freaks me out when they are dead in fish tank, especially those with significant sizes, other than that, except house lizard, I practically quite okay about everything. And it would be nice to have frog tank with nice habitat for us to share keep-up duties etc. It would sort of become mascot of our department. ;p

In front of my office there is a big pond, we can always see frog there. Everytime I take my husband or like last Saturday, take our friends to visit the zoo, we always dropped by to take macro shots of the frogs etc. We can find things like dragonfly, tortoise there also. Except that, we had other small ponds with a lot of tadpoles and fish. So after lunch, there of us minus the boss went to look for stuff we can put as the start of our Frog tank. We just set up the tank and it looked very good, so we wanted to create the landscape.

We squatted around the ponds in midday sunlight like school children to look for fish and frogs. We found a yellow ladybug, too bad it was dead.

I can’t remember how, one thing led to another, instead of just bringing two tiny water hyacinth, we also brought back a bunch of rocks, two tiny fish and two tiny tadpoles. Off they went into the tank, to cut the long story short, they were dead within three hours, except the water hyacinth and of course the rocks.

I feel really2 bad that it happened, we did think to let the water settled down first, but never did we expect that the chemical of the water could be that deadly, and we drink it every day…!

Fortunately for me, I missed the farewell because I was outside the office. When I got back, the tank was lifeless again.

Bottom of the line, …..sigh…!