after being a moneytree for a while, i finally figured it was time to find ways to make back some dough for myself...or at least try to...

so the latest additions to the parang parangs in my house...

and naturally nothing goes unnoticed in my house by xiaohong.

she was quite taken by the singapore mahjong set. especially bythe four little creatures.

the centipede looks more like a caterpillar which looks like it's fully capable of eating up the cat, mouse and chicken altogether. Cool!

as i struggle to discover a trace of maternity instinct within me - why am i the only one who find all the hankering over baby ryan a little over the top? - i must admit that my cold heart warms up to this picture when i first saw it.

ok lah, he is extremely cute. he is my nephew.

so grandpa went to a better place.
strangely, despite the solemn occasion, what i remembered most strongly from those few days was laughter. everyone laughing over the dai di games, the taoist monks, thh funeral rituals (our family is not even taoist!), the latest antics of baby ryan. of course there were tears but mostly i think the family grew closer that week.

met up with new and old friends that week. realised again that there is much to be missed in singapore. even Straits Times.

babies and radiation

at noon today, i got an email from one of my staff that she's pregnant.
ok so the timing is a little sudden (i went to her wedding 1.5 month back!) but thats not even what shocks me.

apparently everyone else already know of her pregnancy because she was decked out in this little anti-radiation frock here that all mum-to-bes have to wear when they work around computers. its so powerful that a mobile phone under the frock would not work! i did a quick poll around the expat community in the office. no one have heard of this outside of China. did china invent this to protect their precious one child per family? hmm, if this is indeed necessary, i wonder how babies turn out in other countries.

mum was right after all.
some comfort are indeed worth paying for, especially when it's not much at all.
and so for the first time since i arrived here, i actually had someone mopping and ironing while i watch tv.

thanks to strong recommendations from kat and muimui, xiaohong turned up today (half hour late) in her funky short hair and swanky american accent. she kills me with her constant "yeah, yeah"s and "see you"s but i can see she really does take a lot of pride in her work when she rattles off her list of expat clients to me, and how she has her own pair of house slippers and her own mug in their homes. i duly christened the glass she was drinking from hers.

i passed on the keys to my apartment to her. with that, i gave up sole access to my sacred haven. maybe they are right. i need to learn to trust more.

as she gladly accepts my token of trust, she must have sensed my anxiety, of which she totally misread. "dont worry, just let me know when your boyfriend is staying over, i can not show up if you don't want me to (*wink wink*) OR i can just be very quiet - you two won't even know i'm here".

oh god. what have i got myself into?

the force has came and gone...

just came back from a paradise on earth, without gui and i killing each other...
but besides the breathtaking sights, intriguing cultures and colourful history, i must say traveling with so many aunties and uncles is really an experience by itself. it has been quite a while since i went on a prolonged tour package but traveling amongst (low key) millionnaires and billionnaires does have its own peaks. VIP treatment everywhere we go.

gui's dad and mum really crack me up. they are quite a pair. Uncle Gui is nonchalent about most things around him while Auntie Gui has a genuine interest in most lifeforms.

of course, being our zany selves, no trip is complete without secret nicknames for our travel companions. it seems that 9 days is quite long enough to make friends (and laugh at strangers). we have people like Blackie, M, Watergirl, Sleepy, Dowager, Charlie, Holey, Nightmare, Boy Interuppted, Yang Yang, and oh our favourite... Xiao Li Fei Dao Excuse Me.

breakfast conversation with monster was quite funny.

monster: indians have great survival skills in general. you'll see them in almost every country, surviving and doing well mostly.
me: ya, like cockroaches.
monster: ya, and the chinese eat us.
me: wahahahahahaha.

by the time i was done laughing, all the other restaurant guests were staring.

the desert is filled with nothingness but yet holds a strange calm about it.

we went wild in the sands. felt like puking at times when the jeep goes up and down the dunes.

the evening was a drag but the drive itself was quite lovely.

short story:

--> started out happy --> got lost, desperate --> saw a plane, help arrives --> dances for joy!

dubai is a strange land.
the skies here have no clouds.
we are in the middle of the desert and yet people go skiing.
they have plenty of fancy buildings and huge shopping malls but still continue to build new and bigger ones.
i see people smoking and drinking in their kandoras.

唱歌是表达快乐，烧饭是传递快乐，跳舞是释放快乐...

唱歌，烧饭，跳舞，

也许，生活就应该这么简单。

monster came to paint the town red again.
only this time, the result is hilarious.

there are 3 things that were the main residue from this trip:
- glamour bar
- concussed in the loo
- longs and shorts of car ownership

needless to say, some details are best kept between the two of us.

someone puked over the side of the cab, while in the cab.
someone fed the plants in the flowerbed in the middle of the night.
someone spent the night sleeping in the loo.
someone was making rude jokes about how all cars in China should be mercedes and bmws.

some postable pictures:







looking glamourous @the glamour bar





posing with some statues in the middle of the night.

folks were in town for 5 days last week.
couldn't get my mum to stop nagging on how dusty my house is.
she doesn't understand it's not me, its the air here in SH. :\
one morning i awoke to see my dad with a mop and bucket.
he has been ordered to help clean my window ledges while my mum made breakfast.
i was truly touched while being angry at their obstinacy at the same.

went to zhouzhuang with them on saturday. i must say the place is quite decent.
yes, it's very commercialized and stuff but it does have its charm.
went to the new xiangyang market on sunday. finally found a decent winter jacket for mum plus a matching one for dad. beat that! she cracked me up when she tried on a dark green suit and announced that she looked like a certain chairman mao. wahaha.

it's probably the first time in the past year i've been here that i feel like swearing at someone.
now i know who the fortuneteller was talking about when she said there is a 小人 in the office.
dammit! it's actually possible for people not to like me.
*#&$)(#*$$#

hmmm... but i wonder if the rest of her predictions would come true.
libra seems promising. fingers crossed.

according to P&G, there are just 2 moments of truth that matter.
first moment of truth is when the consumer stands in front of the shelves, thinking which product to pick up; the second moment is when the consumer actually uses the product. that's it. everything before and after is hype but for the two moments of truth.

in golf, there's only 1 moment of truth. the point where the club meets the ball. that's it. everything before and after doesn't matter. just that 1 moment. master that moment, and your game should be fine.

set off colourful and loud firecrackers on the last day of CNY with Wolfie & gang.
not before a pulsating game of mahjong where i went from nearly 500 down to 400 over in a quick reversal of fortune in the last 3 games. :)
i'm convinced there is really something to good and bad fengshui.

Moon asked if Shanghai is a good place to live.
as usual, i'm quite pleased with the flow of my inspired reply, which i shall reproduce for your reading pleasure:

[ymchan]: fren, look on the bright side. it doesn't matter even if u don't like SH. u have to still come. Rob wants to come, and i am here. how bad can that be?
[Moon]: did u hv a chance to check out SH before ur posting?
[ymchan]: for 2 days. anyway it's like gg for a job interview. u won't really know until u r in.
[Moon]: hmm, alright. is it similar to SP?
[ymchan]: its the same and different in a lot of ways. just think abt London to you. its the same.
[Moon]: i like london. i didn't realise how quiet things are here.
on my way to work, there was no sound other than traffic.
[ymchan]: i think SH is big enough to be as quiet or as loud as you want. you have your choice. which, if you really think about it, is what we love about living elsewhere other than singapore. it doesn't matter where. so long as the place's big enough for u to have a choice to the kind of life u want.
[Moon]: true. but i thot SH is also q restrictive, after all, its still a communist country
[ymchan]: Moon. this place has no religion. no customs. no traditions. that must be the greatest misconception ever...they can eat chewing gums and set off firecrackers here.
[Moon]: haha

was back in Singapore for the CNY break.
had a crazy week of visiting and mahjong.
surprisingly golf took a backseat.

think China changed me somehow.
i much rather take cabs everywhere and have no qualms about shopping alone.
hmm...

good to catch up with the gang again. Moon and the girls.
didn't feel like i've been away.

Ryan is cute. I only wish he doesn't cry so much.

been working harder than i had bargained for over the past weeks.
can't wait for CNY to come to finally take a long overdue breather.

on a brighter (and more adventurous) note, took my first motorcycle ride here on Wednesday when line 2 broke down during the morning peak and people swarmed out of the train station. just when i was about to despair that i wasn't going to get to work after all, motor tout arrived and held out a helmet invitingly. hmm...

it wasn't so bad after all. ok, so it costs me as much as a normal cab ride and i nearly froze in the winter breeze. still, i managed to hold on to my laptop and weave our way in and out of the heavy morning traffic without much ado. i only wish he would stop yakking nonstop about how wise i am to take his bike and not wait for the evasive cab. he kept turning around to try to have a conversation. i yelled my way through the helmet for him to keep his eyes on the road. arrived in office within 15mins. cool!

the client is upset. my boss is upset that client is upset.
i'm upset my boss is upset that client is upset.

i can't be upset at my people because they have worked their butts off on this.
plus i still need to keep them motivated to finish this off.

what do i do with my upset? offload to someone or digest it somehow?

poor monster was here and got the bulk of it.
but i'm glad he was here. a fren in need is a fren indeed.
element fresh benefited once again.
but this time, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

the festive weeks came and were gone in flash.
seemed to bring with them a big bag of emotions.
yes, there is the usual bouts of home-sickness, guilt and general sense of resignation but also gratitude, satisfaction and even genuine surprise.

work front has been pretty intense. the chinese clients apparently do not accept Xmas and New Year as a valid reason for work to slow. was shuffling between the phone and the laptop on my birthday. it was tiring but not sad. i thought of all those who had to go back to office and work on that weekend to try to finish the project. could we have done things better? hmm...

the CN team dropped a brand new nokia phone into my Xmas stocking, which the SG team has couriered over earlier (along with a handmade banner and Xmas goodies). bless their souls.
makes me wonder again all those birthdays that i missed without showing any appreciation of the person and how they have in their own ways, helped made life easier for me. hmm...