The City Never Sleeps

The first line in Chapter 1 of Bridget Jones Diary 2: Edges of Reason
'Hurrah! Hurrah! It's a holi holiday!'

Wait...did i say, holiday? Oh yeah, there's hurrah for me, but there's no holiday for me. Sob sob.

I cheered at myself for buying my first MP3 player at SITEX 2005 yesterday. Head down to SITEX with my bro and a crowd of youngster to look for cool gadgets and toys for big boys like me. Bought myself a Creative Zen Neeon with my salary. Yeah, this time round, i am kissing 2/3 of my salary goodbye for Neeon.

I gotten myself a 5GB Neeon, which is small (looks hip, even though iPod Nano rules the trend) and thick. Nevertheless, it's worth my $330 cos i do not believed in buying a wafer thin MP3 where the battery will die in 2 years time, and it has a capacity of maximum 4GB for similar price.

The 3 interns with PRDS were enjoying their DnD on last Friday nite, except that we are in different places and different programmes lining up for us. While Jeremy and Jan were dancing and drinking away with the 4 department in Furama hotel, i was saying cheers to Ranjan at Hard Rock Cafe, accompanied with the music of Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and Coldplay (no Sting and A-Ha to go by. If not, it would be better, though PSB is one of my favourite)

It was a nice experience to dine in HRC, especially when i am sitting beside the autographs of The Rolling Stones. Food, on the other hand, i would say, it's similar to TGI Friday's and Billy Bombers. The difference lies on the ambience of the place where you dine.

A hot looking lady sitting behind me was chatting away with her bf, and the perfumed diffused from her body reminds me of my lovely trip to KL with Tash, and the dinner with him in TGI Friday's.

Just wonder when's the next time i will be visiting TGI Friday's.

Now Playing: Cozy Prison - A-Ha

Lying in hospital again. This time round, it's an immediate and unexpected situation.

A swell had grown on my butt (and that's what i dreaded most. A man should take care of his asset, preventing the asset from getting harm or whatsoever etc. But it seems that i am cursed with a swell on my butt.) and the doctor told me to go for an immediate operation to perform a drainage. I listened to him and admitted myself into Changi General Hospital. Initially what it seems to be a one day operation has turned into a nightmare.

I have to stay overnight in the hospital.

And after the long and hard to pass waiting of 12 hours in the hospital, i am pushed into the operating theatre at 2.10am to perform the op. After meeting the doctors and nurses on what will be done on me, the hunky doctor put me into sleep by injecting anaesthetic into my hand, saying: 'i am putting you into sleep, baby.'

No pain felt by the time i woke up at 5.30am, after the operation has been performed.

The team that i gave my body to come back to me at 8.15am. Oh, finally had a good look on them. The team consist of 2 hunky doctors, a beautiful nurse who looks like some Kollywood actress and a hot Chinese babe. After tellimg me how to take care of my wound at home, mum and dad came.

Leave the hospital at 1.45pm with Allan Wu in Men's Health (yeah, like his bod on Dec issue of Men's Heath. Told mum to buy it for me at 7-11 in hospital since i came to hospital empty handed.), plenty of pills and a fatigue body.

P.S: During the stay in the hospital, i think of Tash's friend, Paul, who is a doctor in Malacca. Just wonder what does he specialised in .

Oh yeah, no work for the next few days. Just wonder how's Corp Planning is coping with.

Had my dinner at Carl's Jr with Shyam at Marina Sq today. Well, he wanted to try Carl's Jr burgers, so i joined him, cos i want to see what is so good about their Six Dollar Burger.

Jeremy told me to take note of their burger and their value meal, cos the portion is big. Apparently, the Six Dollar Burger (or in fact, all of their burgers) had failed to lived up their name for large portion meal at high price, and Paris Hilton didn't really look that cool and sexy with the standard 6 Buck burger.

I had Double Western Bacon Burger while Shyam had Charboiled Chicken BBQ burger. When comparing the size, Double Western look bigger than Charboiled burger. (Charboiled burger looks like ya average Ramly burger, except that the slice of chix breast is bigger than normal.)
Accompanied with self helped salsa, salsa sauce, ketchup and chilli & self serving drinks, the meal cost me a cool $11. Oh yeah, they offered sides such as criss crossed fries (which i did not had for ages.), chilli cheese fries (take note: it should be beef chilli cheese fries) and fried zucchini (what is zucchini?can someone enlighten me with that?) at a reasonable price. To think that the burger cost that ex...

That Six Dollar burger, in fact, do not cost $6 here. It's abt $4.80, i supposed. 6 Bucks is just a name (At least i feel so, cos the burger don't even look like a 6 Buck burger to me.)

While walking at Suntec City, we just found out that Ben n Jerry's had made their 2 nd step out of the zoo. Yeah, Bridget Jone's new friend had made their arrival at Suntec City. Had choco brownie fudge. Cool, sticky, chewy, crunchy, mouth full of chocolates and their little angels. Sweet and equally sinful...

Mabey the small size Choco Brownie Fudge is sinful enough for me to meet the devil? If that's true, then i should be seeing BJ as the little devil.

'Lift your finger up, good. Now, put it down again.'

'Shou zhi fang xia qu, na qi lai, hao, zai fang xia qu.'

Well, Balsam, the HR supervisor, asked me if i am interested in doing fingerprint scanning for the new punch card system. Since it is great to learn a new skill, why not? I asked myself.

And so i happily agreed, since i can do something related to HR.

Scanning for the employees in PRDS is as simple as ABC. Key in data, scan ya finger, and viola, go and sign ya name. Done.

Yeah, that's easy rite? Yes to people who are taking the finger scanning and people who do the finger scanning for them, but no to none other than my CP colleague, Ranjan.

He had to took some pictures to be mailed to the main coy in Japan, so that those Japs has something to talk abt. (I am not too sure what are they going to talk about, neither am i interested in what they do.) And all pics must be approved by my boss before it can be mailed to Japan. However, most of the pic features the finger print scanning done with floor placed on cardboards (this is to prevent the assembly hall, the place where finger print scanning were performed, to be filled with dirt from the front line factory. U can imagine. That's a factory filled with metals, heat, grease and smoke, not chocolate river, chocolate mushrooms that grows whenever they want and the Oompas Loompas.) and the Japs are pretty particular about it. Well, what can you expect from the people up there?

Some Jap clients visited our factory today and brought us honey butter cakes from Japan. Ms Okumura, the lovely secretary, sliced the cake and distributed among the whole department. As i was printing my stuff near the printer, i left my desk for a short while...

Without realising that Ms Okumura is waiting for me with her box of cakes. OMG. I made her waited for seconds...just to finish my stuff. Initially, i thought that she would served Mr Tan, the head of Accounting Dept first, where he just sit beside my desk. :P Well, Tan had a good laugh, and told me to finish up my cake before my boss comes out. Hehe.

Oh yeah, the cake is buttery, and very sweet too. =)

'Chine' means China in French. Think IndoChine.

The 3 days holiday break is an encounter with Chinese and China. No, i didn't fly off to China to have my holiday (cos moolah and time explains everything), but more rather, it's Chinese and China, much more nearer at home.

The Hands
The story featured in Eros, the manage-a-trois movie featured Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michaelangelo Antonioni in their presentation of sex. They worked around with it, and Wong made the best out of it, while Antonioni leaves us a big question mark.

Gong Li and Chang Chen in a cheongsam and a suit. She is a hooker while he is a tailor apprentice. He went up to her place to take measurements and she gave him a good hand job. From then onwards, he devoted his life in making the best cheongsam for her. Until when he become famous, and she met her downfall, he realised that he still loves her, even when she is no longer as glorious as her heydays.

Once again, i am brought into the mood for the love of the Wong's cheongsam beauties in the 60's. Cindy once told me that cheongsam makes a woman look good. Even if she do not have any figure, a cheongsam would make her a beauty.

No wonder so many female actress are dying for a role in Wong's film. Apart from making themselves look beautiful, they can bring home those cheongsams after the shooting has come to an end.

Just couldn't really explain why i love those actress in Wong's film, if the film surrounds HongKong in the 60's. Actress in cheongsam, those beehive hairstyle, and the sexy figure. It's hard to explain why i love Maggie Cheung, Gong Li and Zhang ZiYi in cheongsams so much. You gotta see it for yourself.

Other 3 reasons why i love Wong's film surrounding the 60's so much: 1)The guys are forever weaing the same stuff. Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Chang Chen donned a suit and a tie, making themselves look like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in MIB, minus the sunglasses, those latest gadgets and aliens. All they had with themselves are pens and cigarettes. 2) Those old songs played in the film. From Nat King Cole to Zhou Xuan and Bai Guang, those good old songs turns the film into a artpiece, rather than a bubble gum movie. 3) Wong seems to have a penchant of including hotels and motels in his film surrounding the 60's. In The Mood For Love let us see how Leung and Cheung wrote swordfighting novels in a hotel room named 2046. Motel is a place for 1) Leung on a journey of self discovery with Faye Wong and Zhang in 2046, 2) let Gong Li to live through her last days in The Hands. Oh yeah, it rains everytime in the 3 films.

Lao Beijing Eatery, Plaza Singapura
Promised my mum that i would bring her for xiao long bao (steamed meat dumplings) in Din Tai Fung. But after calculating the budget, i decided to give Lao Beijing eatery at PS a try.

Had High-Tea buffet at 3pm, and we were served with loads of small savoury pastries. Note: what you see on the buffet table are pretty limited. Thus, if you want to have those featured in the menu, but not served on the table, you need to order them from the waiter and waitress.

The decoration: old traditional Beijing teahouse furniture, crockery, plates, with a touch of modern tiles and lightnings. A fresh pot of jasmine tea awaits us, and after settled down, we had our appetizers (Garlic pork, vegetarian goose, chilli cucumber, braised shitake mushroom and picked veggie.) and main course (pan fried meat buns, chives dumplings, Beijing fried noodles, fried rice). The rest of the main course has to be ordered from the waitress. And in the end, we had: pan fried pork dumplings, steamed meat dumplings (a yum yum! 8 pcs fresh from the steam basket. juicy meat in piping hot steamer, and the lovely juice ooze out the moment you tear a hole on the skin.), onion pancakes (a letdown. too much flour has been used.), meat sauce noodles (aka Zha Jiang Mian. Noodles are nice, but the serving of sauce could be improved.), dan dan mian, special fried pancake, fried rice (a real disappointment) Oh yeah, did i mentioned fried rice?

Ai Shanghai (Love Shanghai), OG Orchard
In China, Beijing and Shanghai are miles apart. In Singapore, the distance between Shanghai and Beijing has been shortened to a distance of 1 MRT station. If you don't get what i mean, mabey Ai Shanghai can explain what is this about.

Ai Shanghai is a fashion botique located at L1 of OG Orchard. It is a small corner where fashion and household decorations surrounds the old Shanghai design. Over here, you can find the infusion of cheongsam and blouse, where a cheongsam does not look like a cheongsam, a blouse do not look like a blouse.

The clothes does not really grabbed much of my attention. More rather, it's the household decorations that fancys me. Those old fashioned chest and mini wooden pillows doubled up as a chest reminds me of the box placed on Liliy Lim's table in her TP staff room. The box, which features drawings of ancient beauties, has something different when you opened up the box. It contains a set of mini mahjongs, mirrors, abacus and Chinese lots (those lots used in Chinese temples, where it contains several sticks with numbers written on it. You prayed and shaked the container full of sticks in front of the goddess, and when the number falls out, it tells you your fortune.)

Hmm...those are not really special, except the mini mahjong and Chinese lots. What draws my attention are the inner designs of the containers. It feautres pictures, or more rather, look like papers from books pasted onto it. Those so called 'papers' are books on Stories of Filial Piety, or your Chinese calender that predicts what will happened for the next 365 days.

It's cool to own them, but it would be even more fun to enjoy those little toys.