Kawaii Nihon!

Kawaii (かわいい) Nihon!! Japan is a fantastic place to go to if you love the food and culture. My first trip to Japan and to Tokyo Disneyland and Osaka Universal studio was awesome. It seems to have brought back the child in me as I grabbed the opportunity to take a photo with one of my favourite character Popeye. Also, did anybody mentioned that the food and clothes in Japan were way too EXPENSIVE-NEH!!!


Another thing I love about food in Japan is that their Macdonald serves the one and only Ebi-fillet burger. This burger is only found in Japan's Macdonald and no where else.I had my fill of Ebi-fillet burger for 2 days in a row and it was so OISHII. Hmm...I can still feel the ebi sauce lingering in my mouth....

FeiMao and I went to the Toyota car show room and we were blown away by all their latest car concepts. It was truly an eye opener for him being a car lover.


Some photos for memories:

I remembered you, do you?

I salute Facebook and the guys who invented it! I really think they deserved a place in the history of geniuses who invented this great piece of work.

I happened to bump into the profiles of primary school buddies, secondary school friends, college mates, pubbing kakis, bus mates (yes, bus mates!) and friends whom I have not seen for ages. I am talking about friends whom we have lost touch since the age of 12??!! Yes, it's really amazing to see how everybody has grown. I could hardly recognize their pictures, but somehow, you can sense it's that person all right.

Some people might disagree that Facebook is just a flash in the pan and very soon the fickle minded 17-25 year old market will jump on the next thing that comes along. Just a novelty?? Well, I don't really care if this were to happen. I am just glad to have found the friends whom I have lost touch with and I really hope to meet up with them again.

Important Memo - Must Read!

Today, I received an IMPORTANT memo from a colleague and decided to share with all. Thanks Kristy for sharing this IMPORTANT memo with us. It sure brightens up my day.

-----------------------------------
An important Memo to all employees

In order to assure the highest levels of quality work and productivity from our employees, it will be our policy to keep all employees well trained through our program of SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING? (S.H.I.T.)

We are trying to give our employees more S.H.I.T. than anyone else. If you feel that you do not receive your share of S.H.I.T., please see your supervisor. You will be immediately placed at the top of the S.H.I.T. list , and our supervisors are especially skilled at seeing you get all the S.H.I.T. you can handle.
Employees who don't take their S.H.I.T. seriously will be placed in DEPARTMENTAL EMPLOYEE EVALUATION PROGRAMS (D.E.E.P.S.H.I.T.) Those who fail to take D.E.E.P. S.H.I.T seriously will have to go to EMPLOYEE ATTITUDE TRAINING (E.A.T.S.H.I.T .)

Since our supervisors took S.H.I.T before they were promoted, they don't have to take S.H.I.T anymore, and are all full of S.H.I.T already.
If you are full of S.H.I.T, you may be interested in a job teaching others. We can add your name to our BASIC UNDERSTANDING LEADERSHIP LIST (B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T).
Thank you,

BOSS IN GENERAL, SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING
(B.I.G.S.H.I.T)

P.S. Now send this S.H.I.T to 5 people who need S.H.I.T in their life, just not the same person who sent you this S.H.I.T They have already had their fill of S.H.I.T

Two Nuns

There were two nuns..

One of them was known as Sister Mathematical (SM),and the other one was known as Sister Logical (SL).

It is getting dark and they are still far away from the convent.

SM: Have you noticed that a man has been following us for
the past thirty-eight and a half minutes? I wonder what he wants.

SL: It's logical. He wants to rape us.

SM: Oh, no! At this rate he will reach us in 15 minutes
at the most! What can we do?

SL: The only logical thing to do of course is to walk faster.

SM: It's not working.

SL: Of course it's not working. The man did the only
logical thing. He started to walk faster, too.

SM : So, what shall we do? At this rate he will reach us in one minute.

SL: The only logical thing we can do is split. You go that way and I'll
go this way. He cannot follow us both.

So the man decided to follow Sister Logical.

Sister Mathematical arrives at the convent and is worried about what has happened to Sister Logical.

Then Sister Logical arrives.

SM: Sister Logical! Thank God you are here! Tell me what happened!

SL: The only logical thing happened. The man couldn't follow us both, so he followed me

SM : Yes, yes! But what happened then?

SL: The only logical thing happened. I started to run as fast as I could and he started to run as fast as he could.

SM : And?

SL : The only logical thing happened. He reached me.

SM : Oh, dear! What did you do?

SL : The only logical thing to do. I lifted my dress up.

SM : Oh, Sister! What did the man do?

SL: The only logical thing to do. He pulled down his pants.

SM: Oh, no! What happened then?

SL : Isn't it logical, Sister? A nun with her dress up can run faster
than a man with his pants down.

And for those of you (us) who thought it would be dirty, well ...

An encounter with 3 Ah Peks...

Yesterday night, I was dining at Vino Vino wine bar with fatcat at Mohammed Sultan Road and happened to overhear a conversation coming from 3 middle aged men.

Okay, I sweared that I was not eavesdropping because going by the volume of their conversation, they were practically the loudest table in the restuarant.

What made me interested in their conversation was that these 3 Ah Peks were literally trying to fake an accent, telling their Bangkok adventures and requesting that the chef of the restaurant (there was a new chef by the name of Sonia) served their table. Some interesting and disturbing remarks made by one particular Ah Pek caught my attention and i directly quote what he has said:

Ah Pek 1 said to the waiter:
- 'We are not Singaporeans. We are International. Tell Sonia (the chef) that she is cooking for Internationals like us.We don't want to be served by Singaporeans.'

Ah Pek 1 telling the waitress:
- 'My wife told me I am looking old. So you won't be seeing me here for the next few months as I will be in Bangkok. I am going for plastic surgery.'

and

- 'You know in Thailand, the 'girls' look so pretty that you can't tell if they are boys at all. The moment you touched their hands, you can feel the muscles and you know they are boys.'

Ah Pek 1 raising his voice at the waiter:
- 'Bring the food that we have ordered out.' (when the waiter did not hear what he said, he raised his voice again and repeated).

All this while, i was listening and enjoying my food and was totally digusted by these 3 Ah Peks sitting just one table away from me. I;m not saying that they are bad, but just based on their conversation, I can roughly seized them up and make out the kind of people they are. I would like to say to Ah Pek 1, if you are not proud to be a Singaporean, then don't stay in Singapore and you don't deserve to be serve by Singaporeans at all.

Bad experience with Tour Agency

I had a bad experience with one of the tour agencies in town - ASAHolidays. I had initially booked my tour package to Europe with fatcat somewhere in early October this year. The tour staff who made our bookings verbally confirmed that the tour was set to go on Nov 19 (the date of our tour) and informed that he will update us on the status nearer the date.

We waited till this week (Nov 5) and yet receive no calls from ASA. So, I called their mainline and what was horrendous was that I was put through a chain of call-waiting, silence, phone cutting off and impatient staff who ultimately broke the bad news that there was not enough people to go on this particular date and we had the choice of either (a) pushing it to a further date (29 Nov) or (b) request for a full refund. All this time, I was wondering don't they even have the slightest courtesy to call us and update us on the status instead of having us to call them and being put on call-waiting and all kinds of nonsense?

So, in the end, I decided why should we be throwing our money to ASAholidays when their customer service sucks bad time. Honestly for me, I have never experienced such bad services with other travel services and this was the first and last time I will be using ASAHolidays for any travel plans.

The hilarious part was when I requested for a full refund on my booking, the guy who was supposed to send us the authorization form for filling up left out the attachment in his email and all we got what his email (without attachement and directly quoted from his email) 'Please kindly FEEL up the form and send it back asap please.'

Oh my god!!! I was really in stitches when I read the email and was tempted to reply 'How do you expect me to FEEL up the form when I can't even see the form?'Well, at least...something to laugh it off despite not being able to get on my desired tour.

Witness the undying spirit of Community Power.

Community Technology Update 2007 kicked off to an awesome start on Nov 3. A combined user group efforts with an army of internal and external Microsoft experts brought the house down on that Saturday. Wohoo! The impact that the community has created was vavavooom - People came down precisely because they were thirsty for knowledge and eager to absorb the latest information and Microsoft technologies. I was glad to be part of this event and to witness the passion and spirit of the community!

Somber day for the running community

Another sad day in the running community as Elite distance runner Ryan Shay collapsed and died on Saturday (Nov 3) during the U.S. men's marathon Olympic trials. He was only 28 years old and at his running peak.

Although he was born with an enlarged heart at age 14, doctors gave him the clear and he has since ran his way to fame.

It's kind of disturbing to read such stories of elite long distance runners collapsing and kicking the bucket after finishing a marathorn. Pushing the body beyond endurance or is it just pure coincidence? The vulnerability in human beings is definitely something worth pondering over.

The search for my Hokkien Mee

Eversince I cut down on my carbo (yes, abstain from loading up too much of rice, noodles and fatty stuff) to train for the Singapore Run and Realrun, I had a sudden craving for Hokkien Mee lately. Just for dinner last night, I had a hard time finding a smacking licking good Hokkien Mee stall in Sun Plaza. Sniffing out a good plate of Hokkien mee seems fruitless as I am quite a fussy eater when it comes to my plate of Hokkien mee.

I prefer my Hokkien mee to be cooked in my ways:
a) A mixture of the thin beehoon with the thick beehoon gives more bite
b) The sauce has to be gooey, wet and slurpy (yum yum)
c) Best not to have pork lard although I know that is the ingredient that gives the whole dish it's own characteristics

A dash of lime sauce and some red hot chili and I am all set to gooble down my hokkien mee. I guess I will go in search for my Hokkien Mee tonight again...

Want to hear how you RUN?

Want to hear how you RUN? You must be scratching your head and asking 'How do I hear how I run?' Hmm....well, NIKE is brillant to come up with a Nike+ ready shoes that has been built to cater to this need. All one needs to do is to insert the virtually indestrucible (so they claimed) sensor to your insole and connect the receiver to your iPod Nano (yes, this means you need to go and buy an iPod) and Wala! You can just program it to select the kind of workout you want. It can even store your most recent workout data for future reference! AMAZING!!!

Check out their amazing invention here.

I am really very curious over this Nike+ tool. Do I really want to see how close I am to my target mileage for today or do I want to know how much calories I've burned while I am running? Maybe not - I guess sometimes, running for me is more of a leisure activitiy, just to take my mind off and to enjoy the people and greenery around me. Calories burned, mileage clocked - I think I will pass for now.