Mayday

I am never much of a car fan. The first vehicle that I ever thought of owning was a Renualt Kangoo, a van that I could drive around comfortably with Jackie. 

I never did get around to buying one. Too much of a liability, and I have no excuse. Singapore has excellent public transport. 

Hence Singapore F1 Night Race did not really trigger much of my interest, but I am very proud of Singapore. 

That was until W got Walkabout tickets, wohoo! And Mayday was performing!

Truthfully, I am not exactly a 100% true blue Mayday fan, but I like their songs. I like bands in general. Like Wu Bai (伍佰) and China Blues. Yes, I know some would probably categorise them into the auntie, uncle category, but hey they are good! I used to like Beyond, Gun N' Roses and Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but that was really ages ago when I stayed up late in the night to watch the MTV. 

So yes, I like bands. 

I like bands because it is not solo effort, and especially when it centres around creativity. Having a couple of creative creatures coming together is hell of a tough task.

SO for the first time in many years, I left home at 930pm; in Singapore that is. Malaysia is a different story though it is not that frequent too. Well, I am getting older after all. 

Once I met W, things were FUN! 

I never knew the night race was organised in a fun-fair style. It was more than just hanging around the grand stand trying to catch a glimpse of the racing cars. I tried taking photos of the cars, but no luck, they were too fast, and I was too uninterested. 

The Padang where the concert was held was cool! Plenty of people sitting on the grass, chilling and relaxing with beers, food, and nothing. 

I wanted to squeeze right up to the front of the stage, but as what W said, we were no match to the true blue Mayday fans. 

I never take W as a concert goer; as in doing everything that the performer asks. Man, I was totally wrong! She is one fellow that I am keeping in the list for concerts! She was SO MUCH FUN!!!

I had a great time during the two hours! W was jumping, singing, shouting, waving, everything that I thought that she would not be doing, haha! It was great to have someone shout/sing with, somehow the stress that I was carrying the last couple of days before the concert kind of evaporated too :)

Mayday belted out numbers but they interacted too. I like performers who interact and not sing throughout the concert in their own world. Hmm... a CD would serve pretty much the same purpose in the comfort on my bed. True? No? 

There was this part when Mayday told everyone to activate the handphone's torchlight. It was beautiful from the giant screen, and I am sure it looked lovely from the stage. Well, Mayday said so :)

The concert and Mayday reminded me of my love for the language; Chinese in this instance. Nowadays, mostly due to work, English dominates as my choice of language. But I continue to use Mandarin in most of my social settings, except for a couple of friends whom I used English as the primary language. 

Somehow it saddens me ever so slightly when I see Chinese parents using English as their main mode of language with their kid(s). I am not judging. Every family has their reasons and rights to use whichever language they prefer. I just thought if we are Chinese, it would be good to keep the mother tongue going. It would be great if the kids can speak the parents' dialect too. 

During my time, when technology was so minimal in our life, we learnt Chinese by memorising and writing out the characters again and again. It was that simple and straight forward. Chinese was always the easiest subject. Our parents spoke to us in Chinese and dialect. I only started to speak actively in English from primary three. Believe it or not, and I do not think it was a deliberate choice made by the school, the entire school had Chinese students only, except for an Indian boy who spoke Chinese too. It was only when the school moved and became a government primary school that the race mixture was a lot more balance. I think my siblings and friends did not fare too badly in our mother tongue or English. We speak and write okay English? I think so. 

How did we get to today when Chinese become such a difficult language? Especially with the advancement in technology.

By the time, the concert ended, it was way past the usual public transport service time. But hey, it's Singapore - the trains and buses' services had been extended to cater for the event, and I was home in a jiff - 40 min!

Just Do It!

It is not uncommon that we all yell about things that we would love to do. Lot of people yell about it, but few actually do it. I am guilty of that yelling, and doing it really slowly...

But NC found something she loved, she acted on it fast! She brought Lapalette into Malaysia! I found out Lapalette is a quality brand from Korea. I have to admit I know nothing much about brands and bags, but I do like the quality and material of the bags when I saw them at the soft launch :) 

www.lapalette.com.my MOCK officiated by Yee Min 黃毓敏 (champion of Astro Singing Quest 2009; host), Nicole Chia (left) and Kai Li (middle)

Michaela Tote Bag on the left; suitable for a casual day and office :)

NC has a good partner, her sister :) She has a supportive husband too, plus supportive family and friends. I think for female, having a sister whom one has a strong kinship with is the best thing that can happen :)

From approaching the brand, being selected, having Robinson @ Malaysia carrying it in their store, and finally this soft launch, everything happened swiftly in about six months or less. NC sounded tired during the launch but there is an obvious soft glow of pride too :) Their passion for the brand played an important role in their process of being selected as the franchisee in Malaysia, and their dream is to bring the brand to the rest of the world!

Premium range: Most by Lapalette by Kang Seung Hyun

Keep yourself updated at https://www.facebook.com/lapalettemalaysia

I like the quality and workmanship of the bags; subtle but reliable. But most of all, I like the story of persistency and hard work that put the brand out there :) 

Getting Old

As I type away, my stomach is still protesting from the super-heavy breakfast / brunch that I had about five hours ago. Aside from the delicious meal, I had a good four-hour-catch-up with a lovely friend at a lovely cafe. We had perhaps not seen each other for about three, four months? 

I am a carbo-fanatic; especially bread. I love hot bread that comes fresh out of the toaster and oven. I can eat them plain with no spread; toasted is good enough for me. Of course, I would also welcome a chocolate croissant anytime. The smell of freshly baked bread has this comforting effect on me. 

The selection was not as wide as Paris Baguette, another cafe that I went with another good friend just the day before, but it was good enough for us. Perhaps no breakfast set for us the next round; we both agreed the set was pretty normal. I rather stuff myself with the chocolate croissant. 

It is the end of the year, and the topics usually do not stray too far away from the year that is about to pass, and what do we look forward for the new year. As we chatted, I had to somehow admit I am getting older; not just from the numbers that are adding to my life-scale, but I am starting to feel the differences. 

I sleep lesser, my food portion is smaller but somehow my waistline is increasing because my metabolism is slowing down. I get tired earlier too. When hubby and I started to date, I used to be able to hang out with him and his friends till 2am, 3am when we were back in his hometown. Nowadays I do not join him for his buddy sessions; the bed always emerges as the winner. Yoga is sort of sharing more of the exercising sessions with my jog - a clear sign that my body is asking me to slow down.

The changes occur not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. Nowadays, I find myself bubbling with happiness when I check the savings account and see the miserable interest credited end of the month. Or the minuscule savings off the daily necessities can keep me happy for the rest of the day. I sometimes find myself collecting coupons to redeem the WMF knives at supermarket. My topics with some of the girlfriends are also slowly shifting to comparing prices of washing detergent or shampoo. I am also totally guilty of worming up at home during the weekends, and not catching up with friends. The quietness on a Saturday afternoon is pure heaven. No noisy kids, no train rush and no pushing at the supermarket. A cup of hot tea, a book or surfing with my Mac would always be my choice to spend my afternoon. 

Yes, I think I am getting old. 

But I love it!

I am not all depressed by these changes. I am not one who would open up immediately, and I am, most of the times but I hope not all the time, being mark as the aloof and unfriendly. In the past, this used to bother me, and with the age adding up, it kind of turns the other way. I would love everyone to like me, but I am also happy to be left alone. So being closer to the big "4" sort of gives me the right to be less bothered? After all, don't we all say there comes a time when only the family and close friends matter the most. 

I always felt like 30s when I was in my 20s because somehow my train of thoughts did not really gel with the 20s of my time. In my 30s, I finally feel more in sync. I learn to keep and finally have a fine inventory of friends who I can see walking the rest of my path with, friends who understand me, friends who have the same values and friends who care. 

I kind of look forward to the 40s because my life is on track. All I need to do is to do what I am supposed to do; this belief has always keep me grounded throughout the years. I cannot control the outcome, but I make damn sure I do what I am supposed to do, so that there would be as little regret as possible. 

After all, there is only one 20s, one 30s, one 40s. And there is only one life. 

Cheers to the middle age!

the Art of urban living

When I started the frequent travelling to Malaysia, trying to make new friends was not easy. Besides being transport-immobile (and I am not complaining about it, it is better to have a husband-driver than driving in Malaysia), I did not have much activities that could hook me up with new friends. Plus, I am at a lazy age; I am contented with my list of friends.

Hence I dipped into my hubby's cookie jar of friends and colleagues. 

And, I was lucky, I met many nice people who are friends now. And Joanne is among them :)

Joanne is an interesting person - she break dances, she paints, she is creative, she is down to earth and she has a partner who paints too - meet Kenzy :) Boy, am I glad they paint! They did a beautiful painting for our wedding!

They put in a lot of effort, make adjustment to their life and work for their dreams to work, and they were finally seeing results!

Photo credits: Mono Facebook. Jointly, they are known as "Mono".

They were recently invited to participate in "The Art of Urban Living" @ D7 Sentul East and their works are featured in the "Contemporary Young Artists Gallery"! Besides having their work exhibited, they were also there every Sunday to paint and invite anyone who were keen to "art jam" with them.

There were other interesting pieces by other artists. The below piece looked like "pop" art to me. It was 3D-like, with the semi round balls, popping from the canvas.

Joanne told me the below piece was called installation art. It was a huge piece and much taller than me. 

There were beautiful sculptures as well. 

After chatting with Joanne, I started to wonder around the building. D7 Sentul East is an eco friendly building; most of the areas are not fitted with air con, but with fans. The building has a lot of open spaces and natural light in the atrium. I like the greenery that is incorporated into the entire building; you see green wherever you turn. I think it helps to keep the building cooler too; I only wonder how to they water some of those plants that are hanging high up around the buildings. 

As I wondered around, gravitating towards the air-conditioned lobby, haha, I came to this colourful art piece that Joanne told me was done by the artists jointly: 

And this was a piece that was done by the kids who joined the art jamming session. The artists touched up the picture thereafter for display:

It was a nice place to spend about an hour or two, walking around enjoying the pieces and the building. It was comforting to see a couple of parents who encouraged their children to join the painting session, though the kids thoroughly dirtied themselves.

My best wishes to Mono on their journey towards their dream, and it would continue to be exciting and fruitful!

Singapore Zoological Garden

I have some fond memories of zoo. In my generation, unlike nowadays kids who are so fortunate to scoot off to other countries for their excursions, we got into a nil-air-conditioned-bus, with the windows fully opened, packets of snacks and chatting, and we were sent off to the zoo for the day!

So when Z asked if I would like to go to the zoo with her, I was "Yea, let's go!". The highlight of the trip was the two pandas on loan from China. I googled and found out that zoos around the world participate in exchange programmes to ensure animals are not taken from wild for display.

The weather was pretty good, albeit the humidity. We paid an additional $5 each for the panda at the partially opened River Safari, and waited for the next viewing session which was about half an hour later. Each viewing session was about 15 minutes and the enclosure was air-conditioned. 

As we walked our way in, we saw the red panda. I totally thought it was a display figurine because it was so still!

I was particularly interested in them because of this youtube video that Z sent me some time ago. I laughed my head off when I saw the video and my mom had a good laugh too when I showed it to her!

The zoo keeper attending to the panda closure told us we were pretty lucky since usually only Kai Kai would be out of his "hole". The other panda, Jia Jia, made rare appearance, and gave us more!

Jia Jia pooing!

I was pretty amused to find out the activity that the panda is frequently engaged in is eating. I was even more amazed when Z told me panda has a higher IQ than human?! 

Jia Jia relaxing in the shade and snacking away. 

Parting shoot of Jia Jia...after her pooing

Z really liked the pandas. Frankly, apart from the size, I could not really tell the difference between the two pandas. I had to refer to the photo sequence to name them when I was dishing out the photo for the blog. Hopefully, we would have a made-in-Singapore panda within the next 10 years!

The view that greeted us as we came out of the air con zone... 

Below are photos that I jazzed up with some effects from the camera. I still have yet gotten the Photoshop software; just using whatever the camera and iPhoto offers.

Check out this baboon that Z pointed out to me - doesn't this fellow look just like a grandfather surrounded by grandchildren?! The way he sat totally resembled a human! There were tons of baboons and many of them were walking around with swollen red bums, which meant they were ready to mate. 

I did not manage to get a nice shoot of the tiger but got some facts from this feline's zone. According to the signage, it said there are only 7000 wild tigers now, dwindled down from over 100,000 in the past 100 years.

We though the lions seemed lethargic until it started to roar! Mine, haha! I have never hear a real life lion roar, and it was nothing like what I heard in TV or movie. The lion seemed to have taken a deep breathe, and roared in continuous a tempo as if it was having an asthma attack. It went on for about a minute before he finally stopped. When this king roared, the poor giraffes nearby went into hiding! 

Can you tell which is the cheeta and which is the leopard? 

That is a scrotum, not a rock on the floor.

There is a small garden near the feline section. I love the orchids and the hyacinth; the green, the white and the purple. At this stage of early DSLR camera introduction, I find myself skewing more towards plants. I like the vibrancy of the colours and especially the green, and it is a lot easier for me to shoot compared to a bigger landscape or portrait which I find myself still far from composing a good shoot.

We spent about four hours at the zoo, walking and walking. We even tried to visit the section that has animals like dogs, and it was supposed to be meant more for kids, but it was closed by the time we reached there. 

Singapore Zoological Garden has been named by many reviewers as one of the best zoos in the world. The top position is also agreed by a couple of other sites like www.ratestogo.com, www.foxnews.com/travel etc. Apparently, Singapore pioneered the open concept and this seems to be a hit among the visitors. 

I am a proud Singaporean :)