01-01-2012 Day of Reckoning

2011: Again, another flash!

Notable concerts

Melvyn Tan: Mozart Piano Sonata in C in January, I'm still playing it during the rare occasions I sit down at the piano.

The Cranberries: Another to-do before I die list ticked in August.

Jay Chou: Not too impressed :P

Chris Botti: December, master of the Trumpet

Notable events

General election, Nicole Seah, Tin Pei Ling, 4-Tans at the Presidential election

Mesmerising Leica M9P with Noctilux 50mm f/0.95 lens à A ‘to-own’ before I die?

Trips:

Beijing, April: Good peking duck, nothing much else.
Bali, May – Wedding of Shawn and Joanne, a perfect wedding!
Sepang, June – Super GT! Japanese Racequeens!
Hong Kong/Shenzhen, November: Wedding of Carla, fantastic food!

Wines: Had the pleasure of tasting Lafite, Latour, Musigny and several excellent montrachets. Look forwards to more whites next year!

Chris Botti - Master of the Trumpet

The trumpet is a notoriously difficult instrument to tame. Being 'loud', 'rash', 'in your face' is probably what most think about the trumpet. Fanfares to welcome royalty, cheers to commemorate victories and more feature the trumpet as the leading instrument. In the Jazz/pop arena, the trumpet is hardly a key. Miles Davis come to mind as one of the virtuosos of the instrument. And now, we have Chris Botti, whom perfects the brass instrument like no other. He hits the high notes with ease, and with smooth effortless delivery. Ballads sound great too under the maestro's handling. With a world class backing band, with an amazing vocalist (can't remember the name here).

Botti would talk about the story behind each song, with witty humour adding to each story (Which I feel relates well with the audience and the music!)

2011 Marathon: A slice of good weather

Torture, insanity, challenge, adrenaline, life long dream. The many words one uses to describe endurance racing. For me this year, it was all of the above. Having completed the full marathon in 2009, the half marathon which Wenhui signed me up for felt much less daunting back in may or July . Training, if any, could be limited to maybe 8 or 10 km, and one can complete the half marathon with relative ease. Training went upwards to 12km on occasion, starting from my house along the canal all the way to the formula 1 pit building and back.

Challenges: 3 weeks before the race, I was away feasting roast goose in Hong Kong followed by a week of 16 hr days at Sitex. A bout a fever, body ache ensured and it was the "week of rain" , endless precipitation lasting days in a stretch, limiting my only 6km run just a day before the marathon . Everything didn't quite fall into place but it was GO time! Race start at 630am at Sentosa. Packed MRT which ran all night helped to move hoards of people around. Fueling on bananas and water, it was race go with Wenhui and good pal Loke Yuen at the start line. Run keeper checked and it was go! Roads were cramped and got into a bottleneck at the dolphin lagoon, the organisers are sure to get a ton of complains! Pace dropped dramatically here and I was all wet by the 5th click, hydration was an issue and I could not keep water down and felt congested. It was a long run through Sentosa, with the final leg through literally through the entire Universal Studios Singapre and the icons were out in force to cheer the runners! Definitely a highlight of the race. By the time we got out of Sentosa, my runkeeper clocked 12km at 1:15, but the road marker was at only 10km!! Was I zig zagging too much ?? And this was also when the run keeper stopped, unknowingly I might have stopped it. It was a struggle from then on, getting water into the system and a half powergel to keep hunger pangs away. Slopes up keppel viaduct and Ayer rajah expressway didn't help . The right inner hip starts to hurt, many runners had pitstops along the sides for deep heat treatment. I didn't see such need for deep heat as my limiting factors were the lungs and water intake. The trodding began ernest at the top of the benjamin sheares bridge, as I ran up the 500m slope, and was left within nothing in tank for the final 3km push. Time for mind over body ? Not so when the body wants to protest against the constant pounding and it was an ungainly stupor to the finish. Adding insult to a beaten mind and body, the kids dash started in tandem with my final click and they looked like thorough-breds fresh out of the gates! The finish was unpleasant with a ton of mud and a million other smelly runners. Wenhui took another hour to make to home, while making a visit to the medical tent due to dehydration. The medical tent was a luxury, with free flow of drinks, fans and widely spaced chairs!

Overall a pleasant experience. Will I sign up next year for the half or full marathon? I need a good shower, lunch and forty thousand winks before any thoughts of 2012 come in!

Yeah, I packed a poncho, from one of the NDP gift packs!!

The MRT crowd before the race, can't imagine the smell if it's after!

And the 5 lights go out!

Damn I missed the Transformers mascot!!!

Glad to be out of Sentosa, and faced with endless stretches of expressways, long slopes up viaducts.

Hordes...

Kids running faster than the bulk of the Marathoner's pack.

Not really a welcome sight, with a mass of smelly runners, muddy paths. Nevertheless, a shower, lunch, and the Z monster were comfortingly close!

Hong Kong 2011 - Part 1

Hong Kong! The land of perfectly roasted goose, soft century eggs, yummilicious egg tarts and 8 million people in a tiny Island! Here we took the airport transfer to Hong Kong, costing ~HKD120 for 2 pax.

One way out!
Started off the photography earnest with the subway,

With the mobile-self-centered nation also prevalent in Hong Kong, with most commuters busy texting away....

We stayed at Newton Hotel Hong Kong http://www.newtonhk.com/, with compliments from the Buffer Club. The hotel was located right next to the Fortress Hill MTR station. Here's a stair master right next to the junction behind Hotel Newton!

We had wanted to go for the 'Bouncing' meat balls, and we found this Lok Yuen place instead. Fantastic Fish balls! The meatballs are good too. Noodles with the meat balls were great.

Another street shot, at one of the biggest interchanges anywhere around, the Hong Kong / Central interchange!

The busy streets of Mong Kok. Bargains aplenty anything from Iphone covers, Angry birds motifs, fake watches!

A lovely Audi showroom in the middle of Kowloon.

The Mercedes showroom at Lee Gardens, photography wasn't allowed: I'm like. WTF?! I continued snapping anyway! Who can turn away from the silvered mean beasts!?

The SLS AMG 6.3L with winged doors, carbon fibre side view mirrors and a hosts of tech enough to make any car-nut cum in their pants. Cost a cool HKD3,700,000. (Only ~SGD$600,000).

Excellent fish balls from the Lok Yuen place.
Crown wine cellars

Lovely Carla, the lady of the moment

Halifax Ad Lib 2008, pretty good.
13.5% alcohol, 84% Grenache 16% Shiraz. Sweet fruits, chocolate after taste. It grows on one! A nice Grenache from Mclaren vale!

Lanson NV, house pour champagne. Quite decent. Prefer the Rose version anytime!

Sutherlands Creek, Geelong 1st White 2007: Saugvinon blanc, Semillon and Viognier blend. Citrus nose, balance palette, apples, ton of sunshine. Very enjoyable.

One of the most fulfilling meals, at Kam Dau Kee. Kam Dau Kee Seafood Restaurant, Shop A3 & 1/F, Block 2 & 3, The Zenith, No.3 Wan Chai Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong

Excellent roast goose, suckling pig, and this lovely thick pork liver broth with a 'jiu3' vegetables. Really memorable!

At a flea market, big fresh Sun Flowers, who can resist a smile?

There's a saying: the unbeaten path is the best, and if a restaurant doesn't have a menu in English, it'd done a 'good job', not to sell-out to the masses. This is one of them, just 'another' coffeshop we went in a morning. Soya bean hot froth tasted sweet and pretty different from what we have in Singapore. Wenhui loves it but I won't be having another bowl of this at this restaurant.

Another sweet street shot!

It was my first time on a Tram, and I loved it! Trams are classic, feels great to have the wind in your hair (in late autumn...good times compared to squeezing in the MTR), and they're bloody cheap! Cost HKD2.30 per ride regardless of distance! And trams exists only in Hong Kong Island!

A non-HK meal, as all the HK restaurants were booked solid over and waiting lists were long. This was on the final day in HK and we settled for a Jap restaurant.

Agnes B cafe, some expensive ~HKD60 slide of cake @ Lee Gardens. A worthy pit-stop, lack of crowd, and comfortable seats and environment!

While the girls can troll the streets for other hunts, this was my heaven. A wine shop! Berry Brothers and Rudd! Lovely selection all around, had the pleasure to taste some good whisky with Kat. ;)

Honolulu Cafe / Tahn Doh, Hennessey Rd #176-178. Get out Wanchai MTR station, exit A4.
Perfectly cooked egg tarts. DO NOT ORDER fried rice and bee hoon here. Those taste like CRAP! Just order the egg tarts, bo luo bao, and a drink!

Angry birds on a sling! What a great way to whack your friend when you're bored in a classroom.

I was guested by friends in Shenzhen for a couple of days. Rice wine was the topic of the day and I was burping it through the night! haha

Great street food, BBQ fish! A little salty though.

A game of chance, of drinking!

Traveling and rushing from A to B to C is really tiring and causes the body to heat up. Here's a visit to an empty desert shop, serving a pretty famous Quilingao. It tasted neither herbalish nor smooth. The texture was rough and wasn't pleasant at all. However, my body felt cool after this! Hence it does work!

iphone 4S - succumbing to white and black

You know an era has truly changed, when your friends leave you out of a group chat because you don't have whatsapp. This brings back memories of the instant chat messenger ICQ of 1999/2000, where it practically dominated the entire IM market. It could leave offline messages, and a function can let one turn one 'live' chat, meaning as you're typing, the receiving party can see what you're typing, including the backspaces. Then came Microsoft Messenger, MSN, with it's cute emoticons and alone with that, friends uprooted from ICQ en masse and left for MSN, leaving ICQ extinct. And you're right, I had to leave, reluctantly. Now MSN is the default, with group chats, offline messages, history all in place and more.

In 1997/1998. SMS was a very new concept in Singapore, phones were seriously expensive and SMS rocked, leaving the alphanumeric days of the Motorola Jazz behind, and an industry circling SMS was born. Now, apps, mobile messaging, threatens the existence of SMS. whatsapp, mobile msn, skype, recently imessage, and 'compilers' of IM such as ebuddy with a super new XMS function, (XMS can send free SMS from any desktop computer (or mobile one that is), the SMS market is looking bleak!

Telcos who have been charging by the minute/second/sms, has to rethink seriously now, as voice/sms are all simply data over the precious GSM networks, while the previously unheard 12Gigabytes of bandwidth per month for surfing needs over the 3G networks could be holding the GSM networks by the throats. I'm still unsure why 3G is still 'behind' GSM, it's slow in terms of speed/coverage/bandwidth throttle? (eg: voice over skype or any of your favourite IMs are usually poorer than voice over GSM networks).

The end of an era. I've the HTC Rose S740 for ~3 years. Back in 2008, there was the iphone, but it wasn't as superb as it is now, and I never had the need for such a 'smart' phone nor the saw the feasibility of a touch screen device, preferring the feel and feedback of real keys. The S740 also had a QWERTY keyboard which one can slide out. The plan was to go online with Wireless@SG if required to do some surfing and emails on the go. Wireless@SG has turned out to be pathetic! The only saviour I had was the S740 was run on a windows platform (ok..Andriod and iOs trumps all now, but then Windows Mobile was not relatively good), and the SMSes were 'threaded', and it was profoundly useful. Also, it had 'quick texts', allowing short cut keys to reply chunks of text (such as addresses, emails etc). Overall the Rose worked really well for 3 years bearing an initial 1-2weeks of nightmare service from M1/HTC.

The moving out of the old, in for the new....the 'home page' of the HTC, clean, with simple icons, and showing upcoming appointments, any SMSes unread etc. (compared to the million updates from FB/Twitter/BBM/whatsapp/emails from a few accounts that I'm handling partly with the BlackBerry Bold).

Wenhui's 4S, previously she was using a HTC wave : A rubbish, half-baked brick, a s(tupid)phone. It was one of the first foray of HTC-Android phones, with promises of seamless integration with Google products. The HTC Wave was slow, surfing of the net was worse than the 56k modem century.

Now, the time has come that I need a truly smartphone, as work requires the update/speed that we need to push information out, and gather information as well. And I feel the Apple has worked this out well with the 3GS and especially the Iphone 4. And now with the dual core A5 of the Iphone 4S, the smartphone in it's 5th generation, is finally becoming of age and worthy of all the accolades poured onto Job's Apple.

Only 1 day old into the Iphone (yes, I'm a very old virgin), I've become a teenage school boy you see on the MRT, hogging the toy all day, grinning to myself, and not having much conversation with my mom nor anyone around me.

I've woken up today (day 2), to the Iphone's alarm, and downloaded 'RunKeeper app (whilst still in bed), and let out a 'woot'! with a big grin akin to unwrapping kryptonite on Christmas morning. The app went superbly went in the 6.2km run, with GPS, location systems, all locking on, without lag, and a dozen buzzing updates in the background.

I love it!

Thank you, Steve.
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