Looking back at 2013, and forward into 2014

2013 has been an interesting year. 

This is the first year in my life as a married man. Married life so far has been kind to us. We do not need to worry about household expenses or chores yet. We were well taken care off this entire year. I'm deeply thankful that we only need to bother about our own stuff in my small room. It's a small little training before assuming greater responsibilities. Being married also means that much of this post would be about us rather than me. :)

I'm glad that mum have been doing well with her condition. She is very strong minded and just pulls herself through the treatment and the after effects of radiation. It's not easy during our weekly dinner to find a place that suits her current palate, but I'm always glad when it does. Just want her to be able to enjoy the simple stuff. :)

This year, we have travelled long and far. Greece and Turkey for our honeymoon was a once in a lifetime experience. I've always been somewhat a fan of Greek mythology, and being able to immerse in the stories told by our guide, that was awesome! Being able to enjoy our honeymoon at Santorini was a dreamy experience. The entire place just oozes romantic vibes, our honeymoon suite was also ridiculously huge. Not forgetting the luxurious sea-facing jacuzzi. :)

Turkey opened us to the Ottoman Empire. Cappadocia would definitely be the highlight of this leg. We were fortunate to have a great pilot who gave us a breathtaking flight over the valley. We also visited the underground cities in cappadocia, showing us a different lifestyle in times of conflict. It's hard to imagine the difficulties living underground. At the same time, it's cool to see the contraptions that make life easier. Istanbul on the other hand is more luxurious, and about beautiful mosques and shopping. We are lucky that we left the city before riots broke out exactly where we were shopping at. :)

Sydney in May was also a first time experience for us. We took a very relaxed pace for this trip and it was indeed relaxing. Strolls in Sydney, buying groceries and doing our own cooking. Walking around the bay, lazing around. Blue mountains was our highlight for this trip. We loved our cosy holiday house, which came with a fire place. It was one of the best feelings to cook our dinner and enjoy the warmth of the fire place in the cold weather. We managed to roast marshmallows too! :)

Work has pretty much taken a back seat in this year. Going on long vacations for honeymoon and Sydney have given me an enjoyable break from work. While I got promoted this year, it was somewhat less meaningful when a whole bunch of others were promoted along with me as a result of a review in company policy. While I am happy for the many others who were promoted, I can't help but wonder whether my additional years in service have gone unrecognised. 

In the later half of the year, I was transferred to take care of a different geographical area. Different areas provides different challenges. I was used to handling matters coming at me thick and fast. Now it's a different ball game, I'm given the opportunity to go in depth to every case. I'm thankful for the opportunities to exercise my engineering judgment. I'm also given the chance to create traffic schemes from scratch. This is a great way to understand our workflow's intricacies and improve the work we are doing. :)

In this new year, there will be many more challenges, new experiences to savour and new places to visit.

In 2014, 

new flat in Sengkang,

more overseas holidays,

work on furthering my studies,

weight n fitness management,

Most important of all...

Stay Calm & Be Happy

About Time

I have not blogged about a movie for quite some time. Now I'm going to write about one I've just watched recently.

ABOUT TIME

This was supposed to be pretty much a love story which involves a time traveller. I kind of expected the story to be a bit like "The time traveller's wife" an unfortunate but sweet story of a time traveler and his wife. This story is slightly different. But before I start on the movie proper, I think it's an interesting point to note that both these 2 movies had the same lead actress, Rachel McAdams. Coincidental? Or does she have a knack for playing the role of a time traveler's wife?

"About time" begins somewhat like the "40yr old virgin" where the lead guy somehow can't get the girl. So in this comedic romance manner the first half of the movie was all about him coming to terms with his ability which only manifest after coming of age. There several scenes which tugs on my heart strings and really made an impression.

Second part of the movie is about life. I would say the gist of it is "life goes on even for time travellers. So live your life. Appreciate everything as it happens, and living once is enough." 

It's also about relations in a family. Between parents and kids, brother and sister. It's really positive and inspiring.

I also like the fact that the movie made a good attempt to simplify time travel. And does not try to explain too much about all

the space-time-continuum mambo jambo.

My recommendation is this:

Watch the movie and enjoy the urge to want to time travel. At the same time learn to appreciate all the little good things around you. 

Wedding Day Videos

It's almost a year since 12 12 12.

Here I am finally posting my wedding day videos.

Highlights for the morning


Long video of morning events.


Long video of evening events

Sky Blue Shepherd No More

After my last stint back in sky blue, I'm back again after just 3 months. I have been conditioning my mind and telling myself its great to be back in. I'll be able to do controlling again, something that I once wanted to do as a career. 

Somehow things just don't always turn out as you expect them to. Receiving no news about my medical review in July was apparently not good news. 

My first day back was spent trying to track down my report. And when we finally did, the news I've gotten is simply a bubble buster. 

"Fit but not recommended for direct control duties"

I'm struggling now trying to describe how that felt. Once again, it's been so long since I felt like this. Perhaps it's easier to describe what happened before. 

I was once an enthusiastic young officer serving his 2yrs of compulsory national service. During this period, I have gotten myself trained with the skills for air traffic control. Now I know my personality belongs to the group who likes to do things we are good at. 

Hence the natural thing for me to do back then was to apply to become a regular in the force. Most procedures quickly fell into place. My superiors were also glad with my decision and I even managed to secure a scholarship along with the contract. I start to feel awesome with my decision.

Drama came when I was required to go through the standard medical checkup. Questions started arising about my physical health. In a nutshell, an honest tick in the "headache" column of a health survey a few years back had done me a very bad deal.  

The questions raises got the medical board kicking up a fuss and not willing to clear my case. I had to go for several expensive checks to ascertain my condition. End of the day, all checks showed favourable results but the fear of making a wrong decision caused the medical board to reject my application for regular service. Despite the fact that while serving in national service, I'm doing the exact same thing as a regular.

I tried to appeal my case and it went all the way up to the chief of the medical board but to no avail. 

With that decision fixed, I had resign to my fate that regular service is not something meant to be for me. There goes a steady job, salary, paid degree, early marriage plans, career progression. 

Losing all that possibility was really hard to take. Especially for a young officer, who had the aspirations for an exciting future in the force. I got into some form of depression after that. i began to lose interest and felt that fate is out to get me. 

It took me a few years to forget about that episode and working all over again. I've moved on since then and found something I like to do and which I'm good at.

This episode now seems all too familiar. I had bored the hope that I could do some controlling again. Unfortunately it's not meant to be again.

This time it would be different. I have less at stake. Good to have but without it, I'll trod on.

Honeymoons - Part 1

I've been married for more than eight months. We have already been on a few trips. Yet I've never had the time to reflect on these journeys. I've had short periods of breaks but there's always something else more important which has to be done.

After the big day, we went for a short trip to Thailand. The objective of this trip was really simple. We were crazy busy for the past few months, it was time to just let go and relax. Aside from our usual destination, Bangkok, we decided to experience Hua Hin as well. Hua Hin is the summer getaway location  for the royal family for ages.

Our itineraries there are quite simple too. Eat, shop, relax. We stayed at our usual hotel chain, Amari. Amari Watergate had been the hotel we stayed in Bangkok for almost every trip in the past few years. Service has always been friendly and welcoming, we also had our room upgraded to a suite because it was our honeymoon. We also made a trip to Chinatown to splurge on some Chinese delicacies. Thanks to lower cost of living and a strong exchange rate, we could eat quite lavishly. To top off every evening, we would go for Thai massage at Healthland Spa. It's a place with good service, nice environment, service staff speaks reasonably good english and most of all, the price is great!

Hua Hin is much more laid back when compared to Bangkok. Once again we stayed with Amari. This hotel is a new development at Hua Hin. Therefore we had everything spanking new in addition to the usually great Amari service. Hua Hin is not a place which excites but it gives you all the peace and quiet you need to detach from the real world. That was precisely what we did those few days.

THAILAND PHOTOS

This trip to Thailand was just a prelude to our main honeymoon trip. It's a much needed rest ever since getting busy for our wedding.

The main course for our honeymoon is Greece and Turkey in May. Aside from deciding on the location and the dates, my dear wife had settled the itinerary singlehandedly to the minute details. I'm really grateful that she did it all because I was so overwhelmed with work.

We started off our journey in Greece at Athens. It's not a direct journey there. We first landed in Istanbul and took another flight to Athens. The first impression Athens gave us was a dilapidated city. Everything was closed and shops and shutters were all sprayed with graffiti. It was only when we checked in that we were told that it's actually a week long holiday for the orthodox Easter.

On one hand we were glad to be there on a joyous occasion, but it also meant that almost all the shops and attractions were closed for the period. That forced us to adjust our itinerary and we could only visit few sites and do window shopping. The biggest let down was not being able to visit the Acropolis of Athens. While not being able to visit the Acropolis, we are able to enjoy a fantastic view of it every day directly from our room. The night view is quite spectacular too. In fact all that made us want to visit Acropolis even more.

ATHENS PHOTOS

After Athens we embarked on a few days of guided tour to immerse ourselves into the mythical Greek history. Majority of our group were Caucasians, we are the only Chinese in the group. There's another Indian lady and her partner and that's all for Asians in a group of over twenty.


Our guide was this plump guy called amelios, he was very knowledgeable an organizes his commentary very well. He brought us through a journey through time and space. We were very grateful to have him as our guide. He drew a very complete picture of greek history from the mythology to mycenaean to roman times. A short 4 days 3 nights tour took us to several of the notable historical sites.

Notably, we passed by this place known as Corinth Canal. It's designed and constructed by the same team who did the Suez Canal. In fact, it was this project that brought that team to prominence and got them the Suez Canal job. It's basically a very narrow and deep waterway carved through the rocks. It's quite an awesome sight.

Epidaurus was the first site we visited, the highlight there was this amphitheatre which was very well preserved. The acoustics effects are still intact and the guide could show us how well a single voice is projected across to every single audience.

The second day we visited Olympia, the birthplace of the ancient Olympics. The place was pretty much ruined and empty, but thanks to the guide. He painted a lively picture of how athletes who are pretty much tribute (similar to the hunger games) in those days lived, competed and fought at Olympia. Olympia itself was pretty much a tribute to Zeus.

The next day we were at Delphi, a place with loads of cats. I also liked the place because of it's richness in mythology. It is the sanctuary of the Sun God Apollo, and it was the place where Apollo's most treasured oracles had lived. Many had visited Delphi just to have their futures told. The landscape around Delphi itself already provides somewhat a mystical feel to the place. It's a city perched on the slope and overseeing beautiful scenery. There's also this super cool aqueduct, which leads all the way back to Athens. It's still operational and works purely on gravity.

The final day was meant to be the best part of this tour, but unfortunately, we had a change of guide. And this new guide was LOUSY! On one hand it was really irritating because she had to give the commentary in English and in French, which meant she had limited time to give information. On the other hand, she was totally not interested. Her method of giving commentary is just striking off a checklist. There's no storyline and no link. Just piecemeal and jumbled information. Quite disappointed that because of her, we did not learn much about Meteora and Thermopiles.

Based on my own research, Meteora was a secluded place in the mountains where monks practiced a monastic form on christianity. Their church are all built on steep cliffs and they are all marvels on engineering and most of them are very inaccessible when they were built.

Thermopiles was simpler to understand. It was the site where the famous 300 Spartans had fought the Persians. Yup, there's place where Gerard Butler's 300 made famous.

On this tour we saw our first oranges on trees, figs on trees and most important of all. We had our first taste of Moussaka. Moussaka is something like a shepherd's pie with egg plant, it's very very nice!!!

4D3N PHOTOS

Our next leg of our journey in Greece is pretty much the go to destination in Greece, Santorini. Santorini is a remains of a volcanic crater. The volcano is only dormant though, not extinct yet. Vast majority of the buildings on the island are painted white. Only a small portion is painted with blue. Postcards around the world tend to only capture the white and blue parts. Talk about misrepresentation.

Nonetheless, being there instantly makes you feel more romantic somehow. We booked a suite there and most of their hotels there comes with a jacuzzi or some sort. Being on honeymoon usually gives you some perks. Our hotel upgraded us to a honeymoon suite, which is basically a HUGE room with a HUGE jacuzzi on our balcony. The wind on the island is always strong and it's very cold when the sun is down, but that's also the best time to soak in the jacuzzi. It was a luxury that would remain in our minds for a long long time.

Santorini is not a big island so we rented a car and drove around. I really liked the car we had, it's a smart car. It's basically a tiny little 2 seater by Mercedes. I think Singapore should really bring in these cars.

SANTORINI PHOTOS

Our last leg in Greece is the island of Rhodes. This is where the Colossus of Rhodes once stood. The Colossus was one of the wonders of the ancient world. What I liked most about the place was actually our hotel. It was filled with cats! We had a very friendly and welcoming host as well. We were basically living within the walls of the old castle. The old castle was a stronghold where the christian crusaders held off attacks from the turkish forces.

We also took a short cruise around the city. The highlight of the cruise was actually a segment of highspeed travelling. That part came very suddenly and kind of caught us off guard. Exhilarating!  

RHODES PHOTOS

OTHER GREECE PHOTOS

In the next part, we'll move on to the Turkey and more recently our trip to Australia.

Limits tested

I would say I'm pretty tolerant and quite patient when it comes to dealing with people. The least I can say is that I'm way more tolerant than I was few yrs ago. I would probably have made lots of noise and kick up a big fuss had I not controlled myself.

Dear sales people out there, if you are not eloquent. Then jolly well brush up on your product knowledge. It's not enough to know what's in the product but not know what it does. If u hard sell me with no content, u get on my nerves.

I was shopping at guardian for glucosamine and I let my guard down. I allowed myself to get so pissed off that really felt like going berserk. I'm not talking just berserk. I'm talking wolverine-berserker-barrage-style berserk. This auntie who was restocking her products started to try to introduce her brand to me. I'll summarise her pitch a few main points.

1. Her brand is good because hundreds of customers tell her so everyday when she's restocking

2. Her products are always out of stock cos ppl buy in bulk

3. Hers has shark cartilage and some green mussel extract. Her "customers" tell her it's good.

4. Hers works in 5 days, after that no need to take so much.

Here's the winner

4. Her bottles say "dietary supplement" majority of other brands don't say that. And that implies that other brands are actually bad for your stomach and will eventually lead to heart attack. 

My conclusion which I did not share with her is as follows,

You poor sad auntie. For more than 20 years u have been trying to sell a single product without knowing its properties. You only rely on phantom word of mouth to pressure shoppers to make rash decisions to meet ur sales quota. You have missed a precious chance for me to share with you what you are actually selling. I could have given you a little more general knowledge to enrich your starved mind. For that, I pity your potential customers an the "hundreds" of lost sheep that tell u everyday that your product is amazing. But then I realise, I don't have to worry. You are just a restocker who knows nuts.

And I have now learnt another lesson after this article. Some ppl are just not worth it.

Back in Sky Blue

Almost 10 yrs since I last donned the sky blue uniform. The familiar place I used to worked once upon a time has changed drastically. 

On the outside, it's still the ugly camo green paint over the building. Inside is where it's no longer familiar. Gone were the dark rooms with freezing cold air cons. It's now bright with multiple projections. 

People have moved, places changed. Procedures revamped and I'm obsolete. 

When getting my new set of uniform, even the badge that once symbolises the skills which I'm trained in has changed. I struggled whether to get the new badge to wear. Perhaps it's fate telling me what to do when I found that the new badge is not available. I should not wear this new badge cos it means nothing to me.

It been so long ago, I've forgotten why and how I left the service. But now I'm reminded. Will it be a new beginning or will it be a new nightmare?

Role Models

In the course of leadership training session. This topic was discussed.

The typical impression of a role model is one who possesses qualities we admire and would like to emulate.

Some people have role models who have significantly impact and guided their lives. Others have role models that changed their course in life.

For me, I constantly have individuals appearing in my life showing how not to live, how not to behave. I fear making the same mistakes made by these people.that probably has also infused in me the fear of making mistakes.

While I constantly tell myself that mistakes which are not deadly are fine. Learn from the mistake of others and our own. I often fall into the trap of the constant fear of mistakes.

I am not perfect. I see and I learn. We need to recognise and appreciate the rights and the wrongs.

When will I be a soldier again?

Since I left National Service 8yrs ago. I've not been back nor been in touch with what I used to do during my service days. So much so I assume I was forgotten, and I would spend my years without ever being called up for reservist duties.

But I was wrong. I was remembered.

I received a call from the airbase checking if I have completed my studies and whether I'm available for reservist duties.

I'm excited and kinda scared cos its been so long. I need to get new uniforms as my old ones no longer fit. I'm out of shape. And I have no idea how my duties i used to do have evolved over the years.

A long time ago I had made the choice to want to serve the country on a regular basis. Even though that ultimately did not materialise, I'm now still serving the country. Just in another way.

Ah Boys to Men 2

This sequel is not as lame as the first instalment but packed much more laughs. Really entertaining.

Enjoyed the movie thoroughly. It brought back loads of memories. Somehow the setup of the section in the movie resembles my bmt mates so much. Similar wayang characters, siao on characters, super keng characters, and ppl like me. Do well enough to get noticed but not too prominent to hog the attention. Able to talk to people above, below and around.

Nostalgia is something I trust all Singaporean guys will feel when they watch this movie. Throughout the show i was going, "I did this too", "they really used to do that". Missed those days.

Like the end message very much too.
"After NS, not everyone will remain in contact and most may have to go their separate ways. But what's important is that at one stage in life we were once mates and could survive without one another."

Theories from Jellies

All I wanted was to buy the round jellies to try. But I allowed myself to be coerced into buying $50 of jellies.

I have 2 theories why I would allow myself to spend this money.

1. I'm feeling rich at that moment in time and I really have that money in my wallet.

2. I've been overly demanding towards in my course of work, especially to consultants or contractors. So this is kind of a way of getting some balance?

Hahaha.

Thinking through the matter again. It's probably just me feeling rich at that point in time. I don't need that balance. I enjoy being demanding. Muahahaha!!!

Yvonne's Creative

This is going to be a long post about a not so good bridal studio in Singapore.

I've started writing this since I completed photo selection and layout. We still intend to get our actual dresses in one piece therefore we decided not to post until after our actual day.

It started off with us walking through the Tanjong Pager strip looking for a studio for our actual day gown and package. We dropped in a few and the sales person at Yvonne's Creative seemed to catch our interest and attention the best. Why? She was really upfront and confident in her sales and her company. Basically the sales pitch could be summarised with the following

"You will get anything you want and we'll make sure you are happy about it. If you are not, you call me and I'll get it sorted out for you."

That seemed pretty good in terms of commitment.

Before we decided to sign the package, we went online to view some forum reviews about the place. The reviews basically says the designers are very reluctant to make and changes and they always insist their design is best. We thought that sounded like the total opposite of what the sales person told us. It's probably the pride of the designer, cos the designs we saw in store were really quite nice.

So we decided to trust the sales person this time and signed on anyway. The interesting fact here is that soon after we signed on, the sales person got married in a flash and apparently was already pregnant. We have not seen her ever since. As the process went on, we realised the forums are telling the truth. The dress was quite nice in shape and form, but overall is still looks plain, not eye catching enough.

We asked the designer who is also the boss to add more details to enhance the design. Her defence was simply, this is the fashionable look now and it's meant to have this classic look. We ignored her, we wanted it to look nice the way we want it. We had to bug and whine about it several times before she relented. The improvements had to take a few times before it was acceptable to us. It's very tiring to argue abt design. VERY!!

We had to endure through similar processes for evening gown as well. Doubly tired.

Besides the gown, the bridal package also included a photoshoot and album. The photoshoot itself was fine. The photographer is not bad. After experiencing the service of the bridal packages in Taiwan, local studios really pale in comparison. Any way our complaint for this stage is actually during the photo editing part. The touch up artist basically pissed me off from the start.

Firstly, unfriendly attitude. Not sure if he was having a bad day, but he definitely was making my day pretty ugly.

Secondly, when I ask  him to edit the photo in a certain way, he seemed to be unable to make the edit. To cover his lack of capability, he simply said, "we dont do such edits here."

Finally, the last straw, when I told him the photo can be edited with certain functions. He once again said "we dont do such things here", but this time he added "I won't do it, you can do it yourself if you want".

After that, I refused to go through the photos with him anymore. I told him to just copy the softcopy versions to me and I'll arrange for another session after I have gone through the photos myself.

My final conclusion for anyone who may intend to use this bridal studio. If you really like to have their gowns for your wedding. Be prepared to fight them in their decisions. They are a pain and a waste of time.