The Lingering Scent of Rain

I think of you

After the rain

Looking at the grey skies

I try to see your face

In vain

I think of you

In the chilly air

Catching the smell of rain

I see me smiling with you

In our cozy living room

Towering above the city lights

I think of you

Whenever it doesn’t stop to rain

A life with you

I’d be a store lady

You’d come meet me when evening paints the clouds

We’d go off for dinner

Then stroll through the whispers of the soft drizzle

I think of you

In every chance of rain

Hoping someday we’ll meet

Bad Hair Day = Bad Luck Day

I have experience occations or a day when all unhappy events happen in an unforgettble formulaic sequence. When such moments arrived, I declared the day to be my 'bad luck day'. Then, as if by a bad omen, more unusually 'bad luck' occurences started lining up to make my day worse.

Yesterday was the start of a feel good weekend. On friday, after a week of hard work, I decided to make the best out of the weekend, and enjoy myself to the fullest. Taking my mind off work and not answering any stress-related messages sounded like a good start - and it did. Until the moment I decided to have a haircut.

Hair is the most important accessory of a 21st century modern-minded career woman. Style your hair right, and you can survive the worst traffic jam, or the most stubborn photocopier machine. Style your hair wrong... well, a typo error could immensely worsen your day.

After owning two fantastic hairstyles, my hair grew out of the second one, and was beginning to resemble the mop in the back of the cleaning cupboard of my kitchen, so I decided that it was time to pick up the third fantastic hairstyle this weekend. I went to sleep dreaming about my new hairstyle on Friday night.

Saturday arrived, and I went back to hairsalon that faithfully gave me the first two outstanding styles. I was excited to fastforward to the moment my hair receives its brand new look. But when I pushed open the door, and saw the salon packed with aunties and young girls, I could see an invisible hammer smashing my dream to pieces. Every female in Singapore was fighting to get a good hairstyle by Chinese New Year - guess we all think alike. Unfortunately, the difference between them and me is an advance call to the salon to take up a one liner in the record book. Thus, besides glares and stares from everyone crammed up in the tiny salon, I was also welcomed by the stylists' fashionable backs - they had been so busy since morning, they had not even the time to take a toilet break, or to inform me that they had been busy since morning.

I left the place feeling a bit down. That was when the bad luck started. The sun started beaming its ferocious rays at me, with a vengeance to turn me into a charcoal, and the taxis were beginning to avoid me. I go on this street, they jam up the opposite one; I switched sides, they turn to jam up the previous one that I had been on. When I finally gotten into the back of a cab, after thirty minutes of being under the tyranny of the Sun, I was fuming with anger. I was starting to get a little bit personal with the salon. I decided that I will get my third fantastic hairstyle at another salon. The anger of standing under the Sun playing hide and seek with the taxis made me desperate in proving myself correct. So I went home, take out my laptop and start researching.

In the evening, I made my way to the hairsalon and waited excitedly to get my third fantastic haircut. My nerves quieten down while the stylist did her magic with my hair. After an hour, I looked myself in the mirror, I was horrified. Staring back at me was a middle age aunty. My superstitious self started to surface, I paid the stylist with a weak smile and hastily left the place.

Why hadn't I paid attention to the signs? The taxi hide and seek and the smashing of my dream at Hair Salon A earlier today. Why didn't I see this coming? There had already been hints of my bad luck for the day. I shouldn't have gotten the haircut today. Being a day of bad luck, EVERYTHING can go wrong. Even the toilet bowl will not flush properly after I use it.

Fighting to ignore all the glares from people who walked passed me, I raced back home and locked myself indoors. I decided to seal in my fate of possessing the world's ugliest hairstyle, until my brother suggested a hairsalon for me to save my hair. I had to wait until the next day, and with the utter disappointment from my new haircut, I had no mood to enjoy the first day of a supposed nice relaxing weekend.

When Sunday arrived, I jumped out of bed, grabbed my sister and dashed to VivoCity's TEAM SALON. After another round of hide and seek with the taxis, we took the faithful train to Harbour Front and arrived at the doorstep of the salon my brother had mentioned to me last night.

Immediately I was sent to a seat, and almost at once, a hairstylist greeted me. He was also kind enough to greet my ridiculous hair style. We discussed about the blunt style my hair received, and what could be done to shape it up, he started working almost immediately. The conversations we had were very relaxing, and the stylist appeared very skilful with his scissors, so my nerves finally ease down for the day. When he was done, I felt elated once again. I could see myself staring back at me once again. The world felt good once again.

The bad luck seemed to have disappear with the fourth new hairstyle because I was able to get a good seat in SushiTei without having to wait for an exceptionally long time. I'm not sure about the taxis, but frankly they were never there when you need them. At least, I'm very sure my bad day is over.

World of Taste and Sluurrp! - Taipei 2

-At Dan shui Old Street-

Fried Octopus (Japanese Hua Zhi)

Xiao Zai Mian

(Native Taiwanese Noodles, resembling our normal yellow noodles)

Clams cooked in Native Gingerish Soup

Yam and Sweet Potato Riceball Dessert

-Native Taiwanese Eatery near Ximending-

Lu Pork belly (Native taiwanese style)

Lu Pork (Native Taiwanese style)

Lu Bean Curd (Native Taiwanese style)

Wun Dun Mian

(Taiwanese rendition of Wanton noodles with Flower Egg. The ancient saying, or rather the genuine Chinese saying, of wanton is actually wun dun.)

Flower Egg with Noodles

(the egg was supposedly cooked in boiling water to achieve the smooth pale yellow texture and flowery appearance - interesting dish)

-Ancient Cuisine - (old Chinese style)

Sweet and Sour Pork - Vintage style

(Really queer and vintage. Looked steamed, but it is not. The sauce is sweet and sour, but it is not cooked in the modern way. Something very ancestory about this dish.

Beancurd fried with Bean Pate and Lard
(Queer taste - yet delicious. Every ingredient was well mixed to bring out the overall flavour. Though such a dish is nowhere near modern style.)

Little Buddha Jump Over the Wall

(Queer taste - but also delicious. Nothing like a modern dish. Bits of dried shrimps wer found, and the golden round thing is actuall fried pigeon egg (resembling "tie dan" or metal egg))

- Yong Kang street-

Black Sesame Paste Pastry
(The pastry layers are really soft and slightly crisp, and the roasted black sesame paste is really fragrant with its original taste well-kept to reach your taste buds at every bite)

- Back to Night Market at Ximending-

Japanese Crepes

Taiwanese Chicken Cooked in Rice Wine

It's a "wait, wait..." society

Everywhere we turn to people are asking us to wait. Different languages spoken to ask for the same thing from us. "Wait a moment, please." or "Wait ar." Or even "Qing shao deng yi xia.". How long is that "moment" actually going to be - well, who knows? Not even the person who had asked you to wait.

Sick and tired of waiting, Singaporeans developed a culture of "kiasuism". Because waiting consumes time, and time is precious, it cannot be retrieved no matter what, therefore to reduce the extensive waste of time, they become "kiasu". To the world outside, this may seemed a bad reflection of their principles of life - they are desperate not to lose out. But is it really just that?

Although not a native, but living in Singapore for so many years, I too feel the need to be kiasu sometimes. I came to realise that every corner of this country is requesting for the same thing, and such a request is possibily one of the reasons that cultivated an intrinsic "kiasu-ism" in every native. If we miss a bus or a train, we might have to wait for another ten to fifteen minutes for the next one, so why wait? Why not die-die get on this one, so I don't have to do the waiting? (I might also escaped the terror of getting marked for being late.)

There are also other things that required true blue waiting. If I need to process an important legal document, I need to first take a half-day (or maybe, a whole day) leave from work, then proceed to the building to do the processing. There, I have to first wait in line for about twenty minutes to get my queue number, and the brief information about which counter I had to proceed to. After which, I had to possibly wait for another hour, before the number on the screen finally revealed the number on my queue ticket. Then, when the moment I've been waiting for has arrived, but after a brief audience with the consultant or officer, I noticed that the actual processing of the document took only ten minutes. Shortly afterwhich, I'm back to waiting for another hour (worst case scenario - maybe two) to make payment, which, needless to say, took only five minutes. As the number of processing stages increases, my waiting time increases, and half of my day's time (worst case scenario - whole day) will be exhausted. When I leave the building, there is just enough time to go home for dinner.

Yes, our voices are heard. Our pleads are well-received. The solution? Customer service hotline, and online services. Good or bad? You decide. For me - the customer service is just another portal for the same request. "Our care consultants are busy at the moment. Your call is important to us. Please wait, and we'll attend to you shortly." And of course, I was attended to after waiting for one hour, with the phone tightly tugged to my right ear. I bet many users of such supposed solutions to longer waiting time might have provided their heartfelt feedback to the "customer service people", but so far, the wait goes on.

Of course voicing out problems is one thing, finding the appropriate solution is another. As customers, we do expect the people servicing us to "solve the problem". But often people wonder - how? Well, there are countries on the globe in our vicinity who has set pretty good examples. They might not have entirely solved the problem, but they provided solutions that actually better the situation; not make it worse. They promised to reduce the frequency of asking customers to wait, and they did. They ensure that waiting time will be shortened, and they did. I mean seriously, if the best you can do is this, us, being on the receiving end of your service, would truly appreciate the effort, as there are signs of improvement.

So much for yapping on a bad experience with customer care service hotline. I mean, frankly, they do care - I can definitely feel the sincerity. But unfortunately, maybe they are busy caring for so many people, they sincerely needed you to wait a moment, please, before they could shower you with the same attention.

"My hand is holding one's hand, yet my heart holds another's - who holds the greater pain?"

A show that explores in detail about revenge and forgiveness. Guy on the right killed the elder brother of the guy on the left, 12 years ago, when everyone was still in their teens. The death coincidentally caused another death - the mother of the guy on the left. Unfortunately for him, the two deaths wiped out his entire family, and in addition, brought down the reputation of his family name. Thu, naturally, he vows to get even with the guy on the right, in due time. So, using 12 years, he single handedly planned his revenge.
Like all shows of this genre, as the story goes, the guy on the left gradually falls in love, and hangs onto the little piece of human soul still left within him. He is torn between fufilling his supposed destiny and acknowledging the existence of the only person who understood his pain.
A very common plot about revenge and forgiveness, but what makes this series unique and outstanding is the details.
The people needed to be killed for revenge was murdered under naturally occuring incidences and accidents that were cleverly maneuvered. There were no traces of anything that will evidently point towards the mastermind or threaten to surface his name. By the middle of the series, when every event starts falling into place, you'll realise that his plot for revenge moves like a chess game, and with each brilliant flawless move he makes, he gets closer to checkmate.
However, the director also captured the emotional parts of the series in an intrinsic fashion that makes the audience feel for the characters and what they would likely experience at different stages of the plot - especially for the guy on the right and the left. For example, in the early episodes, you will enjoy the victories with the guy on the left as his plot succeeds, but in the later episodes, when the plot starts involving more lives, and you see the guy on the right repenting deeply for his past actions, you start wanting the guy on the left to stop his plotting. I guess the collaboration between the director and the acting cast accurately displayed all the emotions through the different parts of the series.
I really enjoyed every bit of this show.

Oldies?

Here are the list of songs which I shall aim to revisit and listen to again:

Take That - Back for Good, How deep is your love, Relight my Fire, Babe

NKOTB - By my valentine, Please don't go girl

BB Mak - Come Back

O Town - Liquid Dreams (Hahahaha... I use to despise this song, but I have to concede it is nice and groovy. Something special when it was first broadcasted.)

Human Nature - I Wish, Last Christmas

Bossan - One in a million

These songs really remind me of the late night radio listening sessions with my roomate, who is also my favourite cousin (I use to reside with her family because I was enrolled in a school far away from home), and the hushed up midnight video watching on TV sessions with her.

We use to creep downstairs to the living room from our room, and switched on the TV just to catch the top 10 videos listed in the US, broadcasted on channel 5 (then known as SBC something). Everyone, especially the ruling adults of the household, was fast asleep in their beds.

These midnight sneaks eventually came to a standstill when my cousin advanced to college, and then university. During her absence, since she moved to the hostels in her uni campus, I don't really enjoy the company of the others, thus I decided to stay in my room, listen to radio till late in the nights.

Those were the comforting times when I was away from home. I'm glad I could still remember =)

Oldies?

It never crossed my mind that the songs I loved and enjoyed years back have stopped playing frequently on the radio. Even if they were played, people would've forgotten that they were once well-loved by the masses.

A conversation about boy bands, NKOTB and Backstreet Boys, The Hansons and The Moffats, came up unintentionally today, and it also spurred me to check on the list of once popular, now forgotten, boybands online.

Guess what - the brief research led me to back to the songs which I've loved, and sad to say, have forgotten all about (since my first computer crashed and burn, and all the hundreds of songs I've collected from friends were never revived).

It's even sadder to learn that some of the songs I remembered enjoying can't be found in music search engines - I can't listen to the mp3 versions of them. So I went to YOUTUBE, and got the music videos. Thank god!

It seems rather warming to listen to these music once again. Makes you truly feel the changing times, and how many years have passed us by.

LFO (Check out their videos "Girl on TV", "Summertime", "I don't wanna Kiss you Goodnight" on YouTube - really missed them!)

Let Loose (Only one song I enjoyed from them - their remake of "Make it with you". Very romantic and weddingly)