Inconsiderate people

After I finished walking my dog, I sat down on the ledge at the void deck, both to read the morning's newspaper and to let Dana rest before heading home.

I noticed a few scraps of cloth were being thrown down. When I looked up, I noticed some activity on the seventh floor, the owner was probably clearing up the ledge below the bamboo holders.

Suddenly, a whole package flew down and dropped to a loud "Thud"! Alarmed, I walked out and looked up at the seventh floor. A middle aged auntie looked down and me and apologetically said "Sorry. I will go and pick this up later."

I waited for around 10 mins and no one appeared to remove the offending package, which I saw were a pair of sports shoes tied in a plastic bag. Even later after I finished my lunch and came back home, the shoes were still there.

Really, like MM said recently, a gracious Singapore will take a long time to come.

Chinatown - CNY spirit

My family and I visited Chinatown to get a sense of the imminent Lunar New Year. I used to remember my parents used to bring my brothers and me to immerse the new year spirit, browsing the many makeshift stalls selling wares and goodies. Now that Chinatown has shrank and modernised (sanitised in my opinion), the atmosphere of old is no longer there, although the streets are cleaner and better laid out.

Here's a photo of the Hong Lim complex which I frequented (almost daily) for lunch when I temp-ed at OCBC after my A-levels. One of my favourite stalls was the dumpling noodle stall. Despite its age, the HDB flats still look rather welcoming. Many of the malls and skyscrapers present now were not present in 1993!

This is Waterloo Street. On the right of this street is Chinatown.

To cater to tourists, one of the streets earlier passable to road traffic has been converted to a padestrians only street, akin to Mongkok in Hongkong. It is called Food Street now but I say don't bet too much on the quality of the food. When we passed by the street in the early afternoon, there were not many people.

But when we passed by it on the way home around 7pm, it was brimming with people. There was even a traffic police officer stationed at the roadside.

This is the recently constructed Buddha Tooth Temple. Even though I am a Buddhist, I cannot concur with the overtly commercialised nature of the temple. But it is still an interesting place to visit, especially for tourists.

See how busy Chinatown is! I recall the streets were even more crowded when I was a young boy. Maybe the day is still young and the crowd will increase as the day wears on.

Dinner at Whampoa

Dinner was at Chang Cheng (loosely translated as Great Wall) Porridge at a coffee shop near Whampoa hawker centre. Yup, this is a branch of the famous porridge joint at Chinatown. The taste of the food is say 80-90% of Chinatown stall, but the main benefit is that the coffeeshop is more spacious at Whampoa and there is practically no queue.

I had fish porridge ($2.70) and a huge plate of sashimi ($4) topped up with a plate of Xin Zhou Mi Fen ($3) from the zi char stall.

After dinner, we took a stroll around the newly renovated Whampoa hawker centre. As it was near Chinese New Year time, the shops have started selling related items, decorations and plants.

American Idol is back!

Seven 7 has started! The start of the season is audition time and is the best time to get a few laughs at the William Hung wannabes.

One of the most memorable auditees was a big sized man all covered up in a dark cloak. He opened it once in the audition room and revealed that he was wearing something equivalent to a bikini. When Paula remarked that his chest hair was distracting, this chap actually went to get his chest hair removed in the most cruel and direct way -- using sticky tape! Yicks!

Char Siew Rice at Pek Kio

Pek Kio (white bridge in Mandarin) or Cambridge hawker centre is one of my favourite places for lunch. It has a few good stalls that sells tasty food and it is clean and spacious. Parking is also easy as there is a large open HDB car park just opposite the road.

The Adam Road prawn noodle is recommended but I suspect that the tasty soup is due to the liberal amount of msg and other seasoning the auntie adds to the soup. Order the $5 version for larger prawns. The most expensive version costs $10.

The other recommended stall is the roasted meat stall run by two sisters. The roasted duck, char siew and roasted pork are all very good and affordable. Today, I ordered the roasted pork and char siew rice which costs only $2.50. I ordered the fried vegetables at an additional $0.50.

Why the difference?

Have you noticed that the number pads on your telephone and on your calculator are designed differently?

Inconsiderate drivers

These two drivers parked their cars just in front of the block's rubbish chute area. When the refuse truck came to clear the block's rubbish, the poor guys could not carry out their jobs and had to shout and sound their horn desparately to attract the drivers. I stayed around for around 20 mins (kay-poh-ing) and still the drivers had not returned. The poor refuse company men had their schedule interrupted, hoped that this did not affect their knocking off time too much.

As for the owners of the two cars, you are just simply goondus. I mean, even if you needed to illegal park near the flat, please use a little of your imagination and see whether you have inconvenienced someone else.

Jacky Cheung - truly a 歌神

Yawnz... it's a monday morning at work. Feel like taking a short break off work so here, I am writing... hehe.

Just wanna share my experience at the Jacky Cheung's concert last Sat. All I can say is HE IS GOOD! He is just so charming and his songs really mesmerised me, especially when he sang his "trademark" songs. Be it cantonese or mandarin, I think he is superb.

All in all, I have enjoyed myself though I did not get the better seats. It just felt good to listen to him LIVE. All of us could feel his sincerity when he gave a longer than usual encore.

Just spoke to Mr Kok who also went to the concert but he said "boring.." !%$*(#^% "SLAP AH!"

Mr Kok, maybe your seat is too far. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!