Chilly rainy morning here in Wollongong, everyone woke up late. Seeing that Ann and Jos are still asleep, I decided to do a little bit more updating. Yasa is cooking up an Australian breakfast for us and I must say I am indebted to him once again. I slept for 5 hours overnight but I don't feel sleepy at all, I guess the last 2 days most of our time was spent driving in a sitting position. It may have been a looong drive but I love the feeling of driving through the country side across the vast australian expanse, roads that slope up and down going across rivers and creeks and sometimes along the ocean, past farms with cows and sheep and horses dressed in jackets with signs proclaiming fresh oranges or puppies for sale and carefully watching the fuel gauge and looking at maps, stopping at the small-town KFC because Jos infected us with her craving. Anyways Yasa is such a big nag so I had best be off for breakfast now. Miss you all in Singapore :)

Quick notes from Wollongong.




Melbourne was freezing, chapped lips and triple layers. 2 days lost to shopping but the girls were smiling. I loved the Melbourne Museum and Phillip Island, the Penguins and Koalas. We all loved the Wildlife Park in Ballarat, Kangaroo feeding and Koala patting.


Brisbane for a day before driving 1000 km southwards past the Opera house and then here in Wollongong, stopping by randomly at beaches and small towns along the countryside, all the time looking for envelopes to post polaroid postcards.

I fly off later today =D Melbourne here I come! Leave your postal address under comments to receive a polaroid postcard !

Happy Father's Day and we had a nice family dinner at the newly opened Hans near my place. It must have been awhile since we were out for dinner together, and with our cousins Qingyang and Xinlei ( who's leaving for summer school in California on Wednesday for 6 weeks) the dinner was especially warm even if the food wasn't fantastic. I had wanted to bring them to Daimaru for the Ramen but my brother Camp Comandante WQ Lim had to return to his church.

After dinner, Comandante Lim reported back and I played the cool cousin, bringing them to Venezia 6th Avenue for Waffles and Ice Cream. I think Daily Scoop's Waffles are better but Venezia's pretty yummy anyway. After Ice Cream, I took them for a car ride through Queen Astrid Park to look at the big rich houses and coming back, I went upstairs to get my helmet and bike key and took Qingyang on a joyride on my bike - his first time on a bike. =D No i didn't waste the last two days in Singapore before I take off. 

Bob Marley and Giraffe

Mango and Chocomint

In case the plane crashes, Papa I love you, you are the best dad in the world. Happy Father's Day!!

Multicultural Singapore

I woke up early this morning to leave the house and was greeted by a beautifully decorated corridor which makes me appreciate the multicultural society that we live in.

It was drizzling, it had been since last night, when I rode back from Bukit Batok - I had gone to Valerie's place at Guilin view for a get-together and since I was in the area,I decided to pay David a visit.

So it was the classic 'stay home, stay under the blankets and sleep' kind of weather, but for W.Wayne and S. Susan, nono we were un-detered, unpersuaded. We decided to head out to sea, or at least we tried.

We met(and fed) Anthony, the Dog-Lion.  And then she took a photo with the old man of the sea.

The tide was too low to take the boat out, so we settled for breakfast, barefoot on a bench with a sea view in the middle of nowhere.

Alfian Saat - Obviously very talented.

Singapore You Are Not My Country

Singapore you are not my country.
Singapore you are not a country at all.
You are surprising Singapore, statistics-starved Singapore,
soulful Singapore of tourist brochures in Japanese and
hourglass kebayas.
You protest, but without picketing, without rioting,
without Catherine Lim,
but through your loudspeaker media, through the hyp-
notic eyeballs of your newscaster, and that weather
woman who I swear is working voodoo on my teevee
screen.
Singapore, what are these lawsuits in my mailbox?
There are so many sheafs, I should have tipped the
postman.
Singapore, I assert you are not a country at all.
Do not raise your voice against me, I am not afraid of your
anthem although the lyrics are still bleeding from the
bark of my sapless heart.
Not because I sang them pigtailed pinnafored breakfasted
chalkshoes in school
But because I used to watch telly till they ran out of
shows.
Do not invite me to the podium and tell me to address you
properly.
I am allergic to microphones and men in egosuits and
publicwigs.
And I am not a political martyr, I am a patriot who has lost
his country and virginity.
Do not wave a cane at me for vandalising your propaganda
with technicolour harangues,
Red Nadim semen white Mahsuri menses the colourful
language of my eloquent generation.
Your words are like walls on which truth is graffiti.
This has become an island of walls.
Asylum walls, factory walls, school walls, the walls of the
midnight Istana.
If I am paranoid I have learnt it from you, O my delicate
orchid stalk Singapore.
Always thirsty for water, spooked by armed archipelagoes,
always gasping for airspace, always running to keep
ahead, running away from yourself.
Singapore why do you wail that way, demanding my IC?
Singapore stop yelling and calling me names.
How dare you call me a chauvinist, an opposition party,
a liar,
a traitor, a mendicant professor, a Marxist homosexual
communist
pornography banned literature chewing gum liberty
smuggler?
How can you say I do not believe in
The Free Press autopsies flogging mudslinging bankruptcy
which are the five pillars of justice?
And how can you call yourself a country, you terrible
hallucination
of highways and cranes and condominiums ten minutes'
drive from the MRT?

Tell that to the battered housewife who thinks happiness
lies at the end of a Toto queue
Tell that to the tourist guide whose fillings are pewter
whose feelings are iron
whose courtesy is gold whose speech is silver whose
handshake is a lethal yank at the jackpot machine.
Tell that to my imam who thinks we are all going to hell.
That that to the chao ah beng who has seven stitches a
broken collarbone and three dead comrades but who
will not hesitate at thrusting his tiger ribcage into
another fight
because the lanterns of his lungs have caught their own
fire and there is no turning back.
Tell that to the yuppie who sits in meat-markets disguised
as pubs, listening to Kenny G disguised as jazz
on handphone disguised as conversation and loneliness
disguised as a jukebox.
Tell that to all those exiles whose names are forgotten but
who leave behind a bad taste in the thoughtful mouth,
reminding us that the flapping sunned linen shelters a
whiff of chloroform.
Tell that to Town Council men who feed pigeons with
crumbs of arsenic.
Tell that to Maria Hertogh a.k.a. Nadra who proved to us
that blood spilled was thicker than water shed as she
was caught pining under a stone angel in the nunnery
for her husband.
Tell that to Ah Meng, who bore five hairy bastards for our
nation.
Tell that to Lee Kuan Yew's squint.
Tell that to Josef Ng, who shaves my infant head admidst a
shower of one-cent coins, and both of us are pure
again.
Tell that to my Warrant Officer who knew I was faking.
Tell that to the unemployed man who drinks cigarettes
smokes tattoos watches peanuts
unselfconscious of his gut belch debts and wife having an
affair with the Salesman of Nervous Breakdowns.
Tell that to Maya Angelou's who are screeching like
witches United Nations-style poems populated by
Cheena Babi Bayee Tonchet Melayu Malas Keling
Garagok Mat Salleh.
Tell that to the fakirs of civil disobedience, whose head-
phones are pounding the hooving basslines of Damyata
Damyata Damyata
Tell that to the statue of Li Po at Marina Park.
Tell that to the performance artists who need licences like
drivers and doctors and dogs
when all they really need is just three percent of your love.
Tell that to the innocent faggot looking for kicks on a
Sunday evening to end up sucking the bit-hard pistol-
muzzle of the CID, ensnared no less by his weakness for
pretty boys naked out of uniform.
Tell that to the caretaker of the grave of Radin Mas.
Tell that to Chee Soon Juan's smirk.
Tell that to the pawns of the Upgrading Empire who
penetrate their phalluses into heartlands to plant Lego
cineplexes Tupperware playgrounds suicidal balconies
carnal parks of cardboard and condoms and before we
know it we are a colony once again.
Tell that to Malaysia whose Desaru is our spitoon whose
TV2 is our amusement whose Bumiputras are our
threat whose outrage is our greater outrage whose
turtles are weeping blind in the roaring daylight of our
cameras.
Tell that to the old poets who have seen this piece of land
slip their metaphors each passing year from bumboats
to debris to sanitation projects to drowning attempts
to barbed neon water weeds on a river with no reflec-
tions a long way off from the sea.
O Singapore your fair shores your garlands your GNP.
You are not a country you are a construction from spare
parts.
You are not a campaign you are last year's posters.
You are not a culture you are poems on the MRT.
You are not a song you are part swearword part lullaby.
You are not Paradise you are an island with pythons.

Singapore I am on trial.
These are the whites of my eyes and the reds of my wrists.
These are the deranged stars of my schizophrenia.
This is the milk latex gummy moon of my sedated smile.
I have lost a country to images, it is as simple as that.
Singapore you have a name on a map but no maps to your
name.
This will not do; we must stand aside and let the Lion
crash through a madness of cymbals back to that dark
jungle heart
when eyes were still embers waiting for a crownless
Prince of Palembang.

- Alfian Sa'at, One Fierce Hour, 1998


And the sad thing, very true.

From years years back, when we were celebrating Rachel's 13th birthday below the void deck of 121. A sort of holiday song.

Waiting for the rain to stop so I can go for tuition with Jovis. It's been very frustrating teaching him and I am a little relieved this is the last session before my holiday. Saturday tomorrow, Sunday the day after then I'll be on the overnight plane to Melbourne, arriving there in the wee hour of 455am. We will be meeting at the landmark Flinder's Street Station at 9am Melbourne time. That's not to say I won't be making the best of these 3 remaining days. I heard it's cold down under. I still have to get the Polaroid Camera from Wanxin and not forgetting the very expensive polaroid films.

Today I miss my dog. I came home from Jurong Stadium. Opening the door, I half expected to see Candy. She used to come running to sniff at my feet. No one was at home. My parents in Genting, my auntie gone home, my brother and sister probably at church; I couldn't resist the impulse and called out 'Candy', as if she was still alive and sleeping on the rug in the hall.

Katong threw away a one goal lead to lose 2-1 to Khalsa today. A win would have put us back on top but some bad decision making meant we conceded two goals in the last 5 mins. Decision making, like driving back on the CTE, the electronic signboard says heavy traffic after the 2nd tunnel, I am in the first tunnel but traffic seems to be smooth flowing, do I opt for the exit and go by the route through City Hall, then Bugis-Lavender-Geylang way or should I just stay on the expressway?

My first NFL season and it's been quite an experience even if I have been sitting on the bench for almost the whole season save for 15 mins, at least the team is doing well. I feel like Kieran Richardson but I will keep plugging away the way 'Smudger' Alan Smith did.

DCFC for a change from Mayday. I love this MV.



I changed my money today. 1.3 Sing to 1 Aussie. Flying off on Monday. Still some things I need to get for the trip. I am starting to feel excited. Egyptian food last night with Lulu, KenC and ZT. I left early before Gwen arrived after his jamming session. Check them out. Zerodaybug. I had planned to go down to Mustapha after the dinner, but Wanxin called and suggested waffles with ice cream which I couldn't resist.

Blue sky and fluffy white clouds.

This pious creature decided to hop on for a ride.

Liz the sunbathing monitor lizard.

15 working days means the letter hasn't arrived yet. I read about Alfian Saat which puts a dampener on my aspirations. This time next week I will be Down Under :) while Yasa is incognito, which leaves Jos worried but I tell her to trust me, we won't sleep in the park. Wanxin says it's just me.

Upper Serangoon Shopping Centre. Our favorite childhood haunt, the favorite place for Marist Stella Boys. Circle Circus Arcade, Pot Black Billiards, dreaming rachel day-dreams. Red Panther Barber Saloon, Inner-cut, Mushroom, the infamous Hougang de Sauna. A cockroach in Simian's Noodles. Ah Lim's Game Shop.

We grew up too fast, migrated to more glittery places. Circle Circus closed, then Pot Black. We switched to saloons, Pointers and then Reds. It must have been ages since we were there. The place has become a sleepy backwater now; Aged and weary with algae~d walls.

I went back with Abel yesterday. Surprisingly Ah Lim is still there and going strong. He still remembers us. From floppy disks to Cds, we have been buying from him since the DOS era. There's this closeness, an old sense of familiarity. Buying from him, you feel as if you are supporting a friend. Of course he only deals in originals now, but our pockets are also deeper.

Watching this mv makes me want to jump up and down and stamp my feet like them. I bet you do too. When I was growing up the monkey god was my favorite mythical character. He was a rebel who believed he could create his own heaven. In this aspect he was a revolutionary, like Che.

1. Lunch with Lulu and Gwen.

2. Picking up Marquez and Allende from the new Bishan Library.

3. A slice of the best chocolate cake in Singapore.

1. Picking my mum up from her workplace and driving her home.

2. Listening to Mayday while driving

3. Delicious La Mian and Xiao Long Bao dinner with Wanxin.


At the intersection of highways, this route I often take, veering off to join the CTE, the flats in the distance get taller and taller with each passing day, blocking out more and more of the blue sky. It wasn't too long ago, navigating past the same bend and running at 110km/h through the chilly night, W.W and S.S passed through, in search of adventure on this tiny island.

Tiny? But we had a great time. Didn't we?

Not too long ago? In a couple of months, it will be one year . Do you sometimes feel that time is passing by too fast? And yet there is no remote control with a pause button nor a record option for us to relive those little moments of magic.

--------------------------------------------------------

小时候 - 五月天

小时候我一直有个梦　有一天我要飞上外太空
就像夏夜繁星闪烁　
幻想我能穿梭其中　你有没有过　你有没有过

小时候　渴望硕壯的成熟
长大后我有雪亮的天空
风雨却让世界不同
面对遍体鱗伤的痛
你有没有放弃梦想的沖动

當你的心已累以为失去了一切
其实等在前面还有一整个世界
當你的爱已碎以为純真会幻滅
其实等在前面还有一整个新的視野
新的起点

小时候　我一直有个梦
有一天我要飞上外太空
即使越来越淡的星座
越来越远的神话传说
我不会忘記在夏夜里的时空遨游

The Pursuit of Happiness

I read an article in Discover magazine at the national library today, titled "The Pursuit of Happiness." In it they provided a simple 'recipe' for being happy - Write down at the end of each day, at least three good things which happened to you. So here goes.

1.) Browsing through magazines on a comfy sofa in air condition at the library

2) Discovering the courtyard garden at the National Library and looking down at traffic from the garden while listening to Mayday songs and reminiscing on the concert.

3)The view of the city from the glass elevator up on the 11th floor and feeling funny as the elevator speeds upwards.

JUMP!

Although Simian was the bigger winner(by far) with 100 dollars from a 10 dollar outlay, I guess I can claim the moral victory since it was my horse which came in first, although that only netted me $27 from a $5 bet. It was like a sign from god. We were looking at the tv screens at the betting stations on the 2nd floor and they were introducing the horses. They came to horse number 6 - Lim's Fighter( See Race 4 ). With a name like that, there could only be one choice for me.

Coming down to the last 250 or so meters, all seemed lost. She was stuck in the middle of the pack. Rounding the bend and coming into the straight sprint, as the crowd erupted into frenzied chantings, she suddenly surged forward into contention, 3rd then 2nd, and finally down to the last 10 metres 1st place. I was jumping up and down in excitement. Oh, the sheer ecstasy of watching your horse romp past the winning post =D

I turned and gave Simian who was smiling like a cheshire cat, a high five, because he had put a "Place" bet on Number 2, a long-shot with big odds, and the unfancied Scenic Sea finished 2nd. He would be taking back 10 times what he wagered! It was a thrilling finish which set our pulses racing and hearts thumping.

I discovered a strange insignia on my bike today. It really is very peculiar. After its appearance, my bike seems to have acquired a life of its own. For the full story, see here.

Before meeting up with Olivia, Martha, Serene and the rest of the econs people at Marina South. I decided to make a trip down to Sungei Buloh. I am in love with the place. It's a wonderful feeling that you get, so close to nature - a sense of serenity and wonder. I am pleasantly surprised and subsequently awe-struck as a young sea eagle springs out from treetops nearby flapping its powerful wings as it heads out towards the sea.

O let them be left, wildness and wet.