It's Friday and a long weekend ahead to look forward to. Can't ease myself into the holiday mood just yet as I have some work to clear up. But here's a posting to break the monotony of work.
Just wanted to mention about how the topic of 'Hanoi' had unwittingly been brought up in the past two days.
First on Wednesday, while having dinner, Channel News Asia featured a story about the architecture and uniqueness of the buildings around St.Joseph's Cathedral in Hanoi. I was hooked, though I only caught it at the end of the programme.
Then yesterday while I was online at night, I found a friend (formerly from Muar) on MSN. And guess what, she was in Hanoi. How strange is that? So I rattled off a few things that might be of interest in Hanoi, like the cathedral, old quarters, a certain meat dish, and the must-do tour to Ha Long. Too bad she's on business trip as she might not have time to squeeze in the sighseeing.
Maybe these two separate events are signs to remind me to finish up the overdue write-up of my Vietnam trip. Well that just have to wait. I'm going back to Muar for the weekend.
.
28 April 2006
26 April 2006
Monday night and old friends
Met up with some old friends yesterday. Old as in friends of 12 years, as long as I’ve been in this Island across the ‘not-so-scenic’ bridge.
Well the reason for the meet-up was that dear old Shirm came a calling and decided to spend her last night in this part of the world with us before she flies off back to London today. As I simply put it out to her, she had chosen to save the best for last.
So, with the usual last minute arrangements and changes (though we were forewarned a month back), we made plans to meet for dinner at Golden Bay Seafood Restaurant. Thank goodness for Julian and his offer to pick us up in his car, for without it would make the journey to this west coast diner in the rain quite a challenge.
Anyway, the usual suspects all turned up for the dinner with the exception of Lam. Karen arrived with lil’ Daniel in tow. Julian and Tsumain had picked up the rest of us - myself, Peggy and Shirm from Clementi. And the surprise inclusion for the night was Ree Nee, who had been absent from our many gatherings in the past 10 years.
Over the course of dinner (Crab and Veges!), we caught up with bits and pieces of updates from each other. Not an easy task when you have a table of food separating us, and each of us trying to get their questions in, while our hands are kept busy breaking crab shells and our mouths trying to strip off the meat.
These Faces
I remember
Once young and leaner
Familiar faces
I used to see
Every day
in the hall way.
The laughing faces
At midnight birthdays sessions
And of worried faces
Nights before morning papers
Older faces
Twelve years on
Bearing different scars
Carrying distant cares
These faces
Still remember
And reaches out
Across time
To a common thread
Now thinner, slackened
But still clinging
To kindred souls
24 April 2006
First Blogversary : One Year On ...
Amazing, it's been one year since I first launched my Blog and my made my life, rants and musings known online. I wouldn't say that my life now revolves around my blog (hmmm ... does it?), just that blogging has pretty much found a place(a comfy corner lot I presume) in my life. Now, among the first things I tell myself when I stumble upon news worth reporting, or when I find a photo-worthy moment, or when my mind spits out some interesting thoughts, is to blog about it. I guess it kinds of give you a special feeling when you know that you can share these things with the world, maybe not the world, but people who care to drop by your remote outpost in the vast worldwide web.
Whatever. At least this way life seems more interesting ...
Ok bos, satu lagi teh tarik !
Whatever. At least this way life seems more interesting ...
Ok bos, satu lagi teh tarik !
21 April 2006
I could get use to this ... (1)
Windmill at Sunrise. Albany, Missouri.
Taken from Missouri Skies, a site dedicated to the ever-changing skies of Missouri.
20 April 2006
Vietnam 2006 Part 4 : Off to the Hills
Day 4(Tue) : Back from Ha Long Bay and off to Sa Pa
A Perfect Morning
If ever there is a morning that I’ll be happy to wake up to, this will probably be it. A cool cloudy morning in emerald green waters, the boat slowly cruising through the bay as we are surrounded by majestic mountains rising out of the waters like dragon spine in the mist.
Here’s a short clip to capture the moment.
Our slow tour of the bay finally came to an end around noon as the boat reached the jetty at Ha Long City. We were led to a nearby restaurant where we were served Vietnamese styled Chinese cooking.
Back to Hanoi
It was back to Hanoi after lunch. We arrived at Hanoi before 4pm. The van offloaded the four of us in front of the hotel where we previously stayed. Thinking twice whether to give the hotel owner a piece of our mind regarding his over-charging of the trip, we decided to overlook it and regard it as a lesson well learnt.
(Lesson #1 : We paid US$45 for the Ha Long Bay tour, expecting a bigger boat but later found out that some of our fellow passengers had paid US$35 or less for the same trip.
Lesson #2 : We were billed an extra 10% tax for the tour and hotel room. Later we found out that other hotels do not slap taxes. Even the receipt given looked dodgy without any proper company name and address. Thinking we could get a tax refund at the airport, we found no counters catering to such needs. )
We spent the next few hours drinking coffee at a Parisian Styled Café (Paris Deli), searching for a elusive lake near the train station, and having dinner while watching the local version of ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’ at a local restaurant.
What we had for tea ...
Midnight Train
We got on our train at 9:10pm. Found our bunk with the four soft sleepers. It was narrow with hardly any place for four guys to stand up all at once, but it will do for the night. The train left the station punctually.
We spent the next few hours playing ‘Bridge’. We managed to squeeze in a few hours of sleep after we had enough laughs from the game that was punctuated with first timer Wee Loong’s unorthodox Bridge moves.
The train rumbled on through the night, briefly stopping at stations along the way to Lao Cai. The drone of the engine might be hypnotic to some but for me it led to uneasy sleep. The stops did not help either as they totally broke the sleeping spell. Lao Cai was the final stop, located near the Chinese border. It was also the gateway to the hill stations of Sa Pa and Bac Ha.
A Perfect Morning
If ever there is a morning that I’ll be happy to wake up to, this will probably be it. A cool cloudy morning in emerald green waters, the boat slowly cruising through the bay as we are surrounded by majestic mountains rising out of the waters like dragon spine in the mist.
Here’s a short clip to capture the moment.
Our slow tour of the bay finally came to an end around noon as the boat reached the jetty at Ha Long City. We were led to a nearby restaurant where we were served Vietnamese styled Chinese cooking.
Back to Hanoi
It was back to Hanoi after lunch. We arrived at Hanoi before 4pm. The van offloaded the four of us in front of the hotel where we previously stayed. Thinking twice whether to give the hotel owner a piece of our mind regarding his over-charging of the trip, we decided to overlook it and regard it as a lesson well learnt.
(Lesson #1 : We paid US$45 for the Ha Long Bay tour, expecting a bigger boat but later found out that some of our fellow passengers had paid US$35 or less for the same trip.
Lesson #2 : We were billed an extra 10% tax for the tour and hotel room. Later we found out that other hotels do not slap taxes. Even the receipt given looked dodgy without any proper company name and address. Thinking we could get a tax refund at the airport, we found no counters catering to such needs. )
We spent the next few hours drinking coffee at a Parisian Styled Café (Paris Deli), searching for a elusive lake near the train station, and having dinner while watching the local version of ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’ at a local restaurant.
What we had for tea ...
Midnight Train
We got on our train at 9:10pm. Found our bunk with the four soft sleepers. It was narrow with hardly any place for four guys to stand up all at once, but it will do for the night. The train left the station punctually.
We spent the next few hours playing ‘Bridge’. We managed to squeeze in a few hours of sleep after we had enough laughs from the game that was punctuated with first timer Wee Loong’s unorthodox Bridge moves.
The train rumbled on through the night, briefly stopping at stations along the way to Lao Cai. The drone of the engine might be hypnotic to some but for me it led to uneasy sleep. The stops did not help either as they totally broke the sleeping spell. Lao Cai was the final stop, located near the Chinese border. It was also the gateway to the hill stations of Sa Pa and Bac Ha.
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