Weekend Update ~ Typhoon Nuri, Get Smart and the Olympics Closing Ceremony

Had a long weekend thanks to Typhoon Nuri which hit Hong Kong directly on Friday. The Observatory issued signal 8 from 7:40am, and then a signal 9 in the late afternoon. It was rather scary actually when the rain and the wind came slapping my window and I felt my flat moved! A wave of nausea swept over me as I was studying by the window and I had to lie down. Many damage buildings and fallen trees were reported and a man went missing at sea. He had gone surfing with his wife despite the warnings and was taken away by the enormous waves. The wife was fine...And the most interesting part was that the wife didn't stop him from doing such a stupidly dangerous thing! What were the both of them thinking? I would definitely have stopped my hubby! Not unless I want him to die...

Saturday was a beautiful day. The typhoon had washed away all the pollutants and the sky became exceptionally blue. The air was fresh too! I wish I had a car to drive to the suburbs...it would have been such a fine day for a long drive out of the city. We went for a movie instead at the Grand Cinema @Elements again. This time we watched Get Smart, totally a no-brain comedy which was just the kind of entertainment I needed. Oh yah, we found out that all the seats at the Grand Cinema are vibrating seats! I guess we won't be watching movies anywhere else from now.

The Beijing Olympics is finally over and the closing ceremony was rather disappointing. David Beckham was part of the cast from London but all he did was just came out from the top of a double-decker bus and kicked a soccer ball which was handed to him by a young Indian-looking girl. Then an excited Chinese worker from the ground rushed to picked up the ball and hugged on to it for dear life. *Roll my eyes*

After 16 days of hype and excitement about the Beijing Olympics, it has come to an end and I really wonder what has China gained from organising this game? 51 gold medals, their best game ever but is China a better place now? Do I want to stay in China? The answer from me is still NO. 40 billion dollars have been spent just for this Olympics Games and I personally think that it is not the way to show China's affluence and power to the world. I may be wrong but so much more could have been done with that money for the massive rural poor people in China. Why are we donating to China when she has that kind of money to spend on the Olympics Games? If China wants to show its affluence and power to the world, she should concentrate to raise the standard of living for all its citizens.

Looking forward to London 2012!

Weekend Update - 3D Movie

The amount of readings that I need to do is getting over-whelming now that I am taking 2 modules at the same time. I realised that I am getting behind in my readings and with the Olympic Games on TV, it's really not helping...

However, I still insist that I should have a life outside of my work and studies, so hubby and I went for a date on Saturday. We went for dinner at a noodle place at Elements which we had wanted to try many months ago but it was always very crowded. Then we watched a 3D movie. I have always love watching 3D movies since little and this time we went for "Journey to the Center of the Earth" by Brandon Fraser. I have liked his movies since the "Mummy" series of movies. He's really kind of cute and all his movies are the adventurous type. "Jouney to the Center of the Earth" really makes me want to start reading adventure stories but I doubt I will ever find the time. Oh yah, I forgot to mention the cinema. They had vibrating seats in tune with the exciting parts of the movie! Very much like those simulation games we play at amuzement parks. 3D + vibrating seats = FUN!

Fake for the sake of "perfection"

Live telecasts of the Olympics games have disrupted my schedule...I no longer get my dose of the Cantonese dramas that I used to enjoy every week nights and with the exciting games on TV, I couldn't study either... :(

I must say, I was rather impressed with the opening show of the Beijing Olympics until I found out that the little pretty girl who sang the opening song while they brought in the flag was actually a fake. The little girl with the beautiful voice singing the theme song was thought to be too chubby face and has uneven teeth, so they chose another prettier girl to do lip synchronising instead. I am totally disgusted with the arrangement. Bunch of cheats. How can they do such a thing to a little girl and try to fool the whole world with their so-called perfect image? *phui*

Well, that's just how the world is, isn't it? Beauty comes first, regardless of males or females, children or adults. Everybody likes a pretty face, and many pretty faces get privileges while the not so pretty ones get despised. In my company, one of the criteria given to the HR is to hire the better-looking ones given the same qualifications. Sometimes qualifications are compromised for the sake of a pretty face...*sigh* Is the society putting too much weight on beauty? Many girls are constantly fighting a battle to lose weight (including myself, actually) and many have gone for some corrective procedures, some very painful ones even for the sake of beauty...Everybody is faking beauty!

Eventful Week

It has been an eventful week. First it was typhoon signal 8 for almost 12 hours on 6th August(Wed) and everybody get a full day's off from work and school. I have this love and hate relationship about typhoons in Hong Kong. I love it because I get a day off from work but I also hate it that come next day, all will be chaotic at the warehouse. I also need to report to my bosses in Japan about the situation and also come out with a contingency plan for the deliveries to be made to customers. This time, thanks to some hardworking warehouse staff I have, about 20 of them came back to work overnight after the typhoon signal came down in the evening. Deliveries for both days (Wed & Thurs) were made the next day without any delays. :D

Hubby and I stayed at home the whole time the typhoon signal was up, looking out the window checking the skies. We both thought that this typhoon seemed quite mild from where we were but there were news about many damages and casualties. After the typhoon signal came down we went to a cocktail party at Lan Kwai Fong only to be welcomed by a sign saying that the party had been postphoned. So there we were, Wednesday night in the unusually deserted LKF without a party to go to... In the end, we had dinner at Yung Kee Restaurant which is famous for its roasted goose. Surprising even to us, it was our first time at Yung Kee after being here in Hong Kong for more than 3 years. It usually has a long waiting queue and we are never patient enough to wait in line for our food, so this time, thanks to the typhoon, we got our teeth into the famous roasted goose without having to wait at all! It was delicious but very fattening, I must say. I gained 1.4 lbs after dinner that night...

On 8th Aug, it was the Beijing Olympics opening night. I met some friends for dinner after work and didn't get home until about 9:30pm, so I missed the 1st part of the show. Hubby was really impressed by the show, saying that it was so Zhang Yimou style. We were waiting for the Singapore team to march out but couldn't figure out what kind of sequence they were following. Definitely not in alphabetical order because when the countries Malaysia and Hong Kong came out rather early. In the end, hubby checked the Olympics website and found out that the countries were arranged to march out according to the number of strokes(笔划) in the 1st character of the countries' Chinese name in simplified Chinese characters. Singapore is 新加坡 so the word 新 has 13 strokes and came out quite towards the end. Malaysia is 马来西亚 with only 3 strokes in its 1st character so Malaysia marched out quite early. Get the idea? Anyway, after the whole event, there was an immediate re-telecast of the opening acts again so I didn't miss anything. It was really an impressive display. The massive casts, the costumes and the choreography was impeccable. 中国厉害！

On 9th August, Singapore's 43rd National Day, hubby and I went for a NDP dinner party organised by the Singapore Association in Hong Kong. We had the whole Satay Inn Restuarant booked for the occasion and we watched the NDP 2008 live on Channel Newsasia. It was a great night. I thought the show was great, not losing to the Beijing Olympics opening show except that we have fewer casts in the show. The venue was special, being on the floating platform at Marina Bay, surrounded by waters. And the NDP song this year was really good, brought tears to my eyes... And the fireworks were spectacular! Much more spectacular than the Beijing's fireworks! Yeah~Singapore!

The Consulate-General was the guest of honor that night and we got to meet many fellow Singaporeans. Many of them were wearing red and white, the Singapore's national colours and I have never felt so patriotic in a long time since the old school days. We stood up when the National Anthem was sung and I was reminded of the National Pledge that I had so conveniently forgotten. *Ashamed*

The food that night was of course authentic Singaporean foods such as the famous Hainanese Chicken Rice, Bak Kut Teh, Satay, Roti Prata with Chicken Curry, Laska and many more. I gained another 2 lbs after that meal... :-(

Siblings Love

I am watching another TVB major drama "家好月圓" every night from 9:30pm to 10:30pm. The story is about the struggles of a family with 6 children being separated into half due a heartless divorce settlement. As with all dramas, the mother is the good one while the father is the bad one who has an affair with another woman and thus caused the divorce. The father and the other woman got custody of 3 children (all boys) while the mother got custody of the other 3 children (2 girls and 1 boy). The drama made me cry from the very 1st episode when they showed how the 3 children were being pulled away from their mother and forced to leave with their father and the other woman. The subsequent episodes mainly showed the lives of the grown up siblings with their mother at their humble cake shop and home. It showed how the 3 children were very well brought up in the sense that they really cared for each other, also their mum and grandfather. The children with the father and the other woman were brought up well-educated but also very aloof.

I do not have siblings, I am the only child and I really do not understand the love and relationship between siblings until I have my 2 children. And I remember having posted this blog about Siblings Love in December 2007 :

"The children are now with me in Hong Kong and my mum has gone for a 4 days tour, so they are here by themselves in the day while I worked. I went home during lunch time to check on them yesterday around 1pm. They were awoke and N had just made some food and drink for D and herself. It was such a warm sight, the big sister bringing out a tray of instant mash potato and milo for her younger brother while she had another tray of instant pasta and coffee latte herself. They settled themselves on the carpet infront of the TV and enjoyed their brunch while watching TV. I was so envious of them, I never had such lovely companionship when I was young...that's the problem for being the only child...so lonely.

I made myself some instant noodles and settled down together to eat with them, didn't want to go back to work at all...but I had to :(

Hubby and I brought them to Langham Place Hotel to have buffet for dinner after work, the kids love buffets because they can get to pick and choose whatever they want to eat and also because they get to roam around. Again they were exploring around the buffet counters together, keeping each other company and boosting each other's confidence in the process. I am happy that I had made the right choice to keep D eventhough I knew that my previous marriage was not going to work out.

We had some interesting and meaningful conversation over dinner; N telling us her crush, her friends' crushes and gossips. We telling her when is the right time or rather legal time to do "the thing" and what is "the thing" all about and so on. We try not to make such a big fuss over it so that she will be more open with us and receptive to our advice. Hubby was telling her what the boys will be thinking and what they will do to get it from her and so on and so forth. She was telling me that she likes this boy very much and how it hurts when he tried to avoid her in school and then how sweet the feeling was when he finally told her that he likes her too...yes, my daughter in in that age already...I can't believe it myself but I have to face it. She still looked so babyish just a couple of years ago!

D is still a baby, still crying over little things easily...sigh...how to teach him that boys shouldn't cry? Should I be harsher on him? I tried but I couldn't because he's not always with me and when he's with me, I want him to get as much love from me as possible but not scolding. I just want hug and kiss my boy as much as possible. I am a hopeless mum..."

The children are growing up so fast...I am so afraid that I have no time to catch up with them before they becomes strangers to me. I just hope that this last year in Hong Kong will not be too long for everybody to wait...

Weekend Update

This is the 3rd week into my studies and I have decided to enroll for another subject which will start next month. Student Care discouraged me saying that I had better get more familiar before I embark on another subject. However, I figured that I would really need to do 2 subjects at a time to complete my studies in less than 3 years. I have received my scholarship award letter from Singapore Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong last week. One of the conditions stated that I need to complete my MBA program in 3 years from the start date of my 1st subject. If not, I may have to reimburse them my school fees. Anyway, I do not intend to drag this too long. My target is to complete it before my 40th birthday which is about 2 and half years more to go...

It was Mr Hong Kong 2008 Pageant on Saturday and I thought that it was a much more interesting show than the Miss Hong Kong pageant. The audience and the judges are all women from either the entertainment industry or some socialites. More than 600 of them filled the whole studio, they screamed and cheered when the contestants striped to show their muscles. It was hilarious. The women were so excited and they were defintely not discrete it. Hubby said that they all looked like a pack of she-wolves lusting over the contestants! By the way, this year's Mr Hong Kong is contestant number 12, Michael Tsu and apparently he got almost all of the votes from the ladies that night! His charm? I think it's his smile, his eyes and his lousy Cantonese. Anyway, I think he did a very good job with the Indiana Jones act and also the weapon play. Overall, the whole show was really entertaining and it was a freshing break for me from my studies.