Beijing getting all cleaned up!

Yesterday was a self-declared half day at work for me. Once in awhile doing something unethical actually feels great! :D

Met hubby at Simply Life (our favourite restaurant at Festival Walk) for lunch around 2pm and went home straight to have an afternoon nap. Now that's SIMPLY LIFE!

Anyway, I was reading the South China Morning Post yesterday and there was an article on the Olympics about how many garbage collectors working for small-scale recycling companies are being driven out of the capital because they are thought to be eye-sores. Beijing cannot afford to have foreigners see those shabbily dressed common residents anywhere near the Olympics venues! Those poor souls are driven out without any form of compensation and are told to come back only after the Olympics. Why? It's not good for the image that China wants to portray to the whole world to see. No! China do not have shabbily dressed garbage collectors who have been making their living out of finding recyclable items at the many garbage dumps inside the city. And all the citizens of China are smart-looking, speaks good English and walks graciously with a book on their heads! That's the image they wants to portray and they have been training their people hard! Those who cannot match the image? Out! Out they go, together with pests. That's how China is cleaning up her capital and cities hosting the Olympics.

It's disgusting, isn't it? Get real! Be truthful! The whole world already know what China is like and no matter how "cleaned up" China is for the sake of the Olympics will not change people's perception of China. At least for me, it's true.

Alcohol = Headache?

It is pouring again this morning...I was just 20 feet away from the taxi to the lift lobby and I got drenched. My shoes are still wet...I had an umbrella, you know. But it was POURING down! I hate this weather.

It's less than 1 month to the Olympics whereby Hong Kong will be hosting the horse-riding competitions. I wonder if the horses will be drowned if this kind of weather continue?

I was out last night having dinner with a Japanese colleague who used to be my boss back in Singapore. We were at a little French restaurant inside Sport B by Agnes B at Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong and the food was fabulous. I bought him the set dinner which was a tasting menu while he paid for the wine. It was a good red wine, full bodied and very easy to drink. I had 2 glasses while he finished the rest of the bottle. As with most Japanese men, he is an alcoholic and he needs to drink every night to sleep well. As for me, I am just a social drinker. I drink only when I am having dinner with my Japanese colleagues or bosses. In Japan, it is a social etiquette to drink during dinner with friends or colleagues. At least a beer for the "kanpai!" which means "cheers" is a must. So after working for the Japanese for so many years, I have made a reputation for myself as a relatively good drinker which I have absolutely no idea how. Trust me, I don't drink a lot. Just 3 glasses of any kind of alcohol maximum.

I had a terrible headache last night waking me up at 3am. I thought wine was suppose to be good for health? I had only 2 glasses and I wasn't even feeling a hint of drunkenness! Why is it that I am getting these terrible headaches whenever I drink alcohol recently? The last time I had this terrible headache was when I had dinner with the CEO in April. I was in Kyoto and I didn't have my panadols with me. The headache was so terrible that I thought I needed to get into a hospital. In the end, I had to call the hotel front desk in the middle of the night to ask for help and they gave me some very mild painkiller which relieved me of my headache only for about an hour. In the morning, I still had to get some more painkiller from the pharmacy and you know what, they don't sell panadol in Japan!

Last night I had to take 3 tablets of panadol to help me get rid of my headache. I am feeling OK now but I just can't understand why am I getting these headaches which I never had before if I limited my consumption to just 2 or 3 glasses. Am I getting old? Is there something wrong with my body? It's worrying...do any of you get headache with alcohol consumption?

Is a house an asset or a liability?

I was reading Rich Dad and it has some very interesting points. Basically it is highlighting to us the differences in terms of thinking and outlook of life between a poor man and a rich man. The main difference? The poor man works hard for his money but a rich man has his money work hard for him. How to make money work for you? Apparently it is the difference in the way one thinks that will make one get financially stronger or weaker. The poor man will think that "I cannot afford it." and shut his brain down. The rich man will think "How can I afford it?" and continue to exercise his brain to think of a way to make the money. Another difference, a poor man will think that his house is his asset while the rich dad thinks that a house is a liability. Hmm...interesting isn't it? Why is a house a liability when everybody is investing in properties and getting rich with their properties?

Well, I have 1st hand experience...remember the 1997 crisis when so many people went bankrupt by having properties? Well, when the market is good and the property is being rented out at a higher rent than your mortgage repayment, it can be considered an asset. However, when the market is bad and the property you have on hand is still under mortgage, then it is a big liability. I bought my private apartment in Upper East Coast Road during in 1995 and took a 80% mortgage. By mid 1997 the property has dropped 30%~40% from the price that I bought it for and it remained there at the bottom for 10 years. The rental income was less than my mortgage repayment, so for 10 years, the property was not an asset but a liability to me. I was paying through my nose and if I had no other inome to tide me through, I would be gone. I sold it for 5% higher than my purchase price last year and got out of the crap. I may have sold it a little too early...but I had my reasons and I shall not go into details here. The market has turned around and if I still have my property now, I will be taking in a monthly income of at least SGD500 after paying for the loan repayment from the rental. So, a property can be an asset or a liability depending on the market situation. Right?

Anyway, there is a board game by the name of Cashflow 101 that teaches finance, accounting and investing at the same the fun way! I think I am going to buy this board game and start playing it with my children. It is supposed to be suitable for adults and children above 10 years old. Just nice for my family. Good idea to start the kids young! :D

To know or not to know?

Discussion topic with colleagues during lunch time having Tim Sum today:

Is it better to know when you are going to die or is it better not to know?

Both of them said "Not knowing better! So scary to know!" I wonder why? Everybody has to die anyway, so isn't it better to know how much time you have left so that you can finish whatever you really want to do before you die? But apparently, knowing when one is going to die is the ultimate torture that anyone can ever endure. Especially when the time left is really too short to do anything. I was watching this Japanese drama The Negotiator and it had an episode on a case where a psychotic criminal had set a bomb in a cafe. The bomb worked on a tremor sensor so that any strong movement will trigger the explosion. A bomb expert arrived on site to try to disconnect the bomb, but he accidentally triggered a timer to the bomb instead and it started countdown at 9 seconds. In the end, the bomb was fake but it had caused great distress to the bomb expert. He said he could not have done anything in that 9 seconds and would rather the bomb explode without counting down. In that 9 seconds, he had experienced the worst fear he could ever have experienced and he was totally traumatised. The female negotiator who was the main character in the drama said that the criminal had done it on purpose because it was in that 9 seconds where the criminal had gotten the most pleasure from the crime. So there you are, killing a man spontaneously is not as cruel as telling a man when he is going to be killed. Does it make sense? So the doctor who diagnose you having some fatal illnesses and telling you that you have only so much time left is actually quite cruel too, isn't he?

The reason I brought up the subject was because I just heard that my mum's best friend's husband has just been diagnosed of a brain tumor and has been given 2 years maximum. I feel sorry for this auntie, but apparently she is taking it very well. She has planned to travel the world with her husband and makes the best out of these 2 years as much as they can afford it. He is 60 and he is also taking it very well. So they sort of got me thinking whether it is better to know or not to know. I think I would want to know...what do you think?

Weekend thoughts

The weekend has been non-eventful except that I had finally went for a facial after coming to HK for 3 years. The reason I hadn't gone for a facial earlier was the fact that they will usually ask me to sign a package for 10 or 20 times and I will have to pay up at least HKD4000 in advance to get the "good deal". I have been cheated many times, so I really don't believe in such crap anymore. I go to facials when I think I need a facial and not because I have 9 more times to use so I must use it up before I go back to Singapore or before I forget about it. Furthermore, how would I know that the shop won't be suddenly gone after a couple of months? I have heard enough of such cases. Anyway on Saturday, I got myself a facial at a special trial price which is usually less than half the normal price for 1st time customers. When the facial lady asked me to join a package afterwards, I just said I am not local and I won't be staying in HK for long and rejected her as nicely as I could. I walked out of the beauty salon feeling triumphant because for the 1st time I was able to reject gimmicks like these by my own will. I am usually very weak when subjected to persuasive sales people and will usually end up buying more than I need. This time, I was SAFE. :D I figured I will visit another beauty salon and get myself another facial at trial price when I need a facial next time. There are plenty around for me to choose from anyway. And I think they give better service during the trial facial just so that you will join the package. I have a feeling that I am getting clever. HAHAHA.

Oh there was something else that happened over the weekend. Another long lost friend from NUS found me on Facebook and we started to catch up with each other chatting over MSN. I haven't spoken to her for like 15 years, and we used to hang out together a lot when we were in NUS. She is living in the Netherlands now with her American husband whom she had met online! WOW! I didn't know online match-making really works! So brave of her to try! I could never have tried. She said she started dating foreigners because she thought that most Singaporean men or Asian men will probably not like the fact that she was divorced before. Hmm...is that really true? Asian men will mind about such issues more than the foreigners(gweilo)? I asked my hubby last night about this and he got rather upset. He thinks that the perception is wrong and he thinks that Singaporean women or Asian women ought to give Asian men more chances. I started to wonder is it just him or are all Asian men more open-minded now? Why was there a general perception that Asian men are less open-minded than foreign men in the 1st place anyway? Hmm...

Older Women, Younger Men.

After watching those amazing stories last night about amazing baby deliveries, I am totally inspired about life. Nothing is impossible, isn't it? Like love. Nothing is impossible when it comes to LOVE.

I have finished watching the whole series of Sex And The City and I was really touched with the endings to all the girls. I cried a lot. I cried when Charlotte and Harry finally got their adopted baby from China, I cried even more when Samantha had finally opened her heart to Smith and accepted his love. Smith was the sweetest boy! (And he's so good-looking and sexy!) He stood by Samantha through her fight against breast cancer, through chemotherapy, not forsaking her even when she had lost her hair and her sex drive. Such a darling! See? Older women can find love with younger men, much younger men even! And it doesn't happens only in the movies! Good examples? Demi Moore and her 16 years younger husband! Real life examples? OK. My cousin, who is 9 years older than her husband and they have been happily married for more than 10 years now. And I. My husband is also 9 years younger than me. We have been together for almost 4 years and have been married for 2. And these 4 years have been the happiest time of my life. :) So don't be afraid to fall in love! Even when the man is younger.

I know most people are actually quite cynical about older women and younger men relationships. Older women and younger men relationships only work when the woman happens to be a Hollywood star like Demi Moore who is so damn good-looking and rich, don't everybody think so? Even for Demi Moore, she has not been spared from the gossips columns which are still sort of "predicting" when she will break up with her young husband! After my initial struggle, I figured out that all sorts of relationships have a 50-50 chance of working out or breaking up anyway. Whether it's a older woman with a younger man or the other way round, nobody can predict what will happen in the future. A younger man may after a few years think that his older woman is too old and start cheating with younger women. But older men do cheat for the same reason that their young wives are not young enough, don't they? So when that happens, a woman in a relationship with a younger man can proudly say that she had it good while it lasted but a woman in a relationship with a older man can only feel sorry for the youthful years she had wasted on a old man. Get it?

OK. Then there are 2 more very important plus points for woman to be in a relationship with a younger man:

1) Women usually reach their sexual peaks in their 30s and men in their 20s. See how Samantha enjoyed sex with Smith? Mine has never been better! ;p

2) Women outlive men. So I figured that I will probably die around the same time as my hubby or even earlier. I won't have to be a widow!

There you go! 3 cheers for all women in relationships with younger men! Stop worrying and start enjoying life! :D

Amazing Babies, Amazing Mums!

It's Friday! This week has been quite easy for me. Coming to work on a Monday, rest-day on Tuesday and then coming back for 3 more days of work is wonderful. But I would like it better if they make it a long weekend instead though. I mean those public holidays falling on a Tuesday or a Thursday should just be pulled back or pushed forward a day to round up to a long weekend so that people can rest better and maybe also plan a short trip out of town. Then a public holiday on a Wednesday shall remain as it is. I think some countries are already doing it like the UK? I remember they did not have a day off on Labour Day which was a Thursday but they had the following Monday off instead making the weekend a 3-day weekend. I think it's brilliant! Oh well, I can only wish but I don't think it will ever happen here in HK or Asia.

Anyway, back to today's theme. I have finished the whole series of Sex and the City the night before yesterday's so last night was back to watching Discovery Channels. Hubby was busy downloading songs into his MP3 player, a freebie from HSBC and I was channel-switching the whole night until I found this documentary about amazing stories of babies delivered in amazing ways and their survivals. It was really intense, 10 minutes through the show, hubby finished off whatever he was doing and joined me. Most of it were showing how some women had gone into unpredictably fast labour whereby they had to deliver their babies at home or in the car on the way to the hospital. I was particularly AMAZED with the story of a woman with her 2nd pregnancy carrying twins who had gone into labour at home and had delivered her twins by herself on the toilet floor before the midwife arrived. Her husband took video of the whole process and her young son was there observing the whole process excitedly. It showed her sitting on the toilet bowl moaning with pain about her strong contractions and then when she could feel the 1st baby's head coming out, she went down to kneel on the floor in front of the toilet bowl and delivered her baby into her hands. Her husband then helped to cut the umbilical cord and carry the baby away. 15 minutes after the 1st baby, she felt that she had to deliver her 2nd baby and so she went on to kneel on the floor again. This time it was more complicated, the baby didn't come out head first but was coming out legs first! Her husband was still filming the process and it showed a little leg dangling out of her vaginal. This kind of delivery would have been difficult even with a doctor around but she was there doing it all by herself! It was really amazing, seeing the 1st leg came out, then the 2nd leg and followed by the body. Finally the head of the baby girl with a dark coloured hair came out. I didn't breathe the whole time and could only mutter a sigh of relief when the whole baby came out. It was truly AMAZING!

"Will I be able to do that?" I asked myself.

"Will you be able to keep your cool given the same situation?" I asked my hubby.

"NO" was the answer to both questions...