Another new entry after 2 years

There  are a few changes since I posted my last entry.

I have left the community job and joined a Ministry. Planning to leave the Ministry for something more fun.

Girl girl is already in P3. She is growing up well, physically, emotionally and academically. An obvious development is that she eats a lot nowadays. Another new development is that she is wearing a spectacle, began about 2 weeks ago. Dun quite like to study, ha.....

Change a new used car. The Altis has served well but coming to 10 years old. Need to have a good rest.

What has not changed is the traveling twice a year as a family. Visiting Taiwan and Hong Kong, last visit was in 3 to 4 years ago. Expecting to see more changes.

Indeed, changes is the only constant variable.

Holiday in June 2013

Wow, it has been coming to 2 years since I made my last blog. It was on June 2011 holiday.
Will update with a new blog - June 2013 Holiday to London / Paris.

This is the first time that I am traveling to Europe area. Really looking forward to it. We visited Seoul during June 2012 and had a wonderful time visiting new friend in Jeonju and home stay.

It is pretty expensive to travel to Europe and the it is a long haul flight.
As usual, enjoyed the planning though it was challenging to decide where to stay, serviced apartment, boutique hotel or normal hotel. We believe that having a good accommodation is important especially after a full day of activities.

We will be staying very near to Eiffel Tower and I feel pretty good about it :-)

Planning a Holiday for June 2011

The original plan was to go back to Taiwan in June this year. Decided to go to Hokkaido since we have been talking about it for quite awhile even though the Taiwan's trip programme almost completed.

The sudden earthquake and massive nuke leak changed the whole planning. Was quite disappointed but definitely not safe to go ahead. Where's next? Beijin. Dropped the plan again due to the hot weather and not many interesting spots for girl girl.

Finally settled to visit Melbourne for the cooling weather since it is winter in June and a good mix of activity for the family. Pretty busy and tiring to research 4 places over a few months. But the effort was not totally wasted as we can use it whenever we decided to visit the places again.

I enjoy planning unique and enriching holiday program, ie trying different activities so as to have different experiences from the moment we fly off until we touch down home. For the recent Melbourne trip, we tried traveling on SQ A380, staying in a service apartment with a kitchen and day trip to a few nearby places.

Half way into the trip, I also started to source for more information that I may need it as I will be visiting Melbourne again :-)

It's feel good to blog again

My last blog posting was about 8 months ago. Ha...
It's feel good to blog again. :-)

There are, indeed, many things to write and share, 8 months of activities and happenings.One of the immediate differences is that I can now blog easily using an iPad. Dun have to turn on a netbook or notebook or pc to do so. Much convenient especially it comes with a good screen size. iPhone is just too small for it.

I am thinking of summarizing the past 8 months into a few paragraphs here. Emm... not quite possible. I will just share more about it as I blog.

To start off, I began the year 2011 with a sudden change of my job portfolio. Moving from planning and organizing community projects to working on social media stuff, mainly on the Facebook platform. The assignment was to achieve 200,000 fans after 6 months. The base number then was coming to a thousand. Do you think that it is possible? Dun say no without giving it a try and trying it hard with many attempts. I am still trying at the moment. Ha...ha...ha...

There are two things that I like about the sudden change: able to do something new and a lot of learning about social media - new skills set and knowledge :-)

Ice-cream man

I like to buy ice cream from an ice-cream man who drives around the neighbourhood on his motor tricycle with a beach umbrella or a van. Again, an old trade that has been existing for many many years.

A dollar each and consumer can decide to wrap the ice cream with a slide of colourful bread or two crispy biscuits or just in a cup. I prefer eating it with bread or biscuit. The ice-cream usually comes in a few favors namely red bean, sweet corn, strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. The ice-cream man will ring his bell to announce his arrival and to attract people to patronize his mobile stall, especially the kids and students.

Instead of buying and keeping a box of ice-cream at home and be stuck with the only favor for awhile, I prefer buying it from the ice-cream man - economical, fresh and with more choices. Another reason is the thrill of running into one unexpectedly, to consider myself lucky to come across one :-) A dollar's joy and enjoyment is comparable, if not better than, having it in Swensen, Hagen Daz or Ben & Jerry's.

There was once that I ran into an ice-cream man in the car park after work. I was happy and prepare to buy one to enjoy it. When I approached the ice-cream man, he was smoking while ringing the bell for business. Though he was smiling at me, the unhealthy and dirty image was just undesirable and killed my excitement or urge to buy an ice-cream from him. The second hand smoke is not good for anyone especially the kids and he is not considerate about it. Another piss-off experience is you are about to rest and read at 10.30pm when you hear the ice-cream man ringing for business. It is a sharp noise in a peaceful night.

Other than the above two not welcoming situations, I am always thrill enough to run into them unexpectedly.

Kanaguni business

Kanaguni - someone who buys over 2nd hand or unwanted household items such as old newspaper/magazines, clothings, fan, television set, radio set, VCD/DVD player, computer monitor etc at the neighbourhood. In return, he or she will then sell it to a collector or an organization for a profit.

It is a old trade that has been in existence for many many years, properly an early version of a recycling programme. When I was young, the kanaguni will move from floor to floor, door to door shouting for business and service. If you have some of the unwanted houeshold items to sell, just open the door and wait for him or her. They will weigh (eg. for old newspaper/magazines/clothings) and pay you on the spot.

Nowadays, they will park their vehicle at the carpark and horn for business and service. They rarely move from floor to floor, door to door. Instead, they move from block to block. It is more economical and less traveling but can cause much noise at the neighbourhood espeically in a peaceful and relaxing afternoon watching a movie or taking a nap at home. :-( Of course, they will drop by your doorstep if u have something for them.

However, there also seem to be another group of kanaguni who will seek out valuable items directly from the shared dustbin area at the void deck. They will ride a bicycle to look for items that are deemed valuable from the dustbin from block to block, day and night. The group seems to come from mainly the senior citizen and foreign workers. While I am encouraged by their action to find a decent way to fend for themselves, many is not very considerate and responsible by making a mess out of it at the common area. They will seek out the valuable items and expect the cleaning personnel to clear up the mess for them next day. Meanhwile, residents have no choice but just have to bear with it.

The old trade has survived by transforming itself in its business operation approach. However, we are definitely still very far from establishing a gracious society whereby we care not only of one self but also others and in this aspact, not to inconvenience others and to show respect of the used of the common space we all share.

Is that so difficult to execrise ?

They grow up so fast

The following case study or example was shared when I was attending a training programme recently:

Sam lives in a 4-room HDB flat with his wife and 3 kids. They are generally a happy family except that every day after work, when Sam comes home, the entire living room and walkway is covered with the children's toys. He always has to put the toys away before he can walk through the living room to reach his bedrrom. he tried reminding, telling, scolding the kids but it was no us.

One day, after a long and tiring work day, Sam came home and found the childrem's bicycles, barbie dolls, transformers, power ranger, Lego sets etc thrown all over the entire living room, blocking his path to the bedroom.

He was so angry with the children that he forgot to close his door. He started to put the toys away and was so engrossed in it that he did not notice that his neighbor, Mr Tan, had came in to help to pick up the toys. Mr Tan youngest daughter had just got married a few weeks ago and had moved out of the house. He had not had a chance to see her after her wedding.

When Sam realized that Mr Tan was picking up the toys after him, he was embarrassed and said "I'm sick of cleaning up after these kids."

Mr Tan said "I hope you don't mind me helping. I miss doing this now that my daughter has grown up and gone. You should enjoy it while it lasts. Your children will be gone before you know it. They grow up so fast."

.....

It is a simple story but with a great insight. As a father myself, I totally agree with Mr Tan. I also see Sam in myself.

Fortunately, I am more aware of it than Sam and has enjoyed the noise, nonsense, etc my daughter has created as part of her growing up. At times, it is not easy to accommodate such behavior and a need to discipline her. It is better to get on her right track early.

Well, discipline should not cause an oversight over her uniqueness and appreciating her true natural originality - the way she talks, smiles, laughs, angers, eats, sleeps, learns, plays, sees things around her. It is, indeed, a master piece of Arts. Good or bad, she also inherited some of your genes, not all her fault.

To me, the keyword here is appreciating. Be part of her growing up.

Books and Reading Journey

I like books and enjoy reading, properly a habit cultivated since young.

I started reading Chinese books with heavy comic content initially and gradually with more text as I got to recognize more Chinese characters and phrases. These Chinese books were well known classic titles such as "Journey to the West", "Romance of The Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin" etc. I could read them repeatedly. Of course, I also read translated fairy tales, life and contribution of famous individuals such as Edison, Newton, Colombia etc. All with very interesting content. My parent bought some to share and mostly borrowed from the library.

My first English title was "The Famous Five" - adventurous story. However, I have to refer to English-to-Chinese dictionary regularly in order to understand the readings. Partly to learn the language as well. Hence, I would take more time to finish reading a book.

My first and only collection then was the story of Sherlock Holmes. My aunty bought it for me from the Golden Plaza or better known as Little Bangkok. I was very happy as I have been enjoying the story but I was also very sacred at the same time as my parent would blame me for wasting the money over useless title, according to their standard.

My reading list expanded as I grow up to also include the Chinese Martial Arts Novel mainly authored by Jin Yong （金庸）. Jin Yong had written many titles and his works is very well known among the youth and adults. Some of the titles were filmed as movies and drama series closely followed by many individuals. There is a saying that where ever there is a Chinese community, you will be sure the existence of his loyal readers and fans.

I actually slowed down my regularly reading habit very much during the later part of my study and army time and resumed shortly after started to work. By then, I was more interested to read English books especially those on business, management as well as technology stuff. Most of my basic IT knowledge and skills were acquired then. One of my favorite reads was books on Bill Gates. I have learned much from the readings. Bill Gates became my Super Hero till now.

Two major changes were obvious, I began to read more magazines and began to buying more books & magazines than borrowing it - the beginning of building my library at home, subtly. I also learn to subscribe some of the magazines.

Years of experience make me realized that it is not so economical to buy technology books as it evolves rapidly, definitely much faster than my reading speed. The concept of management is pretty much the same, most importantly is one's ability to apply it timely and appropriately to create the desired result. The easily access and availability of Internet and richness of its content form good alternative resources. Amazon.com appears as one of my favorite websites. Gone the days of busy buying. I am a mellow shopper now. I visit library regularly again.

It's kind of funny, I am back to reading more Chinese books nowadays. Partly I am comparatively stronger in the language. Partly there are more available contemporary titles, English books are translated faster, better and cheaper. Instead of the classic titles, I read more about history and philosophy stuff. Since I enjoy traveling, I have collected more travel related books and magazines especially those in Asia version or edition.

Indeed, I already have a private library at home with a good spread of subjects and titles to meet my reading needs. What makes it more satisfactory is that it also has many books, both English and Chinese, that my daughter owns and enjoys readings. She inherits the story where I started many years ago though very differently. I hope that she will continue the journey with or without us around. It is definitely a journey that worth taking as a lifelong joy.

Ha...ha...ha...