bOyS!

Gave skating a miss over the weekend. Raining at my side since late morning though S messaged me that it wasn't at the east. Sky cleared up in the late afternoon though, so around 5, took my bike out for a ride instead.

Cycled non-stop for about two and half hours except for the occassional red lights i hit (i cycle mainly on the road itself). Went down AMK and hit bishan park. Just as i was about to exit bishan park and hit thomson road, two ah boy (think around age 10 or 11) went past me. One of them remarked very excitedly to his friend: "GT! GT! Look at it!"

GT's the brand of my bike (in case you do not know). It's one of the better known bike makers in the world. My beautiful model GT2005 Avalanche 2.0. =) So, i turned my face and smile at them. Not sure if they saw the smile. So continued with my journey down to mac-ritchie. Can you believe it, no sightings of monkeys at all and only one single sighting of a squirrel scrampering across the tracks.

Went into Adam road which is along lornie road right after mac-ritchie but before the exit to PIE. Well, it'a dead end (thought it might have led me to some unexplored parts), just some landed property. Quiet and cooling place though. Did a u-turn and decided to head home. Dinner timing coming and the stomach's was rumbling.

On the way back, stopped at a red light at a cross junction around AMK avenue 5. Haha - surprise, surprise, saw the two boys again, they were on the walkway waiting for the green man. Cute fellas, one of them was quick to remark: "Look, another GT! Second one i see today!" (must be a real GT lover)

Flashing a big grin: "No lah, i'm the same fella back there at bishan park you saw earlier." Boy: "Bishan park II rite?" "That's rite, on my way to mac-ritchie. Anyway, light's green now. Bye!" "Bye, bye!" and looking at their fascination on my bike, probably their dream bike rite now, i think to myself - bOyS will always be bOyS! After all, i was that young once (though my dream bike then was a racer, not mountain bike). =)

Fotos on Local Temples

Here's some photos i have taken on two local temples during the weekend. The subject temples are Yueh Hai Ching Temple located at Philip Street (opp Citibank Capital Square) and the famous tourist spot, Thian Hock Keng Temple at Telok Ayer.

The most precious shot taken that day is with two little boys standing around the doorway to the temple and one of them, really cute and spontaneous. He noticed i was pressing my shutter button away and decidedly waved, posed and smile for me. He may not possess what we usually term, a perfect set of teeth. But he sure had the most heart-warming smile, one filled with the happiness of living in the moment! :)

Triple the Blessings!

Glad tidings were all around in the air for the whole of last week. :)

Attended two wedding dinners, one on Monday and the other one, yesterday.

Not only that, one of my buddies just got Registered within the week as well, thereby allowing him to wear the status "Married" from the henceforth.

Guys and gals, you know who you are and if you happened to read this, i'll take this opportunity to extend my well wishes once more to all of you. May your life be filled with unending wonderful moments with your partners!

Alright then, who's next on the pirate's plank? =P Just joking.. Always glad to see people around me moving on to a brand new chapter in their lives.

Chinatown's Nite Market

A photo i've taken during the first few days of the mid-autumn festival market at nite. Click on the photo for the full size image. As usual, comments are most welcome! :)

Sophie's World

Just started on this book, Sophie's World recently. Read about 70 odd pages or so out of slightly over 500 pages. Most probably i'll need a fair bit on time to finish this up.

As far as i've read, it's about a 14 year old gal, Sophie, who reached home after school to find a mysterious mail addressed to her. In it written, "Who are you? and Where does the world come from?". From that point onwards, she starts upon a course of philosophy and its history guided by the sender of this mysterious mail. From ancient Greek philosophers to Socrates, Plato and many more.

I'm sure everyone of us, at some point, would have asked those two questions in our lifetime. Invariably, some of us will choose to probe further relentlessly, leading to more questions. And it is certain that there are some who choose to totally ignore it. Of course, there is no doubt that some of us tend to act in between these extremes.

Everyone has their answers within and i'm still looking for answers. Since more answers only lead to more questions but it is only when there are more questions will more answers surface. Meantime, i'll continue to venture with Sophie and see what more questions and answers will surface for her. :)

BONJOUR MONSIEUR SHLOMI

It's definitely rainy season - it wasn't a sunny sunday. On the bright side, i had plenty of "rest" - Zzzzz... Been a long time since i lazed around. :)

Well, after a good rest in the afternoon, went out for a cup of coffee with buddy JH in the evening. Guess what, i bought the DVD - Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi. Been a couple of months since i watched any movie and since i was out, and so happened to venture into Laser Flaire, and so happened to lay my eyes on it.... Oh well, you know the rest of the story - the part where i reach into my pocket and ya, paid for it...

It was money well spent, a most excellent and heartwarming film. Glad C recommended me this film. :) It's an Israeli film with english subtitles. Some of the better films that i seen are not blockbusters but rather small budget films like this (where people in the production put their heart and soul into it).

It's a film filled with much laughter - some of the parts are really comical, and yet it was not without its human element where it really excels in. Loved the Grandpa in the film. Nope, i'm not going to divulge anything more but i'm always good for a lending session on that DVD. You can watch it yourself and decide if it's that good. :)

Hidden Messages in Water!

Just to share around an interesting email that i received today.
Intentions, both good and bad, transcends beyond mere words and actions. :)
_______________________________________________________________
Subject: The Hidden Messages in Water

Dear all,

Recently I have finished reading the book titled "The Hidden Messages in Water" by Dr Masaru Emoto. In one of the experiments he conducted on water, he wrote the word "Thank you" in many different languages on pieces of paper and used them to wrap up bottles of water, the text facing in. He also wrote the word "Fool" in different languages and wrapped up bottles of water with the text on it.

It was found that beautiful and complete water crystals formed on all the bottles that were labeled "Thank you" regardless of the languages the text was written in. For all the bottles that were labeled "Fool", incomplete and deformed crystals were observed. It seemed that water was able to "read" the written text! Dr Masaru Emoto later discovered that the word "Love and gratitude" produced the most beautiful crystals (with 'gratitude' having twice the weightage on its influence on the water crystals than 'love').

He also discovered that the written words contain vibration. The vibration from positive words have the ability to create beautiful things (as seen in the water crystals) while the vibration from negative words have the ability to destroy. Human beings are made of seventy percent water and so we exist mostly as water. Our thoughts and words have a great impact on the water within us and also on our physical environment. Hence it is very important that we harbour positive thoughts and use positive words.

There are also different kinds of experiments mentioned in the book, like exposing the water to different kinds of music, pictures etc and the observations on the resulting crystals. Water samples from many cities around the world and from natural environments in many countries were also collected and observations made on the water crystals.

It is a very interesting and touching book and I highly recommended it. This book is not only available in bookstores but also in many branches of the National library (both English and Chinese versions in some branches). At the catalogue page :

http://www.nlb.gov.sg/CPMS.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=CPMS_page_NLBCatalogue

Just enter "The Hidden Messages in Water" in the search keyword input field and you will find the books listed. The resulting search page has also links to online bookstore such as Amazon.com which allows you to browse sample pages from the book.

The National library's website has undergone some changes recently and it's quite user friendly. Moreover, there are now many good quality books in all branches and so I encourage everyone to make good use of libraries.

Some water crystal pictures : http://www.hado.net/gallery.html
http://www.masaru-emoto.net/image/this-month-crystal/200508.jpg

Thanks for your time in reading this email.
Take care and best regards.
^_^

Doubts?

Small doubt, small enlightenment
Great doubt, great enlightenment
~ Zen saying

Looks proportional? It is not. :)

Think further - what happen when there is No Doubt ?

Two possibilities - Total Ignorance or Total Enlightenment. :)

Of Tulips and Skates

The recent sunday was Tulip Day for the Children Cancer Foundation. It's a day where the organisation seeks to raise awareness to the public about the facts of cancer and how it affects the little ones.

1) CANCER IS NOT CONTAGIOUS! (I believe most of us know that cancer is basically the deformity of cells within the body)

2) Usually no apparent underlying causes are found to why cancer occur in a child unlike an adult (e.g. smoking, drinking, too much red meat and too little greens, etc.)

More info @ www.ccf.org.sg

At the same time, they also seeked to raise funds to continue their work and i'm really happy to see that there was quite number of volunteers supporting the event. I'm glad i'm part of the movement as well, otherwise i wouldn't have made two new friends that day. :) haha, i nearly went to the wrong place if not for them - suppose to go pasir panjang (habourfront area) and i thought it was bukit panjang.

Apparently, there were some other charity events going on as well. Suppose it was a good day for charity (maybe it's my imagination but might be that the hungry ghost festival ended on fri or sat)! To me, everyday is a good day to show a little kindness. :)

In anycase , i went for the morning shift so that i can go for my skate gathering in the afternoon. Well, my friend decided to pop over for a visit and so, the whole lot of us ended not skating at all. Who else but Mr. Rain himself! Guess it's quite an obvious sign the time of the year is coming - the rainy season.

Hmm.. maybe gotta think of some contingent plan to cope with it. Last year during the rainy season, we just ended at mac or coffee bean drinking coffee watching the rain drops. not very productive leh... :)

Fireworks 2005

As promised, i loaded some of the pics from the Singapore Fireworks Festival 2005. It's the first time i've done a shoot on fireworks, so please bear with me if the pics looks a bit raw and amateurish. All comments are welcome. :)