Of Dragonboats and Durians

Several things happened while I was in Singapore, and here is an account of a few of those that I can remember. I should have taken more photos, but one just don't think about taking photos when one is in one's homeland, right? *smile*

Update: I just realised that Wolfgang has quite an impressive collection of photos on Singapore as part of his subjects. These include places/locations/sites that I myself has never seen. So, since I am blogging about SG, I thought I'd include a link to Wolfs' pictorial reviews of SG in his Panaroma-Pics and Fernweh.


August 9, 2007. That was when Singapore celebrated her 42nd year of independence. We locals simply call it our National Day, and then have fun rejoicing in the holidays. By rejoicing this year, I was asked to take part in the Punggol East Dragonboat race (Grassroots category)... well, actually, they needed one more person to fill up the last boat of 10 rowers (and a drummer, and a steerer) and persuaded me enough until I agreed :P To cut the long story short, our boat came in second place overall -- couldn't beat last year's champions (well, they had beautifully slim and charming secret weapons on board, ya know what I'm sayin' *grin*). No one bothered to take pictures of the runner-ups, and so I had to take a snapshot of the article in the local neighbourhood magazine just before leaving Singapore. We also decided later that night after dinner to rejoice by stuffing ourselves silly with Punggol's best durians (or, as Tobi and Marius called them Stinkfrucht).


The week before I left to return to Germany was simply a week of socializing. It seems that when I manage to escape Mom's foods/cakes/snacks, I land myself in places where more food are served. Although, from my voracious epitite, no one seemed to believe that I ran the Freiburg marathons *sigh* Anyway, here are four photos I remembered to take:


Oh, and here is one interesting fact with our family cat Gwenni (that's Gwen Steffani with four legs and a tail). She was extremely affectionate with me this time round, and always parked herself on my carpet in my room. And then, as if to get my attention, flips over on her back and meows softly to me to entice me to scratch her belly... Hahaha... silly cat! If she didn't leave so much cat fur around, I wouldn't have minded. So it's usually my brother who comes looking for her and brave enough to carry her out of my room without being scratched :P

Zurück in Freiburg!

Oy vey! Kai is back, and *darn*, Freiburg is still cold... Heh heh heh... Well, I should, over the next few days, be updating these pages again -- that's right, you people who have been subtly complaining about my inactiveness (you know who you are :P), and without a doubt leaving some disguised-ly pointed notions in your emails.


Yup, I have been away for a short vacation since early August; it was supposed to be a relaxing one, but as usual, the vac ended up being more of a social reunion! Not complaining... just happy to meet up with old acquaintances again :) More of that report to come in the coming entries.

For now though, I'd just like to share some really nice experiences of Singapore Airlines' (SIA) new cabin products. Without sounding like an advertisement sound-bite; the new seats on the 777-300ER planes are simply so very wide and sinfully comfortable -- didn't realise the journey from Zürich to Singapore took 12 hours! Also, the on-board airline food never tasted better, which was complimented by the fantastic services of their attention-seeking cabin crew, from the moment I left the comforts of the Silver Kris Lounge.


OK. Will report again soon. Although it seems that Tobi has already finished an entry on his blog on our meeting in Kuala Lumpur -- check it out!

Cheers!
]Kai

Orkestra Melayu Singapura Tiba di Belanda

Terperanjat bila aku terdengar adanya kumpulan musik melayu tanahair tersendiri, bukan sahaja bermain dengan musik asli, bahkan Orkestra Melayu Singapura (OMS) digabungi pelbagai alat-alat musik lain daripada kaum Cina, India, dan Mat-Salleh. Didalam sebuah artikel Berita Harian ada menyebut juga alat-alat dari Jepun dan Korea Selatan... hmm... ini harus cepat-cepat dilihat.

Rupa-rupanya Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim (kitorang punyer Menteri Bertanggungjawab bagi Ehwal Masyarakat Islam) yang telah melancarkan badan tersebut, dan untuk badan ini bermain di negeri Belanda, di Eropah adalah amatlah sangat 'choon' :) Hai... pakkal sahaja aku nih tak tahu main zabur, kalau tidak, dah lama dah aku jadi 'terer' dengan alat musik tu.