and finally...

in 40 min, i'll head out of the office
in 2 hours, i'll reach the airport
in 4 hours, i'll board the plane
in 5 hours, i'll be having a late dinner on plane
in 6h 30min, i'll be settling down for a nap
in 10 hours, i'll start snoring (softly)
in 14 hours, i'll stretch my aching back
in 16 hours, i'll be having breakfast on plane
in 18 hours, i'll reach my connecting airport
in 19 hours, i'll be boarding my next flight
in 20 hours, i'll touch down in CDG
in 21 hours, i'll collect my luggage and catch a taxi
in 22h 30min, i'll reach home
in 22h 31min, i'll be kissing my cat
home in less than 24 hours!

extreme shanghai

i do love, no, i’m awestruck by the energy of the city, its vibrations are so strong that i can almost see it in neon-bright pulsating colours. it is undergoing such an amazing growth and change at the moment! like a brash teenager that doesn’t know the meaning of risk or caution or limits, shanghai races ahead – why think of the consequences? it can do no wrong right now. everything it touches turns to gold or jade or pearl.
but i’m getting tired of the city : its overcrowded streets, noisy roads, overwhelming attitude and even the friendly customer-orientated service is starting to get on my nerves. (it must be because i’ve gotten used to unsmiling paris by now.)
everything is so extreme here in shanghai. it’s either very very bad or very very superb; very very expensive or very very cheap; very very fast or very very slow; very very dirty or very very clean. there is no in-between. the disparity is just so great, my brain is unable to reconcile the facts anymore: reality just doesn’t converge!
ouch! my brain hurts just thinking about it.

i miss her

missing her, missing her contented purrs, missing her happy trilling, missing her affectionate licks, missing her curious pawing, missing her warm sleepy snuggles, missing her playful skips as she runs after her toys, missing her cold paws, missing her little black nose, missing her long swishing tail, missing her careful balancing on my stair banister, missing her, missing her, missing her loads…

doors

looking for peace in shanghai

i am still stuck in shanghai. i am missing my cat, missing my jazz cds, missing my virus-free mac mini. i miss my personal space in this overcrowded noisy city of 10 million!!!

this morning i made myself get out of bed and venture out of the refuge of the hotel. the thought of facing the pushing shoving noisy crowd on sunday was not very exciting. but i was determined not to hide in the hotel room all day. after some research online, i found a place recommended by the economist.com in their shanghai guide section, under the heading serenity in the city. it was a pedestrian street with some stalls and shops selling old antiques (authenticity doubtful), and you know what, it was really calm and peaceful. the stallkeepers were pretty laid-back about making sales so i was free to browse and marvel at some rusty electric fans, mao badges and lots of "ming" vases. there weren't even that many tourists around cos it was a little out of the way from the main tourist paths. i found a quaint little local teahouse where i chilled out for most of the afternoon. heavenly.
following the theme of calm, peace and quiet, i trekked across town to the jazz bar in the famous peace hotel. i was looking forward to some good jazz in a nice peaceful environment.

it was shockingly the worst jazz band that ever played. none of the players were below the age of 80, and when they started playing love me tender, i just wanted to kill myself. love me tender??? since when is it a jazz song? it felt more like a funeral procession than a jazz combo. how? why? what the hell were they thinking when they hired this band???
anyone know any good jazz clubs here in shanghai? i can't wait to be home. i really do miss my cds and the jazz clubs in paris...

ps. access to my blog page miraculously unblocked itself over the weekend! yippee!!! thank you big brother!

table for one

i love to eat, it’s no secret. i am happy when i am tucking away on a hearty meal, no anorexia for me!!! however, i do hate hate absolutely hate eating alone. eating is a social event. there’s me, you, the food and good conversation. it is a shared experience, especially with me, since i love to pick a small morsel off your plate just to explore the taste, and i am always delighted to share my food with you. eating alone takes away this social pleasure – it makes eating one-dimensional. don’t you agree?
a friend of mine completely disagrees.
on the contrary, he claims that eating alone brings an extra dimension to the experience: nothing comes between you and the food, thus the food remains the focal point of all senses. hmmmm… interesting viewpoint. he used to hate eating alone too, but once, he was working on a project with a nice posh restaurant and at the end of it, he was treated to a grand posh meal. all by himself at the table, he felt a little uncomfortable at first. however, he started noticing the taste, smell and texture of the various different courses served. food on each and every plate was beautifully arranged to complement the event of eating. to eat, is no longer just a necessity for survival. it becomes an event for celebration.
wah…i respect that a lot, but i still hate eating by myself.
lunch, anyone?

still blogging blind

still in china and still blogging without being able to see my page!!!

Joke

If you speak 3 languages, you’re tri-lingual
If you speak 2 languages, you’re bilingual
If you speak only 1 language, you’re French

This joke was shared by a trilingual French guy in Shanghai

no heart for heights

a friend just had her heart broken. in fact, i seem to remember her going through the same crisis and pain a few months back. although i sighed with exasperation when i hear her tear-stained voice on the phone so soon after our last prep talk, i must confess that i do admire her “givin’ all my lovin’” attitude. i mean, jeez, she seems to dive off the love cliff at every chance she has! blindfolded? she doesn’t care. hands bonded? je m’en fou! 10 thousand metre drop? there she goes again. down down down into the sea of love.
i mean, even as i was trying to console her, her mind started wandering off to her next love interest potential. hello? girl ah! wake up, please!
she claims that i have no heart left, that i’m all calculative brains and if they cut me up, they probably will find a second mass of cold grey matter in my chest instead of a blood red pumping bleeding heart. am i so unfeeling? am i so used to my solitude that anyone who tries to enter my life now will be deemed an unwelcome intruder? that i will use my left-brain, right-brain and heart-brain to analyse the poor guy’s looks, personality, career potential, education, DNA, life expectancy, dental hygiene and general lifestyle first, and then check my parachute, fill up my insurance forms, write a will (just in case) and adjust my sunglasses before i finally leap off the cliff?
or is she so afraid of being alone that she will entrust her heart to anyone just so that she has a main focus of distraction? even at the cost of her poor battered heart?
all i know is that i really don't like heights.

blocked out!

i seem to be unable to access my own blog page (yes, this page that you are reading right this moment), though i can still create postings. could it be due to... censorship? i am in china at the moment.
anybody can enlighten me on this?

asian sensuality

just met a guy (friend's friend) who is a newly converted asian-phile. you know the kind, guy who fell in love with the ideal of the sweet young asian girl for a girlfriend/wife... i believe he used the term soulmate. when asked his impression of asian girls, he replied with a dreamy look in his eyes: "asian girls are so sweet and always smiling... and they're so sensual... "
excuse me, i didn't know this equation: sweet+smiling+sensual=soulmate

and wait. sensual?

he explained:"asian people look at sex as something natural, it's a natural part of living". according to this guru in asian sensuality, us asian girls are supposed to be totally uncontrained by religious guilt on pre-marital sex, and neither do we face parental restrictions on such acts of nature.

aha, now i understand why he fell in love with free-loving asian girls. HELLO? where the hell did he get the idea? he told me that he was in asia for the first time in december last year and spent 6 weeks traveling in singapore, hanoi, kl and bali. His brother is an expat based in singpaore, and i can imagine big bro doing his best to impress wide-eyed little bro with the “wild side” of life in asia. *wink* the poor expat probably didn’t know any better either, poor sod, frequenting white man bars thinking that he’s the master of the universe because all those SPGs are throwing themselves at him. dude, just because you were bermudas to the hawker centre or you add lah to the end of every sentence doesn’t mean you’re one of us!!! and thank you very much for misleading your little bro, letting him piss me off like that on a friday night.

i really really really wanted to punch him on his big white parrot nose. that will show him a thing or two about asian sensuality. free sex indeed!!! I’ll even do it with a sweet smile - it would be my pleasure.

grrrrrrr… still makes me mad thinking about it.

ps. sorry no photo posted cos i am travelling at the moment.

passionless

what is my passion in life?
when asked that queston, i was stumped. speechless. i was ice-skating happily with a friend at l'hotêl de ville (or the city hall) when he posed the question to me. the city hall was lit up beautifully, the cresent moon was bright alongside the twinkling stars in the clear winter skies, the music was perfect,... it was obviously the last thing on my mind.
i braked and stumbled to the rails at the side of the ice rink, leaving my friend to continue making zigag rounds with the rest of the crowd.
hmmm... what is my passion in life? dare i include... saving the world? *visions of me hugging trees, protesting venomously against child labour, becoming a vegetarian* flashed by. nope.
should i include... shopping, eating and other singaporean traits? but it's something born in me, sort of like my birthright as a singaporean - not my passion!
how about travelling<? well, it's something i love to do, granted, but does it qualify as a "passion"? am i passionate about it?
my cat? does a pet qualify as a passion?
music? i play no instruments, but i love to have music playing in the background. does that count? don't think so.
reading? nope.
sports? nope.
chocolates? nope.
alcohol? nope.
what, then? what?
am i so one-dimensional???>
what qualifies as a passion in life? must it be all-exclusive, all-consuming and, above all, undying?

being in love - a poem

Name

When did your name
change from a proper noun
to a charm?
Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.
Its consonants
brushing my mouth
like a kiss.I love your name.
I say it again and again
in this summer rain.
I see it,
discreet in the alphabet,
like a wish.
I pray it
into the night
till its letters are light.
I hear your name
rhyming, rhyming
rhyming with everything.
taken from "rapture", a beautiful book of poetry by carol ann duffy

tennis à l'orange

is it absolutely neccesary for both parties to speak the same lanugage to have a conversation?
had dinner today with a guy who speaks little english and of course my french leaves very much to be desired. the poor sod was struggling to explain his jokes... for him it probably felt like playing tennis with an orange. not quite "hit and miss" but hit too softly, the orange doesn't cross the net; too hard and well, he had orange juice splattered all over his tennis whites. bravo to the guy for keeping his spirits up the entire time!!
bravo and looks like it'll be a case of encore. we're meeting up again later in the week.

urm... any ideas on how to remove orange juice stains???

sofa so good

presenting my new sofa in all its glory!!! c'est magnifique, non?
i have been living in my apartment in paris for a year now. my bachelorette pad only had very basic things for a long time - big table, bookshelf, futon, no drawers for my clothes, no washing machine, no sofa. somehow my roots took a very much longer time to take hold here compared to the other places where i'd been living. perhaps it was because i don't speak the language... perhaps it was due to my own transcient mood. living in paris has been rather pleasant, surprisingly. the city is beautiful, the bread is fresh and the wine seldom disappoints. adopting a little kitten also helps to make the apartment feel more like home.
after slowly accumulating the drawers and other comfort items, i finally decided to take the plunge and get myself a little sofa. my guests were virtually crippled whenever i make them sit on cushions. the ang moh knees are not made to fold into crosslegged positions like our asian ones!!! many searches on ebay.fr later, i gave up and went to a regular brick&mortar shop.
i had a mini sofa party last night, with a limited number of guests (it's only a 2 seater sofa, ok??) in the end, only 2 people made it. perfect size for the sofa!!! i made some vodka jello drink (complete with martini glasses) but one of my guest was driving and the other wasn't feeling well so i had to finish the entire jug all by myself. i was secretly very happy... : o
after they left, i fell asleep on the sofa watching SIX FEET UNDER on dvd. my lifestyle has certainly improved after acquiring the sofa! "want to improve your life? get a brand new sofa!"

post party note: woke up this morning to find jello globs all over the kitchen. the cat had attacked the leftovers in the jello bowl - she probably thought it was some radioactive blob from outer space trying to take over our blue planet and destroy all mankind (and catkind). bravo, super-cat but urg! cleaning those UFO blobs is a pain. some have re-gelled on the floor and a wet cloth simply smears them around. note to self: always make enough jello for 1 jug and never leave unused portions on kitchen counter.
have a nice yuan xiao and eat lots of tang yuan tonight!

better late than never ever

ok, i'm a late starter.
and i don't mean that i have difficulties waking up every morning (which i do). but that i've discovered the world of blog rather recently. true, i've had some rather close encounters with this cyber world previously, but i always got impatient with other people's aimless meandering thoughts. that endless blah blah blah on them them them. tedious, if you ask me.
age, for good or bad, has taught me patience. (and not to scrutinise the mirror too closely).
so here i am, displaced from my safe singaporean greenhouse, and surfing blogs to quench my bottomless thirst for home. never had homesickness hit me so hard before. i've escaped from our tiny island since 2001, but still... anyway, more on that next time perhaps.