Yay! My home connectivity is finally up and running! No need to feel handicapped without a home internet connection now. Hopefully, it works with my wireless router coming in my packages from home next!

Labels: macau

Had my first bowl of bitter herbal tea by the road last night. Stumbled upon the store after doing my after-work mad dash for home essentials and thought that it was a good idea to "cool" myself down, given the recent hectic skeds and late nights.

Not sure if it really helped, but I slept at 12.30am last night -- the earliest since I've reached Macau -- and actually woke up late this morning! That was the deepest and most satisfying sleep I've had this week!

Or. Maybe it was the beer at dinner.

Hah, food for thought.

Labels: macau

Good news is, I've finally settled on an apartment. I could have finalized it on Friday night but it took me a big round-about with other distractions before I finally decided to take it. Although I need to buy a new wardrobe, new mattress (terrible spring one) and get some work done on the kitchen tap, I do like it. So I'm happy.

The other news is, I've finally settled in at work. Swamped and super-busy -- this is the second day in a row where I've not been able to find time to get coffee or even go for lunch. But I'm loving the vibrant buzz and being so busy.

Hmmm, I guess it's all good news! :)

Labels: macau

Status: still apartment hunting.

----

OK. I really wanted to write about the move -- new beginnings, experiences, house-hunting etc but the super humid climate and extra large sun (so it seems) has zapped all my energy and fried my brain cells. So leaving some pictures to do the talking.


The first meal, a classic: Tempted to go for comfort golden M meal but resisted the urge and got myself into a HK-style noodle eatery at Senado Square.


Loads of real lemon: Same as in HK, the iced lemon tea comes with 3-4 slices of lemon that really makes an iced lemon tea, unlike in Singapore.


There's still Yaohan!: Never thought I'd be seeing a crowd waiting to get into New Yaohan, the only major departmental store in Macau, but I did. And I joined the crowd in waiting, at 5 minutes to the 11am opening time. Shocked I was. 11AM OPENING TIME?!?!


Really really real almond cookies: Skeptical when Pris -- who came over from HK to help me in my apartment hunting -- decided that I must try this; how good can almond cookies be? Now I'm a convert. So good, my eyes widened in appreciation as I took my first bite into the fresh warm taste and scent of almonds in the cookie.


St Paul's Ruins: Must be the most recognizable structure in Macau. Not interested but climbed it in our fatigued and hot state to get to the other end to get cabs. No cabs. Darn. Pris and I then walked all the way down again and back to the entrance to Senado Square to hop onto a bus. There's no word to describe our "beyond exhaustion" in the humid heat of Macau. Really none.

Labels: macau

Weak. Tired. Faint.

*AHHHHHHHH-CHOOOOOOOO*

Oh yes, sneezes and vigorous rubs of the nose -- which then results in a red and raw blot -- are the consistent companions of packing.

I am so tired from and of packing. A little part of me wishes that I had engaged a moving company, like I did for my move from Beijing to Singapore, which will do all the packing and shipping so I wouldn't have to worry about a thing, but another part of me still thinks it does not make sense to spend SGD3,000 (plus, out of my relocation budget range -- yes, startup, bad relocation terms) for some people to come pack and ship 5-6 boxes only. At least, I had 20 boxes for my move back home.

It also doesn't help that I'm a little freaked out that departure is tomorrow and I have yet to finish packing. Where did all the time go?!

And I am also not looking forward to the rental negotiation, unpacking and mad purchases over the next few days. Plus, new job with expectations.

I need a break.

Labels: macau

A second thought always followed the first, one mystery bred another: was everyone else really as alive as she was? For example, did her sister really matter to herself, was she as valuable to herself as Briony was? Was being Cecilia just as vivid an affair as being Briony? ... If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone's thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone's claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance. But if the answer was no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling she had.

-- ATONEMENT

This paragraph jumped out at me when I was reading the book because these are the exact same thoughts that I had when I was a child. I have no idea that other people had such thoughts too!

I still remember wondering the possibilities as I walked home from school. At that point, I had fleeting thoughts of everything and everyone existing to complement my very special existence, although it didn't seem very likely on a practical level.

I wonder if all children had such thoughts or is it just the ever-inquisitive (or self-centered) ones like me?

Labels: books, hmmm

Being a rather judgmental person, I've always been somewhat scornful of people who cry at the funerals/wakes of people whom they've not kept in touch with or "cared about" for a long time. Hypocrites, I've always thought. If you are really sad enough to make a display of tears, then you should have cared enough to have made an effort while the person was alive.

Yet, at my dad's wake these two days (passed away Monday morning), my scorn turned to a vague reconciliation as I looked at these uncles, aunties, grand-somebodies from my dad's family who shed a tear or two and lamented to my mother how they've not been able to keep in touch because of this or that, sharing this and that information about my dad.

And somehow, somewhere along the way, my initial blase attitude changed to one of understanding as it dawned upon me that although they've had very little contact or care for one another in the past 10 to 20 years, they did have a common past -- they were close, they were blood relations, they played and grew up together albeit apart in later years. And in death, all these memories return to make us weep for the man who has passed on.

Rest in peace, daddy.

I scorned it for its lack of pride when the N76 was first unveiled at CES this year. How could Nokia so blatantly acquire its inspiration from the Motorola Razr?! Tsk tsk, I wagged my finger and condemned it in front of my friends.

And now, 6 months later, I am oh so tempted to buy it. Despite that it will be a downgrade from my 3 mega-pixels N80 to 2 mega-pixels for N76. Simply because it is the slimmest of the N series and I am so sick of all the bulky phones from Nokia.

This is so shameless.