Wednesday, June 25
Wednesday, June 11
Chinese Opera, Sunny Beach, Roller Coaster, Business 2.0 and Charles Dickens - All in a week of Kelvin's.
What an incredibly busy week it has been - sometimes I don't know if I am hurrying through life too fast. Perhaps I should take a breather and concentrate & focus on some key areas of development.
The problem with me is that I want to know everything and learn everything! My new job now allows me to be involved in the financial markets, so now I want to learn everything about finance! =O
At the same time, life is short and I want to see and enjoy life, especially on the weekends.
But what is your definition of 'enjoying life'? I am a bit weary of travelling actually. Or specifically, I like the travel but I don't like the process of getting there and back and then feeling drained for a few days after I get back. I am definitely sick of seeing cathedrals - no matter how famous they are. No, thanks! Castles are still reasonably interesting - but becoming sick of them soon. Most of the time, they are half ruined with pieces of the wall threatening to fall off the side of a hill. Worst is, more often than not - you have to pay to see ruins!
Back to my literary of last week :
The story in the style of an oriental version of 'Romeo & Juliet' came from about the same period of Shakespeare and has been performed in mostly China for a few centuries. The sets were simple yet impactful and the costumes were stunning.
It was 3 hours well spent (yes, 3 hours of ching chong chinese opera singing). It was my 1st time watching an opera, funnily enough - in London. I think I am in the midst of discovering my Chinese roots. I thoroughly enjoyed the session, and thought of to watching part 2 (another 3 hours) and part 3 (the last 3 hours) the following nights, but there were no more cheap tix. Oh well ...
4th June, Wednesday - Finally some sort of rest - Jason came over for a dinner of chinese bbq spare ribs and kelvin's fu-yong egg; and borrowed my luggage bag for his Italiano trip to the Parma hills for his cousin's wedding.
5th June, Thursday - Weekly football session at Old St. After 10 weeks of playing football, I've finally decided to put on my rollerblade knee pads whilst playing to protect my precious knees. I nearly busted both of them 2 weeks ago because the ground is made of tarmac (used to make roads). Not friendly to knees at all. It's a psychological thing - I felt more comfortable running for the ball knowing I won't have bloody knees if I fall. I uncle already, fall down already take long to heal. Anyway, I scored one for the team.
6th June, Friday - Checked out Cha Cha Moon (see review here) with my ex-colleagues from Deliverers. Situated at Carnaby St (near Regent St), it's opened by restaurateur Alan Yau (who also opened Wagamama, Hakkasan,Yuaacha and a whole load of other places he created and then sold off for millions). All dished are £3.50 and I had my first real Singapore Char Kway Teow in months. Yes, it actually said Singapore Char Kway Teow. There was ample lap cheong but there was no hum. Suits me, no like hum anyway. Got lap cheong, no hum.
7th June, Saturday - Thought it would be a boring Saturday but things suddenly changed for the better than my earlier request for free tickets to a musical was 'granted' and I had to look for someone to go with me. I met Jia Nee in the city and went to check out 'Dickens Unplugged' which was a musical about Charles Dicken's life and a summary of his most famous storybooks (Christmas Carol, Tale of 2 Cities etc).
My fingers are tired now, so till the next time then.
The problem with me is that I want to know everything and learn everything! My new job now allows me to be involved in the financial markets, so now I want to learn everything about finance! =O
At the same time, life is short and I want to see and enjoy life, especially on the weekends.
But what is your definition of 'enjoying life'? I am a bit weary of travelling actually. Or specifically, I like the travel but I don't like the process of getting there and back and then feeling drained for a few days after I get back. I am definitely sick of seeing cathedrals - no matter how famous they are. No, thanks! Castles are still reasonably interesting - but becoming sick of them soon. Most of the time, they are half ruined with pieces of the wall threatening to fall off the side of a hill. Worst is, more often than not - you have to pay to see ruins!
Back to my literary of last week :
2 June, Monday - Attended Mobile Monday London's June monthly event at the Royal Statistical Society to hear about latest development on mobile marketing. Representatives from BBC, Financial Times and some agencies/ consultancies chaired the forum.
Met a James who sat beside me, who was a mobile apps developer and was scribbling furiously during the event in order to take notes and he eventually blogged the event on his site here. I think the one thing that struck me was that many agreed that mobile social networking will be a big driver of data e.g. Facebook is already one of the most popular applications on iPhone but once that starts to be implemented across more common brand handsets from Nokia, SE then it will really take off.
3rd June, Tuesday - Went to watch Chinese opera 'Peony Pavilion' at Saddles' Wells (said to be a ancient bath site converted into a theatre space). I had real cheap tickets of £5 thanks to Shuyin who's studying Oriental Art .. or something like that in London's SOAS. Her lecturer supposedly 'brought in' the act. I went into the show with zero expectations of the show except expecting to fall asleep.
The story in the style of an oriental version of 'Romeo & Juliet' came from about the same period of Shakespeare and has been performed in mostly China for a few centuries. The sets were simple yet impactful and the costumes were stunning.
It was 3 hours well spent (yes, 3 hours of ching chong chinese opera singing). It was my 1st time watching an opera, funnily enough - in London. I think I am in the midst of discovering my Chinese roots. I thoroughly enjoyed the session, and thought of to watching part 2 (another 3 hours) and part 3 (the last 3 hours) the following nights, but there were no more cheap tix. Oh well ...
4th June, Wednesday - Finally some sort of rest - Jason came over for a dinner of chinese bbq spare ribs and kelvin's fu-yong egg; and borrowed my luggage bag for his Italiano trip to the Parma hills for his cousin's wedding.
5th June, Thursday - Weekly football session at Old St. After 10 weeks of playing football, I've finally decided to put on my rollerblade knee pads whilst playing to protect my precious knees. I nearly busted both of them 2 weeks ago because the ground is made of tarmac (used to make roads). Not friendly to knees at all. It's a psychological thing - I felt more comfortable running for the ball knowing I won't have bloody knees if I fall. I uncle already, fall down already take long to heal. Anyway, I scored one for the team.
6th June, Friday - Checked out Cha Cha Moon (see review here) with my ex-colleagues from Deliverers. Situated at Carnaby St (near Regent St), it's opened by restaurateur Alan Yau (who also opened Wagamama, Hakkasan,Yuaacha and a whole load of other places he created and then sold off for millions). All dished are £3.50 and I had my first real Singapore Char Kway Teow in months. Yes, it actually said Singapore Char Kway Teow. There was ample lap cheong but there was no hum. Suits me, no like hum anyway. Got lap cheong, no hum.
Was nice catching up with the Dom (the ex Boss), Michelle (ex Boss girlfriend who also works in same company), Matt (Asian trapped in ang mo body), Connie (HK girl who is the consultant in the company, very smart person) and designer Hong (who was a bit down as she's suffering from a break up few weeks ago). There was also fried carrot cake (for £3.50 of course). With drinks and some side dishes, the total bill came up to about £75 = almost S$200 in total's exchange rate for 6 of us. That's about as cheap as you can get for central London!!
Rating: 4/5 (Excellent taste but minus 1 point for small portions. Arrive at by 645 pm latest, otherwise you risk waiting for at least an hour)
Scooted off to HK Cafe at Chinatown with Connie & Hong for a drink after that whilst waiting for Serene, Yeen & Joice to meet up. As usual, Yeen is always super late. I had to wait 1 hr 15 mins for him and everyone else for that matter, Really terrible ... I dunno what to do with Yeen anymore! It was so late that by the time we got to the Clerkenwell Bar where ex Portishead DJ Andy Smith was spinning, I had already lost the mood for the night. Had a drink and then scooted off to home early that night. Even so, it took me 1 hr + to get home from Farrington area.
7th June, Saturday - Thought it would be a boring Saturday but things suddenly changed for the better than my earlier request for free tickets to a musical was 'granted' and I had to look for someone to go with me. I met Jia Nee in the city and went to check out 'Dickens Unplugged' which was a musical about Charles Dicken's life and a summary of his most famous storybooks (Christmas Carol, Tale of 2 Cities etc).
The 1st part was kinda boring but the pace picked up and it was seriously hilarious towards the 2nd half. Guess where we went for dinner again? Back to Cha Cha Moon. Twice in 24 hours. I need to get a Cha Cha Moon-embershop card soon.
8th June, Sunday - Woke up early and took the train (£10 return) to Essex, east of London to the Southend-on-Sea coast to enjoy some sunshine, sea and the sound of the waves. It had a seaside resort vibe but the beaches were small and not as enticing as Brighton or Whitstable.
However it did feature Adventure Island (a massive fun park of sorts with roller coasters etc) and Southend Pier - Europe's longest pier, about 2 km away from the shoreline. It was so long you can take a train to the end. However we did not go on this as we had to pay and Shuyin didn't want to pay. But, she ended up spending £70 on shopping at Primark (?!). Oh well ... we enjoyed some fish & ships, had some decent conversations and by about 6 pm, I was getting real tired from all the week's activity and decided to head back to central London. More photos from this day trip on my Facebook soon.
Today Monday, 10th June - Just returned from a meetup.com Business2.0 marketing networking session at Old Crown pub @ Covent Garden. Probably the best meetup group I have met so far out of the 3 -4 previously. I definitely enjoy being with people I can connect to intellectually, and then learning, absorbing and putting my views (from an asian person perspective) to others. There was this other Asian looking lady I met who runs a technology blog (amazing!) called Consuming Experience. Overall a good 2 -3 hr spent interacting with about 10 other internet/ digital marketing professionals. Oh, if you haven't already been to Gerald Ang's Pop Marketing blog which I contribute to, go now! And if you have Twitter, follow twitter.com/digitalmkting.
My fingers are tired now, so till the next time then.
Friday, June 6
Zig Zach
Interview with my DJ mate Zach, now superstar street fighter cum magazine cover model all .. I'm sure you've seen him on TV at some point. *Hope fame doesn't get to yr head, bugger!
I am proud of him because he's persevered with his passion for years (watched him play at some shitty warehouse 2 -3 yrs back), now doing really well but still a down to earth person.
I'm going to give credit to myself for holding the camera so steadily. =p
Catch the full write up here on MyMuayThai.com
Zekk's blog
Tuesday, June 3
BGT 2008 Winner
This year's winner of Britain's Got Talent 2008 - George Sampson. Fantastic dancer, surely to be one of the future dancing gods when he grows up more ... but LIFE is fragile ... it's revealed he might be paralyzed if he dances further.
He's battling Scheuermann's disease - a rare curvature of the spine which affects fast growing teenagers - - a condition which has already left him temporarily blind in one eye for two months last last year.
Now, that inspiration to a max. And, it makes you wonder if why god gives you something (a talent), and takes something away the next instant.
Life's puzzling. So, enjoy what you have today.
Now, that inspiration to a max. And, it makes you wonder if why god gives you something (a talent), and takes something away the next instant.
Life's puzzling. So, enjoy what you have today.
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