Carcinoma

Was taking the train home yesterday, when a medicine student got into the train at Outram station.. dead giveaway cos he had an ernest look, ill-fitting long sleeve shirt and tie, one of those ID-card neck-loops with a secondary-school-style name tag on it...

He had in his hands a textbook, and was diligently highlighting stuff on the train.. after a while, he attracted his own little audience, stealing glances at the photos of carcinoma of the tongue... every time he flipped a page, you'd see everyone sneak a peek, then some of them cringe... yet they come back for more... there's just something about humans and morbid curiosity..

Le Papillon

Met my ex-colleague YP for lunch today... she's a JC school-mate (used to think she was quite cute.. haha), whom I was pleasantly surprised to see in the lift around my 3rd week in the previous company... we worked together on and off, and had lunch together once in a while.. if nothing else, it was interesting to see how different our lives were - YS (another former schoolmate who ended up in the company) and I are still single and bumbling along, whereas YP has a kid and has to so those responsible things.. heh..

Anyways, we agreed to meet around International Plaza, but nothing there caught my fancy, and I vaguely recall there being a new restuarant in the Red Dot Building...

So we had lunch at this place called Le Papillon... you can read a review here... I must say the food was pretty good! I had the asparagus soup with goat cheese for starters, and beef shin stew for mains... too bad the portions were small.. in fact, that coupled with the fact that the stew was really quite yummy, I'd have used the bread roll to soak up the gravy if I were more thick-skinned... heh...

They've got a little curtained private area which I think can can fit 5 or 6, although it's a little strange that they decided to have the private area near the entrance, as compared to the one at St. Julien, which is more sensibly at the far corner of the restaurant...

Anyways, S$28+++ for the set lunch..

I've been having so many cravings this past weekend... black eggy chai tau kway when I usually don't even like the black variety cos it's sweet, my usual bak kut teh, and even chocolates, which I very rarely crave... it's gonna be more prima dim sum tomorrow when I meet my ex-colleagues!

Bad

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not that much of a drinker.. usually not more than 4 drinks an entire night, and my head really starts to hurt once I over-drink - the base of the back of skull really hurts, as with my ears..

A former co-worker asked me to join him for drinks with this lawyer from London I used to work quite closely with... we met at 6:30pm, and had 3x 0.5l of beer by 8pm, when we had to split... for some stupid reason (read: (i) losing a few thousand in my damned CPF-IS unit trusts investments in 2 weeks, and (ii) accidentally offering to pay for the by-far most expensive round of drinks and food) I decided to take the MRT instead of a cab home... so I walk red-faced from Paulaner to the train station, stood miserably on the train for 30 minutes and nearly got clamped by the turnstile as I exited the train station...

Second night in a row I went to bed dinner-less...

Which led me to think that I must have lost at least a little bit of weight after coming back from NYC... but when I went to donate blood whilst visiting my granny in hospital today, the weighing scale in the hospital told me otherwise...

First time ever donating plasma today (cos it's only been 7 weeks since I last donated blood)... they use this kinda nifty machine which (if I understand correctly) draws blood from your body, sends it through a centrifuge which seperates and collects the plasma, then returns the blood with some anti-coagulant into your body... repeat cycles until you get 600g of plasma...

It's funny the things guys place emphasis on.. I'm terribly proud of the fact that I kick almost everyone else's ass when it comes to the time I need to give a pack of blood, and when it came to plasma today, I produced 210g the first cycle, 170+ the second cycle , and I think about 160 the 3rd... apparently drinking more fluids beforehand helps produce more plasma... I swear I'm going to make it in 3 cycles the next time round! haha..

Waiting to happen

A few Koreans have told me that my name sounds very Korean...

The first time was when I was at a seminar sometime ago, and when I exchanged business cards with another one of the Korean delegates, she asked if my father was Korean... I gave her this slightly weird look (people have asked me if I'm Malaysian / Myanmese, and I know for a fact I really looked like a Jap when I was a little kid, but no one has "accused" me of looking Korean), until she said that all 3 words in my name were Korean-sounding, especially my first and middle name...

Since then, some other people have said the same thing... and all of them till very recently have obviously been very polite, cos it was only last week, when my Korean colleague added me to his Skype account and dropped me an introductory note (he didn't know if I was a male or female), that someone finally told me that not only is my name Korean-sounding, it's a pretty common name for Korean WOMEN!

Somewhere over the Rainbow

Did anyone also hear this really different (but nice) rendition of Somewhere over the Rainbow on Class 95 at around 7:05am this morning? I can't find who sang it!

Perk

One of the perks in working in this company is that, because we service the hospitality industry, we meet our clients in their office, which includes some of the finest hotels in Singapore. It was a whole new different experience this week to have sat down for a meeting w.r.t. a contract in the sky-lit atrium, seated around a low coffee table, drinking Earl Grey tea, and having your iced-water refilled by gown-clad ladies... I like this by gentlemen for gentlemen thing already!

Trishaw

Did you know that there are still pockets of Singapore where the residents commute by trishaw? I had to drive a kid from his place near Lavender (French Road, to be exact) to sailing today, and saw 1 trishaw locked against a lamp post, and another one on the street with a 50+ year-old lady passenger and a leathery-faced tan man in a white singlet riding it...

Makes you think about the section of Singaporeans who are / were left behind as the country raced forward...

Skype Virgin

1 of the things which scared me a little the first day I joined the new company was the high technology that they use, which I'm not familiar with, not least when they told me we communicate with our overseas colleagues predominantly by Skype in order to save money...

I got my headset yesterday, and had my first Skype call today! When my boss "called", I rummaged through my drawer to look for the headset, and by the time I managed to plug it in, he'd hung up already... I called him back, and the sound quality was amazing - almost no lag (even tho he was in HK), not static, and loud & clear!

Now, who wants "on demand" legal services hotline? Skype me! :D

Here's some cash

I was clearing my room last week, and found a christmas card from 2004 which my then-supervisor (and current boss) gave me... in the card was $80 with a note that it was "beer money"... haha.. so American...

There really aren't very many more things I could ask for in a boss...

Clap Clap Man

I met YB for lunch on Wednesday, partly so that she could return me the extra huge black duffel bag I brought to NYC in case I could more stuff than could fit in my hard luggage; turned out that she was the one who needed it, and not me...

Anyways, walking back from lunch at the basement of Republic Plaza, I saw this person, and the sight of him made me break into a huge smile...

Clap clap man...

Back in 2001 / 02 / 03, when I was in the Law Firm, 1 of the features of working there was that there'd be these 2 people who'd enter the firm around 12+ to sell packed lunch to whoever was planning / had to eat in for lunch that day... There was a friendly lady who sold $2 everything... from almond or lemon chicken rice on certain days (I think Tuesday or Wednesday) to claypot chicken rice (on Fridays, I remember quite confidently), and I, as with most of the people, preferred to buy from her because of her congeniality...

Her rival (rumor had it that they didn't speak to each other, and would avoid taking the lift together even if they were on the lobby at the same time) was Clap Clap Man... you couldn't miss him - 1.5+m tall, totally bald, slightly hunched and lotsa wrinkles on his forehead (think Yoda)... we called him that because as he walked down the aisle along our offices, he'd chant whatever was for sale that day, e.g. "nasi lemak, mee siam, yong tau hoo [clap clap] [4 second pause] nasi lemak, mee siam, yong tau hoo [clap clap]"...

Oh man... absolute blast from the past... I was surprised to see that he was still around, although he's not that old, and I have been out of the region for only 2+ years... And when I saw him, he was still carrying boxes of packed food in those ubiquitous big red plastic bags... some things change, and some stay the same...

Woo whee!

From Titania... my responses:

I AM: wearing a checked shirt, a Claiborne tie I bought from NYC which I really like (only USD17!), black pants (I only wear black pants at work) and my slightly crummy-looking but really comfy shoes.

I WANT: to eat fried oyster pancake, a.k.a orh luak right now.

I WISH: I could look into the future - this would bring all sorts of advantages which I need not elaborate on.

I HATE: being threatened.

I MISS: the days of old, which frankly are not long ago, where we'd talk to each other every day and meet for meals whenever we could.

I FEAR: being critically ill / disabled and living too long in such a situation.

I HEAR: Come Away with Me softly being played on my computer.

I WONDER: who I will spend the rest of my life with. [Titania, you took the words right out of my mouth]

I REGRET: not having studied slightly harder, otherwise with the benefit of hindsight, I'd have gone to a really good US university, studied something like anthropology, and be an academic.

I AM NOT: as nice / easy-going as people tend to think I am.

I DANCE: really badly.. I've tried tap-dancing, latin tango, and suck at all; although I really wish I could dance - imagine Richard Gere and a tuxedo...

I SING: all the time, especially when there are "sticky" songs like We Go Together and Wouldn't It Be Nice stuck in my head.

I CRY: very seldom lah.

I AM NOT ALWAYS: able to say what I really want to, whether it's love or work or otherwise.

I MAKE MADE WITH MY HANDS: some really amazing things - pop up books, teddy bears, etched glass stuff.

I WRITE: anything but poetry.

I CONFUSE: the invisible evil fairy smurf hovering above my left shoulder with the good one above my right.

I NEED: a life companion.

I SHOULD: get a dog - golden retriver or beagle or shiba inu.

I START: most mornings at 0625.

I FINISH: last... good guys often finish last.

I LOVE: being in love.

I REMEMBER: too few things - people like YT reminisce about certain things we used to do / happened to us, and it's only when she mentions them that I vaguely remember all those happy and sad moments.

Champion

Apparently a colleague got married the weekend before last, was on leave last week, and lost his ring in the office today...

I swear when I get married, I will secretly (ok, not so secret anymore after I told the whole internet) make an identical ring and keep it in a safe deposit box, just in case... hee hee...

I take issue with your rhetoric

You say:

a. Re your 66.6% "very strong" mandate, that big global investors will say "This looks like a stable place with a government that's going to last for some time, and a rational government with policies which will be business-friendly and make sure that their enterprises will flourish and you will have jobs."

You know what? I think that's very true. But I believe you also said something (on or around 1 May, i.e. before the elctions) to the effect that "You can be sure they are watching very carefully this general election to decide whether to proceed with their project" and "I think we better send them the right signal, don't take any chances". I assume your "right signal" was, amongst others, a sweep of 83 or 84 seats. I don't know about you, but frankly, if I were a huge-ass MNC, do I think it would be "safer" and more politically justifiable to operate in a country where, all other things being equal, (i) the ruling party has, say, 85% of seats, and there is a credible and sensible thorn in the figurative ass of the ruling party, or (ii) the ruling party has all the seats and a significant proportion of the seats weren't even contested in the first place for whatever reason? In any case, if this is so important, I'm surprised at least 1 oil major has not mentioned it.

b. By First World standards, a margin of 51 or 52 per cent would have been a landslide, AND "In any other country, it's a landslide".

Yeah yeah... but we are not "any other country".
Firstly, I don't know if you might have used the wrong word, or BT might have misquoted you in today's edition. "Margin" means the difference, the delta, etc. Anyways, you got a 100% margin, based on 66.6% vs. 33.3%.
I assume you mean simple 51 or 52% of the votes. In some / many other First World states, 51 or 52% of the votes can sometimes be a landslide because, amongst others (i) the parties have "fractured" the people, which you and I don't want; (ii) there are more parties contesting in many or each of the seats, and/or (iii) people get to cast "no" votes.

I could go on, but I have to start work now... Please do not link to my post nor quote me. Thanks..

T + 4

So I've survived 1 week at the new job without much pain.

Monday being a public holiday, I started work on Tuesday. I was told to report to the office around 0900, but having kinda forgotten how long the MRT ride takes nor knowing how long it'd take to walk from the MRT station to the office, I decided to leave plenty of room, and ended up at the lobby at 0835... I went up, didn't see anyone, and decided to hang around the coffee joint in the lobby for a bit...

In the morning, we were intoduced to the rest of the legal team. There were 2 of us joining that day - me, BG who is experienced in a related industry and is on contract. Aside from HK, there was also WG who's abt 3 years more seniuor than me in terms of experience and has been with the company 1 year, and we were missing LA who's on study leave for his law degree. It's amazing to note that here, we have 5 lawyers supporting perhaps 30+ countries, whereas in my previous place, we had 4 lawyers supporting a USD5 billion company everywhere in the world except N & S America... inconceivable eh?

The difference is that the previous company was a well-established behemoth, whereas this current one is a small company where every revenue-generation activity is crucial to the growth path of the company, and thus has to be scrutnised by the various departments with the big picture in mind. Which is a good thing, cos that means that everyone has more ownership in the activities of the company, and cos I have to work with the marketing, pricing, sales, finance, operations people, I get to learn some of their stuff, which is never a bad thing! The past 2 years, I've realised that when it comes to the VP-and-below people, what really makes them impressed with you is talking their talking and taking the words right out of their mouth when it comes to their problems, concerns and thought-process.

My portfolio is Asia ex-Japan, ex-PRC (but inclusive of HK and Taiwan), and also the south Pacific... I was kinda hoping for the N & S America "account" cos that's a region I never got to cover in my previous job, and of course I'd love to get the chance to go there more often for work trips or even be posted there... but the silver lining I guess is where this takes me - a big stepping stone in the direction of being able to head the legal team in the Asia-Pacific region for a big-ish MNC in 3 years or so, which is where my value proposition always was I guess...

In the 4 days I've been here, I've gotten 5 pieces of work! 4 small and 1 big! Now that's called easing me into work.. heh... HK's gonna send emails out to the entire company introducing BG and I probably tomorrow or Tuesday, and that will be when all the work starts pouring in...

What I like about starting new jobs is the ability to wipe the slate clean and start again, for all sorts of things:
a. everyone's bound to make some major mistakes in their work, and the baggage from those episodes are mostly left behind... phew..
b. for a person who's been working only for 4 years, I've made many mistakes and learnt many things about dealing with people, from being too nice to not realising that I can never fully know who is who's friend - a new workplace is a chance to start anew and challenge yourself on how long you take to make people trust and enjoy working with you
c. the chance to find a new and better way to organise years' worth of documents, files and email - if I were to stay at the previous workplace for another 3 years, I really wouldn't know how I was going to locate old emails from my nasty organisation system... heh...
d. "dealing" with the supervisor / superior colleagues - I was brought up to be deferential.. in my first job in the law firm, my boss was god, and he made it difficult to treat him like a friend.. being the meek / deferential me, I kept it that way, whilst noticing that there was at least 1 colleague who was able to behave in a manner which allowed him special privileges with the boss. In the previous job, then I realised that most bosses are quite nice (and they are only human too) although they necessarily have their own constraints and targets to meet, which may not be aligned with mine... mostly they wanted to treat me as a friend, and I've come to realise that it's the demanding superiors who are the ones who will treasure you and defend you because of the value you hold for them; the ones who are easy will not fight for you, simply because you have not done anything exceptional for them, and therefore are not any more valuable than the next guy....

I've rambled again... anyways, the kid gloves come off sometime this week.... time to kick the tyres and light the fires!

Your mandate very strong meh?

If 23% can vote for a dud party like the SDP, then it says that you've been doing some things very wrong...

some people's votes and ideals can't be bought with money...

and obviously calling people a liar doesn't really help your own cause...

hopefully you learn your lesson.

Photos

Ok.. as previously indicated, some NYC photos without compromising my by-now-somewhat-compromised anonymity...

My favourite part of the trip! Snoozing, lazing and playing frisbee with the cherry-blossom tree in the background.

Finally found a good use for the Met museum pin... heh..

Now, if I were all our bosses and realise how much time we spend reading / writing blogs during office ours, I'll be sending this photo around!

Some views from Liberty Island

New Job

I thought I'd have tons to write about my past 2 days in this new job, but surprisingly, not all that much...

So I started work yesterday, with a technology company, which is a way way different industry from what I was doing previously... now i'm inundated with acronyms like SMTP, HCDP, yadda yadda yadda... heh.. thank goodness I'm still young and have been keeping in touch with some of the more important developments in the tech industry! phew...

So my new boss is my former supervisor, who's a really really great guy, and who single-handed (next to the monetary package) made the decision to move quite an easy one... the people (generally) seem quite nice, of course caveated by the perennial legal vs. sale / profit centres delicate relationship you'll see just about anywhere.

The new office is in Raffles Place, which is civilisation again! Banks, food places, Watsons, pretty girls.. the works! There's new that we may be moving to some nossogoood location in a few months, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it I guess... oh well...

The funniest thing I've seen so far is this old telephone, with the light and speed-dial panel... 1 button says "Boss Call" and the other says "Call Boss"... guess they really have their priorities right!

For the people I know in real life and who work in the area, I'll be in touch soon to arrange for lunch!

p/s: will try to post a few NYC photos tonight... I didn't take all that many...

Noooo Yawk

It was a good trip! Like I might have said before, I loved New York from my last trip there in 2001, but it was 1 of those places quite far down my list because after starting working, what I want more of are the relak and nature-nature kinda holidays... No regrets about this trip though!

I'm going to write down in point form what I did during the week there, for my own records (already I was having some difficulty remembering all the places we went to, what more the places I ate at), as well as a quick-and-dirty sample itinerary for anyone who's thinking of going to NYC for the first time for 7 days or so.. but don't take my word for it.. get a good and up-to-date guide - I used Frommers' NYC for USD90 a day which found me quite a few pretty-decent and inexpensive (by NYC standards) food places...

We flew Thai Airways, which flies 1 of those Airbus 340-500 from Bangkok to JFK 3 or 4 times a week.. paid $1498 all in... seat pitch is slightly better than your SQ economy class seats, and with a touch-screen audio-video-on-demand entertainment system is almost as good as SQ's - some of the features, like the touch-screen, real-time text news, nose-wheel camera, make you realise SQ's product has lost some of it's innovative edge.. service on Thai is no where near SQ's, of course... anyways, you can read someone's review of the BKK-JFK flight here.

Oh, and I suggest if you are going in a party of 2 or more, give the shuttle vans a miss... I used Super Shuttle, which made us wait quite long (though I can understand) when we were going into the city, and who stood us up when we were leaving (they told us they couldn't reach the driver of the van even though it was 40 minutes past the scheduled pick-up time... unless he was lying in a pool of blood somewhere under some bridge, that just sucked...); in any case the shuttle would have costed us USD45 for 2 (and the long drive / wait), whereas the cab cost us USD56 all in...

Day 1 (raining.. haha.. this "raining" reminds me of the way we were taught to write chinese diaries back in sch):

American Museum of Natural History - We chose this as the first thing to do because it was near our digs on the upper West side.. and we, being typical kiasu Singaporeans, went for the USD34 super-combo ticket that included admission, the Butterflies and Darwin special exhibition, the Galapagos IMAX show, and the Cosmic Collisions planetarium show... needless to say, our battery fizzled out somewhere along the way, and I slept through Cosmic Collisions...

As it was raining, we didn't get to venture too far in search of dinner... I brought a small brolly after checking out the weather forecasts, but my travelling buddy didn't, so it wasn't too fun for 2 grown people to be sharing an umbrealla and having 1/2 of your shoulder exposed to the rain... we stepped out of the subway station, and we saw, lo and behold!, White Castle (5.5/10)! I could make a Woof and XX go to White Castle joke, but shall refrain from it... we had 2 sliders each, which were, well, okay... they are made in the tradition of McDonald's hamburger, i.e. patty with ketchup, mustard, onions and pickles... the nice bit was that the bun was really fluffy and warm....

"After-dark" entertainment came in the form of a show at the National Comedy Theatre, which is quite along the lines of Whose Line is It... it was so-so I guess... frankly, not something I'd readily recommend...


Day 2 (still raining up till afternoon):

We did breakfast at Good Enough to Eat (7.5/10), which was just round the corner from our hostel (YT keeps egging me for reneging on my vow made last year never to stay in a hostel again) in the Upper West Side.. this was the beginning of the at least 15 eggs I consumed in a span of 8 mornings I spent in NYC, but the stuff was good! The kinda place you'd be very content sitting in, sipping your unlimited-refills coffee and slowly savouring the fat-ass Sunday edition of New York Times...

Then we made our way to the TKTS booth and queued in the rain for some 20 minutes before scoring half-price matinee tickets to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which had a quite-expected storyline, but was very enjoyable all the same!

We checked out Times Square, Grand Central Terminal (oooh.. the food market there, together with Zabar's, are 1 of the top 10 reasons why I'd want to stay in NYC), the Chrysler Building and the mid-Manhattan branch of the NY Public Library, which was a good place to sit down, rest, and dry out my soaking-wet travel-guides.. heh... also saw some cute art-major college chicks... I like!

[Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - see above]

By the time the musical ended and the doors opened, it'd stopped raining! Never before have I seen more people squashed into a little rectangle measuring maybe 2 x 1.5m the in the middle of the sidewalk to soak as the little bit of sun which was unobstructed by the buildings..

We did dinner nearby in this hole-in-the-wall Japanese place which we found off Frommers... can't remember the name right now though...

The plan was to go to a Jazz bar, but because we were too early, we decided to take the Staten Island ferry... it was nice watching the sun set beside the Statue of Liberty... Getting to and from the ferry was a pain though, cos we didn't pay attention to the "posters" stuck throughout the subway platform saying that the red 1 line and green line weren't running that weekend, and actually walked to both stations before realising our mistake..

And then when we reached the jazz bar (which seemed to be in a nossogood part of Bowery), we were told that they'd stopped jazz performances for some 4 months already.. man! bloddy guidebook... then tried this other one called Birdland, but they were in the middle of a set, the next set commencing only at 11pm.. we gave up and went back to sleep instead.. it looked really good though...


Monday:

Woodbury Common - need I say more?!?! My suggestion to those who are going is to sign up for their free membership, which comes with some coupons that you won't find in the regular discount booklet.. like I got a 20% discount on my Calvin Klein dress shoes, bringing the price down to USD88... It was only after the spur of the moment purchase that I regretted slightly - my experience with shoes from non-shoe brands have never really been good, and I should have stuck to Loakes....


Tuesday (glorious sun):

Statue of Liberty / Ellis Island: nothing much to say here, except that (perhaps cos it's my 2nd time there) it was not that exciting... my recommendation is to buy tickets online so you can get the free access into Lady Liberty herself and see the exhibits etc.

Brooklyn Bridge: I'd never done this before, but all the guidebooks were raving about it, so we had to give it a try.. we took the subway into Brooklyn Heights, came out, had pizza for lunch at Grimaldi's (7/10) topped off with ice-cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory (7/10).. the ice cream was good, but what made it kick ass was licking it whilst facing the Manhattan skyline... And so we walked back from Brooklyn to Manhattan over the Brooklyn bridge...

Chinatown:

Soho: I guess it's nice, but not my kinda place...

Greenwich Village: oooh... definitely my kinda place!

H&M: cheap cheap! and the stuff's nice! Forever 21's just across the road..

ok... my memory definitely eludes me here, and I forget what we did that evening / night... will edit if I recall!


Wednesday:

We got tickets to visit the NY branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, and went for the tour.. nothing very much, but the highlight was visiting the 5-storey underground vault where they store 20%(?) of the world's gold bars... stacks and stacks of them! And they gave us a souvenier pen which contains shredded dollar bills... heh..

NYSE / Trinity Church:

Syms / Century 21: the place to stock up on USD18 ties and USD12-for-a-3-pack CK briefs! Though if ure like me and get ure boxers from the Factory Outlet Store in various locations in JB and KL, then boxers are expensive whether it's Gap / Old Navy / BR / J Crew / Ralph Lauren / whatever...

World Trade Centre / Ground Zero:

Central Park: my favourite place in the whole of NYC! We spent 3 or 4 hours there, sitting on a red picnic cloth I brought, alternating between sleeping, reading and playing frisbee just beyond the Great Lawn!

Dinner: At this hot dog / swedish meatballs place in Chelsea (6.5/10)

Gotham Comedy Club: Now I remember what we did the night before: nothing! Cos we went to the original location for the Comedy Club, only to be told that they'd relocated, and the performance that night was some musician rather than comedy... Anyways, the stuff we saw this night was "new talent", although some of the performers had clearly been in the business for some years.. it was fun, with the jokes mainly revolving around homeless people, racsism, etc. Drinks here were somewhat expensive though... think they came up to USD14 a drink all in.... eeeks.. I thought drinks were like USD6 a pop gross...


Thursday:

United Nations: I'd done this before and remember it being a little boring, so I gave the guided tour a miss, and checked out the photo exhibition and slowly savoured the New York Times whilst my buddy did the tour.. at some point, a huge group of students hung were crowded around me waiting for their briefing, and it was absolutely hilarious hearing what kids talk about... some of the stuff really deserves to go on Overheard in New York... hee hee...

Rockefeller Centre: We walked through Turtle Bay, which I think is somewhere I'd wanna live in NYC, as in, quiet enough, with all the brownstones, and not too far from all the happening stuff... Rockefeller Centre was Rockefeller Centre I guess...

East Village: Slightly Bohemian part of NYC, at least to me.. you see tons of little shops selling knick knacks, clothes, etc. Tons of nice-looking places selling fixe-prix 5pm-7pm dinners for under USD20! We ended up eating at this Ukrainian food place.. forgot the name, but pretty good! I had the veal goulash which was so nice I'd have used bread to wipe up the gravy if they gave me the bread.. heh...

Yankees game: All we managed to get were the bleachers tickets, which turned out quite nice... although alcohol was not allowed in the stadium, I'm sure we sat amongst some intoxicated people that night, which was quite amusing when they hurled insults to the Mets and Red Sox fans.. haha.. and of course someone proposed to his girlfriend on the giant tv screen... what game would be complete without that?


Friday:

Our plan was to keep this day free on our original itinerary so that we could mop up what we missed out on, and/or we could go do the things we each wanted to and have some "alone time".. heh.. So I did the following:

Met Museum: If you ask me, this is the museum in NYC u must go to, over and above the AMNH or MOMA...

Central Park: In the morning, I cut through Central Park and walked along the Jackie O Reservoir (where tons of people do the 1.6 mile route) to get to the Met. After the Met, I grabbed a giant pretzel, a bottle of Snapple and sat on the grass in Sheep Meadow, took off my shoes and socks, and had lunch...

Lincoln Center / Upper West Side: Walked all the way to Lincoln Center to try to get YT the flute she wanted, but the stuff seems to be more expensive in the US... went north and checked out the various wine shops, etc. on the way back to the hostel.. Stopped at Zabar's to get sushi to bring back to the hostel as a snack, for by this time I really needed to evacuate my bowels.. heh...

Macys / Old Navy:

MoMA: Friday afternoons are free! Frankly, I had had a museum overdose by this time, and couldn't say I found it terribly enjoyable even though I was amongst the Old Masters, Eduard Munch, etc.

United 93: We wanted to catch a movie, and the one we could agree on which was convenient time-wise was United 93... shall leave you to draw your own conclusions after watching it..

Packing!: I was quite impressed with the restraint I exercised this time.. didn't buy all that much stuff, and certainly did not have to use the big black duffel bag I brought just in case (used it in the last NYC trip in 2001)... buddy had to use it though.. heh...

And that's it! Like I said, apart from my own records, I think it's a not-half-bad sample / suggested itinerary for NYC.. if anyone's going, feel free to email me with questions!

mememe!

From Wallflowered... thanks! You know we've got friends in common?

p/s: Lowdown on the NYC trip will have to wait!

Seven dreams before death:

1. To be with, and marry, the one I love (+3 points for the best answer.. haha... but I mean it)
   
2. To be of comfortable financial means
   
3. To take nice, long, rested holidays in most of the places I really wanna see / visit before I die
   
4. To have made the world a nicer, happier, better place to live for my friends
   
5. To have a golden retriever and a beagle, and to bring them to some place like Central Park to let them romp around, and to have them share my bed and yet not steal the comforter.. heh...
   
6. To live a reltively healthy life
   
7. Own an S-class.. any new current model..

Seven things I can’t do in this lifetime:

1. Let go completely and not think too much..
   
2. Play musical instruments
   
3. Draw
   
4. Live a simple life
   
5. Walk more than 30 steps with my eyes closed
   
6. Fly
7. Hit 150m with a 7-iron (as you can see, the last 3 answers were purely out of a lack of sensible responses)
   

Seven things that attract me:

1. Smiley [people]
   
2. Laughter [people]
   
3. Nice voice [girl]
   
4. Elegance / shu-nu-ness [girl]
   
5. Effort / ability to put others at ease [people]
   
6. Big rolling lawns in a city [place]
   
7. Nice cool dry weather [place]
   

Seven things I say:

1. "reeally?"
2. "come-on.."
3. "whatever"
4. "okay"
5. "yellow" [as a greeting]
   
6. "hey"
7. "yup"

Seven books that I love:
This is going to be a tough one... but if it's any indication, when I went to The Strand in NYC, the shelf I gravitated to immediately was the Steinbeck section

1. The Grapes of Wrath
   
2. The Winter of Our Discontent
   
3. East of Eden
   
4. Cannery Row
   
5. As the Crow Flies - Jeffrey Archer - this is the classic feel-good novel
   
6. Remains of the Day
   
7. Bible - I'm not a Christian, but parts of the bible are interesting, intriguing and/or make for good reading... it helps that I have a tissue-page-thin-page version which makes it light and easy to bring along to read on boring army missions...
   

Seven movies that I’ve loved:

1. Forrest Gump - watched it again for the 5th(?) time on the plane back from NYC.. there was something about "peas and carrots" which jumped out at me, but that's for another post..
   
2. Top Gun
   
3. Great Expectations
   
4. Cinderella Man
   
5. Infernal Affairs Trilogy
   
6. Indiana Jones
   
7. Twelve Angry Men
   

Seven tags:

1. BoY
2. Lynne
3. Powerpuff
4. Domestic Rat
   
5. Cow.. haha
   
6. Miss Oinkie
7. Miss M&M

Go forth and multiply!