Save The Date: Nokia's new formula for success is on its way

Received email from the Nokia's Rangers programme PR agency... looks like this session will be about a flagship business phone. Will know more on Thursday. Woot.

Union of a Kiwi and Singaporean: My Family

Well well well,

After about 2 months of arranging, rearranging, changing of dates, Liam, Phoebe and family has finally come to a finalised date to have their Singaporean ROM ceremony down here.

Their main (and major) wedding will be held in New Zealand somewhere in September but down here they will be Husband and Wife in Singapore law. The one held in Singapore will be a simple and casual yet solemn ceremony, inviting only close friends and family to witness this wonderful moment.

A game of Zombie fragging while waiting for the ladies to finish up Bee's makeup

All set and ready to go

JP verifying the ID details just to make sure Liam is marrying the right Phoebe and vice versa :p

The bouquet and the rings (their names are on the rings, can you spot them?)

Oppps did I forget something?

The solemn ceremony begins

Putting on the rings

Reading the vows

The couple signing the Marriage certificate

Witnessed by Father and Bee's friend

Lastly, JP endorsed the certificate......so.....

BEE IS NOW OFFICIALLY MRS PURCELL!

The couple, the family and the guests......

Having a shot with Liam's new Parent-In-Laws

Liam going through the tea ceremony with Bee explaining the process at the same time...bet Liam's multitasking during that time LOL

After all these, the entire group have a lunch at the same venue where we chit-chat away, making fun of the couple and of course, good chance for Liam to know Bee's friends better.

All in all, the ceremony was simple, and everything went smoothly without a hitch. "All good in the hood", I quoted my new Brother In Law ;)

Congratulations, Liam and Bee!

A Visit to Hong Kong Oct 2009

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In less than 3 months, I'm back in Hong Kong again visiting Tong Tong, Junion, Scully and sisters. It also happened that it's the China National Day that week and Junion is taking leave on the Friday so it will be kinda like a long weekend for him as well to allow me to spend a longer weekend with his family. Coincidentally, it is also the Mid-Autumn festival that week so I will get to experience how the locals celebrate the occasion, which I'm glad that I came cos the family gave me a very heartwarming experience.

Upon reaching the airport, I was pleasantly surprised that Charlie was waiting for me at the arrival gate before she head off to work at the airport. We had a brief chat before meeting Junion at the arrival hall and we split off with her to move off from the airport. Our first intended destination is 旺角, where we will go hunt for some electronics stuffs that my colleagues and friend had asked me to get. However, we never get there. We first went to New City Plaza at 沙田 for lunch (where I finally get my dose of 冰镇奶茶）before heading out for electronics stuff hunting.

咖哩牛腩饭

When we moved out from the shopping mall and guess what, Junion isn't familiar with the roads in HK yet and we have GPS on our phones BUT no HK maps! SNAFU. No matter what we just couldn't find our way to 旺角, ending up going in the direction to airport, Disneyland, 尖沙咀 and some other places which I'm not familiar with. One of the major Hor-Lan (Hor-Lan is a Singaporean slang for losing our way) adventure on my first day in HK haha. In the end, we gave up and decided to go back New City Plaza and just roam around the mall.

One of the photos taken during our Hor-Lan adventure

We just do some casual stroll while catching up with each other and then we came across a watch shop selling some Casio G-Shock watches. i remembered Junion told me in the past that I could get Casio watches at very good prices and indeed the prices displayed are attractive and I ended up getting one which matches the colour of my bike. Awesome. I later came to know that other than Junion, Scully and Janice also have the same watch design with different colour variants. After gotten the watch, we passed by a hair salon where Junion patronise frequently and I decided to have a haircut there to give myself a fresh look. Having $10 haircuts for the last few months don't really give my hair an awesome look.

Same Design, Different Colors: Janice's watch is not in photo, as she didn't wear it that day

Once we are done with the haircut, we proceeded along to fetch Scully from her workplace before going to Junion's Mother-in-law, Auntie Lam’s place. Before heading there, we stopped by Sunshine Plaza at 马鞍山 to purchase Guitar Heroes 5 game and an additional guitar controller that is made of wood (I am supposed to bring it back but decided to leave it at Junion's place after I realised that I can't hand carry it since I did not include baggage check-in option in my air ticket booking)

Guess which is mine? :p

Heading off to Auntie Lam’s apartment, where we are going to have dinner at the 大拍档 across the road, this is my first time going into a local neighborhood. Certainly a new experience. Living at 31st floor, I would say they have an awesome scenic view from their apartment. Tong Tong was there with Janice and Auntie so finally I get to give Tong Tong a hug again. Boy she had grown some within 3 months.

As I am not familiar with the local food and I've not been fuzzy with food ever since coming back from my Thailand Bike Trip early this year, the family ordered some local fare for me which I can try. One of the dishes, 炸九肚鱼, tasted very good and mixed very well with the porridge I'm eating with. There’s another dish where it looked like a prawn but with a shell as hard like crayfish (hopefully the sisters can enlighten me on this one cos I’ve forgotten the dish name). After the meal, Junion and Family, Random, Charlie, Janice and Kit headed back to Junion’s place to try out the new Guitar Heroes game bought earlier. With the newly bought guitar controller, we now have 4 persons to play at the same time. It's a blast playing this game with them. This ends the night where everyone looked exhausted and tired.

The following day, we headed out to 元朗 for brunch since Janice is going for her appointment in the area as well. While waiting for the shop (B仔甜品) to open as well to wait for Janice to finish with her appointment, we had a bit of food munching at this restaurant which sells Taiwanese food. Not bad, but weird to go all the way to HK to eat Taiwanese food though lol. When done with the meal, we head back to the dessert shop to have some local delicacy, 肠粉. Scully also ordered a bowl of mixed fruit which is BIG for the 5 of us. The 肠粉 tasted awesomely smooth, unlike the ones I tried in Singapore and Malaysia. So smooth that Scully had to demonstrate in a very..... erm...way. Great recommendations from the family!

Ain't she like to pose LOL

The smoooooth 肠粉

It was Mid-Autumn festival and the family planned a BBQ at 西贡so after the dessert session we headed off to get the stuff for the event. The ladies went to get the stuff while I accompanied Junion to get the backpack he wanted for his Dahon bike cover bag. We let the ladies drive to the destination while I and Junion will take the public bus there. Upon reaching the park, I learnt that the BBQ pits are open to public with no booking fee required. You find a pit, you use it. Just pack things cleanly when done with the BBQ. Everyone are just gracious, when one of the pit users cleaned the place up nicely before letting us take over.

With everyone helping out, we set up the pit and decorated the place with lanterns in no time. The good point about HK-style BBQ is that everyone gets to sit around the pit and BBQ, chatting away. Tong was totally in 忘我境界 and excited playing with the kids there as well as trying to snatch their toy balls. Luckily their parents are nice enough to let their kids play with her. Naughty and hyperactive girl, but that's what made everyone loved her so much. I feel that this is an awesome BBQ experience where they allowed me to soak in this family-warming atmosphere even though I am not a part of the family at all. Truthfully, it's one of the best Mid-Autumn celebration I had so far. Thanks Auntie, Junion and the ladies (plus the ladies' dudes) for the good time!

Everyone's barbecuing happily...awesome atmosphere

Benny and Charlie preparing the lanterns

Our little model keke

After the BBQ, we packed up the place nicely for the next pit user and we head off back to Junion's place to chill out. 7 of us, sans Auntie, Tracy and Pak Kei, squeezed into the car to leave the place and when everyone is talking about how the car can accommodate so many passengers, Junion jokingly said it's a Nissan Odyssey haha. (the family was talking about upgrading the existing car to Honda Odyssey for some time, hence the joke). We stopped by a dessert shop where they have bought the 榴莲忘返, a bowl of coconut milk with durian meat ball and black glutinous rice ball and a Durian pancake dessert so as to have them while watching TV (Junion and sisters, enlighten me on the dessert name if you can, 唔该 :p)

榴莲忘返

2 dudes showing off their multifunctional headwear

Kit also having a go at it

The sisters engrossed in the movie "1408"

The couple's signature 偶像剧 photo pose

On that last day there, they had planned to go KTV for a singing session. For a start, we selected the Alphabet and other kid songs to let Tong sing. I feel that she has the making of a singer as at one time, she walks along the seat while singing the song like a singer lol. Halfway thru the session, her “engine” gave up on her and she fell to sleep on her stroller in no time. "Thanks" to Junion, he selected a cantonese song for me but luckily I pulled it off with Random's and his help. This is also the first time that Charlie and Kit joined the session with me around and they sang well too. Guess it runs in Scully's family that everyone are decent singers. Not to mention Random. If I were to use his quote, I would say to him, "you rocks! \m/"

After the singing session, they got some local snacks for themselves as well as gotten some to let me try them out. Let me recall, there's 鱼丸，黑椒牛丸, 火腿热狗 and 芒果西米露. Awesomely tasty stuff.

After a short shopping spree, we headed down to 大尾督 to have some cycling fun as well for Junion to 开张 his new Dahon bike. For the rest of us (Random, Charlie, Scully, Tong and me) we rented a bike for ourselves and the ladies (Tong included) got themselves a family bike. We didn't cycle a long distance but the awesome scenery there makes up for the short trip. We managed to reach the platform during the Magic Hour so I'm able to capture some shot but could be better if I brought my ND filter (yes, I forgotten to bring T_T"). Thanks to Random for pointing out the Magic Hour, IT IS BEAUTIFUL! Nevertheless while the cycling trip is a short one, it's fulfilling. We headed down to a dessert shop after to have a bowl of unique 豆腐花, unlike what I have eaten back home. Tasted good, and my favorite actor, 周润发, was one of the celebrity patrons there. Due to my Cantonese fluency issue, the lady boss spoke too fast that I didn't realize that she was telling me how much to pay for the dessert and she thought that I ignored her lol. The day ended with a simple 外卖meal at Junion's place.

豆腐花

Junion and I had one last "ashtray" talk before we retire for the night. They will need to work on the next day and I had to take a bus to the airport early as well.

Here I am, right now on the plane back to Singapore, making full use of the 3+ hours' flight to write this post while the memory is still fresh. Certainly do hope to stay a bit longer but then good times must end. On the positive side, weather had been good to us for the past few days with no rain and good sunshine. So I always tell them jokingly that the good weather is due to the presence of 阳光男仔 from Singapore (guess who keke) and ended up earning a couple of "satays" from Junion -.-"

Once again, I sincerely thank Auntie Lam, Junion, Scully, Janice, Tracy, Pak Kei, Kit, Benny, Charlie and Random for their hospitality shown during my visit there and hope my visit won't tire the entire family out. With a slightly better grasp of Cantonese, I am at least able to use some simple terms and they are nice enough to correct me when I used them wrongly. Auntie, Junion and sisters, hope to see you people in the near future :)

And to my little cute lovable God-daughter Tong Tong, be a good girl ok, Uncle Johnny will be seeing you.....soon :)

For more photos and videos, they can be viewed here

Project "LEDification"

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It's been sometime since I have done some mod on my trusty Fazer. As Rudy had shown me the new LED signal indicators on his bike last week, and given the price he had revealed to me, I reckoned that this is one practical purchase.

Why, the stock signal indicators are spoilt or what, some might ask. Well, for one, I'm a sucker for LED and LEDs are known to use less power than conventional bulbs. Secondly, the indicator lights I'm getting have integrated brake light functions, which doubles up as a secondary brake light for safety reasons. Plus, the price is very affordable (less than 100 bucks a set of front and rear indicators). Lastly, the indicators are universal mountings which means I can transfer them to my next bike.



While using LED lights are less power consuming, it posed a problem: the indicator relay will switch VERY fast due to minimal electrical loading on it. That will make my bike look like a moving disco. To resolve the issue, I need to include a resistor load into the system so as the slow down the relay switching speed. Thanks to QuizeSilver, I got a rough gauge of resistor rating and head down to Sim Lim Tower (for non local readers, it is a place where one can buy unassembled electrical/electronics components). In the end, I settled with ceramic 25W 6 Ohms resistor with heatsink, heatshrink tube and electrical cables. I could have bought a ready-made resistor load but nothing beats the joy of DIY, plus it's cheaper.



So, what I done is solder the 2 leads on the resistor to nicely cut cables and add on a heat-shrink tube over it for waterproofing purpose. Once done for 4 of them, I brought of the stuff to the carpark to proceed with the installation.

Rudy and Derek popped by to help out in installing the indicators. Luckily they were there else I will be spending much longer time fixing it. Initially I wanted to find a way not to splice the original indicator cable but there seems to be no option for that approach. So, I finally decided to cut the original cables to install the indicators. The rear signal lights took the longest time to fix as I need to ensure I am connecting to the right leads. Nevertheless, we managed to get the wiring up and running and when we did a test run, they worked!


So, once we nailed the rear lights, the front signal indicator installation was a breeze as it is more straightforward (just signal, no brake leads). That only took us like 45 mins to fix both sides and once we fixed everything (panels etc), we did one last trial run and voila! It runs flawlessly!


So now, the bike had been LEDified, sans the headlights, which still have to run on filament bulbs. Awesome.

A Little Visit to the Woon & Lam Family

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It was one day that I was working and the thought of Junion, Scully & Tong came to my mind. It's been more than a month since they shifted over to Hong Kong. i reckon that while they are starting a new life there and having fun with Scully's family, somehow Junion will miss most of his friends in Singapore. Given that the air ticket to Hong Kong is affordable these days and at the same time I could use this chance to take a break, I made an impromptu decision and wacked an air ticket booking less than 2 weeks back.

When I finally reached Hong Kong, it was very heart-delighting to see Scully, Janice, Junion and of course my cute hyperactive god-daughter Tong waiting for me at the arrival hall. We then hopped on Janice's car so that I can have my first Hong Kong dinner with their family. Before driving to our dinner spot, we went to one of the Disneyland's hotels so they can show me around as well as to take some shots. But judging from Tong's reaction, guess she is more excited about the place than me lol.

After the short tour there, we proceeded to our dinner spot, which is a restaurant near where Scully's family lives. They had ordered some local delicacies which some of them was my first attempts like roasted pigeon and long shellfish (frankly, I have no idea the actual name of that dish but it tasted awesome anyway haha).

Once we are done with the dinner, we went ahead to Junion's residence to explore his new home at 马鞍山. As compared to his SG home, of course is very much smaller but I would say it is definitely much more cozy than the former. Since they had only moved into this apartment for a couple of days, I was their first overseas visitor to their new home (oei Junion, got some kind of certification presentation like what we have in Town Meetings bo? Haha just kidding)

Since Junion had to work on the following day, Scully and Tong will be my "tour guide" for the daytime. She brought me to the restaurant in their apartment building and had tim sum, which is one of their common local fares for breakfast/lunch. Afterwhich, we took shuttle bus to the city centre to take a bus to 大屿山 area, where Charlie, Scully's youngest sister, met us up to take the 帛坪360 cable car, which will bring us to the famous giant buddha statue. The cable car on this one is unlike what we have back in Singapore. It's higher, longer, more windy and more exciting. We roamed around the giant buddha area, took a couple of shots then we head back to the station to take the cable car back to the station. When reached the station, we went to the shopping mall nearby called Citygate Outlet mall where we have our High Tea.

Charlie and Scully showing the cable car tickets

An Excited Tong Tong




Tong Tong simply loved to pose in these LOL

There I finally get to try the 冰镇奶茶 which is not found in Singapore. It's basically a cup of milk tea placed in a bowl of ice. The concept is to maintain the taste of the thick smooth milk tea in chilled state without the melting ice diluting the tea. Simple yet ingenius idea :) Scully and Charlie also taught me some cantonese pronounciation off the menu words so I'm 0.01% closer to the fluency of the cantonese language lol.

冰镇奶茶

Right after we roam around the mall and I got myself a Crocs sandal which is 40% cheaper than what is sold in SG. Well, I needed a pair of sandals anyway. But looking at the kind of price they are selling in this mall, there's no guessing why Hong Kong is a women shopping paradise lol.

Shortly after we met up with Charlie's BF, Random, before we take the MTR to meet up with Junion and Janice at 尖沙嘴city centre. Once we all gathered up, we headed towards the Victoria Habour, moving along Nathan Road, which is akin to our Orchard Road but much much longer. The weather had been kind to us, providing a cloudy and windy one instead of rain. There we stroll along the habour and waited for the light show where the building lights on the opposite end of the habour "dance" synchronously with the broadcast music.

After the spectacular light show, we proceed to have our dinner around the area where they claimed to have one of the best wanton noodles. The noodles really lived up to its name but couldn't finish it due to high tea meal I had earlier. What a waste, sigh. Janice then ordered a plate of 肠粉 with fruit fillings. Surprisingly it's pretty nice despite the weird combinations. After the dinner, everyone went their separate ways to head home.

On the following day, the family had planned a karaoke session at 旺角 for some singing fun. They decided to go for the KTV lunch session as it is more worth it as compared to the evening session, as they told me. I would say the KTV experience I had in HK is much better than in SG, given that they provide mic covers for hygiene and the Honey Lemon I ordered tasted more like the real deal than those in SG, which tasted like diluted honey. Guess I'm the lousiest singer in the group as Random, Scully, Janice and even Junion sang so much better haha. Even Tong Tong also have so much fun singing those alphabet songs that she sang the same song more than 3 times! That was really good fun :)

The KTV group (sans Junion as he is the one behind the camera)

Tong sang the Alphabet song 4 times!

After the Karaoke session, we proceed to the city area to look around where it is similiar to Sim Lim Square in Singapore, an extremely poisonous place for techies like me. Knowing that I like military weapons, Junion showed me the shops that sells airsoft guns that looks like the real weapons. Crap, I may just get one if I really get to stay in HK man....the bloody weapons all looked so tempting haha. We also went to check out a building where half the building is selling games and console while the other half is selling porn movies. I almost got myself a Wii as the price is pretty attractive but managed to hold back in the end since I could come back next time to get it lol. Random then brought us to another complex where camera equipments are sold. While the price are attractive, they are way out of my intended budget. As I and Junion had checked out Random's tripod earlier at the KTV session, which I find the build quality is decent plus the price is very good(since he is more experienced in camera stuff so I have faith in his choice of equipment), I told him I could get the similar tripod as his. However he mentioned that we will have to travel to 深水埗 to get it. So we took the MTR, got the stuff and head back to 旺角 to meet the ladies. There we also met up with Scully's fifth sister, Kit, and her boyfriend Benny but we split up with the group on the way back to Junion's apartment, leaving me, Junion, Scully and Janice. We had planned to go to the Peak for photo taking but scrapped the idea due to bad weather. So they decided to spend the rest of evening at Junion's home for Guitar Hero session. While we chilled out at his home, Scully's sisters and their came one by one and soon enough, they started having the Guitar Hero session right after dinner. First time I see one whole family so eager to play the game, and it's heartwarming to feel that kind of atmosphere :)

GH Session @ Woon's Nest


See how happy Pak Kei is LOL


Potential Rock Chicks LOL

I and Junion later went down for a chat, about work and stuff. It seems like a long time since I last had a good chat with him. We seems to be so engaged in the conversation that we didn't even realize that it was 4am in the morning already haha.

Next day morning, we woke up to wait for Janice to pick us up to the airport. When we reached the airport and I got to check in, we realised that I had go to the boarding gate already. I really wished I could have one last breakfast session with them before I leave for Singapore.

I am really delighted to see the Woon and Lam family and I am really touched by their hospitality during my stay. I will like to especially thank Janice, Charlie and Random for making time to show me places, and I really appreciate that greatly, and not forgetting Kit, Benny, Tracy and Pak Kei as well :). I'll miss you people and will also miss 冰镇奶茶, 云吞面，杂果肠粉 and 星州炒米 plus other great food you guys had recommended me lol

And lastly to Tong, be a good girl and Uncle Johnny will come back to see you soon :)

More photos can be viewed here