Eye over London

Singapore is building the Singapore Flyer which will be larger than its counterpart, the London Eye. The London Eye is already pretty impressive so I can imagine how spectacular the Singapore Flyer will be when completed.

Getting into the capsule. I had to book the ticket online.

Each capsule can fit about 28 persons comfortably with seats.

View over the Thames and the Big Ben.

My visit to Hogwarts

Long suspecting that I have magical blood, I took a trip to London to find my way to Hogwarts. Yeah, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Maybe if I somehow get to Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat could sort me into Gryffindor. Or some loser house like Hufflepuff will do.

Before getting to Hogwarts, I had to go to Diagon Alley of course to buy a pet owl for magic mail delivery as well as to buy the latest textbook on making potions. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no witches and wizards in Diagon Alley (Leadenhall Market in London) at all and definitely, no wand shops.

(Damn. Hoping to see witches and wizards at Diagon Alley as well as the Gringott's Bank. Mjust be a national magical holiday like Merlin Appreciation Day or something.)

Nevertheless, I decided to make my way to King's Cross Station to catch a train to Hogwarts.

Now where the hell is Platform 9 and 3/4?




Well . . . .



I FOUND IT! THERE REALLY IS A PLATFORM 9 3/4!

The problem was that I could only get my cart half way through. Damn. Some house elf must be preventing me from going there.

Bloody cart get stuck in the middle of the magic wall.

So no choice, has to take a Knightbus to Hogwarts (actually Oxford's Christ Church).

So, I finally made it to Hogwarts. And Hogwarts is really pretty!

The stairs looked really familiar . . . .

Finally, the Great Hall where the Sorting Hall sorts all first year students . . . .


I didn't get into Hogwarts though. Not magical enough. Drats.

A380

So SQ got the largest plane in aviation history. It is so big that Discovery Channel (probably also paid by SIA) did a documentary on it called "Giant of the Sky". People are swooning over the bright future of SQ and its financial prowess and how A380 is going to change the future of long haul flights as it has the ability of travel without the need for refuel transits.

Big deal.

It is still not going to do SQ any good if it continues to charge an arm and a leg for a seat as well as not doing anything about the crappy services from our SQ girls. I have flown plenty of airlines in my life, from the sucky (Turkish Air and Lao Air) to reputably good ones (SQ, British Air) but yet to counter an airline as expensive as SQ. Put simply, you need to prostitute yourself to earn enough money to afford a seat on our national carrier. A seat in the economy class from Singapore to London costs more than S$2200. Holy macaroni. The seats must be lined with fur and the air stewardess should offer "special services" with that kind of price. BA is S$1900 while Royal Brunei is around S$1000. I cannot even imagine the price SQ is going to charge for a seat of S380. You probably have to cut off both arms and a leg.

The only great thing about SQ is its food and inflight entertainment. On my flight back from Thailand, I have Hainese chicken rice which was probably, hands down, the best airline food I ever had.

And the SQ stewardess are terrible. They are really just vases; trained to smile and look pretty but are not really sincere or equipped with people handling skills. You always have this feeling that they look down and patronise the economy class passengers. And the wonderful thing about SQ stewardess? Many of them are not Singaporeans at all and they are also fugly as hell. What the hell happen to our Singapore Girl branding? Paying thousands to eat chicken rice and sit in a big plane is not going to help our national carrier in the long term.

Blogging in London

London is truly cosmopolitan. You could not walk few paces witout hearing a non-English language being spoken. Even now, some Pakistani is speaking Urdu to someone next to me. If this is the city which Singapore aspires to be someday, it is a destination which this current generation would probably not live to see. That said, perhaps it is for the better. Homeless people sleeping at corners of Leicester Square, people asking for spare change around Tottenham Court and Soho Square . . . etc. London is a city which is clearly struggling to cope with problems brought about by its own vibrancy.

The one thing which sticks in my mind is Chinatown, filled with bullshit Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Thai restaurant selling fake asian food to gullible white men and desperate asians like me. I just paid S$15 for a plate of fried pork kway teo which didn't taste anywhere good enough to justify its hefty price tag. But the Chinese people in Chinatown really pissed me off, especially the young asians who are studying in London. These young asians (I think some are Singaporeans) have long forgotten about their roots and have adopted some bullshit British accent. Many are also super rich, clearly belonging to some elite families in Singapore, Malaysia or China. The young guys are driving porsches and the latest models from Audi. The girls are clinging on to their ang moh white or latino looking boyfriends as if they are starfishes gasping for breath. They thumbed their noses whenever they saw some asian guys who gave them a glance on the streets, probably thinking that they have graduated to the white men "class". In the restaurant, I also overheard a young couple; the boy actually flew all the way from Singapore just to see his girlfriend who is studying in London. He was afraid that his girlfriend would forget him. The girl didn't look interested in him at all, so I think the cause was long lost already.

Rich asian kids studying overseas; don't you just love them all for being dumbasses? No wonder many of them don't want to come back to Singapore.

Farewell to my car and office

This is killing me. I just said bye to my trusty car.

The new owner better be nice to her. She is one kick-ass car and served me faithfully for four long years, braving Lao roads and dodging irresponsible motorists and cows day after day. I always suspect she could be a transformer. She should forever be known as Buttercup in my photo memoirs.

Worse, I am saying good bye to my office. The place when I stayed back for so many late nights. My very own beloved attached bathroom in my office. Surfing internet. Making coffee. Turning up the music when everyone have left. Oh dear.

I feel terrible. They say your first time when you stayed oversea (whether for studies or work) will leave such a vivid impression on you that you will remember for life. I think it is true. It is going to be hard to forget the place.

On the up side, selling Buttercup just landed me another S$16,000 in my bank. I am quite flushed with $ now which is a damn nice feeling.

Farewell to my lovely house

I just bade farewell to my lovely house which has been my home for more than 4 years. I will miss the spacious master bedroom and awesome toilet which itself is bigger than the tiny, 3-room HDB flat which I would be moving into to stay with my parents. I would miss bouncing up and down the stairs as I tried to change the remote from the UBC console downstairs so that I can watch the preferred channel on the 2nd floor. I will miss the nicely, manicured garden and I wish I had spent more time walking in the garden to smell the roses, literally. Those nights spent watching and laughing at bad movies, Audrey Hepburn classics, football matches, jumping around playing Guitar Hero and Need for Speed, are OVER. I guess, it is time to really grow up. Damn. I wish I have my own bachelor pad in Singapore but I need to be realistic as housing prices are insane. I should start toning down all expectations (turning a knob on my head now).

I also said farewell to Daisy. Which turns out to be a guy cow actually. So I should call him Buttercup now. Buttercup is actually the only cow in the field with bells around his neck. I realise that Buttercup and Daisy actually have a small baby cow running around also. I shall name him Daisycup. Daisycup should be proud that his (her?) father has the power to dispel nightmares and spirits with the power of his loud "moo" and bell tinkling at 3 am in the morning.

Before I left, I wave at Buttercup and Daisy in my car. They looked at me quizzically and went back to chewing the grass. How romantic.

Tales of the Onion - Part V

I am so busy now I am practically swamped but the last tale of the Onion should be told to complete the Onion saga.

Onion knocked down a massive ornament in front of the office. With the company car. In broad daylight. So I have a big-ass, massive pot rolling outside my office (ROFL) and a company car with a dented bumper and busted tail-light. I have asked my staff to get someone to assess the damages so that Onion can decide whether he wants to pay all the repair costs or not. Onion is rich so he has agreed that if the cost is not too prohibitive, he will pay for it.

Obviously, someone up there does not want me to leave in peace.

Things got worse for Onion. He walked into my office with a strange expression today. By strange, I mean he looked like half pleased, half constipated and all awkward. He had a wry smile on his face as if he struck US$1 million lottery but the lottery master requires him to wrestle a sex-crazed gorilla in order to claim the prize. So, I asked him what's up and Onion said that he just discovered that his fiancee was seeing someone behind his back in Singapore and he just called off the wedding. I actually have a feeling that Onion was actually quite pleased that his fiancee was cheating on him.

Now that is fucking weird, isn't it? If I have a fiancee back home and we are about to get married and I discover that slutty two-shoes is seeing someone else behind my back, why would I be pleased about it? I would be choosing which weapon of choice to kill her with (I prefer a chainsaw). Why would anyone be pleased or glad that the wedding is off? At this point, someone may say, "maybe Onion is happy that the girl found true love?" Well, fuck true love. Two-timing girls who fuck the next guy within a month of him leaving the country for work overseas should be executed with a blunt spoon. As it was written, so it shall be done. Hmm, the Onion's soup deepens. Either he really believes in true love or he is fucking gay.

Anyway, the stock market is up and surging again. Don't ask me why. Two weeks ago, everyone is on the verge of jumping off buildings and now, they are buying shares and funds as if the world just discovered a source of alien energy. I am taking the profits to go to Beijing for a holiday. Especially since the Chinese are all gearing up for the Olympics and everyone is told not to be nasty but nice to foreign tourists. And after Beijing, maybe a short jaunt to London. Or Paris. Or New York. I have not quite decided.