The loves of my life

Oh Joy

Her first cry
Her first turn
Her first word ('duck')
Her first classes
Her first step

Erica has turned one.
We are turning 30. 

Now for #2.

A simple mail from HER

"i can feel our daughter growing stronger. her turns, punches and kicks are so forceful .... they make feel like I am having stitches sometimes"

The feeling - indescribable. A million bubbles bursting in anxiety, hope and pride.

I love YOU. And you.

The perennial excitement

The typical question du jour in the company of close friends is the same:

“Are you guys excited?”

It really got me thinking. Excited? We definitely are. However, my excitement is tempered with a tinge of worry. I’m worried that I’m not good responsible mature enough a father. Worried too about the vagaries in life, and that if anything untoward were to happen to me, these two loves of my life would not have someone to fall back on. Despite securing relative financial stability and adequate insurance coverage, I have always taken it upon myself to be the rock that Sonia (and in future, Erica) required.

When I learnt that Sonia was expecting, my first reaction was that of unbridled happiness. I was happy that my beloved maternal grandmother was a tai-po and my parents both could join the fabled ranks of the 50-ish grandparents. I was happy that the next stage in our lives could come so early, and that Sonia and I were at an age whereby we still remembered what it was like to be young.

And then came the first questions from well-meaning friends and colleagues –

“Wah, so young ar!”
“So fast! Are you all ready?”
“But you just started out in your career leh.”

Each question sowed a seed of doubt in my faith that we were ready. Was I really ready? Were we ready to nurse, inculcate and educate another individual totally dependent on our support and guidance? I pride myself as being a logical, level-headed and mature person, but dealing with matters of emotion, I am frequently at a loss.

Are we… Was I ready?

All I wish is for Erica to tell us, 28 years down the road that indeed you both were, dearest Mum and Dad.

A Fun Stag Night does not a sober groom make

Today was the stag night that my brothers had planned for me...
I had a little can of beer and nothing else, which didn't really play to my brothers' plans.
Gout was my main concern, and to have an attack so near my wedding date could possibly wreck our carefully-laid plans.

Had to wear a red sequinned bowtie and a pair of GROOM shades whilst completing the tasks that the brothers had set out in a deck of tasks that were ostensibly for a bachelorette party. Tried very hard to be a sport but approaching girls and chatting them up was not a natural thing to me.

Felt as though I'd let everyone down as everyone was looking very bored by the time we shifted to the second area within Butter. I appreciate their efforts but this wasn't what I had in mind for a stag night.

Sorry to my bros.

A very long hiatus...

It's almost two years since my last post, and plenty (both good and bad) have happened in the interim. The following timeline is a brief summary of my life since the much-cherished Shanghai trip...

• Started work at PwC on 7 July 2008
  
• Graduated from SMU in 13 July 2008
• Met a whole bunch of new people (Amin, Chee, Zee, WZ [who is now Ou Weiming's girlfriend], Raymond [Mr 3%], Ee Wah, Daniel, Rex and LKL)
  
• Saw Audrey May May get married in September 2008 (She's now the proud mother of one)
• Grew very much closer to Koof, Ra, Jing, Huimin, Janice, Gina, Hailing and to a much lesser extent before he quit the H-monster, Zhong
  
• Proposed to my beloved (26 December 2008) at Crowne Plaza Hotel with the invaluable assistance of the people above
• Celebrated the graduation of my batch (one year after my own) at Peach Garden OCBC Centre on 9 July 2009
• Attended my first (and last) PwC Fiesta in October 2009
• Tendered my resignation in the very same month (after seeing Wilson get his Maggie Mee)
• Left PwC on 6 November 2010 - it was the SPA away day as well
  
• Joined G** on 16 November 2010
• Went for my first overseas trip - Phuket with HER in January 2010
• Lost a loved one (Ah Ba on 19 March 2010 - exactly 8 years to the day after Ah Ma passed away) - a very painful and sudden bereavement... the gratitude I feel for his care in my formative years spurs me to do the same for his daughter
• Went for my 2nd trip to Bintan with HER in April 2010
• Went for our wedding photoshoot on 20 May 2010
• Bought our matrimonial bed and sofa set from Sealy and a local retailer on 21 May 2010
  

This has been a turbulent 2 years for me, and the only constant has been HER steadfast support, as has always been through these 9-plus years. For that, I will have no one else but HER as my wife. I'm looking forward to our photos and 18 September 2010, the day that we will be legally man and wife.

Pictures are available on Facebook, and I know that these memories, however painful, will be an indelible part of my journey through life.

Shanghai Day 6

Day 6 was better - we resolved to forget the disappointments of the previous day and set out afresh for Qipu Road and breakfast. It's always well and good to have something to fall back on in a land of foreign food - the ever-trusty Macdonalds and their ubiquitous items on the menu.















Qipu was relatively less crowded at 10am, and we took 4 leisurely hours to stroll through the 2 main malls and select our purchases. I got a pair of "Teva" sandals for 80 RMB, which was a relative steal considering that the other shops were unwilling to let it go for anything less than 100RMB. It's my current favorite.














We went to Ajisen's for lunch and chanced upon a gem of a poster.

























After depositing our purchases at our hotel, we took the metro to the French Concession, where the Lyceum Theatre was sited in order to catch the evening version of the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe's performance. It was yet another disappointment, as they had cancelled the performance.


























We then walked along Huaihai Road to check out the Zara sales at the 2 outlets lining the road.

























We ended the trip off with a meal at a mall along the road and some Portuguese fare - if you consider Cafe de Coral to be anything like that.

Shanghai Days 4 & 5

Day 4 was a day of meeting with people - we met with Zhong's Dragonboat teammate and Celest's Jun.














We visited the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum - well, we sort of viewed it from the outside - our main motive was to pay a visit to the various dodgy retailers at the basement of the metro station.














That was where Meng found his first retail love - a pair of Lacoste shoes that he did not end up buying. We spent much of the day haggling about prices with the vendors and did not do very much at all.














Ditto day 5. Which was a horrible day with rain and a fruitless search for the elusive Factory Outlet that had us running all over suburban Shanghai. Wet socks and a truncated Qipu Road best summarizes that forgettable day.

Shanghai Day 3

Day 3
Having not booked a ticket to Hangzhou the night before and waking at 5.30am having slept just 3 hours the night before, the Chinese could have forgiven themselves for having seen wasted zombies scurrying around a) People's Square (人民广场), b) the 80,000 People Stadium and c) the Shanghai Indoor Stadium. All for the sake of catching the bus that left at 7am.

We ran around like idiots looking for a semblance of a bus terminus (or any other congregation of the said motor vehicle, which, unfortunately included most traffic junctions) for the first 2 locations. I have not run so much since BMT before. In any case, we were despairing at the negative replies (and misdirections) given by locals strolling in the calm of the morning. It must have been pretty funny to see touristy Chinese who couldn't speak proper Mandarin running off in the wrong directions.














We got to the Shanghai Indoor Stadium at about 720am, and having thought that the bus had already left, we were a dejected lot. In fact, the lady at the counter told us that the bus would be leaving at 845am, and that there were just 3 seats left. That was our very first stroke of luck on the trip. We promptly paid the 248RMB - which was a ripoff, sadly.

























The Hangzhou tour, and Hangzhou itself was a letdown. We rushed from place to place, and although the highlight of the tour was the Xi Hu (西湖) boatride, we never really got close enough to view the 7 scenic locations up close. Not even enough for photography, barring something like Weisheng's DSLR and his humongous lens. Which wouldn't have worked anyway, given that the boat was rocking about and mist obscured pretty much everything from afar.














My main grouses center about the fact that we spent too little time at the 2 locations of interest - Xi Hu and the Ling Yin Temple (灵隐寺) and too much at the commercial silk factory and the place with the tea leaves. We passed by the Yue Wang Temple (岳王庙) without going in to spit on the statue of Qin Kuai (秦桧) for whom the phrase 遗臭万年was coined. And really fulfill the our inner Chinese self - secretly we admired the Chinese ability to hark up a gob of spit and deposit it on the next available tile.














At the Ling Yin Temple, Meng did not go in with us and I suppose I was the only one marvelling at the splendor of the place given that Zhong was very much the freethinker sort. At least he saw fit to dedicate merits to his mother, who was a devout Buddhist. We had the good karma to witness the recital of the afternoon prayers and toured the hall of the 300 arahants, all of whom were unique and intricately carved. The gold Buddha statue in the 大雄宝殿was a sight to behold, and given that it was rude to take photos inside the confines of the 大殿, I managed to just catch the exterior of the hall itself.

We boarded the bus back to Shanghai next, and I was very much dissatisfied with the events of the day. A filling meal at our destination made up for part of the disappointment though. Meng and Zhong must have eaten 3 full-sized frogs between them.