风中摇曳的烛光

所以，不要过着那种还债的人生。还没开始就动摇，那是不祥的预兆。

超好吃的，我发誓，我确定，要我跪下来吗？

So......! Mr YA finally 实践诺言, bringing us to the famed Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle.

Three of us had mee kia da, ai hiam. I was not ravenous so I ordered the $5 bowl while the rest went for the adventurous $6 deal. There is also a $4 option. The $6 bowl looked the same as mine, except with an additional meatball (and more noodles?). Sorry to burst your bubble YA but it wasn't that extraordinary! Indeed, the turkwa was not overcooked, retaining the softness and 'powdery' texture that good turkwa should have. The bak chor was well minced and fresh. There were also two dumplings for each of the $5 and $6 bowls, which we wouldn't usually associate with bak chor mee. Long queue, 35 minutes wait; not an EXPLOSIVE meal. :)

Aramis, Athos, and Porthos

And so we concluded our adventures on a high note! Actually, no, our departing meal in Hanoi was instant noodles served with 'lean meat'. And it was 45.000 dong too, which roughly equates to S$2.80 per bowl. Similar taste to the Nissin cup noodles but at twice the price! Oh by the way, they use decimals as digit separators and vice versa for their prices...

(Wanted to add a photo here but it was taking forever.)

We stayed at three places over our 7-day stint in chaotic yet efficient Hanoi. Hanoi Old Centre Hotel, on a junk with Oriental Sails, and a hotel at Sapa whose name I can't recall. I thought the food and lodging at all three places were perfect! (Mr YA might have a fit over the use of 'perfect' here but it really was amazing, and at the risk of sounding unappreciative, better than home!) Yes we didn't have the 'great city view' on our first day in old centre, but the immaculate service and friendliness more than make up for it. The sticky rice with roast pork, banana pancakes, toasty baguettes and omnipresent sweet pineapples-watermelons-bananas combo are spirit-raising too.

The junk (again, wasn't up to Mr YA's standards/expectations) was pretty awesome too; we met a couple of friends from Singapore (teachers! 为人师表). I really liked the bathroom because it didn't give me the creepy feel of foreign toilets. Homely bathroom! And really clean too. Lots of dishes during meals (strange to jump from the WC to food right after) - really nice decorations too. Fried taro, green papaya salad, water chestnut-carrot salad, just a few I can recall. Oh and fried spring rolls! They are everywhere.

The food at Hoang Ha (did I spell that right?) and the other Sapa hotel was fabulous too! Pumpkin soup or potato and ham soup?? I prefer pumpkin soup! Would make a pretty good dessert too, if sweetened. Didn't really like the lemongrass though, left a bitter aftertaste.

So most of our time were spent walking to our 'Objectives'. The first food adventure should be the one to Quan An Ngon! A ?Marche?-styled eatery that lets you place orders using a single menu. The place is crowded, but we were still comfortably sat at a relatively private corner. We had our virgin bun cha here! Barbequed pork balls (slightly flattened at the top and bottom - think Earth) and slices in a smoky soup, paired with vermicelli and veggies. Highlight!! Some roll-yourself spring roll which we all pretended to be 'grand masters' at. I tried bia hoi, cold hanoi beer and the rest had SAPODILLA SHAKES. Mr WS said it was chiku (see this).

We tried xoi xeo and bun cha at other places, and I figured we were being scolded for being stingy tourists (sharing one bowl among three pax!).

I guessed I enjoyed the trek the most, even though there were some minor 'hiccups' - me not buying souvenirs from the 'yellow-robed girl', and failing to tip our guide D: even though he was fairly good. Mr YA's camera also suffered a mishap here and I believed suffered a sleepless night with it being in foreign hands (repair shop). But the walks to find 8.000 dong (roughly $0.50) bottled water and clothes were surprisingly ?fun?.

The trip to West Lake wasn't too interesting, but the day was rescued by the 5.000 dong ice cream (unknown flavour!) and a hearty dinner at our favourite location in Hanoi, Quan An Ngon. Shrimp pancake with rice paper, chee cheong fun-like dish, buns with pork filling, and grilled squid. Sound ordinary but pretty awesome. What I didn't like was the last day! Tried to find the museums but went to the wrong one in the end!! And I think we missed a part of the temple of literature too.

But now it's back to the grind of the routine here - but the best we can do is to do something different each day to make this routine more interesting. We've got to do something different to see a different result. And I must tell myself that 还没开始就动摇，要怎样坚持理念？

Monday greens

This is one of those days when I don't feel like doing anything. I have already been relentlessly reminded to get off my ass to get one of these things done instead of being a useless skill-less unemployed bum: Go apply for school; go learn some important skill ('that a guy MUST have', like driving); write in to HOTA and tell them to stay away from my organs (I was trying to delay this so mum would forget about it); go do something important with my life.

These days I keep getting flashbacks about my trainee days in ns, mostly in that dreaded place called pasir laba camp. When I was at my lowest, where were you? Same bunk as you but I never did get a firm hand to pull me up. And yet you claimed that I was one of your closer friends. All I ever had was the familiar tall dark figure of mr HBH in camp. I won't ever forget what happened in neo tiew - the fog and camo smudges in the loose, scarred goggles; the fit-like panting; the tears; the cold feet; the stares; the face; the disgust - or on that nights-out evening.

My painting lies unfinished on the desk, things that I need and want to print are still in soft copy. The world goes by outside the window. I am overwhelmed, not by the things I need to do - I have rarely been overwhelmed by that; it is the monsters that I hide under the bed that threaten to spill over into my rational life. What do you want? Someone I got to know yesterday said that. I didn't know because I didn't dare. All these mollycoddling for years have broken me down. I feel like blaming someone for stunting my growth. I always thought I was easily understood by my parents! Only recently I realised how wrong I was. No one knows what you are hiding if you don't say. Sometimes your enemies know you better because they can tell you are hiding stuff.

I don't know if I have become quieter at home, and noisier outside. I adopted a don't ask don't say policy. If I wish to talk about it I will drown you in my saliva. If not, don't ask - it doesn't help with the blood pressure. Maybe it's time for you to think about my behaviour and not for me to keep checks on my temper. I endure so much inside then I tolerate so much outside, I may implode.

±

On a brighter note, I did a four-hour cycling trip to pasir ris park last saturday before I met up with my buddies ws and ya (haha!). This is the route I took:

Starting from the park connector (serangoon park connector?) at the end of hougang ave 5, I sped in the direction of halus wetland. Upon reaching the connecting bridge, dismount and cross.

Next, find the road that connects halus wetland to pasir ris farmway 3 and cycle non-stop onwards! Eventually you will reach the junction that will lead you on to pasir ris drive 1. Keep going on the left side of the road and you encounter a park connector (can't remember the sungei name). Turn in and go, go, go and you will see a horse-riding school later and soon you are at the park.

Did a quick spin and decided to come back quickly because my saddle was becoming loose again.

In the afternoon I was planning to go to cafe e jardin but damn it my brain forgot it was a public holiday. So it was closed. So we ended up at Subway, and I fumbled around before asking the subway guy (who was very polite and friendly) for the password to the joint's wireless network. As usual ya was being selective about his googled sites but eventually we went to get our one million dolla-dong! :D

Updates

So I just weighed in today: 64 kg; am surprised that I did not hit the 65 mark!

But the muscle is wasting away! Went cycling today, intended to go one round from punggol park to punggol waterway and back, but took an unintentional detour (the PCN disappeared :/) and went wandering the streets near Montfort Sec. Then my saddle suddenly twisted and I nearly fell in the middle of the road. A few metres later it sank back to the original position (I adjusted it). Whew! I kept playing in my mind places where I might get into horrific accidents... Fortunately, I got back home in one piece.

And now I'm trying to photocopy some stuff for my mum; the printer has been erratic of late - a paper jam, weird 'chopping' noise - some kind of printer head misalignment issue I guess. I have used a HP Deskjet (the best and smallest so far, but expensive cartridges), an Epson, and two Canons. The HP Deskjet was ancient, but it did its single job well. The cartridges were expensive, more than fifty bucks for each, but I suppose that was the market price then. The Epson was a free gift; the ink was cheap but the quality was obviously good enough for black and white documents only. The Canons were all-in-ones that were a master of none and the MP276 was faulty out of the box..

If I ever buy a new printer, it should be back to a HP.

Deception

I lie on a regular basis, and unfortunately, all these lies are directed to my family members to avoid conflict of interests and needless arguments. I do keep some secrets; I believe everyone does, but I rarely lie to my friends.

Sigh.

I feel that puberty has hit me late

'His bold prediction, popularly known as Moore's Law, states that the number of transistors on a chip will double approximately every two years.' - Intel

Warning: Some minor technicalities in first two paragraphs.

I hail from a period of Pentium 4 computers (AMD was fairly popular too, but the Pentium 4 series had a very deep impression on me with their 'Intel inside: Pentium 4' metal plates on PCs). Macs were rarely seen. My first family PC was powered by AMD's Athlon (I think K7), followed by an Athlon 64 3500+ (still single core) after the former's demise. 2012, I am using a 2009 Core 2 Duo in an Intel-dominant market where Core i5s abound.

As average Joes, we are always far from the frontline of technology. We don't have the moolah; we don't have a need. Things are mostly advancing faster than our rate of adaption. Firms are always churning out new and increasingly similar product ranges to try to cater to every available consumer in the market. Typically, these product refreshes or new lineups comprise several models - sometimes with overlapping qualities -  each time, and we see these updates happening once or twice each year. Have you wondered why can't we have new software that can effectively utilise our current hardware setup? 'Hey my XP machine can't handle Vista' was a common grouse when Vista first emerged. To be fair, XP was a 12-year OS. But did Vista turn out to be a better option for us the computer novices?

Our society is emulating the progress of technology. It is moving forward; some values are discarded and some are clung on. Pre-martial sex was really, really taboo 10 years ago. Maybe it happened anyway but no one talked about it. But now we are more open about it. It has become more acceptable. While our parents look so disgusted about it, we don't find it a big deal. So who decides what values remained in our roots? How do you set your rules?

Is it correct that parents ought to go with the flow and learn new ways of educating their children? In the past, the cane/feather duster/broom was a powerful weapon. I used to nick the canes and hide them in my drawer (poor choice, I know). The skin would 'pop up' like veins after being whacked. I don't know if I learnt my lessons then; it just made me madder and want to break things. But we still did not shout at our parents in public and throw things at them.

My parents' and teachers' times were of being made to kneel on durian husks for punishment and making their way alone to school on Sec 1 registration day. Nowadays I see maids carrying bags for Sec 1 students. I guess that's okay too, after the NSF incident. However I am proud to say that Holy Innocents' Primary School, then under the firm but kind guiding hand of Mr Jimmy Tan (see Mr Sng too), stressed to students to carry their own bags.

Why do kids seem so bad as compared to our generation, or is it always like this; we seem bad compared to the previous generation? Are they old-fashioned? Will we become obsolete too? Should parents learn how to employ new methods of education to adapt to what their children have become? Or maybe the parents have already failed in fulfilling their role during a part of their children's growing up, thus having to turn to newer methods of parenting?

Been listening to 'Don't give a damn' on UFM 100.3~