7 yrs itch

Porky s work schedule became more hectic this week , and i have less job applications recently and hence more time on furniture hunting.

I went to a furniture mall at town area yesterday. At first i found a set of black glass top table with aluminium legs ,matched with black chairs as we planned, my mind was ready to consider this black color dining set without much excitement.

But as i explored more in the mall, i managed to find a dining table, purely made of clear glass, means it is a whole piece of glass that formed the table top and the 4 legs. It is gorgeous to me, it s like Wonder Woman's see thru Airplane if you are old enough to know what i mean. The length of the full glass table is only 1.4 meter , which is a bit too short but enough for both of us. Porky was wondering if the table is big enough to hold his ten course meal (for 5 meals a day) for his stomach, i thought it is good that the table is just enough for 4 or 5 dishes per meal. I compared the price and happened that there was another shop in the same mall also carried the same table at 10cm longer but charging at 50% more . We later quickly paid for the table and closed the deal. I was glad that i did not settle with the first option, i.e the black glass top table, it costs more and looks really boring.

I then browsed through the mall for dining chairs to go with my glass dining table, and found one model with pure white seat and 4 thin wooden legs, elegant and posh, just the right chair for my Wonder Woman Airplane. Porky gave me much freedom in deciding what design to buy, and as long as it is not ugly , he will not disapprove.

Till now , our mission for electrical appliances / furnitures hunting is almost accomplished , what we have still on the list are the curtains / wallcovering / ID works. I began to fantasize about the time i will be spending in the house with Porky ,Breakfast on bed, Afternoon Tea and TV watching at living room , lunch/dinner on the Wonder Woman Airplane, eat eat eat and turn into a pig like Porky. These are the moments i have been waiting for almost 7 years, and after 7 years finally i can get rid of the itch.

As for my job hunting it is not easy as the replies are fewer but i will endure, i know i need to perservere and i am not alone, Porky knows that i have mild depression due to the job hunt and kept asking me : "You are not pretending to be happy in front of me right ?" I said : "No, i am not. I would not commit suicide. "
This conversation repeats every day.

I will leave for a short while to go back my hometown, and hope Porky will stay healthy despite the heavier workload, i know i will miss him.


Darby

Beijing Day 2_ Part 1

DAY 2 began to snow , freezing cold at subzero degree and my shoes were not warm enough, i felt just like standing in ice water when the ice melt in my shoes. Went to Tian An Men and The forbidden city.


Tian An Men


The Forbidden City


Tai He Palace , One of the Palace for Meeting on political issues




C'est Magnifique.


Darby

Beijing Day 1 _8 Nov 2009

I have been delaying my updating of Beijing photos as i took too many pictures and it took time to resize them.

I will start to paste Day 1 (8 Nov 2009) photos from today's blog onwards. I stayed at a budget hotel in Ju er Hutong ( Chrysanthemum Street )located in old town of Beijing ( Tong Cheng / East Town ) , which costs less than 40 SGD (200 RMB) per day inclusive of simple breakfast. The hotel room is clean, service is good, which i do not know if this s because the Beijing ppl is more friendly than Shanghainese, otherwise i am rather impressed by the service, the website is http://hantinghotels.com/ , sorry that they only have Mandarin version website if i am not wrong. Alternatively , you can go to http://www.ctrip.com// for booking on China hotels too if you are travelling to China.

Day 1 Drum / Bell Tower , Smoke Pipe Hutong

Drum tower


These are the long and steep stairs that turn my legs into jelly.


Broken drum to report seasons, 24 drums for 24 different timings in a year.


Water is used to calculate time.




Bell Tower for old Beijing time reporting.


Well, everybody knows Ti An Men from the song.


Smoke Pipe Hutong for souvenirs


Believe it or not , it s a public toilet.

Darby

Ease of mind

i am now on my 3rd week of job hunting from 5 Jan, Porky was comforting me to take it easy. Before i came back to Singapore , i knew that it will be hard , but when i am back and going through the process, the stress of being jobless is way much to bear. Tight on my cash for expenses on myself and new housing, although i have more than enough for me to tide through a year easily. I just cannot make myself to spend on the things i want , eg my suitcase, swimming goggles, new business pants,etc. I know i can afford it for now, but i just feel bad to spend on these as i am not holding a job yet. That is called insecure.

i do not enjoy the lazy noon too, although i finally can sleep till 9 am everyday. I will spend the whole morning on job hunting, sending resumes , making calls. Luckily Porky made me travelled around the whole Singapore in the afternoon to check on the price of the furniture / electrical appliances to get the best deal, bcs in the afternoon i am usually done with job hunting and too bored to stay in my room. If not i will go for a swim or reading at library, sounds heavenly good to me when i was in cold SHG but feels really bad when you are jobless in Singapore.I am just fated to be a white mice in the the rat race, who just cannot truly enjoy my long holidays. Porky make it a point that every night he will make sure i eat well and he always order too much till i have gastric pain. That is the way he shows his love.
At night i am usually back to my rented place at 10 pm , after a whole day out for checking on prices and meeting up with Porky. I usually fall asleep at 12 midnight after shower, without fail.

The feeling is not good but it makes me humble and mature, having spent years at oversea with better income that i almost forgot that life is full of ups and downs. I am just bearing with it to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have a very reliable companion along the way, luckily.

Darby

New York I dont love you

Watched New York I love you yesterday night and was really disappointed. We were hoping that it would have a distinctive theme like Paris J'taime, each zone/district will carry a unique love story for 10 minutes, short and sweet. But New York I love you is just a mess with forgetable plot. There were only 2 stories that woke me up; one
is about an old actress thinking about her lover in the hotel and the other is about an old bickering but loving couple with mobility problems. Old actors/actresses shined effortlessly with their acting in this film and I mean really old actors/actresses in their 60s or 70s.

And the characteristics of each New York district was not flashed out during the making of the movie. The audience watched it without knowing which part of New York the story was set in. In Paris J'taime, Marais is a district (populated by PLUs)with lots of art galleries, and one story is set in an art workshop in that district where two young male persons first encountered each other - that story brought out the characteristics of the place and the people there quite clearly.

True to its reputation, Paris is still the place for romance.

Darby

Furniture , Electrical , Paint Work

Porky and i have spent almost every weekday and our weekends for the past 2 weeks doing the needful for our new house, such as viewing the electrical appliances, furniture and discussing with Interior Designer on the design and decoration of our house. We have combed through West and Central Singapore to get the best deal for our intended purchases at reasonable price.

Finally, after taking the measurements of our house, we are able to confirm the purchase of the sofa and coffee table, and most of the electrical appliances. We still need to hunt further on the bedding/dining table and to finetune the ID works. We are quite happy although it is really tiring. I can now understand the feeling of those who are newly wed and about to move in to their first home. Tired but happy.

Today Porky decided to call it a day off and i get to have some rest. We spent a day at his place, watching tv, reading papers, sending my resume to advertisers, eating durian. We had good chats on what this new house means to us and our future together, but more about my future career as my current career in Manufacturing is not as stable as Porky's in Singapore. i have only reached home now at 12 midnight. A new day has begun and I am blogging about our new house. I think it is quite unbelievable as not many PLUs can come this far together. I am still in the stage of "Am i dreaming?". But it is true and we are soaking in honey.

We also read from the papers about the estimated growth of property prices, with the launch of IR this year and the completion of the Jurong Lake District in a few years' time. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this new house of ours will be a sweet home for the two of us and it will bring us good luck.

Darby

Many things happened

On X'mas day of Y2009 , after a few viewings with our Porknet agent, Porky and i bought our first property together at west Singapore. The unit is facing green green forest, with clear blue sky and plenty of sunlight. The living room / guest room / master bedroom all enjoy the same great view and sunlight. We fell in love with this unit once we stepped into it.

Second thing is i moved out from JB to Singapore on 5 Jan and rented a room to begin my job hunting in Spore and to prepare for the renovation of the house. We began with furniture viewing at places like Ikea/Park Mall/Courts. Then we went to shop for electrical appliances at Best Denki. Today, we met up again to discuss the color for the walls so that our ID will understand our design concept. It's so hectic that my back ache has come back again and I cannot twist my waist freely .

The feelings are mixed for me; i am worried about my job search but at the same time i am happy I am setting up a new house with Porky. Porky showed his capablity in real estate. He arranged for the lawyers to sort out the paperwork, dealt with the property agent, checked for the loan packages and also with the interior design contractor. I will leave the legal work and financing to him and will start on the furniture viewing and ID plan with his guidance.

At the same time, Porky is taking good care of me, making sure that i take my medicine and eat my meals, kept the recruit pages for my job hunting use. He has aske me to blog this for a Best Boyfriend Award so that Singapore knows about it. Porky indeed deserves an award, for he is a very intelligent, supportive and caring partner.

I have come to realise that Porky is capable in many things besides his knowledge of good food, and i can learn from him too in many things. Life is a never ending cycle of learning, as Alanis Morrissette sang in "You Learn". I am taking a plunge into a new world, and do not know what lies ahead, whether it is a bed of roses or something else. But i have faith that if Porky and i can keep up the momentum we have now, focusing on the same goal and work together for our future, we will be fine ... we will be fine.


Darby

Our 6 th Anniversary

Porky and i spent our 6th anniversary (30th Dec) and new year countdown together , with lots of shopping/eating in JB. I had plans to groom him to become a Korean Pork Star as he has always been an ambitious kara-oke singer, a little bit too ambitious though.

Unfortunately , the night before we met up for our anniversary, i injured my back and i could not sleep at all in the night. The next morning, i went to see a doc before i met Porky at JB. We did some shopping and Porky got his t shirt and shoes to match his career needs. We ate our lunch in a Hongkong restaurant and went back to rest my aching back. We had our dinner at a restaurant nearby and bought mangosteens as dessert. Porky was very reluctant to touch the fruits because he knew that he will have the purple color pigment dyed on his t shirt and everywhere else, and i had to peel the skins before serving the Star.

The next day morning, we went to a home deco mall near Giant at Plentong. We spent hours browsing through the items in the mall and took down the price for the items that we like. Then we went to City Square for Karaoke and lunch. Again the Pig was overjoyed and fantasizing about his stardom. We did a second round of shopping for the Pork Star for casual shoes and more t shirts for Chinese New Year. He did not spend too much as the Year End Sale was on in JB too. And in the evening , Alien joined us for dinner at a Hakka Restaurant for Lei Cha and Suan Pan Zhi, which were not bad and very cheap too for 3 persons. Alien then drove us to Holiday Plaza for the third round of shopping. We had chats on casino gambling and our part time jobs during secondary school. When I finally returned to the hotel room with Porky, i just felt too sleepy to do anything and rested my head on Porky's butts. I slept till 12 midnight to hear the sound of fire works from JB town area and we rushed to the window for the beautiful view in the midnight. Porky and i enjoyed that very moment together, it was the first hour of Y2010, and we got the chance to spend it together, which was really awesome. I just hope that we will be able to do this every year.

The next day morning, which was the last day of our outing, we lazed around in the hotel room in the morning, before we checked out around noon time. We had coffee and kaya toasts at JB old town area , and I took a picture of the Pig before a shophouse named Lucky TV and Wireless. We then went inside a Johor Old Temple near Kotaraya for prayers, but Porky wanted to poo poo there. After that was done, Porky boarded bus 950 at the Kotaraya bus terminal, and i had to go home. We had a good time together and some time to take a good rest before the new year starts. I slept at 10 pm that night and woke up the next day at 8 am and my back felt better.

Darby

Zhou Zhuang - The Water Village near Shanghai

The last place i have visited before leaving SH is Zhou Zhuang. Here is some updates of the pictures taken in Nov 2009, Winter. It is poetic for picture taking and i hope the merchants from outside do not turn it into a typical cheapskate Shopping District for handicrafts , we have too many places like this in China.






Maple leaves shadows on whitewashed wall.





My favorite picture is this , shadow of the houses in the river with mirrorlike effect.