By far, this is one of my 'siong' trip. Long hours at customer site , worked till the wee hours, didnt even have time to shop/sight-see though I stayed at the heart of Hong Kong island at Causeway Bay.

Luckily I managed to arrange to meet my long time Pri Sch friend CL upon touched down. If I have scheduled it on another night, it would have not been possible. We went to one of those HK cafe for dinner, chatted and filled each other with updates. If you are reading this my friend, it was really nice catching up with you!

Travelling with boss is not easy. You have to know your boss character and personality well. My boss happens to be those 'on-the-dot' kind of person so he was first at the passport control counter, waited for me at the luggage claim area, waited for me at hotel checkout etc, I wasn't late ok, he was always earlier than me :) During the flight from SIN - HKG, boss was quite surpised when he asked me where I'm seated and I told him I'm seated right at the back. He was like "why would anyone want to sit at the back?"

Well thats me lah :)

Off to Hong Kong

Another last minute notice. Was told by boss last Friday that there may be a possibility to go to HK with him to meet customer coming week. Confirmation was given yesterday and here I am, at the airport lounge now, waiting for my flight.

Will be in HK for just 3 days, back on Friday, so short hor. No fun also , travel with boss, hopefully night time I dont have to go dinner with him, can go jalan jalan, look see look see. My last trip to HK was back in 2002, that was a lesiure trip.

5 years on, dunno how much HK has changed. Hope to take some pics to share with you.

Smitten

I have been smitten by the music of this Japanese singer Oda Kazumasa 小田和正 recently and I shall reserved this space to rave about him.
You might not know him or heard of his songs before but I was ignorant of his works few years back too.

My good friend KL said that he introduced this artiste to me ages ago but I think I was too caught up in my own world of 80s music and oldies so not open to all the other genre of music that I'm not familiar with. Thou shall bear the consequences and make up for lost time and try to get to know more about this great singer.


I happened to chat to my japanese colleague sometime back as he is coming to Singapore to attend training and I asked for his help to get a japanese cd for my friend KL. My jap colleague sent me a youtube link and recommend me the song by Oda. It's a concert clip and later I got to know from KL and my sister that Oda came down to Singapore to hold a concert early 2000/1. KL and friend, my sister and BIL all went and enjoyed it, the one night concert was sold out by the way! Oda was a member from the group Off Course during the 70s and later carved out his solo career in the 80s and if you like a comparison, you can liken him to Sting from the group The Police. He is 60 years old but his vocals still sound so crisp and young.

Here is the youtube link that I would like to share. The song is titled "Sayonara さよなら" and I would like to dedicate this to my friend JP who will be going for an overseas posting later this month:

Last week I was so happy when I found a copy of Oda's greatest hits compilation on Yahoo auction! Yes this is what music can do to me, I can simply go ga-ga and will go hunt for CDs and start collecting :)
















Besides the song Sayonara, track 6 "Kotoba Ni Dekinai" 言葉にできない from the CD is simply awesome! Take a listen:

No Music No Life

Nothing much to blog so decided to blog about the CDs that I bought lately. My friend KL has a monthly update on what CDs he bought and he blog it under the post as "No Music No Life" which is taken from Tower Records tagline :)

I haven't bought any CDs for quite some time already. I have been trying to clear off lots of olds CDs on Yahoo auctions to make way for new ones. Here is a list of what I bought:

Hilary Stagg - Feather Light. Bought this from Yahoo auction. This completes my collection of albums released by the late electronic harp musician. Sadly, Stagg's life was cut short in 1999.





Babel soundtrack, 2CD collection, bought it new. I enjoyed the movie and was mesmerised by its haunting guitar pieces. Some notable tracks that I like: Tazarine, Bibo no Aozora/Endless Flight/Babel (a 3 part song performed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jaques Morelenbaum & Everton Nelson and then (the last two movements) by Gustavo Santaolalla, Breathing Soul, Look Inside and Desert Bus Ride.

Dave Koz - At the Movies. Bought this mainly for the Cinema Paradiso theme. A very easy listening album but I was abit disappointed with Anita Baker version of Somewhere from West Side Story. Anita Baker is one of my favourite soul singer but her renedition of this song seems to fall short especially at the chorus part where the "Somewhere" portion seems to just die out.




All The Seasons Of George Winston: Piano Solos, bought it new as well but have not listened to it yet. This is a greatest hits collection, he has so many albums so I have to sample this compilation first before deciding if I'm going to collect all his other individual albums.



This is an oldie for the mouldy me, haha. I think I have 5 of his albums so far. Though his duo partner Paul Simon is more acclaimed, I much prefer Art Garfunkel's vocals. Bought this cheap from Yahoo auction and specially for the track "I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be For Ever)". Didnt know that it was penned by Stevie Wonder! Besides Art's renedition, other artistes like Michael Mcdonald, George Michael and the group Mike and the Mechanics also covered it. Good stuff!

Cute Advertisments

I was in KL for a few days to give customer training. On the way to customer office, I have to pass through KLCC and there is this big advertisment by Maybank that I find it cute. The bank latest product offerings allows customer to do Interbank Funds Transfer globally and this is what they come out with:















Here, you have this Japanese yen cartoon symbol making its way from KL Twin Towers to the other end which is the Tokyo Tower. I didnt bring my camera along for this short trip so can't snap the whole advertisment which include the pictures of the towers on both ends, have to make do with a close up shot of this cute symbol.















Over here is a US $ symbol. On one end is another KL iconic building the KL tower and the other end is the Empire State building. I would have prefer to get a close up picture of the symbol but there is a car park tunnel barrier and my phone camera can't do zoom so make do with this shot :(















and the last one we have here is the Euro symbol, connecting to the Effiel Tower.

Cute or not?