Singapore Bay Run

I participated in this year Bay Run on Sunday, this being my 2nd attempt.
The run formerly known as Safra Sheares Bridge Run was better organised compared to last year. This time, three and a half lanes on the ECP stretch of the Sheares Bridge were reserved for the run, leaving one half passable for on-going traffic. Last year quite pathetic, just one lane for the runners and everybody had a hard time finding space to run.

I signed up for the Non Competitive 12km run, not competing with time, just hoping to complete the run as this is my first time trying to cover this distance. The most I have covered was 10km in the StanChart run. My time was about 90mins, quite slow, mine is more like a jog :) I clocked 40mins for 6km, by the time I reached 10km, time taken was about 1hr 15mins liao. Last 2km duno why took so long, so tempted to just walk but managed to perservere and reached the finishing line.

Later that night, was abit shocked to hear from the news about the death of a young army officer during his 21km run. He passed out after completing the race. A sad case indeed, may he rest in peace.

HK's storm alert 'outdated'

From yesterday's news, like what I wrote in my earlier blog, we felt it was a false alarm as well, maybe the authorities just playing safe:

Storm alert system out of date: Observatory chief
Aug 19, 2007

The typhoon warning system is decades out of date and requires an overhaul to avoid the chaotic scenes that followed the hoisting of the No8 signal on August 10, says the Observatory, which is responsible for issuing the signal.

HONG Kong needs to overhaul how it deals with severe storms, the head of the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) said yesterday.

The territory hoisted its No. 8 signal - the first there this year - on Aug 10 after Typhoon Pabuk U-turned and passed across the city.

The signal led to the early closure of the stock market, government offices and businesses. Tens of thousands of workers scrambled to get home, resulting in chaos at train stations, bus stops and ferry terminals.

Mr Lam Chiu Ying, director of the HKO, which issues the warnings, said rules for dealing with severe weather were outdated and many workers could have remained in their offices as no law insists business must cease, and most people do not need to catch ferries.

Mr Lam said that responding to a No. 8 by shutting down the city originated at a time when there were no road or rail links between Hong Kong island and Kowloon and the city had many substandard buildings.

Pabuk caused only minor damage to the city and no flights were cancelled. The central business district endured only minor rains and winds.

881

I brought my dad to watch this local movie 881 today. This is a show about Hokkien getai (opera) and the story revolves around two girls who dreams to become getai stars.

I know some of you might be put off by alot of factors in going to see the show
- Hokkien show, obiang
- local production not worth of the $
- getai, so old, unglam
- ...

Forget about these reservations and do yourself a favour to watch it. The movie really brings the essence of getai to the mass, there were alot of old folks in the cinema and when the movie breaks into a Hokkien tune, you can hear some of them humming to it :) Bring your parents if possible, I'm sure they will enjoy it.

Look out for actress Liu Ling Ling, who steals the show with her comical Hokkien dialogue, which she delievers effortlessly with a straight face!

This is the theme song from the movie, take a listen, really nice!

一人一半 (Solo version)



一人一半 (Duet version)

Nice feel-good DVD to recommend

A friend asked me to help order this DVD from the internet and before we passed it to her, wife and I sat down on Friday night to watch it.

The movie is adapted from a book, titled "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less" by Terry Ryan. It stars one of my favourite actress Julianne Moore as the mother. The movie was produced in 2005 but somehow didnt make it to our shores.

We were not aware of this book and the movie till my friend recommended it. We enjoyed the show very much. The show is about this family of 12 and the ups and downs and how they get by. The father, played by Woody Harrelson, supposedly the breadwinner of the family, did not bring home enough money to feed everyone due to his drinking addiction. Luckily the mother, Everlyn Ryan has a flair with words and poetry and she would join jingles contests and a whole lot of others and win household items for the family. The story is set back in the 50s, so you can imagine how much these prizes were to them.

If you want a feel-good movie, this is it. Julianne Moore did a very good job in portraying the character of the mother, so positive that you just like her. Her smile, her mannerism, her ability to diffuse anger is something that we should all learn.

This movie is adapted from a true story, from the eyes of the daughter's Terry Ryan who wrote the memoir. You get to see the real life kids (old adults now) making an appearance towards the end of the movie. Having watched the film version, I will try to get hold of the book and read to know more about the Ryan family.

Pretty Signs

Things were back to normal the next day, no exceptional crowd at the MTR. There was a long queue though up the escalator and I took the stairs and saw these nice signs, part of a "climb the stairs" campaign:





.

Bless the Typhoon

Typhoon hit signal number 8 on Friday!

An extract from the hotel typhoon alert information phamplet:
Signal number 8:
"
When signal number 8 is hoisted, we strongly recommend that you stay indoors. Offices, shops, banks and schools will close. Public transport services will be suspended any time, although the Harbour Tunnels and MTR wll still provide safe, easy crossing from Kowloon to HK and vice versa. For your own safety, you should stay in the hotel, draw the curtains in your room and stay away from all windows
"

I had lunch with my customer at about 12pm+ that day, we went back to the customer office at about 2pm. As we were preparing to start the training, one of the customer told us that there is a government typhoon alert at 4pm! So exciting right? 1st thing that came across my mind is: can go back or not? :) The customer then checked with their boss and we were told to quickly pack up and go back. Great!

Taxis were not available, we can see alot people on the streets waiting for buses and others were heading towards the nearest MTR. As the customer site is quite far from our hotel, we decided to take MTR back.

What a mad crowd it was at the MTR, I captured some pics to share:















Everyone was packed like sardines and for me to reach near to the door, it took like 45 mins! Can't believe I actually stood there for so long, it was getting very stuffy and you see people perspire and you see sweat beads on everyone's face ...















Finally got into the train:















So glad to exit from the MTR station and make my way back to the hotel.















Somehow at Causeway Bay where I stayed, I don't experience strong winds at all, maybe its blocked by the tall buildings around this area. We were wondering if its a false alarm or expecting the typhoon to hit later in the night.

When I reached the hotel at about 5pm, alot of shops and restaurants have closed, wife decided to ta bao some cup noodles for dinner. The news interviewed some folks and alot were quite happy to be able to leave office early and when asked what they intend to do, some of them said they will go to karaoke lounges with friends or rent DVDs and watched at home.

You must be wondering why I bless the typhoon, for me, I was supposed to be at customer site at 2am that very night for some upgrade work. So it was good news for me when I learnt from customer that the night work has been cancelled and postponed to a week later. By then someone from the local team will take over so I no need to worry about that anymore! Yipee!

At around 7pm+, wifey and I decided to go out and take a look to see if there are any shops that remains opened. It was a ghost town, the MTR were so empty , when we boarded the subway train, we were like the only 2 persons in that cabin! Wife managed to contact her friends (Singaporeans working in HK) and we decided to visit them. Her friends stayed in a flat, looks like condo, and it was on the 50th floor. While making our way to the building lobby, we have to brace the strong winds and hold the umbrella tightly in case we get blown away :) Once up there, we can really feel the strong winds and there were light rains as well. That was probably the strongest winds we felt that day.

We brought the cup noodles there, chit chat and had dinner. Quite a cosy evening spent.

Typhoon Alert

Last few days have been quite stressful for me. Even though it is supposed to be training but I got pulled left right center to help them troubleshoot other problems that they have raised to us. Every night since Monday, I only get to leave the customer site only at 8, 9pm and then have to be in the conference call with customer as well as with my US teams. The calls were usually late, 10, 11pm and after following up and did some updates, I only managed to crawl into bed at 1am+. So sian :(

There was a typhoon alert yesterday (Tuesday), signal number 3 to be exact. Customer told me that if it goes up to number 8, then everyone has to leave the office. Good news to me, then can eat snake don't have to work mah , haha, that's the immediate thought that came to my mind.

Early this morning (Wednesday), the hotel distributes typhoon notice as well to all hotel guests informing us on the different signal levels and advice on what to do.

Extracted from the typhoon notice:
"
Signal number 3 - When this signal is hosited, Hong Kong may be enjoying what seems to be a perfect day, but the strength of the approaching winds can change very quickly. Air, sea and land transportation services might be affected
"
So we went to customer site as usual cos still at number 3 and outside its becoming rainy, didnt get any strong winds though. No changes to the signal level throughout the day.

Wife touched down in the evening, and we walked around the hotel area and had dessert.

Off to HK again

This trip is 10 days long, wifey will join me during the National Day holiday break.

Gonna give training to customer together with my US colleague, hopefully not too stressful, considering the customer has been giving us so many problems.

I just had my soon kwey from the Bengawan Solo outlet :)
Going to check-in now ...