Over the weekends

Saw this really nice katana at Caesars and now still comtemplating whether I should buy it. Made out of high carbon steel which is quite close to the real stuff unlike those crappy stainless steel display pieces. Really tempting after handling it. The balance and feel, not to mention the quality of material and even the display box was top notch. Just could not justify spending another 400+ right now. It ain't even the shopping season yet. Had it on reserved for another 2 weeks....really something to think about before blowing away a large portion of my pay.


Got to meet Raymond on Saturday night after watching Miami vice with Chrstine. This is the first time he booked out of tekong after the initial 2 weeks stay in. Surprisingly, even in his botak hairstyle, his looks have not changed much. Unlike some people whose image is so geared towards his hairstyle that you would not recognise them even if he was to march pass you in tekong. Just couldn't control but rubbed his head. Heh. Did the same thing to everyone of my frens whenever I see them shaved for the first time. Was told that Yuhua received a call from his Mentor while in tekong. He failed one of his module. You know what that means.... Cannot help but laugh even though it's rather mean to do so. But you will too if you know him.
Kaoz. It's back to Ngee Ann for another term just to do that one single module....
And to think his hair is already shaved and he will most prob be doing the same stuff all over again when he finally officially graduated from NP. Tok about demoralising.


Had our wushu family outing today to pass Baby and Whale their belated bdae presents. Overslept again due to a handfull of reasons and had to rush down to KEVII and later west coast park to meet up. Had plenty of fun playing at the Spiderweb playground which is a favourite of Cat's and mine since young. Just inborn that I have a knack at clearing obstaclesa and hanging around,(literally) whether right side up or upside down, which caused my handphone to drop out of my pocket and plummet all the way to the sand below! But not before I took this shot of Baby with it!



Would have been a better pic without my sandals literally "chap ji ka"!
Later went settlers' at katong again for yet abother round of games and laughter. This time, we made Whale bring along Emily, thge girl he was chasing after and later revealed to us that they were already together! When she first arrived, I was a little shocked cos I felt that she looked abit (understatement) like Jo (Whale's diabolical EX!!!) But she turns out to be quite a nice person and not that shy to tok too. Over dinner, found out a very interesting thing: Emily got so many stuff that's similar to Miz Chan!!!
They are both of the same age.
Born on the same day.
Studied at CJC.
Studied at POLY after CJC.
Hey Whale! No inspiration to find GF issit?? Must copy the maid's one ah???
HAHAHAH

Looking forward to this weekend's chalet at Ubin. Time to relax and indulge!

Xiong Di Outing

Finally got to meet up with a bunch of the hao xiong di of Poly days to celebrate Paul's bdae. Well it was more of a meet up than a celebration. Was very glad that all the people I called were able to meet up. Namely: Wilson, Colin, Paul, Brian, Zhong Rong. People that made my life in Poly so much more fun and interesting, and partly responsible for shaping who I am today. Not much but still good. It's so difficult to get everyone together nowadays with everyone having tight work schedules unlike schooling days. Seems like the only events that ppl meet up nowdays is when people celebrate bdaes or attend funerals. Needless to say, all of us never lost our crappyness and laughter (& expletives) were abound. No fake faces, talk or whatsoeva. Direct tok was always the norm. No holding back the "punches". We take care of our own. Yi Qi was strong and no one will be left behind now matter what. These are the people who you trust in times of need again and again. Stuff of legend nowadays. That's why I'm glad to still have them around even though it's only once in a long while.


Went to this Al Ameen at Woodgrove. There menu and signage literature is seriously in need of a review...but still, it provided lots of laugh!

Did not know that ice kachang was considered an ice cream. Shouldn't it be inside the dessert section below instead?


STRIPloin steak anyone? Can't believe they got it wrong twice!


There was a saying: If you are a rooster, accept your lot. Don't try to imitate a peacock.....
Well if you are just a murtabak, dun try to be PIZZA!


VALVED customer? Perhaps you can adjust our noise level by twisting our heads. And you can see they are so grateful that they got to thank you twice.



Banners found on opposite ends of the restaurant. Surely they must know which is a dinosaur and which is Godzilla....dun they?

"High Training"

Yesterday's training was damn funny with Dawn and Ryan perpetually in a "high" state. No alcohol or crack involved. Just chocolates for the former and delusions of sweetness for the latter.
The chocolates kept Dawn jumping and grinning like a siao kia until the sugar rush wore off halfway through the class....kaoz... and it's the same box of choc that gave Mark Cheong his terrible stomache ache. So much so he had to fall out of training for a while.
Ryan was wearing this ridiculous smile on his face the whole night. Reason being he found a new PRC girl to target after chasing the previous one for so long. More details in his blog that I linked in mine.(but dun bother reading it unless you are ready for some cringe worthy time!) Feel happy for him. Ever since he came into this small family of kiddos, I never seen him smile for more than 2 seconds. All becos of that one simple reason.
It's really good to see him regain some hope and happiness in his life. Even if it's obvously temporary. He even manage to successfully do the 'flip-up' while lying down for the first time! Fine example of his high mood yesterday night. Something which I can identify with. I remember when I was in a somewhat similar siuation back in poly/NS days. Once your mood is up, nothing can really stop you. There was once I trashed everyone at pool cos I was happy thinking of a particular person. Emotionally driven I was. And maybe always will be. Passion will always be in my blood.
But as I learnt, the higher you are the harder u fall. No, that was not the reason why I thought the juniors throws and break falls last night(accid sprained my toe!) but all I can say is Watch it, and be prepared for It as much as you can. I was never ever ready no matter how much I try to prep. But I always recover. Most ppl will. Some ppl dun.
How ironic that the girl Ryan chose has the name of "Xing Tong". Hope it's not a bad humoured type of pre-warning.

And the Long and Short of it is:....

Fret not kids,
for the wisdom in Proportionality and Relativity....

Is as simple as the difference...

Between a Katana and a Wakazashi!
Heh...

Onslaught of the Ang boWs!!

Wow... Seems like I have reached the stage where most of the female frens of my age are starting walk the aisle. Been one for my former tuition teacher's sister just to find out that the groom used to be my school mate Yihui! Looked abit more mature in his suit but just can't shake the sec sch impression of a short chubby boy.
Followed by my wushu seniors Runzhou and Lili. The former having a slightly more "cool" hairstyle for once and not in the Ricebowl-cut style. And the latter just as sweet and petite but still look very 'gina-like' as usual!! Heh!
Jinzhou, the guy who instructed me Ninjado from Day 1 I entered this art will be presenting their Wedding dinner at the exact same ballroom as the above couple later in December. Hopefully, the wedding present in the form of performance will be a smooth one that day!
Next up tomorrow at Fort Canning will be my Sec sch Best Pal, Goh Hwee Kiang Jane. My god...it's just so sudden...It seems like one min we were playing around out in the streets late at night like siao kao and the next, she's settling down! Time do fly! But got to admit, it's been a while since we met up with all our crazy schedule. Hopefully I will have time to write up a tribute to this old fren here in my blog.
And if you think that's all.... This morning When I got to office, the first MSN mesg was also to jio me for witness at another ROM. This time from Peilei and Guanghao! Not surprising though. It's been long in the making. Those that were in the former "ice-cream gang" will know! Now with stable high income occupation from both sides, role playing capabilities!(one's a doctor and the other's a policewoman)Hehh!!
Wonder who's next?
But first, a big CONGRATS to all!!

Not in very good weather

Last day of training. Heard and seen lotsa stuff that will affect the fate of our Njd club in NP and Singapore in general. Just when I thought things were looking up, suddenly everything came crashing down again.
Also thought of some pressing practical life issues again today. Mood killers seems to come all at once.
That will be all for tonight.

Visit of the Grandmaster! Part 2

Official training started today with grading from Brown to different levels of Black belts. Was taking the grading for the 2nd Dan Black belt but did not feel too confident about it. Would you have been if you were to find out your syllabus less than a week before grading day? And how would you feel if you just managed to find someone to teach you for a couple of hours just one night before? What worsen it was that I had to erase all that I have learnt cos I just learnt the wrong form on Wednesday night. Not Dickson's fault, it was very nice of him to take time off teaching me on a rainy night already! To add icing on the cake, I also got to standardise the kicks and punch syllabus just a night before everything too. In all, I totally reprogrammed my muscle memory on quite a few moves in just 1 hr of training.

Ended up I cocked up on the Kata section. Missed one movement. That alone caused me to face the wrong direction in the end. But considering everything, it was not too bad. Fortunately Ignatius was my sparring partner and since both of us was working adults, we did VERY soft technique sparring with each other to avoid any incidents. I didn't even have to use the shin guard that I borrowed from Derrick. The breaking section went well for all the different kicks but not the hand. Not unexpected though, never trained breaking for hands for quite a while now. Fear of injuring the hand made me lost focus and I had to do 3 chops before the stick broke. Lousy.

When all is done, GrandMaster Carter Wong taught us in full details of the Shaoling Luo Han Quan. Did not manage to teach us the taolu fully as he was correcting us very strictly one by one but it was time well spent. Did so much Ma bu -horse stance and Diao ma bu -cat stance(xu bu for wushu ppl) during the taolu training till Jinzhou kanna very jialat cramps on the way to dinner...on both legs!!! Dickson was down earlier on during the grading due to pulled hamstrings but Both of them will still be awarded the third Dan black belt(international)certificate. Yay! At least now our instructors have a more substantial martial arts backing body! Can't wait till my 3rd Dan grading too!

GMCW was quite generous in giving out praises too even though all our standards are really substandard....for now! Still, it feels good when someone with his credentials praises you. During the grading, Jinzhou was praised for his punches while ignatius and I for our kicks. What really made my day was at the end of the training, when I walked over to listen in on the conversation between Victor, Jinzhou and GMCW. GMCW spotted me coming and pointed at me: He's also not bad!
Hahah! Even though it's only for encouragement but it's still shiok!

GMCW mentioned that he will like to visit us every 2 months! Wu3 yiah4 bo2?? Sounds really incredible given his busy scehdule. It will also not be possible for us to sponsor his expenses too.
I wun be holding my breath on this one.

Visit of the Grandmaster!

After what seems to be months of planning and anticipation, finally our Grandmaster Carter Wong touched down at Changi Airport today! So far it seems worth the leave I have taken for Friday. Hopefully I will learn much from him on Sat and Sun.
After seeing all his achievements in the international martial arts scene and coupled with his fierce looks(and knuckles), I thought we will have a really tough time conversing with him. Fortunately did not turn out to be so. Seems he was quite friendly and was able to converse fluently in Mandarin and English too! Come to think of it, yeah why not, he taught so many special forces in many european countries. Thank god for that! If he was to converse all the way in cantonese, I would most probably lost out on some of the more cheem explanations in internal strength theory. But as with all Martial Artist these days, once they start talking, they wun stop!! Something like the old pringles ad. Once you pop, you can't stop!

While we were waiting for the reporters at Thomson cc, he spoke non-stop at the conference room. Thank god he knows how to make his tok less boring with a few funny comments and actions. From all his talk, I can see that he was very in terested in the Singapore market. Martial Arts or otherwise. No wonder he was keen in this trip. He even commented on changing our name Ninjado, Which overall, I think is a good idea. U can even see sir's Victor's face change when he said that!! HahahHAHA...okok.. dun be so evil...
Grandmaster Wong also commented that we are the first batch of ppl that he is sharing his art with. Something he has learnt from Wudang and Shaoling. Hope it's good.
That's all for now. Let's see how this progresses... Hope for the best! Njd might have a chance to rear it's head once again!