Here are some miscellaneous shots taken during our trip there.
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Thursday, December 15
Quiet Resplendance
江西is really a beautiful place. It's like everywhere we went there would be something interesting that captures one’s attention - breathtaking sceneries, magnificent architectures, many of them hundreds of years old, the myriad of people, young and old, going about their daily chores, and of course magnificent flora and fauna.
Here are some miscellaneous shots taken during our trip there.
Here are some miscellaneous shots taken during our trip there.
Innocence
At the other end of the spectrum, I found kids and babies really fun subjects to photo shoot too.
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Wednesday, December 14
The Chinese Elders
I realised during this trip that faces showing the effects of time makes very intriguing photography subjects. Here are some of them.
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The China Experience
YP and I went for our holiday trip from 4th to 10th Dec 05. This trip was sponsored by SPH, under the 模范华文教师 programme. Of course accompanying family members would have to pay for our own expenses.
What was ^%##!%&* about this trip was that during the pre-trip briefing a week before setting off, the tour agency told the group that temperature over at southern China was going to be relatatively cool, ranging between 5 to 15 degC. Long johns inside and a decent jacket outside would more than do the job of keeping you guys comfortably warm, they said.
Comfortably warm my foot! Temp while we were on 庐山 plunged to sub-zero levels, and we all froze our butts off. Adding salt to the wounds, the hotel floors weren't carpetted. NB! I don't think any of us in the group bathed that nite on the mountains. Most if not all could barely fall asleep at all, despite the two layers of blanket beneath which we coiled ourselves.
Besides the above gripe, everything else was fine and dandy. Scenary was breathtaking. It was a photographer's dreamland. Lots of interesting subjects to frame, shoot and eternalise as megabytes in our digicams. Will post some of these pics up on the blog soon.
What was ^%##!%&* about this trip was that during the pre-trip briefing a week before setting off, the tour agency told the group that temperature over at southern China was going to be relatatively cool, ranging between 5 to 15 degC. Long johns inside and a decent jacket outside would more than do the job of keeping you guys comfortably warm, they said.
Comfortably warm my foot! Temp while we were on 庐山 plunged to sub-zero levels, and we all froze our butts off. Adding salt to the wounds, the hotel floors weren't carpetted. NB! I don't think any of us in the group bathed that nite on the mountains. Most if not all could barely fall asleep at all, despite the two layers of blanket beneath which we coiled ourselves.
Besides the above gripe, everything else was fine and dandy. Scenary was breathtaking. It was a photographer's dreamland. Lots of interesting subjects to frame, shoot and eternalise as megabytes in our digicams. Will post some of these pics up on the blog soon.
Thursday, November 3
The Cherubic Seraphine
Look at my inflatable playhouse, all filled up with my baba Yeow Seng's breath!
Netball prodigy
YS : No no no...what mama and the aunties are making have not been certified fit for children consumption. 上刀山,下火海 leave it to baba and uncle Shu Herng. You stick to your porridge. 乖.... The Contingency Plan
Yes, like all well-trained chefs, the girls did come up with a contingency effort as insurance against utter and absolute failure to produce edible pastries. After some deliberation, they opted for the fail-safe Betty Crocker choc cake-mix. Wise choice.
Well-calibrated equipment and fully scientific instruments were employed in this exercise. The ingredients had to be prepared in exact mass portions in order to obtain the perfect mixture. Measurements of volume and mass were made to three decimel places.
The impressive concoction is then carefully placed into the highly sophisticated incubation machinery. Just look at those knobs and gauges...you'd know this is no child's play.
Wow. 果然香味十足！外脆内嫩！Looked good and tasted even better. Good job, girls!(Note : author feels obliged to end on a positive note after putting in some dubious comments in previous post)
Cornish Pastries
The girls started out with Cornwall receipe. Ended up adding Maggi chicken cubes and sesame oil and god-knows-what in this stuff. Yeew.
Finsihed product. Aesthetics - 7.2/10. Taste - 4.8/10. Expectations* - met.(*Expectations - upon consumption, would not need to follow up with doctor consultation and/or eating carbon pills.)
果然是皮厚，馅少！No...thankfully, that is not blood coughed up after eating the oversized curry-pok....it's actually chilli sauce, served together with the dish by the chefs. Yes, the sauce did help in masking the otherwise blandness. Good job!
The Return Of The Chefs
Atfer 2 years of kitchen-free days, the girls of Watchfield & Highworth re-donned their aprons and stepped back into the realm of food creation. The challenge - Cornish Pastries (Cornwall receipe). Level of difficulty - 5.6/10. Guinae pigs - SH & YS. :-(
Thursday, December 16
A Test of Memory
Clarance Chan (the guy from Police who moved into 20 Folly Crescent after we vacated it) sent me this photo yesterday and asked this question:
"Err....which way is it to RMCS?"
I managed to get the answer right. Could you?
"Err....which way is it to RMCS?"
I managed to get the answer right. Could you?
To Phuket!
Very much looking forward to our forthcoming 5D/4N holiday trip to Phuket commencing this Sunday, with Bernard and Lay Pheng. Since the booking of the tour, I've heard lots of good things about that place e.g. the plentiful activities that we can pursue at the Patong beach such as jet skiing, para-sailing, elephant rides, diving, snorkelling...
Expectations are high now. Hope the real thing can live up to them.
Expectations are high now. Hope the real thing can live up to them.
Thursday, November 18
A Touching Love Story
This news was featured in Straits Times today. Was very moved by the obviously deep-rooted love the husband has for his wife, even after death separates them. Have a read....
Tragic accident that broke husband's heart
DR TENG Ping Ming, 90, used to take the bus to his clinic - but he has never boarded one since his wife died, about a month after her foot was run over by a bus.
Mrs Shu-hsien Kuo Teng, 82, fell off a Tibs Bendy Bus as she was trying to alight at a New Bridge Road bus stop, near her Upper Circular Road home.
The retired doctor - on her way home from shopping - was warded after the May 18, 2001 incident, then suffered a stroke died on July 7 that year.
Her husband, an England-trained doctor, now takes a taxi to his clinic opposite Raffles Hotel.
Yesterday, 3 1/2 years after the incident, the driver of the bus was fined $500 and banned from driving for three months. Rajan Subramoniam, 48, admitted causing hurt through negligence while driving the service 190 bus, at about 2.30pm.
That day, the day 'she went to buy shirts for me', remains seared in Dr Teng's memory.
He has never returned to Centrepoint either, which was where his wife - who also habitually took the bus to do her marketing in Tiong Bahru - had purchased orange and crimson red shirts for him, and a non-stick frying pan for the house.
She then boarded the bus driven by Rajan, who eventually pulled up at the fateful New Bridge Road bus stop.
In court yesterday, Assistant Public Prosecutor Robert Tan said Rajan then drove off without checking that Mrs Teng was not too near his bus.
The rear wheel ran over her right foot and the active church-goer ended up at Singapore General Hospital. Sepsis due to gangrene and bronchopneumonia, following the crushing of her right foot, contributed to the stroke she suffered.
During the 49 days she survived, Dr Teng's health also deteriorated. He too ended up at SGH, for a heart condition, about a week after his wife - so relatives wheeled him to see her.
His daughter, Ms Josephine Teng, 55, returned from New York to take care of him. 'I would go from one ward to the other,' recalled Ms Teng, a massage therapist.
Then, the day before his wife had a stroke, Dr Teng remembers dreaming that she was leaving him.
He cried the whole night.
The couple had attended the same church in Fujian, China and married in 1946. They arrived here in 1953, after his stint in England.
'She was the school belle. A lot of men went after her,' Dr Teng told The Straits Times with a smile.
He had first met her, and thought her 'not bad', when his cousin took him to a play she acted in.
She had a medical degree from China but was mainly a housewife, helping him at his clinic occasionally. She also busied herself with church activities and was the local president of the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women.
The couple had been preparing to celebrate both their birthdays and bought birthday cards in advance. When the end finally came, however, it came without warning.
'There had been many false alarms. But each time we think she is going to go, she comes back again,' said Ms Teng.
When the call came to say Mrs Teng had died at around 9am, Dr Teng recalled, 'My face changed colour and I threw up'.
Since then, asked how he has coped, he replied after a pause: 'I have left her things untouched. Her bed, make-up table have not been moved.'
Still, a closure of sorts was reached - not least for the driver who, his lawyer said, had continued driving for more than three years with an unblemished record.
Mr Edwin Tay said Rajan had been given various awards for honesty and safe driving habits, and had been driving for more than 14 years.
The driver, a widower with two young daughters, said he was sorry and remorseful, and apologised to the court and the victim's family.
Tragic accident that broke husband's heart
DR TENG Ping Ming, 90, used to take the bus to his clinic - but he has never boarded one since his wife died, about a month after her foot was run over by a bus.
Mrs Shu-hsien Kuo Teng, 82, fell off a Tibs Bendy Bus as she was trying to alight at a New Bridge Road bus stop, near her Upper Circular Road home.
The retired doctor - on her way home from shopping - was warded after the May 18, 2001 incident, then suffered a stroke died on July 7 that year.
Her husband, an England-trained doctor, now takes a taxi to his clinic opposite Raffles Hotel.
Yesterday, 3 1/2 years after the incident, the driver of the bus was fined $500 and banned from driving for three months. Rajan Subramoniam, 48, admitted causing hurt through negligence while driving the service 190 bus, at about 2.30pm.
That day, the day 'she went to buy shirts for me', remains seared in Dr Teng's memory.
He has never returned to Centrepoint either, which was where his wife - who also habitually took the bus to do her marketing in Tiong Bahru - had purchased orange and crimson red shirts for him, and a non-stick frying pan for the house.
She then boarded the bus driven by Rajan, who eventually pulled up at the fateful New Bridge Road bus stop.
In court yesterday, Assistant Public Prosecutor Robert Tan said Rajan then drove off without checking that Mrs Teng was not too near his bus.
The rear wheel ran over her right foot and the active church-goer ended up at Singapore General Hospital. Sepsis due to gangrene and bronchopneumonia, following the crushing of her right foot, contributed to the stroke she suffered.
During the 49 days she survived, Dr Teng's health also deteriorated. He too ended up at SGH, for a heart condition, about a week after his wife - so relatives wheeled him to see her.
His daughter, Ms Josephine Teng, 55, returned from New York to take care of him. 'I would go from one ward to the other,' recalled Ms Teng, a massage therapist.
Then, the day before his wife had a stroke, Dr Teng remembers dreaming that she was leaving him.
He cried the whole night.
The couple had attended the same church in Fujian, China and married in 1946. They arrived here in 1953, after his stint in England.
'She was the school belle. A lot of men went after her,' Dr Teng told The Straits Times with a smile.
He had first met her, and thought her 'not bad', when his cousin took him to a play she acted in.
She had a medical degree from China but was mainly a housewife, helping him at his clinic occasionally. She also busied herself with church activities and was the local president of the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women.
The couple had been preparing to celebrate both their birthdays and bought birthday cards in advance. When the end finally came, however, it came without warning.
'There had been many false alarms. But each time we think she is going to go, she comes back again,' said Ms Teng.
When the call came to say Mrs Teng had died at around 9am, Dr Teng recalled, 'My face changed colour and I threw up'.
Since then, asked how he has coped, he replied after a pause: 'I have left her things untouched. Her bed, make-up table have not been moved.'
Still, a closure of sorts was reached - not least for the driver who, his lawyer said, had continued driving for more than three years with an unblemished record.
Mr Edwin Tay said Rajan had been given various awards for honesty and safe driving habits, and had been driving for more than 14 years.
The driver, a widower with two young daughters, said he was sorry and remorseful, and apologised to the court and the victim's family.
Wednesday, November 17
Drive to Malaysia, Anyone?
We talked about this during the bachelor nite. Hope it was not all drunk talk. Anybody really keen on doing this, please indicate interest while in sober state. I have applied for leave from 18-26 Dec 2004. Keeping fingers crossed that they will be approved by boss. If got kakis, we can drive to M'sia, maybe Port Dickson say. If no kakis, I will bring YP to someplace else. Maybe Bali. Maybe Perth.
Monday, November 15
Bachelor Night Photos
Had a great time with you guys! Hadn't felt this way since the kinigu incident. To Raymond, this marks the end of your bachelorhood. Welcome to the club, buddy!
Virtual Watchfield-Highworth
Created this blog so that we can propagate the commaraderie spirit we shared during our stay in Watchfield and Highworth. This space is for us to post updates, photos and basically keep in touch.
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