岔口.crossroads

Saw my mum off at the airport to Republic of China on Taiwan this morning.

Once again, I dreadfully declare the voided holidays are here once again. What will come out of this one month? As usual, work is piling.

Karan Malik is flying off to India once again. Soon Kai tells me that he has camps lining up all the way while others are embarking on ambitious projects or even exiting the blogosphere, making this a rather stale holiday. Its not that I have no plans or camps, but I'm finding it hard to get excited about stuff now that I can't find the right people to work on projects with.

The Orange Society has been launched if anyone wishes to do anything, out of the ordinary. If you are a Firefox user and firm supporter, I am intending to put a full page Firefox ad in !nk like the NYT one. Cost is about $120+, so for your $1 contribution, your name appears in the ad like this:

If you love the idea, just tell me over Gtalk or MSN.

Mohawk

Today, this very day

The flame of the earth sparked my itchy endeavor.

Lo, behold an obtuse tree I found, lofty like a vase.

Across the Straits I scarcely saw,

what that we were once was.

Marshes in the canal!! Fie, this defies the bout of them all.

No Nay, I really found them in Singapore.

The Great Up North!

寧夏

Four years ago, I had collated a pictorial calendar using images similar to the ones I have taken in Suzhou. I found myself in awe of the distillness and tranquility of the water. And I thought to myself back then, it was Paradise. Now, having been there in person, I felt that one could sit there for hours undisturbed. It was like an endlessly choreographed performance: the subtle movements generated by the wind, water and leaves.


However, it was dangerous in a way, the outside world would pass by swiftly without one's notice. I hope to go back there some day only when my mind is drained. Till then, photos shall rustle and illuminate that thought.

Demiglace

Occured to me that the people serving as our steadfast inspiration sometimes fail to see beyond the immediate results of their work. And that is the story of the sauce. Resolve is hard to come by without good food that strengthens the spirit.

Strangely, I didn't feel bothered or excited when I re-pieced a little lost history and time today. The incident is noted and shall not go lost.

FAG

This series should have been posted the day I got back. In the spirit of friendly competition, the Foto Anyhow Gang amused themselves at the start of Sha Storm by engaging in tit for tat shooting (literally).

Chaebo

The whimsical dramas and tests are back again! Hence I have been making somewhat more frequent trips to the library. Coincidences have come along. Controversy thrives.



Here comes the real beef.
Oh, if you are wondering who drew this, its James. Nah, not the Gomez one.


Quote of the evening: Lunch is a beacon of hope for many of us!

Its a regret of mine that the Shanghai album has taken longer than expected to put up. I haven't set aside time to process or fine-tune the photos. And it seems that the video camera took away quite a lot of photography time. And while balancing between the two, it became a situation of 弄巧反拙.

本日ハ晴天ナリ！


Tomorrow is going to be a fine day too!

Paritia

Today is one of those turning points. Shanghai itch is dying down. Be it a slight change in governance or the entry point to week long tests. The WP rally at Serangoon seemed to be a bigger affair than the one at AMK the other day. I don't usually get political but some of the issues they raised did make sense, just that articulation and presentation were pretty distorted. I dare say, if the Opposition makes further gain this time, there will be more to come in 2011 when we get to vote.

I replenished some supplies over the week; food and electronics. A lesson on reminding myself not to expose discs to the open sun for too long. Couple of disc surfaces have yellowed in color and are unreadable.

Another image of the same event taken using my digital still camera.

Land of the Setting Sun Awakes

I shall explain my (deliberate) title(s) with an interesting fact for everyone. As you all know Japan or 日本 is known as the Land of the Rising Sun, and had great cultural and writing influences from China. Notice Japan's capital Tokyo or 东京 literally meaning Eastern Capital, which is complemented by China's Beijing or 北京 meaning Northern Capital. Did you know that China was also called the Land of the Setting Sun? Check out the Japanese flag and ROC flag and you will see what I mean.

Compare the KMT insignia which forms the ROC flag and the Japanese flag


I was fortunate enough to get a ticket ending with K, which means I get the window seat! The photo whore gang was not expecting anything considering we were flying in the middle of the night. But as breakfast was served at 5am, it struck me that we would witness sunrise from my side on the East. Ahoy, we did! (We later witnessed sunset on our return flight too, albeit with lightnings and dead batteries, heh). Ok, enough with the blabbering, peektures below.







These were actually shot on 1080i High Definition video, and screen captured from it. Imagine how good they would be on photo!

申

The vibrancy that danced about in the glittery billboards throughout Shanghai appear to be just the tip of the iceberg. The air that enshrouded around was cold, fresh and polluted. For me, the trip has been at times eye-opening, interesting and ordinary. I wasn't feeling excited about it when I boarded the plane (relative to my previous trip), but neither did I want to stay behind. Without thinking much, we took off in the darkness 2 past midnight, arriving in morning misty 5 meters visibility conditions, our lives depending on the advanced Western equipmentry of the 777-300.

The Chinese empire revealed itself by pieces, small ones to begin with. The grandeur only came days later, but was a sight to behold. The first day, we were shown the Shanghai's city development plan and the general consensus was that the Chinese were an ambitious lot. Truly, one could not grasp this in words other than to be there in person. It was someone or myself that mentioned this: The Chinese are determined to reclaim their world superpower status, and they will achieve it. I felt this resolution when standing in front of the actual ShenZhou spacecraft capsule (that was closely guarded by 2 gong an), while a patriotic video about the event played on plasma screen behind. The latter is not the point. But the event itself is enough to captivate over a billion Chinese into believing that China's ascent was assured.

On our restaurant meals, we drank locally brewed Coke, Pepsi, Sprite and tea. Most times after meals, 2.5L Coke, Mentos, Hi-Chews, McD, KFC were greatly affordable for us who wander across the street. The roads brimmed with locally made Volkswagens, whereas Toyotas, Nissans and Mercs stayed out of sight. I finally understood why mainlanders view our island's roads with envy as they saw those Toyotas and what not unaffordables to them. But as knowing that the tables could turn around sometime in the future, I didn't feel quite comfortable. Looking closely somewhat, I discover that the cars were branded by province of origin e.g Shanghai Volkswagen 上海大众, Guangzhou Honda. Days later in Suzhou, I somewhat learnt the truth behind all these localization and joint collaborations. The results are much to the benefit of the Chinese side I must concur. Technology is flowing into their hands, and it won't be long before they start originating instead of copycating. I'll talk about this in my next post.

The governmental buildings were greatly matching in scale but exceeded ours in quantity. Security was tip-top with gong an stationed at every few streets, shopping centres and even taxi stands. Notably, the governmental buildings felt very Japanese, from placement of words to tiling and security. Even the yen symbol and largely sank into widespread use for yuan. Asia's big cats finally play on near level ground.