Yesterday Happenings

Yesterday some of us arrived at Canaanland Celebration an hour early to attend Barnabas Team meeting. Breakfast was being provided.

As usual I did not join some of them for lunch at Damai for ‘Pan Mee’ as I was feeling a migraine coming. Instead I went to Karamunsing Shopping Complex and had difficulty finding a parking space. Even the road system outside this shopping complex and Sabah Electricity Sdn. Bhd. had been changed. I had to make a big circle before finding a parking space.

I went to McD to take away my lunch. I only ordered a Fillet o Fish and a regular Sprite. Instead the cashier gave me a large order of Fillet o Fish, Sprite and French Fries. I wanted to complain but resisted as I was sweating by that time due to poor ventiliation inside McD. I just could not wait to get out of the place but alas I had to wait for the burger for a few minutes and the place was jam packed with people queuing up. I had no problem in finishing the large serving of McD. I must be really hungry.

I went to have my hair trimmed, coloured and treatment. My hairdresser Maggie wanted to cut off my hair to a bob style but I refused. I reckon with my skin being on the sensitive side, I need my hair to be below the shoulder so that the hair can cover my neck whenever there are rashes appearing on my neck. Plus after taking so long to grow my hair, I do not have the heart to have it shorten too drastically.

I spent about three hours at the hair saloon and by the time I left the shopping centre to go to 1 Borneo at about 5p.m., the rain was coming down.

There was massive traffic congestion on the other side of the road at Sulaman Road.

This time round my lady boss gave me the RM200 shopping vouchers for Southaven. According to the salesgirl whom I asked, this is a Singaporean shop and most of the clothes on sale are either black or white. The other colours are all light colours.

Since I had lost weight, I found myself being able to fit into more clothes and therefore my choices are more now compared to before. But I could only fit into size M in this shop. I ended getting two black blouses since I prefer this colour to white.

Before I left 1 Borneo at 6p.m., I managed to browse at the Tasty Food Court on the First Floor. The thing I do not like about this food court is that they use the coupon system, ie. you have to buy coupons before you can buy the food you want to eat. The only interesting stalls I found were dim sum and Penang food. I did not check out the prices though.

I had difficulty in coming out from the carpark at 1 Borneo to Sulaman Road. On the way home, traffic on Sulaman Road was bumper to bumper. From 1 Borneo and detouring to fill in petrol on the way home, the total time it took for me to get home was about 45mins!

Before I retired at 11p.m., I watched the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games. Once again PRC put on a great show but of course not as grand as the opening ceremony. I like the fireworks of the Olympics rings the most.

Happenings of Last Saturday

On Saturday I did the following.

1. I managed to nearly finish updating the company accounts. Next month end will be the end of the financial year and therefore the bosses want to see the draft net profit figure to see how much they can spend between now and then to decrease the tax to be paid to Inland Revenue Department.

2. I had the car service at the workshop below the office. For a long time the windscreen wiper had been making sound whenever it was being switched on when rain came down. The sound is quite annoying and therefore I decided to get a new one. Now the new wiper does not make any sound.

Last year the mechanic suggested to me to put a layer of window tint at the top of the windscreen but I did not ask him to do that until two days ago.

3. I left the office to come home at 3p.m. The house next to our house was bought over by new owners and since three weeks ago, a contractor has been doing renovation. The noise has been quite deafening for me during the weekends that I have been home with the sound of drilling and hacking going on. That’s why I did not want to come early during the past weekends unless I was too tired to go elsewhere.

4. I watched the Russian team won the Sychronized Swimming ahead of Spain and PRC at the Beijing Olympic before having an hour nap.

5. That night my sis-in-law Ros drove her parents and mum to attend a dinner at Ocean Seafood Restaurant while both us went to Yayasan Sabah Auditiorium to listen to The UK South Norfolk Youth Symphonic Band organised by the Rotary Club of Kota Kinabalu. On the way to Sabah Foundation, there was massive traffic congestion at the Coastal Highway.

The programme is as follows.

First Session

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace – John Williams arr Michael Story

Highlights from Moulin Rouge – Eden Ahbez arr Michael Brown

The Children of Sanchez – Arr Tom Milford

Selection from Chicage – John Kander arr Ted Ricketts

Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder arr Naohiro Iwai

Miss Saigon – Claude Schonberg arr Warren Barker

Second Session

The Cowboys - John Williams arr Jay Bocook

Queen in Concert – Brian May arr Jay Bocook

Selections from The Lion King – Elton John arr Paul Lavender

Irish Party in Third Class – Gaelie Storm arr Richard Saucedo

Pirates of the Carribbean – Klaus Badelt arr Ted Ricketts

Third Session (Combined with Tshung Tsin Secondary School Band)

Four Norfolk Dances by Philips Sparke

Asian Selection II by Mitsuo Nonami

Since the concert was performed by youths, my expectation was not that high. Nevertheless these young people did a good job. The conductor was Mr. Mike Booty, who is also a Rotarian. At the end almost half the people in the hall gave the band a standing ovation.

When we arrived home about 11p.m., mum and Ros’s parents were not home yet. They only arrived home at 11.15p.m.

Game Over

Lee Chong Wei was no match for Lin Dan.

Malaysia had to settle for silver medal.

Olympic Silver

Just finished witnessing the badminton match between Malaysia’s only gold medal hopeful Lee Chong Wei defeating Lee Hyun Il of Republic of Korea in the Beijing Olympics.

I am glad Chong Wei won as the entire nation’s burden is on him to win. I am sure he is relief he won as well as this is a chance in a lifetime. We do not know whether he would still be playing in four years’ time.

He will meet either Lin Dan or Chen Jin in the finals and Malaysia will have at least a silver medal for this event or more like the whole 2008 Beijing Olympics Games.

Gr8

Saw the gr8est show on earth last night. It was superb as the IOC President described it.

China’s 5000 years of history condensed into an hour pageantry of sight and sound that left every single person be it the live or tv audience gobsmacked.

Would London in 2012 be able to come any closer to match this most spectacular show on earth? I do not think London should even try. Why? Because I am sure the Chinese have blown their Olympic budget to excessive proportion by staging the opening ceremony and the Games.

And with Beijing covering with smog leading up to the opening ceremony and even today, I think the amount of fireworks displayed last night was unnecessary. (And by the way I had seen even more spectacular fireworks than those of last night ie. when Sydney turned 200 years in 1988).

Let the Games Begin

Today is a special day: The opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics Games at 8:00pm on 8 August 2008 – a total of four eights which is supposedly to be an auspiciously good day according to the extremely superstitious Chinese. But the Chinese forgot that today’s date is based on the Gregorian calendar and not the Chinese calendar. But then, any 8 is good for the Chinese for it symbolizes wealth or prosperity.

The Olympics mascots have been blamed for the recent calamaties occured in China including the Sichuan earthquake. Human beings like to blame others for bad things that happened to them and these mascots are not spared. The irony of the blame is that The Fuwa (Olympics mascots) literally means “good-luck dolls”.

One of my colleagues was born on this day thirty three years ago but she does not celebrate her birthday because her religion does not allow her to do that.

Twenty years ago today one of my male cousins got married but tonight we are not invited to any anniversary dinner to commemorate the occasion. Instead my elder brother, sis-in-law and mum would be attending a wedding dinner at Shangrila Tanjung Aru Resort. And in mum’s own words ‘I have to miss out on the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics!’ *shucks*