11 June 2011, Saturday

Life in London - Take Two - Touching Down


Reaching the house, we were pleasantly surprised. 

Front of the house

It was a huge house, with 4 bedrooms on the second floor, and an attic that spans the whole top floor. Each floor has a washroom, with bathtubs on the 2nd and 3rd floor. 

On the ground floor, there is a kitchen, and a washing area extending behind the kitchen. There are 2 other rooms on the ground floor -- a huge carpetted living-room that's empty except for a couch, and another dining room with a dining table and 5 chairs. The dining room extends into a back yard. The backyard is almost as big as the house. There are 2 wooden sheds behind.

Common area at the main entrance

Standing at the staircase landing

Looking up from the staircase landing

Lousy under-exposed photograph cannot adequately convey the excitement expressed by the guys

Two of the bedrooms on the second floor

Francis taking a look at the second floor toilet

Dining area on the ground floor

Same dining area on the ground floor

Kitchen on the ground floor

Washing area housing the heating tank (a side door on the left opens up to the side of the house)

The living room on the ground floor

The couch is the only furniture in the living room

My room on the second floor. Windows overlooks the back yard

YC's room on the second floor. Window overlooks neighbour's house across the road

Francis' room on the second floor. The room is L-shaped -- there is a recessed space on the right where a working table stands

Washroom on the second floor

Mengdi's room on the second floor

Raymond standing at the second floor landing

Looking up into the attic on the third floor

Looking down from the attic's entrance

Toilet on the third floor attic

Half of the third floor attic

A view out of the attic's window

The same view, but I managed to capture a rainbow!

It was almost 7pm, can you believe it??

The exact same view with a lower exposure, check out the rays from the clouds! :)

The street our house is on

While we were still happily engrossed in photo-taking and unpacking, YC had to chase us out of the house because it was almost 7pm (althought it looked like 4pm).

Mailbox by the junction

Yes, it was raining, and while we were risking our DSLR, Francis is happily using his new digital compact camera

YC tying his laces. Doesn't he look hip?

The Streatham common just beside our estate

We wanted to head to Double Negative's office at Shaftesbury, but the ticketing machine at our national rail station had closed, leaving a ticket dispensing machine. That promptly broke down after we tried to operate it (it wasn't a user error, I promise!). We had no tickets to go into central London, so we ended up finding a place to eat at a Chinese restaurant. 

After eating, we went back home to unpack our stuff.

11 June 2011, Saturday

Life in London - Take Two - Departing from Singapore

After rushing to pack, and prepare my house to be empty for 3 months, I only got 1.5 hours of sleep. I woke up 6am and had to head to the airport.

My wife went with me, packed with her stuff too. The sad thing was, that she wasn't flying with me. We were both sad because we were going to be parted for the rest of the 3 months.

Christina, not too happy about my departure

Here she's pretending to be the one flying off :)

After having the last breakfast at a food court I went in and Christina left for her mom's house.

Going through the security checks, I found the guys at the area waiting to board.

YC didn't have lots of sleep

But Francis was excited

Plane came shortly:

Food on the plane

Second meal on the plane

When we arrived, we were held up for about an hour by immigration who needed to confirm our visa status. When we finally came out of immigration, I made a silly mistake. I spent almost half an hour trying to find my luggage. I didn't recognise my luggage! That was because my father let me use his, just few days ago. 

When we went out of arrivals, it was already close to 5pm. We were scheduled to be picked up by a car at 4pm. The driver was about to leave when we called him. He turned around and took us to the car.

Battersea power plant

Streatham common. Parks that are enclosed plots of land, for people to stroll. But commons are not enclosed. 

4 June 2011, Saturday


A few days ago I came across this verse from a daily verse app on my Galaxy Tab. 


Proverbs 16:8
"Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice."


Sometimes we must keep reminding ourselves of God's perspective and His truths from His Word in the Bible. We are weak and so prone to thinking thoughts from the worldly point of view, not from God's value system.


This speaks to my heart because like many of people out there, I've seen my fair share of people in situations where they seem to get ahead or get away with things they do not deserve. When we see unfair things happen, we tend to ask "Why?".


This verse teaches me that God uses another scale to measure success, and that goes against the worldly system. 


God I pray that I will always be reminded of Your Goodness and Your word. Help me, even though I sin. Teach me to constantly, to walk in the path of Your righteousness, and do not give up on me, I pray. Amen.

I had a honeymoon trip to Hongkong! 

Unfortunately I don't have time to post pictures from that trip. I promise I will post it as soon as I am free. My work is quite hectic right now, so I don't have much time to post pictures. 

But I promise to catch up with the blogging :)

Today I happened to come across a topic about people who put up a front, or present a false image of themselves to others, misleading people around you to think that you are someone you are not.

Some people would tend to become affected when they have put their trust in that person, and would then feel their trust betrayed, when that person does not turn out to be the same person they were led to believe he/she is.

Someone asked me how I would react. It is of course justified to take it personally, especially when you've invest emotions, care, concern for that person who has put up a front. You would feel betrayed, all those genuine emotions and effort you have taken to nurture that friendship.

Here was my reply, in an instant messaging chat session:

Its ok

i won't take it seariously

You know how hard it is to be fake?

you have to PRETEND,

and you have to KEEP IT UP,

and you know that every false front you put forward

you are fighting your own conscience

it is TIRING

to keep it up

if you were fake

i would smile sadly at you in understanding

of the things you put yourself through

for some mysterious reasons

that i am sure you yourself have justified

that these mysterious reasons

are worth

all that trouble

that you take

to put up that front

and try to keep it up

over people's eyes

to make them believe

what you want them to

and knowing that

people who like you or are attracted to you

are for the wrong reasons

-- those exact reasons that you made up

for them to believe

in the fake you

See?

The person is doing himself/herself a disfavour.

I dont need to spend my energy to pile up the hate

or dislike for him/her

If i really did treat the person nice

and the person fooled me as to who he/she is, and turns out to be a fake

Its still ok.

At least I've found out

and i will be thankful that I found out

With that, I will suffer no further damage because I've found out.

I move on.

But the person,

if he/she keeps up his/her fake identity,

he/she gotta keep playing that game

fooling people.

That's detrimental to himself/herself, and to their friends around them.

To each his own.

When I see people do that, I'll  feel tired for them

so i'll sympathise with them more than hate them

This was written from the top of my mind, in a very short span of time, but I think I manage to say something profound. That's why I decided to put it here. :)

Going to sleep now.

Good night all.