I shall talk about my few phone calls to Taiwan... Conversing in Chinese was not difficult, but they sure use different terms and add in their own Hokkien slang.... The guy from Hualian running the min su (private lodging) was loud but he's pretty nice to say he will fetch us from the train station.. hehe. Now my problem is transferring funds to their accounts because instead of doing telegraphic transfers from Singapore (I only need to do one to the hotel for the first acccomodation), I have to go there and do the transfers. But I have no banking facility there, and neither do I know if I can just step into any of these owners' banks and deposit money to their accounts like in Singapore. Hopefully they got those cash deposit machines like the UOB kind where you only need their account number and cash, then things would be 10000000000000x easier (and don't need to queue in their banks)
Earlier yesterday my family went tomb-sweeping at Lim Chu Kang. The traffic was not as bad as last year even though this time it seemed to be our earliest wake-up record at 640am. Probably more due to the long long distance from the Northeast to Southwest, we reached LCK around the same time as at any year. This time the weather was freaking hot (seems so every year). Luckily I wore my Fox sleeveless singlet. But I was in jeans as I had to work at the library at 12. I also missed praying my respects to my uncle (father's younger brother) this time, but I guess he would understand.
At the library the day was pretty good until one uncle (surname Lau) queued up and requested for Friday's Business Times. As usual, there is a need to fill up the publications consultation form (a small yellow form) but he roared to me that I'm new, I do not know him for he has worked many years at the library and that everyone else (he mentioned specifically the manager) knew him and therefore trusted him. I do not blame me for ranting because the erosion of your reputation by time and personnel changes is indeed alarming for old people who have only memories to fall back on. However, the system has been taught to me as so, and therefore I am unable to bend it for him. Now this is the part which I find myself helpless because I'm just a newbie to the world of librarian systems but yet I find that there are many mind-boggling paperwork required to complete small simple tasks. It's important to protect the library property and rules, but on the other hand, I am sure there are better ways to serve the patrons and to reduce the necessity to queue, to fill up forms. Going electronic has helped the library aplenty, but I guess there can be more to be done. In the above instance, I thought it could have been easier if the old chap was given a "regulars pass" then there would have been no need to fill up that form, which he was clearly unhappy over the time wastage and to have t deal with an impression of mistrust in the event of a formal paperwork framework. Otherwise the other suggestion I could give is to set up the newspaper shelf counter at the newspaper room and perhaps these guys would just have to sign in with their library membership card or on a book when they enter the newspapers room. Then if they need earlier publications, they just have to request for it and read it inside the newspaper room so that there is no fear of people "koping" it home.
Saturday was work at home with PS, so it wasn't very eventful. After work, the korean show on SCV 妩媚女人 (in english, What's up, Fox?) was kinda captivating. This woman called Bingxi (played by Goh Hyung-jung) contracted uterine cancer and was given a choice of 3 months to live or to become a "female eunuch" (remove her uterus) and be unable to have children. She was certainly depressed about it since she was still a virgin. The melodramatic episode (as PS put it) focused on her depression which she did several things to alleviate her feelings. First she went to the bookstore and bought a model of the female reproductive system (and subsequently in the episode she carried it all over the place), then she took the rail to the coastal ends of Korea, ending up in Oido Island. She then went to a Korean restaurant (which I think looks like our coffeeshop with those plastic chairs and round tables --> think akin to some of these chicken rice outlets in Singapore). She drank and got herself drunk, missed the last train back to Seoul, and left her model at the restaurant. At the train station, she dialled her girl-buddy, a video rental store owner, for help but she sent her brother Zhexiu, a baby-face but hunky Korean (stop drooling over Korean hunks, you girls!) instead on the long distance task of fetching her back. As Bingxi was drunk, Zhexiu was unable to get her exact location after driving all the way there, but eventually he found her at the restaurant. Then he carried her back to the car, only to stop along the waterfront path as she was too heavy for her (how can it be! look at his arms!!) . Then in her drunken stupor, she vomitted into the seawater and Zhexiu dropped his flashy car keys. And to his horror, she threw it into the water, not knowing what it was. Later, you see them inside a motel (a round water bed, woohoo) and he tries to wake her up and get her to shower, but to no avail. Then when she began to sob non-stop, he goes onto the bed to comfort her, and suddenly she starts kissing him. Of course he tried to resist but she kept kissing him until he couldn't resist and you know... hur hur hur. So the next episode highlights showed that she was shocked that he did not use a condom and.... the story goes on.
Here's a fan-clip on the male lead, played by Cheon Jung-myung
and a link to a very funny clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1wVxa6I5OQ&mode=related&search=
Oh well, to end the post, Friday there wasn't any KTV as I was whisked off to tomb sweeping.... really apologetic about it. It wasn't a good date anyway with only 3 guys available...But it was a great day at Gerald's place with a surprise on PS which finally worked. (Actually two surprises, but the first one was a pre-surprise surprise, which didn't really work) I was late for the Games Day as the tomb sweeping ended pretty late. Gerald recommended a new pizza shop, called Pizza de France and it's really nice! $44.60 for 4 pizza isn't expensive either (2x 1-for-1). After pizza-ing, we played some very exciting UNO and then the second surprise was staged flawlessly. Woohoo. Even I got abit tad surprised (due to the timing and our immersion in the super competitive UNO game). The blackforest cake from Crystal Jade bakery was a tad filled with too much cream, otherwise it was fine, heh. The day ended with a couple more rounds of UNO, some packing up, a short walk in J8 and then the train trip home..
Yeah. So that's all for today. Life still moves on...
