Work Trip

Junming’s away on a work trip for almost 2 weeks and will be back only end of next week. Although he was away only for this weekend, I was away last weekend. So that makes it two weekends in a row that we’ve not seen each other. However, the last time I saw him was on Monday, when he helped moved one of the painting given by the my client’s auction house to my sis’ place. Thereafter, it was KUL-SIN, SIN-HKG-CAN-HKG-SIN, arriving Singapore on 02 May at 2350hrs. Think it’s a good break from his usual work routine. Hope he gets to brush up some of his Cantonese over there.

Anyway, my work trip started out not too smooth-sailing. It’s over-the-weekend kinda trip, which means I worked literally 7 days a week and 12 days in a row. Upon arriving in Jakarta airport, we lost one of our client’s luggage (hohoho….) and we were sure it came with us on the flight because the ground staff were very efficient and the ground staff immediately came to pick up the bulky frame to be sent to the cargo hole right at our check-in counter. Somehow, the ground staff at Jakarta claimed they didn’t have it and after a few moments of “investigation”, we were told to call them again in the late arvo as the flight we took had departed. Well, was it because the off-loading of the cargo was not thorough, or did it go on another plane, or was it even loaded to our plane in the first place? It’s all a mystery, but I have full faith in our Changi Airport system.

Well, so much so for the start of my first time in Jakarta. My boss and I came out of the immigration and there were two people waiting for us, at different ends: boss’ friend and client’s driver. It was pretty cool because it was the first time I walked out of the airport and someone wrote my name on a paper for identification. We passed the remaining items to the driver and asked the driver to convey to our client that we will reach the hotel around noon time, after we’ve gone for brekky with my boss’ friend. So we were all excited for some real Indonesian food.

He drove us to this market place in the Chinese neighbourhood that he said served rather good local food. We tried their Kuay Teow, Nasi Padang and potato leaves at a place that looked like a typical coffee shop in Singapore, but the “star” of the day has to be pork satay. The look of it is convincing enough to give it a try, especially with two very hungry women. The taste of it is so good that one is not enough. After our breakfast at the coffee shop, we were brought to buy what we would call “goreng pisang” in Singapore, but they call it “Pisang Raja”. “Raja” is prince in Malay, isn’t it? So it’s a Banana Prince? Hahaha…. No idea man, but Goreng Raja has more batter and crispier as compared to Goreng Pisang (which the batter isn’t too much lesser either). The “raja” is much nicer in a way, but it’s CRIMINAL… If not more, it is as CRIMINAL…. Felt like going straight for a 10-km run right after shoving it into my mouth. After that, we went to a complex known as Manga Dua, which means “Two Mangoes”. Not 3, not 4, but “Two Mangoes”, where we shopped for some tidbits and fashion jewellery.

One thing amazed me: the parking system in the city. You can double-park or even triple park at a parking lot. How to get out? You gotta literally push the other cars out of the way in order to get your own car out of the lot. So people there don’t pull their hand brake after parking, except on a hill of course, to be “considerate”. Driving in Jakarta is also stressful, with motorbikes and side mirrors almost knocking each other and they aren’t too bothered even if they really knocked each other gently. The traffic jams in Jakarta is also horrendous. It’s apparently common to be stuck in a jam for an hour to an hour and a half.

We arrived at the hotel 3 plus in the afternoon. Not a very good way to impress our client. After we checked into our rooms, we quickly went down to meet them again for our business discussion. Fortunately the discussion went quite well, which made the trip worth it. Little did we know the trip back was another story…

AND SO IT CONTINUED…

While we tried the whole afternoon trying to contact the airport about the frame that didn’t arrive in Singapore, we were told to try again later, and later, and later. Finally, the client said that they will take over from that point and will follow-up with the airport officials. No call came until early morning at about 6.00am, a call from my boss’ friend came and told us that the frame had finally reached Jakarta. In fact, they had been calling him since 2.00am in the morning. Now, it’s sent to the wrong place and they will be sending it straight to the hotel. Just the morning wake-up call at a time I don’t need it. So tired, but I just couldn’t get to bed anymore, I decided to go for an early morning massage before heading for breakfast

I checked out the rate and it was a very good deal: about SGD$32 for a one hour Javanese massage. Where do you get that kinda rate in Singapore? Not to mentioned that it’s in a 5-star hotel. Since I’m in Java, might as well try their Javanese massage. It was indeed good and the masseuse, though a young lady, was a very strong lady. Had to tell her to be gentle with me. Getting old, I think. I went down to breakfast after that and everyone said I looked fresh. * Ding! * Must be the Javanese massage.

We stayed for the auction till mid afternoon before the client’s chauffer sent us to the airport. Our client gave us some paintings and souvenirs for us and for another of their contact whom they engaged for their Singapore auction. My boss asked the driver to make a detour so she could get some Pisang Raja, but the stall’s closed on Sunday, so we continued our way to the airport. When we reached the airport, another of their chauffer wheeled out the paintings and gosh! They are big! Ok, compared to some other paintings at the auction, they are not awfully big, but they are still considered bulky. Staring at the card boxes, I could almost picture my father saying: People give only you must take meh!

What to do? Just gotta check them in. As we looked at our time, we realized we were really late. The frantic search for the check-in counter began and we walked from one end to almost the other end before we finally found the counter and the check-in for our flight has closed! We pleaded, we begged, almost sobbed and went on our knees. My boss kept saying “tolong, tolong” (means “please, please”), but ground staff just wouldn’t check us in or let us onto the plane no matter what. Well, don’t expect them to practice GEMS (Go the Extra Mile Service) there too. You can picture two desolated women going to the customer service, who then advised us to pay up either USD$60 for a budget airline back to Singapore, which departs only after 10pm, or an earlier flight for USD$140, for Lufthansa, or USD$165, for SQ. We bought the Lufthansa ticket and walked around the airport’s duty-free to pass time. Even when we wanted to buy hard liquor (Bailey’s) back to Singapore, we were told that Lufthansa is the only airline that doesn’t allow duty-free hard liquor on board their aircraft. “Fly Garuda next time!” the lady smiled as she told us. I smiled back and thought to myself if I’d even return to Jakarta again. Ok, never say never, yeah? For I do not know the plans that God have for me.

Anyhow, I was so glad when the plane landed in Singapore. There’s nothing like home and so glad to be back. Called those who are still awake to let them know that I touched down in Singapore. Junming collected the painting from me so he can help me bring it to my sis’ place the next day. Was a tired trip, but it’s still fruitful. Had the pork satay, clinched a deal and most of all, had my Javanese massage!

Now, am just looking forward to Junming’s coming back.

Do you know your HYMNS?

The Dentist's Hymn........ ......... ........Crown Him with Many Crowns

The Weatherman's Hymn........ There Shall Be Showers of Blessings

The Contractor's Hymn........ ......... The Church's One Foundation

The Tailor's Hymn........ ......... ........Holy, Holy, Holy

The Golfer's Hymn........ ......... .There is a Green Hill Far Away

The Politician's Hymn........ ......... ..Standing on the Promises

The Optometrist' s Hymn........ ......... Open My Eyes That I Might See

The IRS Agent's Hymn........ ......... .......... ...I Surrender All

The Gossip's Hymn........ ......... .......... ......... ..Pass It On

The Electrician' s Hymn........ .......... ......... ..Send The Light

The Shopper's Hymn........ .......... ......... ...Sweet Bye and Bye

The Realtor's Hymn. * I've Got a Mansion Just over the Hilltop

The Massage Therapists Hymn ............ ......... He Touched Me

The Doctor's Hymn........ ......... .The Great Physician


AND for those who speed on the highway - a few hymns:
45mph....... .......... ....God Will Take Care of You
65mph....... ......... ....Nearer My God To Thee
85mph....... ......... ....This World Is Not My Home
95mph....... ......... ....Lord, I'm Coming Home
100mph..... ............ ..Precious Memories

Hope it brings a smile on your face... :)

Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I

Out of the blue two weeks ago, my twin sis messaged me to ask if I’ll be keen to meet up for a primary school. Wow… Primary school, though it’s been so long ago, but feels just like yesterday. Had actually wanted to ask her who’ll be there, but experience tell me that I probably will have second thoughts going if there are some people whom I’m not too “friendly” with who will be there, I probably won’t be. But hey, it was primary school, right? Our immature thinking then was accompanied with our immature actions and probably our uncalled for pettiness. Should there be anything at all, we should ask for each other’s forgiveness and just forgive. We have definitely put aside childish things and if we still bear a grudge, we’re really just poisoning our minds. So bad for our health!

So we met up yesterday and saw that it was the more “catholic” group that turned up. Among us were also 3 Christians and 1 or 2 freethinkers? We met at Shoduko, Raffles Place. Was surprised to know that only two of us were married and none of them had any children yet, at least for those who turned up. In any case, one more will be getting married end of this year (nope, it’s not me) and one is having a baby on the way (my twin just learnt that she’s 3 weeks pregnant). I joined them only much later due to my evening appointments, but soon, the conversation went on to someone’s getting married in Germany next week and yelp, to a German guy, someone else just got married last week in London, one of us just came back from London for a 2-3 weeks holiday before returning back to England, while another girl just came back to Singapore after residing in London for a good 5 years. Wow…. We were all so scattered. As our conversation progressed did I realize that this meeting was indeed a very rare and precious one.

We also talked about our encounters with various teachers in school, the prayer room whom some of the girls couldn’t find their shoes when the school bell rang because we were all wearing the “panda” shoes and of course, the very stern bookshop auntie, Auntie Teresa, whom many of us, including myself, couldn’t differentiate if she was male or female during our first few days in school. Someone even got scolded for calling her “uncle” – AUNTIE!!! What uncle!!!? Then I recalled many some 4 years back, at a rare visit to someone’s place CNY, this lady, quite some years my senior, showed me her photos in the past and her year book at Kellocks Convent, where she studied. As we chatted, we realized that both of us actually knew Auntie Teresa. Well, she’s “Auntie” to me, but she was in fact her teacher back at Kellocks Convent, before coming to our primary to be our bookshop “auntie” that is. So during dinner, we all wondered why she came over to tend our bookshop. Must be hard teaching a bunch of chatty, if not “Miss La-las”, who wouldn’t stop talking no matter what. Anyhow, she did leave us an interesting childhood memory.

Although we had Chinese, Malays, Indians and Eurasians in our class, our class was the only class in the whole level where the entire class took Chinese as our 2nd language, and still fared quite well in it. Some of us hated 聽寫 (spelling), 默寫 (dictation), 作文 (composition), …. you name it. Among which, during our 作文 (composition) and 造句 (constructing sentences), the most over-used name was 小明 and the most over-used phrase was along the line of “在一個風和日麗的早上…” (meaning’s similar to: On a bright and sunny morning…). So the typical start of our composition will be like “在一個風和日麗的早上, 小明…” or “有一天, 小明…”, etc… In fact, 小明 was so over-used that my Chinese teacher once scribbled in my sis’ composition book: 你可以不要再用小明了嗎? (Can you stop using the name “小明”?)

As we continued the evening, talking about the teachers we had, we just couldn’t miss talking about Sister Pat. Well, who could forget our P6 form teacher, Sister Patricia? I could sense dark clouds hovering over my head when I learnt that she was our form teacher on my first day of school. In that year, she taught us with military style training – orders, humiliation and punishment with fear and trembling. I got it quite bad as I was pretty slack, disobedient and rebellious. Not the demure convent girl you would imagine. She was also not the demure, mild-tempered nun you would picture. Her ultimate aim: to train us to be a group of demure, obedient and disciplined girls that all other form teachers envied. Quite a misfit for some of us.

P6 on the other hand, was also a year that was the most eventful and memorable time of most of us. There was a major choir competition among the various schools during the Youth Festival and our music teacher, Mrs Mary Lim, hand-picked some of us P6 girls to form a major choir for the competition. Those who were selected would undergo strict training of our vocals and due to the intensity of the training, we would be excused from lessons. I was most delighted as I would be able to skip classes with valid reasons. We were taught how to breathe, use our diaphragms and oral muscles and even how the words should be pronounced when we sing. The one-year training was tough, but it was an experience we all enjoyed and would not trade it given a chance. We could neither forget the training nor the song. It was a verse from William Shakespear’s The Tempest, “Where the bee sucks, there suck I”, and Oliver Twist’s “Where is Love?”. The lyrics are still stuck in our heads till this day.

We also learnt that one of the girls had passed on some time late last year. We were all rather shocked because we all knew her as this sweet, intelligent girl who excelled in her schoolwork and yet, doesn’t display snobbishness. My sis saw her quite some years back and thought she was pregnant. So, I thought that she had a child before she passed away. But one of us, whose family was very close to her’s, said that she’s not married and was never pregnant. She’d contracted a very rare disease way back when she was at studying at NUS, which caused her stomach to bloat over the years and her body weaker as well. As the disease was so rare, there were only very few cases of it in the world and hence, there was no cure for it at all. Her body grew thinner as the days go by while her stomach more bloated. She only quitted her job as editor for Torque magazine3 years back, when her condition was critical. For those who have been putting off classmates’ or old friends’ gathering, don’t put it off too long as you just may not see some of them. Logically, the longer you put if off, the older people gets and soon, old pain starts coming back and we may not be able to go anywhere even if we want to.

As we ended the night, we were all quite glad we met up and were already planning for another one soon for a May birthday celebration, since so many of us were born in May. Most importantly, before Marietta flies back to London on 11 May. I really treasured the meet up this time round and hope we can continue to nurture our old time friendship as we catch up again and hopefully, more often.