Yesterday

You got to hand it to The General. He's got plenty of discipline when it comes to going full throttle to completing a task. The Project this time round is a 1/100th scale EX-S Gundam. It's anything but a tame beast. With a parts count running into almost 4 figures, painting this animal can be quite a challenge.


SO, after all that midnight airbrushing madness, some coffee and toast was definitely the order of the day, on the house that is.

Then it was down town with GA. Nothing quite like catching up with an old friend with an eye for all things quaint, funky and green.

Scorched

Thank God it's Friday. Can't wait for the weekend really. It's been scorching hot at the airshow. Gunning for an idyllic weekend, simple stuff, model building, painting, chill out...well, that's if it all goes according to plan. It never quite does. And let's hope it's not going to become another weekend roast.

Flight

And so it was. With much fanfare and ceremonial deliberation, the giant of an airliner, the Airbus A380 finally made it's way to the local audience. You could think of it like a massive floating whale doing a spectacular low speed pass right before the very eyes of some of the first spectators to attend the annual aerospace event here along the Equator. And it's really huge. Like Orca huge....Whale huge...Beluga huge. Here it is, one more time.

Sunday

Weekends now tend to be a little more chilled out than before. Save for the usual dawdling that takes place after a Sunday service (think about it...everyone knows it's lunch time...but NOBODY moves cos' everyone else is waiting on someone else). So you grab a chum, head out to the nearest coffee shop for an under $4 meal, call it a day and go home and chill...that is until your folks tell you they need a software update for the PC...peripherals and all...then you find yourself wading into the deep end of electronic consumerism at it's opulent best...
Having said that, you head home, and realise that you'll be hit squarely in the face by another Monday round the corner, you tuck yourself into the cosy familiarity of bed and brace yourself for impact.

Lush

There's so much paper work to be done in the office (much of it rather senseless by the way), that sometimes, you really just need to stare into that green infinity that greets you as you look up into that seemingly endless green canopy which bedecks certain areas in this tropical island, so that things remain in their proper perspective.
It's far to easy to get ground into the system here if one's not careful. But thank God we're surrounded by constant reminders that all is not lost. It's the simple things that count. Once again, we go back to basics.

Prolific

In this age of all that Tech Wizardry that surrounds us, nothing quite evokes a sense of awe and wonder in quite the same scale as a trip through the seemingly boundless richness of nature. And what do you do when such creative artistry overwhelms you? These.

Ministry

People normally dread meeting up with their Pastors. At least that's what the movies tend to portray. But thankfully, it's quite different in real life. Amidst the madness that emerges from the trappings of city living, it's nice to be able to take an early dinner with Pastor Lima and chat. And chat we did, over fries, drinks and the usual consistent fare from the golden arches. What the conversation boiled down to, was the fact that at the end of the day, what really matters is people. "Ministry is really about people and their relationship with God", he said. How true. How very true. Cos' when we're all shipped out in our boxes, it really is THAT which counts.

Weathering

Few things get one up and about more than having visitors in town. You get your behinds up and running to go explore areas in the very city in which you live in which you'd, if left on your own, probably never go.

Better still, when given an ultra compact time frame to cover as much ground as sanely possible, one achieves some sort of a miracle within such a short span of time as far as going places is concerned.

Thankfully, the weather held up. And at the end of the day, you just plonk yourself in some corner of town for a hot cuppa and call it a day. Monday's today....time to hit the sack once more.

Role Play

Second day into the four day exercise. Playing my part as a temporary tour guide. Quite fun really, as you get into the nooks and crannies of places around the city that you'd otherwise never, ever visit. It helps too...that the weekend was filled with a fair deal of annual festivities along Little India. Absolutely knackered by now. I'm turning in for the night.

Caw-Fee

I hadn't realised that the full extent of the previous post would eventually manifest itself a couple of hours later. It's always a bad idea to pop some prata and coffee nearing midnight...especially after you've been off a coffee diet for the longest time.

Having said that, one turns rather prolific at this time of the night (some "glory music in the background helps too), hammering away at the keyboards when the rest of the neighbourhood is in the vicinity of La-la-land. So we turn to some artistic abstractions of daily articles.

Some odd shots taken during a farewell meal to the legendary Keen Karat. Then there were these:

There was something odd about this picture...but I just can't seem to put a finger on it....hmm.

The side effects of rapid urbanisation I reckon...ok, the effects of that late night black brew is finally wearing off...time to hit the sack...before I start running circles round the neighborhood.

Night Vigil

This is just the kind of stuff that you'd want to shoot in the dead of the night. Water bodies have a certain strange appeal that just draws you to them. Sights and sound in a condo' they're found...

Munich Bound

It was time JS headed towards the European continent for a taste of the Bavarian life. We met up pretty early this morning, the whole motley crew, bade our farewells and all, and wished this fine young bloke all the best for what promises to be an action packed episode his life. The natural progression after such an event, especially when you have truckloads of people there all geared up for the early morning service, but STILL too early to start, is to indulge in some local cuisine, hot off the bamboo steamer stack.


Next stop: Monday of a full work week...

Day Three: Dog Year

Turns out that the final day of the long weekend matched closest to what I would have imagined a "future" day in the context of Lunar New Years to come would be. It's once more back to basics, and this means the simple things.

It's pretty surprising to see some businesses still open when many chose to do close to a one week shut down. But it wasn't business as usual...it was booming.

Headed to the cinemas for a show...and didn't realise that the prices have topped the $9.50 mark. And I thought cinema in Europe was expensive.

Well, slowing things down a bit, it doesn't hurt to take a look at some classic timepieces, something to the tune of Jaeger-LeCoultre. Irony being, Mankind's closest attempt at a perpetual machine NOT in motion. That's just so wrong. But it's back to work tomorrow, and a mouthwatering dinner awaits...live to eat I reckon. Time to hit the sack.