My Singapore Story Part 3 - A promise is a promise

My last day in Singapore started with me packing and taking stock of what has transpired. I did not enjoy my time in Singapore. However, I did not feel as bad as I thought I would after seeing CS getting married. In fact, I felt rather happy for her. Of course the question is why did I think that I would feel bad about her marriage in the first place? Was I jealous? Was it because I was left out for the most part and relegated to but a mere footnote of her past? Sometimes there are questions addressed to myself for which I have no answer.

I left the hotel at and took the MRT to the airport. Yes, I’m that cheap. Besides, I only had the backpack and I was able to cram all the souvenirs into it. At the station one old security uncle stopped me to check my backpack.

“Where are you from?”

“Sarawak,”

“I need to check your bag,”

“Are you going to check my bag because I’m from Sarawak or because I have a big bag?”

“Because you have a big bag,”

Racist cunt. Admit it. You wouldn’t have stopped a white guy with a backpack on the MRT. Well for your information the shoe bomber guy was WHITE!

As you can see, I did not particularly enjoy my Singapore trip. I was made to feel guilty, unappreciated, lonely, and to top it off was treated like a potential criminal at every turn.

Well, screw Singapore. It was with no small effort and a lot of headache that I made it to the country. All for a wedding and I only spoke not more than half a dozen sentences to my old friend. It was not worth it.

In the end, the only consolation to be had from all this is the satisfaction of a promise fulfilled.

My Singapore Story Part 2 - My Best Friend's Wedding

My second day in Singapore started with a realisation that I haven’t ironed my batik shirt and bought any wedding presents for the newly wed. It said ‘formal attire’ on the wedding email invitation (I didn’t get a card; a lowly-civil-servant-from-Sarawak-who-stays-at-the-cheapest-hotel-he-could-find-despite-it-being-in-the-middle-of-quite-possibly-the-biggest-red-light-district-in-the-world does not deserve a card. He should learn his place and be grateful that the bride decided that he was worth at least an email). However, I could no longer fit into my suit and I didn’t have time to get one made, so I went for the ‘pakcik’ / ‘dato’ look with my pink batik shirt (it had to be pink).

They are either catering to a niche or just taking the piss

So I took my camera and went walking to town to see some of the sights and hopefully find something suitable for a wedding present. I didn’t want to take the MRT to the city centre because I didn’t want some old uncle to stare at me suspiciously for carrying a DSLR in an MRT like I’m some kind of pervert. Besides, it’s nice to walk in Singapore, there are trees everywhere.

I walked from Geylang to Kallang, where they are building the new stadium, past the river and Kallang’s riverside park. Then I somehow managed to reach the Singapore Flyer which I did not go on. It was midday (photographic lighting is better at sunset) and I had my reservations as to how worthwhile it would be to go on a giant Ferris wheel. The one in London was too overrated and that perhaps influenced my decision.

Singapore Flyer

 Marina Bay Sands Hotel

The Expo and Convention Centre plus shopping complex is the building on the left. The flower like thing is the Arts-Science Museum (I didn't get a chance to enter as I was short for time)

Then I walked on until I reached the place where the wedding was to take place – Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre. To be honest the place seemed to share not a little similarity with KLCC. It’s got a hotel, a park, a shopping complex, and a convention centre around what is currently Singapore’s latest landmark. I browsed around for a bit in the shopping centre and having decided that nothing there was worthwhile (read: within my budget) to buy as a wedding gift, I took the MRT to Harbourfront. Fortunately this time around there was no uncle to chastise me for having a DSLR in an MRT and I was free to take a photo of the ‘no durian’ sign.

Vivo City

At Vivo City, I came across some really nice Japanese cups that came in their own wooden box at a newly opened shop called FrancFranc. The shop itself was perhaps well established but there was a sense that this was a new branch or a maybe a reopening so a few items were going for cheap. I did entertain the thought of buying the couple a Sarawak vase before leaving but Singaporeans probably will not appreciate such ‘native’ artwork (racist pigs...) plus I was afraid that it might get broken in transit. There was a clock that was going for $13 and it would have been perfect had it not been wrapped in cheap plastic and I was having this sense of dread that they might recognise it as a sales item when they eventually go to Vivo.

So I settled for the cups. The place was pretty much a department store much like Parkson’s is and the staff there gladly wrapped it up for me as a gift. I thought that was nice. So yes, I had a good shopping experience at FrancFranc in Vivo and I can recommend it if you’re looking for home items.

There were five of these cups in a box. They are really nice and well made I think. More importantly they don't look cheap :P

Next, I took the MRT back to Kallang Station. The problem was, I didn’t have a map with me. Thinking that I was heading back to the hotel, I had a jolly stroll along Kallang Road until suddenly I realise that I was in Little India. I had walked the OPPOSITE direction to where my hotel was for the past one to two hours or so. I was too cheap to spend money on taxi and dutifully backtracked until I reached my hotel.

I asked to cute reception lady (whose name on her badge was ‘Trainee’) to lend me an iron and get me a taxi and she cheerfully obliged. I finally met a nice cute Singaporean and now I had to rush off for this wedding that was due to start in less than 15 minutes. Damn it!

In all honesty I had some serious reservations about attending this wedding. CS and I were close, sure. But that was back in university. She hadn’t contacted me since I last saw her about one and a half years ago.  Plus she only mentioned this guy to me once. In passing. So I wasn’t so sure what to make of it. However, I promised her I’d attend her wedding and a promise is a promise. It’s just that I wish I had not have to go through so much just to attend a wedding. My experience in Singapore has so far been boring, annoying, miserable, and lonely. The only positive was the two to three sentences that I exchanged with Trainee the cute receptionist. I wasn’t even sure if she really wanted me to be there or whether her invitation was merely just a courtesy call, seeing that all I got was an email (better than a Facebook invitation I guess).

Anyway, I arrived about 5 minutes late and was rather surprised that the whole thing hasn’t started yet. I was put at the same table as the other Newcastle friends. I saw Eng Wai’s name but he didn’t show up. I sort of recognise Xiu Bin who was CS’s housemate in Fenham (I met her once) and I didn’t know anyone else. Rather fortunately there was this one guy called Nick who was quite friendly and I didn’t feel as awkward as I thought I would be. Who is Nick? Dunno. Apparently he was from Newcastle too.

I said hi to the bride but the groom was busy talking to someone else. Then the event got under way. The waitress asked me whether I was a Muslim and she made arrangements for me to get halal food, which I thought was nice. Why can’t the average Singaporean on an MRT be this nice?

After the whole thing was over I said congratulations to CS and told her that she won the bet as to who would get married first. Then I made her introduce me to her husband (she referred to me as her ‘best friend in uni’). His name was Andrew. Then I went my way. I didn’t stay for desert.

When I got back, Trainee's shift was over so I went to bed. Later that night, I missed the England-Italy match.

Singapore skyline from Marina Bay Sands area

My Singapore Story Part 1

I was in Singapore from the 22^nd until 24^th June. I was there to attend a wedding. This was how it went.

Initially I took days off from the 21^st as I was planning make some preparations with regards to the house before leaving. However, a colleague said that he needed to swap calls with me due to another event that he had to attend. I did voice my concern with regards to leaving early on post call day. Apparently these things happen quite often and for far more mundane reasons and therefore it can be arranged that I shall leave early after my call. The problem was this – in the past such arrangements can be made due to the fact that there were two people on call. One for ICU and the other for OT. Over the past 3 weeks or so, our numbers dwindled such that the on callperson for OT were to stay only until 9 pm and subsequently his/her job would be taken cared of by the medical assistants. Normally this is not a problem. Normally of course refers to calls not done by me...

My flight was supposed to be at 8 am 22 June 2012. This meant that I was supposed to be at the airport maybe at the latest by 7.30 am (domestic flight). The night before, I was unable to get even a wink of sleep as a lot of my patients were dying. Add to that a burr hole at three am and what you get is a slightly delirious anaesthetic medical officer who was ALMOST disorientated to time.

Luckily, Abang Hamran the MA helped me out by sending me off to the airport. I had to pass over to my relieving colleague via phone which was of course not ideal. I am sure that he is not very happy with all this despite the appearances.

My first flight was to Kuching where I was to take another plane to Singapore. Arriving at Kuching after about 40 minutes of flight (it’s that close), I had a nasi lemak breakfast at Old Town. I like Old Town’s nasi lemak. It tastes like what nasi lemak should taste like instead of the “we try to be special” crap of an excuse of nasi lemak at other high end places. The downside is of course they are rather expensive. Nasi lemak from the makcik in front of the hospital’s main entrance here in Sibu costs RM1. Old Town’s one cost me nearly RM10. Here in Sibu the nasi lemak would usually be served with ikan pusuk masin (salty fish) instead of the regular dried anchovies you get back in Semenanjung.

I decided to rent a car in Kuching as my flight to Singapore would not be until 3.40pm and I had a good 5 hours to kill. Besides, my iPad was running low on battery and there is only so much Infinity Blade that it can take. I didn’t see much in Kuching because for the most part I was in the rented Kancil, just sightseeing. The map app on the iPad seemed to work well though, before the battery dried up.

Finally I arrived in Singapore after another hour or so on the plane. Changi airport is nice. Unfortunately I didn’t dare to take any photo of the toilet as is my habit when visiting a new place. Stories of the Singaporean authorities installing cameras in toilets to catch offenders made me relauctant to add any jamban photo from Singapore to my collection. Shame, most of them were nice and clean. 

The Changi MRT station was quite busy

I always have this sense of guilt when travelling around Singapore. It’s as if anything and everything I do is potentially a crime punishable by a fine. I had my DSLR around my neck in the MRT and one uncle told me to cover it up. C’mon man, having a camera on a train is an offence? Admit it, you wouldn’t have told me to cover it up if I was white, right? Just because I’m a Malay from Sarawak with a camera on an MRT and suddenly I’m a pervert. If I was white I would probably be seen as a tourist. Wait a minute, in some sense I WAS a tourist. Only not white. Fucking racist Singaporeans...

There are many Fragrant Hotels in the area. This one's called Emerald

I stayed at the Fragrant Hotel in Singapore. Near Geylang, just because it was the cheapest that I could find on the internet. Not that I didn’t know what Geylang was. It wasn’t surprising to me that there were hookers walking around. What WAS surprising is the sheer number of them! I didn’t actually take a head count but I am sure there were more hookers in Geylang than in all of Amsterdam.

Apart from colourful hookers, Geylang also had all these colourful pre war buildings, beautifully preserved

I spent the rest of the night sleeping, hoping to wake up for the Spain-France match. I even paid the $10 for WiFi access so I could watch it on my iPad. In the end I slept through it and only woke up at 7 am the next day.

The only Jamban photo I took in singapore was that of the toilet bowl in my hotel room. The room was really nice. Better than the shit hole I stayed in during my first few days in Sibu. There were two beds because the single ones were all booked up.

(continued)

Tattoo talk

Some conversations with the staff nurses can be very interesting. When I was on call on Thursday I sat at the pantry with Kak Burak and Winnie amongst others and the conversation started to drift to tattoos.

“I saw one old guy upstairs with really nice tattoos. Those bunga terung,” I remarked.

“Oh, you shouldn’t play-play with those Dr Aizat. In the old days you were not allowed to have a bunga terung tattoo unless you have taken a head,”

“Eh what about all those kids with bunga terungs one?”

“Those are modern tattoos. In the old days one head meant one bunga terung. If you see a tattoo of a complete band around an upper arm, it means that he was a brave warrior. An incomplete band however...”

“Not so brave? Who decides who gets what tattoo?”

“Yes... not so brave. The chief head hunter. At my house there are five heads,”

“What? Your house? Where?”

“My longhouse. They scare me sometimes,”

“What kind of Iban is scared of heads?”

“Modern Ibans.”

So the conclusion that I can draw from such conversations are thus – modern Ibans sometimes just simply get traditional tattoos without regard to old traditions (which may actually be a good thing especially if ‘old traditions’ meant someone should lose his head) because they are afraid of heads.

Progress

Everyone seems to be moving on with their lives. Everyone I know that is. Earlier this week I received a formal email inviting me to CS's wedding in Singapore. Then there is the thing where Sarah and Adil got married. Heck even some of the staff in our operating theatre got married over the past month. The only close friend that I know of that has yet to get married is Iris, and even she is making reasonably good progress towards it.

The whole Sarah and Aidil thing came as a bit of a surprise to me especially since they were not 'together' when I left Kajang. Guess things can really move very fast sometimes. I guess there is no harm in admitting that at one point in time I did ask her out. But I guess it was pretty obvious then that I wasn't really going to take it seriously and I suppose the whole story about me and my ex girlfriend must have been going around and therefore she must have decided that I wasn't going to be a good time investment.

I got rather close to CS when I was studying in Middlesbrough. We were the only two Malaysians there as far as we knew and we did go on trips together. I will be attending her wedding next week in Singapore but it seems that she has been hanging around some very successful bunch and I'm not sure that a lowly Malaysian civil servant from Sibu like myself can fit in. For a start the wedding requires 'formal' attire. I don't have any suit with me, or rather, I don't have any that I can still fit into. So I need to go find one. In addition to that I will be going alone and I doubt I will see anyone familiar there. It might end up being a rather miserable little trip but I guess it's important for me to be there - important for me at least, though I can't exactly explain why.

Of Things Lost 2

I finally confessed about the pen drive. This was about 2 weeks ago. Actually it was the houseman that asked me about it. I was quick to point out that i got her a replacement. To my (pleasant) surprise, she was not too unhappy about it. Rather, she was quite excited about getting the new rubber man pen drive. Maybe because it’s 32GB, maybe the whole cute looking thing actually worked.

Anyway, I’m just glad that that little problem has been solved.

iPad Rant

I have been messing around with my iPad for the past one week or so now and I feel like I should share some thoughts about it. Quite simply, it’s great. It’s a whole new way of doing some computing elements. Notice there I mentioned ‘some’ rather than saying it IS ‘a whole new way of computing’. It has some severe limitations when compared to ‘traditional’ computing. Especially when compared to a PC.

Let’s start with what it’s great for. It’s absolutely brilliant for internet browsing. No nonsense. Some of the apps just makes the internet look so different when compared to PCs. Social networks, youtube, facebook etc are just so effortless and a whole lot prettier. It’s also very portable. A lot more portable than my current Dell laptop. However, I have yet to experience it’s mobile internet capabilities. The reason is as follows – yesterday I went to the big Celcom service centre in town (big for Sibu) hoping that I can somehow convert my current mobile broadband subscription to be compatible with my iPad. I already have a TMNet landline with WiFi in my home (which sucks – it’s a lot less stable than the mobile broadband, slower, and customer service is the legendary rude-slow-inefficient sorry excuse of customer service that TM is famous for. The only thing it’s got going for it is the fact that there is no download limit. Hell, if celcom would introduce a service with no download limit, I’ll switch over in a heart beat).

The ladies there said they could extract the SIM card inside my dongle to make it compatible with the iPad’s requirement for a micro SIM card. What I didn’t realise was that ‘extracting’ meant to put the poor sod under a stapler like device and physically breaking it into a smaller component. I watched in horror as they broke my Chinese dongle and tried to refashion it like a month old Orthopaedic Houseman fiddling and trying to refashion with a Bangla’s finger after an industrial accident.

In the end they admitted that they completely broke it and whatever was left of my dongle was no longer usable (much like the aforementioned Bangla’s digit). So they offered me a new SIM card that was then inserted into my iPad. I didn’t try it out immediately (which was perhaps a mistake) but when I got home it still had no internet connection of its own. I was about to make another trip to the big Celcom service centre (big for Sibu) when I realised that the last time they gave a replacement SIM card for my phone, it took 3-5 working days before it finally started working. So I’ll wait until next week and see what happens.

The downside of the iPad is that there are in fact quite a lot of limitation as to what you can do with just a slab of glass as an input device. No right click, no proper keyboard, and form an office work and gaming perspective lags behind a proper computer quite significantly. Apple also seems to insist that I use its proprietary software (iTunes, iCloud etc) to transfer simple files like photos and documents between my PC and the iPad. Simply connecting it via the cable provided doesn’t allow me to just drag and drop my photos into the iPad. In short, Apple won’t let go of you once you bought into one of their products. Thus, I am inclined to believe that Apple - despite all that Mac vs PC bullshit and it’s bitching about Microsoft’s monopoly – is in fact just another Microsoft, albeit one with less revenue than the latter. And where is the wisdom of not having a USB port? What if a colleague passes me pendrive so that I can view her presentation (and some potentially raunchy photos – I wish)? Not having a USB slot kinda makes it a crippled laptop as far as my current working environment is concerned.

Anyway here are some apps that I have downloaded and what I think of them:

Flipboard

Amazing! The description on its download page just doesn’t do it justice. It’s more than just a program that turns everything into a magazine. It’s like a search engine that reads my mind.

Snapseed

It’s not Instagram and it definitely doesn’t even come close to Canon’s Digital Photo Professional (which I use on my PC). And certainly it’s nowhere near Photoshop as far as photo editing is concerned. However, what it (severely) lacks in power and popularity it makes up for in its brilliantly intuitive interface and user friendliness.

iBooks

It’s crap. This is the number one reason for me to get an iPad and this app is shit... in Malaysia. The number of available books to download is miniscule. There is hardly any bestsellers, no academic book worthy of the title and whatever is available is only limited to classics (and even these are only there because some nice fellows at Project Guthenberg decided that some works of literature needed saving). When I tried downloading Kindle so that I can at least find something on Amazon, I got an error message. Apparently Kindle is NOT available in Malaysia too. So Malaysia is crap... because of TM.

Office₂ HD

This is also crap. Worse still, I actually paid for it because I thought it was a really suitable program for working with office documents on the go. Serves me right for choosing the cheapest office suite for the iPad. I can hardly do anything with it as far as office documents go. This is THE reason why the computer cannot be replaced by the iPad.

Blogger (iPad/iPhone app)

I wrote this on a PC. Enough said...

Missed Opportuniities

Some events happen only once (or maybe twice) in a lifetime. While others happen only once a year. When you miss chances like these there is inevitably a certain measure of regret. However, the thought as an individual I am merely another speck upon this vast universe does help to somewhat alleviate the sense of loss.

I totally missed out on the transit of venus yesterday. It’s an astronomical event that will never occur again in my lifetime and I didn’t get to see it. Not that I would be able to see them personally since I don’t have the proper equipments, without which I might damage the sensor on my beloved camera or worse, my own eyes. Still it would’ve been nice to be able to tell kids when I get older that I saw the transit of venus during my lifetime.

I also completely blew my chances of getting into the Gawai celebration. I was on call on the night before Gawai itself and two days later. Besides, I didn’t get any invitation to go ‘ngabang’. However, according to Kak Burak, I didn’t need any. The saying goes that if it is Gawai, the Ibans will invite in anyone and anything who passes by, even if it was a dog. Two of the new staff nurses from Kelantan and Terengganu did however go for ngabang during Gawai, and from their description, it seems that I have missed out on something really awesome. Apparently there were singing and dancing and free flow tuak all day and night. Sigh... I came all the way here and still I miss out on such things...

The consolation is of course there is always next year.

I went to Red Carrot for lunch today as I was post call and I always like to treat myself whenever I have a bad call (which seems to be always the case). Dr Maz told me about the place. It’s on top of the Sugar Bun Restaurant near Delta Mall. As usual I went alone. The food was nothing spectacular but ambience was rather nice (for Sibu at least). For RM 6.50 I got the rice with kari nyonya kapitan and a mango drink (not mango juice, it was clearly some form of cordial).

The place is a bit like Old Town’s where they serve mainly Malaysian food in a slightly cleaner environment.

The Long Weekend

The thing that is most talked about in the New iPad is the Retina Display. I had my reservations about it at first as it was nearly impossible to appreciate it looking at reviews on the internet and magazines. However, the display is truly stunning! I’ve been facebooking on my iPad and coming back to my PC seems like a step down. And my PC has an AMD HD graphics card in it!

However, the blogger app on the iPad kinda sucks as it was optimized for the iPhone instead of its larger cousin and voice dictation as is demonstrated in my previous post is not very accurate.

It’s the Gawai weekend and although I was post call yesterday, I will be oncall again tomorrow. I didn’t get to see any celebration as I wondered around Sibu town yesterday despite it being the 1^st day of Gawai. I guess most of the action would have taken place at longhouses rather than in town. Town was not as quiet as I expected despite my seeing many people were leaving for ‘balik kampong’ over the past week.

I am really bad at ICU calls. I still have got to do them though. I just feel that I am not ready for this...

 

I finally found out that ‘Gayu Guru Gerai Nyamai’ in fact meant ‘Health and Longevity’.

I bought this little speaker to compliment my iPad. I think I’ll take it for my Singapore trip next month along with my camera (naturally). At least I won’t get too bored waiting for the airplanes.

iZat's New Aipad

This is my first post from my new iPad. I will be testing this out so I will not correct any spelling mistakes that eat me. Jenny Sophia has not been very accurate. Maybe it's my accent. Actually I got it I had about two days ago right before my on call. Google purpose of this of course so that I can download books for free. So far I have downloaded the ministries ICU protocols and it has been quite useful. I'm ready surprised that you know the ICU SICU NOS ICU. That last sentence didn't make sense at all. I will continue this post in a new entry using a more traditional way.