sand in my shoe

here we are at nearly the end of the first month and here are the things that have been irritating me:

• people who talk at the top of their voices on their cellphones on the train
• people who talk to each other at the top of their voices on the train
• people who play music on their personal devices at maximum volume on the bus
• people who have a formal encounter with you and find it acceptable to suddenly fish out their water bottle for a swig
• gentlemen who run to risque in their taste for jokes and conversation

quite clearly the common theme is human.

good reads (and not)

two rip-roaring satisfyingly meaty jolly good reads. destiny is a sweeping tour of world history that incorporates the middle eastern moslem perspective. not your usual western media stuff or even the world history according to western writers stuff, so this is a fascinating account.

adds up is a whirlwind review of mathematics as i never knew it. and i studied math up to high school! and actually i passed college biostats! and right in the final chapter i discover a new thing - mandelbrot sets. it is delightful.

this one, though, is not quite my cuppa tea. i may like ideas but that socratic method is a tad slow for me. perhaps another day.

supplies and sufficiency

as your days, so shall your strength be.

- deut. 33:25

i look back over the past year and see that it has been so. 

my heart is full, as is my cup.

hk-macau-zhuhai bridge

the longest sea crossing and the longest tunnel in the world.

opened in mid-october this year.

we take the express bus from macau back to hk over the bridge and feel like we are taking a part in history.

as well as figuratively walking on water.

hong kong

we visit another old friend. it is really nice to speak cantonese again. it's funny how in multi-lingual singapore one doesn't really get to speak it as freely as you might expect. 

the food, as remembered and as expected, is good. it's hard to go wrong in a city that takes pride in hawker-style fare and it's hard to go hungry in a city that stays awake. EXCEPT when they lace shrimp wantons with pork. ugh.

it'll be lovely weather, HOM tells me. pack light! i believe him and pack shorts and forget that december is their cold month. my bad.

it's a lovely escapade to end the year with.

day trip

HOM and i trip over to macau. he brought me there twenty-eight years ago, he tells me. i forget. anyhow, here's my ode to macau (the old casino bit near st paul's, mind you, and not taipa, or coloane):

• it's crowded. like, fire hazard crowded, or claustrophobia-inducing crowded but out in the open where in other places you get this crowded only indoors
• it's really good for walking, what with their traffic lights at every street corner and apparent pedestrian supremacy. it does make being in a vehicle a bit of a nightmare though
• them portuguese tarts are over-rated. gimme a nice tai cheong bakery egg tart any day
• speaking of portuguese, here is where my pidgin italian and bastard spanish fail me. to my disappointment, they don't exactly port over
• i don't know if it is because we explore too circumscribed an area, or if the macau people are really generous with their free admissions to ruins and churches and mansions and museums. but hey, i am grateful!
• there is the pawnshop and the goldsmith's and the gilded and the fishmarket

grand ol' lady

i like KL too. the city of my youth, now lately wrapped in glitter and gilt. it's beginning to look a lot like singapore, i think. 

and then a speeding car almost takes the unsuspecting pedestrian down. we get stuck in the gridlock that is KL's afternoon traffic. and i realize, to my secret relief, that KL is more like manhattan than like singapore, all messy haphazard startling unpredictable grubby charm underneath the new concrete and lights.