Life is good; enjoy it.

Diary of my Hongkong trip. To summarize shortly, I feel singaporean, and am pretty proud of the small little neat tidy awesome country I live in. :) I outrightly now thank the sg government for HDB flats, love it :) but there are things to appreciate abt this other island-city with a port like 10 times more massive than PSA in singapore :)

In the day you encounter a curious blend of branded high-end stores operating just below what I term a “chap chap” block of apartments. Not one or two, but whole rows of apartments as such and busy crowds pushing their way through the stores. U see inequality at its full: the rich ppl park their yacht next to the fishermen who epitomise a part of a left-behind history.

If u’re on the road, u’re either a taxi uncle fighting for road speed to win that tight margin of SGD3bucks for starting fare, or u’re a merc, a lexus, a huge toyota, or a bmw. You’re either rich enough to afford the crazy parking fees, or you’re a salary-maker when u’re on the roads. Oh btw, with the price of a cherry qq in singapore, u can afford a convertible here.

Every other building is privatised - not a semblance of “HDB” building your friendly neighbourhood estate (something which I feel extra appreciative to the SG govt for doing). The idols at the temple were actually unveiled by some famous guy. Even the transport system seems like a method of pushing through marketing (appreciate our pretty looking stations more). But then again all the roads are connected, and it seems u can never outwalk the winding paths of walkway-bridges built on top of busy roads - privatised buildings yet connected in some sort of way. The rich expat shares the same roads as the street peddler.

Perhaps hongkong is like the asian dream magnified in larger-than-life proportions. Everybody wants to have a chunk in HK, and you declare your ownership out load. The bright lights shout out the name of every other store at night… Familiar ones, not unlike the usual brands u see in singapore. Buildings tagged with names of manufacturers or banks seem to compete based on how much of the clouds they reach. Just reminds me of how our ancestors travelled down to this port to edge a living… And hongkong just explifies that asian dream many times over.

At the same time, HK seems like a land of extremes. Rich vs poor. High end vs street-corner-shop. Top apartments next to the slum area. While sometimes u see that as a sign of inequality,interestingly I think HK has a nice harmony of the extremes… Perhaps they’re all bound together by the same asian dream of striking it out there.

Today I get my stay opposite a building tagged with large bright red words of “Jesus is Lord”… And tomorrow I continue to see if this city (reminds me of how cain’s descendants built cities to try to reach the sky), has more depth and vision to what I see and feel on the surface :)

God bless this trip! :)

Thank God for V-day 2011…
That even though there r no mega good news, that everyone’s still safe and sound. That even though there are a few heartbreaks here and there, everyone’s still getting on fine. That even though nothing’s happening, that there might still be a hope that something blessed might happen soon.
Not in the normal V-day way as everyone wld dream it to be, but for me, in 2011, this v-day is good enough :) thank God. :)

Family reunions are ever so interesting cos you get to observe numerous different worldviews - or the clash of it. I think it’s precisely cos everyone’s worldview will be different that we end up just giving one-word answers to mundane annual questions - got boyfriend already? “no” schooling or studying? “schooling”. Or even better… just nod your head and smile at what your elders tell you, heheh.

But i’m getting the feeling that being a christ-follower, there’s still so much yet we could bring to the table.

Besides CNY, 10 days later is Valentine’s day. And so i suspect those movie channels have already been prepping for that day by showing all the lovey-dovey movies. Hold on, i correct myself… it’s not lovey-dovey. It’s lust, violence and everything else put together. It’s almost like life is simply about sex and a lil romance and some violence.

Then i’ve got this feeling that my worldview is so different from what pop culture has expressed life to be.

And rightfully so… it’s only right that we truly be the salt and light of the world. Bringing the presence of God into the world so that culture itself is redeemed and renewed; to enrich culture and change lives, so that the CNYs and V-days of the next generation will be so much greater than ours. :)

Barely feeling the change of the year until i woke up at 10.30ish today and finally felt like it was a public holiday. Actually i thought it was Christmas though, cos they were showing Narnia on television :)

Thank God in advance for a great 2011 - His provision, His blessings, His presence, His power.

Despite the lack of time to actually think abt anything at all (looking at my KO-ing on the cold floor of Van’s house), I did manage to scribble down a few dreams for 2011 during YA camp, plus a few other long term dreams. Some of these dreams are, in fact, challenges. And i won’t put them up here, but probably you’d get to hear me testify at watchnight 2011! 

But what i truly need to do for the rest of the year… might be as simple as always loving the God who is the giver and supplier of such dreams, and loving people as we’ve all been called to. 

Never waved a flag to welcome the start of this year, but, I am excited for what is to come… in my zone with now 6 cells, in church, in my school, for my future job, for my future spouse. Living the dream! :)

We’ve already been through 308 waves…

“Baby hold on tight / don’t let go / hold on to the love we’re making / cos baby when the ground starts shakin’ / you gotta know when you’ve got a good thing”

The left converges on a single answer; the right diverges into Gestalt. The left focuses on categories, the right on relationships. The left can grasp the details. But only the right hemisphere can see the big picture. :)

And so such touch, sounds and sight paint the picture of a great night :)

308 waves (324 waves by now) on creeps on the ipod touch… (a normal game lasts for only 50waves, but i’m on “endurance” and i dont look like i’m losing yet…)

“Good thing” playing on itunes, nice music for the night! :)

Together with a book called “a whole new mind”, this makes up for a kind and relaxing evening :)

THANK GOD for nights like this for the extra refreshing, breathing, smiling :)

As my hols come to an end i choose a quiet retreat at home for a fitting activity to mark this momentous day. Left on my to-do list is to reply 2 emails, send out additional ones to settle some camp stuff… and then i shld be roughly done with tasks for the day. Some reading would be pretty cool, before the meetings at night :)

I really thank God for this hols… one of the most productive and highly favoured ones. :) I preached thrice within the start till end of this hols, did a wonderful internship at a firm that i look forward to returning to, had camps and conferences where i still relish those moments that God spoke so clearly, had times to hang out with friends that i’ve always been too busy to do.

Now it’s prep for back to school… back to the busy moments of signing for every other career workshop and striving to get a job, going for classes yet trying to settle investments at the same time, learning about real interesting stuff abt the business world, all while still serving in church, doing part-time at workplace, overseeing an ever-so-awesome zone.

There’s some anxiousness in going back to school; the grades, the self-imposed expectations, the need to excel…

But i’m glad through all that, i have a God who empowers, who encounters right there in my time of need, who is the biggest educator of my life. So i’m contented, pumped, and happy to be back in school.

Through it all, thank God, and there’s even greater up ahead :)