Photographs! - Tuition, CL's birthday, Chado@ACM

I've not been clearing the photographs off my Ericsson phone, so here's an exposition of what other things have been going on in my life for the past week or so.

Yup, that's right, I'm still giving tuition, though this time it's to two cousins of mine CLR and CLN. CLR's sitting for her PSLE in 2 months' time and CLN's trying hard to pass Primary 4, and boy is her mathematics foundation very weak! Here's CLR being camera-shy - I can't help but play with them since I refused to collect tuition fees on the account of relatives (not to mention if I collect, it'll be low and not worth the guilt from being a playful tutor).

Oh it's school holidays this week! CLR and CLN had a chalet from Monday to Wednesday and my siblings were there too, soaking up the sun and having a hell of a time. I went on Wednesday evening after work to eat yummylicious BBQ, and it was CLN's birthday! She had her mother bake her favourite cheesecake and it was delicious even to a cheese-dun-liker like me as the stench of cheese wasn't too strong. Happy Birthday CLN!



Well I didn't realise the effect of not having a flash is so great.. so for the Sony K750i, we should turn on the flash for indoors at night. Never use night mode or the picture will look orangish! That's 'cos of the heavy reliance on the environment light I think.

BN, YT and I met yesterday afternoon to celebrate my birthday and to get me my present - a tote bag that's masculine! However in the morning before we met I saw this advertorial in ST about a Japanese tea ceremony happening in ACM at 2pm in the afternoon and thinking about how I've (hopefully it came across as) playfully complained that an errand to ACM to deliver a cheque for a company event in November was too far, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone by running back to office to grab the cheque and then to ACM to pass the cheque to them and then watch the ceremony. I was pretty late though, but it was quite alright as the ceremony was quite long and a little monotonous at parts as I was feeling especially perky and not in a mood to contemplate about the intricacies of life.

Anyway, I was late to arrive there, having spent some time trying to scrutinize the name tag of the lady whom I passed the cheque to. I missed the beginning which is the flower arrangement part, though from what I see there wasn't much of a flower arrangement in the contemporary sense of the phrase - the vases had only one or two stalks of flowers each. They aren't really poked into some styrofoam base into a fixed pattern, so it was really mind-boggling to a beginner like me on what kind of 'flower arrangement' there was. After that they went the first round to drink the thick tea. It was a very interesting process on how they decide who to go first to boil and serve the tea. They pass this foldable box with tokens inside, and the tokens indicate the order. So after this long token-choosing ritual (5 minutes) with lots of bowing, they shuffled into position and they took turns to serve tea. Examining the cockery, wiping the cockery, and finally beating the tea up into a rich froth took another 5 minutes each, before serving to the person at the right turn. The drinking part was the one that most students of Japanese will be familiar - using your right hand, grab the bowl and put it on the palm of your left hand, then using the right hand, turn it clockwise 2 times, sip 2 times to drain the tea, then turn it anti-clockwise 2 times again before setting the bowl down on the table, all with the right hand.

Finally, towards the end, everything comes together! Apparently, the flower arrangement is supposed to be a literal challenge where during the tea ceremony the participants are required to come up with little couplets or poems to reflect on their choice of flower/s, their "arrangements" and the usual Japanese interest in the weather and other natural occurances. As the ceremony display was done in the spirit of celebrating Singapore-Japan ties, all their couplets had something to do with it. Oh well it was entertaining, though I was a little disappointed I didn't meet anyone I know.







This is it - Republic Plaza, my office!