My “Robinson Crusoe” holiday
If you spend most of your life living in an island, you grew to accept the sea as the boundary of your existence. You dont want to go beyond the limit of your beach. You learn to love the beach and everythings that has been written about it…..the wave, sand, sound, smell, sunset, slow walk, nudist etc. ok, maybe except the nudist cos there are none on our beach.
So, it is shameless to say that i spent the last Deepavali holiday in a beach hotel at the fringe of this little island west coast – Sentosa Island. I managed to convince my wife that it was worth our while to visit Sentosa before the integrated resort claim it as a “must-go” crowded & noisy & expensive touristy place. I dont hate tourists but it is just awful seeing all your serene “backyard” turning into one hot tourist spot after another!!
We chose Siloso Beach Resort, it was half finished hotel with no facility except a very nice set-in-nature swimming pool. I have no other choice cos it was the only one with room available below $300++. Ya, i am not only a lazy, but cheapo bugger too. Located within 30 minute drive from my home, Siloso Beach Resort is the perfect destination for the “robinson crusoe” in me. And it come with a nice bonus too, ample empty carpark lots.
The rooms are all sea-facing and the room doors open to face the pool and the lush forest. Nothing to cheer about cos the seaview is nearly non-existence due to the low level (highest floor is 7th storey) and the number of high trees in front of the hotel. Anyway, we were there not for the view and it didnt matter. Really! WE just need a comfortable to do our biz.
If the beach is not your cup of tea, the pool is a good alternative. Nice pool but no semi-naked blonde around though. I was disappointed, just a little bit. Guess the action was at the beach.
We went to watch the “song of the sea” – a dance & song & laser performance. One of those touristy performance that was forgetable that you only go to “kill” time. Silly me wasnt it? You went for a holiday and “kill” time by watching a silly show like this. BTW, the stage is on the left and in the background is our oil refinery complex. The performance had not started yet.
This is my favourite moment. Dinner at the beach bar watching the sunset. The food was lousy and pricey. But we didnt care. It felt so good to just sit there with wifey and watching the sun set in the horizon. Hadnt done this for a long time with wifey, we felt like dating again. We will be back!!
The beach was crowded but not overwhelming. Still no semi-naked blonde in sight. Maybe it was Deepavali and the action was at little India in Serangoon road. My disappointment was complete. Wifey was just so happy to still have the space to walk around with our bare feet on the beach. When she is happy, i am happy too. I am a man easily contented and my disappointment was very soon forgotten.
Sunset at Sentosa… my kodak moment! For one living in an island, i see very little of the beach. This must change. Wifey and i actually feel happpy to be here. This feeling, we want to cherish and perpetuate. If i can have a belated resolution for 2008, this is IT. My relationship with the beach will change. I will see more of you, Beach. Promise!
Will Smith – legend in the making?
I AM LEGEND
This is definitely a Will Smith’s movie albeit a disappointing one. Without his star power, this is one movie that will head straight to the DVD shelf. You know it is a Will Smith’s movie because he is the only actor for most part of the movie. The camera trained one full minute on his face when he was about to kill his infected dog. I was counting the minute because I was in a rush to be somewhere else during that scene. I was at the toilet door and missed the conclusion of that scene.
The movie is like “Castaway” meets “28 Days in London”. I have no problem with a “rojak” theme but then, this movie fails in its delivery on either front. There were weak attempts in exploring heavy topics like God, humanity etc and why bother if the attempts were half hearted. The actions were slow with a total of only three scenes with zombie vampires “encounters” with Will Smith. For a simple story like that, it will do no harm to sprinkle it with a little more action and suspense.
An advice for hard core fan of Will Smith, leave your logic at the door. The plot was full of holes, the whole movie feel like a string of scenes strung together with Will Smith as the linking pin. How the hell does Will Smith survive the attack of the beasties with the help of a spotlight where in the final encounter the lights were easily squashed by the beasties? The beasties seem to exhibit a propensity for learning when they set a trap for Will Smith after our hero captured one of their kind using the same technique. But then, they are not smart enough to trace his car to his apartment during the whole three years? The supposedly intelligent beastie leader using his head to break through a glass wall? Enough said.
Despite the shortcomings of the movie, I like the vista of a deserted New York. A New York that is filled with former residents of the New York Zoo, former humans and their dogs, our hero and his non-obedient dog. If you watch carefully, there is also a “Batman vs Spiderman” outdoor advertising sign on one of the buildings. Will Smith is credible as the last human with a mission to save the world but the movie is not. Using the “car” analogue from Emma Thompson in the movie, the experience is not unlike watching Lewis Hamilton in a Toyota Axio racing in a track during peak hour traffic.
Talking back to your wife is not a bad thing
January 31, 2008 at 11:15 p01 (Married Life, News & Comments)
NOT that I agree with the title of this post. Fighting with the wife? You must be crazy! She is your other half, for goodness sake. Not in my lifetime, no matter what the health benefits.
Anyway, why pick a fight that you cannot win?I can think of others lesser characters that are more worthy of my unabashed 2 cents worth like those unreasonable clients, demanding boss(es), rude waiters, nosey relatives etc.
This survey is really sek-pau-mo-yeh-jo (eat full nothing to do) type. The findings are foregone conclusion and why pick of the other half who provide you with
sexlove and comfort?The full article from Reuter
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Fighting with your spouse can actually be good for your health with people who bottle it all up found to die earlier, a new study shows. Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and its Psychology Department released preliminary findings after 17 years of following 192 couples. The couples fell into four categories: where both partners expressed anger when they felt unfairly attacked, where neither partner expressed their anger, and one category each for where the wife suppressed her feelings and where the husband did so. “I would say that if you don’t express your feelings to your partner and tell them what the problem is when you’re unfairly attacked, then you’re in trouble,” said Ernest Harburg, lead author of the study, in an interview. The study found that those who kept their anger in were twice as likely to die earlier than those who don’t.There were 13 deaths in the group of 26 pairs where both partners suppressed their emotions, as opposed to only 41 deaths in the remaining 166 pairs. “When couples get together, one of their main jobs is reconciliation about conflict,” Harburg said. “Usually nobody is trained to do this. If they have good parents, they can imitate, that’s fine, but usually the couple is ignorant about the process of resolving conflict.” Harburg said resentment was the real threat — and suppressing anger led to resentmentHe said it is the resentment that interacts with any medical vulnerabilities a person might have, increasing their chances of succumbing to that medical problem.“It’s healthy to recognize that you’re being attacked unfairly and it’s even more healthy to speak up and to talk about it and try to resolve the problem if you want to live longer,” said Harburg.(Reporting by Stefanie Kranjec; Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)
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