Category: Uncategorized

Strangely we are seeing more illnesses everywhere nowadays. More respiratory illness, heart related ailments and cancer.

Recently a well known actress died in Japan whilst on holiday due to respiratory illness. Only in her 40s.  I hear many cases of people dying of heart attack or suffering a stroke or getting cancer. Did it have anything to do with catching Covid or the vaccines we took? Guess we will never know.

Yesterday I discovered that 2 people I know have cancer.

One is a Indonesian client and friend since 2003. She is doing a scope today and awaiting results though my doctor friend thinks it’s highly likely that it’s cancer. We will see.

Another friend was a fellow board member. He used to be an active golfer. He went for surgery for his spine as suggested by his doctor at NUH. He didn’t really need it but he thought it would improve his golf playing. Now he thinks it was a botched operation. He was suffering quite a bit thereafter. He was on morphine for about 9 months and he is still in pain. Yesterday he told me he now has stage 4/5 prostate cancer.

Sigh. Has something happened since 2020 I wonder….

Tonight was the meet and greet for Illayaraja. The event was organized at the One Farrer Hotel. His concert is tomorrow at the Singapore Expo.

The last time he came here was in 2018 for his concert at the Star Theater. Then I was also present at his meet and greet. That time I also fortunate be to able to catch his rehearsal.

I first listened to his song from the movie Annakili in 1976 which was also his first composition. The songs that he composed for that movie made such a huge impact then on the Tamil movie industry and he followed up with so many incredible songs. His heyday was from 1976 to the early 1990s. Although he still composes, the quality and effect of the songs is not the same anymore. But of course he has a huge body of  work which comprises many amazing songs. His concerts usually features the songs from that era which are ever popular.

Actually the last time he was here, I also managed to have dinner with him thanks to a friend who knows him well.

These are the pictures from the 2018 concert and meet and greet. Will post the new ones for today’s event soon.

Now for the pictures from this year’s meet and greet!

Last night Eurokars Auto hosted a BMW CNY dinner at their new premises. This was the first time they were doing a sit down dinner here and it was a huge success.

The event kicked off with a lion dance to usher in the New Year followed by a sit down dinner. The menu was well planned. Every single dish was good and the catering was by Peach Garden.

In addition, they had a calligraphy artist who was on hand to write out auspicious phrases for the guests.

To me, a pleasant highlight was the feng shui talk by Master Ken Koh. Well presented, no hard sell and captivating. He clearly was a master in this area.

I was fortunate enough to be seated next to the lovely Charmaine Kwee who also happens to be the Group executive director of the Eurokars Auto Group.

Overall a wonderful evening.

Today was  CNY lunch with a friend, a client and a fellow CDC councillor.

The venue was Empire Hot Pot, my suggestion. We decided to skip the usual CNY set menus and lo hei and ordered a la carte. The food was good. I was rather surprised considering the packed restaurant and the mediocre quality usually to be expected around this time. I did the ordering and the quantity of food was just right.

Most of the conversation was with his wife who is very health conscious and has a great interest in living healthier and longer. She plays golf, does stretching, pilates, intermittent fasting and sleeps early and wakes up early. This together with all the right supplements recommended by Dr David Sinclair!!

Both of them are Club 100 members and will see the at our annual dinner next week.

Tonight was the treat by one of our newly promoted partners.

I have known him since the time he was a trainee. He was outspoken and rather brash I recall when I first saw him. He has changed much over the years. Nowadays its a pleasure chatting with him. I have worked with him on many files and is a reliable lawyer.

He had gone for the partner interviews the year before but that interview did not go well. To his credit, he took it in his stride and worked hard last year and also mellowed in the way he comes across at interviews. Good for him.

So tonight’s dinner is at a restaurant I have never been called Asu at Labrador Park. He has invited another 2 partners for this dinner. I await the food…

PS

Food was generally good although not sure every single dish would merit that tag. It was a  single set menu and unfortunately they were not able to change any of the dishes to other options. Thankfully the company was great and it was so good talking about a great variety of topics and reminiscing about the many events that have occurred over the years.

Must do this again.

Ended up watching one of the more recent episodes of Running Man last night, on the 7th day of CNY.

This show has been running for 15 years and I think this must be one of longest running shows that I am aware of. Of course there was Hawaii 5-0, Frasier, Cheers, Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond but although they were hugely successful, they lasted about 10 seasons with about 24 episodes per season.

This show however runs every week, the whole year around and for the last 15 years! Amazing.

They still have a remaining core team of 5 members that started the show. They have made minor but successful additions whenever they lost a member along the way.  And they bring in guests strategically to make the show entertaining.

Still full of original ideas, innovative games and clever ideas for penalties that pulls in laughter. Not to mention the quality of the production and that of the members to produce such a high quality show every week.

A testament to the Korean entertainment industry in terms of knowing how to produce high quality entertainment for a worldwide market.

Attended the BP CNY dinner on the 6th day of CNY. Apparently it’s supposed to be an auspicious day today.

The event was held at the CC and a noisy evening with some 500 people. The thing about these events is that they think the guests need to be entertained and therefore have singers belting out noisy songs in Chinese, Malay and Tamil. So loud that you cannot talk to the person sitting next to you much less mingle with the other tables. Food was so so but that’s only to be expected with a community event at the CC. Also the ubiquitous lucky draw.

However it’s always a pleasure to catch up with friends and enjoy the festivities!

Arrived back yesterday. SQ flight was delayed, as usual. Cannot imagine why short flights to kl are always delayed. Most of the time it’s because of a delay caused by aircraft leaving Singapore late. They need to improve efficiency here. Since it was CNY the flight was full and many people with connecting flights were affected.

It was warm and humid when I arrived back. I think somehow the weather in kl doesn’t feel as oppressive as here when it’s sunny.

Later started pouring for quite a while.

Let’s now await the start of the new year of the snake!!

Came across another restaurant at Avenue K. This time it was a Peruvian Chinese restaurant. Have never tried Peruvian food before and so it was a new experience.

The food was different from a typical Mexican or Brazilian food and was flavourful with zesty flavors and lots of seafood and salads. At a fraction of the cost of what a similar high end South American restaurant would price their food in Singapore.

Later I found out that this restaurant was part of the Cinnamon Group which runs other restaurants here. I have tried a few like Aliya, Nadodi and Cafe Colombo and they were all good!

Came across this Japanese counter restaurant at Ave K today. Open on both days of CNY. I was there at 12 and the place was empty as it had just opened. Very fresh food and very reasonably priced. Service was also fast and good. My lunch was all of Rm 80. They have a number of other outlets. When I left about half an hour later it was no surprise that all the seats were taken up!