28th Sept - Narita to LAX

Yeah!!! Upgraded to Business Class

Wow - Orange Juice in a glass. Yum Yum

Happy Happy in our Business Class seats

This is the "I slept really well and just awake look"

A truly satisfied customer!

Blue sky from our business class windows. Haha, no difference of course.

For those of you who don't know, I love clouds and blue skies, so everytime I am on a plane, this is a must. So can you imagine how disappointed I was to find out the first leg we were sitting on centre aisle. This is great!

Can you see, the shadow on the plane in the clouds? Beautiful isn't it?

28th Sept - SIN-Narita

What a extremely hot morning I could remember. We were just raining down sweat, making sure we got everything packed, the house is in the order in which we would like it to be. This was 1 am. Pespiring at 1am was just ridiculous.

So we decided, we needed to get to the airport anyway, and since sleeping was not a great idea, in case we overslept, we decided to head for the airport.

Arrived at 2am, checked in and started wandering around, waiting for WEP's parents and our fellow travel partner to arrive.

It was all rather uneventful. We boarded the plane, WEP waiting anxiously to see what we would be getting. We were flying NorthWest this time and he had heard so much of American airlines, that he was all anxious. He thought he saw the big screen TV online, you know where everyone are forced to watch on one screen whatever they were screening. And for people vertically challenged like me, can forget entertainment altogether.

What a delight on his face, to know that we had individual entertainment system (or whatever it is called). Not bad, not bad for a start....

Food was okay. Seats are not too cramped, all good, all good for a start.

Actually, coming to think of it now, if we were travelling SingAir, we were not have been so delighted since it would be expected that we will be getting our own individual entertainment system. Then, we wouldn't have the chance to be thankful.

Sorry, no photo. Too tired by then to take any. And we were sitting in the centre aisle, so nothing to take as well.

Oh oh, almost forgot, we do have another thanksgiving on this flight. The plane was actually very very packed but just on our row, a four seated, there was an empty seat between us and the other lady. The entire section around us were all packed. Isn't that wonderful? We were so thankful.

Without Whom I will not be here

Today and tomorrow (3rd-4th Nov) are one of the most important dates of my life. And how I wish I could be in Singapore at this very moment.

Today (3rd Nov) is my daddy's 70th birthday.

Tomorrow (4th Nov) is my mummy's 60th birthday.

To my beloved parents, thank you for always caring and loving

us. For sharing with us your life's experience.

Thank you daddy for always being encouraging.

Thank you mummy for showing that it is never too late to start exercising.

Although it is not grandma's birthday too, but I also want to thank grandma for showing that it is never too late to pick up a language - she picked up English in her sixties and with that we all lose our hainanese language, at least I did.

Miss you from here.

I am always proud of this. Look at my daddy's hair. They are his, all his, no dye involved, at 70.

This is taken 2 days before we flew off - 26 Sept 2009

He only started having white hair in his 60s. I wonder why I didn't get those genes. But he would say this, it is all about staying healthy, exercising and eating right...

If he sees me now, he would be totally dismayed...

Happy Birthday, daddy and mummy!!!

Just for insurance

This is just I have watched on News moments ago:

A Winconsin man enlisted himself in order to get insurance coverage so that his wife can continue to get her chemo done to fight the 3rd recurrence of her cancer.

One true act of the meaning of marriage...

Flying North...

Yup, we have been here for 4 days now. Currently in Coronado (San Diego) to get our car, get some maintenance done, get the stuff we left behind in our last trip and lastly for WEP to get some work done :( in his vacation time.

But what I am here to talk about is not our days in SD (altho it has been quite wonderful). In preparation of this trip, we had sacrificed quite a bit of sleep. For sunday itelf (our flight is 28 Sept 5.40am), we did not sleep at all and left for the airport at 2am. So we are dead tired and flying NWA.

So what a delight it was for both of us to discover that we were upgraded to business class on our Tokyo to LA leg of the journey (10 hours of better seats)... We did absolutely nothing for this, we didn't attempt to ask for any upgrade, we were just happy with what we had, our individual TV screen in economy class, having meals thrown onto our flip up table. Just happy to have an empty seat next to us (we were on the center aisle) where the rest of the section we were seating was fully packed. Actually, I was already feeling delighted and very blessed at that point. EP too was extremely delighted with the TV screen for himself.

But what a great gift to receive so much more and we know this could only be the work of One.

If that was not good enough, when we reached Coronado and checked into the Inn, we got a room with a kitchenette, paying the same amount as another friend, we got a bigger room.

Praise the Lord, our God for all that He provides. Yes, it is true that perhaps flying a better airline would have been a delight, but it will not compare to things provided without expectation or want. Such delight is really of a different world, nothing compared to the reward one gets from working for it. No, I am not saying that things just keep dropping off the sky and everything is a breeze and easy...Life is hardly like that for anyone I believe. I am just glad, just glad.

Cooking Experience

Now that my contract work has come to an end and I think I have rested more than enough, I decided I should experiment cooking with some new combination of ingredients. So on Aug 30, I decided I had some apples that had been sitting in the fridge for ages, maybe I could try cooking them with the chicken thigh bones that had been in the fridge for awhile too.

So I with the apples washed and chopped, chicken thigh bones de-frozen, a pot, some water and a dash of salt, I started slow cooking my new soup. It tastes strange at first, then became a little better, but nothing close to a soup taste. So with more preservance, I just let it cook longer at slow heat....After an hour of slow cooking, the taste did not improve but got really sour.

Lesson learnt, apples cannot be cooked with chicken. Hahaha, WEP would have thought that that would be the end of the apple soup idea, but he would be surprised that he is wrong. I am not giving up the apple soup idea, just the apples with chicken idea. Poor thing, I doubt he know that.

Just glad that those were some old apples (not spoiled, I checked) and thigh bones. If not, I will surely get hung by my mum for wasting food. But then again, how would I know it won't work if I didn't try, right?

How do I know my home is clean?

I am not too sure if we are the only household that experience this on a regular basis. 

Every time I clean the house, I always know when it is indeed clean. Because I have visitors when the house is clean. 

Bugs always fly in once I am almost done with cleaning and always at exactly the same time. When I am seconds of being done with cleaning. 

And I am not a great lover of bugs, so my satisfaction of a clean home is always affected by these visitor bugs. 

But I have trying to think of it positively. Trying to tell myself that they are my judge. So who knows, one day I will get upset if they don't appear when I am done cleaning the house. 

Funny thing is I tried this experience of just cleaning one room and as expected, they only visit that one room. Hahaha.