G-space-XL

今天真爽！

 

首先是火箭赢啦！大家都不看好火箭，不过我早说过姚明这个强点要在湖人身上爆发。加索尔这根油条加拜纳姆那个小孩，通通给打爆！

 

我中午回到家里看了最后一节，姚明太棒了，受伤了还回来比赛。主场的观众也为他鼓掌。我可能也被他鼓舞了，下午上班很有动力。

 

快下班的时候老板说：“（既然你连去海南的机票和拖鞋都买好了）你27号可以放假，1号也去吧。”终于成全了我去海南的美好愿望。真是个大好人！

 

晚上为了庆祝一下，吃了顿烤乳猪。

 

回到家看了会儿世乒赛的男单决赛。明天有空的话去公司试试手。

 

今天太爽了！

上回说到：

... what could be more romantic?

 

The answer: a cosy weekend with Pi-kid in Shanghai.

 

(I will write a good one on our Langkawi story some time later, by the 1-year anniversary. I promise.)

 

The good thing about Shanghai is that I can find anything when it comes to food. The better thing is I can find many good food in the neighborhood. The best thing of course, is that, recently, I discovered that we can find the best food at home. My darling cooks! I was as surprised as she was. I guess some people are just gifted, and I won't be hungry for the rest of my life. :)))

 

Besides food hunt in the kitchen and in the city, there are just so many fun things we can do during a weekend. Swim in the pool to shake off the stress, and once, even yoga (yes, me and yoga, never thought possible but it did happen! I am Adidas' living evidence that impossible is nothing). Shopping for random stuff to fill up our apartment. Meeting friends for coffee. Or just stay home and do nothing. I am happy.

 

The hard part is to see you leave. I want you to stay but I know it is not your dream here. Neither of us has a real sense of belonging here. I probably feel more home in a spaceship than in Shanghai. Oh well, separations make reunions sweet. I should know better.

 

What I seem to understand less and less is my job. Maybe there are more known unknowns as there are more known knowns now. But crap aside, I can't help but begin to search for the "point" again. Well, there is none. Why can people live with such hypocrisy? Since it is about making money for money, why do we still pretend there is a greater good? I am sure I am ahead of many people in the race for a soulless, meaningless and unprincipled career. And the nightmare is I can't be bothered. I think my real passion was to become a lawyer, a defense attorney. Then ironically, I would truly become the absolute leader in that race. Well, maybe I can only thrive in the absence of ethics. Bad boy.

 

Year 2009 ... and Lunar Niu Year is coming. Anyone coming back to China for holidays? Drop me a note if you swing by Shanghai. Last month, I met li hao, liuhang, sheep, pig, xiaodong and co, haidong, ding'an, laoda and co, selina and xuxiao. This month, so far, I know Qingyue will be back.

 

I am suddenly having the hots for soccer again.

I am troubled with words lately. Must be the weather. It's too cold. Living in a tropical country for some years, I guess I still need some adjusting. The more I write, the less it sounds like a blog to me. Just some random thoughts put together.

 

I am still in Shanghai. Moved to a place only 5 minutes walk away from work. well, that didn't change my working hours. But living close to work and knowing that you can be in office within 5 minutes in times of emergency does add some comfort and peace to my inner world (and my boss's maybe).

 

What else does the change of address change? oh, no more need for taxis, so my most frequently used form of motorized transpotation is the D-train now. Very frequent visits to hangzhou lately. Met this guy sitting next to me on a trip back home - him in shanghai, girlfriend in hangzhou - guy making most of the trips, just like any guy should. When we got off the train, I saw at least one of his legs is artificial. Bless him. From then, the distance between the two cities seem ... considerably shorter.

 

Travel was fun. Langkawi, being a less well known island, was a good experience. To top it off with the locals in their own homes celebrating the hari raya festival, it felt like all the beautiful streets and beaches of the island were just for the two of us. Come to think about it, there were other tourists and people, but it was all blurry, didn't matter. In an unfamiliar world, two P-kids got each other. What could be more romantic?

 

To be continued

How do you know if you are a grown-up? Well, try going to a hair salon and see what magazine they give you. 16 - sports illustrated; 21 - car and driver. And today for the first time, I got my FHM... yup, no more sports illustrated, not even car and driver, there you go, For Him Magazine. What's more, it's from a female salon assistant. Well, why wouldn't she? Straight out of a workplace with way too much testerone and way too little sleep, I guess I do look classic with a preference for busty women. But hey, here is a silver lining - maybe my pimples are finally retrieving into the past. "Oh come on! Get even with your adolescent tantrum. It's just an FHM. You are an adult now. Deal with it."

 

So after the haircut, I took a cab home. I sat in the backseat, told him where to go, and was about to hibernate. But the driver was feeling chatty. So "ok, you go first." I thought to myself, "what do you want to talk about?"

 

Much to my surprise, for the opening line, he said, in shanghainese, "ge mao jing ji lor ver hor, nong gong si yor tzai yuo var?" (Economy is bad. Any job cuts at your firm?) ... How did he do that? Has he shrewdly detected the wall-street misery on my face? Damn, shanghainese are sharp (and I like his candor)... Well again, dude in suit, spiky hair, reads FHM - I got that, it's career profiling. So I responded, in broken shanghainese, with all the humility I could summon, "wai hor, a la gong si mer dor ter, wai whuo ler hai." (Still ok, our firm is still alive.) So for the remaining journey, I very much enjoyed myself chatting with this cheerful guy in my self-deprecating shanghainese dialect. It's fun living here.

 

This particular taxi has a sign that says 优质车 (premium quality car), and by the way I think the driver fully deserves it. Before I got off the cab, I asked him what prize he would get for being a star-analyst-equivalent in the taxi world.

 

It's money.

 

But anyone wants to guess how much?

 

Rmb80/month.

 

Yes, get that. Less than USD150 annualized bonus for working hard every month. It's a tough world out there.

 

So better work hard, you are an adult now.

I don't know where to start. We would have to backtrack to the 80's for a full account of our story. Maybe I can start from the split-seccond that you captured my heart. I thought you are way out of my league for me to stand a chance. So I feel truly lucky every time you stand by my side, and every time we do the simple things together like explore a small town or mix our own wine. You touched me in so many ways that I just lost count. So the clock striked 12 my dear darling, it's your birthday and I feel like the happier one. Thank God that I found you, my beautiful angel. I don't know what your life is, but I know you won't be lonely again.

 

Leaving on a jet plane~~~

 

Life~~~ is in the jungle of Malaya~~~ under the stars~~~ on the white sandy beach~~~

 

 

这次回上海坐了一趟N478。D(动车), T(特快), K(空调)开头的都卖完了。因为车票上写着"新空调软座快车", 我猜N代表的是New, 不过整趟旅行完全没有新的感觉. N478是那种古老到能唤起我童年记忆的列车。高企的车厢，虽没有动车那种流线型的车身，可是大气，像一辆正宗的火车。两边的车窗高大方正，蓝色的椅套配上白色的枕巾，简单朴实。上车后，广播里传来了悠扬的民族音乐。"欢迎各位旅客朋友，您的列车生活就要开始了。。。" 一位乘务员的声音娓娓道来 -- 曾几何时，坐火车也是旅行的一部分，也是生活的一部分(想起好几年前和李浩一起去济南看永鹏还睡卧铺哩，那车更慢)。这还没完，一路上乘务员还会推着小车卖方便面，车厢里弥漫着方便面和茶叶蛋的香味，这在来往沪杭的其他列车上也很少见到了。整次旅行历时两个半小时，是动车的两倍，让我睡了个饱。从杭州的家庭生活，到上海的工作生活，中间有这一段慢车生活看看书，睡睡觉，想想事情，美哉。

 

但愿在比动车还快的高铁建成通车以后，N车组不会被淘汰。追求效率和丰富生活，我两者都要。试想在动车和高铁上肯定碰不到像《天下无贼》里傻根那样的人吧？

What's the point... to make predictions on how much money others are making? That's pretty much my job description by the way. I was almost ecstatic when I was told to research into carbon credits next month. Well, that's something different - something closer to sanity. In this 2-Dimensional life between work and you, the only way to find that grip is to lose curiosity on that very question - what's the point?

It is unbelievable but we are kindda running out on the list of island destinations. See below for the places that we have vetoed:

 

Palau - too much diving...

Maldives - too honeymoony...

Bali - a bit too far, just a bit...

Phuket - a bit crazy right now...

 

So our pick is Langkawi. We are going to fly to KL on Sep 27, but we can't find a flight between Langkawi and KL (on Sep. 28 and Oct. 2). Can anyone help? Or any car rental available? Is it like a 5 hour drive or something? Need your help here, i assume there would be some local or pan-Malaysia friends reading my blog!