SINGAPORE SHORT STORIES

Today, I reluctantly woke up to set off for work. Today is the third day of Chinese New Year and time indeed flies: the first two days of Chinese New Year 2012 have since elapsed us. I enjoyed very much the Chinese New Year holidays for which I have increased the number of days of leave too by taking some of my personal leaves.

Dear Readers I would like to wish all of you a Happy Chinese New Year. Wishing you and Family Health, Wealth, Happiness and Prosperity! Lets chat on Facebook Lets chat on Twitter Like my Facebook Page Subscribe to my Blog: Email me: singaporeshortstories@gmail.com

These few days, I have been hard at work, spring cleaning my house. I used so many litres of water, washed away so much litres of water, have to force myself to deal with dozens of cockroaches (which I do not know where there are so many, but I have installed baiting stations and so far some of these cockroaches did fall prey to them) and even hurt my fingers washing, cleaning, scrubbing all corners of the house.

Yesterday I spent about 6 hours just cleaning windows and fans. Time flies so fast as I tidied up my house. I really wonder where all those heaps of dust in all corners of my house comes from. Imagine if there is no dust, people will have more time from not having to sweep and clean their houses. However I think it is not possible as dust is a part and parcel of the ecosystem and life. Lets chat on Facebook Lets chat on Twitter Like my Facebook Page Subscribe to my Blog: Email me: singaporeshortstories@gmail.com

I and my wife went to buy bakkwa today at a heartland town. To our surprise, though it is still a week to Chinese New Year, there is already a queue for the bakkwa. To our surprise, the bakkwa is now selling at a sky-high price of $50 per kg! I think as Chinese New Year nears, the bakkwa price can only go up. Lets chat on Facebook Lets chat on Twitter Like my Facebook Page Subscribe to my Blog: Email me: singaporeshortstories@gmail.com

Saturday morning, I went to the POSB bank and joined the long queue to exchange for new currency notes for angbaos to give to relatives. What a wait! Seconds became minutes. Minutes became an hour before it was my turn to exchange for the new crispy dollar notes at the counter! To my surprise, I was not bored at all.

I was at a heartland just a few days ago and I am quite surprised that there are already Chinese New Year booths selling a raft of Chinese New Year goodies. It is not even Christmas and here we are, ushering in Chinese New Year! Chinese New Year 2012 will be with us in exactly a month’s time. Next year, Chinese New Year comes quite early on 23 Jan 12, hence business owners are starting to get business now a month before Chinese New Year.

This year, I am giving Chingay 2011 a miss as I am very busy with my own personal stuff. If you are free later go, do go down to Chingay 2011 later on to catch one of the last highlights for Chinese New Year 2011 in Singapore before the 15th of Chinese New Year (Yuan Xiao Jie) marks the close of Chinese New Year.

Everything seems to be returning back to normal after the recent festive buzz. I mean most of the visiting of relatives should have stopped for many Singaporeans. Many are now preparing for work and school tomorrow too.

 My wife and I visited Sentosa Flowers 2011 this afternoon. We used the new Sentosa Boardwalk from Vivocity Level 1 and enjoyed a brand new way to enter Sentosa Island! The admission fee from this walk-in is just $1, paidable by EZ link card.

I woke up quite late today, but I was glad for I managed to sleep through at least 8 hours! During working days, I only managed to clock in at the very most 6 hours of sleep. I am always drained out mentally and physically at work as a result of looking at the computer screen and having to bear the many office politics and sucking up of other colleagues to the directors. There are so many office undercurrents played by those colleagues who do nothing at work except play office politics, carry the balls of directors, bad mouthing colleagues and having nothing much to do at work except to indulge in all of these office vice and playing computer.

I just returned from River Hongbao 2011. I regretted going there as there was nothing much to see this year. Standards have dropped drastically as compared to previous years. A lot of items were recycled. There was still a lot of crowd though and similarly there was a lot of China Chinese and a lot more foreign talent who made me feel like an ailen on home ground.

I thought $2 as an angbao is a dying trend. I thought $4 is the minimum. I thought the Singapore economy is doing well, or at least it is not downturn for Singapore's economy. I thought this and that but when I received a $2 Hongbao, I was SHOCKED!

Chinese New Year is a time when we meet our relatives, some of whom we have not met for years or months. As I have shared with you in yesterday post, I have not met my relatives whom I visited yesterday for a year and hence it can be quite boring because there is no real topic to discuss.

Today is the 2nd day of Chinese New Year in Singapore. It is one of the few days of the year that I can take quite a long break! With Wednesday (just 2 days ago) being half day of work for many, , many Singaporeans can enjoy a 4.5 days of break away from their work. For me, I have topped this 'deluge of holidays' by clearing some of my leaves too to augment this stretch of leave so that it can be truly rewarding!

Today, being the 1st day of Chinese New Year, I went visiting with my wife. We first paid our visit to my father's house, then to my second uncle's house and finally to my mother-in-law's house. For my father's side, it was a once in a year affair seeing all my uncles and aunties as well as their children as all of us are too busy throughout the year, hence Chinese New Year is the only time when we meet! Incredible, you may thought, but this is real. For some of my other relatives, I have not seen them for years or even in decades!

Today is eve of Chinese New Year. Again, another year flies in the flash of an eye. I have lots to say, lots to blog, about Chinese New Year and myself, but I have lots to do these days: Spring Cleaning, buying of new clothes, goodies and decorations that I have not much time to spend blogging on this blog.

It is a tired day as I carried out Spring cleaning for hours the whole of today.

Yesterday, my wife and I braved the rain to buy Chinese New Year decorations at 2 heartland areas in the East. The offerings by the store in these heartland areas can rival those offered by Chinatown and the variety can also exceed what is offered by Chinatown. Price wise, the heartland give competitive prices too.

I woke up to the incessant fall of rain. It was raining throughout midnight till morning, and even at this point of my writing, it was still raining. I welcome rain,but not close to Chinese New Year. Rain will prove too inconvenient for many doing all the purchasing of Chinese New Year goods. One would need to bring umbrella, jostle with some crowds and batter with the rain and some puddles of water. I think if the rain were to continue, outdoor Chinese New Year businesses, the like of Chinatown will be affected because everyone would be avoiding outdoors and choose to patronize indoor shopping malls too.