Our Hot Hot Beijing Summer

Beijing peaked at 38 degrees in June, not an ideal time for sightseeing.  But our 8 days in China turned out to be the perfect timing to travel - right after DuanWuJie and right before 高考 finished. Meaning, the whole of China was indoors studying. There was no crowd anywhere!!! Unbelievable. 

司马台Sima Tai Great Wall

Our plan was to land then move out to cooler regions ASAP. Sima Tai, the only section of the Great Wall opened for night climbing. Imagine a backdrop of sunset giving way to lanterns lighting up the evening wall… 

Perfect view from our hotel room. 

Morning ascent was not in the plan, but Ken suggested climbing maybe 1-5 watch towers in the morning then tower 5-7 in the evenings. Let’s do it all! 

Then I realized what people did not say about climbing the Great Wall. The Great Wall meanders along the mountain ridges. So Climbing the Wall is one thing. Climbing up the mountain to reach the Wall is another thing!!! The first steps up started at the end of our village. The staff told us it would take 45mins to climb up… 

Ha! A Chinese 45mins would easily be 3 hours in Singapore standards. We opted for the cable car to ferry us up midway. Then spent the next eternity questioning why they did not build the drop off higher. "Why are you torturing me? Why?"... Boy still had energy to whine, meaning he was fine. 

Arrived. Ok now we can start to climb the wall. Dotter gave up after 2 sections then pretended to be the teenager abandoned by parents (for a long time) to pursue greater heights. I was already on all fours up the uneven steps then waved Ken and Morg to continue without me. 

不到长城，非好汉。这个好汉也没那么容易当的。

This view where I sat exhausted on the steps... I became overwhelmed with the emotion of 大好山河 but also all the while contemplating the life and death situation of how to get down. At this perfect moment, I received a text from Andy to do my May Timesheets. Sigh… 

Back in SG, a friend asked a bizarre question “where is the wall?’ what wall?

This one? 

Ohhhhhh… Yahor…. “… and no handrails at the side so you don’t fall?” … handrails? Then I recalled we came for the more remote, original, un-restored section… you fall, you fall… This is better, right?

古北水乡Gubei Water Village, at foot of Sima Tai

天灯

Beer and grill while we watched a drone show at the square

The night is quiet and beautiful. M&M on their rare night out...

Big boss and little boss loved to have their breakfast at the balcony.

Scooping around in the neighborhood in the day time. 

Datong, Shanxi

地上文物看山西，地下文物看陕西。

Yun gang Grottoes… 252 caves, 51,000 Buddhist statues, from the mid 5^th century…. And in good conditions.

悬崖寺, Hanging Temple by the Hengshan Cliff

Walking through the corridors of this 1500-year-old Hanging Temple was on my must do list. Such elegant structure fully supported by only 27 cantilevers (pillars were added in recent years to give people assurance that the temple is not going to fall) … 

But it was impossible to buy an ascend ticket as a foreigner in advance and everything was sold out 7 days in advance. I could literally hear the whole entourage not so subtlety go “Heng Ah”. Best part is, mummy forgot to buy all entry tickets into the mountain too!!! 

M&M’s whole mind was “let’s just get back to KFC as soon as possible” …

 

土林Datong Earth Forest

Shanxi borders Hebei, Henan, Shannxi and Inner Mongolia and is generally arid. Which made for a great change of landscape scene… 

Big place to play catching while avoiding geese poop landmines at the same time. 

 

Yingxian Pagoda, Ying County (916-1125, Liao Dynasty)

A far far away location recommended by the driver. We almost got stuck in traffic jam with massive truckers out of nowhere in this wilderness and driver had to make a sudden left turn onto the dirt paths in the corn fields to escape. Hoho!!! Bumpy ride, holidays should always be this adventurous.  

I felt serious attachment to this oldest wooden pagoda in China. It is fat, heavy, beautiful and leaning on one side. You could slip your hand under the columns on one end. No known method of repair yet and the realization that in years to come, this pagoda may no longer exist brought a sense of honor that we can be at its presence now. 

Datong is like JB to BJ. We had our best noodles in our life.. Morg loves 刀削牛肉面so much that the noodles even became the breakfast bread spread!!! 

Night life in Datong ancient city is cool, 

Beijing Beijing

Yes I got an english speaking guide, knowing full well M&M would check out after 10mins of Chinese history in Mandarin.

It was good. If they could absorb 10% of everything said in Tiananmen, Forbidden Palace and Temple of Heaven, this was money well spent. 

                                                     

Ken was down with tummy ache so it was just three of us. 

Miracle, Ken made full recovery right before Peking Duck Time! 

The ultra jovial Javis and wife brought us to Lao she Teahouse to watch 杂技表演. What a perfect end to a great day. When the 变脸master came over to shake Morgi’s hand and within milliseconds performed a rapid mask change a few centimeters from his face... Sonny exploded in joy. Adults all too stunned to take photos. Even Meggi kept saying “great show, great show” 10/10. 

How many hours did we spent playing billiard? Jie is a pro.

Ended the Beijing trip with not enough excellent shopping and heated swimming pool...... Very happy trip, M&M approved. 

The Three Components of Happiness

“The three components of happiness are something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to,” writes Dr Gordon Livingston.  

Something to do:

Come on... Our household never lacks things to do.

 

Hari Raya Celebrations

All hands on deck to make ketupat. Time to decorate the room to give Kar Kar a surprise!! 

Malay neighbour said our place is more festive than theirs! 

Qingming Jie Celebrations

Bored one Saturday afternoon so painted a very “on-point” Qingming card with 大字 from Morgie. 

Blood Donation

Father and son bonding session organised by the school to give blood. Great job daddy. 

Game night, every night

It has been one month and counting and I have no idea why we must have a game before retiring to bed every night. Now it became a ritual which I am upholding singlehandedly… everyone siam when they see the UNO cards coming their way. 

Someone to love:

New Eye Brows

Never noticed Kenneth had no eyebrows till the cousins started talking about them. A month later, Kenneth walked up to me and said “I want to do eyebrows!”

My first thought : I pretty can already mah, you pretty for what? 

But out of my LOVE for him + his immense SELF LOVE, an interesting appointment was booked to discuss shape and shade. 

Kenneth walked into his parent’s house and my MIL laughed out loud! Sharp as always… 

 

Excellence Award

Just look at how happy my fav son is to receive a trophy.

EduSave Award

Dotter on the other hand, eyes on the cash prize… show me the money… Done? Let’s return asap and buy some burgers and ice-cream on the way out please!!

Holidays

Looking forward to our family holidays but Mimi beat us to it again. Aspire to be like her, travelling with old friends at old age. Their drone doing its part making epic videos again. Just love my ever so busy mum. 

Something to look forward to:

As long as your body is healthy, you have a thousand problems. Once your body is sick, you only have one problem. 

 

A Healthier Body

Ever since Ken suffered the humiliating slip running at the reservoir, tearing his ligament, recovery has been his key focus. Legend has it that he stepped on a half-eaten fruit that a monkey threw down from a tree and went flying. The whole stretch of forest erupted in primate laughers and approvals. 

Getting back to form suddenly became more purposeful when he suddenly strike lottery to secure a spot at the Fukuoka Marathon! Cool. Running towards 42km. 

For me, I also took the last months to holistically repair my other leg – the good leg that suddenly hurt descending staircases. I know this leg is in AAA condition from last year’s X-ray so I went to my trusty Tuina to fix it. “Totally blocked, your calf circulation!”, she announced after a painful hour and recommended 放血(bloodletting) at two hardened areas to remove dead blood. 

As dramatic as the name sound, it was an uneventful event. Whoever wrote on the internet that there is risk of high blood loss is 想太多. At least in my case, the dark, viscous blood was SOOOO slow moving, it took quite a bit of coaxing. Once drawn, it oxidized immediately into lumps of jelly, similar in appearance to raw liver cooked by the Bak Chor Mee hawker every morning. 

Anyway, after an eternity pulling out enough livers for a large bowl of BCM, the hardened flesh areas softened and hurray!!! walking, dancing, jumping became normal again!!! 

Healthy 365

I need to praise this amazing app and the people behind it. Have been booking so many quality studio sessions for free! 

The 365 staff also visited Mimi because on their records, she is classified as elderly + living alone… aka high risk of inactive/depression/pending burden to the healthcare system. 

They brought with them prints out of pre-selected 365 classes and activities suitable for old folks – like Qigong, yoga for better sleep, learn how to laugh loudly etc.… to help her register in case she does not know how to book via mobile app. Ha! The government, giving no chance for this silver population to stay idle. Enrollment turned into recruitment after witnessing mini’s sewing skills. But between her bi-weekly keyboard classes, gym, social activities, good luck finding a time slot. Old bird is busy, I tell ya. 

Well, it looks like we have cracked all the components of happiness. Good days ahead.

2024 - A year well spent

Happy Chinese New Year! 

 

What a year! Megan said she must be the Megan of all Megans in 2024 - very pleased with how everything panned out. Morgan also cemented 2024 as one of his best years. Not so sure for myself as I was mainly occupied with work. Impressively, Kenneth stepped up and did an amazing job, securing left right center picture-perfect pose in every aspect of M&M’s life. What a good father and husband…. ho ho ho..

As I was saying, too much work last year that most of my phone photos were merry making crazy colleagues.  

What does HBA do best? Parties and parties of course.. Cheapskate reception counter makeover to become mama shop. All my favorite childhood snacks! 

Scary villains of the night where Canvas managed to pull off an epic hellscape in broad daylight at their desks. 

This is what I call Commitment.

Though I obviously came as 路人甲, which my CEO failed miserably to appreciate. What can I say? Lack of imagination in management’s bloodlessness of logic and reason.

Woo. Is that Guanyin drinking alcohol by the bar? Naughty naughty gal. 

Mimi said I was too spontaneous with my activities with M&M and should be more consistent. I did try to be like Lily and bake a fresh loaf of bread every week but consistency and discipline were … boring. The best we putted together this year were some random egg tarts, sausage rolls, Xmas cookies etc

Learning to make onigiri was essential after Japan trip. 

Tangyuan making was more a last minute “I found glutinous rice flour!” episode. Yes, maybe I should be more consistent as Meggie had been whispering “tiramisu” in my ears for the past few months. (I couldn’t find lady’s fingers!!!)

Meggie’s food making involvement was also on and off as she officially entered Teenager Phase and that meant - MOODY… Learnt that as a mother, you can’t win your kid. Just ride the phase out, Mimi advised. She is right, as usual.

Thought Meg would continue with her crochet business but, too labor intensive – money hard to earn, bored… all that yarn became more secret stashes somewhere in the house. May they see daylight one fine year. 

 

Instead, working on more time-consuming Paper Mache art… Dotter is good at what she does, so proud of her….

Morg continued to produce more digital comics. I printed them into proper books and he was absolutely horrified with the square format, accusing his publisher of not respecting his artistic directions of everything landscape… 

Very hard to please, these Gen Z divas. 

14 months ago, I started my first dizi lesson because I was worried of dementia and needed something new for my brain to chew on. And OMG… 14 months later… zero improvements!!! I still suck! Not as talented in everything as I tot I was. Damn.

Though the main gig remained off limits to human ears, the passion still burned strong. I loved my flutes enough to make new bags for them…. (final product pending Mimi to machine sew my work of love together)

Since flair and aptitude, I have none, I invested great effort to look good in 2024.

Attempted to charm my way around with Eye Lashes Extensions. Did you guys see it? Did you? Verdict – Not being able to rub my eyes with my knuckles every morning was an irritating and unpleasant way to start a new day. OUT!

Tried elevating my status to goddess level with Pretty Pretty Nails! Verdict – LOVE, felt so ladylike... 3 weeks later… What? Need to go back salon to remove this before I can cut my nails short? Total waste of time!! Nope.

Practiced smiling in the mirror so my face looked less round captivating. Verdict – very tough call for a resting bitch face. 

Concluded that in life, one cannot 既要，都要，还要. 

Then I had to fix this ceiling downlight. I mean, I needed to change a light bulb. How hard could it be? Translated into many-many days of mental burden, many-many ups and downs the ladder, multiple tips from different light shops staffs, youtube videos, tampering with circuit board…. AND cutting the whole wire instead of exposing more copper!!!!!! 

Once again, I thought I was a “site” person but obviously not – never even knew this tool existed… "Hello Hello Electrician? HERE Take my money!" Totally drove my self-esteem down a spiral of deep reflections. 

 

But seriously, 2024 was different. 2024 felt different. 

Hard to pin down what, but there was this barely noticeable yet seismic shift within myself. First thing I noticed was the interminable boredom of dinner parties chatting about vitamins and humid weather. So numbing that my sub conscience haunting, amidst mindless noise, that things, if not started here and now will fade into nothingness. 

It was not an anxiousness. More like, I somehow settled on a very simple and evenly paced way of organizing myself. Mateusz Brodowicz explained it best in “The symbolism of time in modern novels” - The future, that infinite horizon of innovation and progress, segregated its contents into measurable, attainable units which were made accessible to administrations, to techno-science. They became an element of calculability, a passive subject of social planning and control. 

Time spanned outward and life sequence broken down into manageable portions slotted into place neatly. I just strolled peacefully down this passage of time closing box after box. Wait a minute, am I enlightened? 

2025.

It was forecasted that this snake year will be a year of change for the horses. Hohoho.... LinkedIn, here I come after 10 years.... 2024 had not been the easiest of years for both Ken and me. But we both certainly agree with M&M – 2024 was a year very well spent.