Jas and I were pronounced man and wife on Thursday, 06/07/06, at a short and simple solemnization ceremony at the Glass Bar, Mount Faber.

We first encountered the venue while we had the sky dining, and we really like it very much, because of the spectacular view. There are some other available options at Mount Faber, but this is the only indoor location with air-conditioning.

It was drizzling slightly in the morning, but we were in high spirits, although I woke up with a slight hangover from the drinking session the night before. I'd even watched the first half of the semi-final match between France and Portugal. When we attended Melinda and Yuanxiang's wedding, it was also drizzling slightly, and Jas jokingly remarked that if you attend any functions on a rainy day, then the host(s) is reputedly a less than generous person. This time however, it meant that we were destined to be wealthy, as the rain meant "有水". Selective geomancy huh?

We arrived at Mount Faber at 11:30, and the makeup artist and photographer soon after. Jas got busy with her makeup, while I worked with the staff at the bar on some of the table arrangements and some last-minute changes. I soon got them settled, and walked around the place, taking pictures and chatted with the photographers, which pretty much drove Jas crazy, being confined to her chair. Eventually, her makeup was done, and my hair got touched up as well, which included some copper colouring, a personal first.

We had planned for our guests to arrived at 2, and the solemnization to start at 2.15. But our guests started arriving early, and we were busy chatting and catching up with them. Our parents arrived as well, and time passed quickly.

Our JP called me on Monday for confirmation of our solemnization and again on the previous night; he was supposed to arrive 10 minutes before 2. But 2.15 soon arrived, and he was nowhere to be found. We called him at his office, and he was still in the office; it turned out that he remembered the time wrongly. Ah well, he assured us that he was on his way, and we served lunch instead.

The JP duly arrived, and we started the solemnization ceremony. Everybody gathered around, although the JP had a commanding voice in spite of his frail-looking figure. The ceremony was short and simple, although it was over in a flash. We do remember some parts of it, but I can honestly tell you that, on the whole, it was a blur.

Our JP ended the ceremony with congratulations in both English and Mandarin, and proceeded to rush off. I had to chase after him to join us in some photo taking. He obliged duly, but disappeared after a few shots. Something tells me that he's on his way to another solemnization.

Never mind him, we had our own photo taking session. Diana, Jas' cousin, an aspiring stills photographer, had some creative ideas, and we have some very nice photos with our certificate and the floral arrangements.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon chatting with our families and friends. One of the reasons why we chose that venue is that the environment was cosy, and instead of formal tables and high-backed chairs, we had sofas arranged. We didn't have much heavy food, the main idea behind was that people could get access to their food, sit down and relax in the sofas and can still chat with each other while eating.

We would also like to thank our families and friends who graced the occasion with their presence, their well wishes and of course their fat angbaos. The venue could only accomodate limited people, and we apologize that we could not extend the invitation to everybody we know. Special thanks should go to Diana and Weiliang who really helped us a lot during the day.

And so, we begin a new chapter in our lives as man and wife. We hope to build on what we have, and of course, promise to love and care for each other, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, so long as we shall both live. It has been said that life before marriage is incomplete; Jas is now complete, and I am now finished. Heh.

There are a lot of photos, and they have been uploaded to the usual place.

I boarded the domestic flight from Gurgaon and duly arrived at Bangalore, my next stop.

Again, I had complimentary hotel transfer waiting for me at the airport, and luckily so as well. There was a big crowd outside, with people waiting for their friends, as well as touts waiting for their prey. It was a smooth journey to the hotel, although the driver wanted to show me some shopping places, but I was tired and it was getting late.

The hotel in Bangalore is definitely grander than the one in Gurgaon, but the staff could probably do with more training. They didn't request for my credit card during check-in, and had to call me while I was unpacking. To their credit, they do provide an iron and board in the room.

The next morning, the driver who took me to the office seemed a little unsure of the way. We found a building that looked like my office, and I went down to ask for directions. The security guard on the ground floor told me that I had got the correct address, so I bade the driver farewell. But when I went up to the office, the people told me that the correct address is further down the road. Ah well...

My flight on Friday evening back to Singapore was late in the evening, and I had time to kill. I got the driver to take me to this new mall in the middle of the shopping district. Before I knew it, he had brought me to this specialist carpet house where he assured me that I only need to spend 5 minutes inside. He seemed pretty ok, so I did a customary 5 minute browse of the shop, all the while ignoring the pleas to take a seat while they show me their carpets.

I eventually arrived at the Forum, one of the newest mall in Bangalore, and did a quick browse, had a small bite, before making my way to the airport. I was told by the guard at the entrance that passengers for my flight can only enter the terminal at 8. So I had to sit on my own luggage just beside the road, caught a slight drizzle of rain, in the midst of people walking by, and with the sounds of traffic and horning loud in my ears. I had to wait 3 hours in the terminal again before I was able to board, and it felt really good stepping into the plane.

It has been an interesting experience, to say the least. The thing that really came across as a huge cultural shock was that I could never tell whether they understood me or not even though we were conversing in perfect English; either they are not culturally wired to admit ignorance, or I could be a bit slow in reading their reactions, I don't know. Personally, I don't mind going again, but I can't say the same for everybody. Those with more delicate noses and stomachs may find the ever present smell of scented oil and Indian cuisine overwhelming.

Even though much of the population is still living in relative poverty, public hygiene and cleanliness can be better, there is undoubtedly a buzz to the country. India is poised on a huge explosion in economic growth, and rightly so, with its population approaching the size of China's. Interesting times ahead.

Photos are in the usual place.

I travelled to Gurgaon last week for business, and it was my first time to India.

Gurgaon was my first stop. The airport wasn't that fantastic, but it's not that big a city in the first place. Luckily for me, I had complimentary hotel transfer waiting for me at the airport. The driver was pretty courteous, although we encountered a traffic jam along the way to the hotel. There were fireworks as well, and it turned out that there was a wedding going on. The road was packed with cars and motor-tricycles, all blasting on their horns, and on the side of the road, there were people dancing to loud music. It was a little surreal, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, it was a 30 minutes journey, and I reached the hotel soon. It was pretty good actually, definitely much better than I expected, although I had to request for an iron and board to be delivered to my room. Internet access was via an unprotected wireless network, but it was better than nothing, and I had a personal firewall on my machine running.

Gurgaon is a city that is developing into something like an industrial park for the high-tech companies. 5 years ago, as the driver told me, the entire techno-park area was agricultural land. Today, there are lots of spanking new office blocks and more being built as we speak. And on the roads, the cows still go wherever they like, with cars swerving here and there to avoid them. To be fair, they don't drive that fast on the roads, so it's not like they hit the emergency brakes every time they approach a cow. Then again, with no lane markings on the roads, traffic was pretty dangerous. Everybody, and I mean everybody, drove on any part of the road, cutting in and out of traffic. The horns never stopped blasting, and I learnt how to ignore it eventually.

Lunch was settled at the McDonalds and Pizza Hut downstairs; there's even a Subway outlet there, although I had doubts over the BLT sandwich; lamb and turkey they may have, but I was not so sure over the beef. My colleagues and I were slightly more adventureous for dinner, and we went to some more upscale restaurants in the shopping malls for some local food. It was pretty good, and the nans were fantastic, although the local beers were not that good.

I caught a domestic flight to Bangalore on Wednesday, and well, the experience could have been better. In the first place, the terminal for domestic flights was quite some distance away from the international terminal. When I say quite some distance, I mean 20 minutes by car. Luckily enough for me, I told the driver that I was taking a domestic flight, and he brought me to the correct terminal. It could have been so much worse.

The thing about the airport is that once you've stepped inside, you can't come out again, unless you're a visitor. The official reason was that this was for security reasons but I was able to walk around the entire waiting lounge without my luggage being scanned or checked, which pretty much defeated the purpose. Anyway, there's only 1 miserable shop in the waiting lounge, and there was no smoking room. Boring times.

To be fair, I had to go through a security check before I can board the plane, and I happily submitted my bags for scanning before being asked for a tag that was supposed to be on every piece of luggage. You see, when you get your boarding pass, you are supposed to get a paper tag that you're supposed to attach to your luggage. After your bags are scanned, they will affix a chop on the tag itself. Luckily for me, the official was good enough to provide me with spare tags on the spot, although they were from another airline. So if I was checked before I boarded the plane, all I can prove was that some other airline has proved that I wasn't carrying anything dangerous. That's just weird.

Anyway, stay tuned for my experiences in Bangalore. In the meantime, take a look at the pictures that I've uploaded at the usual place.

我老了.

Many people have commented that to me, and truth to speak, I'm more amused than anything else. Perhaps that is another sign of age, being able to take feedback in a calm and collected manner. I don't know.

On my part, I cannot deny that my thinking, my decision making and my reactions to things happening around me have changed. The changes have probably been too much compared to what people expected, but personally for me, too little, too slow.

But why am I so eager to grow old, you may ask. Do I not still have the exuberance of youth? Has the zest for life deserted me? Is the hunger no longer there? Have I finally shed myself of my foolishness? Am I prepared to give up my dreams and "settle"?

I am not.

The thing is, I don't feel older; I feel wiser. In a way, age has got nothing to do with how much time we have spent on this planet; it is all in the mind. I still feel the excitement with new technologies and the gleeful satisfaction when I have written a particular cool piece of code. There are still things that I want to achieve and places that I want to travel to with Jas, who reads this blog regularly (hi dear). :p

On the other hand, I have never felt better. Whether about my own capabilities, or my ability to handle stuff, whatever. I have become more proficient in my professional career; I am now able to deal better with issues, be them professional or personal, and I am able to write better. I have grown, or matured, if I can phrase it that way. And it really pleases me.

Having said all that, I have to admit that I felt the same way 10 years ago. I was just as confident about myself and felt just as good. I was probably much more idealistic and focused on my goals back then, but I would like to think that I probably wasn't as wise back then. And frankly speaking, 10 years into the future, I expect myself to feel the same way, looking back at the me of today with a little bit of embarassment, some fondness and a much more sense of pride.

I guess the important thing is, at any point of time, I am the best that I can be, considering how hard I worked at it prior to that, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe I am not happy with my condition today, so I will work harder, in the hope that I will become better tomorrow. And it goes on. I will never stop making mistakes, but hopefully I will only make new mistakes. To me, that's the key to aging, or everything. That something better is always achievable, as long as I work hard for it.

Whatever it is, no matter how foolish I may sound, this is the approach that I have chosen, and it has never treated unfairly, so I will stick to it. I hope that I will never lose my courage in my convictions and my ability to work hard. As somebody who I admire once said, Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

Forgive me for the seemingly ridiculous title, but I promise you, bear with me, and it will make sense after you have finished reading.

People refer to the rebellous puberty years as the character-forming years, when everyone starts growing, both mentally and physically. Most, if not all, of the development during this stage will form the basis of our moral inclinations, personal habits, decision-making process and also our physical appearance for the rest of our lives . It is not uncommon to hear the phrase, "It cannot be helped, so-and-so's character is like that."

But is this "character" really malleable only during our teenage years? Can't we really teach an old dog new tricks? I don't think so. We often read the stories about those that have fallen by the side early in life, turned a new leaf, and made good their potential later. The key, I believe, is perceived need.

Sometimes, something comes along and gives us a whack on the head hard enough to jolt us out of our skins that makes us realise that we have been utterly wrong in our interpretations of the world. Or someday, we may just understand that the reason why we are so frustrated is due to our petulant ignorance of hard facts placed in front of us. Only then will we feel the real need to change the way we think, and the manner we behave.

Personally, I was, or am still, never one to suffer fools. If something is not done right, I had no hesitation to speak my mind. And I would never give up an argument if I am convinced that I was right. I was right, I knew it, and I wanted everybody to know it. For me, there is no better arbiter of any argument than reason and truth. I would like to think that I have changed much now, and for that I have Jas to thank. She was the one who showed me that sometimes, or most of the time, I stand a better chance of getting people to agree with me by telling them that they are partially right, rather than completely wrong.

Which brings us to Raistlin Majere. To those who don't know who he is, he is a character in the first set of fantasy novels that I read. Born weak in constitution, ridiculed as a kid, he showed his strength and power in other ways at the end of the story. I have come across many other repesentative characters, but I will always remember Raistlin Majere as the one who induced my interest in the fantasy genre. The heroes, the magical spells, the mythical weapons of slaying, the dark villians, I love them all. Probably it's because that in a fantasy world, concepts transient in real life, like courage, honour, loyalty and justice are more pronounced, I don't know.

Of course, my reading has not been limited to a single genre. The Jeffrey Archers, the Dan Browns, the Tom Clancys, and most of the popular authors, I have read every one of their books, more than once. Trust me when I say I read quite a few books. But recently, I find my reading tastes changing. Books that I cannot finish in the past, books that I found "dreary" and "boring" in the past, I think they are beautifully written now. Personally, I find it very interesting, as well as gratifying, to be finally able to appreciate these previously-scorned books.

And it has not been limited to my reading preferences. My taste in music, my preferences in colour coordination, my choices in clothing and apparel, I am now able to appreciate better the choices that I really try to avoid in the past. I can now listen to a CD of classical music without ejecting the disc, I am now willing to try more adventurous colours, and I have a pair of bright red sneakers.

Having said all that, it doesn't mean that my preferences, or my way of thinking has changed. Just that I have learnt to appreciate different things, even though I may not like them. I still don't like certain things or agree with the way how certain things are done, but I can now understand why others do.

Maybe that's the most important thing, after all.