Tokyo, Once More!.
Am counting down the hours before we head off for Tokyo – am really excited but yet a little wary of our potential expenditure over there.
The first time we went, it was all touristy and stuff… but this time we want to go deeper into it. With 2 days burnt for the flights, we are actually left with 5-6 days worth of roaming time.
Which is fine… we have the train network figured out already and we are just going to zoom in to areas where we’ve haven’t been like Ginza and Gotemba… and yeah, I am sure we’ll be having loads of fun!
I can’t wait!!!!!
The Missing Piece.
Have you ever felt that there is a “missing piece” in your life? The one piece of the puzzle that is a specific “something” that you hope to achieve.
It’s nothing vague like “I WANT MOAR MONEY!”. It’s nothing big like “WHERE IS MY MR. PERFECT?!”
It’s just a small little piece that is so hard to find, so hard to adjust and twist it around, but it’s so important that once achieved, it’ll complete “something” in your life?
I have 2 missing puzzles when it comes to my career.
1. The frigging degree. If only I had one now, I would be moving on to do something else. Not that I hate my job, but I would really like to try my hand at something else. Like marketing communications, or teaching.
I can’t possibly start right from the bottom, so the degree and my previous related experience can help me halfway up. Somehow. But it’s just so daunting to embark on a part-time course again.
2. The frigging award. All of my peers have one. And they get the respect they need. I don’t have one. Although most of the peers also give me the same level of respect, but I don’t feel it coming from the superiors. Somehow, I am always one-level lower.
Never mind if my work is consistently better than another. Never mind if I do have good works once in a while, just like the others. But because I simply do not have the luck, I do not have the award and I do not get the kind of respect I think I deserve.
With these 2 missing pieces in place, life could be much better for me.
One is achievable. The other? I guess not.
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So what’s the missing piece from your life?
No Signboard FAIL.
I am usually very polite to service staff, be it at restaurants… shops… or even the aunties clearing my table. They are doing a job after all, and we should be appreciative of their efforts.
So I don’t see how some service staff can be that callous when it comes to dealing with customers. Hey, you are paid to be polite and helpful, right? I don’t expect you to turn into my servant just because I am a paying customer, but the very least you can do is to be a “good” human being right!!!
As for why I am writing this, please continue reading:
My friend recently went to this No Signboard restaurant recently and the staff actually misplaced her credit card. WTH! A credit card is a very sensitive item and it should be treated with extra care, ok!
What if another Ris Low type used my card to buy things for herself just because I placed my trust in the staff who is supposed to process the payment transaction?
This is her letter to the restaurant’s management, but have not gotten a single reply.
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Hi,
My husband and I were the first customers at your Vivocity branch on Saturday. It was empty when we entered, and we subsequently ordered some dimsum.
When we called for the bill, we were the first customers to ask for the bill, which I paid for with my Citibank Dividend card. As my water glass was empty for sometime already because no one filled it up, when the bill returned for my signature, I asked the server to top the water glass up. Subsequently, when I took my receipt from the bill folder, there was no credit card within.
The server firstly said “Impossible, I put it inside.” When I pointed out that it was not, she started glancing over on the table and at my wallet. I explained that the other Citibank card was the Citibank Tangs card. My husband searched my bag. It was not around my table. She then went back to the counter looking for it.
She repeated “It’s not possible” a few times in chinese, and she was just looking around, not actively searching. I was the one who got on my knees under my table to search for the card. For 10 minutes, besides standing around my table and looking and glancing around the counter, she did no active searching, except between the newspapers that I was reading. I explained that I did not take the credit card, to which I can only describe as disbelief on her face.
She offered no apologies. There was no further assistance from any other staff, and no expedition to any senior staff or management. After 10 minutes, she asked me for my number and name so she could contact us if someone found it.
I asked to see the manager, which she replied was not in yet. I asked to see the most senior staff around, to which she went grudgingly. When the senior staff came, I explained everything to her (because obviously the other staff did not) and pointed out no apology was offered, she only meekly whispered “sorry” with no sincerity. After taking down my details, I left the restaurant. At that moment, I had already cancelled my card, since I have no assurance from your staff that it could be found. 2 minutes after I left, the senior staff ran after us, explaining that she found the card tucked somewhere else. It was already too late, the damage was done.
Now I am granted the inconvenience of having to wait for my credit card to be replaced from the bank. Imagine if I was a tourist, having to call my bank to block the card and request a replacement?! I was lucky that no travel was required from me this week for work, because then I would imagine the amount of inconvenience that would follow!
All I wanted was a nice simple brunch at your outlet. Instead, I was offered the feeling that our credit cards were not a priority to your establishment. I repeatedly told the staff that my financial security could be compromised since they lost the card, what if someone took it and used it?! They only returned blank faces back to me. No apologies was given, until I finally lost my temper after 10 minutes. No proper assistance and no expedition was given.
This must be a big joke. Your establishment obviously does not care for proper customer service nor sequence. I will not even dream of dining at No Signboard now, since my credit card was treated with such little respect and priority. Shouldn’t your staff know by now that it is important and even a basic thing to not lose the customer’s credit card, much less imply that the customer herself lost it?!
You have no idea how angry I am. The amount of insincerity and indifference suffered at your restaurant will keep me and my friends away from your restaurant for a long time. Be assured that I will spread the word of this incident to the community. I will not be able to have that 15 minutes of my life back, when I was treated with such incompetence of service (that’s the only phrase that suits this scenario).
I am also from F&B and the service line. I know it’s easy for the credit card to drop out of the bill folder. That is why you pay more attention to it. It’s not rocket science, but a simple and easy step to do. and that does not exonerate your staff of being more cautious, because it’s money! I really wonder what your establishment is doing to prevent that. From what I see, nothing.
Your staff have my number. Yet your manager has not called to apologise. This really shows me how much your establishment cares about its customers.
I can bring my money elsewhere to dine. Just because I’m not a VIP, doesn’t mean that the basic customer shouldn’t be treated with the same and equal amount of respect.
—
Oh well. Perhaps it’s boycott time?
Broke..
Yeah. Money just flows out and I have no idea how and why. HALP!!!!
能打中文了.
终于行了！！！我能写中文 blog 咯！
压抑了好久… 就为了一个懒字…
那时换了 hosting 公司，没为 Wordpress 好好调整过一番…
所以那么久没中文 blog post 可写了。
废话不说！最近想再为我退步的中文能力说声”好“！您久违了!
跟老公说英语说惯了，工作上写英文搞写惯了，本来很厉害的中文坐了好一阵子冷板凳，实在可惜。
现在也许是乖乖把那文笔练一练的时候吧！
以前喜欢的中文歌，依然那么好听，但最近的新歌不入耳，更别谈入心。
也许是真的该认老了哦…
发现以前最迷的 93.3 频道无聊了许多。
什么“歌多话少，不受干扰。”
我呸！
现在阁下歌少话多，听了都快烦死了。
电台播的新歌，发现歌词好的不多，旋律耐听的真没几个。
就不象当年的苦情歌，歌手唱的娓娓动听，大家听了丝丝入扣…
找不到那种 emo 的感觉了…
老了。真的。
Meatless Mondays.
I started on a little diet thing called “Meatless Mondays” a few days ago… as introduced to me by a vegetarian friend of mine, just a starter attempt on the real V thing. That said, I don’t think I can fully go vegetarian, but I certainly could cut down on the meat intake. Why? I guess it’s good for my health, probably?
I’ve never been much of a carnivore, being quite a salad-head and all… but salads give me the “I AM ON A DIET” vibe sometimes and I’ll avoid eating them, when the vibe is strong. I have the same kind of aversion towards fish soup rice, so when I feel some major craving coming on, those are probably not my noms of choice.
My mum will be happy to hear that I am cutting down on my meat intake, she has been nagging me for years and I’ll always brush her off with a “hurhurhur”.
This also stemmed from a sudden realisation that sometimes meat tastes just plain yucky. I had a bad plate of char siew rice the other time and things just went downhill from there. There are still some pork dishes that doesn’t leave that horrible after-taste in my mouth, like bak chor, which is fine… but now I generally avoid ordering pork dishes, except for the good ol’ Tonkatsu, of course.
The other day I was just thinking to myself, why does that sesame oil chicken taste so bad? I hated the texture. But just days before, I had fried chicken, and was totally enjoying it, finger licks and stuff.
Did I mention something about health? Oh right. I just wanted to cut down the meat intake, and eat more vegetables in general. Hard to go wrong with that logic, isn’t it? But yes, I got to lay off the deep fried stuff.
*slaps self for eating french fries just now*
So well, let’s see how it goes. I am totally ok not eating meat for a day, but I will probably shrivel and die if I tried going carbless, again.
Urges.
I am supposed to clam up on the shopping urges and then to buy buy buy at Tokyo late May.
Then I went to eBay. Found a pretty wallet that will cost me around $125 (not very expensive, but still) and then I shared the link with my friends.
What transpired was quite frankly, awful.
My friends loved the wallet as well. I held back.
Some of them encouraged me to get it. I held back some more. But not without squealing in agony about it.
And then this very smart lady pushed the right buttons.
You know what happened next.
I am ashamed for being so easily coerced, blackmailed and threatened into submission. Oh well.
Book Review: Katz Tales.
First of all, I would like to formally apologise to Ellen Whyte the prolific writer, for the awfully long delay of this book review. Also, I haven’t done much book reviews, so please pardon me if it reads choppy!
Katz Tales: Living Under The Velvet Paw by Ellen Whyte
The book’s origins came a long way from its previous incarnation – Ellen’s column in The Star, news publication from Malaysia. It must have been quite a column, if not it wouldn’t have gotten published as a novel, isn’t it? While this doesn’t contain any glitz like the Sex and The City book or the like, it’s filled with a fluffy, warm goodness that might even convert non-cat-people into the furriness of catty love!
Ellen’s observations of the behaviourial characteristics of the 3 felines in her life – Scoop, Au and Target, were logged carefully in this charming, little book. All the cheeky anecdotes reminded me of my own cats’ shenanigans, although they did not get the freedom of roaming the neighbourhood like her cats.
However, as ex-President of Singapore’s Cat Welfare Society, I would like to reiterate something that is close to my heart: don’t let your pet cats roam! Some Singaporeans are less than tolerant of our favourite felines and in our highly urban society, cats are in constant danger from cars and intolerant people or even abusive ones! Well, cats make great apartment pets, and I am sure my Latte and Cookie loves being home!
But I digress.
Despite my views on not letting pet cats roam, I am pretty sure Ellen’s neighbourhood in Subang, Malaysia is a rather idyllic one, with neighbours who are very cat-friendly and kind. That is definitely a good thing, as the cats get to explore the area, doing stuff cats should be doing, in relative safety – which was my concern when I first started reading. Fortunately, the stories about how Scoop became such an integral part of Ellen’s life drew me in.
I’d love to have such an intelligent and loving boy cat as my own pet! No spoilers here… but there was a part which brought tears to my eyes. 
This is a must-read for all cat people and I am waiting for more stories about Au and Target! I also highly recommend the tips in the next half of the book for potential cat owners – it’s concise yet informative as a Quick-Start Guide to Meowdom!
Katz Tales: Living Under The Velvet Paw by Ellen Whyte is now available in Singapore at all good bookstores (you’ll never go wrong with Kinokuniya and Times bookstores!). If you love cats, you’ll love this book. 
Retchtro Series #01 – The Slipped Disc.
Get acquainted with this condition now. Many people has had it. I still have it. Jeffwee has got it. And it could be your turn, if you don’t watch out for your well-being.
The “slipped disc”, or what they called a “prolapsed disc” is a very common back problem that affects many of us office folks. People who sit around in a fixed position (sometimes in a bad posture) for too long, are the most susceptible to be afflicted with this condition.
Contrary to popular belief, the spinal disc does not slip out of position. It’s actually the softer, jelly-like substance that gives our spine the suppleness that slipped out of position, and when that happens and it presses on a nerve in the spine, you have what we call the slipped disc.
Possible Causes:
1. Sitting for long hours and not moving
2. Slouching on the couch (yes, I am guilty of that)
3. Over-stretching (could aggravate a latent condition – I sort of cocked the gun on my condition during a back bend during yoga)
4. Sleeping in a bad place (a too soft, or too hard bed; I slept on a cold hard floor one night, before I pulled the trigger on my back)
Some Symptoms (that I experienced):
1. Chronic lower back pain for years that didn’t go away entirely
2. A sharp, piercing pain in the back that reached all the way down to the calves
3. Numbness and loss of strength in my right leg (for some it may even be both legs?)
4. The action of sitting down hurts like f**k
5. The action of getting up from a seated position hurts like f**k
Initially I went through more than 6 sessions of acupuncture which relieved the acute back pain, leaving only the dull, numbing pain which didn’t get better. And then the backache came back with a vengeance, before I finally sought help with an orthopedic specialist.
At that point, I was yelling out every time I sat down and stood up, as the pain shot down from my butt cheek and numbed even my toes sometimes. It was like a horrible internal electric shock that just didn’t go away. Bed rest felt the most comfortable, but of course, with my job I couldn’t possibly lay in bed the whole day.
The Diagnosis:
Get a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan, if you can afford it. It is a highly sensitive, highly accurate machine that could scan your entire body without radiation, unlike CT Scans or the regular X-Rays. I paid for it with my personal accident insurance after I busted my company’s medical plan limits (yes, 2009 was a bad year for me, physically). A ball-park figure could be anything from $500-1000 per scan on the lumbar spine region.
There are 2 types of MRI machines in Singapore, one is the Open Magnet type, which is a cheaper option; the other is a Closed Magnet type, which was the expensive type that we are used to seeing on TV – in a doughnut shape.
Initially, I felt excited to get to the inside of an MRI machine as I was a huge House M.D. fan and in the TV series, they MRI-ed patients like nobody’s business and I thought “this is gonna be cool!!”, until I really got there. The place was bloody cold, and immediately I understood that the air conditioning was optimised for the machine, not for humans.
And they gave me ear plugs. Yes, ear plugs. The machine is a whirring, whining, beeping, ticking, buzzing… thing. It’s awfully loud and noisy especially on the inside. I also had to keep very very still inside this claustrophobic space for around 30-40 minutes. The noise made it almost impossible to communicate with the radiologist through the intercom. It was nothing glamourous like in the TV series, nor silent like what we have come to expect of such high-tech medical equipment. Did I mention that this thing is insanely noisy?
So the doctor looked through my scans and showed me exactly where my spinal juice leaked and pressed on the nerve, thus causing that awful piercing pain. That also concludes his initial assessment of my condition, which means that I am bound for physiotherapy and popping Glucosamine supplements for as long as I can remember.
The So-Called Treatment:
Despite the advancement of medical science, I am afraid to say there is no real cure for this condition. Yes, you could improve the condition by going through physiotherapy sessions and modifications to your lifestyle (read: sit properly) and possibly do all that without having to resort to painkillers… but the fact is, the “slipped disc” is very likely, forever.
You have to manage the condition for the rest of your life even as you are weaned off the physiotherapy exercises and the whole shebang. I was prescribed to go on a “Med-Ex” course for 9 sessions at the Gleneagles physio centre. What the very nice therapist did was to first assess the extent of my pain levels, and then start me on an exercise routine, 2 times a week.
I first had to go through some tests, on a combination of a computer system and weight-training gym machine which trains the strength of my back. While seated, I did repetitions of forward and backward bends assisted by light weights coupled with some calibration magic on the machine. And then I had to do sets of different kinds of leg bends while lying down on the “reformer” machine, which was actually just a bench with rollers and springs underneath. I also did some light exercise on the cross-trainer, treadmill and bicycle, which was quite enjoyable as what I see as a personal fitness programme.
Initially it was pretty tough to do the entire set, but as the sessions went by and the weights got increased little by little, within 3 sessions my pain was almost completely gone. With regular stretching and strengthening exercises at home, on top of the whole 9 sessions of physiotherapy took about 2-3 months to complete. As expensive as the parking charges were, it was totally worth the effort and definitely money well-spent (and thankfully I had insurance to cover this whole thing).
I could actually sit and get up without breaking out in cold sweat again. I could walk without getting numb again. I had almost forgotten how wonderful life is without pain, until I went through this whole ordeal. A newfound appreciation for exercise and proper posture as a compulsory lifestyle component was born, apart for slimming down purposes, of course.
The AfterMath:
I am still somewhat pain-free, apart from some mornings when I woke up with a stiff back. However, this is easily solved by some cat stretchesand some other stretches before I got out of bed to get to work.
The Bottomline (for me, at the very least):
1. Sit straight with proper back support. Stop the sloppy slumps on the couch!
2. Keep moving! Don’t sit for long hours. Get up and walk around and stretch every half an hour or so.
3. My therapist says “motion is the best lotion”, which is kind of cheesy, but in a good way.
4. Take Glucosamine to strengthen the joints and soft tissue.
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So, tell me. Do you like this Retchtro article from me? Or you’d rather I whine in shorter sentences?
