Remember my friend Alex? I’ve been trying to get that lazy ass to come visit me in KL some time so I can take him around. All that he needs to do is buy an air ticket. That’s it! He can stay with me and the food here in KL is really cheap (well compared to London and if you eat hawker food). The man comes up with all the excuses in the world NOT to come.

Well I made a bet with him not long ago. It was for the World Cup match between Germany and Spain. I was rooting for Germany and he for Spain. So we decided to place a little wager. The bet was… if Germany beat Spain, he will (sometime in the next 12 months) fly down to KL and buy me diner. On the other hand, if Spain won then I will fly to London and buy him dinner there.

I thought I was going to win for sure but I guess we now know the real results.

SAD… SAD I TELL YOU! Now I have to make a trip to London some time in the next 12 months. Not to complain or anything… I love London! But after going to New York this year, My Hello Kitty and I kinda decided that we’re not going to go for any more holidays until next year because we need to save.

If we do manage to save up enough money to go somewhere next year, we were hoping to go to San Francisco or something. So now I have to give up San Francisco or somehow eat enough High Five bread to save enough money to go for both London and San Francisco (very unlikely though).

Or the alternative is that… I don’t go to London and I hope that Alex forgets about that little bet. What do you think are the odds that might happen? I mean he’s been so busy lately anyway helping his musician brother gain fame? Oh did I ever mention that? Alex’s younger brother is a musician who’s going to LA to become a star! You can check out his site here.

Back to the subject though… so…. what are the odds that Alex will forget. Pretty high right?

Not long ago I met someone whom I thought portrayed the word “determination” in its truest meaning. His name is Kingston.

Kingston is from Seremban. His father was a construction worker and his mother a housewife. Growing up from a poor childhood, Kingston made it his ambition to get out of this poverty trap and the only way he thought he could do that was to make sure he got a good education. So when he was 18 or 19, he applied for the London School of Economics and he got accepted. Getting accepted though was only half the battle. The other half was getting the money to go there.

Kingston knew that his father wouldn’t be able to afford sending him there so all he asked for was a one-way air ticket to London. He would figure the rest out on his own. After some thought, his father borrowed some money to buy him an air ticket and pay for his first year tuition fees. Expenses for accommodation and food and everything else would have to be taken care of by Kingston himself when he was there.

So Kingston flew to London and started his tertiary education. During the day he would attend classes and when he was not studying or attending lectures, he would be working part-time jobs to earn money. He did everything from waitering in Chinese restaurants there to … well.. everything! Every penny went to paying his rent and buying him the most simple food that anyone could survive on. He told me that summer holidays were the best for him since there were no classes. He could then spend more time studying whatever they were going to teach in classes the next year.

When the summer holidays of first year neared its end, along came second year and its heavy tuition fees. Tuition fees each year was around GBP10,000 and Kingston knew there was no way he could ask his father for more money when the previous lenders back home were already constantly knocking on the father’s door. So he did some research and he went to see the Chancellor of the university with a proposal.

His proposal: That he knew average marks of its students mattered to the university for it to place well in the UK university rankings, so Kingston tried to make a deal with the university that if he scored an average of 95 marks for all his subjects in the second year, they would waive his tuition fees. The Chancellor said NO deal.

Kingston knew that he couldn’t just accept that. So every day for weeks, he went to sit outside the Chancellor’s office to ask him to please give him that chance. After many many weeks the Chancellor finally asked Kingston to come into his office and explain what was really going on. Kingston explained his side of the story and the Chancellor decided to waive his fees if he hit an average of 95.

Kingston spend the next academic year studying really hard while juggling with his part-time jobs to earn his living. At the end of second year, he had done it. An average of 95… so the university waived his fees. He then went back to them with the same deal for 3rd year’s tuition fees but this time they said they won’t be able to simply waive it. What they could do though was offer him a grant if he achieved the same result. He took it and kept up with his word.

Kingston graduated from LSE not just with 1st Class Honours but literally one of the top people in his year. After that he came back and found a job in banking in Singapore. Since then he has worked his way up to being a multi-millionaire and today he is based in Hong Kong as a Director at one of the top multinational investment banks in the world. He’s also happily married to a nice lady named Aileen. His marriage to her is a whole other story altogether…. but it ended up with them getting married in Las Vegas.

That’s right.. in Little White Chapel, where Britney got married. This is the video of it.

They had an Elvis impersonator to walk Eileen down the aisle. Today they also have a cute little boy that completed their happy family.

His name is Ryan and Aileen keeps a blog now for him. You can check it out here.

So that my friend, is just a bit of the amazing story behind Kingston.

Update: I just learned from Kingston that I got a part of the story wrong. The deal with the Chancellor wasn’t to get an average 95 but to get 4 distinctions. Big difference between the two but still quite something to achieve. Sorry for the mistake guys.

I just started trying to blog something happy or funny that happened to me lately. I tried and I tried… but I gave up. Today I am taking a break. Today I am not going to hide my mood or my feelings and I’m going to blog however I feel. Yes it’s true…. I’m not always as bubbly or as happy as I appear on the outside. On the inside, there are times when I get really really bogged down with work and thoughts of work.

Many people have asked me if I work long hours and I often don’t really know how to answer that. When Nuffnang first started out 3 years ago with a staff count of 4, I worked many many hours on doing things since I had to do everything myself then. Today the whole Netccentric Group has about 60 full-time staff and there are structures and systems in place so that takes a load off me. I don’t work tediously anymore…. but I feel I work a lot harder mentally. I don’t know how to explain it but I’m going to try. These days I don’t stay in the office till really late. I wake up early in the morning, go to the gym and by the time I reach the office, most of the Nuffies are already there. I leave often after a lot of them leave but I’m hardly the last person to leave the office.

When I leave the office though, work doesn’t stop for me. In the car on the way to pick my girlfriend up for dinner, I’m talking on the phone about work. When I’m in the shower at home later in the night, I’m thinking about work and before I sleep I’m thinking about work. Heck sometimes I think about it so much that I have trouble sleeping. It just dawned on me today that 70% of the dreams I remember having were of work. Can you imagine that? I don’t dream about unicorns, or flying in the sky or rainbows.. I dream about work. What kind of “work thoughts” do I really have though? Well some of them of excitement… you know that we’ll be doing new things or coming up with new ways to solve problems. Some of them though are of stress and worry. Ming and I both admitted to each other once that whenever we checked our emails our hearts would always beat a little bit faster for fear that an e-mail might come about something bad that happened in the company and we would have to go put the “fire” out.

Back then when we had 4 staff, things were a lot more lighter. We had less things to worry about. Less costs, less problems… and people kind of expected a little less from us and were certainly more forgiving of any mistakes we made. Today, our standards have gone up soo much higher. I mean even if you compare our Powerpoint Presentations from 3 years ago to now, you would see leaps and bounds of difference in standard. Before it used to be okay to make one or two small mistakes. Now even the smallest mistakes are unacceptable.

Back then when we were a growing company, we had so many things we knew we had to improve on and they were easy to act on. Now it seems we’ve picked all the lower hanging fruit and whatever else we need to change for the better takes not only time but effort and resolve. There is also so much more at stake. Before I used to tell myself that if we failed, I would just go back to finding a job. Today if we fail, 60 full-time staff who earn a living from the company Ming and I started will lose their jobs and their lifestyles. 60 people that are the best people we could ever want and 60 people whom we all love!

So my head really feels a lot heavier these days which is why sometimes I wish I could just escape for a while and go for a holiday but even then I grow tired of because I already travel so much for work. It’s true… the grass is always greener on the other side. Some people I know wish they could be doing their own business and all but believe it or not, sometimes when my head is heavy with all these thoughts I think about how it would be like if I was just working for another good company. The worst that can happen if I make a mistake is I get fired and I find another job.

Whenever I run into a lot of stress though I think of what Donald Trump once said… that whenever he was faced with any major problems, he thought of the bigger problems of the world: People in Africa starving or people who’re suffering from the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. it was when he thought about these bigger problems of the world did he then realize how small his problem is. I do that… and it actually does help put things in perspective for me. I don’t just stop there. I then count my blessings. The good people I have around me, the fact that I can have food on the table every day… and I have a job that while very stressful at times is the thing I really really love doing for now.

I feel better already…. thank you blog!

The latest thing to hit our Singapore and Malaysian offices are the silliest toys of all: Nerf Guns! Nerf Guns are little plastic toy guns that shoot these kind of soft bullets. Getting shot by one doesn’t hurt at all but it’s the anticipation of being shot that scares you.

It all started when Ming and I were in Melbourne. He saw this little toy Nerf Gun and bought a few home to shoot some people in the office. I guess he ended up getting shot by that same little potato shooter so he ended up going to a toy store and buying A LOT of Nerf Guns. It got serious.

We heard about all that action over here in Malaysia and thought… hey why not? We’re always in for fun little things like that to keep the office from getting too serious. So I dropped by Toysrus the other day to pick up this little buddy!

“The Claww!!!!! *points*

And ended up falling into temptation and buying some Nerf guns for the office.

I bought 6 of these hand guns too.

And one of these big ones for myself.

Shortly after… and with little supervision… a war ensued…  A WAR I TELL YOU!

Everyone started shooting everyone else in the office.

The office would be quiet with everyone doing work and all of a sudden you hear someone scream after being shot by these guns.

It is only then that you realize what guns do to a community. It gives power even to the physically weaker. Like Jestina here who always get bullied by people ended up bullying Nicholas just because she managed to get her hand on one of these guns.

People surrender after being cornered also no use. She takes no prisoners. This is her about to take a shot for Nicholas’ balls.

Even Sara who is normally very quiet in the office and normally gets bullied ended up being a bully herself when she got herself one of the guns.

See her evil laugh! Both Jacqueline and her, shooting other people.

Of course sometimes the tables can turn. When Nicholas got his gun he started to fight back.

Karen who was on MC that day felt like she was missing out so she insisted we webcammed her so she could see the ongoing Nerf Battle in the office.

It’s been about 1-2 weeks since the Nerf guns in the office and we still have been playing it every day. In fact now almost everyone keeps a loaded one by his/her table side just in case a war breaks out in the middle of the day. Paranoid la everyone!

My next goal.. is to get one of these. Yeah baby…. then I will TAKE EM ALL!!!

It’s called the Nerf Vulcan. It shoots Ming already has one in Singapore and nobody fuks with a man with the Rambo gun. Maybe we should make it company policy to have some Nerf Guns in the office even in our offices in Australia and Philippines. After all, KL and Singapore’s offices are already armed up.

Remember when I said that I won’t be getting an iPad yet until I see more and more people using it and learn what they use it for? Well I ended up getting one in the end. Not for me but for my parents.

You see I thought about it. My Dad is really tech savvy so he’s really comfortable with the computer. My mum on the other hand isn’t. She does check e-mail and surf the net and all but it pains me to see her struggle with it sometimes. For us who use the computer every day, it’s like a second nature. Start up the computer, start up the browser and then we go in.

For my mum, she waits for the computer to start up, then spend a few seconds looking for the Internet Explorer icon. Then she sometimes runs into some problems… like the wifi from the laptop I bought her for her birthday a year ago sometimes has trouble connecting to the wifi network. I mean we ourselves sometimes find it hard to troubleshoot wifi connectivity problems… I can only imagine the pain my mum goes through.

I thought the iPad though would help her solve all that problem. She can just sit on the couch and start up a browser straight away to surf the net. She can also check her mail just by a touch of the screen. Not only that she doesn’t have to lift up her glasses and lean close to the monitor to read the tiny fonts sometimes, all she has to do is just pinch the screen outwards for the words to enlarge for her.

For that I thought it was a perfect gift! When I told my parents that I was buying them an iPad, they told me not to “waste money”. You know parents being parents.. always want you to save whatever money you have for yourself to buy your home or your car.. or for your childrens’ education in the future. They both didn’t see any need for it though. My Dad on the other hand ironically seems to get into all the Apple hype and wants whatever is new. Like when I was in the US he told me to look out for any iPads for him. Then just a few weeks ago when I told him I was going to get him an iPad he said he didn’t want one anymore. Instead he wanted an iPhone 4. Haha!

So when I wanted to buy them an iPad he said “No no.. why not you just buy mum an iPhone 4”.

I guess in the future I might buy her a new phone when I save enough money to but when I look at it right now, my mum does have an iPhone ( albeit a really old one), and she tries hard to read emails from that iPhone. The iPad offers her that lifestyle change: To be able to read her e-mails comfortable on her couch. As Ming always likes to say “Apple doesn’t really sell cutting-edge technology, they sell lifestyles!”.

I still haven’t had the chance to give it to them yet because they haven’t made a trip down to KL yet… so I don’t know if they’ll like it. In the mean time, I’ve been playing around with it and installing some stuff on it that I think they’d want.

When Kitteh and Angela were watching Bucket List the other day, I brought it down to the living room and sat on the couch to read some news.

I thought it was okay for a while and one thing about the iPad is that the flashy OS really really gives you a very good first impression. Really makes you wow. But over extended periods of time I began to feel a little bit uncomfortable surfing the net or doing stuff in whatever position I was in.

Basically the only position that I felt comfortable in was when I was laying back on the couch in the previous picture. Anything else made me pretty uncomfortable. Even laying it flat on a flat surface. Really painful after some long hours.

Also I found it slow in moving between browser tabs and a bit frustrating that it was hard for me to multi-task. Can’t chat on MSN and surf the web at the same time too well.

By the time I got back to my laptop later in the night, it felt really good to be back to the familiar. I Googled around to see if anyone else found it difficult to get into the right positions and found a number of sites that mentioned how the iPad can be ergonomically bad for you. Bad for your posture.

Overall though I still think it’s one of those devices that I may not find an immediate use for but… I won’t mind having anyway. It’s really more for fun than a necessity (although some people tell me they use it for presentations in meetings and other work stuff which is cool) but then again so are so many other things we buy. I won’t mind having one of my own one day for the sake of having one… because I’m such a big geek. I hope my parents like it though. I guess we’ll find out soon.

Yesterday evening I picked up a very excited Kitteh from work and headed to KLIA. Her best friend Angela was visiting KL for the first time! If you don’t know Angela from reading Kitteh’s blog, this is Angela… and Kitteh of course.

Since Angela is like … Kitteh’s best friend, I decided to put together a little surprise for them. I told Kitteh that after we picked Angela up from the airport, I was going to take them for a mystery surprise. Boss Lepton decided to come along with me. After their hugs and kisses from not seeing each other for like 1-2 months since Kitteh was last in the US, we had a quick McDs dinner and then we headed off to the surprise. All the way, Kitteh was trying to guess what it was but Boss Lepton and I were quiet about it. Kitteh asked me for clues and then I joked with her that maybe I was taking them on a helicopter ride to see the KL Skyline… her eyes lit up and she asked “OH REALLY?!?!”. Sensing the expectation I had just set, I quickly said

“EH EH EH !!! JOKING ONLY! I can’t afford a friggin helicopter ride wei! Don’t have such high expectations ok? It’s something simple and small”.

The surprise in the end though was concert tickets to watch Usher. They were both happy. Angela said she felt really “happening“… how she had just arrived in KL and immediately went for an Usher concert. Usher was great! What a performer!

On the Saturday of our Nuffies LDR, we all started off with Klang BKT! Yes.. it was worth the 45 minute drive there and even the Singaporeans agreed!

BKT in Malaysia is really different from the BKT they have in Singapore. It’s not something we can compare though, because they’re really two different things. Malaysia is more herbal suit based whereas Singapore’s is more peppery. I like both to be honest.

We ended up taking 4 tables at the BKT store and they were broken down to “healthy” tables that ordered less fatty meat and “fatty” table that intentionally went all out for the most fat meat possible.

I was at the “healthy” table but this is the unhealthy table that ate enough fat they could float in a swimming pool effortlessly.

Or was it this one.

See all so skinny! Where is the fairness!

This was the Blackberry table where everyone was busy talking about their BBs the whole time.

After brunch we headed over to 1-U.

and the guys and girls split up for the first time all trip.

The girls went for manicure and to do all the girly stuff.

+

The guys on the other hand… went for FUTSAL at 1-U Rooftop. It’s basically indoor football where you play football in a small court covered with netting so the ball never goes out.

We were inspired to play … from all the World Cup hype.

That is me kicking a ball.

Good or not? Good or not? Wahlau!

Haha ok the truth is… I was totally posing for that shot. I didn’t actually even hit the ball with my foot at all. All the guys there except 2 of us hardly play. The last time I myself played football was like 7 years ago… and before that it was like back in primary school or something. It’s only after trying to play that I realized again how hard football really is.

It’s really tiring too. For the next few days after the match we were all aching in pain from every part of our bodies. Even when I was in the gym this morning jogging on the treadmill I felt my back hurt a little. That’s how unfit I am these days! I learned that having laser tag on one day and futsal right the next day was a bit too extreme for my weak unfit self.

After futsal we all went back to shower and met up again with the girls. The plan was to go for Karaoke but seeing how all the guys were aching everywhere we made a last minute change of plan to just go to my place and chill. We bought satay, ordered Pizza and we were going to play charades or something but everyone in the end got hooked to watching Heavy Rain so we ended up doing that until the World Cup match started.

They were so hooked to the murder mystery game (Heavy Rain) that Rina who had to leave early called Yuen Yee later on to find out who the killer was. After Heavy Rain though we all decided to watch the World Cup match. It was then that we all watched Germany massacre Argentina! Hey I was supporting Germany and all but I really really didn’t expect 4-0… I mean they were playing Argentina man! Not just any weak team! I was happy but most of the Nuffies were sad. I think 70% of them there that night supported Argentina.

Throughout the whole night though was the time everybody really got to know one another. I saw a number of the Malaysian Nuffies talking to some of the Singaporean Nuffies for the first time … like not just casual talk but…. deep deeep talk. I’m sure they were exchanging boyfriend stories and all that!

The next morning we all went for our last brunch before the Singaporeans headed back to Singapore. This time we took them for Dim Sum. FRIGGING POWER LA THIS DIM SUM.

Raine here was like an eating monster there.

She ended up ordering some 4-5 helpings of Siew Mai although she later admitted to eating none of them because she was too busy eating everything else. The food was all finished by the end of the brunch though. Then right after brunch, the Malaysian Nuffies had prepared a small little surprise for them.

Sara kept it all in a shoebox.

Inside the shoebox were these little “flowers” made out of straw, ribbon and a post-it note. Each note had a name of a Nuffie on it and also a little mention about something we learned about that Nuffie on the trip.

I thought it was a nice touch. Especially since the Malaysian Nuffies had to find some time over the busy weekend to write the notes from whatever they learned about the Singaporean Nuffies that weekend.

Then came the time to say goodbye.

Both the Malaysians and Singaporean Nuffies, many of whom had just met that weekend gave each other a long goodbye hug.

It was almost as if you were watching old friends for many many years hug goodbye.

Lots of goodbye kisses went around too.

I asked the Singaporeans in the end what they loved the most about the trip.

Some of them said laser-tag, some said dim sum but most of them loved the nice casual chill-out night at my place where they really got to know each other. They all had fun that weekend and I gotta give credit to the Malaysian Nuffies for putting it all together.

The Singaporean Nuffies are already talking about an #LDR Part 2, where they would invite and host the Malaysians down in Singapore. Maybe one day we can do one for the Nuffies in Philippines and Australia too.

You guys remember the Nuffie LDR that we did last week right? Well this weekend is the weekend that the Singaporean Nuffies come down to have some fun with the Malaysian Nuffies. Some of the Nuffies couldn’t make it but we ended up with a good mix of colleagues from Nuffnang, ChurpChurp and JPB. It all started with stand-up comedy when they arrived on Thursday night. That Thursday night happened to be Timeout’s monthly stand-up comedy night at Zouk and it was something that My Hello Kitty and I made a point to go every month.

This month though, Jenhan was performing so we went to lend our support.

Jenhan was as usual… top class!

The other comedians were all great too. Rudy from Mix.fm, Rizal 1, Rizal 2 and Jeremiah! They were all really fun to watch.

Here’s some of the Singaporean Nuffies having fun

From the left: Shan, Raine and Eliza.

We had lots of drinks going around too.

and as always, booze always helped the mood!

See how happy people are after booze?

The next morning was a Friday so we went into the office as usual. Some of the Malaysian Nuffies had some work to finish up and we wanted to show the newer Singaporean Nuffies where we work.

It’s always been a long-running competition on whether KL or Singapore office is nicer. Both have game consoles, both have coffee machines, both have TVs… only difference is that the Singaporean office has tatami beds for the Nuffies there who sleep over. Really… some of the Nuffies there even end up staying in the office for a week there. Just working, playing and hanging out with the rest.

In the afternoon though we decided to close the office for an afternoon out together. We went for lunch at Sri Melaka at 1-Utama taking up some 4 tables there.

Here’s some pictures I managed to take.

Then after lunch we all walked into Bandar Utama Park next door for an afternoon of… LASER TAG!!!

Laser tag is something I just recently discovered. It’s sort of like paintball but instead you wear these sensors on you and shoot each other and you can do so from far far away with these sensor guns.

So unlike paintball, the area you can play on is a lot bigger so the game goes a lot slower than paintball sometimes. Best part though is that you don’t end up with bruises everywhere.

If you’ve been hit enough times, you “die” and your gun can’t shoot at anyone anymore. Then what happens is that you have to take the “walk of shame” back to base and wait for the rest of the remaining people to fight it out. This is Jestina and Yuen Yee taking the “walk of shame” back.

By right people who “Die” are supposed to go back to the waiting booth and just keep quiet but that didn’t happen for us of course. Everyone was so competitive people were shouting the location of everyone else. Like when the people from the other team who died saw Elise hiding unsuccessfully behind this tree they shouted

“ELISE IS HIDING BEHIND THAT SMALL TREE! SHE THINKS SHE’S DAMN SKINNY!’

I mean… normal people like Jestina here choose to hide behind pillars

but Elise the champion decided to choose that small little tree that could barely cover anything. Eventually when she realized that it was like an elephant hiding behind a coconut tree, she decided to move.

I shouted along of course and Elise later at the end of the game came to me and wagged her finger at me

“Don’t think I didn’t hear what you said Tim!!!”

I don’t have much to brag about about finding cover to be honest. I happened to choose to wear a bright red t-shirt on that day so I stood out like a flippin bullseye wherever I went and nobody what bushes I tried to hide behind.

All of us split into 4 teams… some 8 per team (I think) and we played a little competition among ourselves. My team was one man short so to fill the gap, one of the marshalls joined our team to play with us (an unfair advantage for the rest but who’s counting haha!). We ended up going into the finals against another team that had Shun Yau, David, Michelle etc etc. They were strong though. The round before they had beaten the other team without even losing one team mate. They were feeling like World Cup champions!

So we were the underdogs and they were damn action also lor! When we were discussing strategy David shouted out over to our side
“Are you guys planning how to lose?”

The time came for the final battle and we all played out our strategy. Basically it was to camp first until we kill off the few of them who we expected to rush. Then we split into two teams. One team will attack from the front and the other will go all the way behind them and take them from behind.

It worked and we won!

We  went back gloating to the other team who were all sooo overconfident before. After the little competition we played some other matches. The girls for some reason insisted that they play a Guys Vs Girls match…. we thought it wasn’t fair but they had all that girl power thing going for them so we said okay.

The guys were all damn overconfident though. When we were talking about strategy we decided
“Ah don’t need strategy lar.. just free play. We sure win wan!”

The girls though had a lot of strategy going on for them. 8 of them were playing whereas the remaining girls were just resting. But to confuse us, they arranged for the girls who were not playing to pretend to run around to distract us while the rest of the girls tried to pick us off.

Eventually the guys still won though. Hehe… I thought it would’ve been a good moral lesson if we had lost though. Teaches us for being overconfident and not preparing at all.

By the end of 3 hours of playing we were all smashed!

We left the park there and went for dinner at SS2 Square where we managed to get a table that fit us all.

The next day we would all wake up with cramps and pain all over our bodies… but it was nevertheless a great day.

Here’s a group picture we took doing the Nuffnang pose (missing a few of the Nuffies who had to leave earlier).

When My Hello Kitty and I were in New York, Carol told us that we had to go to this “Alice in Wonderland” themed cafe called “Alice’s Tea Cup”. It was on a really quiet street off a main street and was this little shop with a pink frontage. In spite of it’s colour, it was quite easy to miss. We would’ve missed it if it wasn’t for the group of people lining up outside to get in.

Alice’s Tea Cup was really quaint and small. This was all the tables it had downstairs

and I suspect there’s a function room upstairs or something. They served all sorts tea time pastries, cakes and all sorts of tea. I have never in my life seen so many types of tea before!

The pastries too were really really nice!

And the salmon sandwich that My Hello Kitty ordered (a natural choice since Kitties love fish) WAS DELICIOUS!

Halfway through our afternoon tea, My Hello Kitty suddenly commented that she wished she could open a cafe like that back home in KL. I was surprised… my dream was always that the woman I marry work in a full time job because I have chosen a really risky career path. In business, things can go well one day and turn badly another day. So I always wanted to have a wife that worked so that no matter what happens at least one person would still be contributing to the household income.

I hope that eventually though, if I earn enough money she could spend her time instead on doing social/charity work and pursuing her other interests. For some reason I always thought that she was the kind of person that would like to open a florist or something one day but now that I think about it, I was wrong. My Hello Kitty doesn’t like flowers… (she likes fish remember? haha).

Throughout her munching of the sandwich and sipping of the tea we were drinking she kept looking around her and paying attention to the details of the cafe.

Small small things like even how they decorated the stairs with this magical butterfly.

Or how they have cute little signs like this with reference to Alice in Wonderland.

Finally I suggested to her that if she really wanted to open it, I would invest in it. She was excited for a while but that excitement quickly went into fear. Fear that she’s responsible for other people’s money all of a sudden and fear or losing it. After all, whatever money we invest in it will probably be really significant for me… considering how little money I have in the first place. What was more important though was that in a rare moment I learned of a dream of hers. You know how we all work full-time jobs to earn a living… some of us love our jobs… some are ok with it and some don’t like our jobs at all. Either ways we all sometimes dream of doing something else with our lives one day.. opening a seafood restaurant, doing social work, traveling around the world…. something.

I’m lucky because my dream happens to be what I’m already doing right now.

Perhaps in a later point of my life my dream is to be in property since I’ve learned that I enjoy building things.Seeing how things grow. Lego was like my favourite toy growing up! I don’t necessarily mean huge big time property development. Even if it’s a small thing… like buying a piece of land, putting lots of effort into building a nice home on it and selling it.

The closest I got to wanting to open a cafe or restaurant is a steamboat restaurant! Haha I know I know.. my dreams damn Chinaman right?

My restaurant though will be more straight to the point… just like this one.

It’s called EAT HERE NOW! What a brilliant restaurant… really made me want to eat there right there and then. Then again I’m a sucker for advertising.

Either ways, I’ve learned that there’s a place and time for everything and the time for our dreams to come will come one day.

One day I hope My Hello Kitty can realize her dream too. I can just imagine her now in that small pink “Alice in Wonderland” cafe. She looks happy.

What is your dream ?