Private Jacuzzi

Last weekend
* At Mike's house, we enjoyed an afternoon till evening of Jacuzzi baths with Asahi - climbing out to have lunch, climbed back, and then out again to have - grapes - wine - apple strudel. I wanted the temperature of the water to be really hot @ 40 degrees (just like it is in Japan). The guys enjoyed it but of course not being used to 40 degrees in Singapore weather, they climbed out several times and rinsed themselves in cold water (like army style - simply using a thin long tube from a tap in the garden)

Eva- can you imagine this is what you missed out?!!

This week

* Singapore earthquake

On Tuesday morning, as I sat on my desk, and felt myself swaying from side to side, I thought I was fainting because I havent eaten enough, and adding to the high stress level. It was until a colleague shouted out "What happened, What did I do", that I turned my eyes away from my dual screens and realised everyone had a puzzled look on their faces.

Singapore was rocked by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Sumatra, Indonesia, 420km west of Singapore. I was shocked as I never felt as strong of an earthquake vibration in Tokyo for a year. When I experienced earthquake vibrations in Tokyo, we normally continued working on. However, this time in Singapore, it shocked eveyone - we could not help but wonder how quake-resistant are buildings in Singapore?

When the 2nd vibration happened, a colleague shouted out "This is serious, lets get out of the building". We immediately headed for the stairways and started running down 14 flight of stairs. It seemed like endless as we were all trying to dash down. At each level, more people would join in the stairway crowd. As I was running down in my heels (there was no time to stop to remove the heels), I still had the feeling that the building was swaying - it could have been an illusion - but a colleague did shout out - It feels like it is still swaying.

When we completed the marathon 14 flights - at level 1 someone shouted out "The Door is locked!". At that point, I shouted back to the crowd too, "The Door in front is locked!", so that the stairway crowd could retreat and find another exit. We all exited by the carpark instead. Not sure if this is at all the correct BCP procedure, but as we all walked out through the carpark, all of us were commenting - if this was a more serious emergency, we would probably all have been gone - and crashed at the basement carpark.

I also heard that the more elderly pantry ladies who didnt have the good fortune to run down the stairs, finally reached the 1st level only when the building was declared safe and we could return.

Luckily, nobody was hurt, and to-date no damage to buildings being announced.

Read something interesting today on the Desert Fathers:
Once there was a disciple of a Greek philosopher who was commanded by his Master for 3 yrs to give $ to everyone who insulted him. When this period of trial was over the Master said to him: now you can go to Athens and learn Wisdom. When the disciple was entering Athens he met a certain wise old man who sat at the gate insulting everybody who came and went. He also insulted the disciple, who burst out laughing. "Why do you laugh when I insult you?" said the wise man. Because, said the disciple, for 3 yrs I have been paying for this kind of thing and now you give it to me for nothing. "Enter the city, said the wise man, it is all yours..."