Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle goes to the Final in “Britain's Got Talent” 2009. Everyone including me will support her in the Final of the competition which will be held this Saturday, May 30th. If she wins this time, she will sing in front of Queen Elizabeth II.

Before Susan sang the song, “I Dreamed a Dream”, everybody in the Hall, especially the three judges, Piers, Amanda and Simon looked down at her. There was a 180-degree change when Susan began to sing. Her beautiful voice totally changed the faces of the judges and the audience. The three judges were amazed and stood up to give Susan a big applause.

This 48 year-old lady from Blackburn, Scotland has awaken the judges from discrimination on her age, dress and look as soon as she sang.

Piers said that Susan gave him the biggest surprise he had ever had and he remarked that Susan was like a “tiger”. “What a voice!” Piers added. Amanda was thrilled to hear such good singing by Susan.


In the Semifinal, Susan sang the tuneful song, “Memory”. The background was terrific. It shows the sky, the clouds and the first daylight from the sun. That fits the song, “……a new day has begun.”

Susan was asked if there was pressure on her. She replied in full confidence, “Fantastic. I enjoy myself every second.”

Locating buildings and structures

I found a photo of Singapore (top photo) on a newspaper last Saturday, May 23rd. Click the photo to enlarge it.

Since I am quite familiar with the buildings and structures in the location along the Singapore River (I was there in January, 2007) , I began matching photos of the buildings, bridges, things that I have seen with those in the above photo in the newspaper.

Can you match the photos of buildings or structures below with those in the top photo?

Here are short descriptions of buildings or structures I capture from my camera and a few from the Internet.

Photo 1 : Esplanade (Theatres On The Bay) – it looks like the prickly tropical fruit, Durian (榴槤).


Photo 2: Boat Quay (strip of walk lined with colourful stores and low houses).

Photo 3: Anderson Bridge (steel-made bridge for vehicles) linking Fullerton Road.











Photo 4: Cavenagh Bridge (a small bridge for pedestrians).

Photo 5: Elgin Bridge (a White bridge named after Governor General of India, Lord Elgin.










Photo 6: MITA Building (a 6-storey building, originally a police station and barracks, now the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts).

Photo 7: Suntec Tower Three and Four – 2 identical buildings appear in Rotation Symmetry.













Photo 8: Supreme Court – a Classic Dome-shaped building.

Photo 9: Raffles City Tower (a tall, round cylindrical building above opposite the City Hall MRT Station).











Photo 10: High Street Centre (looks like a black knight at the riverside) houses trading companies.

Photo 11: A yellow “DHL” balloon which goes up or down vertically, mainly for sight-seeing

Vung Tau

Away from its hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Vung Tau is a popular beach resort on the South China Sea Coast. It is a 120 km drive to get to Vung Tau, taking about two hours. Using hydrofoil, it will take an hour and a quarter to reach this beach town. The Vina and Petro Express hydrofoils depart and return to the city every couple of hours and cost about USD10 per journey.

Vung Tau is an ideal town for parties, sun-bathing, surfing, eating good food, drinking beer and travelling on boats. The nightlife is active in the Back Beach and the Mulberry beach.











Jesus Hill is located near the middle of this town. It is actually a hill with an enormous statue of Jesus at the top. This statue is visible from the rest of the town as it stands as tall as 32 metres. A long winding narrow staircase( see the last photo) leads visitors up to the top but the view from the secret windows near the arms is breathtaking.

New York City

These are the photos showing New York City.

Top photo:
Hudson River – This was where an U.S. plane had emergency landing owing to bird strike at its engines. Manhattan is on the right.

Second photo:
The suspending bridge at the far end is called George Washington Bridge (ranked 4th longest in U.S.) which links the Washington Heights to Fort Lee in New Jersey.

Third photo:
The tallest building on the left is the famous Empire State Building (102 storeys) which was completed in 1931. It stood as the world’s tallest building for more than 40 years.

Fourth photo:
The tallest building with the design of several inverted “U”s at its top is the Chrysler Building. It was the world’s tallest building for 11 months until Empire State Building's height surpassed it.

Weather Report (on rainy days)

Recently I am interested in knowing what cartoons will be on when the weather forecast is rainy on TV Weather Reports. Here comes several snapshots which I find from TV.

Yesterday morning I was able to take a few photos of the scenes of heavy rain outside. The rain fell not in sheets, but in bars. Do you believe me? Please watch closely at these “bars” of rain. Notice that these photos are not made by computer techniques.

Doppelmayr Gondola Ride

The Doppelmayr Gondola ride at Queenstown, New Zealand, was opened to the public in 1987.

Here are the details of this facility of delivering visitors to and from the top of the hill overlooking Queenstown, where they can relax and eat a good meal at the restaurant and take a bird-eye view of the beautiful town.

The cable size is 35 mm in diameter and its length is 1540 metres. The angle of inclination of the wire, in average, reaches 37.1 degrees. The base station of the Gondola is already 340 metres above sea level which means that it is already at mid-level when the ride starts. The top station is 790 metres above sea level. A simple subtraction gives us the answer that the vertical rise is 450 metres. The distance between the terminals is 730 metres (along the diagonal of a right-angled triangle). The travelling speed is variable to 3.5 metres per second. A rough estimate gives us the idea that each Gondola takes about 4 minutes to reach the top station from its base.

It is really interesting to compare the actual scenery below the top station of the Gondula with the coloured photo on a board at one of the railings at the top station.

Day and Night

On earth, we can only see either day becomes night or night becomes day, but not both. If we look at earth from space, we can see day and night at the same time. Here is an example. An American astronaut took a photo of our earth showing England, Wales, France, Spain and part of West Africa were flooded with daylight while a greater part of Europe such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and most of Africa were still in darkness.

The majority of people in the “waken” cities have started a new day of work while the majority of those in the “unwaken” cities are still sleeping. What a big difference in human activities has been created by “Day and Night”.

Tower Cranes can grow!

Without my wife's asking me to watch how a crane grows taller, I would never have experienced it in my life.

The construction of the extension block of the Prince of Wales Hospital has been in full swing over the past year and throughout this year. There are three tower cranes of different heights located at different corners of the building site.






Yesterday and today I witnessed how these self-assembling tower cranes, called “Kangaroo cranes”, could grow themselves. Let us first see how the farthest and the tallest crane grew.

(1) A “jack” (積) (the red coloured ones in all the photos but the yellow one in the second last photo) first crawled up the tower on rails powered by a motor on a platform to reach the turn-table from where the white cabin (inside which the crane operator was sitting) was hanging.

(2) Then the jack shouldered the whole crane at the turn-table and the top of the tower is detached from the turn-table.

(3) The jack went on moving up so that it left an empty room for a new section of the tower to be inserted.


(4) Meanwhile, another new section from the ground was lifted.

(5) Two brave men climbed onto the overhanging section and hooked this section onto a horizontal bar as a temporary support. Then they released the wire that was tied to the section and let go the “Hook” of the crane.

(6) Altogether four men pulled the section into the hole and fixed them in place by hammering in the necessary screws and fastened them with nuts.

(7) The process was repeated until three such sections had been fixed to the tower.
It is interesting indeed to see such a “growing” technique and I have learned a lesson on mechanical engineering.

Do you know why these cranes are called "Kangaroo" cranes? Think!

Sugus

The two recent Sugus Advertisements in TV has struck my mind.This morning I cannot resist the temptation of buying some home from a supermarket and so it is Sugus World today.

Sugus has long entered my mouth in my childhood because I like its sweetness and chewing feeling. On the contrary, I dislike those rocky sweets of fruit (冰糖似的果汁糖).

Sugus is different. It does not give me a sticky or sandy feeling. It just gives me the taste I want. These sweets are wrapped in coloured papers. I eat most at time of Chinese New Year.

Colour distribution: red for Strawberry, orange for Orange, purple for Blackcurrants, yellow for Lime,………..

The new flavour with Milk powder attracts my attention. The sweets are wrapped in light blue papers. Another new flavour is Melon Milk and the colour of the wrapping papers is still unknown to me at the moment. My wife does not choose it because she is a lime-lover.

Another good thing I can do with Sugus is to make up the name of my grand-daughter. Can you read her name from the arrangement of the Sugus “squares”?

Tim Tam

最近在電視某個廣告令我覺得好有趣的：「…...xx吋腰，我有；…….長長的腿，我有；……….，唯獨是美麗的牙齒，我無」。

今次我在香港某超級市場帶出同一口吻：「Tim Tam 朱古力，(澳洲有)，我哋(香港)有」。不過同樣250克Tim Tam 朱古力在澳洲以優惠價A$1.89 (即HK$11.2)出售，但是香港的飛躍價則是HK$27.6 -28.9)。原來這個「我有」是有代價的！

木棉樹下

今早路過附近街頭，「飄雪」奇景出現在一屋苑範圍內。一堆堆白色的毛毛鋪蓋在高矮不一、雜亂生長的植物上面。遠望它們像白雪，近看其實是木棉花。抬頭一看正是一棵高高的木棉樹藉著大風正在散播種子。啡色的果實在這個時刻自然爆開了，裏面的雪白的木棉帶備種子隨著風，自由地飄落在地上或被吹到更遠的地方生根。

Sculptures at Langham Place

There are beautiful Sculptures on 7th floor and Ground floor of the Hotel at Langham Place (朗豪坊). The one on 7th floor is of two Chinese women beating a small drum at each waist. The pose of these figures shows the movement of the swaying bodies and that of arms and legs. The shapes of thick arms and bodies are roughly rectangular and slightly curved.

There is one thing that this sculpture puzzled me. How can it stand when it is “top-heavy”? I guess the problem can be solved by making the base more “solid” and the upper parts more “hollow”. It is really a piece of outstanding art work.

The sculpture on the Ground Floor is even more enlightening to me. Two Chinese are wearing “Chung Shan Jong” (中山裝), raising their heads and shouting. How interesting it is that they are each holding a red book of Mao Zedong’s sayings (毛語錄) high in the air!

My Aces (5)

Yesterday was the wedding day of Lydia and Bernard. They are both students of CCSC.
I am really happy to see this young couple turn from lovers to husband and wife. Lydia Lai was a brilliant student whom I taught her Mathematics, probably when she was in Form 2 or 3. As far as I know, Lydia has become a medical doctor and she is serving us in our community.

For Bernard, I regret that I have not taught him before, but he proves himself a very smart student.

He joined our teaching force of CCSC in September 2004. He sat next to me and taught Mathematics too. We exchange conversation at times. He is really hard-working and corrects his students’ work in detail. From my observation, I am certain he is a good teacher and able to mobilize students to work best in Mathematics problems.

To my surprise, I found Rowena Lai sitting at the reception table when I arrived at Langham Place. I have been playing Lexulous (similar to Scrabble) with Rowena in Facebook recently but the game never ends because she is always busy with work. A question suddenly flashed across my mind. “Would Rowena be the sister of Lydia?”

My feet turned me back to the reception table. The answer was: Rowena is the elder sister of Lydia. I am never aware of this linkage of “sisters” until yesterday.

Rowena kept her promise she made at the reception table that she would come to talk with me in the midst of the dinner.

At one time, I went to the public convenience, returned and sat at my chair. I suddenly found Rowena sit beside me. How happy had I a chance to see and chat with her for a while instead of our playing “Lexulous” through computers for days and weeks for just a game.