I clearly remember how my mother and I used to queue up for water at the foot of our old HDB flat. It was a massive neighbourhood mobilisation. The housewives and their children queuing up at the tap – with all the containers they can find in their house. You see all types of water vessels – plastic pails, cooking pots, fish tanks and even big trash bags. It was quite a regular and normal "exercise" for the flat dwellers. No one’s complaining and there was no panic at the queue.

Back at home, mum would store all the water in the kitchen and the bathroom. She instructed me (very sternly) not to waste the water and from her tone, I can tell it was no joking matter. Water that was used to wash the vegetables was recycled to flush the toilet. I wasn’t allowed to use more than 1 cup per day. It was like one cup per person per day. Shower was a torture, slow and animated. The water was cold and I have to make sure my body foam doesn’t "pollute" the clean source. I tried not to use too much soap. Meals were taken using paper plates and disposable forks and spoons.

I hate "waterless" day. And for the last 15 years, I "escaped" the inconvenience of operating without the running tap. (i am either at school or at work!) Most of the time, the maintenance team carry out their jobs outside peak hours (during the quiet afternoon or wee hours). Water Ration Exercise? Nope.. hardly occur since we developed NEW WATER. 

Last Sunday, I woke up realising there was no water running from my tap. My first reaction to Felicia "Yo, did you forget to make payment again??" She said no. My next reaction "Okay, then we musta missed that damn notice!" Felicia called the estate office, they said there wasn’t any water maintenance on Sunday. Later, we found out that the main underground water pipe had burst – the entire estate was waterless!

"No water!!!" I exclaimed! "Then how? I need to sh*t!"

Felicia pointed downstairs – there was a mobile watertank truck and there was a queue of residents (in pyjamas) filling up water.

"Okay, let’s go down and queue," I sighed in desperation. Felicia shook her head and informed me that we didn’t have any pail at home. "NO PAILS!" I stormed to the kitchen, stared helplessly at the tiny pots and pans. The only decent container was our dirty trash bin! This was becoming an emergency!

I went to the bedroom, woke up Elkan and packed our bags with towels and clean clothes. "Wake up, Elkan. We are going to use the swimming pool shower room now! Quick… before the entire 3000 residents do that!"

We dashed downstairs, only to find out that a couple of residents were doing just that. We arrived at the pool’s shower room. Smart ass, NOT A DROP of water. Stupidly, the group of people left the room – you can feel their disappointment. On the way out, we saw streams of people walking toward the shower room with pails and pots. Yeah, desperate minds think alike.

I came back. Felicia bought lunch. Elkan was happy. He hated shower anyway. 

In the middle of lunch, I yelled "I know! Let’s check in a cheap hotel today!!! Yeah!" Tracy and Felicia gave me "that look". Okay, it was a bad idea.

Just then, Scott called me for lunch. An evil thought came to my mind.

"Hey Scott! We haven’t been to your new apartment! Tell you what, ALL OF US will be there in an hour’s time! And I am sure you don’t mind if we use your bathroom, right?" What a house-warming for Scott. 4 of us took turns to shower at his nice condo at WanChai.

Yeah. Finally, I got to shower, sh*t in peace and gel my hair. I never felt so satisfied. For this record, I don’t miss the kampong days.

(Photo Taken: 1st July – Today is Hong Kong’s 12th Handover Day to China – an important public holiday here. The weather was great and we decided to spend our day-off at Stanley Beach. We returned home at 5pm and headed down to our condo swimming pool for Round II! What a healthy day!)

Something that will put a smile on my parents, my in-laws and my aunt amy’s face. Yesterday morning at 10am, we attended Elkan’s 2nd Award Ceremony in Hong Kong. And this time, it was held at HK Polyechnic University at Hung Hom. (My gosh! At the University????) Wow, it was more "dramatic and grand" than I have expected. Earlier this week, I thought the kindergarden award will be presented at his school.

Big stage, red curtains and a marvellous performance by the little kids – this is the kind of award ceremony venue we been through when we picked up our degree scrolls. My gosh, it was a grand gala for these little ones. They can sing, dance and even addresse the audience. I would say, what an interesting Sat morning!

There were 5 awards (Most Cheerful, Most Artistic, Most Helpful, Most Well-Mannered and Best Progress) for every level (K1 – K3). Haaa.. my son didn’t get the artistic award. Instead, Elkan won the "Most Cheerful Award" in his course. Guess his teacher is pretty positive about his noisy pranks and talkative-behaviour. If only my teachers were that positive, I would have swept those trophies for my folks every year. Yeah…My son beat his old man’s record. I brought home my first gold trophy when I was nine. Proudly, he brought back 2 this year.

Yesterday was David Ogilvy’s birthday (23rd June 1911). If he is still around today, he would be 98 years old! He was a notable advertising executive. He was into many odd-jobs before he founded his company at 38. He was a chef, a farmer and a stove-salesman. And today, he was worshipped as the Legend of Advertising, "The Father of Advertising"! He passed away on 21st July 1999.

Of course, like most Ogilvy Day, we have our event outside the office. No pressure from the company this year, there isn’t any type of "mandatory team-building games" (last year, we saw broken arms at Outward Bound). This year’s theme is "Ogilvy’s Got Talent" – we are trying to find our own Susan Boyle. 2 years ago, we had the "Amazing Race" theme in Shanghai and my team came first. I say let’s bring on the THE OGILVY’S NEXT TOP MODEL or WHO WANTS TO BE THE WPP’s MIILIONAIRE? games next year.

Like any company dinner, we have great food, good entertainment and big big lucky draw. And yes! Lucky me – I won the 27th Prize! And it is a "SKATEBOARD CHAIR". What the hell was that???? For the first time, I have no idea what I won! Mmmm.. it sounded too alien for me. (I collected my prize this afternoon and I understand why it was named this way… see photo below!)

(2) WAITING AT GROUND ZERO – All of us couldn’t wait to see them fall…

(3) NOT "LADIES FIRST" – Harshad came down with his eyes closed!!!

(4) TOO FAST FOR ANY SCREAM – Tracy only screamed after she landed. Retard.

The jumps were successful…no one pee in their pants! The only one incident that nearly had Harshad shitting in his pants was when he found out that Hong Fei left his bag (with money and passport) at ground zero!!! Hong Fei was supposed to safekeep Harshad’s bag but he left it out there in the plaza (and we simply left the place for about 30 minutes!) It was only seconds before we board the cab, Harshad realised he wasnt holding any bag! That must be a "ball-dropping" moment for everyone! "Oh no… my passport is in the bag!" exclaimed my indian friend. Tracy, Harshad and me ran back to the plaza (Thank goodness! we saw his black bag lying on the concrete floor out in the sun!)

Later the evening, we headed to Venetian Casino where we spent 4 hours dining and gambling… Except for the Singaporeans, this was the group’s first visit to the Venetian. And our first ever bet on the tables at the Macau Casino! We were winning at first but eventually we lost to our own greed! Guess we cannot accept winning. We only quitted when we lost. No pain… it’s still a great adventurous day!