ChengDu Visit 2006

With a plethora of bank accounts spread over 3 currencies and 3 countries (MY, SG, US) I’ve decided to start investing time in portfolio productivity tools. Eventually it boiled down to price ($0) considerations when I chose MS Money (cheong1 version). See what it can show you after you’ve invested like 6 hours finding and keying in all the information about one’s assets and liabilities:


I just started reworking on my resume too. I mean the long story version. It has been sitting my website for 4 donkey years but so far it has been a wealth of information of myself for myself (yes – myself – coz I forgot what I did…) Check it out:

http://www.jiinjoo.com/plug.php?dir=home&page=resume

Hmm… Awards stopped for 4 years already – need to cook up something really soon. Perhaps Singapore Idol might help…

Just left all my savings for the car a few days back. With the car sitting at Ubi, who ain’t anxious? Hint it’s silver in colour woohoo!

Only 8 people done it: http://kevan.org/johari?name=jiinjoo do la…


Chengdu 2006 (成都)

Second trip to China in a month – Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan 四川 province, totally blows my mind. Let me quote some of the exclamations from the locals (erm I mean the S’poreans and M’sians I met there): Chengdu is a place you won’t want to leave after you come. It was mostly a farming backwater in 2002, and suddenly in 4 years transformed itself into more than an IT hub, but an extremely vibrant city, an extremely attractive alternative for many people from the inland to go seek their fortunes instead of going to the overcrowded coastal cities.

So SCS China is in the 天府软件园 (Tianfu Software Park) south of the city. First we saw B6, thinking it was building B, 6th floor.. But then the address says B6, 6th floor, which would have been redundant. Later we found out that it was area B, building 6, level 6… The tech park is huge! To walk from one end to another end is like 15 minutes, somewhat the size of CMU, and that’s one of the numerous tech parks in that new high tech area situated on the circumference of the city.

Jeremy and I planned to go there some time ago and it has only recently materialized. We did many things apart from work, e.g. watched 变脸 (this show where the face of the actor changes in split second), went to 洗脚 (100 minutes of washing and massaging for RMB 45), went to Modz, a Singaporean businessman’s pub, saw Panda at their nursery (Sichuan has most of the Pandas in the world, with hundreds of them when only less tan 1000 Pandas existsing the world), and went for lots of good meals, including one at our host (Ying Zhi)’s adobe.

One surprise was that I was scheduled to give a talk about something technology and something IT career at on of the most prestigious university there: 电子科技大学 just 2 days before the journey. Fortunately they gave the green light to speak English – no I can’t present in Mandarin just yet, definitely not tech talks.

Me at the poster outside after the presentation

It was very short a stay (wednesday to saturday), but it was well worth it. But I think I’m still not done with the rest of the Asian destinations yet – I wonder where I’ll be next?


If you’re bored the following month, I’m performing in two concerts: Opera on Silver Screen by Singapore Lyric Opera on the 13 and 14 of Oct, and From Linz to Leningrad by The Philharmonic Orchestra (formally Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra) on 29th of Oct.

Otherwise, I might be cooking some Sichuan dishes  stay tuned!

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