Alan Goh's visit

Alan visited a couple of weeks ago and we had a chance to meet up for lunch and dinner. We don't eat out much to save money, so when people come, we take the opportunity to enjoy some good restaurant food.

Lunch at Banana Island - Singapore, Malaysian, Thai restaurant


Nathan smiling


Li Soon enjoying lunch


Matthew and Harry


Alan enjoying his Prata


Alan and his sea urchin at dinner in Japanese Restaurant


Close ups of the food
Sashimi!!

Lighting training pictures

Chinese New Year with the 2 Low families

With Wing Kong's Family, Kok Leong and YY at the Banana Island Singapore restaurant on the 15th day of CNY 2006.










View of the studio from my office


Me at my desk


Li Soon and me in the studio set


Li Soon and YY

Catching up with blogging

Wow. It's been 10 days or so since I last blogged. Lots have happened.

Li Soon passed her driving test on the second try on Tuesday. It was really a miracle, as she said she made a number of mistakes, but the tester was really understanding and nice. So now she can finally drive on her own. However, don't know when she will actually drive by herself as she is not confident of knowing directions and she doesn't really read maps. So will have to slowly teach her how to get to the important places like supermarket, shopping centre, her exercise class etc. May have to consider getting a GPS unit as getting lost in some neighborhoods can be dangerous, especially at night.

On Friday, we did the second of a series of seminars on issues in the family. The first 2 seminars were about parenting pre-teens. It was the ending of a month of preparation and execution. We are quite pleased with the result, although there are still things to be improved. The content will be on the web and available on DVD soon.

I am finding the work here very interesting as it is very varied and challenges me in many different areas. Many of these things I wouldn't really do in Singapore as we will normally call in contractors to do it. However, in the US, contractors are very expensive, so we try to do as much as possible ourselves.

1. Carpentry - we had to adapt the old studio set into a new configuration to accomodate the new seminar format with a live audience of almost 30. Previously, the set occupied most of the space in the studio. We had to move the set to a corner and reduce the platform to a smaller size. So he had to unscrew the platform and reconfigure it.
2. Painting - After reconfiguring the set, we had to re-paint the portion of the back wall which was too dark before. So we had to do interior design, choosing the color of the paint and actually painting the wall ourselves. We also had to color match and choose a curtain for the window on the set. The previous set had everything in brown, which looked too boring and old. Finally choose a royal blue curtain which looked quite nice.
3. Pulling cable - We had to put in a number of new audio, video, VGA and network cables to set up the studio for the new setup. Had to pull the wires through conduits, and then terminate (put in the connectors) and connect up everything in the correct way. After that, testing and making sure that everything works.
4. Computer configuration - Had to change out a VGA card in the studio computer so that we can drive a monitor and a scan converter to convert the VGA signal to a video signal.
5. Lighting design - redesigned the studio lighting, making use of 12 100W Videssence studio fluorescents to minimize heat due to the number of people that will be in the studio. Unfortunately, there is no air-conditioning in the studio, so when the lights are on and there are a larger number of people, the temperature rises. Used scoops and fresnels for the main stage area with key-fill-back lighting setup.
6. Sound engineer and tape operator - Operated the sound mixer during the actual recording. Also made sure that the Video tape recorders were recording properly. Recorded on DVCAM, BetaSP and direct to the MAC on Final Cut Pro.
7. Technical director - Set up the cameras and camera electronics and making sure that the recording levels were correct. Also in calibrating the video and audio levels.
8. Trainer - Been doing training of the mass media and tech crew on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings. This is going to be an investment in the future and bringing in the next generation.
9. Air-con design - I've also specified a split heat pump system for the studio which the financial controller just approved. Will need to order and then fix it up ourselves in the next few weeks. It will be good once it's up so that the studio will be cool.

I've lost about 3-4 kgs since I arrived. The schedule has been quite busy, with lots of physical work, moving and carrying equipment etc. Also, the laundry room is 5 stories down and we need to do about 4 bags of laundry twice a week, so have been lugging them down and up 3 times per load.

Overall, we're quite settled and happy here. Thanks for praying. Continue to pray for strength and guidance from God and to multiply the ministry to reach out to many people.

Last night, we had a chance to go to Wing Kong and Do Hui's place for dinner again to mark the end of CNY. Steve and Linda, their friends, were also there. Had a good time. Matthew also had a good time playing with their kids Benjamin and Andrew. Watched the San Francisco Chinese New Year parade on TV. Quite simple, nothing like Singapore's Ching Gay, but at least something to commemorate.

Tomorrow's a start of another new week. Got to get the summer school curriculum up and a plan for the training school too.

Painting Day

Yesterday, we reassembled the set in a different configuration for this Friday's parenting seminar shoot. Today, we are repainting the set with some new paint we bought yesterday. Quite a messy day.

Office finally up

Here are the pictures from the office.

Entry door, portable air-con on the floor.


My desk, with HP 7310 4-in-1 in the corner. Audio recording control room through the window


My filing cabinet, boxes still to unpack and bookshelf to build, studio window on left


My editing and authoring workstation, TV studio through the window on the right

Eternally Grateful

Finally got my office organised. I'll post some pictures shortly. Got 1 proper desk, 1 file cabinet, 1 workstation table, 1 desktop computer, 1 4-in-1 fax/scanner/printer/copier combo, and 1 book shelve (not fixed up yet. Still have some boxes in my room I need to store away. Otherwise, a nice office to work in. Only complaint is that there's not much ventilation, so we put in a portable air-con unit when the heat builds up.

Eternally Grateful

Eternally Grateful
I'm in the process of clearing out the room that's going to be my office for the next 18 months. In the mean time, this is the "before" picture.

View out my window

Here's the view out my window on a nice day. It's the intersection of 101 and 280 freeways in San Francisco.

What do they wear?

Here's Matthew and Nathan in their clothes for the occasion. Matthew in his school uniform (so expensive), and Nathan so cute in his cold weather gear. Enjoy!

Shipment finally arriving

After a wait of 3 weeks, my 16 box shipment from Singapore is finally supposed to arrive tomorrow afternoon. Really looking forward to it now cos we have been living off 2 weeks of clothes for the last 3 weeks.
Also looking forward to getting my 2 computers that I shipped. Hopefully they are ok, including the disk drives.

8th wedding anniversary

Went out for dinner at Banana Island to celebrate, a Singapore-Malaysia-Thai restaurant that's quite good but a bit expensive. We went with the kids and Phil's family. It was great to be able to eat some chicken rice, pineapple rice, Pad Thai, sizzling plate tofu, Satay and roti prata. Matthew particularly enjoyed the chicken rice which I'm sure he misses a lot.

We talked with Phil and Connie about how we met, and how time really flies.

8th anniversary

Today is the 8th anniversary of our marriage. Wow, how quick time flies. I'll try to think of what to do today.

Pictures of the new car

Front of the car


Lots of luggage space


Driver's console


Space for 2 child seats in the second row

Sunday outing

After church yesterday, we went to the Exploratorium (children's hands-on science museum) in San Francisco and to the Golden Gate Bridge. The mayor of SF declared yesterday a family day and anyone who lived in SF could enter a list of museums for free. So we took the opportunity for an outing and to save some money by visiting the Exploratorium, which is a popular attraction. http://www.exploratorium.edu
Matthew had a good time going through some of the exhibits, but due to the free day, there were many families and was quite crowded.
After that, we went to the Golden Gate Bridge since it was very near the Exploratorium, and took a couple of pictures. Then on to Chinatown for dinner at the ABC restaurant, which is a Hong Kong style restaurant we found the last time we were here in August. Matthew really loved the food there and ate 2 chicken wings and half a bowl of Wonton noodles.


The charcoal grey Mazda 5 on the right of the picture. More pictures later when I get them from my friend's camera.

Bought a car (minivan actually)

Had to think very hard on which car we wanted to buy. Before leaving Singapore, we looked through numerous websites to see what kinds of cars were available. New, used and all sorts of financing options. We had to consider what kind of vehicle we should buy, keeping in mind that we are now missionaries. So nothing too showy in case we give the wrong idea. At the same time, we expect to have lots of visitors during our time here, so don't want to get a really small car and then have no space for people who come visit. As we have no maid now, we have to take the kids wherever we go, so we can't buy and small car and leave the kids at home when we pick people up at the airport. On the other hand, with the prices of gas (petrol) nowadays, we don't want to be driving a full sized 7 or 8 seater MPV when we only seat 4 most of the time. Also, we don't need to drive very much except to shopping and groceries and when the occasional visitors come or we go visit someone.

Wow, lots to think about. We wanted to buy a Japanese car, so that it has good resale value and is reliable. So we looked at a used Toyota Sienna (7 seater), which is a about US$24k new and a 4 year old is about $17-18k. Also looked at the Toyota Matrix, which is a 5 seater with a large cargo space for about $16k new (new model, so not many used ones available).
Finally looked at the Mazda 5, which is the newer model of the car we drive in Singapore, the Mazda Premacy. It's a 6 seater here, instead of 6+1 in Singapore (the +1 being a small seat). Went down to the car dealership on Jan 2, which was a very wet rainy day. Took a drive around and it seemed pretty good, since we were quite used to the car already, with some nice new touches, like a sliding back door, which is extremely helpful in loading and unloading Nathan in his car seat into the back seat without the cumbersome door getting in the way. With 6 seats, we can take up to another 2 passengers, but without too much luggage space. However, we thought it was a good compromise between a smaller car and a full sized MPV. Since this is a new model, there were no used ones available, but the pricing was not too bad. We bargained hard, especially trying to understand the financing. The thing about the US is that your credit history is very important. Almost everything you want to order long term is dependent on your credit history. From getting a credit card to subscribing for cable TV. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a credit history, so it was hard to find any financing. At the end, we got financing for 15.9%!! So we tried to put as big a downpayment as we could afford and then finance as little as possible. The good thing about the car financing here as opposed to Singapore's is that you are not locked in to the term of loan. That means that you can refinance the loan at any time. I asked around and the advice I got was to just take the loan for 6 months and then refinance it at hopefully lower rate when we get a better credit history. It's important to get some decent credit history here, even if you don't want to buy a lot of things.
So now we are driving a new Mazda 5 which we are very thankful for. Will upload pictures later.

Yong Fa passing through

Yong Fa came through SF today. Arrived in the morning where I picked him up in the new Mazda5 we bought 2 days ago. Went to pick up my insurance papers and buy takeaway lunch before heading back. Took him around the church to see the different areas, including the lighting and studio areas.
Just sent him back to the airport 1/2 hour ago for his midnight flight to Dallas.

Pictures!

Finally uploaded my pictures.

Family picture at parents' Christmas / farewell party for us on Christmas night.


Li Soon feeding Nathan on the plane


Our bedroom before moving in


Kids' room after installing the double deck bed


Matthew at computer


Matthew with computer and new DVD TV


Hallway outside out rooms


Li Soon cooking in kitchen


Kitchen 2


Camera control room 1


Camera control room 2

New Year's Eve

Spent the morning relaxed while waiting for Ikea to deliver the double deck bed. I cooked breakfast of instant noodles with egg and hot dog omelette, hard boiled egg and oyster sauce veggies.
The delivery came around 12 and Matthew helped me to set up the double deck bed. Took about 3 hours. Li Soon cooked lunch at 4pm which consisted of leftover Teriyaki Chicken, rice, vegetables.
Everyone bathed after that and went out for dinner with Rev Chanson Lau and his wife Genevieve at 530pm at a Thai-American restaurant near the Pacific Coast beach. It was all dark, so we didn't see anything of the beach. Matthew slept right through dinner.
Came home after dinner with lots of leftovers. Everyone was tired, esp Li Soon who went to sleep at 9pm. We slept in the kid's room with the new bed, but Nathan was not used to the new room and took quite some crying and time to put to bed..... finally.
I woke up at midnight just in time to cross over to the new year. The rest were still sleeping.... Matthew just woke up now.

Shopping list for a new home

Been doing a lot of shopping and packing the last few days in between of taking care of the kids, packing, etc.
So been shopping at Target, Ikea, a small Vietnamese store, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Ranch 99 supermarket, Office Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond and others. So what does a shopping list for a new home look like? Here's a brief rundown.

From Ikea.
Double Deck bed for the kids, boxes for storage, floor mats, 3 level document tray, AA batteries, high chair, bedroom slippers, batteries, backpack for Matthew for school, shoe rack, storage boxes

From Target.
Pillow, Thermos Flask, bedsheets for 5 beds x 2 sets, lightweight comforter, Play-pen for Nathan, jacket with built in speakers for Matthew (on sale), small CD player, hot dogs, ham, 5 gallons of milk, detergent, shampoo, hair gel, baby bath soap, ziplock bags, clingwrap,

From Ranch 99.
Rice, rice cracker, chicken frozen, chilli sauce, dishwashing liquid, corn oil, instant noodles, soap, ziplock bags, spinach, pak choy, apples, oranges, tofu, oyster sauce, soy sauce, eggs, japanese rice, seaweed, salt and pepper, rice krispies.

From Best Buy.
20" flat screen combination DVD/TV, Star Wars DVD(ep 4,5,6), Star Wars game (for Matthew's entertainment), AAA batteries

From Radio Shack.
Power strip, Indoor VHF/UHF antenna (for the 20" TV above), Power cord

From Vietnamese general store.
Small tub for bathing Nathan, small stool, lightweight stroller, claypot, hot water boiling pot, laundry bag, toiletries set, wok, dustbin with cover, slippers, toilet floor mat

Bed Bath & Beyond.
Hairdryer, woven basket, pillow, indoor/outdoor thermometer

Office Depot.
School supplies for Matthew, Christmas bear for Nathan (he loves it)

Walgreens.
Cough mixture, Vitamin C, Halls and Fisherman's Friend throat drops

Cingular Shop.
Family mobile phone plan for 2

SBC Global
New telephone line and DSL (installation on 10 Jan 2006)

First Days in SF

Arrived at San Francisco International Airport in Tuesday morning 27th Dec at 10am after an 18 hour flight from Singapore with a 1+ hour stopover in South Korea's Inchon airport where we had a couple of bowls of noodles. It was Nathan's first flight and we are thankful that we managed to get a seat with a bassinet so that we could sleep in it. Matthew's video console didn't work very well on the first leg of the journey to Seoul and had to be rebooted a few times. Still it didn't work well and kept hanging on the games. In the end he gave up and went to sleep.
For Nathan, he wasn't quite used to the flight, but was generally good on the trip. Only when we were landing at Inchon did he cry a lot due to the pain and pressure in the ear that he wasn't used to.
On the second leg from Seoul to SF, the tail winds were very strong, reaching 200 knots or 350 kmh at one point. This made the flight a bit bumpy especially when we passed over 2 storms in the Pacific Ocean. Those storms have now followed us to SF and is raining down hard right now.
I spoke to the leading stewardess and she said that there were 15 babies on this trip but only 8 bassinets, so we are not really thankful. Thankfully, Matthew's video console worked this time and he was able to watch a few shows. Well, the strong tailwind helped us arrive in SF 1hr 20 min ahead of schedule.
When we went through immigration, the officers don't come across too many people with H1B1SG visas, so it took us quite some time to clear. In fact, we were the last ones on the flight to clear. Also, we found out that although the visas were valid for 18 months, we can be admitted for only 1 year at a time, so it looks like we all have to fly back to Singapore before Christmas next year. Now I have to look at saving and raising funds for the trip back. Originally, we didn't plan to go back until April 2007 so hadn't budgeted for that.
We had quite a lot of luggage, 6 checked in and another 3 carry on. So when it came to collecting the luggage and handling 1 boy and 1 infant at the same time, it was very challanging. We finally got a porter to help us in the end for USD30 for all the bags. A bit expensive, but I think it was worth it cos we wouldn't have managed otherwise.
Our friends Phil and Alex from the church came to pick us up in 2 MPVs and Phil brought his 3 daughters who have become good friends with Matthew during our last trip here in August. We went to the church and moved all the stuff to the rooms and then went to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. It was rather cheap according to American standards and quite good. We bought some take aways as well for dinner.
After lunch, we went back to the rooms and then I went with Phil to his house to pick up the cara, a Saturn that he is lending to us until we get our own car. The car is a compact sedan and just barely fits the family inside. Also, it's manual and Li Soon can't really drive it in SF's hills.

After picking up the car, I went back to the rooms and showered and slept as we didn't sleep much on the plane. Had a late dinner and continued to arrange the place and unpack a little.
One of the challenges we faced immediately was taking care of Nathan. He is extremely active and likes to explore everywhere. In Singapore, we had 2 maids to take care of him when we were busy - ours and my aunt's. Also, we had the play-pen to put him into so that he would not get into trouble running and climbing. We didn't have those luxuries here the first few days, and had to spend a lot of energy taking care of him and chasing after him. Unfortunately, being in a new place, he didn't know the dangers around and fell several times, once from the 4ft high end of the bed, thankfully onto a carpeted floor. That really scared him and us.
Also, he started to miss the people at home including the maids, aunty Iris and our parents who came to visit a lot just before we left and developed a bond with him. So Nathan was having difficulty sleeping and kept crying after 1 hours of sleep. He was feeling homesick and insecure due to the change of environment that he didn't understand. I had to carry him for quite some time before he would go to sleep again. Fortunately, he is very close to me, so I was the only one who could calm him down after some effort. The consequence of this was that both Li Soon and I were very tired for the next few days.

Tomorrow's the day

Yup. Finally got to the last day in Singapore before we leave for San Francisco. It's been a week of parties one after another. At home, at relatives' and at my parents last night. We are all pigged out. Our favourite excuse, of course, is that we won't get a chance to eat all the local food for awhile.
Today we are going to do the last minute stuff and try to relax. Most of the bags are packed - finally, and we are going to have a foot and back massage, cut Matthew and my hair, develop some photos and stuff. Tonight is the final party with Li Soon's favourite "kiam chye ah" or salted vegetable duck soup. She says it reminds her of Chinese New Year's - which we will miss without the family.
The reality of our moving has finally hit home. Going to say goodbye to friends, loved ones and familiar places, foods, things to do. Sometimes I have apprehension on why we are doing this, but we have to just trust God to show us. I'm sure He has a lot in store for us.

6 days to go

Can't believe it's less than a week before we leave for San Francisco. It's been an interesting couple of months counting down to the 27th. It's going to be a week of parties! Tonight, we have a party at home for church friends and some family. On Saturday, a party at my parents' and another party on Christmas night.
As the date draws closer, the realisation that the major change in our lives is upon us. We ponder as we move from a large, comfortable 4000 sft home to 2 100sft rooms in SF. From having 2 maids to do everything from taking care of the kids to cooking, cleaning and washing to having to do everything ourselves. It's going to get some getting used to. I think it will be good for us to learn to take care of ourselves.
Last Sunday, I shared with the church about our ministry and they prayed for and commended us into the ministry.
Please click the link to my newsletter on the right for more info about our ministry for the next 1 1/2 years.

I'll be spending the next couple of days sorting out my company accounts before I go. Boring but necessary work.
My key verse
"12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. "
Phil 3: 12-14 (NIV)

Leaving for the US

I guess many of you already know this, but I have been too lazy to officially blog it. Come 27th December 2005, my family will be leaving for San Francisco for 16 months. I will be in full-time media ministry with Cornerstone Evangelical Baptist Church in San Francisco. I will be working on Family Programming for Asian families amongst other tech and music ministries. Matthew will be going to school at Cornerstone Academy and Li Soon will make the challenging transition from IT consultant to a full time mother.
On Wednesday, we shipped off 16 boxes of stuff, about 3 cubic metres worth of clothes, computers, books etc. Now we are living out of the clothes that we will be bringing in 6 suitcases.

Matthew's birthday

Celebrated Matthew's 6th birthday on Sunday 30th and Monday 31st (his actual birthdate). Invited his school classmates on Sunday afternoon for a birthday party at home with food from McDonald's and games by my cousin Cheryl's friends.