Cendrine sent a whole lot of funny photos of kids to me a few days ago. I’m sharing one of my favourite from that list, ‘cos I’m too busy to blog!!! *Arrrgghh*

I need to do my usual stuff as a SAHM (which already take up 80% of my time), pack orders, wrap Birthday presents for my favourite niece, Z.Y., prepare Binbin’s Birthday goodies bags to distribute to his 14 classmates, continue my never-seem-to-end snapping and listing stuff on ebay, which actually makes me really happy. *Click here to see the list of stuff up so far.

I am busy buzzzzzzzzzzzzz……..

Hey didn’t I say I was too busy to blog? Here I am blogging away… ohhhh… this is so addictive! Ok, ok, got to go and start packing the orders…..see ya

60,000 babies are NEEDED each year to make this a possibility. In other words, it needs a fertility rate of 2.1 babies per woman so that the population can replace itself naturally.

The number shows 39,935 babies were born in 2008 which is the highest number since 2002, 40,760 babies. The latest number includes the babies from the 1 million foreigners who work and stay in Singapore.

Singapore’s population is only 4.84 million and with the massive new job opportunities popping out from the opening of Marina Bay Sands^™, more immigrants are expected to make Singapore their home.

Marina Bay Sands^™ would be a place with three cascading hotel towers , retail stores, trendy Celebrity Chef restaurants, endless entertainment at the theatres, the hottest night clubs and a Las Vegas-style casino. Business visitors will also enjoy the extensive Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) facilities featuring state-of-the-art technology, highly flexible exhibition halls, and a convention centre that can host over 45,000 delegates.

While everywhere else is talking about recession and retrenchment, Singapore is offering opportunities to secure your rice bowl, would you come over? I think the attraction is obvious.

Well, the Marina Bay Sands^™ will be up and running late 2009 or maybe early 2010, so we shall see how the new influx of foreigners could help with the number of babies produced.

As I write this, I find it really weird, to be conditioned subconsciously in the mind that with better living standards, babies can be produced ‘more naturally’???

Babies are born because a married couple wants to build a family, irregardless if they are rich or poor, isn’t it? Though money is definitely an issue to consider in sustaining a family’s expenses, it is still not the main consideration, isn’t it?

Anyhow, I will just sit back and see how the impact of this new landmark would have on the number of babies born when they do the count in year 2010.

Have a great Weekend, Everyone! *laugh*

Ok here goes…My friend emailed this to me:-

A reporter was the writer of the email. It was written in Mandarin, so here’s the summary of what I read.

There is a restaurant in GuangZhou, China, which served a tonic soup cooked with foetus!!! They call it “Pai Gu” (’Ribs’ in Mandarin).

Normally, the foetus served on the table is usually 6 to 7 months old. It is cooked or rather brewed with many chinese tonics (which I’m not interested to state here cos’ I don’t know the English names for all those tonics) for 8 long hours.

The soup is believed to boost fertility. A 62 years old man was ‘promoting’ how incredible the effect of the soup was on his sexual life, that even at this old age, he was able to ‘perform’ daily!

The soup is ‘most beneficial’ when its boiled with fresh foetus. They had already been informed by a foreign couple working in China, who are blessed with 2 daughters, that if their 3rd child (in the tummy) is still a girl, after the ultra-scan had confirmed it, then they would sell it to the restaurant. They are hoping for a boy…..

The foetus in the photos (below) was from a village friend of the chef. The price paid for this foetus was not disclosed.

The midwife gets paid for this inhumane act too. The price varies with the age of the foetus. For a 5month old foetus, the midwife is given a few hundred RMB. For foetus carried to Full Term, an award of 2000RMB is given to the parents.

The soup is served for a price of 3500-4000 RMB in the restaurant. Use the Currency Converter to find out how much is that in your own currency. Choose ‘Chinese Yuan’

Currency Converter

According to the chef, up to date, only female foetus is available. The guess of the reporter was, “Could it be due to the one-child policy in China, which resulted to this? Chinese being traditional would want to have a son to carry on their family’s surname…..so girls are ‘not welcomed’….”

Warning!

The following photos are NOT recommended for the weak-hearted to see and definitely NOT for people who have just finished a sumptuous meal.

As I look at the photos. I was thinking: We are no longer in the ‘cave-men’ age, yet man-eating-man is still happening. I’m not talking about situation where a man is stranded on a mountain after a plane crash and had no choice but ate his fellow (dead) passengers bodies in order to survive. This is NOT about survivor. This is about inhumanity, isn’t it?

Eating is one thing. The parents who sold their ‘babies’ away for that miserable $$$. Do their guilty conscience eat them alive by the minute, day by day?

And is this approved by the law over there? Shouldn’t the police be involved?

The 2nd Last photo where the chef used the spoon to scoop up the head was too much for me to handle……My heart feels so heavy now….

The 3rd picture looks like a boy right? But the article says “5month old-female foetus” … hmmm… *scratch head*

I hope more people will get to see this…. Not that I’m a sadist, but this is too shocking to be kept in silence… I just hope to share with people how insane China Delicacies can be… Do Digg this story using my top left icon or you could just link this post from your blog…. whichever way, I thank you if you do….

I was so eager to tell you about how I felt before the Working Mothers Forum, I forgot to talk about what happened during the forum, luckily I’ve got Malmal’s mom to remind me (see her comments for yesterday’s post).

So registration opens at 1pm with refreshments and people get to tour around the many booths that satisfy different needs of mothers or family.

Unbelievably natural-me photos…

Q, a very pretty and soft-spoken lady, one of the coordinator of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide attached some photos of me in action when I was on stage….(go see her comments for yesterday’s post and click on the links provided by her)

I reckoned that I have a ‘big’ mouth (as in physical size), not the ‘big’ mouth, as in going around spreading people’s secrets…*laugh*… and the professional photographer did captured ‘that part’ of me really well *huge laugh*

Go see the photos if you are interested to see my different expressions throughout the event….*wink*

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Unbelievably sick Sunday….

I woke up on Sunday morning like a pirate. My right eye was swollen with yellowish-greenish pus. *Ewwww*

As if moving around with one eye wasn’t bad enough, I was having a terrible runny nose. Never had that for a very very long time now.

I was practically lying down the whole time. Squeezing my eyes every other minute hoping the pus would be drained out that much faster….

As I type now, my eyes are better, my nose is better, just that I’m feeling a little groggy now, maybe due to too much rest….

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Unbelievably down on luck….

To me, being sick is normal, so I would not consider that as down-on-luck. But when you have got 3 electrical stuff down at the SAME time! That’s truly an unlucky day!

1) How many of you CANNOT ‘live’ without your mobile phone?! I would be in deep trouble because I hardly remember the numbers of ALL my contacts…and lo and behold, my mobile phone can’t be charged, can’t be switched on at all!

2) It was super warm last night and we needed the fan badly but its ’spine’ was fractured because of the kids’ mischief (who else?).

In the end, we had to support it by tying a wooden stick to it to hold it up!

(see picture)

3) Allan needed to print his flyers urgently for his upcoming Open house for his client and yet the printer is down after a few prints…

*Urgghhh*

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Unbelievably cooperative kids…

But God is fair. Though I’m so sick, and nothing seemed to work well in the house, the kids were unbelievably cooperative.

Many of you have your hubby with you during weekend, I don’t, because of the nature of Allan’s job.

But coincidentally, Allan was free this weekend and hence was able to go to the forum on Saturday with me (giving me the moral support I needed badly) and being at home on Sunday to take care of the kids when 90% of the time I’m lying around, either on the sofa or the bed.

The kids hardly fight (physically) yesterday and today. They do have their arguments, but were resolved without our (adult) interference – amazingly rare. Then they played together harmoniously with their hot wheels.

When that didn’t excite them much, they cut papers and used markers to colour those tiny pieces and ‘decorated’ their cars by sticking them with scotchtape.

My house is in an unimaginable mess right now, but that’s alright…since there isn’t any guest coming over…sometimes when your kids are so damn obedient, even the mess they create looks pleasant to the eyes….*wink*

Seriously! I wouldn’t even want to cut ‘it’ after the Birthday Song is sung!