Mid-Autumn lanterns

The mid-Autumn festival was a time when I wandered around my grandparents' place, lantern in hand. The coloured cellophane paper may have been a fire hazard but I was a very careful little child and the worst that ever happened was that the candle blew out. But they were beautiful, these lanterns, with jewel-like shades of ruby, emerald, and sapphire glowing in the dark. My mother was probably not too happy with their collecting dust after that and of course they never remained intact till the next festival so she had to buy another, but of course these things never bothered me.

The traditional lanterns I used to carry are probably still sold somewhere. But I fear they have been mostly supplanted with these modern lanterns. I took this photo in a shop in Geylang. Probably sturdier and will be able to last longer, also no fire hazard because there is no candle (replaced by a small light bulb). But a little bit of the mystique and magic of the moon festival is gone as a result.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms come up quickly in the night. Spotted them outside the house on Sunday, on the way to mass. Certainly were not there the day before.

This photo was taken on my mobile phone and sent directly to this blog. But as it is not so easy to edit the post on the phone, I have had to add these additional lines on the computer.

My New Phone

Just got my replacement phone. Cost all of $0 and a 2 year contract.

It has mobile blogging! So this photo was taken on the phone and then sent off straight to the blog :-)

What a phone contact list can tell you

I lost my mobile phone yesterday. Suffice to say that it was a painful experience and am not in the mood for talking about it.

So instead of my K750i, my happy camera phone friend, I am carrying my old Nokia which may have been all the rage once upon a time but is now sadly antiquated compared to all the new generation phones on the market. And of course, it has no camera!

This phone is actually a spare phone which my family members borrow from time to time. One person who borrowed it for a few months is an aunt of mine who lives in Canada and comes back for a month or two every year. She buys a hi-card, inserts it in the phone and that's it! So her phone no.s are now stored in the phone memory.

I am in the process of re-creating my contact book on this new SIM card. So I opened up the contacts list expecting to see at least a few of my old entries. The list has been completely transformed. After the names of her sisters (my other aunts), the list of contacts contains the following:

Big Sweep
Big Sweep
4D (Sat)
4D (Sun)
4D (Wed)
Horseracing
Sports
TOTO
My Star Sign

I was curious about the last as it was not clear how it added value to the overall contact list. So I called the number indicated - it's one of those *Send numbers which you call to get information, etc. My Star Sign follows the Chinese zodiac. It offers 3 options to those who are willing to pay $0.32 for the privilege:

1. My Lucky Pix
2. My Love Match
3. My daily horoscope.

The mystery at once became clear.

Sigh. Am just wondering what the person in whose hands my phone has fallen is making out of my contact list.