Last Day at the Book Fair and Sean gets his wish

The last day at the Book Fair saw a huge discount on our titles. It was quite heart wrenching to see Dharma on discount but it was apparently what happens at the Book Fair on the last day and we wanted to reach as many people as possible as well as reduce our stocks to take back to Malaysia!

Susan, Sean and I were on the early shift - from 11am-4pm. It was not very busy but we made a few sales. I looked through my phone book to see who I could cajole to come visit us and Sean suddenly said, why don't you ask papa. So I said ok, you call him. And he went off with the phone. He came back and said Tom said he would come. I was immediately worried that Tom would say he would come but FFK at the last minute. I tried to tell Sean, don't get too excited cos papa is very busy and may not come. He was so excited, which made me even more anxious. But things got busy at the booth and I became distracted.

We finally left around 5 to grab lunch and walk around Suntec. We went to Pepper Lunch - one of my favourite discoveries this trip. Here you are served your choice of meat on a sizzling plate so you can cook it to your choice of doneness, which in my case, is just lightly seared on both sides.

After a satisfying meal, we wandered around Suntec to look for shorts for Sean. Susan asked if I'd heard from Tom and I said nope. As time ticked by, I was worried that my anxiety would become justified. Susan said he wouldn't be so mean to say he would come and not. I said I am just expecting the worst.

Anyway, we distracted ourselves with shopping and came across a DC shop - selling clothes with DC comics trademarks, eg Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Batman etc. We went to town in that shop, each of us picking a few things. Susan bought 3 tops, I had 2 and Sean had 1 t-shirt and a pair of shorts.

We went back to the booth after that and saw that other booths had started to wrap up even though it was only 8pm! We decided to put together some boxes and get ready to wrap up too. Around 9pm, I had a tap on my shoulder and it was Tom. My dear ex-husband. Susan sprinted down to get Sean who was heading off to see something down the other side of the hall. I saw Sean turn and run back and it really tore my heart open. He ran up and hugged Tom and I saw that Tom was a bit emotional too. I had to turn away by then because I was really going to cry.

Tom and Sean chatted for awhile. I was packing up so I didn't really hear what they were talking about. Now and then I'd pop by and be nosy - once, I found them talking about pool! Tom was drawing some angles on a piece of paper on where to hit the ball.

*blink blink*

Anyway, we finally finished packing at about 10.30pm and I asked if Tom wanted to go for a drink but he said he had to go. He helped us take some stuff down to a taxi and we went off.

When we got back to the apartment, Sean was in really high spirits. While he was in the shower, he was singing away and said it was his happiest day. He also put aside the paper that Tom had drawn on and said he was going to keep it very carefully. It broke my heart to see how happy he was - because I don't know how much Tom can invest into their relationship and I really didn't want Sean to be disappointed. But I guess it's for Sean to conquer his own battles and I will just be there to hold his hand along the way.

Penultimate Day at the Book Fair and a party at the end

Here's Sean talking to more (bewildered looking) people.


Sheila, our Hindu Priestess, came to visit and as usual had a deep chat with Susan.

Today was a lovely day because I met up with an old friend from University, I-Jin Chew. I had googled for friends I could possibly invite to the Book Fair and out of the cobwebbed recesses of my mind came a few names from Uni. The only one I managed to find was I-Jin, and dropped her an email. She tried to call me but as usual, I didn't hear my phone (and yes, Susan keeps wanting to get me a hearing aid). Anyway, through several smses, she finally could make it at 4ish on Saturday so I was quite excited to see her. I hadn't seen her since Uni, in 1989... which makes it 18 years ago?!

Anyway, she came and I was so excited I forgot to take a picture! But she is coming to KL next week so I hope my memory kicks in by then and I'll snap one for posterity.

She left around 5pm and then we had to rush to Carrefour to do a mad shop for our KMP party late that night. Everyone was coming over to Ros' flat for some drinks and snacks when the book fair closed for the night. Susan and I had dinner plans with PG at 7, so we had walk over to Carrefour, shop and get back by then.

We got home just in the nick of time and were whisked off by PG to eat yummy food at some Hong Kong restaurant on Thompson Road. After stuffing ourselves silly, we went back to Ros' and prepared the snacks etc. On offer was smoked salmon and cheese roulades, apple ham and cherry tomato mini sandwiches, olives, lay's salt and vinegar crisps, strawberries and chocolate dip, a bottle of Gewurtstraminer (however spelt)and a bottle of Shiraz, 2 bottles of coke and some cakes.. all for SGD145. Not too bad really. Though the budget was SGD100!


Here's the spread...


Happy KMP (and guests, PG and TLS)!

Sean arrives!

Susan and I were on standby today, which meant we didn't have to be at the booth for a whole shift. So we went to Orchard Road - how can we visit Singapore without a pilgrimage to Orchard Road!

I took Susan for lunch at Lawry's - my favourite place for Roast beef in all of Asia, so far anyway. After that, we walked across to Takashimaya and then to Borders at Wheelock Place, where we bought a couple of Dharma magazines. We then found ourselves gravitating towards Suntec to see what was going on. Also, Shirley was dropping Sean off at Suntec on her way to the Fullerton. I was so excited that he was coming! Their flight was delayed though and only arrived at around 6.30pm.

He came upstairs to our booth and immediately changed into a 'Dharma that bites' T-shirt and swung into action. He was remarkably successful, I think because most adults find it amusing that a kid is telling them about Dharma! Anyway, I was very proud of him.

Green Tara appears for Vesak!

KMP had a wonderful opportunity to celebrate Vesak Day twice this year – once in Malaysia and again today in Singapore! In the morning, as it was a public holiday, there were more visitors to our booth than over the past few days.

To celebrate Vesak, KMP super writer Jamie “Paris” Khoo decided attract more attention to KMP’s booth as well as fulfil a long time fantasy of hers to dress up as her favourite Buddha, Green Tara – and wow, look at how fabulous she looks!

Not only did she look great, she also drew quite a crowd to our booth. People actually came to ask for bookmarks and postcards. She walked around outside the Book Fair hall too, going up and down the escalators, from the ground floor to the top floor, accompanied by her wannabe dakinis - Shin, Susan and I. We imagined ourselves going up to the heavens and down to the three lower realms (as we were on the 4th floor)!

Some youngsters asked for postcards and then threw them in the dustbin, which they found very amusing and we didn’t. We simply thought that maybe even holding the postcards may give them an affinity for Dharma in the future.

We even met a Tibetan thangka seller who marvelled at our own Tara and asked to take a photo with her! Here on the left is a picture of our Tara and a Tara Thangka!

While sales weren’t that many, there were lots of visitors and we even closed late today because there were still browsers in the booth at 10pm! Our book sales were a bit better than the previous couple of days, and total sales came to SGD650.

Yek Yee and JJ shared that a lot of visitors were intrigued by the ‘Greedy’ title of the Chinese book. Some were actually challenged why we used the title, saying that we shouldn’t use ‘greed’ with Dharma. However, once, Yek Yee had explained to a mother about the rationale behind the Be Greedy title, and the mother understood and explained it to her child. It is fantastic that KMP has the opportunity to share with people about changing mindsets.

The KMP volunteers and staff received a wonderful sms message from Rinpoche which was very touching : “I am excited and happy for all of you. All of you are like in a retreat during this period like a 10-day retreat. Your body moving, packing, unpacking, showing, sleeping, eating, travelling for dharma. Your speech, nearly all words direct and indirect is increasing dharma. And your mind single-pointedly focused on talented, skilful ways to bring dharma to others! I am truly happy from my heart. Beautiful.”

To end the day, HE Tsem Tulku Rinpoche’s Chinese book, Be Greedy was found by Shin and Joseph to be displayed in the New Book section in Kinokuniya. Let’s hope it’s a best seller!

No Signboard and BS

PG took us to have crab again last night at No Signboard - we had pepper and chilli crab but I preferred Jumbo's pepper crab while Susan preferred No Signboard. PG's friend, Aline, came along for awhile too. She's quite good fun - but had to go off to BS (bible studies). We kept telling her - don't call it BS... it sounds too much like you've go to go for BullSh*t... no offence meant at all!!!

Susan got to share with them about her missionary experiences and how she made the connection between Christianity and Buddhism. She said she is still very much a Christian but now a Buddhist too! I think this aspect of Susan's will be key to many people who are confused or divided over the different theologies. Just earlier that day, she had spent a lot of time talking to a retired gentleman who was a staunch Christian but who's son was a Tibetan Buddhist. From her chat with the gentleman, she said that he was actually very Buddhist in thinking - especially his openmindedness in letting his son pursue his own path.

If only people could stop putting labels - on religions, thoughts, there'd be less divisions..

On an even happier note, Shirley is coming to Sg tomorrow and she's bringing Sean.. yayyyy