Welcome to the ever-sunny island of Bali, where the prices of everything from clothing, to the hotel, to taxi fares, all the way to the exchange rate can be bargained. Can you believe it! The exchange rate! My golly…

Anyway, here’s a typical bargaining scene I experienced:
While strolling along the narrow streets with cars & bikes zooming in and out of the people, something catches your eye and before you know it, the owner of the thing which caught your eye catches you.

“You want Rolex? Very cheap, only 60000 (rupiah)”
“60000! too much la”
“What price you want? I give you”
“20000”
“20000! Nooorh.. 20000 you make me loose money, come I give you good price, 40000”
“40000 too high! The other shop selling me cheaper” As I point to the dozen other shops selling exactly the same thing.
“Okay okay, you buy 2 I give you for 60000, very cheap already”
“2 for 40000!”
“55000!”
“40000!” and I begin to walk away
“Okay okay last price 50000”
I concede and go on to pick out two watches, one “metallic” “rolex” and one “leather” strap “Cartier” and after which I take out 50000.
“Wait wait, this one you pick more expensive (referring to the Cartier), this one real leather. The Rolex I give you 25000 but this one 35000”
“All same la… all fake la… all 25000”
“Noorh.. this one good quality, different! different! Okay you my friend, I give you 30000”
I shake my head and pay.

Bargaining… it’s really quite hilarious…
Especially when you go back to the hotel with your “metallic” Rolex watch and walk through the metal detector, without any sound being made…
Or when the knob to change the time of your “Cartier” falls off...
Nice one.

But hey, Bali rocks man.

The weather is seriously fantastic, not a cloud in the sky to spoil your days plans – of shopping, paintball, snorkeling, surfing, or just plain hanging out on the beach.

I must talk about the paintball in Bali cause it totally kicks the Singapore Orchid country club one in the butt. In Bali they have multiple arenas, all larger, with more interesting covers, and they allow you to roam freely. Which means you can creep up behind your friend and give it to him from the behind.









Another kick ass activity was surfing. Yes, I can now consider myself a surfer! Okay maybe not exactly.

I tell you I have no idea how the skinny people of Bali much like myself get any surfing done, cause it requires a colossal amount of strength. By the time you paddle with nothing but your hands against the big ass waves to get to the right spots, you are already left without an ounce of energy left. And with that you are then supposed to paddle like a psycho in order the ‘catch the wave’ when it comes or risk being totally flattened by it – which was my fate most of the time. But just like golf (the worlds most frustating game), when you finally get it the feeling is out of this world! Standing on this little board in the cool surfer pose with a big angry wave pushing you faster and faster into the shore, with the feeling of the wind blowing at you and sounds of cheering all around from the locals, my gosh, now I know why beach bums exist.






Bali rocks man, but sigh… here I am back in an office, I think I need another holiday… Next stop in June, Bintan Lagoon!

Have you ever had one of those days which you really just didn’t want to go to work?
Yup that day was last Friday.

The day where the dirt swept under the carpet was uncovered,
The day the where the skeleton in the closet was let out,
The day the where the cat jumped out of the bag,
The day where all the negligence, the slackness, the “I’ll do it tomorrow” finally came to an end.
The 5th of May was the “tomorrow”.

I got to the office a whole 15min early to mentally ready myself for the war I was about to wage with the forces of paper work. The damn auditors were coming to town and a whole years worth of FY05 Financial work loomed before me like a vertical marathon I had to scale. The more I thought about it, the stronger Newton’s 1st Law was on me and it took an eternity to get the engine started. But from the second the clock struck 9.15am to officially begin a MDC working day, my ass got moving and did not stop all the way. It was crazy, it was madness, it was insane, it was a whole year’s work into a singular day – a very very long singular day.

The seconds ticked by like hours, and the hours ticked by like days. I felt like I was in Chinese class all over again, except that this time I was doing something I actually understand. You could think of me strange, but there’s a queer therapeutic-ness & fulfillment to putting together Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. You could also think of me lame to say, I excel at Excel. Haha.

Anyway 12.00 signaled a half time lunch break for me and as I sat in Island Creamery having my tiger beer sorbet, I truly never felt so deserving of it. You never really enjoy the good things in life until it is contrasted in the bad and after 3 hours of sitting in a freezing SAF aircon room, a nice cool ice cream in a nice cool place has to be the most refreshing thing in the world. Ok maybe I got my perspectives all wrong.

ANYWAY, after that short intermission, it was back to the battlefield with my trusty PILOT & stapler. Another few hours of slogging away at the sheetloads of paperwork was my days future. As I sat there all moody, I looked back and reminisced at all the good days of the past week, of watching happy Disney cartoons and trashing Chelsea in FIFA, and gave out a sigh... all this work… this is no way to treat an ORD personnel… when’s my damn understudy coming…(who was asked during the interview if he was straight and he said "I don't know")...Sigh.

But then came that moment, the last stroke of the pen, the last hole punched, the last letter typed, the last CTRL-S and ALT F4. I was done! I had reached the summit! What a feeling, of standing on the mountaintop of work and soaking in the magnificent view of…book out loh!

Everybody loves a controversy. Be it Workers Party’s James Gomez and the issue of his minorities candidate certificate, or Wayne Rooney’s new Nike's 'Total 90 Supremacy' boot which may have caused his broken metatarsal, or popular Christian disputes like the Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas.

Much has been spoken about Dan Browns best selling novel since its publishing in 2003 and there has been some renewed interest as the movie is set to open here on May 19. So much has been said and spoken of it that I shan’t bother to here, except for this one thing: I heard that the Bishop of the Methodist church made a request that his church members boycott the show. Then just 2 days ago I saw my church’s youth ministry (which is a Methodist church) publicize an event with one of its activities being an outing to watch the “condemned” show. Damn you gotta love the irony…

Anyway enough of slamming my church, what I would like to talk about is the National Geographic program on the Gospel of Judas.

This controversial gospel is a single manuscript discovered in the 1970s and only this year has it been authenticated by carbon dating, studied, and translated by biblical scholars. The main talking point revolves around the theory that Jesus wanted Judas to betray Him in order to fulfill God’s plan of salvation. Judas was actually the most highly regarded disciple in Jesus’ eyes and Jesus gave this special revelation and mission to Judas. So Judas did not actually betray Jesus, as is stated in the Bible, but was actually obeying Jesus’ orders. In the key passage Jesus tells Judas, “you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”

Now something like that is bound to get Christians and non Christians worked up or excited due to its implication. If it is indeed true, that would mean that the man whom was known for 2 millennia as the betrayer of the messiah was actually his most important accomplice.

National Geographic has much evidence to prove that the few pieces of paper are indeed authentic and written from that time but there is much doubt on the truthfulness of the ground shaking words that they contain.

Firstly, the author of the text is not Judas and is unknown on who he is. The text is also believed to be written sometime in the 3rd or 4th century after Jesus’ death which puts a big question mark on the accuracy of the authors words as it is written so long after the reported events.

Next, the text has a very Gnostic slant and is thus probably written by a Gnostic. Gnostics are a group of people who existed since biblical times and believe that salvation does not come from faith and forgiveness but by seeking and obtaining "special knowledge" (gnosis). Therefore the story is likely to be no more than just a story made up by a Gnostic.

Another point to note is that the Gospel of Judas disagrees and is incoherent with the happenings as recorded in the 4 accepted Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which we know for a much greater certainty to be true. One obvious point of comparison between Judas gospel and the other 4 is in the number of manuscript copies found - 1 gospel of Judas' VS 5400+ New Testaments.

Then finally there are inconsistencies in logic when put into the context of known recorded events. If Judas was indeed doing the will of God and obeying Jesus, why on earth did he hang himself out of grief?

So the gospel of Judas is probably a work of fiction but I can fully understand why it is so readily embraced – because it answers a question which the Bible doesn’t seem to answer.

The question is, how do you reconcile the fact that God is a loving God who desires all to be saved and yet part of His perfect plan requires the damnation of a man – Judas.

John 17: 12b “While I was with them (the disciples), I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.”

My take on it is that prophecies made by God through the prophets do not eliminate free choice from us. God is supernatural and exist outside the reel of time. I believe that He can scroll into the past, present and future and know what is about to happen before we do, however whatever that happens is a result of our own choices and not predetermined by Him. Sort of like watching a movie which you have already seen, where you know what is going to happen next and can accurately spoil the story for your friend, but you are in no way dictating what happens. This is because I believe that choice is the gift of God to men, making us different from the animals, and thus God’s greatest desire for us is that we freely choose to love Him.

So Judas chose to betray Jesus out of greed and that can be quite evidently seen in the gospels.

John 12 is about a dinner which Jesus attended and Mary poured some expensive perfume on Jesus. Judas reacted in a way which showed his love for money.
John 12:4-6 “But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

And in Luke 22 & also Matt 26:14-15 Judas struck a monetary deal with the people who wanted to capture Jesus.

Luke 22: 3-6 “Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreed to give him money. He consented, and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present.

So Judas was a man driven by $$ and that led him to betray Jesus. His choice, his fault.

However, and this is totally my personal opinion so please don’t take it as fact, I believe that Judas was forgiven and we will see him in heaven. Why? Because he recognized his sin and the bible says in 1 John 1:9 that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Matt 27:3,4 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”

Most people also believe that Judas would go to hell because he committed suicide, but I believe that if indeed Judas was forgiven when he confessed his sin, then the promise that nothing we do can separate us from the love of God would apply to him as well.

Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So would that be considered controversial?