"JUST how do you do it?" I had to ask Mr Abdul Jaffar, 51, the Mercy Relief team leader as we made our way back from Charsadda district to Peshawar city, where we were based.

We had spent much of the day waiting at the airport for Singapore-made water filtration units to clear customs, for lorries to arrive, and for local NGO officials to turn up.

And we were almost at a camp for refugees — or more accurately, "internally displaced persons", as Jaffar reminds me — to deliver the water filtration units when a blocked road ended the plan.

All the waiting, last-minute changes and bureaucratic hold-ups should have been most frustrating to aid workers like Jaffar and his colleague Tahar Jumaat, 42, as they made their way round Peshawar to distribute relief supplies for the victims of Pakistan's floods, but they appeared to take it in their stride.

At the camp in Charsadda district, some 3,000 villagers whose homes were washed away stay in tents provided by local and foreign NGOs, relying on donated food and water. Behind them is a ridge where many had taken refuge when swollen rivers inundated their home. and swept entire villages away.
ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh

"You get used to it," said Jaffar with a grin, as he stretched out in the back of the van. "After a disaster, it's naturally messy."

A veteran aid worker of many years, he himself had been assigned to fly off to Pakistan just after returning from China on another humanitarian project; he hardly had time to pack properly.

The ever-jovial Tahar too seemed to be able to keep his sense of humour throughout the trip. "Got to be flexible," he said. "Anything can happen and everything can change. We're used to it."

It's not an easy thing to do, I discover, when you're trying your best to get relief aid supplies through to people who need it quickly.

Local officials struggle to keep order as villagers in Chowki Town rush for food packages supplied by Singapore relief organisation Mercy Relief. Mercy Relief's Mr Abdul Jaffar (top picture, extreme left, in black vest) looks on. ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh

I had expected to be kept busy rushing around on the trip, but found myself spending most of the time waiting.

Waiting for the supplies to be delivered. Waiting for lorries to turn up. Waiting to meet local NGO contacts. Waiting for block roads to clear.

It must have been even more difficult for the flood victims, who had been waiting for many days for food, water and shelter to arrive.

With homes and entire villages destroyed by the floods, many have lost everything, having managed to escape the raging waters with only their families and the clothes they were wearing.

Hundreds of families wait with an uncertain future at this makeshift camp at the Government College of Technology in Nowsheera district, one of the worst hit. They get food, water and medical supplies, but are waiting to return to their still-inundated villages to rebuild their homes. ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh

Yet the relief supplies were taking ages to come.

It must also have been hard for flood victims to stomach the contrast I saw within Peshawar itself.

In the centre of the capital of the former North West Frontier Province, life appeared to go on as normal.

The local bazaar was buzzing, new Japanese cars were being sold, and restaurants appeared to be doing a good business.

It was hard to imagine that just an hour's drive away, thousands of villagers were living in tents on the barest minimum.

The contrast was also stark in the distribution of relief aid and manpower.

At a hospital, a doctor on an NGO's medical team said he had trouble recruiting doctors to form more medical teams for flood relief.

When I asked another doctor working at the hospital about this, he shook his head.

"No, there is actually no shortage of doctors," he replied, and told me that there were 5,000 doctors in Peshawar alone.

"At least 5,000, maybe as many as 10,000," he said wryly. "But no one wants to go to the rural areas to work."

Adding to all this is the inevitable corruption within the system as well as mercenary individuals cashing in on the disaster.

Donated funds have been pocketed along the way, NGOs have been duped or fleeced, and flood victims have even had their meagre possessions stolen.

The authorities and rescue efforts have also been hampered by traditions that are still prevalent in this conservative part of Pakistan.

Local newspapers had reported one tribe refusing to be evacuated from their village which was going under water, because they "didn't want their women to be exposed to other tribes".

It was depressing: It was bad enough that such a disaster had taken place, but even worse that so many elements were making it harder for those who needed help to get it.

Mr Momtaz Ali, 41 (foreground, right) managed to escape with his wife and six children when his village of Kandar in Nowsheera district was destroyed. Now waiting to return to rebuild his home, he is staying in a refugee camp located in a college along with hundreds of others. ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh

But there was also a spark of hope, and it lay in the laughter and bright grins of young children who surrounded us at villagers and giggled whenever we took their photos and showed them the results.

"We are still able to smile," says one villager, reflecting a strong determination to survive, built up by past tragedies that have befallen this part of Pakistan, including a recent war between government forces and the Taleban. ST PHOTO: Leslie Koh

Despite their predicament, ever-hospitable villagers also gave a ready smile whenever we greeted them.

"Look at me, I'm smiling," one said to me. "We can still smile."

No, really, it's more than a cliche. Whether it's brilliant imagination or some very talented writing, Hollywood seems to have come up with an accurate picture of what the future could hold, when it comes to technology. Some of it is frighteningly spot on.

Just take the technological breakthroughs coming up in the realms of defence and transport, for example.

A lot of the stuff you see in science-fiction and futuristic action movies may have come across as wildly imaginative 10 or 20 years ago, but today, it's exactly what boffins are working on, for real.

Autonomous robots that detect intruders and shoot on sight? Sounds like Terminator 1.0.

Non-lethal lasers that can hit people without killing them? Star Trek's been there, done that. ("Set phasers to stun.")

Personalised urban vehicles that take you door-to-door yet belong to a public-transport network? That's what Tom Cruise tried to escape in, in Minority Report. (He was unfortunately recognised by eye biometric recognition systems - being used today too.)

Cars that run on biomass? Go Back To The Future.

In case you think these examples are made-up, they're not. Samsung's built the robot, US is trying out the laser, the PRT (Personalised Rapid Transit) is being built for trials at Heathrow Airport, and Toyota has a car that runs on algae. Yes, algae.

Movie buffs could spend days just tracking what technology the big screen has envisioned, that has become a reality today.

What's sometimes disappointing is not that Hollywood has to lead the way, but how slow reality has been to catch up with it.

Movies that have dared to attach specific timeframes to their storyline have often found that the years have come and gone, and still no transporter, no sentient robots, and no floating skateboards.

We're nowhere near the techie world envisioned in 2001: Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Sure, today's computers are powerful, but can they sing like HAL?

In fact, a lot of technological developments have failed to meet the optimistic predictions confidently delivered by futurists 10 years ago.

Some had expected sales of electric cars to take up a significant portion of the auto market by 2010, but Singaporean roads aren't exactly filled with them. Road cleaning machines don't count.

And the problems have been, well, mundane, given what we've achieved in other fields like computing. "The battery doesn't last long enough." "The car's too heavy to fly."

Truth's not stranger than fiction, it seems, it's slower. And it doesn't beam me up.

Read the Saturday Special Report here

IT IS past 9pm on a weekday night, but it feels like a weekend.

Hundreds of people are gathered round a large man-made pool, in the middle of the city. Many are sitting on the parapet around the shallow pool, feet dangling almost in the water, chatting.

Cooling their heels.
ST photo: Leslie Koh

This is not a large city, mind you. Not New York, London or Beijing.

This is Yerevan, the capital of Armenia - which has a population of just over 3 million, smaller than Singapore. The capital itself houses about 1 million. There are hardly any tourists, so most of the crowd are local. Yet they're here, teens, families, groups of old men, turning Republic Square into a bazaar-like place.

Just what's drawing so many people to hang out in central Yerevan on a weekday night? Doesn't anyone have to work?

The reason lights up at 9:30pm, literally.

Music blares out from giant loudspeakers hung on the imposing facade of a building facing the square, and all of a sudden, numerous fountains shoot up high into the air, lit up by coloured spotlights.

Show time.
ST photo: Leslie Koh

The crowd cheers. This is what they've been waiting for.

It's not a static fountain. These water spouts dance. As the music plays, switching from classical tunes to local hits, the jets of water twirl, sashay side to side, gush up high, then subside slowly, watery ballet dancers that move in sync with the music.

Different rows of fountains explode at the four corners of the pool at times, then fade out, like dancers that twirl onto stage and off. The spotlights glow and fade, changing colours from red to blue, green to yellow. It's an enthralling performance.

This goes on for more than an hour, night after night, six days a week (Mondays off). And, I'm sure, the crowds are here, every day that the show is on, and likely in even greater numbers on weekends.

And it's not just a gawking audience that fills the square. The crowds in turn draw quick-thinking entrepreneurs who pack the square selling food and drinks, toys and balloons, and renting battery-operated cars for the kids. It's a great atmosphere.

Catching the crowds.
ST photo: Leslie Koh

Ah, what a simple, brilliant way to get people together. Build a nice big pool, throw in some high-tech fountains, inject some creative choreography, and the crowds will come.

Sure, we all know Singapore has the fountains at Sentosa. But the Yerevan fountains are in the centre of the city, smack in the middle of the square that forms the heart of the capital.

Perhaps we could do the same, if we want to create more buzz in our city. A similar nightly performance would draw the crowds, I'm sure, if they're impressive enough. But they have to be convenient. Not just on the resort island, but downtown, so it's just an MRT or bus ride home when the show's over. Orchard Road, perhaps? Raffles Place?

And if the pessimistic foresee traffic and parking problems, how about the bigger town centres, then? Think of the people who would stay on after their dinner and shopping if there were similar liquid shows in Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio or Bedok. (Toa Payoh, I remember, used to have something along these lines in front of the library in the 1980s, and they worked too.)

It'll take some effort, some money and some precious land, for sure. But in return, we'll get a little more buzz in our city, a little more fun, and one more reason for families to come out to town and spend some time together.

And, maybe, a little more feel of weekends on our weekdays.

Every time a jogger floats past me, I'll look forlornly, reminded that I've had to stop jogging - hopefully temporarily - ever since I strained my back in May. Ironically, I had strained it running.

Yes, for a while, I was one of those who got a little obsessed with pounding the pavement and the trails every week. I bought gaudily-coloured shoes with esoteric names that purported to reduce the strain on my flat feet. I shelled out for a bag with a built-in water bladder so I could go for longer runs. I pestered my wife about borrowing her MP3 player so much, she bought me my very own so I wouldn't dirty hers with my sweat. I even logged every single run in my computer, so I could calculate the total distance run so far and average speed.

But, no, I'm not a hard core runner. My pace is pathetic, and my range is nowhere near what serious runners log on a weekly basis.

Really.

I did enjoy my runs, though. Not for the feeling that I was building up some semblance of fitness - not at my speed, anyway - nor for the idea that I could eat as much as I wanted after the runs. (Another steak? Bring 'em on! I'm sure I burnt enough calories in the last 10 minutes).

No, the real value in running came from what I discovered when I tried to find more routes in a bid to bring some variety to the runs. Never mind the usual Botanic Gardens and East Coast Park, I found hidden shortcuts through parts of my neighbourhood where I had lived for many years yet never really explored.

I found British-era residential estates nearby, and ogled at giant black-and-white bungalows from tree-lined roads that made me feel like I was in another world and time. I chanced upon forest trails that stretched for ages without crossing roads and showed me that Singapore really wasn't a concrete jungle. And I treaded onto interesting urban routes that took me through familiar parts of the city, albeit from a different perspective.

Some of my favourite "finds":

- A 10km-long mountain biking trail from Rifle Range Road that winds through the Bukit Timah nature reserve and ends near the Singapore Zoo in Mandai. (Just like army! In actual fact, it does end next to a live firing range)

- A park connector (of sorts) that starts at one of the sources of the Kallang River at Bishan, goes down the river to Esplanade, connects to the Singapore River, and goes past all the quays to the source of the river at Queenstown (two major Singapore rivers in one go!)

- A route that winds from Biopolis in Buona Vista through the nostalgic colonial-era Portsdown Road, up to quiet Kent Ridge Park and ends at the idyllic Hort Park. (Or the prata stall near Pasir Panjang, if you hang right at Kent Ridge)

- A park connector that starts at Ghim Moh, goes along a wide canal, crosses an abandoned railway track and eventually reaches Bukit Batok nature reserve. (More prata shops just a walk down)

Okay, okay, those routes are probably well known. But I would never have found them if I had not started jogging. The discoveries have also sparked a new interest to seek out quiet, green spots in Singapore, and in past months, I've dropped in on several reservoirs in the west and north, taken a look at the colonial villages around Sembawang and Selatar air bases, and developed a new interest in the old parts of Singapore that have been preserved somehow.

When my back heals, I might go back to these places.

Or maybe I'll just drive.

SHE MUST have been one of the world’s most testy tour guide.

She was demurely decked out in traditional Korean dress, but her speech was, shall we say, a little less than conservative.

"Could everyone hurry up please?"

"Look, I can’t start until everybody comes here. There are STILL people behind."

"Yes, I WILL explain what this place is, but I can’t start until you’re all here."

I suppose I couldn't blame the official tour guide at the Changdeokgung, an ancient palace in Seoul, for feeling a little frustrated.

After all, when some 30 journalists from across Asean are invited to visit the palace and are told to stay in a group (rules of the place), and they don't, it gets a little irritating.

Imagine nearly 30 people wandering in various directions, filming everything from the stones on the ground to the tour guide herself. Nonstop.

But her testiness took a little bit out of the beauty and serenity of the open grounds and ancient buildings. It was hard to soak in the immense history of the place, when the tour guide appeared to be a little less than welcoming.

To some in the media group, it was likened to what they saw as commonly-held stereotpes of Korea: Strict adherence to the rules, structure, efficiency and little space for flexibility. Sound familiar?

Makes you wonder, don't you think, if others in the region see Singapore that way.

Well, it works doesn't it. The efficiency, productivity, persistence and strict adherence to structure have brought the country from postwar poverty into wealth. Bet you couldn't even tell which country I was referring to. (Both)

But, I'm sure, in some circles, such behaviour doesn't win too many friends, even if they are highly respected and hailed as a model for modernisation.

When I told a Korean official that Korea’s efficiency impressed me, he replied, “Now that’s a compliment, coming from Singapore.” Did I detect a faint trace of irony in his words?

How about some takeaways from The Lesson Of The Testy Tour Guide:

1. You can have all the history, the infrastructure and the programmes, but a little bit of poor service can detract from it somewhat. (Okay, this is the hardware-software thing again)

2. While we continue to laud ourselves for our rule of law, efficiency, structure etc etc, spare a little thought for some who don’t necessarily think this is the best way, and how irritating it can be.

3. When in doubt, throw in some cute, doe-eyed pop stars with cutesy, squeaky voices and stunning looks, and all will be forgiven.

That, by the way, is K-pop, really. (At least, that's what K-pop is to fuddy-duddy me.)

The last point, by the way, is a reference to some members of Girls' Generation, a nine-member chart-winning girl band that's made it big in Korea and beyond. (If you haven’t heard of them, you're probably older than 20.)

After the Asean journalists met the group, it was all they could talk about. Tour guide? What tour guide?