Category: Lifestyle & Hobbies

  • Singapore to Tokyo in 13 hours

    No, I’m not talking about the flight time. I’m talking about the time at which I bought my plane tickets to the time I actually landed in Tokyo. Yes, this is my first trip out of Singapore without much prior planning – the tickets were bought at about 6pm, and the flight was at 11:50pm the very same night. The wife made a very haphazard booking with a hotel and we’re off on an 8 hour flight to Tokyo.

    It wasn’t a good idea really, but the wife had an important certification training that got confirmed quite last minute and due to the school holidays, there weren’t any tickets on the weekend. She refuses to travel alone and so the husband must tag along.

    I arrived at Tokyo and it was really cold (slighly below 10 degrees C). I had a fugly green winter jacket that I bought seven years ago when I went to China, but it was way too puffy for this weather, so my first stop at Narita International was to grab a decent winter jacket.

    Anyway, fastrack a little bit. Most Japanese can’t speak English(some tokyo escorts can), and that’s my biggest problem here. Things are horribly, horribly expensive as well, e.g. no decent meal below S$10 per person. Nothing you can really buy for less than S$5 except canned drinks and MacDonalds’. My Hotel is miserably small for S$170/night. The entire room including the bathroom is actually about the size of my bedroom w/o the bathroom. Oh, and also, almost every non-living thing here talks by itself – lifts, trains, doors, pedestrian crossings, restruants, escalators, stairs… I’m serious! It warns you to mind your step!

    This is the most automated and robotic place I’ve seen. Even people keep talking non stop – I mean the retail staff. You go to a counter and pay for something, the moment they greet you, they go on saying things (I cannot understand) until you get your change and they bid you goodbye. But the people are really polite and I do enjoy being around this place as a visitor. Working here is probably another different thing altogether. I’m about to head out of my hotel to take a photo of the peak hour rush on a Monday morning.

    Tokyo Subway Map

    If you think Singapore’s MRT/LRT is messy, wait till you see Japan’s JR/Bullet Train/Tokyo Subway maps. The map above is just the Tokyo Subway alone. There’s the JR and Bullet Train not shown here. Bullet Train is quite straightforward though, it has only a few stops as it was designed to go long distance really fast.

    On the side note, while I was walking down Roppongi with my wife this evening, two crazy angmohs (Caucasians) came up to me and tried to poke fun of me – maybe they were cracking some racist jokes or something. I told them off (in English, of course) that “I’m not a fucking local.” I guess they were a little surprised when I responded that way. These angmohs had better behave in other peoples’ country, seriously. I don’t know what they were thinking poking fun of Japanese in Japan. Somebody should kick their ass.

    P.S. How is it possible for a map not to be north bound?!? The Tokyo tourist map is not north bound! I’m having a hard time reading it with my compass!

  • Damn Busy

    Sorry folks if I haven’t been responding to your e-mails/wave/chat promptly and haven’t been doing my homework. I’m super tied down this week with work, plus my mum’s sick and I have to be at the Istana tomorrow. The weather isn’t really very helpful since I’ll be under the damn hot sun.

    If any of you need to buzz me, the surest and fastest way is via SMS.

    And for those who’ve mailed me on project groupings and/or discussions please hang on a bit and I will get back to you ASAP.

  • Huat Ah!

    Here’s me wishing everybody a happy and prosperous year of the Tiger!

    I’ll be on my way to Malaysia for reunion with my grandparents early tomorrow and will only return on 初二. I might not have Internet access, or even if there is, it’s a dial-up. 😛

    See you next week!

  • Kids CMI? Maybe Parents also CMI

    This is in response to a thread I read at MummySG. (BTW, I’m reading the forum because I found posts related to noisy neighbours.)

    Hi, have to get this off my chest. ytd was with hubby and baby at BHG Bugis. after using the nursing room to nurse daughter, we proceed to the elevator to go to the first floor to go to liang seah st to meet friends for dinner.

    As the elevator just left thus there is no one so we r standing beside the door(not blocking) with dear daughter in her stroller sleeping. then came 3 teenagers(gers in most pro 14 or 16) standing behind us. when the elevator going to reach one of them kept pushing me wanting to get in first. my hubby who saw that told them” sorry we r also going in can wait for a while(cos need to push stroller in , somemore elevator have not even reach yet.”

    in the elevator one of them say to the one who was being told”hey he scolded you ?” then she replied”aiya you knw singaporean, kiasu want to go in first.” Wa, my hubby heard that hot , cos they r the one who want to rush in first. he scolded back” dont know who kiasu, keep pushing my wife wanting to rush in front to go in. yourself not singaporean is it.” 3 of them stared at my hubby and of cos we stared them back . then comethe best pt, they got off at lvl 2 n one of them actually scolded softly but i heard “Bas****” CAN you IMAGINE THAT! if not becos im standing inside ,i will go st8 out n ask them,”who you scolding BAS****, BI***. they think i got baby i good to bully or like those ‘chi xiang mother’?sorry, too bad IM NOT as im military trained, those who dont show respect will get it from me(in workplace.)nowadays the teenager REALLY CANNOT MAKE IT

    I think there’s two sides to the problem. OK, the teens described here CMI, but why so?

    I was at the basement of Century Square Tampines one afternoon with my colleagues. We were at the AXS machine paying our bills. I went first.

    For those who aren’t familiar with that area, the AXS machine is in the lift lobby of the basement.

    There was this little boy running around and he was hammering on things and creating a ruckus which was already annoying enough. Just when I was about to key in my account number, he came around and poked at my keyboard. I was furious and held his hand and shoved him away. Not exactly very harsh, but not gentle either (because I was already annoyed).

    I was done with my payment and my colleagues went next. Same thing happened and my colleagued shoved the kid aside.

    I was really angry and I said loudly, “whose kid is this har?” No response.

    All these while there’s a couple waiting for the lift, with a pram and a sleeping baby.

    Then when the lift came, the father turned around and said, “come boy, let’s go!

    I was like, ?!!!

    So the kid was running around, poking at others using the AXS machine and behing shoved away, they just didn’t freaking care. Even when somebody exclaimed whose kid was that, they didn’t care?

    I was very angry and told the parents straight in the face as they entered the lift that they “better learn to take care of (their) kid”, in full view of all the lift passengers but they didn’t seem like they cared.

    So really, the problem we’re seeing now is contributed by the poor upbringing of these kids. It’s a social problem and unfortunately cannot be solved unless we start looking at how we handle our kids.

  • Noisy Neighbours in Singapore

    If you’re wondering, wow, I’m writing a blog at this hour, well that’s because I’ve been awoken at 6AM+ this morning by my neighbour upstairs.

    I had to resort to hammering the ceiling with my fists last night to get them to shut up. That was 1:30AM. Yes, read carefully, my fists. I stood on a stool and hammered the ceiling. This proves that HDB flats are constructed so badly these days. The ceiling vibrated just as it did with the stomping and running upstairs. My flat’s 8 year old BTW. I don’t think my parent’s flat (closing 30 years now) are like that.

    I’m thinking if calling the cops doesn’t work and (according to many online forums) even going to CMC, MP and even court doesn’t work, what works?

    The government loves to take reactive approaches and maybe I should create something to make it happen. It’s called the “I sabo your neighbours, you sabo my neighbours” portal. I am fully committed to funding this portal as long as it brings me peace. I will start putting a plan to get this done. All comments welcome.

  • Curtains Up!

    Curtains and blinds are up! Actually was up about two weeks ago, but I didn’t have time to take photos, edit and upload. I finally found some time to do so. I didn’t take the blinds though, it’s pretty generic roller binds, though they are of much higher quality than Ikeas’. Photos can’t tell the difference in quality – you’ll have to see for yourself.

    The curtains are tailor made by Rosse Curtain and I would like to compliment them for their excellent service. The guy who installed our curtains and blinds was very detailed in his work and did his duty to keep the dust from drilling to a minimum. If you’re looking to get curtains for your new home, I’d highly recommend them.

    Living Room Curtains
    Dining Room Curtains
    Master Bedroom Curtains

    P.S. Choose your fabric wisely. They make a huge difference in price.