So I bought a half-kg bag of ground coffee just now. I've been interested in it ever since I really noticed how different instant coffee tastes compared to the stuff sold in coffeeshops in my neighbourhood.
And it looks like it's cheaper.
Initially, all I wanted was to get a haircut when I left my home. But when I saw the Food Lion store next to the barbershop displaying a set of 4 different types of coffee beans priced at $15, $12, $11, $10 per kg outside the store, I couldn't resist trying it out.
Well, after the haircut, of course.
I stared at them for a while, realising I know jack shit about those beans. What could I do? I went into the shop and asked the cashier. The cashier then directed me to the boss, who was surprisingly friendly and gave me a brief description of all 4 types.
He began with the $12 beans, which were roasted with margarine and stuff, and were 100% pure Arabica beans, a name I've seen so often on the labels of Nescafe packets. That was probably my first time seeing whole Arabica beans and knowing what they were.
The fact is that my parents came from HK, and most in HK and China are tea people. Coffee is an exotic product that people in HK fly to Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia to shop for. Or at least that was what my parents and their friends and family did when they visited this region, back before we migrated here.
That's why Chinese restaurants are called 茶楼 and 酒楼, which mean teashops and wineshops respectively (nowadays the only difference is the prices on the menus), but never coffeeshops. Interestingly, since 茶楼 are usually cheaper restaurants due to traditionally lower tea prices relative to wine prices, then coffeeshops, which are cheaper versions of foodcourts (which in turn are a cheaper source of cooked food than restaurants) here in Singapore, would imply that coffee is cheaper than tea.
Whether that is true I don't know. What I do know is that it's way easier to find coffee beans in Singapore than tea leaves.
As for me, even after living here all these years, I know little about making coffee other than what I've seen and heard what locals do. For example, one of my mother's colleagues brew her coffee in her kettle (instead of water) because her entire family needs their daily morning caffeine fix.
Anyway, let's go on with the coffee beans before I forget them.
The $11 and $10 beans were actually mixed with maize, if I heard correctly. He used a Hokkien term most of the time but I just nodded because it really wasn't too important. Besides, I only know a few words in that dialect. What was important was what he told me when I asked him directly if that meant that these were blander. He laughed and explained that people who sell coffee prefer to use these blends. Which presumably is an affirmative answer. One of the blends had 30% maize, forgot about the other number.
The $15 beans were also a blend of Arabica and something. Again, I can't recall what he said because I didn't understand the term he used. Yet again, I wasn't very interested in it so I didn't ask any further.
My relative lack of interests was due to my habit of trying the original stuff before going for mixed flavours whenever it comes to food and drinks. I had already decided I wanted the pure beans first before I move on to the rest. When I do, I can ask him about those others.
Now that I have half a kilo of pure Arabica, I need to know how I can brew them. IIRC I cannot just dump a spoon of it into hot water like I do with instant coffee. Instead, I'm pretty sure I need to "brew" it. What I need to find out is what this "brew" process means. And how I can adapt if I don't have a machine.
So I need a filter. Guess I need to do some shopping. Once I get it right, I'll probably stop using instant coffee for the rest of my life.
Turns out I do have some filters at home. Not reusable ones though. My mum had bought a packet of Japanese-made filter bags that the shopkeeper said most of her customers used for brewing coffee, except my mum used it for making 卤汁, a kind of dark gravy.
That's it, except we also added chicken, pork and eggs, which I believe is the norm. From what I've gathered, its a mix of soy sauce and spices. The bag she used was for those spices so that we wouldn't get them in our food.
Sunday
Great coffee. Got to remember certain details from now on, like not dumping the bag into the cup before pouring hot water in because the grounds float and seep out of the bag from the top.
...
Finally I can listen to some L'Estasi dell Oro from my blog that's produced with some decent quality earphones.
Went to the IT Show 2011 just now. Left home at about 2.40pm and took a cab to Plaza Singapura to transfer the ownership of the account of my mobile phone to me, only to find out that this is going to be effective only after 2 days.
So I couldn't do a recontract.
That didn't make me turn around and return home because I had other objectives to complete.
Primary objective: Earphones with hooks.
Secondary objective: Speakers for my bro so that he can give me his old ones.
Tertiary objectives: Buy a camera and screen protector for HX.
The tertiary objective didn't appear until I was done with the above matter at Plaza Singapura. HX had initially contacted me earlier to ask me when I was going to the IT Show, to which I replied I had no set time but had to go to Plaza Singapura to settle the above matter.
After I was done, I called him and found out he had work to complete by 4pm, which was like 15mins from then, so he asked me to buy some stuff for him. Surprised that I was not planning to take a cab back, he asked me to just get a camera for him, a Canon IXUS 115 HS.
The excuse was obviously very flimsy since, as I've stated, he only needed to work for another 15mins before he could join me. The thing is, if I were in his shoes, I'd definitely do the same and hope he'd just play along. I hate crowds too.
As expected, the Suntec Convention Halls were crowded from top to bottom. The taxi queue was as long as I expected too.
The primary objective was easy. I walked around in random directions and looked at every booth I passed with earphones, asking the salespeople for earphones with hooks whenever I didn't spot any. Unfortunately, the one I was expecting to buy, the Cresyn C220E, was sold out. It was the only earphone model with earhooks that was in the $10-20 range ($16.90, to be more specific) in the brochures at bootstrike.com.
Other models I expected to buy were the Logitech Ultimate Ears 300 at $59, which I planned to be the final resort in case everything was sold out, and the SonicGear Nano Clip 100/200/300 at $9.90.
Fortunately for me, I quickly found booths selling $10-15 earphones with hooks, so I didn't bother to search for the above two models specifically and just bought as I went.
In the end I bought a HS900 of the Ranger brand from the Maxell booth, which cost me $9.90, a H214 of the df brand (David's Formula) priced at $14.90, and a HA-E33-S of the brand JVC from the Case Logic booth priced at $11, which they had made very clear with multiple price tags that it originally was priced at $22, although I'm sceptical of the credibility of the claim.
Completed my second objective with ease because the Creative booth was huge and there was only a small crowd at the counters. Got a Creative Inspire T12 since that's what my bro wanted. The backup plan was the T3130. In return, I get his old TEC brand CPT-709 speakers, and after trying them out I can honestly say they suck balls harder than a vacuum cleaner with a black hole inside.
The only reason I wanted them was because I needed something as my final backup when my earphones die out, which had happened before this and led to my aforementioned primary objective. Hence this was my secondary objective.
The third objective was 100% more troublesome than the previous 2 objectives. Everything above was found and bought at the 6th floor, but for cameras I had to go to the 4th floor, which meant more squeezing in the crowds on the escalator, where at one point we were stopped in order to let the escalator empty because the guys at the bottom were dangerously close to the point of not being to leave the moving steps due to the slow-moving traffic in front.
The only thing going for me was that the Canon camera booth was huge and was pretty close to the entrance. It didn't take long for me to find it and get all the brochures. After that I only needed to find a quiet corner at the back where they stored their printers, put down my bags and called HX to ask for his opinions.
At which point, I was informed he was really getting it for CM, therefore he had to call her.
:\
After 5mins of waiting, I was confused about whether he wanted me to call her or if he was going to ask her himself. So I called CM just in case. Asked her about the warranty extension offers and the photo printer offers (warranty extension at $60-70 for 2-3 years, the dealer I asked couldn't give me accurate numbers due to noobness, while the printer could be bought for $60 less than usual, at $139, with the purchase of the camera) and she wanted neither. As for the colour, she couldn't decide since she couldn't see the brochures while outside, so she told me to ask HX.
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HX then told me they wanted the purple. After that, I went straight to a random free dealer, told him what I wanted, got the order form, went to the cashier, paid and got the camera and left. I've got to say they had some nice service there. Not the dealer, the dealer was like "meh" but the guy who handed me the camera was very friendly and took out each component inside the box to show me that everything was in order. Finally he handed me a nicely folded warranty card and receipt and told me to use it to redeem the free gifts at the first floor.
Sounded easy enough but was, in fact, far from it.
There were two sides to the free gift redemption booth. On the left, there were the counters for customers who bought Canon cameras. On the right half were the counters for those who bought Canon printers.
The right half had some decently short queues with like 5-7 people each. The left half had such a horrendously long queue they extended all the way to the furthest end of the right side, despite the usual snaking queue formation directed by the red bands. In addition, there were about 6-7 people who checked everyone in the queue to make sure they had bought cameras. According to the guy who checked mine, someone had reached the counters only to tell them he had bought a printer. I lol'ed.
That was not all though. During the queueing I remembered HX had also asked me to buy a screen protector for him (or her, whatever). I wasn't in the mood to do things halfway and give up then, after going through so much trouble, so I squeezed my way back up to the fourth floor.
On my way I went past the Starhub booths, so I asked them whether I could recontract. None of them knew and the final guy told me to call their service hotline, 1633, to enquire and passed me a queue ticket in case I could, so that I didn't have wait too long.
Unfortunately, the guy on 1633 said that although I could do a recontract, they couldn't give me my vouchers until 3 months later. Now I have to admit I have no idea what this "voucher" is, but it sounded ominous enough that I gave up the notion of getting a new phone there. Besides, come to think about it, I was right not to. In 3 months there is going to be another technological fair, the PC Show 2011. I'm sure Starhub will have some new offers then and I will be able to get everything.
As for the screen protectors, I couldn't find any booth offering them on the 4th floor. Not wanting to go to the 6th floor, I asked a random dealer at the Canon counters. According to him, there were no booths selling those and from what I've seen, there were no booths selling camera accessories there at all other than tripods.
Which was strange if you ask me, which you did not.
Upon completing all objectives to the best of my abilities, I looked for a way home. A single glance at the taxi stand from the escalator was all I needed to forget about taxis. But before I could go home, I needed dinner.
Hence I crossed the road and went to Marina Square, hoping for a Burger King. After all that recent hype about BK's Tendergrill, I had to get some.
Marina Square brought back some memories. I haven't been here for so long. The last time I was here, it had much less class but there was something much more important - an indoor amusement park on the top floor IIRC. I remember going there for the rides in times past, and once my family went there with one of my aunt and her family. I remembered quite clearly how my cousin (his sister hadn't been born yet then) was still a toddler and when I took one of the more exciting rides with him, he cried so loudly the operator stopped the ride so that he could get off.
I didn't get off with him though. Fun ride > pussy cousin.
But anyway, as I looked through the mall's directory, I learnt that there was also a Long John Silver's right next to BK. That was a hard decision. I haven't had Long John in a very long time. What tilted the scale to BK's way (which is my way by the way) was the fact that I was planning to put the food in my bag when I ride the MRT. I can't have food in my hands when I enter the station; I might get stopped for bringing food into the trains.
Long John's food could spill when I slide them vertically into my sling bag, but you can't spill burgers, not that way, not BK's way, not my way.
BK it was.
Ordered two Tendergrills, a Swiss Mushroom Tendergrill and a Black Pepper Double, got to plan for my breakfast tomorrow too. On my way to the Esplanade MRT I found that there was a sale for confectionaries. Bought some Australian-made GB brand Nougats, two 100g packets, an Original Soft and an Original Crunchy. They were having a 2-for-$8 offer for those. According to the receipt, it was sold by John Little. Huh, didn't know that, but I wasn't looking hard anyway.
When I reached the Esplanade MRT, the closest to Suntec, I saw the sign that said I could walk directly to Raffles Place station. For illogical reasons probably due to fatigue (wanted to avoid confusion since I've never been to this station before and I might end up taking the wrong train or something), I decided to walk to Raffles Place.
Eventually got home, passed CM her bag when she got here, and tested out my earphones. She appeared tired, so I stopped myself from giving her long replies to her polite obligatory questions like "Was it crowded?"
First to be tested was the Ranger HS900. I plugged it into the speakers and immediately I heard the light static that is produced when there is no sound in some old speakers and TVs. I played L'Estasi Dell Oro anyway and it was as terrible as the speakers, extremely muffled. Wanting to make sure the lack of quality was not caused by the speakers, I plugged it directly into the PC.
It was much better, but still pretty muffled.
Next I tested df's H214. Damn, it was so comfortable! It felt like I wasn't wearing anything on my ears! The sound was also much better than the HS900 but I've heard better from headphones I used in the past. Oh well, I can't expect the same from a $15 earphone.
After that, I didn't feel like testing the last one anymore. Didn't feel like messing up more wires by unwinding and rewinding them and, besides, I was very satisfied with the H214.
Got to remember to get those with thin wire-like earhooks in the future. I like this design.
EDIT: Forgot to mention I also got a Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB for $99.90. I couldn't have gone through such troubles only to spend $36 for myself. This is the cheapest 1TB external hard disk that has USB3.0. The actual cheapest 1TB external HDD was offered by Seagate at $89.90 but only had USB2.0.
I'm likely going to make use of its Automatic Backup function from now on.
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