24 Oct 2015
Been doing some research on flights for the April California trip next year, with the route being Singapore-Toronto-San Francisco-Singapore. Checked the prices of 4 combinations:
1) separate bookings of one-way flights for the entire trip
2) separate bookings of one-way flights only on Oneworld airlines for the entire trip
3) a single consolidated booking of flights for the entire trip
4) a single consolidated booking of flights only on Oneworld airlines for the entire trip
A single booking can be vastly different because all the airlines involved must be working together through codeshare or something, so airlines available through separate bookings may not be used in the consolidated bookings.
One early conclusion is that consolidated bookings are always cheaper even if sometimes, you are unable to book the cheapest airline in certain segments.
Also checked these four combinations for trips originating from Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Barcelona, Mumbai, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh, eg Seoul-Toronto-San Fransisco-Seoul, although the results were only recorded for the first three.
The conclusion seems to be that it's the cheapest to book a single booking of flights from any airline from Beijing despite the extra cost for a return trip to Beijing, but the US$250 difference IMO isn't significant enough to beat the second cheapest option of a consolidated booking on Oneworld airlines flying from Singapore.
I'm just slightly biased towards it because of my pleasant experience taking BA between Singapore and London, not to mention the fact that it's simpler without the extra flights to and from Beijing.
26 Oct 2015
The results found the other day were not very useful.
Yesterday, I decided to take a look at this trip from the opposite perspective - from the end-point ie the actual place she needs to go in California. Turns out that in terms of major airports, there are at least three - San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento. All are kinda equidistant and all are pretty inconvenient.
The place she's going to is neither served by bus nor train, so her only options are taxis and car rental, and airport limo on the way back. At about an hour's drive out, a taxi ride is going to cost some serious money, but a car rental may not be useful if she ends up staying at that place for weeks.
Regardless, I'm only looking at the flights. Therefore, I'll have to redo the research using those three airports, even though San Francisco may be the most interesting airport among them.
But I'm not looking into them anymore since she can't confirm whether she can go there next year. Prices may change by the time she knows for sure, so there's no point in doing this so soon.
The spreadsheet will be left alone for now.
27 Oct 2015
Still going to buy that Salomon Quest 4D 2 GTX but in Dec in London. Couldn't get it in Vancouver because it was inconveniently located and spending time with my relatives was more important than shopping.
It's still a great hiking boot, according to recent online reviews, so I'm not forgetting about it.
29 Oct 2015
Went for my first health screening yesterday. Was awkward and very uncomfortable at some parts. The doctors and nurses were very professional but some procedures were just necessary.
30 Oct 2015
Was telling my girlfriend about the life of my late mother when I realized I had forgotten a lot of the details.
What's going to happen when I have kids someday and I want to tell them about their grandmother?
I'm not sure if I had recorded it in this blog either, so maybe I should try to jog my memory here since it's quiet now.
Disclaimer: This is mainly my mother's account of her life and is only one side of the story.
My mother was born third with two sisters before her. Both her parents expected and wanted a son, so my grandmother wanted to abort her before she was born. However, a fortune teller she approached told her that if she kept her, the next baby would be a boy. That was the only reason my mother was born; in fact, my grandmother didn't even bother to try to come up with a name for her - a nurse in the hospital gave her her name.
My grandmother never loved her. When she was a child, tuberculosis infected her right leg. Though she recovered before she could lose her leg, it had gone all the way through her thigh bone, causing that leg to be permanently weaker than the other. From then on, her mother would call her "crippled girl" even in the presence of family and friends.
That made her resolve to hide that limp, and IMO, any other weaknesses, which she succeeded in doing eventually.
My grandmother never believed in educating her daughters; only the sons needed school. My aunts born before her didn't need to attend school because they were too old by the time they came back to Hong Kong, but due to the laws of Hong Kong back then, she was forced to send my mother to one, and that was after people from the government visited them. Thus, my mother was able to attend primary school... a few years older than the norm.
It was a free Catholic school run by missionaries, and one of her teachers was a Canadian missionary whose last name was "Hayhoe" who loved bread with mayo. She did quite well, often among the best in class, but my grandmother never cared, believing it was a complete waste of time and that she should be obediently working like her elder sisters.
And work she did, because in Hong Kong, my grandmother brought plastic flowers home to be assembled. Her daughters who were not working full-time were expected to help with carrying the large bags and the assembly of the flowers, so that included my mother.
At the same time, she was put in charge of helping her brothers in their schoolwork, and that normally involved a cane. It didn't work though - all my uncles are doing pretty badly in life, IMHO, except for my second uncle who's passed on last year and hence isn't doing anything in life anymore.
When my mother graduated from primary school with results good enough to attend secondary school, which probably was not that common back then, her mother did not hesitate in pushing her off to a garment factory to work as a seamstress.
But my mother loved studying, and Ms Hayhoe thought she deserved a better education, so when my mother's request to continue her education got rejected, Ms Hayhoe came personally to talk to her. Eventually my mother was allowed to attend night school while working in that sweatshop during the day.
Obviously my grandmother didn't like it, so she rarely left anything for her for dinner. Usually all that was left was plain rice, although to be fair, none of the daughters were treated much better by my grandmother in the first place. The routine for her dinner was to add hot water to the rice before eating. She couldn't afford to buy better food for herself despite her job because my grandmother insisted on keeping about 90% of all her daughters' income. Heck, she could barely afford even a haircut, and I get those for just S$9 these days, so a decent meal was out of the question. The only thing she could afford consistently? The bus rides.
But two years later, my fourth aunt was born. On a side note, the fortune-teller was right - my eldest uncle was born after my mother. Anyway, everyone was busy working then, so my mother had to give up her studies to take care of the baby. That was the end to her formal education, discounting the part-time short courses she took beyond that point.
Speaking of my fourth aunt, she was badly neglected as a newborn while in the hospital. During one visit, they found her putting her own feces into her mouth. That was the state of public healthcare half a century ago in Hong Kong.
After that, my mother was focused on her work. She found that she had some talent in tailoring and was interested in design, so she attended an informal course taught by a design student in Hong Kong who was trying to raise money to study fashion design in France. She paid for it herself using money she had saved up despite the little that she got.
Eventually she was so good with the sewing machine she could make a suit with one hand and her work was often used as samples by her boss to be shown to potential clients.
In her personal life, she had always been attractive. After her eldest sister, she was the next most popular girl in the family. While that sister got married at about twenty, my mother went on to have many boyfriends. It wasn't that she didn't want to settle down but my grandmother had designated her least favourite child to be her caretaker when she gets old.
Plenty of guys wooed my mother and many tried to talk about marriage, with some even talking to her mother, but they were all pursuing the impossible - in the eyes of my grandmother, only money talks, and they were all too damn poor anyway.
Not only was my mother pretty, she was also particularly outgoing, mainly because she hated staying at home. She would often go hiking and mountain climbing with male friends, because girls those days preferred to be soft and weak. She couldn't handled that kind of thing, especially when they were climbing a mountain. Seriously, if you can't even take a small cut, what are you even doing on a mountain?
Moreover, girls overthink things and my mother was a simpler person. Sometimes, other girls would accuse her of trying to get the attention of guys they liked, which she had never bothered to do because her mother would nullify any possible happy endings anyway. Guys go after her because she couldn't stop them (one waited even after my dad passed away while another threw away a lock of her hair after her wedding), but she never tried to go after guys. All of them were told upfront that her mother would never allow them to marry her.
(To be continued)
09 Nov 2015
Last week, I finally got comfortable enough with the front crawl to do it slowly. There was still some quick movements as I finish breathing in and continue with the next stroke, but I think I'm close to getting it right.
A lot has changed with my front crawl, and the main difference is that my body rotates back and forth on my sides now.
Now I have to improve on my breaststroke which is clearly wrong because it's giving me shoulder pains. This issue is why I did more front crawl in the first place, hence improving it recently.
Fallout 4 is coming! Pre-ordered it with the season pass last week on GMG with the 20% off, so it was about US$70+ total.
Can't wait! 1 day and 8 hours to go, says Steam.
Wednesday 11 November 2015
Friday 23 October 2015
Rant 1221 / Macarons, Macaroons and Macaroni.
13 Oct 2015
It's true that you have to take advantage of the hotel promos. They are some of the best ways to earn mileage.
So I've been underestimating the amount of mileage that I have saved thus far.
The majority of it are in Asia Miles and my credit card points, and at this moment these two have over 200,000 miles in total.
At 30,000 miles to upgrade a Premium Economy round trip ticket to a Business ticket on a route as long as Hong Kong to Canada, that gives me 7 upgrades at least!
I HAVE ENOUGH MILES TO UPGRADE EVERY TRIP I'LL PROBABLY MAKE NEXT YEAR! AN ENTIRE YEAR ON BUSINESS CLASS!
Holy shit!
Obviously, I'm not going to be that crazy lol. However, I have reached the goal that I had when I started looking into credit cards. Next goal: try First.
21 Oct 2015
Learnt several new things regarding my family and relatives.
Early in my father's silk-printing career, he used to sell fake watches as a side income. During one of his cold visits to a bag factory, he found the man who became the husband of my eldest aunt on my mother's side. Both of them came from China, with my uncle investing in a speedboat and someone who could handle it with several other people to get out and my father swimming out, hence they clicked and got familiar enough for him to introduce a sister-in-law to my father.
And got several people on my mother's side of the family to buy watches from him.
Then came the man who eventually married the 4th sister of the family. It was also a cold visit, since he sold industrial machines, and my father might have needed those. It worked out, they clicked, my mother saw that he was good with kids during visits, and they introduced my aunt to him.
23 Oct 2015
Jet lag. It's 5am and I've been up since 2am. So glad I have flexible working hours.
Read more about Round-The-World (RTW) fares after thinking about her trip to California next year and noticing this while browsing the CX website.
The RTW ticket is interesting because it's so different from the usual concept of the flight ticket.
When we think about air tickets, we think about it being priced in terms of the distance between the places, the popularity of the route, the holiday seasons and the city they're sold in.
In addition to all that, the RTW is also based on a set number of miles. Every route has a specified distance in miles, so every flight taken simply deducts those miles from the ticket which contains a set number of miles in credit.
One pretty cool perk of a RTW ticket is that the Business class version is usually only about twice the price of the Economy class version. However, more research needs to be done check if the Economy version is close to the price of separate tickets in the first place.
Finally, they're very flexible in that they can accommodate lots of date changes for free.
Tried a SG-London-Toronto-Sacramento-SG route, with the London stop included in order to force the trip to cross each ocean only once, which was one of the conditions of the oneworld Explorer.
This got me a price of S$5667.20. Making it Business class got me S$13,742.00.
Starting this and ending at Bangkok got me the same price.
Doing this from Barcelona on Business class got me enough of a price difference that a round trip from SG to Barcelona on Economy would still add up to be slightly lower than the original.
One thing I've learnt about CX is that they rarely offer awesome deals - 10% off a full mileage accrual fare is probably the best an average person can get from this airline, and S$0.10/mile is probably the lowest one can possible get from a CX flight, generally speaking, although using one of their credit card offers could possibly reduce it to S$0.08-$0.09/mile.
I'm close to giving up on trying to hunt for mileage runs for Asia Miles now.
I'm not very happy with the fact that I can't upgrade my upcoming London flights to Business class via Asia Miles redemption, but I guess I'll have to suck it up.
Upgrading them to Premium Economy will cost me over S$2k because the flight back alone will cost me S$2k. Probably full.
However, the recent Vancouver trip has taught me a good lesson - BA011's upper deck Economy seats have an extra compartment next to the window seats without sacrificing any space! Nothing in the pouch in front means more leg room! That was awesome!
Plus, when the compartment is closed, the top cover can be used as an additional table or armrest. Best seats in any Economy cabin I've ever tried, seriously!
Too bad I was too sick to really enjoy the flight.
Nevertheless, I'm emailing BA to see if they can help.
It's true that you have to take advantage of the hotel promos. They are some of the best ways to earn mileage.
So I've been underestimating the amount of mileage that I have saved thus far.
The majority of it are in Asia Miles and my credit card points, and at this moment these two have over 200,000 miles in total.
At 30,000 miles to upgrade a Premium Economy round trip ticket to a Business ticket on a route as long as Hong Kong to Canada, that gives me 7 upgrades at least!
I HAVE ENOUGH MILES TO UPGRADE EVERY TRIP I'LL PROBABLY MAKE NEXT YEAR! AN ENTIRE YEAR ON BUSINESS CLASS!
Holy shit!
Obviously, I'm not going to be that crazy lol. However, I have reached the goal that I had when I started looking into credit cards. Next goal: try First.
21 Oct 2015
Learnt several new things regarding my family and relatives.
Early in my father's silk-printing career, he used to sell fake watches as a side income. During one of his cold visits to a bag factory, he found the man who became the husband of my eldest aunt on my mother's side. Both of them came from China, with my uncle investing in a speedboat and someone who could handle it with several other people to get out and my father swimming out, hence they clicked and got familiar enough for him to introduce a sister-in-law to my father.
And got several people on my mother's side of the family to buy watches from him.
Then came the man who eventually married the 4th sister of the family. It was also a cold visit, since he sold industrial machines, and my father might have needed those. It worked out, they clicked, my mother saw that he was good with kids during visits, and they introduced my aunt to him.
23 Oct 2015
Jet lag. It's 5am and I've been up since 2am. So glad I have flexible working hours.
Read more about Round-The-World (RTW) fares after thinking about her trip to California next year and noticing this while browsing the CX website.
The RTW ticket is interesting because it's so different from the usual concept of the flight ticket.
When we think about air tickets, we think about it being priced in terms of the distance between the places, the popularity of the route, the holiday seasons and the city they're sold in.
In addition to all that, the RTW is also based on a set number of miles. Every route has a specified distance in miles, so every flight taken simply deducts those miles from the ticket which contains a set number of miles in credit.
One pretty cool perk of a RTW ticket is that the Business class version is usually only about twice the price of the Economy class version. However, more research needs to be done check if the Economy version is close to the price of separate tickets in the first place.
Finally, they're very flexible in that they can accommodate lots of date changes for free.
Tried a SG-London-Toronto-Sacramento-SG route, with the London stop included in order to force the trip to cross each ocean only once, which was one of the conditions of the oneworld Explorer.
This got me a price of S$5667.20. Making it Business class got me S$13,742.00.
Starting this and ending at Bangkok got me the same price.
Doing this from Barcelona on Business class got me enough of a price difference that a round trip from SG to Barcelona on Economy would still add up to be slightly lower than the original.
One thing I've learnt about CX is that they rarely offer awesome deals - 10% off a full mileage accrual fare is probably the best an average person can get from this airline, and S$0.10/mile is probably the lowest one can possible get from a CX flight, generally speaking, although using one of their credit card offers could possibly reduce it to S$0.08-$0.09/mile.
I'm close to giving up on trying to hunt for mileage runs for Asia Miles now.
I'm not very happy with the fact that I can't upgrade my upcoming London flights to Business class via Asia Miles redemption, but I guess I'll have to suck it up.
Upgrading them to Premium Economy will cost me over S$2k because the flight back alone will cost me S$2k. Probably full.
However, the recent Vancouver trip has taught me a good lesson - BA011's upper deck Economy seats have an extra compartment next to the window seats without sacrificing any space! Nothing in the pouch in front means more leg room! That was awesome!
Plus, when the compartment is closed, the top cover can be used as an additional table or armrest. Best seats in any Economy cabin I've ever tried, seriously!
Too bad I was too sick to really enjoy the flight.
Nevertheless, I'm emailing BA to see if they can help.
Monday 12 October 2015
Rant 1220 / A Change In Perspective Regarding Airline Mileage.
08 Oct 2015
Booked the two hotels for the European trip in December.
Starts relatively cheap with three nights at H10 Waterloo London via Rocketmiles taking advantage of their Asia Miles promo. This stay will earn me 9000 miles instead of the usual 6000 miles from this site and cost me around S$1056. London hotels are NOT cheap at all.
The tour will end with the final two nights at The Park Tower Knightsbridge London, and in one of their Panoramic Rooms too! This differs from my usual practice of going for the cheapest or second cheapest rooms in every hotel I stay, mainly because the reviews are great about the view from those rooms. This was booked directly through SPG so I'm getting 4pm late check-out in exchange for no major promotion other than the 10% for it being prepaid and cannot be cancelled. This stay costs me 664GBP.
Hope these are worth it.
Will check out the Korean hotels soon. First, the flights though. The HSBC card gives me a small discount on my favourite airline, CX, but the welcome bonus miles just came in so it's time to cancel it. However, I'm also thinking about waiting a little just to see if there will be better promotions in the next few months since the HSBC card offer ends next year.
Haven't been swimming this week so far and it's already Thursday. Got to do something but I'm already reverted back to my slacker mode. Just can't pull myself off this chair.
Maybe I'll cook. She loved my bacon fried rice the other day when we stayed over at her friend's place while another friend baked a cake using the oven there. I only used the leftover rice from our dinner, the second packet of streaky bacon that he bought, 3 of the 6 yolks they removed from their eggs to make their cake, the last whole egg that was brought over for the cake that wasn't used in the end, and the soy sauce in the fridge.
It's just bacon fried rice with mostly leftover ingredients. I wasn't even sure it was completely edible, and it definitely wasn't hygienic. The yolks had been left in the open for 6 hours and the rice 7 hours. By the time I took the yolks, the raw broken yolk that covered the surface had already hardened into a cheese-like layer.
That was partly why it had to be fried rice, and I cooked it a little more than necessary. The only way I could cleanse this was with high heat. Although I can handle the bacteria, the toxins that are the by-products of the decomposition process was another story altogether. It turned out well though, so it's all good now. I don't think whoever scrubbed the pot was happy though. The oil wasn't hot enough I think, or it was just the problem of not using a non-stick pan.
My main concern after I cooked it, however, was that the rice wasn't dry enough. The fried rice, despite the flavour and aroma, was soggy. Immediately after turning off the heat, I googled for a way to solve that, but there was no solution to saving soggy fried rice after it was fried. I MIGHT have been able to reduce the moisture by heating the rice an hour in the "Keep Warm" mode in the rice cooker, but that was too late.
On the bright side, at least the eggs were all spread out. From what I recall, chunks of eggs in a fried rice is not a good thing because a good fried rice needs the egg to be spread evenly over every grain of rice.
However, that could be the effect of the pot not being hot enough. It's kinda hard to heat a pot as quickly as a wok due to the thick bottom. Once the bottom gets cooled down by the ingredients I pour in, it takes a while to get the temperature back up again.
Yes, I actually would prefer to cook that fried rice in a wok or, at the very least, a pan. Those reheat much faster than a pot but weren't available.
Going to get my steel quarter-heel replaced. That thing is too noisy and keeps me worried about scratching someone's floor.
And it's no use in slippery floors.
10 Oct 2015
Fixed my Broughton boots by bringing the pair to the Mr Fix at ION. However, he discovered that the steel quarter-heel was actually a much larger piece embedded into the bottom layer of the heel, so the whole bottom layer was replaced by Vibram rubber.
Oh well.
Think I'm losing weight. Been steady at 95kg these few days now. 95-96kg. Progress! More Subway subs and swimming!
My bro's gone with his wife to the US since before dawn yesterday. His last message was at 3am asking me to bring something he had left behind on his desk.
House is emptier now, but it's awesome when you can walk around naked.
Apparently the most efficient use of my mileage is to buy a Business class ticket and upgrade to First using my miles because the rate is almost twice of the Premium Economy to Business upgrade Well, fuck. I'm never going to buy a Business class ticket with cash.
12 Oct 2015
So, last night after dinner (been eating relatively more over the weekend) and the weighing scale said I was only 95.5kg.
This is awesome!
It means that in the short term, no matter how much I eat over a few days, I won't exceed 96kg!
Which means I really got to swim while in Canada. Must keep my momentum up!
Recently discovered the use of Vaseline as a lip balm. Feels the same as any other lip balm but I can control more easily the amount applied, I feel. Any excess can be spread over my hands like a lotion.
Pretty cool.
Booked my Korea trip last night for next year. Got to work! Used the HSBC Visa Infinite for a CX economy ticket with the card promo and it turned out to be slightly better than I thought.
For almost S$890, I got what I think is an Economy Flex ticket or something, V class. Basically it's changeable with no additional fee but at a promo price of 90% of the lowest undiscounted Economy price. If I had booked the lowest Economy ticket normally, they would charge a fee for any date changes, so this deal is awesome.
Only catch is that it's not upgradeable with miles, but that's ok - I have no intention to upgrade a flight of that length.
As for the hotel, I thought the Rocket Miles would be good since they give miles when I book a stay through them, but after some calculations, earning 3.5k Asia Miles for a 6 night stay at Skypark Myeongdong III at $110 a night excluding taxes is still not as good as getting 10% rebate via Shopback when booking the same hotel for 6 nights at $99 a night excluding taxes on Expedia.
I'm taking one mile at S$0.05 here though because I misremembered the value. According to my analysis above, it should have been S$0.1377 per mile at the PE-B upgrade rate, taking 1SGD = 6HKD.
If I use the correct mile value, then 3k miles would have been S$482, ie Rocket Miles was giving a $482 rebate.
Rocket Miles:
$808.62 - $482 = $326.67
Expedia via Shopback:
$653.88 * 90/100 = $588.492
Shit, I just spent an extra $261.82 for nothing.
You know what's worse? I just looked at the Expedia promotion for my credit card and it's giving 15 Citi Dollars for every S$1 spent there through the Citi promo page on Expedia.
Fuck. At 2.5 Citi Dollars per mile, that's 6 miles per dollar, or S$0.8262 rebate per dollar, or 82.62% rebate!
Fuck!
At this rate, the hotel would have effectively cost me only
$653.88 * 0.1738 = S$113.64 net
No it's not refundable. Seriously, I need a few days to consider every hotel booking I make because I keep forgetting stuff. Must never book on the same day again!
Funny thing is, if I use the B-F upgrade rate, CX would have been effectively paying me to stay in that hotel.
HK$1.50459 = S$0.25765
6 miles per dollar spent = $1.50459 per dollar spent, ie if I use my miles solely on upgrades from Business to First, CX pays me an extra 50.459% of every dollar I spend on Expedia via the Citibank promo link.
I'm not even kidding.
More specifically,
50.459% * $653 = S$329.50 assuming Citi only considers whole dollars and ignores the cents.
Basically, staying at the hotel in itself would have partially funded my First class ticket. Hilarious!
Oh...
Say, all I do is spend my time in hotels booked via Expedia, just to make enough miles to upgrade a Business ticket to a First.
What does it take to upgrade?
85,000 miles.
How much money do I need to spend on that hotel to make 85,000 miles?
S$14,167.
How much did that Business ticket cost?
HK$47,660 = S$7,943.33
Total cost of getting First class ticket by upgrading a Business seat bought with cash:
S$(7,943.33 + 14,167) = S$22,110.33
Undiscounted price of that First class seat:
HK$175,550 = S$29,258.33
Total discount: S$7148 = 24.431%
Basically there is no way I can get that seat for free because the miles and cash are not interchangeable but even a 20% discount is huge. Regardless of how much CX is paying me back in mileage value, it's still in miles that cannot be converted into cash. All it does is reduce the amount of money I have to spend to earn the same amount of miles.
This means I have been looking at this from the wrong perspective that all these ads have given me.
Instead of looking at how much value I get back from spending each dollar, I should be looking at how these promos reduce the amount I have to spend to earn the amount of mileage I want.
It has never been a rebate since whatever value I get in return cannot be converted into cash - all these are are discounts for the upgrades. Instead of seeing it as a 50% rebate, I should regard it as 33% less cash I have to spend to get the same amount of miles.
At the First class upgrade rate, it's just a 33% discount, even if I ignore the Business class fare which makes up 27% of the First class fare.
27% of the ticket is paid at 100%, and the other 73% of the ticket is paid at 67%, hence the effective payment amount is around 76% of the original price.
Although the 27% is an unchangeable amount, can the 73% be paid at an even lower rate?
Booked the two hotels for the European trip in December.
Starts relatively cheap with three nights at H10 Waterloo London via Rocketmiles taking advantage of their Asia Miles promo. This stay will earn me 9000 miles instead of the usual 6000 miles from this site and cost me around S$1056. London hotels are NOT cheap at all.
The tour will end with the final two nights at The Park Tower Knightsbridge London, and in one of their Panoramic Rooms too! This differs from my usual practice of going for the cheapest or second cheapest rooms in every hotel I stay, mainly because the reviews are great about the view from those rooms. This was booked directly through SPG so I'm getting 4pm late check-out in exchange for no major promotion other than the 10% for it being prepaid and cannot be cancelled. This stay costs me 664GBP.
Hope these are worth it.
Will check out the Korean hotels soon. First, the flights though. The HSBC card gives me a small discount on my favourite airline, CX, but the welcome bonus miles just came in so it's time to cancel it. However, I'm also thinking about waiting a little just to see if there will be better promotions in the next few months since the HSBC card offer ends next year.
Haven't been swimming this week so far and it's already Thursday. Got to do something but I'm already reverted back to my slacker mode. Just can't pull myself off this chair.
Maybe I'll cook. She loved my bacon fried rice the other day when we stayed over at her friend's place while another friend baked a cake using the oven there. I only used the leftover rice from our dinner, the second packet of streaky bacon that he bought, 3 of the 6 yolks they removed from their eggs to make their cake, the last whole egg that was brought over for the cake that wasn't used in the end, and the soy sauce in the fridge.
It's just bacon fried rice with mostly leftover ingredients. I wasn't even sure it was completely edible, and it definitely wasn't hygienic. The yolks had been left in the open for 6 hours and the rice 7 hours. By the time I took the yolks, the raw broken yolk that covered the surface had already hardened into a cheese-like layer.
That was partly why it had to be fried rice, and I cooked it a little more than necessary. The only way I could cleanse this was with high heat. Although I can handle the bacteria, the toxins that are the by-products of the decomposition process was another story altogether. It turned out well though, so it's all good now. I don't think whoever scrubbed the pot was happy though. The oil wasn't hot enough I think, or it was just the problem of not using a non-stick pan.
My main concern after I cooked it, however, was that the rice wasn't dry enough. The fried rice, despite the flavour and aroma, was soggy. Immediately after turning off the heat, I googled for a way to solve that, but there was no solution to saving soggy fried rice after it was fried. I MIGHT have been able to reduce the moisture by heating the rice an hour in the "Keep Warm" mode in the rice cooker, but that was too late.
On the bright side, at least the eggs were all spread out. From what I recall, chunks of eggs in a fried rice is not a good thing because a good fried rice needs the egg to be spread evenly over every grain of rice.
However, that could be the effect of the pot not being hot enough. It's kinda hard to heat a pot as quickly as a wok due to the thick bottom. Once the bottom gets cooled down by the ingredients I pour in, it takes a while to get the temperature back up again.
Yes, I actually would prefer to cook that fried rice in a wok or, at the very least, a pan. Those reheat much faster than a pot but weren't available.
Going to get my steel quarter-heel replaced. That thing is too noisy and keeps me worried about scratching someone's floor.
And it's no use in slippery floors.
10 Oct 2015
Fixed my Broughton boots by bringing the pair to the Mr Fix at ION. However, he discovered that the steel quarter-heel was actually a much larger piece embedded into the bottom layer of the heel, so the whole bottom layer was replaced by Vibram rubber.
Oh well.
Think I'm losing weight. Been steady at 95kg these few days now. 95-96kg. Progress! More Subway subs and swimming!
My bro's gone with his wife to the US since before dawn yesterday. His last message was at 3am asking me to bring something he had left behind on his desk.
House is emptier now, but it's awesome when you can walk around naked.
Apparently the most efficient use of my mileage is to buy a Business class ticket and upgrade to First using my miles because the rate is almost twice of the Premium Economy to Business upgrade Well, fuck. I'm never going to buy a Business class ticket with cash.
12 Oct 2015
So, last night after dinner (been eating relatively more over the weekend) and the weighing scale said I was only 95.5kg.
This is awesome!
It means that in the short term, no matter how much I eat over a few days, I won't exceed 96kg!
Which means I really got to swim while in Canada. Must keep my momentum up!
Recently discovered the use of Vaseline as a lip balm. Feels the same as any other lip balm but I can control more easily the amount applied, I feel. Any excess can be spread over my hands like a lotion.
Pretty cool.
Booked my Korea trip last night for next year. Got to work! Used the HSBC Visa Infinite for a CX economy ticket with the card promo and it turned out to be slightly better than I thought.
For almost S$890, I got what I think is an Economy Flex ticket or something, V class. Basically it's changeable with no additional fee but at a promo price of 90% of the lowest undiscounted Economy price. If I had booked the lowest Economy ticket normally, they would charge a fee for any date changes, so this deal is awesome.
Only catch is that it's not upgradeable with miles, but that's ok - I have no intention to upgrade a flight of that length.
As for the hotel, I thought the Rocket Miles would be good since they give miles when I book a stay through them, but after some calculations, earning 3.5k Asia Miles for a 6 night stay at Skypark Myeongdong III at $110 a night excluding taxes is still not as good as getting 10% rebate via Shopback when booking the same hotel for 6 nights at $99 a night excluding taxes on Expedia.
I'm taking one mile at S$0.05 here though because I misremembered the value. According to my analysis above, it should have been S$0.1377 per mile at the PE-B upgrade rate, taking 1SGD = 6HKD.
If I use the correct mile value, then 3k miles would have been S$482, ie Rocket Miles was giving a $482 rebate.
Rocket Miles:
$808.62 - $482 = $326.67
Expedia via Shopback:
$653.88 * 90/100 = $588.492
Shit, I just spent an extra $261.82 for nothing.
You know what's worse? I just looked at the Expedia promotion for my credit card and it's giving 15 Citi Dollars for every S$1 spent there through the Citi promo page on Expedia.
Fuck. At 2.5 Citi Dollars per mile, that's 6 miles per dollar, or S$0.8262 rebate per dollar, or 82.62% rebate!
Fuck!
At this rate, the hotel would have effectively cost me only
$653.88 * 0.1738 = S$113.64 net
No it's not refundable. Seriously, I need a few days to consider every hotel booking I make because I keep forgetting stuff. Must never book on the same day again!
Funny thing is, if I use the B-F upgrade rate, CX would have been effectively paying me to stay in that hotel.
HK$1.50459 = S$0.25765
6 miles per dollar spent = $1.50459 per dollar spent, ie if I use my miles solely on upgrades from Business to First, CX pays me an extra 50.459% of every dollar I spend on Expedia via the Citibank promo link.
I'm not even kidding.
More specifically,
50.459% * $653 = S$329.50 assuming Citi only considers whole dollars and ignores the cents.
Basically, staying at the hotel in itself would have partially funded my First class ticket. Hilarious!
Oh...
Say, all I do is spend my time in hotels booked via Expedia, just to make enough miles to upgrade a Business ticket to a First.
What does it take to upgrade?
85,000 miles.
How much money do I need to spend on that hotel to make 85,000 miles?
S$14,167.
How much did that Business ticket cost?
HK$47,660 = S$7,943.33
Total cost of getting First class ticket by upgrading a Business seat bought with cash:
S$(7,943.33 + 14,167) = S$22,110.33
Undiscounted price of that First class seat:
HK$175,550 = S$29,258.33
Total discount: S$7148 = 24.431%
Basically there is no way I can get that seat for free because the miles and cash are not interchangeable but even a 20% discount is huge. Regardless of how much CX is paying me back in mileage value, it's still in miles that cannot be converted into cash. All it does is reduce the amount of money I have to spend to earn the same amount of miles.
This means I have been looking at this from the wrong perspective that all these ads have given me.
Instead of looking at how much value I get back from spending each dollar, I should be looking at how these promos reduce the amount I have to spend to earn the amount of mileage I want.
It has never been a rebate since whatever value I get in return cannot be converted into cash - all these are are discounts for the upgrades. Instead of seeing it as a 50% rebate, I should regard it as 33% less cash I have to spend to get the same amount of miles.
At the First class upgrade rate, it's just a 33% discount, even if I ignore the Business class fare which makes up 27% of the First class fare.
27% of the ticket is paid at 100%, and the other 73% of the ticket is paid at 67%, hence the effective payment amount is around 76% of the original price.
Although the 27% is an unchangeable amount, can the 73% be paid at an even lower rate?
Thursday 8 October 2015
Rant 1219 / The Storm Before The Calm
29 Sept 2015
Will I... spend 341GBP a night for a Panorama room at the Park Tower Knightsbridge in London? I could also get a room with a less awesome view for 287GBP there.
So I have these 5 nights that I'll be staying in London on my own, 7-10 Dec and then 3-5 Jan.
Did some research and found that among that available London hotels in the SPG programme, the above hotel is the best in terms of location while Sheraton Skyline Hotel London Heathrow and the Aloft London Excel are the best in terms of price. From what I can tell after reading the reviews, the Aloft London Excel is mainly a no-frills business hotel that's pretty new and has minimal amenities in a rather inconvenient location for exploring the city. In contrast, the Sheraton Skyline Hotel London Heathrow is a convention hotel that has pretty cool amenities but is also ageing. Moreover, the Skyline Hotel isn't actually very close to the Heathrow Airport despite its name. As for its Club lounge, it's apparently getting old and can be quite crowded at times, the latter making it noisy and limiting the choices of food and beverages, hence potentially turning it into a redundant feature. After all, lounges are supposed to be quiet! On the other hand, I'll be there only on weekdays so it could be better than that.
Both are equally inconvenient due to their locations, with Aloft being served by the Jubilee line and Skyline served by... various public buses and the Hoppa bus.
One option is to stay in one of the two cheaper ones on the 7th till the 10th of December 2015, than stay at the Park Tower Knightsbridge in January, mainly because all their rates are lower in the later month.
However, another option is to stay at Le Meridien Picadilly in December. It's got the same age problem as Skyline but it's got a far better location at the city centre. The issue is that it's only slightly cheaper than Park Tower Knightsbridge.
The Park Lane Hotel London is out of the question because I expect to waste a day suffering from jetlag in the hotel. It's under renovation so it's going to be impossible to chill in during the day.
Or I could try the Great Northern Hotel. Everything about it seems pretty cool and it's slightly more expensive than the Park Tower Knightsbridge. Unlikely.
As for the ski trip to Japan, I'm thinking about sucking it up and just stay in a place where I have to mix around with others.
02 Oct 2015
For the ski trip, I'm cancelling it. No time.
Ordered a kickboard to learn a new swimming technique. This doesn't seem to be widely taught here in Singapore as I had trouble finding any coach or school offering a course on the underwater dolphin kick.
After a lot of reading and watching videos, I came across this website teaching this technique and one of the videos showed that the board is useful in practising the kick.
I've already done the exercises on the wall and the plan is to try it out with the board soon. This technique is awesome!
03 Oct 2015
How do people see soy milk as a vegan replacement for cows' milk?
Soy milk tastes and smells nothing like milk! The only resemblance is the colour, that's all.
But if you see it as a different thing, then yes it makes sense. I'd describe soy milk as having a different aroma - if you add it to coffee, it gives a very slight difference in taste.
Then again, I could try with almond milk and tell you the same thing. Could be awesome too, almond mocha.
4th Oct 2015
What a dilemma. She wants to sleep over at my place every night (no sex, we're too tired from our schedules, mainly hers of course) but her dad might explode if he finds out. As I recall, she told me a long time ago, back when we first started dating I think, that he would chase her exes out of their home at 12am. Clearly, he is a conservative/protective father regardless of his opinions in the upbringing of a child. Moreover, he's already scolded the both of us once, literally shouted at us, for being late.
If he finds out that she's sleeping over, regardless of whether it's anything more than that, it's obvious that his voice is going to be the least of my concern.
It was a decision between my heart and my mind: she wanted to spend more time with me and vice versa so that's one of the few ways we can do that due to her long classes; but this was going to hurt everyone if her parents ever find out.
In the end, despite her extreme response to my suggestion that she stayed home, she eventually decided to agree because she felt I had already decided on it. I'm not even kidding - she ran home crying once I raised that up. It was only due to her poor stamina, the slightly longer route she took and my sustainable brisk walking speed that I could reach her lift lobby about 2-3 minutes before her.
You know what the worst thing is? For such decisions, you will never know for sure whether it was the right one. Only when things go well long enough that I will know it was probably one of the many right decisions that we made that made the relationship work.
Drank a whole bottle of Carlos Rossi sparkling white wine last night because I no longer need such a thing and I felt like drinking alcohol to see if there's any improvement in my alcohol capacity.
First of all, it sucks. Then again, it's ok for its price. Seriously, I'm never going to touch this brand ever again. I'll just drink less but better wines.
Second, it was gassy so it took a while to finish, and by the last mouthful I was quite ready to puke. But I did not. Phew.
In the end, I didn't fall like the last time, fortunately, but I did fall asleep very quickly once I went to bed. No breakfast was necessary this morning. Just felt so full.
Conclusion is that my capacity has not improvement significantly and I still can honestly say that I don't get hangovers. Lucky me.
My sister-in-law's friends brought a bottle of Pio Cesare Moscato d'Asti (unknown vintage) last night too, but I never found out how much that guy paid for it at 1855. Upon checking my receipt from Grand Vin, the local distributor, it had cost me S$38 per bottle of the same wine (2012 vintage) and shipping was just my bus fare from Jurong East to Buona Vista. Probably a dollar.
I'll have to enquire at the nearest 1855 shop about the price when I remember to. Just curious about whether I had actually saved anything. The decision to buy from the supplier came solely from the assumption that suppliers always offer lower prices than their clients.
07 Oct 2015
Bought a tiny 50ml bottle of Vaseline after reading that I could dab a bit of it using a cotton bud and apply it on my sinuses to deal with the nosebleeds I get in colder climates.
Last night I tried using it as a moisturizer on my fingers and it was literally just a touch of it on every fingertips, and it worked pretty well. Now I wonder why people buy other moisturizers.
...
Ok just checked it out and learnt that frequent inhalation of fats will lead to lipid pneumonia. That sounds like it means ANY oil and petroleum-based products, since as I recall, oils and fats are supposed to be digested in our bodies into lipids and other stuff.
One solution is something from Burt's Bees, but I think I'll just get a nasal moisturizer from a hospital and also the saline spray that I've been using to rinse my sinuses.
But I'll continue to keep this bottle of Vaseline for my hands.
Will I... spend 341GBP a night for a Panorama room at the Park Tower Knightsbridge in London? I could also get a room with a less awesome view for 287GBP there.
So I have these 5 nights that I'll be staying in London on my own, 7-10 Dec and then 3-5 Jan.
Did some research and found that among that available London hotels in the SPG programme, the above hotel is the best in terms of location while Sheraton Skyline Hotel London Heathrow and the Aloft London Excel are the best in terms of price. From what I can tell after reading the reviews, the Aloft London Excel is mainly a no-frills business hotel that's pretty new and has minimal amenities in a rather inconvenient location for exploring the city. In contrast, the Sheraton Skyline Hotel London Heathrow is a convention hotel that has pretty cool amenities but is also ageing. Moreover, the Skyline Hotel isn't actually very close to the Heathrow Airport despite its name. As for its Club lounge, it's apparently getting old and can be quite crowded at times, the latter making it noisy and limiting the choices of food and beverages, hence potentially turning it into a redundant feature. After all, lounges are supposed to be quiet! On the other hand, I'll be there only on weekdays so it could be better than that.
Both are equally inconvenient due to their locations, with Aloft being served by the Jubilee line and Skyline served by... various public buses and the Hoppa bus.
One option is to stay in one of the two cheaper ones on the 7th till the 10th of December 2015, than stay at the Park Tower Knightsbridge in January, mainly because all their rates are lower in the later month.
However, another option is to stay at Le Meridien Picadilly in December. It's got the same age problem as Skyline but it's got a far better location at the city centre. The issue is that it's only slightly cheaper than Park Tower Knightsbridge.
The Park Lane Hotel London is out of the question because I expect to waste a day suffering from jetlag in the hotel. It's under renovation so it's going to be impossible to chill in during the day.
Or I could try the Great Northern Hotel. Everything about it seems pretty cool and it's slightly more expensive than the Park Tower Knightsbridge. Unlikely.
As for the ski trip to Japan, I'm thinking about sucking it up and just stay in a place where I have to mix around with others.
02 Oct 2015
For the ski trip, I'm cancelling it. No time.
Ordered a kickboard to learn a new swimming technique. This doesn't seem to be widely taught here in Singapore as I had trouble finding any coach or school offering a course on the underwater dolphin kick.
After a lot of reading and watching videos, I came across this website teaching this technique and one of the videos showed that the board is useful in practising the kick.
I've already done the exercises on the wall and the plan is to try it out with the board soon. This technique is awesome!
03 Oct 2015
How do people see soy milk as a vegan replacement for cows' milk?
Soy milk tastes and smells nothing like milk! The only resemblance is the colour, that's all.
But if you see it as a different thing, then yes it makes sense. I'd describe soy milk as having a different aroma - if you add it to coffee, it gives a very slight difference in taste.
Then again, I could try with almond milk and tell you the same thing. Could be awesome too, almond mocha.
4th Oct 2015
What a dilemma. She wants to sleep over at my place every night (no sex, we're too tired from our schedules, mainly hers of course) but her dad might explode if he finds out. As I recall, she told me a long time ago, back when we first started dating I think, that he would chase her exes out of their home at 12am. Clearly, he is a conservative/protective father regardless of his opinions in the upbringing of a child. Moreover, he's already scolded the both of us once, literally shouted at us, for being late.
If he finds out that she's sleeping over, regardless of whether it's anything more than that, it's obvious that his voice is going to be the least of my concern.
It was a decision between my heart and my mind: she wanted to spend more time with me and vice versa so that's one of the few ways we can do that due to her long classes; but this was going to hurt everyone if her parents ever find out.
In the end, despite her extreme response to my suggestion that she stayed home, she eventually decided to agree because she felt I had already decided on it. I'm not even kidding - she ran home crying once I raised that up. It was only due to her poor stamina, the slightly longer route she took and my sustainable brisk walking speed that I could reach her lift lobby about 2-3 minutes before her.
You know what the worst thing is? For such decisions, you will never know for sure whether it was the right one. Only when things go well long enough that I will know it was probably one of the many right decisions that we made that made the relationship work.
Drank a whole bottle of Carlos Rossi sparkling white wine last night because I no longer need such a thing and I felt like drinking alcohol to see if there's any improvement in my alcohol capacity.
First of all, it sucks. Then again, it's ok for its price. Seriously, I'm never going to touch this brand ever again. I'll just drink less but better wines.
Second, it was gassy so it took a while to finish, and by the last mouthful I was quite ready to puke. But I did not. Phew.
In the end, I didn't fall like the last time, fortunately, but I did fall asleep very quickly once I went to bed. No breakfast was necessary this morning. Just felt so full.
Conclusion is that my capacity has not improvement significantly and I still can honestly say that I don't get hangovers. Lucky me.
My sister-in-law's friends brought a bottle of Pio Cesare Moscato d'Asti (unknown vintage) last night too, but I never found out how much that guy paid for it at 1855. Upon checking my receipt from Grand Vin, the local distributor, it had cost me S$38 per bottle of the same wine (2012 vintage) and shipping was just my bus fare from Jurong East to Buona Vista. Probably a dollar.
I'll have to enquire at the nearest 1855 shop about the price when I remember to. Just curious about whether I had actually saved anything. The decision to buy from the supplier came solely from the assumption that suppliers always offer lower prices than their clients.
07 Oct 2015
Bought a tiny 50ml bottle of Vaseline after reading that I could dab a bit of it using a cotton bud and apply it on my sinuses to deal with the nosebleeds I get in colder climates.
Last night I tried using it as a moisturizer on my fingers and it was literally just a touch of it on every fingertips, and it worked pretty well. Now I wonder why people buy other moisturizers.
...
Ok just checked it out and learnt that frequent inhalation of fats will lead to lipid pneumonia. That sounds like it means ANY oil and petroleum-based products, since as I recall, oils and fats are supposed to be digested in our bodies into lipids and other stuff.
One solution is something from Burt's Bees, but I think I'll just get a nasal moisturizer from a hospital and also the saline spray that I've been using to rinse my sinuses.
But I'll continue to keep this bottle of Vaseline for my hands.
Saturday 26 September 2015
Rant 1218 / Of Cards And Health
22 Sept 2015
Frankly I'm tempted to stay with HSBC Visa Infinite. Wait... Let me check on the expiry of points.
Ok so the points last 3 years, expiring at the commencement of the 4th year.
The reasons I'm tempted is because firstly, it only costs me S$30,000 in deposit to enjoy most of the benefits, plus $5k spend per quarter for the airport limo, in contrast to $200k for Citigold plus S$3k spend per quarter in foreign currencies. Secondly, it's unlimited one-way airport transfers, meaning it's available for abuse. $5k spend in three months really isn't hard when I can shop for both her and myself and sometimes my brother. Thirdly, it's got better offers at Cathay Pacific. Fourth, it's got complimentary Meet and Greet, luggage clearance and expedited immigration service at selected airports with that minimum spend. Fifth, the Priority Pass that came with it expires in 4 years instead of one year that Citibank gives me.
However, after reading part of the Terms and Conditions while checking the point expiry just now, I'm totally turned off.
First, the limo can only take two guests and myself. Second, there's a small surcharge if I need it between 12am-6am. Well, sometimes I do come back or go off during that period.
Other than these reasons found in the T&C, there is the fact that the points expire in three years. That's a major turn-off since the unending validity of the points with the Prestige card was what drew me to it. Another reason is that the complimentary Meet and Greet and stuff are off little use to me even if it's available at all airports.
As of this moment, I believe I shall stick to the original plan to cancel the HSBC Visa Infinite once the miles are received.
I have been tempted. This is undeniable. Google results tell me this is normal. But I will stick with her. Despite all her flaws, she has a combination of good points that I love that I don't believe I will find in the same configuration in anyone else.
One thing I've figured out is that a relationship is as permanent as the two make it - a possible breakup is only a breakup if neither wants to patch up.
24 Sept 2015
So I was sold.
I went to Spa Rael and I was sold. The therapist there was just better than the one at SkinLab.
This was just a free facial courtesy of Citigold as one of my birthday perks, but it showed me what it can be like, and how bad some of the therapists were at SkinLab.
I'm not saying SkinLab is bad, because there has been one so far who gave me a similar massage for the whatever ampoule they were using; what I am saying is that they provide an inconsistent level of service that can be as bad as... no massage - one simply covered my face with it and left it at that.
Since the place was my first, I thought that was normal. Clearly, I was wrong.
Fortunately, I can request specific therapists so it's not a major issue, but I'm going to move to Spa Rael once my package at SkinLab is finished.
The level of service was one reason, and the other reason was that they gave me more perks - the final package included one extra facial session and four sessions of ANYTHING in the catalogue. I was curious about whether the packages were fixed, so I gambled a little and asked for an extra session (I was actually thinking about asking for a few extra sessions but somehow what came out of my mouth was different). The result was that she said that the manager was in that day so she went out to consult him/her, before returning to tell me she could add an extra facial session (I was thinking about the session of ANYTHING though).
But hey, it's a new lesson for me. Actually, two lessons so far. First, the packages are negotiable. Second, saying that you already have a package at another place gives you additional negotiating power.
So I wonder. I wonder if I should finish my package at SkinLab first, or alternate between them, or go for Spa Rael first.
Probably alternate between them.
25 Sept 2015
Another reason I like Spa Rael that I've only just recalled is that the therapist cleared my nose pimple without me feeling anything other than a slight vibration as if she poked it lightly. At SkinLab, the last time I went with a pimple I was told it had to "mature" before she can do anything about it.
So the gears have arrived in the country making the Halfbike II that I backed earlier on at Kickstarter. The delivery schedule is coming soon! Can't wait!
The haze is improving. It was so bad yesterday my sinus felt sore and I had to wear the N95 all day except in the hospital where I trust the air is filtered since the windows are closed.
It's not just about the dust particles but also the gases produced by the Indonesian fires. Normally, when trees burn, we only consider the smoke and dust, but the fact is that there are a number of gases produced in small quantities that are practically negligible if we're talking about just a small area getting burnt.
However, with the huge swathes of land on fire in Indonesia, and with the winds blowing everything in our direction, those gases are no longer in safe quantities for the weakest of the population.
Was checking out my subscriptions on Youtube when I noticed TokyoGastronomy again. It has been a while since their last video so I thought I'd just look around to see if there's any discussion going on there.
No comment at all, but in the process I looked through their old videos again and found one that was on strawberries.
Since my gf is studying culinary management and loves desserts, I thought it would be of interest to her.
It was like an undergrad looking at post-doctorate work. All the stuff in class she's been telling me about, they were nothing compared to that single strawberry that took over half the day to make.
Dat strawberry. Seriously.
So the health screening clinic at NUH is considered a private clinic, so any referrals to a specialist will get no subsidy. The only way to get that is to go bring their referral letter to a polyclinic and get another referral from the polyclinic.
Unfortunately, polyclinics don't provide comprehensive health screenings so if this is the same with all public hospitals, I'll just suck it up and go to NUH.
That is, unless Raffles provides a roughly similar deal in terms of price vs number of tests. I'll have to do a excel sheet later.
Frankly I'm tempted to stay with HSBC Visa Infinite. Wait... Let me check on the expiry of points.
Ok so the points last 3 years, expiring at the commencement of the 4th year.
The reasons I'm tempted is because firstly, it only costs me S$30,000 in deposit to enjoy most of the benefits, plus $5k spend per quarter for the airport limo, in contrast to $200k for Citigold plus S$3k spend per quarter in foreign currencies. Secondly, it's unlimited one-way airport transfers, meaning it's available for abuse. $5k spend in three months really isn't hard when I can shop for both her and myself and sometimes my brother. Thirdly, it's got better offers at Cathay Pacific. Fourth, it's got complimentary Meet and Greet, luggage clearance and expedited immigration service at selected airports with that minimum spend. Fifth, the Priority Pass that came with it expires in 4 years instead of one year that Citibank gives me.
However, after reading part of the Terms and Conditions while checking the point expiry just now, I'm totally turned off.
First, the limo can only take two guests and myself. Second, there's a small surcharge if I need it between 12am-6am. Well, sometimes I do come back or go off during that period.
Other than these reasons found in the T&C, there is the fact that the points expire in three years. That's a major turn-off since the unending validity of the points with the Prestige card was what drew me to it. Another reason is that the complimentary Meet and Greet and stuff are off little use to me even if it's available at all airports.
As of this moment, I believe I shall stick to the original plan to cancel the HSBC Visa Infinite once the miles are received.
I have been tempted. This is undeniable. Google results tell me this is normal. But I will stick with her. Despite all her flaws, she has a combination of good points that I love that I don't believe I will find in the same configuration in anyone else.
One thing I've figured out is that a relationship is as permanent as the two make it - a possible breakup is only a breakup if neither wants to patch up.
24 Sept 2015
So I was sold.
I went to Spa Rael and I was sold. The therapist there was just better than the one at SkinLab.
This was just a free facial courtesy of Citigold as one of my birthday perks, but it showed me what it can be like, and how bad some of the therapists were at SkinLab.
I'm not saying SkinLab is bad, because there has been one so far who gave me a similar massage for the whatever ampoule they were using; what I am saying is that they provide an inconsistent level of service that can be as bad as... no massage - one simply covered my face with it and left it at that.
Since the place was my first, I thought that was normal. Clearly, I was wrong.
Fortunately, I can request specific therapists so it's not a major issue, but I'm going to move to Spa Rael once my package at SkinLab is finished.
The level of service was one reason, and the other reason was that they gave me more perks - the final package included one extra facial session and four sessions of ANYTHING in the catalogue. I was curious about whether the packages were fixed, so I gambled a little and asked for an extra session (I was actually thinking about asking for a few extra sessions but somehow what came out of my mouth was different). The result was that she said that the manager was in that day so she went out to consult him/her, before returning to tell me she could add an extra facial session (I was thinking about the session of ANYTHING though).
But hey, it's a new lesson for me. Actually, two lessons so far. First, the packages are negotiable. Second, saying that you already have a package at another place gives you additional negotiating power.
So I wonder. I wonder if I should finish my package at SkinLab first, or alternate between them, or go for Spa Rael first.
Probably alternate between them.
25 Sept 2015
Another reason I like Spa Rael that I've only just recalled is that the therapist cleared my nose pimple without me feeling anything other than a slight vibration as if she poked it lightly. At SkinLab, the last time I went with a pimple I was told it had to "mature" before she can do anything about it.
So the gears have arrived in the country making the Halfbike II that I backed earlier on at Kickstarter. The delivery schedule is coming soon! Can't wait!
The haze is improving. It was so bad yesterday my sinus felt sore and I had to wear the N95 all day except in the hospital where I trust the air is filtered since the windows are closed.
It's not just about the dust particles but also the gases produced by the Indonesian fires. Normally, when trees burn, we only consider the smoke and dust, but the fact is that there are a number of gases produced in small quantities that are practically negligible if we're talking about just a small area getting burnt.
However, with the huge swathes of land on fire in Indonesia, and with the winds blowing everything in our direction, those gases are no longer in safe quantities for the weakest of the population.
Was checking out my subscriptions on Youtube when I noticed TokyoGastronomy again. It has been a while since their last video so I thought I'd just look around to see if there's any discussion going on there.
No comment at all, but in the process I looked through their old videos again and found one that was on strawberries.
Since my gf is studying culinary management and loves desserts, I thought it would be of interest to her.
It was like an undergrad looking at post-doctorate work. All the stuff in class she's been telling me about, they were nothing compared to that single strawberry that took over half the day to make.
Dat strawberry. Seriously.
So the health screening clinic at NUH is considered a private clinic, so any referrals to a specialist will get no subsidy. The only way to get that is to go bring their referral letter to a polyclinic and get another referral from the polyclinic.
Unfortunately, polyclinics don't provide comprehensive health screenings so if this is the same with all public hospitals, I'll just suck it up and go to NUH.
That is, unless Raffles provides a roughly similar deal in terms of price vs number of tests. I'll have to do a excel sheet later.
Monday 21 September 2015
Rant 1217 / More Posts Likely Due To More Alone Time In These Few Months.
20 Sept 2015
Back from Penang yesterday.
It was quite enlightening, this trip. What my uncle there told me was a more realistic version of what my mother told me about my father.
For one, he tried to swim over to Hong Kong twice and the first time he was stopped by the PLA coast guards. Some of his friends were shot dead on the spot while others were injured. Everyone who was alive, including my father, was arrested and sent to jail.
After he was released, he tried again, this time successfully reaching Hong Kong where he was taken in temporarily by a fisherman before finding a job in a textile factory. The part after his arrival was told by my mother so let's take it with a pinch of salt.
The other inaccuracy was that my great-great-aunt who went to Penang went there because she had a son by a Singaporean man who refused to marry her. Because that was in my grandparents' era, she had to leave the country to escape the shame and humiliation. My great-great-grandmother, aka her mother, left China with her and they eventually settled down in Penang. Being well-educated, she became a teacher of English and tailoring (instead of a midwife like my mother told me). Her son was the uncle I have here in Singapore whom I had lost contact with and whose ex-wife attended my mother's funeral.
I wonder if he ever found his father.
During her time in Penang, she got a godfather whose son was the relative I had contacted and visited in Penang during this trip. In addition, her godfather, being the 7th child in the family with 10 other siblings, had a 6th brother who had five children during his lifetime. Unable to feed all of them, he gave a daughter to my great-great-aunt to adopt, and she was the nice one who took care of her during her final days and then settled all the matters involving her passing, even though she had at least one business to run in the US.
Her son didn't do anything.
One issue that cropped up in Penang was about the name of my grandfather. On the tablet of my great-great-grandmother were the names of her children and grandchildren. My great-great-aunt was not in the tablet for some reason, shame being my guess. Anyway there were two names under the "grandsons" and I would like to know which is my grandfather. For this, this uncle in Penang suggested that I find out the contact of my great-uncle, ie my grandfather's brother, whom I recall visiting many times in Hong Kong when I was small. His door had this board placed vertically, probably to prevent minor floods, and everyone always had to remind me to avoid tripping since I was less than five years old back then.
Back to the point, surely there must be a number that my mother had noted down somewhere in her notebooks. So I searched just now, and the name of one of his daughters was there in a notebook along with a few numbers.
On Monday, I'll contact her.
Maybe eventually I could contact the relatives I also have in Medan. Maybe she would know. I recall my father's Indonesian cousin visiting us several times, including once when I learnt that while in Singapore, we call tea with sugar and milk "teh" and tea with sugar "teh-o", in Indonesia "teh" refers to tea with sugar and "teh susu" is tea with milk and sugar.
No I don't have their numbers nor names.
Quarrelled again because I forgot to download a TV show for her mum last night and earlier this morning until she reminded me. It's not like it's urgent anyway and I forget everything, not just her things. If I have to set reminders for everything, life is going to be a pain. So she says I'm the wrong guy for her because I keep forgetting and don't want to set reminders for midnight. Fine, if dating her means becoming so rigid, then staying myself alone is better.
21 Sept 2015
Yes, I'm a slacker. If I don't slack, I become a very unpleasant person.
Did almost nothing today. Fitness seems to be up actually but forgot to train my arms. Too lazy now since it's 11pm. Will swim tomorrow. Have to train my arms because she wants me to try rock-climbing. Also because I'm travelling a lot more. Having decent arm strength is useful when you're not in your comfort zone.
Wonder how much Burberry trench coats cost in the UK. Want to get one but it's S$2.6k here in the duty-free shop at the airport. Friends told me it's cheaper in the UK, plus tourists probably get no tax.
Anyway, I'm not 100% sure but it seems that shorter coats can be paired with casual clothings like t-shirts and jeans while long ones are formal, as seen in The Firm starring Tom Cruise which I'd just finished watching earlier today.
I'm definitely getting a short one to wear when visiting places where waterproof jackets are needed but a thick jacket would look out of place.
Back from Penang yesterday.
It was quite enlightening, this trip. What my uncle there told me was a more realistic version of what my mother told me about my father.
For one, he tried to swim over to Hong Kong twice and the first time he was stopped by the PLA coast guards. Some of his friends were shot dead on the spot while others were injured. Everyone who was alive, including my father, was arrested and sent to jail.
After he was released, he tried again, this time successfully reaching Hong Kong where he was taken in temporarily by a fisherman before finding a job in a textile factory. The part after his arrival was told by my mother so let's take it with a pinch of salt.
The other inaccuracy was that my great-great-aunt who went to Penang went there because she had a son by a Singaporean man who refused to marry her. Because that was in my grandparents' era, she had to leave the country to escape the shame and humiliation. My great-great-grandmother, aka her mother, left China with her and they eventually settled down in Penang. Being well-educated, she became a teacher of English and tailoring (instead of a midwife like my mother told me). Her son was the uncle I have here in Singapore whom I had lost contact with and whose ex-wife attended my mother's funeral.
I wonder if he ever found his father.
During her time in Penang, she got a godfather whose son was the relative I had contacted and visited in Penang during this trip. In addition, her godfather, being the 7th child in the family with 10 other siblings, had a 6th brother who had five children during his lifetime. Unable to feed all of them, he gave a daughter to my great-great-aunt to adopt, and she was the nice one who took care of her during her final days and then settled all the matters involving her passing, even though she had at least one business to run in the US.
Her son didn't do anything.
One issue that cropped up in Penang was about the name of my grandfather. On the tablet of my great-great-grandmother were the names of her children and grandchildren. My great-great-aunt was not in the tablet for some reason, shame being my guess. Anyway there were two names under the "grandsons" and I would like to know which is my grandfather. For this, this uncle in Penang suggested that I find out the contact of my great-uncle, ie my grandfather's brother, whom I recall visiting many times in Hong Kong when I was small. His door had this board placed vertically, probably to prevent minor floods, and everyone always had to remind me to avoid tripping since I was less than five years old back then.
Back to the point, surely there must be a number that my mother had noted down somewhere in her notebooks. So I searched just now, and the name of one of his daughters was there in a notebook along with a few numbers.
On Monday, I'll contact her.
Maybe eventually I could contact the relatives I also have in Medan. Maybe she would know. I recall my father's Indonesian cousin visiting us several times, including once when I learnt that while in Singapore, we call tea with sugar and milk "teh" and tea with sugar "teh-o", in Indonesia "teh" refers to tea with sugar and "teh susu" is tea with milk and sugar.
No I don't have their numbers nor names.
Quarrelled again because I forgot to download a TV show for her mum last night and earlier this morning until she reminded me. It's not like it's urgent anyway and I forget everything, not just her things. If I have to set reminders for everything, life is going to be a pain. So she says I'm the wrong guy for her because I keep forgetting and don't want to set reminders for midnight. Fine, if dating her means becoming so rigid, then staying myself alone is better.
21 Sept 2015
Yes, I'm a slacker. If I don't slack, I become a very unpleasant person.
Did almost nothing today. Fitness seems to be up actually but forgot to train my arms. Too lazy now since it's 11pm. Will swim tomorrow. Have to train my arms because she wants me to try rock-climbing. Also because I'm travelling a lot more. Having decent arm strength is useful when you're not in your comfort zone.
Wonder how much Burberry trench coats cost in the UK. Want to get one but it's S$2.6k here in the duty-free shop at the airport. Friends told me it's cheaper in the UK, plus tourists probably get no tax.
Anyway, I'm not 100% sure but it seems that shorter coats can be paired with casual clothings like t-shirts and jeans while long ones are formal, as seen in The Firm starring Tom Cruise which I'd just finished watching earlier today.
I'm definitely getting a short one to wear when visiting places where waterproof jackets are needed but a thick jacket would look out of place.
Wednesday 16 September 2015
Rant 1216 / How Does Wine Affect The Cooking Of Risotto? Drunk Chefs Don't Make Good Risotto.
So a red bomb arrived in what I should consider as a rather inconvenient time.
Not the worst but there are better months for this in the foreseeable future.
Nevertheless, I've accepted it and flights have been arranged.
Let me recount the number of trips I have taken and will take in the year 2015.
Jan - Seoul, Korea
Feb - Shanghai, China + Hong Kong (not in passport) + Niseko, Japan.
April - Taichung, Taiwan
May - Batam, Indonesia
July - Perth, Australia (not in passport)
Aug - Melbourne, Australia
Sep - Penang, Malaysia
Oct - Vancouver, Canada
Dec - London, UK + Paris, France + Bordeaux, France + San Sebastian, Spain + Barcelona, Spain + Nice, France + Cinque Terre, Italy + Florence, Italy + Sorrento, Italy + Rome + Venice, Italy + Salzburg, Austria + Prague, Czech + Berlin, Germany + Amsterdam, The Netherlands
10 trips in a year! Madness!
This record is going to be hard to beat for the rest of my life.
Oh, and I'm still about 5,000 miles short over at Marco Polo to upgrade a Premium Economy ticket to a Business ticket, so I'll have to go to Canada on Economy. Hence I've chosen British Airways because I've got this impression that this airline has better leg space and wider seats, though I may be wrong.
*Upon checking SeatGuru, I was indeed wrong - both Cathay Pacific and Air Canada have similar if not better seat pitches and widths on their 777s and 747s, both of which I'm taking on trips. On the bright side, I'm earning lots of miles on BA on both the trips in Oct and Dec, and mileage on Air Canada is impractical while CX has been charging some of the highest prices for most of the flights I've been searching for this year.
Finished the Melbourne trip and it has certainly been a fantastic trip for me and her. Better still, both her parents like me now.
Finally understood the point of mileage runs. My definition of them goes like this:
Say a business class flight from A to B costs $5000 or can be redeemed for 50,000 miles. This makes the miles to be valued at $0.10 per mile.
If you can earn your miles at a price that's lower than this, you're going to beat the price that they've set!
So say you have found a return flight that costs $800 and earns you 10,000 miles total. If all you do is fly there and back with no hotel stay in between, you're basically buying the miles at $0.08 per mile. That's means if you fly that flight 5 times, you're going to be buying that business class flight for $4000 by redeeming all the mileage earned through those empty trips, ie at a 20% discount, sans the value of your time.
Moreover, it will help you fulfil the conditions of either a renewal or even a promotion in your frequent flyer membership.
After two days of research, I've come up with nothing.
Mileage runs do not work for us Singaporeans, as far as I can tell. Maybe I haven't gone deep enough or thought out of the box long enough, but this is my conclusion at this point in time.
The first thing I did was to search for the fares of most of the available flights on BA and CX originating from Singapore. Nowhere was cheap.
Later, I thought of making use of the seriously cheap fares that originate from other cities. For example, a return trip from Barcelona to Singapore on BA would cost just over half the price of a return trip from Singapore to Barcelona on certain months. What if... I book two flights originating from Barcelona, then go to London on the second half of the first trip (since the flights all require a transfer in London) and then return to Singapore on the first half of the second trip?
First flight:
BCN-LHR
LHR-SIN
SIN-LHR
LHR-BCN
Second flight:
BCN-LHR
LHR-SIN
SIN-LHR
LHR-BCN
And I take only the flights in bold.
My calculations showed that this was slightly more expensive than a simple return trip from Singapore to London, by just about S$100-200. Moreover, later I realized that this won't work because if I skip the first leg of the trip, they'll cancel everything after that.
However, this could still work if such ridiculous fares are available in cities that budget airlines fly to from Singapore. I could fly there on budget and return on the first half of the trip booked on that full service airline, giving me all the miles at much lower prices.
So far, however, no such luck.
03 Sept 2015
Signed up for the HSBC Visa Infinite for the mileage. With the recent Asia Miles promo of 45k miles as the welcome gift, the average cost per mile is around S$0.01/mile. To give you an example of what this means, the longest flights (10k miles and beyond) offered by Cathay Pacific, which the Asia Miles are for, can be upgraded from Premium Economy to Business for 55k Asia Miles, or straight from Economy to Business for 100k Asia Miles, and we're talking about return flights here ie to and fro.
I won't discuss redeeming the miles through buying the seat entirely with Asia Miles because apparently, Cathay Pacific is notorious for the difficulty in this because the airline releases its inventory of award seats a year in advance. However, I'm staying here because the Marco Polo Club is known to treat its members very well.
Quarrelled yesterday. Maybe I should record what we argued about because with my terrible memory, I can never argue very well. One cannot debate if one has nothing to back up one's words.
This time it started because I shifted my foot when she woke up from sleeping on it, and she was unable to go back to sleep because of that.
Anyway I think she's just grouchy from PMS and a lack of sleep, although her period had just started yesterday.
So "Leicester" is pronounced as "Less-ster". It should be broken down into "Leice" and "ster" instead of "Lei", "ce" and "ster".
人之初，性本善
It does not actually mean that everyone is good. Rather, I feel that it means that everyone started out good but were shaped by their environments to become who they are today.
Hilariously gross review of MGS V.
16 Sept 2015
Quarrelled yesterday because I missed her request for her macaroni to be cooked first (I was making dinner) and she scolded me for taking her for granted before going to sleep just before the food was ready. We were both tired.
On Sunday, we quarrelled because we were both tired again. She scolded me in public for forgetting stuff and I refused to apologize and eventually walked off. Encountered her again while looking for a taxi stand and made up the just ten minutes later.
Flying off to Penang tomorrow. In every trip, there's something new to be experienced.
Not the worst but there are better months for this in the foreseeable future.
Nevertheless, I've accepted it and flights have been arranged.
Let me recount the number of trips I have taken and will take in the year 2015.
Jan - Seoul, Korea
Feb - Shanghai, China + Hong Kong (not in passport) + Niseko, Japan.
April - Taichung, Taiwan
May - Batam, Indonesia
July - Perth, Australia (not in passport)
Aug - Melbourne, Australia
Sep - Penang, Malaysia
Oct - Vancouver, Canada
Dec - London, UK + Paris, France + Bordeaux, France + San Sebastian, Spain + Barcelona, Spain + Nice, France + Cinque Terre, Italy + Florence, Italy + Sorrento, Italy + Rome + Venice, Italy + Salzburg, Austria + Prague, Czech + Berlin, Germany + Amsterdam, The Netherlands
10 trips in a year! Madness!
This record is going to be hard to beat for the rest of my life.
Oh, and I'm still about 5,000 miles short over at Marco Polo to upgrade a Premium Economy ticket to a Business ticket, so I'll have to go to Canada on Economy. Hence I've chosen British Airways because I've got this impression that this airline has better leg space and wider seats, though I may be wrong.
*Upon checking SeatGuru, I was indeed wrong - both Cathay Pacific and Air Canada have similar if not better seat pitches and widths on their 777s and 747s, both of which I'm taking on trips. On the bright side, I'm earning lots of miles on BA on both the trips in Oct and Dec, and mileage on Air Canada is impractical while CX has been charging some of the highest prices for most of the flights I've been searching for this year.
Finished the Melbourne trip and it has certainly been a fantastic trip for me and her. Better still, both her parents like me now.
Finally understood the point of mileage runs. My definition of them goes like this:
Say a business class flight from A to B costs $5000 or can be redeemed for 50,000 miles. This makes the miles to be valued at $0.10 per mile.
If you can earn your miles at a price that's lower than this, you're going to beat the price that they've set!
So say you have found a return flight that costs $800 and earns you 10,000 miles total. If all you do is fly there and back with no hotel stay in between, you're basically buying the miles at $0.08 per mile. That's means if you fly that flight 5 times, you're going to be buying that business class flight for $4000 by redeeming all the mileage earned through those empty trips, ie at a 20% discount, sans the value of your time.
Moreover, it will help you fulfil the conditions of either a renewal or even a promotion in your frequent flyer membership.
After two days of research, I've come up with nothing.
Mileage runs do not work for us Singaporeans, as far as I can tell. Maybe I haven't gone deep enough or thought out of the box long enough, but this is my conclusion at this point in time.
The first thing I did was to search for the fares of most of the available flights on BA and CX originating from Singapore. Nowhere was cheap.
Later, I thought of making use of the seriously cheap fares that originate from other cities. For example, a return trip from Barcelona to Singapore on BA would cost just over half the price of a return trip from Singapore to Barcelona on certain months. What if... I book two flights originating from Barcelona, then go to London on the second half of the first trip (since the flights all require a transfer in London) and then return to Singapore on the first half of the second trip?
First flight:
BCN-LHR
LHR-SIN
SIN-LHR
LHR-BCN
Second flight:
BCN-LHR
LHR-SIN
SIN-LHR
LHR-BCN
And I take only the flights in bold.
My calculations showed that this was slightly more expensive than a simple return trip from Singapore to London, by just about S$100-200. Moreover, later I realized that this won't work because if I skip the first leg of the trip, they'll cancel everything after that.
However, this could still work if such ridiculous fares are available in cities that budget airlines fly to from Singapore. I could fly there on budget and return on the first half of the trip booked on that full service airline, giving me all the miles at much lower prices.
So far, however, no such luck.
03 Sept 2015
Signed up for the HSBC Visa Infinite for the mileage. With the recent Asia Miles promo of 45k miles as the welcome gift, the average cost per mile is around S$0.01/mile. To give you an example of what this means, the longest flights (10k miles and beyond) offered by Cathay Pacific, which the Asia Miles are for, can be upgraded from Premium Economy to Business for 55k Asia Miles, or straight from Economy to Business for 100k Asia Miles, and we're talking about return flights here ie to and fro.
I won't discuss redeeming the miles through buying the seat entirely with Asia Miles because apparently, Cathay Pacific is notorious for the difficulty in this because the airline releases its inventory of award seats a year in advance. However, I'm staying here because the Marco Polo Club is known to treat its members very well.
Quarrelled yesterday. Maybe I should record what we argued about because with my terrible memory, I can never argue very well. One cannot debate if one has nothing to back up one's words.
This time it started because I shifted my foot when she woke up from sleeping on it, and she was unable to go back to sleep because of that.
Anyway I think she's just grouchy from PMS and a lack of sleep, although her period had just started yesterday.
So "Leicester" is pronounced as "Less-ster". It should be broken down into "Leice" and "ster" instead of "Lei", "ce" and "ster".
人之初，性本善
It does not actually mean that everyone is good. Rather, I feel that it means that everyone started out good but were shaped by their environments to become who they are today.
Hilariously gross review of MGS V.
16 Sept 2015
Quarrelled yesterday because I missed her request for her macaroni to be cooked first (I was making dinner) and she scolded me for taking her for granted before going to sleep just before the food was ready. We were both tired.
On Sunday, we quarrelled because we were both tired again. She scolded me in public for forgetting stuff and I refused to apologize and eventually walked off. Encountered her again while looking for a taxi stand and made up the just ten minutes later.
Flying off to Penang tomorrow. In every trip, there's something new to be experienced.
Sunday 26 July 2015
Rant 1215 / Two Months In the Making, Two Minutes In The Reading.
Democracy is about continuity.
It sets a platform which leaders can use immediately when they take over.
Continuity is the problem with all other forms of government. Monarchy, in all its forms, was pretty close but the king or queen still has to gain the trust of the rest of the people with power when he/she takes the throne.
Democracy, on the other hand, takes away this issue by letting the newly elected leader choose new people for the positions of power in the new government. Nobody is too deeply entrenched in the system and thus nobody can amass power beyond that of the leader.
Or at least, that's my theory.
I should probably just read a book.
23 May 2015
I'm about to wear a bright pink T-shirt for the walk today to Bollywood Veggies.
New milestone in life.
11 June 2015
No, I didn't go on the walk mentioned on the 23rd last month. Weather didn't look good and gf didn't want to walk long distances in wet shoes, so it was called off.
Moving on, it's her birthday tomorrow and I still haven't gotten her a gift as of 1.55pm. Planning to get her a bouquet of teddy bears, just not sure when.
Cantonese is one of the oldest Chinese dialects. Got me thinking while watching "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" how related the Swedish language must be to the German language due to the presence of Niedermann, a German, in Sweden in which the film was based in.
Are the Scandinavian languages as close to each other as our Chinese dialects are if we hadn't lost our written forms? Similarly, how related are the Indian dialects to one another?
Anyway, I think that is why Cantonese is so complicated compared to Mandarin. To understand this, one has to know that in the past, the written language was only used by the wealthier part of society, eg the government officials. Even today, farmers have little reason to study very hard, with a few exceptions, so imagine what it was like centuries ago in the agricultural-based economies in most of ancient China throughout the millenia.
In this context, it is clear that there is little reason to simplify the language at all. Languages are often simplified to make it more accessible to the masses, like in the relatively recent cases of simplified Chinese and modern Turkish. However, if a language was only used by the intelligentsia, then it would make sense that there is a certain sense of elitism among the literate people, ie "if you think this language needs to be simplified, maybe you're just too dumb to be studying."
However, Mandarin was indeed simplified by its users in ancient China, just not at such a basic level as our modern simplified Chinese. Historically, writers were more succinct and used minimal characters without losing their meanings, eg "why" is now "为什么" as compared to "为何" or "何必"in the past, although I feel that "何必" is closer to "Why is this necessary?" This makes the language pretty poetic if you think about it.
This brings me to the question of what happened to the poetry of our various Chinese dialects before they were unified by the First Emperor. Surely before that dude got famous, they were already writing those in their own written forms instead of the standardized official language aka Mandarin.
Why aren't those ever mentioned?
17 June 2015
Why do I procrastinate so much?
Jurassic World didn't really shock me. I'm concerned. Am I numb? Or was I distracted the whole time by her?
18 June 2015
The Fermi Paradox is famous for good reasons.
Just read about it and it's about aliens.
1) The Sun is a pretty young star and there are billions of stars billions of years older (billion = 1000 million).
2) It is very possible that some of these stars have planets similar to Earth, especially with all the Earth-like planets we've already discovered so far in the last couple of years. Thus it's also very possible that there is intelligent life out there.
3) Space travel can't be that hard - we managed to reach the moon after a couple tens of thousands of years - so with all that billions of years of head start, some aliens out there must already be capable of interstellar travel.
4) Even if it takes millions of years to travel between stars for them, they should already have colonized plenty of stars.
Therefore the paradox: where the heck are they?
01 July 2015
The SAFRA Tampines swimming pool was pretty awesome. The first SAFRA pool I've ever visited, it was small yet impressive compared to the public and private swimming pools I've been trying out recently.
The Bedok Swimming Complex is my benchmark. Entry is a dollar, no time limit, and it has a shallow kiddie pool, a practice pool and a real swimming pool. For most of my visits there, I've been using only the practice pool because it had more space and nobody gave a damn if I just rested in a corner for too long just because my stamina sucked.
The Clementi Swimming Complex was another pool I had tried recently. It was older and smaller, with the practice pool and deeper swimming pool separated by the canteen and entrance area. Not very convenient if anyone wants to switch pools. I've only been to the deeper pool and it had, by far, the saltiest pool water I've ever accidentally tasted. That can't be good.
A third pool I've tried was a private pool at a condominium. It was small and had a baby pool next to it, but the water was great. So low was the chlorine content my hair felt noticeably less dry compared to what it felt like after a visit to any public pool. The shower facility was tiny and not as well-maintained as those at the public pools though, strangely.
The SAFRA Tampines pool was just a single pool larger than the Olympic size. Everyone there was pretty serious about swimming and there was no children around. No practice pool. The water seemed fine, less chlorinated than public pools and cleaner, but not as awesome as that of the private pool. The safety was better, with at least one lifeguard on duty the whole time I was there, sometimes two. The shower room, however, was the best I've ever seen. Not only was it clean and free of the stench of urine, it had tiled benches at the walls, doors that only reached the chest level so that you can watch your belongings you left on the bench, at least one rack for your bottles in each shower cubicle, and ceiling-mounted rain shower heads.
Best of all, it's free for SAFRA members, and I'm a member till the next decade LOL!
The only issue is that with just a single pool, it can get quite crowded there even in the off-peak weekday afternoon I was there. Can't imagine what it's like in the weekends.
Funny thing about that particular pool was the sight of men suntanning on the benches.
Seriously? You can easily get a tan just by going out for lunch!
Just received my Krisflyer card. Didn't even know that I should be expecting it. I'd thought the account I'd signed up for earlier for a bit of free mileage didn't include an actual card until I book a flight on Singapore Airlines.
Guess I was wrong. Anyway, cool! Not sure if I'll be booking any SIA flight this year or the next though... LOL!
14 July 2015
So I had typed quite a bit on my first two days in Perth earlier this month but they were wiped out when the Blogger app updated after the iPad finally got some WiFi at home. Whatever.
19 July 2015
I felt nothing. After the quarrel a few days ago, this most recent one that happened last night incited no emotion in me whatsoever till later today.
Now, I only feel bad that I made a little girl cry.
There is a puzzle here that needs to be solved, one that I may be ill-equipped to understand in the first place - why are there so many incidents in which I become utterly emotionless?
26 July 2015
So I'm watching this documentary "Monarchy" about the history of the English monarchy and there was this incident that seemed particularly interesting to me somehow.
After the William the Conqueror occupied England, the first white collar crime to be mentioned in the series happened during the reign of King Henry, the third king after him. Apparently some people at the mint had been mixing in baser metals like tin into the coins and the discovery had led to massive inflation, so Henry had every single person there hauled away for trial.
94 of the 150 men were found guilty; the punishment was the cutting off of their right hands... and castration. Best of all, nobody protested despite the fact that all of the guilty were English, not Normans, plus some of them were pretty high-ranking too. That was so barbaric, yet just.
Anyway, while packing the storage room yesterday, we found some pretty cool stuff. The Urban Stranger wallet was nice but it was too thick even without all my cards, so I'm donating that. More importantly, I found letters from my great-great-aunt to my father written in 1995 still in its envelope, albeit with the stamps removed, unsurprisingly. My father used to collect stamps too.
Just by scanning one letter, it could be learnt that back then, 700 ringgits were the equivalent of 400 Singapore dollars.
On the back, however, was a detail far more interesting than our historical exchange rate with the currency of our closest neighbour - the address of my great-great-aunt 20 years ago.
Still going to get a wallet from the duty-free shops at the airport before flying off to Melbourne then. My current one has a hole in the coin pouch :(
It sets a platform which leaders can use immediately when they take over.
Continuity is the problem with all other forms of government. Monarchy, in all its forms, was pretty close but the king or queen still has to gain the trust of the rest of the people with power when he/she takes the throne.
Democracy, on the other hand, takes away this issue by letting the newly elected leader choose new people for the positions of power in the new government. Nobody is too deeply entrenched in the system and thus nobody can amass power beyond that of the leader.
Or at least, that's my theory.
I should probably just read a book.
23 May 2015
I'm about to wear a bright pink T-shirt for the walk today to Bollywood Veggies.
New milestone in life.
11 June 2015
No, I didn't go on the walk mentioned on the 23rd last month. Weather didn't look good and gf didn't want to walk long distances in wet shoes, so it was called off.
Moving on, it's her birthday tomorrow and I still haven't gotten her a gift as of 1.55pm. Planning to get her a bouquet of teddy bears, just not sure when.
Cantonese is one of the oldest Chinese dialects. Got me thinking while watching "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest" how related the Swedish language must be to the German language due to the presence of Niedermann, a German, in Sweden in which the film was based in.
Are the Scandinavian languages as close to each other as our Chinese dialects are if we hadn't lost our written forms? Similarly, how related are the Indian dialects to one another?
Anyway, I think that is why Cantonese is so complicated compared to Mandarin. To understand this, one has to know that in the past, the written language was only used by the wealthier part of society, eg the government officials. Even today, farmers have little reason to study very hard, with a few exceptions, so imagine what it was like centuries ago in the agricultural-based economies in most of ancient China throughout the millenia.
In this context, it is clear that there is little reason to simplify the language at all. Languages are often simplified to make it more accessible to the masses, like in the relatively recent cases of simplified Chinese and modern Turkish. However, if a language was only used by the intelligentsia, then it would make sense that there is a certain sense of elitism among the literate people, ie "if you think this language needs to be simplified, maybe you're just too dumb to be studying."
However, Mandarin was indeed simplified by its users in ancient China, just not at such a basic level as our modern simplified Chinese. Historically, writers were more succinct and used minimal characters without losing their meanings, eg "why" is now "为什么" as compared to "为何" or "何必"in the past, although I feel that "何必" is closer to "Why is this necessary?" This makes the language pretty poetic if you think about it.
This brings me to the question of what happened to the poetry of our various Chinese dialects before they were unified by the First Emperor. Surely before that dude got famous, they were already writing those in their own written forms instead of the standardized official language aka Mandarin.
Why aren't those ever mentioned?
17 June 2015
Why do I procrastinate so much?
Jurassic World didn't really shock me. I'm concerned. Am I numb? Or was I distracted the whole time by her?
18 June 2015
The Fermi Paradox is famous for good reasons.
Just read about it and it's about aliens.
1) The Sun is a pretty young star and there are billions of stars billions of years older (billion = 1000 million).
2) It is very possible that some of these stars have planets similar to Earth, especially with all the Earth-like planets we've already discovered so far in the last couple of years. Thus it's also very possible that there is intelligent life out there.
3) Space travel can't be that hard - we managed to reach the moon after a couple tens of thousands of years - so with all that billions of years of head start, some aliens out there must already be capable of interstellar travel.
4) Even if it takes millions of years to travel between stars for them, they should already have colonized plenty of stars.
Therefore the paradox: where the heck are they?
01 July 2015
The SAFRA Tampines swimming pool was pretty awesome. The first SAFRA pool I've ever visited, it was small yet impressive compared to the public and private swimming pools I've been trying out recently.
The Bedok Swimming Complex is my benchmark. Entry is a dollar, no time limit, and it has a shallow kiddie pool, a practice pool and a real swimming pool. For most of my visits there, I've been using only the practice pool because it had more space and nobody gave a damn if I just rested in a corner for too long just because my stamina sucked.
The Clementi Swimming Complex was another pool I had tried recently. It was older and smaller, with the practice pool and deeper swimming pool separated by the canteen and entrance area. Not very convenient if anyone wants to switch pools. I've only been to the deeper pool and it had, by far, the saltiest pool water I've ever accidentally tasted. That can't be good.
A third pool I've tried was a private pool at a condominium. It was small and had a baby pool next to it, but the water was great. So low was the chlorine content my hair felt noticeably less dry compared to what it felt like after a visit to any public pool. The shower facility was tiny and not as well-maintained as those at the public pools though, strangely.
The SAFRA Tampines pool was just a single pool larger than the Olympic size. Everyone there was pretty serious about swimming and there was no children around. No practice pool. The water seemed fine, less chlorinated than public pools and cleaner, but not as awesome as that of the private pool. The safety was better, with at least one lifeguard on duty the whole time I was there, sometimes two. The shower room, however, was the best I've ever seen. Not only was it clean and free of the stench of urine, it had tiled benches at the walls, doors that only reached the chest level so that you can watch your belongings you left on the bench, at least one rack for your bottles in each shower cubicle, and ceiling-mounted rain shower heads.
Best of all, it's free for SAFRA members, and I'm a member till the next decade LOL!
The only issue is that with just a single pool, it can get quite crowded there even in the off-peak weekday afternoon I was there. Can't imagine what it's like in the weekends.
Funny thing about that particular pool was the sight of men suntanning on the benches.
Seriously? You can easily get a tan just by going out for lunch!
Just received my Krisflyer card. Didn't even know that I should be expecting it. I'd thought the account I'd signed up for earlier for a bit of free mileage didn't include an actual card until I book a flight on Singapore Airlines.
Guess I was wrong. Anyway, cool! Not sure if I'll be booking any SIA flight this year or the next though... LOL!
14 July 2015
So I had typed quite a bit on my first two days in Perth earlier this month but they were wiped out when the Blogger app updated after the iPad finally got some WiFi at home. Whatever.
19 July 2015
I felt nothing. After the quarrel a few days ago, this most recent one that happened last night incited no emotion in me whatsoever till later today.
Now, I only feel bad that I made a little girl cry.
There is a puzzle here that needs to be solved, one that I may be ill-equipped to understand in the first place - why are there so many incidents in which I become utterly emotionless?
26 July 2015
So I'm watching this documentary "Monarchy" about the history of the English monarchy and there was this incident that seemed particularly interesting to me somehow.
After the William the Conqueror occupied England, the first white collar crime to be mentioned in the series happened during the reign of King Henry, the third king after him. Apparently some people at the mint had been mixing in baser metals like tin into the coins and the discovery had led to massive inflation, so Henry had every single person there hauled away for trial.
94 of the 150 men were found guilty; the punishment was the cutting off of their right hands... and castration. Best of all, nobody protested despite the fact that all of the guilty were English, not Normans, plus some of them were pretty high-ranking too. That was so barbaric, yet just.
Anyway, while packing the storage room yesterday, we found some pretty cool stuff. The Urban Stranger wallet was nice but it was too thick even without all my cards, so I'm donating that. More importantly, I found letters from my great-great-aunt to my father written in 1995 still in its envelope, albeit with the stamps removed, unsurprisingly. My father used to collect stamps too.
Just by scanning one letter, it could be learnt that back then, 700 ringgits were the equivalent of 400 Singapore dollars.
On the back, however, was a detail far more interesting than our historical exchange rate with the currency of our closest neighbour - the address of my great-great-aunt 20 years ago.
Still going to get a wallet from the duty-free shops at the airport before flying off to Melbourne then. My current one has a hole in the coin pouch :(
Tuesday 19 May 2015
Rant 1214 / When Laser Weapons Become Common, Mirrors Will Be All We Need.
It's funny because the more that happens in my life, the less I blog. This ends up turning this blog into a record of nothing - a compilation of over a thousand posts of insignificance.
There is a task you have to outsource and by word of mouth, you found this company in another country that constantly does a terrific job while charging only the local price, ie a pittance.
Do you go," Hey, you guys are awesome! You can easily charge [price level in your country] for the quality of your work! Here, go to this website and advertise there," or do you simply keep hiring them?
There are a number of consequences for this, and neither is good or bad, depending on your perspective.
Option one, their opinion of you improves; you help to alleviate their poverty; they end up finally getting paid fairly for their sweat; your costs go up unless you find another company which is risky because in those countries, quality is inconsistent and you were just lucky that you found one that was that good, hence in most likelihood you become less competitive, your profits shrink immediately, your future becomes less stable.
Option two, status quo persists; they get far less than they deserve, maybe someday someone else will do the above for them; you give them regular business so it kinda improves their situation and maybe lets them expand.
You know, when I describe the situation this way, it actually feels like the more selfish option is the better option.
Walked 8km the other day to a big local temple I've never been to before. Very posh, I have to admit. Beautiful building. The items in there were rather ridiculous though.
This temple was supposed to be about a tooth from the Buddha, but on the third level, I found what was described as bits of his brain, muscle tissue, bone and etc, all of which appear to be tiny gems. This is what I'm confused about; they may have been supposed to be some representation of his body parts and not the actual bits and pieces of his corpse, unlike the tooth the temple was named after.
The tooth itself was housed in a platform within a glass enclosure. It was too tiny to be visible, tbh, but it was also magnified in LCD screens nearby.
That was just a walk of 8km, and I decided not to walk back. Not sure why because I would have walked back if I were in another country, like I did in Taichung recently. Pretty sure I walked 15-20km the second day during the trip.
Today, I walked 13km to some sort of farmers' market called Farmart Centre at Chua Chu Kang. Most of the shops were closed since it's a weekday and the animal enclosure was closed by the time I arrived in the early evening, but the quail shop was opened.
Apparently the owner does farm trips or something too, but what I was interested in was the quails and quail eggs.
I haven't eaten quails in probably a decade, and the shop offered spring quails and old hens, all frozen, so I bought 10 spring quails on the spot for S$18.
Timing was epic during this walk. For about an hour before I got there, there were a few drops of rain here and there, not even a drizzle, but just cloudy. I arrived, found the washroom, took a leak, got out, and it was raining. Wow.
So I looked around, found nothing interesting but that quail shop, booked a cab, and sat down to chat a bit with the quail shop owner before the cab arrived.
So I backed the Halfbike II and it should be arriving in August later this year. I don't expect it to arrive punctually though because all Kickstarter projects I've backed have been delivered later than the stated delivery date.
It's probably got to do with the crazy confidence all entrepreneurs need to start a business, except these guys can't stick to a deadline to save their lives.
In any case, the Halfbike II looks pretty interesting, and I've just picked the Black/Yellow colour combination for it. Really excited and looking forward to riding it outside.
It's really a tricycle without the seat, I feel, and it's foldable and not too heavy (over 8kg), so I thought it will be fun to use outside in the urban landscape. Topped up a bit for the gears too, so that I can climb slopes with it. It's going to be great!
So far so good with Vanessa. It's been three months and the friction seems to be mostly gone. I think we were just adapting to each other, and I, in particular, was adapting to life being attached, so the difficulties were not surprising.
The trip to Taichung about a fortnight ago also raised my metabolic rate, making me much more energetic, so it seems I became a much more loving boyfriend even though I didn't love her more - it's impossible for my love for her to get any greater; you can't add anything to infinity for an even larger number. I think it just appeared that way because I became more attentive and more talkative and maybe even more thoughtful with the increase in energy.
This is why I'm trying to keep it up through these walks.
She deserves the best from me, being the sweetest girlfriend that she is. It's just crazy that she would come out to see me on her one free day even though she's been living on 4 hours of sleep every night for a week before that.
I've come to the conclusion that I cannot control my diet. This is bad. Every time I visit Taiwan, my appetite increases, yet it never decreases after I return.
Something needs to be done.
There is a task you have to outsource and by word of mouth, you found this company in another country that constantly does a terrific job while charging only the local price, ie a pittance.
Do you go," Hey, you guys are awesome! You can easily charge [price level in your country] for the quality of your work! Here, go to this website and advertise there," or do you simply keep hiring them?
There are a number of consequences for this, and neither is good or bad, depending on your perspective.
Option one, their opinion of you improves; you help to alleviate their poverty; they end up finally getting paid fairly for their sweat; your costs go up unless you find another company which is risky because in those countries, quality is inconsistent and you were just lucky that you found one that was that good, hence in most likelihood you become less competitive, your profits shrink immediately, your future becomes less stable.
Option two, status quo persists; they get far less than they deserve, maybe someday someone else will do the above for them; you give them regular business so it kinda improves their situation and maybe lets them expand.
You know, when I describe the situation this way, it actually feels like the more selfish option is the better option.
Walked 8km the other day to a big local temple I've never been to before. Very posh, I have to admit. Beautiful building. The items in there were rather ridiculous though.
This temple was supposed to be about a tooth from the Buddha, but on the third level, I found what was described as bits of his brain, muscle tissue, bone and etc, all of which appear to be tiny gems. This is what I'm confused about; they may have been supposed to be some representation of his body parts and not the actual bits and pieces of his corpse, unlike the tooth the temple was named after.
The tooth itself was housed in a platform within a glass enclosure. It was too tiny to be visible, tbh, but it was also magnified in LCD screens nearby.
That was just a walk of 8km, and I decided not to walk back. Not sure why because I would have walked back if I were in another country, like I did in Taichung recently. Pretty sure I walked 15-20km the second day during the trip.
Today, I walked 13km to some sort of farmers' market called Farmart Centre at Chua Chu Kang. Most of the shops were closed since it's a weekday and the animal enclosure was closed by the time I arrived in the early evening, but the quail shop was opened.
Apparently the owner does farm trips or something too, but what I was interested in was the quails and quail eggs.
I haven't eaten quails in probably a decade, and the shop offered spring quails and old hens, all frozen, so I bought 10 spring quails on the spot for S$18.
Timing was epic during this walk. For about an hour before I got there, there were a few drops of rain here and there, not even a drizzle, but just cloudy. I arrived, found the washroom, took a leak, got out, and it was raining. Wow.
So I looked around, found nothing interesting but that quail shop, booked a cab, and sat down to chat a bit with the quail shop owner before the cab arrived.
So I backed the Halfbike II and it should be arriving in August later this year. I don't expect it to arrive punctually though because all Kickstarter projects I've backed have been delivered later than the stated delivery date.
It's probably got to do with the crazy confidence all entrepreneurs need to start a business, except these guys can't stick to a deadline to save their lives.
In any case, the Halfbike II looks pretty interesting, and I've just picked the Black/Yellow colour combination for it. Really excited and looking forward to riding it outside.
It's really a tricycle without the seat, I feel, and it's foldable and not too heavy (over 8kg), so I thought it will be fun to use outside in the urban landscape. Topped up a bit for the gears too, so that I can climb slopes with it. It's going to be great!
So far so good with Vanessa. It's been three months and the friction seems to be mostly gone. I think we were just adapting to each other, and I, in particular, was adapting to life being attached, so the difficulties were not surprising.
The trip to Taichung about a fortnight ago also raised my metabolic rate, making me much more energetic, so it seems I became a much more loving boyfriend even though I didn't love her more - it's impossible for my love for her to get any greater; you can't add anything to infinity for an even larger number. I think it just appeared that way because I became more attentive and more talkative and maybe even more thoughtful with the increase in energy.
This is why I'm trying to keep it up through these walks.
She deserves the best from me, being the sweetest girlfriend that she is. It's just crazy that she would come out to see me on her one free day even though she's been living on 4 hours of sleep every night for a week before that.
I've come to the conclusion that I cannot control my diet. This is bad. Every time I visit Taiwan, my appetite increases, yet it never decreases after I return.
Something needs to be done.
Saturday 21 March 2015
Rant 1212 / Crap Alone If You Feel Like That's What You Want To Do!
14 March 2015
I feel so relaxed now. My tension has indeed been exterminated. Exterminated!
And she almost left me again because cutting contact temporarily was the same as leaving her. Did my best to persuade her to stay and it finally worked after a while. It's just crazy how bad she wanted to leave and also stay at the same time.
Now that she's back, I need to focus on making her stay. She just fears the possibility of me leaving so much that she tries to leave me pre-emptively all the time.
18 Mar 2015
21 Mar 2015
Finally checked out her Instagram last night and it was like a photographic version of a blog.
Her older photos and their captions gave me a better idea of her life before me, and they taught me that to find the right partner, you don't have to be a great guy; you just have to be a great fit.
Similar to the older girl I had accidentally developed feelings for, she's dated far better guys than me, yet none of her relationships endured. I'm sure this is going to last, so the conclusion that can be drawn from here is that suitability is just a bigger factor than eligibility.
Her Instagram, in turn, led me to her blog which she updates as often as I do - when she's bored. The difference in our styles is clear; while I describe the events with minimal emotions, she's all about how she feels. This is quite expected given that girls are generally more emotional than guys, but I just haven't really seen this in terms of writing styles.
As for her, I think I've learnt enough of her to avoid most of the mines in the minefield. I'm glad that she's stayed long enough for me to find out and hopefully, I can make her happy more often than I unintentionally piss her off.
Now that we're where we are and I've seen her blog and Instagram, it is only right that she sees mine too. She's going to be the first person whom I'm allowing to see this side of me since my secondary friends who were introduced to this blog soon after I started it.
That pretty much makes it about eight years since I told anyone about this, given the fact that 2015 is the 9th year of this blog's life.
It's crazy, isn't it? On the 10th of January 2017, I'm going to celebrate the 10th birthday of this blog. That's not so far away now, and the feeling is just like the time when the blog reached its 1000th rant. I've never thought the blog would last this long, but then again, I can't imagine letting this blog die. There are always details of my life that I'd like to record down that would bore my friends to death, so this blog shall serve that purpose even though blogs are now pretty much obsolete for the rest of the world. Everyone just does the same through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Except for me, because I'm a hipster like that.
I feel so relaxed now. My tension has indeed been exterminated. Exterminated!
And she almost left me again because cutting contact temporarily was the same as leaving her. Did my best to persuade her to stay and it finally worked after a while. It's just crazy how bad she wanted to leave and also stay at the same time.
Now that she's back, I need to focus on making her stay. She just fears the possibility of me leaving so much that she tries to leave me pre-emptively all the time.
18 Mar 2015
21 Mar 2015
Finally checked out her Instagram last night and it was like a photographic version of a blog.
Her older photos and their captions gave me a better idea of her life before me, and they taught me that to find the right partner, you don't have to be a great guy; you just have to be a great fit.
Similar to the older girl I had accidentally developed feelings for, she's dated far better guys than me, yet none of her relationships endured. I'm sure this is going to last, so the conclusion that can be drawn from here is that suitability is just a bigger factor than eligibility.
Her Instagram, in turn, led me to her blog which she updates as often as I do - when she's bored. The difference in our styles is clear; while I describe the events with minimal emotions, she's all about how she feels. This is quite expected given that girls are generally more emotional than guys, but I just haven't really seen this in terms of writing styles.
As for her, I think I've learnt enough of her to avoid most of the mines in the minefield. I'm glad that she's stayed long enough for me to find out and hopefully, I can make her happy more often than I unintentionally piss her off.
Now that we're where we are and I've seen her blog and Instagram, it is only right that she sees mine too. She's going to be the first person whom I'm allowing to see this side of me since my secondary friends who were introduced to this blog soon after I started it.
That pretty much makes it about eight years since I told anyone about this, given the fact that 2015 is the 9th year of this blog's life.
It's crazy, isn't it? On the 10th of January 2017, I'm going to celebrate the 10th birthday of this blog. That's not so far away now, and the feeling is just like the time when the blog reached its 1000th rant. I've never thought the blog would last this long, but then again, I can't imagine letting this blog die. There are always details of my life that I'd like to record down that would bore my friends to death, so this blog shall serve that purpose even though blogs are now pretty much obsolete for the rest of the world. Everyone just does the same through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Except for me, because I'm a hipster like that.
Friday 13 March 2015
Rant 1211 / What Can I Do With A Columbia Sportswear Hong Kong Membership?
11 Mar 2015
This relationship is so tough. Life is full of problems, but she is one heck of a sea urchin. All spiky on the outside but totally delicious once I get pass the spines.
Her issue is her major insecurity. Nothing else. Her quick temper is not an issue without her insecurity.
She's so insecure, she would push me away just because there's a risk of losing me, even when I am completely fine with the problem that would lead to that risk.
Right now, she likes someone else too because I had let her dump me for a week while I was overseas for almost three weeks. She wanted my attention for hours everyday and that was impossible because I was overseas. I couldn't possibly chat with her all day; that would beat the point of being in another country.
But try I did, and after 3 straight nights of 4 hours of sleep, I decided to call for a break, believing I would make up for it when I return. But her messages got more and more uncaring as she got increasingly upset, till she said she was dumping me. So I said ok.
That was a week before I returned.
During this week, while trying to get over me, she went out with several guys and developed feelings for one.
Yet when I asked her to return to me the day I flew back, she did without hesitation.
Now, however, she feels it is unfair to me that she still has feelings for him, and wants to push me away because I love her so much but I'm not the only man in her heart.
But I don't care! She returned to me before she even asked why I came back to her, and that was enough proof of her feelings. She didn't ask why, she didn't play hard to get; she simply said she was going to be free the day I arrived.
Why would I feel that it's unfair? Clearly the other man didn't stand a chance!
And just now, while trying to push me away with her words, she always stayed in my arms and in my hand, with minimal pulling away.
I just wish she wouldn't do that. We could have spend the time and brain power on solving the actual issues. I wish she would hold on to me as hard as I am holding on to her.
Ok fine, she just agreed to hold on to me. Glad my coaxing worked.
The last 3 weeks, I went to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nanjing and Sapporo.
Hong Kong was uneventful. Went for dinner with a few relatives but we didn't really have much to talk about. My cousins with my youngest aunt were cute and the elder brother really liked me somehow.
In Shanghai, the cousin of the wife of one of my cousin brought me around for the entire stay because she was also clearing her 2014 leave and extending her Chinese New Year holiday with them. Brought me around in Shanghai but quickly ran out of things to do, so we went to Wu Xi for a day, then Nanjing. The high-speed rail was awesome because I can go to any major city in China within hours, and I don't even have to check in early the way flights do.
Anyway it was nice and her mum even let us in to the top floor of the Bank of China building in Shanghai for the view.
In Japan, however, I learnt to ski. Frickin awesome, having a private instructor.
I arrived on the 28th of Feb and spent a day in Sapporo with a friend, where I had the best roe right in the airport. Seriously, no fishy taste at all! Never tasted such fresh roe in Singapore before! No wonder the Japanese can just have them with rice. Without the fishy taste, roe is just epic.
For dinner, we went to a random place because the nicest looking restaurant was full. This random place turned out to specialise in grilled ox tongue, and they turned out to be delicious! On a related note, one ski instructor informed us later that ox tongue was the specialty of Sendai. My friend praised the chef who was grilling it in front of us (we were at the counter seats) and despite the difficulty in communication (we relied on pictures in the menu and the few English words in the waitress's vocabulary), we ended up taking a photo together and they gave us two handful of sweets before we left. Oh, and the chef and his brother (I think the other chef in charge of all dishes other than ox tongue was his bro) even sent us out all the way to the lift, partly since we were their last customers.
After that, we stayed in a hotel in Pole Street, a rather touristy place that had everything. Nice, but too... un-local.
The next day, we returned to the hotel after failing to find breakfast, and went to the airport for it instead. There, we went to a restaurant that I later realized specialised in sushi, and had another bowl of sashimi and roe on rice for breakfast, before meeting the rest of the ski group.
The van they booked brought us to the house in Niseko that was called a hotel, but I felt it was more of a serviced apartment. Miyuki 1 was a semi-detached house and had the amenities of a hotel, and the housekeeping came every alternate day. After we were settled in, we went to Rhythm nearby to rent our gear, and I had to buy a few more as well.
Rental was about the skis and poles, the helmet and the ski boots; and on top of that I had to buy ski goggles, a neck warmer with a patch designed for the nose and mouth, and this rubber sole to fit under my jogging shoes to improve traction in the snow.
Skiing was not easy, and although we had hired the instructors for two hours on the first day, I called it a day after 90 minutes. Skiing uses muscles that we normal don't use a lot in the legs, and I was not in a particularly good shape in the first place.
The good thing was that I started out with a good stance for balance, probably from my experience in both rugby and basketball a long time ago, so I only started falling on the second day when we tried the tougher slopes. The first day, despite the short time we spent, was actually pretty good, according to the instructors, because I was ready for the slopes within 15 minutes, and we tried the slopes twice within the 90 minutes. I think the powder snow in Niseko really helped a lot because it was easier to ski on than ice, and the privacy of the rather empty ski resort we went to was awesome for us beginners. Seriously, it was so empty, everyone who went said it felt like a private ski resort, while the gentle slopes there were great for beginners.
Oh btw, dry snow is so awesome to ski on. Dry snow, as far as I can tell, refers to snow in dry air that simply falls apart when you try to make snowballs. Wet snow can easily form snowballs and even ice when you press it hard.
Second day, another two hours, but I decided the ski boots were not comfortable at all. The toe area was too tight and it actually gave me an abrasion on my right ankle and a bruise on the left. We changed it on the third day, but Rhythm didn't have any regular boots that were any better so they gave me a premium pair instead. That was the final option and although it didn't solve the ankle discomfort, my toes felt really comfortable in them. In the end, I got that for no extra charge.
As for the skiing, we actually used up all 3 single trip ski passes on that day.
Then we started having crepes at this house called Odin near our house for tea, since we usually skip lunch. That place had the most amazing crepes and soups!
The fourth day was the last day we spent at the empty ski resort. I had initially wanted to ski alone by myself to try to get the hang of relaxing while skiing, like trying to cycle without supervision for the first time, but the night before, the group decided to go to Risutsu together on the fifth day, so I needed as much training as I could, and my friend lent me her instructor while she skiied alone. She had learnt to ski last year so I needed the training more.
The day didn't go so well, probably because we didn't have the synergy that I had developed with the first instructor, but it was better than nothing.
Risutsu turned out to be fantastic. It had a wide range of slopes for everyone and the mountains had a great view that day. My friend had a problem with her elbow so she didn't go, but I went my instructor anyway together with another newbie in the group who had been sticking to her snowboarding boyfriend during the last several days. He decided to finally have some fun with the rest of the group who were mainly expert snowboarders and they were planning to try the unsupervised slopes that was beyond the highest double black rating.
So the three of us started at the east mountain where there was a beginner slope and a beginner slope for jumps. Of course we didn't jump; I could barely lift my legs while skiing. Then we tried the west mountain where there was a green (ie beginner) slope with a little bit of red (intermediate) between the start and the gondola exit, and we got passed it without falling.
Now I guess I'm intermediate, but that was a very short and easy red, so I still see myself as a beginner. Moreover, I was still going down the slopes by zigzagging through stopping with each leg alternately instead of smoothly straight down like the other people were.
Returning to Singapore gave me two major issues though. First, the flight reservation done with Edreams for flights on Air China was changed while I was out of Singapore. The new flights turned out to have absolutely no transit time - the arrival time of the first flight coincided perfectly with the departure time of the connecting flight. What the heck?
So I tried calling Edreams Japan from Niseko, and there was an automated message that probably meant it was not working or something. Email didn't work because they just told me to call, meaning roaming was necessary.
It's not funny calling on roaming and get put on hold, but the call lasted for an hour and it wasn't solved. Yes, an hour of roaming call, my phone bill is going to be insane.
In the end, I gave up and booked a new one-way flight to HKG instead since I could still use the flight from HKG to SIN. But this is absolutely the last time I'm booking a flight through a third-party website. I'll gladly pay the difference, thank you very much.
Second, the plan was to pack light, ie one backpack, and in order to avoid checking in any luggage, and I'll stay overnight in HKIA as I'd arrive in HKG at night and the following flight to SIN would be in the morning with another airline. I'd go sleep in one of the lounges using my Priority Pass and then go through immigration only in the morning and check in for my final flight home.
It was only when I reached HKIA that I realized there was one obstacle - entry to the departure area is only allowed with a boarding pass. Unlike Changi, they're separate in HKIA, so I had no choice but to get out to the public area and sleep on the benches. After walking around for a few hours while chatting on Whatsapp using the airport's free wifi, the only alternative I found was the pay-per-use lounge that my Priority Pass doesn't give me free access to.
So I found some nicer seats and slept for three hours at around 3am, and woke up at around 6am as it got busier. Walked around and found some breakfast at 7 and chilled there till it was time to check in.
There, I discovered something important - Monday morning flights are empty. That's a very useful piece of information given my flexible hours.
13 March 2015
So we quarrelled again yesterday just before my phone died.
Leaving my phone off, I decided I needed a day of peace. So I've done absolutely nothing today.
We need to talk. She's just like another girl, saying that I question everything. Well, what's wrong with clarifying things I don't understand? And I don't understand a lot of things.
And I wonder what she has been lying about. See, I have this impression that she's honest about the things she say when she's angry, except they're phrased to maximise the pain they inflict. She claims she doesn't mean any of it, but I don't believe it; I have done that before because I have been angry before.
So when she said she's "been lying about countless things", I know for a fact she has been lying in regards to at least a few issues. And as for jokes, seriously, be careful what you joke about.
I still love her, but now I don't know if she really loves me or the security I provide. When a person does something for a person he/she loves, is he/she supposed to expect a reward? I don't, but she seems to. Can it be due to her lack of maturity?
Tomorrow maybe I'll turn on my phone.
Still loving these
The best part starts at 1:47
This relationship is so tough. Life is full of problems, but she is one heck of a sea urchin. All spiky on the outside but totally delicious once I get pass the spines.
Her issue is her major insecurity. Nothing else. Her quick temper is not an issue without her insecurity.
She's so insecure, she would push me away just because there's a risk of losing me, even when I am completely fine with the problem that would lead to that risk.
Right now, she likes someone else too because I had let her dump me for a week while I was overseas for almost three weeks. She wanted my attention for hours everyday and that was impossible because I was overseas. I couldn't possibly chat with her all day; that would beat the point of being in another country.
But try I did, and after 3 straight nights of 4 hours of sleep, I decided to call for a break, believing I would make up for it when I return. But her messages got more and more uncaring as she got increasingly upset, till she said she was dumping me. So I said ok.
That was a week before I returned.
During this week, while trying to get over me, she went out with several guys and developed feelings for one.
Yet when I asked her to return to me the day I flew back, she did without hesitation.
Now, however, she feels it is unfair to me that she still has feelings for him, and wants to push me away because I love her so much but I'm not the only man in her heart.
But I don't care! She returned to me before she even asked why I came back to her, and that was enough proof of her feelings. She didn't ask why, she didn't play hard to get; she simply said she was going to be free the day I arrived.
Why would I feel that it's unfair? Clearly the other man didn't stand a chance!
And just now, while trying to push me away with her words, she always stayed in my arms and in my hand, with minimal pulling away.
I just wish she wouldn't do that. We could have spend the time and brain power on solving the actual issues. I wish she would hold on to me as hard as I am holding on to her.
Ok fine, she just agreed to hold on to me. Glad my coaxing worked.
The last 3 weeks, I went to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nanjing and Sapporo.
Hong Kong was uneventful. Went for dinner with a few relatives but we didn't really have much to talk about. My cousins with my youngest aunt were cute and the elder brother really liked me somehow.
In Shanghai, the cousin of the wife of one of my cousin brought me around for the entire stay because she was also clearing her 2014 leave and extending her Chinese New Year holiday with them. Brought me around in Shanghai but quickly ran out of things to do, so we went to Wu Xi for a day, then Nanjing. The high-speed rail was awesome because I can go to any major city in China within hours, and I don't even have to check in early the way flights do.
Anyway it was nice and her mum even let us in to the top floor of the Bank of China building in Shanghai for the view.
In Japan, however, I learnt to ski. Frickin awesome, having a private instructor.
I arrived on the 28th of Feb and spent a day in Sapporo with a friend, where I had the best roe right in the airport. Seriously, no fishy taste at all! Never tasted such fresh roe in Singapore before! No wonder the Japanese can just have them with rice. Without the fishy taste, roe is just epic.
For dinner, we went to a random place because the nicest looking restaurant was full. This random place turned out to specialise in grilled ox tongue, and they turned out to be delicious! On a related note, one ski instructor informed us later that ox tongue was the specialty of Sendai. My friend praised the chef who was grilling it in front of us (we were at the counter seats) and despite the difficulty in communication (we relied on pictures in the menu and the few English words in the waitress's vocabulary), we ended up taking a photo together and they gave us two handful of sweets before we left. Oh, and the chef and his brother (I think the other chef in charge of all dishes other than ox tongue was his bro) even sent us out all the way to the lift, partly since we were their last customers.
After that, we stayed in a hotel in Pole Street, a rather touristy place that had everything. Nice, but too... un-local.
The next day, we returned to the hotel after failing to find breakfast, and went to the airport for it instead. There, we went to a restaurant that I later realized specialised in sushi, and had another bowl of sashimi and roe on rice for breakfast, before meeting the rest of the ski group.
The van they booked brought us to the house in Niseko that was called a hotel, but I felt it was more of a serviced apartment. Miyuki 1 was a semi-detached house and had the amenities of a hotel, and the housekeeping came every alternate day. After we were settled in, we went to Rhythm nearby to rent our gear, and I had to buy a few more as well.
Rental was about the skis and poles, the helmet and the ski boots; and on top of that I had to buy ski goggles, a neck warmer with a patch designed for the nose and mouth, and this rubber sole to fit under my jogging shoes to improve traction in the snow.
Skiing was not easy, and although we had hired the instructors for two hours on the first day, I called it a day after 90 minutes. Skiing uses muscles that we normal don't use a lot in the legs, and I was not in a particularly good shape in the first place.
The good thing was that I started out with a good stance for balance, probably from my experience in both rugby and basketball a long time ago, so I only started falling on the second day when we tried the tougher slopes. The first day, despite the short time we spent, was actually pretty good, according to the instructors, because I was ready for the slopes within 15 minutes, and we tried the slopes twice within the 90 minutes. I think the powder snow in Niseko really helped a lot because it was easier to ski on than ice, and the privacy of the rather empty ski resort we went to was awesome for us beginners. Seriously, it was so empty, everyone who went said it felt like a private ski resort, while the gentle slopes there were great for beginners.
Oh btw, dry snow is so awesome to ski on. Dry snow, as far as I can tell, refers to snow in dry air that simply falls apart when you try to make snowballs. Wet snow can easily form snowballs and even ice when you press it hard.
Second day, another two hours, but I decided the ski boots were not comfortable at all. The toe area was too tight and it actually gave me an abrasion on my right ankle and a bruise on the left. We changed it on the third day, but Rhythm didn't have any regular boots that were any better so they gave me a premium pair instead. That was the final option and although it didn't solve the ankle discomfort, my toes felt really comfortable in them. In the end, I got that for no extra charge.
As for the skiing, we actually used up all 3 single trip ski passes on that day.
Then we started having crepes at this house called Odin near our house for tea, since we usually skip lunch. That place had the most amazing crepes and soups!
The fourth day was the last day we spent at the empty ski resort. I had initially wanted to ski alone by myself to try to get the hang of relaxing while skiing, like trying to cycle without supervision for the first time, but the night before, the group decided to go to Risutsu together on the fifth day, so I needed as much training as I could, and my friend lent me her instructor while she skiied alone. She had learnt to ski last year so I needed the training more.
The day didn't go so well, probably because we didn't have the synergy that I had developed with the first instructor, but it was better than nothing.
Risutsu turned out to be fantastic. It had a wide range of slopes for everyone and the mountains had a great view that day. My friend had a problem with her elbow so she didn't go, but I went my instructor anyway together with another newbie in the group who had been sticking to her snowboarding boyfriend during the last several days. He decided to finally have some fun with the rest of the group who were mainly expert snowboarders and they were planning to try the unsupervised slopes that was beyond the highest double black rating.
So the three of us started at the east mountain where there was a beginner slope and a beginner slope for jumps. Of course we didn't jump; I could barely lift my legs while skiing. Then we tried the west mountain where there was a green (ie beginner) slope with a little bit of red (intermediate) between the start and the gondola exit, and we got passed it without falling.
Now I guess I'm intermediate, but that was a very short and easy red, so I still see myself as a beginner. Moreover, I was still going down the slopes by zigzagging through stopping with each leg alternately instead of smoothly straight down like the other people were.
Returning to Singapore gave me two major issues though. First, the flight reservation done with Edreams for flights on Air China was changed while I was out of Singapore. The new flights turned out to have absolutely no transit time - the arrival time of the first flight coincided perfectly with the departure time of the connecting flight. What the heck?
So I tried calling Edreams Japan from Niseko, and there was an automated message that probably meant it was not working or something. Email didn't work because they just told me to call, meaning roaming was necessary.
It's not funny calling on roaming and get put on hold, but the call lasted for an hour and it wasn't solved. Yes, an hour of roaming call, my phone bill is going to be insane.
In the end, I gave up and booked a new one-way flight to HKG instead since I could still use the flight from HKG to SIN. But this is absolutely the last time I'm booking a flight through a third-party website. I'll gladly pay the difference, thank you very much.
Second, the plan was to pack light, ie one backpack, and in order to avoid checking in any luggage, and I'll stay overnight in HKIA as I'd arrive in HKG at night and the following flight to SIN would be in the morning with another airline. I'd go sleep in one of the lounges using my Priority Pass and then go through immigration only in the morning and check in for my final flight home.
It was only when I reached HKIA that I realized there was one obstacle - entry to the departure area is only allowed with a boarding pass. Unlike Changi, they're separate in HKIA, so I had no choice but to get out to the public area and sleep on the benches. After walking around for a few hours while chatting on Whatsapp using the airport's free wifi, the only alternative I found was the pay-per-use lounge that my Priority Pass doesn't give me free access to.
So I found some nicer seats and slept for three hours at around 3am, and woke up at around 6am as it got busier. Walked around and found some breakfast at 7 and chilled there till it was time to check in.
There, I discovered something important - Monday morning flights are empty. That's a very useful piece of information given my flexible hours.
13 March 2015
So we quarrelled again yesterday just before my phone died.
Leaving my phone off, I decided I needed a day of peace. So I've done absolutely nothing today.
We need to talk. She's just like another girl, saying that I question everything. Well, what's wrong with clarifying things I don't understand? And I don't understand a lot of things.
And I wonder what she has been lying about. See, I have this impression that she's honest about the things she say when she's angry, except they're phrased to maximise the pain they inflict. She claims she doesn't mean any of it, but I don't believe it; I have done that before because I have been angry before.
So when she said she's "been lying about countless things", I know for a fact she has been lying in regards to at least a few issues. And as for jokes, seriously, be careful what you joke about.
I still love her, but now I don't know if she really loves me or the security I provide. When a person does something for a person he/she loves, is he/she supposed to expect a reward? I don't, but she seems to. Can it be due to her lack of maturity?
Tomorrow maybe I'll turn on my phone.
Still loving these
The best part starts at 1:47
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