Rant 1247 / That Makes Me An Art Collector Now

27 Nov 2018


I probably shouldn't call these posts "rants" anymore since I don't really do that since a long time ago, but once upon a time this was an apt description, and now it just doesn't seem right to change it.



















Got the basic theory evaluation done for my class 3 (manual car) license.

I begin with 2 classes of basic theory, followed by optional practice session for the test. With or without practice, I must pass the evaluation before I can apply for the actual basic theory test. Once I have that, I can apply to the Traffic Police for my Provisional Driving License which lets me drive with an L-plate.

At this point, two things happen simultaneously. First, I need to attend 2 final theory classes, followed by the optional practice and then evaluation and the final theory test. Second, there is the basic practical training aka Stage 1, followed by a session at the driving simulator, then the intermediate training aka Stage 2. Once that's done, there is the lesson on auto transmission (since my course is on manual) and one on risk forecast, and, of course, Stage 3 which is training at the circuit. Stage 4 aka defensive driving and Stage 5, the evaluation, brings the training to an end.

Once both the final theory and practical training are over, I can book a slot for the practical test with the Traffic Police and once I pass it, I get my driving license.





















Sometimes it feels I am too self-sufficient in this relationship. One of the things we both mentioned last night was that I never need her help for anything while she frequently needs mine because she is often too busy.

She's busy because she feels uncomfortable being not busy, and keeping herself busy can lead to an overloaded schedule at times since she's got no buffer time for anything unexpected. To compensate for needing my help regularly, she feels she should reciprocate when I need help, but I rarely need help in anything or even want anything, especially since I can afford more things than her and I have more time to look for deals.

Now that I think about it, my theory is that I do most things myself and don't like to be helped unless I cannot do it myself, eg when I had that 40-degree fever that came with dizziness and nausea, because part of my confidence lies in my ability to not have to rely on anyone in most situations in life, that when I fall, I can get myself up, and to do them myself all the time proves that this is still a valid statement.

This means she can't reciprocate and she can't help but need my help all the time for even the simplest things due to her schedule, and this makes her feel like a burden.

Yet I feel the real issue lies in her need to keep herself busy. We really need to get that resolved but I am out of ideas here.























It is becoming an addiction to organize and go for trips. Maybe not an addiction since I'm not lying about it, but I just keep feeling a strong urge to get out of the country all the time.

So now it's only been about a fortnight since I've returned and I'm already planning to treat my staff to a cruise. Initially, I seriously considered a HK-SG cruise on Royal Caribbean but despite it being one of the better cruise lines, apparently it's flooded by rather rude passengers from certain Asian countries who tend to ignore queues and hog tables even when they are asking passengers not to via speakers.

Funny thing is, Royal Caribbean also offers cruises from Sydney to South Pacific islands and back for lower prices, and even with the airfare of $600 per pax on BA, it is still cheaper to take a 7-night cruise on this route than the 7-night HK-SG route.

If I fork out about S$1500, which of course makes it more expensive than the HK-SG cruise, I can upgrade this to a 10-night one that goes to NZ and back instead of those islands that have nothing but gorgeous beaches. However, it will need an additional S$200 per pax to upgrade it to one that visits the famous Milford Sound.

If I pick the cheaper NZ option, it is on my second favourite ship among the 3 possible ones, the Radiance of the Seas, which is good for views since half the ship is covered in glass windows but is a little old and relatively lacking in entertainment.

The more expensive option gets me to nicer places but on my least favourite ship, the Ovation of the Seas which is larger, newer and has much more entertainment. Downside is that with its size comes a lot more passengers, and specific venues can get extremely crowded when interesting events are being held.

Honestly, I'd prefer to visit NZ on the cheaper option, but that's going to cost me an estimated S$4.5k if they're willing to share a 4-bed cabin (meaning two of them will most probably have to climb ladders to their bunk beds), or $5k if they aren't, inclusive of airfare and etc.

Another issue is that Van can't confirm whether she can go until much closer to the date because she will be transferred to another department some time before then, and it makes things difficult because there is no guarantee I can still get the cheapest rooms, or that they will still be as cheap as they are now, and flights will also have the same two problems.

There is also a possible issue that whoever they want to bring will also have difficulty committing to a trip in March.

Tough. I will have to keep in mind there is a huge probability that the budget will need to be expanded to maybe S$8k just for them. That won't leave much for myself if I'm only willing to spend S$10k on this, and a possible solution is to go for the one that visits the South Pacific islands.

























Finally hung up my first painting.

My home used to be full of my dad's paintings but only one still remains on our walls, so there are plenty of hooks. Unfortunately this is the only hook located on a wall that's still uncovered, so the lighting may not be ideal but at least I won't have to shift a lot of things around.


I like how they included the frame and shipping in the price, and that the frame suits the painting, but the frame doesn't suit my home. Too cheap to get it replaced so what the heck...
















28 Nov 2018




Anyway, as a newbie, I learnt a few things about buying fine art from a friend during the auction I bought this from, but to discuss them, let's start with how the process goes.

For the most part, it is like how it works on TV and in the movies, the auctioneer states a minimum price, goes on to that really cool auction chant that can be kind of therapeutic to listen to, and hopefully someone bids and another person competes with the first bidder.

On the cruise, nobody tried to outbid anyone; most paintings left without a single bid - real life art auctions are probably just this sad, or maybe it's just on cruises where 80% of the people are there just for the atmosphere, the free drinks and to see the pieces.

Or maybe they're really picky. Who knows?

During the course of the auction, there are breaks, and during the first one, we were given cards to be placed on the frames of paintings we were interested to see in the auction, which didn't guarantee anything but raised the probability of their appearances.

During the rest of the auction, the auctioneer's assistants may approach you regarding pieces you have placed a card on or expressed interest in in other ways, eg you asked them directly, and he/she will tell you that they can offer you a price significantly lower than the one they intend to use as the minimum bid price. It will still be placed on auction afterwards, but if no one bids at all, you can have it at that price.

Here's the part I needed a friend to tell me because I'm too "by-the-book" and they will never even hint that it is possible - you can haggle, because art is subjective.

First, you can ask for an even lower price. That's pretty much the basic definition of haggling in the first place.

Second, it is within their powers to include another piece (or more) for the same price. Of course, it would raise your chances of success if the second piece is of a lower value.

Third, free shipping is possible. Granted, it is also possible that they can't cover every local taxes and fees because it can't be calculated right off the bat unless everything is shipped in one package, but shipping itself can cost a lot especially if even a single one is framed. For us Singaporeans shipping a framed painting from the US, we're talking about hundreds of dollars here, USD!

So what I did was say yes to simply the price he offered for the framed painting. It seemed like fair deal tbh, but that's me as a virgin art collector talking.

Later when we went back to our seats in the auction, my friend was surprised when I told her that, and persuaded me to go back to the assistant and ask for free shipping for everything, since it's too late to discuss lower prices or more pieces. I went back saying I forgot about shipping, asked for it for free, and voila!

My friend, being more experienced, asked for a second piece and free shipping for the price they offered, right from the start.

What they actually did in the case of free shipping was that they calculated the shipping charges, then reduced the price of each piece to bring the sum of everything to the price we agreed upon, hence that's why I said the prices can be reduced. If they can do it for free shipping, they can reduce it even more than that.

I still had to pay GST because one package exceeded S$400 (they have split my four paintings into three packages).





















Surprisingly, I can still do 10 military pushups continuously. Must be because of all the luggage handling during the trip. Just restarted my P90X3 regime, it's day 4 and my legs are aching. But it's just my legs so I clearly haven't been pushing myself hard enough, so today after The Challenge, my arms are like jelly now.

Rant 1246 / Whoa This Spanned Three Months!

11 Aug 2018

It was only after knowing Van that I noticed that modern luxury focuses on the isolation of individuals. Before, it was simply part of the background that didn't need to be thought about, but when she refused to let me use my points for business class seats on a flight a few years ago because we couldn't sit together with the armrests up, I realized the more luxurious the mode of travel, the less contact you're meant to have with other people.

This is the same in almost everything - residences, offices, restaurants, hotels, etc.

The implication of these is that we all seem to agree that deep down inside, we don't want to be social; we do it because we need to and, given the opportunity, we are willing to pay through our noses to get rid of this need, even if it is only temporarily.

This conclusion seemed to have incurred little reaction in Van but it overturned some of the things I learnt over the years.

Foremost is the assumption that we inherently prefer to be social, derived from the idea that loneliness kills. Clearly, this is not exactly true - we don't want to be social, we don't prefer to be social, but there are many things we need from other individuals that we can't obtain if we don't socialise.

Is this about control?

If we block everyone out as compared to if we are always close to people, eg living on a private island vs in a shared apartment, it does make it easier for us to determine how much we interact with others.

Does it mean that when we can clearly identify and synthesize these specific needs, we can all live in self-contained spaces for the rest of our lives? So many implications there.


















So the plan is to keep a snowboarding trip below S$3000, almost everything included. It will be two weeks long in Korea, and according to the math I did in a Google Sheet, it should be doable, thanks to the soon-to-expire 20,700 Avios from British Airways that I had been having difficulty finding a use for.

With a S$104 one-way flight on Cathay Pacific back to Singapore redeemed with 20,000 Avios, and a S$307 one-way flight on Cebu Pacific to Seoul, the fare has been cut from the lowest I could find of S$565 on Asiana to the current S$411, both options include checked luggage.

However, since I had already booked 13 nights of accommodation on fixed dates based on the Asiana's flight timings that are a night later than Cebu Pacific's, I had to spend another $51 on an airport hotel in Seoul that provides free airport transfers so that I can get back to the airport to take either a long-distance coach or a train.

That is still $100 cheaper, and far more comfortable on the way back. The latter point is very important because I will be tired and the knowledge that that could be my last snowboarding trip for a number of years will be slightly depressing. Though it will not be a direct flight like Asiana's, the service provided by Cathay Pacific is still much better so that will probably help. Spending a few hours in HKIA might also give me an opportunity to get some food there.

I touch down at 6+pm so probably can get out by 7pm. The connecting flight is 2am, so I got to be through the immigration by 1am, so arrive back in HKIA by 12am. This gives me 4hours. 1 hour to get to and from Hong Kong station by Airport Express each way, so that leaves me 2 hours. More than enough time for a dinner.

So anyway, $3k budget, $411 down for flights.

The place I'm staying is a semi-detached house in a pension, so a tiny house with a living room that has a sofa bed, a bedroom and a kitchenette. There is a bus stop for a free shuttle bus that goes to the ski resort I want every few hours, and a grocery store about 15 minutes walk away. Plan B is the pension owner who appears to be very willing to drive guests around, according to the reviews and his replies to my enquiries. This will cost 855,000 KRW total, paid upon check in, and converts to S$1040 today.

At this point, the remaining budget is $1549.

According to past FB posts, there is a season pass that seems to include two-way airport transfers at the resort that cost about S$500, though it rises a little annually so by this year it should hit S$600. This is far cheaper than the daily S$90 pass that would have made my expected 10 days of hitting the slopes cost $900, not to mention there is a chance it will save me about S$60 more on transportation between the airport and this area.

$949 left.

I plan to spend $800 in Canada soon to get the equipment, and I consider this as part of the expenses of the Canada trip. I know, it's a little like cheating. If you want to add in rental, it's $25/day there, so 13 days will cost $325 (return on the penultimate day). If I rent, this leaves $524 for food and unexpected expenses, which is still plenty thanks to the kitchenette that I plan to cook most of my meals in.

Heck, if I include the cost of equipment here, it still leaves S$149 for 14 days. Technically still possible with the kitchenette and if I bring some canned food over that I can buy in Malaysia and some of the close-to-expiring food from home. It's not like I need all the luggage space for a trip like this, just one full bag of 23 kg for equipment plus another bag of less than 10kg. For the way there via Cebu Pacific, I get a check-in luggage allowance of one bag that will be completely taken up by the snowboard bag, and from some preliminary calculations, they won't take up more than 10kg overall, otherwise I can carry my boots in my carry-on luggage. With 20kg as their limit for a checked bag, I have roughly 5kg for miscellaneous items, a very healthy margin. The carbs and fresh vegetables/fruits can be bought there (not to mention you can't bring into the country fruits, vegetables and seeds), and I can bring a few cans of soup and fish over, maybe also some pork floss and that Japanese rice seasoning. Plenty of options.















































You know what's scary? The fact that real wool is now close to being fully in the realm of luxury. It seems that nobody offers 100% wool sweaters at decent prices now, and consumers are satisfied with synthetic fibres that feel very nice but

a) have poorer insulation
b) are heavy
c) both of the above

At the moment, I'm reluctantly moving on to synthetic cashmere which feels seriously smooth and solid, but ultimately it's still acrylic, so despite the comfort, it's not as warm and it weighs a ton compared to wool. Don't get me wrong - it is still warmer than a t-shirt, so for the current prices it is one of the better options.

If you don't plan to spend a lot on warm clothing, then you're going to need to be willing to wear heavy ones, and what I'm talking about is thick jackets with polyester filling, because the sweaters aren't going to be doing much for you. Without the wool stuff already in my winter wardrobe now, I'd be opting for t-shirts and jackets, maybe a polyester-filled vest in between, because to be frank, unless it's incredibly cold, the insulation isn't worth the effort, money and weight.



























13 Aug 2018

Currently considering alternatives for our ISP since our contract is ending soon. Viewqwest has been great but their reliability is still not the greatest, mainly due to the hardware. To be fair, as a household, we are definitely a heavy user with 5-6 phones and 2 laptops on Wifi, and 3 PCs on Cat 6 cables. Having burnt through plenty of less adequate routers provided for free by VQ over the years, we have reached the point where we acquired two ASUS dual-core routers from our own pockets to establish a stable mesh Wifi network in our home.

And even that has proven inadequate because now that the routers can handle our traffic, we found a new bottleneck in the modem. Occasionally dying and needing a reset once in a while, it probably needs to be replaced soon, and it's definitely the source of our current network problems because my bro monitors the data from the devices that shows that the two routers are not even reaching 50% of their processing power, thus cannot possibly be even heating up to any noticeable degree.

There is a major obstacle in needing flexibility in our contract with VQ though - the ISP only offers 24-month contracts, and early termination will incur a charge equivalent to what we would have paid for the rest of the contract if we didn't cancel it. Basically, we have to pay for the entire 24 months; it's just a matter of when and whether we get the entire period's worth of their services.

Otherwise, we need go without a contract and this raises the monthly charge from $40 to $70. It looks high like this, but we have been paying $60 a month in our current contract, so from this perspective, we are only paying a little bit more for the flexibility and hence, bargaining power - we can actually threaten to switch ISP if they take as long to help us as they sometimes do.




























15 Aug 2018

So the Riviera Maya is turning out to be a great place to watch turtles nesting and spawning, and the way everyone including my Airbnb host is describing it, it looks like it will be better than doing it in Malaysia, even the Perhentian islands.























Rejected a friend's invitation to visit Hanoi. I'm not signing up for any trips but snowboarding ones, excluding little trips to Malaysia and etc.




































23 Sept 2018

So Van moved out after a big quarrel when I was away in Malaysia for the long road trip to Genting, Perhentian and Cherating.

We're still together though.


















I'm so out of shape, I've hit 100kg for the first time since I lost weight, and a trip to JB gave me an ache in the calves. Too much food in Malaysia and then Phuket, then too little physical activity in the 2 weeks since.

This is time when I have to really exercise. Snowboarding is a physically strenuous activity that can be considered an extreme sport. Not sure how that is because as far as I can tell it is not much tougher than surfing and skateboarding.

One thing I noticed is the constant need for balance making everything much more physically demanding. Simply standing up for a prolonged period of time is an exercise because even when you have found a flat spot to balance your left and right, you're still going to balance your forward and back, unless that is truly flat ground, and most of the time you have no reason to lock both feet in your snowboard on such an area.























18 Nov 2018




Just got back from a month-long trip with Van, a friend, her boyfriend and her nephew. Covered Toronto (because of course), 2 days in Montreal (lovely as before, brought Van to try the same Montreal Poutine place that I visited myself a while back), Mexico (totally changed my impressions of the Mayans and their neighbours), Miami (boring) and several Caribbean islands (good for a cruise, not so good to fly there specifically for).

Montreal is probably the busiest city in Canada that I have visited, so much so that the pace feels like that of Hong Kong and Singapore - people walk fast, are impatient and rude.

Of course, they're still nicer than the Parisians, though these days I don't blame them.

Most importantly, bought the entire set of snowboarding gear for about C$1.3k, or S$1.4k. It is higher than my earlier expected budget of S$800, but would you call this expensive?

The board itself is a Nidecker Play going for C$300, so that was cheaper than the Lib Tech Skate Banana I was hoping for initially. Problem was that beginner all-mountain boards my size (157W-161W) weren't that easy to find even in Canada, so I just went for whichever the stores had, especially since so many snowboarders had recommended newbies to get second-hand boards in the first place.

Then again, I did add C$100 to get a cool pair of mitts that had a removable inner lining that was touchscreen-compatible, and a zip at the finger area that the lining can go through.

And the C$180 wheeled snowboard bag aka "wheelie" that can hold everything plus Van's smaller board with bindings, and still has space for more.

Yes, it could have been just C$1k.

The store fixed the bindings on the board for me, which was great but now I think they may be a little off for me. Not really an issue since it is just a tiny difference in angle. Helmet fits nicely too, which is fantastic.

Can't wait to try them on in Feb.

Speaking of which, Korea does NOT have a good reputation for snow. In fact, most forecasts for it say there will be ice, not snow, so it will be all about the snow machines - there goes any hope for powder days.

No wonder a snowboarding trip there costs half of what it would take in Japan.

Also took a Caribbean cruise on Carnival which showed me that cruises are nice when we become adults. All the free food, especially the burgers from Guy Fieri's Burger Joint, were awesome. Now I'm more open to cruises, though most options are really boring over here. What sounds like a good idea here is to use it as a reward for my staff because it's something we can all appreciate, like a HK-SG cruise on Royal Caribbean, since I can stop by Vietnam for some coffee and a bag of beans, and I'll only need to cover one flight.

Mexico was eye-opening. Chichen Itza's guided tour showed me how incredibly advanced the Mayans really were, and the things a society can accomplish by focusing most of its resources on an elite segment of its population. Seriously though, over half the Mayans were not allowed to eat meat or fish as these were food for the upper class, and hence the peasants tend to die by 40 while the elites could hit 60 and beyond. Yet without wheeled carts or animals for transportation, they were able to build cities and pyramids like the one in Chichen Itza, calculate accurate calendars for the Sun, the moon and various planets, create engineering feats like the ball court depicted in the Disney movie "The Road to El Dorado" that was designed to make sure everyone nearby could hear each time the ball smacks the wall, and structures designed to let anyone observe the solstices and equinoxes through the angle of the Sun.

Even if all these aren't impressive, keep in mind they built cities that are still standing after a millennium despite the erosive powers of weather and nature.

Montreal was pretty nice too, as expected. Mainly just for the food and the snow. Some day I really have to organise a snowboarding trip to Canada. Which season though? This season's out since I've already booked Korea, and 2020 is definitely out too, which makes the earliest possible winter to be the 2020/2021 season.

But we miss Mittersill too! Oh man, it's so unlikely she'll have enough leave and off days to cover two two-week trips by then, especially since she's going to need all the days she can spare to cover our trip in the 2019/2020 season.

They were incredibly sweet though. During our stay over the New Year's Eve, they invited all guests to write their New Year wishes in a form to be deposited in a box. We had no idea what to expect and when nothing actually happened, we forgot about it.

They've just mailed it to us with a neat handwritten card asking "Have your wishes come true?" (in German, of course).

No hotel has ever done that, for all my trips over the years. Absolutely never.

We are SO going back.

Rant 1245 / Snowboarding

19 July 2018

I need regular trips, not a big one.

















20 July 2018

So after some calculations, decided that since I really do plan to focus more of my long trips on snowboarding, I should buy my equipment instead of renting during my upcoming trip to Toronto.

The math goes like this:

Rental of helmet, snowboard, snowboarding boots and bindings (the last three usually referred to collectively in rental shops as "snowboard") costs S$25 a day even in a relatively cheap country like Korea for the beginners, and $50 or more for the better equipment in the more expensive countries.

Buying all four during sales like the one the Canadian store Sanctions is having right now costs about $800 since CAD and SGD are almost 1:1.

Example cart as shown. These can last beyond my beginner days, in theory.

Assuming I stay at the beginner level for a very long time, it will take me 32 days to make it the same as renting in Korea all the way, or almost 5 weeks, or three 2-week snowboarding trips.

In addition to these, I'll need a snowboard bag which can easily be found on Taobao or Aliexpress for around S$50 instead of $90-150 in stores.

Cons:

- Have to check luggage rules before booking every flight. Lots of airlines now consider the entire snowboard bag as one piece of luggage at the maximum allowed weight for a single piece of luggage, ie even if it's just 10kg, it will be treated as 23kg, and if you're flying on a fare that only allows a single bag, you'd better be able to stuff everything in your snowboard bag.

- Chances are the cheapest flights don't provide suitable luggage allowance.

- Got to check/wear the snowboarding boots once in a while.

- Got to learn to maintain the board personally since there is no way there is even a single shop in Singapore offering board maintenance services.

- Got to lug everything, wheeled bag or no, so snowboarding trips will really be all about snowboarding and not much else.

- Can't try out new boards.

- Miss out on freebies rental stores sometimes offer, like free transfers.


Pros:

- Comfortable boots. I had a terrible time wearing ill-fitting ski boots in Niseko that made my ankle ache within 10 minutes of wearing them, but they were the best the rental store had to offer.

- Clean boots. Do you see anyone inside or outside rental stores cleaning boots? It might happen when you aren't around... or it might not.

- Consistent board makes for easier learning since it skips the part where the snowboarder has to adapt to the new equipment at the beginner of each trip.

- Magne-Traction. Don't think they rent boards with that out at beginner prices.

- Comfortable helmet. There have been situations where the biggest helmets available can barely fit me.

- Lighter, more flexible boards. Makes sense for rental shops to offer sturdy, heavy boards for durability, doesn't make as much sense for the users. My rented snowboard in Austria was pretty heavy and worn, tbh.

- I might wear the boots to go out and save $100 from not having to get snow boots.

- I can go straight to the accommodation from the airport instead of having to take a detour to the rental store, and make sure it happens during office hours. The same for the end to return the equipment. Usually I finish early just so that I can return them on the penultimate day just to avoid the trouble of rushing everything on the last day and the cost of another day's rental fee.

- After 32 days of snowboarding, whatever is still usable might as well be free.




















Anyway it looks like villas with private pools are trending in Phuket. It's easy to find one under S$150 a night, and some even go as low as $67 a night but without housekeeping and front desk. That's really just a private home but if they call it a villa, I'll say it's a villa. Going to try one out that's about S$100 a night and has a pool that looks big enough to swim in in Sept.






















Want to go snowboarding in late Jan till mid Feb to return in time for Chinese New Year. Hotels in Yongpyong aren't opening up their rooms for reservation during that period though, while the rooms in the nearby village look inconvenient despite the proximity.

Might go if it's possible to keep the cost of the entire trip under S$3000 excluding snowboarding equipment.

Rant 1244 / Why Am I Letting Them Accumulate?

30 Mar 2018

Itchy feet but can't travel to anywhere I want to go! I want to go snowboarding again! August, September!

Have to make do with Genting in the coming week instead. Road trip again. A friend initially wanted to book a room for me with excess points (the account had over 90 points, while the cheapest rooms tend to cost 10-15 per night for me) after getting a free room, but somehow the online system refused to finish the reservation process despite using both Chrome and Firefox, so we gave up and I booked a standard room at First World for 60MYR per night.

My friend's account could have booked any night for free even without points, according to the rates calendar online, but I guess they don't allow multiple simultaneous bookings.

Anyway, this time I'm going to test out the theory that the number of points we earn is not based on how much we spend, but how long we spend on a table or machine. What I'm going to do is to stick my membership card in a slot machine and sit there all day long watching movies and playing games on my phone, preferably next to my friend so that we can take washroom breaks while leaving our cards in the machines.

This theory isn't stated anywhere on the RWGenting website, but it makes more sense given how little points we earned during our last few trips despite spending a couple thousand ringgits in total (excluding our wins).




















Well, fuck. Apparently coffee contains enough of this carcinogenic substance acrylamide that coffee sellers in California have to label a warning on their coffees. It's none of my business that they have to go through the trouble of scaring customers away, but doesn't that make coffee on par with cigarettes?

Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said Wednesday that Starbucks and other companies failed to show that benefits from drinking coffee outweighed any risks. He ruled in an earlier phase of trial that companies hadn’t shown the threat from the chemical was insignificant.

I'm going to have to drink less coffee. Er... hello, Red Bull. JK, Red Bull tastes like shyt.

























15 April 2018

You know, what if all the talk that palm oil is the cause of all the deforestation in various countries like Indonesia, and it's a major factor that leads to the haze that visits Singapore every once in a while, it's like we should be weaning ourselves off palm oil, right?

I mean, they're everywhere, in every food product and oil blends that says "vegetable oil" anywhere on the packaging. It's so widespread it's easy to see why the Indonesians are slashing and burning land as fast as they can to grow more oil palms!

But here's the thing: so what if we stop using palm oil? Our demand for cooking oil is the direct cause of this, and stopping the use of palm oil only leads to using a replacement.

There is a reason why palm oil is the most commonly used oil: it's efficient in its use of fertilizers and whatever chemicals they spray on all of them. In other words, they require the least amount of fertilizers and chemicals per unit volume of oil. That's what I would assume given the fact that palm oil is the cheapest edible oil out there.

In other words, the production of each unit volume of palm oil affects the environment the least already. If we were to use any other oil in this proportion, the effects would be much greater. Again, this is derived from an assumption.

So to reduce the environmental impacts of palm oil, what we really should do is to reduce our need for edible oil. Now that's a totally different ball game.





























27 April 2018

Settling legal stuff, the final bits of stuff I've been neglecting among the estate business of my parents. Supposed to be simple but it's just a lot of waiting.


Went to Genting twice this month, once with 60RM rooms via a road trip, once on free rooms via AirAsia and Grab.

Didn't win anything.

Cheap holidays to beat the hot humid weather here, that's all.

But I've been doing some research on our goal of an Antarctica cruise and although she is still at the stage of deciding between Seabourn and Silversea, I've long set my mind on the latter, so it's just about when and which ship to me.

So Jan is the best time to visit the continent as far as I'm concerned, because the whales are out and so are the penguin chicks, while the temperature is relatively warm, and less popular.

In terms of ships, I'm less inclined towards the most luxurious and biggest because the extra level of luxury in an Antarctica cruise for another US$7-10k seems way too excessive to me, and fewer people on board would make it easier for everyone to get to know one another, so the Silversea Explorer is my choice right now.

The 18-day cruise in Jan 2020 will cost US$17k, or S$23k, per person, so that means we both will have to set aside S$30k each for the airfare to Ushuaia, hotels and etc, and probably the optional shore excursions.

No more big trips exceeding $5k per pax until then.





























30 Apr 2018

So Genting, we have strong evidence that among the machine games like slots or electronic gaming, we score points by the number of games we play. On the other hand, the tables calculate our scores by how long we're there. It was nice to make about 5-7 points by investing just a hundred ringgits at the roulette table.
















Probably no expensive trips at all this year. The only trip exceeding a week this year in consideration is a road trip in Malaysia.Van can't afford anymore serious holidays so I won't be doing much either.






















Cockroaches have been spotted repeatedly in our home for the last several months. Though they have been spotted once in a blue moon in the kitchen over the years, they have never gone past the kitchen door... until now.

Since there is no sign of a cockroach infestation (no faeces other than those of the house lizards and our terrapins, no random dead cockroach until I started spreading over 20 baits and several pandan plants in my room, no egg casing, no cockroach smell), I am 80% sure one or more of our neighbours has/have a cockroach infestation problem. In the past, it might have been the occasional ones that crawl from the rubbish chute in our home that is to be expected, but now, there have been 5 in 12 months.

The first was in our bedroom probably over half a year ago and was caught. The second, if I remember correctly, was in our toilet months ago and was also caught. The third and fourth were spotted when I turned on the light in the bedroom a few nights ago, with one caught. A dead cockroach was found outside the kitchen door after the aforementioned baits were set, though there's no way to confirm that was the fourth one despite my hope that it was. A fifth was spotted in the living room yesterday and definitely got covered in Baygon but disappeared under the TV shelf. I now have 6 traps spread around the house outside my room which still has the baits and pandan leaves.

If the dead cockroach was the fourth one that vanished while I was focused on the third one, then the pandan leaves did work as a repellent.

Rant 1243 / Range Of Motion Is Key

17 Jan 2018

It's already been 11 years since the beginning of this blog, and I don't feel it. Maybe because the past has become fogged up and I can't see too far back.



























23 Jan 2018

Seems like it's close to impossible to defer from the coming ICT unless it's a matter of life and death. Partial loss of income is no excuse, and it probably has to be at least the risk of losing your job to be able to defer from this training. Pulau Tekong for ATEC Phase 2 this time, not looking forward to it.

Trying to get myself back in shape for it now. Haven't exercised much since leaving for Europe and the activities have mainly been for my legs (walking and snowboarding) so my arms are in bad shape. Not square one yet but I could only do 13 standard pushups and 3 military pushups before having to resort to knee pushups yesterday during the P90X3 session "The Challenge".

Nowhere close to my brother's rate of over 1 pushup per second sustained for at least a minute. I imagine it must feel like pushing air at first for him to be able to go at that speed.

Left arm hasn't healed completely though, and my guess is something is in the wrong place in the shoulder joint somewhere due to the different method used to put it back in during the first snowboarding class and the way I pushed it in more (it wasn't in the perfect position after that class but it wasn't painful) during my sleep later that night.

There is a chance the next time it goes back in the perfect position is the when I dislocate it and put it back in again. In the meantime, I have to be careful when I raise it up because for some reason it can sometibe painful like I'm pushing the upper arm bone against something in the joint.




































24 Feb 2018

Went to Danang again. This time I'm going to note down the prices of the coffee I bought.

The 200g bottles of Hello 5 brand Culi beans and Arabica from Big C were 83.9k VND (S$5-6) each. The two 500g packs of Robusta (tbh I prefer Arabica but they weren't very common there) were 115k VND (S$6-8) each. The 500g of fake civet coffee was 200k VND (S$12-14).

Honestly, the fake civet beans smell much better outside of the bag and I can't open any yet to test, so as far as I can tell now, the 200k price seems more worthwhile than the 115k ones, just because if I had wanted regular coffee, I don't have to fly to Vietnam to get it. On the bright side, regardless of whether this is regular or Vietnamese, the prices are below my personal threshold of S$25/kg for whole beans.

Hoi An was a bust. Too touristy, even if the HoiAn Sincerity Hotel & Spa was much much nicer than the Sea View DN Hotel despite being in the same price range. Danang was just much more interesting to us than Hoi An, regardless of how easy things were for us in the latter city.

Heck, the coffee alone was better in Danang than in Hoi An.

Unfortunately, we were in Danang too early in the Lunar New Year so most shops were closed, otherwise I believe I could have gotten better deals and/or beans. Oh well, at least what I got were still cheap.

Lost a lot of arm strength during this trip. 10 perfect pushups were easy, but after that I could only pull off one perfect military pushup. This is a far cry from the 4 that I could do before this trip, and the 8 that I managed to hit before Europe. At least my lower limbs feel much stronger now. All the slopes and steps in Vietnam helped keep that part of me in shape, so that is good for the coming weeks of ICT.


Anyway, if I hadn't mentioned this before, the fast food in Danang and Hoi An and maybe the entire Vietnam come in tiny portions, though in all fairness, the prices were low too. With a la carte burgers going at below S$5 each at Lotteria, it is easy to afford a veritable feast without hurting my wallet as a Singaporean, though eating burgers in Vietnam is only for when you or someone in your group needs some easy and affordable food in a relatively comfortable environment.

Otherwise, I'd rather just keep pointing at random food in the little eateries along the streets of Danang. During this trip, by doing this, we discovered this noodle in an orange soup that we believe to be pumpkin soup. I didn't even know the Vietnamese eat pumpkins!

Also, the seafood at the restaurants near Sea View DN Hotel were awesome for relatively low prices. 250k VND (S$15-17) for 6 shellfish (600g total when alive) that we believe to be rather large razor clams about 10-13cm long, barbecued and garnished with a mix of fried shallots, fried peanuts, fried chopped garlic and fresh chopped spring onions. Not sure if this was really cheap, maybe we were ripped off, but this was not expensive for what they were, at least for us tourists.

Rant 1242 / Was This Even A Thing? Was That?

Spent a month in Czechia and Austria. No kangaroos anywhere.

But seriously, I have to say that the Czech Republic has a lot more to offer than just Prague, Karlovy Vary and Cesky Krumlov.

No idea why, but almost nobody in the English-speaking world seems to know about Marianske Lazne, a beautiful spa town in northwestern Czechia. In a time long passed, it was a luxury mountain hideaway that catered to the wealthy and famous, and even now visitors can still see its intricately designed buildings and drink the hot spring water it was once famed for from the public fountains everywhere.

Speaking of which, tap water in the towns in that part of the country all taste like mineral water we Singaporeans can only taste from bottles. Van didn't like it as much, but after a lifetime of drinking rainwater, the salty flavour felt luxurious.

There are many other smaller spa towns, like Frantiskovy Lazne, which is much quieter but preserved the Victorian-era-looking machine fountains that pump spring water directly from the aquifers. We spotted locals drinking from a few of them and from the little German I could understand from the brochures we found near the fountains, the water is believed to have healing properties. We tried it and it's really strong stuff, especially in sulfur. No adverse effects either.

Cheb may or may not have been objectively the best place to stay in to explore the region, but it was perfect during the trip, especially due to its location. Other than how almost nobody spoke English in the area (our Airbnb host had to rope in the English tutor of one of her kids to translate for us and bring us around, and on a side note, I have to admit we could have been friendlier to him by offering him a beer or dinner but we were too tired from the journey from Prague by public transport to think straight), the other downside was how its history was quite hidden from us.

I have read a little, and one thing that attracted me to that place was that Cheb has had a long history. Yet when I was there, other than the metal axis at the town center that displayed the timeline from its first mention in written history, there was almost nothing - no landmarks, no plaques.

It was only near the end of our stay when Van read up on it further and realized it used to be an important Nazi HQ, something to do with think tanks and the creation of certain important Nazi documents, ie Cheb used to be part of the brain of the Nazis.

No wonder they wiped out almost all their history despite being an important transit stop between various major cities in Central and Eastern Europe. Btw it's still a good transit hub for travellers today.

It's sad, but clearly they're slowly rebuilding after having shed its past, probably due to its excellent location between the rapidly developing Czech Republic and the largest economy in the EU, Germany.

One would have better luck finding German speakers than English speakers in this town.




Cesky Krumlov has a grand castle but honestly, it's hollow. It's entire old town has been converted into a tourist attraction, with hotels lining almost entire streets and covered in souvenirs. It's got history but not worth a stay. That is one thing my last Contiki tour did totally right - brought us there for a tour and got out asap.




Austria is a hidden gem for us - almost none of our friends knows anything about it and there is absolutely no hype around this country as far as we know other than for Halstatt and Vienna.

Probably my best option in travel destination ever - that is how much I love Austria, seriously.

The people are nice, the mountainous regions of the country absolutely gorgeous, and the prices are ridiculously honest. The last bit was the most impressive to me, and here's an example: there is this restaurant on this mountain where we went to for snowboarding classes, and the mountain was always crowded as far as we can tell. The view from every side is epic and there is a ski school there providing ski and snowboarding classes to people of all ages, both group and private, making this area absolutely suitable for anyone. The restaurant, being the sole source of food and beverages on the mountaintop that is a 15-minute cable car ride from the foot, is absolutely packed beyond capacity during lunch hour, yet the main courses were all large-portioned and only 3-4 of them out of about 15 were above 10 euros, net.

They could have ripped everyone off easily by doubling or even tripling the prices, but no, everything was restaurant price at most.

That's what I love most about Austria - the people aren't out to make a quick buck like the capitalists that the rest of us are.

Disclaimer: we saw very little of Vienna and capitals tend to be quite different from the rest of the countries they're in. Also, Halstatt has been ridiculously overhyped by its exposure in social media and is a different story.



Another example is the place we stayed at during our time in St Valentin, near Linz. I was actually trying to get a room in Linz but due to my low price filter, it gave me hotels further out and into St Valentin, and I booked it without realizing that till it was done and non-refundable.

Turns out to be a very pleasant mistake because the hotel was really a family-run restaurant hotel about five minutes walk from the train station - a fantastic transit hub. The prices were very reasonable for the quality and quantity, and I felt the dishes were made with love because they aren't uniform. There were two consecutive dinners when I ordered the same dish, a pork chops wrapped in bacon, and they were different. I asked the server if the chef was different that evening, but no, it's just the recipe that was different. Better, actually.

Call me ignorant, but I didn't know restaurants can change recipes randomly.

I would like to believe the chef cooked his/her dishes however he/she wanted, like a home kitchen, and that lack of sameness gave it a sort of warmth you never expect in a restaurant.



Linz, on the other hand, was a city through and through. If I were to return to the area, I'd stay at that hotel again instead of within Linz.








Anyway if anyone asks whether snowboarding is easier than skiing, I would say it's like comparing apples with oranges - they're just different.

Each is good in its own ways and has its own difficulties, but I find it unfair to say either is easier than the other after having learnt both.

Skiing:

+ It feels more versatile - you can walk upslope relatively more easily without removing a thing.
+ It's also easier to leave them when you don't need them - just stab everything into the snow.
+ Acceleration is also easier on gentler slopes or even on flat ground.
+ You can stand on it like you're wearing shoes, so you can do that when you stop.
+ Most importantly, it is a proven mobility device in times of war.

Snowboarding:

+ It feels safer in that when you fall and roll, it doesn't make your knees rotate in the less pleasant ways.
+ The snowboarding boots feel far more comfortable when you're walking in them with the snowboard off
+ It is just one board, as compared to two skis and two poles
+ It needs less leg strength but more core power.

In terms of learning both, skiing was much less painful. Standing is also an exercise of your heels-only and toes-only balance constantly when you're on a snowboard. However, the risk of injury felt higher with skiing as we newbies have to learn to resist the urge to use the poles to decelerate - it can injure your wrists and arms. Bruises on our knees and butts are nothing compared to possible bone or joint injuries.

Ultimately, I prefer the snowboard. Ski boots are clumsy to walk in and rather uncomfortable while snowboarding boots are really just a comfortable pair of snow boots with locking mechanisms above the ankle. I also have a partial meniscus tear in one of my knees so any rotation feels dangerous to me.

As a practical form of transportation, skiing is the obvious better option. You can go up and down slopes, accelerate even on flat ground, and then take them off without sitting. On the other hand, I really don't see myself using any of these to move around other than for fun, so practicality means nothing to me. The single board also makes the logistics easier if I ever invest in a snowboard.

Oh yes we stayed at a castle near a city unknown in terms of tourism, not even among Austrians themselves. An absolute hidden gem, no doubt, Schloss Mittersill, and I have to return some day.