Inflation

Definition of inflation from Dictionary.com

a persistent, substantial rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of currency

After spending a month overseas, I came back and felt that food prices in sg have risen quite a fair bit. 

Food court prices have increased from around $3.50-4.50 to $5 to 10. Hopefully this increase will stabilize the shortage of manpower in the f&b industry. 

Not only that, I also noticed that a lot more small restaurants (aka cafes) like Bakezin / Wee Nam Kee are beginning to charge iced water by cup in the range of 30-50cents. I personally think this is not the way to go in term of business.

When planning pricing of the products, f&b should consider factoring such cost into the food product to create a pleasant environment for its customers. This way of business, the waitresses are reluctant to bring water to the table. They have to 'double confirm' how many glass of water the customer 'want to pay'. I think mainly because it is not a culture to charge for water. It made the dining experience very focus on 'are you willing to pay before I bring you the item'!

 

In Tokyo, most restaurants provide free flow of water. Cost of a bowl ramen or a curry katsu don is slightly more expensive than sg. The overall dining experience is more pleasant than in sg. The same goes for United States.

Singapore PSLE

On this day that used to be Children Day in Singapore, until it was redesignated to the first friday of Oct, I would like to rant a bit on putting these young children through examination.

I personally is not against examination. In fact, I have full support for people to continuously gain knowledge from a young age. A certain level of testing of ability is good.

The question here is the type of examination and I am going to mention specifically PSLE 12 years old (and there about) are required to sit. If it is purely to test on knowledge, on things that the children learned, things they should know, it is perfectly justifiable.

However, if you take a look the various questions set at preliminary examinations in schools and the sample questions sold in bookstores, you will realize it is not about testing their knowledge. Half the time, the questions are set with tricks for them to fall into. Do we need to teach them to be so cunning at such a young age?

I remember quite clearly in my university 1st year, my lecturer was very particular about our report writing standard. Rule number 1 was in a report, if you write 12 as numeric number, you are to follow that standard throughout. If you decided to write 12 as twelve, then same for the rest of the report. In the event that he sees 12, then three, he will hit the roof and the grade will reflect. This is basic report 101.
However, a simple Maths question of 3 lines will have a mixture of words and numeric to confuse the young child further.

Planning for a long trip in Fall

The great fall travel from Asia to America.
This is my pre-departure note. The idea of this trip was mooted sometimes in July. The objective was a overseas exposure on basketball cum holiday for the family after the big exam PSLE!
 
Hence the itinerary will have to designed / planned around the basketball event.  
When come to basketball, we are definitely talking about USA & NBA. We want to see Miami in action. Therefore, the state to visit is definitely going to be Florida. Since we are going to Florida, we might as well go Disneyland!!! 
Yes! I am a Disney fan. So far, I have been to Tokyo, Paris and HK Disneyland. 

I started to research on the available flight options. As usual, our first choice of airline is SQ since we are going half way across the globe..

Although options were aplenty, I can tell you it is not easy to get a reasonably priced, minimum hours route, comfortable airline. I am not keen on UA as I had bad experiences with them, engine failure and poor service. Talk about it on another post.  
My first choice was going via New York by Singapore airline which was our favorite. However, the transit and pricing were both not ideal. I spoke to some friends and there were suggestion to go via London direct to Orlando. It is always good to talk to more people to get ideas and opinions. We were seriously considering this option when we visited the travel agency to make reservation on multi-cities option because I couldnt find on internet to do this. It was at this point that the agency recommended delta airline.
Since delta flies via Tokyo, the thought of going for a quick stopover in Tokyo took place as a by-the-way trip. *happy
Slowly from August when the dates of travel became clearer, I began to make arrangement.
As I was planning the itinerary, there were a few days to spare. At that point when I was about to make reservation for air tickets, the Las Vegas sector popped into my mind. Grand Canyon was one of my must-visit places! I definitely want to take this chance to go take a look. So finally, our multi-cities fall trip read as follow:-

Singapore-Tokyo-LV(viaLA)-Orlando(Atlanta)-Bradenton-Miami-Atlanta-Tokyo-Singapore.

Wow! I even get the chance to celebrate my birthday in Vegas! I am so blessed!

After Disneyland, we even have time to visit an old friend in Florida.

We are looking forward to watch the season opening match between Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls. How wonderful! I thank God for all these possibilities!

Next I started to plan the daily itinerary.

We have hotels booked in Tokyo, Las Vegas, Orlando & Miami. 

Mt. Fuji day tour check. Grand Canyon explorer check! Disneyland 2 days park hopper check! Miami Heat tickets check!

We are almost ready! We pray for smooth traveling.

I am so looking forward to the outlets shopping, photography, theme parks and Miami opening basketball match. How can I use words to describe my excitement?

vpost delivery part 2

today is 22 Aug 2013
when i log in to track my parcel from Japan
it is still not up to date
reflected on 13 Aug when the shipping was paid.
when I made payment, the estimated arrival was 17-23 Aug 2013.
I will rate this service POOR as there is no update, customer has a tracking number to check status BUT it is sorry, there is no result or too many request, please try again later.

review of vpost charge

when I got a promotion leaflet from vpost in my mail together with dbs bank, i thought i do a personal review of the service provided.

first i signup for an account with vpost, which is quite easy. after that I proceeded to surf the internet aka online shopping from vpost website and landed on a japanese shopping bag. I chanced upon a very lovely bag which was having sale at about $35 and decided to place an order. I checked out the item and found that they do ship direct to Singapore. At the checkout, shipping cost will be advised by the seller before they shipped the item. I was quite pleased with such a service and decided not to use vpost which i have no idea the shipping cost. I placed the order on 6 August and to my delight the shipping cost was less than $20 using EMS and I got the item delivered to my doorstep on 12 August. The bag weighs 600g. I still have not given up on testing vpost. So on 7 August, I shopped from another item from the same website and found a lovely shorts, this time I checked out with shipping instruction to my vpost japan account.

Immediately they indicated the delivery charge of ~S$2.10. The shorts costs about S$18. I was thinking vpost cant be more expensive than EMS since their delivery is much longer. I only received an email on 13 August 3pm informing me that the parcel arrived that the Japan venue. I login to ship to Singapore and my gosh!!! the shipping cost is a whopping $23.25, cost more than the shorts itself, and the weight is only 200g. I was so disappointed! Not only that, the estimated delivery is 20-23 August, a good 7-10 days wait!!!! But what to do, still got to pay right, since the item was already paid for. Luckily I got the 30% off shipping to help me defray the cost!

Quote of the day

"do something wonderful, people may imitate it" - Albert Schweitzer

A quick, easy & cheap dessert to combat the haze

this is a quick and easy way to strengthen your lung anytime.

Ingredients:-
Pear
Honey date
Red dates
White fungus
Sweet almonds
Rock sugar

Instructions:
Soak half palm size white fungus in water for about one hour, remove all the yellowish part.
Boil about a litre of water
Wash red dates
Wash the sweet almonds
Rinse the honey date
Peel the pear and cut into 4

Put all ingredient into the boil water and bring to boil.
Add in rock sugar to taste.
Chill before drink. 

How to help Kinesthetic Learners to read especially wordy books, articles

Use bright highlighters to add colors to the article, 'draw' up key points on index card.