SINGAPORE SHORT STORIES

Asian Youth Games, Singapore 2009 will be here just in a month's time! (commencing 29 Jun 09) but somehow I find that there is not much buzz about the games on the ground. Singaporeans may have forgotten the games on the back of the global economic meltdown as well as the current H1N1 flu virus situation. There's ought to be more publicity about the games NOW, if not NOW then when? However, I believe in two weeks time, the momentum towards the games will be gathering steam, engines will be revving up and Singapore will once again host a successful regional sporting event! The Asian Youth Games will also be a 'test bed' for Singapore's bid of the Youth Olympics next year! Lessons will be gleaned from Asian Youth Games which will proved to be valuable to the Youth Olympics though the latter is a game on a much larger scale.

Another confirmed case of H1N1 in Singapore. Like the preceding 4 cases, the victims of the H1N1 victims returned from United States. This case is the 5th! Initially, the local health authorities kept a close tab on all Singaporeans and tourists returning to Singapore from Mexico at the very onset of the H1N1 case late last month; but the recent cases pointed to the fact that most of the victims might have contracted the disease in United States. Anyway, H1N1 is not as lethal as initially thought; thus Singaporeans may be resting on their laurels but judging at the disease, I believe if caught off-guard, H1N1 will spread fast and rapidly among our community here. It is great that Singapore has put in place a rigorous and comprehensive plan to contain the disease in Singapore. Singapore is also fortunate to have some weeks to prepare for the disease while sporadic cases of H1N1 were still spreading.

After the Popular Sale, my Dear and I visited the Popular Sale 2009 at another hall in Singapore EXPO. This was a sales of books, stationary and other peripherals by Popular books company in Singapore. However, i found the variety of books on offer there not as many as thought, with majority of the books being Chinese. My Dear and I would head down to the World Book Fair 2009 at Suntec City to take a look soon.

My Dear and I spent half of today in Singapore Expo. After visiting the Singapore Food EXPO, we visited the Living Showcase exhibition in the adjacent hall. Compared with the other exhibitons held cocurrently at Singapore EXPO, this exhibition was a bit 'tamer': what I mean is that there is little crowds! With very little crowds, my Dear and I found ourselves easy targets of promoters! We declined them politely. The crowd was so few that I even spotted a salesman resting on a giant bed for rest! However, the crowd would be unimaginably lower if there are no simulataneous events being held at Singapore EXPO, I suppose.

There is such a number of exhibitions at the Singapore Expo that it can be indeed fruitful for Singaporeans who travel from far to come to Singapore Expo for one exhibition or another as they are able to visit many exhibitions at one go! John Little Mega Expo Sale is a sale organized by John Little held regularly at Expo. This exhibition is also a good one to visit as there is such a myriad of offerings of different items on sales. My Dear and I visited this exhibition after we have 'cleared' the other sales (Popular Book Sales) held at the other hall! Like other shopppers, we had our hands full with shopping bags as we headed home after an hour navigating the sales.

Throngs of crowds descended upon Singapore EXPO hall 5 today for the annual Singapore Food EXPO! My Dear and I were part of the thousands of people which choked EXPO hall 5! Everywhere in the hall, people were busy sampling the offering from the myriad of stalls there! My Dear and I were full just trying many of the samples on offer! But we did not sample for fun like some others who just took any opportunity to dig with a tooth pick the free samples, gobbled the samples up and quickly they went away. Some of the businesses were having brisk business there with coffers ringing continously. My Dear and I tried the food from the make-shift stalls there: DODO timsums (7 for $3) as well as Shark's fin ($2, but frankly speaking, not genuine at all, most of it were just sea cucumbers). We spent a moderate amount on tidbits and food items for take-aways. We bought some organic tea from a company whose one of the shareholders is Thomas Ong, an ex-local actors. He was busy preparing tea for

Singapore Food Expo 2009 is here again in Singapore Expo. Date : 29th May - 2nd June 2009 Time: 1100hrs - 2200hrs Think even if you are not buying any food, your tummy will be filled food sampling the different offerings from each of the many stalls there!

Singapore Food Festival is here again! Being a country famed for its host of delicious hawker fare and yummy items, it is a festival not only for Singaporeans to indulge in great food, it is also an event for the world to descend down on Singapore to taste truly delicious Singaporean fare!

Go to Singapore Book Fair 2009 starting yesterday and ending next Sunday now! Books are running out fast, I believe, so grab the lastest books before it is too late! Date: 29 May - 7 Jun 09 Time: 11am - 10pm Venue: Suntec City Convention Hall 402 - 404 (Level 4)

As I expected, more H1N1 cases occur in Singapore: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/432416/1/.html I expect the number of H1N1 cases in Singapore to reach around 10.

Illuma Shopping Centre, one of Singapore’s newest shopping centres, in my personal opinion, is really in great distaste despites its glitzy façade. I harbored great expectations for this shopping centre earlier during its construction stage. The façade is unique and I have thought that this new shopping mall will be a new kid off the block, offering a refreshing shopping experience, which breaks away from the monotonous mould of Singapore shopping experience. I was partly correct. On my first visit to Illuma shopping centre, I noticed that it is indeed very swanky! The height of each storey is so immense! (in actual fact, there does not seem to be a roof for every storey). There is such a generous serving of empty space all around the mall. In this physical aspect, Illuma indeed offers a uniquely different shopping experience. But the quality of the shops in the centre is drastically lacking! There is only a small handful of great shops while the few eateries, the cinema theatr

The first phase of Singapore's Circle Line goes into operation today with the opening of Bartley, Serangoon, Lorong Chuan, Bishan and Marymount MRT stations. If you are free this weekend, you can go 'MRT-ing' to these new MRT stations!

Tomorrow, all the civil and public servants of Singapore will be allowed to leave office an hour earlier to eat with their family! This "Eat with your family Day" is a yearly affair but I doubt how many of the public and civil servants will really obey this "instructions" from the government to eat with their family. For some offices whose normal hours on Fridays end at 5 pm, then an hour earlier to go home will translate to 4pm, hmm it may be too early for dinner still. But assuming, if someone is to leave office at 4pm, reach home at 5pm, go to sleep and then eats with his family at 8pm, it is still "eating with family" rite? Anyway, public sector's work life balance is excellent so much so that 56% of people working in the private sectors, as according to a report, consider a career in public sector.

If you are a Chinese Singaporean reading this post, chances are that you might have eaten the yummy dumpling today! For today is the Dumpling Festival celebrated by Chinese! Prices of dumplings have skyrocketed towards this date. Dumpling Festival observed by Chinese is on the 5th day of the 5th Chinese Lunar month every year. There are many different kinds of dumplings and the origin of dumplings can be traced to an ancient Chinese poet cum patriot called Qu Yuan who committed suicide after the emperor refused to trust in him and trusted instead the treacherous Qin Kuai! the rest of the story, I will not mention here again as the story is a common one (or you can check from the internet). Qin Kuai also gives rise to "Yu Za Kuai" (fried doughsticks that Singaporeans love to eat). "Yu Za Kuai" : means fry the treacherous Qin Kuai in hot boiling oil. Oh, what am I doing? Mentioning Qin Kuai, the bad guy here on a day when we should commemorate Qu Yuan instead? Maybe i

Singapore River Festival 2009 will be held from 19 Jun to 27 Jun! The festival will be a mix of music, magic amnd musuems, held at Boat Quay, Clarke Quay, Robertson Quay and the Empress Place. There will be a number of FREE events: 1) River Romance Bumboat parade which will feature bumboats depicitng scenes of river life in the past. It will be held from 1930 hrs to 2030 hrs at Robertson Quay, Clarke Quay and Boat Quay. 2) Asian Civilisation Museums featuring the Chinese Emperor, Kangxi exhibition will be open free to public from 5pm to 12 mn on two Fridays: 19 Jun 09 and 26 Jun 09. 3) Read Bridge Spectacular will features a slew of aerial acrobat performances. Dates and times to catch the show: 19 Jun 09 to 20 Jun 09: 2030 hours to 2100 hours and from 2300 hours to 2330 hours; 21 Jun 09 to 27 Jun 09: 2030 hours to 2100 hours and from 2200 hours to 2230 hours. Singaporeans, can consider this Great festival of lights, music, river, musuem and charm as an Excellent outing with friends an

Singapore confirms its second case of H1N1 (Swine Flu) Case. At the moment of writing, there is no confirmed second case, though there is already a first case. But I am writing this blog post for the future. I believe Singapore will not end its H1N1 cases with just one single case. Being a highly globalized country, I predicted the least number of H1N1 cases here would be 2. Just see whether my prediction is correct in the coming few days!

As I have expected, our country, Singapore finally succumbed to the scourge of the H1N1, which has made its presence felt in almost all the countries of ASEAN (except Singapore then) when the country confirmed its first case of Influenza A (H1N1), the Health Ministry (MOH) said on Wednesday 27 May 27, 2009. The importer of H1N1 like Esther Mok, who imported SARS to Singapore in 2003, is a young Singaporean woman. The identity of the Singapore H1N1 importer has not been revealed. She is currently being treated at the Communicable Disease Centre at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) and is in stable condition. The woman was in New York from May 14 to 24 and arrived back in Singapore from New York on SQ25 on May 26 at 630am. She was seated at row 55 and developed a cough while on the flight. She passed the thermal scanner test at the airport. Her case was only brought to light when she consulted a GP. The current level of the H1N1 virus is now Yellow alert. It may be timely for the ministry to

I read of how many supermarkets are losing their shopping trolleys daily which translates into a sustantial loss every year in the Straits Times today. For NTUC Fairprice and Giants hypermart, the losses in revenues due to lost shopping trolleys translate to $300,000 per annum! The "$1 deposit" system fails to stop customers from abandoning their shopping trolleys anywhere they like after they have unloaded their purchases. $1 is now not really a lot of money to Singaporeans as cimpared to the distance and time they need to spend to walk back and return the trolley. Supermarkets are beefing up their security forces to help monitor the trolley loss situation and hence may be spending even more money to combat the problem. My proposal is to have an automated system whereby shoppers scan their IC cards in order to free a locked trolley for use in their shopping. If they fail to return the trolley, the authorities would be able to track them and bring them to task.

"Quality Questions create a Quality Life. Successful people ask better questions and as a result, they give better answers" - Anthony Robbins "Its nice to be important but more important to be nice" - Johan Cassis

Licene2Play, a gaming and entertainment exhibition was held at Suntec City from 22 May 09 to 24 May 09. There was a host of entertainment games booths and cyber-game competitions going on, while vendors were having a brisk business selling their wares. With an increasingly younger cyber-generation, more and more youngsters are hooking up with the internet gaming and the like. Spending tens of hours facing the computer screen, playing online games or using online social media is not healthy at all, though I am, admittedly one of those having to face the computer tens of hours a day due to the nature of my work. I exercise regularly and take short eye-sight breaks from the screens for damage control. My Dear and I left the exhibition soon after we entered as we are not gaming fans at all.

Singapore Arts Festival 2009 runs from 15 May 09 to 14 Jun 09 this year. During this period, the authorities brings arts to the masses in common places such as the shopping districts and the heartlands. It is really applauding that the government is organizing Singapore Arts Festival yearly to bring some of the greatest works in arts to common Singaporeans. Thus during this period, I would encourage Singaporeans to proactively support these arts events and performances, of which a majority is free! It is a treat for all Singaporeans for who knows, these arts will inspire you and unleashes the artistic talent in you! For more details, check on the website for a listing of events!

Amidst the blazing afternoon sun today, my Dear and I made our way to Kampong Lorong Buangkok. The visit was a timely one as there is such a high buzz being generated over the last kampong in modern Singapore. After alighting from Bus 854 from Eunos, it was not difficult to find our way to the kampong. The entrance of the kampong was distinct as you could see from the picture: the 'ulu-ness' (rural charm) is evident from the attap-roofed buildings and more unkempt conditions. A signboard with hand-written text welcome my Dear and I to the last kampong in Singapore: As we entered the kampong, I spotted a middle-aged woman talking to an old man. I had seen the old woman before on TV. She was none other than the owner of the kampong land. In the documentary, I learnt that the whole kampong land was passed to her by her late father. She has kept the land and have not gone on to sell the land to the government. If she were to sell the land, she would be an instant multi-millionair

Kampong Lorong Buangkok is Singapore last standing kampong, thus if you are like any other Singaporean who have not been to Kampong Lorong Buangkok yet... before its expected demolition in the near future, its now high time to give this last Kampong of Singapore a visit! I will share with All readers of my experience to Singapore's last kampong soon. But if you are fretting over how to go to Lorong Buangkok by public transport, here is the guide: Take SBS Bus 70, 103 or SMRT Bus 854 (click on these hyperlink and type in the bus service number to see the list of bus stops for the service). Then alight at this bus stop right in front of Saint Vincent De Paul Church . If you click on the hyperlink embedded in the text "Saint Vincent De Paul Church", you can see a map showing the vicinity of Lorong Buangkok, can you see the 'U intersection' of Gerald Drive and Lorong Buangkok? That will be the starting point of Kampong Lorong Buangkok! Have fun visiting Kampong Lorong

Last Saturday, my Dear and I decided to reinvigorate our bodies and souls with a one-day outing with nature at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. My First visit there! There are many routes to enter the reserve; we took one that was more official: entering via Hindhede Road. For Singaporeans who would like to know the way to get to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, just take a bus from the city and alight at the bus stop opposite Bukit Timah Shopping Centre. (e.g bus 170 outside Fu Lu Shou Complex will bring you there). Thereafter alighting at the bus stop, just proceed straight (not in the direction of Beauty World) until you hit an overhead bridge. Cross the bridge and you will arrive at Hindhede Road. Enter into the carpark and you will soon reach the Visitor Centre of the natural reserve. As expected, what greeted us were the “Permanent Residents” of the reserve: monkeys, yes, there was plenty of them, around the carparks, young and old, mothers and sons. Some of them were climbing all over t

Though present indicators of our economy are benign: the steady rise of the Straits Times Index (STI), my take is that our economy will be turning for the worse in the coming two months. Some tell tale signs are as follows: a) Recommendation of the National Wages Council to implement 3 'no-pay' leaves for firms in Singapore. b) Temasek's recent sales of its stake in BOA (Bank of America). If the economy is still promising, Temasek would still have held on to the shares for a little time more and not selling it at the current low, incurring some billions of dollars in loss. Thus, my take is that Singapore's economy will not be out of the woods soon, the economy will be contracting again and in my opinion, the government is also on the lookout to time the date of the General Elections with a window of good or 'at least better' economy.

I believe Green is an amazing colour! The colour Green is often used in the context of environment sustainability, however today while jogging in the park with many trees and plants after work, I have an epiphany on the colour Green! It struck me that Green symbolises, epitomises, exemplifies 'balance': neither excess or deficit in any aspect of life. Why do I say that? If we can recall high school physics, teachers have taught us that rainbow or pure light is made of 7 different colours and in this sequence which I always remember: Red, Orange,Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet... can you see what is the middle colour? Yes it is Green! Thus today after a jog, I have a redefinition of the colour 'Green'.. it means 'balance'. If you see this definiton in environment sustainability.. it does apply too for Greening is to strike a balance with man and with Mother Earth! Red is too intense thus I do not like. I do not like the colour Violet too, somehow to me

Its so easy to lose oneself in Singapore! By that, I do not mean to be lost physically. What I mean is that with the punishing pace of the local work culture, the escalating pulse of city life, the perennial lure of the hedonistic treadmill and the endless search for a worklife balance, day morphs into nights easily, days grew into weeks rapidly and soon one year will be gone in a flash! At this juncture, one will rue over the passage of time and a question will soon loom in his mind: “What have I achieved?” To those Singaporeans who have achieved what you want in life, Good for you! Now for those like me, who are on our way to achieving our definitions of success, I believe the imperative is on us to remove the barriers to our success. So what are these barriers to success? In my humble opinion, these barriers boil down to what I called daily distractions. There are just so many distractions emanating from all sources of city life, which deflect us on our journey towards our set goals

Yesterday, my Dear and I happened to come across the now (in)famous Geylang Serai Temporary Hawker Centre on our way to Eunos MRT Station. Geylang Serai Temporary Hawker Centre is a market that is now well-known to Singaporeans and maybe some of our overseas counterparts for the wrong reason. The reason was that this temporary hawker centre was where the now (in)famous “Rojak Geylang Serai” stall was housed. It was just some weeks ago when the stall hogged the headlines of major national newspapers here due to the terrible Indian Rojak mass food poisoning, which caused the death of a woman, a miscarriage of another and many others ill from the poisoning. For those who want to know where this hawker centre was located, it is located not far off from Paya Lebar MRT station; walk from Paya Lebar MRT station towards Eunos MRT station and you could see this distinct temporary hawker centre after 5 minutes of walk. As we approached the hawker centre, we could see that some hygiene initiative

Just a week ago, the Sunday Times featured an article on the places Singaporeans could turn to for GREAT places offering unbeatable offers. One of such places mentioned in the article caught my attention: Shenton Publications. According to the article, Shenton Publications, which opens (for now) from Sunday to Wednesday, 12pm to 6pm, offers so much discounts on brand-new titles that the owner of the business were questioned whether they were selling pirated books (and the answer is a resounding ‘No’). With books originally selling at $20 in those upmarket bookshops sold at just $9 only in Shenton Publications, being a book lover, I was filled with a sense of curiosity and excitement to get to Shenton Publications to check it out and today, here we went, My Dear and I to Shenton Publications to check it out! Such Great treats for Singaporeans can only occur at warehouses and without a doubt, Shenton Publications was situated in an industrial spot: Blk 1085 #03-086 Eunos Tech Park, Eunos

The headline of this blog post should not be new to you as all of you should have known by now that Singapore Cable Cars will be closing for a major overhaul costing $36 million comes 15 Aug this year. I thought that the closure is timely considering that the cable car system is really in opinion, a bit "unmodern." Just some weeks ago, I had a ride in one of these cable cars, catch my stories about it right here in this blog in the coming days. For now, I need to go and play chess with Uncle Zhou, Good Night!

"The highest result of Education is Tolerance" - Helen Keller

Singaporeans, lets shave our hair for Charity. Hair for Hope is here again! In the website's own words: "HfH is the only head-shaving event in Singapore that serves to raise funds and awareness of childhood cancer. Every shaven head represents an understanding by an individual of the ordeals that a child with cancer is subjected to. HfH also provides opportunity to garner support from the public in the form of monetary pledging. HfH then brings a two-fold contribution: raising awareness and funds for CCF beneficiaries." If you do not want to lose your hair but still want to do your part to charity, you can still pledge for the Singaporeans and folks who will be shaving it all for charity.

Following Singapore Table Tennis Association’s (STTA) “no endorsement” of Mr Liu Guo Dong, the former coach of the women’s table-tennis team which helped to end Singapore’s medal drought in the Olympics in 48 years by garnering a Silver medal in the Olympics last year for the “Coach of the year award”, there is now an online frenzy of petitions calling for Ms Lee Bee Wah, the STTA’s Chairperson to step down. Netizens are up-in-arms over Ms Lee Bee Wah’s latest action; similarly Ms Lee Bee Wah’s past action of ordering Mr Liu to be sacked for neglecting his coachee, a member of the men’s table-tennis team by leaving him without a coach and playing alone in one of the Olympics table-tennis games last year has similarly raised hackles of netizens and Singaporeans. But I am not angered at all by Ms Lee Bee Wah’s action. I believe Ms Lee Bee Wah, a member of Parliament for Nee Soon South constituency has act impartially and fairly. Critics of Ms Lee’s latest ‘no-endorsement’ should learn to

Mindef has introduced a new rank again: 3rd warrant officer! Just some months ago, Mindef introduced another new rank for specialists: Specialist cadets. Why is Mindef creating so many new ranks for its warrant officers and specialists? Is there an exodus of specialists and warrant officers quiting thus the need to create more ranks to render more recognition to the "Enciks" (Malay for 'Uncle')? Do not be surprised if a new rank comes next: 4th Sergeant (4SG)!

Greek Philosopher Epicitetus : "We have 2 ears and 1 mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak"

The National University of Singapore (NUS) is ranked 10th in the 1st QS ranking of Asian universities. The actual ranking of the universities in the world will be announced shortly. I find it disappointing that despites NUS putting in so much efforts and money in its system, the ranking still far lags that of Hong Kong, Japan and Korea. On another thought, ranking is not the most important thing. I do find NUS' system of teaching quite structured and 'regurgitating' of facts when I was studying there. Hope NUS will do more on encouraging creativity. I presented my final year project which was highly creative to a China Professor. I thought that I would win some plaudits for a good and creative project. I was shocked to be criticised like there was no tomorrow after the project presentation... I managed to still score a Good grade and pity the Professor for not being open to my creative ideas... hehe

Do you know why Mas Selamat, no matter how cunning he is, could be ultimately apprehended, but not Osama (at least till now) ? The reason is simple: The Singapore has issued a massive manhunt for Mas Selamat bin Kastari using the correct name: Mas Selamat but the United States, has at many instances, wanted to captured Osama’s father instead in ‘Mr Laden’ or ‘Mr Bin Laden’. This is just a joke. On a serious note, the fact that Singapore spends more than a year to capture the wily Mas Selamat, Chief of JI in Singapore is telling of the much greater difficulty in capturing World’s No.1 terrorist Chief, Osama bin Laden.

Sleep is something I believe Singaporeans should do (more often). Singaporeans are really busy people, especially the young executives who have to juggle the demands of life in this high-paced, (quite) stressful society, where if you are not 'fast' enough, you will be definitely outmoded by the society! The quality of sleep hinges on the quality of the bed. I was in Courts just some weeks ago and have the chance to lie (lightly) on some of these premier beds, costing $800 to $1 K. Wow, you should have tried those beds, fit for a King! Its really such a luxury! If your room is air-conditioned and have this bed, go home, eat your dinner, read your news, watch some TV, play your kids, then pamper yourself with this bed!

I spotted these lovely lions beside the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA). These lions are the mascots of the Singapore Kindness Movement and they are there, and also in many parts of Singapore with important messages to Singaporeans. The gang of Singapore Kindess Movement Lions near MICA These Singapore Kindesss Movement Lions are unique creatures in their own rights. Instead of meats, their diet consist of acts of kindess and courtesy from Singaporeans and Singaporeans are strongly encouraged to feed these cute lions with these. This lion must be the leader, wearing a red shirt. Red is the one of the colours of Singapore's national flag. A smile was inscripted on the shirt, I believe the message this lion tries to convey is for every Singaporean to smile and be cheerful (amidst the economic gloom, this message comes quite appropriate too). The rest of the kindness lions are: I am surprised that out of the 6 lions with special messages, half of them h