09 Jan 2019
Hurt my back two days ago. No numbness, motor control all ok, so doctor thinks it's just a sprain. Probably the worst sprain I've ever had so far, because it hasn't healed in 24 hours. It's still uncomfortable to sit for long, and standing and walking straight is tough.
Started during the MMX session in P90X3, while I was doing a jab/cross combo, and it got so bad even sleeping was a problem because it started aching after several hours even when I was sleeping on my back the whole time.
Hopefully it will go away in a few days because not only is there a reservist training coming up in two weeks, there's a ski trip scheduled in almost exactly a month.
In the meantime, I can't exercise for a week, followed by nothing strenuous on my back for the rest of the time till the trip.
Well, at least I've lost about 2.5 kg so far, at 96.8kg on Monday as compared to 100kg when two weeks ago just before I started eating healthy, eg salads for all meals. Salads weren't a fantastic idea for every meal because I started feeling weak during workouts, so I'm trying out other food from places like YOLO that sell healthy meals containing skinless chicken breasts with vegetables.
By the end of the week I should lose more weight too, from loss of muscle mass.
12 Jan 2019
Back still aches from sitting up for an hour or more, but it's much better now. At least I can bend in all directions and there's no pain from walking unless there is a hard impact, like if my feet don't cushion my steps by pointing my toes down as I walk down a ledge.
Anyway, I saw Nanyue on the front page of Wiki yesterday and one thing led to another, I decided to check out the history of Cantonese and other southern Chinese dialects. Here is my summary of mainly Cantonese.
It all began in about 3300-5500 BC, with the Hemudo and the Majiabang people near Hangzhou (near Shanghai if it helps)
The Hemudo were Austronesian people living at the coast who cultivated rice, hunted animals like deer, domesticated animals like pigs, and used jade.
The Majiabang people were the Chinese staying inland west of the Hemudo, who were very similar to the point where some historians see the Hemudo as a subgroup of the Majiabang, except, for example, the Hemudo lived in stilted houses.
Anyway, these people eventually evolved into the Liangzhu culture whose influence spread to southern China like what is now Guangzhou, and to northern China like Shanxi. It is also theorized by some that this is where all Austronesians came from, like the Hawaiians, Maoris, Javanese, Taiwanese aborigines, and Filipinos.
It is currently believed that the center of this culture was in what is now Zhejiang, which is a bit south of Shanghai with Hangzhou being its capital, due to the discovery of artifacts from that era. Somewhere around 2250BC, they suddenly disappeared from this area. Currently, evidence show that there were multiple floods that might have destroyed them. One theory is that Taihu Lake, which is at the border of Zhejiang, is an impact crater that was formed near that period.
Then we jump all the way to the 9th century BC, when a Zhou prince (you know, the dynasty after Shang) was exiled south and he caused a great deal of Chinese influence in two tribes living in northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu (the province north of Zhejiang and Shanghai, with Nanjing being its capital).
By the time of the Spring and Autumn Period, these tribes have evolved into the Wu and Yue states. See the link there? Cantonese is the main branch of a group of languages known as 粵语, the Yue language. Although the state used 越 while the language uses 粵, back in ancient China these two characters were used interchangeably.
At this point, things seem a bit blurry in my research. One source said that Wu conquered Yue and Yue's ruling family escaped in 334BC to Fujian and established the capital for their new kingdom, Minyue. Another source said Minyue was established by them in 192BC after the fall of Qin. In any case, what is agreed upon by both is that that family escaped to Fujian and about 130 years later, the kingdom existed.
Anyway the people living in Minyue at that point are now called the Baiyue 百越 people, probably because there were hundreds of tribes of Yue people over there. Not Chinese, but Yue, so they were probably closer to Malays and Javanese.
The Minyue kingdom survived for quite a while. At the same time, when Qin fell, the general Zhao Tuo who was in charge of conquering the Yue people decided to hold on to what his army had at the time and established the Nanyue kingdom, which is what the name "Vietnam" was derived from, east of Minyue.
They basically reversed the two characters of this kingdom when they named their country. Also, and of course, Zhao Tuo is considered to be the first emperor of Vietnam.
Right after Qin is Han, and Han eventually annexed them all, which ended the story of separate states and kingdoms.
Throughout all these rises and falls, lots of Chinese migrated from the north to escape the chaos of the falls (just like the Yue ruling family). These brought about a lot of intermixing of people and languages, leading to our dialects become so Chinese and so unlike all other Austronesian languages. In fact, they are more like Chinese languages with a trifle of Austronesian influence.
14 Jan 2019
It's 95.1kg today.
My physical condition is improving, but recently healed injuries are dampening the progress. My sprained ankle still feels funny sometimes, and my back's still aches a tiny bit at times, although today's Eccentric Upper session went fine. My cardio is so bad though, so tomorrow I'll have to pause it a few times.
Seriously though, this has to be normal. I mean, if you haven't sprained anything badly or dislocated something after over 30 years of life, you haven't really tried anything physical and exciting, now have you?
On the other hand, when I have kids, I'll make sure their physical education is more all-rounded, instead of focusing solely on the lower limbs like my childhood was. Having a disproportionately weak upper body does affect many facets of life, like handling luggage.
Physical fitness will be a must because right now, I'm glad I'm way fitter than I was several years ago. For example, if I had sprained my back back then like I did last week (and spraining your back happens to everyone eventually), life would have been much worse, because I would be roughly as heavy, but without the strength in various parts of my body to brace for anything and limp to anywhere. Like the strength to cushion with my feet as I walked down a ledge or stairs, since the impact of landing on a lower step would have killed my injured back otherwise.
Fitness plays a part in the entire life, in all the small things you may be taking for granted. It's not just about being able to run a few kilometres, but the ability to handle any unexpected inconvenient physical task. Take the bus/subway ride as another example: if you're fit, you can handle sudden stops better without needing to hold on to things, as compared to when your legs and core are in bad shape and you need to hold on to the rails just to be able to stand as the vehicle is accelerating and stopping.
These individual differences are nothing, but they accumulate. When you're stronger and more agile, life is just easier.
15 Jan 2019
After that whole week of rest, my cardio stamina is total crap now. My heart struggles hard even before my threshold for the burning sensation in my muscles is reached. Got to keep training.
I like Tacoma. It's really what I talked about way back with regards to 3D films. The game is really just a movie in which you can move around in the scenes, pause, rewind, read/observe objects and even access the characters' computers and whatever locked stuff if you watch as they press the keys ( or find where they keep their codes).
Too bad this genre is not more popular, but maybe it's because it's a little tedious since you don't get spoonfed the way watching a show does.
16 Jan 2019
Was watching a short video on the restaurants with no human servers - food is brought from the kitchen to the table by robots.
Notice how these dramatic advances are usually in places where things are malleable due to either being really far behind or having non-existent infrastructure.
On the other hand, wealthier countries can't do this as quickly, hence ruining their chance of becoming pioneers.
For example, yes, we do have an automated supermarket at Habitat and so does the US through Amazon, but are they anywhere as widespread as they are now in China? In terms of this sort of automation in the service industry, China is YEARS ahead of even the US!
My conclusion is that to advance as rapidly as possible, we need to keep getting rid of things that aren't as new. In other words, we should stop focusing on permanence, on durability, on things that last, because they are obstacles to technological advancement.
For example, in Singapore, if there's any more efficient form of transport out there that can replace our MRT system, we can't adopt it because so much as been invested into the MRT system that is supposed to last... well, lifetimes, I guess. In fact, we already are seeing a huge effect of this obstacle to advancement - the ability of the MRT system to adapt to our growing population has been hamstrung by the fact that our stations are built to accommodate only a certain length of tracks and a certain height of trains. We simply cannot have longer or multi-storey trains because to do so, we're going to have to do MAJOR renovations on almost all stations and may even cost the government money to buy land that is already occupied by other entities.
While it may seem cheaper in the long term to construct structures that can last a century, I believe it is time we look at all the opportunities these durable infrastructures are costing us. We can come up with this, with that, and they can be great for us, but we can't build them because it would waste the fortunes we have invested over the decades on what we already have and would cost more to replace or adapt them.
Our infrastructure needs to be modular, disposable, easily adaptable and replaceable. Durability hinders progress. How far behind do you want us to be when our kids grow up?
11 Feb 2019
Knees are bruised. Day 4 of my snowboarding trip.
Second day of snowboarding, the first being a half day that was on a weekend, and weekends turned out to be terrible for learning because the crowds get in from 11am onwards.
Fortunately, the pension owner was ok with driving me there at 8am everyday for the best snow possible so I could get some practice in my best condition in the best environment Phoenix Park Pyeongchang can offer.
But by 3pm my knees couldn't take another fall anymore and I stopped for a break. Problem was, by the time I felt well enough to get back into the fray, it was crowded by what I think is about 150-200 schoolkids, so I just stopped.
3 runs on the really long beginner/intermediate Panorama trail and 2 runs on the beginner Hawk 2 trail.
Also, I went to one of the two stores selling accessories in the resort and bought a set of protective pads for the butt and knees for 52k KRW, and that was 20% off of the original 65k.
Ridiculous. Fortunately, I've been staying way below budget so far and this won't hurt it much. I mean, I estimated S$15 a meal daily and it's been more like $5 per meal instead, and that's an overestimate.
Anyway the set is their largest so I took it knowing the pants won't fit, which actually doesn't matter since my butt seems tough enough to give me far less pain than my knees.
As long as the knee pads fit, it's fine. I really need them to continue.
On a brighter note, today I've managed to complete a few C turns, aka just turns. However, I'll need to get used to doing it, then link the C's into S-turns, which snowboarders normally do.
Also, the pension owners have been amazing to me. Maybe it's because I'm the only guest here while everyone is staying closer to the resorts. But I did ask before booking if the shuttle was nearby and the answer was yes, hence I dared to book beyond walking distance of any resort.
Turns out, they were planning to drive me there themselves.
Unfortunately for them, I want to go at 8am when it's still freezing. I mean literally freezing, because there's frost everywhere outside at that hour, and he drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other between his legs.
That cold. I don't know, I think it's like -11 or -5 degrees C, usually, in the mornings. Nights are guaranteed around -10 degrees.
Oh, and he gave me two large apples 2 days ago. I think they are local produce, and one is still in my fridge. Not too big on fruits now, the exercise is making me crave meat all the time.
He also introduced me to his son who's traveling in Bangkok now, but despite him being a translator, he's not too extroverted either, so we didn't say much to each other in the video call.
Then just now, he brought his wife along to pick me up from the resort, and his wife offered to make me some coffee tomorrow morning, instead of giving me more packets of instant coffee.
This is more like an Airbnb place than a pension I found on Booking.com.
And yeah, they were so surprised when I said tomorrow it's the same timing as today, 8am to 5pm. I don't actually spend the entire time snowboarding though. How do you stretch 5 runs into 8 hours? It opens at 8.30am and closes for a break at 4.30pm.
Most of the time, I stand or sit around and watch others, or chat on my phone. I need the breaks, snowboarding is tough.
19 Feb 2019
Two days remaining, leaving Korea for probably a very long time the day after tomorrow.
Yesterday, I finally returned to the really long Panorama trail that's for beginners and intermediate, or green and blue, and learnt that my plateauing at bad S turns is not solely because I'm afraid of speed, but also because I've been looking at the learning process all wrong.
I do not have to get good at turns in the green beginner slopes!
When I tried S turns on the steeper slopes along Panorama, my turns got better - I slided less and my back foot moved less during turns!
So finally, after a whole week of getting stuck there, progress has been made!
Then I lost an ankle strap somewhere, likely from the bottom of the slope back to the ski center where I was planning to take a break after the long journey down. The Panorama is the longest in the resort, IIRC over a km in length.
I definitely would have noticed while unstrapping my feet that it was gone, so it must have dropped off during the walk back to the ski center. How it was discovered was when I was removing snow and ice from my board using the public blow gun things attached to pressurized gas pipes outside the entrance, and a black bit fell onto the snow.
It looked like a screw, so I picked it up, kept it in a pocket, finished the removal, and walked to the public repair bench where the screwdrivers are.
There, I realized that was not a screw, but a nut in the form of a hollowed bolt - raising the question of "Where's the bolt then?"
So upon a closer look at the bindings, something else was missing - whatever was attached to that bolt and nut. A comparison between the two bindings revealed that it was the entire angle strap.
I never knew these things could come off!
After reporting it to the Customer Service where the representative took down my number and said she would call me if it's reported found, I went to google for parts.
Union binding parts aren't cheap and aren't easily available. The ankle strap was US$65 and the ankle ratchet (which grips the belt attached to the other side of the ankle) was US$25. Union only ships within the US and this costs US$10, forming a total cost of US$100, if I were in that country.
But I'm not there and have no plans to visit there before my next possible snowboard trip, so I may either buy new off-season bindings in the next cold place I visit, or post a request on Airfrov.
I mean, it's about S$140 just for the parts. For the single strap and ratchet, this is a lot compared to the cost of the entire set of bindings.
As for the lost strap, it's quite unlikely to be found. It's black so if it's not already buried in the snow, it's going to blend in with any trash on the ground if it landed on the floor, or after the snow melts, not to mention the tiny bolt is guaranteed to disappear.
Anyway it's 9.40am now and it's probably the heaviest snow I've ever seen so far throughout this trip. Yes I wish I were out there even if it's just till the afternoon but such is life.
01 April 2019
Went for a 6-day trip to Rovaniemi last week. The thing I like about the Finnish language is that due to its relatively young age, the pronunciation of the letters are always consistent, making it very easy to speak the names.
Everything is expensive in Finland, probably because of its distance to everything else, but one thing is much cheaper than in Singapore - tuning and waxing a snowboard only costs 19 euros (about S$30) as compared to S$50 here - plus I got it done right there in Ounasvaara Ski Resort instead of having to bring it to the shop in Singapore so there wasn't a need to get a car or taxi which would have incurred further costs.
Everyone is also honest there, so there wasn't much of a need to stay on guard for BS like tourist pricing, tips and hidden charges. Things are so simple there, even the 7-seater van taxis have the exact same rates as normal taxis.
Downside is my sleep schedule is FUBAR! I fell alseep at 11pm the night before last, woke up at 1am, and finally managed to sleep again at 5am. Tonight, no sleep at all and I'm typing this at 4.27am.
Tomorrow is a short one to Penang so maybe that will help me adjust.
Anyway, the snow in Finland was absolutely lovely! After Pyeongchang, that snow was magical. Tbh it was only poorer than that of Niseko in that there was almost no powder since we were there at the very end of winter.
The 3 days spent there also got us more confidence in our snowboarding ability and pinpoint some of the issues we had. Now I dare to take the drag lifts and chairlifts, albeit still with the risk of falling when I get off, and she now needs to work out more to get a better sense of balance, with maybe a greater focus on side lunges and forward lunges.
But ultimately, with the private classes, we are now capable of doing turns so we won't need classes anymore, saving us a ton of money in future snowboarding trips.
Speaking of saving money, we also did what we had done for the Czech/Austria trip - get a service apartment and cook most of our meals. In fact, most of our lunches were rye bread sandwiches, the most common sort of bread in their supermarkets, with ham and cheese (and pepper provided probably by previous tenants).
On a side note, pure rye bread is bloody coarse. No wonder almost all rye breads I've seen before this were mixed with wheat flour, usually to the point where you can't tell the difference in taste between regular wheat bread and those rye breads. The main benefit of that bread, however, is that it's higher in protein and lower in calories.
Main lesson I find here is that life in Finland must have been so harsh before the Industrial Revolution. With the really cold winters in Lapland (it can go as low as below -50 degrees C), and the lower energy values of the food available here before the advent of oil, like this rye bread, even the animals they could hunt or herd couldn't have been particularly fat. Heck, the reindeers adapted by eating lichens, which tells you something.
Funny thing about this trip is that the initial focus was Santa Claus, but that took the absolute least amount of time. We basically said hi, had a few words, took a few photos, and out we went. The rest of the time was spent on shopping, chilling in the apartment, and 3 days of snowboarding.
It is really my intention to keep as much of my trips focused on snowboarding as I can, and Santa really didn't need much time.
Been playing a lot of LifeAfter lately. Really fun game, mostly short enough to require little time, with just a few requiring more uninterrupted time.
Passed my IPPT yesterday by 12 seconds. When I got stuck at 29 sit-ups, I thought I was screwed since it shortened the max amount of time I had for the 2.4km run to 14mins and 20 seconds.
My expectation for the run was 15 and a half minutes.
Somehow managed to get it done in 14mins and 8 seconds. Phew! The annoyingly long safety brief was so annoying I really didn't want to return for a retest.
Monday, 1 April 2019
Thursday, 3 January 2019
Rant 1248 / Summer Snowboarding?
14 Dec 2018
Just read about a town named "Hyder" in Alaska yesterday. Apparently it's the only place in the US where you can enter without going through immigration and therefore, without a passport.
Of course there's a catch, and the catch is that it is only accessible by road from Canada, or a seaplane from elsewhere nearby on the US side, and it is the road entry that doesn't require a passport, although there is a Canadian immigration office on the way back.
That makes me very curious, so maybe someday I'll try that road trip from Vancouver that's going to take over 20 hours. Obviously it will be split into multiple days.
21 Dec 2018
So the two Thaksin siblings were in Singapore recently. One thought led to another, and I ended up wondering if any exiled leaders throughout history have been open to selling state secrets.
4th week of P90X3, first time trying out Pilates since I rarely actually do any of the sessions for the rest weeks. Pilates X is tough despite its simplicity (maybe the Pretzel was slightly complicated) and uses a lot of core, and I found the moves utilising the butt to be particularly tough. All my training has prepared me in moving my legs forward, but there has been extremely little focus on moving my legs backwards, and the pilates session has shown me how weak my butt and back of my thighs are.
This is important because from what I recall from skiing and snowboarding, pushing my legs backwards does play a part in stopping and turning.
23 Dec 2018
Just discovered electric violins and they're so affordable. Probably not a new thing but saw one going for S$600 at Yamaha recently and I'm very interested now. Too bad there are other things that are higher in priority so I'm going to resist this temptation for now. It may be just $600 but there are also the lessons to take into account after buying one.
Main reason for my interest is because I've always been curious about it but the noise that a new player makes is something I'd rather avoid. With the electric one, I can just plug in my headphones and no one else would even be aware of its existence, and if I ever want anyone else to hear it, I plug it into speakers.
30 Dec 2018
Researching on ski trips for the mid-year but options are limited. Looked up South America several times but no matter what, the airfare kills the mood with a minimum of S$1.7k. Current target is roughly S$3k.
So it's Aus and NZ, but no matter how I look and how affordable Aus may be, wet snow and chance of rain even at the best areas turned me off.
It's below S$600 to fly to either Sydney or Melbourne, with 20kg luggage, as compared to S$1.1k to either Queenstown or Christchurch.
Anyway, I don't feel like making my research notes on a spreadsheet today, and this will be something of a record of how my research goes, so for now, the numbers are typed here. No guarantee I will book anything since Van can't confirm anything until much closer to the dates, probably June. It will not be good but I will try to find the best options.
Current possible options are Porters and Roundhill.
Just finished Porters, and it's reachable from even Christchurch, with a direct bus from a tour agency offering NZ$55 for a one-way trip, or $35 from Springfield, a town along the way. Funny thing is the website didn't mention a return journey at all, no price, no time, no pickup point. How do those people get back?
EDIT: Nvm they phrased it properly on their "tour and charter" page, as $35 per pax for return between Springfield and Porters, 8.30am pickup at the former, 4pm departure at the latter.
Ski passes are reasonable at NZ$99 for a weekend day pass, or $79 for a weekday one, or $59 for a newbie lift pass. For an eleven-day trip, we might go there for 8. At least the first day, if not three, will be on the newbie slopes, so it will just be $(59*3 + 79*3 + 99*2) = $612 at most.
Accommodation is quite affordable too, if you're willing to stay some distance away, like Springfield, which I am. There are a few places listed on Airbnb that are only S$220 for 6 pax per night at most, and this is considered rather low as far as ski accommodation goes. One of the farm cottages are even going for as low as $100 per night, but it's just the guest house for 4 pax, although I have a feeling the others listed as "entire house" that are part of the owners' farms are probably the same.
All in all, the cost will be $1100 to fly per pax, $2200 for 10 nights, $612 for lift passes per pax, $560280 for transport between Springfield and Porters for 8 days per pax, so it's $33723092 per pax before food.
A little too high, mainly due to the transport. If we could get another 2 pax, it would really cut it down.
But getting accommodation close enough to the ski area is even more expensive and without a kitchen to cook meals in.
Or we could get this Springfield Eco Retreat that's $140 per night for 10 nights, with 2 bedrooms to accommodate 4 pax. With this, we could cut it down to $70 per pax per night, ie shave $1500 off accommodation, bringing costs down to $1592 per pax per night before food and rental.
Since this place comes with breakfast, we just need to settle lunch and dinner. With a safe estimate of $20 per meal, we're looking at 40 meals, so $800 for food, bringing costs back up to $2392.
Moreover, there's the transport to Springfield from Christchurch so it could hit $2600.
03 Jan 2019
Forget Roundhill. Nobody told me you could ski in the Northern Hemisphere in the summer months!
Looked at Hintertux, Austria, but it's beyond my budget.
Norway, on the other hand, Fonna Glacier or Folgefonna in particular, seems quite within my $3k budget.
Found that an inn in Jondal charges S$132 per pax per night plus ALL THREE MEALS, and Jondal has a bus that goes to Fonna one round trip a day that takes 45 mins each direction. Flight to Bergen will cost just under S$1.1k via Finnair, and a bus + ferry from Bergen to Jondal will probably cost $10-20 each way. Ski passes are quite affordable, with a 1-day pass costing $61, a 5-run pass costing $57, a 3-hr pass costing $54, and a 6-day pass which seems perfect for this costing $254.
Assuming no overnight stays or stopovers anywhere else, plus one free night with my card, a 10 day trip consisting of 9 days in Jondal will cost $132*8 + $1.1k + $40 +$254 = $2450, only excluding equipment rental which I don't need.
However, overnight stays may be required. The Finnair flight here arrives in Bergen at 10.45am, and departs at 11.25am. A direct bus 930 from the bus station in Bergen (we're not even talking about immigration, luggage collection and transport from the airport to the bus station) departs only at 11.45am, with the following one at 8.10pm arriving at the ferry quay at 11pm. On the return trip, the first bus at 6.15am is the only one that goes directly to the bus station in time to catch some form of transport to the airport barely 2 hours ahead of departure, and I don't even know if there's a ferry that early. We can technically suck it up and either go for a bus route that will take 1-2 more changes, or wait till 8pm, but the way back is wholly dependent on whether there will be a ferry that will bring us across by 6am.
Just read about a town named "Hyder" in Alaska yesterday. Apparently it's the only place in the US where you can enter without going through immigration and therefore, without a passport.
Of course there's a catch, and the catch is that it is only accessible by road from Canada, or a seaplane from elsewhere nearby on the US side, and it is the road entry that doesn't require a passport, although there is a Canadian immigration office on the way back.
That makes me very curious, so maybe someday I'll try that road trip from Vancouver that's going to take over 20 hours. Obviously it will be split into multiple days.
21 Dec 2018
So the two Thaksin siblings were in Singapore recently. One thought led to another, and I ended up wondering if any exiled leaders throughout history have been open to selling state secrets.
4th week of P90X3, first time trying out Pilates since I rarely actually do any of the sessions for the rest weeks. Pilates X is tough despite its simplicity (maybe the Pretzel was slightly complicated) and uses a lot of core, and I found the moves utilising the butt to be particularly tough. All my training has prepared me in moving my legs forward, but there has been extremely little focus on moving my legs backwards, and the pilates session has shown me how weak my butt and back of my thighs are.
This is important because from what I recall from skiing and snowboarding, pushing my legs backwards does play a part in stopping and turning.
23 Dec 2018
Just discovered electric violins and they're so affordable. Probably not a new thing but saw one going for S$600 at Yamaha recently and I'm very interested now. Too bad there are other things that are higher in priority so I'm going to resist this temptation for now. It may be just $600 but there are also the lessons to take into account after buying one.
Main reason for my interest is because I've always been curious about it but the noise that a new player makes is something I'd rather avoid. With the electric one, I can just plug in my headphones and no one else would even be aware of its existence, and if I ever want anyone else to hear it, I plug it into speakers.
30 Dec 2018
Researching on ski trips for the mid-year but options are limited. Looked up South America several times but no matter what, the airfare kills the mood with a minimum of S$1.7k. Current target is roughly S$3k.
So it's Aus and NZ, but no matter how I look and how affordable Aus may be, wet snow and chance of rain even at the best areas turned me off.
It's below S$600 to fly to either Sydney or Melbourne, with 20kg luggage, as compared to S$1.1k to either Queenstown or Christchurch.
Anyway, I don't feel like making my research notes on a spreadsheet today, and this will be something of a record of how my research goes, so for now, the numbers are typed here. No guarantee I will book anything since Van can't confirm anything until much closer to the dates, probably June. It will not be good but I will try to find the best options.
Current possible options are Porters and Roundhill.
Just finished Porters, and it's reachable from even Christchurch, with a direct bus from a tour agency offering NZ$55 for a one-way trip, or $35 from Springfield, a town along the way. Funny thing is the website didn't mention a return journey at all, no price, no time, no pickup point. How do those people get back?
EDIT: Nvm they phrased it properly on their "tour and charter" page, as $35 per pax for return between Springfield and Porters, 8.30am pickup at the former, 4pm departure at the latter.
Ski passes are reasonable at NZ$99 for a weekend day pass, or $79 for a weekday one, or $59 for a newbie lift pass. For an eleven-day trip, we might go there for 8. At least the first day, if not three, will be on the newbie slopes, so it will just be $(59*3 + 79*3 + 99*2) = $612 at most.
Accommodation is quite affordable too, if you're willing to stay some distance away, like Springfield, which I am. There are a few places listed on Airbnb that are only S$220 for 6 pax per night at most, and this is considered rather low as far as ski accommodation goes. One of the farm cottages are even going for as low as $100 per night, but it's just the guest house for 4 pax, although I have a feeling the others listed as "entire house" that are part of the owners' farms are probably the same.
All in all, the cost will be $1100 to fly per pax, $2200 for 10 nights, $612 for lift passes per pax, $
A little too high, mainly due to the transport. If we could get another 2 pax, it would really cut it down.
But getting accommodation close enough to the ski area is even more expensive and without a kitchen to cook meals in.
Or we could get this Springfield Eco Retreat that's $140 per night for 10 nights, with 2 bedrooms to accommodate 4 pax. With this, we could cut it down to $70 per pax per night, ie shave $1500 off accommodation, bringing costs down to $1592 per pax per night before food and rental.
Since this place comes with breakfast, we just need to settle lunch and dinner. With a safe estimate of $20 per meal, we're looking at 40 meals, so $800 for food, bringing costs back up to $2392.
Moreover, there's the transport to Springfield from Christchurch so it could hit $2600.
03 Jan 2019
Forget Roundhill. Nobody told me you could ski in the Northern Hemisphere in the summer months!
Looked at Hintertux, Austria, but it's beyond my budget.
Norway, on the other hand, Fonna Glacier or Folgefonna in particular, seems quite within my $3k budget.
Found that an inn in Jondal charges S$132 per pax per night plus ALL THREE MEALS, and Jondal has a bus that goes to Fonna one round trip a day that takes 45 mins each direction. Flight to Bergen will cost just under S$1.1k via Finnair, and a bus + ferry from Bergen to Jondal will probably cost $10-20 each way. Ski passes are quite affordable, with a 1-day pass costing $61, a 5-run pass costing $57, a 3-hr pass costing $54, and a 6-day pass which seems perfect for this costing $254.
Assuming no overnight stays or stopovers anywhere else, plus one free night with my card, a 10 day trip consisting of 9 days in Jondal will cost $132*8 + $1.1k + $40 +$254 = $2450, only excluding equipment rental which I don't need.
However, overnight stays may be required. The Finnair flight here arrives in Bergen at 10.45am, and departs at 11.25am. A direct bus 930 from the bus station in Bergen (we're not even talking about immigration, luggage collection and transport from the airport to the bus station) departs only at 11.45am, with the following one at 8.10pm arriving at the ferry quay at 11pm. On the return trip, the first bus at 6.15am is the only one that goes directly to the bus station in time to catch some form of transport to the airport barely 2 hours ahead of departure, and I don't even know if there's a ferry that early. We can technically suck it up and either go for a bus route that will take 1-2 more changes, or wait till 8pm, but the way back is wholly dependent on whether there will be a ferry that will bring us across by 6am.
Wednesday, 28 November 2018
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.
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.
Sunday, 18 November 2018
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.
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.
Friday, 20 July 2018
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.
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.
Monday, 30 April 2018
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?
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.
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.
Saturday, 24 February 2018
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.
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.
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