5 years old

谨卉 (Jillian) is 5 years old now.
Celebrated with her a few days.

Had a dinner at Swensen and enjoyed her favourite ice-cream. She has been celebrating her birthday at the Swensen every year.

Brough her to Universal Studio Singapore to take photos with different characters, taking a few rides and watching some performance.

She also had a simple birthday party at the childcare center with her classmates. A few days before the party, we went to shop for items for the goodies bags to be given to her friends. She packed it happily with her mum.

Will be bringing her to watch the Korean's musical performance, Nanta, at Esplanade a few days later. Just wanted to expose her to different Arts and be entertained by the International group.

Most importantly, wish her healthy, happy and enjoy every minutes in life :-)
Cheers !

Setting good example

While I was driving and approaching a major traffic junction, saw an uncle cycling and likely to cross the road using the zebra-crossing. Based on past experience, I was quite sure he would cycle across. I slowed down in case he "decided" to rush across it. However, the uncle stopped cycling, alighted and pushed his bicycle while using the zebra-crossing. I was surprised. He was doing the right thing and setting a good example of safe cycling while on the move. Yet, it was rarely observed most of the time.

I am not sure if you realize it, we live in an environment showing more negative rather than positive examples. One good and typical example is the use of traffic light. Pedestrians of all ages seem to "enjoy" crossing a road whenever there is no traffic even though it is still displaying the stop red-man-light sign. Cyclists too.

Maybe the persons have an urgent matter to attend to, maybe it is going to rain. maybe the bus is approaching, maybe just dun want to appear stupid waiting for it especially when there is no sign of cars, maybe impatient, maybe .....maybe life is just too long to live on ?

I am more worried about the messaging to the young ones. While we are trying to educate them the proper behavior in school and at home, we are setting wrong example when it comes to practical. The worst of it is that there are many more examples besides using of traffic light such as smoking, talking loudly when using a mobile phone, cut queue, not showing the basic respect, telling lairs, rude etc.

Educating and bringing up the young ones is like doing a cha cha, three steps forward follows by two steps backward. A wrong twist could cause much unhappiness and pain.

Amazing and refreshing read on being a tour guide

I come across a Chinese book accidentally titled as "教我如何不宰你", I translated it as "How not to slaughter you alive".

The book was published in 2006 on traveling but focused on tour guide. Not how to be one but the dark and ugly side of being a tour guide as a profession. The author is from China and he has been a tour guide for more than 10 years.

The author shared much detailed happenings from his vast experience on the dilemma, challenges, unfairness, and difficulties in managing travelers in a tour group, bus driver, services providers and travel agency. Pretty amazing and refreshing read. Based on his sharing, it is definitely very pressuring and unpleasant to be a tour guide, in particularly, in China and leading a China tour group.

The main source of all these rooted to the fact of charging too low or no fees at all of joining a tour group. At the macro level, the governance system is not good enough to facilitate a healthy development of the industry. The result of it is that the tour guide has to coax or "force" travelers to buy more and to visit more factory outlets to meet the expected "quota" to cover the cost of the trip and even to make money for the agency. At the same time, the tour arrangement may have to reduce or cut cost on food, accommodation, itinerary etc. The whole travel experience is affected with complains, unhappiness and at times, violence. Tour guide does not has a basic salary and for those few that have it, they are expected to help out in the agency when there is no assignment. If anything happens, tour guide has to bear the consequences fully.

It's sad to read about it. Traveling is suppose to be fun, enjoyable, safe and happy. But it may not be case if joining a tour group. Though I would prefer planning my own trip and I do most of my overseas holiday, I have also joined tour group on a few occasions.

The best was the one that I went to Tokyo. The tour guide was a lady and she was experienced enough to conduct a meaningful and pleasant trip throughout the journey. At least I din feel that I was "forced" to accept or visiting nonsense places or the need to buy stuff. :-) The other few, something did happen along the way though we all managed to complete it satisfactorily. The general rule seems to be avoiding budget tour package especially to China as visitors are "expected" to buy, to be surprised with changes and properly a mismatch of delivery of services and products.

If you are interest, click "教我如何不宰你" to read and to learn more about life as a China tour guide.

We will always be left with a year of challenges

Human's development is really amazing. My daughter is coming to 5 years old soon and some of the improper behavior seems to disappear gradually and naturally.

We used to prompt her to sit down and tuck in together many times during meal time, whether it is at home or eating out. Most of the time, she will just try to take some and left much for us to feed her when we have finished ours. In the past few weeks, we observe that she is able to sit down and finish most of the food before starting to get  naughty again. Hence, it is much more enjoyable now and can engage her better over meal rather than being angry with her for not wanting to eat and finish it.

A the moment, her favourite food is egg, sausages, fried chicken, broccoli, butter, cheese, instant noodle and dessert especially the chocolate favor. And she does not like to have gravy to go with her rice. I always like to say that 5 years old solves the 4 years old challenges. We will always be left with a year of challenges to guide her along the way. Most importantly is to have the patient to live with it for the year long before the challenges are kind of addresses gradually and naturally.

Ha...ha...ha...

Arrival of iPad

It was reported in today's newspaper that Apple announced the availability of iPad in 9 more cities, including Singapore. Finally, it is here for sales from this Friday, 23 July 2010 onwards.

The retail prices area as follow:
For wifi only version - S$728 for 16GB, S$878 for 32GB and S$1,028 for 64GB and
For wifi + 3g version - S$928 for 16GB, S$1,078 for 32GB and S$1,228 for 64GB.

Basically, S$200 more for 3g version. It is a bit more than what I have budgeted for it but cheaper than those availability earlier through parallel import which was selling around S$1,900 per unit.

iPad will be selling through its authorized dealers and not the telcos. However, the telcos will be providing data plan for it. Well, will wait for awhile before buying one to play with it :-)

First time as a Model

Sent my daughter to the Child Care Centre this morning as usual. When we reached, she spotted the centre's brochure with her photo on its frontpage.

She was surprised and happy about it :-) We were more surprise than her. Ha...ha...ha....Come to think of it, this is the first time she poses as a model "commercially". Actually, the photo was taken when the class was having an activity.

<------------ She is smiling brightly here

Very soon, she will be leaving the centre and moving on to a new stage of life as a primary school pupil. ;-)

My top 10

You may aware of a book titled as "1,000 places to see before you die". I am sure everyone will be delighted to visit 1,000 places globally before exiting from the stage. Unfortunately, we all also know that it is not possible :-( The 2nd best possible way is to identify what one's feel is worth visiting / doing and plan out the schedule year after year. My top 10 in the wish list (not in order of preference) at the moment is as follow

- The Silk Road;
- Samba Festival in Brazil;
- Egypt;
- Xi'an;
- Hokkaido;
- Tibet;
- New York;
- Switzerland ;
- Trekking Mt Fuji;
- Safari in South African;

In addition, I will be revisiting some of the countries / places on top of the list above as there is still room for further exploration and engaging in various interesting activities (eg. skiing in South Korea). Resources is, indeed, running short and tight.

I am planning my this year end holiday now. Destination - Melbourne.

Taiwan Trip 2010 - Restaurant 青叶

Quite a number of exciting food in Taiwan can be found along the street and night markets. Hence, we din go to restaurants for most of our meals during the 9 days holiday except two meals, one dinner in 青叶 and one lunch in 鼎泰丰. Both can be considered Taiwan's icon especially the 鼎泰丰 which has ventured out to other countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia.

青叶 provides Taiwan Cuisine (ie 台菜 or 台湾料理). It is one of the oldest brand. It also happened that the restaurant was pretty near to where we were staying ie walking distance, that we decided to give it a try. :-)

What did we order for dinner ?

- 九孔 (Abalone, cold dish)
- 乌鱼子 (BBQ fish egg or Mullet Roe)
- 菜莆蛋 (Fried egg with caipu)
- 豆腐 (Bean curd)
- 地瓜粥 (Plain porridge with sweet potato).

What excited us most is the 九孔 and 乌鱼子.

乌鱼子 is Taiwan local specialty. You eat together with slides of radish and onion to reduce its salty taste due to seasoning and fishy smell. I was quite hesitated to try it as I am very afraid of fishy smell. Hence, I started with a small bite initially. Well, not too bad and it tasted like cheese. ;-)

What is so special about 九孔 is the sauce. It blends with the abalone very well. I was surprised of the abalone size, bigger than I though it would be.

Though the other three dishes were more commonly known, the 菜莆蛋 tasted very nice and professional done. I enjoyed it very much. The porridge itself was also an excellent dish. I can just eat it plainly without the need to order dishes.It was served warmly, not too cold or hot. It was very tasty and well cooked. Simple yet a great dish.

The service was pretty good. Staff was attentive and polite. We ended the dinner with a complimentary dessert, warm green bean soup. Half of the total bill went for the 乌鱼子. Overall, it was much cheaper as compared to eating it locally at 欣叶, another Taiwan's brand but has ventured out. We had a nice, full and enjoyable dinner. Will go again when i next visit Taiwan. There are still a few dishes yet to try it out.

See u again, 青叶