Life Sucks

Got so many things to write about but yet don't know what to write. Shall I blog about the new food places that I went to recently like Salta, the Argentina restaurant or the nice dessert at Chinatown which I have been patronising for the longest time but somehow never got to write about. Maybe the Teochew porridge at Ang Mo Kio which I keep asking my friends to try but never blog about here? Or how about what has been going on in this little red dot? The Punggol East by election? Nah, too common. How about the nightmares that keep me awake at night: 6.9m population; $90,000+ COE; sky high properties (wait I think I wrote about that) and golf courses; my pet peeve. Oops I also wrote about that. Talking about the latter 2, I can't believe that I am so "chun". A few days after I blogged about the properties price s, the government announced Cooling Measures No 7! That blog post alone garnered 674 views, a record for this blog considering that it was up only sin...

Have passed by this new bak kuh teh outlet at Jalan Kayu but had not walked in previously. One evening decided to pop by to try it out. First thing first was the pork knuckle. Their version was really jet black, a bit sweet but soft enough. Much better than most of the pork knuckle at other bak kuh teh joint.   We also ordered one of their house speciality the tofu .Topped with spicy taucheo, it was soft and succulent and just slide down the throat. We also have the claypot sesame chicken. This was just average and nothing to rave about.   Finally the item that we had come all the way to try. The pork rib soup. Their version is the herbal type and not the light spicy Teochew type. I didn't think it was that great. The meat was not soft enough and could not be chew off easily. Overall, I felt the food was a tad too pricey and not really worth it. The hype over this place was more because this is a social enterprise outlet opened by a ex-prisoner and em...

The URA, JTC, Land Office or whatever authorities claimed that the fish farms in Pasir Ris have to go as the land is required for industrial development. Same with the dragon kiln in Jurong. One URA official was quoted as saying “Not all agriculture activities can be accommodated in the long term. General farming activities such as ornamental fish farming can be catered to in the interim where land is not needed for other critical needs” In this statement, I can easily replace agriculture activities with ‘nature reserve’; “woodlands”; ‘open areas” and general farming activities……farming” with Bukit Brown, Dragon Kiln and still end up with the same point i.e. non viable or economically beneficial activities will always end up the loser when competing for land in Singapore. Why do I say so? Are we really so short of land for industrial development that we need to acquire 21ha of fish farm lands or 2 smallish dragon kiln? As I stated in my earlier post, Singapore do not a lot a...

I have been visiting the fish farms in Singapore for the longest time ever since I discovered the fish farms at Old Tampines Road .ever. I love going there to look at the fishes especially the koi  It was a sad day when the whole area was acquired for a new expressway. Fortunately, some of the farms eventually moved to Pasir Ris Farmway. Although the area has lost its charm as compared to the country like feel of Old Tampines Road, it was still a place where I spent quite a number of weekends just gazing at the fishes and getting replenishment for the fish tanks at home. So it came as a shock to read in the papers and found out that the fish farms has got to go again because the area is needed for “industrial” development. The 13 affected fish farms including the popular Mainland Tropical Fish Farm occupy an area of 21.6ha of land. What I don’t understand is why the farms have to go? Does Singapore really need more industrial space? From what I heard and read, everybody...

We generally do not go to high class restaurant as I believe there are better ways to spend money than to eat it up and then discharge it the next day but this being the Kid's 21st, it called for a big celebration. While most people will throw a party at home, at chalet or the rich holds a coming of age party at posh hotels, we decided to keep it simple by having a family dinner. To make up for it, we decided to break the piggy bank and splurge on an atas dinner. Our choice of venue after doing some research was Wooloomooloo Steakhouse at The Swissotel. Since we do not have much experience in dining at this type of place, we decided to play safe and ordered the food based on what was recommended by bloggers and the staff at the restaurant. So for starter, having read that this was a must have, we ordered the crab cake. It can the size of a moon cake which we promptly cut into 4 to share.  The uber friendly waiter recommended the tuna crab cake The kid aske...

Prices of property – private or public has continued to increase despite various measures implemented by the government.. The people from Redas have been making a lot of noise about the government’s curb on property. They are warning of dire consequences should the government increases the curbs. What dire consequences? And to whom? Redas warned that quote “decline in property prices might lead to “undesirable consequences” as 90 of Singaporean households are homeowners”. Really? How? I am a HDB flat owner. As far as I am concerned, it does not matter what my unit will fetch. So what if its goes up to a $1m. Can I cash in on it, sell it and buy a similar size unit for less and keep the profits? Can I go to the bank and take out a loan on the value of the property? The truth is unless I am prepared to downgrade, whatever value my property appreciate to is of no use to me. What if it goes down then? Obviously if I sell it, I may loose some money but if I stay put, does it really...

There are 2 butterfly farms at Cameron Highlands.Since we were free, we decided to go look at the butterflies. The 2 farms were next to each other and so in the end we went to both places. These are the butterflies that we saw there. Most of the butterflies were at the Butterfly Garden. At the other Butterfly Farm, the butterflies were all on top of the netting and out of sight.