My Loot

The Princess made this lovely Cinnamon roll for this old man.

Okay shape wise don't really look too good but taste wise they are pretty good. The gesture is so very much appreciated considering that she doesn't like cinnamon and can't stand the smell of it.

Meanwhile, the young man got his old man this small little piece of gadget. I am blown away by the sound that came out from it. I never knew such small speaker can produce such a rich sound - and this from a Singapore company. Hopefully, they will be another Creative!

The X-mini capsule

Sound beyond size

Hmm I have 1 more item due to me. Shall I ask for a pair of Nike Lunar or a flash for the camera?

Ebisboshi Shotengai

Been meaning to check out the Ebisboshi Shotengai at Iluma @ Bugis since it opened and finally went there last evening. The restaurant is actually 7 restaurants in one featuring food from various cities of Japan in a sort of street setting. The interesting thing is that you can choose to just go direct to one of the restaurant or sit in the open area and order from the menu. Of course, we being typical kiasu Singaporean, must try everything so we choose the open area.

I like the decor especially the front entrance with its paper lanterns, figurines and the typical fake food all so colorfully done up.

The front entrance

Colourful Lanterns

A poster instructions on how to order the food in the restaurants

A colourful paper lantern of the Ebisu God from whom the restaurant is named after

A map of the Food Street and the usual display of fake food

We were fortunate that there was a HSBC 1 for 1 offer and we took advantage of that to order the drinks, some food from the HSBC offer menu (which turned out disappointingly rather small in portion). We also order some of the items from the main menu including the Teriyaki Lobster. The price for each item was pretty decent averaging about $12 each. In the end, we had a total of 7 dishes and 4 deserts and the bill came out to about $95.00 for the 4 of us which I thought was pretty decent. Taste wise, nothing too spectacular about the food, and like I said, portion was a tad too small but for its price and ambience I figured it was worth it and definitely better than going to Manpuku or Shokudu.

Another unique feature about the place was that you get to order food from the menu using the wireless pen scanner. Just point at the menu item, point at the quantity and point at enter and the order is sent wireless to the kitchen. Pretty neat although the artificial voice repeating the order can sound very irritating after some time.

URA Service

Got booked by a Certis Cisco for an expired car park coupon last weekend. The gahmen had outsource almost everything under the sky and enforcement of traffic offences is just one of them. In this case I was at Singapore Expo and since the carparks were all full (NATA, Food fair, John Little Sale) I had to park along Changi South's streetside lot. I wasn't too peeved about the ticket. This is the problem with the paper coupon. One can never fully judged the time required and so it is either over displayed or under display sufficient coupon to cover the time but the issue I had was the guy was walking around looking at the dashboard of all the cars parked in the car lot (presumably checking for expired coupon or no coupon) and he was ignoring the many many cars that were illegally parked on double yellow line; next to fire hydrant etc. Which made me very kapo. Just exactly what was in the terms of the outsourcing contract to Certis Cisco? Does it cover only parking within a designated car park lot and nothing else?

So I wrote to the Traffic Police, URA and the Straits Times. Of course, the Straits Times as is normal ignore it only printing those politically correct or sensational items. This one probably got no news making potential. The Traffic Police was nice enough after the usual automated reply to follow up with another email to URA and copied to me to ask URA to respond to me directly. And URA?

After the usual automated reply, I got another email. I will publish here the full content of the emails exchanges

This was my first email to TP, URA and ST:

I was booked by Certis Cisco on 29/8/09 at Changi South St 2 for an expired
coupon (Notice Number: __________). I am not disputing this as I understand
the officer has his job to do.

However, due to the ongoing fairs at the Singapore Expo, I noticed that
there were a lot of vehicles which were illegally park all over the roads
around the expo including along Changi South St 2. They were parked along
double yellow line; next to fire hydrant etc but the Certis Cisco officer
did not book any of these vehicles but instead concentrated only on
vehicles which were parked in proper car lots and looking only for expired
coupon or no coupon.

I am not too sure what was the mandate to Cerits Cisco in the outsourcing
contract but something is wrong with the logic here if only legally parked
vehicles can be booked and illegally parked vehicles can get away scott
free.

This was the first reply I got from URA (other than the automated reply)

URA CPPLU
To: _____________ <_____________>
Date: 08/31/2009 04:12 PM
Subject: Re: Role of Certis Cisco in Traffic Enforcement - Notice Number: __________
Sent by: Eunice WAN

Dear Sir/ Mdm

We refer to your email below.

In order for us to process your case officially, please provide us with
the following information within the next 7 days:

1) Your Full name & NRIC/passport no.
2) Your registered address & Contact no.
3) Whether you are the driver responsible for the parking offence.

Yours sincerely
Eunice Wan (Ms)
For Deputy Superintendent
Car Parks Division

That wasn't the reply I want since I wasn't asking for a waiver so I shot another reply this time to the Eunice Wan (hurray a real name!)

Dear Ms Wan,

I am not asking for a waiver of the fine. I returned to my car late. The
coupon has expired. The officer was right to give me a ticket. So be it. I
will pay the fine.

I am questioning why the Certis Cisco did not book the other vehicles which
were illegally parked.

That is all.

I don't think you require my full particulars for this.

And this was the reply I got:

Dear Sir/ Mdm

We refer to your email below.

In order for us to process your case officially, please provide us with
the following information within the next 7 days:

1) Your Full name & NRIC/passport no.
2) Your registered address & Contact no.
3) Whether you are the driver responsible for the parking offence.

Yours sincerely
Eunice Wan (Ms)
For Deputy Superintendent
Car Parks Division

This reply is sent via email which requires no signature.

And in reply to the TP's forwarded email, I got a reply from URA as well:

Dear Mr Koh

We refer to your email below.

In order for us to process your case officially, please provide us with
the following information within the next 7 days:

1) Your Full name & NRIC/passport no.
2) Your registered address & Contact no.
3) Whether you are the driver responsible for the parking offence.

Yours sincerely
Eunice Wan (Ms)
For Deputy Superintendent
Car Parks Division

Noticed anything? All the emails from URA are the same! It makes me wonder firstly whether they have read my email and secondly is there really a real person behind the name Eunice Wan or is it just a generated name to throw the public off! It is things like that from the Public Service that made me boiling mad whether I have to deal with anybody from there.

Anyway, I gave up my kapo quest for an answer to my query from URA. Me think I will now go and dig for the tender documents to see what is the terms. That will probably be faster and easier.

Teachers Day

Among my biggest group of relatives, friends and acquaintances, other than those who work in 'offices', I think the next biggest group are teachers. Not doctor, soldier, lawyers or any other profession but teachers.

Let me see.. of course among sgrunners and the RL group, there are a big number of teachers. And among our relatives and family friends, there are at least 5 current teachers, 2 retired and 2 ex.

Being the kapo me, everything I meet a teacher, when I get the chance, I love to ask them why they take up teaching as a profession. Is it a love for children, for teaching or just another job? The answers vary but most of them started with a passion for teaching and for children. Sadly, a fair number soon get disillusioned with the system and the fire soon die out and teaching thus become another routine job. It's sad but I hope they do realised that they are doing a very important job and will continue with the drive and passion and to challenge and fight the system if the system is not what they expect instead of quitting.

On this Teacher's Day, I would like to wish all teachers that I know many more years of happy teaching and hope that their fire will continue to burn as they impart and mould our children. Happy Teacher's Day!