singapore trip report

i arrived in s’pore about 8.00am on sat. (2 dec.) and headed straight to my brother’s house in chao chu kang. (picture here shows the block of flat in chao chu kang opposite the block where my brother stays). oh what else to do after arriving at my brother’s house except to hit the sack. haha yes very tired after the long journey where i hardly get to sleep.

in the evening went to this imm building in jurong east for dinner and jalan-jalan. lots of food at the food court but expensive. i had a plate of fried rice with crab meat which cost SGD5.00 so you can imagine if in m’sia means spending
RM12 for just one meal of fried rice. however it comes in quite a big plate… er actually it comes in a mini kuali (wok). kind of strange eating from a kuali.

i was very impressed by the parking complex there which is fully computerized. as you enter, the sign will tell you which floor is full and which floor has how many parking lots left. each individual lot has a ‘signal light’ that is red if a car is park there and green when it is vacant.

the very high tech parking system did not surprised me as much as when i heard that parking here is free. that’s right. free. my sis-in-law told us that a lot of office workers who works around the vicinity take advantage of this by parking their cars, and leaving them here in the morning then take the MRT to work. oh well that’s human nature for you.

on sunday morning all of us went to the church for my niece’s confirmation. st joseph’s church at upper bkt timah road. actually this was the main purpose of my s’pore trip – to attend her confirmation, a sacrament which is important to us just like first holy communion and baptism. confirmation has to be conducted by a bishop unlike first holy communion and baptism which is conducted by a priest. yes a priest, not any lay-man like azhar.

after the confirmation we had a course dinner (to celebrate the confirmation see) at one of the chinese restaurant in jurong. there were 12 of us including my sister in law’s family.we had a private room to ourselves and served by a personal waiter too, who changed a new plate for us after every 2 courses. for some dishes he also served them to us personally i.e. he dish them out in our individual bowls at one corner, then brought them to us. first time i experienced such personal service.

on 4 dec, monday we went to chinatown. (first picture here shows part of a street in chinatown). there is a street turned into a sort of sidewalk cafe, where tables and Chairs were placed in the centre of the street one side of the povement is widen where the food stalIs are and also a row of chairs and tables the name of the street? smith street. (see second picture – sorry these 2 pics here are not clear at all. i took them in a hurry!).i thought it is funny the name where it is in the vicinity of chinatown. wouldn’t it be better with name such as an beng street or ah seng street?

on 5 dec, tuesday we went to clementi central. (picture shows signs at clementi central community centre). It was here that i bought a long pants at a cost of $19.90… and surprisei also bought a handphone! wanted to get a 3G handphone, and since the handphone shop here accepted my present handphone (sony ericsson k700i) as a trade-in, why not. as i like sony ericsson (SE) handphone, i decided to get a SE handphone. well, i picked the model k610i which is said to be the lightest and smallest 3G handphone. ok i will talk about the my new ‘baby’ later as now going to finish my report.

i bought the pants because i like the lace on the pockets and at the hem.

in the afternoon we went to visit our great grand aunty who stays in ang mo kio. it rained heavily during this time right to late evening. while travelling in the car, heard on news that certain part of woodlands were flooded because of the heavy rain.

night time i went with my sis to lot 10 to meet her ex colleagues who are now working in s’pore. just met them for dinner. did not go window shopping. shopping was not my intention anyway… especially so when s’pore currency is so high against our m’sian ringgit. before leaving for s’pore, when i made the currency change, it was at a rate of 2.32!
the next day, 6 dec, wednesday we went to bkt batuk for brunch, then adjourned to the nearby west mall for some grocery shopping. (picture below shows shows the giant xmas tree inside the mall).

ok now about my new handphone. i actually have no intention of buying a new hp. don’t know what suddenly made me decided to buy one. ah i think it was because that on the day i arrived, the spore paper happened to advertise many hp deals at bargain prices. also a tech exhibition was going on during that weekend, that’s why some hp shops offer good prices. another reason could be that before coming to s’pore, maxis 3G was just launched in penang and they were offering free sign-up.

anyway i realized in penang that i can’t find a hp shop that accept trade-in, and since there are lots of shops in s’pore that do, why not.

i saw adverts that some hp shops accept my SE K700i at $120 and some at $150. when i was at clementi i saw $200! i can’t believe my eyes so enquire about it but was disappointed to learn that $200 is if my hp still have the box and manual.box? nope. i never keep the box. manual? i do have it but it was in penang of course. luckily i did bring the charger along. as for the headset, it was always in my handbag wherever i go. if without the charger and headset i might not be able to sell it or may be get a lower price.

well at first this hp shop told me they would buy my SE K700i at $130 but after the staff opened up the phone and found out it was a m’sian phone and without original SE battery, he said it was $110. too bad.

well the phone i choose K610 was at $408. my old hp was sold at $110 thus i pay $298 for the new hp. 298×2.3
– thus it is approx. RM 690. they have 3 colours – urban silver, black and evening red – i choose urban silver (as in picture above). not very nice though but i do not want black or red! the old SE K700i which is metallic silver, looks much better.