Being Singaporeans, most people started out having a POSB bank account as their first ever bank account. From then, they move on to DBS, and then having DBS credit cards etc..
Not me.
My first ever bank account was a UOB Funsavers account. This was one of those fun savings accounts for young kids that come with a bank book and all those stuff. Then, I graduated to the TX account, which is basically a low minimum balance account for teens, with a cool looking ATM card to flash around your friends. When we all got older, I moved up to the Campus account, which comes with a nice debit card that allows you to act cool in front of your peers by doing the ‘grown up swiping card for payment’. It also comes with nice cheque books that make you SO business-man like!
One of the sights that always amazes me is the queue in front of a DBS/POSB atm. In a typical shopping center, whenever you see a hub of atms, there will usually be 2-3 DBS/POSB atms, 1 UOB atm, 1 OCBC atm, 1 Citibank atm (because citibank is almost like the 4th local bank of Singapore. *heh heh*), and occasionally a ANZ/Maybank/StanChart/etc atm. What I would typically do, is walk to the UOB atm, which has no queue at all, withdraw my money in 1 minute flat (with the quick customised menu thing), and do a quiet snigger at the bunch of DBS/POSB customers queuing 10-20 minutes to withdraw their money. Hur Hur!
For some reason, there will usually be around 10-15 people queuing 2-3 dbs atms, but there will be at most 1 person, or usually nobody waiting for the uob/ocbc atms. Why, I would never understand. There hasn’t been any inherent benefit in having a dbs/posb savings account ever since they instated the $500 minimum deposit for a normal savings account, which brings in on par with the other local banks. So why not just open a UOB or OCBC account?
Not many people might know this, but a UOB customer can actually withdraw money from a OCBC atm, though you would need to pay a convenience fee if you exceed 3 times a month. But seriously, there are enough UOB atm machines to go around! Most people have the impression that there are more dbs/posb atms. That’s probably true.. But sometimes it’s not about the sheer quantity. DBS/POSB usually have 3 to even 5 or 7 machines congregated in a single location. UOB would then have 1 atm at that location, usually with little or no queues of course. But recently while walking around town area, I realised that within a 10 minute walk, I could actually walk pass 5 to even 12 UOB atms! Definitely good placement is more important than the sheer quantity.
So seriously, someone please help me understand why are there long queues in front of DBS/POSB atms?
Finally managed to try Kiseki!. I probably heard of this buffet joint 2 months back when it first opened. Basically, I understand it’s opened by the same group of owners as Shokudo Japanese Bazaar (at Raffles City). The main difference is that for Shokudo, you walk around with your card to charge it to your card. Whereas for Kiseki, it’s buffet style!
I went for the weekday dinner one, which is pretty decent at $29. The weekend dinner is slightly more expensive at $35. And I figure if I had to pay $35, I would much rather go to the higher end joints like Hanabi, which would be fairly similar in pricing anyway.
One thing I really like about the place is the seating arrangement. It’s fairly similar to Shokudo and marche, where food stalls are scattered everywhere, and the tables are located closer to the sides. Somehow, the place don’t look as crowded this way. Perhaps it’s because it was a weekday night.
Food wise, not exactly the most fantastic quality, but definitely not lousy food. Initially, I had fairly low expectations, after reading the various reviews at HungryGoWhere.. But after our first round of food servings, the quality was actually quite decent! Fairly decent variety of food. Some of the foods are probably cheap fillers, but there were enough ‘core’ food to make the buffet worthwhile.
The desserts are average. Not too much on the cakes and pastries selection. I quite like the waffles and ice cream though.
Overall, I think I would definitely give them another visit! If you guys are free, weekdays lunch seem to be a good bargain at $19!
Recently my friend Cheryl Tay blogged about Mytransport.SG(news link), which is basically a mobile transport portal to cater for both drivers and public commuters.
The only problem with Mytransport.SG(mobile site) is that it is only accessible from a mobile browser. That means you can only access it from your mobile phone.
It consists of 12 icons, in a typical iphone look-a-like fashion, covering both public transport and car drivers.
At the moment, I personally use Google Maps on my android phone, as well as http://gothere.sg for searching locations, finding directions on public transport, general mapping and GPS. On top of that, I use SBSTransit’s Mobile Iris to find the estimated time for the bus services.
Mytransport.SG’s implementation here is basically a set of links to those sites. The benefit of the website would then be for people who do not know about those sites in the first place. One thing useful for me would be that they have all the taxi company’s contact number available there, since I don’t keep those numbers in my handphone.
It does seem a lot more useful for car drivers though. The 2 main data available is basically traffic info (by way of graphical display, live cams, real time news), and parking lot info. Traffic info is always useful, especially in car congested Singapore. Having real time info on where potential jams are at will definitely save tons of time!
Parking lot guide is basically a rehash of the electronic signboards around town. They display the number of lots available in the individual parking lots at the various buildings. Again, very useful for drivers, particularly on a weekend.
Then there are also miscellaneous information available on the site such as ‘Park and Ride’, Premium buses, COE info, and various links. Usefulness? Not much. I would probably prefer to surf such information on my computers than on a mobile site. There’s no immediate need for such info that I would want to research it specifically on my mobile device.
It is probably not as fast as having bookmarks to the dedicated sites such as mobile iris and gothere.sg, or even apps like google maps.
However, I have to say that the biggest advantage of this is to create a larger awareness about the existance of such webapplications.. Most people I know are still not familiar with gothere.sg or mobile iris, or even just google maps. This site will definitely benefit those people.
Chinese culture has always been one full of glamour, colour and vividness. Just take a look at Lunar New Year celebrations, Mid Autumn festival, Hungry Ghost month, and even simple things like Wedding banquets.
There’s always lots of colours, bright lights, massive crowds, and tons of noise. In all, a sense of bustling joyous activity.
Being the hungry ghost month currently, there are actually 5-10 ‘getais’ happening daily around Singapore. You would probably need to buy the chinese newspapers to get the schedule and location though. These ‘getais’ or literally, song stage, are a form of free performances done for the ‘brothers and sisters’ who are released from the spirit realm during the hungry ghost month. But that said, it is always packed with people too!
Recently I have a sudden craving for these performances. The friendly banter among the emcees, the dances and hokkien songs, the bright lights and the large bustling crowds somehow create a kind of atmosphere that’s different from say a music festival organised for the young adult crowd.
