Posted by Fergus on Aug 28, 2011 in
General SINGAPORE: Dr Tony Tan has been elected Singapore’s seventh President, winning by a 0.34 per cent margin, or 7,269 votes.
He secured 744,397 or 35.19 per cent of total valid votes, while Dr Tan Cheng Bock received 737,128 or 34.85 per cent of the valid votes.
It was a long and widely followed election. Being one of those years where there was a General Election (in May 2011) and a Presidential Election (in August 2011), the social media buzz was loud and furious.
Mr Tan Kin Lian was one of the first few to have utilised social media. Earlier in the year, he was suddenly very vocal about topics and had started to attract interest to his name. He started talking about investments, then about insurance. Ironically, he was slamming most insurance products even though he was the CEO of NTUC Income. He also started to appeal to the unsophisticated investors by showing that he will be the evangelist that fights against the big bully, be it the big corporations, the governments, etc.
Mr Tan Jee Say was the next to have increased his social presence. He came out to compete in the General Election as a candidate for the SDP. I wrote a fair bit about him with regards to one of his rally speeches. I personally feel that he has a good head on his shoulder, with ideas that have a high possibility of working. However, being the President might not be the right office for him, and he might be better off as a MP. Unfortunately the SDP reputation wasn’t particularly good, and that might have cost him some points. But being the way he is, it is also unlikely that WP will be a good match to his confrontational style.
Dr Tan Cheng Bok also came out during the General Election. He already stepped down from active MP duties earlier on, but I told my friends that he was one of those competent PAP members still around today. It was then that I discovered his website and read up more about him too.
Dr Tony Tan is someone people would know. He was probably already known by all Singaporeans, but didn’t have a special social presence. In fact, if you googled Tony Tan last week, you wouldn’t have been able to find his official website. This basically shows the lack of social online presence among the older folks. To that extent, how the incumbent government has been a little backwards with regards to online interaction.
In the earlier days of the election campaigning. I thought of voiding my vote. Simply because it didn’t really matter to me which guy will be President. If anything, I would like to strike off Mr Tan Kin Lian from my list, and then any of the other 3 would do. Later on, I was just listening to all the speeches and went to talk to some of my friends. That was roughly when I concluded I didn’t really want Mr Tan Jee Say to be the President.
I envision the role of the President to be like that of the chairman of a corporation. In economic ideals, a chairman is the lead independent non-executive director. As compared to the CEO, which is the lead executive director. So what does that mean to me? Basically that means the other directors will listen and agree with what he says because he is the lead director. This applied to both the PAP and the opposition members. Independent basically means he takes in the concern of all the stakeholders. This is important, because it seems people want the president to take in the concern of themselves, while neglecting the concerns of other stakeholders. Of course, he shouldn’t act in proxy for the government only, that would defeat the purpose of being independent. Non-executive basically means he is not concerned by the day to day operations of the corporation. His job is to provide influential insights to the direction and role of various people in the corporation, thus his authority as stated in the constitution.
In this sense, I don’t think Mr Tan Jee Say was an ideal candidate. He was not old enough to have the experience to influence. Besides Nicole Seah which is like a star struck fan, I don’t believe he has enough influence among the opposition even, let alone the incumbent PAP members. He is also a fairly confrontational and emotional person. In one of his interviews where he was debating with Dr Tony Tan, he was not able to maintain his cool which I thought that that was something a President should have.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vshMBvcfQw
Eventually I was undecided between Dr Tan Cheng Bok and Dr Tony Tan, up till the moment I walked from my house to to the polling centres. Both are very very good candidates. Both has it’s disadvantages. Let’s admit it first. Politics is never a clean game. In the last few days, I have found dirt on every candidate and how some underhand measures were used. But that’s basically the way politicians has been since the beginning of time right? Look at Bangkok, UK, USA, France, etc. All politicians have a power struggle. Some very underhand means have been used before, and that includes staging an event that your opponent is convicted due to alleged rape and thus lowering his reputation. Don’t think the opposition are as helpless as they present themselves.
Dr Tan Cheng Bok has quite a lot of grassroots support and I admire his style. He presents himself as a very grandfatherly figure. Someone that dishes out care and advice. He has built his campaign very well, especially his use of social media at his age. His campaign manager and team must be very good.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXectjaGuHI
Dr Tony Tan is still well respected in the business community and among the business leaders of society. I believe he also has the experience to share, the only question is how proactive he is. I do hope the current polling results will create a more active Presidency.
In my opinion, there is too much PAP-hate in the social media. No matter, we gotta view things in a neutral light. “65% of Singaporeans voted against Dr Tony Tan, he’s going to lack legitimacy” But then, *any* candidate would have 60+% voting against them right? A lot of young people voted against Dr Tony Tan, but he still won, doesn’t that mean that there are some other people who voted for him? Is your voting rights worth more than others? Are you saying that other people are so stupid that they don’t do their own analysis? That people will follow endorsements without thinking? That you are the only smart one that chose the correct candidate? There seems to be a lack of sportsmanship nowadays. In the past, when someone won a sporting event/battle/debate, people come round and shake hands and be merry. Nowadays, people sulk. They don’t accept other people’s opinion on why the other person won. We need to have a more open mind.
What we need to do going forward is to contribute more to society, not trying to attack it. I have mentioned many times before to many people. Somehow there seems to be a rise of social unrest, not just in Singapore, but all around the world. Who would have thought there would be riots in UK? Who would have thought that there would be 20-30% unemployment in some of the most beautiful parts of Europe? I hope we don’t get to see that in Singapore.
Tags: GE2011, SocialEconomic
Posted by Fergus on Aug 21, 2011 in
General Wow! I haven’t posted here in a long time!
Gotta get my engine started again..
This guy is pretty amazing!
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjCLQaTFXx0
Tags: Song, Youtube
Posted by Fergus on Aug 7, 2011 in
General 
I’m still here!
In a blink of an eye, it’s week 10 already!
I was actually away on a overseas holiday to Bangkok on week 8, which I blogged about it, here, here, here, here and here! It was a very good trip!
I also stopped the diet during that trip and practically binged all the way. The days after I got back from the trip till today, I went back to the diet, but I didn’t do any exercise, since mygroupon membership for the gym ended already. Probably would need to start looking for a gym!
Anyway, Quick Recap,
Week 0 : 80.6kg, 24.6% BF, total inches of 268.0cm.
Week 1 : 78.7kg, 24.5% BF, total inches of 260.4cm.
Week 2 : 78.2kg, 23.4% BF, total inches of 261.9cm.
Week 3: 77.5kg, 23.3% BF, total inches of 260.7cm.
Week 4: 76.7kg, 23.1% BF, total inches of 259.6cm.
Week 5: 75.8kg, 21.7% BF, total inches of 258.2cm.
Week 6: 76.0kg, 21.6% BF, total inches of 256.5cm.
Week 7: 75.7kg, 22.2% BF, total inches of 255.0cm.
Week 8, 9: no records
Week 10: 74.7kg, 22.3% BF, total inches of 253.0 cm.
Pretty good!
You can imagine my surprise when I saw that my weight dropped! However, body fat percentage seem to be climbing, which might mean that my weight drop is at the expense of my muscle mass. Ugh.
The 3 month point is also approaching fast. In the next 2 weeks, I’ll probably try to keep the diet strict, and to engage in more gym work, before taking a blood test again at the end of week 12/13.
Wish me luck and I would love to hear how everybody else is doing on the diet!
Tags: 4HourBody, Diet, Fitness
Posted by Fergus on Aug 4, 2011 in
General Without knowing, it is the final day of the Bangkok trip. Since we have to get to the airport in the evening, the program for today was very light. A maiden visit to Bangkok’s highest restaurant was decided on, with the rest of the afternoon kept for final shopping at platinum mall.
Bangkok Sky Restaurant is located on the 76th and 78th floor of Baiyoke Sky Hotel, which is really walking distance from Platinum Mall. My hotel was rather far at Asoke, so taxi was probably the best way for me.
Food wise, it was really quite underwhelming. The standard finger foods, 1 station for japanese sushi/sashimi, 1 station for pad thai, 1 station for pasta (which is probably one of the better choices), 1 station for thai noodles, 1 station for grilled meats, and the usual dessert and beverage booth. But I guess for 840baht, the view makes it worthwhile.
They also had balloon entertainers walking around to make complimentary balloon shapes to entertain the kids. I felt that was a refreshing thing to see since most of the crowd tend to be tourists and tourists just like to be entertained.
The views from the 78th floor were great!
In the 3rd pic, the dark green patch in the middle-left of the picture close to the horizon is Chatuchak
In the 4th pic, Amari watergate, Platinum mall, Central world is right at your doorstep!
No matter, as long as you taper your expectations about the food, it is actually fairly decent. The views more than make up for it. In fact, you can go to the 84th floor, which is a revolving open air rooftop with a view of the entire bangkok horizon!
With that, it was time to head back to Singapore and to earn money to fly back to Bangkok again! 
)
Tags: Bangkok, Holiday, Thailand
Posted by Fergus on Aug 3, 2011 in
General 
Suan lum night market has been one of the ‘must visit’ places in Bangkok for a tourist to go. However, the land lease expired in 2007, and the tenants had been illegally occupying the landtill Jan/Feb of 2011 before they were all chased away. And suddenly, there’s nowhere to go to experience the night market atmosphere in Bangkok!
In the recent months, the closest replacement is Tawanna Square, which is somewhat like a wholesale center but extended outdoors using tentages.
The day started with a quick visit to the tailors to do the fitting for my orders. For people who do tailoring while skipping the fitting session, you might as well just buy off the shelf. The fitting for both the tailors I used were quite good, but as expected, alterations had to be made in order for it to be better fitted.
A quick meal at Pasta ‘n’ Noodles was surprisingly good! It was just one of those restaurant type places along the road near Nana BTS. The food looked decent and the price was good, so we went in. And as usual, we were the only customers in the restaurant. Now I’m wondering where do locals eat!?!
After that we made our way to Phetchaburi MRT station to get to Asoke Pier which was just walking distance away. One of the unique feature of Bangkok is how river transport is an essential form of transport there.
From 1 end of the river to the other, it’s probably around a 80 minutes boat ride, and if you were to travel the same distance on taxi, it would have probably cost 200 baht and maybe 2 hours given the traffic congestions!
Tawanna Square is located right beside Mall Bangkapi, which is a pretty large mall in a suburban type of district. But most importantly, it has it’s own pier! Being tourists, it makes more sense to ‘do as the locals do’ and take the boats rather than to rely on taxis right?
There’s basically 1 pier at every stop location. Thus, the boats from both direction will stop at the same pier, and you gotta make sure you don’t get onto the boat travelling in the wrong direction! Once it approaches the pier, the 2 operators of the boats will just sling ropes to pull the boat closer, and within 1 minute, if you’re not on the boat, it would have left without you! Most of the locals even got onto the boat while it was moving! Once you’re on the boat, the operator will then walk along both sides of the boat to collect the fare. Our fare from Asoke pier to Mall Bangkapi pier was a 40 minutes boat ride and it costs only 17 baht. We actually passed the Mall yesterday on our way to Siam City Park, and by my estimate, a taxi ride would have cost 100 baht for the same distance.
At first, we were worried of missing our stop, since the signboards were in Thai. But Mall Bangkapi is really quite a big building, so in most likelihood, you won’t miss it!
If I were to compare a mall, Mall Bangkapi would be fairly similar to NEX Serangoon. Full of locals, lots of F&B outlets, and lots of bustling activity. Tawanna Square would then be something you don’t see in Singapore.
It has everything ranging from apparels, performance costumes, novelty items, food, drinks, mobile phones, electronics and even sound systems for cars! In fact, you can even get hair extensions or tattoos done right at Tawanna! In my opinion, I would much prefer Tawanna Square compared to Chatuchak. At least there is a shopping mall right beside where you can go for some nice buffet once you’re done walking!
Unfortunately the boat service stops at 8.30pm. We decided to take a taxi to Hua Mak Airport Railway Link station, and then taking the ARL to Makkasan and switching to MRT since there is probably going to be traffic congestion at Sukhumvit Road again.
Onward to Day 5 and the last day of the Bangkok trip!
Tags: Bangkok, Holiday, Thailand
Posted by Fergus on Aug 3, 2011 in
General
Day 3 of the Bangkok trip was something different.
Not many people know that Bangkok is the home to one of the largest amusement and water park in South East Asia; Siam Park City. That said, even the locals don’t know what it was!
I got onto a cab, and told the driver Siam Park City. He looked a bit confused and I told him Suan Siam, which is suppose to be the Thai name for the place. He still looked a bit confused but he wanted business, so he moved off. A minute later, he turned to ask, “Siam center, shopping?” He thought that we wanted to go to Siam Center/Discovery/Paragon area, which is right in the center of the shopping district. We replied negatively and he still act confused. We eventually went up to a hotel to get a bellboy to translate. It seemed like the bellboy knew where we wanted to go, but the driver certainly didn’t. He responded that he knew though.
So he sent us to Siam Paragon. Gah.
Being nice people, we still paid him, for wasting a good 30 minutes of my time, and driving me further away from the amusement park. I asked 2 other cabs, and they both didn’t know where or what it was! Finally I found a tourist booth, managed to get a map with the address of the place. But seriously, how helpful can it be when the address of Siam Park City is “1 Siam Park Avenue”? No matter, we flagged a cab, got into it, showed the driver the map with the location. Even with that, he had to call his friend over the phone to get directions on how to get there.
Luckily though, we managed to get there before it was night time. Ugh.
We started the day with the hotel’s buffet breakfast. Since we booked the hotel rooms using Agoda, it was a room only booking with no breakfast included. However, the reception gave us a 1-use-only voucher for the buffet breakfast for only 177 baht.
Given the long day ahead, a buffet breakfast was definitely a very good idea! Usually I would prefer taking native food during overseas trips, but a western styled breakfast would have to do!
On our way out to the main road to flag our first cab, we saw an interesting sight!
Essentially there were these motorbikes with riders wearing a bright orange vest ferrying pillions that seemed much better dressed than the riders. Walking further up the road, we found a queue of such motorbikers. Apparently how it works is that they wait in queue at the exit of the MRT station. People would just walk out and hop onto the back without wearing a helmet and the biker with speed off. What I later found out was that this is a form of ‘individual taxi’ since most of the time you only need to ferry yourself and having an entire taxi for 1 passenger is a waste of money in their opinion. I would definitely love to try this sometime!
Back to the highlight of the day! After the big saga I mentioned above, we finally reached Siam Park City, and boy was it huge! Most of the rides were fairly spaced out, with lots of resting pavilions and benches. Fortunately the weather wasn’t hot and humid though. There weren’t that many rides though. For example, there were only 2 exciting water rides at the water park area, although there was the usual lazy river and wave pools. The amusement park area had more rides, but definitely not Universal Studio standards. For the price of entry at 900bahts, it’s probably still value for money.
At the amusement park side, just 2 rides would probably make it worth your while. The vortex, which is pretty similar to Universal Studio Singapore’s Battlestar Galactica Cylon, and the boomerang, which is eh.. fun.
When we finally decided to leave, we realised we forgot about a big problem: Traffic congestion. Sukhumvit Road and the surrounding roads is probably the most jam packed area in the whole of Bangkok. It took us almost 90 minutes to get back to the hotel, and it took around 40 minutes to drive a 500meter stretch of road near the hotel. So, be warned.
Being tired and grumpy, a good fine dining type dinner was in order!
Baan Khanitha is one of those traditional looking authentic Thai restaurants with a few outlets around Bangkok. Since there was 1 within walking distance from the hotel, we decided on a quick shower before heading out for a late relaxing dinner there.
One interesting dish we tried was a leaf wrap thing-a-ma-jig. I still have no idea what is the name of it. So anybody who knows, please comment below! Basically you are given a tray of ingredients and leaves. You take a leaf, place all the ingredients in it and wrap it up. Then, you pop the entire piece into your mouth. I have to say, it’s definitely more delicious than it looks!
With a full stomach, its time to rest for the day 4 of activities!
Tags: Bangkok, Holiday, Thailand
Posted by Fergus on Aug 2, 2011 in
General
Day 2 of the Bangkok trip is basically the typical holiday itinerary for Bangkok. Tailoring for guys, followed by Pratunam area (or more specifically Platinum Fashion Mall) for shopping, followed by a sumptuous Chinatown sharks fin seafood dinner.
There was quite a few tailors recommended on HardwareZone Forums, namely Boss Avenue, Crown, Pinky and a few others. Since I was nearer to Nana/Asoke area, I decided to try Boss Avenue and Crown, since they were quite well known and easy to find. You could practically see the signboard for Boss Avenue from the BTS! I’ll probably write a longer post about the clothing quality after I have worn it for 2-3 weeks, but at this moment, I quite prefer Boss Avenue’s cutting and cloth type. Although I have to say, Boss Avenue tends to stick with the common and safe cloth selections. So nothing fanciful for sure.
Next is the compulsory visit to Platinum fashion mall in the Pratunam area. Platinum mall is kind of like a bigger version of bugis village, where fledgling blogshops like to get their stock from. The clothes aren’t exactly dirt cheap, but they do have a large range of designs and styles! If you are travelling in an all-guys group, feel free to skip this!
Pratunam is essentially a shopping region. In fact, Pratunam is so popular with Singaporeans, that most of the time, they stay in the hotels around that area, such as Amari watergate or Metz Pratunam. One of the main reason is that Pratunam is actually some distance away from Chit Lom BTS(the nearest BTS), and having a hotel nearby would be helpful if you are lugging 5 plastic bags of purchases.
For those staying in other parts of Bangkok such as Sukhumvit or Silom, the easiest way is probably to take the BTS to Chit Lom, walk pass Central World, across the bridge and there you are. A short little 10 minutes walk.
The last destination for the day is Chinatown for the ‘cheap’ seafood! It’s not exactly ‘cheap’ cheap, since tourist tend to flock to the area. It’s probably how foreigners to Singapore see Boat Quay and Newton hawker center.
I wasn’t exactly keen on sitting along the roadside while paying good money for food, so I managed to find a little ‘hole in the wall’ restaurant that had an air-conditioned upper floor!
I figured that if prices were similar, how much worse can seafood turn out right?
Turns out it was a good choice!
Compared to the overcrowded restaurant next door with people sitting on small stools, there was only 2 other tables occupied in our nice air-conditioned dining area! Food was really good too! The customary claypot of sharksfin, scrambled egg with crabmeat, prawns fried with garlic, black pepper sea bass fillet, beef in oyster sauce and crab vermicelli. Best! Definitely a meal fit for a king. It wasn’t particularly cheap, not that we expected it would be anyway. 1500 baht or around S$60 for 2 pax. It almost felt like an exclusive meal with almost no other guests around.
After dinner, we took a walk around the dark and quiet streets of Chinatown, before we decided it was too spooky and flagged a cab back to civilisation. It’s scary how desolated and uninhabited the place can be after dark. *shudders*
Day 3 would be the highlight of the entire trip! Siam Park City!
Tags: Bangkok, Holiday, Thailand
Posted by Fergus on Aug 1, 2011 in
General
Bangkok is one of the most popular holiday destination for a Singaporean. Largely because there is so much to do! There’s cheap food, cheap massage, great sights, reasonable tailoring, diverse range of shopping options, and even an amusement park (which nearly nobody knows about!)
I have went to Bangkok once before last year, and the plan for this trip is not to repeat destinations.
So the plan this time is
- Chatuchak weekend market
- Siam Paragon
- Tailor shirts
- Platinum mall (yes, the only repeat, because it is unavoidable when you go to Bangkok)
- Chinatown (for seafood)
- Siam Park City (Apparently one of the largest amusement park in South East Asia)
- Baan Khanitha (Some Thai style fine dining restaurant)
- Soi Cowboy
- Mall bangkapi
- Tawanna Square (the supposed substitute for Suan Lum night market after it was closed)
- Baiyoke Sky Hotel (For the Bangkok Sky Restaurant buffet lunch)
Quite a different experience from the previous round, since the previous round was more sight seeing of the temples, and all. We ate a lot, we shopped a lot, we spent a lot.
As usual, I flown in on
Jetstar on the early morning flight. The good thing is that there is now the Suvarnabhumi Airport Rail Link that takes you from the airport to the city in 30 minutes for just 35 baht. Definitely no reason for travellers to take taxis! And this is probably where the BKK train system is more practical than the Singapore’s system.
Their MRT and Airport Link system uses a non-card contactless system. That means, you buy a token from the ticketing machine, tap the chip on the entry like how you would in Singapore, and at the exit point, you drop it into the exit gantry. So, you don’t have to take your single trip EZlink card to the ticketing machine to get back your deposit. Which also means, you don’t have to pay for deposit in the first place! Why isn’t the Singapore system this way?
But then, here’s where Singapore excels. All the transport systems are closely linked! You can change lines at Dhoby Ghaut without even thinking about which operator runs which lines. In Bangkok, you have to get off the Airport Link (at Makkasan in my case), walk 200 meters in the sun, get onto the MRT (at Phetchaburi MRT) and get off 1 stop later at Sukhumvit MRT. And if you had to transit to the BTS, you would have walked 100 meters at Sukhumvit MRT to Asoke BTS, which is literally on top of each other, but are not connected.
The previous time, I stayed at I-Style Trend Hotel (or now known as Citrus Sukhumvit 22). My plan was never to stay in the same hotel, simply because of the abundance of choices in Bangkok, so I stayed in Tai-Pan Hotel this time around.
It’s one of the older hotels, but decent sized room, decent aircon, decent bed, decent toilet and decent location. Nothing to complain for the price. I also wanted something along the BTS and MRT line, so the Sukhumvit-Asoke interchange was definitely a better choice that the Pratunam area hotels.
First stop after dropping off the luggage was the Chatuchak Weekend Market!
As the name says, it is only opened during the weekends. The easiest way to get to Chatuchak is to take the MRT to Kamphaengphet station which is right at the market itself. Alternatively, you can take the BTS to Mo Chit BTS, but it will be a 5 minutes walk away.
Chatuchak weekend market is definitely one of those ‘must go’ places for the new tourist, but to be honest, I didn’t find a lot to buy. Perhaps it is good for the atmosphere, the sights and the quirky people.
Siam Paragon was the next destination, but we didn’t spend much time there. It’s so amazing that I have been to MBK, Central World, Gaysorn, but I haven’t been to Siam discovery/center/paragon.
9th Cafe was the restaurant of choice, since the rest wasn’t particularly unique. A pretty simple meal that was very satisfying!
Of course, when in Bangkok, one must end the day with a massage. In this case, a 90 minutes Thai Massage for 400 baht makes a good day. Till day 2!
Tags: Bangkok, Holiday, Thailand
