Singapore Family Education

I had attended 4 SFE programs conducted in my son primary school.  Through these programs, it supposes to help parent to cope better with their children, to educate their children, to understand the children, etc. 

Just this Saturday, attended one on the "How to boost your children self esteem."  Many a time, the information or the examples quoted by the trainer are the actual happening around you.  Let me give an example.  How many of you actually tell your children to study hard and get good result other they would become a road sweeper next time.  I think this is rather negative.  Why not tell them if they study hard and get good result, they could become the boss of the road sweeper.  Nothing wrong with road sweeper but all of us want our children to do much better than that.

Just trying to express my thought.

Have fun and stay happy always.

After 4th Lessons

Keith has completed 4 lessons on the brain training from the center and daily training by us.  He performs better in the training exercise and increasing his beat rate.  On top of this, he also started on the logic training.  He seem to like the logic training more as this is less stressful.  The training so far has not translated to any improvement yet as this is too early.  I believe we should be able to see some accademic improvement after 3months.

1st lesson

My son went through the 1st lesson yesterday.  he was nervous and just following instructions.  He was good at some tasks and a couple of tasks were very difficult for him such as reading Blue, Green, Red, Green as Red, Yellow, Blue and Red.  I tried myself!  Not easy and when you being paced.

Anyway, it is a good start for him.

Brain Development

My kid was doing very badly in his school work since P1.  He is currently in P4.  We know that we need to help him so we had try tuition, both group and one to one tuition but unfortunately we did not see any improvement.  So basically in P3 we tuitioned him during our evening and weekend hours.  Doesn't help too.

Recently, we get to know about this Brain Development Centre that help to develop one's brain from simple basic thing such as reading color chart in paces.  He took the test from the centre and the result indicated the area of his weakness and is closely reflected what we knew about.  So we decided to sign him up for the program.  The program has not started for my kid but I am already excited about it.

Let see his improvement after some training.

Fraser Hill

After Sungai Lembing, we headed to Fraser Hill, passing by Bentong town for lunch and ice-cream.  Sat off in the morning 10am and reached Fraser Hill in the evening about 5pm.  Fraser hill is a nice cooling place for resting.  The temperature was about 22 degree in the day and 18 degree in the night.  Not too much difference between day and night so that is great.  We had great time and had durian again both days at Fraser Hill.  The durian was sold by someone who drove from Raub to Fraser Hill.  Durian was GREAT.  Seriously GREAT.  I will talk about it later.

The trip up the hill had 3 casualties.  They got nausea and vomited due to the narrow and meander road.

A picture with the Bukit Fraser to start off with.

Just before dinner, we saw a durian truck.  The boss selling both D24 and Mao Shang Wang durian.  We bargain for the prices and finally settled for RM22/kg.  We had a total of 5 durians.  The only person who does not like durian in this trip is Klein.  Too bad, he can only watch us taking the delicious durian.  The 2nd nite, it was raining since after 3pm and so the durian truck business not so good.  We were back to the store and bargain to RM15/kg this time round.  This time, we had 7 huge Mao Shang Wang.  This is by far the best durian I had.  Now, when I try durian back home in Singapore, I could not find those good taste.  hai...

Steam boat dinner after the durian.  RM25/pax (not a buffet), this price was ok but the food was just normal.  Simple steam boat ingredient such as prawn, vegetables, egg, chicken, beef.  The cups were not washed thorough as we could taste the oil when we are provided with tea or water.  Service was lousy too.  Requested for rice and was told they do not have rice but after we are done with the dinner, the next table was served with rice for their dishes.  Did not bother to ask them since we are already done but this was not the service we were looking for.

We found a place for a game of pool.  All the pros having their shots at it.

Next morning, we had archery after our breakfast at the Shanzhan hotel.  This was my first time and I did well.  All arrows were on target with 1 out of 12 hitting the bull's eye.

My 3 nephews tried horse riding.  Short loop but these kids had "a dream come true."

In the morning, we headed for a trail trekking.  The walked took us about 30mins both ways.  There some difficult parts where some of us had to use 4x4 mode to complete the trail.  We had another group picture for the job well done.

This is The Smoke House.  A hotel cum dinner place.  We had our lunch here.  Price was a little steep but food was great.  The place has very nice decoration and well organized dining hall.  They actually requested you to stay put at a waiting area (with sofa) before the meals were ready to serve.  I am not too sure why but definitely not because they do not have enough sitting capacity in dinning area.  Could be just a English or French culture.

I am going to end this entry with the most beautiful thing I have.

Trip to Sungai Lembing

The first destination of our Malaysia trip was Sungai Lembing.  It took us quite some time to reach the resort in Sungai Lembing.  We crossed the 2nd link at about 7:45am and had breakfast at 2nd link rest area and had lunch at Segamat, thus we only reached Sungai Lembing at about 3:30pm.  First thing at the resort is a welcome durian by the owner of the resort.  Nothing great about the durian but just durian.  The village feel from the mediacorp Kumpong Ties vs the real feel is so much difference.  Once in the kumpong, I could heard the insect calling, the smell of kumpong, fresh air, birds chirping, greenery, water rushing sound.  Let me use the pictures to tell you the story.

A SAT Map of the Sungai Lembing area.

Another SAT map indicating the various places of the kampong.

Nice Reception.  The durian is ready for us.

Karaoke Area

Clean and Neat room

The next set of pictures are the surrounding at Sungai Lembing.  We really did not visit much as time does not permit us to do so.  Visited a hanging bridge, provision shop, food centre and Panaroma Hill.

This is Tian Shu Gong Provision Shop (天叔公杂货店)

Lady boss, she is very friendly.  杂货店老板娘，很健谈。

The Hanging bridge.  Did not manage to capture a side view, it sure look better.

The Panaroma hill that was within walking distance from our resort.  We woke up early and started climbing the hill (really, it was just a hill of 250m) at about 5:30am.  We read that it will take about an hour to climb so we set of early to catch the 6:30am sunrise.  The climb was tough and it was pitch dark that we need to carry torch light to light up the steps.  We were quite enthusiatic but the tireness and hungry stomach caught up with us.  With just 20% climb, we needed rest.  Actually, we did not know how long is the climb.  We push on, taking rest frequently, I took about 4 rests and the pace was slowing down.  In fact, we reached the peak within 40mins and it was still pitched dark when we reached.

 Sunrise from Panaroma Hill, too bad the cloud had blocked the sun.

Fog above the Lembing town 

After watching sunrise, head back down to the town

Back lane! The fog could still be seen in the morning about 8am.

The wet market and further down is the food centre.  The residents rode their motorbike for marketing.

Nice and tasty Char Siew Wanton Noodle, costs RM3.5 (S$1.4).  It is very inexpensive if I used Singapore dollar standpoint.  If I were to work and stay there, and have this at RM3.5, I find that it is expensive.

Overall, Sungai Lembing (林明) is a nice place particularly for those stay in a city such as I.  I used to stay in Kampong till the age of 7 when I moved into HDB flat.  I would catch small fished in longkang (stream), roamed around the village, bath from well water.  So, I love to get back to kampong once a while to enjoy the kampong feel.  Other thought is to let my son enjoy a little of the kampong life.  I wish I could have stayed there for another nite to explore other part of Sungai Lembing.

What do you think?  Any comments?

Sungai Lembing

Does this picture looks familiar to you?  Yes, it is from the current Mediacorp 7pm show, Kampong Ties.  Yes, this Sungai Lembing.  It is a tin mine town in Pahang, Malaysia.  Very nice kampong scenary.  The reason for showing is I am going to head there for a holiday in Decemeber.  Sungai Lembing, I am coming!

Samsung's Smartphone Sales Surpass Apple's

Article from WSJ

Samsung's Smartphone Sales Surpass Apple's

SEOUL—Samsung Electronics Co.'s third-quarter net profit fell 23%, the company said on Friday, but that was less than expected as strong sales of smartphones offset weakness in other consumer products and electronic components.

Samsung in the July-to-September period surpassed Apple Inc. as the leading seller of smartphones by shipping around 28 million, about four times the number it achieved a year earlier, in a rapid transformation of its biggest business by sales. Apple said earlier this month it shipped around 17 million smartphones in the same period.

Samsung in the period also closed in on Nokia Corp. as the world's largest seller of all cellphones.
Samsung's telecom division, which accounted for 36% of revenue, provided more than half of the firm's operating profit and experienced its best profit margin since 2004. Smartphones provided about 31% of the division's revenue and more than 80% of its operating profit, analysts estimate.

According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments in the third quarter grew 44% from a year earlier to reach a record 117 million units. It said Samsung's share of the smartphone market rose to 23.8% during the quarter from 9.3%, while Apple's market share fell to 14.6% from 17.4%. Nokia Corp. saw its share fall sharply to 14.4% from 32.7%.

Meanwhile, the performance of Samsung's chip division, traditionally its biggest source of profits, fell, though not as sharply as expected. Sales of memory chips for higher-margin servers in data centers helped the unit overcome weaknesses in chips for personal computers.

Regarding the severe floods in Thailand, a Samsung executive said the disaster would weigh on sales of personal computers in the fourth quarter due to slower supply of hard drives, but said it will also boost demand for solid-state drives and NAND flash memory chips.

Executives said they expected the fourth quarter to remain solid as demand for smartphones will remain high and sales for other consumer electronics products will enter their yearly peak season. Samsung is on track to report its second-biggest annual net profit ever after last year's record 16.2 trillion won ($14.64 billion).

Samsung's third-quarter net profit amounted to 3.44 trillion won, or $3.11 billion, in the July-September period. Samsung earned 4.46 trillion won in the same period a year earlier. Revenue was 41.27 trillion won, up 3% from 40.23 trillion won a year earlier.

The net figure was higher than the average 3.20 trillion won net profit forecast in a poll of six analysts by Dow Jones Newswires. The results helped boost Samsung's share price to 934,000 won, up 1.1% at 1:34pm local time, outpacing the Kospi's 0.5% rise.

The company since April has been engaged in a high-profile legal battle with Apple over smartphone and tablet computer patents and lost some preliminary court rulings in several countries. But Friday's results showed the dispute has had little impact on its performance.

Samsung's telecom unit reported operating profit of 2.52 trillion won, about 59% of the company's overall operating profit of 4.25 trillion won.

Although the Korean electronics giant didn't provide an overall capital expenditure plan for next year, it said investment in non-memory chips and advanced flat displays is expected to increase sharply from this year.

Earlier this year, parent company Samsung Group budgeted 43.1 trillion won for investments in 2011, up 18% from the 36.5 trillion won spent in 2010. At that time, South Korea's biggest conglomerate said it would invest 10.3 trillion won of the total in the semiconductor sector this year. Samsung had originally planned to spend around 5.8 trillion won on its memory chip business this year and use the remainder for non-memory chip operations

bad publicity

Read this news about a hawker who won $400+k in MBS casino jackpot machine but unfortunately MBS manager claimed that the machine has a malfunction.  It supposed to have a maximum payout of only $50k plus a sport car which could be sold back to MBS for $258+k.  So instead of winning $400+k now the winning is $100k short.

The hawker is not willing to just take that a lodge a report to the Casino Regulatory Authority and waiting for the CRA investigation.  I do hope that she will get what she deserved, not a single cent less.

I am just wondering if someone lost in the casino can the person tell the casino...

1. Your machine malfunction, I am suppose to win.
2. I am malfunction today, I am supposed to stop losing only $50k but I lost $100k to you.  Can I get back the $50k
3. My hand malfunction, it keeps hitting to the SPIN button till on the $$$ in the card disappear.  Can I get back some $$$?

A quick look at My Waterway@Punggol

In recent months, Punggol was one of the talk points in Sngapore.  Particularly those who are currently staying in the north-east (sengkang, punggol area) and those who wish to stay in the north-east, (both private condo and hdb flat).  My Waterway@Punggol is one of the key selling points.  Look at A Treasure Trove private condo, sold 80% on the phase 1 launch. and many HDB launches around waterway area.  2 key launches, the Waterway Terraces I and Waterway Terraces II.

Anyway, I understand that the opening will be on the 23rd October and in order to have a quick view (eager lah!), I cycled there and took a few pictures of the 90% ready Waterway @ Punggol.

The first section of the waterway to be ready.

A bridge, not too sure what is the name!

The path on the left is undulating, maybe to let kids practice cycling on undulating ground.

A caveman shelter or Singapore Zoo Lion Den, I personally do NOT like this design.

The far bank view of the Lion Den

My Dahon on a bridge

Punggol HDB flat.  I like the image in the water.  Look real nice and this is taken from a Samsung Galaxy S.

Waterplant by the riverbank.  Well thought of.

Anyway, before the opening, the path is rather sandy or with little pebble.  While riding the path, I was worried about my tyre puncture, fortunately, nothing happen.  Probably next time ride the mountain bike instead of my Dahon folding bike.

Here is a video for your viewing as well. Hope it turn up well. A little shaky (actually, quite shaky!) Not easy to hold still and ride a bike.

Ok, that is for this post.  I will try to take more pictures next time after the openning.

is Apple really lagging behind competitor?

An article from the Digital Life indicating the new features of the newly launched iphone 4S.  Comparing to the Android smartphone, seem to me that Apple maybe lagging it competitor.  What do you think?

Is this possible?

Very interesting video about the use of glass.  We are using it to some extend now but I doubt about the implementation of all these. Anyway, enjoy the video.

Is Apple going to lag behind competitors?

Is Apple lagging behind competitors?  Read this!

Notice that Samsung shipped 19.6m vs Apple 20.34m unit in Q2’11 and the Q2’11 market share.

Visit to "A Treasure Trove"

While fetching my wife home from work, when we were reaching Sengkang, I mentioned to her that why not let take a look at the surrounding of the new condo that is launching in Punggol soon.  Thus, we drove there and surprised us was that there is a VVIP Preview of the project.  We reached there about 6pm and the car park is full of vehicles.  Easily 100+ but not too sure how many belong to the property sales person.

Anyway, we spend about 45mins at the show flat.  We find that the 3 bedder (C1) has a very excellent layout that we like.  The size is 1044 sqft with a not too big balcony and all the bedrooms are able to accommodate at least a queen size bed with room to walk.  A 8^th floor units facing south is about $966k with a psf of 926.  The location was perfect too!  Within 5mins walk to MRT station.

With the crowds at the show flat, I can see that the property is again on the rise.  I am very surprise actually because of the recent financial woes globally.

Should I sell my wfk and purchase this? 

UOB by singapore river

Outing to singapore river.  Bored at home.

President Tan of Singapore 2011

Today, the Elections Department of Singapore announces that out of the 6 president candidates who submitted for Certificate of Eligibility, 4 of them got the COE.  Meaning, they are qualify to run for the President Election.  By the way, all 4 of them are by the surname of Tan.  They are Tan Jee Say, Tan Cheng Bock, Tony Tan and Tan Kin Lian.

With that, I am going to get another day of public holiday.

finally

Yesterday, after dinner bought some durian.  Had it.  Too bad, the durian SUCKS.  Not too sure if the end of season is here!

Durian crazy!

Having this feeling about taking durian.  I think I have to take some this weekend.

Durian Again

Bought 7 durians yesterday. I believe I ate 11 seeds. The durian is
getting better and better and the price is also getting cheaper and cheaper.

Sunday Cycling

Last Sunday Morning, sent my wife to Changi for a company event.  I brought my Dahon folding bike along and cycled a total of 40km from Changi to ECP Lagoon Hawker Centre and back to Changi.  After the ride, I roamed around the Changi area.  One interesting place is the Kelong boardwalk.

 

the boardwalk itself

the back is the kelong boardwalk

40km ride. Average speed is rather slow at 25km/h