VENUS

So here I am again, writing to you about something funny once again.
Have you heard of the App called "Wish"?
Yes! the one where you buy now, wait a weeks or months before it arrives?
Might I also add that the price is slashed tremendously when compared to other platforms?

So recently I crazily or naively bought...... SEEDS! Blue venus flytrap seeds from the App.

Well, I don't think its real but I went ahead to purchase it and it arrived, from Laos.

The airmail also had some scary declaration like "This does not contain something illegal".

And so, the germination and growing process begin..

Will have to update this blog as time goes...

 

Yes, it's growing well it seems.

*** Update - This post is dead

HOUGANG(KOVAN) NO NIHONGGO NO GAKKOU!

Been awhile since I last posted as I was busy doing nothing! So, during last month, late May, I decided to use my SkillsFuture Credit to sign up for a language course. Was deciding whether Korean of Japanese. Since I have alot of exposure to the Korean language, I went ahead to sign up for Japanese class. Found a Elementary I from the website over at SkillsFutureSG. I saw the course structure and decided that this is the one mainly because of the duration and the word 'Intensive'. It was a 1 month class and so why not? First day began on 28 May 2018. Every lesson starts at 9:55am to 11:50am - 11:55am.

Paid my due near last minute 25 May 2018 ($210 + $60 = only pay $60):

Here is my 'PERFECT' observation and review:
So the routine was to take the lift of Blk 204 Hougang Street 21, press the 4th Storey button. When reached the fourth level, on the left would be where I registered for the class and on the right, it was the classroom. So everyday(except for the public holiday and weekends) I would enter the classroom, sign in with my signature on an attendance list (Have not missed a single lesson). Collect my mini listening quiz (first few lessons) results.

***During the later lessons, there were homework and this is the time where I will put my worksheets into the A4 box cover lid set on the table and went to sit at my usual spot on the front most 2nd seat to the right. Might I add, the teacher will mark our worksheets during the lesson and will return the marked worksheets before we leave.

***During the second class, there was a new student Brandon came in. Yep so I wasn't the latest lol. This was a snippet of the name list before Brandon and I was added. I think 5 dropped out in the end, sad.

So when we start, the teacher will volume down the music from his Ipad and continue. Yes, you didn't hear me wrong, volume down only. So the music is still playing based on the play icon at the top right of the status bar of the Ipad. I also realize that the songs are on the alternate. So on even days its the same song and on odd days a different set.

To begin the lesson, the teacher (at this point I will name him Nakai) would say "Hajime Masu" which means "Let's Begin". We would then read vocabulary or Examples from the textbook. On occasion (about 4-5 times), Nakai will want us to take out our Hiragana printed text (It was the textbook examples but in Hiragana) to practice reading in hiragana. It had Kanji (chinese characters) but had mini hiragana for translation. I only liked that part as it really could be used to read signboards in Japan. Nakai will also give out reading exercises and signboards (during the kore and sore part, "What is this?", "Is this a Chi Ka Tet Tsu(Stapler)?", "Whose Stapler is that?") kind of questions.

So we learnt the easy part and then I got tongue tied when we got to the usage of "Ni", "De", "E", "Ga", "O" not in the correct order. It was mind boggling as they can be inter-swapped and that was why I got many wrong too.

When exiting the classroom, I would always try an effort to say like "Thank you" and learned some new phrases during lesson like "Mata Ashita(See you tomorrow)" and stuff and had Nakai told me "Otukaresama(You worked hard)" but didn't reciprocate lol. Too bad, can't show off..

Sadly, all things come to and end on 26 June 2018 where it was the last day and the last day only consists of the test which I got 43/50 (7 wrong) 86%. The listening test was too much as the speaker volume was not loud enough to hear the conversation and determine it was right or wrong.

Laid out all my course material and certificate to take a group photo and back to the book stand stash.

Wouldn't want to forget this experience and memory. Till next time!

OK KOREA! LET'S GET IT

Hi, so after comtemplating much with my family about who to go and when to go, we have finally decided on a date to go KOREA!.

Since I had been in school and working, there isn't much time allowed for me to be travelling. I was always the one left out in overseas trip along with my mum...

The only partial real trip I had was during NPCC where the group of us went to batam to "enjoy" which I already forgot entirely.

Some attempts to make me happy were during the serving of NS in which I had been given the chance to go to Germany and Australia for #trainings.

So this might be the only chance to go for a "real overseas" without any strings attached.
On to the details.. I had recently booked the air ticket with KOREANAIR priced at $2025.60 for 3 people which was $675.20 each. It is going to be a direct flight instead of stops and that the timing I chose was pretty good for the price. Others had worse, trust me.

After much errors and cancellations, we had finally decided on a Hotel in MyeongDong called Cozy Hotel!!
Reason being... the hotel met most but not all of our requirements.
Total Sum of $763.93 after tax
Sounds cozy enough, there's even free wifi and breakfast..
DIRECTIONS: Exit 7 of Hoehyeon Station

***Itinery
Places and the Timetable Plan in this section

• Map

***FLIGHT DETAILS: 18 April to 25 April 2018

Link to e-tickets here (Don't worry, individual password protected)

***Note

Seating Arrangement

• TO
• 50A(Window) - Mum
• 50B(Mid)         - Sis
• 50C(Aisle)       - Me
• RETURN
• 50C(Aisle)      - Mum
• 50D(Aisle+1) - Sis
• 50E(Aisle+2) - Me

TO

RETURN

Essential Items(?)... (prepare for images)

Power bank - 74Wh (KoreanAIR has 160Wh restriction)

***BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE

• Luggage for check in

• Carry on

• In case luggage goes missing. use this link

***NOTES

Well, the funny think I got 2 cents out of the refund and conversion rate with a total of $47.88 for the train from yongsan to gapyong and from chuncheon to yongsan

***Spenditure So Far
ITX Tickets : 47.88
Klook          : 351.7
Total            : 399.58

ITX-CHEONGCHUN ROUTE:

YONGSAN > CHEONGNYANGNI > PYEONGNAEHOPYEONG > GAPYEONG > NAMCHUCHEON > CHUNCHEON

*Update 26 April 2018 - We finally made it back home!! Had an awesome adventure overseas far away from Singapore. Weather was fine on most of the days but not for the 1 day especially. Images and Videos are uploaded to mega by this link. Hope I will have the opportunity to travel again. Same or other country that is. Till then, Korea is still the best country I have been to thus far!

Tussauds

So on 28 Feb, I finally got a chance to be a little tourist of my country. I had planned this solely because I wanted to get a benchmark of Tussauds and then on to Grevin living wax museum in seoul.

Uhh, don't mind if I bombard this post with the images. Did not get much of the faces because of other people hogging the spot. The itinery for the day was ...
1) Cable car from Harbourfront to Sentosa
2) Madame Tussauds, Image of Singapore Live, Boat Ride, back to Madame Tussauds(Video) and the Photo taking in Sentosa
3) Cable car from Sentosa to Harbourfront and then to NUS science canteen.

Here are the images...
1) Redeeming the tickets at Vivocity Lobby L Level 3 as that is the only place to redeem it at ._.


2) Lunch at Seah Im Food Centre


3) At the cable car site, no redemption here btw..


4) At the cable car boarding place


5) Video Walkthrough here (do not want to spam the place)

6) For Rest of the images, please go here

7) Ended off with tea break at NUS canteen

Homemade Wifi Mesh Tutorial

Hi, so today I have been attempting to solve wifi dead zones in the house. I came across this tutorial on wifi mesh / extension of wifi.

In summary, I have connected a router with another router.

I will name the first router the main router and the extended router the secondary router.

The main router will have the gateway IP of 192.168.1.254
The secondary router will have the gateway IP of 192.168.1.2

In addition to the routers, I have deployed a wireless extender with the gateway IP of 192.168.1.5
This wireless extender is an extension to the secondary router.

Sounds complicated?
Here is a diagram of the whole system

TRIBER

Alright, on to my awesome adventure. Tomorrow 22 Jan, I will be renting an hour of tribecar to bring my mum to bendemeer food market. Would be my first time driving the car of the present. Previously I had cars of the future AKA BlueSG. Experience was good, not sure about gasoline cars though. Hope it is a pleasant experience with the drivers on the road PU TAK KAI GE YO~

Geez, I just realized most of the car rental has a white words with blue background pattern.

*** Update 16 Feb 2018 - Yep, so I managed to cancel the booking about 3 days before as the bluesg station had been set up around the block. Really convenient I would say. Tribecar would be more for per usage. I still cannot get over the idea of parking at one place while the rental is still in effect. So, simply put TRIBECAR < BLUESG. Thank you.

*** Update 6 Feb 2018 - Managed to secure a standard sedan (Nissan Almera) from Joo Seng Road as the other cars in Potong Pasir and Serangoon were taken for the entire day. Seems like the entire day is $158+ but I decided to rent it for 7 hours which was $126.4. Had previously engaged sgcarrental but they said a minimum booking for a week for $980. which was like $140 a day. You do the math.
However, I will then need to make my way to Joo Seng Road in the morning of the visitation and also to drop them at the block and return to Joo Seng Road and back home. Hope I make it in one piece.

***Update 4 Feb 2018 - Had a task to drive my sis and *him from botanic gardens to m hotel. At first I was reluctant as I did not have the experience to drive but then I say what better time to hone my beginner skill. I then exchanged countless map location with my sis as there had the gleneagles pickup point and then off I went. I followed really closely with google map and made my way there, passed by familiar routes which I had taken during my bicycle ride. The journey was nerve wrecking as I did not know if I could reach my destination. Finally and luckily I managed to reach my destination with them waving around. I then plotted my way to m hotel which was 13 mins away. Had alot of commotion as the accelerator of the car was giving me problems and had intermittent speed ups. It was a fun experience but a costly one as it was a Sunday so it was $13+ with $8($7.20) grade 95 RON petrol... At least my sis paid me $8 back. Good experience gained.

***Update 22 Jan 2018 -  I have successfully made a drive to 2A Lorong Lew Lian and back to the original parking spot in 31 mins as my Mum was not comfortable with me experiencing with parking payment. It seems that it was just as expected where gasoline cars do not have a smooth gas experience. Every time there was a need to accelerate, the car would just jerk forward. Another bad thing about tribecar was that the fuel level was down to 1/4 and I still do not have the experience of going to the gas station to pump. This would be needed if I am deciding on driving to further areas. Overall, the experience with tribecar is still ok unless there are any dispute with the existing condition of the car and the next hirer.

BSG

Alright so during my time out of school and work; considering a free man, I have been trying out latest gadgets lately. BLUESG yes! It has been out for quite some time and I can tell you most of the people who had the early birds are hogging up the system as they had the free 2 hour daily till 31 Jan. So unfair for those who were slightly late. But the slightly late people also had a promotion of free 1 year membership. The downside to this was that the auto-renew process would kick in and those signed up will have to fork up $15 every month.

Rental timing charges.
Simply put:
Yearly: 0.33/min ***take note the $15 after 12 months.
Weekly: 0.50/min

They just can't seem to get the steps right:
Simply put:
2 scenarios
1(Starting): TAP(CP), TYPE(Pairing/Pin), TAP(unlock), PRESS&UNPLUG&PLUG,
2(Returning): TAP(CP), UNPLUG&PLUG, TAP(lock)
***CP - Charging Point

My Experiences

On the first ride, since it was daunting to me, I had only unlocked the car and drove it around the multi-storey carpark at 2A Lorong Liew Lian. It was fun but I overshot the 15 minutes minimum to an addition of 7 minutes as I had trouble parking it back and had to call. (I had to call for both rides lol)

On the second ride, I was being forced by myself. I had to collect birthday presents for my mum and sis. Something spur my initiative when I decided to call bluesg for them to activate my membership as it was sitting there pending forever. Luckily the person was nice to expedite the membership and my weekly membership was valid at last. Just nice the ang mo kio carpark had 1 bluesg car and I just had to try it. I exchanged whatsapp with people about my ordeal and off I went to unlock it. I then hit the road. Navigating was scary as I had to be ahead with the upcoming turns and change lanes while doing so. Yep nothing serious but had some honks as I had to change two once.

References

*** Update 16 Feb 2018 - So unlucky that when we were about to leave the house on cny for visitation, the ang mo kio parking did not have anymore space and thus did not have the chance to drive there. However, the ride back created much speculations. Mum blurted out that I was driving which led to the summarized version: "Jason is driving" + use bluesg. Whole bunch of us then waddled our way to the parking lot to find my reserved car. Showed them how to unlock and then I was off. Got nearly lost at bishan flyover but managed to u-turn around toa payoh temple there and got back on track on another route(Upper Serangoon). I really need to read the map much more carefully.

*** Update 8 Nov 2018 - So I finished dropping off another package to near Sengkang at "Rumbia" LRT Station. It started raining slightly and decided that cycling home was not an option. I actually thought of going home by LRT and then NEL line but what is the fun of it. I decided to launch the bluesg app and search for a station near me. To my surprise there was one just at the carpark behind the LRT station. The thought of this so-called refresher course gave me a tingle in my nerve. Alright so here are the images of my rental and the route taken. Surprised my reverse parking was spot on as my positioning at the start was kinda off. After reversing completely to the curb, I opened the door to check and it was within the green zone which was good.

HUSHP

Hi, so I have fixed a timing for an interview today at 5pm. Requirements are rather simple as the the requirement includes being a singaporean with min age of 18 and 1.7m tall. Hope I did not shrink over the years. Will update soon, wish me luck.

Images

Requirements

As for the payment, no doubt it is rather attractive. Pray I could go for the entire hour that is.

*Update 19 Feb 2018: I guess they did not call me up. Well, it was worth a try!

*Update 040118: Finished the interview where I had to fill in lots of information about myself. Then brought in for an informal interview where I learnt that the schedule would be mostly on the weekends to do promotions around singapore, I feel like a star. Then I was brought to try on the mascot uniform. I was also told that there would be a mascot and a minder. Hope the callup would be fun. Will update again.