Rain, rain come again, wash away the darn haze

This is what it looks after a short heavy down pour this evening around my place. At 7pm, the PSI is 42 which is in the "Good" range.

Haze,haze when will you leave?

The horrific haze from Indonesia is still around. The PSI at 5 am was 84 which is approaching the unhealthy zone. Even with the slight change in the wind direction from north east, the stubborn haze would not totally disappear...*sigh*.

Sunny without much haze

Photo @ 1pm with PSI @ 58


Steward purportedly robbed and beaten in Shanghai,China.

Concerning the Shanghai case whereby it was reported that a steward was robbed, I was told it was a rumour and the steward was not involved.
However, whether the case did happen or not, it serves as a reminder to all crew to be vigilant during their nightstops.
In the past, many were robbed, traumatised and even harmed during the nightstops.
I remember one case in HNL where a steward was beaten up badly by several unknown people at a hotel carpark. He was not robbed.
At the same place, a leading stewardess was robbed off her money and the company's bar sales money. She was badly traumatised and submitted her resignation immediately upon return to Singapore.
A steward was robbed in his London hotel room by a man who claimed he was a hotel employee going into his room to check the bar items in the fridge. The steward was slashed in the neck after refusing to surrender his Rolex watch.
There were many other cases too but the few cases I have mentioned will sufficed.
Therefore, for the Shanghai case whether it existed or not is unimportant but it serves to remind us to be extra vigilant when going out alone in a foreign country.



Japanese Oden for brunch (home cooked)

Oden (おでん?) is a Japanese winter dish consisting of several ingredients such as boiled eggs, daikon, konjac, and processed fishcakes stewed in a light, soy-flavoured dashi broth. Ingredients vary according to region and between each household. Karashi is often used as a condiment.
Oden was originally what is now commonly called misodengaku or simply dengaku; konnyaku or tofu was boiled and eaten with miso. Later, instead of using miso, ingredients were cooked in dashi and oden became popular.

Oden is often sold from food carts, and most Japanese convenience stores have simmering oden pots in winter. Many different kinds of oden are sold, with single-ingredient varieties as cheap as 100 yen.

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 Haze almost gone

This photo is taken at about 9 am from my apartment. It is sunny and almost haze free. The wind is now blowing from north east and at least for the now, the sky is clear. PSI@ 3 pm was 56 which is in the "Moderate" range.

Grocery shopping & breakfast at Tampines Giant

Alcoholic pilots and cabin crew
Free and cheap access to alcohol plus loneliness may have contributed to some pilots and stewards to be alcoholics. A very small percentage of around 1% to 2% of the crew population of 9,000 (pilots & cabin crew) were alcoholics. I am not talking about the occasional social drinkers.
Most alcoholics were male crew. The bad thing was that most of these people were smokers too.
A cabin crew could easily "off-load" liquor from the aircraft bar for free. Some would filled up the 1.5 litre mineral water bottle with a choice of their alcoholic drinks like whisky ( most popular), brandy, vodka etc and bring them to their hotels to keep them company during their night-stops.
You may ask me how did they get the liquor free of charge? The answer is simple. All the crew had to do was to write off the amount of alcohol as "consumed" by their passengers...no question asked by the airline.

One steward drank so much that he had to be literary carried down from his hotel room for his flight. Another who had his superior on the same dared not drink but later collapsed on arrival at their destination. He was diagnosed as suffering from ADE ( Alcohol Deprivation Effect). One senior steward was drunk to the extent he didn't realised his wig was worn the wrong way.

A pilot was sacked after another pilot from a foreign airline reported the former for being half drunk while checking out of his hotel for his flight.

Some pilots were nice to the senior stewards who were in charge of the bar so they could have their liquor "canisters" filled up free of charge.

There were crew who not only stole liquor for their consumption but sold them to outstation bars and restaurants for a small profit.

Just like a few girls who shoplifted to pass their time the guys drank like crazy.

Please note that the above happened during my time with the airline. I am not sure about the present day crew's activities during night-stops.

Went for my evening walk
It has been a few months since I last went for my walk. The haze was the problem because one can't exercise with so much harmful gases and poisonous particles in the air. But today is different with the haze almost gone and the air quality has improved to "good".
Below are some pictures I took along the way. The pictures are mostly taken in the upper middle class area of houses that cost millions.
A few are pictures of the playground with children and adults from HBD areas.

"Crazy" by Diana Krall, Elvis Costello and Willie Nelson

13 October 2015 Tuesday

I thought this is amusing. Edmond drew it and sent to me. The haze must be bothering not only humans but aeroplanes too.
Edmond Tay is my ex colleague. He is one of the few whom I still keep in touch. He lives about 40 minutes drive from my place but his grown up daughter lives a stone's throw away from my place.
At times when Edmond visits his daughter he will call me for a drink at a coffee shop nearby. Yes I almost forget to mention that he is an artist too.

The haze is still around and at 5 am the PSI reading was in the unhealthy range of 129, much worse than yesterday. Yes, as usual I am up early at 4 am. It's a good thing I have a computer at home so I can spend time on it when I am not asleep. I don't watch TV except the news or some interesting documentary programs.

8:30 am:

The haze is getting worse by the hour. At 8 am the PSI is 144 (unhealthy range). Our purifier is almost red and that means the haze has infiltrated into out apartment overnight. We do not switch on the air-conditioning in the living room (where the purifier is) during the night but in the bedroom.

Hazy day again, shopping and eating at neighbourhood mall

On Mondays and Tuesdays, senior citizens are given a 3% and 2% discount respectively if they shop at NTUC Fair Price. Since today is a Tuesday, you will notice there is a 15 cents discount given to me in the bill (big deal). The eggs that I bought are about the biggest and most expensive (Omega 6 plus vitamin E...don't true or not). Actually I dislike eating small eggs so I will always go for the bigger ones.
As for the grapes (think they're from Ozzland) they are quite sweet and not too expensive.

The haze PSI reading is 153 at 12 noon and so I equipped myself with the N95 mask and a pair of 25 year old sunglasses to protect my eyes ( see below) whenever I leave home (don't want to take chances as many have fallen ill).

For brunch, I had a piece of brown toast with peanut butter spread, 2 soft boiled eggs and a cup of kopi O at Toast Box. Didn't take any picture because many of you would have seen that in my earlier post (eat quite often at Toast Box).

Had this Hainanese curry rice for dinner. Quite tasty at $6

7 October 2015 Wednesday

Good morning friends
The time is 6:55 am and the PSI is 113 (lower end of unhealthy range). There was a light rainfall around 3 am and it helped to clear some of the haze. Hopefully, the air will be healthier during the day. We have over the last few weeks living under hazy and unhealthy condition. We hope and pray somehow this yearly affair will be over once and for all.

Photo taken from my apartment at 6:50am this morning

I woke up at about 5 am and it isn't unusual of me waking up so early. There were days when I wake up at 4 am. I usually go to bed around 12 midnight. I don't sleep very much. This habit may be due to my 35 years of flying as a flight attendant. I have been around the world many times flying into various time zones. One day I would be in Singapore and 14 hours later I would probably be landing in Heathrow airport which is 8 hours behind Singapore. This is just one of the examples. We,crew do this cycles hundred of times in our flying career. Therefore, it's not unusual to hear that flying crew suffers from sleep disorder,if you may call it.
Well, it's a good thing I left flying after all those years. I've retired since 2003. I lead quite a healthy life despite my years of being a cabin crew. In 2 months time, I will turn 70.

Those photos (3 of them) were taken around 11:15 am when the PSI has improved to 68 which is in the moderate range (sigh of relief). By right it should be like the bottom photo (taken at 7 am at the famous Newton hawker center) which was taken before the dreadful haze invaded Singapore.

Breakfast at ToastBox

My apology for not showing the 2 soft cooked eggs because after eating them then I realised I should have taken a shot of them. Nevertheless, the cup of coffee,2 eggs and the toasted brown bread with peanut butter spread cost $5.10c. The extra mochi-peanut butter bun was from the shop next door (Bread Talk) which is part of ToastBox chain.

Our home cooked dinner

For dinner, we had the steamed black bean salmon head, grated onion and okra, fried tofu, miso soup and rice. The dinner was cooked by my wife and the above was my portion which I think it was a little too heavy. 

Chinese Temple Anniversary Celebration this weekend

This temple is right opposite my apartment. Once a year, it will spend a lot of money celebrating its anniversary. There will be big crowd of people during this coming weekend. It has functions on other occasions too and you can imagine the noise of the drums, singing and its auction of temple stuff that could go on for a couple of nights

4 October 2015 Sunday

Ex-stewardess with full haze protection

Haze clearing up but not for long

(Photo taken from my apartment)
According to the weather man, the wind has changed direction a little this morning and we are getting a temporary respite. The 3 hour PSI reading is 81 as at 10 am. Albeit the condition is just temporary but many are now out shopping,eating and having fun in the sun.
I read an article in Today's newspaper that someone suggested we pay Indonesia not to burn their forests and peat land so we would not have this haze problem. What kind of crazy idea was that! The writer justified her idea by stating that we are paying Malaysia for our water so why not pay the Indonesians too.

Sushi Express@ Seletar Mall for early dinner

Early dinner to us is the off-peak period around 4:30 pm when the place is less crowded. By the time we left at 5:40 pm there was a long queue outside Sushi Express. We ate 11 plates of sushi,sashimi and desserts each and the bill came to about $39 inclusive of 7% GST and 10% service charge.
The cheese cake and mango pudding are delicious. The sushi and sashimi are fresh and tasty and worth every cent we spent. As today is Sunday, the menu has a bigger and better spread as compared to weekdays.
Please note that the seaweed Sushi Express use to wrap the sushi is not crisp so we do not usually eat those.



The Haze is back again

The haze situation has deteriorated from a PSI reading of 81 this morning at 10 am  to 118 at 7 pm. We are now in the lower end of the unhealthy range.

I heard  FINA World Swimming Championship has cancelled some of its events due the haze situation here. It was supposed to be held over the weekend. Meanwhile, FINA is mulling over the idea of suing the companies which are responsible for starting the haze in Indonesia.

3 October 2015 Saturday

Breakfast@ nearby mall inspite of haze

We ventured out to have our breakfast at Seletar Mall which is a 5 minute walk from our home. As you can see we take the hazardous nature of the haze seriously. It is not a laughing matter as many around us have fallen sick with respiratory diseases,asthma and other health complications. We do not want to take the chance of falling ill and so we equipped ourselves with masks, head gears and sunglasses.
Along the way to the mall, we witnessed many young couples with babies and people of all ages walking around happily without masks, oblivious of the haze. Were these people gullible or just couldn't be bothered to wear the mask?
The PSI at 9 am was 177 which is in the high end of the unhealthy level. I understand that this horrendous haze may be around until end November *sigh*.

Contrast between S'pore and Fukuoka

I was in Fukuoka a few months ago. It was Yufuin to be exact, a small hot spring resort. The place was beautiful without any haze or pollution like the one we are experiencing now. 

Dinner@ home

Dinner consists of home made Fried Gyoza, BBQ sauce Spare Ribs with Daikon (radish), Grate Onion and Ocra with a small serving of rice.

First posting in this blog...29 September 2015 Tuesday

Just installed a new system 3 Eco Inverter Sharp room air conditioners to all my 3 bedrooms yesterday. It was actually a replacement of my old air conditioner which we had for the last 11 years. The old set was still functioning well as I serviced it regularly but it's time to change.
We paid about $3,500 for the 3 room air conditioners which include 5 servicing and an extended warranty.
Naturally the new air conditioners are quieter than the old ones. As for the living room, we changed the old Sanyo air conditioner which we had for 5 years to a new Daikin set 2 years ago for about $2,300.

Today, I woke up at about 8:30am, anxiously waiting for the Singapore stock market to open (opens at 9 am on weekdays). The Dow Jones was down last night by a hefty 312 points to 16001. The Dow has been declining from a high off 18,000 a few months ago. The performance of the Dow would inevitably affect the Singapore market. The STI or Straits Times Index has been dropping too.
Reason why I mentioned about the Dow and the STI is because I do trade shares online.

The STI dropped 40+ points right from the opening and it didn't improve until about the closing time (5pm) to a mere 3.98 points. STI now stands at 2787.94 to the relief of many traders.
The stocks that I trade are also affect by the steady decline of the STI over the last 2 months.
I went to Saizeriya for lunch despite of the horrible haze . It was a set lunch of meat with a fried egg plus rice. The meal came with salad and free flow of hot/cold beverages.

After lunch, it was back to my PC watching my shares and in between blogging about this new blog.
The haze is in the very unhealthy range of  230 PSI (as at 6pm). We didn't have much of a choice but to switch on our air conditioning for the whole flat.

Due to the haze situation, we decided to eat at home. The dinner was a simple Japanese meal known as "Nabe" or "One pot dishes". We boiled vegetables together with sliced beef (sabu sabu beef),tofu, potatoes etc. We ate the food with Japanese sauces. It was a simple,healthy and yummy dinner (pictures below).