President Elect Halimah Yacob

Photo credit: The New Paper

Madam Halimah Yacob the former speaker of the house is now the Singapore President-Elect. She is the only one who is awarded the certificate of eligibility. This time round the President's position is reserved only for a Malay candidate. Tomorrow, Madam Halimah Yacob will be sworn in as Singapore's eight elected President.
The position of the President carries an annual salary of S$4.2 million or about US$ 3.2 million. The President will hold office for a fixed term of 6 years. There are no term limits for the presidency.
Congratulations President-Elect Halimah Yacob!

Afternoon snacks @ Ikea

We went to Ikea and had our afternoon snacks of fried chicken wings, spring rolls and chocolate cake. The chicken wings were crispy and quite large. For 6 wings, Ikea charged us $8. The spring rolls cost $1.20 for 2 and the cake was $3.50.
We adjourned to Giant supermart for our fresh fruit juices instead of drinking coffee/tea at Ikea.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

For dinner, we went to Blk 628, AMK for chicken rice and bubor chacha (no pic). This is for one serving ($3.50). I had the chicken breast meat. The chilli sauce and ginger tasted better than most.
The whole chicken is quite small like the kampong chicken. One whole chicken cost S$22.
The rice is nicely fragrant with the chicken oil but the grain is small.

Sushi and Pad Thai

On the left is the picture of sushi and chicken nuggets which my mum-in-law sent us from Japan. She bought them from a supermarket. I had tasted the sushi before when I was in Japan and it was worth every yen. It was fresh and delicious and only cost 1,000 Yen which is about S$12.50.
The picture on the right is Pad Thai, a Thai dish prepared at home by my wife. She substituted the glass noodles with udon and tasted just as good as the one we ate at the Thai restaurant.

Our Sunday meals

After lunch we proceeded to have our dessert (chendol) and spring rolls. The lunch was made up of goyza, chicken nuggets, gobo and rice, all prepared at home.

Uber's drivers rate passengers too

Not only do passengers on Uber rate their drivers but it can be the other way round too. Passengers who consistently get poor ratings from their drivers may be banned from travelling with Uber.
I've consistently get a rating of 5 from the drivers which is considered as excellent.
To be rated as 5, one has to be respectful of his or her driver. One must also be at the correct point of pick-up besides other things like gently closing the door when disembarking etc.
My philosophy is to be nice and courteous to our fellow beings, especially the Uber drivers who are driving hours to put food on the table for their families. I am truly glad that I have so far been rated as an "excellent" passenger. 

Yakitori and bara chirashi don @ Toriki

Dinner at Toriki Japanese Restaurant, JCube was quite an experience. The food was good and prices reasonable. The bara chirashi don was really good and came with large fresh chunks of salmon, tuna, swordfish and ikura ($17.90).
The yakitori was as good as the above. If you order the yakitori don, it will only cost you $9.90.

Ikea lunch

My friend and I had lunch at Ikea this afternoon. It was a change from the usual hawker center and coffee shop food. We spent a good 3 hours chatting. Looking forward to going there again.

Uber/Grab is the way to go

                                                     

                                                         
Today, I went to Changi Hospital for my post eye operation examination. I took a bus and then a train to Simei where I caught a shuttle bus to the hospital. It took me a total of 1 hour 10 mins for the journey. The total fare was about $1.10 which was cheap due to the senior citizen discount. However, the 40 minute bus ride was not so enjoyable (don't want to go into details as some people may not like what I've to say).
On the return journey, I ordered Uberpool (sharing) and the fare was $12 which was inexpensive as compared to what I've to pay for the ride on the regular taxi. The driver did a small diversion so my fellow passenger could disembark at his condo. He probably paid about the same amount. The journey took only 30 minutes in the comfort of a brand new Toyota Prius. I chatted with the driver and found him to be a pleasant fellow. I also learned many interesting things about this new concept of cab sharing.
Today was my fifth time taking Uber. I've not try taking Grab.
Frankly, I am for this relatively new ride sharing concept. It has solved our transportation problem. Pre-ride sharing, I used to wait for as long as 1 hour just to get a taxi. Most of the time especially in the morning or around 4pm on  weekdays, taxis would refused to pick passengers.
Now with Uber and Grab, we do not face this problem anymore. We can get our cab sharing rides in less than 5 minutes.
Just for information, there are now 42,000 Uber and Grab cabs and that is double the 20,000 regular taxis in Singapore.

Papaya Thai salad & Yoshinoya beef rice

Cilla Black and Phil Everly duet

                          The fabulous Cilla Black and Phil Everly " Let it be me" 1974 "live"

Home cooked breakfast & lunch

Buying a house in Japan?

My parents-in-laws sent us these photos. These are houses being built about 20 minutes from  where they are living now. They are interested in the one storey house which is quite rare in Japan. Houses in Japan are 2 to 3 storey high. Since they are old, they can't climb the staircase to the bedrooms in the upper floor and so they would like to live in a single storey house.
We were told each single storey house with 3 bedroom cost around 40 million Japanese Yen which is about S$500,000. Each unit comes with freehold land of about 1,200 sq feet.
We thought of paying for half the cost and they pay the balance. Each party will have to fork out about $250,000. Since, my wife and I are unemployed, we can't afford to pay.
In order to solve the problem of cost, I told my wife I want to be a Uber driver. If I can earn around $5,000 a month and save every cent then in 4 to 5 years, I should be able to save around $250,000 to pay our share of the house.
The idea is quite good but at my age can I drive 10 hours a day for 4 to 5 years?

Breakfast @ a coffee shop

Although today is a public holiday (Hari Raya Haji), the coffee shop at our place isn't crowded at all. We took the opportunity to have a go at our favourite ba-chor-mee ($3.50 each bowl). We noticed that there is a new stall selling Hainanese chicken rice and so we ordered a plate of chicken breast meat ($7) to go with our noodles. The noodles and chicken was tasty especially with the chicken rice chilli sauce.

Score : Rooster 1-----0 Dog

Had a 1/4 of a small watermelon for breakfast. Lunch was champon noodles and dinner was ikan pari (sting ray) assam pedas and a plate of broccoli. The meals were cooked by my talented wife. They were yummy and the water melon was sweet. All products were purchased from Giant.

Giant supermart is the way to go

I only used my Passion Card which is my Link Card twice at Giant and they gave me a rebate of $1.51 cts. The Passion Card is free of charge unlike the NTUC FairPrice card which we had to pay $9 subscription every month.
Besides, on every Tuesday if I shop at Giant, they will give me a 3% discount of my total purchase because I am a senior citizen (all over 60 is entitled to a 3% discount on Tue).
Therefore, I have stopped shopping at FairPrice.
Another thing I noticed is that the prices of most items at FairPrice are more expensive than at Giant...example 100 gram of Australian broccoli at Giant is 49c whereas at FP it is 71c!