a Geek's Perspective

I have collected my car already... At least life has re-acquired some form of normalcy once again which is a relief, and that explains the blog title. The car repair was done quite well, as they had to change the entire door, also, the damaged rear area was cut out and replaced too. Total cost hovered within the region of around $4,000 plus and that will now be taken up with the other insurance, subject to the success of the 3rd party claim.

Birthday was great, and I fully made use of my birthday off. Started a tad early with a late night gaming session with JC friends at Katong, having a blast killing undead zombies and vice versa. The actual day wax spent with dear at the zoo which was fun, marred slightly by working calls in the middle which ended a little hot tempered. Anyway, putting aside work, the zoo might not have changed much but it has revamped itself with new shows, making it more interesting. It was a tiring day and when we left the zoo, we were physically drained and just nua-ed at bukit timah sixth avenue.

Dinner was at Brazil Churrascaria. An overly meat indulgent meal specially chosen for me, it was just the place for a meat feast. Many various cuts / styles of meat to try and for the adventurous, chicken hearts and livers. To be honest, the normal style of meats were more than enough for me and it admittedly was a little meat excessive. We enjoyed ourselves, but probably not going to re-visit the place any time soon.

We had never really considered a holiday in Bali till recently when an Airasia promotion caught our eyes and before we knew it, we had secured ourselves a 4 day stay in Bali from the 28 Apr till 01 May. We got both for a very good price, accommodation at $75 per night at Novotel Benoa, and air tickets at around $75 per pax, tax inclusive. We didn't really know what to expect in Bali but gladly, it did not disappoint.
The first day started off with a mild hitch, the flight was delayed by around an hour. Luckily for us, Changi Airport had enough to keep us busy till then. Not much problems when we arrived at Denpasar Airport. It looked very dated, but it had a somewhat resort style feel to it. We hitched a cab from the Airport Taxi Stand to our hotel at around 105k RP. A guy helped us with the luggage to the taxi and he asked for a tip, which was the one and only tip I gave in Bali. After checking in, we explored the coast of Benoa, turned out that although it was presumably famous for water sports, there were hardly any going on in the late afternoon. We had a lunch at a push cart stall, of Bakso, a meatball-beehoon soup which was not too bad. Soon after, we quickly headed to Uluwatu temple to catch the sunset and Kecak dance. It was a nice view of the sunset and the dance was unique. It was a mini play telling the story of the Hindu Monkey God and it was a full house. We hitched the same taxi to Jimbaran Bay for seafood dinner on the beach. It definitely had the ambience and with great company, it made for a very enjoyable dinner! The restaurant was the typical pick your own seafood and cooked in the desired style, the difference and the fun was in having the sand at your feet, the starlit skies above and the cool ocean breeze. 
The second day, we met up with our hired driver, Made Kasa, whom we paid 500k RP to bring us around for 12 hours. Our first stop was Temple Taman Ayun. Next we went to Lake Bratan which had a temple there as well. It turned out that the Balinese are very religious, and their religion of choice was Hindu as opposed to the rest of Indonesia, interesting. We stopped at a nearby market for shopping and it was quite good actually, we got some cheap food and buys. I got cheated for a pair of slippers though, bought it for 50k RP and later found it selling at a supermarket for around 30k RP only. The 50k RP was after bargaining for a period of time too, with the stallowner initially quoting 150k RP. sheesh, haha. Next, we went on to Jatiluwih Rice Terraces. It was huge, with the rice fields spreading across acres of land and looked neverending. On the way to Tanah Lot, we stopped at another temple, famous for hosting many monkeys and fruit bats. Once again, another temple, not much to say about them, and I guess one should really visit when there is a ceremony going on else it is pretty much the same. Last stop for the day was Tanah Lot. We had wanted to time it for sunset but it was pretty early. Tanah Lot is located on the coast and part of the structure was isolated away on a separate cliff. We asked the driver to stop us at Legian / Kuta for dinner and some shopping as well. We explored the streets of Kuta and it was chock full of surfers and tourists. Very different from the place we stayed with definitely a more lively buzz. Taxis were honking at us at every opportunity to see if we wanted a ride and it was quite irritating but one does learn to ignore them. We had dinner at Kopi Pot and great food here. Besides, there was free WIFI and cheers to Pfingo, as we used the opportunity to make internet calls back home.
For the 3rd day, we woke up to soak in the suns at our hotel beach area. Turned out that the water sports took place in the morning and business was good. We ended up utilizing one near our hotel, who charged us 200k RP for a 15 min jet-ski ride which we took up. With that, we explored the coasts of Benoa until the guy called us back. Our hotel had a somewhat private beach with deck chairs and towels available which made it very convenient. No worries on security as well. We lunched at a nearby restaurant before returning to the hotel for a quick nap as I was not feeling too good after the morning activities. The hotel had a free shuttle to the Nusa Dua Bali Collection, a high end shopping mall village in Nusa Dua. It was a bit too upmarket and not very interesting. Just countless shops selling Polo Ralph stuff. We did a quick exploration before hailing a cab back to Kuta for shopping and dinner. Not much stuff to buy here, mainly beach / surf-related items and we went to sit by the Kuta beach to catch the sunset. There were neverending group of people coming up to us offering beach mats, temp tattoos, ice cream etc, really quite irritating actually. We ended up watching one guy having his surfing lessons and it was pretty interesting to see how they learnt and we cheered when he finally was able to stand for sometime. Well, the next time we come Bali, we will be coming back to try out the surfing. For dinner we ate at Kafe Dulang, famous for their Soto Ayam, which was quite nice. We walked around abit more and bought tidbits to bring back to Singapore. We ended up at Ocean Beach Club for drinks before heading back to the hotel. I can’t exactly remember what drink it was but the so-called drink of the century, some martini concoction was terrible!
The final day saw us crawling out of bed early at around 5:30am to catch the sunrise. It was fun! From seeing the gentle glow as the sun creeps up to the brilliant hue that it cast on the sky. We continued to laze by the beach and the pool till around 9 before heading back to our room to prepare to check out. Gosh, before we knew it, we were back in Denpasar and awaiting for our flight back to Singapore, which guess what, was delayed by an hour as well. Haha… 

We went for dinner at Kim Choo’s Kitchen, a peranakan place at Katong. The very local cuisine was meant to re-introduce my tastebuds back to food here after a week of being overseas. It was our first time there, and it looks pretty authentic, with the traditional Nyonya decor and what look like antiques there.

la comida es deliciosa (the food is delicious)… although it was a tad saltish.

We had stewed pork, chicken buah kelak, assam pedas and all relatively big portions for 2. The assam pedas reminded me of the one we had at Changi Shore restaurant, but for a fraction of the cost. I shall attempt to bring my grandma here for dinner soon. Also, there’s no GST or service charge, so that’s a good 17% discount already. Hmm… shall try to bring my grandma here for dinner soon. Anyway, need to find an alternative for parking, my usual place beside Katong Mall has raised its rate and was annoyed to see that they don’t even have any grace period. zzz…

I have been up since 1am. Gah, I slept from ard 1030 till 1 so I did get some rest but I can’t seem to sleep back. I am starting to feel sleepy now but I am suppose to go to work, sheesh. :(

After a week of attempts to leave work early to shop for cars ended disappointingly with some days actually leaving later than normal, i finally got down to visiting car showrooms and test driving the cars i was interested in. Surprisingly or perhaps just being plain fickle minded, the fit was no longer a consideration.

Basically 4 cars were in mind, the toyota axio, the honda civic, the hyundai avante and the mitsubishi ex. The first one off the list was the axio, the looks just did not appeal to me. I was seriously contemplating the civic despite its price. I guess for the civic, the 1.8L features were really a class above and I could only settle for the 1.6L one due to my COE. Furthermore the only stock available was the display model. That particular model's condition just wasn't very good and hence, shall not pay so much for a seemingly 'second hand' car. That left 2 choices and between the 2, despite the lancer more aggressive and popular image, the avante just appealed to me after the test drive and it met all my requirements for a car. So after one long hassle that has stretched months, I swapped the more popular 'H' for the slanted one but yet, still happy that I had a second chance to change cars.

So after putting pen to paper, a day of popping in and out of showrooms and various test drive cars was not about to end yet. This final stop was way out of my league. It was a hellish ride, and think I crashed at almost every turn haha... We had headed over to Comcentre, where Singtel had staged a F1 simulator and I think it is still not really hyped up at the moment as the place was rather empty except for their rather enthusiastic staff. It was a good experience, it is really uncomfortable to be seated in the car for long. To think that for such an expensive car, can't they look into making it more comfortable for the driver. Oh well, F1 is coming to town, and looks like I gotta work on those days!

Went to Seah Street Deli for dinner last night.. my surname leh, must support. Haha.. very American diner like, even to the detail of not having chili sauce on the table (only ketchup and mustard).. had to specially request for a bottle haha.. Food was good, me being the burger fan, was quite pleased with it! Oh, Reuben, Chong, some other guy + their families were sitting behind us, they are doing the same job as me, albeit 6 years older, and the crossroads of leaving/staying in the organisation. Wah, still so on to meet up for dinner and maybe a few years down the road, I will be in their shoes! Didn't really get to eavesdrop on their conversation but at the start heard some engineering comment, gosh.. that was abit extreme.


Anyway, after dinner went to watch "The Campaign to confer the Public Service Star on JBJ". A political satire about that JBJ, a fictitious figure instead of the real one, but yet, it was still a tongue in cheek way of poking fun at how Singaporeans are still very much afraid of getting involved with the opposition. It was a good play, with the 2nd half being more serious and much better, yet, felt the plot was abit weak at times due to the links between acts perhaps a tad weak. Guess the interesting part was seeing how the old and new civil service contrast, and bringing in the media, the law and how the fear of each other as well as the countless red tapes was apt considering that I'm part of the system as well.

Anyway, something was wrong with the air conditioning of the place, became very fidgety as it was rather stuffy and wasn't really able to concentrate on the show too! Or maybe hmm, just not used to sitting down for long.. hoho.. Oh well, end of the month, another concert, but that one doesn't involve sitting, holy wars, here I come =)

Thanks for getting me a watch to help keep track of time.. and of course, looking at it definitely will remind me of you! (Not like I ever needed something to remind me, haha) It's my birthday present, that's cool and most importantly, looks great on me! Been using it very often in office nowadays, always waiting for time to pass as hours drag by slowly, but to be honest, these few days its getting much better and definitely less of a drag now. Guess as time pass, we get used to it, the normal daily routine and accustomed to life as such. Hmm.. is that a bad thing?

A thin plot movie but surprisingly quite historically accurate with many of the details kept in check. Although it does appear quite silly and draggy at certain points, I like how the way the movie doesn't take itself seriously, with the emphasis on the glorified bloodfest and just playing to its strengths. It should appeal to any male out there with the over abundance of testosterone and game-like feel to it! Which brings me to the next point, a gaming take on 300.