Hi readers! If anyone has noticed I haven’t had a chance to blog in a while. That’s because I found a normal corporate job and it turns out I had to come out of my early retirement.
It sucks that I haven’t been able to share my Singapore experience but I hope to do so again soon.
It was pretty good timing. I kinda predicted that it would be easier to find work once the economy has started to recover and so it seemed I was right.
I bought my husband a 47” FULL HD LCD TV with my first paycheck during the last computer expo. It was good value for money. And till now I find it awesome to watch HD movies in.
The brand is a local one from Singapore called Palladine but they say that the LCD panel is the same as LGs.
I’ve known about Tekka Market for some years now but I’ve only come to check it out recently. Now, I ask myself why I haven’t done so sooner.
I’ve found a lot of stuff I’ve been looking for at Tekka – like fresh beef! Prior to Tekka market, I bought frozen beef at either Cold Storage or Carrefour. Fresh beef at these places were expensive but I was never really satisfied with frozen beef because even after an hour of pressure cooking, it was still tough.
The beef I buy at Tekka Market is fresh and is priced fairly the same as the beef we buy in Manila. It’s tender too. I’m so happy that I can have tapa now whenever I want it. What’s great is at the place I buy my beef from, you can just tell them whether you want tapa, nilaga, bulalo, sinigang, etc.
I’m so used to checking what’s new on the US MSN website that I am just so frustrated with this local Singapore MSN website called XinMsn I’m close to pulling my hair out.
It all started with the localized Singapore MSN website. It looked like the US MSN site except the news is more about the local Singapore scene. Everytime I went to MSN site, a pop-up would appear asking me if I wanted to go to the local MSN site instead. I never said yes because the local site is full of celebrity news from the local show business which I don’t even follow. I don’t know a single Singapore celebrity and I’m not really interested. Plus I don’t like the writing style of some local articles, it’s like reading a tabloid even when I’m supposed to be reading current events.
Eventually, I noticed the pop-up was no longer appearing and it was automatically taking me to the Singapore MSN. I didn’t mind much then since there was a link that says “take me to the US website”.
But now since the merge of MSN and MediaCorp I’m constantly being brought to XinMsn.com and there seems to be no override. I hate that it presumes to know better than I do.
Now it’s loaded with even more local celebrity crap which I just hate because I don’t even watch the local channels and they don’t even have an equivalent of MSN money! It happens on both my desktop and my mac. But hubby’s laptop still shows the US MSN site except I don’t like using hubby’s laptop because I find it slow. There has to be an override or is there no longer a democracy on the internet?
I’ve tried clearing the history, the cookies, and even private browsing but that annoying website is still there. Help!
Hubby has been itching to buy either a PS3 or an HD player and I’ve been trying to delay him for some time now.
But last week at the IT show, I finally relented when we saw a promising looking HD Player selling for just S$129.00
What I liked most about it is its portable size. It’s slightly smaller than my external hard drive so it can easily fit in my handbag which is good because we can bring it with us anywhere during travel.
A person who has citizenship in at least one country, but who is living in another country. Most expatriates only stay in the foreign country for a certain period of time, and plan to return to their home country eventually, although there are some who never return to their country of citizenship.
Based on this definition, a lot of people in Singapore would be considered an expat even if you exclude the low wage foreign laborers who are obviously not included in the context.
There is what you call an expat package that not all foreign professionals get. But if you do get this package, then it is certainly easy to raise kids anywhere when the mere tissue paper that you use to wipe your butt is paid for by the company under living allowance and you can send your kids to any international school of your choice courtesy of the company. Singapore then would likely be a nice place to raise your expat kids.
With the anti-foreign talent sentiments lately, I wonder if the survey holds true for those that fall under the dictionary definition of expat but do not have the expat package.
Here’s a must-read well written profile about Manny Pacquiao by Andrew Corsello for GQ Magazine.
It’s so interesting that I got through all 7 pages without getting one bit bored. This piece to me is like watching an Al Pacino / Robert de Niro fictional movie directed by Guy Ritchie. Strange, ruthless, ironic and humorous.
It’s a nice insight to the crazy (or strange is the word the author used) world of Manny Pacquiao and his entourage. Though I only know Manny from watching his fights I would tend to believe this article is spot on.
PS. Only after reading this article did I find out what ultimately happened to that guy Chavit Singson caught in bed with his wife. He should have know better than to mess with Chavit.
Here’s a recent purchase I got online. We use a lot of batteries at home for our gadgets and my baby’s toys. The baby’s toys alone consume a lot of batteries and it tugs on my green conscience every time we have to replace and throw away batteries and that’s quite often since we hardly turn off baby’s toys. And I’ve always wondered how and where to safely dispose of batteries because they release toxic chemicals into landfills. But for lack of information, I usually just throw them in the trash.
The Universal Studios Theme Park in Singapore is set to open to the public this March 18 at 8:28AM. Tickets started selling yesterday but the online ticketing system wasn’t able to handle the overwhelming response. The hotlines were also continuously busy.
Tickets for the opening day were sold out right and tickets for the first weekend are selling fast too.
Maybe I’ll wait till the excitement about it simmers down before I go since I don’t think it will be that fun when all the rides are full and you have to go through very long queues at each ride.
Here’s another reason you should watch your credit card bills closely.
Aside from making sure you are not paying for fraudulent charges made on your card, you should also take a look at the finance charges you are being charged with.
I usually pay my credit card bills in full so that I don’t pay finance charges. I pay them online through BPI Expressonline. But due to my own carelessness, I mistakenly paid my HSBC bill to my BPI card. It was a scheduled payment but I only noticed the mistake after the payment was made.
The first thing I did of course was to call BPI and ask them for my money back which they returned a few days later. Thank you, BPI. The next thing I did was find out the rate of finance charge – 3.5%. When I was in college, I thought that 3.5% was applied to the balance after you’ve made the payment but actually that interest charge is applied to the outstanding balance before your payment. So if you have left even 1 cent on your balance you would be charged interest based on your previous balance.
Up till recently, I thought that was all there is to it – until my booboo.
One of my favorite food haunts in now in Singapore!
You can now get your tapa fix from Tapa King here in Singapore. The new Tapa King is located at Lau Pa Sat Stall 92, 18 Raffles Quay Singapore and will open on March 1, 2010.
For Pinoys planning to work in Singapore who may not be aware, companies in Singapore pay a levy for every foreign worker (ie non-citizen, non-PR) that they employ. Levy is defined in the dictionary as a fee that is imposed – like a tax. But in the past, despite the levy, it still comes out cheaper for companies to employ foreigners who are willing to accept job offers at lower salaries than their locals counterparts.
2009 hit a record high of US$17.3 billion in OFW remittances despite the great global recession. I can’t even imagine how much that is in Philippine pesos.
So with the inflow of US dollar into the country, the exchange rate is strengthening in favor of the Peso. That’s good news if you’re online shopping in the US using your Pesos because it comes out cheaper. But it’s bad news for me, and all other OFWs who are sending money back to the Philippines because it takes more dollars now for the same amount of peso that we’ve been remitting before. [Read more →]
Lately, (well more like for a couple of years now) I’ve been concerned about my excessive hair shedding. People always tell me it’s normal to shed lots of hair but anyone who lives with me will attest that I shed too much hair. I knew it was serious when hubby suggested I go see a trichologist about my hair.
A few weekends ago, I got intercepted at the mall and was convinced into buying a S$28 voucher for a hair treatment at the newly opened Beijing 101 in Sengkang. I figured why not, I might as well give it a try. But deep inside, I kinda knew I was up against major hard selling when I redeem that voucher. After all, I’ve been in the same situation before and if anything, I should have learned my lesson.
So yesterday, I went to Beijing 101 to redeem my voucher. [Read more →]
This year of the Tiger, get your chance to get up close and personal with one. Get behind the scenes with 10-year old Omar the White Tiger at the Singapore Zoo and see how beautiful and majestic these animals are and hopefully be inspired to save the dwindling tiger population in Asia. (If you should know, Omar wasn’t the tiger that was involved in the fatal attack last 2008.)
Learn how the animals are conditioned to follow certain instructions so that they don’t need to be sedated when being examined.
I’ve personally been behind the scenes with these tigers [Read more →]
. can you give some info about elementary tuition fees? kamusta...