A Singaporean In Australia

Extracted from Strait Times, 5 Oct 2011 by Li XueYing

Mr Lee and Mr Goh were conferred the titles of honorary Past Secretary-General, 'in recognition of their outstanding service and seminal contributions to the PAP and Singapore', said the PAP.

If I have the honor to meet either one of the great men, I'll like to ask them which title they prefer me to address them by. Ex-Prime Minister? Ex-Senior Minister? Ex-Minister Mentor, Emeritus Senior Minister? Or the newest one, Past Secretary-General?

I think these titles do them great injustice. What the heck are they thinking? Conferring miserly titles? After the new National Stadium Sports Hub is completed, our next big projects should be building a statue, an obelisk and a temple for each of them. It has to be something better than Marina Bay Sands - that's too low class for our great leaders.

I hope we can see the statues from space too. Getting tired of how China brags about their Great Wall.

After 2 weeks of aggressive hunting, especially in the last 3 days, we have our final 2 candidates. When I reveal the last 2 shortlisted cars, it may probably be an anti-climax.  But believe me, it wasn't easy, especially with our limited budget and the difficulties getting around our own transport (fortunately, friends assisted)

We went through hundreds of cars, tested more than several and clocked more than 200km running from dealers to dealers. There was many duds in the market, however good they seemed to look on the websites. We test driven cars which rattles, cars without the air conditioners, cars which creaked like doors, cars with engines which could wake a suburb up if we drove past.

On the internet it would be easy to compare and say which is the better choice. That would be an armchair expert. It's a different experience on the ground, what you see was not going to be what you were getting. The fun thing however, was that there was a large variety of cars of all shapes and sizes to wow about. There were times I felt tempted to buy something irrelevant, to satisfy my boy-craze, as such one of these:

It could be mine for $6k, but no, we ain't getting that

The last 2 candidates that made the grade finally were:

1) 1995 Toyota Corolla Seca, Mileage: 213k, Cost: $3650.
2) 2002 Daihatsu Cuore, Mileage: 173k, Cost: $2700.

Decision making would be tomorrow morning, we are expecting last minute changes though.

I'm new to blogging, don't know how most things work. I was clicking around yesterday and figured how what traffic source meant. Stumbled upon a blogger westsidewitch, who posted my link on her page. 

Elsewhere

Singapore

2011 marked the 20th year we acquainted.

This year, I knew I couldn't celebrate your birthday with you physically. I wanted you guys, all of you, to join me in the HK trip before I left Singapore for awhile. It was regrettable we didn't pull it off, at least not in the way both Tuck and I would love it to be.

In the past 2 decades, we became friends, buddies and formed a brotherhood.

I showed you your first guitar note, thereafter gladly saw you surpass me in the trade. You were my team mate in my first soccer team. We joined the same curricular activities in school and studied in the same tertiary institutions. From puberty, I watched from the sidelines as you morph into a mature gentleman and then participated in your wedding. Through the years, I witnessed your happiness, anger and tears.

It had been 20 years since we gave you a goldbar paper weight and toilet rolls with messages as your birthday present. I bet you could still remember. We had drifted apart a little, I blamed myself for not putting the necessary efforts to maintain our friendship in the same state of the glory days. I hope we could still do it.

I learnt that you were angry with me for leaving Singapore so soon from the text you sent me 2 days ago. I'm sorry my friend, but we have circumstances that do not allow us to do otherwise. I hope I will have the opportunity to share with you personally when I'm back.

Separately, just wanted to clarify we are living Jenny's dreams to live and work in Australia. My dream is to own a sustainable, profitable business - that has never changed before, I'm sure you are aware. I am still hungry and never gave up my dreams. Perhaps one day, I'll be back in Singapore to fulfill this wish should it be impossible for me to do so in Australia. Living in the same estate as YK and you sound totally great to me.

With that, I wish you a very happy birthday. Good health, good wealth, good joy to you my brother and may all your dreams come true.


Always,

CYH

Not forgetting Vegetables of Vanquished Sorrows

I didn't get the job. What I got this afternoon was:

Thank you for your application for the position of Longlife Assistant
We had a number of excellent candidates apply for this role and the calibre of candidates was high which made the selection decision difficult. After careful consideration we are writing to advise that you have not been successful for the above position in this instance.
As a large employer, we may have further opportunities that may better suit your experience and would like to retain your information in our database. If you would like to review your candidate file and be informed of future job openings that match your profile click here.
We also invite you to visit the Careers Section on our company website regularly to view other opportunities available in the business across all the Woolworths Limited brands at www.wowcareers.com.au.

Please note, each month system maintenance is completed. If you have not accessed or updated your profile within 12 months your login details will no longer be valid and you will need to sign in as a 'new user'. We encourage you to update your profile regularly to ensure your details remain valid and you do not miss out on any opportunities.
Thank you for your time and effort in applying for a position with our company.
We wish you all the very best with your career.

Kind regards,
Human Resources DepartmentWoolworths / Safeway Supermarkets
Please note: This mailbox is unattended. Do not respond to this email.

I was sad and disappointed for 3 hours after that I was cool with it. Joanna told me I shouldn't had mentioned to Peter, the guy who did my 2nd interview, that I was a project engineer in Singapore. That probably worked against me. I agreed. Or perhaps my interview skills suck. Or probably my resume writing skills too, since I have no replies for several more jobs which I applied for.


The silver lining of the day was that car hunting had begun! It was much tougher than I thought, even with the help of Prithvi's car which she sent us on a 2 day loan most generously.

First, we learnt that there was a difference between virtual fantasy and reality. I.e. Some cars looked really great in the Internet. I wasn't too sure if it was the camera angle or photoshop.

Second, it would always be a newer car with high mileage vs an older car with lower mileage dilemma. There are supporters on each camp and the reasonings on both sides are valid.

Third, the used car market in Australia is so much more bigger than Singapore. You would be offered such a large variety of possible choices that it could become difficult and confusing to gauge which options were the better deals at times.

Fourth, oddly enough smaller cars that we preferred for now could be at the same price or slightly more expensive than a bigger car. For eg. Toyota Corolla vs Toyota Camry. Same year, around the same mileage, similar price. This was a tad incredulous for me.  You would never encounter this in the used car market in Singapore, or perhaps anywhere else in the world?

Fifth, car dealers I met overused (imo) "One owner" as a strong selling point. I just couldn't get it. What I was concerned with was the condition of the car.

Does more owners necessarily mean the car was worse off? What if both owners bought the car for fun and hardly drove it at all? Or that single owner of the car was a hotheaded speedster teen who went around doing adult bumper-cars?

Does that mean a girl with less than 2 boyfriends is less attractive, thus less 'valuable'? Of course not.

Sixth, the second car dealer was extremely annoyed that we didn't buy the car after test-driving it. I wasn't sure if this is the culture here but if that is so then it would make things a bit more tricky.  Some car looked wonderful exteriorly and some were woeful. If I couldn't do test drives without experiencing flake, I wouldn't be able to uncover the intrinsic value, or the lack of in the car.

Seventh, fuel type can be a factor here. In Singapore, car = petrol.  That's it. Over here, diesel is more expensive than petrol. Gas, is half the cost of petrol. Some used cars here had in built gas tank. As it takes much more distance to get around from place to place here, fuel is, therefore a consideration.

Hence, there were enough to make our hunt not so fruitful. Nonetheless we had a better grasp of how these things work here now. We shortlisted our options and will be holding a voting session tonight to align our differences, erm.. so that we can achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for the family.

A mere 2km away and look what I found

Today I jogged 2km North-West and back. Jen was puffing behind me in her brisk walk, getting her much needed exercise as advised by Aunty Angie.

In the past, she would jog alongside with me. Obviously, being 6 months pregnant that was no longer possible.

So this was the new system - I jogged some distance forward, Jen obviously would lag behind. Then I jogged back towards her and overtook her and then turned back and repeat. While it probably sound ridiculously dumb to you, it was the safest way I could think of getting some distance for myself and keeping her within a safe distance from me. If you have a better idea, I'm all ears.

This post however is not about unusual jogging arrangements. 1.5km North West from where I am staying at the moment is a suburb called Ascot. Sounds like an expensive place right? It is. What I am going to reveal next is shocking, well at least to me. At the same time with that, I shall expose myself as a "Mountain Turtle" from Singapore.

Bear in mind Ascot is only 6km from Perth CBD. It can be considered prime area. Think - Tanglin, Holland Village, Queenstown, Outram, Lavender, Newton etc, you get the idea.

"What's that smell?" I thought as I took another deep breath. Before I could get a better idea, quick reflects allowed me to side step just in time to avoid stomping onto horse manure. Then I saw it.

Many residents kept horses here

Did you see that? Apparently, there were many residents living here with horses in their yard. I spotted a vet hospital along the way too. Last but not least:

 With BBQ pits free for the public to use, no booking is required. No charcoal required too, as this pit is electrically operated and all you have to do is to push a button and get ready to BBQ. The pit is also surprisingly spick and span.

Ducks having a routine gathering in the water

Prints of the webbed

They paddled away when I approach, not interested to be friends

A dog, belonging to one of the residents having a ball in his private time

Feeling lucky, I searched the Internet for confinement rice wine makers and found one based in Malaysia. It was a family business and they shared my surname. I sent them an email and inquire if they could export it  and then I realised they probably couldn't so I asked if they could share a simple wine recipe. Didn't expect a reply and of course I received nothing.

During the conversation with Aunty Angie, she forewarned me that the wine I would require for Jen's confinement period might not be available in shop. I checked with Joanna and she confirmed it. Either too expensive if we could find any and even so, it would not be good enough in quality.

Fortunately Joanna could make wine and she had the equipment to do it. Even more fortunately, she agreed to help us. We had a short discussion 2 nights ago and concluded that we needed exactly 3 months to complete the job and we could not afford any failures or delay as we were 100 days away from the baby's expected birth date. The following day was a Saturday, we spent half the day running around to get the ingredients for the mission.

Recipe of Joanna's Foo Chow Red Yeast Rice Wine (Expected to make 3.75L, ~5 bottles)

Ingredients:

67.5 gram wine yeast
3L boiled water
4kg glutinous rice
1kg red yeast rice (or red fermented rice)

Cost breakdown:

Yeast - $1.50
Glutinous Rice - $8.80
Red yeast rice - $9.75
Total :- AUD$20.05

Steps:

- Cook 4kg of glutinous rice and let it cool
- Grind red yeast rice (do not cook) into finer form with a food processor
- Grind Yeast (wine yeast) into powdery form with a food processor
- Boil 3L of water and let it cool
- Mix yeast with red fermented rice thoroughly with hands (wear a sanitary glove please)
- Then lastly, make balls of glutinous rice and cover each ball with the red yeast mixture.
- Place balls into the pre-sterialised fermenting container (i don't know what term they use for this)
- Add the 3L of water in.
- Mix very thoroughly, it will be a tough job because glutinous rice is heavy and hard to work with.
- Cover container and it's done. We have to wait 3 months and see if it turns out to be real, mean, nutritious Foo Chow Red Yeast Rice Wine suitable for usage during the confinement period.

Washing the glutinous rice

Red fermented rice

Wine yeast "Jiu Bing"

Cooking the glutinous rice

Beauty

Another 2kg

Red rice. Do not cook, just wash it and grind.

Mixing with glutinous rice

Balls in the fermentation jar.

Two friends to help out in the mixing

Mix and Mix and Mix

Ready for fermentation

Closing ceremony

If you need vegetables and fruits, this is the place to go. They offer lower prices than any of the hypermarts could and it's great.

Hmm, as a prospective Woolworths employee, should I be saying this?



 Can't resist taking a few shots at these adorable girls. They were so well behaved and sat down where their parents left them.

I wouldn't do that if I'm their parent. They looked cute enough to be abducted just for fun.