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Bad Driving Habits in Singapore

Be careful when you are driving in Singapore. Some drivers especially Taxi drivers and Motorcycle riders are driving very viciously. They change line suddenly without giving signal, merge from sideway without yielding, weave between the lines, beat the light, etc.

Esplanade and Singapore River Tour

Espanade is the theatre on the Singapore bay. Its design is so special that you will think one kind of tropical exotic fruit. Nearby you can have a very nice view of Singapore downtown skyline and the famous Merlion. With SG$15, you can take a 45 minutes Singapore River tour to see all the buildings along the river.

Tip in Singapore

At the Changi Airport, tip is prohibited. At hotel ands restaurants, some will post 10% service charge, some won't. You don't need to pay tip either way. When take a cab, you only pay the price displayed. When we first came to LA, and ate at a Chinese restaurant, maybe the tip is too little, I even saw waiter waiving his head when he left. Later, friends told me in LA just double the tax as tip, it will be around 16% tip.

Put the Lock and Shutdown/Restart buttons in Windows taskbar

%windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -r -t 0 %windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -s -t 0 %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe user32.dll LockWorkStation

Chinese Stamp Collector's Black Hole

I started the stamp collecting since I was in primary school. At that time, it was really difficult to collect a complete set of stamp. I have to exchange on the stamp market, collect one by one, new or used. It was also very exciting to complete one collection. It was a huge market for stamp collection because some stamps can be rewarding investment as the market values increase every year. It is said there are about 20 million Chinese people on this hobby at its prime time. Somehow it turns into a black hole after 1990. You can easily buy a set of stamp even at lower price than its face value. Take an example, the stamp to celebrate 1999 Macao Reunited, which has face value RMB 50 (not a cheap price for a piece of small paper!), now has market value at RMB 15. It sucks.

ROKR does not rock

Announced by Jobs, come along iPhone ROKR with iTunes 6 and iPod Nano. Personally, I think the name is just so so, ok, it is a rocker, what that means to a phone or a MP3 player, no too much. iPhone's idea is to bring portable player and phone together, but missing some key features so far. - You have to connect it to a computer to download the song, not through wireless network. And the iPhone still has some problems to be recognized by iTunes. - Listen to music and chat on the phone are two diffrent activities, or personalities. They don't get along. - You can's use the song as ringtones. But maybe it is reasonable. Otherwise how you know is it a call coming or it is just you are listening the music :) - The design is, well, not comparable to iPod Nono. Oh, the TV ads are just a mixer of old iPod TV ads and ring a call. And deliver an idea they don't want to deliver - listen more and talk less :) It is a good start though, but so plain.

White Tiger in Singapore Zoo

Singapore has some very attractive places for animal lovers - Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, Jurong Bird Park. You can buy membership to get unlimited visit to these parks. It costs SG$280. Singapore Zoo is so far the best zoo I have visited. The birds and monkeys are hanging around the trees. Lion, Jaguar, White Tiger, all are designed to give visitors best view. We go there very often. Night Safari is just next door to Singapore Zoo. In Night Safari, you can take a tram and watch all the glowing eyes in the dark. Because it is so dark, it seems not so interesting for kids. Jurong Bird Park has all kinds of birds. It is the nearest one to NTU. The park is the most smelly among these 3, and get many mosquitoes. It is worthy to visit once for a while though.