Sleeping with the Sharks

June 8, 2011 Leave a comment

Elkan was very upset with me for not bringing him to our Kenting adventure last December. I promised him lots of adventures for his June vacation. Since then, he has been pestering me to bring him to camping, hiking, caving, diving and rock climbing. Come this Friday, I will be bringing them downunder to Australia for a cool winter escapade (together with my buddies Meijie and Tracy). For the past 3 weeks, Elkan has been checking everything about Australia. Felicia decided to give him a “warming-up” treat last weekend – Camping overnight at Underwater World.

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BLOG BY FELICIA TAM (6th June 2011)



It’s the June school holidays! Woooo hoooo for the kids! But headache for parents. Lots of planning and searching for fun and meaningful programmes for kids. I found one! And a scary one, sleeping with the sharks!! Dun worry, we didn’t become the sharks’ meal.

Underwater World at Sentosa organised a sleepover event for family with kids. We gathered in the evening greeted by the friendly staff who introduced basic knowledge of the fishes at Underwater World. I was surprised that lots of 5-6 year old kids has so much knowledge about marine life. Some even know the scientific names of some species or differentiate different types of shark! Zebra shark, nurse shark??

After a buffet dinner, we explored Underwater World (which was closed to the public by 8pm). The kids started to make friends and form their own little groups and they had the whole place all to themselves. There were tiny crabs and giant crabs at 3.7m long! Bright yellow seahorses, angel-like jelly fish, goldfish, stingrays, sharks, corals, fossils exhibits, etc. The favorite exhibit was the touch pool. Some boys caught cockroaches and held them by the feelers above the pool to see how the Archer fish literally shoot their preys down with water droplets from their mouths. While the girls would hold a rubber band above the water and wait for the Archer fish to do the same stunt! Some parents tried to stop the kids, most of them got wet in the end. Elkan touched the star fish and stingray!

Later in the night, we were divided into teams and challenged one another in a quiz. Kids tug their parents all over the place to look for answers. It was a fun and educational session. We were not the top scorers but we had a great time!

The most excited part of the evening has arrived!! Time to sleep! Sleeping bags were distributed and we lay them beside the travelator in the long underwater tunnel. It could fit all 30 participants. The view was magical. Lying on the sleeping bag and you see small schools of fishes and large sharks and stingrays gliding gracefully above you. And the bubbling sound of water does make you feel dreamy & comfortable. Probably like babies in their mothers’ womb kind of feeling. The kids were hiding in one another sleeping bags giggling away. Older kids were walking around taking pictures of everyone with their camera. While some were running round and round the tunnel! What a nightmare for the adults. I think most parents’ heads were spinning by then.

Lights out means torches out! There were colourful torches from the kids shining up into the dark tunnel. “Mummy! Shark, shark!”, “There there!”, “Over here”, “Eeewwww…. The fish poo poo!” The kids went on and on… noise echoed through the tunnel after for 2 loooooong hours… zzzzzzzzzzzzz……. (certainly not a romantic experience for young dating couples)

A great experience sleeping indoors in sleeping bags under the sharks and giant sting rays! It was a mesmerizing display of marine creatures. For a change, maybe counting the fish could help insomnia. Except for the hard flooring… my body ached badly the next day …….ooooouchhh….. Some complained about hearing loud snores rattling through the tunnel. Many parents woke up looking tired. The programme has yet to end. Our final stop was at the dolphin pool. We took pictures with the fur seals and watched them perform. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see much of the famous pink dolphin as it was their mating season. So cannot disturb them. Shhhh…………

Filed under Family, Life in Singapore

VIIV – 22 years later

June 4, 2011 Leave a comment

Today is the 22nd Anniversary of bloody June-4th Incident. Many people in Hong Kong remember this day. Last night at 10:30pm (the exact time when the crackdown happened 22 years ago on 3rd June 1989), a group of artists “painted Causeway Bay yellow” with their expressions to remember this solemn night. (Read my past blog: “Learning from the Past”)




Filed under Jo's Thoughts, Life in Hong Kong

My own “Katong Laksa”

June 4, 2011 Leave a comment

Surprisingly, these instant Laksa noodles tasted so good, even better than the real Katong Laksa. Thanks to my wife who bought them for me. Now, anyone can start a mini Singapore Laksa restaurant overseas with Prima Taste. (Egg and prawns not included in the pack).

Filed under Life in Hong Kong

Fresh Brains, anyone?

May 29, 2011 Leave a comment

Need to shop for fresh brains? Just get from Pixelite (a design agency based in Shanghai and Singapore). Poly-wrapped and sealed with the company sticker, this is a very unique and creative corporate namecard by Johnny. Don’t worry, the brains are tightly sealed and it won’t leak. No expiry date on the packaging…100% fresh always.

Filed under Cool Stuffs

Old Friends from my Shanghai Days

May 29, 2011 Leave a comment


Filed under Life in Hong Kong

Taxi Problems in Singapore

May 27, 2011 6 Comments

The availability of taxis in Singapore is becoming a big problem. For someone like me who has been away for a while, I could tell the difference. There is simply no “Comfort” in our taxis anymore. Getting from point A to point B can be frustrating  and confusing. Not just for the locals but also for tourists who rely on our taxis to get around. To make things worst, there are new rules regulating where passengers can alight from a cab. Taking a cab to CBD is like taking a bus – the passenger can only alight at designated taxi stands. This is the stupidest rule someone in the authority came up with. If it is to prevent taxis from jamming the traffic and endangering other motorists, we can always introduce inlets or special lanes for taxi to stop. To create standard taxi stand for all flag-downs is fair and good, but to restrict where a passenger can alight is absolutely senseless. It hinders the convenience of taking a cab, especially on a rainy day.

One of the most common problems is our call-in system and the “mystery of disappearance and appearance of taxis at specific hours”. Any taxi driver with common sense would figure out that it is less-profitable to pick up any passengers 30 minutes before the “peak hours” (example: midnight). Why pick up flag-down passenger when there is a call-in mechanic that will earn them more money? Of course, there is no rule to restrict how our taxi-drivers should do their business. It is simply a “work smart and not hard” policy. But this is the root of the problem as many cab drivers are capitalising on the call-in “bonus cash”. Seriously, our cab companies must look into this as this is becoming a black spot in our “near perfect” tourism image. Profit mongering activities should never be encouraged.

Another confusion is the different tiers of surcharge for different types of taxis. I welcome the newer and bigger cabs but I totally detest the confusing “creative” charges (peak hours, CBD, ERP, midnight, special cabs). At some point, I gave up trying to understand when and how my meter fare ran. Gone were the days when things were simpler and straight-forward. If these are the things we have to compromise for comfort and bigger space, I rather go back to old days when we had decent clean taxis but a standard fare. Surely, what’s the point of having more bigger and newer taxis when more and more of them aren’t available?

When I was in Shanghai, taxi drivers gave discounts for midnight fare. And in Hong Kong, many taxi drivers give discounts if you do special booking. Getting a taxi in Hong Kong is relatively easy (just like how we saw it in those typical Hong Kong drama series). Strangely, Hong Kong is even more congested than Singapore but I don’t see much jams that justify ERPs or peak hour charges. In Singapore, we implemented so many tolls and surcharge to smoother traffics but I don’t see much improvements to the jams in CTE or Orchard Road during the peak hours.

Seriously, if Singapore wants to attract and bring in more tourists, we have to fix this problem. Taxi is one of the most important means of transport for our foreign guests. Taxis are the first point of contact for our visitors. And for these poor tourists, they have to start paying surcharge the minute they leave the airport – not to mention paying the additional peak hours and ERP charges if they landed during the wrong hours. Soon, the same group of tourists may find themselves stranded out there during peak hours (and they are not familiar with our bus or MRT network). It can be a frustrating and painful experience for them. Perhaps our new transport minister should get out of his cozy sedan and spend more time trying to get a taxi (or listening to the repetitive background music of our taxi hotline) in CBD during a freaking hot or wet weather.

Filed under Jo's Thoughts, Life in Singapore, Travel

My 125th Visitors – Richard and Chin

May 24, 2011 Leave a comment

Like my grand old daddy, Richard is possibly one of my warmest and coolest buddies. Always friendly, funny, chatty, positive, happy and full of pranks + advices, everyone loves Richard! I have been bugging him to visit me since the day I left Singapore – after 60 months and over 120 visitors, Richard and Chin finally made this trip! I was so thrilled and excited to have them with me. He is after all, my dear friend from my good old Katong days! (And I bought him a super big meat bun to fit his super big appetite!)

Filed under Life in Hong Kong

The New “Broken” Singapore Airlines Website (Still Down after 2 months!)

May 22, 2011 10 Comments

Singapore Airlines launched their new website today. And shame on them, it crashed on the first day! I was “stranded” here for an hour. Even the link to “Contact Us” failed. (Instead of a generic error message page, the web can give us a more friendly message. At least a MTV of our top Singapore Girl photos while fixing the problem.)

This is my worst experience with SQ. They shouldn’t have launched a new web on a Sunday when many of their overseas offices are closed. The new website is very slow and not stable at all. It is not possible for me to view all my flights (on different days) on one single page.

In the end, after 5 hours of waiting and trying, I downloaded the SQ iPhone App to make my ticket purchase. My nightmare didn’t end there. The iPhone App was buggy and it messed up my booking names. It overwrites my wife’s name with my name even though I have logged off my Kris Flyer account. In the end, I ended up paying an extra SGD30 to change the name. (SQ didn’t think this is their problem!)

If this is not my national carrier, I will not hesitate to switch to another airline. Fix the basics before giving us another new eye-candy homepage. The Singapore Girl looks good but she is not everything.

Filed under Travel

Green we must go, Paper Yoda

May 17, 2011 Leave a comment

Folded a Green Master Yoda, Felicia did today. Pretty amazing, she is always. More origami works (from other people) below, I share.

Filed under Cool Stuffs

Another Sunday March

May 16, 2011 Leave a comment

(Photo Taken: Queen’s Road Central – This afternoon, the traffic police blocked an entire lane in Central. It has been 2 years since the fall of Lehman Brothers, these protestors are still fighting to get their money back from the banks. I can imagine their pain and losses. Just wonder if the banks are affected by their actions and attending to their pleas. I say, these protesters should carry photos of the salesmen who sold them the policies.)

Filed under Life in Hong Kong

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