The Heat Is Real

 The summer heat wave is really hitting Europe very bad.

I’ve seen a few videos of the French frying bacon and eggs with a metal pan in the sun.

In fact I’d think that some places are hotter than in Singapore.

Take care and turn up the AC.

R&F Princess Cove Phase 3

 Lately been looking at Phase 3 for f this development as it has been launched on sale for quite some time now.

Generally for less than SGD200K, I can now get a 500+sqft high floor 1bed1bath. That is huge!

I will not talk about the benefits as I don’t want to bother with the hype, a lot of it is all over the internet, specifically with the RTS completion and SEZ incoming.

Four key issues with this property compared to the rest I’ve been looking at.

1) R&F the China developer is facing financial difficulties. There is real insolvency risk. What if Phase 3 cannot be completed if the developer goes bankrupt?

Having been onsite, most Phase 3 towers are more than 30 floors built now. So there is high probability that construction will be completed. Both Phase 1 (2018) and Phase 2 (2024) have been completed and were buzzing the numerous I’ve been there. That said I have to acknowledge that there are still implications if R&F goes bankrupt.

2) If R&F goes bankrupt AFTER completion, the township will still be impacted, Phase 4 and Phase 5 will not even start and the property might be abandoned?

Again my assessment is that this is highly unlikely. It is the face of Johor as you enter Malaysia via the Woodlands Causeway. There is no way the Johor government will let such a prominent project suffer unlike what has happened to Forest City.

3) The unit I’ve been looking at suffers from overcrowding density. 10 units a floor, 49 floors, and only three lifts to service everyone?! 

This is a risk I am willing to accept. It is prevalent in China and many other countries facing such congestion and they can find ways to make it work.

4) SGDMYR FX Risk is real. Currently at around 3.15, if MYR continues to weaken to let’s say 3.50 or even 4! A SGD200K property even at same MYR value might be worth SGD150K to a Singaporean owner thereafter!

Again this is a risk I have to accept. The reverse could also happen, who knows?

Anyway these are the risks of buying overseas properties and there are many others so it’s just good to document the considerations before I make any actual plunge.

Huat ah!

Bali, Indonesia 2026

 Brought the family to Bali this June holidays.

Stayed at Seminyak this time, so the kids could do more teenage to adult activities.

We stayed at The Seminyak Suites Private Villas and had a whole villa to ourselves. It was one of the highlights for the wifey and kids who’ve never stayed in an exclusive villa with pool before in Bali. Our villa had a pool in the middle between two large rooms, each with its own en-suite toilet and huge bath tub. We also had daily breakfast and it was more like a concierge service except instead of hotel concierge, it was villa concierge. Very luxurious.

We didn’t do much the day we landed, just got acquainted with the villa, watched the Bali sunset on Kuta beach. After dinner we played Scrabble till late in the night.

The second day we also spent time in the villa pool. Then after lunch we went to try one of Bali’s best Escape Rooms. This place was called Pandora Experience. The room we did was El Dorado themed and in my opinion had better props and rooms than any we’ve tried in SG or JB! We were very impressed! Also we managed to get out of the room in 65mins, well within the allotted two hours. After that we went to one of Bali’s large malls to shop and ended up buying some clothes. In the evening I brought the family to eat HK porridge at Warung Laota, a favourite haunt during my Saxo party trips to Bali.

On the third day we had a packed itinerary. We had a 90min drive to the gathering area for the ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) tour in the morning. We took the tandem package which meant I took one ATV with Xin while the wifey took one with Wei. It was fun but a little too long for my liking. 90mins of ATV riding was a little tough. Then we had lunch at the gathering point, followed by white water rafting! This was the most fun activity of the whole trip! We took a raft just four of us and a guide, and rafted down Agung River. it was so fun the kids loved the experience so much. For dinner I brought the family to have Naughty Nuri’s. Sure we had to wait half an hour due to the long queues but trust me it was well worth it. The ribs, bbq prawns and crispy pork knuckles were so good!

Fourth day we did surfing lessons! Again the teens loved it AND they were better at it than me and the wifey were. While the three of them took beginner instructors, I went for the intermediate instructor who immediately took me out to the furthest point to catch the third waves. The beginners had to do half an hour lesson on land before they could enter the sea. That said, I was terrible this time around, struggling to stand at all and was constantly wiping out from the huge waves of Kuta Beach. For some reason, I still found all that wiping out pretty fun even though I could hardly stand for more than a few seconds and my body is absolutely hurting. We then continued the afternoon playing in our villa pool. Dinner was at Shima Teppanyaki. It was not bad, but I’ve had better.

Finally on the last day we went for Pandora Experience one more time! This time we tried the Alcatraz themed room. And it was even better than the El Dorado themed room! Mind blowing how they could create such elaborate props! Then we went to another mall in Seminyak and then finally headed to the airport for home.

What a short but fun trip!

JB Property

 Been travelling up to JB quite a bit.

Looking at the property there.

R&F Princess.

Coronade Twins.

Exsim Causewayz (wtf?)

Thinking of sinking a small bit into another hard asset.

Might get stuck for the long haul though.

Goodbye Uncle Joe

 A sad day.

Today we got news of Uncle Joe’s passing.

He was 78.

His lungs had hived and he had difficulty breathing through his dying days.

We actually made a trip up to KL last weekend.

Mum, sis, Xin and I.

Got to see all my Malaysian side of the family.

Got to see Uncle Joe too.

I guess it was a blessing that we saw him and spent time with him in his final moments.

I recall giving him a brief of the world today as we saw it from Singapore, we talked politics and economics as I sat by his bedside. His mind was still so sharp, he could still understand the implications of today’s world was moving towards.

Mum spent time reminding him of how they met, how her sister brought him home to meet with her parents. How he bonded with my dad.

My daughter paired with her cousin Adriana to sing to him sweet lullabies by his bedside, strumming on the ukulele.

God bless you Uncle Joe.

祝你一路好走。

Need To Blog More

 I reckon I need to make an effort to blog more again.

Write my thoughts, my passions, my emotions.

It’s not only about having a memory of what has happened in my life, but it helps to straighten out my thoughts.

With the advent of AI, I do find myself chatting with different AIs a lot about my feelings and aggregating best possible decisions which I find highly effective in enhancing my decision making skills.

Yet I ought to have a record of all this somewhere in cyberspace so that I can access it all one day when dementia sets in for me.

It’s like this video I just watched last night where dementia and Alzheimer’s is an incurable disease right now and if I happen to have it, then I will surely forget my life and all that’s passed.

It’d be quite a waste to let so many good memories go to waste.

Also exercising helps preserve the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. That’s what I learned last night haha.

Can’t Upload Pictures On Blogger

 Suddenly I cannot seem to upload pictures on Blogger anymore.

Was quite bummed out since it meant I can’t upload my pictures and post that much.

Then I remembered that this blog has been around for 22 years!

And back then I never could upload pictures!

My posts were long essays.

They were descriptive and emotional and told imaginative and creative stories about what happened in my daily life back then and the feelings I was going through.

I need to bring that writing back.

Here’s to more creative days ahead.

The Sporting Weekend

 So

1) PSG beats Arsenal on penalties to win the UCL Finals

2) San Antonio Spurs beat the Oklahoma City Thunder to win Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals to advance to the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks

3) Loh Kean Yew loses the KFF Singapore Open Men’s Final to France’s Alex Lanier in three sets

What a weekend, sad for LKY but proud of him and hope he wins something this year.

What A Sporting Weekend

 What a sporting weekend!

1) UCL Finals - PSG beats Arsenal on penalties last night

2) NBA WCF Game 7 - San Antonio Spurs v Oklahoma City Thunder

3) KFF Singapore Badminton Open Finals - Loh Kean Yew v Alex Lanier

So exciting!

Lower Back Spasms

 Last Sunday played ball with the kids as usual.

It was that days lunchtime onwards that a freezing lower back pain began to hurt me.

 By the next few days especially over the midweek I was standing a lot and my back aches worsened.

Spent the weekend lying in bed, doing lower back exercises etc which seems to have largely worked.

Lower back pain is really quite the bitch.

Now I have to worry about it becoming chronic.

Sigh, the woes of aging.