It's the final day of January 2021!
Just wanted to clock one more post as I haven't been blogging for very long.
Work has just been so crazy busy over the last few weeks.
Also there has't been much to blog about since the turn of the year.
Nothing really happening other than the pandemic still raging throughout the world.
Life is still good at home though.
Can't complain at all.
Hopefully the rest of 2021 will continue to be good, if not even better!
HUAT AH!!!
And so here we are again.
Continuing this fine tradition of mapping out my goals for the year and never once achieving them all. Haha.
We're obviously coming off one of the worst years of this generation, from a mankind perspective. So with that in mind, we have to keep things in perspective, with a pinch of salt, and enjoy our lives along the way.
It helps to be able to think of all this with a little more maturity and calmness.
Here's my 2020 in review.
This time around I realize I'm late with this post already and I honestly haven't been giving much thought to what resolutions I would like to make for the year. So I'm generally just letting my thoghts flow as they form in my teeny-weeny brain.
So once more, here they are in no specific order of priority.
1) Exercise Three Times A Week On Average
So I finally achieve this goal in 2020. The tough part is whether I can maintain this even when we start going back to work full time. So I guess this goal is still as relevant as it has been in the last ten years I've had these exercise goals. Specifically speaking, I'd like to also commit to at least an hour's worth of exercise each session.
2) Better Appreciation Of Sights & Experiences During My Travels
This is similar, yet different from last year's goal of travelling to a place I've never been before. I envision that we will get to travel AT LEAST ONCE this year once all the vaccinations and all that take place and countries begin to open up again. What I've come to appreciate that I haven't done enough of even though I've travelled so much in this life, is to document these travels better, appreciate my being there and the now (especially my work trips), and even head out off the beaten track just to see and experience things and life in another country or culture. Haven't really thought out the specifics, but documenting them in an even more elaborate and descriptive fashion in my blogs, social media and other mediums, will be a good start.
3) Earn >$30K In My Saxo Account
Mentally I already have had this target since the turn of the year. It can be seen as 'revenge' for my huge losses of last year. But really more importantly what has changed, I think, is a strengthened resolve later last year to change the way I trade. This I have adapted or am still adapting, but to rather positive results. This bodes well for this resolution, so let's see if it all pans out.
4) Spend More Time With My Parents
I guess as I grow older, and feel more aged, I think more about what my parents are going through, at their current ages (mid-60s and early 70s). It must not be easy growing old. There are REAL goals to aim for that are seriously a matter of life and death, and even if they are different, yet ever so essential to maintaining a healthy and sound mind, to try and delay the onset of aged diseases and problems. I honestly think I myself have a really high chance of developing dementia when I grow old and might end up senile, hence I keep a lot of logs about the various things in my life, even if the formats are public. Because one day when I forget everything, my passwords, where I left my things, and perhaps even the names of my loved ones, every little thing that can help me jog my memory will count. And what better way to access my memory bank than a vast database of publicly accessible stories, anecdotes, and descriptions of my life? This is also where I feel like my parents need me now more than ever to ensure they can relate me to everything they do during their twilight years. Naturally I pray that they live long and healthy lives, well into their 80s or 90s, so it is important to play my part and contribute to their enrichment in these years ahead.
5) Eat And Drink Less Sugar, Alcohol & Steak
Never has it been more evident in my life that sugar, alcohol and steak is bad for my health, than right now. Each time I take more than a normal serving of any of those three, I feel my heart burn (maybe not so much for alcohol). My body is already telling me to lessen the intake and so I need to obey before I get a stroke or a heart attack. With WFH arrangements, I have actually been able to keep my alcohol intake to once or twice a week at most, and not too wild (alcohol sales are only allowed up until 10.30pm then they shoo you home). Being less in office also means less trips to the pantry fridge for a can drink (even the sugarless ones also feel unhealthy tbh, oolong tea or Ayataka green tea, anyone?) , And less client meals which translates to less wanton steak, seafood and foie gras (slurp!).
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Ok so that's all my resolutions for 2021. Hopefully I can meet and pass them all with flying colours!
HUAT AH!!!
Thought I'd forgotten to post this traditional post eh?
I just got lazy, I'm sorry.
Wow.
Seriously.
Where do I begin?
2020 was such a terrible year for the world, yet was such a good year for me in so, so many ways.
I only went overseas (both inclusive of work and leisure) ONCE, and it was to Genting Highlands, Malaysia.
Then we went into Lockdown (Circuit Breaker). Then Phase I. Then Phase II. And just in December, Phase III.
A lot of time spent at home.
Really a lot.
Learnt to treasure the family life. It is really wonderful and so different from the life I used to lead. It's made me so much homelier, generally speaking. Life at home improved tremendously. I got to see my kids grow up, which too me was probably the best thing that's come out of this pandemic. So much so that I wouldn't mind quitting my day job and just be a househusband.
We learnt to do a lot of things together this year as a family. From growing our own plants, cooking our own lunch and dinners, to the wifey developing a love for baking and knitting. We went to many places in Singapore to tide through our inability to travel overseas. I became more disciplined with exercising, drinking less and maintaining a healthier lifestyle. Heck, I even got my weight down to below 80kg in 2020! I got to keep long hair after almost 20yrs. The corporate lifestyle has never had to endure my hippie look, until now.
Some significant events during that period were GE2020, which the Worker's Party took Sengkang being the only surprise. I had my appendicitis diagnosis and operation to remove my appendix.
At work we learnt to work from home and remote ourselves in more productive ways than we ever thought was possible. The company is such a supportive employer. All systems and requirements were quickly procured and everyone could replicate their desktop environment at home almost effortlessly. We had probably our best year ever, performance-wise.
So as with tradition, here's last year's review as a good reminder.
And here were my 2020 resolutions.
And here goes my resolution reviews for the year 2020:
1) Exercise Three Times A Week On Average PASSED
Wow this was a resounding success. I now run almost every other day. I get the kids to exercise as well (they are growing plump) and we have a good routine going. This was without a doubt my most successful year of regular exercising since I starting out working.
2) Earn >SGD10K On My Saxo Investment Account FAILED
Rather spectacularly at that! Each year I try ot quit all my poor gambling habits but they keep creeping back in some way or form. It would be the CFD Indexes and shorting of $TSLA this time that's taken out the chunk of my investment funds. 2020 was the worst year I've performed on my Saxo account since inception of the Performance Summary data in 2016. In total I lost almost SGD30K on this account alone. Sad!
3) Achieve Passive Income Of At Least $700/mth FAILED
Considering how crazy the year's been, and how the markets tricked so many of us into losing so much money, I thought this failure was not outsized. I ended the year with a monthly earned passive income from dividends of around $360, which is really not bad. This is considering that the markets crashed in March, which caused me to liquidate a huge chunk of my positions, one ETN I had significant holdings actually went belly up, and them the markets turned and never looked back, during which I almost completely missed the rally that's lasted all the way till today. Sigh. What can I say?
4) Go Somewhere Interesting That I've Never Been Before FAILED
Another failure, but not for lack of trying. I could probably try and name one of the things we went to in Singapore that I went for the very first time in my life in 2020, such as the Jurassic Mile for example, but it's just different. Genting wasn't that different even though we had a lot of fun driving up in our car as a family. Sungei Buloh was lovely, but again, meh. The new Apple store at MBS? Meh.
5) Look After My Mental Health PASSED
This was actually good. I feel like staying at home so much really nurtured my own mental health. I even did this Mental Health Awareness Challenge which involved doing 25 push-ups daily for 25 consecutive days. I feel like I've become more calm in the face of adversity. I feel like I know what I am comfortable with and what I can accept as an individual. There is really a sense of growth in my mental well-being this year.
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And so, a score of 2/5 for the year, with so much negative stuff happening in 2020, this doesn't really feel like a bad performance at all, in all honesty. On New Year's Eve, I actually stayed up and went into 2021 with eyes wide open, filled with a lot of hope, positivity and optimism.
Hopefully 2021 will be an even better year for me in every way possible.
HUAT AH!!!
Since the pandemic, I've had a very different life I never thought possible.
The whole Work From Home (WFH) bit really changed things for me in fundamental levels I never dreamed of.
So even though we're in Phase III and things are loosening up a bit, I'm still enjoying every moment of life in the now. During the Lockdown and Phase I periods, I got to WFH almost the full period. In Phase II and III, it became alternate weeks. Also kudos to working for a company that is so supportive of these work arrangements.
Today is a near-perfect day in my life post-pandemic.
I wake at 7.30am. Play with my phone in bed and laze about, check the latest news, markets, FB, games etc.
I get out of bed at 8am. To my FOUR PokemonGO accounts and play with them for half an hour.
It's 8.30am and it is off to work...in my work room. Here the setup is complete with my work laptop and two other huge-ass monitors to do all that I need to do for work. My only complaint is the home internet connection can sometimes disappoint a little. But boy the amount of work I can get done is amazing.
The environment in the house is super conducive as the wifey is working from office (WFO) this week, which we try to arrange to alternate since we have a workroom GOOD FOR ONE PERSON. The kids' school year has just begun, so the wifey's fetched them to school.
First conference call meeting is at 9.30am and it is one marathon after another with three back-to-back-to-back meetings. Finally ending my spate of meetings around 12.30pm.
I touch up what's necessary and get more work done, then I head out for lunch at 1.30pm. I'm quite lazy to take the bus, so I'd rather walk to somewhere nearby. My favourite lunch place is the 3838 coffeeshop at Siglap. I take a nice stroll there, which is around 800m away. Along the way I'm playing PokemonGO on two of my mobile phones.
The 3838 coffeshop has a good variety of food, but my favourite stalls are the kway chap, mee pok and the Yuan Wei yong tau foo. FuLin Yong Tau Foo has its own outlet beside the 3838 coffeeshop so that is a lunch choice as well. There is a saga story behind the two YTF stalls. All very delicious and enough variety for me to spread around over the course of five weekdays. And of course there is a MacDonalds just round the corner if I need too.
I eat till about 2.15pm and start to walk back. Then it is work, work and more work until 5pm where I have my last meeting for the day. It is a long one and ends at 6pm.
The wifey messages me that she needs to work late, so I'll have to walk over to pick the kids from the student care center. I leave the house around 6.15pm to walk over. I quite enjoy these 15min walks to pick the kids. Really good that they're nearby.
The kids and I then take a bus home. We are two bus stops away.
It is Wednesday, exercise day. So it is already 6.45pm, we quickly get changed into our exercise attire and head downstairs. Generally we have a good routine going, which is running 3 rounds around the condo. That's 800m x 3 if you're inside, or 1.2km x 3 if you're outside. Then we do a variety of statics, either slope sprints, jumping-jacks, push-ups or sit-ups/crunches.
We're home around 7.30pm all sweaty from our exercise routines and cool down.
Thinking of what to have for dinner, we chose ThaiPan, our resident restaurant in our condo.
The girl decided she wanted to be brave today and go downstairs on her own to pick up the food. Really so proud of her for initiating this.
In the evening we do our own work/studies/preparations. Wifey comes home.
It is 10.30pm and the kids are half an hour past their bedtime. One of us has to mini-shout at them to shoo them to bed almost every night.
It is 11.30pm and the wifey is done with her newest hobby - knitting. She is playing with her phone on the bed after having had a facemask on. I can smell it. She also goes to sleep.
It is 12.12am and here I am alone in the living room blogging about my day.
What a fantastic day this has been!
In keeping up with traditions, I had continued to craft this, but forgot to post it.
See last year's version 2019
So here it is. Better late than never.
Our final day!
So sad!
We had to check out by 1pm, so we woke early to do what? The pool of course!
Pity it felt so short.
Pity we couldn't travel abroad.
But at least we had a nice holiday.
Hopefully things get better around the world and the pandemic clears up and we are all able to travel again.
I think this pandemic has made everyone appreciate travelling so, so much more now.
Day three for us was pretty straightforward.
It was Universal Studios Singapore (USS)!
This one we'd bought tickets well in advance so no way we were gonna screw this up.
One can never go wrong with USS, although this time around we shelled out a bomb to go for the Express Passes, which allowed us to save SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT on the queues. We'd done our research and knew the whole of Singapore was there and the queues were 90-120mins per ride. So it all made sense, and trust me, it was the best decision we made.
We managed to ride almost all (cool) rides at least once and some we rode more than once, which was really nice and fun.
As with most days, it began raining around 3pm till around 5pm. We were pretty ok and timed it well to take the sheltered rides during this time.
I guess the most amazing this was that we hung out at the theme park till 9pm! That's 12pm - 9pm! Amazing!
Enjoy the pix!
The next day, we woke early and had some good plans to check off.
This was what we had planned: 1) W Breakfast 2) Luge 3) Wax Museum 4) Trick-eye Museum 5) HydroDash
Firstly, it was off for the famous W Hotel buffet breakfast! This was a favourite because the spread and selections of foods were so vast and diverse! Except this time around, due to the pandemic, the buffet was an a la carte one, meaning we had to order and they'd serve to our table. Boy, we ordered as much as we could, of course! Checked!
Sadly who would've thought that would be the only perfect item we checked off our list. We had bought the package set which allowed us to go to the Luge @ Sentosa, the Wax Museum, and the Trick-eye Museum, but we didn't know that buying the package did not guarantee our entry on the days we wanted. We had to book the timeslots for each activity as well! And the timeslots for the day, when we checked, was fully booked out already :( In the end, we found a 5pm timeslot for the Luge, so we had about 6 hours to burn.
Super bummer.
Then we rushed to the HydroDash thinking we'd still be able to walk-in.
Obviously we were wrong because the whole of Singapore had already descended on Sentosa Island, and they had pre-booked their timeslots.
That left us rather dejected.
Then we remembered we had a good fallback.
The W Hotel pool!
That would never fail us!
So we went to hang out at the pool (thankfully there were available timeslots). And even hung out while it stormed! It was really a very memorable hangout by the pool. It was literally storming and we were almost the only ones playing in the pouring rain, nary a care of the inclement weather. I was really happy.
Later on, around 5pm we headed to the Luge.
It was our first time, but the instructions were fairly easy. I was afraid the kids couldn't control their little cars but they did well.
The boy slipped and fell in the slippery ramp leading to the boarding area of the Luge. Luckily wasn't really hurt.
The girl had it more memorable. On the skyline back to the Luge entrance, she dropped one slipper down on the overhanging nettings. We had to go to the nearby gift shop just to buy her a new pair on the spot! So funny.
It was really good fun nonetheless. Two runs was good enough to scare the kids to not want to do it again for at least a year haha.
In the evening we had Greenwood Fish Market which was at Quayside Isle. A little expensive and over-rated IMHO.
Enjoy the pix!
So the year has almost come to pass.
Unfortunately haven't gotten the chance to travel other than our Genting, Malaysia trip back in January.
So we decided to do a longer than usual staycation at Sentosa this year, at where else other than our favourite W Hotel. We booked for 4D3N.
It was on 15th December through to 18th December (Tuesday - Friday). This was cheaper amidst the skyhigh staycation prices and was also supposedly less crowded.
So on Day One we checked in.
It was nice that they did up the room for our wedding anniversary plus complimentary upgrade.
As always, it was already noon and we went straight for the famous W pool. Which comes with that super fun slide. Ordered beers and juices and finger food all the time we were there.
It was really so relaxing just being able to lie on the deck chairs and chill.
We ended up paying for three hours. Due to the pandemic, the pool had a reservation system which allowed for 2hr slots for hotel guests, but it was ok to overrun if there were availabilities in the subsequent slots.
By evening we were super tired and had dinner at Quayside Isle at this restaurant called Sole Pomodoro. Simple pastas and pizza.
Thereafter we chilled in our beautiful room and even found time to play Magic: The Gathering with the kids!
Enjoy the pictures!
So we decided to spend the Christmas long weekend going to explore one of the newest attractions in Singapore - the Changi Jurassic Mile!
We got up bright and early to head out there in the morning.
It's funny because I kept calling it the Dinosaur Mile until I realized the actual name of it.
The road signs on the way to Changi Airport all pointed us to park at T2 where there was a bicycle hub area for cyclists called Hub & Spoke. It had a cafe, bicycle rental shop and shower and toilets. Very cool.
From there it was a 2.2km walk to the Jurassic Mile.
Initially we thought that was the nearest you could park, but we actually walked from T2 to T4 and then realized it was open for parking too. And this was right beside the Jurassic Mile! So remember to park there, especially when you have kids along.
The mile itself doesn't feel like a whole mile to be honest and I doubt it really was that long.
Along the way we saw all kinds of dinosaur statues which was really cool.
The Jurassic Mile section itself was very narrow, maybe 3m in width, so it was prone to getting clogged with joggers, cyclists and walkers in two different directions. Particularly so at each dinosaur exhibit where people stop to take pictures.
Good thing cyclists are required to dismount and push their bikes.
The kids loved it, even if they didn't like the 2.2km there and then 2.2km back.
We had lunc hat Hub & Spoke and it served some pretty nice pasta and local foodfare.
We'll probably come again at night just to look see. The attraction is open 24hrs!
Here are the pictures taken along the walk!
