The Last Lap

Finished my last paper for my degree programme this morning. I ought to be very happy and celebrating but it was not to be. The paper was quite difficult and I started to doubt whether I will clear this last hurdle in one month's time.

This semester is unlike other semester. During previous semesters, even when the examinations were difficult, I will still be able to convince myself that I will eventually do well. Maybe this is the last lap and usually when it comes to the last lap, it is harder for you to swallow a defeat.

As I looked back my last 3 years at UniSIM, it was a journey full of tears and bruises, having to manage studies, work, ministry and family. I am no Superman and in the last 3 years I do gave up certain things to pursue my degree. At times, I felt like giving up but it was really God that encourages and help me to pull through.

I am counting on God again this time. Like what the bible says "With God, all things are possible!" After all, when Pastor Kong got us to write one desire in our heart during Arise & Build, I wrote to complete my degree programme this year. I just need to stir up my faith, start believing, confessing and visualising!

What do I see in one month's time?? This is what I see....

Madrid

Madrid is our 3rd stop, am posting it here first cos the Barcelona album is massive and too many for me to caption right now. Madrid is the capital of Spain and a charming lovely city. However, it really pales in comparison with the life and vibrancy of Barcelona, which we love. Check out the photos below and two videos on a very lively flamenco performance we watched in Madrid.




Flamenco! from Emily Ong on Vimeo.


Junior Flamenco from Emily Ong on Vimeo.

Paris

Hi guys, have posted our honeymoon pics online but haven't had the time to caption all of the pics. Shall do it one at a time, starting with our first stop Paris. Check out the slide show below. If you click on the yellow icon on the left, you can link to the actual album online and read the captions we have meticulously added for your added pleasure and information. =)

Granada is very hot!!

Hee, instead of Barcelona part 2, we are moving ahead to talk about the last leg of our trip, Granada. We are staying at a really charming B&B called Casa del Aljarife. The room is huge and the toilet is a separate room on its own! I think our previous hotel rooms were the size of this toilet! Btw, the temperature here is HOT! Today´s 41 degrees... you thought Singapore´s hot but here´s hotter! Okie.. gotta go first cos someone needs to use the internet.. try to update again later!

The top left corner shows our room, it has two plush arm chairs we just plonk down at the end of the day and stare out to the Alhambra. In case you din know, pple flock to Granada to see the Alhambra. It's a fascinating and really beautiful place. At the bottom of the pic you see the entrance to the room which we have to walk a short flight of steps to reach. On the right, you see the courtyard where we have our breakfast every morning. The owner of the B&B always greets us with a "Good Morn......ing" when we go down for breakfast =)

On the top left, you can see the view out of one of the windows. The brownish red tower is part of the Alhambra. At the bottom and right, you can see how big our toilet is!

Really really had a great time at the B&B and we have to thank our host, Christian Most, for being so hospitable and friendly. He's a German that has been living in Granada for the past 12 years. He shared with us that he studied in Granada for a year in his younger days and then came back, bought the place, set up the B&B and has been living in Granada since.

City of Barcelona - Part 1

It is 1am in Barcelona now and Em is soundly asleep. Since there is nothing much to do and I am not really sleepy, I decide to blog about our stay in Barcelona so far. This is our 3rd day here and we have 1 more day to go before we move on to Madrid. To all the soccer fanatics, it should sound familiar to you as it is where the famous club Real Madrid FC is. Anyway, let me tell you more about Barcelona first.

1st Day
The moment we reached our hotel at Barcelona, Em suggested that we go and try out authentic spanish food. The hotel reception recommended us to this particular bar and we tried out the "Tapas". I tell you it was YUMMY!!

2nd Day
For breakfast, we dropped by this cafe near our hotel. This is what we had for our morning breakfast =)


For the rest of the day, we went around exploring the city of Barcelona and these are some of the highlights.

Sagrada Familia
This is my favourite so far. A massive Roman Catholic church that is still under construction since 1882!! It is designed by Antoni Gaudi, a famous Catalan architect. This building is truly a masterpiece. Just look at the picture and you will understand.

Nou Camp Stadium
Our next stop is the home ground of FC Barcelona, the Nou Camp stadium that can accomodate about 100,000 spectators. Both Em and I are definitely not a big fan of Barcelona but I was thinking how can we miss out on the biggest stadium in Europe when we are in Spain. As a result, we decided to pay a visit. Hehee.. I wanted to take photo with the Champions League trophy but it turns out that we need to pay if we want to. Smart way to make money I must say!!


After the stadium, we went to a few more tourist attractions. It was tiring but enjoyable to see new things. I guess both Em and I enjoyed Barcelona more than Paris. More things to see, more to eat and definitely more to shop =) We will update on Part 2 soon so stay tuned while I get some sleep before hitting the streets of Barcelona again.

Hola...!!!

Hola everyone, this is Joe & Em blogging from the city of Barcelona. We know many of you have been waiting for the updates on our honeymoon. Sorry for the delay as we do not have any internet access in Paris. Anyway, Paris is a beautiful city with a lot of museums. We went to a few and I was commenting where on earth did they get so many paintings?!


Below is our first meal in Paris... You can see that we were real hungry by looking at my greedy look. A lot of bread & crepes here. This plate of crepes that you see here costs us EURO$10 which is equivalent to about S$22!! I tell you we miss SINGAPORE FOOD!!!!


On the 3rd day, we went to the much anticipated Disneyland!! It was huge and there are a lot of fun rides there. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! The apple you see below is known as "Toffee Apple" and it was highly recommended by Edmund & Minghui. It was nice but after an hour of continuously licking the apple, we still couldn't finish it and gave up!


That's all folks for the update. It is 8:30am in Barcelona now and we are going out for more sighseeing and shopping. By the way, Zara, Mango, Springfield and Camper is real cheap here. Last night, we went Zara which was having summer sales, and their formal shirts were selling for 20 euros each, that is about S$45! Can't wait to do more shopping!!

Hasta luego! (See you later!)

Singapore Flyer

I realised that it has been a long time since I blogged as I was just too busy. My SIM examinations ended 2 weeks ago, had my housewarming 3 days ago and I just came back from Camp Phenomena 1 hr ago!! Nonethless I had a great time in the camp =)

Like what Em has said in her blog that she does not know where to start blogging, I share the same sentiment as her. So let me just start with my birthday celebration 3 weeks ago. This year Em and I decided to check out the SINGAPORE FLYER since we won a pair of tickets in a lucky draw. We went to Esplanade first to enjoy a sumptuous japanese lunch before strolling slowly towards the flyer. at catch the 7pm ride. We were filled with excitement and anticpation to sit on the largest ferris wheel in the world and enjoy the spectacular views of the Singapore skyline.

I must say that the ride was very smooth that during some points, we did not even feel that it was moving. The night scenary was breathtaking and we took quite a number of photos. However, we soon became bored of the ride. Seriously, think about this: "How many different photos can you take in that half and hour?" In conclusion, my rating for the Singapore Flyer is 3 out of 5. I guess for Singaporeans, you will not take the ride more than once. 1 is enough given the price for single adult is $29.50 =P

Office Joke

Recently, I was tasked by my boss to organise our monthly birthday celebration. This time round, my boss wants more interaction between the colleagues rather than just take the food and go back to their own seats. As such, she wants us to go and search and screen video about office so that the people can all sit down together to watch something. I went online and found this. It is extremely funny!! Hope you enjoy it as well.. haha

Completion of Love Nest!!!

The renovation of our love nest is finally completed. In fact, I have been using the place for my cg meeting. Many people have been asking Em and I how the house looks like so I have taken some photos.

The top left hand corner shows the walkway from the main door. This is where we are going to put some paintings to create a small art gallery. =). On the right is our full height shoe cabinet. Or I should say Em's full height shoe cabinet. Haha

Clockwise from the top left hand: 1. Master bedroom toilet, 2. Relaxation cum CG Mtg room, 3. Study room, 4. Master bedroom.

Clockwise from the top left hand: 1. Walk-In Wardrobe, 2. Common toilet, 3. Kitchen.

By the way, the actual preview or so called house warming will be on 7th (Family & Friends) and 8th June (Church Friends) 08. We decided to have our house warming before wedding to save up the hassle of planning another big event after our wedding. After wedding, we feel it would be good to really enjoy ourselves. =) And for those who are coming with gifts for our house warming, you might want to ask us what we need or bless us with either cash or capital land vouchers. Reasons being we have heard so many scary stories about houses being stored with many ovens or fans after house warming. We do not want our house to become warehouse after that. =P

New ERP gantries catch some motorists by surprise

I was browsing through website of channelnewasia when I saw this piece of article "New ERP gantries catch some motorists by surprise". Apparently, 5 new ERP gantries were activated on Monday and there were some motorists who were not aware of it.

So what they did was to stop in the middle of the road to insert their CashCards while other got off the car. Can you imagine how dangerous it is going to be especially for the cars behind them. It could have caused a major chain accident. Anyway, apart from that, I realized it is getting more and more expensive to drive in Singapore. For the past 6 months, we have seen the increase of petrol prices, the no. of COEs being cut down and now the gradual introduction of ERPs into the heartlands. All these contribute to the high cost of maintaining a car. So do you really know what are the costs involved to maintain your dream Ferrari and Porsche? Let me show you =)

• Road Tax (Close to $1000 every 6 months)
  
• Radio Licence Fee (Unless you don't want to have a radio in your car)
• Petrol (Average $90 for full tank)
  
• Parking (Season Parking at HDB is about $65 per month while CBD is $250 per month)
  
• Insurance
• Maintenance (Your car needs to see a doctor once in a while as well)
• ERP (More gantries and higher rates. You definitely won't miss it. haha)

Please be mindful that all these costs are recurring which means you will need to pay again as long as you keep driving your car. As for the detailed calculation, it really depends on your usage because many listed here are variable costs. So better think twice before you buy a car!

Before I go, here are some pictures of my dream car =)

TeeVee - LCD or Plasma???

Part of getting ready to move into a new house after wedding will be buying all the necessary furnishings. I have been doing some research on the electronics that Em and I are getting for our new house and one of the items have to be what is common in everyone's home - TV! If you were to walk around the electronics stores like Harvey Norman, Best Denki and Courts, you would realized that in there are just too many models of TV for you to choose.

One of the most commonly asked question by potential TV buyer is "Should I get a Plasma or LCD TV"? To cut the long story short about these two competing technologies, I will just highlight the key points here:

Color Accuracy - Winner: Plasma

In plasma displays, each pixel contains red, green, and blue elements, which work in conjunction to create 16.77 million colors. Insofar as each pixel contains all the elements needed to produce every color in the spectrum, color information was more accurately reproduced with plasma technology than it was with other display technologies. The chromaticity coordinates were more accurate on most plasma displays. Though the color saturation resulting from the pixel design of plasma displays is remarkable, LCD technology has nearly caught plasma in gray scaling color accuracy. Plasma continues to exhibit more richness in color information and more natural coloration.

Viewing Angle - Winner: Plasma

Plasma manufacturers have made much of their 160° viewing angles, which is about as good as horizontal and vertical viewing angles get.

LCD TV manufacturers have done much to improve their displays' viewing angles. Given more time, they should be able to catch on plasma in this area. However, the clear winner right now is still plasma.

Fast-Moving Video Playback - Winner: Plasma

Plasma gets the nod here because of their excellent performance with fast-moving images and high contrast levels. While the "response time" of LCD TVs has markedly improved in the last couple of years, they still suffer from a slight "trailer" effect, during fast moving sports scenes, the most discerning eyes can detect this slight motion response lag. Thus, if you are a football fan like me, maybe it is better to get plasma. =)

Longevity - Winner: Draw

LCD television manufacturers claim that their displays last, on average, 50,000 to 65,000 hours, while plasma manufacturers state a new half life of 60,000 hours. These claims are hypothetical thus one could argue that there is no clear winner in this category.

Power Consumption - Winner: LCD

LCDs require less power to operate than plasmas do. They consume about half the power that plasma displays consume. It ensures that your electrical bills will stay affordable. =)

Price & Resolution - Winner: LCD

In comparison to plasma, LCD TV has a higher resolution per same size. Pricing wise, LCDs prices have been dipping. This is one of the reasons why you see more LCDs than plasma out there at the electronics stores.

As we can see, both LCDs and plasma have their strengths so it is really up to your preference. That's all folks! Hope it helps if you are thinking of buying a TV like me.

Finally!!!

Finally!!! After months of procrastination, this blog is finally up. Special thanks to Clarence for helping me with the settings. I realized that I have returned all the computing skills that I learnt during my poly days. Many might not know but I actually used to have a blog. It survived for a few months before school work caught up on me and I gradually stop updating it.

I hope to update this blog as regularly as possible and use it to share my thoughts and inspirations to those who are viewing it. Hopefully, YOU will be BLESSED! In closing, just to share of what I have learnt recently and that is:

DECISIVENESS IS THE KEY TO CHANGE

And that was the reason why my blog is finally up and going...!! =)