My Haircut is 5 Cents More Expensive Than My Mouth Ulcers Dissolvable Film! [Author Corner]

Recently, I've been out of my comfort zone twice. First is related to my mouth ulcers and second is about my hairdo. So here we go.

This past week, I've been suffering from gastric problem which lead to mouth ulcers. The logic is like:

gastric problem --> could not eat something sour --> less intake of vit C --> mouth ulcers.

Lucky for me, by the time the ulcers appeared, my gastric problem is getting better, so I can consume those vit C without upsetting my stomach and make it worse. But knowing the fact I couldnt really force myself to consume sour stuff, so my friend suggest me to use Dissolvable Film for Mouth Ulcers (picture as shown below).

Payment that contributes to additional 5 cents coin to my wallet

It is so weird (till now I still feel weird), because there is something stick in your mouth wall, but I've been treating it like a candy. Well, from my experiences, when you use this you could not eat or drink. So for now it only works for me when I am going to sleep. So I can sleep well without worrying about my mouth ulcers. *to be noted as well, I have insomnia, which mouth ulcers make it worse*

As I mentioned about my hair, I've been contemplating about trying new hair style since 2 weeks ago and only yesterday I dared to try it. I wanted my hair style as nice as this, but of course my attempted to let hair stylist know was failed. First because I think she has her own imagination about what I mentioned verbally and second I was in a rush to meet a friend who came late for an hour at the end. If only I knew my friend will come late, I might ask the hair stylist to redo my hair. :-(

Well, luckily I used voucher my friend gave to me, so instead of paying 28sgd, I only paid 8sgd! Even cheaper than that QB House haircut fee. So I guess, I could not really complain about the result eh?

Tried to play around with my hair this afternoon, and below is another fail attempts by me.

F'FRIENDS by this collective is NOT For Parents [Performing Art]

A very first post for 2012 will go to this event that I just attended last night with my ex-roomie from my second year in NTU.

Reading a text from your friend to let you know he/she has free ticket to a show already made you happy, but when you watch the show and you like, you are even more thankful for what you have at the moment. Well, at least thats what happened to me yesterday.

It was my first time to watch a theatrical drama show with Black Box theater as the stage. It was pretty amazing for me to realize in such small space with no so much space of backstage, the director can executed it with good flow without any black men at all. The black men are the cast itself. With 6 scenes that the director wants to show to audiences, I could enjoy it with no interuptions. The process in between one scene to another is just like when you fast forward your DVD to next part, where somehow yourself still can enjoy it. On top of it, music for scenes transition also build the atmosphere for next scenes. I would say, continuity of the show is there! :)

The story itself is revolved around group of "couple" that somehow related each other who live in HDB flats. As I mentioned earlier, there are 6 scenes, with title for each scene as following:
1. Natural Disasters
2. Just the Three of Us
3. What Friends Are For
4. Things Happen
5. Gingerbread Men
6. Toilet Talk

Basically, all of those scenes are really in urban (liberal) human life style point of view. When you watch the show, you will understand what I meant.

Among those 6 items, I can relate to everything in fact, but 2 out of 6 are really slapping my face when I watched it in fron of my eyes, namely Natural Disasters and Things Happen scenes. Since I do not want to keep this post too long, I will talk more about those 2 titles instead.

Natural Disasters scenes are about opposite-sex close friends who live together in same flat. I think it is called Natural Disasters scene with some reasons. First, it want to attract people attractions of course. Secondly, indeed it is Natural Disasters, where naturally as people growing older, they will presumes a lot without asking the other party about the matters, until problems come up which forces a person to ask about it. But well, thats how adult survives in world, ASSUMPTION PREJUDICE AND OTHER WORDS FOR IT!

In another hand, Things Happen scenes are about opposite-sex so called friends which apparently both of them had sexual experiences each other before, that nowadays we called it FLING/OneNightStand/SO WHATEVER. When it was supposedly that way, but one of party felt differently and want to bring the relationship further while another party still not so sure or even want to stay it that way. With such conflicts and quite a lot of technology things that being raised up during conflicts, you also can see how technology changes relationship among human in such fast pace i.e. unfriended a person in FB which sometimes we consider it nothing much is actually as same as cutting down every contacts with the person in real life.

Well, I tried to google or FB search for it, but apparently I could not find any link related to this show, but what I know from my friends, the show that available is only for this Saturday, 21st January at 8pm. The other 2 slots, Friday and Sunday are sold out. The show is in Art House. If you are curious about the director and script writer, she gives lecture in NTU and if you are taking Minor in Creative Writting, you most probably will meet her in near future. Her name is Jocelyn Chua. Hopefully none of those 6 scenes are part of her life, because some of them are sad, but some people said anything a person writes, should reflect of her/his life, although not everything. And back again to title, Yup PARENTS ARE NOT ADVISABLE TO WATCH THIS AND IT IS M18 Rating! :)

[Author Corner] Is Singapore Cab Fare Too Expensive or Is Jakarta Cab Driver Underpaid?

I wanted to write about this post for quite some times back then, but only now I am really motivated to do it because cab fare hikes news lately in Singapore. In this post, I will have a simple comparison overview about the cab fare in Singapore and Indonesia, particularly Jakarta.

I do comparison between Singapore and Jakarta because both are the city I familiar with for past decades, when my critical thinking was/is developed. I think some might think it is like comparing apple and orange because there are plenty of differences in both city demographically and geographically.

First let's see Jakarta Cab Fare. There are few prices of cab fare in Jakarta, but I will take the normal one at this case.

Flagdown Fare: 6k IDR or about 0.85 SGD for the first 1km
Meter Fare: 300 IDR or about 0.045 SGD for every 100 m or for every 30 seconds waiting time
No booking fee
No peak periods surcharge

And now let's see Singapore Cab Fare (before being revised). I will take average here for flagdown fare.

Flagdown fare: 3.00 SGD for the first 1 km
Meter Fare: 0.2 SGD for every 385 m (from 1 to 10 km) and 0.2 SGD for every 330 m or 0.2 for every 45 seconds.
Booking Fee: 3.5 SGD
Peak Period Surcharge: 35% and 50%

From both data, we can tell that meter fare in Jakarta is 5% of Flagdown fare (every 100 m), while in Singapore the meter fare is only 2% of Flagdown fare (every 100 m). For waiting time, the fare is about 0.16% (every second) of Flagdown fare in Jakarta, while in Singapore the waiting time fare is 0.045% (every second) of flagdown fare. Well, it is true from these numbers we can say actually Singapore has lower meter and waiting time to flagdown fare ratio than Jakarta, but the fact that both countries have different standard living cost should take into account as well.

In Jakarta, a price of FastFood chain set meal is about 20K IDR or about 3.5 SGD, meanwhile in Singapore it will cost you up to 7.00 SGD in average. So in fact, the standard living cost from meal perspective, Singapore has higher price as much of 2 times than Jakarta. Comparing this cost with cab fare in both cities, we might think that Singapore has higher cost in cab fare, don't we?

The ratio of Flagdown cab fare to FastFood meal cost in Singapore is about 42%, while in Jakarta it is only about 30%. Meanwhile the ratio for meter fare is about 0.87% (every 100 m) in Singapore, but 1.5% (every 100 m) in Jakarta. The ratio for waiting time fare is about 0.06% in Singapore, but about 0.05% in Jakarta for every second.

By taking assumption ratio of cost of living is more valid than the former and from all of the numbers above, one absolute point that can be pointed out is the flagdown cab fare in Singapore is relatively higher than Jakarta referring to their standard living in both cities. But the meter fare in Singapore is relatively lower than Jakarta, while waiting time fare in Jakarta is relatively lower than Singapore. The latter can be justified with the fact that Jakarta traffic is a messed and traffic jam is everywhere, so the waiting time fare supposedly (relatively) cheaper than Singapore which does not really have terrible traffic jam like Jakarta has. But the waiting fare to flagdown fare ratio in Jakarta is higher than Singapore as about 4 times, which it is quite big difference.

Analysing this (stupid) numbers, makes me realize that actually cab fare in Jakarta is underpaid only for the flagdown fare, which make people in Jakarta simply hail and book the cab even for short distance of travelling, due to relatively cheaper flagdown fare. Booking a cab is even cheaper because there is no booking fee. It is true that public transportation in Jakarta is suck (for some people), but by increasing the flagdown fare by at least 2 times of current fare will discourage some people to take cab and using public transport instead. But well, it might have drawback to cab industry, they might get higher revenue, or/and they need to cut down number of cabs that being operated on the street, which at the latter case it means less vehicles on the road in Jakarta, less traffic. As the matter of fact, Singapore has about 26,700 cabs on the street, means it only can cater about 2% of its population.

So back again to the title, which is a question, which one you think is more appropriate statement?

[Food] Where Should NTU Students Eat in Jurong Point?

After wrote a post about what I ate during my internship and the fact this post is considered popular among the post I wrote so far (top 10), with support of another fact that my friends sometimes inquiry to me about where should they eat in Jurong Point (JP), I decided to write this post. Basically, below are the eatery places that I consider nice place and food for you to try and my judgement is a bit subjective, so feel free to comment if you think it is not as nice as I state here. The order is in ranking mode, with number 1 as the highest rank, while number 5 as the lowest rank. And you will notice, I option out foodcourt, but I do eat there of course. :)

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1. Ayam Penyet Ria

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If you go to Ayam Penyet Ria at basement level nearby old FairPrice (old Jurong Point), you should try their Ayam Penyet, Empal Penyet, Soto Ayam, and Rawon. The fact that I am Indonesian might cloud my judgement about this ranking system, because I am still proud to be Indonesian and want to promote Indonesian culture, food and others at my best efforts. But if you like spicy food, you can really enjoyably take the chilli as much as you can, and the chilli is really the spicy. The beverages that I would recommend will be Indonesia Avocado Juice, because the way Indonesia serve it, we put in condensed chocolate milk on top of it or around the inside glass. Deliciously sweet! :)

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2. Ambush

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Located outside challenger, level 2 of old Jurong Point, Ambush will offers you quite wide variety of sumptuous western style dishes. If you happen go here, you should try their Meatball and Chip. The meatball is really nice, which I think it is their made-in-house meatballs, not really frozen meatball from supermarket. But if it is the latter case, then I should ask them where they buy it, because it is nice!

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3. Old Town White Coffee

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The location of Old Town White Coffee is a bit hidden, at Level 2 of New Jurong Point but located all the way behind nearby FairPrice (cant really describe the location well, but you can always ask me if you need help to find it). This resto is come from Malaysia, so you will expect of local and Malaysia food fusion together, which in fact I think both are quite similar. If I go here, usually I will order their nasi lemak, because it is quite filling and the complement dishes (small portion) are quite nice. One of the nasi lemak variation will be Nasi Lemak Special. For the beverages, can try their Spirulina Orange. But well, you can taste the orange since the taste is really strong, but not really for Spirulina. But the temptation to try something new (from the drink name) couldnt be resisted for me. Beside it, you can try their (something) hot chocolate, the taste I can say beat Starbucks hot chocolate, for real!

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4. Bakerzin

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Bakerzin and Old Town White Coffee are actually in the same position in my ranking preference, but since Bakerzin price is slightly higher, so I mark it down (budget-conscious customer). I know Bakerzin should be a place you enjoy your cakes and desserts, but I had meals here before and it was quite good during my visit. Their pizza is quite nice, since I prefer to have thin crust pizza and their pasta quite filling and tasty as well. I tried their Mushroom Carbonara Sauce Pasta where the sauce was just nice.

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5. Thai Express

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This resto can beat Bakerzin if only they can upgrade their service. Instead of Thai Express, they should call themselves Thai Snail I can say. Regardless of their slow service, which I will recommend if you are not urgently hungry and want to have longer chat over your meals, the food are nice and suit my taste, esp their dessert when I ordered their set menu.

So, do you think any other resto that better than those 5 I mentioned above in Jurong Point, if yes, let me know, and I will make some changes if I agree with your opinions. For a moment, enjoy to try all of the above! :)