We can start the day with a visit to the Singapore Art Museum(SAM), then cross the street behind the Singapore Management University is the National Museum, if you still have time, walk to the left, cross the Fort Canning tunnel and end the day with a visit to the Peranakan Museum.

To get to the Singapore Art Museum, take the MRT, make your way to the Circle Line(Yellow) and alight at the Bras Basah MRT station. Follow the signs to the exit nearest Singapore Art Museum. The National Museum is just across SAM. Just cross the street and your there. Do make sure to be early as you will need a lot of time to fully absorb the interactive sights and sounds experience on the history of Singapore at the National Museum. Both Museums have a open/free to all schedule but these are after 5pm on a specific day or on International Museum Day and other events, check out their websites for more information. If you still have time after that, head towards your right and cross the Fort Canning Tunnel, a couple of meters and you will be at the Peranakan Museum. After that, you can head towards the SMRT Headquarters and across that will be Raffles City and the City Hall MRT station below.

Also on this area is the St. Joseph’s Cathedral and across that is Chijmes. These are beside SAM. Across Raffles City is St. Andrews, City Hall and the Padang. If you want a good view of the City, you can also go exit from the back of the National Museum or take the escalator on the outside left of the building towards Fort Canning Park, this fort also has much history and a good walking experience, I’d say a late afternoon to early night would be a good time to visit. The Battle Box on Fort Canning is also a good adventure, the World War 2 headquarters of for the defence of Singapore, a networked underground structure used by the British and Malayan forces.

The next day, you can head on to the Peranakan Museum and a couple of meters on it’s left side is the National Archives and the Singapore Philatelic Museum. A good couple of hours can be wasted on those two. After which, head on down towards the Fire Station to their Civil Defence Heritag Gallery inside the Central Fire Station. You can then head on down towards the river and Clarke Quay, follow it down stream passing by the Parliament, Boat Quay and then Asian Civilizations Museum. Also on this site is the landing site of Sir Stamford Raffles and Cavenagh Bridge. Across the bridge is the Fullerton Hotel and on the mouth of the river is the Merlion and Esplanade. The Asian Civilizations will take half a day to digest and on your way home, you can pass through the back towards City Hall and the Padang, which are sights to behold themselves and take the train on the City Hall MRT station.

The main news I’d like to take up in this post is that while looking for support info for my iTouch, I noticed that the Apple Online Store for Singapore already sells Iphone 3GS directly and at a very cheap price, 748 SGD(around 24.6k PHP)! it comes unlocked(as all phones sold in SG are) and delivery is free. I had a hunch this would happen after the launch, just like the hunch I had that Macbooks of the previous generation would be sold at a good price to clear the stocks and I was right, I got might for 1288 SGD. Beside the 3GS is the new Iphone 4, the way it is presented seemingly shows that the latest Iphone might also be sold directly on the Apple Online Store? another great news if that ever happens.

Although we would still need a data plan to fully utilized these magnificent marvels of technology, having a choice of going pre-paid or sign-up with any carrier is freedom we should treasure. It’s gonna be sometime till the next update of this wonder will come so bargain hunters should grab this opportunity now!

The last IT show of the year will be on November and I’m betting on a good price for the recently upgrade Macbook Pro’s, if not, good deals on iPad’s. Anybody have plans of shopping for Christmas, schedule a trip to SG late November, the IT Show will be at the Expo. I was also eying the Thinkpad X100e solde for around 700+ SGD last PC Show but what would I do with another notebook

I’m feeling happy and well due to a couple of really good reasons and news. First, my parents came for a visit, second, Brazil won on their first World Cup game against North Korea, third, I was able to procure at a very good and bargain price a good laptop during the PC show last weekend, and fourth, Apple has released the iPhone 4 and the other day the new mac mini(although a bit pricier).

While bringing around my parents, I was able to come up with a good walking tour full packed and meaningfull for first time visitors. All are walking or distance from each other or at the very least lest than 2km in radius so a cab would cost no more than 5 bucks and a bus no more 69 cents.

Old and New Experience

The first walking tour would start from the Tanjong Pagar MRT station, take the exit towards Amoy Street or Telok Ayer Park and walk a couple of meters towards the Amoy Food Centre. I recommend my favorite Beef Hor Fun from the Good Day shop or the Thai foods from the shop just across the Good Day shop. Grab a Kopi-C, Teh-C, Teh Halia or sugar cane juice from the shop beside Good Day to wash the food down and that should be a good fill for your tour. Getting a seat at between 12 to 1 could be a challenge and sharing tables is common. Be mindfull of reserved seats or tables which you can usually identify if it has a news paper or commonly tissue pack, although an umbrella, bag or any other personall items are sometimes used.

On the side of the Food Centre is Ann Sian Hill which would lead to Club Street and on the other side towards the MRT station is Maxwell Road, this will be next direction. head down towards the MND building, stay on the opposite side of the Road from the Red Dot Museum. I haven’t been inside that Museum but if you feel like it, you can cross the street at the front of MND building. After that, or if  your skipping it, go to the URA building just beside MND. Inside on the first 2 or 3 floors is a city exhibit of planned developments for Singapore, full with multimedia presentations and scall models of the City. Really good to start your Singapore tour from here as you get to see the whole islands, it’s current and future developments which you can identifiy with later on in your tour. As it’s really hot and humid in Singapore, this visit will also give you time to relax and cool off.

After that, take the Kadayanallur Street exit and just across is the Maxwell Food Centre. If you still have food space to spare, grab a chicken rice from the famous Tian Tian shop inside. Lines still form even at 2 to 3pm due to it’s popularity. Anthony Bordaine himself recommends this shop.

After that, go towards the front of the Food Centre and you are now on South Bridge Road, just across will be the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, inside is a museum on one of the top floors. You are now on one of the corners of Chinatown. After your visit, exit at the back of the temple and turn right, towards the Sago Street which is a walkers street full of shops on either side, turn left and follow the street, towards Smith Street, which is the Night Market and food street! Watchout for the Erich’s Wuerstelstand, an attraction on it’s own, which is a Sausage stall with authentic German/Austrian foods served by the Erich the owner! imagine eating sausages and schnitzels in the middle of Chinatown, only in Singapore! 

Move towards Temple street for more shopping, on temple street, to the right would be the Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore’s oldest Hindu Temple, amazing as it is again in the middle of Chinatown. To the left would be the chinatown MRT Station. from here, you can take the MRT towards Clarke Quay or Vivo City/Harbourfront to cap of the day. On 
Clarke Quay, the reverse bungy attaction as well as numerous clubs, bars and restos to suite your taste. After Clarke Quay, if you still have energy, follow the river down towards Boat Quay. If your heading towards  Vivo City, you can either grab a Carl’s Jr. or head up to Food Republic and grab either Ban Mian noodles or one of the Indian foods. After eating your fill, relax outside Food republic with a view of Sentosa, Resorts World and Universal studios, while dipping your tired feet on the ankle high water ponds.

An MRT station and Bus interchange just below and across the street and cab lines gives you numerous options to return home and hit the sack.

One item at a time and surely the list will get shorter.

As I have already posted before, my parents are visiting and since they were already here, we had the opportunity to tackle some health issues. My mother has Obstructive Sleep Apnea(OSA) and I have looking for a good replacement for her 3 year old APEX CPAP machine. Her Resmed nasal pillow also needs changing but these things cost a lot and I can’t buy them together at the same time or I’ll go bankrupt. The best place to buy these are from the US where it is cheapest or Australia. Here in Singapore, it cost substantially more, but US retailers do not ship outside the US and having these shipped to Singapore would be more hassle as I believe this is a controlled medical machine and would therefore need some permits.

For those who are here in Singapore and are looking for retailers, the list below would be of great help. It took me a long time to identify the different retailers as each brand had different retailers/partners and there is no one shop for all. In contrast, in Cebu, Philippines, we only had one retailer but they could order any brand you would prefer.

Vendor / Brand / Product / Contact Person / Contact Number

Somnotec / Breas(GE Medical)/ isleep series / Henry Ong / 91719095
ERIKG / Apex / XT series / Eric Lim / 97423232
United BMC / AEIOMed/ Everest series / Marvin Sumangil / 92278890
Bremedi / DeVilbis, Respironics, Resmed / CPAP, Masks and Accessories / Agnes Chow / 96515471
IB Medical / Resmed / CPAP and Masks / Goh Shu Fen / 62847177

I hope this list helps you. For the persons listed, if you don’t want your number on this post, you may drop a comment and I will remove you from the list. I’m hoping your ok with it so that you market could make contact with you easily.

It’s still a busy week leading to more busy weeks which we hope to be able to normalize by mid July. Everyone in the team is working hard and hopefully things will settle down by middle of July. I previously mentioned about how great Qlock has been in helping with multiple time zone management, especially in setting up schedules. A similarly good product which comes really handy for mobile warriors on Blackberry is Worldmate. Also has a similarly good time feature and even has a day and night world map, very handy for quick glances to check if you should say good morning or good evening. Not to mention it’s a great travel itinerary and scheduler.

Livemeeting or Vshare and worldwide teleconferencing are also great for gathering people from multiple locations. I used to think that it would be really hard to do things over the phone, mail and such. But after doing it I now believe the only hindrance is the participants willingness. It is no-doubt doubly effective to do things face-to-face but for regular daily engagements, surely, web meetings and phone conferencing is more than sufficient. For our needs particularly. I also thought it would be hard for technical support but I have since engaged phone support a couple of times and it worked out pretty well. Again, I guess only willingness might be the hindrance in these factors.

I’ve already shared about Tian Tian chicken rice, Good Day beef hor fun and now I’ll share the indian food on Amara. Still in the vicinity of Tanjong Pagar, behind International Plaza is Amara, a good hotel to stay when in Singapore and especially if you are visiting locations in the Tanjong Pagar, Raffles Place area. Anyway, I digress, the Fourth floor of the mall inside the hotel is full of food stalls, one of which is a indian stall which has very tasty biryani set. I always take mutton biryani and it is delicious, it comes with 2 vegetable dishes and small sweet delictable. A complete set for around 5 or 6 bucks. You should try it sometime if your in the area.

The new iphone is out and everyone is salivating and already dreaming of getting one. I’m still trying to figure out when the thing will be available here in Singapore. I’m sure it’s gonna cost and arm and a leg again, as expected of apple products. I was kind of expecting for a refresh on the Macbook and Mac mini lines but the first day so far has not included them in the announcements. Let’s see if it will popup in the next couple of days.

I ran 8km last weekend and I think it was a little bit too much and I had to rest for 2 days instead of the usual 1 day. I should have sticked to not increasing distance more than 10% per week. I also changed from heel stricker to mid footer. The change seemed to have helped coz I don’t feel as much force on some parts of my legs. I’m still looking for good shorts for my build and I think my current running shoe is not for runs more than 5 or 6 km. Time to save up for a lunarglide.