清明节 2011

Budget 2011

Budget 2011 is viewed as one of the most generous budget in years!  However, there are always people who feel that it is not generous enough and that it fails to address the real concerns of Singaporean.  For me, I am easily contented and any additional money given to me is an bonus.  Below are what I will get:

Growth Dividends = $600 (annual value > $7,000 and annual income < $100,000)

Radio & TV licence = $220 ($110 x 2 as I paid for my mother's licence too)

Radio licence for car = $27

Utilities Save = $270 (5-room)

S&CC Rebate = $92 (1.5m x 5-room)

Tax rebate = 20%

How about you?

Rock Records 30th Anniversary Concert (22 Jan 2011)

More than 20 musicians gathered over last Saturday at Singapore Indoor Stadium to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Rock Records.  Bird gave me 2 complimentary tickets to watch this entertaining concert and it was truly a rich musical feast filled with many songs that I like and familiar with.  Some of the most thunderous applause of the evening went to evergreen balladeer Emil Chau, Mandopop's biggest band Mayday and rocker Wu Bai!

（Group Photo)

（张震岳）

(Alex To - 脱掉， 脱掉！）

(Mayday - 五月天)

(Mayday - 五月天)

(Tracy Wu & Wu Bai - 苏慧伦，伍百)

Step into the light!

I am delighted that this image that I took during my recent photography trip was printed on today's Straits Times (see page C5 of Life section).  I now have a 25% chance of winning a pair of SilkAir tickets to any of its destination, plus $500 cash.  The winner will be announced in the Straits Times on 1 Feb 2011.

My description of this image : "Dongchuan Red Land in Yunnan, China is famous for its red and amber coloured soil.  I was fortunate to capture this dramatic view of the sun rays hitting the terraced plantation".

云南之旅 ：东川红土地和元阳梯田

I am back this morning at 2 am from a 8-day wonderful trip to the Red Land and Yuan Yang in Yunnan, China. It was a formal landscape photography trip organised by Nature Photographic Society, Singapore led by Tony Png. There were altogether 12 of us.

(Group photo taken at Yang Yuan's Rice Terrace)

The Red Land (东川红土地)

Yuan Yang's Rice Terrace (元阳梯田)

Blogging in progress ...

Singapore Standard Chartered Marathon - 5 Dec 2010

Unlike previous years where the starting point of the 10km, half & full marathon run was at Esplanade, the organiser decided to have different distance run at different locations.  Orchard Road was the starting point for the full marathon this year.  A nice change in my opinion as I especially like the colourful lightings decoration at Orchard Road.

(Starting point at Orchard Road)

Although I trained 50% lesser than last year, I was still looking forward for this annual event.  Unfortunately, a super hot mee siam that I ate 2 weeks before forced me to quit the run on 5 Dec 2010!  I was disappointed but I was still at the starting point at Orchard road to support my 2 running buddies and to be their driver cum photographer.  I purposely brought my BIB tag so that I could join my friends at the starting point to take some pictures.  I ran about 100m with them before I exited from the right near Centre Point.

(My 2 running buddies, also my army friends)

Blogging in progress, please come back for more update ...

Not feeling Well ...

I hardly fall sick and the last time when I did was probably more than a year ago.  I had a minor sore throat 2 days ago.  I didn't think it was serious enough to see a doctor, so I took only panadol, Strepsils and drank more water than normal.  However, it doesn't seem to work and I went to see a doctor this morning.

I told the doctor my condition, he checked my temperature, my throat & place a stethoscope on my back to examine my body.  Afterwhich, he advised me to drink lots of water.  I asked him whether I had fever and he replied yes without elaborating further and told me I can go now.  The consultation lasted in less than 5 minutes.  Personally, I would expect him to briefly explain the condition of my sickness even though it may not be serious.

Although it is only a minor sickness, I was given 4 medicines as follows:

• Zecuf Cough Lozenges - for sore throat
• Anarex Tablet - for muscle pain
• Dhasedyl Cough Mixture - for cough
• Serrazyme Table - for swelling or inflammation of the throat

With a consultation fee of $20, the total cost was $46.20.  Quite expensive for a minor illness, in my opinion.