Money Changing Tips

As a frequent traveller round the region - I do 2 trips a month to Malaysia,Thailand,China and soon Indonesia- I have noticed that the Bureau de Change or Money Change Booths at the Singapore airport while they offer "No commission" on the money which you change, the 'spread' in which you buy and sell the foreign currency is wider than if you were to purchase at the
overseas airports such as KLIA or Suvhanabhum.
An example, at KLIA yesterday, the rate which CIMB bank buys S$ (you sell to CIMB ie. they pay RM) is S$1 = RM 2.31
And the CIMB bank Sells S$ (you buy S$ or when you exchange back from RM to S$) at RM 2.39 = S$ 1.00
So for a S$ 100 exchange you get RM 231 ;
When you change back you pay RM 239 to get back S$ 100.
So in essence the bank earns RM 9 ; or S$ 3.89 per exchange of $100 or 3.89%.
You lose RM 9 in essence.
In Singapore, a check at the local bank exchange shows RM 1 = 0.435 or Sells RM 2.29 for S$ 1
When Buying the RM, local exhange is RM 2.44 for S$ 1.00
The spread is then RM 15 or 6.5%
You lose RM 15 in essence.
Conclusion : Don't change foreign currency at Changi, change at the overseas airport when you arrive.

Olympics Beijing 2008 - Go !

Go Team Singapore ! Table Tennis Gold awaits ! Only China to Beat for the Gold ! You are Winners already !


Malaysia Boleh ! Beat Li Dan for the Gold Medal ! Go Chong Wei !

9th August 2008 National Day Horror Run

This morning I decided to run at 11am,at East Coast Park after dropping off my wife at gym class. Having rested at least
9 hours the night before from a short 2 day trip to Malacca I felt that this was the perfect opportunity to get the body conditioned for the Singapore Bay half marathon (24 August) barely 2 weeks away.

I started the run quite ambitiously wanting to do a complete 12 km and get my body used to the distance. The first
6 - 8 km were quite smooth, however, the heat started to pick up after 11.30 am and the throngs of people coming to the
East Coast Park were making things difficult as I had to swerve to avoid the prams,bikers and small children.My pace was about 5.50 min/km which was quite fast given the temperature and I was wearing shades. At around the 8 km mark,my breathing became quite laboured and I stopped at the wash area to douse myself.

I continued again for another 1.5 km before stopping once more as I was puffed. After walking for 1 minute or so
I continued and ran slowly all the way back to the start point.

This is recorded as the most trying run for me this year and I call it the Horror Run of National Day for all
the mistakes made during this run.

This is to remind myself not to make the following stupid errors in future :

Error # 1 : No proper Hydration. I did not drink much before embarking on this run.It is not good enough to have fun at
Aldy's and down 3 beers - and take it as hydration.
I should have drunk at least 1 litre just before I attempted to run this distance of 12 km.
I also should have drunk lots of fluids the night before.

Error # 2 : Too Hot to Run. What was I thinking ?
The temperature from 11am - 12 pm was 33 to 34 deg C and humidity was in the high
80s. Unless you want to have heatstroke, this is NOT the time to do distance running unless it is raining or
overcast.

Error # 3 : Body was getting Too Hot.!
My mind was very lightheaded and I was braking out in cold sweat near the half - way mark.
Luckily there were several washpoints along the way and I doused myself.

Error# 4 : Wrong Place to Run; This was very packed with thousands of people having Barbecues,Pitching Tents,
Roller Blading and Cycling on Running Path

Error # 5 : Too ambitious.Distance was a little long to attempt as my past runs were all about 8 to 10 km.

When I finished running I actually said : "Oh God !" ; It was not a sigh of relief but a reprimand to myself
of all the wrong things to do leading to this Horror Run. Hopefully I will learn my lesson and do better in 2 weeks.

6 months Lag Time before Belt Tightening ?

Every day we see that the world economy is not doing well and that there is a MAJOR recession looming.On the flipside, we see that the annual NATAS (travel fair) has record bookings for holidays for the end of year holidays, Singaporeans have this "heck care" attitude that 'I want to enjoy now never mind about the world economy' which is quite disconcerting or is it that they have already factored the recession in ?

My opinion is that many people (myself included) have our heads buried in the sand and are in denial.America is on the verge of bankruptcy (thats my opinion) and whether the world can depend on the 2 emerging economic superpowers to save the day is anybody's guess. Chinese and Indian companies are muscling in (already) on infrastructure projects like Energy Grids and Steel, and of course the tourism sector still is buoyant from Chinese and Indian tourists. But the downstream future for S'pore in my opinion is quite pessimistic, looking at what Macau and Las Vegas have experienced major losses, the first time in a long while. So whats the upside ??

So I will cast my hat in the ring to say "Save $$ now, Minimise new expenses and frivolous holidays. Keep liquid preferably in EUROS, buy Gold and look for good bargains in equity like REITs (thanks Roland).

Its not while knuckle time, but my money is staying right in my pocket for the next few years.

Early Morning Run Upper Bukit Timah - Singapore Zoo

This morning,3rd August, I made an appointment with Loo Kwong, my friend from primary school, (40 years !) who is an avid runner too and we both set off from his place at Hume Road (Upper Bukit Timah) and ran all the way to the Zoo at Mandai Road, a distance of 11.03 km as measured by the Nike band. My pace was 6mins 29secs per km and time taken was 1 hour 11mins.It was a nice cool morning when we set off at 6.12am. I wans't sure of the route and we made up the route along the way Originally we wanted to run to Johore Bahru (!).Only sanity and lack of a passport stopped us. Next week we have Roti Canai at
J.B.!
The SportsBand works well and is easy to activate and upload. You can register an account and upload your running log under the website www.nikeplus.com. There are forums there,10km to marathons worldwide and even challenges you can set to your vitrual or real world running friends. Its a grand welcome to the world Globalised Running !

Nike Sport Band - Cool Toy

This is the latest 'toy' from Nike, the Sportband. It costs S$ 100 from any Nike shop and you need to wear it on your wrist plus insert the pedometer with transponder into any Nike shoe (my Nike Triax has the fitting). You will need to calibrate the distance run by running around a track (known distance) and adjusting accordingly.It will be able to track how far you run, your runnng speed (pace in km or miles per hour) and calories burned. You can then upload your training log on the PC at www.nikeplus.com Can't wait to try it !

Simulation Testing for Athletes - Why Not ?

My company is the exclusive distributor for the Weiss Technik (Germany) range of Environmental Simulation and Testing Chambers for the South East Asian market and the sizes range from small table-top models to huge Walk-In Chambers to test everything from electronic parts (semiconductors),disk drives,completed products like PDAs,handheld PCs,noteboooks,handphones etc.The largest products typically are the complete assembled cars and sometimes aircraft.The manufacurers typically test the products to their environmental conditions under which they will operate or perform to a) ensure reliability ie. perform well in any conditions, be it snow, rain,high humidity or even dust and windy conditions b) weed out the weak products at the early stage so that only the strong products are put to market and therby ensuring the company's good reputation for quality and reliability.

My question to the Singapore Sports Council, if products can be tested to their extremes. why stop there ? Test our best sportsmen (of course with the proper medical supervision and equipment available) in the conditions in which they will perform their sporting challenge. That is to say, use these Walk-In chambers to simulate Beijing's temperature and wind conditions during the Summer Olympics or for altitude training which has proven very effective, why fly them to the Alps or mountains when all this can be done at home on the treadmill and simulated Alpine and low oxygen conditions ? SSC has been using the low oxygen inhaler on our top swimmers, what about the track and field athletes ? With the money invested and rewards offered to medal winners, SSC could consider buying or renting such equipment from the manufacturers or distributors (heh heh).