Giessen Town Old Castle Visit 3rd May 2009

Midway up to the Tower of the AlteSchloss (Old Castle) in the heart of Giessen town

After the very pleasant walk in the Botanical Gardens, Kannan and I made our way to the Altes Schloss or Old Castle in the heart of the small town Giessen.Built around the year 1130, it served as the lookout against the enemies from the village and is still in excellent condition.


The view of the Giessen town from the top of the tower

Giessen has typically been a small town with the luminary Leipig family (makers of the Leipig pork paste similar to Bovril)
providing the business momentum in the centuries past, the University which has many foreign students and several factories such as Enders (furniture) and of course Weiss Umweltechnik and Weiss Kliatechnik in Lindenstruth providing much of the funds inflow to th town.


Up to the Tower on the winding stone staircase

It has several places of interest like the Botanic Gardens,Mathematics and Chemistry Museums as well as their own brewed beer called Licher beer which is brewed in a microbrewery in the restaurant Alt Giessen. For a town of 80,000 it has a pleasant mix of some modernity as well as the ancient buildings reminding the inhabitants of their heritage and culture. In addition,the countryside is really splendid to view in late spring and early summer with clear blue skies and the flowers in full bloom.


The huge bell in the Tower

Being Protestant Christians (Lutherans), Christianity is the main religion in Germany but sadly, many Germans do not profess to any faith at all.

Giessen Town Botanical Garden 3rd May 2009

I am in Germany this week to attend the World Sales Meeting held in Giessen town (yeah a misnomer to have a World Meeting in a small secondary town in Germany but this is where the factory of my principal is located) for a week. My Sales Manager and I arrived on Saturday and Sunday today we took a nice walk in the Botanischer Garten (Botanical Gardens) ; it is of course nothing compared to the size and scale of Singapore's Botanic Gardens but it was a very pleasant experience indeed.


The many floral and plants there reflect the temperate climate of Germany, and there is the Alpine section which showed plants normally growing from certain latitudes.


The town itself is pretty small, about 80,000 all in all and Giessen has an excellent Engineering University called Justus Lieberg Universitat Giessen and there are many young college students cycling and giving this town a modern and hip feel.


The weather today was perfect, something like 18 - 20 deg C and sunny. excellent for a walk in the park and also for a tour of the Old town (Aldstadt).

The Line Buffet at ShangriLa ; What's Good and Not Good ?

We celebrated my wife May's birthday a week ago at the Line Buffet. It being a Monday evening (13th), I had expected it to be reasonably empty. To my surprise it was packed to capacity and diners without reservations were turned away or made to return after 9pm ! Talk about a recession and people losing their jobs and struggling, not this bunch !!

The reviews by the Straits Times which praised the quality of the food was one of the draws. In addition, the offer that "X% discount applies if its your birthday - (but limited it to number of diners or tables) was another attraction. Pricing for the buffet was S$ 60++ for adults which effectively was S$ 80 per adult. Amex card holders get 15% discount so even though we did not get the birthday discount, Amex discount was as good because it applied to all 4 of us.



What's Good ; Do try :

Roast Beef - it was medium rare, tender,moist and succulent (tasty)
Oysters - freshly shucked
Prawns - shells come of easily
Salad - made by the chef according to your portions, try the Caesar's
Crabs - Small flower crabs but sweet taste
Braised Beef with Vege - Good and tender

So So only if you are very hungry

Tandoori Chicken - Overgrilled in my opinion
Roast Pork - Quite Fatty actually
Satay (beef) - Overgrilled and tough in my opinion
Mussels - Tough

Don't Bother
Ice Cream - Not milky enough



Would I go back again ? If with international guests Yes, but for a repeat I would go to Hyatts Straits Kitchen as they have
much better Muslim choices like prata,naan, nasi bryani and tandoori chicken. Additionally they have the famous Buddha Jumps over the Wall soup plus more Japanese selections. Price is practically the same as The Line.

Preteen Friends - Challenges for Youth

Glenn, Andrew and Aaaron - Friends and Tuition Mates

My younger son Andrew will turn 12 this year, as this is the key year where all children in Primary 6 will take the Primary School Leaving Examination,he is undergoing tuition 5 days a week for Math,Science,English and Chinese and diligently practising the past years' exam papers in preparations for this key exam in October. The current environment which youth are exposed to in Singapore and many parts of the world are plentiful and complex. I highlight a few :

a) Much heavier study workloads
b) Accessibility of computer games, dating sites, pornography through mass media like the Internet and handheld devices
c) Breakdown of marriages leading to single parent households or patchwork families
d) More competitive playing field due to foriegn scholars and permanent residents attending the local schools
e) The unstable economic situation due to the Global Financial Crisis, leaving some families with lesser incomes due to one or
both parents losing jobs,and henceforth changes in family lifestyles and spending habits.

There was a touching story today in the Straits Times whereby a family had to live on the streets because the parents were unable to make good the mortgage payments and the 2 children, a boy and a girl had to drop out of school,somedays with barely anything to eat, when there father was retrenched as a hawker stall assistant and their savings ran dry. There are probably hundreds if not thousands of such cases where the situations are not as dire but are 'nearly there'. That means to say, everything has to cut back, holidays, dining choices,pocket money, the little touches that one is used to. It is tough especially on the young ones,having to experience hunger at such a young age.

Fortunately, the School Pocket Money Fund has kicked in for the family and the children are back to attending school and the family is staying with a relative during these tough times.

Nowadays it seems that there are many youngsters willing to go to great lengths to achieve materialistic things and we as parents must be there to guide them as far as imparting values and behavior such as :

a) thrift
b) honesty
c) sacrifice
d) courtesy and manners
e) sharing
f) selflessness
g)empathy for the less fortunate

the list goes on. If the parents and especially the father is missing, away for long durations (by choice), then there is every danger of the next generation of youth undermining the success of our country these past 43 years.

I certainly intend to play my part.

New Bird's Nest - 3rd time this year

White Breasted Bulbul bird nesting on her eggs



Location of 2 nests ; current nest is on the lower branches of the Bamboo Trees



Another Shot of the Bird staying very still

This is the third time this year that birds have come to nest in corners of our house, the first one was on the top 3rd floor of our house, just on the open attic in the low clump of bamboo trees. In an earlier post I had written about how tine the birds were and their species were sparrows.

2 nests have come up in quick succession one last month and one this month of April. You can see quite distinctly the bulbul mother bird nesting on her eggs, normally 2. My son Andrew remarked that after a week of nesting, the baby birds will appear and they will want to be constantly fed on a diet of worms and caterpillars. They grow up very fast and within 2 weeks, the baby birds will be testing their wings and starting to fly.

My younger son Andrew has had the privilege of seeing the baby birds take their first flight, which is quite amusing, according to him, as they are fumbling alot and not coordinated, just like babies taking their first steps.

We feel very fortunate to witness these birds nesting and birthing right at our doorstep.

Games Teenagers Play Nowadays ; We can't go Back

Last Friday, being Good Friday, my elder son Noel invited 6 of his classmates to our house for lunch and some games.Nothing unusual about that, except that their games consisted of sitting around the dining table and playing a multiplayer online game very popular with the teenagers nowadays called World of Warcraft.They stayed for lunch and played for up to 6 hours at a stretch. This is the trend nowadays for online gaming is the accepted activity amongst practically all young men.

This contrasts with what I did as a teenager 30 odd years ago - swimming,club swimming competitions,playing table tennis,catching spiders,fighting these same spiders,karate practice - which I dreaded then and of course flying kites.

It was so different in those simpler and carefree days. No PC, No MSN, No Twitter, No Handphone, No Facebook, No connectivity.

I realise we can't go back to those days ever.

Gun Culture in USA - Time to Stop This

I'm sure many of us are stunned that week in week out there are reports of angry people, mainly from the good old USA who are pulling out rifles and shooting indescriminately or targetting people (love rivals,ex-bosses etc.) and causing substantial loss of life, injuries and massive grief for those affected. However, one thing strikes me, in almost all cases, the shooters are MEN.

Young, old, all races and dispositions they are MEN.The saddest thing is that, according to the documentary film-maker Michael Moore, the number of gun related deaths in the USA is 11,000 per year as compared to that of Britain or other so called developed societies like UK or Germany where the deaths are only in their 'teens. Psychologists also need to study the reasons for a) why only men or young men go berserk with the massive collateral damage inflicted on the population ever so often b) the desensitisation of death due to popular computer games making "killing" by beheading and shooting a Worldwide Online Multiplayer game.
Games such as Gunz, Counter Strike and Warcraft all come to mind.

Killing people is good, the more you do it the higher your score and status in the game. That is the indirect message played out again and again, of course the 'bad guys' are carrying swords or warlocks or guns of different tribes.

Somehow, there seems to be a blurring between the lines of reality and virtuality so much so that ONE cannot differentiate between one or the other. That can easily happen to mentally unstable or depressed people.

"After you die I will take over your game OK ? " is a phrase many kids waiting to play after their friends have used up their *Health, * Power or *Lives. Its so easy to kill and be killed in the virtual world and come back to life in the next frame.

IN THIS WORLD, YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE. MAKE THE MOST OF IT.

In the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution US Bill of Rights, it says it "protects a right to keep and bear arms". Yes, well and good when you have a war going on against the British 200 + years ago (1770s...1790s).

When you have semi-automatic and sub-machine guns, long range high powered rifles(OK, they have banned the use of these but people can still get them if they have the right 'connections'),when owning a handgun or a rifle is as easy as going to a shop and buying it off the shelf, it is a recipe for DISASTER.

I am thankful that Singapore is a tightly regulated country with total bans on guns and drugs as these 2 items seem to go hand-in -hand. We might appear too controlled but it is strict control with excellent results. "Land of the Free" - refers to Singapore in my opinion as our citizens, women and children can wander FREE from fear of being robbed, harassed,molested or worse. It is that FREEDOM FROM FEAR is the Ultimate Freedom.

"With great power comes great responsibility" - from the Movie "Spiderman"

Give a person a gun and he assumes the power to take many lives with a small amount of effort. If he is clinically depressed, has low self esteem, antisocial or just had a bad day there is this immense danger that a shooter can cause untold damege physically and for sure scar mentally all those involved in a mass shooting.Just look at the Columbine University, University of Techmology Virginia shootings. Many of those teenagers and adults involved will have psychological problems for years to come.Mental depression or insomnia can lead people to 'snap' and having a weapon of tremendous power at one's disposal can cause a tragedy.

The killers' rationale were simple : "Hey I live a screwed up life, but at least I can go down in infamy, most remembered by being a mass killer, the more killed the better." TWISTED LOGIC, TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES.

If you can get the psychiatrists and psychologists fast enough to counsel these guys the better, but look at the root causes : a) Pop culture glorifying violence and b) the 2nd Amendment. We can't do much about the first as each generation will have their own pop culture.At least the Powers that be must attempt to do one thing.

Its time to Demolish the real Weapon of Mass Destructon : the 2nd Amendment.

C'mon Mr. Obama, how many more innocent people will have to die or be haunted for decades in the name of Freedom ? !!