Life is like playing Sudoku

     Living life is like playing a game of Sudoku. For those new to the game, it is all about filling out 9 squares with numbers ranging from 1 to 9 with no repetitions in any square or line, horizontal or vertical. Once you have 2 of the same numbers on any line (except diagonal), you have made a mistake.

     Its very easy to learn, but like most things in life, very difficult to master. I have been playing Sudoku for almost 10 years if I can recall. So after playing for alomost 10 years I thought I could do practically any Sudoku,having ,mastered the techniques of elimination, Gwendolin's thread in the forest, pairs and finally just counting numbers. I was wrong. So practice does make one very adept at the game, but like life, you get thrown a 'curve ball' and all of a sudden, you are stuck at a game and wondering what ever happened to your sense of logic, or even couting skills.

     So my conclusion for Sudoku ? Play the game, but sometimes, we get stumped and are thrown down unceremoniously to the basic beginner level every once in a while, just like Snakes and Ladders.

Siyeong jetty - having fresh catch of the day, barely cooked

This video was taken just a week ago at Siyeong jetty, when the fishermen have come in with their catch, most of the fish would be displayed at the jettyside and the people will go to the jetty and choose their catch of the day. Many would eat it sashimi style, that is, raw. The prawns and shellfish will be washed and cleaned, perhaps boiled, and then eaten with the vinegared sweet spicy sauce, or just with some soya bean sauce and wasabi (horse radish). In a previous post, my host Paul, my colleague Sean and myself had the sashimi fish Korean style. It was an unforgettable experience.

12 Apr 2012 Myeong Dong Street 10, Seoul

Myeong Dong Street 10 

Walking Street with hundreds of small shops 

A must visit place is Myeong Dong Street 10 in Seoul. We requested our host Paul to drop us there, and he obliged by sending us to Nam Demoon area, which is basically like a night market area or 'pasar malam' which sells everything from toursist souvenirs, to Korean ginseng, to KPop memorabilia to fake Tshirts, ties and bags. Not very classy but my colleague Sean and I had a decent time shopping. 

After buying our obligatory take home things such as ginseng, chocolates and KPop memorabilia, we had a lovely dinner along the roadside costing us a princely US$ 50. We thought we were ripped off but the next day our host told us that in Seoul, a simple dish cooked even in a small dining hall costs Won 10000 or US$ 10.00. As we had ordered 5 dishes, the bill rightfully came to US$ 50. In addition, we both enjoyed the Korean Soju or rice wine.

On weekends it gets really crowded with tourists and locals

As we were walking back to the taxi stand, I remembered that the Myeong Dong Street 10 was nearby and so we ended up at the more famous Orchard Road style street with all the brand names and small cosmetic shops selling many brands ranging from SK II, to the Korean OIPE skin care line. I was quite amazed that the Korean men, also take good care of their skin, as can be seen by their TV, KPop and movie stars. I was quite influenced by the apparent discipline in facial hygiene that before I returned, I bought several after shave lotions as well as a famous brand's, Kiehls'  dermotological skin mosituriser. 

Shops selling the latest KPop offerings, CDs,DVDs, Posters, Mugs, you name it

So, coming to the end of a very nice work cum relaxing visit to S.Korea, my impression of the country is that watch our world, S. Korea culture and products are coming soon to a store near you !   They are already world famous brand names in our countries such as LG, Samsung, Kia, Hyundai, Sangyeong. This is only the tip ot the iceberg. Wait 5 more years and sea what other things they will dominate in.

My guess it will be in the music, drama soapies, and a cheap travel destination.

Korean style Sashimi ; Woogong Port

There are literally about a hundred stalls all selling the freshest live seafood, the fish are kept alive barely in tanks with pumped -in oxygen

Fresh from a recent trip to Korea last week, our host Paul, was kind enough to bring us to have lunch at Siheon City's famous Woogong Port, where on weekdays, there are hundreds of small stalls selling live seafood. 'No big deal' - I thought. I was wrong. The multitude of shops all sell the live fish and shellfish, just caught that morning and displayed for immediate eating. Yes, immediate eating. Sashimi sraight off from the tank !! Welcome to Sashimi Korean style.

After taking our orders, the stallholders get to work expertly slicing off the skin and bones

Korea was a Japanese colony for many years, and one of the popular eating habits which they copied form the Japanese was the fine art of eating raw and fresh fish. Hence 'wher" (Korean for sashimi) is extremely popular in the seaside towns such as Siheon. In fact, the very first day we arrived, Paul brought us to eat the fresh seafood from the restaurant and one dish in particular was the barely alive octopus. The legs were still moving on the plate while we ate them !

                           The task is done in a matter of minutes under these expert hands

Anyway, after the skilled hands of the stallholders finished, the meat was placed on a bed of radish and we were instructed to go to the nearby sitdown restaurant to enjoy our meal. It was in my opinion, one of the most tasty sashimi I have ever eaten in my life. There was little need for the light soya sauce or even the wasabi, the meat was so tender and fresh that it tasted like some very fine sponge with no sea smell or flavour.

        Stalllady boss instructs us to bring the sashimi to the sitdown restaurant nearby

The whole cost of 3 fish ?  Plus a hot and sour steamboat soup when we couldn't stomach any more fresh food ?   An unbelieveably low price of US$ 30.00 in total. Just US$ 10.00 per person. A meal in any of the fine restaurants in Seoul would set us back around US$ 300 or US$ 100 each person easily.

Its time for the freshest sashimi on the planet.

After 4 trips and many dinners, lunches on tour, in ski resorts, I can finally say that I have tasted the BEST Korean dish (apart from the Korean BBQ, BiBimBap, Ginseng Chicken soup, Fried Chicken and countless of nice things) so far.

I am looking forward to more trips to Korea in the near future, for work,play and for exquisite dining.

Seize the Day. 

Train - Save me San Francisco

Really cool video from Youtube from one of the coolest bands around. The look on his face at 3 : 20 says it all.


Cest la Vie !  Thats Life !

The Cars I have driven over the last 20 years (1996 - 2005)

Side view of the Toyota Harrier 

        In 1994, I started my first business with 2 friends from University. Times were hard, and we worked long hours, and we made do with little then. My eldest boy Noel was born in 1994, and my business was slowly but surely growing. In 1996, I decided that as a small businessman, I could finally afford a Mercedes, do after doing my sums and looking around in the newspapapers, found, a 190E (2 litre) Special which was selling for about S$ 90,000 (if I recall correctly). The car was about 2 years old. 

    It was white, and was the baby of the E class series then.  I had a young child, another kid on the way, and things were looking good. That was in 1996. In June 1997, I remember, I went to Germany for the Worldwide Sales training of my then principal, and they asked something about the 'Asian economic 'flu'. ASEAN was riding on a strong economic wave, and people were making alot of money from the stock market and also property, so we said, "No problem, its only some problem in Thailand". Little did we know that 6 months from June in Jan 2008, was the start of the Asian Financial Crisis.

      After a good 10 - 15 years of solid economic growth (1982 - 1997), S.E. Asia was touted as the 'darling' of investors worldwide, and modernity had come to all the cities. People were flush with cash and took excess credit to buy things that they never had. Countries did the same things too borrowing more than they could afford to finance their infrastructures and coffers. We all know what happened next, Asian currencies went spiralling and bouncing up and down from the Financial Crisis.

     I drove the Merc through all of it, thick and thin. It was fairly reliable, servicing costs were reasonable, and I made several trips with the family and friends to Malacca. In 1997, my second boy Andrew was born. So the Merc was a reliable workhorse for me. After 2000 (4 years after I bought it), it showed signs of age, and servicing became more common. I had an unforgettable battery failure in 1999 at Orchard Link (going on to Orchard Road), where the 2 lanes became only 1 lane, after my car battery died on me. It may have caused me the most unforgettable stress in a long while, as my car breakdown had caused a massive traffic jam, and many drivers drove by and gave me glaring looks !!

      I finally sold the car in 2002, after I realised that the old car (8 years) was costing me a lot in terms of service. Every 2 months there was some problem or other, so it was time for a change. 

      That would be my Nissan Sunny. Ever dependable and really a workhorse.      

The cars I have driven over the years (1987-1996)

       The time has come, again for me to change my car. I have driven the 2 latest models of the Toyota Harrier  and can safely say that the Japanese marques that I have driven over the last 20 odd years are far more reliable that the European marques. 

        My first car was the Alpha Romeo 33 TI (black in colour) was bought brand new in 1987. Although it looked cool for a (then) young guy like me, it was fine to drive for the first 3 years. The problems started surfacing after 3 years or 60,000 km. There were electrical fuses which blew very often, there was almost overheating of the radiator, and even the power windows died on me. On top of that, I foolishly chose a black colour car which everybody knows absorbs heat. (Black body radiator, and black hole remember ?)  So some of my friends from Germany, like Frank and his family, were ecstatic when I first drove the 'performance' car, but the heat,the non-cooling aircon and the non-power steering for the 1.5 L car took its toll on my guests. After one ride in my sports car, the Europeans were begging to sit in a cooler car !

          The 'plus' points for the car was that it was in the 'sports' category, TI meaning something injection, and had 4 horizontally opposed cylinders which made it quite powerful. I was contemplating the Mazda 3 sports series, and decided then on the 33 because it had a solid feel to it, the road handling was excellent (Italy's roads are like winding for hundreds of miles around mountains, and near the coast, so one wrong move and your car goes over the cliff literally, so road holding was very good. On top of that, the gear shift, was quite a challenge, plus the 3 (yes 3) pedals, for those who don't drive or have never driven a manual car, the clutch, brake and accelerator pedals were positioned very close to each other, giving the shortest reaction time for the driver to accelerate, brake and change gear.  It was a dream to drive it for the first 2 years or so. I drove it for a full 6 years, and decided that enough was enough. The front drive shaft was falling apart and I sold it with some relief in 1993. 

            My second car, was a Honda Civic bought in 1993. I bought it from  a friend for $ 93,000, and truth be told, it wasn't as 'sexy' as the 33 TI, but it was so reliable. I recall I had '0' issues driving this car. It was less powerful that the 33 TI, but the reliability gave me a real 'peace of mind'. I only had to send the car for servicing maybe every six months or so. It was far cheaper than the 33 TI to maintain, and it was sparkling grey in colour.  The transmission was automatic, so it was a brainless brake and accelerated control, plus there was power steering, a God send for a 1.6 L car. I have had only good memories of driving the Honda Civic and sold it with some regret in 1996, after  I started my first new business, had a family and things seemed to be going well. So I decided to upgrade. 

          That, in itself is another story.