Ang Mo Kio Town Garden West

Singapore - Today is Father's day and I decided to bring my family to a park nearby that we have not visited before - Ang Mo Kio Town Garden West. It is 21 Ha and located opposite Ang Mo Kio Town library. We brought bicycles, skate scooters and roller blades to enjoy this park.

Our treking through the jungle...

Resting....

Going back to Singapore

Bangkok - After 3 days, we are finally going back to Singapore. It was tiring trip with business appointments everyday. I had breakfast with Joe at 8am @ level 2 cafe and then later at 8.30am - Vic came back to pick us up to his office. The last time I was here - I took the sky train only 2 stations to his office.
Lunch was at the nice Thai restaurant called "i-serve" - the food is good and I believe reasonable priced too.

Off to Bangkok...

Jakarta - Met Joe, Sam and Yudi for breakfast at 9.30am. The breakfast was good but I was surprise to find there were 'Pork' on the breakfast buffet spread unlike in Malaysia1n hotels, there will definitely be no 'Pork' on the breakfast menu. After meeting the customer - we had to rush to the airport within 2 hours. Yudi drove us and we got there with 1hr to spare - that was good. Still enough time to relax in the Premier lounge. Since Joe and I were going to Bangkok, we manage to change our originally SQ Sing/Bangkok flight by 1 and 1/2 hours earlier.

Pondok Laguna Restaurant

Jakarta - Flew SQ 959 with Joe and it was a good flight into Jakarta. Since it was a short flight about 1hr 35 minutes - the head sets were not given out. So, I watched a Korean movie and read off the English sub-titles - "Once upon a time". Whilst watching, I was intermittently interrupted by a loud and rude laughter coming from a passenger sitting across me. He brought his own headsets and was laughing so loudly that other passengers were turning to see who this idiot was....I was not able to finish the movie.

I stayed at Le Meridien Hotel - a very nice hotel in central Jakarta around US$110 (excludes breakfast). Breakfast is about US$10.

The afternoon was spent preparing for the workshop of which only 10 attended. There was a major street protest and it affected the attendance so having 10 was not that bad. It was held at a service office (Marquue) directly opposite Le Meridien Hotel (very convenient).

After the workshop, we went to have dinner at my old time favourite Pondok Laguna restaurant. There was no intention of going there but because Yudi lost his way to the intented restaurant and we passed by Pondok Laguna restaurant - I told them not to waste time and just have our dinner there. Furthermore, the food is so good and is one of my favourite restaurant.

City changes name...

Bangalore - The Indian IT hub of Bangalore is about to be rebranded as Bengaluru in recognition of the original name of Benda Kaal Ooru - that's "boiled beans town" in the local Kannada lingo. This rather unsavoury name came about when a king named Vira Ballala lost his way on a hunting expedition and was eventually offered boiled beans by an old lady. In recognition of this act of kindness, he named the place Benda Kaal Ooru. The Brits couldn't pronounced Benda Kaal Ooru, they simplified the name to Bangalore. There may still be hope for the Bangalore lobby - the name change is not yet official and must be cleared by the state legislature, the federal government and India's president before the Bengalurians can legally refer to themselves as such. That is why the new airport is called 'Bangaluru International Airport'.

Besides Bangalore, 'Bombay' was changed to 'Mumbai' and 'Madras' to 'Chennai'.
I always wonder when a city or country changes her name whether it is for the better? and why do they changed - could it be due to past colonials rulers who do not care about the local culture.

'Saigon' changed to 'Ho Chi Minh City' - many dwellers and tourist still used Saigon in daily conversation.

The British occupied the country of Burma and when the Military Junta tooked over they changed the country's name to 'Myanmar'. Even the capital was changed from 'Rangoon' to 'Yangon'.

The British also gave the name 'Peking' and 'Canton' but China changed it to 'Beijing' and 'Guangzhou'.

It was fortunate that Singaporeans love their Singapore and Singlish otherwise it will be Singapura or Singapureans...

What Traffic Rules?

Bangalore - There is hardly any traffic rules in Bangalore as far as I can see.

• It is not compulsory for drivers to wear seat belts.
• It is not compulsory for front seat passengers to wear seat belts.
• Crossing cows has 1st priority
• Drivers can cut into the on-coming lanes if there is no on-coming cars. The central divider line is just a guide.
• 2-lane traffic and become 5-lane traffic.
• Cars can cut into other driver's lane without indicating their intentions. The changing lane indicators are just a guide.
• Honning is to tell other drivers to "get out of the way
• Pedestrian should never stand in the central divider line to cross half-way because cars can use the central divider line too. Once we were crossing the road and standing on the central divider line until a heavy truck was coming along on the central divider line, we had to cross back to where we were - it was very dangerous.

Trash everywhere...

Bangalore - Along the roads of Bangalore, there are litter and trash just spewed on the roads. On one occasion, I saw a woman came out of her house and walk a distance and throw and bag full of rubbish on the main road. You will find nice modern buildings and next to it sits a land full of trash. It's everywhere. I will point to Kelvin to look at scene where a man will stand back facing the road, and just pee - it was so common. This scenes made this trip interesting!

We are on our way back to Singapore...