My new blog address: ivyidaong2.blogspot.com

blessed with good friends

(story about my car battery & air con)

i am so thankful that i have been blessed with good friends. a fortnight ago, i was stranded at woodlands road because my battery went flat. i had parked my car by the roadside. when i was about to drive off, the engine just refused to come to life. i suspected right away that the battery was the cause. my first thought was to contact victor, my former monk's hill colleague, who lives at marsiling.

he told me that he would get help and asked me to contact him again ten minutes later. before the ten minutes was up, the mechanic called me to ascertain my location. i forgot about calling victor, so he called me instead. he told me he would be taking bus service 178 to my location. the mechanic came and jump-started the car. when victor showed up, the engine was already well and running. i drove victor home and declined his invitation for tea.

i then drove to dairy farm road - where i had originally planned to do my nature walk - and parked the car outside the moe adventure camp while i took to the trail. when i returned and tried to start the car, i got this sickening feeling - i would be stranded again. there was no point in calling the mechanic because the solution he could provide would be a temporary one only. i called victor again. he would get the aa man to come with a new battery. i waited nearly an hour because victor had to travel by bus to upper bukit timah road. when the aa man finally got the battery replaced, it was way past 7.00 p.m.

i have been plagued with another car problem. the car air-conditioning system had not been working properly. when the engine was idling at low speed, the air-conditioner would give way or give up. i had to get a car air-conditioner specialist to fix it because my regular mechanic could not rectify the fault.

i mentioned the problem to my friend kok weng, my ex-colleague from balestier hill secondary. he took me to sin ming avenue, to a workshop called king's auto. alex, the owner, checked and told me that the problem was with the water pump. he gave me an option: i could have it replaced - which would cost me $500 plus - or i could settle for a repair job and hope for the best. i decided on the cheaper option.

we left the car at the workshop and went for lunch at jalan pemimpin. after lunch, we browsed at pan west, a speciality shop selling golf equipment. i got a lift from him to junction 8, where i intended to take the mrt home. i ended up browsing at the shopping complex. when alex called me, i was supposed to call kok weng so that he could come and pick me and send me to king's auto. i decided not to trouble him and took a feeder service bus from bishan to sin ming avenue.

golf at melati course, palm resort

finally, nearly three months after my retirement, i managed to play my first full round of 18-hole golf at the melati course in palm resort. there are three 18-hole courses at palm resort. they are the alamanda, cempaka and melati courses.

i went with my friend kok weng, who is a golfing member of palm resort. i drove to his place at upper thomson and parked my car outside his house. after having transferred my golf paraphernalia into his car, we set off.

we nourished ourselves with a plate of wild boar ribs dry curry mee each at a coffee shop in senai town before starting on our exercise in sweltering heat, which was to last about four hours.

as a guest, it cost me rm$59 to play on the course. this is very attractive indeed because the amount comes with the use of a buggy and a simple set lunch at the club's restaurant. i skipped the lunch because i did not have the appetite to eat; drank a lot of water instead.

we had wanted to have lunch in jb after our game but because it was raining we decided to cross over to singapore for our lunch. we had it at the old woodlands centre.

jellyfish

using a plastic drinking cup, i scooped up a small jellyfish out of the water in the sea off ponggol. studied it for sometime before returning it to the sea.

the sting of some jellyfish such as the sea nettle can be deadly. most jellyfish are harmless to humans.

they look like blobs when washed up on the beach. but in the water jellies are graceful. they range in size from about 2 1/2 centimetres (1 inch) to 61 metres (200 feet) long. they have been drifting through the world's oceans for more than 650 million years.

jellyfish are not fish at all. they are invertebrates, relatives of corals and sea anemones. a jelly has no head, brain, heart, eyes or ears. it has no bones, either. but that's no problem! to capture prey for food, jellies have a net of tentacles that contain poisonous, stinging cells.

when the tentacles brush against prey (or, say, a person's leg), thousands of tiny stinging cells explode, launching barbed stingers and poison into the victim.

where there's water—from icy polar seas to tropical pacific shores—there are jellies. scientists estimate there may be some 2000 species of jellyfish.

all jellies sting, but not all jellies have poison that hurts humans. of the 2,000 species of jellyfish, only about 70 seriously harm or occasionally kill people.

miniature pineapples

pictures of my two miniature pineapples. no picture of other miniatures.

cheapest driving @ cdans bukit batok

bukit batok cdans has this offer: drive as many balls as you can within one and a half hours for $5.00. at toa payoh driving range, i was paying the same amount to whack 100 balls. this works out to 5 cents per ball. at bukit batok, within the given time, i was able to hit 200 balls. my friend kok weng averages about 100 balls in thirty minutes. so, he hits about 300 balls for $5.00.

although the parking rate is 90 cents per hour, you can redeem the charges for the first two hours. so, parking is literally free.

other driving ranges normally charge about 6 cents per ball during peak hours and 5 cents during non-peak hours. orchid country club charges about 4.5 cents during off peak period. at the executive course at mandai, the rate during non-peak is 3 cents per ball.

i like the golf range at bukit batok because it simulates an actual fairway. you get a nice view of waterfall, flowing streams and undulating landscape. they even have bunkers lined with coconut trees.

seafood paradise at defu lane 10

i enjoy seeking out makan places in unexpected locations, like the bottle tree village at sembawang and botak jones at tuas. last night, we went to another - the seafood paradise at defu lane 10. this restaurant is tucked away in an industrial area in hougang.

to get there, travel along upper serangoon road till you reach the turning to tampines. turn right onto this road and travel on it, pass hougang avenue 1 before making a right turn into hougang avenue 3. keep left and look out for the turning into defu lane 10. turn right and keep on going until you come to swee hin building.

parking is free within the compound of this industrial building. there were ample lots on a weekday. i would not know the situation on a weekend. you can choose to sit in the air-conditioned room or opt for al fresco in the open. we were there on a tuesday night and i counted at least sixteen tables occupied.

we had the signature butter crab, cheese prawns, tofu, oyster omelette, sambal sweet potato leaves and yam basket.

the butter crab ($28 per kg) is served with fried buns (man tou). made of butter and skimmed milk, the gravy is spiced up by the white pepper that is added for fragrance. do not know if the tofu was the homemade version. anyway, it was good. the sambal sweet potato leaves dish had to be good because we had two plates of it.