Yesterday we had a Family Fiesta organized by the company where I'm working now. Kind of corporate get together, The event turned with full of fun. One of the attraction in the event was to assume and dance with house cleaning items as musical instruments. You know what, some senior employees got excited and the show went on to it's peak. Look at the video clip, which will show you the fun I had. ;-)
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Singapore, a perfect blend of multi culture society. The seven percent Tamilians in Singapore (South Indian descendants) celebrate Deepavali (referred as Diwali in North India) in a grand way. Though fire crackers are banned in Singapore,as everyone knows Singapore stands for Shopping hence any festival that gathers peoples attraction is a key for traders to make their business live. Here in Singapore Deepavali also one of the important festival for the people and traders.
The Tamilians in Singapore gather in a place called Little India (Will write more about this are in the future)every weekend to meet their friends and Relatives & Of course for shopping too. This is the place is covered by a road Serangoon road. Look at the pictures, The whole of Serangoon road is decorated. But this is not all, while I roam around the area, Found all most the entire area is decorated as well.
The Singapore Indian Association also has launched a special Deepavali shopping village to offer the traditional Deepavali items. In fact this is been supported by many other organizations, they are also the sponsors for the decorations in this area.
Both the sides of Serangoon road, we can find so many shops lined up to offer discounts and variety of Indian origin cosmetics, jewelery and dress materials. All the decorations seen in here are done by the traders around the area to welcome the Deepavali festival.
Last year I was in Japan celebrating my Deepavali all alone. This year I'm alone now but on Deepavali it will be more fun as I'm joining with my family in India for the celebration. Probably thats why the whole singapore is looking colorful to my eyes.
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The below guidelines are drafted in making a better living place for innocents in Singapore. These are only guidelines, make appropriate addition and modifications on case to case basis. Don't be a looser in any case.
I really hope and wish you all have a good living experience in Singapore, after all we are here to stay in Uniquely Singapore. I found most of the Singaporean neighbors are friendly with each other, so enjoy your stay!
Your critics are welcome, please find time to fill up some comments here!
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It was a very bad experience for my friend who lost huge amount of money ($4600) on a Housing scam in Singapore. The actual experience is that my friend who is also a new comer to Singapore like me wanted to find an accommodation, The housing agents came handy in searching for a house.
In Singapore a general term is that the housing agent gets half a month of commission for finding a house. However they say they help you in dealing with the agreement etc., I found there is no registration etc. for the agreement. It's just a bit of paper written with some rules, also the agreements differs agent to agent. Some times you can find an agent registered and some work with a real estate company to assist.
So, My friend did approach an agent who was referred by one of his friend. The went and a saw a house in Balam road in Block 23. The house owner and the agent both were presented on that day my friend visit the house. The house owner quoted $1200 as monthly rent so the agent commission must by $600. Later on after fixing the rent, the agent and house owner went on a discussion and the agent came back to my friend and told him that if my friend pays 5 months advance rental(never heard of such deal) and 1 month security deposit (it's normal across the island) the owner will let the house for $1000.
Since the offer was attractive to my friend who felt he can save upto $1000 in five months time, he opt for the same and chosen it. He paid $2000 on the day he visited the house, and later on he paid $2000 through bank transfer and promised the owner of the house when he gets the key he will pay the remaining $2000. The agent was also prompt in taking his piece of cake $600 on the spot. The house owner committed he will hand over the house on 20th of August as some one else is already staying the apartment. You know what, after a weeks time, the Agent stopped picking up my friend's calls and the owner totally switched off his hand phone. My friend was in a impression he could get the key before August 20th, The time passed and the day has also came but the situation never changed.
I have joined with my friend to visit the place on August 20th to check if the owner or his representatives stays in the apartment. We got a shock as the tenant is still there on August 20th night 8:00pm. So I rushed to the nearby NPP and asked their assistance, the police called the agent he didn't pickup the call. Luckyly we had his friend's number hence the police called his friend and asked him tell his friend'd to call back. The agent promptly called, and told the police that he had an appointment with us by 9:00pm on the same day. We swear we didn't have any information like that before. So, we agreed to meet him at the location, and he came about 9:45pm saying he will help us raising a complaint, I know he was trying to escape from the situation like an approver however he was so adamant he didn't return the $600 commission as saying that is his service charges for showing the house (????)
We had tough time in getting the complaint report from the police as they said as per rules this needs to be handled with Small Claims court and directed us to the small claims court, however they gave us an incident number, finally we had pushed them to issue us a case report and successfully got it. But I should accept that the police is very friendly in Singapore however they have got some limitations handling such cases. Because of this, it's public's responsibility to be careful to avoid such experiences.
Now, my friend went to the court and they say that the agreement should hold the address of the house owner otherwise they can help and we need to approach the police. You know what my friend finally gave up and gone to his country embassy and asked they intervention in handling the case. He is also planning to approach local news papers to publish his bitter experience so that fellow Singaporean citizens and innocent foreigners will be notified for such acts.
So, guys please be aware Singapore is still low crime country and doesn't mean no crime, however this kind of cheating is treated here are civil case and cannot be counted in crime. I advice everybody to take extra caution before committing any money transactions. There are lots of cases discussed on Housing scams in here, so Beware of housing frauds in Singapore.
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Warning: Don't expect me writing about Gaylang or Orchard tower stories in the space
Actually I wanted to capture the National Day function held in Marina Bay on 9th August 2007, unfortunately I was bit late so I could reach the location only after the function got over. That is how the Singapore night has been found in this blog.
Singapore is a truly colorful country, for whatever function that the nation call for; you can see the Singaporeans wearing red colored t-shirts and dresses. You know what I too have joined with them wearing Singaporean national colored red dress on that day.
My destination to visit in Singapore was primarily the Merlion statue(Lion head and Fish body), and I could do that in the national day of Singapore rather i would say national night of Singapore ;-) Look at the picture below here, this is a baby Merlion statue behind the taller one, you can see the taller back view also from this picture. Between the baby and taller spot the floating stage organised for the national day festival, when I took the picture the function just had completed situation.
The whole country (city) was so excited to celebrate their city's birth anniversary. The story of Singapore known to almost everyone so I'm not gonna repeat once again. Here are some pictures that describes my Singapore night roam.
Marina bay is one of the hi-fi commercial area of Singapore, the most taller building clusters are found here, I still remember seeing this building's pictures in my school notebook covers in India those days. Today I'm here in front of them.
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The attractive thing about Singapore cycles are the disc brakes(!!). Yeah the Singaporeans are not as interested as Japanese to pedal the cycle but fascinated by their fancy cycles.
There is no parking for cycles also in Singapore, hence most of the places you can see cycles tied with the road side electrical posts or barriers etc. Look at one of the cycle tied in my office wall.
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My first team lunch session in Singapore had happen a fortnight before, Indian, Filipinos, Singaporean Chinese, Malay Chinese and Indians were part of the lunch. We have chosen a Filipinos restaurant for our taste buds. Much of us had already experienced Chinese, South and North Indian, Korean, Japanese, Mexican and Junk American food but not that of Filipino's hence the choice.
The hotel was located in Marina Square in Singapore, the hotel atmosphere was good and pleasing. You know what the hostess in the hotel was so friendly to ask us about our girl friends (???). Most of the food items were prepared with Pork and that is a reason for my Indian colleague to feel uncomfortable. Actually he is a vegetarian and you know what he had finished his lunch with appetizers.
The next team lunch was in Park Royal hotel, this time it is grand team lunch due to our manager visit from US. It was a buffet lunch and we had more than 100 variety of dishes to eat. I couldn't resist to control my diet, so much of items and so good.
I'm thinking what if my manager comes weekly once, ;-) ha ha ha...
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Singara Singapore (Beautiful Singapore) is here, welcome to Singapore blog tour. A multi culture, colourful modern Asia not far from this blog post ;-). Almost I have completed 1 and half months life in Singapore a place where you can see Chinese, Malay, Tamil languages spoken widely and a true cosmopolitan city. One can go to a Hindu temple or Masque or Chinese temple or celebrate the festivals of any religion together with other friend.
Go out for shopping? Don't forget Singapore shoppers have discounts and cushion bargain attached to their tags. International warranties, expo, shopping festival are the widely known mantra to the marketing plans. You will get to see one or other exhibition or festival throughout the year (though I have not completed even a quarter year in Singapore, but heard by word of mouth). Low crime (I can see taxi's stick bills with words like "low crime doesn't mean no crime"), beautiful Asian girls, clean roads are always attractions too.
There are many things to share with you, Singapore looks alike great jungle made of concrete with rivers like tar roads taking ups and downs while turning left and right curves, the cars and automobiles are fishes in the tar rivers. I stay in the center spot of Singapore called Toa Payoh and you know one of the largest tar river in Singapore concrete jungle right next to my apartment. They call it as PIE (Pan Island Expressway), this one connect Singapore's west to east vice versa and runs for maximum of 42.8kms long. Have a look at day and night pictures of this scenic PIE river's pictures here.
I could see in many aspects Japanese and Singaporeans lifestyle are matching very closely. First they both have very small land particularly Singapore has a land lesser than Chennai (South Indian Metro City), hence many times i get confused how to address Singapore as a city or country. Hey guys no harm, just expression of my thought.
Fun rides, zoos, bird and animal watching, cheap electronic items, theme parks, fun rides, balloon ride what else; of course movies are most preferred way of entertainment in here. If anybody talks about Singapore i don't think they will forget to talk about their hawker shops (Petti kadai in Tamil) which are serving authentic Indian, Chinese, Western and Malay foods all the time. They are cheap and taste good.. Really!
Not to forget, Singapore's most criticised objects are the govt fine $$$ boards." You do this you will end up paying this", "you do that you may have to pay so much","if you have this much you can try doing it" are some examples. Keep watching great fun ahead! Uniquely Singapore is here with you.
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Hi Surfers, I'm back again after tooooooo long interval. But this is unavoidable for me.
My Tiger (Willy CJ2A 1946) is now standing on his foot with full power. I have to change the top portion of the jeep to a flexible one for folding, removal etc. Also minor tinkering and painting job to make it look better.
The Jeep had also gone for a Engine transplantation with more powerful Peoguot engine. Yes the jeep is fully ready and doing great. There couple of modification I was doing with it, as I have mentioned earlier I thought that I would take this jeep for Indian explorer program.
You know some times our plans may be doomed by the time, this happen to me. I will not be able to keep up my plan as Indian explorer for another 3-5 years. Because I'm now relocated to Singapore the Lion City.
But I did visit palani as a part of my plan and made my smaller article for you people. It was nice experience however I had to choose a bad weather (43degree celcious) and we have almosted boiled.
Look at this space for my detailed blog about the palani visit, I hope I would do it today or tomorrow. I'm still collecting information for singapore blog because I myself new here and not started to explore anything yet.
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After coming back from Japan, I couldn’t even have time to visit my native Tiruvannamalai (A city in Tamilnadu state of India). As of now I could only plan for the future trips the list grows like infinite loop. This is a formal announcement for all the readers of this blog that do expect more here in the near future. Keep coming back and raise all your doubts and queries on your India tour plans. 
It’s kind of dream ever since I landed in Tokyo to visit Tokyo Sea Life park. Fortunately I could make it atleast in the last weekend here. The donut shaped structure that is located on the shore of Tokyo bay. This aquarium is actually located inside Kasai Rinkai Koen, I could say this is the largest Aquarium in Japan.
The aquarium hosts many ocean animals like hammer head sharks, fishes and penguins. I can say this is a well organized aquarium, I felt much more than expected inside the aquarium. You can see in the photo below, I’m standing in front of the bluefin tuna fishes that were kept in a tallest tank in this setup.
This place is kids paradise and travelers underwater dream. Huge glass walls, behind the glass wall you can see all sort of sea life. The Giant crab (nearly 3 ft. in size) is most attractive; I never imagined such a big crab existed before.
The Jelly fish, Leafy sea-dragon and Nemo are crowd grabbers too. I could manage to take many pictures even in the dark environment. The Nemo fish section is another most wanted environment for the kids; I guess it could be due the popularity given by the cartoon movie “Finding Nemo”. Actually the flash photography is prohibited; hence I had real difficult time in getting the pictures.
Seeing live star fishes, Squids and multi color fishes are life time chance for me. It would have been even more interesting if the aquarium also organize to host seals and dolphins. This is one minus point to this aquarium. I almost took 3 hours to complete the round. There are guided shows in every section of the aquarium in a specific time. While entering at the aquarium we can take the English information sheet for browsing the park. It will cost 800 for adult to enter in to this aquarium; I felt it is most reasonable for this kind of attraction.
The aquarium not only hosts fishes but the ocean bird penguins. Its beautiful seeing them underwater. They fly under the water with their wings.
Later in this day, I came out of the Tokyo Sea Life Park and entered to the Kasai Rinkai Park for a short walk, the Ferris wheel in this park claims the largest one in Japan. 
With this visit I’m closing my roaming schedule in Japan. I hope to write atleast one more blog before leaving out of Japan.
Almost I’m reaching the final days in Japan, while looking at my calendar it is filled with party schedule. All of them are about farewell to me.
When I came to Japan it was tough time creating relations with people here, but once you form your community around then the situation is smooth. For me the final days are precious days. I got many cool people turn to extend their hands for friendship. Unfortunately the day has come, I have to return back. I do love to go back as my kids and family are there in India.
Yesterday there was a party (This party is a Japanese party to this Indian) sponsored by team of operations department from the company I’m working in Japan. The chief of the operations is the person whom I always remember as smiley, he has a unique smiling face. I and operations chief and team of five more people from his department were in the party yesterday. These people are the first people outside system department to talk to me in the company. The party was real fun as we were discussing about sports and entertainment. 
During that time I came to know from one among that they have watched Super Star Rajinikanth’s “Muthu” feature film when it was screened in Japan. At the end of this party they presented me with a beautiful Japanese “sensu” (the folding fan). Sensu is one of the important cultural symbols and popular tourist souvenir here.
In other party that I hosted to my friends from the company in my apartment, there were two guys one of them stays in the Tozai line. On the party day I told them that I would wait in the Baraki Nakayama station to receive them. Mr. Mitadera came sharp at the time fixed, the next person Mr. Ogashira was delayed for few minutes, for our surprise he came in bicycle.
That party was an Indian party to Japanese. I made Chicken curry, Chapati and Green dhal masala as main course. We had few more items on our table on that day. Those guys were really cool and enjoyed our traditional food. 
It was Mr. Ogashira who learned how to say taste good in Tamil and pronounced with Japanese accent.
It was nice experience visiting Naeba the mountain town of Niigata prefecture in Japan. I traveled to Naeba with my friends in a car, after about two and half hours journey we landed in a place with cluster of mountains covered with silver blanket. White white everywhere, the fingers felt freezing cold what an amazing landscape we spotted in the morning. (Formula: Water + cold weather = Snowflakes.)
Naeba is famous ski spot to host world cup tournaments for skiing, hence it attracts more people. This town is filled with rental shops of Skii equipment. I had a chat with the local rental shop owner (Looked in the age of 80s), he stated almost 6 months in a year Naeba has snow. 
Later I also came to know he is a champion in the sport long time back. He also visited Himalayas for training Indians on snow surfing sports. One can rent (daily) the ski equipment from 1000 yens to 3000 yens. As I had no experience in snow sports, I had to spend nearly 2 hours to learn how to stand, start and stop the ski. Believe me I had felt carrying 10kg on my foot while wearing the ski equipments. The Mt. Naeba skiers aged from 3 years old to any upper age.
Mt. Naeba has good facilities for accommodation, food and health. Often I could see the snow bikes of patrol people driving around. The food court near Naeba has Italian and Japanese food varieties. In fact inside the same food court there is an onsen (Japanese hot spring bath) for after ski experience. I had real fun having Japanese curry rice food, it was good.
The Mountain was very steep and you can literally see the skiers every part of the mountain skating down towards. There are many cableway facilities that take the skiers to the top of several ski spots and they start skiing down from those areas. 
Since I had no experience I was not really confident on skiing from such a steep spots but I never missed to go on top of the Mt. Naeba, about 1789m summit I had traveled on the cable way, there was no words to express the feeling of my cable car experience. In simple words Fear, Thrill, Sad, Surprise and Glad are the various expressions I had during the cableway travel. While climbing upwards I had encountered many sceneries and landscapes of Niigata prefecture.
I took the cable way bit late in the evening; hence I had only 3 mins to spend time on the summit. You know what I would have done with that short time span, clicked few photographs.
My boss had hosted a farewell party for me; the picture shown above is from that party. There is a video uploaded to youtube, will do some more interesting videos very soon.
Yesterday it happens to me to eat Sushi, sesame with raw whale and many other Japanese sea foods like Octopus, Squid and Fishes. Here is the raw fish consuming video from my yesterday’s party ;-)
Actually if you look at the hotel, we were sitting on the ground a typical Japanese style hotel. For people with baloon type belly :-) it's a task to be noted.
The moment anybody outside this tiny country Japan is thinking about Japan will immediately find an image of a colorful female in their mind. Though Japan is famously known for its electronics, efficient cars and earth quakes what comes in ones thought is the female who is elegantly dressed with costlier kimonos and painted her exposed body parts like face, hands and neck with various colors.
In the beginning my idea of Geisha is a rich woman or a woman from the imperial family is who the Geishas are, but later I found a different view about them. These are the people who entertain their customers with dance, music, story telling and communication (probably drama) expressing the illusion of a female. Their dressing needs aid from a professional as it involves lots of difficulties. In the ancient days Geisha are not females instead males. Later the term has transformed to females, as no entertainment ends without the spice of a woman. The Geishas are trained from their young age, some times from childhood. They have a special training for how to entertain their customers, when they were matured or learned to become Geisha these young people will go on an apprentice period during that time they will be referred as Maiko.
I wanted to meet the today’s Geisha, got information of their locations primarily Kyoto the old capital of Japan. But having limitations with the work schedule I’m really unable to visit that far. Next place came to me as an option is Asakusa of Tokyo (Refer my previous blog Auspicious Asakusa). Finding Geisha out from Asakusa is a real challenging task; finally I met a Maiko(Trainee Geisha) on the road. She was beautiful with the pink colored makeup all over her body with a black Maiko’s kimono. As a matter of fact, I never missed the opportunity to ask her to pose with me for the camera my friend carried along with me for the trial. She accepted my request with a beautiful smile (look at the picture). She was accompanied by two men dressed in a colorful form, but I still have no idea of who to refer them as this is the time I have seen a person like them. Some of the points stated here are the output of my discussion from the Maiko and the two men along with her. They stated couple of tea houses in the area hosts the shows of Geisha.
Samyoji temple is on the little elevated but not in a highest mountain with aged about 600 year old. It is located on the Tsukuba mountain belt. The temple is not crowded; it’s a clam environment residing in a peaceful location on the green hands of nature. After driving the car in a single hairpin bend the samsoji temple parking area has been reached. The parking area has the food stalls selling squid, octopus and fish varieties.
There are two stone lanterns installed on the stone made stairs which leads to the temple. There were about or lesser than 100 steps to reach the temple from the stone lantern installed. In front of the lantern the temple authorities has a shop to sell some religious items. I have no clear idea about the names of those items but those seem to be a wrist bands, fortune tellers and some memorandums. Also on the parallel side of the 2 stone made lanterns I have also seen a Buddha statue with kids playing, some people had also left some soft toys near to the statue as a religious belief I guess. The stone made steps are neat and divided with a steal pipe climbing and returning people support.
This temple has a 3 storied wooden pagoda, an Entrance and two temples. The primary temple is larger and taller in sized. The temples are erected with statues in it, those were larger in size. As a custom this temple also had the water pot where people wash their hands before entering to the temple. 
The small sized temple had a giant sized angriest God with two other subordinates in it. Except the main temple, including the entrance had the roof with a sort of grass topping. The entire temple has shown no sign of cement or concrete, everything was made with wood. But it was elegant and had a speciality of Japanese style architecture.
After a month time interval I had an opportunity to go outings in Japan, This time the idea to know the ancient Japanese pottery making has been sparked by Mr.Uchida (Our Guarantor). Hence we have chosen to visit a place about 100kms away from Tokyo called Mashiko.
The in car navigator has been set starting point Nishi Funabashi and destination as Mashiko Information center the community building. It quickly recognised the starting and destination points and showed the entire travel distance as 106kms and 2:37mins has driving time.
Mashiko is a famous country town during Nara Era (A.D. 710-784) for manufacturing pottery goods. Due to several political changes in Japan the Mashiko had to loose its glory and blurred the pottery business. The current Mashiko contributes to Japan as tourism attraction exhibiting the classical age pottery manufacturing techniques. There are several schools teaches the pottery manufacturing art. There visitors can pay as low as 1000yen for a guided pottery manufacturing tour during which they can make their own pottery, there will be a additional charge for boiling the visitor made pottery and shipping it to the visitors address in Japan after 2-3 days of the whole process.
The area information office provides detailed map and information flyers to those who visit Mashiko. There is plenty of car parking available around the attractions in Mashiko. The Mashiko area is filled with pottery makers and shrines of ancient Japanese Nara Era. 
First time in my life ever celebrating the New Year outside my home land, filled with expectation, happiness and doubt. Surprisingly nothing has materialised on the 31st December 2007 night to welcome the New Year.
Another disappointment had waited in Asakusa; earlier couple of my Japanese friends understated that during the New Year day the Japanese wear Kimonos in large number and visit Asakusa but the situation was totally against as I had not seen anybody with the cultural dress in there. Instead the ultra modern western dresses were attracted our eyes.
