Tag: Singapore

  • Maison Ikkoku cafe, Singapore

    Spent my afternoon off at a new cafe in the Kampong Glam/Arab Street area. It takes a whole lot of inspiration from Japanese culture, by which I mean they had a Japanese barista champion instruct their team; the second-floor menswear boutique is 80% independent Japanese labels; the decor is minimalist, eclectic, intimate, and well-worn all at the same time, just like any self-respecting Japanese hideyhole’s should — it only lacks the sonic environment of one, substituting a bordering-on-hip soundtrack of singer-songwriter tunes and Bristolian trip-hop for what would normally be a mix of guileless cool jazz cuts and barely-audible breakbeats. From vinyl.

    The coffee, anyway, was fantastic, and alongside cupcakes, savory pork buns, and other snacks, they offer a variation of the Spam musubi. No seaweed wrapped around the body, no soy sauce and rice wine seasoning fried into the Spam (only a small sachet of Japanese soy sauce accompanying the clingfilm-wrapped slab on a plate… don’t use it), but the use of furikake in the shortgrain rice is a nice touch. Like I said, it’s a variation, and one I’m happy to have in the absence of Spam musubi anywhere else on this island.

    I was told they get really busy on the weekends, so I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to be back again. Opening hours on weekdays are 9am to 7pm. Fridays and Saturdays, they’re good till 10pm. In about a month or so, they expect to open a cocktail bar on the third floor, and it’s my guess they’ll revise the opening hours of the cafe to suit demand as things progress. If I can’t make it in for a cup of coffee after work, there’s always alcohol (as one review mentioned, pork and alcohol on the menu are cause for a bit of a double take; it’s practically in the shadow of a giant mosque, and right in the middle of an Islamic cultural district).

    It’s the kind of place I fully expect to find started by a handful of hardened advertising and design veterans who’ve finally had enough of the slog and now want to live out their cafe dreams, but this article says it’s run by two married couples, and I heard today that their backgrounds couldn’t be further from the theory. One of them worked in freighting, it seems. With any luck, my retirement job will be in fund management.

    Maison Ikkoku – Facebook Page
    20 Kandahar Street
    Singapore 198885 
  • Sunday afternoon at 40 Hands coffee

    www.40handscoffee.com
    A rather good place for coffee, less painfully hip than most and able to actually deliver on the good coffee part. A little stuffy on the inside, but there are outdoor areas that will still keep you out of light rain, as we found out today. I think I’d pick this place over Loysel’s Toy and Papa Palheta, but that might just be because I like this name* a whole lot more than those two. Strangelets, a small store with painfully-hip accessories and homeware, is across the street having moved from the Tanjong Pagar area.

    * Supposedly coffee passes through an average of 40 hands on its way from the fields to your cup.

  • Switched from SingNet DSL to StarHub Fiber today. Here are the Speedtest results.

    Singnet-dsl-vs-starhub-fiber

    We never got the theoretical maximum speed of SingNet’s 6mbps down, 512kbps up plan, so I don’t consider it to be a bottleneck for download speeds (even in the best case scenario of a Singapore-based server, it didn’t come up against the 6mbps ceiling). The StarHub fiber plan is capped at 50mbps down, 15mbps up. For international surfing, StarHub says the connection is capped at 15mbps down. I’m just happy that it’s better, and that uploads are so significantly better. It’s going to be great for uploading photos to Flickr.

    I tried out a couple of moderately-seeded torrents and saw max download speeds of about 4 times higher than I used to get with SingNet. Your mileage may vary, but it’s a promising start. I think a 1.5GB image came down in about 15 minutes.

    Posted via email from sangsara’s posterous
  • Paul Barnes lecture, SMU/Design Society

    Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011
    Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011Paul Barnes design lecture, SMU June 10 2011

    Paul Barnes lecture, SMU/Design Society, a set on Flickr.

    We attended this on Friday, June 10th. He was on the first stop of a tour that will take him to several Australian cities later this week. Mostly a look at some of his favorite work, from doing logos and type for The Guardian, the National Trust, Kate Moss, Givenchy, and a good deal of insight into how much reiteration and historical knowledge are required for these projects.

  • Google Search Trends for Singapore, 14 May 2010, 2AM

    Google publishes statistics on popular web searches the same way Twitter has its trending topics. Some of this stuff stays up on the charts for days, while other vague, ungrokkable keyword combinations burn brightly and then mysteriously slip away. Let’s have a look at what’s hot now:

    #5 Habib Ali Batu Pahat
    Far as I can tell, Habib Ali is the name of a 96-year-old “shaman” who lives in Batu Pahat, Malaysia. Why his name is trending, I haven’t a clue. Either he did something awesome or he bought it. The top result is a site that tries to explain why he’s a shaman, but it’s just stuff like not turning his back on guests, to the point of shuffling backwards out of a room. To me, that just says he’s a respectful host or he’s had some valuables stolen in the past.
    #4 Jibapan
    A local online shopping site that lets you set up a virtual store of your own, or subscribe to a list of your favorite merchants. The company calls it building your own virtual “mall”, but I refuse to acknowledge that kind of marketing BS until someone actually pays me rent. It does have some cool social features though, like showing your friends the stuff you want to buy and asking them repeatedly if you should get them. Should I, huh? But, if only, then again, maybe, how?! It’s just like shopping with me in the real world. The ever-sunny, floral-scented Sheylara has a blog post on it.
    #3 Jean Danker
    The MediaCorp Radio DJ has done something newsworthy, but I can’t figure out what that might be. A Twitter search didn’t turn up anything either, but did you know she was at Provence in Holland Village two nights ago and has really nice legs?? Alright, I’ll stop now. I feel like the AsiaOne home page.
    #2 Afiz Beats Girl
    This has something to do with a video of a male student from Siglap Secondary School repeatedly slapping a female student across the face. Some links suggest the male student has an association with a gay dance group I’d never heard of before, called Voguelicious. What a name! It conjures up images of Glee, Madonna, Beyonce, Women’s wear floors in major department stores, shoulder pads, patent leather, and that giant Sephora store in Paris! So gay.
    #1 Muqimiya
    The name of a hot Chinese girl, what else? I think she’s a forehead model.
    —–
    Okay, that’s all! Tune in next time for more insight into what Singaporeans use this internet thing for.
    Update: I posted this last night, and now I have a Jibapan ad appearing on my site. So, uh, go get started on those virtual malls!
  • Children’s Season at SAM (look for the giant rabbit)

    According to this press release, it’s part of SAM’s inaugural Children’s Season – being a cute, enormous animal/balloon sculpture named Walter, I can see how that might work. Created by Dawn Ng, it’s been around Singapore a bit, although I hadn’t seen or heard of it before yesterday. Children’s Season will have a mix of interactive pieces and installations from local and international artists, some of them built with rather interesting technology (such as the reactive “Funky Forest” virtual space by Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille). I only managed photos of Walter, but the whole thing kicks off tomorrow (14th May 2010) and runs till mid-July. If you have a young family or little nephews and nieces to keep busy, it sounds like a great deal of fun.

    Posted via email from sangsara’s posterous

    Update: A photo of the Funky Forest exhibit from my recent visit.

    Funky Forest

  • Void Deck Checkers/Draughts

    Checkers

    Checkers

    Walking around Toa Payoh, I came across an area where groups of old men apparently gather to play checkers quite regularly, drawing audiences. I suppose it’s the local equivalent of playing chess in a park.

    I talked to one of the regulars who, as far as my limited Mandarin suggests, told me that they were playing for several hundred dollars a game, and wagers used to run as high as $1000 in the old days. I didn’t see any piles of money by the board, so there’s no way of knowing if he was just kidding me.

    These two men had the largest crowd of spectators, and continued playing long after the others had packed up for the day.

    —-

    A couple more photos from earlier that day:

    Checkers

    Checkers

  • SingTel DSL Broadband settings

    If you’re a heavy internet user connected with SingTel Broadband via the supplied 2WIRE modem/router, you probably already know that the hardware is crap and tends to spaz out when you open too many connections. Getting your own ADSL modem/router is an ideal solution, but unless it auto-configures to the network like SingTel’s does, you’re looking at some lengthy trial and error while trying to get it connected.

    I had that experience myself a few months ago, and had to look all over the net for the settings (on my iPhone, no less) because SingTel’s helpdesk wouldn’t “support third-party hardware”. That’s funny, because when I called to ask for the admin console password on the 2WIRE router (to enable Modem Only mode, which I could use with my previous Linksys router), I was told that they couldn’t give it to me, and I had to call 2WIRE’s distributor in Jurong or something. In the end, 2WIRE told me to get the password from SingTel. It was hopeless.

    I’d be satisfied if this helps just one person out there.

    DSL connection settings from my 3com modem/router:

    Protocol: PPPoA

    Username: xxxxx@singnet

    Connect Type: Always Connected

    Idle Time: 20 (min)

    MTU: 1492

    VPI/VCI: 0/100

    Encapsulation: VC MUX

    QoS Class: UBR

    PCR/SCR/MBS: 4000/4000/10