You just got to love me! Cause I am going to share my final bit about Bandung and than I will give you a whole list of Must Go when you are there. Save on the number of days trying to figure out where to go in Bandung with this post! Get ready to shop till you drop lah!

First, let me finish sharing and recording my trip with Abang to Bandung.

On the third day, also can consider as our last, since we had to reach the airport at 11am the following day, so no shopping nor visit was possible (one day wasted lah!), we decided to pamper ourselves with a massage. Not knowing where to find, we checked with the hotel lobby and there’s brochure for Aroma Theraphy Health Beauty Spa at Bandung Trade Centre (BTC). (No I didn’t spell Theraphy wrongly. That’s the name of the shop.) Since there’s free shutter service from our hotel to BTC, we decided to go take a look see.

Yes! That’s what I think of this year’s National Day Parade! It’s going to kick you off your seats!

Together with ten other bloggers, we got a sneak preview at their combine rehearsal 2 and all of us agreed that its better than previous years’ shows! If you’re the lucky ones who got preview tickets or tickets to the actual day, you’re in for a big treat! And to all the Primary 5 students and accompanying teachers for NEshow out there! Be prepared to stand up for Singapore! Yes! That was what I wanted to do in the middle of the show! Stand up and dance!!!

Please Note: This trick is no longer working after the upgrade.

Yes! That’s what I did without having to open my restaurant! I’d been playing the game the wrong way for the entire week! Sooo silly! And now may I share the tips I found – the short-cut way of earning 2000 coins every hour or so in Restaurant City (a game in facebook).

Yes! I had been playing Restaurant City in facebook for the past one week or so. All thanks to my girlfriend who would rather watch their staff cooking than playing her favorite Mahjong with us! Curious me than started playing the game and building my restaurant… and after an hour, I got hooked! I’m the kind of person who likes building houses (in SIMS) and stuff. So this restaurant empire thinggy got me glued!

How I initially started was to make sure I have the game running whenever I’m online and keep it on tap to monitor the health of my staff. Objective is of course to up my level and grow the size of my restaurant and the staff strength. Now I’ve got a 11 x 11 squared restaurant and 6 staff. And the money (coins) earned is not growing as fast as I hope it would. But now, I can earn 2000 coins every hour or so and needs only 2 staff! This is how you can do it…

1. Block the door to stop customers from entering. This is also to prevent your popularity from dropping.
2. Let all your staff rest and just have 1 chef and 1 waiter with 100% health working in the empty restaurant.
3. Save and exit the game.
4. Come back to the game an hour (to 1.5hour) later and be rewarded with 2000 coins for your recent earnings!
5. Than replace your dying staff with those who’d rested and gained 100% health and repeat step 2 to 5.

This trick was discovered from a quick search on google and stumbling upon this post.

There you go! So now you can start earning coins the faster and easier way. This is useful if you’d reached a sizable restaurant and just want to get more coins to do up the place. This trick will not gain you any GP nor help you level up. So use it only if you want to grow your coin bank.

Have fun!

Continuing from the previous post on our first visit to Bandung. Day 2 is shopping and more shopping. We walked too much that day and bought too little. Was recommended to a wrong place and went too early. Got lost with our own navigation and got quoted a ridiculous price for a ride on their public transport. If you’re interested to learn more about Bandung and where not recommended to go, read on…

The view from the bedroom of our junior suite. Yes, most are low raised buildings that very much resembles the bungalow estates around Singapore, just not as well maintained and organised.

… and which story one decides to read and believe depends on that reader’s preference, choice, taste, understanding of the topic and knowledge.

It was the first social media discussion that got all hot and sweaty (literally) over at Open Room tonight. Only Ogilvy dares to do something that most brands and agencies are afraid of, mixing the traditional media (TM) journalists with the social media (SM) bloggers together in the same room to discuss about Journalism. And may I quote, Journalism as explained in my trusty dictionary in my macbook states that – “the activity or profession of writing for newspapers or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television.” Hmm… nope, it didn’t include bloggers nor online digital storytellers. Let’s see what Wikipedia (the community dictionary) explains Journalism…

Journalism is the production of news reports and editorials through media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the Internet. Journalists—be they writers, editors, photographers, broadcast presenters or producers—serve as the main purveyors of information and opinion in contemporary society.

There. The community speaks.

What am I trying to proof here? The way content is consumed depends on the way a person prefers or are aware of. Both the TM and SM know very well about this and they do well serving their own group of audiences. Let’s take the big boy in TM for instance, they’ve got BT for the business minded individuals, New Paper and Wan Bao for the tabloids and sensational news, and they’ve got magazines catered for different types of population. As for ST, guess I’m classifying it under the general category. Just like most of the blogs here in Singapore. No niche, just write whatever they were told to and censor whatever that’s not to be told.

In SM, there are blogs, websites, forums and lots of people we can follow on twitter, facebook, plurk or whichever social networking site you can name. But the smart users who are using these tools read, follow or participate in their selection due to their choice and needs. I won’t follow someone whose tweet nothing but conversation between his/her followers nor will I want to read a blog on a regular basis if that writer simply posts random things that doesn’t matter to me. Smart users know how to filter out the noise and focus on what matters to them. Same goes for TM. No one (with no reason other than its job responsibilities) will read every single publication and every single page in the TM publications.

Yes, I agree with Daryl that habits die hard (for the older generation), but for the young ones, we pick up new things everyday and our habit changes as we grow together with this new channel of information that’s available for free. And these young ones are eventually going to continue to grow and progress and changing their daily habits. Whether or not reading the newspaper daily will eventually become one of their favorite pastime in years to come, no one knows. Perhaps they’ll still read about the news, but from other channels and ways. So the questions now is how are the TM and SM storytellers evolving and embracing this change to match what may come in the future? Its about delivering the right content when the user wants it. Not when you think they want it. Consumer always have their final choice. No one can force them.

Than there’s the thing about credibility and professionalism. TM journalists state that they are the credible sources, but what about the many misquotes, over sensationalizing of topics, featuring article of certain products as there’s sponsorship involved, reporting of things that they see only one side of the picture, and publishing news that are of no need for public concern e.g. death of someone due to suicide. Personally I have got bad experiences with these things. How can I trust 101% that the TM is giving us accurate and credible news? What about the parts that were not published?

If citizenship journalism is encouraged by the TM, than what makes the differences from a blogger reporting about an incident or happening on their own blog or twitter as they’d encountered it and a citizen that posts up to Stomp? Citizens are encouraged to Stomp about happenings so that the big boys can get the traffic from tabloid or gossip hunters to visit their website, increase their pageviews and get advertising dollars from all the flashing irritating banner ads. If they can do that, than why can’t the bloggers?

On a final note, I’ve to say this again – I read what I want to read, if I’m not interested in the war that’s happening out there nor the new jet that some army purchased, I can’t be bothered. When I really need to find them, I search! If google or yahoo (or bing) doesn’t list your content within the first 3 to 4 pages, I’m sorry you didn’t reach me. Eventually I’ll get my source from somewhere else. Whether or not the source is 100% reliable, its all up to the smart reader to decide.

Updates – posts I want to remember

• POV from Daryl, one of the panelists at Open Room
• Interesting analogy by Lucian
• Ian’s thought never fails to make me put on another thinking cap
• Brian’s shares the building of future media organisation (with reference to Monocle.com)

That was the first questions I get when I told my friends that I’ll be away for a short trip with Abang. Yes, we went to this small city call Bandung and no they don’t serve any Bandung drink there! I don’t even remember seeing any rose syrup! All I see are lots of tehbotel! I drank countless bottles of that when I was there!

So where the hell is Bandung and what’s there that attracted us to give this little known place a visit? Before I start telling you more, here’s me and Abang at Singapore Terminal 1 waiting for our AirAsia plane. By the way, that’s the only way you can get to Bandung direct from Singapore. (Note: All images can be clicked to view larger format if you want to.)

Previously I shared some photos taken with Nokia N97 in my PCshow special of Claud talks Gadgets. Here’s my take on some other features on the phone and why I’m loving Gravity on the Nokia N97 so much. Watch it in HQ!

• Exterior of Nokia N97
• Customising the homescreen
• Editing and moving applications
• Marking multiple photos and videos
• Viewing photos
• Twittering with Gravity demo

Also my first attempt with the new iMovie on my new MBP! *coughs* Video taken with the Canon IXUS 110IS.