My parents have been in this business since before I was born at the same coffee shop. With more than 30 years of their own recipes, from the original Wan Tan and Dumpling noodles, to the current variety of Minced Meat Noodle, Fishball Noodle, Lor Mee, Fried Kway Teow and Laksa. With five noodle variations to serve daily, the two of them finally exhausted their energy.

This is a big part of my life, through their hardwork they hold the family together, brought us up, and put my brother and I through schools up till a diploma for me. I’ve never (maybe I did, perhaps once or twice) told them how much I cherish and appreciate their love and will forever be grateful.

Since we move to Sengkang some 12 years ago, I rarely go visit them at the stall. Today, I did, for the last time.

If you haven’t tried or have tried and love the taste, please do try head down for one last time. The last day of operation is on 29 May 2012, Tuesday. They start business from 7am to around 2pm (while ingredients last) from Monday to Friday.

Coffee Shop at Blk 206 Toa Payoh North

Try it before its gone!

Having used Standard Chartered Bank as my companies account the past two years and the experience so far has been a smooth sailing one. Planning to start one more corporate account, I compared the three banks of my choice – DBS, OCBC and Standard Chartered. Not sure if other banks offer cash management account for new businesses, I picked these three just because I’ve got at least a personal account with all of them.

Here’s my comparison table, drafted based on information from their website.

Depending on what’s your needs and expected cash flow and use of cheques and GIRO/transfer facilities, each bank offers a different package for SMEs. From the looks of it, I’ll be sticking with Standard Chartered since its the most basic and it meets my needs.

Are you running a startup too? Which bank are you using and why?

After last night’s Let’s Talk iPhone event, I’m open to trying out new mobile phones again! Ever since I got my 3GS, I’ve been rather stubborn that no other phone can replace the iPhone, but having used iPhone for two years now, I’m beginning to get bored of it. Not that I’ll not consider buying the 4GS, just that I think I should give other brands a chance.

My lifestyle for the next one year, in wait for iPhone 5, I’ll need the following features in my phone:

• great camera (8mp and above) to capture shots of kids in action with good lens, light sensitivity and macro shots
• email access
• good UI for access to Facebook, twitter, instagram, flickr, wordpress, google apps, dropbox and whatsapp
• good photo editing apps equivalent to camera+, photoshake and pictureshow on iOS
• at least 16GB storage
• good speakers

Anyone has got a better alternative than the iPhone 4S for my needs? If not I’ll have to join the queue on 28 Oct! -_-”

I’ve been a customer with Standard Chartered Bank for 2 years now, and there hasn’t been much complaints from my end. But our recent encounter with the bank hasn’t been a satisfactory one. Its either a lack of service standard by the staff (a Relationship Manager, Preferred Banking) who served us at Marine Parade branch that day or a lack of support at the backend of the bank. After 3 weeks, we have yet received what we were supposed to 7 working days from the opening of account.

Here’s our experience; anyone else shared the same experience before? Hope not.

It was on Sunday, 14 August 2011, when we visited the Marine Parade Central Standard Chartered Bank. Our intention was to open an account for savings with cheque book service and look at potential investment opportunities. After approximately 15 minutes of waiting, staff returned from their break and we were served by this young lady. After explaining our needs, she recommended us to take up a long term endowment plan (with Prudential) where we were eligible for a special short-term Time Deposits promotion where we get high interests return for a 3-month period. After calculating and discussions, we took up her proposal and signed up for the endowment plan, started two Time Deposits accounts and started an XtraSaver account.

As it was a Sunday, the bank were not able to deposit the cheque and all transactions had to wait till the next working day, which was the NEXT day. We asked when the ATM/Debit card, cheque book, Internet banking details and other documents will reach us, we were told the ATM/Debit card will be sent to us the NEXT working day and the rest of the documents and stuff will come in 7 working days. After all is signed and done, we left.

The first thing that arrived in our mailbox was the cheque book, followed by the bank transaction slip for our cheque deposit. A week passed and that were all we received. Then another week passed, still nothing was sent. We called the Relationship Manager who served us (whom also upgraded us to Preferred Banking status on 14 August 2011), she said she will check and the other documents should be on the way. After couple of days, still nothing received from Standard Chartered Bank. So I tweeted @stanchartbreeze hoping someone can help look into the matter. Private messages were exchanged and a phone call was made to clarify the situation. We were told they will send out the outstanding items the next working day, which was the day after Hari Raya. So by now, we should have received our ATM/Debit card, Pin for the card, Internet Banking information and documents for our endowment plan right? Sadly, only the card was received and it arrived on Friday! Without the pin number, the card is technically useless, except for purchasing it as a debit card; not what we needed.

From a verbal assurance that the card will reach us the NEXT working day, to a delay of more than 14 working days! This is NOT the kind of service standard we’re expecting from a bank, and for a preferred banking customer some more! Throughout this period of time, the only way we can access the money was to go to the branch and do our withdrawal over the counter. Much time would have been saved if the necessary stuff came in time, as mentioned by the Relationship Manager.

Several times we wanted to go straight to the branch to request for a card and the IB token, but was afraid the bank had already mailed out to us. So we waited. When we called the bank and when they called us after the tweet, neither of them suggested for us to have our problems solved at the branch. Wait was what we did.

If we had opened the account on a weekday, would all this have happened? If not, then is it a failure on the bank’s side to have weekend banking hours yet not able to deliver the standard that should have had for weekday banking? Is this considered a weekend banking fail?

We were looking forward to using the other banking services and products by Standard Chartered Bank before this happened, now we are seriously considering otherwise. If such simple transactional standards cannot be met, how can we trust that a long term property loan or even a CDA with Standard Chartered Bank is what we should take up? Hope something can be done about the bank’s service standard and SOPs. No point having a good range of products/services, great internet/mobile banking tools and nice website, but service standard isn’t satisfactory.

Let’s see how long more we’ve got to wait for the card pin, IB details and other documents pending to reach us. Haiz…

Update: All items are SOLD. Thanks.

Anyone looking for a pre-owned household machines? These MUST go by 10 August! Let me know if you want to buy any of them.

WTS: 15″ laptop bag from CÔTE et CIEL

Navy blue CÔTE et CIEL Messenger bag fits 15″ laptop
Used less than 1-week. Bought for 15″ MBP, but got a 13″ MBA instead hence the bag is too big for me. Hope to sell this to get a another bag.

Going at S$200, includes delivery by Ta-Q-bin. (Purchased at $270+ from Cumulus)

Anyone wants to adopt this super durable and wonderful messenger bag?

My memory seems to get worse as I age, now that I’m 30, its better for me to keep my memory safe in this blog in case one day I can’t remember what I want to remember. If you know me well enough, you know how bad my memory is becoming! I think I need to take more brain boosting food or sort.

July is the month I look forward to welcoming every year. I don’t have many friends who will throw me birthday party nor treat me to meals nor shower me with gifts every year, but I do have people who care and those who I love that will always remember. And then with Facebook, all your friends will see your name appearing at the right side of their feed that its your birthday, those who care enough will post a greeting on your wall or send you a private message (so that they don’t get notified whenever someone else posts after him/her). The cutest wish I got was from my ex-student who can’t post on my Facebook wall (cos I disallowed anyone to do so) and sent me a message on Whatsapp instead. Technology sure brings everyone closer don’t you agree?

To all of you-know-who-you-are out there, thank you for your well wishes!

This was how my July started this year…