Blog of David Tham FH

Settling in Portugal

2011-04-15T21:25:00.005+08:00

After working almost 2 years in Singapore, I have moved to Portugal with my wife and cute Yorkie. It is an interesting long distance move back to Europe. Finally all our items have arrived from Singapore (after an almost 3 months of waiting time), but we can't unpacked! Reason for not unpacking is we are moving again. Well, at least this time the move is within Portugal - moving from Central Portugal to Southern Portugal.

View of Lisbon from the air

Dog day care center

2009-06-23T10:00:00.003+08:00

Day care for dogs - It is an interesting concept. What is Dog Day Care you might ask. Well, it is exactly the same as child day care. You drop your dog off at the day care center and pick your dog up later at the end of the day. This is rather popular here in Singapore. Many people with dogs do use this service as it is better than leaving your dog alone at home when you go to work or weekend shopping (Most if not all shopping places do not allow pets).

I found one sure Dog Day Care Center - K9Kulture. We usually leave our cute Yorkie at K9kulture during the weekends since it is the day where we do most our shopping and chilling-out. Bruno (our Yorkie) likes going to K9, there he meets new friends, run around and play with other dogs there.

Heavy Rain in Singapore

2009-03-05T22:01:00.001+08:00

It's one of those days when the sky pours down in Singapore. This is some thing that doesn't happens very often if not at all in Glyfada, Greece. Just imagine the river forming up in Glyfada with such a heavy downpour.

Year of the Ox

2009-01-26T21:27:00.004+08:00

Today Chinese celebrates their new year. This is the year of the Ox, one of the twelve chinese zodiac animals. I also started the chinese new year celebration with a traditional reunion dinner. Traditionally, it is one time of the year where everyone from the family returns and have dinner as a family. "Yusheng" meaning raw fish is traditionally chinese new year dish that is served from the seventh day of the chinese new year (Ren Ri or everyman's birthday). However, over the years, "Yusheng" started to appear during the reunion dinner.

Yusheng

Typically, the chinese new year last for 15 days. The first day of the chinese new year is the day where the younger generation visits (pay respects) to their parents and gives "ang pow" red packet to their parents and older generation.

This is one of the many days in Singapore where 90% of the shops, eating places, restaurants are closed.

My Car

2009-01-19T23:05:00.006+08:00

Finally, I managed to convert my Greek driving license to a Singapore driving license. The cost of buying a car in Singapore is extremely higher than in Europe and Greece. Before you can buy a car in Singapore, you need to bid for a COE (Certificate Of Entitlement). The COE allows you to buy a car and the government is using COE to control the number of cars circulating on the roads. So to avoid all the hassle and cost of the COE, I opted to lease a car for 2 years. So I now have a brand new black Mitsubishi Lancer EX. This is a cool car, its keyless and automatically turns on the windscreen wiper when it rains. It also turns on the headlights when the ambient light is too low.

My Mitsubishi Lancer EX

Items arriving from Greece

2009-01-19T22:59:00.004+08:00

After waiting for almost 2 months, our household items shipped from Greece and finally arrived today! All 51 items arrived with no damages and the boxes are all spread around the apartment waiting to be unpacked.

Furnishing the apartment

2009-01-15T17:52:00.005+08:00

Started our initial furnishing of the apartment while we wait for our household items to arrive from Greece. Bought a reasonable 32" Samsung HD-Ready LCD and some furniture from IKEA.

Living Room

New Apartment

2009-01-14T22:34:00.001+08:00

Finally after 2-3 weeks of searching for a reasonably price rental apartment, we found a brand new apartment for rental. It is reasonably priced and has 3 bedrooms, however, the wardrobes are rather small. Guess you can't have everything.

View from the Apartment

Back to Singapore

2009-01-14T14:47:00.000+08:00

After working in Greece for 16 years, we (Sandra and I) decided to pack our bags to explore our new life in Singapore. So for a long time, Dec 2008 is the first time we have spent our Christmas in Singapore.

Christmas Decorations in Orchard Road