The Agony of using vPOSTUSA Service

First time involved in buying a ATF Cooler from amazon.com. It seemed i can save alot from amazon.com rather than buying from a local shop. The greatest problem of the plan comes when i received the shipping charge from vPOSTUSA Service. The shipping charge was nearly as much as the cost of the item i am paying for!! This is because amazon.com packed the item in box which is 2 over times bigger than the original item, and stuffed quite a lot of american airbags into the box. The vPOSTUSA shipping charge is compute with either actual weight or volumetric weight whichever is higher.

Now is the second time that i am using the vPOSTUSA Service. First one was a good one except the "pain" to pay for high shipping charges. Having learned my lesson, i decide that the next thing to do is to call the merchant once i have placed my order. The operator over the phone mentioned that she would called the warehouse to have my order packed in the smallest box which could accommodated all items. Oh well, at least the merchant was helpful enough.

After a few days, finally received an email from vPOST stating that they could not find a match of my invoices against a parcel which they received. Well that's not the problem, because i believe it can be sort out with just a few emails. The problem is that the parcel's Actual Weight is 4.9kg and Volumetric weight 12.4kg. Again! And this time the shipping charge amounted to SGD$100+!!

Anyone have any ideas/vPOSTUSA promotion codes to reduce the shipping charge, please drop me a comment.

My Brunch on 22nd March 2008

Visit to one of my favourite Food/Hawker Centre, Pei Kio (白桥) Food Centre. In fact, i will definitely visit once i am back in Singapore after each outstation trip.

Fried carrot cake from 好味.

There is always a queue at the stall, but is definitely worth the wait. Price starts from $1.00 for one plate of carrot cake. They have both black and white version. This is value for money and serve very "sinfully rich" food (PS: A note for those who are very conscious about their calories intake) stall. The plate of carrot cake we ordered is the $3.00 version, the whole plate had 4 eggs inside. Even my friend CT is shocked when he saw the uncle frying the carrot cake for our order. This stall does not beaten the eggs before hand, so you are able to see how much eggs they have put in for each order.

Chicken and Char Siew rice.

First time eating the food from this stall. It is located along the same row as 好味. I forget to note down the name of the stall, but a queue is also spotted at the stall. The chicken meat is quite tender and char siew is quite well done, but overall not too oily. The chili sauce is just nice, not too spicy or sour. Their pricing is also quite reasonable. For $7.00, we had two plates of chicken and char siew rice, and one plate of braised bean curd.

Overall a very "sinful" brunch to start my day .

My dinner for 13th March 2008

One of the many attempts to clear the food items in the Bahrain apartment.

Fried rice (炒饭)!

Ingredients:

- Corn beef
- Mixed vegetables
- Leftover cooked rice
- Eggs
- Onions
- Shallots

End product:

Spent over one hour just to get the end product. Due to the rice contained too much water. Need to send them into the microwave a few times to get rid of the extra water. Appearance wise is not very attractive, but is still edible heeee 8P. Also realised that the green chili is spoilt before the meal 8(

Chinese steamed eggs (蒸水蛋)

When you are aboard for extended period of time, due to study/travel/work. Sometimes one will have a sudden crave for home cook food, especially when you are in a country which culture is totally different from your home country.

Today i have a sudden craving for Chinese steamed eggs. Its quite an simple and healthy dish, and i believe it is in the list of dishes of a lot of Chinese households. The ingredients required for the most basic version are eggs, water, seasoning and some patience to wait it to be steam until its ready.

For those who never heard of the dish before, an entry about Chinese Steamed eggs can be found in wikipedia.

Also found a link on "Learn All About Eggs & How To Cook Them" while i am googling for methods on how to make perfect Chinese steamed eggs. Hope i am in luck tonight to have an edible experiment 8P.

Cheers

List $2 or no price hike food sightings

With the increase of inflation rate in Singapore, we typically see increase in price in almost everything. One particular area, which Singaporeans will feel the direct hit is the pricing of food.

Found the following link while reading hardwarezone forums, hope this helps
List $2 or no price hike food sightings in Singapore

Cheers

Finally my own blog!

Haiz, finally my very own blog! It just happened when the creative juice starts flowing in my brain, when i am trap in Bahrain. Well not exactly creative either, after a long of thinking process of what to write on my own blog.

I am labeled as sad/serious person, and i forget when i last have a good laugh. Thus thats the idea for title of this blog.

Anyway a blog to share my feelings/ideas/thoughts.

Cheers