Category: Uncategorized

Today is the first full day after the 50% tariffs imposed by the US on India took effect.

India exports quite a huge amount of goods to the US, inter alia, textiles, gems and jewellery, electronics and pharmaceuticals. They are sure to take a massive economic hit and it is only a question of a very short time before that impact will be felt on the local economy. India was touting its Make in India programme over the last 6 years and that is now in tatters. Who would want to manufacture in India if it subject to such high tariffs?

Over the last 5 years, India was capitalising on the fact that manufacturers wanted to shift out of China. India seemed a safe bet as everyone assumed the US would not touch India as it needed it as a counter balance against China. Modi assumed India could do anything and there would be no consequences, including buying cheap oil from Russia with impunity.

Well the time has now come for India to face the music. It can either stop buying cheap Russian oil, pressure Russia to stop the war or look for alternative sources for its goods.

However none of these options seem viable in the short term. The pain is going to be real.

This morning I messaged Kaling to see how he was and surprisingly he suggested lunch.

He chose Bistro du Vin at Shaw Center. When I arrived Virginia was also there. She just arrived this morning from the US after dropping off her son in the US. Lunch was good. I haven’t been here for quite a while and they have a decently priced set lunch.

While we were having lunch, I started talking about Chinese tea. Kaling was interested and off we went to Woosee at Mandarin Gallery to have tea. I think they have some of the best tea in Singapore and it’s also a decent place to sit down and sample tea.

We went there in Kaling’s i7, which is a lovely car when you are the passenger.

We sampled a 2004 raw puer. I think Kaling must have felt good drinking it because he ended up buying that one and another Bindao tea, which was the most expensive one they had in their store. He also got a beautiful tea pot.

I do hope he enjoys his tea and drinks it regularly for its health benefits.

Drove back from Kl this morning. I left at 1015am this morning from KLCC with a 100% charge. The navigation showed that I would reach Tuas checkpoint at 150pm with a 19% charge. There was no traffic at all except for a 7 minutes delay at the Singapore immigration.

Such a breeze compared to flying. Flying would have meant an hour ride to the airport, then about at least an hour wait for the plane, an hour journey on the plane, waiting another 30 minutes to disembark a d collect luggage and finally another 30 minutes home.

Culina in KL is currently having a Merdeka promotion menu. Its on till end September. So yummy and so reasonably priced. I have been coming here every evening and I have tried almost all the items in this menu.

The sambal pizza is yummy, the chili crab spaghetti was good, the grilled Sabah sea prawn spaghetti was excellent. The only item I wasn’t so hot on was the chicken. And they all so well priced. I topped off my meal with a fruit selection of papayas and pears I picked from the Culina market just nearby.

I shall have another round in September.

Last night I watched the MPO perform this concert. Initially they were only performing this programme on one night and I bought my tickets for this last year. But it was so popular that they are now doing this on 6 nights for which all tickets are sold out.

The performance started with a rousing performance of Negara Ku. And as always, the orchestra played well. The first half featured pieces by JW. They played Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, ET, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Superman. For HZ, they performed Interstellar, Dune, the Crown, Dark Knight, Gladiator, Man of Steel and Lion King.

Both of them have very different styles. JW pieces are majestic and brassy. HZ pieces are generally expansive, moodier with lots of strings. Both of them use a full orchestra to achieve the sound they want. I have to say that I am more familiar with JW pieces. How can one ever forget the opening music of Star Wars. I remember watching this on the big screen and being mesmerized by the opening theme. I listened to it so many times. Or the flying scene in ET where Elliott is on the bike with ET flying across the silhouette of the moon. Bring back wonderful memories.

I enjoyed this performance as they used lights in the hall to also create a effective and appropriate atmosphere to go well with the music.

Of course the notable omission was Schindler’s List by JW. Clearly they didn’t want to play one of his most well known pieces, for which he won an Oscar, because of the Jewish theme of the movie.

Today I finally signed the sale and purchase agreement for Anyara. Now to arrange the first 10% payment.

Together with this I get 4 acres of Mao Shan Wang durian planation which is already in its 5th year of growth. I am waiting for the 4.2 km link road that will cut down the travelling time to KLCC to 25 minutes. That will take about 18 months. The facilities will take about 24 months to build. I need to build the house within 5 years.

Will meet up with designers and architects to get some ideas next year. Anyway in no hurry as I want others to start building. Good to see who they use and what their designs are.

Will be fun. Also found out that my house number will be 7. Nice single digit!

This morning I drove up to KL. Started off at 515am with a 100% charge. Both Tuas and Malaysia checkpoints were a breeze. No traffic at all. Strangely by the time I was clearing Malaysia immigration, my charge was down to 91%. I thought it weird that it came off so quickly for the first 10%. Still as I was driving, it showed that I would reach KLCC with a15% charge remaining.

Anyway as it was still very early, I stopped at Ayer Keroh and charged the car for 15 minutes, which brought the charge up to 80%. I had a long black at Starbucks, which opened at 8am, while waiting for the quick charge. The service at Starbucks was superb.

Arrived in KL at 10am. Morning traffic.

I had lunch at the Good Earth Restaurant yesterday. It was with my colleague and her mum.

I first my mum’s colleague earlier this year at an Indian function. She had asked to see me through a friend and she came up to greet me at that dinner.

So I have been talking to my colleague about a lunch for some time and we decided to have it here as both of them are vegetarians. We spent all our time talking about technology and in particular AI, and how it will eventually disrupt work and may cause unemployment. I suppose it was a pertinent conversation as my colleague is very young.

We had a lovely time and the food was good. I have never eaten here but I remember getting take away food from here during Covid.

So it looks like it might finally happen. The meeting between Trump and Zelensky this morning went well. Much better than the February meeting. And they have agreed to direct talks between Ukraine and Russia and to a three party meeting with the US thereafter.

Nearly 4 years of war and so much hardship and suffering for Ukraine. I hope a peace deal happens soon. It will bring stability to Europe and another major flashpoint in the world would have been resolved. The sanctions on Russia will be lifted and it will be free to sell its oil and gas in the open market. Ukraine will start its rebuilding its country and economy. There is tremendous opportunity for growth in that country and many people will now rush in to invest there. Their exports of grains can resume. Ukraine has shown tremendous resilience and innovation and the many countries would want to learn from them and buy their know how and military products, especially their drones.

I messaged the Ukrainian Ambassador to send her my best wishes and hopes for a speedy resolution and she similarly is hopeful of a good outcome soon.

If this happens, much as I am surprised to say this and I never thought I would, I do think Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. He would have achieved by clever tactical moves and appropriate pressure on all parties an outcome that none of the other European and US leaders managed to achieve. So let’s see…fingers crossed

This evening I attended the National Day Rally at ITE.

I like attending these rallies as I enjoy hearing the speech by the PM and meeting many of my friends there.

I was here last year and I remember specifically asking to attend as that was the first National Day Rally speech by our new PM. He did well then.

This time he no longer felt the pressure of an election. He had obtained a clear mandate and he spoke with confidence. It showed that he has been been meeting up with many groups of people and listened to them, finding out their needs. He identified 5 areas to touch on and each area was identified carefully and he had a clear vision for each one of these areas. I was actually looking forward to what he had to say on each areas. I left feeling very inspired. And I think Singapore is in good strong hands and the future is for us to make it what we want it to be as Singaporeans.