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OPC Calculations 2 11 December, 2009

Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Dollars & Cents, Vroom Vroom.
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Oh, it’s \LaTeX equations day again. Haha…

In my last post, I mentioned that high COE is more ‘beneficial’ for OPC owners from the ’savings’ point of view. But of course, it is often more practical to discuss actual spendings instead of savings as ’savings’ can be very misleading. So I’ll try to formulate some equations now to calculate what is the actual amount spent for low and high COE. Let’s use this very simplified equation to calculate amount spent S.

S=\mbox{downpayment}+\mbox{principal loan}+\mbox{interest}-\mbox{scrap value}

Let C be the COE of the car, O be the OMV of the car, and M be the price of the car without COE. Hence, we assume the actual selling price of the car to be C+M. Also assume C+O>17000.

Let us further assume that we will scrap the car at the end of the 10 year COE period, and the loan period is T. Let D be the downpayment paid and we further assume that D is a fixed value becos the buyer only has D amount of available cash. Let I be the interest rate.

First, we consider the case that person A17 bought an OPC at C=17000.

\begin{array}{rcl}S_{A17}&=&D+(C+M-17000-D)\\&&+(C+M-17000-D)\times I\times T-0.5\times O\\&=&M+(M-D)IT-0.5O\end{array}

Next, we consider the case that person B0 bought an OPC at C=0.

\begin{array}{rcl}S_{B0}&=&D+(C+M-17000-D)\\&&+(C+M-17000-D)\times I\times T\\&&-0.5\times(O-17000)\\&=&(M-17000)+(M-17000-D)IT-0.5O+8500\\&=&M+(M-D)IT-0.5O-17000IT-8500\\S_{B0}&=&S_{A17}-(17000IT+8500)\end{array}

Since both I and T are positive values, therefore 17000IT+8500>0. Hence, we arrive at the following result.

S_{B0}<S_{A17}

In other words, all else equal, the actual amount spent by person B0 is lesser that by person A17. In fact, the difference takes the form of 17000IT+8500. That is, the interest incurred by person A17 in borrowing the extra 17000 from the bank and an extra 8500. This extra 8500 can be interpreted as person A17 spending 17000 more than person B0 on COE and recovering back 8500 more than person B0 (due to person A17 having higher OMV) at the end of 10 years.

It is interesting to note that this result is independent of the amount of downpayment, price of (only) the car, and the OMV of the car. Also, the amount of extra money spent by person A17 is determined by the interest rate and the period of loan. At best, even if we assume both persons may have sufficient cash for full downpayment such that D=C+M-17000, then I=T=0, and person A17 is still worse off by 8500.

There you have it. It is more practical to buy an OPC when COE is low becos the actual amount spent is lesser. :)

-Dear1

OPC Calculations 26 November, 2009

Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Dollars & Cents, Internet & Blog, Vroom Vroom.
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Ok, I’m in a mathematical mood today so I’m going to test out the \LaTeX functions in wordpress and present some of my calculations and observations on our Off Peak Car (OPC).

Let C be the COE of the car, O be the OMV of the car, and P be the PARF of the car.

Let us consider the PARF of a normal plated car at each year within the lifespan of the COE of 10 years. For simplicity, we will consider integer number of years t.

P_{normal}(t)=\left\{\begin{array}{l l}C\times\frac{10-t}{10}+O\times0.75&\quad\mbox{if }0<t<5\\C\times\frac{10-t}{10}+O\times\frac{100-(t\times5)}{100}&\quad\mbox{if }5<t<10\end{array}\right.

For an OPC, the 17000 rebate is deducted first from the COE, then from the OMV. Let us assume that C\leq17000 and C+O>17000. Then, the COE will be completely deducted and the PARF of an OPC at each year is defined as follows.

P_{OPC}(t)=\left\{\begin{array}{l l}(C+O-17000)\times0.75&\quad\mbox{if }0<t<5\\ (C+O-17000)\times\frac{100-(t\times5)}{100}&\quad\mbox{if }5<t<10\end{array}\right.

Next, we substitute P_{normal}(10)=0.5O into P_{OPC}(10).

\begin{array}{rcl}P_{OPC}(10)&=&(C+O-17000)\times\frac{100-(10\times5)}{100}\\&=&0.5C+0.5O-8500\\&=&P_{normal}(10)+0.5C-8500\end{array}

This equation shows us that if C=0 then OPC owners receive 8500 less in PARF compared to normal car owners at the end of 10 years. That is, OPC owners received 17000 rebate when they bought the car but recovers 8500 lesser when they scrap the car, meaning the net rebate enjoyed is only (17000-8500=) 8500. If, however, C\geq17000 then OPC owners will receive the same amount in PARF as normal car owners at the end of 10 years, and they enjoy the full 17000 rebate.

This means that OPC owners who got their COE at prices lower than 17000 do not enjoy the full 17000 rebate by virtue of the fact that they will receive a lesser amount when their car is scrapped. In the worse case scenario, the OPC owner will receive only 8500 in rebate if their COE is zero or near zero (i.e. $2 COE in Nov 08).

Of course, there are other factors to be considered such as the actual sale price of the car, the interest rate, amount of loan to take, length of loan, etc. This is only a very simplified calculation to find out the maximum and minimum rebates an OPC owner can get. Yes, in times of high COE, you get the maximum savings, but you might also end up paying more in absolute terms becos of the higher cost of the car and interest payable on loan amount. It’s like buying a brand-less backpack at full price of $20 or a designer brand backpack at 70% off the usual price of $1000. Sure, you saved $700 but you also just spent an extra (300-20=) $280 more than just getting the brand-less one.

Lastly, typing \LaTeX equations are fun! <-geek!

-Dear1

Counting 130 cars in queue 25 October, 2009

Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Vroom Vroom.
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Yesterday (25 Oct 2009), Shell organised this promotion to launch/introduce their new line of petrol called FuelSave. The promotion is a 1 day only event, from 10am to 6pm at almost all Shell stations around Singapore (only some of those industrial area ones were left out). FuelSave 95 or 98 sold at $1 per litre. For comparisons, current petrol price was $1.767 and $1.90 for RON 95 and 98 respectively.

For us, we’re normally supporters of Caltex due to our OCBC Titanium card which gives us 12% off at Caltex. And I tend to think Caltex petrol with techron technology gives our car engine a ’smoother’ feeling. But $1 per litre was just too good to ignore. And since our tank sits at around 40% full, we stand to make some good savings with this promo. Furthermore, I’ve never pumped anything other than RON92 before, so I thot it was a good chance to try out higher grade petrol for a change.

Oh, but we had a small constrain. Our OPC car can only leave the house at 3pm. Ok, so let’s hope that they still have petrol left in their station tanks by late afternoon. We’ll set off at around 3pm, wait in queue (there was no doubt that there will be a queue) for about 30 minutes, then set off to our destination for shopping and to attend a wedding event at night. Or so that’s what we thought.

We woke up at 3pm from our afternoon nap. :P We washed up and got ready to leave the house. We set off at 4pm and drove to our nearby Shell station at Bt Batok Road. Oh, there’s already a queue. That’s expected, no worries. We also saw numerous station helpers to direct traffic and organise the car queue. Nice.

We drove along Bt Batok Road to find the end of the queue. Hmm… no end in sight! We passed the first U-turn point and the queue didn’t end. Somewhere further down the road, we spotted the last car in line and so we made a U-turn at the next traffic junction. Wow! The queue was longer than expected, we probably needed to wait for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

We took up our position and inched forward. 15 minutes into our wait and Dear2 counted that we’ve moved about 10 car lengths. Why is it so slow? When is it going to be our turn? We might be trapped in this queue for longer than we expected. Is it even worth the wait? How much can we save from this? We still want to go shopping before the dinner event u know… Many questions raced across our minds.

We give up!

Turn on the right signal, change lane, get out of the queue, and we decided to do more meaningful things with our Saturday afternoon than to waste our time waiting. As we drove past down the line, Dear2 began counting the number of cars in the queue. I slowed down to a comfortable speed so that Dear2 can keep up with the counting. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10… 64, 66, 68… 98, 100, 102… 126, 128, 130! O_O

There was about 130 cars in queue, and about 10-14 cars within the station itself. OMG. If we had only moved 5 car lengths in 15 minutes, we would still be queuing when the sky turns dark. And taking into account that the promotion only lasted up 6pm, we were most likely going to miss the cutoff timing for the $1 per litre promotion anyway. Can you imagine waiting for 2 hours or more only to discover that promotion is over and having to pay normal price?!

Maybe this marketing event can be improved a bit. First, the long queues caused traffic jams, especially in the city areas. Second, turnover time is still quite long. Maybe they can try a redemption coupon kind of thing? Go to any Shell station, get a coupon, redeem anytime within the next 2 days. Sure, the current promotion stirred up quite a big hoohaa (and traffic jams), and they’re getting all the (bad?) attention/publicity. The redemption scheme probably won’t have the same impact.

We were glad that we decided to abandon this useless waste of weekend time. What can one do in a car for 2 hours anyway? And think about the petrol wasted while waiting in line.

We had a great time afterwards, window shopping and meeting up with old friends. And we’re going back to Caltex for our no-frills, zero waiting time, 12% discount.

-Dear1

A visit to F1 weekend 2009 6 October, 2009

Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Dear2, Travel & Discovery, Vroom Vroom.
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“It’s F1 weekend this weekend!”

-Dear2, 26 Sept 2009

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Two Saturday walkabout tickets for Singapore GP 2009, courtesy of Dear1’s mum.

Dear1 and Dear2 got tickets to go on the Sat F1 event, complimentary of Dear1’s mum’s boss who gave the tickets as some form of staff reward. It’s walkabout Zone 4 tickets and that’s what we did on that day – walk about in Zone 4.

Dear1 parked the car at Central (beside Clarke Quay MRT) as we wanted to avoid congested road conditions at the circuit area.  Funan might have been a slightly nearer location, but again, the North Bridge Road so near to City Hall MRT which happened to be the most commonly used train station might be jammed with vehicles too.  So it was with much surprised that we saw the foot markings directly to the F1 gates, and they starts from the Clarke Quay area.  Good job done!

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Road signs to the gates can be seen from miles away.

From Central to Riverwalk to Asian Civilization Museum, there were plenty of people, events and stalls along the way.  As first time goers, it was a pleasant walk to our destination, the Gate 5 as the excitement was already quite strong by the time we reached the Gate.

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Asian Civilization Museum & Gate 5.

We entered the area at about 6.30, and it was people here people there, and many of them carrying huge cameras ready to capture the action.  It’s just amazing to see that there are so many F1 fans around.  At 7pm, the first and only practice round of the day started and it was the first time that Dear2 found ear plugs to be really effective.  Even if you din bring any, think it’s still worth to buy the $2 survival kit which consists of the earplugs and poncho even though it was obviously going to be a sunny evening.

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Photographers eager to catch some action at the practice session before the sun sets.

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We walked in the direction of Esplanade and towards Marina Square for dinner.

As we walked about our designated zone, we noticed a number of food stalls selling delightful local food. A plate of chicken rice was selling for $8. A Curry’O from Old Chang Kee was selling for $2. A plastic cup of beer cost $10. The list went on. Visitors were only allowed to bring in 1 bottle of plain water for consumption, so there was no choice but to patronize these blood-sucking food stalls. Wrong!

There was a choice. Visitors were entitled to unlimited entries and exits from the F1 area. So, we made our way to Marina Square thru Gate 7 and had our dinner at MOF and KFC. (Side note: Food at MOF sucks. This was already our second visit, so we’re not giving it a third chance.) Food at MOF was so bad that we had to compensate for the bad taste with some snacks at KFC. Over at KFC, they ran out of large whipped potato and so the cashier substituted our large whipped potato with 4 small ones since a large whipped potato contains 4 scoops of potato.

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Curious onlookers surrounded the F1 car exhibit at Marina Square foyer.

After dinner, we visited the F1 exhibition area at the main foyer at Marina Square. It was fun taking photos of the (mock?) F1 car on display and walking through the many F1 related merchandizes on sale there. Soon, it was time for the qualifying rounds and we re-entered the F1 area from Marina Square.

We decided that traffic will be congested as everyone try to leave for home after the qualifying. Hence, we decided that we will only stay for 2 rounds of qualifying to avoid the crowd while we make our way back towards Gate 5.

Along the way, there were many standing platforms where walkabout visitors like us can watch the race from. Most of these platforms were fully occupied with onlookers and photographers. However, most of these platforms were situated along straight roads and the F1 cars simply zoomed by with noise. There plainly wasn’t much to see. In addition, there were no TV screens nearby so we had no idea what was going on, who was leading or had there been any incidents/crashes. There was some seated galleries with those large TV screens but our lowly walkabout ticket wasn’t allowed to enter those areas (despite them being almost empty!).

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Standing platforms along the Esplanade bridge for walkabout visitors like us.

The sound of revving engine and screeching tyres was louder than before with all the cars racing for the best lap times. We could sometimes feel the reverberation on our skins as the cars sped past. We had ear plugs but baby dun have. No worries, baby was well protected from the noisy environment under Dear2’s clothes and skin and muscles and tummy fat (gee…) and amniotic fluid. Sayang sayang.

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At F4.9, 1/50, Iso400, the shutter speed was just too slow to get a clear shot of the F1 cars.

We did manage to find a few good spots around the corners where the F1 cars slowed down enough for us to catch a glimpse of their cars, sponsor logos and drivers. Corners really were the best places to watch a race. And these hot spots were usually bursting with photographers and their mono-pods.

Somehow, we found the F1 crowd on this Sat night rather restless. Nobody had any idea of what’s going on and it felt like a session of neck-turning exercises, turning from left to right with every zooming car. However, everyone still had a gleam in their eyes, an excitement, an eagerness, as if waiting for something to happen. That must be it! Everyone was waiting for an accident to happen. After all, losing control of a spinning car and crashing into the side walls had to be the highlight of any race. Suddenly, race watching seemed so sadistic.

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Luckily, we did not have to squeeze with the crowd on public transport.

We exited from Gate 5 shortly before the start of the 3rd round and retraced our steps back towards Central. Clarke Quay did look different from day to night. The restaurants were filled with patrons. The flea market had made way for an outdoor cafe. A large projector screen was set up next to the Statue of Raffles for the live telecast of the F1 qualifiers. Race queen inspired waitresses busied themselves with drinks and credit cards.

Over at Central, things were much quieter as the night crowd changed from race fans to love birds. It was interesting to see the different side of Boat Quay on a weekend midnight. We went to the car park to collect our car, smiling happily that we didn’t have to squeeze on the MRT. Owning a car really did improve our lives. The car park fee was about $5.80, pretty decent for about 8 hours of stay.

There was no congestion that night. Maybe we had parked a little too far away from the F1 gates. We exited thru CTE and arrived home about 25 minutes later. The next day, we watched the F1 race at the comfort of our home, just like we did 1 week after our wedding 1 year ago. It was a fun experience to visit the F1 Singapore GP. Will we PAY to go again next year? Probably not.

-Dear1 & Dear2

Driving out, Driving around 23 September, 2009

Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Travel & Discovery, Vroom Vroom.
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Life really did change quite a bit since we bought our car. For one, we’re now more outgoing on weekends. Particularly on weekends becos our car is an Off Peak Car. Life on weekdays are still pretty much the same as we wake up at the same time every morning to catch the morning train to work. Evenings are more varied as I sometimes leave office on the dot of 6pm to fetch the car from home before picking up Dear2 to go out for a different dinner (it does get quite boring eating from the same hawker stall day after day).

Several things come in handy for us now. First, the public transport guide, available for $6 from Popular bookshop, now serves as a road guide more than a bus guide for us. We use it to plan our routes around and also to find our way home when we got lost. But one bad thing about the public transport guide is its lack of proper road direction markings, especially the one-way roads in the CBD area. Maybe the markings are there but if I can’t readily find the markings as a reader, then it is probably poorly labeled.

The next useful device is our handphones. Both our handphones come with GPS so we can use this feature to search for recommended routes by the navigation software. However, I very much wish that carpark rates can be incorporated into the maps so that we know where is cheapest to park when we reach our destination.

The National Parks Board website has also became our good friend as we try to search out and visit the many green parks and beaches of Singapore. Surprisingly, there are really quite a lot of parks in Singapore that we didn’t know of. Or that we knew of but was too inconvenient to visit.

In addition to parks, good food has also became our destinations. We used to brush off those foodie shows on TV becos its just not worth the effort taking bus, then train, then bus again to reach a particular hawker centre to try a “best” noodles in Singapore. Now, we begin to watch more of these shows, such as Buzzing Cashier and Driving Miss Foodie, and will jot down their addresses to visit them in the future. Another great source of information is the many many food review websites and blogs about Singapore food. Yum yum.

So far, we’ve visited a few hard to reach places that we normally wouldn’t have visited if not for our car. Let me just list down a few in our ever expanding list.

  • Henderson Wave at Telok Blangah Park
  • Home-cooked picnic at Labrador Park
  • Dabao beehoon picnic at Jurong Hill
  • Dabao bread from Yishun central then picnic at Sembawang Park
  • Attend a wedding dinner at Changi Airport
  • Impromptu dinner at Ikea Alexandra
  • Passion Run at East Coast Park
  • Happily going home for weekend family dinners at Jurong
  • Late night ice milo at West Coast Park
  • Flea Market at China Square
  • Sunday breakfast at Toa Payoh, Bedok
  • Visiting an acquaintance at Pasir Ris
  • Hanging out at IMM
  • Durian at Highland Centre, Serangoon
  • Crab beehoon at Ang Mo Kio
  • Exhibitions at Expo
  • Grocery shopping at Vivo City
  • F1 Singapore GP at Marina Bay Street Circuit
  • A walk at Bishan Park
  • Baby discount stores at Kaki Bukit

Not a fan of the bus-train-bus combination, our lifestyle was really getting a bit stale. I’m glad that we’ve decided to invest in a car to improve the quality and inject some variety into our lives. Now that Dear2 is pregnant, I don’t think we’re able to go on any overseas trips until our baby is born. Despite what books say about mums-to-be (MTBs) being energetic in the second trimester, MTBs still tired easily and are unable to walk long distances. So, even if we go on a 8 day Taiwan trip, Dear2 may not be able to fully enjoy the vacation. Instead, why not stay in Singapore and be domestic tourists to discover the many interesting aspects of our island. Kranji War Memorial, Sungei Buloh, Bollywood veggies, Changi Village, etc, here we come!

-Dear1

Kia Movie Night 26 August, 2009

Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear1, Moving Pictures, Vroom Vroom.
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Kia Movie Night occurred some time ago, on 21 July 2009 if I remembered correctly. I think it was quite smart of C&C to organise such a movie event to thank and bribe their customers who bought their car recently (like us). After all, movie tickets are so cheap on a weekday evening. But the impact of a movie event is much higher compared to, say, a $20 Starbucks voucher. Sure, the $20 voucher is worth more, but a movie ticket is perceived as more glam.

So, after attending with Dear2, what do we think of the event?

First, venue was great, at Lido Hall 1, the largest. Yeah…

Second, it was great of them to be thoughtful enough to provide dinner refreshments before the movie becos the movie timing is 7.45pm. People can just go directly after work and have some food before the movie. But they made 2 blunders in the organization. First, they started the refreshments almost 10 mins late and it was visible that all the hungry guests were quite irritated. Second, there wasn’t enough food to go around. People at the back of the queue only had egg sandwich. It turned out that they replenished all the food about 20 mins later for guests that were late. But still, the food should have been continuously replenished and not replenished at a predetermined timing.

Third, the timing wasn’t fantastic. Only people who have bought a normal plated car would be able to drive to the movie event. Those who bought OPC (like us) didn’t have time to go home to pick up their cars and drive to Orchard. Saturday or Sunday evenings would have been a much better time for everyone, but of course they would need to spend more money to book a weekend theatre.

Fourth, they didn’t provide snacks and drinks, no popcorn and coke. This left us with quite a bitter taste as we’ve attended other movie events before that gave a complimentary popcorn and drink to all guests. A small popcorn and a coke at wholesale price shouldn’t cost much, so we were quite disappointed when we didn’t receive any this time. -_-

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We arrived early to an empty theatre at Lido. The poorly done powerpoint slideshow was horrible.

Fifth, they looped a poorly done powerpoint slideshow on the big screen before the start of the movie. The slideshow was meant to promote their upcoming products such as the Forte Koup and others. However, there were only about 5 slides in total (I think) with nothing more than a picture and the name of the car, coupled with bad music. I think they should have made full use of the large cinema screen and show a full feature advertisement for all their upcoming products. Or even just a documentary style corporate video that demonstrates what goes on behind the scenes in making a car.

Sixth, the movie was rather bad. But it wasn’t their fault. After all, they did give us free tickets to the blockbuster movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It’s just that the movie wasn’t very nice.

Overall, it wasn’t the best movie event that we’ve attended but still thumbs up for the efforts. Hopefully, they’ll learn from their shortcomings and run an even more successful event the next time round.

-Dear1

MRT Stations For the better or For the Worse 7 August, 2009

Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Slice of Life, Vroom Vroom.
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We need to improve constantly, cos if we only maintain stillness at where we are, it’s doomed that we will lag behind becos everyone else is going forward (there’s a famous phrase to that effect, but Dear2 cannot remember what the exact words are, haha).

SMRT has recently made a few improvements to their stations.  Kudos to the new/ bigger/ more cubicles toilets + dedicated toilet attendants to maintain the cleanliness of the toilets + more new convenience and quick bites shops right outside the gates + efforts made to alleviate the ‘flooding’ of commuters into and out of the trains at peak hours.  But Dear2 wonders if serious thoughts have really been given to these ‘improvements’ before their implementation?

Let’s take a closer look at Bukit Batok MRT station, a place where Dear1 and Dear2 passes by everyday on our way to work.  As a matter of fact, Dear2 is a strong proponent of the MRT system, for its comfort (ie aircon and spaciousness – let’s not talk about our daily sardines packing experience for now), for its timeliness (usually I do not have to wait longer than 6 mins for the next train – again, let’s not mention those unfortunate incidences due to technical errors or human misbehaviour) and for its affordability (it’s just so obvious that in terms of cost, public transport beats any private means all hands down).  Plus, Dear2 ‘loves’ Bukit Batok MRT station becos with just a 15 min walk away from home, it connects u to the rest of Singapore.  Cool.

But with SMRT’s recent ‘improvements’, Bukit Batok is not as nice as before.  Just the smell  alone is enuff to put many commuters off.  We are talking about serious smell pollution here.  We have not seen it yet, but we can no doubt sniff the distinctive smell of chicken rice once the MRT train door opens.  It’s not so bad in the mornings, when the stall has not been operating at night, but come evenings when Dear1 and Dear2 are on our way home from work, that chicken rice ‘aroma’ will surely greet us when the train door opens.  Dear2 used to be, and still is very fond of our local delight chicken rice, but this smell…. I still cannot bring myself to get close to the stall to check out this dish.

The ‘new’ red and green markings on the floor to give more allowance to alighting passengers is another funny logic.  Previously, the yellow lines were drawn too narrow becos 2 alighting passengers can come thru the passageway shoulder to shoulder spaciously, only to have to squeeze thru the human walls on both sides becos the lines converge not more than 2 steps after.  To alleviate this squeeze, they have drawn the lines further away, so now the area nearest to the train can stand 3 people and yet similarly converge to 2 files 2 steps after.  Going by the logic that the train door allows 2 files of people thru the doorway, this does seem like a very thoughtless ‘improvement’ to me.  The bent lines dun always have to be bent – u can be more efficient with just straights lines drawn at that distance.

Perhaps we can take a leaf out of Japan, where lines are drawn such that commuters line up to board the train. Even where no lines are drawn, the Japanese are courteous enuff to automatically queue up before boarding.  We can even learn from Malaysia, where the platform attendants line everyone up so that they can orderly board.  Guess ‘FIGHTING to squeeze into a train’ kind of scenes will continue to be part of the ‘gracious’ Singapore.

- Dear2

Driving License Obtained – Yeah 1 August, 2009

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One of Dear2’s 2009 new year resolution was to obtain her driving license in 2009, and that was exactly what Dear2 did – pass her driving test.  Yeah!

Ever since Dear2 penned down her new year resolutions at the beginning of this year, she immediately popped down to BBDC to sign up as a member and to kick start her driving lessons (talk about striking while the iron is hot!).  So in Jan, she started on studying for the Final Theory Test and had her first practical lessons as well.

In Feb, lessons were stopped for 2 weeks as Dear1 and Dear2 went on the belated Japan honeymoon, and it was back to the tiring ordeal of 1 lesson every Sat AND Sun (the sacrifice of lazying on a weekend morning was indeed a huge and draining sacrifice when Dear2 had to wake up early in the morning to go for the lessons.  Why?  Becos the ‘good’ afternoon slots were often grabbed way in advance..).

The big day finally came, and it was a Sat (on hind sight, Saturdays are probably not the best days for driving tests, but that was the earliest date that is available to Dear2, after subtracting the ‘first and fifteen day of the lunar month becos BBDC is located right beside a temple).  Behold!  The ‘light’ weekend traffic so used to Dear2 becos all her lessons were taken during weekends was seemingly not so smooth after all.  No choice, we’ll just have to give our best shot.

The test started with the circuit courses first.  As an okay learner all the way throughout the course, Dear2 was almost confident that if she’ll just do everything as per normal, it’s gonna be a pass.  It was a breeze through until when Dear2 knocked down a pole during reverse parking.  ‘Sorry’ or not is not going to help, for the tester had already doomed to fail this unfortunate candidate.

To cut the long story short, Dear returned with a 32 points.  Understandably, the pole costed 10 points, and rest of the 2s and 4s that came from ‘failure to ensure safety when moving out’, ‘failure to check blindspot’ easily chalked that 22 points up.  Crap lah, Dear2 was so trained to AUTOMATICALLY turn her head every time during a turn and what is this ‘failure to check blindspot’!?!?  It was pretty clear what the reason was, and simply no recourse, so might as well resign to fate and go prepare for the next test.

Gotto top up the BBDC member card as Dear2 planned the balance to be just nice for 1 test attempt, gotto book 2 more lessons before the system allows u to register for the next exam, gotto check the lunar calender and book the next test date again.  Luckily the benefit of a school member is that we get to have test dates much earlier than private students (my $68.48 per lesson fee can finally be justified, as compared to private students whose lessons typically cost around just $50).

No pole knock downs, everything was smooth, and Dear2 was determined to exhibit a calm and confident look (tip: this is the most important tip as most learners who have been through the process will tell u; of course, the underlying condition is that u mustn’t strike the kerb/ knock down poles/ cause near-accidents/ be in an accident during the test day).  The outcome for Dear2 – an unsurprising pass.  Yeah!

Overall, Dear2 spent $2,200 on getting her license, quite a hefty amount as compared to peers who spent only about $1,000 odd.  It’s unfair, but I’m just glad that I am a qualified driver now.  Haha..

- Dear2

Our Kia Forte 24 July, 2009

Posted by dear1dear2 in Baby, Dear1, Shop till you drop, Vroom Vroom.
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You may have seen this commercial on TV recently. It’s the new Kia Cerato Forte, launched in Feb 2009, in Singapore. Yes, we bought our first car! And this is the car we bought, the Kia Cerato Forte. :D

Pictures, pictures…

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The front view of our handsome car. Yes, we bought a red plate Off Peak Car. The colour is ‘Sweet Orange’.

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Here’s a look at the interior. Audio controls on the steering wheel and also factory fitted audio system. USB slot for music too, spot the thumbdrive in the lower left of the picture.

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And the Cerato Forte logo at the rear. I would very much like to remove the word Cerato. Just Kia Forte would be cool.

We started sourcing for a car since last year. The basic idea is that we want to prepare to start a family soon. It would be more convenient if we have personal transport so that we can bring Dear2 around to visit the gynae, and next time we can bring baby around for various check ups. And secondly, it would improve our lifestyle, such as staying out late and not worrying about transport home, visiting hard to reach eating places, driving to our frequent running events early in the morning, etc. Yah, it’s a luxury and a depreciating asset, so let’s try to keep the cost down as much as possible.

The first trigger came when the Certificate Of Entitlement (COE) dropped to $2 in November 2008. Of course we knew that the opportunity was already missed as the $2 COE will not occur again in the subsequent months. But it was a sign that car prices are going down. Sure enough, COE remained under the 10k mark for about 6 months following that until the quota reduction in April 2009. We had to grab this opportunity to get a cheap car. After all, poor economy leads to lesser car buyers and cheaper cars. It makes sense to buy big items when the economy is down.

We also wanted an Off Peak Car (OPC) and that placed another constrain on our search. The 17k rebate must be deducted from first the COE and then Open Market Value (OMV) of the car. So the combined value of the COE and OMV must be at least 17k for us to take full advantage of the OPC scheme. But with rock bottom COE prices, we need a car with high OMV. But high OMV means expensive cars in general. But we just wanted a small and cheap car for our small family use. Our requirements were conflicting and the search was tough.

As for why OPC? Dear1 has a direct bus from home to work, so there’s no need to drive on a daily basis. Dear2 works in CBD area so it doesn’t make sense to drive to work. So, OPC seemed to suit our usage requirements rather well.

Long story short, we initially wanted a hatchback car becos it was younger and more trendy looking. We looked at Kia Picanto, Hyundai Getz, Hyundai Avante, Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit, Suzuki Swift and Daihatsu Sirion (and even the Chana Benni). But none of them was really able to convince us to commit…

It was around early March that we caught sight of the Kia Forte. It was a sedan, but every other feature about it was good. Stylish looking, modern, lots of safety features, enough head room for Dear1, spacious interior, 1.6L engine, and it was value for money. Its OMV was high enough (around 13k) and COE prices were hovering around 5k. The selling price of the car for the entry level EX (A) version was 44999, which was within our budget.

By late March, the price had dropped to 42999, making it an even more attractive buy. At that time, there was some change in the specifications of the EX. The newer batches had hydraulic power steering, 1 air bag and 2 disc brakes, 2 drum brakes. Whereas the older batches had electronic power steering, 2 air bags and 4 disc brakes. Both versions were selling at the same price during the transitional period. However, there was limited remaining stock for the older (better) version, and limited choice of colour (only Sweet Orange left). So there was a bit of urgency if we wanted to get more value for money from our car purchase.

After 2 sessions of discussions with our Sales Executive (SE) and a quick test drive, we decided to sign on the dotted line and place an order for the Sweet Orange Auto-transmission EX version with the better specs (4 disc brakes) at 42999. We put our lousy bargaining skills to the test and only managed to get reverse sensors, remote and alarm, Rikecool solar films and full leather seats for an extra 1000 dollar top up.

So the final cost of our car was 42999 (original cost) + 1000 (top up) – 17000 (OPC rebate) = 26999. We paid up 3999 and loan 23000 (2.85% pa) from Maybank for 84 months which works out to be 329 per month. Still a manageable monthly amount.

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Credits: Retrieved from www.sgcarmart.com on 24 July 2009.

On retrospect, it turned out that 42999 was the lowest ever selling price for EX (A) since launch, other than the even more ridiculously priced pre-launch special in Jan 09. The latest price for our model as of 24 Jul 09 is 49999. So we’ve really got quite a good deal for our big ticket purchase.

The entire process was rather smooth for us. We got our COE at our first bid and the car was already sitting in the Singapore warehouse ready for delivery. We ordered in late March, collected our car in late April (only 1 month waiting time) and have been driving around for the last 3 months. :D

Our favourite TV show for the past weeks was Driving Miss Foodie becos we can now drive to all the many inaccessible food places around Singapore. We also visited many parks around the island for mini picnics. Meanwhile, Dear2 had passed her driving test (2nd attempt) and is now pregnant, so things seem to be falling in place nicely for us.

Happy happy!

-Dear1

The BBDC Experience 9 January, 2009

Posted by dear1dear2 in Dear2, Vroom Vroom.
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Dear2 passed her Basic Theory Test (BTT) when she was 20 years old.  And Dear2 is sitting for her Final Theory Test (FTT) in a month’s time.  All because there isn’t any time validity from the time u passed BTT till the time u get your driving licence, but once u have passed your FTT, you need to get your driving licence within 2 years.  Yeah, Dear2 is set out to obtain her driving licence very soon!

The registration process at Bukit Batok Driving Centre (BBDC) was mortifying.  On a week day night at 8.30pm, there’s soooooooooo many people at BBDC!  Everyone seems to be either waiting for their number to be called, or booking/ checking something at the rows of computer terminals, or waiting to go/ coming out from class.  BBDC’s human traffic beat that of any shopping-centre-on-a-weekday 2 hands down.

Registration as a student of BBDC proves to be super confusing too.  Customer service must be dealing with millions of students everyday cos they seem to expect that u know exactly what lessons u need to book, or what tests u need to sit, or when u can apply for what.  Come on, I’m paying so much to be a student of your centre, u’d jolly well explain CLEARLY to me what I need to do.  But no lor, they seem to expect that u know the process inside out already………….

An orientation briefing on the day of registration was conducted to induct new students, basically to give u a better understanding of the learning course in BBDC.  Being a fast notes-taker, Dear2 was still unable to take down all the notes that the instructor rambled on at super fast pace.  Luckily for all the scribbles, these precious notes really did help to give a better understanding for me to plan out my schedule when we got to that stage.

Fine.  After totally comprehending the flow chart from the Class 3 Driving Licence Course brochure (mind u, the flow chart on the website seems to be outdated), Dear2 finally proceeded to top up credit (u need to put money into your BBDC account which is used to pay for everything) and book the lessons and tests.

So, I need to attend all the 4 Theory Lessons even though I already have my BTT, and even though the theory lessons are called Basic Theory Lessons and Final Theory Lessons (dun be misled!).   Yes, I can skip the Basic Theory Practice, Evaluation and Test since I already have BTT.  Oh, so I need to attend the Final Theory Practice, Evaluation and Test, and have to pass Evaluation at least 14 days before sitting for Test. Oh, so I can start my Practical sessions now already.  Oh, u can’t book 2 consecutive lessons in 1 day (Shit! Den I can’t optimize my time.  Still thot of going for 2 consecutive lessons every Sun so as to be more efficient.).

Dear2 has attended her first 2 practical lessons so far.  Next lesson, Dear2 should be going out onto public road once she has obtained her Provisional Driving Licence (PDL).   The previous 2 instructors were by far okay, competent enuff to warrant the fees that I’m gonna be spending (a rough calculation sets u back by at least $2,200 for that piece of licence, and that is provided that u pass first time. *faint*).  And kudos to the instructors for being so generous with their tips on handling the vehicle and road conditions, it really does help a lot to learn from the teachers who do value proper and considerate road usage.

Gotta work hard.  Ermm, or rather, gotto stay focused on the road.  Gambatte.

- Dear2