Tango Tonight

Look at those confident ladies. They transformed to be professional dancers.

Tango Tonight

choreographed by Kathy Chang & Sue Hsu (Aug 09)

Wanna Be Elvis

Both the song and the dance is nice.

Wanna be Elvis

choreographed by Robbie McGown Hickie

Lugasa, Viqueque District, Timor Leste

Lugasa is another village that we had to visit and do our programme with the children. This is the toughest village to get the children engaged in the programme. Despite of the difficulties, we still had a good time with the children.

Why Old Folks Love Line Dance

My colleagues had persuaded me to sign-up for line dance organised by the office healthy workplace committee. I was hesitant as I felt that line dance was those boring folk/country dance enjoyed by old folks. In the end, I signed up just to have some form of exercise. I was surprised to find myself enjoying it. Why? Line dance has revolved over the years. It is no longer those slow boring folk dance. It integrated many other modern dances such as hip-hop, rock & roll, waltz, jazz, rumba etc.

You do work out your cardio for those fast music and work out your brain as you would need to remember your steps. It also used pop songs. It was fun to dance in a group and laughed together for the mistakes made. Now I understand why the old folks in my office simply love line dance. With the changes, it is slowly drawing younger age group people.

The video is just one example of pop song integrated with line dance. People simply just feel that they can dance like a professional.

Nobody but you!

choregraphed by Emily Woo

Fatudere Sub-district, Viqueque District, Timor Leste

Here is another village that our church has adopted. Fatudere is near to the sea, so after the volunteer work we went to the sea with the children following us there.

Bibileo Sub-district, Viqueque District, Timor Leste

Bibileo is one of the adopted village that our church is working on. Volunteer teams have been making continuous trips to support this district-building efforts. Due to the frequent trips into this village, they are familiar with us. Whenever the cars arrived, the children would run out of their houses to welcome us.

Viqueque District, Timor Leste (Part 4 of 4)

We attended sunday service at this local church. The missionary got to shift house due to some rental issue. So she got to move to another not familiar place to stay. So scary to stay alone in such a quiet place. Luckily the new landlord was a policeman and stay near to her new place.

Local church in Viqueque

Old missionary rented house

New missionary rented house

What On Earth Am I Here for by Rick Warren

This booklet is basically excerpts from The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. What On Earth Am I Here For by Rick Warren is a great way to get someone who has no time to read The Purpose Driven Life. For those who need to hear what GOD wants, but don't have time to read a whole book. This is perfect!

Viqueque District, Timor Leste (Part 3 of 4)

Since the travelling from Dili to Viqueque took us about 5-7 hours, it was only wise to be based at Viqueque to make full use of our time serving the locals. We stayed at the orphanage where meals were prepared by the cook of the orphanage. We paid the orphanage for the accomodation and meals to help them in running the orphanage. You would notice the beauty around you only if you could slow down your pace and took a closer look at nature.

In the clip, you got to see the different view of the orphanage, the beds that we slept on, the toilet, the food that we ate and the children in the orphanage.

Food poisoning - prevention, DOs & DON'Ts

The recent food poisoning case that hit childcare chain Pat's SchoolHouse, should not be just the issue of caterer. Mothers should also reflect whether they have been handling food properly at home.

• Wash your hands thoroughly with water and soap for at least 20 seconds
• Store cooked food above raw food in a refrigerator so drippings from the raw food will not contaminate the cooked food.
• Place food on shelves at least 30cm off the floor so that the floor under the shelves can be cleaned.
• Keep nails short, clean and invarnished, and wear gloves if your hands have adhesive plasters on, so they do not slip into the food.
• Avoid reheating food unless it was previously cooled and stored in a chiller quickly. If food has to be reheated, bring the temperature to above 75 degree C for at least 2 minutes. Food should be reheated once.
• Do no refreeze thawed food. Bacteria multiplies during thawing.
• Do not put hot food into the chiller. This increases the temperature there, endangering other food there.
• Do not wear jewellery or watches when preparing food.

5 ways to fight flu this flu season

Flu spreads easily through droplets | Stop the spread | Stay alert this flu season | Prevention is better than cure | Know how to fight flu

• Frequent hand washing - wash your hands with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser 
• Influenza vaccination - if you belong to a high-risk group, ask your doctor about flu vaccination
• Go to the doctor early - if you experience flu-like symptoms, seek treatment early and wear a mask
• Stay home - if your're unwell, rest at home and avoid school, work, hospital visits and crowded places
• Use a tissue - cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, then dispose of the used tissue into a dustbin

For more details do visit how to fight flu article at Health Promotion Board website.

Food poisoning - cause, symptom, treatment

Are you worried for your children after hearing the recent food poisoning case that children at childcare chain Pat's SchoolHouse were hit with food poisoning after eating spaghetti supplied by caterer? So what exactly causes food poisoning? What are the symptoms? What are the treatment?

Causes

• Bacteria, viruses and parasites - occurs when contaminated food or water is consumed
• Chemicals and toxins - non infectious cause
• Food improperly handled - bacteria and viruses carried on the hands of individual

Symptoms

• Abdominal pain
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhoea
• Fever
• Blood in the stools

Treatment

• Most cases, only drugs to ease pain, vomiting or diarrhoea are needed as the body will get better on its own
• Severe cases, antibiotics may be required

Viqueque District, Timor Leste (Part 2 of 4)

We had finally reached Viqueque district after about 6 hours of bumpy drive. At the sight of Beloi, sub-district of Viqueque from hill-top, we thought that just another 10 mins drive we should reach our base, never did we expect that it could take us another 30-45 mins of drive depending on the road conditions. During raining season, the road can get muddy and your vehicles might get stuck in the pot holes. Or the road may collapse, leaving only a very narrow path to drive.

Viqueque District

Car view of the village

The bridge kind of indicate that you are entering or leaving a village. You can see that the village is very much like the older days kampong in Singapore. Of course without the luxury of living in better building and toilet facility here. Watch for rooster, hen, dog and pig running across the road out of no where.

Car view of the village

Car view of the village

Gasoline Pump

Viqueque District, Timor Leste (Part 1 of 4)

This post continued from the previous post that talked about Baucau. Let's continue our journey from Baucau to Viqueque. We continued to travel through hill after hill, padi field after padi field and occassionally some local houses along the way. You would have to pass through the market place, where the crowd were, before you hit the road for the hills and padi fields again.

The round-about was an indication that the team was approaching its final lap drive to Viqueque. The market place was filled with life. It may be their only shopping place in town. They sold clothes, vegetables, fruits etc.

Foreigners will not travel in their local transport. The bus is always crowded with Timorese. You will not be able to find any bus pick-up point and arrival time on website. Only Timorese will know when the bus will arrival and where is the bus-stop. There is no such thing as aircon and you would have to endure layer after layer of dust piling up on your face.

God's Creative Power for Healing by Charles Capps

Here's another short series on God's Creative Power by Charles Capps that talks about healing, through spoken words which are mixed with faith.

"Your words are building blocks of which you construct your life and future. Your words set the cornerstones of your life and you live within the confines of that boundary you create with your own words." (quoted from Charles Capps)

Baucau District, Timor Leste

Tourists will usually not travel to other districts of Timor Leste, as those places seems out of reach by tourists. In order for us to get to our destination at Viqueque, we would need to drive pass Manatuto district and Baucau district along the costal and up the cliff. The roads are super narrow without safety road structure. If you have motion sickness, my advice is that you take your motion sickness pill or wear nausea bands. Simply because you will be on an extreme bumpy journey all the way till you reach your destination.

Journey to Manatuto

Journey to Manatuto

Journey to Manatuto

Journey to Manatuto

Journey to Manatuto

Journey to Manatuto

Journey to Baucau

Journey to Baucau

Journey to Baucau

At Baucau, the petrol kiosk is where we went for toilet break and pump petrol for our next lap to Viqueque. Have you stay in kampong before? If you had, then you will know what to expect from the toilet. No flushing facilities, no hand dryer, no mirror, no hanger and no lighting. Just squat, do your business and out of the place.

Supermarket @ Baucau Petrol Station

Baucau Petrol Station

Toilet @ Baucau Petrol Station

Local folks selling stuff @ Baucau Petrol Station

Different financial/investment products

There are many products out there. So where do a zero-knowledge person in investing starts? There is no right or wrong answers on which products to place your money on. As mentioned in my third post on Financial Freedom, it all depends on understanding the products and gauge whether that particular products fit into your risk appetite.

Time deposits are low risk and pay extremely low interests rate. It is ideal for someone who doesn't like to take risk and want something that earns slightly higher than placing them in the bank saving account.

Foreign currency deposits are another type of financial products which one needs not spend time monitoring. One would need to choose wisely which foreign currency to place your deposits. For sure you would not want to place your deposit in a depreciating currency. Another consideration is the forex loss/gain when it reaches maturity. You can consider AUD as it has been maintaining it's interests rate about 4% to 4.5% over the years (please note this is in context of taking Singapore as comparison).

Other low risk products will be Singapore Government Bond, Statutory Board Bond and Singapore Government Securities. As we all know, Singapore Government are quite trustworthy and they will not let it collapse. However they ain't paying coupon rates as good as 10 or 20 years ago.

Next in line will be unit trust and structure deposits. You would need to know what are the underlying products of unit trust and structure deposits. Are these products tag to blue chips, currencies, commodities, gold, ETF, stocks etc? Are they looking at Asian market, European market etc.

Trading shares as an investor (long-term) or trader (short-term). If you buy shares for dividend, then you may have to study the annual report, know the industy etc to ensure the company will pay you dividend later. Do note that the annual report may not longer be reliable for deriving those important ratios for company whose business nature is on project basis. The new accounting standards require recognition of revenue upon completion and no longer on percentage recognition, hence will result extreme flucuation in the margins. It may affect the ratio computation and trend may not exist for investor to make wise decision.

Forex trading has been getting popular recently in Singapore. This is a highly risky product. I would advise anyone who are interested in forex trading, to attend some classes first before entering into this. Otherwise you would regret. You can consider attend some classes from Terraseeds where the trainer will tell you the truth about the pros and cons on forex trading.

You may consider the following products with 1 being low risk and 10 being high risk.

• Time Deposits
• Foreign Curreny Deposits
• Singapore Government Bond
• Statutory Board Bond
• Singapore Government Sercurities
• Unit Trust
• Structured Deposits
• Corporate Bonds
• Shares Trading
• Forex Trading

The above order may differ due to economic situations locally/globally and personal risk appetite. As such it is for reference only. Don't rush into it just because people around you are into it. Take your time to understand the financial products even if it means giving up an opportunity for making profit. Remember the MARKET IS ALWAYS THERE!

What type of investors are you?

To be free from financial freedom, have you started by saving? Have you built up you investment nest and ready for your investment journey? Before you jump into it, you would need to identify your risk appetite. Do you classify yourself as a risk taker or a risk averse investor? This is important to identify what type of financial products one will be comfortable in.

Lower risk investments will usually generate lower returns and higher risk investments will generate higher returns. Higher returns are expected for compensating investors for taking additional risk. Hence a risk taker will go for high-risk products in their portfolio. Risk averse person dislikes risk and goes for "safer" products which give low returns.

Spend sometime to think about what kind of investor you are, before we move on to different products in the market.

Dili District, Timor Leste (Part 3 of 3)

Content : Dili | Places of Attraction | Shopping | Currency

Not much attraction in Dili, so this may be the only place for visiting and taking some photos. Just a short walk and climb, you will be able to reach the top to see the statue of Jesus. It is worth the climb and enjoy the scenic from the top. If you have problem climbing the stairs, then just stay around the beach and wait for the sunset (best time to be there).

So what about shopping? If you want to help the local Timorese, then do shop at Tais Market. Every shops sell almost the same items. Remember to bargain!

Are you a coffee lover? Then visit the coffee factory to buy some coffee beans or coffee powder back home. I think the usual pack is 10kg or 15kg. You can request them to re-pack for you to 5kg.

You can get the Solo Original Lemon and Spring Valley Mango & Banana from the supermarket. This supermarket is just opposite the flea market. Do note that the transaction currency in Timor Leste is in USD. However do not be suprised to receive change in Centavos (Timor Leste coins). They will not give you USD coins.

Avocado is very cheap at the following flea market. Hence many of us will buy back to Singapore.