Month: January 2015

Sing50: Spending $348k To Humiliate Local Music

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// Photo by Gourmet Adventures (http://gourmetadventures.net/) Throughout my time dabbling in the media world, I’ve learnt that getting the chance to “work with a famous director” or perform with “established stars at a huge event” is just poppycock for “you’re not going to get paid”. Young and inexperienced, it’s rare to see budding artists forgo such an opportunity that will seemingly kickstart their careers. It’s a double-edged sword practicing your craft in a small, trifling city like Singapore. The music communities are mostly inclusive and welcoming, the close-knit atmosphere a gratifying breeding ground for jam sessions and collaborations, peer reviews and dandy networking. The congenial rivalries propagate a rise in music quality, the friendships a climacteric element for support and encouragement. The tour of an underwhelming paradise stops right there though, as the bleak, cruel, and bleak reality of music in Singapore painfully sinks in. For a city clearly punching way above her weight, the art scene has generally been disregarded as an, to put it eloquently, awful career path, if there’s even a path in …

Escape Plan Still

The Great Escape Room Marathon: Xcape, Unravel, Lost.sg, Escape Hunt, Roomraider

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I‘ve always wanted to try an escape room. As puzzling as it is for Singaporeans to pay a sizeable chunk of cash to get locked up, there’s no denying the fact that these real-life reality games were ‘trending’ wildly in 2014. Upon catching the movie “Escape Plan”, where Rocky and the Terminator guy attempt to break out of the most secure prison in the world, I decided that now would be the perfect time to embark on an escape room marathon. For those who might not be aware of what escape rooms are, let me check my calendar real quick. Nope, I wasn’t wrong. It’s really 2015. Anyway, escape rooms are a type of physical adventure game whereby a group of people are locked in a themed room, usually with a relevant storyline as a pretext for our captivity. They would be required to collaborate with each other and use the elements within the room to solve a series of puzzles, find clues and subsequently find their way out before the time runs out. What started …

The Great Supermarket Exposé: 16 Ways Supermarkets Are Making Us Spend So Much More

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Since everyone in Singapore is doing investigative work, I figured I’ll do a little research on my own, one that would, you know, actually benefit people. With inflation rising rapidly over the past decade, you might have find yourself spending more and more on groceries. But while a supermarket might seem like a nice, big place to get all your essentials while allowing you a breather from your hectic life, it’s actually waging a psychological war on you every time you step into one, a battle that almost everyone will never triumph. Over the weekend, I went to three supermarkets, namely Giant Hypermarket (Tampines Retail Park), NTUC Xtra (Ang Mo Kio Hub) and Cold Storage (Causeway Point) to confirm my initial findings. The former two were non-photo establishments, resulting in me getting reprimanded twice at Giant. One of the staff told me it was fine to take photos of the items, but not the price tags, and on hindsight, I realized I shouldn’t have gone it with a DSLR. The photos (taken with my phone) …

Hairway To Heaven: A Visit To TK TrichoKare

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Disclaimer: This post is brought to you by TrichoKare and omy.sg. Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are not influenced in any form of monetary compensation, in-kind products, and/or complimentary services. For more information, please take a look at my Ethics Statement. Pictures are courtesy of omy.sg and TrichoKare. I have always maintained a high level of curiosity towards hair care centres. Posters and advertisements are plastered everywhere across the island, and with high-profile celebrities jumping on board as their brand ambassadors, they have morphed into a lucrative and ever-growing industry in recent years. What exactly do people do there? Do their treatments really work? Or is it all just a big scam targeted at insecure and gullible folks – like your low-fat, low-calories diet? These are questions I’ve harbored for many years now, so when TrichoKare (TK), a multi-award winning hair care salon, invited me down for an exclusive workshop, I immediately snapped at the opportunity. Iarrived at their Orchard Gateway outlet at 1245 and was brought into their VIP room about ten minutes later. The interior design …