My Wedding Proposal

Hello,

So I think I am ready to settle down.
Chew and I have been together for about 2 years, but she have filled up so much of my void that I felt that im already a better person compared to the me before i met her.

The planning to the big day of proposal was actually quite simple.
She have long ago laid out her "requirement" for the perfect proposal.
- CAT (yes, you heard it right, CATs! she want CATS to be present when i propose!)
- Fairy Light(even in broad daylight, she still want fairy lights)
- Flowers (okay this one normal)

So to fulfill her first request, i booked a Cat Cafe at Company of Cats. It is a cozy little space whereby cats will be playful and yet feel relaxed in a fully air conditioned room.

Next, i wanted to choose a memorable date for the proposal. We first got together on 19th Jan 2015.
It was pretty lucky at our 888th day together happens to be 25th June 2017, Hari Raya Puasa. I have also consulted my lunar calendar and it is a good day!

As she is more or less knowing that I was about to propose, I decided that the surprise would come as her friends being in the attendance of the proposal.

Well, she said YES and the rest is history!

ben's shopee tips and tricks (buyer)

Hi,

I would like to share my personal Shopee experience.

Shopee is an app that allows you to do online shopping. To me, it looked like a fusion between Carousell and Qoo10. Qoo10 provides a platform for people to sell item and a small commission is payable to them. Carousell provides a platform for buyers to meet sellers and thereafter do their transaction independent of the platform.

Shopee on the other hand, provides services like credit card payment for its buyers, and yet allows sellers to list their products free on its platform! The money paid would be held by shopee until the buyers acknowledge the recipient of its purchase.
The UI is intuitive and is easy for both buyers and seller alike.

In this post, i will be sharing the views of a buyer.

Buy from sellers who provides free postage
This is kinda a no brainer. Who doesnt like free postage? However, when an item is so common that many people are selling it, choose the one best priced and yet have free postage!
Shopee provides a refund to people who do not receive their package, and if the sellers could not prove that they have posted the item. However, the refund amount will never include postage amount as it only includes the original item price.
So if an item is selling at 10cent, but have a shipping fee of $1, you will need to pay $1.10 but if the parcel did not arrive, only 10cent will be refunded to you!
This system seemed flawed. but it is beneficial and protects the sellers. In many occasions, there are buyers who refused to acknowledge the recipient of the product and lodged a refund. This causes trouble for the sellers who lost their money in postage AND the goods.

But dont try to game or abuse the system. Shopee admins are darn fast at tracking people down.


Timed Sales and Coupon codes
If anything to go by, Timed Sales are usually the best of the deals available. But do note that most coupon codes dont work for timed sales.
Coupon codes are only available during certain festive period. so load up your carts and wait for them to appear! also, do look out for store promotion of that seller. sometimes they do give out their personalised coupon codes!

Special Timed Sales
Special timed sales are sales during key dates such as Shopee anniversary, christmas, CNY, NY etc. These sales usually have super limited stocks at a super sexy price.
The upcoming of such sales as of time of post is on 5th Jan 2017.





















Many people have been saying that it is a scam as these deal usually sells out at the strike of the clock. Personally, i have bought once and i would like to share how i did it!

For this tutorial, I will try and buy the Fitbit flex 2.
Take note of the original price of $148.


So you will see the product that will be listed for sales at $148. Spend some time to read the product information prior to the sales.

1 min before the sales time, keep searching for this item in the event sales page. when the clock strikes the time, add it to your cart and proceed with payment!

Now, do note that your 4g services might not be as quick as a computer running on fibre broadband. So choose wisely if you wanna snatch the item via phone or a computer.


Thats all folks!

2016 in my nutshell

Hi,

I think I should just do this blog post to remind myself how great 2016 have been to me.
Of course, there are bad things happening and the occasional big fights i had with various people, mostly with chew, but 2016 has generally been an interesting and fulfilling year!

The year started off with me joining the Network Team where I go on to become a network engineer and subsequently promoted to Senior Engineer with Crimsonlogic. The work was fun and I have so much to learn. Opportunities appeared out of nowhere and I am caught unprepared and hence gave it a miss. But as the year progresses, an opening came by and I decided that a change of environment would be good for my professional growth. This change have brought me into another new domain that was totally unfamiliar to me. Lucky for me, I have tolerant superiors and encouraging colleagues which made learning fun and unreasonable project deadlines seemed possible!

Speaking of change, I think the biggest change apart from a job change would be changing of house. From the familiar neighbourhood and friends in AMK, i shifted to uncharted Punggol, where no one nearby are friends that I can readily ask out. Yes Punggol is a closely knitted location, but the convenience wasnt the "stay in same block" convenience i have been enjoying for a very long time. Even buying of food is no longer a block away. it has become a chore to walk out to get food even for a foodie like me. And, everywhere nearby serves shitty food.
But the perk of the new house is that i am finally given my own room, and had my dream came thru with the queen sized bed and television in my own room. The room is indeed a pigeon hole with the queen sized in it. But bed room space is more important than bedroom space to me!

2016 also brought along some crisis to me. I am formally addicted to netflix and have been watching much of its drama here and there. Fortunately for its new download functions, data have been saved tremendously and more shows have been watched during the loooong trip from Pioneer to Punggol.
Chew also changed job at the same period as me and both of us had difficulty adjusting. It brought along a lot of quarrels and the time for us to stick together was severely cut short simply because the ride home have just been substantially increased. i would also need to sleep earlier due to earlier working hour(8.30am)

Chew and me have done a little bit of travelling this year! We went to Bangkok and shopped till drop! I thought BKK would be too hot for her to be outdoor and she would have wanted to stay indoor at Platinum mall most of the time. Never have i been so wrong of the motivation of $4 dresses.
Penang was a regular yearly affair, but this time, we stay a little longer. As such, we managed to explore slightly more cafes and we travelled around using Grab! Cheap good and nice!
The last trip of the year ended up to be at Taipei. Unlike last year, we focused on shopping and going for good food and good hot spring.

2016 have been kind.
2017, please be good to me and chew!