Day 1 - Last day of school during Circuit Breaker

Yesterday was the last day of school before closing for the month of April. The Government also announced tighter measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, such as disallowing people to engage to private gatherings irregardless of the number of people there may be. In short, this upholds the spirit of Circuit Breaker - stay home where possible.
(see bill here: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-social-gatherings-private-and-public-moh-12617800)

I can only think that there's 3 reasons which we can go out.
1) you need to see a doctor,
2) you need to get food, or
3) (maybe) for exercise to build health fighting against the virus and retain sanity of cooping up at home

So we went out yesterday to see doctor, and got some groceries on the way back. We are fortunate to have a family car which we can borrow for this purpose, so that we reduce the chances of physical contact with strangers. Masking up in malls and public areas (especially air-con areas) is necessary, and we chose to visit a mall to get our groceries which is far from crowd.

There's <almost> no one in the mall, except for the supermarket. Even in the supermarket there are fewer than 20 people including us shopping around - there's definitely social distancing observed in this big space. When we're at the grocery supermarket, food is still available (thank goodness!) and after getting food we made our way home. Mask up in the mall.

Honestly, we're not used to doing groceries and planning grocery shopping in our daily lives. After we reached home we found out that we're missing some stuff. Hahahaha

We'll have to do another grocery run again this week.

Stay safe!

Day 0 - COVID-19 Circuit Breaker in Singapore

Since that now I am working from home, I decided to re-start daily posting on this blog to note down this phase of my life, which is both the 2nd most depressing but yet the most exciting time to come.

Last Friday the Singapore Government announced measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 admist rising cases in Singapore. Termed Circuit Breaker, these measure are considered drastic and uncomfortable, but if we do this right, we can keep the situation under control. The number of new cases rose to 120 the day before, but it fell to 66 yesterday. I am hopeful, and I hope that cases will continue to drop, people recover and life goes back to normal. It's depressing to stay at home and the rain throughout the night just accents this emotion.

And we are expecting our little one early May! Going for a review with the doctor this afternoon. Hope he is growing well. Pray much for his health and smooth delivery.

Take care and stay safe,
Eric

Taiwan 2017 - Part 1 KaoShiung

A simple getaway with my wife to Taiwan. This time we decided to select places at random, to mix some new places with others that we missed out back in 2015. So this time we are going KaoShiung, CingJing, Jiaoxi (Yilan), Jiufen and Taipei. The route is hapzardly planned but nonetheless we are getting through!

Currently we are at Cing Jing Starry Hotel (http://club.mmweb.tw/mobile/11591) and the place is cloudy! No luck watching stars tonight, we'll just laze in the room. Haha.. so this post is a throwback to what we did in KaoShiung.

This trip we decided to go really slow and easy. Did public transport and walking most of the time.

MacDonalds in Taoyuan HSR station. There's 7-11, MOS burger as well. There are two types of trains in Taiwan. One is the high speed rail and the other is normal train that brings you around Taiwan. No trains go to the mountains, so you'll have to take bus or car if you are going to the mountains!

Lunch at a Japanese restaurant near the hotel! The lunch set is great! Comes with appetiser, main dish, dessert and soup.

When you go KaoShiung, you should visit Cijin Island. We took a ferry out to the island, just a five minutes ride and went around some places. There's ipass card which you can use to get discounts off most rides in Taiwan. 

So on cijin island, you can show to the beach or enjoy seafood or visit a museum with sculptures!

This is a famous wedding shoot spot. We saw at least five couples here.

This train station is a tourist attraction as well!

Balcony at the hotel we stayed at.

We went to Fo Guang Shan too.

Saw a cute statue on the way up.

And this is where the Buddhist channels in Taiwan is broadcasted from, I think.

Lovely matcha dessert...

Ruifeng night market, biggest in Zuoying district.