Three years ago, way before anyone knew what would be in store in 2020, Singaporean writer and photographer Prashant Ashoka bought a one-way ticket to Mexico.
Then 28, the avid traveller left Singapore with just two suitcases of his belongings and moved into a small rented apartment in Mexico City, wanting to go on a completely new adventure and risking it all to build a new life for himself.
By the time he was featured in The Straits Times in 2018, he had already spent 10 months in the Latin American country, making a living by freelancing for lifestyle publications. It was also revealed that he was in the midst of designing and building a house in the mountainous regions of Bajio in central Mexico.
On Monday (Sept 28), Prashant showcased the results of his architectural project — a sustainably-built house he dubbed Casa Etérea. And according to pictures he shared in a Facebook post, it is gorgeous.
SINGAPORE: A three-course meal onboard Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) superjumbo A380 will cost S$50 in economy class and S$90 for premium economy.
If you prefer something more luxurious, expect to pay S$300 for a four-course lunch in business class and S$600 for suites.
SIA announced on Thursday (Oct 1) the pricing for its three new initiatives such as the dining experience on the A380. It is also offering the public a tour of its training centre and a home delivery service featuring its first class and business class meals.
Like other airlines, Singapore’s flag carrier has been forced to turn to new ideas as COVID-19 continues to curtail flights and batter the aviation industry.
The suite of new services, dubbed Discover Your Singapore Airlines, will soon be available for booking.
DINING ON A380
Those missing the experience of being on a plane can consider making a reservation for Restaurant A380@Changi, taking place only on two afternoons on Oct 24 and 25.
Meals will feature international cuisines and items from a Peranakan menu specially designed by Singaporean chef Shermay Lee.
The three-course meal for economy and premium economy will include Peranakan, Japanese and Western options.
For suites and business class, the four-course meal includes options such as Lobster Thermidor and beef fillet, said SIA.
Each meal comes with two complimentary alcoholic drinks and free flow of other beverages, it added.
Guests will also able to watch a movie while they dine.
Limited edition souvenirs will be given to all customers, said SIA, adding that they will also get to enjoy discounts on KrisShop.com or the shopping galley.
Reservations will open from Oct 12 on KrisShop.com. Prices are as follows:
SIA said the aircraft will be thoroughly cleaned after each dining experience, and diners will be seated in groups of up to five, with social distancing in place.
Temperature screening, mandatory wearing of masks and SafeEntry check-ins will also be implemented.
GO BEHIND THE SCENES WITH SIA
Singapore Airlines is also offering tours of its training facilities during the school holidays, on Nov 21, 22, 28 and 29.
“Perfect for kids and families, this is a rare opportunity to find out from our pilots and cabin crew what it takes to fly and serve in the skies. The tour will feature our latest cabin products and a look at where training on our flight simulators is conducted,” said SIA.
There will be craft activities and balloon sculpting for childen.
In addition, all participants will receive a free meal from a selection of in-flight meals, as well as a goodie bag.
Admission tickets are priced at S$30 for adults and S$15 for children.
A flight simulator experience will cost an additional S$500. You may also pay extra for a wine appreciation experience and a grooming workshop.
Prices for these programmes are listed below. Reservations will open from Nov 1.
HOME DINING
For the home food delivery service, it starts from S$288 for a business class meal for two. Main course options include Hanakoireki and roasted lamb loin.
A first class meal for two starts from S$488. Poached lobster and Kyo-Kaiseki are among the main course options.
Singapore Airlines’ home delivery service SIA@Home. (Photo: Singapore Airlines)
The menus are designed by renowned chefs from France, Japan, Australia and India, said SIA.
“To assist customers in preparing their meals with ease, a digital guide on how to heat and plate the dishes will be provided,” it added.
“Customers can also immerse themselves in the experience with our interactive aircraft cabin videos and listen to a specially curated playlist while enjoying their meals.”
Luxury diningware, additional amenities or upgrades are also available for an additional fee. Diners can also book a private chef to prepare the meal for them in their homes.
Bookings for these packages start on Oct 5 at KrisShop.com.
Think Pulau Ubin and you might imagine a tranquil kampung scenery of bumboats, coconut trees and wooden huts.
But how about it being one of the most haunted places in Singapore? At least, this is according to local paranormal investigator, Noel Boyd.
The 42-year-old Singaporean’s creepy experiences on the island have left a deep impression.
To Boyd, Pulau Ubin is without a doubt the most haunted spot in Singapore — one experience made him seek help from a medium.
Ghostly voice
Of the ghostly encounter, Boyd shared that he was with a group of fellow ghost hunters on the island 13 years ago when they heard a female voice singing. This was just outside the island’s Muslim cemetery.
To Boyd, the voice was “very beautiful”, but to his companions, it was “horrible singing”. While he was keen to track down the source of the sound, the rest of his group were adamant in leaving.
For the next two weeks, Boyd had repeated nightmares of a lady calling out to him and each time he’d wake up with a fever which would shortly dissipate.
“I don’t believe that the Pontianak exists, but they say that the Pontianak sings,” shared Boyd.
“I spoke to a few people after that and they tell me that if she sings, she would sound beautiful if she wants you.”
Boyd eventually sought help from a medium after two weeks, and the nightmares finally stopped.
Hands on tent
Another spooky encounter occurred five years ago, when Boyd was camping on the Pulau Ubin’s Mamam beach.
A policewoman on patrol who recognised Boyd from his YouTube videos advised him not to camp there due to reports of paranormal activity, but “I told her it was fine, because what’s the worst that could happen?”
It turned out to be a sleepless night for Boyd and his companion.
“Once it hit midnight, the atmosphere totally changed,” said Boyd.
Footsteps could be heard around the tent, but when they tried to get out to investigate, it would stop.
“We heard female laughter, so I thought there was somebody else camping on the other side.
But what freaked them out were the obvious “depressions” or handprints at the top of the tent as they laid inside.
“You could see fingers push into the tent and slowly moving downwards. That’s when I knew it wasn’t a chicken or bird,” said Boyd.
The pair left as early as they could the next morning without sleeping a wink.
“If you’re a paranormal buff or want to experience ghosts, that’s a good place to go,” shared Boyd.
Given his 13 years of experience investigating supernatural occurrences, we ask Boyd to list the other most haunted places around Singapore, in his opinion.
Istana Woodneuk
The building was once a grand residence built by the Johor Sultan Abu Bakar for his fourth wife Sultana Khadijah. The house was eventually passed on to Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar and is still owned by the Malaysian royal family.
According to Boyd, the mansion was designated as a hospital for soldiers during the second world war, where it was later bombed. In more recent times, it has been used by satanic cults for their rituals, said Boyd.
Don’t try entering though, as the place has been gazetted as private property and you may get into trouble with the law for trespassing.
Bukit Batok Nature Reserve
PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons/Hekege
The park may appear tranquil, but there have been several gruesome crimes that occurred here.
The 2000 rape and murder of a 27-year-old jogger has so far remained unsolved, while in 2008, a decomposed body of a woman was found in the reserve.
There’s also a Japanese war memorial up on one of the paths, shared Boyd.
Old Changi hospital and Changi beach
Old Changi hospital. PHOTO: The Straits Times
“Among all the beaches in Singapore, I’d say Changi beach would be the most haunted, because of the Sook Ching massacre,” Boyd told us.
But he shared that the exact location where the massacres happened may not be where the beach now is, due to land reclamation works over the years. “Where those deaths happened, it’s probably dry land now,” shared Boyd, but added that he and his team have always managed to record “good activity” in that location.
The old Changi hospital, on the other hand, is “listed as one of the most haunted locations in the world”, mostly because of the events that occurred in WWII. Paranormal encounters have also been told to him from people he has interviewed, including a former nurse who reported always feeling like “someone was watching” and other supernatural activity.
One place that won’t be on the list though, is the now-defunct Bukit Brown Cemetery, said Boyd, who feels the place exudes a “peaceful” vibe, even though some claim otherwise.
One thing that most of us have on our must-do list when travelling to another country is to try the local cuisine. But with leisure travel not likely to happen anytime soon, the next best thing to do is to be able to tuck into authentic foreign cuisine right here in Singapore.
Local redditors have started a thread to ask foreigners to recommend where to go in Singapore to get the best that their motherland has to offer in terms of food.
Welp, that’s one expensive TikTok video with a production budget that far exceeded the expectations of everyone involved.
It should go without saying that it is mandatory for everyone to wear a mask when stepping out of the house to protect themselves and others from contracting a highly contagious disease that has already killed over a million people worldwide.
There are exceptions to the Covid-19 regulations — people are allowed to remove masks when engaging in exercises like running or jogging, but will still have to put them on afterwards. While one could argue that dancing is strenuous, performing a TikTok challenge outdoors with friends does not count as an activity that can be done sans mask.
TikTok user @lilbunny_23 and three of her mates learned this the hard way when a pair of police officers just happened to pass by as they did the Go Daddy Go dance challenge.
SINGAPORE: A total of 7,559 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes were seized at Tuas Checkpoint on Monday (Sep 28) by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA).
The goods were concealed in the cargo consignments of two Malaysia-registered lorries.
The first lorry was inspected at about 4am when officers noticed “anomalies” in scanned images of the vehicle. More than 5,000 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes were found hidden in a consignment of tissue rolls.
First lorry carrying duty-unpaid cigarettes detected at Tuas Checkpoint. (Photo: Immigration and Checkpoints Authority)
Duty-unpaid cigarettes found hidden in the consignment of tissue rolls. (Photo: Immigration and Checkpoints Authority)
About 10 minutes later, another lorry was directed for further checks, during which 2,500 cartons of duty-unpaid cigarettes were found hidden in boxes containing pineapples.
Duty-unpaid cigarettes found hidden in the consignment of pineapples. (Photo: Immigration and Checkpoints Authority)
The total duty and Goods and Services Tax (GST) evaded amounted to about S$656,299 and S$52,981 respectively, said ICA in a news release on Thursday.
Three Malaysian men, aged 22, 25 and 41, have been handed over to the Singapore Customs for further investigations, ICA said.
The Police have observed a re-emergence of purchase order scams where by scammers would pose as procurement officers from local universities and Government agencies. These scammers would induce unsuspecting companies into delivering goods with promises of payments at a later date. Since August 2020, the Police have received at least eleven reports of such scams, with total losses amounting to at least $749,000.
In such cases, the companies would receive e-mails purportedly sent by a generic procurement email address or an individual who will identify himself as the Chief Procurement Officer from local universities or Government agencies such as the Ministry of Education (MOE) or Ministry of Finance (MOF). These emails will request quotations for electronics, IT-related items and medical devices. The scammers would use e-mails bearing the names of the Chief Procurement Officers from these Government agencies, “<name of Chief Procurement Officer>@___-govsg.org”, ‘‘<name of Chief Procurement Officer>@___-sg,org” or e-mails bearing the template “procurement@___-sg.com” and “purchasing@___,org”, to convince the companies that they were genuine. The following are some examples of these emails:
procurement@moegovt-sg.com (MOE)
finance_ap@moegovt-sg.com (MOE)
purchasing@nus-edu.org (NUS)
Once an agreement has been made, a purchase order (PO) would be sent to the company via email. The company’s staff would believe that they had received a genuine email and PO and would then deliver the goods to the delivery address indicated in the PO. Preliminary investigations revealed that the delivery address indicated in the POs of such scams usually belonged to freight forwarding companies engaged by the scammers to ship the goods overseas (i.e. to UK, Gambia, and Nigeria). No payments were eventually received.
The Police would like to advise companies to adopt the following preventive measures:
Verify that the sender’s domain name is genuine when receiving e-mails and purchase orders. In such cases, the domain names closely resemble those used by Government agencies.
Always verify the authenticity of the request by contacting the Government agencies on their official contact numbers, instead of the numbers provided in the email.
Look out for tell-tale indicators that the e-mail received might be a scam:
The e-mail might be poorly written with grammatical or spelling errors.
The delivery address could be that of a private residence, freight forwarding companies or a self-storage facility, rather than that of the Government agency.
Educate your employees on how to detect and protect the company from such scams.
For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688. Anyone with information on such scams may call the Police hotline at 1800-255-0000 or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. Together, we can help stop scams and prevent our loved ones from falling prey to scams.
Fake Purchase Orders
Picture 1: Fraudulent Purchase Order claiming to be from MOE
Picture 2: Fraudulent Purchase Order claiming to be from MOF
Picture 3 and 4: Fraudulent Quotation Confirmation from MOE
Picture 5 and 6: Fraudulent Quotation Invoice from MOE PUBLIC AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE 30 September 2020 @ 12:00 PM
SINGAPORE – A total of 342 migrant workers will serve a 14-day quarantine after a Covid-19 patient was detected in the Tuas dormitory they were staying at.
All of them were moved from the Space @ Tuas dorm to a government quarantine facility after the confirmed Covid-19 case was detected on Monday (Sept 28), said the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Thursday.
The MOM added that the new case was discovered through the ministry’s rostered routine testing.
As a precautionary measure, a stay-home notice was issued to all workers staying at two blocks in Space @ Tuas.
MOM said that this precautionary measure had been introduced after its preliminary assessment of the situation to prevent further potential spread of Covid-19 infection.
Initially, physical segregation measures meant to keep workers across the two blocks from intermixing appeared to have been breached.
But after further investigation, it was established that it was unlikely for workers from different blocks to have intermixed.
Therefore, the stay-home notices for the unaffected block was rescinded.
It can be difficult for motorists to get a helping hand during fine weather, much less in the pouring rain.
However, three young men braved the elements to help a female motorist and her child who were stranded on the Seletar Expressway (SLE).
In a Facebook post, Loh Wai Peng recounted driving home on Saturday (Sept 26) with her son at around 11.30pm.
They were travelling down the expressway when her car starting slowing down after she heard a loud pop. She stopped to check on the car and found that a tyre had burst.
Not knowing how to change tyres, the woman had to call for a tow truck. But getting the insurer to arrange for a towing frustrated the driver.
The insurer was unable to locate her policy because its system was down, Loh said, and she couldn’t recall her policy number.
Desperate for help, she raised her voice over the call and told the insurer that she would pay for the towing first.
Her son started crying as “he thought they would not be able to go home and they would be caught in a flood” due to the downpour, she wrote.
PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons/Hekege
Old Changi hospital. PHOTO: The Straits Times
