IQ question from my interview session

Hi All, sharing with you an IQ question which was given to me during an interview =)

You, your Dad and your Mum are thrown into jail and are made to line up in a straight line facing a solid wall. There are 5 hats (3 Red hats and 2 Blue hats) and the security guard randomly put a hat on your head. The condition for release is for one of you to guess correctly the color of the hat on your head and all of you will be released; if the answer is wrong, all of you will be sentenced to death. No one is to turn around or talk to each other.

Your Dad looks at the hats in front of him (i.e. Mum and You), ponders and says “I am not confident of my answer and will pass”.

Your Mum looks at the hat in front of her (i.e. You), ponders and says “I am not confident of my answer and will pass”.

You look at the wall, ponders and says “Ah, the color of my hat is XXXXXXX!” You got the right answer and you and your family are released.

What is the answer that you gave??

Day 2 - Water sports, Uluwatu temple

We woke up to a bright and sunny day (good day for sightseeing!), had American breakfast and called a few travel agencies to arrange for an afternoon tour but alas, all of them were fully booked for the day... =( On the 6th phone call, we finally found a tour guide who’s available at 2pm. Phew! Tour information: Friendly tour guide, Made (this is his name), will pick us up at our hotel, drive us to Nusa Dua area for water sports activities and temple visit, and return to hotel. Cost: Rp 200k

Hardworking boyfriend at "work" calling up travel agencies

As the tour guide will be here really soon (in 1.5 hour), we checked out Sanur beach quickly and bought chocolate biscuits for lunch. Hahaha…
First stop: Parasailing plus jet ski at Tanjung Benoa beach. Cost: Rp 450k for 2 persons (which is slightly expensive but no choice, cos it’s low tide and this was the only place for water sports)

Parasailing is so exciting and fun!! We were brought to the opposite bank via a speedboat and the operators appeared quickly to assist us to wear the life jacket and safety harness. Instructions on how to land were given to us (see red flag, pull the red color rope; see blue flag, pull the blue color rope) while we stood in front of the parachute and were clipped onto it. The speedboat moved off, we were lifted off the ground gradually (erh, 3 secs perhaps) and were air borne.
The view from above is superb! You can see the villages along the coast, boats in the sea and little human beings on the beach while enjoying the sea breeze… Ah, how I wish I had my camera with me =P Not sure how long we were up in the air though, but I guess it’s only about 5 mins, hahaha…. Landing was pretty ok as there was a group of guys grabbing hold when you are about 3 meters of the ground.

Up next is the jet ski ride with the instructor where we rode out to the other end of the peninsula. I got to take control for a while (pretty cool!) and it's real fun when the two jet ski started to race against each other. (Oops, no photo here, since I don't have a waterproof camera case)

Second stop: Uluwatu Temple (Pura Uluwatu) is one of Bali's nine key directional temples and is perched on a steep cliff 70 metres above the roaring Indian ocean waves. Entrance fee: Rp 3k and you need to be properly dressed to enter; sarongs are available at the entrance.
The temple is inhabited by large number of monkeys who are extremely adept at snatching visitors' belonging, including bags, cameras and eyeglasses. You must keep a very close grip on all your belongings and stow away your glasses!! AG's glasses was snatched by a monkey who sneaked up behind him; it happily bit off the bridges while we watched helplessly from far...
A vendor came by (almost immediately) to throw food at the monkey to induce it to exchange the glasses for food. The monkey naturally went for the food, dropped the glasses and we managed to retrieve them. Gotta "tip" 20k to the vendor for the food. Ah, we concluded that these vendors must have "trained" the monkeys to snatch glasses for food lor... Hahaha... Anyway, AG was just one of the many "victims" that day and he was lucky that he wasn't scratched by the monkey, cos we saw an Indian uncle with red scratches on his face and his glasses gone cos the monkey dropped it down the cliff.

Man trying to lure the monkey to drop his glasses after it took a biscuit from him
Monkey holding onto the robe to beg for more food

Kecak Dance, a Balinese traditional dance performance, is performed daily after sunset on the eastern side of Uluwatu Temple. This is a very simple performance - the men's chorus (consists of about fifty men wearing only a loin-cloth with the upper part of their bodies left bare) chants the words Cak ke-cak ke-cak ke-cak ke-cak ke-cak, in rhythm, over and over again while the story from the Ramayana epic is enacted. Ticket fee : Rp 70k. Check out the short clip below. (Note: You may wish to lower the sound volume on your computer before you click on the video)

Nothing much happening for the evening... Alighted at Discovery Shopping Mall (instead of return to hotel) for dinner at A&W, did some light shopping and stock up of snacks and beers, took Blue Bird taxi back to home. The End.

Day 1 - Arrival at Bali

Our photos plus itinerary for 4D3N trip to Bali, Indonesia. Enjoy!

Fast facts:
1) Bali is in the same time zone as Singapore. No need to adjust your camera / watch / phone clock
2) 1 SGD = 6571 IDR. For ease of calculation, it’s approximately 1.50 SGD to 10k Rp
3) Average temperature varies between 22 and 33 degrees Celsius. The dry season comes between May and August, whereas the wet season comes between September and April. Think Singapore and pack your barang barang accordingly then.

At the waiting lounge in Terminal 1

We took a flight by Air Asia; return ticket at SGD 188 per person, includes departure tax from Changi Airport and excludes departure tax of Rp 150k or USD 20 (obviously at a very disadvantage exchange rate!) from Denpasar Ngurah Rai International Airport. Do remember to put aside some cash yah and don’t be like us… I had to empty my wallet and gave all my Rp 140k while AG had to pay USD 21 (the extra dollar was to make up my remaining Rp 10k tax…)

It’ll be better to get your hotel to arrange an airport transfer (which we didn’t do cos we found the price of USD 20 per car a bit the expensive) as it’s really difficult to find a metered cab (we didn’t see any official taxi queue lor) and the "unofficial" cab drivers will pester you to take their car at a ridiculously high price of USD 50 per car. I’m sure if you bargain hard enough, the price will go down. (Note: We concluded that it’s more economical to travel to Bali in group of 4s as the prices for airport transfer and sightseeing tours are usually quoted per car and splitting the costs four ways will save you lots of money!)

We walked towards the domestic airport and managed to get an "unofficial" car to Sanur area for Rp 80k (~SGD 12) after bargaining down the price from Rp 100k. (PS: We realized we "shortchanged" the driver cos a metered cab from Kuta area to our hotel cost us Rp 78k and the journey from the airport to hotel is definitely longer!!)

Balinese style chalet. Our room is on the 2nd storey and overlooks the swimming pool

Our hotel - Sri Phala Resort and Villa – is nice, quiet and charming with distinct Balinese architecture, nice small swimming pool, lots of greenery, in-house spa, poolside restaurant where complimentary American breakfast is served daily and is a few hundred yards to Sanur beach via the back entrance.

4 nights stay in a deluxe room, private bathroom, TV (it’s really tiny) and 2 bottles of mineral water daily cost us USD 228 inclusive of taxes and bill is payable in Rupiahs (at the hotel’s exchange of Rp 9600 lor, so high…) upon check out. As we didn’t have enough Rp, we paid by credit card and this payment method will incur an additional 3% charge.

It was pretty late already and we looked for dinner around the neighborhood. Available choices are 24/7 KFC outlet, Dunkin Donut shop, Jazz restaurant and etc and we decided to do dinner at Jazz restaurant as there was a band playing live music (songs in unknown language when we first entered and become English songs after 11pm). Bintang beer is good and cheap while the prices for the usual main course are comparable to Singapore.

Jazz Bar and Grille restaurant and its live band

Enjoying our bintang beer. Cost: Rp 25k, large bottle

Top: Fish and chips, Rp 45k ; Bottom: Chicken cordon bleu, Rp 62k Both dishes are yummy! Total bill for dinner = Rp 160k (~SGD 24). The flip side is that all prices are quoted before 21% government plus service taxes =( Our 7% GST is considered little lor, hahaha.

Rapunzel-Not!

Trying to give a last shot at being a 长发”美女”before I turn 30 (a very big change in the digits), I decided to go for a hair extension. Everyone tells me to just grow it out. I can’t help it if my hair grows very slowly right? I wash it every day (one says this accelerates hair growth), I try not to trim it too often (but it goes so out of shape, it’s horrid)… But to no avail. So instead of waiting for 2 years, I decided to use only 3 hours and 400 bucks to get my splendid long hair.

How it works is that they will match the colour of the extensions as close to yours so that it looks natural. The standard length is around 40cm and you have to decide if you want the curly or the straight version. Actually, they are treated to be either curly or straight and after your first hair wash, you will realize that it immediately loses the effect. I chose the straight this time to go for a younger look.

There are 2 attachment techniques: one is the braiding and the other clips. Clips are just metal rings to bind the extension to your hair. So the hair will go through a metal ring and a plier is used to compress it. The other is braiding whereby the extensions are braided together with your hair and tied together with a tiny rubber string. As seen in the picture, the top end will be folded down to be tied.

And the overall effect is as such.

I have 480 pieces of extensions and each piece is of a certain thickness. You have to be wary of shops peddling cheap prices per piece as they are probably giving you very thin extensions thus you need a larger quantity.

So with that done, I can freely iron and curl my hair as the damage is done only to the extensions. If you are wondering where does the hair extension come from, sources say they are from third world countries. Not from corpses! It’ll be like “The Eye” movie! Instead of seeing what the previous owner sees, my extensions will arrange itself like its previous owner’s hairstyle!!! *Cue horror music*

Horror hairstyle machiam like Amy Winehouse

Oh and the hair doesn’t smell. =)

Smell good enough to eat?!

If you know me, you would have smelt me.

“Huh?”, you said.

Well, it’s true. Leaving a trail of seductive womanly scent, turning heads as I pass people by (hopefully not because I have a grain of rice sticking on my face. I have quite a serious phobia of food stuck in between my teeth but that is a story for another day), making an impression through olfactory stimulation…. These are what I believe and practise on an everyday basis.

NB: I’m not saying I smell like roses every waking moment. If you sniff me after exercise or sports, that is your own pervertic problem.

Olfactory senses are as powerful as your other senses, even more for some. It leaves an image, memory or impression after your first sniff. For me, they have become the markers for the various stages of my life.

Davidoff’s Cool Water for Woman
Started during my freshmen year in university, it reminds me of youth and innocence.

Lancome’s Miracle and L’Dau par Kenzo

Both scents were when I was staying in hall and subsequently became attached. Very sweet and impressionable scents. One friend commented that he knew I walked into the room before because my perfume lingered.

Estee Lauder’s Pleasures and CK’s Eternity Summer

Alternating between these now. These scents are reported to be long lasting but I swear my body absorbs perfume because they simply disappear by midday! Yes, my nose may have been saturated and cannot detect the scent anymore. But my colleagues actually leave a trail of estee lauder in the pantry/corridor/office, but I don’t!! So for something that will last from dawn to dusk, I now depend on CK. So far so good.

Also, 2 guys have left an olfactory impression on me. One is my Lindy Hop dance partner and the other, my colleague. The former puts on extra sprays (can’t remember if it was CK or Armani) on performance days and after years of dancing together, I can recognize the smell anywhere, even though it has been 7 years since. My colleague wears a CK and I knew he has been in an area prior because of it. He is one of very few guys in my office who wears cologne and because he was somewhat special to me, I now brand the scent as his.

When I catch a whiff of these old scents, memories flood back and I reminisce. My nose has also led me to assist in more analytical work in the areas of odour in water. I can detect very low levels (parts per trillion or nanograms/L) of a compound that gives off an odour.

At this moment, I am beginning to think this is somewhat very animalistic, like a leftover primal instinct from genetic evolution. It showed in one particular blading incident when I couldn’t help turning my head over when I bladed past this guy. He smelt really good.

*cheesy smile*

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those around me for putting up with my obsession and my sometimes over-zealous spray of perfume.

So what's your scent? Au naturel? Or Eau de Stinko?