Friday, December 29, 2006

Some useful Singapore Information

MRT (Mass Rapid Transit)

Map of MRT railway line

Going to Singapore Zoo
  • Get down at Choa Chu Kang (red line MRT)
  • Go to Bus Interchange next to Choa Chu Kang. Take bus 927. Last stop is at the Zoo
  • Tickets are priced at s$15 per adult and s$7.50 per child

Going to Malaysia from Singapore via bus

  • Routes: One can go to Malaysia via two routes - Causeway Link and Second Link. Causeway Link will take you to Johor Bahru in Malaysia. Second Link links Tuas in Singapore with Geyland Patah in Malaysia
  • Individual travel usually go via Causeway Link. Second Link is not for individual travellers! Only Trucks and Packaged tour Bus ply on this route.
  • Getting Visa: Get your visa before going to Malaysia. There is no provision yet for visa on arrival via Causeway Link. I have heard that vai Second Link, one can get visa on arrival.
  • For US no visa is needed. For Indians the visa cost about s$33. For Taiwan, visa cost is s$48 as Malaysia does not recognize Taiwan as a country so they have to issue the travel document.
  • In Singapore, Malaysia Counsulate has outsourced the visa process to selected Travel Agents. It takes three business days to get visa. I went to Mustafa Air Travel near Farrer Park MRT station to get the visa. The customer service via phone is pretty bad.
  • Going to Malaysia: From MRT red line, get down at Kranji station. From there take 170 or 160 (going to Johor Bahru).
  • This will take you to Woodland check point in 5-10 minutes. Every one has to get down to get the immigration formalities done in Singapore side. Take 170 or 160 again to Johor Bahru checkpoint. Every one has to get down to get Malaysia immigration formalities done.
  • You are in now in Malaysia!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Eye Exercise for Kids

While parents are very particular about nutrition needs of their kids, there is big oversight for eye exercise. Surprisingly not much importance is given to short-sightedness by doctors or media. After all, a poor eye-sight can be corrected by glasses or contacts.

In this article, I focus on simple 10-minutes eye exercise for kids. Ofcourse every one can do this, but eye exercise is especially important for kids. I also discuss about a product that I incidentally came across in Singapore.

Some Statistics and Facts

  • Fifty years ago myopia (or short sightedness) was not very prevalent. Today one in every four people have myopia. It is predicted that by 2020, one in three will be shortsighted. (See Myopia on the rise). This is tantamount to having epidemic!
  • The percentate of children with myopia is higher in countries where the children are subjected to heavy school work loads, watch computer games, or TV.
  • Any person with glass will tell you, that the short sightedness worsens progresively, till you reach the age of 20-25 years. This is when the body (including the eyes) stops growing.

The above facts indicates two things. One is, eye care should be taken since young age and secondly environment plays a big role in myopia. To counter the environmental effects, one can emphasize on good sitting posture, watch less computer games and TV (especially moving game where intense focus is needed), and some eye exercise. If you are socially vocal, try to introduce eye-exercise in your school curriculum.

Here are some yoga exercise for eyes that I learnt long ago in India. It is definitely soothing for tired eyes. Try it. Only if you feel comfortable, ask your kids to do as an every morning or evening activity.

Eye Exercise Instructions

  • Exercise: For half a minute, look into your forehead.
  • Relax: When done, close your eyes for half a minute. Warm your eyes by firstly rubbing your palms and putting it over the closed eyes, gently massaging the eyes.
  • Exercise: For half a minute, look into your nose. (People with mongoloid feature can look on their lips)
  • Relax: see above
  • Exercise: For half a minute, look into your left shoulder without turning your head.
  • Relax: see above
  • Exercise: For half a minute, look into your right shoulder without turning your head.
  • Relax: see above
  • Exercise: Start with looking to your nose, gradually move the eyes clockwise till you are back to your nose. Then retrace your eyes in counter-clockwise till you reach your nose again. Do this about 10 times.
  • Relax: see above

Some commonsense rules should be followed such as not to do exercise if there is inflammation or injury to eye. Best consult the doctor, if in doubt.

After writing this article, incidentally, I encountered a Singapore product, EyeRelax, claiming to remove or reduce myopia, lazy eye and even delay presbyopia (long sightedness) that comes to people over forty years of age. I also saw the demo of one of the product and here is the description:

When you peek at the EyeRelax product, as if you are viewing in a microscope, it shows many colored spots stringed together gradually coming-into and going-out of focus at the rate of every five seconds or so (I have both myopia and presbyopia). At any given time it shows only one color, but every cycle that last about 10 seconds, it changes to different color.

The product is quite expensive (about S$600 or US$400). I did not purchase because it is not pressing need for my family and for high price. In my opinion adults could and simulate this with the following exercise described as follows:

Close your one eye and look at letters in a normal book without corrective lens (glasses or contacts). Put the book at right distance so that the letters are in focus. Do not read, just look at the same letters. Gradually move them out of focus till it is very fuzzy. Do this about 25-30 times (should take about 5 minutes). Do the same with other eye. Do once or twice every day. This procedure put pressure on accommodative system of the eye as you move the letters in-focus to out-of-focus.
However, I would recommend purchasing if you have kid with lazy eye or substantially poor eye-sight. If you do not have access to this product. Try to gently convince him/her to do the above exercises mentioned.

The product information can be accessed from www.eyecollege.com . For concerned parents the advertisement of EyeRelax is as follows:

  • For low myopia, 0-300 degrees, high chance to regain perfect eyesight
  • For moderate myopia, 300-600, improved eyesight and prevent worsening of myopia
  • For High myopia, >600, use immediately to prevent worsening. Avoid blindness disease
  • For adult Long Sightedness, delay presbyopia

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Singapore in Pictures

Twin tower in Chinese Garden

Interior of a mall in Orchard Street


Merlion (half-fish half lion), a symbol of Singapore. On the left is SwissĂ´tel The Stamford, tallest Hotel in Southeast Asia
 

Singaporeans did not compromise on spaces in spite high population density. Above is front of Marina Square leading to Esplanade
 

MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) is the backbone of transportation. The service is comfortable and precise
 

Most Malls in Singapore are spacious making the shopping a pleasant experience
 

White Bengal tiger in Singapore zoo. The experience is quite realistic!
 

Perhaps Singapore Zoo is one of the best in the world

 

Kranji War Cemetery & Memorial shows how the British Crown respect their fallen soldiers irrespective of race and religion
 
 

Indian National Army memorial near Esplanade. Here the Indian freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose laid the foundation for Indian National Army
 

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Singapore - a beautiful little country

Singapore is a little country near the equator, wonderfully managed, clean, nice people, good diverse inexpensive food, very safe for kids and women, timely transportation, footpath on every road. In short - it caters to great standard of living.

Inside a MRT station

Chinese vegetarian stall

I found very few people (including Singaporeans) who have praiseworthy words for Singapore. Most of the Singaporeans are of Chinese ethnicity and they seem to identify with China, Indian Singaporeans (mostly tamils) build their own cocoon and are happy in their world, foreigners who come here think more from opportunity angle and want to move on to Western country or go back to home country after having some savings. Nothing wrong, of course, but there are quite a few, who make negative comments about Singapore. This bothers me.

People often compare one-to-one with their own culture. Such comparison is flawed, because in most of the cases they are blind to the negative aspects of their culture. Singapore has it own set of unique features that makes a memorable living experience.

Beside Singapore, I have lived in India, USA and short visit to few more countries. I find Singapore lovely place to live for this phase of my life, where I have kids. Some of them are as follows:

Enriching the Habit of Reading - Being in computer/Internet age. Much of my time at home goes with computers, kids or doing errands. Reading in home is just not the activity I am psychologically prepared for. However, I have taken up reading during my 30 minutes commute to work, which is by bus or train (MRT). I actually look forward to the commuting time! In last six months, I have finished some good books - biograpy of Abraham Lincoln, The Plague Race, and The best American Science Writing. I never had this wonderful reading time in my life. In USA, you drive for work and in India, it is difficult and barely managible.

Inexpensive Food - In Singapore, usually there are food courts in the shopping complex or business center. They sell food that is inexpensive (about US$2.50) and it makes no sense to bring food from home. The food is quite diverse - differnt variety of chinese dishes, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean. If you are less inclined to eat ethnic food, fast food resturants like Mc Donald, Subway and Burger King is also there.

Ethnic food is relatively healthy and less fried. In a sense, it is real homely food. The chinese resturants in USA tend to be highly fried and unhealthy (although more tasty).

Vegeratian Food - In countries other than India, vegetarian food is not easy to come by. Strangely singapore food courts always have one Chinese vegetarian shop. The food is made up of vegetables and tofu. For some dishes, they try to immitate tofu with the taste and looks of chicken, beef, pork. The dish cost like US$1.50! Sometimes I feed bad for them for charging so little. I try to avoid the Indian resturant for health reasons (they use lot of oil)

Having Maid - In Singapore one can hire maids on live-in or scheduled basis. Maids are available for US$300 and are usually from poor coutries like India, Indonesia, Phillipines. Government takes 2/3 of the share and maid gets the rest. Live-in maid take care of all the chores - walking kids to school, preparing food and cleaning the house. Hiring of maids are handled by agents and there is minimum risk.

In India, one cannot trust maid to handle children and one needs to have their grandparents or guardian supervising the maid activities. In USA, one cannot afford the maids. I greatly respect the single parents of USA, usually women, who have to work and rush to pickup their children and take care of the house. I hope their employers are kinder to them as a part of social responsibility.

Exercise - Singapore government has provided sports complex, stadium, water playground, swimming pools. All residential complex has little play area for kids and adults. The swimming cost about US$0.75 per entry, which is quite inexpensive compared to even India. Since the weather is warm throughout the year, I get most of the excercise from jogging on the footpath beside the road and some exercise on the play area. In US, it is necessary to have membership with a gym to get exercise, especially during cold weather.

Some good science links for Kids

Here are some links for kids that will improve their science

Age: 6 and above, Fun multimedia view of solar system
It highlights major planets of solar system. Especially interesting are the view from moons of the planets with the mother planet in the background. My kids had some good fun with it.

Age: 9 and above, Light Waves, Rainbows, and Cheap Sunglasses
Really good video lecture that was given in front of middle school kids by MIT professor. Unfortunately, you have to have a good broadband connection and cannot download the video. I watched entirely and learnt some new things. However, my kids never watched it becuase of bad broad band bandwidth. I wrote them asking them to release as downloadable video, but did not get any reply. Anyway, I am grateful that they have the lecture for free

Age: 15 and above, Physics for future presidents
Clicking on this link will take you to Google Video site having these 25 one hour lectures from Berkely (University of California) from Professor Richard A. Muller. Absolutely fascinating. I have graduated in Physics and yet I learnt lot of interesting concepts. It is a great period to live in, that one can see lectures from premier university in your home!

I downloaded all of them, converted to AVI or MP4 and burnt into two DVDs and watch it in the TV/DVD. TV watching is much better as family can view along with you and gives more respectability of watching a lecture. Sometimes the sounds are loud, but other than that I will recommend every college going kid and adults to watch!

I have some more great links that I collected last few years and put it in the website. Hope you may also appreciate it.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Kids - some puzzles - 6 - 7 year old

Some simple puzzles from coins that kids will like.

Figure on the left below, shows six coins arranged in the form of triangle. By moving two coins, could you make a triangle upside down (as shown right below)? Kids may not enjoy the puzzle itself, but they will be stimulated to make triangles.



Similarly by having ten coins arranged in the form of triangle (as shown in left below), could you make the triangle upside down by moving three coins?

What is the smallest number of coins needed for 15 coins in the form of triangle (as shown in right below) to make is upside down?


More Good Games:

  • Here is link for a nice Guessing Number game for kids aged 6 and above. I found this game in Singapore Science Center. If your kid is above 8, ask him/her to find how the number could be guessed. It is based on concept of binary number.

  • 3D Tick Tack Toe: This is another game I found in Singapore Science Center. Indeed, it is lot of fun for the kids and helps their orientation skills! One can create this game in your home by using three throw-away CDs, CD writing pen, some books for support and chess pieces as shown in the picture (once can use backgammon or just different colored coins). On each CD, draw a three inch square with CD writing pen, subdivide the square to nine small squares just as in normal Tick Tack Toe. Buid the setup with CD over each other with the edges put between the books for support as shown. The game is similar to tick tack toe, but now one has to put three pieces in any straight line in 3D - in horizontal plane like usual tick tack toe, horizontally, vertically, diagonally or slanted-ly.
  • Another good game is 3D Tick Tack Toe, in four planes. This is played against computer and quite challenging even for adult. One good feature is, it notifies you if there is a threat or if you block the threat.