General Election 2015

Yesterday was the polling day for Singapore's General Election 2015. Ardon and I were glad that the haze condition was not too bad then. 

This was the first time Sample Counts were released to the public (around 9.30 pm to about 11.30 pm) before the actual results of the General Election were officially announced. The Sample Count was performed at the start of the counting process for each electoral division to get an early indication of the possible electoral outcome. This was released once for each electoral division. 

It was meant to help prevent speculation and misinformation from unofficial sources while counting was underway, before counting was completed and the election results were announced. A Sample Count also helped election officials check against the election result for each electoral division. 

The official election results of Sengkang West was the first to be announced at about 11.30 pm. All the results were announced by 2.30 am with the exception of Aljunied GRC. There was a request to recount the votes because the difference in percentages of the votes was less than 2 percent. I was too tired to wait for the results and went to sleep at about 3 am. This morning, I checked the news and realized that the result for Aljunied GRC was announced at 3.15 am. The Workers' Party won by a 1.9% margin.

We found the Sample Count was quite accurate. It was stated that it had a confidence of 95% with an error of plus or minus 4%. Based on the Sample Count, PAP was likely to win in all constituencies except Hougang SMCs and Aljunied GRCs. This tallied with the final results of the General Election. There was only a slight difference in the percentages of votes cast in favour of each parties. 

Today, the haze is back again with a 3 hour PSI of more than 100. There was a burnt smell in the air :(. Looks like yesterday was indeed a good day for holding the General Election - less haze and no rain :).

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Bird's Nest Soup

I had always thought we needed about 2 to 3 hours to cook bird's nest soup. This seemed to be confirmed from what I had seen from some blogs and websites. Some bird's nest even required cleaning/plucking of feathers, which was time consuming and tedious. 

Recently, I saw from Hock Hua Tonic E-Store that they were having a promotion on some of their bird's nest. Some of the instructions there stated that the bird's nest only needed to be soaked for 1 hour and then cooked for 45 minutes to 1 hours. 

Bird's nest was usually sold by weight. Since it was my first time trying to cook bird's nest, I chose the cheapest bird's nest available at that time as there was not much difference in terms of efficacy. I bought the 特选沙巴洞燕片 Super FS SABAH BCN-White (AA) at a Hock Hua Tonic retail store, which was sold at a special price of $50.00 for every 37.5 g (一两).  I bought about 42 grams, which cost $56. I also further confirmed with the staff on how to prepare the bird's nest. The staff advised me to soak the bird's nest for 1 hour, remove the water that was used to soak the bird's nest and double boil for 45 minutes. 

Their staff usually tell us to cook 1 to 2 piece of bird's nest for 1 person's consumption. This seemed to be a lot in my opinion and would be very thick in consistency. Maybe some people loved to eat bird's nest this way. 

I had previously researched on the optimal quantity of bird's nest to consume every day and found that it should be between 1 to 5 g. Below 1 g, it is ineffective. If we consume more than 5 g, the human body cannot absorb that much and, hence, it would be wasted. I bought six pieces, which weighed 42 g, so one piece was about 7 g. There are four of us in our family, so 7 g divided by 4 persons would be about 1.75 g per person. I think this was good enough for us.

Now that we have the Tefal Electric Steamer, it was very convenient for me to double boil bird's nest. After soaking the bird's nest for 1 hour, I removed the soaking water and put about 1 small bowl of water  to the bird's nest and steamed for 45 minutes.

Dried bird's nest

Cooked bird's nest

After 45 minutes, I added rock sugar to the bird's nest soup and it was ready for consumption. We were satisfied with the consistency. 

Last week, we saw that there was a stall at Causeway Point mall selling freshly double boiled bird's nest. Coincidentally, they also used the Tefal Electric steamer to double boil their bird's nest. :)

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《歌台星力量》"Ge Tai Challenge" Finals and Toggle Awards

The finals of《歌台星力量》"Ge Tai Challenge" was telecast on Channel 8 on 16 August 2015. By now, most people would know who the winners were. 黄振隆 (Desmond Ng) was the champion, 陈建彬 (Marcus Chin) was the first runner-up, 皓皓 (Hao Hao) was the second runner-up and 朱莉莉 (Zhu Li Li) was in the fourth place.

I couldn't get enough of the show so I watched it again last Saturday night. I especially loved Hao Hao's performance of the song 《菊花台》with his lady friend.《菊花台》was originally sung by Jay Chou. I find this song was even better when it was performed as a duet by a man and a woman. I also noticed that the prelude/starting music of this version of the song, performed by a Chinese orchestra, was different from the original version. It was a combination of the tunes from some other songs. I only know one of the tunes was from the song 《梁祝》("The Butterfly Lovers"). There were also some dancers dancing before Hao Hao and his friend started singing. It seemed more like watching a musical play than a competition. A hearty Thumbs Up for the performance! 

For the second part of the final competition, Hao Hao performed the song "Para Para Sakura", originally sung by Aaron Kwok in a movie with the same title which was released in 2001. Wow, it had been a long time since I last heard this song. He also got the audience involved in dancing along with the him and his performers during the second part of the song. This really made everyone perk up! I really liked the songs he chose and the way he presented/performed the songs. 

Hao Hao got the Best Costume Award (最炫服装奖) and Most Popular Award (最高人气奖) whereas Desmond Ng got the Best Interaction Award (最佳互动奖) organized by Toggle. These three awards were given based entirely on results of online voting.

Related posts:
《歌台星力量》"Ge Tai Challenge" (Episode 9)
《歌台星力量》"Ge Tai Challenge" (Episode 10)