YowCH & Grace

With 3000+ local staff and hosting an annual dinner with 2000+ attendees, SJ had the Annual Dinner at Expo Hall 7 on Friday night, 2 Feb 2018.
The theme is “Multi Nations, Multi Skill”.


Everyone received a Nets Card as door gift (with $8).

And here’s YowCH next to Fen Leong.


The event included lucky-draws,talent shows and best-dressed. The MC, Moe Alkaff, was really good. He managed to get the floor up and moving. YowCH got a Starbucks coffee card with $20 from lucky draw.


The dinner started at about 7:30pm and ended at about 10:30pm. Lots of wine and brandy, good that YowCH took a ride with Fen Leong.

Tags: YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

YowCH’s office had a lunch with the Infra and Geo teams in office on Tuesday, 16 Jan as a start to the new year.



A good time of fellowship over food.

Tags: YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

Esther and David attending Church Youth Camp from 11 until 15 Dec. During the week-long program, they had good time learning about God and bonding with their church friends.


Esther was in the Camp Organizing Committee.

For the week where Esther and David were in church, Joseph stayed over at Sorrento. Joseph had a good time baking cakes, bread and cookies with grandma.

On 17 Dec 2017, Sunday, we went to watch Star Wars VIII, courtesy of our Prudential insurance agent, at Vivocity. Very complex story, and nice effects.

After the camp, Esther and her friend Rebecca, baked some cookies for their church Disciple Group friends at Grace’s mom’s kitchen.

YowCH have been travelling weekly on Mondays to KL for meeting on the Tugu project for the month of Dec. Tiring and time consuming, but a challenging and exciting civil engineering project 1n homeland.

Tags: Church, David, Esther, Family, YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

We had a short trip to PJ from 30 Nov to 4 Dec. We planned for the trip from 30 Nov to 3 Dec, but since YowCH had a meeting in KL on 4 Dec, we stayed on for one more day.

Click on the photos below for the page with the trip:

Tags: Family, YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

YowCH’s old classmate and business friend invited the family to a movie screening at Kallang on Friday, 17 Nov. We watched Justice League.



After the movie, we realised that the parking is coupon parking (non-gantry) but we received a warning instead of a fine for first time offence in 8.5 years of driving. There is grace in Singapore, too.

On Saturday, Joseph went to church for Junior Camp. This is the day camp for all P1 to P5 (the P4-P5 had leadership training the weekend before in the 2 nights stay-over camp).

Joseph then stayed over in Sorrento and continued the camp on Sunday. we joined him for the camp ending dinner on Sunday night.

We had dinner with the campers, nice home cooked food.

There were performances by the juniors groups, and Joseph’s group did the story of Gideon and his army against the Midianites. Joseph was playing Gideon.

Prize giving! Joseph was selected as the Most Sporty Camper. But his group was one of the 3 groups with consolation prize (out of 6 groups).

Samuel jumped into the pool during swim class today, and hit his chin on the wall. A rather bad cut, but not too serious.

Tags: Family, Joseph, Samuel, YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

We did our own Korean Army Hotpot, using fuyu as the soup base. Pretty good stuff!

An update on YowCH’s office, the blinds were finally added, and it really provided great help against the morning sun.

YowCH also arranged for a TV to be placed at the meeting area between Fen Leong and him, useful for discussions.

YowCH went to Raffles Hospital for a full health check, with treadmill added. Results will be known a few weeks later, but the prelim readings looks normal.

Perhaps some bitter gourd juice to help with rising blood pressure.

Tags: Family, YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

KTP moved from E-Centre@redhill to Connection One (old HDB central) on 29 September 2017 to be in the same building as Surbana Jurong, our parent company. The move started on 21 September (1st pre-move) and 27 September (2nd pre-move) before the actual move. From 2 October 2017 KTP operates from Connection One tower 1 Level 22 (main) and Level 25 (Infra and Geotech).
This was on 21 Sept:

On Saturday, the boys helped YowCH move some more things over.


This was on 27 Sept. YowCH managed to shift everything over on the 2nd pre-move.


By 29 Sept, YowCH’s office was empty at E-Centre. Here are the last looks.


And this is the moved-in look at SJ.

These are the last looks of E-Centre, YowCH’s office since Dec 2002 (KTP, and before that, TYLin).



This is the KTP main entrance at level 22.

On Monday, 2 Oct, YowCH officially started work in Connection One, seated at the corner of Wing A, facing the junction of Jalan Bukit Merah and Henderson Road.

Rather good view. From this corner, YowCH can see both Gan Eng Seng Primary and Secondary Schools and also our flat at Rumah Tinggi.

Tags: YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

KTP had a durian party on 8 Aug, prior to the Singapore National Day. The SJ bosses came over, too.

We took the Magnext set out, and Samuel enjoyed building 2D and 3D creations, together with Joseph.

Here are 2 photos taken of Joseph playing basketball with his friend in school, after the official training session.

Tags: Joseph, Samuel, YowCH, YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

YowCH had a one-day trip to Batam (Sekupang ferry terminal) to visit a few islands owned by an Indonesian developer for a potential resort development, partnering SJ architect and SMEC environmental specialist. Departing from office at about 9:30am, he returned home by 8:15pm.

This is the Sekupang Ferry Terminal.

Views of the uninhabited islands.

The sampan that the client prepared for the consulting team.

The team hiked up the main island of about 15Ha.




The sceneries are nice, but it was very hot and sunny.

While waiting for teh return ferry, YowCH manage to prepare the trip report in the canteen.

Incidentally, Esther turned 15 today, but she is now in Hong Kong with her school trip from 5 to 8 June 2017.

Tags: Esther, YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »

YowCH was sent to Dhaka for 2 days (flight on night of 31 May and returned to Singapore on 3 June) for a tender presentation and negotiation for a master-planning project (Blangladesh government project) teamed-up with a Singapore architect firm and engage by a Bangladesh local architect.

The SQ flight was rather empty, YowCH stretched out to sleep over 4 middle seats. And the the airport is quite run-down and old fashioned.

The Singapore team of 5 stayed at Lakeshore Banani, a reasonably nice hotel in a good area of the city.

The streets were rather empty during Ramadan, especially near the time for breaking fast (Iftar). Traffic is generally very busy and noisy (horns all the time) from 7:00am until 10:00pm.



Here’s the team preparing for the presentation at the Client’s office.

In the evening, YowCH took a ride on a trishaw (rickshaw in local calling) for a city tour. Only 20-30 Taka for a short ride, and the 30 minutes trip was only 100 Taka (S$1= 58 Taka).


The next day, FRiday (which is a weekend holiday in the Moslem country), we visited the site with the Client rep. The site is very flat, and so is Dhaka and the rest of Bangladesh, the flattest country in the world (Dhaka is 200km inland from the shore and only 4.0m above sea level!).



We had mostly hotel food due to Ramadan, but the local architect brought us to some local eateries for local fare. This is Kitchuri, rice baked with spices and meat in a clay bowl, covered with bread.

More city views.

We had some snacks prior to our flight, and the rain came (heavy by Singapore standards but mild to the locals).

Here’s the external view of the airport and the return flight was also very empty.

Points to note about Bangladesh:
Tourists Visa is hard to get, and Business Visa needs an invitation letter from a local business or government agency.
The currency is Taka and is not valid worldwide. We can only change for Taka when we land. And we need to change all Taka to foreign currency when we depart.
The streets are not as dangerous as what the media says, perhaps Banani and Gulshan are the safer locations.

Tags: YowCH's work by yowch
No Comments »