For the past few years, there have been a resurgence of the construction sector in Singapore. And how fast it has suddenly grown! I remembered just a few days back, this industry was down in the dumps. A lot of civil and construction companies went out of business due to the slowdown they experienced last time. In fact, even big companies are not spared and I saw a few of them winding down or switch to other industries. But that was then. Now, the scenario is very different. This could be due to the mega projects our government has started like the two Integrated Resorts, the MRT line extensions and HDB flats upgrading. The private sector too is banking in on the construction boom. Private housing, shopping malls and offices are leading the charge as well. We have seen a lot of construction going on in Singapore nowadays. Everywhere we turn, we will see a crane or some cement mixer doing some very important mixing on the street.

And that market is getting hotter. Why you may ask. Well, first of all, look at the rising population in Singapore. We are importing foreigners by the thousands every year and this means that there is a greater demand for housing. We could see nearly 5 to 6 million people living in our little island. This will certainly put a strain on our living space and thus prices and demand for construction materials and labour will increase. Plus Singapore is encouraging rich foreigners to retire in Singapore. Again, this another strain on our already very limited space. I am not sure whether Singapore will be able to handle the load. The price of housing in Singapore is already so high. How much higher will it get as it is already unaffordable for most Singaporeans? I am sure that the government is not really interested in the welfare of the people. They seem to only care if money is coming in and their coffers are bulging.

Anyway, if you have just purchased your house or if you are looking to renovate your flat, I have complied a list of Interior Designers and Contractors in Singapore. I hope this list will help you find the most suitable housing renovation contractor for your home. I am sure you have heard horror stories about some contractors, so you must always be careful when dealing with these people.

Are you thinking of renting a vehicle instead of owning one? Or is your company is hiring someone from overseas and he/she needs a vehicle to commute? Hey, we don’t expect our foreign talent to take the bus like everyone else do we? Then they won’t be called Foreign Talent in the first place. Even if the person will be in Singapore for maybe over a year, it would be more worthwhile to rent a vehicle instead of buying one. For Singaporeans, perhaps the reason to rent a vehicle is because the capital cost of buying a car can be very high. Not to mention all the hassle of buying a vehicle and having to worry about loans, insurance, repair and servicing and so on. If you rent a vehicle, all you need to do is to hand the company a copy of your driving license and drive off with your dream car. That’s it! Well, if the hirer is a foreigner, the work permit is needed as well. Probably save you hours and hours of hassle and needless worry.

And from what I heard, the market for vehicle rental is very hot. And the price of renting a vehicle has gone down. In the past, I have seen cars being rented out for several hundred dollars per day, now you can get a 1.6 litre vehicle for as low as 50 to 60 bucks per day. Ha, if you are willing to settle for an old car that it. But this downward pressure would be just temporary. As the number of people living and working in Singapore is increasing, and expected to hit 5 to 6 million, the need for transport has increased. And looking at how terrible our public transport situation currently is, I am sure that there will be more demands for cars. And this will definitely affect the vehicle rental business. I expect prices of rental rates to increase very soon. Add this to the increasing number of tourists coming to Singapore, plus the opening of the Integrated Resorts (IR) in Singapore in 2010, we will see the market booming like nobody’s business. Not to mention the limousine services. Singapore hopes to attract rich players to the casinos in the IRs and what better way to attract them by providing the players with smooth and comfortable transport to and from the airports. Unlike most of us Singaporeans having to crowd ourselves into over-packed sardine buses and trains to work everyday.

I have complied a list of Singapore Car/Vehicle Rental Companies. Please take a look if you are interested.

I guess for most Singaporeans, growing up in this hyper competitive society, all of us need a little help now and then. The problem is always time and the fact that we Singaporeans are always overwhelmed with work. So how about our little ones in school? Do we have enough time to spend coaching them? How about their lessons? Do we have enough time to know what subjects they have and how to help them? The most likely answer is no. Even for those lucky few who have time to teach their children, you could always get some more help from people who are more experienced in teaching.

And nowadays, if you look at Singapore schools, they are very different from before. During my time, the lessons are just lessons. The teachers teach their students from the blackboard and from the book. However, now lessons are no longer mundane and boring. The lessons now teaches students to think out of the box and creative problem solving. You get very interactive classrooms and everyday there is something new to learn. But this also increases the pressure on students. They have a lot to absorb in a very short period of time. I know the feeling. When I was at that age, I feel lost sometimes too. Thus, the students too need help. Of course, I am not talking about spoonfeeding, but basically coaching and support from someone other than their teachers and parents. This is where tuition centres can come in and help out.

Well, I have complied a list of Tuition Centres in Singapore for you. If your child is weak in certain subjects, there are tution centres which specialized in these topics or subjects.

If you are living in Singapore, you will very likely need a maid, right? Singapore is a kind fo society that requires other people to do “house” work for them, probably because we are just too busy with making money. No, I am not saying that this is a bad thing, but it leaves us very little time to do everything else. Furthermore, we are overwhelmed with taking care of our children, our parents, our work, our social life, our hobbies and the long working hours in Singapore. That’s what life is all about here. Being overwhelmed. We definitely need help. Worse, in Singapore, usually both the parents are working, so someone has to take care of our children when we are at work. So maids are the only choice left for us if our parents are not able to help.

Maids have become such an integral part of Singapore that whenever we go, the maids tag along. Just recently, when I visit my friends and family during the Chinese New Year, everyone bring along their maids. Yes, they are there to take care of the little ones while we drink and enjoy ourselves. Perhaps Singaporeans are so accustomed to having maids that we can’t live without them anymore. One of my friends whose maid went back home for a few weeks, found that he had problems adjusting to those few weeks. He told me later that he feels like he was living in a whole new environment and his household was in chaos. Sometimes we are so spolit, that we can’t do things ourselves anymore.

And I often wonder how our children will become when they grow up. They have also grown so accustomed to have a maid to bring them stuff and do everything for them that they don’t even know how to do it themselves. Soon, we will have to see the possiblity of young Singaporeans bringing their maids to their workplace? That would be bad and embarassing.

Anyways, if you are looking for a maid, take a look at Singapore Maid Agencies Listing I have created. Hope you get a good maid to help you.

It looks like everywhere you go in Singapore, you will see someone or another driving a shiny brand new car, probably one that is very costly. It’s like crazy. Maybe because the economy is good and everyone is having huge bonuses and they have no other way to spend it. They go into buying cars. Not sure whether Singaporeans heard of investing, but I guess in Singapore, the most expensive thing you can buy other than a house is a car. And I won’t blame Singaporeans for wanting cars. Just look at our pathetic public transportation system and you will understand. The buses are slow, expensive and never on time. Worse, they are always crowded and dirty. For me to travel to work, it takes about 1 hour 30 minutes by bus! I am living in Ang Mo Kio and my workplace is in Bedok. The MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) is probably faster, but it’s just too troublesome to take. You need to take a bus to the MRT, then change to the trains and after that change to another bus feeder service. And you probably be packed like sardines in the trains as well.

The sad thing about overcrowded Singapore is that, well…..Singapore s just so overcrowded. Everywhere you go, you see tons and tons of people and vehicles. And parking is a nightmare, especially at the weekends. Try some of the more popular malls, the number of vehicles waiting for a parking space is just staggering! Our ineffective public transport is just not able to cope with the huge influx of foreigners and they still want to bring in more people. Talk about insanity.

Anyways, if you are still interested in buying a car, please take a look at the list of car showrooms in Singapore. I hope it to be very comprehensive but due to the fact that a lot of businesses still do not have websites, it is not. However, these showrooms should get you started when you are looking to purchase a vehicle. Good luck.

Any of you guys are interested in food and have plans to come to Singapore? Well, I have an interesting idea for you! Take a look at Singapore’s Culinary Adventure by academy at-sunrise. No, I am not paid to advertise for them. It’s just something interesting I would like to show to visitors to Singapore. It’s a packaged tour meant for tourists who are interested in Singapore’s food and culture. Think of it like going to sample some of the best dishes in your local market, just in a different country and which costs way more.

And Singapore, eating is king. That’s one of the biggest passions we have here - eating. But in Singapore, food standards can range from terrible to magnificant. The main reason is a great deal of Singaporeans  have very bad taste in food. They will eat anything, I mean, I have seen food stalls selling the worst possible food and yet, have tons of customers. And Singaporeans are simply media dumb. If a local media show introduce a food stall or restaurant, everyone will flock to that stall. That’s the problem in Singapore. Singaporeans don’t really think for themselves at all. Everything is controlled by the media. The next possible reason is Singaporeans are too busy. For working adults, we barely get a hour to eat our lunch. So usually we go to the nearest stalls to get our food. Well, it’s too bad. Stalls which are located in good locations get good business, irregardless of whether the food taste good or not. So instead of improving and enhancing their food, owners spend their time finding and sourcing for good locations.

However, even with bad tastes, with so many different cultures, we are bound to get a few hits. And these really good. I have been to places in Singapore and tasted Minced Meat noodles that would knock the socks of anyone. Yes, some of these great stalls and restaurants are difficult to find.

So I think it would be a good idea to let some expert find these better stalls and restaurants for you. No point coming to Singapore and eating crap from the sewers right? So if you have 5/6 days and a whole lot of cash to burn, try their package. In food paradise but messy and overcrowded Singapore, it’s a good idea to let locals with a little intelligence to bring you to get places to eat. Regular Singaporeans will just bring you to KFC or McDonalds. Truly scary. And they will bring you to places where they sell all sorts of spices and herbs. They even teach you how to create “authentic” tasting Singaporean dishes. Wow.

Well, you know Singapore. Here, everyone has to work.  And with that, I mean even when you are old and supposedly retired, you still have to work. Why? Because there is no social security in Singapore. Thus, old people have to leave the house and go outside and start serving food to kids or sweep the floor. But then who takes care of your house? Who cooks when you come back home hungry? Who takes care of your kids and bring them to and from school? Definitely not the busy Singaporeans. So, the only option - get a maid.

And nowadays, we have a lot of maid agencies to choose from. Some are pretty sneaky, some are cheaters, some don’t even get you a reliable maid. So, I guess the most important thing to do when you are planning to get a maid is to get a reliable maid agency. They should have their own training school preferly in Singapore itself, does their own hiring and they should have fast maid replacement.

You can find a list of maid agencies here: Singapore maid agencies. I believe that most agencies get their maids from Indonesia, Philipines, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Anyway, it’s not really cheap to hire a maid in Singapore. You need to pay tons of fees, insurance and government deposit even before you get your maid. But at least you don’t have to face the hassle since the maid agency does everything for you. You just pay and hope for the best. That’s life in Singapore. You pay and hope for the best.

Yesterday, I went to the town area to do some shopping to buy some stuff for my friend who was going overseas to work. It was as usual, very crowded and you will need to squeeze with everyone. It looks like Singapore is getting way too overcrowded and with nearly a million working foreigners (don’t forget tourists and those who foreigners on visiting passes), just like Hong Kong. In Singapore, all we get is dust, sweat, heat, crying kids, mobile phone loving youngsters, loud talking businessman and squatting construction workers everywhere. That’s Singapore for you.

Anyway, one thing I realized is that recently, there is a huge increase in the number of Spas! In the Orchard area alone, I counted like 15 different Spas! And I did just a simple count, nothing really very comprehensive. In my opinion, that’s a lot of Spas. Looks like the latest craze in Singapore is now Spas. But this time, the craze is for probably the younger working adults and not for youngsters. Spas aren’t cheap, most of which cost like 30-40 bucks for some facial thingy where they squeeze and abuse your face. And some packages can cost up to several hundred dollars.

I am not really a fan of Spas, I think that there are sort of like message cum health centers, just that it looks more posh and definitely cost more. But it seems that a lot of people swear by it and they are flocking to Spas to relax and unwind after a hard day’s work. I can understand that. Singapore is way too stressed and I really pity the working population. With the increased competition in the work place and the increased number of foreigners competing with locals for jobs, it’s no wonder Singaporeans need to find some way to keep their minds off work. What’s better than someone pampering you and giving you a “rub-down”to relax those tense muscles with those weird sounding oils and creams eh? Spas seemed to be the easiest solution. Oversea holidays (Singaporeans would do anything to get out of Singapore) would require time and a lot of planning, something which a lot of Singaporeans don’t have. It is also a good way to get away from the hustle of Singapore without actually leaving Singapore. I would recommend Spas which are located away from the crowded city area with a quiet and relaxing environment.

Anyway, if you are interested in checking out the Spas available in Singapore, please have a look at my Singapore business directory: Singapore Spas & Beauty. Please note that I am not recommending any of these Spas, you should use it as a guide only.

Looks like the holidays are coming soon. In Singapore, the peak periods are usually the school holidays (around June/July and November/December), where parents will take leave and start a trip with their children to far away places. Or even just nearby like in Bali or Malaysia. I guess in Singapore where the stress level is extremely high, everyone wants to take a break. And everyone wants to take a break out of Singapore. I understand that. I live in Singapore too. The stress and the pressure we get from work, family and society itself is like a huge load on us poor mortals. We need to get the hell out of Singapore! Even Singapore millionaires need to get away from Singapore.

The problem is that during the school holidays, it’s like packed to the brim. So, in order for you guys to get that dream holiday you always wanted, you need to plan way beforehand. So if you have a thought of going overseas, now is the time to start planning and start looking for what offers the travel agencies have. So I have complied a list of Singapore Travel & Tour Agencies for you guys to check out. It is not arranged in any order and you should always compare prices from different agencies when doing your planning. And don’t rush for anything. Before you commit, give yourself a few days to think about it (use it as a cooling off period). I think you should also get recommendations from your friends and relatives, since getting personal experience is the most reliable form of information. Also, visiting forums and blogs can help you read up on what others have experienced and help you choose which travel or tour agency to use.

Remember, a good travel agency is very important. A good travel agency makes the trip as smooth and as enjoyable as possible. I am sure you don’t want to go on a holiday and get frustrated from poor service and bad attitude travel agents right? And a good travel agency makes all the difference. The bad thing about travel nowadays, the competition is cut-throat. This results in tour agencies cutting off corners and this can be rather bad for their customers. So please beware, if the price is too good to be true, it probably is.

Sad, if only I could afford a trip to Europe, that would be great. But I guess all of us must live within our means right? So, I will be stuck in sweaty Singapore for a long long time.

Singapore is definitely the place you want to go if you have a fetish for fat and obese people. Truly, how are Singaporeans going to live if one day, we don’t have any fattening foods available? We are all going to die without such rich foods! I heard that in Singapore, the people here are so fat and greedy, that all restaurants had to cancel their buffets and only allow ala carte for the fear of people exploding. We won’t want that to happen now do we? Exploding fat people is dangerous to everyone around them. I heard that when they explode, they give off the same amount of energy as 3 nuclear bombs.

After you have finished your medium raw three pound steak with massive potatoes topped with rich milky sauce, and you are still thinking of more fattening snacks to wash your beef down, you can take a look at The Butter Creations. As the name states, it’s all about butter and cookies. And they do make some great looking cookies. They have this butter cookies with a cookie chip on top as well as corn flake cookies, which I believe is butter cookies mixed with corn flakes. Yes, yes they look sinful but with is life without any sin? All you have to do is to avoid looking at the mirror like forever and you don’t have to worry about the weight gain anyway. And to make you feel better, take a look outside and you will find that you are not alone. There are many other fat and out of shape Singaporeans out there. Some who are even fatter than you are! So go ahead, take a bite…..you will find happiness in every bite. Till your overworked heart gives out on you.

Oh, and The Butter Creations delivers right to your doorstep! You know what that means. You get to eat butter cookies and you don’t even have to leave your house! Just sit in front of your computer, send an email and wait for the cookies to be delivered to your place. Life is just so damn wonderful.