I usually avoid shipping things abroad. But after recently deciding to relocate with a measely 20kg allowance that my one way economy plane ticket purchased, I had to figure out a way to get a couple of things that I valued in my possession to my destination.

Here is the process including specifics of how I arranged this, along with tips and things I learned, which hopefully will help a few of you.

1. Make a list (and take photos): First, decide what you really need to ship. My priority were things I wanted in 5 year’s time. My reasoning was that most of the things I needed in the next 3-4 weeks I would pack with me anyway, and I could survive on most of these things in the next year or two. Anything else, I could purchase.

This meant that I was focused on selling or giving away the ‘middle’ items – things that most of us find difficult to get rid of, such as the clothes we never wear, and the gadgets we never use. These things collect over the years. I also sold other high value items that were not portable.

With what’s left, I took photos of everything. Yes, including my teddy bear. This serves 2 distinct purposes: Firstly, for insurance reasons and customs. Secondly, for logistics. Stacking up 10 boxes weighing 30kg each into a new 200 sq ft apartment witout knowing what is in each box is not the best way to unpack efficiently.
2. Set your criteria: Who does not like a good bargain? But my goal was not to use the cheapest service that provided online support, but I wanted unparalleled operations and minimum hassle. I wanted boxes provided to me, but I also wanted to ship my own suitcases. Some services require you to only pack in their boxes so this was important. I also wanted a service that could provide me an exact price quote instead of an estimate (as we all know how ‘extras’ go). Finally, I also wanted my goods delivered to my destination in no more than 60 days. Laying out this criteria before choosing the right shipper for me certainly helped with my research and selection process.

3. Beware of hidden charges and terms: Hidden charges can easily double your overhead. Do they have hidden fees such as delivering boxes, collecting your goods, shipping door to door? Will you get a bill with a smiley face asking to pay for the plane fuel, carbon footprint and a small tip for the delivery man upon arrival of your goods? So make sure you read the small print.

Case example: After setting my criteria, I started by comparing Royal Mail, Parcel Force, DHL, Fed-Ex, amongst others. A good site to to start with is Parcel2Go which gives a brief overview of all services. and discovered that most of these services costed upwards of £150 for a 10 kg box. Other shippers offered an estimate quote, others had charges that were not too transparent.

I was then browsing a few forums (another tip: look for an expat forum in your destination as many will have discussed this topic in the past). I found a few people discussing removal services, and a couple mentioned a company called Voovit (www.voovit.com).

Voovit specialises in international shipping from the UK. They also provided their own boxes, and also could ship my own luggage for a small extra fee. They offered a collection service and door to depot delivery in various destinations including the United States, Hong Kong, China, and Europe.
4. Further research based on criteria. I explored the Voovit website, which was simple and user friendly. They also allowed me to get specific quotes (another one of my criterias). Their costs were reasonable, for around £260 for 5 boxes. Had I gone with 5 Voovit boxes, the total would have been even cheaper, at £160. But this was almost half the price in some cases for vague quotes from other companies. The only thing to note is the restriction of total dimensions under 300 cm after adding the length + 2x height + 2x width. But the average suitcase size is way under this.
Read the FAQ. How to get boxes? The service delivers boxes to my door within 48 hours, and offer a collecting service. How long does it take? I emailed their ops and was told 22 days on average to the HK depot. Are there other charges such as insurance costs? Basic coverage for boxes were included, but were minimal. Is there insurance? Yes but at an extra cost. I did not need insurance though. Are there other fees? Yes – customs were not covered upon arrival, and there was no theft / damage with the basic cover. But this seemed standard for most companies from my research..

5. Arranging boxes: I emailed their ops. Within the hour I had a reply explaining the process in more detail. I ordered 5 boxes with a £20 deposit, redeemable against my final cost. As long as I used 4 boxes or more, I didn’t have to pay extra. Anything under 4 boxes I pay £2.50 for each box unused.

Do note: calling their ops cost 50p a minute on a 0900 number. But email correspondence is more than efficient that I never required the phone.

6. Delivery of boxes: We had a special request asking for their drivers to call when outside because our doorbell did not work. It turned out that they were contracted with Parcel Force, whose drivers were not supposed to call when outside. However we were told to put a note on the front door, and the boxes were delivered successfully. I suspect they got in because the neighbours left the door open or they tried other doorbells. Had they not been there I am not sure whehther they would have arrived. The boxes even came with a roll of their own tape, which I thought was a nice touch.
7. Packing: Packing tips have been covered above. Make sure to pad things out and leave minimal empty space. Creating the packing list was easy: we justlogged into to the Voovit member’s area and provided a general item count in each box with the total value. e.g. 15 clothes worth £100, 20 books worth £150, etc. Payment was easy as most cards were accepted. The deposit of £20 was deducted from my final total. Done.

8. Collection: I initially arranged for collection the day after, but as I had a flight to catch literally the day after packing, their ops rearranged this for me easily which was a nice touch.They even gave some further tips on labelling my own luggage to avoid things going missing. The boxes were only collected from the ground floor so we had to move things down, but my major concern was with our door bell. There is a ‘missed collection’ charge for re-collections and we did not want to pay this. There was little that we could do however as Parcelforce drivers were not allowed their own mobiles. My partner therefore had to wait with the boxes on the day for hours as no exact time was given. She did fortunately spot the driver just as he was leaving, and got them just in time. This was really the only downpoint through the process. Perhaps they have arrangements with Parcelforce as they are cheaper, but I would have asked them to consider other services. (or for Parcelforce to call – what driver does not carry a mobile phone?).

9. Delivery: At time of writing, it’s been only around 1 week since my items were collected. I will therefore post another update as soon as they arrive. But overall, I have been very impressed with the service at Voovit, and would give a thumbs up and recommend them to anyone who require international shipping.
They don’t ship to every country though so check their website. If they do ship to your country you can get your own quote from Voovit. Ultimately, whatever service you go with, set a crtiera, do your research, and be prepared.
Got any other tips for moving/shipping abroad? Please share them in the comments below!

I watch too much TV. I admit that. But so do you. Don’t tell me you don’t. :) But one great thing about traveling is you definitely cut down on the amount of TV you watch. Except for Lost. But that can be an exception.

I’ve however been thinking what a waste of time watching TV is.

1. Sell your television: I don’t own a TV anymore despite having had a 40″ HDTV for a little while. The reason? When I switch it on, I just sit in front of it and waste time flicking through channels even when there’s nothing really good to watch. I noticed this one day in a hotel room abroad, as I compulsively flickered through channels mindlessly for about 2.5 hours. Will I own a TV again? Maybe, but I would unplug from anything live.

2. Limit your TV viewing schedule: I only watch TV during my lunch/dinner breaks, and an additional 1.5 hour on selective days. It’s surprising how much you can squeeze in during those times and still keep productive time elsewhere. The counter argument would be that you need time to ’switch off’ and think, especially if you’re managing / running a business. That is true, but I have time aside for that, including walks by the ocean on sunny days, and when it’s not so sunny, when I’m working out or stretching (trying to, anyway).

3. Choose your shows well: The point of my previous post can be misinterpreted as trying to increase the number of shows I watch. In fact, I’m trying to decrease what I watch by eliminating things I should never bother with. Also, try not to start a show unless you plan to watch it. If you download your movies or TV shows (we won’t tell anyone) for free, make sure you know what you’re getting and that you’re going to watch it. A common error is because it is free, you end up downloading stuff you’ll never watch, not only wasting HDD space but precious bandwidth, time, and emotional space (since you’ll be constantly wondering when you should watch it). If you’ve already filled up your HDD with junk, too late. Just kidding. It means just going through it and deleting stuff you don’t need. A great tool is TreeSize Pro, a HDD space viewer. I’ve used it for years, and it has a freeware version that you can install and use to clean up your HDD.

4. Skip through your shows: This one is a bit controversial as my girlfriend personally hates it, but I find it saves me at least 15 minutes in a 1 hour show, which amounts to a nice 1-2 hours extra a week to do more productive things. When I watch stuff with other people I obviously try to control myself from dragging the remote away and fast forwarding through the shows, but when I watch stuff alone, I have gotten very good at skipping through the fillers (e.g. the music comes on, the action fades out, scenes rolling and transitions occur, etc. etc.) If you pay attention to the direction in most TV shows that last longer than 45 minutes, you will notice this. For the 20-30 minute shows, it’s probably not worth doing as they tend to be pretty focused, and time spent jumping back and forth could end up costing you more time.

5. Stop the show before it finishes: Another tip is this- if you are hitting your daily limit, stop the show before it finishes. Often, because a show is 45 minutes, we feel that we should finish it once we hit the ‘play’ button. But as all shows end on a high to suck you into the next episode, you’re better to wrap up before reaching the hook anyway so that you don’t end up opening the next episode. But I know, it’s not easy, and perhaps the point of watching shows is for us to get to that high and make our lives just feel that slightly bit more meaningful…

Ultimately, the biggest time saver would be to cut out watching any TV show all together. If you have managed to do this, great. I’d love to hear your comments below on how you managed to do that!  So please share them below.

If you haven’t heard Steve Jobs and his commencement speech for Stanford University in 2005, you must.

When I first came across that speech, I was still working in hospitals as a doctor. But it really made me think about what I should be doing… my job was great, but frankly I felt like I was just doing a job, to climb the career ladder, to make a steady paycheck, just another guy in the cog of the machinery running the rat race. Then I realised, that if I only had another year to live, there was plenty else I would want to be doing.

Here’s the full video. I highly encourage you watch it if you have not:

Here is an excerpt:

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

-Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

2 years ago, my friend Gerard sent me some writings of Carlos Castenada. I quote:

“A man of knowledge chooses a path with a heart and follows it and then he looks and rejoices and laughs and then he sees and knows. All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy-it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.”

I’ve since decided to live life on my own terms. It’s bee no easy ride, but I certainly am having a blast living my heart out.

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted again.

It’s been a few crazy months. I will be catching up with the posts.  I really should be writing on here daily… gah.

In the mean time…

The photo to the right is a shot of one of the 5 Cinque Terre towns in Italy.

It’s been my dream to visit there ever since I last went to Italy in 2008. So naturally, I can’t wait to get back to Europe this summer and make it happen finally!

As the dates draw closer, I have started to plan our basic itinerary.

We will be there for a good few months, and I’ll be with some of my best friends, so I am very, very excited. It won’t be the first time I have done Europe, but the itinerary will be extraordinarily memorable, because I will be doing it together with extraordinary company.

Here’s what I have in mind right now.

1. June 2010 W1: Fly from NYC to London. Sort out some biz (will take a few days)
2. June 2010 W2: Fly to Portugal. Visit Lagos (and Lisbon again)
3. June 2010 W3: Head into Spain. Work through Rhonda, Sevilla, Granada, Cordoba. Up to Madrid, take day trips to Toledo and Segovia. Then to Salamanca and Santiago De Compostela. Take the northern route to San Sebastien via Leon, then Bilbao, and finally Barcelona.
4. July 2010 W2: From Barcelona, get the ferry to Italy, see the Almafi Coast and Sorrento in the south along with Napoli before hitting Roma, then go through Verona on way to Florence, with day trips to Assizi and Siena.
5. August W1 Finish Italy with a few days at Cinque Terre.

August Trip Break: Travel with my buddy Scott for a few weeks. Then go live in Berlin for at least 1 month. Get some work done. See Potsdam and Dresden. I am also very curious about Turkey …supposedly a fantastic country, brilliant history, great beaches, nice food… easy to travel!

6. Late August: Head south to Greece then Turkey. Or east to Croatia and the Balkans (Split, Zagreb, Trogir, Pula, Dubrovnik in Croatia and Sarayevo and Mostar in Bosnia). The latter is what I’m thinking, as the weather would be cooling down a bit for the islands.

I haven’t yet discussed this with my travel buddies, so I should probably share this with them first and see what they think :) We still have a good few months, but I will keep everyone posted on this as it develops further…

Today, we visited the Potala Palace and Summer Palace.

Our guide Sang Bo met us in the morning, and we took a cab to Potala. The trip costed 10 yuan ($1).

My first impression?

The Potala isn’t any particularly extraordinary building. But as we ascended the 1000+ steps (good thing we had a couple of days to acclimitize), the view of Lhasa was extraordinary.

The early morning sun heating the neatly aligned tiny houses and buildings across a peripheral landscape, interspersed between little lakes to a backdrop of mountains in the distance.

It was just phenomenal.

We went from room to room inside the palace. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside.

It was not much of a visual trip so to speak, as the actual palace itself was not particularly fancy, but it was still interesting to see some of the tombs and stories of various Dalai Lamas who lived and died there.

I was actually feeling a bit ill in the PM so skipped the Summer Palace (pic left), but heard it was cool as it was where the Dalai Lama was before he escaped. The clock on the wall was supposedly still at the time when he left.

I actually spent the PM in bed with some cipro. I did feel better after, and managed to munch down a yak pepper steak in the evening. It was delicious. I definitely will get another one of those if I am back.

I also did some final shopping and got hold of a bigger jacket for Mt Everest.

We spent the evening investigating further flights out. Looks I’ll be flying from Kathmandu to Calcutta (Kolkata) where flights back home work out cheaper.

I’m still a bit worried about the HDD, even though fingers crossed so far it’s been ok. I just have to minimize usage and since we’re off to 5k feet from tomorrow (Nam Tso Lake) then Everest BC. I doubt the equipment will hold up at that altitude.

Photos coming soon…

Today is ‘day 2′ in Tibet.

We woke up at around 8:30 am in order to meet Sang Bo, our recommended tour guide, to go to the Jok’hang Temple and Sera Monastery.

Even though I was up by around 8, I was pretty drowsy.

One thing about sleeping at high altitude is that it’s harder to sleep. But once I’m asleep, I’m zonked out. Our room was also freezing cold, but with the lack of a heater you wonder why. The staff at the Cool Yak did claim we have heating, and there were some issues last night including Carl and Vicky having all their laundry done ‘dry’, costing them 180 yuan for the lot (like $25!). Think it would cost less having it hand washed by an immigrant at the Mandarin Oriental.

The hotel staff also tried to change our price, and our room, but thankfully Sang Bo set them straight. We have a triple room with 3 beds, so Scott and I are using the middle bed for all our stuff.

Going back to the cold weather, my hands are freezing as I type this. Good thing I got a pair of gloves I bought off a street vendor in Chengdu for 12y ($1.50).They came in handy, especially in the mornings. We had the free breakfast in the hotel, which looked more like dinner: sauted vegetables, sausages, spam, etc. Hey, at least it wasn’t just yak and butter milk.

I also still can’t figure out how to get out of Kathmandu on the cheap. The cheapest option would be to take a train or bus to New Delhi and fly out from there, but for various reasons, that would be a last resort. However, most flights out of KTM just seem ridiculously expensive.

In fact, I also raised the question of: should I even go to Nepal, or turn back at the border and fly out of Lhasa? It would be a bit goofy to do that, but flying out of Lhasa would save me alot. Question is can I stand a 24 hour car ride back from the Nepalese Border, and would I miss anything fun there.

The other consideration I must make is having already paid my share of a 4×4, I am unlikely to get my money back even if I cut my trip short. The travel agency said they were happy to drop me off at the airport I would not get a refund. I figured since I already paid, I might as well make the most of it. Mount Everest B.C., Shigatse, and the monasteries along the way will probably make an interesting trip, and the trek out and going up to Lake Nam Tso in 2 days at 5k meters would truly be an epic adventure.

So I guess I just have to figure out (1) what do I need so I don’t freeze my ass off on the way up Mt Everest, and (2) what would be my route back to HKG?

Jok’hang Temple: I actually was fascinated by Jok’hang, and the religious aspects there. It was an intersting view when combined with the chinese military personnel. We also went to the Sera Monastery and saw monks doing their lessons and training new monks. The way they did it was interesting and got some very cool video footage.

After lunch we went to a local hangout where they served tea and local noodles. Scott found a fly in his soup but we probably shared the same broth. I am sure there was a fly leg or wing somewhere in mine. But to top up catalyzing the process to an eventful crouching toilet trip, we had butter tea for the first time on a roof top restaurant near our hotel, which tasted more like a strong soup of some kind. I also had some banana lassi, which I am sure contributed to further toilet contractions.

We then had dinner at a ‘Japanese’ restaurant served by Tibetians. Except for the name there was absolutely nothing Japanese about it. There was no japanese food in the menu, the closest being yak momos (dumplings). But I will admit, it was some of the best food ever. After dinner, Carl, Vicky and I decided to go for a blind person massage, which costed 80 yuan ($10) + 20y tip / hour. I had a dude called Tsetong I believe. His English was great, and the massage itself was pretty good. My back was killing me still from the train ride here a couple of days back so it was good to get this, especially before our 4×4 trek for 8 days, starting the day after tomorrow.

We start at 8:50 am tomorrow, as we will be heading over to the Potala Palace. So yet another early night. I think my cold is getting better, but my immune system is definitely working to its max from different angles here.

Hello from Tibet!

We’re now at 11,750 feet in Lhasa, Tibet. We just got off the 48 hour train ride from Chengdu. The train ride was ok because we took a soft sleeper. We also managed to get our whole group of 4 into the same cabin, even though after about 2 days you start feeling a bit cramped. I am not sure if we will manage 3 days. The train was ok, even though the electricity sockets did not work in the room, and it was far from being a ‘pressurised cabin’ as they advertised. In fact because of my mild cold from Chengdu (the air pollution does not help), every time we descended by 300+ feet, I would feel my eustasian tube block and I’d have to release it through diver tricks. Pretty painful!

Chengdu itself wasn’t that interesting IMO, so I am not sure if I will go again. I did try alot of sichuan spice, went to the Panda Zoo and climbed Le Shan and saw the giant buddha. It was not as impressive as I hoped it to be. The city is too expansive, too large, and personally I just found it hard to locate anything. We spent like 2 days hunting for Diamox and Dexamethasone for the Tibet trip as it was not in stock anywhere. After about 3-4 hospitals we found a place called Global Doctors that were run by an Asian-Australian venture, but they had a $30 USD charge for meds. Let’s just say I stocked up beyond Diamox and Dexamethasone…

We stayed at Sim’s Cozy Hostel, which I highly recommend. It’s actually voted one of the best hostels in Chengdu, and at 160y a night ($20 split between Scott and I), it was a pretty good deal as we had our own private room with our own private shower. There was also wifi in the room. The hostel was great especially for organising tours, including heading to Tibet and sorting our permits etc. Sim and Maki, a couple from Singapore and Japan, set it up like a Japanese place, and had an awesome garden too. I would stay there again, despite the hostel being super busy, they did a good job.

So with Tibet: The whole trip is working out to be pretty expensive. Cost around 4000y for just the tour guide, the permit, the 4×4…. actually that’s it. The soft sleeper ticket costed around 1k, and I spent around a further 1k for gear like the meds, warm clothing, food, sleeping bag, etc. This price is also for managing to arrange a group of 4 on a 4×4 tour. We will be travelling with Vicky, a Taiwanese ex-Siemens consultant, and Carl, an ex-yahoo marketing partner, and they are both very cool people, so the next 11 days here from Tibet through Nepal should be okay.

But my concern now is getting from Nepal back to Hong Kong. I really want to do Mt Everest base camp, and it won’t make sense to turn back to Lhasa from there as it’s just around the corner from Nepal. Kathmandu is supposed to be a really interesting place, but it’s looking ridiculously expensive as flights seem to be in the 5k yuan region (like $700-$800). Other options include going enroute New Delhi, or flying back to Chengdu first, but both add alot more toll to the existing trip.

Having been here now for about 6 hours though, all the gear actually came in use. I’ve started the diamox when we hit around 14,000 feet on the pass to Tibet on the train because I was feeling light headed. It was a good idea, as the next morning I felt fine, but Carl who we were travelling with had a bad headache and felt like he wanted to vomit. Having said that when we got to around 15,000 feet (!) I did feel a bit dizzy and nauseated. The descent, as Carl described, was like removing kryptonite from our systems.

It’s pretty cold here in Tibet, and it doesn’t help that I’m still in mid phase with a cold. Have had a running nose but I’m dressed up pretty warm, and just probably need more sleep. Tomorrow we hit the Potala Palace and a couple of other places, so I should hit the sack soon. We are staying at a place called the Cool Yak Hotel (because the Yak Hotel was not cool enough).

Yay, Amsterdam. Here is a great accomodation we discovered in the centre of Amsterdam that can accomodate up to 4 people that is worth checking out.

Background

It’s been a while. I was pretty excited about this trip as the last time I was there was almost 4 years ago.

When I used to go visit friends in Amsterdam or head over there for work, we’ve always stayed outside the city centre. It’s a total pain having to take the train in and out every day. I really wanted something quite central, so that we can walk everywhere. So on this trip, I decided to try something different.

Timing wise, we probably could have picked a better time. With the GBP -> Euro taking a beating, the first thing I noticed was that the average price for apartments ranged from around 80-200 euros a night. Not cheap.

Secondly, I left booking accom to the very last minute.  We looked at hostel private rooms, but strangely they all worked out close to 100-130 euros a night as the prices were calculated per person and not per room.

La Vie En Rose

After spending a good amount of time scouring through various hotels, B&Bs, hostels, apartments and more, we stumbled upon an apartment known as La Vie En Rose. It was a one bedroom apartment located just 5 minutes from the train station, on a main street, with a kitchen, a large living room, free wifi, etc. It didn’t serve breakfast, but that didn’t matter too much. The photos also looked awesome, and my GF loved it.

It also just so happens that they had availability for the EXACT dates that we were arriving. Coincidence?

The photos of the place looked amazing. I also like hidden gems that are not outright obvious, and places that were nice but a touch homely. La Vie En Rose appeared to meet those criterias.

Booking

We went ahead and booked it. The rate varied between 125-150 euros / night (the higher rate applied to Fridays and Saturdays, which seem customary to most accomodation in Amsterdam). There was also a 50 euro deposit, and normally Paypal payments were accepted, but as I left it to the very last minute, I had to arrange this by cash.

Arrival

Yvon, one of the owners, gave me pretty good directions on how to get to the apartment. It was pretty easy to find, just a few minutes walk from centraal station, and located right next door to a pub on NZ Voorburgwal.

As soon as I walked in, the immediate thing I noticed was how narrow the stairs were. It was somewhat tricky to navigate with luggage. Immediately, I had concerns about how the apartment would look like.

(As a side note, remember that if you go to Amsterdam to pack light! Lots of luggage is definitely not compatible if you are staying anywhere above ground floor.)

La Vie En Rose I: The Apartment

My concerns were relieved as soon as I walked in the apartment. I was welcomed into a bright open space, probably even nicer than the photos. It was bright, spacious, and nicely furnished. La Vie En Rose I, which was on the 1st floor, was ours.

Christa, one of the other owners, came down and greeted me. We talked in the very open lounge with large bay windows. I was already thinking how awesome they would be for people watching. The living room was spacious with modern furniture, a nice Samsung flat screen LCD TV, and very comfy looking couches and pillows. The bathroom was great – power shower, modern floors, a heating rack and all. The kitchen came with china, glasses, utensils etc.

I must admit when I first got there, I was so tired that I thought it was a studio. But then Christa took me to the back, and showed me the bedroom, which was nicely tucked facing a quiet street, and was darker than the living room, just as I like my bedrooms :) It had 2 single beds next to each other, but were the most comfortable beds ever. It faced a side street, so was very nice and quiet almost every night.

Krista also gave me a quick guide through the area and a basic hand drawn map of interesting sights she recommends. She really does know the city well, and definitely distilled some good info to us that came in handy.

I paid in cash, and also a 50 euro deposit. She left me the key and I was on my own for the next 5 days.

Here’s a few thoughts on the apartment in general:

1. Location: the location is truly fantastic. I was right bang in the middle of the city centre, right across from the Dam Square, the major tram routes right at my doorstep, and the main Centraal train station within minutes. There were loads of restaurants, shops, chinese massage places all around us. It made life easier for sure than being in the middle of no where. You can hear the streets a little from the living room for that reason, but it never bothered us.

2. Service: unlike hotels this place was really self service. So if you’re looking to have a cleaner every day, or breakfast, or a variety of indulgences, this place probably isn’t for you. You are expected to look after the place, with a strict no drugs policy on site. However I was given their personal contact number should any emergencies occur, and they lived right above, and said if anything to just go knock on the door. One thing I would have loved to have there was a washing machine, but I guess most people stay for literally 2-3 days. There are a few laundromats just in the area anyway. The owners also never bothered us throughout our stay, which was really nice.

On the last night, I also got a nice letter from both Yvon and Christa, along with my deposit back. It would’ve been great if we could have checked out a bit later in the day, or stored our luggage on site, but as new guests were arriving at 10:30 on the last day, we had to check out by 10. This was probably the only downside, so I would probably suggest they have a policy for new guests to not check in by at least 2 pm, giving current guests ample time to check out. Being able to store luggage on site would have helped too as we wanted to wander around the city on the last day. It cost around 7-8 euros at centraal station to store stuff (if you have alot of stuff and need 2 lockers then it would be up to 15 euros or so) as it required 24 hour storage minimum.

3. Sleep: I slept really well. The beds were uber comfortable. The only thing is they were put together as 2 singles. This therefore could work well if you have a group of friends (up to 4), as 2 could stay in the bedroom, the other 2 in the living room. However for couple that like to cuddle… do note that as the beds have wheels on them, it had a tendency to move around and split apart in the middle of the night…

4. Shower: Awesome. I love a good shower. It takes a minute or so for the water to heat up, but it’s a great power shower, and there are ample towels supplied. They also kindly gave us a couple of shampoo pouches. I love the toilet, even though I minimized spending time in it.

5. Safety: We felt very safe throughout. The pub downstairs tend to draw a friendly tourist crowd. There is a hostel next door, but people kept to themselves and didn’t particularly make any noise. The apartment is right on a major street, and all the windows in the apartment had locks and limits.

Tip #1: The bar downstairs, De Spaanse Ruite, is owned by the sisters, so if you mention that you are staying upstairs, the pub owner Bob (I believe is his name) will give you a 10% discount on anything. They also make a great burger. There is also a fantastic natural fruit juice / smoothie place right around the corner worth checking out.

Tip #2: Also, Christa and Yvon own a boat which they can take you on privately for 35 euros (I believe) on a canal dam tour. We didn’t get the opp to check it out, as I managed to get us a 25 euro canal cruise through the GWK currency exchange place for 4 euros. I would not have paid more than 4 euros for it though…

Conclusion

All in all, a great apartment in a very central location, lovely living room, nice quiet bedroom, fantastic shower and very consistent reliable wifi. If you want a place that feels like your own home in the Amsterdam city centre, and don’t mind climbing a flight of stairs or two, I highly recommend you check them out.

I will probably stay here again on my return to Amsterdam, especially if we can pre-arrange a group of 4 and split the costs. You can visit their website on http://www.la-vie-en-rose.com/. Mention you heard them through Hong Kong Wong and ask them to tell you about the awesome ice cream place!

“Ebook readers? Pah. I prefer reading on toilet paper.”

That’s what a friend of mine said a year ago, and recently, he, like many other people, are starting to come around to the benefits offered by ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony 505.

Having recently purchased a Sony PRS-505, and absolutely in love with it, here’s a brief head-to-head smackdown over my decision making process between the Sony PRS-505 and the Amazon Kindle 2.

Let’s assume you can get your choice of the Kindle 2 and the Sony 505. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Here are 8 features compared between the two.

1. The Amazon Kindle 2 has loads of books available – nearly 300,000. Of course, you have to get them from Amazon. There are a number of newspaper and magazine subscriptions available for the Kindle, as well as blogs, such as Boingboing, TechCrunch, and SlashDot. Stats on the Sony 505 are not as specific: there are “thousands” of titles available directly from Sony. But more importantly, it supports PDF well, and Google has about half a million free books that are in the public domain, so this was a big selling point for me.

2. The Kindle 2 supports AZW proprietary technology as well as MOBI, as long as you have software called Calibre to put it in that format. Calibre is open source. Conversion of other formats to AZW costs $0.15 per megabyte (about 9p) if you get Amazon to do it for you. For some, this may be an issue. The Sony PRS-505 on the other hand, supports the following formats: LRF, EPUB, PDF, TXT, BMP, RTF, JPG, AAC, MP3, PNG, and GIF.

3. The Kindle 2 has a larger screen and a keyboard. The Sony is slimmer overall and does not have a keyboard. But do you really need a keyboard on an ebook?

4. The Kindle 2 has no expandable memory. Extra storage is on Amazon’s servers, for download when you need it. The Sony supports memory expansion with SDHC memory sticks.

5. The Kindle 2 has 6 different font sizes, while the Sony only has 3-4. There are 3 levels of zoom on the Sony, which works well in general, but could be an issue for those wanting to zoom better.

6. The Sony takes a little bit more time to refresh when turning pages. Personally this doesn’t bother me too much.

7. The Sony has slightly better screen contrast, which is great for reading outdoors, and glaring sunlight.

8. The Amazon Kindle is only available from Amazon.com with a U.S. credit card and a U.S. shipping address, so getting your hands on one in the UK is going to take some fancy footwork including calling in those favours your American friends owe you. You could also try eBay, and pay the extortionate markup.

Is it worth it? Remember that to download content in the UK from Amazon,  you will first have to download it to your computer, then drag it over to your Kindle with the USB connection.

Finally, it’s not so easy to say which one comes out as the winner. It depends on how you feel about things like proprietary formats, supported data formats, and availability of content.

The winner in my book: The Sony PRS-505

Bottom line is that if you’re in the UK and you’re in a hurry, go with the Sony. The history of e-readers is new enough that it isn’t clear whether the better strategy is to sell the books and provide the technology to read them, or to sell the technology with the hope that enough content will soon be available to make it a worthwhile investment.

If you have any experience with the Amazon Kindle, the Sony PRS-505 or other ebook readers, please share your thoughts/opinions in the comments below!

“Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be.” – Warren Buffett

I like Warren Buffett. Let me tell you why.

I accidentally bought a copy of The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham when I was a student. It came as a £2 bonus in my shopping cart.

But I never read it. In fact I think I sold it off for £1.50 after it collected dust for a year, at a loss of 50p.

Clearly I knew nothing about investing!

Benjamin Graham for those of you who don’t know, was Warren Buffett’s mentor. They have very similar investment strategies based on value investing. Coincidentally I came across a presentation years after selling The Intelligent Investor that Buffett made to a bunch of MBA grads.

I became fascinated with Buffett’s investment strategies behind Coca Cola and Wrigley. More than anything else were the simplicity behind his strategies, and Warren’s philosophies and approach to life itself.

For the world’s richest man, Warren Buffet is a simple man. He never flies in a private jet — even though he owns the largest private jet company in the world. He also lives in a small three-bedroom house he bought 50 years ago, and keeps himself occupied by playing online bridge (mostly with Bill Gates).

As a side note, it may also interest you that Warren Buffett is Bill Gates mentor. Yep. The world’s richest man mentors the world’s second richest man!

One advice I recall most vividly from Warren Buffett was when he talks about never to do anything that you would not want on the frontpage of a newspaper.

That’s stuck with me. I’m sure we have all done things we’re not proud of in our lives.  You only live and learn.  But ever since I heard his advice, I’ve tried to live by this.

More than anything else, it is refreshing, and inspiring, to hear of a man with all the wealth in the world who still believes that happiness lies not with riches but within yourself. Bill Gates is trying to live up to that now, having quit Microsoft, to focus on the Gates foundation and give his wealth away. But the difference with Warren and Bill Gates is that Gates is still trying to win the Nobel Peace Prize! And I bet you it’ll happen eventually or else he’ll probably throw a tantrum and hit some blue screen death button. lol.

I want to share 7 of Warren Buffett’s secrets with you that I have been applying to my own life. Simply integrating some of the following wisdom I learned from Warrent Buffett into your own life could radically change your life. It has certainly changed mine in some ways.

Secret #1: Happiness comes from within.

“In my adult business life I have never had to make a choice of trading between professional and personal. I tap-dance to work, and when I get there it’s tremendous fun.” — Warren Buffett

If you do what you love and love what you do, you’ll naturally be productive.

When I used to work in hospitals, I found most days a bit of a drag, and having to drag myself out of bed, drag myself to the hospital, and by the time I got home, I felt like dead man walking. But now, I wake up most mornings loving what I do. I can’t wait to get started with the day. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time! I wish days were longer, even though what I do technically could be considered more draining for some people. But I enjoy it.

So find what excites you. And no matter what, that should be your goal.

Secret #2: Find happiness in simple pleasures.

“I have simple pleasures. I play bridge online for 12 hours a week.” — Warren Buffett

There are certain things in my life that make me very happy, and most of them are pretty simple pleasures. e.g. I love strolling by the seafront. I like to sit in cafes to people watch. I love filming silly videos and editing photos. I used to eat at a mosque when I was a student that served one of the best dishes of my life for just £3.  All of these things, in my opinion, are simple pleasures. They be done for close to nothing, in fact, except for the £3 meal, the rest can be done for free.

So perhaps happiness is closer to you beyond the $500k fancy car, the expensive clothes, or the big million dollar beach house.  And if the world’s richest man says so, I’d listen.

Secret #3: Live a simple life.

“I just naturally want to do things that make sense. In my personal life too, I don’t care what other rich people are doing. I don’t want a 405 foot boat just because someone else has a 400 foot boat.” — Warren Buffett

I recently purchased a book called Affluenza by Oliver James. The idea of the book is that an epidemic of ‘Affluenza’ is spreading throughout the world. Keeping up with the Joneses is the worst epidemic among those who should never contemplate that notion in the first place. Less is more.

Oliver James spent 9 months travelling through different cities and cultures, including Sydney, Singapore, Moscow, Copenhagen, New York and Shanghai. In each place he interviewed several groups of people to discover why do so many more people want what they haven’t got and want to be someone they’re not, despite being richer and freer from traditional restraints. And, in so doing, James uncovers the answer to how to reconnect with what really matters and learn to value what you’ve already got. In other words, how to be successful and stay sane.

I never finished the book, because it does get dry and repetitive (only 3 stars on Amazon) but it explains and captures the Affluenza phenomena really well, and definitely changed my perspective alot in recent months about what would really make me happy.

Secret #4: Think Simply.

“I want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand.” — Warren Buffett

I have found that sometimes I do overcomplicate matters, and make things alot more complex than they really are. Sometimes the solutions are so simple and right in front of us, but we go about things in such a roundabout way. Keep your thoughts simple and it will keep your life simple.

If you apply this rule in your life, you can develop clarity and sanity in your thoughts. Life is about simple yet profound choices.

Secret #5: Invest Simply.

“The best way to own common stocks is through an index fund.” — Warren Buffett

I hate investing. I never considered myself a very good investor when it comes to stocks and shares. I am pretty good at investing in businesses and my own ventures, but when it comes to investing in stocks and shares, I often result in massive losses.

The truth is, I probably overcomplicated things. For example, about a year ago, I was recommended to a professional investment manager. I thought I’d give it a try, with very small amount per month. The following is a sample of the portfolio which I invested in: UK Growth Fund C, UK Equity Income Fund C, UK FTSE All Share Index Tracking Fund C, European Fund C, Smaller Companies Fund C… split into something like 20%, 15%, 15%, 25%, 25% or something retarded like that.

In all that time, when I lost over 50% of my investments, if I had just studied the market, Gold and Oil would have been easily spotted as winners. And those 2 simple investments alone, I would have made a nice bunch.

So I guess the lesson is: Often, the simplest route to investing will bring you the most riches, and the most happiness.

Secret #6: Have the right friends and mentors in life.

“I was lucky to have the right heroes. Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be. The qualities of the one you admire are the traits that you, with a little practice, can make your own, and that, if practiced, will become habit-forming.” — Warren Buffett

One of my favorite sayings this year is ‘The top people you surround yourself with define who you are’. This has probably been the biggest lesson to me. It took a long time to drill into my head. My social circle have changed drastically in the past couple of years. I came to realise that having the right friends and mentors are as important as having purpose in your life. Having the wrong influences and mentors are as devasting as having a wrong purpose in your life. I owe alot of changes and transformations in both my mindset and
skillset in recent months to some people that I truly consider as my heroes.

But it was not always like this. For a while in my life, I was surrounded by the ‘wrong’ people and I didn’t even know it. In the process, I unfortunately was so emotionally invested and somewhat codependent on these relationships that I kept trying to grasp onto them. The truth was, actions speak for themselves. It’s a waste of my time to even delve into this any further. All I know is that if I don’t let go, history will just keep repeating itself. Loyalty to friends is a big deal to me, and in this case, I could not justify it anymore.

Secret #7: Making money isn’t the backbone of your guiding purpose; making money is the by-product of your guiding purpose.

“If you’re doing something you love, you’re more likely to put your all into it, and that generally equates to making money.” — Warren Buffett

I’m still really defining my ‘purpose’. I have a pretty good idea now, and the motivation surprisingly isn’t purely money. I must admit that at one point, it was strongly so. I truly believe in what I am about to do is going to change the world, and for the better. And that in itself drives me. I find myself almost talking about it on a daily basis now and I think people around me, especially my inner circle, can see how strongly it’s motivated me in the last year.

Also, when money is the main motivator, it makes it hard to find the courage, determination, and patience to push through. The truth is, making money is NEVER easy at the start. Its brutally difficult and requires will power, risk taking, courage and determination. And alot of patience.

Hence don’t focus on the money, but on enjoying the process. I love what I do now, and actually enjoy it. I get paid in return for my knowledge, skills and ideas. I hope it stays that way, and money never become the object and end all of your motivation.

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