It's the season of feasting and gatherings and holidays! Since it's the retailers' wallet getting fatter, why not think of some ways to get back some discounts and enjoy even more while feasting? Even with a fat bonus, one should never stop thinking of ways to save money.

1) Suggest places where your credit card can give you discounts
OCBC has this pretty cool page where they will list down every restaurants that gives discounts depending on your credit card.
UOB always has 1 for 1 dining deals and DBS Indulge does not lose out either.

Diet always starts tomorrow! (Pic from wikia.com)

2) Always ask which credit card gives you discounts

Always room for desserts (Source: Wikipedia)

4) Try to pay for the group 

Absolutely delightful to see a full table of delicacies!

When you calculated and chose only the cheapest main course, it's not fair to pay for others who also bought desserts, drinks and appetizers. Depending yet again on your friendship, it is definitely good to object splitting it evenly.... unless of course you are the one who ordered the most.

Happy holidays everyone and merry feasting!

I am not a woman.

That is the opinion of my colleagues after seeing my behaviour during sales. The story is this, we visited some warehouse sales and branded goods were selling at a huge discount and everything was below S$30. The crowd was there, the prices were cheap and the atmosphere was noticeably vibrant. Advice to men: Do not accompany your wife or daughter to these kind of sales because you will be shoved aside and ladies will glare at you for obstructing their way.

Get out of the way! (Source: Wikipedia)

If you have never been to the kind of sales where people snatch goods the moment they are displayed then you have not been to a real sale before. Things are really ugly there. Everyone will grab the clothes and pull so whoever has more strength will get the products, that's how some clothes ended up torn. They will normally grab everything first regardless of size before they slowly decide whether to purchase or not. If not, they will throw the unwanted products at one side and not put it back at the proper racks.

I feel terrorized when I see my colleagues behaving like monsters. They feel that I am too rational.

Monster or your wife?

It's good that they grab the things so I don't have to, and then they let me decide if I want it or not before throwing it aside. But I don't really need this kind of treatment. My mentality is, if can't get then don't buy lor! I don't necessary have to possess it.

For me, it's saving money. Every piece is $30 and I do not have to pay the $30 if the clothes is not to my liking and I know I will not wear it. For them, the saving money part only comes in when they subtract the original price at around $200 to the purchase price at $30... which means their savings is $170. So with this kind of twisted thinking, they really buy a lot, even not so nice clothes which they only wear once or not at all. They can spend a few hundred bucks and think nothing about it as their 'savings' amount to thousands! I feel that they are wasting money.

I really don't understand this behaviour, could it be the herd mentality? It's not just in clothing sales, even in stock market this is prevalent. From wikipedia, herd mentality "describes how people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviours, follow trends, and/or purchase items". This behaviour can end up in disaster, creating bubbles and crashes unexpectedly.

Are you jumping off a cliff? (Source: Powderruns at flickr)

Greed and fear are still the main push factor. We do not want to lose out to others. When we see people buying, we buy it in case we do not get the discount and benefits (Greed). When we see people selling, we are afraid we will be caught and lose more than them so we follow what they do (Fear). We emulate what people are doing because we are not confident of our own decisions.

Do your own research, check out the trends and statistics. Of course, reading from other people and picking up tips are good but don't follow blindly. Make sure that what you buy is a good investment of your money. We may not always be right but at least we minimize the wastage with this rational thought process.

After the exhausting skiing at Yong Pyong in Part 1, we took a domestic plane from Gimpo airport to Jeju which is cheap at S$87 per person. There are a few domestic flights mainly Korean Air, Asiana Air, Air Busan, Eastar and Jeju Air. I booked through Eastar as it was the cheapest.

I highly recommend December hotel as it's good, cheap and simple. The taxi fare cost 3000 won (S$3.5) and takes less than half an hour from the airport. We only went to rent the car from Kumho the next day as renting the car at night and leaving it to park at the hotel is just wasting money. The car rental was near the airport and taxi drivers do know where Kumho rental is. Just remember to pre-book the Kumho cars online and register as a member... the discounts are worth it. You only have to research on the phone numbers of the attractions or get a brochure and the gps will bring you there. 2 days of driving just cost around S$120 inclusive of fuel for a normal Hyundai Accent sedan! Don't forget to check the box for egg unit which is free wifi in the car.

Love the free and easy driving around.

Of course, finding parking lots was a headache but it was also an adventure. Driving on the left hand side increases the difficulty level but Jeju is kind of laid back so I will definitely recommend driving. Plus, you get to drive around the coast, along the sealine, get lost in some back alleys, stop anywhere you want to take pictures and find the Mysterious Road... Awesome man!

Dongmun Market
Most attractions have their own carpark, the toughest one was Dongmun Market. You can find one at the end of the road as you turn right towards it. It is like a security post, you pass the keys to them and pay them before you reclaim it back. Do buy lots of chocolates and oranges to picnic along the way!

Loveland
We head to the famous Loveland which was basically just a grand display of sexual art and exhibits. It will cause giggles and being there with friends might be weird. You can even buy the suggestive souvenirs for friends to have a laugh.
Cheonjeyeong falls 
I don't know what' the fuss about this place. The waterfall is really small and not like it's really gorgeous. It's good for a nice trekking and climbing of stairs but it's just not worth my effort. Probably because I was there during the winter and not the autumn season.

Manjang Cave
Maybe I am not a nature kind of person or maybe I have visited such caves before in China. I think that the scenery of Jeju are really over rated. Hokkaido is much nicer in my opinion and there are more variety of attractions to choose from.





Seongsan Sunrise Peak

At least I found a place worth coming back again. I did not wake up early for the sunrise but reviews have mentioned that it's quite spectacular. Anyway, after daylight you can properly see the scenery around and enjoy the cool breeze.  

My colleagues think that I am leading the high life. Sometimes I don't have to go office. Every month I get to travel overseas. If I go to a different continent, I get to travel by business class. I get to eat all the good food and travel and seems like I don't have to work much, just chit chat and relax.

The high life stops here... (Source: skift.com)

Yeah right.

What they don't know is that I have to rush presentations and reports after every customer visit and travel. What they are unable to see is that I need to hit my sales target and explain myself even if I did hit the target. What is not obvious is that I rather not eat the good food as you do not enjoy the delicacies as much when eating with customers and bosses. Entertaining for dinner is indeed a free meal but I would rather go home early and relax and not have to entertain people. It's still work.

What they don't comprehend is that all sales people would rather not fly or even take business class as flying is just too exhausting. Many people don't ever get the chance to take business class and I am thankful for it. However, we normally travel during weekends and that eats into our personal time. Travelling alone for more than 24 hours and eating a feast alone is really not fun at all. We would still have jet lag problems and we would still have to report in to work the following work day. Damn draining, trust me.

But I don't whine about it.

Going home everyday at 5pm is a major perk that most take for granted (Source: Alan Cleaver at flickr)

I understand that every job comes with its pros and cons and I just try to enjoy myself while travelling and count my blessings that I could travel for free. Sometimes, I travel for work and only see the insides of the hotels and I don't get to explore the countries at all. I just make the most out of it by taking a bath tub shower sometimes and enjoy having time to myself, reflecting and blogging about interesting things.

Every job must have its perks. We spend most of our time working and we must find some joy derived from our job. Life gets by easier this way.

Snow.

It's not a regular thing most Singaporeans get to see. It's a love hate relationship with snow. You long to touch the fluffy white stuff and open your mouth to taste it and throw snowballs, build snowman... on the other side, the excitement dies down pretty fast when it's so bitterly cold and dry and forces you to lose the feel of your nose, toes, fingers and ears.

The show that always involve lots of tears...

Yong Pyong is a popular skiing location for locals but is made internationally famous after Bae Yong Joon shot the Winter Sonata there. It will also be holding the 2018 Winter Olympics. I went there in early February and there was no snow, but the ground was still filled with the white ice either naturally or synthetically. It was not an easy place to find nor is it cheap. The cheapest hotel I can find is Dragon Valley Hotel but it is really exorbitant at S$350 a night... that excludes the ski equipment. o.0

Fearing that the shuttle bus will be difficult to locate and after much researching, most booked through winterfriend.com as a package. They will customise your package for you, including hotels and bring you from airport gate to the shuttle bus area. Tripadvisor mainly have angmoh reviewers so I can understand that they fear the language barrier. However, most young Koreans can speak English so I don't see the reasoning behind this.

Winterfriend is the biggest mistake I have made, do not ever go through them.

It was so easy to buy the tickets near  Exit 9 of Incheon Airport. The only thing is that Winterfriend is able to reserve seats for us, so we will not have to wait 1.5 hours for another bus if there were no tickets. But they just brought us from the Exit 9 to Gate 9C and stood there to wait the shuttle bus with us. That was super dumb and I think I am street smart enough to figure it. They did not even know where to alight -.- It was the first stop anyway.

The snowy view from the hotel room

Actually booking through Winterfriend was not much more expensive but I cant derive the exact price difference as we also booked a Mt Seorak trip with them. We tried trekking without crampons and had fun sliding while we walk. For these kind of tour packages, I would just go through the hotel reception in the future as Winterfriend just provide transport there without a guide to explain about the trails. Then they hurry you back even though they promised a 3 hour tour, we reached hotel earlier by 30 minutes so feel kind of wasted. They still informed me that there is a guide when we hike... all lies.. It's a good lesson as I wise up and never book such package with any independent agency ever again. They have good reviews online maybe because they reply emails and answer all questions promptly but the atrocious service is not able to redeem themselves.

Anyway for skiing equipment, you can rent it right there beside the ski mountain. Winterfriend brought us to somewhere further for cheaper equipment so obviously they can earn more but they wasted our skiing time actually. It's my first time skiing and probably my last since it's expensive to try it again. However, I can really say it's damn fun la! I did not engage any instructors, just put on the skis and fall down, get up again and try to balance. Falling down makes it hard to get up but it's easy to control after some time. After only a few hours, I took the gondola up to a beginner's hill and actually climbing up and departing from the gondola is already quite scary. From the top of the hill just let go and enjoy the thrill..... you might fall down and it's hard to get up on a slope. Try to crouch as low as possible and descend without falling, you will definitely feel the adrenaline rush. And then try again.... it's truly tiring though.

The ride up the beginner's slope

The second day we were much better at it so we could try other slopes. There are maps to indicate which level the slope is so just have fun and enjoy the snow, the cold, the ski. Skiing is at night is really cold so I would suggest the morning and noon sessions only.

Night view of Yong Pyong

For food wise, there is a canteen beside the slope that sells cheap food. We were lucky that we have free food coupons (charges probably already included) for lunch everyday so we saved some money there. However, for dinner do try the Korean BBQ just opposite the Dragon Valley Hotel main door. It is really delicious and expensive and authentic but that's what you get for travelling.

27k won (~@$30) BBQ Beef... sizzling and juicy!

Otherwise, there are Twosquare Cafe, Kraze Burger and other small eateries on the second floor above the canteen. We had Korean cup noodles bought from their mini mart one day and it's really shiok in the cold weather.

Simple, comfort food.. shiok ah!

For departure just cross over to the hotel opposite and ask the reception on the bus back to Incheon / Gimpo airport. We alighted at the first stop which is Gimpo airport and headed straight to Jeju.

The carpark in front of this tower to depart

Here are 2 stocks that I think have potential to grow. What I like and is common between both stocks is that they have ZERO debt. How cool is that?

	Sheng Siong	Riverstone	Who wins?
Price seen	0.66	0.965
Market cap	984M	357M
PE ratio	20.47	14.26
Debt	No debt	No debt
Estimated PEG	1.855	1.1147	RS
Earnings per share	0.0324	0.0669	RS
Return on equity	28.96%	20.16%	SS
Price to sales	1.37	3.22	SS
Revenue per share	0.51	0.3	SS
Cash per share	0.07	0.07	SS
Profit margin	6.13%	17.17%	RS
Dividends	4.40%	7%	RS
Upcoming plans	JV with China	New plant double capacity

*All figures taken from Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance