Cute Animals Zoo

Singapore is known for its world famous Zoo right? Well, we can have another one - The Cute Animals Zoo, which will feature just cute animals. This idea has actually been in my head for quite a while now, but I was recently reminded of it by my friend who recently found a newly born kitten, and was working very hard to keep it alive. It's doing very well so far, and I wish her all the best in caring for the kitten!

Which brings me to this point - Girls love cats. They love all other cute animals too, like hamsters, puppies and rabbits, but especially cats. They are furry, they know how to beg for food (with those longing big eyes), they purr and give that very satisfied expression on their face when you scratch them, and sometimes they rub their bodies against your leg, making you feel like they like being around you. And girls just go ga-ga over them. I mean... look at those guys!

Babe magnets
The target customer for this Zoo would be girls and kids. Parents would have to come along, and boyfriends too. And since the animals are small, they wouldn't need much space. It could even be located in some shopping mall, taking up a whole floor, like Toys 'R' Us or something. The Zoo would have different varieties of cats, even rare ones like the Sphinx cat (you know, Mr Bigglesworth), dogs - only the small cute ones, rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs and mice. And they would be in very well designed enclosures... with lots of toys, props etc... There would be a petting area as well, monitored closely of course, to prevent ill-treatment of the animals. A pets play area - you can bring your own pets to play with the rest, a pet's restaurant (apparently there's one in Singapore already) and a toy section, for the kids, whose parents don't allow them to keep pets.

And if the Zoo proves successful, it can expand to include other cute animals. Like Koalas or wallabies, squirrels and other animals that can adapt easily to the climate here. Hmm... maybe even pigs. Pigs can be quite cute too. Well, that's the gist of the idea.

And speaking of cute animals, I believe that the Giant Panda (another super cute animal) is going to go extinct in a few generation's time. I read on CNN that 80% of female Pandas are infertile and 90% of males are sterile!! Add the fact that most don't even know how to have sex(!), it looks like bye bye to them soon. Unless scientists can clone them. And while they're at it, try to clone minature ones! Then they can fit right into my Cute Animals Zoo.

S.N.A.G

I was travelling with Wu Dan (my permanent intern), and he mentioned to me that SNAG, a new local men's magazine, was started by his friend, a computer engineering undergrad who got funding from NUS. SNAG stands for Sensual New Age Guy, and its supposedly about dating. Firstly, I've got to admire the guy's guts. I think that the Magazine industry is a cutthroat business, and you really have to have the network before you can even think about starting a magazine. But SNAG is just wrong for so many reasons:

1) Another men's magazine? How to compare with the foreign ones, like Maxim and FHM? And even then I think the local versions of those magazines suck.

2) A magazine about dating... No self-respecting guy would be caught dead with a magazine that shows that he needs help in dating! A magazine should reflect machoness, or coolness, or style, not "I need help!". The concept is totally wrong.

3) Acronyms are just not cool anymore, no matter how clever you coin it. But at least its still better than the other local mag - "NewMan". Sounds like "Semen". Who the hell buys that thing?!

4) There aren't enough babes in Singapore as cover girls! You'll probably get about 10 issues worth... then start worrying.

Well, I can't criticize it much further cos I haven't read it, and as a fellow entrepreneur, I wish the mag all the best. But you won't see me buying a copy for sure.

Happiness comes from within

It's amazing how you can be up in the clouds 1 day (metaphorically and literally), and life throws you a few curveballs and you're down flat on the ground the next day. But it happens. I believe that in life, good times and bad times come in cycles, and its how you cherish the good times and deal with the bad that determines how happy and satisfied a person you will be. As a person who just started a business, dealing with bad times comes really often. But I think that my current beliefs and attitude to life has brought me this far, and will bring me success in the future, in every aspect of my life, be it financial, family or social.

I have 3 philosophies in life (and I think 1 or 2 of my friends could really learn here), and they are:

1) Happiness comes from within. If you can control your emotions, you can control your actions, and in a sense, control your destiny. Easier said than done I know (and I am prone to the occasional angry outburst as well), but I think this is really important. Very simple things can make my day - seeing beautiful clouds in the sky, meeting a friendly receptionist, meeting a old friend, reading a funny comic. And when things get me down, I always try to find the silver lining. I tell myself, "why dwell on the bad things?". Take it as a lesson, or learning experience. I think a lot of people will be happier if they did that.

2) Treating people the way I want to be treated. I am sincere and honest with people, because I want to be treated the same way. I believe that majority of people have good intentions, which is why I trust easily, and try to see the good side of the person. I think that if people are treated nicely, they will respond to you in the same way. Of course, there are nasty people - people who take advantage of niceness. Well to those people I will show an uglier side of me. They don't deserve to be treated nice.

3) Every action makes a difference. I believe this, that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I believe that I can turn my business to be the multi-million dollar company, and every thing that I'm doing now will contribute towards that. I recycle whenever I can, because I believe that if everyone played their part, our planet will be in a much better condition. I really like the friendly culture in the U.S and Mexico, where strangers chat with each other on the bus, and help you whenever you seem to need it. If everyone in Singapore adopted the same attitude, Singapore would be a much nicer place. I try to do my part - I smile at the canteen auntie, I thank the bus driver for waiting, I give up my seat for the elderly. We should believe that we can make a difference, not only for ourselves but for others as well. If not, what's the point of being here (on Earth)? We only live so long. If we didn't make a difference, then we might as well be dead.

Despite feeling a bit down now, I know that with these attitudes, things will get better. I will make it better. After all, happiness comes from within.

Back to Singapore

End of Mexico Trip
This marks the end of my trip to Mexico, but hopefully there will be more to come. It was great fun, cos the people were nice, and the food was great. And from talking to Pedro, and observing first-hand, I can say that many business opportunities await those who look hard enough. Mexico, despite still having large debts and a large number of poor people, are looking more and more dynamic. The current government is taking great steps to open up the economy to foreign investment and establishing links with other countries. The elections are next year, and if the current government stays in power, Mexico will be able to enjoy a long period of economic stability. This means more business opportunities. There is a burgeoning middle class, and with that comes demand for better homes (construction industry), credit facilities (banking and finance), better education (education industry). All very similar to what Singapore has gone through, and very similar to what China is going through now. So if we can look at what businesses have thrived during Singapore's strong economic growth phase, we will be able to "transplant" some of these ideas to Mexico as well.

Flight back
A number of things happened on the way back, and many things worth outbursting at. So here they are:
1) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the worst movie I've seen in a long time. Total crap. Not funny, no imagination, no plot. Apparently the book was good. I pity the author.

2) LAX (Los Angeles Airport) is the worst pasar malam airport I've ever been to. I mean, to transit to another flight, go through immigration, get my luggage, walk out of one terminal, walk 20 freaking minutes to another terminal, the check-in. WTF? I want to make a damn connection, not walk along the noisy streets of LA! Also, the security counters look like they were set up in 5 minutes. Its like they found some empty spot, set up a perimeter, put some detectors, then make everybody queue up in a long messy queue.

3) Experienced the worst turbulence that I can remember on the flight to Singapore. I think for like 2 seconds the plane was in freefall! Damn scary. I think everyone must have got up and put on their seatbelts boy!

4) Watched Hitch. Nice feel good movie. Some quotable quotes from the movie:
- "Life is not about the breaths you take, but about the moments that take your breath away"
- "Do not lie, steal, cheat or drink. If you have to lie, lie in the arms of the one that you love. If you steal, steal away from bad company. If you cheat, cheat death. If you drink, drink to the moments that take your breath away..."

City of Guadalajara

Mexico Day 7
My day was basically split into 2 parts - 1st the tour of the beautiful city sights, and 2nd, my amazing trek back to Edgar's place. The morning started off with breakfast at the Amorita Corazon (a place where I would revisit later in the day) with Pedro, and I had a lovely breakfast of omelette filled with chicken on taco chips, covered with tomato gravy (the mexicans are quite creative with their eggs). He then dropped me off at the Minerva statue to begin my walking tour of Downtown Guadalajara.

Minerva (Athena) statue
Guadalajara is a city with a strong Spanish influence, and it can be seen in the monuments and the many beautiful buildings within Downtown. It can also be seen in the people - a number of Mexicans I saw in the University looked like ang moh. But through observing the people in the city, this was not the typical look of a Mexican. Most Mexicans look like the darker skinned people that I had imagined them to be. It is a sad fact that the highly educated, the richer Mexicans are those that look like ang moh. I guess its because of their Spanish ancestry that there in that particular segment of society. But most of Mexico is still very poor, and it is very interesting to see very beautiful colonial buildings amidst some very dilapidated modern ones.

City Entrance Arch
From the Arch, I basically walked about 4 to 5km to the City center. But it was very interesting, cos I got to see Mexicans living out a typical Sunday morning. The highlight of the city was the Metropolitan Catheral, which was very beautiful. The picture here doesn't do justice to it. I didn't dare take any pictures of the interior of the church. I wonder if that's allowed....?

The side view of the Catherdral
I moved on to the next interesting building - The Governor's Palace. The best feature is the mural of Hildago (Mexico's founding father) painted at the stairway. Impressive!

The mural of Hildago
Next, I went to the famous San Juan De Dios market. I think Singaporeans will love it there. It is like a giant indoor pasar malam. Found a number of souvenirs to buy, and spent money even though I didn't have much pesos left, which would get me in a lot of trouble later.

San Juan de dios Market (right bldg)
My last stop was the Hospicio de Cabanas, an orphanarium converted into a museum. Unfortunately, it was closed early and all I could do was take a beautiful pic of the outside.

Plaza outside the Hospicio

The Trek back
It is amazing how much you can walk when you are travelling. I did that often in the U.S, but this time its more amazing cos I didn't have a map. Since I had time, I decided to visit the Zapopan Basilica. Thing was, Zapopan was in a suburb outside the city, and the roads had similar names to the ones in Downtown! So I walked for half an hour, trying to find the place.
I came to this another grand looking church, but it wasn't the Basilica. And after asking a few people in my broken Spanish, I was convinced to use my last few pesos to take a bus there. Doh! All I had was 10 US dollars, hopefully enough to get me back by taxi. But it was worth it. Mighty grand.

The Real deal
It was 4.30pm. Still bright sunshine. Take cab or walk? I chose walking. No map, no pesos, no Spanish. It started with just following the bus route back, but I got lost after 1 hour. I then decided to head for tallest familiar building. Amazingly, I came back to where I had breakfast.

Deja vu
Asking for directions was depressing. Nobody spoke English, and they all gave the impression that I was out of my mind trying to walk there. Every person would point to the bus stop. I had no pesos for bus, so I just followed the bus route. After 4 hours of walking, finally someone, instead of pointing to the bus stop, pointed along the street! It was nearly 9 when I got back. I must've lost a kg, but quite a memorable way to end off my Mexico Trip!

Cheap booze and tequila

Mexico Day 5
The conference had ended. No guide, no hotel, no free transport. I moved in with Edgar, with of Gil's friends the night before, and went to the Monterrey Tech with him to meet Gabriel and gang.

The campus interior
I must say the campus is very nice. Spacious and beautiful. Gabo brought me to see a few people who might be interested in my software. Met the Head of the Incubation center and he said something quite telling. The people I've met so far, what I've seen in the University, are just like the 2% of the population. That is not Mexico. Most of Mexico is poor, and the people are not like whom I've met so far, as I was to find out in the next few days.
Evening was spent with Edgar and his friend Ricardo. That's when I realized drinking was so cheap! I bought the drinks - 4 beers and 2 cocktails for 224 pesos, about $35 sing. No wonder they drink so much!

Mexico Day 6
I went to take the famous Tequila Express, a train ride that would take you to the town of Tequila (the place which produces the drink), with the promise of endless tequila drinking (or so I thought). It started off very well, with chio bus and mariachis.

Got to see the beautiful landscape. Saw a number of shanty towns, and there was one which had a horse galloping through it, just like the movies!

cornfields and beautiful mountains

Agave fields
Arrived at the Tequila factory, and was guided through the whole tequila production process, which was interesting. Up to this point, we had been served a tequila soda, kid's stuff. Still no tasting of tequila. Maybe lunch time would be different.

Jimador harvesting the agave

Tequila being aged... gimme gimme!

Lunch
Lunch was good. You can see the tequila (white liquid) and sangrita (red liquid, a chaser made of tomato juice and other stuff). But that's all the tequila I got!! I was like "what the heck"?! Apparently they toned it down to make it more family oriented! And apparently, this wasn't even Tequila. It was Amarita, a town outside Tequila. I don't recommend going on this Tequila Express, especially not for US$70. They made it up with mariachis, folk dancing and stuff, but wasn't really what I was expecting.

The Entertainment
Made friends with a bunch of retired Americans though. About 4 couples. Nice folks. I have this to gripe though - "WHY IS IT THAT IT IS ALWAYS THE YANKS WHO ASK IF SINGAPORE IS IN CHINA?" Everytime I go to the U.S someone will ask me that question. WTF. Another asked me,"So how is Singapore doing now that the British have left?" Hello... the British left 60 years ago! And we are doing well, no thanks to them British, who deserted us and left us to the Japanese. Well done griping for now.

Conference

Mexico Day 4
Today is the day I had to give the talk, what the Uni had paid for. And this after the drinking and 4 hours of sleep. Managed it quite well though.


A gift from the University - Tequila!
As a token of appreciation, I was presented with a glass rifle filled with tequila! Damn they treat their guests well! Met up with Pedro for dinner at a theme restaurant, Santo Coyote, and looked really good! It was a theme restaurant, in the style of an old Mexican town apparently.

Me and Pedro

The other side of the restaurant
Oh man... eating so much. Really gotta go on diet when I get back.

More mexican food and drinking

Mexico Day 3
Today was pretty much the same as yesterday. Spent the day in the school, spent more time getting to know the Mexican culture... its true what they say about Mexican families - They are huge! On average 4 to 5 kids, and 1 girl I know had 9 siblings, and apparently 1 guy´s grandfather... Had 21 KIDS! Also getting to like the friendly Latin culture... the guys greet each other with a hug, and the girls greet you with a kiss. Nice!
Went to this interesting restaurant for lunch. "Meat in juice" is the name of the dish. (I totally have no flair for languages, even after they told me the spanish name so many times I still can´t remember!) Here´s a picture of the starters... everything here is eaten with tortillas.

Sausages with tortillas, salsa with tortillas, steak with tortilas, cheese with tortillas... you get the idea. But its been great! They keep asking me if I can get used to the food, but they apparently don´t know we have lots of chilli in Singapore as well. I haven´t tried anything here that has been remotely spicy to be honest. At night, met up with Gabriel, Helen and Ricardo, Gildardo´s friends at the Tech Monterrey. We went for drinks at this popular pub, next to The Nuts club. Damn I must train my drinking skills. After 5 beers and 1 tequila I already felt like throwing up. And they told me they could drink some more. But they were nice and we stopped there. More to come on Friday though! I gotta hold my drink better if I´m going to do more business I think.

Universidad and Tlaqapaque

Mexico Day 2 (Tlaqapaque)
Today was the first day of the conference. It feels damn good to be a V.I.P man! Basically its a Jalisco (a Mexican state) and Singapore economic exchange, but only 3 Singaporeans were there, and I was one of them. So everything was planned out for us, and from the start we were made to feel very welcome. Each of us had a student helper to guide us and help us in the translation and communication. And I must say, the girls are quite different from what I expected.

Adriana, Me, Nayeli and Analiea
I was discussing with Julie (the Singaporean businesswoman) that the girls here had very nice features. I was expecting them to look like the Latinas that I saw in the U.S - brown skin, fat, looking like the Malays here. I was totally wrong! Apparently Guadalajara is a very spanish city, so a lot of the people have Spanish blood. Some of them look very ang moh, so it was very 'eye-opening' for me. I had enchiladas for breakfast, which was very and unique (like tacos in gravy). There was an official lunch, so sat together with the Directors of the Uni, professors etc. Total V.I.P treatment.

In the afternoon, they brought us to Tlaqapaque, a small town outside the city. So I had a chance to see the handicrafts and typical mexican housing there.

Street of Tlaqapaque

Statue of 1 of the Saints

Typical Mexican handicrafts

Mexico Day 3 (Universidad)
2nd day at the Conference. Met a Mexican business man, and we clicked very well. Had a lot of things to share, and hopefully we can have some exchange of business. In fact, he invited me to go to Tijuana to visit the schools there. It might be a good business opportunity, so I may actually have to delay my flight. The University is a small one, but very nice. It was actually the property of some rich family, and the University bought over the land and built the school there. So here are some photos of the University.

The Computer labs

The exhibition area

Pavilion
For dinner, we were invited to a mexican restaurant. Very good food. Had tequila, tacos, arrachera (a mexican style steak) and ate to the music of Mariachis, who were damn excellent. I must say that in the 3 days I have been here, I have been drinking a lot! Today had wine (2 glasses), beer, tequila (3 shots) and chivas at the hotel. When I come back I definitely need to give my liver a break!

On my way to Guadalajara

Biz Idea

Well I did say that this blog was meant to be different, so I'll start with an idea that came up a few days ago. Jun was just compiling his dvd collection on a website - http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=darphpinko and at last count had over 200+ original dvds! And he was saying it was enough to start a rental service! And he could be right! He has lots of rare, unheard of dvds. It could cater to a niche market, raremovies.com.sg would be the company name. Not big business, but good enough as side income.

Just some quick thoughts though:

1) Setting up an e-commerce website with credit card facility - $3000

2) Say we charge $18 per 3 dvds per week, to earn $500/mth, about 7 customers a week. Hey not bad!

3) How to do marketing though?

Quite a feasible idea, if we're willing to put in the initial capital and effort.

Travelogue (Mexico Day 1)

Work up at 5 am to get my ass down to the airport to take the United Airlines flight. Checked in my suitcase, but still had the huge backpack and 2 boxes of mooncakes as handcarry. But was kinda excited. After all, it was my first business trip and the first time to Mexico! Then on board the plane something funny happened. Some boorish Australian guy (he even had a jacket with some airborne wings on it) didn't want to give up his aisle seat even though it was my seat. I told the steward never mind, cos there were seats available elsewhere and they were window seats too. Then later, in return, he gave me complimentary mini bottles of liquer!

A total of 8 bottles, 7 different types. Got barcadi, chivas, baileys, martell.... woo hoo! Not even in Mexico yet can get drunk already.

After reaching Narita, took another flight to L.A. Had some time so took some pictures at the transit lounge. The LAX is really quite messy. I had to take a long walk outside the airport to reach the International terminal. And even then checking in was a huge mess.
Transit lounge in LAX

Got to Guadalajara finally after 24+ hours of flying. Realized my Spanish phrase book is going to be really necessary, cos even the airport staff can't speak much English! Met up with Berenice, one of my Uni contacts, and she brought me to the hotel - Presidente Intercontinental. Check out the King size bed! Nice accomodation for 4 days. Not bad. I'll be looking forward to the days ahead.

1st Blog!!!

I had been toying with the idea of a blog for a while now... those who've know me for a while should know that I had an 'against PAP' website before, then had a few pages on www.carnasaur.com (check it out! lots of pics there of the gang) and I thought my trip to Mexico would be an ideal time to start one! Then friends would be able to see photos of my travels.


But I don't really want my blog to be just a boring log of my days and feelings. I want it to be different. I used to keep a journal of the business ideas that I came up with from time to time... so I think I'll do that for my blog! I'm not afraid of sharing my ideas, cos starting a business is more than just having a great idea. I should know... I've been struggling to get DecisionWare off the ground for the past 1 and a half years.


In any case, I'll post business ideas, interesting photos, random thoughts, and inspirational quotes here!