Food for Thought

$500,000 pay for New Creation Church employee

THE New Creation Church, which made headlines for raising $19 million on one Sunday last month for its upcoming multi-million dollar building, pays good money to its staff too.

The independent church paid one employee between $500,001 and $550,000 in its last financial year, checks by The Straits Times showed.

The church did not confirm if the amount went to its leader, Senior Pastor Joseph Prince, but told The Straits Times that its policy is to 'recognise and reward key contributors to the church and Senior Pastor Prince is the main pillar of our church's growth and revenue'.

-Source: asiaone.com

Hmmm. I leave it to all of you to make your judgement call.

End-of-Holiday Report 3

And now, my internship at HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA. The reason I entered the full name is that I'm still 'fascinated' and curious at why the Singapore office is 'merely' a Branch of the main holding company of HSBC Private Bank at Geneva, the branch is not even incorporated in Singapore. My attempts to find out the underlying reasons have been futile, and come the opportunity, I would love to find out about the kind of benefits this sort of structure brings to the group.

I am hugely blessed to have very kind and understanding colleagues at the department who have taught me a great deal and at times were very much like mentors to me, offering me insightful advice on wide-ranging issues. Undeniably, it was an honour to be the sole intern at HSBC from the CPA Australia Internship Program, but at the end of the day, it is what I can take away from my internship which will hopefully propel me that one step closer to getting into the profession and industry which has been severely battered in the past year. From Bankers to 'Banksters' (from the word Gangster), that just says it all.

On a lighter note, the internship was also an opportunity for me to catch up with my mates during the lunch break!

'New' logo, new Screensavers, part of the $10million rebranding exercise. Spot the difference....Stunning views, everyday.
Lunch Getaways
Farewell Lunch 1
Farewell lunch (again), and look where's that, -e.q.u.i.n.o.x-
So long, RSP FIN...

End-of-Holiday Report 2

I don't even know why am I typing this. I'm freakin' tired and drained. And it's only goddamn Week 2. It's undoubtedly taking a toll on me but at least academically wise, I'm beginning to feel the part and slowly turning on the Study Mode. It's been nothing short of a whirlwind couple of weeks, with much of my life revolving around S.A.M. I've had enough of S.A.M in my real life, in this blogosphere, S.A.M shall be banned, at least for this entry.

So, what have I done in my 3 months plus in Singapore?

Meeting up with 4Ds was no mean feat. Everyone is incredibly busy, with work/academic/relationship commitments keeping meet-ups to just quick meals or those which do not see the light of day. The 3 poor buddies had to resort to meeting past midnight just to catch a glimpse of each other, not to mention that I had to wait until January before I see Chua Thiam Hao.


And meeting up with SR peeps was not much better either, with both occasions ending up being at PLU. One positive note however, I picked up the game called UNO. -_-" Sad Childhood, I hear you say.

End-of-Holiday Report 1

Darn. I'm already back in Melbourne. And much to the disappointment of a lot of you out there, I haven't been burnt alive yet. On the contrary, weather's been rather chilly and rainy since I'm back and my knee's hurting. After almost 4 months of break, it is perhaps of no surprise that I'm still in the process of getting back into the groove of studying amidst some massive decisions to be made over the coming weeks regarding the short-to-medium term future. It will be a very busy semester ahead, I can foresee. Not so much in the academic sense, that will take care of itself, as well the results. But more of what is going to happen in the months after June.

Since my return, I've been pretty much occupied with S.A.M matters and it is to my disappointment that our efforts have not yielded the desired results, not yet anyway. It is demoralising, but I'm the last person who should be displaying such disappointment, for such emotions are contagious, and I'll still need the team to be fired up for the coming semester.

For the first time, I flew Qantas back to Melbourne and out goes SQ227/237, in comes QF10. While a lot of you have expressed surprise of my choice of flight, it is of no surprise to me and it certainly wasn't difficult for me to choose Qantas ahead of Singapore Airlines when the price is of such: Qantas - $1,120; SIA - $1,680. Thats a whopping $560, or close to 150% of Qantas' fare. Even in the most rosy of economic circumstances, that's just extortion. So, it was with great anticipation that I look forward to observing just how SIA feel they could justify charging passengers $560 more for a 7hr flight.


The Qantas Boeing 747-400 was visibly aged, even more so than the already-aged SIA Boeing747s. It was clear from the designs of the overhead bulkheads and storage bins that this is of an older variant as compared to the SIA ones. The seats and leg-room wise, wasn't too bad, comparable to the SIA 747s, but obviously pales in comparison to the 777-300ERs. However, it wasn't too long before I start noticing where the $560 come from. Gone are the warm towels to freshen up before departure. The initial refreshment/beverage offering, shortly after take-off, SIA would have a variety of drinks available, while Qantas only provided bottled Mineral Water. Perhaps the most startling difference is the Inflight Entertainment System (IFE). The IFE suffered glitches during its inbound flight from London and the problems continued, resulting in the Inflight Service Manager having to reboot the entire aircraft's IFE twice, after the initial attempt failed to resolve the glitch. That's an hour without any sort of entertainment. No big deal actually, but the differences in the quality of service is certainly starting to surface. The number of movies on offer were pathetic to say the least. -_- Now, that's the hardware.


Software. The thing I've always felt about SIA's service is that, it's impeccable alright, but everything's just where and how it should be, resulting in the lack of personal touch from the attendants, generally speaking. The Qantas service was evidently more spontaneous. While some attendants were obviously poor, there was one which showed incredible frenliness that you would not encounter on SIA. You could really tell that it was service straight from the heart, and not because that was what they had to do, in compliance with company policy.

Dinner was pretty alright actually but the portion and presentation was definitely not to the standard of SIA. No desserts or fruits but the 'main course' tasted pretty ok. One interesting thing to note, even the Coke can that was given to me, was the mini-can, and not the usual full sized ones given by SIA.


Breakfast was actually better than SIA. I loved the croissant much more than the muffins in SIA flights but some overnight SIA flights do offer Omelette with sausages, a real warm breakfast, something which Qantas did not have though.

Arrival in Melbourne, and The World's Local Bank is there to welcome me back. Haha.

In conclusion, you get what you pay for. No online check-in, no choosing of seats online, aged aircrafts, mediocre IFE, average food. But for $560 less, I'll happily grab it. I'm on the Qantas A380 via Sydney for the return leg, let's see how it compares with the SIA A380. =)