Memories of Langkawi...

We boarded a malaysia airline flight to Langkawi, hurray! Start of a short beach getaway =) Strangely, all passengers were assigned to seats at the rear of the plane, leaving the front section very empty. Puzzled, a friendly old ang moh uncle asked the flight attendant for the reason of this seating arrangement... And guess what was the reply? "So that the plane can take off with the weight concentrated at the rear..." Errhh, aaahhh, oorrhh... I rolled my eyes at Mr Goh. The ang moh uncle was amused by the reply too, hahaha....

Mr Goh occupied with reading his papers and magazine...


... while I took photos of the land, water, clouds and misc...

View of Singapore from air.




Food was served and was pretty yummy...


The journey time took approximately 1.5hrs and viola, we arrived at our destination! Sunny day with breeze; good start. We hopped onto a cab, paid 12RM and got to our resort in less than 5mins. Yesh, 5mins. Just straight down the road, turn right and it's our resort. I cant believe myself lor! Could have saved that 12RM had I knew that our resort is so freaking near the airport.... hahaha...




Nice and quiet resort. Nice and big room with balcony, bathroom, aircon and tv (with limited tv channels though...) Good start again. Wrong!

Spent the first night with absolutely little amount of sleep... Woke up at 2am, 3am, 5am and finally 7am, scratching myself silly all the while. Argh, we thought it's the mosquitoes... BUT! there wasnt any buzzing noise and we had placed mosquito patches (luckily mr goh brought some along!) already. Super irritating lah!! I just sat on the bed and was very determined to kill any mosquito in my vicinity... until I caught sight of a small bug walking towards me...



Ah, this must be the culprit!!! Bed bug!! (Erh, both of us havent seen one before, so we assumed it's bed bug... hahaha) Pleased with the discovery, we promptly took the above photo as evidence... We were wondering how in the world can such a tiny insect bites me so many times when a BIGGER bed bug came along... and it dawned upon us that THAT was the culprit! And it's not ALONE! Argghhhh...



To cut the bed bug story short, we killed 5 bed bugs, called room service to demand for a room change, went for breakfast, packed our bags, transferred to new room, killed 20++ mosquitoes in the new room (yesh, i will come to the mosquito story later), nap for 3hours (to make up for lost sleep) and cabbed down to Kuah Town for lunch, shopping and mopiko/insect repellent.

There's nothing much to see in Kuah Town itself... and since it is off peak season now, the town is very very quiet. Boring, so no photo. We grabbed mopiko, insect repellent, chocolate, biscuits and beer, and returned to resort.

Our resort has its own beach (pretty cool!)... with only a few guests around, we had the beach pretty much to ourselves. Nice.







Back to the mosquito story. We had dinner and returned to new room to find lotsa mosquitoes buzzing around. Had closed the balcony/ washroom doors and left the aircon on lor... really question mark - where did these mosquitoes come from?? So, we started a 'killing' spree: Mr Goh hit any mosquito in sight (a record number of 30 plus dead mosquitoes within 30mins) while i sprayed the room (plus mosquito if i happen to see any) with insect repellent. This worked initially and after like 15mins, more mosquitoes APPEARED. Argh!! Tired and frustrated, we call in room service to spray the whole room with pesticide.

Their pesticide was really effective! Within 15min, ALL the mosquitoes were dead (both of us almost died too lah, cos we remained in the room as well... i refuse to offer my blood to the mosquitoes living in the corridor).

At last, a good night sleep with NO bed bug and mosquito! But the bed bugs' bites still itch though, sian...



Anyway, as Thursday was a super hot day!!, no sightseeing was done and we just hid ourselves in the comfort of aircon room, watched CNN (the only english tv channel available...) and nursed my bites (ps: have i mentioned that mr goh didnt had ANY bite at all?? the bed bugs must be all male!! argh, poor me!). The only time we left the room was for breakfast, lunch, dinner and pool table... hahaha...



Checked out on Friday, walked to the airport under the hot afternoon sun (oh well, we hadnt really explored langkawi much you see... hahaha...), boarded the plane, home sweet home!



Not many photos to share really... I just "love" langkawi; the most memorable part of this trip are... bed bugs and mosquitoes. YUCK!

Emi's Misc Ramblings (on a hot day)

Last night, i had my hands full with my dinner purchases and because it was so hot, i got a packet of refreshing chin chow drink. One hand held the hot dinners, the other my cold drink and my Watson's purchases.

As i walked home, i realized that my ice-cold chin chow was right next to my wallet,in the Watson's bag, with all the credit cards.

So that got me worried. What if there is a credit freeze???

Geddit, ice-cold credit cards ???

Regardless if you are rolling your eyes or groaning right now, i had a good laugh (with/at myself). So thought i'll share this cold joke with you on this hot and icky afternoon.

Langkawi

YEAH!! Will be going for a 4D3N trip next week to Langkawi to unwind, relax and enjoy the sun/sea =) esp after all the late nights and weekends (till wee hours lor) to complete my projects to meet the deadline... The promised team night out by our big boss - to reward everyone for the working the extra hours - didnt materialise.. so I have to create one for myself!

Pls dont miss me while I am away... I will have double the share of fun,on your behalf!

TENTATIVE ITINERARY:

• Snorkel, dive, swim or hike at Pulau Payar Marine Park.
• Explore the mangrove wetlands at Kilim Nature Park.
• Trek up to Seven Wells waterfall - water cascades into seven pools.
• Bum at Pantai Kok and Tanjung Rhu beach
• Kayak, windsurf, or any other water sports at one of the beaches.
• Go-kart at MORAC circuit.

SIGHTSEEING

• Travel by cable car to the summit of Gunung Mat Cincang for an aerial view of Langkawi at sunset.
• Visit the Bat Cave, Cave of Legends and floating fish farm, or try to spot an eagle.

DINING / SHOPPING

• Capture the local flavours of Langkawi at Pasar Malam, a bustling night market.
• Enjoy a picnic on a beach, watching the sunset.
• Kuah Town for duty free shopping spree

Income Tax 101

Have you guys file your income tax for YA2009?? The deadline is 15 April 2009 (and 18 April 2009 for efiling). Anyway, here's a quick guide on how to file your income tax for items which you should look out for...


DO I HAVE TO PAY TAX?
You need to pay income tax on all income you have earned / received in Singapore. The amount of income tax you need to pay depends on how much you earn in Singapore and whether you are considered a tax resident or non-resident for income tax purposes.


HOW TO FILE YOUR INCOME TAX...
SECTION A : INCOME
1. Employment
--If employer is in the auto-inclusion scheme, you need not do anything
--This amount here should match the amount in Form8E. Your company should have provided a copy for your reference.

2. Less: Expenses
--If you have incurred expenses for official duties and are not reimbursed by your employer, you can claim them
--E.g. travelling (other than motor car), entertainment, subscription to professional bodies, mosque building fund/zakat fitrah & harta


SECTION B : DEDUCTIONS AND RELIEFS
6. Donations and Zakat Expenses
--If employer is in the auto-inclusion scheme (Refer to Form8E) OR you have provided your NRIC no. to approved IPC upon donating, you need not do anything.
--Else, enter twice the donation amount here.

7. Earned Income Relief
--Relief amount of $1,000 if your age is below 55 years.
--Do nothing. This will be allowed to you automatically based on your eligibility.

8. Wife
--Relief amount of $2,000 :
1. Wife’s income less than $2000 in the preceding year, OR
2. Divorced/legally separated & paid alimony to wife.

9. Child
--Relief amount of $4,000 per qualifying child only when all conditions are met :
1. Child not married,
2. Child under 16 or studying full time if child is above 16 years,
3. Child’s income less than $2000 in the preceding year.

10. Parent
--Relief amount of $3,500 / $5,000 only when all conditions are met :
1. Parent lives in Singapore,
2. Parent’s Income less than $2000 in the preceding year,
3. Parent was 55 years of age or more in the preceding year,
4. No other person is claiming any relief for supporting the same parent

11. Grandparent Caregiver
--Single or male taxpayers are not eligible for this relief.
--Relief amount of $3,000 when all conditions are met :
1. Parent/ grandparent/ grandparent-in-law must be living in Singapore and not working,
2. Caring for her Singaporean children who are less than 12 years,
3. No other persons are claiming GCR on the same parent.

13. CPF/Provident Fund
--If employer is in the auto-inclusion scheme, you need not do anything. (Refer to Form8E)

14. Life Insurance
--Not eligible if your total compulsory employee CPF contribution in the previous year is $5,000 or more.
--Relief amount is the lower of
1) The difference between $5,000 and your CPF contribution, or
2) Up to 7% of the insured value of your own/your wife's life or the amount of insurance premiums paid, whichever is lower.

15. Course Fees
--Relief amount of $3,500 or amount spent, whichever lesser
--Include course, seminar or conference leading to an approved vocational qualification. You can only claim for registration/enrolment fees, examination fees, tuition fees and aptitude test fees (for computer courses). Note: textbook and notes are not included.
--For more information, refer to IRAS website

17. CPF Cash Top-up
--Do nothing; granted automatically based on eligibility and records sent by CPF Board.

18. Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS)
--Do nothing; granted automatically based on information provided by the SRS operator.

19. NSman - self/wife/parent
--Do nothing; granted automatically based on eligibility and records sent by MINDEF or other relevant authorities.

For a complete listing of the deduction which you can claim, check out IRAS website


HOW MUCH TAX DO I NEED TO PAY?
After you have completed your income tax filing, download the tax calculator spreadsheet (How to calculate your tax) to calculate the amount of tax you need to pay... This is super useful as you can plan/start to set aside the money to pay income tax when the bill comes!!

Also, I find it useful as a mean to plan for next year... For example, if you know that your chargable income for this year will enter the next tax bracket (i.e. you need to pay higher tax rate) , you can plan to reduce this chargable income by increasing the amount of reliefs you can claim.... e.g. make more donations as the relief amount is twice your donation, SRS contribution, CPF cash top-up for grandparents/parents, etc.

The best way to reduce the amount of payable tax is of course through rebates. For YA2009, there is a income tax rebate of 20%, up to a maximum cap of $2,000.