Here's My Story

I've blogged about its chendol previously and until now, it's still the best chendol ever! All along they served mini assam laksa and a month or two ago, they introduced a regular size version too. However, given that I'm prone to acid reflux, I cannot take spicy or sour food. Yet, I remember I used to like assam laksa. So one day, Ban and I had lunch at a nearby chap fan shop, where I forwent rice. Then we went to Kwong Wah where I had chendol and mini assam laksa. I agreed with Ban that the assam laksa had a variety of delicate taste on top of the obvious sourness and spiciness. It was delicious. However, hours later, my tummy grumbled a little. Meh. I am tempted to have it again but have to do so rarely. I recommend the assam laksa but similar to the chendol, it was expensive for its portion. Sorry, I can't remember its price but it was expensive hehehe.

(continued from here ) Crusader Egypt was the result of the second crusade I participated in where I emerged as the top contributor. I chose to have my beneficiary to gain the titular kingdom rather than supporting the pope's choice i.e. King of Egypt who was the winner of the previous crusade. I didn't want to have it for my own either because at that time, I was concentrating on building realm closer to home. Here, I was bringing it home :) Although the claimant's claim could be inherited by her successor, it would be troublesome to restart the war again if she died (I did this before omg). I had to try to finish this war quickly because she was old.  It was then I remembered that I could wage war on mulitple fronts: I can declare war as long as no levies have been raised. Goodness, I wish I recalled this much earlier. I could had expanded my realm faster. I made two mistakes here: (1) I didn't realise that the claim pressed against the Countess of Lisboa was merely f...

(continued from here ) Since I now perpetually have high Threat level, I had to be a little picky in who to declare war upon. It must be worth the time, effort and the waiting time, gah. I started looking at potential kingdoms and found two suitable ones at this moment: Maghreb and Africa. I chose Africa because it was better in terms of being a contiguous land and connected with my realm well too. I then invited a claimaint who had a claim to the kingdom that can be passed to his successor (which I momentarily forgot and so I only invited him immediately after the Queen of Africa left the Defensive Pact), and made him a baron of a barony I held. As an aside, it was so annoying that periodically some vassals embraced the Orthodoxy religion. Apparently, this was a result of leaving the "Secret Religious Cults" feature switched on. From what I understand from other players, the AIs are quite susceptible to conversion this way and more efficient than players in spreading them. W...

(continued from here ) So I noticed that a bishop had a claim on a French duchy and from the looks of it, he should get the duchy title and two counties if I successfully pressed his claim, which I did. Unexpectedly, he also vassalised the other French counts. Interesting. Coincidentally, a temple finished building in my demense and so after looking for a bit, I granted it to someone who has a claim to the Kingdom of Galacia. Hehehe. Yes, I later got a King-Bishop vassal :)

Here are the average dividend yields on cost for shares that have paid out dividends: Share counters (2 of them) with no dividend yields just means that I have yet to receive at least a year's worth of dividends from these companies. The overall dividend yield on cost weighted by invested amount is 4.6%, excluding the 2 share counters mentioned above.   There are 18 share counters with dividend yield (on cost) less than 5% (number of consecutive years of this low yield in bracket): Boustead (3) Boustead Project (1) Capitaland (2) ComfortDelgro (1)  HRnet (1) iFAST (2) Keppel Corp (5) Mapletree Com (1) Nordic (2) OCBC (1) Parkway (1) SATS (6) SBS Transit (1) SGX (1) SIA Engineering (3) Sing Shipping (6) SG O&G (1) UOB (3) SPH and SingPost are excluded. I'm maintaining minimal exposure to these counters as speculative investment. Sing Shipping's historical dividend yield has consistently been just above 4%. The question is whether I want to continue to hold on to such sha...

We're still in a pandemic crisis a year on . This is the latest yearly update: Initiated position in: (1) Micro-Mechanics Recommended by The Smart Investor. " Micro-mechanics is primarily focused on the semiconductor industry, manufacturing consumable tools and parts for the assembly and testing of semiconductors. It also provides contract manufacturing of precision parts and tools for semiconductor wafer fabrication and other high-technology industries." Reason for inclusion, as articulated by the investment club: A high proportion of recurring revenue Diversified customer base Strong financial track record Positive tailwinds (2) ParkwayLife REIT Recommended by The Smart Investor. "ParkwayLife REIT (SGX: C2PU) has 53 healthcare-focused properties in Singapore and Japan, along with strata-titled lots at Gleneagles Intan Medical Centre, Malaysia. In Singapore, the REIT houses three private hospitals, namely Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Gleneagles Hospital, and Parkw...

After noticing it a few times, I finally tried it a year or so ago...indirectly. Ban was sick and so I went out to get food. Instead of choosing suggested soup base + ingredients, I customised it. We both liked it and so every now and then we had their noodle. A unique drink that we like is their buckwheat tea. For a while, I kept remarking that its taste reminded me of a snack but I couldn't remember what it was. When it hit me, Ban and his brother were in disbelief: it reminded me of the Double Decker's prawn cracker. Right after dinner, I bought a small packet from Tesco. Ban's brother and I could detect the similarity in taste but not Ban though. Another drink I like, but more expensive, is their eight treasure tea. It's hard to find such tea served, well, at least at the joints that I go to. One day, I decided to try their dry noodle. I was pleasantly surprised that they served us some tang yuen, something that I hadn't had for years. I liked it. Unfortunately,...

(continued from here ) Finally I had enough counties to usurp the title from King of England, who was just installed as king after his predecessor lost in the excommunication war. Apparently, Irish calls England "Sasana". This may be the last time I usurped a kingdom in this campaign. Later, I realised I made a mistake: I should have tried to vassalise the remaining English leaders while I held the kingdom title. However, it wouldn't make a difference because these leaders held the 'Petty King' title and most likely felt there was little diffference in rank between theirs and mine. Almost immediately, I pressed someone's claim to the Duchy of Mercia. He is the husband of a countess in my realm. Since he wasn't of my dynasty, he didn't become my vassal once I won the war. Yes, it was a mistake on my part: I just saw the title "Count" and immediately thought he was my vassal. However, since he liked me so much after the war, plus my power level...

(continued from here ) I calculated that if I followed the safer conventional way for waiting out the truce period before declaring war again, I wouldn't be able to create Empire of Britannia before another Scotland duchy drifts into Ireland and thereby allowing my duke of the remaining sole duchy to just create Kingdom of Scotland, resulting in independence for him. One way was for me to break truce but this is costly: the negative opinon stacks and the lost of prestige seems to increase with subsequent truce. Two other ways: change of leader for my side or change of leader in England. So when I noticed that there was a revolt in England that would result in a new king if they win, I offered to join their war. Finally I created the Empire of Britannia! Only the second empire after the pre-existing Byzantine Empire. I forgot to start recording my war to get the last county. I was in a great hurry because if the war had dragged on more than two years, then the Scotland problem might...

(continued from here ) Gah, the Wales problem was now happening to Scotland: it now had only two duchies left in it and both were occupied by my two dukes. One of them was about 30 years away from drifting into Ireland, which would mean the other duke could easily create the Kingdom of Scotland and thus be independent of me. My backup plan was to revoke, without reason the duchy title and destroy it. My other plan, which was what I was trying to do here, was to break truce with the English king so as to hurry getting the minimum number of counties to establish the Empire of Brittania. Evidently it was patched so that the opinion penalty from breaking truce stacks, unlike what I read online. OMG.

(continued from here ) The day I had been waiting for had arrived: finally a vassal declared war on the English king. Since I was still in truce with the latter, I wanted to join my vassal's war (in reality, I would take over his war) as a way to circumvent the truce. However, there was no such option! @@  It was much later I hypothesised a reason: I was in truce with the King of England. England was then at war with the Papacy - second time for himself and for the umpteenth time including his predecessors - just to press a de jure claim over a Bishopric omg lol. I was hoping that my duke would finish his war before the English King lose his war but unfortunately it didn't pan out that way. Hence, I took the decision to declare war on the king and thereby breaking the truce.