Switching From Apple to Samsung

It's been more than 3 years now since I got my first smartphone, my iPhone 3GS. Despite the many launches thereafter, I held on to my old faithful. Yes, I needed to charge it twice a day but since I am usually in the office, that's not a problem.

Then recently, iOS upgraded to a version which wasn't made available to my 3GS. The time would eventually come when my apps won't be able to be upgraded because it would need the new OS to do so. Preparing myself for that inevitability, I started looking for a replacement.

The search took some time, as usual, and I settled for the Samsung S4 LTE. Even though my new service provider doesn't have LTE yet, it's apparently more powerful than the S4.

So, what are the major differences so far?

When I first got my iPhone, I played with it so much that I had to keep charging the battery.

Now with this Samsung, is only to read email, whatsapp, twitter, sometimes check FB...

With my iPhone, I tried means and ways to change my ringtone to set my calls apart from everyone else's iPhone ringtone.

After 3 years, now that my Samsung allows me to personalize my ringtone, I find I have been dumbed down to accept the default.

iPhone has it's one and only keyboard.

Android? I've so far downloaded 3 keyboards to test. So confusing! Kii seems to be the one closest to the iPhone version so it's the most comfortable one for me so far.

iPhone has one main screen, with essential apps fixed at the bottom which I never bothered to change (I'm not sure if it can either).

Android has TWO screens, one for your frequently used apps, one for all your apps and even the fixed apps at the bottom can be changed! *headache*

I'm still struggling with the functions/settings after a week but I think I'm slowly getting there. So far, I'm loving the camera and response (of course, the latest iPhone would have a much better camera and response than my old one).

KS just said, "if you don't like it in 6 months, sell it off and buy the iPhone". I'm not giving up so soon -.- 

To Android users out there, do share with my your favourite apps to this newbie.

Minion Cupcakes!

I enjoy baking but have hardly ventured into cake decorating as I'm not really a creative person in terms of designing cake icing patterns. It's just baking and then eating for me, unless it's a carrot cake which begs for cream cheese frosting (and that's just frosting, no decorating).

But when my friend Eunice started offering classes to create Minion cupcakes, I thought, why not? Perhaps it would spur me into decorating cupcakes the "proper" way. While I'm not so much a Minion fan, it's a fairly easy character to mould/follow. Plus, they ARE cute. :)

Armed with only a palette knife, a wooden rolling pin (which I discovered is absolutely the wrong type for fondant as it stuck to my rolling pin), I attended the class last Sunday. Eunice had equipment which we all could share. So we set out to learn how to make 2D and 3D minions for our cupcakes in 3 hours.

Here are the pictures of all our hard work that afternoon from 4 of the 5 students:

My cupcakes and minion are the ones on the right. Yeah, my 3D minion had "nerdy" hair hehehe..

Two sets from the other two students.

The best of my 2D designs.

We really had a lot of fun and were squealing with the absolute cuteness of our creations. Here are more close up photos of my 3D Minion.

Was in a bit of a rush so he has a scar on his forehead and Eunice helped with his arms otherwise we'd be there forever!

Eunice is an extremely creative person and excellent with her cake decorations. She done so many amazing 3D work, see her work at her blog.

She gave us many tips and used creative tools meant for other things for the decorating! And her patient step by step to help us through every way even allowed a beginner like me to produce something which looked somewhat decent!

Her classes are every Sunday this month. If you'd like to find out more about the classes, go to her Facebook page.

Who's Kiasu Now?

I recently went to Singapore for an extended weekend with my family for my cousin's wedding. I found a place to stay from Airbnb and stayed with a Singaporean girl who hosted us, let me just call her May.

I believe this is the first time I'm actually staying with a true blue Singaporean and the experience was interesting enough that I would like to blog about it.

Interesting because I always thought Singaporeans were not very different from Malaysians. Of course, there are obvious cultural nuances which set us apart, which I won't focus on in this post. To cut to the chase, it was the attitude towards safety in the country.

Upon arriving at her HDB, I removed my shoes and took them into the room instead of leaving them outside along the public corridor. Heck, in Malaysia, if you leave your shoes in the porch, even with the gates locked, they WILL get stolen. I didn't dwell on the strange look May gave me until after I came back and reflected.

Shortly after, my parents wanted a single seater removed from their room to make way for an extra mattress for Jan to sleep on. May simply pushed the chair outside onto the common corridor. I asked, "Aren't you worried someone would steal it?" to which she merely replied, "Steal ma steal lah, it's so old anyway". This was shocking to me. Again, anything placed in a common area in Malaysia WILL be stolen.

Then, as and when we came back to the apartment over the next few days, we realized May hardly locked her door, even if it were late in the evening. Jan, who's renting with a Singaporean family, explains this is normal in Singapore. In Malaysia, you get robbers rushing through your gates in that few seconds as you try to close your gates after driving into your porch. Or the case whereby the robbers jumped over the fences while you're relaxing on your porch and rob you.

I have not realized how I have been moulded in so much fear from living in Malaysia. It's a sad fact indeed.