Temporary post on Taiwan driving trip.

Taiwan's driver's position is on the left side and Singapore's on the right. I had experienced driving in Germany and it did not posed any problem but this trip is different. I rented the car for the whole duration of the trip and planned on driving a lot, through hills, mountains and coast. And not primarily on auto-bahn.

After collecting the car, I got lost. The first was because I wasn't aware of the right turn out of the carpark and across the yellow box. Didn't think one would entered a junction by performing a right turn, so I missed it the first time and had to circle the airport compound. I have the google map turned on, but that did not seem to help at all. The second was when I was out on the road and somehow I missed a fork, resulting in driving across what seems to be underpopulated sub-urban districts.

Google map took a while to get used to. The instructions were corrected very quickly, so quickly that I didn't noticed I was already on an alternate route.

Driving on the main road was fine. Go with the flow, and there isn't much problem. The problem I had were because I was used to driving the other direction. Many times, my car would be positioned too far right in the lane, sometimes, I could hear the right tyres running on the lane markings. There are little humps at the beginning of each dotted lane marking to provide audio and ride feedback.

Driving through single lane winding roads was challenging but not an issue. The speed limits imposed are safe and there are taking over bays for the slower vehicles to drive on and allow the faster vehicles to overtake them.

Temporary post on Hyundai i-30

11 July 2018

Registered on 26 June 2018.
Car received, after a long delay sorting out the Qi charger, on 3 July 2018.
It is no Mercedes but it is fine.
From last thoughts: Where's the manual to the GPS/DVD and the blind spot detection on the wing mirror?
No emergency triangle or First Aid box.

Just WhatsApp Terrence.
He said manual given liao. With the 3M's warranty.
Asked pdf, he said he will get.

Office has used up allocated number of car lots. Additional lots, such as my case, is subject to the office building's management office decision.
While it is convenient and conventional wisdom to park at office, due to the lots constraint and perhaps also the cost per month (220+), many people who work in this building parks elsewhere. And they are usually cheaper, maybe 180 per month.
There are coupon parking near office, 60cents per half hour starting 8.30am.
So to convince myself, I did this calculation.

Find number of days that I would be parking at the office.
365 calendar days in a year less 52 Sundays, 52 Saturdays, 11 public holidays, 21 days leave, 5 days MC/outstation/jobsites.
365-52-52-11-21-5=224

Find the coupon cost per day.
8.30am to 6.00pm is 9.5hours.
9.5x2x0.60=$11.40
Since I use parking.sg, I get refund if I don't park that long.

Find coupon cost per year.
224x11.40=$2,553.60

Yes, it will cost me about $2,500, it is that expensive, but compare to buying season parking at the office, 12x 220 = $2,640.00, it is lesser. Coupon parking is at roadside, office parking is at basement, when it rains, obviously office parking is preferable. On dry days though, if I were to park at office, the additional distance and time to go home are: to drive down to its basement to park, drive out from its basement to leave, making a U-turn, against the walking distance and time from coupon parking. It is close, but coupon parking wins.

Now, comparing coupon parking against season parking at another further location (URA season parking not available):
12x180=$2,160.00
I will therefore save 2,553.60-2,160.00=$393.60.
I have to work a distance of about 224x2x0.6 km=268.80km in around 224x2x8min=59h44m
$/hr is $393.60/60h=$6.56/hr
However, this saving potential but may be offset by the $0.50~$2.00 ERP I might incur when going back.
If ERP is $0.50 (i.e. 6.00~6.05pm), that's 224x$0.50=$112.00
If ERP is at $2.00 (i.e. 6.06pm onwards), that's 224x$2.00=$448.00
This going home ERP cost is currently avoided because I leave the office earlier than 6pm (I compensate for this by arriving earlier in the morning), but there has to be some limit as to how much earlier I can swap without incurring remarks and comments.

30 April 2018

This is to record my thoughts and the promises conveyed by the salesman of Komoco, culminating in the 15k deposit placed for one "i-30 Wagon" yesterday, 29 April 2018. It will probably be more than a month before they will call me up to collect the car. Even though traditional wisdom would say I should have everything he promised written down and signed, we did not go for this route because we do not wish to be stressed by all these and have an enjoyable experience turned to one that reeks of distrust governed by fear.

In anycase, what comes with the 'standard' I-30? The features and accessories are not listed, so what are they selling and what am I buying? Listed below the accessories/features that salesman, Terrence Soh, said will be incorporated into my I-30. He promised it's the best he can offered, in terms of price and features/accessories.

• Steering column and be adjusted longitudinally. This came when I was test driving the Accent. which lacks this feature.
• Leather wrapped seats but not electric/memory. Although the seat is not electrical/electronic, the general ergonomics cannot be that bad to drive long distance. I have in mind the Ford Focus I drove in Taiwan.
• Auto opening/closing wing mirrors (indicator and blind spot detection).
• The screen will be changed to 9".
• Comes with GPS, dvd, rear parking camera, front/back camera, sensors (forgotten to ask about front), stability, abs, front ventilated disc and rear disc brakes, 7 airbags, pull out cover to the wagon boot, cargo net. Wife likes the two roof rails, calling them angel wings. Terrence assured everything is complete, solarfilm, diamond coat, sound clad.

Wife chose this car, after going through Citroen C3, Mitsubishi Attrage (zero interest), Kia K3 (lack of interest), Hyundai Elantras (a midgen bit of interest), 1l Kona manual (too small),  Accent (zero again), Santa Fe (like but too big), Tucson (big but why?).

Terrence said the chosen 'moon-rock' is not in the immediate shipment. Choice of colour, externally and internally is important for her. Since they can't deliver 'moon-rock' (2nd shipment coming in July/Aug), wouldn't sell the 'moon-rock' car at the same price when it becomes available (post July has 10,000 VES scrapped), wouldn't sell the exhibit 'moon-rock' car (suggested by wife and he declined because his senior said so), an option should be the refund of deposit, not just choose another colour which Terrence suggested. He suggested white, which was clearly rejected by wife just yesterday, black and silver. He forgot that my wife does not like the two tone internal. Out of the available colours, micro grey and silver have 2 tone interior.

Wife asked, White or Black? "Black, same as yours." I replied, and some time later she said we go to the showroom tomorrow to choose.