Discounting the positive might make me depressed

 Was standing at the desk inside Mercy Hostel, Chiang Rai. Charging my macbook, just happen to come across "This mental habits fuels depression". 

Realising I might be depressioned if I follow the video defination that depression is not the present of pain but instead it is the absent of happiness. It mention that I might be discounting the positive in life and no let happiness touch me as a defend mechanism. 

I first must realise that this thought is present in me so that I can break down my defensive mechanism and then slowly recover to allow joy entering the body. 

Looking at the sight of the temple, I took a picture and appreciate the nice view and feel that I am living in the present.

Don't take profit, just rebalance your portfolio

Today had the chance to review portfolio with ChatGPT. It gave me reassuring questions. It correct my mindset that dividend investing should not be focusing on captial gain. Non you should sell to "take profit" when stock appreciate by 30% for example.

Instead, it told me that pricing is irrelevant in income focused investor. Volality in market isn't risk if you are planning to invest long term. The real measurement is income stability. 

3 point I take away from today session:

1. You don't have to sell in market correction to capitalise on it. The less I trade the more win i have.

2. Don't sell because price appreciation. Only sell when the dividend income become weaker.

3. Don't have to sell to take profit, just rebalance it once a year and stop looking at the chart daily

The portfolio is suppose to be no stress, no volality pressure. The reciept is not selling at correct point but just let time compounding work for itself.

 

1st week solo travelling at Chiang Mai

 Last year I did came to Chiang Mai for the 1st time for a month. I like the weather Nov - Feb in Chiang Mai as it get comfortably cool after evening. Therefore I went back in Jan 2026. This time I will be travelling alone up to 2 months visa free in Thailand. 

7kg bag for 3 months travel

Jackie is not with me as she had found a new full time job. After trying out 2 years travelling and remote working with me, she find its better if she can still stock some saving up for another 3 years. This time round as she undergo training with me, frugal man system so she will be able to save up quite quickly. 

I came here already 3 days, I went back to W2 hostel and catch shrimp and fishing at Ping River. This time I am able to show you my first lured fish of my life. Caught a snakehead on a gold spoon lure.

First lured fish sankehead on pen rod using spoon

Then I revisited Chiang Mai, Fishing pond which is super cheap, 100b whole day if you bring your own rod. But since the catfish is pretty big, I rent the rod, bait, fishing pass for whole day for only 300b. It is the cheapest fishing pond in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Chao Phraya Catfish caught at Chiang Mai fishing pond 

First Sunday in Chiang Mai I know where I suppose to go. Nong Ho Flea market was the biggest second hand market in Chiang Mai. I am surprise that the vintage Japanese bike is still available after 1 months. Before that he quoted 1,200b but this time round, I tried a couple of bike and found his bike not in the most good condition, I was about to walk away from his 800b price discounted. He called me back and said he can sell me at 600b. I counter offer 500b and he agreed!!!. End up he doesn't have change so I paid 560b instead. Giving some tips for the uncle. I think he still got a earning as the bike was put there for sometime now. Cashflow is King. For me I got it at a steal I think. Althought its full steel bike which is heavy and somemore is single geared with some cranking sound when peddling. But for $23 SGD, I just can park the bike everywhere.

Japanese old bike with basket and back rack, dynamo light included but not working

To note, some only bikes with gears are at ranges from 1,500b to 2,500b. Although they are quite nice to ride, but I am still a sucker for vintage item :) 

Some very nice micro, mini fishing reel I would like to get my hand on

 I was in Chiang Mai flea market, where I saw some vintage reel going to 300B each. I bought it and give it a play at home. I decided to keep the Shimano Club Demi 20RL as it is more castable than the Olympic New Mideget No. 4. 

Currently I am very into vintage reel which is slightly castable. I love small reel as I am able to bring them around easily to play luring or micro fishing. 

I started with my Pen rod but most of the configaration is non castable.

Today as I browse the internet, there are a couple of reel which I want to note down in the blog, as they are not easy to come by in Singapore so I have to go around, Japan or Thailand to hunt these in flea market.

Daiwa Coronet Mini

Daiwa Minicast (Set)

Finally bought Macbook Air M2

I had been contemplation for so long if I were to upgrade my Macbook air or not. 

Firstly, I just replaced a new battery in 2024, a year ago on my Macbook air 2017 running on intel. This unit was bought in Vietnam when I had lost my older Macbook in HCM.

Secondly, although the unit was old and a bit slow. But it still able to run my required task like browsing, youtube and excel fine. Just sometime things bothering me are like no MacOS 15 support hence not able to use Microsoft etc. And the irriating macsafe charger will need me to bring the adaptor out oversea if I need to use 2017.

But after discussing with Jackie for many months, I convienced that I had to start doing some spending as I had been saving up for too long. Furthermore Moomoo is also helping me part time and there are sulpus and we had to buy things that improve our quality of life. Playing with laptop is something that spark joy for me under the 10 things. 

So also after going thru my before buy decision tree, I had a good steal for $958, brand new with 16gb RAM and Macbook Air M2 starlight. $300 off usually price so why not.

Just coming up to the internet and booast around. Now typing on the new macbook :) 

Lossing motivation in life but I can care less

I had been getting more and more difficult to be entertained by computer games. I really tried to buy and play those AAA titles. I bought Bulgar's gate 3 and really try to get entertained my the game but I get tired watching the stories and fell asleep so many times. After 6 months i still have difficulty completing the game. As I grew older, I get less interested in stuff, people, event, places and games. My only past time I enjoy is to indulce in youtube and wechat videos. Sucking my life aways minutes and hours away.

I lost motivation to earn money, work, build a business and basically not interested in doing anything at the moment. I used to love travel and now had been travelling for 2 years but I don't really like to explore anything as well. I just love to stay in a different city, without people knowing me and talking to me so I can stay in room for the whole day and watch youtube. I know this can be really unhealthy for me physically and mentally. I love to get out but having lack the motivation to do so. 

Is it something that worries me? The answer is NO. I believe there is a devine plan for me. I meant to do things that was planned for me just that I am still seeking what the thing is. Am I pessimisstic with life? No. I believe the life I had choosen is the best out of all narrative. If I were to die and ask a question will I live my life differently I believe I will say No. 

Google 

Back Singapore for 1 week and we painted new paint for the room

Been back for one week already. We had just ended our 3 months travel to Hainan, Yuenan and Yunnan. I had so much video clip to backlog to upload to youtube. I was late to update these video due to no internet connection to youtube in China. 

Recently, Jackie found a great food or choice. We pick up the habbit to eat cold soba noodle in Japan. I love the noodle as it is chewy and use no oil in cooking. Soba has a lot of health benefit like high fiber and potein while lower in calories etc. And it helps in controlling blood sugar as it uses buckwheat flour. So we just get the soba noodle for $5 buck and the source for $5 which we can eat for 4 portions. So kinda simple lunch we can cook for ourselve.

Since back I had done some very important things at home. First is that my 2 years tenant Shakirah had moved out to Europe as her boss is not renewing the lease for the cafe business at Margrate drive. She left the room very dirty and we had be do a fresh paint job for the room. Painting is one of the most value of money renovation one can do to a unit. A white paint $75 for walls and $30 gross paint for the door will made the room return to the initial nice state.

这一次我们户外烧Trangia的还算是不错!煤气罐会比火水来烧得快。

We also uploaded our bilibili first video so that our friends in China are able to view our content. Ok lah. I will be busy playing my new game FF7 remake while see if i got time will push out my Kunming video soon. Meanwhile see our old short update:

A kind of lifestyle call Dali

Update these 2 days in Dali. We experienced an earthquake just 60km away from us. 4.5 magnitude but good news is I don’t feel any vibration in our room. World is getting weirder everyday.

In Dali, we get to really meet different type of people. I become very E suddenly and start talking to random stranger suddenly. We get a meet an 50~ man name ah Wei and he talk to us and ask our Brompton. Thru him we get to meet other very strange hipper on the road. Last night we went to a cafe and bar to get some drink and we sit around and start pulling people and talk. One even can play piano very well and we start to sing KTV in the bar live. Many people stopped and listen.

Today morning we went to 无为寺 to eat veg meal prepared by monk. During the meal, which is free we are not allow to talk and take photos. We also have to finish all the food in the plate and wash them ourselves. Eat like this opens up our five senses and we get to appreciate the food bought to us by the farmer. I didn’t pray to the god even I was in the temple. I did hesitate to even acknowledge the god in the temple but ends up I did inform them to excuse me for being in the temple. Let them know that I was here. I suddenly realise that the best thing is not to pray for anything. It’s not about having is about not having pain, sickness, misery etc. The most ideal stage is not having anything and not to ask for more. The more we have the more we away from the path. Whatever god give us is the best and there is nothing more we should be asking for. 

It’s very hard to explain my feeling in English. But kinda just pen down my thoughts for future reference.

7 days in Kun Ming

Had been missing from blogging these 2 months. As I had been travelling in China and firewall had blocked blogger and google services. 

I had been to Hainan to cycle and then we land back to Hanoi and Sapa to renew visa. Stayed there for one month and then we took a bus to enter China Kun Ming via Lao Cai to Hei Kou. This is different from the custom that we enter China to Nan Ning via You Yi Guan.

So now I am stationed at Dali the most beautiful place and full of crazy people place. But this post I want to wrap up my experience in Kunming. We stayed for 7 days and stay at a very nice loft at one of the condotel. It is a small room that was partition into a mini loft via a double decked metal bed. What drew us there is that they provided us with 2 desktop to play game in the room. I think it belong to a single men where he rent out the studio maybe while he is away to another place to work. We enjoyed the unit that cost us $20 a night. We love the food street below and close to MRT that can take us to any place we want to do shopping.

Then our first stop to explore the city we landed at 五一站 where we happened to stumble over Brompton junction kunming where we rode our Brompton to the shopping Center. This is all where the magic starts to happen, the store owner offer to add us to the group and so happen that the next day there will be an event between Brompton and Lululemon in kunming. We decided to join since it is a free event.

The whole event was very new to us and we met a lot of friends that own Brompton and we spend the next 6 days with 3 groups of people. 

Alan and Liza bring us to eat branch and teach me to smoke a cigar and offer some of his own collection of cigar. I do learn a lot of the young man. He was in finance investment group. He had a lot of 文玩 and it inspired me to buy one as well.

Liang Liang and Xiao bai is a Alibaba consultant and an education consultant respectively. We stumble over them the next day and they took us to round 萃湖. 

Kunming was surprising good and according to Alan it is better than Nan Ning as this is a tourism city which the support and culture will be better. Earning potential is also better than Nan Ning. What is so nice about Yun Nan is that the weather is always spring. They told me the highest weather is 25 degree. I went in month April so it is winter ending. 

We now station in Dali. Tmr update more. 

Finally we had concluded our Hainan trip with Brompton bike

 Finally have the time and internet to post my Hai Nan Brompton trip. Due to China have firewall to disable google etc. Currently I am seating in Kohibito near Hanoi, Cat Linh writing this post on my newly bought iPad mini keyboard. I am still getting use to the small keyboard and I immediately is able to feel strain on my forearms. Keyboard is really too small to be type comfortably on. A video speak a thousand words let me use video to do the talking. 

It is winter time and places like japan and mainland china is cold but Hainan being a separate island is hot and humid especially in Sanya. What I hate about this place is the splitting culture and eating of bing nan where people chew the fruit and split Silva all over the place.

This trip I learn that all China iphone is able to support 2 physical SIM card from iPhone 11 onwards. I didn’t know about this since I stop following iPhone since iPhone 7. Furthermore, iPhone which is bought in Sanya airport is duty free and with heavy discount and units sold are generately 25% cheaper for the new phone. This is super crazy. I didn’t get to buy one as the shop only allow same date purchase, my flight was in the early morning straight after midnight hence the shop is technically close by then and the salesman was not able to be flexible on this.

Finally we concluded that it is although possible to fly with Dimpa bag alone but you must have correct protection with your clothes as layering. The rear rack is also very prone to knocking and bending which Jacky experience when we fly from Hainan out to Hanoi with no card box protection. Her rear fork one of the metal is bend and this affected her rolling balances. Jacky was super sad about her black lacquer then but had get over it as bike is safe in the harbour but that is not what the bike is built for.

Moving forward since I have internet in Hanoi I will try to post more often moving forward.