Howdy,

I recently found out this blog was broken, and took some effort in bringing it back up, despite my hiatus.

Lo and behold, 2 years have flashed by since the last article. All is well, I am still in Shanghai, but have moved up from the struggling freelancer to soon-to-be owner of a registered creative studio. The past 2 years have been life changing, many lessons learnt in life, many friendships forged for life too.

I had been meaning to relaunch some of my personal sites, this blog and my music portfolio, but constant clientele work simply make it impossible to get past initial conceptualization.

I actually intend to leave this blog as it is, but launch a brand new one, under the moniker of The Shanghai Kid. I’ll try to get that up so I can start blogging again, under a new identity.

So, Singapore has been interesting so far. Having left Singapore for the past 3 years, coming back has been partly nostalgic, refreshing, but also disappointing.

Food-wise, Singapore is no doubt one of, if not the best place to eat in the world. With so many flavors spread across a huge variety of different cultures’ cuisine.

The people seem mostly the same as 3 years ago. Everyone is still pretty much stuck up in their own business, not a smile to be flashed across the street. Only the uncles at the coffeeshops at night seem to be opening up to the beer girls hanging around. Everyone else? Pretty much the same.

Its interesting to note that some things never change. The kiasu culture is still prevalent. A new mall pops up, everyone starts hanging out at that mall, and desert their old hangouts.

I thing I couldn’t get used to was the high humidity. The temperature actually wasn’t that bad, hovering between 24 degrees celsius to 30. But the high humidity made one perspire even by just sitting still at a fan-less living room.

One thing I really appreciate about being back in Singapore, in Yishun to be exact, is how convenient it is to buy stuff or get things done. The neighborhood market area supplies me with most of my daily needs. The multiple coffees-shops provide me with an abundance of options for an ample meal, starting from merely $2.50 a meal. And if I need to buy something less conspicuous, I only need to walk 10 minutes to the huge-ass mall at Yishun Central, where I can literally get anything I need.

Coming back to food. It is so cheap to eat at the kopitiams (coffee-shops) here that I  wonder why we should even cook at all. $2.50 a meal is cheaper and more convenient than buying back vegetables/meat to cook a meal yourself.

Meanwhile, I am enjoying my iPad which I had my brother buy back for me from Hawaii, immensely. My friends have been enjoying it too, and all of them basically sold to it. Even previous non-Apple-fanboys like Chester Tan were sold.

It truly is a technological marvel, fitting all that creativity and functionality into a aesthetically sublime device. Gonna end with a couple of photos taken by a friend I caught up with over the weekend, using his Olympus E-P1.

Hi! Its been ages since I’d blogged! Sorry for being an irresponsible blogger..

So what have I been busy with? Music? Design?

Well the music industry for CHINESE is basically dead, last I heard from my producer friend in Hong Kong, big studios are closing left and right, producers who once crowned the respect and admiration from fans and idols alike are looking for alternative means of bring home the bread. Yes, its sad.

Most of you have known that web design has always been a sideline for me. Well the past 2 years, it has been my fulltime business, and has helped kept me alive. Thanks to God, business has been pouring in supernaturally, and today I am pleased to relaunch my design studio website.

Back in 2008, I had only what..less than 5 websites I had designed for clients on a professional level? Over the past 2 years, I have chalked up over 20 professional web design projects, and most if not all of them really just came out of the blue. Some by word of mouth, others I didn’t even knew how they found me. But like I said, Thank you God for the providence. I remember when I was so broke, living on the verge of desperation. But I kept praying.

The business has expanded its coverage to various parts of the globe so far, and I intend to continue to expand the studio. Pretty soon I will be involved in another venture, which in time may takeover the place of the web design studio, leaving it as a side business.

I believe that this is only the start of better things to come.

Join the Fred Lin Design Studio facebook page for updates on the ongoings there, or simply to show your support!

I am still very packed with jobs these days, but I do hope to spend sometime inbetween to renew my music site, as well as this blog, and then create a couple more side websites to innovate.

What I intend to do with the music site is no longer make it a business kinda site, but rather a site focused purely on sharing my music, and perhaps even educate. I need it to be more accessible and approachable, and not be so serious and ‘cool’ like it currently is.

The plan for the blog is to make it really vibrant and fun, but I am pondering on whether to keep this as an ‘official’ blog, and create another personal blog under a moniker to tok cok and relax, maybe even a cooking themed one. Haha.

Anyways, stay tuned.