Root Canal wasn't so bad afterall

Finally went for my root canal surgery after finding out I had to go for a root canal surgery 2 days back.



For the past 2 days, I was a nervous wreck, I spend 50% of my time searching "Root Canal", "Root Canal Pain Level", "Root Canal vs Wisdom Tooth Extraction", "Root Canal vs Braces" and really anything that's related to root canal and pain, I wanted to find a website that would pat my head and tell me everything would be alright.



And I did find a few websites that said root canal was "no longer a painful procedure  because thanks to the wonders of modern dentistry, what would have made even a grown man cry in the past is now a painless procedure", which calmed me down for a while, but after a while I decided that wasn't enough, I needed more assurance, so I googled even more and came across this particular website where people actually share their root canal experience on the website... and a lot of them weren't good...

TL:DR
Most painful thing she has ever experienced. 

and...

Root Canal went wrong.

Like a plethora of horrible testimonies of people just comparing it to being worst then childbirth or being the most painful thing they have ever experience, that they would rather rip off their teeth then to go through the procedure again.... very dramatic and scared the crap out of me.






So when it came to the day I had to go down to the dentist for the surgery, I was panicking, the bus ride was horrible because it felt as if I was riding to my death or the last bus ride I will ever take before getting traumatize by the root canal procedure forever.

The dental clinic is called Roots! and is located in the same building as where I get my braces done, so it was quite easy to navigate, and I actually got their on time... well I was one minute late but that's still pretty impressive.... I was almost on the dot.

Went into the clinic and was greeted by the dental assistant, it's amazing how all the dentist assisstant in the dental clinics I have visited in that particular building knows my name, the moment I walk in, whenever I go for my braces check-up, the moment I open the door...

"Hi Timothy, please take a seat" 

or with the root canal dental clinic assistant...

"Timothy right? Please pass me your IC and take a seat."

With great dental bills comes great customer service.



Passed the assistant my IC, filled up some forms and waited for my turn. I really wanted to get the root canal surgery over and done with, so it really didn't help that the patient before me after completing his surgery, decided to have a conversation with the dentist... he was talking really loudly and being a Caucasian, he was also really friendly, or he sounded like he was very friendly, so the whole time he was speaking to the dentist in the dental treatment room, I kept thinking that after he was done talking to the dentist, he would come out, notice me and try to start a conversation with me as well, which was a very uncomfortable thought because the last thing I want to do while nervously waiting for my turn to get my root canal surgery done was to start small talk with a complete stranger.... but luckily he didn't because I was really just over thinking things.




Got ushered into the dental treatment room a few minutes later and was greeted by the dentist, who was a very nice guy.  He started to do some small talk, tried to make me more comfortable and asked me to relax, I was at that point sitting in the dentist chair, whole body trembling because I was extremely nervous seeing the injection needles on my right, on a table with a bunch of vials which I assumed were once filled with local anesthetic medicine but have all been injected into the previous patients' mouth, and also because there was a standing air conditioner further back from the table of injection needles and empty glass vials just blowing directly on the right side of my already trembling body.




After some small talk, the dentist decided to go through with me what exactly he would be doing to me during the surgery, and after doing 2 days of intensive research, I already knew what he was going to do, but hearing him talk through the procedure calmed me down a little so I decided to just listen through the whole thing. There's something about being right there and then in the dentist chair that made me want to delay the root canal surgery for as long as I could, even for a minute, so when he actually completed his briefing with me, I got really scared because it turns out, I was actually more afraid of getting an oral injection than I was getting my tooth's nerves yanked out of it's canal.




So before the dentist walked away to keep his presentation charts, I requested for some topical anesthetic before getting the injection done, and I was going to ask him to leave the topical on for at least a minute, because I really did my research and I know you have to leave the topical on for a least a minute for it to take effect. The dentist was happy to oblige and he also knew what he was doing because he left the topical in my mouth for a good 2 minutes, didn't even have to tell him, he just walked out and told me to relax after applying the topical on my gums.





There are dentist who don't leave it on for long enough and they just inject straight away after applying it, which defeats the purpose... I have never met dentist who have done that personally, I always took it without topical anesthetic, but the last time I got an oral injection, the dentist did not do a good job and made the injection hurt like a bitch, he injected 3 times and it numbed everything in my mouth except the tooth he was working on, that whole treatment scarred me for life and that was the reason why I opted for General Anesthesia during my Wisdom Tooth surgery and the reason why I requested for a topical anesthetic first from this dentist.





The gums were properly numbed by the time the dentist came back and he proceeded to inject the local anesthetic in my mouth, I asked if it was only going to be once and he assured me that it will only require one shot, but at the same time, it will also sting despite having the topical applied.... that did not help me feel relax at all.




I found out that oral injections are a lot more easy to go through if I just put on this expression like someone was slowing shoving a huge gherkin up my butt....

Like this, but less expressive...

 .....like a perma constipated face which I believed confused the dentist for a bit because it probably looked to him like I was in a lot of pain when really that face was me anticipating pain. I didn't feel the needle entering but I could feel the liquid entering my gums and that did hurt a bit, so I flinched, the dentist apologized and injected the local anesthetic even slower than he was already doing, which I really really appreciated because the slower you inject, the less painful it actually is. Fact.




After the injection, I felt a lot more relax, the dentist once again left me alone, this time probably for a good 5 minutes to let the local anesthetic take full effect, and I just sat in the dentist chair, embracing the numbness that was slowly engulfing my entire upper right side of my mouth. When your mouth is numb, your lips feel so much bigger than they are, just makes me wonder how JayZ feels when he actually numbs his lip because he has a lot of lip space.






The dentist then came back again and by that time, the anesthetic has taken full effect and he started the root canal. I really can't remember much of what he was doing because I didn't feel any discomfort, I kept anticipating for a sudden pang when he was drilling the tooth and yanking out the nerves, but I didn't feel that, in fact, I didn't even realize he had done the cleaning up of the canal until he told me he was going to fill it up.






There was a TV that was showing what the dentist was doing to my tooth in real time, and I think he thought I was watching it, but seriously, with the chair being adjusted all the way back that I was thought I was going to slide right off, and having his hands in my mouth blocking my field of vision to the TV screen, I couldn't see anything, which was good because I really didn't want to see him drilling into my tooth.





During the procedure, I was very tempted to just doze off because there was literally no discomfort whatsoever, but as he was filling up my tooth, he was talking me through what he was doing and at that point, I was able to see what was actually happening on my tooth through the TV, I think the dentist chair go adjusted during the procedure so I could see him actually filling up the gap and flattening out the fillings to make it smooth, I never knew how meticulous it was to fill a tooth until I saw what he was doing and it was soooo boring to see him just scrapping the side of my tooth, flattening the filling, scrapping the filling again and at one point, I thought he was over scrapping and was going to just scrap all the filling he had just filled.




At that point I decided to just sit back and not bother watching the screen, just let him do what he was doing and I remember my the top of my head pressing against his stomach, like it was a pillow, I didn't even bother to shift my head, I just left it there and the dentist didn't seem to mind as well, probably gave him a steadier hold of my head as well, and before I knew it, he was done.





All the worry I had over the past 2 days were for nothing because this dentist did a fantastic job and I couldn't be more grateful. Friendly and meticulous, if only all dentist were like him, well I haven't really met any dentist who are assholes, except the one in the Army, that guy was an asshole.



Total damage was $850, which I thought was worth it for such a supposedly "worst pain I have ever experienced that's way worst than child birth" procedure being so painless. I read on forums of how people are going to cheaper dentist to get their root canals done, not really a good idea, I mean that's probably what those people on the dentist websites did, went for a cheaper alternatives and ended getting traumatize forever, happened to me, went to the school dental that was free to get all my cavities fixed, ended up getting a phobia of oral injections.






So root canals are really not painful at all if you manage to find a good dentist, espcially one that specializes in root canal surgery, in my case, even the dental clinic's name root canal related.




On the way home, while I was in the bus, I was actually seated in front of this 2 girls, who were chatting so loudly, and they had those those super educated JC kids accent, so initially I thought it would be nice to just eavesdrop, if that's even considered eavesdropping, they were talking about their schools and lecture and using really complicated English, it's like they have a thesaurus in their head and every time they are forming a sentence, their in built thesaurus will quickly find a complicated word to replace the simple words people would normally use....

For example.



Normal Person would say..

"The ulcer in my mouth is killing me"

They would say...

"This agonizing lesion in my mouth is causing so much carnage on my mental state."

  ...at first it was fun to eavesdrop, but the whole fun in eavesdropping is listening to a conversation that's meant to be private, those girls were obviously not trying to have a private conversation, so  it quickly got to the point where they just became really loud and annoying that I actually got really bothered by it, so the moment I saw a vacant seat in the front, I quickly went to occupy it.., and I'm someone who rarely switches seats in the bus, the only times i switch seats are when the air con's leaking, or the person beside me is way too fat and taking up more than 50% of my seat, if I can occupy 50%, I will still sit next to the fat person, or inconsiderate asshole who's spreading his legs wide apart so his ball can have some air to breathe.




 Anyway, I digress, when I reached home, the anesthetic actually wore off just in time and I could feel my mouth again, it was amazing how the dentist got the timing right because I got to drink my Gong Cha without having to worry that it will start leaking out from the right side of my mouth... I know that because as I was gargling my mouth during the procedure, water was leaking on the right side and I had to lean my head to the left to properly rinse my mouth.

Incoming Root Canal Surgery

So apparently now I have a zit growing on my gums, as if the ones I am getting on my face aren't enough, now they are popping out inside my mouth as well and it's the same as how a zit that has yet to show it's whiteness feels on the face, sore and painful.

Initially I wasn't sure whether or not to visit a doctor or a dentist, but decided since it was an oral issue, the dentist it was. Made an appointment today and popped by the dentist office, the dentist couldn't really do much because he specialized in braces and the white zit on my gum was obviously not braces related, so he took an X-ray came to the conclusion that one of my tooth has been infected, like right inside the teeth and the only way to solve this problem was for me to get a fucking root canal.

I didn't have a good experience with the dentist during my secondary school days, it was painful, it was long and it actually scared me to the point I started working on my oral hygiene so I would not have to experience what I experience in secondary school ever again, and now I get presented with a scenario that's even worst.

The procedure for getting my braces done wasn't bad because it was something I wanted, my wisdom tooth surgery was pretty much painless because I was put under general anesthesia, so even if there were any oral injections, which I am fucking scared off, I wouldn't know, BUT with the root canal surgery, it's not something I want to go through but have to otherwise I would get really sick from it, or as Google Search tells me, I "might get brain damage and die from the infection" which sounds like some Greys' Anatomy or House M.D. episode,  and during the root canal surgery, I won't be put under general anesthesia but local, which means a lot of oral injections are about to come my way.

I really want to pop this fucking zit in my mouth though, apparently it will bring some sort of instant relief, because it was drain out all the puss and I won't have this aching lump in my gum anymore, but there's a chance I might get an infection if I'm not careful with the sterilization of my needles, which I don't have and was contemplating on using a toothpick... which is just a very bad idea, so the lump is still in my gum but the pain is being put under control by painkillers.  

Surgery is going to happen on Tuesday and I am really hoping the dentist will apply some topical anesthesia on my gums first before injecting and please let the anesthesia work, I don't want to have to go through the whole surgery feeling the dentist probing, digging and yanking out the nerves in my teeth because that will really fucking hurt like a fucking bitch, I mean drilling a cavity near the nerves of my teeth is already bad enough.... but grabbing a raw nerve and yanking it out is going to fucking hurt, or as the dentist would say...."this might sting a little"...biggest fucking lie ever.

My kind of crack.

Was at Suntec City yesterday for a family dinner and decided that after that dinner, it would be a great idea to drop by Lady M to get some cakes.


The Lady M outlet in Singapore is pretty notorious for their horrible service, evident from the myriad of unhappy customer reviews on their Facebook page.



When I was at their Marina Square outlet yesterday, I have to admit I was very surprised with the service, there was an obvious improvement compared to the first 2 times I visit, which was honestly atrocious, good riddance to the previous service crew because those guys were horrible at their job.




So I bought 3 slices of cake because there's always space in my stomach for cake, total bill was $27, or thereabouts, each slice of cake cost an average of $9.




Insert Red Velvet Picture because I ate it up before I could take a shot of it. The important thing is that it's fucking awesome and probably the best red velvet cake I have ever eaten.. and I have never eaten much because I'm not a fan of cream cheese, so for all I know, this might not even be considered a true Red Velvet Cake by Red Velvet connoisseurs who travels around the world eating a not really chocolate nor vanilla cakes dyed with a lot of artificial food coloring.




Next one I had was the Strawberry Shortcake, which I ate 2 hours after finishing had the Red Velvet cake.

Awesome Japanese Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcakes are generally quite straightforward so there isn't really anything to scream about, Lady M manages to get everything right with the light and fluffy sponge that's been very generously brushed with sugar syrup, perfectly whipped cream with a good amount of strawberry thrown into the mix so I am able to get the sponge cake, the whipped cream and the strawberry with every bite.



I have tried making Strawberry Shortcake at home before, but with the kind of weather and humidity, it's a nightmare, and at that time, I didn't have a stand mixer which made it even worse for making the cake and the whipped cream. It tasted alright, but seeing the lumpy whipped cream smeared all over the cake was quite a turn off... it's like trying to eating a bar of chocolate while watching 2 girls 1 cup.




The last one I had was the Matcha Crepe Cake.

Full Sliced Glory

I have to admit, I was a little hesistant to get this at first because I didn't really liked the original Mille Crepe cake, it was all buttery and I'm really not a fan of the smell of butter, but when I was choosing the cakes, it just happened.

Half Sliced Glory

It was a lot better than I had anticipated, but because I wasn't exactly a fan of matcha, this one wasn't my favorite out of the three, in fact I think I will have to put this as my least favorite, not that it's not good, it's great,but I like my cakes to have cake sponge in them.






Lady M is one the of the few bakeries that manages to make me feel very satisfied after eating the cakes they make, the other one being Plain Vanilla Bakery, like I feel actual joy after having a bite, it's a bit weird, like a little euphoric.... good cakes are my kind of crack.



To think the first time I bought their cakes, I thought they were overrated because I really didn't like eating the Original Mille Crepe, in fact I hated it, I had to force myself to finish it because it was too expensive to throw away and the checkerboard cake was just pretty looking and that was it, I really didn't find the checkerboard cake to be good at all, it honestly tasted very mediocre at that time.

Not really in love with "Cupcakes with Love"

Today, I was at Clementi Mall having dinner with my family when I came across this cupcake shop called Cupcakes With Love.

I have passed by the shop many times on my way to work, but I have never really had the desire to make any purchase from them, I almost did a few days back, but no one was manning the counter at that time, probably because they were at the back baking and frosting the cupcakes, so I gave it a miss.

Today, I decided it was time to give this bakery a shot and I have to say, the service was great, I had a very good first impression, so when the lady told me to get 4 cupcakes instead of 2, I agreed and got 4 instead so I could get them in a box.

Flavors I got.

 Mint                            Red Velvet

Adult Chocolate                   Milo  

It's very cute looking, not the best presentation but that's their style, sadly, the cupcakes themselves weren't exactly fantastic. So far I have tried Mint and Red Velvet and both of them just aren't really very good and with very good reasons.




The Mint cupcake has a good chocolate sponge base, taste very much like the chocolate cake recipe I use at home, but the frosting was pretty terrible, not because there's very little frosting on it or because it's too sweet, it was terrible because it tasted like chemicals, not just an aftertaste, it tasted very bitter when I was eating it,  probably either from too much peppermint extract, too much food coloring, or maybe a combination of both that made it taste that way. The little fondant ball was nice though but the frosting was just inedible, which is ironic because I ate the whole thing anyway, bite by bitter bite.



Makes me wonder if the person who actually made the frosting did give it a try first before slapping it on their cupcakes because it's just straight up bitter.... or maybe they used creme de menthe for flavoring, if that's the case then it explain the bitterness. I don't drink liqueur so I wouldn't know if it will make the buttercream bitter.





The Red Velvet was recommended to me by the shop assistant, I wasn't really interested at first because I don't care much for cream cheese frosting, but since she was so friendly, I decided to follow her recommendation and got the Red Velvet. First thing I noticed about the Red Velvet was that it was relatively lower than the other cakes, when I gave it a squeeze test to see how soft the cake sponge was, I found it to be pretty hard, like if I were to throw it at someone really hard, it would probably hurt.



Initially I thought that the texture would be similar to a pound cake since it was so dense, but after having a bite, I found out it's nothing like a pound cake, it was honestly a little bit tough bordering towards doughy, might stem from the fact that it was either not  creamed long enough, that's why it's so dense or maybe too much flour and not enough rising agent in the cake batter I don't know, but the cake wasn't good, the frosting on the other hand was nice, I like myself a sweet sugary frosting, so this cream cheese frosting was great, but nothing beats Plain Vanilla's cream cheese frosting that taste nothing like cream cheese, probably why I like it so much. The little ball on this cake was a Malteser and Maltesers are always yummy.


Update After trying out all the flavors



Milo wasn't very Milo-y, it's really just a normal vanilla cake topped with vanilla buttercream and dusted with Milo powder, that's the only Milo in the cupcake, the dusting of Milo Powder.  In their defense, the cupcake wasn't just called "Milo", it was a longer name I couldn't remember, but I was expecting the cupcake to at least have some Milo ganache in the core or something so that was disappointing.



The cake base itself was a little sub-par, it looks like the vanilla cupcakes I made using recipes I found online before I started working professionally at the bakery, recipes that aren't very good to be honest.



Frosting was just regular Vanilla American Buttercream dusted with Milo powder and topped with a Malteser, Pale and sugary like how an American Buttercream should be, nothing to scream about. I mean if I can replicate the recipes at home, then it's really not that impressive to me.




The one I probably enjoyed the most was the Adult Chocolate cupcake, the same chocolate cupcake base but spiked with rum. The chocolate ganache I'm assuming also has a bit of rum added in it. I normally don't pick ganache topped cupcake as my favorite because I really like buttercream frosting, but honestly, the other cupcakes were pretty sub-par for me to pick as a favorite.


The Mint buttercream was straight up bitter.
The Red Velvet cake had a dry and hard cake base that I am not a fan of. I like my sponge cake light and fluffy, not tough, I mean the whole point of a sponge cake is for it to be light and fluffy.
The Milo was just false advertising, it's just Vanilla Cupcake with Milo Powder.


So the only one that was above average was the Adult Chocolate.



I really want to like the cupcakes from this shop because the sales assistant was very nice and friendly, but sadly, the cakes just weren't up to standard, I've read reviews from other blogs as well about the shop and surprisingly, they have only good things to say about it, so maybe it was a bad day for the baking team that day or maybe the bloggers don't really have a mind of their own and just followed what everyone else was saying because there is NO WAY the red velvet cupcake I tasted could be deem "Hands down best red velvet ever", that being said, I will probably be giving Cupcakes With Love the benefit of the doubt and will give it another shot next time. For now, I will probably go back to getting my regular cupcake fix from Twelve Cupcakes because that shop is sprouting out every where, that  or bake them myself when I am feeling up for it, because honestly, I think the cupcake I make using recipes I have gotten from the bakery have a much better taste and texture than those from Cupcakes With Love.




The last time I heard someone I know comparing her own homemade cupcakes to a professorial cupcake bakery like Twelve Cupcakes, saying how hers was so much better, I couldn't help but find her to be a bit cocky, she's the same person who said her greatest weakness was her perfectionism...

 ..... both are pretty bold statements to make, she was blabbering on about how she thinks her cupcakes are way better whilst I was eating a red velvet cupcake from Twelve Cupcakes... really hated the cream cheese frosting though so I was having difficulty enjoying it but anyways, she actually brought her own that day and I did try it, and being the civil person that I am, I just went...

"Mmmm, it's not bad." 

.....because it's really not that good, and while I was eating her cupcake, I kept wondering in my head why she would assume that this cupcake of hers would be considered better than Twelve Cupcakes. The flavor was alright, but the sponge cake was horrible because it was hard. I didn't really want to say it in her face because it was a little bit rude , but it was not better than Twelve Cupcakes.




My friend who was seated beside me who also had a cupcake from Twelve Cupcakes earlier leaned in to me while he was having her cupcake and went...

"Better than Twelve Cucpakes meh?"

I mean I really do appreciate her effort in baking for us, but those kind of praises are best left for others to say.... even the perfectionism part.




Speaking of baking cupcakes at home...

 Rose Cupcake with Rose Buttercream Pipped Rosette Style.

I made some Rose Cupcakes today paired with Rose flavored Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I really didn't like the cupcakes though because I am not a huge fan of the Rose flavoring on cupcakes, love it in a macaron but cupcakes, I think I will stick with the traditional flavours.



The original idea was to make an Ispahan inspired Cupcake, that means a rose flavoured cupcake with raspberry swirl topped with lychee buttercream. Sadly, I didn't have raspberry jam, so I opted for the strawberry jam I had at home. The jam was so thick I couldn't swirl it properly, so I gave up after the first spoonful and just squirted the jam into the cupcake after it baked, it didn't really taste good with strawberry jam.



The buttercream was a disaster, flavour wise because my flavouring was suppose to be coming from the lychee martini my Mum got from Mauritius. The lychee flavour  from the Martini was unfortunately not strong enough to be imparted into the buttercream,  so I gave up on that and just made rose buttercream.


In the end, I got a pumped up rose cupcake.... and I didn't enjoy eating it. So now they are all in the freezer, awaiting to be eaten by my Mum's friend next Friday. 

A Keitai to stay.

About 2 days ago, my urge to get a new phone finally kicked in.



This is a phase I always go through, and it normally happens because I have commitment issues with my mobile phones, when I am stuck with a phone for too long, it starts to bore me and I have to go get a new one. In the past, during my secondary school days, the desire to get a new phone was a lot frequent because phones during that time all looked very different, there were many form factors to choose from and the form factor I always ended up getting enticed by were the flip phones.





Nowadays, all the phones in the market are all the same boring candy bar form, huge screen with a single button on the front. I used to be able to tell phones apart from far away, only needed the smallest detail to distinguish if it was a Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson or a Samsung etc, if it was the latest model or an old one, that was how obsess I was with phones in the past, I looked at phone reviews when I was bored, I knew my friends phone models and specification more than they themselves knew, I even did a presentation about mobile phones when I was in Poly for my English class because I am a phone junkie. In my defense, the presentation was a lot more interesting than it sounds.... probably because of my nervous laughing fits which I was having under controlled relatively well at that time.




Anyways, I decided since all the phones in the market currently are so shit ass boring, it would be a great idea to go look at some Japanese Phones on the internet instead, that was 2 days ago and because they have the most awesome flip phones in the world, that was when that urge became an obsession.




I have gotten Japanese Phones in the past before, or keitais as they are known in Japan, in Sim Lim Square and I did not have a good experience.




The shop I patronized was called Tiffian, I remember calling the shop up and talking to the boss, asked him about the phones and was told that the phones were brand new, but I went there, I found out the phones were NOT actually brand new, when I made my purchase, instead of getting me a sealed unopened box like any other mobile shop would, the boss just took the one I was playing with from the display case and said that was the phone he was selling, I was baffled, so I asked him if that was brand new, he insisted that it was and so I then went on to enquire where the original packaging was, where was the box as well as the accessories that comes with it like the original charger, because he didn't give me an original charger but a third party one that probably cost less than 10 bucks, he, being the scammer that he is, said I had to pay extra for it and by "it" I meant the box, like the bloody box with the instructions manuals and warranty, and apparently if I wanted to get the other accessories,I had to purchase them separately, at this point, I feel obligated to point out that I was extremely fucking stupid and gullible at that time, so I just took his word for it and got it anyway because I was desperate to own a keitai of my own.... the cost was $280 or thereabouts.

THIS IS NOT MY PICTURE. I don't even have half of what was in this box.

I bought the SO905i model from him and this was what a "BRAND NEW" SO905i should have.

Check List
The Phone - Check
The Charger - Half Check (mine wasn't the original one)
Charging Dock - NiL
Earphone Adaptor (one of the white box) - NiL
Data Cable (one of the white box)- NiL
Instruction Manauls and Warranty - NiL
The Box - NiL


This is a secondhand phone that was being sold on the Yahoo Auction and it has even more things in it than the supposed "Brand New" set I was getting from the Tiffian guy. 

Went home and found out the phone had some issues with outgoing call, so I called up the boss with my home phone that very night and he said I could go back the next day and he could either give me a full refund or I had the option of exchanging it with another model, with a top up fee... being the desperate whore for a keitai I was at that time, I went with the latter and topped up to get an even nicer looking one, and I'm sure if I had asked for a full refund instead, he would probably have tried to find fault with the device and not give me the full refund. So I topped up about an additional $80, I think, to get a nicer model. I remember going there with a friend of mine, and he was not pleased with my decision to not get the full refund, thinking back, I should have listened to him, but at that time, it was actually a little annoying.

NOT MY PICTURE

Got a Black SH906i cost me around $360 or thereabouts.

Once again, no box, just the phone he took out from the display case at the corner of his shop, and he didn't even exchange the charger, he said they were the same type so I could just keep the charger I was holding on to and just keep using that.

Obviously not original because those 2 phones were made from by different companies, the first one was Sony Ericsson and this beauty of a flip phone was from Sharp.

The new phone worked fine and it was around 2 days later when the initial excitement of getting a new phone died down, I got a bit suspicious about the "new phone" and decided to do some research on the shop, because I'm really slow like that, stumbled across the hardwarezone forums and found out that the shop had a very bad reputation, to the point users were actually finding the picture of the boss and pasting it all over the forums to make a mockery out of him.



 Apparently all the pictures of the phones that were shown on his website, pictures which shows the handsets still in their original packaging, were stolen from another keitai seller, who was a lot more reputable, and as if that wasn't bad enough,  he kept insinuating on the forum post that he was working with the other seller...


"You can contact me (contact no.) , reputable seller, or Jane or whatever the fuck her name was (contact no.) for all your keitai needs."



 ....like they were working under the same company, which was of course not true at all, he was working with that Jane chick because I have seen her at the store itself, but he was obviously not working with the other seller and the forum users know that and outed him for it, it was only then did  I actually realize I have been duped into believing the phone he sold to me was "Brand New" when in actuality, it was probably stolen from somewhere, allegedly, I mean got no box, no original charger, no accessories, all he had for display and to sell were just the phones on their own.




So I decided I didn't want to keep the phone if I don't even know how it was obtained in the first place and thus I sold the phone back to the guy. I called the boss the following day and told him I wanted to sell back the phone, I wasn't about to go and confront him about lying to me, most of the time they will make a huge scene or something to that caliber, so I just said I wasn't used to the OS and want to stick with my old phone, he was all friendly about it and said he will buy back the phone yada yada, but with a hundred dollar reduction... went back the next day and I pass him the phone , he takes it, looks at it and goes...

"I have to minus another $100 because you take off the screen protector. No screen protector very hard to sell as first hand."

Complete bullshit, the moment you took it out from it's original box packaging, it's no longer first hand, it's called a display unit and display units should never be sold as "brand new", but apparently, to him, first hand meant with screen protector and used by someone for less than 3 days, disgusting, but because I really didn't want to hold on to that phone anymore and also didn't want to deal with him, I just agreed and sold the phone back to him with a $200 loss. It was a very expensive lesson learnt.



That's why now I hardly ever shop at Sim Lim Square... unless they have that STARetailer logo on their sign.

Gave up the idea of getting a Japanese Phone for a while, for like 5 years, until 2 days ago when I decided to take a look at the reputable seller's webpage, sgkeitai.  I know he can be trusted because I have seen a lot of positive feedback about him in the hardwarezone forum and I did try getting a keitai from him once, but his prices were a little too steep for the non-working student I was at that time compared to that Sim Lim Square shop, with very good reasoning.... but now that I have an income, I decided if I was gonna get a keitai, I was going to get it from him.

Whats-app him about the phone yesterday, and my interest in getting it,had a bit of back and forth before finally making a decision this morning and ended up making my purchase today at Marina Square.

This time, the phone came in the original packaging, there was the charger, the charging dock, the usb cable, the phone, memory card and really anything that's suppose to come with the phone came with the phone.

 Sharp Softbank 007SH. 

The amount I paid for that phone, I could have gotten a PS4 and still have some cash leftover. It was crazy expensive at $650, it's not even the latest model, in fact, the model was released back in 2011, the reason for the steep price was because it was the first android flip phone in the market in Japan and apparently the only one that's software unlocked, which means any SIM card will work on it. Plus this was the last 2 sets he had that came in white, a model that has discontinued production in Japan

I was very excited when I first got my hands on it, but after 2 hours in, I got over it because it was the laggiest android I have ever used.  It's running on Gingerbread, the last time Gingerbread was considered "UPDATED" was 4 years ago when I first got my hands on the Xperia X10, which I lost in the bus on my way home, 2 weeks after I bought it, what a fucking idiot, the phone was huge and I didn't even realize it had slipped out of my pocket it in the bus until like 2 days later because that's how often I use my phone in the past.




Anyways, the amount of RAM the 007SH has is abysmal, the internal memory is less than 300mb and really, it's so unbearably slow compared to my iPhone because of all the bullshit third party software the company has decided to install in it, plus the pathetic amount of RAM it has.... I can't root it because it's a Japanese handset and also because I am not sure how to, that's why I had no choice but to return back to my iPhone.

Swivel Screen is always nice, although I do worry one day the hinge will just break when I suddenly get OCD and have to swivel that screen a hundred times before I can feel go back to my regular schedule of doing nothing productive.

I still have another SIM card, so I just stick it inside and let the phone have the ability to switch on and be the fucking awesome flip phone it is, but because of the pathetic RAM and very sad 256mb of internal memory, my initial attempts at trying to install all my social networking apps just ends up bring the whole system to a crawl. 

Whenever I try to open the facebook app, it will load for a few second and then crash like it's fucking teasing me. Good thing I am not addicted to Facebook, sadly, I am addicted to Youtube and if this phone can't even run Facebook, I highly doubt Youtube works, probably just explodes japanese confetti in my face when I try to load a video.

When swiveld and closed, it just becomes the thickest and most sluggish android phone I have ever used. I always thought my Huawei phone was laggy, but I found something else to take that title and to think it's a Japanese Product, losing to a China product. Both are released in the same year, the Huawei in the latter quaeter.

I can install Whatsapp and this SMS Go app, apparently the Japanese don't SMS but instead sends emails to each other, so no built in SMS application, which is a little odd. 

The phone is now essentially just a very sluggish android device without the capabilities of a phone, sucks that I paid so much for it. I have since done a factory reset and only install WhatsApp, an SMS app, 9GAG and Opera Browser because Chrome only runs on Android Jellybean and Firefox slows the phone down way too much.

The other phone I was actually eyeing was the Android Flip phone from Samsung that's running on Jelly Bean, and only available in China and Korea, I think, sgkeitai was also selling it, but unfortunately, it was $999, and I wasn't about to go and spend $1000 on a phone that I won't be able to trade in in the future. I really wanted that model though, if I had gotten that and it was as "smooth" as my old HTC Butterfly, I would probably have sold my iPhone away to recover some of the damage from my bank savings account. But that is a Korean flip phone and no one does flip phones netter than the Japanese, another reason why I went for the Keitai, plus it looks nicer than the Samsung one..

I wouldn't say I heavily regretted buying the phone because it's ultimately a flip phone keitai, a thing of beauty in my eyes, but it's just too underwhelming for me. I would have loved it if I had bought it like 4 to 5 years ago, when Facebook, Twitter and Youtube was done solely on the computer.... but now that I require surfing them before I actually decide to try and get some sleep, it's just not going to work out. 

Oh, and the battery is pretty bad, like really fucking horrible, it apparently hardly last a day on full charge , when I asked the seller about it, he  laughed and then acknowledged that the battery was indeed pretty bad. I wasn't even using it and within 5 minutes the battery dropped 2%, it was on freaking standby mode and it dropped 2% in 5 minutes, that's bloody ridiculous.  But I'm probably going to keep it, as a spare phone when my iPhone suddenly dies on me, because that's the only valid excuse I will have for using it as my main phone.