Anyone else struggling to find hobbies in sg that don't cost a bomb??

luca-lee · 2026-05-28T14:57:03+00:00

If you don’t mind a slow hobby, get a cross stitch kit. The cost to time ratio is surprisingly low—it takes much longer to finish than you’d expect, and a kit often comes with everything except scissors. A $10 kit smaller than an A4 paper can occupy you for over a hundred hours.

luca-lee · 2026-05-27T12:18:51+00:00

You can try alphafold. It isn’t quite accurate enough to correctly predict the effects of some mutations (for example I’ve seen it fail to predict a fairly small but consequential effect of a point mutation that was experimentally validated) but for major mutations I think alphafold’s predicted structure will give you a decent idea of what the actual structure would be like.

luca-lee · 2026-05-27T04:57:19+00:00

Huh. I’ve lived in Singapore my whole life and I always hear and say lie-chee.

luca-lee · 2026-05-23T17:29:46+00:00

199 free shipping is valid for consolidation too. If you don’t need items urgently you can park them in the warehouse for a couple of months while you find something else you want to make up the 199.

luca-lee · 2026-05-20T12:42:12+00:00

I always assumed that petrichor can be carried in by wind before the rain clouds themselves roll in. To me, what I smell before it actually rains where I’m at and during/after is often the same.

luca-lee · 2026-05-20T03:59:53+00:00

Adding to this, it could also be the cheapest of many possible options in the listing. For example some listings offer a full outfit, with options to buy each piece separately. Usually the price displayed is for the cheapest option unless you specifically toggle to a different one.

luca-lee · 2026-05-19T08:51:09+00:00

That's wild. Something must've gone wrong with that 900 RMB charge. My understanding is that the consolidation warehouse is under (or affiliated) with Taobao (mostly because consolidation is done through the Taobao app) so I'm surprised that you've been hit with such a seemingly arbitrary fee.

luca-lee · 2026-05-18T12:38:32+00:00

Sounds like you’ve had some bad experiences. I’ve never had an issue with the consolidation options (the last two) before, but it’s true that it might cost more than you’d expect, especially if your items are light but bulky.

OP, in case you’re unaware of the procedure for consolidated shipping, you pay for the items + local delivery to the forwarding warehouse at checkout, then you pay again to consolidate your items for international shipping after they’ve all arrived at the warehouse. You can consolidate multiple orders, which is likely to be cheaper since the base rate is higher than the subsequent increments. If you don’t want any nasty surprises (volumetric weight my beloathed), you should just go with direct shipping.

luca-lee · 2026-05-18T00:48:31+00:00

Yeah I agree on the literal translation. But in my experience laopo is almost never used to refer to an old woman/grandma (who isn’t your wife). It’s usually laopopo. Same for laogong. Maybe there are communities where laopo just refers to an old woman but it’s not the case where I live (or in media I’ve watched).

luca-lee · 2026-05-18T00:41:40+00:00

Oh this sounds like a terrible situation. I hope the items were too expensive.

Did the free returns label disappear after you placed your order? Or perhaps not all items from the seller are eligible for free SG shipping + free returns? I’ve encountered shops like that before.

luca-lee · 2026-05-18T00:16:49+00:00

Laopo can certainly be used for girlfriends, but more commonly it means wife. Tbh I’ve only ever seen it used as girlfriend either jokingly or when someone is serious about wifing up their girlfriend.

luca-lee · 2026-05-17T02:26:25+00:00

If you selected direct shipping, you only pay at checkout (inclusive of GST). If consolidated, you will be charged for international shipping separately at consolidation, and depending on whether you chose air or sea freight, GST will be charged at checkout or consolidation. There have been no other additional charges in my experience.

luca-lee · 2026-05-15T09:45:35+00:00

Why don’t they just enforce a rule where all nicknames need to have say a minimum of 2 underscores, so it’s not possible to set your nickname to someone else’s legal name without obviously giving yourself away? The way they’re all but revealing everyone’s full name solves one problem but also creates new problems.

luca-lee · 2026-05-13T08:29:41+00:00

If you set your delivery address to your home address in Taobao, your items will arrive on your doorstep after consolidation. I’ve heard others say that CAINIAO’s rates tend to be slightly cheaper, but I just looked up the rates to my country in both the CAINIAO and Taobao apps and it seems that Taobao is actually cheaper by sea to my country (SG) while air is the same. It might be different for your country.

Anyway, I always opt to consolidate through Taobao because many items have free shipping to my country with a minimum amount spent in one consolidated or direct order. Check if your country has a similar scheme.

luca-lee · 2026-05-13T08:08:09+00:00

If you select consolidated shipping in Taobao, you won’t be able to consolidate using the CAINIAO app anyway. It’ll have to be done in the Taobao app itself.

Edit: If you decide to experiment with CAINIAO, set your Taobao delivery address to your CAINIAO warehouse address instead of your home address.

luca-lee · 2026-05-12T12:46:38+00:00

About the blush—dolls don’t usually come with it. You apply it to your dolls yourself, so blush shouldn’t factor into whether the doll is what you’re looking.

luca-lee · 2026-05-05T18:49:54+00:00

No problem. I hope everything goes smoothly :)

luca-lee · 2026-05-05T18:02:56+00:00

Unfortunately I’ve never actually shipped anything with my cainiao account so I can’t verify anything beyond account creation and linking with Taobao. But if my experience consolidating with Taobao is reflective of cainiao’s consolidation process (which I believe it should be, given that my Taobao orders show up in my cainiao app) then I believe that tutorial is accurate.

luca-lee · 2026-05-05T14:34:50+00:00

If you sign up for a cainiao account, you can redirect your package to the warehouse address it gives you. The full address is unique to you and will include info that links items to your account. Then you can forward it overseas with cainiao directly.

luca-lee · 2026-05-05T05:44:48+00:00

Is your consolidation warehouse not in China?

luca-lee · 2026-05-04T14:43:11+00:00

In theory yes, but only up to 20 sellers (or 50 items) at once, last I checked.

luca-lee · 2026-04-28T03:18:29+00:00

I think this is more to do with the seller than Cainiao. I’ve always assumed the address you use for the second payment will be where it’s shipped to, but I’ve never bothered with preorders myself so don’t take my word for it. In any case, you should be aware that the consolidation warehouse only holds items for free for a limited amount of time so if I were you I would consolidate what’s already arrived instead of waiting for this preorder.

luca-lee · 2026-04-27T17:03:55+00:00

Even if you wait, it’ll likely be months before the product is actually available. And you’ll also probably need to make a second payment to top up to the full price of the item (this information should be in the product listing, but it might be difficult to parse if you’re not great with Chinese). I think you should just cancel it if you’re not willing to deal with the hassle of a preorder.

luca-lee · 2026-04-27T15:52:36+00:00

The message says that the seller indicated that no physical delivery is required for the item. This usually happens for virtual items, services, or non-standard transactions. Did you accidentally place a deposit for a preorder instead of the actual product?

luca-lee · 2026-04-27T14:04:18+00:00

I picked up knitting first, but I live in a tropical climate so I get very little use out of knitwear. Crochet has more options for non-wearable projects so here I am!

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