Moomin Valley

I can't submit my tax return yet as I don't have details of the tax treatment of a couple of distributions I received. But I did all...

When http://moominhouse.blogspot.com/2011/07/yoyo-tackles-korean-food.html">I posted a picture of Yoyo looking at Sushi I said that...

Bibimbap can be served in a sizzling bowl which you are supposed to add soup and hot sauce to complete the preparation. But, then, sometimes...

A bar with a river of alcohol! The traditional Korean drink makoli to be precise: This was in the Sinchon neighborhood. You can drink as mu...

With all the talk about the U.S. credit rating possibly being lowered to AA from AAA due to the debt ceiling debate debacle, I was wondering...

We found lots of attractions and places to eat in Seoul by following a guidebook that Snork Maiden bought at Hong Kong airport. First she ha...

Time for the annual report on Snork Maiden's taxes. For some reason, these are some of my most popular posts. For comparison here is las...

Soros to return all outside money to investors . I didn't realise that it was down to just $1 billion in outside money. The Alchemy of F...

At this place, in the Sinchon neighborhood, the staff cook your food in a big pan built into your table. It is supposedly chicken, but was m...

Namdaemun (Nan da men in modern Mandarin Chinese - South Great Gate) is a market area in the centre of Seoul. We had lunch one day in a res...

We went to a restaurant in the Insadong neighborhood that claimed to serve "temple food". This meant that the food was vegetaria...

Yoyo takes on a Korean melon: Yes, they are really small. Snork Maiden thought that the skin was edible. I wasn't so sure. Yoyo wasn...

Traditional pictures of food coming up soon. No you can't actually take a train to Pyeongyang from this station. 50m down the tracks th...

The government announced its climate policy package today. It's expected to get through parliament. The carbon price will apply to only ...

The HFRX hedge fund index lost another 1.59% in June and is down for the year by 2.12%. By comparison, the MSCI World stock index was down b...

It looks like I'll be going there soon too . Two new countries this year then. It's going to be an even crazier year, travelwise . ...

The Australian financial year ends on June 30. Investment results for June are always delayed due to this. But here are the preliminary acco...

I blogged that we wanted to buy shares in the Cambria GTAA ETF for my Mom among other investments we were making in the portfolio. But the ...

Does it make sense to make non-concessional superannuation contributions? These are after tax contributions to a retirement account in Austr...

Back in 1989 I got my first full-time professional job after I completed my master's degree. The salary was initially £10,500 p.a. I was...

In Australia, individuals who earn more than $A75k a year and households who earn more than $A150k per year need to pay an extra 1% of tax o...

I got an offer of a continuing/permanent job. It's only an informal offer at this stage but a formal offer is guaranteed pretty much. We...

The bracelet on my old watch kept breaking - it was made of aluminium - getting it fixed cost $5 a time. So I gave up and bought a new watch...

Been trying to book a trip to visit the DMZ/JSA while I'm in Korea. I was too late for the USO tour. So now I'm trying with this ope...

Following up on the post on changes to my Mom's portfolio . The bank suggested some more investments. Two funds of REITs: UBS Global Rea...

Following on from yesterday's post on retirement savings , here is the chart of our non-retirement savings: Again, it's not adjusted...

I was curious how our current retirement saving rate compared to past years. Digging into my account spreadsheets I came up with this. This ...

The broad Credit Suisse/Dow Jones Hedge Fund Index did not perform as badly as the more narrow indices in May :

This Wall Street Journal article goes on about how an exchange traded managed fund like the proposed PIMCO Total Return ETF is not big deal...

According to the Credit Suisse/Dow Jones Core Index, hedge funds performed almost as badly as stocks in May: The MSCI World Index lost 2.06...

I went to a seminar by our superannuation (retirement fund) provider at my employer today. The presenter referenced a recent Australian surv...

Holders of units in the EAIT fund of hedge funds recently received an offer to buy their shares for $0.70 a share: As you can see, the unit...

On Friday I bought about 5000 shares in Platinum Capital (PMC.AX) at $1.21 which is close to the net asset value. Usually this closed-end fu...

We have now made a bunch of moves in my Mom-s portfolio. First we sold down two bond funds and increased our investment in the Man-AHL diver...

As usual everything is in USD. The AUD fell for a change to 106.6 US cents from 109.4 US cents. This reduced our returns in USD terms and in...

Lot of moves this month reflected in these figures. World stock markets fell and the US Dollar rose negatively affecting Moominmama's re...

Like HFRI vs. HFRX the broad Credit Suisse index shows stronger gains than the narrower core index this month, with the index rising 1.8% o...

I just booked my trip to Korea. Later in the year I may go to the US. And I already visited Cloud Cuckoo Land (CCL). It will be my busiest f...

There is a trend to earlier and earlier reporting each month of the results of the various hedge fund indices. Credit Suisse, now has a ...

As usual everything is in USD. The AUD rose yet again to 109.4 US cents. This improved our returns in USD terms and reduced them in AUD term...

The portfolio had nice gains in April, though largely due to the fall in the US Dollar. The MSCI World Index rose 4.15% and the portfolio 3....

I'm at the airport in Cloud Cuckoo Land on my way home. The internet at the airport is free as is university education in this country. ...

More interesting statistics from the US IRS . 34,000 estates needed to pay estate tax in 2009 and the average value of these estates was $5....

The US IRS puts out an annual report on the top 400 US taxpayers . In 2007, the average federal tax rate paid on adjusted gross income was o...