The Rubik's Cube... Part 1

I'm a Rubik's Cube Enthusiast... it's a fun and challenging puzzle that can hook you on it for months on end!

Started playing with the Rubik's cube in 2004, I've learnt 2 different methods of solving "the best selling puzzle in the world", and as I got better and better at it, I started to learn the advanced methods of "speed-cubing", challenging myself and fellow church friends on who can solve the cube the quickest.. (Francis Chong is my old Comorado) In my better days, I average 1 minute 40 seconds to complete solving a cube from random scrambled state (ahh, those were the days) Francis also told me that one day in his room, he was lucky to solve his cube in 40-odd seconds (haha.. pure luck that never visited him again, I'm afraid).

The world record for speed-cubing now stands at under 30 seconds.

Recently, I started to play my cubes again (why do men go through seasons in everything? Haha..) and better still, the season for cube-buying is in, as apparently Toys-R-us has stock for the orginal Rubik's cubes! (more on that later..)

A little background info first... this puzzle toy is so taken-for-granted and so, how do I say it.... chiche, that it's very difficult to find a shop in Singapore selling an original Rubik's cube.. many cheap fakes are available, costing $0.80 to $1 to $4.80, but the smoothest cubes are still the original cubes, costing a whooping $17.90! And that's my favourite cube (Francis prefers the $4.80 cube, I still wonder why). Only the expensive cubes have springs inside it's chassis (spring-loaded cubes is the correct term) that allows for speed-cubing.. if I were to do speed-cubing on a $1 cube, it will break into pieces, for sure...

And the original Rubik's cubes have the highest quality labels that last the longest too! ($1 cube lasted me 1 week before the colour labels started peeling, the $4.80 cube was better, but it didn't come in the official colours of White, Yellow, Red, Orange, Blue and Green) Rubik's colour labels have lasted me 3 months, before it started to show signs of strenuous wear and tear, not to mention that the red colour has faded into orange:

Ok, back to Cube shopping... I was looking for another Rubik's Cube to replace my current one (the last time I found it was in Comic's Connection, of all places)... Now Comics Collection doesn't bring it in anymore, and surprisingly, Toys R Us decided to start selling these cubes again, after many many years!

My weekend of cube shopping brought me some great new surprises, cos I'd never thought I'd see them in Sunny Singapore:

The 25th Anniversary Edition 3x3 Rubik's Cube:

The Rubik's Revenge 4x4 Cube:


The Rubik's 5x5 Professor Cube:



Wow... the 25th anniversary edition came in a really nice packaging, and on top of that, it was my first time seeing the 4x4 and the 5x5, and they look really enticing! Had to buy them all, and started working on the 4x4... after 2 days of learning the challenges of the new cube, I managed to solve it!

Nice... =)

It was an eye opener for me when playing with the 4x4 cube, cos I realised that it's important to master the 3x3 first, before moving on to the bigger cubes. The 3x3 sort of acts as a foundation training for the bigger cubes.

Hehe... during my play with the cube in 2004, I've learnt a lot of spiritual lessons with the cube, which warrants an entire post by itself, which I'll share next time...

As of now, what a happy boy I am! =)