Singapore-Taking a Closer Look

After taking so many pictures of other countries, I must admit that I took my home ground for granted. I took this chance to capture some nice scenes while bringing Yuki and Yoshio around Singapore, before they head back to Japan... The shots weren't good, though...

Bukit Timah Hill

I've never appreciated these puny creatures and wildlife more than I have ever before... at least, not before taking up a course in Zoology... Invertebrates had been never my cup of tea.. but it's different now. Like what David Attenborough had said.. these creatures form the basis of life, they aerate the soil and kept the life cycle going. Without them, we human beings would not have existed.

courtship in insects

the Summit

fungi

ants' nest

spider and it's well-woven web


pregnant and ferocious monkey

Dan Ryan's

Christmas Light-up @ Orchard Road

Shaaslik Russian Restaurant

Ice-cream Dessert

The Big Walk'08 @ Marina Barrage

The huge crowd on the bridge prompted someone to sing " Sg bridge is falling down..."

We've finally reached our destination... the Marina Barrage


And the best view of the flyer is from here...


My neighbourhood

I love the sky during sunset... this picture is taken from my room.

This shelter was brightly-lited by some residents during mooncake festival

My Lanterns

Mr. P's Lantern

City's Night Scene

The F1 track viewed from the flyer ( overexposed!)

Singapore River and sky scrapers

Saint Andrew's Catheral

Bintan Retreat '08

We had our annually company retreat at Bintan again. This time round, upgraded to Angsana instead. Much to my disappointment, the resort wasn't as spectecular as it was publicised. Being a (swimming )pool-lover, I wouldn't consider it big as shown in the pictures.

As our team gets bigger each year and team building grew more fun. With more men around, we are able to play more games that requires some strenght. One of the most enjoyable item was the Build-and-row-your-own raft. Needless to say, my team won again. With a little brain, strategy and teamwork, we got a sturdy raft up in the waters and rowed it a few rounds.

We had dinner and celebrated mooncake festival a day in advance. Our colleagues put up lantern quizzes by the beach and went around the resort with lanterns in our hands, looking like kindergarten kids. But I really enjoy that. Afterwhich we had mooncakes and pomelo under the moon before we went back to our rooms.

Dinner by the beach

Strolling with Lanterns

A few of us youngsters ( including the interns ) gathered in a room to play cards. The following morning, we were chided by our fellow colleagues who were bunking right below us that we had been creating a din :P .

Boardwalk at the Beach

We went around the resort for some photos before departing. On our way back, we told boss, "If we have to come back again next year, we'd like do it at Banyan Tree!" He was silent...

Lazy Entry

With these pictures... I can take a break from writing...

I found this lovely cat in the carpark of my flat and took a few shots of her... Picture 2 of her yawning.. not growling.. She's neither shy not aggressive.. She loves the attention I guess.





Jor-El's first birthday party

Mr. P presented this bouquet of roses over lunch one day at Coffee Culture. This was my first bouquet from him this year.


I kinda whined about getting roses everytime and hinted that I'd never received tulips... so a few days later.. this bouquet appeared on my desk...

Although annoying at times.. he can be good at giving flowers... cos he think thats the easiest to get..

1st Birthday Abroad

I'd never bear to leave SG especially this time of the year... my birthday? Why? I love travelling so isn't a birthday out of SG more exciting?



No.. I guess I love to spend it here with my family and friends. Usually dates are packed 1 week around my hatch day. But this year it wasn't. Since Dad and Mom went over to Norway, and thought I should just take a breather as well.



I had a short trip planned to Desaru with Mr. P. This was the gift I requested this year. A 30-min boat ride and a 30-min land transfer.. it doesn't take more than 2 hours to reach.




We checked in and walked around. The resort had good facilities and there wasn't many people. The swimming pool was my favourite spot and we seemed to have the place all to ourselves. Food wise, not much a variety. You can't find any food centres or restaurant outside the premises so we can only settle all our meals in the resort's restaurant. I threw myself into the pool all 3 days with Mr. P wading around for a while before going to the gym. He got the gym all by himself too.


The rest of the time was spent playing table-tennis, pool (table), strolling by the beach, eating, watching tv. It was a relaxed and quiet birthday I would say... even though most of my friends had been to busy to meet me up when I came back.


This kinda thing would really upset me in the past... like no presents ( I do get a lovely watch from my colleagues though!), no celebrations, no cakes... but it doesn't to me anymore. I'm probably feeling old.

Toy of the Year

This is my one and only toy this year... a fuji finepix fd50. After so much researching , reviewing and sourcing... i finally got this.. something that i've not done a single research on... ironic isn't it ?

I was so determine to do away with the portability of a compact and settle for a semi-pro. I'd like to be able to adjust the settings to prepare myself for an SLR in future.

But this compact fuji camera has it all.. the functions of a semi-pro and most importantly, an underwater housing. It's just too good to be true.. I got everything at only $700 (including housing).

Reaping the Fruits

After a long wait... my exam results are finally released! Phew... it has not wasted my 4 days of leaves afterall...
My fellow colleagues and I managed to do above average.. At least no one gets a "C". I've got a "B+" and an "A" and I'm pretty satisfied. Though it's not excellent, an "A" is hard to come by for me... Well, at least it motivated me a little from my reluctant attitude towards my course. And I'm more determined to work harder in my next semester.

On top of that, I managed to complete my Elementary course for my Jap class. There's an intermediate class but since it only starts during my school term I decided to give it a miss.. I hope I do not regret. It's a real interesting language to learn but requires a lot of brain cells.

Went for a Kukup trip 2 weeks ago with my colleagues and Mr. P. The seafood was awesome and we had that for 2 meals for lunch and 1 for dinner. Besides eating, we visited the National Park, saw some wild boars and piglets, monitor lizard monkeys and crabs ) . We visited the fish farm and were amazed to find pufferfish, horseshoe crab and dogfish sharks.

There were 3 rooms in the bungalow that can accomodate up to 18 people. It was clean, well-maintained and fully furnished with KTV systems and even 2 mahjong tables ( with tiles ).

Too bad I did not have a camera.. but managed to get some pictures taken by my colleagues...

Life after Death

After receiving bad news of death for the past few months... It's time for news for some new form of life... Pretty happy to know that Yun, and ex-colleague of mine is pregnant, and a colleague is in the early stages of her pregnancy too. Apart from that, HJ got her first boyfriend.. a cute one in fact.. Ai is getting married in June, and I, myself got a proposal.

Mr. P (Love) brought me to Mt. Faber for sky dining 4 days after my trip. It was a weekly night's out but his constant reminder of what to bring/wear for that particular date did rouse my suspicion. A woman's instinct tells me that it might just be the day. However, Mr. P did not seemed to pay much attention to me when our dinner first started.. It seemed that he was more mesmerised by the senic view and the experience of dining in the cable car more than I did. Oh well, I thought.. maybe it was just another occasional extravagant night's-out.

Dinner wasn't fantastic, but acceptable. It was a 3-course dinner with coffee/tea. We were allowed to go 3 rounds to complete our meal. It took about 2 hours. So by the time we finished our main course, the sun had set, Mr. P sat down beside me.. we talked a while and our dessert was served on our last round. Then.. "tadduh.." Something glimmered in his hands .. and there it goes on my finger... so my instincts had been correct.

A Diver's Luck

26 Apr-3 May Malapascua, Cebu, Phillippines. I din sound as enthusiastic did I? Yes, I just came back not too long ago... Lady's luck wasn't with me... this trip could have been more fruitful with a bit more luck.. I'll tell you why in a while.

Not too many could make it for this trip, so we headed on as a small group, Cal, TY and myself. We planned everything on our own and left a few things unplanned to give us more flexibility to move around. Since it was an 8-day trip, we predicted that our dives could complete within the first 5 days leaving us with some time to explore Cebu mainland. We ended up logging 14 dives, the whole trip on the island, just for one motive-thresher sharks.

So what about Thresher??

http://www.new-brunswick.net/new-brunswick/sharks/species/thresher.html

This shark is commonly found near the island and it's very special due to it's long caudal fin which may be as long as it's body. A lot of my friends asked me... " why did you go there to see a sghark??!! Isn't it dangerous?!!" The truth is... no.. Sharks are not as aggressive as you think. Other than the great white or bull sharks and a few more aggressive species, they are actually more afraid of you than you thought. Movies like Jaws have given sharks a very bad name...

Sometimes sharks mistake surfers as turtles or seals, which prompted them to attack.

Drowned Luck

We weren't really actively looking for the sharks when we first went there.. we just wanna dive and relax.. Since we had plenty of time.. we took 1 dive at the house reef that requires us to travel 5 min out by boat.

Our dive started at 5.30am on the 2nd day to catch the threshers at Monad Shoal. No Luck. We went back in the afternoon to catch Mantas.. No luck.

Well, it was fine.. we still have a lot of time anyway, but you only see the sharks in the morning.

3rd day was at Kemod Shoal to catch hammerheads. Instead of passively waiting, we swam out to the deep blue to search for them. We were a huge group. And I was following cautiously behind the DM, Ervin.

Cal and TY who were behind me got a signal by a couple and managed to catch the sight of a hammerhead. The rest of us din see a thing.. even though I got some pictures of some jellyfish..*duh*..

It was a horrible feeling that only divers would understand. To be so close to seeing it.. and when people around you have seen it when you've not. I began to think that I'm a jinx.

So for the next few mornings, we attempted at Monad again betweeb 5ish -6am. This time I followed closely with my kakis... and true enough all 3 did not get to see a single shark. Groups that went down before or after us on different occasions caught a glimpse of them.. so even upclose. We had the same fate with the Mantas and I really began to believe that I'm cursed....

We got more anxious when people approached us to ask if we've seen any whenever we returned from a dive. Well, all of them saw, eventually and we are labelled the most unlucky team by the manager... Tried all sorts of ways like choosing a "lucky" DM, Ervin and setting off before 5am.. but none of these worked.. Ervin wasn't lucky when he was with us... but he got his luck back immediately after our last dive. Mantas and threshers... both when we already drying our equipment. We requested to be the 1st group to set of in the morning but saw nothing... and yet the last group saw 2 so close to them.

We were just speechless. No affinity with sharks right till our last day. I told myself I'd go for prayers before my next trip.

I was worse off than the other 2... not only losing out in the hammerhead... my camera did me a disservice as well. It gave me a final shot of the Mandarin fish mating and went to sleep. But thank god it did not die of drowning... I killed it actually. The battery was running low on my first few shots and I kept forcing it to work by switching it on and off countless times. I would consider it as a blessing in disguise since we've completed all our macro dives for the trip. And since we did not see any sharks , there was not much to capture too. Maybe it heard my complains... that it was a lousy camera. Time to get a new one then.

But then again, it's not totally fruitless I would say.. we say some devil rays.. in fact on quite a few occasions. One of them actually hover on top of TY and allowed him to take a few close shots... A fellow diver told us that devil rays are un the endangered list of species... so I'm not that jinxed afterall.

Before we departed, we were told to sign the guestbook. To our surprise, the last comment we saw was "no sharks" left my a Jap couple.... We grinned wickedly among ourselves and wrote, " no sharks".

Elastic time

One thing about their concept of time is their no concept of time... we had no problems at our resort since it's catered to divers... but outside the resort, if a local ask u to wait 5 min, it's probably equivalent to 20 min... And the average waiting time for your food to be ready is about 1 hour ( even when you might be the only customer ).

Opportunists

Their public transports tend to drop you a distance from your destination so that their "porters" will get to earn for each baggage the lug for you over the rocks or under the hot sun.

Not ready for Tourism

Service and hospitality definitely have more room for improvement as compared to other equally-developed countries. We need to see more smiles...

Great company Good Time

No sharks but great company.. just thinking about the trip again makes us laugh at ourselves for being so down on luck. Having cup noodles, sharing a whole tub of ice-cream, sunbathing under the tree, movie marathon and dozing off halfway thru, waking up at 4am and slping and 9pm... these are some trivial things that I probably would have not done at home... I had a great time.