Oh dear, seems like my transformation had me occupied for too long. ;p
Guess it's time for me to emerge and greet the world with my big smile :D
hee hee :)
Yes, as most of you have known, I went to Japan like...3 mths ago?!! Still had my long hair then. Yet another sponsored trip *smiling gleefully* and most importantly, my dear came along. *blush*
And sorry for not sharing the photos until today. Well in fact, I STILL have not gotten the full collection yet! -_-
Anyways, guess what I have now is substantial. Will be loading onto Multiply. Soon.
Oh by the way, this is one of my favourite picture. You know why? Haha! cos it's dark enough, so all my flaws are nicely hidden! Heh heh! And notice the background is full of blooming Sakura? Well listen, I didn't think so before BUT Sakura is indeed beeeeeeeeeeeautiful. We were very lucky to have witnessed the bloom of the Sakura. You have to realise a fully bloomed Sakura only last for at most a week and they actually bloomed 9 days earlier this year, otherwise we would have missed it. It almost felt like they were welcoming us. :)
“Sometimes a breakdown can be the beginning of a kind of breakthrough, a way of living in advance through a trauma that prepares you for a future of radical transformation.”
Hi, this is for the benefit of those who's not in Facebook. This is one good video and although Connie didn't win in the finals. She's already a big winner in many ways. She even has an album now.
Hello, sorry for taking so long. It's another entry...of the new year!
Gosh, it's 2008 already... :O 2007 has been a good year for Singapore and I guess, me too. I hope, for you as well ;P.
So hopefully 2008 will be a BETTER year! Fa fa fa !!! Right? :D
We had dinner at Tao's. Paradiz Center. My goodness, it's so expensive! We didn't realise they only had festive set dinner that night. The 7-course dinner costs about $42.80++! Thus, Cindy and I shared a set. Fortunately, the food wasn't too bad. I enjoyed the meal totally. :) Pity we had to finish them all in about an hour's time cos we have a movie to catch. A disappointing movie it'd turned out. But let's save that for another time.
Farmboy Salad with a light & sweet dressing. Nice... :)
Nelson had this Ham & Chicken Salad. Not sure if that's the correct name.
Starter: Mouth-watering bacon spread with bread that's both crunchy and soft! Yum!
Mango Sorbet, a nice cold sweet refreshing drink that's served before the main course... Arh!
Sauteed Shitake Mushroom
Creamy Pumpkin Soup in a pumpkin bowl :)
Tasty Shark-fin Winter Melon Soup with red dates and wolfberries (It's not shark's fin, but a type of melon) ;P
Baked baby lobster accompanied by spaghetti in creamy sauce & white wine Aiya, forgot its name. It's a fish la. Very delicious fish. Well done! Notice the garnishes by the corner? They are broccoli, sweet potato with sliced fried yam and cherry tomato. :)
Thirst-quenching Summer Peach Flower Tea
Finale: Desserts! Matcha green tea ice-cream with nice crispy strips & taco Double-boiled snow pear with red dates
Passed by this pretty door outside Chijmes. Cannot leave without a shot. :D
Esplanade Bridge. Aiyah, this is the best shot I could managed. Had to raise my hand up high ya know. Tiring leh. Look at the crowd, it was only about 10.30pm ...
The grumpy sisters. We've had a long night. Finally found a spot to sit down. It was soOOOOOOooooo crowded lor. Fortunately, it got pretty windy later on. Was very thankful for that. :D
We were surrounded by families. Almost all the kids have a PSP or Nintendo? with them. See that boy in blue strips? He's playing with that nintendo thingy that has a game which is sound/voice activated. And how do you play? You just have to keep repeating "er! er! er!" into the receiver. The gadget captures the voice and a bar just keep fluctuating. I don't quite understand what's point of the game. Maybe I just have to play it to know.
hmm, it seemed to me that alot of people around me were not really enjoying the wait and of course, the scramble for nice spots. Except for the Bangladeshis. They were clearly enjoying every minute of it and seemed really happy. Forming caterpillars, shoving people about and drinking their favourite beer. I guess having a day off and being part of the celebration brings them joy. It's a joyous occasion anyway. Of course, they also have a reputation of molestation. The police had this big banner up that warned:
"Let your hair down but not your guard down"
Beware of molesters or something similar.
As more and more people had seated down, the pathway for the crowd got narrower. There were still so many coming from both directions. One or two Thais (they seemed Thai to me) were drunk by 11pm. The police were keeping a very close watch on them from a distance, monitoring their every move. A few moments later, the police moved swiftly in to corner those drunks after the latter laid on the floor regardless of the crowd (bear in mind the road was already sardine-packed & many kids were there)
Finally, the drunks were removed from the crowd.
See! That's our Singapore Flyer. Heard that it's not confirmed which colour is to be used to light up the flyer. There's a debate on radio recently on which is the more suitable colour for our Flyer. Probably it's in the trial stage, the flyer is being lighted in different colours. A DJ saw it lighted in colourful neon lights and were very disgusted. It reminded him of Geylang. To him, the flyer looked ugly, sleazy and has no class. He suggested something simple, something classier - white. Some listeners suggested blue, one suggested red AND white, many has no problem with the colourful flyer. I've not seen the colourful version, so can't comment on that.
Hey! Why not have it in sparkling lights? Just like little stars twinkling in the sky? Waah...
The final moment - last shot of the year 2007!
Nelson, Cindy and Me!
Arghhhh!!!!!!! STOOOOPID LAMP POST !!!!!!! : *grinding teeth*
It would have been a perfect picture. *shakes head*
Next time, I'll have to be more prepared & more aware.
I'm back. Back home. Still trying to get used to things here. Forgot to scan my EZ link card when alighting the bus. Forgot where is the ATM machine. Haiz...conveniently deleted them from my memory.
Heh heh, sorry. Haven't been motivated enough to blog lately. ;P
My, 2 months is gone in a flash! I'll comin home real soon! And I haven't been blogging much about my stay here, now I have to return soon. hmmm, I'm ashamed... ;(
Anyway, something worth talking about was three! weekends ago already. We were at Great Sand Dunes National Park. (You know, the park with the highest sand dunes in the world???) I remember watching some travel programme on TV when I was young. The host went to the sand dunes and tried sliding down the slopes. It looked so fun!!! But it wasn't so fun with all the sand flying and hitting her face on the way down. :D
It's a 5-hour drive from our place. We dropped by Garden of the Gods on our way there. And reached the dunes around 5pm? in the evening.
We haven't had much time to scale the dunes before it gets dark. So, we headed immediately for the highest dune we can see - The High Dune. Despite its name, it is not the highest dune. It's merely the highest dune when viewed from the visitor center. The highest dune however, is Star Dune, just fyi. ;)
Anyway, it was a helluva climbing! Imagine climbing on sand?!?! Take a step forward and slide 3/4 step backwards? It was tough. Very tough. The trick is to stay on the ridge and walk all the way to the top. The drawback is that it's a longer way to the peak. So we took the most direct way, which involved climbing a steep slope. Man, it was steep ok. I had toe cramps on my way up. I have pictures of that here.
Finally, we reached what we'd thought was the High Dune, and it seemed like a never-ending stretch of dunes higher and higher than where we were. We braced ourselves to scale more dunes. And finally after finally, I think we reached the High Dune. It was dusk. Needless to say, the view from the top was breathtaking. The air was fresh, cool, clean and thin. We took some pictures and took in the view. Marvellous!
Now, it's time to head back to the car. The sun is setting fast and earlier than usual. Soon, there's no more daylight. K and I had a headstart. CM and Grace were trailing behind us in another direction. We walked and walked and walked towards the light at what I'd thought was the carpark. Of course, it was not. Soon, we found ourselves in the middle of the desert bushes. There's cactus with sharp thorns, long grass, unknown plants with long leaves and sharp thorns too. My ankle socks kept falling off and legs got pricked by cactus. K wore bermudas, needless to say he had his fair share of pokes. We were relying on the flashlight from his handphone, with no food and water, no compass and no reception for the phone. Great. *roll eyes*
Fortunately, there's still the moon, sparing us a little moonlight. I was already so exhausted from the hike to the sand dunes, and now I had to trek another hour on tough terrain towards THAT light which is so unreachable. I'd almost wanted to give up and scream for help but K pushed on. And eventually, we reached the road! Civilisation! However, that wasn't the carpark we were supposed to be at. We had to walk ANOTHER mile to the correct carpark.
We met a couple who were night camping in the park and they were walking towards our carpark too, so we joined them in the night stroll. They happened to be from Longmont too. *Raise eyebrow*
Our friends had sent rangers out to the park searching for us. According to them, another couple of guys joined in the search using loud hailers! I guess we were too far away to be able to hear them. My, you should look at how worried they were. Anyway, we made it back safely. Plenty of sand left in my shoes and jeans. Thorns were stuck to my shoes. I spent probably half an hour clearing out the sand and picking out the thorns. My legs have never felt so achy in a bloody long time. I felt like chopping them off OR you can kill me instead.
